• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.421-430
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• 2004

Clinically, it is almost impossible for a physician to distinguish subtle changes of frequency spectrum by using a stethoscope alone especially in the early stage of thrombus formation. Considering that reliability of mechanical valve is paramount because the failure might end up with patient death, early detection of valve thrombus using noninvasive technique is important. Thus the study was designed to provide a tool for early noninvasive detection of valve thrombus by observing shift of frequency spectrum of acoustic signals with computer aid diagnosis system. A thrombus model was constructed on commercialized mechanical valves using polyurethane or silicon. Polyurethane coating was made on the valve surface, and silicon coating on the sewing ring of the valve. To simulate pannus formation, which is fibrous tissue overgrowth obstructing the valve orifice, the degree of silicone coating on the sewing ring varied from 20％, 40％, 60％ of orifice obstruction. In experiment system, acoustic signals from the valve were measured using microphone and amplifier. The microphone was attached to a coupler to remove environmental noise. Acoustic signals were sampled by an AID converter, frequency spectrum was obtained by the algorithm of spectral analysis. To quantitatively distinguish the frequency peak of the normal valve from that of the thrombosed valves, analysis using a neural network was employed. A return map was applied to evaluate continuous monitoring of valve motion cycle. The in-vivo data also obtained from animals with mechanical valves in circulatory devices as well as patients with mechanical valve replacement for 1 year or longer before. Each spectrum wave showed a primary and secondary peak. The secondary peak showed changes according to the thrombus model. In the mock as well as the animal study, both spectral analysis and 3-layer neural network could differentiate the normal valves from thrombosed valves. In the human study, one of 10 patients showed shift of frequency spectrum, however the presence of valve thrombus was yet to be determined. Conclusively, acoustic signal measurement can be of suggestive as a noninvasive diagnostic tool in early detection of mechanical valve thrombosis.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.53-63
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• 2010

As one of the mucous components of Cheonggukjang, traditional fermented soybean paste, $\gamma$-PGA is a natural substance with diverse functions. In this paper, an in-vivo experiment has been performed using NC/Nga mice in order to find out the efficacy of $\gamma$-PGA in human atopic dermatitis. The NC/Nga mice with BMAC-induced atopic dermatitis were administered $\gamma$-PGA (PGA-HM) with 300 kDa and low-molecular $\gamma$-PGA (PGA-LM), respectively. As a result, a significant decrease in clinical skin severity score was detected in the group that was administered PGA-LM. In terms of serum IgE levels, a significant decline was observed in PGA-LM, compared to the control group. The serum IgG1 levels also decreased more in PGA-LM than in the control group. However, no significant difference was observed in both groups. To witness the induction of $CD4^+CD25^+foxp3^+$ Treg cells, mRNA was sampled from the back of PGA-HM- and PGA-LM-administered NC/Nga mice with atopic dermatitis. In terms of the production amount of foxp3 mRNA, which was measured in real-time PCR, the group that was administered PGA-LM was twice as high as the control group. According to a biopsy on the skin on the backs of the mice, the experimental group was also far lower than the control group in terms of epidermis thickness, mast cell infiltration and the number of $CCR3^+$ cells. Therefore, it has been confirmed that the atopic dermatitis symptoms decreased more in the PGA-LM-administered NC/Nga mice than the PGA-HM-administered group by facilitating $CD4^+CD25^+foxp3^+$ Treg cells and suppressing the activity of eosinophils and production of IgE and pro-inflammatory cytokines.

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.24 no.7
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• pp.975-982
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• 2017

Health of human intestine has deteriorated due to excessive stress and western diet. In this study, Vigna angularis was fermented by Bacillus subtilis KCCM11965P in order to develop prebiotic resource for improving bowel movement. The contents of ash and crude protein were $3.35{\pm}0.04%$ and $21.1{\pm}0.19%$ respectively. Vigna angularis extract (1, 3, 5%) were incubated with 3% (v/v) Bacillus subtilis KCCM 11965P for 0, 24, 48, and 72 h. Total bacterial numbers showed that the combination of 3% powdered seeds and 72 h incubation time was optimum condition for this experiment. Total polyphenol content increased from $0.18{\pm}0.010mg/mL$ in pre-incubation to $0.23{\pm}0.007mg/mL$ in post-incubation with the condition mentioned above. DPPH radical scavenging activity also increased from $36.1{\pm}6.0%$ to $63.6{\pm}5.2%$. Analysis of protease activity showed $2.69{\pm}0.003unit/mL$ in combination of 5% powdered seeds and 72 h incubation time. Amylase activity increased from $1.0{\pm}0.1unit/mL$ in pre-incubation to $26.0{\pm}0.2unit/mL$ in post-incubation. The analysis of free amino acids after incubation with Bacillus subtilis KCCM 11965P showed that leucine increased from 5.22 mg/L to 67.59 mg/L and tyrosine, one of non-essential amino acid also increased 10.08 mg/L to 259.35 mg/L by incubation with 5% powdered seeds. Most of organic acid were reduced by incubation for 72 h. These results suggest that Vigna angularis could be utilized most as a prebiotic resources.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.26 no.10
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• pp.1207-1213
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• 2016

Schisandrae fructus (SF) and Mori folium (MF) have been used as traditional medicines for thousands of years in parts of Asia, including Korea, China, and Japan. Recent researches on SF and MF have documented a wide spectrum of therapeutic properties, including anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative, immunomodulatory and anti-angiogenesis effects. However, the toxicity and safety of SF and MF, and their mixture (medicinal herber mixture, MHMIX) were not confirmed. Therefore, this study was performed to evaluate the acute toxicity and safety of SF, MF and MHMIX. SF, MF and MHMIX were orally administered at a dose of 5,000 mg/kg in ICR mice. Animals were monitored for the mortality and changes in the body weight, clinical signs and gross observation during the 14 days after dosing, upon necropsy. We also measured parameters of organ weight, clinical chemistry, and hematology. No dead and no clinical signs were found during the experiment period after administration of a single oral dose of SF, MF and MHMIX. There were no adverse effects on clinical signs, body weight, or organ weight and no gross pathological findings in any treatment group. Therefore, LD50 value of SF, MF and MHMIX may be over 5,000 mg/kg and it may have no side toxic effect to ICR mice. The results on the single-dose toxicity of SF, MF and MHMIX indicate that it is not possible to reach oral dose levels related to death or dose levels with any harmful side effects.

• Korean journal of food and cookery science
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.557-565
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• 2011

The objectives of this study were to investigate the physicochemical characteristics of soybean leaves in different cultivars and to develop a soybean curd prepared with soybean leave powder as a functional food. Four cultivars (Daewonkong leaf, Daepungkong leaf, Hwangguemkong leaf, and Seoritae leaf) were selected for this experiment. A significant difference was observed in the proximate composition of soybeans leaves (p<0.05). Soybean leaves had the highest content of carbohydrates. The mineral composition and isoflavone content in soybean leaves were significantly different among the cultivars (p<0.05). In particular, Daepongkong leaf had the highest content of genistein, daidzein, and total isoflavones. This study was also conducted to determine the quality characteristics of a soybean curd developed from daepongkong leaf with various concentrations (0, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3%) of soybean leaf powder (SLP). The soybean curd yield rate increased according to the level of SLP added, whereas the L and a color values decreased. In the sensory evaluation, intensity scores for color, after taste, leafy taste, and chewiness were highest for the 0.3% soybean curd. The soybean curd with 0.2% SLP soybean milk attained the highest overall acceptability score. These results showed that soybean leaf was preferred over soybean curd containing 0.2% soybean leaf powder.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.41 no.12
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• pp.53-68
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to develop lesson plans and teaching materials applying practical reasoning instruction for the 7th home economics curriculum content, and to test the effect of practical reasoning instruction on morality of middle school students. This study is a quasi-experimental research with a pretest-posttest design. Practical reasoning instruction for experimental group and traditionally lecture oriented instruction for comparison group were input, and tested the statistical differences between two groups before and after the treatment. The subjects for this study were 8th grade students of a middle school located in Kwangju city. Two classes of 76 students homogeneous in characteristics and academic record for each experimental and comparison group were assigned. Instrument used for this study was a revised moral indicator, that was developed by KEDI(2001). Spss/win for 10.0 statistics program was used for analysis of data. ANCOVA was done for testing statistical difference between pretest and posttest of experiment group and comparison group. Result of study which showed statistically significant difference between groups were：1. Virtue of "responsibility for words and deeds"(from 3.22 to 3.61 for experimental group and from 3.27 to 3.26 for comparison group) in domain of responsibility and cooperation, and virtue of "punctuality"(from 3.59 to 3.76 for experimental group and from 3.41 to 3.28 for comparison group) in domain of trustworthiness, 2. Virtue of "conversation etiquette"(from 3.47 to 3.67 for experimental group and from 3.28 to 3.31 for comparison group) in domain of caring for others, 3. Virtue of "forgiveness other′s mistakes"(from 3.32 to 3.65 for experimental group and from 3.33 to 3.25 for comparison group) in domain of kindness, concession, forgiveness, and virtue of "volunteering activity"(from 2.89 to 3.71 for experimental group and from 3.36 to 3.45 for comparison group) in domain of compassion and service, 4. Virtue of "equip the convenient facility for handicapped"(from 4.19 to 4.29 for experimental group and from 4.17 to 3.91 for comparison group) in domain of equality and human rights, virtue of "recovering selfness for own community"(from 2.34 to 2.79 for experimental group and from 2.14 to 2.29 for comparison group), virtue of "opposing way of accomplishing purpose by an means"(from 3.27 to 3.31 for experimental group and from 3.47 to 3.05 for comparison group), virtue of "opposing election of considering acquaintance"(from 3.35 to 3.56 for experimental group and from 3.12 to 3.14 for comparison group) in domain of fairness, and virtue of "eradication of military force or violence among countries"(from 3.49 to 3.57 for experimental group and from 3.38 to 3.05 for comparison group) in domain of love for humanity. The morality of experimental group was improved more than that of comparison group in all of above items. From the results of this study, following conclusion was drawn. Practical reasoning instruction in home economics is effective in raising students′ virtue and value of responsibility in words and deeds, trustworthiness in punctuality, courtesy of not interrupting conversation, forgiveness of other′s mistakes, volunteering activity, equity for handicapped, fairness opposing selfness for own community, fairness opposing way of accomplishing purpose by all means, fairness opposing election of considering acquaintance, and love for humanity opposing war.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.97-117
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• 2012

Nowadays, Internet users tend to do a variety of actions at the same time such as web browsing, social networking and multimedia consumption. While watching a video, once a user is interested in any product, the user has to do information searches to get to know more about the product. With a conventional approach, user has to search it separately with search engines like Bing or Google, which might be inconvenient and time-consuming. For this reason, a video annotation platform has been developed in order to provide users more convenient and more interactive ways with video content. In the future of smart TV environment, users can follow annotated information, for example, a link to a vendor to buy the product of interest. It is even better to enable users to search for information by directly discussing with friends. Users can effectively get useful and relevant information about the product from friends who share common interests or might have experienced it before, which is more reliable than the results from search engines. Social networking services provide an appropriate environment for people to share products so that they can show new things to their friends and to share their personal experiences on any specific product. Meanwhile, they can also absorb the most relevant information about the product that they are interested in by either comments or discussion amongst friends. However, within a very huge graph of friends, determining the most appropriate persons to ask for information about a specific product has still a limitation within the existing conventional approach. Once users want to share or discuss a product, they simply share it to all friends as new feeds. This means a newly posted article is blindly spread to all friends without considering their background interests or knowledge. In this way, the number of responses back will be huge. Users cannot easily absorb the relevant and useful responses from friends, since they are from various fields of interest and knowledge. In order to overcome this limitation, we propose a method to filter a user's friends for information search, which leverages semantic video annotation and social networking services. Our method filters and brings out who can give user useful information about a specific product. By examining the existing Facebook information regarding users and their social graph, we construct a user profile of product interest. With user's permission and authentication, user's particular activities are enriched with the domain-specific ontology such as GoodRelations and BestBuy Data sources. Besides, we assume that the object in the video is already annotated using Linked Data. Thus, the detail information of the product that user would like to ask for more information is retrieved via product URI. Our system calculates the similarities among them in order to identify the most suitable friends for seeking information about the mentioned product. The system filters a user's friends according to their score which tells the order of whom can highly likely give the user useful information about a specific product of interest. We have conducted an experiment with a group of respondents in order to verify and evaluate our system. First, the user profile accuracy evaluation is conducted to demonstrate how much our system constructed user profile of product interest represents user's interest correctly. Then, the evaluation on filtering method is made by inspecting the ranked results with human judgment. The results show that our method works effectively and efficiently in filtering. Our system fulfills user needs by supporting user to select appropriate friends for seeking useful information about a specific product that user is curious about. As a result, it helps to influence and convince user in purchase decisions.

• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.171-181
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• 2018

Genistein is one of the representative isoflavone compounds isolated from soybeans and has been studied very well for its anti-aging and anti-inflammatory activity through previous studies. However, although genistein exhibits high solubility in organic solvents, it shows low bioavaility due to the low water solubility. In this study, we compared directly the functional difference between genistein and genistein cyclodextrin complex which has the improved water solubility and stability by cell based assay. Cell cytotoxicity experiment were carried out on RAW264.7 with CCK-8 assay and cytotoxicity was appeared from $10{\mu}g/mL$, thereby maximum concentration was set to $10{\mu}g/mL$ in all condition. We discovered that genistein CD complex suppressed NO production and iNOS expression as concentration dependent manner in the condition of LPS rather than genistein. Also, we could understand that genistein CD complex was able to down-regulate mRNA expression of anti-inflammatory cytokines such as $IL1-{\alpha}$, $IL1-{\beta}$, IL-6, and $TNF-{\alpha}$ as concentration dependent manner in the presence of LPS. In addition, we verified that genistein CD complex increased TEER of HaCaT human keratinocyte cells as concentration dependent pattern and stimulated cell division and migration rather than genistein in cell migration assay. Thus, it is expected that it can be used as an effective cosmetic raw material for improving atopic dermatitis or skin barrier if clinical studies on skin regeneration and skin barrier of the genistein CD complex are carried out.

• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.309-320
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• 2017

In this study, the antioxidative effects and component analysis of 50% ethanol extract, ethyl acetate fraction and aglycone fraction obtained from Annona muricata leaf were investigated. Free radical scavenging activities were performed by 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay, total antioxidant capacities were estimated using luminol-dependent chemiluminescence assay and $^1O_2$ quenching effects were estimated. Free radical scavenging activities ($FSC_{50}$) of 50% ethanol extract, ethyl acetate fraction and aglycone fraction were 45.6, 29.8 and $18.0{\mu}g/mL$, and total antioxidant capacities ($OSC_{50}$) were 4.4, 1.1 and $2.8{\mu}g/mL$, respectively. As a result of $^1O_2$ quenching experiment, ethyl acetate and aglycone fraction showed similar activities to L-ascorbic acid used as a comparative control. The cellular protective effects of 50% ethanol extract on the $^1O_2-induced$ cellular damage of human erythrocytes were exhibited at concentration-dependent ($5-50{\mu}g/mL$). TLC and HPLC were used to analyse components in the ethyl acetate fraction and aglycone fraction of Annona muricata leaf. In ethyl acetate fraction, rutin (quercetin-3-O-rutinoside), kaempferol-3-O-neohesperidoside, nicotiflorin (kaempferol-3-O-rutinoside), p-coumaric acid were identified. In aglycone fraction, kaempferol was identified. These results suggest that the extracts of Annona muricata leaf have the applicability as antioxidant cosmeceutical ingredients.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.113-118
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• 2016

This experiment was conducted to identify the variations in inorganic nutrients and plant growth in millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) due to soil salinity. The soil series was Munpo and soil texture was silt loam. The experimental soil was amended so that the soil had salinities of $0.8dS\;m^{-1}$, $1.6dS\;m^{-1}$, $3.2dS\;m^{-1}$ and $4.8dS\;m^{-1}$. Millet was transplanted 15 days after sowing. As soil salinity increased, the degree of reduced growth was in the order of seed production > root dry matter > plant dry matter > culm length > tiller number > stem thickness > Panicle length. Seed production was decreased to 18.9% in soil salinity of $1.6dS\;m^{-1}$, 36.9% in of $3.2dS\;m^{-1}$, and 50.7% in EC of $4.8dS\;m^{-1}$. Root dry matter decreased to 35.8% in EC of $3.2dS\;m^{-1}$, and to 40.5% in EC of $4.8dS\;m^{-1}$. As soil salinity increased, Total nitrogen content increased in all aboveground parts, roots and seeds. However, There was no difference in CaO, $P_2O_5$, $K_2O$ and, MgO in soils of different salinity. On the other hand, $Na_2O$ content was higher in the order roots> shoots> seed, and in the case of roots, $Na_2O$ content increased to 1.02% in soil salinity of $4.8dS\;m^{-1}$. However, up to soil salinity of $1.6dS\;m^{-1}$, the $Na_2O$ content of the seed was similar to that in plant grown in the Control conditions($0.8dS\;m^{-1}$). In conclusion, taking into consideration economic factors, millet could be cultivated in soil with salinities of up to approximately $1.6dS\;m^{-1}$, and seed produced from reclaimedland would be suitable for human consumption.