Oat AsDA1-2D enhances heat stress tolerance and negatively regulates seed-storage globulin.

The importance of oats has increased because of their high nutritional value and health benefits in the human diet. High-temperature stress during the reproductive growth period has a detrimental effect on grain morphology by changing the structure and concentration of several seed-storage proteins. DA1, a conserved ubiquitin-proteasome pathway component, plays an important role in regulating grain size by controlling cell proliferation in maternal integuments during the grain-filling stage.

Modeling for Estimating Influenza Patients from ILI Surveillance Data in Korea.

Objective: Prediction of influenza incidence among outpatients from an influenza surveillance system is important for public influenza strategy.

Methods: We developed two influenza prediction models through influenza surveillance data of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (each year, each province and metropolitan city; total reported patients with influenza-like illness stratified by age) for 6 years from 2005 to 2010 and disease-specific data (influenza code J09-J11, monthly number of influenza patients, total number of outpatients and hospital visits) from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment service.

Results: Incidence of influenza in each area, year, and month was estimated from our prediction models, which were validated by simulation processes.

The spread of pandemic H1N1 2009 by age and region and the comparison among monitoring tools.

This report describes the pattern of the spread of the pandemic H1N1 2009 and compares 3 monitoring tools until the 57th week or January 31, 2010. The 1st week was from December 28th, 2008 to January 3rd, 2009. A total of 740,835 patients were reported to be infected with pandemic H1N1 2009 and 225 patients were reported to have died of pandemic H1N1 2009.

A sporadic outbreak of human brucellosis in Korea.

Eleven cases of human brucellosis occurred among livestock workers and a veterinarian who lived and worked in a rural area around Jeongeup City, Jeollabuk-Do, Korea from February 2003 to August 2003. Eight of the patients had taken care of Korean native cattle that were infected with bovine brucellosis and had already been slaughtered. Two of the patients had taken care of dairy cattle, and one case was a veterinarian who acquired the disease through an accidental contact with infected cattle while assisting in calf delivery.