• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.850-855
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• 2013

Finding new antimicrobial activities by functional metagenomics has been shown to depend on the heterologous host used to express the foreign DNA. Therefore, efforts are devoted to developing new tools for constructing metagenomic libraries in shuttle vectors replicatable in phylogenetically distinct hosts. Here we evaluated the use of the Escherichia coli-Bacillus subtilis shuttle vector pHT01 to construct a forest-soil metagenomic library. This library was screened in both hosts for antimicrobial activities against four opportunistic bacteria: Proteus vulgaris, Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, and Micrococcus luteus. A new antibacterial activity against B. cereus was found upon screening in B. subtilis. The new antimicrobial agent, sensitive to proteinase K, was not active when the corresponding DNA fragment was expressed in E. coli. Our results validate the use of pHT01 as a shuttle vector and B. subtilis as a host to isolate new activities by functional metagenomics.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.100-104
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• 2012

In this paper, a unit cell for low pass filter design by using composite right and left-handed transmission line in conductor-backed coplanar waveguide is proposed. The characteristics of the unit cell are analyzed in order to design a low pass filter in small sizes. By changing the sizes of the unit cell, the parameters of right-handed and left-handed immittance components are changed and the desired characteristics of the unit cell are achieved. The equivalent circuit of the unit cell is extracted and analyzed either. As a result, the simulation results of the unit cell and the equivalent circuit are almost identified. The movement and energy distributions of electromagnetic field are shown to confirm the property of the unit cell. In the end, a low pass filter is demonstrated by cascading three proposed unit cells, which shows cutoff frequency of 1.53GHz and deep attenuation from 2.23GHz to 4.49GHz lower than -50dB.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.469-474
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• 2006

A $1{\times}16$ thermo-optic switch with small excess loss using multimode interference(MMI) couplers is designed, fabricated, and measured. This paper introduces the proposed $1{\times}16$ thermo-optic switch, and discusses the measurement results. The $1{\times}16$ thermo-optic switch is farmed as 4-stage which consists of 15 unit devices. The unit devices are the $2{\times}2$ thermo-optic switches with Mach-Zehnder interferometer(MZI) structure. The characteristics of the $1{\times}16$ thermo-optic switch depends strongly on each unit device. The unit deviceconsists of two 3-dB general interference MMI couplers and two single mode waveguide arms as a phase shifter. First of all, the 3-dB optical splitter and $2{\times}2$ MZI thermo-optic switch have been tested to confirm the characteristics of the unit devices of the $1{\times}16$ MZI thermo-optic switch. Using the measurement results of the unit devices, the $1{\times}16$ MZI thermo-optic switch can be produced with better characteristics. The resultant structure of the MMI coupler with the optical light source of wavelength of 1550nm for the $1{\times}16$ thermo-optic switch is that the width and the optimized length are $25{\mu}m\;and\;1580{\mu}m$, respectively. The smallest excess loss fur the unit device is -0.5dB and the average excess loss is -0.7dB.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.47-54
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• 2000

We compared the satellite observed temperature with the radiosonde observed temperature in the Korean Peninsula. The radiosonde observed data were obtained from four upper air observation stations in the Korean Peninsula from 1981 to 1998, and were compared with the satellite observed data of the channel-2 and channel-4 of microwave sounding unit(MSU) on board NOAA series of polar-orbiting satellites. The radiosonde data were reconstructed from radiosonde T$_b$ using MSU weighting function. The monthly climatology shows radiosonde T$_{b2}$ is higher than MSU T$_{b2}$ in summer. The correlation between MSU T$_{b2}$ and radiosonde T$_{b2}$ is 0.72-0.76 and 0.73-0.81 between MSU T$_{b4}$ and radiosonde T$_{b4}$. The T$_{b2}$ show a positive trend and the T$_{b4}$ has a negative trend during the 18 years.

• BMB Reports
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.175-179
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• 1996

Viral surface proteins are known to play an essential role in attachment of the virus particle to the host cell membrane. In case of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) several reports have described potential receptors on the target cell side, but no definite receptor protein has been isolated yet. As for the viral side, it has been suggested that the preS region of the envelope protein, especially the preS1 region, is involved in binding of HBV to the host cell. In this study, preS1 region was recombinantly expressed in the form of a maltose binding protein (MBP) fusion protein and used to identify and visualize the expression of putative HBV receptor(s) on the host cell. Using laser scanned confocal microscopy and by FACS analysis, MBP-preS1 proteins were shown to bind to the human hepatoma cell line HepG2 in a receptor-ligand specific manner. The binding kinetic of MBP-preS1 to its cellular receptor was shown to be temperature and time dependent. In cells permeabilized with Triton X-100 and treated with the fusion protein, a specific staining of the nuclear membrane could be observed. To determine the precise location of the receptor binding site within the preS1 region, several short overlapping peptides from this region were synthesized and used in a competition assay. In this way the receptor binding epitope in preS1 was revealed to be amino acid residues 27 to 51, which is in agreement with previous reports. These results confirm the significance of the preS1 region in virus attachment in general, and suggest an internalization pathway mediated by direct attachment of the viral particle to the target cell membrane.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.3131-3138
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• 2016

Several studies have addressed the possible role of hepatitis C virus genotype-4 (HCV GT4) in apoptosis. However, this still not fully understood. In the current study a re-constructed clone of E1/E2 polyprotein region of the HCV GT4 was transfected into the Huh7 cell line and a human apoptotic PCR array of 84 genes was used to investigate its possible significance for apoptosis. Out of the 84 genes, only 35 showed significant differential expression, 12 genes being up-regulated and 23 down-regulated. The highest-up regulated genes were APAF1 (apoptotic peptidase-activating factor 1), BID (BH3 interacting domain death agonist) and BCL 10 (B-cell CLL/lymphoma protein 10) with fold regulation of 33.2, 30.1 and 18.9, respectively. The most down-regulated were FAS (TNF receptor super family), TNFRSF10B (tumor necrosis factor receptor super-family member 10b) and FADD (FAS-associated death domain) with fold regulation of -30.2, -27.7 and -14.9, respectively. These results suggest that the E1/E2 proteins may be involved in HCV-induced pathogenesis by modulating apoptosis through the induction of the intrinsic apoptosis pathway and disruption of the BCL2 gene family.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.10B no.6
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• pp.665-672
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• 2003

This paper describes a speech synthesis technique by concatenating unit phoneme. At that time, a major problem is that discontinuity is happened from connection part between unit phonemes, especially from connection part between unit phonemes recorded by different persons. To solve the problem, this paper uses clustered diphone, and proposes a spectral smoothing technique, not only using formant trajectory and distribution characteristic of spectrum but also reflecting human's acoustic characteristic. That is, the proposed technique performs unit phoneme clustering using distribution characteristic of spectrum at connection part between unit phonemes and decides a quantity and a scope for the smoothing by considering human's acoustic characteristic at the connection part of unit phonemes, and then performs the spectral smoothing using weights calculated along a time axes at the border of two diphones. The proposed technique removes the discontinuity and minimizes the distortion which can be occurred by spectrum smoothing. For the purpose of the performance evaluation, we test on five hundred diphones which are extracted from twenty sentences recorded by five persons, and show the experimental results.

• Hip & pelvis
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.32-39
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• 2023

Purpose: A staged revision with placement of a temporary antibiotic-loaded cement spacer after removal of the implant is the "gold standard" for treatment of chronic prosthetic joint infection (PJI). It enables local delivery of antibiotics, maintenance of limb-length and mobility, easier reimplantation. However, bacterial colonization of spacers and mechanical complications can also occur. The aim of this study is to evaluate functional results and infection control in two-stage treatment of total hip arthroplasty (THA) PJI with and without a spacer. Materials and Methods: A retrospective review of 64 consecutive patients was conducted: 34 underwent two-stage revision using a cement spacer (group A), 30 underwent two-stage revision without a spacer (group B). At the final follow-up, functional evaluation of patients with a THA in site, without PJI recurrence, was performed using the Harris hip score (HHS). Measurement of limb-length and off-set discrepancies was performed using anteroposterior pelvic X-rays. Results: Most patients in group B were older with more comorbidities preoperatively. Thirty-three patients (97.1%) in group A underwent THA reimplantation versus 22 patients (73.3%) in group B (P<0.001). No significant differences in limb-length and off-set were observed. The results of functional evaluation performed during the final follow-up (mean, 41 months) showed better function in patients in group A (mean HHS, 76.3 vs. 55.9; P<0.001). Conclusion: The use of antibiotic-loaded cement spacer seems superior in terms of functional outcomes and reimplantation rate. Resection arthroplasty might be reserved as a first-stage procedure in patients who are unfit, who might benefit from a definitive procedure.

• Journal of electromagnetic engineering and science
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.110-116
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• 2006

A reflective array type surface acoustic wave(SAW) dispersive delay line(DDL) with high time-bandwidth at the V/UHF-band is designed and fabricated for compressive receiver applications. This type of the SAW DDL has the properties of the relative bandwidth of 20 %, the time delay of 49.89 usec, the insertion loss of 38.5 dB and the side lobe rejection of 39 dB. In comparison with a commercial SAW DDL, the insertion loss, amplitude ripple and side lobe rejection are improved by $1.5dB{\pm}0.6dB$ and 4 dB respectively. Using the fabricated SAW DDL, the prototype of the compressive receiver is developed. It is composed of RF converter, fast tunable LO, chirp LO, A/D converter, signal processing unit and control unit. This prototype system shows a fine frequency resolution of below 30 kHz with high scan rate.

• Proceedings of the KSMRM Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.24-24
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• 2003

Purpose： It is known that diffusion-weighted MR imaging (DWI) is helpful in the evaluation of malignancy grading in brain tumor. This study was to evaluate the DWls with different b-values of various brain tumors in order to determine optimal b-values on 3T MR unit. Method： On a 3T MR unit, DWls with b-values of 1, 000, 3, 000 and 5, 000 s/mm2 were obtained in 20 patients of pathologically-proven brain tumors (7 metastases, 4 high grade gliomas, 2 Iymphomas, 2 low grade gliomas, 2 germinomas, and one each of germinoma, meningioma, hemangioblastoma and central neurocytoma. The overall image quality, contrast between normal brain parenchyma and tumor and signal intensities of solid and cystic components were comparatively evaluated among DWls with different b-values by visual inspection.