• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• 제48권4호
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• pp.440-447
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• 2021

Background Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is a potential target for anti-obesity treatments. Previous studies have shown that BAT activation causes an acute metabolic boost and reduces adiposity. Furthermore, BAT and BAT-derived cell transplantation reportedly help treat obesity by regulating glucose and fatty acid metabolism. However, since BAT transplantation leads to whole-body weight loss, we speculated that earlier approaches cause a generalized and unnecessary fat tissue loss, including in breast and hip tissues. Methods We transplanted white adipose tissue-derived or BAT-derived preadipocytes prepared from C57BL/6 mice into one side of the inguinal fat pads of an obese mouse model (db/db mice) to examine whether it would cause fat loss at the peri-transplant site (n=5 each). The same volume of phosphate-buffered saline was injected as a control on the other side. Six weeks after transplantation, the inguinal fat pad was excised and weighed. We also measured the concentrations of glucose, triglycerides, fatty acids, and total cholesterol in the peripheral blood. Results BAT-derived preadipocytes showed abundant mitochondria and high levels of mitochondrial membrane uncoupling protein 1 expression, both in vivo and in vitro, with a remarkable reduction in weight of the inguinal fat pad after transplantation (0.17±0.12 g, P=0.043). Only free fatty acid levels tended to decrease in the BAT-transplanted group, but the difference was not significant (P=0.11). Conclusions Our results suggest that brown adipocytes drive fat degradation around the transplantation site. Thus, local transplantation of BAT-derived preadipocytes may be useful for treating obesity, as well as in cosmetic treatments.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• 제22권2호
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• pp.185-201
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• 2022

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is used to provide reliable information about the structure's integrity in near realtime following extreme incidents such as earthquakes, considering the inevitable aging and degradation that occurs in operating environments. This paper experimentally investigates an integrated wireless sensor network (Wi-SN) based monitoring technique for damage detection in concrete structures. An effective SHM technique can be used to detect potential structural damage based on post-earthquake data. Two novel methods are proposed for damage detection in reinforced concrete (RC) building structures including: (i) Jerk Energy Method (JEM), which is based on time-domain analysis, and (ii) Modal Contributing Parameter (MCP), which is based on frequency-domain analysis. Wireless accelerometer sensors are installed at each story level to monitor the dynamic responses from the building structure. Prior knowledge of the initial state (immediately after construction) of the structure is not required in these methods. Proposed methods only use responses recorded during ambient vibration state (i.e., operational state) to estimate the damage index. Herein, the experimental studies serve as an illustration of the procedures. In particular, (i) a 3-story shear-type steel frame model is analyzed for several damage scenarios and (ii) 2-story RC scaled down (at 1/6th) building models, simulated and verified under experimental tests on a shaking table. As a result, in addition to the usual benefits like system adaptability, and cost-effectiveness, the proposed sensing system does not require a cluster of sensors. The spatial information in the real-time recorded data is used in global damage identification stage of SHM. Whereas in next stage of SHM, the damage is detected at the story level. Experimental results also show the efficiency and superior performance of the proposed measuring techniques.

• Animal Bioscience
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• 제36권1호
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• pp.53-62
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• 2023

Objective: In this study, metabolites that changed in the rumen fluid, urine and feces of dairy cows fed different feed ratios were investigated. Methods: Eight Holstein cows were used in this study. Rumen fluid, urine, and feces were collected from the normal concentrate diet (NCD) (Italian ryegrass 80%: concentrate 20% in the total feed) and high concentrate diet (HCD) groups (20%: 80%) of dairy cows. Metabolite analysis was performed using proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) identification, and statistical analysis was performed using Chenomx NMR software 8.4 and Metaboanalyst 4.0. Results: The two groups of rumen fluid and urine samples were separated, and samples from the same group were aggregated together. On the other hand, the feces samples were not separated and showed similar tendencies between the two groups. In total, 160, 177, and 188 metabolites were identified in the rumen fluid, urine, and feces, respectively. The differential metabolites with low and high concentrations were 15 and 49, 14 and 16, and 2 and 2 in the rumen fluid, urine, and feces samples, in the NCD group. Conclusion: As HCD is related to rumen microbial changes, research on different metabolites such as glucuronate, acetylsalicylate, histidine, and O-Acetylcarnitine, which are related to bacterial degradation and metabolism, will need to be carried out in future studies along with microbial analysis. In urine, the identified metabolites, such as gallate, syringate, and vanillate can provide insight into microbial, metabolic, and feed parameters that cause changes depending on the feed rate. Additionally, it is thought that they can be used as potential biomarkers for further research on subacute ruminal acidosis.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제85권2호
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• pp.275-287
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• 2023

The use of environmental-friendly building materials is becoming increasingly popular worldwide. Compared to the normal concrete, rubber-based concrete is considered more durable, environmentally friendly, socially and economically viable. In this investigation, M20 grade concrete was designed and the fine aggregates were replaced with crumb rubber of two different micron sizes (0.221 mm and 0.350 mm). Fly ash (FA) and silica fume (SF) replaces the binder as supplementary cementitious materials at a rate of 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20% by weight. The mechanical properties of concrete including compressive strength, tensile, and flexural strength were determined. The polynomial work expectation validates the response surface approach (RSM) concept for optimizing SF and FA substitution. The maximum compressive strength (22.53 MPa) can be observed for the concrete containing 10% crumb rubber, 15% fly ash and 15% silica fume. The reduced unit weight of the rubberized concrete may be attributed to the lower specific gravity of the rubber particles. Two-way ANOVA with a significance criterion of less than 0.001 has been utilized with modest residual error from the lack of fit and the pure error. The predictive model accurately forecasts the variable-response relationship. Since, the crumb rubber is obtained from wasted tires incorporating FA and SF as a cementitious ingredient, it helps to significantly improve mechanical properties of concrete and reduce environmental degradation.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제41권5호
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• pp.681-695
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• 2021

Many existing transmission or communication towers designed several decades ago have undergone nonreversible performance degradation, making it hardly meet the additional requirements from upgrades in wind load design codes and extra services of electricity and communication. Therefore, a new-type non-destructive reinforcement method was proposed to reduce the on-site operation of drilling and welding for improving the quality and efficiency of reinforcement. Six built-up steel angle members were tested under compression to examine the reinforcement performance. Subsequently, the cyclic loading test was conducted on a pair of steel angle tower sub-structures to investigate the reinforcement effect, and a simplified prediction method was finally established for calculating the buckling bearing capacity of those new-type retrofitted built-up steel angles. The results indicates that: no apparent difference exists in the initial stiffness for the built-up specimens compared to the unreinforced steel angles; retrofitting the steel angles by single-bolt clamps can guarantee a relatively reasonable reinforcement effect and is suggested for the reduced additional weight and higher construction efficiency; for the substructure test, the latticed substructure retrofitted by the proposed reinforcement method significantly improves the lateral stiffness, the non-deformability and energy dissipation capacity; moreover, an apparent pinching behavior exists in the hysteretic loops, and there is no obvious yield plateau in the skeleton curves; finally, the accuracy validation result indicates that the proposed theoretical model achieves a reasonable agreement with the test results. Accordingly, this study can provide valuable references for the design and application of the non-destructive upgrading project of steel angle towers.

• 생약학회지
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• 제53권3호
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• pp.138-144
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• 2022

Obesity is a disease in which an abnormally large amount of fat accumulates in the body. Various diseases such as type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, high blood pressure, fatty liver, gallbladder disease, and coronary artery disease are induced. In this study, we investigated the effect of betaone, a type of barley, on obesity suppression. After the betaone extract was treated with 3T3 L1 adipocytes, the effect on adipocyte formation was investigated through Oil Red O staining. It was observed that differentiation was inhibited without affecting the viability of 3T3 L1 adipocytes. The effect of betaone extract on obesity inhibition in a mouse model was investigated. As a result of administering betaone extract after a high-fat diet, it was confirmed that the level of blood sugar and body weight was decreased, and glucose uptake ability was improved in a glucose tolerance test. The formation of mouse adipose tissue was suppressed, and the expression of genes involved in the formation and degradation of obesity in liver tissue was improved. These results suggest that betaone extract is a useful substance for improving obesity and is an excellent material for health functional food.

• 한국축산식품학회지
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• 제43권1호
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• pp.46-60
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• 2023

Slaughterhouse blood is a by-product of animal slaughter that can be a good source of animal protein. This research purposed to examine the functional qualities of the blood plasma from Hanwoo cattle, black goat, and their hydrolysates. Part of the plasma was hydrolyzed with proteolytic enzymes (Bacillus protease, papain, thermolysin, elastase, and α-chymotrypsin) to yield bioactive peptides under optimum conditions. The levels of hydrolysates were evaluated by 15% sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The antioxidant, metal-chelating, and angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory properties of intact blood plasma and selected hydrolysates were investigated. Accordingly, two plasma hydrolysates by protease (pH 6.5/55℃/3 h) and thermolysin (pH 7.5/37℃/3-6 h) were selected for analysis of their functional properties. In the oil model system, only goat blood plasma had lower levels of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances than the control. The diphenyl picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging activity was higher in cattle and goat plasma than in proteolytic hydrolysates. Ironchelating activities increased after proteolytic degradation except for protease-treated cattle blood. Copper-chelating activity was excellent in all test samples except for the original bovine plasma. As for ACE inhibition, only non-hydrolyzed goat plasma and its hydrolysates by thermolysin showed ACE inhibitory activity (9.86±5.03% and 21.77±3.74%). In conclusion, goat plasma without hydrolyzation and its hydrolysates can be a good source of bioactive compounds with functional characteristics, whereas cattle plasma has a relatively low value. Further studies on the molecular structure of these compounds are needed with more suitable enzyme combinations.

• 한국수자원학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국수자원학회 2023년도 학술발표회
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• pp.133-133
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• 2023

풍화작용에 의해 생성된 유사는 자연 매체에 의해 이동하고 하천에 도달하기 이전이나 이후 퇴적되며, 해당 과정 중에서 하상변동, 홍수위 상승, 제방 안정성, 두부 침식, 생태환경 변화, 수질문제 등 다양한 침식과 퇴적 관련 문제들이 발생한다. 이러한 유사 문제의 해결과 지속적인 하천관리를 위해서는 유사의 생성, 이송, 그리고 퇴적 과정에 대한 충분한 이해와 정량적인 유사량을 파악하는 것이 필수적이다. 다양한 연구들을 통해서 유사량을 정량적으로 파악하기 위해 여러 종류의 모델과 공식들이 제안 되어져 왔다. 그 중 경험적 모델의 경우 실제로 관측된 값을 기반으로 하며, 복잡한 계산이나 요구하는 자료가 다른 종류의 모델들 보다 적어 쉽게 접근이 가능하다. 이러한 경험적 모델은 유사에 영향을 주는 인자를 규명하거나 특정 유역이나 지역에서 이송 및 퇴적 되는 유사의 출처와 특성을 규명하는 초기 단계에서 유용하게 이용된다. 국내 하천의 경우 여름에 강우가 집중되고 대부분의 국토가 산지로 이루어져있어 상류에서 침식이 주로 발생한다. 또한, 본류 및 하류 지역의 하천은 유사의 퇴적이 주로 일어나서 하천의 형태와 물길이 형성된 충적 하천 형태로 발전 되어있기 때문에 국내 하천에서는 전반적으로 국부적이며 다양한 형태의 유사 관련 문제가 발생한다. 국내 하천에서 발생하는 유사 관련 문제를 해결하기 위해 국내 하천의 유사량을 추정하는 다양한 경험적 모델들이 지속적으로 개발되어왔다. 하지만 과거에 개발된 모델들의 경우 계측 자료가 충분하지 않은 시기에 개발 되었으며, 현재에는 활용하기 불가능하다. 본 연구에서는 국내 하천의 비유사량을 예측하는 동시에 국내 하천의 유사 특성을 이해하기 위해 과거에 국내 하천을 대상으로 비유사량을 추정하기 위해 개발되었던 경험적 모델을 개선하였다. 본 연구를 통해 기존 경험 모델의 경우 주기적인 업데이트가 필요함을 확인하였으며, 개발된 모델의 경우 국내 하천 유사 관리를 위해 미래 유사량 예측하는 등 다양한 방면으로 활용 관리가 가능할 것으로 보인다.

• 한국수소및신에너지학회논문집
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• 제33권6호
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• pp.699-706
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• 2022

Recently, hydrogen production is attracting attention. In this study, a process simulation was conducted on the gasification reaction to produce hydrogen using rice husks, which are produced as by-products of rice. For this purpose, Chuchung, Odae, and Dongjin rice, which are rice varieties produced in Korea, were compared with the literature. The Korean rice contained more hydrogen and less oxygen compared to the literature. As a result of the simulation, large amounts of H₂ and CH₄ and small amounts of CO₂ and CO were produced accordingly. The conditions to maximize hydrogen production were a gasification reaction temperature of 700℃ and an Steam-to-Biomass (S/B) ratio of 0.4-0.6. However, because the S/B ratio is related to the gasification catalyst degradation, the model needs to be improved through additional experiments in the future. This study showed the possibility of hydrogen production using Korean rice husks, which had not been reported.

• 대한한의학회지
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• 제43권3호
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• pp.1-15
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• 2022

Objectives: Myrrh have been used as a traditional remedy to treat infectious and inflammatory diseases. However, it is largely unknown whether myrrh ethanol extract could exhibit the inhibitory activities against particulate matter (PM)-induced skin injury on human keratinocytes, HaCaT cells. Therefore, this study was aimed to investigate the inhibitory activity of myrrh ethanol extract on PM-induced skin injury in HaCaT cells. Methods: To investigate the inhibitory effects of myrrh ethanol extract in HaCaT cells, the skin injury model of HaCaT cells was established under PM treatment. HaCaT keratinocyte cells were pre-treated with myrrh ethanol extract for 1 h, and then stimulated with PM. Then, the cells were harvested to measure the cell viability, reactive oxygen species (ROS), pro-inflammatory cytokines including interleukin (IL) 1-beta, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-𝛼, hyaluronidase, collagen, MMPs. In addition, we examined the mitogen activated protein kinases (MAPKs) and inhibitory kappa B alpha (I𝜅-B𝛼) as inhibitory mechanisms of myrrh ethanol extract. Results: The treatment of myrrh ethanol extract inhibited the PM-induced cell death and ROS production in HaCaT cells. In addition, myrrh ethanol extract treatment inhibited the PM-induced elevation of IL-1beta, IL-6, and TNF-𝛼. Also, myrrh ethanol extract treatment inhibited the increase of hyaluronidase, MMP and decrease of collagen. Furthermore, myrrh ethanol extract treatment inhibited the activation of MAPKs and the degradation of I𝜅-B𝛼. Conclusions: Our result suggest that treatment of myrrh ethanol extract could inhibit the PM-induced skin injury via deactivation of MAPKs and nuclear factor (NF)-𝜅B in HaCaT cells. This study could suggest that myrrh ethanol extract could be a beneficial agent to prevent skin damage or inflammation.