Search

High-friction surface treatments (HFSTs) are increasingly being applied at critical roadway locations (such as horizontal curves) that have high friction demand and a history of wet crashes; well-constructed HFST on sound underlying pavements has generally provided durable high friction. However, HFST friction loss because of aggregate loss or other distresses is a serious safety concern. HFST installation and management, especially its safe application and operation, involves different life-cycle activities (site selection and planning, construction, performance monitoring, maintenance, and replacement). These life-cycle activities involve complex and challenging technical components (including site selection criteria, construction quality control, performance measures, maintenance trigger criteria, etc.). To effectively manage the complex and challenging components of HFST and to mitigate safety concerns, this paper (a) studied the current challenges and identified the technical and management needs for safely managing HFST pavements based on a literature review, a national survey, and interviews with experts, (b) developed a comprehensive technical and managerial integrated framework to manage network-level safety throughout HFST’s life-cycle activities by synthesizing the core contents of the identified needs, and (c) proposed a roadmap containing research, development, and deployment actions needed for enhancing HFST management practices. The developed comprehensive framework enables researchers and Departments of Transportation to holistically see the different components of HFST life-cycle activities so that HFST can be managed systematically and cost-effectively while ensuring safety. This framework can also be used as a checklist of items for transportation agencies to follow to ensure high-quality and effective HFST installation and management.

Lanthanide (Ln3+)–doped upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) offer an ennormous future for a broad range of biological applications over the conventional downconversion fluorescent probes such as organic dyes or quantum dots. Unfortunately, the efficiency of the anti−Stokes upconversion luminescence (UCL) process is typically much weaker than that of the Stokes downconversion emission. Albeit recent development in the synthesis of UCNPs, it is still a major challenge to produce a high−efficiency UCL, meeting the urgent need for practical applications of enhanced markers in biology. The poor quantum yield efficiency of UCL of UCNPs is mainly due to the fol-lowing reasons: (i) the low absorption coefficient of Ln3+ dopants, the specific Ln3+ used here being ytterbium (Yb3+), (ii) UCL quenching by high−energy oscillators due to surface defects, impurities, ligands, and solvent molecules, and (iii) the insufficient local excitation intensity in broad-field il-lumination to generate a highly efficient UCL. In order to tackle the problem of low absorption cross-section of Ln3+ ions, we first incorporate a new type of neodymium (Nd3+) sensitizer into UCNPs to promote their absorption cross-section at 793 nm. To minimize the UCL quenching induced by surface defects and surface ligands, the Nd3+-sensitized UCNPs are then coated with an inactive shell of NaYF4. Finally, the excitation light intensity in the vicinity of UCNPs can be greatly enhanced using a waveguide grating structure thanks to the guided mode resonance. Through the synergy of these three approaches, we show that the UCL intensity of UCNPs can be boosted by a million−fold compared with conventional Yb3+–doped UCNPs.

ObjectiveThis study developed a surveillance system suitable for monitoring epidemic outbreaks and assessing public opinion in non-English-speaking countries. We evaluated whether social media reflects social uneasiness and fear during epidemic outbreaks and natural catastrophes.DesignCross-sectional study.SettingFreely available epidemic data in Taiwan.Main outcome measureWe used weekly epidemic incidence data obtained from the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control and online search query data obtained from Google Trends between 4 October 2015 and 2 April 2016. To validate whether non-English query keywords were useful surveillance tools, we estimated the correlation between online query data and epidemic incidence in Taiwan.ResultsWith our approach, we noted that keywords 感冒 (‘common cold’), 發燒 (‘fever’) and 咳嗽 (‘cough’) exhibited good to excellent correlation between Google Trends query data and influenza incidence (r=0.898, pConclusionsThese results suggested that Google Trends can be a good surveillance tool for epidemic outbreaks, even in Taiwan, the non-English-speaking country. Online search activity indicates that people are concerned about epidemic diseases, even if they do not visit hospitals. This prompted us to develop useful tools to monitor social media during an epidemic because such media usage reflects infectious disease trends more quickly than does traditional reporting.

BACKGROUND Web social media has identified to utilize as an epidemic outbreaks surveillance tool. However, the correlation between non-English language queries search data and epidemic diseases remains unclear. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to confirm the suitable non-English language keywords research relative intensities that were sensitive and specific to estimate the level of epidemic disease and the public opinion in non-English language country. Moreover, our approach indicated that a surveillance system based on Internet activity can be served an essential tool for detecting emerging diseases with distinct symptoms (e.g. zika virus fever in Brazil, 2015), and estimating the local epidemic diseases (e.g. enterovirus infectious disease in Taiwan, 2012). Otherwise, we further evaluated whether the social media reflected social uneasiness and fear during epidemic outbreaks and natural catastrophes. Our specific aim is to develop a suitable surveillance system for monitoring epidemic outbreak and observing related public opinion in the non-English language countries. METHODS The present study was based on freely available weekly epidemic incidence data from Taiwan Center for Disease Control, and the web search query data obtained from Google Trends between October 4, 2015, and April 2, 2016. To validate whether the non-English query keywords were the excellent surveillance tools, we estimated the correlation between the web query data and epidemic incidence in Taiwan. RESULTS Based on our approach, the total of 8 influenza-related queries was introduced to the analysis. The keywords, “感冒(common cold), 發燒(fever), and 咳嗽(cough)”, revealed good to excellent correlation between the Google Trends query data and influenza incidence (r= 0.89, P< 0.001; r= 0.77, p< 0.001; r= 0.79, p< 0.001, respectively). Moreover, those also displayed a high correlation with the influenza-like illness emergency and outpatient visits. We further found the query ”腸病毒 (enteroviruses)” in Google Trends, which showed excellent correlation with enterovirus infected patients in the emergency department (r= 0.91, p< 0.001). CONCLUSIONS This result suggested that Google Trends can serve as a good surveillance tool for epidemic outbreaks even in non-English language countries. Due to online search activity indicated people’s concerns for epidemic diseases even when they do not visit hospitals, it prompted us to develop the effectiveness of epidemic monitoring in web social media, which reflected the infectious trend more timeliness than traditional reporting system. In addition, the web queries data in suitable non-English search terms can provide more advantage information for medical education, healthcare, and disease prevention.

Background The von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) tumor suppressor gene located on chromosome 3p25-26 is implicated in VHL disease. Two informative single nucleotide polymorphisms are at positions 19 and 1149 on the nucleotide sequence from Gene Bank NM_000551 . In this study we examined the allele frequencies at these two loci in the Taiwanese population and compared the results to those from European ethnic populations. Methods The allele frequency was examined in 616 healthy individuals including 301 university students and 315 neonates. Both A/G polymorphisms were investigated using restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis created by restriction enzymes, BsaJ I and Acc I. Results Among these subjects, the allele frequencies at 19 SNP and 1149 SNP for variant G were 0.130 and 0.133, respectively. And these results were significant differences from those of the Caucasian populations. In addition, 90% of the tested subjects had identical genotypes at these two loci suggesting the existence of nonrandom association of alleles. Conclusion We found that the G allele frequency at these two loci in the Taiwanese population is much lower than that in people from Western countries. This phenomenon may be attributed to ethnic effects.

A 45-year-old woman complaining of abdominal fullness was referred for endoscopic examination. She was a non-smoker and non-drinker. An endoscopic examination revealed the presence of more than 100 tiny, rounded, elevated, yellowish lesions < 0.5 mm in diameter scattered throughout the upper and lower esophagus. Based on the endoscopic examination results, her stomach manifested symptoms of mildly superficial gastritis. Histopathologic examination of the esophagus biopsy specimen revealed that some of the lobules of the cells displayed typical sebaceous differentiation covered by a squamous epithelium. No evidence of inflammatory reaction, hair follicles, or malignancy was found. The patient’s blood and serum findings were unremarkable. Our final diagnosis was multiple tiny ectopic sebaceous glands in the esophagus. This is an interesting and rare case of esophageal sebaceous glands distributed throughout the entire esophagus. Because there were no esophageal symptoms or/and eating problems, the patient did not require endoscopic surgery or other treatment. Follow-up examinations were recommended at intervals between 6 months and 1 year. At the 2-year follow-up, an endoscopic examination revealed no change in the size or the number of the tiny ectopic esophageal sebaceous glands.

A multiple-surface sliding controller (MSSC) is proposed for pneumatic servo systems with variable payload and mismatched uncertainties. The system is firstly modeled by a non-autonomous dynamic equation with consideration of the valve dynamics. Various nonlinearities and bounded uncertainties are then lumped into two bounded functions to represent the system equation into a formal form for the design of the MSSC so that the mismatched uncertainties can be properly compensated. The closed loop system is proved to have asymptotically stable performance by using the Lyapunov stability theory. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is able to give good performance regardless of the uncertainties and time-varying payload.

In this paper, a function approximation technique (FAT)-based adaptive controller is proposed for pneumatic servo systems with variable payload and uncertain disturbances. The system model is firstly described by a set of non-autonomous state equations with mismatched uncertainties. Since the uncertainties are time-varying and their variation bounds are not available, most traditional robust designs or adaptive strategies are not directly applicable. The FAT-based design is proposed here to estimate these uncertainties so that the closed-loop stability can be proved by using the Lyapunov-like theory. The problem in dealing with the mismatched uncertainties is circumvented by using the multiple-surface sliding control (MSSC) algorithm. Experimental results justify that the proposed scheme can give good performance regardless of various uncertainties.

Secondhand smoke (SHS) is an important health issue worldwide. Inhaling SHS during pregnancy could cause abnormalities in the internal tissues of newborns, which may then impair fetal development and even cause severe intrauterine damage and perinatal death. However, the understanding of cytopathic mechanisms of SHS by maternal passive smoking on fetus liver during pregnancy is still limited. This study analyzed the effects of high-dose SHS (SHSH) on fetus liver using a maternal passive smoking animal model. Experiments showed that hepatic matrix metalloproteinase-9 activity and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase deoxyuridine triphosphate nick-end labeling-positive cells were significantly increased in livers from fetuses of hamsters treated with SHSH. Similarly, expressions of both extrinsic and intrinsic apoptotic molecules were significantly higher in livers from fetuses of hamsters exposed to SHSH. Additionally, significantly increased inflammatory proteins, including transforming growth factor β, inducible nitric oxide synthase, and interleukin 1β, and fibrotic signaling molecules, including phosphorylated Smad2/3, SP1, and α-smooth muscle actin, were observed in the fetus livers from hamsters treated with SHSH. This study revealed that SHSH not only increased apoptosis through intrinsic and extrinsic pathways in the livers of fetuses from hamsters exposed to SHSH but also augmented hepatic fibrosis via Smad2/3 signaling.

The genetic basis for gastrointestinal and ampullary carcinomas remains uncertain. This study was performed to pinpoint novel chromosomal region involved in the tumorigenesis of gastrointestinal tract. We screened the allelic status on 16 chromosomal arms in a patient with synchronous ampullary carcinoma and gastric cancer, but who had no family history of familial cancer syndrome. The significance of the shared 14q deletion was examined on clinical cohorts of sporadic gastric (n=12) and ampullary (n=10) carcinoma, respectively. Then, high-density allelotype mapping was performed on 14q32 by using 23 microsatellite markers for the synchronous tumors. The synchronous gastric and ampullary carcinomas had no frameshift mutations in the APC, MSH2, MSH3, and MSH6 genes. Among the microsatellite markers screened, only D14S267 showed identical loss in the synchronous tumors. The same allelic loss was also detected in one of ampullary carcinomas (10%) and two of gastric cancers (16.7%). Fine mapping of 14q determined a minimally deleted region between D14S65 and D14S1010 (17 centiMorgans) for the synchronous tumors. This study illustrates a paradigm using molecular genetic approach in identifying chromosome 14q32 that may harbor a tumor suppressor gene involved in the pathogenesis of a subset of gastrointestinal and ampullary malignancies.

The detection of monoclonal expansions of the immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) or the T-cell receptor-gamma (TCRgamma) chain genes is an important supplement for the diagnosis of the non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHLs). Detection of monoclonality by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method has offered an efficient approach for rapid diagnosis and monitoring of the therapeutic effects. Here we conducted a retrospective PCR clonality study on 49 cases of NHLs including 23 B-cell lymphomas (BCLs), 20 peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCLs), 6 natural killer (NK)/T-cell lymphomas and 3 reactive lymphoid tissues from southern Taiwan. Genomic DNAs from paraffin sections were extracted and analyzed by the IgH- and TCR-specific PCR reactions. The results showed that 20 of 23 (87.5%) BCLs exhibited IgH gene rearrangements and were all germline for TCRgamma. 15 of 20 (75.0%) PTCLs exhibited TCRgamma gene rearrangements while 1 case (5%) was positive for IgH gene rearrangement. The 6 NK/T-cell lymphomas and 3 reactive lymphoid tissues were all germline for either IgH or TCRgamma genes. Our results were similar to other Western reports in terms of sensitivity and cell-lineage specificity. This is the first large series of PCR clonality study of IgH and TCRgamma gene rearrangements on NHLs from Taiwan. We have confirmed that this rapid method is a sensitive diagnostic tool for NHLs.

Site characterization activities involving a variety of different tools and techniques are a key component of any environmental rehabilitation program. Depending on the specific characteristics and requirements of the project, a range of tools can be used to characterize the surface and subsurface conditions. The results will be subject to specific limitations which will apply to a particular tool in terms of the depth investigated and the resolution of the measurements obtained as a result of the sensor capacity and background noise conditions. This paper presents a methodology that can be used to evaluate the relative merits of alternative sampling plans for a site and assist in identifying the optimal sampling plan taking into account the amount and type of prior information. This methodology allows new test results to be incorporated in real time as "prior information" as the site investigation proceeds. The methodology is implemented using a geographic information system (GIS) and a knowledge base system (KBS). Factors considered in the methodology include the effective measured area, the likely target characteristics, surface and subsurface noise conditions, and the level of confidence that exists about the possible source location as a result of prior studies at the site. The results of a sensitivity study are presented. An example is used to demonstrate the capability of the prototype system to assess different test configurations.Key Words: characterization, GIS, KBS, planning, quality.

Our purpose was to investigate the histopathologic changes in uterine leiomyomas in cell proliferation, proliferating cell nuclear antigen expression, angiogenesis, and apoptosis after treatment with gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist.Fifteen consecutive patients who had undergone gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist treatment before surgery and 44 patients who did not were studied. The volumes of myomas were determined ultrasonographically, and in patients receiving gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist therapy measurements were done again after administration of the gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist to evaluate the response to treatment. Paraffin sections were stained with hematoxylin and eosin, PC 10 for proliferating cell nuclear antigen expression, MIB 1 for measurement of cell proliferation, ApopTag for apoptosis, and factor VIII for quantitation of microvessel density. A deoxyribonucleic acid fragmentation test was also done on nine cases with available frozen tissues.Most of the leiomyomas showed substantial expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen. Gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist therapy further induced significant overexpression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (p = 0.0004, chi 2 test). All three leiomyomas that failed to respond to therapy showed less proliferating cell nuclear antigen staining compared with the good responders. In contrast, data from MIB 1 immunostaining showed that0.3% of leiomyoma cells were proliferating. However, positive-staining cells were more frequently detected in the treatment group (0.075% +/- 0.091% vs 0.002% +/- 0.010%, p = 0.0002, Mann-Whitney U test). Apoptosis developed spontaneously in leiomyoma cells independent of gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist therapy. No significant change in apoptosis but a significant increase in microvessel density was observed in the treatment group compared with the control group.Enhanced deoxyribonucleic acid damage or repair with cell growth arrest may be responsible for the action of gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist in shrinking uterine leiomyomas. Moreover, the extent of proliferating cell nuclear antigen expression seems to be associated with the response to gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist therapy.

To investigate the differences of biological aggressiveness in terms of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) expression, cell proliferation, and microvessel density between uterine leiomyosarcoma and leiomyoma.All patients with uterine leiomyosarcoma undergoing surgery at National Cheng Kung University Hospital were eligible. Forty-four patients with uterine myoma were also studied as the benign counterpart. The paraffin-embedded slides were stained with hematoxylin and eosin to confirm the presence of tumor and to quantitate mitoses, PC 10 for measurement of PCNA expression, MIB 1 for measurement of cell proliferation, and factor VIII for quantitation of microvessel density. The immunohistochemical findings of the slides were correlated with clinocopathologic findings of the patients, and the data were analyzed by either chi2 or unpaired t test.Six patients with uterine leiomyosarcoma and 44 patients with uterine leiomyoma were studied. Statistically significant higher mean levels of PCNA and MIB 1 were observed in uterine leiomyosarcoma compared with those of uterine myoma (for PCNA expression, P = 0.0001; for MIB 1, 11.61 +/- 11.42% vs 0.45 +/- 0.21%, P0.0001). No significant difference of microvessel density was observed between these two groups (65.73 +/- 48.62 vs 41.97 +/- 28.20, P = 0.084). Among the six patients with leiomyosarcoma, two patients with a higher percentage of MIB 1-positive tumor cells died of recurrent disease. In contrast, two patients with lower MIB 1 counts were disease-free for 3 years or more.Deregulated cell growth in uterine leiomyosarcoma may account for the biological aggressiveness of this tumor. Furthermore, the percentage of MIB 1-positive tumor cells seems to be associated with the prognosis or extent of uterine leiomyosarcoma.

Objective To investigate the correlation of intratumoral blood flow in uterine myoma with cell proliferation, angiogenesis, tumor size, and tumor volume. Methods Thirty-nine patients who had been scheduled for surgery because of symptomatic uterine myomas were evaluated by transvaginal sonography and color Doppler ultrasound before surgery. The largest dimension of each tumor and the volumes of myomas were determined ultrasonographically. Pulsatility index (PI) was determined by color Doppler ultrasound according to the maximum systolic, end-diastolic, and the mean flow velocities measured within the uterine nodules. After surgery, the paraffinembedded slides containing representative leiomyoma tissues were stained with hematoxylin and eosin, proliferating cell nuclear antigen for measurement of cell proliferation, and factor VIII for quantitation of microvessel density. The ultrasonographic findings were correlated postoperatively with pathologic findings, and the data were analyzed by simple linear regression and Fisher r to z transformation. Results Simple regression analysis of the intratumoral PI values on the sizes of myomas showed a negative correlation ( r = −0.47, P = .003; n = 39), whereas a less significant correlation between PI values and tumor volumes was observed ( r = −0.42, P = .008). In contrast, no statistically significant correlation was observed between the intratumoral PI values and the values of the proliferating cell nuclear antigen index ( r = 0.10, P = .547) or microvessel density counts ( r = 0.18, P = .282). Conclusion The intratumoral blood flow by transvaginal color Doppler ultrasound correlated with a reduced tumor size and tumor volume, but did not correlate with cell proliferation or angiogenesis.

The expression of Bcl-2 protein in 29 small cell carcinomas (SCCs; 6 surgical and 15 biopsy specimens obtained from various organs, 7 metastatic lymph nodes, and 1 metastatic liver tissue) was investigated by immunohistochemical technique. Negative staining was observed in only two cases (7%). The majority of Bcl-2-positive tumors had > 95% positive cells, with a moderate staining intensity. A combined small-cell lung cancer showed discordant staining results between two different histology types. No correlations of Bcl-2 immunoreactivity with p53 expression and clinical staging were found. Our findings suggest that Bcl-2 expression may play a certain role in the early phases of SCC tumorigenesis, or that it may solely be a succeeding property directly derived from the tumor progenitor cells. As the Bcl-2 protein was present in most cases, it is not a useful prognostic or treatment marker for the cancer.

In this paper, we propose to enhance the modulation spectrum of speech features in noise robustness via the technique of nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF). With NMF, a set of nonnegative basis spectra vectors is derived from the clean speech to represent the important components for speech recognition. However, compared with the original NMF-based scheme that employs iterative search to update the full-band modulation spectra, we propose to apply the orthogonal projection to update the low sub-band modulation spectra. In contrast to the original scheme, the presented new process significantly reduces the computation complexity without the cost of degraded recognition performance. In the experiments conducted on the Aurora-2 database, we show that the presented new NMF-based approach can provide an average error reduction rate of over 65% relative as compared with the baseline MFCC system.

The paper presents an impedance controller with the support of the function approximation technique (FAT) based multiple-surface sliding control (MSSC) for highly nonlinear pressure-sensor free pneumatic servo systems with mismatched uncertainties. A transformative model is firstly cited so that the pressure sensor feedback can be avoided without deteriorate the closed loop performance. The target impedance is then used to reformulate the system equation so that a normal form can be obtained for the FAT based MSSC design. All uncertainties and disturbances are then covered in a backstepping-like procedure where rigorous proof is derived. Experimental results show that the proposed strategy is able to give good performance in both free-space tracking and compliant motion phases.

Control of pneumatic servo systems is well-known to be challenge due to highly nonlinearities in the actuator dynamics and compressibility of the media. Most state feedback based strategies for the pneumatic servo systems require full state feedback to stabilize the closed loop system which implies the need for pressure measurements of the cylinder. Many researchers used state observers to complete the controller design without using actual pressure sensor feedback. In this paper, a transformation is suggested to reformulate the dynamic equation so that the pressure sensor feedback can be avoided without deteriorate the closed loop performance. A function approximation technique (FAT) based adaptive multiple-surface sliding controller (AMSSC) is also proposed for the closed loop stabilization. The multiple-surface sliding control is a backstepping-like design which is used to cope with the mismatched structure of the uncertainties, while the time-varying nature of the uncertainties is handled by the FAT. The closed-loop system is proved to be uniformly ultimately bounded by using the Lyapunov stability method. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design.

Hepatic angiosarcoma (HAS) is a rare primary mesenchymal malignancy of liver with close association to arsenic intoxication. Although the southwest coastal area of Taiwan is well known for its prevalence of arsenic intoxication from drinking well water, few cases of HAS associated with arsenic ingestion have been reported. We report a case of HAS complicated by spontaneous hepatic rupture in a 68-year-old female farmer who presented with acute onset of abdominal pain and shock. The arsenic level in her drinking water had been found to be 0.12 ppm at her childhood home and 0.005 ppm at her residence from age 21 to 68 years. The total ingested arsenic was estimated to be 1.9 g, and the latent period was about 25 years with a weighted mean exposure of 0.12 mg/day. We also reviewed data collected by the National Cancer Registry Program from 1981 to 1999 and identified 25 additional reported cases. The median age of these patients was 55 years, and the male-to-female ratio was 1.9 (17:9). Whereas no case was found during this period in the blackfoot disease (BFD) endemic area, a hyperendemic area of arsenic intoxication in Taiwan, this case demonstrates the existence of cases of HAS associated with exposure to high levels of arsenic near the BFD area in Taiwan.

The detection is described of hepatitis B virus (HBV)-DNA in preserved hepatocellular carcinoma tissues, which were derived from 14 HBV-seropositive patients. Detection was by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of the target sequence, followed by specific localization of the PCR product with in situ hybridization. PISH (PCR-in situ hybridization) yielded strong positive signals in most of the tumor tissues despite very low copy numbers of chromosome-integrated HBV genome, whereas no signal was detected in control samples, indicating that the signals were specific for HBV. Positive signals were sometimes detected in cirrhotic nodules surrounding the tumor regions, indicating that HBV had infected non-transformed liver cells. HBV-DNA was detected in both nucleus and cytoplasm in some specimens, possibly representing HBV at different stages of the life cycle. In one case, a gradient of viral DNA was revealed, with the highest DNA signal centered at the site of viral antigen expression. Taken together, PISH is shown to be a highly sensitive molecular detection method that is capable of detecting the presence of a low copy number viral genome in situ.

The reversible steganographic technique allows extraction of secret messages and restoration of original images without any distortion from the embedded image. In this work, a statistical adaptive reversible steganographic technique is proposed to improve difference expansion (DE)-based schemes, consisting of two parts. First, bicubic interpolation is adopted as the pixel prediction to obtain more embeddable pixels. Meanwhile, since differences are generated between the accurate predicted value and its original value, quality of difference is also considered. Second, a statistical adaptive reversible embedding algorithm is proposed to overcome the restriction of the embedding capacity under single-layer embedding. The relationship between the complexity of the neighboring pixels and the difference distribution for the image is generalized as the variance conditional in statistics. With the maximum modifiable degree of the predicted pixel, the proposed scheme provides a suitable embedding capacity for all embeddable pixels with less additional information. The experimental results demonstrate advantages of the proposed scheme and prove that it is able to provide high capacity with good visual quality for the embedded image.