The Korean government released the National Spatial Data Infrastructure Portal (NSDIP) by integrating the spatial information possessed by 205 agencies to implement governance through the portal. In ...this study, four evaluation criteria groups (disclosure, participation, civil petition service, and website usability) were established through a literature review related to governance and government portals. After evaluation based on the four evaluation criteria, governance improvement measures were suggested. As an improvement measure, in terms of information disclosure, it was necessary to manage the quality of data update cycle, accuracy, metadata, etc., and to provide customized spatial information. In the stakeholder participation section, feedback from users is reflected in policies, and activation of participation spaces through education and exhibitions is required. In terms of civil petition service, it is necessary to introduce an incentive system to improve innovative services and to prepare measures to prevent infringement of security and privacy in the civil petition process. In website usability, it is necessary to prepare an improvement plan by introducing user-friendly interface design using GIS viewer, and statistics and GIS spatial analysis functions. The improvement plan by the evaluation criteria is expected to be the direction to implement inclusive portal governance.
Currently, the efforts of many cities around the world, including Seoul, are aimed at transforming themselves into smart cities under a governance vision. Thus, the purpose of this study is to ...propose a reinforcement plan for the ’Smart Seoul’ portal to develop into a cooperative, participatory, and network governance. We select four representative smart city portals from Barcelona, Amsterdam, Columbus, and Singapore and evaluate their main features and roles. We sort the features analyzed in each portal based on certain governance strategies, employing their key features as part of our evaluation criteria model. These evaluation criteria are used to analyze the ‘Smart Seoul’ portal and create a strengthening plan. The plan comprises a set of actions intended to improve the portal’s capabilities in terms of disclosure of information, the participation of stakeholders, and civil petition services. When this plan is implemented, the resulting optimal information disclosure through the ‘Smart Seoul’ portal will ensure the transparency of Seoul’s administration and create an environment in which citizens can actively participate in solving urban problems and making decisions. In addition, the results of this study will be an important guideline for the design and operation of smart city portals, and the catalogs for key features are expected to be used to make smart city portal design regulations in the future.
The rapid economic growth of Korea was accompanied by the side effect of disproportionate growth between regions. The central government has implemented balanced development strategies by enacting ...the Special Act on Balanced National Development. For example, central administrative institutions were relocated to Sejong-si, which was built as the administrative capital. This study examines whether the top-down strategy promoted balanced growth between regions using public big data. We use various indicators to pay attention to not only quantitative growth, such as population size and economic growth, but also qualitative growth, such as life satisfaction. The results show that, despite the government’s efforts, the population was concentrated in the major metropolitan areas and the economic gap between regions did not narrow. While metropolitan areas achieved steady growth based on the preemption of spatial competitiveness, non-metropolitan areas did not take advantage of more investment from government. However, it shows a significant increase in job creation in Sejong-si, suggesting it is more efficient to move institutions in groups than to completely disperse public institutions in the balanced development strategy. In terms of the quality of life, Sejong-si had the lowest personal life satisfaction and local life satisfaction, indicating that the top-down strategy has failed to manage the quality of life. We propose that promoting a compact city with multiple functions in the non-metropolitan areas will help balance development. To achieve a better quality of life, centralized power should be transferred to local governments, and policies should be built based on communication with local residents. Innovative and sustainable policies that efficiently utilize the uniqueness and potential of the region are needed for balanced growth.
During crop cultivation, water-deficit conditions retard growth, thus reducing crop productivity. Therefore, uncovering the mechanisms behind drought tolerance is a critical task for crop ...improvement. Here, we show that the rice (Oryza sativa) WRKY transcription factor OsWRKY5 negatively regulates drought tolerance. We determined that OsWRKY5 was mainly expressed in developing leaves at the seedling and heading stages, and that its expression was reduced by drought stress and by treatment with NaCl, mannitol, and abscisic acid (ABA). Notably, the genome-edited loss-of-function alleles oswrky5-2 and oswrky5-3 conferred enhanced drought tolerance, measured as plant growth under water-deficit conditions. Conversely, the overexpression of OsWRKY5 in the activation-tagged line oswrky5-D resulted in higher susceptibility under the same conditions. The loss of OsWRKY5 activity increased sensitivity to ABA, thus promoting ABA-dependent stomatal closure. Transcriptome deep sequencing and reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction analyses demonstrated that the expression of abiotic stress-related genes including rice MYB2 (OsMYB2) was upregulated in oswrky5 knockout mutants and downregulated in oswrky5-D mutants. Moreover, dual-luciferase, yeast one-hybrid, and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays showed that OsWRKY5 directly binds to the W-box sequences in the promoter region of OsMYB2 and represses OsMYB2 expression, thus downregulating genes downstream of OsMYB2 in the ABA signaling pathways. Our results demonstrate that OsWRKY5 functions as a negative regulator of ABA-induced drought stress tolerance, strongly suggesting that inactivation of OsWRKY5 or manipulation of key OsWRKY5 targets could be useful to improve drought tolerance in rice cultivars.
Abstract The state-of-the-art all-solid-state batteries have emerged as an alternative to the traditional flammable lithium-ion batteries, offering higher energy density and safety. Nevertheless, ...insufficient intimate contact at electrode-electrolyte surface limits their stability and electrochemical performance, hindering the commercialization of all-solid-state batteries. Herein, we conduct a systematic investigation into the effects of shear force in the dry electrode process by comparing binder-free hand-mixed pellets, wet-processed electrodes, and dry-processed electrodes. Through digitally processed images, we quantify a critical factor, ‘coverage’, the percentage of electrolyte-covered surface area of the active materials. The coverage of dry electrodes was significantly higher (67.2%) than those of pellets (30.6%) and wet electrodes (33.3%), enabling superior rate capability and cyclability. A physics-based electrochemical model highlights the effects of solid diffusion by elucidating the impact of coverage on active material utilization under various current densities. These results underscore the pivotal role of the electrode fabrication process, with the focus on the critical factor of coverage.
Cathepsin S (CTSS), a lysosomal protease, belongs to a family of cysteine cathepsin proteases that promote degradation of damaged proteins in the endolysosomal pathway. Aberrant CTSS expression and ...regulation are associated with the pathogenesis of several diseases, including lung diseases. CTSS overexpression causes a variety of pathological processes, including pulmonary fibrosis, with increased CTSS secretion and accelerated extracellular matrix remodeling. Compared to many other cysteine cathepsin family members, CTSS has unique features that it presents limited tissue expression and retains its enzymatic activity at a neutral pH, suggesting its decisive involvement in disease microenvironments. In this review, we investigated the role of CTSS in lung disease, exploring recent studies that have indicated that CTSS mediates fibrosis in unique ways, along with its structure, substrates, and distinct regulation. We also outlined examples of CTSS inhibitors in clinical and preclinical development and proposed CTSS as a potential therapeutic target for pulmonary fibrosis.
Display omitted
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Despite the emerging scientific interest in polymer‐based stretchable electronics, the trade‐off between the crystallinity and stretchability of intrinsically stretchable polymer ...semiconductors—charge‐carrier mobility increases as crystallinity increases while stretchability decreases—hinders the development of high‐performance stretchable electronics. Herein, a highly stretchable polymer semiconductor is reported that shows concurrently improved thin film crystallinity and stretchability upon thermal annealing. The polymer thin films annealed at temperatures higher than their crystallization temperatures exhibit substantially improved thin film stretchability (> 200%) and hole mobility (≥ 0.2 cm2 V−1 s−1). The simultaneous enhancement of the crystallinity and stretchability is attributed to the thermally‐assisted structural phase transition that allows the formation of edge‐on crystallites and reinforces interchain noncovalent interactions. These results provide new insights into how the current crystallinity–stretchability limitation can be overcome. Furthermore, the results will facilitate the design of high‐mobility stretchable polymer semiconductors for high‐performance stretchable electronics.
An intrinsically stretchable polymer semiconductor with thin film stretchability exceeding 200% is developed by tailoring its crystalline structure. The polymer semiconductor exhibits simultaneously enhanced crystallinity, charge‐carrier mobility, and stretchability, for the first time, through strengthened noncovalent interactions in dynamically oriented edge‐on crystallites under tensile strain, strongly holding adjacent amorphous domains.
Full text
Available for:
FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Homoleptic tris-cyclometalated iridium complexes, fac-Ir5-(2-RCB)ppy3 (3a–3c; CB = o-carboran-1-yl; ppy = 2-phenylpyridinato-C2,N; R = H (3a), Me (3b), i Bu (3c)) with 2-R-substituted o-carboranes ...at the 5-position of the ppy ligand, were prepared and characterized. X-ray diffraction analysis of 3a and 3c revealed that the three C^N ligands adopt a fac-arrangement around the Ir atom and that the carboranyl C–C bond distance increases with increasing steric effects of the 2-R substituent. The phosphorescence wavelengths of the complexes were apparently blue-shifted by ca. 20 nm (λem = 487–493 nm) compared to that of the parent fac-Ir(ppy)3 (4; λem = 508 nm). In particular, 3a–3c were highly emissive in toluene, and the phosphorescence quantum efficiencies of 3a and 3b (ΦPL = 0.95–0.98) were comparable to that of 4. Solution-processed electroluminescent devices incorporating 3a–3c as emitters displayed green light with high performance, and devices based on the 3c dopant showed the highest performance. In particular, the devices based on 3c exhibited performance more than double of that of the device based on 4 in terms of current efficiency (29.6 cd/A for 3c vs 15.8 cd/A for 4 at 4 wt % Ir and 1000 cd/m2), power efficiency (11.0 lm/W for 3c vs 6.3 lm/W for 4), and external quantum efficiency (10.2% for 3c vs 4.7% for 4) over a wide range of luminance. The higher PL quantum yields of doped host films with 3c than those with 4 at high dopant concentrations above 8 wt % suggested that along with high phosphorescence quantum efficiency, the steric bulkiness of the 2- i Bu-substituted o-carborane in 3c plays a crucial role in improving device performance.
Full text
Available for:
IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM