Sociodemographic factors associated with the use of mental health services in depressed adults: results from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES)

Background: The aims of this study were to determine the utilization of mental health services (MHSs) by adults with a depressive mood and to identify the influencing sociodemographic factors, using a nationwide representative Korean sample. Methods: The study included 2735 subjects, aged 19 years or older, who had experienced a depressive mood continuously for over 2 weeks within the previous year, using the data from the KNHANES IV (Fourth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey), which was performed between 2007 and 2009, and involved a nationally representative sample of the Korean community population who were visited at home. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the adjusted odd ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the use of MHSs, which was defined as using healthcare institutions, consulting services, and inpatient or outpatient treatments due to mental health problems. Results: MHSs had been used by 9.6% of the subjects with a depressive mood. The use of the MHSs was significantly associated with age, education level, and employment status, after adjusting for sociodemographic and health-related factors. Specifically, the OR for the nonuse of MHSs by the elderly (≥65 years) relative to subjects aged 19–34 years was 2.55 (95% CI = 1.13–5.76), subjects with a lower education level were less likely to use MHSs compared to those with a higher education level (7–9 years, OR = 2.35, 95% CI = 1.19–4.64; 10–12 years, OR = 1.66, 95% CI = 1.07–2.56; ≥13 years, reference), and the OR of unemployed relative to employed was 0.47 (95% CI = 0.32–0.67). Conclusions: Among Korean adults with a depressive mood, the elderly, those with a lower education level, and the employed are less likely to use MHSs. These findings suggest that mental health policies should be made based on the characteristics of the population in order to reduce untreated patients with depression. Greater resources and attention to identifying and treating depression in older, less educated, and employed adults are warranted

"Direct" grafting of linear macromolecular "wedges" to the edge of pristine graphite to prepare edge-functionalized graphene-based polymer composites

The edges of pristine graphite were covalently grafted with para-poly(ether-ketone) (pPEK) in a mildly acidic polyphosphoric acid (PPA)/phosphorus pentoxide (P(2)O(5)) medium. The resulting pPEK grafted graphite (pPEK-g-graphite) showed that the pristine graphite had been exfoliated into a few layers of graphene platelets (graphene-like sheets), which were uniformly dispersed into a pPEK matrix. As a result, the tensile properties of pPEK-g-graphite films were greatly improved compared to those of controlled pPEK films. The origins of these enhanced mechanical properties were deduced from scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of fracture surfaces. Upon tracing wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) patterns of the film under strain, the graphene-like sheets were further exfoliated by an applied shear force, suggesting that a toughening mechanism for the pPEK-g-graphite film occurred. This approach envisions that the "direct'' edge grafting of pristine graphite without pre-treatments such as corrosive oxidation and/or destructive sonication is a simple and efficient method to prepare graphene-based polymer composites with enhanced mechanical properties.close161

Characterization for Binding Complex Formation with Site-Directly Immobilized Antibodies Enhancing Detection Capability of Cardiac Troponin I

The enhanced analytical performances of immunoassays that employed site-directly immobilized antibodies as the capture binders have been functionally characterized in terms of antigen-antibody complex formation on solid surfaces. Three antibody species specific to cardiac troponin I, immunoglobulin G (IgG), Fab, and F(ab′)2 were site-directly biotinylated within the hinge region and then immobilized via a streptavidin-biotin linkage. The new binders were more efficient capture antibodies in the immunoassays compared to randomly bound IgG, particularly, in the low antibody density range. The observed improvements could have resulted from controlled molecular orientation and also from flexibility, offering conditions suitable for binding complex formations

PG-RCNN: Semantic Surface Point Generation for 3D Object Detection

One of the main challenges in LiDAR-based 3D object detection is that the sensors often fail to capture the complete spatial information about the objects due to long distance and occlusion. Two-stage detectors with point cloud completion approaches tackle this problem by adding more points to the regions of interest (RoIs) with a pre-trained network. However, these methods generate dense point clouds of objects for all region proposals, assuming that objects always exist in the RoIs. This leads to the indiscriminate point generation for incorrect proposals as well. Motivated by this, we propose Point Generation R-CNN (PG-RCNN), a novel end-to-end detector that generates semantic surface points of foreground objects for accurate detection. Our method uses a jointly trained RoI point generation module to process the contextual information of RoIs and estimate the complete shape and displacement of foreground objects. For every generated point, PG-RCNN assigns a semantic feature that indicates the estimated foreground probability. Extensive experiments show that the point clouds generated by our method provide geometrically and semantically rich information for refining false positive and misaligned proposals. PG-RCNN achieves competitive performance on the KITTI benchmark, with significantly fewer parameters than state-of-the-art models. The code is available at https://github.com/quotation2520/PG-RCNN.Comment: Accepted by ICCV 202

Transcatheter Arterial Embolization as Treatment for a Life-Threatening Retroperitoneal Hemorrhage Complicating Heparin Therapy

Spontaneous retroperitoneal hemorrhage is a distinct clinical entity that can present in the absence of specific underlying pathology or trauma and is typically associated with anticoagulation therapy. We report a case of a 74-year-old female patient with a cerebral infarction related to atrial fibrillation who developed a spontaneous lumbar arterial hemorrhage complicating heparin therapy. The diagnosis was suggested by a computed tomography scan and confirmed by angiography. She was treated successfully with transcatheter embolization

Initial serum sodium concentration determines the decrease in sodium level after terlipressin administration in patients with liver cirrhosis

BACKGROUND: Terlipressin, as a prodrug of vasopressin, has agonistic effects on the V1 receptor and partial agonistic effects on renal vasopressin V2 receptors. However, its effects on serum sodium concentration are controversial. METHODS: This study retrospectively investigated 127 patients with liver cirrhosis to examine the incidence and risk factors for the decrease in serum sodium level following terlipressin administration. RESULTS: Terlipressin was prescribed for bleeding control (99) and management of hepatorenal syndrome (28). Serum sodium level decreased from 134.0 ± 6.5 mmol/L to 130.4 ± 6.2 mmol/L during or after terlipressin treatment (P < 0.001) in all patients. In 45 patients (35.4%), the serum sodium concentration decreased by > 5 mmol/L, in 29 patients (22.8%); by 5–10 mmol/L; and in 16 patients (12.6%), by > 10 mmol/L. Five patients in the latter group showed neurological manifestations. In the univariate analysis, several factors including age, purpose of use, serum creatinine, and Model for End-Stage Liver Disease score, representing liver function, were significantly associated with the decrease in serum sodium after terlipressin administration. However, a multivariate analysis revealed that only initial sodium level was the most powerful predictor of terlipressin-induced reduction in serum sodium. CONCLUSION: An acute reduction in serum sodium concentration was not uncommon during terlipressin treatment, and the baseline serum sodium level was closely related to the reduction in serum sodium concentration

Risk factors for transmission in a COVID-19 cluster infection in a high school in the Republic of Korea

Objectives This study aimed to examine the scale, characteristics, risk factors, and modes of transmission in a coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak at a high school in Seoul, Republic of Korea. Methods An epidemiological survey was conducted of 1,118 confirmed cases and close contacts from a COVID-19 outbreak at an educational facility starting on May 31, 2021. In-depth interviews, online questionnaires, flow evaluations, and CCTV analyses were used to devise infection prevention measures. Behavioral and spatial risk factors were identified, and statistical significance was tested. Results Among 3rd-year students, there were 33 confirmed COVID-19 cases (9.6%). Students who used a study room in the annex building showed a statistically significant 4.3-fold elevation in their relative risk for infection compared to those who did not use the study room. Moreover, CCTV facial recognition analysis confirmed that 17.8% of 3rd-year students did not wear masks and had the lowest percentage of mask-wearers by grade. The air epidemiological survey conducted in the study room in the annex, which met the 3 criteria for a closed space, confirmed that there was only 10% natural ventilation due to the poor ventilation system. Conclusion To prevent and manage the spread of COVID-19 in educational facilities, advance measures that consider the size, operation, and resources of each school are crucial. In addition, various survey methodologies should be used in future studies to quickly analyze a wider range of data that can inform an evidence-based quarantine response

Cellular stress-induced up-regulation of FMRP promotes cell survival by modulating PI3K-Akt phosphorylation cascades

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Fragile X syndrome (FXS), the most commonly inherited mental retardation and single gene cause of autistic spectrum disorder, occurs when the Fmr1 gene is mutated. The product of Fmr1, fragile X linked mental retardation protein (FMRP) is widely expressed in HeLa cells, however the roles of FMRP within HeLa cells were not elucidated, yet. Interacting with a diverse range of mRNAs related to cellular survival regulatory signals, understanding the functions of FMRP in cellular context would provide better insights into the role of this interesting protein in FXS. Using HeLa cells treated with etoposide as a model, we tried to determine whether FMRP could play a role in cell survival.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Apoptotic cell death was induced by etoposide treatment on Hela cells. After we transiently modulated FMRP expression (silencing or enhancing) by using molecular biotechnological methods such as small hairpin RNA virus-induced knock down and overexpression using transfection with FMRP expression vectors, cellular viability was measured using propidium iodide staining, TUNEL staining, and FACS analysis along with the level of activation of PI3K-Akt pathway by Western blot. Expression level of FMRP and apoptotic regulator BcL-xL was analyzed by Western blot, RT-PCR and immunocytochemistry.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>An increased FMRP expression was measured in etoposide-treated HeLa cells, which was induced by PI3K-Akt activation. Without FMRP expression, cellular defence mechanism via PI3K-Akt-Bcl-xL was weakened and resulted in an augmented cell death by etoposide. In addition, FMRP over-expression lead to the activation of PI3K-Akt signalling pathway as well as increased FMRP and BcL-xL expression, which culminates with the increased cell survival in etoposide-treated HeLa cells.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Taken together, these results suggest that FMRP expression is an essential part of cellular survival mechanisms through the modulation of PI3K, Akt, and Bcl-xL signal pathways.</p

Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Inonotus obliquus in Colitis Induced by Dextran Sodium Sulfate

A total of 28 male BALB/c mice (average weight 20.7 ± 1.6 g) were divided into 4 treatment groups and fed a commercial diet (A), a commercial diet + induced colitis by dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) (B), Inonotus obliquus (IO) administration (C), and IO administration + induced colitis by DSS (D). IO treatment (C, D) decreased the expression of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and signal transducers and activators of transcription (STAT)1 compared to those of the colitis induced group (B). The expressions of IL-4 and STAT6 were decreased in group D compared to the colitis induced group (B). The serum immunoglobulin (Ig)E level decreased in IO treatment groups (C, D) compared to no IO treatment groups (A and B) although there was no significant difference between the IO treatment groups. Extract from IO itself had a weak cytotoxic effect on murine macrophage cell line (RAW264.7 cells). Extract from IO inhibited lipopolysaccharide- (LPS-) induced, TNF-α, STAT1, pSTAT1, STAT6, and pSTAT6 production in RAW264.7 cells

Inappropriate antidiuretic hormone syndrome presenting as ectopic antidiuretic hormone-secreting gastric adenocarcinoma: a case report

INTRODUCTION: Although the syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone has connection with various malignant tumors, there are few reports associated with advanced gastric cancer. CASE PRESENTATION: We describe the case of a 63-year-old Korean male with inappropriate antidiuretic hormone syndrome due to an ectopic antidiuretic hormone-producing advanced gastric adenocarcinoma manifested with overt serum hypo-osmolar hyponatremia and high urinary sodium concentrations. His adrenal, thyroidal, and renal functioning were normal, and the hyponatremia improved following removal of the tumor. The cancer cells were immunostained and found to be positive for the antidiuretic hormone. To our knowledge, this is the first report of an antidiuretic hormone-secreting advanced gastric adenocarcinoma associated with the syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone, showing cancer cells immunostained for the antidiuretic hormone. CONCLUSIONS: Although a strong relationship between gastric cancer and the syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone remains to be established, we suggest that gastric cancer could be included as a differential diagnosis of cancer that is associated with the syndrome of antidiuretic hormone