• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.337-343
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• 2010

Long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD) have both been studied as mechanisms of ocular dominance plasticity in the rat visual cortex. In a previous study, we suggested that a developmental increase in serotonin [5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT)] might be involved in the decline of LTP, since 5-HT inhibited its induction. In the present study, to further understand the role of 5-HT in a developmental decrease in plasticity, we investigated the effect of 5-HT on the induction of LTD in the pathway from layer 4 to layer 2/3. LTD was inhibited by 5-HT ($10{\mu}M$) in 5-week-old rats. The inhibitory effect was mediated by activation of 5-$HT_2$ receptors. Since 5-HT also regulates the development of visual cortical circuits, we also investigated the role of 5-HT on the development of inhibition. The development of inhibition was retarded by chronic (2 weeks) depletion of endogenous 5-HT in 5-week-old rats, in which LTD was reinstated. These results suggest that 5-HT regulates the induction of LTD directly via activation of 5-$HT_2$ receptors and indirectly by regulating cortical development. Thus, the present study provides significant insight into the roles of 5-HT on the development of visual cortical circuits and on the age-dependent decline of long-term synaptic plasticity.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2017

The U.S. NRC establishes a radiological criteria with regard to restricted or unrestricted use of nuclear plant site after decommissioning in NUREG-1757. According to this, a nuclear plant site can be released in a restricted way or unrestricted way only if a licensee demonstrates that the dose criteria is fulfilled after the site decontamination and remediation. In order to prove compliance with the radiological criteria of site release, LTP(License Termination Plan) must include the site release criteria, site characterization, final survey plan with major radionuclides and DCGL(Derived Concentration Guideline Levels), etc. Based on the decommissioning case of Rancho Seco nuclear power plant in the United States, this paper analyzed a method of setting the DCGL that can be applied to Kori NPP Unit 1 which will be permanently disabled in 2017.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.231-240
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• 2016

Purpose: To determine whether liver stiffness (LS) measured by magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) can predict the outcome of radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. Materials and Methods: A total of 107 patients with Child-Pugh class A liver function who were treated with RFA for single HCC and who had undergone a gradient-echo MRE within 6 months before RFA were included. We evaluated the relationship between the LS values and the ablation volume, local tumor progression (LTP), and intrahepatic distant recurrence (IDR). We also constructed receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves to examine the role of LS in predicting liver function deterioration, which was defined as an increase of Child-Pugh score by one point or more at 1 year after RFA. Results: There was no significant correlation between LS and ablation volume, and neither time to LTP nor IDR was associated with LS. Among the 66 patients who did not have recurrence 1 year after RFA, 5 patients (7.6%) developed liver function deterioration. A high LS value was significantly associated with development of liver function deterioration after RFA and the area under the ROC curve was 0.764 (95% CI 0.598-0.929, P = 0.003). Conclusion: LS measured by MRE could not predict ablation volume and tumor recurrence. However, high LS values were significantly associated with development of liver function deterioration.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.74-82
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• 2020

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive and most frequently diagnosed neurodegenerative disorder. However, there is still no drug preventing the progress of this disorder. β-Amyrin, an ingredient of the surface wax of tomato fruit and dandelion coffee, is previously reported to ameliorate memory impairment induced by cholinergic dysfunction. Therefore, we tested whether β-amyrin can prevent AD-like pathology. β-Amyrin blocked amyloid β (Aβ)-induced long-term potentiation (LTP) impairment in the hippocampal slices. Moreover, β-amyrin improved Aβ-induced suppression of phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt signaling. LY294002, a PI3K inhibitor, blocked the effect of β-amyrin on Aβ-induced LTP impairment. In in vivo experiments, we observed that β-amyrin ameliorated object recognition memory deficit in Aβ-injected AD mice model. Moreover, neurogenesis impairments induced by Aβ was improved by β-amyrin treatment. Taken together, β-amyrin might be a good candidate of treatment or supplement for AD patients.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.567-587
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• 2018

A severe haze event occurred in October 2015 in Gwangju, Korea. In this study, the driving chemical species and the formation mechanisms of $PM_{2.5}$ pollution were investigated to better understand the haze event. Hourly concentrations of $PM_{2.5}$, organic and elemental carbon, water-soluble ions, and elemental constituents were measured at the air quality intensive monitoring station in Gwangju. The haze event occurred was attributed to a significant contribution (72.3%) of secondary inorganic species concentration to the $PM_{2.5}$, along with the contribution of organic aerosols that were strongly attributed to traffic emissions over the study site. MODIS images, weather charts, and air mass backward trajectories supported the significant impact of long-range transportation (LTP) of aerosol particles from northeastern China on haze formation over Gwangju in October 2015. The driving factor for the haze formation was stagnant atmospheric flows around the Korean peninsula, and high relative humidity (RH) promoted the haze formation at the site. Under the high RH conditions, $SO{_4}^{2-}$ and $NO_3{^-}$ were mainly produced through the heterogenous aqueous-phase reactions of $SO_2$ and $NO_2$, respectively. Moreover, hourly $O_3$ concentration during the study period was highly elevated, with hourly peaks ranging from 79 to 95ppb, suggesting that photochemical reaction was a possible formation process of secondary aerosols. Over the $PM_{2.5}$ pollution, behavior and formation of secondary ionic species varied with the difference in the impact of LTP. Prior to October 19 when the influence of LTP was low, increasing rate in $NO_3{^-}$ was greater than that in $NO_2$, but both $SO_2$ and $SO{_4}^{2-}$ had similar increasing rates. While, after October 20 when the impact of haze by LTP was significant, $SO{_4}^{2-}$ and $NO_3{^-}$ concentrations increased significantly more than their gaseous precursors, but with greater increasing rate of $NO_3{^-}$. These results suggest the enhanced secondary transformation of $SO_2$ and $NO_2$ during the haze event. Overall, the result from the study suggests that control of anthropogenic combustion sources including vehicle emissions is needed to reduce the high levels of nitrogen oxide and $NO_3{^-}$ and the high $PM_{2.5}$ pollution occurred over fall season in Gwangju.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.16-37
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• 2018

In this study, difference in chemical composition of $PM_{2.5}$ observed between the year 2013 and 2015 at six air quality intensive monitoring stations (Bangryenogdo (BR), Seoul (SL), Daejeon (DJ), Gwangju (GJ), Ulsan (US), and Jeju (JJ)) was investigated and the possible factors causing their difference were also discussed. $PM_{2.5}$, organic and elemental carbon (OC and EC), and water-soluble ionic species concentrations were observed on a hourly basis in the six stations. The difference in chemical composition by regions was examined based on emissions of gaseous criteria pollutants (CO, $SO_2$, and $NO_2$), meteorological parameters (wind speed, temperature, and relative humidity), and origins and transport pathways of air masses. For the years 2013 and 2014, annual average $PM_{2.5}$ was in the order of SL ($${\sim_=}DJ$$)>GJ>BR>US>JJ, but the highest concentration in 2015 was found at DJ, following by GJ ($${\sim_=}SJ$$)>BR>US>JJ. Similar patterns were found in $SO{_4}^{2-}$, $NO_3{^-}$, and $NH_4{^+}$. Lower $PM_{2.5}$ at SL than at DJ and GJ was resulted from low concentrations of secondary ionic species. Annual average concentrations of OC and EC by regions had no big difference among the years, but their patterns were distinct from the $PM_{2.5}$, $SO{_4}^{2-}$, $NO_3{^-}$, and $NH_4{^+}$ concentrations by regions. 4-day air mass backward trajectory calculations indicated that in the event of daily average $PM_{2.5}$ exceeding the monthly average values, >70% of the air masses reaching the all stations were coming from northeastern Chinese polluted regions, indicating the long-range transportation (LTP) was an important contributor to $PM_{2.5}$ and its chemical composition at the stations. Lower concentrations of secondary ionic species and $PM_{2.5}$ at SL in 2015 than those at DJ and GJ sites were due to the decrease in impact by LTP from polluted Chinese regions, rather than the difference in local emissions of criteria gas pollutants ($SO_2$, $NO_2$, and $NH_3$) among the SL, DJ, and GJ sites. The difference in annual average $SO{_4}^{2-}$ by regions was resulted from combination of the difference in local $SO_2$ emissions and chemical conversion of $SO_2$ to $SO{_4}^{2-}$, and LTP from China. However, the $SO{_4}^{2-}$ at the sites were more influenced by LTP than the formation by chemical transformation of locally emitted $SO_2$. The $NO_3{^-}$ increase was closely associated with the increase in local emissions of nitrogen oxides at four urban sites except for the BR and JJ, as well as the LTP with a small contribution. Among the meterological parameters (wind speed, temperature, and relative humidity), the ambient temperature was most important factor to control the variation of $PM_{2.5}$ and its major chemical components concentrations. In other words, as the average temperature increases, the $PM_{2.5}$, OC, EC, and $NO_3{^-}$ concentrations showed a decreasing tendency, especially with a prominent feature in $NO_3{^-}$. Results from a case study that examined the $PM_{2.5}$ and its major chemical data observed between February 19 and March 2, 2014 at the all stations suggest that ambient $SO{_4}^{2-}$ and $NO_3{^-}$ concentrations are not necessarily proportional to the concentrations of their precursor emissions because the rates at which they form and their gas/particle partitioning may be controlled by factors (e.g., long range transportation) other than the concentration of the precursor gases.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.402-410
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• 2017

For many years, researchers in face description area have been representing and recognizing faces based on different methods that include subspace discriminant analysis, statistical learning and non-statistics based approach etc. But still automatic face recognition remains an interesting but challenging problem. This paper presents a novel and efficient face image representation method based on Optimized Local Ternary Pattern (OLTP) texture features. The face image is divided into several regions from which the OLTP texture feature distributions are extracted and concatenated into a feature vector that can act as face descriptor. The recognition is performed using nearest neighbor classification method with Chi-square distance as a similarity measure. Extensive experimental results on Yale B, ORL and AR face databases show that OLTP consistently performs much better than other well recognized texture models for face recognition.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.149-152
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• 1999

Transgenic mice models of Alzheimer's disease were produced by overexpressing APP(amyloid precursor protein) mutant and presenilin mutant genes using the promotors that induced neuronal expression. The neuropathologies, electrophysiological changes and behavioral changes that were demonstrated in these transgenic mice models were amyloid changes, gliotic changes, A-beta increases, deficit in LTP(long-term potentiation) and behavioral changes. Some or all of the above changes were found in each transgenic mice model. These models generally showed amyloid neuropathology but they usually lacked the neurofibrillary tangles. So, they can be regarded as partial models of Alzheimer's disease. The development of them is undoubtedly the great progress toward future research.

• Journal of Plant Biology
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.189-195
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• 1996

The major cuticular components have been shown to be synthesized in the epidermis. Therefore, cloning of epidermis-specific genes could yield information to be used to isolate and characterize the enzymes involved in the cuticle biosynthesis. A subtractive cDNA library was prepared from Senecio odorus in which epidermis-specific cDNAs were enriched. Differential screening of the library using epidermal and non-epidermal probes revealed two cDNAs. One of them designated epi425 was identified, based on the sequence homology, as a member of a new class in the LTP gene family and the other clone designated epi23 as a gene encoding an aldehyde decarbonylase. Northern blot analyses showed that epi425 and epi23 cDNAs hybridized with a transcript of about 600 and 2, 100 nucleotides, respectively, from the epidermis but not from the non-epidermal tissues. Further characterization of these clones will provide more information on the mechanism of the cuticle biosynthesis.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.91-94
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• 2001

Glass ceramics composed of (5-X)$Li_2O$ㆍ$XAg_2O$ㆍ36CaOㆍ$20TiO_2$.27$P_2O_5$(X=1 to 5) were prepared by melting process and 2 step heat treatment for nucleation at$610^{\circ}C$ and crystallization at $730^{\circ}C$, Fabricated crystal phases were $LiTi_2(PO_4)_3$(LTP),$AgTi_2(PO_4)_3$(AgTP)와 $\beta-Ca_3(PO_4)$. Antibacterial effects and characterizations of the glass ceramics as $Ag_2$O content were investigated. Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella typhi were used in this study. Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella typhi bacteria were removed 5 hours added after glass ceramics.