• BMB Reports
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• v.53 no.11
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• pp.600-604
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• 2020

Macrophages are re-educated and polarized in response to myocardial infarction (MI). The M2 anti-inflammatory phenotype is a known dominator of late stage MI. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) represent a promising tool for cell therapy, particularly heart related diseases. In general, MSCs induce alteration of the macrophage subtype from M1 to M2, both in vitro and in vivo. We conjectured that hypoxic conditions can promote secretome productivity of MSCs. Hypoxia induces TGF-β1 expression, and TGF-β1 mediates M2 macrophage polarization for anti-inflammation and angiogenesis in infarcted areas. We hypothesized that macrophages undergo advanced M2 polarization after exposure to MSCs in hypoxia. Treatment of MSCs derived hypoxic conditioned medium (hypo-CM) promoted M2 phenotype and neovascularization through the TGF-β1/Smad3 pathway. In addition, hypo-CM derived from MSCs improved restoration of ischemic heart, such as attenuating cell apoptosis and fibrosis, and ameliorating microvessel density. Based on our results, we propose a new therapeutic method for effective MI treatment using regulation of macrophage polarization.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.3.1-3.8
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• 2017

Seahorse, a syngnathidae fish, is one of the important organisms used in Chinese traditional medicine. Hippocampus abdominalis, a seahorse species successfully cultured in Korea, was validated for use in food by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in February 2016; however. the validation was restricted to 50% of the entire composition. Therefore, to use H. abdominalis as a food ingredient, H. abdominalis has to be prepared as a mixture by adding other materials. In this study, the effect of H. abdominalis on muscles was investigated to scientifically verify its potential bioactivity. In addition, the anti-fatigue activity of a mixture comprising H. abdominalis and red ginseng (RG) was evaluated to commercially utilize H. abdominalis in food industry. H. abdominalis was hydrolyzed using Alcalase, a protease, and the effect of H. abdominalis hydrolysate (HH) on the muscles was assessed in C2C12 myoblasts by measuring cell proliferation and glycogen content. In addition, the mixtures comprising HH and RG were prepared at different percentages of RG to HH (20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, and 80% RG), and the anti-fatigue activity of these mixtures against oxidative stress was assessed in C2C12 myoblasts. In C2C12 myoblasts, $H_2O_2$-induced oxidative stress caused a decrease in viability and physical fatigue-related biomarkers such as glycogen and ATP contents. However, treatment with RG and HH mixtures increased cell viability and the content of fatigue-related biomarkers. In particular, the 80% RG mixture showed an optimum effect on cell viability and ATP synthesis activity. In this study, all results indicated that HH had anti-fatigue activity at concentrations approved for use in food by the law in Korea. Especially, an 80% RG to HH mixture can be used in food for ameliorating fatigue.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.21 no.8
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• pp.1100-1108
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• 2011

The immunomodulating effects of moxifloxacin seem to be effective in downregulating inflammatory reactions. This presumed effect was tested in endotoxin (ETX)-induced acute lung injury (ALI) in rats. After moxifloxacin treatment (10 mg/kg) of ETX-given rats, lung myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity, bronchoalveolar-lavage (BAL) protein, and the number of neutrophils in the BAL cells were measured. Light and electron microscopic structures were also examined. Electron microscopic $CeCl_3$ histochemistry for the detection of hydrogen peroxide in the lungs and immunohistochemistry of cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2) in the lung tissues and BAL cells were performed. To examine the expression of TNF${\alpha}$ in the lungs, western blotting was carried out with the lung tissues. ETX had accumulated neutrophils in the lungs, which was followed by lung leak. Oxidative stress occurred, and increased expression of cPLA2 in the lung tissues and BAL cells was observed in the ETX-given rats. Simultaneously, the expression of TNF${\alpha}$ was enhanced by ETX. Moxifloxacin, however, decreased all these parameters, indicating that ALI may have been ameliorated. Moxifloxacin appears to ameliorate ETX-induced ALI partially through the suppression of cPLA2 in the lungs of rats.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.278-284
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• 1992

This study was performed to investigate the effects of ginseng saponins on the cerebral energy metabolite's contents influenced by carbon monoxide(CO) intoxication. Each experimental group was divided young ($5{\sim}8$ weeks) and aged ($43{\sim}52$ weeks) rats, and they were exposed at 5,000 ppm CO (72%HbCO) for 30 min. One of the other groups was pretreated with ginseng saponins for 5 days before CO intoxication. The contents of cerebral energy metabolites in cerebral cortex, stratum and hypothalamus were measured. In cerebral cortex of both young and aged rats, the levels of ATP and creatine phosphate were significantly decreased, while those of lactate were significantly increased. There was no difference between the levels of cerebral energy metabolites of young and aged rats. Pretreatment of ginseng saponins before CO intoxication lowered decrease of the levels of cerebral energy metabolites and ATP levels were significantly recovered. On the other hands, contents of lactate in stratum and hypothalamus of young rats were significantly increased and the levels of ATP and creatine phosphate in stratum and hypothalamus were completely recovered at 2 weeks after CO intoxication. The results suggest that ginseng saponins have an ameliorating action against disturbance of the cerebral energy metabolites by CO intoxication.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.47-58
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• 2012

The purpose of this paper is to verify the education effects of program for engineering students and extract the essential components to be included in the learning contents. For this, we investigated the lecture contents critically and analyzed the evaluation result of questionnaire to examine the students' learning satisfaction and learners' needs concerning the effectiveness of course. The survey using two types of questionnaires was conducted with 210 junior and senior students taking lectures of ${\ll}$Presentation and Debate Skills${\gg}$ in the college of engineering at Pusan National University. According to the evaluation result, students experienced various speech education's effects concerning (1) verbal components, (2) non-verbal components, (3) problem solving competence, (4) teamwork skills, etc. On the other side there have been pointed out as problems in the ${\ll}$Presentation and Debate Skills${\gg}$ class, such as (1) a large number of assignments, (2) insufficiency of more refined evaluation method for the individuals and (3) a well-balanced arrangement between 'theory' and 'practice' was needed. However more importantly, the individual students can not do practice sufficiently owing to the large scale of class. Therefore the various and effective ways to help students improve their communicative competence have to be developed further. Finally, there have been extracted several essential components to be included in the class and implications for ameliorating the class were discussed and suggested in detail.

• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.27-31
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• 2011

The ameliorating effect of the saponin rich fraction (SRF) prepared from the roots extract of Platycodon grandiflorum (Campanulaceae) on the scopolamine-induced cognitive dysfunction in mice were investigated by way of Moris water maze task. The mice with repeated oral administration of the SRF for four weeks showed markedly reduced the swimming time and swimming distance to reach the platform as well as the increase of number of crossing the platform on the Moris water maze task performed after scopolamine intoxication. The results suggest that SRF obtained from the roots extract of P. grandiflorum exert a cognitive enhancing effect on scopolamine-induced memory impairment in mice.

• The Journal of the Korean dental association
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.6-11
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• 2010

Amid the rapid transitions in both local and international markets, the Korean dental industry is facing more challenges than at any time in its history. This paper tried to address some of the key issues faced by the industry as well as the policy issues and I direction of implementation that the Korean Dental Association (KDA) is expected to tackle. First, the direction of reforming the country's health insurance system was examined with emphasis on the expected changes in and improvement of the fee-for-service reimbursement system (FFSRS) and medical reimbursement system (MRS). With FFSRS, the most urgent issue would be ameliorating the current lop-sided, unreasonable reimbursement system that prevents suppliers from voicing their opinions. To help achieve that goal, the limited authority and responsibility of the president of National Health Insurance Corporation (NHIC) as one of the contract-making parties must be clarified. In addition, the functions of NHIC's Health Insurance Finance Committee must be restricted; at the same time, the panel organization of the Health Insurance Policy Review Committee needs to be reformed to embrace greater democracy. As with MRS, the government is considering a block budget bill to help promote efficiency in employing and managing the health insurance fund. Policymakers must understand that the implementation of such proposal could exacerbate an already dire situation. Improving MRS requires meeting the following preconditions: (a) the structurally vicious cycle of small charge-small salary needs to be resolved, and a certain percentage of fee raise must be guaranteed on a yearly basis to help adjust the fee system to a more realistic level; (b) the supply-and-demand balance in producing health care professionals must be improved including the prevention of oversupply of doctors, nurses, etc., and; (c) institutional strategies must be provided to enhance the quality of medical care and ensure academic advancement in health care disciplines.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.137-145
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• 2004

Intensive animal industries create large volumes of nutrient rich effluent which, if untreated, has the potential for substantial environmental degradationand to recover valuable nutrients that would otherwise be lost. Members of the family Lemnaceae are widely used in lagoon systems, to achieve inexpensive and efficient remediation of effluent. Only limited research has been conducted into their growth in highly eutrophic media and there has been little done to systematically distinguish between different types of media. This study examined the growth characteristics of duckweed in abattoir effluent and explored possible ways of ameliorating the inhibitory factors to growth on this medium. A series of pot trials was conducted to test the tolerance of duckweed to abattoir effluent partially remediated by a sojourn in anaerobic fermentation ponds, both in its unmodified form and after the addition of acid to manipulate pH, and the addition of bentonite. Unmodified abattoir effluent was highly toxic to duckweed, even at dilutions of 3:1. Duckweed remained viable and grew sub-optimally in simplified media with total ammonia nitrogen (TAN) concentrations of up to 100 mg/L. Duckweed grew vigorously in effluent diluted 1:4 v/v, containing 56 mg TAN/L when modified by addition of acid (to decrease pH to 7) and bentonite at 0.5%. The results of this study suggest that bentonite plays an important role in modifying the toxicity of abattoir effluent to duckweed.

• CELLMED
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.6.1-6.6
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• 2016

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) has now become more common in occurrence in women of reproductive age, particularly in urban and semi-urban population in India. So there is a need to investigate this phenomenon taking into consideration various aspects including possible treatment method to ameliorate/eradicate this syndrome, which has far reaching socio-economic impact and consequences, in view of infertility and irregular menstrual cycles frequently associated with this syndrome. Homeopathy is a branch of traditional alternative medicine which is gaining popularity in India and some other developing countries, as also in some of the developed countries in Europe. With this background scenario, we have made an attempt to treat cases of confirmed PCOS and tried to compare the relative efficacy of two potentized homeopathic drugs, namely, Lycopodium clavatum (Lyco) and Calcarea carbonica (Calc), most frequently used by homeopathic practitioners, selecting different potencies of the drugs, depending on condition/guiding symptom(s) of the patients. While the main focus was pointed on total/partial removal of cysts, data pertaining to different PCOS associated symptoms were also compared for the sake of learning if the two drugs had differential effects on these symptoms also. The study parameters in this investigation included: regularity/irregularity of menstrual cycle, presence/absence of acne, hirsutism, male type alopecia, acanthosis nigricans, body/mass index (BMI) and waist-hip ratio. Overall results provided clear evidences that both these homeopathic drugs had great ameliorating effects on PCOS, although each drug had a little different effect in respect of the individual parameters of this study.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.391-397
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• 2014

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: Myocardial cell death due to occlusion of the coronary arteries leads to myocardial infarction, a subset of coronary heart disease (CHD). Dietary fiber is known to be associated with a reduced risk of CHD, the underlying mechanisms of which were suggested to delay the onset of occlusion by ameliorating risk factors. In this study, we tested a hypothesis that a beneficial role of dietary fiber could arise from protection of myocardial cells against ischemic injury, manifested after occlusion of the arteries. MATERIALS/METHODS: Three days after rats were fed apple pectin (AP) (with 10, 40, 100, and 400 mg/kg/day), myocardial ischemic injury was induced by 30 min-ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery, followed by 3 hr-reperfusion. The area at risk and infarct area were evaluated using Evans blue dye and 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining, respectively. DNA nicks reflecting the extent of myocardial apoptosis were assessed by TUNEL assay. Levels of cleaved caspase-3, Bcl-2, and Bax were assessed by immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: Supplementation of AP (with 100 and 400 mg/kg/day) resulted in significantly attenuated infarct size (IS) (ratio of infarct area to area at risk) by 21.9 and 22.4%, respectively, in the AP-treated group, compared with that in the control group. This attenuation in IS showed correlation with improvement in biomarkers involved in the apoptotic cascades: reduction of apoptotic cells, inhibition of conversion of procaspase-3 to caspase-3, and increase of Bcl-2/Bax ratio, a determinant of cell fate. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that supplementation of AP results in amelioration of myocardial infarction by inhibition of apoptosis. Thus, the current study suggests that intake of dietary fiber reduces the risk of CHD, not only by blocking steps leading to occlusion, but also by protecting against ischemic injury caused by occlusion of the arteries.