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Seasonality of suicidal behavior has been widely reported in many epidemiological studies with a well replicated suicide peak in spring followed by a trough in winter season. Research from some regions over the past few decades has shown a diminishing seasonal pattern of suicides and this introduced a new perspective on the suicide study. Data on all suicide deaths from the period 1991 to 2015 was extracted from the South Korean National Death Registration data set which was made available by Statistics Korea. Our findings confirmed a strong seasonal effect of suicides in South Korea throughout the study period and a marked diminishing pattern was observed since the period of 2006–2010. The rhythm of suicides kept changing across the time intervals with a spring peak followed by a second peak in late summer/autumn. The seasonality varied across age groups and the seasonal effect among the Korean elderly suicides was still found to be significant though a diminishing pattern was observed recently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the winter of 2016-2017, an epidemic of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) led to high mortality in poultry and put a serious burden on the poultry industry of the Republic of Korea. Effective control measures considering spatial heterogeneity to mitigate the HPAI epidemic is still a challenging issue. Here we develop a spatial-temporal compartmental model that incorporates the culling rate as a function of the reported farms and farm density in each town. The epidemiological and geographical data of two species, chickens and ducks, from the farms in the sixteen towns in Eumseong-gun and Jincheon-gun are used to find the best-fitted parameters of the metapopulation model. The best culling radius to maximize the final size of the susceptible farms and minimize the total number of culled farms is calculated from the model. The local reproductive number using the next generation method is calculated as an indicator of virus transmission in a given area. Simulation results indicate that this parameter is strongly influenced not only by epidemiological factors such as transmissibility and/or susceptibility of poultry species but also by geographical and demographical factors such as the distribution of poultry farms (or density) and connectivity (or distance) between farms. Based on this result, we suggest the best culling radius with respect to the local reproductive number in a targeted area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study aimed to show the epidemiological characteristics and the difference in the risk factors and types of collision between older and younger drivers in Korea. Methods: We collected data from the Emergency Department-based Injury In-depth Surveillance retrieved by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2011 to 2015. We included injured drivers aged ≥ 18 years who were registered in the database, who were limited to drivers of four-wheeled vehicles. The enrolled patients were divided according to age into older (≥ 65 years) and younger (< 65 years) drivers. The total number of enrolled drivers was 37,511; 2,361 (6.3%) of them were older drivers. The epidemiological characteristics (e.g., age, sex, fatality rate) of traffic collision victims for 5 years were determined, and the risk factors (e.g., seat belt use) and types of collision (single- vs. multi-vehicle) between the two groups were compared. Results: The median age and interquartile range (IQR; 25th and 75th percentiles) of all drivers were 41.0 (IQR, 32.0–52.0), and 24,544 (65.4%) of them were men. The median age increased from 40.0 (IQR, 31.0–50.0) to 43.0 (IQR, 33.0–54.0) between 2010 and 2015 (P < 0.001). The proportion of older drivers increased from 5.0% to 8.4% annually during the study period (P < 0.001). Between 2010 and 2015, the fatality rate decreased from 3.1% to 1.2% (P = 0.287) for older drivers and from 0.9% to 0.5% (P = 0.009) for younger drivers. The proportion of single-vehicle collision (25.9% vs. 20.3%) was higher in older than in younger drivers (P < 0.001). Older drivers had a lower rate of seat-belt use than younger drivers (79.0% vs. 83.0%, P < 0.001). Conclusions: The proportion of older drivers increased annually during the study period, and older drivers experienced more single-vehicle collision and used seat belt less frequently than younger drivers. A national policy support to reduce traffic collision in older drivers and public relation activities to enhance their seat belt use should be strengthened in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on more recent science spending developments in countries such as China, Korea, India and Brazil, there is a growing sense that the world’s scientific deck of cards is in the midst of a major reshuffle. But it is not clear if this reordering is limited to just the top spenders, or, indeed, how these changes have been playing out over the longer term. The new, more comprehensive research and development (R&D) spending estimates presented and discussed here reveal that we are in the midst of a possibly game-changing, albeit partial and perhaps irregular, reshuffle of the global R&D deck. These changes have potentially profound domestic and international economic development implications over the medium to long term. Notably, the fortunes of many of the world’s poorer countries continue to look bleak. Using the evolving structure of past R&D spending to project forward, and absent marked changes in science policies and spending priorities, we foresee a continuing and substantial shift in the geography of R&D towards parts of Asia, along with a continuing large, and in many respects growing, gap between the world’s scientific haves and have-nots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]