The Market for Fresh Organic Strawberries in Germany and the United States

This market research paper has been prepared under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Veit of TH Köln and Prof. Dr. Carol Scovotti of University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in the course of the inter-university cross-border collaboration student research project “Export Opportunity Surveys (EOS)”. This study explores fresh organic strawberries export opportunities to the German and US markets

Prediction of cognitive impairment via deep learning trained with multi-center neuropsychological test data

Background Neuropsychological tests (NPTs) are important tools for informing diagnoses of cognitive impairment (CI). However, interpreting NPTs requires specialists and is thus time-consuming. To streamline the application of NPTs in clinical settings, we developed and evaluated the accuracy of a machine learning algorithm using multi-center NPT data. Methods Multi-center data were obtained from 14,926 formal neuropsychological assessments (Seoul Neuropsychological Screening Battery), which were classified into normal cognition (NC), mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimers disease dementia (ADD). We trained a machine learning model with artificial neural network algorithm using TensorFlow (https://www.tensorflow.org) to distinguish cognitive state with the 46-variable data and measured prediction accuracies from 10 randomly selected datasets. The features of the NPT were listed in order of their contribution to the outcome using Recursive Feature Elimination. Results The ten times mean accuracies of identifying CI (MCI and ADD) achieved by 96.66 ± 0.52% of the balanced dataset and 97.23 ± 0.32% of the clinic-based dataset, and the accuracies for predicting cognitive states (NC, MCI or ADD) were 95.49 ± 0.53 and 96.34 ± 1.03%. The sensitivity to the detection CI and MCI in the balanced dataset were 96.0 and 96.0%, and the specificity were 96.8 and 97.4%, respectively. The time orientation and 3-word recall score of MMSE were highly ranked features in predicting CI and cognitive state. The twelve features reduced from 46 variable of NPTs with age and education had contributed to more than 90% accuracy in predicting cognitive impairment. Conclusions The machine learning algorithm for NPTs has suggested potential use as a reference in differentiating cognitive impairment in the clinical setting.The publication costs, design of the study, data management and writing the manuscript for this article were supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2017S1A6A3A01078538), Korea Ministry of Health & Welfare, and from the Original Technology Research Program for Brain Science through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Korean Government (MSIP; No. 2014M3C7A1064752)

Prevalence of Anti-Ganglioside Antibodies and Their Clinical Correlates with Guillain-Barre Syndrome in Korea: A Nationwide Multicenter Study

Background and Purpose No previous studies have investigated the relationship between various anti-ganglioside antibodies and the clinical characteristics of Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) in Korea. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and types of anti-ganglioside antibodies in Korean GBS patients, and to identify their clinical significance. Methods Serum was collected from patients during the acute phase of GBS at 20 university-based hospitals in Korea. The clinical and laboratory findings were reviewed and compared with the detected types of anti-ganglioside antibody. Results Among 119 patients, 60 were positive for immunoglobulin G (IgG) or immunoglobulin M antibodies against any type of ganglioside (50%). The most frequent type was IgG anti-GM1 antibody (47%), followed by IgG anti-GT1a (38%), IgG anti-GD1a (25%), and IgG anti-GQ1b (8%) antibodies. Anti-GM1-antibody positivity was strongly correlated with the presence of preceding gastrointestinal infection, absence of sensory symptoms or signs, and absence of cranial nerve involvement. Patients with anti-GD1a antibody were younger, predominantly male, and had more facial nerve involvement than the antibody-negative group. Anti-GT1a-antibody positivity was more frequently associated with bulbar weakness and was highly associated with ophthalmoplegia when coupled with the coexisting anti-GQ1b antibody. Despite the presence of clinical features of acute motor axonal neuropathy (AMAN), 68% of anti-GM1- or anti-GD1a-antibody-positive cases of GBS were diagnosed with acute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (AMP) by a single electrophysiological study. Conclusions Anti-ganglioside antibodies were frequently found in the serum of Korean GBS patients, and each antibody was correlated strongly with the various clinical manifestations. Nevertheless, without an anti-ganglioside antibody assay, in Korea AMAN is frequently misdiagnosed as AIDP by single electrophysiological studies.OAIID:oai:osos.snu.ac.kr:snu2014-01/102/0000004487/14SEQ:14PERF_CD:SNU2014-01EVAL_ITEM_CD:102USER_ID:0000004487ADJUST_YN:YEMP_ID:A075641DEPT_CD:801CITE_RATE:1.807FILENAME:kimjk-anti ganlioside ab-gbs-j clin neurol-2014-10(2)94.pdfDEPT_NM:의학과SCOPUS_YN:YCONFIRM:

A Study on Myogenesis by Regulation of Reactive Oxygen Species and Cytotoxic Activity by Selenium Nanoparticles

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are continuously produced by skeletal muscle during contractile activity and even at rest. However, the ROS generated from excessive exercise or traumatic damage may produce more ROS than can be neutralized by an antioxidant capacity, which can be harmful to muscle function. In particular, selenium is a known antioxidant that regulates physiological functions such as cell differentiation and anti-inflammatory function. In this study, we developed nano-sized antioxidative biomaterials using selenium to investigate the protective and differentiation effects against C2C12 myoblasts in an H2O2-induced oxidative stress environment. The selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) were produced with a size of 35.6 ± 4.3 nm and showed antioxidant effects according to the 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine assay. Then, SeNPs were treated to C2C12 cells with or without H2O2. Our results showed that SeNPs reduced C2C12 apoptosis and intracellular ROS levels. Additionally, SeNPs effectively up-regulated in the presence of H2O2, MyoD, MyoG, α-actinin, and myosin heavy chain, which are well known to increase during myoblast differentiation as assayed by qRT-PCR, immunocytochemistry-staining, western blotting. These results demonstrate that SeNPs can accelerate differentiation with its protective effects from the ROS environment and can be applied to the treatment of skeletal muscle in a cellular redox environment

Usefulness of Procalcitonin in the Diagnosis of Bacterial Infection in Immunocompetent Children

Bacterial infections (BIs) need to be differentiated from non-BIs (NBIs) to enable prompt administration of antibiotics. Therefore, inflammatory biomarkers are needed as they can accurately identify BIs. This study evaluated the usefulness of procalcitonin (PCT) in the diagnosis of BI in immunocompetent children. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients <18 years who underwent PCT measurements between July 2012 and June 2019. In total, 474 patients were enrolled and divided into the BI (n = 205) and NBI groups (n = 269). The BI group was subcategorized into the invasive BI (IBI; n = 94), mucosal BI (MBI; n = 31), toxigenic BI (TBI; n = 23), and localized BI (LBI; n = 57) subgroups. The NBI group was further subcategorized into the viral infection (VI; n = 118) and inflammatory disease groups (ID; n = 151). PCT was compared with the levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), white blood cell (WBC), and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR). Between the BI and NBI groups, PCT (4.2 ± 16.9 vs. 1.1 ± 2.5 ng/mL; p = 0.008) and ESR (39.1 ± 32.4 vs. 54.8 ± 28.2 mm/h; p < 0.001) were significantly different. Between the IBI and other groups, WBC (14,797 ± 7148 vs. 12,622 ± 5770 × 106/L; p = 0.007), ESR (35.3 ± 30.3 vs. 51.5 ± 30.3 mm/h; p < 0.001), and PCT (8.1 ± 23.8 vs. 1.0 ± 3.4 ng/mL; p = 0.005) were significantly different. However, none of the biomarkers were useful in differentiating BI from NBI. While WBC (area under curve (AUC) = 0.615, p = 0.003) and PCT (AUC = 0.640, p < 0.001) were useful, they fared poorly in differentiating IBI from other groups. Thus, additional studies are needed to identify more accurate biomarkers capable of differentiating BIs, especially IBIs

Silicon Dioxide Nanoparticles Enhance Endotoxin-Induced Lung Injury in Mice

Silicon dioxide nanoparticles (SiONPs), which are metal oxide nanoparticles, have been used in a wide variety of applications. In this study, acute pulmonary responses were examined after the intranasal instillation of SiONPs in mice primed with or without lipopolysaccharide (LPS, intranasal, 5 µg/mouse). The exposure to SiONPs increased the inflammatory cell counts and proinflammatory cytokines in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. SiONPs induced airway inflammation with increases in the phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs). The ratios of the inflammatory responses induced by the SiONPs were increased in the acute pulmonary disease model primed by LPS. Taken together, SiONPs exhibited toxicity to the respiratory system, which was associated with MAPK phosphorylation. In addition, the exposure to SiONPs exacerbated any existing inflammatory pulmonary diseases. These data showed the additive, as well as synergistic, interaction effects of SiONPs and LPS. We conclude that the exposure to SiONPs causes potential toxicity in humans, especially those with respiratory diseases