Poisson integrators for Volterra lattice equations

The Volterra lattice equations are completely integrable and possess bi-Hamiltonian structure. They are integrated using partitioned Lobatto IIIA-B methods which preserve the Poisson structure. Modified equations are derived for the symplectic Euler and second order Lobatto IIIA-B method. Numerical results confirm preservation of the corresponding Hamiltonians, Casimirs, quadratic and cubic integrals in the long-term with different orders of accuracy.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Hybrid statistical/unit-selection Turkish speech synthesis using suffix units

Due to copyright restrictions, the access to the full text of this article is only available via subscription.Unit selection based text-to-speech synthesis (TTS) has been the dominant TTS approach of the last decade. Despite its success, unit selection approach has its disadvantages. One of the most significant disadvantages is the sudden discontinuities in speech that distract the listeners (Speech Commun 51:1039-1064, 2009). The second disadvantage is that significant expertise and large amounts of data is needed for building a high-quality synthesis system which is costly and time-consuming. The statistical speech synthesis (SSS) approach is a promising alternative synthesis technique. Not only that the spurious errors that are observed in the unit selection system are mostly not observed in SSS but also building voice models is far less expensive and faster compared to the unit selection system. However, the resulting speech is typically not as natural-sounding as speech that is synthesized with a high-quality unit selection system. There are hybrid methods that attempt to take advantage of both SSS and unit selection systems. However, existing hybrid methods still require development of a high-quality unit selection system. Here, we propose a novel hybrid statistical/unit selection system for Turkish that aims at improving the quality of the baseline SSS system by improving the prosodic parameters such as intonation and stress. Commonly occurring suffixes in Turkish are stored in the unit selection database and used in the proposed system. As opposed to existing hybrid systems, the proposed system was developed without building a complete unit selection synthesis system. Therefore, the proposed method can be used without collecting large amounts of data or utilizing substantial expertise or time-consuming tuning that is typically required in building unit selection systems. Listeners preferred the hybrid system over the baseline system in the AB preference tests.TÜBİTA