Parkinson’s disease(PD)is a debilitating neurological disorder affecting over 10 million people worldwide.PD classification models using voice signals as input are common in the literature.It is believed that using d...Parkinson’s disease(PD)is a debilitating neurological disorder affecting over 10 million people worldwide.PD classification models using voice signals as input are common in the literature.It is believed that using deep learning algorithms further enhances performance;nevertheless,it is challenging due to the nature of small-scale and imbalanced PD datasets.This paper proposed a convolutional neural network-based deep support vector machine(CNN-DSVM)to automate the feature extraction process using CNN and extend the conventional SVM to a DSVM for better classification performance in small-scale PD datasets.A customized kernel function reduces the impact of biased classification towards the majority class(healthy candidates in our consideration).An improved generative adversarial network(IGAN)was designed to generate additional training data to enhance the model’s performance.For performance evaluation,the proposed algorithm achieves a sensitivity of 97.6%and a specificity of 97.3%.The performance comparison is evaluated from five perspectives,including comparisons with different data generation algorithms,feature extraction techniques,kernel functions,and existing works.Results reveal the effectiveness of the IGAN algorithm,which improves the sensitivity and specificity by 4.05%–4.72%and 4.96%–5.86%,respectively;and the effectiveness of the CNN-DSVM algorithm,which improves the sensitivity by 1.24%–57.4%and specificity by 1.04%–163%and reduces biased detection towards the majority class.The ablation experiments confirm the effectiveness of individual components.Two future research directions have also been suggested.展开更多
Support vector machines and a Kalman-like observer are used for fault detection and isolation in a variable speed horizontalaxis wind turbine composed of three blades and a full converter. The support vector approach ...Support vector machines and a Kalman-like observer are used for fault detection and isolation in a variable speed horizontalaxis wind turbine composed of three blades and a full converter. The support vector approach is data-based and is therefore robust to process knowledge. It is based on structural risk minimization which enhances generalization even with small training data set and it allows for process nonlinearity by using flexible kernels. In this work, a radial basis function is used as the kernel. Different parts of the process are investigated including actuators and sensors faults. With duplicated sensors, sensor faults in blade pitch positions,generator and rotor speeds can be detected. Faults of type stuck measurements can be detected in 2 sampling periods. The detection time of offset/scaled measurements depends on the severity of the fault and on the process dynamics when the fault occurs. The converter torque actuator fault can be detected within 2 sampling periods. Faults in the actuators of the pitch systems represents a higher difficulty for fault detection which is due to the fact that such faults only affect the transitory state(which is very fast) but not the final stationary state. Therefore, two methods are considered and compared for fault detection and isolation of this fault: support vector machines and a Kalman-like observer. Advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed. On one hand, support vector machines training of transitory states would require a big amount of data in different situations, but the fault detection and isolation results are robust to variations in the input/operating point. On the other hand, the observer is model-based, and therefore does not require training, and it allows identification of the fault level, which is interesting for fault reconfiguration. But the observability of the system is ensured under specific conditions, related to the dynamics of the inputs and outputs. The whole fault detection and isolation scheme is evaluated using a wind turbine benchmark with a real sequence of wind speed.展开更多
The elastic support/dry friction damper is a type of damper which is used for active vibration control in a rotor system.To establish the analytical model of this type of damper,a two-dimensional friction model-ball/p...The elastic support/dry friction damper is a type of damper which is used for active vibration control in a rotor system.To establish the analytical model of this type of damper,a two-dimensional friction model-ball/plate model was proposed.By using this ball/plate model,a dynamics model of rotor with elastic support/dry friction dampers was established and experimentally verified.Moreover,the damping performance of the elastic support/dry friction damper was studied numerically with respect to some variable parameters.The numerical study shows that the damping performance of the elastic support/dry friction damper is closely related to the stiffness distribution of the rotor-support system,the damper location,the pressing force between the moving and stationary disk,the friction coefficient,the tangential contact stiffness of the contact interface,and the stiffness of the stationary disk.In general,the damper should be located on an elastic support which has a large vibration amplitude in order to achieve a better damping performance,and the more vibration energy in this elastic support concentrates,the better performance of the damper will be.The larger the tangential contact stiffness of the contact interface,and the stiffness of the stationary disk are,the better performance of the damper will be.There will be an optimal value of the friction force at which the damper performs best.展开更多
AIM: To assess the efficacy and safety of TECA type hybrid artificial liver support system (TECA-HALSS) in providing liver function of detoxification, metabolism and physiology by treating the patients with acute live...AIM: To assess the efficacy and safety of TECA type hybrid artificial liver support system (TECA-HALSS) in providing liver function of detoxification, metabolism and physiology by treating the patients with acute liver failure (ALF). METHODS: The porcine liver cells (1-2) x 10(10) were separated from the Chinese small swine and cultured in the bioreactor of TECA-BALSS at 37.0 degrees C and circulated through the outer space of the hollow fiber tubes in BALSS. The six liver failure patients with various degree of hepatic coma were treated by TECA-HALSS and with conventional medicines. The venous plasma of the patients was separated by a plasma separator and treated by charcoal adsorbent or plasma exchange. The plasma circulated through the inner space of the hollow fiber tubes of BALSS and mixed with the patients' blood cells and flew back to their blood circulation. Some small molecular weight substances were exchanged between the plasma and porcine liver cells. Each treatment lasted 6.0-7.0 h. Physiological and biochemical parameters were measured before,during and after the treatment. RESULTS: The average of porcine liver cells was (1.0-3.0) x 10(10) obtained from each swine liver using our modified enzymatic digestion method. The survival rate of the cells was 85%-93% by trypan blue stain and AO/PI fluorescent stain. After cultured in TECA-BALSS bioreactor for 6 h, the survival rate of cells still remained 70%-85%. At the end of TECA-HALSS treatment, the levels of plasma NH(3), ALT, TB and DB were significantly decreased. The patients who were in the state of drowsiness or coma before the treatment improved their appetite significantly and regained consciousness, some patients resumed light physical work on a short period after the treatment.One to two days after the treatment, the ratio of PTA increased warkedly. During the treatment, the heart rates, blood pressure, respiration condition and serum electrolytes (K(+), Na(+) and Cl(-)) were stable without thrombosis and bleeding in all the six patients. CONCLUSION: TECA-HALSS treatment could be a rapid, safe and efficacious method to provide temporary liver support for patients with ALF.展开更多
INTRODUCTIONFulminant hepatic failure(FHF)is a severe disease with devastating consequences;the incidence is high in China.Before the availability of liver transplantation,the mortality rate was more than 80%[1,2].The...INTRODUCTIONFulminant hepatic failure(FHF)is a severe disease with devastating consequences;the incidence is high in China.Before the availability of liver transplantation,the mortality rate was more than 80%[1,2].The advent of liver transplantation revolutionized the outcome of FHF[3,4].However,many patients were unwilling to accept liver transplantation until very late,hence most of them died because of donor shortage and urgency of the disease[5-7],To overcome he problems,we performed orthotopic liver transplantation(OLT)in combination with artificial liver support(ALS) in the treatment of FHF in the past 2 years with satisfactory results.Our experience was reported below.展开更多
Background: We desired relevant information from patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and their caregivers for help in planning a long-term support program. Methods: We compared 3 ap-proaches: 1) a standard needs a...Background: We desired relevant information from patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and their caregivers for help in planning a long-term support program. Methods: We compared 3 ap-proaches: 1) a standard needs assessment questionnaire, the Camberwell assessment of need in the elderly, 2) an open-ended listing of needs, and 3) participation in a narrative medicine program in which health care professionals were involved. Results: On the questionnaire, patients reported physical needs as the most important while their caregivers were more concerned about psychological needs. The open-ended listings revealed additional needs, particularly access to re-liable information about PD and to opportunities to participate in clinical research. The narrative medicine process yielded a number of new insights and proposed solutions, particularly related to the heterogeneity of needs across individuals, the importance of providing hope, and the fact that caregivers expressed that their needs had been largely neglected. Participation in the narrative medicine sessions led to an increase in measured empathy by health care professionals, an im-provement in measured depression among PD patients, but a worsening of measured depression among the caregivers. Conclusions: We have identified important needs and potential solutions to be considered in providing long-term support to patients with PD and their caregivers.展开更多
In order to improve the drift precision of air supported gyroscope, effects of surface roughness magnitude and direction on vortex torque of air supported gyroscope are studied. Based on Christensen’s rough surface s...In order to improve the drift precision of air supported gyroscope, effects of surface roughness magnitude and direction on vortex torque of air supported gyroscope are studied. Based on Christensen’s rough surface stochastic model and consistency transformation method, Reynolds equation of air supported gyroscope containing surface roughness information is established. Also effects of mathematical models of main machining errors on vortex torque are established. By using finite element method, the Reynolds equation is solved numerically and the vortex torque in the presence of machining errors and surface roughness is calculated. The results show that surface roughness of slit has a significant effect on vortex torque. Transverse surface roughness makes vortex torque greater, while longitudinal surface roughness makes vortex torque smaller. The maximal difference approaches 11.4% during the range analyzed in this article. However surface roughness of journal influences vortex torque insignificantly. The research is of great significance for designing and manufacturing air supported gyroscope and predicting its performance.展开更多
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the most common disease of motor system degeneration that occurs when the dopamine-producing cells are damaged in substantia nigra. To detect PD, various signals have been investigated, in...Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the most common disease of motor system degeneration that occurs when the dopamine-producing cells are damaged in substantia nigra. To detect PD, various signals have been investigated, including EEG, gait and speech. Since approximately 90 percent of the people with PD suffer from speech disorders, speech analysis is considered as the most common technique for this aim. This paper proposes a new algorithm for diagnosing of Parkinson’s disease based on voice analysis. In the first step, genetic algorithm (GA) is undertaken for selecting optimized features from all extracted features. Afterwards a network based on support vector machine (SVM) is used for classification between healthy and people with Parkinson. The dataset of this research is composed of a range of biomedical voice signals from 31 people, 23 with Parkinson’s disease and 8 healthy people. The subjects were asked to pronounce letter “A” for 3 seconds. 22 linear and non-linear features were extracted from the signals that 14 features were based on F0 (fundamental frequency or pitch), jitter, shimmer and noise to harmonics ratio, which are main factors in voice signal. Because changing in these factors is noticeable for the people with PD, optimized features were selected among them. Of the various numbers of optimized features, the data classification was investigated. Results show that the classification accuracy percent of 94.50 per 4 optimized features, the accuracy percent of 93.66 per 7 optimized features and the accuracy percent of 94.22 per 9 optimized features, could be achieved. It can be observed that the best classification accuracy may be achieved using Fhi (Hz), Fho (Hz), jitter (RAP) and shimmer (APQ5).展开更多
The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of Japan＇s agricultural domestic policy since 1995 in the context of the current international negotiations in the WTO Doha Round, which has as one aim f...The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of Japan＇s agricultural domestic policy since 1995 in the context of the current international negotiations in the WTO Doha Round, which has as one aim further reductions of trade-distorting support among member countries. Apparently, Japan＇s attitude towards agricultural domestic policy reform is one of compliance with the WTO, which requests member countries to reduce their Aggregate Measure of Support （AMS） through trimming trade-distorting （amber box） support and/or transforming traditional-type agricultural subsidies to decoupled-type ones. Japan reduced its amber box support by nearly 80 percent between 1995 and 2000. This drastic reduction is mainly attributable to Japan＇s removal of rice from the amber box in 1998. In addition, following the WTO＇s principle of decoupling, Japan launched an extensive agricultural subsidy reform in 2007. This paper, however, shows the ironical realities of Japanese agricultural policy. Neither a sharp reduction of amber box support nor Japan＇s 2007 reform necessarily means there will be a reduction of trade-distorting effects. On the contrary, the 2007 reform may in fact stimulate domestic rice production.展开更多
The perception of nursing staff’s attitude influences patient fear.Understanding this dynamic is crucial for fostering a supportive environment conducive to patient well-being and effective healthcare practices.The p...The perception of nursing staff’s attitude influences patient fear.Understanding this dynamic is crucial for fostering a supportive environment conducive to patient well-being and effective healthcare practices.The purpose of this research is to investigate how the attitudes and behaviours of nursing staff influence the fear and anxiety levels of patients recovering from benign tumors,aiming to improve patient care and recovery outcomes.Data was collected from a sample of 100 participants,comprising 20 nursing staff and 80 patients recovering from benign tumors.Surveys were administered to gather quantitative data on attitudes and fear levels.Participants were selected randomly from hospital records and outpatient clinics.Our analysis encompassed nursing staff attitude,patient fear levels,the influence of family support,progression of tumor recovery,patient-reported satisfaction,and the quality of healthcare services provided.The quantitative aspect utilized PLS-SEM software to perform regression analysis,evaluating both direct and indirect effects.Statistical analysis assessed the relationships between nursing staff attitudes,patient fear during benign tumor recovery,and the mediating role of family support.The findings of the study demonstrate that better nurse attitudes(Hypothesis 1,β=0.45,p<0.001)and stronger family support(Hypothesis 2,β=0.32;p<0.001) are linked to lower levels of patient fear.Partially mediating the relationship between nurse attitudes and patient fear,according to Hypothesis 3(β=0.28,p<0.002),is family support.Patients’perceptions of family support are highly influenced by nursing behaviour,as demonstrated by Hypothesis 4(β=0.38;p<0.001).Our research showed a strong relationship between the attitudes of nursing personnel and patient fear levels.Family support demonstrated a strong mediating effect on patient fear.Patient-reported satisfaction is positively correlated with family support.However,no significant relationship was found between healthcare service quality and patient fear.展开更多
For a given triangulation Δ of a region R of interest, let S_8~2(Δ): = {s∈C^2(R): s|_1∈P_8,l∈Δ} be the space of all splines of degree 8 and smoothness 2, where t denotes any triangle of Δ and P_8 the space of ...For a given triangulation Δ of a region R of interest, let S_8~2(Δ): = {s∈C^2(R): s|_1∈P_8,l∈Δ} be the space of all splines of degree 8 and smoothness 2, where t denotes any triangle of Δ and P_8 the space of polynomials of total degree≤8. Furthermore, let S_8~2(Δ):={s∈S_8~3(Δ):s∈C^3 at v, v∈Δ} be a super spline subspace of S_8~2(Δ). We construel a collection of locally supported splines in S_8~2(Δ) which can be used to achieve lhe full approximation order of S_8~2(Δ) and its cardinalily is less than the di- mension of super spline space space S_8~2(Δ).展开更多
Over the past decade,nine separate gene therapy clinical trials for advanced Parkinson’s disease（PD）have been launched and completed,involving the dosing of nearly 12-dozen PD volunteers who incurred significant ri...Over the past decade,nine separate gene therapy clinical trials for advanced Parkinson’s disease（PD）have been launched and completed,involving the dosing of nearly 12-dozen PD volunteers who incurred significant risks to hopefully reduce symptoms and gain a better life.展开更多
This paper examines how advisors perceive the voices made by Mr.A(pseudonym),the founder of after-school support for children(Initiative Z:pseudonym)in Japan,to advisors who support children.Furthermore,the purpose of...This paper examines how advisors perceive the voices made by Mr.A(pseudonym),the founder of after-school support for children(Initiative Z:pseudonym)in Japan,to advisors who support children.Furthermore,the purpose of this study is to find out how advisors think about the voices and that the voices have led or not advisors to support children,if to do so,what points are key to continuing support for children.Therefore,in Initiative Z,I conducted a survey of two advisors who were approached by Mr.A,who is involved in supporting children as an advisor.As a result of analyzing the narratives obtained from interviews with the two advisors,it was found that the advisor had a sense of being recognized by Mr.A because Mr.A acknowledged the advisor’s way of life.This feeling on the part of the advisor led to trust in Mr.A,and the advisor was in tune with Mr.A’s thoughts on after-school support,suggesting that the advisor was providing support to the child.展开更多
Concluding the conformity of XBRL(eXtensible Business Reporting Language)instance documents law to the Benford's law yields different results before and after a company's financial distress.A new idea of apply...Concluding the conformity of XBRL(eXtensible Business Reporting Language)instance documents law to the Benford's law yields different results before and after a company's financial distress.A new idea of applying the machine learning technique to redefine the way conventional auditors work is therefore proposed since the unacceptable conformity implies a large likelihood of a fraudulent document.Fuzzy support vector machines models are developed to implement such an idea.The dependent variable is a fuzzy variable quantifying the conformity of an XBRL instance document to the Benford's law;whereas,independent variables are financial ratios.The interval factor method is introduced to express the fuzziness in input data.It is found the range of a fuzzy support vector machines model is controlled by maximum and minimum dependent and independent variables.Therefore,defining any member function to describe the fuzziness in input data is unnecessary.The results of this study indicate that the price-to-book ratio versus equity ratio is suitable to classify the priority of auditing XBRL instance documents with the less than 30%misclassification rate.In conclusion,the machine learning technique may be used to redefine the way conventional auditors work.This study provides the main evidence of applying a future project of training smart auditors.展开更多
In this paper, the method of relaxed boundary conditions is applied to rectangular plates with edges which are a sort of the mixture of simply supported portions and clamped portions, so that the lower limit of fundam...In this paper, the method of relaxed boundary conditions is applied to rectangular plates with edges which are a sort of the mixture of simply supported portions and clamped portions, so that the lower limit of fundamental frequency of such plates is evaluated. A kind of polynomial satisfying the displacement boundary conditions is designed, os that it is enabled to evaluate the upper limit of fundamental frequency by Ritz' method. The practical calculation examples solved by these methods have given satisfactory results. At the end of this paper, it is pointed out that the socalled exact solution of such plates usually evaluated by the force superposition method is essentially a kind of lower limit of solution, if the truncated error of series which occurs in actual calculation is considered.展开更多
基金The work described in this paper was fully supported by a grant from Hong Kong Metropolitan University(RIF/2021/05).
文摘Parkinson’s disease(PD)is a debilitating neurological disorder affecting over 10 million people worldwide.PD classification models using voice signals as input are common in the literature.It is believed that using deep learning algorithms further enhances performance;nevertheless,it is challenging due to the nature of small-scale and imbalanced PD datasets.This paper proposed a convolutional neural network-based deep support vector machine(CNN-DSVM)to automate the feature extraction process using CNN and extend the conventional SVM to a DSVM for better classification performance in small-scale PD datasets.A customized kernel function reduces the impact of biased classification towards the majority class(healthy candidates in our consideration).An improved generative adversarial network(IGAN)was designed to generate additional training data to enhance the model’s performance.For performance evaluation,the proposed algorithm achieves a sensitivity of 97.6%and a specificity of 97.3%.The performance comparison is evaluated from five perspectives,including comparisons with different data generation algorithms,feature extraction techniques,kernel functions,and existing works.Results reveal the effectiveness of the IGAN algorithm,which improves the sensitivity and specificity by 4.05%–4.72%and 4.96%–5.86%,respectively;and the effectiveness of the CNN-DSVM algorithm,which improves the sensitivity by 1.24%–57.4%and specificity by 1.04%–163%and reduces biased detection towards the majority class.The ablation experiments confirm the effectiveness of individual components.Two future research directions have also been suggested.
文摘Support vector machines and a Kalman-like observer are used for fault detection and isolation in a variable speed horizontalaxis wind turbine composed of three blades and a full converter. The support vector approach is data-based and is therefore robust to process knowledge. It is based on structural risk minimization which enhances generalization even with small training data set and it allows for process nonlinearity by using flexible kernels. In this work, a radial basis function is used as the kernel. Different parts of the process are investigated including actuators and sensors faults. With duplicated sensors, sensor faults in blade pitch positions,generator and rotor speeds can be detected. Faults of type stuck measurements can be detected in 2 sampling periods. The detection time of offset/scaled measurements depends on the severity of the fault and on the process dynamics when the fault occurs. The converter torque actuator fault can be detected within 2 sampling periods. Faults in the actuators of the pitch systems represents a higher difficulty for fault detection which is due to the fact that such faults only affect the transitory state(which is very fast) but not the final stationary state. Therefore, two methods are considered and compared for fault detection and isolation of this fault: support vector machines and a Kalman-like observer. Advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed. On one hand, support vector machines training of transitory states would require a big amount of data in different situations, but the fault detection and isolation results are robust to variations in the input/operating point. On the other hand, the observer is model-based, and therefore does not require training, and it allows identification of the fault level, which is interesting for fault reconfiguration. But the observability of the system is ensured under specific conditions, related to the dynamics of the inputs and outputs. The whole fault detection and isolation scheme is evaluated using a wind turbine benchmark with a real sequence of wind speed.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.51405393)
文摘The elastic support/dry friction damper is a type of damper which is used for active vibration control in a rotor system.To establish the analytical model of this type of damper,a two-dimensional friction model-ball/plate model was proposed.By using this ball/plate model,a dynamics model of rotor with elastic support/dry friction dampers was established and experimentally verified.Moreover,the damping performance of the elastic support/dry friction damper was studied numerically with respect to some variable parameters.The numerical study shows that the damping performance of the elastic support/dry friction damper is closely related to the stiffness distribution of the rotor-support system,the damper location,the pressing force between the moving and stationary disk,the friction coefficient,the tangential contact stiffness of the contact interface,and the stiffness of the stationary disk.In general,the damper should be located on an elastic support which has a large vibration amplitude in order to achieve a better damping performance,and the more vibration energy in this elastic support concentrates,the better performance of the damper will be.The larger the tangential contact stiffness of the contact interface,and the stiffness of the stationary disk are,the better performance of the damper will be.There will be an optimal value of the friction force at which the damper performs best.
基金Supported by the Research Initiation Fund for Returned Students from Overseas,Ministry of Education,No.94001
文摘AIM: To assess the efficacy and safety of TECA type hybrid artificial liver support system (TECA-HALSS) in providing liver function of detoxification, metabolism and physiology by treating the patients with acute liver failure (ALF). METHODS: The porcine liver cells (1-2) x 10(10) were separated from the Chinese small swine and cultured in the bioreactor of TECA-BALSS at 37.0 degrees C and circulated through the outer space of the hollow fiber tubes in BALSS. The six liver failure patients with various degree of hepatic coma were treated by TECA-HALSS and with conventional medicines. The venous plasma of the patients was separated by a plasma separator and treated by charcoal adsorbent or plasma exchange. The plasma circulated through the inner space of the hollow fiber tubes of BALSS and mixed with the patients' blood cells and flew back to their blood circulation. Some small molecular weight substances were exchanged between the plasma and porcine liver cells. Each treatment lasted 6.0-7.0 h. Physiological and biochemical parameters were measured before,during and after the treatment. RESULTS: The average of porcine liver cells was (1.0-3.0) x 10(10) obtained from each swine liver using our modified enzymatic digestion method. The survival rate of the cells was 85%-93% by trypan blue stain and AO/PI fluorescent stain. After cultured in TECA-BALSS bioreactor for 6 h, the survival rate of cells still remained 70%-85%. At the end of TECA-HALSS treatment, the levels of plasma NH(3), ALT, TB and DB were significantly decreased. The patients who were in the state of drowsiness or coma before the treatment improved their appetite significantly and regained consciousness, some patients resumed light physical work on a short period after the treatment.One to two days after the treatment, the ratio of PTA increased warkedly. During the treatment, the heart rates, blood pressure, respiration condition and serum electrolytes (K(+), Na(+) and Cl(-)) were stable without thrombosis and bleeding in all the six patients. CONCLUSION: TECA-HALSS treatment could be a rapid, safe and efficacious method to provide temporary liver support for patients with ALF.
基金the grant of key Clinical Programme of China Ministry Public Health,No.97040230
文摘INTRODUCTIONFulminant hepatic failure(FHF)is a severe disease with devastating consequences;the incidence is high in China.Before the availability of liver transplantation,the mortality rate was more than 80%[1,2].The advent of liver transplantation revolutionized the outcome of FHF[3,4].However,many patients were unwilling to accept liver transplantation until very late,hence most of them died because of donor shortage and urgency of the disease[5-7],To overcome he problems,we performed orthotopic liver transplantation(OLT)in combination with artificial liver support(ALS) in the treatment of FHF in the past 2 years with satisfactory results.Our experience was reported below.
文摘Background: We desired relevant information from patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and their caregivers for help in planning a long-term support program. Methods: We compared 3 ap-proaches: 1) a standard needs assessment questionnaire, the Camberwell assessment of need in the elderly, 2) an open-ended listing of needs, and 3) participation in a narrative medicine program in which health care professionals were involved. Results: On the questionnaire, patients reported physical needs as the most important while their caregivers were more concerned about psychological needs. The open-ended listings revealed additional needs, particularly access to re-liable information about PD and to opportunities to participate in clinical research. The narrative medicine process yielded a number of new insights and proposed solutions, particularly related to the heterogeneity of needs across individuals, the importance of providing hope, and the fact that caregivers expressed that their needs had been largely neglected. Participation in the narrative medicine sessions led to an increase in measured empathy by health care professionals, an im-provement in measured depression among PD patients, but a worsening of measured depression among the caregivers. Conclusions: We have identified important needs and potential solutions to be considered in providing long-term support to patients with PD and their caregivers.
基金National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Schol-ars (50925521)
文摘In order to improve the drift precision of air supported gyroscope, effects of surface roughness magnitude and direction on vortex torque of air supported gyroscope are studied. Based on Christensen’s rough surface stochastic model and consistency transformation method, Reynolds equation of air supported gyroscope containing surface roughness information is established. Also effects of mathematical models of main machining errors on vortex torque are established. By using finite element method, the Reynolds equation is solved numerically and the vortex torque in the presence of machining errors and surface roughness is calculated. The results show that surface roughness of slit has a significant effect on vortex torque. Transverse surface roughness makes vortex torque greater, while longitudinal surface roughness makes vortex torque smaller. The maximal difference approaches 11.4% during the range analyzed in this article. However surface roughness of journal influences vortex torque insignificantly. The research is of great significance for designing and manufacturing air supported gyroscope and predicting its performance.
文摘Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the most common disease of motor system degeneration that occurs when the dopamine-producing cells are damaged in substantia nigra. To detect PD, various signals have been investigated, including EEG, gait and speech. Since approximately 90 percent of the people with PD suffer from speech disorders, speech analysis is considered as the most common technique for this aim. This paper proposes a new algorithm for diagnosing of Parkinson’s disease based on voice analysis. In the first step, genetic algorithm (GA) is undertaken for selecting optimized features from all extracted features. Afterwards a network based on support vector machine (SVM) is used for classification between healthy and people with Parkinson. The dataset of this research is composed of a range of biomedical voice signals from 31 people, 23 with Parkinson’s disease and 8 healthy people. The subjects were asked to pronounce letter “A” for 3 seconds. 22 linear and non-linear features were extracted from the signals that 14 features were based on F0 (fundamental frequency or pitch), jitter, shimmer and noise to harmonics ratio, which are main factors in voice signal. Because changing in these factors is noticeable for the people with PD, optimized features were selected among them. Of the various numbers of optimized features, the data classification was investigated. Results show that the classification accuracy percent of 94.50 per 4 optimized features, the accuracy percent of 93.66 per 7 optimized features and the accuracy percent of 94.22 per 9 optimized features, could be achieved. It can be observed that the best classification accuracy may be achieved using Fhi (Hz), Fho (Hz), jitter (RAP) and shimmer (APQ5).
文摘The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of Japan＇s agricultural domestic policy since 1995 in the context of the current international negotiations in the WTO Doha Round, which has as one aim further reductions of trade-distorting support among member countries. Apparently, Japan＇s attitude towards agricultural domestic policy reform is one of compliance with the WTO, which requests member countries to reduce their Aggregate Measure of Support （AMS） through trimming trade-distorting （amber box） support and/or transforming traditional-type agricultural subsidies to decoupled-type ones. Japan reduced its amber box support by nearly 80 percent between 1995 and 2000. This drastic reduction is mainly attributable to Japan＇s removal of rice from the amber box in 1998. In addition, following the WTO＇s principle of decoupling, Japan launched an extensive agricultural subsidy reform in 2007. This paper, however, shows the ironical realities of Japanese agricultural policy. Neither a sharp reduction of amber box support nor Japan＇s 2007 reform necessarily means there will be a reduction of trade-distorting effects. On the contrary, the 2007 reform may in fact stimulate domestic rice production.
文摘The perception of nursing staff’s attitude influences patient fear.Understanding this dynamic is crucial for fostering a supportive environment conducive to patient well-being and effective healthcare practices.The purpose of this research is to investigate how the attitudes and behaviours of nursing staff influence the fear and anxiety levels of patients recovering from benign tumors,aiming to improve patient care and recovery outcomes.Data was collected from a sample of 100 participants,comprising 20 nursing staff and 80 patients recovering from benign tumors.Surveys were administered to gather quantitative data on attitudes and fear levels.Participants were selected randomly from hospital records and outpatient clinics.Our analysis encompassed nursing staff attitude,patient fear levels,the influence of family support,progression of tumor recovery,patient-reported satisfaction,and the quality of healthcare services provided.The quantitative aspect utilized PLS-SEM software to perform regression analysis,evaluating both direct and indirect effects.Statistical analysis assessed the relationships between nursing staff attitudes,patient fear during benign tumor recovery,and the mediating role of family support.The findings of the study demonstrate that better nurse attitudes(Hypothesis 1,β=0.45,p<0.001)and stronger family support(Hypothesis 2,β=0.32;p<0.001) are linked to lower levels of patient fear.Partially mediating the relationship between nurse attitudes and patient fear,according to Hypothesis 3(β=0.28,p<0.002),is family support.Patients’perceptions of family support are highly influenced by nursing behaviour,as demonstrated by Hypothesis 4(β=0.38;p<0.001).Our research showed a strong relationship between the attitudes of nursing personnel and patient fear levels.Family support demonstrated a strong mediating effect on patient fear.Patient-reported satisfaction is positively correlated with family support.However,no significant relationship was found between healthcare service quality and patient fear.
文摘For a given triangulation Δ of a region R of interest, let S_8~2(Δ): = {s∈C^2(R): s|_1∈P_8,l∈Δ} be the space of all splines of degree 8 and smoothness 2, where t denotes any triangle of Δ and P_8 the space of polynomials of total degree≤8. Furthermore, let S_8~2(Δ):={s∈S_8~3(Δ):s∈C^3 at v, v∈Δ} be a super spline subspace of S_8~2(Δ). We construel a collection of locally supported splines in S_8~2(Δ) which can be used to achieve lhe full approximation order of S_8~2(Δ) and its cardinalily is less than the di- mension of super spline space space S_8~2(Δ).
文摘Over the past decade,nine separate gene therapy clinical trials for advanced Parkinson’s disease（PD）have been launched and completed,involving the dosing of nearly 12-dozen PD volunteers who incurred significant risks to hopefully reduce symptoms and gain a better life.
基金This research is a revised version of the free research presentation at the 42nd Annual Conference of the Japan Society for Lifelong Education,“Prospects for the Role of Advisors in After-School Support for Children”.We would like to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who cooperated with this research.
文摘This paper examines how advisors perceive the voices made by Mr.A(pseudonym),the founder of after-school support for children(Initiative Z:pseudonym)in Japan,to advisors who support children.Furthermore,the purpose of this study is to find out how advisors think about the voices and that the voices have led or not advisors to support children,if to do so,what points are key to continuing support for children.Therefore,in Initiative Z,I conducted a survey of two advisors who were approached by Mr.A,who is involved in supporting children as an advisor.As a result of analyzing the narratives obtained from interviews with the two advisors,it was found that the advisor had a sense of being recognized by Mr.A because Mr.A acknowledged the advisor’s way of life.This feeling on the part of the advisor led to trust in Mr.A,and the advisor was in tune with Mr.A’s thoughts on after-school support,suggesting that the advisor was providing support to the child.
文摘Concluding the conformity of XBRL(eXtensible Business Reporting Language)instance documents law to the Benford's law yields different results before and after a company's financial distress.A new idea of applying the machine learning technique to redefine the way conventional auditors work is therefore proposed since the unacceptable conformity implies a large likelihood of a fraudulent document.Fuzzy support vector machines models are developed to implement such an idea.The dependent variable is a fuzzy variable quantifying the conformity of an XBRL instance document to the Benford's law;whereas,independent variables are financial ratios.The interval factor method is introduced to express the fuzziness in input data.It is found the range of a fuzzy support vector machines model is controlled by maximum and minimum dependent and independent variables.Therefore,defining any member function to describe the fuzziness in input data is unnecessary.The results of this study indicate that the price-to-book ratio versus equity ratio is suitable to classify the priority of auditing XBRL instance documents with the less than 30%misclassification rate.In conclusion,the machine learning technique may be used to redefine the way conventional auditors work.This study provides the main evidence of applying a future project of training smart auditors.
文摘In this paper, the method of relaxed boundary conditions is applied to rectangular plates with edges which are a sort of the mixture of simply supported portions and clamped portions, so that the lower limit of fundamental frequency of such plates is evaluated. A kind of polynomial satisfying the displacement boundary conditions is designed, os that it is enabled to evaluate the upper limit of fundamental frequency by Ritz' method. The practical calculation examples solved by these methods have given satisfactory results. At the end of this paper, it is pointed out that the socalled exact solution of such plates usually evaluated by the force superposition method is essentially a kind of lower limit of solution, if the truncated error of series which occurs in actual calculation is considered.
