This study was conducted to evaluate the overall dietary habits and nutritional status of 294 elementary school students located in Gwangju using the NUTRILITE nutrition quotient (NQ). The NQ score of the subjects was 59.5 out of 100, which corresponds to the level requiring “monitoring”. Compared to the 64.4 score of students in the 5th and 6th grades of six metropolitan cities, the scores of the present subjects were lower. The NQ components were 57.4 for balance factors, 52.4 for moderation factors, 55.0 for diversification factors, 57.6 for practice factors, and 80.1 for environmental factors. Regarding the characteristics according to the NQ level, the score (61.5 in 7 times/wk vs. 55.3 in 1-2 or none times/wk) tended to be higher in subjects who frequently eat with their families (p<0.001). In conclusion, nutrition education should be provided to students to increase the frequency of meals with their families, to develop a habit of exercising regularly, and reduce the consumption of ramen, cookies, and processed drinks that are frequently consumed. These results can be used as basic data to develop nutrition education programs to improve the dietary habits and nutritional status of students in Gwangju.

The purpose of the present study is to analyze needs of graduate students for English education for their academic study. Online survey was administered to all the graduate students in a university located in Seoul, Korea, and a total of 1,241 students participated in this study. The participants varied in majors including humanities and social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, medicine, and so forth. Crosstab analyses were performed in order to analyze the survey data, followed by subordinate analyses by the participants’ majors. Results indicated that most students perceived the great importance of English for their study, and ‘listening’ and ‘speaking’ were found to be the most difficult areas when students take English-medium graduate courses. In addition, although the frequency of scholarly activities varied by majors, most of the students expressed difficulties in writing research papers and making presentations. Based on the results, the present study suggests that English education programs be expanded and opened in order to meet the different needs by the students’ academic majors.

Silk fibroin has been widely tested as a candidate biomaterial applicable to various attempts of tissue engineering. In order to examine bone forming ability of silk 3-D scaffold, we have developed a tibial interlocking intramedullary nailing model. A tibial intramedullary nail in the weight bearing hind limb of a rat was interlocked with a pin through a pin hole at the proximal end of the intramedullary nail. Interlocking of the intramedullary nail prevented total collapse of proximal region of a bone defect and helped maintain the critical gap that was filled with silk 3-D scaffold, though minor shinkage about 1 mm at distal region was unavoidable. Bone forming ability of an implanted silk scaffold was monitored weekly for 8~10 wks by X-ray radiography of live animals and bone formation in the scaffold was examined by H & E staining and Masson’s trichrome staining of the bone tissue recovered from the animals. Although scattered islets of bone tissue was observed in the implanted silk scaffold, bone tissue was not widely developed and implanted scaffolds of silk nanofiber and salt-leached sponge were X-ray transparent, suggesting inefficient bone formation. By contrast, X-ray image of implanted silk nanofibrous scaffold coated with hydroxyapatite was getting darkened with time, which suggests bone tissue formation in the scaffold, while untreated silk 3-D scaffold remained undisturbed. Although existence of bone tissue in the scaffold should be confirmed by histological criteria, hydroxyapatite-coated silk scaffold appeared competent to support regeneration of the long bone defects In addition, the interlocking intramedullary nailing in tibia of rat hind limb could be applicable in assessing long bone regenerative capacity of various biocompatible materials.