Association between PM2.5 exposure and risk of Parkinson’s disease in individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Taiwan: a nested case-control study

Ci-Wen Luo(Ci-Wen Luo),Yu-Hsiang Kuan(Yu-Hsiang Kuan),Wen-Ying Chen(Wen-Ying Chen),Chun-Jung Chen(Chun-Jung Chen),Frank Cheau-Feng Lin(Frank Cheau-Feng Lin ),Stella Chin-Shaw Tsai(Stella Chin-Shaw Tsa 한국역학회 2023 Epidemiology and Health Vol.45 No.-

OBJECTIVES: This cohort study investigated the correlation between Parkinson’s disease (PD) risk and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) risk under particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5 μm (PM2.5) exposure. METHODS: Data from the National Health Research Institutes of Taiwan were used in this study. The Environmental Protection Administration of Taiwan established an air quality monitoring network for monitoring Taiwan’s general air quality. COPD was indicated by at least 3 outpatient records and 1 hospitalization for COPD. After the implementation of age, sex, and endpoint matching at a 1:4 ratio, 137 patients and 548 patients were included in the case group and control group, respectively. Based on the 2005 World Health Organization (WHO) standards, monthly air particle concentration data were classified into the following 4 groups in analyses of exposure–response relationships: normal level, and 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 times the WHO level ([concentration ≥2]×25 μg/m3×number of exposure months). RESULTS: A multivariate logistic regression revealed that the 1.0 and 1.5 WHO level groups did not significantly differ from the normal level group, but the 2.0 WHO level did (odds ratio, 4.091; 95% confidence interval, 1.180 to 14.188; p=0.038). CONCLUSIONS: Elevated PM2.5 concentrations were significantly correlated with an increased risk of PD among patients with COPD. Furthermore, exposure to high PM2.5 levels can further increase the risk of PD.

The Energetics of Error-Growth and the Predictability Analysis in Precipitation Prediction

Yu Luo,Lifeng Zhang,Yun Zhang 한국기상학회 2012 Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences Vol.48 No.1

Sensitivity simulations are conducted in AREM (Advanced Regional Eta-Coordinate numerical heavy-rain prediction Model) for a torrential precipitation in June 2008 along South China to investigate the effect of initial uncertainty on precipitation predictability. It is found that the strong initial-condition sensitivity for precipitation prediction can be attributed to the upscale evolution of error growth. However, different modality of error growth can be observed in lower and upper layers. Compared with lower-level, significant error growth in the upper-layer appears over both convective area and high jet stream. It thus indicates that the error growth depends on both moist convection due to convective instability and the wind shear associated with dynamic instability. As heavy rainfall process can be described as a series of energy conversion, it reveals that the advection-term and latent heating serve as significant energy sources. Moreover, the dominant source terms of error-energy growth are nonlinearity advection (ADVT) and difference in latent heating (DLHT), with the latter being largely responsible for the rapid error growth in the initial stage. In this sense, the occurrence of precipitation and error-growth share the energy source, which implies the inherent predictability of heavy rainfall. In addition, a decomposition of ADVT further indicates that the flow-dependent error growth is closely related to the atmospheric instability. Thus the system growing from unstable flow regime has its intrinsic predictability.

AN EXPERT SYSTEM FOR OPERATING STATE ANALYSIS AND CONTROL OF IMPORTANT BUS AND TRANSMISSION LINE

Yu, Luo Yuan,Qing, Que Guang 대한전자공학회 1992 HICEC:Harbin International Conference on Electroni Vol.1 No.1

The paper introduces an expert system which can help the dispatcher to keep watch for some important buses voltage and transmission lines limit violation happens. The paper gives a method which can judges the powr system operating state. It explains the control system for the bus voltage limit violation. When transmission line limit violation happens, the system can use two methods to get the control measures, one is matching method, the other is a new inexact reasoning method proposed by the paper. Whith the inexact reasoning method, the precedent order of control measures can be got.

Autophagy Inhibition Promotes Gambogic Acid-induced Suppression of Growth and Apoptosis in Glioblastoma Cells

Luo, Guo-Xuan,Cai, Jun,Lin, Jing-Zhi,Luo, Wei-Shi,Luo, Heng-Shan,Jiang, Yu-Yang,Zhang, Yong Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2012 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.13 No.12

Objective: To investigate the effects of gambogic acid (GA) on the growth of human malignant glioma cells. Methods: U251MG and U87MG human glioma cell lines were treated with GA and growth and proliferation were investigated by MTT and colony formation assays. Cell apoptosis was analyzed by annexin V FITC/PI flow cytometry, mitochondrial membrane potential assays and DAPI nuclear staining. Monodansylcadaverine (MDC) staining and GFP-LC3 localisation were used to detect autophagy. Western blotting was used to investigate the molecular changes that occurred in the course of GA treatment. Results: GA treatment significantly suppressed cell proliferation and colony formation, induced apoptosis in U251 and U87MG glioblastoma cells in a time- and dose-dependent manner. GA treatment also lead to the accumulation of monodansylcadaverine (MDC) in autophagic vacuoles, upregulated expressions of Atg5, Beclin 1 and LC3-II, and the increase of punctate fluorescent signals in glioblastoma cells pre-transfected with GFP-tagged LC3 plasmid. After the combination treatment of autophagy inhitors and GA, GA mediated growth inhibition and apoptotic cell death was further potentiated. Conclusion: Our results suggested that autophagic responses play roles as a self-protective mechanism in GA-treated glioblastoma cells, and autophagy inhibition could be a novel adjunctive strategy for enhancing chemotherapeutic effect of GA as an anti-malignant glioma agent.

Android malicious code Classification using Deep Belief Network

( Luo Shiqi ),( Tian Shengwei ),( Yu Long ),( Yu Jiong ),( Sun Hua ) 한국인터넷정보학회 2018 KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Syst Vol.12 No.1

This paper presents a novel Android malware classification model planned to classify and categorize Android malicious code at Drebin dataset. The amount of malicious mobile application targeting Android based smartphones has increased rapidly. In this paper, Restricted Boltzmann Machine and Deep Belief Network are used to classify malware into families of Android application. A texture-fingerprint based approach is proposed to extract or detect the feature of malware content. A malware has a unique "image texture" in feature spatial relations. The method uses information on texture image extracted from malicious or benign code, which are mapped to uncompressed gray-scale according to the texture image-based approach. By studying and extracting the implicit features of the API call from a large number of training samples, we get the original dynamic activity features sets. In order to improve the accuracy of classification algorithm on the features selection, on the basis of which, it combines the implicit features of the texture image and API call in malicious code, to train Restricted Boltzmann Machine and Back Propagation. In an evaluation with different malware and benign samples, the experimental results suggest that the usability of this method---using Deep Belief Network to classify Android malware by their texture images and API calls, it detects more than 94% of the malware with few false alarms. Which is higher than shallow machine learning algorithm clearly.

Characteristics of Pre-alloyed Powders for Diamond Tools

Luo Xi-Yu,Ma Hong-Qiu,Kuang Xing,Huang Man,Tang Ming-Qiang 한국분말야금학회 2006 한국분말야금학회 학술대회논문집 Vol.2006 No.1

In this paper, the fundamental attributes, phase composition of three pre-alloyed powders for diamond tools by water atomization were investigated. The density, hardness, bend strength and bending modulus of their hot pressing samples were examined. The results showed that the three pre-alloyed powders have excellent low temperature sintering characteristics. The physical and mechanical properties of the samples were found to be nearly the same as those of fine cobalt powders.

Autophagy induced by H. pylori VacA regulated the survival mechanism of the SGC7901 human gastric cancer cell line

Luo Juan,Bai Luyan,Tao Jun,Wen Yu,Li Mingke,Zhu Yunzhen,Luo Sufeng,Pu Guangyu,Ma Lanqing 한국유전학회 2021 Genes & Genomics Vol.43 No.10

Background Vacuolating cytotoxin (VacA) is an important virulence factor of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori). It was previously believed that VacA can trigger the cascade of apoptosis on mitochondria to lead to cell apoptosis. Recently, it was found that VacA can induce autophagy. However, the molecular mechanism by which VacA induces autophagy is largely unknown. Objective We aimed to explore the molecular mechanism of autophagy induced by H. pylori in gastric cancer cells and the efect of autophagy on the survival of gastric cancer cells. Methods The autophagy of human gastric cancer cell line SGC7901 was detected by Western blot and RT-PCR in the treatment of VacA protein of H. pylori. The relationship between autophagy and reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the proliferation of gastric cancer cells were studied by gene expression silences (siRNA) and CM-H2DCFDA (DCF) staining. Results The results showed that VacA protein secreted by H. pylori in the supernatant stimulated autophagy in SGC7901 cells. After VacA protein treatment, the mRNA expressions of BECN1, ATG7 and PIK3C3, were up-regulated. ATG7 silencing by siRNA inhibited VacA-induced autophagy. Furthermore, our data demonstrated that VacA protein increased ROS levels. Addition of the antioxidant N-acetyl-l-cysteine (NAC) suppressed the levels of ROS, leading to inhibition of autophagy. Conclusions H. pylori VacA is a key toxin that induces autophagy by increased ROS levels. And our fndings demonstrated that VacA signifcantly inhibited proliferation in SGC7901 cells.

Quality of the Institution and Multilateral Financial Institutions in the Success of Public-Private Partnership: Evidence and an Institutional Design

Yu LUO,Yuchao PENG,Xi CHEN 한국무역학회 2019 한국무역학회 국제학술대회 Vol.2019 No.08

Based on data of 2485 PPP projects in 46 developing countries from 2002 to 2013, we empirically investigate the effect of institutional factors and international financial institutions in the success of PPP projects. We find out that: (1) Countries with more positive experiences are more likely to succeed the following PPP project; (2) PPP projects are more likely to fail with higher degree of private sectors’ risk sharing; quality of institution influences the success of PPP by directly influencing private sectors’ risk sharing; (3) Institutional quality of the investment destination has mixed impact on the degree of private sectors’ risk sharing in PPP projects; specifically, increased rule of law, higher bureaucratic effectiveness, stronger control over corruption and better support to private sectors’ development are more likely to encourage private entities to shoulder more risks within the partnership, however, the democracy level of counties presents the contrary effect;(4) Multilateral financial institutions are positive factors to private sectors during choosing risk structure.

AN EXPERT SYSTEM FOR OPERATING STATE ANALYSIS AND CONTROL OF IMPORTANT BUS AND TRANSMISSION LINE

Luo Yuan Yu,Que Guang Qing 대한전자공학회 1992 대한전자공학회 Conference Vol.1992 No.2

Renewable Low-viscosity Dielectrics Based on Vegetable Oil Methyl Esters

Yu, Hui,Yu, Ping,Luo, Yunbai The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers 2017 Journal of Electrical Engineering & Technology Vol.12 No.2

Vegetable oil dielectrics have been used in transformers as green alternatives to mineral insulating oils for about twenty years, because of their advantages of non-toxic, biodegradability, and renewability. However, the viscosity of vegetable oils is more than 3 times of mineral oils, which means a poor heat dissipation capacity. To get low-viscosity dielectrics, transesterification and purification were performed to prepare vegetable oil methyl esters in this study. Electrical and physical properties were determined to investigate their potential as dielectrics. The results showed that the methyl ester products had good dielectric strengths, high water saturation and enough fire resistance. The viscosities (at $40^{\circ}C$) were 0.2 times less than FR3 fluid, and 0.7 times less than mineral oil, which indicated superior cooling capacity as we expected. With the assistance of 0.5 wt% pour point depressants, canola oil methyl ester exhibited the lowest pour point ($-26^{\circ}C$) among the products which was lower than FR3 fluid ($-21^{\circ}C$) and 25# mineral oil ($-23^{\circ}C$). Thus, canola oil methyl ester was the best candidate as a low-viscosity vegetable oil-based dielectric. The low-viscosity fluid could extend the service life of transformers by its better cooling capacity compared with nature ester dielectrics.