Immunization decision-making in the Republic of Korea: The structure and functioning of the Korea Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices

AbstractThe Korea Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (KACIP), established by law in the early 1990s, makes recommendations on a range of issues related to the National Immunization Program. The Committee consists of 15 members and always includes the two government officials who belong to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Korea Food and Drug Administration. Other members usually come from affiliated organizations and serve for 2-year terms. The KACIP depends on special-topics sub-committees or temporary advisory committees to gather and analyze data and to make recommendations which are normally reached by consensus and implemented by public sector health providers and private providers

Fatigue Prediction of the Discharge Pipe in Reciprocating Compressor

In this paper, a fatigue prediction of the line discharge tube for reciprocating compressor being installed in a refrigerator was studied. The tube usually gets plenty of the repeated loads caused by the start and stop motion of a reciprocating compressor. There are two representative methods to predict the fatigue stress. At first the stress-life can be applied to the problem which takes a lot of repeated stress within the elastic strain range. Second is the strain-life method which can be used when it comes to the problem of a small repeated stress in the plastic strain range. This paper presents the stress-life method how the design parameters of a discharge pipe relate to the fatigue prediction and analyzes the co-relation between them

Differential profiling of breast cancer plasma proteome by isotope-coded affinity tagging method reveals biotinidase as a breast cancer biomarker

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of women's death worldwide. It is important to discover a reliable biomarker for the detection of breast cancer. Plasma is the most ideal source for cancer biomarker discovery since many cells cross-communicate through the secretion of soluble proteins into blood.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Plasma proteomes obtained from 6 breast cancer patients and 6 normal healthy women were analyzed by using the isotope-coded affinity tag (ICAT) labeling approach and tandem mass spectrometry. All the plasma samples used were depleted of highly abundant 6 plasma proteins by immune-affinity column chromatography before ICAT labeling. Several proteins showing differential abundance level were selected based on literature searches and their specificity to the commercially available antibodies, and then verified by immunoblot assays.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 155 proteins were identified and quantified by ICAT method. Among them, 33 proteins showed abundance changes by more than 1.5-fold between the plasmas of breast cancer patients and healthy women. We chose 5 proteins for the follow-up confirmation in the individual plasma samples using immunoblot assay. Four proteins, α1-acid glycoprotein 2, monocyte differentiation antigen CD14, biotinidase (BTD), and glutathione peroxidase 3, showed similar abundance ratio to ICAT result. Using a blind set of plasmas obtained from 21 breast cancer patients and 21 normal healthy controls, we confirmed that BTD was significantly down-regulated in breast cancer plasma (Wilcoxon rank-sum test, <it>p </it>= 0.002). BTD levels were lowered in all cancer grades (I-IV) except cancer grade zero. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of BTD was 0.78. Estrogen receptor status (<it>p </it>= 0.940) and progesterone receptor status (<it>p </it>= 0.440) were not associated with the plasma BTD levels.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our study suggests that BTD is a potential serological biomarker for the detection of breast cancer.</p

Qualitative Anatomical Characteristics of Compression, Lateral, and Opposite Woods in Pinus merkusii and Agathis loranthifolia

This study aimed to observe andcompare the qualitative anatomical characteristics of compression (CW), lateral (LW), and opposite (OW) woodsin the stem wood of Sumatran pine (Pinus merkusii) and Agathis (Agathis loranthifolia). The anatomical characteristics were observed using optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. CW showed a gradual transition from earlywood to latewood in both species, circular tracheid shape, many intercellular spaces, irregular tracheid tips, helical cavities, and slit-like bordered pits. CW of Sumatran pine showed an indistinct growth ring, whileCW of Agathis showed a distinct growth ring. Helical ribs occurred only in CW of Sumatran pine. LW and OW showed an oval tracheid with an angular outline, regular tracheid arrangement, and tapered tracheid tips in both species. LW and OW showed mainly uniseriate bordered pits in Sumatran pine, while LW and OW of Agathis frequently showed multiseriatebordered pits. CW, LW, and OW showed fusiform and uniseriate rays in Sumatran pine, while those of Agathis showed uniseriate rays. In conclusion, CW showed distinctive qualitative anatomical characteristics to LW and OW in both species, while LW and OW mainly showed similar characteristics. In particular, there were considerably distinctive characteristics between CW from both species.Keywords: Agathis, anatomical characteristics, reaction wood, Sumatran pin

Phenylalanine ammonia-lyase expression and pyranocoumarin accumulation in Angelica gigas plantlets exposed to light-emitting diodes

Angelica gigas (Dang Gui) is an important medicinal plant. In this study, we examined the accumulation of pyranocoumarin (decursin and decursinol angelate) and the expression of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) in Korean angelica plantlet grown under different light-emitting diodes (LEDs) (red, orange, green, blue, and white). Three weeks after LED exposure (WAE), the transcript levels of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase mRNA in seedlings grown under orange LEDs were 4-, 18-, and 7-fold higher than those in seedlings grown under green, blue, and white LEDs, respectively. The decursinol angelate content was almost double than the decursin content. The highest levels of decursin (3.2 mg/g dry weight) and decursinol angelate (6 mg/g dry weight) were detected in plants grown under orange LEDs, at 2 WAE. Therefore, we suggest that orange LEDs may affect decursin and decursinol angelate accumulation. The findings of this study could help to determine an effective strategy for producing secondary metabolites in A. gigas using LED technology

The Effects of Immobilization Stress on the Synthesis and the Catabolism of Dopamine and Norepinephrine in the Rat Hypothalamus

Immobilization stress was adopted as a prototype stress model for studying the effects of stress on dopaminergic and noradrenergic neuronal activity in the rat hypothalamus. Norepinephrine content was significantly increased after 4 hours of immobilization stress. Also, the turnover rates of both dopamine and norepinephrine were found to be significantly increased after the stress, providing the evidence of increased synthesis rates of both neurotransmitters. These findings were consistent with the increase in plasma corticosterone and catecholamine levels. The activities of tyrosine hydroxylase and dopamine-j1-hydroxylase, the synthesizing enzymes for catecholamines, were significantly increased after the stress, while that of monoamine oxidase, the catabolizing enzyme, did not change to a significant degree at all. Kinetic analysis of tyrosine hydroxylase, the rate-limiting step in catecholamine biosynthesis, revealed that Vmax was significantly increased after the stress without significant change of Km. These findings suggest that dopamine and norepinephrine may playa significant role in mediating stress responses by increasing their neuronal activities

Comparative Study of the Outcomes of Unilateral Biportal Endoscopic Discectomy and Tubular Microdiscectomy Based on the Visual Analogue Scale, Oswestry Disability Index, and Short-form 36

Objective Unilateral biportal endoscopic (UBE) discectomy and tubular microdiscectomy (TMD) are widely practiced methods for treatment of lumbar disc herniation. Good clinical outcomes of these methods are reported in many papers, but there are a few comparative studies. This study reports the clinical outcomes of UBE and TMD as minimally invasive surgery methods for lumbar disc herniations and discusses the effectiveness of UBE. Methods Sixty-seven patients who had undergone single-level discectomy using one of two methods, UBE or TMD, underwent a prospective follow-up examination. Thirty-four of these patients underwent discectomy using UBE, and the remaining 33 patients underwent TMD. In addition to the traditional measures of outcome, the improvement of generic health-related quality of life and disease-specific measurements like Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) score, Short-form 36 (SF-36), and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) were evaluated and compared. Results Sixty-seven patients with more than 6 months of post-operative follow-up evaluations were included. The mean improvements in the VAS scores for back pain and leg pain and ODI were 2.0, 3.7, and 26.5 for the UBE group and 1.6, 3.0, and 19.4 for the TMD group. The SF-36 physical health component subscale score improved from 35.4 pre-operatively to 54.8 at the last follow-up in the UBE group, and the mental health score improved from 43.5 to 55.1 (TMD group: from 34.9 to 54.3 and 44.2 to 57.1, respectively). Conclusion The clinical outcomes of the UBE group are comparable to those of the TMD group. The results indicate that UBE for lumbar disc herniation can be performed safely and effectively as a treatment modality