The intensity attenuation of a high-power laser is a frequent task in the measurements of optical science. Laser intensity can be attenuated by inserting an optical element, such as a partial reflector, polarizer or absorption filter. These devices are, however, not always easily applicable, especially in the case of ultra-high-power lasers, because they can alter the characteristics of a laser beam or become easily damaged. In this study, we demonstrated that the intensity of a laser beam could be effectively attenuated using a random pinhole attenuator (RPA), a device with randomly distributed pinholes, without changing the beam properties. With this device, a multi-PW laser beam was successfully attenuated and the focused beam profile was measured without any alterations of its characteristics. In addition, it was confirmed that the temporal profile of a laser pulse, including the spectral phase, was preserved. Consequently, the RPA possesses significant potential for a wide range of applications.

This study aims to examine functional idiosyncrasies of seemingly synonymous constructions and explain their frequency distributions in different spoken registers. To this end, lexical and discoursal approaches in the corpus-based research of constructions are combined to investigate how significant collocates of three suggesting constructions – namely, let's, what/how about and why don't you/we – are contextually situated in British English. Constructional analyses of the spoken part of the British National Corpus show that the three suggesting constructions primarily perform different metadiscourse and directive functions. Based on these functional variations, the present study explains the distribution and usage of the three suggesting constructions across the five spoken registers.

Objectives: Central-line–associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) has been the leading cause of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in the intensive care unit (ICU) setting. Previous studies have shown that a care bundle is effective in reducing CLABSI rates; however, the data on long-term sustainability and cost savings of bundled care are limited. Methods: From January 2011 to December 2020, a prospective surveillance was performed to monitor CLABSI at a university hospital in northern Taiwan. To reduce the CLABSI rate, a hospital-wide bundled care program for CLABSI prevention was implemented in 2013. We evaluated the long-term effect of the care bundle on CLABSI incidence and length of stay in the ICU. Results: During the study period, the overall CLABSI incidence decreased from 8.22 per 1,000 catheter days before the care bundle was implemented to 6.33 per 1,000 catheter days in 2020 (P for trend <.01). The most common pathogens causing CLABSI were gut organisms (1,420 of 2,363, 60.1%), followed by environmental organisms (734 of 2,363, 31.1%) and skin organisms (177 of 2,363, 7.5%). The decreasing trend was statistically significant in the incidence of CLABSI caused by skin organisms (P for trend < .01), but not in the incidence of CLABSI caused by environmental organisms (P for trend = .86) or gut organisms (P for trend = .06). In the multivariable analysis, implementation of this care bundle was independently associated with a decrease in the CLABSI rate (RR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.66–0.88). Compared with patients without CLABSI, patients with CLABSI had a longer average ICU length of stay (27 vs 17 days). Conclusions: A sustainable reduction in the incidence of CLABSI caused by common commensals could be achieved through a cost-saving bundled care program.

Abstract

Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a main pathogen causing community-acquired pneumonia in children and young adults. Since the emergence of macrolide-resistant M. pneumoniae in the early 2000s in Japan, it has been increasingly reported worldwide as a growing problem in treatment for children. With increasing macrolide-resistant M. pneumoniae and limited data regarding its characterization and molecular analysis, we investigated the dominant M. pneumoniae strains during the recent outbreak in South Korea, and evaluated if there was an association between a specific type and macrolide resistance. Between October 2014 and December 2016 in South Korea, 249 respiratory specimens obtained from patients with confirmed M. pneumoniae pneumonia were genotyped the P1 adhesin gene, and the mutations associated with resistance (A2063G and A2064G) were tested by sequencing the targeted domain V regions of the 23S ribosomal RNA gene. Results revealed that M. pneumoniae type 1 were predominant, which was strongly associated with macrolide-resistance during the whole study period. This is the first study assessing whether M. pneumoniae subtype is related to macrolide resistance during the outbreak of M. pneumoniae.

Text readability assessment is a challenging interdisciplinary endeavor with rich practical implications. It has long drawn the attention of researchers internationally, and the readability models since developed have been widely applied to various fields. Previous readability models have only made use of linguistic features employed for general text analysis and have not been sufficiently accurate when used to gauge domain-specific texts. In view of this, this study proposes a latent-semantic-analysis (LSA)-constructed hierarchical conceptual space that can be used to train a readability model to accurately assess domain-specific texts. Compared with a baseline reference using a traditional model, the new model improves by 13.88% to achieve 68.98% of accuracy when leveling social science texts, and by 24.61% to achieve 73.96% of accuracy when assessing natural science texts. We then combine the readability features developed for the current study with general linguistic features, and the accuracy of leveling social science texts improves by an even higher degree of 31.58% to achieve 86.68%, and that of natural science texts by 26.56% to achieve 75.91%. These results indicate that the readability features developed in this study can be used both to train a readability model for leveling domain-specific texts and also in combination with the more common linguistic features to enhance the efficacy of the model. Future research can expand the generalizability of the model by assessing texts from different fields and grade levels using the proposed method, thus enhancing the practical applications of this new method.

Over the last two decades, there has been a rapid expansion in the number of Taiwan programmes at universities in America and Europe; however, few of these Taiwan programmes have attempted to develop teaching courses. Where Taiwan courses have been introduced, they have tended to be in isolation and not well integrated into existing academic programmes. Among the universities with Taiwan programmes, only two have attempted to create comprehensive teaching programmes through which students can graduate with a degree in Taiwan studies: SOAS University of London and the University of Texas at Austin. The purpose of this paper is to compare the experiences of these two institutions in developing such niche teaching programmes. It begins with a discussion of how these two programmes first emerged and then goes on to review their distinct development trajectories and key features. The paper offers an analysis of how these two programmes were able not only to survive but also to expand their offerings and thrive in an academic environment that should be hostile to such niche programmes. It concludes with a review of the remaining challenges facing these teaching programmes.

Bovine mastitis, an inflammation of the udder, results in reduced milk production and poor milk quality. Mastitis is usually, but not always, a response to pathogen infection. High milk yield can produce oxidative stress in the mammary tissue. High milk yield is also known to be associated with bovine mastitis. Thus, in the current study, we hypothesised that oxidative stress increases inflammatory responses in bovine mammary cells. To examine the hypothesis, we produced cellular oxidative stress and investigated resulting inflammatory responses in bovine mammary alveolar cells (MAC-T). To produce oxidative stress, cells were treated with the reactive oxygen species (ROS; e.g., superoxide anion)-producing agent, menadione (MD; 0–10 µm; 6 h). To ensure the ROS-induced responses, cells were pretreated with an antioxidant NAC (0–10 mm; 1 h). Results showed that MD elevated intracellular ROS levels and protein expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), a biomarker of inflammation. Pretreatment of cells with NAC attenuated MD-induced COX-2 expression by scavenging intracellular ROS and enhancing intracellular glutathione levels. MD-induced COX-2 expression was mediated by activation of extracellular signal receptor-activated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2), Akt, and nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB). NAC attenuated activation of these intracellular signalling molecules. Treatment of cells with pharmacological inhibitors for ERK1/2, Akt, and NF-κB confirmed the association of these signalling pathways in MD-induced COX-2 expression. These results support our hypothesis that oxidative stress, which is found in high-yielding dairy cows, can produce cellular inflammation in bovine mammary alveolar cells and prevention of oxidative stress can attenuate such pathological responses. This may be relevant for cases of clinical mastitis for which no pathogen can be isolated.

A few epidemiological data are available assessing the associations of intakes of sodium (Na) and potassium (K) with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). We aimed to examine the associations of dietary intake of Na and K with the prevalence of ultrasound-diagnosed NAFLD. We performed a cross-sectional study of 100 177 participants (46 596 men and 53 581 women) who underwent a health screening examination and completed a FFQ at the Kangbuk Samsung Hospital Total Healthcare Centers, South Korea, between 2011 and 2013. NAFLD was defined by ultrasonographic detection of fatty liver in the absence of excessive alcohol intake or other known causes of liver disease. The proportion of NAFLD was 35·6 % for men and 9·8 % for women. Increasing prevalence of NAFLD was observed with increasing Na intake. The multivariable-adjusted prevalence ratios (PR) of NAFLD comparing the highest with the lowest quintile of energy-adjusted Na intake were 1·25 (95 % CI 1·18, 1·32; Ptrend<0·001) in men and 1·32 (95 % CI 1·18, 1·47; Ptrend <0·001) in women. However, when we additionally adjusted for body fat percentage, the association became attenuated; the corresponding PR of NAFLD were 1·15 (95 % CI 1·09, 1·21) in men and 1·06 (95 % CI 0·95, 1·17) in women. No inverse association was observed for energy-adjusted K intake. Our findings suggest that higher Na intake is associated with a greater prevalence of NAFLD in young and middle-aged asymptomatic adults, which might be partly mediated by adiposity.

We present UBV photometry of SW Lac and analyse its light–curve to deduce starspot parameters for this star.

In interpreting radiocarbon dating results, it is important that archaeologists distinguish uncertainties derived from random errors and those from systematic errors, because the two must be dealt with in different ways. One of the problems that archaeologists face in practice, however, is that when receiving dating results from laboratories, they are rarely able to critically assess whether differences between multiple 14C dates of materials are caused by random or systematic errors. In this study, blind tests were carried out to check four possible sources of errors in dating results: repeatability of results generated under identical field and laboratory conditions, differences in results generated from the same sample given to the same laboratory submitted at different times, interlaboratory differences of results generated from the same sample, and differences in the results generated between inner and outer rings of wood. Five charred wood samples, collected from the Namgye settlement and Hongreyonbong fortress, South Korea, were divided into 80 subsamples and submitted to five internationally recognized 14C laboratories on a blind basis twice within a 2-month interval. The results are generally in good statistical accordance and present acceptable errors at an archaeological scale. However, one laboratory showed a statistically significant variance in ages between batches for all samples and sites. Calculation of the Bayesian partial posterior predictive p value and chi-squared tests rejected the null hypothesis that the errors randomly occurred, although the source of the error is not specifically known. Our experiment suggests that it is necessary for users of 14C dating to establish an organized strategy for dating sites before submitting samples to laboratories in order to avoid possible systematic errors.

This study modified the surfaces of three kinds of TiNi-based shape memory alloys (SMAs) by dry electrical discharge machining (EDM) in nitrogen (N2) and acetylene (C2H2) gas mixture. The effects of composition of the dielectric medium and work-piece on the machining performance and surface characteristics were investigated. Increasing the ratio of acetylene gas in gas mixture was beneficial for improving the material removal rate (MRR). However, adding a large amount of acetylene gas resulted in unstable discharge. A recast layer, comprising nitrides and carbides, which well adhered on the EDMed surface exhibited high hardness. Among Ti50Ni50, Ti50Ni49.5Cr0.5, and Ti40.5Ni49.5Zr10 SMA as a work-piece, Ti40.5Ni49.5Zr10 SMA has the lowest MRR owing to it possessed the highest melting temperature and thermal conductivity. The recast layer on Ti40.5Ni49.5Zr10 SMA, comprising zirconium nitride, exhibited the highest hardness and adhesion among all the SMAs. However, the high-hardness recast layer deteriorated the shape recovery of the SMA.