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"Tai, Lin"
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Computational intelligence aided systems for healthcare domain
\"The text covers recent advances in artificial intelligence, smart computing, and their applications in augmenting medical and health care systems. It will serve as an ideal reference text for graduate students and academic researchers in diverse engineering fields including electrical, electronics and communication, computer, and biomedical\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Impact of Wearing Masks, Hand Hygiene, and Social Distancing on Influenza, Enterovirus, and All-Cause Pneumonia During the Coronavirus Pandemic: Retrospective National Epidemiological Surveillance Study
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is an important health crisis worldwide. Several strategies were implemented to combat COVID-19, including wearing masks, hand hygiene, and social distancing. The impact of these strategies on COVID-19 and other viral infections remains largely unclear.
We aim to investigate the impact of implemented infectious control strategies on the incidences of influenza, enterovirus infection, and all-cause pneumonia during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We utilized the electronic database of the Taiwan National Infectious Disease Statistics System and extracted incidences of COVID-19, influenza virus, enterovirus, and all-cause pneumonia. We compared the incidences of these diseases from week 45 of 2016 to week 21 of 2020 and performed linear regression analyses.
The first case of COVID-19 in Taiwan was reported in late January 2020 (week 4). Infectious control strategies have been promoted since late January. The influenza virus usually peaks in winter and decreases around week 14. However, a significant decrease in influenza was observed after week 6 of 2020. Regression analyses produced the following results: 2017, R
=0.037; 2018, R
=0.021; 2019, R
=0.046; and 2020, R
=0.599. A dramatic decrease in all-cause pneumonia was also reported (R
values for 2017-2020 were 0.435, 0.098, 0.352, and 0.82, respectively). Enterovirus had increased by week 18 in 2017-2019, but this was not observed in 2020.
Using this national epidemiological database, we found a significant decrease in cases of influenza, enterovirus, and all-cause pneumonia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Wearing masks, hand hygiene, and social distancing may contribute not only to the prevention of COVID-19 but also to the decline of other respiratory infectious diseases. Further studies are warranted to elucidate the causal relationship.
Journal Article
A White Random Laser
Random laser with intrinsically uncomplicated fabrication processes, high spectral radiance, angle-free emission, and conformal onto freeform surfaces is in principle ideal for a variety of applications, ranging from lighting to identification systems. In this work, a white random laser (White-RL) with high-purity and high-stability is designed, fabricated, and demonstrated
via
the cost-effective materials (
e.g
., organic laser dyes) and simple methods (
e.g
., all-solution process and self-assembled structures). Notably, the wavelength, linewidth, and intensity of White-RL are nearly isotropic, nevertheless hard to be achieved in any conventional laser systems. Dynamically fine-tuning colour over a broad visible range is also feasible by on-chip integration of three free-standing monochromatic laser films with selective pumping scheme and appropriate colour balance. With these schematics, White-RL shows great potential and high application values in high-brightness illumination, full-field imaging, full-colour displays, visible-colour communications, and medical biosensing.
Journal Article
An Update on Gene Therapy for Inherited Retinal Dystrophy: Experience in Leber Congenital Amaurosis Clinical Trials
Inherited retinal dystrophies (IRDs) are a group of rare eye diseases caused by gene mutations that result in the degradation of cone and rod photoreceptors or the retinal pigment epithelium. Retinal degradation progress is often irreversible, with clinical manifestations including color or night blindness, peripheral visual defects and subsequent vision loss. Thus, gene therapies that restore functional retinal proteins by either replenishing unmutated genes or truncating mutated genes are needed. Coincidentally, the eye’s accessibility and immune-privileged status along with major advances in gene identification and gene delivery systems heralded gene therapies for IRDs. Among these clinical trials, voretigene neparvovec-rzyl (Luxturna), an adeno-associated virus vector-based gene therapy drug, was approved by the FDA for treating patients with confirmed biallelic RPE65 mutation-associated Leber Congenital Amaurosis (LCA) in 2017. This review includes current IRD gene therapy clinical trials and further summarizes preclinical studies and therapeutic strategies for LCA, including adeno-associated virus-based gene augmentation therapy, 11-cis-retinal replacement, RNA-based antisense oligonucleotide therapy and CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing therapy. Understanding the gene therapy development for LCA may accelerate and predict the potential hurdles of future therapeutics translation. It may also serve as the template for the research and development of treatment for other IRDs.
Journal Article
Temporal trends of food consumption patterns in Tuvalu under the context of climate change: COMmunity-based Behavior and Attitude survey in Tuvalu (COMBAT) since 2020
•Tuvalu faces triple threats of obesity, climate change, and food insecurity.•The nutritional status, health and climate factors in Tuvalu are understudied.•Prevalence of obesity was consistently high in Tuvalu, while food consumption patterns varied between the two surveys.•Climate changes in Tuvalu predict increasing trends in temperature and sea level.•Precision public health interventions are needed within the context of the triple threat faced in Tuvalu.
The aim of this study was to analyze temporal trends of food consumption patterns, attitudes, and health-related knowledge in Tuvalu, a small Pacific Island country facing the triple threat of obesity, climate change, and food insecurity.
Two waves of the COMmunity-based Behavior and Attitude (COMBAT) survey were conducted in 2020 and 2022. Descriptive characteristics of changes in obesity proportion, food intake, and sociodemographic factors were assessed. Additionally, this study also integrates individual climate data utilizing satellite-based prediction models, and estimates historical temperature, precipitation, and sea level trends among all islands in Tuvalu.
The study revealed a high obesity proportion among adults (69.5% in 2020, 73.2% in 2022) and an increase in the percentage of adolescents with a high waist circumference. Variations in food intake were also observed between the two waves of the survey.
The data collected in the COMBAT study provides valuable insights for future epidemiological research to elucidate the associations and causal relationships between climate change, food security, and non-communicable diseases in Tuvalu.
Journal Article
Circulating miRNAs Act as Diagnostic Biomarkers for Bladder Cancer in Urine
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) can be secreted into body fluids and have thus been reported as a new type of cancer biomarker. This study aimed to determine whether urinary miRNAs act as noninvasive biomarkers for diagnosing bladder cancer. Small RNA profiles from urine were generated for 10 patients with bladder cancer and 10 healthy controls by using next-generation sequencing. We identified 50 urinary miRNAs that were differentially expressed in bladder cancer compared with controls, comprising 44 upregulated and six downregulated miRNAs. Pathway enrichment analysis revealed that the biological role of these differentially expressed miRNAs might be involved in cancer-associated signaling pathways. Further analysis of the public database revealed that let-7b-5p, miR-149-5p, miR-146a-5p, miR-193a-5p, and miR-423-5p were significantly increased in bladder cancer compared with corresponding adjacent normal tissues. Furthermore, high miR-149-5p and miR-193a-5p expression was significantly correlated with poor overall survival in patients with bladder cancer. The qRT-PCR approach revealed that the expression levels of let-7b-5p, miR-149-5p, miR-146a-5p and miR-423-5p were significantly increased in the urine of patients with bladder cancer compared with those of controls. Although our results indicated that urinary miRNAs are promising biomarkers for diagnosing bladder cancer, this must be validated in larger cohorts in the future.
Journal Article
Neural Network-Based Strong Motion Prediction for On-Site Earthquake Early Warning
Developing on-site earthquake early warning systems has been a challenging problem because of time limitations and the amount of information that can be collected before the warning needs to be issued. A potential solution that could prevent severe disasters is to predict the potential strong motion using the initial P-wave signal and provide warnings before serious ground shaking starts. In practice, the accuracy of prediction is the most critical issue for earthquake early warning systems. Traditional methods use certain criteria, selected through intuition or experience, to make the prediction. However, the criteria thresholds are difficult to select and may significantly affect the prediction accuracy. This paper investigates methods based on artificial intelligence for predicting the greatest earthquake ground motion early, when the P-wave arrives at seismograph stations. A neural network model is built to make the predictions using a small window of the initial P-wave acceleration signal. The model is trained by seismic waves collected from 1991 to 2019 in Taiwan and is evaluated by events in 2020 and 2021. From these evaluations, the proposed scheme significantly outperforms the threshold-based method in terms of its accuracy and average leading time.
Journal Article
Nanoparticles-mediated CRISPR-Cas9 gene therapy in inherited retinal diseases: applications, challenges, and emerging opportunities
Inherited Retinal Diseases (IRDs) are considered one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide. However, the majority of them still lack a safe and effective treatment due to their complexity and genetic heterogeneity. Recently, gene therapy is gaining importance as an efficient strategy to address IRDs which were previously considered incurable. The development of the clustered regularly-interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) system has strongly empowered the field of gene therapy. However, successful gene modifications rely on the efficient delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 components into the complex three-dimensional (3D) architecture of the human retinal tissue. Intriguing findings in the field of nanoparticles (NPs) meet all the criteria required for CRISPR-Cas9 delivery and have made a great contribution toward its therapeutic applications. In addition, exploiting induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology and in vitro 3D retinal organoids paved the way for prospective clinical trials of the CRISPR-Cas9 system in treating IRDs. This review highlights important advances in NP-based gene therapy, the CRISPR-Cas9 system, and iPSC-derived retinal organoids with a focus on IRDs. Collectively, these studies establish a multidisciplinary approach by integrating nanomedicine and stem cell technologies and demonstrate the utility of retina organoids in developing effective therapies for IRDs.
Journal Article
Effective and Selective Recovery of Precious Metals by Thiourea Modified Magnetic Nanoparticles
Adsorption of precious metals in acidic aqueous solutions using thiourea modified magnetic magnetite nanoparticle (MNP-Tu) was examined. The MNP-Tu was synthesized, characterized and examined as a reusable adsorbent for the recovery of precious metals. The adsorption kinetics were well fitted with pseudo second-order equation while the adsorption isotherms were fitted with both Langmuir and Freundlich equations. The maximum adsorption capacity of precious metals for MNP-Tu determined by Langmuir model was 43.34, 118.46 and 111.58 mg/g for Pt(IV), Au(III) and Pd(II), respectively at pH 2 and 25 °C. MNP-Tu has high adsorption selectivity towards precious metals even in the presence of competing ions (Cu(II)) at high concentrations. In addition, the MNP-Tu can be regenerated using an aqueous solution containing 0.7 M thiourea and 2% HCl where precious metals can be recovered in a concentrated form. It was found that the MNP-Tu undergoing seven consecutive adsorption-desorption cycles still retained the original adsorption capacity of precious metals. A reductive adsorption resulting in the formation of elemental gold and palladium at the surface of MNP-Tu was observed.
Journal Article
Downregulation of STK4 promotes colon cancer invasion/migration through blocking β‐catenin degradation
Here, we found that STK4 was significantly downregulated in colon cancer and was associated with distal metastasis and poor survival. STK4 colocalized with β‐catenin and directly phosphorylated β‐catenin resulting in its degradation via the ubiquitin‐mediated pathway. This may suggest that STK4 knockdown causes β‐catenin phosphorylation failure and subsequently β‐catenin accumulation, consequently leading to anchorage‐independent growth and metastasis in colon cancer. Mammalian STE20‐like kinase 1 (MST1/STK4/KRS2) encodes a serine/threonine kinase that is the mammalian homolog of Drosophila Hippo. STK4 plays an important role in controlling cell growth, apoptosis, and organ size. STK4 has been studied in many cancers with previous studies indicating an involvement in colon cancer lymph node metastasis and highlighting its potential as a diagnostic marker for colon cancer. However, the role of STK4 defect in promoting colon cancer progression is still understudied. Here, we found that STK4 was significantly downregulated in colon cancer and was associated with distal metastasis and poor survival. Furthermore, STK4 knockdown enhanced sphere formation and metastasis in vitro and promoted tumor development in vivo. We found that STK4 colocalized with β‐catenin and directly phosphorylated β‐catenin resulting in its degradation via the ubiquitin‐mediated pathway. This may suggest that STK4 knockdown causes β‐catenin phosphorylation failure and subsequently β‐catenin accumulation, consequently leading to anchorage‐independent growth and metastasis in colon cancer. Our results support that STK4 may act as a potential candidate for the assessment of β‐catenin‐mediated colon cancer prognosis.
Journal Article