Application of Novel Technology in Aquaculture

Aquaculture continues to be the fastest-growing food production field that has a lot of potential to meet the aqua-protein needs. The scientific and business communities are responding to the many challenges and opportunities inherent in the growing aquaculture field. Advancements in production and detection of harmful material systems and technologies are contributing to aquaculture industry’s expansion and sustainability. All of these production system technologies are benefitting from expanding information and communication systems, which are enabling advances in every stage of production. In the future, the new farming operation of friendly environment will focus on the use of nonecology destructive substances, no antibiotics, and the natural probiotics or novel immunomodulatory substances to match the physiological regulation of cultured organisms and the management of aquaculture. The future scientific-based innovation will contribute toward meeting increasing food demands, while improving social, environmental, and financial sustainability of the global aquaculture industry

Sensitivity Reach on the Heavy Neutral Leptons and τ\tau-Neutrino Mixing ∣UτN∣2|U_{\tau N}|^2 at the HL-LHC

The model of heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) is one of the well-motivated models beyond the standard model (BSM) from both theoretical and phenomenological point of views. It is an indispensable ingredient to explain the puzzle of tiny neutrino masses and the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry in our Universe, based on the models in which the simplest Type-I seesaw mechanism can be embedded. The HNL with a mass up to the electroweak scale is an attractive scenario which can be readily tested in present or near-future experiments including the LHC. In this work, we study the decay rates of HNLs and find the sensitive parameter space of the mixing angles between the active neutrinos and HNLs. Since the mixing between $\nu_{\tau}$ and HNL is not well established in literature compared with those of $\nu_e$ and $\nu_{\mu}$ for the HNL of mass in the electroweak scale, we focus on the channel $pp\rightarrow W^{\pm(\ast)} + X\rightarrow \tau^{\pm} N + X$ to search for HNLs at the LHC 14 TeV. The targeted signature consists of three prompt charged leptons, which include at least two tau leptons. After the signal-background analysis, we further set sensitivity bounds on the mixing $|U_{\tau N}|^2$ with $M_N$ at High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC). We predict the testable bounds from HL-LHC can be stronger than the previous LEP constraints and Electroweak Precision Data (EWPD), especially for $M_N \lesssim$ 50 GeV can reach down to $|U_{\tau N}|^2 \approx 2\times 10^{-6}$.Comment: Published versio

Novel Application of Immunomodulatory Mushroom Polysaccharide (β-Glucan) and Triterpenes for Diabetic Wound Care

β-Glucan and triterpenes are two important derivative compounds from traditional medicinal mushroom, such as Ganoderma lucidum and Antrodia cinnamomea. β-glucan and triterpenes are considered to have immunoregulatory properties in disease treatment for long years. The immunoregulatory effects are usually activated through some transcription of pro-inflammatory genes and possess immunomodulatory activity. Difficulty in healing wound now is a common condition that occurred in diabetic patients, and the physiological hyperglycemic status of diabetic patients resulting in the wounds continue to produce an inflammatory response. Thus, we hope to use β-glucan and triterpenes for difficult wound healing that possess immunomodulatory activity on the wound micro-environment and stimulate the positive effects on healing. In this chapter, these two important derivative compounds from traditional medicinal mushroom were examined by diabetic mammal’s wound healing models. In these models, the skin wounds’ microenvironment is expected close to diabetic foot, suffering in hyperglycemic and inflammatory status. The results are clearly presented, with the immunomodulatory effects from mushroom β-glucan and triterpenes that involved in modulating the cell-mediated immune system to cause cellular proliferation and further to introduce healing performance of the chronic inflammation wounds

Single-crystalline δ-Ni2Si nanowires with excellent physical properties

[[abstract]]In this article, we report the synthesis of single-crystalline nickel silicide nanowires (NWs) via chemical vapor deposition method using NiCl2·6H2O as a single-source precursor. Various morphologies of δ-Ni2Si NWs were successfully acquired by controlling the growth conditions. The growth mechanism of the δ-Ni2Si NWs was thoroughly discussed and identified with microscopy studies. Field emission measurements show a low turn-on field (4.12 V/μm), and magnetic property measurements show a classic ferromagnetic characteristic, which demonstrates promising potential applications for field emitters, magnetic storage, and biological cell separation.[[notice]]補正完畢[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]電子版[[booktype]]紙

Oral Administration of MBG to Modulate Immune Responses and Suppress OVA-Sensitized Allergy in a Murine Model

Recently studies performed on mushroom isolated polysaccharides demonstrated that β-(1,3)-glucan may affect the balance of Th1/Th2 cell response. Using ovalbumin (OVA) as a hypersensitivity inducer, we evaluated the ability of mushroom beta-glucan (MBG) in modulating Th1/Th2 cell responses in B6 mice. As compared to the control group, administration of MBG resulted in an increase of phagocytic activities, Th1 cytokine productions, immunoglobulins including IgG2A and IgA, and a significant expression of the splenic surface markers including CD3, CD4, CD8, and F4/80. In contrast, administration of MBG has significantly suppressed IgE and IgG1 levels and Th2 cytokines including IL-4, IL-5, and IL-6. Histopathological observation of MBG-treated followed by OVA-treated mice showed less filtration of eosinophil in pulmonary tissue sections. Our data suggested that administration of MBG treatments alters the natural course of the IgE-mediated hypersensitivities. In this investigation, we realize the mushroom beta glucan alter the Th2 response toward the Th1 in the allergic, resulting in a reduction in IgE productions which played a substantive role in reducing the severity of IgE-mediated hypersensitivity

Gene expression profiling of breast cancer survivability by pooled cDNA microarray analysis using logistic regression, artificial neural networks and decision trees

BACKGROUND: Microarray technology can acquire information about thousands of genes simultaneously. We analyzed published breast cancer microarray databases to predict five-year recurrence and compared the performance of three data mining algorithms of artificial neural networks (ANN), decision trees (DT) and logistic regression (LR) and two composite models of DT-ANN and DT-LR. The collection of microarray datasets from the Gene Expression Omnibus, four breast cancer datasets were pooled for predicting five-year breast cancer relapse. After data compilation, 757 subjects, 5 clinical variables and 13,452 genetic variables were aggregated. The bootstrap method, Mann–Whitney U test and 20-fold cross-validation were performed to investigate candidate genes with 100 most-significant p-values. The predictive powers of DT, LR and ANN models were assessed using accuracy and the area under ROC curve. The associated genes were evaluated using Cox regression. RESULTS: The DT models exhibited the lowest predictive power and the poorest extrapolation when applied to the test samples. The ANN models displayed the best predictive power and showed the best extrapolation. The 21 most-associated genes, as determined by integration of each model, were analyzed using Cox regression with a 3.53-fold (95% CI: 2.24-5.58) increased risk of breast cancer five-year recurrence… CONCLUSIONS: The 21 selected genes can predict breast cancer recurrence. Among these genes, CCNB1, PLK1 and TOP2A are in the cell cycle G2/M DNA damage checkpoint pathway. Oncologists can offer the genetic information for patients when understanding the gene expression profiles on breast cancer recurrence

Disease burden and related medical costs of rotavirus infections in Taiwan

BACKGROUND: The disease burden and associated medical costs of rotavirus infections in inpatient and outpatient sectors in Taiwan were examined in anticipation of the availability of new rotavirus vaccines. METHODS: The yearly national case number and medical costs for all for inpatients and outpatients with acute gastroenteritis (AGE) were extracted from the Bureau of National Health Insurance database in Taiwan according to ICD-9-CM codes. A retrospective study was also performed using records of children with AGE seen at three hospitals in Taiwan in 2001 to identify laboratory confirmed rotavirus infection cases. The annual incidence and related medical costs of AGE due to rotavirus infection were then estimated. RESULTS: Children <5 years old comprised 83.6% of inpatient and 62.0% of outpatient pediatric AGE cases in Taiwan in 2001. Rotavirus was the most common agent detected among AGE patients in this age group in the three hospitals, and was detected in 32.9% (221/672) of inpatient and 24% (23/96) of outpatient stool specimens tested for microbial etiologies. An estimated 277,400 to 624,892 cases of rotavirus infections sought medical care in Taiwan in 2001, equaling one in 2 to 5 children <5 years old required medical care due to rotavirus infection. The incidence of hospitalization due to rotavirus infections was 1,528–1,997/100,000 for children <5 years old. The total associated medical costs due to rotavirus infection were estimated at US $10–16 millions in Taiwan in 2001. Although the per-capita medical cost of rotavirus infection was lower in Taiwan than in the United States or Hong Kong, the personal economic burden was similar among the three places when normalized for gross national incomes per capita. CONCLUSION: Infections caused by rotavirus constitute an important human and economic burden among young children in Taiwan. A safe and effective vaccine is urgently needed