Background: ErigoPro enables acute stroke patients to carry out stable weight-bearing training with gradual verticalization. Study on the effectiveness of robotic assisted treatment equipment for chronic patients is insufficient. Objectives: This study aims to investigate the effect of dynamic vertical posture training using ErigoPro on trunk alignment and balance in chronic stroke patients. Design: Randomized controlled trial. Methods: The subjects of this study were 30 patients were randomly assigned to a study group of 15 patients and a control group of 15 patients. The study intervention was carried out for 50 minutes per day consisting of 30 minutes of general neuro-physiotherapy and 20 minutes of ErogoPro training, 3 times a week for 8 weeks. Results: The study group showed difference in trunk inclination (P<.05), kyphotic angle (P<.05), lateral deviation of the spine (P<.05), thoracic angle (P<.01), timed up and go test (P<.01), Berg balance score (P<.01). There was a significant difference between the groups in the trunk inclination (P<.05), timed up and go test (P<.01), Berg balance score (P<.05). Conclusion: It could be seen that the treatment combined with ErigoPro training for 8 weeks was effective in restoring trunk alignment and improving balance ability in chronic stroke patients.

This study (1) explored spatio-temporal population distribution patterns in Jeonju by using emerging hot spot analysis and (2) identified the influential factors to determine the spatio-temporal patterns by using multinomial logit model. The major findings are as follows. First, the results of emerging hot spot analysis indicated that the 100*100m grid in the urban area of Jeonju was found to have a category of hot spots, whereas most of the cold spot series was concentrated in the outskirts of the city. Also, new towns such as Jeonju Eco City, Jeonbuk Innovation City, and Hyocheon District were persistent or intensifying hot spots, Third, the results of multinomial logit model revealed that the factors influencing deterrmining the spatio-temporal patterns were accessibility to schools, hospitals, parks, and walfare services. This study offered a deeper understanding of urbanization and regional changes in Jeonju, and important information for urban planning.

Companies are paying attention to project governance to realize their goal strategies, project success, and project value in a rapid and complex environment due to the development of information technology. This study aims to explore project governance and factors from literature review and practice guides related to project governance and empirically analyze the impact of project governance factors on IT project objective performance. The survey was conducted on project managers, project team members, and project management members with experience in carrying out business IT projects within two years at companies in various industries in Korea. The main conclusion is as follows. Among the project governance factors, disclosure and reporting that uses and reports using appropriate and reliable information about projects related to decision-making activities positively impact the achievement of IT project objectives: business success and stakeholder satisfaction. Among the project governance factors, project sponsorship, a role that effectively connects management and projects, and a project management framework that provides tools, procedures, resources, and techniques for projects positively impact IT project objective performance. This study is of academic and practical significance in that it identifies the definition and factors of project governance through companies in various industries in Korea and the positive impact of project governance factors on IT project objective performance.

Silicon (Si) has the potential to improve plant growth and stress tolerance. The study aimed to explore Si-involving plant responses and molecular characterization of different Si-responsive genes in alfalfa. In this study, the exogenous supplementation of Si enhanced plant growth, and biomass yield. Si-acquisition in alfalfa root and shoot was higher in Si-supplemented compared to silicon deficient (-Si) plants, implying Si-acquisition has beneficial on alfalfa plants. As a consequence, the quantum efficiency of photosystem II (Fv/Fm) was significantly increased in silicon-sufficient (+Si) plants. The quantitative gene expression analysis exhibited a significant upregulation of the Lsi1, Lsi2, Lsi3, NIP5;1, and NIP6;1 genes in alfalfa roots, while BOR1, BOR4, NIP2, and NIP3 showed no significant variation in their expression. The MEME results further noticed the association of four motifs related to the major intrinsic protein (MIP). The interaction analysis revealed that NIP5;1 and Lsi1 showed a shared gene network with NIP2, BOR1, and BOR4, and Lsi2, Lsi3 and NIP3-1, respectively. These results suggest that members of the major intrinsic proteins (MIPs) family especially Lsi1, Lsi2, Lsi3, NIP5;1, and NIP6;1 genes helped to pass water and other neutral solutes through the cell membrane and those played significant roles in Si uptake and transport in plants. Together, these insights might be useful for alfalfa breeding and genome editing approaches for alfalfa improvement.

The experiment aim to breed an early-maturing variety of Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum Lam.). It was conducted at the Grassland and Forage Crops Division, National Institute of Animal Science, RDA, Cheonan, Korea, from 2022 to 2023. The new variety named “Oasis” is a diploid with green leaves and has a semi-erect growth habit in late fall, and an erect growth habit in early spring. With a heading date of May 10, Oasis is categorized as an early-maturing variety. Compared with the “Florida80” as a control variety, Oasis’s flag leaf was 1 mm wider and 2 cm shorter, while the plant length was 7.8 cm longer. Additionally, the ear of Oasis was 1.2 cm longer than that of Florida80, and it showed lodging resistance. The dry matter yield of Oasis (8,805 kg/ha) was higher than that of Florida80. The total digestible nutrient and crude protein contents of Oasis were 64.5%, and 9.3%, respectively, which were 1.1% and 0.6% higher than those of Florida80, respectively. The neutral and acid detergent fiber contents in Oasis were 54.2% and 30.8%, respectively, which was 1.9% and 1.4% lower than those of Florida80, respectively. These results indicate that Oasis has good dry matter yield in the most of region and especially, middle and northern region of South Korea.

The metal bush assembling process is a process of inserting and compressing a metal bush that serves to reduce the occurrence of noise and stable compression in the rotating section. In the metal bush assembly process, the head diameter defect and placement defect of the metal bush occur due to metal bush omission, non-pressing, and poor press-fitting. Among these causes of defects, it is intended to prevent defects due to omission of the metal bush by using signals from sensors attached to the facility. In particular, a metal bush omission is predicted through various data mining techniques using left load cell value, right load cell value, current, and voltage as independent variables. In the case of metal bush omission defect, it is difficult to get defect data, resulting in data imbalance. Data imbalance refers to a case where there is a large difference in the number of data belonging to each class, which can be a problem when performing classification prediction. In order to solve the problem caused by data imbalance, oversampling and composite sampling techniques were applied in this study. In addition, simulated annealing was applied for optimization of parameters related to sampling and hyper-parameters of data mining techniques used for bush omission prediction. In this study, the metal bush omission was predicted using the actual data of M manufacturing company, and the classification performance was examined. All applied techniques showed excellent results, and in particular, the proposed methods, the method of mixing Random Forest and SA, and the method of mixing MLP and SA, showed better results.

Canine parvovirus-2 (CPV-2) has been reported worldwide as a major pathogen associated with acute hemorrhagic enteritis. The disease is a major infectious cause of death, particularly in young dogs. The earliest type of CPV-2 was replaced with three main subspecies, CPV-2a, CPV-2b, and CPV-2c, within a few years. Vaccination is carried out regularly, but the emergence of antigenic variants and the influence of maternal antibodies have limited the efficacy of commercial vaccines. New vaccines, such as the subunit vaccine, have been developed for alternative, safe, and effective vaccination. The baculovirus expression vector system (BEVS) is an excellent eukaryotic expression system with a high-level expression of foreign proteins and the ability of post-translational modification. Therefore, it is used widely to produce recombinant protein and subunit vaccines. In this study, the VP2 protein of CPV-2b cloned in the gateway vector system was generated using a baculovirus expression system in Spodoptera frugiperda (SF9) insect cells. Hemagglutination assay (HA) titers (24) were obtained, and the expression was detected in 6-His tagged VP2 and monoclonal antibody (mAb) against CPV-2 by western blotting. The VP2 protein of CPV-2b expressed in this study may provide a basis for a clinical diagnosis and vaccination applications for CPV-2.

This study investigated ethopabate (EPB) residues in edible tissues of broiler chickens given in drinking water and established the withdrawal time (WT) of EPB in poultry tissues. Twenty-four healthy Ross broiler chickens were orally administered with EPB at the concentration of 3.8 mg/L for 14 days (EPB-1, n=24) and 15.2 mg/L for 7 days (EPB-2, n=24) through drinking water, respectively. After the drug treatment, tissue samples were collected from six broiler chickens at 0, 1, 3, and 5 days, respectively. EPB residue concentrations in poultry tissues were determined using LC-MS/MS. Correlation coefficient values ranged from 0.9980 to 0.9998, and the limits of detection and quantification (LOQ) were 0.03~0.09 and 0.1~0.3 μg/kg, respectively. Mean recoveries in muscle, liver, kidney and skin/fat tissues were 95.9~109.8, 108.7~115.3, 89.9~96.6 and 86.7~96.8%, respectively, and coefficient of variations were less than 17.11%. At the end of the drug-administration period (0 day), EPB was detected at levels under the LOQ in all tissues from both the EPB-1 and EPB-2 groups. According to the results of EPB residue in Ross broiler tissues, withdrawal periods of both EPB-1 and EPB-2 in poultry tissues were established to 0 day. In conclusion, the developed analytical method is suitable for the detection of EPB in poultry tissues, and the estimated WT of EPB in poultry tissues will contribute to ensuring the safety of Ross broiler chickens.

Background: Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) including embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) offer the immense therapeutic potential in stem cell-based therapy of degenerative disorders. However, clinical trials of human ESCs cause heavy ethical concerns. With the derivation of iPSCs established by reprogramming from adult somatic cells through the transgenic expression of transcription factors, this problems would be able to overcome. In the present study, we tried to differentiate porcine iPSCs (piPSCs) into endothelial cells (ECs) for stem cell-based therapy of vascular diseases. Methods: piPSCs (OSKMNL) were induced to differentiation into ECs in four differentiation media (APEL-2, APEL-2 + 50 ng/mL of VEGF, EBM-2, EBM-2 + 50 ng/ mL of VEGF) on cultured plates coated with matrigel® (1:40 dilution with DMEM/F-12 medium) for 8 days. Differentiation efficiency of these cells were exanimated using qRT-PCR, Immunocytochemistry, Western blotting and FACS. Results: As results, expressions of pluripotency-associated markers (OCT-3/4, SOX2 and NANOG) were higher observed in all porcine differentiated cells derived from piPSCs (OSKMNL) cultured in four differentiation media than piPSCs as the control, whereas endothelial-associated marker (CD-31) in the differentiated cells was not expressed. Conclusions: It can be seen that piPSCs (OSKMNL) were not suitable to differentiate into ECs in the four differentiation media unlike porcine epiblast stem cells (pEpiSCs). Therefore, it would be required to establish a suitable PSCs for differentiating into ECs for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

Recently, as ESG management has become an important issue, major companies in the automotive parts manufacturing industry are conducting ESG evaluations of their suppliers for the purpose of supply chain management. The results of these evaluations are being incorporated into contractual agreements. However, many small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) are lacking in their capacity and resources to effectively respond to ESG evaluations. Furthermore, existing ESG management guidelines do not provide an industry-specific guidance, making it necessary to establish industry-specific guidelines that SMEs can refer to. Therefore, in this study, the evaluation Indicators of ESG supply chain assessments are surveyed, which is conducted by domestic major automotive parts companies and global automobile manufacturers. Then 56 supply chain ESG evaluation Indicators are derived. Also, ESG management indicators for SMEs is analyzed through the Importance-Performance Analysis(IPA), based on an interview of expert groups. Therefore, this study could propose industry-specific ESG guidelines, based on the results of the derived indicators, which reflects the need for SMEs to practice ESG management within certain boundaries.