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Po-Ya Chang,1 Fuh-Yuan Shih,2 Ming-Been Lee,3 Ching-Feng Lin,4– 6 Shu-Yu Lyu1 1Department of Leisure Industry and Health Promotion, National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences, Taipei, Taiwan; 2Department of Emergency Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; 3Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University College of Medicine and Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; 4Keelung Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Keelung, Taiwan; 5Department of Health Care Management, National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences, Taipei, Taiwan; 6School of Health Care Administration, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, TaiwanCorrespondence: Ching-Feng Lin, Keelung Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Keelung, Taiwan, Email jacoblcf@kln.mohw.gov.twPurpose: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is spreading worldwide, causing mental health concerns among people. People’s perceptions of the disease affect their psychological adaptation and health outcomes. In this study, we present people’s perceptions of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), level of government trust, and their psychological distress during the pandemic for examining the impact of peoples’ COVID-19 perceptions on their mental health.Patients and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted through a telephone survey in Taiwan in April 2020. Participants were randomly selected for telephone screening using a computer-assisted telephone interviewer system. A total of 1098 participants aged more than 20 years participated in the survey.Results: The mean age of participants was 47.7 ± 16.4 years. After controlling for covariates, participants who were worried about contracting COVID-19, those who believed that they had a chance of being infected with COVID-19, those who were reluctant to visit the hospital for fear of contracting the virus, those who felt that the pandemic had affected their daily life, and those with low levels of trust in the government’s capacity to manage the pandemic had anxiety, hostility, depression, interpersonal sensitivity/inferiority, and psychological symptoms.Conclusion: People’s perception of COVID-19 and public’s trust in the government’s ability to respond to the pandemic are related to psychological distress. Although the Taiwanese government may have undertaken effective epidemic control measures to address with the COVID-19 pandemic, this crisis may have still caused mental health problems in the general population. Health professionals and policy makers should pay more attention to high-risk groups among those at risk for developing mental health problems.Keywords: COVID-19, perceptions, psychological distress, mental health, fears, trust, economic crisis

Contrast enhancement for digital color image using a new approach.Identified cause of information content loss in conventional histogram equalization.Cause of generation of viewing artefacts identified.Intensity range fully utilized to carry scene information by expansion-compression.Preservation of features in the original image. In most image based applications, input images of high information content are required to ensure that satisfactory performances can be obtained from subsequent processes. Manipulating the intensity distribution is one of the popular methods that have been widely employed. However, this conventional procedure often generates undesirable artifacts and causes reductions in the information content. An approach based on expanding and compressing the intensity dynamic range is here proposed. By expanding the intensity according to the polarity of local edges, an intermediate image of continuous intensity spectrum is obtained. Then, by compressing this image to the allowed intensity dynamic range, an increase in information content is ensured. The combination of edge guided expansion with compression also enables the preservation of fine details contained in the input image. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms other approaches, which are based on histogram divisions and clippings, in terms of image contrast enhancement.

Digital images captured in outdoor environment are easily polluted by haze, which will degrade the conveyed information. To overcome this problem, a large number of researches have been conducted for image haze removal, among which the approach based on the dark channel prior assumption is in recent years considered as the state-of-the-art. This method is primarily dependent on consolidation of observations. However, in the proposed method, a theoretical perspective is adopted for image, which considers the degraded image as a product contaminated by noise. Two maps are constructed to label the noise severity and atmospheric light. The parameters involved are optimized via Particle Swarm Optimization with a penalty function in terms of hue change. Experimental results were compared with seven available approaches, along with an analysis on algorithm complexity. These analyses verify the effectiveness, efficiency, wide adaptability and theoretical soundness of the proposed approach.

15 INTRODUCTION 16 EXPERIMENTAL 18 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 21 CONCLUSIONS 55 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 56 REFERENCES 57 PAPER n. INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY OF CATHODICALLY PRODUCED SURFACE FILMS ON ALUMINUM 60 ABSTRACT 62 INTRODUCTION 63 EXPERIMENTAL 65 RESULTS 68 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS 83 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 85 REFERENCES 86

Images are valuable information sources for many scientific and engineering applications. However, images captured in poor illumination conditions would have a large portion of dark regions that could heavily degrade the image quality. In order to improve the quality of such images, a restoration algorithm is developed here that transforms the low input brightness to a higher value using a modified Multi-Scale Retinex approach. The algorithm is further improved by a entropy based weighting with the input and the processed results to refine the necessary amplification at regions of low brightness. Moreover, fine details in the image are preserved by applying the Retinex principles to extract and then re-insert object edges to obtain an enhanced image. Results from experiments using low and normal illumination images have shown satisfactory performances with regard to the improvement in information contents and the mitigation of viewing artifacts.

Purpose: To report our midterm results of the crossover chimney technique to preserve the internal iliac artery (IIA) in patients with aortoiliac aneurysms (AIA) and isolated common iliac artery aneurysms (CIAA). Methods: Between May 2012 and January 2014, 14 consecutive patients (mean age 77.3 years; all men) with 17 AIA, isolated CIAAs, or abdominal aortic aneurysms with short CIAs underwent elective endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) with the crossover chimney technique to preserve the IIA. Follow-up assessment, including computed tomographic angiography or duplex ultrasound, was performed at 1, 6, and 12 months and annually thereafter. Results: Technical success, defined as successful preservation of IIA without intraoperative type I or III endoleak, was 100%. Over a mean 14.3 months (range 6–21), primary patency was 92.8%. There was no early or late procedure-related mortality. Among the 17 iliac aneurysms excluded, the sac diameter significantly (at least 5 mm) decreased in 3, decreased

OBJECTIVES Patients with acute (ACTBAD) or chronic complicated Type B aortic dissection (CCTBAD) undergoing thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) remain at high risk for late aorta-related events. Few data exist on the comparison of aortic remodelling and outcomes after TEVAR between both groups. METHODS Forty-nine patients of TEVAR for CCTBAD (n = 26) and ACTBAD (n = 23) were retrospectively reviewed at our centre. RESULTS The overall 30-day mortality was 4%. Cumulative freedom from all-cause mortality (ACTBAD: 77.6%, CCTBAD: 68.8%; P = 0.76), aneurysmal-related mortality (ACTBAD: 88.2%, CCTBAD: 95.0%; P = 0.63) and the 3-year reintervention rate (ACTBAD: 92.3%, CCTBAD: 95.6%; P = 0.94) were the same in both groups. Aortic remodelling was significant (P

Background/Purpose The main purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of medical disputes among plastic surgeons in Taiwan and to elucidate their perspectives regarding the influence of medical litigation media coverage on the physician–patient relationship. Methods A self-administered questionnaire was distributed among plastic surgeons attending a series of continuing education training lectures organized by the Taiwan Society of Plastic Surgery in 2015. Results Of the 109 respondents, over a third (36.4%) had previously experienced a medical dispute. The vast majority of both physicians who had medical disputes (77.1%) and those who did not (72.1%) felt that the media tends to be supportive of patients in their reporting, and 37.1% of all plastic surgeons felt that the media always portrays the patient as a victim. Respondents who experienced medical disputes in this study felt that the top five leading causes of the high incidence of medical disputes were patient disappointment with procedure results (81.1%), insufficient patient psychological preparation or emotional instability (61.7%), inadequate risk communication on the part of the physician (64.9%), patient uneasiness with the procedure or perception of carelessness (60.6%), and insufficient physician training or incorrect medical evaluation (57.4%). Conclusion Over a third of the respondents had previously experienced a medical dispute. This study highlights the perception among plastic surgeons that the media reporting of medical disputes and medical litigation is biased in favor of the patients, with 37.1% of the plastic surgeons surveyed opining that patients are always cast as victims.

Pain management is a critical international health issue. The Eugene McDermott Center for Pain Management at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center conducted a two-stage interdisciplinary pain management program that considers a wide variety of treatments. Prior to treatment (beginning of Stage 1), an evaluation records the patient's pain characteristics, medical history and related health parameters. A treatment regime is then determined. At the midpoint of the program (beginning of Stage 2), an evaluation is conducted to determine if an adjustment in the treatment should be made. A final evaluation is conducted at the end of the program to assess final outcomes. We structure this decision-making process using dynamic programming (DP) to generate adaptive treatment strategies for this two-stage program. An approximate DP solution method is employed in which state transition models are constructed empirically based on data from the pain management program, and the future value function is approximated using state space discretization based on a Latin hypercube design and artificial neural networks. The optimization seeks for treatment plans that minimize treatment dosage and pain levels simultaneously.

The indigenous Austronesian minority of Taiwan is heavily affected by health disparities which may include suffering from a greater burden of the tobacco epidemic. While a lack of representative data has historically precluded an investigation of the differences in smoking between Taiwanese ethnicities, these data have recently become available through an annual population-based telephone survey conducted by the Health Promotion Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare (previously known as the Bureau of Health Promotion (BHP), Department of Health). We used the BHP monitoring data to observe the prevalence of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke exposure among indigenous and non-indigenous Taiwanese surrounding a tobacco welfare tax increase in 2006, investigate ethnic differences in smoking prevalence and environmental tobacco smoke exposure each year between 2005 and 2008, and perform multiple logistic regression to estimate measures of association between potential risk factors and smoking status. Despite significant ethnic and gender differences in smoking prevalence, smoking status was not found to be significantly associated with ethnicity after controlling for socioeconomic and demographic factors.

Contents carried in an image are valuable information sources for many scientific and engineering applications. However, if the image is captured under low illumination conditions a large portion of the image appears dark and this heavily degrades the image quality. In order to solve this problem, a restoration algorithm is developed here that transforms the low input brightness to a higher value using a logarithmic mapping function. The mapping is further refined by a linear weighting with the input to reduce the un-necessary amplification at regions with high brightness. Moreover, fine details in the image are preserved by applying the Retinex principle to extract and then re-insert object edges. Results from experiments using low and normal illumination images have shown satisfactory performances with regard to the improvement in information contents and the mitigation of viewing artifacts.

In this study, the Eyring's kinematic viscosity model was applied with the consideration that the activation free energy of flow was related to the excess free energy of mixtures and estimated with the equation of state (EOS). The effects of the equation of state, mixing rule, and interaction parameter on the viscosity estimations were considered. The results of estimations obtained with three two-parameter EOS, Redlich–Kwong (RK), Soave–Redlich–Kwong (SRK), and Peng–Robinson (PR), and four three-parameter EOS, Patel–Teja (PT), Harmens–Knapp (HK), Iwai–Margerm–Lu (IML), and Schmidt–Wenzel (SW), were compared with the experimental data reported in literature. It is observed that among these EOS only the PT, HK, and SW EOS of three-parameter and the two-parameter EOS of Peng–Robinson can successfully estimate these viscosities. It is observed that the molecular interaction parameter dominantly affects the estimation results. The estimations with the interaction parameters correlated from the densities of mixtures are better than those obtained from the excess volumes. This is a different observation from our previous work where 65 binary mixtures consisting of nonpolar, polar, and acidic compounds, and water were correlated with the same EOS and mixing rules applied here. The average absolute relative deviations and the binary interaction parameters of the successful estimations are given in two tables for reference. The details of the estimations are discussed.

This study aimed to compare strategies differing in the speed of switching schizophrenic patients to aripiprazole from other antipsychotic agents, with dual administration for 2 weeks and then tapering off the current antipsychotic in fast (within 1 week) versus slow (within 4 weeks) strategies. This 8-week, open-label, randomized, parallel study assigned patients with a primary Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder to either the fast-switching (n = 38) or slow-switching (n = 41) group. Efficacy assessments at 5 time points included Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale and Clinical Global Impression scale. Safety assessments included extrapyramidal symptoms, metabolic profile, serum prolactin level, QTc interval, and adverse events. Drug concentrations and cytochrome P450 CYP2D6 and CYP3A4 genotypes were also measured. The fast- and slow-switching groups were comparable in demographical and clinical features at baseline and dropout rate. In the intention-to-treat analysis using mixed-effects models, there were significant within-group decreases over time in the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale total scores (P = 0.03) and its subscores except for positive subscores, whereas no between-group differences were found. A reduction in body weight (P = 0.01) and lower levels of total cholesterol (P = 0.03), triglycerides (P = 0.03), and prolactin (P = 0.01) were noted in both groups but no increase in extrapyramidal symptoms or prolongation of QTc. The blood concentrations of aripiprazole in all patients were in a therapeutic range at day 56, with CYP2D6*10 polymorphisms being associated with aripiprazole concentrations. In conclusion, there is no significant difference between the fast- and slow-switching strategy in terms of improvements in clinical symptoms and metabolic profile in this 8-week study.

To search the optimum solutions for increasing of electric energy generation efficiency in the Photovoltaic System is the topic of this paper. There are four cases to improve the efficiency of power producing from the Photovoltaic System. This article not only describes the differences of facilities before and after the proposal, but also evaluates the electric energy generation efficiency and improved results for each proposal. Finally, the better efficiency of all improving ways are analyzed to get into conclusions in order to provide further improvement and reference for the industry in the future. Overall, these proposed methods can improve the efficiency of solar photovoltaic electric energy generation in about 23%.

3-D data visualization is very useful for medical imaging and computational fluid dynamics. Volume rendering can be used to exhibit the shape and volumetric properties of 3-D objects. However, volume rendering requires a considerable amount of time to process the large volume of data. To deliver the necessary rendering rates, parallel hardware architectures such as distributed memory multicomputers offer viable solutions. The challenge is to design efficient parallel algorithms that utilize the hardware parallelism effectively. In this paper, we present two efficient parallel volume rendering algorithms, the 1D-partition and 2D-partition methods, based on the shear-warp factorization for distributed memory multicomputers. The 1D-partition method has a performance bound on the size of the volume data. If the number of processors is less than a threshold, the 1D-partition method can deliver a good rendering rate. If the number of processors is over a threshold, the 2D-partition method can be used. To evaluate the performance of these two algorithms, we implemented the proposed methods along with the slice data partitioning, volume data partitioning, and sheared volume data partitioning methods on an IBM SP2 parallel machine. Six volume data sets were used as the test samples. The experimental results show that the proposed methods outperform other compatible algorithms for all test samples. When the number of processors is over a threshold, the experimental results also demonstrate that the 2D-partition method is better than the 1D-partition method.

In recent years, power management and power economic management is one of hot topics, the studies of wireless network are more and more popular such as ZigBee wireless sensing network, radio frequency identification (RFID) and other technologies. A great amount of wireless applications are applied to family, industry, medical and relevant environmental. Zigbee wireless sensing network and monitoring system are the hardware design to measure the voltage and the current of economic load dispatching system in the home. The 8051 interfacing circuit collects these data and sends them to the central computer by using wireless network and ZigBee technology. The power loads and loading identification of the home are controlled and managed by central computer remotely at any time. In business, we can save cost of man power by using this system.

Summary Objectives Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates with an elevated vancomycin MIC ≥2 mg/L have been increasingly identified in many countries. We aimed to develop a clinical score to predict vancomycin MIC ≥2 mg/L in patients with community-onset MRSA bacteraemia. Methods This retrospective cohort study enrolled 394 patients with MRSA bacteraemia. Vancomycin MICs of all MRSA isolates were determined by agar dilution method. Clinical characteristics between patients with high (≥2 mg/L) and low (≤1 mg/L) vancomycin MIC MRSA bacteraemia were compared. Independent predictors of high vancomycin MIC isolate infection were identified and used to create a score-based predictive model. Results Among the 394 study patients, 56 (14.2%) had MRSA isolates with a vancomycin MIC ≥2 mg/L. The final regression model included 6 independent predictors: chronic liver disease (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 2.99; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.39–6.42), prior recovery of MRSA from respiratory tract specimen (aOR, 2.54; 95% CI, 1.15–5.61), end-stage renal disease (aOR, 2.53; 95% CI, 1.33–4.78), severe sepsis or septic shock on presentation (aOR, 2.39; 95% CI, 1.28–4.44), prior vancomycin exposure (aOR, 2.21; 95% CI, 1.13–4.30), and recent hospitalization within 3 months (aOR, 2.11; 95% CI; 1.01–4.40). All independent predictors had a value of one point. Youden's index statistics indicated a score of ≥3 as best cutoff value that had a sensitivity of 69.6% and specificity of 78.4%. Conclusions Simple decision rule helps clinicians stratify the risk of high vancomycin MIC MRSA infection when deciding empirical therapy for patients with community-onset infections.

The electrochemical behavior of aluminum during cathodic polarization was investigated with the quartz crystal microbalance, to identify changes in the electrical conduction properties of the surface film, which result in strongly enhanced electrochemical reaction rates. As a consequences of cathodic charging at potentials more negative than about {minus}1.45 V vs. NHE in 0.1M HCl solution, the surface film transforms from a high field electrical conductor to an ohmic conductor, and then begins to grow. The critical potential for forming this ohmically conducting film agrees with the potential below which aluminum hydroxide is expected to be more stable than aluminum oxide, near the metal/film interface. The conductivity of the cathodic film is within an order of magnitude of the proton conductivity of bulk hydrated aluminum hydroxide, Al(OH){sub 3} {center_dot} H{sub 2}O. When the potential is stepped above the open-circuit potential subsequent to cathodic charging, there is a characteristic current delay during several seconds, after which the conductivity is three orders of magnitude smaller than at the cathodic potential. A mechanism is given, based on calculated overpotentials for interfacial reaction and transport processes, through which the oxide film transforms to hydroxide at cathodic potentials.

Cathodic polarization of aluminum in acid solution produces a surface film which was studied using infrared reflectance spectroscopy (IRS), and quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), and capacitance measurements. According to the QCM results, deposition of the film began after passage of 7.2 mC/cm{sup 2} of cathodic charge at a potential of {minus}2.0 V. This charge was consistent with IRS and capacitance measurements. The film grew at an approximately constant rate with time, indicating that its ionic conduction resistance is small. Also, the linear increase of the reciprocal capacitance as a function of film mass is consistent with film growth occurring uniformly across the electrode surface. IRS showed that the cathodic film is an amorphous aluminum hydroxide or oxyhydroxide which contains absorbed water; QCM stripping measurements found that there was at least one water molecule per aluminum ion. This extensive hydration is perhaps related to the relatively low ion transport resistance. Mass transport calculations indicated that the film was formed by direct electrochemical growth and not by precipitation.

Monitoring hypnotic depth is used to prevent awareness during general anesthesia. We used the A-line ARX index (AAI) to assess the effect of shortterm inhalation of sevoflurane in the prevention of intubation-induced inadequate hypnotic depth during anesthetic induction.Thirty patients were randomly divided into the sevoflurane and non-sevoflurane groups, both of which were given 3 μg kg⁻¹ fentanyl, 4 mg kg⁻¹ thiamylal, and 0.2 mg kg⁻¹ cis-atracurium intravenously to induce general anesthesia. The sevoflurane group then inhaled 6% sevoflurane and 4 L/min O₂ for 3 minutes, whereas the non-sevoflurane group was given 4 L/min O₂ alone. Both groups were intubated 3 minutes after induction. Measurements of the AAI, non-invasive blood pressure, and heart rate were performed every minute, starting 3 minutes prior to induction until 9 minutes after intubation.Intubation induced a significant AAI elevation in the non-sevoflurane group (47.13 ± 20.88, 48.13 ± 20.05, 40.87 ± 15.86 and 31.27 ± 15.26 at 1, 2, 3 and 4 minutes after intubation, respectively, vs. 17.67 ± 6.44 at 3 minutes after induction; p0.05), whereas the AAI remained unchanged for the sevoflurane group following intubation. Moreover, the non-sevoflurane group demonstrated higher AAI values after intubation compared with the sevoflurane group. There were no significant differences in blood pressure and heart rate between the two groups throughout the study.Adding 6% sevoflurane with 4 L/min O₂ for 3 minutes during the induction period prevented inadequate hypnotic depth caused by intubation but was not sufficient to inhibit fluctuations in hemodynamics.