The perceptions of how critical thinking is embedded in Taiwanese nursing students\u27 study: A second year study

(41st Biennial Convention) This is a second year study of a three-year research for exploring how critical thinking is embedded in the five-year nursing education program in Taipei, Taiwan. However, the differences between these two years\u27 investigation was that it had been reviewed the following things based on the results of the first year\u27s experiments within the five-year nursing education program: (1) recognizing the importance of critical thinking in nursing education; (2) how to apply such method into the subject of professional nursing ethics within research targets; (3) understanding the influences and barriers in real nursing education program. The aim of this study was not only to continue the processes of the first\u27s year study, but also to refine the instrument for providing an appropriate teaching intervention into students\u27 learning. Action research was applied and combined with different teaching techniques in the second year\u27s study. The application of an opened- mind investigation were used to argue two important issues within teachers and students: (1) to recognize the ideas, knowledge and influences of teachers who advocate their teaching and learning in nursing education by using critical thinking; (2) to understand the whole learning processes and its relevant issues within students\u27 learning in order to concern about the role of nursing students\u27 learning by using critical thinking. Same as the first year\u27s result, students were appreciated different thinking processes and learning styles. However, the levels of intervention were affected by the motivation of students\u27 learning attitudes and such outcomes were also affected by students\u27 critical thinking and their training style of using such method. Results of this study will not only provide several useful recommendations for teachers to implement such method in real teaching environment, but also indicate appropriate suggestions that were being argued about two important issues within teachers and students in this study

The bracteatus pineapple genome and domestication of clonally propagated crops

Domestication of clonally propagated crops such as pineapple from South America was hypothesized to be a 'one-step operation'. We sequenced the genome of Ananas comosus var. bracteatus CB5 and assembled 513 Mb into 25 chromosomes with 29,412 genes. Comparison of the genomes of CB5, F153 and MD2 elucidated the genomic basis of fiber production, color formation, sugar accumulation and fruit maturation. We also resequenced 89 Ananas genomes. Cultivars 'Smooth Cayenne' and 'Queen' exhibited ancient and recent admixture, while 'Singapore Spanish' supported a one-step operation of domestication. We identified 25 selective sweeps, including a strong sweep containing a pair of tandemly duplicated bromelain inhibitors. Four candidate genes for self-incompatibility were linked in F153, but were not functional in self-compatible CB5. Our findings support the coexistence of sexual recombination and a one-step operation in the domestication of clonally propagated crops. This work guides the exploration of sexual and asexual domestication trajectories in other clonally propagated crops

JUNO Conceptual Design Report

The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is proposed to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy using an underground liquid scintillator detector. It is located 53 km away from both Yangjiang and Taishan Nuclear Power Plants in Guangdong, China. The experimental hall, spanning more than 50 meters, is under a granite mountain of over 700 m overburden. Within six years of running, the detection of reactor antineutrinos can resolve the neutrino mass hierarchy at a confidence level of 3-4$\sigma$, and determine neutrino oscillation parameters $\sin^2\theta_{12}$, $\Delta m^2_{21}$, and $|\Delta m^2_{ee}|$ to an accuracy of better than 1%. The JUNO detector can be also used to study terrestrial and extra-terrestrial neutrinos and new physics beyond the Standard Model. The central detector contains 20,000 tons liquid scintillator with an acrylic sphere of 35 m in diameter. $\sim$17,000 508-mm diameter PMTs with high quantum efficiency provide $\sim$75% optical coverage. The current choice of the liquid scintillator is: linear alkyl benzene (LAB) as the solvent, plus PPO as the scintillation fluor and a wavelength-shifter (Bis-MSB). The number of detected photoelectrons per MeV is larger than 1,100 and the energy resolution is expected to be 3% at 1 MeV. The calibration system is designed to deploy multiple sources to cover the entire energy range of reactor antineutrinos, and to achieve a full-volume position coverage inside the detector. The veto system is used for muon detection, muon induced background study and reduction. It consists of a Water Cherenkov detector and a Top Tracker system. The readout system, the detector control system and the offline system insure efficient and stable data acquisition and processing.Comment: 328 pages, 211 figure

Antioxidant Activities and Phytochemical Study of Leaf Extracts from 18 Indigenous Tree Species in Taiwan

The objective of this study is to assess antioxidant activities of methanolic extracts from the leaves of 18 indigenous tree species in Taiwan. Results revealed that, among 18 species, Acer oliverianum exhibited the best free radical scavenging activities. The IC50 values were 5.8 and 11.8 μg/mL on DPPH radical and superoxide radical scavenging activities, respectively. In addition, A. oliverianum also exhibited the strongest ferrous ion chelating activity. Based on a bioactivity-guided isolation principle, the resulting methanolic crude extracts of A. oliverianum leaves were fractionated to yield soluble fractions of hexane, EtOAc, BuOH, and water. Of these, the EtOAc fraction had the best antioxidant activity. Furthermore, 8 specific phytochemicals were isolated and identified from the EtOAc fraction. Among them, 1,2,3,4,6-O-penta-galloyl-β-D-glucopyranose had the best free radical scavenging activity. These results demonstrate that methanolic extracts and their derived phytochemicals of A. oliverianum leaves have excellent antioxidant activities and thus they have great potential as sources for natural health products

IMNTPU at the NTCIR-17 Real-MedNLP Task: Multi-Model Approach to Adverse Drug Event Detection from Social Media

The IMNTPU team engaged in the NTCIR-17 RealMedNLP task, specifically focusing on Subtask1: Adverse Drug Event detection (ADE) and the challenge of identifying related radiology reports. This task is centered on harnessing methodologies that offer significant aid in real-world medical services, especially when training resources are limited. In our approach, we harnessed the power of pre-trained language models (PLMs), particularly leveraging models like the BERT transformer, to understand both sentence and document structures. Our experimentation with diverse network designs based on PLMs paved the way for an enlightening comparative analysis. Notably, BioBERT-Base emerged as a superior contender, showcasing commendable accuracy relative to its peers. Furthermore, our investigation made strides in the realm of one-shot learning for multiclass labeling, specifically with the GPT framework. The insights gathered emphasized the necessity for more specialized strategies, suggesting avenues for future research in multiclass labeling tasks.conference pape

2019 Kidney Tumor Segmentation Challenge: Medical Image Segmentation with Two-Stage Process

Since we are trying to deal with the medical images of real patients, the dataset are usually predominantly composed of ”normal” samples. The target classes only appear in a very small portion of the entire dataset, which leads to the so-called class imbalance problem. Besides, there is only a small percentage of foreground inside the ”abnormal” images. The great majority of background leads the significant detrimental effect on training. In such cases, model tends to focus on learning the dominant classes, leading to the poor prediction of minority class. However, the incorrect classification of pathological images can cause serious consequence in clinical practice

Detecting Effects of Low Levels of FCCP on Stem Cell Micromotion and Wound-Healing Migration by Time-Series Capacitance Measurement.

Electric cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) has been used as a real-time impedance-based method to quantify cell behavior in tissue culture. The method is capable of measuring both the resistance and capacitance of a cell-covered microelectrode at various AC frequencies. In this study, we demonstrate the application of high-frequency capacitance measurement (f = 40 or 64 kHz) for the sensitive detection of both the micromotion and wound-healing migration of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). Impedance measurements of cell-covered electrodes upon the challenge of various concentrations of carbonyl cyanide 4-(trifluoromethoxy)phenylhydrazone (FCCP), from 0.1 to 30 μM, were conducted using ECIS. FCCP is an uncoupler of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), thereby reducing mitochondrial ATP production. By numerically analyzing the time-series capacitance data, a dose-dependent decrease in hMSC micromotion and wound-healing migration was observed, and the effect was significantly detected at levels as low as 0.1 μM. While most reported works with ECIS use the resistance/impedance time series, our results suggest the potential use of high-frequency capacitance time series for assessing migratory cell behavior such as micromotion and wound-healing migration

A model for predicting physical function upon discharge of hospitalized older adults in Taiwan—a machine learning approach based on both electronic health records and comprehensive geriatric assessment

BackgroundPredicting physical function upon discharge among hospitalized older adults is important. This study has aimed to develop a prediction model of physical function upon discharge through use of a machine learning algorithm using electronic health records (EHRs) and comprehensive geriatrics assessments (CGAs) among hospitalized older adults in Taiwan.MethodsData was retrieved from the clinical database of a tertiary medical center in central Taiwan. Older adults admitted to the acute geriatric unit during the period from January 2012 to December 2018 were included for analysis, while those with missing data were excluded. From data of the EHRs and CGAs, a total of 52 clinical features were input for model building. We used 3 different machine learning algorithms, XGBoost, random forest and logistic regression.ResultsIn total, 1,755 older adults were included in final analysis, with a mean age of 80.68 years. For linear models on physical function upon discharge, the accuracy of prediction was 87% for XGBoost, 85% for random forest, and 32% for logistic regression. For classification models on physical function upon discharge, the accuracy for random forest, logistic regression and XGBoost were 94, 92 and 92%, respectively. The auROC reached 98% for XGBoost and random forest, while logistic regression had an auROC of 97%. The top 3 features of importance were activity of daily living (ADL) at baseline, ADL during admission, and mini nutritional status (MNA) during admission.ConclusionThe results showed that physical function upon discharge among hospitalized older adults can be predicted accurately during admission through use of a machine learning model with data taken from EHRs and CGAs

Detection of EBV Infection and Gene Expression in Oral Cancer from Patients in Taiwan by Microarray Analysis

Epstein-Barr virus is known to cause nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Although oral cavity is located close to the nasal pharynx, the pathogenetic role of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in oral cancers is unclear. This molecular epidemiology study uses EBV genomic microarray (EBV-chip) to simultaneously detect the prevalent rate and viral gene expression patterns in 57 oral squamous cell carcinoma biopsies (OSCC) collected from patients in Taiwan. The majority of the specimens (82.5%) were EBV-positive that probably expressed coincidently the genes for EBNAs, LMP2A and 2B, and certain structural proteins. Importantly, the genes fabricated at the spots 61 (BBRF1, BBRF2, and BBRF3) and 68 (BDLF4 and BDRF1) on EBV-chip were actively expressed in a significantly greater number of OSCC exhibiting exophytic morphology or ulceration than those tissues with deep invasive lesions (P = .0265 and .0141, resp.). The results may thus provide the lead information for understanding the role of EBV in oral cancer pathogenesis

Rainfall Variation under Different Climate Change Scenarios Based on Cmip3 and Cmip5 Projections: a Case Study in Taiwan

Source: ICHE Conference Archive - https://mdi-de.baw.de/icheArchive