Agricultural Trade Liberalization and Uneven Development: the Case of South Korea.

The Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was concluded in 1993, was the principal global forum to discuss agricultural trade in an extensive way. In this last venue of the GATT, South Korean negotiators had to agree to open the nation\u27s agricultural markets so as to assure manufacturing export access to international markets amidst heightening Pressure from surplus agricultural producers A broad range of economic studies have estimated that as an aftermath of the Uruguay Round, a majority of South Korean farmers, who are comparatively disadvantaged due to small-scale, labor-intensive farming, might be displaced. In this context, the present study explores how South Korean farmers are encountering increasingly adverse free market forces as restructuring in the agricultural sector is proceeding in tandem with the comprehensive globalization process of the Korean society and economy. Based on a survey sample of 483 farm households in three provinces of South Korea, this research examines the perspectives of full-time farmers regarding trade liberalization, its effects on their lives, and the future of small-wale farming. The findings from the survey in this research indicate that South Korean farmers accede to terms of global integration in principle while disapproving state rural policies in practice. The survey data also indicate intra-regional differences in farmers\u27 perceived satisfaction with living conditions, government farm policies, and socio-economic issues. Disparities in the degrees of discontent with government policies and socio-economic well-being are explicit between the relatively diversified, urbanizing Kyonggi Province and the underdeveloped, farming-dependent Chunbuk and Kyongbuk Provinces. The Overall findings uphold that most farmers who have not been fully exposed to free market mechanisms are confronted by increased uncertainties and economic hardships. The findings propound that agricultural policies need to reflect long-term, macroeconomic changes and locally-based agricultural structure. Harnessing the agriculture, trade, and environment interface is, thus, suggested as a way to provide equitable economic bases to individual farm families and rural communities

Auditor switching for opinion shopping, and subsequnt audit quality and audit fee: Evidence from post-SOX period

Published in Auditing, May 2019, 38 (2), 101-123. https://doi.org/10.2308/ajpt-52154.</p

Auditor switching for opinion shopping, and subsequnt audit quality and audit fee: Evidence from post-SOX period

Published in Auditing, May 2019, 38 (2), 101-123. https://doi.org/10.2308/ajpt-52154.</p

Relationship between metformin use and mortality in tuberculosis patients with diabetes: a nationwide cohort study

Background/Aims To determine whether metformin, which is considered a host-directed therapy for tuberculosis (TB), is effective in improving the prognosis of patients with TB and diabetes mellitus (DM), who have higher mortality than those without DM. Methods This cohort study included patients who were registered as having TB in the National Tuberculosis Surveillance System. The medical and death records of matched patients were obtained from the National Health Information Database and Statistics Korea, respectively, and data from 2011 to 2017 were collected retrospectively. We classified patients according to metformin use among participants who used diabetes drugs for more than 28 days. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality during TB treatment. Double propensity score adjustment was applied to reduce the effects of confounding and multivariable Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) with 95% confidence interval (CI). Results The all-cause mortality rate during TB treatment was lower (9.5% vs. 12.4%, p < 0.01) in the metformin user group. The hazard of death due to all causes after double propensity score adjustment was also lower in the metformin user group (aHR 0.76, 95% CI 0.67–0.86, p < 0.01). There was no significant difference in mortality between metformin users and non-users for TB-related deaths (p = 0.22); however, there was a significant difference in the non-TB-related deaths (p < 0.01). Conclusions Metformin use in patients with TB–DM co-prevalence is associated with reduced all-cause mortality, suggesting the potential for metformin adjuvant therapy in these patients

Acetylation changes tau interactome to degrade tau in Alzheimer’s disease animal and organoid models

© 2019 The Authors. Aging Cell published by the Anatomical Society and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Alzheimer&apos;s disease (AD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disease. The most common pathological hallmarks are amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain. In the brains of patients with AD, pathological tau is abnormally accumulated causing neuronal loss, synaptic dysfunction, and cognitive decline. We found a histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6) inhibitor, CKD-504, changed the tau interactome dramatically to degrade pathological tau not only in AD animal model (ADLPAPT) brains containing both amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles but also in AD patient-derived brain organoids. Acetylated tau recruited chaperone proteins such as Hsp40, Hsp70, and Hsp110, and this complex bound to novel tau E3 ligases including UBE2O and RNF14. This complex degraded pathological tau through proteasomal pathway. We also identified the responsible acetylation sites on tau. These dramatic tau-interactome changes may result in tau degradation, leading to the recovery of synaptic pathology and cognitive decline in the ADLPAPT mice11Nsciescopu

GSK3B induces autophagy by phosphorylating ULK1

Unc-51-like autophagy activating kinase 1 (ULK1), a mammalian homolog of the yeast kinase Atg1, has an essential role in autophagy induction. In nutrient and growth factor signaling, ULK1 activity is regulated by various posttranslational modifications, including phosphorylation, acetylation, and ubiquitination. We previously identified glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK3B) as an upstream regulator of insulin withdrawal-induced autophagy in adult hippocampal neural stem cells. Here, we report that following insulin withdrawal, GSK3B directly interacted with and activated ULK1 via phosphorylation of S405 and S415 within the GABARAP-interacting region. Phosphorylation of these residues facilitated the interaction of ULK1 with MAP1LC3B and GABARAPL1, while phosphorylation-defective mutants of ULK1 failed to do so and could not induce autophagy flux. Furthermore, high phosphorylation levels of ULK1 at S405 and S415 were observed in human pancreatic cancer cell lines, all of which are known to exhibit high levels of autophagy. Our results reveal the importance of GSK3B-mediated phosphorylation for ULK1 regulation and autophagy induction and potentially for tumorigenesis. © 2021, The Author(s).1