• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.41 no.3
• /
• pp.244-255
• /
• 2018

Low-grade pro-inflammatory state and leptin resistance are important underlying mechanisms that contribute to obesity-associated hypertension. We tested the hypothesis that Astragaloside IV (As IV), known to counteract obesity and hypertension, could prevent obesity-associated hypertension by inhibiting pro-inflammatory reaction and leptin resistance. High-fat diet (HFD) induced obese rats were randomly assigned to three groups: the HFD control group (HF con group), As IV group, and the As IV + ${\alpha}$-bungaratoxin (${\alpha}-BGT$) group (As IV+${\alpha}-BGT$ group). As IV ($20mg{\cdot}Kg^{-1}{\cdot}d^{-1}$) was administrated to rats for 6 weeks via daily oral gavage. Body weight and blood pressure were continuously measured, and NE levels in the plasma and renal cortex was evaluated to reflect the sympathetic activity. The expressions of leptin receptor (LepRb) mRNA, phosphorylated signal transducer and activator of transcription-3 (p-STAT3), phosphorylated phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (p-PI3K), suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 (SOCS3) mRNA, and protein-tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B) mRNA, pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) mRNA and neuropeptide Y (NPY) mRNA were measured by Western blot or qRT-PCR to evaluate the hypothalamic leptin sensitivity. Additionally, we measured the protein or mRNA levels of ${\alpha}7nAChR$, inhibitor of nuclear factor ${\kappa}B$ kinase subunit ${\beta}/nuclear$ factor ${\kappa}B$ ($IKK{\beta}/NF-KB$) and pro-inflammatory cytokines ($IL-1{\beta}$ and $TNF-{\alpha}$) in hypothalamus and adipose tissue to reflect the anti-inflammatory effects of As IV through upregulating expression of ${\alpha}7nAChR$. We found that As IV prevented body weight gain and adipose accumulation, and also improved metabolic disorders in HFD rats. Furthermore, As IV decreased BP and HR, as well as NE levels in blood and renal tissue. In the hypothalamus, As IV alleviated leptin resistance as evidenced by the increased p-STAT3, LepRb mRNA and POMC mRNA, and decreased p-PI3K, SOCS3 mRNA, and PTP1B mRNA. The effects of As IV on leptin sensitivity were related in part to the up-regulated ${\alpha}7nAchR$ and suppressed $IKK{\beta}/NF-KB$ signaling and pro-inflammatory cytokines in the hypothalamus and adipose tissue, since co-administration of ${\alpha}7nAChR$ selective antagonist ${\alpha}-BGT$ could weaken the improved effect of As IV on central leptin resistance. Our study suggested that As IV could efficiently prevent obesityassociated hypertension through inhibiting inflammatory reaction and improving leptin resistance; furthermore, these effects of As IV was partly related to the increased ${\alpha}7nAchR$ expression.

• The Korean Journal of Pharmacology
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.79-87
• /
• 1986

Recently it has been shown that central dopaminergic system regulates the renal function and that intracerebroventricularly (icv) administered dopamine (DA) produces antidiuresis and antinaturiuresis, resembling icv norepinephrine, and evidence has been accumulated which would suggest the involvement of adrenergic system in the DA effects. It was attempted therefore in this study to see whether the DA effect is influenced by pretreatment of yohimbine which is known as a specific ${\alpha}_2-adrenoceptor$ antagonist. Yohimbine produced, when given icv in doses of $100\;{\mu}g/kg$, marked antidiuresis and antinatriuresis along with decreases in renal perfusion and glomerular filtration. DA, in doses of $15\;{\mu}g/kg$, also produced antidiuresis and antinaturiuresis. However, after yohimbine-pretreatment DA $15\;{\mu}g/kg$ improved renal hemodynamics, and electrolyte excretion and urine flow rate transiently increased. With $150\;{\mu}g/kg$ DA, the antidiuresis was more marked in the control group. But the yohimbine-pretreated animals responded with marked diuresis and natriuresis, sodium excretion increasing more than three-fold, which lasted for 20 minutes. $K^+-excretion$, osmolar clearance as well as free-water reabsorption increased. Renal hemodynamics improved partly. Apomorphine, a DA agonist, when given icv in doses of $150\;{\mu}g/kg$, produced diuresis and naturiuresis, concomitant with increased renal hemodynamics. Yohimbine-pretreatment however did not abolish the apomorphine-induced diuresis and naturiuresis. Antidiuresis and antinatriuresis elicited by norepinephrine, $10\;{\mu}g/kg$, was not affected by yohimbine-pretreatment. These results indicate that the renal effects of icv DA is not so simple as those of norepinephrine, and the diuretic natriuretic cffect which had been masked by the hemodynamic effect becomes manifest only when the decreases in hemodynamics were removed by the pretreatment of yohimbine. It was further suggested that those DA receptors which mediate the natriuretic response to icv DA is not affected by yohimbine, whereas those receptors involved in the decrease in renal hemodvnamics are blocked by yohimbine. And the possibility of involvement of adrcnergic system in the DA action is not substantiated.

• ETRI Journal
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.281-291
• /
• 2007

Wearable computers consisting of various small devices such as smart phones, digital cameras, MP3 players and specialized I/O devices in personal area networks will play an important role in future ubiquitous computing. In this environment, accessing user data is quite complex due to the dynamic and heterogeneous characteristics of the underlying networks. Moreover, since the amount of user data increases rapidly, automatic data backup management is also critical. To overcome these challenges, several studies have been conducted including our previously proposed file service system, PosCFS, which could be adapted to the requirements with a virtualization technique allowing per-user global namespace for managing and accessing data stored on physical storage spaces detected in PAN. In this paper, we present a smart file service framework, PosCFS+ which is an improved and extended version of our previous work. Performance improvement is made possible by redesigning the metadata management scheme based on database and keywords rather than ontology. In addition, the automatic data replication management is newly designed based on the OSD protocol.

• MALSORI
• /
• v.68
• /
• pp.115-126
• /
• 2008

In this paper, we propose a vocabulary coverage improvement method for embedded continuous speech recognition (CSR) using knowledgebase. A vocabulary in CSR is normally derived from a word frequency list. Therefore, the vocabulary coverage is dependent on a corpus. In the previous research, we presented an improved way of vocabulary generation using part-of-speech (POS) tagged corpus. We analyzed all words paired with 101 among 152 POS tags and decided on a set of words which have to be included in vocabularies of any size. However, for the other 51 POS tags (e.g. nouns, verbs), the vocabulary inclusion of words paired with such POS tags are still based on word frequency counted on a corpus. In this paper, we propose a corpus independent word inclusion method for noun-, verb-, and named entity(NE)-related POS tags using knowledgebase. For noun-related POS tags, we generate synonym groups and analyze their relative importance using Google search. Then, we categorize verbs by lemma and analyze relative importance of each lemma from a pre-analyzed statistic for verbs. We determine the inclusion order of NEs through Google search. The proposed method shows better coverage for the test short message service (SMS) text corpus.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 1992.07b
• /
• pp.911-914
• /
• 1992

We have investigated the micro-discharge in plasma display panel using 2 dimensional 2 fluid MHD equations. Plasma display utilizes the physical phenomena of the normal glow or abnormal glow and is considered to be able to provide the largest display area among various flat panel. 2 fluid, 2 dimensional Magneto-Hydro-Dynamic equations are applied to Computational field of 100${\times}$800${\mu}m^2$. Time varing glows and after-glows were investigated for 11 $\mu$sec. We obtained the distribution of the microscopic variables such as the density, temperature, velocity of Ne+Ar0.1% gas plasma. During the first 6$\mu$ sec, glow discharge dued to DC pulse was investigated. Time varing phenomena of after-glow was also investigated during the last 5 $\mu$set. From results, it was found that the driving efficiency of a DC Plasma Display Panel could be improved when the diffusion of ions and electrons are controlled by the pulses applied to the auxiliary anode.

• Ocean and Polar Research
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.361-365
• /
• 2004

Deep-sea Resources Research Center (DRRC) has been using a free-fall grab (FFG) for the resource evaluation of polymetallic nodules in the KODOS (Korea Deep Ocean Study) area, NE Pacific, since 1992. A FFG model (Model 4200, Benthos) adapting one glass buoy system (diameter 17 inch, net buoyance 25.4 kg) has been used until 1993. Since then, DRRC has carried out a study to increase the recovery rate of FFG and it was found that a revised system adapting an additional buoy (diameter 10 inch, net buoyance 4.5 kg) gives improved results. The nodule sampling tests were performed using two different models for the same study area and the resulting recovery rates were compared. The result shows no distinct difference in recovery time between two models, but average recovery rate of the revised model was increased to 99.44% from 96.06% of the original model.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.180-186
• /
• 2005

As a driving method of AC-PDP, Address-Display Separated(ADS) driving has been widely adopted for its simple architecture and low discharge failure rate. However, a high definition like a HDTV has defect of long addressing time by reason of a number of pixels. Priming effect isn't fully sustained because of long addressing time during the address period. Therefore, it has different wall charge and luminance of each addressing time in the sustain period. In this study, we suggest a new driving waveform on the address period to improve these defects. We applied a ramp waveform, instead of a square waveform, to an address period in ADS, for operating on the AC-PDP, which used the conventional gas [He-Ne-Xe]. When the ramp waveform is applied to the address period, we experimented for uniform wall charge and the improved luminance by sustained Priming effect at each addressing time in the sustain period.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.31 no.10
• /
• pp.66-72
• /
• 2003

The cooling mechanism for a liquid rocket engine of 10tf-thrust using kerosene as a fuel was studied from the viewpoint of both the regenerative and curtain cooling. Based on the concept of a highly-stratified gas flow in the combustion chamber, the cross section of the combustion chamber was spilt into 2 independent parts, core and exterior part. Additional fuel is injected into the exterior section and gas temperature can be reduced in the exterior section. Consequently, the heat flux into the coolant and wall temperature are reduced and the thermal stability of a liquid rocket en g i.ne could be improved.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.126-130
• /
• 2008

We propose and experimentally demonstrate an effective method to reduce near-field speckle noise at the output of a 50 ${\mu}m$ graded index multimode fiber using a short cylindrical piezoelectric transducer(PZT) vibrating in the radial direction. The fiber was coiled as tightly as possible around the mandrel of the PZT and a periodic stretching effect was caused by the radial oscillations of the actuator. The output of the optical fiber using the He-Ne laser source was intensively observed by a CCD camera. By counting all the pixels corresponding to relative intensity graded into 256 levels in the selected area and by calculating standard deviation and mean value of the intensity, we could measure the speckle contrast and vibration effect quantitatively with reduction ratio of pixels and line profile of the illuminated region. It was clearly observed that the characteristics of the speckle pattern in the vibration-on state were significantly improved over that of the vibration-off state due to time-averaged smoothing.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.51-55
• /
• 1991

There is a variety of therapeutic modality for herniated nucleus pulposus. Recently the low level laser has come into use for treatment for it. We treated two patients suffered from herniated nucleus pulposus of the central type of $L_{3,4}$ level, with He-Ne, $CO_2$ and Ga Al As laser simultaneously daily under hospitalization. In order to determine the efficacy of treatment, we used the "visual analogue scale" and its improvement rate. The results were as follows; Case I complained of gait disturbance, and hypoesthesia on the lateral side of the left lower leg, as and as low back pain. At the 15th day after treatment, VAS improvement rate was 40%, and the gait disturbance and hypoesthesia were markedly improved. 35th days after tratement, VAS improvement rate was 80%. Case II complained only of low back pain. At the 15th day after treatment, the VAS improvement rate was 68%, and at 20 days after treatment it was 84%. We sugsest that, using the low level laser for treatment of herniated nucleus pulposus increased the cartilage entrophism, and inhibitory effects of the inflammatory materials such as acid glycosaminoglycan by its anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects.