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Purpose: We report a case of papilledema without the typical symptoms of arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, ultimately diagnosed as a subtype of giant cell arteritis, which has not been reported previously in Korea.Case summary: A 72-year-old man visited the hospital with decreased visual acuity in his left eye of 0.02 that had occurred 1 week prior. Optic disc swelling and relative afferent pupillary disorder were also evident in the left eye. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed no specific findings, leading to a diagnosis of anterior ischemic optic neuropathy. Afterwards, there was no improvement in visual acuity, and optic nerve atrophy occurred. Six months later, the patient complained of decreased visual acuity in the contralateral eye; the same clinical findings as in the left eye were confirmed. Temporal artery biopsy was performed, ultimately revealing a subtype of giant cell arteritis.Conclusions: This case was finally diagnosed as a subtype of giant cell arteritis through temporal artery biopsy, despite the absence of typical clinical symptoms of this condition. Although giant cell arteritis is rare in Korea, it can cause permanent blindness. Therefore, the possibility of giant cell arteritis should always be considered with optic disc swelling in both eyes.

To evaluate the diagnostic performance of the Welch Allyn Spot Vision photoscreener in preschool children for detecting exotropia, the most prevalent type of strabismus among Asian children.Children aged 3-6 years were screened using the Spot Vision photoscreener and then underwent a complete ophthalmologic examination on the same day. A child with exodeviation ≥8 Δ in the primary position using the cover-uncover test and the alternate prism cover test was confirmed to have exotropia. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of the photoscreener in detecting exotropia were calculated. Subgroup analyses were performed according to the angle of deviation (≥25 Δ vs.25 Δ) and fusional control (good/fair vs. poor).Two hundred and ten children were included in this study. Among 80 exotropia-confirmed children, 23 needed referrals for exodeviation (screening-positive) and 57 were proven to be screening-negatives with the photoscreener. The overall sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV of the photoscreener for detecting exotropia were 28.8%, 95.4%, 79.3% and 68.5%, respectively. The positive and negative likelihood ratios were 6.26 and 0.75, respectively. Compared with the 57 children with false-negatives (71.3%), those with true-positive results with the photoscreener had significantly larger angles of exodeviation (p = 0.02) and a higher proportion of poor fusional control (p = 0.004). The photoscreener had low sensitivity even in detecting exotropia ≥25 Δ or those with poor fusional control (35.2% and 43.6%, respectively). Approximately 65% (42 out of 64) of the children with a significant exodeviation which needed strabismus surgery were not identified by the Spot Vision Photoscreener.The Spot Vision photoscreener has low sensitivity for detecting exodeviation. It should not be used alone for assessing exotropia in preschool-aged children.

Purpose: To report a child with idiopathic intracranial hypertension secondary to recombinant human growth hormone treatment.Case summary: An 11-year-old girl presented with blurred vision in both eyes starting 6 weeks earlier. She did not have any underlying disease and her body mass index was normal. She had started recombinant human growth hormone injections for idiopathic short stature 3 months earlier. The best corrected visual acuity was 20/25 in both eyes. Fundoscopy revealed bilateral disc edema with peripapillary hemorrhage and increased tortuosity of the retinal vessels. Bilateral enlargement of the blind spot was found on automated visual field examination. Magnetic resonance imaging and venography of the brain showed no evidence of structural or vascular lesions related to increased intracranial pressure. A lumbar puncture showed an elevated opening pressure of 26 cmH2O with normal cerebrospinal fluid constituents. She was diagnosed with growth hormone-related idiopathic intracranial hypertension and it was recommended that the growth hormone injection be discontinued and oral acetazolamide started. After 4 weeks of treatment, the optic disc edema and visual field defect improved. At the 2-year follow-up, she had a normal visual field with a normal optic nerve in both eyes.Conclusions: Ophthalmologists should be aware of the clinical features and treatment of idiopathic intracranial hypertension secondary to recombinant human growth hormone treatment, which is a very rare, vision-threatening complication. Complete neuro-ophthalmological examinations should be performed immediately in children complaining of visual disturbances or headache during treatment with recombinant human growth hormone.

Despite consistent calls for authentic stimuli in listening tests for better construct representation, unscripted texts have been rarely adopted in high-stakes listening tests due to perceived inefficiency. This study details how a local academic listening test was developed using authentic unscripted audio-visual texts from the local target language use (TLU) domain without compromising the reliability of the test results and validity of the score interpretations. The purpose of the listening test was to identify international students who need additional language support at a U.S. university. We show that efficiency persists when using authentic unscripted texts that are representative of the local context both at the test development phase and at the classification phase where placement decisions are made in a dependable manner. Expert judgments highlighted the improved correspondence of the listening test using locally sourced audio-visual texts to the local TLU domain, providing additional support for using the listening test for local placement purposes. Additionally, dimensionality assessments demonstrated that test design decisions inevitably entailed with using authentic unscripted texts did not threaten the internal structure of the test. We argue that local resources are indispensable in developing authentic test stimuli and in supporting the validity of local test interpretation and use.

Abiotic stress induces reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation in plants, and high ROS levels can cause partial or severe oxidative damage to cellular components that regulate the redox status. Here, we developed salt-tolerant transgenic rice plants that overexpressed the dehydroascorbate reductase gene (OsDHAR1) under the control of a stress-inducible sweet potato promoter (SWPA2). OsDHAR1-expressing transgenic plants exhibited improved environmental adaptability compared to wild-type plants, owing to enhanced ascorbate levels, redox homeostasis, photosynthetic ability, and membrane stability through cross-activation of ascorbate-glutathione cycle enzymes under paddy-field conditions, which enhanced various agronomic traits, including root development, panicle number, spikelet number per panicle, and total grain yield. dhar2-knockdown plants were susceptible to salt stress, and owing to poor seed maturation, exhibited reduced biomass (root growth) and grain yield under paddy field conditions. Microarray revealed that transgenic plants highly expressed genes associated with cell growth, plant growth, leaf senescence, root development, ROS and heavy metal detoxification systems, lipid metabolism, isoflavone and ascorbate recycling, and photosynthesis. We identified the genetic source of functional genomics-based molecular breeding in crop plants and provided new insights into the physiological processes underlying environmental adaptability, which will enable improvement of stress tolerance and crop species productivity in response to climate change.

Various abiotic stress factors, such as high temperatures and salinity, have a significant impact on the development and growth of crop plants and ultimately impact crop yield. Previous studies have reported that overexpression of heat-shock-protein (HSP) genes in transgenic plants can enhance stress tolerance under controlled conditions in laboratories and greenhouses. Despite the significance of multiple environmental stressors on plants in natural paddy fields, there is still a lack of research regarding the contribution of HSP genes to stress tolerance and crop yield. In this study, we cloned and characterized the function of OsHSP 17.9, an HSP gene from Oryza sativa, in rice plants grown under diverse conditions. Our results showed that overexpressing OsHSP 17.9 in rice plants enhanced the activity of antioxidant enzymes under high-temperature and salinity stresses. Moreover, transgenic rice plants overexpressing OsHSP 17.9 exhibited significantly improved adaptability after transplantation from greenhouses to natural paddy fields. In particular, OsHSP 17.9-overexpressing transgenic rice plants established improved agronomic traits and increased grain yields even under unfavorable natural-paddy-field conditions. These results suggest that OsHSP 17.9 transgenic plants can be a promising strategy for cultivating crops in adverse environmental conditions.

Multiple test tasks are available for assessing L2 collocation knowledge. However, few studies have investigated the characteristics of a variety of recognition and recall tasks of collocation simu...

Background To analyse structural characteristics and perifoveal/peripapillary vasculature by OCT in children with peripapillary hyperreflective ovoid mass-like structures (PHOMS) and compare the results with those of normal subjects. Methods Forty-five patients (84 eyes) under 18 years old with blurry disc margin were evaluated with spectral domain-OCT and swept course-OCT. Patients were divided into four groups, according to presence of PHOMS and then the size of the existing PHOMS. Eyes with visible optic disc drusen (ODD) were not included. Foveal avascular zone (FAZ) and vessel densities from macula and optic disc area were assessed and potential associations between vessel density and structural parameters, such as peripapillary retinal nerve fibre layer (pRNFL), and macular ganglion cell and inner plexiform layer (mGCIPL) thickness, were analysed. Results Among 45 patients (eighty-four eyes), coexisting buried ODD were found only in eyes with PHOMS. The scleral canal diameter was significantly smaller in PHOMS positive eyes compared to control eyes. Vessel density measurements from the papillary, peripapillary and optic nerve head (ONH) regions in the large PHOMS group were significantly lower compared to the control group (papillary; P = 0.014, peripapillary; P = 0.001, ONH; P = 0.046). FAZ area and macular vessel densities showed no difference compared to normal eyes in all three PHOMS groups. pRNFL and mGCIPL thickness did not differ among four groups and correlations were also not significant. Conclusions Children with PHOMS have smaller scleral canal and can entail buried ODD. Vessel densities of optic disc area in large PHOMS eyes are significantly lower than in normal eyes.

In this study we investigated the potential for a shared-first-language (shared-L1) effect on second language (L2) listening test scores using differential item functioning (DIF) analyses. We did this in order to understand how accented speech may influence performance at the item level, while controlling for key variables including listening passages, item type, and the degrees of intelligibility, comprehensibility, and speaker accentedness. A total of 386 undergraduate and graduate students from China, Korea, and India, who were enrolled in a university in the United States, each took two listening tests. In the first session, they took a standardized listening comprehension test comprising texts recorded by native English speakers. In the second session, they took a listening comprehension test consisting of counterbalanced sets of American English-, Indian-, and Chinese-accented lectures. The results show that the shared-L1 effect is minimal. Effects are consistent for only a few narrow, detail-oriented items, on which Chinese and Korean listeners performed relatively poorly when listening to Indian speakers.

Cerastium arcticum is one of the few flowering plants that thrives in the Arctic, suggesting that it possesses mechanisms for overcoming this extreme environment. To verify the functionality of C. arcticum dehydrin (CaDHN), known to play a protective role during cellular dehydration, the gene was introduced to Arabidopsis and Escherichia coli. Transgenic plants expressing CaDHN had significantly greater fresh weight and relative water content than wild-type plants under 15% PEG treatments, representing enhanced tolerance to drought. Under chilling conditions, transgenic plants remained vivid green, containing about 1.35-fold higher levels of chlorophyll than wild-type plants, and transgenic seeds germinated 2–3 days earlier with approximately threefold higher germination rates than wild-type seeds. Furthermore, oxidative stress under chilling conditions was 30% lower in transgenic plants than in wild-type plants. Transgenic plants also showed improved tolerance to various stresses, such as cold shock and salinity. In addition, transformed E. coli expressing CaDHN also showed enhanced tolerance to stress conditions, which suggests that CaDHN is conserved across taxa to provide tolerance to stress. These results indicate that CaDHN plays an important role in conferring tolerance to oxidative stress.

Authenticity is a vital component of language test quality because it allows testers to make more valid score interpretations about the test takers’ communicative competence outside of the testing ...

To compare refractive changes in operated eyes and fellow unoperated eyes following unilateral lateral rectus recession in early school-aged children. A retrospective case control study. The medical records of children under ten years of age with intermittent exotropia who underwent unilateral lateral recession surgery were reviewed. The operated eyes were reviewed and the fellow unoperated eyes were used as control. The rate of myopic progression was calculated by spherical equivalent (SE) changes per year, and by the rate of refractive growth (RRG) equation. SE showed a myopic shift one week after surgery and in the following months, from -1.43 ± 1.84 diopters (D) at 1 week post operation to -1.57 ± 2.22 D at one year and, finally -2.95 ± 2.97 D at the average 4.62 years following surgery. However, the SE shift was not significantly different from the unoperated eye. The low myopia group (under -3.0 D) showed a significantly higher myopic change in the operated eye until one year post operation (p = 0.022). The average myopic shift ratio was -0.53 ± 0.46 D yearly in the operated eye. This study presents data of a large series of refractive changes secondary to lateral rectus recession, and of long-term myopia progression in Korean population.

Major content providers such as YouTube and Netflix use AV1, a state-of-art video coding standard that was finalized in 2018. This paper presents a video processor that supports the AV1 standard via a Multi-Format video Decoder (MFD). An MFD can decode various video coding standards, such as H.264/AVC, HEVC and AV1. The video decoder can decode up to 8K Ultra HD (8K-UHD) video at 30fps at 468MHz core clock frequency. The MFD is fabricated using a state-of-the-art 5nm CMOS process with a 5,835k NAND2 equivalent gate count and 518kB SRAM. For AV1, MFD dissipates 116mW for decoding AV1 $7680 \times4320p$ video at 30fps (0.12nJ/pixel) with core operating voltage at 0.7V.

This study investigated perceptions of university students from various areas in Thailand regarding aspects of English test practicality including affordability, convenience, resources, contents, and delivery modes. 210 students filled out a questionnaire consisting of three sections: demographic data, perceptions of test practicality, and views on content and delivery. The data was further analyzed to see whether any differences in the perceptions of test practicality existed between students from universities in Bangkok and those from other regional universities. An additional analysis was conducted to examine relationship between their perceptions and other variables, such as socio-economic status (SES) and gender. The results revealed that Thai university students viewed the test of English for international communication as important for their future careers despite their unfamiliarity with it. Several aspects of practicality can be enhanced by taking extra steps, such as organizing orientations for high-school students or college freshmen, offering scholarships and fee waivers, and creating a level-based test. Stakeholders from middle-income families and those outside the metropolis had acquaintance with and an encouraging attitude toward the test and the opportunity to achieve a higher score. Regarding gender’s effects on test practicality, while male students embraced computer and the Internet as the new delivery mode, female students, on the other hand, seemed reluctant to do so.

It was not until critiques began to seriously make written remarks in the Japanese Colonial period that Sin Yun-bok (act. fl. the early nineteenth century) and his genre paintings received due attention. For example, Chōsen shogaka retsuden (Lives of Eminent Painters and Calligraphers of Joseon) and Geunyeok seohwa jing (Biographical Records of Korean Painters and Calligraphers), published in the 1910s and 20s, are the earliest ones to provide short accounts on Sin’s life and virtuosity in genre paintings. Publications of the 1930s—including Chōsen meiga tenrankai mokuroku (Exhibition Catalogue of Joseon Fine Paintings) and Joseon Joongang Ilbo—assess that Sin’s works are the Korean genre painting par excellence or, from a different perspective, Ukiyoeesque. The recognition of Sin’s depictions of commoner’s daily lives as tours de force extended to an encomium by Gim Yongjun (1904~1967) who saw the painter “the greatest artist with revolutionary spirits.” On the other hand, the stylistic interpretation associating the paintings of everyday life to Japanese Ukiyo-e prints brought to mind his pejorative epithet as a painter of yeosok (lit. lives of common women; or girly things), the reputation which Mun Il-pyeong (1888~1939) consolidated with a comment in Hoam jeonjip (Complete Collection of Hoam’s [Mun’s] Writings) that “[Sin] was ousted from the Royal Painting Academy while painting overly vulgar things.”These written accounts resulted from the growing popularity of Sin Yun-bok’s genre paintings as they met both socio-political demands of the Colonial rule and aesthetic preferences of the public in those days. Particularly in the 1930s, the disclosure of Hyewon jeonsin cheop album (Genre Paintings by Hyewon [Sin Yun-bok]) has prodded the then intellectuals into reviewing and critiquing the painter. Meanwhile, the general audience saw Sin’s works as nostalgia for Joseon traditions or intuitively as erotic images. The eroticism of Sin’s genre paintings was thrown into bold relief by later epigones. An album Genre Paintings purchased by Hermann Sander (1868~1945) contains a leaf that imitates A Widow’s Lust in Spring in the Hyewon album; and similar imitations are discovered in an anonymous album Musan kwaeu cheop, the Unu docheop by Choe Useok, and another anonymous album Sokwacheop. The repetition suggests that the images from the Hyewon album have been so widely circulated since the late nineteenth or early twentieth century as to be used for the pornographic painting albums. When Sin Yun-bok and the Hyewon album reached an even wider audience in the colonial period, pornographic albums under the false authorship of Sin Yun-bok or Hyewon came out in considerable numbers. These phenomena have further enhanced the erotic aspects of Sin’s paintings, eventually contributing to a current notion that Sin Yun-bok is reckoned with a painter of yeosok or of pornographic images.

Purpose The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused many children to stay indoors. Increased near work and insufficient outdoor activities are considered important risk factors for myopic progression. This study aimed to compare the changes in myopic progression before and after COVID-19 in children treated with low-concentration atropine. Methods The records of 103 eyes of 103 children who were treated with low-concentration atropine eye drops were retrospectively reviewed. We classified children according to the concentration of atropine eye drops and children’s age. The beginning of the pre-COVID-19 period was set from January 2019 to May 2019, and the endpoint was set in March 2020. The beginning of the post-COVID-19 period was set in March 2020, and the endpoint was set from January 2021 to March 2021. We evaluated the questionnaires administered to children’s parents. Results A significant myopic progression was observed in the post-COVID-19 period compared to the pre-COVID-19 period in the 0.05% and 0.025% atropine groups (P < 0.001 and P = 0.020, respectively). For children aged 5 to 7 and 8 to 10 years, the axial elongations were significantly faster in the post-COVID-19 period than in the pre-COVID-19 period (P = 0.022 and P = 0.005, respectively). However, the rates of axial elongation and myopic progression were not significantly different between pre- and post-COVID-19 in children aged 11 to 15 years (P = 0.065 and P = 0.792, respectively). The average time spent using computers and smartphones and reading time were significantly increased, and the times of physical and outdoor activity were significantly decreased in the post-COVID-19 period compared to the pre-COVID-19 period. Conclusions The rates of myopic progression have increased substantially after the spread of COVID-19 with an increase in the home confinement of children. Therefore, it is necessary to control the environmental risk factors for myopia, even in children undergoing treatment for the inhibition of myopic progression.

Enlarged optic disc cupping and interocular cup-to-disc ratio (CDR) asymmetry are often important indicators of glaucoma. Clinically, we occasionally encounter children with large CDR and interocular CDR asymmetry during vision screening. This study aimed to report longitudinal change of ocular parameters in children with large cup-to-disc ratio (CDR) and interocular CDR asymmetry. This was a retrospective, observational case series of 160 eyes of 160 children with large CDR who visited a tertiary eye center from January 2010 to June 2016. Average CDR ≥ 0.6 were considered large CDR values, and CDR asymmetry was defined as an interocular difference ratio value greater than 0.2. All included patients showed interocular pressure (IOP)

This chapter provides a comprehensive account of vital issues in Korean language assessment, and outlines and exemplifies the basic approaches to and practices of test development of Korean language assessment. In Korean as a Foreign Language (KFL) language assessment contexts, the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK), the Korean Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) Subject Test, and the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) are the most commonly used large-scale standardized proficiency tests of Korean. Given the high-stakes decisions based on test scores, these existing Korean proficiency tests are likely to exercise considerable influence over the Korean language curriculum, and it is worth exploring various aspects of these proficiency tests. This chapter also deals with key issues of developing and using classroom-based language assessments in a KFL context, along with necessary steps and practical tips for constructing more meaningful Korean language achievement tes ts. Additionally, the evolving and increasing uses of alternative language assessments in a foreign language teaching setting, such as self-assessment, E-portfolios, and interactive role-plays are discussed in this chapter.

Abscisic acid-, stress-, and ripening-induced (ASR) genes are involved in responding to abiotic stresses, but their precise roles in enhancing grain yield under stress conditions remain to be determined. We cloned a rice (Oryza sativa) ASR gene, OsASR1, and characterized its function in rice plants. OsASR1 expression was induced by abscisic acid (ABA), salt, and drought treatments. Transgenic rice plants overexpressing OsASR1 displayed improved water regulation under salt and drought stresses, which was associated with osmolyte accumulation, improved modulation of stomatal closure, and reduced transpiration rates. OsASR1-overexpressing plants were hypersensitive to exogenous ABA and accumulated higher endogenous ABA levels under salt and drought stresses, indicating that OsASR1 is a positive regulator of the ABA signaling pathway. The growth of OsASR1-overexpressing plants was superior to that of wild-type (WT) plants under paddy field conditions when irrigation was withheld, likely due to improved modulation of stomatal closure via modified ABA signaling. The transgenic plants had higher grain yields than WT plants for four consecutive generations. We conclude that OsASR1 has a crucial role in ABA-mediated regulation of stomatal closure to conserve water under salt- and drought-stress conditions, and OsASR1 overexpression can enhance salinity and drought tolerance, resulting in improved crop yields.

We sought to identify the phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of Korean children with genetically confirmed Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON). The medical records of 64 genetically confirmed LHON patients were reviewed. Seventeen patients aged 13 years or younger with optic atrophy with positive mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations were considered to demonstrate childhood-onset LHON. The non-childhood-onset group included 47 patients with genetically confirmed LHON who experienced disease onset later than 13 years of age. The type of mtDNA mutation, visual acuity (VA), color vision, fundus photography, retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness, and visual field were investigated. Sequence analysis of the mitochondrial genome revealed five different kinds of LHON-associated mtDNA mutations among our childhood-onset patients, including m.11778G>A (58.8%), m.3496G>T (11.8%), m.3497C>T (5.9%), m.11696G>A (5.9%), and m.14502T>C (5.9%). The mean final best-corrected VA in the childhood-onset group was better than that in the non-childhood-onset group with the value of logMAR 0.29 (0.09–0.75) vs. 0.55 (0.27–1.29) (expressed as median (interquartile range); p = 0.05). Spontaneous visual recovery was observed in 35.3% of the childhood-onset group but in only 12.8% of the non-childhood-onset group (p = 0.04). Eight patients (47.1%) showed interocular asymmetry of the disease, with two presenting true unilateral involvement of the optic nerve and the other six patients demonstrating unilateral subclinical manifestations with bilateral optic atrophy. Involvement of secondary mitochondrial mutations was confirmed in patients with childhood-onset LHON. Characteristic clinical features of childhood-onset LHON included a higher proportion of subacute or insidious onset of symptoms, better VA, higher spontaneous recovery, and asymmetrical ocular involvement.

Background: The oculocardiac reflex (OCR) is defined as a 10–20% reduction in heart rate (HR) from the baseline value or dysrhythmia, and the oculorespiratory reflex (ORR) manifests as shallow respiratory movement and bradypnea caused by manipulation of the eye. The aim of this study was to elucidate whether the specific muscle operated on has an effect on OCR and ORR, as well as whether the depth of anesthesia influences the OCR and ORR in patients undergoing strabismus surgery with laryngeal mask airway (LMA) to maintain spontaneous respiration. Methods: The medical records of patients who underwent strabismus surgery on lateral rectus (LR) and medial rectus (MR) muscles from January 2017 to December 2017 were reviewed. For anesthesia induction, propofol was administered and the LMA was inserted. Anesthesia was maintained with sevoflurane and spontaneous respiration. Results: The incidences of OCR during LR and MR operations were not significantly different between pediatric and adult patients (29% vs 27% and 15% vs 16%, respectively, p < 0.05). The incidence of ORR, as indexed by tidal volume (TV), was higher during MR surgery than during LR surgery in pediatric patients (29.3% vs 10.1%, p < 0.05). The change in HR during muscle traction and bispectral index (BIS) showed a negative correlation in pediatric patients, but this was not statistically significant. The change in TV during muscle traction and BIS was significantly correlated, in both pediatric and adult patients (r2 = 0.034 and 0.058, respectively, p < 0.05), while the change in respiratory rate (RR) during muscle traction and BIS did not show a significant correlation in either group. Conclusions: The incidence rate of OCR did not differ between LR and MR surgeries, and the depth of anesthesia did not correlate with HR changes during muscle traction. Young age and MR surgery may be risk factors for ORR. However, MV did not decrease because of the increased RR during muscle traction. Thus, maintenance of spontaneous respiration with an LMA is safe during strabismus surgery under general anesthesia for both pediatric and adult patients.