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Abstract Statin is crucial for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients. However, the risk of new-onset diabetes mellitus (NODM) associated with statin is a concern. This study aimed to determine the incremental diabetogenic effects of statins according to their intensity and dose in AMI patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Among 13,104 patients enrolled in the Korea AMI Registry between 2011 and 2015, 6152 patients without diabetes mellitus (DM) who underwent PCI and received moderate-to-high-intensity atorvastatin and rosuvastatin were selected for the study. The endpoints were NODM and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), composite of all-cause mortality, recurrent MI, and revascularization up to 3 years. Among the participants, 3747 and 2405 received moderate- and high-intensity statins, respectively. The Kaplan–Meier curves demonstrated a higher incidence of NODM in patients with high-intensity statins than those with moderate-intensity. High-intensity statin was a significant predictor of NODM after adjusting for other co-variables (HR = 1.316, 95% CI 1.024–1.692; P

It has been reported that the administration of Limosilactobacillus fermentum alleviates diseases such as osteoporosis and colitis. In this study, we report the complete genome sequence of Limosilactobacillus fermentum KUFM407, a probiotic strain of LAB isolated from Korean traditional fermented food, Kimchi. Whole genome sequencing of L. fermentum KUFM407 was performed on the Illumina MiSeq and Oxford Nanopore MinION platform. The genome consisted of one circular chromosome (2,077,616 base pair [bp]) with a guanine cytosine (GC) content of 51.5% and one circular plasmid sequence (13,931 bp). Genome annotation identified 1,932 protein-coding genes, 15 rRNAs, and 58 tRNAs in the assembly. The function annotation of the predicted proteins revealed genes involved in the biosynthesis of bacteriocin and fatty acids. The complete genome of L. fermentum KUFM407 could provide valuable information for the development of new probiotic food and health supplements.

Abstract Previous studies have reported associations between newly diagnosed diabetes and poor outcomes after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), but there is limited data focusing on elderly patients (age ≥ 65). This study aimed to analyze the prevalence and clinical implications of newly diagnosed diabetes in elderly patients who underwent PCI. From 2004 to 2021, a total of 2456 elderly patients who underwent invasive PCI at Korea University Guro Hospital were prospectively enrolled and followed up for a median of five years. The primary endpoint was five-year major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). Cox regression was used to evaluate whether newly diagnosed diabetes impacted on long-term clinical outcomes. Newly diagnosed diabetes was presented in approximately 8.1% to 10.9% of elderly patients who underwent PCI. Those who had a new diagnosis of diabetes had a higher risk of MACE than previously known diabetes (25.28% vs. 19.15%, p = 0.039). After adjusting for significant factors, newly diagnosed diabetes remained an independent predictor of MACE (HR [hazard ratio] 1.64, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.24–2.17, p

Background This study compared the safety and effectiveness of paclitaxel/cilostazol–eluting Cilotax stents with those of everolimus-eluting stents in patients with acute myocardial infarction. Real-world data from the Korea Acute Myocardial Infarction Registry were examined. Methods A total of 5,472 patients with acute myocardial infarction underwent percutaneous coronary intervention with Cilotax stents (n = 212) or everolimus-eluting stents (n = 5,260). The primary end point was the 3-year rate of target lesion failure. The other end points were major adverse cardiovascular events (a composite of cardiac death, target vessel myocardial infarction, and ischemia-driven target lesion revascularization), target vessel revascularization, and stent thrombosis. A propensity score matching analysis was performed to adjust for potential confounders by using a logistic regression model; propensity score matching generated 2 well-balanced groups (Cilotax group, n = 180; everolimus-eluting stents group, n = 170; N = 350). After propensity score matching, baseline clinical characteristics were similar between the groups. Results After percutaneous coronary intervention, compared with the everolimus-eluting stents group, the Cilotax group more often had major adverse cardiovascular events (24.1% vs 18.5%; P = .042), myocardial infarction (8.0% vs 3.2%; P < .001), target lesion revascularization (8.0% vs 2.6%; P < .001), target vessel revascularization (11.3% vs 4.5%; P < .001), and stent thrombosis (4.7% vs 0.5%; P < .001) before matching. Even after matching, the Cilotax group had more frequent target lesion revascularization (9.4% vs 2.9%; P = .22) and stent thrombosis (5.6% vs 1.2%; P = .34). Conclusion In patients with acute myocardial infarction who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention, use of the Cilotax stent was associated with higher rates of target lesion revascularization, target vessel revascularization, and stent thrombosis than were everolimus-eluting stents. Use of the Cilotax dual drugeluting stent should be avoided in the treatment of myocardial infarction.

Abstract E-health has become a top priority for healthcare organizations focused on advancing healthcare services. Thus, medical organizations have been widely adopting cloud services, resulting in the effective storage of sensitive data. To prevent privacy and security issues associated with the data, attribute-based encryption (ABE) has been a popular choice for encrypting private data. Likewise, the attribute-based access control (ABAC) technique has been widely adopted for controlling data access. Researchers have proposed electronic health record (EHR) systems using ABE techniques like ciphertext policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE), key policy attribute-based encryption (KP-ABE), and multi authority attribute-based encryption (MA-ABE). However, there is a lack of rigorous comparison among the various ABE schemes used in healthcare systems. To better understand the usability of ABE techniques in medical systems, we performed a comprehensive review and evaluation of the three popular ABE techniques by developing EHR systems using knowledge graphs with the same data but different encryption mechanisms. We have used the MIMIC-III dataset with varying record sizes for this study. This paper can help healthcare organizations or researchers using ABE in their systems to comprehend the correct usage scenario and the prospect of ABE deployment in the most recent technological evolution.

Abstract Previous studies have reported the association between myocardial infarction (MI) and air pollution (AP). However, limited information is available regarding the long-term effects of AP on the relative incidence rates of ST-elevation MI (STEMI) and Non-ST-elevation MI (NSTEMI). We investigated the association between long-term exposure to AP and the incidence of STEMI. Between January 2006 and December 2015, a total of 45,619 eligible patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) were enrolled in the Korea Acute MI Registry (KAMIR) and KAMIR-National Institutes of Health. Mixed-effect regression models were used to examine the association between the annual average ambient AP before MI onset and the incidence of STEMI, and to evaluate the association of AP with the incidence of in-hospital cardiogenic shock. After mixed-effect regression model analysis, particulate matter (PM) 10 µm or less in diameter (PM10) was associated with increased incidence of STEMI compared with NSTEMI (odds ratio [OR] 1.009, 95% Confidence Interval [CI] 1.002–1.016; p = 0.012). For in-hospital cardiogenic shock complication, PM10 and SO2 were associated with increased risk, PM10 (OR 1.033, 95% CI 1.018–1.050; p

Human action recognition systems enhance public safety by detecting abnormal behavior autonomously. RGB sensors commonly used in such systems capture personal information of subjects and, as a result, run the risk of potential privacy leakage. On the other hand, privacy-safe alternatives, such as depth or thermal sensors, exhibit poorer performance because they lack the semantic context provided by RGB sensors. Moreover, the data availability of privacy-safe alternatives is significantly lower than RGB sensors. To address these problems, we explore effective cross-modality distillation methods in this paper, aiming to distill the knowledge of context-rich large-scale pre-trained RGB-based models into privacy-safe depth-based models. Based on extensive experiments on multiple architectures and benchmark datasets, we propose an effective method for training privacy-safe depth-based action recognition models via cross-modality distillation: cross-modality mixing distillation. This approach improves both the performance and efficiency by enabling interaction between depth and RGB modalities through a linear combination of their features. By utilizing the proposed cross-modal mixing distillation approach, we achieve state-of-the-art accuracy in two depth-based action recognition benchmarks. The code and the pre-trained models will be available upon publication.

Semi-supervised semantic segmentation learns a model for classifying pixels into specific classes using a few labeled samples and numerous unlabeled images. The recent leading approach is consistency regularization by self-training with pseudo-labeling pixels having high confidences for unlabeled images. However, using only high-confidence pixels for self-training may result in losing much of the information in the unlabeled sets due to poor confidence calibration of modern deep learning networks. In this paper, we propose a class-wise adaptive strategy for semi supervised semantic segmentation (CASS) to cope with the loss of most information that occurs in existing high-confidence-based pseudo-labeling methods. Unlike existing semi-supervised semantic segmentation frameworks, CASS constructs a validation set on a labeled set, to leverage the calibration performance for each class. On this basis, we propose class-wise adaptive thresholds and class-wise adaptive over-sampling using the analysis results from the validation set. Our proposed CASS achieves state-of-the-art performance on the full data partition of the base PASCAL VOC 2012 dataset and on the 1/4 data partition of the Cityscapes dataset with significant margins of 83.0 and 80.4 mIoU, respectively.

With the continuous growth of cloud-based Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems and medical data, medical organizations are particularly concerned about storing patient data to provide fast services while adhering to privacy and security concerns. Existing EHR systems often face challenges in handling heterogeneous data and maintaining good performance with data growth. These systems mostly use relational databases or partially store data in a knowledge graph, making it challenging to handle big data and allowing flexible schema expansion. Hence, there is a need to address these problems. This paper provides a solution by proposing a novel graph-based EHR system integrating Attribute-Based Encryption and Semantic Web Technologies to ensure fine-grained EHR field-level security of patient records. Our approach leverages semantic context to query through a knowledge graph that stores encrypted medical data in the nodes, making it possible to handle heterogeneous data while ensuring optimal performance and preserving patient privacy.

In this study, we report the complete genome sequence of Lactiplantibacillus plantarum L55, a probiotic strain of lactic acid bacteria isolated from kimchi. The genome consists of one circular chromosome (2,077,416 base pair [bp]) with a guanine cytosine (GC) content of 44.5%, and two circular plasmid sequences (54,267 and 19,592 bp, respectively). We also conducted a comprehensive analysis of the genome, which identified the presence of functional genes, genomic islands, and antibiotic-resistance genes. The genome sequence data presented in this study provide insights into the genetic basis of L. plantarum L55, which could be beneficial for the future development of probiotic applications.

Abstract In the absence of available data, we evaluated the effects of delayed hospitalization (symptom-to-door time [SDT] ≥ 24 h) on major clinical outcomes after new-generation drug-eluting stent implantation in patients with non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) and complex lesions. In total, 4373 patients with NSTEMI were divided into complex (n = 2106) and non-complex (n = 2267) groups. The primary outcome was the 3-year rate of major adverse cardiac events (MACE), defined as all-cause death, recurrent MI, and any repeat revascularization. Secondary outcomes included the individual MACE components. In the complex group, all-cause death (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 1.752; p = 0.004) and cardiac death (aHR, 1.966; p = 0.010) rates were significantly higher for patients with SDT ≥ 24 h than for those with SDT

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have been reported to possess various beneficial properties and are commonly used as probiotics. LAB play a crucial role in milk fermentation, industrial lactic acid fermentation, and health and medicine. Limosilactobacillus fermentum isolated from fermented dairy and food products is considered as ‘Generally Recognized as Safe’ by FDA. Limosilactobacillus fermentum plays an important role in modulation of the intestinal microbiota, enhancing the host immune system and improving feed digestibility. We isolated a probiotic candidate that was identified and named Limosilactobacillus fermentum JNU532. In a previous report, cell-free culture of L. fermentum JNU532 exhibited anti-melanogenic and antioxidant activities. In this study, we present the complete genome assembly of the bacterial strain JNU532. The final genome consists of one circular chromosome (2,077,416 base pairs) with a guanine + cytosine (GC) ratio of 51.5%.

Abstract We evaluated the 3-year clinical outcomes following early invasive (EI) and delayed invasive (DI) strategies in older adults with non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) undergoing successful new-generation drug-eluting stents (DESs) implantation to reflect current real-world practice. Overall, 2437 older adults (age, ≥ 65 years) with NSTEMI were recruited from the Korea Acute Myocardial Infarction Registry-National Institute of Health. They were divided into two groups: EI (n = 1750) and DI (n = 687). The primary clinical outcome was the occurrence of major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCEs), defined by all-cause death, recurrent MI, any repeat coronary revascularization, and stroke. The secondary clinical outcome was stent thrombosis (ST). After multivariable-adjusted and propensity score-matched analyses, the primary and secondary clinical outcomes were not significantly different between the EI and DI groups. Even after the analysis was confined to those having complex lesions, these major clinical outcomes were similar between these two groups. The EI and DI strategies in older adults with NSTEMI receiving new-generation DES showed comparable results. Clinical Trial Registration: URL: http://cris.nih.go.kr/cris/en/ ; Unique identifier: KCT0000863.

Wolfiporia cocos is a wood-decay brown rot fungus belonging to the family Polyporaceae. While the fungus grows, the sclerotium body of the strain, dubbed Bokryeong in Korean, is formed around the roots of conifer trees. The dried sclerotium has been widely used as a key component of many medicinal recipes in East Asia. Wolfiporia cocos strain KMCC03342 is the reference strain registered and maintained by the Korea Seed and Variety Service for commercial uses. Here, we present the first draft genome sequence of W. cocos KMCC03342 using a hybrid assembly technique combining both short- and long-read sequences. The genome has a total length of 55.5 Mb comprised of 343 contigs with N50 of 332 kb and 95.8% BUSCO completeness. The GC ratio was 52.2%. We predicted 14,296 protein-coding gene models based on ab initio gene prediction and evidence-based annotation procedure using RNAseq data. The annotated genome was predicted to have 19 terpene biosynthesis gene clusters, which was the same number as the previously sequenced W. cocos strain MD-104 genome but higher than Chinese W. cocos strains. The genome sequence and the predicted gene clusters allow us to study biosynthetic pathways for the active ingredients of W. cocos.

Background: It has been reported that significant endothelial dysfunction or clinically evident vasospasm can be associated with drug-eluting stents (DESs). However, the impact of DES associated coronary artery spasm (CAS) on long-term clinical outcomes has not been fully elucidated as compared with those of patients with vasospastic angina. Methods: A total of 2797 consecutive patients without significant coronary artery lesion (

Abstract Collembola are soil-dwelling arthropods that play a key role in the soil ecosystem. Allonychiurus kimi (Lee) (Collembola: Onychiuridae) was isolated from the natural environment and has been maintained for 20 years under laboratory conditions. Though the morphological and physiological features of A. kimi are being widely used to evaluate the impact of pesticides and heavy metals on the soil ecosystem, variations observed in these features might be on account of its microbiota. However, the microbiota composition of the laboratory-maintained A. kimi is undetermined and how the community structure is changing in response to soil environments or interacting with the soil microbiota are still unknown. In this study, we determined the microbiota of laboratory-maintained A. kimi at both adult and juvenile stages and examined how the microbiota of A. kimi is affected by the microbial community in the soil environments. Chryseobacterium, Pandoraea, Sphingomonas, Escherichia–Shigella, and Acinetobacter were the core microbiota of A. kimi. Exposure of the laboratory-maintained A. kimi to different soil microbial communities drove dynamic shifts in the composition of A. kimi microbiota. Microbial association network analysis suggested that gut microbiota of lab-grown A. kimi was affected by exposing to soil microbial community. This study implies that shifts in the bacterial community of adult A. kimi can be utilized as an indicator to evaluate the soil ecosystem.

BACKGROUND: Current guidelines recommend intervention for asymptomatic rheumatic mitral stenosis (MS) with mitral valve area ≤1.5 cm² based on indicators including pulmonary arterial systolic pressure (PASP) >50 mm Hg and new-onset atrial fibrillation; however, evidence supporting this is lacking. METHODS: This single-center retrospective study included patients with rheumatic MS between 2006 and 2022. Pulmonary hypertension was evaluated by using echocardiography to estimate PASP. Primary outcomes were major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), including all-cause mortality, hospitalization for heart failure, and arterial thromboembolic events for up to 5 years. RESULTS: Overall, 287 patients with severe rheumatic MS were enrolled (mean age, 62.5±11.3 years; 74.6% women). During a median follow-up of 2.52 years, MACE occurred in 99 patients. There were no differences in echocardiographic parameters, such as the mean mitral valve pressure gradient, mitral valve area, and proportion of mitral valve area <1.0 cm2, between patients who developed primary outcomes and those who did not. Survival analysis showed a worse prognosis in patients with estimated PASP (ePASP) >50 mm Hg than in those with ePASP ≤50 mm Hg (logrank P<0.001); however, atrial fibrillation was not a significant prognostic indicator. As a continuous variable, ePASP (mm Hg) was a significant predictor of MACE (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.027 [95% CI, 1.011-1.042]; P<0.001). Receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed an optimal ePASP threshold of >45 mm Hg, which was an independent predictor of MACE in patients with severe rheumatic MS (adjusted hazard ratio, 2.127 [95% CI, 1.424-3.177]; P<0.001). Competing risk analysis considering mitral valve intervention as a competing risk showed similar results. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrated the prognostic significance of ePASP, rather than atrial fibrillation, in relation to MACE among patients with severe rheumatic MS. Additionally, we proposed a lower ePASP threshold (>45 mm Hg) as a predictor of an unfavorable prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This prospective, multicenter, randomized study aimed to compare the 1-year clinical outcomes after primary stenting with self-expanding bare metal nitinol stent (SENS) and plain old balloon angioplasty (POBA) in patients with critical limb ischemia (CLI) and below-the-knee (BTK) lesions. Overall, 119 patients with CLI and BTK lesions were randomized to POBA alone (POBA group, 61 patients) or primary stenting with SENS (stenting group, 58 patients) after achieving acceptable POBA results in target BTK lesions. Clinical outcomes including amputation and revascularization rates were prospectively compared for 1 year. After 1 year, similar incidence rates of individual clinical endpoints, including cardiac death (6.5% vs. 5.1%, p > 0.999), myocardial infarction (1.6% vs. 0.0%, p > 0.999), repeat revascularization (19.6% vs. 18.9%, p = 0.922), target lesion revascularization (13.1% vs. 17.2%, p = 0.530), and amputation (4.9% vs. 0.0%, p = 0.244), were observed. POBA appeared to have acceptable treatment outcomes compared with primary stenting with SENS after 1 year in CLI patients with BTK lesions undergoing percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA).

White strains of Hypsizygus marmoreus are more difficult to cultivate than are brown strains; therefore, new white strain breeding strategies are required. Accordingly, we constructed the genetic map of H. marmoreus with 1996 SNP markers on 11 linkage groups (LGs) spanning 1380.49 cM. Prior to analysis, 82 backcrossed strains (HM8 lines) were generated by mating between KMCC03106-31 and the progenies of the F1 hybrid (Hami-18 × KMCC03106-93). Using HM8, the first 23 quantitative trait loci (QTLs) of yield-related traits were detected with high limit of detection (LOD) scores (1.98–9.86). The length, thickness, and hardness of the stipe were colocated on LG 1. Especially, length of stipe and thickness of stipe were highly correlated given that the correlation coefficients were negative (−0.39, p value ≤ .01). And a typical biomodal distribution was observed for lightness of the pileus and the lightness of the pileus trait belonged to the LG 8, as did traits of earliness and mycelial growth in potato dextrose agar (PDA) medium. Therefore, results for color traits can be suggested that color is controlled by a multi-gene of one locus. The yield trait was highly negatively correlated with the traits for thickness of the stipe (−0.45, p value ≤ .01). Based on additive effects, the white strain was confirmed as recessive; however, traits of mycelial growth, lightness, and quality were inherited by backcrossed HM8 lines. This new genetic map, finely mapped QTLs, and the strong selection markers could be used in molecular breeding of H. marmoreus.

Microalgae used for CO2 removal in an industrial exhaust gas stream usually has low CO2 tolerance. Here, the authors increase CO2 tolerance by expressing a single H + -pump and enable microalgal valorization of industrial flue gas.

Abstract Background Gut is a crucial organ for the host’s defense system due to its filtering action of the intestinal membrane from hazardous foreign substances. One strategy to strengthen the gut epithelial barrier function is to upregulate beneficial microflora populations and their metabolites. Sophorolipid (SPL), which is a glycolipid bio-surfactant, could increase beneficial microflora and decrease pathogenic bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract. Therefore, herein, we conducted an experiment with broiler chickens to investigate the fortifying effects of SPL on the host’s gut defense system by modulating the microbiota population. Methods A total of 540 1-day-old chicks (Ross 308) were used, and they were immediately allotted into three treatment groups (6 replications with 30 chicks/pen) according to their initial body weight. The dietary treatments consisted of CON (basal diet), BAM (10 mg/kg bambermycin), and SPL (10 mg/kg SPL). During the experiment, birds freely accessed feed and water, and body weight and feed intake were measured at the end of each phase. On d 35, birds (one bird/pen) were sacrificed to collect jejunum and cecum samples. Results Dietary SPL and BAM supplementation significantly accelerated birds’ growth and also significantly improved feed efficiency compared to CON. Intestinal microbial community was significantly separated by dietary SPL supplementation from that of CON, and dietary SPL supplementation significantly increased Lactobacillus spp. and Akkermansia muciniphila. Moreover, birds fed with dietary SPL also showed the highest concentration of cecal butyrate among all treatment groups. Gut morphological analysis showed that dietary SPL significantly increased villus height, ratio of villus height to crypt depth, goblet cell numbers, and the gene expression levels of claudin-1 and mucin 2. Additionally, dietary SPL significantly decreased the mRNA expression level of pro-inflammatory cytokine, interleukin-6, and increased that of anti-inflammatory cytokine, interleukin-10, compared to other treatments. Conclusions Dietary SPL increases the beneficial bacterial population and butyrate concentration, which leads to a strengthened gut barrier function. In addition, the intestinal inflammation was also downregulated by dietary SPL supplementation.

Abstract Background Self-expanding nitinol stent (SENS) implantation is commonly oversized in the superficial femoral artery (SFA), and leads to chronic outward force (COF) and in-stent restenosis (ISR). This study aimed to investigate the impact of COF of oversizing SENS on ISR of SFA. Methods In patients with implanted SENS in SFA, intimal hyperplasia especially between proximal segment and distal segment was evaluated by quantitative angiography, and the impact of COF on mid-term angiographic outcomes was investigated. In addition, porcine model with implanted SENS was used to evaluate the impact of COF on angiographic and histopathologic outcomes at 1 month. Excised stented arteries were evaluated by histopathologic analysis. Results We analyzed 65 SENS in 61 patients with follow-up angiography at 6 months to 1 year. The baseline diameter was 6.8 ± 0.71 mm and length were 97.0 ± 33.8 mm for the SENS. The ratio of the diameter of the stent to the reference vessel was 1.3 ± 0.24 at the proximal portion and 1.53 ± 0.27 at the distal portion (P

ABSTRACT Wood-decaying fungi of the class Agaricomycetes (phylum Basidiomycota) are saprotrophs that break down lignocellulose and play an important role in nutrient recycling. They secrete a wide range of extracellular plant cell wall degrading enzymes that break down cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, the main building blocks of plant biomass. Although the production of these enzymes is regulated mainly at the transcriptional level, no activating regulators have been identified in any wood-decaying fungus in the class Agaricomycetes. We studied the regulation of cellulase expression in the wood-decaying fungus Schizophyllum commune. Comparative genomics and transcriptomics on two wild isolates revealed a Zn2Cys6-type transcription factor gene (roc1) that was highly upregulated during growth on cellulose, compared to glucose. It is only conserved in the class Agaricomycetes. A roc1 knockout strain showed an inability to grow on medium with cellulose as sole carbon source, and growth on cellobiose and xylan (other components of wood) was inhibited. Growth on non-wood-related carbon sources was not inhibited. Cellulase gene expression and enzyme activity were reduced in the Δroc1 strain. ChIP-Seq identified 1474 binding sites of the Roc1 transcription factor. Promoters of genes involved in lignocellulose degradation were enriched with these binding sites, especially those of LPMO (lytic polysaccharide monooxygenase) CAZymes, indicating that Roc1 directly regulates these genes. A conserved motif was identified as the binding site of Roc1, which was confirmed by a functional promoter analysis. Together, Roc1 is a key regulator of cellulose degradation and the first identified in wood-decaying fungi in the phylum Basidiomycota. IMPORTANCE Wood-degrading fungi in the phylum Basidiomycota play a crucial role in nutrient recycling by breaking down all components of wood. Fungi have evolved transcriptional networks that regulate expression of wood-degrading enzymes, allowing them to prioritize one nutrient source over another. However, to date all these transcription factors have been identified in the phylum Ascomycota, which is only distantly related to the phylum Basidiomycota. Here, we identified the transcription factor Roc1 as a key regulator of cellulose degradation in the mushroom-forming and wood-degrading fungus Schizophyllum commune. Roc1 is highly conserved in the phylum Basidiomycota. Using comparative genomics, transcriptomics, ChIP-Seq and promoter analysis we have identified direct targets of Roc1, as well as other aspects of the transcriptional response to cellulose.

Abstract Background Patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) are usually treated with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs), or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) if ACEIs are not tolerated. However, there is no data regarding the impact of switching from ACEIs to ARBs on long-term clinical outcomes in AMI patients with preserved left ventricular (LV) systolic function especially beyond 1 year. To investigate the effectiveness of treatment with ACEIs or ARBs on clinical outcomes over 3 years in AMI patients with preserved LV systolic function following percutaneous coronary intervention. Method It is a prospective cohort study using data from a nationwide large scale registry with 53 hospitals involved in treatment of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in Korea. Between March 2011 and September 2015, we enrolled 6236 patients with AMI who underwent primary percutaneous coronary intervention and had a left ventricular ejection fraction ≥ 50%. Main outcome measures composite of total death or recurrent AMI over 3 years after AMI. Patients were divided into an ACEI group (n = 2945), ARB group (n = 2197), or no renin-angiotensin system inhibitor (RASI) treatment (n = 1094). We analyzed patients who changed treatment. Inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) analysis was also performed. Results After the adjustment with inverse probability weighting, the primary endpoints at 1 year, AMI patients receiving ACEIs showed overall better outcomes than ARBs [ARBs hazard ratio (HR) compared with ACEIs 1.384, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.15–1.71; P = 0.003]. However, 33% of patients receiving ACEIs switched to ARBs during the first year, while only about 1.5% switched from ARBs to ACEIs. When landmark analysis was performed from 1 year to the end of the study, RASI group showed a 31% adjusted reduction in primary endpoint compared to patients with no RASI group (HR, 0.74; 95% CI 0.56–0.97; P = 0.012). Conclusions This result suggests that certain patients got benefit from treatment with ACEIs in the first year if tolerated, but switching to ARBs beyond the first year produced similar outcomes. RASI beyond the first year reduced death or recurrent AMI in AMI patients with preserved LV systolic function. CRIS Registration number: KCT0004990.

Background: Today, medical technology and healthcare advances have led to an increased life expectancy; however, the prevalence of chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, stroke, and cardiovascular events is continuously rising. In particular, hypertension is a crucial factor in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and it is known that prevention and management are essential. Objectives: This study investigates the prevalence and management of hypertension in Korean adults and evaluates its correlation with the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and stroke. Method: The Korean National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (KNHANES) database was utilized for this study (https://knhanes.cdc.go.kr). The subjects of this survey were sampled to represent the entire population of Korea. The study aims to assess the risk of CVD and stroke according to the duration of hypertension. We also examined the impact of hypertension control on the risk of CVD and stroke. This study is a retrospective cross-sectional study, so future risks cannot be assessed, but only the disease status at the same time point. Results: A total of 61,379 subjects were enrolled in the KNHANES database, representing Korea’s population of 49,068,178 subjects. The prevalence of hypertension was 25.7% (9,965,618 subjects) of the total population. The prevalence of hypertension increased rapidly with the age of the population. As the duration of hypertension increased, the risks of CVD and stroke also increased. When hypertension lasts longer than 20 years, ischemic heart disease, myocardial infarction, and stroke prevalence were 14.6%, 5.0%, and 12.2%, respectively. However, achieving a target blood pressure (BP) goal below 140/90 mmHg reduced the risk of all CVD and stroke by nearly half. Nevertheless, fewer than two-thirds of patients in Korea with hypertension achieved this targeted blood pressure goal. Conclusions: Our study confirmed that the prevalence of hypertension in Korean adults was higher than a quarter but also showed that the risk of CVD and stroke was significantly reduced by achieving optimal blood pressure control. Based on these results, policy efforts are needed to reach the target BP and improve the treatment rates for hypertension in Korea.

Abstract Background High-intensity statin therapy is typically used in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) for secondary prevention. However, there have been consistent concerns regarding its association with diabetes mellitus. We investigated the effect of high-intensity atorvastatin and rosuvastatin on new-onset diabetes mellitus (NODM) and cardiovascular outcomes over a 3-year follow-up period. Methods Data from the Korea Acute Myocardial Infarction Registry were collected from November 2011 to October 2015, and 13,104 patients with AMI were enrolled from major cardiovascular centers. Among them, 2221 patients without diabetes who had been administered with high-intensity atorvastatin (40–80 mg) and rosuvastatin (20 mg) were investigated. The atorvastatin and rosuvastatin groups were evaluated for the incidence of NODM and major adverse cardiac events (MACE) including death, myocardial infarction, and revascularization cases in the following 3 years. Results Baseline characteristics were comparable between the two groups. Event-free survival rate of NODM was not significantly different between the atorvastatin and rosuvastatin groups (92.5% vs. 90.8%, respectively; Log-rank P-value = 0.550). The event-free survival rate of MACE was also not significantly different between atorvastatin and rosuvastatin groups (89.0% vs. 89.6%, respectively; Log rank P-value = 0.662). Multivariate Cox analysis revealed that statin type was not a prognostic factor in the development of NODM and MACE. Conclusions Administering high-intensity atorvastatin and rosuvastatin in patients with AMI produced comparable effects on NODM and clinical outcomes, suggesting their clinical equivalence in secondary prevention.

Agaricus bisporus, commonly known as the button mushroom, is widely cultivated throughout the world. To breed new strains with more desirable traits and improved adaptability, diverse germplasm, including wild accessions, is a valuable genetic resource. To better understand the genetic diversity available in A. bisporus and identify previously unknown diversity within accessions, a phylogenetic analysis of 360 Agaricus spp. accessions using single-nucleotide polymorphism genotyping was performed. Genetic relationships were compared using principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) among accessions with known origins and accessions with limited collection data. The accessions clustered into four groups based on the PCoA with regard to genetic relationships. A subset of 67 strains, which comprised a core collection where repetitive and uninformative accessions were not included, clustered into 7 groups following analysis. Two of the 170 accessions with limited collection data were identified as wild germplasm. The core collection allowed for the accurate analysis of A. bisporus genetic relationships, and accessions with an unknown pedigree were effectively grouped, allowing for origin identification, by PCoA analysis in this study.

The Ensemble and mixture of expertise method is the most intuitive and simple way to improve performance in the field of recognition using convolutional neural networks (CNNs). However, Ensemble is difficult to apply in real-time operation applications because the amount of computational overhead and parameters increase in proportion to the number of models. In another, a mixture of expertise that extracts various expertise and combines it is cumbersome to apply because it requires a large change in the network. In this study, we propose Sequential Feature Filtering Classifier (FFC), a simple but effective classifier for CNNs. Using sequential LayerNorm and ReLU, FFC zeroes out low-activation units and preserves high-activation units. The sequential feature filtering process generates multiple features, which are transmitted to a shared classifier, yielding multiple outputs (multiple expertise). FFC can be applied to any CNN with a classifier and it significantly improves the performance with negligible overhead. In this study, the efficacy of FFC is validated extensively on various tasks—ImageNet-1K classification, MS COCO detection, Cityscapes segmentation, and HMDB51 action recognition. Moreover, it is empirically established that FFC can further improve performances using additional techniques, including attention modules. Code is available at https://github.com/seominseok0429/Sequential-Feature-Filtering-Classifier.

Abstract Human gaze information has been widely used in various areas, such as medical diagnosis and human–computer interactions (HCI). This study proposes a head pose‐free 3D gaze estimation method using a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN). To infer gaze direction, only a small grayscale image is required without any special devices such as an infrared (IR) illuminator and RGBD sensor. A domain adaptation method to reduce the feature gap between real and synthetic image data is also proposed here. Moreover, a novel synthetic dataset (SynFace) that contains head poses, gaze directions, and facial landmarks is established and released. The proposed method outperforms state‐of‐the‐art methods and achieves a mean error of less than 4○.

Objective: There is a scarcity of comparative studies between Endeavor Resolute®-zotarolimus-eluting stent (R-ZES) and Resolute Integrity®-ZES (I-ZES) during long-term follow-up periods. Although the stent alloy and the polymer of these two ZESs are similar, the platform and the design of these two stents are different. This study was conducted to compare the efficacy and safety of these two different ZESs in the all-comer Korean patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) during a 3-year follow-up period. Methods: This study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki. In this single-center, retrospective, and all-comer patients' cohort study, a total of 889 patients who underwent PCI with R-ZES (n=394) or I-ZES (n=495) were enrolled. The primary endpoint was the occurrence of major adverse cardiac events (MACEs) defined as all-cause death, nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI), any repeat revascularization including target lesion revascularization (TLR), target vessel revascularization (TVR), and non-TVR, and the secondary endpoint was stent thrombosis (ST) at 3 years. Results: To adjust for any potential confounders, the propensity score-adjusted multivariable analysis was performed using the logistic regression model (C-statistics=0.689). The cumulative incidence rates of MACEs [adjusted hazard ratio (aHR), 1.341; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.615–2.922; p=0.461], all-cause death, nonfatal MI, any repeat revascularization, and ST (aHR, 2.090; 95% CI, 0.163–26.77; p=0.571) were similar between the two groups during the 3-year follow-up period. Conclusion: R-ZES and I-ZES demonstrated comparable efficacy and safety after PCI during a 3-year follow-up period. However, these results can perhaps be more precisely defined by other large and long-term follow-up studies in the future. (Anatol J Cardiol 2020; 23: 268-76)

We present a neural network learning approach for estimating a set of cloth simulation parameters from a static drape of a given fabric. We use a variant of Cusick's drape, which is used in the fashion textile industry to classify fabric according to mechanical properties. In order to produce a large enough set of reliable training data, we first randomly sample simulation parameters using a Gaussian mixture model that is fitted with 400 sets of primary simulation parameters derived from real fabrics. Then, we simulate our modified Cusick's drape for each sample parameter set. To learn the training data, we propose a two-stream fully connected neural network model. We prove the suitability of our neural network model through comparisons of the learning errors and accuracy with other similar neural network and linear regression models. Additionally, to demonstrate the practicality of our method, we reproduce the drape shapes of real fabrics using the simulation parameters estimated from the trained neural networks.

Popular virtual reality systems today allow us to experience highly immersive applications in which virtual objects are realistically perceived via stereoscopic displays and can be directly manipulated based on hand-eye coordination in a very similar way as in the real world. However, the insufficiency of sensory feedback as well as the limited degrees-of-freedom of input motion still hinders precise and elaborate manipulation in virtual reality. Aiming at more precise 3D manipulation, we present a new method of extending the user's spatial perception ability with the `virtual mirrors', which expose the hidden spatial information of given virtual scenes to the user. The movement of a virtual mirror is automatically controlled by solving an optimization problem iteratively, in which the objective function prefers the placement of the mirror that can highlight the spatial relationship between the manipulated object and the object nearest to it. The optimization process is handled efficiently for each time step based on our method for finding the closest gap between any two objects based on the OBB (oriented bounding box) trees and our sampling-based approximate approach to the optimization problem. The usefulness of our method is demonstrated by several pilot applications under various usage scenarios, such as assembling construction toys and solving 3D dissection puzzles. The quantitative results of our user study show that the virtual mirror is very helpful in increasing the precision in 3D manipulation tasks in virtual reality.

Introduction. Cardiovascular diseases manifest differently in men and women. The purpose of this study is to compare the sex difference in the characteristics of coronary artery spasm (CAS) in patients with nonobstructive cardiovascular disease (NOCVD) and the clinical outcomes in accordance with sex in CAS patients. Methods. The study analysed 5,491 patients with NOCVD who underwent an acetylcholine provocation test from November 2004 to May 2014 for evaluation of chest pain. CAS was defined as greater than 70% of luminal narrowing of the artery during the acetylcholine provocation test. Results. The patients were divided into men (n = 2,506) and women (n = 2,985). Mean follow-up days were 1,218 ± 577 days. To adjust for confounding factors, the propensity score matching (PSM) analysis was performed in all patients and among the CAS patients. After PSM analysis, a total of 1,201 pairs in all patients and a total of 713 pairs in CAS patients were generated. In all patients, women showed significantly less incidence of CAS compared with men (62.3% vs 50.9%, P

Background Exposure to air pollution (AP) is an important environmental risk factor for increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity and triggering acute myocardial infarction (AMI). However, there are limited data regarding the clinical impact of AP on long-term major clinical outcomes of AMI patients. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical effects of ambient AP concentration on short-term and 1-year clinical outcomes of AMI patients. Methods A total of 46,263 eligible patients were enrolled in the Korea Acute Myocardial Infarction (KAMIR) and KAMIR-National Institutes of Health (NIH) registry from January 2006 to December 2015. We performed Cox proportional hazard regression to assess the risk of all-cause death and any-revascularization according to the annual average concentration of AP during one-year follow-up period. Results The assessment of the annual average of air pollutants before symptom date and all-cause death up to 30 days showed the hazard ratio (HR) of SO2 per 1 part per billion (ppb) increase was 1.084 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.016–1.157), and particulate matter with diameter of 10 microns or less (PM10) per 1 μg/m3 increase was 1.011 (95% CI: 1.002–1.021). The results of the 30-day and one-year all-cause death showed a similar trend. For SO2, the HR per 1 ppb increase was 1.084 (95% CI: 1.003–1.172), and the HR of PM10 was 1.021 (95% CI: 1.009–1.033) per 1 μg/m3 increase. We observed that SO2, CO, and PM10 were associated with an increased risk of incidence for any-revascularization up to one-year. Conclusion In some air pollutants, a higher AP concentration was an environmental risk factor for poor prognosis in AMI patients up to 1 year. AMI patients and high-risk individuals need a strategy to reduce or prevent exposure to high AP concentrations.