• Maxillofacial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.281-286
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• 2009

Introduction: Enamel matrix derivative (EMD) is a protein which is secreted by Hertwig root sheath and plays a major role in the formation of cementum and attachment of peridontium. Several studies have shown that EMD promoted the proliferation and differentiation of preosteoblasts, osteoblasts and periodontal ligament cells in vitro: however, reports showing the inhibition of osteogenic differentiation by EMD also existed. This study was designed to simultaneously evaluate the effect of EMD on the two cell lines (human mesenchymal stem cells: hMSC, human periodontal ligament derived fibroblasts: hPDLCs) by means of quantitative analysis of some bone related matrices (Alkaline phosphatase : ALP, osteopontin ; OPN, osteocalcin ; OC). Materials and Methods: hMSCs and hPDLCs were expanded and cells in the 4${\sim}$6 passages were adopted to use. hMSc and hPDLCs were cultured during 1,2,7, and 14 days with 0, 50 and 100 ${\mu}g/ml$ of EMD, respectively. ALP activity was assessed by SensoLyte ALP kit and expressed as values of the relative optical density. Among the matrix proteins of the bony tissue, OC and OPN were assessed and quantification of these proteins was evaluated by means of human OC immunoassay kit and human OPN assay kit, respectively. Results: ALP activity maintained without EMD at $1,2^{nd}$ day. The activity increased at $7^{th}$ day but decreased at $14^{th}$ day. EMD increased the activity at $14^{th}$ day in the hPDLCs culture. In the hMSCs, rapid decrease was noted in $7^{th}$ and $14^{th}$ days without regard to EMD concentrations. Regarding the OPN synthesis in hPDLCs, marked decrease of OPN was noted after EMD application. Gradual decrease tendency of OPN was shown over time. In hMSCs, marked decrease of OPN was also noted after EMD application. Overall concentration of OPN was relatively consistent over time than that in hPDLCs. Regarding the OC synthesis, in both of hPDLCs and hMSCs, inhibition of OC formation was noted after EMD application in the early stages but EMD exerted minimal effect at the later stages. Conclusion: In this experimental condition, EMD seemed to play an inhibitory role during the differentiation of hMSCs and hPDLCs in the context of OC and OPN formation. In the periodontium, there are many kinds of cells contributing to the regeneration of oral tissue. EMD enhanced ALP activity in hPDLCs rather than in hMSCs and this may imply that EMD has a positive effect on the differentiation of cementoblasts compared with the effect on hMSCs. The result of our research was consistent with recent studies in which the authors showed the inhibitory effect of EMD in terms of the differentiation of mineral colony forming cells in vitro. This in vitro study may not stand for all the charateristics of EMD; thus, further studies involving many other bone matrices and cellular attachment will be necessary.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.40 no.2 s.107
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• pp.221-241
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• 2005

Land Use and Land Cover Changes (LUCC) occur over a wide range of space and time scales, and involve complex natural, socio-economic, and institutional processes. Therefore, modelling and predicting LUCC demands an understanding of how various measured properties behave when considered at different scales. Understanding spatial and temporal variability of driving forces and constraints on LUCC is central to understanding the scaling issues. This paper aims to 1) assess the heterogeneity of land cover change processes over the landscape in northern Ghana, where intensification of agricultural activities has been the dominant land cover change process during the past 15 years, 2) characterise dominant land cover change mechanisms for various spatial scales, and 3) identify the optimal spatial scale for LUCC modelling in a savanna landscape. A multivariate statistical method was first applied to identify land cover change intensity (LCCI), using four time-sequenced NDVI images derived from LANDSAT scenes. Three proxy land use change predictors: distance from roads, distance from surface water bodies, and a terrain characterisation index, were regressed against the LCCI using a multi-scale hierarchical adaptive model to identify scale dependency and spatial heterogeneity of LUCC processes. High spatial associations between the LCCI and land use change predictors were mostly limited to moving windows smaller than 10$\times$10km. With increasing window size, LUCC processes within the window tend to be too diverse to establish clear trends, because changes in one part of the window are compensated elsewhere. This results in a reduced correlation between LCCI and land use change predictors at a coarser spatial extent. The spatial coverage of 5-l0km is incidentally equivalent to a village or community area in the study region. In order to reduce spatial variability of land use change processes for regional or national level LUCC modelling, we suggest that the village level is the optimal spatial investigation unit in this savanna landscape.

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.157-168
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• 2001

Herbicides have been used to control weeds for decades. If detoxification upon exposure to herbicides requires considerable amounts of energy, it could affect the pattern of resource allocation to growth and reproduction of crops. We examined the effects of three levels of a herbicide (Control, Low, and High) on germination, growth and reproductive characters of Glycine max treated twice, i.e., before and after seed germination. Since flowering time of G. max was separated into two groups, flowering time was also considered as a variable in this study. The rate of seed germination tended to be higher at the low level of herbicide compared to other levels. Chlorosis and shape variation of leaves were apparent after the second herbicide treatment, but completely disappeared after six weeks of treatment. The herbicide effects on growth characters were somewhat different between early and late flowering plants, but plants treated with both low and high levels of herbicide reduced their growth compared to those in the control group regardless of flowering time. Plants at the high level of herbicide exhibited the highest growth rate later in the season, suggesting that plants compensated to some extent for reduced growth. However, growth reduction among plants at the high level of herbicide was persistent until the end of growing season. Among plants flowered late in the season, plants in the control level bore a higher number of nodules per plant than those in other levels; such a pattern did not exist among plants flowered early in the season. Plants treated with low and high levels of herbicide produced a lower number of flowers than those in the control. Thus, the herbicide examined affected not only the growth and reproductive characters of non-target crops but also the development and growth of root nodules.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.780-787
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• 2006

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways, which characterized by bronchial hyperresponsiveness, reversible airflow limitation and respiratory symptoms. Internationally, the prevalence of asthma has been increased over last 3 decades. Recently, several studies of asthma have been reported with gradually increasing importance. To tesify the hypothesis that interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-10 may be an important determinant of the severity of airway inflammation, their expression was studied in mouse model of asthma. BALB/c mouse, IL-4 Knockout (KO) mouse and IL-10 KO mouse were sensitized with intraperitoneal injection of ovalbumin adsorbed to aluminum potassium sulfate, followed by challenges with intranasal ovalbumin on 3 consecutive days. The severity of pulmonary inflammation was assessed by eosinophilia in BAL fluid, number of total BAL cells, histopathological changes in lung tissues, and immunohistochemical staining against IL-4 and IL-10. In BAL fluid, the number of total cells was significantly increased in asthma induced mouse compare to the control. In asthma induced mouse, eosinophil was increased to 56% and neutrophil was 0.2%. In H &E stains, eosinophilic infiltration and epithelium hyperplasia were clearly noticed in asthma induced mouse. In immunohistochemical staining for IL-4 and IL-10, there was no positive reaction in control group. However, very strong reactions were appeared in asthma induced group. In this research, IL-4 and IL-10, which seem to play a central role in allergic asthma, KO mouse was utilized to test the causative relationship between airway inflammation and role of specific cytokine. Asthma induced IL-4 and IL-10 KO mice showed much decreased inflammatory reactions in the number of total BAL cells, in eosinophilic infiltration, and in immunohistochemical stains against diverse inflammatory proteins. These results suggest that IL-4 and IL-10 increase the asthmatic reactions in vivo mice model.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.263-270
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• 2002

In the recent studies, many researchers are interested in foods as functional components rather than nutrient sources. Cow's milk is considered as an excellent food sources because of its many nutrients. Casein is a major milk protein and has been reported to have hyperlipidemic and hypercholesterolemic effects. But several reporters have suggested that peptide fractions and hydrolysate of casein have hypolipidemic effects differing from intact protein, casein. Therefore, the objective of the study was to investigate how the casein peptide fractions affect lipid metabolism in rats fed normal or high fat diets. The peptide fractions and hydrolysate of casein were obtained by casein hydrolysis with trypsin. The male rats (Sprague-Dawley), weighing approximately 150 g, were fed each experimental diet containing casein (CAS), casein hydrolysate (CH), casein hydrolysate precipitate (Cpt) and two kinds of peptide fractions (CL & CB) for three weeks, respectively. In the exit I, the male rats were fed normal fat diets (7% soybean oil & cholesterol-free; Expt. I), and in the expt II, fed high fat diets (18% beef tallow & 1% cholesterol; Expt. II). Crude protein contents were calculated from nitrogen contents. Amino acid composition of each fraction was also analyzed. The concentration of total lipid, total cholesterol and triglyceride in serum, liver and feces were measured. As the results of study, tole rats fed peptide fractions with normal fat diets (Expt. I) had no effects on total lipid, total cholesterol and triglyceride concentration in serum and liver and fecal excretion. However, in the rats fed hydrophobic casein peptide fractions (CB) with high fat diet, fecal lipids excretion were significantly increased and the lipids concentration of serum and those of liver tended to decrease, numerically.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.537-544
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• 2017

In this study, the anti-inflammatory effect of Polyopes affinis ethanol extract (PAEE) was investigated using LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells and a croton oil-induced ICR mice model. Treatment with PAEE significantly reduced production of nitric oxide (NO) and pro-inflammatory cytokines [interleukin (IL)-6, tumor necrosis factor $(TNF)-{\alpha}$, and $IL-1{\beta}$] in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells. PAEE treatment also reduced expression of inducible NO synthase, cyclooxygenase-2, nuclear $factor-{\kappa}B$, and mitogen-activated protein kinases in LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells. In the croton oil-induced ear edema test, application of PAEE (10~250 mg/kg body weight) reduced ear edema in a dose-dependent manner, and PAEE treatment at 50 mg/kg body weight showed similar inhibitory effects compared with prednisolone (10 mg/kg body weight). Histological analysis revealed reduced dermal thickness and lower number of infiltrated mast cells. These results suggest that PAEE might be used as a promising anti-inflammatory agent for inhibition of LPS-induced inflammation and ear edema formation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.33-40
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• 2020

The purpose of this research was to find out the relation between Korean learners' English proficiency and the ratio of the length of the stressed vowel in a monosyllabic noun to that of the unstressed vowel in an article of the noun phrases (e.g., "a cup", "the bus", etcs.). Generally, the vowels in monosyllabic content words are phonetically more prominent than the ones in monosyllabic function words as the former have phrasal stress, making the vowels in content words longer in length, higher in pitch, and louder in amplitude. This study, based on the speech samples from Korean-Spoken English Corpus (K-SEC) and Rated Korean-Spoken English Corpus (Rated K-SEC), examined 879 English noun phrases, which are composed of an article and a monosyllabic noun, from sentences which are rated on 4 levels of proficiency. The lengths of the vowels in these 879 target NPs were measured and the ratio of the vowel lengths in nouns to those in articles was calculated. It turned out that the higher the proficiency level, the greater the mean ratio of the vowels in nouns to the vowels in articles, confirming the research's hypothesis. This research thus concluded that for the Korean English learners, the higher the English proficiency level, the better they could produce the stressed and unstressed vowels with more conspicuous length differences between them.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.338-349
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• 1999

Polymorphonuclear leukocytes(PMN) are the predominant inflammatory cells recruited in acute lung injury such as adult respiratory distress syndrome, pneumonia and also chronic lung disease such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and pulmonary emphysema. Interleukin-8(IL-8) is an 8,000 D protein produced by many cells and has potent neutrophil chemoattractant and activating properties. The GRO, also called melanoma growth-stimulatory activity(MGSA), referring to a peptide of 73 amino acids, was reported to be mitogenic for cultured human melanoma cells. Mature GRO/MGSA has marked sequence similarity to IL-8. In view of the structural similarities to IL-8, it was of particular interest to test GRO for neutrophil activating and chemotactic properties. We found a significant release of IL-8 and GRO/MGSA from the cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cell(HUVEC) which was stimulated either with TNF$\alpha$ or IL-1$\beta$ and also found the expression of IL-8 and GRO/MGSA mRNA. Neutrophil chemotactic activity was enhanced in accordance with the increased IL-8 and GRO/MGSA. Our study also suggest that the IL-8 is more important in the increased neutrophil chemotactic activity than GRO/MGSA when endothelial cell is stimulated with TNF$\alpha$ or IL-1$\beta$ in vitro.

• The Journal of Dong Guk Oriental Medicine
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.77-91
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• 1999

After allergic contact dermatitis elicitated by Dinitrochlorobenzene(DNCB) treatment, ICR female mice administered Yunkyopaedocksangamibang(YPGM) extract were observed to investigate the effect of YPGM on allergic contact dermatitis. This study investigated that contact hypersensitivity assay, abdominal skin morphologic changes including mast cells. At contact hypersensitivity assay, the right ear swelling in YPGM group were probability decreased than DNCB group. At observation of abdominal skin morphologic change, the infiltration of lymphocyte, lymphocyte insertion to epithelium, enlarged capillary, angiogenesis, and damages of epithelium as cytoplasmic vacuolation and enlarge of inter cellular space in YPGM were diminished than DNCB group. The number of mast cell was increased both DNCB and YPGM group. The shape of mast cell in DNCB group was mainly appeared degranulated type, but granulated type in YPGM group. The number of serotonin positive cell was increased both DNCB and YPGM group. The shape of serotonin positive cell in DNCB group was mainly appeared degranulated type, but granulated type in YPGM group. As results indicated that the YPGM extract administration work on the mitigation of skin damages in mouse with allergic contact dermatitis.

• Journal of Legislation Research
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• no.41
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• pp.43-85
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• 2011

Child and youth welfare law in Korea is vague and complex. In a narrow sense it means the research on the provisions of the Child Welfare Act. In a broad sense it embraces all of the social welfare system regarding to the protection for children and youth. Regardless of the scope of child and youth welfare law it should be cleared what the term of child and youth means in Korean legal regulation. Historically, child protection in Korea was based on the good intentions of individuals to protect war orphan children from poverty or danger after the end of the Korean War. It is the story of the evolving status of children from being viewed as dependant of the parents to becoming rights-based citizens, even not in Constitution. In Korea neither parents nor children have constitutionally recognized right. According to Korean Constitution the parents have only the obligation to educate their children. And the state ist obliged to improve the welfare of the youth(section 34). In compliance with this article there are lots of statutes regulating youth welfare. This article reviews the legal definition of child and youth to test the uncertain definition of child and youth welfare in relation to the treatment of children's and youth's legal status in Korea. According to the Child Welfare Act child is the person under age of 18, while the legal definition of youth oscillates between the person under the age of 19 and the person over the age 9 to the age of 23. As a result child welfare is often used as the synonym of youth welfare, and vice versa. The lack of the arrangement of the legal definition of child and youth is based on the historical reasons that the legal definitions of youth (under the age of 19 or over the age 9 to the age of 23) newly appeared in the statutes regulating youth welfare, whereas the Child Welfare Act still maintained the definition of child under the age of 18. In order to get rid of the confusion of the definition of the child and youth, a part of certain statues should combine with another Act according to the purpose of the individual amended statutes. And the definition of child and youth should be subdivided into 3 or 4 classes, namely infant(0-6), child(7-13), youth(14-18) and young adult(19-26). Furthermore this article proposes a reform of the existing legal system pursuant to the nature of the law, i.g. whether the issued or amended Act takes on a selective(residual) or universal character.