• Applied Microscopy
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.31-39
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• 2005

Synapses are contact points where one neuron communicates with another. The morphological change of synapses under various physiological or pathological conditions has long been hypothesized to modify their functional properties. 3-dimensional (3-D) reconstruction of synapses with serial ultrathin sections has contributed to the understanding of ultrastructural dimensions and compositions of synapses. The 3-D reconstruction procedures, however, require a great amount of expertise as well as include prohibitively timeconsuming processes. Here, we introduce efficient 3-D reconstruction technique using high-voltage electron microscopy (HVEM). Primarily, we established an optimal section thickness and staining condition to observe synaptic structures in detail under HVEM. The result showed that synaptic profiles were preserved at the section thickness of 250 nm without the overlapping of synaptic ultrastructures. An increase in the reaction time of en bloc staining was most efficient to enhance contrast than the extension of postembedding staining or the addition of uranyl acetate during dehydration. Then, 3-D reconstruction of parallel fiber-Purkinje cell synapses in the rat cerebellum was carried out with serial HVEM images and reconstruction software. The images were aligned and the contours of synapses were outlined on each section. 3-D synapses were finally extracted from the section files by grouping all the synaptic contours. The reconstructed synapse model clearly demonstrated the configuration of pre and postsynaptic components. These results suggest that 3-D reconstruction of synapses using HVEM is much efficient and suitable for massive quantitative studies on synaptic connectivity than conventional TEM approach using numerous ultrathin sections.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.46 no.8
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• pp.795-802
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• 2003

Purpose : We investigated the hormonal control of OB gene expression and leptin secretion in cultured human visceral adipose tissue. Methods : Visceral adipose tissues were cultured for up to 48 hrs in modified Eagle's medium with varying concentration of hormones : Control(no hormone), bovine insulin(100 nM), Dexamethasone(DEX, 100 nM), growth hormone(GH, 40 ng/mL), insulin+DEX(100 nM each), insulin+DEX+GH(100 nM insulin and DEX, 40 ng/mL GH). Quantitative analysis of leptin mRNA was performed by competitive reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, and leptin secretion in culture medium was measured by IRMA using a commercial kit. Results : The addition of dexamethasone to the medium significantly increased OB gene expression and leptin secretion(P<0.05). Unlike dexamethasone, insulin did not affect OB gene expression and leptin secretion. Both insulin and dexamethasone, at high concentration, significantly stimulated leptin secretion compared with basal values(P<0.05). Leptin gene expression was not significantly increased by GH treatment alone, however GH, in combination with high concentrations of insulin and dexamethasone, attenuated the stimulatory effects of high concentrations of insulin and dexamethasone. Conclusion : Insulin cannot increase leptin secretion without the presence of dexamethasone. The mechanism suggested is that insulin may increase leptin secretion in cytoplasm only after dexamethasone increases the expression of OB gene. Further studies are necessary to elucidate the mechanism of the action of insulin on leptin secretion after increasing OB gene expression by dexamethasone.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.52 no.9
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• pp.1015-1020
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• 2009

Purpose:The aim of this study is to explore the effect of the Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) expressed in plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) that respond to antigen to Th2 immune deviation in allergic patients. Methods:Subjects consisted of 19 allergic patients and 17 healthy volunteers. Skin prick tests and nasal provocation tests were performed for the two groups. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were collected from subjects and analyzed for the Lineage Cocktail (CD3, CD14, CD16, CD19, CD20, CD56) (-), HLA-DR (+), and CD123 (+) using flow cytometry. In addition, we analyzed TLR9 mRNA by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. The level of $interferon-{\alpha}$ ($IFN-{\alpha}$) of the PBMCs following stimulation with the TLR9 ligand CpG-ODN 2216 was also evaluated. Results:Analyses of CD123 (+) revealed a nearly similar distribution for the classical pDC markers in the allergic group ($0.1%{\pm}0.04%$) and in the controls ($0.25%{\pm}0.23%$). The mRNA levels of TLR9 on PBMCs were not different between the allergic group and the controls ($1.29{\pm}0.41$ vs. $1.25{\pm}0.23$, respectively). Additionally, the level of $IFN-{\alpha}$ in PBMCs exposed to stimuli of the TLR9 ligand CpG-ODN 2216 was not significantly different between the two groups ($911{\pm}829$ vs. $1,095{\pm}888pg/mL$, respectively). Conclusion:We found no evidence that TLR9-dependent immune responses in human pDCs are associated with allergic status.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.5675-5682
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• 2014

As oral diseases are developed by mixed infections, not by any single element, an accurate analysis of the causative microorganisms related to dental caries and periodontal diseases is required. In this study, saliva was collected from selected adults to determine if the bacteria that are well known as the causative microorganisms of dental caries and periodontal diseases would be detected in their saliva. In addition, this study examined whether there would be any differences among adults according to age, smoking, drinking and presence or absence of diseases in the distribution of oral bacteria to determine the risk factors for oral bacteria. The study subjects were 120 adults ranging in age from 20 to 65 years. The experiment data was collected from March 15, to May 2014. The gDNA was collected from the saliva, and the distribution of bacteria for oral diseases was investigated by PCR. The findings of the study were as follows. S. mutans was detected from 72 adults, and P. intermedia was detected from 88 adults. Both bacteria were detected from 54 adults, and no oral bacteria was detected in 14 adults. An analysis of the risk factors of oral bacteria showed that smokers had a 2.8-fold higher risk of S. mutans than nonsmokers, and the former had a 3.5-fold higher risk of P. intermedia than the latter. Drinkers had a 3.3-fold higher risk of S. mutans than nondrinkers. Patients who suffered from systemic diseases had a 4.1-fold higher risk of P. intermedia than those with no diseases. Therefore, smoking, drinking and systemic diseases are factors that increase the likelihood of oral bacteria detection. More periodontal disease bacteria were detected from older adults, and more oral bacteria were found in adults who were in their 20s, as dental caries and periodontal diseases were more common in this age group. The adults in which oral bacteria were detected are more likely to have dental caries or periodontal diseases, and they should try to keep their mouth cavity clean and make regular visits to a dental clinic to prevent possible oral diseases.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.222-230
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• 1983

This study was designed to develop a process for the immobilization of xylose isomerase(D-xylose ketol isomerase, EC 5.3.1.5) from Streptomyces griseolus previously isolated by the authors and its application on a pilot plant scale for the production of high fructose corn syrup. The biomass which has endo-excreted xylose isomerase was homogenized under a pressure of $500kg/cm^2$ and 90.8% of the enzyme recovery of the native activity was obtained as compared to 54.7% recovery by the lysozyme treatment. Ionic bonding method was adopted for the enzyme immobilization due to its many reported merits. It was found that the porous resins such as Diaion HP 20, Duolite A-7, Amberlite IRA 93 and 94 were effective in immobilizing the enzyme. In addition, it was disclosed that the regeneration form of $BO_4--$ is effective for Amberlite IRA 93 and $HCO_3-$ for Diaion HP 20. Optimal immobilization condition for Amberlite IRA 93 was pH 8.0 and $55^{\circ}C$ yielding 80.6% of immobilization. Activity decay test showed half life of the immobilized enzyme with Amberlite IRA 93 was more than 24 days at $65^{\circ}C$. The carrier was evaluated to be resuable and its result showed the relative immobilization yields were 98.2, 93.3, 90.7 and 87.5%, respectively at second, third, forth and fifth rebinding test of the enzyme on Amberlite IRA 93. Optimal temperature of the immobilized enzyme was slightly lowered and the range widened to $60\sim70^{\circ}C$, while optimal pH moved toward $8.0\sim8.3$ in its isomerization reaction. The trial production result of high fructose corn syrup in pilot scale immobilization showed that one liter of immobilized xylose isomerase (350 IXIU/ml-R) is capable producing about 293l high fructose corn syrup(75% dry substance) in 30 days.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.183-191
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• 2002

Purpose : X-linked agammaglobulinemia(XLA) is an immunodeficiency caused by abnormalities in Bruton's tyrosine kinase(Btk), and is characterized by a deficiency of peripheral blood B cells. We studied the cytoplasmic expression of Btk protein and analyzed the Btk gene in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from two siblings and one cousin with XLA, as well as additional family members. Methods : Btk protein expression was analyzed by flow cytometry. Isolation of the coding sequence of the Btk gene was performed by amplification using the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) technique. Sequence alterations were screened by the single-stranded conformation polymorphism(SSCP) method and characterized by standard sequencing protocols. Results : Cytoplasmic expression of Btk protein in monocytes was not detected in three patients with XLA. In addition, Btk protein analysis clearly showed cellular mosaicism in monocytes from four obligate carriers, findings further supported by SSCP. A single base pair mutation(T to C) in Btk-exon three, which encodes the PH domain, was identified in four XLA patients. A diagnostic sequencing analysis was established to detect heterozygotic pattern in 4 carrier females. Furthermore, we found significant clinical heterogeneity in individuals with the same gene mutation. Conclusion : The implicating genetic alteration provided valuable clues to the pathogenesis of XLA in Korea and the flow cytometric analysis was suggested as a useful tool for rapid detection of XLA patients and carriers. The present study has identified a genetic mutation in the Btk coding region and demonstrated heterogeneity in clinical manifestations among patients with the same mutation. A flow cytometric analysis was found to be informative in establishing a deficiency of Btk protein in both patients and carriers and is recommended as a frontline procedure in the molecular diagnosis and work-up of XLA.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.493-501
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• 1986

The present work aims to estimate the effect of heat treatment on the in vitro protein digestibility and formation of trypsin inhibitor or trypsin indigestible substrate(TIS) of raw and defatted flounder. It was also carried out to assess the formation of lipid-protein complexes under the conditions of different ratio of lipid addition. The in vitro protein digestibility increased when steamed for 5 min showing $88.09\%$ in raw and $90.56\%$ in defatted samples, respectively. After 40 min steaming, the digestibility decreased by $2{\sim}4\%$. As for microwaving, heating for 1 min resulted in slight increase of digestibility, however, heating for 7 min did decrease of digestibility by $3{\sim}4\%$ for both raw and defatted materials. There was no difference in fatty acid composition found with heat treatment. The major fatty acids of flounder meat were $C_{16:0},\;C_{16:1},\;C_{18:1},\;C_{20:5},\;C_{22:6}$ and the ratio of the unsaturated to saturated was 67.3:32.6. Fat oxidation and nonenzymatic browning were enhanced by heat treatment and protein solubility decreased necessarily as the brown pigment formation increased. On the other hand, the effects on the digestibility and TIS of the complexes formed from interaction of lipid and myofibrillar or meat protein of flounder were examined. The interaction of protein with lipid was considered to mostly contribute to the drop of digestibility of fish products. The digestibility of myofibrillar protein was $93.72\%$ for flounder, and it generally decreased as the amount of lipid added to protein and reaction time increased. Also mixed and heated samples were more active in digestibility decline than those mixed after heating. The result probably indicated that lipid-protein interaction was involved in the drop of digestibility which coincided with protein denaturation.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.131-142
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• 2011

In recent years, Social Network Service, which is defined as a web-based service that allows an individual to construct a public or a semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulates a list of other users with whom they share connections, and traverses their list of connections. For example, Facebook and Twitter are the representative sites of Social Network Service, and these sites are the big issue in the world. A lot of people use Social Network Services to connect and maintain social relationship. Recently the users of Social Network Services have increased dramatically. Accordingly, many organizations become interested in Social Network Services as means of marketing, media, communication with their customers, and so on, because social network services can offer a variety of benefits to organizations such as companies and associations. In other words, organizations can use Social Network Services to respond rapidly to various user's behaviors because Social Network Services can make it possible to communicate between the users more easily and faster. And marketing cost of the Social Network Service is lower than that of existing tools such as broadcasts, news papers, and direct mails. In addition, Social network Services are growing in market place. So, the organizations such as companies and associations can acquire potential customers for the future. However, organizations uniformly communicate with users through Social Network Service without consideration of the characteristics of the networks although networks have different effects on information deliveries. For example, members' cohesion in an offline communication is higher than that in an online communication because the members of the offline communication are very close. that is, the network of the offline communication has a strong tie. Accordingly, information delivery is fast in the network of the offline communication. In this study, we compose two networks which have different characteristic of communication in Twitter. First network is constructed with data based on an offline communication such as friend, family, senior and junior in school. Second network is constructed with randomly selected data from users who want to associate with friends in online. Each network size is 250 people who divide with three groups. The first group is an ego which means a person in the center of the network. The second group is the ego's followers. The last group is composed of the ego's follower's followers. We compare the networks through social network analysis and follower's reaction analysis. We investigate density and centrality to analyze the characteristic of each network. And we analyze the follower's reactions such as replies and retweets to find differences of information delivery in each network. Our experiment results indicate that density and centrality of the offline communicationbased network are higher than those of the online-based network. Also the number of replies are larger than that of retweets in the offline communication-based network. On the other hand, the number of retweets are larger than that of replies in the online based network. We identified that the effect of information delivery in the offline communication-based network was different from those in the online communication-based network through experiments. So, you configure the appropriate network types considering the characteristics of the network if you want to use social network as an effective marketing tool.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.42-54
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• 1995

$Ta_2O_5$ thin film IS a promising material for the high dielectrics of ULSI DRAM. In this study, $Ta_2O_5$ thin film was grown on p-type( 100) Si wafer by thermal metal organic chemical vapo deposition ( MCCVD) method and the effect of operating varialbles including substrate temperature( $T_s$), bubbler temperature( $T_ \sigma$), reactor pressure( P ) was investigated in detail. $Ta_2O_5$ thin film were analyzed by SEM, XRD, XPS, FT-IR, AES, TEM and AFM. In addition, the effect of various anneal methods was examined and compared. Anneal methods were furnace annealing( FA) and rapid thermal annealing( RTA) in $N_{2}$ or $O_{2}$ ambients. Growth rate was evidently classified into two different regimes. : (1) surface reaction rate-limited reglme in the range of $T_s$=300 ~ $400 ^{\circ}C$ and (2: mass transport-limited regime in the range of $T_s$=400 ~ $450^{\circ}C$.It was found that the effective activation energies were 18.46kcal/mol and 1.9kcal/mol, respectively. As the bubbler temperature increases, the growth rate became maximum at $T_ \sigma$=$140^{\circ}C$. With increasing pressure, the growth rate became maximum at P=3torr but the refractive index which is close to the bulk value of 2.1 was obtained in the range of 0.1 ~ 1 torr. Good step coverage of 85. 71% was obtained at $T_s$=$400 ^{\circ}C$ and sticking coefficient was 0.06 by comparison with Monte Carlo simulation result. From the results of AES, FT-IR and E M , the degree of SiO, formation at the interface between Si and TazO, was larger in the order of FA-$O_{2}$ > RTA-$O_{2}$, FA-$N_{2}$ > RTA-$N_{2}$. However, the $N_{2}$ ambient annealing resulted in more severe Weficiency in the $Ta_2O_5$ thin film than the TEX>$O_{2}$ ambient.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.43-50
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• 2002

To develop commercial semi-solid apple baby food, the physicochemical characteristics of apple puree in relation to different preparing methods and the effect of the addition methods of ascorbic acid on browning reaction were investigated. The preparing methods were classified into 3 groups by initial heating treatment: no heating (A), steaming at $120^{\circ}C$ (B), and blancing at $100^{\circ}C$ (C). The viscosity of tested apple puree was $2,600{\sim}5,856\;cp$, and contents of anhydrogalaturonic acid (AGA) and neutral sugar ranged $4.15{\sim}11.92\;mg%$ and $6.18{\sim}10.65\;mg%$, respectively. Among free sugars tested, level of fructose was the highest $(5.43{\sim}8.87%)$, followed by glucose $(2.11{\sim}4.23%)$, sucrose $(1.64{\sim}2.94%)$, in that order. Since small amounts of ascorbic acid were detected $(1.54{\sim}1.83\;mg%)$, it seemed to be lost by heating process in preparing of apple puree. For apple puree A, its lightness was lower and redness was higher than those of apple puree B and C. Its degree of browning of apple puree was so high that sodium ascorbic acid was added as a antibrowning agent. Puree had low sensory score and nutrient quality. The adding methods of ascorbic acid were classified into 4 groups by adding time: dipping, blending (2), heating (3), and blending + heating (4). Considering color and preference evaluation, preparing method B and adding method 2 showed the highest inhibitory activity on apple puree browning and desirable color for retort baby food. After retort sterilization, the viscosity of apple baby food was decreased from 3,477 cp to 2,294 cp, thiamin was destroyed completely, and the contents of riboflavin and ascorbic acid were decreased 41% and 21%, respectively. However, contents of free sugar and free amino acid and sensory parameter were not influenced by retort sterilization. In overall, the preparing method B-adding method 2 was a good processing condition for the retort apple baby food.