Publications by authors named "Huei-Ru Lin"

Synthetic cathinones constitute a major class of the new psychoactive substances (NPS) that have come to dominate recreational drug abuse in recent years. As synthetic cathinones are all chiral molecules, the use of chiral analysis to determine their enantiomeric ratios (ER) in seized drug samples can assist in the identification of the precursor chemicals and manufacturing processes used in production, thereby contributing to drug intelligence. In addition, as different enantiomers of synthetic cathinones vary in biological activity and toxicology, chiral analysis can support research into the physiological properties and side effects of seized drugs, thus enabling better treatment for overdose or addiction.

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Dendritic cell (DC)-based vaccine has been established in tumor immunotherapy. Importantly, the efficiency of anti-tumor T-cells in draining lymph nodes is dependent on the status of DCs surrounding in tumors. It has been shown that Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) plays a key role to induce tolerogenic DCs in tumor microenvironment, and tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) can suppress the function of IDO in DCs.

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Objective: This study aimed to clarify the difference in (1) long-term care (LTC) usage and expenditure and (2) medical care service usage and expenditure before and after the change in the copayment limit for qualifying individuals from 10% to 20%.

Setting And Participants: This quasi-experimental longitudinal design used the database from 1 prefecture of Japan that included 570,434 person-month records of 23,879 insured individuals (in August 2014) who used LTC services between August 2014 and July 2015 and were aged 65 years and older on August 1, 2014.

Methods: We conducted difference-in-difference estimations to compare "before" and "after" outcome differences between insured individuals whose LTC copayment increased to 20% and those whose copayment remained at 10%.

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Pigeon pea ( (L.) Millsp.) is a legume crop consumed as an indigenous vegetable in the human diet and a traditional medicinal plant with therapeutic properties.

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Benzodiazepines is a large drug group used extensively to treat sleep disorders and anxiety; these drugs are frequently associated with various crimes such as murder and drug-facilitated sexual assault. With growing use and misuse of these compounds, confirmatory assays are increasingly required in clinical laboratories. In this study, 4 β-glucuronidase enzymes were systematically evaluated for their hydrolysis efficiencies.

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Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) is an important plant hormone, and many types of bacteria interact with plants by producing or degrading IAA in the rhizosphere. The iac (indole-3-acetic acid catabolism) gene locus in Acinetobacter baumannii ATCC19606 was previously associated with IAA degradative capability, and in this study, transcriptome analysis results derived from A. baumannii cultured with IAA showed that the expression of catechol-degrading and phenylacetate-degrading genes was elevated, indicating that IAA is likely degraded through these pathways.

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In Japan, the prevalence of dementia is expected to reach 4.7 million by 2025. This study aimed to develop a risk score for the prediction of incident dementia in community-dwelling older adults.

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Background: Japan is known for its long life expectancy and rapidly aging society that there are various demands of older adults need to be fulfilled with, and one of them is long-term care needs. Therefore, Japan implemented the Long-Term Care Insurance in year 2000 for citizens who are above 65-year old and citizens who are above 40-year old in needs of long-term care services. This study was undertaken to longitudinally examine the influence of dementia and living alone on care needs increases among older long-term care insurance service users in Japan.

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Background: The emergence and spread of carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii poses a challenge for optimizing antibiotic therapies and preventing outbreaks. Traditional phenotypic assays such as the modified Hodge test (MHT) or polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based detection of the carbapenemase genes are time-consuming and complicated. Therefore, new approaches for the efficient detection of carbapenemase-producing A.

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The controlled breaking of a specific chemical bond with photons in complex molecules remains a major challenge in chemistry. In principle, using the K-edge absorption of a particular atomic element, one might excite selectively a specific atomic entity in a molecule. We report here highly selective dissociation of the peptide bonds in N-methylformamide and N-methylacetamide on tuning the X-ray wavelength to the K-edge absorption of the atoms connected to (or near) the peptide bond.

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Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) is produced from tryptophan through five synthesis pathways. A comprehensive method for the quantification of IAA and biosynthesis-related intermediates in a culture medium was developed. Sample preparation was simple with protein precipitation.

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To investigate the associations between dementia, the use of long-term care (LTC) services, and the deterioration of care-needs levels of elderly persons in Japan. Using a retrospective cohort study, we analyzed 50,268 insurance beneficiaries aged 65 years and older who had utilized LTC services between 2010 and 2011 in Kyoto prefecture, Japan. Logistic regression analyses were used to identify predictors of care-needs level deterioration.

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Background: Carbapenem-resistance in Acinetobacter baumannii has gradually become a global challenge. To identify the genes involved in carbapenem resistance in A. baumannii, the transcriptomic responses of the completely sequenced strain ATCC 17978 selected with 0.

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Rationale: Although two multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) transitions per compound are used for identification performed using liquid chromatography/triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (LC/QqQ-MS/MS), differences in identification criteria among several regulations may lead to misidentification. We demonstrated that the use of two MRM transitions and product ion spectra improves compound identification.

Methods: The scan cycle time was reduced using time-scheduled MRM (tMRM), data-dependent product ion scanning, and dynamic exclusion.

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The rise in amphetamine, ketamine and opiates abuse in Taiwan has created a need for a reliable confirmatory assay. A method that combines superficially porous liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) with solid-phase extraction (SPE) was developed for the simultaneous quantification of amphetamine, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), ketamine, opiates, and their corresponding metabolites in urine. The total run time of the method was 6.

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For monitoring compliance of methadone or buprenorphine maintenance patient, a method for the simultaneous determination of methadone, 2-ethylidene-1,5-dimethyl-3,3-diphenylpyrrolidine (EDDP), buprenorphine, norbuprenorphine, opiates (morphine, codeine, 6-monoacetylmorphine) in urine by superficially porous liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry was developed and validated. After enzyme digestion and liquid-liquid extraction, reverse-phase separation was achieved in 5.2 min and quantification was performed by multiple reaction monitoring.

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Background: Acute exposure of ethanol (alcohol) inhibits NMDA receptor function. Our previous study showed that acute ethanol inhibited the pressor responses induced by NMDA applied intrathecally; however, prolonged ethanol exposure may increase the levels of phosphorylated NMDA receptor subunits leading to changes in ethanol inhibitory potency on NMDA-induced responses. The present study was carried out to examine whether acute ethanol exposure influences the effects of ketamine, a noncompetitive NMDA receptor antagonist, on spinal NMDA-induced pressor responses.

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A convenient synthesis of ketamine metabolite dehydronorketamine-d(4), starting from commercially available deuterium labeled bromochlorobenzene, was achieved. Key steps include Grignard reaction, regioselective hydroxybromination, Staudinger reduction, and dehydrohalogenation.

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Plant HSP101 has dual activities, first, in conferring thermotolerance, and secondly, in serving as a translational activator. In this study, we introduced Oryza sativa Hsp101 (osHsp101) cDNA into tobacco by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Stable integration and expression of the transgene into the tobacco genome was demonstrated by Southern and Western blot analysis.

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A method for the simultaneous determination of amphetamines and ketamines (ketamine, norketamine and dehydronorketamine) in urine samples by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry was developed and validated. Urine samples were extracted with organic solvent and derivatized with trifluoroacetic anhydride (TFAA). The limits of detection and limits of quantification for each analyte were lower than 19 and 30 ng/mL, respectively.

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Drug abuse patterns are different due to cultural, social and geographical differences. Methamphetamine (MA) is the most important drug of abuse in Taiwan followed by opiates. Recently, there has been an increase of ketamine and MDMA abuse in disco dancing clubs.

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