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Enkhjargal Bayarsaikhan,1,2,* Delger Bayarsaikhan,1,* Jaesuk Lee,1 Myeongjoo Son,1,3 Seyeon Oh,1 Jeongsik Moon,1 Hye-Jeong Park,1 Arivazhagan Roshini,1 Seung U Kim,4 Byoung-Joon Song,5 Seung-Mook Jo,6 Kyunghee Byun,1,3 Bonghee Lee1,3 1Center for Regenerative Medicine, Lee Gil Ya Cancer and Diabetes Institute, Gachon University, Incheon, Republic of Korea; 2Department of General Laboratory, National Cancer Center of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; 3Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Graduate School of Medicine, Gachon University, Incheon, Republic of Korea; 4Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; 5Laboratory of Membrane Biochemistry and Biophysics, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA; 6Department of Emergency Medical Services, Eulji University, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) are known to play an important role in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease (PD), by inducing protein aggregation and cross-link, formation of Lewy body, and neuronal death. In this study, we observed that AGE-albumin, the most abundant AGE product in the human PD brain, is synthesized in activated microglial cells and accumulates in the extracellular space. AGE-albumin synthesis in human-activated microglial cells is distinctly inhibited by ascorbic acid and cytochalasin treatment. Accumulated AGE-albumin upregulates the receptor to AGE, leading to apoptosis of human primary dopamine (DA) neurons. In animal experiments, we observed reduced DA neuronal cell death by treatment with soluble receptor to AGE. Our study provides evidence that activated microglial cells are one of the main contributors in AGE-albumin accumulation, deleterious to DA neurons in human and animal PD brains. Finally, activated microglial AGE-albumin could be used as a diagnostic and therapeutic biomarker with high sensitivity for neurodegenerative disorders, including PD. Keywords: theragnostic, microglia, AGE-albumin, neuronal death, receptor of AGE, Parkinson’s disease

Class examples for a standard introductory statistics course usually involve a variety of applications. In this paper, we consider the teaching of statistics using forensic science and the law, an area that holds some fascination with many audiences.

The feasibility of transferring hydrogen-implanted germanium to silicon with a reduced thermal budget is demonstrated. Germanium samples were implanted with a splitting dose of 5×1016 H2+ cm-2 at 180 keV and a two-step anneal was performed. Surface roughness and x-ray diffraction pattern measurements, combined with cross-sectional TEM analysis of hydrogen-implanted germanium samples were carried out in order to understand the exfoliation mechanism as a function of the thermal budget. It is shown that the first anneal performed at low temperature (≤150 °C for 22 h) enhances the nucleation of hydrogen platelets significantly. The second anneal is performed at 300 °C for 5 min and is shown to complete the exfoliation process by triggering the formation of extended platelets. Two key results are highlighted: (i) in a reduced thermal budget approach, the transfer of hydrogen-implanted germanium is found to follow a mechanism similar to the transfer of hydrogen-implanted InP and GaAs, (ii) such a low thermal budget (<300 °C) is found to be suitable for directly bonded heterogeneous substrates, such as germanium bonded to silicon, where different thermal expansion coefficients are involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Dark circles refer to a symptom that present darkness under the eyes. Because of improvement in the quality of life, the dark circles have been recognized as one of major cosmetic concerns. However, it is not easy to classify the dark circles because they have various causes. Methods To select suitable instruments and detailed evaluation items, the dark circles were classified according to the causes through visual assessment, Wood's lamp test, and medical history survey for 100 subjects with dark circles. After the classification, were newly recruited for instrument conformity assessment. Through this, suitable instruments for dark circle evaluation were selected. We performed a randomized clinical trial for dark circles, a placebo-controlled double-blind study, using effective parameters of the instruments selected from the preliminary test. Results Dark circles of vascular type (35%) and mixed type (54%), a combination of pigmented and vascular types, were the most common. Twenty four subjects with the mixed type dark circles applied the test product (Vitamin C 3%, Vitamin A 0.1%, Vitamin E 0.5%) and placebo on randomized split-face for 8 weeks. The effective parameters (L*, a, M.I., E.I., quasi L*, quasi a* and dermal thickness) were measured during the study period. Result showed that the L* value of Chromameter®, Melanin index (M.I.) of Mexameter® and quasi L* value obtained by image analysis improved with statistical significance after applying the test product compared with the placebo product. Conclusion We classified the dark circles according to the causes of the dark circles and verified the reliability of the parameter obtained by the instrument conformity assessment used in this study through the efficacy evaluation. Also based on this study, we were to suggest newly established methods which can be applied to the evaluation of efficacy of functional cosmetics for dark circles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]