The Impact of COVID-19 Regional Cash Subsidies on the Sales of Local Businesses in South Korea

This paper examines the impact of the regional cash subsidies which were granted in some districts in addition to the national universal stimulus payment in South Korea related to the COVID-19 pandemic. We evaluate the effects of the cash distribution per resident on aggregate credit and debit card sales and sales by industry using the difference-in-difference method. The increment in card spending due to the cash subsidy is about 1.58%p in total, and this effect is concentrated within a single month. The consumption stimulating effect is prominent among (semi)-durable goods that do not require close interactions between customers and sellers. In contrast, the effect is relatively small in the high-contact face-to-face service sectors and restaurants, areas the COVID-19 pandemic hit directly. On the other hand, some service sectors where customers could wear face masks, such as education and fitness, experienced a substantial sales boost due to the cash subsidy

Electrochemical performance of YST infiltrated and fe doped YST infiltrated YSZ anodes for IT-SOFC

Donor doped and donor-acceptor co-doped strontium titanate perovskite are investigated for intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cells (IT-SOFCs) anodes. Y0.08Sr0.88TiO3-delta and Y0.08Sr0.92Ti1-xFexO3-delta (x = 0.2, 0.4) anodes were prepared by infiltration in 65% porous yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) scaffolds. The microstructure and electrical conductivity of Y0.08Sr0.88TiO3-delta and Y0.08Sr0.92Ti1-xFexO3-delta strongly depends on Fe content. The conductivity of Y0.08Sr0.88TiO3-delta andY(0.08)Sr(0.92)Ti(1-x)Fe(x)O(3-delta); decreases with increasing Fe content in humidified H-2. Y0.08Sr0.88TiO3-delta, Y0.08Sr0.92Ti0.8Fe0.2O3-delta, and Y0.08Sr0.92Ti0.6Fe0.4O3-delta, anodes with a Pd/CeO2 catalyst show peak power density of 298, 421, and 321 mW cm(-2), respectively, in wet H-2 at 1073 K.open0

Degenerative suspensory ligament desmitis as a systemic disorder characterized by proteoglycan accumulation

BACKGROUND: Degenerative suspensory ligament desmitis (DSLD) is a debilitating disorder thought to be limited to suspensory ligaments of Peruvian Pasos, Peruvian Paso crosses, Arabians, American Saddlebreds, American Quarter Horses, Thoroughbreds, and some European breeds. It frequently leads to persistent, incurable lameness and need to euthanize affected horses. The pathogenesis remains unclear, though the disease appears to run in families. Treatment and prevention are empirical and supportive, and not effective in halting the progression of the disease. Presently, the presumptive diagnosis of DSLD is obtained from patient signalment and history, clinical examination, and ultrasonographic examination of clinically affected horses, and is confirmed at post mortem examination. Presently, there are no reliable methods of diagnosing DSLD in asymptomatic horses. The goal of this study was to characterize and define the disorder in terms of tissue involvement at the macroscopic and microscopic levels. RESULTS: We examined tissues and organs from 28 affected horses (22 Peruvian Pasos, 6 horses of other breeds) and from 8 control horses. Histopathological examination revealed the presence of excessive amounts of proteoglycans in the following tissues removed from DSLD-affected horses: suspensory ligaments, superficial and deep digital flexor tendons, patellar and nuchal ligaments, cardiovascular system, and sclerae. Electron microscopy demonstrated changes in diameters of collagen fibrils in the tendon, and in smooth muscle cells of the media of the aorta compatible with increased cell permeability in DSLD-affected cells. Separation of tendon extracts by gel chromatography revealed the presence of additional proteoglycan(s) in extracts from affected, but not control extracts. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates for the first time that DSLD, a disease process previously thought to be limited to the suspensory ligaments of the distal limbs of affected horses, is in fact a systemic disorder involving tissues and organs with significant connective tissue component. Abnormal accumulation of proteoglycans between collagen and elastic fibers rather than specific collagen fibril abnormalities is the most prominent histological feature of DSLD. Because of this observation and because of the involvement of many other tendons and ligaments beside the suspensory ligament, and of non-ligamentous tissue we, therefore, propose that equine systemic proteoglycan accumulation or ESPA rather than DSLD is a more appropriate name for this condition

EPINET: A Fully-Convolutional Neural Network Using Epipolar Geometry for Depth from Light Field Images

Light field cameras capture both the spatial and the angular properties of light rays in space. Due to its property, one can compute the depth from light fields in uncontrolled lighting environments, which is a big advantage over active sensing devices. Depth computed from light fields can be used for many applications including 3D modelling and refocusing. However, light field images from hand-held cameras have very narrow baselines with noise, making the depth estimation difficult. any approaches have been proposed to overcome these limitations for the light field depth estimation, but there is a clear trade-off between the accuracy and the speed in these methods. In this paper, we introduce a fast and accurate light field depth estimation method based on a fully-convolutional neural network. Our network is designed by considering the light field geometry and we also overcome the lack of training data by proposing light field specific data augmentation methods. We achieved the top rank in the HCI 4D Light Field Benchmark on most metrics, and we also demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method on real-world light-field images.Comment: Accepted to CVPR 2018, Total 10 page

COMPARISON OF ANGULAR KINEMATIC PATTERNS BETWEEN CARVING TURN AND SKIDDING TURN DURING ALPINE SKIING

The purpose of this study was to investigate the movement patterns between segments (lower spine, pelvis, thigh, shank) and ski using the relative angular displacement on anteroposterior and vertical axis. Fourteen alpine ski instructors were participated in this study. Eight inertial measurement units were used to measure kinematic variables. Each skier was asked to perform ten carving turns and ten skidding turns on the groomed 15°slope, respectively. On the vertical axis, relative angular displacement of lower spine-ski was significantly increased during carving turn, whereas relative angular displacement of shank-ski was significantly increased during skidding turn. On the anteroposterior axis, relative angular displacement of lower spine-ski, pelvis-ski and thigh-ski were significantly increased during carving turn

BioBarcode: a general DNA barcoding database and server platform for Asian biodiversity resources

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>DNA barcoding provides a rapid, accurate, and standardized method for species-level identification using short DNA sequences. Such a standardized identification method is useful for mapping all the species on Earth, particularly when DNA sequencing technology is cheaply available. There are many nations in Asia with many biodiversity resources that need to be mapped and registered in databases.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have built a general DNA barcode data processing system, BioBarcode, with open source software - which is a general purpose database and server. It uses mySQL RDBMS 5.0, BLAST2, and Apache httpd server. An exemplary database of BioBarcode has around 11,300 specimen entries (including GenBank data) and registers the biological species to map their genetic relationships. The BioBarcode database contains a chromatogram viewer which improves the performance in DNA sequence analyses.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Asia has a very high degree of biodiversity and the BioBarcode database server system aims to provide an efficient bioinformatics protocol that can be freely used by Asian researchers and research organizations interested in DNA barcoding. The BioBarcode promotes the rapid acquisition of biological species DNA sequence data that meet global standards by providing specialized services, and provides useful tools that will make barcoding cheaper and faster in the biodiversity community such as standardization, depository, management, and analysis of DNA barcode data. The system can be downloaded upon request, and an exemplary server has been constructed with which to build an Asian biodiversity system <url>http://www.asianbarcode.org</url>.</p

Association between use of hydrochlorothiazide and nonmelanoma skin cancer: Common data model cohort study in Asian population

Although hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) has been suggested to increase skin cancer risk in white Westerners, there is scant evidence for the same in Asians. We analyzed the association between the use of hydrochlorothiazide and non-melanoma in the Asian population using the common data model. METHODS: A retrospective multicenter observational study was conducted using a distributed research network to analyze the effect of HCTZ on skin cancer from 2004 to 2018. We performed Cox regression to evaluate the effects by comparing the use of HCTZ with other antihypertensive drugs. All analyses were re-evaluated using matched data using the propensity score matching (PSM). Then, the overall effects were evaluated by combining results with the meta-analysis. RESULTS: Positive associations were observed in the use of HCTZ with high cumulative dose for non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) in univariate analysis prior to the use of PSM. Some negative associations were observed in the use of low and medium cumulative doses. CONCLUSION: Although many findings in our study were inconclusive, there was a non-significant association of a dose-response pattern with estimates increasing in cumulative dose of HCTZ. In particular, a trend with a non-significant positive association was observed with the high cumulative dose of HCTZ