• Mycobiology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.95-103
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• 2020

The genus Termitomyces (Lyophyllaceae, Basidiomycota) is often associated with fungus-feeding termites (Macrotermitinae) due to their strong symbiotic relationships. The genus is widely found exclusively in certain regions of Africa and Asia. They are recognized as edible mushroom within Southeast Asia as well. But it is often misidentified based on morphology by the local communities especially in Malaysia for Chlorophyllum molybdites which is a highly poisonous mushroom. Thus, it is necessary to study the genus for Malaysia with the synergy of using both morphological and molecular identification. In this study, we aim to describe another new species as an addition to the genus Termitomyces found within Sabah, Malaysia. We generated two new sequences (nrLSU and mtSSU) for the new species and a total of 28 nrLSU and mtSSU sequences were retrieved from GenBank for the phylogenetic analysis using maximum likelihood and Bayesian inferences. We identified that the new collection from Sabah province is a new species and named as Termitomyces gilvus based on the termites found in the mound. A phylogeny tree made from the concatenated genes of LSU and mtSSU suggests that T. gilvus is closely related to T. bulborhizus from China. According to our results, the combination of molecular and morphology proved to be a robust approach to re-evaluate the taxonomic status of Termitomyces species in Malaysia. Additional surveys are needed to verify the species diversity and clarify their geographic distribution.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.20-25
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• 2017

Objective: During the physical therapy education, if we can understand the student's attitude then we can make valuable suggestions with respect to the teaching in the universities and professional employment in the country. The aim of the current study is to develop a questionnaire to test the physical therapy students' attitudes towards their education and profession and to test its test-retest reliability and content validity. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: A total of 47 physical therapy students who were in their final year were randomly selected to participate in the study. After the making of the questionnaire, it was given to 6 professional experts teaching in the field of physical therapy to obtain their responses for each question with a 5-point Likert scale grading. Their answers were used in making the content validity of the questionnaire. Afterwards, the physical therapy students were asked to fill the questionnaire. Instrument reliability and test-retest reliability were also assessed by having the students complete the questionnaire after one month of taking the questionnaire. Results: The content validity index was 0.71 for the whole scale and values of individual subdivisions were ranging from 0.69 to 0.75. Instrument reliability measured by Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.86 for the whole scale and subdivision values were ranging from 0.32 to 0.86. Test-retest reliability was assessed by intraclass correlation coefficient, which was 0.71 for whole scales and subdivision values were ranging from 0.38 to 0.70. Conclusions: This questionnaire, which assesses the physical therapy student attitude towards their education and profession, has good content validity, instrument reliability, and test-retest reliability.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.51-57
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• 2014

NOG1 is a nucleolar GTPase that is critical for 60S ribosome biogenesis. Recently, NOG1 was identified as one of the downstream regulators of target of rapamycin (TOR) in yeast. It is reported that TOR is involved in regulating lifespan and fat storage in Caenorhabditis elegans. Here, we show that the nog1 ortholog (T07A9.9: nog-1) in C. elegans regulates growth, development, lifespan, and fat metabolism. A green fluorescence protein (GFP) promoter assay revealed ubiquitous expression of C. elegans nog-1 from the early embryonic to the adult stage. Furthermore, the GFP-tagged NOG-1 protein is localized to the nucleus, whereas the aberrant NOG-1 protein is concentrated in the nucleolus. Functional studies of NOG-1 in C. elegans further revealed that nog-1 knockdown resulted in smaller broodsize, slower growth, increased life span, and more fat storage. Moreover, nog-1 over-expression resulted in decreased life span. Taken together, our data suggest that nog-1 in C. elegans may be an important player in regulating life span and fat storage via the insulin/IGF pathway.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.35-47
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• 2022

Purpose: To explain the effect of product quality, price perception, online distribution, and social media promotion on attitudes, customer satisfaction, and local brand love. Research design, data and methodology: The population of this study are Indonesians who have purchased local Indonesian brand products. The size of the sample used was 240 people with purposive sampling method. The analytical technique used is Path Analysis using SEM-PLS. Results: product quality, price perception, online distribution have a positive effect on attitudes, but social media promotion has a positive and insignificant effect on consumer attitudes; product quality, price perception, online distribution, and social media promotion have a positive and significant effect on customer satisfaction, and attitudes have a positive and significant effect on local brand love; and customer satisfaction has a positive effect on brand love for local brands. Conclusion: Therefore, it is important for local brand product businesses to pay attention to product quality, price perception, online distribution, and social media promotion in order to be able to build positive attitudes, customer satisfaction and ultimately have an impact on local brand love. In online distribution, with online distribution, it is easy for marketers to deliver multimedia content through online methods.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.61-68
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• 2022

Background: While the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected all aspects of health care, its impact on cardiac surgical practice and outcomes is yet to be determined. We compared the outcomes of our cardiac surgical practice from the past year during the pandemic to those in a similar pre-pandemic period. Methods: Retrospective data were collected from 307 patients who were involved in all adult cardiac surgical procedures performed between March 2020 and February 2021, which was considered the pandemic period, at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, India. These were compared with data from the 1-year period between March 2019 and February 2020. During that earlier period, 491 patients underwent surgery, and the surgical outcomes were assessed. Outpatient visit data were also collected to evaluate the effect of COVID-19 on outpatient follow-up visits. Results: A 37% decrease in surgical case volume was observed during the study period. No difference was found in operative mortality between the 2 time periods (3.3% vs. 2.6%, p=0.383). Overall postoperative complications were less frequent during this period, at 23% compared to 38% the previous year (p<0.001). Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic caused a dramatic decrease in surgical volume and outpatient medical follow-up. However, the pandemic and its attendant social restrictions did not yield a significant change in the surgical outcomes of our patients. Hence, it is reasonable to continue cardiac surgical care during global health crises, and this can be done with good results.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.78-88
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• 2023

Medication safety and medicine delivery challenge the well-being of the elderly and the management of the elderly center. With the outbreak of COVID-19, the elderly in the care center were challenged by the inconvenience of the medication restocking. The purpose of this paper accentuates the importance of the design and development of an UAV-based Smart Medicine Case (UAV-SMC) to improve the performance of medication management and medicine delivery in the elderly center. The researchers came up with the design of UAV-SMC in the light of the UAV and IoT technology to improve the performance of both Medication Practice Management (MPM) and Low Inventory Detection and Delivery (LIDD). Based on the result, with UAV-SMC, the performance of both MPM and LIDD was significantly improved. The UAV-SMC improves the efficacy of medication management in the elderly center by 26.97 to 149.83 seconds for each medication practice and 9.03 mins for each time of medicine delivery in Subang Jaya Malaysia. This paper only investigates the adoption of UAV-SMC in the content of elderly center rather than other industries. The authors consider integrating the UAV-SMC with the e-pharmacy system in the future. In conclusion, the UAV-SMC has significantly improved the medication management and guard the safety of elderly and caretaker in the elderly in the post-pandemic times.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.193-204
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• 2022

Objectives: The primary objective of this study was to examine the effect of women's empowerment on the immunization of Indonesian children. The secondary objective was to examine the effect of wealth as a factor modifying this association. Methods: We utilized data from the 2017 Indonesian Demographic and Health Survey (IDHS). The subjects were married women with children aged 12-23 months (n=3532). Complete immunization was defined using the 2017 IDHS definition. Multiple components of women's empowerment were measured: enabling resources, decision-making involvement, and attitude toward intimate partner violence. The primary analysis was conducted using binomial logistic regression. Model 1 represented only the indicators of women's empowerment and model 2 controlled for socio-demographic variables. Subgroup analyses were conducted for each wealth group. Results: The primary analysis using model 1 identified several empowerment indicators that facilitated complete immunization. The analysis using model 2 found that maternal education and involvement in decision-making processes facilitated complete immunization in children. Subgroup analyses identified that wealth had a modifying effect. The indicators of women's empowerment were strong determinants of complete immunization in lower wealth quintiles but insignificant in middle-income and higher-income quintiles. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this study is the first to explore women's empowerment as a determinant of child immunization in Indonesia. The results indicate that women's empowerment must be considered in Indonesia's child immunization program. Women's empowerment was not found to be a determinant in higher wealth quintiles, which led us to rethink the conceptual framework of the effect of women's empowerment on health outcomes.

• Advances in materials Research
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.211-220
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• 2024

Polylactic acid or polylactide (PLA) is a biodegradable thermoplastic that can be produced from renewable material to create various components for industrial purposes. In 3D printing technology, PLA is used due to its good mechanical, electrical, printing properties, environmentally friendly and non-toxic properties. However, the physical properties and excellent electrical insulation properties of PLA have limited its application. In this study, with the carbon black (CB) as filler added into PLA, the lattice spacing and morphology were investigated by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM), respectively. The physical properties of PLA-carbon composite were evaluated by using tensile test, shore D hardness test and density and voids measurement. Impedance test was conducted to investigate the electrical properties of PLA-Carbon composites. The results demonstrate that the inclusion of carbon black as filler enhances the physical properties of the PLA-carbon composites, including tensile properties, hardness, and density. The addition of carbon black also leads to improved electrical conductivity of the composites. Better enhancement toward the electrical properties of PLA-carbon composites is observed with 1wt% of carbon black in N774 grade. The N550 grade with 2wt% of carbon black shows better improvement in the physical properties of PLA-carbon composites, achieving 10.686 MPa in tensile testing, 43.330 in shore D hardness test, and a density of 1.200 g/cm3 in density measurement. The findings suggest that PLA-carbon composites have the potential for enhanced performance in various industrial applications, particularly in sectors requiring improved physical and electrical properties.

• Oncology Letters
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.3981-3989
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• 2019

Tamoxifen (TAM) is the most widely used treatment for estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer patients. Unfortunately, the majority of these patients exhibit TAM resistance following treatment. We previously reported that proliferation and migration were greater in TAM-resistant MCF-7 (TAMR-MCF-7) cells than in parental MCF-7 cells. Janus kinases (JAKs) are cytosolic tyrosine kinases that transduce signals from plasma membrane cytokines and growth factor receptors. JAK2 selectively phosphorylates signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT)-3, and the JAK2-STAT3 signaling pathway is known as a crucial signaling pathway for the regulation of cancer progression and metastasis. In the present study, basal phosphorylation of STAT3 was revealed to be greater in TAMR-MCF-7 cells than in control MCF-7 cells. Ruxolitinib, a potent JAK2 inhibitor, was demonstrated to attenuate STAT3 phosphorylation and the proliferation of TAMR-MCF-7 cells. Ruxolitinib also suppressed the enhanced cell migration of TAMR-MCF-7 cells through the inhibition of epithelial mesenchymal transition. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a representative target gene of the JAK2-STAT3 pathway, functions as a key regulator of invasion and angiogenesis. Ruxolitinib significantly inhibited VEGF mRNA expression and transcriptional activity. The present study also performed a chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane assay to assess tumor growth and angiogenesis in TAMR-MCF-7 cells. Ruxolitinib reduced tumor weight and the number of blood vessels produced by TAMR-MCF-7 cells in a concentration-dependent manner. These results indicated that JAK2 could be a new therapeutic target for TAM-resistant breast cancer.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.141-147
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• 2024

The objective of this study was carried to compare the effects of different packaging and loading materials and types on the cold storage of onions. The research was conducted for over a period of six months. Onions were divided into three groups based on the packaging materials and types: mesh bag (control), ton bag (TB), and wire mesh pallet (WMP). Parameters such as moisture content (%), total soluble solids (ºBrix), Hunter-color value, rotting rate (%), and hardness (g/force) were measured and analyzed. The results of the experiment demonstrated that there was no significant differences in onions' quality between TB and WMP and the control, respectively. This study showed that TB and WMP can be used as an alternative to controls to extend the storage-life of onions and keeping quality during long-term cold storage. Furthermore, WMP packing and loading type could be replaced to conventional storage method with better efficiency in logistics of smart APC (agricultural product processing center).