• Development and Reproduction
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.45-53
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• 2013

The action of melatonin within the body of animals is known to be mediated by melatonin receptors. Three different types of melatonin receptors have been identified so far in fish. However, which of these are specifically involved in puberty onset is not known in fish. We cloned and analyzed the sequence of melatonin receptor 1a (mel 1a) gene in Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus. In addition, we examined the tissue distribution of gene expressions for three types of receptors, mel 1a, 1b and lc and investigated which of them is involved in the onset of puberty by comparing their expression with that of gonadotropin-releasing hormone receptor I (GnRHr I) gene using quantitative real-time PCR from 1 week post hatch (wph) to 24 wph. The mel 1a gene of Nile tilapia consisted of two exons and one bulky intron between them. Mel 1a gene was found to be highly conserved gene showing high homology with the corresponding genes from different teleost. All three types of melatonin receptor genes were expressed in the brain, eyes and ovary in common. Expression of mel 1a gene was the most abundant and ubiquitous among 3 receptors in the brain, liver, gill, ovary, muscle, eye, heart, intestine, spleen and kidney. Mel 1b and mel 1c genes were, however, expressed in fewer tissues at low level. During the development post hatch, expressions of both mel 1a and GnRHr I genes significantly increased at 13 wph which was close to the putative timing of puberty onset in this species. These results suggest that among three types of receptors mel 1a is most likely associated with the action of melatonin in the onset of puberty in Nile tilapia.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.230-235
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• 2006

This study was performed in rats to find the minimum dose of melatonin that can effectively prevent the formation of postoperative intraperitoneal adhesions. Forty-two Sprague Dawley male rats were divided into six groups consisting of 7 rats, respectively. After celiotomy, five abrasions of $0.5{\times}1cm$ area were made on the antimesenteric serosal surface of the colon with a scalpel blade. The abdominal cavity was filled with 1 ml of solution containing 1 mg/kg(Mel 1), 3 mg/kg(Mel 3), 10 mg/kg(Mel 10), 30 mg/kg(Mel 30) and 5% ethanol solution(sham) through the catheter, using a sterile syringe before abdominal closure. Control group was given no adjuvant. The locations and values of adhesion were assessed through the second operation on the 14th day after the first operation. The adhesions were located on serosa to mesentery(54 of 210, 25.7%), serosa to serosa(44 of 210, 21%), serosa to omentum (12 of 210, 5.7%) and serosa to parietal peritoneum(0 of 210, 0%). The incidences of adhesion in Control, Sham, Mel 1, Mel 3, Mel 10 and Mel 30 were 68.6%, 91.4%, 57.1%, 60.1%, 17.1% and 20%, respectively. The values of adhesion separation in Mel 10 and Mel 30 group were lower than those in other groups. However, there was no significant(p<0.05) between Mel 10 and Mel 30 group. This study showed that 10 mg/kg of melatonin were effective in reducing the intraperitoneal adhesion.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.333-342
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• 2012

This paper presents a vowel onset point (VOP) detection method based on the human auditory system. This method maps the "perceptual" frequency scale, i.e. Mel scale onto a linear acoustic frequency, and then establishes a series of Triangular Mel-weighted Filter Bank simulate the function of band pass filtering in human ear. This nonlinear critical-band filter bank helps greatly reduce the data dimensionality, and eliminate the effect of harmonic waves to make the formants more prominent in the nonlinear spaced Mel spectrum. The sum of mel spectrum peaks energy is extracted as feature for each frame, and the instinct at which the energy amplitude starts rising sharply is detected as VOP, by convolving with Gabor window. For the single-word database which contains 12 vowels articulated with different kinds of consonants, the experimental results showed a good average detection rate of 72.73%, higher than other vowel detection methods based on short-time energy and zero-crossing rate.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.8
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• pp.2499-2507
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• 2012

A novel and convenient electrochemical method has been developed for sensitive determination of melamine (MEL) using ascorbic acid (AA) as the recognition element. The working electrode employed in this method was modified with the nanocomposite of hydroxyapatite/carbon nanotubes to enhance the current signal of recognition element. The interaction between MEL and AA was investigated by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry, and the experimental results indicated that hydrogen bonding was formed between MEL and AA. Because of the existing hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interaction, the anodic peak current of AA was decreased obviously while the non-electroactive MEL added in. It illustrated that the MEL acted as an inhibitor to the oxidation of AA and the decreasing signals can be used to detect MEL. Under the optimal conditions, the decrease in anodic peak current of AA was proportional to the MEL concentrations ranging from 10 to 350 nM, with a detection limit of 1.5 nM. Finally this newly-proposed method was successfully employed to detect MEL in infant formula and milk, and good recovery was achieved.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.39-46
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• 2019

In this paper, combining features is proposed as a way to enhance the classification accuracy of sounds under noisy environments using the CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) structure. A robust log Mel-filter bank using Wiener filter and PNCCs (Power Normalized Cepstral Coefficients) are extracted to form a 2-dimensional feature that is used as input to the CNN structure. An ebird database is used to classify 43 types of bird species in their natural environment. To evaluate the performance of the combined features under noisy environments, the database is augmented with 3 types of noise under 4 different SNRs (Signal to Noise Ratios) (20 dB, 10 dB, 5 dB, 0 dB). The combined feature is compared to the log Mel-filter bank with and without incorporating the Wiener filter and the PNCCs. The combined feature is shown to outperform the other mentioned features under clean environments with a 1.34 % increase in overall average accuracy. Additionally, the accuracy under noisy environments at the 4 SNR levels is increased by 1.06 % and 0.65 % for shop and schoolyard noise backgrounds, respectively.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.127-135
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• 2023

Effects of changes in photoperiod on the reproductive events in fish are suggested to be mediated mainly via the action of melatonin (MEL). Changing levels of plasma MEL throughout the day and year are suggested to influence the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis in fish. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of MEL on oocyte maturation and germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD) in the marine fish, Chaenogobius annularis, in vitro. Oocytes at three different stages (pre-, mid-, and late-vitellogenesis) were incubated with (a) only MEL (5, 10, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000 pg/mL) and (b) 50 pg/mL of 17α,20β-dihydroxy-4-pregnen-3-one (17α20βP), maturation-inducing hormone (MIH) of this species, and MEL (4-h incubation before addition of MIH). Any single MEL treatment did not significantly induce GVBD. However, treatment with 50 pg/mL MEL or MIH significantly induced GVBD. These results suggest that preincubation with MEL accelerates the effect of MIH on longchin goby oocyte maturation.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.299-304
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• 2021

This study focuses on the preparation of acetaminophen (AP) imprinted functional biomaterials for a transdermal drug delivery using mung bean starch (MBS), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), sodium benzoate (S) as a crosslinking agent, glycerol (GL) as a plasticizer, and melanin (MEL) as a photothermal agent. The prepared AP imprinted biomaterials were characterized using FE-SEM and their physical properties were evaluated. The photothermal effect and AP release property for functional biomaterials were examined with the irradiation of near infrared (NIR) laser (1.5 W/cm²). When the NIR laser was irradiated on functional biomaterials with/without the addition of MEL, the temperature of MEL added biomaterial increased from 25 ℃ to 41 ℃, whereas the biomaterial without MEL increased from 25 ℃ to 28 ℃. Results indicate that there is the photothermal effect of prepared biomaterial with the addition of MEL. Based on the results, AP release properties were evaluated using standard buffer solutions and artificial skin. It was found that AP release rates of MEL added AP loaded biomaterials were 1.2 times faster than those of MEL non-added AP loaded biomaterials when irradiating with NIR laser. We envision that the developed functional biomaterials can be utilized for an acute pain-killing treatment.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.209-212
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• 2003

A wide variety of cancer chemotherapeutic agents have been shown to induce programmed cell death (PCD, apoptosis) in various tumor cell fines in vitro. This study was performed to know how ginsenoside Rc affect on SK-MEL-28 cell line, and how they induce the apoptosis. SK-MEL-28 cell lines were treated with various concentrations of ginsenoside Rc and cultured for various times. At cell cycle analysis, cells arrested at G2/M phase by ginsenoside Rc and apotosis percentage increased along with increasing concentration and time. TUNEL assay was performed to know whether SK-MEL-28 cell fine die as apoptosis or necrosis by ginsenoside Rc. As a result, fluorescence increased along with increasing time and concentration. Fas expressed on SK-MEL-28 cell lines membrane by ginsenoside Rc was identified using flow cytometer. Ginsenoside Rc induced apoptosis against SK-MEL-28 cell fines, and the apoptosis mechanism was identified as Fas-mediated apotosis.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.23 no.3 s.55
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• pp.190-197
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• 1999

In this study, the molecular mechanism of the growth inhibitory effect of panaxynol was investigated in a human malignant melanoma cell line, SK-MEL-l. In the cell cycle analysis, panaxynol arrested cell cycle progression of SK-MEL-I at the G1 phase. Immunoblot analysis demonstrated that panaxynol increased $p21^{WAF1}$ and decreased cdc2 expression. Protein levels of pl6, p27, E2F-1, Rb, and p53 were not changed. Thus, the changes in expression levels of $p21^{WAF1}$ and cdc2 apparently mediate the cell cycle arrest caused by panaxynol. In addition, cycloheximide (CHX) partially reversed the growth inhibition by panaxynol, which suggested that new protein synthesis was required. On the other hand, LLnL, a proteasome inhibitor, increased antiproliferative effect of panaxynol. This may be due to stabilization of the protein(s) responsible for the growth inhibition such as $p21^{WAF1}$. In summary, these results demonstrate that panaxynol inhibits proliferation of SK-MEL-I by inducing cell cycle arrest at the G1 phase and the inhibitory effect is mediated by the increased level of $p21^{WAF1}$ as well as decreased cdc2 expression.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.99-107
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• 2014

Melamine-induced nephrotoxicity is closely associated with crystal formation in the kidney caused by combined exposure to melamine (Mel) and cyanuric acid (CA). However, there are few dosage-finding studies for toxicological evaluation of chronic co-exposure to Mel and CA. The objective of this study was to investigate the possible mechanism by which a Mel and CA mixture lead to renal toxicity in rats. Mel and CA were co-administered to rats via oral gavage for 50 days. Nephrotoxicity was determined by measuring blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and serum creatinine (sCr) levels. Relative kidney weights were significantly increased in rats after co-exposure to Mel+CA (63/6.3 or 630/6.3 mg/kg) mixtures. BUN and sCr levels were significantly increased after Mel and CA co-exposure. Taken together, significant increase in KIM-1, NGAL, and calbindin levels were observed in the urine of rats exposed to Mel+CA (63/6.3 or 630/6.3 mg/kg) compared with the corresponding control group. Histological analysis revealed epithelial degeneration and necrotic cell death in the proximal tubules of the kidney after co-exposure to Mel+CA (63/6.3 or 630/6.3 mg/kg). Our data suggest that Mel-mediated renal toxicity may be influenced by CA concentrations in Mel-contaminated milk or foods.