• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.26 no.5
• /
• pp.319-330
• /
• 2005

Over the past few decades, much effort has been made to improve the mechanical and biological performance of HA, in order to extend its range of applications. As a major inorganic component of human hard tissues, hydroxyapatite bioceramic is regarded as being one of the most biocompatible materials. Numerous in vitro and in vivo studies have confirmed its excellent bioactivity, osteoconductivity and bone forming ability. However, because of its poor mechanical properties, its use in hard tissue applications has been restricted to those areas in which it can be used in the form of small sized powders/granules or in the non-load bearing sites. A number of researchers have focused on improving the mechanical and biological performance of HA, as well as on the formulation of hybrid and composite systems in order to extend its range of applications. In this article, we reviewed our recent works on HA-based biomaterials; i) the strengthening of HA with ceramic oxides, ii) HA-based bioactive coatings on metallic implants, iii) HA-based porous scaffolds and iv) HA-polymer hybrids/composites.

• Journal of Institute of Convergence Technology
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.51-54
• /
• 2014

Energy storage not only reduces the mismatch between supply and demand but also improves the performance and reliability of energy systems. The different forms of energy that can be stored, including mechanical, electrical and thermal energy. Phase change materials (PCM) are latent heat storage materials. A large number of phase change materials (organic, inorganic and eutectic) are available in any required temperature range. We concentrated on eutectic materials and made a eutectic by mixing urea and choline chloride. Heat capacity ($C_p$) is one of the most important properties to be considered when a process is developed using the eutectic and currently DSC (Differential Scanning Calorimetry) has been proved as an effective technique to measure the heat capacity. This study focused on measuring heat capacity ($C_p$) of the mixing urea and choline chloride by DSC.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.103-107
• /
• 2008

Unlike conventional optical coherence tomography systems based on Michelson interferometer, we suggest a common-path OCT system, which does not include a separated configuration between reference signal and sample signal. We optimize the refractive index of partial reflecting probe to induce a balanced intensity of the reference signal. At the end of the probe, convex lens was optimally fabricated to get images of biological samples in the position of focus. Using the experimental system, we could get 2-D images of various biological samples.

• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.29-36
• /
• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate the phytochemical contents and biological activities, including $\alpha$-glucosidase inhibitory activity and antioxidant activity, from the fruits of Elaeagnus multiflora using different solvent systems. The 50% ethanol extract of this species showed the most potent $\alpha$-glucosidase inibitory activity (88.5%) at a concentration of 1 mg/mL. Moreover, this extract also displayed the strongest antioxidant activity in each assay, showing 96.3% in DPPH scavenging activity, 98.2% in ABTS scavenging activity, and 2.5% in reducing power. The highest total phytochemical contents, including flavan-3-ols, phenolic acids, and flavonoids, were observed in the 50% ethanol extract. Interestingly, flavan-3-ols (3.150 mg/g) were detected at a significantly higher total content than those of phenolic acids (0.380 mg/g) and flavonoids (not detected). Additionally, the contents of individual phytochemicals showed remarkable differences, especially the epicatechin gallate (2.008 mg/g) and gallic acid (0.099 mg/g), which were the predominant constituents of each phytochemical type. Therefore, our results suggest that the 50% ethanol extract of E. multiflora fruits has strong biological activities, which are correlated with high phytochemical contents.

• Animal cells and systems
• /
• v.3 no.4
• /
• pp.359-363
• /
• 1999

Urochordates, the most primitive group in phylum Chordata, are mostly sessile as adults although some are free living. Presently, the ancestral stock of urochordates as weir as chordates has been the focus of interest and two conflicting hypotheses have been presented. A free swimming ancestor is one and a sessile, filter feeding ancestor is the other. To clarify the phylogenetic relationships within the urochordates, 22 urochordates and five others as outgroups were used. And we applied neighbor joining, maximum likelihood, and maximum parsimony methods to partial 18S rDNA sequences. The inferred phylogeny in all analyses indicates that order Aplousobranchia of class Ascidiacea appears to be the most ancestral group among urochordates. But it is not clear for the low bootstrap value. The remaining two orders of ascidians, Phlebobranchia and Stolidobranchia, form monophyletic groups respectively, which are well supported by high bootstrap values. These two orders are closer to classes of Thaliacea and Appendicularia than to the Aplousobranchia. While class Appendicularia is strongly supported by the monophyletic group, the phylogenetic position of class Thaliacea is unclear in this study.

• Toxicological Research
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.221-227
• /
• 2000

A 6-sulfooxymethylbenzo[a]pyrene (SMBP), the ultimate metabolite of methyl-substituted benzo[a]pyrene (BP), has been found to be carcinogenic in mice. These properties may be attributable to its strong reactivity with cellular macromolecules such as DNA. However, serum and its major constituent albumin attenuated significantly the cytotoxicity and mutagenicity of 5MBP in bacterial and mammalian cell systems. This inhibitory activity of serum against 5MBP-induced cytotoxicity and mutagenicity in Chinese hamster V79 cells appears to be caused by the reduced macromolecular adducts such as DNA and proteins, but serum failed to reduce 5MBP binding to naked calf thymus DNA. A number of proteins in the serum could act as nucleophiles that are able to intercept reactive chemicals through covalent binding. Albumin present in the plasma seems to be one of major components responsible for direct binding with 5MBp, thereby reducing its reactivity to genetic materials. We here determined which fraction is preferential for 5MBP binding through fractionation of 5MBP-treated serum with ammonium sulfate. The albumin-containing fraction had slightly more affinity for 5MBP than the immunoglobulin-containing fraction. Our results indicate that the covalent modification of plasma proteins may reduce 5MBP-induced damage.

• Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.1-7
• /
• 2005

Assessing health condition of crop in the field is one of core operation in precision fanning. A sensing system was proposed to remotely detect the crop health condition in terms of SP AD readings directly related to chlorophyll contents of crop using a multispectral camera equipped on ground-based platform. Since the image taken by a camera was sensitive to changes in ambient light intensity, it was needed to convert gray scale image data into reflectance, an index to indicate the reflection characteristics of target crop. A reference reflectance panel consisting of four pieces of sub-panels with different reflectance was developed for a dynamic calibration, by which a calibration equation was updated for every crop image captured by the camera. The system performance was evaluated in a field by investigating the relationship between com canopy reflectance and SP AD values. The validation tests revealed that the com canopy reflectance induced from Green band in the multispectral camera had the most significant correlation with SPAD values $(r^2=0.75)$ and NIR band could be used to filter out unwanted non-crop features such as soil background and empty space in a crop canopy. This research confirmed that it was technically feasible to develop a ground-based remote sensing system for assessing crop health condition.

• Genomics & Informatics
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.197-199
• /
• 2011

The biological interpretation of two-dimensional (2D) gel electrophoresis experiments is a key step toward understanding the functions of biological systems. We here present a web-based integrated database, called 2DSpotDB, for the management of proteome data derived from several pathogens. The 2DSpotDB was established as a part of the management of a pathogen proteome project at the Korea National Institute of Health. The goals of the 2DSpotDB implementation are to store and define important pathogen genes, retrieve information obtained by 2D polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry, and create an integrated system to provide pathogen proteome information for biological scientists. This database currently contains 14 gels and information on 387 protein spots, among which 329 proteins were identified and annotated.

• Animal cells and systems
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.357-362
• /
• 2009

Hesperidin, the most abundant polyphenolic compound found in citrus fruits, has been known to possess neuroprotective, sedative, and anticonvulsive effects on the nervous system. In a recent electrophysiological study, it was reported that hesperidin induced biphasic change in population spike amplitude in hippocampal CA1 neurons in response to both single spike stimuli and theta-burst stimulation depending on its concentration. However, the precise mechanism by which hesperidin acts on neuronal functions has not been fully elucidated. Here, using whole-cell patch-clamp recording, we revealed that hesperidin did not affect excitatory synaptic activities such as basal synaptic transmission and theta-burst LTP. Moreover, in a current injection experiment, spike number, resting membrane potential and action potential threshold also remained unchanged. Taken together, these results indicate that the effects of hesperidin on the neuronal functions such as spiking activity might not be attributable to either modification of excitatory synaptic transmissions or changes in membrane excitability in hippocampal CA1 neuron.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
• /
• v.15 no.6
• /
• pp.1326-1334
• /
• 2019

Knowledge base means a library stored in computer system providing useful information or appropriate solutions to specific area. Knowledge base associated with autism is the complex multidimensional information set related to the disease autism for its pathogenic factor and therapy. This paper focuses on the knowledge of biological molecular information extracted from massive biomedical texts with the aid of widespread used machine learning methods. Six classes of biological molecular information (such as protein, DNA, RNA, cell line, cell component, and cell type) are concerned and the probability statistics method, conditional random fields (CRFs), is utilized to discover these knowledges in this work. The knowledge base can help biologists to etiological analysis and pharmacists to drug development, which can at least answer four questions in question-answering (QA) system, i.e., which proteins are most related to the disease autism, which DNAs play important role to the development of autism, which cell types have the correlation to autism and which cell components participate the process to autism. The work can be visited by the address http://134.175.110.97/bioinfo/index.jsp.