Motivations and locational factors of FDI in CIS countries: Empirical evidence from South Korean FDI in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Uzbekistan

Considering the growing significance of Eurasian economic ties because of South Korea s New Northern Policy and Russia s New Eastern Policy, this study investigates the motivations and locational factors of South Korean foreign direct investment (FDI) in three countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS: Kazakhstan, Russia, and Uzbekistan) by employing panel analysis (pooled ordinary least squares (OLS), fixed effects, random effects) using data from 1993 to 2017. The results show the positive and significant coefficients of GDP, resource endowments, and inflation. Unlike conventional South Korean outward FDI, labour-seeking is not defined as a primary purpose. Exchange rates, political rights, and civil liberties are identified as insignificant. The authors conclude that South Korean FDI in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Uzbekistan is associated with market-seeking (particularly in Kazakhstan and Russia) and natural resource-seeking, especially the former. From a policy perspective, our empirical evidence suggests that these countries host governments could implement mechanisms to facilitate the movement of goods across regions and countries to increase the attractiveness of small local markets. The South Korean government could develop financial support and risk sharing programmes to enhance natural resource-seeking investments and mutual exchange programmes to overcome the red syndrome complex in South Korean society

Medical students' test anxiety as they face the USMLE Step 1 exam

Test anxiety is a well-researched topic in educational literature. However, despite knowing the high prevalence amongst learners and negative consequences of test anxiety, this body of research has not had much effect on medical education. Medical students face high rates of burnout compared to their peers, sometimes attributed to the high-stakes career defining board examinations, called the United States Medical Licensing Exams (USMLE), they must take. Of these exams, the USMLE Step 1 exam is considered the most important in applications to residencies. In this paper, the factors that lead to high levels of anxiety surrounding the Step 1 exam and the educational literature on test anxiety is analyzed. The limited literature on test anxiety in medical students is discussed, and recommendations grounded in educational research are made on how to identify and alleviate such anxiety.Educational Psycholog

Weltweite Inzidenz von aneurysmatischen Subarachnoidalblutungen unter Berücksichtigung regionaler Unterschiede, Entwicklungstendenzen und der Prävalenz des Bluthochdrucks und Rauchens – eine systematische Übersichtsarbeit und Metaanalyse

Die aneurysmatische Subarachnoidalblutung bildet einen kleinen Anteil aller Schlaganfälle, hat aber aufgrund des jungen Erkrankungsalters, der hohen Morbidität und Mortalität sowohl auf individueller als auch gesellschaftlicher Ebene einen erheblichen sozioökonomischen Einfluss. Bekannte Risiko¬faktoren der Subarachnoidalblutung sind unter anderem arterielle Hypertonie, Rauchen, Alter und finnische oder japanische Herkunft. Kürzlich mehren sich Publikationen zu einer Abnahme¬tendenz der globalen Inzidenz, allerdings herrschen widersprüchliche Aussagen und es existiert keine rezente systematische Übersichtsarbeit zur globalen Inzidenz der Subarach-noidal¬blutung. Anhand einer systematischen Literaturrecherche in PubMed mit strikten Einschlusskriterien wurden prospektive populationsbasierte Studien zur Inzidenz der Subarachnoidalblutung für einen Zeitraum von Januar 1960 bis März 2017 identifiziert. Mittels uni- und multivariater Regressionsanalysen wurde die aktuelle globale und regionale Inzidenz determiniert, der Einfluss von Geschlecht, Alter, Region und zeitlicher Entwicklung und ein möglicher Zusammenhang zwischen der zeitlichen Entwicklung der Inzidenz und der Risikofaktoren Bluthochdruck und Rauchen untersucht. In dieser bis dato jüngsten und ausgedehntesten Übersichtsarbeit zur globalen Inzidenz der aneurys¬matischen Subarachnoidalblutung mit 8.176 Fällen in 67.746.051 Personenjahren aus 32 Ländern und sechs Kontinenten konnte ein deutlicher Rückgang der globalen Inzidenz innerhalb der letzten 60 Jahre festgestellt werden. Die globale Inzidenz für alle Studienzeiträume beträgt 7,9/100.000 Perso¬nenjahre (95% CI: 6,9-9,0). Dabei weist die Inzidenz deutliche regionale und alters- und geschlechts¬abhängige Variationen auf. Weltweit ist die Inzidenz jährlich um 1,7% (95% CI: 0,6-2,8) gesunken. Die globale Inzidenz ist zwischen 1980 und 2010 von 10,2 (95% CI: 8,4-12,5) auf 6,1 (95% CI: 4,9-7,5) pro 100.000 Personenjahre gesunken. Die stärkste Abnahme ist in Europa zu verzeichnen, dort ist die Inzidenz um 1,7% pro Jahr (95% CI: 0,4-3,1) und zwischen 1980 und 2010 von 10,6 (95% CI: 8,5-13,3) auf 6,3/100.000 Personenjahre (95% CI: 4,9-8,1) gefallen. In Finnland, wo bislang eine der höchsten Inzidenzen weltweit beschrieben wurde, konnte aufgrund der strikten Einschlusskriterien keine aktuelle Studie identifiziert und somit keine Analyse zur zeitlichen Entwicklung durchgeführt werden. In Japan ist die Inzidenz im Gegensatz zu allen anderen Regionen im zeitlichen Verlauf signifikant um 1,6% pro Jahr (95% CI: 0,8-2,3) angestiegen und zwischen 1980-2010 von 17,6 (95% CI: 15,4-20,1) auf 28,0/100.000 Personenjahre (95% CI: 25,3-31,0) gestiegen. Frauen haben ein 1,3-fach erhöhtes Risiko für eine Subarachnoidalblutung, insbesondere in den Altersgruppen über 55 Jahre steigt das Risiko. Der mittlere Blutdruck und die Prävalenz des Rauchens haben ebenfalls im zeitlichen Verlauf weltweit abgenommen. Zusammenfassend nahm der systolische Blutdruck global im Mittel um knapp 2 mmHg pro Dekade ab und die Prävalenz des Rauchens sank im Mittel um 0,5% (95% CI: 0,4-0,6) pro Jahr. Es konnte ein positiver Zusammenhang zwischen der Abnahme der Inzidenz und der zeitlichen Entwicklung von Blutdruck und Rauchen hergestellt werden: Pro mmHg Reduktion systolischen Blutdrucks nimmt die globale alters- und geschlechtsadjustierte Inzidenz der Subarachnoidalblutung um 7,1% (95% CI: 5,8-8,4) ab, pro Prozent Reduktion der Prävalenz des Rauchens sinkt die globale alters- und geschlechtsadjustierte Inzidenz um 2,4% (95% CI: 1,6-3,3). Dies deutet stark auf eine Assoziation zwischen den zeitlichen Entwicklungen der Risikofaktoren und der Inzidenz hin, aufgrund des deskriptiven Studiendesigns der vorliegenden Arbeit kann allerdings kein kausaler Zusammenhang hergestellt werden. Hierfür bedarf es weiterer Studien, die die Risikofaktoren auf einer populationsbasierten oder individuellen Ebene erfassen und adäquat quantifizieren, damit Aussagen über die Kausalität zwischen Risikofaktoren und Inzidenz der Subarachnoidalblutung auf einer gesellschaftlichen und individuellen Ebene getroffen werden können

Bioprinting of three-dimensional dentin-pulp complex with local differentiation of human dental pulp stem cells

Numerous approaches have been introduced to regenerate artificial dental tissues. However, conventional approaches are limited when producing a construct with three-dimensional patient-specific shapes and compositions of heterogeneous dental tissue. In this research, bioprinting technology was applied to produce a three-dimensional dentin-pulp complex with patient-specific shapes by inducing localized differentiation of human dental pulp stem cells within a single structure. A fibrin-based bio-ink was designed for bioprinting with the human dental pulp stem cells. The effects of fibrinogen concentration within the bio-ink were investigated in terms of printability, human dental pulp stem cell compatibility, and differentiation. The results show that micro-patterns with human dental pulp stem cells could be achieved with more than 88% viability. Its odontogenic differentiation was also regulated according to the fibrinogen concentration. Based on these results, a dentin-pulp complex having patient-specific shape was produced by co-printing the human dental pulp stem cell-laden bio-inks with polycaprolactone, which is a bio-thermoplastic used for producing the overall shape. After culturing with differentiation medium for 15 days, localized differentiation of human dental pulp stem cells in the outer region of the three-dimensional cellular construct was successfully achieved with localized mineralization. This result demonstrates the possibility to produce patient-specific composite tissues for tooth tissue engineering using three-dimensional bioprinting technology

Robust Adaptive Depth Control of Hybrid Underwater Glider in Vertical Plane

Hybrid underwater glider (HUG) is an advanced autonomous underwater vehicle with propellers capable of sustainable operations for many months. Under the underwater disturbances and parameter uncertainties, it is difficult that the HUG coordinates with the desired depth in a robust manner. In this study, a robust adaptive control algorithm for the HUG is proposed. In the descend and ascend periods, the pitch control is designed using backstepping technique and direct adaptive control. When the vehicle approaches the target depth, the surge speed control using adaptive control combined with the pitch control is used to keep the vehicle at the desired depth with a constant cruising speed in the presence of the disturbances. The stability of the proposed controller is verified by using the Lyapunov theorem. Finally, the computer simulation using the numerical method is conducted to show the effectiveness of the proposed controller for a hybrid underwater glider system

Image-to-Image Retrieval by Learning Similarity between Scene Graphs

As a scene graph compactly summarizes the high-level content of an image in a structured and symbolic manner, the similarity between scene graphs of two images reflects the relevance of their contents. Based on this idea, we propose a novel approach for image-to-image retrieval using scene graph similarity measured by graph neural networks. In our approach, graph neural networks are trained to predict the proxy image relevance measure, computed from human-annotated captions using a pre-trained sentence similarity model. We collect and publish the dataset for image relevance measured by human annotators to evaluate retrieval algorithms. The collected dataset shows that our method agrees well with the human perception of image similarity than other competitive baselines.Comment: Accepted to AAAI 202

Protective Effect of the Fruit Hull of Gleditsia sinensis on LPS-Induced Acute Lung Injury Is Associated with Nrf2 Activation

The fruit hull of Gleditsia sinensis (FGS) has been prescribed as a traditional eastern Asian medicinal remedy for the treatment of various respiratory diseases, but the efficacy and underlying mechanisms remain poorly characterized. Here, we explored a potential usage of FGS for the treatment of acute lung injury (ALI), a highly fatal inflammatory lung disease that urgently needs effective therapeutics, and investigated a mechanism for the anti-inflammatory activity of FGS. Pretreatment of C57BL/6 mice with FGS significantly attenuated LPS-induced neutrophilic lung inflammation compared to sham-treated, inflamed mice. Reporter assays, semiquantitative RT-PCR, and Western blot analyses show that while not affecting NF-κB, FGS activated Nrf2 and expressed Nrf2-regulated genes including GCLC, NQO-1, and HO-1 in RAW 264.7 cells. Furthermore, pretreatment of mice with FGS enhanced the expression of GCLC and HO-1 but suppressed that of proinflammatory cytokines in including TNF-α and IL-1β in the inflamed lungs. These results suggest that FGS effectively suppresses neutrophilic lung inflammation, which can be associated with, at least in part, FGS-activating anti-inflammatory factor Nrf2. Our results suggest that FGS can be developed as a therapeutic option for the treatment of ALI

Serum alanine aminotransferase levels are closely associated with metabolic disturbances in apparently healthy young adolescents independent of obesity

Purpose Liver metabolism plays a pivotal role in the development of metabolic disorders. We aimed to investigate the clinical and laboratory risk factors associated with alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels in young adolescents from an urban population in Korea. Methods A population of 120 apparently healthy adolescents aged 12–13 years was included in the cross-sectional design study; 58 were overweight or obese and 62 were of normal weight. We estimated anthropometric and laboratory measurements, including waist-to-height ratio, blood pressure, insulin sensitivity, aspartate aminotransferases (AST), ALT, and lipid profiles. Results The mean ages of the overweight or obese and normal weight participants were 12.9±0.3 and 13.0±0.3 years, respectively. Height, weight, body mass index, waist circumference, waist-to-height ratio, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, AST, ALT, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, triglyceride, insulin, and the homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) score were significantly higher and the high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol and quantitative insulin-sensitivity check index were significantly lower in the overweight/obese participants in comparison to the normal-weight participants (all P<0.05). In multivariate linear regression analysis, waist-to-height ratio, systolic blood pressure, and HOMA-IR score were independently and positively associated with serum ALT levels. Conclusion Screening for ALT levels in adolescents may help to differentiate those at risk of metabolic abnormalities and thus prevent disease progression at an early age