Haren: A Framework for Ad-Hoc Thread Scheduling Policies for Data Streaming Applications

In modern Stream Processing Engines (SPEs), numerous diverse applications, which can differ in aspects such as cost, criticality or latency sensitivity, can co-exist in the same computing node. When these differences need to be considered to control the performance of each application, custom scheduling of operators to threads is of key importance (e.g., when a smart vehicle needs to ensure that safety-critical applications always have access to computational power, while other applications are given lower, variable priorities).Many solutions have been proposed regarding schedulers that allocate threads to operators to optimize specific metrics (e.g., latency) but there is still lack of a tool that allows arbitrarily complex scheduling strategies to be seamlessly plugged on top of an SPE. We propose Haren to fill this gap. More specifically, we (1) formalize the thread scheduling problem in stream processing in a general way, allowing to define ad-hoc scheduling policies, (2) identify the bottlenecks and the opportunities of scheduling in stream processing, (3) distill a compact interface to connect Haren with SPEs, enabling rapid testing of various scheduling policies, (4) illustrate the usability of the framework by integrating it into an actual SPE and (5) provide a thorough evaluation. As we show, Haren makes it is possible to adapt the use of computational resources over time to meet the goals of a variety of scheduling policies

GRADE equity guidelines 3: considering health equity in GRADE guideline development: rating the certainty of synthesized evidence

Objectives: The aim of this paper is to describe a conceptual framework for how to consider health equity in the Grading Recommendations Assessment and Development Evidence (GRADE) guideline development process. Study Design and Setting: Consensus-based guidance developed by the GRADE working group members and other methodologists. Results: We developed consensus-based guidance to help address health equity when rating the certainty of synthesized evidence (i.e., quality of evidence). When health inequity is determined to be a concern by stakeholders, we propose five methods for explicitly assessing health equity: (1) include health equity as an outcome; (2) consider patient-important outcomes relevant to health equity; (3) assess differences in the relative effect size of the treatment; (4) assess differences in baseline risk and the differing impacts on absolute effects; and (5) assess indirectness of evidence to disadvantaged populations and/or settings. Conclusion: The most important priority for research on health inequity and guidelines is to identify and document examples where health equity has been considered explicitly in guidelines. Although there is a weak scientific evidence base for assessing health equity, this should not discourage the explicit consideration of how guidelines and recommendations affect the most vulnerable members of society

Data mining in HIV-AIDS surveillance system: application to portuguese data

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is an infectious agent that attacks the immune system cells. Without a strong immune system, the body becomes very susceptible to serious life threatening opportunistic diseases. In spite of the great progresses on medication and prevention over the last years, HIV infection continues to be a major global public health issue, having claimed more than 36 million lives over the last 35 years since the recognition of the disease. Monitoring, through registries, of HIV-AIDS cases is vital to assess general health care needs and to support long-term health-policy control planning. Surveillance systems are therefore established in almost all developed countries. Typically, this is a complex system depending on several stakeholders, such as health care providers, the general population and laboratories, which challenges an efficient and effective reporting of diagnosed cases. One issue that often arises is the administrative delay in reports of diagnosed cases. This paper aims to identify the main factors influencing reporting delays of HIV-AIDS cases within the portuguese surveillance system. The used methodologies included multilayer artificial neural networks (MLP), naive bayesian classifiers (NB), support vector machines (SVM) and the k-nearest neighbor algorithm (KNN). The highest classification accuracy, precision and recall were obtained for MLP and the results suggested homogeneous administrative and clinical practices within the reporting process. Guidelines for reductions of the delays should therefore be developed nationwise and transversally to all stakeholders.- A. Rita Gaio was partially supported by CMUP (UID/MAT/00144/2013), which is funded by FCT (Portugal) with national (MEC) and European structural funds (FEDER), under the partnership agreement PT2020. Luis Paulo Reis was partially by the European Regional Development Fund through the programme COMPETE by FCT (Portugal) in the scope of the project PEst - UID/ CEC/00027/2015 Luis Paulo Reis and Brigida Monica Faria were partially funded by QVida+: Estimacao Continua de Qualidade de Vida para Auxilio Eficaz a Decisao Clinica, NORTE-01-0247-FEDER-003446, supported by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement

A new set of integrals of motion to propagate the perturbed two-body problem

A formulation of the perturbed two-body problem that relies on a new set of orbital elements is presented. The proposed method represents a generalization of the special perturbation method published by Peláez et al. (Celest Mech Dyn Astron 97(2):131?150,2007) for the case of a perturbing force that is partially or totally derivable from a potential. We accomplish this result by employing a generalized Sundman time transformation in the framework of the projective decomposition, which is a known approach for transforming the two-body problem into a set of linear and regular differential equations of motion. Numerical tests, carried out with examples extensively used in the literature, show the remarkable improvement of the performance of the new method for different kinds of perturbations and eccentricities. In particular, one notable result is that the quadratic dependence of the position error on the time-like argument exhibited by Peláez?s method for near-circular motion under the J2 perturbation is transformed into linear.Moreover, themethod reveals to be competitive with two very popular elementmethods derived from theKustaanheimo-Stiefel and Sperling-Burdet regularizations

Realising the health and wellbeing of adolescents

Adolescence is a critical stage of life characterised by rapid biological, emotional, and social development. It is during this time that every person develops the capabilities required for a productive, healthy, and satisfying life. In order to make a healthy transition into adulthood, adolescents need to have access to health education, including education on sexuality1; quality health services, including sexual and reproductive; and a supportive environment both at home and in communities and countries.The global community increasingly recognises these vital needs of adolescents, and there is an emerging consensus that investing intensively in adolescents’ health and development is not only key to improving their survival and wellbeing but critical for the success of the post-2015 development agenda.2 The suggested inclusion of adolescent health in the United Nations secretary general’s Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health is an expression of this growing awareness and represents an unprecedented opportunity to place adolescents on the political map beyond 2015. Ensuring that every adolescent has the knowledge, skills, and opportunities for a healthy, productive life and enjoyment of all human rights3 is essential for achieving improved health, social justice, gender equality, and other development goals.We argue that the priority in the revised Every Women Every Child Global Strategy needs to be giving adolescents a voice, expanding their choices and control over their bodies, and enabling them to develop the capabilities required for a productive, healthy, and satisfying life. We call for a global, participatory movement to improve the health of the world’s adolescents as part of a broader agenda to improve their wellbeing and uphold their rights

Survival trends for small intestinal cancer in England and Wales, 1971–1990: national population-based study

This population-based study examines prognostic factors and survival trends among adults (15–99 years) diagnosed with small intestinal cancer in England and Wales during 1971–1990 and followed up to 1995. During this period, the 1- and 5-year age-standardised relative survival rates for small intestinal cancers combined were 42% and 23%, respectively. Duodenal tumours, adenocarcinomas, men, patients with advanced age and the most deprived patients had the poorest prognosis. For all small bowel tumours combined, the excess risk of death fell significantly by 6–9% every 4 years over the 20-year period (adjusted excess hazard ratio (EHR) 0.91 at 1 year after diagnosis, 0.94 at 5 years). For duodenal tumours, the EHR fell by about 14% (95% CI 5–22%) every 4 years between 1979 and 1990, and a similar trend for jejunal tumours was of borderline significance. Further population-based investigations linking survival data to individual data on diagnostic methods and types of treatment are needed

Computational prediction and experimental validation associating FABP-1 and pancreatic adenocarcinoma with diabetes

<p/> <p>Background</p> <p>Pancreatic cancer, composed principally of pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PaC), is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States. PaC-associated diabetes may be a marker of early disease. We sought to identify molecules associated with PaC and PaC with diabetes (PaC-DM) using a novel translational bioinformatics approach. We identified fatty acid binding protein-1 (FABP-1) as one of several candidates. The primary aim of this pilot study was to experimentally validate the predicted association between FABP-1 with PaC and PaC with diabetes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We searched public microarray measurements for genes that were specifically highly expressed in PaC. We then filtered for proteins with known involvement in diabetes. Validation of FABP-1 was performed via antibody immunohistochemistry on formalin-fixed paraffin embedded pancreatic tissue microarrays (FFPE TMA). FFPE TMA were constructed using148 cores of pancreatic tissue from 134 patients collected between 1995 and 2002 from patients who underwent pancreatic surgery. Primary analysis was performed on 21 normal and 60 pancreatic adenocarcinoma samples, stratified for diabetes. Clinical data on samples was obtained via retrospective chart review. Serial sections were cut per standard protocol. Antibody staining was graded by an experienced pathologist on a scale of 0-3. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to assess FABP-1 staining and clinical characteristics.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Normal samples were significantly more likely to come from younger patients. PaC samples were significantly more likely to stain for FABP-1, when FABP-1 staining was considered a binary variable. Compared to normals, there was significantly increased staining in diabetic PaC samples (p = 0.004) and there was a trend towards increased staining in the non-diabetic PaC group (p = 0.07). In logistic regression modeling, FABP-1 staining was significantly associated with diagnosis of PaC (OR 8.6 95% CI 1.1-68, p = 0.04), though age was a confounder.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Compared to normal controls, there was a significant positive association between FABP-1 staining and PaC on FFPE-TMA, strengthened by the presence of diabetes. Further studies with closely phenotyped patient samples are required to understand the true relationship between FABP-1, PaC and PaC-associated diabetes. A translational bioinformatics approach has potential to identify novel disease associations and potential biomarkers in gastroenterology.</p

Symptomatic Acute Hepatitis C in Egypt: Diagnosis, Spontaneous Viral Clearance, and Delayed Treatment with 12 Weeks of Pegylated Interferon Alfa-2a

The aim of this study was to estimate the proportion of spontaneous viral clearance (SVC) after symptomatic acute hepatitis C and to evaluate the efficacy of 12 weeks of pegylated interferon alfa-2a in patients who did not clear the virus spontaneously.Patients with symptomatic acute hepatitis C were recruited from two "fever hospitals" in Cairo, Egypt. Patients still viremic three months after the onset of symptoms were considered for treatment with 12 weeks of pegylated interferon alfa-2a (180 microg/week).Between May 2002 and February 2006, 2243 adult patients with acute hepatitis were enrolled in the study. The SVC rate among 117 patients with acute hepatitis C was 33.8% (95%CI [25.9%-43.2%]) at three months and 41.5% (95%CI [33.0%-51.2%]) at six months. The sustained virological response (SVR) rate among the 17 patients who started treatment 4-6 months after onset of symptoms was 15/17 = 88.2% (95%CI [63.6%-98.5%]).Spontaneous viral clearance was high (41.5% six months after the onset of symptoms) in this population with symptomatic acute hepatitis C. Allowing time for spontaneous clearance should be considered before treatment is initiated for symptomatic acute hepatitis C

Psychosocial working conditions and the utilization of health care services

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>While there is considerable theoretical and empirical evidence on how job stress affects physical and mental health, few studies have examined the association between job related stress and health care utilization. Using data from the Canadian National Population Health Survey from 2000 to 2008, this paper examines the association between stressful working conditions, as measured by the job strain model, and the utilization of health care services.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A zero inflated negative binomial regression is used to examine the excess health care utilization due to job strain. Separate regressions are estimated for both males and females since studies have shown gender differences in health care utilization.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Estimates for the whole population show that high or medium job strain has a positive and statistically significant association with the number of visits to both a general practitioner (GP) and a specialist (SP). On average, the number of GP visits is up to 26% more (IRR = 1.26, 95% CI = 1.19-1.31) for individuals with high strain jobs compared to those in the low job strain category. Similarly, SP visits are up to 27% more (IRR = 1.27, 95% CI = 1.14-142) for the high strain category. Results are quantitatively similar for males and females, save for medium strain. In general, findings are robust to the inclusion of workplace social support, health status, provincial and occupational-fixed effects.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Job strain may be positively associated with the utilization of health care services. This suggests that improving psychosocial working conditions and educating workers on stress-coping mechanisms could be beneficial for the physical and mental health of workers.</p