Psychological, Social Environmental, and Physical Environmental Variables in Explaining Physical Activity in Korean Older Adults

The current study investigated the direct and indirect paths of psychological, social environmental, and physical environmental variables in explaining physical activity among Korean older adults. A total of 401 adults aged 65 years old or older (Mage = 75.17 years, SD = ±7.24) were recruited from the Nowon district of northern Seoul. Standardized scales were used to measure physical activity and its related social ecological variables. The results indicated that physical activity was significantly correlated with self efficacy, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, family support, friend support, availability of facilities, and quality of facilities. All of psychological, social environmental, and physical environmental variables had a significant direct path to explain physical activity. In addition, self-efficacy and perceived benefits significantly mediated the relationship between family support and physical activity, and while the relationship between availability of facilities and physical activity was substantially mediated by perceived barriers. The current study implies that application of the social ecological model is warranted to provide a more concrete association of the contextual factors to explain physical activity and to design a more effective intervention for promoting physical activity among older adults.El presente estudio investigó los efectos directos e indirectos de las variables psicológicas, socioambientales y físicoambientales para explicar la actividad física entre los adultos mayores de Corea. Un total de 401 adultos de 65 años de edad o más (Medad = 75,17 años, DT = ± 7,24) fueron reclutados del distrito de Nowon, en el norte de Seúl. Se utilizaron escalas estandarizadas para medir la actividad física y sus variables sociales y ecológicas. Los resultados indicaron que la actividad física estaba significativamente correlacionada con la autoeficacia, los beneficios percibidos, las barreras percibidas, el apoyo familiar, el apoyo a los amigos, la disponibilidad de instalaciones y la calidad de las instalaciones. Todas las variables ambientales psicológicas, sociales, ambientales y físicas tenían un efecto directo significativo para explicar la actividad física. Además, la autoeficacia y los beneficios percibidos mediaron de forma significativa la relación entre el apoyo familiar y la actividad física, y mientras que la relación entre la disponibilidad de instalaciones y la actividad física estaba sustancialmente mediada por las barreras percibidas. El presente estudio implica que la aplicación del modelo socio-ecológico se justifica para proporcionar una asociación más concreta de los factores contextuales para explicar la actividad física y diseñar una intervención más eficaz para promover la actividad física entre los adultos mayores.O presente estudo investigou os caminhos diretos e indiretos das variáveis ambientais psicológicas, sociais, ambientais e físicas na explicação da atividade física entre idosos coreanos. Um total de 401 adultos com 65 anos de idade ou mais (Mage = 75,17 anos, DP = ± 7,24) foram recrutados no distrito de Nowon, no norte de Seul. Escalas padronizadas foram utilizadas para medir a atividade física e suas variáveis sociais e ecológicas. Os resultados indicaram que a atividade física estava significativamente correlacionada com auto-eficácia, benefícios percebidos, barreiras percebidas, apoio familiar, apoio amigo, disponibilidade de instalações e qualidade das instalações. Todas as variáveis ambientais psicológicas, sociais, ambientais e físicas tiveram um caminho direto significativo para explicar a atividade física. Além disso, a auto-eficácia e os benefícios percebidos mediaram significativamente a relação entre apoio familiar e atividade física, e enquanto a relação entre a disponibilidade de instalações ea atividade física era substancialmente mediada por barreiras percebidas. O presente estudo implica que a aplicação do modelo sócio-ecológico é justificada para proporcionar uma associação mais concreta dos fatores contextuais para explicar a atividade física e para projetar uma intervenção mais efetiva para promover a atividade física entre os adultos mais velhos

South Koreans' attitudes toward foreigners, minorities and multiculturalism

노트 : Paper prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Boston, MA from August 1-4, 2008

Late-1980s regime shift in the formation of the North Pacific subtropical mode water

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 125(2), (2020): e2019JC015700, doi:10.1029/2019JC015700.The formation mechanism as well as its temporal change of the North Pacific subtropical mode water (NPSTMW) is investigated using a 50‐year (1960–2009) ocean general circulation model hindcast. The volume budget analysis suggests that the formation of the NPSTMW is mainly controlled by the air‐sea interaction and ocean dynamics, but there is a regime shift of the relative importance between the two around late‐1980s. While the local air‐sea interaction process is a main driver of the NPSTMW formation prior to late‐1980s, ocean dynamics including the vertical entrainment become dominant since then. The NPSTMW formation is affected by the North Pacific Oscillation simultaneously in the early period, but with a few years lag in the later period. The interdecadal change of the driving mechanism of the interannual variability of the NPSTMW is probably due to the stronger (weaker) influence of local atmospheric forcing in the western North Pacific and unfavorable (favorable) wind stress curl condition for the remote oceanic forcing from the central North Pacific during the former (later) period. This regime shift may be related to the change of centers of the actions of the wind stress curl since the late‐1980s.The CORE2 data set was obtained from https://data1.gfdl.noaa.gov/nomads/forms/core/COREv2.html. The World Ocean Atlas 2009 and the Polar Hydrographic Climatology data set were obtained from https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/WOA09/pr_woa09.html and http://psc.apl.washington.edu/nonwp_projects/PHC/Climatology.html, respectively. The OSCAR data were taken from https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset/OSCAR_L4_OC_third‐deg. The database of mixed layer depth is downloaded from http://mixedlayer.ucsd.edu. The data set of the Argo floats was taken from http://uskess.whoi.edu/. The sea surface height data observed by the satellite are available from AVISO (http://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/duacs/). The EN4 data set was downloaded from https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/en4/. This study was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) Grant NRF‐2009‐C1AAA001‐0093, funded by the Korea government (MEST). The numerical simulation in this paper was supported by the Supercomputing Center of Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), with its supercomputing resources and technical support (KSC‐2018‐CRE‐0117). Y.‐O. Kwon was funded by National Science Foundation (NSF) EaSM2 OCE‐1242989. Y. H. Kim was partly supported by research projects entitled “Investigation and prediction system development of marine heatwave around the Korean Peninsula originated from the subarctic and western Pacific” (20190344) funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF). G. Pak was supported by in‐house projects of the Korea Institute of Ocean Science & Technology (PE99711, PE99811).2020-09-0

Large Language Models can Share Images, Too!

This paper explores the image-sharing capability of Large Language Models (LLMs), such as InstructGPT, ChatGPT, and GPT-4, in a zero-shot setting, without the help of visual foundation models. Inspired by the two-stage process of image-sharing in human dialogues, we propose a two-stage framework that allows LLMs to predict potential image-sharing turns and generate related image descriptions using our effective restriction-based prompt template. With extensive experiments, we unlock the \textit{image-sharing} capability of LLMs in zero-shot prompting, with GPT-4 achieving the best performance. Additionally, we uncover the emergent \textit{image-sharing} ability in zero-shot prompting, demonstrating the effectiveness of restriction-based prompts in both stages of our framework. Based on this framework, we augment the PhotoChat dataset with images generated by Stable Diffusion at predicted turns, namely PhotoChat++. To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess the image-sharing ability of LLMs in a zero-shot setting without visual foundation models. The source code and the dataset will be released after publication

Stratifying the early radiologic trajectory in dyspneic patients with COVID-19 pneumonia

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to stratify the early pneumonia trajectory on chest radiographs and compare patient characteristics in dyspneic patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively included 139 COVID-19 patients with dyspnea (87 men, 62.7+/-16.3 years) and serial chest radiographs from January to September 2020. Radiographic pneumonia extent was quantified as a percentage using a previously-developed deep learning algorithm. A group-based trajectory model was used to categorize the pneumonia trajectory after symptom onset during hospitalization. Clinical findings, and outcomes were compared, and Cox regression was performed for survival analysis. RESULTS: Radiographic pneumonia trajectories were categorized into four groups. Group 1 (n = 83, 59.7%) had negligible pneumonia, and group 2 (n = 29, 20.9%) had mild pneumonia. Group 3 (n = 13, 9.4%) and group 4 (n = 14, 10.1%) showed similar considerable pneumonia extents at baseline, but group 3 had decreasing pneumonia extent at 1-2 weeks, while group 4 had increasing pneumonia extent. Intensive care unit admission and mortality were significantly more frequent in groups 3 and 4 than in groups 1 and 2 (P \u3c .05). Groups 3 and 4 shared similar clinical and laboratory findings, but thrombocytopenia ( \u3c 150x103/muL) was exclusively observed in group 4 (P = .016). When compared to groups 1 and 2, group 4 (hazard ratio, 63.3; 95% confidence interval, 7.9-504.9) had a two-fold higher risk for mortality than group 3 (hazard ratio, 31.2; 95% confidence interval, 3.5-280.2), and this elevated risk was maintained after adjusting confounders. CONCLUSION: Monitoring the early radiologic trajectory beyond baseline further prognosticated at-risk COVID-19 patients, who potentially had thrombo-inflammatory responses

Characteristics of injury of the corticospinal tract and corticoreticular pathway in hemiparetic patients with putaminal hemorrhage

BACKGROUND: No study on the characteristics of injury of the corticospinal tract (CST) or corticoreticular pathway (CRP) in patients with putaminal hemorrhage has been reported. In this study, using diffusion tensor tractography, we attempted to investigate the characteristics of injury of the CST and CRP in hemiparetic patients with putaminal hemorrhage. METHOD: Fifty seven consecutive patients with putaminal hemorrhage and 57 healthy control subjects were recruited for this study. Diffusion tensor imaging was performed during the early period (8 ~ 30 days) after onset. We defined injury of the CST or CRP in terms of the configuration (discontinuation of a neural tract) or abnormal DTT parameters (the fractional anisotrophy value or fiber number was more than two standard deviations lower than that of normal control subjects). The Motricity Index, the modified Brunnstrom Classification, and the Functional Ambulation Categories were used for evaluation of motor function. RESULTS: Among 57 patients, injury of the CST was found in 41 patients (71.9%) and injury of the CRP was found in 50 patients (87.8%), respectively, and 37 patients (64.9%) had injury of both the CST and CRP. All three motor functions of patients with injury of both the CST and CRP were significantly lower than those of patients with injury of either the CST or CRP (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that the putaminal hemorrhage frequently accompanies injury of both the CST and CRP, and the CRP appears to be more vulnerable to putaminal hemorrhage than the CST. These findings suggest the necessity for evaluation of both the CRP and the CST in patients with putaminal hemorrhage