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The study of the antecedents of child maltreatment has advanced through ecological research, but there has been a limited focus on the role of community social capital. This study investigates the effects of community social capital on child maltreatment and how these associations differ by regional type, using data on child maltreatment rates in 226 localities in South Korea from 2014 to 2019. Surprisingly, our results show that social trust, networks, and engagement in community affairs are positively associated with child maltreatment rates. Additionally, the mechanisms of social capital effects on child maltreatment vary by place, being more pronounced in small‐ and medium‐sized cities and rural areas. Our findings suggest that a more nuanced understanding of social capital mechanisms across dimensions and locations is required to effectively address child maltreatment. This study contributes to both theory and practice by highlighting the importance of community social capital in preventing child maltreatment and demonstrating the contextual nature of these associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As many services have changed from offline to online, a lot of personal information including user private data has been collected by and exchanged with various service providers. An issue raised in this process is that personal information can be exploited by multiple unwanted entities without the data owner's knowledge. To solve this problem, functional encryption was proposed. It is suitable for data protection because even if a third-party uses the owner's secret key for a function f, it cannot retrieve the original message x from the ciphertext. This means that information about x cannot be published, but is exposed only as f(x), the result of the function f. However, previous pairing-based public key functional encryption schemes for inner product evaluations (FE-IPE) cannot be practical solutions yet because they require too much computation, communication and storage overheads. In this paper, we propose an efficient pairing-based public key FE-IPE that requires only n (i.e., the dimension of vectors for function and message) exponentiation plus two pairing computations for decryption with smaller sized public parameters, secret keys and ciphertexts. And this scheme supports fully collusion resistance. The proposed scheme is proven selectively secure against chosen-plaintext attacks in the standard model under the external Diffie–Hellman assumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TCP SYN flood attack has been one of representative DDoS attack in computer security history. To cope with this, a number of researches have been done, but they have a high false detection rate and are hard to be applicable in network address translation environment which is very common in the real world. To address these problems, we propose an efficient scheme to cope with SYN flood attacks with spoofed IP addresses. Compared to the existing approaches, it achieves the lowest false positive rate of 0.0003% at maximum and detects false IP packets at an earlier point of time, which serve to reduce the impacts of DDoS attacks significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the variations in sensitization rates to respiratory and food allergens based on age. The study analyzed data from over 344,000 suspected allergy patients and found that the sensitization rates differed across age groups. The allergens were classified into four categories based on their sensitization patterns. Category 1 allergens, such as house dust mites and animals, had the highest sensitization rates in adolescence and gradually decreased with age. Category 2 allergens, including pollen and vegetable allergens, peaked before the age of 20, declined between 21 and 30, and then had a second peak between 51 and 60. Category 3 allergens, such as cockroach and shellfish, had a relatively high sensitization rate in adolescence and no significant change thereafter. Category 4 allergens, such as hen's egg, mammalian milk, and meat, had the highest sensitization rate in children aged 1-10 and gradually declined with age. The study highlights the need for further research to understand the causes of these age-related differences in sensitization patterns. [Extracted from the article]

We investigated horizontal and vertical distributions of DMS in the upper water column of the Amundsen Sea Polynya and Pine Island Polynya during the austral summer (January–February) of 2016 using a membrane inlet mass spectrometer (MIMS) onboard the Korean icebreaker R/V Araon . The surface water concentrations of DMS varied from < 1 to 400 nM. The highest DMS (up to 300 nM) were observed in sea ice–polynya transition zones and near the Getz ice shelf, where both the first local ice melting and high plankton productivity were observed. In other regions, high DMS concentration was generally accompanied by higher chlorophyll and ΔO 2 /Ar. The large spatial variability of DMS and primary productivity in the surface water of the Amundsen Sea seems to be attributed to melting conditions of sea ice, relative dominance of Phaeocystis Antarctica as a DMS producer, and timing differences between bloom and subsequent DMS productions. The depth profiles of DMS and ΔO 2 /Ar were consistent with the horizontal surface data, showing noticeable spatial variability. However, despite the large spatial variability, in contrast to the previous results from 2009, DMS concentrations and ΔO 2 /Ar in the surface water were indistinct between the two major domains: the sea ice zone and polynya region. The discrepancy may be associated with inter-annual variations of phytoplankton assemblages superimposed on differences in sea-ice conditions, blooming period, and spatial coverage along the vast surface area of the Amundsen Sea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a 'visibility' concept of colored objects that includes a combination of color brightness and appearance perception of colored objects that are illuminated by seven LED lights (each with a CIE color rendering index under 80 but with various correlated color temperatures). To determine the brightness perception of colored objects, luminance calculations and measurements were conducted. The areas of the 'color brightness graph' in this study correspond to the results of eight different color sample papers under each of the LED lights with different CCTs. The luminance values were calculated by multiplying the SPD by the spectral luminous efficiency and spectral reflectance of a colored object. The luminance values were measured under these conditions to identify the relationship between the luminance calculations and the measured values. Efficient CCTs were identified for each color sample in terms of the brightness of the colored object. Further subjective evaluations were also conducted to identify the relationship between luminance values and subjective brightness perception. In addition, subjective evaluations of the color appearance perception were conducted to identify the overall visibility concept of colored objects. The subjective evaluations included brightness perception, color appearance, and similarity of the reference light source. The visibility of the colored objects was analyzed according to the results of the brightness and appearance perception of the colored objects that were illuminated by LED lights with various CCTs. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 42, 78-88, 2017 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicate encryption is a public-key encryption that supports attribute-hiding as well as payload-hiding and achieves high flexibility in terms of access control. Since Katz, Sahai, and Waters first proposed the predicate encryption scheme in 2008, several predicate encryption schemes have been published. Unfortunately these are impractical as they require O(n) pairing computations for decryption with considerably large sized public parameters, secret key, and ciphertext, where n is the dimension of the attribute/predicate vectors. In this paper, we propose a very efficient predicate encryption scheme that requires only n exponentiation plus three pairing computations for decryption with shorter sized public parameters, secret key, and ciphertext. The proposed scheme is proven selective attribute-secure against chosen-plaintext attacks in the standard model under the Asymmetric Decisional Bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concentrations of both the total dissolved (< 0.45 μm) and colloidal (10 kDa–0.45 μm) phases of trace elements and rare earth elements (REEs) in coastal groundwater were measured to evaluate the role of colloids in transporting trace elements and REEs to the ocean through submarine groundwater discharge (SGD). Samples were collected from two different hydrogeological conditions, Hampyeong Bay in the southwestern coast of Korea and Jeju Island, Korea. The average colloidal proportions of Al, Mn, Zn, Ni, Cu, Cd, Pb, 210 Po, and 210 Pb were 35–45% of the total dissolved phase, which were relatively higher than those of Cr, Fe, Co, and REEs (10–30%), although hydrogeological conditions were variable. Most of the colloidal trace elements (including 210 Pb and REEs), except Mn, correlate most significantly with Fe, indicating that their presence is dependent on Fe-containing oxide minerals in the subterranean estuary (STE). On the other hand, the colloidal Mn and 210 Po correlated more significantly with dissolved organic carbon (DOC), indicating that dissolved organic matter (DOM) cycling associated with bacterial activity plays an important role in their presence in the colloidal phase in the STE. Our results suggest that the fluxes of trace elements through SGD are greatly dependent on the presence of Fe (for Al, Zn, Ni, Cu, Cd, Pb, and REEs) and DOM (for 210 Po and Mn) in coastal groundwater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rare earth element (REE) concentrations were measured for the first time in plankton from the northwestern Mediterranean Sea. The REE concentrations in phytoplankton (60–200 μm) were 5–15 times higher than those in four size fractions of zooplankton: 200–500 μm, 500–1000 μm, 1000–2000 μm and >2000 μm. The concentrations within these zooplankton fractions exhibited the same ranges with some variation attributed to differences in zooplankton taxonomy. The REE concentrations in plankton were poorly related to the reported REE concentrations of seawater, but they correlated well with the calculated REE 3+ , concentrations especially with regard to middle REE (MREEs) and heavy REEs (HREEs). Plankton and seawater revealed different PAAS-normalised REE distributions, with the greatest differences observed in the light REEs. Interestingly, a comparison of PAAS-normalized sediment particles from the study of Fowler et al. (1992) showed concentrations of the same order of magnitude and a similar REE distribution without MREE enrichment. Based on this comparison, we propose a conceptual model that emphasizes the importance of biological scavenging of REEs (especially LREEs) in surface waters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: To evaluate the role of submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) as a source of rare earth elements (REEs) in the coastal ocean, we estimated the SGD associated discharge of REEs into two semi-enclosed coastal bays in the southern coast of Korean peninsula. The mass balances of REEs demonstrated that the REE fluxes through SGD were two to three orders of magnitude higher than those through the other sources, such as diffusion from bottom sediments and atmospheric dust fallout. The Nd inputs through the total SGD from the two small coastal bays, Gamak Bay (148km2) and Hampyeong Bay (85km2), were estimated to be 0.7×104–1.3×104 moly−1, which is 0.06–0.3% of the total Nd fluxes from global rivers. In this region, coastal seawater was observed to have a substantially higher middle REE (MREE), which appears to be due to a large discharge of groundwater that is highly enriched with MREE. High MREE bearing waters were observed over the entire shore of the southern coast of Korea, implying that such high SGD-driven REE fluxes are common in coastal area. Our results suggest that the SGD-driven REE fluxes may contribute considerably to the global budget of REEs in the ocean. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In home network environments, OSGi platform plays a major role as the service gateway to access into home appliances. It is important to provide appropriate services as well as security mechanisms to protect confidential or sensitive information and devices. Authorization is especially important when controlling the access of different users. OSGi platform supports the role based access control but it does not support various facilities in the RBAC model. To address such shortcomings, several works have proposed the enhanced access control mechanisms for the OSGi service platform. However, these are still limited to applying the traditional RBAC conventions to OSGi platform. This paper extends the existing authorization mechanism of OSGi platform to address its limitations for dynamic deployments. By adding the relative role concept and activating the access control using the delegation model, proposed mechanism enables a diverse and outstanding access control. We implement the proposed mechanism using aspectJ and illustrate how to develop a bundle including access control logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: To evaluate the role of submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) as a source of rare earth elements (REEs) in the coastal ocean, we estimated the SGD associated discharge of REEs into two semi-enclosed coastal bays off a volcanic island, Jeju, Korea. The coastal brackish groundwater showed pronounced enrichments of middle REEs (MREE) relative to light REEs (LREE) and heavy REEs (HREE) when normalized against the upper continental crust (UCC), whereas seawater samples outside the bays showed a HREE enrichment pattern. The enrichment of both MREE and HREE was clearly identified in bay waters, resulting from mixing between groundwater and offshore seawater. The mass balances of REEs demonstrated that the REE fluxes through SGD were two to three orders of magnitude higher than those that occurred through the other sources, such as diffusion from bottom sediments and atmospheric dust fallout. The SGD-driven Nd flux from the entire Jeju Island during this summer was approximately 120±60mold−1, which is comparable to the Nd fluxes from major rivers (i.e., Mississippi River). Our results imply that highly permeable oceanic islands are particularly important for REE fluxes to the ocean. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We investigate the distribution of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) in the Southern Ocean's (50° W to 170° W) surface water, including the Antarctic Peninsula and the marginal sea ice zone (MIZ) in the Ross and Amundsen Seas. This is the first high-frequency observation conducted in the austral autumn (in April) in the Southern Ocean. The mean DMS concentration was 2.7 ± 2.5 nM (1 σ) for the entire study area. Noticeably enhanced DMS (5 to 28 nM) concentrations were observed in the MIZ around the Ross and Amundsen Seas and the coastal regions in the Antarctic Peninsula; this could be attributed to biological production of local ice algae, which appears to be supplied with nutrients from glacial or sea ice melt water. These observed DMS inventories were significantly higher (an order of magnitude) than current climatological DMS inventories. The local DMS sources being transported outward from the polynyas, where strong bloom occurs during summer, could result in larger discrepancies between observed DMS and climatological DMS in the MIZ area (in the Amundsen Sea). Overall, this study is the first to highlight the significance of the underestimation of current DMS fluxes in the austral autumn, which consequently results in significant errors in the climate models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Control technique for charged droplets, named as electrohydrodynamic droplet repulsion (EDR), is reported. Charged droplets emitting from a capillary and falling down toward an insulating substrate are deflected from their intended impact point due to the like polarity of previously fallen droplets. The mechanism for this potentially critical phenomenon is explained by applying a theoretical model describing the balance between gravitational and Coulomb forces acting on a droplet. The parametric conditions for the EDR are subsequently presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obesity, a worldwide epidemic, leads to various metabolic disorders threatening human health. In response to stress or fasting, glucocorticoid (GC) levels are elevated to promote food intake. This involves GC-induced expression of the orexigenic neuropeptides in agouti-related protein (AgRP) neurons of the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus (ARC) via the GC receptor (GR). Here, we report a selective GR modulator (SGRM) that suppresses GR-induced transcription of genes with non-classical glucocorticoid response elements (GREs) such as Agrp-GRE, but not with classical GREs, and via this way may serve as a novel anti-obesity agent. We have identified a novel SGRM, 2-O-trans-p-coumaroylalphitolic acid (Zj7), a triterpenoid extracted from the Ziziphus jujube plant, that selectively suppresses GR transcriptional activity in Agrp-GRE without affecting classical GREs. Zj7 reduces the expression of orexigenic genes in the ARC and exerts a significant anorexigenic effect with weight loss in both high fat diet-induced obese and genetically obese db/db mouse models. Transcriptome analysis showed that Zj7 represses the expression of a group of orexigenic genes including Agrp and Npy induced by the synthetic GR ligand dexamethasone (Dex) in the hypothalamus. Taken together, Zj7, as a selective GR modulator, showed beneficial metabolic activities, in part by suppressing GR activity in non-classical GREs in orexigenic genes. This study demonstrates that a potential anorexigenic molecule may allow GRE-specific inhibition of GR transcriptional activity, which is a promising approach for the treatment of metabolic disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reconstructing sedimentary redox history provides valuable insights into for understanding of paleoceanographic/paleoclimatic changes in the climatically sensitive Southern Ocean. However, our comprehension of the spatial variations in historical redox changes and the driving forces in the Southern Ocean, especially the Antarctic Zone, remains incomplete. Here, we present detailed sedimentary records of the redox state (i.e., sulfur isotopes), bottom-water oxygenation conditions (i.e., redox-sensitive metals), export production (i.e., 230Th-normalized biogenic opal and barium), and carbon burial flux over the last ∼35 kyr in the Protector Basin, the deepest basin of the southern Scotia Sea. The studied sediment record in this basin reveals significant variations in geochemical redox proxies throughout the glacial (MIS 2)–interglacial (MIS 1) period, featuring a significant 34S depletion of up to ∼40‰ relative to seawater sulfate and a noticeable increase in ER Mo /ER U ratio in interglacial sediments. These findings highlight a significant shift in bottom-water and/or sediment oxygenation from glacial oxic to interglacial anoxic/euxinic conditions, primarily driven by climate-induced changes in biogenic productivity, rather than the deep circulation and ventilation dynamics previously emphasized in the Antarctic Zone. Signs of the climate-driven redox change are also evident in two millennial-scale cold events (∼9–8 ka and ∼3–2 ka), marked by sudden shifts toward oxic conditions. Importantly, our results reveal a contrasting scenario to previous observations in the glacial–interglacial redox history within the Antarctic Zone, signifying spatial disparity in bottom-water and sediment redox chemistry. • Sedimentary δ34S and metals records reveal dramatic redox changes in the Antarctic Zone. • Results highlight a glacial (oxic)-to-interglacial (anoxic/sulfidic) change, with millennial-scale variations. • Redox variability in the Antarctic Zone is closely linked to climate-driven productivity changes. • A regional disparity in the glacial–interglacial redox change within the AZ region was observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We observed the origin, behavior, and flux of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), and dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) in the subterranean estuary of a volcanic island, Jeju, Korea. The sampling of surface seawater and coastal groundwater was conducted in Hwasun Bay, Jeju, in three sampling campaigns (October 2010, January 2011, and June 2011). We observed conservative mixing of these components in this subterranean environment for a salinity range from 0 to 32. The fresh groundwater was characterized by relatively high DON, DIN, and CDOM, while the marine groundwater showed relatively high DOC. The DON and DIN fluxes through submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) in the groundwater of Hwasun Bay were estimated to be 1.3×105 and 2.9×105 mold−1, respectively. In the seawater of Hwasun Bay, the groundwater-origin DON was almost conservative while about 91% of the groundwater-origin DIN was removed perhaps due to biological production. The DON flux from the entire Jeju was estimated to be 7.9×108 molyr−1, which is comparable to some of the world''s large rivers. Thus, our study highlights that DON flux through SGD is potentially important for delivery of organic nitrogen to further offshore while DIN is readily utilized by marine plankton in near-shore waters under N-limited conditions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Liquid pumping can occur along the outer surface of an electrode under a DC electric field. For biological applications, a better understanding of the ionic solution pumping mechanism is required. Here, we fabricated CNT wire electrodes (CWEs) and tungsten wire electrodes (TWEs) of various diameters to assess an ionic solution pumping. A DC electric field created by a bias of several volts pumped the ionic solution in the direction of the negatively biased electrode. The resulting electro-osmotic flow was attributed to the movement of an electric double layer near the electrode, and the flow rates along the CWEs were on the order of picoliters per minute. According to electric field analysis, the z-directional electric field around the meniscus of the small electrode was more concentrated than that of the larger electrode. Thus, the pumping effect increased as the electrode diameter decreased. Interestingly in CWEs, the initiating voltage for liquid pumping did not change with increasing diameter, up to 20 μm. We classified into three pumping zones, according to the initiating voltage and faradaic reaction. Liquid pumping using the CWEs could provide a new method for biological studies with adoptable flow rates and a larger 'Recommended pumping zone'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distributions of trace elements (Fe, Mn, Co, Cu, Cd, and Ni) were measured, for the first time, in the entire East Sea (22 stations, n = 276, 0–3400 m), which is located in the region directly affected by East Asian monsoon and the downstream of Tsushima Current. In general, the distribution patterns of these trace elements were similar to those in the major oceans. However, relatively higher concentrations of trace elements, except for Ni, were observed in the surface layer due to the pronounced external inputs (atmospheric deposition and/or continental shelf input). In addition, we observed unusually high concentrations of Fe and Mn in the bottom layer of the Ulleung Basin, owing to large benthic inputs. These inputs seem to be associated with the significant production/dissolution of Fe and Mn in organic-rich sediments (> 2.5%) and the subsequent diffusion of dissolved organic matter (DOM)-complexed Fe and Mn into the overlying seawater. In this bottom layer, the concentrations of Fe and Mn approached 13 and 57 nmol kg−1, respectively, which are an order of magnitude higher than those in the oxic deep water of other major oceans. Based on the plots of trace elements against nutrients, the scavenging of Co in the deep East Sea is found to be particularly efficient relative to other major oceans. The concentrations of Co in the deep East Sea (2500–3400 m) are the lowest reported concentrations (2–8 pmol kg−1) compared with those from the same depths in the global oceans, while those in the surface layer are 2- and 5-fold higher than those in the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, respectively. Thus, the distinct distribution patterns of trace elements in this sea reveal the efficient scavenging processes related to the high sinking fluxes of particles under the significant boundary input conditions (atmospheric deposition, continental shelf input, and benthic input). • Pronounced atmospheric/shelf inputs of trace elements were observed in the East Sea. • Significant benthic inputs of Fe and Mn were observed in the East Sea. • Ni and Co showed efficient scavenging in the deep East Sea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]