An unusual timing for symptomatic chest pain in an adult chest wall myofibroma: a case report

INTRODUCTION: Myofibromas are benign mesenchymal neoplasms that can present as solitary and multicentric lesions. They can occur in several locations and can occur at any age from neonates to elderly patients. However, most of the lesions are found in neonates and babies. It rarely occurs in adults. CASE PRESENTATION: A 29-year-old Taiwanese man presented with persistent dull chest pain in his right lateral chest wall for 2 weeks. A chest X-ray showed a faint patchy opacity over the periphery of his right upper lung zone. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging showed a lobulated mass at the intercostal space between his right fifth and sixth ribs with contrast enhancement and bone invasion. Malignancy could not be excluded. A percutaneous needle aspiration biopsy failed due to technique issues, so he underwent a thoracotomy and the tumor was excised with Marlex mesh repairs for the thoracic defect. Pathology confirmed a myofibroma without malignancy. He recovered uneventfully and no local recurrence was detected at the 1-year follow-up examination. CONCLUSIONS: Chest wall myofibroma presenting with chest pain has never been reported in adults. It is a challenge to differentiate myofibroma from malignancy in chest wall preoperatively, such as seen in our patient. To the best of our knowledge, this has not been previously reported in the scientific literature. Although myofibroma rarely occurs in the chest wall and adults, it must be suspected in any chest wall tumor presenting with chest pain

The North System for Formosa Speech Recognition Challenge 2023

This report provides a concise overview of the proposed North system, which aims to achieve automatic word/syllable recognition for Taiwanese Hakka (Sixian). The report outlines three key components of the system: the acquisition, composition, and utilization of the training data; the architecture of the model; and the hardware specifications and operational statistics. The demonstration of the system has been made public at https://asrvm.iis.sinica.edu.tw/hakka_sixian

Management of Interpersonal Conflict in Negotiation with Chinese: A Perceived Face Threat Perspective

Despite increasingly frequent business interactions between China and the West, negotiations with Chinese remain a great challenge to most Westerners. Sino-Western discrepancies in cultural values and social norms lead to massive misunderstandings and inevitable conflicts in business negotiations. Grounded on the Politeness Theory (Brown and Levinson 1987), this study aims to better predict Chinese negotiation behaviors from an indigenous perspective by exploring the impact of face on Chinese conflict handling strategies. With a sample of 608 Chinese business representatives, this research demonstrates the significant effect of perceived fellowship-, moral-, competence- and autonomy-face threats on Chinese conflict management styles in business negotiations. It is found that Chinese do not always act as politely and agreeably as expected when bargaining with their business partners, especially in a conflict context. Based on their perceptions of face threats induced by various conflict issues, they may adopt different strategies, ranging from competing, collaborating, compromising, accommodating to avoiding, to negotiate with their counterparts. In addition, it is confirmed that both a contextual antecedent (guanxi) and an individual trait (public self-consciousness) will significantly influence Chinese representatives’ face threat perceptions and, subsequently, determine how they will behave in business negotiations