• Journal of Life Science
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• v.33 no.9
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• pp.693-702
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• 2023

The present study examined the rate of cell growth and differentiation potential into adipocytes in A549 lung adenocarcinoma cells exposed to each adipogenic medium containing glucose metabolism hormones, such as thyroxine (T4) thyroid hormone and glucocorticoid (GC) adrenal steroid hormone, as well as pioglitazone (PGZ), a PPARγ agonist. Following each adipogenic treatment for 2 weeks, the rate of cell growth was significantly (p<0.05) inhibited, and the level of telomerase activity was significantly (p<0.05) decreased in the PGZ-based adipogenic medium containing both T4 and GC hormone compared with those containing each T4 or GC hormone. Moreover, the adiposome-like vesicles were highly reacted with Oil-Red O staining solution, and the levels of transcripts expressed in the differentiating adipocytes for adipogenesis, including adinopectin, leptin, and resistin, were significantly (p<0.05) increased in the PGZ-based adipogenic medium containing both T4 and GC hormone compared with those of the adipogenic medium containing each T4 or GC hormone, implying that adipocytic differentiation has fully occurred in the A549 cancer cells. Based on present observations, the PGZ-based adipogenic medium containing both T4 and GC efficiently induces inhibition of cell growth and cellular differentiation into adipocytes in A549 cancer cells rather than in the adipogenic medium containing only T4 or GC hormone. Adipogenic treatment could provide potential probability in cancer chemotherapy.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.383-400
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• 2023

Air pollution-related diseases are escalating worldwide, with the World Health Organization (WHO) estimating approximately 7 million annual deaths in 2022. The rapid expansion of industrial facilities, increased emissions from various sources, and uncontrolled release of odorous substances have brought air pollution to the forefront of societal concerns. In South Korea, odor is categorized as an independent environmental pollutant, alongside air and water pollution, directly impacting the health of local residents by causing discomfort and aversion. However, the current odor management system in Korea remains inadequate, necessitating improvements. This study aims to enhance the odor management system by analyzing 1,010,749 data points collected from odor sensors located in Osong, Chungcheongbuk-do, using an Ensemble-Based Multi-Region Integrated Odor Concentration Prediction Model. The research results demonstrate that the model based on the XGBoost algorithm exhibited superior performance, with an RMSE of 0.0096, significantly outperforming the single-region model (0.0146) with a 51.9% reduction in mean error size. This underscores the potential for increasing data volume, improving accuracy, and enabling odor prediction in diverse regions using a unified model through the standardization of odor concentration data collected from various regions.

• Economic Analysis
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.1-42
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• 2021

The outlook for Korea's consumer price inflation rate has a profound impact not only on the Bank of Korea's operation of the inflation target system but also on the overall economy, including the bond market and private consumption and investment. This study presents the prediction results of consumer price inflation in Korea for the next three years. To this end, first, model selection is performed based on the out-of-sample predictive power of autoregressive distributed lag (ADL) models, AR models, small-scale vector autoregressive (VAR) models, and large-scale VAR models. Since there are many potential predictors of inflation, a Bayesian variable selection technique was introduced for 12 macro variables, and a precise tuning process was performed to improve predictive power. In the case of the VAR model, the Minnesota prior distribution was applied to solve the dimensional curse problem. Looking at the results of long-term and short-term out-of-sample predictions for the last five years, the ADL model was generally superior to other competing models in both point and distribution prediction. As a result of forecasting through the combination of predictions from the above models, the inflation rate is expected to maintain the current level of around 2% until the second half of 2022, and is expected to drop to around 1% from the first half of 2023.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.158-175
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• 2022

This study discusses mass unemployment and job insecurity due to the 4th industrial revolution and technological progress. In particular, the construction automation service method can contribute to increasing work productivity, preventing on-site safety accidents, and enhancing the competitiveness of the construction industry according to rapid development and convergence between technologies. However, there is great concern that the position of workers will decrease and the income distribution will deteriorate. Therefore, this study is necessary to alleviate the anxiety of the labor market and to find a direction for the government and all walks of life to ponder. To carry out this study, in-depth interviews were conducted with two experts currently engaged in the construction field, and through analysis, we intend to derive meaning and identify current trends, identify necessary improvement measures and institutional areas and suggest research directions. As a result of the analysis, it is possible to suggest a response strategy in a total of three themes: purpose, implication, and strategy. Based on this, there are response strategies in four areas: (1) industrial site response, (2) worker response, (3) education, and (4) training response, and government and corporate response. Through this study, it is necessary to revitalize economic and sociological discussions in the future so that the improvement in productivity and efficiency of society as a whole due to technological innovation of construction automation services does not lead to social problems such as an increase in the unemployment rate and a decrease in jobs in the labor market.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.247-254
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• 2022

To investigate the tolerance limit and critical thermal maximum (CTM), behavioral responses of wild goldeye rockfish Sebastes thompsoni according to exposure to high water temperature were observed using a continuous behavior tracking system. As a result, behavioral index (BI) of S. thompsoni in each temperature (20.0, 25.0, and 30.0℃) showed a significant difference (p<0.05) when compared with the value measured in a stable condition of 15.0℃. The activity level of S. thompsoni exposed to 25.0℃ decreased sharply after 20 hours. Their rest time at the bottom of experiment chamber increased, and their normal swimming and metabolic activities were disturbed. In addition, at a high water temperature of 30.0℃, S. thompsoni reached the limit of resistance and showed a sub-lethal reaction of swimming behavior, with energy consumption in the body increased and all test organisms died. In conclusion, the eco-physiological response of S. thompsoni to water temperature varied greatly depending on the fluctuation range of the exposed temperature and the exposure time. In addition, the tolerance limit of S. thompsoni to high water temperature was predicted to be 25.0-30.0℃. The maximum critical thermal that had a great influence on the survival of this species was found to be around 30.0℃.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Environmental Technology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.165-172
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• 2017

In current stage, it is hard to predict the scale of damage caused by natural disaster and it is hard to deal with it. However, in case of disaster planning level, if it is possible to predict the scale of disaster then quick reaction can be done which will reduce the damage. In the present study, therefore, function of wind wave damage estimation among various disaster is developed. Damage of wind wave and typhoon in eastern and Jeju coastal zone was collected from disaster report (1991~2014) published by Ministry of Public Safety and Security and to reflect inflation rate, 2014 damage cost was converted. Also, wave height, wind speed, wave direction, wave period, etc was collected from Meteorological Administration and Korea Hydrographic and Oceanographic Administration web site. To reflect the characteristic of coastal zone when wave damage occurs, CODI(Coastal Disaster Index), COSI(Coastal Sensitivity Index), CPII(Coastal Potential Impact Index) published by Korea Hydrographic and Oceanographic Agency in 2015 were used. When damage occurs, function predicting wind wave damage was developed through weather condition, regional characteristic index and correlation of damage cost.

• Korean small business review
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.57-76
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• 2017

While the unemployment rate is rising rapidly due to recent economic recession at home and abroad, university students' reluctance to apply for jobs in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME's) causes instability in manpower supply and demand and social unrest. To provide insights for solving the problem, this study explores how beliefs and attitudes of university students influence their intention to apply for jobs in SME's using Theory of Planned Behavior proposed by Icek Ajzen. This study followed the 2-stage survey methodology suggested by Ajzen. In the first stage of pilot study, a small sample of university students was used to illicit readily accessible behavioral outcomes, normative referents, and control factors. In the second stage of main study, the standard questionnaire was designed and administered and data were collected and analysed using the PLS Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique. PLS-SEM was used instead of Covariance Based (CB)- SEM considering the exploratory nature of this study. In overall, the results showed that TPB is very effective in explaining and predicting the university student's intention to apply for jobs in SEM's. Gender turned out to be a significant moderator variable in the relations between intention and its influence factors. Student's scholastic performance showed a negative correlation with intention. More research efforts need to be exerted to better understand university student's job seeking behavior.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.206-223
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• 2023

The introduction of Smart technologies such as Artificial Intelligence(AI) systems are have a powerful impact in a variety of industry fields. Some experts predict that smart technology will completely change people's daily life and work styles, causing technological innovation, productivity improvement, and discovery and emergence of new fields. On the one hand, this vision cannot ignore negative views and concerns. Despite many social debates about employment, such as job loss and rising unemployment, there have not been many studies based on employee experience that provide a fundamental solution to the conflict between AI and employment. Therefore, this study finds out the effects and related factors of AI concierge robots for hotel employees, focusing on the hotel industry, and how employees' perceptions of AI concierge robots affect user resistance and turnover intention. This study, conducted a questionnaire survey of 322 hotel employees who had experience working with AI concierge robots in China, and used SPSS and SmartPLS statistical analysis programs to draw conclusions. We found that hotel employees' perceptions of AI concierge robots were significantly related to user resistance and turnover intention, and this association was related to employee self-efficacy, perceived organizational support, quality of AI services and new tasks. In addition, it was found that the quality of AI concierge robots directly or indirectly had the greatest influence on user resistance and turnover intention. The findings of this study provide theoretical implications for academia and practical implications for industry practitioners.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.911-917
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• 2023

The method of observing nodular changes on the liver surface using clinical ultrasonography is useful for diagnosing cirrhosis. However, the speckle noise that inevitably occurs in ultrasound images makes it difficult to identify changes in the liver surface and echo patterns, which has a negative impact on the diagnosis of cirrhosis. The purpose of this study is to model the median modified Wiener filter (MMWF), which can efficiently reduce noise in cirrhotic ultrasound images, and confirm its applicability. Ultrasound images were acquired using an ACR phantom and an actual cirrhotic patient, and the proposed MMWF algorithm and conventional noise reduction algorithm were applied to each image. Coefficient of variation (COV) and edge rise distance (ERD) were used as quantitative image quality evaluation factors for the acquired ultrasound images. We confirmed that the MMWF algorithm improved both COV and ERD values compared to the conventional noise reduction algorithm in both ACR phantom and real ultrasound images of cirrhotic patients. In conclusion, the proposed MMWF algorithm is expected to contribute to improving the diagnosis rate of cirrhosis patients by reducing the noise level and improving spatial resolution at the same time.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.607-613
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• 2010

Osteoporosis is a disease involving a decrease in bone mineral density and an increased risk of fractures. The MC3T3-E1 pre-osteoblastic cell line is a well-accepted model of osteogenesis in vitro. Pine needles have long been used as a traditional health-promoting medicinal food in Korea. In this study, MTT assay, the alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity and collagen synthesis of osteoblast cells were investigated to determine the effects of pine needle extracts on cell proliferation and differentiation. Pine needle extracts were prepared using hexane, ethanol and water. The effects of the pine needle extracts were examined by comparing the results with those of commercial agents, such as proanthocyanidin. The MC3T3-E1 cells exposed to proanthocyanidin showed increased proliferation in a concentration-dependent manner. The cells exposed to the hexane extract showed a similar increase in proliferation to that observed with proanthocyanidin. The hexane extract showed the highest ALP activity. Moreover, a supplement of pine needle extracts induced collagen synthesis in MC3T3-E1 cells. The pine needle extract produced the highest level of collagen synthesis at concentrations of $10{\sim}50\;{\mu}g/ml$. These results indicate that pine needle extracts have an anabolic effect on bone by promoting osteoblastic differentiation, and may be used in the treatment of common metabolic bone diseases.