Objective: The aim of this study was to validate a novel pictorial-based Longshi Scale for evaluating a patient’s disability by healthcare professionals and non-professionals. Design: Prospective study. Setting: Rehabilitation departments from a grade A, class 3 public hospital, a grade B, class 2 public hospital, and a private hospital and seven community rehabilitation centers. Subjects: A total of 618 patients and 251 patients with functional disabilities were recruited in a two-phase study, respectively. Main measures: Outcome measure: pictorial scale of activities of daily living (ADLs, Longshi Scale). Reference measure: Barthel Index. The Spearman correlation coefficient was used to analyze the validity of Longshi Scale against Barthel Index. Results: In phase 1 study, from March 2016 to August 2016, the results demonstrated that the Longshi Scale was both reliable and valid (intraclass correlation coefficient based on two-way random effect (ICC2,1) = 0.877–0.974 for intra-rater reliability; ICC2,1 = 0.928–0.979; κ = 0.679–1.000 for inter-rater reliability; intraclass correlation coefficient based on one-way random effect (ICC1,1) = 0.921–0.984 for test–retest reliability and Spearman correlation coefficient = 0.836–0.899). In the second phase, in March 2018, results further demonstrated that the Longshi Scale had good inter-rater and intra-rater reliability among healthcare professionals and non-professionals including therapists, interns, and personal care aids (ICC1,1 = 0.822–0.882 on Day 1; ICC1,1 = 0.842–0.899 on Day 7 for inter-rater reliability). In addition, the Longshi Scale decreased assessment time significantly, compared with the Barthel Index assessment ( P < 0.01). Conclusion: The Longshi Scale could potentially provide an efficient way for healthcare professionals and non-professionals who may have minimal training to assess the ADLs of functionally disabled patients.

Background: Previous studies have revealed that triglyceride to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (TG/HDL-C) is one of major risk factors of insulin resistance and diabetes. However, study on the association between TG/ HDL-C and diabetes mellitus (DM) risk is limited, especially in Chinese people. This study was undertaken to investigate the relationship between TG/HDL-C and incident of diabetes in a large cohort in Chinese population. Methods: The present study was a retrospective cohort study. A total of 114,787 adults from Rich Healthcare Group in China, which includes all medical records for participants who received a health check from 2010 to 2016. The target independent variable and the dependent variable were triglyceride to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio measured at baseline and incident of diabetes mellitus appeared during follow-up respectively. Covariates involved in this study included age, gender, body mass index, diastolic blood pressure, systolic blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose, total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein cholesterol, serum creatinine, smoking and drinking status and family history of diabetes. Cox proportional-hazards regression was used to investigate the association of TG/HDL-C and diabetes. Generalized additive models was used to identify non-linear relationships. Additionally, we also performed a subgroup analysis. It was stated that the data had been uploaded to the DATADRYAD website.(Continued on next page) Result: After adjusting age, gender, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein cholesterol, serum creatinine, smoking and drinking status and family history of diabetes, result showed TG/HDL-C was positively associated with incident of diabetes mellitus (HR = 1.159, 95%CI (1.104, 1.215)). A non-linear relationship was detected between TG/HDL-C and incident of diabetes, which had an inflection point of TG/HDL-C was 1.186. The effect sizes and the confidence intervals on the left and right sides of the inflection point were 1.718(1.433,2.060) and 1.049(0.981,1.120), respectively. Subgroup analysis showed, the stronger association can be found in the population with fasting plasma glucose (FPG) < 6.1 mmol/L (P for interaction< 0.0001; HR = 1.296 with FPG < 6.1 mmol/L vs HR = 1.051 with FPG ≥ 6.1 mmol/L).The same trend was also seen in the population with body mass index (BMI)(≥18.5, < 24 kg/m 2 ) (P for interaction = 0.010,HR = 1.324) and family history without diabetes(P for interaction = 0.025, HR = 1.170).Conclusion: TG/HDL-C is positively associated with diabetes risk. The relationship between TG/HDL-C and incident of diabetes is also non-linear. TG/HDL-C was strong positively related to incident of diabetes when TG/HDL-C is less than 1.186.

Abstract

A yolk–double shell cube-like SnS@N–S codoped carbon (YDSC-SnS@NSC) was delicately tailored by a self-templated and selective etching method as well as a self-assembly strategy. Herein, the ZnSn­(OH)6 (ZHS) solid nanocubes were used as templates for the formation of a thin carbon shell that encapsulated the active material, thereby preventing the aggregation and maintaining the uniformity. ZHS is then converted into an intermediate ZnS–SnS2 hybrid by a facile thermal sulfidation process. Because SnS2 is insoluble in acidic condition, it is easy to create a yolk–shell architecture by selectively removing the ZnS component. Further heat treatment promoted the melting of SnS2 and resulted in the decomposition of SnS2 into SnS, which is simultaneously accompanied with a heat- and capillary-driven self-assembly to form a SnS inner core and SnS/C double shell. Such nanostructures with an inner void space and robust double shells are useful in buffering the volume expansion of SnS during lithiation and sodiation. Furthermore, N and S atoms doped into the carbon shell can enhance the electrical conductivity, which is beneficial to the fast charge-transfer kinetics. Because of these advantages, YDSC-SnS@NSC as the anode for Li-ion batteries exhibits improved electrochemical properties. Especially, the YDSC-SnS@NSC anode for Na-ion batteries shows an outstanding rate capability of 257 mA h g–1 at 8 A g–1 and an ultrastable long-term cyclic performance at a current density of 1 A g–1 with a capacity retention of 83.5% (340 mA h g–1 at the first cycle and ultimately reached 284 mA h g–1) and only 0.012% capacity decay per cycle for over 1500 cycles. Such superior electrochemical performance demonstrated that this rationally designed anode is promising for application in both Li- and Na-ion storages.

No abstract

This study examines how a firm's advertising and R&D affects the firm's β-risk and idiosyncratic risk, which are metrics of interest to both finance executives and senior management. Due to the existence of a non-normal and heteroscedasticity dataset, we use quantile regression to analyze the sample to understand the full behavior of our non-normally distributed datapoints. The evidence of this study shows that: (1) Advertising is significantly associated with lower β-risk for firms with lower, median and higher β-risk. (2) R&D significantly increases β-risk for firms with median and higher β-risk firms. (3) Advertising is significantly associated with lower idiosyncratic risk for firms with higher idiosyncratic risk. (4) R&D is significantly associated with higher idiosyncratic risk for firms with median and higher idiosyncratic risk. In summary, our evidence shows that both advertising and R&D have a stronger effect on firms with higher β- and idiosyncratic risk than on those with lower β- and idiosyncratic risk, respectively. Our findings are useful to help both management executives and investors. Firm managers can allocate limited resources more efficiently to reduce their firm risk; investors could exert their influence on firm's senior executives to make decisions that are beneficial to stock returns.

This paper investigates the effect of monetary policies, mainly proxied by interest rate changes, on the relationship between advertising and subsequent net cash flows for Taiwan's mutual fund industry. Based on a comprehensive mutual fund dataset and allowing for a precise estimation of fund inflows and outflows, we find that there is a positive advertisingcash flow relation under different macroeconomic conditions. Taking into account a change in the interest rate, we document that the positive relationship between the two only exists when the interest rate is at a relatively low level regardless of restrictive and expansionary periods. Our empirical findings shed new light on marketing strategies whereby mutual fund advertising works well during relatively low interest rate environments, which are generally interpreted as exhibiting low cost of capital and a good signal of future economic conditions.

No abstract