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Gut microbial changes are associated with diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes and may be influenced by diet patterns. Thus, this paper aims to investigate the effects of alcohol, sodium chloride (NaCl) and dietary restriction on the composition of the gut microflora.

Five-week-old male C57BL/6N mice were orally administered by gavage with ethanol (ET; 4 g/kg), 200 µL of 6% NaCl (NC), or equivalent volumes of phosphate-buffered saline (ET-control and NC-control) every two days for 10 weeks. The mice were also orally administered by gavage with the recommended diet (RD-control; 3 g per mouse per day), or with 40% (RD-40) or 60% restricted level (RD-60). DNA samples obtained from mice ceca were sequenced using the Illumina MiSeq Sequencing system; raw data were analyzed using BIOiPLUG software.

This study shows that high ethanol and NaCl consumption, and diet restriction can change the composition of the intestinal microflora, especially Akkermansia muciniphila in ET (p = 0.0050) and NT (p = 0.0366) groups. In addition, the ratio of Bacteriodetes/Firmicutes and the diversity of microflora were generally reduced (p = 0.0487-0.4929).

These results raise the possibility of a relationship between diet patterns, change of intestinal microbiome and disease, which must be further evaluated.

Very recently, the South Korean architectural field has seen a rising trend to reinterpret the traditional hanok, meaning Korean-style house. While this presents an interesting diversion from the housing market dominated by high-rise apartments, there is a lack of consensus in determining the scope and definition of hanoks. This is because of many experiments with the features of the hanok, such as inclusion of new material, construction techniques, and even radically new spatial organizations.

This article explores and analyzes the effectiveness of four different approaches of reinterpreting hanoks: apartment hanoks, urban hanoks, rural experimentations, and contemporary versions. At one end of the spectrum, there is the recent integration of a hanok’s features in high-rise apartments otherwise considered modern. Then I move on to discuss examples of urban hanoks built since the start of the industrialization era in the 1920s and afterwards. Urban hanoks are detached houses, most of which show a stylistic preference toward wooden hanoks of the elite literati. The third approach is rural experimentations that involve the development of an unconventional construction method by both architects and non-architects. Finally, this paper turns to reinterpretations of the hanok by architects trained in contemporary architecture. Although each approach differs in the degree of integrating historical hanok features, some commonalities, such as low floor area ratio and the organic integration of an open courtyard, can be detected among the successful cases.