Miniaturized fluorescence excitation platform with optical fiber for bio-detection chips

This paper presents a new research study on the platform fabrication of fluorescence bio-detection chip with an optical fiber transmission. Anisotropic wet etching on (100) silicon wafers to fabrication V-groove for optical fiber alignment and micro-mirror were included. Combing with anodic bonding technique to adhere glass, silicon structure and optical fiber for a fluorescence excitation platform was completed. In this study, the etching solution 40% KOH was used to study the parameters effect. The results show that working temperature is the main parameter to significantly effect the etch rate. The anisotropic etching resulted 54.7° reflective mirrors and its reflectivity for optical beam were also examined. The surface roughness of the micro-mirror is Ra 4.1 nm measured using AFM, it provides excellent optical reflection. The incident light and beam profiles were also examined for further study. This study can show this micro-platform adaptable for fluorescence bio-detection

Development of Efficacy-Enhanced Heart Failure Rehabilitation Patient Education Materials for Health Behavior Change

Background: Patient education materials (PEMs) are often used in health education programs to empower patients to self-manage their disease for better health outcomes. Heart failure (HF) patients wanted more information about self-management and educational materials that were easy to understand. Programs with self-efficacy as the core component have proven to be effective in improving patients’ self-management. Purpose: To develop practical, efficacy-enhanced, tailored HF rehabilitation PEMs that satisfy our clients to drive long-lasting behavior change and evaluate the materials’ quality (readability, understandability, actionability, and acceptability). Methods: Exploratory mixed methods study involving: i) semi-structured interviews; ii) evaluation of the PEMs; iii) revision and reevaluation of the PEMs; iv) publication. An appointed panel of experts evaluates content accuracy, understandability, and actionability. The Patient Education Material Assessment Tool assesses content understandability and actionability. The content read ability was assessed using Flesch Kincaid Calculator. Clients’ acceptability was assessed using Educational Material Acceptability tool. Results: The newly developed PEMs have good understandability, actionability, readability, and acceptance. Discussion: Patient-centered PEMs have good acceptance and satisfaction among clients. However, the effectiveness of tailored efficacy-enhanced PEMs for behavior changes needs further evaluation. Translation to Health Education Practice: All stakeholders should be included in developing PEM

A three-step formative assessment model for rehabilitation medicine postgraduate programme clinical skills training

The stepwise formative assessment scheme was introduced into the Rehabilitation Medicine Postgraduate programme beginning from theory assessment to application of clinical skills on simulated and real patients to enable students or trainees to understand and competently apply theoretical knowledge to clinical practice. Formative assessment is intended to foster learning and assist students to develop under conditions that are nonthreatening. A key feature of formative assessment is to provide feedback and proper guidance to trainees on how to enhance performance. In this study, year 1 postgraduate students or trainees of Rehabilitation Medicine (n=9) were evaluated. The study was divided into three intervention phases. In Phase II, trainees were given educational materials on different specific clinical skills such as the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA), neurological examination of spinal cord injury based on ISNCSCl-motor examination, and GAIT assessment. Phase II was divided Into three steps, namely: 1) an applied pre-and post-theoretical quiz on which trainees must achieve 80% and above as a passing mark; 2) trainees conduct a clinical examination on a simulated patient after receiving the educational material; and 3) assessment of trainees using real patients after a month's assessment with the simulated patients. Phases I and II were conducted for approximately within three months of the intervention. All the assessments were conducted for 15 minutes, Including the debriefing session. In Phase 111, further evaluation will be conducted based on a focus group Interview (FGI). To date, Phases I and II of the clinical assessment have been completed. Results have shown that trainees had improvement In terms of the passing rate for both the theory and clinical assessment parts. The post- theoretical quiz assessment showed that 66.7% passed compared to 11.1 % in the pre-theory t est. Meanwhile, for the clinical assessments of ISNCSCI, MOCA and GAIT assessments, results show significant statistical differences of passes between the simulated and real patient (p<0.05). Overall, the result showed significant improvement in clinical competency for the trainees within three months of Phase land Phase II intervention. In addition, the results allow us to identify weak trainees for greater guidance during Year 1 to improve their clinical competency before their professional exams and able continue to Phase II postgraduate clinical training. The study also showed a feasible duration of formative assessment intervention to achieve satisfactory clinical competency which is perceived to be a practical approach towards structured clinical teaching and learning

Protein Profiling of Human Nonpigmented Ciliary Epithelium Cell Secretome: The Differentiation Factors Characterization for Retinal Ganglion Cell line

The purpose of this paper was to characterize proteins secreted from the human nonpigmented ciliary epithelial (HNPE) cells, which have differentiated a rat retinal ganglion cell line, RGC-5. Undifferentiated RGC-5 cells have been shown to express several marker proteins characteristic of retinal ganglion cells. However, RGC-5 cells do not respond to N-methyl-D aspartate (NMDA), or glutamate. HNPE cells have been shown to secrete numbers of neuropeptides or neuroproteins also found in the aqueous humor, many of which have the ability to influence the activity of neuronal cells. This paper details the profile of HNPE cell-secreted proteins by proteomic approaches. The experimental results revealed the identification of 132 unique proteins from the HNPE cell-conditioned SF-medium. The biological functions of a portion of these identified proteins are involved in cell differentiation. We hypothesized that a differentiation system of HNPE cell-conditioned SF-medium with RGC-5 cells can induce a differentiated phenotype in RGC-5 cells, with functional characteristics that more closely resemble primary cultures of rat retinal ganglion cells. These proteins may replace harsh chemicals, which are currently used to induce cell differentiation

Optimization of crop disease classification using convolution neural network

This paper presents the deep learning model by Convolution Neural Network (CNN) in training the crop disease classifier via image classification. A camera will be equipped and applied in artificial intelligent drone to operate as a crop monitoring system used for agriculture. Agriculture productivity is a key component of country economy. Crop diseases can lead to a drop in the quality and quantity of agricultural products. Famers are facing problems to detect the crop diseases accurately in huge region of crops. Therefore, CNN based method for crop disease detection is proposed. Dataset contains of 16,257 color images which has a total of categories have been fed into the model, out of which 10 categories are of diseased crop leaves. The CNN model contains 7 convolution layers with the number of filters 32, 64, two layers with 128 filters, three layers with 256 filters and filter size $3\times 3$ is the proposed approach to perform crop disease classification, with the best testing accuracy of 99.02%. The crops are classified correctly using the suggested CNN design. The suggested CNN design is validated and evaluated which achieves accuracy of 99.02%, 0.98% error, 99% recall, 99% precision and 0.99 score of F-measure. In this paper, achievement of the proposed CNN model is reaching a promising result and simulated successfully in classifying the crop disease

A Novel Invadopodia-Specific Marker for Invasive and Pro-Metastatic Cancer Stem Cells

IntroductionStem-like cancer cells or cancer stem cells (CSCs) may comprise a phenotypically and functionally heterogeneous subset of cells, whereas the molecular markers reflecting this CSC hierarchy remain elusive. The glycolytic enzyme alpha-enolase (ENO1) present on the surface of malignant tumor cells has been identified as a metastasis-promoting factor through its function of activating plasminogen. The expression pattern of surface ENO1 (sENO1) concerning cell-to-cell or CSC heterogeneity and its functional roles await further investigation.MethodsThe cell-to-cell expression heterogeneity of sENO1 was profiled in malignant cells from different types of cancers using flow cytometry. The subcellular localization of sENO1 and its functional roles in the invadopodia formation and cancer cell invasiveness were investigated using a series of imaging, molecular, and in vitro and in vivo functional studies.ResultsWe showed here that ENO1 is specifically localized to the invadopodial surface of a significant subset (11.1%-63.9%) of CSCs in human gastric and prostate adenocarcinomas. sENO1+ CSCs have stronger mesenchymal properties than their sENO1- counterparts. The subsequent functional studies confirmed the remarkable pro-invasive and pro-metastatic capacities of sENO1+ CSCs. Mechanistically, inhibiting the surface localization of ENO1 by downregulating caveolin-1 expression compromised invadopodia biogenesis, proteolysis, and CSC invasiveness.ConclusionsOur study identified the specific expression of ENO1 on the invadopodial surface of a subset of highly invasive and pro-metastatic CSCs. sENO1 may provide a diagnostically and/or therapeutically exploitable target to improve the outcome of patients with aggressive and metastatic cancers

The Effects of Air Pollution on Mortality in Socially Deprived Urban Areas in Hong Kong, China

Background: Poverty is a major determinant of population health, but little is known about its role in modifying air pollution effects. Objectives: We set out to examine whether people residing in socially deprived communities are at higher mortality risk from ambient air pollution. Methods: This study included 209 tertiary planning units (TPUs), the smallest units for town planning in the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, China. The socioeconomic status of each TPU was measured by a social deprivation index (SDI) derived from the proportions of the population with a) unemployment, b) monthly household income < US$250, c) no schooling at all, d) one-person household, e) never-married status, and f) subtenancy, from the 2001 Population Census. TPUs were classified into three levels of SDI: low, middle, and high. We performed time-series analysis with Poisson regression to examine the association between changes in daily concentrations of ambient air pollution and daily number of deaths in each SDI group for the period from January 1996 to December 2002. We evaluated the differences in pollution effects between different SDI groups using a case-only approach with logistic regression. Results: We found significant associations of nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter < 10 μm, and ozone with all nonaccidental and cardiovascular mortality in areas of middle or high SDI (p < 0.05). Health outcomes, measured as all nonaccidental, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality, in people residing in high SDI areas were more strongly associated with SO 2 and NO 2 compared with those in middle or low SDI areas. Conclusions: Neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation increases mortality risks associated with air pollution.published_or_final_versio