Classifying Endemic Fagaceae Species in Taiwan using Leaf Images

( Hao-chun Hsu ),( Cheng-hao Lee ),( Chih-kai Yang ),( Fang-hua Chu ),( Ming-jer Tsai ),( Yan-fu Kuo ) 한국농업기계학회 2018 한국농업기계학회 학술발표논문집 Vol.23 No.1

Fagaceae is one of the plant family which dominate the broad-leaved forests in Taiwan and have considerable value in economy and ecology. Traditionally, plant species identification based on leaf morphologies and is conducted using naked-eye observation. This study is proposed to distinguish the Fagaceae species using image processing and machine learning. In this study, leaf images of 10 Fagaceae species were collected. A serial of traits relevant to leaf morphologies, such as morphological, color, shape, and venation traits, were quantified from the leaf images. A support vector machine classifier was then developed to identify the species using the quantified traits. The proposed approach reached an identification accuracy of 95.8%.

Clinical Outcomes and Cost-Effectiveness of Osteoporosis Screening With Dual-Energy X-ray Absorptiometry

Hsu Chiao-Lin,Wu Pin-Chieh,Yin Chun-Hao,Chen Chung-Hwan,Lee King-Teh,Lin Chih-Lung,Shi Hon-Yi 대한영상의학회 2023 Korean Journal of Radiology Vol.24 No.12

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) for osteoporosis screening. Materials and Methods: Eligible patients who had and had not undergone DXA screening were identified from among those aged 50 years or older at Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan. Age, sex, screening year (index year), and Charlson comorbidity index of the DXA and non-DXA groups were matched using inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) for propensity score analysis. For cost-effectiveness analysis, a societal perspective, 1-year cycle length, 20-year time horizon, and discount rate of 2% per year for both effectiveness and costs were adopted in the incremental cost-effectiveness (ICER) model. Results: The outcome analysis included 10337 patients (female:male, 63.8%:36.2%) who were screened for osteoporosis in southern Taiwan between January 1, 2012, and December 31, 2021. The DXA group had significantly better outcomes than the non-DXA group in terms of fragility fractures (7.6% vs. 12.5%, P < 0.001) and mortality (0.6% vs. 4.3%, P < 0.001). The DXA screening strategy gained an ICER of US$ -2794 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) relative to the non-DXA at the willingness-to-pay threshold of US$ 33004 (Taiwan’s per capita gross domestic product). The ICER after stratifying by ages of 50–59, 60–69, 70–79, and ≥ 80 years were US$ -17815, US$ -26862, US$ -28981, and US$ -34816 per QALY, respectively. Conclusion: Using DXA to screen adults aged 50 years or older for osteoporosis resulted in a reduced incidence of fragility fractures, lower mortality rate, and reduced total costs. Screening for osteoporosis is a cost-saving strategy and its effectiveness increases with age. However, caution is needed when generalizing these cost-effectiveness results to all older populations because the study population consisted mainly of women.

Exploring Tourists`Differences within Perception, Motivation, and Behavior in Cultural Tourism

( Hung-hsu Yen ),( Chun-hao Chang ) 세계문화관광학회 2014 International Journal of Culture and tourism Resea Vol.7 No.1

Cultural tourism is one of the most popular types of tourism nowadays; however, the mass tourism travel behavior can easily be seen in many cultural attractions. The main purposes of this study were to explore: 1) What are the tourists’ motivations while traveling in Anping area. 2) Would the tourists’ behavior in Anping area act with in-depth and learning behavior. 3) Exploring tourists’ perception differences in Anping area. 4) Exploring different tourists’behavior within different cultural involvement groups. This study applied the convenience sampling to collect 295 valid questionnaires. The results showed: 1) Tourists’ motivations in Anping area tended to like mass tourism motivations. 2) Most tourists’ information searching, visiting, and consuming behaviors in Anping area acted like mass tourism travel type. 3) Anping area’s main cultural concept could not be properly delivered to the tourists. 4) Information searching, tourist guide, and cultural related products consuming were less used by high involvement cultural tourists. This study suggested the government should enhance the cultural elements, the historic story, the design of cultural related products and the planning of whole environment. Moreover, the improvement of self-guide system, the training of commentator, and the promotion of the usage of guiding system were still need to be done. Finally, this study suggested the Tourism Bureau should develop a guiding book to encourage and guide the tourists how to enjoy/explore the true culture of each attractions. Moreover, the proper behavior and perception in cultural attractions should also be educated in future education system or promotion activities. To let tourists know the proper perception, behavior, manner and rules in cultural tourism will enhance the future development of cultural tourism in Taiwan.Keywords:Tourism Motivation, Tourism Behavior, Cultural Tourism Perception.

Safety considerations for withdrawal of nucleos(t)ide analogues in patients with chronic hepatitis B: First, do no harm

Yao-Chun Hsu,Cheng-Hao Tseng,Jia-Horng Kao 대한간학회 2023 Clinical and Molecular Hepatology(대한간학회지) Vol.29 No.4

Nucleos(t)ide analogues (NA) are widely used to treat hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, but they cannot eradicate the virus and treatment duration can be lifelong if the endpoint is set at seroclearance of the hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). As an alternative strategy, finite NA therapy without the prerequisite of HBsAg seroclearance has been proposed to allow treatment cessation in patients with sustained undetectable HBV viremia for two to three years. However, reactivation of viral replication almost always follows NA withdrawal. Whereas HBV reactivation might facilitate HBsAg seroclearance in some, it could lead to serious acute flare-ups in a certain proportion of patients. Occurrence and consequences of NA withdrawal flares are complicated with various factors involving the virus, host, and treatment. Accurate risk prediction for severe flares following NA cessation is essential to ensure patient safety. The risks of life-threatening flares in patients who discontinued NA according to the stopping rules of current guidelines or local reimbursement policies have recently been quantitatively estimated in large-scale studies, which also provided empirical evidence to help identify vulnerable patients at risk of devastating outcomes. Moreover, risk predictors were further explored and validated to hopefully aid in patient selection and management. In this narrative review with a focus on patient safety, we summarize and discuss current literature on the incidence of severe flares following NA cessation, risk stratification for candidate selection, rules of posttreatment monitoring, and indications for treatment resumption. We also share our thoughts on the limitations of existing knowledge and suggestions for future research.

Large-Scale Production of Graphene Nanoribbons from Electrospun Polymers

Liu, Nan,Kim, Kwanpyo,Hsu, Po-Chun,Sokolov, Anatoliy N.,Yap, Fung Ling,Yuan, Hongtao,Xie, Yanwu,Yan, Hao,Cui, Yi,Hwang, Harold Y.,Bao, Zhenan American Chemical Society 2014 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY - Vol.136 No.49

<P>Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are promising building blocks for high-performance electronics due to their high electron mobility and dimensionality-induced bandgap. Despite many past efforts, direct synthesis of GNRs with controlled dimensions and scalability remains challenging. Here we report the scalable synthesis of GNRs using electrospun polymer nanofiber templates. Palladium-incorporated poly(4-vinylphenol) nanofibers were prepared by electrospinning with controlled diameter and orientation. Highly graphitized GNRs as narrow as 10 nm were then synthesized from these templates by chemical vapor deposition. A transport gap can be observed in 30 nm-wide GNRs, enabling them to function as field-effect transistors at room temperature. Our results represent the first success on the scalable synthesis of highly graphitized GNRs from polymer templates. Furthermore, the generality of this method allows various polymers to be explored, which will lead to understanding of growth mechanism and rational control over crystallinity, feature size and bandgap to enable a new pathway for graphene electronics.</P><P><B>Graphic Abstract</B> <IMG SRC='http://pubs.acs.org/appl/literatum/publisher/achs/journals/content/jacsat/2014/jacsat.2014.136.issue-49/ja509871n/production/images/medium/ja-2014-09871n_0007.gif'></P><P><A href='http://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/ja509871n'>ACS Electronic Supporting Info</A></P>

Quantifying and Clustering Texture Traits in Flowers of Genus Sinningia

( Tzu-ting Hung ),( Hao-chun Hsu ),( Yan-fu Kuo ) 한국농업기계학회 2018 한국농업기계학회 학술발표논문집 Vol.23 No.1

The flowers of genus Sinningia has a high degree of diversity in stripe and spot patterns. Delimiting these pattern as textural traits usually rely on horticulturalists’ judgment. However, the judgment by intuitive observation is subjective. This study aimed to quantify the stripe and spot pattern of genus Sinningia flowers automatically using machine vision and to cluster the textural traits using machine learning. The image of ventral petal was acquired using flatbed scanners. Two regions of interest (ROI), lobe region and tube region, were identified and were used for the feature quantification. The features of stripe and spot patterns were then quantified from the ROI using Gabor and Laplacian of Gaussian filters, respectively. The k-means clustering algorithm was next applied to the feature of patterns. The clusters were significantly associated with the textural traits.