• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
• /
• v.29 no.6
• /
• pp.719-724
• /
• 2000

Objectives : It has been reported that the presence of a pharmacologically inactive foreign substance, polystyrene latex bead, in subarachnoid space activates a non-specific immunological response and elicits arterial narrowing. Recently the activation of potassium($K^+$) channels may be of benefit in relieving cerebral vasospasm. The present study examined the effects of systemic administration of a ATP-sensitive $K^+$ channel activator, cromakalim, on the polystyrene latex bead-induced cerebral vasospasm. Methods : The spasm models similar to that caused by subarachnoid blood injection were created by injection of bead into rabbit cisterna magna. Intravenous injections of cromakalim were administered twice daily(bid) 30 minutes after induction of vasospasm. Animals were killed by perfusion-fixation 2 days after vasospasm. Basilar arteries were removed and sectioned, and the luminal cross-sectional areas were measured. Results : Injection of bead elicited an arterial constriction, reducing arterial diameter to 33.3% of resting tone. Cromakalim inhibited bead-induced constriction at a dose of 0.3mg/kg(Mann-Whitney test, p<0.01). Conclusion : These results support the concept that the cellular events triggered by inactivation of ATP-sensitive $K^+$ channels are responsible for the pathogenesis of vasospasm. The findings also indicate that cromakalim represents a potential therapeutic agents for the treatment of cerebral vasospasm.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
• /
• v.5 no.7
• /
• pp.1287-1294
• /
• 2001

As size of waveform is very small, ECG(electrocardiogram) signal is difficult to analyze for noise which is occurred when it measures. In order to obtain ECG clearly, it must eliminate that power line interference, baseline wandering, noise of muscle constriction. In ECG, the worst problem which is recorded signal of ECG is the baseline wandering elimination, which is occurred by rhythm of respiration and muscle constriction of part from attaching to an electrode. Such the baseline is roughly irregular wandering and shaking up and down therefore the part of the baseline wandering elimination is very important because it is difficulty of ECG diagnosis. In this study, as implementation of real-time signal processing digital filter it is applicable to analyze patient's heart disease by way of design of the baseline wandering elimination system.

• Archives of Plastic Surgery
• /
• v.40 no.2
• /
• pp.129-133
• /
• 2013

Background A pneumatic tourniquet is generally used to achieve a bloodless operation field in hand surgery. However, this has changed with tumescent solution-based wide-awake surgery. This study is a preliminary prospective case series study to elaborate the formula and indications of the tumescent technique in hand surgery without a tourniquet. Methods Seven patients (age range, 4 months to 37 years) underwent hand or upper extremity surgery for conditions such as nerve palsy, electric burn defect, fingertip injury, contracture, constriction ring syndrome, or acrosyndactyly. A "one-per-mil" tumescent solution (epinephrine 1:1,000,000+20 mg lidocaine/50 mL saline) was used to create a bloodless operating field without a tourniquet. Observation was performed to document the amount of solution injected, the operation field clarity, and the postoperative pain. Results The "one per mil" epinephrine solution showed an effective hemostatic effect. The tumescent technique resulted in an almost bloodless operation field in the tendon and in the constriction ring syndrome surgeries, minimal bleeding in the flap and contracture release surgeries, and acceptable bleeding in acrosyndactyly surgery. The amount of solution injected ranged from 5.3 to 60 mL. No patient expressed significant postoperative pain. Flap surgeries showed mixed results. One flap was lost, while the others survived. Conclusions Epinephrine 1:1,000,000 in saline solution is a potential replacement for a tourniquet in hand surgery. Further studies are needed to delineate its safety for flap survival.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
• /
• v.32 no.11
• /
• pp.891-896
• /
• 2008

In the present computational study, simple stenotic artery models using pulsatile flow condition were investigated. A 1 Hz non-reversing sinusoidal velocity for pulsatile flow was imposed at the flow inlet and the corresponding Womersley number based on the vessel radius is 2.75. The simple stenotic geometries have been used that consist of 25%, 50% and 75% semicircular constriction in a cylindrical tube. In this paper, numerical solutions are presented for a first harmonic oscillatory flow using commercial software ADINA 8.4. As stenosis and Reynolds number increase, the maximum wall shear stress(WSS) increases while the minimum WSS decreases. As the stenotic rate increases, the pressure drop at the throat severely decreases to collapse the artery and plaque. It is found that the fluid mechanical disturbances due to the constriction were highly sensitive with rate of stenosis and Reynolds number. When Reynolds number and stenosis increase, the larger recirculation region exists. In this recirculation region the possibility of plaque attachment is increasingly higher. The present results enhance our understanding of the hemodynamics of a stenotic artery.

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
• /
• v.17 no.3
• /
• pp.99-110
• /
• 2005

This work presents results of finite element analysis of isothermal incompressible creeping viscoelastic flows with the tensor-logarithmic formulation of the Leonov model especially for the planar geometry with singular comers in the domain. In the case of 4:1 contraction flow, for all 5 meshes we have obtained solutions over the Deborah number of 100, even though there exists slight decrease of convergence limit as the mesh becomes finer. From this analysis, singular behavior of the comer vortex has been clearly seen and proper interpolation of variables in terms of the logarithmic transformation is demonstrated. Solutions of 4:1:4 contraction/expansion flow are also presented, where there exists 2 singular comers. 5 different types spatial resolutions are also employed, in which convergent solutions are obtained over the Deborah number of 10. Although the convergence limit is rather low in comparison with the result of the contraction flow, the results presented herein seem to be the only numerical outcome available for this flow type. As the flow rate increases, the upstream vortex increases, but the downstream vortex decreases in their size. In addition, peculiar deflection of the streamlines near the exit comer has been found. When the spatial resolution is fine enough and the Deborah number is high, small lip vortex just before the exit comer has been observed. It seems to occur due to abrupt expansion of the elastic liquid through the constriction exit that accompanies sudden relaxation of elastic deformation.

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.40 no.1
• /
• pp.66-72
• /
• 2017

Pathological hypertrophy of the heart is closely associated with endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS), leading to maladaptations such as myocardial fibrosis, induction of apoptosis, and cardiac dysfunctions. Salubrinal is a known selective inhibitor of protein phosphatase 1 (PP1) complex involving dephosphorylation of phospho-eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2 subunit $(p-eIF2)-{\alpha}$, the key signaling process in the ERS pathway. In this study, the effects of salubrinal were examined on cardiac hypertrophy using the mouse model of transverse aortic constriction (TAC) and cell model of neonatal rat ventricular myocytes (NRVMs). Treatment of TAC-induced mice with salubrinal ($0.5mg{\cdot}kg^{-1}{\cdot}day^{-1}$) alleviated cardiac hypertrophy and tissue fibrosis. Salubrinal also alleviated hypertrophic growth in endothelin 1 (ET1)-treated NRVMs. Therefore, the present results suggest that salubrinal may be a potentially efficacious drug for treating pathological cardiac remodeling.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
• /
• v.77 no.1
• /
• pp.53-64
• /
• 1988

The idiogram of pine chromosomes was obtained from the length, the ratio of the long and short arm, and the position of the secondary constriction. The descending order of the long arm was found by analyzing the idiogram for 6 species of hard pines and 5 species of soft pines growing in Korea. The basic chromosome number of the genus Pinus was n=12, of which the ten chromosomes were the M-type showing similar S/L ratio, and the other two short chromosomes were the heterobrachial SM-type and the sub-median centric SM-type. The interspecific identification was able to made by comparing the number and the position of the secondary constriction, and the pattern of descending order of the long arm. The intraspecific variation was also able to be identified by comparing the long arms Descending order among the provenaces. Some differences were found in the chromosomal structures between the hard- and the soft-pines. However, the differences were not apparent as much as those in the morphological characteristics. The results might not be exactly reproducible because of the variable responses of chromosomes depending on concentration of the chemicals, the temperatures and time of the treatments, and the analytical errors during the preparateur preparation.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.252-259
• /
• 2016

Neuropathic pain is a complex state showing increased pain response with dysfunctional inhibitory neurotransmission. The TREK family, one of the two pore domain $K^+$ (K2P) channel subgroups were focused among various mechanisms of neuropathic pain. These channels influence neuronal excitability and are thought to be related in mechano/thermosensation. However, only a little is known about the expression and role of TREK-1 and TREK-2, in neuropathic pain. It is performed to know whether TREK-1 and/or 2 are positively related in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) of a mouse neuropathic pain model, the chronic constriction injury (CCI) model. Following this purpose, Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) and western blot analyses were performed using mouse DRG of CCI model and compared to the sham surgery group. Immunofluorescence staining of isolectin-B4 (IB4) and TREK were performed. Electrophysiological recordings of single channel currents were analyzed to obtain the information about the channel. Interactions with known TREK activators were tested to confirm the expression. While both TREK-1 and TREK-2 mRNA were significantly overexpressed in DRG of CCI mice, only TREK-1 showed significant increase (~9 fold) in western blot analysis. The TREK-1-like channel recorded in DRG neurons of the CCI mouse showed similar current-voltage relationship and conductance to TREK-1. It was easily activated by low pH solution (pH 6.3), negative pressure, and riluzole. Immunofluorescence images showed the expression of TREK-1 was stronger compared to TREK-2 on IB4 positive neurons. These results suggest that modulation of the TREK-1 channel may have beneficial analgesic effects in neuropathic pain patients.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.10 no.4
• /
• pp.77-89
• /
• 2018

Speech articulators are coordinated for the purpose of segmental constriction in terms of a task. In particular, vertical jaw movements repeatedly contribute to consonantal as well as vocalic constriction. The current study explores vertical jaw movements in conjunction with bilabial constriction in bilabial stop /p/ in the context /a/-to-/a/. Revisiting kinematic data of /p/ collected using the electromagenetic midsagittal articulometer (EMMA) method from seven (four female and three male) speakers of Seoul Korean, we examined maximum vertical jaw position, its relative timing with respect to the upper and lower lips, and lip aperture minima. The results of those dependent variables are recapitulated in terms of linguistic (different word boundaries) and paralinguistic (different speech rates) factors as follows. Firstly, maximum jaw height was lower in the across-word boundary condition (across-word < within-word), but it did not differ as a function of different speech rates (comfortable = fast). Secondly, more reduction in the lip aperture (LA) gesture occurred in fast rate, while word-boundary effects were absent. Thirdly, jaw raising was still in progress after the lips' positional extrema were achieved in the within-word condition, while the former was completed before the latter in the across-word condition. Lastly, relative temporal lags between the jaw and the lips (UL and LL) were more synchronous in fast rate, compared to comfortable rate. When these results are considered together, it is possible to posit that speakers are not tolerant of lenition to the extent that it is potentially realized as a labial approximant in either word-boundary condition while jaw height still manifested lower jaw position in the across-word boundary condition. Early termination of vertical jaw maxima before vertical lower lip maxima across-word condition may be partly responsible for the spatial reduction of jaw raising movements. This may come about as a consequence of an excessive number of factors (e.g., upper lip height (UH), lower lip height (LH), jaw angle (JA)) for the representation of a vector with two degrees of freedom (x, y) engaged in a gesture-based task (e.g., lip aperture (LA)). In the task-dynamic application toolkit, the jaw angle parameter can be assigned numerical values for greater weight in the across-word boundary condition, which in turn gives rise to lower jaw position. Speech rate-dependent spatial reduction in lip aperture may be able to be resolved by means of manipulating activation time of an active tract variable in the gestural score level.

• Proceedings of the Korean Magnestics Society Conference
• /
• 2006.11a
• /
• pp.8-8
• /
• 2006