A Practical Curriculum Design and Learning Effectiveness Evaluation of Competence-Oriented Instruction Strategy Integration: A Case Study of Taiwan Skills-Based Senior High School.

The 12-Year Basic Education Curricula not only follow the objectives of previous curriculum syllabus development, but they place more focus on competence-oriented instruction, which aims to emphasize the importance of combining the curriculum with life situations that are not solely based on learning knowledge and skills. This study aims to investigate the results of the students' learning effectiveness and learning engagement after adding competence-oriented instructional strategies into electrical engineering practical subjects offered by the Department of Electrical Engineering in skills-based senior high schools, and, at the same time, to figure out the difference in learning effectiveness using different instructional strategies. Two classes of students from the Department of Electrical Engineering major in electrical engineering practical subjects in one skills-based senior high school in Central Taiwan were chosen as the participants for this study.

Evaluation of Reablement Home Care: Effects on Care Attendants, Care Recipients, and Family Caregivers.

Background: The traditional home care model entails caring "for" people with disabilities, not "with" them. Reablement care has been applied to long-term care, but the evidence for care attendants, home care recipients, and family caregivers simultaneously is limited.

Methods: First, a survey was conducted to explore the needs of home care recipients and family caregivers to achieve independence at home to develop the reablement home care model for home care.

Effects of Art and Reminiscence Therapy on Agitated Behaviors Among Older Adults With Dementia.

Background: Cognitive degeneration and agitated behavior symptoms of dementia in older adults are the main causes of disability and inability and increase the cost of medical care. Agitated behavior symptoms of dementia are the main causes of early institutionalization and make caregivers exhausted.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the effects of art therapy and reminiscence therapy on the alleviation of agitated behaviors in older adults with dementia.

Reversal of bleomycin-induced rat pulmonary fibrosis by a xenograft of human umbilical mesenchymal stem cells from Wharton's jelly.

Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is a progressive and irreversible condition with various causes, and no effective treatment has been found to rescue fibrotic lungs. Successful recovery from PF requires inhibiting inflammation, promoting collagen degradation and stimulating alveolar regeneration. Human umbilical mesenchymal stem cells (HUMSCs) not only regulate immune responses but also synthesize and release hyaluronan to improve lung regeneration.

A Mechanical Sensor Designed for Dynamic Joint Angle Measurement.

. The measurement of the functional range of motion (FROM) of lower limb joints is an essential parameter for gait analysis especially in evaluating rehabilitation programs. .

Higher levels of objectively measured sedentary behavior is associated with worse cognitive ability: Two-year follow-up study in community-dwelling older adults.

Background: A number of cross-sectional studies have suggested that higher levels of sedentary behavior (SB) are associated with worse cognitive abilities in older age. There is a paucity of longitudinal studies investigating this relationship utilizing objectively assessed SB. This study investigated the relationship between objectively assessed SB and future cognitive abilities in a cohort of older adults.

Using nonlinear finite element models to analyse stress distribution during subluxation and torque required for dislocation of newly developed total hip structure after prosthetic impingement.

Dislocation is a serious potential complication of total hip replacement. Previous studies have proposed a newly developed total hip structure that meets the required oscillation angle of 120°, for which the chamfer on the acetabular liner rim was designed to enable the neck to impinge on the chamfer over a large area after impingement occurs. This study adopted the finite element method to further analyse the torque limits leading to dislocation and the contact stresses at the impingement and egress sites of the liner during subluxation.

Influence of the Perspectives on the Movement of One-Leg Lifting in an Interactive-Visual Virtual Environment: A Pilot Study.

Background: Numerous studies have confirmed the feasibility of active video games for clinical rehabilitation. To maximize training effectiveness, a personal program is necessary; however, little evidence is available to guide individualized game design for rehabilitation. This study assessed the perspectives and kinematic and temporal parameters of a participant's postural control in an interactive-visual virtual environment.

A Distinguishing Arterial Pulse Waves Approach by Using Image Processing and Feature Extraction Technique.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is based on five main types of diagnoses methods consisting of inspection, auscultation, olfaction, inquiry, and palpation. The most important one is palpation also called pulse diagnosis which is to measure wrist artery pulse by doctor's fingers for detecting patient's health state. In this paper, it is carried out by using a specialized pulse measuring instrument to classify one's pulse type.

Predicting Glucose Effectiveness in Chinese Participants Using Routine Measurements.

Background: Glucose effectiveness (GE) is the capacity of glucose to increase its own uptake and to maintain endogenous hepatic glucose output under basal insulin levels. In addition to decreased insulin sensitivity (IS) and impaired insulin secretion, GE plays a critical role in glucose balance in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM). In the study, we developed an equation for predicting GE.

Comparison of Antioxidant Capability after Isopropanol Salting-Out Pretreatment and n-Butanol Partition Extraction, and Identification and Evaluation of Antioxidants of Sedum formosanum N.E.Br.

Crude extracts of Sedum formosanum N.E.Br.

Liver Cancer Detection by a Simple, Inexpensive and Effective Immunosensor with Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles.

Regular monitoring of blood α-fetoprotein (AFP) and/or carcino-embryonic antigen (CEA) levels is important for the routine screening of liver cancer. However, AFP and CEA have a much lower specificity than des-γ-carboxyprothrombin (DCP) to detect liver cancer. Therefore, the study reported here was designed, to develop a screen-printed DCP immunosensor incorporating zinc oxide nanoparticles, for accurate determination of DCP.

Using white blood cell counts to predict metabolic syndrome in the elderly: A combined cross-sectional and longitudinal study.

Background: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) has an important implication from a preventive medicine perspective as early recognition and intervention will reduce associated mortality and morbidity. To better identify patients at risk for developing MetS and cardiovascular disease, we conduct a combined cross-sectional and longitudinal study to shed light on the elevated white blood cell (WBC) level in elderly.

Methods: A total of 10,463 subjects were eligible for analysis.

Single machine scheduling and due date assignment with past-sequence-dependent setup time and position-dependent processing time.

This paper considers single machine scheduling and due date assignment with setup time. The setup time is proportional to the length of the already processed jobs; that is, the setup time is past-sequence-dependent (p-s-d). It is assumed that a job's processing time depends on its position in a sequence.

Acarbose treatment and the risk of cardiovascular disease in type 2 diabetic patients: a nationwide seven-year follow-up study.

Objective: To investigate the potential benefits of acarbose treatment on cardiovascular disease (CVD) in patients with type 2 diabetes by using nationwide insurance claim dataset.

Research Design And Methods: Among 644,792 newly diagnosed type 2 diabetic patients without preexisting CVD in a nationwide cohort study, 109,139 (16.9%) who had received acarbose treatment were analyzed for CVD risk.

A new approach for noninvasive transdermal determination of blood uric acid levels.

The aims of this study were to investigate the most effective combination of physical forces from laser, electroporation, and reverse iontophoresis for noninvasive transdermal extraction of uric acid, and to develop a highly sensitive uric acid biosensor (UAB) for quantifying the uric acid extracted. It is believed that the combination of these physical forces has additional benefits for extraction of molecules other than uric acid from human skin. A diffusion cell with porcine skin was used to investigate the most effective combination of these physical forces.

Accurate method to estimate insulin resistance from multiple regression models using data of metabolic syndrome and oral glucose tolerance test.

Aims/introduction: How to measure insulin resistance (IR) accurately and conveniently is a critical issue for both clinical practice and research. In the present study, we tried to modify the β-cell function, insulin sensitivity, and glucose tolerance test (BIGTT) in patients with normal glucose tolerance (NGT) and abnormal glucose tolerance (AGT) by oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and metabolic syndrome (MetS) components.

Materials And Methods: There were 327 participants enrolled and divided into NGT or AGT.

Effects of statins on incident dementia in patients with type 2 DM: a population-based retrospective cohort study in Taiwan.

Background: Patients with Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) are prone to develop dementia. Results from a recent study indicated that statin users had lower chance of developing incident dementia. However there is little information on the potential benefits of statin use on dementia in patients with T2DM cohort.

Effects of organizational justice on organizational citizenship behaviors: mediating effects of institutional trust and affective commitment.

This study investigated the mediating role of institutional trust and affective commitment on the relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors. The study participants were 315 faculty members at 67 public/private universities of technology and vocational colleges in Taiwan. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the relationships between the variables and assess the goodness of fit of the overall model.

Carrier-suppressed modulation and self-mixing demodulation for vibration measurement.

We present a double-sideband suppressed-carrier (DSB-SC) technique achieved by an optical balanced detection approach for measuring small vibrations. The baseband signal is recovered by demodulating the DSB-SC signal with a self-mixing approach without local oscillator, which is usually required in coherent detection. The achievement of carrier suppression and vibration measurement is experimentally demonstrated, and the result closely agrees with the theoretical predictions.

Determination of linear displacement by envelope detection with maximum likelihood estimation.

We demonstrate in this report an envelope detection technique with maximum likelihood estimation in a least square sense for determining displacement. This technique is achieved by sampling the amplitudes of quadrature signals resulted from a heterodyne interferometer so that the resolution of displacement measurement of the order of λ/10(4) is experimentally verified. A phase unwrapping procedure is also described and experimentally demonstrated and indicates that the unambiguity range of displacement can be measured beyond a single wavelength.

Pricing-out effect from possible user-fee policies under Taiwan's National Health Insurance.

This article simulates the pricing-out effect due to various user-fee policies under Taiwan's National Health Insurance. Our simulation results indicate that the lower income group is more likely to be priced out of the healthcare system than the higher income group. On average, pricing-out effects are 0.

The demand for healthcare under Taiwan's national health insurance: a count data model approach.

In this paper, we estimate the demand for healthcare and explore the recent determinants of healthcare utilization under Taiwan's national health insurance. Price elasticity and quality elasticity are estimated in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the copayment policy and the possible quantity reduction owing to quality improvement under the Global Budget Payment System. Our empirical results demonstrate that, first, the price sensitivity of patients is not high enough, therefore resulting in an ineffectiveness of the copayment policy to reduce healthcare utilization and, second, the quality sensitivity of patients is high enough that providers should deliver a higher quality of care and reduce the follow-up treatments in order to avoid an overprovision of healthcare services as a result of the design of the Global Budget Payment System.

Excess noise reduction by optical technique in amplitude-sensitive heterodyne interferometer for small differential phase detection.

An amplitude-sensitive technique associated with a heterodyne interferometer for detecting small differential phase is reported. The excess noise with the amplitude-sensitive technique is reduced by optical subtraction instead of electronic subtraction. The differential phase introduced by the orthogonally polarized laser beams is converted to the amplitudes of two heterodyne interferometric signals, which presents amplitude and phase quadrature simultaneously.

Body shape dissatisfaction and obesity among Taiwanese adolescents.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to estimate the level of body shape dissatisfaction among a large sample of adolescent boys and girls within different weight categories.

Methods: A total sample of 883 adolescents aged 12 to 16 was included from junior high schools in Taipei County, Taiwan. The Contour Drawing Rating Scale was used to assess body shape dissatisfaction.