Analysis of International Tourist Arrivals Worldwide

Yu-Wen Su,Hui-Lin Lin 한국문화관광학회 2012 문화관광연구 Vol.14 No.2

Using the panel data of 66 countries between 2000 and 2009, we study the positive effect of world heritage sites(WHSs) on the international tourism demand, and investigate how this effect changes by different number of WHSs. Our results indicate that a country possessing WHSs would increase its international tourist arrivals, and the positive effect of natural WHSs is slightly bigger than cultural ones. Therefore, a country possessing WHSs would benefit the development of its tourism economy. Moreover, this positive effect declines while the number of WHSs rises, but when a country possesses sufficient WHSs, this effect increases instead. Thus, the marginal effect of WHSs demonstrates a U-curve as the number of WHSs increases. In addition, even though the marginal effect of WHSs has different patterns for each region, based on time periods, the result is quite robust.

Analysis of International Tourist Arrivals Worldwide -The Role of World Heritage Sites-

( Wen Su Yu ),( Lin Lin Hui ) 한국문화관광학회 2012 문화관광연구 Vol.14 No.2

Using the panel data of 66 countries between 2000 and 2009, we study the positive effect of world heritage sites(WHSs) on the international tourism demand, and investigate how this effect changes by different number of WHSs. Our results indicate that a country possessing WHSs would increase its international tourist arrivals, and the positive effect of natural WHSs is slightly bigger than cultural ones. Therefore, a country possessing WHSs would benefit the development of its tourism economy. Moreover, this positive effect declines while the number of WHSs rises, but when a country possesses sufficient WHSs, this effect increases instead. Thus, the marginal effect of WHSs demonstrates a U-curve as the number of WHSs increases. In addition, even though the marginal effect of WHSs has different patterns for each region, based on time periods, the result is quite robust.

Pathologic Response During Chemo-radiotherapy and Variation of Serum VEGF Levels Could Predict Effects of Chemo-Radiotherapy in Patients with Esophageal Cancer

Yu, Jing-Ping,Lu, Wen-Bin,Wang, Jian-Lin,Ni, Xin-Chu,Wang, Jian,Sun, Zhi-Qiang,Sun, Su-Ping Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2015 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.16 No.3

Background: To investigate the relationship between pathologic tumor response to concurrent chemoradiotherapy and variation of serum VEGF in patients with esophageal cancer. Materials and Methods: Forty six patients with esophageal cancer who were treated with concurrent chemo-radiotherapy were enrolled. Endoscopic and pathologic examination was conducted before and four weeks afterwards. Serum level of VEGF was documented before, four weeks later and after chemo-radiotherapy. The relationship between pathologic response and the variation of serum level of VEGF and its influence on the prognosis were investigated. Results: Serum level of VEGF decreased remarkably during and after chemo-radiotherapy in patients whose pathologic response was severe (F=5.393, 4.587, P(0.05). There were no statistical differences of serum VEGF level before, during and after chemo-radiotherapy for patients whose pathologic response was moderate or mild. There were 18 (85.7%), 7 (53.8%) and 6 patients (50.0%) whose serum VEGF level dropped in the severe, moderate and mild group, respectively, with significant differences among these groups (p=0.046). Two year survival rates of patients with severe, moderate and mild pathologic response were 61.9%, 53.8% and 33.3% respectively, and no statistically difference between severe and mild group regarding OS (p=0.245) was tested. Conclusions: Tumor pathologic response during chemo-radiotherapy and the changes of serum VEGF lever could predict curative effects of chemo-radiotherapy in patients with esophageal cancer.

American ginseng significantly reduced the progression of high-fat-diet-enhanced colon carcinogenesis in Apc^Min/+ mice

Yu, Chunhao,Wen, Xiao-Dong,Zhang, Zhiyu,Zhang, Chun-Feng,Wu, Xiaohui,He, Xin,Liao, Yang,Wu, Ningning,Wang, Chong-Zhi,Du, Wei,He, Tong-Chuan,Yuan, Chun-Su The Korean Society of Ginseng 2015 Journal of Ginseng Research Vol.39 No.3

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a leading cause of death worldwide. Chronic gut inflammation is recognized as a risk factor for tumor development, including CRC. American ginseng is a very commonly used ginseng species in the West. Methods: A genetically engineered $Apc^{Min/+}$ mouse model was used in this study. We analyzed the saponin composition of American ginseng used in this project, and evaluated its effects on the progression of high-fat-diet-enhanced CRC carcinogenesis. Results: After oral ginseng administration (10-20 mg/kg/d for up to 32 wk), experimental data showed that, compared with the untreated mice, ginseng very significantly reduced tumor initiation and progression in both the small intestine (including the proximal end, middle end, and distal end) and the colon (all p < 0.01). This tumor number reduction was more obvious in those mice treated with a low dose of ginseng. The tumor multiplicity data were supported by body weight changes and gut tissue histology examinations. In addition, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis showed that compared with the untreated group, ginseng very significantly reduced the gene expression of inflammatory cytokines, including interleukin-$1{\alpha}$ (IL-$1{\alpha}$), IL-$1{\beta}$, IL-6, tumor necrosis factor-${\alpha}$, granulocyte-colony stimulating factor, and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor in both the small intestine and the colon (all p < 0.01). Conclusion: Further studies are needed to link our observed effects to the actions of the gut microbiome in converting the parent ginsenosides to bioactive ginseng metabolites. Our data suggest that American ginseng may have potential value in CRC chemoprevention.

American ginseng attenuates azoxymethane/dextran sodium sulfate-induced colon carcinogenesis in mice

Yu, Chunhao,Wen, Xiao-Dong,Zhang, Zhiyu,Zhang, Chun-Feng,Wu, Xiao-Hui,Martin, Adiba,Du, Wei,He, Tong-Chuan,Wang, Chong-Zhi,Yuan, Chun-Su The Korean Society of Ginseng 2015 Journal of Ginseng Research Vol.39 No.1

Background: Colorectal cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related death, and inflammatory bowel disease is a risk factor for this malignancy. We previously reported colon cancer chemoprevention potential using American ginseng (AG) in a xenograft mice model. However, the nude mouse model is not a gut-specific colon carcinogenesis animal model. Methods: In this study, an experimental colitis and colitis-associated colorectal carcinogenesis mouse model, chemically induced by azoxymethane/dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) was established and the effects of oral AG were evaluated. The contents of representative ginseng saponins in the extract were determined. Results: AG significantly reduced experimental colitis measured by the disease activity index scores. This suppression of the experimental colitis was not only evident during DSS treatment, but also very obvious after the cessation of DSS, suggesting that the ginseng significantly promoted recovery from the colitis. Consistent with the anti-inflammation data, we showed that ginseng very significantly attenuated azoxymethane/DSS-induced colon carcinogenesis by reducing the colon tumor number and tumor load. The ginseng also effectively suppressed DSS-induced proinflammatory cytokines activation using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay array, in which 12 proinflammatory cytokine levels were assessed, and this effect was supported subsequently by real-time polymerase chain reaction data. Conclusion: AG, as a candidate of botanical-based colon cancer chemoprevention, should be further investigated for its potential clinical utility.

The Impact of Health Promotion Activities on the Physiological, Psychological, and Social Functions of Inpatients With Chronic Mental Illness

Yu Li Lan,Lieh Yung Ping,Li Wen Su,Chien Chih Chen 대한신경정신의학회 2022 PSYCHIATRY INVESTIGATION Vol.19 No.3

Objective To explore the impact of the participation of patients with chronic mental illness in health promotion activities on their physical, psychological, and social functions.Methods This study included inpatient with chronic mental illness from a hospital in Eastern Taiwan. According to the experimental research design, the selected subjects were randomly divided into a health promotion group and a control group, with 60 people in each group. The health promotion team conducts health promotion activities twice a week, each for approximately 50 minutes, over the course of eight weeks (16 times in total). The measurement instrument adopts the Adult Mental Health Scale (AMHS) scale. Five experts and scholars in related fields are invited to conduct expert validity.Results Using independent sample t-tests to analyze the changes in the two groups after 8 weeks, the physical, psychological and social problems of the health promotion group were significantly improved compared with the control group.Conclusion Health promotion activities can alleviate the physical illness, anxiety, irritability, depression, and social distress of chronic hospitalized mental patients, and can also increase their positive and optimistic mood. It can provide chronic mental health care institutions to plan patients’ physical activities or exercises.

Recent trends of supercritical CO₂ Brayton cycle: Bibliometric analysis and research review

Yu, Aofang,Su, Wen,Lin, Xinxing,Zhou, Naijun Korean Nuclear Society 2021 Nuclear Engineering and Technology Vol.53 No.3

Supercritical CO₂ (S-CO₂) Brayton cycle has been applied to various heat sources in recent decades, owing to the characteristics of compact structure and high efficiency. Understanding the research development in this emerging research field is crucial for future study. Thus, a bibliometric approach is employed to analyze the scientific publications of S-CO₂ cycle field from 2000 to 2019. In Scopus database, there were totally 724 publications from 1378 authors and 543 institutes, which were distributed over 55 countries. Based on the software-BibExcel, these publications were analyzed from various aspects, such as major research areas, affiliations and keyword occurrence frequency. Furthermore, parameters such as citations, hot articles were also employed to evaluate the research output of productive countries, institutes and authors. The analysis showed that each paper has been cited 13.39 times averagely. United States was identified as the leading country in S-CO₂ research followed by China and South Korea. Based on the contents of publications, existing researches on S-CO₂ are briefly reviewed from the five aspects, namely application, cycle configurations and modeling, CO₂-based mixtures, system components, and experiments. Future development is suggested to accelerate the commercialization of S-CO₂ power system.

Assisted Magnetic Resonance Imaging Diagnosis for Alzheimer’s Disease Based on Kernel Principal Component Analysis and Supervised Classification Schemes

( Yu Wang ),( Wen Zhou ),( Chongchong Yu ),( Weijun Su ) 한국정보처리학회 2021 Journal of information processing systems Vol.17 No.1

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an insidious and degenerative neurological disease. It is a new topic for AD patients to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computer technology and is gradually explored at present. Preprocessing and correlation analysis on MRI data are firstly made in this paper. Then kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) is used to extract features of brain gray matter images. Finally supervised classification schemes such as AdaBoost algorithm and support vector machine algorithm are used to classify the above features. Experimental results by means of AD program Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database which contains brain structural MRI (sMRI) of 116 AD patients, 116 patients with mild cognitive impairment, and 117 normal controls show that the proposed method can effectively assist the diagnosis and analysis of AD. Compared with principal component analysis (PCA) method, all classification results on KPCA are improved by 2%-6% among which the best result can reach 84%. It indicates that KPCA algorithm for feature extraction is more abundant and complete than PCA.

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Improves the Hearing on Hospitalized Patients with Sudden Deafness

Su-Chieh Chen,Kevin Tsai,Pei-Jane Tsai,Chi-wen Huang,Wan-Ping Chang,Cheng-Yu Wei 한국간호과학회 2019 한국간호과학회 학술대회 Vol.2019 No.10

Identification and expression profiles of putative chemosensory protein genes in Cnaphalocrocis medinalis (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae)

Su Liu,Xiao-Xiao Shi,Qing-Zi Zhu,Wen-Juan Jiao,Zi-Jie Zhu,Hang Yu,Gui-YaoWang,Zengrong Zhu 한국응용곤충학회 2015 Journal of Asia-Pacific Entomology Vol.18 No.1

Insect chemosensory proteins (CSPs) are small, water-soluble proteins which can bind and transport hydrophobic odorants through sensillum lymph to activate odorant receptors, thus play important roles in the olfactory recognition. In the present study, by searching the transcriptome data sets, a total of 22 candidate CSP genes were identified from Cnaphalocrocis medinalis, a serious lepidopteran rice pest in Asia. CSP proteins encoded by these genes showed typical characteristics: an N-terminal signal peptide, four conserved cysteine residues and the pattern of cysteine spacing. The expression profiles of these putative CSP genes were investigated using real-time quantitative PCR. The results showed that five genes (CmedCSP4, CmedCSP8, CmedCSP11, CmedCSP18 and CmedCSP21) were expressed primarily in antennae, suggesting their involvement in olfactory processes; whilst other genes are mainly expressed in non-olfactory tissues, such as abdomen and legs, indicating a broader physiological function for these CSPs. The findings will lead to a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms of chemoreception in C. medinalis.