Publications by authors named "Chou J"

Better understanding how behavioral health professions students were impacted by COVID-19 can help educators inform their education practices. The present study examined the impact of COVID-19 among  = 83 students enrolled in two universities across five graduate-level behavioral health training programs - clinical mental health counseling, marriage and family therapy, psychiatric nursing, and social work. Participants completed the Epidemic-Pandemic Impacts Inventory (EPII), and descriptive statistics were examined.

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Objective: To investigate the predictive ability of the MRI-based vertebral bone quality (VBQ) score for pedicle screw loosening following instrumented transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF).

Methods: Data from patients who have received one or two-level instrumented TLIF from February 2014 to March 2015 were retrospectively collected. Pedicle screw loosening was diagnosed when the radiolucent zone around the screw exceeded 1 mm in plain radiographs.

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Epidemiologic studies have shown a continuous increase in mortality risk associated with overweight, thus highlighting the health risks beginning before the onset of obesity. However, early changes in inflammatory signaling induced by an obesogenic diet remain largely unknown since studies of obesity typically utilize models induced by months of continuous exposure to a high-fat diet. Here, we investigated how short-term overfeeding remodels inflammatory signaling.

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Clinical guidelines typically endorse conventional therapies such as 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) as the mainstay of ulcerative colitis management. However, the degree of adoption and application of guideline recommendations by physicians within Asia remains unclear. This study aims to understand the prescribing patterns of 5-ASA and implementation of current guideline recommendations across Asian clinical practice.

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Nearly all pancreatic adenocarcinomas (PDAC) are genomically characterized by KRAS exon 2 mutations. Most patients with PDAC present with advanced disease and are treated with cytotoxic therapy. Genomic biomarkers prognostic of disease outcomes have been challenging to identify.

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Containing infectious disease outbreaks is a complex challenge that usually requires the deployment of multiple intervention strategies. While mathematical modeling of infectious diseases is a widely accepted tool to evaluate intervention strategies, most models and studies overlook the interdependence between individuals' reactions to simultaneously implemented interventions. Intervention modeling efforts typically assume that individual adherence decisions are independent of each other.

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ConspectusLipids are essential for life and serve as cell envelope components, signaling molecules, and nutrients. For lipids to achieve their required functions, they need to be correctly localized. This requires the action of transporter proteins and an energy source.

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Introduction: We explored the clinical characteristics, treatment, and outcomes of colitis-associated colorectal cancer (CAC) and compared with sporadic colorectal cancer in Taiwan.

Methods: In this retrospective study spanning 1987-2022, CACs diagnosed according to endoscopic and pathological reports from 14 tertiary centers were reported to our cohort. Clinical demographics, endoscopic findings, histological results, treatment modalities, and outcomes were analyzed.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on detecting multijet signatures from proton-proton collisions at a high energy of 13 TeV, analyzing a dataset totaling 128 fb^{-1}.
  • A special data scouting method is utilized to pick out events with low combined momentum in jets.
  • This research is pioneering in its investigation of electroweak particle production in R-parity violating supersymmetric models, particularly examining hadronically decaying mass-degenerate higgsinos, and it broadens the limits on the existence of R-parity violating top squarks and gluinos.
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Boston Children's Hospital has established a genomic sequencing and analysis research initiative to improve clinical care for pediatric rare disease patients. Through the Children's Rare Disease Collaborative (CRDC), the hospital offers CLIA-grade exome and genome sequencing, along with other sequencing types, to patients enrolled in specialized rare disease research studies. The data, consented for broad research use, are harmonized and analyzed with CRDC-supported variant interpretation tools.

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In health insurance, "moral hazard" describes the concept that coverage without an out-of-pocket cost to consumers could result in health care utilization beyond economically efficient levels. In response, payers in the United States (US) have designed pharmaceutical benefit plans with significant cost exposure (e.g.

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The first search for soft unclustered energy patterns (SUEPs) is performed using an integrated luminosity of 138  fb^{-1} of proton-proton collision data at sqrt[s]=13  TeV, collected in 2016-2018 by the CMS detector at the LHC. Such SUEPs are predicted by hidden valley models with a new, confining force with a large 't Hooft coupling. In events with boosted topologies, selected by high-threshold hadronic triggers, the multiplicity and sphericity of clustered tracks are used to reject the background from standard model quantum chromodynamics.

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Previous studies suggest that patients with diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) frequently do not receive the minimum effective doses of a gabapentinoid according to guidance from national organizations. There is opportunity to assess the implementation of pharmacist intervention for patients not meeting minimum effective gabapentinoid dosing for DPN. This prospective, single site quality improvement project was conducted at a primary care clinic and included patients with DPN prescribed a gabapentinoid by their primary care provider (PCP) at a dose lower than minimum effective dosing.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on pancreatic acinar cell carcinoma (pACC), a rare type of pancreatic cancer, highlighting its clinical characteristics, genetic mutations, and patient survival outcomes.
  • A total of 61 patients who underwent surgery between 1999 and 2022 were analyzed, showing a median overall survival of 73 months and a recurrence-free survival of 22 months; those with oligometastatic disease had even better outcomes.
  • Significant genetic findings included mutations in core genes related to DNA repair pathways in 26% of patients, indicating potential avenues for targeted treatment.
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Introduction: Consultation audio recordings improve patient decision-making but are underutilized. Patient-administered recording apps on mobile devices may increase access, but implementation has not been evaluated.

Methods: We conducted a single-arm study delivering education, coaching, and reminders for patients to record their appointment using a mobile recording app.

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Article Synopsis
  • High-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC) shows resistance to immunotherapy but some patients have partial or complete responses, indicating a potential molecular basis for immunity in specific subpopulations.
  • An algorithm called CONSTRU was developed to analyze gene expression profiles in HGSC and identify genetic factors that influence the effectiveness of anti-tumor immunity, resulting in a stratification signature (STRATsig) that divides patients into groups based on their immune response.
  • Results indicated that patient survival and immune function varied significantly among these groups, with one group (S-T1) exhibiting strong immune suppression and dysfunction, while another group (S-T3) showed improved immune function, antigen presentation, and survival benefits correlated with genetic mutations.
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This study investigates the relationship between intraocular pressure (IOP), optical coherence tomography (OCT) parameters, and visual field (VF) outcomes in 'Green' patients-those with normal OCT findings but potential VF abnormalities. Understanding this relationship is crucial for improving early detection and management strategies for glaucoma, especially in patients who show functional loss despite normal structural findings on OCT. A cross-sectional study was conducted at Taipei City Hospital, Renai Branch, Taiwan, from July 1, 2015, to July 1, 2023.

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Despite the abundance of somatic structural variations (SVs) in cancer, the underlying molecular mechanisms of their formation remain unclear. In the present study, we used 6,193 whole-genome sequenced tumors to study the contributions of transcription and DNA replication collisions to genome instability. After deconvoluting robust SV signatures in three independent pan-cancer cohorts, we detected transcription-dependent, replicated-strand bias, the expected footprint of transcription-replication collision (TRC), in large tandem duplications (TDs).

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Background: Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is a precise and effective treatment for pulmonary oligometastases, offering high local control (LC) rates. However, the optimal SBRT dose when combined with immunotherapy remains unclear, and there is a lack of comprehensive studies focusing on dose optimization in this setting. This study addresses this knowledge gap by exploring different SBRT dose regimens and their impact on progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), and LC in patients receiving concurrent immunotherapy, offering novel insights into the synergistic effects of these treatments.

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The role of TGF-β signaling in the epigenetic modifications involved in ovarian cancer is not fully understood. This study investigated the relationship between TGF-β signaling, epigenetic modifications, and cellular behaviors in ovarian cancer. We found that E-cadherin, a key cell adhesion molecule, underwent epigenetic silencing via promoter DNA hypermethylation in ovarian cancer cell lines and that this was accompanied by the upregulation of vimentin, which is indicative of a mesenchymal and invasive phenotype.

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Anatase TiO is commonly used as a catalyst/support in reactions involving HO, yet the understanding of interactions between common TiO surfaces and HO remains limited. Herein, we synthesized well-defined TiO crystallites with (101), (001), and fluorine-modified (001) [F-(001)] surfaces to examine how surface features, including the arrangement of five-coordinated Ti (Ti) sites and the presence of fluorine, influence HO activation. Our findings reveal that these surface features significantly affect the physiochemical properties of adsorbed HO.

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Article Synopsis
  • * The huR83C mouse model replicates the disease phenotype and has been used to test the effectiveness of BEAM-301, a treatment that utilizes lipid nanoparticles and adenine base editing to correct the harmful G6PC1-R83C variant.
  • * BEAM-301 has shown the ability to correct about 60% of the variant in liver cells, restore blood sugar control, improve overall health, and increase survival rates in mice, indicating its potential as a therapeutic option for patients with this specific genetic mutation
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Background: Thyroid cancer (TC) remains a significant clinical challenge worldwide, with a subset of patients facing aggressive disease progression and therapeutic resistance. Immune checkpoint inhibitors targeting programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) have emerged as promising therapeutic approaches for various malignancies, yet their efficacy in TC remains uncertain. The objective of this study was to investigate PD-L1 expression in aggressive TC and its association with histological subtypes, molecular mutation, and progression-free survival.

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The rising aging population underscores the need for advances in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Alterations in cellular response in microgravity might be pivotal in unraveling the intricate cellular mechanisms governing tissue and organ regeneration. Microgravity could improve multicellular spheroid, tissue, and organ formation.

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Tissue damage and repair are hallmarks of inflammation. Despite a wealth of information on the mechanisms that govern tissue damage, mechanistic insight into how inflammation affects repair is lacking. Here, we investigated how interferons influence tissue repair after damage to the intestinal mucosa.

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