• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.201-205
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• 2016

Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is generally a rare primary liver tumor of the bile duct with extremely poor clinical outcomes due to late diagnosis. Osteopontin (OPN) is the most abundant expressed gene in intrahepatic CCA and its involvement in tumor aggressiveness suggests it could be a useful prognostic biomarker. However, the prognostic significance of OPN expression in CCA is still controversial. We therefore immunohistochemically studied OPN expression in 354 resected CCAs and correlated the results with patient clinicopathological parameters. OPN expression was separately scored according to the percentage of cancer cells or degree of stromal tissue staining and classified as low (score 0-1) and high (score 2-3). OPN expression in CCA cells was found in 177 out of 354 patients (56.5%), whereas stroma was positive in 185 out of 354 patients (52.3%). Univariate analysis with several of the aforementioned parameters revealed that stromal but not cancer cell OPN expression was significantly associated with tumor size, tumor direct invasion into normal liver parenchyma, regional lymph node metastasis and higher staging. The combination of cancer cell and stromal OPN expression demonstrated a positive trend for linkage with lymph node metastasis. Multivariate analysis identified gender, the presence of lymphatic permeation and lymph node metastasis, but not OPN expression, as independent prognostic factors. This study confirms the presence of stromal OPN expression in tumor aggressiveness but not survival in CCA patients.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.65-77
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• 2023

Background: This study aimed to compare clinical outcomes between surveillance and adjuvant therapy (AT) groups after R0 resection for cholangiocarcinoma (CCA). Methods: A total of 154 patients who underwent R0 resection for CCA at the Daegu Catholic University Medical Center between January 2010 and December 2019 were included. Overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were analyzed. Results: The median follow-up duration was 899 days. There were 109 patients in the AT group and 45 patients in the surveillance group. The patients in the AT group were younger (67 years vs. 74 years, p<0.001) and included more males (64.2% vs. 46.7%, p=0.044). The proportion of patients with stage III CCA was larger in the AT group than in the surveillance group (13.8% vs. 2.2%, p=0.005). In addition, AT did not improve OS (5-year OS rate, 69.3% in the AT group vs. 64.2% in the surveillance group, p=0.806) or PFS (5-year PFS rate, 42.6% in the AT group vs. 48.9% in the surveillance group, p=0.113). In multivariate analysis using the Cox proportional hazards model, stage III CCA (hazard ratio [HR], 10.81; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.92-40.00; p<0.001) was a significant predictor of OS. American Society of Anesthesiologists classification II (HR, 0.50; 95% CI, 0.31-0.81; p=0.005), and American Joint Committee on Cancer stages II (HR, 3.14; 95% CI, 1.25-7.89; p=0.015) and III (HR, 8.08; 95% CI, 2.80-23.32; p<0.001) were independent predictors of PFS. Conclusion: AT after R0 resection for CCA did not improve OS or PFS.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.3043-3050
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• 2015

The tumor microenvironment (TME) includes numerous non-neoplastic cells such as leukocytes and fibroblasts that surround the neoplasm and influence its growth. Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) and cancerassociated fibroblasts (CAFs) are documented as key players in facilitating cancer appearance and progression. Alteration of the macrophage (CD68, CD163) and fibroblast (${\alpha}-SMA$, FSP-1) cells in Opisthorchis viverrini (Ov) -induced cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) was here assessed using liver tissues from an established hamster model and from 43 human cases using immunohistochemistry. We further investigated whether M2-activated TAMs influence CCA cell migration ability by wound healing assay and Western blot analysis. Macrophages and fibroblasts change their phenotypes to M2-TAMs (CD68+, CD163+) and CAFs (${\alpha}-SMA+$, FSP-1+), respectively in the early stages of carcinogenesis. Interestingly, a high density of the M2-TAMs CCA in patients is significantly associated with the presence of extrahepatic metastases (p=0.021). Similarly, CD163+ CCA cells are correlated with metastases (p=0.002), and they may be representative of an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) with increased metastatic activity. We further showed that M2-TAM conditioned medium can induce CCA cell migration as well as increase N-cadherin expression (mesenchymal marker). The present work revealed that significant TME changes occur at an early stage of Ov-induced carcinogenesis and that M2-TAMs are key factors contributing to CCA metastasis, possibly via EMT processes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Bioinformatics Conference
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• 2005.09a
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• pp.63-68
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• 2005

Transcription factors regulate gene expression by binding to gene upstream region. Each transcription factor has the specific binding site in promoter region. So the analysis of gene upstream sequence is necessary for understanding regulatory mechanism of genes, under a plausible idea that assumption that DNA sequence motif profiles are closely related to gene expression behaviors of the corresponding genes. Here, we present an effective approach to the analysis of the relation between gene expression profiles and gene upstream sequences on the basis of kernel canonical correlation analysis (kernel CCA). Kernel CCA is a useful method for finding relationships underlying between two different data sets. In the application to a yeast cell cycle data set, it is shown that gene upstream sequence profile is closely related to gene expression patterns in terms of canonical correlation scores. By the further analysis of the contributing values or weights of sequence motifs in the construction of a pair of sequence motif profiles and expression profiles, we show that the proposed method can identify significant DNA sequence motifs involved with some specific gene expression patterns, including some well known motifs and those putative, in the process of the yeast cell cycle.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.1367-1370
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• 2015

Diagnosis of cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is difficult when patients do not show jaundice. The aim of this study was to examine the feasibility of using the total serum bile acid (TSBA) level as an aid for the diagnosis of CCA in patients without jaundice. For this purpose, TSBA of the following groups were measured using a Beckman Synchron CX4 clinical chemistry analyzer: 60 cases of CCA with total serum bilirubin ${\leq}2mg/dL$ (low total bilirubin group, LTB); 32 cases of CCA with total serum bilirubin >2 mg/dL (high total bilirubin group, HTB); and 115 healthy controls. Liver function parameters such as serum cholesterol, albumin, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) were also examined. The results showed that the TSBA of both LTB and HTB groups of the CCA patients were significantly higher than that of the healthy controls. Also, significant correlation was observed between TSBA and total bilirubin levels in the HTB group of CCA patients. However, no such correlation was seen in the LTB group. The cut-off value of TSBA was determined for the LTB group of CCA patients using the receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, and it was $6.05{\mu}mol/L$ with the sensitivity and specificity of 46.7% and 84.4%, respectively. In addition, the ALP level was correlated well with the TSBA level and ALP in HTB group was significantly higher than that of LTB group. Moreover, the combination of high TSBA and high ALP levels gave higher specificity up to 97.4%. TSBA might be useful for the diagnosis of CCA patients without jaundice.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.365-373
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• 2006

With a few exceptions, Korean lakes are artificially constructed for multi-purposes throughout the country. In the majority of cases, a lake is in a multiple series of reservoirs along a river or is an estuary Moreover, nutrient supplying activities (including sand extraction) and biomanipulation(esp., overfishing and fish introduction) are omnipresent in most cases. Furthermore, there is an Asian monsoon every year. In brief, europhication and algal blooms break out as a result of complicated causes. However limnological monitoring and scientific working programs are in the course of beginning. The question is what kind of strategy is desirable to establish a solid limnological database for the efficiency of the restoration process in each Korean reservoir We present light monitoring cases on the basis of algal and some physicochemical data in 2005. Do they give some useful informations despite their simplicity. Based on physicochemical factors and phytoplankton data using Utermohl method and Canonical Correspondence Analysis(CCA) were performed for Lake Cheongpyeong, Lake ASan, Lake Namyang, and Lake SapGyo. The results of CCA showed that Lake Cheongpyeong was different from the other three Lakes at estuary. Also each Lake at estuary was slightly different from one other. This result would encourage to initiate building an adequate Korean reservoir-ecosystem understanding and models for better ecological management despite the limited data. However, the results also indicate to sustain collecting ecological data and building database to interpret the Korean ecological reservoir model.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.6 no.12
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• pp.3046-3060
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• 2012

Low power listening (LPL) MAC protocols based on duty-cycling mechanism have been studied extensively to achieve ultra low energy consumption in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Especially, recent ACK-based LPL schemes such as X-MAC employ strobe preambles and an early ACK, and show fair performances in communications and energy efficiencies. However, the state-of-the-art ACK-based LPL scheme still suffers from collision problems due to the protocol incompleteness. These collision effects are not trivial and make WSNs unstable, aggravate energy consumptions. In this paper, we propose two novel schemes; (i) ${\tau}$-duration CCA to mitigate the collision problem in ACK-based LPL MAC protocols. (ii) Short Preamble Counter (SPC) to conserve more energy by reducing unnecessary overhearing. We demonstrate the performance improvement of our scheme via a mathematical analysis and real-time experiments. Both analysis and experimental results confirm that our proposed scheme saves energy by up to 36% compared to the naive ACK-based LPL MAC protocol thanks to ${\tau}$-duration CCA and SPC.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.113-126
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• 1993

To investigate the structure of the forest community of Huibang valley in Sobaeksan National Park, twenty five plots were set up and surveyed. According to the analysis of classification by DCA community divided 4 groups. The divided groups are Pinus densiflora community, Q. mongolica -P. densiflora community. Q. mongolica-Stewartia koreana-Carpinus laxiflora community, and Q. mongolica- Acer pseudosieboldianum community. In the analysis by ordination, CCA which points out the relationship among the environmental variables, species and plots indicated primary step of secondary succession. The successional trends of both techniques. seem to be from P. densiflora through Q. mongolica, Q. serrate to C. laxiflora(or S. koreana) in canopy layer below an altitude of 800 meters, and from Rhododendron mucronulaltum. Rh. schlippenbachli. Rhus trichocarpa through Styrax obassia. Lindera obtusiloba to Magnolia sieboldii, Corylus sieboldiana in subtree and shrub layer. The positive correlation between the stand ordination scores .and soil moisture and soil humus were calculated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.907-910
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• 2011

This paper proposes a character segmentation algorithm of steel plate images composed of adaptive binarization by the SCW (Sliding Concentric Windows) technique, the object labelling by CCA (Connected Component Analysis), and 2D projection method. The SCW technique carries out the grayscale-to-binary image conversion in consideration of local characteristics of images. The character decision algorithm followed by the labelling technique by CCA (Connected Component Analysis) determines the character area effectively reducing the noise effect. The 2D projection with horizontal and vertical directions produces a tight bounding box for a character based on the cross points. Experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm segments the characters in steel plate images effectively. The proposed algorithm can be applied to the devices with limited resources due to its excellent performance and low complexity.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.85-93
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• 2005

This paper describes how to distribute high multi-dimensional facial expression data of vast quantity over a suitable space and produce facial expression animations by selecting expressions while animator navigates this space in real-time. We have constructed facial spaces by using about 2400 facial expression frames on this paper. These facial spaces are created by calculating of the shortest distance between two random expressions. The distance between two points In the space of expression, which is manifold space, is described approximately as following; When the linear distance of them is shorter than a decided value, if the two expressions are adjacent after defining the expression state vector of facial status using distance matrix expressing distance between two markers, this will be considered as the shortest distance (manifold distance) of the two expressions. Once the distance of those adjacent expressions was decided, We have taken a Floyd algorithm connecting these adjacent distances to yield the shortest distance of the two expressions. We have used CCA(Curvilinear Component Analysis) technique to visualize multi-dimensional spaces, the form of expressing space, into two dimensions. While the animators navigate this two dimensional spaces, they produce a facial animation by using user interface in real-time.