Affective Music Information Retrieval

Much of the appeal of music lies in its power to convey emotions/moods and to evoke them in listeners. In consequence, the past decade witnessed a growing interest in modeling emotions from musical signals in the music information retrieval (MIR) community. In this article, we present a novel generative approach to music emotion modeling, with a specific focus on the valence-arousal (VA) dimension model of emotion. The presented generative model, called \emph{acoustic emotion Gaussians} (AEG), better accounts for the subjectivity of emotion perception by the use of probability distributions. Specifically, it learns from the emotion annotations of multiple subjects a Gaussian mixture model in the VA space with prior constraints on the corresponding acoustic features of the training music pieces. Such a computational framework is technically sound, capable of learning in an online fashion, and thus applicable to a variety of applications, including user-independent (general) and user-dependent (personalized) emotion recognition and emotion-based music retrieval. We report evaluations of the aforementioned applications of AEG on a larger-scale emotion-annotated corpora, AMG1608, to demonstrate the effectiveness of AEG and to showcase how evaluations are conducted for research on emotion-based MIR. Directions of future work are also discussed.Comment: 40 pages, 18 figures, 5 tables, author versio

The Influences of Relationship Marketing in the Housing Brokerage Market

Many companies and salesmen try to build and maintain long-term relationship with their customer. The influences of relationship marketing activities are important issue of the housing brokerage Market. The aims of study are to learn the impacts of relationship marketing on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in the housing brokerage Market. The researchers survey the customers and use the regression analysis method to test the relationships between relationship marketing, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in Taiwan. The research results show that the relationship marketing positively impacts on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, then customer satisfaction positively impacts on customer loyalty. Customer satisfaction plays a mediating role between relationship marketing and customer loyalty. Besides, the study confirm that brokers’ expertise moderates the relationship of relationship marketing process. The findings suggest that the brokers’ relationship marketing and expertise empirically impact on the customers

Controlled Morphological Structure of Ceria Nanoparticles Prepared by Spray Pyrolysis

AbstractCeria based materials have been widely used as catalyst supporters and electrolytes. Different applications require different morphologies, and the microstructural control during the synthesis is crucial. In the study, ceria particles were prepared from various precursors using a spray pyrolysis (SP). Comparing to the hollow and porous particles, the formation mechanism with solid spherical structure is not clarified readily. The ceria particles were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, thermogravimetry analysis and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. This experimental result suggests that the morphology is controlled by the precursors and could be related to their decomposed behavior during the heating process in SP

Utilization of statins and aspirin among patients with diabetes and hyperlipidemia: Taiwan, 1998–2006

AbstractBackgroundThe proper use of statins and aspirin decrease the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) among patients with diabetes (DM) and hyperlipidemia. The purpose of this study was to analyze the time trends and determinants of prescribing statins and aspirin among patients with DM and hyperlipidemia in medical practice in Taiwan.MethodsA cohort of 21,667 patients with DM and hyperlipidemia during the period from 1998 to 2006 was identified by using data of ambulatory care claims from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Database. The dataset was categorized into two equal calendar periods: Period 1 (September 1998–June 2002) and Period 2 (July 2002–April 2006). Multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to determine the independent determinants associated with receipt of lipid-lowering agents and aspirin among these patients.ResultsThere were significant increases in the prescribing of statins (OR 1.78; 95% CI 1.66−1.91) and aspirin (OR 1.47, 95% CI 1.50−1.59) in Period 2 as compared with Period 1. Nevertheless, 30% of patients with coexisting CHD neither received statins nor aspirin. Only 15% to 25% of DM patients with hyperlipidemia and CHD received the combined treatment with aspirin and statin. In multivariate logistic regression, we found that women received aspirin less frequently than men. Old patients (>45 years) with concomitant CHD were more likely to receive statins and aspirin.ConclusionDespite the increasing trend in the use of statins and aspirin in DM patients with hyperlipidemia in Taiwan, the improvements were at best modest, particularly for secondary prevention. Our data indicate the need for continued efforts to improve the utilization of these drugs in daily practice

Triaqua(2-{[(E)-5-formyl-2-oxidobenzyl­idene]amino}ethanesulfonato)cobalt(II) dihydrate

The title compound, [Co(C10H9NO5S)(H2O)3]·2H2O, is a cobalt–Schiff base complex derived from taurine. There are two complex mol­ecules and four solvent water mol­ecules in the asymmetric unit. The central Co atom is six coordinated by two O atoms and one N atom of the ligand and three O atoms of water mol­ecules, forming a slightly distorted octa­hedral geometry. The crystal structure is stabilized by several O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds

Clinical characteristics and risk factors of patients with severe COVID-19 in Jiangsu province, China: a retrospective multicentre cohort study

BACKGROUND Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has become a major health event that endangers people health throughout China and the world. Understanding the factors associated with COVID-19 disease severity could support the early identification of patients with high risk for disease progression, inform prevention and control activities, and potentially reduce mortality. This study aims to describe the characteristics of patients with COVID-19 and factors associated with severe or critically ill presentation in Jiangsu province, China. METHODS Multicentre retrospective cohort study of all individuals with confirmed Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections diagnosed at 24 COVID-19-designated hospitals in Jiangsu province between the 10th January and 15th March 2020. Demographic, clinical, laboratory, and radiological data were collected at hospital admission and data on disease severity were collected during follow-up. Patients were categorised as asymptomatic/mild/moderate, and severe/critically ill according to the worst level of COVID-19 recorded during hospitalisation. RESULTS A total of 625 patients, 64 (10.2%) were severe/critically ill and 561 (89.8%) were asymptomatic/mild/moderate. All patients were discharged and no patients died. Patients with severe/critically ill COVID-19 were more likely to be older, to be single onset (i.e. not belong to a cluster of cases in a family/community, etc.), to have a medical history of hypertension and diabetes; had higher temperature, faster respiratory rates, lower peripheral capillary oxygen saturation (SpO), and higher computer tomography (CT) image quadrant scores and pulmonary opacity percentage; had increased C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, and D-dimer on admission; and had lower white blood cells, lymphocyte, and platelet counts and albumin on admission than asymptomatic/mild/moderate cases. Multivariable regression showed that odds of being a severe/critically ill case were associated with age (year) (OR 1.06, 95%CI 1.03-1.09), lymphocyte count (10/L) (OR 0.25, 95%CI 0.08-0.74), and pulmonary opacity in CT (per 5%) on admission (OR 1.31, 95%CI 1.15-1.51). CONCLUSIONS Severe or critically ill patients with COVID-19 is about one-tenths of patients in Jiangsu. Age, lymphocyte count, and pulmonary opacity in CT on admission were associated with risk of severe or critically ill COVID-19

Effects of esculentoside A on turnour necrosis factor production by mice peritoneal macrophages

Esculentoside A (EsA) is a saponin isolated from the roots of Phytolacca esculenta. Previous experiments showed that it had strong anti-inflammatory effects. Tumour necrosis factor (TNF) is an important inflammatory mediator. In order to study the mechanism of the anti-inflammatory effect of EsA, it was determined whether TNF production from macrophages was altered by EsA under lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulated conditions. EsA was found to decrease both extracellular and cell associated TNF production in a dose dependent manner at concentrations higher than 1 μmol/l EsA. Previous studies have showed that EsA reduced the releasing of platelet activating factor (PAF) from rat macrophages. The reducing effects of EsA on the release of TNF and PAF may explain its anti-inflammatory effect