Prevalence of Childhood Allergic Diseases in Central Taiwan over the Past 15 Years

BackgroundThe prevalence of asthma, allergic rhinitis and atopic eczema in children from the developed and developing countries has been increasing.MethodsThree epidemiological surveys of the prevalence of bronchial asthma, allergic rhinitis and atopic eczema in schoolchildren in Taichung, located in central Taiwan, were conducted in 1987, 1994, and 2002. The first questionnaire was used before the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) written questionnaire was developed; the last two surveys were modified using ISAAC questionnaires.ResultsA total of 37,801, 75,960, and 11,580 children were studied in 1987, 1994 and 2002, respectively. The prevalence of allergic diseases had increased in the past two decades. Results indicate that the prevalence of bronchial asthma had risen, from 2.19% in 1987, and 3.54% in 1994, to 6.99% in 2002. Regardless of sex, the prevalence of bronchial asthma decreased with increasing age. The prevalence of allergic rhinitis was 5.1% in 1987, 12.46% in 1987, and 27.59% in 2002, and the prevalence of atopic eczema was 1.10% in 1987, 1.88% in 1994, and 3.35% in 2002.ConclusionThere has been a significant increase in the prevalence of bronchial asthma, allergic rhinitis and atopic dermatitis in Taichung schoolchildren from 1987 to 2002

A Power-Efficient Multiband Planar USB Dongle Antenna for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) had been applied in Internet of Things (IoT) and in Industry 4.0. Since a WSN system contains multiple wireless sensor nodes, it is necessary to develop a low-power and multiband wireless communication system that satisfies the specifications of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Certification European (CE). In a WSN system, many devices are of very small size and can be slipped into a Universal Serial Bus (USB), which is capable of connecting to wireless systems and networks, as well as transferring data. These devices are widely known as USB dongles. This paper develops a planar USB dongle antenna for three frequency bands, namely 2.30–2.69 GHz, 3.40–3.70 GHz, and 5.15–5.85 GHz. This study proposes a novel antenna design that uses four loops to develop the multiband USB dongle. The first and second loops construct the low and intermediate frequency ranges. The third loop resonates the high frequency property, while the fourth loop is used to enhance the bandwidth. The performance and power consumption of the proposed multiband planar USB dongle antenna were significantly improved compared to existing multiband designs

From psoriasis to psoriatic arthritis: epidemiological insights from a retrospective cohort study of 74,046 patients

IntroductionTo verify our hypothesis that psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is mainly genetically predetermined and distinct from psoriasis (PsO), we use the TriNetX database to investigate whether intrinsic factors outweigh externals in PsA emergence in PsO patients.MethodsWe conducted three retrospective cohort studies utilizing information from the TriNetX network, whether (a) PsO patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) face an elevated risk of developing PsA compared to those without type 2 DM; (b) PsO patients who smoke face a higher risk of PsA; and (c) PsO patients with type 2 DM who smoke are more likely to develop PsA than those who do not smoke.ResultsPsO patients with type 2 DM exhibited an elevated risk of developing PsA [hazard ratio (HR), 1.11; 95% CI 1.03–1.20], with the combined outcome demonstrating a heightened HR of 1.31 (95% CI 1.25–1.37). PsO patients with a smoking history exhibited an elevated risk of developing PsA (HR, 1.11; 95% CI 1.06–1.17), with the combined outcome demonstrating a heightened HR of 1.28 (95% CI 1.24–1.33). PsO patients with type 2 DM and a history of smoking were not found to be associated with an increased risk of developing PsA (HR, 1.05; 95% CI 0.92–1.20). However, the combined result revealed a higher risk of 1.15 (95% CI 1.06).DiscussionThese findings suggested that intrinsic factors outweigh external factors in PsA emergence in PsO patients. Further studies may focus on genetic disparities between PsO and PsA as potential risk indicators rather than solely on phenotypic distinctions

Quantification and recognition of parkinsonian gait from monocular video imaging using kernel-based principal component analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The computer-aided identification of specific gait patterns is an important issue in the assessment of Parkinson's disease (PD). In this study, a computer vision-based gait analysis approach is developed to assist the clinical assessments of PD with kernel-based principal component analysis (KPCA).</p> <p>Method</p> <p>Twelve PD patients and twelve healthy adults with no neurological history or motor disorders within the past six months were recruited and separated according to their "Non-PD", "Drug-On", and "Drug-Off" states. The participants were asked to wear light-colored clothing and perform three walking trials through a corridor decorated with a navy curtain at their natural pace. The participants' gait performance during the steady-state walking period was captured by a digital camera for gait analysis. The collected walking image frames were then transformed into binary silhouettes for noise reduction and compression. Using the developed KPCA-based method, the features within the binary silhouettes can be extracted to quantitatively determine the gait cycle time, stride length, walking velocity, and cadence.</p> <p>Results and Discussion</p> <p>The KPCA-based method uses a feature-extraction approach, which was verified to be more effective than traditional image area and principal component analysis (PCA) approaches in classifying "Non-PD" controls and "Drug-Off/On" PD patients. Encouragingly, this method has a high accuracy rate, 80.51%, for recognizing different gaits. Quantitative gait parameters are obtained, and the power spectrums of the patients' gaits are analyzed. We show that that the slow and irregular actions of PD patients during walking tend to transfer some of the power from the main lobe frequency to a lower frequency band. Our results indicate the feasibility of using gait performance to evaluate the motor function of patients with PD.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This KPCA-based method requires only a digital camera and a decorated corridor setup. The ease of use and installation of the current method provides clinicians and researchers a low cost solution to monitor the progression of and the treatment to PD. In summary, the proposed method provides an alternative to perform gait analysis for patients with PD.</p

A chronological review of COVID-19 case fatality rate and its secular trend and investigation of all-cause mortality and hospitalization during the Delta and Omicron waves in the United States: a retrospective cohort study

IntroductionCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused more than 690 million deaths worldwide. Different results concerning the death rates of the Delta and Omicron variants have been recorded. We aimed to assess the secular trend of case fatality rate (CFR), identify risk factors associated with mortality following COVID-19 diagnosis, and investigate the risks of mortality and hospitalization during Delta and Omicron waves in the United States.MethodsThis study assessed 2,857,925 individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 in the United States from January 2020, to June 2022. The inclusion criterion was the presence of COVID-19 diagnostic codes in electronic medical record or a positive laboratory test of the SARS-CoV-2. Statistical analysis was bifurcated into two components, longitudinal analysis and comparative analysis. To assess the discrepancies in hospitalization and mortality rates for COVID-19, we identified the prevailing periods for the Delta and Omicron variants.ResultsLongitudinal analysis demonstrated four sharp surges in the number of deaths and CFR. The CFR was persistently higher in males and older age. The CFR of Black and White remained higher than Asians since January 2022. In comparative analysis, the adjusted hazard ratios for all-cause mortality and hospitalization were higher in Delta wave compared to the Omicron wave. Risk of all-cause mortality was found to be greater 14–30 days after a COVID-19 diagnosis, while the likelihood of hospitalization was higher in the first 14 days following a COVID-19 diagnosis in Delta wave compared with Omicron wave. Kaplan–Meier analysis revealed the cumulative probability of mortality was approximately 2-fold on day 30 in Delta than in Omicron cases (log-rank p &lt; 0.001). The mortality risk ratio between the Delta and Omicron variants was 1.671 (95% Cl 1.615–1.729, log-rank p &lt; 0.001). Delta also had a significantly increased mortality risk over Omicron in all age groups. The CFR of people aged above 80 years was extremely high as 17.33%.ConclusionMale sex and age seemed to be strong and independent risk factors of mortality in COVID-19. The Delta variant appears to cause more hospitalization and death than the Omicron variant

Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO

JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve

Detection of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background with JUNO

As an underground multi-purpose neutrino detector with 20 kton liquid scintillator, Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is competitive with and complementary to the water-Cherenkov detectors on the search for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). Typical supernova models predict 2-4 events per year within the optimal observation window in the JUNO detector. The dominant background is from the neutral-current (NC) interaction of atmospheric neutrinos with 12C nuclei, which surpasses the DSNB by more than one order of magnitude. We evaluated the systematic uncertainty of NC background from the spread of a variety of data-driven models and further developed a method to determine NC background within 15\% with {\it{in}} {\it{situ}} measurements after ten years of running. Besides, the NC-like backgrounds can be effectively suppressed by the intrinsic pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities of liquid scintillators. In this talk, I will present in detail the improvements on NC background uncertainty evaluation, PSD discriminator development, and finally, the potential of DSNB sensitivity in JUNO

FASTEN:Uncovering Multiple Diffusion Networks Using the First-Hand Sharing Pattern

在日常生活中我們能輕易地觀察到謠言傳遞的現象，然而直接觀察 謠言傳遞的過程是困難的。目前推測資訊傳遞過程的問題得到越來越 多的關注，因為當我們了解資訊傳遞的過程，我們便可以增減資訊傳 遞的影響力。例如流行病學家可以在疾病傳播的過程中減少感染的人 數，或是貨品銷售業者能夠提升他們廣告影響的效益。最近有很多的 方法被提出來解決這樣的問題，研究人員考慮資訊傳播於一個傳遞網 路上，在網路中連結或朋友關係表示資訊傳播的路徑；而節點或使用 者是資訊的接受者。其他人考慮資訊傳播於多個網路上，每一個網路 對應一個特定的主題，例如戰爭、科技或體育。在這個研究中，我們 觀察到實際資訊傳播的模式，發現大部分的節點傾向於直接分享或接 受訊息來源的資訊。換句話說，當資訊來自於二手的來源之後，影響 力便會開始衰減。這是因為人們喜歡直接關注消息來源，並不想成為 最後一個得知消息的人。因此，我們延伸之前的研究，提出一個機率 模型，這個模型模擬了我們觀察的資訊傳播模式，並推論隱藏的傳遞 網路和節點間傳遞速率。我們也提出一個有效率的最佳化方法去找出 有最大可能性的模型參數。實驗的結果顯示我們的模型能夠擊敗其他 的方法在多個不同的傳播網路結構和傳播過程中。In our daily life rumors are spread among many people but diffusion processes and spreading paths behind rumors are usually hidden. The problem of finding this hidden process is getting more and more attention since after understanding the process, we can manipulate the diffusion speed of the process. For example, epidemiologists and the government can block a spread of a disease. Companies and goods sellers can facilitate adoptions of a product. To model the hidden information diffusion, it is usually assumed that information spreads in an underlying diffusion network where nodes, e.g. users, are receivers which adopt an information piece and edges, e.g. friendships, are transmission paths. In this work, we observe the pattern of information propagation that most of nodes are inclined to share the first-hand information. In other words, the virality of an information piece will generally decay as it becomes rephrased. We propose a generative model with the first-hand sharing patten (FASTEN), in order to infer the hidden networks and transmission rates between nodes. We further propose an efficient optimization method to infer the parameters of FASTEN. Experimental results show that FASTEN outperforms several state-of-the-arts algorithms on both synthetic and real datasets for network inference

Effectiveness of Botulinum Neurotoxin in Treatment of Scoliosis among Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Scoliosis refers to a three-dimensional deviation in the axis of the spine. Muscle imbalance is believed to play a role in scoliosis. Botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT) can reduce muscle overactivity and may have the potential to ameliorate spinal scoliosis. This study investigated the effectiveness of intramuscular BoNT injection in vertebral curve correction and reviewed the possible influencing factors. PubMed, Medline, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, Airiti Library, and Index of the Taiwan Periodical Literature System databases were searched from inception until 7 September 2022 for eligible studies. The main outcome was the change in Cobb angle after BoNT application. Subgroup analysis was conducted according to differences in study designs, etiology of scoliosis, and methods used for target muscle selection. We enrolled three studies including 31 participants aged between 2 and 18 years. The meta-analysis revealed no significant reduction in the Cobb angle after BoNT injection (standardized mean difference, &minus;0.783, 95% CI, &minus;2.142 to 0.576). Study designs (p = 0.011) and methods used for target muscle selection (p = 0.017) but not etiology of scoliosis (p = 0.997) reached statistical significance between subgroups. In conclusion, the current meta-analysis does not support the application of BoNT in children and adolescents with scoliosis. However, a decisive conclusion could not be made due to high between-study heterogeneity and small sample size. More randomized controlled trials with appropriate target muscle selection and standard outcome measurement should be conducted to examine the efficacy of botulinum neurotoxin in treating scoliosis. INPLASY ID: INPLASY202290031

Risk of New-Onset Dementia in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease on Statin Users: A Population-Based Cohort Study

Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are at a higher risk for developing dementia than the general population. Clinical studies have investigated the effects of statin use on new-onset dementia (NOD) in patients with CKD; however, the findings are inconsistent. This study examines the association between the use of statins and NOD in patients with CKD. We conducted a nationwide retrospective cohort study using the Taiwan Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service database (2003–2016). The primary outcome assessed the risk of incident dementia by estimating the hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Therefore, multiple Cox regression models were conducted to analyse the association between statin use and NOD in patients with CKD. There were 24,090 participants with statin use and 28,049 participants without statin use in patients with new-diagnosed CKD; the NOD event was 1390 and 1608, respectively. There was a trend of reduction association between statin users and NOD events after adjusted sex, age, comorbidities, and concurrent medication (adjusted HR 0.93, 95% CI 0.87 to 1.00) in the 14 years of the follow-up. Sensitivity test for the propensity score 1:1 matched analyses showed similar results (adjusted HR 0.91, 95% CI 0.81 to 1.02). The subgroup analysis also identified the use of statins as having a trend against developing NOD in patients with hypertension. In conclusion, statin therapy may effectively reduce the risk of NOD in patients with CKD. More studies are needed to credibly evaluate the effects of statin therapy on the prevention of NOD in patients with CKD