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In this study, we proposed an augmented reality- (AR-) based mobile touring system for an authentic learning activity, which enables students to observe and learn key information regarding cultural heritage sites. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed system, we conducted an experiment in a cultural heritage course at a Taiwanese university. A total of 72 students were divided into two groups and randomly assigned to an experimental group who learned with the AR-based mobile touring system and a control group who learned with a conventional mobile touring system. The experimental results show that the AR-based mobile touring system significantly improved the students' memorising dimension of learning achievement, as compared with a conventional mobile touring system. Moreover, the positive impact of the proposed system on students' actualised interest and task-based interest factors provide a particularly encouraging result for outdoor experiences. These experimental results also suggest the potential of AR technology to increase students' learning interest and improve their learning achievements in outdoor settings. Therefore, we suggest that, when applying an AR-based mobile touring system in authentic learning activities, AR virtual objects should be designed appropriately, in order that the content recall performance and learning interest are enhanced.

This study developed a VR-based mobile learning system to simulate the natural environment of a geopark for university students to learn geological knowledge. This learning method used a Google cardboard equipped with smartphones, where students can watch stereoscopic scenes and experience virtual environments as if visiting the geopark. In order to evaluate the learning effectiveness of the proposed system, we collected the learning outcomes, learning motivation, and cognitive load of students before and after the learning activity. The results indicated that students had significantly better learning achievement in their comprehension ability and learning motivation after using the proposed system. Therefore, it can be inferred that the VR-based mobile learning system not only helps students restructure knowledge and improves their comprehension skills but also enhances their learning motivation tendencies. In addition, the results showed that the students did not have high intrinsic and extraneous cognitive loads but had a high germane cognitive load. This finding implies that the proposed system can promote students' learning without overloading their working memories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: the objective of this study is to evaluate the predictive power of the survival model using deep learning of diffusion-weighted images (DWI) in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: DWI at b-values of 0, 100, and 700 sec/mm2 (DWI0, DWI100, DWI700) were preoperatively obtained for 100 NSCLC patients who underwent curative surgery (57 men, 43 women; mean age, 62 years). The ADC0-100 (perfusion-sensitive ADC), ADC100-700 (perfusion-insensitive ADC), ADC0-100-700, and demographic features were collected as input data and 5-year survival was collected as output data. Our survival model adopted transfer learning from a pre-trained VGG-16 network, whereby the softmax layer was replaced with the binary classification layer for the prediction of 5-year survival. Three channels of input data were selected in combination out of DWIs and ADC images and their accuracies and AUCs were compared for the best performance during 10-fold cross validation. Results: 66 patients survived, and 34 patients died. The predictive performance was the best in the following combination: DWI0-ADC0-100-ADC0-100-700 (accuracy: 92%; AUC: 0.904). This was followed by DWI0-DWI700-ADC0-100-700, DWI0-DWI100-DWI700, and DWI0-DWI0-DWI0 (accuracy: 91%, 81%, 76%; AUC: 0.889, 0.763, 0.711, respectively). Survival prediction models trained with ADC performed significantly better than the one trained with DWI only (p-values < 0.05). The survival prediction was improved when demographic features were added to the model with only DWIs, but the benefit of clinical information was not prominent when added to the best performing model using both DWI and ADC. Conclusions: Deep learning may play a role in the survival prediction of lung cancer. The performance of learning can be enhanced by inputting precedented, proven functional parameters of the ADC instead of the original data of DWIs only.

In most cultural heritage courses, students physically visit several renowned heritage sites for educational purposes. However, because of time and manpower limitations, many teachers use traditional outdoor instruction methods to transmit vital information regarding these sites and buildings. This approach could result in students merely memorizing knowledge for test-taking purposes, rather than engaging in active thinking. Therefore, this study proposed using a ubiquitous guide-learning system to enhance students' performance and active participation in cultural heritage courses. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed system, a trial experiment was conducted to visit eight heritage sites featured in the cultural heritage course offered by a local university. In total, 62 students were randomly assigned to either an experimental group testing the proposed system or a control group using traditional outdoor instruction methods. The experimental results indicated that our ubiquitous guide-learning system significantly improved students' learning achievements. The outcome of the Instructional Materials Motivation Survey questionnaire indicated that the experimental group participants were motivated to learn and interested in using the proposed system. Moreover, the two groups had statistically significant results for the attention, confidence, and satisfaction factors. Therefore, implementing our proposed system in conjunction with cultural heritage education courses may yield a significant learning advantage for students by improving overall learning performance and motivation.

Abstract Objectives This research innovatively analyzed the marital transitions (i.e., divorce and widowhood) of older Taiwanese parents, their sleep problems and spousal specific characteristics (i.e., separate bedrooms for sleep and marital relationships) as well as their social and family connections, all of which were simultaneously reflected in emotional and social domains of loneliness. Methods Data are from 1645 older parents from Northern Taiwan. Loneliness was assessed by a De Jong-Gierveld short scale with emotional and social domains. We conducted multivariate logistic regression to examine the associations of marital transitions and family/social connections regarding sleep problems and psychological well-being with loneliness in social and emotional domains. Besides sleep problems and individual socioeconomic status, we included data on couples’ sleeping arrangements and marital relationships. Results Social loneliness was significantly associated with being divorced (AOR = 1.80, 95% CI 1.13–2.86) and living alone (AOR = 1.50, 95% CI 1.02–2.23). In contrast, strong family cohesion and frequent weekly contact with friends were associated with lower social loneliness. Married parents who slept in separate bedrooms were more likely than bed-sharing couples to feel emotional and social loneliness, despite adjusting for their sleep problems. Furthermore, satisfactory spousal relationships significantly decreased the magnitude of associations in the social domain. Discussion Our findings support significant associations between loneliness in later life and major marital transitions, family and social connections and sleep problems which differ in social and emotional domains. Independent of relationship satisfaction, separate bedrooms relate to higher risks of emotional loneliness in older adults.

Condyloma acuminatum is one of the most commonly occurring sexually transmitted diseases, caused by the human papillomavirus. We report the case of a male with intraurethral condyloma acuminata treated through electrocauterization. He presented to our genitourinary outpatient department with several days of painless gross hematuria. Patient history indicated 3 years of ongoing hemodialysis and a prior ureteroscopy. Multiple intraurethral tumors and bulbar urethral strictures were found by cystoscopy. Eventually, the patient underwent transurethral resection with electrocauterization. The patient recovered well, and there was no evidence of recurrence at the 1-year follow-up consultation. While there are many different methods for the treatment of intraurethral condyloma acuminata, panurethral condyloma acuminata are rare and difficult to treat. Here, we report a case of panurethral condyloma acuminata where urethroscopy with electrocauterization, without the use of the cutting mode, was performed with rapid, safe, and effective results.

Although Augmented Reality (AR) technology has already been adopted into mobile learning environments, additional effort must be put towards providing strong evidence that AR-based mobile systems are excellent educational tools that make a positive impact in or outside of the classroom. Our study utilized a similar AR-based mobile learning system developed to authentically teach a liberal arts course at a Taiwanese university. Under controlled study environments, we were able to design a system that could impart relevant concepts from the course to students outside of the traditional classroom setting. Experimental results demonstrated that students with the opportunity to learn through the proposed system demonstrated higher learning motivation, had better learning performance and comprehension abilities than those studying via the conventional outdoor instruction approach. Moreover, the questionnaire survey conducted after our study revealed that "confidence" was the most highly rated motivational factor among students who used the proposed system, suggesting that students were quite motivated to learn using the novel system supplemented with technological advances because they felt more sure of their knowledge and performance. Thus, we believe that using the proposed system can effectively improve the learning outcomes of students enrolled in the liberal arts course, with the particular benefit of boosting confidence in gaining new knowledge, which leads to an improvement of overall learning performance and motivation.

In this work, we improved the performance of germanium (Ge) channel Charge Trapping MemTransistors (CTMTs) as synaptic device by using Ti-doped HfO2 as charge trapping layer (CTL). We manipulated the amount of Ti dopant within the HfO2 CTL to perform the band engineering by varying the Hf/Ti cycle ratio in atomic layer deposition (ALD). The content of Ti was quantified and the energy band structures of the gate stack was constructed with the aid of transmission electron microscope (TEM) images and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. We then fabricated the charge trapping capacitors and characterized their memory characteristics such as memory windows. By the implementation of amphoteric trap model, thermal activated electron retention model and advanced charge decay model, the trap distribution of the CTL was extracted. Finally, we fabricated the CTMTs with Ti-doped HfO2 as the CTL and characterized their performance as synaptic device such as nonlinearity of depression and potentiation and also conductance on/off ratio. We used NeuroSim simulator with multilayer perceptron and convolutional neural network models to evaluate the pattern recognition accuracy of neural network hardware accelerator using CTMTs as synaptic devices and benchmarked the performance of our CTMT with those of other types of synaptic devices.

In this work, we investigated the effects of the crystal phase of ZrO2 on charge trapping memtransistors (CTMTs) as synaptic devices for neural network applications. The ZrO2 deposited through thermal (t-ZrO2) atomic layer deposition (ALD) and plasma (p-ZrO2) ALD were analyzed using an X-ray diffractometer, which indicated that the t-ZrO2 consisted of pure cubic phase, whereas p-ZrO2 consisted of both cubic and tetragonal phases. Through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis, we then constructed the energy band diagram of the gate stacks. The ΔEC of tand p-ZrO2 with respect to tunneling and blocking Al2O3 were 1.84 and 1.19 eV respectively. Because of the relatively large ΔEC of t-ZrO2, the window of the flat band voltage (VFB) shift extracted from charge trapping capacitors was enlarged by 591.9 mV more than the one using p-ZrO2 as the charge trapping layer. Retention was also improved by 10.4% after 105 s in the t-ZrO2 case. Finally, we fabricated the CTMTs with the gate stack of the t-ZrO2 case and demonstrated their characteristics as synaptic devices. With the optimization of pulse schemes, we reduced the nonlinear factors of depression (αd) and potentiation (αp) from -6.72 and 6.47 to 0.03 and 0.01 respectively, enlarged the ON/OFF ratio from 15.6 to 70.4 and increased the recognition accuracy from 27.6% to 86.5% simultaneously.

This paper proposes a novel interactive ubiquitous learning system (IULS) for authentically teaching a cultural heritage course and imparting relevant concepts to students. Experimental results demonstrated that learning performance was significantly improved after students used the IULS. This study also demonstrated that students using the IULS achieved superior results to those achieved using conventional teaching models. No gender bias affecting the performance of students in the experimental group was observed because each student consistently performed to a higher standard on the learning tasks compared with students in the control group, particularly in learning comprehension-related content. The IULS was more effective in enhancing the overall learning performance of students exhibiting different cognitive styles in liberal arts education courses. Furthermore, the results of a survey on Instructional Materials Motivation Survey revealed that Relevance was the most highly rated motivational factor among students who used the IULS, suggesting that students were motivated to use the IULS. Thus, we believe that a liberal arts education supplemented with the IULS yields a significant learning advantage for students by improving overall learning performance and motivation.

Abstract Background We aimed to examine the effect of ambient air pollution at the district level on adolescents’ happiness and their change in happiness over time in a cohort sample from Taiwan. Method A cohort from the Taiwan Youth Project was evaluated. The adolescents (n = 2571) were in the 7th grade (mean age = 14.3 years) when the study was initiated and resided in 40 districts in three cities and counties in northern Taiwan. We examined the effects of the concentration level of air pollution, including PM2.5, PM10, and NO2, at the district level on adolescents’ happiness and their change in happiness over time (7th to 9th grade). Due to the high correlations of the three pollutants, we examined each separately with similar covariates. The analyses were based on both multilevel modeling and latent growth curve modeling. Results Higher concentration levels of each of the three air pollutants measured were associated with adolescent happiness such that a higher level of concentration was related to lower levels of adolescents’ happiness. These results were observed after controlling for important individual- and district-level covariates. However, further analyses did not reveal that the concentration level of air pollution was associated with the change in happiness in the study period (after 3 years). Some sensitivity checks (e.g., adjusting district size) did not change the substantive results. Conclusion Many previous studies have shown the influence of air pollution on physical health and negative emotions, but only a few using adult samples have shown that air pollution is inversely related to positive wellbeing. This study may be the first to examine the effects of air pollution on adolescents’ positive affect. Our results echo recent research on the consequent health burden of air pollution. Given that positive affect has been linked to future adult health, the results of the current study provide empirical grounds for early intervention concerning environmental factors.

BACKGROUND:Sexually explicit media exposure during early adolescence has been found to be associated with risky sexual behavior. However, previous study suffered from methodological issue, such as selection bias. Furthermore, little is known about the effect of multi-modality sexually explicit media exposure on risky sexual behavior, and how this relationship can be applied to non-western societies. OBJECTIVES:This study aimed to improve upon previous studies by using instrumental variable estimation. In addition, this study also included multi-modality of sexually explicit media and three risky sexual behavior measure from a sample of Taiwanese adolescents. METHODS:Participants were recruited from a prospective longitudinal study (Taiwan Youth Project). All were in 7th grade (mean age = 13.3) when the study was initiated in 2000. Sexually explicit media exposure, including ever-exposure and number of modalities exposed to, was measured in wave 2 (8th grade). Risky sexual behavior was measured in waves 8 (mean age = 20.3) and 10 (mean age = 24.3). A two-stage least squares regression was employed, with pubertal timing as the instrumental variable. RESULTS:About 50% of participants had been exposed to sexual media content by 8th grade, from an average of one modality. Sexually explicit media exposure predicted early sexual debut, unsafe sex, and multiple sexual partners (all: p < .05). Furthermore, exposure to more media modalities increased the likelihood of risky sexual behaviors. However, only the effect on early sexual debut was gender invariant. CONCLUSIONS:Exposure to sexually explicit media in early adolescence had a substantive relationship with risky sexual behavior in the emerging adulthood. Knowledge of this causal like effect provides a basis for building better preventive programs in early adolescence. One prominent way is early education on media literacy, and physicians themselves may need to be familiar with such content to initiate it.

Using digital learning content to realize learning in games is a rapidly-developing direction of interest for teachers and researchers. This study has developed a digital role-playing gaming system to review Social Studies course content to a fifth Grade class at an elementary school. It allows students to experience the historical storyline of Tamsui, located in the north of Taiwan, by playing the role of Dr. Mackay. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the potential effects of the proposed system when applied to the reviewing activity of Humanities courses. The results of the post-test scores showed that the proposed system is not superior to the traditional teaching method which uses PowerPoint-based slides with the teacher's oral instruction, but it still enhances their overall learning performance after the reviewing activity. Moreover, the results of the questionnaire survey showed that the students who reviewed by using the proposed system showed a higher learning motivation than those reviewing with the traditional teaching method. It is therefore concluded that our role-playing digital gaming system can be used to assist the teachers' teaching activities, because it allows the students to complete their reviewing activity by themselves, and it effectively enhances their learning performances and motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The addition of animated pedagogical agents (APAs) in computer-assisted learning (CAL) systems could successfully enhance students' learning motivation and engagement in learning activities. Conventionally, the APA incorporated multimedia materials are constructed through the cooperation of teachers and software programmers. However, the thinking and technical gap between two roles, a concept/content provider (teacher) and an implementer (software programmer), may lead to the concept distortion and loss in the final teaching material implementations. This often results in preventing a teacher from preparing his or her own APA-based multimedia learning systems. This study aims to develop a courseware to facilitate the CAL through the combination of the two roles into a single one and then teachers can use it freely by themselves. The courseware can help teachers to develop appropriate multimedia instructional materials incorporating APAs, which attracts students' attention and enhances their interest in learning. Furthermore, in this study two separate trial experiments were conducted to measure the teachers' satisfaction with the courseware and students' learning motivation after using APA-based multimedia learning systems. The results show that the participating teachers were satisfied with the courseware and would like to apply it in their instruction. Moreover, the participating students were strongly motivated by the customized APA-based multimedia learning systems. Therefore, the proposed courseware could give teachers a good opportunity to add pedagogical value to the curriculum, so that students' learning interest and motivation could be enhanced.

Abstract Recent studies have shown that overexpression of tonicity-responsive enhancer binding protein (TonEBP) is associated with many inflammatory diseases, including diabetes mellitus, which causes neuroinflammation in the hippocampus as well as hepatic steatosis. However, the exact mechanism in diabetic neuroinflammation is unknown. We report that haploinsufficiency of TonEBP inhibits hepatic and hippocampal high-mobility group box-1 (HMGB1) expression in diabetic mice. Here, mice were fed a high-fat diet (HFD) for 16 weeks and received an intraperitoneal injection of 100 mg/kg streptozotocin (STZ) and followed by continued HFD feeding for an additional 4 weeks to induce hyperglycemia and hepatic steatosis. Compared with wild-type diabetic mice, diabetic TonEBP+/− mice showed decreased body weight, fat mass, hepatic steatosis, and macrophage infiltration. We also found that adipogenesis and HMGB1 expression in the liver and hippocampus were lower in diabetic TonEBP+/− mice compared with the wild type. Furthermore, iba-1 immunoreactivity in the hippocampus was decreased in diabetic TonEBP+/− mice compared with that in the wild type. Our findings suggest that TonEBP haploinsufficiency suppresses diabetes-associated hepatic steatosis and neuroinflammation.

ObjectivesMost researchers have examined forms of loneliness as discrete and emotional distress. The approach proposed in this study captures the reality that many persons experience more than one dimension of loneliness-varying degrees coupled with their psychological well-being in a family context. This study explores the latent structure of loneliness during young adulthood and its association with psychological well-being, as well as how these are related to their family characteristics in adolescence.MethodsData are from 2,748 young people, a cohort sample from the Taiwan Youth Project (TYP). Loneliness was assessed by a 6-item de Jong-Gierveld short scale with emotional and social loneliness domains. We describe the clustering between loneliness domains and psychological well-being, namely depressive symptoms, self-esteem, suicidal thoughts, and alcohol use using latent class cluster analysis. In addition to incorporating the Taiwanese family context, multivariate multinomial logistic regression models included data on family cohesion and parental guan (parental control) in adolescence. This might be associated with choices in partnership and childbearing, and influence loneliness in young adulthood.ResultsOur results demonstrate a three-cluster model of loneliness involving emotional loners, serious emotional loners, and severe emotional/social loners. We also found that a feeling of serious emotional loneliness and severe emotional/social loneliness were significantly associated with psychological well-being, even adjusting for individual characteristics. Among young adults who had a partner, the married adults were significantly less likely to feel serious emotional loneliness than those who were living alone. Furthermore, young adults with stronger family cohesion during early adolescence were less likely to suffer from serious emotional loneliness (Relative risk ratios [RRR] 0.77, 95% CI 0.65-0.91) and severe emotional/social loneliness (RRR 0.54, 95% CI 0.34-0.85) in young adulthood.DiscussionThis measurement strategy provides a foundation for future research into how experts can address loneliness clusters in order to better understand psychological well-being during young adulthood and family context in adolescence. This is important because our results suggest that the various loneliness domains do not occur independently, but rather are embedded in patterns and are associated with family characteristics.

This study developed a QR-based U-Learning Material Production System (QR-ULMPS) that provides teachers with an education tool to motivate college level students enrolled in a liberal arts course. QR-ULMPS was specifically designed to support the development of u-learning materials and create an engaging context-aware u-learning environment for students. A quasi-experimental research design was used to evaluate the overall effectiveness of QR-ULMPS; the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) assessed the feasibility of using QR-ULMPS to implement teaching activities; while the Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (IMMS) was used to measure the students' learning motivation after using the proposed u-learning system. From the results of the UTAUT questionnaire, we found that teachers rated the system positively and were willing to accept and adopt QR-ULMPS into their course content. Teachers also agreed that QR-ULMPS was a useful tool to motivate students' learning during outdoor teaching activities. Moreover, results of the IMMS questionnaire indicated that students assigned to the proposed u-learning system achieved better results than participants learning via conventional methods. We believe that the proposed u-learning system is advantageous because it enhances student motivation and allows for higher levels of engagement, particularly during outdoor learning activities. Thus, we conclude that the proposed u-learning system can create a learning experience that both interests and engages students. Although QR-ULMPS is not mature enough to be used across a sundry of educational domains, it provides an innovative opportunity for teachers to integrate a novel teaching methodology that challenges traditional educational norms.

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a global health problem that features a very high mortality rate. The UL16 binding protein 2 (ULBP2) is a new biomarker for PC detection. This study develops a simple, reliable, and inexpensive immunosensor for the detection of the ULBP2 antigen while also investigating the effects of an array configuration of connected sensors and zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles on the immunosensor’s sensitivity. The ULBP2 antibody was immobilized onto the screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) surfaces of three different sensors: a simple SPCE (ULBP2-SPCE); an SPCE array, which is a series of identical SPCE connected to each other at different arrangements of rows and columns (ULBP2-SPCE-1x2 and ULBP2-SPCE-1x3); and an SPCE combined with ZnO nanoparticles (ULBP2-ZnO/SPCE). Impedance spectrum measurements for the immunosensors to ULBP2 antigen were conducted and compared. According to the result, the array configurations (ULBP2-SPCE-1x2 and ULBP2-SPCE-1x3) show an improvement of sensitivity compared to the ULBP2-SPCE alone, but the improvement is not as significant as that of the ULBP2-ZnO/SPCE configuration (ULBP2-ZnO/SPCE > ULBP2-SPCE: 18 times larger). The ULBP2-ZnO/SPCE immunosensor has a low limit of detection (1 pg/mL) and a high sensitivity (332.2 Ω/Log(pg/mL)), excellent linearity (R2 = 0.98), good repeatability (coefficients of variation = 5.03%), and is stable in long-term storage (retaining 95% activity after 28 days storage). In an array configuration, the immunosensor has an increased signal-to-noise ratio (ULBP2-SPCE-1x3 > ULBP2-SPCE: 1.5-fold) and sensitivity (ULBP2-SPCE-1x3 > ULBP2-SPCE: 2.6-fold). In conclusion, either the modification with ZnO nanoparticles onto the sensor or the use of an array configuration of sensors can enhance the immunosensor’s sensitivity. In this study, the best immunosensor for detecting ULBP2 antigens is the ULBP2-ZnO/SPCE immunosensor.

Educational robotics has been regarded as an effective instructional tool over the past decade. Many studies have tested the role of robots in supporting educational classroom activities. However, reliable empirical evidence confirming the effectiveness of educational robots remains limited. Therefore, this study developed an educational robot-based learning system that provides an attractive teaching application that combines multimedia objects with an educational robot. This study examined the impact of the proposed learning system on student learning performance and motivation. The four-stage experimental procedure involved a pre-test, post-test, learning activities, and questionnaire survey. The participants comprised one homeroom teacher and 52 second-grade students from two classes at an elementary school in Taiwan. All of the students were assigned to use either the proposed learning system or a PowerPoint-based learning system. The pre-test and post-test results show that the proposed learning system improved student performance more than the PowerPoint-based learning system did. A questionnaire based on the Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (IMMS) was employed to measure four motivational factors (attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction). The IMMS survey results show that satisfaction and relevance were the highest rated motivational factors among students who used the proposed learning system. The experimental results indicate that the students were motivated to use the educational robot-based learning system. Thus, using educational robot-based learning systems in classrooms demonstrates a significant advantage for students, by improving overall learning interest and motivation.

Lobeglitazone (Lobe) is a novel thiazolidinedione antidiabetic drug that reduces insulin resistance by activating peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma (PPARγ). However, the exact mechanisms of antidiabetic effects of Lobe have not been established in an animal model. The aim of this study was to evaluate the hypoglycemic effects of Lobe and investigate possible factors involved in Lobe-enhanced hepatic steatosis in high-fat diet (HFD)-fed mice. Mice were fed an HFD for 15 weeks. Lobe was administrated orally during the last 9 weeks. Lobe treatment significantly reduced insulin resistance and increased expression of hepatic glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4) and PPARs in HFD-fed mice. However, increased body weight and hepatic steatosis were not reduced by Lobe in these mice. Metabolomics fingerprinting showed that several lipogenesis-related hepatic and serum metabolites in HFD-fed mice had positive or negative correlations with Lobe administration. In particular, increased leptin levels during HFD were further increased by Lobe. HFD-induced signaling transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) phosphorylation in the hypothalamus was increased by Lobe. In addition, immunohistochemical analysis showed more proopiomelanocortin (POMC)-positive neurons in the hypothalamus of HFD-fed mice (with or without Lobe) compared with normal diet-fed mice. Despite improving leptin signaling in the hypothalamus and enhancing insulin sensitivity in HFD-fed mice, Lobe increased body weight and steatosis. Further research is necessary regarding other factors affecting Lobe-enhanced hepatic steatosis and hyperphagia.

ObjectivesThe shape of the flow-volume (F-V) curve is known to change to showing a prominent plateau as stenosis progresses in patients with tracheal stenosis. However, no study has evaluated changes in the F-V curve according to the degree of bronchial stenosis in patients with unilateral main bronchial stenosis.MethodsWe performed an analysis of F-V curves in 29 patients with unilateral bronchial stenosis with the aid of a graphic digitizer between January 2005 and December 2011.ResultsThe primary diseases causing unilateral main bronchial stenosis were endobronchial tuberculosis (86%), followed by benign bronchial tumor (10%), and carcinoid (3%). All unilateral main bronchial stenoses were classified into one of five grades (I, ≤25%; II, 26%-50%; III, 51%-75%; IV, 76%-90%; V, >90% to near-complete obstruction without ipsilateral lung collapse). A monophasic F-V curve was observed in patients with grade I stenosis and biphasic curves were observed for grade II-IV stenosis. Both monophasic (81%) and biphasic shapes (18%) were observed in grade V stenosis. After standardization of the biphasic shape of the F-V curve, the breakpoints of the biphasic curve moved in the direction of high volume (x-axis) and low flow (y-axis) according to the progression of stenosis.ConclusionIn unilateral bronchial stenosis, a biphasic F-V curve appeared when bronchial stenosis was >25% and disappeared when obstruction was near complete. In addition, the breakpoint moved in the direction of high volume and low flow with the progression of stenosis.

This article examines the role of mobile phones during the COVID-19 pandemic and the inequalities that arise from their use. It discusses how mobile phones have become essential for communication, accessing information, and managing the pandemic through contact-tracing apps. The article also explores the influence of large technology companies in promoting digitalization and monetizing increased mobile phone usage. It highlights the disparities in access and proficiency among different age groups, particularly older adults who face barriers in using smartphones due to age-related health decline. The article suggests that businesses have overlooked older adults, widening digital inequality, but there is an opportunity for companies to develop accessible applications and products tailored to their needs. Additionally, the article discusses the adverse effects of excessive mobile phone usage on young people's mental health and the influence of neoliberalism in marketing digital media to younger generations. The research indicates that smartphone dependence and digital disparities will continue to shape post-pandemic societies. [Extracted from the article]

This study developed a wearable mixed reality (MR)-based mobile learning system and applied it to museum learning activities to explore whether the proposed system can effectively improve university students’ learning outcomes, situational interest, and cognitive load. Four museums were selected as the informal learning sites, and 64 university students were randomly divided into the experimental group (using the wearable MR-based mobile learning system) and the control group (using the conventional mobile learning system). The results show that in the retention and comprehension dimensions of the learning outcome, the experimental group has significantly better learning performance than the control group. The experimental group showed improvements in almost all dimensions of situational interest, except for the challenge dimension, while their extraneous cognitive load was reduced. Furthermore, this study found that the proposed system has a positive influence on museum learning in higher education, and has good potential for improving the conventional mobile learning system and enhancing students’ learning performance. The findings of this study can provide a reference for future research on the possibilities of using wearable devices for museum education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality of water flows through the taps for drinking is gaining attention from public. There are still bacteria and minerals that exist in the tap water that can damage human’s health. Hence, the objective of this work is to develop a personal, portable dual purposes handy water filter to provide an easier way to get safe, clean and healthy drinking water for human wherever they go. The designed system can be used in filtering water taken from public drinking fountains or other public water sources. The work is started by conducting a preliminary research. First, the constraints and criteria of the problem are identified and discussed in detail. Analysis of the mechanism performance is conducted as inputs for calculation, modelling, testing and other designing methods. Finally, several possible solutions of the problems are generated.

Radiation-induced lung injury (RILI) is a common and unavoidable complication of thoracic radiotherapy. The current study was conducted to evaluate the ability of clarithromycin (CLA) to prevent radiation-induced pneumonitis, oxidative stress, and lung fibrosis in an animal model. C57BL/6J mice were assigned to control, irradiation only, irradiation plus CLA, and CLA only groups. Test mice received single thoracic exposures to radiation and/or oral CLA (100 mg/kg/day). Histopathologic findings and markers of inflammation, fibrosis, and oxidative stress were compared by group. On a microscopic level, CLA inhibited macrophage influx, alveolar fibrosis, parenchymal collapse, consolidation, and epithelial cell changes. The concentration of collagen in lung tissue was lower in irradiation plus CLA mice. Radiation-induced expression of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, TNF receptor 1, acetylated nuclear factor kappa B, cyclooxygenase 2, vascular cell adhesion molecule 1, and matrix metallopeptidase 9 were also attenuated by CLA. Expression levels of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 and heme oxygenase 1, transforming growth factor-β1, connective tissue growth factor, and type I collagen in radiation-treated lungs were also attenuated by CLA. These findings indicate that CLA ameliorates the deleterious effects of thoracic irradiation in mice by reducing pulmonary inflammation, oxidative damage, and fibrosis.

Objective: This paper aims to explain societal differences in the event of leaving the parental home as part of the transition to adulthood, in the United States, Germany, China, and Taiwan. It proposes bridge hypotheses between societal characteristics such as kinship system and welfare regime and home-leaving behavior, and tests them with nationally representative panel studies. Methods: Four panel studies (NLSY97 for the USA; PAIRFAM for Germany; CFPS for China; TYP for Taiwan) were harmonized for similar cohorts, with an age span of 15 to 30 years. Testing was based on age-specific tabulations of household composition and separate discrete-time event history models. Results: The prevalence of home-leaving is highest in the United States, followed by Germany, China, and then Taiwan. Timing is earlier in the United States than in Germany, and earlier in China than in Taiwan. Gender-specific coincidence of home-leaving with entry into higher education, the work force, cohabitation, and marriage can be conclusively related to differences in kinship system and welfare regime, and regional opportunity disparities. Contribution: The empirical results point to significant cultural differences between home-leaving in collectivistic, patrilineal societies (China, Taiwan) and individualistic, bilineal societies (USA, Germany). Whereas neolocal housing signifies an important step in the transition to adulthood in the latter societies, continuous intergenerational housing, or even an early return to it, is normatively supported in collectivistic cultures. Differences between the United States and Germany on the one hand, and China and Taiwan on the other, point to variation in welfare regimes and differences in urbanization.

A study to explore the conjugal consistency or disparity to compare the relative importance of conjugal disparity as against personal factors and to delineate the effect of demographic pairing in contrast with the effect of value discrepancy of the couples, in the perceptions of marital values and relations in Taiwan, Shanghai and Hong Kong is conducted. The results indicate that despite the high consistency percentage of perceptions of marital values and relations on the aggregate level, there exists a substantial amount of inconsistency among the conjugal pairs.

In this study, a head-mounted camera was used to track eye behaviors and estimate the gaze point on the user's visual plane. The integration of the elastic mechanism design makes the headset adaptable for various users. The wearable cases were prototyped with low-cost cameras to produce an efficient eye tracking solution. This proposed system can effectively extract and estimate pupil ellipse from a few camera images of an eye and compute the corresponding three-dimensional eye model. The system can match later images of the same pupil ellipse from a head-mounted camera to give the possible visual angles. To estimate the gaze point, the system uses multiple-point calibration to solve the related polynomial formula for future angle-to-gaze mapping. The proposed eye-tracking algorithms can provide a low-complexity solution with high accuracy, precision, and speed. This tracking system is a low-cost and promising system that can be used in headsets for virtual reality, auxiliary equipment, interactive machine, and human–machine interface applications. The proposed eye-tracking algorithm can achieve satisfactory performance without using a high-end high-speed camera and can be detected under different lighting sources, and the average errors of the detection results are stably within 9 pixels and at a distance of 50 cm from the screen; while the average error of the fixation mapping results is within 3°. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Singapore Health Services cluster (SingHealth) radiology film archives are a valuable repository of local radiological cases dating back to the 1950s. Some of the cases in the archives are of historical medical interest, i.e. cerebral angiography in the workup of patients with hemiplegia. Other cases are of historical social interest, being conditions seen during earlier stages of Singapore's development, i.e. bound feet. The archives form a unique portal into the development of local radiology as well as the national development of Singapore. A selection from the archives is published in 2020 in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the formation of SingHealth, the 55th National Day of Singapore, and the 125th anniversary of the International Day of Radiology. This pictorial essay comprises cardiovascular, respiratory and neurological cases from the archives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most cultural heritage courses, students physically visit several renowned heritage sites for educational purposes. However, because of time and manpower limitations, many teachers use traditional outdoor instruction methods to transmit vital information regarding these sites and buildings. This approach could result in students merely memorizing knowledge for test-taking purposes, rather than engaging in active thinking. Therefore, this study proposed using a ubiquitous guide-learning system to enhance students’ performance and active participation in cultural heritage courses. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed system, a trial experiment was conducted to visit eight heritage sites featured in the cultural heritage course offered by a local university. In total, 62 students were randomly assigned to either an experimental group testing the proposed system or a control group using traditional outdoor instruction methods. The experimental results indicated that our ubiquitous guide-learning system significantly improved students’ learning achievements. The outcome of the Instructional Materials Motivation Survey questionnaire indicated that the experimental group participants were motivated to learn and interested in using the proposed system. Moreover, the two groups had statistically significant results for the attention, confidence, and satisfaction factors. Therefore, implementing our proposed system in conjunction with cultural heritage education courses may yield a significant learning advantage for students by improving overall learning performance and motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]