1,079 research outputs found
Ileum and colon perforation following peritoneal dialysis-related peritonitis and high-dose calcium polystyrene sulfonate
A rare but severe complication, intestinal necrosis, has been reported after sodium polystyrene sulfonate (SPS; Kayexalate) and sorbitol intake. Some case reports described bowel perforation following calcium polystyrene sulfonate (CPS; Kalimate) administration. We report a case of ileum and colon perforation following peritoneal dialysis-related peritonitis and high-dose Kalimate in a 59-year-old female patient. The patient had a history of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and end-stage renal disease (ESRD). During hospitalization for peritoneal dialysis-related peritonitis, she developed hyperkalemia, and Kalimate was administered orally. However, severe abdominal distension and pain occurred just one day after Kalimate intake. An urgent surgery disclosed several perforations in the ileum and sigmoid colon. Pathology of the resected gut showed transmural necrosis and perforation with basophilic angulated crystals. The patient finally expired during hospitalization due to refractory septic shock
Transformer-based Image Compression with Variable Image Quality Objectives
This paper presents a Transformer-based image compression system that allows
for a variable image quality objective according to the user's preference.
Optimizing a learned codec for different quality objectives leads to
reconstructed images with varying visual characteristics. Our method provides
the user with the flexibility to choose a trade-off between two image quality
objectives using a single, shared model. Motivated by the success of
prompt-tuning techniques, we introduce prompt tokens to condition our
Transformer-based autoencoder. These prompt tokens are generated adaptively
based on the user's preference and input image through learning a prompt
generation network. Extensive experiments on commonly used quality metrics
demonstrate the effectiveness of our method in adapting the encoding and/or
decoding processes to a variable quality objective. While offering the
additional flexibility, our proposed method performs comparably to the
single-objective methods in terms of rate-distortion performance
Magnon-induced non-Markovian friction of a domain wall in a ferromagnet
Motivated by the recent study on the quasiparticle-induced friction of
solitons in superfluids, we theoretically study magnon-induced intrinsic
friction of a domain wall in a one-dimensional ferromagnet. To this end, we
start by obtaining the hitherto overlooked dissipative interaction of a domain
wall and its quantum magnon bath to linear order in the domain-wall velocity
and to quadratic order in magnon fields. An exact expression for the pertinent
scattering matrix is obtained with the aid of supersymmetric quantum mechanics.
We then derive the magnon-induced frictional force on a domain wall in two
different frameworks: time-dependent perturbation theory in quantum mechanics
and the Keldysh formalism, which yield identical results. The latter, in
particular, allows us to verify the fluctuation-dissipation theorem explicitly
by providing both the frictional force and the correlator of the associated
stochastic Langevin force. The potential for magnons induced by a domain wall
is reflectionless, and thus the resultant frictional force is non-Markovian
similarly to the case of solitons in superfluids. They share an intriguing
connection to the Abraham-Lorentz force that is well-known for its causality
paradox. The dynamical responses of a domain wall are studied under a few
simple circumstances, where the non-Markovian nature of the frictional force
can be probed experimentally. Our work, in conjunction with the previous study
on solitons in superfluids, shows that the macroscopic frictional force on
solitons can serve as an effective probe of the microscopic degrees of freedom
of the system.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure
A preliminary study of applying interpreting skills to teaching English reading
Even though the established literature has proven that translation actually plays a significant role in English Language Teaching (ELT) as well as in Second Language Acquisition (SLA), there is lack of empirical evidence showing the correlation between the use of sight translation skills and learners' acquisition of English proficiency. This preliminary study recruited 14 English learners and investigated the potential effect of sight translation on the learners' learning outcomes. By comparing the frequencies of ambiguity and significant features appeared in the learners' reading performance in two different genres of texts, the results suggest that the skills of sight translation can successfully improve English learners' reading comprehension. Implications and potential research directions are further addressed
Transformer-based Variable-rate Image Compression with Region-of-interest Control
This paper proposes a transformer-based learned image compression system. It
is capable of achieving variable-rate compression with a single model while
supporting the region-of-interest (ROI) functionality. Inspired by prompt
tuning, we introduce prompt generation networks to condition the
transformer-based autoencoder of compression. Our prompt generation networks
generate content-adaptive tokens according to the input image, an ROI mask, and
a rate parameter. The separation of the ROI mask and the rate parameter allows
an intuitive way to achieve variable-rate and ROI coding simultaneously.
Extensive experiments validate the effectiveness of our proposed method and
confirm its superiority over the other competing methods.Comment: Accepted to IEEE ICIP 202
TransTIC: Transferring Transformer-based Image Compression from Human Visualization to Machine Perception
This work aims for transferring a Transformer-based image compression codec
from human vision to machine perception without fine-tuning the codec. We
propose a transferable Transformer-based image compression framework, termed
TransTIC. Inspired by visual prompt tuning, we propose an instance-specific
prompt generator to inject instance-specific prompts to the encoder and
task-specific prompts to the decoder. Extensive experiments show that our
proposed method is capable of transferring the codec to various machine tasks
and outshining the competing methods significantly. To our best knowledge, this
work is the first attempt to utilize prompting on the low-level image
compression task
Antimicrobial Susceptibility and Multiplex PCR Screening of AmpC Genes From Isolates of Enterobacter cloacae, Citrobacter freundii, and Serratia marcescens
Background/PurposeThe emergence of multiple drug resistance in Enterobacteriaceae is of particular concern. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antimicrobial susceptibility and screen for the ampC gene in three members of the Enterobacteriaceae family (Enterobacter cloacae, Citrobacter freundii, and Serratia marcescens) found at Taichung Veterans General Hospital during the past 5 years using multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR).MethodsThe susceptibility of thirty isolates from each of the three Enterobacteriaceae family members to five antimicrobial agents (ceftazidime, flomoxef, imipenem, moxifloxacin, and colistin) was assessed. The susceptibility was analyzed by disk diffusion, screening and confirmatory tests for extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBL) and minimum inhibitory concentration tests according to the recommendations of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. The detection of ampC genes (3 families, including DHA, EBC and CIT) was performed by multiplex PCR. To detect the coexistence of ESBL genes, PCR was performed using five primer pairs: TEM, SHV, SHV-5, CTX-M-3, and CTX-M-14.ResultsOf the 90 isolates, 53 (58.9%) were positive in the screening test for ESBL. Resistance genes were detected in 12 (22.6%) of these isolates: ampC gene of DHA type in one E. cloacae isolate and EBC type in three E. cloacae isolates; ampC gene of CIT type in four C. freundii isolates; CTX-M-3-like in one C. freundii isolate and one S. marcescens isolate; TEM in three E. cloacae isolates, three C. freundii isolates and two S. marcescens isolates; SHV in one C. freundii isolate.ConclusionAntibiotic phenotypes cannot accurately distinguish the resistance mechanisms caused by ampC or ESBL, and especially in ESBL-ampC combinations. However, PCR is a useful technique for the identification of the different types of resistance genes
The Relationship between Ownership Structure and the Probability of a Financial Distress Warning Happening: Evidence of Listed Common Stock Companies in Taiwan
This paper discusses about the ownership structure of firms and the probability of a financial distress warning happening in Taiwan. Our sample covers all listed common stock companiesexceptthe financial industry from 2006 to 2014. This study usesthe Z-score to measure the probability of firms’ financial distress warning happening and employs the shareholding ratio of managerial share ownership, the shareholding ratio of financial institutional investors, and the size of the board of directors to measure firms’ ownership structure. For our results, the shareholding ratio of managerial share ownership has positive relationship with the probability of a financial distress warning happening, while the shareholding ratio of institutional investors and the size of the board of directors have a negative relationship with the probability of the same warning happening
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