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This study investigates the effect of using AI PengTalk into flipped learning model on elementary students' Englishspeaking proficiency. The participants included 22 elementary students that were divided into two groups and received different treatments: the experimental group completed activities on AI PengTalk before class while the control group viewed video materials. Classes were 45 minutes long and conducted twice a week over a period of 8 sessions. The results revealed that both groups improved their speaking abilities, with the experimental group demonstrating progress across all evaluated areas of content, fluency, vocabulary, grammar, and intelligibility. The control group, on the other hand, showed positive changes only in fluency, vocabulary, and intelligibility. Further analysis of within-group changes based on proficiency levels indicated that higher-level learners in the experimental group improved their fluency, vocabulary, and overall speaking, with no significant gains observed in the control group. For the lower-level learners, the experimental group improved in all aspects of speaking, but the control group only showed improvement in vocabulary. Lastly, the experimental group reported increased self-efficacy, while the control group showed no changes in affective domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactions between elements, which are usually represented by networks, have to delineate potentially unequal relationships in terms of their relative importance or direction. The intrinsic unequal relationships of such kind, however, are opaque or hidden in numerous real systems. For instance, when a node in a network with limited interaction capacity spends its capacity to its neighboring nodes, the allocation of the total amount of interactions to them can be vastly diverse. Even if such potentially heterogeneous interactions epitomized by weighted networks are observable, as a result of the aforementioned egocentric allocation of interactions, the relative importance or dependency between two interacting nodes can only be implicitly accessible. In this work, we precisely pinpoint such relative dependency by proposing the framework to discover hidden dependent relations extracted from weighted networks. For a given weighted network, we provide a systematic criterion to select the most essential interactions for individual nodes based on the concept of information entropy. The criterion is symbolized by assigning the effective number of neighbors or the effective out-degree to each node, and the resultant directed subnetwork decodes the hidden dependent relations by leaving only the most essential directed interactions. We apply our methodology to two time-stamped empirical network data, namely, the international trade relations between nations in the world trade web (WTW) and the network of people in the historical record of Korea, Annals of the Joseon Dynasty (AJD). Based on the data analysis, we discover that the properties of mutual dependency encoded in the two systems are vastly different. The nations in the WTW show much more asymmetric dependent relations than its random counterpart, which implies the global economic inequality in international trades. In contrast, the relationships of people in the AJD are much more mutual than the nations in the WTW. The difference comes from nontrivial correlations (or lack thereof) in the networks, for which we provide the relevant network properties and representative example nations in the case of the WTW.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of simulation-based practice and clinical practice on nursing students’ critical thinking disposition and nursing process confidence. This study is a quasi-experimental design using the non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest only design, targeting 103, 4th grade (51=control group, 52=experimental group) in the Department of Nursing at D University. The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS/WIN 23.0 program, and the main research results are as follows. Students who experienced simulation-based practice showed significant improvement in critical thinking tendencies (t=-3.28, p=.001) compared to those who experienced clinical practice. There was no significant difference in nursing process confidence (t=-1.78, p=.079), but it was significantly higher in actual application, collaborative contsistency, and nursing contsistency. As a result, There were no significant difference in some, but it was contfirmed that simulation-based practice improved the critical thinking disposition and nursing process confidence in of nursing students. In addition to clinical practice, it is considered necessary to study simulation-based practice using repetitive practice and standardized patients in a free simulation practice environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Through the analysis of orthopedics lawsuit rulings, the purpose of this study is to understand the current trends of medical lawsuits in orthopedics in Korea. Materials and Methods: An analysis of medical lawsuits in orthopedics was conducted. As the study method, a quantitative analysis was performed on 341 cases. Results: The average period of lawsuits, from the occurrence of the medical accident to end of the ruling, took an average of 4.22 years. The most frequent procedure that was the main cause of the medical accidents was surgery, at 46.3%. When surgery is the main procedure that caused the medical accidents, the result of examining the types of surgeries showed that spine surgery had the highest percentage. For the outcome of the accident, the highest number of cases resulted in disability and for the final court outcome, 40.5% ruled partially in favor of the plaintiff (the patient) with acknowledgement of only the damage incurred due to medical error of the total sum claimed, and dismissal of the claim made by the plaintiff (patient) accounted for 34.3%; 26.1% of cases develop infection. For the amount of claim for damage, the average amount of claim was 181,998,036 won; in the judgement amount, the average amount of judgement was 58,897,161 won. Conclusion: The most frequent procedure in orthopedics was surgery and spine surgery comprised a large proportion of these surgeries. Future studies to determine root causes of medical accidents should be conducted to reduce medical lawsuits and to plan against the repeating of medical accidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cryopreservation of boar semen is continually researched in reproductive technologies and genetic resource banking in breed conservation. For evaluating the boar semen quality, sperm motility (MOT) is an important parameter because the movement of spermatozoa indicates active metabolism, membrane integrity and fertilizing capacity. Various researches have been trying to improve the quality of semen post-thawed in boar. Recently, polymorphism (g.158T>C) of phospholipase C zeta (PLCz) gene reported to be significant association with MOT. This study was conducted to evaluate the PLCz gene as a positional controlling for motility and kinematic characteristics of post-thawed boar semen. To results, The g.158 T>C SNP of PLCz was significantly associated with frozen semen motility and kinematic characteristics. g.158 T>C SNP was high significantly associated with MOT, VCL, VSL and VAP (p<0.0001, p= 0.0002, p<0.0001 and p<0.0001, respectively). Therefore, we suggest that the intron region of the porcine PLCz, may be used as a molecular marker for Duroc boar post-thawed semen quality, although its functional effect was not defined yet. Whether the association is due to the candidate gene or not require further verification. Thus, it will be of interest to continue association studies in the regions surrounding those genes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cryopreservation of boar semen is continually researched in reproductive technologies and genetic resource banking in breed conservation. For evaluating the boar semen quality, sperm motility (MOT) is an important parameter because the movement of spermatozoa indicates active metabolism, membrane integrity and fertilizing capacity. Various researches have been trying to improve the quality of semen Post-thawed in boar. Recently, polymorphism (g. 35756 T>C) of Estrogen Receptor 1 (ESR1) gene reported to be significant association with MOT. This study was conducted to evaluate the ESR1 gene as a positional controlling for motility and kinematic characteristics of post-thawed boar semen. To results, The g.35756 T>C SNP of ESR1 was significantly associated with frozen semen motility and kinematic characteristics. The g.35756 T>C SNP was high significantly associated with MOT, VCL, VSL and VAP (p<0.001). The SNP was also significantly associated with ALH (P<0.05). Therefore, we suggest that the g. 35756 T>C polymorphism in the intron 1 region of the porcine ESR1 gene could potentially be applied in frozen semen programs to improve MOT trait, but only after validation in other populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship among the attitudes on exercise, physical activity and quality of life (QOL) in hemodialysis patients. Methods: A total of 42 patients in a hemodialysis unit participated in this study. Physical activity level was measured directly by 6 minute walking test and grip strength test. Structured questionnaires were also used for measuring their attitudes on exercise, physical activity and QOL. Participants' medical records were reviewed for obtaining their biochemical and clinical information. Statistical analysis was performed using Pearson correlation, and multiple liner regression. Results: A significant positive correlation between participants' attitudes and physical activity level measured by International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) was found. And the physical activity level measured by Korea Activity Scale/Index (KASI) was significantly related to QOL. Conclusion: This study shows that QOL of the hemodialysis patients was significantly associated with their physical activity level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]