• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.691-694
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• 2014

Background: Tumor length in patients with esophageal cancer (EC) has recently received great attention. However, its prognostic role for EC is controversial. The purpose of our study was to characterize the prognostic value of tumor length in EC patients and offer the optimum cut-off point of tumor length by reliable statistical methods. Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on 71 consecutive patients with EC who underwent surgery. ROC curve analysis was used to determine the optimal cut-off point for tumor length, measured with a handheld ruler after formalin fixation. Correlations between tumor length and other factors were surveyed, and overall survival (OS) rates were compared between the two groups. Potential prognostic factors were evaluated by univariate Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. A P value less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: There were a total of 71 patients, with a male/female divide of 43/28 and a median age of 59. Characteristics were as follows: squamous/adenocarcinoma, 65/6; median tumor length, 4 (0.9-10); cut-off point for tumor length, 4cm. Univariate analysis prognostic factors were tumor length and modality of therapy. One, three and five year OS rates were 84, 43 and 43% for tumors with ${\leq}4cm$ length, whereas the rates were 75, 9 and 0% for tumors >4 cm. There was a significant association between tumor length and age, sex, weight loss, tumor site, histology, T and N scores, differentiation, stage, modality of therapy and longitudinal margin involvement. Conclusions: Future studies for modification of the EC staging system might consider tumor length too as it is an important prognostic factor. Further assessment with larger prospective datasets and practical methods (such as endoscopy) is needed to establish an optimal cut-off point for tumor length.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.28 no.2 s.70
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• pp.93-113
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• 2007

Objective : To research Trends of studies about anti-inflammation and pain relief, obesity, and safety of herbal acupuncture therapy by analyzing domestic theses, published since 2001, about herbal acupuncture therapy. Methods : Domestic theses, published since 2001, mentioning anti-inflammation or pain relief, obesity, or safety of herbal acupuncture therapy were reviewed and analyzed. These theses were then classified by university, year, and subject. Results : The following results were obtained in this study. 1. Among published theses related to anti-inflammation effects of herbal-acupuncture, studies about arthritis comprised the most part, 52. In theses relating to causes of arthritis, 16 were about adjuvant, which was the most, followed by Type II collagen, LPS and carrageenan. Blood test, reactions of inflammation and revelation of cytokine and immune cellswere methods for evaluating anti-inflammation effect. The tendency of experimental methods was to focus on molecular biologic method. 2. In theses related to pain relief, many clinical attempts with herbal injection were carried out, and Carthami Flos and Scolopendrawere used most. Observing reduction of pain inducing factor and checking behavioral change were methods for evaluating pain relief. 3. In theses related to obesity, research focused on effects in association with spots on the body suitable for acupuncture. There were also attempts comparing effectiveness between single injections and complex injections. Astraball Radix, Angelica Gigantis Radix, Coicis Semen and Taeumjowetang were used. Evaluation of anti-obesity effects were by weight loss, food efficiency, blood lipid profile and evaluation of liver function. 4. In theses related to safety of herbal-acupuncture, Herba Chelidonii Chaenonelis Fructus, Clematis Florida Thunb, Corydalidis Tuber, Paeoniae Radix, and Carthami Flos which marked 2 theses each were most studied. Methods of evaluating safety were mostly by observing liver and kidney functions based on blood test, and by applying herbal injections to clinical treatment. Conclusion : Herbal acupuncture is being used in various ways associating with its anti-inflammation, pain relief and anti-obesity effect. Studies on efficacy and mechanism of herbal acupuncture are being conducted even at the molecular biology level.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.227-236
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• 2017

This study attempted to develop and investigate the effects of hair-nourishing cosmetics containing saponin astragaloside from Astragalus membranaceus Bunge on eyebrow growth and development for eventual product development. For this, current use of hair nutrients was investigated in general consumers through a questionnaire survey. A test was conducted for 6 weeks against the same subjects divided into two groups: experimental group with 0.5% saponin astragaloside on the right eyebrow and control group without any astragaloside on the left eyebrow. The results were as follows. In the control group, no significant changes were found in terms of eyebrow length and thickness. In the experimental group with 0.5% saponin astragaloside added, eyebrow length, root, and thickness of the middle area considerably increased. In other words, saponin astragaloside was confirmed an effective natural substance. In addition, subjective assessments such as usability, marketability, and satisfaction assessments supported the usability and market value of saponin astragaloside. Such results reveal that hair-nourishing cosmetics containing saponin astragaloside from Astragalus membranaceus Bunge would be helpful in improving and maintaining eyebrow growth for those concerned about loss and shortening of their eyebrows, showing the potential of product development.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.7 no.7
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• pp.896-904
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• 2004

In this paper, We present an efficient variable rate speech coder for spectral efficiency and packet processing technique for packet loss compensation of a voice codec with 10msec frame in VoIP service. Through disconnecting the users from the spectral resource during silence interval of about 60% period, a variable rate voice coder based on a voice activity detection(VAD) can increase spectral gain by two times. The performance of the method was analyzed by variation of detected voice activity factor and degraded speech frame ratio under various background noise level, and compared those of G.729B of ITU-T 8kbps standard speech codec. A method to compensate lost packets utilized addition of recovery data to a main stream and error concealment scheme for speech quality enhancement, the performance is verified by reconstructed speech quality. The proposed scheme can achieve spectral gain by two times or enhance speech quality by 3dB through reserved bandwidth of VAD. Therefore, the proposed method can enhance a spectral efficiency or speech quality of VoIP.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.864-869
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• 2003

In order to expand the acceptability of irradiated foods by public, substantial basic data about the change of nutrient contents during irradiation are needed. The nutrient contents and digestibility of macronutrients such as carbohydrates, proteins and lipids in foods are known to be not significantly influenced by irradiation treatment. However, some of the vitamins among micronutrients are susceptible to irradiation to a large extent depending upon the food composition, food process and storage condition. This study was conducted to investigate change of thiamin in chicken breast, and vitamin C in strawberry and mandarine orange after irradiation. The effects of irradiation at frozen or refrigerated state and the effects of cooking such as heating or micron ave on thiamin contents in chicken breast were observed. Irradiation reduced the thiamin content, however, temperature condition during irradiation was much more important factor to the loss of thiamin contents. In strawberry, vitamin C content was significantly affected by original content or the variety rattler than treatments such as irradiation, heating or microwave. These results indicated that the losses of water-soluble vitamins, especially thiamin or vitamin C, are affected by food temperature during irradiation process and variety or composition of foods rallier than irradiation itself, within an acceptable range of irradiation.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.112-119
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• 2009

Extracellular matrix(ECM) is known to function as a reservoir of endogenous growth factors, can be an effective delivery system of growth factor that easily lost bioactivity in solution. Fibrillar collagens like type I collagen, are the major constituent of the ECM and structural protein of bone. Also, it can be a scaffold for osteoblast migration. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of absorbable Atelo-collagen Sponge($Teruplug^{(R)}$) insertion in tooth extraction sites on periodontal healing of the mandibular second molar after the extraction of the impacted third molar. The study population comprised 31 cases who had been scheduled for surgical removal of impacted mandibular third molars. All patients were in good general health and were not using any medication that would influence wound healing after surgery. In 15 cases control group, none was inserted into the tooth extraction site. In 16 cases experimental groups, $Teruplug^{(R)}$ was inserted into the tooth extraction site. We evaluated tooth mobility, pocket depth, gingival margin level preoperatively and 1 week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 3 months postoperatively. The change was compared with two groups using Mann-Whitney test. The results were as follows. 1. There was no significant change of tooth mobility on both groups. 2. There was tendency of decreasing of previous pocket depth causing tooth extraction on both groups. 3. On gingival margin level, there was various change according to initial swelling and loss of attachment on both groups. 4. There was tendency of decreasing of gingival margin level on both groups because of removal of inflammation and decreasing of previous pocket depth. 5. There was large change of pocket depth on buccal middle, distal, lingual distal area because of tooth extraction and bone reduction. Compared with the control group and experimental group, we observed significant difference during some periods. The results of this study suggest that absorbable atelo-collagen sponge($Teruplug^{(R)}$) is relatively favorable bone void filler with prevention of tissue collapse, food packing and enhance periodontal healing.

• The Korean Journal of Mycology
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• v.24 no.4 s.79
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• pp.246-254
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• 1996

Since the mid of 1980's, cultivation area and production of Ganoderma lucidum have been increased annually in Korea. However, the presence of a fungal disease has become a major limiting factor in the cultivation of Ganoderma lucidum, causing a serious economic loss. The present study was carried out to isolate and identify the pathogenic fungus to Ganoderma lucidum. Several fungi isolated from the wood logs showing typical symptoms were tested whether they are pathogenic to Ganoderma lucidum or not by cross-pairing culture method, flask inoculation method, and wood log inoculation method. The pathogenic fungus produced ascomata. Mature ascomata was spherical, dark, thick-walled, $45{\sim}95\;{\mu}m$ diameter. Asci were thin-walled, evanescent when mature, disintegrate early. Ascospores were spherical, hyaline, glaborous, thick-walled, refractive, $3.6{\sim}4.3\;{\mu}m$ in size. Conidiophores soon became abundantly septate and broke up into arthrospores, which are cylindrical, $3{\sim}6\;{\mu}m$ long and $3{\sim}4\;{\mu}m$ wide. Based on the observations under dissecting microscope, light microscope and scanning electron microscope, teleomorph and anamorph of the pathogenic fungus were identified as Xylogone sphaerospora Von Arx & Nilsson and Sporendonema purpurascens (Bonordon) Mason & Hughes, respectively. X. sphaerospora is first reported as a pathogenic fungus of Ganoderma lucidum.

• Journal of KIISE:Information Networking
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.269-279
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• 2004

The most important factor influencing the robustness of the Internet Is the end-to-end TCP congestion control. However, the congestion control scheme of TCP Reno, the most popular TCP version on the Internet, employs passive congestion indication. It makes worse the network congestion. Recently, Brakmo and Peterson have proposed a new version of TCP, which is named TCP Vegas, with a fundamentally different congestion control scheme from that of the Reno. Many studies indicate that the Vegas is able to achieve better throughput and higher stability than the Reno. But there are two unfairness problems in Vegas. These problems hinder the spread of the Vegas in current Internet. In this paper, in order to solve these unfairness problems, we propose a new congestion control algorithm called TCP PowerVegas. The existing Vegas depends mainly only on the rtt(round trip time), but the proposed PowerVegas use the new congestion control scheme combined the Information on the rtt with the information on the packet loss. Therefore the PowerVegas performs the congestion control more competitively than the Vegas. Thus, the PowerVegas is able to solve effectively these unfairness problems which the Vegas has experienced. To evaluate the proposed approach, we compare the performance among PowerVegas, Reno and Vegas under same network environment. Using simulation, the PowerVegas is able to achieve better throughput and higher stability than the Reno and is shown to achieve much better fairness than the existing Vegas.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.400-413
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• 2017

It is necessary for inmates released from prison to recover their career capital in order to function normally in society. Failure to adapt to the society may not only make them unhappy but could also aggravate social safety nets. Therefore, it is critical to examine the recovery of career capital. For this study, we conducted in-depth interviews of 10 rehabilitation recipients who were supported by Korea Rehabilitation Agency. For qualitative analysis, several career topics were analyzed, such as obstacles in recovering career capital, efforts in overcoming these obstacles, what is helpful for them to overcome the obstacles and what is required for them to adapt to the career life and others. Analysis results found that the rehabilitation beneficiaries suffered loses to their career capital due to their incarceration, suffered from the loss of pride and became despondent in the process of recovery of career capital due to the negative social perception toward their social self, fear of social stigma and devaluation of themselves. In addition, the fear of possible negative evaluation was a critical factor in making their social activities more challenging. Conversely, it was found that social support in the recovery process of career capital has a positive effect. In particular, emotional support from spouses, employers, family members and friends are the most positive factors. Concerning efforts at adapting to careers, it was found that an active, leading and positive attitude toward the career were critical, showing that positive evaluation and recognition in family and social relations and the experience of success in the career were positive elements in enhancing a sense of pride. In summary, it was found that in the recovery process of career capital, dysfunctional beliefs had a negative effect, while social support had a positive effect, on the recovery of career capital.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.106-117
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• 2006

We measured the concentrations of organic matter and metallic elements (Al, Fe, Cr, Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, Pb and Hg) in the surface sediments of Masan Harbor (in the southern sea, Korea) to evaluate the geochemical characters of sediment and the pollutions by organic matter and metallic elements. The mean grain size of the surface sediments in the study area ranged from $5.6{\phi}$ to $7.8{\phi}$, indicating silt sediment. The water content of the surface sediments exceeded 60% except at some stations. The contents of ignition loss (IL), total organic carbon (TOC) and total nitrogen (TN) ranged from 7.2-14.3%, 1.2-3.2%, and 0.10-0.28%, respectively. Based on the C/N ratios, the organic matter in the surface sediments of Masan Harbor may originate from terrigenous sources including fluvial inputs (mainly sewage in urban areas). The chemical oxygen demand (COD) and acid volatile sulfide (AVS) ranged from $11.3-29.9\;mgO_2/g\;dry$ and 0.20-4.47 mgS/g dry, respectively, and low concentrations were observed near a shipping route. In addition, the concentrations of metallic elements showed large spatial variations in Masan Harbor and the distributions of metallic elements were also comparable to those of organic matter. This implies that the distributions of organic matter and metallic elements in the surface sediments of Masan Harbor are mainly controlled by biogenic matter and artificial action (mainly dredging). In addition, we calculated the enrichment facto. (EF) and geoaccumulation index (Igeo) in order to evaluate pollution by metallic elements. The enrichment of metallic elements relative to Al was three to eighteen times higher at the study sites, compared to levels in the Earth's crust except for Fe, Ni and Mn. In addition, the Igeo class indicated that the surface sediments in the study area were moderately to strongly polluted in terms of metallic elements.