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Trees in degraded forest areas are generally exposed to water stress due to harsh environmental conditions, threatening their survival. This study simulated the environmental conditions of a degraded forest area by constructing an artificial rainfall slope and observing the physiological responses of Pinus densiflora to control, mulching, and waterbag treatments. P. densiflora exhibited distinct isohydric plant characteristics of reducing net photosynthetic rate and stomatal transpiration rate through regulating stomatal conductance in response to decreased soil moisture, particularly in the control and waterbag treatments. Additionally, the trees increased photochemical quenching, such as Y(NPQ), to dissipate excess energy as heat and minimize damage to the photosynthetic apparatus. However, these adaptive mechanisms have temporal limitations, necessitating appropriate measures. Under extreme drought stress (DS45), mulching treatment showed 4.5 times and 2.2 times higher in PIabs and SFIabs than in the control, and after the recovery period (R30), waterbag and mulching treatment showed similar levels, while PIabs and SFIabs in the control were only 45% and 75% of those in the mulching and waterbag treatments, respectively. Specifically, mulching extended the physiological mechanisms supporting survival by more than a week, making it the most effective method for enhancing the planting ground in degraded forest areas. Although the waterbag treatment was less effective than mulching treatment, it still significantly contributed to forming better growth conditions compared to the control. These findings highlight the potential for mulching and waterbag treatments to enhance forest restoration efforts, suggesting future research and application could lead to more resilient reforested areas capable of withstanding climate change-induced drought conditions.

The Jeongseon Alpine Center, a degraded forestland, has a very unique soil feature as it was filled with soil cut from the nearby area and has not yet been rehabilitated since the end of the 2018 Winter Olympics. Therefore, this study attempted to identify a way to establish a stable and efficient planting groundwork to successfully restore this distinctive region. Six different planting groundworks, control, biochar, leaf-mold, mulching, tillage, and polyacrylamide treatments were constructed in September 2020. Soil-related indices have been tracked while the growth and physiological responses of planted Pinus densiflora (Pd) and Larix kaempferi (Lk) seedlings were monitored until May 2022. Mulching had 2–4 times the average SWC when compared to the control. Simultaneously, there was the least variation in soil temperature change, and total soil loss was only 0.05 ton/ha. Similarly, the leaf-mold had a relatively high SWC, and soil fertility increased, while total soil loss was 6.37 tons/ha, indicating a high trend in line with biochar. The Pd leaf-mold had the highest in Amax, E, gs, and Jmax. Furthermore, following the leaf-mold, mulching showed the second-highest photosynthetic indices in general, and the height and DRC also demonstrated favorable results in the above two treatments. Mulching had 1.6 to 2.2 times higher than the control group in PIabs and PItotal, which represent photosynthetic vitality, so the impact on environmental stress was thought to be less than that of leaf-mold. The mulching of Lk showed the greatest growth and physiological responses, Nonetheless, the photosynthetic indices were rather low when compared to Pd, with no discernible differences across treatments. As a result, the considerable effect of the planting groundwork method could not be demonstrated. Therefore, in the case of Pd, the leaf-mold showed the best growth and physiological response. Nevertheless, in terms of soil temperature maintenance and soil loss for slope stability, mulching is assessed to be the most ideal planting groundwork method.

The Civilian Access Control Zone (CACZ), south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea, has functioned as a unique bio-reserve owing to restrictions on human use. However, it is now increasingly threatened by damaged land and slope failures. In this study, a machine-learning-based method was used to assess slope stability by introducing the random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), and logistic regression (LR) approaches. These classification models were trained and evaluated on 393 slope stability cases from 2009 to 2019 to assess slope stability in the northern area of the Civilian Control Line, South Korea. For comparison, the performance of these classification models was measured by considering the accuracy, Cohen’s kappa, F1-score, recall rate, precision, and area under the ROC curve (AUC). Furthermore, 14 influencing factors (slope, vegetation, structure conditions, etc.) were considered to explore feature importance. The evaluation and comparison of the results showed that the performance of all classifier models was satisfactory for assessing the stability of the slope, the ability of LR was validated (accuracy = 0.847; AUC = 0.838), and XGBoost proved to be the most efficient method for predicting slope stability (accuracy = 0.903; AUC = 0.900). Among the 14 influencing factors, the external condition was the most important. The proposed supervised learning method offers a promising method for assessing slope status, may be beneficial for government agencies in early-stage risk mitigation, and provides a database for efficient restoration management.

Wildfires impact forest ecosystems, affecting tree survival and physiological responses. This study explored the effects of surface fires on Pinus densiflora and Quercus variabilis, assessing mortality, internal injuries, and canopy health. By 2024, P. densiflora had an 18.0% mortality rate, whereas Q. variabilis exhibited no crown dieback. Morphological traits, including tree height, the bark scorch index (BSI), and bark thickness, influenced fire resistance. Despite superior stand characteristics, P. densiflora showed higher mortality due to thin bark, whereas Q. variabilis maintained xylem integrity. While sonic tomography (SoT) showed no significant differences, electrical resistance tomography (ERT) detected physiological stress, with higher ERTR and ERTY area ratios correlating with mortality risk. Notably, F-W-W classified trees showed elevated resistance a year before mortality, suggesting ERT as a predictive tool. ERTR values exceeding 15.0% were associated with a 37.5% mortality rate, whereas ERTB values below 55.0% corresponded to 42.9% mortality. Despite fire exposure, canopy responses, including chlorophyll fluorescence and photosynthetic efficiency, remained stable, indicating that the surviving trees maintained functional integrity. This study underscores ERT’s efficacy in diagnosing fire-induced stress and predicting mortality risk. The findings highlight species-specific diagnostic criteria and inform post-fire management, supporting forest resilience through the early detection of high-risk trees and improved restoration strategies.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a progressive respiratory condition characterized by persistent airflow limitation, leading to significant morbidity and mortality. Despite the effectiveness of multiple inhaler triple therapy (MITT), its complexity often results in poor adherence and suboptimal outcomes. Transitioning to single inhaler triple therapy (SITT) may enhance adherence, leading to improved clinical outcomes and quality of life of patients. The Real-World Effectiveness of Single Inhaler Triple Treatment through Assorted Respiratory Outcomes when Switched from Multiple Inhaler Triple Therapies (RESTART) study aimed to evaluate the clinical benefits of switching from MITT to SITT using fluticasone furoate/umeclidinium/vilanterol (FF/UMEC/VI) in a real-world Korean setting. This prospective, multicenter, observational study enrolled 107 patients, aged 40 and older, with diagnosed COPD, all previously on MITT. The patients were transitioned to once-daily FF/UMEC/VI administered via the ELLIPTA inhaler. The primary outcome was a change in the COPD Assessment Test (CAT) score after 24 weeks. The secondary outcomes included changes in lung function, exacerbation rates, Modified Medical Research Council Dyspnea Scale scores, and Treatment Satisfaction-Visual Analysis Scale (TS-VAS) scores. A total of 91 patients completed the 24-week observation. CAT scores significantly improved (mean change = 1.40 points, = 0.007). Lung function also improved, with a mean increase in the FEV1/FVC ratio (mean change = 4.31%, = 0.005). Exacerbation rates decreased significantly (incidence rate ratio = 0.45, = 0.016). Treatment satisfaction increased, with a mean TS-VAS score rise of 1.71 points ( < 0.001). The transition from MITT to SITT significantly improved COPD symptom management, pulmonary function, exacerbation rate, and treatment satisfaction in Korean cohort. Using a single inhaler to simplify therapy might increase patient compliance and improve clinical outcomes of COPD management.

Purpose: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a progressive respiratory condition characterized by persistent airflow limitation, leading to significant morbidity and mortality. Despite the effectiveness of multiple inhaler triple therapy (MITT), its complexity often results in poor adherence and suboptimal outcomes. Transitioning to single inhaler triple therapy (SITT) may enhance adherence, leading to improved clinical outcomes and quality of life of patients. The Real-World Effectiveness of Single Inhaler Triple Treatment through Assorted Respiratory Outcomes when Switched from Multiple Inhaler Triple Therapies (RESTART) study aimed to evaluate the clinical benefits of switching from MITT to SITT using fluticasone furoate/umeclidinium/vilanterol (FF/ UMEC/VI) in a real-world Korean setting. Patients and Methods: This prospective, multicenter, observational study enrolled 107 patients, aged 40 and older, with diagnosed COPD, all previously on MITT. The patients were transitioned to once-daily FF/UMEC/VI administered via the ELLIPTA inhaler. The primary outcome was a change in the COPD Assessment Test (CAT) score after 24 weeks. The secondary outcomes included changes in lung function, exacerbation rates, Modified Medical Research Council Dyspnea Scale scores, and Treatment Satisfaction-Visual Analysis Scale (TS-VAS) scores. Results: A total of 91 patients completed the 24-week observation. CAT scores significantly improved (mean change = 1.40 points, P = 0.007). Lung function also improved, with a mean increase in the [FEV.sub.1]/FVC ratio (mean change = 4.31%, P = 0.005). Exacerbation rates decreased significantly (incidence rate ratio = 0.45, P = 0.016). Treatment satisfaction increased, with a mean TSVAS score rise of 1.71 points (P < 0.001). Conclusion: The transition from MITT to SITT significantly improved COPD symptom management, pulmonary function, exacerbation rate, and treatment satisfaction in Korean cohort. Using a single inhaler to simplify therapy might increase patient compliance and improve clinical outcomes of COPD management. Keywords: real-world evidence, single-inhaler triple treatment, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, adherence, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease assessment test score

It was recently shown by Korada et al. that the partial distances of a polarizing matrix completely determine its exponent characterizing the asymptotic performance of a polar code under successive cancellation decoding. In this paper we prove in a purely algebraic way that the partial distances of a polarizing matrix constructed from the Kronecker product are simply expressed as a product of those of its component matrices. As a result, the exponent of the polarizing matrix is shown to be a weighted sum of the exponents of its component matrices.

This study aimed to characterize the replication and pathogenic properties of a Korean pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza virus isolate in ferrets and mice. Ferrets infected with A/Korea/01/2009 (H1N1) virus showed mild clinical signs. The virus replicated well in lungs and slightly in brains with no replication in any other organs. Severe bronchopneumonia and thickening of alveolar walls were detected in the lungs. Viral antigens were detected in the bronchiolar epithelial cells, in peribronchial glands with severe peribronchitis and in cells present in the alveoli. A/Korea/01/2009 (H1N1) virus-infected mice showed weight loss and pathological lung lesions including perivascular cuffing, interstitial pneumonia and alveolitis. The virus replicated highly in the lungs and slightly in the nasal tissues. Viral antigens were detected in bronchiolar epithelial cells, pneumocytes and interstitial macrophages. However, seasonal H1N1 influenza virus did not replicate in the lungs of ferrets, and viral antigens were not detected. Thus, this Korean pandemic (H1N1) 2009 isolate infected the lungs of ferrets and mice successfully and caused more pathological lesions than did the seasonal influenza virus.