Dexamethasone Downregulates Expressions of 14-3-3β and γ-Isoforms in Mice with Eosinophilic Meningitis Caused by Angiostrongylus cantonensis Infection

Hung-Chin Tsai,Yu-Hsin Chen,Chuan-Min Yen,Li-Yu Chung 대한기생충학ㆍ열대의학회 2019 The Korean Journal of Parasitology Vol.57 No.3

Steroids are commonly used in patients with eosinophilic meningitis caused by A. cantonensis infections. The mechanism steroids act on eosinophilic meningitis remains unclear. In this mouse experiments, expressions of 14-3-3 isoform β and γ proteins significantly increased in the CSF 2-3 weeks after the infection, but not increasedin the dexa- methasone-treated group. Expression of 14-3-3 β, γ, ε, and θ isoforms increased in brain meninges over the 3-week pe- riod after infection and decreased due to dexamethasone treatment. In conclusion, administration of dexamethasone in mice with eosinophilic meningitis decreased expressions of 14-3-3 isoform proteins in the CSF and in brain meninges.

Hypoglycemia Revisited in the Acute Care Setting

Shih-Hung Tsai,Der-Ming Chu,Yen-Yue Lin,Chin-Wang Hsu,Chien-Sheng Cheng 연세대학교의과대학 2011 Yonsei medical journal Vol.52 No.6

Hypoglycemia is a common finding in both daily clinical practice and acute care settings. The causes of severe hypoglycemia (SH) are multi-factorial and the major etiologies are iatrogenic, infectious diseases with sepsis and tumor or autoimmune diseases. With the advent of aggressive lowering of HbA1c values to achieve optimal glycemic control, patients are at increased risk of hypoglycemic episodes. Iatrogenic hypoglycemia can cause recurrent morbidity, sometime irreversible neurologic complications and even death, and further preclude maintenance of euglycemia over a lifetime of diabetes. Recent studies have shown that hypoglycemia is associated with adverse outcomes in many acute illnesses. In addition, hypoglycemia is associated with increased mortality among elderly and non-diabetic hospitalized patients. Clinicians should have high clinical suspicion of subtle symptoms of hypoglycemia and provide prompt treatment. Clinicians should know that hypoglycemia is associated with considerable adverse outcomes in many acute critical illnesses. In order to reduce hypoglycemia-associated morbidity and mortality, timely health education programs and close monitoring should be applied to those diabetic patients presenting to the Emergency Department with SH. ED disposition strategies should be further validated and justified to achieve balance between the benefits of euglycemia and the risks of SH. We discuss relevant issues regarding hypoglycemia in emergency and critical care settings.

The Characteristics of Acute Aortic Dissection among Young Chinese Patients: A Comparison between Marfan Syndrome and Non-Marfan Syndrome Patients

Shih-Hung Tsai,Yen-Yue Lin,Chin-Wang Hsu,Yu-Long Chen,Min-Tser Liao,Shi-Jye Chu 연세대학교의과대학 2009 Yonsei medical journal Vol.50 No.2

Purpose: Aortic dissection (AoD) is one of the most common catastrophes involving the aorta. Nevertheless, early diagnosis remains to be a challenge in the Emergency Department (ED), particularly in young individuals. In this study, we attempted to identify the characteristics of acute AoD among young individuals, particular in patients with Marfan syndrome. Materials and Methods: This was an retrospective chart-review study conducted in a tertiary referring hospital. The hospital database was queried for the combination of AoD and patients under age of 40 years. The medical charts were reviewed to obtain demographic data, clinical data and laboratory characteristics by using a standardized data collection sheet. A comparison between Marfan syndrome and non-Marfan syndrome patients was performed. Results: During the 10- years period, 18 of 344 patients with acute AoD were younger than 40 years-old. Patients with Marfan syndrome developed acute AoD at a younger age than patients without Marfan syndrome. The mean diastolic blood pressure was significantly lower in patients with Marfan syndrome upon presenting to the ED than those without. Patients with Marfan syndrome had trends toward higher risk of development of type A AoD, increased recurrence rate and higher mortality rate than those without. However, statistical significance was not present. Conclusion: ED physicians should have high alert to acute AoD in young patients presenting with severe unexplained chest and back pain, particularly in those patients with a history of heart diseases, hypertension, and Marfan syndrome or featuring Marfanoid habitus. Acute coronary syndrome, unexplained abdominal symptoms, and sudden cardiac arrest could be the initial manifestation of AoD in young patients. A low threshold to perform enhanced computed tomography may facilitate early diagnosis and timely treatment in this patient population. Purpose: Aortic dissection (AoD) is one of the most common catastrophes involving the aorta. Nevertheless, early diagnosis remains to be a challenge in the Emergency Department (ED), particularly in young individuals. In this study, we attempted to identify the characteristics of acute AoD among young individuals, particular in patients with Marfan syndrome. Materials and Methods: This was an retrospective chart-review study conducted in a tertiary referring hospital. The hospital database was queried for the combination of AoD and patients under age of 40 years. The medical charts were reviewed to obtain demographic data, clinical data and laboratory characteristics by using a standardized data collection sheet. A comparison between Marfan syndrome and non-Marfan syndrome patients was performed. Results: During the 10- years period, 18 of 344 patients with acute AoD were younger than 40 years-old. Patients with Marfan syndrome developed acute AoD at a younger age than patients without Marfan syndrome. The mean diastolic blood pressure was significantly lower in patients with Marfan syndrome upon presenting to the ED than those without. Patients with Marfan syndrome had trends toward higher risk of development of type A AoD, increased recurrence rate and higher mortality rate than those without. However, statistical significance was not present. Conclusion: ED physicians should have high alert to acute AoD in young patients presenting with severe unexplained chest and back pain, particularly in those patients with a history of heart diseases, hypertension, and Marfan syndrome or featuring Marfanoid habitus. Acute coronary syndrome, unexplained abdominal symptoms, and sudden cardiac arrest could be the initial manifestation of AoD in young patients. A low threshold to perform enhanced computed tomography may facilitate early diagnosis and timely treatment in this patient population.

Developing a Data Model of Product Manufacturing Flow for an IC Packaging WIP System

( Long Chin Lin ),( Wen Chin Chen ),( Chin Huang Sun ),( Chih Hung Tsai ) 한국품질경영학회 2005 The Asian Journal on Quality Vol.6 No.3

The Neural-Network Approach to Recognize Defect Pattern in LED Manufacturing

( Wen Chin Chen ),( Chih Hung Tsai ),( Shou Wen Hsu ) 한국품질경영학회 2006 The Asian Journal on Quality Vol.7 No.3

Developing a Data Model of Product Manufacturing Flow for an IC Packaging WIP System

Lin, Long-Chin,Chen, Wen-Chin,Sun, Chin-Huang,Tsai, Chih-Hung The Korean Society for Quality Management 2005 The Asian Journal on Quality Vol.6 No.3

The IC packaging industry heavily relies on shop floor information, necessitating the development of a model to flexibly define shop floor information and timely handle manufacturing data. This study presents a novel data model of product manufacturing flow to define shop floor information to effectively respond to accelerated developments in IC package industry. The proposed data model consists of four modules: operation template setup, general process setup, enhanced bill of manufacture (EBOMfr) setup, and work-order process setup. The data model can flexibly define the required shop floor information and decision rules for shop floor product manufacturing flow, allowing one to easily adopt changes of the product and on the shop floor. However, to handle floor dynamics of the IC packaging industry, this work also proposes a WIP (i.e. work-in-process) system for monitoring and controlling the product manufacturing flow on the shop floor. The WIP system integrates the data model with a WIP execution module. Furthermore, an illustrative example, the MIRL WIP System, developed by Mechanical Industrial Research Laboratories of Industrial Technology Research Institute, demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed model.

The Neural-Network Approach to Recognize Defect Pattern in LED Manufacturing

Chen, Wen-Chin,Tsai, Chih-Hung,Hsu, Shou-Wen The Korean Society for Quality Management 2006 The Asian Journal on Quality Vol.7 No.3

This paper presents neural network-based recognition system for automatic light emitting diode (LED) inspection. The back-propagation neural network (BPNN) is proposed and tested. The current-voltage (I-V) characteristic data of LED from the inspection process is used for the network training and testing. This study selects 300 random samples as network training and employs 100 samples as network testing. The experimental results show that if the classification work is done well, the accuracy of recognition is 100%, and the testing speed of the proposed recognition system is almost one half faster than the traditional inspection system does. The proposed neural-network approach is successfully demonstrated by real data sets and can be effectively developed as a recognition system for a practical application purpose.

Research on Correlation between Innovative Activities & Development Strategies of New Product and Development Performance in Taiwan's High-tech Companies

Chung, Yi-Chan,Tsai, Chih-Hung,Deng, Wei-Jaw,Chen, Wen-Chin The Korean Society for Quality Management 2006 The Asian Journal on Quality Vol.7 No.2

Due to the advancement of technology and rapidly changing environment of the market, the life cycle of high-tech products is becoming shorter. The enterprise must constantly innovate and select correct development strategy of new product in order to respond to customers' demands for upgrading operational performance of industry. Development of new product is the critical activity for enterprise's survival and growth. This research focuses on the effects of Taiwan high-tech companies' introduction of innovative activity and development strategy of new product on development performance of new product for analysis and exploration. The result findings reveal that: (1) High execution degree of innovative activity has positive effect on the implementation of development strategy of new product; (2) The companies with better implementation of development strategy of new product reveal better development performance; (3) The companies with higher degree of execution of innovative activity and better execution of development strategy of new product reveal better development performance of new product.

Design of A Semi-spherical Microphone Array Based Sound Localization System

Ming-Yuan Shieh,Ming-Hung Tsai,Chin-Chien Chen,Jeng-Han Li 제어로봇시스템학회 2009 제어로봇시스템학회 국제학술대회 논문집 Vol.2009 No.8

This paper proposes a semi-spherical microphone array based sound localization system for a service robot. The hardware of the proposed system basically contains 12 capacitor microphones disposed in two layers on the semi-sphere of 19 cm diameter. It aims to estimate the degree relationship between the main speaker and the robot and provides the robot useful information for more effective human-robot interactions. The proposed system can determine the location of the voice according to energy information between the main speaker and robot not only in normal environment but also in blatant and/or reverberative spaces. The experimental results show that the proposed system has obtained satisfactory recognition efficiency, moreover, raised the robotic friendliness and adaptability.

Risk Factors for Recurrent Hypoglycemia in Hospitalized Diabetic Patients Admitted for Severe Hypoglycemia

Yen-Yue Lin,Chin-Wang Hsu,Wayne Huey-Herng Sheu,Shi-Jye Chu,Chin-Pyng Wu,Shih-Hung Tsai 연세대학교의과대학 2010 Yonsei medical journal Vol.51 No.3

Purpose: Severe hypoglycemia can result in neural damage, impaired cognitive function, coma, seizures, or death. The decision to admit diabetic patients after initial treatment in the emergency department remains unclear. Our purpose is to identify risk factors for developing recurrent hypoglycemia in diabetic patients admitted for severe hypoglycemia. Materials and Methods: We reviewed the records of 233 subjects (92 males, 141 females; mean age, 74.1 ± 9.8 years) with type 2 diabetes treated at a tertiary care teaching hospital and hospitalized for severe hypoglycemia. Results: Seventy-four (31.8%) patients were categorized with recurrent hypoglycemia and 159(68.2%) with non-recurrent. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that patients with loss of a recent meal, coronary artery disease, infection, and poor renal function (lower estimated glomerular filtration rate) were at risk for recurrent hypoglycemia. The use of calcium-channel blockers appeared to be a protective factor for the development of recurrent hypoglycemia. Conclusion: There may be a subset of patients with severe hypoglycemia and certain risk factors for recurrent hypoglycemia that should be admitted.