• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• v.46 no.4
• /
• pp.249-255
• /
• 2013

Background: The continuous suture (CS) technique has several advantages as a method for simple, fast, and secure aortic valve replacement (AVR). We used a simple CS technique without the use of a pledget for AVR and evaluated the surgical outcomes. Materials and Methods: Between October 2007 and 2012, 123 patients with aortic valve disease underwent AVR alone (n=28) or with other concomitant cardiac procedures (n=95), such as mitral, tricuspid, or aortic surgery. The patients were divided into two groups: the interrupted suture (IS) group (n=47), in which the conventional IS technique was used, and the CS group (n=76), in which the simple CS technique was used. Results: There were two hospital deaths (1.6%), which were not related to the suture technique. There were no significant differences in cardiopulmonary bypass time or aortic cross-clamp time between the two groups for AVR alone or AVR with concomitant cardiac procedures. In the IS group, two patients had prosthetic endocarditis and one patient experienced significant perivalvular leak. These patients underwent reoperations. In the CS group, there were no complications related to the surgery. Postoperatively, the two groups had similar aortic valve gradients. Conclusion: The simple CS method is useful and secure for AVR in patients with aortic valve disease, and it may minimize surgical complications, as neither pledgets nor braided sutures are used.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.43 no.10
• /
• pp.888-895
• /
• 2015

This paper shows an approximate equation which calculates a flapping angle of blade for verification of KUH safety area. The flapping behavior of blade must be reviewed in an aspect of safety because of a collision possibility with airframe. However, it is difficult to measure an exact flapping angle during flight. A prediction equation of a coning angle is derived from aeromechanics and that of a dynamic flapping angle is derived from analysis results in development phase, respectively. Following, the equations are verified by comparison the flapping angle through an aircraft simulation test to a calculation. Finally, the safety area, which was established in development phase, is verified by calculating a flapping angle during the flight which is required by the terms of safety based on AC29 and FAR29.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
• /
• v.37 no.5
• /
• pp.305-309
• /
• 2007

Arsenic compounds have been used to treat various diseases including cancer in oriental medicine. Arsenic trioxide ($As_2O_3,\;Trisenox^{(R)}$) has been used for the treatment of leukemia and its anti-solid tumor activity has also been reported recently. Tetra-arsenic oxide ($As_4O_6,\;TetraAs^{(R)}$) is a newly developed arsenic compound which has shown an anticancer activity in some human cancer cell lines. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the anti-gastric cancer potential of TetraAs and to search for an agent with synergistic interaction with TetraAs against human gastric cancers. We analysed anti-proliferative effect of TetraAs when given alone and in combination with other chemotherapeutic agents such as 5-FU, paclitaxel, and cisplatin in SNU-216, a human gastric cancer cell line. The $IC_{50}$ of these 4 anti-cancer drugs ranged from 5.8 nM to $7.5\;{\mu}M$ with a potency rank of order paclitaxel>TetraAs>cisplatin>5-FU. TetraAs showed 10-fold greater potency than 5-FU and cisplatin at the same effect level of $IC_{50}$. TetraAs+5-FU and TetraAs+paclitaxel showed synergistic and additive interaction, respectively. On the other hand, TetraAs with cisplatin group appeared to be strongly antagonistic. Apoptotic population was measured and compared between single and combination treatment. The apoptotic cells for the combination of TetraAs+5-FU showed significant increase compared to single TetraAs treatment. On the contrary, TetraAs+cisplatin showed less apoptotic cells compared to TetraAs or cisplatin alone treatment. Overall, our results indicate that TetraAs can be effectively combined with 5-FU or paclitaxel, but not with cisplatin for synergistic anti-cancer effect, which warrants further evaluation using in vivo models.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
• /
• v.27 no.5
• /
• pp.576-580
• /
• 2004

Primaquine is used for relapses caused by vivax malaria hypnozoites. No studies on the pharmacokinetics of primaquine (PMQ) has been reported in Korean patients. In our study, thirty vivax malaria patients were given 15 mg primaquine daily for 14 days after 3 days of chloroquine treatment. Plasma samples were taken at intervals after each daily dose of PMQ for 3 days. Plasma concentrations of PMQ and carboxyprimaquine (CPMQ), the major metabolite of primaquine, were measured by HPLC. The PMQ concentrations reached a maximum of 0.28$\pm$0.18 $\mu\textrm{g}$/mL at 1.5 h after the first dose. The maximum concentration of CPMQ was 0.32$\pm$0.13 $\mu\textrm{g}$/mL at 4 h. Higher drug concentrations with repeated dosing were observed for CPMQ, but not for the parent drug, PMQ. The elimination half-life was 3.76$\pm$1.8 hand 15.7$\pm$12.2 h, for PMQ and CPMQ, respectively. Large variation in the plasma concentrations of both drugs was observed. Overall, PMQ is absorbed and metabolized rapidly after oral administration. It was noted that the mean peak plasma concentration of PMQ was significantly higher and that of CPMQ was lower in our patients compared to other studies. This suggests a potential difference of inter-ethnic groups, which warrants further investigations.

• Journal of KIISE
• /
• v.42 no.2
• /
• pp.155-161
• /
• 2015

It is difficult and cumbersome to figure out whether a multithread program runs with concurrency bugs, such as data races and atomicity violations, because there are many possible executions of the program and a lot of the defects are hard to reproduce. Hence, monitoring techniques for collecting and analyzing the information from program execution, such as thread executions, memory accesses, and synchronization information, are important to locate data races for debugging multithread programs. This paper presents an efficient and practical monitoring tool, called VcTrace, that analyzes the partial ordering of concurrent threads and events during an execution of the program based on the vector clock system. Empirical results on C/C++ benchmarks using Pthreads show that VcTrace is a sound and practical tool for on-the-fly data race detection as well as for analyzing multithread programs.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
• /
• v.47 no.1
• /
• pp.26-29
• /
• 2010

Objective: Recurrent lumbar disc herniation has been reported to occur in 5% to 15% of surgically treated primary lumbar disc herniation cases. We investigated the molecular biologic characteristics of primary herniated discs and recurrent discs to see whether the recurrent discs has the similar biological features with primary herniated discs. Methods: Primary hemiated disc and recurrent disc cells were obtained by discectomy of lumbar disc patients and cells were isolated and then taken through monolayer cultures. We compared chondrogenic and osteogenic mRNA gene expression, and western blot between the two groups. Results: The mRNA gene expression of recurrent disc cells were increased 1.47* times for aggrecan, 1.38 times for type I collagen, 2.04 times for type II collagen, 1.22 times for both Sox-9 and osteocalcin, and 1.31 times for alkaline phosphatase, respectively, compared with the primary herniated lumbar disc cells (*indicates p < 0.05). Westem blot results for each aggrecan, type I collagen, type II collagen, Sox-9, osteocalcin, and alkaline phosphatase were similar between the primary herniated disc cells and recurrent disc cells. Conclusion: These results indicate that the recurrent disc cells have similar chondrogenic and osteogenic gene expression compared to primary herniated disc cells. Therefore, we assumed that the regeneration of remaining discs could fill the previous discectomy space and also it could be one of the factors for disc recurrence especially in the molecular biologic field.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2013.02a
• /
• pp.186-186
• /
• 2013

Nitrogen doped Ge-Sb-Te (N-GST) thin films for phase change random access memory (PRAM) applications were investigated by synchrotron-radiation-based x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and absorption spectroscopy. Nitrogen doping in GST resulted in more favorable N atoms' bonding with Ge atoms rather than with Sb and Te atoms [1,2], which explains the higher phase change transition temperature than that of undoped Ge-Sb-Te thin film. Surprisingly, it was noticed that N atoms also existed in the form of molecular nitrogen, $N_2$, which is detrimental to the stability of the GST performance [3]. N-doped GST experimental features were also supported by ab-initio molecular dynamic calculations [2]. References [1] M.-C. Jung, Y. M. Lee, H.-D. Kim, M. G. Kim, and H. J. Shin, K. H. Kim, S. A. Song, H. S. Jeong, C. H. Ko, and M. Han, "Ge nitride formation in N-doped amorphous Ge2Sb2Te5", Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 083514 (2007). [2] Zhimei Sun, Jian Zhou, Hyun-Joon Shin, Andreas Blomqvist, and Rajeev Ahuja, "Stable nitride complex and molecular nitrogen in N doped amorphous Ge2Sb2Te5", Appl. Phys. Lett. 93, 241908 (2008). [3] Kihong Kim, Ju-Chul Park, Jae-Gwan Chung, and Se Ahn Song, Min-Cherl Jung, Young Mi Lee, Hyun-Joon Shin, Bongjin Kuh, Yongho Ha, Jin-Seo Noh, "Observation of molecular nitrogen in N-doped Ge2Sb2Te5", Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 243520 (2006).

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
• /
• v.34 no.3
• /
• pp.161-168
• /
• 2004

5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) is an antimetabolite anticancer agent active against many types of solid tumors. Tegafur (TF), a prodrug of 5-FU, is frequently used in combination with uracil as dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) inhibitory fluoropyrimidine. We studied the stability of 5-FU and TF in biological fluids of rats and determined their bioavailability (BA) and excretion into bile, and urine. The drug concentrations were analyzed by an HPLC method. At room temperature, there was a 14-30% decrease in the concentration of 5-FU and TF in bile, urine, and plasma specimen at 10 and $100\;{\mu}g/ml$ over 240 min. No significant difference was noted among the sample types or between two different concentrations of 10 and $100{\mu}g/ml$. The decrease in drug concentration was significantly less in samples kept on ice (6-12%) for both drugs. These data indicate that biological fluid samples containing 5-FU or TF in plasma, urine, or bile should be placed on ice during the sample collection. Following these storage guidelines, samples were collected after administration 50 mg/kg of each drug via i.v. or oral route. BA was 1.5 folds greater for TF (60%) than that of 5-FU (42%). Approximately 0.52 and 3.3% of the i.v. doses of 5-FU and TF was excreted into bile, respectively. Renal clearance of 5-FU was about 16% of its total body clearance. These results suggest that instability of 5-FU and TF in biological fluids should be considered in pharmacokinetic or pharmacogenomic studies.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.126-134
• /
• 1995

The salinity data taken by Fishery Research Development Agency were analyzed to investigate the salinity decrease in the South Sea of Korea in summer. Decrease of depth-averaged salinity in June and August can not be accounted for the input of river discharge and rainfall. The low salinity water in the Cheju Strait is the only possible source for the decrease of salinities in the South Sea. A box model of the salt conservation shows that the transport in the Cheju Strait is 0.5-0.6${\times}$10$\^$6/ ㎥/sec (mean velocity is 10-13 cm/sec) which is 31-36% of the transport in the western channel of Korea Strait and the transport in the section between Cheju island and Tsushima island is 0.9-1.4${\times}$10$\^$6/ ㎥/sec when the transport in the western channel of the Korea Strait is 1.4-2.0${\times}$10$\^$6/ ㎥/sec.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
• /
• v.22 no.6
• /
• pp.1139-1148
• /
• 2000

To treat and recycle a large quantity of converter slag. the milling properties of -14/ +24 mesh-sized slag has been considered. The optimal conditions in milling process were investigated for producing powder-type slag and the required consumption was derived for the economical grinding. The characteristics of milling processes were studied in the variation of the rotational speed, milling time, filling ratio of ball, and size and amount of feed. The grinding efficiency was also examined. The optimal rotational speed in this experimental condition was observed to be the value of 79% of critical speed. The extent of grinding was increased with increasing the grinding time. but the efficiency of milling was decreased with the time. 50% ball filling was shown to have the optimal grinding effect, and less amount and small-sized feed made the milling efficiency high. As the result, using Bond's equation, power required for efficient milling was considered and the highest value was observed in the condition of high grinding time and optimal rotational speed.