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Large amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted from industrial, mobile, and domestic sources, causing adverse effects on human health and environment. Among VOCs, toluene and isopropanol (IPA) are commonly used as solvent, soldering flux, and spray paint and their emissions need to be reduced. Several VOCs abatement technologies are available to reduce VOC emission and photocatalytic oxidation of VOC is regarded as a viable technique due to its advantage of utilizing solar energy. TiO2 has been investigated for its oxidation capability toward VOCs because of its good photocatalytic activity. However the utilization is limited to UV due to its wider bandgap; furthermore, its fast recombination rate of electron-hole pair reduces the oxidation rate of VOCs. Black-TiO2 and perovskite-type photocatalyst such as LaFeO3 can be applied to enhance photocatalytic activity due to narrower bandgap and longer electron-hole pair lifetime. In this study, black-TiO2 and LaFeO3 are prepared and investigated for their photocatalytic oxidation rates toward toluene and IPA. Results show that toluene removals achieved with black-TiO2 and LaFeO3 are 89% and 98% while IPA removals are 90% and 94%, respectively. Both photocatalysts show better photocatalytic activity than TiO2 and good absorption capability toward visible light.

More and more AI technologies are used in law, but there are few legal staff with knowledge of construction engineering. This study uses deep learning technology based on multiple BERT model to propose a construction litigation judgment prediction system. The system has two functions: 1. Find similar cases. 2. Court judgment prediction. In similar cases calculation, the text is vectorized through the word embedding model. Then, each word is weighted by IDF and part of speech (POS) and the cosine similarity is calculated. Finally, the top 10 similar cases are listed. The court judgment prediction result is to use the multiple BERT model to vectorize the plaintiff's claim and then pass the neural network to predict the result of the court judgment. The multiple BERT model solves the problem that cannot be used for long text. The average precision at 10 in similar cases calculation is 0.911. The accuracy rate in predicting litigation period and the gain in the litigation is 88.89% and 82.22%.

With the increasing popularity of location-based social networks (LBSNs), users are able to share the Point-of-Interests (POIs) they visited by check-ins. By analyzing the users’ historical check-in records, POI recommendation can help users get better visiting experience by recommending POIs which users may be interested in. Although recent successive POI recommendation methods consider geographical influence by measuring the distances among POIs, most of them ignore the influence of the regions where the POIs are located. Therefore, we propose in this paper two models to tackle the problem of successive POI recommendation. First, a feature-based successive POI recommendation method, named UGSE-LR, is proposed to take the influence of regions, named regional influence, into consideration when recommending POIs. UGSE-LR first splits an area into grids for estimating regional influence. Then, UGSE-LR applies Edge-weighted Personalized PageRank (EdgePPR) for modeling the successive transitions among POIs. Finally, UGSE-LR fuses user preference, regional influence and successive transition influence into a unified recommendation framework. In addition, with the aid of Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), we propose a latent-factor based successive POI recommendation method, named PEU-RNN, to integrate the sequential visits of POIs and user preference to recommend POIs. First, PEU-RNN adopts the word embedding technique to transform each POI into a latent vector. Then, RNN is used to recommend the POIs depend on the users’ historical check-in records. Experimental results on two real LBSN datasets show that our methods are more accurate than the state-of-the-art successive POI recommendation methods in terms of precision and recall. In addition, experimental results also show that PEU-RNN is suitable for the datasets with many check-in records, while UGSE-LR is suitable for the datasets with moderate check-in records.

How to effectively reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gases emission to alleviate global warming has been a public concern since 20th century. Hence, development of effective CO2 and CH4 reduction technique is a common objective worldwide. Simultaneous conversion of CO2 and CH4 into syngas can be a candidate to achieve the objective. Among several conversion techniques, plasma and photocatalysis are two promising techniques possessing good potentials. In this work, a spark discharge reactor and a series of perovskite-type photocatalysts are developed and combined to form hybrid plasma photocatalysis systems to evaluate the effectiveness for converting CO2 and CH4 to form syngas. Experimental results indicate that the spark discharge reactor packed with LFO600 photocatalyst increases the syngas generation rate from 13.0 to 18.5 mol per kilowatt-hour, corresponding to 42% of enhancement. Furthermore, characterizations of photocatalysts reveal that plasma can promote the surface structure of photocatalyst to increase the lifetime of electron-hole pairs which possibly leads to higher syngas generation rate. Additionally, the hybrid plasma photocatalysis system developed has been demonstrated with good potential to improve plasma and photocatalysis performances.

A 3-month-old girl without underlying disease presented with non-bilious vomiting twice, and then suffered from currant jelly stool (Figure 1A) without irritable crying in 6 hours. Abdominal plain film showed gas dilated bowel loop and no gas in distal intestine (Figure 1B). Abdominal ultrasonography showed a target lesion (black arrow) over left upper quadrant of abdomen (Figure 2A). After laparotomy, ileo-cecal type intussusception with non-fixation of ascending colon was found (Figure 2B). Milking reduction of intussusception, incidental appendectomy and pexy for right side colon were performed. She recovered well after operation and discharged 4 days later. The rare association of intestinal malrotation in conjunction with intussusception was termed Waugh’s syndrome. It is important to be vigilant in children younger than three months with intussusception over atypical location, in these children have higher morbidity and mortality.

In this paper, we demonstrate and evaluate a method to perform real-time object detection with unmanned vehicle using the state of the art, MobileNets, with object detection algorithm running on an NVIDIA Jetson TX2, an GPU platform targeted at power constrained mobile applications that use neural networks under the hood. This, as a result of comparing several cutting edge object detection algorithms. Multiple evaluations we present provide insights that help choose the optimal object detection configuration given certain frame rate and detection accuracy requirements. We propose how this setup running on-board a unmanned vehicle can be used to process a video feedback during emergencies in real-time, and feed a decision support warning system using the generated detections.

We investigated the diagnostic utility of distal contractile integral (DCI) to esophageal impedance integral (EII) ratio (DCIIR) in high-resolution impedance manometry (HRIM) of ineffective esophageal motility (IEM) in children.We performed HRIM in 31 children with dysphagia, odynophagia, chronic vomiting, chest pain, or heartburn sensation. Based on the Chicago classification version 3.0, 20 subjects were diagnosed with IEM, and 11 subjects were normal. We analyzed the EII and DCIIR using MATLAB software.The DCIIR calculated at the impedance cutoff at 1500 Ω (DCIIR1500) were significantly lower in IEM group than patients with normal motility (P = 0.007). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed that a DCIIR1500 0.009 mmHg/Ω best predicted IEM in children (P 0.001). A DCIIR1500 0.008 mmHg/Ω is associated with significant body weight loss 10% within 6 months in children. (P 0.001).The calculation of DCIIR1500 may assist the automatic analysis of bolus transit in HRIM study to diagnose IEM in children. An DCIIR1500 0.009 mmHg/Ω may assist in the diagnosis of IEM in children, and DCIIR1500 0.008 mmHg/Ω correlated with significant body weight loss. The calculation of DCIIR may serve as possible parameters for HRIM.

Services provided by garages present less differentiation in recent years that alternatives in the same trade are increasing. In such a fiercely competitive automobile maintenance market, favorable customer service quality is regarded as one of the key success factors. To satisfy customer demands, it is necessary to understand the service quality required by customers and provide customer services based on such requirements.With Lifestyle as the basis of effective market segmentation and Basic information of consumers as the variables, Cluster analysis is combined to effectively segment the customer characteristics in Maintenance and repair of motor vehicles. Finally, Kano-model, which is different from traditional measurement of customer preference, is applied to concluding the service quality items for Maintenance and repair of motor vehicles, and Quality improvement index is utilized for assisting enterprises in measures for quality improvement or reinforcement so as to create profits. With que...

T helper (Th) cell cytokines modulate inflammation and play a role in biliary atresia (BA). The aim of the study is a cross-sectional assessment of the levels of Th cytokines in the jaundice-free post Kasai procedure patients.There were 40 jaundice-free patients with BA and 28 normal controls enrolled. Patients were divided into 3 groups, including normal liver function, impaired liver function, and portal hypertension. Plasma concentration of Th1 [interferon-γ (INF-γ), interleukin (IL)-2], Th2 (IL-4, IL-10), Th3 [transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1)], Th17 (IL-17) cytokines, and stromal cell-derived factor-1α (SDF-1α) were investigated.The IFN-γ level was significantly higher in the BA patients with impaired liver function and portal hypertension than controls (P0.0001 and P0.0001, respectively). There was a significantly increase of TGF-ß1 in all BA groups compared with controls (P=0.003). The reduction of SDF-1α expression was found in BA groups (P0.0001). IL-10 levels significantly correlated with aspartate aminotransferase to platelet ratio index (r=0.496, P=0.001). For the cytokine correlations, there were no correlations of Th1, Th2 and Th17 cytokine with the other measured cytokines, but TGF-ß1 was negatively correlated with SDF-1α levels (r=-0.327, P=0.039).IFN-γ and IL-10 are likely to be involved in the disease progression in BA. Besides, TGF-β1 is found to be a suppression marker associated with SDF-1α levels and reduced production of TGF-β1 may be associated with the disease progression.

Background: The Identification and Management of Feeding Difficulties (IMFeD™) tool was introduced in 2011 for management of children with feeding difficulties and has been used in various countries around the world. This study aimed to assess its acceptance and effectiveness in clinical practice in Taiwan. Methods: This was a prospective, observational, multicenter study where subjects were followed over 3 months. Outpatients identified as picky eaters, having poor appetite, poor weight gain, or weight loss were enrolled. The acceptance and effectiveness of IMFeD tool were evaluated by caregivers and pediatricians. Results: Among 423 children who completed the study (235 boys, 188 girls; 78.8% aged

In the era of a global knowledge economy, urban regions that seek to increase their competitive edge and become destinations for talent and investment have little chance of achieving these goals without forming effective knowledge-based urban development strategies. Hence, the development of clusters of knowledge-based corporations has become an important strategic factor in increasing the competitiveness of knowledge cities. Whereas previous studies have tended to focus on the characteristics of local clusters and the causes of their success, empirical studies of the long-term development of local knowledge-based industries are few. Accordingly, this investigation takes the knowledge city region-Hsinchu as its subject, and quantitatively analyzes the correlation between the spatial dynamics of knowledge in major industries and innovation based on empirical data. This finding shows that steadily developing industries in the Hsinchu region have continued to strengthen their new knowledge of product development and innovation. An overview of innovative activities of firms also revealed that their knowledge patterns have been changing from patterns of internal dependency to a locality-based, broader networking and agglomeration pattern.

According to past experiences on the reviewing process of performance-based fire safety designs in Taiwan, we found that the separated reviewing mechanism of PBD usually causes difficulty in the integration of viewpoint between designers, authorities, and proprietor. Therefore, this paper attempts to discuss issues such as overlapping review of smoke control systems, role of active fire protection systems, and firefighter safety, through a case study of Wei-Wu-Ying Center for the Arts and by gathering important viewpoints of fire officers on the review process of performance-based designs for fire protection and evacuation safety, in hope of serving as a future reference for joint review of building management departments and fire authorities.

How firms govern their economic activities, including external transactions and internal allocation of resources, is key to firm performance and lies at the very foundation of market exchanges. The...

This paper examines the effects of cross listing and Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) on corporate governance and firm performance of the cross-listed firms from four Tiger Cub Economics: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand. We find that these non-U.S. firms that list their shares as American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) experience an improvement in corporate governance and a decrease in firm performance after issuing ADRs in the U.S. However, SOX appears to be effective in enhancing firm performance for these ADRs, though it has little impact on improving corporate governance.

Lifelong overexpression of heat shock protein (HSP) 72 in skeletal muscle is known to protect against age-related oxidative stress and muscle damage. This study aimed to ascertain whether exhaustive exercise-induced damage can be prevented by lifelong overexpression of HSP72. Transgenic mice that were heterozygous for a porcine HSP70.2 gene ([+]HSP72) and transgene-negative littermate controls ([-]HSP72) were subjected to an exhaustive exercise protocol. Mice were divided into four groups, including control, HSP72, exhaustive exercise and HSP72 exhaustive exercise groups. Eighty-two min after completion of the exhaustive exercise, animals were sacrificed and different tissues, including brain, heart, liver, lung, kidney and muscle were isolated. Then the levels of HSP72, matrix metalloproteinase (an indicator for inflammatory myopathies), pathological observations and p-P-38 MAP kinase (p-P-38) expressions were determined in all tissues. When exhaustive exercise group or HSP72 exhaustive exercise group underwent an exhaustive exercise test, the latency values (the mean duration of exhaustive exercise onset) for the occurrence of exhaustive exercise was found to be different significantly (82 ± 3 and 110 ± 3 min, respectively). HSP72 exhaustive exercise group underwent a exhaustive exercise test, and had a longer exercise time. Furthermore HSP72 exhaustive exercise group showed significantly increased matrix metalloproteinase levels and p-P-38 expression, whereas morphological damage was significantly decreased compared to exhaustive exercise group. The results suggest that the improvement of inflammation and damage induced by exhaustive exercise in HSP72 overexpressing transgenic mice may be associated with p-P-38 expression.

To assist endodontic therapy, in this paper, a force sensor is designed and fabricated for measuring the axial force and the bending moment simultaneously. By detecting the bending moment, we can know the severity of bending. Axial force detection is also desired, as excessive axial forces may result in instrument buckling or even root canal perforation. This paper installs three sensing cells in each of two planes to detect the bending direction. Each sensing cell consists of a pressure-sensitive electric conductive rubber and an electrode. The size of the force sensor is 1.4-mm wide and 6-mm high for matching the size of endodontic instruments and making it feasible in the endodontic treatment. Experimental results on accuracy, repeatability, and nonlinearity are presented to validate the proposed sensor.

Background/Purpose Lifelong overexpression of heat shock protein (HSP) 72 in skeletal muscle is known to protect against age-related oxidative stress and muscle damage. This study aimed to ascertain whether exhaustive exercise (EE)-induced muscle fatigue and damage can be prevented by lifelong overexpression of HSP72 in skeletal muscle. Methods Transgenic mice heterozygous for the porcine HSP70.2 gene ([+]HSP72) and transgene-negative littermate controls ([–]HSP72) were subjected to an EE protocol. Mice were randomly divided into four groups: sedentary [–]HSP72, sedentary [+]HSP72, EE [–]HSP72, and EE [+]HSP72. Animals were killed 82 minutes after the start of EE to determine muscular levels of HSP72, serum levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD, an antioxidant enzyme) and lactate (an indicator of muscle fatigue), muscular levels of matrix metalloproteinase (an indicator of inflammatory myopathies), and muscular damage. Results During the test, the latency value for the occurrence of EE was 79–85 minutes and 100–110 minutes for [–]HSP72 and [+]HSP72 mice, respectively. After EE, [+]HSP72 mice had significantly higher serum SOD and significantly lower serum lactate, muscular matrix metalloproteinase or myeloperoxidase activity, and muscle damage compared to [–]HSP72 mice. Conclusion The results suggest that HSP72 overexpression in skeletal muscle may improve muscle fatigue and damage in EE by reducing oxidative damage and phagocytic infiltration, at least in mice.

Pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata) is a popular and nutritious vegetable consumed worldwide. The overall purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of C. moschata fruit extract (CME) on anti-fatigue and ergogenic functions following physiological challenges. Male ICR mice from four groups designated vehicle, CME-50, CME-100 and CME-250, respectively (n = 8 per group in each test) were orally administered CME for 14 days at 0, 50, 100 and 250 mg/kg/day. The anti-fatigue activity and exercise performance were evaluated using exhaustive swimming time, forelimb grip strength, as well as levels of plasma lactate, ammonia, glucose, and creatine kinase after an acute swimming exercise. The resting muscular and hepatic glycogen was also analyzed after 14-day supplementation with CME. Trend analysis revealed that CME treatments increased grip strength. CME dose-dependently increased 5% body weight loaded swimming time, blood glucose, and muscular and hepatic glycogen levels. CME dose-dependently decreased plasma lactate and ammonia levels and creatine kinase activity after a 15-min swimming test. The mechanism was relevant to the increase in energy storage (as glycogen) and release (as blood glucose), and the decrease of plasma levels of lactate, ammonia, and creatine kinase. Therefore, CME may be potential for the pharmacological effect of anti-fatigue.

Background Cholangitis may affect liver failure of biliary atresia (BA) patients after Kasai portoenterostomy (KP). We examined whether the number of cholangitis episodes could be a prognostic marker for liver transplant (LT) in children with BA after Kasai portoenterostomy (KP). Methods Data for BA patients born after 1998 and undergoing KP were obtained from National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD), Taiwan. Patients were followed up until the end of 2011. Incidence and the number of cholangitis episodes were recorded and compared between patients based on LT status. Results Ninety-six (26.8%) of the 366 BA patients underwent LT. More patients who underwent KP at

In this paper, a cost-effective and scalable edge-equation-based rasterizer algorithm and architecture for OpenGL ES Applications is proposed. The architecture consists of three main components which includes the Setup PE with four-stage operand scheduler, equation coefficient memory, and the tile generation stage. The Setup PE contains four float-point multipliers, three float-point adders, and four special operand units. The e quation coefficient memory store the compact results of design consideration from Geometry engine to Pixel rendering engine. Th e tile generation stage contains four float-point multipliers, eight float-point adders, and four special operand units. Based on the optimize perspective correction algorithm, pipelined architecture is derived to shorten the data path. The proposed scalable architecture which processes the tile traversal for each primitive in 9 cycles; we had implemented the full function of Rasterizer suitable for OpenGL ES 2.0, including the anti-aliasing function and Hierarchical-Z test. The gate counts is 230.45k plus 14.43kB SRAM (SETUP 512B + rf_2p_40x96 + TGS internal SRAM 13.44kB) using the 90nm 1P9M process @ 200MHZ; the scalable unit resolution is 720P@60HZ and the throughput reaches 3M Triangles/Sec.

Due to the progress of consumer electronics, 3D-Graphics system has become mobilizing and attractive. For 3D graphics gaming applications with high resolution in mobile devices, the cost-effective hardware is crucial and necessary. In order to efficiently render 2D graphics, the raster operation techniques are developed. Traditional anti-aliasing techniques using the grid-based or point-sharing of edge to do super-sampling are not regular and complex. This paper proposed a novel cost-effective strategy for the shared-edge sampling of the primitive in raster operation. No expensive sampling action is involved, and no irregular sampling point is produced in the entire process. Furthermore, the blending colors in the neighborhood of these edges adopt approximate, fast, and robust anti-aliasing according to a set of simple rules.

Objectives Patients suffering from neuropathic pain are difficult to treat and many methods are used to resolve this issue. In this study, we used a model of neuropathic pain comprising rats with chronic constriction injury (CCI) on the left sciatic nerve to investigate the chronic effect of gabapentin via intrathecal administration. We also observed the expression of dorsal spinal protein kinase C gamma subunit (PKCγ) and other pain-related molecules in the spinal area which included cyclooxygenase 2 (COX2), c-Fos and cyclic AMP-dependent transcription factor (ATF3) in the neuropathic pain animals. Methods Male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats (250–380g) were randomly assigned to four groups, i.e., control, gabapentin (Gaba), MK801, and gabapentin plus MK801 (Gaba+M) groups. A PE-5 catheter was inserted into the lumbar spine area via the cervical spine area. CCI was performed the following day after the intrathecal catheter implant surgery. Gabapentin (1.05μmol/day) was then given the following day after CCI surgery. Intrathecal gabapentin was administrated for 14 consecutive days. Pain-related behavior was assessed every 2 days thereafter by measuring the latency of foot withdrawal elicited by noxious radiant heat or Von Frey microfilament applied to the hind-paw plantar surface. MK801 (30μg/day), an N -methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor blocker, was also added for potential effect. The tissue of dorsal horn of the lumbar spine was harvested on the 14 th day for the expression of COX2, c-Fos, ATF3 and PKCγ with Western blotting, and positive finding protein was then checked on 7 th day for further evaluation. Results The beneficial effect of intrathecal gabapentin of statistic significance on thermal duration and mechanical microfilament appeared after 7-day and 11-day consecutive treatment, respectively. Furthermore, the NMDA receptor blocker also potentiated the effect on the behavior of thermal and mechanical stimulations. Gabapentin had no effect on the expression of COX2, c-Fos and ATF3. Interestingly, the expression of PKCγ in the spinal cord was initially inhibited by gabapentin on the 7 th day but was potentiated on the 14 th day. Conclusions Our results indicate that chronic intrathecal gabapentin has beneficial effects on the behaviors of both thermal and mechanical stimulations in the neuropathic pain animals and the NMDA blocker can potentiate this effect. Furthermore, gabapentin has biphasic effect on the expression of PKCγ in the spinal cord on Day 7 and Day 14 for the model rats with CCI.

OBJECTIVES: The pathogenesis of biliary atresia (BA) is unclear, but epidemiological studies may help to elucidate possible causes. The goals of this study were to identify BA incidence changes in Taiwan in 2004–2009 and to survey the factors that might influence incidence changes to elucidate the possible causes of BA. METHODS: A Taiwan national registry system for BA has been established since 2004. By using data from the national registry system for BA, we identified BA incidence changes in 2004–2009. We also evaluated the correlations between BA incidences and estimated rotavirus vaccine coverage rates and between BA incidences and the gross domestic product. RESULTS: A total of 185 patients with BA were identified in 2004–2009 in Taiwan, whereas the number of live births was 1 221 189. Compared with the incidence of BA in 2004–2006 (1.79 cases per 10 000 live births), the incidence of BA in 2007–2009 (1.23 cases per 10 000 live births) was decreased significantly (P = .01). BA incidences were negatively correlated with the gross domestic product (P = .02) and marginally negatively correlated with rotavirus vaccine coverage rates (P = .07). CONCLUSIONS: A significant decrease in BA incidence in Taiwan since 2007 has been noted and may be related to improvements in the general socioeconomic status and the popularity of rotavirus vaccination. Although more evidence is needed to establish a direct correlation, this phenomenon may shed light on possible causes of and preventive interventions for BA.

In Taiwan, a screening system using an infant stool color card to promote the early diagnosis of biliary atresia (BA) was established in 2002. This study aimed to investigate the 5-year outcome of BA before and after using the screening program. BA patients were divided into three cohorts according to their birth dates. The patients in cohort A (n = 89) were born before the stool card screening program (1990-2000); those in cohort B (n = 28) were screened by the stool card regional screening program (2002-2003); and those in cohort C (n = 74) were screened by the stool card universal screening program (2004-2005). The relative odds ratios were computed using logistic regression to compare the different factors affecting survival time. The rate of age at Kasai operation

In this article, we apply indium zinc oxide (IZO) transparent conductive oxide film for the fabrication of bifacial-illuminated perovskite solar cells (PSCs) and two substrate type PSCs based on non-fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) and ultrathin substrates. The Si/perovskite tandem solar cell system employing bifacial-illuminated PSCs delivers a decent power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 19.51% with 1 cm2 active area. The investigation of PSCs without FTO substrate is further demonstrated using sputtered Ti metal as a substrate. The devices employing a Ti cathode coating on a slide and ultrathin glass could deliver 13.5% and 13.6% of PCE, respectively, revealing a promising application for cost-effective and light-weight non-FTO devices.

Background Wilson's disease (WD) is an autosomal recessive defect of cellular copper export. Early diagnosis in children is difficult due to its obscure clinical presentations. The efficacy of zinc salts is well documented, although there are limited data concerning zinc use in pediatric patients with WD. Methods We performed a retrospective analysis of clinical features, laboratory results and treatment responses in children with WD diagnosed at Taichung Veterans General Hospital between 1996 and 2008. Diagnosis was established by low serum ceruloplasmin, high 24-hour urinary copper excretion, presence of Kayser-Fleischer rings, and mutation analysis. Results Eleven children were included in this study. The main initial presentations were impaired liver function tests (6/11) and hemolytic anemia (2/11). Gene studies in seven children showed six different mutations (G934D, R778Q, C490X, 304insC, IVS4-1 G > C, P992I) and one possible novel mutation (L1181P). All patients had improved liver function tests and hemoglobin levels after treatment with D-penicillamine, trientine and zinc supplement therapy. During a mean period of 3.4 ± 2.1 years with zinc therapy, six patients had serum zinc levels above the normal limit, and seven patients had serum copper levels below the normal range. Conclusion Serum ceruloplasmin and 24-hour urinary copper examinations could be used to rule out WD in children with chronic hepatitis and hemolytic anemia. Gene analysis is helpful for prompt diagnosis of asymptomatic siblings and patients with atypical features. Zinc treatment is generally safe in pediatric patients with WD. However, its adverse effects should be monitored.

The performance, with error probability analysis, of an MC-DS-CDMA (multi-carrier direct-sequence coded-division multiple-access) system adopting a Weibull fading channel is proposed and evaluated. On the basis of the multivariate MGF (moment-generating function) of Weibull statistics and an alternative expression of the Q-function, an approximate BER (bit-error rate) expression is derived for an MC-DS-CDMA system combined with MRC (maximal ratio-combining) diversity. The Weibull fading model is applied to analyze the BER performance of an MC-DS-CDMA system by considering multi-users with both multi-carriers and the phenomena of PBI (partial-band interference) cases. Regardless of the channel model assumed or the user number considered, it is noteworthy that the PBI is definitely the most important factor dominating the performance of an MC-DS-CDMA system, according to the results obtained in this study. The reliability of the proposed schemes can be explicitly verified in accordance with the previously reported results. Thus, we assert that the aim of the performance analysis of an MC-DS-CDMA system operating under Weibull fading has been completely achieved.

The effect of oxygen (O) content on the electrical properties of physical-vapor-deposited nickel oxide (PVD-NiO) was studied. When the NiO target was sputtered, introducing O2 can lead to the formation of Ni3+ ions in the deposited film. These Ni3+ ions can act as acceptors. However, there were too many Ni3+ ions that were obtained following the introduction of O atoms. It resulted in intensive p-type conduction and made the O2-introduced PVD-NiO behave as a conductor. Thus, it was possible to reduce the O content of PVD-NiO to obtain a p-type semiconductor. In this study, a transparent PVD-NiO film with a carrier concentration of 1.62 × 1017 cm−3 and a resistivity of 3.74 Ω cm was sputter-deposited within pure argon plasma. The thin-film transistor (TFT) employing this proposed PVD-NiO can result in good current switching, and even operated at very low drain–source voltage. The ON/OFF current ratio, field-effect carrier mobility, and threshold voltage of the proposed NiO TFT were 3.61 × 104, 1.09 cm2 V−1 s−1 and −3.31 V, respectively.

BACKGROUND The change of anaerobic exercise abilities during and after a high-altitude expedition or hypoxic exposure is not well studied. To evaluate the effects of an extreme-altitude expedition on anaerobic performance, the 10-second supramaximal test and endocrine hormones were evaluated before and after an expedition to Peak Lenin. METHODS Four subjects (3 male and 1 female, age (30.5 +/- 16.5) years) were recruited into the study. Three sets of tests were performed, including a basic test at sea level and 20 days before first arrival at the base camp (3600 m), a middle test done at day after returning from the summit to the base camp and the post test at the 10th day after return to the sea level. Both the supramaximal test, performed by a cycle ergometer, and body composition, performed by bioelectrical impedance analysis, were completed before the basic test and post test. The endocrine hormones including cortisol, growth hormone, testosterone, noradrenaline, adrenaline, dopamine, glucagon and beta-endorphin were measured at all tests. RESULTS Comparing the conditions before and after the expedition, the body measurement parameters were decreased after the expedition, i.e., body weight (-4.22%, P < 0.05), fat-free mass (-2.09%, P < 0.01) and body fat (-8.95%, P = 0.172). The peak power relative/body weight ratio (PP/BW) was similar ((9.70 +/- 1.97) vs (9.11 +/- 1.80) W/kg, P = 0.093), while mean power/body weight ratio (MP/BW) was reduced significantly after the expedition ((9.14 +/- 1.77) vs (8.33 +/- 1.74) W/kg, P < 0.05). Peak power/fat-free mass (PP/FFM), mean power/fat-free mass (MP/FFM) and fatigue index (FI) were significantly lower after the expedition (PP/FFM: (11.95 +/- 1.71) vs (10.99 +/- 1.59) W/kg, P < 0.05; MP/FFM: (11.26 +/- 1.50) vs (10.04 +/- 1.55) W/kg, P < 0.005; FI (85.55 +/- 4.17)% vs (77.25 +/- 4.40)%, P < 0.05). Hormone assays showed a significant increase of noradrenaline (basic vs middle, P < 0.05) as well as decrease of adrenaline (P < 0.05). Meanwhile, a trend towards an increase in dopamine (basic vs middle) and a decrease of beta-endorphin (basic vs post) were also noted. CONCLUSIONS These results suggested that an expedition to an extreme altitude may have negative effects on anaerobic performance. It showed that a significant increase of noradrenaline (basic vs middle) as well as decrease of adrenaline after the expedition to Peak Lenin had occurred. The real physiological significance needs to be further investigated.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to show how rapidly evolving information technology has dramatically changed the knowledge dissemination process. However, many of them lack a generic evaluation process to verify the system's performance. In an attempt to solve this problem, this study seeks to propose an agent‐based model to provide a dynamic, flexible framework for performance evaluations of e‐learning projects.Design/methodology/approachThe paper proposes an agent‐based model which comprises a learning model, balanced scorecard and option‐pricing approach to evaluate the performance of an e‐learning project.FindingsE‐learning could be the paradigm shift of traditional education. Thus, the paper provides organizations with a methodology to deliberately evaluate their e‐learning projects by treating it as a continuous improvement process.Originality/valueThe original contributions in this paper are: application of a balance scorecard to weigh different perspectives; application of a real options approach for risk management of e‐learning projects; construction of an agent‐based system for autonomous qualitative/quantitative information gathering.

Biliary atresia is the most common cause of death from liver disease in children. Although the Kasai operation before 60 days of age can significantly improve prognosis, delay in referral and surgery remains a formidable problem worldwide because of difficulties in differentiating it from benign prolonged neonatal jaundice. We established a universal screening system using an infant stool color card to promote the early diagnosis and treatment of biliary atresia. After a pilot regional study in 2002–2003, a national stool color screening system was established by integrating the infant stool color card into the child health booklet given to every neonate in Taiwan since 2004. Within 24 hours of the discovery of an abnormal stool color, this event is reported to the registry center. The annual incidence of biliary atresia per 10,000 live births in 2004 and 2005 was 1.85 (40/216,419) and 1.70 (35/205,854), respectively. The sensitivity of detecting biliary atresia using stool cards before 60 days of age was 72.5% in 2004, which improved to 97.1% in 2005. The national rate of the Kasai operation before 60 days of age increased from 60% in 2004 to 74.3% in 2005. The jaundice-free rate (

Subacute nonsuppurative cholangitis (cholangitis lenta) is an uncommon yet important histological finding in liver biopsies from pediatric liver transplant recipients. The histopathological features include proliferation of bile ductules at the edges of portal tracts, inspissated bile within dilated bile ductules, absence of acute inflammation within ducts or ductules, and normal structure of interlobular bile ducts.To describe the histopathology and clinical outcomes of pediatric liver transplant recipients with subacute nonsuppurative cholangitis.This is a retrospective analysis involving review of medical records and analysis of liver-biopsy specimens by a pathologist blinded to clinical diagnosis. We identified 9 pediatric patients meeting the criteria for nonsuppurative cholangitis. These patients were compared with a control group of patients with biliary obstruction.Liver histopathology clearly distinguishes subacute nonsuppurative cholangitis from biliary obstruction and other causes of posttransplant cholestasis. Clinical biochemistry cannot reliably distinguish between the 2, although statistically significant differences existed in levels of serum total and direct bilirubin, alanine aminotransferase, and alkaline phosphatase. The rate of proven bacterial or fungal infection in the study group was 100% in contrast to a rate of 54.5% in the control group (P.05). Graft and patient survival were similarly poor.: Finding subacute nonsuppurative cholangitis suggests the presence of severe local or systemic infection in liver-transplant recipients, and its recognition is important for clinical management.

Background Prior to the introduction of rotavirus vaccines, rotavirus was the leading cause of severe gastroenteritis in infants and young children, and it continues to be the leading cause in countries without vaccination programs. Rotavirus gastroenteritis results in substantial economic burden and has a pronounced effect on the family of those who are ill. Both in Taiwan and in Vietnam, rotavirus illness is viewed as a priority disease. This study assessed, in Taiwan and Vietnam, the impact of rotavirus gastroenteritis on the family among a group of parents whose children had recently been hospitalized for this illness. Methods In the first half of 2013, parents of children who had been hospitalized due to rotavirus infection were recruited from hospitals in Taiwan (n = 12) and Vietnam (n = 22), and participated in focus group sessions or in-depth ethnographic interviews. Results In both countries, the results point to a substantial burden on the parents concerning emotions and logistics of daily tasks, and to considerable disruptions of the family routine. Taiwanese parents reported satisfaction with the health care system, a great deal of effort to suppress emotions, a fair amount of knowledge about rotavirus, and little extra costs related to the illness. On the other hand, parents in Vietnam expressed concern about the emotional well-being of and the health care treatments for their children, were less knowledgeable regarding rotavirus infection, and experienced a substantial financial burden due to indirect costs that were related to accessing treatment. Conclusions Families in Taiwan and Vietnam suffer from a considerable economic and emotional burden related to rotavirus gastroenteritis. One way to substantially reduce this burden is to provide universal and affordable rotavirus vaccination to susceptible children, especially since cost-effectiveness studies have demonstrated that universal vaccination would be safe and efficacious against severe rotavirus gastroenteritis in these countries.

In this paper, we present an effective algorithm design for object tracking in intelligent surveillance applications. The proposed shape-perceived algorithm uses the building-block-based matching method. This method is fast due to its use of one-pass scanning and its low-cost of object classification. Two kinds of cameras are designed for different goals, a wide-angle camera and a PTZ camera, to construct the intelligent surveillance system and to achieve behavior analysis and body recognition. Furthermore, the experimental results show that this low-cost shape-perceived object tracking architecture is feasible for intelligent surveillance systems.

In order to render 3-D graphics efficiently, rendering pipeline fixed function have been developed. Traditional triangle traversal techniques using edge-equation-based or scan-line-based methods may cause potential instability from the division operations. Moreover, traditional anti-aliasing techniques using the grid-based or point-sharing of edge to do super-sampling are not regular and the quality is also not good enough. This paper develops an efficient barycentric-based traversal algorithm using Ladder Start tile which is division free. Throughout the process, improved the efficiency and stability of the graphic rendering and no extra traversal position is produced to reduce the number of pixel tests. It also proposed a novel quality strategy for primitive's shared-edge sampling in antialiasing operation. The blending colors in the neighborhood of these edges according to a set of simple coverage rules, allowing area approximate, yet the fast and more robust anti-aliasing.

OBJECTIVE. We aimed to detect biliary atresia (BA) in early infancy to prevent additional liver damage because of the delay of referral and surgical treatment and to investigate the incidence rate of BA in Taiwan. METHODS. A pilot study to screen the stool color in infants for the early diagnosis of BA was undertaken from March 2002 to December 2003. We had designed an “infant stool color card” with 7 numbers of different color pictures and attached it to the child health booklet. Parents were then asked to observe their infant's stool color by using this card. The medical staff would check the number that the parents chose according to their infant's stool color at 1 month of age during the health checkup and then send the card back to the stool color card registry center. RESULTS. The average return rate was ∼65.2% (78184 infants). A total of 29 infants were diagnosed as having BA, and 26 were screened out by stool color card before 60 days of age. The sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value were 89.7%, 99.9%, and 28.6%, respectively. Seventeen (58.6%) infants with BA received a Kasai operation within 60-day age period. The estimated incidence of BA in screened newborns was 3.7 of 10000. CONCLUSIONS. The stool color card was a simple, efficient, and applicable mass screening method for early diagnosis and management of BA. The program can also help in estimating the incidence and creating a registry of these patients.

Epidemics of enterovirus 71 infections caused the rapid death of many children in Malaysia in 1997 and in Taiwan in 1998. Pulmonary edema occurred in most of the fatal cases and was considered to be neurogenic. The role of the heart was rarely investigated before. Between January 1998–January 2001, 34 consecutive patients who were admitted to the intensive care unit due to enterovirus infection were studied prospectively. Patients were divided into two groups: group I with pulmonary edema, and group II without pulmonary edema. Comparisons were made between the two groups based upon demographic, neurological, and cardiovascular manifestations. Group I consisted of 11 patients (5 boys, 6 girls; mean age, 22.8 months), and group II of 23 patients (12 boys, 11 girls; mean age, 28.8 months). There were no significant differences between the two groups in comparing sex, age, body weight, neurological severity, intracranial pressure, cell count, protein and glucose levels in cerebral spinal fluid, and blood pressure. All group I patients had left ventricular dysfunction, and their ejection fractions were significantly lower than those of patients in group II (37 ± 11% vs. 75 ± 6%, P

Stereo vision has been used in many different applications such as robot, entertainment, and electronics for car. Computation of the disparity map requires a large amount of computational resources because of high block-matching computations, especially on the high-resolution image pair. In this paper, we proposed an algorithm for computing the disparity map of a full HD image pair from left and right cameras in order to focus on the front end of collision avoidance which estimates the distance between object and camera on the car. Our system is designed to avoid the collision against object which includes horizontal displacement. Therefore, the target of the front end of system is to find out the position and movement of these objects.

In this paper, we present our system that participated in the Polarity Detection task, the elementary task in the ESWC-14 Challenge on Concept-Level Sentiment Analysis. In addition to traditional Bag-of-Words features, we also employ state-of-the-art Sentic API to extract concepts from documents to generate Bag-of-Sentiment-Concepts features. Our previous work SentiConceptNet serves as the reference concept-based sentiment knowledge base for concept-level sentiment analysis. Experimental results on our development set show that adding Bag-of-Sentiment-Concepts can improve the accuracy by 1.3 %, indicating the benefit of concept-level sentiment analysis. Our demo website is located at http://140.115.51.136:5000.

Since consumer electronic products grow rapidly, 3D display technology becomes popular in recent years. Now, there are more and more 3D products such as 3D camera, 3D projector, and 3D-TV. However, how to convert traditional 2D video contents to 3D one is a vital issue to solve it. This paper proposes a real-time 3D rendering processor for view synthesis in 2D-to-3D conversion. Moreover, the proposed fractional precision image warping and hole filling architecture can effectively decrease the output buffer size about 94.4% than the traditional. The real-time processor throughput can achieve up to 60 frames per second and full HD resolution (1920×1080) on stereoscopic displays.

With the advances in central processing unit (CPU) capability, 3D display technology becomes popular in recent years. Now, there are more and more 3D products such as 3D camera, 3D projector, and 3D-TV. The 3D technology is not difficult to understand because most of the video contents are captured through two individual lenses. The corresponding video contents are considered as two respective bit streams. However, how to transform traditional 2D video contents to 3D one is a critical problem to solve it. This paper proposes a realtime 3D rendering architecture for view synthesis in 2D-to-3D conversion. The real-time architecture can support 60 frames per second and full HD resolution (1920×1080) on FPGA platform.

A 12-year-old boy with cerebral palsy had a history of fever, diarrhoea and progressive bilious vomiting for 2 days. Physical examination revealed absent bowel sounds and peritoneal sign. An abdominal plain film showed a ‘V-shaped’ loop of the dilated large intestine with the apex pointing ‘downward’ (figure 1), rather than the typical …

The effectiveness of acupuncture in acute stroke remains largely untested and unproved. A randomized, controlled trial was carried out to study the feasibility of acupuncture in combination with conventional supportive treatment for acute stroke patients. A total of 30 patients, aged 46-74, with the onset of symptoms within 36 h were enrolled into the study after appropriate screening. All patients gave informed consent. Basing on the same supportive treatment, patients were randomly assigned to a treatment with or without acupuncture. The procedure and acupoint selection were discussed and decided through several meetings of a group of senior acupuncture doctors in Taiwan. Acupuncture was applied 3 times/week for 4 weeks. During the study period, there were no problems in conducting this trial in terms of patient availability and acceptance, and physician cooperation. A significantly better neurologic outcome was observed in the acupuncture group on day 28 and day 90. The improvement in neurologic status was greatest in patients with a poor neurologic score at baseline. There were no important side effects except for one episode of dizziness related to acupuncture treatment. The data and results of this study will be used as a guideline for planning a full-scale clinical trial, e.g. sample size calculation, method of randomization with stratification of prognostic factors, choosing acupuncture points and technique of acupuncture.