• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.51
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• pp.181-201
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• 2018

The cartoon industry in Korea has continued to decline due to the contraction of published comics market and decrease in the number of comic books rental stores until the 2000s when it rapidly started to experience qualitative changes and quantitative growth due to the emergence of webtoon. The market size of webtoon industry, valued at 420 billion won in 2015, is expected to grow to 880.5 billion won by 2018. Notably, most cartoonists who draw cartoon strips are using digital devices and producing scripts in data, thereby overcoming the geographical, spatial and physical limitation of contents. As a result, a favorable environment for the creation of local ecosystems is generated. While the infrastructures of human resources are steadily growing by region, cartoon industries that are supported by the government policy have shown good performance combined with factors of creative infrastructures in local areas such as webtoon experience centers, webtoon campuses and webtoon creation centers, etc. Nevertheless, it is true that cartoon infrastructures are substantially based on a capital area which leads to an imbalanced structure of cartoon industry. To see the statistics, companies of offline cartoon business in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province make up 87%, except for distribution industry. In addition, companies of online cartoon business which are situated outside of Seoul and Gyeonggi Province form merely 7.5%. Studies and research on local webtoon are inadequate. The existing studies on local webtoon usually focus on its industrial and economic values, mentioning the word "local" only sometimes. Therefore, this study looked into the current status of local webtoon of the present time for the current state of local cartoon ecosystem, middle and long-term support from the government, and an alternative in the future. Main challenges include the expansion of opportunities to enjoy cartoon cultures, the independence of cartoon infrastructure, and the settlement of regionally specialized cartoon cultures. It means that, in order to enable the cartoon ecosystem to settle down in local areas, it is vital to utilize and link basic infrastructures. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider independence and autonomy beyond the limited support by the government. Finally, webtoon should be designated as a culture, which can be a new direction of the development of local webtoon. Furthermore, desirable models should be continuously researched and studied, which are suitable for each region and connect them with regional tourism, culture and art industry. It will allow the webtoon industry to soft land in the industry. Local webtoon, which is a growth engine of regions and main contents of the fourth industrial revolution, is expected to be a momentum for the decentralization of power and reindustrialization of regions.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.208-218
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• 2018

Autophagy is a cellular process whereby cytosolic materials or organelles are taken up in a double-membrane vesicle structure known as an autophagosome and transported into a lysosome for degradation. Although autophagy has been studied at the genetic, cellular, or biochemical level, systematic ultrastructural quantitative analysis of autophagosomes during the autophagy process by using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has not yet been reported. In this study, we performed ultrastructural analysis of autophagosomes in wild-type (WT) mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) and autophagy essential gene (atg5) knockout (KO) MEFs. First, we performed ultrastructural analysis of autophagosomes in WT MEFs compared to atg5 KO MEFs in basal autophagy or starvation-induced autophagy. Although we observed phagopore, early, late autophagosomes, or autolysosomes in WT MEFs, atg5 KO MEFs had immature autophagosomes that showed incomplete closure. Upon starvation, late autophagosomes accumulated in WT MEFs while the number of immature autophagosomes significantly increased in atg5 KO MEF indicating that atg5 plays an important role in the maturation of autophagosomes. Next, we examined autophagosomes in the cell model expressing polyQ-expanded N-terminal fragment of huntingtin. Our TEM analysis indicates that the number of late autophagosomes was significantly increased in the cells expressing the mutant huntingtin, indicating that improving the fusion of autophagosome with lysosome may be effective to enhance autophagy for the treatment of Huntington's disease. Taken together, the results of our study indicate that ultrastructural and quantitative analysis of autophagosomes using TEM can be applied to various human cellular disease models, and that they will provide an important insight for cellular pathogenesis of human diseases associated with autophagy.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.455-468
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• 1998

For the objective interpretation of cerebral metabolic patterns in epilepsy patients, we developed computer-aided classifier using artificial neural network. We studied interictal brain FDG PET scans of 257 epilepsy patients who were diagnosed as normal(n=64), L TLE (n=112), or R TLE (n=81) by visual interpretation. Automatically segmented volume of interest (VOI) was used to reliably extract the features representing patterns of cerebral metabolism. All images were spatially normalized to MNI standard PET template and smoothed with 16mm FWHM Gaussian kernel using SPM96. Mean count in cerebral region was normalized. The VOls for 34 cerebral regions were previously defined on the standard template and 17 different counts of mirrored regions to hemispheric midline were extracted from spatially normalized images. A three-layer feed-forward error back-propagation neural network classifier with 7 input nodes and 3 output nodes was used. The network was trained to interpret metabolic patterns and produce identical diagnoses with those of expert viewers. The performance of the neural network was optimized by testing with 5~40 nodes in hidden layer. Randomly selected 40 images from each group were used to train the network and the remainders were used to test the learned network. The optimized neural network gave a maximum agreement rate of 80.3% with expert viewers. It used 20 hidden nodes and was trained for 1508 epochs. Also, neural network gave agreement rates of 75~80% with 10 or 30 nodes in hidden layer. We conclude that artificial neural network performed as well as human experts and could be potentially useful as clinical decision support tool for the localization of epileptogenic zones.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.161-171
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• 1999

Background: Interleukin-12 (IL-12) can induce antitumor effects in vivo. This antitumor effect is associated with T cell infiltration but the effect of IL-12 on the steps of T cell migration into the tumor tissue has not been fully elucidated. This study focused on the effect of IL-12 on the tumor growth and the metastasis and on the expression of E-selectin, an adhesion molecule which is activated endothelial specific in its expression. In addition, we studied whether the expression of E-selectin is associated with the TNF-$\alpha$, a cytokine that its production is increased by IL-12 and has functions inducing a variety of adhesion molecules. Methods: Mice of C57BL/6 strain were injected with Lewis lung cancer cells followed by either IL-12, TNF-$\alpha$, or normal saline by intraperitoneal route. Twenty eight days after tumor cell inoculation, metastatic nodules of lung were enumerated and immunohistochemical staining of the subcutaneous tumors were performed with monoclonal antibodies to CD4, CD8, CD16, and E-selectin. In IL-12 treated mice, the subcutaneously implanted Lewis lung tumors were decreased in size and the metastases were also decreased in number compared to control mice. On tumor tissues, increased infiltration of CD4+, CD8+, and CD16+ cells were oberved in IL-12 treated mice compared to control mice. In control mice, E-selectin was absent on tumor vessels, but the expression of E-selectin was increased on tumor vessels of IL-12 treated mice. Administration of TNF-$\alpha$ increased not only the expression of E-selectin but also infiltrations of CD4+, CD8+, and CD16+ cells on tumor tissues. Conclusions: These results demonstrate that IL-12 inhibits tumor growth and metastases through infiltrations of inflammatory cells in mouse model of Lewis lung carcinoma and E-selectin may playa role in inflammatory cell recruitment on tumor tissue following IL-12 administration. Also, TNF-$\alpha$ may have a role as a mediator responsible for the IL-12 induced expression of E-selectin.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.47-65
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• 2020

With the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in sight, innovative business models utilizing new technologies are emerging, and startups are enjoying an abundance of opportunities based on the agility to respond to disruptive innovations and the opening to new technologies. However, what is most important in creating a sustainable start-up ecosystem is not the start-up itself, but the process of research-start-investment-investment-the leap to listing and big business-in order to build a virtuous circle of startups that leads to re-investment. To this end, the environment created in the hub area where start-ups were conducted is important, and these material and non-material environmental factors are described as being inclusive by the word "entrepreneurial ecosystem." This study aims to provide implications for Korea's entrepreneurial ecosystem through the study of the interaction of the elements that make up the start-up ecosystem and the relationship of ecosystem participants in Singapore. Singapore has been consistently mentioned as the top two Asian countries in assessing the start-up environment and business environment. In this process, six elements of the entrepreneurial ecosystem presented by Isenberg(2010)-policies, finance, culture, support, human resources, and market-are the best frameworks for analyzing entrepreneurial ecosystems in terms of well encompassing prior studies related to entrepreneurial ecosystem elements, and a model of regional transformation is formed focusing on some elements to suit Singapore, the target area of study. By considering that Singapore's political nature would inevitably have a huge impact on finance, Smart Nation policy was having an impact on university education related to entrepreneurship, and that the entrepreneurial networks and global connectivity formed within Singapore's start-up infrastructure had a significant impact on Singapore's start-up's performance, researches needed to look more at the factors of policy, culture and market. In addition, qualitative research of participants in the entrepreneurial ecosystem was essential to understand the internal interaction of the elements of the start-up ecosystem, so the semi-structured survey was conducted by visiting the site. As such, this study examined the status of the local entrepreneurial ecosystem based on qualitative research focused on policies, culture and market elements of Singapore's start-up ecosystem, and intended to provide implications for regulations related to start-ups, the role of universities and start-up infrastructure through comparison with Korea. This could contribute not only to the future research of the start-up ecosystem, but also to the creation of a start-up infrastructure, boosting the start-up ecosystem, and the establishment of the orientation of the start-up education in universities.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.634-641
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• 2012

It was reported that the novel compounds (LP9M80-H) of $Liriope$ $platyphylla$ regulate glucose transporter (Glut) biosynthesis by activating the insulin-signaling pathway in the liver and brain of ICR mice. To investigate the therapeutic effects of LP9M80-H on the pathology of diabetes and obesity, alterations of key factors related to symptoms were analyzed in the Otsuka Long Evans Tokushima Fatty (OLETF) rats treated with LP9M80-H for 2 weeks. The abdominal fat masses in the LP9M80-H-treated group were lower than the vehicle-treated group, although there was no difference in body weight between the two groups. Additionally, when compared to the vehicle-treated group, LP9M80-H treatment induced a significant decrease in glucose levels and an increase in the insulin concentration in the blood of OLETF rats. A high level of insulin protein was also detected in pancreatic ${\beta}$ cells of LP9M80-H-treated OLETF rats. A significant reduction in the concentration of lipids and adiponectin was detected only in LP9M80-H-treated OLETF rats. Furthermore, the expression of insulin receptor ${\beta}$ and the insulin receptor substrate (IRS) was dramatically decreased in LP9M80-H-treated OLETF rats compared to the vehicle-treated group. Of the glucose transporters located downstream of the insulin-signaling pathway, glucose transporters (Glut) -2 and -3 were significantly decreased in LP9M80-H-treated OLETF rats, while the level of Glut-4 was maintained under all conditions. Therefore, these results suggest that LP9M80-H may contribute to relieving symptoms of diabetes and obesity through glucose homeostasis and regulation of lipid concentration.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.6 no.2 s.24
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• pp.120-128
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• 2005

ISO 9001, the quality management system issued by the International Organization for Standardization, is being used by architectural design and engineering firms in order to strengthen the capability of business activities through the implementation of the international and advanced quality management systems. However, there have been significant problems in stable implementation and settlement of ISO 9001 in construction industry, which seem to be caused by key employees' lack of proper recognition and comprehension. The purpose of this research, accordingly, is to find and analyze nonconformity results which were found when the third party registrars audited the conformity of companies' quality management systems for ISO 9001 certification especially in architectural design and engineering firms. For this purpose this research was conducted by a cluster analysis of 647 audit reports out of representative 15 architectural design and engineering firms that have been audited periodically from 1997 to 2003 by the third party registrars. The analysis showed that the most frequent problems were generated in the areas of $\ulcorner$Design and Development$\lrcorner$ , $\ulcorner$production and Service Provision$\lrcorner$ , and $\ulcorner$General requirements$\lrcorner$ of the quality management system. The following, the areas of $\ulcorner$Monitoring and Measurement$\lrcorner$ and $\ulcorner$purchasing$\lrcorner$ were also analyzed as main factors which caused frequent nonconformity results. This research also shows that the corrective actions for nonconformity results are closely connected with the whole management activities in architectural design and engineering firms. Consequently, corrective actions for disposition of nonconformities should be implemented more specifically in order to settle and activate the quality management systems in architectural design and engineering firms.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.65-74
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• 2009

It is expected that the number of apartment complexes in Korea that are over 20 years old will rapidly increase to more than 3,500,000. Consequently, the remodeling of these buildings is being revitalized throughout the country. Among the requirements for such remodeling, the expansion of parking lots has considerable weight. When enlarging a parking lot, the access route from an underground floor to the main building (i.e., the means of entry into the main building) determines the possibility of vertical enlargement for elevators, the size of the parking lot, the construction period, and construction expenses, etc. When enlarging an underground parking lot of an apartment complex, the access between the main building and the parking lot, as well as the inhabitants' requirements for entering the main building, are generally determined based on the designer's experience, rather than on the exact estimation of the peculiarity of the complex. In order to resolve such a problem, when enlarging an underground parking lot, a systematic and rational method is needed for selecting the means of entry into the main building. In this study, a selection model is derived for the method of selecting an access route into the main building when constructing an underground parking lot, in order to provide a reasonable decision-making process. A research method was investigated for determining the access route into the main building when enlarging a parking lot. On the basis of research carried out through in-depth interviews with experts, the characteristics for each means of entry into the main building were analyzed and the factors affecting the selection of the access route were deduced. The affecting factors selected were construction efficiency, convenience efficiency and economic efficiency. Weight values were then estimated for the selected affecting factors by applying the AHP method. Results showed that convenience efficiency, which gained the highest value, is the most important factor in selecting the means of entry into the main building. The most suitable means of entry into the main building was also suggested after estimating the applicability of the site by selecting complexes with remodeling possibility. This study will be applied as a reference for selecting the means of entry into the main building when constructing an underground parking lot particularly for older apartment complexes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.44 no.11
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• pp.1700-1707
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• 2015

The effects of drying temperature on drying characteristics of soybeans with different grain sizes [6.0 (S), 7.5 (M), and 9.0 mm (L) (${\pm}0.2$)] with 25.0% (${\pm}0.8$) initial moisture content were studied. Drying temperatures varied at 25, 35, and $45^{\circ}C$, with a constant air velocity (13.2 m/s). Thin-layer drying models were applied to describe the drying process of soybeans. The Midilli-Kucuk model showed the best fit ($R^2$ >0.99). Based on the model parameters, drying time to achieve the target moisture content (10%) was successfully estimated. Drying time was strongly dependent on the size of soybeans and the drying temperature. The effective moisture diffusivity ($D_{eff}$) was estimated by the diffusion model based on Fick's second law. $D_{eff}$ values increased as grain size and drying temperature increased due to the combined effect of high temperatures and high drying rates, which promote compact tissue. Deff values of S, M, and L estimated were in the range of $0.83{\times}10^{-10}$ to $1.51{\times}10^{-10}m^2/s$, $1.17{\times}10^{-10}$ to $2.17{\times}10^{-10}m^2/s$, and $1.53{\times}10^{-10}$ to $2.95{\times}10^{-10}m^2/s$, respectively, whereas activation energy ($E_a$) based on drying temperature showed no significant differences in the size of soybeans.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.46
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• pp.511-555
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• 2009

Media-related regulations can be classified into two categories; regulations of individual media contents and regulations regarding the entry to and withdrawal from a certain field. In this dissertation, ownership regulations are regarded as legal and political measures so as to prevent the monopoly and oligopoly of public opinion, and to secure its diversity. Every country has its own regulation model according to its particular media environment. Korea too is obliged to actively respond to its environmental changes, at the same time vitalizing the media industry and protecting consumers' rights and interests. Strong political intentions to protect the public interest is necessary when it comes to media regulation policies, especially in the circumstances that public interest is an industrial priority. As the convergence of broadcasting and telecommunications is leading to a major shift in the media industry, the regulation of cross-media ownership is an issue involving potential conflicts among media-owners, non-governmental organizations and the authorities concerned, depending on their various viewpoints regarding the media industry. In this paper, an attempt was made to search necessity of redefining 'public interest', which is the logic behind the restriction of cross-media ownership, and to reconceptualize issues on the centralization and diversity of media. First, an examination of the actual conditions of newspaper companies was carried out in order to reinvestigate domestic cross-media ownership issues, which is represented by the cross-ownership issue of newspapers and broadcasting stations. Next, the dilemma of policies stimulated by the fusion of media was discussed based on cross-media ownership restrictions, and the need for efficient conflict control was suggested. Finally, proposals on the independency and public confidence of media-related policy-making authorities, the rationalization of regulation models, an itemized discussion on cross-media ownership regulation issues, the elaboration of measures for a balanced development among media were made. It could be found that a number of foreign countries were still facing challenges to prevent monopoly and oligopoly of the public opinion and the industry. A solution to settle disagreements about the dilemma of the media industry, including the cross-media ownership regulation issues, must be arranged on the grounds of 'mutual respect of public interest and industrial interest', In Korea, an ease on the ownership regulations adapting to the change in the media industry may be considered, however the softening of the cross-media ownership regulations must be approached with the utmost care. Paradoxically Relieving cross-media ownership regulations may be considered the foundation of a richer field of journalism, where there is no need for concern over the monopoly and oligopoly of public opinion.