• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.461-469
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• 2017

BACKGROUND/OBSECTIVE: Airway inflammation by eosinophils, neutrophils and alveolar macrophages is a characteristic feature of asthma that leads to pathological subepithelial thickening and remodeling. Our previous study showed that oxidative stress in airways resulted in eosinophilia and epithelial apoptosis. The current study investigated whether glutathione-containing dry yeast extract (dry-YE) ameliorated eosinophilia, goblet cell hyperplasia and mucus overproduction. MATERIALS/METHOD: This study employed $2{\mu}g$/mL lipopolysaccharide (LPS)- or 20 ng/mL eotaxin-1-exposed human bronchial epithelial cells and ovalbumin (OVA)-challenged mice. Dry-YE employed in this study contained a significant amount of glutathione (140 mg in 100 g dry yeast). RESULTS: Human bronchial epithelial cell eotaxin-1 and mucin 5AC (MUC5AC) were markedly induced by the endotoxin LPS, which was dose-dependently attenuated by nontoxic dry-YE at 10-50 ${\mu}g$/mL. Moreover, dry-YE inhibited the MUC5AC induction enhanced by eotaxin-1, indicating that eotaxin-1-mediated eosinophilia may prompt the MUC5AC induction. Oral supplementation with 10-100 mg/kg dry-YE inhibited inflammatory cell accumulation in airway subepithelial regions with a reduction of lung tissue level of intracellular adhesion molecule-1. In addition, ${\geq}50$ mg/kg dry-YE diminished the lung tissue levels of eotaxin-1, eosinophil major basic protein and MUC5AC in OVA-exposed mice. Alcian blue/periodic acid schiff staining revealed that the dry-YE supplementation inhibited goblet cell hyperplasia and mucus overproduction in the trachea and bronchiolar airways of OVA-challenged mice. CONCLUSIONS: Oxidative stress may be involved in the induction of eotaxin-1 and MUC5AC by endotoxin episode and OVA challenge. Dry-YE effectively ameliorated oxidative stress-responsive epithelial eosinophilia and mucus-secreting goblet cell hyperplasia in cellular and murine models of asthma.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.94-99
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• 2000

Purpose : With the use of localized, water-suppressed in vivo $^1H$ magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), we evaluated the proton metabolic alterations in patients with chronic alcoholism and healthy normal controls. Material and Methods : Patients with chronic alcoholism (N = 10) and normal control subjects (N = 10) underwent MRS examinations using a stimulated echo acquisition mode (STEAM) pulse sequence with $2{\times}2{\times}2{\;}\textrm{cm}^3$ volume of interest (VOI) in the left cerebellum and basal ganglia. Proton metabolite ratios relative to creative (Cr) were obtained using a Marquart algorithm. Results : The specific feature in patients with chronic alcoholism was a significant decrease of N-acetylaspartate (NAA)/Cr ratio in the left cerebellum, compared with normal controls. No clear correlation of other metabolite ratios such as choline (Cho)/Cr and inositols (Ins)/Cr was established. Conclusion : Our preliminary study suggests that the reduction of NAA/Cr ratio may indicate neuronal loss in patients with chronic alcoholism. Thus, in vivo 1H MRS may be a useful modality in the clinical evaluation of patients with chronic alcoholism based on the proton metabolite ratios.

• The Journal of Korean Society of Virology
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.11-22
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• 1999

Sero-epidemiologic survey has been carried out to establish serologically the presence of hantavirus in areas of South Africa. The survey was oriented to search natural infection in both of humans and wild rodents and involvement of human disease. The normal human sera were collected from the residents in urban and rural areas of Western Cape, and rural area of Eastern Cape province. The rodent sera came from various species of rodents trapped in Northern Cape and Western Free provinces. The patient sera were selected from the patients of renal failure, pulmonary syndrome and pyrexia of unknown origin (PUQ) according to diagnostic chart among the patients hospitalized in major hospitals of Cape Town area. The sera were screened and titrated by IFA test using antigens of Hantaan (HTN), Seoul (SEO), Puumala (PUU), and Prospect Hill (PH) viruses primarily. Positive cases were subjected to differential IFA test using HTN, PUU and PH antigens and plaque reduction neutralization test for further confirmation. Anti-hantavirus antibodies were detected from 2 of 352 rural, 1 of 172 urban residents of E. Cape, and 5 of 118 rural, 5 of 368 urban residents of W. Cape. The antibody was also demonstrated from 5 of 221 wild rodents, and it was appeared that 2 different species, Aethomys namaquensis and Tatem leucogaster, are involved. Among 318 patients tested, 3 who were diagnosed as chronic renal failure, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and glomerulonephritis were proved to be positive. The reaction patterns obtained from all of these positive sera were distinct from hantaviral sero-patterns ever established. This result suggests that new viruses may exist in this area and play an possible etiologic role in human disease. The feature of serologic survey on anti-hantavirus antibody demonstrable newly from African wild rodents which are different from reservoir species in other continents elicits a conjecture that the virus may be different from known hantaviruses ever found. This fact also suggests that an expanded role in etiologic involvement with other unknown human diseases by newly emerging hantaviruses may be possible in this areas.

• Journal of fish pathology
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.45-56
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• 2008

This study was conducted to find out biological responses of bivalves exposed to organotin compound.The results of the study confirmed that tribultyltin chloride (TBTCl) induce reduction of survival rate andburrowing activity, and histopathological feature in the foot structure of the equilateral venus, Gomphinaveneriformis. The experimental period was 36 weeks. The experimental groups consisted of a control and 3TBTCl exposure groups (0.4, 0.6, 0.8 ym TBTCl L'). The survival rate and burrowing activity were record-ed daily. For histological analysis, foot tissues were fixed in Bouin' s fluid and then stained H-E stain, AB-PAS (PH 2.5) reaction and Masson's trichrome stain after having serially sectioned the tissue by paraffinmethod at thickness of 4-6 ym. The survival rate was not significantly different between the control andexposure groups for 20 weeks, but in 0.8 Um TBTCl L', it was on the decreased ever since the exposure. Theburrowing activity was not significantly different in the exposure group compared to the control up to 12weeks, but in 0.6 and 0.8 ym TBTCl L', it measured the lowest level after 20 weeks. The foot is composedof the epidermal layer, connective tissue, and muscular layer. The epidermal layer is composed of simplecolumnar, cuboidal epithelia and mucous cells. The cilia were well developed on the apical surface ofepithelium, Circular, longitudinal and transverse muscle bundle were well developed in the muscular layer.The majority mucous cells showed blue color (542c) when it subjected to AB-PAS (PH 2.5) reaction. Nohistopathological alterations in the foot were observed up to 12 weeks. After 20 weeks of exposure to 0.8 (anTBTCl L'', the foot samples of exposed G. veneriformis showed disappearance of cilia and striated borderpartially and extension of hemolymph sinus. The mucous cell increased in the marginal of foot. At 28-weekof exposure to 0.4 ym TBTCl L', it observed weekly acid (564c), neutral (264c) and mixed mucous cell. At36-week of exposure to 0.6 ym TBTCl L', it showed fragmentation of the muscle and collagen fiber bundle,and also diappearance of cilia on epithelia and edema of epithelium in 0.8 ym TBTCl L''.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.235-246
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• 2014

In the late 1980s, 5 new towns such as Bundang, Ilsan, Pyeongchon, Sanborn, Jungdong were constructed to solve housing problems and to disperse functions concentrated within Seoul. As the city got matured, it began to appear the initial signs of urban problems such as aging of high rise-density apartment sites, traffic congestion, lack of parking spaces and aging of infrastructure. Therefore, in order to cope with urban problems, it is very important to apprehend the process of urban growth, its change and the feature of physical/human elements. So, the purpose of this thesis is to analyze the changes in housing and population characteristics for past 20 years by use of Census data from 1995 to 2010. First, the new town's goal of population and housing plan at the time of construction was analyzed how it was achieved, and it is close to the performance of the goal. And the trend of changes in the population and household characteristics was analyzed by every five year's data. As the result of analysis, it shows socio-demographic changes such as aged and elderly population growth, rapid increase in one generation's household and single person household, highly educated city, monthly rent household's increase and charter household's reduction. Results of this analysis can be utilized to aforethought management of new towns. But it is required more sustained and systematic urban monitoring and data analysis because the one-off analysis of the city's characteristics alone is difficult enough to grasp them.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.8-13
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• 2013

Persons with sensorineural hearing impairment have troubles in hearing at noisy environments because of their deteriorated hearing levels and low-spectral resolution of the auditory system and therefore, they use hearing aids to compensate weakened hearing abilities. Various algorithms for hearing loss compensation and environmental noise reduction have been implemented in the hearing aid; however, the performance of these algorithms vary in accordance with external sound situations and therefore, it is important to tune the operation of the hearing aid appropriately in accordance with a wide variety of sound situations. In this study, a sound classification algorithm that can be applied to the hearing aid was suggested. The proposed algorithm can classify the different types of speech situations into four categories: 1) speech-only, 2) noise-only, 3) speech-in-noise, and 4) music-only. The proposed classification algorithm consists of two sub-parts: a feature extractor and a speech situation classifier. The former extracts seven characteristic features - short time energy and zero crossing rate in the time domain; spectral centroid, spectral flux and spectral roll-off in the frequency domain; mel frequency cepstral coefficients and power values of mel bands - from the recent input signals of two microphones, and the latter classifies the current speech situation. The experimental results showed that the proposed algorithm could classify the kinds of speech situations with an accuracy of over 94.4%. Based on these results, we believe that the proposed algorithm can be applied to the hearing aid to improve speech intelligibility in noisy environments.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.67-73
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• 2014

Landslide disasters including debris flows are the one of the most frequent natural disasters in Korea, and losses of lives and property damages due to these catastrophic events have been increased every year. Various mitigation programs and related policies have been conducted in order to respond and prepare landslide disasters. Most landslide reduction programs are, however, focused on recovery actions after the disasters and lead to unrealistic consequences to the affected people and their properties. The main objective of this study, therefore, is to evaluate the landslide hazard based on the identification of geomorphological features, which is for the preparedness of the landslide disasters. Two methodologies, SINMAP and vector dispersion analyses are used to simulate those characteristics where landslides are actually located. Results showed that both methods well discriminate geomorphic features between stable and unstable domains. This proves that geomorphological characteristics well describe a relationship with the existing landslide hazard. SINMAP analysis which is based on the consecutive model considering external factors like infiltration is well identify the landslide hazard especially for debris flow type landslides rather than vector dispersion focusing on a specific area. Combining with other methods focusing specific characteristics of geomorphological feature, accurate landslide hazard assessments are implemented.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.127-135
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• 2010

As logistics facilities have a high ceiling height, simple structure, and the need for a quick return on investment, it is usually essential to advance the construction schedule of such facilities. Accordingly, PC structures, which require less labor, cost and schedule, can be more competitive than RC structures. However, most construction companies in Korea are familiar with RC structure design, have negative perceptions regarding PC structures, and do not sufficiently adopt new construction techniques. The structure that this research features has 110 columns that are 14 m high and are built to the same specification, and applying an RC design to the structure will lead to issues related to constructibility, economic viability, project duration and safety. Therefore, this study intends to feature PC design as an alternative to the RC warehouse design, and perform a comparative analysis of the reduction in labor, cost and construction schedule to highlight benefits. The research outcomes herein will provide inputs to subsequent studies on new construction strategies to advance the construction schedule, improve quality and constructibility, enhance safety and save costs.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.67-79
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• 2018

This paper provides theoretical deformation of lean concept and its application for usage of building information modeling (BIM) process. Recently, much research is focused on application of lean concept for more efficient usage of BIM. The lean theory and its basic function and feature is based on manufacturing industry. The manufacturing process can be improved by process re-engineering steps of lean concept which consist of the steps of value, value stream, flow, pull, perfection. However manufacturing process and construction process has different characteristics. Due to the differences, five steps of the traditional lean's process re-engineering can't be directly applied to the BIM based engineering process. In order to solve this problem, we conduct analysis on the characteristics of the manufacturing process and BIM based engineering. We propose modified and expanded concept of lean for process re-engineering and the modified theory was applied to the mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) coordination process. Through the proposed 8 steps of methodology, 2D based process was changed to integrated and using BIM based MEP coordination process. In addition, the results showed the potentiality of cost reduction and process improvement. The results of this study can be a foundation for the theoretical combination of lean and a variety part of construction engineering process.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.379-387
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• 2016

The goal of this research is to identify the planning techniques of high-rise housing estates applying a smart green city concept in order to understand the necessity of integrating 'planning & building' planning techniques and 'smart system' planning techniques and to analyze the current status of application. For the research, firstl, the definition of smart green city was established and high-rise housing estates planning was categorized according to a three space hierarchy, seven planning directions and 17 major features through literature review. Second, 28 'planning & building' planning techniques and 'smart system' planning techniques were derived through literature review and FGI analysis. Last, four cases in Multi-functional Administrative City were analyzed for the current status of application of planning techniques. In conclusion, planning techniques in 'Transportation Network', 'Environment-friendly layout planning of housing', 'Revitalization of green transportation', 'Utilization of new & renewable energy', 'Crime prevention and accident reduction', 'Use of high performance, and efficiency facility' main feature were identified as important planning techniques for Smart Green City and its implications were estimated.