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A Pearson correlation is used to depict effect sizes in the context of item response theory and a multidimensional Rasch model is used to estimate the correlation between latent traits. Results indicate that the population correlation can be accurately estimated and that the bootstrap method yields very a good approximation of the sampling distribution.

Purpose: This study aims to use financial stability and health facilities of countries, to cluster them for making a more consensus environment for manifesting the status of Covid-19 in a justifiable manner. The scarcity of the categorisation of the countries of the world in a common platform, and the requirement of manifesting the pandemic status such as Covid-19 in a justifiable manner create the demanding requirement. This study mainly focusses on assisting to generate a liable manifesto to criticise the span of viral infection of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 over the globe. Design/methodology/approach: Data for this study has been gathered from official websites of the World Bank, and the world in data. The Louvain clustering method has been used to cluster the countries based on their financial strength and health facilities. The resulted clusters are visualised using Silhouette plots. The anomalies of the clusters had been used to quantify the pandemic situation. The status of Covid-19 has been manifested with the time series analysis through python programming. Findings: The countries of the world have been clustered into seven, where developed countries divided into three clusters and the countries with transition economies and developing clustered together into four clusters. The time series analysis of recognised anomalies of the clusters assist to monitor the government responses and analyse the efficiency of used safety measures against the pandemic. Originality/value: This study’s resulted clusters are highly valuable as a division of countries of the whole world for evaluating the health systems and for the regional levels. Further, the results of time series analysis are beneficial in monitoring the government responses and analysing the efficiency of used safety measures against the pandemic.

The incidence of IBD is increasing in Eastern countries. The anti‐TNF‐α biological agents are available in patients with severely active IBD. Recently, the vedolizumab was approved by Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA). The efficacy and safety of vedolizumab in real‐world practice for Asia regions is uncertain. Our primary endpoint is to evaluate the efficacy of vedolizumab for TNF‐α exposure and naive patients during induction phase. The secondary endpoints are adverse events, infection, and emergent surgery during induction. We conducted a retrospective observational cohort study from November 2017 to April 2019 in our hospital. We enrolled patients receiving vedolizumab with or without previous anti‐TNF‐α agent exposure. The study results of continuous and categorical variables are presented as median (interquartile range [IQR]), with the IQR presented as 25th percentile to 75th percentile, and number (percentage), respectively. Categorical variables were compared with Fisher's exact test or Pearson's chi‐square test, and continuous variables were compared with a Mann‐Whitney Utest. Twenty‐four patients received vedolizumab from November 2017 to April 2019. Sixteen patients had finished the postinduction phase of the clinical evaluation. None of the patients discontinued vedolizumab due to an adverse drug reaction. The study group all fulfilled the criteria for clinical response and two of them achieved clinical remission. 50% of the patients could successfully discontinue systemic and topical steroid treatment. Three patients from CD group had endoscopic remission. Compare CD to UC patients, the efficacy of vedolizumab is comparable to both groups, but endoscopic response is slightly better in CD group. One patient developed systemic infection (urinary tract infection). None of tuberculosis complex infection or hepatitis B flare up observed during follow‐up period. In this study, we offer our real‐world experience of vedolizumab and suggest that the use of vedolizumanb is safe and effective. Moreover, 50% of steroid‐dependent patients can discontinue steroid after vedolizumab induction. This can be addressed in the future study.

The authors argue that a fixed cut-point of 1.5 is not applicable in checking dimensionality in item response theory (IRT) because the distribution of eigenvalues or their ratios is dependent on sample size and test length. They propose three chi-square statistics for multivariate independence to test the correlation matrix obtained from standardized residuals.

A study was conducted to implement a scale purification procedure onto the standard MIMIC method for differential item functioning (DIF) detection. Findings indicate that MIMIC method with scale purification outperforms the standard MIMIC method when controlling false-positive rates. However, both methods yield a higher true-positive rate.

A study where a generalized multilevel facets model is developed within the framework of nonlinear mixed models where existing computer programs can be directly applied is illustrated.

A procedure for detecting differential item functioning (DIF) for dichotomous and polytomous items in testlet-based tests, whereby DIF is taken into account by adding DIF parameters into the Rasch testlet model is discussed. The bootstrap method is recommended to approximate the standard errors of the estimators for the DIF parameters in order to compute the Wald Statistic to test the null hypothesis of no DIF.

A study on item parameter recovery, standard error estimates, and fit statistics of the WINSTEPS program for the family of Rasch model and the rating scale model through Monte Carlo simulations is investigated. However, it is indicated that the estimates for the intersection parameters under the rating scale were substantially biased, especially for short tests.

A parallel design is sometimes used in questionnaires or inventories, in which items across different scales within an instrument share common stimuli and subjects respond to the common stimulus for each scale. A multidimensional item response model is described to detect specific forms of local item dependence.

Repeated measures are decomposed as an initial ability and one or more modifiabilities using a multidimensional Rasch model. A simulation study was conducted to assess parameter recovery.

Esophageal inlet patch is considered a congenital anomaly, a remnant of gastric mucosa which is left behind during the descent of the stomach in embryologic development. It can be found [...]

This paper presents a power and area efficient approach to embed a continuous-time linear equalizer (CTLE) within a clock and data recovery (CDR) circuit implemented in 65-nm CMOS. The merged equalizer/CDR circuit achieves full-rate operation up to 28 Gb/s while drawing 104 mA from a 1-V supply and occupying 0.33 mm2. Current-mode-logic (CML) circuits with shunt peaking loads using customized differential pair layout are used to maximize circuit bandwidth. To minimize the area penalty, differential stacked spiral inductors (DSSIs) are employed extensively. A novel and practical methodology is introduced for designing DSSIs based on single-layer inductors provided in foundry process design kits (PDK). The DSSI design increases the inductance density by over 3 times and the self-resonance frequency by 20% compared to standard single-layer inductors in the PDK. The measured BER of the recovered data by the CDR is less than 10-12 at 27 Gb/s for 211-1 400 mV PP pseudo-random binary sequence (PRBS) as input data. The measured rms jitter of the recovered clock and data are 1.0 and 2.6 ps, respectively. The CDR is able to lock to inputs ranging from 26 to 28 Gb/s with 29-1 PRBS pattern. Measurement results show that with the equalizer enabled, the CDR can recover a 26-Gb/s 27-1 PRBS data with BER ≤ 10-12 after a channel with 9-dB loss at 13 GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cirrhotic patients with acute esophageal variceal (EV) hemorrhage are characterized by high mortality. This study was conducted to investigate the independent indicators of mortality in Chinese cirrhotic patients within 6 weeks after cessation of initial EV bleeding. Ninety-seven consecutive cirrhotic patients with EV bleeding but without evidence of infection who were admitted to our hospital between December 2006 and February 2009 were retrospectively analyzed. Ten patients who died and 87 patients who survived were enrolled in the mortality and survival groups, respectively. The characteristics and laboratory data at admission of patients in the 2 groups were compared. Time of death in the mortality group, rebleeding and infection in both the mortality and survival groups were also evaluated.

Earlier prevalence studies have reported an increasing trend of gastroesophageal reflux disease in Asia, and obesity may be the promoting factor.

Acupuncture has been shown to improve the regularity of gastric myoelectric activity. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether atropine-induced gastric dysrhythmia can be normalized by electroacupuncture. Fifteen healthy male volunteers were enrolled for this study. Each subject was studied for three sessions in a randomized sequence which included electroacupuncture on the Zusanli (St 36) points with or without premedication with atropine and a placebo stimulation on a nonacupoint. Cutaneous EGG was performed for 30 min at the baseline, 30 min during acupuncture, and for an additional 30 min after acupuncture. Serum gastrin, motilin, and human pancreatic polypeptide (hPP) levels were also measured. When applying 2 Hz of electrical stimulation on the Zusnali point, there was a significant increase in the percentage of normal frequency (2–4 cpm) during acupuncture (baseline versus acupuncture, 82.09 ± 12.37% versus 93.08 ± 8.17%, P < 0.01). There was a significant decrease in the percentage of bradygastria as well as tachygastria during 2 Hz of electrical stimulation on the Zusnali point. Using intravenous atropine immediately before electroacupuncture, the percentage of normal frequency during acupuncture and postacupuncture periods decreased significantly (baselines versus acupuncture and postacupuncture, 83.86 ± 13.79% versus 55.07 ± 29.44% and 56.76 ± 33.44%, P < 0.01). There was a significant decrease in serum PP after intravenous atropine. This observation indicated that atropine-induced gastric dysrhythmia might be mediated partly via the vagal pathway. However, atropine-induced gastric dysrhythmia is not normalized by electroacupuncture.

Psychologic factors in functional dyspepsia have been discussed in many previous articles. However, the relationship between depression and functional dyspepsia is still obscure. We investigated the impact of depression on clinical symptoms and gastric dysrhythmia in functional dyspepsia. Thirty-nine patients with functional dyspepsia and 18 healthy subjects were included. Patients were investigated with clinical symptoms assessment, Zung's self-rating depression scale, and electrogastrography. Patients with functional dyspepsia were divided into two groups 21 patients with depression and 18 patients without depression. The depressed patients had similar total gastrointestinal symptom severity scores compared with the nondepressed patients, but with higher total symptom frequency scores (p< 0.05). With regards to symptoms, the depressed patients had higher abdominal fullness severity and frequency scores and nausea frequency scores. The patients with functional dyspepsia had a lower percentage of normal slow wave in both the fasting and fed states and a higher percentage of bradygastria in the fasting state and tachygastria in the postprandial state (p< 0.05). There was no significant difference in the percentage of bradygastria or tachygastria between the depressed and nondepressed patients. There was no correlation between the specific type of electrogastrographic abnormality and the presence or absence of depression in functional dyspepsia patients.

Exogenous lipase and phospholipase A2 added to ground pork released free fatty acids (FFA) and reduced lipid oxidation as indicated by TBA values during storage at 2°C. Bovine serum albumin (BSA) added to ground pork to bind FFA accelerated lipid oxidation. Both lipase and phospholipase-producing bacteria increased in numbers, and pseudomonads that produced lipase and phospholipase became the predominant bacteria growing in pork stored at 2°C. The TBA values of ground pork, which were exposed to the growth of natural microbial flora, were reduced up to 84% during storage at 2°C for 16 d. Pseudomonas fragi K1 inoculated into sterilized ground pork reduced TBA values and oxidation volatiles including saturated aldehydes, unsaturated aldehydes, alcohols and ketones.

Upper gastrointestinal discomforts are common inuremic patients. Investigators have stressed thestructural, histopathological, and physiological changesin the gastrointestinal tract in the past decades. Few data are available about theelectrophysiological changes in the stomach of uremicpatients. It is not known whether hemodialysis altersgastric myoelectrical activity. More interestingly, whatis the long-term effect? To address these questions,we measured gastric myoelectrical activity before andafter hemodialysis in patients with endstage renaldisease on maintenance dialysis treatment. Twenty-one uremic patients with dyspeptic complaints wereenrolled in this study. Gastric myoelectrical activitywas measured noninvasively using abdominal surfaceelectrodes (electrogastrography). The paired variables obtained before and after hemodialysis werecompared statistically. We also compared the differencebetween two subgroups defined as new hemodialysispatients and chronic hemodialysis patients. We found that there was a significantly lower percentageof normal slow-wave frequency obtained afterhemodialysis in comparison with before hemodialysis(fasting state: 49.1 ± 4.8% vs 68.1 ±5.4%, P < 0.01; fed state: 53.8 ± 6.9% vs 73.4 ±4.1%, P < 0.01). In comparing the subgroups, therewere no differences between each EGG variable. Weconcluded that the hemodialysis itself compromisedgastric myoelectrical activity in its immediate effect. However,there were no permanent effects regarding gastricmyoelectrical activity itself.

The food oil refinery process for deacidification is ususally conducted by the neutralization after degumming. In this study, commercialized resins will be used as adsorbents to remove the free fatty acid (FFA) in food oil without using any solvent. Applying this environmental friendly green process, the energy efficiency will be increased and the waste water will be reduced compared to the traditional process. The selected adsorbent can be reused which may reduce the process cost. Instead of using alkali neutralization, the proposed process may reduce the concern of food oil security. The commercial resins A26OH and IRA900Cl were compared as adsorbents to remove the FFA in deacidification for refinery of food oil without adding any alkali chemicals. This process will be conducted to remove the FFA form peanut oil in this study. Besides, this study will get the adsorption isotherms for one of the better sorbents of A26OH or IRA900Cl to remove FFA from peanut oil under 25, 35, and 45degC. The Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models were compared to fit the experimental data. The obtained isotherm data is important for the adsorption system design.

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Magnetic measurements on three alloys in the series CeCu1-xAl3+x(x=0, 0.16, 0.25) reflect the increasing strength of exchange interactions with Al concentration. As determined by ac susceptibility measurements, the Néel temperatures are 2.5, 2.7 and 3.3 K for the three samples x=0, 0.16 and 0.25, respectively. Specific data for CeCuAl3show that the entropies associated with the magnetic ordering accounts for only ? 40% of the theoretically expected Rln2 entropy. The s ubstitution of Cu by Al in CeCu1-xAl3+x, which increases the average conduction electron density, seems unable to attenuate the localized Ce-4f moments. These results suggest that the RKKY interactions surpass the tendency of the conduction electrons to screen the Ce-4f moments in this system.

Storing light based on the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) provides a coherent way to transfer wave functions between photons and matters. The storage device is promising for the application of quantum memory. An important figure of merit for optical memory is fidelity, which can be degraded by either a two-photon detuning or an axial magnetic field gradient in the EIT scheme. We systematically studied the phase of readout light pulses with the beat-note interferometer. The detuning induces a nonuniform phase variation during the pulse propagation and a uniform phase shift during the light storage; in addition, the field gradient induces a nonuniform phase variation during the storage. We further demonstrated that the phase measurement can be used to diagnose a two-photon detuning below 10 kHz (or 1 /600 of the excited-state natural linewidth) and a magnetic field gradient as low as 2 mG/cm. The fidelity of the readout pulse from the EIT memory can be achieved to 0.94. Our work provides useful information for practical applications of EIT-based quantum memory and advances the knowledge of EIT-related research fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]