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This study develops a model to assist a condominium committee in selecting an appropriate property management company. This model adopts the literature reviews and expert interviews to construct the suitable evaluation criteria of property management companies, then applies the fuzzy linguistic preference relations to determine the relative weights of evaluation criteria, and adopts the fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and fuzzy VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) approaches to rank the alternatives for the condominium committee. Additionally, a condominium in Da'an District of Taipei is used as an example of how an appropriate property management firm can be selected using these two models. The results of fuzzy TOPSIS and fuzzy VIKOR are compared and discussed to understand the properties of selecting alternatives. The model proposed here allows the condominium committee to select professional property management firms systematically, making it highly applicable for academia and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review gives a brief overview about microbial contamination in pharmaceutical products. We discuss the distribution and potential sources of microorganisms in different areas, ranging from manufacturing sites, pharmacy stores, hospitals, to the post-market phase. We also discuss the factors that affect microbial contamination in popular dosage forms ( e.g., tablets, sterile products, cosmetics). When these products are contaminated, the microorganisms can cause changes. The effects range from mild changes ( e.g., discoloration, texture alteration) to severe effects ( e.g., changes in activities, toxicity). The most common method for countering microbial contamination is the use of preservatives. We review some frequently used preservatives, and we describe the mechanisms by which microorganisms develop resistance to these preservatives. Finally, because preservatives are inherently toxic, we review the efforts of researchers to utilize water activity and other non-preservative approaches to combat microbial contamination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A component from Emilia sonchifolia (L.) DC, γ-humulene, was investigated. Significantly decreased cell viability of human colorectal cancer HT29 cells in a dose-dependent manner with IC50 53.67±2.99 μM for 24-h treatment was found. γ-Humulene induced apoptotic cell death and apoptosis was confirmed by morphological assessment. The staining with propidium iodide (PI) and flow cytometric analysis also showed that γ-humulene significantly promoted the sub-G1 phase (an apoptotic population) in HT29 cells. Colorimetric assays indicated that pretreatment with a specific inhibitor of caspase-8 (Z-IETD-FMK) significantly reduced activities of caspase-8 and caspase-3 in examined HT29 cells. γ-Humulene stimulated the death receptor 5 (DR5), DR4, Fas-associated protein with death domain (FADD), the cleavage of caspase-8 and cleavage caspase-3, but reduced the protein levels of cellular Fas-associated death-domain-like IL-1ß-converting enzyme inhibitory protein (c-FLIP) by Western blot analysis. Consequently, γ-humulene-triggered cell death was significantly attenuated by DR5 siRNA and the caspase-8 inhibitor. Based on our results, we suggest that γ-humulene induced apoptotic cell death in HT29 cells through a DR5-mediated caspase-8 and -3-dependent signaling pathway. Therefore, this agent might be useful for developing new therapeutic regimens for treatment of colorectal cancer in the future.