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Introduction: With increased life expectancy, the proportion of elderly trauma admissions has increased. Elderly patients frequently have underlying diseases necessitating anticoagulant/antiplatelet medication, which worsens coagulopathy. We ascertained the relationship between preinjury anticoagulants/antiplatelet medication use and transfusion requirements in patients older than 65 years. Methods: This retrospective study enrolled patients admitted to the trauma intensive care unit of Chungbuk National University Hospital during January 2016 to June 2019. Data on medication history, clinical features, and component transfusions were analyzed with the chi-square test, independent t-test, one-way analysis of variance, and analysis of covariance. Results: Overall, 142 and 324 (overall 466) patients did and did not receive anticoagulant/antiplatelet medication, respectively. Falls were more frequent ( p Conclusion: Preinjury anticoagulant/antiplatelet medication use was not significantly associated with transfusion amounts in patients older than 65 years.

Accurate prediction of fall likelihood is advantageous for instituting fall prevention program in rehabilitation facilities.This study was designed to determine the clinical measures, which can predict the risk of fall events in a rehabilitation hospital.Medical records of 166 patients (114 males and 52 females) who were hospitalized in an adult inpatient unit of a rehabilitation hospital were retrospectively analyzed for this study. As predictor variables for assessing fall risk, demographic data and the following measurements were selectively collected from patient's medical records: Tinetti Performance-Oriented Mobility Assessment-Ambulation (POMA-G), Timed Up and Go test (TUG), 10 m walk test, 2 min walk test, Korean version Mini-Mental State Examination (K-MMSE), Korean version of the Modified Barthel Index (KMBI), Berg Balance Scale (BBS), Global Deterioration Scale (GDS), and Morse Fall Scale (Morse FS).The Morse FS, TUG, and age were found to be risk factors for the classification of faller and non-faller groups.This study suggests Morse FS, TUG, and age in the routine initial assessment upon admission in a rehabilitation setting, as key variables for screening the risk of fall. Additionally, the cutoff scores of Morse FS and TUG were observed to be more rigid than other clinical settings.

Bacillus subtilis P229 was isolated from cheonggukjang, a Korean soybean fermented food, and its probiotic properties and utility in starter cultures for soybean fermentation were investigated. B. subtilis P229 spores were stable when exposed to simulated gastric and bile conditions. B. subtilis P229 vegetative cells did not produce β-glucuronidase, were sufficiently susceptible to antibiotics, and adhered strongly to human intestinal epithelial cells. Moreover, this strain did not induce hemolysis or carry enterotoxin genes. B. subtilis P229 showed high levels of autoaggregation, and its coaggregation with pathogens depended on the species involved. It did not produce hazardous biogenic amines from histidine and ornithine. B. subtilis P229-fermented soybean extracts were prepared using 70% ethanol. Fermented-soybean extracts demonstrated greater antioxidant effects and total phenolic content than unfermented soybean extracts. These results suggest that B. subtilis P229 isolated from cheonggukjang shows potential as a probiotic and as a component of starter cultures for fermented soybean foods.

Traumatic diaphragmatic rupture (TDR) is uncommon, and may be associated with other severe life-threatening injuries after blunt trauma. Recently, we experienced a right-sided TDR patient with other multiple life-threatening injuries. A 59-year-old female inflicted with a right-sided TDR accompanied by herniated liver was treated with thoracoscopic exploration. We successfully managed associated life-threatening injuries such as traumatic brain injury and pelvic bone fractures with bleeding, simultaneously.

The occurrence of trauma is associated with various factors, including weather. We aimed to elucidate the relationship between local weather factors and the incidence of trauma to effectively manage and treat patients in a community setting. A retrospective study was conducted at a single center from January 2016 to December 2019. The study participants were trauma patients in the Cheongju area where the regional trauma center is located. Weather data including average daily temperature (°C), rainfall duration (hours), amount of rainfall (mm), average relative humidity (%), wind speed (m/s), and total sunlight hours per day were collected. One-way analysis of variance, correlation analysis, and linear regression analysis were performed. The average age of the participants (n = 3352) was 52.69 years. As regards seasonal difference in the incidence of trauma, there were more patients in spring than in winter (2.42/day vs 2.06/day, P = .05). The highest number of average daily trauma incidents occurred from April to June, and the difference between this value and that from January to February was significant (F = 2.20, P = .01). According to the distributed lag nonlinear model (DLnM), the relative risk is greater than 1 when the mean temperature is high (>15°C) compared to when the temperature is low (Ref. 8 hours), the trauma patient prevalence was relatively higher than the median value (lag = 0). DLnM analysis results showed that the relative risk of trauma patients increased as the amount of precipitation increased, and the incidence of trauma increased when the relative humidity was 40% to 50%. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that high average daily temperatures and long average daily total sunlight hours resulted in an increased incidence of trauma (F = 6.605, P

Probiotic characteristics of Bacillus subtilis P223 isolated from kimchi were investigated in this study. Spore cells of B. subtilis P223 showed high tolerance to artificial gastric juice (pH 2.5, 0.3% pepsin, 3 h) and bile salts (0.3% oxgall, 24 h). Spore cells of B. subtilis P223 showed more adherence to intestinal cells (HT-29 cells) than vegetative cells. In addition, B. subtilis P223 showed high autoaggregation ability, similar to a commercial strain (Bacillus clausii ATCC 700160). Moreover, its coaggregation abilities with pathogens were strong. The adherence of three pathogens (Salmonella enteritidis ATCC 13076, Listeria monocytogenes ATCC 15313, and Escherichia coli ATCC 25922) to HT-29 cells was inhibited by B. subtilis P223. It was found that B. subtilis P223 could not produce β-glucuronidase, a carcinogenic enzyme. However, it had amylase and protease activities. Antibiotic susceptibility was measured using disk diffusion assay. It was revealed that B. subtilis P223 was only resistant to streptomycin among eight kinds of antibiotics. In addition, B. subtilis P223 showed no hemolysis activity. It did not have enterotoxin genes. Results of this study suggest that B. subtilis P223 isolated from kimchi has potential as a probiotic strain.

For fixed source problems, it is known that the analog Monte Carlo simulation method can show low efficiencies. To increase the calculation efficiency, variance reduction techniques (VRT) have been introduced and utilized. To apply these techniques, parameters to control particle transport behaviors should be properly determined. The hybrid Monte Carlo methods were developed to automatically determine the VRT parameters using information estimated from a deterministic simulation. In the case of a single response, the Consistent Adjoint Driven Importance Sampling (CADIS) method is well derived to decide VRT parameters. Recently, for plural response problems, a variety of methods have been proposed. It is noted that Forward-Weighted CADIS (FW-CADIS) method gives the best performance to optimize the parameters for plural response problems. However, it can create inefficiencies due to an assumption that uniform particle density is used to uniformly obtain low variance in each response. In the Multi-Response CADIS (MR-CADIS) method proposed in this study, a new weight function is derived to effectively reduce plural relative errors. With the proposed method, VRT parameters are decided by that the sum of squared relative errors for plural responses has a minimum value. To verify the MR-CADIS method, simple shielding and duct problems are estimated and compared to those estimated with the FW-CADIS method. These results show that the MR-CADIS method can produce better efficiency and uniformity than the FW-CADIS method for plural response problems.

This study evaluates long-term stability of low-cost separators in single-chamber bottle-type microbial fuel cells with domestic wastewater. Low-cost separators tested in this study were nonwoven fabrics (NWF) of polypropylene (PP80, PP100), textile fabrics of polyphenylene sulfide (PPS), sulfonated polyphenylene sulfide (SPPS), and cellulose esters. NWF PP80 separator generated the highest power density of 280 mW/m2, which was higher than with ion-exchange membranes (cation exchange membrane; CEM = 271 mW/m2, cation exchange membrane; CMI = 196 mW/m2, Nafion = 260 mW/m2). MFC operations with other size-selective separators such as SPPS, PPS, and cellulose esters exhibited power densities of 261, 231, and 250 mW/m2, respectively. During a 280-day operation, initial power density of PP80 (278 mW/m2) was decreased to 257 mW/m2, but this decrease was smaller than with others (Nafion: 265–230 mW/m2; PP100: 220–126 mW/m2). The anode potential of around −430 mV did not change much with all separators in...

Purpose: The elderly are more likely to be on anticoagulant or antiplatelet medications, which increase bleeding. We aimed to determine the effect of preinjury anticoagulant or antiplatelet medications on required blood transfusions and the trauma outcomes of elderly patients.Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of all elderly trauma patients admitted to Chungbuk National University Hospital from January 2016 to June 2019. We compared the required number of blood transfusion units, complications, and mortality rate between those on anticoagulant or antiplatelet medications and those that were not, using the chi-squared test, independent t-test, liner regression analysis, and logistic regression analysis.Results: Out of 466 patients, 142 were on anticoagulant or antiplatelet medications while 324 were not. There was a significant statistical difference in the unit amount of red blood cells transfused within 4 hours of arriving at the hospital between the medicated and non-medicated groups (0.89 vs 1.43 units, respectively, p = 0.02); however, multivariate analysis showed no statistical difference (p = 0.28). The medication group showed a higher rate of complications compared to the non-medicated group (47.9% vs. 29.6%, respectively, p = 0.001), bleeding (17.6% vs 2.8%, respectively, p = 0.001), and pneumonia (24.4% vs 14.2%, respectively, p =0.01). There was no statistical difference in the mortality rate (16.9% vs. 22.2%, respectively, p = 0.21). Conclusion: Preinjury anticoagulant or antiplatelet medications in elderly trauma patients increased bleeding and complications such as pneumonia but did not affect transfusion requirement, or mortality rate.

Brown seaweeds are well-known source of bioactive compounds, which are producing a variety of secondary metabolites with promising bioactive properties. Traditionally, seaweeds used as ingredients in medicine for many centuries in Asian countries. However, the protective mechanisms of many metabolites found in seaweeds are remains to be determined. Thus, applications of seaweeds are limited because of poor understanding of their structural features and mechanisms responsible for their bioactive properties. In the present study, anti-inflammatory properties of fucoidan isolated from the brown seaweed Padina commersonii (PCF) was evaluated against LPS-activated RAW 264.7 macrophages. PCF was characterized using NMR, FT-IR, and HPAE-PAD spectrum (for mono sugar composition). It was observed that PCF is rich in fucose and sulfate as well as a similar structure to the commercial fucoidan. Western blots and RT-qPCR analysis were used to determine the protective effects of PCF after LPS challenge using RAW 264.7 macrophages. According to the results, PCF significantly down-regulated LPS-activated mRNA and protein expression levels of TLR2, TLR4, and MyD88 which are known inducers/activators of NF-κB transcriptional factors. The results, obtained from this study demonstrated PCF has a potential to inhibit LPS-induced inflammatory responses via blocking TLR/MyD88/ NF-κB signal transduction.

A logic-based maximum power point tracking (MPPT) and LabVIEW interface for digitally controlled variable resistive load were developed and applied to a continuously operating flat-plate microbial fuel cell (FPM). The interaction between the designed MPPT algorithm and electrochemically active microbial performance on the electrode was demonstrated to track the maximal performance of FPM system. MPPT could dynamically derive the optimal performance from varied operating conditions of FPMs such as organic concentration, flow rate, and sampling interval, and produce a maximum power density of 88.0 W m−3. The results provide essential information to build an automatic control strategy to achieve the maximum performance from field scale microbial fuel cells for applications to sustainable bioenergy recovery from various biomass feedstocks.

The aim of this study was to purify peptides with anti-hypertensive properties from a hydrolysate of flounder fish muscle. Among four proteolytic hydrolysates, pepsin showed the strongest angiotensin-I converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory activity. The pepsin hydrolysate was fractionated by ultrafiltration, gel filtration chromatography and reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography, and two novel peptides were purified. The IC50 values of the two peptides were 79 μM and 105 μM, respectively, and the Lineweaver–Burk plots suggested that they act as a competitive and a non-competitive inhibitor of ACE, respectively. Moreover, we predicted the 3D structure of ACE and used a molecular docking program to simulate binding between ACE and the peptides. These molecular modeling results indicated strong binding and interaction energies, and systolic blood pressures were reduced by administration of both peptides in spontaneously hypertensive rats. These results suggested that the enzymatic hydrolysate of flounder fish muscle includes novel ACE inhibitory peptides that may be beneficial as a functional food for treating hypertension.

An arteriovenous fistula (AVF) from the renal artery following a penetrating abdominal trauma is not common. We report the case of a 19-year-old male who presented with a knife stab wound in the right upper quadrant. Due to unstable vital signs and to the protrusion of the mesentery through the stab...

Background: Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is the prototype of a family of rare and fatal human degenerative conditions characterized by rapidly progressive dementia, myoclonus and akinetic mutism. Methods: A 70-year-old man with a long history of alcoholism was admitted to the hospital due to acute onset confusion, delirium, bilateral lateral gaze palsy, and gait disturbance. He was administered intravenously with thiamine for 10 days under suspicion of Wernicke encephalopathy, but there was no improvement of clinical symptoms. On the 11th day after admission, the patient presented with myoclonus, apathy and akinetic mutism. His cerebrospinal fluid was positive for 14-3-3 protein. The patient was finally diagnosed as probable Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Conclusion: We reported a case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease mimicking Wernicke encephalopathy. J Neurocrit Care 2015;8(2):122-125

The seat belt is designed for safety in a motor vehicle and should be worn to prevent severe injuries. But, the seat belt itself can be an injury factor in combination with deceleration forces applied to fixation points of mobile viscera. Here, we present a 23-year-man with traumatic transection of the appendix, highly mobile viscera, following seat belt injury.

In recent decades, attention to cancer-preventive treatments and studies on the development of anticancer drugs have sharply increased owing to the increase in cancer-related death rates in every region of the world. However, due to the adverse effects of synthetic drugs, much attention has been given to the development of anticancer drugs from natural sources because of fewer side effects of natural compounds than those of synthetic drugs. Recent studies on compounds and crude extracts from marine algae have shown promising anticancer properties. Among those compounds, polysaccharides extracted from brown seaweeds play a principal role as anticancer agents. Especially, a number of studies have revealed that polysaccharides isolated from brown seaweeds, such as fucoidan and laminaran, have promising effects against different cancer cell types in vitro and in vivo. Herein, we reviewed in vitro and in vivo anticancer properties reported for fucoidan and laminaran toward various cancer cells from 2013 to 2016.

An ultra-low voltage customized DC-DC booster circuit was developed using a LTC3108 converter, and used continuously on a flat-plate microbial fuel cell (FPM) system. The boost converter successfully stepped up the microbial fuel cell (MFC) voltage from similar to 0.5 V to 3.3 and 5.0 V of outputs. The designed circuit and system displayed the dynamic variations of the source FPM as well as the output voltage through the designed three connection points within the booster circuit. The source MFC voltage was interrelated with the booster circuit and its performance, and it adapted to the set points of the booster dynamically. The maximum output power density of the MFC with the DC-DC booster circuit was 8.16 W/m(3) compared to the maximum source FPM input power of 14.27 W/m(3) at 100 W, showing a conversion efficiency of 26-57%, but with a 10-fold higher output than that of the source voltage. The combined LTC3108 with FPM supplied power for electronic devices using synthetic and real domestic wastewater. This report presents a promising strategy for utilizing the electrical energy produced from MFCs, and expands the applicability of bioelectrochemical systems with an improved energy efficiency of the present wastewater treatment system.

Rack type warehouses are different from general buildings in the kinds, amount, and arrangement of stored goods, so the fire risk of rack type warehouses is different from those buildings. The fire pattern of rack type warehouses is different in combustion characteristic and storing condition of stored goods. The initial fire burning rate is different in the surface condition of materials, but the running time of fire is closely related with the kinds of stored materials and stored conditions. The stored goods of the warehouse are consisted of diverse combustibles, combustible liquid, and so on. Fire detection time may be delayed because the residents are less than office and commercial buildings. If fire detectors installed in rack type warehouses are inadaptable, the fire of the warehouse may be the great fire because of delaying of fire detection. In this paper, we studied what kinds of fire detectors are optimized in early detecting of rack type warehouse fire by real-scale fire tests. The fire detectors used in the tests are rate of rise type, fixed type, photo electric type, and aspirating type detectors. We considered optimum fire detecting method in rack type warehouses suggested by the response characteristic and comparative analysis of the fire detectors., {"references":["Y. S. Kim, \"A Study on the Application of Fire Prevention Facilities to Increase Fire Responsiveness of Rack-type Warehouses\", Pusan National University, 2013.","W. H. Kim, Y. J. Lee, \" An Improvement of Fire Safety Code for Rack-Type Warehouse in Korea\", Journal of Korean Institute of Fire Science & Engineering, Vol.28, No.6, pp.69-75, 2014.","D. H. Kin, \"A Study on the Establishment of the Fire Load by Building Occupancy\", Konkuk University, 2003.","D. T. Gottuk, Fire Detection in Warehouse Facilities, NIST, 2012.","Xtrails Ltd., Warehouse Fire Tests Demonstration - ASD vs Point (spot-type) vs Beam Detectors, Case Study, 2008.","ISO 7240-9, Fire detection and alarm systems - Part 9: Test fires for fire detectors, 2006."]}

New and different separators were investigated as alternatives to well-known ion exchange separators such as Nafion and Cation Exchange membrane (CMI). In polarization tests, the maximum power densities of new separators without functional groups were comparatively higher than those of Nafion and CMI. The non-woven fabric Polypropylene (PP80) exhibited maximum voltage of 0.477 V (with 1000 Ω), which was similar to that of Nafion (0.481 V), and resulted in the highest power density of 121 mW/m 2 (Nafion; 118 mW/m 2 ). Polypropylene 80 and 100 exhibited relatively smaller ohmic resistances of 11 Ω and 2 Ω, respectively, compared to others with resistances ranging from 13 to 41 Ω. Concerning oxygen diffusion, all types of size selective separators exhibited high oxygen mass transfer compared to Nafion and CMI. This high oxygen diffusion was likely the reason for the lower columbic efficiencies (CE) of PP80 (44%) and PP100 (42%) compared to Nafion (50%). PP80 exhibited a high proton mass transfer coefficient (K H = 11 × 10 −5 cm/s ) compared to all ion exchange and size selective separators included in this study. These results suggest that low-cost separators could be used for field applications of MFCs for higher cell voltage while minimizing oxygen diffusion.

Spontaneous non-aneurysmal aortic rupture is a rare and life threatening clinical entity. A 23-year-old female patient who visited a nearby hospital due to intractable seizure was transferred to our hospital with the impression of hypotension and decreased level of haemoglobin. She had a history of seizure attacks once a month. However, in the 2 weeks before presentation, the frequency of seizure attacks had increased to 2 to 3 times a day. An abdominal-pelvic computed tomogram scan showed extravasation of contrast from the abdominal aorta at L3 level. An emergency laparotomy revealed a 0.3 cm diameter tear in the posterior wall of the aorta, superior to the iliac bifurcation. We discuss the mechanism of spontaneous aortic rupture and the possibility of aortic rupture related to seizure attacks. (Hong Kong j.emerg.med. 2014;21:103-106)