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%.

Early Intervention with High-Dose Steroid Pulse Therapy Prolongs Disease-Free Interval of Severe Alopecia Areata: A Retrospective Study

( Chao Chun Yang ),( Chun Te Lee ),( Chao Kai Hsu ),( Yi Pei Lee ),( Tak Wah Wong ),( Sheau Chiou Chao ),( Julia Yu Yun Lee ),( Hamm Ming Sheu ),( Wenchieh Chen ) 대한피부과학회 2013 Annals of Dermatology Vol.25 No.4

Background: Spontaneous recovery of severe alopecia areata is rare and the condition is difficult to treat. Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate and compare the effects and safety of steroid pulse therapy between oral and intravenous administrations between 1999 and 2010 at the Department of Dermatology, National Cheng Kung University Hospital. Methods: Data were retrospectively retrieved. A satisfactory response was defined as more than 75% hair regrowth in the balding area. Results: A total of 85 patients with more than 50% hair loss were identified and treated, with an overall satisfactory response rate of 51.8%. The mean follow-up time was 37.6 months, with a relapse rate of 22.7%. Patients with alopecia areata (hereafter, AA) of recent onset within one year showed higher response rates (p< 0.001) and lower relapse rates compared to patients with AA persisting for more than 1 year. Further, even in patients with alopecia totalis, alopecia universalis or ophiasis type, early treatment resulted in a satisfactory response rate of 47% among the treated patients. In general, oral therapy was as effective and well-tolerated as intravenous therapy. Conclusion: The response rate is determined by disease severity and time of intervention, not by the administration form of steroid pulse therapy. Oral steroid pulse therapy can be considered as the first-line treatment for patients with severe AA of recent onset within one year. (Ann Dermatol 25(4) 471∼474, 2013)

Changes in prostate-specific antigen kinetics during androgen-deprivation therapy as a predictor of response to abiraterone in chemonaïve patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer

Chung-Lin Lee,Ying-Hsu Chang,Chung-Yi Liu,Ming-Li Hsieh,Liang-Kang Huang,Yuan-Cheng Chu,Hung-Cheng Kan,Po-Hung Lin,Kai-Jie Yu,Cheng-Keng Chuang,Chun-Te Wu,See-Tong Pang,I-Hung Shao 대한비뇨의학회 2022 Investigative and Clinical Urology Vol.63 No.5

Purpose: Metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) has a poor prognosis. Abiraterone acetate (AA), enzalutamide, and chemotherapy are first-line treatments for patients with mCRPC. This study examined prognostic factors for AA response in the form of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) kinetics throughout androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) in chemonaïve patients with mCRPC. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively included data from 34 chemonaïve patients with mCRPC who had received AA at some point between January 2017 and December 2018. We separated patients into two study arms according to the decrease in PSA percentages after use of AA for 3 months. We correlated PSA kinetics parameters with response and compared the two study groups with respect to PSA kinetics. Results: The patients’ median age was 77 years. In the total group of patients, 64% had a response to AA, whereas 35% did not. The ratio of the PSA level at nadir to the level during ADT was significantly higher in the AA-sensitive group (19.78 vs. 1.03, p=0.019). Conclusions: Patients who experienced a dramatic change in PSA level during ADT were more likely to be resistant to AA after progression to mCRPC. Chemotherapy rather than AA might be more suitable as a first-line treatment for these patients.

IS AN APOLOGY ENOUGH TO RECOVER FROM A MOBILE APPLICATION SERVICE FAILURE? INVESTIGATING THE EFFECT OF PERCEIVED FIRM REMORSE AND CUSTOMER EMPATHY ON CUSTOMER COPING BEHAVIOR

Wen-Hai Chih,Kai-Yu Wang,Li-Chun Hsu,Wei-Ching Lin 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2018 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2018 No.07

Offering an apology is one of the common service failure recovery strategies. Previous studies focused on examining the effectiveness of apology from the customer perspective. It is not clear whether and how customers perceive firm remorse after an apology influence their blame attribution and coping behaviors. Integrating a cognitive-emotive model and an empathy model, this research proposes and empirically tests a remorse-empathy-coping model to explain how customers respond to apology after mobile application service failures occur. Specifically, this research examines how perceived firm remorse influences blame attribution and emotional empathy, which subsequently affects coping behaviors (revenge and avoidance) in the mobile app service recovery context. The moderating role of technology anxiety in the proposed model is also identified. Four hundred and fifty-two mobile application service users were recruited for a survey study and the Structural Equation Modeling was used in order to test the research hypotheses. Our findings show that perceived firm remorse negatively influences blame attribution but positively influences empathy. Empathy negatively affects revenge and avoidance behaviors. In addition, technology anxiety moderates the effect of perceived firm remorse on blame attribution. The negative effect of perceived firm remorse on blame attribution becomes weaker when technology anxiety increases.

Poster Session : PS 0589 ; Psychiatry ; Holistic Care Unit Improves Access Block in Emergency Department in Taiwan

( Meng Chieh Wu ),( Hsin Kai Huang ),( Chun Cheng Zhang ),( Li Sheng Chang ),( Yung Ze Cheng ),( Chien Chin Hsu ),( Kao Chang Lin ) 대한내과학회 2014 대한내과학회 추계학술대회 Vol.2014 No.1

Background: Emergency department (ED) overcrowding is a problem in many countries including Taiwan. Access block refers to a situation where patients in the emergency department requiring inpatient care are unable to gain access to appropriate hospital beds within a reasonable time frame (more than 8 hours total time in the emergency department). Access block is one major reason of ED overcrowding. Methods: A new holistic care unit was established in our medical center in Taiwan in July 2012, with the attending physicians including internal medicine physicians and a neurologist. The patients who required hospitalized treatment were referred to internal medicine physicians in the emergency department. The new department was comprised of seven experienced medical attending physician to take care of the patients directly, with 8-hour duty work shifts within 24 hours, in collaboration with emergency physicians, radiologists, nurses, social workers and case managers to form a team. This team had similar three-shift work duty, education and training programs, and they shared medical devices and resources. If beds in the intensive care unit or ward are not available immediately, procedures and treatment can be performed in the holistic care unit. The pediatric patients were excluded from this study. Results: In total, 26,623 patients were admitting to ward from our emergency department from August 2011 to July 2012, and 23,790 patients from August 2012 to July 2013. The rate of access block decreased from 55.29% to 50.01% ( p < 0.01) after holistic care unit was established. The mean time of ED length of stay was also improved from 18.04 hours to 15.43 hours ( p < 0.01). Conclusions: The newly established holistic care unit in our hospital improved the quality of medical care, not only physiologically but also psychologically.

Platelet-Derived Growth Factor Receptor-α Subunit Targeting Suppresses Metastasis in Advanced Thyroid Cancer In Vitro and In Vivo

( Ching-ling Lin ),( Ming-lin Tsai ),( Yu-hsin Chen ),( Wei-ni Liu ),( Chun-yu Lin ),( Kai-wen Hsu ),( Chien-yu Huang ),( Yu-jia Chang ),( Po-li Wei ),( Shu-huey Chen ),( Li-chi Huang ),( Chia-hwa Lee 한국응용약물학회 2021 Biomolecules & Therapeutics(구 응용약물학회지) Vol.29 No.5

Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy. Patients with well-differentiated thyroid cancers, such as papillary and follicular cancers, have a favorable prognosis. However, poorly differentiated thyroid cancers, such as medullary, squamous and anaplastic advanced thyroid cancers, are very aggressive and insensitive to radioiodine treatment. Thus, novel therapies that attenuate metastasis are urgently needed. We found that both PDGFC and PDGFRA are predominantly expressed in thyroid cancers and that the survival rate is significantly lower in patients with high PDGFRA expression. This finding indicates the important role of PDGF/PDGFR signaling in thyroid cancer development. Next, we established a SW579 squamous thyroid cancer cell line with 95.6% PDGFRA gene insertion and deletions (indels) through CRISPR/Cas9. Protein and invasion analysis showed a dramatic loss in EMT marker expression and metastatic ability. Furthermore, xenograft tumors derived from PDGFRA geneedited SW579 cells exhibited a minor decrease in tumor growth. However, distant lung metastasis was completely abolished upon PDGFRA gene editing, implying that PDGFRA could be an effective target to inhibit distant metastasis in advanced thyroid cancers. To translate this finding to the clinic, we used the most relevant multikinase inhibitor, imatinib, to inhibit PDGFRA signaling. The results showed that imatinib significantly suppressed cell growth, induced cell cycle arrest and cell death in SW579 cells. Our developed noninvasive apoptosis detection sensor (NIADS) indicated that imatinib induced cell apoptosis through caspase-3 activation. In conclusion, we believe that developing a specific and selective targeted therapy for PDGFRA would effectively suppress PDGFRA-mediated cancer aggressiveness in advanced thyroid cancers.

Simultaneous Measurement of Dopamine Transporters and D2/D3 Receptors in Drug Naïve Schizophrenic Patients

Yuan-Hwa Chou,Wen-Sheng Huang,Ju-Wei Hsu,Shin-Min Lee,An-Shoei Yang,Kai-Chun Yang 대한정신약물학회 2010 CLINICAL PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY AND NEUROSCIENCE Vol.8 No.2

Objective: Previous single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) studies have demonstrated that co-injection of radiotracers 99mTc-TRODAT and 123IBZM can assess both presynaptic, dopamine transporters (DATs), and postsynaptic, dopamine D2/D3 receptors, markers of dopaminergic system simultaneously. The aim of this study was to determine both DATs and dopamine D2/D3 receptors in drug naïve schizophrenic patients. Methods: Severn drug naïve schizophrenic patients and eleven age-matched healthy controls were recruited. Each subject received one SPECT measurement after intravenous co-administration of 99mTc-TRODAT and 123IBZM and one brain MRI scan. A ratio equilibrium model was applied to calculate the specific uptake ratio (SUR) which corresponds to the ratio of Bmax (receptor density) and KD (affinity). Results: The results showed that the SUR of DATs binding was not significantly different between healthy controls and drug naïve schizophrenic patients (2.92±0.62 vs. 2.65±0.27, p=0.052) and, however, the SUR of dopamine D2/D3 receptors binding was significantly lower in drug naïve schizophrenic patients than those in healthy controls (2.79±0.54 vs. 3.90±0.58, p=0.001). Additionally, there was a significant correlation between left and right binding for both DATs (r=0.80, p=0.003) and dopamine D2/D3 receptors (r=0.96, p=0.000) in healthy controls but not seen in drug naïve schizophrenic patients (r=0.54, p=0.20 for DATs, r=0.70, p=0.08 for dopamine D2/D3 receptors). Conclusion: This study provides evidences to support the idea that abnormalities of dopaminergic system in schizophrenia and further elucidates the disruption of inter-hemispheric interaction of postsynaptic and presynaptic markers.

Capsaicin-Sensitive Sensory Nerves Indirectly Modulate Motor Function of the Urinary Bladder

Hsi-Hsien Chang,Shang-Jen Chang,Cheng-Hsing Hsieh,Chun-Kai Hsu,Stephen Shei-Dei Yang 대한배뇨장애요실금학회 2018 International Neurourology Journal Vol.22 No.2

Purpose: The urinary bladder (UB) is innervated by both sensory and autonomic nerves. Recent studies have shown that sensory neuropeptides induced contractions in the detrusor muscle. Therefore, in a mouse model, we investigated the presence of interactions between the submucosal sensory nerves and the autonomic nerves that regulate the motor function of the detrusor muscle. Methods: UB samples from male C57BL/6 mice were isolated, cut into strips, and mounted in an organ bath. Dose-response curves to norepinephrine and phenylephrine were studied in UB strips with and without mucosa, and the effects of preincubation with a receptor antagonist and various drugs on relaxation were also studied using tissue bath myography. Results: Phenylephrine-induced relaxation of the UB strips showed concentration-related effects. This relaxation appeared in both mucosa-intact and mucosa-denuded UB strips, and was significantly inhibited by lidocaine, silodosin, and guanethidine (an adrenergic neuronal blocker). Meanwhile, phenylephrine-induced relaxation was inhibited by pretreatment with propranolol and calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP)–depletory capsaicin in UB strips with and without mucosa. Conclusions: The present study suggests that phenylephrine activates the α-1A adrenergic receptor (AR) of the sensory nerve, and then activates capsaicin-sensitive sensory nerves to release an unknown substance that facilitates the release of norepinephrine from adrenergic nerves. Subsequently, norepinephrine stimulates β-ARs in the detrusor muscle in mice, leading to neurogenic relaxation of the UB. Further animal and human studies are required to prove this concept and to validate its clinical usefulness.