The solitary fibrous tumor of the pleura (SFTP) is a rare intrathoracic neoplasm that commonly originates from the subpleural mesenchymal cells of the visceral pleura and accounts for less than 5% of all pleural tumors. We reported a case of a 54-year-old man with a two-week history of hypoglycemia, a six-month history of productive cough and fatigue, and chronic right chest pain. Radiological techniques revealed a giant intra-thoracic mass with hypervascularization, and pathological staining was carried out to make a definitive diagnosis of SFTP.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study proposes a multi-level model of institutional innovation in the healthcare sector-in other words, field-level institutional change pressures that start as network-level institutional innovation by hospitals and government for their organizational performance, with an emphasis on the effect of organizational-level construct-knowledge creation capabilities. A case study using in-depth interviews and a historical inquiry approach has been used to qualitatively analyze our cases during the development of Taiwan's National Health Insurance (NHI). Our results propose a multi-level explanation of institutional innovation by showing how field-level institutional change pressures can stimulate the government's institutional innovation at the network level.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Noninvasively and accurately predicting subcarinal lymph node metastasis (SLNM) for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains challenging. This study was designed to develop and validate a tumor and subcarinal lymph nodes (tumor-SLNs) dual-region computed tomography (CT) radiomics model for predicting SLNM in NSCLC.
Methods: This retrospective study included NSCLC patients who underwent lung resection and SLNs dissection between January 2017 and December 2020.
Kidneys are critical for the elimination of many drugs and metabolites via the urine, filtering waste and maintaining proper fluid and electrolyte balance. Emerging technologies incorporating engineered three-dimensional (3D) cell culture models, such as organoids and microphysiological systems (MPS) culture platforms, have been developed to replicate nephron function, leading to enhanced efficacy, safety, and toxicity evaluation of new drugs and environmental exposures. Organoids are tiny, self-organized three-dimensional tissue cultures derived from stem cells that can include dozens of cell types to replicate the complexity of an organ.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLancet Gastroenterol Hepatol
July 2021
Health Info Libr J
March 2022
Background: Patient-centred e-health (PCEH) focusses on the interaction between patients and physicians. However, only a limited number of studies have focussed on the design of physician-patient value cocreation mechanisms in the PCEH context. Thus, we extend Grönroos' concept of value cocreation to understand how PCEH might improve the quality of care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlcohol use disorder (AUD) is highly comorbid with depression. Withdrawal from chronic alcohol drinking results in depression and understanding brain molecular mechanisms that drive withdrawal-related depression is important for finding new drug targets to treat these comorbid conditions. Here, we performed RNA sequencing of the rat hippocampus during withdrawal from chronic alcohol drinking to discover key signaling pathways involved in alcohol withdrawal-related depressive-like behavior.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Lymph node metastasis (LNM) affects the application and outcomes of endoscopic resection in T1 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). However, reports of the risk factors for LNM have been controversial.
Aim: To evaluate risk factors for LNM in T1 ESCC.
Stressful life events are a major contributor to the development of major depressive disorder. Environmental perturbations like stress change gene expression in the brain, leading to altered behavior. Gene expression is ultimately regulated by chromatin structure and the epigenetic modifications of DNA and the histone proteins that make up chromatin.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Aims: Alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) is a common chronic liver disease worldwide with high morbidity and mortality, and no Food and Drug Administration-approved therapies. Fructose (dietary or endogenous), its metabolite uric acid, and aldose reductase (AR, the only endogenous enzyme that produces fructose) are strongly associated with the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. However, the role of AR or its metabolites in ALD remains understudied and was examined using human specimens, cultured cells, and mouse model systems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWithdrawal from chronic alcohol drinking can cause depression, leading to an inability to function in daily life and an increased risk for relapse to harmful drinking. Understanding the causes of alcohol withdrawal-related depression may lead to new therapeutic targets for treatment. Epigenetic factors have recently emerged as important contributors to both depression and alcohol use disorder (AUD).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol
January 2019
Alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) remains a major health concern worldwide. Alcohol consumption gives rise to reactive/toxic acrolein, a pathogenic mediator of liver injury in experimental ALD. Elevated acrolein adducts and metabolites are detectable in blood and urine.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIEEE Trans Image Process
February 2018
Convolutional neural networks are currently the state-of-the-art solution for a wide range of image processing tasks. Their deep architecture extracts low and high-level features from images, thus, improving the model's performance. In this paper, we propose a method for image demosaicking based on deep convolutional neural networks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDrug addiction can be conceptualized at a basic level as maladaptive learning and memory. Addictive substances elicit changes in brain circuitry involved in reward, cognition, and emotional state, leading to the formation and persistence of strong drug-associated memories that lead to craving and relapse. Recently, perineuronal nets (PNNs), extracellular matrix (ECM) structures surrounding neurons, have emerged as regulators of learning, memory, and addiction behaviors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIncreasing evidence suggests that environmental and dietary factors can affect intestinal epithelial integrity leading to gut permeability and bacterial translocation. Intestinal barrier dysfunction is a pathogenic process associated with many chronic disorders. Acrolein is an environmental and dietary pollutant and a lipid-derived endogenous metabolite.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Health Plann Manage
January 2018
Hospitals in Taiwan are facing major changes and innovation is increasingly becoming a critical factor for remaining competitive. One determinant that can have a significant impact on innovation is hospital governance. However, there is limited prior research on the relationship between hospital governance and innovation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCell Mol Gastroenterol Hepatol
September 2016
Background & Aims: Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality, with no Food and Drug Administration-approved therapy. Chronic alcohol consumption causes a pro-oxidant environment and increases hepatic lipid peroxidation, with acrolein being the most reactive/toxic by-product. This study investigated the pathogenic role of acrolein in hepatic endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, steatosis, and injury in experimental ALD, and tested acrolein elimination/scavenging (using hydralazine) as a potential therapy in ALD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFZidovudine (AZT) remains the mainstay of antiretroviral therapy against HIV in resource-poor countries; however, its use is frequently associated with hepatotoxicity. Not all HIV patients on AZT develop hepatotoxicity, and the determining factors are unclear. Alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking are known risk factors for HIV hepatotoxicity, and both are significant sources of acrolein, a highly reactive and toxic aldehyde.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Health Plann Manage
February 2017
The main purpose of this study is to develop an innovation model for hospital organisations. For this purpose, this study explores and examines the determinants, capabilities and performance in the hospital sector. First, this discusses three categories of determinants that affect hospitals' innovative capability studies: (1) knowledge stock; (2) social ties; and (3) institutional pressures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe main purpose of this study was to investigate the agency problem presented by the global budget system followed by hospitals in Taiwan. In this study, we examine empirically the interaction between the principal: Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI) and agency: medical service providers (hospitals); we also describe actual medical service provider and hospital governance conditions from a agency theory perspective. This study identified a positive correlation between aversion to agency hazard (self-interest behavior, asymmetric information, and risk hedging) and agency problem risks (disregard of medical ethics, pursuit of extra-contract profit, disregard of professionalism, and cost orientation).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe previous literature provides evidence that the characteristics of a successful computer system and the informatics competencies of individuals play a critical role in the adoption of information technology. However, while the combined effects of the two may provide a comprehensive view in understanding nursing informatics research, they have rarely been studied simultaneously. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the influences of computer system success and informatics competencies on nursing organizational impact.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Health Plann Manage
October 2010
This paper aims to develop a professional knowledge creation model for the hospital sector. For this purpose, we qualitatively explore the determinants and process of knowledge creation in the hospital sector. Drawing from organization theory, we develop a hospital's professional knowledge creation model and develop three propositions first.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe objective of this study was to develop and validate an automated acquisition system to assess quality of care (QC) measures for cardiovascular diseases. This system combining searching and retrieval algorithms was designed to extract QC measures from electronic discharge notes and to estimate the attainment rates to the current standards of care. It was developed on the patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction and tested on the patients with unstable angina/non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction, both diseases sharing almost the same QC measures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The main purposes of this study are to clarify the agency problems in the hospitals participating in self-management project within the context of Global Budgeting Payment System regulated by Taiwan government, and also to provide some suggestions for hospital administrator and health policy maker in reducing the waste of healthcare resources resulting from agency problems.
Method: For the purposes above, this study examines the relationships between two agency problems (ex ante moral hazard and ex post moral hazard) aroused among the hospitals and Bureau of National Health Insurance in Taiwan's health care sector. This study empirically tested the theoretical model at organization level.
Xanthine oxidase (XOD) catalyzes the oxidation of hypoxanthine to xanthine and then to uric acid, and is a key enzyme in the pathogenesis of hyperuricemia. The ability of extracts of Lonicera hypoglauca (Caprifoliaceae) to inhibit XOD was investigated in this study. An ethanol extract (LH-crude) of the leaves of L.
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