Threatened or Threatening?: Securitization of the Yemeni Asylum Seekers in South Korea

The arrival of many Yemeni people on Jeju Island in 2018 to seek asylum became a mega-political issue in South Korea. This article investigates two questions. First, how and why have Yemeni asylum seekers suddenly become the focus of securitization concerns in South Korea? And second, how have these concerns affected the governments responses? We argue that three key factors—the influence of media on the refugee crisis in Europe, the Yemenis race, gender, and religious background, and South Koreas internal political and economic situation—have intersected with each other and produced the securitization of Yemeni migration. Amidst highly contested political debates on the protection of forced migrants in South Korea, the state has strictly controlled the border but showed contradictory refugee policies

Estimating baseline creatinine values to define acute kidney injury in critically ill pediatric patients

Background Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication in critically ill children. However, the common lack of baseline serum creatinine values affects AKI diagnosis and staging. Several approaches for estimating baseline creatinine values in those patients were evaluated. Methods This single-center retrospective study enrolled pediatric patients with documented serum creatinine measurements within 3 months before admission and more than two serum creatinine measurements within 7 days after admission to the pediatric intensive care unit of a tertiary care children’s hospital between January 2016 and April 2020. Four different approaches for estimating AKI using serum creatinine measurements were compared: 1) back-calculation using age-adjusted normal reference glomerular filtration rates, 2) age-adjusted normal reference serum creatinine values, 3) minimum values measured within 7 days after admission, and 4) initial values upon admission. Results The approach using minimum values showed the best agreement with the measured baseline value, with the largest intraclass correlation coefficient (0.623), smallest bias (–0.04), and narrowest limit of agreement interval (1.032). For AKI diagnosis and staging, the minimum values were 80.8% and 76.1% accurate, respectively. The other estimated baseline values underestimated AKI and showed poor agreement with baseline values before admission, with a misclassification rate of up to 42% (p < 0.001). Conclusion Minimum values of serum creatinine measured within 7 days after hospital admission showed the best agreement with creatinine measured within 3 months before admission, indicating the possibility of using it as a baseline when baseline data are unavailable. Further large-scale studies are required to accurately diagnose AKI in critically ill children

Adjacent Segment Pathology after Anterior Cervical Fusion

Anterior cervical fusion has become a standard of care for numerous pathologic conditions of the cervical spine. However, subsequent development of clinically significant disc disease at levels adjacent to fused discs is a serious long-term complication of this procedure. As more patients live longer after surgery, it is foreseeable that adjacent segment pathology (ASP) will develop in increasing numbers of patients. Also, ASP has been studied more intensively with the recent popularity of motion preservation technologies like total disc arthroplasty. The true nature and scope of ASP remains poorly understood. The etiology of ASP is most likely multifactorial. Various factors including altered biomechanical stresses, surgical disruption of soft tissue and the natural history of cervical disc disease contribute to the development of ASP. General factors associated with disc degeneration including gender, age, smoking and sports may play a role in the development of ASP. Postoperative sagittal alignment and type of surgery are also considered potential causes of ASP. Therefore, a spine surgeon must be particularly careful to avoid unnecessary disruption of the musculoligamentous structures, reduced risk of direct injury to the disc during dissection and maintain a safe margin between the plate edge and adjacent vertebrae during anterior cervical fusion

Current Studies of Acupuncture in Cancer-Induced Bone Pain Animal Models

Acupuncture is generally accepted as a safe and harmless treatment option for alleviating pain. To explore the pain mechanism, numerous animal models have been developed to simulate specific human pain conditions, including cancer-induced bone pain (CIBP). In this study, we analyzed the current research methodology of acupuncture for the treatment of CIBP. We electronically searched the PubMed database for animal studies published from 2000 onward using these search terms: (bone cancer OR cancer) AND (pain OR analgesia) AND (acupuncture OR pharmacopuncture OR bee venom). We selected articles that described cancer pain in animal models. We analyzed the methods used to induce cancer pain and the outcome measures used to assess the effects of acupuncture on CIBP in animal models. We reviewed articles that met our inclusion criteria. Injection of mammary cancer cells into the cavity of the tibia was the most frequently used method for inducing CIBP in the animal models. Among the eight selected studies, five studies demonstrated the effects of electroacupuncture on CIBP. The effects of acupuncture were assessed by measuring pain-related behavior. Future researches will be needed to ascertain the effectiveness of acupuncture for treating CIBP and to explore the specific mechanism of CIBP in animal models

Effects of Infrared Radiation and Heat on Human Skin Aging in vivo

Sunlight damages human skin, resulting in a wrinkled appearance. Since natural sunlight is polychromatic, its ultimate effects on the human skin are the result of not only the action of each wavelength separately, but also interactions among the many wavelengths, including UV, visible light, and infrared (IR). In direct sunlight, the temperature of human skin rises to about 40°C following the conversion of absorbed IR into heat. So far, our knowledge of the effects of IR radiation or heat on skin aging is limited. Recent work demonstrates that IR and heat exposure each induces cutaneous angiogenesis and inflammatory cellular infiltration, disrupts the dermal extracellular matrix by inducing matrix metalloproteinases, and alters dermal structural proteins, thereby adding to premature skin aging. This review provides a summary of current research on the effects of IR radiation and heat on aging in human skin in vivo