• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.1584-1592
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• 2006

Houttuynia cordata Thunb, well known as 'E-Sung-Cho' in Korea, is traditional medicinal plant generally used in Oriental medicine therapy. We previously reported that the water extract of H. cordata inhibited cell proliferation and induced apoptosis in human breast carcinoma cells. In the present study, we investigated the biochemical mechanisms of anti-proliferative effects by the methanol extract of H. cordata (MEHC) in human lung carcinoma A549 cells. It was found that MEHC could inhibit the cell growth in a dose-dependent manner, which was associated with morphological change and apoptotic cell death as determined by formation of apoptotic bodies, DNA fragmentation and increased populations of apoptotic-sub G1 phase cells. Apoptosis of A549 cells by MEHC was also connected with a down-regulation of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 and inhibitor of apoptosis proteins (IAPs) expression. MEHC treatment induced the proteolytic activation of caspase-3, caspase-8 and caspase-9, and a concomitant inhibition of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP), ${\beta}$-catenin and phospholipase (PLC)-${\gamma}$1 protein expression. Taken together, these findings provide important new insights into the possible molecular mechanisms of the anti-cancer activity of H. cordata.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.105-117
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• 2023

Climate change and invasive alien plant species (IAPs) are having a significant impact on mountain ecosystems. The combination of climate change and socio-economic development is exacerbating the invasion of IAPs, which are a major threat to biodiversity loss and ecosystem functioning. Species distribution modelling has become an important tool in predicting the invasion or suitability probability under climate change based on occurrence data and environmental variables. MaxEnt modelling was applied to predict the current suitable distribution of most noxious weed A. adenophora (Spreng) R. King and H. Robinson and analysed the changes in distribution with the use of current (year 2000) environmental variables and future (year 2050) climatic scenarios consisting of 3 representative concentration pathways (RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5) in Bhutan. Species occurrence data was collected from the region of interest along the road side using GPS handset. The model performance of both current and future climatic scenario was moderate in performance with mean temperature of wettest quarter being the most important variable that contributed in model fit. The study shows that current climatic condition favours the A. adenophora for its invasion and RCP 2.6 climatic scenario would promote aggression of invasion as compared to RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 climatic scenarios. This can lead to characterization of the species as preferring moderate change in climatic conditions to be invasive, while extreme conditions can inhibit its invasiveness. This study can serve as reference point for the conservation and management strategies in control of this species and further research.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.88-101
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• 1992

Properties of water and steam are very important for the steam ejector CAD program as a subroutine and design of the Shell & Tube type steam condenser. Present formular programs are based on the Skeleton Table of ASME, and are able to calculate the thermodynamoc properties of water and steam throughout the whole of the region that extend in pressure from 0 to 1000 bar and temperature from 0.01 to 80$0^{\circ}C$. When comparing calculated values for specific volume, enthalpy and entropy with the Skeleton Table 1967 and IAPS Skeleton Table 1984, values fell well within tolerances specified except near the extremes of the range of interest at the critical point and triple point, where deviations were slightly larger.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.64-70
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• 2012

This paper presents a statistical analysis method for the selection of electroencephalogram (EEG) electrode positions and spectral features to recognize emotion, where emotional valence and arousal are classified into three and two levels, respectively. Ten experiments for a subject were performed under three categorized IAPS (International Affective Picture System) pictures, i.e., high valence and high arousal, medium valence and low arousal, and low valence and high arousal. The electroencephalogram was recorded from 12 sites according to the international 10~20 system referenced to Cz. The statistical analysis approach using ANOVA with Tukey's HSD is employed to identify statistically significant EEG electrode positions and spectral features in the emotion recognition.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.385-404
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• 2011

We examined how emotional background stimuli influence focused attention in a flanker task. An IAPS picture was presented for 1,000ms in advance, then a target and two flanker letters were presented against the IAPS picture for 200ms(Experiment 1). The flanking stimuli were simultaneously presented on the left and right sides of the target stimulus with distance of $0.5^{\circ}C$, $1^{\circ}C$, or $1.5^{\circ}C$ visual angle. We investigated the flanker compatibility effect that identification of target would be faster when they were flanked by identical(compatible) stimuli than when they were flanked by different(incompatible) stimuli. Results of Experiment 1 revealed that the flanker compatibility effect depended not only on the distance of flankers but also on the valence of a background IAPS pictures. Positive and neutral pictures showed distance effect that the flanker compatibility effect was decreased as the farther the distance was, while negative pictures showed no di stance effect. Positive and neutral pictures showed compatibility effects at all distance conditions, but negative pictures didn't showed compatibility effect at $1.5^{\circ}C$ distance condition. In Experiment 2, the SOA(Stimulus Onset Asynchrony) between the picture and the stimuli of flanker task was manipulated. The flanking stimuli were presented simultaneously on the left and right sides of the target stimulus with a distance of either $0.5^{\circ}C$ or $1.5^{\circ}C$ visual angle. The results of Experiment 2 showed that flanker compatibility effect depends on SOA. At long SOA(2800ms), negative pictures showed no distance effect, but positive or neutral pictures did. All valence conditions of background pictures showed compatibility effects at $0.5^{\circ}C$ distance condition, but didn't showed compatibility effect at $1.5^{\circ}C$ distance condition. At short SOA(100ms), all valence conditions of background pictures showed distance effect, and showed compatibility effects with the exception of negative background pictures at $1.5^{\circ}C$ distance condition. These findings suggest that the scope of visual attention becomes narrower when viewing negative emotional stimuli and becomes broadened when viewing positive emotional stimuli. The narrowed scope of attention in negative emotion lasts longer, while the broaden scope of attention in positive emotion lasts shorter.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.503-526
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• 2010

We investigated the brain activity in perceiving the emotional stimuli between a science invention group(n=13) and a general group(n=13). The science invention group, which mostly consisted of recipients of creativity prizes, scored 96% on creative personality tests(WKOPAY, SAM), whereas the general group performed at an average level on these tests. Analyzing the brain activity in perceiving the emotional stimuli(IAPS pictures), the science invention group than the general group showed higher activity in certain areas, such as MTG, STG, and so on. When correlation analysis was performed on the creative personality score and brain activity, MTG, STG, and so on areas showed significant correlations. There were more correlation areas in valence than in arousal. These results show that scientific creativity is related to emotional susceptibility. Thus, we insist that emotion be considered in the assessment and education programs for the gifted in science.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.79-85
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• 2010

Objectives : Trauma patients have attentional bias which enforces traumatic memories and causes cognitive errors. Understanding of such selective attention may explain many aspects of the posttraumatic stress disorder(PTSD) symptoms. Methods : We used the rapid serial visual presentation(RSVP) method to verify attentional blink in burn patients with PTSD. International affective picture system(IAPS) was used as stimuli and distracters. In the 'neutral test', patients have been presented series of pictures with human face picture as target stimuli. Each picture had 100ms interval. However the distance between target facial pictures was randomized and recognition of second facial picture accuracy was measured. In the 'stress test', the first target was stress picture which arouses patient emotions instead of the facial picture. Neutral and Stress tests were done with seven PTSD patients and 20 controls. In '85ms test' the interval was reduced to 85ms. The accuracy of recognition of second target facial picture was rated in all three tests. Eighty-five ms study was done with eighteen PTSD patients. Results : Attentional blinks were observed in 100-400ms of RSVP. PTSD patients showed increased recognition rate in the 'stress test' compared with the 'neutral test'. When presentation interval was decreased to 85 ms, PTSD patient showed decrease of attentional blink effect when target facial picture interval was 170ms. Conclusion : We found attentional blink effect could be affected by stress stimulus in burn patients. And attentional blink may be affected by stimulus interval and the character of stimulus. There may be some other specific mechanism related with selective attention in attentional blink especially with facial picture processing.

• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.63-70
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• 2006

Natural product compounds are the source of numerous therapeutic agents. The marine environment produces natural products from a variety of structural classes exhibiting activity against numerous disease targets including anticancer agents. Among these, pectenotoxin-2 (PTX-2), which was first identified as a cytotoxic entity in marine sponges, which depolymerizes actin filaments, was found to be highly effective and more potent to activate an intrinsic pathway of apoptosis in p53-deficient tumor cells compared to those with functional p53 both in vitro and in vivo. However, the anti-proliferative mechanism of the compound at non-cytotoxic concentrations has not yet been explored. In the current study, we sought to investigate anti-proliferation and apoptosis of PTX-2 against U937 human leukemic cells and its underlying molecular mechanism. Exposure of U937 cells to PTX-2 resulted in growth inhibition and induction of apoptosis in dose- and time-dependent manner as measured by MTT assay, fluorescent microscopy and flow cytometric analysis. The anti-proliferative effect of PTX-2 was associated with a marked increase in the expression of cyclin-dependent kinase p21 (WAF1/CIP1) mRNA which was tumor suppressor p53-independent. The increase in apoptosis was connected with a time-dependent down-regulation of anti-apoptotic Bcl-XL and inhibitor of apoptosis proteins (IAPs) family such as XIAP and cIAP-2. Though additional studies are needed, these findings suggested that PTX-2-induced inhibition of U937 cells was associated with the induction of apoptotic cell death and the results provided important new insights into the possible molecular mechanisms of the anti-cancer activity of PTX-2.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.445-451
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• 2007

Translation initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) is a key regulator of protein synthesis. Abnormal regulation of eIF4E is closely linked to oncogenic transformation. Several regulatory mechanisms affecting eIF4E are discussed, including transcriptional regulation, phosphorylation and binding of an inhibitor protein. However it is not clear how the level of eIF4E protein is regulated under basal conditions. Here we demonstrate that Diap1 (Drosophila Inhibitor of Apoptosis Protein), a cell death inhibitor, binds directly to eIF4E and poly-ubiquitinates it via its E3 ligase activity, promoting its proteasome-dependent degradation. Expression of Diap1 caused a reduction of Cyclin D1 protein level and inhibited the growth stimulation induced by overexpression of eIF4E. Taken together, our results suggest that the level of eIF4E protein is regulated by Diap1, and that IAPs may play a role in cap-dependent translation by regulating the level of eIF4E protein.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Emotion and Sensibility Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.231-238
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• 2001

Frontal (F3, F4) EEG responses were analyzed and compared during exposure too slides of International Affective Picture System (IAPS) in the study on 42 students. EEG responses during 20 s of exposure to slides intended to elicit happiness (nurturant and erotic), sadness, disgust, surprise, fear or anger emotions were quite similar and were exhibited in theta increase, alpha-blocking and increased beta activity, and frontal asymmetry. However, particular emotions demonstrated variations of the EEG response profiles, enabling to differentiate some pairs of emotions. The profiles showed higher magnitudes of EEG responses in exciting (i.e., erotic happiness) emotion. The most different pairs were exciting -sadness (theta, alpha and alpha asymmetry), exciting-surprise (theta, alpha asymmetry), and exciting-fear (theta, F3 alpha, alpha asymmetry). Nurturant happiness yielded the least differentiation. Differences were found as well within negative emotions, e.g., anger-sadness were differentiated by theta asymmetry, while disgust-fear by beta asymmetry. Obtained results suggest that magnitudes of profiles of EEG variables differentiate emotions elicited by affective pictures.