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.

Particle swarm optimization for feature selection with application in obstructive sleep apnea diagnosis

Abstract: Feature selection is a preprocessing step of data mining, in which a subset of relevant features is selected for building models. Searching for an optimal feature subset from a high-dimensional feature space is an NP-complete problem; hence, traditional optimization algorithms are inefficient in solving large-scale feature selection problems. Therefore, meta-heuristic algorithms are extensively adopted to effectively address feature selection problems. In this paper, we propose an analytical approach by integrating particle swarm optimization (PSO) and the 1-NN method. The data sets collected from UCI machine learning databases were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Implementation results show that the classification accuracy of the proposed approach is significantly better than those of BPNN, LR, SVM, and C4.5. Furthermore, the proposed approach was applied to an actual case on the diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). After implementation, we conclude that our proposed method can help identify important factors and provide a feasible model for diagnosing medical disease.

Factors associated with depressive distress among Taiwanese family caregivers of cancer patients at the end of life

Abstract: Family caregivers in East Asian countries are known to have a strong sense of filial piety and a traditional caregiving ideology. They are generally presumed to be protected from psychological distress arising from caregiving. However, there is scant information regarding the impact of caregiving on Chinese/Taiwanese families. The purpose of this study was aimed at identifying those family caregivers of Taiwanese terminally ill cancer patients who are at risk of experiencing depressive distress from the following three categories of predisposing factors: 1) contextual factors; 2) stressors; and 3) appraisal of the caregiving situation.Of the 170 Taiwanese family caregivers of terminally ill cancer patients that participated in this survey, 129 (75.9%) were at an extraordinarily high risk of being distressed because of depressive symptoms (CES-D > 15). Results indicated that family caregivers were vulnerable to clinically depressive distress if they were the patient's spouse (adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 2.8...

Effects of acupuncture on menopause-related symptoms and quality of life in women in natural menopause: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Abstract: ObjectiveThis meta-analysis aims to evaluate the effects of acupuncture on hot flash frequency and severity, menopause-related symptoms, and quality of life in women in natural menopause.MethodsWe systematically searched PubMed/Medline, PsychINFO, Web of Science, Cochrane Central Register of

Seroprevalence of Hepatitis B and C in Type 2 Diabetic Patients

Abstract: Background: Many reports in the literature suggest that chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is associated with diabetes, but the results are conflicting. The aim of our study was to investigate the seroprevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and HCV infections in type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) patients. Methods: We collected 820 consecutive type 2 diabetic patients attending 2 of 5 outpatient endocrinology clinics in Far Eastern Memorial Hospital from March to July 2003. The control group consisted of 905 subjects who came for medical check-ups at the Family Medicine Department. We determined hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and anti-HCV in both groups, using third-generation microparticle enzyme immunoassay. Results: No significant difference was found between type 2 DM patients and the control group for seropositivity of HBsAg (13.5% versus 12.4%; odds ratio (OR) = 1.09; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.77-1.55; p = 0.441), but anti-HCV seropositivity was detected in 6.8% of patients and 2.6% of the control subjects (OR = 2.87; 95% CI: 1.51-5.46; p < 0.001). In anti-HCV-positive DM patients, abnormal alanine aminotransferase was observed in 61.8%, compared with only 34.2% of anti-HCV-negative DM patients (p < 0.001). We did not observe any difference in risk factors for HCV infection between anti-HCV-positive and -negative DM patients. Conclusion: The rate of seropositive anti-HCV is 2.8 times higher in type 2 DM patients than non-diabetic control subjects. (J Chin Med Assoc 2006;69(4):146-152)

Stress, personal characteristics and burnout among first postgraduate year residents: a nationwide study in Taiwan

Abstract: Background: Many studies have recognized that the first postgraduate year (PGY-1) of residency training is the most stressful year. Failing to cope with the stress will have negative impact on their work performance and the quality of patient care.Aims: To investigate stress and burnout in first postgraduate year (PGY-1) residents and to explore the relationship among stress, personal characteristics and burnout.Methods: A total of 555 PGY-1 residents completed the job stress questionnaire, a Chinese version of the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, NEO-Five Factor Inventory, Positive and Negative Affectivity Schedule Scale and Coping Strategies Inventory. Working hours were also collected. The association among stress, burnout, personality, coping strategies and affectivity was examined by Pearson correlation. Hierarchical multiple regression was performed to analyze the contribution of predictors to burnout.Results: Residents identified their working environment and emotional pressures and demands from patie...