• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.393-399
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• 2006

This study was aimed to design, formulate and characterize the moisture-activated patches containing acyclovir for antiviral action. Gel intermediates for film-type patches were prepared with mucoadhesive polymer, viscosity builders, enhancers and acyclovir. Patches containing acyclovir were characterized by in vitro measurement of drug release rates through a cellulose barrier membrane, and of drug flux through the hairless mouse skin. Film-type patches obtained were uniform in the thickness and showed a mucoadhesive property when contacted with moisture. The formulation was optimized, which consisted of $Cantrez^{\circledR}$ AN-169(2%), $Kollidon^{\circledR}$ VA 64(1%), $Natrosol^{\circledR}$(1%), hydroxypropyl-$\beta$-cyclodextrin(1%) and dimethylsulfoxide(0.5%). Release rates of acyclovir patches increased dose-dependently. The addition of terpenes such as d-limonene or cineole increased release rates of acyclovir, but decreased permeation rates. The permeation rates were enhanced by 2 and 2.5 times by the addition of glycyrrhizic acid ammonium salt and sodium glycocholate, respectively, compared with that of no enhancer. These results suggest that it may be feasible to deliver acyclovir through the skin or gingival mucosa from the moisture-activated patches.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.107-112
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• 2002

To investigate the feasibility of developing a novel melatonin plaster, the effects of vehicles and drug loading dose on the in vitro permeation of melatonin across dorsal hairless mouse skin from pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) matrices were examined. Vehicles employed were propylene glycol laurate (PGL), propylene glycol monocaprylate (PGMC) and diethylene glycol monoethyl ether (DGME). Among PSAs used, only $Duro-Tak^{\circledR}$ 87-2196 showed a good peeling property. The release from $Duro-Tak^{circledR}$ 87-2196 was proportional to the square root of time, and dose-dependent. The fluxes increased as the loading dose increased over the doses under solubility. The relatively high permeation flux $(3.03{\pm}1.37\;{\mu}g/cm^2/hr)$ was obtained when using PGMC at the melatonin loading dose of $45\;mg/140\;cm^2$. Lag time was not affected by the vehicles used but by the thickness spread. The melatonin plasters prepared using PGMC showed a good adhesive property onto skin, and showed no crystal formation.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.33-38
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• 2010

Sibutramine is a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor indicated for the management of obesity in conjunction with a reduced calorie diet. The oral administration of sibutramine is followed by its dose-related side effects. In this study, sibutramine was formulated into drug in adhesive (DIA) patches in an attempt to overcome these problems. The effects of different formulation variables including pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA), loading amount of drug, thickness of matrix and enhancer on the skin permeation of the drug were evaluated using excised hairless mouse skin. In the acrylic adhesive with carboxyl functional group, low release of sibutramine was observed due to the strong interaction between carboxyl group of adhesive and amine group of sibutramine. The acrylic adhesive without functional group provided good adhesion force and allowed high drug loading. Changing drug load as well as thickness of the matrix was found to alter permeation rate. $Crovol^{(R)}$ PK40 and $Crovol^{(R)}$ A40, were found to be effective enhancers for sibutramine. The optimized patch contained 20% sibutramine, and 5% $Crovol^{(R)}$ A40 as permeation enhancer, in $80\;{\mu}m$ thick Duro-$Tak^{(R)}$ 87-9301 matrix.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Broadcast Engineers Conference
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• 2009.01a
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• pp.664-667
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• 2009

There is strong demand to create wearable PC systems that can support the user outdoors. When we are outdoors, our movement makes it impossible to use traditional input devices such as keyboards and mice. We propose a hand gesture interface based on image processing to operate wearable PCs. The semi-transparent PC screen is displayed on the head mount display (HMD), and the user makes hand gestures to select icons on the screen. The user's hand is extracted from the images captured by a color camera mounted above the HMD. Since skin color can vary widely due to outdoor lighting effects, a key problem is accurately discrimination the hand from the background. The proposed method does not assume any fixed skin color space. First, the image is divided into blocks and blocks with similar average color are linked. Contiguous regions are then subjected to hand recognition. Blocks on the edges of the hand region are subdivided for more accurate finger discrimination. A change in hand shape is recognized as hand movement. Our current input interface associates a hand grasp with a mouse click. Tests on a prototype system confirm that the proposed method recognizes hand gestures accurately at high speed. We intend to develop a wider range of recognizable gestures.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.618-632
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• 2010

This paper presents a novel approach to control the augmented reality (AR) objects robustly in a marker-less AR system by fingertip tracking and hand pattern recognition. It is known that one of the promising ways to develop a marker-less AR system is using human's body such as hand or face for replacing traditional fiducial markers. This paper introduces a real-time method to manipulate the overlaid virtual objects dynamically in a marker-less AR system using both hands with a single camera. The left bare hand is considered as a virtual marker in the marker-less AR system and the right hand is used as a hand mouse. To build the marker-less system, we utilize a skin-color model for hand shape detection and curvature-based fingertip detection from an input video image. Using the detected fingertips the camera pose are estimated to overlay virtual objects on the hand coordinate system. In order to manipulate the virtual objects rendered on the marker-less AR system dynamically, a vision-based hand control interface, which exploits the fingertip tracking for the movement of the objects and pattern matching for the hand command initiation, is developed. From the experiments, we can prove that the proposed and developed system can control the objects dynamically in a convenient fashion.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.445-450
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• 2005

In this paper, we suggest an integrated tactile display system that provides kinesthetic force, pressure distribution, vibration and slip/stretch. The system consists of two parts: a 2 DOF force feedback device for kinesthetic display and a tactile feedback device for displaying the normal stimulation to the skin and the skin slip/stretch. Psychophysical experiments measure the effects of fingerpad selection, the direction of finger movements and the texture width on tactile sensitivity. We also investigate the characteristics of lateral finger movement while subjects perceive different textures. From the experimental results, the principal parameters for designing a tactile display are suggested. A tactile display device, using eight piezoelectric bimorphs and a linear actuator, Is implemented and attached to a 2 DOF translational force feedback device to simultaneously simulate the texture and stiffness of the object. As a result, we find out that the capability of the suggested device is sufficient to display physical quantities to display the texture.

• Proceedings of the SCSK Conference
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• 2003.09b
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• pp.184-191
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• 2003

New pyranone derivative, 2-((3E)-4(2H, 3H, -benzo[3, 4-d] 1, 3-dioxolan-5-yl)-2-oxo-but-3-enyloxy)-5-hydroxy-4H-pyran-4-one (Seletinoid $G^{TM}$), was designed as a novel retinoid on the assumption that the pyranone ring may mimic the carboxylic acid moiety in retinoid structure. The enolic hydroxy of pyranone at five position was easily deprotonated to form an enolate. The role of enolate was similar to that of carboxylic acid. To evaluate the value of Seletinoid G as an anti-aging ingredient, various tests were performed for example inhibitory effect for MMP-l expression, anti-oxidative activity, procollagen synthesis in hairless mouse and primary skin irritation. The result of this study suggested that our new synthetic retinoid could be used as a safe material for anti-aging cosmetics.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.412-417
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• 2006

Triamcinolone acetonide (TA) is a corticosteroid that is used in the systemic and topical treatment of many inflammatory diseases. In this study, a phonophoretic drug delivery system was designed to enhance the TA permeability and the influence of ultrasound was examined. In order to establish the transdermal delivery system for TA, a hydrophilic carbopol gel containing TA was prepared after adopting phonophoresis. A permeation study through mouse skin was performed at $37^{\circ}C$ using a Franz diffusion cell, and the ultrasound treatment was carried out for 10 h. The level of TA permeation through the skin was evaluated under various ultrasound conditions including the frequency (1.0, 3.0 MHz), intensity (1.0, $2.5W/cm^2 $), and duty cycle (continuous, pulse mode) using a 0.5% TA gel. The highest permeation was observed under the ultrasound treatment conditions of low frequency, high intensity, and in continuous mode.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.275-281
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• 2004

We have studied the effect of polarity, current density, current duration, crosslinking density, swelling ratio, and permeation enhancers on the transdermal flux of ketoprofen from acrylamide hydrogel. Hydrogel was prepared by free radical crosslinking polymerization of acrylamide. Drug loading was made just before transport experiment by soaking the hydrogel in solution containing drug. In vitro flux study using hairless mouse skin was performed at $36.5^{\circ}C$ using side-by-side diffusion cell, and the drug was analysed using HPLC/UV system. The result showed that, compared to passive flux, the total amount of drug transported increased about 18 folds by the application of $0.4\;mA/cm^2$ cathodal current. Anodal delivery with same current density also increased the total amount of drug transported about 13 folds. It seemed that the increase in flux was due to the electrorepulsion and the increase in passive permeability of the skin by the current application. Flux increased as current density, the duration of current application and loading amount (swelling duration) increased. As the cross linking density of the hydrogel increased, flux clearly decreased. The effect of hydrophilic enhancers (urea, N-methyl pyrrolidone, Tween 20) and some hydrophobic enhancers (propylene glycol monolaurate and isopropyl myristate) was minimal. However, about 3 folds increase in flux was observed when 5% oleic acid was used. Overall, these results provide some useful information on the design of an optimized iontophoretic delivery system of ketoprofen.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.874-879
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• 2008

Tyrosinase is a key enzyme for melanin biosynthesis, and hyperpigmentation disorders are associated with abnormal accumulation of melanin pigments, which can be reduced by treatment with depigmenting agents. The methanol extract of Lespedeza cyrtobotrya $M_{IQ}$ showed inhibitory activity against mushroom tyrosinase. The active compound was purified from the methanol extract of L. cyrtobotrya, followed by several chromatographic methods, and identified as dalbergioidin (DBG) by spectroscopic methods. The results showed that DBG exhibited tyrosinase inhibitory activity with an $IC_{50}$ of $20\;{\mu}M$. The kinetic analysis of tyrosinase inhibition revealed that DBG acted as a noncompetitive inhibitor. In addition, DBG showed a melanin biosynthesis inhibition zone in the culture plate of Streptomyces bikiniensis that has commonly been used as an indicator organism. Furthermore, $27\;{\mu}M$ DBG decreased more than 50% of melanin contents on the pigmentation using the immortalized mouse melanocyte, melan-a cell.