Associations between maternal stress during pregnancy and offspring internalizing and externalizing problems in childhood

BACKGROUND: Maternal psychological health during pregnancy has been associated with offspring psychopathology. However, it is uncertain whether these associations are mediated by the postpartum depression and related child-rearing factors. Therefore, we examined the associations between prenatal and postnatal factors and internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems in childhood, focusing on maternal psychological health in school-aged children in Korea. FINDINGS: The current study included 1,003 children (580 boys, 423 girls, mean age 9.05 ± 0.70 years, age range 8–11 years) recruited from schools in five Korean cities. Children’s internalizing and externalizing problems were assessed by the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). The parents of the children completed structured questionnaires on perinatal factors. Among 1,003 children, 44 had internalizing problems (IP) and 30 had externalizing problems (EP). When comparing children with IP (n = 44) and without IP (n = 959), severe maternal stress during pregnancy (OR3.36, 95% CI 1.80-6.25) and postpartum depression (OR3.19, 95% CI 1.36-7.53) showed a significant association with the IP. When comparing children with EP (n = 30) and without EP (n = 973), low family income (OR2.19, 95% CI 1.05-4.56), unwanted pregnancy (OR2.76, 95% CI 1.28-5.95) and severe maternal stress during pregnancy (OR2.69, 95% CI 1.29-5.61) with the EP. Only maternal stress during pregnancy was significantly associated with the IP after controlling for postpartum depression and with the EP after controlling for family income and unwanted pregnancy. CONCLUSION: This study suggests the importance of maternal psychological health during perinatal period on children’s mental health. Further prospective studies in a larger sample are required to confirm our findings

Taurine in drinking water recovers learning and memory in the adult APP/PS1 mouse model of Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a lethal progressive neurological disorder affecting the memory. Recently, US Food and Drug Administration mitigated the standard for drug approval, allowing symptomatic drugs that only improve cognitive deficits to be allowed to accelerate on to clinical trials. Our study focuses on taurine, an endogenous amino acid found in high concentrations in humans. It has demonstrated neuroprotective properties against many forms of dementia. In this study, we assessed cognitively enhancing property of taurine in transgenic mouse model of AD. We orally administered taurine via drinking water to adult APP/PS1 transgenic mouse model for 6 weeks. Taurine treatment rescued cognitive deficits in APP/PS1 mice up to the age-matching wild-type mice in Y-maze and passive avoidance tests without modifying the behaviours of cognitively normal mice. In the cortex of APP/PS1 mice, taurine slightly decreased insoluble fraction of Aβ. While the exact mechanism of taurine in AD has not yet been ascertained, our results suggest that taurine can aid cognitive impairment and may inhibit Aβ-related damages.MIT International Science and Technology InitiativesKorea Health Industry Development Institute (H14C04660000)Korea Institute of Science and Technology (Open Research 2E24582)Korea Institute of Science and Technology (Flagship 2E25023

Synthesis of large-area multilayer hexagonal boron nitride for high material performance

Although hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is a good candidate for gate-insulating materials by minimizing interaction from substrate, further applications to electronic devices with available two-dimensional semiconductors continue to be limited by flake size. While monolayer h-BN has been synthesized on Pt and Cu foil using chemical vapour deposition (CVD), multilayer h-BN is still absent. Here we use Fe foil and synthesize large-area multilayer h-BN film by CVD with a borazine precursor. These films reveal strong cathodoluminescence and high mechanical strength (Young’s modulus: 1.16±0.1 TPa), reminiscent of formation of high-quality h-BN. The CVD-grown graphene on multilayer h-BN film yields a high carrier mobility of ~24,000 cm[superscript 2] V[superscript −1] s[superscript −1] at room temperature, higher than that (~13,000 [superscript 2] V[superscript −1] s[superscript −1]) with exfoliated h-BN. By placing additional h-BN on a SiO[subscript 2]/Si substrate for a MoS[subscript 2] (WSe[subscript 2]) field-effect transistor, the doping effect from gate oxide is minimized and furthermore the mobility is improved by four (150) times.Korea Institute of Science and Technology. Institutional ProgramNational Science Foundation (U.S.) (STC Center for Integrated Quantum Materials Grant DMR-1231319)Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologie

Kosp2e: Korean Speech to English Translation Corpus

Most speech-to-text (S2T) translation studies use English speech as a source, which makes it difficult for non-English speakers to take advantage of the S2T technologies. For some languages, this problem was tackled through corpus construction, but the farther linguistically from English or the more under-resourced, this deficiency and underrepresentedness becomes more significant. In this paper, we introduce kosp2e (read as `kospi'), a corpus that allows Korean speech to be translated into English text in an end-to-end manner. We adopt open license speech recognition corpus, translation corpus, and spoken language corpora to make our dataset freely available to the public, and check the performance through the pipeline and training-based approaches. Using pipeline and various end-to-end schemes, we obtain the highest BLEU of 21.3 and 18.0 for each based on the English hypothesis, validating the feasibility of our data. We plan to supplement annotations for other target languages through community contributions in the future.Comment: Interspeech 2021 Camera-read

Geometric nonlinear diffusion filter and its application to X-ray imaging

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Denoising with edge preservation is very important in digital x-ray imaging since it may allow us to reduce x-ray dose in human subjects without noticeable degradation of the image quality. In denoising filter design for x-ray imaging, edge preservation as well as noise reduction is of great concern not to lose detailed spatial information for accurate diagnosis. In addition to this, fast computation is also important since digital x-ray images are mostly comprised of large sized matrices.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We have developed a new denoising filter based on the nonlinear diffusion filter model. Rather than employing four directional gradients around the pixel of interest, we use geometric parameters derived from the local pixel intensity distribution in calculating the diffusion coefficients in the horizontal and vertical directions. We have tested the filter performance, including edge preservation and noise reduction, using low dose digital radiography and micro-CT images.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The proposed denoising filter shows performance similar to those of nonlinear anisotropic diffusion filters (ADFs), one Perona-Malik ADF and the other Weickert's ADF in terms of edge preservation and noise reduction. However, the computation time has been greatly reduced.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We expect the proposed denoising filter can be greatly used for fast noise reduction particularly in low-dose x-ray imaging.</p

Could Fractional Exhaled Nitric Oxide Test be Useful in Predicting Inhaled Corticosteroid Responsiveness in Chronic Cough? A Systematic Review

© 2016 Background Fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FENO) is a safe and convenient test for assessing T H 2 airway inflammation, which is potentially useful in the management of patients with chronic cough. Objective To summarize the current evidence on the diagnostic usefulness of FENO for predicting inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) responsiveness in patients with chronic cough. Methods A systematic literature review was conducted to identify articles published in peer-reviewed journals up to February 2015, without language restriction. We included studies that reported the usefulness of FENO (index test) for predicting ICS responsiveness (reference standard) in patients with chronic cough (target condition). The data were extracted to construct a 2 × 2 accuracy table. Study quality was assessed with Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies 2. Results We identified 5 original studies (2 prospective and 3 retrospective studies). We identified considerable heterogeneities in study design and outcome definitions, and thus were unable to perform a meta-analysis. The proportion of ICS responders ranged from 44% to 59%. Sensitivity and specificity ranged from 53% to 90%, and from 63% to 97%, respectively. The reported area under the curve ranged from abou t 0.60 to 0.87; however, studies with a prospective design and a lower prevalence of asthma had lower area under the curve values. None measured placebo effects or objective cough frequency. Conclusions We did not find strong evidence to support the use of FENO tests for predicting ICS responsiveness in chronic cough. Further studies need to have a randomized, placebo-controlled design, and should use validated measurement tools for cough. Standardization would facilitate the development of clinical evidence

Precise stacking of decellularized extracellular matrix based 3D cell-laden constructs by a 3D cell printing system equipped with heating modules

Three-dimensional (3D) cell printing systems allow the controlled and precise deposition of multiple cells in 3D constructs. Hydrogel materials have been used extensively as printable bioinks owing to their ability to safely encapsulate living cells. However, hydrogel-based bioinks have drawbacks for cell printing, e.g. inappropriate crosslinking and liquid-like rheological properties, which hinder precise 3D shaping. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the influence of various factors (e.g. bioink concentration, viscosity, and extent of crosslinking) on cell printing and established a new 3D cell printing system equipped with heating modules for the precise stacking of decellularized extracellular matrix (dECM)-based 3D cell-laden constructs. Because the pH-adjusted bioink isolated from native tissue is safely gelled at 37 degrees C, our heating system facilitated the precise stacking of dECM bioinks by enabling simultaneous gelation during printing. We observed greater printability compared with that of a non-heating system. These results were confirmed by mechanical testing and 3D construct stacking analyses. We also confirmed that our heating system did not elicit negative effects, such as cell death, in the printed cells. Conclusively, these results hold promise for the application of 3D bioprinting to tissue engineering and drug development.119Ysciescopu

Identification of marbling-related candidate genes in M-longissimus dorsi of high- and low marbled Hanwoo (Korean native cattle) steers

This study was conducted to identify marbling-related candidate genes in M. longissimus dorsi of high- and low-marbled Hanwoo. The longissimus dorsi muscles were selected for gene expression from eight Hanwoo steer carcasses based on crude fat content. In the analysis of variance, gene expression of five candidate genes, FABP4, SCD, PPARγ, Titin and Nebulin was determined to be significantly different between high- and low-marbled Hanwoo steers (P < 0.0001). The Pik-4 and CaMK II genes were also shown to have a significant effect on crude fat content (P < 0.01). In the analysis of the differential expression between high- and low marbled groups, FABP4 gene expression was approximately 2 times higher in the high marbled group relative to the low marbled group. However, the PPAR y and SCD gene were highly expressed in the low marbled group. In addition, Titin and Nebulin were highly expressed in the low marbled group when placed under relatively high shear force. Finally, the Pik-4 and CaMKII gene also displayed a high expression pattern in the low marbled grou