Fu Jen Catholic University

About: Fu Jen Catholic University is a education organization based out in Taipei, Taiwan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Medicine. The organization has 6842 authors who have published 9512 publications receiving 171005 citations. The organization is also known as: FJU & Fu Jen.

Inhibition of colon cancer cell growth by nanoemulsion carrying gold nanoparticles and lycopene

Abstract: Lycopene (LP), an important functional compound in tomatoes, and gold nanoparticles (AN), have received considerable attention as potential candidates for cancer therapy. However, the extreme instability and poor bioavailability of LP limits its in vivo application. This study intends to develop a nanoemulsion system incorporating both LP and AN, and to study the possible synergistic effects on the inhibition of the HT-29 colon cancer cell line. LP–nanogold nanoemulsion containing Tween 80 as an emulsifier was prepared, followed by characterization using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS) analysis, ultraviolet spectroscopy, and zeta potential analysis. The particle size as determined by TEM and DLS was 21.3±3.7 nm and 25.0±4.2 nm for nanoemulsion and 4.7±1.1 nm and 3.3±0.6 nm for AN, while the zeta potential of nanoemulsion and AN was −32.2±1.8 mV and −48.5±2.7 mV, respectively. Compared with the control treatment, both the combo (AN 10 ppm plus LP 12 μM) and nanoemulsion (AN 0.16 ppm plus LP 0.4 μM) treatments resulted in a five- and 15-fold rise in early apoptotic cells of HT-29, respectively. Also, the nanoemulsion significantly reduced the expressions of procaspases 8, 3, and 9, as well as PARP-1 and Bcl-2, while Bax expression was enhanced. A fivefold decline in the migration capability of HT-29 cells was observed for this nanoemulsion when compared to control, with the invasion-associated markers being significantly reversed through the upregulation of the epithelial marker E-cadherin and downregulation of Akt, nuclear factor kappa B, pro-matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-2, and active MMP-9 expressions. The TEM images revealed that numerous nanoemulsion-filled vacuoles invaded cytosol and converged into the mitochondria, resulting in an abnormally elongated morphology with reduced cristae and matrix contents, demonstrating a possible passive targeting effect. The nanoemulsion containing vacuoles were engulfed and internalized by the nuclear membrane envelop for subsequent invasion into the nucleoli. Taken together, LP–nanogold nanoemulsion could provide synergistic effects at AN and LP doses 250 and 120 times lower than that in the combo treatment, respectively, demonstrating the potential of nanoemulsion developed in this study for a possible application in colon cancer therapy.

Raman scattering and Boson peaks in glasses: temperature and pressure effects

Abstract: Inelastic light scattering as a function of temperature and pressure was carried out on various oxide and halide glasses. For the low frequency Raman spectra, all of our glasses show a broad feature in the frequency range from 20 to 110 cm −1 (0.60–3.30 THz); the ‘Boson peak’. This Boson peak is associated with the existence of intermediate range order (IRO) in glass. The Boson peak is due to an increase in the vibrational density of states, over the Debye value, caused by localized excitations (phonon localizations). The low frequency Raman scattering containing this dominant spectral line (Boson peak) is interpreted in terms of its relationship to the amplitude and extent of the density fluctuations in glasses and is, thereby, considered a measure of the intermediate range order in these glasses. Phonon localization (the Ioffe–Regel criterion) was used to calculate correlation lengths for the measured glass samples. Characteristic correlation lengths for the glasses in this study were in the range of about 2–5 nanometer in size. We found that the Boson peak energies are highly pressure dependent but show very little change with temperature. The pressure effects in the Raman spectra will be discussed in terms of existing theories. The concept of intermediate range order (IRO) in glass and its applications will also be discussed.

Empirical validation of a teaching course on spiritual care in Taiwan.

Abstract: Empirical validation of a teaching course on spiritual care in Taiwan Aim(s) of study. The aims of this study were threefold: (a) to develop the first spiritual care program for master of science in nursing degree students (MSNDS) in Taiwan, since most of these students are or will be nursing leaders in clinical practice, education, administration, or research; (b) to facilitate the MSNDS in applying the contents of this program to care of their clients; and (c) to understand the MSNDS’ appraisals of the usefulness of the program in helping them provide spiritual care in clinical settings. Background. The World Health Organization (WHO) (1998) proclaimed that health needs should include spiritual well-being in addition to physical, mental, and social domains. Nevertheless, many dominant medical educational systems have not yet encompassed spiritual care as part of their comprehensive or core curricula. Design/methods. The methodological triangulation research design used in this project included various strategies of developing a novice course entitled ‘Spirituality in Nursing Practice’ which was given to the subjects over 18 weeks from September 1998 to February 1999. The course included classroom lectures, field trips, clinical implications, and presentation-appraisal. A convenience sample of 22 female MSNDS who were or had the potential to be nursing leaders from two schools of nursing in northern Taiwan was obtained. Results. Four types of help were identified: (a) help in clarifying the theoretical concepts of spiritual care (100%); (b) help in providing a culturally bonded spiritual care plan (100%); (c) help in self-disclosure of the nurse’s personal value systems and spiritual needs (91%); and (d) help in clarifying the symbolic meaning and the impact of religious rituals (86%). The explicit spiritual care plans and an empirical example of spiritual care were provided. Conclusions. This study presented the first spiritual care program for MSNDS in Taiwan. All subjects considered the course helpful in providing spiritual care for their clients in various clinical settings. The concept of spirituality is arousing great interest in the world, and this is evident in the spiritual care courses appearing in nursing curricula for nursing leaders in Taiwan.

Automatic thesaurus generation for Chinese documents

Abstract: This article reports an approach to automatic thesaurus construction for Chinese documents. An effective Chinese keyword extraction algorithm is first presented. Experiments showed that for each document an average of 33% keywords unknown to a lexicon of 123,226 terms could be identified by this algorithm. Of these unregistered words, only 8.3% of them are illegal. Keywords extracted from each document are further filtered for term association analysis. Association weights larger than a threshold are then accumulated over all the documents to yield the final term pair similarities. Compared to previous studies, this method speeds up the thesaurus generation process drastically, It also achieves a similar percentage level of term relatedness.