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This paper provides an introduction to laboratory databases established by Taiwan National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) since 2015 and released for research since June 2017. The National Health Insurance (NHI) is a government-run single-payer program introduced in 1995 that now covers more than 99% of 23 million Taiwanese citizens. To prevent duplication of medication prescriptions and laboratory test and examination prescriptions, contracted health care providers are required to upload the results of laboratory tests and reports of examinations to the NHIA. The cumulative number of laboratory test results was 5.64 billion from January 2015 to the end of August 2020 for 602 types of test. There are 35 variables for each laboratory test result stored in the databases that can be used for research. However, different hospitals might use different format in reporting the results. The researchers therefore have to develop algorithms to include and exclude incompatible records and to determine whether the results are positive or negative (normal or abnormal). The NHIA suggests that researchers release their source codes of algorithms so that other researchers can modify the codes to improve inter-study comparability. Through the unique personal identification number, the laboratory data can be linked to NHI inpatient and outpatient claims data for further value-added analyses. Non-Taiwanese researchers can collaborate with Taiwan researchers to access the NHI laboratory databases.

The Galerkin integral method is applied to calculate the friction factor for laminar flow in rhombic ducts imposed by constant wall temperature at the boundaries. The local Nusselt number, Nu x,T , and thermally fully developed Nusselt number, Nu T , are also computed. The flow is assumed to be hydrodynamically fully developed and laminar. The fluid is Newtonian an has a large Peclet number. The thermally fully developed Nusselt number, Nu T , can be obtained when the local Nusselt number asymptotically approaches a constant value. It is found that a larger amount of heat transfer occurs at the entrance region of the rhombic duct. A ten-term solution provides accurate predictions in the values of C f Re for a rhombic duct having a larger angle θ . However, for a duct with a smaller angle, a larger number of basis functions must be used. It is also found that the shape of the isothermal profile is an ellipse when the local Nusselt number approaches a constant value.

Identification of the HLA system is important in anthropological and immunological studies. This paper proposes a simple index typing method to perform the assignment of HLA serological data. It is parsimonious and able to deal with the data of cross-reacting antigens and ill-defined sera. The method is illustrated by an example of the application of the Chinese HLA-A system in Taiwan. A general FORTRAN program for analysing the typing process is available on request from the first author.