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Electrochemically robust oxide-supported dendritic Pt and Ir nanoparticles for PEM-URFC.

Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) is a rare autosomal dominant disorder with various phenotypes involving multiple systems. Stroke co-occurrence in DM1 is rare, but can cause severe dysfunction in a patient’s quality of life. However, the mechanism of stroke in patients with DM1 is poorly understood. In this case report, we present a patient who was diagnosed with DM1 while suffering from a brain embolic infarction due to antiphospholipid syndrome (APS). This is the first known case of DM1 with APS. The coexistence of these two multisystem diseases may make the diagnosis difficult, and there is the possibility of symptoms involving multiple organs. We should pay attention to the possibility of the coexistence of autoimmune disease and stroke in DM1 patients based on this rare case of a DM1 patient with stroke and an autoimmune disease.

本稿は、『仮名手本忠臣蔵』の韓国語訳における翻訳戦略とその形式を、長年蓄積された文化の産物としてのことわざの翻訳に着目し、その韓国語訳を分析したうえで分類し、その特徴を考察したものである。分析の結果、翻訳の傾向は直訳を主なスタンスとし、多様な形式を試みていることが明らかになった。その翻訳戦略の様相として、「直訳」の形式、「直訳＋表現の変換」の形式、「直訳＋表現の追加」の形式、「その他」の形式に分けられる。まず「直訳」の形式は、それに相応する韓国語のことわざを使わず、忠実に直訳した韓国語訳によって文脈から読み取る方法を取っている。次に「表現の変換」では、原典の名詞を述語句に変える例と、原典の固有語を韓国語の固有語に変える例が多く、自然な韓国語にしようとする工夫が見られる。そして「表現の追加」では、原典の前後文脈を説明する表現、副詞、擬態語を追加して文脈を鮮明にし、原典で省略されたことわざの部分を補って文脈を強調した。また「その他」は、訳注や括弧に説明したり、挿絵や四字熟語、引用記号を入れるなどの工夫を用いて、直訳しながらも読みやすく訳そうとしている。最後に、ことわざを含む原典の韓国語訳において困難な掛詞に関する例を考察し、韓国語の表現の選択と追加によって、訳文で韓国語同士が掛詞の修辞をなし、訳文の魅力を増加させている例を確認した。これは、訳者の翻訳戦略と形式の可能性及び重要性を示唆している。, 研究論文(Article)

Bimetallic CuPd oxide alloy electrocatalysts can promote selective ammonia production from the nitrate reduction reaction by accelerating the rate-determining hydrogenation of nitrite, which is a critical intermediate.

Botulinum toxin type A injection is widely used treatment option for the treatment of upper limb spasticity in stroke patients. The purpose of this study was to explore the safety and efficacy of MT10107, a new botulinum toxin type A, in patients with post-stroke upper limb spasticity.A prospective, randomized, double-blind, active drug-controlled, multi-center, phase I clinical trial. Thirty patients with post-stroke upper limb spasticity were received either MT10107 or onabotulinumtoxinA. Primary endpoint was change of modified Ashworth scale (MAS) score for wrist flexor from baseline to week 4. The secondary endpoints were changes of MAS scores for elbow and finger flexors, response rate, Disability Assessment Scale (DAS), and global assessment of treatment. The safety endpoints such as adverse events, vital signs, physical examination, and laboratory test were evaluated. The outcome measures were evaluated from baseline to week 4.The primary endpoints were -1.07 ± 0.70 and -1.23 ± 0.56 for the MT10107 and onabotulinumtoxinA groups, respectively. The intergroup difference of change between the 2 groups was 0.17 (95% confidence interval -0.31 to 0.64, P = .5769). In secondary endpoints, both groups showed a significant improvement in both MAS and DAS. There was no significant between-group difference in all secondary endpoints and safety measures.The safety and efficacy of MT10107 showed no significant difference compared to onabotulinumtoxinA in post-stroke upper limb spasticity treatment.

Marine macroalgae are potential renewable feedstocks for valuable biomaterials. Among them, alginate is a primary component in brown algae that can be nonenzymatically converted and enzymatically degraded by alginate lyases to 4-deoxy- l -erythro-5-hexoseulose uronic acid (DEH). Here, we constructed alginolytic enzyme complexes comprising two different alginate lyases for synergistic alginate degradation. The complexes showed good thermostability with 60% of the residual activity at high temperature (60 °C). Furthermore, they produced 0.85 and 0.18 mg/mL DEH from alginate and natural brown algae as substrates, respectively. The enzyme complex successfully decomposed brown algal biomass, resulting in a 3.15-fold improvement in DEH when compared to free enzymes. The Ralstonia eutropha strain with alginolytic enzyme complexes on the cell surface showed higher Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) production and produced 2.58 g/L PHB from alginate. After the use of alginate, remaining biomass such as fucoidan and laminaran can also be used in the future for high value ingredients in nutritional, medical device, skincare and dermatological products. These results demonstrate that it is possible to create more efficient strategies for producing biodegradable PHB and functional polysaccharides from brown algal substrates.

Metabolic engineering of non-photosynthetic microorganisms to increase the utilization of CO2 has been focused on as a green strategy to convert CO2 into valuable products such as fatty acids. In this study, a CO2 utilization pathway involving carbonic anhydrase and biotin carboxylase was formed to recycle CO2 in the oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica, thereby increasing the production of fatty acids. In the recombinant strain in which the CO2 utilization pathway was introduced, the production of fatty acids was 10.7 g/L, which was 1.5-fold higher than that of the wild-type strain. The resulting strain had a 1.4-fold increase in dry cell mass compared to the wild-type strain. In addition, linoleic acid was 47.7% in the fatty acid composition of the final strain, which was increased by 11.6% compared to the wild-type strain. These results can be applied as an essential technology for developing efficient and eco-friendly processes by directly utilizing CO2.

To improve the independence of brain impairment patients in ADL, we sought to identify influential parameters from information commonly collected in hospitals, prioritize the factors, and specify the degree to which those factors are necessary. In total, 64 patients with hemiplegia, who had been admitted to the one of the authors, were examined using various evaluation tools. Afterwards, we checked the difference between the capable group and the incapable group with an independent t-test or chi-squared test to determine the significant factors, and we prioritized the significant factors with Spearman’s rho test. The degree of their necessity was determined with the ROC curve. Standing balancing ability and hip joint and knee extensor strength are necessary in most ADL except for eating. In order to independently perform most ADL except eating and one gait cycle, the strength of the knee extensor and hip flexor was required to exceed grade 3 on the MRC scale. However, one gait cycle was possible even if the strength of the hip joint and knee extensors rated lower than 3 on the MRC scale. Additionally, upper limb motor recovery was required up to the distal parts in the order of bathing, dressing, and grooming.

Biobased processes to minimize environmental pollutants have attracted much attention. l-Carnosine has been produced by chemical synthesis, and as an alternative to this method, we newly developed engineered Corynebacterium glutamicum synthesizing l-carnosine. To develop the strain, the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) was enhanced by attenuating flux to nonoxidative PPP. Enhanced PPP strengthened the histidine pathway and produced 5.0 g/L l-histidine and 3.9 mg/L l-carnosine. Then, the histidine synthetic pathway was reinforced by overexpressing HisG and Rel. This pathway reduced feedback inhibition by l-histidine and strengthened the flux of the histidine pathway; thus, it produced 552.20 mg/g DCW l-histidine. As a result, enhancement of the PPP accumulates more l-histidine than the histidine pathway; thus, the PPP was further enhanced by pgi gene alteration. For sufficient β-alanine products, PanD was overexpressed and produced 99.17 mg/L l-carnosine. The final strain, Car15, which consolidated all three pathways, produced 323.26 mg/L l-carnosine via fed-batch fermentation. Finally, we confirmed the antioxidant and antiglycation effects of biologically synthesized l-carnosine, and the biologically synthesized l-carnosine showed inhibitory activity similar to that of commercial l-carnosine. Consequently, this study suggested a new biosynthetic process for l-carnosine and showed potential as a treatment for metabolic disorders through the assessment of its functions.

A novel whole cell biocatalyst using fungal-pretreated lignocellulosic biomass was developed by displaying the enzyme complex consisting of N-acetylglucosaminidase (cNAG) and endoglucanse E (cCelE) on Corynebacterium glutamicum, hereafter called mNC. mNC showed a maximum 4.43-fold cNAG and 2.40-fold cCelE activity compared to single enzyme-secreting C. glutamicum. mNC also showed the highest efficiency of sugar production in various types of cellulose and fungal-pretreated biomass. The growth of mNC was 5.06-fold higher than that of the control. Then, the ability of mNC to produce a valuable chemical was confirmed. mNC overexpressing isopropanol biosynthesis genes showed a maximum titer of 218.9 ± 11.73 mg/L isopropanol and maintained high efficiency for isopropanol production in the recycling test, which was 90.07 ± 4.12 % during 4 cycles. This strategy can be applied to the direct saccharification of fungal-pretreated lignocellulosic biomass efficiently leading to the production of valuable products in various industrial fields.

The high capital cost of electrolyzers is one of the major obstacles encountered in the industrial adoption of electrochemical CO2 reduction (CO2R) systems. The anion exchange membrane (AEM) is a major contributor to the cost of electrolyzers. Herein, we propose a strategy for improving the economic feasibility by applying a low-cost porous membrane (PM). For a CO2R reaction (CO2RR), the activity and selectivity of an electrolyzer using a PM were found to be similar to those achieved using an AEM. Furthermore, the physical properties of PM, such as pore size, hydrophobicity, and thickness, can be tuned to suit the CO2RR. A techno-economic analysis of the entire process revealed that adopting a PM is economically advantageous compared to adopting an AEM. Our results not only provide new practical and economical insights into the CO2RR, but also demonstrate its potential extension to a variety of electrolytic systems.

The applicability of deep learning to remote sensing is rapidly increasing in accordance with the improvement in spatiotemporal resolution of satellite images. However, unlike satellite images acquired in near-real-time over wide areas, there are limited amount of labeled data used for model training. In this article, three kinds of deep learning applications—data augmentation, semisupervised classification, and domain-adapted architecture—were tested in an effort to overcome the limitation of insufficient labeled data. Among the diverse tasks that can be used for classification, rice paddy detection in South Korea was performed for its ability to fully utilize the advantages of deep learning and high spatiotemporal image resolution. In the process of designing each application, the domain knowledge of remote sensing and rice phenology was integrated. Then, all possible combinations of the three applications were examined and evaluated with pixel-based comparisons in various environments and city-level comparisons using national statistics. The results of this article indicated that all combinations of the applications can contribute to increase classification performance, even though the uncertainty involved in imitating or utilizing unlabeled data remains. As the effectiveness of the proposed applications was experimentally confirmed, enhancement in the applicability of deep learning was expected in various remote sensing areas. In particular, the proposed applications would be significant when they are applied to a wide range of study areas and high-resolution images, as they tend to require a large amount of learning data from diverse environments, owing to high intra-class heterogeneity.

The emergence of multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumanniias a nosocomial pathogen is one of the major public health problems. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of an efflux pump gene adeJ for the multidrug resistance of A. baumanniiclinical isolates. Two groups (MDRAB and SAB) of A. baumanniiclinical isolates were studied. The SAB group consisted of strains that did not meet the criteria of MDRAB and were susceptible to more categories of antibiotics than MDRAB. Antimicrobial susceptibility results obtained by VITEKⅡ system were used in data analysis and bacterial group allocation. We performed real-time reverse transcription PCR to determine relative expression of adeJ. We compared relative expression of adeJ in comparison groups by considering two viewpoints: i) MDRAB and SAB groups and ii) susceptible and non-susceptible groups for each antibiotic used in this study.The mean value of relative expression of adeJ of MDRAB and SAB groups was 1.4 and 0.92, respectively, and showed significant difference (P=0.002). The mean values of relative expression of adeJ of susceptible and non-susceptible groups to the antibiotics cefepime, ceftazidime, ciprofloxacin, imipenem, meropenem, tigecycline, piperacillin/tazobactam, ticarcillin/clavulanic acid, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, piperacillin, and gentamicin showed statistically significant differences. The overexpression of adeIJK might contribute to the multi-drug resistance in A. baumanniiclinical isolates. Further, the overexpression of adeIJK might be one of the factors contributing to the resistance to numerous antibiotics.

The electrosynthesis of formate from CO2 can mitigate environmental issues while providing an economically valuable product. Although stannic oxide is a good catalytic material for formate production, a metallic phase is formed under high reduction overpotentials, reducing its activity. Here, using a fluorine-doped tin oxide catalyst, a high Faradaic efficiency for formate (95% at 100 mA cm−2) and a maximum partial current density of 330 mA cm−2 (at 400 mA cm−2) is achieved for the electroreduction of CO2. Furthermore, the formate selectivity (≈90%) is nearly constant over 7 days of operation at a current density of 100 mA cm−2. In-situ/operando spectroscopies reveal that the fluorine dopant plays a critical role in maintaining the high oxidation state of Sn, leading to enhanced durability at high current densities. First-principle calculation also suggests that the fluorine-doped tin oxide surface could provide a thermodynamically stable environment to form HCOO* intermediate than tin oxide surface. These findings suggest a simple and efficient approach for designing active and durable electrocatalysts for the electrosynthesis of formate from CO2.

Computational calculations and experimental studies reveal that the CoOOH phase and the intermediate-spin (IS) state are the key factors for realizing efficient Co-based electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). However, according to thermodynamics, general cobalt oxide converts to the CoO2 phase under OER condition, retarding the OER kinetics. Herein, we demonstrate a simple and scalable strategy to fabricate electrodes with maintaining Fe-CoOOH phase and an IS state under the OER. The changes of phase and spin states were uncovered by combining in-situ/operando X-ray based absorption spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. Electrochemical reconstruction of chalcogenide treated Co foam affords a highly enlarged active surface that conferred excellent catalytic activity and stability in a large-scale water electrolyzer. Our findings are meaningful in that the calculated results were experimentally verified through the operando analyses. It also proposes a new strategy for electrode fabrication and confirms the importance of real active phases and spin states under a particular reaction condition., The phase and spin state affect catalytic activity of Co-based catalysts for oxygen evolution reaction. Herein, the authors demonstrate a simple reconstruction strategy to fabricate electrodes maintaining a Fe-CoOOH phase and an intermediate-spin state during catalysis.

l-Ergothioneine (EGT) is a strong antioxidant used in industry, and it is commonly extracted from mushrooms; however, its production is limited. As an alternative, we developed metabolically engineered

The diamond-graphite hybrid thin film with low-dimensional nanostructure (e.g., nitrogen-included ultrananocrystalline diamond (N-UNCD) or the alike), has been employed in many impactful breakthrough applications. However, the detailed picture behind the bottom-up evolution of such intriguing carbon nanostructure is far from clarified yet. Here, the authors clarify it, through the concerted efforts of microscopic, physical, and electrochemical analyses for a series of samples synthesized by hot-filament chemical vapor deposition using methane-hydrogen precursor gas, based on the hydrogen-dependent surface reconstruction of nanodiamond and on the substrate-temperature-dependent variation of the growth species (atomic hydrogen and methyl radical) concentration near substrate. The clarified picture provides insights for a drastic enhancement in the electrochemical activities of the hybrid thin film, concerning the detection of important biomolecule, that is, ascorbic acid, uric acid, and dopamine: their limits of detections are 490, 35, and 25 nm, respectively, which are among the best of the all-carbon thin film electrodes in the literature. This work also enables a simple and effective way of strongly enhancing AA detection.

Industrial and technological development have contributed significantly to causing environmental crises, such as climate change and land degradation. To address these environmental challenges, nature-based solutions (NBS) have gained increased attention over conventional technical responses. This study derived conceptual linkages from NBS application to resilience promotion, and subsequently, to the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs). The study was conducted to reveal that NBS activities are an essential approach that determines the balance between human development and nature conservation. In this paper, we compare four case studies, one domestic reforestation project and three international afforestation projects, all of which had forest-related NBS experiences and were conducted by the Republic of Korea. All four projects were found to have an impact on environmental and socio-economic resilience. These impacts were qualitatively assessed through resilience indicator evaluations. Subsequently, the resilience indicators were matched with the targets of the SDGs. NBS initiatives designed to include various natural and social elements promoted the resilience of ecosystems and society and address a broader spectrum of SDGs. Further efforts to establish region-specific promotional models, identify resilience indicators, and collect scientific data are recommended for quantitatively assessing the NBS initiatives.

Metabolic engineering of non-photosynthetic microorganisms to increase the utilization of CO

The performance of the ASTA MicroIDSys system (ASTA, Suwon, South Korea), a new matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) system, was evaluated for the identification of viridans group streptococci (VGS) and compared with the results obtained with the Bruker Biotyper system (Bruker Daltonics, Hamburg, Germany). A total of 106 Streptococcus reference strains belonging to 24 species from the bacterial strain bank was analyzed using the two MALDI-TOF MS systems. Of the 106 reference strains tested, ASTA MicroIDSys and Bruker Biotyper correctly identified 84.9% and 81.1% at the species level, 100% and 97.2% at the group level and 100% and 98.1% at the genus level, respectively. The difference between the two systems was not statistically significant (P = 0.289). Out of 24 species, 13 species were accurately identified to the species level with 100% accurate identification rates with both systems. The accurate identification rates at the species level of ASTA MicroIDSys and Bruker Biotyper were 100% and 87.5% for the S. anginosus group; 78.4% and 73.5% for the S. mitis group; 91.7% and 91.7% for the S. mutans group; and 100% and 100% for the S. salivarius group, respectively. The ASTA MicroIDSys showed an identification performance equivalent to that of the Bruker Biotyper for VGS. Therefore, it would be useful for the identification of VGS strains in clinical microbiology laboratories. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Single-atom catalysts (SACs) possess the potential to achieve unique catalytic properties and remarkable catalytic mass activity by utilizing low-coordination and unsaturated active sites. However, smaller particles tend to aggregate into clusters or particles owing to their high surface energy. In addition, support materials that have strong interactions with isolated metal atoms, extremely large surface areas, and electrochemical stability are required. Therefore, sufficient information about these factors is needed to synthesize and utilize SACs. Herein, we review the recent investigations and advances in SACs for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). We present not only the structural characterization of SACs, but also in situ/operando spectroscopic techniques and computational research for SACs to understand the mechanism and reveal the origin of their excellent OER activity. Furthermore, the OER catalytic activity and stability of SACs are summarized to evaluate the current level of SACs. Currently, research on single-atoms as OER catalysts is in the infant stage for synthesis, characterization and mechanism studies. We discuss some challenges for understanding the fundamentals of SACs and enhancing the catalytic performance of SACs for industrial applications.