AIM: To assess the characteristics and quality of endoscopic ultrasonography-guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) in a large panel of endosonographers.METHODS: A survey was conducted during the 13th annual live...AIM: To assess the characteristics and quality of endoscopic ultrasonography-guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) in a large panel of endosonographers.METHODS: A survey was conducted during the 13th annual live course of endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) held in Amsterdam, Netherlands. A 2-page question- naire was developed for the study. Content validity of the questionnaire was determined based on input by experts in the field and a review of the relevant literature. It contained 30 questions that pertained to demographics and the current practice for EUS-FNA of responders, including sampling technique, sample processing, cytopathological diagnosis and sensitivity of EUS-FNA for the diagnosis of solid mass lesions. One hundred and sixty-one endosonographers whoattended the course were asked to answer the survey. This allowed assessing the current practice of EUS-FNA as well as the self-reported sensitivity of EUS-FNA for the diagnosis of solid mass lesions. We also examined which factors were associated with a self-reported sensitivity of EUS-FNA for the diagnosis of solid mass lesions 〉 80%.RESULTS: Completed surveys were collected from 92 (57.1%) of 161 endosonographers who attended the conference. The endosonographers had been practio ing endoscopy and EUS for 22.5 4. 7.8 years and 4.8 4- 4.1 years, respectively; one third of them worked in a hospital with an annual caseload 〉 100 EUS-FNA. Endoscopy practices were located in 29 countries, in- cluding 13 countries in Western Europe that totaled 75.3% of the responses. Only one third of endosonog raphers reported a sensitivity for the diagnosis of solid mass lesions 〉 80% (interquartile range of sensitivities, 25.0%-75.0%). Factors independently associated with a sensitivity 〉 80% were (1) 〉 7 needle passes for pancreatic lesions or rapid on-site cytopathological evaluation (ROSE) (P 〈 0.0001), (2) a high annual hospital caseload (P = 0.024) and (3) routine isolation of microcores from EUS-FNA samples (P = 0.042). ROSE was routinely available to 27.9% of respondents. For lymph nodes and pancreatic masses, a maximum of three needle passes was performed by approximately two thirds of those who did not have ROSE. Microcores were routinely harvested from EUS-FNA samples by approximately one third (37.2%) of survey respondents.CONCLUSION: EUS-FNA sensitivity was considerably lower than reported in the literature. Low EUS-FNA sensitivity was associated with unavailability of ROSE, few needle passes, absence of microcore isolation and low hospital caseload.展开更多
Existing papers on human capital and growth in China has been using single equation estimations. This might cause a simultaneity bias if a two-way causality between the two variables exists. In this paper, the author ...Existing papers on human capital and growth in China has been using single equation estimations. This might cause a simultaneity bias if a two-way causality between the two variables exists. In this paper, the author performs vector autoregressive estimations using panel data on the number of graduates at each level of education as a proxy for human capital in China during 1991-2005. The results show that investment in human capital increases output per worker at all three levels of education. Regarding the effects of output per worker on the accumulation of human capital, the author finds mixed results with the primary-school graduates' benefits the most from increases in per capita output.展开更多
Marriage is one of the valued institutions in the traditional African society. Incidentally, it has its own challenges. When a young man or woman gets to a certain age and he/she is not married, society frowns at it. ...Marriage is one of the valued institutions in the traditional African society. Incidentally, it has its own challenges. When a young man or woman gets to a certain age and he/she is not married, society frowns at it. Thus, many couples enter into marriage relationships with a lot of excitements and expectations. However, losing one's spouse to death robs one of all these excitements and expectations and exposes the bereaved spouse to some dehumanizing challenges. These challenges are mostly experienced by women in the Eastern Region of Nigeria. These women are subjected to dehumanizing practices which are socially accepted in the region. This paper attempts a comparative study of some of the practices imposed on widows in Eastern Nigeria. A sample of 200 participants was purposively selected from two states in the Eastern Region of Nigeria. The study adopted the qualitative research method. Thus, the analysis was made using descriptive method. The study showed that these inhuman traditional practices in Eastern Nigeria are initiated and perpetrated by the kinsmen (Umunna and Umuada). It also showed that the widowhood treatment is meted out on all widows, but the severity or less severity of these treatments are dependent on the socio-economic and other attributes of the widow. Finally, recommendations were made, which include the need to protect the fundamental rights of widows and their children.展开更多
Taking into account that fuzzy ontology mapping has wide application and cannot be dealt with in many fields at present,a Chinese fuzzy ontology model and a method for Chinese fuzzy ontology mapping are proposed.The m...Taking into account that fuzzy ontology mapping has wide application and cannot be dealt with in many fields at present,a Chinese fuzzy ontology model and a method for Chinese fuzzy ontology mapping are proposed.The mapping discovery between two ontologies is achieved by computing the similarity between the concepts of two ontologies.Every concept consists of four features of concept name,property,instance and structure.First,the algorithms of calculating four individual similarities corresponding to the four features are given.Secondly,the similarity vectors consisting of four weighted individual similarities are built,and the weights are the linear function of harmony and reliability.The similarity vector is used to represent the similarity relation between two concepts which belong to different fuzzy ontolgoies.Lastly,Support Vector Machine(SVM) is used to get the mapping concept pairs by the similarity vectors.Experiment results are satisfactory.展开更多
Extended cognition is the thesis that vehicles realizing cognitive systems can possibly extend beyond traditional boundaries of brain, skin, or skull. It is a popular thesis because of its counterintuitive consequence...Extended cognition is the thesis that vehicles realizing cognitive systems can possibly extend beyond traditional boundaries of brain, skin, or skull. It is a popular thesis because of its counterintuitive consequence that coupled systems of vehicles of very different entities could form a realizer of one cognitive systems. Popular examples consist of human-handy-systems or human-notebook-systems, and it is a thesis that could non-dogmatically decide what individuates the realizers of cognitive systems. But the thesis is in need for individuation-criteria: How could we individuate a coupled system of different systems of vehicles? We inspect some of the usually handled candidates for individuation-criteria and argue that in principal there will be no successful candidate due to methodological problems. We aim to show this by using a cookbook theory of extended cognition and add different types of candidates. No candidate is non-arbitrary or non-intrinsic, which leads the proponent to the forced selection between arbitrary or intrinsic candidates. We argue that without criteria, the talk about extended cognition is a bottomless pit that should only serve as an example for bottomless theory-building.展开更多
This paper investigates company characteristics associated with the adoption and maintenance of executive stock option plan (ESOP) proxied with the proportion of stock options. In order to develop and inform public ...This paper investigates company characteristics associated with the adoption and maintenance of executive stock option plan (ESOP) proxied with the proportion of stock options. In order to develop and inform public policies of executive stock options, it is important to understand some of the factors that will drive a company's decision in order to adopt an ESOP. First, an analysis evaluates what kind of company's characteristics is associated with these plans. Second, an analysis examines the company characteristics that predict the adoption of such plans. This paper contributes to that stream of accounting research by identifying several factors to the adoption of ESOP. The study finds that intellectual capital (consisting of human capital efficiency (HCE), structural capital efficiency (SCE), and capital employed efficiency (CEE)), risk, and financial constraints (FC) affect the adoption and maintenance of stock option plans, these conditions will be increasingly supported in companies that experience relatively rapid growth. HCE, risk, and FC are significant predictors of the adoption and maintenance of ESOP. The companies who have some difficulties in observing human capital's behavior are more likely to adopt executive stock options, and based on our theoretical review, this is a rational course of action. Firms with higher levels of business risks are less likely to shift some of the risks to employees through stock-based compensation, whereas firms with higher variability in total shareholder returns are more likely to adopt executive stock options. Overall, our results suggest that higher monitoring costs prompt firms to adopt and maintain ESOP.展开更多
Collapse-type shrinkage is one of highly refractory drying defects inlow-medium density plantation-grown eucalypt wood used as solid wood products. Basic density (BD),microfibril angle (MFA), double fibre cell wall th...Collapse-type shrinkage is one of highly refractory drying defects inlow-medium density plantation-grown eucalypt wood used as solid wood products. Basic density (BD),microfibril angle (MFA), double fibre cell wall thickness (DWT), proportion of ray parenchyma (RP),unit cell wall shrinkage, total shrinkage and residual collapse, which are associated withcollapse-type shrinkage characteristics, were investigated by using simple regression method forthree species of collapse-susceptible Eucalyptus urophyll,, E. grandis and E. urophyllaxE.grandis,planted at Dong-Men Forest Farm in Guangxi autonomous region, China. The results indicated that:unit cell wall shrinkage had a extremely strong positive correlation with BD, moderately strongpositive correlation with DWT, and a weakly or moderately negative correlation with RP and MFA;total shrinkage was positively correlated with BD, DWT and RP and negatively related to MFA, but notable to be predicted ideally by any examined factors alone owing to lower R^2 value (R^2≤0.5712);residual collapse was negatively correlated with BD and DWT, linearly positively correlated withMFA, and had strongly positive linear correlation with RP. It is concluded that BD can be used assingle factor (R^2≥ 0.9412) to predicate unit cell wall shrinkage and RP is the relatively soundindicator for predicting residual collapse展开更多
The ideological and political education in vocational colleges has "employment oriented", "practicability" and "practicalness" and other features, while facing the practical difficulties that the cultural spirit...The ideological and political education in vocational colleges has "employment oriented", "practicability" and "practicalness" and other features, while facing the practical difficulties that the cultural spirit is insufficient, the specialization of the teachers is not strong, and the students lack their own active participation and so on. The higher vocational colleges must deepen the concepts of running higher vocational education, strengthen the construction of the team of the ideological and political theory education, pay more attention to the combination of the ideological and political education with the practice, cultivate the people-oriented model of the ideological and political education, and improve the effectiveness of the ideological and political education.展开更多
To establish a database of muscle strength of the Chinese people. The study sampled data of 843 Chinese young males all over the country. Back force, hand twisting force and arm force of four different exerting direct...To establish a database of muscle strength of the Chinese people. The study sampled data of 843 Chinese young males all over the country. Back force, hand twisting force and arm force of four different exerting directions (pull, push, adduction and abduction) were measured. Comparisons are made between the results of this study and those from other documents. Different types strength were also compared. The factors of stature and weight influenced on muscle force were analyzed. There are obvious differences of arm strength in four directions and it can be ordered as push, pull, adduction and abduction, the push force is the largest and the abduction force is the least. The significant correlation exists between different types force. Weight has an obvious influence on one's force among above three factors. The database of Chinese young males is established for the first time. Results of the study can provide help for ergonomist, the worker of occupation health and the researcher of rehabilitation.展开更多
In the paper, we investigate the stability of a two-sector economic growth model under stochastic case. A two-dimensional stochastic differential system is deduced by Ito's formula, by using Lyapunov function methods...In the paper, we investigate the stability of a two-sector economic growth model under stochastic case. A two-dimensional stochastic differential system is deduced by Ito's formula, by using Lyapunov function methods, whether the growth rates of physical capital and human capital are exponentially stable or unstable depends on the values for parameters. Finally, we also illustrate the results with two examples.展开更多
The ability to employ the language as a communicational tool often serves as a measure of one's speaking success in the language learning class. This research sought to investigate the effect of learners' autonomous...The ability to employ the language as a communicational tool often serves as a measure of one's speaking success in the language learning class. This research sought to investigate the effect of learners' autonomous textbook selection on the speaking ability of Iranian English as foreign language (EFL) learners. Moreover, finding and analyzing factors considered by the learners in selecting the textbooks were another aim of this research. Sixty Iranian intermediate EFL learners from the Simin Language Institute in Ramsar, Mazandaran, Iran, were selected as the participants of the study based on their scores on Oxford Placement Test. This test determines the level of the students' English proficiency. These participants were randomly assigned into the control and experimental groups. An interview procedure was run as their pretest. The experimental group studied from their selected books, besides the researcher's teaching in the class. After 16 sessions, a posttest, the same as the pretest, was run as well. The quantitative results indicated the superior performance of the experimental group over the control group. Furthermore, an analysis of the Litz's (2000) questionnaire shows that learners considered criteria such as practical considerations, layout and design, activities, skills, language type, subject and content of the selected books.展开更多
This paper presents the analysis of exponential stability of a system consisting of a robot and its associated safety mechanism. The system have various modes of failures and is repairable. The paper investigates the ...This paper presents the analysis of exponential stability of a system consisting of a robot and its associated safety mechanism. The system have various modes of failures and is repairable. The paper investigates the nonnegative stead-state solution of system,the existence of strictly dominant eigenvalue and restriction of essential spectrum growth bound of the system operator. The essential spectral radius of the system operator is also discussed before and after perturbation. The results show that the dynamic solution of the system is exponential stab'flity and converges to the steady-state solution.展开更多
文摘AIM: To assess the characteristics and quality of endoscopic ultrasonography-guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) in a large panel of endosonographers.METHODS: A survey was conducted during the 13th annual live course of endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) held in Amsterdam, Netherlands. A 2-page question- naire was developed for the study. Content validity of the questionnaire was determined based on input by experts in the field and a review of the relevant literature. It contained 30 questions that pertained to demographics and the current practice for EUS-FNA of responders, including sampling technique, sample processing, cytopathological diagnosis and sensitivity of EUS-FNA for the diagnosis of solid mass lesions. One hundred and sixty-one endosonographers whoattended the course were asked to answer the survey. This allowed assessing the current practice of EUS-FNA as well as the self-reported sensitivity of EUS-FNA for the diagnosis of solid mass lesions. We also examined which factors were associated with a self-reported sensitivity of EUS-FNA for the diagnosis of solid mass lesions 〉 80%.RESULTS: Completed surveys were collected from 92 (57.1%) of 161 endosonographers who attended the conference. The endosonographers had been practio ing endoscopy and EUS for 22.5 4. 7.8 years and 4.8 4- 4.1 years, respectively; one third of them worked in a hospital with an annual caseload 〉 100 EUS-FNA. Endoscopy practices were located in 29 countries, in- cluding 13 countries in Western Europe that totaled 75.3% of the responses. Only one third of endosonog raphers reported a sensitivity for the diagnosis of solid mass lesions 〉 80% (interquartile range of sensitivities, 25.0%-75.0%). Factors independently associated with a sensitivity 〉 80% were (1) 〉 7 needle passes for pancreatic lesions or rapid on-site cytopathological evaluation (ROSE) (P 〈 0.0001), (2) a high annual hospital caseload (P = 0.024) and (3) routine isolation of microcores from EUS-FNA samples (P = 0.042). ROSE was routinely available to 27.9% of respondents. For lymph nodes and pancreatic masses, a maximum of three needle passes was performed by approximately two thirds of those who did not have ROSE. Microcores were routinely harvested from EUS-FNA samples by approximately one third (37.2%) of survey respondents.CONCLUSION: EUS-FNA sensitivity was considerably lower than reported in the literature. Low EUS-FNA sensitivity was associated with unavailability of ROSE, few needle passes, absence of microcore isolation and low hospital caseload.
文摘Existing papers on human capital and growth in China has been using single equation estimations. This might cause a simultaneity bias if a two-way causality between the two variables exists. In this paper, the author performs vector autoregressive estimations using panel data on the number of graduates at each level of education as a proxy for human capital in China during 1991-2005. The results show that investment in human capital increases output per worker at all three levels of education. Regarding the effects of output per worker on the accumulation of human capital, the author finds mixed results with the primary-school graduates' benefits the most from increases in per capita output.
文摘Marriage is one of the valued institutions in the traditional African society. Incidentally, it has its own challenges. When a young man or woman gets to a certain age and he/she is not married, society frowns at it. Thus, many couples enter into marriage relationships with a lot of excitements and expectations. However, losing one's spouse to death robs one of all these excitements and expectations and exposes the bereaved spouse to some dehumanizing challenges. These challenges are mostly experienced by women in the Eastern Region of Nigeria. These women are subjected to dehumanizing practices which are socially accepted in the region. This paper attempts a comparative study of some of the practices imposed on widows in Eastern Nigeria. A sample of 200 participants was purposively selected from two states in the Eastern Region of Nigeria. The study adopted the qualitative research method. Thus, the analysis was made using descriptive method. The study showed that these inhuman traditional practices in Eastern Nigeria are initiated and perpetrated by the kinsmen (Umunna and Umuada). It also showed that the widowhood treatment is meted out on all widows, but the severity or less severity of these treatments are dependent on the socio-economic and other attributes of the widow. Finally, recommendations were made, which include the need to protect the fundamental rights of widows and their children.
基金supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing City under Grant No.4123094the Science and Technology Project of Beijing Municipal Commission of Education under Grants No.KM201110028020,No.KM201010028019+1 种基金the National Nature Science Foundation under Grants No.61100205,No.60873001,No.60863011,No.61175068the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant No.2009RC0212
文摘Taking into account that fuzzy ontology mapping has wide application and cannot be dealt with in many fields at present,a Chinese fuzzy ontology model and a method for Chinese fuzzy ontology mapping are proposed.The mapping discovery between two ontologies is achieved by computing the similarity between the concepts of two ontologies.Every concept consists of four features of concept name,property,instance and structure.First,the algorithms of calculating four individual similarities corresponding to the four features are given.Secondly,the similarity vectors consisting of four weighted individual similarities are built,and the weights are the linear function of harmony and reliability.The similarity vector is used to represent the similarity relation between two concepts which belong to different fuzzy ontolgoies.Lastly,Support Vector Machine(SVM) is used to get the mapping concept pairs by the similarity vectors.Experiment results are satisfactory.
文摘Extended cognition is the thesis that vehicles realizing cognitive systems can possibly extend beyond traditional boundaries of brain, skin, or skull. It is a popular thesis because of its counterintuitive consequence that coupled systems of vehicles of very different entities could form a realizer of one cognitive systems. Popular examples consist of human-handy-systems or human-notebook-systems, and it is a thesis that could non-dogmatically decide what individuates the realizers of cognitive systems. But the thesis is in need for individuation-criteria: How could we individuate a coupled system of different systems of vehicles? We inspect some of the usually handled candidates for individuation-criteria and argue that in principal there will be no successful candidate due to methodological problems. We aim to show this by using a cookbook theory of extended cognition and add different types of candidates. No candidate is non-arbitrary or non-intrinsic, which leads the proponent to the forced selection between arbitrary or intrinsic candidates. We argue that without criteria, the talk about extended cognition is a bottomless pit that should only serve as an example for bottomless theory-building.
文摘This paper investigates company characteristics associated with the adoption and maintenance of executive stock option plan (ESOP) proxied with the proportion of stock options. In order to develop and inform public policies of executive stock options, it is important to understand some of the factors that will drive a company's decision in order to adopt an ESOP. First, an analysis evaluates what kind of company's characteristics is associated with these plans. Second, an analysis examines the company characteristics that predict the adoption of such plans. This paper contributes to that stream of accounting research by identifying several factors to the adoption of ESOP. The study finds that intellectual capital (consisting of human capital efficiency (HCE), structural capital efficiency (SCE), and capital employed efficiency (CEE)), risk, and financial constraints (FC) affect the adoption and maintenance of stock option plans, these conditions will be increasingly supported in companies that experience relatively rapid growth. HCE, risk, and FC are significant predictors of the adoption and maintenance of ESOP. The companies who have some difficulties in observing human capital's behavior are more likely to adopt executive stock options, and based on our theoretical review, this is a rational course of action. Firms with higher levels of business risks are less likely to shift some of the risks to employees through stock-based compensation, whereas firms with higher variability in total shareholder returns are more likely to adopt executive stock options. Overall, our results suggest that higher monitoring costs prompt firms to adopt and maintain ESOP.
基金This work was supported by both the project ( No. 30170754)from Chinese National Natural Science Fund and the national significant fundamental research 'Ascending Plan' program (No.95- 07) authorized by Ministry of Science and Technology, China. And was partly presented at the 54th Annual Meeting of the Japan Wood Research Society in Hokkaido, Japan and at the 7th Pacific Rim Bio-based Composites Symposium in Nanjing, P. R. China.
文摘Collapse-type shrinkage is one of highly refractory drying defects inlow-medium density plantation-grown eucalypt wood used as solid wood products. Basic density (BD),microfibril angle (MFA), double fibre cell wall thickness (DWT), proportion of ray parenchyma (RP),unit cell wall shrinkage, total shrinkage and residual collapse, which are associated withcollapse-type shrinkage characteristics, were investigated by using simple regression method forthree species of collapse-susceptible Eucalyptus urophyll,, E. grandis and E. urophyllaxE.grandis,planted at Dong-Men Forest Farm in Guangxi autonomous region, China. The results indicated that:unit cell wall shrinkage had a extremely strong positive correlation with BD, moderately strongpositive correlation with DWT, and a weakly or moderately negative correlation with RP and MFA;total shrinkage was positively correlated with BD, DWT and RP and negatively related to MFA, but notable to be predicted ideally by any examined factors alone owing to lower R^2 value (R^2≤0.5712);residual collapse was negatively correlated with BD and DWT, linearly positively correlated withMFA, and had strongly positive linear correlation with RP. It is concluded that BD can be used assingle factor (R^2≥ 0.9412) to predicate unit cell wall shrinkage and RP is the relatively soundindicator for predicting residual collapse
文摘The ideological and political education in vocational colleges has "employment oriented", "practicability" and "practicalness" and other features, while facing the practical difficulties that the cultural spirit is insufficient, the specialization of the teachers is not strong, and the students lack their own active participation and so on. The higher vocational colleges must deepen the concepts of running higher vocational education, strengthen the construction of the team of the ideological and political theory education, pay more attention to the combination of the ideological and political education with the practice, cultivate the people-oriented model of the ideological and political education, and improve the effectiveness of the ideological and political education.
基金Natural Science Foundation of China grant number: 31170895,11072021
文摘To establish a database of muscle strength of the Chinese people. The study sampled data of 843 Chinese young males all over the country. Back force, hand twisting force and arm force of four different exerting directions (pull, push, adduction and abduction) were measured. Comparisons are made between the results of this study and those from other documents. Different types strength were also compared. The factors of stature and weight influenced on muscle force were analyzed. There are obvious differences of arm strength in four directions and it can be ordered as push, pull, adduction and abduction, the push force is the largest and the abduction force is the least. The significant correlation exists between different types force. Weight has an obvious influence on one's force among above three factors. The database of Chinese young males is established for the first time. Results of the study can provide help for ergonomist, the worker of occupation health and the researcher of rehabilitation.
基金The research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 70671047.
文摘In the paper, we investigate the stability of a two-sector economic growth model under stochastic case. A two-dimensional stochastic differential system is deduced by Ito's formula, by using Lyapunov function methods, whether the growth rates of physical capital and human capital are exponentially stable or unstable depends on the values for parameters. Finally, we also illustrate the results with two examples.
文摘The ability to employ the language as a communicational tool often serves as a measure of one's speaking success in the language learning class. This research sought to investigate the effect of learners' autonomous textbook selection on the speaking ability of Iranian English as foreign language (EFL) learners. Moreover, finding and analyzing factors considered by the learners in selecting the textbooks were another aim of this research. Sixty Iranian intermediate EFL learners from the Simin Language Institute in Ramsar, Mazandaran, Iran, were selected as the participants of the study based on their scores on Oxford Placement Test. This test determines the level of the students' English proficiency. These participants were randomly assigned into the control and experimental groups. An interview procedure was run as their pretest. The experimental group studied from their selected books, besides the researcher's teaching in the class. After 16 sessions, a posttest, the same as the pretest, was run as well. The quantitative results indicated the superior performance of the experimental group over the control group. Furthermore, an analysis of the Litz's (2000) questionnaire shows that learners considered criteria such as practical considerations, layout and design, activities, skills, language type, subject and content of the selected books.
文摘This paper presents the analysis of exponential stability of a system consisting of a robot and its associated safety mechanism. The system have various modes of failures and is repairable. The paper investigates the nonnegative stead-state solution of system,the existence of strictly dominant eigenvalue and restriction of essential spectrum growth bound of the system operator. The essential spectral radius of the system operator is also discussed before and after perturbation. The results show that the dynamic solution of the system is exponential stab'flity and converges to the steady-state solution.