Short Communicaton: The socio-economic impact of helminth infections and the level of adoption of strategic helminth control by small ruminant farmers in Kakamega district, western Kenya

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The Semantics and Tool Support of OZTA

In this work, we firstly enhance OZTA, a combination of Object-Z and Timed Automata, by introducing a set of timed patterns as language constructs that can specify the dynamic and timing features of complex real-time systems in a systematic way. Then we present the formal semantics in Unifying Theories of Programming for the enhanced OZTA. Furthermore, we develop an OZTA tool which can support editing, type-checking of OZTA models as well as projecting OZTA models into TA models so that we can utilize TA model checkers, e.g., Uppaal for verification

The ASOS Surgical Risk Calculator: development and validation of a tool for identifying African surgical patients at risk of severe postoperative complications

Background: The African Surgical Outcomes Study (ASOS) showed that surgical patients in Africa have a mortality twice the global average. Existing risk assessment tools are not valid for use in this population because the pattern of risk for poor outcomes differs from high-income countries. The objective of this study was to derive and validate a simple, preoperative risk stratification tool to identify African surgical patients at risk for in-hospital postoperative mortality and severe complications. Methods: ASOS was a 7-day prospective cohort study of adult patients undergoing surgery in Africa. The ASOS Surgical Risk Calculator was constructed with a multivariable logistic regression model for the outcome of in-hospital mortality and severe postoperative complications. The following preoperative risk factors were entered into the model; age, sex, smoking status, ASA physical status, preoperative chronic comorbid conditions, indication for surgery, urgency, severity, and type of surgery. Results: The model was derived from 8799 patients from 168 African hospitals. The composite outcome of severe postoperative complications and death occurred in 423/8799 (4.8%) patients. The ASOS Surgical Risk Calculator includes the following risk factors: age, ASA physical status, indication for surgery, urgency, severity, and type of surgery. The model showed good discrimination with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.805 and good calibration with c-statistic corrected for optimism of 0.784. Conclusions: This simple preoperative risk calculator could be used to identify high-risk surgical patients in African hospitals and facilitate increased postoperative surveillance. © 2018 British Journal of Anaesthesia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Medical Research Council of South Africa gran