Role of Salivary Immune Parameters in Patients With Primary Sjögren’s Syndrome

Yu-Hung Hung,Yung-Hung Lee,Pei-Pei Chen,Yuan-Zhao Lin,Chia-Hui Lin,Jeng-Hsien Yen 대한진단검사의학회 2019 Annals of Laboratory Medicine Vol.39 No.1

Background: Several factors, including clinical manifestations and laboratory data, have been used to evaluate the disease activity of Sjögren’s syndrome (SS). We investigated saliva indicators of disease activity in primary SS patients. Methods: We enrolled 138 Taiwanese patients with primary SS and 100 Taiwanese normal controls. Interleukin (IL)-6, IL-17A, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), and rheumatoid factor (RF)-IgA levels in saliva samples were measured using ELISA or fluorescent enzyme-linked immunoassay. Serum IgG, IgA, and IgM levels were measured by nephelometry. Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) was measured with an automatic ESR analyzer. The t-test and Pearson correlation test were used. Results: IL-6 level was higher in primary SS patients than in normal controls (14.23±14.77 vs 9.87±7.32, P=0.012), but there were no significant differences in IL-17A, TNF-α, and RF-IgA levels. In primary SS patients, IL-6 level correlated weakly with ESR and IgG levels (r=0.252, P=0.015, and r=0.248, P=0.017, respectively), and TNF-α level correlated weakly with IgG level (r=0.231, P=0.024). Conclusions: IL-6 may play a role in SS pathogenesis. Saliva IL-6 might be an indicator of disease activity in primary SS patients.

Positive Symptoms in Antipsychotic-naïve Schizophrenia are Associated with Increased Body Mass Index after Treatment

Shih-Hsien Lin,Huai-Hsuan Tseng,Hsin Chun Tsai,Mei Hung Chi,I Hui Lee,Po See Chen,Kao Chin Chen,Yen Kuang Yang 대한정신약물학회 2021 CLINICAL PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY AND NEUROSCIENCE Vol.19 No.1

Objective: Weight gain is an important risk factor for morbidity and mortality among patients with schizophrenia. We speculated that positive symptoms, related to dopaminergic hyperactivity and altered mesolimbic function, are associated with weight gain. Methods: Twenty-two antipsychotic-naïve, first-episode patients with schizophrenia were enrolled. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale was completed at enrollment and follow-up. Body mass index (BMI) was also measured. Results: The increase in BMI, after 6.04 ± 2.16 years of follow-up, was associated with positive symptoms, but not negative symptoms, before treatment with antipsychotics in antipsychotic-naïve patients with schizophrenia. Conclusion: This finding implied that dopaminergic hyperactivity could be an important factor to predict the treatment outcome. Body weight control is important for the health management of patients with schizophrenia with more severe positive symptoms.

High Efficiency Transformation by Electroporation of Yarrowia lipolytica

Jia-Hung Wang,Wenpin Hung,Shu-Hsien Tsai 한국미생물학회 2011 The journal of microbiology Vol.49 No.3

Yarrowia lipolytica was usually transformed by heat shock, but linearized integrative vectors always resulted in a low transformation efficiency when electroporation was used. To develop a high efficiency integrative transformation method by electroporation of Y. lipolytica, we report here that pretreatment of Y. lipolytica with 150 mM LiAc for 1 h before electroporation will approximately 30-fold of increase transformation efficiency. A cell concentration of 1010/ml and instrument settings of 1.5 kV will generate the highest transformation efficiencies. We have developed a procedure to transform Y. lipolytica that will be able to yield an efficiency of 2.1×104 transformants/μg for integrative linear DNA. With our modifications, the electroporation procedures became a very efficient and reliable tool for Y. lipolytica transformation.

A Novel High Precision Electromagnetic Flexure-Suspended Positioning Stage with an Eddy Current Damper

Chih-Hsien Lin,Shao-Kung Hung,Mei-Yung Chen,Shan-Tsung Li,Li-Chen Fu 제어로봇시스템학회 2008 제어로봇시스템학회 국제학술대회 논문집 Vol.2008 No.10

This paper proposes a novel planar electromagnetic-actuated positioning stage. The stage is suspended by the monolithic parallel flexure mechanism, which motion comes from the deformation of the flexure. A linear electromagnetic actuator which consists of a near-uniform magnetic field and four coils is designed and implementation to provide the propelling force for 3-DOF motions. In order to suppress the vibration of the flexure suspension mechanism, an eddy current damper is designed and integrated with the electromagnetic actuator. The non-contact damper is more advanced than the contact damper used in our previous researches. The design traveling range is 3mm × 3mm in planar motion. The experimental results show the vibration of the flexure mechanism could be suppressed by the designed eddy current damper. The results also show the regulation and tracking performance by a well-designed robust adaptive sliding mode controller, which can overcome the disturbance and modeling uncertainty and guarantee a satisfactory performance.

Grey Neural Network-Based Forecasting System for Vision-Guided Robot Trajectory Tracking

Shih-Hung Yang,Chung-Hsien Chou,Chen-Fang Chung,Wen-Pang Pai,Tse-Han Liu,Yung-Sheng Chang,Jung-Che Li,Huan-Chan Ting,Yon-Ping Chen 제어로봇시스템학회 2011 제어로봇시스템학회 국제학술대회 논문집 Vol.2011 No.10

This paper presents a grey neural network-based forecasting system (GNNFS) in solving the prediction problem. GNNFS adopts a grey model to predict the signal and a neural network (NN) to forecast the prediction error of the grey model. A sequential batch learning (SBL) is developed to adjust the weights of the NN. The proposed GNNFS is applied to a binocular robot, called an Eye-Robot, for human-robot interaction which involved predicting the trajectory of a participant’s hand and tracking the hand. By applying the SBL, the GNNFS can gradually learn to predict the trajectory of the hand and track it well. The experimental results show that the GNNFS can carry out the SBL in real-time for vision-guided robot trajectory tracking.

Relationships between Prostate-Specific Antigen, Prostate Volume, and Components of Metabolic Syndrome in Healthy Korean Men

Hyun Keun Byun,Yun Hsien Sung,Won Kim,Jae Hung Jung,송재만,정현철 대한비뇨의학회 2012 Investigative and Clinical Urology Vol.53 No.11

Purpose: Metabolic syndrome (MS) plays a potential role in the etiology of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Recent studies have reported on an association between MS and BPH. However, there has been no consensus on recent results. This study was conducted to evaluate the associations among prostate-specific antigen (PSA), prostate volume (PV), and metabolic components in men who visited our health promotion center. Materials and Methods: During the period from January 2005 to December 2010, 521 consecutive men (age range, 40 to 70 years) who underwent transrectal ultrasonography were enrolled in this retrospective study. The health screening program includes blood pressure, body measurements (height, weight, waist circumference, body mass index), biochemical analysis (serum glucose, total cholesterol, triglycerides, high-density and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, fasting plasma glucose, tumor markers), stool and urine analysis, and a detailed clinical examination. Results: The serum PSA level and PV were significantly higher in patients with MS than in patients without MS, retrospectively (p<0.001, p<0.001). Patients with more than one metabolic component were significantly more likely to have a larger PV and higher serum PSA level. The serum PSA level and PV were increased in a similar manner with the increasing sum of MS components (p<0.0001, p<0.0001). Conclusions: The MS components were associated with larger PV and higher serum PSA level. Therefore, each MS component could be an important factor in BPH development and management.

Research on Increasing the Production Yield Rate by Six Sigma Method : A Case of SMT Process of Main Board

Lin, Ching-Kun,Chen, Hsien-Ching,Li, Rong-Kwei,Chen, Ching-Piao,Tsai, Chih-Hung The Korean Society for Quality Management 2009 The Asian Journal on Quality Vol.10 No.1

Face the process yield rate improvements of motherboard, although general enterprises finish deployment goal of each functions by overall quality managements, through quality improvement methods, industry engineering methods, plan-do-check-act (PDCA) methods and other improvement solutions, but it is only can be improved partially and unable to enhance the yield rate of product to the target. It only can takes one step ahead to enhance the process yield rate of motherboard with six sigma ($6{\sigma}$) overall DMAIC process and tactics. This research aimed to use six sigma quality improvement tactics by DMAIC systematic procedure and tactics, and find the key factors that effect to the process yield rate of surface mount technology. It also identified the keys input and process and output index to satisfy customer requirements and internal process index. The results showed that the major effective factors by fishbone and process failure modes and effects analysis (PFMEA). If the index of input and output that can be quantified, the optimum parameter can be found through design of experiment to ensure that the process is stable. If the factor of input and output that cannot be quantified, we found out the effective countermeasure by Mind_Mapping, make sure whole processes can be controlled stably, to reach the high product quality and enhance the customer satisfaction.

Intra-Arterial Treatment in Patients with Acute Massive Gastrointestinal Bleeding after Endoscopic Failure: Comparisons between Positive versus Negative Contrast Extravasation Groups

Wei-Chou Chang,Chang-Hsien Liu,Hsian-He Hsu,Guo-Shu Huang,Ho-Jui Tung,Tsai-Yuan Hsieh,Shih-Hung Tsai,Chung-Bao Hsieh,Chih-Yung Yu 대한영상의학회 2011 Korean Journal of Radiology Vol.12 No.5

Objective: To determine whether treatment outcome is associated with visualization of contrast extravasation in patients with acute massive gastrointestinal bleeding after endoscopic failure. Materials and Methods: From January 2007 to December 2009, patients that experienced a first attack of acute gastrointestinal bleeding after failure of initial endoscopy were referred to our interventional department for intra-arterial treatment. We enrolled 79 patients and divided them into two groups: positive and negative extravasation. For positive extravasation, patients were treated by coil embolization; and in negative extravasation, patients were treated with intra-arterial vasopressin infusion. The two groups were compared for clinical parameters, hemodynamics, laboratory findings, endoscopic characteristics, and mortality rates. Results: Forty-eight patients had detectable contrast extravasation (positive extravasation), while 31 patients did not (negative extravasation). Fifty-six patients survived from this bleeding episode (overall clinical success rate, 71%). An elevation of hemoglobin level was observed in the both two groups; significantly greater in the positive extravasation group compared to the negative extravasation group. Although these patients were all at high risk of dying, the 90-day mortality rate was significantly lower in the positive extravasation than in the negative extravasation (20% versus 42%, p < 0.05). A multivariate analysis suggested that successful hemostasis (odds ratio [OR] = 28.66) is the most important predictor affecting the mortality in the two groups of patients. Conclusion: Visualization of contrast extravasation on angiography usually can target the bleeding artery directly, resulting in a higher success rate to control of hemorrhage. Objective: To determine whether treatment outcome is associated with visualization of contrast extravasation in patients with acute massive gastrointestinal bleeding after endoscopic failure. Materials and Methods: From January 2007 to December 2009, patients that experienced a first attack of acute gastrointestinal bleeding after failure of initial endoscopy were referred to our interventional department for intra-arterial treatment. We enrolled 79 patients and divided them into two groups: positive and negative extravasation. For positive extravasation, patients were treated by coil embolization; and in negative extravasation, patients were treated with intra-arterial vasopressin infusion. The two groups were compared for clinical parameters, hemodynamics, laboratory findings, endoscopic characteristics, and mortality rates. Results: Forty-eight patients had detectable contrast extravasation (positive extravasation), while 31 patients did not (negative extravasation). Fifty-six patients survived from this bleeding episode (overall clinical success rate, 71%). An elevation of hemoglobin level was observed in the both two groups; significantly greater in the positive extravasation group compared to the negative extravasation group. Although these patients were all at high risk of dying, the 90-day mortality rate was significantly lower in the positive extravasation than in the negative extravasation (20% versus 42%, p < 0.05). A multivariate analysis suggested that successful hemostasis (odds ratio [OR] = 28.66) is the most important predictor affecting the mortality in the two groups of patients. Conclusion: Visualization of contrast extravasation on angiography usually can target the bleeding artery directly, resulting in a higher success rate to control of hemorrhage.

DESTINATION BRAND COOLNESS: CONCEPTUALIZATION AND SCALE DEVELOPMENT

Hsiu-Yu Teng,Cheng-Hsien Tsai,Chia-Wen Hung,Hui-Chen Hung 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2023 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2023 No.07

Destination branding has become an important trend in modern tourism. The development of destination brands has become a strategic tool worldwide because of the growing competition between destinations. In recent years, many tourist destinations have combined unique, creative, and attractive elements to transform themselves into “cool” tourist destinations. Destination brand coolness refers to tourists’ subjective and positive perception of tourist destinations and their beliefs that the destination brand offer distinctive, novel characteristics and attributes that the visitors are attracted to. Creating destination brand coolness can help tourist destinations differentiate themselves from their competitive counterparts, thereby attracting tourists. However, no study has conceptualized the construct of destination brand coolness, let alone developing scales that measure destination brand coolness.

Functional analysis of an APETALA1-like MADS box gene from Eustoma grandiflorum in regulating floral transition and formation

Tien‑Hsin Chuang,Kun‑Hung Li,Pei‑Fang Li,Chang‑Hsien Yang 한국식물생명공학회 2018 Plant biotechnology reports Vol.12 No.2

An Eustoma grandiflorum APETALA1 (EgAP1) gene showing high homology to the SQUA subfamily of MADS-box genes was isolated and characterized. EgAP1, containing a conserved euAP1 motif at the C-terminus, showed high sequence identity to Antirrhinum majus SQUAMOSA in the SQUA subfamily. EgAP1 mRNA was detected in the leaf and expressed significantly higher in young flower buds than in mature flower buds. In flowers, EgAP1 mRNA was strongly detected in sepal, weakly detected in petal and was absent in stamen and carpel. Transgenic Arabidopsis plants ectopically expressing EgAP1 flowered early and produced terminal flowers. In addition, the conversion of petals into stamen-like structures was also observed in 35S::EgAP1 flowers. 35S::EgAP1 was able to complement the ap1 flower defects by restoring the defect for sepal formation and significantly increasing second whorl petal production in Arabidopsis ap1 mutant plants. These results revealed that EgAP1 is the APETALA1 homolog in E. grandiflorum and that the function of EgAP1 is involved in floral induction and flower formation.