• International Journal of Oral Biology
• /
• v.44 no.4
• /
• pp.144-151
• /
• 2019

Alopecia has emerged as one of the biggest interests in modern society. Many studies have focused on the treatment of alopecia, such as transplantation of hair follicles or inhibition of the androgen pathway. Hair growth is achieved through proper proliferation of the components such as keratinocytes and dermal papilla cells (DPCs), movement, and interaction between the two cells. The present study examined the effect of the hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway, which is an important and fundamental signal in the cell, on the morphology and the viability of human keratinocytes and DPCs. Upregulation of Hh signaling caused a morphological change and an increase in epithelium-mesenchymal transition-related gene expression but reduced the viability of keratinocytes, while the alteration of Hh signaling did not cause any change in DPCs. The results show the possibility that the regulation of Hh signaling can be applied for the treatment of alopecia.

• Toxicological Research
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.1-8
• /
• 2010

The process of new drug development consists of several stages; after identifying potential candidate compounds, preclinical studies using animal models link the laboratory and human clinical trials. Among many steps in preclinical studies, toxicology and safety assessments contribute to identify potential adverse events and provide rationale for setting the initial doses in clinical trials. Gene modulation is one of the important tools of modern biology, and is commonly employed to examine the function of genes of interest. Advances in new drug development have been achieved by exploding information on target selection and validation using genetically modified animal models as well as those of cells. In this review, a recent trend of genetically modified methods is discussed with reference to safety assessments, and the exemplary applications of gene-modulating tools to the tests in new drug development were summarized.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
• /
• v.6 no.3
• /
• pp.109-119
• /
• 2014

This article represents a first step in a large study aimed at elucidating the relationship between production and perception involved in sound change of /o/ in (Seoul) Korean. In this paper we present the results of a production study and a perception experiment. For the production study we examined vowel production data of 20 young adult speakers, measuring the first and second formants, then conducted a discriminant analysis based on those values. In terms of their F1-F2 values, the distribution of /o/ and /u/ were close, and even overlapping in some circumstances, which is consistent with the literature. This tendency was more apparent among the female speakers than the males. Moreover, with the females' distributions, /o/ was frequently categorized as /u/, suggesting that the direction of the sound change is indeed increasing from /o/ to /u/. Next, to investigate the effects of this proximity on perception, we used the production data of five randomly selected speakers from the production study as stimuli for a perception experiment in which 21 young adult native speakers of (Seoul) Korean performed a vowel identification task and provided a Goodness rating on a 5-point scale. We found that while rates of correctness were high, when these correctness scores were weighted by the Goodness rating, these "weighted correctness" scores were lower in some cases, indicating a degree of confusion in distinguishing between the two vowels.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.37 no.2
• /
• pp.106.2-106.2
• /
• 2012

A Jupiter-family comet, 17P/Holmes, underwent an outburst on 2007 October 23. Since there has been no more dramatic comet outburst than the 17P/Holmes event in the history of modern astronomical observations, active observations were made soon after the outburst. However, little is known about the activity before the outburst because of the accidental event. In addition, since the nucleus has been veiled by the thick dust cloud by the 2007 outburst, the physical status of the nucleus was unknown. In this presentation, we investigated the contrast between before and after the outburst through the imaging observations in both optical and mid-infrared wavelengths. We thus analyzed data taken by Akari infrared telescope, Subaru 8-m telescope, University of Hawaii 2.2-m telescope and Nishi-Harima Astronomical Observatory 2-m Nayuta telescope. As the result, we found that the nucleus was significantly activated through the outburst. The surface fractional active area was 0.3% in the pre-outburst data while 10% in the past-outburst data. We expect that 17P/Holmes shows strenuous activity in the next return in 2013-2014.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
• /
• v.44 no.1
• /
• pp.76-89
• /
• 2018

Background: Exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) has been considered one of the main causes of a range of endocrine diseases in modern society. An EDC priority list considering exposure, toxicity, and societal concern should be established for EDC management. Methods: The chemical ranking and scoring (CRS) system for EDCs was based on exposure, toxicity,and societal concern. The exposure score system was based on usage, circulation volume, bioaccumulation, and detection in consumer products. The toxicity score system was based on carcinogenicity and reproductive and developmental toxicity. The societal concern score system was based on domestic or international regulations and mass media reports. Results: A total of 165 EDCs were considered in the CRS system. The top-five priority EDCs were Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), Benzene, Bisphenol A, Dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and Trichloroethylene. Phthalates, bisphenols and parabens were identified as priority chemical groups. Conclusion: We developed a CRS system for EDCs to identify priority EDCs for management. This will be a foundation to provide an EDC management plan based on scientific decision-making.

• Carbon letters
• /
• v.27
• /
• pp.90-97
• /
• 2018

Electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding is an important issue in modern daily life due to the increasing prevalence of electronic devices and their compact design. This study estimated EMI-shielding effect (EMI-SE) of small ($8-14{\times}17mm$) Hanji (Korean traditional paper) doped with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and compared to Hanji without CNT using $^2H$ (92.1 MHz) and $^{23}Na$ (158.7 MHz) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) peak area data obtained from 1 M NaCl in $D_2O$ samples in capillary tubes that were wrapped in the Hanji samples. The simpler method of using the variation of reflected power and tuning frequency by inserting the sample into an NMR coil was also tested at 242.9, 158.7, and 92.1 MHz. Overall, EMI shielding was relatively more effective at the higher frequencies. Our results validated that NMR methods to be useful to evaluate EMI-SE, particularly for small, flexible shielding materials, and demonstrated that EMI shielding by absorption is dominant in Hanji mixed with CNT.

• Atmosphere
• /
• v.29 no.1
• /
• pp.53-59
• /
• 2019

The quality of troposphere ozone in three reanalysis datasets is evaluated with longterm ozonesonde measurement at Pohang, South Korea. The Monitoring Atmospheric Composition and Climate (MACC), European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Interim Reanalysis (ERAI) and Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA2) are particularly examined in terms of the vertical ozone structure, seasonality and long-term trend in the lower troposphere. It turns out that MACC shows the smallest biases in the ozone profile, and has realistic seasonality of lower-tropospheric ozone concentration with a maximum ozone mixing ratio in spring and early summer and minimum in winter. MERRA2 also shows reasonably small biases. However, ERAI exhibits significant biases with substantially lower ozone mixing ratio in most seasons, except in mid summer, than the observation. It even fails to reproduce the seasonal cycle of lower-tropospheric ozone concentration. This result suggests that great caution is needed when analyzing tropospheric ozone using ERAI data. It is further found that, although not statistically significant, all datasets consistently show a decreasing trend of 850-hPa ozone concentration since 2003 as in the observation.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.25
• /
• pp.35-54
• /
• 2011

Magnum Korea, a 2008 exhibit at the Hangaram Art Museum in the Seoul Arts Center, introduced representative images of Korea to commemorate the 60th year of the founding of the nation. Twenty photographers of various backgrounds participated in Magnum Korea. This study focuses on one of the exhibited photographers, the French photographer Bruno Barbey. Born in Morocco, Barbey occupies a special position in today's modern photography not to mention in the Magnum group of traditional medium of photography. His photographic world is affiliated with the humanism of Robert Diosneau, particularly as his photographic medium is based on communication and code. Among the photographs in the Magnum Korea collection, Barbey's photographs can be organized into six different subjects: industrial structures in nature, industrial buildings, traditional relics of culture, terminals, markets and restaurants, and daily life. This paper takes special interest in Barbey's unique perspective on Korea's traditional cultural assets focusing on 'Seoul, Jogyesa'. What is the uniqueness of our culture as contained in Barbey's works? In other words, how did he capture the special characteristics of our culture that are often overlooked or ignored because they are so familiar to us? A semiotic approach is used to discover what common but special situations and realities of Korea attracted this photographer and how he managed to capture them in his photographs.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.19-25
• /
• 2005

A tunnel that uses the RMR method or the Q-system is called a 'modem tunnel' because the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM) is not employed, even though shotcrete and rock bolts are used as support. It is known that the modem tunnel, which is supported by shotcrete, is basically different from the conventional tunnel, which is supported by steel ribs. In order to preserve the load-carrying capacity of the rock mass, loosening and excessive rock deformations must be minimized. Although it is known that this can be achieved by applying shotcrete in the case of the modem tunnel, this has not been clearly demonstrated. In order to inspect the distinctions between the conventional tunnel and the modern tunnel, their support characteristics and the rock loads of the rock mass classifications are compared. Terzaghi's rock load classification was used as the conventional tunnel's representative rock mass classification. The RMR method and the Q-system were adopted as the modem tunnel's representative rock mass classification. The study's results show that the load-carrying capacity of shotcrete, when used as the main support in the modern tunnel, is greater than the load-capacity of the steel ribs used in the conventional tunnel. Because it has been verified that the rock loads of their rock mass classifications are not different, then, according to the rock mass classifications, the load-carrying capacity of the rock mass of the modern tunnel, which uses shotcrete, is not greater than that of the conventional tunnel.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
• /
• v.43 no.2
• /
• pp.30-39
• /
• 2015

The English Landscape garden and picturesque aesthetics, which was in fashion during the 18th to early 19th century in England, has been accused of making people see the actual garden in terms of a static landscape painting without a synesthetic engagement in nature. As new optic devices such as diorama, panorama, photography, and cinematography were invented, ways of seeing nature transitioned from a perspective vision to a panoramic, that is, modern one. This study intends to uncover signs of this kind of modern vision in the picturesque aesthetics and visual representation of landscape gardener Humphry Repton. German garden theorist Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld contended that the English landscape garden was a new style of designing landscape that followed the principle of the serpentine line, which produced movement in sightlines; thus, he considered garden art as a superior art form among all other genres. The signs of visual motion appear in Repton's sketches of "Red Books". Firstly, he designed systemic routes in his clients' properties by considering different types of movements between walks and drives. Secondly, he often used the visual effects of panoramic views for his sketches in order to allow his clients to experience the human visual field. Lastly, he constructed sequences of sketches in order to provide his clients with an illusion of movement; in other words, Repton's sketches functioned as potential visual media to produce the duration of time in a visual experience. Thus, the garden aesthetics of the time reflected the contemporary visual culture, that is to say, a panoramic vision pertaining to visual motion.