The relationship between residential burglaries and urban environments in Taipei City: a data mining approach

Yi-Kai Juan,Wan-Hsuan Lin 서울시립대학교 도시과학연구원 2023 도시과학국제저널 Vol.27 No.1

Although the overall crime rate in Taiwan has shown a declining trend in recent years, the proportion of burglaries remains high. Most studies regarding the prevention of burglaries proceed from the perspectives of population composition or criminal psychology, and place focus on the internal spatial planning of buildings without mentioning the association between case locations and urban environments. In order to effectively prevent crime and improve the quality of life, this study utilized cases provided by the Taipei City Government Open Platform (Data. Taipei) to confirm the surrounding environmental factors and building data of burglary cases for data mining application. The proposed method consists of two phases: clustering and association rule mining. In the clustering phase, the key substructures of environmental information are collected; then characteristics in each cluster are analyzed based on the association rule. The results of analysis showed that the first group (Group 1) in the classification should give priority to improving the visibility of idle space and streets, while the second group (Group 2) should improve the efficiency of personnel surveillance and solve the problem of crowds caused by business activities. The third group (Group 3), which featured narrow lanes and insufficient street lamps on chaotic streets, should engage in overall planning and design. Some studies have found that the environmental characteristics of burglary cases in Taipei City are different from the characteristics of crime-saddled urban areas defined by international scholars. Such differences deserve further study. The findings of this study can serve as an environmental design model for future urban development.

Micro-scale PLA Fibrous Membranes for Adsorption of Cigarette Smoke

Yi-qing Gu,Zhe Wang,Ying Sun,Yi-Kai Wang,Zhi-juan Pan 한국섬유공학회 2018 Fibers and polymers Vol.19 No.3

Porous PLA fibrous membranes with different morphologies were successfully fabricated by varying the relative humidity. When the relative humidity was higher than 45 %, nanopores morphology appeared on the surface of PLA fibers. The micro-structures of PLA fibers and the packing densities and through-pore sizes of the PLA fibrous membranes were measured and found to greatly influence the smoke adsorption properties. The smoke adsorption was recorded in photos, and the process of how smoke adsorbed on the membranes was observed by SEM. The max removal efficiencies of nicotine, tar, water vapor, and carbon monoxide were 40.0 %, 36.9 %, 5.8 % and 13.6 % measured by a cigarette-smoking machine, and sensory evaluation was conducted to assess the practical application of fibrous membranes for smoke adsorption.

HER2-enriched Tumors Have the Highest Risk of Local Recurrence in Chinese Patients Treated with Breast Conservation Therapy

Jia, Wei-Juan,Jia, Hai-Xia,Feng, Hui-Yi,Yang, Ya-Ping,Chen, Kai,Su, Feng-Xi Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2014 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.15 No.1

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the recurrence pattern and characteristics of patients based on the 2013 St. Gallen surrogate molecular subtypes after breast-conserving surgery (BCS) in Chinese women. Methods: This retrospective analysis included 709 consecutive breast cancer patients undergoing BCS from 1999-2010 at our institution. Five different surrogate subtypes were created using combined expression of the estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2. Locoregional relapse-free survival (LRRFS), distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), and disease-free survival (DFS) rates were calculated. Results: The 5-year LRRFS, DMFS, and DFS rates were 90.5%, 88.2%, and 81.5%, respectively. Multivariate analysis revealed that young age, node-positive disease, and HER2 enrichment were independent prognostic factors in LRRFS patients. There was also an independent prognostic role of lymph node-positive disease in DMFS and DFS patients. Patients with luminal A tumors had the most favorable prognosis, with LRRFS, DMFS, and DFS rates of 93.2%, 91.5%, and 87.4% at 5 years, respectively. Conversely, HER-2-enriched tumors exhibited the highest rate of locoregional recurrence (20.6%). Conclusion: Surrogate subtypes present with significant differences in RFS, DMFS, and LRRFS. Luminal A tumors have the best prognosis, whereas HER2-enriched tumors have the poorest.

Toxoplasma gondii induces autophagy and apoptosis in human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells via downregulation of Mcl−1

Chu, Jia-Qi,Jing, Kai-Peng,Gao, Xiang,Li, Peng,Huang, Rui,Niu, Yan-Ru,Yan, Shou-Quan,Kong, Jun-Chao,Yu, Cai-Yuan,Shi, Ge,Fan, Yi-Ming,Lee, Young-Ha,Zhou, Yu,Quan, Juan-Hua Landes Bioscience 2017 Cell Cycle Vol.16 No.5

<P>Autophagy and apoptosis are critical for controlling Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) infection. T. gondii infection during pregnancy can damage the fetus and cause birth defects; however, the molecular mechanisms of this process are poorly understood. This study aims to determine the activities of autophagy and apoptosis as well as their regulatory mechanisms during T. gondii infection by using human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) as a model of congenital diseases. LC3B, a hallmark protein of autophagy was incrementally upregulated with the infection duration, whereas p62 was downregulated in T. gondii-infected hUC-MSCs. Concurrent to this result, the invasion of T. gondii into hUC-MSCs increased in a time-dependent manner. The expression levels of Bcl-2 family proteins including Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, Bim, Bax, Bid and Bak were not altered; however, Mcl-1 levels in hUC-MSCs were dramatically decreased upon T. gondii infection. In addition, at 24h post-infection, cleaved PARP and cleaved caspase-3 protein levels were elevated in hUC-MSCs. Importantly, Mcl-1 overexpression reduced the levels of autophagy- and apoptosis-related proteins in T. gondii-infected hUC-MSCs. Mcl-1 proteins were primarily expressed in the fraction containing mitochondria and strongly interacted with Beclin-1 under normal conditions; however, these interactions were remarkably attenuated by T. gondii infection. These results suggest that mitochondrial Mcl-1 is an essential signaling mediator regulating the activation of autophagy and apoptosis during T. gondii infection.</P>

De novo assembly and transcriptome analysis of differentially expressed genes relevant to variegation in hawthorn flowers

Wei Ji,Wei Zhao,Rong‑Chen Liu,Xiao‑Bo Jiao,Kai Han,Zhong‑Yi Yang,Mei‑Ying Gao,Rui Ren,Xiu‑Juan Fan,Ming‑Xia Yang 한국식물생명공학회 2019 Plant biotechnology reports Vol.13 No.6

Flower color variegation has been observed in many plant species. However, pink flowers on the white-blooming hawthorn trees found by our group earlier have never been reported. To better understand the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in variegated hawthorn flowers, white and pink flowers at different developmental stages (S1 and S2) underwent transcriptome sequencing separately. Approximately 34.28 Gb of high-quality data were obtained and assembled into 100,013 unigenes with an average length of 706.93 bp. These unigenes were further subjected to functional annotation and biochemical pathway analysis, and DEGs of two types of hawthorn flowers at different developmental stages were studied. Based on the enrichment analysis of DEGs, eight anthocyanin-modified enzyme genes or other enzyme genes that indirectly affect anthocyanin synthesis (5AT, 3GGT , and AI, β-Glu, two Aux/IAAs, two PODs), eight structural genes (UFGT, DFR, CHI, two F3Hs, and three PALs), and three transcription factors (one MYB and two bHLHs) were also identified. We randomly selected 15 genes, and the trends in the expression levels of these genes in the organs of white and pink flowers at different developmental stages were verified by quantitative real-time PCR. Mass sequence data obtained by RNA-seq of variegated hawthorn flowers provided basic sequence information and a unique opportunity to uncover the genetic mechanisms under-lying flower color variegation.