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PyMC is a probabilistic programming library for Python that provides tools for constructing and fitting Bayesian models. It offers an intuitive, readable syntax that is close to the natural syntax statisticians use to describe models. PyMC leverages the symbolic computation library PyTensor, allowing it to be compiled into a variety of computational backends, such as C, JAX, and Numba, which in turn offer access to different computational architectures including CPU, GPU, and TPU. Being a general modeling framework, PyMC supports a variety of models including generalized hierarchical linear regression and classification, time series, ordinary differential equations (ODEs), and non-parametric models such as Gaussian processes (GPs). We demonstrate PyMC’s versatility and ease of use with examples spanning a range of common statistical models. Additionally, we discuss the positive role of PyMC in the development of the open-source ecosystem for probabilistic programming.

Despite advances in perioperative care and operative techniques, urgent colorectal operations are associated with higher morbidity and mortality. To evaluate our rate of complications in elective and urgent colorectal operations, we performed retrospective chart review of 209 consecutive patients who underwent colorectal resection between 1998 and 2002 at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. One hundred, forty-three (71%) patients underwent elective colorectal resection. A total of 19 (13.3%) complications occurred in the elective group, compared with 24 (38.1%) in the urgent group ( P = 0.003). Both right-sided and left-sided operations were associated with higher incidence of complications when performed urgently. Wound infection occurred in 7.7 per cent of patients undergoing an elective operation and 14.3 per cent in an urgent setting ( P = 0.21). Intra-abdominal abscess occurred in 1.4 per cent of patients undergoing elective operation, compared with 11.1 per cent in the urgent operation group. Four (1.9%) patients developed wound dehiscence, 1 in elective and 3 in the urgent group ( P = 0.09). Anastomotic leak occurred in 1.9 per cent of patients, 2 in each group ( P = 0.6). There were six deaths, 3 in elective and 3 in urgent cases ( P = 0.4). Urgent operation of the colon and rectum is associated with higher incidence of complications. Both right- and left-sided resections have a higher complication rate when performed in a nonelective setting.

The status of lymph nodes is the most important prognosticator in colorectal cancer patients. Patients with lymph node involvement have a lower survival rate and are candidates for adjuvant therapy. The purpose of our study was to determine the number of lymph nodes that needs to be examined to accurately detect nodal metastasis. We conducted a retrospective study of 151 patients who underwent colorectal cancer operation at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Data from the operative report and pathology report were collected and analyzed. Fourteen (33.3%) patients with five to nine nodes examined had positive nodes. Twenty-six (57.8%) patients with 10 to 14 nodes examined had positive nodes. Patients who had 10 to 14 nodes examined were significantly more likely to have positive lymph nodes (P = 0.03). Patients with advanced T stage had a significantly higher number of positive lymph nodes (78.1% in T4 vs 11.1% in T1, P < 0.0001). Patients with poorly differentiated cancer showed a trend toward a higher positive node rate. Tumor differentiation and T stage seem to correlate with higher nodal metastasis rate. A higher number of lymph nodes examined was associated with a higher nodal metastasis rate. Examination of at least 10 lymph nodes would increase the yield of positive lymph nodes and avoid under-staging of patients with colorectal cancer.

Image captioning is a well-known task of generating textual description of a given image. Research work on this problem statement requires efforts in both computer vision and natural language processing domains to obtain better quality image descriptions. In this paper, we are proposing a new deep learning approach to generate image captions. In this approach, we generate a sequence of visual embeddings for objects and their relationships present in the image. These visual embeddings are arranged in a particular manner and are then supplied to the encoder part of an attention-based sequence-to-sequence model. In the final step, we receive the generated image captions from the decoder part of our sequence-to-sequence model. We tested its performance on MSCOCO Dataset, and the obtained results suggested that our model generates better image captions for MSCOCO testing dataset.

Neoadjuvant chemoradiation is increasingly used for rectal cancer, with resection typically performed 6 weeks after completion of radiotherapy. We observed in our practice that further delay after radiotherapy led to increased downsizing. We performed this retrospective analysis to evaluate the safety of this approach. A retrospective review was performed of 48 patients with distal or mid-rectal cancer who were operated on 8 weeks or less after chemoradiation ended (group 1, n = 16), and more than 8 weeks later (group 2, n = 32). We looked at the effect of delaying surgery on intraoperative blood loss, operative and hospital duration, postoperative complications, readmissions, and mortality. The median interval between radiation and operation was 7 weeks in group 1 and 11 weeks in group 2. There was no significant difference between the 2 groups in terms of intraoperative blood loss, postoperative complications, or readmissions. Length of operation and length of stay were slightly longer for group 2. Delaying surgery after neoadjuvant treatment appears safe, with morbidity and mortality similar to that seen with surgery performed less than 8 weeks after chemoradiation.

Deep learning has rapidly transformed the natural language processing domain with its recurrent neural networks. LSTM is one such popular repeating cell unit used for building these recurrent neural network-based deep learning architectures. In this paper, we proposed a significantly improved version of LSTM named Cerebral LSTM which has much better ability to understand time-series data. Extensive experiments were conducted to get an unbiased performance comparison of our proposed version. Obtained results showed that recurrent neural network constructed using single Cerebral LSTM cell outperformed both recurrent neural network with single LSTM cell and recurrent neural network with two-stacked LSTM cells.

Quantum computing promises to provide a tremendous boost to the computational power of our machines by utilizing superposition and entanglement phenomenon of quantum mechanics. Few quantum algorithms are known which are taking advantage of these quantum phenomena and are providing solutions to problems having significant importance. In this paper, we have proposed a generalized method for designing 2 N qubits circuit such that during measurement only one qubit will be in state-1, while remaining other qubits will hold state-0. Apart from adding fair randomness to the selection process in distributed quantum computing, these generalized quantum circuits can be found very useful in commercial domains requiring transparency and trust in systems requiring fair randomness in decision-making such as in a lottery system. The critical advantage of using our proposed method is that it allows individual’s results to be teleported to them, hence making an end-to-end system whose fairness is quantum assured.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a disease primarily affecting an older population. The incidence of CRC in young patients has been rising. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the characteristics of CRC in an ethnically diverse, young population. Two groups of patients with CRC (40 years old or younger and 60 years old or older) treated from 1998 to 2005 were retrospectively evaluated. Forty-one young patients with CRC were identified. Hispanics constituted 51 per cent of the young population. Forty-four per cent of the lesions were right-sided in the young group compared with 21 per cent in the older group (P = 0.004). Advanced tumor stage (T3 and T4) was noted in 87.8 per cent of the young and 63 per cent of the older patients (P = 0.002; OR, 4.08). Poorly differentiated tumor grade was more common in young patients (P = 0.003) as well as mucinous/signet ring characteristics (P = 0.005). Young patients had an increased likelihood of a family history (P = 0.0001). Operative intervention and survival were similar for the two groups. Our study confirms, in an ethnically diverse young population, that CRC tends to be advanced stage, aggressive, and frequently nonoperable at the time of diagnosis. It is important for physicians to recognize the poor outcome of CRC in a younger population and consider an aggressive approach to diagnosis and early treatment.

The integrity of a low pelvic anastomosis is often studied radiographically before takedown of a diverting ileostomy. The aim of this study is to determine the impact of routine water-soluble enema studies (WSE) in our patient population with low pelvic anastomosis. We retrospectively reviewed the operative database for a county teaching hospital from 1998 to 2008. All patients with low pelvic anastomosis (ultralow colorectal, coloanal, and ileoanal pouch anastomosis) with diverting ileostomy who underwent subsequent takedown were identified. Fifty patients met inclusion criteria. Thirty-eight patients were evaluated by WSE and 12 were not. Twenty-five patients (66%) were noted to have normal WSE studies before ostomy takedown. Thirteen patients (26%) were noted to have abnormalities on WSE. Two stenoses were clinically significant. Water-soluble enema study was 100 per cent sensitive and 69 per cent specific for detecting significant pathology. Digital rectal examination (DRE), colonoscopy, and flexible sigmoidoscopy were also 100 per cent sensitive in detecting substantial pathology. Routine use of WSE failed to demonstrate a significant impact on patients with low pelvic anastomosis undergoing ileostomy takedown. Routine DRE and rigid proctoscopy can be used to evaluate low pelvic anastomosis. WSE can be used selectively on patients with abnormal findings.

This study examines the clinical characteristics of patients who developed recurrent appendicitis after previous nonoperative management of perforated appendicitis. Retrospective chart review was performed, and data from the recurrent and initial episode of appendicitis were collected. In all, 237 patients from 1989 to 2001 were managed nonoperatively for perforated appendicitis and 32 (14%) were readmitted for recurrent appendicitis. Median white blood cell count at recurrence was 9.5 (interquartile range [IQR]: 6.6 to 13.2] versus 13.1 [IQR: 10.8 to 16.1] at initial presentation ( P = 0.002). Maximum temperature was 98.6°F [IQR: 98.2 to 100.5] at recurrence versus 100.3°F [IQR: 99.5 to 101.5] ( P = 0.008). Median time for intravenous antibiotics use was 3 [IQR: 3 to 7] days at recurrence versus 6 [IQR: 4 to 8] days initially ( P = 0.01). Inpatient stay was also shorter; median length was 6 [IQR: 3 to 8] days compared with 7 [IQR: 5 to 9] days at initial presentation ( P = 0.02). Patients managed nonoperatively for perforated appendicitis who later developed recurrent appendicitis exhibited a milder clinical course at recurrence. Elective interval appendectomy may be reserved until a recurrent episode.