• International Journal of Oral Biology
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.143-151
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• 2007

This study was conducted to investigate the preventing effects of OPB (Rehmannia glutinosa Libosch and Eleutherococcus senticosus Max extracts) and combined OPB/Calcium therapy on bone loss in ovariectomized rats. Sixty Sprague Dawley rats of 12-week-old were divided into eight groups: OVX (ovariectomized), OPBL (OPB 50 mg/kg), OPBM (OPB100 mg/kg), OPBH (OPB 200 mg/kg), OPBL/CAL(OPBL+CAL), OPBM/CAL (OPBM+CAL), OPBH/CAL (OPBH+CAL) and CAL (Calcium citrate 88.33 mg/kg+1$\alpha$, 25-dihydroxy-vitamin $D_3$ 33.33 IU/kg). Bone mineral density (BMD), bone mineral content (BMC), bone strength indices and cortical thickness were analyzed by peripheral quantitative computerized tomography (pQCT). pQCT scanning showed that OVX induced a significant decrease in trabecular bone mineral density and bone mineral content in the proximal tibia $(-36.4\pm2.4%,\;-21.8\pm12.7%)$. These decreases were significantly prevented by the administration of OPBM and OPBM/CAL. Cortical BMD and BMC of tibia were slightly enhanced by OPB and OPB/CAL. However there was no significant difference between OVX and OPB, OPB/CAL treated group. Bone strength indices and cortical thickness were not significantly different. Our results suggest that OPB and combined OPB/Calcium therapy are effective in preventing the development of bone loss induced by ovariectomy in rats.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.581-591
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• 2023

North Anatolian Fault Zone is tectonically active with recent earthquakes (Mw7.6 1999-Kocaeli and Mw7.2 1999-Düzce earthquakes) and it passes through Marmara region, which is highly industrialized, densely populated and economically important part of Turkey. Many power plants, located in Marmara region, are exposed to high seismic hazard. In this study, open source OpenQuake software has been used for the probabilistic earthquake hazard analysis of Marmara region and risk assessment for the specified energy facility. The SHARE project seismic zonation model has been used in the analysis with the regional sources, NGA GMPEs and site model logic trees. The earthquake hazard results have been compared with the former and existing earthquake resistant design regulations in Turkey, TSC 2007 and TBSCD 2018. In the scope of the study, the seismic hazard assessment for a typical natural gas combined cycle power plant located in Marmara region has been achieved. The seismic risk assessment has been accomplished for a typical control building located in the power plant using obtained seismic hazard results. The structural and non-structural fragility functions and a consequence model have been used in the seismic risk assessment. Based on the seismic hazard level with a 2% probability of exceedance in 50 years, considered for especially these type of critical structures, the ratios of structural and non-structural loss to the total building cost were obtained as 8.8% and 45.7%, respectively. The results of the study enable the practical seismic risk assessment of the critical facility located on different regions.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.158-169
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• 2012

Sabah has experienced a rapid decline in the extent of forest cover. The precise impact of habitat loss on the conservation status of the plants of Sabah is uncertain. In this study we use the niche modelling algorithm MAXENT to construct preliminary, revised and final ecological niche models for Dipterocarpus lamellatus and Dipterocarpus ochraceus and combined these models with data on current land-use to derive conservation assessments for each species. Preliminary models were based on herbarium data alone. Ground surveys were conducted to evaluate the performance of these preliminary models, and a revised niche model was generated from the combined herbarium and ground survey data. The final model was obtained by constraining the predictions of the revised models by filters. The range overlap between the preliminary and revised models was 0.47 for D. lamellatus and 0.39 for D. ochraceus, suggesting poor agreement between them. There was substantial variation in estimates of habitat loss for D. ochraceus, among the preliminary, revised and constrained models, and this has the potential to lead to incorrect threat assessments. From these estimates of habitat loss, the historic distribution and estimates of population size we determine that both species should be classified as Critically Endangered under IUCN Red List guidelines. Our results suggest that ground-truthing of ecological niche models is essential, especially if the models are being used for conservation decision making.

• The Journal of the Society of Stroke on Korean Medicine
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.65-72
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• 2022

■Background Overall prevalence of visual field loss after stroke was estimated at 31%, ranged from 5.5- 57%. Among them, homonymous hemianopia is the most common symptom of post-stroke visual field loss and leads to a decrease in the quality of life and therapeutic effect. However, standard treatment has not been established. ■Case report A 48-year-old male with right side homonymous hemianopia by a left occipital-parietal lobe hemorrhage was treated with Qu-Ji-Du-Huang-Wan, acupuncture and electroacupuncture for 20 days. We used confrontation visual field exam, automated perimetry and visual analog scale for evaluating symptoms. Following treatment, confrontation visual field exam and the subjective discomfort was improved. ■Conclusions The present case report suggests that combined Korean medicine treatment might be an effective treatment of post-stroke homonymous hemianopia. A number of follow up studies should be conducted to clarify the effectiveness of treatment.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.884-889
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to examine the changes of body composition and heinz body blood component after 3 days rapid weight loss(5.16% of total body weight) through combined method with total food restriction and dehydration. The result were as follows: The average weight showed a significant difference between before and after rapid weight loss(p < .05). The percentage of body fat showed some decrease in average with $12.14{\pm}1.80\;(%)$ after weight decrement in an average of $12.68{\pm}1.69\;(%)$ before rapid weight loss, but the difference that noted did not show. The body fluid showed a significant difference between before and after rapid weight loss(p < .05). RDW, ESR, and Heinz body formation showed a significant increase after rapid weight loss. It was concluded that rapid weight loss techniques result in deleterious effects on body composition and red blood cell in middle school wrestler.

• Korean Journal of Audiology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.174-179
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• 2020

Background and Objectives: The integration of auditory-visual speech information improves speech perception; however, if the auditory system input is disrupted due to hearing loss, auditory and visual inputs cannot be fully integrated. Additionally, temporal coincidence of auditory and visual input is a significantly important factor in integrating the input of these two senses. Time delayed acoustic pathway caused by the signal passing through digital signal processing. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effects of hearing loss and hearing aid digital delay circuit on sound-induced flash illusion. Subjects and Methods: A total of 13 adults with normal hearing, 13 with mild to moderate hearing loss, and 13 with moderate to severe hearing loss were enrolled in this study. Subsequently, the sound-induced flash illusion test was conducted, and the results were analyzed. Results: The results showed that hearing aid digital delay and hearing loss had no detrimental effect on sound-induced flash illusion. Conclusions: Transmission velocity and neural transduction rate of the auditory inputs decreased in patients with hearing loss. Hence, the integrating auditory and visual sensory cannot be combined completely. Although the transmission rate of the auditory sense input was approximately normal when the hearing aid was prescribed. Thus, it can be concluded that the processing delay in the hearing aid circuit is insufficient to disrupt the integration of auditory and visual information.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.234-240
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• 2021

In this paper, the mask-based speech enhancement is improved for effective speech recognition in noise environments. In the mask-based speech enhancement, enhanced spectrum is obtained by multiplying the noisy speech spectrum by the mask. The VoiceFilter (VF) model is used as the mask estimation, and the Spectrogram Inpainting (SI) technique is used to remove residual noise of enhanced spectrum. In this paper, we propose a combined loss to further improve speech enhancement. In order to effectively remove the residual noise in the speech, the positive part of the Triplet loss is used with the component loss. For the experiment TIMIT database is re-constructed using NOISEX92 noise and background music samples with various Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) conditions. Source to Distortion Ratio (SDR), Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality (PESQ), and Short-Time Objective Intelligibility (STOI) are used as the metrics of performance evaluation. When the VF was trained with the mean squared error and the SI model was trained with the combined loss, SDR, PESQ, and STOI were improved by 0.5, 0.06, and 0.002 respectively compared to the system trained only with the mean squared error.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.123-134
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• 2012

The electrochemical performance of positive pole grids of lead-acid batteries made of Pb-0.08%Ca-1.1%Sn alloys without and with 0.1 wt% of each of Cu, As or Sb and with 0.1 wt% of Cu, As and Sb combined was investigated by electrochemical methods in 4.0 M $H_2SO_4$. The corrodibility of alloys under open-circuit conditions and constant current charging of the positive pole, the positive pole gassing and the self-discharge of the charged positive pole were studied. All impurities (Cu, As, Sb) were found to decrease the corrosion resistance, $R_{corr}$ after 1/2 hour corrosion, but after 24 hours an improvement in $R_{corr}$ was recorded for Sb containing alloy and the alloy with the three impurities combined. While an individual impurity was found to enhance oxygen evolution reaction, the impurities combined significantly inhibition this reaction and the related water loss problem was improved. Impedance results were found helpful in identification of the species involved in the charging/discharging and the self-discharge of the positive pole. Impurities individually or combined were found to increase the self-discharge during polarization (33-68%), where Sb containing alloy was the worst and impurities combined alloy was the least. The corrosion of the positive pole grid in the constant current charging was found to increase in the presence of impurities by 5-10%. Under open-circuit, the self-discharge of the charged positive grids was found to increase significantly (92-212%) in the presence of impurities, with Sb-containing alloy was the worst. The important result of the study is that the harmful effect of the studied impurities combined was not additive but sometimes lesser than any individual impurity.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.18
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• pp.7805-7809
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• 2014

Objective: To explore the clinical efficacy and prognostic factors of chemoreduction combined with topical treatment of advanced intraocular retinoblastoma (RB). Materials and Methods: A total of 22 eyes from 17 children with RB were selected for the study and treated with chemoreduction combined with topical cryotherapy, transpupillary thermotherapy (TTT) or episcleral plaque brachytherapy. Clinical and follow-up data were retrospectively analyzed. Results: All children received 2~6 courses of chemoreduction treatment, ($4.5{\pm}0.8$ courses on average); 17 eyes from 13 children were treated by chemoreduction combined with cryotherapy or TTT and 5 eyes from 4 children with chemoreduction combined with $^{125}I$ episcleral plaque brachytherapy. The eye retention rate was 81.8% (18/22), among which 38.9% (7/18) featured restored or maintained good vision. Postoperative follow-up period was 7 to 34 months, ($18.6{\pm}5.2$ months on average). The recurrence rate was 41.2% (7/17), among which 57.1% (4/7) were controlled by supplementing or appending cryotherapy or TTT treatment during the follow-up period. The tumor basal diameter and thickness were significantly reduced (P<0.05 or P<0.01) after treatment. All children demonstrated different degrees of hair loss, 70.6% (12/17) with different degrees of gastrointestinal reactions, 5.88% (1/17) with neutropenia and 11.8% (2/17) being seriously infected during the chemotherapeutic treatment. Univariate and logistic regression analysis showed that tumor basal diameter before treatment had a significant effect on the prognosis (P<0.01). Conclusions: Chemoreduction combined with topical therapy can effectively control RB in the short term, and tumor basal diameter before treatment is an independent risk factor for prognosis.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.1449-1459
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• 2009

Coptidis rhizoma (huanglian) is an herb that is widely used in traditional Chinese medicine that has recently been shown to possess anticancer activity. However, the molecular mechanism underlying the anticancer effects of this herb is poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the anticancer activity of a combination of CR extract and arsenic trioxide, as well as the apoptotic pathway associated with its mechanism of action in human lung cancer H157 cells. Combined treatment of H157 cells with CR extract and arsenic trioxide resulted in significant apoptotic death. In addition, combined treatment with CR extract and arsenic trioxide acted in concert to induce a loss of mitochondrial membrane potential (${\Delta}{\Psi}$), the release of cytochrome c from mitochondria, and an increase in the expression of pro-apoptotic p53 and Bax protein, which resulted in activation of caspases and apoptosis. CR extract combined with arsenic trioxide also increased the lipid peroxidation, mRNA expression of DR4 and DR5 and caspase-8 activity. These data indicate that combined treatment with CR extract and arsenic trioxide enhanced apoptotic cell death in H157 cells through diverse pathways, including mitochondrial dysfunction and death receptors, particularly DR4 and DR5. Thus, this treatment may be an effective from of chemotherapy.