Image Captioning with Very Scarce Supervised Data: Adversarial Semi-Supervised Learning Approach

Constructing an organized dataset comprised of a large number of images and several captions for each image is a laborious task, which requires vast human effort. On the other hand, collecting a large number of images and sentences separately may be immensely easier. In this paper, we develop a novel data-efficient semi-supervised framework for training an image captioning model. We leverage massive unpaired image and caption data by learning to associate them. To this end, our proposed semi-supervised learning method assigns pseudo-labels to unpaired samples via Generative Adversarial Networks to learn the joint distribution of image and caption. To evaluate, we construct scarcely-paired COCO dataset, a modified version of MS COCO caption dataset. The empirical results show the effectiveness of our method compared to several strong baselines, especially when the amount of the paired samples are scarce.Comment: EMNLP 2019. Project page : https://sites.google.com/view/emnlp19scarcecaptio

A Novel Pinkish-White Flower Color Variant Is Caused by a New Allele of Flower Color Gene W1 in Wild Soybean (Glycine soja)

The enzyme flavonoid 3',5'-hydroxylase (F3'5'H) plays an important role in producing anthocyanin pigments in soybean. Loss of function of the W1 locus encoding F3'5'H always produces white flowers. However, few color variations have been reported in wild soybean. In the present study, we isolated a new color variant of wild soybean accession (IT261811) with pinkish-white flowers. We found that the flower's pinkish-white color is caused by w1-s3, a single recessive allele of W1. The SNP detected in the mutant caused amino acid substitution (A(304)S) in a highly conserved SRS4 domain of F3'5'H proteins. On the basis of the results of the protein variation effect analyzer (PROVEAN) tool, we suggest that this mutation may lead to hypofunctional F3'5'H activity rather than non-functional activity, which thereby results in its pinkish-white color

Development of Mental Health Indicators in Korea

Objective: Promoting mental health and preventing mental health problems are important tasks for international organizations and nations. Such goals entail the establishment of active information networks and effective systems and indicators to assess the mental health of populations. This being said, there is a need in Korea develop ways to measure the state of mental health in Korea. Methods: This paper reviews the mental health indicator development policies and practices of seven organizations, countries, and regions: WHO, OECD, EU, United States, Australia, UK, and Scotland. Using Delphi method, we conducted two surveys of mental health indicators for experts in the field of mental health. The survey questionnaire included 5 domains: mental health status, mental health factor, mental health system, mental health service, and quality of mental health services. We considered 124 potential mental health indicators out of more than 600 from indicators of international organizations and foreign countries. Results: We obtained the top 30 mental health indicators from the surveys. Among them, 10 indicators belong to the mental health system. The most important five mental health indicators are suicide rate, rate of increase in mental disorder treatment, burden caused by mental disorders, adequacy of identifying problems of mental health projects and deriving solutions, and annual prevalence of mental disorders. Conclusion: Our study provides information about the process for indicator development and the use of survey results to measure the mental health status of the Korean population. The aim of mental health indicator development is to improve the mental health system by better grasping the current situation. We suggest these mental health indicators can monitor progress in efforts to implement reform policies, provide community services, and involve users, families and other stakeholders in mental health promotion, prevention, care and rehabilitation

Antimicrobial Effect of 7-O-Butylnaringenin, a Novel Flavonoid, and Various Natural Flavonoids against Helicobacter pylori Strains

Abstract: The antimicrobial effect of a novel flavonoid (7-O-butylnaringenin) on Helicobacter pylori 26695, 51, and SS1 strains and its inhibitory effect on the urease activity of the strains were evaluated and compared with those of several natural flavonoids. First, various flavonoids were screened for antimicrobial activities using the paper disc diffusion method. Hesperetin and naringenin showed the strongest antimicrobial effects among the natural flavonoids tested, and thus hesperetin and naringenin were selected for comparison with 7-O-butylnaringenin. The antimicrobial effect of 7-O-butylnaringenin was greater than that of the hesperetin and naringenin. H. pylori 51 was more sensitive to 7-O-butylnaringenin (2 log reduction of colony forming units, p \u3c 0.05) than the other two strains at 200 μM. 7-O-Butylnaringenin also showed the highest inhibitory effect against urease activity of H. pylori. Morphological changes of H. pylori 26695 treated with these flavonoids indicated that both hesperetin and 7-O-butylnaringenin at 200 μM damaged the cell membranes

A Higher-Order Calculation of npnp Scattering in Cut-Off Effective Field Theory

We report a next-to-leading-order (NLO) chiral perturbation theory calculation of the neutron-proton scattering cross section in the ${}^1S_0$ channel using a cut-off regularization. The inclusion of two-pion exchanges in the irreducible diagrams -- or potential -- figuring at NLO is found to be important in enlarging the domain of validity of the effective field theory. We are able to reproduce the {\it empirical} scattering phase shift up to p=300 MeV -- which is comparable to the cutoff scale involved -- with an agreement which is superior to results of other effective field theory approaches. We also discuss the role of the cutoff as a renormalization prescription and the importance of the explicit pion degree of freedom in scattering process.Comment: Substantial changes made in texts and Fig.2. To appear in Phys. Lett.

Prevalence of sarcopenia and sarcopenic obesity in Korean adults: The Korean Sarcopenic Obesity Study (KSOS)

*Context:* Sarcopenic obesity (SO), a combination of excess weight and reduced muscle mass and/or strength, is suggested to be associated with an increased risk of adverse health outcomes. 
*Objectives:* To examine the prevalence and characteristics of Sarcopenic and SO defined by using different indices such as Appendicular Skeletal muscle Mass (ASM)/height^2^ and Skeletal Muscle Index (SMI (%): skeletal muscle mass (kg)/weight (kg) × 100) for Korean adults. 
*Methods:* 591 participants were recruited from the Korean Sarcopenic Obesity Study (KSOS) which is an ongoing prospective observational cohort study. Analysis was conducted in 526 participants (328 women, 198 men) who had complete data on body composition using Dual X-ray absorptiometry and computed tomography. 
*Results:* The prevalence of sarcopenia and SO increases with aging. Using two or more standard deviations (SD) of ASM/height^2^ below reference values from young, healthy adults as a definition of sarcopenia, the prevalence of sarcopenia and SO was 6.3% and 1.3% in men and 4.1% and 1.7% in women over 60 years of age. However, using two or more SD of SMI, the prevalence of sarcopenia and SO was 5.1% and 5.1% respectively in men and 14.2% and 12.5% respectively in women. As defined by SMI, subjects with SO had 3 times the risk of metabolic syndrome (OR = 3.03, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.26-7.26) and subjects with non-sarcopenic obesity had approximately 2 times the risk of metabolic syndrome (OR = 1.89, 95% CI = 1.18-3.02) compared with normal subjects. 
*Conclusion:* Obese subjects with relative sarcopenia were associated with a greater likelihood for metabolic syndrome. As Koreans were more obese and aging, the prevalence of SO and its impact on health outcomes are estimated to be rapidly grow. Further research is requested to establish the definition, cause and consequences of SO.
&#xa

Immunostimulatory Effect of Ovomucin Hydrolysates by Pancreatin in RAW 264.7 Macrophages via Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase (MAPK) Signaling Pathway

Ovomucin (OM), which has insoluble fractions is a viscous glycoprotein, found in egg albumin. Enzymatic hydrolysates of OM have water solubility and bioactive properties. This study investigated that the immunostimulatory effects of OM hydrolysates (OMHs) obtained by using various proteolytic enzymes (Alcalase®, bromelain, α-chymotrypsin, Neutrase®, pancreatin, papain, Protamax®, and trypsin) in RAW 264.7 cells. The results showed that OMH prepared with pancreatin (OMPA) produced the highest levels of nitrite oxide in RAW 264.7 cells, through upregulation of inducible nitric oxide synthase mRNA expression. The production of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6 were increased with the cytokines mRNA expression. The effect of OMPA on mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathway was increased the phosphorylation of p38, c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase, and extracellular signal-regulated kinase in a concentration-dependent manner. Therefore, OMPA could be used as a potential immune-stimulating agent in the functional food industry.This article is published as Jang Jin-Hong, Lee Ji-Eun, Kim Kee-Tae, Ahn Dong Uk, Paik Hyun-Dong. Immunostimulatory Effect of Ovomucin Hydrolysates by Pancreatin in RAW 264.7 Macrophages via Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase (MAPK) Signaling Pathway. Food Sci Anim Resour 2024;44(4):885-898. https://doi.org/10.5851/kosfa.2024.e25. Copyright Korean Society for Food Science of Animal Resources 2024. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licences/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited