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The frequency and intensity of natural disasters continue to increase with climate change, especially earthquake disasters, causing community in the serious damage and casualties. How to improve community awareness and adaptability to disasters is key point for policymakers, because each community may bring different perspectives to understanding community disaster adaptive and resilience. Based on the aspects of adaptive capacity and community resilience, we adopting the choice experiment (CE) to assess the disaster prevention preferences of urban and suburban residents to establish an adaptive evaluation framework for community disaster management. The results show features that affect the differentiation of community residents' participation regarding community disaster management program are : 1) to have a regularly disaster prevention drills, 2) to cooperate drills with local governments, 3) to train to become a disaster prevention vanguard, and 4) to assemble NGOs and government forces to respond for disaster-occurring. The scenario of integrated disaster prevention educations and community organization transformation has the highest welfare effects among all the proposed scenarios; And only if the disaster prevention management preference and disaster perception ability of community residents are applied to the disaster prevention strategy, so that disaster management can be effectively implemented in the community. These findings provide useful theoretical construction and policy inspiration for the government in the development of disaster management and community disaster management organizations.

Balancing the sustainable development goals of nature conservation and recreational service provision is a big challenge for national park management today. We estimate tourist preferences on different attributes associated with reduction of tourism effects and development of tourism facilities in Khao Yai National Park, Thailand. The results indicate that integrated the wildlife conservation program, moderating control of tourist numbers, undertaking to provide good lodging services, and initiating a public transport system are effective development factors. Characteristics that affect the differentiation of preferences vis-a-vis the visitor influx control in the national park are: 1) tourists' awareness of the impacts of overcrowding, 2) nationality, and 3) monthly income. These results could be used to tailor a unique policy and management strategy in the near future that corresponds to the current issues and the needs of tourists.

Balancing conservation and development with ecosystem services is a popular topic for the sustainable development of agricultural land today. This study establishes an evaluation framework to explore the heterogeneous preferences of tourists and residents for the ecosystem functions of agricultural land in Kinmen, Taiwan. The results showed that respondents preferred to transform the current farming type into sustainable agriculture, increase species habitats, plan wheat and sorghum landscape areas, and combine ecotourism with local cultural activities. Tourists had a higher marginal willingness to pay for farmland conservation than residents. People who supported the conservation program of agricultural land in sorghum and wheat production areas tended to 1) be female, 2) be tourists, 3) have higher education, and 4) have higher monthly income. The results suggest that policymakers must improve ecosystem functions with agricultural ecosystem function support funds, consistent with the guaranteed-price purchase policy in the Kinmen sorghum and wheat areas, for sustainable development.

Expressed emotion (EE) is the quality of the atmosphere between a relative and a family member with mental illness. Substantial research has focused on the relationship between the level of EE and the outcomes of mental illness. However, no prior study has explored the role of EE relative to heroin addicts.The aims of this study were to investigate the influence of EE on patient outcome in methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) and the relationship between the EE of heroin addicts and other demographic and psychological variables.A total of 117 heroin addicts who entered MMT were enrolled. Each subject underwent a comprehensive interview to record demographic data and drug use history. The Family Emotional Involvement Scale (FEICS), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and Beck Anxiety Depression Inventory (BAI) were used at baseline. All subjects were followed for 12 months. The results of monthly urine tests and the treatment retention were recorded for further analysis.Perceived criticism was correlated with depression (r=0.20, P0.01). The overall retention rate in 12-month MMT was 54.70%. Lower perceived criticism (OR=1.84, 95% CI=1.20-3.60, P0.01) and lower depression (OR=1.24, 95% CI=0.65-1.80, P=0.02) predicted longer retention in MMT.EE, especially perceived criticism, has its influences on outcomes among heroin addicts in MMT. This suggested the potential benefits of family therapy among high EE heroin addicts in MMT. Furthermore, the mechanism how EE affects the outcome of MMT needs to be further investigated.

Nitrate (N) and phosphate (P) are believed to be two of the most important nutrients for the growth and toxin production for Alexandrium species. The study of the growth and toxicity characteristics of the Alexandrium spp. under the change of N and P can help us to understand the dynamics of algal bloom and toxification events in natural environments. A strain of Alexandrium tamarense (designated as Kci) was successfully isolated from the Drake Passage in 2001 and the clonal culture has been kept in our laboratory ( Ho et al., 2003 , 2012 ). In order to extend our understanding on the growth physiology and toxicity of this A. tamarense strain, growth and cellular toxin content were examined in unialgal batch cultures under different concentrations of N and P. The effects of variable N, P concentrations on growth, cellular toxicity (fg STXeq. cell−1), and toxin composition (% molar) were determined in both exponential and stationary growth phases. The toxin profile, determined by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FD), was found to be remained relatively stable and was consistently dominated by the N-sulfocarbamoyl C-toxins (>90%) under different conditions and growth phases. There were also trace amounts of other carbamate gonyautoxins consistently expressed. The cellular toxicity varied under different N and P concentrations, as well as different growth stages. A positive correlation was observed between cellular toxicity and N concentrations, but the toxicity was enhanced when P was depleted. Both cell densities and growth rate of the cells were severely suppressed under N- or P-depletion. However, the biovolume of the cells tended to be larger at N- or P-depleted cultures. Results from the present study provide valuable insight for the ecophysiology of Alexandrium species in the coastal ecosystem of Drake Passage.

A PST-toxin producing Alexandrium species was found and successfully isolated from the Antarctic Ocean (Southern Ocean) in 2001 ( Ho et al., 2003 ). The species was identified as Alexandrium tamarense based on their morphological features and thecal plate analysis previously. Mono-culture of this Antarctic Alexandrium strain, designated as Kci, has been successfully kept in our laboratory. In order to gain more insight into the origin of this strain, phylogenetic relationship of this Alexandrium strain to other Alexandrium spp. within the A. tamarense complex was carried out using 28S and ITS rDNA sequences. These are the first such sequences reported for an Alexandrium spp. found in Antarctic Ocean. Based on the ribosomal DNA sequences and phylogenetic analysis, the Antarctic Alexandrium strain was fell within the ribotypes in Group IV of the group-numbering scheme as suggested by Lilly et al. (2007) . Interestingly, the Antarctic Alexandrium strain Kci was closely affiliated to Alexandrium isolates from the China Sea.

The aim of this study was to explore a gene chip capable of detecting the presence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates directly in clinical sputum specimens and to compare it with current molecular detection techniques. At first, we selected 13 M. tuberculosis-specific target genes to construct a gene chip for rapid diagnosis. Using the membrane array method, we diagnosed M. tuberculosis by gene chip directly from 246 sputum specimens from patients suspected of having tuberculosis. Among 80 M. tuberculosis complex (MTBC) culture-positive sputum specimens, the MTBC detection rate was 62.5% (50/80) by PCR–restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), 70% (56/80) by acid-fast staining, and 85% (68/80) by the membrane array method. Furthermore, subspecies showed different gene expression patterns in the membrane array. In conclusion, MTBC could be detected directly in sputum by the membrane array method. The rapidity of detection and the capability of differentiating subspecies could make this method useful in the control and prevention of tuberculosis.

Background: Delirium is commonly seen in patients in consultation-liaison psychiatry. Assessing delirium severity is important in clinical practice. The Delirium Rating Scale-Revised-98 (DRS-R-98) has been already established as a valid and reliable tool to achieve this goal. This study was aimed to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the DRS-R-98 (DRS-R-98-C) in Taiwan. Method: We recruited 4 patient groups with delirium (n = 28), alcohol dependence (n = 9), dementia (n =11), and schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (n = 11) and evaluated them with DRS-R-98-C and Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE) by 2 psychiatrists at a single assessment session. Results: The results showed that mean DRS-R-98-C total and severity scores in delirious patients were found significantly higher than those in other patient groups. Interrater reliability of the DRS-R-98-C between 2 raters was high, with intraclass correlation coefficient of .98 for severity scale and .99 for total scale. Internal consistency was high with a Cronbach's α coefficient of .85 and .86 for DRS-R-98-C severity and total scales. A significant inverse correlation was found between the DRS-R-98-C and the MMSE score (r = −0.63, P < .001) for either severity or total scale among 28 delirious patients. Area under the curve established by receiver operating characteristic analysis was .93 and .96 for severity and total scales, respectively. Optimal cutoff of total score was 15.5, with sensitivity of 89.3% and specificity of 96.8%. Conclusion: The DRS-R-98-C is a valid and reliable measure of delirium severity and can be used clinically to monitor the course of illness when administered serially.

Twenty drug-naïve patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) were compared with matched controls on their performance of the Continuous Performance Test (CPT). There was no difference on any measure of the CPT in the two groups. Higher obsession scores, rather than compulsion scores, were associated with poorer sensitivity of the CPT in drug-naïve OCD patients.