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Aβ oligomers (AβO) are a dominant biomarker for early Alzheimer's disease diagnosis. A fluorescent aptasensor coupled with conformational switch-induced hybridization was established to detect AβO. The fluorescent aptasensor is based on the interaction of fluorophore-labeled AβO-specific aptamer (FAM-Apt) against its partly complementary DNA sequence on the surface of magnetic beads (cDNA-MBs). Once the FAM-Apt binds to AβO, the conformational switch of FAM-Apt increases the tendency to be captured by cDNA-MBs. This causes a descending fluorescence of supernatant, which can be utilized to determine the levels of AβO. Thus, the base-pair matching above 12 between FAM-Apt and cDNA-MBs with increasing hybridizing free energies reached the ascending fluorescent signal equilibrium. The optimized aptasensor showed linearity from 1.7 ng mL

Mercury ion (Hg2+) is extremely toxic even at very low concentrations and its detection mainly relies on bulky and high-cost analytical instruments. Here, we introduce a fast and ultrasensitive bio...

Sleep is crucial to overall health, and its disruption is both associated with and a diagnostic symptom of multiple mental illnesses. Several broad assessment instruments embed sleep-related items in scales about other constructs. Using these items as their own scale has not yet been validated for differentiating among psychiatric disorders or measuring severity of associated sleep problems. This study reports evidence of reliability and validity for using sleep items on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and Parent General Behavior Inventory (P-GBI) as extracted scales across two distinct clinical contexts.Participants were youth aged 5-18 years and their parents recruited from both an academic medical center (N=759) and an urban community health center (N=618). Primary caregivers completed the CBCL and P-GBI as part of a more comprehensive outpatient evaluation.Across both community and academic samples, P-GBI sleep subscales were more reliable and consistent than CBCL sleep subscales, showed greater coverage of sleepiness and insomnia constructs, were better at discriminating individuals within a wider range of sleep complaints, and showed significant correlation with mood disorder diagnoses. P-GBI Insomnia had the highest accuracy for identifying bipolar disorders, while Lassitude was better at identifying unipolar depression. The CBCL sleep items did not form a cohesive scale.The P-GBI sleep items provide a brief, reliable measure for assessing distinct dimensions of sleep complaints and detecting mood symptoms or diagnoses related to the youth’s sleep functioning, making them a useful addition to clinical practice.

Selenium (Se) is an essential micromineral that is incorporated into the active center of selenoproteins which play important roles in immune regulation, thyroid function, antioxidant defense, and glucose homeostasis. Se deficiency is commonly observed in patients of chronic illness, cancer, and severe trauma; Se supplementation to this group has been shown to provide clinical benefits including reduced mortality rates and better prognosis. However, there is a lack of consensus to determine Se adequacy and deficiency in terms of health and disease in the context of the local Taiwanese population. To obtain the normal Se range of the general adult Taiwanese by which to assess an individual’s Se status, studies reporting on plasma and serum Se values in Taiwanese adults from databases and available data from government-accredited clinical laboratories were gathered. After assessment for suitability against predefined criteria including sample size, subject characteristics, method of Se measurement, Se levels, and year of publication, six sources were included for subsequent mathematical calculations. The combined mean Se levels from a total of 5,508 subjects were 182.8 ± 124.3 µg/L. The range was estimated to be 58–307 µg/L, and Se levels between 100–270 µg/L were considered the normal range in Taiwanese adults, whereas Se levels

Selenium (Se) is an essential micromineral that is incorporated into the active center of selenoproteins which play important roles in regulating immune function, thyroid function, antioxidant defense, and glucose homeostasis. Dietary intakes and bodily levels of Se vary across countries due to geographical distribution of the mineral, dietary patterns, Se species, and genetic predispositions. Biomarkers such as serum/plasma Se, tissue Se, and bioactivity of selenoproteins to suggest Se status of an individual have been proposed and used in epidemiological and clinical studies. Beside vulnerable populations residing in Se-deficient regions, Se deficiency is found in patients of chronic illness, cancer, and those experiencing severe trauma; Se supplementation to this group has been shown to provide benefits including reduced mortality rates and better prognosis. However, there is a lack of consensus to determine Se adequacy and deficiency in terms of health and disease in the context of the local Taiwanese population. In this study, plasma and serum Se values reported from selected studies were pooled to calculate the normal Se range of the general adult Taiwanese. The calculated mean ± standard deviation values of Se level were 182.8 ± 124.3 μg/L (N = 5,508), and the range of Se levels was estimated to be approximately 58–307 mg/L. From this range, Se < 98.8 mg/L was suggestive of deficiency and required Se supplementation, whereas maintaining adequate levels of Se in the range of 125–183 mg/L would help to optimize its role in physiological well-being and disease prevention in Taiwanese adults.

A common strategy to improve the sensitivity of a biosensor for the detection of a low abundance analyte is to preconcentrate the analyte molecules before detection. A dual-functional gold–iron oxide core–satellite hybrid nanoparticle structure is proposed in this work to overcome the drawbacks of traditional sample pretreatment methods and the methods using non-magnetic nanomaterials for sample pretreatment. The new dual-functional hybrid nanoparticle structure can simultaneously serve as a signal reporter of a biorecognition event and a preconcentrator of a target at an extremely low concentration in a nanoplasmonic biosensor. By utilizing a fiber optic nanogold-linked sorbent assay in the fiber optic particle plasmon resonance (FOPPR) biosensor and an arbitrary DNA sequence as a target, we have demonstrated that the use of the new hybrid nanoparticle structure with magnetic preconcentration improves the limit of detection (LOD) for the DNA by 18 times as compared to the same method without magnetic preconcentration, so that the LOD for detecting the DNA can be as low as 2.6 fM. The new hybrid nanoparticle structure is easy to prepare and its use in the high-sensitivity and low-cost FOPPR biosensor provides vast opportunities in point-of-care applications.

Resistin is a cysteine-rich adipokine that promotes the release of inflammatory cytokines, particularly interleukin 1 beta (IL-1β) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), which are critical pro-inflammatory mediators in osteoarthritis (OA) pathogenesis. We describe evidence of significantly higher levels of resistin, IL-1β, and TNF-α expression in OA knee synovial tissue compared with that from non-OA knees. Resistin-induced enhancement of IL-1β and TNF-α expression in human OA synovial fibroblasts (OASFs) were attenuated by MEK and ERK inhibitors, as well as their respective siRNAs. Our data reveal that resistin enhances the expression of TNF-α and IL-1β in OASFs by inhibiting miR-149 expression via MEK and ERK signaling. Our findings elucidate the inter-relationships between resistin and pro-inflammatory mediators during OA pathogenesis and could help to facilitate the development of synovium-targeted therapy in OA.

A new innovative approach is essential for early and effective diagnosis of gastric cancer, using promoter hypermethylation of the tumor suppressor, SOCS-1, that is frequently inactivated in human cancers. We have developed an amplification-free fiber optic nanoplasmonic biosensor for detecting DNA methylation of the SOCS-1 human genome. The method is based on the fiber optic nanogold-linked sorbent assay of PCR-free DNA from human gastric tumor tissue and cell lines. We designed a specific DNA probe fabricated on the fiber core surface while the other probe is bioconjugated with gold nanoparticles in free form to allow percentage determination and differentiating the methylated and unmethylated cell lines, further demonstrating the SOCS-1 methylation occurs in cancer patients but not in normal cell lines. The observed detection limit is 0.81 fM for methylated DNA, and the detection time is within 15 min. In addition, our data were significantly correlated to the data obtained from PCR-based pyrosequencing, and yet with superior accuracy. Hence our results provide new insight to the quantitative evaluation of methylation status of the human genome and can act as an alternative to PCR with a great potential.

A common strategy to improve the sensitivity of a biosensor for the detection of a low abundance analyte is to preconcentrate the analyte molecules before detection. A dual-functional gold-iron oxide core-satellite hybrid nanoparticle structure is proposed in this work to overcome the drawbacks of traditional sample pretreatment methods and the methods using non-magnetic nanomaterials for sample pretreatment. The new dual-functional hybrid nanoparticle structure can simultaneously serve as a signal reporter of a biorecognition event and a preconcentrator of a target at an extremely low concentration in a nanoplasmonic biosensor. By utilizing a fiber optic nanogold-linked sorbent assay in the fiber optic particle plasmon resonance (FOPPR) biosensor and an arbitrary DNA sequence as a target, we have demonstrated that the use of the new hybrid nanoparticle structure with magnetic preconcentration improves the limit of detection (LOD) for the DNA by 18 times as compared to the same method without magnetic preconcentration, so that the LOD for detecting the DNA can be as low as 2.6 fM. The new hybrid nanoparticle structure is easy to prepare and its use in the high-sensitivity and low-cost FOPPR biosensor provides vast opportunities in point-of-care applications.

The online preconcentration technique, cyclodextrin-assisted sweeping (CD-sweeping), coupled with micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) was established to determine 13-cis-retinoic acid (13-cis-RA), all-trans-retinoic acid (all-trans-RA) and 4-oxo-13-cis-retinoic acid (4-oxo-13-cis-RA) in human plasma. A CD-sweeping buffer (45 mM borate (pH 9.2), containing 80 mM sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and 22 mM hydroxypropyl β-CD (HP-β-CD) was introduced into the capillary and, then, the sample dissolved in 70 mM borate (pH 9.2): methanol = 9:1 (v/v) was injected into capillary by pressure. The separation voltage was 23 kV. Compared to the conventional cyclodextrin-micellar electrokinetic chromatography (CD-MEKC) method, the new technique achieved 224–257-fold sensitivity enrichment of analytes. The limits of detection of 13-cis-RA, all-trans-RA were 1 ng/mL, whereas that of 4-oxo-13-cis-RA was 25 ng/mL in plasma. The linear ranges of 13-cis-RA, all-trans-RA were between 15 and 1000 ng/mL, whereas that of 4-oxo-13-cis-RA was between 75 and 1500 ng/mL. The coefficient of correlation between the concentration of analytes and peak area ratio of analytes and internal standard (2, 4-dihydroxy-benzophenone) for intra-day (n = 3) and inter-day (n = 5) analyses were both greater than 0.999. The optimized experimental conditions were successfully applied to determine 13-cis-retinoic acid and its metabolites in plasma samples from a patient during the administration of 13-cis-RA for treating acne.

The ability to classify patients with bipolar disorder (BD) is restricted by their heterogeneity, which limits the understanding of their neuropathology. Therefore, we aimed to investigate clinically discernible and neurobiologically distinguishable BD subtypes. T1-weighted and resting-state functional magnetic resonance images of 112 patients with BD were obtained, and patients were segregated according to diagnostic subtype (i.e., types I and II) and clinical patterns, including the number of episodes and hospitalizations and history of suicide and psychosis. For each clinical pattern, fewer and more occurrences subgroups and types I and II were classified through nested cross-validation for robust performance, with minimum redundancy and maximum relevance, in feature selection. To assess the proportion of variance in cognitive performance explained by the neurobiological markers, multiple linear regression between verbal memory and the selected features was conducted. Satisfactory performance (mean accuracy, 73.60%) in classifying patients with a high or low number of episodes was attained through functional connectivity, mostly from default-mode and motor networks. Moreover, these neurobiological markers explained 62% of the variance in verbal memory. The number of episodes is a potentially critical aspect of the neuropathology of BD. Neurobiological markers can help identify BD neuroprogression.

The online preconcentration technique, cyclodextrin-assisted sweeping (CD-sweeping), coupled with micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) was established to determine 13-cis-retinoic acid (13-cis-RA), all-trans-retinoic acid (all-trans-RA) and 4-oxo-13-cis-retinoic acid (4-oxo-13-cis-RA) in human plasma. A CD-sweeping buffer (45 mM borate (pH 9.2), containing 80 mM sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and 22 mM hydroxypropyl β-CD (HP-β-CD) was introduced into the capillary and, then, the sample dissolved in 70 mM borate (pH 9.2): methanol = 9:1 (v/v) was injected into capillary by pressure. The separation voltage was 23 kV. Compared to the conventional cyclodextrin-micellar electrokinetic chromatography (CD-MEKC) method, the new technique achieved 224–257-fold sensitivity enrichment of analytes. The limits of detection of 13-cis-RA, all-trans-RA were 1 ng/mL, whereas that of 4-oxo-13-cis-RA was 25 ng/mL in plasma. The linear ranges of 13-cis-RA, all-trans-RA were between 15 and 1000 ng/mL, whereas that of 4-oxo-13-cis-RA was between 75 and 1500 ng/mL. The coefficient of correlation between the concentration of analytes and peak area ratio of analytes and internal standard (2, 4-dihydroxy-benzophenone) for intra-day (n = 3) and inter-day (n = 5) analyses were both greater than 0.999. The optimized experimental conditions were successfully applied to determine 13-cis-retinoic acid and its metabolites in plasma samples from a patient during the administration of 13-cis-RA for treating acne.

Phenylenediamines (PDs), which are reported to cause allergic dermatitis and possess genotoxicity and carcinogenicity, are the ingredients used in permanent hair dyes. The fluorescent derivatization strategy coupled with micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) were established to analyze four PDs, including o-phenylenediamine (OPD), m-phenylenediamine (MPD), p-phenylenediamine (PPD) and toluene-2,5-diamine (PTD). Additionally, 5-(4, 6-dichlorotriazinyl) aminofluorescein (DTAF) was used as a fluorescent reagent derived at amino groups of PDs and underwent nucleophilic substitution reaction to improve the detection sensitivity. The derivatization condition reacted at 90 °C for 10 min in alkaline conditions. The optimized separation conditions were 20 mM borate (pH 8.0) containing 10 mM Brij 35 and 35% (v/v) methanol. The limits of detection (S/N = 3) for MPD, PTD, PPD and OPD were 25, 25, 50 and 100 nM, respectively. Compared to MEKC-UV, the sensitivity enhancements were 30- to 81-fold when PDs were derived with DTAF. The high-sensitivity MEKC-LIF method was successfully established and applied to determine PDs in commercial hair colors for quality control and in real hair samples for evaluating the location of PDs in dyed hair samples, as well as in percutaneous absorption samples for evaluating the ability of PDs to penetrate skin. Keywords: 5-(4, 6-dichlorotriazinyl)aminofluorescein, Hair colors, Micellar electrokinetic chromatography, Percutaneous absorption, Phenylenediamines

This study is the first to provide a bottom-up reconstruction of Proto-Ong-Be initials and finals using the comparative method. Thirty-four initials (labelled with tone series) and nine finals that can be reconstructed with confidence are postulated. This paper shows that the early voicing contrast associated with initials cannot be directly reconstructed based on the internal evidence, although the loss of the contrast is compensated for at the suprasegmental level. This study also demonstrates that Proto-Ong-Be finals remain intact in modern Ong-Be varieties. In addition, this paper serves as a testing ground and a demonstration for doing linguistic reconstruction from different angles.

Purpose The first step in typical treatment of vestibular schwannoma (VS) is to localize the tumor region, which is time-consuming and subjective because it relies on repeatedly reviewing different parametric magnetic resonance (MR) images. A reliable, automatic VS detection method can streamline the process. Methods A convolutional neural network architecture, namely YOLO-v2 with a residual network as a backbone, was used to detect VS tumors from MR images. To heighten performance, T1-weighted–contrast-enhanced, T2-weighted, and T1-weighted images were combined into triple-channel images for feature learning. The triple-channel images were cropped into three sizes to serve as input images of YOLO-v2. The VS detection effectiveness levels were evaluated for two backbone residual networks that downsampled the inputs by 16 and 32. Results The results demonstrated the VS detection capability of YOLO-v2 with a residual network as a backbone model. The average precision was 0.7953 for a model with 416 × 416-pixel input images and 16 instances of downsampling, when both the thresholds of confidence score and intersection-over-union were set to 0.5. In addition, under an appropriate threshold of confidence score, a high average precision, namely 0.8171, was attained by using a model with 448 × 448-pixel input images and 16 instances of downsampling. Conclusion We demonstrated successful VS tumor detection by using a YOLO-v2 with a residual network as a backbone model on resized triple-parametric MR images. The results indicated the influence of image size, downsampling strategy, and confidence score threshold on VS tumor detection.

Quetiapine is an atypical antipsychotic drug that can be used to treat mental disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and Alzheimer's disease. Quetiapine is mainly converted into the active metabolites of norquetiapine and 7-hydroxyquetiapine by the liver enzymes CYP3A4 and CYP2D6. In this study, liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) was used as a sample pretreatment method to eliminate interferences in plasma. tert-Butyl methyl ether was chosen as the extraction solvent. Field-enhanced sample injection (FESS), an online preconcentration technique, was used to analyze quetiapine and its metabolites norquetiapine and 7-hydroxyquetiapine in plasma. The optimal separation condition was 120 mM phosphate (pH 4.0) containing 0.005% (w/v) polyvinyl pyrrolidone and 40% (v/v) methanol. The methanol plug was 0.3 psi for 6 s, the sample was electrokinetic injection by 10 kV for 60 s at positive polarity, and the separation voltage was set at 26 kV. In this experiment, quetiapine, norquetiapine and 7-hydroxyquetiapine were successfully extracted from plasma by the LLE method and stacking and separated by FESS within 15 min. The limits of detection (S/N = 3) of quetiapine, norquetiapine and 7-hydroxyquetiapine were 0.25 ng/mL, 0.50 ng/mL and 1.00 ng/mL, respectively. The linear ranges of quetiapine, norquetiapine and 7-hydroxyquetiapine were 3-120 ng/mL and the correlation coefficients were 0.999. Compared with that of the traditional capillary zone electrophoresis method, the sensitivity enrichment of analytes was 463-835-fold. The optimal experimental conditions were successfully applied to the analysis of plasma samples from patients taking quetiapine for the treatment of schizophrenia.

To detect and identify six varieties of genetically modified (GM) maize, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays were performed in the present study. The effect of heat treatment on the detection of the genes by the PCR methods was investigated. Maize samp les were subjected to 100˚C and 121˚C heat treatment for different time intervals, and PCR tests were then conducted by using primers specific for the maize zein gene. Results revealed that the zein gene still could be detected by the PCR after heating at 100˚C for 120 min and heating at 121˚C for 30 min. In addition, the establishment of PCR assays on the identification of the six varieties of GM-maize was a lso evaluated. Primers specific for the inserted genes in the Event 176 (Novartis), Bt11 (Novartis), MON810 (Monsanto), T25 (AgrEvo), CBH -351 (AgrEvo), and GA21 (Monsanto) GM-maize were used to conduct the PCR assays. The detection limits for these GM-maize crops is l ess than 0.1% (w/w). For further understanding on whether commercially available maize materials and processed foods are mixed wit h GMmaize, corn middling pellets, canned whole kernel maize, frozen whole kernel maize, corn tortilla and potato chips samples were collected from the markets, and detected by the PCR methods developed in this study. Results showed that five to six varieties of GM- maize were detected in the corn middling pellets and corn tortilla, whereas GM-maize of the MON810 variety as well as the T25 variety were detected in canned and frozen whole kernel maize samples. Potato chips only contained GM-maize of the MON810 variety. The results o f this study demonstrate that the PCR analysis is suitable for detecting maize materials and products, and that commercially available maize materials and products in Taiwan are usually mixed with different varieties of GM-maize. Meanwhile, the major product of GM-ma ize is the MON810 variety.

The development of osteoarthritis (OA) is characterized by synovial inflammation and the upregulation of vascular cell adhesion molecule type 1 (VCAM-1) in human osteoarthritis synovial fibroblasts (OASFs). This increase in VCAM-1 expression promotes monocyte adhesion to OASFs. The adipokine resistin is known to promote the release of inflammatory cytokines during OA progression. In this study, we identified significantly higher levels of resistin and CD68 (a monocyte surface marker) expression in human OA tissue compared with in healthy control tissue. We also found that resistin enhances VCAM-1 expression in human OASFs and facilitates the adhesion of monocytes to OASFs. These effects were attenuated by inhibitors of PKC&alpha, p38, and JNK, their respective siRNAs, and by a microRNA-381 (miR-381) mimic. In our anterior cruciate ligament transection (ACLT) rat model of OA, the inhibition of resistin activity prevented ACLT-induced damage to the OA rat cartilage and pathological changes in resistin and monocyte expression. We also found that resistin affects VCAM-1 expression and monocyte adhesion in human OASFs by inhibiting miR-381 synthesis via the PKC&alpha, p38, and JNK signaling pathways. Our clarification of the crucial role played by resistin in the pathogenesis of OA may lead to more effective therapy that reduces OA inflammation.

The abuse of illicit drugs has been prevalent in recent years and is associated with crime and public health issues. To strengthen public security and fortify public health services with respect to the increasing severity of drug abuse, academic and government institutes have been devoted to constructing relative analytical methods for illicit drugs. To date, the development of sensors has been greatly emphasized due to their features of high sensitivity, prompt detection and flexible manipulation; thus, sensors can serve as alternatives to conventional sophisticated instruments. Recently, the use of nanomaterials has inspired the development of a series of innovative sample pretreatment and detection strategies in the field of analytical chemistry. Herein, this review elaborated the application of nanomaterials in analytical methods, including sample pretreatments, colorimetric sensors and fluorescent sensors. The utilization of nanomaterials in the analytical field provides novel perspectives for the development of detection platforms and facilitates the monitoring of illicit drugs in diverse complex matrices.

With the vast amounts of data recorded by the CWB seismic networks, a fast and precise algorithm for near real-time earthquake locations as well as fundamentally urgent source and hazard studies of large damaging earthquakes in Taiwan becomes increasingly important. Here we present a novel method for automatic phase identification and event detection, modified from a Python-based PhasePApy package to be more computationally efficient and suitable for the high-rate seismicity and large-scale dense network in Taiwan. The performance efficiency is enhanced by substituting the Python code with a Fortran subroutine to calculate the characteristic function for phase picker. It is further improved by amalgamating the picks close enough in time but on different components, associating pairs of the amalgamated picks with the origin times of candidate events through an empirical linear relation between the P and S-P times reported in the CWB phase catalog, and isolating clustered candidate events and corresponding phase picks to determine the locations of real earthquakes. The algorithm is applied to detecting in almost real time over two thousands of events that occurred within four days accompanying the 4 February 2018 ML 5.89 foreshock and 6 February 2018 ML 6.25 Hualien mainshock, which far surpasses the capability of experienced human analysts. The temporal and spatial distributions of the detected aftershocks provide the timely and first-hand information to estimate the aftershock decay rate and verify the orientation of the fault plane and rupture extent of the foreshock and disastrous mainshock as a guide for fast risk assessment and source characteristics analysis.

BACKGROUND Functional connectivity (FC) is believed to be abnormal in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Most studies have focused on frontostriatal systems, and the role of the thalamic network in ADHD remains unclear. The current study used FC magnetic resonance imaging (fcMRI) to explore corticothalamic network properties and correlated network dysconnection with ADHD symptom severity. METHODS Eighteen adolescents with ADHD and 16 healthy controls aged 12 to 17 years underwent resting functional MRI scans, clinical evaluations, and 2 parent rating scales, namely the Swanson, Nolan, and Pelham IV scale and the Child Behavior Checklist. Six a priori cortical regions of interest were used to derive 6 networks: the dorsal default mode network, frontoparietal network, cingulo-opercular network (CON), primary sensorimotor network (SM1), primary auditory network, and primary visual network (V1). The corticothalamic connectivity for each network was calculated for each participant and then compared between the groups. We also compared the 2 scales with the network connectivity. RESULTS The corticothalamic connectivity within the CON was significantly reduced (p < 0.05) among adolescents with ADHD compared with the controls. The corticothalamic dysconnection within the CON, SM1, and V1 networks negatively correlated with ADHD symptom severity. CONCLUSION This network analysis indicates that corticothalamic dysconnection in ADHD involves the CON, SM1, and V1 networks and relates to symptom severity. The findings provide evidence of dysfunctional thalamus-related networks in ADHD.

Bipolar disorder is characterized by manic and depressive episodes and can be a lifetime condition. Bipolar disorder has been found to be associated with various types of disabilities, including low employment rate and high dependence on public aid. The purpose of this study is to identify factors related to being employed for persons with bipolar disorder. Nine thousand eight hundred and eighty-six subjects with bipolar disorder were collected between July of 2012 and November of 2013 and retrieved from Taiwan national disability database on May of 2014. The mean age of the sample is 45.41 (SD = 10.5), with 64% as female. Logistic regression was used to examine the log odds of the predictive variables on outcome of employment. A Receiver Operating Characteristics analysis was applied to locate the cutoff score of World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 for being employed. All demographic variables were found to be significantly correlated with employment status among subjects. The Receiver Operating Characteristics results revealed that those subjects whose scores were below 33.57 had about a four-fold higher probability of being in employment than those whose scores were above 33.57. The result provides insights into future research effort and intervention design aimed at helping persons with bipolar disorder to obtain gainful employment.

Purpose Since the vocational outcomes of people with schizophrenia should be viewed in a holistic way, the second edition of the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS 2.0) might provide an evaluation regarding employment potential. To determine whether the WHODAS 2.0 scores can be used to predict employment status, we examined the probabilistic cut-off values of the scores and analyzed the relationship between work status and demographic characteristics. Methods We selected 31,793 people aged between 18 and 65 with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder from the disability evaluation database in Taiwan and separated them into two groups based on employment status (employed and unemployed). We used logistic regression to explore the association between employment and demographic characteristics. Moreover, we conducted a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis to determine the cut-off point to assist in determining employment potential based on the WHODAS 2.0 score. Results Among the 31,793 participants, 3367 were employed and 18,801 were unemployed. The unemployed participants accounted for a higher percentage of disability in each domain of the WHODAS. The ROC analysis revealed that the optimal cut-off point of the WHODAS score to distinguish the people who were employed and unemployed was 25.78 (area under curve = 0.80). Conclusions The present study indicated that work status can be determined by the total score across the six domains of the WHODAS score. Furthermore, the probability of employment may be determined initially by the cut-off point of the WHODAS score in order to economize evaluation time and prepare prevocational training for those with scores above 25.78.

Thermal desorption electrospray ionization/mass spectrometry (TD–ESI–MS) employing a quickly interchangeable ionization source is a relatively new ambient ionization mass spectrometric technique that has had, to date, only a limited number of applications related to food safety control. With reallocation of resources, this direct-analysis technique has had wider use in food analysis when operated in dual-working mode (pretreatment-free qualitative screening and conventional quantitative confirmation) after switching to an ambient ionization source from a traditional atmospheric pressure ionization source. Herein, we describe the benefits and challenges associated with the use of a TD–ESI source to detect adulterants in processed vegetables (PVs), as a proof-of-concept for the detection of basic colorants. While TD–ESI can offer direct qualitative screening analyses for PVs with detection capabilities lower than those provided with liquid chromatography/UV detection within 30 s, the use of TD–ESI for semi-quantification is applicable only for homogeneous food matrices.