Remote-scope Promotion: Clarified, Rectified, and Verified

Modern accelerator programming frameworks, such as OpenCL, organise threads into work-groups. Remote-scope promotion (RSP) is a language extension recently proposed by AMD researchers that is designed to enable applications, for the first time, both to optimise for the common case of intra-work-group communication (using memory scopes to provide consistency only within a work-group) and to allow occasional inter-work-group communication (as required, for instance, to support the popular load-balancing idiom of work stealing). We present the first formal, axiomatic memory model of OpenCL extended with RSP. We have extended the Herd memory model simulator with support for OpenCL kernels that exploit RSP, and used it to discover bugs in several litmus tests and a work-stealing queue, that have been used previously in the study of RSP. We have also formalised the proposed GPU implementation of RSP. The formalisation process allowed us to identify bugs in the description of RSP that could result in well-synchronised programs experiencing memory inconsistencies. We present and prove sound a new implementation of RSP that incorporates bug fixes and requires less non-standard hardware than the original implementation. This work, a collaboration between academia and industry, clearly demonstrates how, when designing hardware support for a new concurrent language feature, the early application of formal tools and techniques can help to prevent errors, such as those we have found, from making it into silicon

Modelling of liquid oxygen and nitrogen injection under flashing conditions

The present numerical investigation of two-phase flashing flows examines the injection of liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen into near-vacuum conditions prevailing in the upper-stage boosters of rocket engines. The predictive capability of a pressure-based solver and a density-based solver, each employing distinct approaches related to the imposed phase-change rate and thermodynamics closure, has been comparatively evaluated. Regarding the pressure-based solver, the departure from thermodynamic equilibrium during phase-change has been taken into account via the implementation of a bubble-dynamics model employing the Hertz-Knudsen equation. In contrast, the density-based solver relies on the adoption of thermodynamic equilibrium while real-fluid thermodynamic properties are assumed by loading tabulated values to the solver. Each thermodynamic property value was calculated in advance by solving the Helmholtz Equation of State (EoS) for a wide range of density and internal energy conditions. Numerical findings have been compared against experimental data available in the literature. The comparison demonstrates the capability of both methodologies in capturing the evolution of cryogenic flashing flow expansion, phase-change, and spray formation. The salient features identified in the numerical results, i.e., the expansion sphere immediately downstream of the injector exit, the bell-shaped topology of the spray, as well as the dependency of the spray cone angle on superheat, are in agreement with experimental measurements. Especially the density-based approach has been proven highly accurate with respect to the steady expanding flow described by a level of superheat in the range of 3 to 245, while also being independent of any parameter tuning

Predictors of outcome after CABG in the South-Asian community: a propensity matched analysis

Background: Ethnicity is not incorporated into standardized pre-operative risk-stratification tools for cardiac surgery. This study compared short-term outcomes following coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery in South Asian and non-Asian patients. Methods: Consecutive patients undergoing isolated CABG surgery via sternotomy between the years 2011 and 2019 were retrospectively analyzed. Initially, 1957 patients were identified (799 South-Asian, 40.8%). The patient groups were then propensity matched according to 10 relevant pre-operative covariates (age, body mass index, pulmonary disease, renal failure, smoking, diabetes, ventricular function, renal failure): 675 non-Asian patients were matched against 675 Asian patients. Results: Operative mortality was 1.77% and similar between the two groups (p = 0.447). Multivariate regression analysis found predictors of operative mortality to be pre-operative serum creatinine, age, left ventricular (LV) impairment, and extent of coronary disease. The effect of creatinine on mortality was selective for South-Asian patients (p = 0.015). LV impairment was a predictor of mortality in non-Asian patients, however this effect did not exist in South-Asian patients. Predictors of short-term complications (composite of death, stroke, reoperation, hemofiltration, and pneumonia) were age and creatinine (coefficient 0.002, 95% CI 0.0004–0.004, p = 0.019) in the overall cohort. Subgroup analysis found age to remain a selective negative predictor of complications in South-Asian patients. Cox regression analysis found creatinine, age, and LVEF to influence 10-year survival, whilst ethnicity was not a predictor. Conclusion: This study highlights the cumulative risk associated with ethnicity and renal disease in predicting short-term outcomes following CABG. This warrants further investigations in larger populations, thus guiding pre-operative risk-stratification

Recommendations for the quantitative analysis of landslide risk

This paper presents recommended methodologies for the quantitative analysis of landslide hazard, vulnerability and risk at different spatial scales (site-specific, local, regional and national), as well as for the verification and validation of the results. The methodologies described focus on the evaluation of the probabilities of occurrence of different landslide types with certain characteristics. Methods used to determine the spatial distribution of landslide intensity, the characterisation of the elements at risk, the assessment of the potential degree of damage and the quantification of the vulnerability of the elements at risk, and those used to perform the quantitative risk analysis are also described. The paper is intended for use by scientists and practising engineers, geologists and other landslide experts.JRC.H.5-Land Resources Managemen

The CrowdHEALTH project and the Hollistic Health Records: Collective Wisdom Driving Public Health Policies.

Introduction: With the expansion of available Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services, a plethora of data sources provide structured and unstructured data used to detect certain health conditions or indicators of disease. Data is spread across various settings, stored and managed in different systems. Due to the lack of technology interoperability and the large amounts of health-related data, data exploitation has not reached its full potential yet. Aim: The aim of the CrowdHEALTH approach, is to introduce a new paradigm of Holistic Health Records (HHRs) that include all health determinants defining health status by using big data management mechanisms. Methods: HHRs are transformed into HHRs clusters capturing the clinical, social and human context with the aim to benefit from the collective knowledge. The presented approach integrates big data technologies, providing Data as a Service (DaaS) to healthcare professionals and policy makers towards a "health in all policies" approach. A toolkit, on top of the DaaS, providing mechanisms for causal and risk analysis, and for the compilation of predictions is developed. Results: CrowdHEALTH platform is based on three main pillars: Data & structures, Health analytics, and Policies. Conclusions: A holistic approach for capturing all health determinants in the proposed HHRs, while creating clusters of them to exploit collective knowledge with the aim of the provision of insight for different population segments according to different factors (e.g. location, occupation, medication status, emerging risks, etc) was presented. The aforementioned approach is under evaluation through different scenarios with heterogeneous data from multiple sources

Muscle strength, gait, and balance in 20 patients with hip osteoarthritis followed for 2 years after THA

Background Patients with hip osteoarthritis (OA) have muscular weakness, impaired balance, and limp. Deficits in the different limb muscles and their recovery courses are largely unknown, however. We hypothesized that there is persisting muscular weakness in lower limb muscles and an impaired balance and gait 2 years after THA

Increased expression of transcription factor TFAP2α correlates with chemosensitivity in advanced bladder cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The standard treatment for patients with advanced transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder is platin based chemotherapy. Only approximately 50% of the patients respond to chemotherapy. Therefore, molecular predictive markers for identification of chemotherapy sensitive subgroups of patients are highly needed. We selected the transcription factor <it>TFAP2α </it>from a previously identified gene expression signature for chemotherapy response.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p><it>TFAP2α </it>expression and localization was assessed by immunohistochemistry using a tissue microarray (TMA) containing 282 bladder cancer tumors from patients with locally advanced (pT2-T4_band N_1-3) or metastatic (M₁) disease. All patients had received cisplatin containing chemotherapy. Furthermore, QPCR analysis of three <it>TFAP2α </it>isoforms was performed on tumor specimens of advanced muscle invasive bladder cancers (T2-4). Using the bladder cell lines T24 and SW780 the relation of <it>TFAP2α </it>and cisplatin and gemcitabine sensitivity as well as cell proliferation was examined using siRNA directed <it>TFAP2α </it>knockdown.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>TFAP2α protein expression was analyzed on a TMA with cores from 282 advanced bladder cancer tumors from patients treated with cisplatin based combinational chemotherapy. <it>TFAP2α </it>was identified as a strong independent predictive marker for a good response and survival after cisplatin-containing chemotherapy in patients with advanced bladder cancer. Strong TFAP2α nuclear and cytoplasmic staining predicted good response to chemotherapy in patients with lymph node metastasis, whereas weak TFAP2α nuclear staining predicted good response in patients without lymph node metastasis. In vitro studies showed that siRNA mediated knockdown of TFAP2α increased the proliferation of SW780 cells and rendered the cells less sensitive to cisplatin and gemcitabine. In contrast to that T24 bladder cells with mutated p53 showed to be more drug sensitive upon TFAP2α depletion.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>High levels of nuclear and cytoplasmic TFAP2α protein were a predictor of increased overall survival and progression free survival in patients with advanced bladder cancer treated with cisplatin based chemotherapy. TFAP2α knockdown increased the proliferation of the SW780 bladder cells and reduced cisplatin and gemcitabine induced cell death. The inverse effect was observed in the <it>TP53 </it>mutated T24 cell line where TFAP2α silencing augmented cisplatin and gemcitabine sensitivity and did not stimulate proliferation.</p

CrowdHEALTH: Holistic Health Records and Big Data Analytics for Health Policy Making and Personalized Health.

Today's rich digital information environment is characterized by the multitude of data sources providing information that has not yet reached its full potential in eHealth. The aim of the presented approach, namely CrowdHEALTH, is to introduce a new paradigm of Holistic Health Records (HHRs) that include all health determinants. HHRs are transformed into HHRs clusters capturing the clinical, social and human context of population segments and as a result collective knowledge for different factors. The proposed approach also seamlessly integrates big data technologies across the complete data path, providing of Data as a Service (DaaS) to the health ecosystem stakeholders, as well as to policy makers towards a "health in all policies" approach. Cross-domain co-creation of policies is feasible through a rich toolkit, being provided on top of the DaaS, incorporating mechanisms for causal and risk analysis, and for the compilation of predictions