Metastatic carcinoma of the oral region : an analysis of 21 cases

Metastatic carcinoma to the jaws and oral region are very rare, representing less than 1% of all oral tumors. Unfortunately, oral metastasis is usually manifestation of an advanced stage of primary cancer, and indicates widespread disease and poor prognosis. In this retrospective study, a total of 2039 patients with history of oral malignant tumor between 1980 and 2012 at Seoul National University Dental Hospital were evaluated. We analyzed the dental and medical records, and histopathological database of 2039 patients to assess the prevalence of oral metastasis of carcinoma in terms of sex and age, as well as, the most common origin of primary cancer, and prevalent site and histopathological type of metastatic carcinoma. Among 2039 patients, 21 (1.03%) were finally diagnosed with metastatic carcinoma of the jaws and oral region. Among the 21 patients, only 11 had a working diagnosis as oral metastasis upon clinical evaluation before performing a biopsy. The mean age at the time of diagnosis with a metastatic carcinoma was 56.86, and there was a male preponderance. Metastatic carcinoma was more frequent in the jaws than in the soft tissue, especially in the mandible compared to the maxilla. The most frequent primary site was the lungs, followed by the liver and breasts. The predominant histopathological types were hepatocellular carcinoma and adenocarcinoma. Patient outcomes indicated a poor prognosis with the time from the appearance of the metastasis to death was only 12 months. According to these cases, oral metastases of carcinoma were exceedingly rare in Koreans. It can allow the clinicians take into account the possible presence of metastases and lead to early diagnosis

Characteristics of Adolescent Patients Admitted to the Emergency Department due to Attempted Suicide by Poisoning; a Brief Report

Introduction: In the background of the increased suicide rate in the second decade of life, analysis of the characteristics of poisoning-related attempted suicide in adolescents and evaluation of the differences from adults may form an important basis for establishing measures to prevent deaths from poisoning. Objective: We aimed to investigate the types of toxic substances ingested for attempted suicide by poisoning in adolescents admitted to the emergency department (ED). Method: This cross-sectional study retrospectively analyzed and investigated the medical records of patients aged 13 or older, admitted to the ED of a tertiary medical institute over a period of 3 years, for attempted suicide by poisoning. Results: The psychiatric diagnoses among patients in the adolescent group included depression (75.8%), bipolar disorder (12.5%), and panic disorder (12.5%). In terms of the type of drug used for poisoning, antidepressants or anti-psychotics and sleeping pills were the most commonly used in the adolescent (43 subjects, 45.2%) and adult (286 subjects, 37.6%) groups, respectively. Conclusion: As there is a higher chance of poisoning by easily accessible drugs, the emergency physician needs to investigate any preceding diagnoses of psychiatric or medical illnesses in the adolescent patients attempting suicide with unknown drugs

Development of A New Coating System for The High Functional Mold in Thin-wall Casting

A new inorganic binder system has been developed to prepare the mold having a high strength for the thin-walled casting. To increase the fracture strength at high temperature, a large amount of inorganic binder should be converted into glass phase and the generated glass phase has to be homogeneously coated on the surface of starting particles. In this work, two types of process were employed to investigate the coating and glassification efficiencies of inorganic precursor. In the first process (process I), the green body consisting of starting powder and organic binder was dipped in the inorganic precursor solution. In the second process (process II), the starting powder was coated by inorganic precursor, and then the organic binder was used to form the green body. The mold sample prepared using process II showed the higher strength value than that using process I, owing to the inclement effect on the glassfication efficiency by the loss of inorganic precursor in process I. The prepared real mold was perfectly produced and the casted product showed a clean surface without defects such as dross, nonmetallic inclusions, and crack. Consequently, the new inorganic binder system could be applied for preparing the mold for the thin-wall casting having high mechanical properties

Structural Optimization of a Knuckle with Consideration of Stiffness and Durability Requirements

The automobile’s knuckle is connected to the parts of the steering system and the suspension system and it is used for adjusting the direction of a rotation through its attachment to the wheel. This study changes the existing material made of GCD45 to Al6082M and recommends the lightweight design of the knuckle as the optimal design technique to be installed in small cars. Six shape design variables were selected for the optimization of the knuckle and the criteria relevant to stiffness and durability were considered as the design requirements during the optimization process. The metamodel-based optimization method that uses the kriging interpolation method as the optimization technique was applied. The result shows that all constraints for stiffness and durability are satisfied using A16082M, while reducing the weight of the knuckle by 60% compared to that of the existing GCD450

A STUDY ON USERS’ AWARENESS OF MOVING-PICTURE ADS IN MOVINF-PICTURE CONTENTS WITH DIFFERENT ONLINE MEDIA CHARATERISTICS

Internet plays an important role in our lives and the number of internet users keeps increasing. As internet users are exposed to ads from online media while not knowing, advertising market’s interest in moving-picture ads increases. Thus, this study comparatively measured effects of moving-picture ads inserted in news-related moving-picture contents of media companies and those of moving-picture ads inserted in moving-picture contents of professional moving-picture UCC. Advertising effects were compared between media characteristics (news and UCC) and keyword relatedness (related or unrelated keyword) and interactions of the two factors were measured. As a result, there was a significant difference in media characteristics and keyword relatedness. As for media characteristics, advertising effects of news-related moving pictures were higher than those of professional moving-picture UCC in all items. As for keyword relatedness, executing ads of keyword related to moving-picture contents was verified to have higher advertising effects than executing ads of unrelated keywords. There was no significant difference in interactions between these two factors. As interest in the moving picture advertising market increases, the necessity to introduce a method to analyze effects of moving-picture ads is raised. As for evaluation of advertising effects of moving pictures of media companies, the theme to be dealt in this paper, it is still difficult to state that moving-picture ads are facilitated in the overall market of moving picture services. So under such circumstances that verification is hard to achieve, the attempt of this study is considered to be meaningful. Keyword: media companies, UCC, moving-picture contents, moving-picture ads, advertising effects, media, new

Psychometric properties of a short self-reported measure of medication adherence among patients with hypertension treated in a busy clinical setting in Korea.

BackgroundWe examined the psychometric properties of the Korean version of the 8-item Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8) among adults with hypertension.MethodsA total of 373 adults with hypertension were given face-to-face interviews in 2 cardiology clinics at 2 large teaching hospitals in Seoul, South Korea. Blood pressure was measured twice, and medical records were reviewed. About one-third of the participants (n = 109) were randomly selected for a 2-week test-retest evaluation of reliability via telephone interview.ResultsInternal consistency reliability was moderate (Cronbach α = 0.56), and test-retest reliability was excellent (intraclass correlation = 0.91; P < 0.001), although a ceiling effect was detected. The correlation of MMAS-8 scores with scores for the original 4-item scale indicated that convergent validity was good (r = 0.92; P < 0.01). A low MMAS-8 score was significantly associated with poor blood pressure control (χ(2) = 29.86; P < 0.001; adjusted odds ratio = 5.08; 95% CI, 2.56-10.08). Using a cut-off point of 6, sensitivity and specificity were 64.3% and 72.9%, respectively. Exploratory factor analysis identified 3 dimensions of the scale, with poor fit for the 1-dimensional construct using confirmatory factory analysis.ConclusionsThe MMAS-8 had satisfactory reliability and validity and thus might be suitable for assessment and counseling regarding medication adherence among adults with hypertension in a busy clinical setting in Korea

Molecular cloning and biochemical characterization of a novel erythrose reductase from Candida magnoliae JH110

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Erythrose reductase (ER) catalyzes the final step of erythritol production, which is reducing erythrose to erythritol using NAD(P)H as a cofactor. ER has gained interest because of its importance in the production of erythritol, which has extremely low digestibility and approved safety for diabetics. Although ERs were purified and characterized from microbial sources, the entire primary structure and the corresponding DNA for ER still remain unknown in most of erythritol-producing yeasts. <it>Candida magnoliae </it>JH110 isolated from honeycombs produces a significant amount of erythritol, suggesting the presence of erythrose metabolizing enzymes. Here we provide the genetic sequence and functional characteristics of a novel NADPH-dependent ER from <it>C. magnoliae </it>JH110.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The gene encoding a novel ER was isolated from an osmophilic yeast <it>C. magnoliae </it>JH110. The ER gene composed of 849 nucleotides encodes a polypeptide with a calculated molecular mass of 31.4 kDa. The deduced amino acid sequence of ER showed a high degree of similarity to other members of the aldo-keto reductase superfamily including three ER isozymes from <it>Trichosporonoides megachiliensis </it>SNG-42. The intact coding region of ER from <it>C. magnoliae </it>JH110 was cloned, functionally expressed in <it>Escherichia coli </it>using a combined approach of gene fusion and molecular chaperone co-expression, and subsequently purified to homogeneity. The enzyme displayed a temperature and pH optimum at 42°C and 5.5, respectively. Among various aldoses, the <it>C. magnoliae </it>JH110 ER showed high specific activity for reduction of erythrose to the corresponding alcohol, erythritol. To explore the molecular basis of the catalysis of erythrose reduction with NADPH, homology structural modeling was performed. The result suggested that NADPH binding partners are completely conserved in the <it>C. magnoliae </it>JH110 ER. Furthermore, NADPH interacts with the side chains Lys252, Thr255, and Arg258, which could account for the enzyme's absolute requirement of NADPH over NADH.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A novel ER enzyme and its corresponding gene were isolated from <it>C. magnoliae </it>JH110. The <it>C. magnoliae </it>JH110 ER with high activity and catalytic efficiency would be very useful for <it>in vitro </it>erythritol production and could be applied for the production of erythritol in other microorganisms, which do not produce erythritol.</p