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Parrots are traded globally and pose a substantial risk for disease transmission involving parrot-specific pathogens. Parrot bornavirus (PaBV) belongs to the Bornaviridae family and encompasses two clades: alphapsittaciforme (PaBV-1 to -4, PaBV-7, and -8) and betapsittaciforme (PaBV-5 and PaBV-6). These clades cause proventricular dilatation disease, a chronic disease affecting all parrot species. PaBV infections can persist for varying durations in parrots, but the transmission routes are still not well understood. Therefore, surveillance of PaBV-infected parrots is necessary for disease control and improving psittacine aviculture. This study used isolated PaBV-4 NTUCL7 and PaBV-5 NTUCL54 strains to establish and validate two serological diagnostic methods: immunoblotting (IB) and immunocytochemical staining (ICC). To determine the prevalence of PaBV in parrots in Taiwan, 370 clinical serum samples were collected from 13 collaborative veterinary hospitals during a 1-year surveillance period. Serological surveillance revealed a seropositivity rate of 25.68%. Among the seropositive samples, 91.58% were infected with alphapsittaciforme PaBV, demonstrating the predominance of this viral clade in parrots. An analysis of risk factors also demonstrated an association between seropositivity and parrot genera, age, and clinical signs. Cohen's kappa coefficient analysis showed a high degree of similarity (kappa value = 0.975) between the IB and ICC results, which shows that these serological diagnostic measures are robust. This study established two reliable serological diagnostic measures that are instrumental in serological surveillance, particularly in one of the major parrot-exporting regions. The surveillance results increase the understanding of PaBV infection and associated risk factors and allow methods to be devised for the conservation and protection of parrot populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical analysis of the price fluctuations of financial markets has received extensive attention because a substantial amount of financial market data has been collected and because of advances in data-mining techniques. Price fluctuation trends can help investors to make informed trading decisions, but such decisions may also be affected by a psychological factors—the anchoring effect. This study explores the intraday price time series of Taiwan futures, and applies diffusion model and quantitative methods to analyze the relationship between the anchoring effect and price fluctuations during first passage process. Our results indicate that power-law scaling and anomalous diffusion for stock price fluctuations are related to the anchoring effect. Moreover, microscopic price fluctuations before switching point in first passage process correspond with long-term price fluctuations of Taiwan’s stock market. We find that microscopic trends could provide useful information for understanding macroscopic trends in stock markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study examines statistical regularities among three components of stocks and indices: daytime (trading hour) return, overnight (off-hour session) return, and total (close-to-close) return. Owing to the fact that the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) has the longest non-trading periods among major markets, the TWSE is selected to explore the correlation among the three components and compare it with major markets such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation (NASDAQ). Analysis results indicate a negative cross correlation between the sign of daytime return and the sign of overnight return; possibly explaining why most stocks feature a negative cross correlation between daytime return and overnight return [F. Wang, S.-J. Shieh, S. Havlin, H.E. Stanley, Statistical analysis of the overnight and daytime return, Phys. Rev. E 79 (2009) 056109]. Additionally, the cross correlation between the magnitude of returns is analyzed. According to those results, a larger magnitude of overnight return implies a higher probability that the sign of the following daytime return is the opposite of the sign of overnight return. Namely, the predictability of daytime return might be improved when a stock undergoes a large magnitude of overnight return. Furthermore, the cross correlations of 29 indices of worldwide markets are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: Brugada syndrome (BrS) is an oligogenic arrhythmic disease with increased risk of sudden cardiac arrest. Several BrS or ECG traits-related single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified through previous genome-wide association studies in white patients. We aimed to validate these SNPs in BrS patients in the Taiwanese population, assessing the cumulative effect of risk alleles and the BrS-polygenic risk score in predicting cardiac events., Methods: We genotyped 190 unrelated BrS patients using the TWB Array, and Taiwan Biobank was used as controls. SNPs not included in the array were imputed by IMPUTE2. Cox proportional hazards model was used to evaluate the associations between each particular SNP, the collective BrS-polygenic risk score, and clinical outcomes., Results: Of the 88 previously reported SNPs, 22 were validated in Taiwanese BrS patients ( P <0.05). Of the 22 SNPs, 2 (rs10428132 and rs9388451) were linked with susceptibility to BrS, 10 were SNPs previously reaching genome-wide significance, and 10 were SNPs associated with ECG traits. For the 3 most commonly reported SNPs, disease risk increased consistently with the number of risk alleles (odds ratio, 3.54; P trend =1.38×10 -9 for 5 risk alleles versus 1). Similar patterns were observed in both SCN5A mutation+ (odds ratio, 3.66; P trend =0.049) and SCN5A mutation- (odds ratio, 3.75; P trend =8.54×10 -9 ) subgroups. Furthermore, BrS patients without SCN5A mutations had more risk alleles than BrS patients with SCN5A mutations regardless of the range of polygenic risk scores. Three SNPs (rs4687718, rs7784776, and rs2968863) showed significant associations with the composite outcome (sudden cardiac arrest plus syncope, hazard ratio, 2.13, 1.48, and 0.41; P =0.02, 0.006, and 0.008, respectively)., Conclusions: Our findings suggested that some SNPs associated with BrS or ECG traits exist across multiple populations. The cumulative risk of the BrS-related SNPs is similar to that in white BrS patients, but it appears to correlate with the absence of SCN5A mutations.