Psychometric Properties of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale Form C in a Non-Western Culture

Form C of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scales (MHLC-C) was designed to investigate health-related control beliefs of persons with an existing medical condition. The aim of the present study was to examine the psychometric properties of this instrument in a culture characterized by external control beliefs and learned helplessness—contrary to the societal context of original test development. Altogether, 374 Hungarian patients with cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes, and cardiovascular and musculoskeletal disorders were enrolled in the study. Besides the MHLC-C, instruments measuring general control beliefs, anxiety, depression, self-efficacy, and health behaviors were also administered to evaluate the validity of the scale. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic techniques were used to investigate the factor structure of the scale. Our results showed that the Hungarian adaptation of the instrument had a slightly different structure than the one originally hypothesized: in the present sample, a three-factor structure emerged where the items of the Doctors and the Others subscales loaded onto a single common component. Internal reliability of all three subscales was adequate (alphas between .71 and .79). Data concerning the instrument''s validity were comparable with previous results from Western countries. These findings may suggest that health locus of control can be construed very similarly to Western countries even in a post-communist society—regardless of the potential differences in general control beliefs.     

Levels of formaldehyde and TVOCs and influential factors of 100 underground station environments from 2013 to 2015

In this study, the environmental factors that affect airborne formaldehyde and total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) were evaluated and the monthly variations in formaldehyde and TVOC levels in underground platforms of subway stations were compared. Formaldehyde level was determined from May 2013 to September 2015 for lines 1 to 4 of Seoul Metro. Samples for formaldehyde and TVOCs were collected at intervals of 30 min during a 60 min period, and then analyzed via high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for formaldehyde and gas chromatography for TVOCs. Formaldehyde levels were correlated with depth of platform, whereas TVOC levels were negatively correlated with depth of platform. There were significant differences in levels of formaldehyde and TVOCs in 2013 and 2015 in the underground platforms. The highest levels of formaldehyde and TVOCs were in July from May to September, respectively (p < 0.05). Formaldehyde and TVOC levels varied greatly, depending on monthly variation and correlated with depth of platform. Therefore, Seoul Metro might need to manage the underground platforms at depth more carefully and further study the reasons behind the relatively high levels of formaldehyde and TVOC ranging from 12 to 22 m.     

The 3.5-Å CryoEM Structure of Nanodisc-Reconstituted Yeast Vacuolar ATPase Vo Proton Channel

1. Download high-res image (505KB)
2. Download full-size image

     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Zunongwangia flava</Emphasis> sp. nov., belonging to the family <Emphasis Type="Italic">Flavobacteriaceae</Emphasis>, isolated from <Emphasis Type="Italic">Salicornia europaea</Emphasis>

A yellow pigmented bacterium designated strain MBLN094^T within the family Flavobacteriaceae was isolated from a halophyte Salicornia europaea on the coast of the Yellow Sea. This strain was a Gram-stain negative, aerobic, non-spore forming, rod-shaped bacterium. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain MBLN094^T was found to be related to the genus Zunongwangia, exhibiting 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity values of 97.0, 96.8, 96.4, and 96.3% to Zunongwangia mangrovi P2E16^T, Z. profunda SM-A87^T, Z. atlantica 22II14-10F7^T, and Z. endophytica CPA58^T, respectively. Strain MBLN094^T grew at 20?37°C (optimum, 25?30°C), at pH 6.0?10.0 (optimum, 7.0?8.0), and with 0.5?15.0% (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 2.0?5.0%). Menaquinone MK-6 was the sole respiratory quinone. The polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, two unidentified aminolipids, and four unidentified lipids. Major fatty acids were iso-C_17:0 3-OH, summed feature 3 (C_16:1ω6c and/or C16:1 ω7c), and iso-C_15:0. The genomic DNA G + C content was 37.4 mol%. Based on these polyphasic taxonomic data, strain MBLN094^T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Zunongwangia, for which the name Zunongwangia flava sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is MBLN094^T (= KCTC 62279^T = JCM 32262^T).     

Castasterone Can be Biosynthesized from 28-homodolichosterone in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Arabidopsis thaliana</Emphasis>

We recently demonstrated the biosynthesis of 24-ethylidene brassinosteroids in Arabidopsis thaliana. To determine the physiological role of biosynthesis of 24-ethylidene brassinosteroids, metabolism of 28-homodolichosterone as the end product of 24-ethylidene brassinosteroids biosynthesis was examined by a crude enzyme solution prepared from A. thaliana. In wild-type plants, dolichosterone and castasterone were identified as enzyme products on GC-MS analysis. In a mutant where DWARF1 was overexpressed (35S-DWF1), the conversion rate of 28-homodolichosterone to castasterone was significantly increased. These results indicate that conversion of 28-homodolichosterone to castasterone is mediated by dolichosterone in Arabidopsis. In the root growth assay, inhibitory activity was enhanced in the order of castasterone > dolichosterone > 28-homodolichosterone, demonstrating that conversion of 28-homodolichosterone to castasterone via dolichosterone is a biosynthetic reaction that increases BR activity in Arabidopsis. Compared to Arabidopsis grown under dark conditions, light-grown Arabidopsis showed up-regulated DWARF1 expression, resulting in an increased conversion rate of 28-homodolichosterone to castasterone, suggesting that light is an important regulatory factor for the biosynthetic connection of 24-ethylidene brassinosteroids and 24-methyl brassinosteroids in A. thaliana. Consequently, 24-ethylidene brassinosteroids biosynthesis to generate 28-homodolichosterone is a lightregulated alternative route for synthesis of the biologically-active BRs, castasterone and brassinolide in Arabidopsis plants.     

A simple and efficient approach for reducing TCP timeouts due to lack of duplicate acknowledgments in data center networks

The problem of TCP incast in data centers attracts a lot of attention in our research community. TCP incast is a catastrophic throughput collapse that occurs when multiple senders transmitting TCP data simultaneously to a single aggregator. Based on several experiments, researchers found that TCP timeouts are the primary cause of incast problem. Particularly, timeouts due to insufficient duplicate acknowledgments is unavoidable when at least one of the last three segments is lost from the tail of a window. As a result, this type of timeouts should be avoided to improve the goodput of TCP in data center networks. A few attempts have been made to reduce timeouts, but still the problem is not completely solved especially in the case of timeouts due to insufficient duplicate acknowledgments. In this paper, we present an efficient TCP fast retransmission approach, called TCP-EFR, which is capable to reduce TCP timeouts due to lack of duplicate acknowledgments which is caused by the loss of packets from the tail of a window in data center networks. TCP-EFR makes changes in the fast retransmission and recovery algorithm of TCP by using the congestion signal mechanism of DCTCP based on instantaneous queue length. In addition, TCP-EFR controls the sending rate for avoiding the overflow of switch buffer in order to reduce the loss of packets. The results of a series of simulations in single as well as multiple bottleneck topologies using qualnet 4.5 demonstrates that TCP-EFR can significantly reduce the timeouts due to inadequate duplicate acknowledgments and noticeably improves the performance compared to DCTCP, ICTCP and TCP in terms of goodput, accuracy and stability under various network conditions.     

Genome based quantification of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Streptococcus parauberis</Emphasis> in multiple organs of infected olive flounder (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Paralichthys olivaceus</Emphasis>)

Although Streptococcus parauberis is the major bacterial pathogen affecting olive flounder, the translocation and dissemination of this pathogen in infected fish are not well understood. Therefore, we conducted real-time PCR and histopathologic examination to monitor the intensity of infection in multiple organs of the olive flounder after challenge with S. parauberis through subcutaneous injection. The bacterial burden in the fish kidney, when sampled at 0, 3, and 7 dpc, was 0, 6.2?±?4.5?×?10⁵, and 6.7?±?5.5?×?10⁶ CFU/100 mg of tissue, respectively, indicating that the infection progressed rapidly over time. Of the ten different tissues sampled, the heart and the brain were the major target organs of S. parauberis based on highest copy number as detected by our modified real-time PCR method. Histopathologic examination also showed that S. parauberis caused severe inflammation accompanied by leucocyte infiltration, connective tissue expansion, and a loss of cardiomyocytes in the brain and heart of fish sampled at dpc 7. However, the number of S. parauberis-positive fish at 3 dpc was much higher in the spleen (6/8 fish) than in the remaining organs, suggesting that the spleen is targeted in the early stages of infection relative to the heart (2/8 fish) or brain (3/8 fish). This study provides essential information for studies to find treatments for the effective elimination of S. parauberis in target organs (i.e., the brain and heart) of olive flounder.