Contents
21 May 2020 Issue 6

Fast population aging: a challenge of national health insurance in Taiwan

   Demographic dividends contributed to more than one-third of the real GDP growth in Taiwan from 1970 to 2004 (Liao, 2011). However, as summarized by the 2018 popul....more

Use of home- and community-based services in Taiwan’s National 10-Year Long-Term Care Plan

   The proportion of Taiwan’s population that is aged 65 years and older increased by 30% in the past decade, from 10.21% in 2007 to 13.55% in 2017 (Ministry o....more

Age differences in the processing of value in the human brain

Functional magnetic resonance imaging identifies different brain areas sensitive to expected values in young and older adults.    Imagine that a vitamin that is ....more

Gains and losses for language in the aging brain

   Language, the main medium for expressing feelings and thoughts and collecting information for skill development, decision-making, or everyday living, plays a pivo....more

A sibling conflict that gets on your nerve

   Sisters or brothers are often your keenest competitors before they become your closest friends later in life. This sibling conflict, so fundamental and pervasive ....more

Early detection of Alzheimer’s disease

A neuropsychological approach Why preclinical prediction is important    The aging population in Taiwan has grown rapidly in recent decades. As age is the most imp....more

Aging mechanism

A critical role of serine protease inhibitor B2 (SerpinB2) in senescence    Normal cells have limited proliferative capacity. They eventually enter a terminal nondi....more

Chinese dietary patterns associated with cognitive decline in the elderly

There are substantial differences in cooking styles, dietary habits, food items, and nutrients in foods across geographical regions, and dietary patterns (DPs) identified in Wester....more

Improving cancer care through patient experience

A facilitated networks perspective   Cancer is currently regarded as one of the major illnesses worldwide. Advancements in new drugs, treatment, and technology impro....more

Telehealth management program for patient care in NTUH – A 10-year experience

   The Telehealth Center of National Taiwan University Hospital was established in 2009 (Figure 1). Our center provides the fourth generation of a synchronized, inte....more

Telehealth management program for patients with chronic renal disease and for AF screening

   The Telehealth Center of National Taiwan University Hospital, established in 2009, provides a synchronized and integrated remote management program for patients w....more

The effectiveness of telehealth care for improving caregiver burden, mastery of stress, and family function among family caregivers

   The management of chronic cardiovascular diseases, especially chronic heart failure, depends on multiple factors, including patient education, maintaining or achi....more

Wisdom at the verge of life and death —The ethics of dignified death and related legal issues

Professor Hsiao-Chih Sun of the Department of Philosophy at National Taiwan University (NTU) has engaged in the study of ethics and life education for many years and has served as ....more

What is Tianxia?

   The term “Tianxia” is one of the hot topics and research concerns of social sciences and humanities circles in recent years, especially when it correl....more

Chinese poetry and South China Sea

Since the end of the 19th century, migration has become common for scholar-officials and ordinary people. In particular, the migration for the purpose of making a living seems to a....more

Modeling the Relationships between Anxieties and Performance in Second/Foreign Language Speaking Assessment

   Anxiety represents “a palpable but transitory emotional state or condition characterized by feelings of tension and apprehension and heightened autonomic ne....more

An introduction to Kanakanavu grammar

   The Kanakanavu people, primarily located in Dakanua and Maya villages, Namasia district, northeastern Kaohsiung, are one of the Austronesian groups indigenous t....more

An important food safety issue in the ocean: silver (Ag) contamination

   Over the past few years, food safety has become an emerging issue due to several food safety scandals, such as the use of gutter oil (recycled oil collected from ....more

Application of the silicon nanowire field-effect transistor to monitor neuronal activities

The zinc ion (Zn2+) is a common ingredient of many over-the-counter multivitamin and mineral dietary supplements. Many enzymes incorporate Zn2+ as a co-factor and participate in va....more

How much ocean litter do we have? Where does this litter come from? Observations from Dongsha Island and backward-tracking origins of ocean litter

   Ocean litter has accumulated rapidly, causing damage to local, regional and global marine ecological environments and the accompanying services they provide to hu....more

Gallium (Ga) and indium (In) used in semiconductor manufacturing and the electro-optical industry: their inhibition of rice plant growth in paddy soils

Gallium (Ga) and indium (In) are widely used in semiconductor manufacturing and the electro-optical industry, and the rapid growth of high-tech industries raises the concern that l....more

Tolerance to oxidative stress shields plants from other abiotic stresses

   In nature, the environment of plants is highly variable. Plants have thus developed various strategies to respond to ever-changing environmental conditions, monit....more

Two-dimensional atomically thin layer titania for perovskite solar cells with extended UV stability

   An international collaboration research team consisting of members from National Taiwan University (NTU) and the National Institute of Materials Science (NIMS),....more

Working model of microstructural evolution by bio-inspired processing

   Modeling and simulation methods explore the physics behind a phenomenon and are often accompanied by powerful mathematics. These methods provide us with the abili....more

A new approach to create silicon-germanium heterojunction nanowires

   A single-phase semiconductor material, e.g., silicon and germanium, has intrinsic physical properties. When two semiconductor materials are joined to form “....more

A novel stable [7]helicene with partial biradical character

   Helicenes, a class of polycyclic aromatic compounds consisting of nonplanar ortho-fused aromatic rings, have attracted significant research attention owing to the....more

Long-term observations reveal variability of the Kuroshio east of Taiwan

   Currents act as rivers in the sea. Like a giant river in the western Pacific Ocean, Kuroshio is the western boundary current of the North Pacific subtropical gyre....more

Fluctuating interaction network and time-varying stability of a natural fish community

   Understanding the mechanisms underlying community stability is key to ecosystem conservation and management, as a fluctuating (less stable) community is vulnerabl....more

Confocal pump-probe backscattering microscopy for investigating single nanomaterials

   In recent decades, ultrafast optical spectroscopy has provided a fundamental understanding of carrier dynamics (such as electrons and phonons) in many emergent ma....more

Blue light regulates hair regrowth via the eye

   Prof. Sung-Jan Lin (林頌然) from the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Assoc. Prof. Shih-Kuo Chen (陳示國) from the Department of Life Sciences have publish....more

Ruminococcus gnavus heralds the onset of infantile allergic diseases: a twin cohort study

   The World Health Organization has predicted that the prevalence of bronchial asthma will increase globally in forthcoming years. Early life gut microbial dysb....more

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