Traditional Chinese medicine use may reduce medical utility in patients with asthma: a nationwide population-based retrospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Many patients with atopic diseases, including asthma, have sought complementary and alternative medicine and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatments. But, limited clinical studies have yet examined TCM effects on medical utility in asthma patients. AIM: To assess the medical utility of TCM in patients with asthma. DESIGN: Population-based retrospective cohort study. METHODS: We performed a 13-year population-based retrospective cohort study. A total of 5235 asthma patients who were TCM users and 5235 propensity-score matched asthma patients who never used TCM were sampled from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database from 2000 to 2012. We compared these two groups of patients to calculate their medical utility, including numbers of emergency visits and hospitalizations until 2013. Univariate analyses were performed using Chi-square tests for dichotomous variables and t-tests for continuous variables. Cox proportional hazard models were conducted to investigate the medical utility of asthma after TCM use. RESULTS: Compared with non-TCM patients, TCM patients had a significantly decreased medical utility of asthma admission [adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 0.63; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.46-0.85; P < 0.05], especially in patients who used TCM for >60 days. Asthma medical utility in asthma emergencies was significantly higher for male than for female patients (adjusted OR = 1.45; 95% CI: 1.08-1.96). The most frequently used TCMs for asthma control or cough treatment were antitussive agents. CONCLUSION: This population-based retrospective cohort study showed a significantly decreased medical utility of emergency visits and admissions in TCM patients, especially using TCM for >60 days.

Influence of interconnection weight discretization and noise in an optoelectronic neural network.

The effect of discretizing interconnection weight strengths in an optoelectronic learning neural network based on the backpropagation algorithm is investigated. We discuss how discretization arises in such an implementation. Using computer simulations we find that learning performance, as tested on the two-input XOR problem, is poor but that the addition of noise to the system results in substantial improvement.

Microfabrication as a scientific tool.

Research in microfabrication not only serves the microelectronics industry but also can provide research tools for studying the behavior of matter at submicrometer dimensions. A variety of techniques including optical, x-ray, and electron beam lithography and reactive ion etching can be used to make structures, devices, and arrays only hundreds of atoms across. Microfabrication techniques have been applied to experiments on surface-enhanced Raman scattering, transport in one-dimensional conductors, and macroscopic quantum tunneling. Recent progress is extending these techniques to scales of less than 100 angstroms.

High-energy picosecond pulses: design of a dye-laser-amplifier system.

A synchronously pumped dye laser is constructed that uses an actively mode-locked Q-switched Nd:YAG laser as the pump source. The system consists of a grating-tuned dye oscillator and two transversely pumped and one longitudinally pumped amplifier stages. Output energies of 1.5 mJ in a 20-psec pulse at 5700 A, corresponding to a peak power of 10(8) W, are obtained by using rhodamine 6G. The energy can be increased to 3 mJ at 25 psec FWHM. Characteristics of the amplification process employing short (50-psec) pump pulses are discussed.

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering on gold and aluminum particle arrays.

The intensity and excitation wavelength dependence of the surface-enhanced Raman effect is measured on microlithographically prepared gold and aluminum particle surfaces. Comparison of enhancement relative to identically fabricated silver surfaces gives good agreement with particle-plasmon theories of surface-enhanced Raman scattering.

Optical metal-oxide tunnel detectors with microstructured electrodes.

Order-of-magnitude improvement of the quantum efficiency of metal-oxide-metal detectors is achieved in the visible spectrum by fabricating the devices on silica substrates structured with a periodic array of bumps separated by about 0.25 microm. Structuring metallic films affords improved coupling of the detector to visible light by excitation of localized plasma resonances and surface-plasmon polariton modes. Voltage responsivities of 5 mV/W into a 50-Omega impedance has been demonstrated in preliminary devices. In suitable geometries, such detectors have the potential of subpicosecond response times.

Relationship between surface-enhanced Raman scattering and the dielectric properties of aggregated silver films.

By using an evaporated silver film that has a continuously varying thickness, we have demonstrated the dependence of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) on the dielectric properties of the film. These results support local field models that are based on metal-particle resonances for SERS.

Continuous-wave backward-wave generation by degenerate four-wave mixing in ruby.

This is the first reported demonstration of cw wavefront conjugation by degenerate four-wave mixing in a solid. Conversion efficiencies of 3% for conjugate-wave generation were obtained in a ruby crystal using a cw argon-ion laser.

Magnetic-field quantum beats in two-photon free-induction decay.

Magnetic-field quantum beats are observed in Doppler-free two-photon free-induction decay. The 3S-4D transition in atomic sodium vapor is studied with fields up to 300 G. A strong dependence on the polarization of the excitation pulses is observed.