A Technique to Address Peritoneal Dialysis Catheter Malfunction

Malpositioned peritoneal dialysis catheters may be repositioned laparoscopically with a testicular prosthesis used as an anchoring weight

The prevalence of insomnia in the general population in China: A meta-analysis

This is the first meta-analysis of the pooled prevalence of insomnia in the general population of China. A systematic literature search was conducted via the following databases: PubMed, PsycINFO, EMBASE and Chinese databases (China National Knowledge Interne (CNKI), WanFang Data and SinoMed). Statistical analyses were performed using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis program. A total of 17 studies with 115,988 participants met the inclusion criteria for the analysis. The pooled prevalence of insomnia in China was 15.0% (95% Confidence interval [CI]: 12.1%-18.5%). No significant difference was found in the prevalence between genders or across time period. The pooled prevalence of insomnia in population with a mean age of 43.7 years and older (11.6%; 95% CI: 7.5%-17.6%) was significantly lower than in those with a mean age younger than 43.7 years (20.4%; 95% CI: 14.2%-28.2%). The prevalence of insomnia was significantly affected by the type of assessment tools (Q = 14.1, P = 0.001). The general population prevalence of insomnia in China is lower than those reported in Western countries but similar to those in Asian countries. Younger Chinese adults appear to suffer from more insomnia than older adults

Application of fuzzy integrated FMEA with product lifetime consideration for new product development in flexible electronics industry

Purpose: the aim of this paper is to minimize the risks of new product development and shorten time-to-market, particularly for high-tech enterprise where the complexity of the product generates vast amount of failure mode. Design/methodology/approach: first, the concept of Critical Consideration Factor (CCF) is introduced based on product-specific technical characteristics, expected lifetime, and yield requirement to identify and prioritize the critical failure mode in the subsequent Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA), followed by process characterization on the high-risk failure mode and Critical Parameter Management (CPM) practice to realize a robust mass production system of the developed technology. The application on the development of advanced flexible substrate and surface finishes fabrication technique is presented. Findings: through the proposed methodology, the risk level of each potential failure mode can be accurately quantified to identify the critical variables. With process characterization, reliability of the product is ensured. Consequently, significant reduction in development resources and time-to-market can be achieved. Practical implications: the development strategy allows high tech enterprises to achieve a balanced ecosystem in which value created through adaption of new technology/product can be thoroughly captured through commercialization in a timely manner with no field failure. Originality/value: the proposed development strategy utilizes a unique approach with thorough considerations that enables high tech enterprise to deliver new product with rapid time-to-market without sacrificing product lifetime reliability, which is key to achieve competitive advantage in the highly dynamic market.Peer Reviewe

Hamiltonian and Linear-Space Structure for Damped Oscillators: I. General Theory

The phase space of $N$ damped linear oscillators is endowed with a bilinear map under which the evolution operator is symmetric. This analog of self-adjointness allows properties familiar from conservative systems to be recovered, e.g., eigenvectors are "orthogonal" under the bilinear map and obey sum rules, initial-value problems are readily solved and perturbation theory applies to the_complex_ eigenvalues. These concepts are conveniently represented in a biorthogonal basis.Comment: REVTeX4, 10pp., 1 PS figure. N.B.: `Alec' is my first name, `Maassen van den Brink' my family name. v2: extensive streamlinin

Accuracy of Second Order Perturbation theory in the Polaron and Variational Polaron Frames

In the study of open quantum systems, the polaron transformation has recently attracted a renewed interest as it offers the possibility to explore the strong system-bath coupling regime. Despite this interest, a clear and unambiguous analysis of the regimes of validity of the polaron transformation is still lacking. Here we provide such a benchmark, comparing second order perturbation theory results in the original untransformed frame, the polaron frame and the variational extension with numerically exact path integral calculations of the equilibrium reduced density matrix. Equilibrium quantities allow a direct comparison of the three methods without invoking any further approximations as is usually required in deriving master equations. It is found that the second order results in the original frame are accurate for weak system-bath coupling, the full polaron results are accurate in the opposite regime of strong coupling, and the variational method is capable of interpolating between these two extremes. As the bath becomes more non-Markovian (slow bath), all three approaches become less accurate.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, typos correcte

Eigenvector Expansion and Petermann Factor for Ohmically Damped Oscillators

Correlation functions $C(t) \sim$ in ohmically damped systems such as coupled harmonic oscillators or optical resonators can be expressed as a single sum over modes $j$ (which are not power-orthogonal), with each term multiplied by the Petermann factor (PF) $C_j$, leading to "excess noise" when $|C_j| > 1$. It is shown that $|C_j| > 1$ is common rather than exceptional, that $|C_j|$ can be large even for weak damping, and that the PF appears in other processes as well: for example, a time-independent perturbation \sim\ep leads to a frequency shift \sim \ep C_j. The coalescence of $J$ ($>1$) eigenvectors gives rise to a critical point, which exhibits "giant excess noise" ($C_j \to \infty$). At critical points, the divergent parts of $J$ contributions to $C(t)$ cancel, while time-independent perturbations lead to non-analytic shifts \sim \ep^{1/J}.Comment: REVTeX4, 14 pages, 4 figures. v2: final, 20 single-col. pages, 2 figures. Streamlined with emphasis on physics over formalism; rewrote Section V E so that it refers to time-dependent (instead of non-equilibrium) effect

Educational Card Game For Chinese Character Learning

Chinese characters often categorized as an ideographic or logographic writing systems. In comparison, Chinese characters have different writing systems with alphabetical writing systems. Learners show unsatisfactory results due to the complexity of orthographic structure in Chinese characters which also led to a negative impact on Mandarin learning. Thus, an educational card game, namely “Chinese Character Battle (CCB)” was designed for Mandarin learners to learn Chinese characters. This educational card game was implemented in Mandarin as Foreign Language (MFL) classroom for this preliminary study as a step to explore users’ perceptions about CCB and the impact of CCB in Chinese character recognition. An online survey, pre-test, and post-test were used to achieve the objectives of this study. A recorded video of “How to Play CCB” was shared with participants prior to the use of CCB. Non-native Chinese learners from University Teknologi Mara, Sarawak branch, Mukah campus participate in this study. The findings of this study revealed that: (1) participants responded positively towards the use of CCB; (2) the implementation of CCB showed positive impact on Chinese character recognition. Hence, it could be concluded that CCB is an effective and useful supplementary learning tool for Mandarin learners to improve their Chinese character recognitio

Comparison of engagement and emotional responses of older and younger adults interacting with 3D cultural heritage artefacts on personal devices

The availability of advanced software and less expensive hardware allows museums to preserve and share artefacts digitally. As a result, museums are frequently making their collections accessible online as interactive, 3D models. This could lead to the unique situation of viewing the digital artefact before the physical artefact. Experiencing artefacts digitally outside of the museum on personal devices may affect the user's ability to emotionally connect to the artefacts. This study examines how two target populations of young adults (18–21 years) and the elderly (65 years and older) responded to seeing cultural heritage artefacts in three different modalities: augmented reality on a tablet, 3D models on a laptop, and then physical artefacts. Specifically, the time spent, enjoyment, and emotional responses were analysed. Results revealed that regardless of age, the digital modalities were enjoyable and encouraged emotional responses. Seeing the physical artefacts after the digital ones did not lessen their enjoyment or emotions felt. These findings aim to provide an insight into the effectiveness of 3D artefacts viewed on personal devices and artefacts shown outside of the museum for encouraging emotional responses from older and younger people