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There is an expectation that healthcare professionals display competence in teaching, assessment and providing feedback. Development begins with formative peer-assisted learning and teaching in the undergraduate environment. Using peers or near-peers (in this case having 1 year more experience than the examination cohort) to provide assessment in summative exams remains unexplored. This study investigates how the use of near-peers compares to marking by academic staff in a summative OSCE.BDS4 Peer assessors (PAs) developed an OSCE question and marking schedule. Each PA (n = 3) was paired with an academic staff assessor (ASA) (n = 3). Peer and academic marked the candidates independently. Two years later, the process was repeated on the same cohort of candidates with the PA now 1-year post qualification. Statistical analysis compared the scores awarded by PA during each timeframe and against the marks awarded by the ASA.During round 1, 28 students (62.2%) were awarded the same score by PA and ASA. On 17 occasions, there was a discrepancy (37.8%). Bias was skewed in favour of PA scoring higher (mean difference of differences -0.0667). During round 2, 27 students (55.1%) were awarded the same score by PA and ASA. On 22 occasions (44.9%), there was a discrepancy. Bias was skewed in favour of ASA scoring higher (mean difference of differences 0.0612).Levels of agreement between PA and ASA are strong. Our results show PA mark more leniently as undergraduates and less leniently at 1-year post graduation.Peer assessors are able to write OSCE stations, produce marking schemes and effectively assess their near-peers.

This is a repository containing the code and results of the work "On the Elusivity of Dynamic Optimisation Problems". The repository divides the information into five folders:Code, Results, R_Filesand Plots. Please, see the Readme file for more information.

Genomic analysis of tumors is transforming our understanding of cancer. However, although a great deal of attention is paid to the accuracy of the cancer genomic data itself, less attention has been paid to the accuracy of the associated clinical information that renders the genomic data useful for research. In this brief communication, we suggest that omissions and errors in clinical annotations have a major impact on the interpretation of cancer genomic data. We describe our discovery of annotation omissions and errors when reviewing an already carefully annotated colorectal cancer gene expression dataset from our laboratory. The potential importance of clinical annotation omissions and errors was then explored using simulation analyses with an independent genomic dataset. We suggest that the completeness and veracity of clinical annotations accompanying cancer genomic data require renewed focus by the oncology research community, when planning new collections and when interpreting existing cancer genomic data.

Background: Expansion in liver transplantation (LT) criteria for HCC from Milan to UCSF has not adversely impacted overall survival, prompting further expansion towards Metroticket 2.0 (MT2). In this study, we compared patient survival post-transplant before and after 2007 and long-term outcomes for LT within Milan versus UCSF criteria (to determine the true benefit of the expansion of criteria) and retrospectively validated the MT2 criteria. Methods: Retrospective analysis of ANZLITR (including all patients transplanted for HCC since July 1997). The entire cohort was divided based on criteria used at the time of listing, namely, Milan era (1997–2006) and the UCSF era (2007–July 2015). Results: The overall 5- and 10-year cumulative survival rates for the entire cohort of 691 patients were 78% and 69%, respectively. Patients transplanted in UCSF era had significantly higher 5- and 10-year survival rates than in the Milan era (80% vs. 73% and 72% vs. 65%, respectively; p = 0.016). In the UCSF era, the 5-year survival rate for patients transplanted within Milan criteria was significantly better than those transplanted outside Milan but within UCSF criteria (83% vs. 73%; p < 0.024). Patients transplanted within the MT2 criteria had a significantly better 5- and 10-year survival rate as compared to those outside the criteria (81% vs. 64% and 73% vs. 50%, respectively; p = 0.001). Conclusion: Overall survival following LT for HCC has significantly improved over time despite expanding criteria from Milan to UCSF. Patients fulfilling the MT2 criteria have a survival comparable to the UCSF cohort. Thus, expansion of criteria to MT2 is justifiable.

Fitness landscape rotation has been widely used in the field of dynamic combinatorial optimisation to generate test problems for academic purposes. This method changes the mapping between solutions and objective values, but preserves the structure of the fitness landscape. In this work, the rotation of the landscape in the combinatorial domain is theoretically analysed using concepts of discrete mathematics. Certainly, the preservation of the neighbourhood relationship between the solutions and the alterations of the adaptation of the landscape are studied in detail. Based on the theoretical insights obtained, landscape rotation is used to implement a strategy to escape local optima when local search-based algorithms get stuck. Conducted experiments confirm the efficiency of the landscape rotation applied to local search algorithms for the examination of local optima on the linear ordering problem.

This is a repository containing the code and results of the work "On the Elusivity of Dynamic Combinatorial Optimisation Problems". The repository divides the information into five folders: Input, Code, Results, R_code and Plots. Please, see the Readme file for more information.

Background: Globally, Black men suffer the greatest prostate cancer (CaP) burden. Blacks are diagnosed more at advanced stages of CaP, greater morbidity and mortality and poorer survivorship outcomes. Blacks are exposed to adverse, discriminatory societal determinants. How these determinants impact the CaP disparities, in particular survivorship and health related quality of life inequities are understudied. Studies examining patient-reported outcomes of Black CaP survivors reveal heightened negative HRQOL sequelae, and depression, family, work and living situation instability due to cancer treatment and societal determinants of health (SDOH). SDOH is used mostly in Public Health to predict population health risk and outcomes, but rarely integrated into HRQOL research and practice. This project is novel by incorporating SDOH into the assessment and relief of HRQOL threats. Despite the Black CaP disparities in survivorship, there remains unacceptable lack of focus and prioritization to provide comprehensive relief. Methods: In response to this noticeable scientific gap, our requisite multidisciplinary investigatory team including Survivor-Advocate Investigators joins forces to achieve the study goal. We are employing community engaged research practice to create a CaP survivorship care plan (SCP) template targeted to Blacks. Our SCP will provide a comprehensive best-practice roadmap to document medical information with treatment history and status, along with relevant resources and health advisories to provide relief for unfavorable sequalae due to cancer and its treatments as well as improve quality of life for CaP survivors. We are building upon the Science of Survivorship, and Contextual Socioecological and the Behavioral Precision Medicine Models with full survivor-advocate partnership to create the SCP. This project to develop a SCP template employs an informative consensus panel to inform the initial SCP. Results: Based on advocate-survivor input and guidance, the SCP will include resources and tools focused on SDOH, treatment adherence, treatment side effects and symptom relief, co-occurring chronic conditions, cardio-protective strategies, and physical, emotional and social wellbeing towards improving in patient outcomes and HRQOL in Black CaP survivors. Data from the Engagement Core and Survivor-Advocate Community Advisory Board, and the preliminary SCP CaP for Black men will be presented at the meeting. Conclusion: Our Consortium builds upon the work of the multidisciplinary PIs, and provide team science approach with robust scientific methods to better understand and address the HRQOL needs of Black CaP survivors. Importantly, this research will make available a patient-centered SCP for CaP survivors, focused on Black men. The iCCaRE Consortium will use this SCP_CaP to inform the development of Artificial Intelligence interventions addressing medical, follow-up care, surveillance, social and emotional support, SDOH and health advisories that will be deployed on popular mobile platforms for greater reach and on-demand use. Citation Format: Kimlin T. Ashing, Folakemi T. Odedina, Cassandra N. Moore, Che Ngufor, Getachew A. Dagne, Fornati Bedell, Diana Londoño, John McCall, Arnold Merriweather, JoAnne S. Oliver, Rotimi Rotimi Oladapo. The iCCARE Consortium for Prostate Cancer in Black men: Creating a survivorship care plan for Black prostate cancer survivors [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 15th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2022 Sep 16-19; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2022;31(1 Suppl):Abstract nr A033.

Background: To date, the disparate burden of prostate cancer (CaP) in Black men (BM) is still poorly understood. More disconcerting is the limited access to effective, culturally tailored behavioral interventions to support BM diagnosed with CaP, especially at the point of prostate cancer diagnosis (PPCD). From the PPCD, the transition to CaP survivorship can be mentally and physically trying, especially for those lacking emotional and financial support. It is important to provide psycho-oncology support, address social determinants of health (SDOH) and make emotional support available to ethnically diverse BM at the PPCD. We are addressing the CaP disparities experienced by BM at the PPCD through the Inclusive Cancer Care Research Equity (iCCaRE) for Black Men Consortium. Aim: As part of the iCCaRE for Black men Consortium, the specific aim of our project is to develop a PPCD-based Augmented Reality (AR) intervention program, the iCCaRE PPCD Virtual Robot Assistant (ViRA). The ViRA is based on the established efficacy of six CaP care and survivorship (CaPCaS) video interventions, and will support BM at the PPCD. Methodology: The efficacy of six CaPCaS videos were established through formative research that included 17 BM in Florida. Based on pre- and post-test design, data were collected from participants using a structured survey tailored to each CaPCaS intervention: Prevention, Detection, Diagnosis, Treatment, Survivorship and Advocacy form. Following the efficacy study, the iCCaRE PPCD ViRA was proposed as one of five iCCaRE Science of Survivorship (S.O.S) projects to improve the quality of life of BM. Results: Most of the participants for the efficacy study reported that they were: US-born BM; married; college educated; earn less than $60,000; retired; have health insurance; have annual health examination; have a regular doctor; and were screened within the last year. The CaPCaS videos were found to be efficacious in improving attitude towards CaP screening, beliefs about CaP screening, perceived behavioral control and CaP knowledge. Participants also rated the quality of the videos high and expressed high satisfaction with the videos. We are currently in the development phase of the PPCD iCCaRE ViRA, which is based on behavioral science and health communications model. The ViRA will provide SDOH navigation services, psycho-oncology support and emotional support. The acceptance and usability of the iCCaRE ViRA will be established at urology clinics in Florida as part of the iCCaRE Consortium HEROICA Phase I study. We will test the central hypothesis that improving SDOH factors and CaPCaS-related factors will lead to an improvement in patient reported outcomes. Conclusion: We established the efficacy of the CaPCaS interventions in supporting BM across the CaP care continuum. The iCCaRE ViRA under development will target intervention at the PPCD and deliver a smart and connected personalized AR-enabled intervention system that will positively impact CaP diagnosis experience of BM. Citation Format: Folakemi Odedina, Che Ngufor, Arnold Merriweather, Deidre Pereira, Jennifer Crook, Fathi Parisa, Roxana Dronca, Ernest Kaninjing, Solomon Rotimi, Kimlin Ashing, Manisha Salinas, Sha’Reff Rashad, John McCall, Ebenezer Erefah, Ayinde Yahaya, Wes Sholes. A point of prostate cancer diagnosis (PPCD) Virtual Robot Assistant (ViRA) intervention for newly diagnosed Black men: An iCCaRE consortium for prostate cancer in Black men project [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 15th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2022 Sep 16-19; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2022;31(1 Suppl):Abstract nr B028.

Background: Black men across the world continue to bear the burden of prostate cancer (PCa). Although several factors account for this, studies have demonstrated that the adaptive constitutive biological factors associated with African ancestry contribute to the risk of disease development, disease aggression, and poor disease outcomes in Black men. However, the limited inclusion of Blacks in cancer biology studies limits the understanding of the extent to which biology influence outcomes among Blacks. Furthermore, beyond White-Black dichotomous disparity, there exists an under-exploited within-group geographical and ancestral disparities in the burden, clinical presentation, and outcomes of PCa among Black men globally. Aside from urological and sexual problems, Black PCa survivors experience poor mental health, with a concomitant reduction in the quality of life and overall survival. Hence, improving the overall well-being of PCa survivors requires an understanding of the biological determinants of mental health among diverse groups of Black PCa survivors. Methods: Structured questionnaires are being used to access fatigue, pain, depressive symptoms, health-related quality of life, and PCa-specific symptoms burden among within a cohort of ethnically diverse Black PCa survivors in Africa. This is linked with the salivary biomarkers of inflammation, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity, and tryptophan-kynurenine pathway in our studies population. Results: Data from fifty PCa survivors across different African ethnic groups (including, Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa) will be presented. This study will measure biological variables (e.g, inflammatory markers, cortisol, tryptophan, kynurenine, and serotonin) and survivors self-reported (e.g. health-related quality of life and psychoneurological symptoms) measures to better examine the interconnectedness between cancer-associated biomarkers and poor mental health. Conclusion: This study will lay an essential foundation for understanding the extent to which cancer associated-biological determinants contribute to the poor mental health of PCa survivors, unravels the within-group disparities in the mental health of Black PCa survivors, establish the contribution of genetics to poor mental health in Black PCa survivors and provide the opportunity for pharmacogenomic intervention that will improve the quality of life. Citation Format: Solomon O. Rotimi, Folakemi Odedina, Roxana Dronca, Kimlin Ashing, Ernest Kaninjing, Che Ngufor, Arnold Merriweather, Jennifer Crook, Manisha Salinas, Fathi Parisa, Sha’Reff Rashad, John McCall, Ebenezer Erefah, Ayinde Yahaya. Investigating the biological determinants of poor mental health among ethnically diverse Black prostate cancer survivors: An iCCaRE consortium for prostate cancer in Black men project [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 15th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2022 Sep 16-19; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2022;31(1 Suppl):Abstract nr A045.

Background: The prostate cancer (CaP) disparities experienced by Black men (BM) in the US is a microcosm of the burden of CaP seen in BM globally. The complexity of CaP disparities and the need for a unique approach to better understand and address a complex chronic disease, such as CaP, underscores the need for consortium research that is multilevel, collaborative, translational, and global. In response to this need, we brought together CaP survivors, advocates, scientists and clinicians to form the inclusive Cancer Care Research Equity (iCCaRE) for Black Men Consortium. Aim: Our overall goal is to optimize CaP diagnosis experiences, treatment and survivorship based on the Science of Survivorship (S.O.S). Our primary aim was to develop a consortium co-led by CaP scientists and survivors with multiple S.O.S research projects supported by research cores/services across multiple institutions. Methodology: The consortium was developed to comprise multiple individuals with complementary expertise and resources working collaboratively to achieve the common purpose of eliminating CaP disparities globally. Building on the expertise, resources, and relationships of collaborating CaP investigators, survivors and advocates, the iCCaRE Consortium was proposed to “advance health equity and reduce disparities in CaP” by studying the within-group differences among ethnically diverse BM and comparing US-born BM to their ancestral populations, including West African immigrant men in the US and indigenous West African men. Results: Through the Department of Defense Health Equity Research and Outcomes Improvement Consortium (HEROIC) Award, the iCCaRE Consortium was launched in 2022. There are five pilot projects (PPs), each co-led by a scientist PI and community PI: PP1 will plan and develop a Virtual Robot Assistant (ViRA) that will provide SDOH navigation services, psycho-oncology support and emotional support for BM newly diagnosed with CaP. PP2 will develop and analyze the impact of a patient-centered home cancer care system on health-related Quality of Life (HRQOL), access to healthcare, and PROs. PP3 will plan and develop a ViRA to improve HRQOL in Black CaP survivors. PP4 will employ the social determinants of migrant health framework to understand and address the needs of sub-Saharan African immigrant CaP survivors. PP5 will explore how biological factors induced by cancer cells contribute to poor mental health of CaP survivors. The PPs are supported by an Administrative Core, Translational Research & Clinical Intervention Service, Data Management and Analytics Services, Partnership Engagement Services, Pathology Resource & Biospecimen Core, Methodology and Measures Services and Digital Health & Human Services. Conclusion: The iCCaRE Consortium will “improve HRQOL to enhance outcomes and overall health and wellness for those impacted by CaP” by developing and implementing Artificial Intelligence interventions that address social determinants of health, psycho-oncology support and emotional support for newly diagnosed CaP patients. Citation Format: Folakemi Odedina, Roxana Dronca, Kimlin Ashing, Ernest Kaninjing, Solomon Rotimi, Che Ngufor, Arnold Merriweather, Jennifer Crook, Manisha Salinas, Fathi Parisa, Sha’Reff Rashad, John McCall, Ebenezer Erefah, Ayinde Yahaya. Addressing prostate cancer disparities through the Inclusive Cancer Care Research Equity (iCCaRE) for Black men consortium [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 15th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2022 Sep 16-19; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2022;31(1 Suppl):Abstract nr A042.

Background: A recent report from the AACR has found that black men (BM) men have prostate cancer (CaP) death rates that are more than 2 times those for men of any other race or ethnicity. Yet, BM are less likely to receive cutting-edge, or even standard of care treatment compared to their white counterparts. Limited access to care, transportation, patient perception and medical mistrust, as well as cost of care are major contributing factors. Meeting patients where they are and offering treatment in or closer to their homes should help reduce psychological distress and increase access to care and treatment compliance. As part of the iCCaRE for Black men Consortium, we propose a PCHC model which leverages Mayo Clinic Advanced Care at Home (ACH) program and provides a package of care to support the administration of cancer therapy and/or supportive care/symptom management to CaP patients in their homes by specialist healthcare professionals. The objectives of our pilot study are to understand patients’ choice of therapy in choosing the place of treatment and to evaluate the feasibility and impact of PCHC on clinical outcomes, as well as patient reported-outcomes (PRO) and health related quality of life (HQOL). Methodology: For Aim 1, structured questionnaires are used to assess patient preference for location of therapy, at the infusion center or in the home, as well as perceived difficulties and advantages; follow up qualitative data will be collected through semi-structured interviews to capture patients’ thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and questions towards cancer treatments being administered at home versus in a hospital setting. Aim 2 is an observational study of BM with advanced CaP who are participating in a pragmatic, practice-based randomized clinical trial to track acceptability by and impact of home administration of cancer directed or supportive therapy. Results: For Aim 1, data is used to identify themes regarding perceived advantages and concerns of PCHC and inform our understanding of the proportion of patients who are willing to receive and would benefit from this level of care at home. For Aim 2, the following outcomes are evaluated: (a) time to first ER visit and to first hospitalization; (b) HRQoL and quality-adjusted survival; (c) patient satisfaction and compliance, including home time, adherence with symptom self-reporting and compliance with treatment, level of comfort interacting with the care team by phone or tablet, ability to reach a team member for questions or concerns; (d) cost, including out of pocket cost for patients. Conclusion: Our project will provide data on patient understanding and acceptability of cancer care at home and strategies for overcoming cancer care delivery disparities and barriers of access to care for underserved communities. The expected outcome of our project is that PCHC intervention will positively impact CaP treatment, patients’ access and experience with healthcare by developing a new concept of closer-to home cancer care delivery that will reach more patients in underserved communities. Citation Format: Roxana Dronca, Rohit Rao, Michael Maniaci, Folakemi Odedina, Ernest Kaninjing, Kimlin Ashing, Solomon Rotimi, Manisha Salinas, Sha’Reff Rashad, Arnold Merriweather, John McCall, Ebenezer Erefah, Ayinde Yahaya. Feasibility of patient-centered home care (PCHC) to reduce disparities in Black men (BM) with advanced prostate cancer (CaP): An iCCaRE Consortium for prostate cancer in Black men project [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 15th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2022 Sep 16-19; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2022;31(1 Suppl):Abstract nr B046.

Background: Sub-Saharan African immigrants (SSAI) in the United States (US) constitute one of the fastest-growing segments of the immigrant population. Between 2010 and 2018, the SSAI population in the US increased by 53%, significantly outpacing the 12% growth rate for the overall foreign-born population in the US during that time frame. For the purposes of this study, we define SSAI as the 2 million individuals living in the US originally from the region of the African continent located south of the Saharan desert. Despite their growing numbers, little is published about the extent to which SSAI adapt to health behaviors more common in the US or remain immersed in the values, beliefs and practices reflective of their country of origin. Importantly, no study has comprehensively examined the social determinants of health factors among this population and its influence on health-seeking behaviors and decision-making regarding prostate cancer care and treatment options. This study employs the social determinant of migrant health framework to examine the impact of immigration on the health-seeking behaviors of SSAI including informed-decision making, psychosocial effects and coping mechanisms. This study will fill the void of research studies that link social determinant of health and immigration among SSAI. Methods: Grounded theory will guide the study design that include in-depth interviews to document the experiences of SSAI relative to health seeking behaviors, care, and treatment. We explore differences and similarities among participants based on country or region of origin in Africa. We employ the social determinants of migrant health framework to better understand the needs of SSAI prostate cancer survivors in the United States and how to effectively support these survivors. Results: We will present findings based on preliminary interviews conducted with SSAI prostate cancer survivors recruited from Florida or Minnesota. Additionally, we will report on the development of a SSAI social determinant of migration model that explains individual and structural factors that impact the health-seeking behaviors and coping mechanisms among this population. We will provide new understanding about specific social determinant of health factors that can be addressed in intervention studies among SSAI in the United States. Conclusion: This study examines the full range of racial, social, environmental, behavioral and structural factors that SSAI prostate cancer survivors experience. It will illuminate the decision-making process and overall quality of care among this understudied population. Citation Format: Ernie Kaninjing, Gladys Asiedu, Mary Ellen Young, Ebenezer Erefah, Folakemi Odedina, Roxana Dronca, Kimlin Ashing, Solomon Rotimi, Che Ngufor, Arnold Merriweather, Jennifer Crook, Manisha Salinas, Parisa Fathi, Sha’Reff Rashad, John McCall, Ayinde Yahaya. The iCCARE consortium for prostate cancer in Black men: Grounded theory study of the social determinant of health factors among African immigrant men diagnosed with prostate cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 15th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2022 Sep 16-19; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2022;31(1 Suppl):Abstract nr B050.

With the advancement of storage and processing technology, an enormous amount of data is collected on a daily basis in many applications. Nowadays, advanced data analytics have been used to mine the collected data for useful information and make predictions, contributing to the competitive advantages of companies. The increasing data volume, however, has posed many problems to classical batch learning systems, such as the need to retrain the model completely with the newly arrived samples or the impracticality of storing and accessing a large volume of data. This has prompted interest on incremental learning that operates on data streams. In this study, we develop an incremental online multi-label classification (OMLC) method based on a weighted clustering model. The model is made to adapt to the change of data via the decay mechanism in which each sample's weight dwindles away over time. The clustering model therefore always focuses more on newly arrived samples. In the classification process, only clusters whose weights are greater than a threshold (called mature clusters) are employed to assign labels for the samples. In our method, not only is the clustering model incrementally maintained with the revealed ground truth labels of the arrived samples, the number of predicted labels in a sample are also adjusted based on the Hoeffding inequality and the label cardinality. The experimental results show that our method is competitive compared to several well-known benchmark algorithms on six performance measures in both the stationary and the concept drift settings.

Liver transplantation (LT) for small infants remains challenging because of the demands related to graft selection, surgical technique, and perioperative management. The aim of this study was to evaluate the short‐term and longterm outcomes of LT regarding vascular/biliary complications, renal function, growth, and patient/graft survival in infants ≤3 months compared with those of an age between >3 and 6 months at a single transplant center. A total of 64 infants ≤6 months underwent LT and were divided into 2 groups according to age at LT: those of age ≤3 months (range, 6‐118 days; XS group, n = 37) and those of age >3 to ≤6 months (range, 124‐179 days; S group, n = 27) between 1989 and 2014. Acute liver failure was the main indication for LT in the XS group (n = 31, 84%) versus S (n = 7, 26%). The overall incidence of hepatic artery thrombosis and portal vein thrombosis/stricture were 5.4% and 10.8% in the XS group and 7.4% and 11.1% in the S group, respectively (not significant). The overall incidence of biliary stricture and leakage were 5.4% and 2.7% in the XS group and 3.7% and 3.7% in the S group, respectively (not significant). There was no significant difference between the 2 groups in terms of renal function. No significant difference was found between the 2 groups for each year after LT in terms of height and weight z score. The 1‐, 5‐, and 10‐year patient survival rates were 70.3%, 70.3%, and 70.3% in the XS group compared with 92.6%, 88.9%, and 88.9% in the S group, respectively (not significant). In conclusion, LT for smaller infants has acceptable outcomes despite the challenges of surgical technique, including vascular reconstruction and graft preparation, and perioperative management.

The past five years have seen a rapid development of plans and test pilots aimed at introducing connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) in public transport systems around the world. Using a real-world scenario from the Leeds Metropolitan Area as a case study, we demonstrate an effective way to combine macro-level mobility simulations based on open data (i.e., geographic information system information and transit timetables) with evolutionary optimisation techniques to discover realistic optimised integration routes for CAVs. The macro-level mobility simulations are used to assess the quality (i.e., fitness) of a potential CAV route by quantifying geographic accessibility improvements using an extended version of Dijkstra's algorithm on an abstract multi-modal transport network.

Gross errors, a kind of non-random error caused by process disturbances or leaks, can make reconciled estimates can be very inaccurate and even infeasible. Detecting gross errors thus prevents financial loss from incorrectly accounting and also identifies potential environmental consequences because of leaking. In this study, we develop an ensemble of gross error detection (GED) methods to improve the effectiveness of the gross error identification on measurement data. We propose a weighted combining method on the outputs of all constituent GED methods and then compare the combined result to a threshold to conclude about the presence of the gross error. We generate a set of measurements with or without gross error and then minimize the GED error rate of the proposed ensemble on this set with respect to the combining weights and threshold. The Particle Swarm Optimization method is used to solve this optimization problem. Experiments conducted on a simulated system show that our ensemble is better than all constituent GED methods and two ensemble methods.

Recent work in combinatorial optimisation have demonstrated that neighbouring solutions of a local optima may belong to more favourable attraction basins. In this sense, the perturbation strategy plays a critical role on local search based algorithms to kick the search of the algorithm into more prominent areas of the space. In this paper, we investigate the landscape rotation as a perturbation strategy to redirect the search of an stuck algorithm. This technique rearranges the mapping of solutions to different objective values without altering important properties of the problem's landscape such as the number and quality of optima, among others. Particularly, we investigate two rotation based perturbation strategies: (i) a profoundness rotation method and (ii) a broadness rotation method. These methods are applied into the stochastic hill-climbing heuristic and tested and compared on different instances of the quadratic assignment problem against other algorithm versions. Performed experiments reveal that the landscape rotation is an efficient perturbation strategy to shift the search in a controlled way. Nevertheless, an empirical investigation of the landscape rotation demonstrates that it needs to be cautiously manipulated in the permutation space since a small rotation does not necessarily mean a small disturbance in the fitness landscape.