• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.64 no.4
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• pp.369-374
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• 2021

Brown blotch disease of oyster mushrooms is caused by tolaasin and its analog peptide toxins which are produced by Pseudomonas tolaasii. Tolaasin peptides form pores in the plasma membrane and destroy the fruiting body structure of mushroom. Lysis of red blood cells, hemolysis, can be occurred by cytotoxic activity of tolaasin. The hemolytic activity of tolaasin is inhibited by metal ions, such as Zn²⁺ and Ni²⁺. When Gadolinium ion was added, a biphasic effect was observed on tolaasin-induced hemolysis, an increase in hemolysis at submillimolar concentrations and an inhibition at millimolar concentrations. The mechanism of gadolinium ion-induced inhibition of tolaasin activity may not be similar to those of the inhibitions by other metal ions. Since gadolinium ion has been reported to change a lateral pressure of lipid membrane by binding to the negative charges of membrane lipids, it may not directly work on the tolaasin channel gating, but rather decrease the stability of tolaasin channel by increasing firmness of membrane.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.145-152
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• 2021

While there are increasing demands on biomolecules separation, resin chromatography lacks in terms of throughput and membrane chromatography is an alternative with high binding capacity and enhanced mass transfer properties. Unlike typical membrane processing, where the performance can only be empirically assessed, understanding how mechanisms work in membrane chromatography is decisive to design biospecific processing. This short review covers three separation mechanisms, including affinity interaction modes for selectively capturing bulk molecules using biospecific sites, ion exchange modes for binding biomolecules using net charges and hydrophobic interaction modes for binding targeted, hydrophobic species. The parameters in designing membrane chromatography that should be considered operation-wise or material-wise, are also further detailed in this paper.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.29-49
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• 2009

We examine the effects of information transparency, lender identity, and credit rating on the commitment fees of syndicated loans originated in Japan, employing a sample of 331 facilities. A syndicated loan is a financing instrument offered to a single borrower by multiple lenders, and Japanese syndicated loan volume increased 36% to a record-high of $283 billion in 2008 compared to 2007. We find that the more informational opaque the borrower, the higher the commitment fees the lender charges to the Japanese borrowers. There is evidence that a syndicate involving a Japanese lead agent is able to extract rents through higher commitment fees. We document that there is a significant relation between the credit rating of the borrower and the commitment fee cost of syndicated loans originated in Japan. Most importantly, our results provide evidence that banks in Japan extract higher returns on syndicated loans through the commitment fees in addition to higher loan spreads. Using a micro-level of Japanese borrowers, we contribute to existing literature by providing our empirical evidence after controlling for borrowing spread.

• Journal of Clinical Nutrition
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.31-37
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• 2018

Recently, in Korea, the importance of preparation and use of injectable drugs has been emphasized due to successive fatal accidents caused by injection infections. Parenteral nutrition (PN) has also been identified as a cause of infection. Cases of infection due to PN have been reported not only in Korea, but also abroad, and contamination occurs mainly during the preparation of PN. Because sterile preparation and compounding of injections are very important for infection control and patient safety, this article reviews the major guidelines outlined thus far. The Korea Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in 2006 published guidelines and the KSHP (Korean Society of Health-System Pharmacists) recently issued guidelines for the aseptic preparation of injections. In addition, as US guidelines, the ASHP (American Society of Health-System Pharmacists) guidelines and United States Pharmacopeia (USP) <797> are also reviewed. The recent guidelines published by the KSHP have significance in that they were adopted in accordance with the domestic reality, even though they conform to foreign guidelines, and are expected to be guidelines for hospital pharmacists performing aseptic preparation work. In addition, the Korea Ministry of Health and Welfare is considering appropriate guidelines for the safe management of medications, training staff for infection prevention and strengthening staff capacity. Furthermore, the gradual expansion of aseptic compounding facilities and human resources, as well as the provision of adequate medical costs are also considered. Based on the establishment and standardization of injectable drugs compounding guidelines for Korean hospitals, it is believed that if human resources and facilities are supported and medical charges are improved, it will be possible to expect the safer preparation and use of injections.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.947-953
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• 2019

The purpose of this paper is to explore an ASIC design for estimating sizes and concentrations of airborne micro-particles by the means of integrating, amplifying and digitizing electric charge signals generated by photo-sensors as it receives scattered photons by the presence of micro-particles, consisting of a pre-amplifier that detects and amplifies voltage or current signal from photo-sensor that generates charges (hole-electron pairs) when exposed to visible rays, infrared rays, ultraviolet rays, etc. according to the intensity of rays; a shaper for shaping the amplified signal to a semi-gaussian waveform; two discriminators and binary counters for outputting digital signals by comparing the magnitude of the shaped signal with an arbitrary reference voltages. The ASIC with the proposed architecture and functional blocks in this study was designed with a 0.18um standard CMOS technology from Global Foundries and the operation and performances of the ASIC has been verified by the silicons fabricated by using the process.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.49-60
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• 2019

Crack instability propagation during coal and rock mass failure is the main reason for electromagnetic radiation (EMR) generation. However, original cracks on coal and rock mass are hard to study, making it complex to reveal EMR laws and mechanisms. In this paper, we prefabricated cracks of different inclinations in coal and rock samples as the analogues of the native cracks, carried out uniaxial compression experiments using these coal and rock samples, explored, the effects of the prefabricated cracks on EMR laws, and verified these laws by measuring the surface potential signals. The results show that prefabricated cracks are the main factor leading to the failure of coal and rock samples. When the inclination between the prefabricated crack and axial stress is smaller, the wing cracks occur first from the two tips of the prefabricated crack and expand to shear cracks or coplanar secondary cracks whose advance directions are coplanar or nearly coplanar with the prefabricated crack's direction. The sample failure is mainly due to the composited tensile and shear destructions of the wing cracks. When the inclination becomes bigger, the wing cracks appear at the early stage, extend to the direction of the maximum principal stress, and eventually run through both ends of the sample, resulting in the sample's tensile failure. The effect of prefabricated cracks of different inclinations on electromagnetic (EM) signals is different. For samples with prefabricated cracks of smaller inclination, EMR is mainly generated due to the variable motion of free charges generated due to crushing, friction, and slippage between the crack walls. For samples with larger inclination, EMR is generated due to friction and slippage in between the crack walls as well as the charge separation caused by tensile extension at the cracks' tips before sample failure. These conclusions are further verified by the surface potential distribution during the loading process.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.388-394
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• 2018

Carbon nanotube (CNT) based membranes are promising candidates for separation membranes by showing high water transport rate and ion rejection rate according to their radii. The ion selectivity is an important factor to discover the full potential of CNT membranes, and it is affected by the functionalization of CNTs. With multivalent/size ion mixtures, the ion selectivity is affected by not only ion-functional groups interaction but also ion-ion interactions and ion size exclusion in a complex manner. In this study, molecular dynamics simulations are performed to study the ion selectivity of functionalized carbon nanotubes when multivalent/size ions are contained. The permeation energy barriers are calculated by plotting potential of mean force profiles, and various factors, such as CNT size and partial charges, affecting ion selectivity are investigated. The results presented here will be useful for designing CNT membranes for ion separation, biomimetic ion channels, etc.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.51-59
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• 2019

In this paper, we analyzed the relationship between charging operation system and electricity charges connected with charging infrastructure among data of many demonstration projects focused on electric vehicles recently. At this point in time, due to the rapid increase in demand for the electric charging infrastructure that will take place in the future, we can prepare for an upcoming era in the sense of forecasting the demand value. At the same time, demonstrating and modeling optimized system modeling centering on sites is a prerequisite. The modeling based on the existing small - scale simulation and the design of the operating system are based on the data linkage analysis. In this paper, we implemented a new optimized system modeling and introduced it as a standard format to analyze time - dependent time - divisional data for each vehicle and user in each point and node. In order to verify the efficiency of the optimization based on the data linkage analysis for the actual implemented electric car charging infrastructure and operation system.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.58-73
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• 2021

Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) enable their users to access Cloud computing and storage services from anywhere in quick and flexible manners through the Internet. With the basis of 'pay-as-you-go' model, it makes the interactions between CSPs and the users play a vital role in shaping the Cloud computing market. A pool of virtualized and dynamically scalable Cloud services that delivered on demand to the users is associated with guaranteed performance and cost-provisioning. It needed a costing scheme for determining suitable charges in order to secure lease pricing of the Cloud services. However, it is hard to meet the satisfied prices for both CSPs and users due to their conflicting needs. Furthermore, there is lack of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that allowing the users to take part into price negotiating process. The users may lose their interest to use Cloud services while reducing CSPs profit. Therefore, this paper proposes a generic costing scheme for Cloud services using General Equilibrium Theory (GET). GET helps to formulate the price function for various services' factors to match with various demands from the users. It is initially determined by identifying the market circumstances that a general equilibrium will be hold and reached. Specifically, there are two procedures of agreement made in response to (i) established equilibrium supply and demand, and (ii) service price formed and constructed in a price range. The SLAs in our costing scheme is integrated to satisfy both CSPs and users' needs while minimizing their conflicts. The price ranging strategy is deliberated to provide prices' options to the users with respect their budget limit. Meanwhile, the CSPs can adaptively charge based on users' preferences without losing their profit. The costing scheme is testable and analyzed in multi-tenant computing environments. The results from our simulation experiments demonstrate that the proposed costing scheme provides better users' satisfaction while fostering fairness pricing in the Cloud market.

• Journal of Adhesion and Interface
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.129-134
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• 2020

Understanding charge trapping at the interface between conjugated semiconductor and polymer dielectric basically gives insight into the development of long-term stable organic field-effect transistors (OFET). Here, the charge transport properties of OFETs using polymer dielectric with various molecular weights (MWs) have been investigated. The conjugated semiconductor, pentacene exhibited morphology and crystallinity, insensitive to MWs of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) dielectric. Consequently, transfer curves and field-effect mobilities of as-prepared devices are independent of MWs. Under bias stress in humid environment, however, the drain current decay as well as transfer curve shift are found to increase as the MW of PMMA decreases (MW effect). The charge trapping induced by MW effect is irreversible, that is, the localized charges are difficult to be delocalized. The MW effect is caused by the variation in the density of polymer chain ends in the PMMA: the free volumes at the PMMA chain ends act as charge trap sites, corresponding to drain current decay depending on MWs of PMMA.