Few studies have assessed the lagged effects of levels of different urban city air pollutants and seasons on asthma hospitalization in children. This study used big data analysis to explore the effects of daily changes in air pollution and season on childhood asthma hospitalization from 2001 to 2010 in Taipei and Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. A time-stratified case-crossover study and conditional logistic regression analysis were employed to identify associations between the risk of hospitalization due to asthma in children and the levels of air pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, O3, SO2, and NO2) in the days preceding hospitalization. During the study period, 2900 children in Taipei and 1337 in Kaohsiung aged ≤15 years were hospitalized due to asthma for the first time. The results indicated that the levels of air pollutants were significantly associated with the risk of asthma hospitalization in children, and seasonal effects were observed. High levels of air pollution in Kaohsiung had greater effects than in Taipei after adjusting for seasonal variation. The most important factor was O3 in spring in Taipei. In children aged 0–6 years, asthma was associated with O3 in Taipei and SO2 in Kaohsiung, after controlling for the daily mean temperature and relative humidity.
This study evaluated the differences in spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (sICH) between rural and urban areas of Taiwan with big data analysis. We used big data analytics and visualization tools to examine government open data, which included the residents' health medical administrative data, economic status, educational status, and relevant information. The study subjects included sICH patients of Taipei region (29,741 cases) and Eastern Taiwan (4565 cases). The incidence of sICH per 100,000 population per year in Eastern Taiwan (71.3 cases) was significantly higher than that of the Taipei region (42.3 cases). The mean coverage area per hospital in Eastern Taiwan (452.4 km2) was significantly larger than the Taipei region (24 km2). The residents educational level in the Taipei region was significantly higher than that in Eastern Taiwan. The mean hospital length of stay in the Taipei region (17.9 days) was significantly greater than that in Eastern Taiwan (16.3 days) (p < 0.001). There were no significant differences in other medical profiles between two areas. Distance and educational barriers were two possible reasons for the higher incidence of sICH in the rural area of Eastern Taiwan. Further studies are necessary in order to understand these phenomena in greater depth.
Traditional architectural elements carry our excellent traditional culture, contain rich connotation, and are the valuable wealth of modern architectural environment design research and reference. However, the application of traditional architectural elements in the architectural environment design has some problems, such as homogenization and does not reflect the connotation of traditional architectural elements. The effective integration of traditional architectural elements and architectural environment design is of great significance to the development, inheritance of traditional architectural elements and the development of architectural environment design engineering. On the basis of understanding the design characteristics of the architectural environment art, this paper analyzes the current situation of the traditional architectural elements in the architectural environment design, and puts forward the countermeasures to effectively integrate the traditional architectural elements and the architectural environment design. In order to combine the traditional architectural elements with the development needs and use functions of architectural environment design in the new era, enrich the connotation of architecture and improve the artistic aesthetic level of architectural environment design.
AbstractAn extremely efficient MCMC method for Bayesian adaptive testing with polytomous items is explained both conceptually and in mathematical detail. Results from extensive simulation studies with different item pools, polytomous response models, calibration sample sizes, and test lengths are presented. In addition, the case of adaptive testing from pools with a mixture of dichotomous and polytomous items is addressed.