Effects of Multimedia Education Integrated Marketing Course Teaching on Students’ Marketing Awareness and Marketing Attitude

Integrating information technology into teaching will be a major policy for schools, improving teaching models. Teachers should get rid of the traditional teaching model of merely stressing on knowledge imparting in order to have students enjoy learning, absorb knowledge, and cultivate interests. With an experimental design model, 116 students of the Department of Business Administration of a university in southern Taiwan are participating in the quasiexperimental research. The experimental class (58 students) is preceded by multimedia education integrated marketing course teaching, and the control class (58 students) maintains traditional teaching combined marketing course teaching for the 18-week (three hours per week for a total of 54 hours) experimental teaching research. According to the results of the proposed discussions and suggestions, it is expected to develop instruction from a single model to an intuitive, interesting, artistic, and three-dimensional mode, create a vivid and interesting teaching situation for students, getthem into a lively learning atmosphere, induce students’ attention, and enhance students’ learning interests

Finite-Time Output Feedback Controller Based on Observer for the Time-Varying Delayed Systems: A Moore-Penrose Inverse Approach

This study proposes a novel variable structure control (VSC) for the mismatched uncertain systems with unknown time-varying delay. The novel VSC includes the finite-time convergence sliding mode, invariance property, asymptotic stability, and measured output only. A necessary and sufficient condition guaranteeing the existence of sliding surface is given. A novel lemma is established to deal with the control design problem for a wider class of time-delay systems. A suitable reduced-order observer (ROO) is constructed to estimate unmeasured state variables of the systems. A novel finite-time output feedback controller (FTOFC) is investigated, which is based on the ROO tool and the Moore-Penrose inverse technique. Moreover, with the help of this lemma and the proposed FTOFC, restrictions on most existing works are also eliminated. In addition, an asymptotic stability analysis is implemented by means of the feasibility of the linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) and given desirable sliding mode dynamics. Finally, a MATLAB simulation result on a numerical example is performed to show the effectiveness and advantage of the proposed method

The significance of seizures and other predictive factors during the acute illness for the long-term outcome after bacterial meningitis

SummaryBackgroundSeizures are important neurological complications of bacterial meningitis, but no information about its epidemiology and the outcomes of seizures after community-acquired bacterial meningitis (CABM) in an adult population have been reported.AimsTo determine the frequency, clinical relevance, subtypes of seizures during the acute phase of bacterial meningitis, and the long-term outcomes of seizure complicating adult CABM.MethodsIn this 12-year retrospective study, 117 adult patients were identified with culture-proven CABM. A comparison was made between the clinical data of the patients with and without seizures during hospitalization.ResultsThirty-one patients had seizures during CABM, accounting for 27% (31/117) of the episodes. The time interval between the onset of bacterial meningitis and the seizures was 1–21 days (mean, 4 days). Furthermore, 80% (25/31) of the episodes occurred within 24h of presentation. Ten patients who had seizures progressed to status epilepticus. At follow-up after completing treatment, 10 patients completely recovered and were seizure-free, 19 died of meningitis during the acute stage and the other two progressed to chronic epilepsy.ConclusionA log-rank test demonstrated that the long-term outcome of adult CABM with acute seizures produced worse outcomes than for those who had no seizures, though no difference was noted between focal and generalized seizures. None of our patients without seizures in the acute phase of bacterial meningitis developed late seizures during the follow-up periods. Poor outcome in this study may attribute to neurological complications such as seizure, hydrocephalus, infection itself, or a combination of complications

Functional Effects of let-7g Expression in Colon Cancer Metastasis.

MicroRNA regulation is crucial for gene expression and cell functions. It has been linked to tumorigenesis, development and metastasis in colorectal cancer (CRC). Recently, the let-7 family has been identified as a tumor suppressor in different types of cancers. However, the function of the let-7 family in CRC metastasis has not been fully investigated. Here, we focused on analyzing the role of let-7g in CRC. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) genomic datasets of CRC and detailed data from a Taiwanese CRC cohort were applied to study the expression pattern of let-7g. In addition, in vitro as well as in vivo studies have been performed to uncover the effects of let-7g on CRC. We found that the expression of let-7g was significantly lower in CRC specimens. Our results further supported the inhibitory effects of let-7g on CRC cell migration, invasion and extracellular calcium influx through store-operated calcium channels. We report a critical role for let-7g in the pathogenesis of CRC and suggest let-7g as a potential therapeutic target for CRC treatment

Quantitative measures of functional outcomes and quality of life in patients with C5 palsy

AbstractBackgroundIt is generally understood that postoperative C5 palsy can occur with anterior or posterior decompression surgery, but functional measures of the palsy have not been well documented. This study aimed to investigate the incidence of C5 palsy in different surgical procedures, examine the correlations between muscle strength, upper extremity functional measures, and health-related quality of life, and to observe potential risk factors contributing to C5 palsy.MethodsOur investigation involved a retrospective study design. A total of 364 patients who underwent decompression surgery were indicated within the selected exclusion criteria. Additionally, 12 C5 palsy patients were recruited. The relationships between the manual muscle test (MMT), the action research arm test (ARAT), the Jebsen test of hand function (JTHF), and the European quality of life-5 dimensions (EQ-5D) were studied, and univariate analyses were performed to search possible risk factors and recovery investigation.ResultsThe data analyzed in the 12 cases and C5 palsy incidences (3.3%) were: 0.7% in anterior procedures (n = 2), 8.8% in posterior procedures (n = 6), and 36.4% in combined procedures (n = 4). Moderate-to-high correlations were observed between the ARAT, JTHF, EQ-5D visual analog scale scores, and MMT (r = 0.636–0.899). There were significant differences in patient age, etiology of cervical lesion, variable decompression procedures, and the number of decompression levels between the C5 palsy and non-C5 palsy groups. For female patients (p = 0.018) and number of decompression levels (p = 0.028), there were significant differences between the complete recovery and the incomplete recovery groups.ConclusionPatients undergoing combined anterior–posterior decompression surgery had the highest incidence of C5 palsy, and correlations between the ARAT, JTHF, EQ-5D visual analog scale clinical tools, and MMT scores supported these findings. Female status and lower decompression levels could also be predictive factors for complete recovery, although additional research is needed to substantiate these findings

Design and Analysis of Impedance Pumps Utilizing Electromagnetic Actuation

This study designs and analyzes an impedance pump utilizing an electromagnetic actuator. The pump is designed to have three major components, namely a lower glass substrate patterned with a copper micro-coil, a microchannel, and an upper glass cover plate attached a magnetic PDMS diaphragm. When a current is passed through the micro-coil, an electromagnetic force is established between the coil and the magnetic diaphragm. The resulting deflection of the PDMS diaphragm creates an acoustic impedance mismatch within the microchannel, which results in a net flow. In performing the analysis, simulated models of the magnetic field, the diaphragm displacement and the flow rate are developed using Ansoft/Maxwell3D, ANSYS FEA and FLUENT 6.3 CFD software, respectively. Overall, the simulated results reveal that a net flow rate of 52.8 μL/min can be obtained using a diaphragm displacement of 31.5 μm induced by a micro-coil input current of 0.5 A. The impedance pump proposed in this study provides a valuable contribution to the ongoing development of Lab-on-Chips (LoCs) systems

Low-cell-number, single-tube amplification (STA) of total RNA revealed transcriptome changes from pluripotency to endothelium

Table S1. Summary of the sequencing results. The alignments against the GRCh38 genome assembly (Aligned Reads) were counted for exon reads (exon) and transcript reads based on GENCODE v22. Intronic counts (intron) were defined by transcript counts minus exon ones. Nontranscript reads were used to obtain tRNA counts (tRNA) based on the tRNA database of GENCODE v22. Nontranscript and non-tRNA reads were used for counts on repetitive sequences (repeats) based on RepeatMasker. Those not belonging to any category were defined as unannotated reads (unannotated). The counting of exonic features was based on the “gene_type” attribute in GENCODE v22. The percentages of mature miRNA reads were defined by reads aligned exclusively to the mature “miRNA” feature divided by reads aligned to the “miRNA_primary_transcript” feature of miRBase v21. (DOCX 42 kb