Lattice QCD Production on Commodity Clusters at Fermilab

We describe the construction and results to date of Fermilab's three Myrinet-networked lattice QCD production clusters (an 80-node dual Pentium III cluster, a 48-node dual Xeon cluster, and a 128-node dual Xeon cluster). We examine a number of aspects of performance of the MILC lattice QCD code running on these clusters.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla, Ca, USA, March 2003, 6 pages, LaTeX, 8 eps figures. PSN TUIT00

Efficiency in Public Health Service Delivery: An Analysis of Clinical Health Services Provided by Local Health Departments in Florida

The ability of local health departments (LHDs) to provide public health services to improve the health of their communities depends to a large extent on their financial resources. More money by itself, however, does not necessarily translate into better population health. LHDs also have to use their resources in an efficient manner to achieve the best possible outcomes. This article first describes two techniques that LHDs can use to assess their efficiency at providing public health services: process costing, a technique used by management accountants, and stochastic frontier analysis, a technique used by economists. Using data for LHDs in Florida, both techniques are then applied to estimate the efficiency at which LHDs provide three types of clinical health services: adult, child, and dental health services. The results show that LHDs’ efficiency varies both within and across agencies. Few LHDs have consistently low costs for all three services examined. Being relatively efficient at providing one type of service therefore does not necessarily translate into being able to provide other, even closely related, services at a low cost

Local Health Departments’ Involvement in Hospitals’ Implementation Plans

Background: More than half of all local health departments (LHDs) in the U.S. are involved in collaborations with nonprofit hospitals on a community health needs assessment (CHNA), yet little is known about the role that LHDs play in hospitals’ implementation plans. Purpose: This study aims to explore the current state of hospital–LHD collaborations around the implementation plan using data from a survey of LHDs across the country. Methods: The study sample included 457 LHDs that completed both the 2015 Forces of Change survey and the 2013 Profile survey conducted by the National Association of County and City Health Officials. Univariate and bivariate analyses were used to compare LHDs involved in hospitals’ implementation plans to LHDs not involved in such activities. All analyses were conducted in 2016. Results: Of the 457 sample LHDs, 62% were involved in at least one activity associated with hospitals’ implementation plans. These LHDs were larger, had greater budgets, and were more likely to be locally governed. In addition, almost all of these LHDs reported that they also collaborated with hospitals around the CHNA. Implications: There is evidence of substantial involvement of LHDs in hospitals’ implementation plans. Importantly, joint CHNAs appear to pave the path for hospital–LHD collaboration in this area. Since LHDs that collaborate with hospitals on their implementation plans tended to be better resourced, policymakers may want to find ways to ensure that smaller LHDs have the necessary human and fiscal resources to be engaged in joint community health needs assessment and improvement planning activities

Accreditation intent, community health assessments, and local health department–hospital collaboration

Background: Community health assessments (CHAs) are among the most core of activities conducted by local health departments (LHDs), and many LHDs have been conducting CHAs on a regular basis for years. More recently, completing a CHA has also become a prerequisite for LHDs seeking accreditation by the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB). Similarly, under the Affordable Care Act, tax-exempt hospitals are required to conduct periodic community health needs assessments. Opportunities thus exist for LHDs and tax-exempt hospitals to engage in collaborations related to CHAs. Yet, it remains unclear whether interest in PHAB accreditation provides incentive to LHDs to engage in collaborations with hospitals around community health assessment and improvement planning. Methods: Using data from the 2013 National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) Profile study, LHD-hospital collaborations related to CHAs were examined, including characteristics of LHDs involved in such collaborations and the relationships between LHDs’ level of engagement with accreditation activities and their involvement in collaborations with hospitals. Results: LHDs that collaborate with hospitals on CHAs are larger, have higher total and per capita expenditures, and are more likely to be locally governed and to have a local board of health. Three PHAB pre-requisites—completion of a CHA, completion of a community health improvement plan, and completion of an agency-wide strategic plan within the previous 5 years—were all significantly correlated (p \u3c 0.01) with LHD-hospital collaborations, suggesting that accreditation efforts may be a positive influence on collaborations. Implications: Policymakers could provide incentive for voluntary accreditation to encourage greater collaboration between LHDs and hospitals around CHAs

Economies of scale and scope in public health: An analysis of food hygiene services provided by local health departments in Florida

Local health departments (LHDs) across the United States deliver a range of essential public health services, yet little is known about the costs that LHDs incur in providing these services and the factors that may cause costs to vary both within and across health departments. This report first describes the variations in the costs of one core public health activity commonly provided by LHDs: food hygiene services. It then analyzes the factors that drive LHDs\u27 cost of service provision focusing on the role of economies of scale and economies of scope. Using data for all LHDs in Florida for 2008 and 2010, the study found that the costs of providing food hygiene services varied substantially across LHDs. Economies of scale are demonstrated in multivariate analysis findings as providing greater volumes of services was associated with lower per unit costs. Providing a greater scope of public health services, on the other hand, does not appear to affect the costs of food hygiene services. An in-depth understanding of their cost structure presents an opportunity for LHDs to communicate to policymakers information about the resources needed to provide core public health services. Moreover, it allows public health practitioners to engage in activities aimed at increasing the efficiency of service provision. This study is a first step in the search for evidence of economies of scale that may help to lower costs and increase efficiency

Tax‐Exempt Hospitals’ Investments in Community Health and Local Public Health Spending: Patterns and Relationships

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139924/1/hesr12739-sup-0001-AppendixSA1.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139924/2/hesr12739_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139924/3/hesr12739.pd

S2S^2-Flow: Joint Semantic and Style Editing of Facial Images

The high-quality images yielded by generative adversarial networks (GANs) have motivated investigations into their application for image editing. However, GANs are often limited in the control they provide for performing specific edits. One of the principal challenges is the entangled latent space of GANs, which is not directly suitable for performing independent and detailed edits. Recent editing methods allow for either controlled style edits or controlled semantic edits. In addition, methods that use semantic masks to edit images have difficulty preserving the identity and are unable to perform controlled style edits. We propose a method to disentangle a GAN$\text{'}$s latent space into semantic and style spaces, enabling controlled semantic and style edits for face images independently within the same framework. To achieve this, we design an encoder-decoder based network architecture ($S^2$-Flow), which incorporates two proposed inductive biases. We show the suitability of $S^2$-Flow quantitatively and qualitatively by performing various semantic and style edits.Comment: Accepted to BMVC 202

Tracking local magnetic dynamics via high-energy charge excitations in a relativistic Mott insulator

We use time- and energy-resolved optical spectroscopy to investigate the coupling of electron-hole excitations to the magnetic environment in the relativistic Mott insulator Na$_2$IrO$_3$. We show that, on the picosecond timescale, the photoinjected electron-hole pairs delocalize on the hexagons of the Ir lattice via the formation of quasi-molecular orbital (QMO) excitations and the exchange of energy with the short-range-ordered zig-zag magnetic background. The possibility of mapping the magnetic dynamics, which is characterized by typical frequencies in the THz range, onto high-energy (1-2 eV) charge excitations provides a new platform to investigate, and possibly control, the dynamics of magnetic interactions in correlated materials with strong spin-orbit coupling, even in the presence of complex magnetic phases.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, supplementary informatio