Search

Field-induced ionic motions in all-inorganic CsPbBr3 perovskite quantum dots (QDs) strongly dictate not only their electro-optical characteristics but also the ultimate optoelectronic device performance. Here, we show that the functionality of a single Ag/CsPbBr3/ITO device can be actively switched on a sub-millisecond scale from a resistive random-access memory (RRAM) to a light-emitting electrochemical cell (LEC), or vice versa, by simply modulating its bias polarity. We then realize for the first time a fast, all-perovskite light-emitting memory (LEM) operating at 5 kHz by pairing such two identical devices in series, in which one functions as an RRAM to electrically read the encoded data while the other simultaneously as an LEC for a parallel, non-contact optical reading. We further show that the digital status of the LEM can be perceived in real time from its emission color. Our work opens up a completely new horizon for more advanced all-inorganic perovskite optoelectronic technologies., Electric field induced ion migration is a well-known phenomenon in perovskite, but the consequences are notorious, and thus needs to be prevented. Here, on the other hand, the authors cleverly manipulate this event for realising resistive random-access memory and light-emitting electrochemical cell in one device based on CsPbBr3 quantum dots.

Background: Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans (DFSP) is rare soft tissue sarcoma but has a locally aggressive nature. Although most cases are of low grade and have a rare metastasis rate, all DFSP variants have a tendency to show local recurrence. Wide excision with negative margins is the treatment of choice. Aim: To report a case of DFSP who presented with an asymptomatic slow growing tumor similar to etiologies such as hypertrophic scars or other benign soft tissue tumors. Case Presentation: A 68-year-old male presented with a large soft tumor located at the left posterior neck. Local excision was done under the preoperative impression of a benign tumor such as lipoma or sebaceous cyst. However the diagnosis of DFSP was made upon histological examination and the patient underwent another surgery to achieve free resection margins under general anesthesia as well as adjuvant radiotherapy. Conclusion: DFSP is a malignant tumor that is diagnosed histopathologically. Due to the low incidence rate, slow-growing nature, and non-alarming initial presentation features, diagnostic delay or even misdiagnosis is not uncommon.

Purpose: To establish an appropriate clinical protocol for early photoscreening in 12-to-24-month-old children at pediatric well-baby clinics. Methods: This prospective study included a total of 277 children aged 12–24 months who visited a pediatric well-baby clinic. All participants underwent: 1) inquiry of medical history; 2) photoscreening with PlusoptiX A12; and 3) comprehensive ophthalmologic examinations. The optimal referral cut-off point for PlusoptiX was determined by receiver operating characteristic analyses. A high-risk subgroup was defined as having a birth weight

Gout is a metabolic disorder that is characterized by a deposition of monosodium urate crystals in the joint or soft tissue. Gout manifestations in head and neck region are rare, and larynx is an infrequently affected location. We recently managed a case of a gouty tophus over the larynx. A 65-year-old male with a long history of gout without medical control. He has suffered from increasing hoarseness for six months. Laryngoscopy revealed a mass lesion over the right vocal process region without vocal paralysis. Laryngo-micro-surgery biopsy was taken, and pathology confirmed laryngeal gouty tophus without evidence of malignancy.

PurposeCorporate illegal activities may result in fatal injuries and economic losses and have been widely reported in the construction industry. This study is to investigate the relationship between top management team (TMT) compensation and corporate illegal activities with the moderating effects of aspiration–performance discrepancies.Design/methodology/approachUsing a multi-year sample of Chinese construction firms from 2011 to 2017, this paper employed a hierarchical logit regression model with fixed effects.FindingsThis study indicates that TMT compensation is positively related to the likelihood of corporate illegal activities. It also finds performance higher than aspirations would lower the probability of illegal activities while performance lower than aspirations also decreases the occurrence of illegal behaviors. Finally, the positive relationship between TMT compensation and illegal activities is strengthened by aspiration–performance discrepancies.Practical implicationsIt recommended the design of executive compensation may need to be reconsidered. Next, companies need to carefully monitor top management team, especially when performance is lower than the desired level. Finally, debt-to-equity ratio deserves more attention for Chinese construction firms in suppressing illegal activities.Originality/valueGiven the mixed effects of TMT compensation, this study confirms its positive impact on corporate illegal behaviors. Consistent with the behavioral theory of the firm, it unveils the direct and moderating effects of aspiration-performance discrepancies. The findings are beneficial for evaluating firms' performance and considering the prevention of corporate fraudulent activities.

Background: Several large series have established endoscopic transnasal sellar surgery as the procedure of choice for removal of tumors in the sellar area. Although this procedure provides a less invasive approach to the sella, it entails complications such as nasal bleeding, impaired olfactory function, atrophic rhinitis, synechiae, etc. No studies have yet reported potential morbidities such as empty nose syndrome (ENS), although patients have a relatively empty nasal cavity after surgery. Therefore, we sought to verify the percentage of patients who truly met the diagnostic criteria for ENS after endoscopic transnasal sellar surgery, determine the variation between pre- and postoperative scores in each Empty Nose Syndrome 6-Item Questionnaire (ENS6Q) item, and further evaluate the symptoms that may affect the patients the most after surgery. Methods: Between March 2015 and January 2019, eventually 11 patients who underwent extended endoscopic transnasal sellar surgery in Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital, a tertiary referral medical center in Taipei, Taiwan, were enrolled. The patients completed the recently validated ENS6Q after surgery. Results: One patient met the objective diagnostic criteria for ENS (score ≥ 11 in ENS6Q). Significant differences were observed in the pre- and postoperative total ENS6Q scores. The pre- and postoperative scores of “nose feeling too open” and nasal crusting showed statistically significant differences. Further, compared with the other items, the postoperative score of nasal crusting increased most obviously, and it may be the most apparent operation-related symptom. Conclusion: This study is the first to report the possibility of developing ENS after endoscopic transnasal sellar surgery. Although the transnasal endoscopic approach is a safe and minimally invasive procedure for the treatment of sellar lesions, possible complications such as ENS should be considered.

This study aimed to determine the role of mitochondria-associated proteins (HtrA2, α-synuclein, and Park7) in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A total of 125 patients with ADHD (77.6% were males) and 66 healthy controls (66.7% were males) were recruited. We found that girls with ADHD demonstrated higher plasma HtrA2 level than control girls, and their HtrA2 levels were positively correlated with verbal comprehensive ability, and negatively correlated to behavior symptoms. Among boys, we observed no correlations between these mitochondrial proteins, neuropsychological findings, and clinical symptoms. Our findings suggest that an underlying gender-specific mitochondria pathway may influence with the pathophysiology of ADHD.

Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DWI) is an alternative to second-look surgery for the detection of cholesteatoma

Si-Wu Tang (SWT), a traditional Chinese formula, is commonly used for treating female diseases, such as relief of menstrual discomfort and climacteric syndrome. The aim of this study was to explore the synergistic effects between each herb in SWT on menstrual disorder patterns. Estradiol regulation and antioxidative effects were indicators that ameliorated menstrual disorder patterns and the total polyphenol and polysaccharide contents were quality markers. According to relationships of bioactivity and phytochemical contents, we discuss the effects of each herb in SWT. In a testosterone-treated MCF-7 cell model, Rehmannia glutinosa and catalpol significantly increased the estradiol content and aromatase upregulation in cell culture. We suggest that catalpol is an aromatase promoter in SWT, and R. glutinosa is a major actor. In terms of the antioxidant activity, pentagalloylglucose, gallic acid, and ferulic acid had stronger antioxidative effects than other compounds. We suggest that the antioxidative ability depends on polyphenols, and Paeonia lactiflora is a major contributor. Based on the prescribing principle of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) theory, we suggest that R. glutinosa in SWT act as an aromatase promoter in the role of sovereign for ameliorating menstrual disorder patterns. As P. lactiflora has the strongest antioxidant effects and can prevent ROS damage ovarian; therefore, P. lactiflora could help R. glutinosa work as a minister for menstrual disorder patterns and R. glutinosa and P. lactiflora are a herbal pair in SWT.

The computing cost of transformer self-attention often necessitates breaking long documents to fit in pretrained models in document ranking tasks. In this paper, we design Query-Directed Sparse attention that induces IR-axiomatic structures in transformer self-attention. Our model, QDS-Transformer, enforces the principle properties desired in ranking: local contextualization, hierarchical representation, and query-oriented proximity matching, while it also enjoys efficiency from sparsity. Experiments on one fully supervised and three few-shot TREC document ranking benchmarks demonstrate the consistent and robust advantage of QDS-Transformer over previous approaches, as they either retrofit long documents into BERT or use sparse attention without emphasizing IR principles. We further quantify the computing complexity and demonstrates that our sparse attention with TVM implementation is twice more efficient than the fully-connected self-attention. All source codes, trained model, and predictions of this work are available at https://github.com/hallogameboy/QDS-Transformer., Accepted by EMNLP 2020, 12 pages, 5 figures

Generative neural networks have been shown effective on query suggestion. Commonly posed as a conditional generation problem, the task aims to leverage earlier inputs from users in a search session to predict queries that they will likely issue at a later time. User inputs come in various forms such as querying and clicking, each of which can imply different semantic signals channeled through the corresponding behavioral patterns. This paper induces these behavioral biases as hypotheses for query generation, where a generic encoder-decoder Transformer framework is presented to aggregate arbitrary hypotheses of choice. Our experimental results show that the proposed approach leads to significant improvements on top-$k$ word error rate and Bert F1 Score compared to a recent BART model., EMNLP 2020 short paper, 6 pages

Si-Wu-Tang (SWT), a traditional Chinese formula, is commonly used to relieve menstrual discomfort and climacteric syndrome. Water decoction (WD) and concentrated herbal extract (CHE) are the two most common formulations of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). However, few studies have reported the equivalency of these two formulations. In this study, 23 healthy volunteers were included to determine the pharmacokinetic (PK) equivalent dosage of WD and CHE, and 25 infertile women with follicular maldevelopment to evaluate the pharmacodynamic (PD) effects on menstrual disorders. The randomized, two-way crossover comparative PK study of SWT-WD and SWT-CHE analyzed the active component, ferulic acid. The results showed that clinical doses of 170 mL SWT-WD and 18 g SWT-CHE produced the same amount of ferulic acid in the blood. The PD study showed that patients who took both of these formulations had an initial luteinizing hormone/follicle-stimulating hormone ratio of

Many prior studies have focused on controlling and monitoring disaster prevention efforts while lacking post-performance assessment from the perspective of residents. The aim of the present study is to investigate ex-post performance in past and current disaster prevention in Taipei. We reviewed practical implementation experience and the literature on ex-post performance evaluation. The authors then applied a survey-based method to collect input from community leaders who participated in disaster prevention and relief projects. Structural equation modeling was used to clarify the relationship between various constructs and to determine the impact of construct interaction on ex-post performance outcomes. We further constructed a two-dimensional grid to prioritize performance evaluation indicators providing practical implication to ensure sustainable improvements to ex-post performance effectiveness of disaster prevention. For those who ‘have participated in a disaster prevention program’ and those who ‘have never participated in a disaster prevention program’, the ex-post performance index of the former group is 7.63% higher than their counterpart, showing the importance of disaster prevention program in affecting ex-post performance and effectiveness. The development of a satisfaction/performance index system can facilitate governments in the post-performance evaluation of disaster prevention.

The objective of this retrospective review is to evaluate the ability of the Murray secretion scale to predict aspiration as determined by fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing. Patients with dysphagia undergoing a fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing study between January 2013 and November 2015 from a single, tertiary care institution were retrospectively reviewed. The Murray secretion scale and penetration aspiration scale on fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing examination were determined. Spearman’s correlation analysis, sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and relative risk evaluating the relationship between the Murray secretion scale and aspiration on fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing were calculated. Subgroups of head and neck cancer patients, penetration group, and aspiration group were also analyzed. The mean age of the cases (N = 212) was 62.4 years. Eighty percent were male. There was a strong correlation between Murray secretion scale grade and penetration aspiration scale score (r = 0.785, p

The indications for the concentrated extract product (CEP) of Wu Lin San (WLS) are urethritis, cystitis, and gonorrhea. In clinical settings, WLS is combined with other CEPs used. However, there are no prescribed guidelines of CEPs in Taiwan. In this study, we would establish the CEP-prescribed applications of WLS for cystitis according to the clinical prescription patterns and ancient traditional medicine books. The prescription patterns of WLS were analyzed from the National Health Insurance Research Database of Taiwan for the period from 2000 to 2015. The results show that WLS was most frequently prescribed for cystitis (17.12% of a total prescriptions), and its prescribed dosage was 3∼5 g per day. Among them, 62.53% were for patients >40 years, and 72.45% were for women. Moreover, prescription patterns of WLS for cystitis were divided into 4 types: Type 1, WLS combined with Pa Cheng San (PCS) and Ti Tang Tang (29.75%); Type 2, WLS combined with PCS and dandelion (13.89%); Type 3, WLS combined with PCS and Tao Ho Cheng Chi Tang (6.63%); and Type 4, WLS combined with PCS (2.75%). According to lectures, review revealed the following principles of WLS application. WLS only should be adopted for simple heat strangury, while Type 4 should be applied for excess heat and dampness strangury. For patients with heat strangury coupled with an early-stage blood amassment pattern in lower jiao (abdomen), Type 3 could be administered. Type 2 should be used for heat strangury accompanied by dampness toxicity with infection. By contrast, Type 1 should be applied to patients with severe blood stasis. The application principles of WLS with other CEPs could serve as a reference for cystitis treatment in clinical settings.

Background Chylothorax is a rare condition among neonates, although it is considered clinically significant, as it is difficult to manage in these patients. In addition, the course of chylothorax varies widely. Therefore, we aimed to elucidate the clinical features and effect of prenatal therapy on the prognosis of congenital chylothorax in neonates. Methods We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of all infants with congenital chylothorax who were admitted to National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan between January 2000 and December 2012. Their demographic characteristics, as well as their antenatal, perinatal, and postnatal information, were collected for our analysis of the mortality risk. Results We found 29 infants who were diagnosed with congenital chylothorax during the study period. The median gestational age at birth was 34 weeks (range, 28–41 weeks), and 71% of the infants presented with hydrops fetalis. Most cases of congenital chylothorax were bilateral (bilateral: 86.2%, unilateral: 13.79%), and the overall survival rate was 59.6%. Among the cases with a prenatal diagnosis at ≤ 34 weeks of gestation, infants who received prenatal therapy had a significantly higher survival rate, compared to infants who did not receive prenatal therapy (76.9% vs. 11%, respectively; p = 0.008). Conclusion We found that infants whose chylothorax was diagnosed ≤ 34 weeks of gestation, and who subsequently received prenatal therapy, experienced a better perinatal condition and exhibited improved postnatal outcomes.

Previous studies have identified a great number of factors associated with corporate misconduct. However, ranking the importance of those related factors and using them to predict corporate misconduct in the construction industry have been overlooked. To address this gap, this study developed a random forest (RF) model to fulfill the variable importance ranking and corporate misconduct prediction. The RF model was built on the data of 953 observations from 93 Chinese construction companies in 2000–2018. Based on the variable importance analysis of RF, the top 11 important variables were obtained, of which all indicates corporate governance. They may be associated with an increased risk of corporate illegal activities. The developed RF model can be used to predict corporate misconduct to regulate decision making for construction companies and lead sustainable business development. This RF model could also facilitate regulators and investors to timely identify violating companies so that proactive interventions may be implemented in a targeted manner.

This study proposes an analytical framework to evaluate the economic influence and leakage of the construction sector in a small and open economy, using Hong Kong as a case study. Input–output analysis (IOA) is used to capture the domestic intersectoral linkages, and multiregional IOA is used to measure the leakages resulting from international trade. In the absence of Hong Kong official input–output tables (IOTs), five IOTs during 1995–2013 and three multiregional IOTs from 2004, 2007, and 2011 are compiled using the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database in conjunction with official statistics. Comparisons with other economies are included to disclose the relative economic influences of Hong Kong’s construction sector. The results reveal the declining economic importance of Hong Kong’s construction sector in stimulating economic growth, along with increased leakage to the manufacturing sectors abroad. The domestic backward linkage dropped from 1.74 in 1995 to 1.55 in 2013 per unit of final demand. In 2011, 40.55% of the economic contribution leaked out through international trade. The outcomes provide a rational basis with which to inform the decision making of the Hong Kong government in infrastructure planning, resource utilization, and benefit optimization. An import substitution policy is recommended to ease foreign dependence through local production of construction products.

Email triage involves going through unhandled emails and deciding what to do with them. This familiar process can become increasingly challenging as the number of unhandled email grows. During a triage session, users commonly defer handling emails that they cannot immediately deal with to later. These deferred emails, are often related to tasks that are postponed until the user has more time or the right information to deal with them. In this paper, through qualitative interviews and a large-scale log analysis, we study when and what enterprise email users tend to defer. We found that users are more likely to defer emails when handling them involves replying, reading carefully, or clicking on links and attachments. We also learned that the decision to defer emails depends on many factors such as user's workload and the importance of the sender. Our qualitative results suggested that deferring is very common, and our quantitative log analysis confirms that 12% of triage sessions and 16% of daily active users had at least one deferred email on weekdays. We also discuss several deferral strategies such as marking emails as unread and flagging that are reported by our interviewees, and illustrate how such patterns can be also observed in user logs. Inspired by the characteristics of deferred emails and contextual factors involved in deciding if an email should be deferred, we train a classifier for predicting whether a recently triaged email is actually deferred. Our experimental results suggests that deferral can be classified with modest effectiveness. Overall, our work provides novel insights about how users handle their emails and how deferral can be modeled.

Due to the increasing aging and dementia populations all over the world, Taiwan has followed the global action plan to propose the seven key action areas. As one key action area, the authors conducted a systematic literature review regarding the diagnosis, treatment, care, and support of patients with dementia and their caregivers. The findings of a systematic literature review suggest that the case management model could be applied for dementia care; however, the evidence is still weak because of the roles and intensity of case managers, as well as their communication skills. Except for the literature review, the authors also introduced the center for geriatrics and gerontology at Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital in southern Taiwan providing as the integrated dementia care. Additionally, 10-year long-term care plan 2.0 of Taiwan was also introduced and compared with the systems of integrated dementia care. Based on this model of long-term care provision, the Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology at Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital has potential to be an A level center, the daycare center and aforementioned three dementia care units could function as B level care centers, and the Double-Bliss Welfare and Charity Foundation, as well as other local community organizations and activity centers, could provide C level care services. Furthermore, the correspondent author held the 2018 comprehensive practicum conference for integrated care of patients with dementia from January 19 to February 22, 2018 in collaboration with 19 nursing faculties from various nursing schools. Finally, the correspondent author intends to conduct further research in collaboration with the Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology at Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital to further develop the “3D” (delirium, dementia, and depression) assessment scale and evidence-based care protocols.

This paper examines the theoretical literature and conducts empirical analysis on the mechanisms of corporate governance. We focus on directors’ role in ameliorating various types of agency problems (e.g., corporate misconduct) arising from conflicts of interests between stakeholders and managers to the firm. In a sample of 45 public listed construction companies in Taiwan between 2005 and 2014, the result indicates that illegal corporate behavior is more likely to occur in firms with large boards while board independence isn’t significant for misconduct constraining. The finding also shows why board’s monitoring function is important and how firms rein in misconduct by altering board size and composition.

In this research, a design for smart home curtains was proposed. The design is based on an Arduino UNO R3 development board equipped with an ESP8266-01 Wi-Fi module that communicates with an Android client application (app) using HTTP protocols to control the sensor and motor modules.

The aim of this study was to examine the metabolic parameters, including body mass index (BMI), homeostasis model assessment-estimated insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), homeostasis model assessment-estimated pancreatic β-cell function (HOMA-β), and lipid plasma level, in medicated patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and to assess factors related to metabolic parameters in patients with MDD. 121 patients with MDD and 63 controls were recruited. The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Continuous Performance Test (CPT), and Finger-Tapping Test (FTT), were administered. BMI, HOMA-IR, and HOMA-β were calculated as modifiable metabolic parameters. The FTT results and BMI in depressed patients were significantly poorer and lower, respectively, than those of the controls. However, no significant differences were noted between MDD patients and controls included metabolic parameters and other neuropsychological tests. Among depressed patients, higher BMI is significantly related with lower education, no tobacco use, and male. The result demonstrated metabolic parameters could be neutral among medicated patients with MDD, particularly in non-elderly Asian individuals. The deficits of psychomotor speed could be more prominent than other cognitive alterations in patient with MDD.

The popularity of Internet and growing B2C electronic commerce nowadays make product or service information easy to be acquired. However, making an optimal choice from the various alternative products becomes a laborious process. In this paper, an ontology-based Decision Support System (DSS) with Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was proposed for the specific application of tour package selection. The system is composed of two subsystems, the product gatherer and the decision maker, which are used to find out right products and make an expected choice respectively. In the product gatherer subsystem, an ontology-based web service architecture with Web Ontology Language (OWL) was established for the semantic content processing of product information. The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is utilized to establish the communication interface and gather XML-based contents through Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) between the system and the database servers of travel agencies. In the decision maker subsystem, the Analytic Hierarchy Process is utilized to make an optimal decision for satisfying the requirement given by the consumer. The system aims to help consumers to avoid falling into decision-making hesitation and get an expected choice from various and similar products.

Although online examination for e-learning is widely realized nowadays. However the production of question bank is time-consuming. This paper proposes an assessment authoring tool to assist teachers in creating reusable test question items. The items conforms to the IMS Question and Test Interoperability (QTI) specification and are easy to share, reuse, exchange, and access across distributed learning management systems (LMS). System design and implementation were presented in this paper for sharing and contributing development experiences to related works.

Autoimmune hypophysitis (AH) is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by infiltration of T and B lymphocytes in the pituitary gland. The mechanisms through which infiltrating lymphocytes cause disease remain unknown. Using a mouse model of AH we assessed whether T lymphocytes undergo activation in the pituitary gland. Infiltrating T cells co-localized with dendritic cells in the pituitary and produced increased levels of interferon-γ and interleukin-17 upon stimulation in vitro. Assessing proliferation of CD3- and B220-postive lymphocytes by double immunohistochemistry (PCNA-staining) and flow cytometry (BrdU incorporation) revealed that a discrete proportion of infiltrating T cells and B cells underwent proliferation within the pituitary parenchyma. This proliferation persisted into the late disease stage (day 56 post-immunization), indicating the presence of a continuous generation of autoreactive T and B cells within the pituitary gland. T cell proliferation in the pituitary was confirmed in patients affected by autoimmune hypophysitis. In conclusion, we show that pituitary-infiltrating lymphocytes proliferate in situ during AH, providing a previously unknown pathogenic mechanism and new avenues for treatment.

Vitis thunbergii Sieb. et Zucc. var. taiwaniana Lu (VT) is an indigenous plant in Taiwan that is traditionally used for promoting joint health. In this study, we used in vitro primary human chondrocytes (PHCs) and two in vivo animal models to evaluate the anti-inflammatory effects of VT on arthritis. Results showed that the water extract of the stems and roots from VT (VT-SR) was rich in flavones and phenols with 1.1 mg/g of resveratrol, 6.7 mg/g of hopeaphenol, and 5.1 mg/g of (+)-ɛ-viniferin. VT-SR significantly scavenged DPPH radicals and inhibited prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) production in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced PHCs without exhibiting significant cytotoxicity. In in vivo models, the VT-SR (500 mg/kg) significantly decreased serum PGE2 and knee 2-(18)F-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose ((18)F-FDG) levels in LPS-induced acute inflammatory arthritis in rabbits. In addition, dietary supplementation with VT-SR for 28 days significantly alleviated type II collagenase-induced rat osteoarthritis with improvements in weight bearing and range of motion tests. In conclusion, our results suggest that the VT-SR is a good candidate for developing dietary supplements to prevent joint deterioration and inhibit inflammation.

Astragali Radix (Huang-Qi) is a popular herbal medicine commonly used as a constituent in tonic herbal preparations. Hedysarum polybotrys Handel-Mazzetti is one species used of Astragali Radix. In this study, the immunomodulatory properties of H. polybotrys were explored by LPS-activated and SNP-treated RAW 264.7 cells and splenocytes and, daunoblastina-induced leucopenia BALB/c mice. Formononetin was used as the bioactive marker to monitor the quality of the H. polybotrys extracts. H. polybotrys was extracted with hot-water and methanol, and MeOH extract partitioned with H2O (M-H) and ethyl acetate (M-EA) to yield four different fractions. M-EA had the highest formononetin and total proanthocyanidin content and showed stronger inhibitory effects on the production and expression of NO, PGE2, iNOS and COX-2 in LPS-activated RAW 264.7 cells and splenocytes than the other fractions. In addition, M-EA significantly stimulated the proliferation of LPS-activated RAW 264.7 cells and splenocytes, enhanced NO radicals scavenging and attenuated NO-induced cytotoxicity. Furthermore, M-EA also significantly increased the rate of recovery of white blood cells level in daunoblastina-induced leucopenia mice. These evidences suggest that this traditional Qi-tonifying herb has potential effects in clinical conditions when immune-enhancing and anti-inflammatory effect is desired.

Following human papilloma virus (HPV) infection, recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (RRP) develops secondary to dysfunction of innate and adaptive immune responses. Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a common medical disorder; these patients are considered to be relatively immunocompromised. It is hypothesized that comorbid DM occurs more frequently than expected in a cohort of adult RRP patients and that RRP patients with DM have more severe disease than those without DM.Retrospective cohort study.Tertiary care laryngology practice, 5-year period.Adult-onset RRP patients from 2007 to 2012 at the University of Washington were reviewed. The gender, age of onset of RRP, number of interventions, pathology, presence or absence of DM, and calculated anatomic Derkay severity score were recorded.Eighty-four adult RRP patients were characterized; 64 male (76%) and 20 female (24%). Six of 84 patients (7.1%) had DM; this prevalence was not higher than an age-matched general population. The number of interventions required for disease control did not significantly differ (P = .13) between adult RRP patients with DM (avg 2.6/yr, median 2.3/year) and those without DM (avg 1.9/yr, median 1.3/yr). There was no significant difference in anatomic Derkay score at the time of intervention (P = .26) or presence of dysplasia in biopsy specimens (P = .49) between RRP patients with and without DM.In this large series of adult RRP patients, DM does not appear to have a higher prevalence than that seen in age-matched controls, nor do RRP patients with DM appear to have more severe disease.

This paper analyzes the 2-D short-channel effect in ultrathin SOI MOSFETs. An empirical, channel length-dependent scale length is extracted from the lateral field slope of a series of numerically simulated devices. We show how this scale length is related to the short-channel threshold voltage roll-off and minimum channel length with and without a substrate bias. The benefit of a reverse substrate bias is investigated and understood in terms of the field and distribution of inversion charge in the silicon film. In particular, how a bulk-like short-channel effect is achieved when an accumulation layer is formed at the back surface. Furthermore, the effect of a high-κ gate insulator is studied and scaling implications discussed.

Conventional word embeddings are trained with specific criteria (e.g., based on language modeling or co-occurrence) inside a single information source, disregarding the opportunity for further calibration using external knowledge. This paper presents a unified framework that leverages pre-learned or external priors, in the form of a regularizer, for enhancing conventional language model-based embedding learning. We consider two types of regularizers. The first type is derived from topic distribution by running LDA on unlabeled data. The second type is based on dictionaries that are created with human annotation efforts. To effectively learn with the regularizers, we propose a novel data structure, trajectory softmax, in this paper. The resulting embeddings are evaluated by word similarity and sentiment classification. Experimental results show that our learning framework with regularization from prior knowledge improves embedding quality across multiple datasets, compared to a diverse collection of baseline methods.

Throughput of wireless packet transfer generally depends on the signal strength of wireless communication. The architecture of Wireless Distribution System (WDS) in an IEEE 802.11-based environment can avoid the decline of wireless signals and keep the data packet throughput by delivering packets among access points. This paper focuses on WDS and proposes an algorithm of Maximum Independent Set (MIS) to determine the subset of access points and reduce its computation time for wireless data packet transmission and achieving throughput improvement.

Guan-Cheng Huang,1–3 Shih-Yu Chen,4 Po-Wei Tsai,5 Jerome G Ganzon,5 Chia-Jung Lee,6 Her-Shyong Shiah,7 Ching-Chiung Wang4,5 1School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, 2Division of Hematology and Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, Yuan’s General Hospital, 3Department of Leisure and Recreation Industry Management, College of Humanities and Management, Fooyin University, Kaohsiung, 4Graduate Institute of Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmacy, 5School of Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, 6PhD Program for Clinical Drug Discovery of Chinese Herbal Medicine, College of Pharmacy, Taipei Medical University, 7Division of Hematology and Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan Abstract: Dang-Gui-Bu-Xue-Tang (DBT), a combination of Angelicae Sinensis Radix and Astragali Radix, is a widely used herbal decoction in traditional Chinese medicine primarily to promote or invigorate the “blood”. In this study, we explored this ancient formulation and provide evidence of its blood-toning properties. We used the improvement iron uptake as promote or invigorate the “blood” indicator. Ferritin formation of Caco-2 cells in vitro assay and diet-induced anemia (DIA) in rat model were used to prove its improvement iron uptake and ameliorating effects. Finally, the iron–DBT interactions were measured by iron-bind­ing assay. We first demonstrated DBT increased uptake of ferrous iron through the biosynthesis of ferritin by Caco-2 cells and determined which complementary treatment would provide optimum results. Thereafter, effects of the treatment on improving the bioavailability of absorbed iron in the form of hemoglobin (Hb) were established using a DIA-animal model. The results showed that DBT slightly improved Hb levels compared with the baseline Hb and pretreatment with DBT for 2 hours prior to supplementation with ferrous sulfate provided the greatest gain in Hb levels in DIA rats. However, DBT and ferrous sulfate were co-treated with Caco-2 cell or DIA rats, the ferritin formation and Hb levels both were decreased. In iron-bind­ing assay, the DBT extract influenced the free Fe(II) type in the FeSO4 solution. Therefore, we suggest that complementary treatment with DBT and iron supplementation can have a strong ameliorating effect on iron-deficiency anemia in clinical settings, but needs a 2-hour interval of DBT administration prior to ferrous sulfate treatment. Keywords: Dang-Gui-Bu-Xue-Tang, ferulic acid, iron uptake, ferritin, iron-deficiency anemia, herb–drug interaction

Cantharidin, an active component in mylabris, is used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) to treat scabies and hepatoma, but accompanied by hemorrhagic cystitis. Evidence shows that cantharidin induces human bladder carcinoma cell death through COX-2 overexpression in vitro. In TCM, Scutellaria baicalensis is usually used to cure mylabris-induced hematuria. This work was undertaken to determine the mechanisms of cantharidin-induced rat hemorrhagic cystitis and explore the uroprotective effect of S. baicalensis. In vitro results showed cantharidin could induce cytotoxicity through prostaglandin (PG)E2 overproduction of T24 cells. Boiling-water extract of S. baicalensis (SB-WE) could significantly inhibit PGE2 production and COX-2 expression in lipo-polysaccharide-induced RAW 264.7 cells, indicating obvious anti-inflammatory abilities. In vivo results indicated that cantharidin caused rat hemorrhagic cystitis with hematuria via c-Fos and COX-2 overexpression. SB-WE was given orally to cantharidin-treated rats, whereby hematuria level, elevated PGE2 and COX-2 protein overexpression were significantly and dose-dependently inhibited by SB-WE. The anti-inflammatory components of SB-WE are baicalin and wogonin, whose contents were 200.95 ± 2.00 and 31.93 ± 0.26 μg/mg, respectively. In conclusion, cantharidin induces rat cystitis through c-Fos and COX-2 over-expression and S. baicalensis can prevent the resulting hematuria because of its anti-inflammatory effects.

Background Qi (氣 qi) refers to the vital energy of the body in Traditional Chinese medicines (TCM). Qi deficiency (氣虛 qi xū) is the most common symptom in cancer patients according to the concept of TCM. We hypothesized that cancer patients with Qi deficiency suffer from poor quality of life (QOL) and fatigue. Method Among the 256 registered cancer patients screened at our outpatient clinic, a total of 198 were enrolled. The inclusion criteria were (1) age between 18 and 70 years, (2) cancer diagnosis confirmed by the professional physician, (3) being Chinese, and (4) Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status rating (PSR) ≤ 3. The major outcome is the difference in QOL score in cancer patients with and without Qi deficiency. Results The initial results showed statistically significant differences in WHO-QOL scores in physical, psychological, and social domains between the groups with and without Qi deficiency as well as the groups with and without cancerrelated fatigue (CRF). All patients with CRF present were also diagnosed as Qi deficient. In addition, among the patients with no CRF, 39.9% (69/173) were diagnosed as suffering from Qi deficiency, which led to poor QOL. Conclusions The present study showed statistically significant difference in WHO-QOL scores in physical, psychological, and social domains between the groups with and without Qi deficiency as well as the groups with and without CRF. Cancer patients diagnosed with Qi deficiency or CRF have poor QOL. The concept of Qi deficiency in TCM might be applied to cancer health care.

The current-voltage (I- V) characteristics of the InGaN nanorod light-emitting diode (LED) are evaluated using nanoprobes installed on a field-emission scanning electron microscope. The saturated current of the InGaN nanorod LED (IO = 2 × 10-9A) is found to be orders of magnitude higher than those obtained by downscaling a conventional InGaN LED to a chip size of 300 × 300 μm2 (IO1 = 1 × 10-25 A; IO2 = 1 × 10-14 A). This observation is explained by the fact that the nanorod LED is associated with enhanced tunneling of injected carriers and, therefore, reduction of the defect-assisted leakage current and the diffusion-recombination process that normally occurs in InGaN LEDs.

This paper describes a novel structure of an AlGaInP light-emitting diode (LED) to extract the waveguided light for high-brightness applications. Four devices are considered and compared. They are AlGaInP-sapphire LEDs with: 1) a planar Ag reflector (LED-A); 2) a patterned Ag reflector (LED-B); 3) a planar Ag reflector and surface-roughened features (LED-C); and 4) a patterned Ag reflector and surface-roughened features (LED-D). The patterned Ag reflector can be used to direct some of the waveguided light that bounces within the AlGaInP LED and sapphire substrate to the top escape cone of the LED surface. Additionally, the roughened features, which are randomly distributed on the LED surface, enable the waveguided light that is trapped inside the LED chip to be coupled efficiently into the air. As a result, the external quantum efficiencies of LED-A, LED-B, LED-C, and LED-D measured at I = 350 mA are η = 9.20%, 10.46%, 15.22%, and 16.75%, respectively.

The junction temperature of a light-emitting diode (LED) directly and greatly affects its performances. Therefore, the reliable measurement and accurate estimation of the junction temperature of an LED is extremely important. This paper proposes an approach for directly determining the dependence of junction temperature on injected currents in InGaN and AlGaInP LEDs. Various important physical parameters that affect the junction temperature of an LED are also considered.

Although the literature on corporate misconduct has been accumulating, clarifying the antecedents and consequences of corporate misconduct is still far from preventing its occurrence effectively. I...

Cloud computing paradigm is becoming very popular these days. However, it does not include wireless sensors and mobile phones which are needed to enable new emerging applications such as remote home medical monitoring. Therefore, a combined Cloud-Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm provides scalable on-demand data storage and resilient computation power at the cloud side as well as anytime, anywhere health data monitoring at the IoT side. As both the privacy of personal medical data and flexible data access should be provided, the data in the Cloud are always encrypted and access control must be operated upon encrypted data together with being fine-grained to support diverse accessibility. Since a plain combination of encryption before access control is not robust and flexible, we propose a scheme with tailored design. The scheme makes use of cipher-policy attributes based encryption to empower robustness and flexibility. The scheme describes a general framework to solve the secure requirements, and leaves the flexibility of concrete constructions intentionally.

In this paper, we study an extension of atomic routing games for multi-class communication networks with quality of service requirements, which can be formulated as a network management scheme. Atomic routing games are non-cooperative games with multiple selfish players, where each player has to choose a path in a given graph to route his traffic, and then pays the corresponding cost. We develop a mixed-integer nonlinear programming model for the network management scheme in this class-based communication network. The analysis of this work offers appropriate resource allocation and a routing database identifying suitable end-to-end paths upon each connection request.

General aviation has been promoted by Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) to broaden air transportation services. Under such development, the National Airspace System (NAS) will change dramatically in congested airspace. In this decade, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has rapidly growing into civilian applications. Low altitude airspace becomes more crowded. As a result, collision avoidance for low altitude flights will become a serious concern to aviation safety. Varieties of conflict detection and resolution (CD&R) were required under multiple maneuvering dimensions for GA and UAV. This paper focuses on efficient collision avoidance logic for GA and UAV based on ADS-R for NextGen. Heading change of horizontal resolution is more suitable for small GA or UAV flying in low altitude in the proposed CD&R model. Simulations using real ultralight flight data are tested to verify the performance of the proposed CD&R.

Killian-Jamieson diverticulum (KJD) is a rare cervical esophageal abnormality. Transcervical approach has been the main treatment modality to prevent recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) injury. We presented two cases of patients confirmed with KJD and were managed successfully under rigid endoscope. The new technique and idea were described in detail. Under rigid laryngoscope, the septum between the true esophagus lumen and diverticulum can be exposed clearly. A microscope equipped with CO2 LASER system offered precise and focused point cutting energy to the septum. Several efforts were applied to prevent RLN injury in the cases descriptions. We use transnasal esophagoscope and eating assessment tool (EAT-10) for anatomic and functional result evaluation. Much improved symptoms of dysphagia and intact RLN function were observed. Under the assist of rigid laryngoscope and point-cutting CO2 LASER, KJD diverticulotomy could be performed safely with little complication for patients refusing transcervical route.

We study the problem of deterministically extracting almost perfect random bits from multiple weakly random sources that are mutually independent. With two independent sources, we have an explicit extractor which can extract a number of random bits that matches the best construction currently known, via the generalized leftover hash lemma. We also extend our construction to extract randomness from more independent sources. One nice feature is that the extractor still works even with all but one source exposed. Finally, we apply our extractor for a cryptographic task in which a group of parties wants to agree on a secret key for group communication over an insecure channel, without using ideal local randomness.

Objective.Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute febrile vasculitic syndrome in children. CD40 ligand (CD40L) has been implicated in certain types of vasculitis. We proposed that CD40L expression might be correlated with coronary artery lesions in KD.Methods.Blood samples were collected from 43 patients with KD before intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatment and 3 days afterward. Forty-three age-matched febrile children with various diseases were studied in parallel as controls. CD40L expression on T-cells and platelets were detected by flow cytometry, and soluble CD40L (sCD40L) levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.Results.We found that CD40L expression on CD4+ T-cells was significantly higher in patients with KD than in the febrile control (FC) group (28.69 ± 1.17% vs 4.37 ± 0.36%). CD40L expression decreased significantly 3 days after IVIG administration (28.69 ± 1.17% vs 13.53 ± 0.55%). CD40L expression on platelets from patients with KD was also significantly higher than in the FC group (8.20 ± 0.41% vs 1.26 ± 0.12%) and decreased after IVIG therapy. sCD40L levels were also significantly higher in KD patients with those of FC (9.69 ± 0.45 ng/mL vs 2.25 ± 0.19 ng/mL) but were not affected by IVIG treatment 3 days afterward (9.69 ± 0.45 ng/mL vs 9.03 ± 0.32 ng/mL). More interesting, we found that in KD patients, CD40L expression on CD4+ T-cells and platelets but not on CD8+ T-cells or sCD40L was correlated with the occurrence of coronary artery lesions.Conclusions.CD40L might play a role in the immunopathogenesis of KD. IVIG therapy might downregulate CD40L expression, resulting in decrease of CD40L-mediated vascular damage in KD. This implicates that modulation of CD40L expression may benefit to treat KD vasculitis.

Objective: To assess nitric oxide (NO) production and different displays of NO synthase (NOS) isoforms in patients with Kawasaki disease (KD) before and after intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatment. Study design: Blood and urine samples were collected from patients with KD before IVIG treatment and 3 days afterward. Age-matched febrile patients with various diseases served as control patients. Plasma NOx (NO3- + NO2-) levels were measured as NO production. Real-time reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemical staining were used to detect differential NOS isoform expression in mononuclear leukocytes (MNCs). Results: Patients with KD (n = 40) had higher levels of NOx than the non-KD febrile control patients. The elevated NOx levels in patients with KD were significantly associated with the occurrence of coronary artery dilation (>3 mm). These elevated NOx levels significantly decreased after IVIG treatment (157.8 ± 15.9 μmol/L vs 57.0 ± 4.27 μmol/L, P

Background Caffeine (CAF) has been shown to improve performance during early phase of repeated sprint exercise; however some studies show that CAF also increases the magnitude of physical stress represented by augmented blood lactate, glucose, and cortisol concentrations during latter phase of repeated sprint exercise. No studies have investigated the efficacy of combined carbohydrate (CHO) and CAF consumption during repeated sprint exercise (RSE) in female athletes. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of CAF with CHO supplementation on RSE and agility. Methods Eleven female athletes completed four experimental trials performed 7 d apart in a double-blind, randomized, and counter-balanced crossover design. Treatments included CAF + PLA (placebo), CAF + CHO, PLA + CHO, and PLA + PLA. Participants ingested capsules containing 6 mg · kg−1 of CAF or PLA 60-min prior to RSE, and 0.8 g · kg−1 of CHO solution or PLA immediately before the RSE, which consisted of ten sets of 5 × 4-s sprints on the cycle ergometer with 20-s active recovery. The agility T-test (AT-test) was performed before and after the RSE. Blood samples were acquired to assess glucose, lactate, testosterone, and cortisol. Results During Set 6 of RSE, peak power and mean power were significantly higher in PLA + CHO than those in CAF + PLA and PLA + PLA, respectively (p .05). Blood lactate and glucose concentrations were significantly higher under CAF + CHO, CAF + PLA, and PLA + CHO versus PLA + PLA (p .05). Conclusions Findings indicate that CAF + PLA or CAF + CHO ingestion did not improve repeated sprint performance with short rest intervals or agility. However, CHO ingested immediately prior to exercise provided a small but significant benefit on RSE performance in female athletes.