• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.437-447
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• 2012

Natural and beneficial associations between plants and bacteria have demonstrated potential commercial application for several agricultural crops. The sunflower has acquired increasing importance in Brazilian agribusiness owing to its agronomic characteristics such as the tolerance to edaphoclimatic variations, resistance to pests and diseases, and adaptation to the implements commonly used for maize and soybean, as well as the versatility of the products and by-products obtained from its cultivation. A study of the cultivable bacteria associated with two sunflower cultivars, using classical microbiological methods, successfully obtained isolates from different plant tissues (roots, stems, florets, and rhizosphere). Out of 57 plant-growth-promoting isolates obtained, 45 were identified at the genus level and phylogenetically positioned based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing: 42 Bacillus (B. subtilis, B. cereus, B. thuringiensis, B. pumilus, B. megaterium, and Bacillus sp.) and 3 Methylobacterium komagatae. Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis showed a broad diversity among the Bacillus isolates, which clustered into 2 groups with 75% similarity and 13 subgroups with 85% similarity, suggesting that the genetic distance correlated with the source of isolation. The isolates were also analyzed for certain growth-promoting activities. Auxin synthesis was widely distributed among the isolates, with values ranging from 93.34 to 1653.37 ${\mu}M$ auxin per ${\mu}g$ of protein. The phosphate solubilization index ranged from 1.25 to 3.89, and siderophore index varied from 1.15 to 5.25. From a total of 57 isolates, 3 showed an ability to biologically fix atmospheric nitrogen, and 7 showed antagonism against the pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. The results of biochemical characterization allowed identification of potential candidates for the development of biofertilizers targeted to the sunflower crop.

• Journal of Clinical Nutrition
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.51-55
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• 2018

Purpose: This study was conducted to assess how extreme obesity affects 30-day mortality in this patient group. Methods: A total of 802 patients who underwent emergency gastrointestinal surgery from January 2007 to December 2017 were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were divided into three groups according to their body mass index (BMI): group 1, normal weight (BMI: $18.5{\sim}22.9kg/m^2$); group 2, overweight (BMI: $23.0{\sim}29.9kg/m^2$ ); and group 3, obesity ($BMI{\geq}30kg/m^2$). Patients with a BMI under 18.5 were excluded from the analysis. Chi-squared test, Fisher's exact test, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, and the log-rank test were used to assess and compare 30-day mortality rates between groups. Results: The mortality rates of group 1, group 2, and group 3 were 11.3%, 9.0%, and 26.9%, respectively (P<0.017). The mortality rate did not differ significantly between group 1 and 2 (11.3% vs. 9.0%; P=0.341), but group 1 and 2 showed better survival rates than group 3 (11.3% vs. 26.9%; P=0.028, 9.0% vs. 26.9%; P=0.011). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that group 3 had higher mortality than the other two groups (P=0.001). Conclusion: Obesity ($BMI{\geq}30kg/m^2$) was one of the risk factors influencing critically ill patients who underwent emergency surgery.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.85 no.4
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• pp.349-357
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• 2022

Background: The most consistently identified mortality determinants for the new coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) infection are aging, male sex, cardiovascular/respiratory diseases, and cancer. They were determined from heterogeneous cohorts that included patients with different disease severity and previous conditions. The main goal of this study was to determine if activities of daily living (ADL) dependence measured by Barthel's index could be a predictor for COVID-19 mortality. Methods: A prospective cohort study was performed with a consecutive sample of 340 COVID-19 patients representing patients from all over the northern region of Portugal from October 2020 to March 2021. Mortality risk factors were determined after controlling for demographics, ADL dependence, admission time, comorbidities, clinical manifestations, and delay-time for diagnosis. Central tendency measures were used to analyze continuous variables and absolute numbers (proportions) for categorical variables. For univariable analysis, we used t test, chi-square test, or Fisher exact test as appropriate (α=0.05). Multivariable analysis was performed using logistic regression. IBM SPSS version 27 statistical software was used for data analysis. Results: The cohort included 340 patients (55.3% females) with a mean age of 80.6±11.0 years. The mortality rate was 19.7%. Univariate analysis revealed that aging, ADL dependence, pneumonia, and dementia were associated with mortality and that dyslipidemia and obesity were associated with survival. In multivariable analysis, dyslipidemia (odds ratio [OR], 0.35; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.17-0.71) was independently associated with survival. Age ≥86 years (pooled OR, 2.239; 95% CI, 1.100-4.559), pneumonia (pooled OR, 3.00; 95% CI, 1.362-6.606), and ADL dependence (pooled OR, 6.296; 95% CI, 1.795-22.088) were significantly related to mortality (receiver operating characteristic area under the curve, 82.1%; p<0.001). Conclusion: ADL dependence, aging, and pneumonia are three main predictors for COVID-19 mortality in an elderly population.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.1057-1068
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• 2004

Purpose: This study was conducted to identify the differences of health patterns; health-related characteristics, health behaviors, health problems, and self-care levels of elderly, living alone in an urban area according to age roup. Method: The study design was a descriptive survey and the subjects were 1,800 elderly consisting of 937 young old, 704 middle old, and 159 old old. Data was collected from May to July 2003 using the structured questionnaire and analyzed by descriptive statistics, $\chi$$^2$-test, Fisher's exact probability test, ANOVA and Scheffe test using SPSS/PC. Result: The health related characteristics which involved body mass index, mental status, use of assistant devices, perceived health, concern of health, and social support were different among the groups and more aggravated by aging. Health behaviors and health problems were also significantly aggravated in the old old group. The self-care levels measured by ADL, physical activity, and self-care ability scores were also significantly decreased in the old old group. Conclusion: For the level of health status, health behaviors and self-care ability were significantly decreased by aging, health care services for the elderly should be planned considering the difference in the health pattern by age group.

• Child Health Nursing Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.344-351
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• 2010

Purpose: This study was done to examine effects of a discharge education program using on-line community on parenting stress, baby care confidence for mothers of premature infants and health problem of premature infants. Methods: Using a non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design, 32 participants were assigned to an experimental (17) or a control group (15). Mothers in the experimental group were introduced to the discharge education program 2 weeks before the baby was discharged. They participated in the on-line community for 4 weeks after discharge. Parenting Stress Index and Baby Care Confidence Scale were utilized for data collection. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, $X^2$-test, Fisher's exact test, and Mann-Whitney U test with the SPSS program 16.0 version. Results: In the experimental group, mean scores for parenting stress were lower than for the control group (Z=-3.176, p=.001), while scores for confidence in baby care were higher than for the control group (Z=-3.195, p=.001). Conclusion: Findings indicate that discharge education programs using on-line community have the positive effect of decreasing parenting stress and increasing baby care confidence for mothers and decreasing health problems for infants. Therefore utilization of the internet and online community to educate parents of premature infants is recommended.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.232-236
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• 2018

Objectives: Hormonal changes during menopause alter a woman's susceptibility to some disorders. Information regarding the prevalence of temporomandibular disorder (TMD) in menopausal women is limited in the literature. In this study, the prevalence and severity of TMDs were compared between menopausal and non-menopausal women. Materials and Methods: The study included 140 women (69 premenopausal and 71 postmenopausal) 45 to 55 years of age that were examined in Shiraz Dental School, Shiraz in Iran. The Helkimo clinical dysfunction index (Di) was used to evaluate temporomandibular joint (TMJ) dysfunction. The data were analyzed using chi-square and Fisher's exact tests. Results: Occurrence of TMD was significantly higher in menopausal than non-menopausal women (P<0.001). All the TMD criteria based on Helkimo Di except range of mandibular movement were significantly more common in menopausal women. The range of mandibular movement was not significantly different between menopausal and non-menopausal women (P=0.178). Conclusion: The results from this study show that TMD can be considered more common and severe in menopausal than non-menopausal women. This finding indicates that, similar to other conditions in menopausal women such as arthritis and osteoporosis, TMD should be taken into consideration by dental and medical professionals.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.1588-1593
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• 2008

This paper describes a real-time isometric pinch force prediction algorithm from surface electromyogram (sEMG) using multilayer perceptron (MLP) for human robot interactive applications. The activities of seven muscles which are observable from surface electrodes and also related to the movements of the thumb and index finger joints were recorded during pinch force experiments. For the successful implementation of the real-time prediction algorithm, an off-line analysis was performed using the recorded activities. Four muscles were selected for the force prediction by using the Fisher linear discriminant analysis among seven muscles, and the four muscle activities provided effective information for mapping sEMG to the pinch force. The MLP structure was designed to make training efficient and to avoid both under- and over-fitting problems. The pinch force prediction algorithm was tested on five volunteers and the results were evaluated using two criteria: normalized root mean squared error (NRMSE) and correlation (CORR). The training time for the subjects was only 2 min 29 sec, but the prediction results were successful with NRMSE = 0.112 ${\pm}$ 0.082 and CORR = 0.932 ${\pm}$ 0.058. These results imply that the proposed algorithm is useful to measure the produced pinch force without force sensors in real-time. The possible applications include controlling bionic finger robot systems to overcome finger paralysis or amputation.

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.190-198
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• 2016

Xanthine Oxidase is an enzyme, which oxidizes hypoxanthine to xanthine, and xanthine to uric acid. It is widely distributed throughout various organsincluding the liver, gut, lung, kidney, heart, brain and plasma. It is involved in gout pathogenesis. In this study, we have performed Comparative Molecular Field Analysis (CoMSIA) on a series of 2-(indol-5-yl) thiazole derivatives as xanthine oxidase (XO) inhibitors to identify the structural variations with their inhibitory activities. Ligand based CoMSIA models were generated based on atom-by-atom matching alignment. In atom-by-atom matching, the bioactive conformation of highly active molecule 11 was generated using systematic search. Compounds were aligned using the bioactive conformation and it is used for model generation. Different CoMSIA models were generated using different alignments and the best model yielded across-validated $q^2$ of 0.698 with five components and non-cross-validated correlation coefficient ($r^2$) of 0.992 with Fisher value as 236.431, and an estimated standard error of 0.068. The predictive ability of the best CoMSIA models was found to be $r{^2}_{pred}$ 0.653. The study revealed the important structural features required for the biological activity of the inhibitors and could provide useful for the designing of novel and potent drugs for the inhibition of Xanthine oxidase.

• Journal of Technologic Dentistry
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.203-209
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• 2019

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the mechanical properties of polymer prosthetic and restorative materials for dental CAD/CAM using two test method; surface characteristics and shear bond strength. Methods: Commercialized CAD/CAM polymer blanks were investigated; One kinds of PMMA, and one PEKK blanks. A total of 20 PMMA and PEKK specimens were prepared, and each group was divided into 10 specimens. Average surface roughness was observed under surface profilometer. The contact angle was measured with a surface electrooptics. The bond strength was evaluated by a universal testing machine at a crosshead speed of 5mm/min. The data were statistically analyzed using independent t-test and Fisher's exact test(P<0.05). Results: The PMMA and PEKK group showed a significant difference in the shear bond strength with the composite resin(P<0.05). The surface roughness of the PEKK group was higher than that of the PMMA group. The fracture mode were observed in PEKK groups with 50% showing adhesive remnant index score. Conclusion: PEEK is used as substructure material and composite veneering material is applied. PEKK resins will contribute to the development of successful products that will provide structural and aesthetic satisfaction.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.141-149
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• 2022

Despite the importance of the insurance business for financial and economic development, few studies have looked at the factors that influence its growth. This research adds to the body of knowledge by empirically examining the impact of numerous factors on the development of the insurance business in 15 Middle East and North African (MENA) countries from 2000 to 2017. The study looks at macroeconomic, demographic, and institutional factors as potential drivers of the insurance industry's growth, with the insurance premium as a percentage of GDP as the dependent variable. All variables are stationary at the first difference, according to the IPS panel unit root test. The Pedroni residual cointegration test, Kao residual cointegration test, and Johansen-Fisher panel cointegration tests are then used to look for long-run associations. The cointegration tests strongly suggest that the insurance premium and the various variables have long-run correlations. Findings from the Fully-Modified OLS imply that GDP per capita, gross capital formation, and the KOF economic globalization index have a positive long-term impact on the insurance business. The insurance business is also driven by combating corruption and the rule of law. The population and regulatory quality, on the other hand, have no significant impact.