A perturbative determination of the parameters of an anisotropic quark action

The parameters of a 3+1 anisotropic quark action with Symanzik-improved glue are determined at 1-loop in perturbation theory.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures. Talk presented at Lattice2004(improved), Fermilab, June 21-26, 200

Four-momentum boosted Fermion fields

A formulation of the fermion action is discussed which includes an explicit four momentum boost on the field prior to discretisation. This is used to shift the zero of lattice momentum to lie near one of the on-shell quark poles. The positive pole is selected if we wish to describe a valence quark, and negative pole for a valence anti-quark. Like NRQCD, the typical lattice momenta involved in hadronic correlation functions can be kept small: of order $O(a \Lambda_{\rm QCD})$, rather than $O(a m_Q)$ even when describing heavy quarks. If we expand around the particle pole, the anti-particle correlator will be poorly described for large $a m_Q$. However, in that case the anti-particle will be far off shell and will only affect unphysical, renormalization factors. The formulation produces the correct continuum limit, and preliminary results have been obtained (for an unimproved action) of both the one-loop self energy and a non-perturbative correlation function.Comment: Talk presented at Lattice2003(heavy). 3 pages, 1 figur

Charmonium Spectrum on dynamical anisotropic lattices

We present a first study of the charmonium spectrum on N_f=2 dynamical, anisotropic lattices. We take advantage of all-to-all quark propagators to build spatially extended interpolating operators to increase the overlap with states not easily accessible with point propagators such as radially excited states of eta_c, psi, and chi_c, D-waves and hybrid states.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, Lattice 2005 Conferenc

The clinical and financial implications of a decade of prostate biopsies in the NHS : analysis of Hospital Episode Statistics data 2008–2019

© 2020 Wiley. This is the accepted version of the following article: Tamhankar, A.S., El‐Taji, O., Vasdev, N., Foley, C., Popert, R. and Adshead, J. (2020), "The clinical and financial implications of a decade of prostate biopsies in the NHS: analysis of Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data 2008‐2019". BJU Int., which has been published in final form at https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bju.15062.Objective: To evaluate the clinical and financial implications of a decade of prostate biopsies performed in the UK National Health Service (NHS) through the transrectal (TR) vs the transperineal (TP) route. Methods: We conducted an evaluation of the TR vs the TP biopsy approach in the context of 28 days post-procedure complications and readmissions. A secondary evaluation of burden of expenditure in NHS hospitals over the entire decade (2008–2019) was conducted through examination of national Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data. Results: In this dataset of 486 467 prostate biopsies (387 879 TR and 98 588 TP biopsies), rates of infection and sepsis were higher for the TR compared to the TP cohort (0.53% vs 0.31%; P < 0.001, confidence interval 99%). Rates of sepsis have more than doubled for TR biopsies in the last 2 years compared to the previous decade (1.12% vs 0.53%). Infective complications were the main reasons for readmissions in the TR cohort, whereas urinary retention was the predominant reason for readmission in the TP cohort. Over the last decade, non-elective (NEL) readmissions seem higher for the TP group; however, in the last 2 years these have reduced compared to the TR group (3.54% vs 3.74%). The cost estimates for NEL readmissions for the entire decade were £33,589,527.00 and £7,179,926.00 respectively, for TR and TP cohorts (P < 0.001). Estimated costs per patient readmission were £2,225.00 and £1,758.00 in the TR and TP groups (P < 0.001). Conclusions: Evaluation of nearly half a million prostate biopsies in the NHS over the entire decade gives sufficient evidence for the distinct advantages of the TP route over the TR route in terms of reduced infections and burden of expenditure. In addition, there is a potential for savings both in upstream and downstream costs if biopsy is performed under a local anaesthetic.Peer reviewe

Status of Lattice Flavor Physics

This talk reviews recent lattice QCD calculations relevant for quark flavor physics. Since lattice results must be accurate and precise to play a definitive role in phenomenology, the focus is on unquenched results of quantities which can be calculated most reliably.Comment: Invited talk delivered at Lattice2004(plenary), Fermilab, June 21-26, 2004. 10 pages. v2: Corrected caption to Figure 4, updated reference

Status of heavy quark physics from the lattice

In this short review, I present a summary of various methods used to simulate heavy quarks on the lattice. I mainly focus on effectives theories, and give some physical results.Comment: Talk given at QCD06, Montpellier July 06, 6 pages, 2 figures, espcrc2.st

Size and shape constancy in consumer virtual reality

With the increase in popularity of consumer virtual reality headsets, for research and other applications, it is important to understand the accuracy of 3D perception in VR. We investigated the perceptual accuracy of near-field virtual distances using a size and shape constancy task, in two commercially available devices. Participants wore either the HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift and adjusted the size of a virtual stimulus to match the geometric qualities (size and depth) of a physical stimulus they were able to refer to haptically. The judgments participants made allowed for an indirect measure of their perception of the egocentric, virtual distance to the stimuli. The data show under-constancy and are consistent with research from carefully calibrated psychophysical techniques. There was no difference in the degree of constancy found in the two headsets. We conclude that consumer virtual reality headsets provide a sufficiently high degree of accuracy in distance perception, to allow them to be used confidently in future experimental vision science, and other research applications in psychology