The tourism value of national heritages in the urban development in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan

The heritages in a city could be considered as one of the important carriers represents urban culture. They are the media which the culture distribute and interchange, and the testimonies which recorded the historical and spatial transformation of the city in the past hundred years. They are also the witnesses of the glory and the fall of the city, and are also the witness of development process of the city. In Taiwan, cultural heritages, which had been built since almost 400 years ago and represented the different periods of the governances including Dutch, Qing Dynasty of China, and the Japanese, are preserved. Some of important cultural heritages had been designated as national heritages with its importance. While the tourism had been considered as the new trend of city development, the heritages in a city were also one of important elements of tourism. The promotion of the heritages tourism would also contribute to the competitiveness of a city. In this study, the cases in Kaohsiung City, a city full with the designated national heritages in southern part of Taiwan, would be analyzed. It will be also discussed that the tourism potential for these national heritages, and the tourism value within the development process of the city.Peer Reviewe

Decadal Oscillation of Fall Temperature in Taiwan

This study verifies the existence of an evident decadal oscillation in fall (September - November) temperature for Taiwan. It has an island-wide spatial pattern and a central frequency of 11 years. Acorresponding decadal-oscillation mode of tropical sea surface temperature (SST) is found to be largely responsible for inducing the decadal temperature oscillation for Taiwan via the following regulating processes. On a decadal timescale, periods of decadal warming in Taiwan concur with major cold anomalies in tropical SST over the eastern Indian Ocean and the central Pacific. These cold SST anomalies modulate tropical Walker circulation so as to produce anomalous descending centers in their regions. Meanwhile, the complementary anomalous ascending motion and anomalous low-level convergence center occur near the Maritime continent. These anomalous ascending and descending centers act as tropical forcing sources to evoke a low-level Rossby-wave-like circulation anomaly in the Asian-Pacific regions. Taiwan is surrounded by a low-level anomalous high to its east and an anomalous low to its west. These circulations induce anomalous flows from the south to warm Taiwan via anomalous warm advection. The above regulating processes reverse in polarity during periods of decadal cooling in Taiwan

Clinical application of tumor volume in advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma to predict outcome

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Current staging systems have limited ability to adjust optimal therapy in advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). This study aimed to delineate the correlation between tumor volume, treatment outcome and chemotherapy cycles in advanced NPC.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A retrospective review of 110 patients with stage III-IV NPC was performed. All patients were treated first with neoadjuvant chemotherapy, then concurrent chemoradiation, and followed by adjuvant chemotherapy as being the definitive therapy. Gross tumor volume of primary tumor plus retropharyngeal nodes (GTVprn) was calculated to be an index of treatment outcome.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>GTVprn had a close relationship with survival and recurrence in advanced NPC. Large GTVprn (≧13 ml) was associated with a significantly poorer local control, lower distant metastasis-free rate, and poorer survival. In patients with GTVprn ≧ 13 ml, overall survival was better after ≧4 cycles of chemotherapy than after less than 4 cycles.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The incorporation of GTVprn can provide more information to adjust treatment strategy.</p

The Clinical COPD Questionnaire Correlated with BODE Index-A Cross-Sectional Study

The Global initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) staging has widely used in the stratification of the severity of COPD, while BODE (body mass index, airflow obstruction, dyspnea, and exercise capacity) index was proven superior to FEV1 in predicting mortality, exacerbation and disease severity in patients with COPD. Clinical COPD Questionnaire (CCQ), a questionnaire with ten items categorized into three domains (symptoms, functional state and mental state) was developed to measure health status of COPD patients. However, little is known about the relationship between CCQ score and BODE index. We performed a prospective study with the inclusion of 89 patients who were clinically stable after a 6-week-therapy for COPD symptoms comparing their health status assessed by CCQ, BODE index and GOLD staging. We found that the total CCQ score was correlated with BODE score (P < 0.001) and GOLD staging (P < 0.001); of three CCQ domains, the functional status correlated the most with BODE index (rS = 0.670) and GOLD staging (rS = 0.531), followed by symptoms (rS = 0.482; rS = 0.346, respectively), and mental status (rS = 0.340; rS = 0.236, respectively). Our data suggest that CCQ is a reliable and convenient alternative tool to evaluate the severity of COPD

Morphological and Molecular Defects in Human Three-Dimensional Retinal Organoid Model of X-Linked Juvenile Retinoschisis

X-linked juvenile retinoschisis (XLRS), linked to mutations in the RS1 gene, is a degenerative retinopathy with a retinal splitting phenotype. We generated human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) from patients to study XLRS in a 3D retinal organoid in vitro differentiation system. This model recapitulates key features of XLRS including retinal splitting, defective retinoschisin production, outer-segment defects, abnormal paxillin turnover, and impaired ER-Golgi transportation. RS1 mutation also affects the development of photoreceptor sensory cilia and results in altered expression of other retinopathy-associated genes. CRISPR/Cas9 correction of the disease-associated C625T mutation normalizes the splitting phenotype, outer-segment defects, paxillin dynamics, ciliary marker expression, and transcriptome profiles. Likewise, mutating RS1 in control hiPSCs produces the disease-associated phenotypes. Finally, we show that the C625T mutation can be repaired precisely and efficiently using a base-editing approach. Taken together, our data establish 3D organoids as a valid disease model

TPMD: a database and resources of microsatellite marker genotyped in Taiwanese populations

Taiwan Polymorphic Marker Database (TPMD) (http://tpmd.nhri.org.tw/) is a marker database designed to provide experimental details and useful marker information allelotyped in Taiwanese populations accompanied by resources and technical supports. The current version deposited more than 372 000 allelotyping data from 1425 frequently used and fluorescent-labeled microsatellite markers with variation types of dinucleotide, trinucleotide and tetranucleotide. TPMD contains text and map displays with searchable and retrievable options for marker names, chromosomal location in various human genome maps and marker heterozygosity in populations of Taiwanese, Japanese and Caucasian. The integration of marker information in map display is useful for the selection of high heterozygosity and commonly used microsatellite markers to refine mapping of diseases locus followed by identification of disease gene by positional candidate cloning. In addition, our results indicated that the number of markers with heterozygosity over 0.7 in Asian populations is lower than that in Caucasian. To increase accuracy and facilitate genetic studies using microsatellite markers, we also list markers with genotyping difficulty due to ambiguity of allele calling and recommend an optimal set of microsatellite markers for genotyping in Taiwanese, and possible extension of genotyping in other Mongoloid populations