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Abstract In this study, we analyzed the factors influencing the development of delayed encephalopathy in patients with acute carbon monoxide poisoning (ACOP) (DEACMP) following conventional treatment such as hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). Between January 2012 and January 2022, we retrospectively analyzed 775 patients with ACOP, who were admitted to the Second Department of Rehabilitation Medicine and received HBOT in the Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University. These patients were divided into the non-DEACMP and DEACMP groups based on their follow-up; we then compared the general data, clinical characteristics, admission examination, and treatment between the two groups to identify risk factors for the development of DEACMP. The DEACMP group comprised of 168 cases, while the non-DEACMP group consisted of 607 cases. Univariate analysis showed that there were 20 possible prognostic factors in the non-DEACMP and DEACMP groups. The results of multivariable regression analyses suggested that the occurrence of DEACMP was significantly correlated with advanced age, the combination of multiple medical histories, the duration of CO exposure, the duration of coma, poisoning degree, the Interval between ACOP and the first HBOT, the total number of HBOTs, and the combination with rehabilitation treatment. DEACMP patients who are older, have more comorbidities, prolonged CO exposure, prolonged coma, severe intoxication, long intervals between ACOP and the first HBOT, fewer HBOT treatments, and who are not treated with a combination of rehabilitative therapies have a poor prognosis.

Abstract Background For patients with heart failure combined with complete left bundle branch block, cardiac resynchronization therapy is an important therapeutic method. If these patients also have atrial tachycardia, how to choose a treatment strategy deserves discussion. Case presentation A Chinese woman in her early 70s was admitted due to recurrent episodes of chest distress and asthma for 1 year. Physical and laboratory examinations showed filling of the jugular vein, lung rales, left enlargement of the heart boundary, edema of the lower limbs and elevation of N-terminal pro b-type natriuretic peptide. An electrocardiogram showed atrial tachycardia and a left bundle branch block. An echocardiography revealed enlargement of the left ventricle and left ventricular systolic dysfunction. After obtaining informed consent, the treatment strategy decided upon by the team was to use biventricular cardiac resynchronization therapy treatment and to not intervene for the atrial tachycardia, with left bundle branch area pacing as a backup. Due to twisted and narrow coronary vein branches, traditional biventricular pacing failed, and then, left bundle branch area pacing was attempted successfully. A follow-up echocardiography at 1 year showed improved systolic function. The outcomes for this patient are favorable, but the choice of interventional strategy is worthy of discussion in this case. Conclusion For patients with heart failure combined with left bundle branch block and atrial tachycardia, left bundle branch area pacing can replace traditional biventricular pacing for cardiac resynchronization therapy treatment, and the therapeutic effect is significant. However, multiple factors need to be considered when formulating strategies, including whether there is bundle branch block under sinus rhythm, the success and recurrence rate of atrial tachycardia ablation, the response of cardiac resynchronization therapy, the costs of different strategies, and instrument implantation issues.

Abstract This study developed and validated the indicators of school internationalization in elementary and secondary schools in Taiwan to identify their level of internationalization and assess how the same has been implemented in these institutions. The data for the study was obtained from focus group interviews with 14 school internationalization experts and 176 school principals. Subsequently, 145 sample schools were recruited to complete an online questionnaire as part of a formal survey. The 20-item indicator scale regarding internationalization goals, campus internationalization, personnel internationalization, administration internationalization, curricula internationalization, and international partnerships proved suitable to orient elementary and secondary schools in Taiwan toward establishing international environments. Furthermore, results have important implications that the government should provide additional financial support and educational resources to reduce the teacher turnover rate and increase the willingness of schools in Taiwan to participate in international affairs.

Trustworthy validators selection is crucial as validators determine whether a block should be added to its chain. In this article, we proposed a novel confidence score-based lightweight stochastic blockchain for wireless Internet of Things (IoT) systems. The received signal strength is used to define the trust level of a wireless IoT node to facilitate the selection of more trustworthy validator nodes, thereby reducing the possibility of selecting malicious validators. We used a lightweight authentication protocol called Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic to prevent unauthorised information leakage. A formal security analysis of BAN logic is provided for proving secure and fresh data storage. Our analysis and simulations reveal that the probability of successful defense against data integrity attacks (i.e., the probability that the majority of the validator nodes are not compromised) can be improved up to two times higher than that associated with the closest competitive scheme of random selection in stochastic blockchains. Our results further reveal that the probability of successful defense depends on the total number of nodes in the network and the number of validator nodes. The proposed blockchain concept can be easily implemented in various wireless IoT environments to enhance the successful defense of the system for maintaining IoT data integrity.

The objective of this research is based on human-centered AI in education to develop a personalized hybrid course recommendation system (PHCRS) to assist students with course selection decisions from different departments. The system integrates three recommendation methods, item-based, user-based and content-based filtering, and then optimizes the weights of the parameters by using a genetic algorithm to enhance the prediction accuracy. First, we collect the course syllabi and tag each course from twelve departments for the academic years of 2015 to 2020. Next, we use the course tags, student course selection records and grades to train the recommendation model. To evaluate the prediction accuracy, we conduct an experiment on 1490 different courses selected by 5662 students from the twelve departments and then use the root-mean-squared error and the normalized discounted cumulative gain. The results show that the influence of item-based filtering on the course recommendation results is higher than that of user- and content-based filtering, and the genetic algorithm can find the optimal solution and the corresponding parameter settings. We also invite 61 undergraduate students to test our system, complete a questionnaire and provide their grades. Overall, 83.60% of students are more interested in courses at the top of the recommendation lists. The students are more autonomously motivated rather than holding extrinsic informational motivation across the hybrid recommendation method. Finally, we conclude that PHCRS can be applied to all students by tuning the optimal weights for each course selection factor for each department, providing the best course combinations for students’ reference.

Abstract To investigate the effects of extended light/dark (L/D) cycle period (relative to the diurnal L/D cycle) on lettuce and explore potential advantages of abnormal L/D cycles, butter leaf lettuce were grown in a plant factory with artificial light (PFAL) and exposed to mixed red (R) and blue (B) LED light with different L/D cycles that were respectively 16 h light/8 h dark (L16/D8, as control), L24/D12, L48/D24, L96/D48 and L120/D60. The results showed that, all the abnormal L/D cycles increased shoot dry weight (DW) of lettuce (by 34–83%) compared with the control, and lettuce DW increased with the L/D cycle period prolonged. The contents of soluble sugar and crude fiber in lettuce showed an overall upward trend with the length of L/D cycle extended, and the highest vitamin C content as well as low nitrate content were both detected in lettuce treated with L120/D60. The light use efficiency (LUE) and electric use efficiency (EUE) of lettuce reached the maximum (respectively 5.37% and 1.76%) under L120/D60 treatment and so were DW, Assimilation rate (A), RC/CS, ABS/CS, TRo/CS and DIo/CS, indicating that longer L/D cycle period was beneficial for the assimilation efficiency and dry matter accumulation in lettuce leaves. The highest shoot fresh weight (FW) and nitrate content detected in lettuce subjected to L24/D12 may be related to the vigorous growth of root, specific L/D cycle seemed to strengthen root growth and water absorption of lettuce. The openness level of RC in PSII (Ψo), ETo/CS, and PIabs were all the highest in lettuce treated with L24/D12, implying that slightly extending the L/D cycle period might promote the energy flowing to the final electron transfer chain. In general, irradiation modes with extended L/D cycle period had the potential to improve energy use efficiency and biomass of lettuce in PFAL. No obvious stress or injury was detected in lettuce subjected to prolonged L/D cycles in terms of plant growth and production. From the perspective of shoot FW, the optimal treatment in this study was L24/D12, while L120/D60 was the recommended treatment as regards of the energy use efficiency and nutritional quality.

In this study, we built a personalized hybrid course recommendation system (PHCRS) that considers students’ interests, abilities and career development. To meet students’ individual needs, we adopted the five most widely used algorithms, including content-based filtering, popularity-based methods, item-based collaborative filtering, user-based collaborative filtering, and score-based methods, to build a PHCRS. First, we collected course syllabi and labeled each course (e.g., knowledge/skills taught, basic/advanced level). Next, we used course labels and students’ past course selections and grades to train five recommendation models. To evaluate the accuracy of the system, we performed experiments with students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, which provides 1794 courses for 925 students and utilizes the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) and normalized discounted cumulative gain (NDCG) as metrics. The results showed that our proposed system can achieve accuracies of 80% for ROC and 90% for NDCG. We invited 46 participants to test our system and complete a questionnaire. Overall, 60 to 70% of participants were interested in the recommended courses, while the course recommendation lists produced by content-based filtering were in line with 67.40% of students’ actual course preferences. This study also found that students were more interested in courses at the top of the recommendation lists, and more students were autonomously motivated than held extrinsic informational motivation across the five recommendation methods. These findings highlighted that the proposed course recommendation system can help students choose the courses that interest them most.

The Northeast Plain is the largest maize production area in China, and drip irrigation has recently been proposed to cope with the effects of frequent droughts and to improve water use efficiency (WUE). In order to develop an efficient and environmentally friendly irrigation system, drip irrigation experiments were conducted in 2016–2018 incorporating different soil water conservation measures as follows: (1) drip irrigation under plastic film mulch (PI), (2) drip irrigation under biodegradable film mulch (BI), (3) drip irrigation incorporating straw returning (SI), and (4) drip irrigation with the tape buried at a shallow soil depth (OI); with furrow irrigation (FI) used as the control. The results showed that PI and BI gave the highest maize yield, as well as the highest WUE and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) because of the higher root length density (RLD) and better heat conditions during the vegetative stage. But compared with BI, PI consumed more soil water in the 20–60 and 60–100 cm soil layers, and accelerated the progress of root and leaf senescence due to a larger root system in the top 0–20 cm soil layer and a higher soil temperature during the reproductive stage. SI was effective in improving soil water and nitrate contents, and promoted RLD in deeper soil layers, thereby maintaining higher physiological activity during the reproductive stage. FI resulted in higher nitrate levels in the deep 60–100 cm soil layer, which increased the risk of nitrogen losses by leaching compared with the drip irrigation treatments. RLD in the 0–20 cm soil layer was highly positively correlated with yield, WUE and NUE (P

Abstract Since red (R) and blue (B) LED light has different quantum efficiency and photoelectric conversion efficiency, mixed RB with different proportions of R and B results in varied energy consumption. In order to improve the energy use efficiency of the closed-type plant production systems, the effects of R and B proportions on the electric use efficiency (EUE), light use efficiency (LUE) as well as the quality of butter leaf lettuce were evaluated in this study. Lettuce seedlings were cultivated in a plant factory with artificial lighting (PFAL) and subjected to eleven combinations of R and B (100%R, 90%R, 80%R, 70%R, 60%R, 50%R, 40%R, 30%R, 20%R, 10%R, 0%R; the rest of the photons in each treatment were B) with the same total photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) and photoperiod (200 ± 3 μmol·m−2·s−1, 16 h) for 35 days. The results showed that palpable petiole distortion appeared when R proportion was more than 70% and the distortion was aggravated with the increase of R proportion. The highest EUE and LUE were both detected in lettuce under 90%R treatment, which were respectively 3.64% and 1.20%. The least number of photons and the least electricity amount required to produce 1 g dry weight of lettuce was respectively 2.92 mol and 1.67 MJ, which were both detected in lettuce treated with 90%R. The sucrose content in lettuce treated with more than 50%R was significantly higher than those treated with less than 50%R (50%R included). Lettuce treated with 80%R possessed the highest soluble sugar content as well as the lowest crude fiber and nitrate content (not significantly different with the minimum values). R proportion exceeding 50% in mixed RB light was beneficial to the accumulation of hexose and sucrose, as well as the decomposition of nitrate in lettuce. The vitamin C content in lettuce treated with 100%R was significantly higher than that in lettuce under other treatments in the study. On the whole, the study indicated that the proportions of R and B affected the energy use efficiency and quality of lettuce in closed plant factory, however the responses of plants to the proportions of R and B varied according to different indexes. Thus, some indexes of top priority should be determined before choosing the optimal proportions of R and B.

To date, little attention has been paid to the effects of leaf source reduction on photosynthetic matter production, root function and post-silking N uptake characteristics at different planting densities. In a 2-year field experiment, Xianyu 335, a widely released hybrid in China, was planted at 60 000 plants ha–1 (conventional planting density, CD) and 90 000 plants ha–1 (high planting density, HD), respectively. Until all the filaments protruded from the ear, at which point the plants were subjected to the removal of 1/2 (T1), 1/3 (T2) and 1/4 (T3) each leaf length per plant, no leaf removal served as the control (CK). We evaluated the leaf source reduction on canopy photosynthetic matter production and N accumulation of different planting densities. Under CD, decreasing leaf source markedly decreased photosynthetic rate (Pn), effective quantum yield of photosystem II (ΦPSII) and the maximal efficiency of photosystem II photochemistry (Fv/Fm) at grain filling stage, reduced post-silking dry matter accumulation, harvest index (HI), and the yield. Compared with the CK, the 2-year average yields of T1, T2 and T3 treatments decreased by 35.4, 23.8 and 8.3%, respectively. Meanwhile, decreasing leaf source reduced the root bleeding sap intensity, the content of soluble sugar in the bleeding sap, post-silking N uptake, and N accumulation in grain. The grain N accumulation in T1, T2 and T3 decreased by 26.7, 16.5 and 12.8% compared with CK, respectively. Under HD, compared to other treatments, excising T3 markedly improved the leaf Pn, ΦPSII and Fv/Fm at late-grain filling stage, increased the post-silking dry matter accumulation, HI and the grain yield. The yield of T3 was 9.2, 35.7 and 20.1% higher than that of CK, T1 and T2 on average, respectively. The T3 treatment also increased the root bleeding sap intensity, the content of soluble sugar in the bleeding sap and post-silking N uptake and N accumulation in grain. Compared with CK, T1 and T2 treatments, the grain N accumulation in T3 increased by 13.1, 40.9 and 25.2% on average, respectively. In addition, under the same source reduction treatment, the maize yield of HD was significantly higher than that of CD. Therefore, planting density should be increased in maize production for higher grain yield. Under HD, moderate decreasing leaf source improved photosynthetic performance and increased the post-silking dry matter accumulation and HI, and thus the grain yield. In addition, the improvement of photosynthetic performance improved the root function and promoted post-silking N uptake, which led to the increase of N accumulation in grain.

The recently increased importance of practicing precision education has attracted much attention. To better understand students’ learning and the relationship between their individual differences and learning outcomes, the bird-eye view possible for educational policymakers and stakeholders from educational data mining and institutional research has gained importance and momentum. The deployment of specific predictive tasks based on institutional data is the most promising solution for dealing with a variety of issues on precision education. Most research in this field is focused on learning performance and related issues, such as at-risk students and drop-out tendencies. Seldom are the relationships between the learning performance and career decisions of students investigated. However, developing a deep understanding of students’ career decisions plays an important role in the practice of precision education. In this vein, this paper provides a comprehensive analysis and comparison of the state of the art of predictive techniques for providing a prediction for students’ career decisions. The results indicated that it is possible to perform early detection of students’ career decisions. The contributions of this study are discussed in terms of their implications for theory, methodology, and application.

Driven by the emerging use cases in massive access future networks, technological advancements and evolutions are needed for wireless communications beyond the fifth-generation (5G) networks. In particular, we envisage that the upcoming sixth-generation (6G) networks with numerous devices will demand extremely high-performance interconnections, even under strenuous scenarios such as diverse mobility, extreme density, and dynamic environments. To cater to such a demand, an investigation of flexible and sustainable radio access network (RAN) techniques to support highly diverse requirements and massive connectivity is of utmost importance. To this end, this paper first presents the key driving applications for 6G, including smart cities and factories, unmanned aerial vehicles, and multi-dimensional sensing services, which necessitate the transformation of existing RAN techniques to achieve the key performance indicators required for 6G networks. In particular, we investigate the flexibility, massive interconnectivity, and energy efficiency aspects of 6G RANs and provide an in-depth discussion on the potential key enabling technologies. Last but not least, we present an artificial-intelligence-assisted network architecture for flexible 6G massive RANs with energy harvesting.

This article presents a learning-based interference management mechanism for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles mounted small cells (ASCs), called HAPPIER, standing for hybrid affinity propagation clustering (APC) and reinforcement learning (RL) power control. The proposed HAPPIER interference management mechanism consists of two main algorithms: APC and RL. First, from the macroscopic viewpoint, the APC explores the interference structure of multiple ASCs and then changes the most serious interfering ASCs into sleeping mode. As such, we can shift the complicated interference structure into the one with fewer interfering sources and thus speed up the learning process of interference management. Secondly, from the microscopic viewpoint, based on the interference structure suggested by HAPPIER, the RL is applied to adjust the transmission power of active ASCs to optimize the total throughput further. HAPPIER can achieve the optimal trade-off between system throughput and complexity. From our numerical results, subject to the same complexity constraint, our proposed HAPPIER outperforms all the existing approaches and can achieve 93% of the system throughput of the exhaustive searching algorithm.

推動雙聯博士學制是近年來臺灣高等教育機構推動國際化及提升博士班招生吸引力的重要策略。然而，關於臺灣學生赴海外攻讀雙聯博士學位之相關研究則尚未可見。對此，本研究藉由質性研究途徑之自我民族誌和半結構式訪談法，探究學生赴海外攻讀雙聯博士學位之國際移動體驗與意涵，共七位參與臺灣和比利時雙聯博士學制計畫（跨機構聯合雙學位）的學生及教授參與本研究。本研究發現，這些學生原有赴海外攻讀博士學位的規劃，而時間、經費等成本效益計算，以及創造在學術環境中的差異性與獨特性等考量，皆是促使其參與雙聯博士學制之重要因素。而在赴海外學習的過程中，跨文化溝通、兩國培育機制、東西方文化與教授指導方式之差異等，都對學生產生學習和適應上的挑戰，然其在過程中亦發展出調適策略，並逐漸找到自身價值、學術定位與認同感。但由於相關規定對海外修業時間的限制，使得這些學生在參與當地社會及拓展當地人際關係網絡產生侷限；此外，社會對此學制的理解有限與誤解，亦可能負向影響雙聯博士學位畢業生在學術就業職場上的移動能力，以及未來學生參與此學制之意願。就此，本研究亦提出相關實務與研究建議，以促進未來雙聯博士學制之推動。 Promoting dual doctoral degree programs is a critical strategy adopted to not only internationalize Taiwan’s higher education system but also improve the low enrollment rates in doctoral programs in the country. However, limited research attention has been paid to the experiences of Taiwanese students enrolled in dual degree programs. Therefore, the present study adopted a qualitative approach to explore the experiences of Taiwanese students enrolled in a Taiwanese–Belgian joint dual doctoral program. A total of seven Taiwanese students and Belgian scholars participated in this study. The findings indicated that all student informants intended to study abroad before deciding to participate in the joint dual doctoral program; however, due to time and money restrictions, they participated in the joint dual doctoral programs established by their home universities in Taiwan. This study highlighted that students were motivated to participate in international, cooperative doctoral programs because obtaining dual learning experiences at both domestic and overseas universities differentiated them from purely domestic doctoral students. In this manner, the experience of studying abroad enhances their unique value in the academic market. While studying abroad, intercultural communication, in addition to differences in doctoral training schemes and supervision styles, were vital challenges that affected student informants’ learning experiences and adaptation to life. During this process, the students constructed their adaptation and negotiation strategies to address those challenges. These strategies made them (re)define and (re)confirm their academic positions and identities. However, the limited period for studying abroad reduced students’ motivation to participate and engage in local activities and establish social networks with local residents and friends in the host society. Moreover, the public and academic colleagues’ limited understanding of the joint dual doctoral program may not only negatively affect students’ academic mobility in terms of obtaining positions in the academic market but also influence prospective students’ willingness to participate in such programs. Moreover, this study provides constructive suggestions for the development of joint dual doctoral programs on the basis of students’ own practical experiences. Finally, the study’s limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.

AIM: To understand the prevalence of diabetic retinopathy(DR)in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in the southern medical treatment combination of Chaoyang District, Beijing, and to analyze the risk factors.METHODS:A stratified cluster random sampling method was used to randomly select 840 residents aged 40 years and older who were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus as the target population for the survey from the residents health records of five Community Health Service Centers in the southern medical treatment combination of Chaoyang District, Beijing from November 2016 to November 2017. General patient data, physical examination, blood test results were collected, and all patients underwent dilated fundus examination. The prevalence of DR was calculated and Logistic regression was used to analyze DR risk factors.RESULTS: The prevalence of diabetic retinopathy in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in the southern medical treatment combination of Chaoyang District, Beijing was 35.7%, among which the prevalence of mild, moderate and severe nonproliferative and proliferative diseases was 68.3%, 12.3%, 5.0% and 14.3%, respectively. Age, duration, insulin use, HbA1c and diabetic foot were independent risk factors for DR. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of DR in patients with type 2 diabetes is higher in the area. When community doctors regularly follow up on diabetic patients, they should not only urge patients to strictly control blood sugar, regularly detect HbA1c, but also pay special attention to younger patients, patients with long course, patients with insulin use and patients with diabetic foot.

How teachers identify and judge school bullying may affect their willingness to intervene in bullying situations and influence their strategies for doing so. This study aimed to investigate whether there were significant differences in teachers’ identification of bullying incidents according to background variables (gender, teaching experience, and education level). The participants of this study were 150 primary school and middle school teachers in Taiwan, A 24-item Recognition of Bullying Incidents Questionnaire (RBIQ) was used in this study to explore whether teachers can identify physical, verbal, and relational scenarios as bullying or non-bullying incidents. A mixed-model two way ANOVA was used to analyze this data. Results revealed that teachers’ teaching experiences significantly interacted with behavioral types, and teachers’ education levels also significantly interacted with behavioral types. In addition, no gender differences in the identification of bullying were observed. Overall, teachers were more likely to identify physical bullying incidents than relational ones. The results of this study suggest that teachers should participate in training to help them identify bullying incidents, particularly when these involve relational bullying.

In this paper, the design of a smart headband for epileptic seizure detection is presented. The proposed headband consists of four key components: 1) an analog front-end circuitry; 2) an epileptic seizure detection tag (ESDT); 3) a Bluetooth low-power chip; and 4) customized electrodes. All the above components are integrated into a fabric headband with only 50.3 g. The smart headband system dissipates 55.89 mW. The epileptic seizure detection algorithm inside ESDT is validated by using Boston Children's Hospital's CHB-MIT scalp EEG clinical database with the detection rate of 92.68% and the false alarm of 0.527/h. We develop a service APP connected to the cloud so that the patients' health condition can be recorded and then referenced by doctors for further diagnosis or research.

In this paper, we present a hybrid real-time incremental stochastic gradient descent (RI-SGD) updating technique for implicit feedback matrix factorization (MF) recommendation systems. Compared with explicit feedback evaluation scores, implicit feedback data are easier to obtain but pose challenges to MF recommendation systems because of the transformation procedures from raw data to user preference scores. Another challenge for MF recommendation systems is the accuracy issue when the speed of the new input data increases. The proposed RI-SGD is designed for computationally-efficient and accurate time-variant implicit feedback MF recommendation system, which consists of alternating least squares with weight regularization in the training phase and stochastic gradient descent in the updating phase. To demonstrate the advantages of the RI-SGD updating technique in terms of computational efficiency and accuracy, we implement the proposed updating techniques in a real-time music recommendation system. Compared with the method of retraining the entire model, our numerical results show that RI-SGD approach can achieve almost the same recommendation accuracy, but requires only about 0.02% of the retraining time.

In the hospital, a sleep postures monitoring system is usually adopted to transform sensing signals into sleep behaviors. However, a home-care sleep posture monitoring system needs to be user friendly. In this paper, we present iSleePost—a user-friendly home-care intelligent sleep posture monitoring system. We address the labor-intensive labeling issue of traditional machine learning approaches in the training phase. Our proposed mobile health (mHealth) system leverages the communications and computation capabilities of mobile phones for provisioning a continuous sleep posture monitoring service. Our experiments show that iSleePost can achieve up to 85 percent accuracy in recognizing sleep postures. More importantly, iSleePost demonstrates that an easy-to-wear wrist sensor can accurately quantify sleep postures after our designed training phase. It is our hope that the design concept of iSleePost can shed some lights on quantifying human sleep postures in the future.

In this paper, we propose a bio-inspired, two-layer, multiple-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT)-polypeptide composite sensing device. The MWCNT serves as a responsive and conductive layer, and the nonselective polypeptide (40 mer) coating the top of the MWCNT acts as a filter into which small molecular gases pass. Instead of using selective peptides to sense specific odorants, we propose using nonselective, peptide-based sensors to monitor various types of volatile organic compounds. In this study, depending on gas interaction and molecular sizes, the randomly selected polypeptide enabled the recognition of certain polar volatile chemical vapors, such as amines, and the improved discernment of low-concentration gases. The results of our investigation demonstrated that the polypeptide-coated sensors can detect ammonia at a level of several hundred ppm and barely responded to triethylamine.

The adsorption of Cu(II) from aqueous solution onto humic acid (HA) which was isolated from cattle manure (CHA), peat (PHA), and leaf litter (LHA) as a function of contact time, pH, ion strength, and initial concentration was studied using the batch method. X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) was used to examine the coordination environment of the Cu(II) adsorbed by HA at a molecular level. Moreover, the chemical compositions of the isolated HA were characterized by elemental analysis and solid-state 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). The kinetic data showed that the adsorption equilibrium can be achieved within 8 h. The adsorption kinetics followed the pseudo-second-order equation. The adsorption isotherms could be well fitted by the Langmuir model, and the maximum adsorption capacities of Cu(II) on CHA, PHA, and LHA were 229.4, 210.4, and 197.7 mg g−1, respectively. The adsorption of Cu(II) on HA increased with the increase in pH from 2 to 7, and maintained a high level at pH>7. The adsorption of Cu(II) was also strongly influenced by the low ionic strength of 0.01 to 0.2 mol L−1 NaNO3, but was weakly influenced by high ionic strength of 0.4 to 1 mol L−1 NaNO3. The Cu(II) adsorption on HA may be mainly attributed to ion exchange and surface complexation. XAS results revealed that the binding site and oxidation state of Cu adsorbed on HA surface did not change at the initial Cu(II) concentrations of 15 to 40 mg L−1. For all the Cu(II) adsorption samples, each Cu atom was surrounded by 4 O/N atoms at a bond distance of 1.95 Å in the first coordination shell. The presence of the higher Cu coordination shells proved that Cu(II) was adsorbed via an inner-sphere covalent bond onto the HA surface. Among the three HA samples, the adsorption capacity and affinity of CHA for Cu(II) was the greatest, followed by that of PHA and LHA. All the three HA samples exhibited similar types of elemental and functional groups, but different contents of elemental and functional groups. CHA contained larger proportions of methoxyl C, phenolic C and carbonyl C, and smaller proportions of alkyl C and carbohydrate C than PHA and LHA. The structural differences of the three HA samples are responsible for their distinct adsorption capacity and affinity toward Cu(II). These results are important to achieve better understanding of the behavior of Cu(II) in soil and water bodies in the presence of organic materials.

Deep ocean water (DOW) has, in previous studies, been found to be a novel anti-obesity drink and useful in raising Monascus-produced monascin and ankaflavin levels. This may resolve the limited anti-obesity ability of red mold dioscorea (RMD) known as the Monascus purpureus-fermented Disocorea batatas. This study aims to compare the anti-obesity effect of DOW-cultured RMD (DOW-RMD) and ultra-pure water-cultured RMD (UPW-RMD) in rats fed on a high fat diet. Moreover, the effect of ions composition of DOW and DOW-influenced functional metabolites change of RMD on the differentiation and lipogenesis regulation were investigated using 3T3-L1 pre-adipocytes. In the animal test, compared to UPW-RMD, DOW-RMD possessed better ability to inhibit increases in weight gain, and better feed efficiency, body-fat pad and cross-sectional area of adipocytes. In the cell test, the anti-obesity abilities of DOW-RMD in inhibiting PPARγ and C/EBPα expression in differentiation and lipoprotein lipase activity in lipogenesis were contributed to by the DOW-increased monascin and ankaflavin levels and the ions of DOW, respectively.

This study investigated the effects of novices’ learning style and gender consciousness on learning of programming concepts from game-based learning activities. Four classes of eighth graders with 59 males and 63 females participated in this study. Participants were identified as the diverger group and the converger group based on their stronger learning styles. Game-play activities were implemented to support participants’ learning of programming concepts. The results revealed that (a) for the programming comprehension performance, the convergers outperformed the divergers; (b) participants’ learning style and gender consciousness significantly affected their project performance; (c) for the high gender consciousness learners, the convergers performed better at abstract conceptualization and active experimentation than the divergers did; (d) for the divergers, the low gender consciousness learners possessed lower stereotype and were willing to challenge and performed better than the high gender consciousness learners; and (e) all the participants revealed positive intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

The goal of this research was to develop a chemical gas sensing device based on single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) networks. The SWCNT networks are synthesized on Al2O3-deposted SiO2/Si substrates with 10 nm-thick Fe as the catalyst precursor layer using microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (MPCVD). The development of interconnected SWCNT networks can be exploited to recognize the identities of different chemical gases by the strength of their particular surface adsorptive and desorptive responses to various types of chemical vapors. The physical responses on the surface of the SWCNT networks cause superficial changes in the electric charge that can be converted into electronic signals for identification. In this study, we tested NO2 and NH3 vapors at ppm levels at room temperature with our self-made gas sensing device, which was able to obtain responses to sensitivity changes with a concentration of 10 ppm for NO2 and 24 ppm for NH3.

Gastrointestinal polyps are common in children. The purpose of this study was to review the clinical manifestations, diagnostic procedures, endoscopic findings, management, pathology, and recurrence of gastrointestinal polyps in children at Mackay Memorial Hospital. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the charts of 50 children with a diagnosis of gastrointestinal polyps managed at Mackay Memorial Hospital between January 1984 and April 2007. Demographic data; clinical features; polyp size, number and location; endoscopic findings; management; pathology; and information on recurrences were extracted from the clinical records. Results: The distribution of polyps in the 50 patients included gastric (4 patients), duodenal (2), ileocecal (4) and colorectal polyps (40). All patients with gastric polyps presented with vomiting, and three of the four patients with ileocecal polyps presented with intussusception. The mean age of the 40 patients with colorectal polyps was 6.8 years. The majority of those polyps were in the rectosigmoid colon; 36 patients presented with hematochezia. Solitary polyps were identified in 33 patients and multiple polyps were identified in seven patients. Most of the colorectal polyps were less than 2 cm in diameter. Histologically, the most frequent type was juvenile polyp. Conclusion: Gastrointestinal polyps in children are usually benign. Pediatricians treating a child with a gastrointestinal polyp should pay attention to the immediate complications of the polyps, such as intussusception or bleeding, the extraintestinal manifestations and long-term risk for malignancy.

ICP22 is a multifunctional herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) immediate early protein that functions as a general repressor of a subset of cellular and viral promoters in transient expression systems. Although the exact mechanism of repression remains unclear, this protein induces a decrease in RNA polymerase II Serine 2 (RNAPII Ser-2) phosphorylation, which is critical for transcription elongation. To characterize the mechanism of transcriptional repression by ICP22, we established an in vivo transient expression reporter system. We found that ICP22 inhibits transcription of the HSV-1 α, β and γ gene promoters. The viral tegument protein VP16, which plays vital roles in initiation of viral gene expression and viral proliferation, can overcome the inhibitory effect of ICP22 on α-gene transcription. Further immunoprecipitation studies indicated that both ICP22 and VP16 bind to positive transcription elongation factor b (P-TEFb) and form a complex with it in vivo. We extended this to show that P-TEFb regulates transcription of the viral α-gene promoters and affects transcriptional regulation of ICP22 and VP16 on the α-genes. Additionally, ChIP assays demonstrated that ICP22 blocks the recruitment of P-TEFb to the viral promoters, while VP16 reverses this blocking effect by recruiting P-TEFb to the viral α-gene promoters through recognition of the TAATGARAT motif. Taken together, our results suggest that ICP22 interacts with and blocks the recruitment of P-TEFb to viral promoter regions, which inhibits transcription of the viral gene promoters. The transactivator VP16 binds to and induces the recruitment of P-TEFb to viral α-gene promoters, which counteracts the transcriptional repression of ICP22 on α-genes by recruiting p-TEFb to the promoter region.

The most frequent trinucleotide repeat found in human disorders is the CAG sequence. Expansion of CAG repeats is mostly found in coding regions and is thought to cause diseases through a protein mechanism. Recently, expanded CAG repeats were shown to induce toxicity at the RNA level in Drosophila and C. elegans. These findings raise the possibility that CAG repeats may trigger RNA-mediated pathogenesis in mammals. Here, we demonstrate that transgenic mice expressing EGFP transcripts with long CAG repeats in the 3' untranslated region develop pathogenic features. Expression of the transgene was directed to the muscle in order to compare the resulting phenotype to that caused by the CUG expansion, as occurs in myotonic dystrophy. Transgenic mice expressing 200, but not those expressing 0 or 23 CAG repeats, showed alterations in muscle morphology, histochemistry and electrophysiology, as well as abnormal behavioral phenotypes. Expression of the expanded CAG repeats in testes resulted in reduced fertility due to defective sperm motility. The production of EGFP protein was significantly reduced by the 200 CAG repeats, and no polyglutamine-containing product was detected, which argues against a protein mechanism. Moreover, nuclear RNA foci were detected for the long CAG repeats. These data support the notion that expanded CAG repeat RNA can cause deleterious effects in mammals. They also suggest the possible involvement of an RNA mechanism in human diseases with long CAG repeats.

Relying on a simple flag-assisted mechanism, a multigroup priority queueing (MGPQ) medium access control (MAC) protocol is proposed for the wireless networks with multipacket reception (MPR). The proposed MGPQ scheme is capable of overcoming two major performance bottlenecks inherent in the existing MPR MAC protocols. First, the proposed solution can automatically produce the list of active users by observing the network traffic conditions, remove the need of active user estimation algorithm, and thus can largely reduce the algorithm complexity. Second, the packet blocking constraint imposed on the active users for keeping compliant with prediction is relaxed. As a result, the proposed MGPQ is not only applicable to both homogeneous and heterogeneous cases, but also outperforms the existing MPR MAC protocols. Simulation results show that the network throughput can be improved by 40% maximum and 14% average as compared with the well-known dynamic queue (DQ) MAC protocol.

In wireless communications, multicarrier direct-sequence code-division multiple access (MC DS-CDMA) constitutes one of the highly flexible multiple access schemes. MC DS-CDMA employs a high number of degrees-of-freedom, which are beneficial to design and reconfiguration for communications in dynamic communications environments, such as in the cognitive radios. In this contribution, we consider the multiuser detection (MUD) in MC DS-CDMA, which motivates lowcomplexity, high flexibility, and robustness so that the MUD schemes are suitable for deployment in dynamic communications environments. Specifically, a range of low-complexity MUDs are derived based on the zero-forcing (ZF), minimum mean-square error (MMSE), and interference cancellation (IC) principles. The bit-error rate (BER) performance of the MC DS-CDMA aided by the proposed MUDs is investigated by simulation approaches. Our study shows that, in addition to the advantages provided by a general ZF, MMSE, or IC-assisted MUD, the proposed MUD schemes can be implemented using modular structures, where most modules are independent of each other. Due to the independent modular structure, in the proposed MUDs one module may be reconfigured without yielding impact on the others. Therefore, the MC DS-CDMA, in conjunction with the proposed MUDs, constitutes one of the promising multiple access schemes for communications in the dynamic communications environments such as in the cognitive radios.