Search

Background: This study is a 1-year follow-up study for mentally disabled people who started living independently. The purpose of this study is to confirm the performance of the supported independent housing (SIH) program for severe mental illness and to compare the effectiveness with the collective living family, a group home (GH).Methods: This study included mentally disabled people living in publicly supported SIH (n=24) and living in GH (n=31). The outcome measures were brief psychiatric rating scale, Global Assessment Function (GAF), internalized stigma, hope, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and working alliance. Analyzes were performed using descriptive methods and chi-square analysis, Independent t-test, Mann-Whitney U-test, and Friedman test.Results: In the case of the SIH group, GAF and internalized stigma showed a significant effect after 1 year, and the working alliance showed a tendency to decrease at 6 months and then increase again after 1 year. In comparison between the two groups, only GAF showed a significant difference after 1 year. Hope, self-esteem, and life satisfaction showed a significant effect in the GH group after 1 year, but not in the SIH group.Conclusions: Results show that the SIH and GH housing types achieve different results over the 1-year period. GAF and internalized stigma were significant in SIH, and psychological variables were significant in GH. In GAF, SIH showed a more significant effect than GH. Housing support should take into account the various individual circumstances and preferences of the client, and above all, securing housing stability and expanding accessibility is important.

Citizen science education is a new approach in science education for promoting scientific inquiry related to localized problems and for engaging in social action based on inquiry results. Using agency as a lens for understanding teachers’ practices when using this approach is important. In this ethnographic case study, a teacher implementing a citizen science education program using Arduino was investigated from an ecological approach using temporal and relational dimensions of agency. In the iterational dimension, the teacher’s own experiences and traits from life and professional histories were identified. His identity as a teacher and his religious values formed the projective dimension. Encouraging administrators, the financial difficulties of the school, and the COVID-19 pandemic were major elements of the practical-evaluative dimension. Findings reveal the complex array of the teacher’s agency in the context of implementing citizen science education with Arduino with students, which contributes new understandings about science teacher agency.

Citizen science is expected to play an important role in relation to scientific literacy Vision III for students living in the future society. This study aims to identify the characteristics of extreme citizen science (ECS) and extreme citizen scientists (ECS s) and to derive key competencies of ECS s using literature analysis from Korean and international educational contexts. The characteristics of ECS are identified were as follows: Citizens recognize problems, set research topics, establish data collection plans to solve them, analyze and interpret collected data, and conduct social action. Three categories of key competencies for ECS s were derived: Thinking scientifically with appropriate knowledge, exploring as knowledge producers, and acting while considering both individuals and communities. The results of this study can be used for developing citizen science competency measurement tools, development of ECS programs, and training of ECS s. Implications for future research are considered.

Recent advances in single-cell sequencing techniques have enabled gene expression profiling of individual cells in tissue samples so that it can accelerate biomedical research to develop novel therapeutic methods and effective drugs for complex disease. The typical first step in the downstream analysis pipeline is classifying cell types through accurate single-cell clustering algorithms. Here, we describe a novel single-cell clustering algorithm, called GRACE (GRaph Autoencoder based single-cell Clustering through Ensemble similarity larning), that can yield highly consistent groups of cells. We construct the cell-to-cell similarity network through the ensemble similarity learning framework, and employ a low-dimensional vector representation for each cell through a graph autoencoder. Through performance assessments using real-world single-cell sequencing datasets, we show that the proposed method can yield accurate single-cell clustering results by achieving higher assessment metric scores.

To limit the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) outbreak, humans have been significantly restricted in their ability to travel and interact with others worldwide. Consequently, dermatology conferences were forced to adapt to such changes. The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on international dermatology conferences. We retrospectively investigated decisions made for international dermatology conferences scheduled for 2020. Thirty-three major conferences were analyzed. Their data were obtained from their respective websites (data was accessed 2 June 2021). Among 33 conferences analyzed, 13 (39.4%) were conducted as scheduled, nine (27.3%) were canceled, eight (24.3%) were postponed to 2021 or 2022, and three (9.1%) were delayed but conducted in 2020. The number of the cancellation (44.4%) and postponement (75%) was the largest in the second quarter of the year. During the fourth quarter, most conferences were held on schedule (70%) but were run virtually. Eight out of 13 virtual conferences shortened their duration (61.5%). Most (90.9%) conferences have decided on the schedule of their meetings for 2021 or 2022 while three (9.1%) remain undecided. Twelve (40%) are planned to run virtually, eight (26.7%) have opted for a hybrid form, five (16.7%) are planned to run in-person, four (13.3%) have not decided on the format, and one (3.3%) has been canceled. Virtual and hybrid conference formats have facilitated people to share knowledge despite the travel restrictions posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Such formats are environmentally friendly, are able to attract a large audience, and save delegates time and costs involved in attending. Therefore, virtual platforms should continue to be integrated within conferences in the post-pandemic era.

To understand and clarify the geographic variations of the Korean sea raven, Hemitripterus villosus, we investigated the molecular and morphometric characteristics of 147 individuals (in morphs) and 175 individuals (in molecules) collected from three locations in the Yellow Sea (Incheon, Boryeong, and Heuksando), one location in the Korea Strait (Busan), and two locations in the East Sea (Goseong and Pohang), around the Korean peninsula. The Kruskal-Wallis test showed there were no significant differences in meristic characteristics among locations, except for the number of vertebrae (mean, 39.7 in Goseong vs. and 38.4–38.8 in the remaining locations). A canonical discriminant analysis based on 25 morphometric characters showed that two groups were separated by the center value “0” of CAN1: Yellow Sea and Korea Strait individuals had positive values, whereas East Sea individuals had negative values. An analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) based on 801 base-pair sequences of the mitochondrial DNA cytochrome b gene showed that two lineages were separated by fixation (FST) index. A pairwise FST test revealed moderate genetic differentiation between the Goseong individuals (middle East Sea) and the individuals at the remaining locations except for the Pohang individuals (southern East Sea). Our molecular and morphometric analysis results indicate that there exists two populations in the Korean sea raven, and their admixture zone may be located near Pohang. Population subdivision might be associated with sea level change during last glacial period, and this may have been subsequently maintained by the hydrographic and oceanic current heterogeneity of each sea around the Korean peninsula. Accordingly, different management measures should be adopted with regard to the two groups, the East Sea group and the Yellow Sea + Korea Strait group.

Described herein is the development of a new synthetic route to cyclic amidines from quinolines. The borane-catalyzed 1,4-hydrosilylation of quinoline was utilized for the dearomatization of the quinolines. The dearomatized enamine intermediate was subsequently reacted with a broad range of organic azides to produce the corresponding cyclic amidines (3,4-dihydroquinolinimines) via a [3 + 2] cycloaddition pathway. Preliminary mechanistic studies suggested that the hydride shift was involved during the cycloaddition.

We describe the morphological characteristics of two morids, Gadella jordani and Physiculus japonicus, belonging to the order Gadiformes, based on Korean specimens collected from the Korean ocean. Two specimens of Gadella jordani was first collected from Jeju Island, Korea and the East Sea, Korea, in 2013-2014. This species is characterized by 8, 67-69 dorsal fin rays, 66-71 anal fin rays, 5+13 gill rakers, no barbel on the lower jaw, no vomerine teeth, and a ventral luminous organ closer to the anus than to the interventral line. We described it as the first record to the Korean fish fauna, and proposed the new Korean name “Min-su-yeom-dae-gu-sok” for the genus Gadella, and “Min-su-yeom-dae-gu” for the species G. jordani. Physiculus japonicus was first reported by Koh and Moon in the year 1999 based on a single specimen in Korea. However, no study has been attempted to describe the morphological characteristics in Korea since then. In 2013-2014, three specimens of P. japonicus was collected from Jeju Island, Korea and the East Sea, Korea, and we redescribe P. japonicus in detail. This species is characterized by 9-10, 63-64 dorsal fin rays, 70-73 anal fin rays, 3+7-8 gill rakers, a short barbel on the lower jaw, and a ventral luminous organ equidistant between the interventral line and the anus.