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Raising a child with developmental disabilities (DDs) involves both rewards and challenges, with family management styles influencing the quality of life (QoL) of both children and families, particularly during crises. This study identified family management styles and their relationships with the QoL of children and adolescents and family functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conducted between September 2020 and October 2021, the study included 200 Korean parents of individuals with DDs under the age of 21. Online data collection assessed family management styles, family functioning, and children’s QoL. Cluster analysis and analysis of variance were used to identify family management styles and to compare demographics, family functioning, and QoL across groups, respectively. Three clusters were identified: “Thriving” ( n  = 20), “Somewhat Resilient” ( n  = 118), and “Struggling” ( n  = 62). The Thriving cluster demonstrated effective condition management, a positive outlook, and high parental cooperation. The Somewhat Resilient cluster displayed moderate functioning. The Struggling cluster demonstrated the greatest challenges and the lowest capacity for managing the condition. Significant differences in children’s QoL, family functioning, and demographic variables were observed across clusters. These findings highlight how families manage DDs during the pandemic and the need for tailored interventions based on family management styles.

With recent aging demographic trends, the needs for enhancing geo-spatial analysis capabilities and monitoring the status of accessibilities of its citizens with healthcare services have increased. The accessibility to healthcare is determined not only by geographic distances to service locations, but also includes travel time, available modes of transportation, and departure time. Having access to the latest and accurate information regarding the healthcare accessibility allows the municipal government to plan for improvements, including expansion of healthcare infrastructure, effective labor distribution, alternative healthcare options for the regions with low accessibilities, and redesigning the public transportation routes and schedules. This paper proposes a new method named, Seoul Enhanced 2-Step Floating Catchment Area (SE2SFCA), which is customized for the city of Seoul, where population density is higher and the average distance between healthcare-service locations tends to be shorter than the typical North American or European cities. The proposed method of SE2SFCA is found to be realistic and effective in determining the weak accessibility regions. It resolves the over-estimation issues of the past, arising from the assignment of high healthcare accessibility for the regions with large hospitals and high density of population and hospitals.

A recent development in cloud computing has introduced serverless technology, enabling the convenient and flexible management of cloud-native applications. Typically, the Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) solutions rely on serverless backend solutions, such as Kubernetes (K8s) and Knative, to leverage the advantages of resource management for underlying containerized contexts, including auto-scaling and pod scheduling. To take the advantages, recent cloud service providers also deploy self-hosted serverless services by facilitating their on-premise hosted FaaS platforms rather than relying on commercial public cloud offerings. However, the lack of standardized guidelines on K8s abstraction to fairly schedule and allocate resources on auto-scaling configuration options for such on-premise hosting environment in serverless computing poses challenges in meeting the service level objectives (SLOs) of diverse workloads. This study fills this gap by exploring the relationship between auto-scaling behavior and the performance of FaaS workloads depending on scaling-related configurations in K8s. Based on comprehensive measurement studies, we derived the logic as to which workload should be applied and with what type of scaling configurations, such as base metric, threshold to maximize the difference in latency SLO, and number of responses. Additionally, we propose a methodology to assess the scaling efficiency of the related K8s configurations regarding the quality of service (QoS) of FaaS workloads.

The Insula is an area of the brain that plays a vital role in various functions, mainly several executive functions (EFs) during neurological development. Functional connectivity (FC) between the Frontal lobes and the Insula, the regions most commonly associated with EFs, is claimed to play an essential role in EFs. However, there is insufficient data on the relationship between the FC between the two brain regions and the EFs in childhood and adolescence. We investigate the relationship between the degree of functional connection between the Insula and the Frontal lobe and EFs in a sample of Korean children’s and adolescent communities. Total 95 participants between the ages of 6 and 17 were recruited. An fMRI seed-based connectivity analysis was conducted with the Insula and all the Frontal lobe areas of interest. A partial correlation analysis of the Stroop and Children’s Color Trails Test (CCTT) were performed to measure the overall EFs. One hundred eleven children and adolescents (average age 12.23) participated in the resting functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) study. The Stroop and CCTT tests found a strong positive correlation with the functional connection between the Insula and the Frontal lobes. In particular, this study confirmed that the solid functional connection between the Inferior front gyrus and the Insula is related to good linguistic ability and attention. The functional solid connection between the Prefrontal gyrus and the Insula is related to developed inhibition and cognitive flexibility.

HighlightsFundamental mechanisms in terms of driving force, material design, and exsolution processes are outlined, and novel behaviors of socketing and shape-shifting throughout the interaction with the oxide support are discussed.This review examines the key control factors, encompassing external conditions and intrinsic properties that affect the surface exsolution of metallic nanoparticles.The extraordinary nature of exsolution particles and their effect on various applications are discussed, along with the latest strategies for improving exsolution behavior.Supported nanoparticles have attracted considerable attention as a promising catalyst for achieving unique properties in numerous applications, including fuel cells, chemical conversion, and batteries. Nanocatalysts demonstrate high activity by expanding the number of active sites, but they also intensify deactivation issues, such as agglomeration and poisoning, simultaneously. Exsolution for bottom-up synthesis of supported nanoparticles has emerged as a breakthrough technique to overcome limitations associated with conventional nanomaterials. Nanoparticles are uniformly exsolved from perovskite oxide supports and socketed into the oxide support by a one-step reduction process. Their uniformity and stability, resulting from the socketed structure, play a crucial role in the development of novel nanocatalysts. Recently, tremendous research efforts have been dedicated to further controlling exsolution particles. To effectively address exsolution at a more precise level, understanding the underlying mechanism is essential. This review presents a comprehensive overview of the exsolution mechanism, with a focus on its driving force, processes, properties, and synergetic strategies, as well as new pathways for optimizing nanocatalysts in diverse applications.

Coronaviruses infect cells by cytoplasmic or endosomal membrane fusion, driven by the spike (S) protein, which must be primed by proteolytic cleavage at the S1/S2 furin cleavage site (FCS) and the S2′ site by cellular proteases. Exogenous trypsin as a medium additive facilitates isolation and propagation of several coronaviruses in vitro. Here, we show that trypsin enhances severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in cultured cells and that SARS-CoV-2 enters cells via either a non-endosomal or an endosomal fusion pathway, depending on the presence of trypsin. Interestingly, trypsin enabled viral entry at the cell surface and led to more efficient infection than trypsin-independent endosomal entry, suggesting that trypsin production in the target organs may trigger a high level of replication of SARS-CoV-2 and cause severe tissue injury. Extensive syncytium formation and enhanced growth kinetics were observed only in the presence of exogenous trypsin when cell-adapted SARS-CoV-2 strains were tested. During 50 serial passages without the addition of trypsin, a specific R685S mutation occurred in the S1/S2 FCS (681PRRAR685) that was completely conserved but accompanied by several mutations in the S2 fusion subunit in the presence of trypsin. These findings demonstrate that the S1/S2 FCS is essential for proteolytic priming of the S protein and fusion activity for SARS-CoV-2 entry but not for viral replication. Our data can potentially contribute to the improvement of SARS-CoV-2 production for the development of vaccines or antivirals and motivate further investigations into the explicit functions of cell-adaptation-related genetic drift in SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis.

Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) is the most ubiquitous viral pathogen of pigs and has persistently affected the global swine industry. Since first being identified in South Korea in 1999, the virus has undergone considerable genetic change and genotype shifts during the past two decades. These events have contributed to the coexistence of genotypes PCV2a, PCV2b, and PCV2d in Korean pig populations, which may promote viral recombination. The genotypic and phylogenetic characteristics of PCV2 strains circulating in pig herds on Jeju Island from 2019 to 2020 were the focus of this study. Genotype-specific PCR indicated that PCV2d is the dominant viral genotype and that coinfections with PCV2d and PCV2a (75%) or PCV2a and PCV2b (25%) are common in provincial pig herds. The complete genome sequences of 11 PCV2 strains, including three PCV2a, two PCV2b, and six PCV2d strains, were determined. A genomic comparison showed that all of the viruses had the highest nucleotide sequence identity to their corresponding genotypic reference strain. Notably, genetic and phylogenetic analysis revealed that one PCV2d strain, KNU-1931, exhibited nucleotide sequence variation in the ORF1 gene when compared to other PCV2d strains but showed a high degree of similarity to the PCV2b strains. Comprehensive recombination analysis suggested that KNU-1931 originated from natural recombination within ORF1 between PCV2b (the minor parent) and PCV2d (the major parent) strains. Our findings provide information about the frequency of genetic recombination between two different PCV2 genotypes circulating in the field domestically, illustrating the importance of continual intergenotypic recombination for viral fitness when multiple genotypes are present.

Impedance biosensors are manufactured on glass slides using a semiconductor process to monitor cell growth and cell-drug reactions in real time, and the results are compared with biological assay results to confirm the validity of impedance measurement method. Approximately 10,000 cells per well were cultured for 48 h, after which 6.67 μg/mL puromycin was injected to observe apoptosis over the following 48 h. A frequency sweep from 1 kHz to 1 MHz was performed to determine the optimal frequency range, identifying 367-440 kHz as the most sensitive for detecting impedance changes. Impedance was measured every 10 min for 96 h. Capacitance gradually increased during cell proliferation, while after drug administration, a transient increase occurred within 9 h, followed by a rapid decline, indicating cell death within 24 h. The sensor utilized Electrical Cell-substrate Impedance Sensing (ECIS) to detect real-time changes in cell status without the need for staining or destruction. Comparison with conventional biological assays such as MTS and FACS confirmed that the impedance biosensor provided higher sensitivity and quantitative accuracy in monitoring both cell proliferation and apoptosis. This study demonstrates that the developed biosensor enables label-free, non-invasive, and continuous monitoring of cellular behaviors with acceptable coincidence with 3 different biological assay results. Impedance biosensor presents a promising alternative to conventional biological assays and offers potential applications in drug screening, cytotoxicity evaluation, and real-time biological monitoring.

Improving the energy efficiency of buildings is an important element of the effort to address global warming. The thermal performance of building envelopes is the most important thermal and physical property affecting energy performance. Therefore, identifying the thermal performance of a building envelope is essential to applying effective energy-saving measures. The U-value is a quantitative indicator of the thermal performance of the building envelope quantitatively. Methods for determining the U-value are largely classified into passive methods, which use building information without measurement campaigns, and active methods, which conduct in situ measurements. This paper reviews and evaluates the most commonly used methods and experimental results of previous studies to determine the actual U-value of a building envelope. Accordingly, this paper focuses solely on field measurement studies, excluding laboratory measurements. Comparing the existing methods used to determine the U-value can help researchers choose appropriate field measurement methods and future research directions.

There are many factors that can cause olfactory dysfunction, including upper respiratory tract viral infections, non-inflammatory respiratory diseases, trauma, and current treatments such as medications and surgery can have adverse effects and may not respond. Therefore, we aimed to develop a natural product-based adjunctive treatment strategy for olfactory dysfunction that is safe and has minimal adverse effects. We investigated the effects of extracts from Erigeron annuus and Carthamus tinctorius , which have demonstrated anti-apoptotic, neuroprotective, and anti-inflammatory activities, on 3-methylindole-induced olfactory dysfunction. A 3-methylindole-induced olfactory dysfunction model rat was established and olfactory dysfunction was treated with intranasal administration of Erigeron annus extract (EAE) and Carthamus tinctorius extract (CTE) or their combination. After 3 weeks, alterations in food-finding tests and OMP expression in olfactory bulb and olfactory epithelium were assessed. Comparing the food finding test, the EAE + CTE group had a significant decrease in food finding time compared to the vehicle group. IHC and Western blot analyses showed that OMP expression in the olfactory bulb was significantly increased in the EAE + CTE group compared to the vehicle group. Western blot analysis of olfactory epithelial tissue also showed a significant increase in OMP expression. Intranasal administration of EAE + CTE alleviated 3-methylindole-induced olfactory dysfunction.