• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.125-131
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• 2021

The scientific understanding of Korean medicine theory remains largely unknown, since there is a lack of proper methods to investigate its complex and unique characteristics. Here, we introduce a drug-centered approach, a novel method to investigate Korean medicine theory by analyzing the mechanisms of herbal medicines. This method can be effectively conducted by employing network pharmacology that can analyze the systems-level mechanisms of herbal medicines on a large scale. Firstly, we introduce the method of network pharmacology that are applied to analyze the mechanisms of herbal medicines in a step-by-step manner. Then, we show how the drug-centered approach employing network pharmacology can be applied to investigate Korean medicine theory by describing studies that identify the biological correlates of the cold-hot nature of herbs, spleen qi deficiency syndrome, or Sasang constitution. Finally, we discuss the limitations and future directions of the proposed approach in two aspects: The methods of network pharmacology for a drug-centered approach and the process of inferring Korean medicine theory through it. We believe that a drug-centered approach employing network pharmacology will provide an advanced scientific understanding of Korean medicine theory and contribute to its development by generating biologically plausible hypothesis.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.27.1-27.13
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• 2022

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most prevalent head and neck malignancy, with frequent cervical lymph-node metastasis, leading to a poor prognosis in OSCC patients. The present study aimed to identify potential markers, including microRNAs (miRNAs) and genes, significantly involved in the etiology of early-stage OSCC. Additionally, the main OSCC's dysregulated Gene Ontology annotations and significant signaling pathways were identified. The dataset GSE45238 underwent multivariate statistical analysis in order to distinguish primary OSCC tissues from healthy oral epithelium. Differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs) with the criteria of p-value < 0.001 and |Log2 fold change| > 1.585 were identified in the two groups, and subsequently, validated targets of DEMs were identified. A protein interaction map was constructed, hub genes were identified, significant modules within the network were illustrated, and significant pathways and biological processes associated with the clusters were demonstrated. Using the GEPI2 database, the hub genes' predictive function was assessed. Compared to the healthy controls, main OSCC had a total of 23 DEMs. In patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), upregulation of CALM1, CYCS, THBS1, MYC, GATA6, and SPRED3 was strongly associated with a poor prognosis. In HNSCC patients, overexpression of PIK3R3, GIGYF1, and BCL2L11 was substantially correlated with a good prognosis. Besides, "proteoglycans in cancer" was the most significant pathway enriched in the primary OSCC. The present study results revealed more possible mechanisms mediating primary OSCC and may be useful in the prognosis of the patients with early-stage OSCC.

• Journal of Appropriate Technology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.183-189
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• 2020

Developing countries are areas where many problems arise from poor drinking water infrastructure. Developing countries often use groundwater as their primary source of drinking water, which causes problems. Among them, coastal areas are easily exposed to saltwater intrusion due to their geographical characteristics. Groundwater in areas exposed to saltwater intrusion has higher salinity than usual. If you continue to consume high salinity groundwater can cause a variety of fatal effects on the human body. Therefore, various alternatives have been proposed. This study explores the applicability of CDI(Capacitive Deionization) and RO(Reverse Osmosis) for water purification systems in areas where saltwater intrusion has occurred. Therefore, we will evaluate this by conducting water purification experiment. On the other hand, the supply of electricity is also important in the operation of water purification facilities. However, in many areas of developing countries, electricity is often not available. Therefore, this study intends to calculate the power consumption required for the actual use of the filter and to include it in the evaluation.

• Journal of Species Research
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.117-133
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• 2021

In 2019, 43 bacterial strains were isolated from food, soil, marine environments, human, and animals related sources from the Republic of Korea. Based on the analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequence, these isolates were allocated to the phyla Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes as unrecorded species in Korea. The 10 Bacteroidetes strains were classified into the families Bacteroidaceae, Chitinophagaceae, Cytophagaceae, Flavobacteriaceae, and Prolixibacteraceae (of the orders Bacteroidales, Chitinophagales, Cytophagales, Flavobacteriales, and Marinilabiliales, respectively). The 33 Firmicutes strains belonged to the families Bacillaceae, Paenibacillaceae, Planococcaceae, Staphylococcaceae, Clostridiaceae, Lachnospiraceae, Peptostreptococcaceae, Enterococcaceae, Lactobacillaceae, Leuconostocaceae, and Streptococcaceae (of the orders Bacillales, Clostridiales, and Lactobacillales). These unrecorded bacteria were determined based on taxonomic criterion (>98.7%; 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity). In addition, their phylogenetic affiliation, as well as cell and colony morphologies, staining reactions, and physiological and biochemical properties were investigated. Therefore, we report 43 isolates as unrecorded species, and described basic features, isolation source, and locations of these strains.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.116-123
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• 2022

This study analyzes the Mechanical properties of a medical bone plate by 3D printing. With the recent development of 3D printing technology, it is being applied in various fields. In particular, in the medical field, the use of 3D printing technology, which was limited to the existing orthosis and surgical simulation, has recently been used to replacement bones lost due to orthopedic implants using metal 3D printing. The field of application is increasing, such as replacement. However, due to the manufacturing characteristics of 3D printing, micro pores are generated inside the metal printing output, and it is necessary to reduce the pores and the loss of mechanical properties through post-processing such as heat treatment. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to analyze the change in mechanical performance characteristics of medical metal plates manufactured by metal 3D printing under various conditions and to find efficient metal printing results. The specimen to be used in the experiment is a metal plate for trauma fixation applied to the human phalanx, and it was manufactured using the 'DMP Flex 100(3D Systems, USA), a metal 3D printer of DMLS (Direct Metal Laser Sintering) method. It was manufactured using the PBF(Powder Bed Fusion) method using Ti6Al4V ELI powder material.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.61-71
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• 2022

Soil color is used to determine soil classification and its physical, chemical, and biological properties. Visual determination is the most commonly used method for identifying soil color. However, it is subjective and, in many cases, non-repeatable. Digital image processing obtains useful information from digital images, accelerates soil classification, and enables the rapid identification of soil types in a field. This study develops a digital image processing-based soil color analysis technology that can consider irregular light conditions in the field. The digital image studio was designed to simulate the characteristics of natural light (illuminance and color temperature). Also, digital images of two soil samples (Jumoonjin sand and Anseong weathered soil) were captured under 12 different light conditions. For the RGB and CIELAB color systems, soil color intensities of 24 images were obtained using digital image processing. CIELAB was suitable for dealing with irregular light conditions in the field.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.151-157
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• 2022

Various approaches have been applied to transform aquaculture from a manual, labour-intensive industry to one dependent on automation technologies in the era of the fourth industrial revolution. Technologies associated with the monitoring of physical condition have successfully been applied in most aquafarm facilities; however, real-time biological monitoring systems that can observe fish condition and behaviour are still required. In this study, we used a video recorder placed on top of a fish tank to observe the swimming patterns of rock bream (Oplegnathus fasciatus), first one fish alone and then a group of five fish. Rock bream in the video samples were successfully identified using the you-only-look-once v3 algorithm, which is based on the Darknet-53 convolutional neural network. In addition to recordings of swimming behaviour under normal conditions, the swimming patterns of fish under abnormal conditions were recorded on adding an anaesthetic or lowering the salinity. The abnormal conditions led to changes in the velocity of movement (3.8 ± 0.6 cm/s) involving an initial rapid increase in speed (up to 16.5 ± 3.0 cm/s, upon 2-phenoxyethanol treatment) before the fish stopped moving, as well as changing from swimming upright to dying lying on their sides. Machine learning was applied to datasets consisting of normal or abnormal behaviour patterns, to evaluate the fish behaviour. The proposed algorithm showed a high accuracy (98.1%) in discriminating normal and abnormal rock bream behaviour. We conclude that artificial intelligence-based detection of abnormal behaviour can be applied to develop an automatic bio-management system for use in the aquaculture industry.

• Journal of Species Research
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.133-142
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• 2022

In 2020, 24 bacterial strains were isolated from algae, kudzu leaf, mud, pine cone, seashore sand, sea water, soil, tidal flat, and wetland from the Republic of Korea. Isolated bacterial strains were identified based on 16S rRNA gene sequences, and those exhibiting at least 98.7% sequence similarity with known bacterial species, but not reported in Korea, were highlighted as unrecorded species. These isolates were allocated to the phyla Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria as unrecorded species in Korea. The four Bacteroidetes strains were classified into the families Chitinophagaceae, Flavobacteriaceae, and Sphingobacteriaceae (of the orders Chitinophagales, Flavobacteriales, and Sphingobacteriales, respectively). The 20 Proteobacteria strains belonged to the Aeromonadaceae, Marinobacter, Microbulbiferaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, Erwiniaceae, Morganellaceae, Yersiniaceae, Lysobacteraceae, Halomonadaceae, Moraxellaceae, Pseudomonadaceae, Steroidobacteraceae, Xanthomonadaceae, and Myxococcaceae (of the orders Aeromonadales, Alteromonadales, Cellvibrionales, Enterobacterales, Lysobacterales, Oceanospirillales, Pseudomonadales, Steroidobacter, Xanthomonadales, and Myxococcales). This study focused on the description of 24 unreported bacterial species in Korea in the phyla Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria belonging to six classes.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.241-249
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• 2021

Recently, artificial intelligence for diagnosis system of obstetric diseases have been actively studied. Artificial intelligence diagnostic assist systems, which support medical diagnosis benefits of efficiency and accuracy, may experience problems of poor learning accuracy and reliability when inappropriate images are the model's input data. For this reason, before learning, We proposed an algorithm to exclude unread cervical imaging. 2,000 images of read cervical imaging and 257 images of unread cervical imaging were used for this study. Experiments were conducted based on the statistical method Radiomics to extract feature values of the entire images for classification of unread images from the entire images and to obtain a range of read threshold values. The degree to which brightness, blur, and cervical regions were photographed adequately in the image was determined as classification indicators. We compared the classification performance by learning read cervical imaging classified by the algorithm proposed in this paper and unread cervical imaging for deep learning classification model. We evaluate the classification accuracy for unread Cervical imaging of the algorithm by comparing the performance. Images for the algorithm showed higher accuracy of 91.6% on average. It is expected that the algorithm proposed in this paper will improve reliability by effectively excluding unread cervical imaging and ultimately reducing errors in artificial intelligence diagnosis.

• ALGAE
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.163-174
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• 2022

Light-emitting-diodes (LEDs) are a lighting source useful for the precise evaluation of light quality effect on biological systems. Despite the importance of light spectra on the regeneration of land plant protoplasts ("naked cells"), this factor has not been tested yet on protoplasts from multicellular algae. This study reports on the effects of pure primary colors (red, blue, and green), dichromatic (red plus blue, RB, 1 : 2) and white LEDs on protoplast regeneration from male and female Undaria pinnatifida gametophytes. We also evaluated the effect of different light spectra on pigment composition (chlorophyll a, chlorophyll c, and fucoxanthine), and the light intensities under the best condition on the regeneration process. In the early stages, blue or RB LEDs increased the percentage of dividing female protoplasts, whereas red, blue, and RB LEDs enhanced that of dividing male protoplasts. In the later stages, RB LEDs showed a positive effect only on the percentage of multiple rhizoid-like protrusions (male gametophyte). They also increased the final area of both regenerated gametophytes. The LEDs did not affect pigment composition in female gametophytes. In male gametophytes, in contrast, they reduced chlorophyll c, while blue, RB, and green LEDs decreased fucoxanthin. Under RB LEDs, the optimal light intensity was 80 µmol photons m^-2 s^-1 for female gametophytes and 40 to 60 µmol photons m^-2 s^-1 for male gametophytes. Our results suggest that dichromatic LED illumination (red-blue) improves regeneration of U. pinnatifida gametophyte-isolated protoplasts. Thus, dichromatic LEDs might a suitable light source for enhancing protoplast regeneration in brown seaweeds.