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Patients with rheumatic disease (RD) are at high risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD), which is the leading non-communicable chronic disease cause of death worldwide. Inflammatory biomarkers and psychological health status are reliable predictors of CVD in patients with RD. The primary aim of this study was to compare the inflammatory biomarkers and psychological CVD risk factors (CRFs) between a group of community-dwelling adults with RD and CRFs and a group of their peers with CRFs only. The secondary aim of this study was to analyze and compare the collected data by gender in the RD group. Data were collected and analyzed from 355 participants, with the 135 participants with physician-diagnosed RD assigned to the RD group and the remainder (n = 220) assigned to the comparison group. The measures used included a demographic datasheet, medical information, serum homocysteine (Hcy) levels, high sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) levels, and depression and global sleep-quality scale scores. The RD group had higher ratios of hypertension and depression diagnoses than the comparison group. The gender analysis of the RD group found significantly more-severe sleep disturbances in women than men and a significantly higher mean value of Hcy in men than women. The women in the RD group were significantly older, less educated, and less employed than their male counterparts and thus may be presumed to at higher risk of health illiteracy. Gender-tailored interventions to modify the risk factors of CVD identified in this study for patients with RD are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We proposed a new architecture with multiple pick and place heads to suck inspected chips and to be moved synchronously for acquiring the images of different surfaces on different chips at their corresponding acquisition stations. The computation loading of defect inspection for each chip also can be distributed because of sequential image acquisition. Considering the different computing loading of 6 surfaces of a chip, image acquisition for the front and back sides of chips is allocated at the first and second stations, and then 4 edge sides of chips. The modification and calibration of position and orientation for each opto-mechanical device will be simpler and easier when the characteristics of inspected chips changed. Thus system can accomplish the inspection for 6 surfaces of each chip and determine its quality in real-time before that chip is put onto target wafer. Developed inspection system has advantages and contributions of real-time inspection with high throughput during chip sorting process, and easily adjustment and calibration for all opto-mechanical devices to inspectdifferent types of chips. The first phase of development was accomplished for an AOI system to inspect defects on 5 surfaces of chips. System has been integrated in customer’s chip sorter for testing. The inspecting accuracy for chip backside is better than 95%.

The aim of this study was to develop a portable optical instrument to measure the scavenging capacity of standard antioxidants. The developed instrument performed on-site assays for four antioxidant capacities, namely 1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl-hydrazyl free radical scavenging activity, 2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethyl-benzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) free radical scavenging activity, total phenol content, and total flavonoid content. Because each item required distinct wavelengths and operating procedures for detection, the developed instrument featured automatic, high-speed, and multi-function capabilities. The results revealed that the correlation between the absorbance values determined using the proposed instrument and a commercial spectrophotometer ranged from 0.94 to 0.9997 based on assays of the four antioxidant capacities. Hence, the results of the proposed instrument were strongly correlated with those of the commercial spectrophotometer. This instrument provides a low-cost, portable, and rapid platform for on-site antioxidant scavenging capacity assays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The researchers' aim of this study was to identify and quantify the useful, clinically crucial predictors of depression in Taiwanese women with systemic autoimmune diseases (SADs). We used a cross-sectional method. A total of 241 Taiwanese women with SADs between 21 and 85 years of age participated in the study. Analysis revealed that the strongest predictors of depression in participants were: perceived stress, fatigue, mental health, physical health, chronic-disease-related comorbidities, self-perceived SAD severity, and social support. The model used in the present study explained 70.9% of the variance in the depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]