AIM: To investigate whether the use of statins is associated with colorectal cancer risk. METHODS: We conducted a population-based case-control study in Taiwan. Data were retrospectively collected from the Taiwan Nati...AIM: To investigate whether the use of statins is associated with colorectal cancer risk. METHODS: We conducted a population-based case-control study in Taiwan. Data were retrospectively collected from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. Cases consisted of all patients who were aged 50 years and older and had a first-time diagnosis of colorectal cancer between the period 2005 and 2008. The controls were matched to cases by age, sex, and index date. Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using multiple logistic regression. RESULTS: We examined 1156 colorectal cancer cases and 4624 controls. The unadjusted ORs for any statin prescription was 1.10 (95% CI = 0.94-1.30) and the adjusted OR was 1.09 (95% CI = 0.91-1.30). When statin use was categorized by cumulative dose, the adjusted ORs were 0.99 (95% CI = 0.78-1.27) for the group with cumulative statin use below 105 defined daily doses (DDDs); 1.07 (95% CI = 0.78-1.49) for the group with cumulative statin use between 106 and 298.66 DDDs; and 1.30 (95% CI = 0.96-1.75) for the group with cumulative statin use of 298.66 DDDs or more compared with nonusers. CONCLUSION: This study does not provide support for a protective effect of statins against colorectal cancer.展开更多
To assess the relationship between serum levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF1)/IGF-binding protein-3 (IGFBP3) and the risk of esophageal carcinoma.METHODSWe assessed the relationship between the serum levels o...To assess the relationship between serum levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF1)/IGF-binding protein-3 (IGFBP3) and the risk of esophageal carcinoma.METHODSWe assessed the relationship between the serum levels of these molecules and the risk of esophageal cancer in a prospective, nested case-control study of participants from the Japan Collaborative Cohort Study. A baseline survey was conducted from 1988 to 1990. Of the 110585 enrolled participants, 35% donated blood samples. Those who had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer were considered cases for nested case-control studies. A conditional logistic model was used to estimate odds ratios for the incidence of esophageal cancer associated with serum IGF1 and IGFBP3 levels.RESULTSThirty-one cases and 86 controls were eligible for the present assessment. The molar ratio of IGF1/IGFBP3, which represents the free and active form of IGF1, was not correlated with the risk of esophageal carcinoma. A higher molar difference between IGFBP3 and IGF1, which estimates the free form of IGFBP3, was associated with a decreased risk of esophageal carcinoma (P = 0.0146), and people in the highest tertile had the lowest risk (OR = 0.107, 95%CI: 0.017-0.669). After adjustment for body mass index, tobacco use, and alcohol intake, the molar difference of IGFBP3-IGF1 was inversely correlated with the risk of esophageal carcinoma (P = 0.0150).CONCLUSIONThe free form of IGFBP3, which is estimated by this molar difference, may be inversely associated with esophageal cancer incidence.展开更多
Border areas have provided significant new research questions as well as fruitful insights and hypotheses. The cognitive and neuropsychologic study of translation process is a good example of this kind. This paper has...Border areas have provided significant new research questions as well as fruitful insights and hypotheses. The cognitive and neuropsychologic study of translation process is a good example of this kind. This paper has surveyed various researches on translation process. Studies related to "the black box of translation" are divided into two categories, i.e., studies adopting think-aloud protocols, and studies from the physiology and neuroscientific perspectives. It has been noted that those studies on translation process have made some progress in the past years Firstly, the participants have undergone a change from language learners to professional translators or interpreters Secondly, the purposes of the studies have a tendency of gradually becoming specific. Thirdly, more rigorous methodologies have been developed, with more and more new technological approaches being applied展开更多
Despite its role in literature, especially in poetics, sound symbolism does not traditionally enjoy a high esteem in linguistics. Ever since the scientific study of language was revolutionized by the Swiss structurali...Despite its role in literature, especially in poetics, sound symbolism does not traditionally enjoy a high esteem in linguistics. Ever since the scientific study of language was revolutionized by the Swiss structuralist pioneer Ferdinand de Saussure, sound symbolism tended to be restricted to some peripheral linguistic phenomena. The present essay is an interpretation of first-hand texts. It explores the development of the linguistic idea of sound symbolism scattered in the both linguistic and non-linguistic texts published in German, French, English and other languages. These texts are found to suggest that Saussure was not the only scholar interested in this sound-sense relationship in his age, nor was his idea of arbitrariness the final word on it. The author concludes that a study on the history of sound symbolism has to be accomplished with a trans-disciplinary perspective and the support of multi-lingual texts.展开更多
This paper reviews recent studies in understanding neural-network representations and learning neural networks with interpretable/disentangled middle-layer representations.Although deep neural networks have exhibited ...This paper reviews recent studies in understanding neural-network representations and learning neural networks with interpretable/disentangled middle-layer representations.Although deep neural networks have exhibited superior performance in various tasks,interpretability is always Achilles' heel of deep neural networks.At present,deep neural networks obtain high discrimination power at the cost of a low interpretability of their black-box representations.We believe that high model interpretability may help people break several bottlenecks of deep learning,e.g.,learning from a few annotations,learning via human–computer communications at the semantic level,and semantically debugging network representations.We focus on convolutional neural networks(CNNs),and revisit the visualization of CNN representations,methods of diagnosing representations of pre-trained CNNs,approaches for disentangling pre-trained CNN representations,learning of CNNs with disentangled representations,and middle-to-end learning based on model interpretability.Finally,we discuss prospective trends in explainable artificial intelligence.展开更多
Demodex has been considered to be related with multiple skin disorders,but controversy persists.In this case-control study,a survey was conducted with 860 dermatosis patients aged 12 to 84 years in Xi'an,China to ...Demodex has been considered to be related with multiple skin disorders,but controversy persists.In this case-control study,a survey was conducted with 860 dermatosis patients aged 12 to 84 years in Xi'an,China to identify the association between facial dermatosis and Demodex.Amongst the patients,539 suffered from facial dermatosis and 321 suffered from non-facial dermatosis.Demodex mites were sampled and examined using the skin pressurization method.Multivariate regression analysis was applied to analyze the association between facial dermatosis and Demodex infestation,and to identify the risk factors of Demodex infestation.The results showed that total detection rate of Demodex was 43.0%.Patients aged above 30 years had higher odds of Demodex infestation than those under 30 years.Compared to patients with neutral skin,patients with mixed,oily,or dry skin were more likely to be infested with Demodex(odds ratios(ORs) were 2.5,2.4,and 1.6,respectively).Moreover,Demodex infestation was found to be statistically associated with rosacea(OR=8.1),steroid-induced dermatitis(OR=2.7),seborrheic dermatitis(OR=2.2),and primary irritation dermatitis(OR=2.1).In particular,ORs calculated from the severe infestation(≥5 mites/cm2) rate were significantly higher than those of the total rate.Therefore,we concluded that Demodex is associated with rosacea,steroid-induced dermatitis,seborrheic dermatitis,and primary irritation dermatitis.The rate of severe infestation is found to be more correlated with various dermatosis than the total infestation rate.The risk factors of Demodex infestation,age,and skin types were identified.Our study also suggested that good hygiene practice might reduce the chances of demodicosis and Demodex infestation.展开更多
Until now, etiology of acne vulgaris is still uncertain. Although clinicians usually deny the association between Demodex infestation and acne vulgaris, it has been proved in some clinical practices. To confirm the as...Until now, etiology of acne vulgaris is still uncertain. Although clinicians usually deny the association between Demodex infestation and acne vulgaris, it has been proved in some clinical practices. To confirm the association between Demodex infestation and acne vulgaris, a meta-analysis was conducted. Predefined selection criteria were applied to search all published papers that analyzed the association between Demodex infestation and acne vulgaris (January 1950 to August 2011) in ISI Web of Knowledge, MEDLINE, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases. A meta-analysis was performed to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) based on fixed effects models or random effects models. We enrolled the 60 Chinese and 3 English papers in this meta-analysis, which covered Turkey and 25 different provinces/municipalities in China and 42 130 participants in-cluding students and residents, aged from 1 to 78 years. The pooled OR in random effects models is 2.80 (95% CI, 2.34-3.36). Stability is robust according to sensitivity analysis. The fail-safe number is 18 477, suggesting that at least 18 477 articles with negative conclusions would be needed to reverse the conclusion that acne vulgaris was related to Demodex infestation. So the effect of publication bias was insignificant and could be ignored. It was concluded that acne vulgaris is associated with Demodex infestation. This indicates that when regular treatments for acne vulgaris are ineffective, examination of Demodex mites and necessary acaricidal therapies should be considered.展开更多
The authors define strongly Gauduchon spaces and the class JG, which aregeneralization of strongly Gauduchon manifolds in complex spaces. Comparing with the case of Kohlerian, the strongly Gauduchon space and the clas...The authors define strongly Gauduchon spaces and the class JG, which aregeneralization of strongly Gauduchon manifolds in complex spaces. Comparing with the case of Kohlerian, the strongly Gauduchon space and the class JG are similar to the Kohler space and the Fujiki class L respectively. Some properties about these complex spaces are obtained. Moreover, the relations between the strongly Gauduchon spaces and the class JG are studied.展开更多
基金Supported by A grant from the National Science Council, Executive Yuan, Taiwan, No. NSC97-2314-B-037-006-MY3
文摘AIM: To investigate whether the use of statins is associated with colorectal cancer risk. METHODS: We conducted a population-based case-control study in Taiwan. Data were retrospectively collected from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. Cases consisted of all patients who were aged 50 years and older and had a first-time diagnosis of colorectal cancer between the period 2005 and 2008. The controls were matched to cases by age, sex, and index date. Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using multiple logistic regression. RESULTS: We examined 1156 colorectal cancer cases and 4624 controls. The unadjusted ORs for any statin prescription was 1.10 (95% CI = 0.94-1.30) and the adjusted OR was 1.09 (95% CI = 0.91-1.30). When statin use was categorized by cumulative dose, the adjusted ORs were 0.99 (95% CI = 0.78-1.27) for the group with cumulative statin use below 105 defined daily doses (DDDs); 1.07 (95% CI = 0.78-1.49) for the group with cumulative statin use between 106 and 298.66 DDDs; and 1.30 (95% CI = 0.96-1.75) for the group with cumulative statin use of 298.66 DDDs or more compared with nonusers. CONCLUSION: This study does not provide support for a protective effect of statins against colorectal cancer.
基金Supported by the Ministry of Education,Culture,Sports,Science,and Technology and from the Ministry of Health,Labour and Welfare,Japan
文摘To assess the relationship between serum levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF1)/IGF-binding protein-3 (IGFBP3) and the risk of esophageal carcinoma.METHODSWe assessed the relationship between the serum levels of these molecules and the risk of esophageal cancer in a prospective, nested case-control study of participants from the Japan Collaborative Cohort Study. A baseline survey was conducted from 1988 to 1990. Of the 110585 enrolled participants, 35% donated blood samples. Those who had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer were considered cases for nested case-control studies. A conditional logistic model was used to estimate odds ratios for the incidence of esophageal cancer associated with serum IGF1 and IGFBP3 levels.RESULTSThirty-one cases and 86 controls were eligible for the present assessment. The molar ratio of IGF1/IGFBP3, which represents the free and active form of IGF1, was not correlated with the risk of esophageal carcinoma. A higher molar difference between IGFBP3 and IGF1, which estimates the free form of IGFBP3, was associated with a decreased risk of esophageal carcinoma (P = 0.0146), and people in the highest tertile had the lowest risk (OR = 0.107, 95%CI: 0.017-0.669). After adjustment for body mass index, tobacco use, and alcohol intake, the molar difference of IGFBP3-IGF1 was inversely correlated with the risk of esophageal carcinoma (P = 0.0150).CONCLUSIONThe free form of IGFBP3, which is estimated by this molar difference, may be inversely associated with esophageal cancer incidence.
文摘Border areas have provided significant new research questions as well as fruitful insights and hypotheses. The cognitive and neuropsychologic study of translation process is a good example of this kind. This paper has surveyed various researches on translation process. Studies related to "the black box of translation" are divided into two categories, i.e., studies adopting think-aloud protocols, and studies from the physiology and neuroscientific perspectives. It has been noted that those studies on translation process have made some progress in the past years Firstly, the participants have undergone a change from language learners to professional translators or interpreters Secondly, the purposes of the studies have a tendency of gradually becoming specific. Thirdly, more rigorous methodologies have been developed, with more and more new technological approaches being applied
基金Acknowledgement: This paper is part of the Project "A Study on Otto Jespersen's Ideas of Phonological Evolution ( 1886-1941 )", supported by National Social Science Foundation of China (16BYY007).
文摘Despite its role in literature, especially in poetics, sound symbolism does not traditionally enjoy a high esteem in linguistics. Ever since the scientific study of language was revolutionized by the Swiss structuralist pioneer Ferdinand de Saussure, sound symbolism tended to be restricted to some peripheral linguistic phenomena. The present essay is an interpretation of first-hand texts. It explores the development of the linguistic idea of sound symbolism scattered in the both linguistic and non-linguistic texts published in German, French, English and other languages. These texts are found to suggest that Saussure was not the only scholar interested in this sound-sense relationship in his age, nor was his idea of arbitrariness the final word on it. The author concludes that a study on the history of sound symbolism has to be accomplished with a trans-disciplinary perspective and the support of multi-lingual texts.
基金supported by the ONR MURI pro ject(No.N00014-16-1-2007)the DARPA XAI Award(No.N66001-17-2-4029)NSF IIS(No.1423305)
文摘This paper reviews recent studies in understanding neural-network representations and learning neural networks with interpretable/disentangled middle-layer representations.Although deep neural networks have exhibited superior performance in various tasks,interpretability is always Achilles' heel of deep neural networks.At present,deep neural networks obtain high discrimination power at the cost of a low interpretability of their black-box representations.We believe that high model interpretability may help people break several bottlenecks of deep learning,e.g.,learning from a few annotations,learning via human–computer communications at the semantic level,and semantically debugging network representations.We focus on convolutional neural networks(CNNs),and revisit the visualization of CNN representations,methods of diagnosing representations of pre-trained CNNs,approaches for disentangling pre-trained CNN representations,learning of CNNs with disentangled representations,and middle-to-end learning based on model interpretability.Finally,we discuss prospective trends in explainable artificial intelligence.
基金Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30872199)the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (No. 2006C247),China
文摘Demodex has been considered to be related with multiple skin disorders,but controversy persists.In this case-control study,a survey was conducted with 860 dermatosis patients aged 12 to 84 years in Xi'an,China to identify the association between facial dermatosis and Demodex.Amongst the patients,539 suffered from facial dermatosis and 321 suffered from non-facial dermatosis.Demodex mites were sampled and examined using the skin pressurization method.Multivariate regression analysis was applied to analyze the association between facial dermatosis and Demodex infestation,and to identify the risk factors of Demodex infestation.The results showed that total detection rate of Demodex was 43.0%.Patients aged above 30 years had higher odds of Demodex infestation than those under 30 years.Compared to patients with neutral skin,patients with mixed,oily,or dry skin were more likely to be infested with Demodex(odds ratios(ORs) were 2.5,2.4,and 1.6,respectively).Moreover,Demodex infestation was found to be statistically associated with rosacea(OR=8.1),steroid-induced dermatitis(OR=2.7),seborrheic dermatitis(OR=2.2),and primary irritation dermatitis(OR=2.1).In particular,ORs calculated from the severe infestation(≥5 mites/cm2) rate were significantly higher than those of the total rate.Therefore,we concluded that Demodex is associated with rosacea,steroid-induced dermatitis,seborrheic dermatitis,and primary irritation dermatitis.The rate of severe infestation is found to be more correlated with various dermatosis than the total infestation rate.The risk factors of Demodex infestation,age,and skin types were identified.Our study also suggested that good hygiene practice might reduce the chances of demodicosis and Demodex infestation.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30872199)the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (No. 2006C247), China
文摘Until now, etiology of acne vulgaris is still uncertain. Although clinicians usually deny the association between Demodex infestation and acne vulgaris, it has been proved in some clinical practices. To confirm the association between Demodex infestation and acne vulgaris, a meta-analysis was conducted. Predefined selection criteria were applied to search all published papers that analyzed the association between Demodex infestation and acne vulgaris (January 1950 to August 2011) in ISI Web of Knowledge, MEDLINE, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases. A meta-analysis was performed to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) based on fixed effects models or random effects models. We enrolled the 60 Chinese and 3 English papers in this meta-analysis, which covered Turkey and 25 different provinces/municipalities in China and 42 130 participants in-cluding students and residents, aged from 1 to 78 years. The pooled OR in random effects models is 2.80 (95% CI, 2.34-3.36). Stability is robust according to sensitivity analysis. The fail-safe number is 18 477, suggesting that at least 18 477 articles with negative conclusions would be needed to reverse the conclusion that acne vulgaris was related to Demodex infestation. So the effect of publication bias was insignificant and could be ignored. It was concluded that acne vulgaris is associated with Demodex infestation. This indicates that when regular treatments for acne vulgaris are ineffective, examination of Demodex mites and necessary acaricidal therapies should be considered.
文摘The authors define strongly Gauduchon spaces and the class JG, which aregeneralization of strongly Gauduchon manifolds in complex spaces. Comparing with the case of Kohlerian, the strongly Gauduchon space and the class JG are similar to the Kohler space and the Fujiki class L respectively. Some properties about these complex spaces are obtained. Moreover, the relations between the strongly Gauduchon spaces and the class JG are studied.