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Background: Research regarding cervical metastasis from an unknown primary tumor (CUP) according to human papillomavirus (HPV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) status in Korea has been sporadic and small-scale. This study aims to analyze and understand the characteristics of CUP in Korea according to viral and p16 and p53 status through a multicenter study.Methods: Ninety-five cases of CUP retrieved from six hospitals in Korea between January 2006 and December 2016 were subjected to high-risk HPV detection (DNA in situ hybridization [ISH] or real-time polymerase chain reaction), EBV detection (ISH), and immunohistochemistry for p16 and p53.Results: CUP was HPV-related in 37 cases (38.9%), EBV-related in five cases (5.3%), and unrelated to HPV or EBV in 46 cases (48.4%). HPV-related CUP cases had the best overall survival (OS) (p = .004). According to the multivariate analysis, virus-unrelated disease (p = .023) and longer smoking duration (p < .005) were prognostic factors for poor OS. Cystic change (p = .016) and basaloid pattern (p < .001) were more frequent in HPV-related cases, and lymphoepithelial lesion was frequent in EBV-related cases (p = .010). There was no significant association between viral status and p53 positivity (p = .341), smoking status (p = .728), or smoking duration (p = .187). Korean data differ from Western data in the absence of an association among HPV, p53 positivity, and smoking history.Conclusions: Virus-unrelated CUP in Korea had the highest frequency among all CUP cases. HPV-related CUP is similar to HPV-mediated oropharyngeal cancer and EBVrelated CUP is similar to nasopharyngeal cancer in terms of characteristics, respectively.

Schwannoma is a slowly-growing, benign tumor that originates from the Schwann cell and is rarely found in the auricle. In this article, we describe a 20-year-old male patient with an approximately 2 cm auricular mass located in the antitragus of the left ear. The mass was slowlygrowing following an auricular trauma. The mass was completely removed by local excision and the histopathologic review confirmed the diagnosis as an auricular schwannoma. Characteristic immunohistochemical findings may be helpful in differential diagnosis of other tumors. Herein, we present with a literature review a rare case of auricular schwannoma following a trauma.

Melanoma is a dangerous form of skin cancer that results in the demise of patients at the developed stage. Researchers have attempted to develop automated systems for the timely recognition of this deadly disease. However, reliable and precise identification of melanoma moles is a tedious and complex activity as there exist huge differences in the mass, structure, and color of the skin lesions. Additionally, the incidence of noise, blurring, and chrominance changes in the suspected images further enhance the complexity of the detection procedure. In the proposed work, we try to overcome the limitations of the existing work by presenting a deep learning (DL) model. Descriptively, after accomplishing the preprocessing task, we have utilized an object detection approach named CornerNet model to detect melanoma lesions. Then the localized moles are passed as input to the fuzzy K -means (FLM) clustering approach to perform the segmentation task. To assess the segmentation power of the proposed approach, two standard databases named ISIC-2017 and ISIC-2018 are employed. Extensive experimentation has been conducted to demonstrate the robustness of the proposed approach through both numeric and pictorial results. The proposed approach is capable of detecting and segmenting the moles of arbitrary shapes and orientations. Furthermore, the presented work can tackle the presence of noise, blurring, and brightness variations as well. We have attained the segmentation accuracy values of 99.32% and 99.63% over the ISIC-2017 and ISIC-2018 databases correspondingly which clearly depicts the effectiveness of our model for the melanoma mole segmentation.

This study examines conscious judgments of perceptual similarity between foreign and native structures, focusing on vowel epenthesis following coda stops in English nonwords borrowed into Korean. In a similarity judgment experiment, Korean listeners heard a triplet consisting of an English stop-final form and two Korean forms, one ending in a stop and one ending in stop-vowel; then they indicated which of the two Korean forms the English form sounded more similar to. This study investigated six different predictors: release, voicing and place of coda stop, vowel tenseness, final stress, and word length. Similarity judgment choices showed that Korean CVCV is judged as more similar to English CVC than Korean CVC when the English final stop is released or dorsal or when the English word is monosyllabic. Although this result confirms that stop release is indeed a major factor explaining vowel insertion in this context, no effects of stop voicing and vowel tenseness are not compatible with the perceptual similarity hypothesis, which is surprising since they have been previously argued to involve acoustic cues affecting L2 speech perception. These findings support the need for further research that concentrates more on direct perception rather than judgments of perceptual similarity.

Background: Active participation of clients in rehabilitation is a crucial factor for improved outcomes. A few studies have investigated how to measure patient engagement to given rehabilitation therapies compared to intervention developments. In this study, we aimed to examine the possibility of assessing patient engagement by analyzing features computed from autonomic nervous responses with machine learning algorithms, such as naïve bayes classifier (NB), random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), and neural network (NN). Methods: Autonomic nervous responses were collected from 56 older adults with moderate to mild cognitive impairment using a wearable device during rehabilitation therapy sessions under two different conditions designed to induce different levels of engagement. 32 features were obtained from the autonomic nervous system responses and used to determine the client engagement levels. In addition, feature selection methods were applied to reduce redundant information. Client engagement during rehabilitation therapy sessions was rated by therapists using Pittsburgh Rehabilitation Participation Scale (PRPS). In addition, subjective feelings were quantified by participants using Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM). The data collected under the different conditions were labelled as having a higher or lower degree of engagement, and classification performance was tested with the algorithms. Results: It was found that the mean scores of PRPS and the valence dimension of the participants were significantly different between the conditions confirming the successful induction of varying levels of engagement from the participants. The worst performance was observed when the classifiers were trained with all features (mean classification accuracy: 81.6%) whereas the highest mean accuracy was observed when classifiers were trained with the top 5 features (85.6%) selected by minimum-Redundancy-Maximum-Relevance (mRMR) than other combinations of feature sets. The best classification accuracy of different degrees of rehabilitation participation was achieved with SVM (87.7%) in combination with the top 5 ranked features, which indicates that the feature selection methods employed in this study did not only lead to a reduction in the number of features, but also a slight improvement in the classification performance. On the other hand, RF consistently performed better than NB and NN when combined with the mRMR feature selection method, suggesting RF is the most robust classifier among the tested classifiers for determining the degree of client engagement in rehabilitation. Conclusions: Engagement in rehabilitation can be realized by utilizing autonomic nervous responses and machine learning algorithms as a way of involving clients in the process of engagement assessment while requiring their minimal cognitive efforts.

When an English word ending in a stop is adapted to Korean, a vowel is variably inserted after the final stop. Vowel insertion in this position is surprising because voiceless stops are permissible in coda position in Korean and it is not motivated by Korean native phonology. This study examines five factors that have been hypothesized to affect the likelihood of vowel insertion, i.e., tenseness of the pre-final vowel, voicing and place of the English final stop, word size and final stress. These possibilities were tested using a corpus of Korean loanwords whose source word ends in a stop. Patterns of vowel insertion were classified as no vowel insertion, vowel insertion, or optional vowel insertion, and analyzed using multinomial regression modeling. The results confirmed that all the relevant factors significantly increased the likelihood of vowel insertion and optional vowel insertion patterns relative to no vowel insertion patterns compared with the reference condition rates. These findings suggest that particular features indeed impact production patterns in loanword phonology. My Results support the need for further research into how other possible auditory factors such as stop release may shape speech perception in loanword adaptation.

Leaf senescence, the last stage of leaf development, is essential for whole-plant fitness as it marks the relocation of nutrients from senescing leaves to reproductive or other developing organs. Temporally coordinated physiological and functional changes along leaf aging are fine-tuned by a highly regulated genetic program involving multi-layered regulatory mechanisms. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are newly emerging as hidden players in many biological processes; however, their contribution to leaf senescence has been largely unknown. Here, we performed comprehensive analyses of RNA-seq data representing all developmental stages of leaves to determine the genome-wide lncRNA landscape along leaf aging. A total of 771 lncRNAs, including 232 unannotated lncRNAs, were identified. Time-course analysis revealed 446 among 771 developmental age-related lncRNAs (AR-lncRNAs). Intriguingly, the expression of AR-lncRNAs was regulated more dynamically in senescing leaves than in growing leaves, revealing the relevant contribution of these lncRNAs to leaf senescence. Further analyses enabled us to infer the function of lncRNAs, based on their interacting miRNA or mRNA partners. We considered functionally diverse lncRNAs including antisense lncRNAs (which regulate overlapping protein-coding genes), competitive endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs; which regulate paired mRNAs using miRNAs as anchors), and mRNA-interacting lncRNAs (which affect the stability of mRNAs). Furthermore, we experimentally validated the senescence regulatory function of three novel AR-lncRNAs including one antisense lncRNA and two mRNA-interacting lncRNAs through molecular and phenotypic analyses. Our study provides a valuable resource of AR-lncRNAs and potential regulatory networks that link the function of coding mRNA and AR-lncRNAs. Together, our results reveal AR-lncRNAs as important elements in the leaf senescence process.

Leaf senescence, the last stage of leaf development, is essential for whole-plant fitness as it marks the relocation of nutrients from senescing leaves to reproductive or other developing organs. Temporally coordinated physiological and functional changes along leaf aging are fine-tuned by a highly regulated genetic program involving multi-layered regulatory mechanisms. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are newly emerging as hidden players in many biological processes; however, their contribution to leaf senescence has been largely unknown. Here, we performed comprehensive analyses of RNA-seq data representing all developmental stages of leaves to determine the genome-wide lncRNA landscape along leaf aging. A total of 771 lncRNAs, including 232 unannotated lncRNAs, were identified. Time-course analysis revealed 446 among 771 developmental age-related lncRNAs (AR-lncRNAs). Intriguingly, the expression of AR-lncRNAs was regulated more dynamically in senescing leaves than in growing leaves, revealing the relevant contribution of these lncRNAs to leaf senescence. Further analyses enabled us to infer the function of lncRNAs, based on their interacting miRNA or mRNA partners. We considered functionally diverse lncRNAs including antisense lncRNAs (which regulate overlapping protein-coding genes), competitive endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs; which regulate paired mRNAs using miRNAs as anchors), and mRNA-interacting lncRNAs (which affect the stability of mRNAs). Furthermore, we experimentally validated the senescence regulatory function of three novel AR-lncRNAs including one antisense lncRNA and two mRNA-interacting lncRNAs through molecular and phenotypic analyses. Our study provides a valuable resource of AR-lncRNAs and potential regulatory networks that link the function of coding mRNA and AR-lncRNAs. Together, our results reveal AR-lncRNAs as important elements in the leaf senescence process.

Melanoma is a dangerous form of skin cancer that results in the demise of patients at the developed stage. Researchers have attempted to develop automated systems for the timely recognition of this deadly disease. However, reliable and precise identification of melanoma moles is a tedious and complex activity as there exist huge differences in the mass, structure, and color of the skin lesions. Additionally, the incidence of noise, blurring, and chrominance changes in the suspected images further enhance the complexity of the detection procedure. In the proposed work, we try to overcome the limitations of the existing work by presenting a deep learning (DL) model. Descriptively, after accomplishing the preprocessing task, we have utilized an object detection approach named CornerNet model to detect melanoma lesions. Then the localized moles are passed as input to the fuzzy

Recently developed fabrication methods for inorganic patterns (such as laser printing and optical lithography) can avoid some patterning processes conducted by conventional etching and lithography (such as substrate etching and modulation) and are thereby useful for applications in which the substrates and materials must not be damaged during patterning. Simultaneously, it is also necessary to develop facile and economical methods producing inorganic patterns on various substrates without requiring a special apparatus while attaining the above-mentioned advantages. The present study proposes a reaction-based method for fabricating inorganic patterns by immersing substrates coated with a colloidal nanosheet into an aqueous solution containing inorganic precursors. Silica and TiO

This study was designed to investigate the therapeutic effects of taurine in attenuating muscle atrophy. C26 carcinoma cells were cultured and injected into the scapulae of Balb/c mice with 1 × 10

CsPbI3 perovskite quantum dots (CsPbI3-PQDs) have recently come into focus as a light-harvesting material that can act as a platform through which to combine the material advantages of both perovskites and QDs. However, the low cubic-phase stability of CsPbI3-PQDs in ambient conditions has been recognized as a factor that inhibits device stability. TiO2 nanoparticles are the most regularly used materials as an electron transport layer (ETL) in CsPbI3-PQD photovoltaics; however, we found that TiO2 can facilitate the cubic-phase degradation of CsPbI3-PQDs due to its vigorous photocatalytic activity. To address these issues, we have developed chloride-passivated SnO2 QDs (Cl@SnO2 QDs), which have low photocatalytic activity and few surface traps, to suppress the cubic-phase degradation of CsPbI3-PQDs. Given these advantages, the CsPbI3-PQD solar cells based on Cl@SnO2 ETLs show significantly improved device operational stability (under conditions of 50% relative humidity and 1-sun illumination), compared to those based on TiO2 ETLs. In addition, the Cl@SnO2-based devices showed improved open circuit voltage and photocurrent density, resulting in enhanced power conversion efficiency (PCE) up to 14.5% compared to that of TiO2-based control devices (PCE of 13.8%).

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the type of arrhythmia that raises possibility of severe health problems such as heart failure and stroke and it is known that a major risk factor of AF includes overweight and obesity. Based on this association between such health-related indicators, we propose a smart scale that is capable of measuring weight and electrocardiography (ECG) simultaneously. The scale was developed using Arduino Uno, a Wheatstone bridge load cell, and ECG sensors. The ECG signals were processed to compute heart rate (in other words, RR interval). The smart scale was evaluated with four healthy volunteers in terms of reliability showing high agreement with a commercial device for ECG monitoring. In addition, it implements Atrial Fibrillation (AF) detection using machine-learning classifiers including a k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN) method, a Decision Tree (DT), and a Neural Network (NN) on relatively short recordings of ECG obtained while using the scale. The root mean square of the successive differences between heart beats (RMSSD) and the Shannon entropy of the RR interval (ECG features) were extracted from ECG signals for AF detection. Performance of AF detection was tested with patients who were treated at a Cardiology Center after balancing data by applying over- and under-sampling techniques such as Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique (SMOTE) and the Tomek Link (T-Link) algorithm. After addressing the data imbalance, the AF detection performance of each classifier (kNN, DT, and NNs) was 98.9%, 97.8%, and 98.9% respectively. This work has successfully demonstrated weight and cardio activity monitoring features while using a scale that may help keep the records of sensitive health related indexes on a daily basis.

The purpose of this study is to investigate gait in patients with neurological disorders using accelerometers. Accelerometers were placed on both ankles of participants undergoing gait analysis. Data were collected during the 10-min walk test from healthy participants (n = 20) and patients with neurological deficits (n = 22) scheduled for surgery. Additional data were obtained after surgery for comparison. Both the time and frequency domain features were compared between healthy participants and patients. The interval between successive heel-strikes differed significantly, as did that between successive toe-offs. These features were correlated in healthy participants but not in patients, for whom the correlation coefficients tended to increase after surgery, indicating that the correlations can be used to monitor gait recovery and ankle-worn accelerometers were effective in collecting data for gait monitoring.

Sepsis-related acute kidney injury (AKI) is a worldwide health problem, and its pathogenesis involves multiple pathways. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is an endotoxin that induces systemic inflammatory responses. Melittin, a main constituent of bee venom, exerts several biological activities such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antiapoptotic actions. However, whether melittin protects against endotoxin-induced AKI remains undetermined. Here, we aimed to examine the potential action of melittin on LPS-induced renal injury and explore the mechanisms. We showed that acute renal failure and structural damage after injection of LPS were markedly attenuated by administration of melittin. The peptide also suppressed expression of markers of direct tubular damage in kidneys of the LPS-treated mice. Mechanistically, melittin reduced systemic and renal levels of cytokines and inhibited renal accumulation of immune cells with concomitant suppression of nuclear factor kappa-B pathway. Increased amounts of lipid peroxidation products after LPS treatment were largely decreased by melittin. Additionally, the peptide decreased expression of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase 4 and enhanced nuclear factor erythroid-2-related factor 2-mediated antioxidant defenses. Moreover, melittin inhibited apoptotic and necroptotic cell death after LPS treatment. Lastly, we showed that melittin improved the survival rate of LPS-injected mice. These results suggest that melittin ameliorates endotoxin-induced AKI and mortality through inhibiting inflammation, oxidative injury, and apoptotic and necroptotic death of tubular epithelial cells.

A novel mathematical model is envisaged to scrutinize the Darcy Forchheimer 3D Powell Eyring nanofluid flow in a porous medium. Flow is taken under the influence of zero mass flux and convective boundary conditions at the surface and a chemical reaction in the mass equation. The heat transfer flow is scrutinized with non-linear thermal radiation. Entropy generation analysis of the envisioned model is also conducted. The Homotopy Analysis method to yield the series solutions for the envisioned model. The graphs are plotted to witness the characteristics of several parameters versus velocity, heat, and mass distributions and are well cogitated accordingly. The findings show that the velocity is decreasing the function of Darcy-Forchheimer number. Further, the Biot number large values boost the fluid temperature. The outcomes obtained in the analysis are substantiated when compared with a published result in the literature. An outstanding matching is achieved in this regard.

Acetaminophen (APAP) can cause acute liver failure, but treatment options are still limited. Kahweol is the main diterpene compound of coffee and possesses antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Emerging evidence suggests that this natural diterpene exerts favorable effects on several inflammatory diseases. However, the action of kahweol on APAP toxicity has not been addressed. The purpose of this study was to explore whether kahweol has a protective activity against APAP-induced hepatotoxicity and to investigate the mechanism. Administration of kahweol reduced serum levels of liver injury indicators and ameliorated histological abnormalities in APAP-treated mice. Kahweol inhibited lipid peroxidation and nucleic acid oxidation with restoration of glutathione content and stimulation of nuclear factor erythroid-2-related factor 2-dependent cellular defense system. Hepatocyte death was also decreased by kahweol, which was associated with inhibition of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. Moreover, kahweol reduced hepatic levels of inflammatory mediators, inhibited nuclear factor-κB activation, and attenuated infiltration of neutrophils and macrophages. These findings suggest that kahweol has a protective activity against APAP-induced liver injury and this effect is related to the suppression of oxidative stress, hepatocyte death, ER stress, and inflammation.

As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues, reinfection is likely to become increasingly common. However, confirming COVID-19 reinfection is difficult because it requires whole-genome sequencing of both infections to identify the degrees of genetic differences. Since the first reported case of reinfection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the Republic of Korea in April 2020, four additional cases were classified as suspected reinfection cases. We performed whole-genome sequencing of viral RNA extracted from swabs obtained at the initial infection and reinfection stages of these four suspected cases. The interval between initial infection and reinfection of all four suspected cases was more than 3 months. All four patients were young (10-29 years), and they displayed mild symptoms or were asymptomatic during the initial infection and reinfection episodes. The analysis of genome sequences combined with the epidemiological results revealed that only two of the four cases were confirmed as reinfection, and both were reinfected with the Epsilon variant. Due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, the possibility of reinfections with SARS-CoV-2 variants is increasing, as reported in our study. Therefore, continuous monitoring of cases is necessary.

Hepatocyte apoptosis and inflammation play important roles in cholestatic liver diseases. Bee venom-derived secretory phospholipase A2 (bvPLA2) has been shown to ameliorate various inflammatory diseases. However, whether bvPLA2 has a therapeutic effect against cholestatic liver disease has not been evaluated. Therefore, we investigated the effects of bvPLA2 on cholestatic liver injury and fibrosis in a murine model of 3,5-diethoxycarbonyl-1,4-dihydrocollidine (DDC) diet feeding. The administration of bvPLA2 ameliorated liver damage, cholestasis, and fibrosis in DDC diet-fed mice, as assessed by serum biochemical tests and histological examinations. In addition, bvPLA2 reduced myofibroblast accumulation, concomitant with suppression of transforming growth factor-β signaling cascade. The administration of bvPLA2 inhibited hepatocyte apoptosis in DDC diet-fed mice as represented by a reduction in the number of cells stained with terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling and suppression of caspase-3 activation. Moreover, bvPLA2 reduced cytokine production along with the inhibition of the nuclear factor kappa-B pathway. The number of regulatory T-cells was increased by bvPLA2, while the number of other immune cells, including neutrophils, macrophages, and CD8+ T-cells, was decreased. Our data indicate that the administration of bvPLA2 ameliorates cholestatic liver injury and fibrosis by inhibiting hepatocyte apoptosis and inflammation.

The evolutionary and population demographic history of marine red algae in East Asia is poorly understood. Here, we reconstructed the phylogeographies of two upper intertidal species endemic to East Asia, Gelidiophycus divaricatus and G. freshwateri. Phylogenetic and phylogeographic inferences of 393 mitochondrial cox1, 128 plastid rbcL, and 342 nuclear ITS2 sequences were complemented with ecological niche models. Gelidiophycus divaricatus, a southern species adapted to warm water, is characterized by a high genetic diversity and a strong geographical population structure, characteristic of stable population sizes and sudden reduction to recent expansion. In contrast, G. freshwateri, a northern species adapted to cold temperate conditions, is genetically relatively homogeneous with a shallow population structure resulting from steady population growth and recent equilibrium. The overlap zone of the two species roughly matches summer and winter isotherms, indicating that surface seawater temperature is a key feature influencing species range. Unidirectional genetic introgression was detected at two sites on Jeju Island where G. divaricatus was rare while G. freshwateri was common, suggesting the occurrence of asymmetric natural hybrids, a rarely reported event for rhodophytes. Our results illustrate that Quaternary climate oscillations have left strong imprints on the current day genetic structure and highlight the importance of seawater temperature and sea level change in driving speciation in upper intertidal seaweed species.

Indian Emergency Departments (EDs) encounter a significant number of toxicologic cases each year, approximately half of which are attempts at deliberate self-harm. The objective of this study was t...

Leaf senescence is an integrated response of the cells to develop age information and various environmental signals. Thus, some of the genes involved in the response to environmental changes are expected to regulate leaf senescence. Light acts not only as the primary source of energy for photosynthesis but also as an essential environmental cue that directly control plant growth and development including leaf senescence. The molecular mechanisms linking light signaling to leaf senescence have recently emerged, exploring the role of Phytochrome-Interacting Factors (PIFs) as a central player leading to diverse senescence responses, senescence-promoting gene regulatory networks (GRNs) involving PIFs, and structural features of transcription modules in GRNs. The circadian clock is an endogenous time-keeping system for the adaptation of organisms to changing environmental signals and coordinates developmental events throughout the life of the plant. Circadian rhythms can be reset by environmental signals, such as light-dark or temperature cycles, to match the environmental cycle. Research advances have led to the discovery of the role of core clock components as senescence regulators and their underlying signaling pathways, as well as the age-dependent shortening of the circadian clock period. These discoveries highlight the close relationship between the circadian system and leaf senescence. Key issues remain to be elucidated, including the effect of light on leaf senescence in relation to the circadian clock, and the identification of key molecules linking aging, light, and the circadian clock, and integration mechanisms of various senescence-affecting signals at the multi-regulation levels in dynamics point of view.

Background: Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) is involved in the pathogenesis of arthritic diseases. The TLR4 inhibitor TAK-242 has shown potential as a possible treatment for rheumatoid arthritis in an adjuvant-induced arthritis rat model. However, further investigation of the anti-arthritis effect of TAK-242 in other animal models of arthritis disease is required. Objective: This study was conducted to examine the anti-arthritic effects and mechanisms of TAK-242 on curdlan-induced spondyloarthritis in SKG mice. Methods: Curdlan-injected SKG ZAP-70W163C mice were intraperitoneally administered with TAK-242 (3 mg/kg) every other day or anti-IL-23 antibody (100 μg) weekly for 9 weeks. The therapeutic effect of TAK-242 was evaluated in the SKG mice by measuring the inflammation level of foot, ileum, lung and tail by histology, the levels of proinflammatory cytokines in serum, bone mineral density (BMD) in femur and spine, and CD4+T cell subtypes Th1 and Th17 in spleen.Results: TAK-242 treatment significantly reduced clinical score, paw width, and colon length in SKG mice. Consistent with the therapeutic effect, TAK-242 also reduced peripheral arthritis and IL-17 expression in the foot and ileum tissues. It also inhibited inflammation of the lungs, ileum, paws, and tail and reduced serum levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-6 and TNF-α. TAK-242 recovered the reduced bone density in the femur but not in the spine. Treatment with TAK-242 also suppressed the populations of Th1 and Th17 cells in the spleen of SKG mice.Conclusions: TAK-242 may show beneficial anti-arthritis effects by inhibiting the proliferation of pro-inflammatory Th1 and Th17 cells. Further research is needed for TAK-242 to be repositioned as a treatment for arthritis disease.

Olfactory receptors are ectopically expressed in extra-nasal tissues. The gut is constantly exposed to high levels of odorants where ectopic olfactory receptors may play critical roles. Activation of ectopic olfactory receptor 544 (Olfr544) by azelaic acid (AzA), an Olfr544 ligand, reduces adiposity in mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD) by regulating fuel preference to fats. Herein, we investigated the novel function of Olfr544 in the gut. In GLUTag cells, AzA induces the cAMP-PKA-CREB signaling axis and increases the secretion of GLP-1, an enteroendocrine hormone with anti-obesity effects. In mice fed a HFD and orally administered AzA, GLP-1 plasma levels were elevated in mice. The induction of GLP-1 secretion was negated in cells with Olfr544 gene knockdown and in Olfr544-deficient mice. Gut microbiome analysis revealed that AzA increased the levels of Bacteroides acidifaciens and microbiota associated with antioxidant pathways. In fecal metabolomics analysis, the levels of succinate and trehalose, metabolites correlated with a lean phenotype, were elevated by AzA. The function of Olfr544 in gut inflammation, a key feature in obesity, was further investigated. In RNA sequencing analysis, AzA suppressed LPS-induced activation of inflammatory pathways and reduced TNF-α and IL-6 expression, thereby improving intestinal permeability. The effects of AzA on the gut metabolome, microbiome, and colon inflammation were abrogated in Olfr544-KO mice. These results collectively demonstrated that activation of Olfr544 by AzA in the gut exerts multiple effects by regulating GLP-1 secretion, gut microbiome and metabolites, and colonic inflammation in anti-obesogenic phenotypes and, thus, may be applied for obesity therapeutics.

Fundus images with poor quality may contain insufficient information to represent characteristics of eye diseases, such as diabetic retinopathy (DR), glaucoma, and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). This negatively affects the performance of automated systems. In this paper, we present a method, which is based on the transfer learning technique with Inception-v3 model, to evaluate the quality of fundus images and eliminate fundus images that are classified as having poor quality. The original Inception-v3 model was modified by adding more layers at the classification layer of the model to adapt to quality fundus image evaluation. The experiment performed acceptable results of quality evaluation for fundus images into two categories: good and poor-quality images. Therefore, the proposed method can assess the quality of the image by identifying the contributing factors such as over dark and over bright.

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a cluster of metabolic disorders associated with medical conditions: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, insulin resistance, etc. People with MetS have a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Hence, early detection of MetS can be useful in the field of healthcare. In this paper, we propose a 1D-Convolution Neural Network (1D-CNN) model for classifying the electrocardiogram (ECG) signals of the GBBANet online database into two classes: a group of people with the medical condition (MetS [n=15]) and a control group (CG [n=10]). The dataset consists of 5 ECG recordings per person. The proposed 1D-CNN model has achieved an overall accuracy of 88.32%.

Medieval European stained glass windows are known to display various splendid colors and remove harmful airborne substances. At present, the functions of medieval stained glass windows are imperative, from the environment, health, and energy perspectives, to develop multi-functional windows that report/control environmental conditions and remove harmful substances by utilizing visible-near-infrared light sources. Here, we suggest a strategy to mimic medieval European stained glasses for devising plasmonic-based multi-functional smart stained glass windows. The stained glass windows are prepared from the deposition of gold nanoparticles on a glass that is preliminarily coated with a responsive colloidal nanosheet. The temperature responsiveness of the nanosheet enables the effective control the gold nanoparticle density of the stained glasses. Therefore, the windows can display blue, violet, and cranberry colors. The colors become iridescent by introducing a photonic crystal monolayer. The stained glass windows are hydrochromic: they switch the colors (blue ↔ cranberry) and modulate light transmittance depending on humidity conditions. Moreover, they can remove formaldehyde under the illumination of a low-power indoor light. These functions provide a new platform for the futuristic smart windows that clean indoor air for the human health and save energy.

This study investigated the possibility of utilising physiological responses and machine learning techniques to determine the degree of participation of in-patients with mild cognitive impairment at rehabilitation institutions. Physiological signals related to autonomic functions, cardio-activity, sweat gland activation, and skin surface temperature were obtained, and machine learning classifiers were used to classify rehabilitation participation levels as higher or lower participation when participants were required to perform a VR-based rehabilitative task. Classifiers such as a decision tree or support vector machine can effectively determine two different levels of participation suggesting the proposed approach can help therapists assess an important aspect of client satisfaction.

ERP는 전사 비즈니스 프로세스의 자동화와 통합을 지원하고, 업무 수행에 관한 방대한 데이터를 기록하고 있다. 최근에 학계와 재계는 ERP 비즈니스 프로세스의 성과 개선과 컴플라이언스 강화를 지원할 수 있는 프로세스 마이닝에 많은 관심을 기울이고 있다. 그러나 이러한 관심은 SAP ERP와 같은 외산 ERP를 채택한 대기업의 비즈니스 프로세스 분석과 개선에 한정되어 있다. 사실, 외산 ERP에 비해 국산 ERP는 이벤트 데이터를 기록하고 관리하는 역량이 부족하다. 그러므로 국산 ERP에 프로세스 마이닝을 적용하는 것은 큰 도전과제이다. 이러한 도전과제를 극복하기 위해 본 연구는 프로세스 마이닝을 활용하여 국산 ERP의 프로세스를 분석하고자 한다. 이와 함께, 본 연구는 국내 화장품 제조기업의 사례에서 배운 교훈을 토론할 것이다. 본 연구의 결과는 국산 ERP를 채택한 국내 중소기업의 경쟁력 강화에 도움을 줄 것으로 기대되며 중소기업 ERP 구축에 투입된 한국 정부의 막대한 투자가 성과를 내는 것에 기여할 수 있을 것이다.

One puzzle in loanword adaptation involves a situation in which a foreign sound structure is modified even when the original form would be phonotactically legal in the borrowing language. An example of this apparently unnecessary repair is the tendency to insert a vowel after a word-final stop in English borrowed words into Korean since Korean native words can end in a stop. This study investigates the effects of different linguistic factors, i.e., release and voicing of the English final stop and tenseness of pre-stop vowel, on the likelihood of vowel insertion to determine whether this unmotivated vowel insertion derives from the misperception of English words. The current study separates out the effects of these linguistic factors in a perception experiment designed to help in testing the hypotheses of the adaptation-in-perception approach. In the categorization task, Korean listeners heard English nonwords ending in a stop or in a stop-vowel sequence and categorized each word as consonant-final or vowel-final. Although the present results concerning the main effects of all factors are compatible with the adaptation-in-perception approach, the interaction effects between stop voicing and vowel tenseness suggest that alongside the phonological factors that were considered in this study, other possible factors may play a role in loanword adaptation, e.g., maintaining perceptual similarity in production, stop place, word size, and final syllable containing stress. This indicates that unnecessary vowel insertion is not a straightforward outcome that happens in adaptation but an intricate linguistic phenomenon that involves the complex interaction of perception, production and several other factors.

Urine-derived stem cells (USCs) are considered as a promising cell source capable of neuronal differentiation. In addition, specific growth factors and extracellular matrix are essential for enhancing their neuronal differentiation efficiency. In this study, we investigated the possibility of neuronal differentiation of USCs and the role of laminin and platelet-derived growth factor BB (PDGF-BB) as promoting factors. USCs were isolated from fresh urine of healthy donors. Cultured USCs were adherent to the plate and their morphology was similar to the cobblestone. In addition, they showed chromosome stability, rapid proliferation rate, colony forming capacity, and mesenchymal stem cell characteristics. For inducing the neuronal differentiation, USCs were cultured for 14 days in neuronal differentiation media supplemented with/without laminin and/or PDGF-BB. To identify the expression of neuronal markers, RT-PCR, flow cytometry analysis and immunocytochemistry were used. After neuronal induction, the cells showed neuron-like morphological change and high expression level of neuronal markers. In addition, laminin and PDGF-BB respectively promoted the neuronal differentiation of USCs and the combination of laminin and PDGF-BB showed a synergistic effect for the neuronal differentiation of USCs. In conclusion, USCs are noteworthy cell source in the field of neuronal regeneration and laminin and PDGF-BB promote their neuronal differentiation efficiency.

A narrow process window for the fabrication of p-type semiconductors is one of the major challenges in implementing tin oxide (SnO x ) in thin film transistor applications. The SnO x lattice was doped with Al to widen the process window and enhance the p-type channel thin film transistor performance with co-sputtering process. A change in the growth orientation direction with the presence of Al in SnO x thin films was observed in the grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction data. The changes in the oxidation states of Sn ions were determines by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. With increasing Al concentration, the ratio of Sn 4 + in the Sn peaks decreases indicating that the SnO x film has improved p-type properties. These changes led to an improvement of the electrical properties such as output characteristic, field effect mobility, subthreshold swing, and positive shift of threshold voltage.

Aims Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) may arise anywhere in the gastrointestinal tract, but are rare in the esophagus. We describe the clinical, pathologic, and molecular characteristics of 27 primary esophageal GISTs, the largest series to date. Methods and Results DNA was extracted and exons 9, 11, 13 and 17 of KIT, exons 12, 14 and 18 of PDGFRA and exon 15 of BRAF were amplified and sequenced. Esophageal GISTs occurred in 14 men and 13 women between 22 and 80 years of age (mean, 56 years). All 27 cases were immunohistochemically positive for KIT, and 92% and 47% co-expressed CD34 or smooth muscle actin, respectively. Fifteen (71% of analyzed cases) harbored KIT exon 11 mutations and one case each had a mutation in KIT exon 13 (K642E) or BRAF exon 15 (V600E). Long-term follow-up data (median, 96.5 months) were obtained for 20 cases; 2 patients had metastases at presentation and 7 had developed local recurrence and/or metastasis after surgery. A large tumor size (≥ 10 cm), high mitotic rate (> 5/5 mm2), presence of a deletion mutation in KIT exon 11 involving codons 557-558 and a positive microscopic margin were associated with recurrence and metastasis. The KIT mutations identified in esophageal GISTs are similar to those observed in gastric GISTs. Conclusions Complete surgical resection with clear margins is recommended, if technically feasible, and genotyping can help to improve diagnosis and further patient management in esophageal GIST. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

This letter reports the low-temperature solution-based fabrication of indium oxide (In2O3) thin-film transistors (TFTs) using a visible laser-assisted urea combustion process. An In2O3 precursor solution containing a small amount of urea absorbed the photon energy from a blue laser and started the combustion of urea to form a crystallized In2O3 phase. Atomic force microscopy and X-ray diffraction showed that both laser radiation and urea combustion together are necessary to convert a dried precursor solution layer to a crystallized In2O3 phase. A TFT fabricated from the 0.2-mol% urea-added solution and laser annealed with a 250-J/cm $^{\textsf {2}}$ energy fluence exhibited superior transfer characteristics compared with the TFTs fabricated either without urea addition or with small energy fluence radiation. Based on these results and considering the price of blue laser diodes, this technique can be an economical solution for the fabrication of oxide semiconductor TFTs on flexible substrates with a low melting point.

Helicobacter pylori and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection, and associated cytokines are involved in gastric carcinogenesis. We investigated the expression of these cytokines and their relationship with clinicopathological characteristics. The study included specimens from 207 patients with gastric adenocarcinoma, 56 with chronic gastritis, 32 with metaplasia, and 30 with low-grade epithelial dysplasia. Tissue microarrays were constructed and immunohistochemical staining for IL-1β, IL-6, IL-10, IL-17, p16, p21, TNF-α, and TNFR1 was performed. EBV and H. pylori infection status was determined. IL-1β, IL-6, IL-17, p16, and p21 protein expression was significantly higher in adenocarcinoma cases than in the other cases (p < 0.05). EBV was only noted in adenocarcinoma (13 cases, 6.3%). The H. pylori infection rate in adenocarcinoma was significantly higher than that in the other cases (p < 0.005). IL-6 expression was associated with improved survival (p < 0.05), whereas IL-17 expression was associated with decreased survival (p < 0.05). IL-6 expression was inversely associated with angioinvasion, and disease stage (p < 0.05), whereas IL-17 expression was associated with disease stage (p < 0.05). IL-10 expression was correlated with IL-1β and TNF-α expression, and p16 expression was correlated with IL-17 and EBV status. Our results indicate that IL-6 and IL-17 are associated with gastric carcinogenesis and may be considered prognostic factors.