• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.113-118
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• 2006

Major pelvic ganglia (MPG) in rats are an unique autonomic ganglia, containing both sympathetic and parasympathetic neurons related with the function of bladder, penis and bowel. It has been widely known that ionotropic $GABA_A$ receptors are the molecular target of $\gamma$-aminobutric acid (GABA), a major inhibitory neurotransmitter in central nervous system. However, their functions and regulations of $GABA_A$ receptors expressed in autonomic ganglia have been poorly understood. 1 examined the modulatory role of adenylyl cyclase (AC) and protein kinase A(PKA) on $GABA_A$-induced inward currents in the neurons of rat MPG. $GABA_A$ receptors were identified using immunofluorescent labeling in the rat major pelvic ganglion. Electrophysiological experiments were performed to record the activities of $GABA_A$ receptors. $GABA_A$ receptors were expressed only in sympathetic neurons. GABA induced marked inward currents in a concentration-dependent manner. Mucimol ($5{\mu}M$), a $GABA_A$ receptor agonist induced inward currents were significantly reduced in the presence of SQ 225361 $20{\mu}M$, a AC inhibitor and myristoylated PKA inhibitor 100 nM. In addition, forskolin ($1{\mu}M$), AC activator, augmented the GABA induced currents. The activation of AC/PKA-dependent pathway could involve in the regulation $GABA_A$ receptors, expressed only in sympathetic neurons of rat MPG. These findings are helpful for the better understanding the function of various pelvic organs innervated by MPG.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.365-368
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• 2008

Calcium entry through $Ca_v3.2Ca^{2+}$ channels plays essential roles for various physiological events including thalamic oscillation, muscle contraction, hormone secretion, and sperm acrosomal reaction. In this study, we examined how protein tyrosine phosphatases or protein tyrosine kinases affect $Ca_v3.2Ca^{2+}$ channels reconstituted in Xenopus oocytes. We found that $Ca_v3.2$ channel activity was reduced by 25% in response to phenylarsine oxide (tyrosine phosphatase inhibitor), whereas it was augmented by 19% in response to Tyr A47 or herbimycin A (tyrosine kinase inhibitors). However, other biophysical properties of $Ca_v3.2$ currents were not significantly changed by the drugs. These results imply that $Ca_v3.2$ channel activity is capable of being increased by activation of tyrosine phosphatases, but is decreased by activation of tyrosine kinases.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.3 no.3_4
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• pp.39-51
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• 1988

Effects of ${\alpha}$-tocopherol and perilla oil on the toxicity of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) in male rat were studied. Rats were fed ad libitum for 6 weeks with the animal diet which contains PCB 30 ppm and 100 ppm. Perilla oil (0.5 g/kg body weight) and ${\alpha}$-tocopherol (30 mg/kg body weight) were administered intraperitoneally twice a week for 6 weeks. Rats fed with PCB showed enlargement of liver and spleen, increase in aspartate aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, sereum lipid and cytochrome P 450 and decrease in body weight and glutathione. When perilla oil was administered to rats fed with PCB increase in aspartate aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, serum lipid and cytochrome P45O and decrease in body weight and glutathione were significantly augmented, compared to rats fed with PCB alone. This means that perilla oil potentiates the toxicity of PCB. On the other hand when ${\alpha}$-tocopherol was administered to rats fed with PCB increase in aspartate aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, serum lipid and cytochrome P45O and decrease in body weight and glutathione were signigicantly reduced, compared to rats fed with PCB alone. This means that u-tocopherol reduces the toxicity of PCB. From the above results, it may be concluded that PCB is metabolized by microsomal mixed function oxidase and the metabolite causes the toxicity and microsomal glutathione plays a role of protection on the toxicity of PCB.

• IEMEK Journal of Embedded Systems and Applications
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.347-353
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• 2019

Electric-hydraulic sever cylinders are used in many offshore applications such as wind energy farms, solar farms and plants. Jack-up barges are often used for these offshore system operations. Jack-up barge control is up/down by hydraulic cylinder position control. Working in harsh environments can lead to changes in internal parameters. This nonlinearity makes precise control difficult. In order to overcome the problems, we proposed a method of unknown-parameter estimation algorithm based on measurements obtained by system. In this paper, we employee Unscented Kalman filter (UKF) to estimate states and unknown-parameter from augmented nonlinear equation. Performance of estimation results is verified in simulation on an environments of Matlab. The estimation results of the state and unknown-parameter show that the estimation error of unknown-parameter is reduced according to decreasing the state estimation error.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.246-248
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• 2018

Urban development and population have augmented the increase of impervious land-cover. This phenomenon has amplified the effects of climate change and increasing urban island effects due to increases in urban temperatures. Seoul, South Korea is one of the largest metropolitan cities in the world. While land uses in Seoul vary, land cover patterns have not changed much (under 2%) in the past 10 years, making the city a prime target for studying the effects of land cover types on the urban temperature. This research seeks to generalize the urban temperature of Seoul through a series of statistical tests using multi-temporal remote sensing data focusing on multiple scales and typologies of green space to determine its overall effectiveness in reducing the urban heat. The distribution of LST values was reduced as the size of urban forests increased. It means that changing temperature of large-scale green-spaces is less influenced because the broad distribution could be resulted in various external variables such as slope aspect, topographic height and density of planting areas, while small-scale urban forests are more affected from that. The large-scale green spaces contributed significantly to lowering urban temperature by showing a similar mean LST value. Both of concentration and dispersal of urban forests affected the reduction of urban temperature. Therefore, the findings of this research support that creating urban forests in an urban region could reduce urban temperature regardless of the scale.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.78-86
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• 1998

This paper presents a numerical method of the minimum-time trajectory planning for a robot manipulator amid obstacles. Each joint displacement is represented by the linear combination of the finite-term quintic B-splines which are the known functions of the path parameter. The time is represented by the linear function of the same path parameter. Since the geometric path is not fixed and the time is linear to the path parameter, the coefficients of the splines and the time-scale factor span a finite-dimensional vector space, a point in which uniquely represents the manipulator motion. The displacement, the velocity and the acceleration conditions at the starting and the goal positions are transformed into the linear equality constraints on the coefficients of the splines, which reduce the dimension of the vector space. The optimization is performed in the reduced vector space using nonlinear programming. The total moving time is the main performance index which should be minimized. The constraints on the actuator forces and that of the obstacle-avoidance, together with sufficiently large weighting coefficients, are included in the augmented performance index. In the numerical implementation, the minimum-time motion is obtained for a planar 3-1ink manipulator amid several rectangular obstacles without simplifying any dynamic or geometric models.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.45-55
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• 1998

In this paper, a robust path tracker and depth controller of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle based on sliding mode control is presented. We have also designed augmented equivalent control inputs by analyzing the sliding mode with the reaching mode. This can enhance the reaching rate, and improve chattering problems, that is, noise caused by the control plane actuator of the vehicle, which is one of the problems that occur when sliding mode control is used. Also to resolve the steady state error generated in the path tracker under current effect, a modified sliding plane is constructed. Also a redesigned sliding plane and control input using transformation matrix is proposed to do easy design of MIMO depth controller. For state variables that cannot be measured directly, reduced order sliding mode control is used to design an observer. The performance of designed path tracker and depth controller is investigated by computer simulation. The results show that the proposed control system has robust performance to parameter variation, modelling error and disturbance.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.201-206
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• 2012

Ultraviolet (UV) A penetrates deeply into the skin and induces the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) causing damage to fibroblasts, which leads to aging of the skin. However, the body has developed an antioxidant defence system against the harmful effects of ROS. Enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) play critical roles on the removal of excess ROS in living organisms. In this study, the antioxidant activities of anthocyanins (cyanidin 3-galactoside and cyanidin 3-lathyroside) from Acanthopanax divaricatus var. albeofructus (ADA) fruits were investigated by xylenol orange, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), and antioxidant enzyme assay. As a result, generation of $H_2O_2$ and lipid peroxide induced by UVA-irradiation in human dermal fibroblast (HDF-N) cells was reduced by treatment of anthocyanins. Also, augmented enzyme (SOD and CAT) activities were observed in UVA-irradiated cells when treated with anthocyanin. In conclusion, the results obtained show that anthocyanins from ADA fruits are potential candidates for the protection of fibroblast against the damaging effects of UVA irradiation. Furthermore, anthocyanin may be a good candidate for antioxidant agent development.

• Laser Solutions
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.1-12
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• 2001

This study has been performed to evaluate basic characteristics of CW-CO$_2$ laser welding process of A5083 and A7N01 Al alloy. The effect of welding parameters, such as shielding gas, gas flow rate, laser power and welding speed on the bead shape and porosity from bead on plate welding tests have been investigated. Welds shielded by He gas had deeper penetration and better bead shape than those shielded by Ar. The penetration depth was augmented with the increase of laser Power and the decrease of welding speed. Welds of A7N01 alloy had deeper penetration than those of A5083 alloy In beads of A5083 alloy which has deeper penetration, the volume fraction of porosities was high due to the number of its was few, but size of its was larger. The case of deeper penetration beads of A7N01 alloy, the porosity reduced under relatively higher power The Volume fraction of porosities in weld of A5083 alloy was significantly higher than that in weld of A7N01 alloy.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.6-11
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• 2016

The magnetic anisotropy energy (MAE) and the saturation magnetization $B_s$ of (110) $Fe_nCo_n$ heterostructures with n = 1, 2, and 3 are investigated in first-principles within the density functional theory by using the precise full-potential linearized augmented plane wave (FLAPW) method. We compare the results employing two different exchange correlation potentials, that is, the local density approximation (LDA) and the generalized gradient approximation (GGA), and include the spin-orbit coupling interaction of the valence states in the second variational way. The MAE is found to be enhanced significantly compared to those of bulk Fe and Co and the magnetic easy axis is in-plane in agreement with experiment. Also the MAE exhibits the in-plane angle dependence with a two-fold anisotropy showing that the $[1{\overline{I}}0]$ direction is the most favored spin direction. We found that as the periodicity increases, (i) the saturation magnetization $B_s$ decreases due to the reduced magnetic moment of Fe far from the interface, (ii) the strength of in-plane preference of spin direction increases yielding enhancement of MAE, and (iii) the volume anisotropy coefficient decreases because the volume increase outdo the MAE enhancement.