Obesity is a serious worldwide health problem causing numerous obesity-related comorbidities such as hyperlipidemia, hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular dysfunctions. Recently, many studies indicate that obesity is strongly related with high rate of renal lesions and reducing weight with surgical intervention can improve renal parameters in obese patients, but the effect of bariatric surgery on obesity-induced chronic kidney disease (CKD) is hardly documented. This review study shows that bariatric surgery demonstrates beneficial reduction in proteinuria and albuminuria leading to improve both glomerular hyperfiltration and chronic kidney disease in obese population. Yet, bariatric surgery is not a definite treatment of choice for the obese patients with CKD because of lack of evidence explaining the risk of complications following bariatric surgery and clarification on estimating glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) in obese patients. Future, high quality studies with a long term follow up are required to determine the effective durability of bariatric surgery on obese-related CKD patients.
Albuminuria ; Bariatric Surgery* ; Comorbidity ; Follow-Up Studies ; Glomerular Filtration Rate ; Humans ; Hyperlipidemias ; Hypertension ; Obesity ; Proteinuria ; Renal Insufficiency, Chronic*

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate differences in language ability and emotional-behavioral problems according to the severity of social communication impairments (SCI) and restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRB) in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Materials and Methods: We grouped 113 children with ASD aged 3–12 years according to the severity of SCI and RRB, and investigated language differences and emotional-behavioral problems among the severity groups. If differences in language abilities between the groups were observed, they were further subdivided to examine possible predictors of both receptive and expressive language abilities. Results: In cluster analyses using subdomains of the Autism Diagnostic Interview-revised, severe SCI individuals showed lower language ability than their milder counterparts, while RRB showed no differences. Receptive and expressive language in the severe SCI group was negatively predicted by social communication and social motivation, respectively. The severe RRB group showed significantly higher levels of anxiety/distress, somatic complaints, thought problems, attention problems, and aggressive behavior, while the severe SCI group was reported to be more withdrawn. Conclusion The results of this study suggest that the severity of SCI greatly affects language ability. In children with severe SCI, social communication and social motivation negatively predicted receptive language and expressive language, respectively. Children with severe RRB may have more emotional-behavioral problems that require active intervention.

Purpose: Numerous studies have supported the role of the immune dysfunction in the pathogenesis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, to our knowledge, no study has been conducted on plasma cytokine levels in children with ASD in South Korea. In this study, we aimed to analyze the immunological characteristics of Korean children with ASD through plasma cytokine analysis. Materials and Methods: Blood samples were collected from 94 ASD children (mean age 7.1; 81 males and 13 females) and 48 typically developing children (TDC) (mean age 7.3; 30 males and 18 females). Plasma was isolated from 1 mL of blood by clarifying with centrifugation at 8000 rpm at 4°C for 10 min. Cytokines in plasma were measured with LEGENDplex HU Th cytokine panel (BioLegend, 741028) and LEGENDplex HU cytokine panel 2 (BioLegend, 740102). Results: Among 25 cytokines, innate immune cytokine [interleukin (IL)-33] was significantly decreased in ASD children compared with TDC. In acute phase proteins, tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) was significantly increased, while IL-6, another inflammation marker, was decreased in ASD children compared with TDC. The cytokines from T cell subsets, including interferon (IFN)-γ, IL-5, IL-13, and IL-17f, were significantly decreased in ASD children compared to TDC. IL-10, a major anti-inflammatory cytokine, and IL-9, which modulates immune cell growth and proliferation, were also significantly decreased in ASD children compared to TDC. Conclusion We confirmed that Korean children with ASD showed altered immune function and unique cytokine expression patterns distinct from TDC.

PURPOSE: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by social communication impairments and repetitive behaviors or restricted interests. Impaired pragmatic language comprehension is a universal feature in individuals with ASD. However, the underlying neural basis of pragmatic language is poorly understood. In the present study, we examined neural activation patterns associated with impaired pragmatic language comprehension in ASD, compared to typically developing children (TDC). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was applied to 15 children with ASD and 18 TDC using the Korean pragmatic language task. RESULTS: Children with ASD were less accurate than TDC at comprehending idioms, particularly when they were required to interpret idioms with mismatched images (mismatched condition). Children with ASD also showed different patterns of neural activity than TDC in all three conditions (neutral, matched, and mismatched). Specifically, children with ASD showed decreased activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) (Brodmann area 47) in the mismatched condition, compared with TDC (IFG; t(31)=3.17, p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: These results suggest that children with ASD face difficulties in comprehending pragmatic expressions and apply different pragmatic language processes at the neural level.
Autism Spectrum Disorder* ; Autistic Disorder* ; Child* ; Comprehension* ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Neurodevelopmental Disorders ; Prefrontal Cortex

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a highly prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social communication and restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs). Over the past decade, neuroimaging studies have provided considerable insights underlying neurobiological mechanisms of ASD. In this review, we introduce recent findings from brain imaging studies to characterize the brains of ASD across the human lifespan. Results of structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) studies dealing with total brain volume, regional brain structure and cortical area are summarized. Using task-based functional MRI (fMRI), many studies have shown dysfunctional activation in critical areas of social communication and RRBs. We also describe several data to show abnormal connectivity in the ASD brains. Finally, we suggest the possible strategies to study ASD brains in the future.
Autistic Disorder* ; Brain* ; Child ; Autism Spectrum Disorder* ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Neuroimaging

Especially in design of automobile, there are many professional softwares based finite element or multi-body like Madymo, Pam-Crash, Ansys. These program have been released almost every car maker and university. Also in accident reconstruction fields, there are some softwares like PC-Crash, HVE was developed. Unfortunately these programs for accident reconstruction are so general and its input data are so limited, it is very difficult or even impossible to analyze some special cases. In this study, we reconstruct two crime scenes using Madymo program. Although this program was developed for design of car, we apply to crime scene reconstruction. First case is regarding traffic accident. A car was fell under 5m from the road and turn over and then move about 40m. Finally the driver eject from the car. Second case is regarding suicide by hanging. When the police investigate the crime scene at first time, they assume that this crime is a murder case but we carried out autopsy and investigated the crime scene again and analyzed by computer simulation and finally find out this crime is suicide case not murder.
Accidents, Traffic ; Automobiles ; Autopsy ; Computer Simulation* ; Crime* ; Homicide ; Humans ; Police ; Suicide

The civilization has given us a great comfort and convenience but also it has been threatening our life at the same time. Among these causes of death the traffic accident is the most dangerous thing to threat our life in recent years. According to the report of traffic accident in 2003, the pedestrian to car accident is almost 50% of all types of traffic accident and this percentage is very high level compare to other countries. So this is why we have to focus on this field of accident. This case is as follows, when a pedestrian was riding a bicycle and crossing the road, a taxi hit the bicycle with left outside mirror. The impact was not so severe, the pedestrian stood up by himself. Unfortunately he was impacted once again by a SUV which was following behind the taxi. The evidence were the SUV, clothing and victim. A complete autopsy was performed on the victim. The skull was slightly fractured with line shape and showed hypodermal bleeding under the head skin. The thoracic vertebrae of No. 11-12 was fractured. The cause of death was apparently head trauma and fracture of thoracic vertebrae. But we could not explain why the thoracic vertebrae was fractured without damage of internal organs in chest and abdomen. To analyze this case, we used a dynamic analysis program Madymo V6.2 and applied the Hybrid-III human model. Finally we could prove that if the pedestrian stand against the SUV, the bending moment in spine was raised suddenly at the beginning of impact. At this moment the leg was started to be move to the backward of pedestrian but the upper part of body could not move because of inertia. This bending moment make the spine hyper-extension and this level of moment can fracture the spine enough in low speed of SUV. In this study we analysis the car to pedestrian accident with engineering view and introduce the detail analysis method to reconstruct the accident involving the human trauma.
Abdomen ; Accidents, Traffic ; Autopsy ; Cause of Death ; Civilization ; Clothing ; Craniocerebral Trauma ; Head ; Hemorrhage ; Humans ; Leg ; Skin ; Skull ; Spine* ; Thoracic Vertebrae ; Thorax