The geography of UK international trade.

This paper examines how the geography of UK international trade has changed since the UK’s accession to the European Economic Community using a newly constructed data set that gives a detailed breakdown of the UK’s imports and exports by both port of entry and exit and commodity. Our results suggest that between 1970 and 1992 overall imports and exports re-orientated in favour of ports located nearer to the continent. The vast majority of individual commodities also saw a similar re-orientation.

Undisturbed Posidonia oceanica meadows maintain the epiphytic bacterial community in different environments

Seagrasses harbour different and rich epiphytic bacterial communities. These microbes may establish intimate and symbiotic relationships with the seagrass plants and change according to host species, environmental conditions, and/or ecophysiological status of their seagrass host. Although Posidonia oceanica is one of the most studied seagrasses in the world, and bacteria associated with seagrasses have been studied for over a decade, P. oceanica’s microbiome remains hitherto little explored. Here, we applied 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing to explore the microbiome associated with the leaves of P. oceanica growing in two geomorphologically different meadows (e.g. depth, substrate, and turbidity) within the Limassol Bay (Cyprus). The morphometric (leaf area, meadow density) and biochemical (pigments, total phenols) descriptors highlighted the healthy conditions of both meadows. The leaf-associated bacterial communities showed similar structure and composition in the two sites; core microbiota members were dominated by bacteria belonging to the Thalassospiraceae, Microtrichaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, Saprospiraceae, and Hyphomonadaceae families. This analogy, even under different geomorphological conditions, suggest that in the absence of disturbances, P. oceanica maintains characteristic-associated bacterial communities. This study provides a baseline for the knowledge of the P. oceanica microbiome and further supports its use as a putative seagrass descriptor

Tropical range extension for the temperate, endemic South-Eastern Australian Nudibranch Goniobranchus splendidus (Angas, 1864)

In contrast to many tropical animals expanding southwards on the Australian coast concomitant with climate change, here we report a temperate endemic newly found in the tropics. Chromodorid nudibranchs are bright, colourful animals that rarely go unnoticed by divers and underwater photographers. The discovery of a new population, with divergent colouration is therefore significant. DNA sequencing confirms that despite departures from the known phenotypic variation, the specimen represents northern Goniobranchus splendidus and not an unknown close relative. Goniobranchus tinctorius represents the sister taxa to G. splendidus. With regard to secondary defences, the oxygenated terpenes found previously in this specimen are partially unique but also overlap with other G. splendidus from southern Queensland (QLD) and New South Wales (NSW). The tropical specimen from Mackay contains extracapsular yolk like other G. splendidus. This previously unknown tropical population may contribute selectively advantageous genes to cold-water species threatened by climate change. Competitive exclusion may explain why G. splendidus does not strongly overlap with its widespread sister taxon

The seagrass holobiont: What we know and what we still need to disclose for its possible use as an ecological indicator

Microbes and seagrass establish symbiotic relationships constituting a functional unit called the holobiont that reacts as a whole to environmental changes. Recent studies have shown that the seagrass microbial associated community varies according to host species, environmental conditions and the host’s health status, suggesting that the microbial communities respond rapidly to environmental disturbances and changes. These changes, dynamics of which are still far from being clear, could represent a sensitive monitoring tool and ecological indicator to detect early stages of seagrass stress. In this review, the state of art on seagrass holobiont is discussed in this perspective, with the aim of disentangling the influence of different factors in shaping it. As an example, we expand on the widely studied Halophila stipulacea’s associated microbial community, highlighting the changing and the constant components of the associated microbes, in different environmental conditions. These studies represent a pivotal contribution to understanding the holobiont’s dynamics and variability pattern, and to the potential development of ecological/ecotoxicological indices. The influences of the host’s physiological and environmental status in changing the seagrass holobiont, alongside the bioinformatic tools for data analysis, are key topics that need to be deepened, in order to use the seagrass-microbial interactions as a source of ecological information

Ensemble Sales Forecasting Study in Semiconductor Industry

Sales forecasting plays a prominent role in business planning and business strategy. The value and importance of advance information is a cornerstone of planning activity, and a well-set forecast goal can guide sale-force more efficiently. In this paper CPU sales forecasting of Intel Corporation, a multinational semiconductor industry, was considered. Past sale, future booking, exchange rates, Gross domestic product (GDP) forecasting, seasonality and other indicators were innovatively incorporated into the quantitative modeling. Benefit from the recent advances in computation power and software development, millions of models built upon multiple regressions, time series analysis, random forest and boosting tree were executed in parallel. The models with smaller validation errors were selected to form the ensemble model. To better capture the distinct characteristics, forecasting models were implemented at lead time and lines of business level. The moving windows validation process automatically selected the models which closely represent current market condition. The weekly cadence forecasting schema allowed the model to response effectively to market fluctuation. Generic variable importance analysis was also developed to increase the model interpretability. Rather than assuming fixed distribution, this non-parametric permutation variable importance analysis provided a general framework across methods to evaluate the variable importance. This variable importance framework can further extend to classification problem by modifying the mean absolute percentage error(MAPE) into misclassify error. Please find the demo code at : https://github.com/qx0731/ensemble_forecast_methodsComment: 14 pages, Industrial Conference on Data Mining 2017 (ICDM 2017

Population trends in emergency cancer diagnoses: The role of changing patient case-mix.

BACKGROUND: Diagnosis of cancer through an emergency presentation is associated with worse clinical and patient experience outcomes. The proportion of patients with cancer who are diagnosed through emergency presentations has consequently been introduced as a routine cancer surveillance measure in England. Welcome reductions in this metric have been reported over more than a decade but whether reductions reflect true changes in how patients are diagnosed rather than the changing case-mix of incident cohorts in unknown. METHODS: We analysed 'Routes to Diagnosis' data on cancer patients (2006-2015) and used logistic regression modelling to determine the contribution of changes in four case-mix variables (sex, age, deprivation, cancer site) to time-trends in emergency presentations. RESULTS: Between 2006 and 2015 there was an absolute 4.7 percentage point reduction in emergency presentations (23.8%-19.2%). Changing distributions of the four case-mix variables explained 19.0% of this reduction, leaving 81.0% unexplained. Changes in cancer site case-mix alone explained 16.0% of the total reduction. CONCLUSION: Changes in case-mix (particularly that of cancer sites) account for about a fifth of the overall reduction in emergency presentations. This would support the use of adjustment/standardisation of reported statistics to support their interpretation and help appreciate the influence of case-mix, particularly regarding cancer sites with changing incidence. However, most of the reduction in emergency presentations remains unaccounted for, and likely reflects genuine changes during the study period in how patients were being diagnosed

Cancer diagnoses after emergency GP referral or A&E attendance in England: determinants and time trends in Routes to Diagnosis data, 2006-2015

This is the final version. Available on open access from the Royal College of General Practitioners via the DOI in this recordBACKGROUND: Diagnosis of cancer as an emergency is associated with poor outcomes but has a complex aetiology. Examining determinants and time trends in diagnostic routes can help to appreciate the critical role of general practice over time in diagnostic pathways for patients with cancer. AIM: To examine sociodemographic, cancer site, and temporal associations with type of presentation among patients with cancer diagnosed as emergencies. DESIGN AND SETTING: Analysis of Routes to Diagnosis data, 2006-2015, for patients with cancer in England. METHOD: The authors estimated adjusted proportions of emergency presentation after emergency GP referral (GP-EP) or presentation to accident and emergency (AE-EP), by patient sex, age, deprivation group, and year of diagnosis using multivariable regression. RESULTS: Among 554 621 patients presenting as emergencies, 24% (n = 130 372) presented as GP-EP, 62% as AE-EP (n = 346 192), and 14% (n = 78 057) through Other-EP sub-routes. Patients presenting as emergencies were more likely to have been GP-referred if they lived in less deprived areas or were subsequently diagnosed with pancreatic, gallbladder, or ovarian cancer, or acute leukaemia. During the study period the proportion and number of GP-EPs nearly halved (31%, n = 17 364, in 2006; 17%, n = 9155 in 2015), while that of AE-EP increased (55%, n = 31 049 to 68%, n = 36 868). CONCLUSION: Patients presenting as emergencies with cancers characterised by symptoms/signs tolerable by patients but appropriately alarming to doctors (for example, pancreatic cancer manifesting as painless jaundice) are over-represented among cases whose emergency presentation involved GP referral. Reductions in diagnoses of cancer through an emergency presentation likely reflect both the continually increasing use of 2-week-wait GP referrals during the study period and reductions in emergency GP referrals.Cancer Research U

Are inequalities in cancer diagnosis through emergency presentation narrowing, widening or remaining unchanged? Longitudinal analysis of English population-based data 2006-2013

This is the final version. Available on open access from BMJ Publishing Group via the DOI in this recordThis project involves data derived from patient-level information collected by the NHS, as part of the care and support of patients with cancer. The data are collated, maintained and quality assured by the National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service, which is part of Public Health England (PHE). Access to the data was facilitated by the PHE Office for Data Release (release ODR_2014_252).Background Diagnosis of cancer through emergency presentation is associated with poorer prognosis. While reductions in emergency presentations have been described, whether known sociodemographic inequalities are changing is uncertain. Methods We analysed 'Routes to Diagnosis' data on patients aged ≥25 years diagnosed in England during 2006-2013 with any of 33 common or rarer cancers. Using binary logistic regression we determined time-Trends in diagnosis through emergency presentation by age, deprivation and cancer site. Results Overall adjusted proportions of emergency presentations decreased during the study period (2006: 23%, 2013: 20%). Substantial baseline (2006) inequalities in emergency presentation risk by age and deprivation remained largely unchanged. There was evidence (p<0.05) of reductions in the risk of emergency presentations for most (28/33) cancer sites, without apparent associations between the size of reduction and baseline risk (p=0.26). If there had been modest reductions in age inequalities (ie, patients in each age group acquiring the same percentage of emergency presentations as the adjacent group with lower risk), in the last study year we could have expected around 11 000 fewer diagnoses through emergency presentation (ie, a nationwide percentage of 16% rather than the observed 20%). For similarly modest reductions in deprivation inequalities, we could have expected around 3000 fewer (ie, 19%). Conclusion The proportion of cancer diagnoses through emergency presentation is decreasing but age and deprivation inequalities prevail, indicating untapped opportunities for further improvements by reducing these inequalities. The observed reductions in proportions across nearly all cancer sites are likely to reflect both earlier help-seeking and improvements in diagnostic healthcare pathways, across both easier-To-suspect and harder-To-suspect cancers.Cancer Research U

Cluster coherent potential approximation for electronic structure of disordered alloys

We extend the single-site coherent potential approximation (CPA) to include the effects of non-local disorder correlations (alloy short-range order) on the electronic structure of random alloy systems. This is achieved by mapping the original Anderson disorder problem to that of a selfconsistently embedded cluster. This cluster problem is then solved using the equations of motion technique. The CPA is recovered for cluster size $N_{c}=1$, and the disorder averaged density-of-states (DOS) is always positive definite. Various new features, compared to those observed in CPA, and related to repeated scattering on pairs of sites, reflecting the effect of SRO are clearly visible in the DOS. It is explicitly shown that the cluster-CPA method always yields positive-definite DOS. Anderson localization effects have been investigated within this approach. In general, we find that Anderson localization sets in before band splitting occurs, and that increasing partial order drives a continuous transition from an Anderson insulator to an incoherent metal.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures. submitted to PR