Politischer Wandel und Sozialpolitik in Taiwan : Volkskrankenversicherung und Gesetzentwurf des neuen Rentensystems als Beispielfälle

Die vorliegende Arbeit als eine Studie zu den gesamten wohlfahrtsstaatlichen Forschungen der ostasiatischen Ländern zeigt, dass die moderne Sozialpolitik in Taiwan, trotz der Frage nach der Zuordung zu einem bestimmten wohlfahrtsstaatlichen Typ, viele Gemeinsamkeiten mit den Ländern in diesem Gebiet besitzt. Doch mittelerweile macht jedes Land seine eigenen Erfahrungen. So lieferte z.B. in Taiwan die durch politische Demokratisierung entstandene Auflösung des autoritären Regimes und Absicherung des Mehrparteiensystems neue Möglichkeiten für wohlfahrtsstaatliche Entwicklungen. Daher sind Untersuchungen zu diesem Thema in jedem einzelnen Land notwendig. Und zur Bildung eines wohlfahrtsstaatlichen Modells ist es hilfreich und notwendig, nach der Durchführung ähnlicher Untersuchungen in anderen ostasiatischen Ländern einen Vergleich der gesammelten Ergebnisse durchzuführen. Die vorliegende Arbeit über den Zusammenhang zwischen politischem Wandel und sozialpolitischer Entwicklung in Taiwan wurde eben aus diesem Grunde durchgeführt

Rhythm-Flexible Voice Conversion without Parallel Data Using Cycle-GAN over Phoneme Posteriorgram Sequences

Speaking rate refers to the average number of phonemes within some unit time, while the rhythmic patterns refer to duration distributions for realizations of different phonemes within different phonetic structures. Both are key components of prosody in speech, which is different for different speakers. Models like cycle-consistent adversarial network (Cycle-GAN) and variational auto-encoder (VAE) have been successfully applied to voice conversion tasks without parallel data. However, due to the neural network architectures and feature vectors chosen for these approaches, the length of the predicted utterance has to be fixed to that of the input utterance, which limits the flexibility in mimicking the speaking rates and rhythmic patterns for the target speaker. On the other hand, sequence-to-sequence learning model was used to remove the above length constraint, but parallel training data are needed. In this paper, we propose an approach utilizing sequence-to-sequence model trained with unsupervised Cycle-GAN to perform the transformation between the phoneme posteriorgram sequences for different speakers. In this way, the length constraint mentioned above is removed to offer rhythm-flexible voice conversion without requiring parallel data. Preliminary evaluation on two datasets showed very encouraging results.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, Submitted to SLT 201

Temporomandibular Joint Disorders in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

BackgroundTemporomandibular joint disorders (TMD) are not uncommon in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, the extent of involvement and its clinical relevance have not been well characterized. This study evaluated the correlation between the severity of RA-related TMD and RA, as well as determined the potential predictors for early identification and management of TMD in RA patients.MethodsWe sequentially recruited 56 adult RA patients from our Arthritis Clinic. TMD and RA were surveyed, clinically by questionnaires and physical examinations, and radiologically by tomography in TMD and conventional radiography in RA. The patients were stratified into no, mild and severe TMD groups according to the physical and tomographic examinations. The correlation of the severity of TMD and RA were evaluated. The relative importance of relevant predictors of severe TMD was analyzed by a logistic regression model.ResultsPhysical and radiologic temporomandibular joint abnormalities were found to be highly prevalent (85.7% and 74.5%) in these patients, and the occurrence increased to as much as 92.9% when the 2 data sets were combined. More than half of the patients had severe TMD presenting with debilitating symptoms or with a significant degree of bony destruction. The severity of TMD was variably correlated with RA severity. The score of hand-joint space narrowing was found to be the most influential predictor of severe TMD by logistic regression analysis.ConclusionThere was a high prevalence of TMD in RA patients. The severity of TMD variably correlated with RA severity. Clinically, a high score of hand-joint space narrowing may serve as an early indicator of RA patients at risk of severe TMD. This may facilitate early management and prevent the functional impairment of the temporomandibular joint

Liquid biopsy genotyping in lung cancer: ready for clinical utility?

Liquid biopsy is a blood test that detects evidence of cancer cells or tumor DNA in the circulation. Despite complicated collection methods and the requirement for technique-dependent platforms, it has generated substantial interest due, in part, to its potential to detect driver oncogenes such as epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutants in lung cancer. This technology is advancing rapidly and is being incorporated into numerous EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR-TKI) development programs. It appears ready for integration into clinical care. Recent studies have demonstrated that biological fluids such as saliva and urine can also be used for detecting EGFR mutant DNA through application other user-friendly techniques. This review focuses on the clinical application of liquid biopsies to lung cancer genotyping, including EGFR and other targets of genotype-directed therapy and compares multiple platforms used for liquid biopsy

Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome: A Single-institution Experience

Background:Superior mesenteric artery syndrome (SMAS) is a rare disease in adult. SMAS is characterized by acute, or, more commonly, chronic nonspecific symptoms due to duodenal obstruction and severe malnutrition with reduced arterio-mesenteric angle and distance. Surgical treatment may be necessary in most cases with chronic symptoms or when conservative treatment fails in SMAS.Methods:A retrospective chart review was performed on patients who underwent operation for SMAS from January 2008 to August 2020 in Cardinal Tien Hospital. Patients’ clinical presentations, surgical intervention, and outcomes.Results:Data from a total of 14 patients diagnosed with SMAS were analyzed, of which seven were diagnosed with SMAS by abdominal computed tomography and upper gastrointestinal series with water-soluble barium contrast. Six of the confirmed cases underwent surgery, namely, gastric decompression using a nasogastric tube, andcorrection of electrolyte imbalance. The nasoduodenal tube was placed through the obstructed duodenum to provide a high-nutrient fluid supplement. After conservative treatment failure, the patients underwent surgery. Of the six patients, four underwent duodenojejunostomy, one underwent a mini-laparotomy duodenojejunostomy bypass, and the last one underwent Roux-en-Y duodenojejunal bypass with duodenal feeding tube insertion.Conclusion:Patients with SMAS should initially be treated conservative. Surgical intervention should be considered in patients in whom conservative treatments were not effective.Complete resolution of all symptoms may not always be guaranteed after surgical intervention. Laparoscopy is currently widely used. In well-selected patients, minimally invasive or mini-laparotomy duodenojejunostomy is a safe and effective treatment for SMAS. The main advantages of mini-laparotomy duodenojejunostomy over other surgical approaches include half-length surgical incision and a shorter operative time. Duodenojejunostomy is rapidly becoming the standard procedure of this condition, and it has excellent outcomes comparable with those of open surgery