Affective responses to chromatic ambient light in a vehicle

This study investigates the emotional responses to the color of vehicle interior lighting using self-assessment and electroencephalography (EEG). The study was divided into two sessions: the first session investigated the potential of ambient lighting colors, and the second session was used to develop in-vehicle lighting color guidelines. Every session included thirty subjects. In the first session, four lighting colors were assessed using seventeen adjectives. As a result, 'Preference, Softness, Brightness, and Uniqueness were found to be the four factors that best characterize the atmospheric properties of interior lighting in vehicles. Ambient illumination, according to EEG data, increased people's arousal and lowered their alpha waves. The following session investigated a wider spectrum of colors using four factors extracted from the previous session. As a result, bluish and purplish lighting colors had the highest preference and uniqueness among ten lighting colors. Green received an intermediate preference and a high uniqueness score. With its great brightness and softness, Neutral White also achieved an intermediate preference rating. Despite receiving a low preference rating, warm colors were considered to be soft. Red was the least preferred color, but its uniqueness and roughness were highly rated. This study is expected to provide a basic theory on emotional lighting guidelines in the vehicle context, providing manufacturers with objective rationale

Affective Role of the Future Autonomous Vehicle Interior

Recent advancements in autonomous technology allow for new opportunities in vehicle interior design. Such a shift in in-vehicle activity suggests vehicle interior spaces should provide an adequate manner by considering users' affective desires. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the affective role of future vehicle interiors. Thirty one participants in ten focus groups were interviewed about challenges they face regarding their current vehicle interior and expectations they have for future vehicles. Results from content analyses revealed the affective role of future vehicle interiors. Advanced exclusiveness and advanced convenience were two primary aspects identified. The identified affective roles of each aspect are a total of eight visceral levels, four visceral levels each, including focused, stimulating, amused, pleasant, safe, comfortable, accommodated, and organized. We expect the results from this study to lead to the development of affective vehicle interiors by providing the fundamental knowledge for developing conceptual direction and evaluating its impact on user experiences.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

Comparison of the Clinical Outcomes of Open Surgery Versus Arthroscopic Surgery for Chronic Refractory Lateral Epicondylitis of the Elbow

Numerous surgical options have been introduced for the treatment of chronic refractory lateral epicondylitis of the elbow, but it remains unclear which option is superior. The clinical outcomes of an open surgery group and an arthroscopic surgery group were evaluated, and the results of the 2 procedures were compared. From among patients with lateral epicondylitis refractory to 6 months of conservative treatment, 68 patients satisfying study criteria were recruited. Open surgery was performed in 34 cases (group 1), and arthroscopic surgery was performed in 34 cases (group 2). Compared with preoperatively, the 2 groups had significantly improved values for grip strength, range of motion, and Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand score at 12 months postoperatively. Group 1 had significantly greater improvements in grip strength and visual analog scale pain score compared with group 2 (P=.048 vs P=.006). Group 2 had significantly greater (P=.045) improvement in pronation compared with group 1. Group 2 returned to work sooner than group 1. On the questionnaire regarding satisfaction with surgery 24 months postoperatively, 4 patients (12%) in group 2 reported dissatisfaction compared with no patients in group 1. Open surgery and arthroscopic surgery both yielded good clinical results. Nonetheless, for patients requiring muscle strength or having severe pain at work, open surgery would be more effective

Small-scale spatial genetic structure of Asarum sieboldii metapopulation in a valley

Background Asarum sieboldii Miq., a species of forest understory vegetation, is an herbaceous perennial belonging to the family Aristolochiaceae. The metapopulation of A. sieboldii is distributed sparsely and has a short seed dispersal distance by ants as their seed distributor. It is known that many flowers of A. sieboldii depend on self-fertilization. Because these characteristics can affect negatively in genetic structure, investigating habitat structure and assessment of genetic structure is needed. A total of 27 individuals in a valley were sampled for measuring genetic diversity, genetic distance, and genetic differentiation by RAPD-PCR. Results The habitat areas of A. sieboldii metapopulation were relatively small (3.78~33.60 m2) and population density was very low (five to seven individuals in 20×20 m quadrat). The habitat of A. sieboldii was a very shady (relative light intensity = 0.9%) and mature forest with a high evenness value (J = 0.81~0.99) and a low dominance value (D = 0.19~0.28). The total genetic diversity of A. sieboldii was quite high (h = 0.338, I = 0.506). A total of 33 band loci were observed in five selected primers, and 31 band loci (94%) were polymorphic. However, genetic differentiation along the valley was highly progressed (Gst = 0.548, Nm = 0.412). The average genetic distance between subpopulations was 0.387. The results of AMOVA showed 52.77% of variance occurs among populations, which is evidence of population structuring. Conclusions It is expected that a small-scale founder effect had occurred, an individual spread far from the original subpopulation formed a new subpopulation. However, geographical distance between individuals would have been far and genetic flow occurred only within each subpopulation because of the low density of population. This made significant genetic distance between the original and new population by distance. Although genetic diversity of A. sieboldii metapopulation is not as low as concerned, the subpopulation of A. sieboldii can disappear by stochastic events due to small subpopulation size and low density of population. To prevent genetic isolation and to enhance the stable population size, conservative efforts such as increasing the size of each subpopulation or the connection between subpopulations are needed.This work was supported by a grant (NRF-2018R1A2B2002267) of the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIT), Republic of Korea, and R&E program of Siheung Education Institute for Gifted

De novo identification of LTR retrotransposons in eukaryotic genomes

BACKGROUND: LTR retrotransposons are a class of mobile genetic elements containing two similar long terminal repeats (LTRs). Currently, LTR retrotransposons are annotated in eukaryotic genomes mainly through the conventional homology searching approach. Hence, it is limited to annotating known elements. RESULTS: In this paper, we report a de novo computational method that can identify new LTR retrotransposons without relying on a library of known elements. Specifically, our method identifies intact LTR retrotransposons by using an approximate string matching technique and protein domain analysis. In addition, it identifies partially deleted or solo LTRs using profile Hidden Markov Models (pHMMs). As a result, this method can de novo identify all types of LTR retrotransposons. We tested this method on the two pairs of eukaryotic genomes, C. elegans vs. C. briggsae and D. melanogaster vs. D. pseudoobscura. LTR retrotransposons in C. elegans and D. melanogaster have been intensively studied using conventional annotation methods. Comparing with previous work, we identified new intact LTR retroelements and new putative families, which may imply that there may still be new retroelements that are left to be discovered even in well-studied organisms. To assess the sensitivity and accuracy of our method, we compared our results with a previously published method, LTR_STRUC, which predominantly identifies full-length LTR retrotransposons. In summary, both methods identified comparable number of intact LTR retroelements. But our method can identify nearly all known elements in C. elegans, while LTR_STRUCT missed about 1/3 of them. Our method also identified more known LTR retroelements than LTR_STRUCT in the D. melanogaster genome. We also identified some LTR retroelements in the other two genomes, C. briggsae and D. pseudoobscura, which have not been completely finished. In contrast, the conventional method failed to identify those elements. Finally, the phylogenetic and chromosomal distributions of the identified elements are discussed. CONCLUSION: We report a novel method for de novo identification of LTR retrotransposons in eukaryotic genomes with favorable performance over the existing methods

Are urothelial carcinomas of the upper urinary tract a distinct entity from urothelial carcinomas of the urinary bladder? Behavior of urothelial carcinoma after radical surgery with respect to anatomical location: a case control study

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.Abstract Background To compare the prognosis of upper urinary tract (UUT)-urothelial carcinoma (UC) and UC of the bladder (UCB) by pathological staging in patients treated with radical surgeries. Methods The study population comprised 335 and 302 consecutive radical surgery cases performed between 1991 and 2010 for UUT-UC and UCB, respectively. Five-year recurrence-free survival (RFS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) rates were analyzed. The median follow-up period of all subjects was 59.3 months (range, 0.1–261.0 months). Results No difference was observed in median patient age, distribution of pathologic T stage, or rates of positive surgical margin between the two groups. The UUT-UC group had significantly more frequent hydronephrosis than the USB group (48.1% vs. 20.2%, p < 0.001). However, the UUT-UC group showed significantly less frequent grade III tumors (28.1% vs. 58.6%, p < 0.001), lymphovascular invasion (18.8% vs. 35.8%, p < 0.001), and associated carcinoma in situ (9.0% vs. 21.9%, p < 0.001) than the UCB group. Five year RFS rates in the UUT-UC and UCB groups were 77.0% and 75.9%, respectively (p = 0.546). No significant difference in RFS rate was observed between pathological T stage subgroups. Five year CSS rates in the UUT-UC and UCB groups were 76.1% and 76.2%, respectively (p = 0.462). No significant difference was observed in CSS rate between the pathologic T stage subgroups. Conclusions UUT-UC and UCB showed comparable prognosis at identical stages. However, our results should be verified in a prospective study due to the retrospective study design in this study

Estimation of utility weights for human papilloma virus-related health states according to disease severity

Scenarios for the different HPV-related health states. (DOCX 38 kb

Intelligent CCTV Surveillance Based on Sound Recognition and Sound Localization

CCTV is used for many purposes, especially for surveillance and fortraffic condition monitoring. This paper proposesan intelligent CCTV system that tracks sound events based on sound recognition and sound localization. From the experimental results, it is evident that the proposed method can be successfully used for the intelligent CCTV system of CCTV