• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.593-602
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• 1993

As part of the Nutrition CRSP Mexico project conducted in rural villages in highland Mexico, this study examined whether nutritional factors, family characteristics, and the duration of schooling were associated with cognitive performances in 107 schoolers(53 boys and 54 girls) aged 8~10. Food intake was measured by recall, direct observation and weighment twice monthly over the course of a year. Families were characterized in terms of socioeconomic status and parental cognitive performance, education and aspiration. Dietary quality, but not energy intake, and anthropometry (wt-for-age, ht-for-age, head circumference) were significantly associated with cognitive test results for both verbal and performance measures. When the effect of SES is controlled using partial correlation, the relationships were substantially weakened. Sex differences were also found in response to nutritional deprivation. Among boys, dietary quality was the most important indicator of cognitive performance, while household economic conditions were more importantly associated with cognitive performance among girls. Participation in schooling was important for cognitive skille as it related to nutritional status.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.197-201
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• 2009

The food self-support rate on the basis of cereals in Korea is approximately 27%, which will threaten the national food security. The dramatic increase in population accompanied by rapid industrialization in developing countries has caused imbalances in the supply of food and energy. To cope with these global crises over food and energy supplies as well as environmental problems, it is urgently required to develop new environmentally friendly industrial crop varieties to be grown on marginal lands including desertification areas for sustainable development. Sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.) ranks seventh in annual production among food crops in the world. Its wide adaptability on marginal lands and rich nutritional content provide a high potential for preventing malnutrition and enhancing food security in the developing countries. In addition, sweetpotato can be developed as a bioreactor to produce valuable industrial materials including bio-ethanol, functional feed and antioxidants by molecular breeding. In this respect, we focus on the molecular breeding of sweetpotato with multi-function on marginal lands. The strategies for development of environmentally friendly industrial sweetpotato will be introduced and discussed.