α

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressively paralytic neurodegenerative disease that can be caused by mutations in Cu/Zn-superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1). Transgenic mice that overexpress mutant SOD1 develop paralysis and accumulate aggregates of mutant protein in the brainstem and spinal cord. Bee venom (BV), which is also known as apitoxin, is extracted from honeybees and is commonly used in oriental medicine for the treatment of chronic rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether BV affects misfolded protein aggregates such as alpha-synuclein, which is a known pathological marker in Parkinson disease, and ubiquitin-proteasomal activity in hSOD1G93A mutant mice. BV was bilaterally administered into a 98-day-old hSOD1G93A animal model. We found that BV-treated hSOD1G93A transgenic mice showed reduced detergent-insoluble polymerization and phosphorylation of α-synuclein. Furthermore, phosphorylated or nitrated α-synuclein was significantly reduced in the spinal cords and brainstems of BV-treated hSOD1G93A mice and reduced proteasomal activity was revealed in the brainstems of BV-treated symptomatic hSOD1G93A. From these findings, we suggest that BV treatment attenuates the dysfunction of the ubiquitin-proteasomal system in a symptomatic hSOD1G93A ALS model and may help to slow motor neuron loss caused by misfolded protein aggregates in ALS models

The Relationship Between Chaebol And Firm Value Using Bayesian Network

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of being a chaebol company, the biggest company characteristic variable, on firm value. It tries to overcome the limitation of multiple regression analysis mostly used in preceding research. That is, as multiple regression analysis assumes uniform linearity between dependent and independent variables, it could not reflect the diverse types of the real world. Thus, based on being a chaebol company and financial information, company characteristic variables influencing firm value, this study derives causal relationships existing between them. The results could help managers and various accounting information users in their decision-making by providing them with information of what company characteristics would directly or indirectly influence firm value. To this end, this study utilizes Bayesian Network and attempts Markov Blanket. In the end, all the analysis methods used in this study not only provides significant results, but also raises its practical value by offering information of diverse situations that could occur in the real world

Vision based interface system for hands free control of an intelligent wheelchair

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Due to the shift of the age structure in today's populations, the necessities for developing the devices or technologies to support them have been increasing. Traditionally, the wheelchair, including powered and manual ones, is the most popular and important rehabilitation/assistive device for the disabled and the elderly. However, it is still highly restricted especially for severely disabled. As a solution to this, the Intelligent Wheelchairs (IWs) have received considerable attention as mobility aids. The purpose of this work is to develop the IW interface for providing more convenient and efficient interface to the people the disability in their limbs.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This paper proposes an intelligent wheelchair (IW) control system for the people with various disabilities. To facilitate a wide variety of user abilities, the proposed system involves the use of face-inclination and mouth-shape information, where the direction of an IW is determined by the inclination of the user's face, while proceeding and stopping are determined by the shapes of the user's mouth. Our system is composed of electric powered wheelchair, data acquisition board, ultrasonic/infra-red sensors, a PC camera, and vision system. Then the vision system to analyze user's gestures is performed by three stages: detector, recognizer, and converter. In the detector, the facial region of the intended user is first obtained using Adaboost, thereafter the mouth region is detected based on edge information. The extracted features are sent to the recognizer, which recognizes the face inclination and mouth shape using statistical analysis and <it>K</it>-means clustering, respectively. These recognition results are then delivered to the converter to control the wheelchair.</p> <p>Result & conclusion</p> <p>The advantages of the proposed system include 1) accurate recognition of user's intention with minimal user motion and 2) robustness to a cluttered background and the time-varying illumination. To prove these advantages, the proposed system was tested with 34 users in indoor and outdoor environments and the results were compared with those of other systems, then the results showed that the proposed system has superior performance to other systems in terms of speed and accuracy. Therefore, it is proved that proposed system provided a friendly and convenient interface to the severely disabled people.</p

Is Foreign Direct Investment Effective From The Perspective Of Tax Avoidance? An Analysis Of Tax Avoidance Through The International Transfer Pricing Behaviors Of Korean Corporations

This study examines whether multinational companies carry out tax avoidance through subsidiaries. An empirical analysis was conducted of 4,585 Korean firms from 2001 to 2010 by company and year. The results are as follows. First, MNCs that have become more internationally diversified through the establishment of overseas subsidiaries generally show a higher tendency to avoid tax. Thus, the analysis results show a positive correlation between globally diversified MNCs and corporate tax avoidance. This correlation is established due to the firms' active use of tax strategies (investment tax credits, tax cuts) applicable to the various countries in which they have expanded their businesses. Second, the analysis results showed that these firms actively avoided tax with overseas transfer pricing behaviors when compared to companies without overseas subsidiaries. Thus, the adjustment of sales prices and purchase value through actual transactions increased the propensity of the parent company to avoid tax.

Targeting the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway in hepatocellular carcinoma

Despite advances in the treatment of cancers through surgical procedures and new pharmaceuticals, the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains challenging as reflected by low survival rates. The PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway is an important signaling mechanism that regulates the cell cycle, proliferation, apoptosis, and metabolism. Importantly, deregulation of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway leading to activation is common in HCC and is hence the subject of intense investigation and the focus of current therapeutics. In this review article, we consider the role of this pathway in the pathogenesis of HCC, focusing on its downstream effectors such as glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3), cAMP-response element-binding protein (CREB), forkhead box O protein (FOXO), murine double minute 2 (MDM2), p53, and nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB), and the cellular processes of lipogenesis and autophagy. In addition, we provide an update on the current ongoing clinical development of agents targeting this pathway for HCC treatments

Melittin restores proteasome function in an animal model of ALS

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a paralyzing disorder characterized by the progressive degeneration and death of motor neurons and occurs both as a sporadic and familial disease. Mutant SOD1 (mtSOD1) in motor neurons induces vulnerability to the disease through protein misfolding, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative damage, cytoskeletal abnormalities, defective axonal transport- and growth factor signaling, excitotoxicity, and neuro-inflammation

Transcriptional Regulator TonEBP Mediates Oxidative Damages in Ischemic Kidney Injury

TonEBP (tonicity-responsive enhancer binding protein) is a transcriptional regulator whose expression is elevated in response to various forms of stress including hyperglycemia, inflammation, and hypoxia. Here we investigated the role of TonEBP in acute kidney injury (AKI) using a line of TonEBP haplo-deficient mice subjected to bilateral renal ischemia followed by reperfusion (I/R). In the TonEBP haplo-deficient animals, induction of TonEBP, oxidative stress, inflammation, cell death, and functional injury in the kidney in response to I/R were all reduced. Analyses of renal transcriptome revealed that genes in several cellular pathways including peroxisome and mitochondrial inner membrane were suppressed in response to I/R, and the suppression was relieved in the TonEBP deficiency. Production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the cellular injury was reproduced in a renal epithelial cell line in response to hypoxia, ATP depletion, or hydrogen peroxide. The knockdown of TonEBP reduced ROS production and cellular injury in correlation with increased expression of the suppressed genes. The cellular injury was also blocked by inhibitors of necrosis. These results demonstrate that ischemic insult suppresses many genes involved in cellular metabolism leading to local oxidative stress by way of TonEBP induction. Thus, TonEBP is a promising target to prevent AKI