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This paper develops a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) for Seoul city administration, inaugurated in 2006. Proper establishment and application of the KPIs into its administration would not only help in accomplishing municipal leadership's strategic initiations but also enhance Seoul's global competitiveness. At the same time, the KPIs can be a good communication tool through which the leadership and city customers can communicate with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Background: The 5 G/5 G genotype of PAI-1 polymorphism is linked to decreased plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) levels and it has been suggested that lower PAI-1 levels may provide protective effects on inflammation, local microcirculatory disturbance, and fibrotic changes, which are likely associated with development of sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL). Methods: The association of the 4 G/5 G PAI-1 polymorphism with the development and clinical outcome of SSNHL is evaluated via a case control study. 103 patients with SSNHL and 113 age and sex-matched controls were enrolled at University of Ferrara, Italy and hearing loss outcome was measured at least 3 months after the onset of hearing loss. DNA was isolated from peripheral blood using the QIAamp kit and the 4 G/5 G polymorphism in the -675 promoter region was genotyped with an allele-specific PCR. Genotype distribution was tested in patients and compared to controls by chi-square and odd-ratio analysis. The codominant and recessive models were used for the multiple logistic regression analyses of the PAI-1 gene allele. Results: In this population, 5 G/5 G genotype had a two-time lower frequency in SSNHL patients compared to healthy controls (15.5% vs 30.1%) and was associated with decreased odds compared to 4 G/5 G genotype (OR 0.37, 95% CI 0.19- 0.75, p = 0.005). In addition, the patients with 5 G/5 G genotype showed a trend of more than 2 times higher ratio of hearing recovery (> 20 dB) after systemic corticosteroid treatment compared to 4 G/5 G genotype (OR 2.3, 95% CI 0.32--16.83, p = 0.39), suggesting a better clinical outcome. Conclusions: The 5 G/5 G genotype of PAI-1may be associated with a reduced risk of SSNHL in the Italian population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Background: The optimal surgical strategy for coarctation of the aorta (CoA) with ventricular septal defect (VSD) is controversial. The aim of this study is to evaluate the clinical outcome of a single-stage repair of CoA with VSD. Methods: We reviewed 72 patients who underwent single-stage repair for CoA with VSD between January 1995 and December 2007. There were 43 males and 29 females. The median age of the patients was 28 days (range = 3 to 188) and median weight was 3.7 kg (range = 2.16 to 5.6). Deep hypothermic circulatory arrest was used in 22 patients and selective antegrade cerebral perfusion was performed in 43 patients. Results: There were no operative deaths and one late death at a median follow-up of 60 months (range = 16 to 158). Postoperative complications were left main bronchus compression requiring aortopexy in one patient and recoarctation requiring balloon dilatation in one patient. Subaortic stenosis occurred in two patients and surgical repair was performed. Conclusions: One-stage simultaneous repair can be performed with a low risk at an early age. (J Card Surg 2011;26:420-424) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The authors used a cluster analysis procedure and the Counselor Burnout Inventory (S. M. Lee et al., 2007) to identify professional counselors' burnout types. Three clusters were identified: well-adjusted, persevering, and disconnected counselors. The results also indicated that counselors' job satisfaction and self-esteem were good discriminators between the 3 clusters. Implications for counselors are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

In this paper, we study the existence of solutions and L²-primitive process for retarded stochastic neutral functional differential equations in Hilbert spaces. We no longer require the Azera-Ascoli theorem to prove the existence of continuous solutions of nonlinear differential systems, but instead we apply the regularity results of general linear differential equations to the case the L²-primitive process for retarded stochastic neutral functional differential systems with unbounded principal operators, delay terms and local Lipschitz continuity of the nonlinear term. Finally, we give a simple example to which our main result can be applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This article describes the development and psychometric properties of the Counselor Burnout Inventory (CBI), which is designed to meet the needs of the counseling profession by assessing burnout in counselors. Factor structure, concurrent validity, internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the CBI scores are reported. Implications for practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

We used a national database (Educational Longitudinal Study) to investigate the effects of parent’s gender, child’s gender, and parental involvement in school on the academic achievement of adolescents in single-parent families. A three way 2 × 2 × 2 (parent’s gender × child’s gender × parental involvement) MANCOVA was conducted with four student academic achievement indicators as dependent variables and SES as a covariate. The results indicated that parent gender and child gender interact with parent involvement to affect adolescents’ academic achievement differentially. Specifically, daughters who lived with highly involved single-fathers performed better academically than the other groups did. These findings suggest that researchers who study single-parents’ involvement in their adolescents’ academic achievement need to pay more attention to gender-specific effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Background: Sensitisation with Aspergillus fumigatus (Af) is known to be associated with severe allergic lung inflammation, but the mechanism remains to be clarified. Phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)-δ and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress are suggested to be involved in steroid-resistant lung inflammation. We aimed to elucidate the role of PI3K-δ and its relationship with ER stress in fungus-induced allergic lung inflammation.Methods: Using Af-exposed in vivo and in vitro experimental systems, we examined whether PI3K-δ regulates ER stress, thereby contributing to steroid resistance in fungus-induced allergic lung inflammation. Moreover, we checked expression of an ER stress marker in lung tissues isolated from patients with allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis.Results: Af-exposed mice showed that ER stress markers, unfolded protein response (UPR)-related proteins, phosphorylated Akt, generation of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mtROS), eosinophilic allergic inflammation, and airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) were increased in the lung. Similarly, glucose-regulated protein 78 was increased in lung tissues of patients with ABPA. A PI3K-δ inhibitor reduced Af-induced increases in ER stress markers, UPR-related proteins, allergic inflammation and AHR in mice. However, dexamethasone failed to reduce Af-induced allergic inflammation, AHR and elevation of ER stress. Administration of an ER stress inhibitor or a mtROS scavenger improved Af-induced allergic inflammation. The PI3K-δ inhibitor reduced Af-induced mtROS generation and the mtROS scavenger ameliorated ER stress. In primary cultured tracheal epithelial cells, Af-induced ER stress was inhibited by blockade of PI3K-δ.Conclusions: These findings suggest that PI3K-δ regulates Af-induced steroid-resistant eosinophilic allergic lung inflammation through ER stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

In order to establish the reliable GW scheme that can be consistently applied to post-transition-metal oxides (post-TMOs), we carry out comprehensive GW calculations on electronic structures of ZnO, Ga2O3, In2O3, and SnO2, the four representative post-TMOs. Various levels of self-consistency (C0 W0, G W0, and QPGW0) and different starting functionals (GGA, GGA + U, and hybrid functional) are tested and their influence on the resulting electronic structure is closely analyzed. It is found that the G W0 scheme with GGA + U as the initial functional turns out to give the best agreement with experiment, implying that describing the position of metal-d level precisely in the ground state plays a critical role for the accurate dielectric property and quasiparticle band gap. Nevertheless, the computation on ZnO still suffers from the shallow Zn-rf level and we propose a modified approach (GW0 + Ud) that additionally considers an effective Hubbard U term during GW0 iterations and thereby significantly improves the band gap. It is also shown that a GGA + U - based GW0(+Ud) scheme produces an accurate energy gap of crystalline InGaZnO4, implying that this can serve as a standard scheme that can be applied to general structures of post-TMOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Background: We have previously demonstrated that therapy with orally administered Lglutamine improves nicotinamide adenosine dinucleotide (NAD) redox potential of sickle red blood cells (RBC). On further analysis of L-glutamine therapy for sickle cell anemia patients, the effect of L-glutamine on adhesion of sickle RBC to human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) was examined. Methods: The first part of the experiment was conducted with the blood samples of the 5 adult sickle cell anemia patients who had been on L-glutamine therapy for at least 4 weeks on a dosage of 30 grams per day compared to those of patient control group. In the second part of the experiment 6 patients with sickle cell anemia were studied longitudinally. Five of these patients were treated with oral L- glutamine 30 grams daily and one was observed without treatment as the control. t-test and paired t-test were used for determination of statistical significance in crosssectional and longitudinal studies respectively. Results: In the first study, the mean adhesion to endothelial cells with the autologous plasma incubated cells were 0.97 ± 0.45 for the treated group and 1.91 ± 0.53 for the nontreated group (p < 0.02). Similarly with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) incubated cells the mean adhesion to endothelial cells were 1.39 ± 0.33 for the treated group and 2.80 ± 0.47 for the untreated group (p < 0.001). With the longitudinal experiment, mean decrease in the adhesion to endothelial cells was 1.13 ± 0.21 (p < 0.001) for the 5 treated patients whereas the control patient had slight increase in the adhesion to endothelial cells. Conclusion: In these studies, oral L-glutamine administration consistently resulted in improvement of sickle RBC adhesion to HUVEC. These data suggest positive physiological effects of L-glutamine in sickle cell disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...