Evidence submission: INQUIRY - Delivering Core NHS and Care Services during the Pandemic and Beyond [letter]

Submission of evidence by letter to the Health and Social Care Committee, UK Parliament

Independence in constraint logic programs

Studying independence of literals, variables, and substitutions has proven very useful in the context of logic programming (LP). Here we study independence in the broader context of constraint logic programming (CLP). We show that a naive extrapolation of the LP definitions of independence to CLP is unsatisfactory (in fact, wrong) for two reasons. First, because interaction between variables through constraints is more complex than in the case of logic programming. Second, in order to ensure the efUciency of several optimizations not only must independence of the search space be considered, but also an orthogonal issue - "independence of constraint solving." We clarify these issues by proposing various types of search independence and constraint solver independence, and show how they can be combined to allow different independence-related optimizations, from parallelism to intelligent backtracking. Sufficient conditions for independence which can be evaluated "a-priori" at run-time are also proposed. Our results suggest that independence, provided a suitable definition is chosen, is even more useful in CLP than in LP

Analyzing logic programs with dynamic scheduling

Traditional logic programming languages, such as Prolog, use a fixed left-to-right atom scheduling rule. Recent logic programming languages, however, usually provide more flexible scheduling in which computation generally proceeds leftto- right but in which some calis are dynamically "delayed" until their arguments are sufRciently instantiated to allow the cali to run efficiently. Such dynamic scheduling has a significant cost. We give a framework for the global analysis of logic programming languages with dynamic scheduling and show that program analysis based on this framework supports optimizations which remove much of the overhead of dynamic scheduling

Predictive validity of the Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START) for multiple adverse outcomes:the effect of diagnosis

The Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START) assists risk assessment for seven risk outcomes based on scoring of risk and protective factors and assignment of clinically-informed risk levels. Its predictive validity for violence and self-harm has been established in males with schizophrenia, but accuracy across pathologically diverse samples is unknown. Routine START assessments and 3-month risk outcome data of N = 527 adult, inpatients in a UK secure mental health facility were collected. The sample was divided into diagnostic groups; predictive validity was established using receiver operating characteristics regression (rocreg) analysis in which potential covariates were controlled. In most single-diagnosis groups START risk factors ('vulnerabilities'), protective factors ('strengths'), and clinically-informed estimates predicted multiple risk outcomes with effect sizes similar to previous research. Self-harm was not predicted among patients with an organic diagnosis. The START risk estimates predicted physical aggression in all diagnostic groups, and verbal aggression, self-harm and self-neglect in most diagnostic groups. The START can assist assessment of aggressive, self-harm, and self-neglect across a range of diagnostic groups. Further research with larger sample sizes of those with multiple diagnoses is required.</p

Examining an Observation-Based Model of Professional Development for Teachers

Public education is undergoing a process of reculturation prompted by standards-based reform initiatives. Student content standards suggest fundamental changes in the way teachers, schools, and districts think about and do their work. These substantive reform efforts require a parallel reorganization in professional development processes. Traditional models that rely on episodic, large-scale workshops are insufficient to support teachers to meet the demands of a standards-driven system. San Diego City Schools has developed an innovative approach to teacher training that is context and situation specific. The observation-based model of professional development utilizes a unique training environment and process. A fully functioning classroom is attached to a professional development center via a one-way minor. Participants are able to see, hear, and study exemplary models of teaching and learning in real time. This evaluation study examined the training model and its potential for impact on the practice of participants. Three research questions guided this investigation: (a) How do participants assess the observation-based model of professional development? (b) What is the perceived impact of the observation-based model of professional development on teachers\u27 pedagogical practice? (c) What are the factors that act to support or impede participants\u27 implementation of those instructional strategies demonstrated in the observation-based model of professional development? Three research methodologies supported the study of these questions. A survey was administered to teachers and school leaders who participated in the observation-based model of professional development. Focus groups were formed to investigate the themes that emerged from the survey results. And, a select number of site administrators were interviewed to elicit more detailed implementation data. The findings suggested that: (a) participants assessed the training model as appropriate and relevant, (b) participants implemented or planned to implement some of the learnings into their classrooms and schools, and (c) a number of professional and political barriers posed real or perceived barriers to implementation. San Diego City Schools is committed to offering an observation-based model of professional development for teachers to illustrate effective literacy instruction. This formative evaluation study provides a baseline of data that may be used to inform programmatic decisions and improvements

Modelling of water demand in distribution networks

The allocation of water demand to nodes is compared with uniformly distributed demand along a pipeline, and it is shown that the nodal approach produces an upper bound or unsafe solution for pressures in the distribution network. Although the differences are likely to be minor for computer modules with many nodes, the simplest examples show differences of up to 25% in head loss between the two approaches. Terminology and concepts from structural engineering are useful in this comparison. The results are particularly significant to simplified models using independently derived values of pipe friction factor

Finding a Mate With No Social Skills

Sexual reproductive behavior has a necessary social coordination component as willing and capable partners must both be in the right place at the right time. While there are many known social behavioral adaptations to support solutions to this problem, we explore the possibility and likelihood of solutions that rely only on non-social mechanisms. We find three kinds of social organization that help solve this social coordination problem (herding, assortative mating, and natal philopatry) emerge in populations of simulated agents with no social mechanisms available to support these organizations. We conclude that the non-social origins of these social organizations around sexual reproduction may provide the environment for the development of social solutions to the same and different problems.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, GECCO'1

A Computational Interpretation of Context-Free Expressions

We phrase parsing with context-free expressions as a type inhabitation problem where values are parse trees and types are context-free expressions. We first show how containment among context-free and regular expressions can be reduced to a reachability problem by using a canonical representation of states. The proofs-as-programs principle yields a computational interpretation of the reachability problem in terms of a coercion that transforms the parse tree for a context-free expression into a parse tree for a regular expression. It also yields a partial coercion from regular parse trees to context-free ones. The partial coercion from the trivial language of all words to a context-free expression corresponds to a predictive parser for the expression