• Development and Reproduction
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.179-185
• /
• 2011

Some phytoestrogens in soy and red wine, for example, might have beneficiary rather than adverse effects. In particular, dietary soy intake seems to be highly correlated with protection of breast cancer, osteoporosis and cardiovascular disorders. However, questions persist on the potential adverse effects of the main soy constituent genistein (GS) on female reproductive physiology. Previously we found that prepubertal exposure to GS could activate the reproductive system of immature female rats leading to precocious puberty onset, and intracerebroventricularly (ICV) injected GS could directly activate hypothalamic kisspeptin-GnRH neuronal circuits in adult female rats. The present study was performed to examine the hypothalamus-specific GS effects in prepubertal female rats and which subtype of estrogen receptor is mediated in this GS effect. Prepubertal female rats (PND 30) were anaesthetized, treated with single dose of GS (3.4 ${\mu}g$/animal), and sacrificed at 2 hrs post-injection. To determine the transcriptional changes of reproductive hormone-related genes in hypothalamus, total RNAs were extracted and applied to the semi-quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). ICV infusion of GS significantly lowered the transcriptional activities of mTOR (1:$0.361{\pm}0.058$ AU, p<0.001) but increased that of GAD67 (1:$1.285{\pm}0.099$ AU, p<0.05), which are known to act as an upstream modulator of kisspeptin and GnRH neuronal activities in the hypothalamus, respectively. GS administration enhanced significantly the mRNA levels of KiSS-1(1:$1.458{\pm}0.078$ AU, p<0.001), and exerted no effect on the mRNA level of kisspeptin receptor GPR-54 (1:$1.29{\pm}0.08$ AU). GnRH gene expression was significantly decreased in GS-treated group compared to control group (1:$0.379{\pm}0.196$ AU, p<0.05). There was no difference in the mRNA level of $ER{\alpha}$ in the GS-treated group compare to control group (1:$1.180{\pm}0.390$ AU, Fig. 3A). However, icv infusion of GS significantly increased the transcriptional activities of $ER{\beta}$ (1:$4.209{\pm}0.796$ AU, p<0.01, Fig. 3B). Taken together, the present study indicated that the acute exposure to GS could directly alter the hypothalamic GnRH modulating system in prepubertal female rats. Our study strongly suggested the involvement of $ER{\beta}$ pathway in GS's hypothalamus-specific action, and this idea is consistent with the GS's well-known $ER{\beta}$-mediated protective action in breast cancer.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.38 no.1
• /
• pp.90-107
• /
• 2024

This study analyzed the status of urban agricultural regulation of metropolitan governments on supporting multi-dimensional values to suggest a direction for improving urban agriculture regulations. Moreover, a Delphi survey was conducted to derive ways to identify improvement opportunities for functions that showed relatively insufficient support for urban agricultural regulations. As a result of the study, 12 out of 17 metropolitan governments and 116 of 226 municipalities have enacted urban agricultural regulations. However, the enactment of urban agricultural regulations has generally declined since 2011. Analysis of the contents of the urban agricultural regulations showed that they focused on matters relating to the creation and expansion of the foundation of urban agriculture. Among the multi-dimensional values of urban agricultural regulations, the foundation for supporting the securing of green spaces and utilizing food production functions was most widely available. On the other hand, the foundation for support of resource recycling, healing and health, social welfare, economic imbalance mitigation, and job creation functions has been shown to be relatively insufficient. A Delphi survey conducted to determine potential measures to improve urban agricultural regulations to support these functions found that 17 of the 18 ordinance improvement measures were valid. Therefore, to revitalize the multi-dimensional values of urban agriculture, it is first necessary to enact new ordinances. Also, to revitalize the multi-dimensional values of urban agriculture evenly, it is necessary to revise the ordinances to include resource recycling, healing and health, social welfare, mitigation of economic imbalances, and job creation functions. In this process, the development of urban agriculture technology, legal review of various urban farming spaces, and fostering of industries related to urban agriculture are necessary. Above all, steady interest in the multi-dimensional values of urban agriculture and the efforts of local governments to foster urban agriculture must be supported.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
• /
• v.38 no.7
• /
• pp.839-845
• /
• 2009

Colorectal cancer is the third most common malignant neoplasm in the world. Much attention has been focused on reducing colon cancer risk through medical properties of natural compound that could act as anticarcinogens. In this study, we evaluated the antioxidant and antigenotoxic effects of Styela plicata (S. plicata) from in vitro experiments. S. plicata extracts showed antioxidant activity measured by TRAP assay and antigenotoxic effect in $200{\mu}M$ $H_2O_2$ induced DNA damage in human leukocytes. Especially, freeze-dried S. plicata extracted with methanol showed the highest level of TRAP (0.225 mM) and inhibition of DNA damage (66.8%). Additionally we observed the effect of S. plicata on the formation of aberrant crypt foci (ACF) induced by dimethylhydrazine (DMH) and DMH induced DNA damage (by comet assay) in male SD rats. The animals were divided into three groups and fed high-fat and low fiber diet (100 g lard+20 g cellulose/kg diet) without (normal control and DMH control) or with a 3% (w/w) of lyophilized S. plicata powder (DMH+S. plicata). One week after beginning the diets, rats were treated with DMH (30 mg/kg, s.c.) for 6 weeks except for normal control group, which was treated saline instead; dietary treatments were continued for the entire experiment. Nine weeks after DMH injection, administration of S. plicata resulted in reduction of ACF numbers, to 82.7% of the carcinogen control value ($7.67{\pm}2.04$ vs. $1.33{\pm}0.53$: p<0.01). S. plicata supplementation induced antigenotoxic effect on DMH-induced DNA damage in the blood cell (% tail intensity: $6.79{\pm}0.26$ vs. $6.13{\pm}0.22$). These data indicate that S. plicata extract has antigenotoxic and anticarcinogenic effects from in vitro experiments and S. plicata exerts a protective effect on the process of colon carcinogenesis, possibly by suppressing the DMH-induced DNA damage in blood cell and the development of preneoplastic lesions in colon.

• Food Science and Industry
• /
• v.52 no.2
• /
• pp.188-201
• /
• 2019

In the past, food additives were classified and managed as chemical synthetic and natural additives according to the manufacturing process, but it was difficult to confirm the purpose or function of food additives.CODEX, an internationalstandard, classifies food additives according to their practical use, based on scientific evidence on the technical effects of food additives, instead of classifying them as synthetic or natural. Therefore, very recently, the food additive standards in Korea have been completely revised in accordance with these global trends. Currently, the classification system of food additives is divided into 31 uses to specify their functions and purposes instead of manufacturing methods. Newer revision of the legislative framework for defining and expanding the scope of the Act as an enlarged area is required. Competition for preempting new food products based on bio-based technology is very fierce in order to enhance the safety of domestic people and maximize the economic profit of their own countries. In this age of infinite competition, it is very urgent to revise or supplement the current regulations in order to revitalize the domestic food industry and enhance national competitiveness through the development of food additives using new biotechnology. In this report, current laws on domestic food ingredients, food additives and manufacturing methods, and a comparison of domestic and foreign advanced countries' regulations and countermeasures strategies were reviewed to improve national competitiveness of domestic advanced biotechnology-based food additives industry.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.199-247
• /
• 2012

According to the review and analysis of medical cases that are assigned to the Supreme Court and all local High Court in 2011 and that are presented in the media, it was found that the following categories were taken seriously, medical and pharmaceutical product liability, the third principle of trust between medical institutions, negligence and causation estimation, responsibility limit, the meaning of medical records and related judgment of disturbed substantiation, Oriental doctors' duties to explain the procedures, IMS events, whether one can claim for each medical care operated by non-physician health care institutions to the nonmedical domain in the National Health Insurance Corporation, and the basis of norms for each claim. In the cases related to medical pharmaceutical product liability, Supreme Court alleviated burden of proof for accidents with medical and pharmaceutical products prior to the practice of Product Liability Law and onset the point of negative prescription as the time of damage strikes to condition feasibility of the specific situation. In the cases related to the 3rd principle of trust between medical institutions, the Supreme Court refused to sentence the doctor who has trusted the judgment of the same third-party doctors the violations of the care duty. With respect to proof of a causal relationship and damages in a medical negligence case, the Supreme Court decided that it is unjust to deny negligence by the materials of causal relationship rejecting the original verdict and clarified that the causal relationship shall not deny the reasons to limit doctors' responsibilities. In order not put burden on patients with disadvantages in which medical records and the description of the practice or the most fundamental and important evidence to prove negligence and causation are being neglected, the Supreme Court admitted in the hospital's responsibility for the case of the neonate death of suffocation without properly listed fetal heart rate and uterine contraction monitor. On the other hand, the Seoul Western District Court has admitted alimony for altering and forging medical records. With respect to doctors' obligations to description, the Supreme Court decided that it is necessary to explain the foreseen risks by the combination of oriental and western medicines emphasizing the right of patient's self-determination. However, questions have arisen whether it is realistically feasible or not. In a case of an unlicensed doctor performing intramuscular stimulation treatment (IMS), the Supreme Court put off its decision if it was an unlicensed medical practice as to put limitation of eastern and western medical practices, but it declared that IMS practice was an acupuncture treatment therefore the plaintiff's conduct being an illegal act. In the future, clear judgment on this matter should be made. With respect to the claim of bills from non-physical health care institutions, the Supreme Court decided to void it for the implementation of the arrangement is contrary to the commitments made in the medical law and therefore, it is invalid to claim. In addition, contrast to the private healthcare professionals, who are subject to redemption according to the National Healthcare Insurance Law, the Seoul High Court explicitly confirmed that the non-professionals who receive the tort operating profit must return the unjust enrichment and have the liability for damages. As mentioned above, a relatively wide range of topics were discussed in medical field of 2011. In Korea's health care environment undergoing complex changes day by day, it is expected to see more diverse and in-depth discussions striding out to the development in the field of health care.

• 한국노년학
• /
• v.36 no.3
• /
• pp.905-926
• /
• 2016

Although the concept of the elderly varies depending on scholars and laws, as consumption expenditure is deeply associated with income due to the nature of this study, 55 years old was set as the low limit standard for the elderly according to Prohibition of Discrimination on Age in Employment and Employment Promotion for the Aged Act and the elderly households were limited to single-elderly person household and an elderly couple family household for this study. It is considered consumption characteristics as a significant analysis subject in terms of social welfare because it could be understood as an expressed need which was a reflection of desire. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the consumption characteristics of the elderly households by stereotyping the consumption pattern of the elderly households, and find the determining factors for consumption patterns and thus contribute to the establishment of related policies through the expressed needs of the elderly households. K-means of cluster analysis was performed by putting the consumption expenditure of the elderly households to investigate inherent structural type of consumption pattern of the elderly households, which were the investigation subjects. As a result, four groups were stereotyped and named as below: 'health care-centered type', 'saving-centered type', 'livelihood-centered type', and 'food expenses-centered type' Binary Logistic Regression analysis was used to identify the factors that influence the decision of consumption pattern of the elderly households. The result of study showed that the elderly households faced all different needs and problems and thus there is a need for various approach plans to solve this situation. In particular, although the elderly have been viewed as economically poor people so far, the study showed that there were also kind of prepared households through saving. Overall, livelihoodcentered type accounted for the highest portion and, as a factor that influenced this, marital state and household income played an important role. Therefore, it is considered that more active efforts to increase the income of the elderly households are needed. In addition, age, owning of house and subjective health state were found to also have significant influence. Through these results of the study, the elderly's own improvement of awareness on health, presentation of overall standard for health state of the elderly, securement of the elderly's access to cultural life, and financial management coordination for improvement of quality of life, development and dissemination of jobs suitable for the elderly, and dissemination of communal life household, which is a cooperation residential type, were presented as institutional task in the conclusion.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.192-211
• /
• 2018

With significant influences of old industrial complex in September 2009, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport chose the 4 districts for the first pilot project. In December 2014, the second pilot project districts were established. In addition, there were 10 districts in April 2016 and 5 districts in April 2016 as the third pilot project and 5 districts in March 2017 as the fourth pilot project. In order to promote smooth business operation of the recycling business, we introduced the effective area designation and special system as stipulated in Article 39.12-13 of the Industrial Location and Development Act revised in May 2015. The effective area, It is a method that can promote propagation and diffusion of the rehabilitation business through visualization by making effective the promotion of the rehabilitation business and by promoting the business in consideration of the geographical feature of the region and industry group, The setting of the unreasonable effective area is based on the criteria and classification of the plan and the objective promotion method according to the individual characteristics of the aged industrial park because the delay of the rehabilitation business and the possibility of the increase of many problems are presented Be sure to Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and the old industrial complex database were constructed and utilized to classify the types of recycling projects. Therefore, in this study, it is necessary to strengthen the competitiveness of aged industrial complex by examining the correlation between the diagnosis of 83 aged industrial complex sites and the rehabilitation projects supported by the Ministry of Land, and the types of business promotion for aged industrial parks. It can be used as a guideline for the feasibility of the project.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.43-52
• /
• 2012

As experiential education services are growing, the need for proper management is increasing. Considering that adequate measures are an essential factor for achieving success in managing something, it is important for managers to use a proper system of metrics to measure the performance of experiential education services. However, in spite of this need, little research has been done to develop a valid and reliable set of metrics for assessing the quality of experiential education services. The current study aims to develop a multi-item instrument for assessing the service quality of experiential education. The specific procedure is as follows. First, we generated a pool of possible metrics based on diverse literature on service quality. We elicited possiblemetric items not only from general service quality metrics such as SERVQUAL and SERVPERF but also from educational service quality metrics such as HEdPERF and PESPERF. Second, specialist teachers in the experiential education area screened the initial metrics to boost face validity. Third, we proceeded with multiple rounds of empirical validation of those metrics. Based on this processes, we refined the metrics to determine the final metrics to be used. Fourth, we examined predictive validity by checking the well-established positive relationship between each dimension of metrics and customer satisfaction. In sum, starting with the initial pool of scale items elicited from the previous literature and purifying them empirically through the surveying method, we developed a four-dimensional systemized scale to measure the superiority of experiential education and named it "Experiential Education PERFormance" (EEPERF). Our findings indicate that students (consumers) perceive the superiority of the experiential education (EE) service in the following four dimensions: EE-empathy, EE-reliability, EE-outcome, and EE-landscape. EE-empathy is a judgment in response to the question, "How empathetically does the experiential educational service provider interact with me?" Principal measures are "How well does the service provider understand my needs?," and "How well does the service provider listen to my voice?" Next, EE-reliability is a judgment in response to the question, "How reliably does the experiential educational service provider interact with me?" Major measures are "How reliable is the schedule here?," and "How credible is the service provider?" EE-outcome is a judgmentin response to the question, "What results could I get from this experiential educational service encounter?" Representative measures are "How good is the information that I will acquire form this service encounter?," and "How useful is this service encounter in helping me develop creativity?" Finally, EE-landscape is a judgment about the physical environment. Essential measures are "How convenient is the access to the service encounter?,"and "How well managed are the facilities?" We showed the reliability and validity of the system of metrics. All four dimensions influence customer satisfaction significantly. Practitioners may use the results in planning experiential educational service programs and evaluating each service encounter. The current study isexpected to act as a stepping-stone for future scale improvement. In this case, researchers may use the experience quality paradigm that has recently arisen.

• The Korean Journal of Quaternary Research
• /
• v.33 no.1_2
• /
• pp.1-23
• /
• 2021

In response to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases, the global mean temperature is rising rapidly. In particular, the warming of the Arctic is two to three times faster than the rest. Associated with the rapid Arctic warming, the sea ice shows decreasing trends in all seasons. The faster Arctic warming is due to ice-albedo feedback by the presence of snow and ice in polar regions, which have higher reflectivity than the ocean, the bare land, or vegetation, higher long-wave heat loss to space than lower latitudes by lower surface temperature in the Arctic than lower latitudes, different stability of atmosphere between the Arctic and lower latitudes, where low stability leads to larger heat losses to atmosphere from surface by larger latent heat fluxes than the Arctic, where high stability, especially in winter, prohibits losing heat to atmosphere, increase in clouds and water vapor in the Arctic atmosphere that subsequently act as green house gases, and finally due to the increase in sensible heat fluxes from low latitudes to the Arctic via lower troposphere. In contrast to the rapid Arctic warming, in midlatitudes, especially in eastern Asia and eastern North America, cold air outbreaks occur more frequently and last longer in recent decades. Two pathways have been suggested to link the Arctic warming to cold air outbreaks over midlatitudes. The first is through troposphere in synoptic-scales by enhancing the Siberian high via a development of Rossby wave trains initiated from the Arctic, especially the Barents-Kara Seas. The second is via stratosphere by activating planetary waves to stratosphere and beyond, that leads to warming in the Arctic stratosphere and increase in geopotential height that subsequently weakens the polar vortex and results in cold air outbreaks in midlatitudes for several months. There exists lags between the Arctic warming and cold events in midlatitudes. Thus, understanding chain reactions from the Arctic warming to midlatitude cooling could help improve a predictability of seasonal winter weather in midlatitudes. This study reviews the results on the Arctic warming and its connection to midlatitudes and examines the trends in surface temperature and the Arctic sea ice.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.43-77
• /
• 2010

The development of the aviation industry has exponentially increased the volume of passengers and cargo and gradually expanded the damage scope of all kinds of accidents in the process of transportation. As a result, the need for aviation insurance has accordingly grown bigger and bigger every day. That is why most nations have a law to force mandatory insurance on the aviation industry. However, the Montreal Convention of 1999, which Korea also signed and today has the most extensive effect in the international civil aviation community, offers no clear interpretations about the coverage of aviation insurance along with the Air Transport Business Promotion Act of Korea. The advanced nations of air transport business such as EU, the U. S. A. and Canada prescribe the coverage of aviation insurance and have a law that makes it mandatory for all the passengers and third parties to cover air carrier's liability. EU requires them to include cargo and baggage in scope of coverage, and the U. S. A. and Canada recommend insuring by having a shipper receive a written notice containing information about whether the concerned cargo is insured or not. Making the scope of coverage of aviation insurance clear by law serves several purposes including diversifying risks for air transport companies, providing the victims with enough protection, observing the international accountability required in the air transport industry, and promoting the productive and sustainable growth of the aviation industry. Thus problems with Korea's aviation insurance should be resolved by clearly stating the coverage of aviation insurance that the Korean air carriers and operators need to insure according to the current state of Korea's air transport by consulting the legislations of the advanced nations in air transports. and enacting a law to comprehensively govern Korea's aviation insurance.