Container transport network for sustainable development in South Korea

The ever-increasing tendency toward economic globalization highlights the importance of sustainable container transport networks to a country’s international trade, especially for an economy that is highly dependent on exports. This paper aims to develop a transport network connectivity index (TNCI) to measure the container transport connectivity from a multi-modal perspective. The proposed index is based on both graph theory and economics, considering transport infrastructure and capacity, cargo flow, and capacity utilization. Using the case of South Korea as an example, we apply the TNCI to assess the connectivity of the Busan, Gwangyang, and Incheon ports, representing approximately 96% of the container throughput in South Korea. The calculated TNCI not only provides insight into the assessment of sustainable port competitiveness, it also helps policymakers identify bottlenecks in multi-modal transport networks. To eliminate these bottlenecks, this paper offers some appropriate measures and specific strategies for port development, which in turn improves the connectivity of container transport networks for sustainable development

Bilateral Pneumothorax and Pneumomediastinum Following Total Thyroidectomy with Central Neck Dissection

We describe a 60-year-old woman who developed extensive emphysema, bilateral pneumothorax, and pneumomediastinum after total thyroidectomy and central neck dissection with sacrifice of a recurrent laryngeal nerve. In this report, we discuss the possisle etiology of those rare complications

Combined Effects of Surface Morphology and Mechanical Straining Magnitudes on the Differentiation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells without Using Biochemical Reagents

Existing studies examining the control of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) differentiation into desired cell types have used a variety of biochemical reagents such as growth factors despite possible side effects. Recently, the roles of biomimetic microphysical environments have drawn much attention in this field. We studied MSC differentiation and changes in gene expression in relation to osteoblast-like cell and smooth muscle-like cell type resulting from various microphysical environments, including differing magnitudes of tensile strain and substrate geometries for 8 days. In addition, we also investigated the residual effects of those selected microphysical environment factors on the differentiation by ceasing those factors for 3 days. The results of this study showed the effects of the strain magnitudes and surface geometries. However, the genes which are related to the same cell type showed different responses depending on the changes in strain magnitude and surface geometry. Also, different responses were observed three days after the straining was stopped. These data confirm that controlling microenvironments so that they mimic those in vivo contributes to the differentiation of MSCs into specific cell types. And duration of straining engagement was also found to play important roles along with surface geometry

The anti-obesity effect of Lethariella cladonioides in 3T3-L1 cells and obese mice

The aim of this study was to investigate whether a water extract of L. cladonioides (LC) has an anti-obesity effect in 3T3-L1 cells and obese mice. Treatment of differentiated 3T3-L1 adipocytes with LC caused a significant increase in glycerol release and reduced the protein expression of the adipogenic transcription factors, PPARγ and C/EBPα. In an animal model, obese mice were artificially induced by a high fat diet for 10 weeks. Experimental groups were treated with LC (100 mg/kg/day) by gavage for the next 10 weeks. At the end of experiment, the body weight of the LC group mice was reduced by 14.2% compared to the high fat diet (HFD) group. The treatment also decreased liver (31.0%), epididymal (18.0%) and retroperitoneal (19.3%) adipose tissue, and kidney (6.7%) weights, respectively, compared with those of the HFD group. LC prevented diet-induced increases in the serum level of TC (22.6%), TG (11.6%), and glucose (35.0%), respectively, compared with the HFD group. However, the HDL-C level was higher in the LC group (26.1%) than the HFD group. The results of this study thus suggest that LC suppressed lipid accumulation and expression of adipogenic transcription factors, and increased the amount of glycerol release. LC also indicated an anti-obese and anti-hyperlipidemic effect

Mental Health of North Korean Refugees in Protective Facilities in China

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to provide alternative care plans for mental health of North Korean refugees who are in protective facilities in China. METHODS: Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) was utilized to measure the presence/absence of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among 65 North Korean refugees. RESULTS: The gender differences in PAI t-scores showed that women exhibited meaningfully higher scores largely in anxiety (m=61.85), depression (m=65.23), and schizophrenia (m=60.98). In different age groups, schizophrenia in the 30 age bracket (m=65.23) was meaningfully higher than the teens (m=48.11). Aggression among the treatment features was the highest in the 20 age group (m=59.19) showing higher t-scores than the teens (m=39.67). Duration in the facility affected mental health in that the 3-5 years group (m=63.91) reported the highest in paranoia. Groups of under 1 year and less than 1-3 years showed meaningfully higher scores in nonsupport. The PTSD (including partial PTSD) rate of the group recorded 9.2%. Correlation between the PTSD and PAI scores showed that the full-PTSD group demonstrated higher average scores in negative impression, somatic complaints, anxiety, anxiety-related disorder, depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, antisocial features, suicide ideation, and treatment rejection than the non-PTSD group. CONCLUSION: Mental health of North Korean refugees in China was worse in women, the thirties, and less than 3-5 years in the facility, and it deteriorated as the duration prolonged. To promote better psychological health of North Korean refugees in China, the attention and aid from the protection facilities and domestic and international interests are requiredope

Adaptive transaction scheduling for transactional memory systems

Transactional memory systems are expected to enable parallel programming at lower programming complexity, while delivering improved performance over traditional lock-based systems. Nonetheless, there are certain situations where transactional memory systems could actually perform worse. Transactional memory systems can outperform locks only when the executing workloads contain sufficient parallelism. When the workload lacks inherent parallelism, launching excessive transactions can adversely degrade performance. These situations will actually become dominant in future workloads when large-scale transactions are frequently executed. In this thesis, we propose a new paradigm called adaptive transaction scheduling to address this issue. Based on the parallelism feedback from applications, our adaptive transaction scheduler dynamically dispatches and controls the number of concurrently executing transactions. In our case study, we show that our low-cost mechanism not only guarantees that hardware transactional memory systems perform no worse than a single global lock, but also significantly improves performance for both hardware and software transactional memory systems.M.S.Committee Chair: Lee, Hsien-Hsin; Committee Member: Blough, Douglas; Committee Member: Yalamanchili, Sudhaka

Traumatic Experiences and Mental Health of North Korean Refugees in South Korea

OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted at Hanawon-a government sponsored educational facility for the settlement of North Korean refugees during their initial phase in South Korea-in 2004 to explore their mental health status and traumatic experiences in North Korea and during their escape period. METHODS: A survey was conducted in November 2004 with 62 North Korean refugees at Hanawon, and the Trauma Checklist was used to measure their traumatic experiences. To measure their psychological-mental health status, the Personality Assessment Inventory was administered. RESULTS: In comparison with the traumatic experiences of the North Korean refugees found in the study conducted in 2001 at Hanawon using the same methods, the current study showed a relatively lower frequency of traumatic experiences among the participants. The Personality Assessment Inventory results revealed that the study participants scored higher than average South Koreans in all clinical scales. Particularly, their mania (62.51) and schizophrenia (61.75) scores were above 60, a clinically meaningful score. In the gender comparison, the males exhibited meaningfully higher levels of alcohol problem, non-support, and warmth scale scores. CONCLUSION: Compared to the 2001 study, the overall traumatic experiences among North Korean refugees participated in this study. But continous support is necessary for their successful adaptation to South Korean Society have declined. The North Korean refugees at Hanawon experienced difficulties maintaining their mental health and the men in particular requested more intensive care and support for this purpose.ope

Highly Efficient Light-Emitting Diodes of Colloidal Metal-Halide Perovskite Nanocrystals beyond Quantum Size.

Colloidal metal-halide perovskite quantum dots (QDs) with a dimension less than the exciton Bohr diameter DB (quantum size regime) emerged as promising light emitters due to their spectrally narrow light, facile color tuning, and high photoluminescence quantum efficiency (PLQE). However, their size-sensitive emission wavelength and color purity and low electroluminescence efficiency are still challenging aspects. Here, we demonstrate highly efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs) based on the colloidal perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) in a dimension > DB (regime beyond quantum size) by using a multifunctional buffer hole injection layer (Buf-HIL). The perovskite NCs with a dimension greater than DB show a size-irrespective high color purity and PLQE by managing the recombination of excitons occurring at surface traps and inside the NCs. The Buf-HIL composed of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)/poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) and perfluorinated ionomer induces uniform perovskite particle films with complete film coverage and prevents exciton quenching at the PEDOT:PSS/perovskite particle film interface. With these strategies, we achieved a very high PLQE (∼60.5%) in compact perovskite particle films without any complex post-treatments and multilayers and a high current efficiency of 15.5 cd/A in the LEDs of colloidal perovskite NCs, even in a simplified structure, which is the highest efficiency to date in green LEDs that use colloidal organic-inorganic metal-halide perovskite nanoparticles including perovskite QDs and NCs. These results can help to guide development of various light-emitting optoelectronic applications based on perovskite NCs