Biological threat preparedness through vaccine development and stockpiling: challenges and strategic implications.

Biological threat agents such as , , and botulinum toxin pose serious risk to national security and public health due to their high transmissibility, lethality, and potential for weaponization. This study analyzes the current status of vaccine development and strategic stockpiling for five biological agents-, , , , and botulinum toxin-which are believed to be potentially weaponized by North Korea. It reviews both traditional and next-generation vaccine platforms, including live-attenuated, inactivated, protein subunit, viral vector, DNA, RNA, and novel technologies such as self-amplifying RNA vaccine and advanced adjuvants.

Slurry Synthesis and Thin-Film Fabrication Toward Production of Li₂O-B₂O₃-Al₂O₃-Based Multilayer Oxide Solid-State Batteries for Internet of Things Applications.

Developing thin-film sheets made of oxide-based solid electrolytes is essential for fabricating surface-mounted ultracompact multilayer oxide solid-state batteries. To this end, solid-electrolyte slurry must be optimized for excellent dispersibility. Although oxide-based solid electrolytes for multilayer structures require sintering, high processing temperatures cause problems such as Li-ion volatilization and reactions with graphite anodes.

Sub-Terahertz Imaging-Based Real-Time Non-Destructive Inspection System for Estimating Water Activity and Foreign Matter Depth in Seaweed.

As the importance of hygiene and safety management in food manufacturing has been increasingly emphasized, research on non-destructive and non-contact inspection technologies has become more active. This study proposes a real-time and non-destructive food inspection system with sub-terahertz waves which penetrates non-conducting materials by using a frequency of 0.1 THz.

Analysis of 207 residual pesticides in hot pepper powder using LC-MS/MS.

Unlabelled: This study investigated the determination of 207 pesticides in hot pepper powder and found patterns of pesticide use by production from five regions, detecting a total of 50 pesticides. The LOD, LOQ and recoveries of pesticides were 0.08-2.

Object-stable unsupervised dual contrastive learning image-to-image translation with query-selected attention and convolutional block attention module.

Recently, contrastive learning has gained popularity in the field of unsupervised image-to-image (I2I) translation. In a previous study, a query-selected attention (QS-Attn) module, which employed an attention matrix with a probability distribution, was used to maximize the mutual information between the source and translated images. This module selected significant queries using an entropy metric computed from the attention matrix.

Facial electromyogram-based facial gesture recognition for hands-free control of an AR/VR environment: optimal gesture set selection and validation of feasibility as an assistive technology.

Unlabelled: The rapid expansion of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) into various applications has increased the demand for hands-free input interfaces when traditional control methods are inapplicable (e.g., for paralyzed individuals who cannot move their hands).

Facial Motion Capture System Based on Facial Electromyogram and Electrooculogram for Immersive Social Virtual Reality Applications.

With the rapid development of virtual reality (VR) technology and the market growth of social network services (SNS), VR-based SNS have been actively developed, in which 3D avatars interact with each other on behalf of the users. To provide the users with more immersive experiences in a metaverse, facial recognition technologies that can reproduce the user's facial gestures on their personal avatar are required. However, it is generally difficult to employ traditional camera-based facial tracking technology to recognize the facial expressions of VR users because a large portion of the user's face is occluded by a VR head-mounted display (HMD).

Extremely Low-Profile Monopolar Microstrip Antenna with Wide Bandwidth.

In this paper, we propose a new monopolar microstrip antenna for a high-speed moving swarm sensor network. The proposed antenna shows an extremely thin substrate thickness supported with an omni-directional radiation pattern and wide operation frequency bandwidth. First, to achieve the low-profile monopolar microstrip antenna, the symmetrical center feeding network and the gap-coupled six arrayed patches which form a hexagonal microstrip radiator were utilized.

Determination of 113 pesticides in hot pepper powder in Korea.

In five regions of Korea, a total of 963 hot pepper powder samples were analyzed for 113 pesticides and one synergist using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. For three years, sampling was performed every producing day in production plants according to ISO 24153 : 2009 methods. The limit of detection and limit of quantification ranges were 0.