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The article discusses a study which investigated the biosynthesis and distribution of phytoecdysteroids (PEs) 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) in Achyranthes japonica plants. It states that the total concentration of 20E each plant first stayed at a constant level and increased significantly after the initial leaf pair (LP) phase, while 20E concentration in a certain plant reduced quickly during vegetative development. It notes that 20E biosynthesis is not confined to particular growth stages or organs.

Adopting an encryption function in voice over Wi-Fi service incurs problems such as additional power consumption and degradation of communication quality. To overcome these problems, a partial encryption (PE) algorithm for compressed speech was recently introduced. However, from the security point of view, the partial encryption sets (PESs) of the conventional PE algorithm still have much room for improvement. This paper proposes a new selection method for finding a smaller PES while maintaining the security level of encrypted speech. The proposed PES selection method employs the perceptual evaluation of the speech quality (PESQ) algorithm to objectively measure the distortion of speech. The proposed method is applied to the ITU-T G.729 speech codec, and content protection capability is verified by a range of tests and a reconstruction attack. The experimental results show that encrypting only 20% of the compressed bitstream is sufficient to effectively hide the entire content of speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many allergists are currently focusing on the development of new diagnostic tools, and are attempting to improve both the sensitivity and specificity. A multiple allergen simultaneous test-chemiluminescent assay (MAST-CLA) is one of the most popular diagnostic tools used in the Republic of Korea. However, there remains controversy among allergists with regard to the cut-off point for a positive result. The present study was conducted in order to determine the validity of MAST-CLA as compared with that of the skin prick test, with particular emphasis on arthropod allergens, on the basis of percentage agreement rates and κ-values, and also to suggest the optimal positive cutoff points using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The study was conducted with 97 subjects (54 men, 43 women). Optimal individual cut-off points were calculated as follows; class II for Dermatophagoides farinae, class I for Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus, and trace for a cockroach mix. These findings suggest that attempting to apply optimal individual cut-off points will be a good way of improving diagnostic tests, particularly MAST-CLA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

House dust mites produce inhalant allergens of importance to allergic patients. We measured the major group 1 allergens, Der p 1 and Der f 1, from the house dust mites Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus and Dermatophagoides farina, respectively in 100 randomly selected domestic homes from Cheonan, Korea. Dust samples were collected by vacuuming from the living room floor and 1 mattress in each home. Der p 1 and Der f 1 were measured by double monoclonal ELISA. Der p 1 levels were very low, with geometric mean levels for floors and mattresses being 0.11 µg/g (range: 0.01-4.05) and 0.14 µg/g (range: 0.01-30.0), respectively. Corresponding levels of Der f 1 were higher, 7.46 µg/g (range: 0.01-262.9) and 10.2 µg/g (range: 0.01-230.9) for floors and mattresses, respectively. D. farinae appears to be the dominant house dust mite in Cheonan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]