• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
• /
• v.16 no.6
• /
• pp.519-525
• /
• 2023

The human brain constantly emits electrical impulses, which is called brain waves, and brain waves can be defined as the electrical activity of the brain generated by the flow of ions generated by the biochemical interaction of brain cells. There is a study that emotion is one of the factors that can cause stress. Brain waves are the most used in the study of emotions. This paper is a study on whether emotions affect stress, and showed two images of fear and joy to four experimenters and divided them into three stages before, during, and after watching. As a measurement tool, brain waves at the positions of Fp1 and Fp2 were measured using the NeuroBrain System, a system that can automate brain wave measurement, analysis, brain wave reinforcement, and suppression training with remote control. After obtaining the brain wave data for each emotion, the average value was calculated and the study was conducted. As for the frequency related to stress, the values of Alpha and SMR, Low Beta, and High Beta were analyzed. Brainwave analysis affects stress depending on the emotional state, and "fear" emotions cause anxiety by raising Beta levels, resulting in higher Mind Stress levels, while "joy" emotions lower Beta levels, resulting in a significant drop in Mind Stress.

• International Journal of Stem Cells
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.215-233
• /
• 2023

Background and Objectives: MYC, also known as an oncogenic reprogramming factor, is a multifunctional transcription factor that maintains induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Although MYC is frequently upregulated in various cancers and is correlated with a poor prognosis, MYC is downregulated and correlated with a good prognosis in lung adenocarcinoma. MYC and two other MYC family genes, MYCN and MYCL, have similar structures and could contribute to tumorigenic conversion both in vitro and in vivo. Methods and Results: We systematically investigated whether MYC family genes act as prognostic factors in various human cancers. We first evaluated alterations in the expression of MYC family genes in various cancers using the Oncomine and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and their mutation and copy number alterations using the TCGA database with cBioPortal. Then, we investigated the association between the expression of MYC family genes and the prognosis of cancer patients using various prognosis databases. Multivariate analysis also confirmed that co-expression of MYC/MYCL/MYCN was significantly associated with the prognosis of lung, gastric, liver, and breast cancers. Conclusions: Taken together, our results demonstrate that the MYC family can function not only as an oncogene but also as a tumor suppressor gene in various cancers, which could be used to develop a novel approach to cancer treatment.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.73-86
• /
• 2007

Risk-based remediation strategy (RBRS) is a consistent decision-making process for the assessment and response to chemical release based on protecting human health and the environment. The decision-making process described integrates exposure and risk assessment practices with site assessment activities and remedial action selection to ensure that the chosen actions are protective of human health and the environment. The general sequences of events in Tier 1 is as follows: initial site assessment, development of conceptual site model with all exposure pathways, data collection on pollutants and receptors, and identification of risk-based screening level (RBSL). If site conditions do not meet RBSL, it needs further site-specific tier evaluation, Tier 2. In most cases, only limited number of exposure pathways, exposure scenarios, and chemicals of concern are considered the Tier 2 evaluation since many are eliminated from consideration during the Tier 1 evaluation. In spite of uncertainties due to the conservatism applied to risk calculations, limitation in site-specific data collections, and variables affecting the selection of target risk levels and exposure factors, RBRS provides us time- and cost-effectiveness of the remedial action. To ensure reliance of the results, the development team should consider land and resource use, cumulative risks, and additive effects. In addition, it is necessary to develop appropriate site assessment guideline and reliable toxicity assessment method, and to study on site-specific parameters and exposure parameters in Korea.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.127-134
• /
• 2008

Potential economic impact of a hypothetical severe accident at a nuclear power plant(Uljin units 3/4) was estimated by applying the Delphi method, which is based on the expert judgements and opinions, in the process of quantifying uncertain factors. For the purpose of this study, it is assumed that the radioactive plume directs the inland direction. Since the economic risk can be divided into direct costs and indirect effects and more uncertainties are involved in the latter, the direct costs were estimated first and the indirect effects were then estimated by applying a weighting factor to the direct cost. The Delphi method however subjects to risk of distortion or discrimination of variables because of the human behavior pattern. A mathematical approach based on the Bayesian inferences was employed for data processing to improve the Delphi results. For this task, a model for data processing was developed. One-dimensional Monte Carlo Analysis was applied to get a distribution of values of the weighting factor. The mean and median values of the weighting factor for the indirect effects appeared to be 2.59 and 2.08, respectively. These values are higher than the value suggested by OECD/NEA, 1.25. Some factors such as small territory and public attitude sensitive to radiation could affect the judgement of panel. Then the parameters of the model for estimating the direct costs were classified as U- and V-types, and two-dimensional Monte Carlo analysis was applied to quantify the overall economic risk. The resulting median of the overall economic risk was about 3.9% of the gross domestic products(GDP) of Korea in 2006. When the cost of electricity loss, the highest direct cost, was not taken into account, the overall economic risk was reduced to 2.2% of GDP. This assessment can be used as a reference for justifying the radiological emergency planning and preparedness.

• 대한공업교육학회지
• /
• v.45 no.2
• /
• pp.21-45
• /
• 2020

The purpose of this study was to verify how the vocational education for training industrial workforce as a national human resource development (NHRD) system has undergone a transition process in relation to the national economic, industrial, and socio-cultural contexts. First, how vocational education as an industrial workforce training system has changed in accordance with Korea's economic environment, industrial development, and social changes; second, what are the main factors that influenced the role and importance of vocational education; and third, vocational education as a system for training industrial workforce and training workforce in science and engineering were analyzed differently from the perspective of the NHRD model. To this end, domestic and international academic journal papers, research reports, and thesis were investigated and classified by period, and major changes in vocational education were analyzed in relation to economic, industrial, and social issues and policies by period. As a result of the research, first, as the industry advanced, the level of vocational education increased and the scope expanded. Second, vocational education tended to shrink gradually after the manufacturing industry base, and especially secondary vocational education tended to decline after the national industry focused on light industry. Third, since the 1970s, the diversification of the NHRD and jobs has resulted in wage gaps depending on the level of education, which has increased the preference for university education and avoided secondary vocational education. In addition, a NHRD model focusing on training science and engineering workforce was proposed to compare the existing NHRD model focusing on overall vocational education, and it was revealed that the NHRD needs to be subdivided into various fields or levels to derive a model and examine changes. From the results of the study, vocational education in Korea, especially in secondary vocational education, has declined due to large impacts on socio-cultural perception due to economic growth, enthusiasm for education, and external shocks such as the financial crisis, and the long-term effort to change this perception is suggested to overcome the crisis of vocational education.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.179-192
• /
• 2014

Keeping in line with the recent changes in the information technology environment, the online learning environment that supports multiple users' participation such as MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) has become important. One of the largest professional associations in Information Technology, IEEE Computer Society, announced that "Supporting New Learning Styles" is a crucial trend in 2014. Popular MOOC services, CourseRa and edX, have continued to build active learning environment with a large number of lectures accessible anywhere using smart devices, and have been used by an increasing number of users. In addition, collaborative web services (e.g., blogs and Wikipedia) also support the creation of various user-uploaded learning materials, resulting in a vast amount of new lectures and learning materials being created every day in the online space. However, it is difficult for an online educational system to keep a learner' motivation as learning occurs remotely, with limited capability to share knowledge among the learners. Thus, it is essential to understand which materials are needed for each learner and how to motivate learners to actively participate in online learning system. To overcome these issues, leveraging the constructivism theory and collective intelligence, we have developed a social bookmarking system called WeStudy, which supports learning material sharing among the users and provides personalized learning material recommendations. Constructivism theory argues that knowledge is being constructed while learners interact with the world. Collective intelligence can be separated into two types: (1) collaborative collective intelligence, which can be built on the basis of direct collaboration among the participants (e.g., Wikipedia), and (2) integrative collective intelligence, which produces new forms of knowledge by combining independent and distributed information through highly advanced technologies and algorithms (e.g., Google PageRank, Recommender systems). Recommender system, one of the examples of integrative collective intelligence, is to utilize online activities of the users and recommend what users may be interested in. Our system included both collaborative collective intelligence functions and integrative collective intelligence functions. We analyzed well-known Web services based on collective intelligence such as Wikipedia, Slideshare, and Videolectures to identify main design factors that support collective intelligence. Based on this analysis, in addition to sharing online resources through social bookmarking, we selected three essential functions for our system: 1) multimodal visualization of learning materials through two forms (e.g., list and graph), 2) personalized recommendation of learning materials, and 3) explicit designation of learners of their interest. After developing web-based WeStudy system, we conducted usability testing through the heuristic evaluation method that included seven heuristic indices: features and functionality, cognitive page, navigation, search and filtering, control and feedback, forms, context and text. We recruited 10 experts who majored in Human Computer Interaction and worked in the same field, and requested both quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the system. The evaluation results show that, relative to the other functions evaluated, the list/graph page produced higher scores on all indices except for contexts & text. In case of contexts & text, learning material page produced the best score, compared with the other functions. In general, the explicit designation of learners of their interests, one of the distinctive functions, received lower scores on all usability indices because of its unfamiliar functionality to the users. In summary, the evaluation results show that our system has achieved high usability with good performance with some minor issues, which need to be fully addressed before the public release of the system to large-scale users. The study findings provide practical guidelines for the design and development of various systems that utilize collective intelligence.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.43 no.1
• /
• pp.91-109
• /
• 2022

The ocean is a significant sink for atmospheric anthropogenic CO₂, absorbing one-third of the total CO₂ emitted by human activities. In return, oceans have experienced significant declines in seawater pH and the aragonite saturation state also called ocean acidification. This study evaluates the distribution of aragonite saturation state, an indicator to assess the potential threat from ocean acidification, by combining newly obtained data from the west coast of South Korea with previous datasets covering the Yellow Sea, East Sea, northern South China Sea, and southeast coast of South Korea. In general, offshore waters absorb atmospheric CO₂; however, most of the collected water samples show aragonite oversaturation. On the southeast coast, the aragonite saturation state was significantly affected by river discharge and associated variables, such as freshwater input with nutrients, seasonal stratification, biological carbon fixation, and bacterial remineralization. In summer, hypoxia and mixing with relatively acidic freshwater made the Jinhae and Gwangyang Bays undersaturated with respect to aragonite, possibly threatening marine organisms with CaCO₃ shells. However, widespread aragonite undersaturation was not observed on the west coast, which receives considerable river water discharge. In addition, occasional upwelling events may have worsened the ocean acidification in the southwestern part of the East Sea. These results highlight the importance of investigating site-specific ocean acidification processes in coastal waters. Along with the above-mentioned seasonal factors, the dissolution of atmospheric CO₂ and the deposition of atmospheric acidic substances will continue to reduce the aragonite saturation state in Korean waters. To protect marine ecosystems and resources, an ocean acidification monitoring program should be established for Korean waters.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.31 no.4D
• /
• pp.497-509
• /
• 2011

Walking is basic and important means of transportation for human. Although recently safety for pedestrians relating to traffic safety is considered to be important, efforts and interest for pedestrian safety are very unsatisfactory. Thus, it is needed to develop a pedestrian safety index which could be used to plan pedestrian safety program and to reduce/prevent pedestrian accidents. In this study, the Pedestrian Safety Index about 10 cities in Gyeongnam Province was developed using 5 factors highly influencing on pedestrian safety, which are the five year average pedestrian accidents per 100,000 population, the year 2009 pedestrian accidents per 100,000 population, crosswalk signal obey rate, jaywalking rate, and the year 2009 pedestrian accidents for children under 14 years and the elderly over 65 years. The perfect score for the index is 100. As the score becomes nearer to 100, pedestrian safety becomes better. The pedestrin safeties of Changwon, Gimhae and Masan are good and those of Sachon and Tongyong are bad. Tongyong's low score at the index is due to high pedestrian accidents rate only and Sachon's low score is due to high pedestrian accidents rate and jaywalking. At the pedestrian safety index of 10 counties of Gyeongnam Province, the pedestran safeties of Hamyang and Hapchon are good and those of Haman, Hadong and Gosung are bad.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
• /
• v.11 no.3
• /
• pp.190-197
• /
• 2017

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Gallus gallus domesticus (GD) is a natural mutant breed of chicken in Korea with an atypical characterization of melanin in its tissue. This study investigated the effects of melanin extracts of GD on osteoblast differentiation and inhibition of osteoclast formation. MATERIALS/METHODS: The effects of the melanin extract of GD on human osteoblast MG-63 cell differentiation were examined by evaluating cell viability, osteoblast differentiation, and expression of osteoblast-specific transcription factors such as bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP-2), small mothers against decapentaplegic homologs 5 (SMAD5), runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX2), osteocalcin and type 1 collagen (COL-1) by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and western blotting analysis. We investigated the inhibitory effect of melanin on the osteoclasts formation through tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) activity and TRAP stains in Raw 264.7 cell. RESULTS: The melanin extract of GD was not cytotoxic to MG-63 cells at concentrations of $50-250{\mu}g/mL$. Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity and bone mineralization of melanin extract-treated cells increased in a dose-dependent manner from 50 to $250{\mu}g/mL$ and were 149% and 129% at $250{\mu}g/mL$ concentration, respectively (P < 0.05). The levels of BMP-2, osteocalcin, and COL-1 gene expression were significantly upregulated by 1.72-, 4.44-, and 2.12-fold in melanin-treated cells than in the control cells (P < 0.05). The levels of RUNX2 and SMAD5 proteins were higher in melanin-treated cells than in control vehicle-treated cells. The melanin extract attenuated the formation of receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa-B ligand-induced TRAP-positive multinucleated RAW 264.7 cells by 22%, and was 77% cytotoxic to RAW 264.7 macrophages at a concentration of $500{\mu}g/mL$. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence that the melanin extract promoted osteoblast differentiation by activating BMP/SMADs/RUNX2 signaling and regulating transcription of osteogenic genes such as ALP, type I collagen, and osteocalcin. These results suggest that the effective osteoblastic differentiation induced by melanin extract from GD makes it potentially useful in maintaining bone health.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.85-91
• /
• 2001

Background : It goes without saying that cumulative trauma disorders is spreading to various types of occupation in many advanced countries including America, and it forms considerable rate of total occupational disorders already. and as the result of it, the seriousness of worker health problem and economic loss owing to production loss, recuperation expense, etc. are on the increasing trend through whole society. In case of Korea, the related measures as well as accurate fact-finding survey data on cumulative trauma disorders aren't prepared in detail, so it implies forward problem would be serious. Purpose : The purpose of this study is to draw the risk factor of cumulative trauma disorders in production factory, to forecast the rate of occurrence of cumulative trauma disorders on the basis of subjective symptoms, and to present forward realistic and effective prevention measures by showing the risk of cumulative trauma disorders, objecting the production factory of a domestic riding automobile assembly shop, by estimating in the aspect of human-engineering through the analysis of risk factor being a cause of cumulative trauma disorders. Methods : For this study, I investigated work type and on-duty hours, breathing time, and subjective symptoms of cumulative trauma disorders through questionnaire, objecting the workers in press. car body, coating, and outfit factory. Results : As a result of research, 81.2% of workers were in the physical burden due to present working, and the highest prevalence by part of body is an waist. The higher a rule score, The higher the number of workers complaind for working intensity, and the higher age work duration, tool used time, the higher prevalence of subjective symptoms by part of body. The number of workers complaind subjective symptom for treatment is the highest in drugstore.