• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.15 no.sup1
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• pp.1-21
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• 2021

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has put focus on the importance of a healthy immune system for recovery from infection and effective response to vaccination. Several nutrients have been under attention because their nutritional statuses showed associations with the incidence or severity of COVID-19 or because they affect several aspects of immune function. Nutritional status, immune function, and viral infection are closely interrelated. Undernutrition impairs immune function, which can lead to increased susceptibility to viral infection, while viral infection itself can result in changes in nutritional status. Here, we review the roles of vitamins A, C, D, and E, and zinc, iron, and selenium in immune function and viral infection and their relevance to COVID-19.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.605-614
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• 2020

Objective: This study was conducted to determine the effects of stale maize on growth performance, immunity, intestinal morphology, and antioxidant capacity in broilers. Methods: A total of 800 one-day-old male Arbor Acres broilers (45.4±0.5 g) were blocked based on body weight, and then allocated randomly to 2 treatments with 20 cages per treatment and 20 broilers per cage in this 6-week experiment. Dietary treatments included a basal diet and diets with 100% of control maize replaced by stale maize. Results: The content of fat acidity value was higher (p<0.05) while the starch, activities of catalase and peroxidase were lower (p<0.05) than the control maize. Feeding stale maize diets reduced (p<0.05) average daily feed intake (ADFI) throughout the experiment, feed conversion ratio (FCR) during d 0 to 21 and the whole experiment as well as relative weight of liver, spleen, bursa of Fabricius and thymus (p<0.05) on d 21. Feeding stale maize diets decreased jejunum villus height (VH) and VH/crypt depth (CD) (p<0.05) on d 21 and 42 as well as ileum VH/CD on d 42. The levels of immunoglobulin G, acid α-naphthylacetate esterase positive ratios and lymphocyte proliferation on d 21 and 42 as well as lysozyme activity and avian influenza antibody H₅N₁ titer on d 21 decreased (p<0.05) by the stale maize. Feeding stale maize diets reduced (p<0.05) serum interferon-γ, tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-2 on d 21 and interleukin-6 on d 21 and 42. Broilers fed stale maize diets had lower levels of (p<0.05) total antioxidative capacity on d 42, superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase on d 21 and 42, but higher (p<0.05) levels of malondialdehyde on d 21 and 42. Conclusion: Feeding 100% stale maize decreased ADFI and FCR, caused adverse effects on immunity and antioxidant function and altered intestinal morphology in broilers.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.381-388
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• 2016

The performance of a staring infrared imaging system can be characterized based on estimating the modulation transfer function (MTF). The slant edge method is a widely used MTF estimation method, which can effectively solve the aliasing problem caused by the discrete undersampling of the infrared focal plane array. However, the traditional slant edge method has some limitations such as the low precision of the edge angle extraction and using the approximate function to fit the edge spread function (ESF), which affects the accuracy of the MTF estimation. In this paper, we propose a modified slant edge method, including an edge angle extraction method that can improve the precision of the edge angle extraction and an ESF fitting algorithm which is based on the transfer function model of the imaging system, to enhance the accuracy of the MTF estimation. This modified slant edge method presents higher estimation accuracy and better immunity to noise and edge angle than other traditional methods, which is demonstrated by the simulation and application experiments operated in our study.

• Journal of applied mathematics & informatics
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.269-278
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• 2000

A Boolean function generates a binary sequence which is frequently used in a stream cipher. There are number of critical concepts which a Boolean function, as a key stream generator in a stream cipher, satisfies. These are nonlinearity, correlation immunity, balancedness, SAC(strictly avalanche criterion), PC(propagation criterion) and so on. In this paper, we present the algorithms for generating random nonlinear combining functions satisfying given correlation immune order and nonlinearity. These constructions can be applied for designing the key stream generators. We use Microsoft Visual C++6.0 for our program.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.426-438
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• 2016

Plant disease resistance occurs as a hypersensitive response (HR) at the site of attempted pathogen invasion. This specific event is initiated in response to recognition of pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) and subsequent PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI) and effector-triggered immunity (ETI). Both PTI and ETI mechanisms are tightly connected with reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and disease resistance that involves distinct biphasic ROS production as one of its pivotal plant immune responses. This unique oxidative burst is strongly dependent on the resistant cultivars because a monophasic ROS burst is a hallmark of the susceptible cultivars. However, the cause of the differential ROS burst remains unknown. In the study here, we revealed the plausible underlying mechanism of the differential ROS burst through functional understanding of the Magnaporthe oryzae (M. oryzae) AVR effector, AVR-Pii. We performed yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) screening using AVR-Pii as bait and isolated rice NADP-malic enzyme2 (Os-NADP-ME2) as the rice target protein. To our surprise, deletion of the rice Os-NADP-ME2 gene in a resistant rice cultivar disrupted innate immunity against the rice blast fungus. Malic enzyme activity and inhibition studies demonstrated that AVR-Pii proteins specifically inhibit in vitro NADP-ME activity. Overall, we demonstrate that rice blast fungus, M. oryzae attenuates the host ROS burst via AVR-Pii-mediated inhibition of Os-NADP-ME2, which is indispensable in ROS metabolism for the innate immunity of rice. This characterization of the regulation of the host oxidative burst will help to elucidate how the products of AVR genes function associated with virulence of the pathogen.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.35-43
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• 1994

In this paper, the robustness of the artificial neural networks to noise is demonstrated with a multilayer perceptron, and the reason of robustness is due to the statistical orthogonality among hidden nodes and its hierarchical information extraction capability. Also, the misclassification probability of a well-trained multilayer perceptron is derived without any linear approximations when the inputs are contaminated with random noises. The misclassification probability for a noisy pattern is shown to be a function of the input pattern, noise variances, the weight matrices, and the nonlinear transformations. The result is verified with a handwritten digit recognition problem, which shows better result than that using linear approximations.

• Journal of Haehwa Medicine
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.87-96
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• 2012

Aim : Natural killer (NK) cells are cytotoxic lymphocytes that lyse certain tumor- and virus-infected cells without any prior stimulation or immunization. This article aims to review the significance of evaluating peripheral blood NK cells to predict anti-tumor immune function and prognosis in cancer patients. Methods : PubMed was used to create a database for this review. Search words of cancer, natural killer cell, prognosis were used to retrieve related articles. References of the collected articles were also reviewed. Results : Current evidence indicates that decreased or absent NK cell count or activity is mostly associated with the development or progression of cancer. In patients with various types of cancer, NK cell activity was mostly associated with the cancer prognosis and survival despite some conflicting results. Conclusion : The data shows the evaluation of anti-tumor immunity in cancer patients through natural killer cell measurement still remains a controversial matter. However, it is clear that the NK cell activity plays an important role in cancer and is associated with prevention of both early stage and metastatic cancer.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.3-12
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• 1993

This study was performed to investigate effects of dietary fat content and degree of saturation on the function of the immune system. Sixty male BALB/c mice average-weighing 17g were divided into three dietary groups: 5% safflower oil group, 20% safflower oil group, 19.3% beef tallow & 0.7% safflower oil group. Food intake and body weight were measured every day. At 4th, 7th, 10th week after dietary treatment, organ weight measurements, delayed-type hypersensitivity test, plaque forming cell test, agglutination test, differential white cell count and histological examination of spleen were performed. Results are follows; 1) Body weight, food intake and calorie intake were not different in the three dietary groups during the experimental period($\alpha$=0.05). 2) Liver weight was significantly higher in 5% safflower oil group($\alpha$=0.05). Spleen index was slightly higher in mice fed 5% safflower oil and 19.3% beef tallow & 0.7% safflower oil. Thymus index in all mice was decreased by aging. 3) Delayed-type hypersensitivity of the mice fed 5% safflower oil and 19.3% beef tallow & 0.7% safflower oil was significantly higher than that of the mice fed 20% safflower oil. 4) The number of plaque forming cell was significantly reduced at 10th week compared to 7th week in all group($\alpha$=0.05). Although there was no difference in plaque forming cell among three groups at 10th week, 5% safflower oil group showed slightly higher plaque forming cell than 20% safflower oil group at 7th week. 5) At 4th week, agglutination test seems to be higher in 5% safflower oil group and 19.3% beef tallow & 0.7% safflower oil group compared to 20% safflower oil group. 6) Percentage of neutrophil and eosinophil was slightly reduced in 20% safflower oil group. 7) Spleen tissue was not affected by and dietary treatments. According to our results, the higher the fat content & unsaturation of the diet the lower the cell-mediated immunity of the mice. Humoral-immunity did not appear to be affected by the dietary manipulation. However humoral-immunity was decreased significantly by aging in all dietary groups.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.560-569
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• 2007

Objectives : Ryodoraku is a physiological function test using electric current, and is closely related to skin sympathetic tone. Pulse analysis is known to reflect cardiovascular reactivity. There has been no report on the correlation between ryodoraku and pulse analysis in respiratory diseases. The present study examined the diagnostic values of ryodoraku and pulse analysis for respiratory disease patients Methods : For this study, we conducted ryodoraku and pulse analysis in 103 people including 79 respiratory disease outpatients who visited the $5^{th}$ Internal Department of the Oriental Medicine Hospital of Kyung Hee University during the period from January 1, 2003 to July 25, 2006, and 24 volunteers who did not have any respiratory symptoms or disease history. The respiratory disease patients were divided into five sub-groups according to their symptom: cough-sputum group, wheezing-dyspnea group ' nasal symptoms group. cold-prone group, and fatigue prone group. We compared the disease groups with the control group in six items as follows : mean ryodoraku, mean H1, mean elastic index, the percentage of those with mean ryodoraku below $40{\mu}A$, the percentage of those with HI beyond the physiological range, and the ratio of left : right of elastic index Results and Conclusions : Ryodoraku and pulse analysis were found to have a high value as quantitative diagnosis tools reflecting individuals' weakness and firmness. The results of this research suggest that ryodoraku and pulse analysis have value as tools for diagnosing respiratory diseases.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.716-726
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of hand reflexology on the physiological.emotional responses and immunity of the patients with chronic illness. This study looked specifically at patients with chronic renal failure(CRF) and cancer patients. Method: This study was designed as a quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group pre and post test. Subjects were 54 patients who received dialysis and chemotherapy in one hospital. Thirty-one patients were assigned to the experimental group and 23 to the control group. The hand reflexology was applied to both hands of the experiment group for ten minutes each time, 5 times during three days. For data collection, physiological lab levels, immune cells of blood and questionnaires for emotional responses were measured before and after the program. Result: BT of the experiment group was decreased significantly on both of the 1st and the 5th application. PR & BP were decreased significantly on the 1st times, but not 5th times. Hb levels of the experimental group were significantly increased. And emotional responses, vigor and mood scores of the experiment group were significantly increased. B cell & CD19 were increased significantly on the experiment group. Suppressor T cell and NK cell showed significant decrease after the program, but no significant differences between the groups. Conclusion: We have found that the hand reflexology helps the chronic patients to improve physiological.emotional responses and the immune reaction. Through this result, the hand reflexology is effective as a intervention of psychoneuroimmunologic function.