Iso-Quality of Service: Fairly Ranking Servers for Real-Time Data Analytics

We present a mathematically rigorous Quality-of-Service (QoS) metric which relates the achievable quality of service metric (QoS) for a real-time analytics service to the server energy cost of offering the service. Using a new iso-QoS evaluation methodology, we scale server resources to meet QoS targets and directly rank the servers in terms of their energy-efficiency and by extension cost of ownership. Our metric and method are platform-independent and enable fair comparison of datacenter compute servers with significant architectural diversity, including micro-servers. We deploy our metric and methodology to compare three servers running financial option pricing workloads on real-life market data. We find that server ranking is sensitive to data inputs and desired QoS level and that although scale-out micro-servers can be up to two times more energy-efficient than conventional heavyweight servers for the same target QoS, they are still six times less energy efficient than high-performance computational accelerators.

Empowerment, Quality of Life and Service Satisfaction: comparisons between hospitalised continuing care patients and deinstitutionalised patients

Objectives: Recent advances in mental health care policy and service delivery have lead to the development of community care initiatives which have enabled those individuals traditionally cared for in hospital environments to be resettled successfully in community living arrangements that foster an ethos of empowerment and recovery. This study sought to identify differences between a hospital continuing care group (n = 16) and a community placement group (n = 20) in relation to quality of life, satisfaction and levels of empowerment. Method: The study was a cross-sectional design. It follows up a cohort of individuals identified as the ‘hospital continuing care group’ (365+ consecutive days in psychiatric hospital care) by Homefirst Community Trust in Northern Ireland. A proportion of this population has been resettled into community care environments and some continue to reside in hospital. Patients both in the hospital continuing care group and the community placement group completed two standard questionnaires that covered a number of variables including empowerment, quality of life and service satisfaction. Results: There were significant differences between the hospital continuing care and community placement groups across scores on service satisfaction, quality of life, and empowerment in the current study. Hypotheses relating to service satisfaction (z = -4.117; p

Measuring health-related quality of life after stroke: A brief tool.

Routine assessment of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) can be time consuming and burdensome for a person with stroke. Therefore the aim of this study was to develop and test a brief instrument for assessing HRQoL among people with stroke. The Quality of Life after Stroke Scale (QLASS) was constructed from items within the Quality of Life Index-Stroke Version and the Chronic Respiratory Disease Questionnaire. It was administered to 92 people with stroke at three points in time: immediately after discharge from hospital, 6 months and 12 months later. Results suggest that the QLASS has 19 items which represent three factors: emotional functioning, mastery and fatigue which correlate with valid measures of health status and activities of daily living. The QLASS is proposed as a brief, valid HRQoL tool for use among people with stroke.

Assessing quality of life in cardiac rehabilitation: Choosing an appropriate tool

Quality of life is an important outcome for people undergoing cardiac rehabilitation. This paper discusses the difficulties with defining the concept of quality of life and how it might be distinct from the concept of health-related quality of life. Based on a review of the literature, a description is provided of health-related quality of life questionnaires that have been used in cardiac rehabilitation populations. Some criteria for choosing between these questionnaires are then discussed and, finally, a brief discussion is presented of the concept of response shift and how this might influence the assessment of health-related quality of life in a cardiac rehabilitation setting.

Evaluation of quality of life and priorities of patients with glaucoma

PURPOSE: To investigate the quality of life and priorities of patients with glaucoma.

METHODS: Patients diagnosed with glaucoma and no other ocular comorbidity were consecutively recruited. Clinical information was collected. Participants were asked to complete three questionnaires: EuroQuol (EQ-5D), time tradeoff (TTO), and choice-based conjoint analysis. The latter used five-attribute outcomes: (1) reading and seeing detail, (2) peripheral vision, (3) darkness and glare, (4) household chores, and (5) outdoor mobility. Visual field loss was estimated by using binocular integrated visual fields (IVFs).

RESULTS: Of 84 patients invited to participate, 72 were enrolled in the study. The conjoint utilities showed that the two main priorities were "reading and seeing detail" and "outdoor mobility." This rank order was stable across all segmentations of the data by demographic or visual state. However, the relative emphasis of these priorities changed with increasing visual field loss, with concerns for central vision increasing, whereas those for outdoor mobility decreased. Two subgroups of patients with differing priorities on the two main attributes were identified. Only 17% of patients (those with poorer visual acuity) were prepared to consider TTO. A principal component analysis revealed relatively independent components (i.e., low correlations) between the three different methodologies for assessing quality of life.

CONCLUSIONS: Assessments of quality of life using different methodologies have been shown to produce different outcomes with low intercorrelations between them. Only a minority of patients were prepared to trade time for a return to normal vision. Conjoint analysis showed two subgroups with different priorities. Severity of glaucoma influenced the relative importance of priorities.