Background: The medical burden of psychiatric disorders continues to increase and has caused a major impact on health, society, human rights, and economy in the world. Patients with mental illness have a higher ratio of emergency department visits than non-psychiatric patients. Psychiatric disorder-related emergency department care is a stress-causing factor in emergency department work. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the experience of emergency department nurses in caring for patients with mental illness. Methods: A descriptive qualitative research design with purposive sampling was adopted. A total of 17 nurses working in the emergency department in central Taiwan were recruited. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted and thematic content analysis was performed. Results: Four themes and six sub-themes emerged that described the experiences of emergency nurse caring for patients with mental illness: (1) Mindset; (2) The predicament of psychiatric care: Violence and isolation and helplessness, and lack of therapeutic communication skills; (3) The influence of open space: insufficient safety and privacy; and (4) The educational needs of psychiatric nursing: improving cognition in psychiatric patients and changing negative thinking into positive thinking. Conclusions: The results revealed the experience of emergency nurses in caring for patients with mental illness. Emergency psychiatric nursing training related to foundational psychiatric knowledge, communication skill, concept of recovery, coping with violence restraining are needed for nurses who work in emergency departments.

Background: The rapid spread of the disease has severely impacted healthcare systems around the world. There is a lack of evidence related to the care experience of emergency department nurses. Objective: To understand the care experience and thoughts of emergency department nurses during the COVID-19 epidemic. Methods: Purposive sampling was used to recruit 16 emergency department nurses from a medical center, and a semi-structured interview was used for data collection. The enrollment period was from 28 July 2021 to 30 October 2021. Thematic content analysis was used for data analysis. Results: The care experiences of emergency department nurses during the COVID-19 epidemic can be classified into three themes and six sub-themes. Theme 1: I am the gatekeeper; theme 2: Care and environment challenges: difficulties with equipment and environment, managing patient’s and family members’ emotions, insufficient manpower of care; theme 3: Conflicting emotions: worrying about being infected or transmitting the disease, needs of effective support and empathy, and lack of understanding and discrimination towards the occupation. Conclusion: Emergency department nurses adhered to professional awareness and responsibility during the epidemic and play a critical role in epidemic prevention.

The advent of touch panels in mobile devices has provided a good platform for mobile sketch search. However, most of the previous sketch image retrieval systems usually adopt an inverted index structure on large-scale image database, which is formidable to be operated in the limited memory of mobile devices. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to address these challenges. First, we effectively utilize distance transform (DT) features to bridge the gap between query sketches and natural images. Then these high-dimensional DT features are further projected to more compact binary hash bits. The experimental results show that our method achieves very competitive retrieval performance with MindFinder approach [2] but only requires much less memory storage (e.g., our method only requires 3% of total memory storage of MindFinder in 2.1 million images). Due to its low consumption of memory, the whole system can independently operate on the mobile devices.

This study collected 11 parameters regarding the labial and lingual strength for maximum isometric and swallowing tasks among 150 healthy Chinese adults in Taiwan. Measurements were performed using the Iowa Oral Performance Instrument (IOPI). All of the labial and lingual strength parameters were measured three times. The maximal value of three trials represents the pressure of every parameter. The overall mean (±standard deviation) and maximum isometric pressures of the lips, anterior tongue, and posterior tongue were 24.81 ± 5.64, 55.95 ± 14.13, and 53.23 ± 12.24 kPa, respectively. The mean value of posterior tongue strength was less than that of the anterior tongue by approximately 5%. The percentages of maximum isometric tongue pressure during the swallowing of saliva and water were 85% and 80% for the anterior tongue and 90% and 81% for the posterior tongue, respectively. The average endurances for the anterior tongue and posterior tongue were 13.86 ± 7.08 and 10.06 ± 5.40 s, respectively. The maximum isometric pressures were greater than both the saliva and water swallowing pressures, and the saliva swallowing pressures were greater than the water swallowing pressures. A value of 33 kPa in maximum isometric pressure could serve as a demarcation of weak tongue strength for healthy Chinese adults. As for the repeated trials of labial and lingual strength, there were no statistically significant differences for any of the pressures obtained from the 11 labial and lingual strength parameters. The normative data can be used for the objective assessment of labial and lingual strength in healthy Chinese adults.

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), one of the cell wall components of Gram-negative bacteria, is recognized by and interacted with receptors on macrophages. In this paper, we report the trapping of LPS-coated polystyrene particles via optical tweezers and measured its interaction with murine macrophages (J774A.1 cells) for cells pre-treated with extract of Reishi polysaccharides (EORP) vs. those without EORP treatment. Our experimental results indicate that the cellular affinity for LPS increases when the macrophage is pretreated with EORP. We demonstrate for the first time by conventional biological methods and by tracking the dynamics of optically-trapped LPS-coated particles interacting with J774A.1 cells, that EORP not only enhances J774A.1 cells surface expression of TLR4 and CD14, two receptors on macrophages, as well as LPS binding and phagocytosis internalization, but also reduces the adhesion time constant and increases the force constant of the binding interaction. The application of optical tweezers allows us to study the effect on a single cell quantitatively in real-time with a spatial resolution ~ 1 mum within a single cell.

Objectives. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of practicing acupressure on the Shenmen and Neiguan acupoints with a view to reduce anxiety and improve the comfort and physical health of patients undergoing thoracoscopic surgery. Methods. A total of 100 hospitalized patients undergoing thoracoscopic surgery were assigned randomly into the experimental (n = 49) and control groups (n = 51). Subjects in the experimental group received routine care plus acupressure on the Shenmen and Neiguan acupoints, while those in the control group received regular routine care. The data were collected using demographic information, physical and surgical data, the Visual Analog Scale (VAS)-A, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Y Form (STAI-Y1), and Shortened General Comfort Questionnaire scores. The linear mixed model was used to examine the influences of acupressure on VAS-A and STAI-Y1 scores at different time points before and after the surgery to observe group-by-time interactions. Results. The mean age of the subjects was 60.97 years. All subjects had mild-to-moderate anxiety after surgery and showed a statistically significant decline in regression coefficients on the first and second days after the intervention (β = −11.61, p = 0.002; β = −18.71, p < 0.001). Similarly, for STAI-YI scores, the data showed a significant difference in the pre-test and post-test interactions between the two groups (β = 4.72, p = 0.031). Conversely, acupressure did not have a statistically significant difference on comfort (F = 2.953, p = 0.057). Compared with the control subjects, the experimental subjects used less morphine and developed side effects less frequently (p < 0.01). They were also able to get out of bed after surgery 163.79 min earlier (p < 0.05). Conclusions. Acupressure is a simple and easy-to-practice treatment. Acupressure on the Shenmen and Neiguan acupoints reduces anxiety and improves recovery in patients after undergoing thoracoscopic surgery.

Background: In any country the transition from student to Registered Nurse is a rewarding but challenging and stressful time. Nurses terminating employment within one year of qualification have been reported as 58% in Taiwan. Therefore, the experience of NQNs’ transition from the role of student to qualified nurse after being employed in their first posts in their nursing careers in Taiwan is worthy of research. Purpose: To explore experiences of newly qualified nurses (NQNs) during the first twelve months of their career in Taiwan. Methods: A primarily cross-sectional qualitative research design was used. These were a purposive sample of 28 NQNs during the first 12 months as Registered Nurses. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with groups of participants. Data analysis was undertaken within the Thematic Content Analysis Framework. Results: Four main themes of newly qualified nurses’ experiences were identified: Perceptions of becoming a nurse; Reality challenge; Developing competence; and Interpersonal relationships. Conclusion: NQN’s experiences in clinical practice during the first twelve months employment sound very like a reality challenge. Successful transition was influenced by personal, social and environmental work factors. NQNs identified that their new role was based on what they evaluated as limited knowledge and skills. They addressed the importance of interpersonal relationship influenced their transition experiences. The findings have implications for education of student nurses and their support during transition to the role of qualified nurses. This requires a coordinated response from nursing schools, hospitals and government to increase those who adapt to their new roles and develop successful nursing careers.

Background: Endometriosis has been associated with the subsequent development of ovarian and breast cancers. This study evaluated whether nurses were at increased risks of developing endometriosis and subsequent ovarian and breast cancers. Methods: From Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database during 2000 to 2011, we established 3 study cohorts, consisting of 23,801 nurses, 11,973 other hospital employees, and 143,096 general women free of endometriosis and cancer. Women in all cohorts were followed to the end of 2011 to measure the occurrences of endometriosis and subsequent ovarian and breast cancers. The incident endometriosis cases and related hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated. The incident cases of ovarian cancer and breast cancer and related odds ratio were calculated. Results: The incidence of endometriosis was the highest in the nurse cohort (4.23 per 100, n = 966) followed by other health professionals (3.74 per 100, n = 427) and control cohort (3.06 per 100, n = 4193), with adjusted hazard ratios of 1.28 (95% CI = 1.20–1.38) and 1.13 (95% CI = 1.02–1.25), respectively, comparing to controls. Among those who developed endometriosis, nurses had higher subsequent ovarian cancer and lower breast cancer, but not significant. Conclusions: Nurses are at a higher risk of developing endometriosis. However, the link between endometriosis and subsequent cancers is weak.