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Reintroduction includes the captive propagation and movement of extirpated animals or plants into areas of historical and native distribution. Many biotic or abiotic factors can affect a founder population when small numbers are released into unfamiliar novel environments, particularly at the early stage of reintroduction. The inclusion of behavioural and ecological components plays a crucial role in the decision-making process of endangered species conservation efforts such as reintroduction. Since the resident population of Oriental Storks Ciconia boyciana was locally extirpated in South Korea in 1971, its founders have been established through reintroduction since 2015. The aim of this study was to investigate the demography, habitat use, and movement patterns of stork founders using the first two-year demographic and tracking data. Stork founders maintained their population size, which slightly increased in the long term. The patterns of habitat use and movement depended on rice paddy fields for foraging and breeding along with mixed effects of breeding status and season. Considering ecological and life history-related perspectives, we also discuss the potential adaptiveness of founder Oriental Storks as a resident population in a novel environment in South Korea.
Background: Data on antimicrobial use at the national level is crucial to establish domestic antimicrobial stewardship policies and enable medical institutions to benchmark against each other. This study aimed to analyze antimicrobial use in Korean hospitals. Methods: We investigated the antimicrobials prescribed in Korean hospitals between 2018 and 2021, using data from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment. Primary care hospitals (PCHs), secondary care hospitals (SCHs), and tertiary care hospitals (TCHs) were included in this analysis. Antimicrobials were categorized according to the Korea National Antimicrobial Use Analysis System (KONAS) classification, which is suitable for measuring antimicrobial use in Korean hospitals. Results: Out of more than 1,900 hospitals, PCHs and TCHs represented the largest and lowest percentage of hospitals, respectively. The most frequently prescribed antimicrobial in 2021 was piperacillin/β-lactamase inhibitor (9.3%) in TCHs, ceftriaxone (11.0%) in SCHs, and cefazedone (18.9%) in PCHs. Between 2018 and 2021, the most used antimicrobial class according to the KONAS classification was ‘broad-spectrum antibacterial agents predominantly used for community-acquired infections’ in TCHs and SCHs, and 'narrow spectrum beta-lactam agents' in PCH. Total consumption of antimicrobials has decreased from 951.7 to 929.9 days of therapy (DOT)/1,000 patient-days in TCHs and from 817.8 to 752.2 DOT/1,000 patient-days in SCHs during study period, but not in PCHs (from 504.3 to 527.2 DOT/1,000 patient-days). Moreover, in 2021, while use of reserve antimicrobials has decreased from 13.6 to 10.7 DOT/1,000 patient-days in TCHs and from 4.6 to 3.3 DOT/1,000 patient-days in SCHs, it has increased from 0.7 to 0.8 DOT/1,000 patient-days in PCHs. Conclusion: This study confirms that antimicrobial use differs by hospital type in Korea. Recent increases of use of antimicrobials, including reserve antimicrobials, in PCHs reflect the challenges that must be addressed.
Faecal examinations for helminth eggs were performed on 1869 people from two riverside localities, Vientiane Municipality and Saravane Province, along the Mekong River, Laos. To obtain adult flukes, 42 people positive for small trematode eggs (Opisthorchis viverrini, heterophyid, or lecithodendriid eggs) were treated with a 20–30 mg kg−1 single dose of praziquantel and purged. Diarrhoeic stools were then collected from 36 people (18 in each area) and searched for helminth parasites using stereomicroscopes. Faecal examinations revealed positive rates for small trematode eggs of 53.3% and 70.8% (average 65.2%) in Vientiane and Saravane Province, respectively. Infections with O. viverrini and six species of intestinal flukes were found, namely, Haplorchistaichui, H. pumilio, H. yokogawai, Centrocestus caninus,Prosthodendrium molenkampi, and Phaneropsolus bonnei. The total number of flukes collected and the proportion of fluke species recovered were markedly different in the two localities; in Vientiane, 1041 O. viverrini (57.8 per person) and 615 others (34.2 per person), whereas in Saravane, 395 O. viverrini (21.9 per person) and 155207 others (8622.6 per person). Five people from Saravane harboured no O. viverrini but numerous heterophyid and/or lecithodendriid flukes. The results indicate that O. viverrini and several species of heterophyid and lecithodendriid flukes are endemic in these two riverside localities, and suggest that the intensity of infection and the relative proportion of fluke species vary by locality along the Mekong River basin.
A series of natural clays, including 1:1 layer silicates (serpentines, kaolin minerals), smectites, vermiculite, micas, talc, pyrophyllite, sepiolite, and palygorskite, were studied by 19F magic-angle spinning (MAS) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The 19F chemical shift in these layer silicates is characteristic of the structure, in particular, to the local octahedral cation occupancy. Fluoride ions bonded to three Mg octahedral cations have a chemical shift of about −177 ppm and those bonded to two Al cations and a vacancy have a chemical shift of about −134 parts per million (ppm). The shift at −182.8 ppm in hectorite is apparently associated with fluoride bonded to two Al cations and a Li cation. Surprisingly, the difference in chemical shift of the interlayer and inner fluoride in 1:1 layer silicates is insufficient to distinguish these sites. Based on trends in chemical shift, it appears that fluoride substitution for inner hydroxyls in clays with octahedral substitution is not random. Fluoride is apparently preferentially associated with Mg rather than Al in the octahedral sheet as no resonance due to a fluoride bonded to two Al cations and a vacancy is observed in clays such as SAz-1.
Verbascum blattaria L., commonly known as moth mullein, naturalized in the USA that produces white or yellow flowers could be considered as a potential ornamental plant. However, genetic characterization using molecular markers and leaf morphology, colourimetric analysis and flowering of V. blattaria influenced by low temperature treatments was not investigated to evaluate as a potential horticultural and landscape plant use. The basal leaves developed during the rosette-growth stage were oblanceolate with an obtuse leaf apex and incisions at the margin. Leaves produced on the stem during the reproductive development were ovate or lanceolate with an obtuse or acute leaf apex. Regardless of the colour of the petiole and leaf blade during the rosette-growth stage, there were no differences in the sequences of nuclear ribosomal ITS and chloroplast interspacer. All plants produced creamy white flowers with a purplish base corolla. All leaves formed during the vegetative and reproductive development were glabrous. Numerous stalked glandular trichomes were observed in the sepal, pedicel and bracts. Seeds started to germinate in 10 days at 25°C and reached the plateau in 30 days after sowing. The earliest flowering occurred in 131 days when the plants received 20 days of low temperature treatment (CD) (20 CD), producing 76 flowers, the highest number compared to the number of flowers produced by plants that received 0, 40 and 60 CD. Plants that received 20 CD exhibited early flowering, probably because of the early transition from vegetative growth to reproductive development, as judged by the short stem to the first flower.
To evaluate antibiotic prescribing behavior (APB) among physicians with various specialties in five Asian countries.
Design:
Survey of antibiotics prescribing behavior in three stages (initial, on-treatment, and de-escalation stages).
Methods:
Participants included internists, infectious diseases (ID) specialists, hematologists, intensivists, and surgeons. Participants’ characteristics, patterns of APB, and perceptions of antimicrobial stewardship were collected. A multivariate analysis was conducted to evaluate factors associated with appropriate APB.
Results:
There were 367 participants. The survey response rate was 82.5% (367/445). For the initial stage, different specialties had different choices for empiric treatment. For the on-treatment stage, if the patient does not respond to empiric treatment, most respondents will step up to broader-spectrum antibiotics (273/367: 74.39%). For the de-escalation stage, the rate of de-escalation was 10%–60% depending on the specialty. Most respondents would de-escalate antibiotics based on guidelines (250/367: 68.12%). De-escalation was mostly reported by ID specialists (66/106: 62.26%). Respondents who reported that they performed laboratory investigations prior to empirical antibiotic prescriptions (aOR = 2.83) were associated with appropriate use, while respondents who reported ID consultation were associated with appropriate antibiotic management for infections not responding to empiric treatment (aOR = 40.87); adherence with national guidelines (aOR = 2.57) was associated with reported successful carbapenem de-escalation.
Conclusion:
This study highlights the variation in practices and gaps in appropriate APB on three stages of antibiotic prescription among different specialties. Education on appropriate investigation, partnership with ID specialist, and availability and adherence with national guidelines are critical to help guide appropriate APB among different specialties.
Mammalian oocytes not fertilized immediately after ovulation can undergo ageing and a rapid decline in quality. The addition of antioxidants can be an efficient approach to delaying the oocyte ageing process. Onion peel extract (OPE) contains quercetin and other flavonoids with natural antioxidant activities. In this study, we investigated the effect of OPE on mouse oocyte ageing and its mechanism of action. The oocytes were aged in vitro in M16 medium for 16 h after adding OPE at different concentrations (0, 50, 100, 200, and 500 μg/ml). The addition of 100 μg/ml OPE reduced the oocyte fragmentation rate, decreased the reactive oxygen species (ROS) level, increased the glutathione (GSH) level, and improved the mitochondrial membrane potential compared with the control group. The addition of OPE also increased the expression of SOD1, CAT, and GPX3 genes, and the caspase-3 activity in OPE-treated aged oocytes was significantly lower than that in untreated aged oocytes and similar to that in fresh oocytes. These results indicated that OPE delayed mouse oocyte ageing by reducing oxidative stress and apoptosis and enhancing mitochondrial function.
In sustainable experience design education, experience activities of consumers and users, design activities of student designers, and education activities of instructors should be addressed. It would be meaningful to compare various sustainable experience design education efforts considering regional and cultural context. This paper describes a framework where experience, design and education activities are systematically represented with diverse contexts also represented in a structured manner. Student design projects in a service design thinking course are illustrated where sustainability is gently introduced.
Data about customer experiences would be critical in smart product-service systems. Research is desired on how to establish a framework for Smart Experience Design based on customer experience data so that determining what kinds of customer data are needed and how these data are acquired effectively can be supported. This paper presents a framework and a method to design customer experience personalization services based on customer experience evaluation data obtained in real time and accumulated together with context data. Two illustrative cases are provided to demonstrate the validity of the framework of smart experience design based on customer experience data.
Birds in flight are prone to collide with various transparent or reflective structures. While bird–window collision has been recognised as a critical conservation issue, collision with other transparent structures has been less understood. Noise barriers made of transparent materials are considered critical hazards for birds; however, little is known about the bird mortality they cause. We conducted the first nationwide-scale estimates of bird-collision mortality caused by transparent noise barriers (TNBs) along roads in the Republic of Korea. The total length of existing roadside transparent noise barriers was estimated at 1,416 km nationwide (as of 2018), and it had been increasing exponentially. Based on carcass surveys at 25 sites, daily mortality at the observed barriers was 0.335 ± 1.132 birds/km on average, and no difference in observed mortality was detected between both sides of a single barrier and between road types (i.e. local roads and motorways). Finally, we estimated that approximately 186,000 birds (95% confidence interval: 162,465–204,812 birds) are killed annually by collisions with roadside TNBs. As privately installed barriers were not considered in this study, the actual mortality is likely be higher than our estimates. Thus, collision with TNBs could become an emerging threat to avian conservation, especially in developing and urbanising regions around the world. As such structures are not formally recognised as conservation issues of importance, more systematic surveys aided by citizen science, both for the status of TNBs and bird-collision mortality, are needed in addition to management and mitigation policies.
Commodity spot prices tend to revert to some long-term mean level and most commodity derivatives are based on futures prices, not on spot prices. So, we consider spread options on futures instead of spot or spot index, where the log spot price follows a mean-reverting process. The volatility of the mean-reverting process is driven by two different (fast and slow) scale factors. We use asymptotic analysis to obtain a closed-form approximation of the futures prices and a closed-form formula for the approximate prices of spread options on the futures. The overall improvement of our analytic formula over the classical Kirk–Bjerksund–Sternsland (KBS) formula is discussed via numerical experiments.
Predicting the course of depression is necessary for personalized treatment. Impaired glucose metabolism (IGM) was introduced as a promising depression biomarker, but no consensus was made. This study aimed to predict IGM at the time of depression diagnosis and examine the relationship between long-term prognosis and predicted results.
Methods
Clinical data were extracted from four electronic health records in South Korea. The study population included patients with depression, and the outcome was IGM within 1 year. One database was used to develop the model using three algorithms. External validation was performed using the best algorithm across the three databases. The area under the curve (AUC) was calculated to determine the model’s performance. Kaplan–Meier and Cox survival analyses of the risk of hospitalization for depression as the long-term outcome were performed. A meta-analysis of the long-term outcome was performed across the four databases.
Results
A prediction model was developed using the data of 3,668 people, with an AUC of 0.781 with least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) logistic regression. In the external validation, the AUCs were 0.643, 0.610, and 0.515. Through the predicted results, survival analysis and meta-analysis were performed; the hazard ratios of risk of hospitalization for depression in patients predicted to have IGM was 1.20 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.02–1.41, p = 0.027) at a 3-year follow-up.
Conclusions
We developed prediction models for IGM occurrence within a year. The predicted results were related to the long-term prognosis of depression, presenting as a promising IGM biomarker related to the prognosis of depression.
Mood disorders require consistent management of symptoms to prevent recurrences of mood episodes. Circadian rhythm (CR) disruption is a key symptom of mood disorders to be proactively managed to prevent mood episode recurrences. This study aims to predict impending mood episodes recurrences using digital phenotypes related to CR obtained from wearable devices and smartphones.
Methods
The study is a multicenter, nationwide, prospective, observational study with major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder I, and bipolar II disorder. A total of 495 patients were recruited from eight hospitals in South Korea. Patients were followed up for an average of 279.7 days (a total sample of 75 506 days) with wearable devices and smartphones and with clinical interviews conducted every 3 months. Algorithms predicting impending mood episodes were developed with machine learning. Algorithm-predicted mood episodes were then compared to those identified through face-to-face clinical interviews incorporating ecological momentary assessments of daily mood and energy.
Results
Two hundred seventy mood episodes recurred in 135 subjects during the follow-up period. The prediction accuracies for impending major depressive episodes, manic episodes, and hypomanic episodes for the next 3 days were 90.1, 92.6, and 93.0%, with the area under the curve values of 0.937, 0.957, and 0.963, respectively.
Conclusions
We predicted the onset of mood episode recurrences exclusively using digital phenotypes. Specifically, phenotypes indicating CR misalignment contributed the most to the prediction of episodes recurrences. Our findings suggest that monitoring of CR using digital devices can be useful in preventing and treating mood disorders.
In this review, we introduce our recent applications of deep learning to solar and space weather data. We have successfully applied novel deep learning methods to the following applications: (1) generation of solar farside/backside magnetograms and global field extrapolation based on them, (2) generation of solar UV/EUV images from other UV/EUV images and magnetograms, (3) denoising solar magnetograms using supervised learning, (4) generation of UV/EUV images and magnetograms from Galileo sunspot drawings, (5) improvement of global IRI TEC maps using IGS TEC ones, (6) one-day forecasting of global TEC maps through image translation, (7) generation of high-resolution magnetograms from Ca II K images, (8) super-resolution of solar magnetograms, (9) flare classification by CNN and visual explanation by attribution methods, and (10) forecasting GOES solar X-ray profiles. We present major results and discuss them. We also present future plans for integrated space weather models based on deep learning.
Organisational psychology literature is abounded with empirical evidence of the mitigating effect that social support seeking (SSS) behaviour has on stress. However, it is unclear if this phenomenon is present in a collectivist context where workers might be hesitant to seek social support when under stress. A total of 123 employees from China completed a longitudinal survey over 4 weeks assessing their appraisals of an ongoing work stressor, coping strategies, and stress level. Path-analysis, hierarchical regression and means comparison determined the degree of fit of two theoretical perspectives (stress-buffer and main effects) to Chinese employee's SSS behaviour, and its frequency of use against other coping strategies. Results showed that SSS was not elicited by primary and secondary appraisals, but instead may be better explained by employees' collectivistic aspirations. Implications of the results were addressed in relation to stress management strategies and human resource support initiatives. Future research directions were also discussed.
Despite considerable advances in our understanding of the biology that underlies tumor development and progression of cancer and the rapidly evolving field of personalized medicine, cancer is still one of the deadliest diseases. Many cancer patients have benefited from the survival improvements observed with targeted therapies but only a small subset of patients receiving targeted drugs experience an objective response. Because cancer is a complex and heterogeneous disease, the search for effective cancer treatments will need to address not only patient-specific molecular defects but also aspects of the tumor microenvironment. The functional tumor profiling directly measures the cellular phenotype, in particular tumor growth, in response to drugs using patient-derived tumor models and might be the next step toward precision oncology. In this Element, the authors discuss the personalized drug screening as a novel patient stratification strategy for the determination of individualized treatment choices in oncology.
Background: Although small- and medium-sized hospitals comprise most healthcare providers in South Korea, data on antibiotic usage is limited in these facilities. We evaluated the pattern of antibiotic usage and its appropriateness in hospitals with <400 beds in South Korea. Methods: A multicenter retrospective study was conducted in 10 hospitals (6 long-term care hospitals, 3 acute-care hospitals, and 1 orthopedic hospital), with <400 beds in South Korea. We analyzed patterns of antibiotic prescription and their appropriateness in the participating hospitals. Data on the monthly antibiotic prescriptions and patient days for hospitalized patients were collected using electronic databases from each hospital. To avoid the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, data were collected from January to December 2019. For the evaluation of the appropriateness of the prescription, 25 patients under antibiotic therapy were randomly selected at each hospital over 2 separate periods. Due to the heterogeneity of their characteristics, the orthopedics hospital was excluded from the analysis. The collected data were reviewed, and the appropriateness of antibiotic prescriptions was evaluated by 5 specialists in infectious diseases (adult and pediatric). Data from 2 hospitals were assigned to each specialist. The appropriateness of antibiotic prescriptions was evaluated from 3 aspects: route of administration, dose, and class. If the 3 aspects were ‘optimal,’ the prescription was considered ‘optimal.’ If only the route was ‘optimal,’ and the dose and/or class was ‘suboptimal,’ but not ‘inappropriate,’ it was considered ‘suboptimal.’ If even 1 aspect was ‘inappropriate,’ it was classified as ‘inappropriate.’ Results: The most commonly prescribed antibiotics in long-term care hospitals was fluoroquinolone, followed by β-lactam/β-lactamase inhibitor (antipseudomonal). In acute-care hospitals, these were third-generation cephalosporin, followed by first-generation cephalosporin and second-generation cephalosporin. The major antibiotics that were prescribed in the orthopedics hospital was first-generation cephalosporin. Only 2.3% of the antibiotics were administered inappropriately. In comparison, 15.3% of patients were prescribed an inappropriate dose. The proportion of inappropriate antibiotic prescriptions was 30.6% of the total antibiotic prescriptions. Conclusions: The antibiotic usage patterns vary between small- and medium-sized hospitals in South Korea. The proportion of inappropriate prescriptions exceeded 30% of the total antibiotic prescriptions.
We establish a highly feasible algorithm for time-optimal cornering trajectory planning (TP) for car-like mobile robots (CLMRs) based on a dynamic model that contains actuator dynamics. First, we formulate an accurate dynamic model of a robot that contains DC motor actuators; this includes steering braking (caused by the lateral force of the front steering wheel) and two types of friction (viscous and Coulomb) under a nonslip condition. Our TP algorithm can utilize the full power of the DC motor actuators within proper pulse width modulation bounds and generated torque limits. Then, we establish an algorithm for a time-optimal cornering trajectory planning for CLMRs (TOCTP-CLMR). Our algorithm divides the trajectory into five sections comprising three turnings and two translations to minimize the travel distance. Then, we utilize the quickest rotation when turning to construct the time-optimal trajectory that satisfies the bang-bang principle. In addition, simulations are performed to demonstrate the validity of this method. Finally, we conduct open-loop experiments to validate our dynamic model and a trajectory tracking experiment to demonstrate the feasibility of the TOCTP-CLMR trajectory.
South-east Asia's diverse coastal wetlands, which span natural mudflats and mangroves to man-made salt pans, offer critical habitat for many migratory waterbird species in the East Asian–Australasian Flyway. Species dependent on these wetlands include nearly the entire population of the Critically Endangered spoon-billed sandpiper Calidris pygmaea and the Endangered spotted greenshank Tringa guttifer, and significant populations of several other globally threatened and declining species. Presently, more than 50 coastal Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) in the region (7.4% of all South-east Asian IBAs) support at least one threatened migratory species. However, recent studies continue to reveal major knowledge gaps on the distribution of migratory waterbirds and important wetland sites along South-east Asia's vast coastline, including undiscovered and potential IBAs. Alongside this, there are critical gaps in the representation of coastal wetlands across the protected area networks of many countries in this region (e.g. Viet Nam, Indonesia, Malaysia), hindering effective conservation. Although a better understanding of the value of coastal wetlands to people and their importance to migratory species is necessary, governments and other stakeholders need to do more to strengthen the conservation of these ecosystems by improving protected area coverage, habitat restoration, and coastal governance and management. This must be underpinned by the judicious use of evidence-based approaches, including satellite-tracking of migratory birds, ecological research and ground surveys.
This paper presents a modularized autonomous pipeline inspection robot called MRINSPECT VII+, which we recently developed. MRINSPECT VII+ is aimed at inspect in-service urban gas pipelines with a diameter of 200 mm. The robot consists of five basic modules: driving, sensing, joint, and battery modules. For nondestructive testing (NDT), an NDT module can be added to the system. The driving module uses a multiaxial differential gear mechanism to provide traction forces to the robot. The sensor module recognizes the pipeline element using position-sensitive detector (PSD) sensors and a CCD camera. The control module contains a computing unit and manages the robot’s autonomous navigation. The battery module supplies power to the system. Each module is connected via backdrivable active joint modules, which provide flexibility while moving inside narrow pipelines. Additionally, the wireless communication module helps the system communicate with the ground station. We tested MRINSPECT VII+ in real pipeline environments and validated its feasibility successfully.