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High-collar shoes are a biomimetic approach to preventing lateral ankle injuries during high-demand activities; however, the influence of collar stiffness (CS) on parameters related to lateral ankle sprain prevention during running remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the effects of a custom-designed shoe CS on muscular activity, dynamic stability, and leg stiffness (K leg ) during running using a biomimetic design approach inspired by the mechanisms of ankle sprain prevention. Sixteen healthy male participants ran on a treadmill while wearing a custom-designed high-collar shoe with low, medium, and high CS conditions, measured using circumferential ankle pressure (CAP). Lower extremity kinematics and electromyography (EMG) data were recorded simultaneously. One-way repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted to compare the CS conditions. Results indicate that high and medium CS conditions significantly reduce sagittal and frontal ankle ranges of motion (ROMs) compared to the low CS condition, providing improved stability and support against lateral ankle sprain; moreover, there was a trend towards higher dynamic stability and K leg with increasing CS. Our study highlights the importance of considering the CAP in regulating high-collar stiffness properties and how higher CS may provide better support for the ankle during running. Nevertheless, additional research is necessary to validate the efficacy of the current design in preventing ankle sprains during high-demand activities.

Objective: No previous study examined impact of dementia in the outcome of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). We aimed to investigate overall survival (OS) of patients with dementia after receiving HSCT., Methods: Among 8,230 patients who underwent HSCT between 2002 and 2018, 5,533 patients younger than 50 years were first excluded. Remaining patients were divided into those who were and were not diagnosed with dementia before HSCT (dementia group: n = 31; no dementia: n = 2,666). Thereafter, among 2,666 participants without dementia, 93 patients were selected via propensity-matched score as non-dementia group. Patients were followed from the day they received HSCT to the occurrence of death or the last follow-up day (December 31, 2018), whichever came first., Results: With median follow-up of 621 days for dementia group and 654 days for non-dementia group, 2 year-OS of dementia group was lower than that of non-dementia group (53.3% [95% confidence interval, 95% CI, 59.0-80.2%] vs. 68.8% [95% CI, 38.0-68.2%], p = 0.076). In multivariate analysis, dementia had significant impacts on OS (hazard risk = 2.539, 95% CI, 1.166-4.771, p = 0.017)., Conclusion: Our results indicated that patients diagnosed with dementia before HSCT have 2.539 times higher risk of mortality after transplantation than those not having dementia. With number of elderly needing HSCT is increasing, further work to establish treatment guidelines for the management of HSCT in people with dementia is needed.

Background: As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, an initial risk-adapted allocation is crucial for managing medical resources and providing intensive care., Objective: In this study, we aimed to identify factors that predict the overall survival rate for COVID-19 cases and develop a COVID-19 prognosis score (COPS) system based on these factors. In addition, disease severity and the length of hospital stay for patients with COVID-19 were analyzed., Methods: We retrospectively analyzed a nationwide cohort of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases between January and April 2020 in Korea. The cohort was split randomly into a development cohort and a validation cohort with a 2:1 ratio. In the development cohort (n=3729), we tried to identify factors associated with overall survival and develop a scoring system to predict the overall survival rate by using parameters identified by the Cox proportional hazard regression model with bootstrapping methods. In the validation cohort (n=1865), we evaluated the prediction accuracy using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. The score of each variable in the COPS system was rounded off following the log-scaled conversion of the adjusted hazard ratio., Results: Among the 5594 patients included in this analysis, 234 (4.2%) died after receiving a COVID-19 diagnosis. In the development cohort, six parameters were significantly related to poor overall survival: older age, dementia, chronic renal failure, dyspnea, mental disturbance, and absolute lymphocyte count <1000/mm 3 . The following risk groups were formed: low-risk (score 0-2), intermediate-risk (score 3), high-risk (score 4), and very high-risk (score 5-7) groups. The COPS system yielded an area under the curve value of 0.918 for predicting the 14-day survival rate and 0.896 for predicting the 28-day survival rate in the validation cohort. Using the COPS system, 28-day survival rates were discriminatively estimated at 99.8%, 95.4%, 82.3%, and 55.1% in the low-risk, intermediate-risk, high-risk, and very high-risk groups, respectively, of the total cohort (P<.001). The length of hospital stay and disease severity were directly associated with overall survival (P<.001), and the hospital stay duration was significantly longer among survivors (mean 26.1, SD 10.7 days) than among nonsurvivors (mean 15.6, SD 13.3 days)., Conclusions: The newly developed predictive COPS system may assist in making risk-adapted decisions for the allocation of medical resources, including intensive care, during the COVID-19 pandemic., (©Sung-Yeon Cho, Sung-Soo Park, Min-Kyu Song, Young Yi Bae, Dong-Gun Lee, Dong-Wook Kim. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 22.02.2021.)

We investigated the lethal effect of supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO(2); temperature: 65, 70 degrees C, pressure: 80, 100, 120 bar, time: 10-40 min) on Alicyclobacillus acidoterrestris spores (10(6)-10(7)spores/ml) suspended in apple juice. A. acidoterrestris spores were completely inactivated by SC-CO(2) to undetectable levels in above 65 degrees C, 100 bar for 40 min and 70 degrees C, 80 bar for 30 min. The SC-CO(2) did not affect (p>0.05) the pH and Brix of apple juice. In electron microscopic observations, the surface and internal morphological changes and extraction of intracellular materials of the treated spores were observed. Our results indicate that SC-CO(2) can effectively kill A. acidoterrestris spores in apple juice with no changes to the quality of the juice and also provides a complementary understanding of inactivation action of SC-CO(2).

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO(2)) treatment on soy sauce and hot-pepper paste marinades, as well as in marinated pork products, for the inhibition of generic Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella typhimurium, and E. coli O157:H7. SC-CO(2) was more effective at destroying foodborne pathogens when it was applied to the marinades than the marinated products. SC-CO(2) treatment at 14MPa and 45°C for 40min resulted in a greater reduction in soy sauce (2.52-3.47logCFU/cm(2)) than in hot-pepper paste marinade (2.12-2.72log CFU/cm(2)). In the case of the marinated pork, when SC-CO(2) was applied at 14MPa and 45°C for 40min, the reduction levels of L. monocytogenes were 2.49 and 1.92logCFU/cm(2) in soy sauce and hot-pepper paste marinated pork, respectively. The results should be useful in the meat industry to help increase microbial safety and assure the microbial stability of marinades and marinated products.

Purpose: A decision matrix for identifying drugs for which pharmacogenetic drug monitoring (PDM) provides the greatest benefit in a Korean setting is described., Summary: We developed a decision matrix including the ethnic frequency of clinically relevant polymorphic cytochrome P-450 (CYP) enzymes, and the metabolic profiles and adverse drug reactions of drugs. Using the developed decision matrix based on the population allele frequencies of CYP enzymes, we identified potential candidates for PDM among the most commonly used drugs at Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH). Collectively, 17 of these drugs were largely metabolized by at least one polymorphic CYP enzyme. Pharmacogenetic information was used to identify CYP2C9, CYP2C19, and CYP2D6 as the major CYP enzymes of clinical importance for pharmacologic effect and safety in Koreans. The frequencies of poor and intermediate metabolizers among Koreans were 0% and 2.3-12% for CYP2C9, 12% and 42% for CYP2C19, and 0.44% and 28% for CYP2D6, respectively. The frequency of ultrarapid metabolizers of CYP2D6 was 2.28%. The decision matrix and pharmacogenetic information were used to identify seven drugs for PDM: warfarin, glimepiride, diazepam, amitriptyline, nortriptyline, codeine, and oxycodone. This approach can be applied to other institutional hospitals or other ethnic populations and would be helpful for advancing pharmacy practice. Further work is required to assess the practical and potential clinical relevance of pharmacogenetic variations on drugs of interest before the implementation of PDM., Conclusion: A decision matrix helped identify drugs for which PDM provides the greatest potential benefit at one Korean hospital.