• Imaging Science in Dentistry
• /
• v.51 no.2
• /
• pp.209-216
• /
• 2021

Sjögren syndrome is a chronic autoimmune inflammatory disease characterized by lymphocytic infiltration of exocrine glands, predominantly the parotid and lacrimal glands, thereby resulting in oral and ocular dryness. It has been reported to occur most frequently in women between 40 and 50 years of age. Sjögren syndrome has an insidious onset, is slowly progressive, and presents a wide range of clinical manifestations, leading to delays or challenges in the diagnosis. Early diagnosis of this condition is essential to prevent the associated complications that affect patients' quality of life. This report presents 3 cases of Sjögren syndrome in female patients aged between 40 and 75 years who presented with complaints of persistent dry mouth and burning sensation. The cases highlight the diagnostic value of 3-dimensional cone-beam computed tomographic sialography in the detection of salivary gland pathologies at an early stage.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
• /
• v.50 no.1
• /
• pp.1-14
• /
• 2022

Bacteria communicate with each other through an intricate communication mechanism known as quorum sensing (QS). QS regulates different behavioral aspects in bacteria, such as biofilm formation, sporulation, virulence gene expression, antibiotic production, and bioluminescence. Several different chemical signals and signal detection systems play vital roles in promoting highly efficient intra- and interspecies communication. Gram-negative bacteria coordinate gene regulation through the production of acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs). Gram-positive bacteria do not code for AHL production, while some gram-negative bacteria have an incomplete AHL-QS system. Despite this fact, these microbes can detect AHLs owing to the presence of LuxR solo receptors. Various studies have reported the role of AHLs in interspecies signaling. Moreover, as bacteria live in a polymicrobial community, the production of extracellular compounds to compete for resources is imperative. Thus, AHL-mediated signaling and inhibition are considered to affect virulence in bacteria. In the current review, we focus on the synthesis and regulation mechanisms of AHLs and highlight their role in interspecies bacterial signaling. Exploring interspecies bacterial signaling will further help us understand host-pathogen interactions, thereby contributing to the development of therapeutic strategies intended to target chronic polymicrobial infections.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.31-39
• /
• 2022

Alport syndrome (AS) is a progressive hereditary nephritis that is often accompanied by sensorineural hearing loss and ocular abnormalities. It is inherited in three modes of X-linked AS (XLAS), autosomal recessive AS (ARAS), and autosomal dominant AS (ADAS). XLAS is caused by pathogenic variants in COL4A5, while ARAS and ADAS are caused by those in COL4A3 or COL4A4. There is currently no curative treatment for AS; however, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEi) can improve the outcome of AS. In the past decade, multiple studies have shown that early intervention with ACEi upon isolated microscopic hematuria or microalbuminuria could delay disease progression, and early diagnosis is crucial for early treatment. Therefore, a new classification of AS based on molecular diagnoses has been proposed, including the paradigm shift of re-classifying female "carriers" to "patients" and "thin basement membrane nephropathy" to "ADAS." In addition, with the detection of COL4A mutations in some patients with biopsy-confirmed IgA nephropathy, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, and chronic kidney disease of unknown origin, it is suggested that the phenotype of AS should be expanded. In this review, we highlight the landmark studies and guidelines published over the past decade and introduce strategies for early diagnosis and treatment to improve the outcomes of AS.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
• /
• v.41 no.2
• /
• pp.128-133
• /
• 2024

Aortic dissection in pregnant patients results in an inpatient mortality rate of 8.6%. Owing to the pronounced mortality rate and speed at which aortic dissections progress, efficient early detection methods are crucial. Here, we highlight the importance of early chest computed tomography (CT) for differentiating aortic dissection from pulmonary embolism in pregnant patients with dyspnea. We present the unique case of a 38-year-old pregnant woman with elevated D-dimer and N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) levels, initially suspected of having a pulmonary embolism. Initial transthoracic echocardiography did not indicate aortic dissection. Surprisingly, after an emergency cesarean section, a chest CT scan revealed a DeBakey type I aortic dissection, indicating a diagnostic error. Our findings emphasize the need for early chest CT in pregnant patients with dyspnea and elevated D-dimer and NT-proBNP levels. This case report highlights the critical importance of considering both aortic dissection and pulmonary embolism in the differential diagnosis of such cases, which will inform future clinical practice.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.96-106
• /
• 2002

We introduce a novel scheme to characterize and index events in TV golf programs using MPEG-7 descriptors. Our goal is to identify and localize the golf events of interest to facilitate highlight-based video indexing and summarization. In particular, we analyze multiple (low-level) visual features using domain-specific model to create a perceptual relation for semantically meaningful(high-level) event identification. Furthermore, we summarize a TV golf program with TV-Anytime segmentation metadata, a standard form of an XML-based metadata description, in which the golf events are represented by temporally localized segments and segment groups of highlights. Experimental results show that our proposed technique provides reasonable performance for identifying a variety of golf events.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.24 no.6
• /
• pp.843-853
• /
• 2014

In the context of artificial groundwater recharge, a reactive soil column at pilot-scale (4.5 m depth and 3 m in diameter) fed by treated wastewater was designed to evaluate soil filtration ability. Here, as a part of this project, the impact of treated wastewater filtration on soil bacterial communities and the soil's biological ability for wastewater treatment as well as the relevance of the use of multi-bioindicators were studied as a function of depth and time. Biomass; bacterial 16S rRNA gene diversity fingerprints; potential nitrifying, denitrifying, and sulfate-reducing activities; and functional gene (amo, nir, nar, and dsr) detection were analyzed to highlight the real and potential microbial activity and diversity within the soil column. These bioindicators show that topsoil (0 to 20 cm depth) was the more active and the more impacted by treated wastewater filtration. Nitrification was the main activity in the pilot. No sulfate-reducing activity or dsr genes were detected during the first 6 months of wastewater application. Denitrification was also absent, but genes of denitrifying bacteria were detected, suggesting that the denitrifying process may occur rapidly if adequate chemical conditions are favored within the soil column. Results also underline that a dry period (20 days without any wastewater supply) significantly impacted soil bacterial diversity, leading to a decrease of enzyme activities and biomass. Finally, our work shows that treated wastewater filtration leads to a modification of the bacterial genetic and functional structures in topsoil.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
• /
• v.10 no.5 s.37
• /
• pp.65-76
• /
• 2005

A digital video is a very long data that requires large-capacity storage space. As such, prior to watching a long original video, video watchers want to watch a summarized version of the video. In the field of sports, in particular, highlights videos are frequently watched. In short, a highlights video allows a video watcher to determine whether the highlights video is well worth watching. This paper proposes a scheme for creating soccer video highlights using the structural features of captions in terms of time and space. Such structural features are used to extract caption frame intervals and caption keyframes. A highlights video is created through resetting shots for caption keyframes, by means of logical indexing, and through the use of the rule for creating highlights. Finally, highlights videos and video segments can be searched and browsed in a way that allows the video watcher to select his/her desired items from the browser.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.665-671
• /
• 1993

The rate of 67 neonatal calves's infection of Theileria sergenti was investigated in random samples on the farms located in Kyeongki, Chonbuk and Jeju districts of Korea. The criteria used in verifying infection with T sergenti included the detection of parasites by giemsa's stain and acridine orange stain in the blood smear slides. Further evidence of current or previous exposure to T sergenti was based on the demonstration of T sergenti-specific antibody and antigen by the western immunoblot and the indirect immunofluorescence antibody test in the peripheral blood of the calves. The prevalence rates were 35%, 50% and 100% in Kyeongki, Chonbuk and Jeju provinces respectively and the overall prevalence in all the farms was 43.2% by means of acridine orange stain. The parasites that were observed in the peripheral blood of calves was shown surely by the western immunoblot to the characteristic 34KD antigen among the proteins of T sergenti (Korean Isolate). And the antibody of the neonatal calves reacted at the very highest titer(1 : >2,520). These data highlight the significance of T sergenti in the neonatal calf disease in Korea.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
• /
• v.29 no.6
• /
• pp.645-651
• /
• 2018

Lung cancer has the highest death rate of any cancer diseases in Koreans. However, patients often feel difficult to recognize their disease before facing the terminal diagnosis due to the absence of any significant symptoms. Furthermore, the clear detection of an early cancer stage is usually obscure with existing diagnostic methods. For this reason, extensive research efforts have been made on introducing a wide range of biochemical diagnostic tools for the molecular level analysis of biological fluids for lung cancer diagnoses. A chip-based biosensor, one type of the analytical devices, can be a great potential for the diagnosis, which can be used without any further expensive analytical equipments nor skilled analysts. In this mini review, we highlight recent research trends on searching biomarker candidates and bio-chip sensors for lung cancer diagnosis in addition to discussing their future aspects.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
• /
• v.31 no.6
• /
• pp.585-590
• /
• 2020

Successful early diagnosis of cancer diseases such as lung, prostate, liver and adrenocortical carcinoma is a key step in determining the cost of treatment, survival rate, and cure rate. Most of current cancer diagnosis systems including biopsy, computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET)-CT, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasonography, etc., require expensive and complicated equipment with highly trained human resources. Global medical and scientific communities have thus made numerous efforts on developing effective but rapid disease management system via introducing a wide spectrum of point-of-care medical diagnosis devices. Among them, a lateral flow immunoassay strip technique has gained a great attention due to many advantages such as cost-effectiveness, short inspection time, and user friendly accessibility. In this mini-review, we will highlight recent research trend on the development of colorimetry based LFIA strips for cancer diagnosis and discuss the future research direction and potential applications.