• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.296-304
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• 2016

It has been reported that fatty acid binding proteins (FABPs) do not act only as intracellular mediators of lipid responses but also have extracellular functions. This study aimed to investigate whether extracellular liver type (L)-FABP has a biological activity and to determined serum L-FABP levels in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). We isolated L-FABP complementary deoxyribonucleic acid (cDNA) from the Huh7 human hepatocarcinoma cell line and expressed the recombinant L-FABP protein in Escherichia coli. A549 lung carcinoma and THP-1 monocytic cells were stimulated with the human recombinant L-FABP. Human whole blood cells were also treated with the human recombinant L-FABP or interleukin (IL)-1α. IL-6 levels were measured in cell culture supernatants using IL-6 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Human recombinant L-FABP induced IL-6 in a dose-dependent manner in A549, THP-1 cells, and whole blood cells. The blood samples of healthy volunteers and patients with ESRD were taken after an overnight fast. The serum levels of L-FABP in healthy volunteers and ESRD patients were quantified with L-FABP ELISA. The values of L-FABP in patients with ESRD were significantly lower than those in the control group. Our results demonstrated the biological activity of L-FABP in human cells suggesting L-FABP can be a mediator of inflammation.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.46-58
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• 2024

The purpose of this study is to understand the current status of the pet plant kit industry and determine the priorities for support policies to revitalize the industry. SWOT analysis assessed the industry's current state, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used with industry professionals to prioritize support policies. The SWOT analysis results indicated that SO strategies involve leveraging government support policies to enhance marketing and developing eco-friendly DIY products. WO strategies include launching advertising campaigns to increase market recognition and establishing strategic partnerships to expand distribution. ST strategies focus on strengthening price competitiveness and proposing unique values, while WT strategies involve improving production processes and enhancing product quality based on consumer feedback. The AHP analysis identified 3 top-level and 12 sub-level evaluation items, with data collected from 17 expert surveys. The results showed the 'entry phase' (0.482), 'activation phase' (0.397), and 'advanced phase' (0.121) were prioritized, with 'organizing seminars' (0.181) as the most crucial subcategory and 'support for kit development' (0.020) as the least. The pet plant kit industry is in its early stages, and appropriate policy incubation can help activate the garden industry. This study provides foundational information on the industry's needs for activation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.98 no.1
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• pp.66-81
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• 2009

From a new perspective of "humans and the culture of forming and conserving the environment", the sustainable forest management can be reformulated under the concept of "cultural sustainability". Cultural sustainability is based on the emphasis of the high contribution to sustainability of the culture of forming and conserving the environment. This study extracts the implications to cultural sustainability for the modern world by investigating a historical case of the culturo-social pine forestry in the Joseon period of Korea. In the legendary and recorded acts by the first king Taejo, Seonggye Yi, Korean red pine (Pinus densiflora) was the "Royal tree" of Joseon and also the "Sajik tree" related intimately with the Great Sajik Ritual valued as the top rank within the national ritual regime that sustained the Royal Virtue Politics in Confucian political ideology. Into the Neo-Confucian faith and royal rituals of Joseon, elements of geomancy (Feng shui), folk religion, and Buddhism had been amalgamated. The deities worshipped or revered at the Sajik shrine were Earth-god (Sa) and crop-god (Jik). And it is the Earth god and the concrete entity, Sajik tree, that contains the legacy of sylvan religion descended from the ancient times and had been incorporated into the Confucian faith and ritual regime. Korean red pine as the Royal-Sajik tree played a critical role of sustaining the religio-political justification for the rule of the Joseon's Royalty. The religio-political symbolism of Korean red pine was represented in diverse ways. The same pine was used as the timber material of shrine buildings established for the national rituals under Neo-Confucian faith by the royal court of Joseon kingdom before the modern Korea. The symbolic role of pine had also been expressed in the forms of royal tomb forests, the Imposition Forest (Bongsan) for royal coffin timber (Whangjangmok), and the creation, protection, conservation and bureaucratic management of the pine forests in the Inner-four and Outer-four mountains for the capital fortress at Seoul, where the king and his family inhabit. The religio-political management system of pine forests parallels well with the kingdom's economic forest management system, called "Pine Policy", with an array of pine cultivation forests and Prohibition Forests (Geumsan) in the earlier period, and that of Imposition Forests in the later period. The royal pine culture with the economic forest management system had influenced on the public consciousness and the common people seem to have coined Malrimgat, a pure Korean word that is interchangeable with the Chinesecharacter words of prohibition-cultivation land or forest (禁養地, 禁養林) practiced in the royal tomb forests, and Prohibition and Imposition Forests, which contained prohibition landmarks (Geumpyo) made of stone and rock on the boundaries. A culturo-social forestry, in which Sajik altar, royal tomb forests, Whangjang pine Prohibition and Imposition forests and the capital Inner-four and Outer-four mountain forests consist, was being put into practice in Joseon. In Joseon dynastry, the Neo-Confucian faith and royal rituals with geomancy, folk religion, and Buddhism incorporated has also played a critical humanistic role for the culturo-social pine forestry, the one higher in values than that of the economic pine forestry. The implications have been extracted from the historical case study on the Royal-Sajik tree and culturo-social forestry of Joseon : Cultural sustainability, in which the interaction between humans and environment maintains a long-term culturo-natural equilibrium or balance for many generations, emphasizes the importance that the modern humans who form and conserve environment need to rediscover and transform their culturo-natural legacy into conservation for many generations and produce knowledge of sustainability science, the transdisciplinary knowledge for the interaction between environment and humans, which fulfills the cultural, social and spiritual needs.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.1377-1383
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• 2008

A bacterium producing non- or partially digestible dextran was isolated from kimchi broth by enrichment culture technique. The bacterium was identified tentatively as Leuconostoc sp. strain SKY. We established the response surface methodology (Box-Behnken design) to optimize the principle parameters such as culture pH, temperature, and yeast extract concentration for maximizing production of dextran. The ranges of parameters were determined based on prior screening works done at our laboratory and accordingly chosen as 5.5, 6.5, and 7.5 for pH, 25, 30, and $35^{\circ}C$ for temperature, and 1, 5, and 9 g/l yeast extract. Initial concentration of sucrose was 100 g/l. The mineral medium consisted of 3.0 g $KH_2PO_4$, 0.01 g $FeSO_4{\cdot}H_2O$, 0.01 g $MnSO_4{\cdot}4H_2O$, 0.2 g $MgSO_4{\cdot}7H_2O$, 0.01 g NaCl, and 0.05 g $CaCO_3$ per 1 liter deionized water. The optimum values of pH and temperature, and yeast extract concentration were obtained at pH (around 7.0), temperature (27 to $28^{\circ}C$), and yeast extract (6 to 7 g/l). The best dextran yield was 60% (dextran/g sucrose). The best dextran productivity was 0.8 g/h-l.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.75-88
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• 2014

This research aims to introduce the external type of natural funeral landscape facilities and to examine the effect of its visual image factor on the preference for them. For this purpose, a survey was conducted among 549 persons including 224 experts on the funeral services. The majority of respondents in this research live in the Seoul, Daejeon, Jeonju, and Busan areas. Burial place facilities and memorial facilities among natural funeral landscape facilities for the study are selected and categorized into five types, respectively. Of these, the funeral area type includes a woody style, a garden style, a flower style, a grass style and a scattered ashes style. As a result, firstly, from the factor analysis, three image factors are extracted such as a physical factor, an external-appearing factor and a symmetrical factor from the burial place facilities. Secondly, the most flavored among 5 burial palace facilities is woody style, followed a flower style, a garde style, a grass style and a scattered ashes style. Third, we draw a perception map based on the average values of each image factors. Forth, we find some significant difference in the evaluation of the image factors of burial place facilities by characteristics of the respondents. The gender, age, the education level and the facilities type reveal the significant difference in a physical factor. Moreover, we find a significant difference in the level of an external-appearing factor according to a gender, religion, a group members, and in the level of a symmetrical factor according to the gender, the education level, and the facilities type. Fifth, we execute a regression analysis in order to analyze the effect of the image factors on its preference for the burial place and memorial facilities. We find a positive effect of a physical, an external appearing and a symmetrical factor on its preference. Finally, we examine a moderating effect of a group member between the image factors and its preference. We find a significant positive moderating effect of an external-appearing factor for a garden style in the case of the burial place facilities. In this study are suggests that fix the problem of natural funeral landscape facilities typical naming contribute to the development of the early beginning natural funeral landscape facilities and study on development of natural funeral landscape facilities suitable for domestic. In addition, this study has shown that having rational guideline when people use natural funeral that develop a funeral culture through preference natural funeral standard visual image analysis such as preserve the traditional funeral philosophy and a new aesthetic needs.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.1049-1057
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• 2012

The study investigated the biochemical methane potential (BMP) assay of pig slurry supplemented with mixed methanogens and cellulolytic bacteria to improve anaerobic digestion for methane production. For the BMP assay, 7 different microbial supplementation groups consisted of the cultures of mixed methanogens (M), Fibrobacter succinogenes (FS), Ruminococcus flavefaciensn (RF), R. albus (RA), RA+FS, M+RA+FS, and control. The cultures were added in the batch reactors with the increasing dose levels of 1% (0.5 mL), 3% (1.5 mL) and 5% (2.5 mL). Incubation for the BMP assay was carried out for 60 days at $38^{\circ}C$ using anaerobic digestate obtained from an anaerobic digester with pig slurry as inoculum. In results, 5% RF and RA+FS increased total biogas up to 8.1 and 8.4%, respectively, compared with that of control (p<0.05). All 5% microbial culture supplements significantly increased methane production up to 12.1~17.9% compared with that of control (p<0.05). Total solid (TS) and volatile solid (VS) digestion efficiencies showed no relationship to the increased supplementation levels of microbial cultures. After incubation, pH values in all treatment groups ranged between 7.527 and 7.657 indicating that methanogensis was not inhibited during the incubation. In conclusion, the results indicated that both hydrolysis and methanogenesis stages for methane production in anaerobic batch reactors were influenced by the supplemented microorganisms due to the chemical characteristics of pig slurry, but only the 5% supplementation level of all microbial culture supplements used in the experiment affected methane production.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.393-401
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• 1991

In order to compare the food consumption pattern of college girls on weekday and Sunday, the food intake of college girls in a district of Pusan city was analyzed through the factor analysis method. The principal results are as follows. 1. The amount of food intake on Sunday was generally larger than the average values of the food intake on weekday except for soybean & products, meats and beverage. 2. As for correlation coefficients among the intake of each food group, on weekday, positive correlation was noted among rice, potatoes, soybean & products and sea-weeds, fish & shells and fat & oil. And confectionery & sugar showed also a positive correlation to bread, while, on Sunday, vegetables, sea-weeds and meats showed a positive correlation to rice, and other cereals and eggs showed a positive correlation to bread & noodles, too. As for the relationship among rice and bread & noodles, a negative correlation was noted both on weekday and Sunday. 3. As for the factor analysis of the food intake on weekday through the correlation matrix, in the first factor, soybean & products, fat & oil, sea-weeds, rice and fish & shells showed comparatively large factor load, and in the second factor, meats, kimchi, vegetables, soybean & products, fruits and fish & shells showed large factor load. Here the first factor showed the Korean dietary life and the second factor showed subsidiary food (control nutrient) factor. In case of the food intake on Sunday, in the first factor, rice, meats, sea-weeds, soybean & products and vegetables showed large factor load, and in the second factor, fish & shells, vegetables, fat & oil, fruits and rice showed large factor load. Accordingly, the first factor and the second factor were considered to show Korean dietary pattern. 4. Nutrient intake on weekday and Sunday was substantially sufficient to RDA except for energy and iron.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.46 no.8
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• pp.795-802
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• 2003

Purpose : We investigated the hormonal control of OB gene expression and leptin secretion in cultured human visceral adipose tissue. Methods : Visceral adipose tissues were cultured for up to 48 hrs in modified Eagle's medium with varying concentration of hormones : Control(no hormone), bovine insulin(100 nM), Dexamethasone(DEX, 100 nM), growth hormone(GH, 40 ng/mL), insulin+DEX(100 nM each), insulin+DEX+GH(100 nM insulin and DEX, 40 ng/mL GH). Quantitative analysis of leptin mRNA was performed by competitive reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, and leptin secretion in culture medium was measured by IRMA using a commercial kit. Results : The addition of dexamethasone to the medium significantly increased OB gene expression and leptin secretion(P<0.05). Unlike dexamethasone, insulin did not affect OB gene expression and leptin secretion. Both insulin and dexamethasone, at high concentration, significantly stimulated leptin secretion compared with basal values(P<0.05). Leptin gene expression was not significantly increased by GH treatment alone, however GH, in combination with high concentrations of insulin and dexamethasone, attenuated the stimulatory effects of high concentrations of insulin and dexamethasone. Conclusion : Insulin cannot increase leptin secretion without the presence of dexamethasone. The mechanism suggested is that insulin may increase leptin secretion in cytoplasm only after dexamethasone increases the expression of OB gene. Further studies are necessary to elucidate the mechanism of the action of insulin on leptin secretion after increasing OB gene expression by dexamethasone.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.237-241
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• 2003

A case of juvenile onset generalized demodicosis of one year old, intact female Japanese Chin dog weighing 3.1kg was presented to the Small Animal Clinic of the College of Veterinary Medicine of Kyungpook National University. The diagnosis was made based on the physical examination, deep skin scrapings, hematology, serum chemistry, endocrinologic evaluation and bacterial culture. Numerous D. canis mites of various stages were observed in multiple skin scraping samples. CBC, serum chemistry, $T_3$, $T_4$ and free $T_4$ values were within normal range and Staphylococcus intermedius was isolated in bacterial culture of pustules. The dog was healthy other than skin lesions at the presentation. The three different treatment protocols were tried for the case. No clinical improvement was observed during 13 weeks of orally given daily basis ivermectin therapy at 600ug/kg and 2 weeks of spot-on weekly basis selamectin therapy at 30 mg/kg with cephalexin given orally twice a day at 25 mg/kg. However, a remarkable remission was seen by 0.1% amitraz dip on weekly basis with 4% chlorhexidine bath given twice a week. The secondary staphylococcal infection and accompanied pruritus was almost disappeared in two weeks and she was recovered clinically normal in 9 weeks of therapy. The therapy was continued for 4 more weeks to prevent relapse. The dog is clinically normal and being monitored for development of any abnormal dermatological signs for the time being.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.58 no.5
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• pp.452-458
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• 2005

Background : In Korea, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for M. tuberculosis has been used for the diagnosis of acid-fast bacilli (AFB) smear-negative tuberculosis in order to increase diagnostic sensitivity. However, there have been no data dealing with the clinical utility of PCR in AFB smear-positive patients to differentiate between M. tuberculosis and nontuberculous mycobacteria. Method : We retrospectively analyzed the PCR test results which have been performed in patients who had AFB smear-positive sputum but had ambiguous clinical manifestations of active tuberculosis. PCR test was done using $AMPLICOR^{\hat{a}}$ M. tuberculosis kit. The sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values of the PCR test were calculated based on culture and final clinical diagnosis result. Results : Fifty-six consecutive patients (62 PCR tests) were included in the study. Active tuberculosis was diagnosed in 23 patients (41.0%), while 9 patients had NTM infection (16.0%). The sensitivity, specificity, positive- and negative-predictive value of PCR test were 88.8%, 86.8%, 76.1% and 94.3%, respectively, according to the culture result. In comparison, they were 91.3%, 100%, 100%, 94.3%, respectively, according to the final clinical diagnosis. All 15 patients with NTM isolates, including 6 patients who had other lung diseases but expectorated NTM isolate, were negative for PCR test. Conclusion : Even though tuberculosis is still prevalent in Korea, PCR test is useful to differentiate between M. tuberculosis and NTM in patients with AFB-smear positive sputum but with ambiguous clinical manifestations of active tuberculosis.