Inflammation-based scores do not predict post-transplant recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients within Milan criteria.

Background: Increased preoperative inflammation scores, such as neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and inflammation-based index (IBI) have been related to post-transplant HCC recurrence. We evaluated the association between inflammation-based scores (NLR, PLR, IBI) and post-LT HCC recurrence as well as tumour necrosis after transarterial embolisation. Methods: 150 consecutive patients that were transplanted for HCC within the Milan criteria between 1996-2010 were included; data regarding inflammatory markers, patient and tumour characteristics were analyzed. Results: NLR, PLR and IBI were not significantly associated with post-LT HCC recurrence or worse overall survival. Increased NLR and PLR were associated with complete tumour necrosis in the subset of patients that received preoperative transarterial embolization (P<0.05). Cox regression analysis revealed that absence of neo-adjuvant transarterial therapy (OR=4.33, 95%CI 1.28-14.64; P=0.02) and no fulfilment of the Milan criteria in the explanted liver (OR=3.34, 95%CI 1.08-10.35; P=0.04) were independently associated with post-LT HCC recurrence. Conclusion: Inflammation-based scores did not predict HCC recurrence post-LT in our group of patients. NLR and PLR were associated with better response to TAE, as this was recorded histologically in the explanted liver. Histological fulfilment of the Milan criteria and absence of neo-adjuvant transarterial treatment were significantly associated with post-LT HCC recurrence. Liver Transpl , 2014. © 2014 AASLD

Low-contention depth-first scheduling of parallel computations with synchronization variables

In this paper, we present a randomized, online, space-efficient algorithm for the general class of programs with synchronization variables (such programs are produced by parallel programming languages, like, e.g., Cool, ID, Sisal, Mul-T, OLDEN and Jade). The algorithm achieves good locality and low scheduling overheads for this general class of computations, by combining work-stealing and depth-first scheduling. More specifically, given a computation with work $T_1$, depth $T_\infty$ and $\sigma$ synchronizations that its execution requires space $S_1$ on a single-processor computer, our algorithm achieves expected space complexity at most $S_1 + O(PT_\infty \log (PT_\infty))$ and runs in an expected number of $O(T_1/P + \sigma \log (PT_\infty)/P + T_\infty \log (PT_\infty))$ timesteps on a shared-memory, parallel machine with $P$ processors. Moreover, for any $\varepsilon > 0$, the space complexity of our algorithm is at most $S_1 + O(P(T_\infty + \ln (1/\varepsilon)) \log (P(T_\infty + \ln(P(T_\infty + \ln (1/\varepsilon))/\varepsilon))))$ with probability at least $1-\varepsilon$. Thus, even for values of $\varepsilon$ as small as $e^{-T_\infty}$, the space complexity of our algorithm is at most $S_1 + O(PT_\infty \log(PT_\infty))$, with probability at least $1-e^{-T_\infty}$. The algorithm achieves good locality and low scheduling overheads by automatically increasing the granularity of the work scheduled on each processor. Our results combine and extend previous algorithms and analysis techniques (published by Blelloch et. al [6] and by Narlikar [26]). Our algorithm not only exhibits the same good space complexity for the general class of programs with synchronization variables as its deterministic analog presented in [6], but it also achieves good locality and low scheduling overhead as the algorithm presented in [26], which however performs well only for the more restricted class of nested parallel computations

A Thrifty Universal Construction

Abstract. A universal construction is an algorithm which transforms any sequential implementation of an object into a concurrent implemen-tation of that same object in a linearizable and wait-free manner. Such constructions require underlying low-level universal shared objects such as compare-and-swap and load-linked/store-conditional. In this paper, we present the first universal construction that (a) uses exactly one compare-and-swap object and (b) has time complexity (number of accesses to low-level shared objects) and memory complexity (size of low-level shared objects) that are both independent of the size of the high-level object to be implemented.