A Koinonia Model For Building Better Marriage Relationships

Problem Modem Korea is experiencing family crises. Marriages are ending in separation and divorce. The purpose o f this study was to develop a program based on biblical principles o f koinonia, one that could be used to improve communication for Christian couples and enhance their communion with God. Method A theoretical framework for this study was established based on the literature review. The biblical overview was presented using the koinonia perspective. The principles o f koinonia are found in the creation story, the covenant between God and His people, in the life and teaching o f Christ, and the outpouring o f the Holy Spirit on the day o f Pentecost. The koinonia model took form from these principles. In conjunction with this study, a training program was developed to improve communication between husband and wife and their communion with God. Results The communication training program for couples focuses on the enhancement o f the relationship and includes the following components: talking from the depths o f the soul, empathetic listening, the dialogue o f loving hearts, conflict resolution, laughter and humor, commitment, and intimacy. The training program also includes guidelines for communion with God: soul-exposing prayer, Bible study, solitude and silence, meditation and confession, praise and worship with rejoicing and gratitude, commitment, and intimacy. The objective o f the combined training programs is to help the participants develop a deeper fellowship with each other and God. The design uses a workshop-style with eight 3-hour sessions that can be adapted to a variety of applications for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Korea. There can be sessions for one week, a 2-day weekend, a 3-day weekend, or three consecutive weekends. In addition, the presentations can be adjusted to meet the needs o f small cell groups or train excursions. Conclusions Based on biblical koinonia principles, this training program will improve communication for couples and enhance their communion with God. The koinonia model suggested in this study provides the synergy for helping couples develop stability in their marriage relationships. It is recommended that a similar program be developed that addresses communication between parents and children and communion with God as a united family

MiR-9 Controls Chemotactic Activity of Cord Blood CD34⁺ Cells by Repressing CXCR4 Expression

Improved approaches for promoting umbilical cord blood (CB) hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) homing are clinically important to enhance engraftment of CB-HSCs. Clinical transplantation of CB-HSCs is used to treat a wide range of disorders. However, an improved understanding of HSC chemotaxis is needed for facilitation of the engraftment process. We found that ectopic overexpression of miR-9 and antisense-miR-9 respectively down- and up-regulated C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4) expression in CB-CD34＋ cells as well as in 293T and TF-1 cell lines. Since CXCR4 is a specific receptor for the stromal cell derived factor-1 (SDF-1) chemotactic factor, we investigated whether sense miR-9 and antisense miR-9 influenced CXCR4-mediated chemotactic mobility of primary CB CD34＋ cells and TF-1 cells. Ectopic overexpression of sense miR-9 and antisense miR-9 respectively down- and up-regulated SDF-1-mediated chemotactic cell mobility. To our knowledge, this study is the first to report that miR-9 may play a role in regulating CXCR4 expression and SDF-1-mediated chemotactic activity of CB CD34＋ cells

Chlorin e6 Prevents ADP-Induced Platelet Aggregation by Decreasing PI3K-Akt Phosphorylation and Promoting cAMP Production

A number of reagents that prevent thrombosis have been developed but were found to have serious side effects. Therefore, we sought to identify complementary and alternative medicinal materials that are safe and have long-term efficacy. In the present studies, we have assessed the ability of chlorine e6 (CE6) to inhibit ADP-induced aggregation of rat platelets and elucidated the underlying mechanism. CE6 inhibited platelet aggregation induced by 10 µM ADP in a concentration-dependent manner and decreased intracellular calcium mobilization and granule secretion (i.e., ATP and serotonin release). Western blotting revealed that CE6 strongly inhibited the phosphorylations of PI3K, Akt, c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), and different mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) including extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) as well as p38-MAPK. Our study also demonstrated that CE6 significantly elevated intracellular cAMP levels and decreased thromboxane A2 formation in a concentration-dependent manner. Furthermore, we determined that CE6 initiated the activation of PKA, an effector of cAMP. Taken together, our findings indicate that CE6 may inhibit ADP-induced platelet activation by elevating cAMP levels and suppressing PI3K/Akt activity. Finally, these results suggest that CE6 could be developed as therapeutic agent that helps prevent thrombosis and ischemia

Modified Pixels Based Fast Median Filter in Impulse Noise Environments

This paper proposes a modified pixel-based fast median filter (MP-FMF) for impulse noise environments. The key idea behind MP-FMF is the reduction in the processing time by using modified pixels. It consists of three steps, namely, error detection, threshold decision, and noise mitigation. The presence of noise is detected by using modified pixels that include a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) function. Subsequently, the threshold values are decided by estimating the noise density. For noise mitigation, corrupted pixels are corrected with the neighboring pixels based on the principle of the median filter. The MP-FMF has a fast processing time and provides image quality correction and introduces features when the noise density is high. In addition, we introduce a new evaluation metric and investigate the performance of the proposed algorithm in terms of the quality, features, and computation time

Prevention of hypoglycemia-induced neuronal death by minocycline

Diabetic patients who attempt strict management of blood glucose levels frequently experience hypoglycemia. Severe and prolonged hypoglycemia causes neuronal death and cognitive impairment. There is no effective tool for prevention of these unwanted clinical sequelae. Minocycline, a second-generation tetracycline derivative, has been recognized as an anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective agent in several animal models such as stroke and traumatic brain injury. In the present study, we tested whether minocycline also has protective effects on hypoglycemia-induced neuronal death and cognitive impairment. To test our hypothesis we used an animal model of insulin-induced acute hypoglycemia. Minocycline was injected intraperitoneally at 6 hours after hypoglycemia/glucose reperfusion and injected once per day for the following 1 week. Histological evaluation for neuronal death and microglial activation was performed from 1 day to 1 week after hypoglycemia. Cognitive evaluation was conducted 6 weeks after hypoglycemia. Microglial activation began to be evident in the hippocampal area at 1 day after hypoglycemia and persisted for 1 week. Minocycline injection significantly reduced hypoglycemia-induced microglial activation and myeloperoxidase (MPO) immunoreactivity. Neuronal death was significantly reduced by minocycline treatment when evaluated at 1 week after hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia-induced cognitive impairment is also significantly prevented by the same minocycline regimen when subjects were evaluated at 6 weeks after hypoglycemia. Therefore, these results suggest that delayed treatment (6 hours post-insult) with minocycline protects against microglial activation, neuronal death and cognitive impairment caused by severe hypoglycemia. The present study suggests that minocycline has therapeutic potential to prevent hypoglycemia-induced brain injury in diabetic patients

Effects of Ethnicity on the Prevalence of Obstructive Sleep Apnoea in Patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome: A Pooled Analysis of the ISAACC Trial and Sleep and Stent Study.

Objective: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is an increasing yet under-recognized risk factor for acute coronary syndrome (ACS). We sought to determine the effects of ethnicity on the prevalence of OSA in patients presenting with ACS who participated in an overnight sleep study. Methods: A pooled analysis using patient-level data from the ISAACC Trial and Sleep and Stent Study was performed. Using the same portable diagnostic device and scoring criteria, OSA was defined as an apnea-hypopnea index of ≥15. Results: A total of 1961 patients were analyzed, including Spanish (53.6%, n=1050), Chinese (25.5%, n=500), Indian (12.0%, n=235), Malay (6.1%, n=119), Brazilian (1.7%, n=34) and Burmese (1.2%, n=23) populations. Significant differences in body mass index (BMI) were found among the various ethnic groups, averaging from 25.3 kg/m2 for Indians and 25.4 kg/m2 for Chinese to 28.6 kg/m2 for Spaniards. The prevalence of OSA was highest in the Spanish (63.1%), followed by the Chinese (50.2%), Malay (47.9%), Burmese (43.5%), Brazilian (41.2%), and Indian patients. The estimated odds ratio of BMI on OSA was highest in the Chinese population (1.17; 95% confidence interval: 1.10–1.24), but was not significant in the Spanish, Burmese or Brazilian populations. The area under the curve (AUC) for the Asian patients (ranging from 0.6365 to 0.6692) was higher than that for the Spanish patients (0.5161). Conclusion: There was significant ethnic variation in the prevalence of OSA in patients with ACS, and the magnitude of the effect of BMI on OSA was greater in the Chinese population than in the Spanish patients.The authors gratefully acknowledge the staff working at the participating centers of ISAACC and Sleep and Stent Study for their contribution to patient recruitmen

RND Efflux Pump Systems in Acinetobacter, with Special Emphasis on theirRole in Quorum Sensing

Acinetobacter is an important opportunistic, multidrug resistant pathogen causing majority of nosocomial infections worldwide. The multidrug resistance is attributed by a plethora of efflux pumps and the overexpression of the same mediates export of antimicrobial agents. Quorum sensing (QS) is the cell-to-cell communication system in which bacteria produces specific signaling molecules which are transported out to the surrounding environment to communicate with other bacterial cells. It has been noticed that multidrug efflux pumps like resistance-nodulation-cell division (RND) efflux pumps play an important role in QS by exporting these signaling molecules. This review discusses various RND efflux pumps and the current understanding of the interrelationship of RND efflux pumps and QS in Acinetobacter spp. Studies demonstrate that RND efflux pumps could be considered as potential targets to block QS thereby reducing pathogenesis and antibiotic resistance. The known RND efflux pump-mediated quorum quenching strategies for Acinetobacter and other bacterial strains are discussed in detail. Finally, the prospective quorum quenching strategies targeting the transcriptional regulators of RND efflux pumps to inhibit multidrug efflux pumps are addressed

Architectural support for enhancing security in clusters

Cluster computing has emerged as a common approach for providing more comput- ing and data resources in industry as well as in academia. However, since cluster computer developers have paid more attention to performance and cost e±ciency than to security, numerous security loopholes in cluster servers come to the forefront. Clusters usually rely on ¯rewalls for their security, but the ¯rewalls cannot prevent all security attacks; therefore, cluster systems should be designed to be robust to security attacks intrinsically. In this research, we propose architectural supports for enhancing security of clus- ter systems with marginal performance overhead. This research proceeds in a bottom- up fashion starting from enforcing each cluster component's security to building an integrated secure cluster. First, we propose secure cluster interconnects providing con- ¯dentiality, authentication, and availability. Second, a security accelerating network interface card architecture is proposed to enable low performance overhead encryption and authentication. Third, to enhance security in an individual cluster node, we pro- pose a secure design for shared-memory multiprocessors (SMP) architecture, which is deployed in many clusters. The secure SMP architecture will provide con¯dential communication between processors. This will remove the vulnerability of eavesdrop- ping attacks in a cluster node. Finally, to put all proposed schemes together, we propose a security/performance trade-o® model which can precisely predict performance of an integrated secure cluster

Fermentation characteristics of Korean pear (Pyrus pyrifolia Nakai) puree by the Leuconostoc mesenteroides 51-3 strain isolated from Kimchi

A lactic acid bacterial strain showing fast growth and high acid production when cultured in Korean pear puree was isolated from Kimchi. This strain was analyzed by using the API 50 CHL kit and 16S rRNA sequencing and was thus identified as Leuconostoc mesenteroides 51-3. Korean pear puree was fermented with the L. mesenteroides 51-3 strain at 30°C for 12 h. The changes in pH, titratable acidity and viable cell count during fermentation were investigated. The pH and titratable acidity of the pear puree were 4.06 and 0.66%, respectively, after 12 h of fermentation. The viable cell count of L. mesenteroides 51-3 rapidly increased to 3.7 × 109 CFU/g after 12 h of cultivation. The content of lactic acid and acetic acid was determined to be 0.138 and 0.162%, respectively, after 12 h of fermentation. When the fermented pear puree was stored at 4°C, the pH, titratable acidity and viable cell count remained fairly constant for 14 days.Keywords: Fermentation, Korean pear puree, Leuconostoc mesenteroides.African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 9(35), pp. 5735-5738, 30 August, 201