• Journal of Korean Medicine for Obesity Research
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.78-85
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• 2023

Objectives: Weight gain is one of the symptoms of hypothyroidism and it could deteriorate thyroid function. Our objectives are to evaluate weight changes and analyze adverse events in overweight and obese women with hypothyroidism who were prescribed Gamitaeeumjowee-tang. Methods: A retrospective chart review was conducted using medical records of patients with hypothyroidism, who had body mass indexes (BMI) above 23 and were prescribed Gamitaeeumjowee-tang for 12 weeks between August 2017 and November 2022. Reported adverse events (AEs) were assessed by severity, causality and system-organ classes. Results: Thirty patients were included (mean±standard deviation, age 46.10±9.94 years, weight 70.52±11.18 kg, BMI 28.30±3.80 kg/m²). The mean total weight loss of hypothyroidism patients was 5.45±2.77 kg, while the mean weight loss rate and mean BMI change were 7.66±3.41% and 2.18±1.07 kg/m², respectively. Among evaluated causality of adverse events, 'Unlikely' was predominant (80.8%) and severity assessment showed most of the symptoms were mild (91.7%). Conclusions: Gamitaeeumjowee-tang could be an option for hypothyroidism patients, who are overweight or obese, to lose weight and no serious adverse events occurred. Further well-designed clinical studies are recommended.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.67-72
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• 2015

A series of fire tests was conducted to examine the fire characteristics of flaming and smoldering combustion of engineered wood products, which have been widely used for furniture and finishing materials in buildings. The engineered wood products of MDF, plywood, and chipboard were ignited by a radiant cone heater with incident heat flux of $50kW/m^2$. During the fire test, key parameters representing the fire characteristics such as the heat release rate, yield rate of combustion product, and effective heat of combustion were quantified in terms of thickness. The tests show two peak points of HRRPUA due to lateral fire propagation in the initial stage, followed by later fire penetration through the specimen thickness. The mass loss rate of flaming combustion was 5 times higher than that of smoldering combustion, while the CO yield rate of smoldering combustion was 10 times higher than that of flaming combustion. This study can contribute to the understanding of fire behavior of wood combustibles and provide useful data for fire analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.572-579
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• 2017

Determination of the wood content in wood plastic composite (WPC) is crucial to form reliable WPC market. WPC with simple formulation consisting of only two components (wood flour and polypropylene) was examined using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) for determining wood content in the WPC. TGA method using derivative peak temperature (DTp) of polypropylene under low heating rate ($5^{\circ}C/min$) showed more reliable calibration curve and lower error factor compared to method of using the percentage of weight loss of wood flour. In addition, AMS using bio-based carbon content showed greater reliability for the determination of wood content in the WPC in comparison with the TGA method.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.91-96
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• 2018

Nephrotic syndrome in the first year of life, characterized by renal dysfunction and proteinuria, is associated with a heterogeneous group of disorders. These disorders are often related to genetic mutations, but the syndrome can also be caused by a variety of other diseases. We report an infant with nephrotic syndrome associated with a neuroblastoma. A 6-month-old girl was admitted with a 10% weight loss over 10 days and nephrotic-range proteinuria. She was ill-looking, and her blood pressure was higher than normal for her age. Her cystatin-C glomerular filtration rate was decreased, and levels of plasma renin, aldosterone, and catecholamines were elevated. Renal ultrasonography and abdominal computed tomography showed a retroperitoneal prevertebral mass encasing both renal arteries and the left renal vein. The mass was partially resected laparoscopically, and the pathologic diagnosis was neuroblastoma. Findings on a simultaneous renal biopsy were unremarkable. The patient was treated with chemotherapy and several anti-hypertensive drugs, including an alpha blocker. Two months later, the mass had decreased in size and the proteinuria and hypertension were gradually improving. In an infant with abnormal renin-angiotensin system activation, severe hypertension, and nephrotic-range proteinuria, neuroblastoma can be considered in the differential diagnosis.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.108-112
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• 2012

Purpose: Since a patient's obesity can affect the mortality and morbidity of the surgery, less drastic surgeries may have a major benefit for obese individuals. This study evaluated the feasibility of performing a totally laparoscopic distal gastrectomy, with intracorporeal anastomosis, in obese patients suffering from gastric cancer. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective analysis of the 138 patients, who underwent a totally laparoscopic distal gastrectomy from April 2005 to March 2009, at the National Kyushu Cancer Center. The body mass index of 20 patients was ${\geq}25$, and in 118 patients, it was <25 kg/$m^2$. Results: The mean values of body mass index in the 2 groups were $27.3{\pm}2.2$ and $21.4{\pm}2.3$. Hypertension was significantly more frequent in the obese patients than in the non-obese patients. The intraoperative blood loss, duration of surgery, post-operative complication rate, post-operative hospital stay, and a number of retrieved lymph nodes were not significantly different between the two groups. Conclusions: Intracorporeal anastomosis seemed to have a benefit for obese individuals. Totally laparoscopic gastrectomy is, therefore, considered to be a safe and an effective modality for obese patients.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.366-372
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• 2024

Background: The biological activity and pharmacological effects of rare ginsenosides have been proven to be superior to those of the major ginsenosides, but they are rarely found in ginseng. Methods: Ginsenoside Rb1 was chemically transformed with the involvement of methanol molecules by a synthesized heterogeneous catalyst 12-HPW@MeSi, which was obtained by the immobilization of 12-phosphotungstic acid on a mesoporous silica framework. High-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry was used to identify the transformation products. Results: A total of 18 transformation products were obtained and identified. Methanol was found to be involved in the formation of 8 products formed by the addition of methanol molecules to the C-24 (25), C-20 (21) or C-20 (22) double bonds of the aglycone. The transformation pathways of ginsenoside Rb1 involved deglycosylation, addition, elimination, cycloaddition, and epimerization reactions. These pathways could be elucidated in terms of the stability of the generated carbenium ion. In addition, 12-HPW@MeSi was able to maintain a 60.5% conversion rate of Rb1 after 5 cycles. Conclusion: Tandem and high-resolution mass spectrometry analysis allowed rapid and accurate identification of the transformation products through the characteristic fragment ions and neutral loss. Rare ginsenosides with methoxyl groups grafted at the C-25 and C-20 positions were obtained for the first time by chemical transformation using the composite catalyst 12-HPW@MeSi, which also enabled cyclic heterogeneous transformation and facile centrifugal separation of ginsenosides. This work provides an efficient and recyclable strategy for the preparation of rare ginsenosides with the involvement of organic molecules.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.285-291
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• 2007

This study describes conditions for the mass production of activation-tagged mutant hairy root lines of ginseng by cocultivation with Agrobacterium rhizogenes. Because it is not currently possible to produce progeny from transgenic ginseng, a loss-of-function approach for functional genomics cannot be appliable to this species. A gain-of-function approach is alternatively the choice and hairy root production by cocultivation of A. rhizogenes would be most practical to obtain a large number of mutants. Various sources of explants were subjected to genetic transformation with various strains of A. rhizogenes harboring the activation-tagging vector pKH01 to determine optimum conditions for the highest frequency of hairy root formation on explants. Petiole explants cocultivated with A. rhizogenes R1000 produced hairy roots at a frequency of 85.9% after 4 weeks of culture. Conditions for maximum growth or branching rate of hairy roots were also investigated by using various culture media. Petiole explants cultured on half strength Schenk and Hildebrandt medium produced vigorously growing branched roots at a rate of 2.6 after 4 weeks of culture. A total of 1,989 lines of hairy root mutants were established in this study. These hairy root lines will be useful to determine functions of genes for biosynthesis of ginsenosides.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.1-5
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• 2015

In this study, the combustion characteristics of Hinoki Cypress Louver were measured after performing pressure impregnation with aqueous solution of boric acid, borax, and ammonium phosphate. The characteristics measured include ignition time, critical heat flux, and mass loss rate by incident hear flux (25, 30 and $50kW/m^2$). The samples used for the test were $100{\times}100{\times}10mm$, and the 5 min variation for each incident heat flux was measured 3 times. The results show that the ignition time for incident heat flux of $25kW/m^2$ showed a delay effect of 17.4 to 21.3% except for Type C-H. There was no significant difference at 35 and $50kW/m^2$ in the average mass loss rate in Types A-H and D-H, which had lower rates than Type N-H, which was predicted to be higher than that of Type N-H ($10.7kW/m^2$) by 38.22 to 60.46%. It is thus expected that at the time of initial primary fire, there would be a delay effect against fire spread.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.65-72
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• 2016

This study examined the generation of combustion toxic gases of pinus rigida specimens processed with bis-(dimethylaminomethyl) phosphinic acid (DMDAP), bis-(diethylaminomethyl) phosphinic acid (DEDAP), and bis-(dibutylaminomethyl) phosphinic acid (DBDAP). Each pinus rigida plate was coated three times with 15 wt.% flame retardants in an aqueous solution. The specimens were then dried at room temperature. The production of combustion toxic gases was investigated using a cone calorimeter (ISO 5660-1). The first time to peak mass loss rate ($1^{st}-TMLR_{peak}$) processed with the chemical additives decreased to 5.9 from 41.2% compared with the unprocessed specimen. The second time to the peak mass loss rate ($2^{nd}-TMLR_{peak}$) for the processed specimens was decreased 1.8% for DMDAP and 5.3% for DBDAP and increased 1.8% for DEDAP. The peak carbon monoxide ($CO_{peak}$) production was 1.5 to 2.0 times higher than that of the unprocessed plate. The peak carbon dioxide ($CO_{2peak}$) production was reduced 0.01 times for DMDAP and increased 1.15 to 1.19 times for DEDAP and DBDAP compared with the unprocessed specimens. In particular, the oxygen concentration was much higher than 15%, which can be fatal to humans and the resulting hazard can be eliminated. Overall, the combustion toxicity of flammable gas were increased partially by the chemical additives compared with those of the unprocessed plate.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.106-113
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• 2010

Fire characteristics can be analyzed more realistically by using more accurate material properties related to the fire dynamics and one way to acquire these fire properties is to use one of the inverse property analyses. In this study the genetic algorithm which is frequently applied for the inverse heat transfer problems is selected to demonstrate the procedure of obtaining fire properties of the solid charring material with relatively simple chemical structure. The thermal decomposition on the surface of the test plate is occurred by receiving the radiative energy from external heat sources, and in this process the heat transfer through the test plate can be simplified by an unsteady 1-D problem. The inverse property analysis based on the genetic algorithm is then applied for the estimation of the properties related to the reaction pyrolysis. The input parameters for the analysis are the surface temperature and mass loss rate of the char plate which are determined from the unsteady 1-D analysis with a givenset of 8 properties. The estimated properties using the inverse analysis based on the genetic algorithm show acceptable agreements with the input properties used to obtain the surface temperature and mass loss rate with errors between 1.8% for the specific heat of the virgin material and 151% for the specific heat of the charred material.