Nutritional management of breastfeeding infants for the prevention of common nutrient deficiencies and excesses

Breastfeeding is the best source of nutrition for every infant, and exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months is usually optimal in the common clinical situation. However, inappropriate complementary feeding could lead to a nutrient-deficient status, such as iron deficiency anemia, vitamin D deficiency, and growth faltering. The recent epidemic outbreak of obesity in Korean children emphasizes the need for us to control children's daily sedentary life style and their intakes of high caloric foods in order to prevent obesity. Recent assessment of breastfeeding in Korea has shown that the rate is between 63% and 89%; thus, up-to-dated evidence-based nutritional management of breastfeeding infants to prevent common nutrient deficiencies or excesses should be taught to all clinicians and health care providers

Contract Pricing and Packer Competition in Fed Cattle Market

We use a game-theoretical framework to analyze the coexistence of spot and contract markets in the cattle industry. A duopsony scenario with two packers and N feeders is used to reflect the reality in the cattle industry. Our main contribution is to incorporate the risk components and the pricing of hedonic attributes of cattle quality. Our preliminary results show that packers have an incentive to transform bidding strategies in spot markets when a series of hedonic characteristics play some significant roles in establishing cattle prices in contract market. That is, we will show that the effectiveness of contract with TOMP clauses on packer competition in a spot market depends on whether there is a correlation between spot price and hedonic characteristics. The results may shed light on understanding potential effects of captive supplies on market power and may aid in the assessment of the policies designed to enhance competition in the cattle industry.Marketing,

The Impacts of Animal Disease Crises on the Korean Meat Market

Employing the error correction method and historical decomposition with direct acyclic graphs, we quantify the impacts of domestic and oversea animal disease crises on the Korean meat markets. We find that (a) the market partially recovered 16 months after the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2000, and 13 months after the avian influenza and the U.S. BSE incidents in 2003; (b) animal disease outbreaks have differentiate impacts by disease type and supply chain level. Retailers likely to have windfall profits as the retail price margin increased relative to the farm and wholesale levels; and (c) disease outbreaks affect dynamic price interdependence.Animal disease outbreak, Error correction model, Direct acyclic graphs, Korean meat market, Historical Decomposition, Price margins, Livestock Production/Industries, C32, Q11, L11,

Solid-State Sensitized Heterojunction Solar Cells:Effect of Sensitizing Systems on Performance and Stability

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) are considered as an emerging technology in order to replace conventional silicon solar cells or thin film solar cells such as amorphous silicon, CIGS, and CdTe. Liquid electrolytes containing iodide/triiodide redox couple have a durability problem due to the corrosion of metal contacts. In order to improve the long-term stability of DSC device it is important to find an alternate efficient redox couple. In search of this we are using 2,2',7,7'-tetrakis-(N,N-di-methoxyphenylamine)- 9,9'-spirobifluorene (spiro-OMeTAD) as a hole transport material for solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells (SSDSCs). In comparison to the liquid electrolytes the efficiencies of SSDSCs are inferior, they are around only 30% of the efficiencies obtained with the liquid electrolytes. In optimizing the device performance and stability of SSDSCs, various light harvesting systems are employed to enhance a photovoltaic performance and investigated their properties in SSDSCs. In SSDSCs we use thin TiO2 films to avoid the pore-filling problem of HTM. Hence it is critical to use high molar extinction coefficient dyes with an efficient light harvesting capability for SSDSCs. Representative ruthenium sensitizers such as N719 or Z907 have shown good and stable performances in liquid electrolyte-based DSCs. However, their performances are low in SSDSCs due to insufficient light harvesting in thin mesoporous TiO2 films. A new family of heteroleptic polypyridyl ruthenium sensitizers having thiophene units was employed to increase the light harvesting capabilities and their applicability in SSDSCs. These new dyes could improve the absorbed photon-to-current conversion efficiencies as well as power conversion efficiencies due to their high molar extinction coefficients. The thiophene units of the ancillary ligands not only enhanced molar extinction coefficients but also augmented electron lifetime in the devices. In general, ruthenium sensitizers possess lower molar extinction coefficients compared to organic dyes. In order to increase the molar extinction coefficients and bathochromic shift in the absorption spectra of organic dyes, we applied donor-acceptor concept in organic dyes with different π-conjugation bridges. Consequently, we achieved 6 % power conversion efficiency at AM 1.5G solar irradiation (100 mW/cm2) in a solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell. Transient photovoltage and photocurrent decay measurements showed that the enhanced performance of this device was ascribe to higher charge collection efficiency over a wider potential range. We also examined near infrared absorbing dyes and they could be employed to different device architectures such as tandem cells, Förster Resonance Energy Transfer, or co-sensitization to substantiate panchromatic response. Another interesting type of sensitizers is semiconductor or quantum dots due to their unique properties. However, the efficiency of the semiconductor-sensitized solar cells was only 1-2 % range. Recently, much improved efficiencies were reported with Sb2S3-sensitized cells using different hole conductors. The Sb2S3-sensitized cells with spiro-OMeTAD demonstrated a very high incident photon-to-conversion efficiency (IPCE) of 90 %. This excellent result shows that the semiconductor sensitizers are promising candidate as light absorbers for SSDSCs. Most of the standard ruthenium and organic dyes have the limited absorption in near infrared region of the solar spectrum. Porphyrin sensitizers possess strong absorptions in the visible and near infrared region and they have good chemical, photochemical and thermal stability. However, the power conversion efficiency of SSDSCs devices using a novel D-π-A porphyrin we reached only 1.6 %. In order to improve a cell performance, porphyrin was co-sensitized with an organic dye to increase light harvesting capability in the green wavelength region as well as to reduce the dye aggregation. Instead of spiro-OMeTAD a polymer hole conductor was applied, which had intense spectral response in the visible region. Interestingly, in this system the polymer hole conductor showed dual functions, as a light absorber and a hole transporter. This hybrid solar cell exhibited a clear panchromatic response and improved the power conversion efficiency of device compared to the cell with spiro-OMeTAD

Environmental tobacco smoke and children's health

Passive exposure to tobacco smoke significantly contributes to morbidity and mortality in children. Children, in particular, seem to be the most susceptible population to the harmful effects of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Paternal smoking inside the home leads to significant maternal and fetal exposure to ETS and may subsequently affect fetal health. ETS has been associated with adverse effects on pediatric health, including preterm birth, intrauterine growth retardation, perinatal mortality, respiratory illness, neurobehavioral problems, and decreased performance in school. A valid estimation of the risks associated with tobacco exposure depends on accurate measurement. Nicotine and its major metabolite, cotinine, are commonly used as smoking biomarkers, and their levels can be determined in various biological specimens such as blood, saliva, and urine. Recently, hair analysis was found to be a convenient, noninvasive technique for detecting the presence of nicotine exposure. Because nicotine/cotinine accumulates in hair during hair growth, it is a unique measure of long-term, cumulative exposure to tobacco smoke. Although smoking ban policies result in considerable reductions in ETS exposure, children are still exposed significantly to tobacco smoke not only in their homes but also in schools, restaurants, child-care settings, cars, buses, and other public places. Therefore, more effective strategies and public policies to protect preschool children from ETS should be consolidated

Composition of Asarum heterotropoides var. mandshuricum radix oil from different extraction methods and activities against human body odor-producing bacteria

AbstractIn this study, oils from Asarum heterotropoides were extracted by traditional solvent extraction and supercritical CO2 (SC-CO2) extraction methods and their antioxidant activities along with antimicrobial and inhibitory activities against five human body odor-producing bacteria (Staphylococcus epidermidis, Propionibacterium freudenreichii, Micrococcus luteus, Corynebacterium jeikeium, and Corynebacterium xerosis) were evaluated. The oil was found to contain 15 components, among which the most abundant component was methyl eugenol (37.6%), which was identified at every condition studied in different extraction methods. The oil extracted with n-hexane and ethanol mixture exhibited a strong antioxidant activity (92% ± 2%) and the highest ABTS and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl scavenging activities (89% ± 0.2%). The highest amounts of total phenolic content and total flavonoid content were 23.1±0.4 mg/g and 4.9±0.1 mg/g, respectively, in the traditional method. In the SC-CO2 method performed at 200 bar/50°C using ethanol as an entrainer, the highest inhibition zone was recorded against all the aforementioned bacteria. In particular, strong antibacterial activity (38±2 mm) was found against M. luteus. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) for the oil against bacteria ranged from 10.1±0.1 μg/mL to 46±2 μg/mL. The lowest MIC was found against M. luteus. Methyl eugenol was found to be one of the major compounds working against human body odor-producing bacteria