Normalized Google Distance for Collocation Extraction from Islamic Domain

This study investigates the properties of Arabic collocations, and classifies them according to their structural patterns on Islamic domain. Based on linguistic information, the patterns and the variation of the collocations have been identified.  Then, a system that extracts the collocations from Islamic domain based on statistical measures has been described. In candidate ranking, the normalized Google distance has been adapted to measure the associations between the words in the candidates set. Finally, the n-best evaluation that selects n-best lists for each association measure has been used to annotate all candidates in these lists manually. The following association measures (log-likelihood ratio, t-score, mutual information, and enhanced mutual information) have been utilized in the candidate ranking step to compare these measures with the normalized Google distance in Arabic collocation extraction. In the experiment of this work, the normalized Google distance achieved the highest precision value 93% compared with other association measures. In fact, this strengthens our motivation to utilize the normalized Google distance to measure the relatedness between the constituent words of the collocations instead of using the frequency-based association measures as in the state-of-the-art methods. Keywords: normalized Google distance, collocation extraction, Islamic domai

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