• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.131-145
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• 2020

The microbiota-gut-brain axis, which refers to the bidirectional communication pathway between gut bacteria and the central nervous system, has a profound effect on important brain processes, from the synthesis of neurotransmitters to the modulation of complex behaviors such as sociability and anxiety. Previous studies have revealed that the gut microbiota is potentially related to not only gastrointestinal disturbances, but also social impairment and repetitive behavior-core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Although studies have been conducted to characterize the microbial composition in patients with ASD, the results are heterogeneous. Nevertheless, it is clear that there is a difference in the composition of the gut microbiota between ASD and typically developed individuals, and animal studies have repeatedly suggested that the gut microbiota plays an important role in ASD pathophysiology. This possibility is supported by abnormalities in metabolites produced by the gut microbiota and the association between altered immune responses and the gut microbiota observed in ASD patients. Based on these findings, various attempts have been made to use the microbiota in ASD treatment. The results reported to date suggest that microbiota-based therapies may be effective for ASD, but largescale, well-designed studies are needed to confirm this.

• BMB Reports
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.399-404
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• 2011

In this study, powder of Orostachys japonicus A. Berger (O. japonicus) was extracted with 95% ethyl alcohol and fractionated using a series of organic solvents, including n-hexane (hexane), dichloromethane (DCM), ethylacetate (EtOAc), n-butanol (BuOH), and water ($H_2O$). We investigated the anti-inflammatory effects of these O. japonicus extracts on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells. Their effects on the expression of inflammatory mediators and transcription factors were analyzed by Western blotting. DCM fraction significantly inhibited formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) as well as nitric oxide (NO) in LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells. Phosphorylation of the pro-inflammatory transcription factor complex nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-${\kappa}$B) p65 and expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), one of its downstream proteins, were also suppressed by DCM fraction. These effects were regulated by upsteam proteins in the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and phosphoinositide 3-kinase/Akt (PI3K/Akt) signaling pathways. Taken together, our data suggest that O. japonicus could be used as a potential source for anti-inflammatory agents.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.704-715
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• 2016

In this paper, we explore a low-complex bandwidth allocation (BA) scheme with multi-level service guarantees in VLC-OFDM systems. Effective capacity theory, which evaluates wireless channel capacity from a novel view, is utilized to model the system capacity under delay QoS constraints of the link layer. Since intensity modulation of light is used in the system, problems caused by frequency selectivity can be neglected. Then, the BA problem can be formulated as an integer programming problem and it is further relaxed and transformed into a concave one. Lagrangian formulation is used to reformulate the concave problem. Considering the inefficiency of traditional gradient-based schemes and the demand for distributed implementation in local area networks, we localize the global parameters and propose a quasi-distributed quadratic allocation algorithm to provide two-level service guarantees, the first level is QoS oriented, and the second level is QoE oriented. Simulations have shown the efficient performance of the proposed algorithm. The users with more stringent QoS requirements require more subcarriers to guarantee their statistical delay QoS requirements. We also analyze the effect of subcarrier granularity on the aggregate effective capacity via simulations.

• 전기의세계
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.50-58
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• 1982

As a method for improving the power factor and the waveform of ac line current drawn by ac to dc converters, converters of pulse-width control type with forced commutation circuits have been developed in recent years. However, these converters have rather complex commutation circuits which contain auxiliary thyristors in addition to the main thyristors, and their performance is not satisfactory. This paper proposes a new pulse-width controlled ac to dc converter, and analyses its commutation mechanism and its input and output characteristics. The proposed converter circuit consists of a usual thyristor bridge circuit with series diodes to which reactors and diodes are added. This circuit dose not contain auxiliary thyristors, and in this sense it is simpler than the previous converter circuits of pulse-width control type. Since the main thyristors of the converter can be forcedly turned off several times in a half cycle of source voltage, a pulse-width modulation control is possible in order to improve the current waveform as well as the power factor on ac line side. As to dc output side it is shown that the adjustable range of output voltage is wide and the voltage regulation is good due to a rapid reversal of voltage across the commutating capacitors by LC resonance during commutation period. It is also shown that the regenerative operation of the converter is possible.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.331-338
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• 2005

In this paper the novel pulsewidth modulation(PWM) technique for the two-leg and four-leg two-phase inverter is proposed. The conventional space vector PWM technique for two-phase inverter was complex. The proposed PWM for two-leg inverter, which is used by sinusoidal PWM method, is simpler than the conventional SVPWU technique. Also, a simple PWM technique for four-leg two-phase inverter is proposed. Such PWM technique is based on PWM technique for two-leg inverter. Practical verification of theoretical predictions is presented to confirm the capabilities of the new techniques.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers B
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• v.49 no.11
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• pp.713-719
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• 2000

This paper presents an approach toward improving the performance of Moving Coil Type Linear Oscillatory Actuator (MC-LOA) with the application of Finite Element Method (FEM) to a simple control system. MC-LOA has an unbalanced magnetic circuit due to its asymmetric structure and there is a different flux distribution on the air-gap along the current direction. The interaction driven by two fluxes between the Permanent Magnet (PM) and the current causes the unbalanced thrust and interferes with the proper oscillation of MC-LOA. In order to solve the above problems and improve the driving performance, it is necessary to analyze the rate of the unbalanced thrust according to the current direction by using FEM. Then, the analysis results are used to determine the input currents for both directions. Controlling the input currents can be easily achieved by a simple control system, such as Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), without complex units. The validity of the approach is verified by the experimental results.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.379-386
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether berberine (BER) administration could attenuate depression- and anxiety-like behaviors and increase corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF) and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) expression following chronic morphine withdrawal in rats. Male rats were exposed to chronic, intermittent, escalating morphine (10~50 mg/kg) for 10 days. After the last morphine injection, depression- and anxiety-like beahvior associated with morphine discontinuation persisted for at least three days during withdrawal without any change in ambulatory activity. Daily BER administration significantly decreased immobility in the forced swimming test and increased open-arm exploration in the elevated plus maze test. BER administration also significantly blocked the increase in hypothalamic CRF expression and TH expression in the locus coeruleus (LC) and the decrease in hippocampal brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) mRNA expression. Taken together, these findings demonstrated that BER administration significantly reduced morphine withdrawal-associated behaviors following discontinuation of repeated morphine administration in rats, possibly through modulation of hypothalamic CRF and the central noradrenergic system. BER may be a useful agent for treating or alleviating complex withdrawal symptoms and preventing morphine use relapses.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.171-174
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• 2002

This paper deals with a novel method in order to analyze the harmonic characteristics in the multi-level inverter. Generally, the magnitude of harmonic components is different according to the carrier PWM techniques, modulation Index(Mi), and the level of multi-level inverter The previous papers analyzed the harmonic characteristics from the viewpoint of the space vector. Hence, the calculation of the harmonic vector becomes difficult and complex in 4-level or more than S-level. However, the proposed method of this paper reduced an amount of calculation and simplified the process of calculation by using the relationship between reference voltage and output phase voltage to load neutral. This paper analyzed the harmonic and it is applied to the multi-carrier PWM techniques in 5- level and other-level of cascaded inverter system.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.330-343
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• 2011

In this paper, we propose two schemes to reduce the complexity of fixed-complexity sphere decoder (FSD) algorithm in the ordering and tree-search stages, respectively, while achieving quasi-ML performance. In the ordering stage, we propose a QR-decomposition-based FSD signal ordering based on the zero-forcing criterion (FSD-ZF-SQRD) that requires only a few number of additional complex flops compared to the unsorted QRD. Also, the proposed ordering algorithm is extended using the minimum mean square error (MMSE) criterion to achieve better performance. In the tree-search stage, we introduce a threshold-based complexity reduction approach for the FSD depending on the reliability of the signal with the largest noise amplification. Numerical results show that in $8{\times}8$ MIMO system, the proposed FSD-ZF-SQRD and FSD-MMSE-SQRD only require 19.5% and 26.3% of the computational efforts required by Hassibi’s scheme, respectively. Moreover, a third threshold vector is outlined which can be used for high order modulation schemes. In $4{\times}4$ MIMO system using 16-QAM and 64-QAM, simulation results show that when the proposed threshold-based approach is employed, FSD requires only 62.86% and 53.67% of its full complexity, respectively.

• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.209-214
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• 1999

In this study, the effectof ethanol and acetaldehyde on DNA binding activities of NF-$textsc{k}$B and AP-1 were evaluated in C6 rat glial cells. Both NF-$textsc{k}$B and AP-1 are important transcription factors for the expression of various cytokines in glial cells. Our data showed that neither ethanol nor acetaldehyde induced conspicuous cell death of C6 cells at clinically realistic concentrations. When the DNA binding activities of nuclear NF-$textsc{k}$B and AP-1 were estimated using electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA), ethanol(0.3%) or acetaldehyde(1mM) induced transient activation of these transcription factors, which attained peak levels at 4~8 hours and declined to basal levels at 12 hours after treatement . The supershift analysis showed that the increased activities of NF-$textsc{k}$B in ethanol/acetaldehyde-treated C6 cells were due to the preferential induction of p65/p50 heterodimer complex. The DNA binding activities of these transcriptional factors decreased below basal levels when cells were cultured with either ethanol or acetaldehyde for 24 hours, and showed the inhibitory effect of chronic ehtanol /acetaldehyde treatment on the activities of these transsriptional factors. Our data indicate that either ethanol or acetaldehyde can induce functional changes of glial cells throught bi-directional modulation of NF-$textsc{k}$B and AP-1 DNA binding activities.