• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.426-437
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• 2024

Objective: Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is a diagnostic tool that provides precise and reproducible information about cardiac structure, function, and tissue characterization, aiding in the monitoring of chemotherapy response in patients with light-chain cardiac amyloidosis (AL-CA). This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of CMR in monitoring responses to chemotherapy in patients with AL-CA. Materials and Methods: In this prospective study, we enrolled 111 patients with AL-CA (50.5% male; median age, 54 [interquartile range, 49-63] years). Patients underwent longitudinal monitoring using biomarkers and CMR imaging. At follow-up after chemotherapy, patients were categorized into superior and inferior response groups based on their hematological and cardiac laboratory responses to chemotherapy. Changes in CMR findings across therapies and differences between response groups were analyzed. Results: Following chemotherapy (before vs. after), there were significant increases in myocardial T2 (43.6 ± 3.5 ms vs. 44.6 ± 4.1 ms; P = 0.008), recovery in right ventricular (RV) longitudinal strain (median of -9.6% vs. -11.7%; P = 0.031), and decrease in RV extracellular volume fraction (ECV) (median of 53.9% vs. 51.6%; P = 0.048). These changes were more pronounced in the superior-response group. Patients with superior cardiac laboratory response showed significantly greater reductions in RV ECV (-2.9% [interquartile range, -8.7%-1.1%] vs. 1.7% [-5.5%-7.1%]; P = 0.017) and left ventricular ECV (-2.0% [-6.0%-1.3%] vs. 2.0% [-3.0%-5.0%]; P = 0.01) compared with those with inferior response. Conclusion: Cardiac amyloid deposition can regress following chemotherapy in patients with AL-CA, particularly showing more prominent regression, possibly earlier, in the RV. CMR emerges as an effective tool for monitoring associated tissue characteristics and ventricular functional recovery in patients with AL-CA undergoing chemotherapy, thereby supporting its utility in treatment response assessment.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.7
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• pp.379-386
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• 2005

Among various kinds of hearing aids which have been developed so far. the conventional air conduction hearing aids have some problems such as the acoustic distortion, an howling effect due to acoustic feedback. Another type of hearing aid. the cochlear implant system can be applied to the profound imparied person. However. it shows the disadvantage that there is no possibility of recovery of the acoustic organ such as ossicle. On the other hand. the implantable middle ear heaving device directly vibratos the ossicular chain and has better sound qualify. good cosmetics for appearance. and wide frequency responses so that it can overcome the defects or the conventional hearing aids. In this paper, a mathematical modeling and a momentum equation derivation of the DET has been performed. For the optimization of the structure dimension generating maximal vibrating force of the DET. the computer simulation using a finite element analysis (FEA) software has been performed. Also. the vibrating transducer has been designed to make the frequency characteristics or the transducer be similar to those of the normal middle ear. Through the experimental results, the measured vibration characteristics of the DET has been evaluated to verify the performance for the application to implantable middle ear hearing devices.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.44-53
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• 2017

In order to investigate the response in fauna and biological communities of terrestrial insects to the vegetation encroachment on the sandbar, species composition, species diversity, functional species traits and community structure of land-dwelling insects sampled by a pit-fall trap were compared at the bare and vegetated sandbar of a typical sand-bed stream, the Naeseong Stream, Korea. Species diversity of the insects was increased but their density was decreased as the riparian vegetation encroached at the sandbar. In particular, indicator species of bare sandbar such as Cicindela laetescripta and Dianemobius csikii, were found at the bar sandbar. The insect communities were clearly classified at the bare and vegetated sandbar according to coverages of riparian plants. The food web of the bare sandbar was composed of detritus - detritivore and scavenger - predator consisted mainly of Coleoptera. On the other hand, the food web of the vegetated sandbar was composed of plants - sucking and chewing herbivore - parasitoid and predator. These results showed that biodiversity of terrestrial insects was increased, food web was changed from grazing to detritus food chain, and insect fauna specific bare sandbar disappeared as the riparian vegetation invaded on the sandbar of a sand-bed stream.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.10 no.7
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• pp.1014-1019
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• 1999

Copolyamic acid PMDA/6FDA-PDA(PAA) and homopolyamic acids PMDA-PDA(PAA) and 6FDA-PDA(PAA) were synthesized from 1,2,4,5-benzenetetracarboxylic dianhydride(PMDA) and 2,2'-bis(3,4-dicarboxyphenyl) hexafluoropropane dianhydride(6FDA) as the dianhydride and 1,4-phenylenediamine (PDA) as the diamine. Residual stresses were detected in-situ during thermal imidization of the co- and homopolyimide precursors as a function of processing temperature over the range of $25{\sim}400^{\circ}C$ using thin film stress analyzer(TFSA), and morphological structures were investigated by WAXD. In comparison, the resultant residual stress of polyimide films composed of different compositions decreased with the increasing content of PMDA unit in the chain and was about 5 Mpa in compression mode for PMDA-PDA. In this study, the synthesis of random PMDA/6FDA-PDA copolyimide could be completed and compensate for the difficulty of process due to high $T_g$ of PMDA-PDA and relatively higher stress of 6FDA-PDA. It showed that we can make a low level stress copolyimied having excellent mechanical properties by incorporating appropriate rod-like rigid structure PMDA-PDA unit into 6FDA-PDA polyimide backbone which generally shows higher stress due to rotational hinges such as bulky di(trifluoromethyl). Specially, PMDA/6FDA-PDA(0.9:0.1:1.0) satisfied excellent mechanical property and low level stress as an inter layer showing low dielectric constant.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.5A
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• pp.255-266
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• 2012

Main cable of a suspension bridge is the important member which shows the overall structure integrity at bridge completion. Configuration of main cable is a free hanging state at cable erection completion and is different from that at bridge completion supporting the dead loads such as hanger, girder, and so on. Accordingly, the configuration control under cable erection is considerably significant because the configuration at cable erection completion has direct influence on that at bridge completion. That is performed by sag adjustments at center, side span and tension adjustments at anchor span. The former needs the sag sensitivity which represents the control quantity of strand length corresponding to that of sag. The latter requires the tension sensitivity which shows the change of strand tension according to that of strand temperature. In this study, the fundamental equations of cable were derived with the assumption of either catenary or parabola shape, the differential-related equations using chain rule on horizontal tension were drawn from those and finally the estimation methods of the sag / tension sensitivity were proposed from both those. The nonlinear numerical analysis flow charts of sag sensitivity based on the catenary equations were proposed and the sag sensitivities grounded on the differential-related equations were compared with the results using them for various parameters of sag change. Also, considering the combinations of sag change parameters, the calculation method of the final variation for the cable sag was suggested. For the real suspension bridge under construction with PPWS method, the sag/tension sensitivity were estimated considering the construction conditions like the change of PPWS length, PPWS temperature, bridge span, etc.. We hope that this study will be a systematic guideline for the configuration control under main cable erection and improved highly by field verification in the real bridge site.

• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.233-238
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• 1985

A number of sedative alkaloids were isolated from Sanjoin(酸棗仁), the seeds of Zizyphus vulgaris Lamark var. spinosus Bunge (Rhamnaceae) which is an important Chinese medicinal material used to treat insomnia and sometimes to treat sleepiness. Those compounds were designated as Sanjoinine-A, B, C, D, etc. depending on the order of increasing polarity. Sanjoinine-A, $C_{31}H_{42}N_4O_4$, $mp\;249^{\circ}$, $[{\alpha}]^{27}_D-316$, Sanjoinine-B, $C_{30}H_{40}N_4O_4$, $mp\;212{\sim}4^{\circ}$, Sanjoinene, $C_{29}H_{35}N_3O_4$, $mp\;281{\sim}2^{\circ}$, $[{\alpha}]^{22}_D-272$, Sanjoinine-D, $C_{32}H_{46}N_4O_5$, $mp\;256{\sim}8^{\circ}$, $[{\alpha}]^{22}_D-53.6$, Sanjoinine-F, $C_{31}H_{42}N_4O_5$, $mp\;228{\sim}9^{\circ}$, $[{\alpha}]^{22}_D-215$, and $Sanjoinine-G_1,\;C_{31}H_{44}N_4O_5,\;mp\;236{\sim}8^{\circ},\;[{\alpha}]^{22}_D-68.6$, were found as 14-membered cyclic peptide alkaloids, $Sanjoinine-G_2,\;C_{30}H_{42}N_4O_4,\;mp\;182^{\circ},\;[{\alpha}]^{22}_D-79.2$, as being open chain peptide alkaloid, and Sanjoinine-E, $C_{19}H_{21}NO_2$, $mp\;166^{\circ}$, $[{\alpha}]^{20}_D-146.2$, N-Methylasimilobine, $C_{18}H_{19}NO_2$, $mp\;193{\sim}5^{\circ}$, $[{\alpha}]^{20}_D-204$, Sanjoinine-Ia, $C_{18}H_{19}NO_2$, $mp\;155{\sim}7^{\circ}$, $[{\alpha}]^{20}_D-140$, Sanjoinine-Ib, $C_{19}H_{21}NO_4$, $mp\;184^{\circ}$, Sanjoinine-K, $C_{16}H_{19}NO_3$, $mp\;159{\sim}61^{\circ}$, $[{\alpha}]^{20}_D+35$, Caaverine, $C_{17}H_{17}NO_2$, $mp\;204^{\circ}$, $[{\alpha}]^{20}_D-80$, and Zizyphusine, $C_{20}H_{24}NO_4$, $mp\;214{\sim}6^{\circ}$, $[{\alpha}]^{20}_D+317$ as being aporphine alkaloids. The heat treatment of the cyclic peptide alkaloids produced their isomeric products which showed enhanced sedative activity. The chemical structure of the isomeric products will be discussed.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.14-21
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• 2011

Riboflavin synthase catalyzes the formation of one molecule of each riboflavin and 5-amino-6-ribitylamino-2,4-pyrimidinedione by the transfer of a 4-carbon moiety between two molecules of the substrates, 6,7-dimetyl-8-ribityllumazine. The most remarkable feature is the sequence similarity between the N-terminal half (1-97) and the C-terminal half domain (99-213). To investigate the structure and fluorescent characteristics of the N-terminal half of riboflavin synthase (N-RS) in Escherichia coli, more than 10 mutant genes coding for the mutated N-terminal domain of riboflavin synthase were generated by polymerase chain reaction. The genes coding for the proteins were inserted into pQE vector designed for easy purification of protein by 6X-His tagging system, expressed, and the proteins were purified. Almost all mutated N-terminal domain of riboflavin synthases bind to 6,7-dimethyl-8-ribityllumazine and riboflavin as fluorescent ligands. However, N-RS C47D and N-RS ET66,67DQ mutant proteins show colorless, indicating that fluorescent ligands were dissociated during purification. In addition, most mutated proteins show low fluorescent intensity comparing to N-RS wild type, whereas N-RS C48S posses stronger fluorescent intensity than that of wild type protein. Based on this result, N-RS C48S can be used as the tool for high throughput screening system for searching for the compound with inhibitory effect for the riboflavin synthase.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.338-349
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• 2006

Fully or nearly fully(8-cholesteryloxycarbonyl)heptanoated polysaccharide derivatives were synthesized by reacting cellulose, amylose, chitosan, chitin, alginic acid, pullulan or amylopectin with (8-cholesteryloxycarbonyl)heptanoyl chloride (CH8C), and their thermotropic liquid crystalline behaviors were investigated. Like in the case of CH8C, all the polysaccharide derivatives formed monotropic cholesteric phases with left-handed helicoidal structures whose optical pitches $({\lambda_m}'s)$ decrease with increasing temperature. Amylopectin derivative also formed a monotropic cholesteric phase with lefthanded helicoidal structures but, in contrast with the other derivatives, did not display reflection colors over the full cholesteric range, suggesting that the helicoidal twisting power of the cholesteryl group highly depends on the branched structure in amylopectin. The thermal stability and degree of order in the mesophase, the magnitude of ${\lambda}_m$ at the same temperature, and the temperature dependence of the ${\lambda}_m$ observed for polysaccharide derivatives were entirely different from those reported for the polymers in which the cholesteryl groups are attached to flexible or semiflexible backbones through flexible spacers. The results were discussed in terms of the difference in the chemical structures of the main and side chains and flexibility of the main chain.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.117-126
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• 2017

This study analyzed both the effect small and medium-sized suppliers' SCM capacity on the performance and how the moderating effect of demand uncertainty as an environmental factor affects this relation. The study is based on the data collected from the survey of small and medium-sized suppliers operating in electronics, metal, machinery, automobile, and textile. It analyzed the results of survey targeting suppliers of these areas by using structure equation modeling. According to the analyzed result, the relation capital of small and medium-sized supplier affects the performance, but there is no relation between coordination capability and the performance. In case of the moderating effect of demand uncertainty, while there is a positive moderating effect of demand uncertainty between relation capital and performance, there is no any moderating effect between coordination capability and performance. It turns out that the relation capital keep having a positive effect on the performance even if there is a demand uncertainty.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.730-738
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• 2016

est19 is a gene from Bacillus sp. K91 that encodes a new esterase. A comparison of the amino acid sequence showed that Est19 has typical Ser-Gly-Asn-His (SGNH) family motifs and could be grouped into the SGNH hydrolase family. The Est19 protein was functionally cloned, and expressed and purified from Escherichia coli BL21(DE3). The enzyme activity was optimal at 60℃ and pH 9.0, and displayed esterase activity towards esters with short-chain acyl esters (C₂-C₆). A structural model of Est19 was constructed using phospholipase A1 from Streptomyces albidoflavus NA297 as a template. The structure showed an α/β-hydrolase fold and indicated the presence of the typical catalytic triad Ser49-Asp227-His230, which were further investigated by site-directed mutagenesis. To the best of our knowledge, Est19 is a new member of the SGNH hydrolase family identified from thermophiles, which may be applicable in the industrial production of semisynthetic β-lactam antibiotics after modification.