• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.46.1-46.7
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• 2022

Influenza A virus (IAV) is the most widespread pathogen causing human respiratory infections. Although polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methods are currently the most commonly used tools for IAV detection, PCR is not ideal for point-of-care testing. In this study, we aimed to develop a more rapid and sensitive method than PCR-based tools to detect IAV using loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) technology. We designed reverse-transcriptional (RT)-LAMP primers targeting the hemagglutinin gene. RNAs from reference H1N1 and H3N2 showed specific RT-LAMP signals with the designed primers. We optimized the reaction conditions and developed universal reaction conditions for both LAMP assays. Under these conditions, the detection limit was 50 copies for both RT-LAMP assays. There was no non-specific signal to 19 non-IAV respiratory viruses, such as influenza B virus, coronaviruses, and respiratory syncytial viruses. Regarding the reaction time, a positive signal was detected within 25 min after starting the reaction. In conclusion, our RT-LAMP assay has high sensitivity and specificity for the detection of the H1 and H3 subtypes, making it suitable for point-of-care IAV testing.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.49-61
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• 2008

Most battleship warfare M&S systems run relatively slow and the simulation results are often unfair since the system should interact with human operators(controller and/or gamer). To deal with these problems, we have proposed the agent-based battleship warfare M&S system which interact with multiple agent systems instead of human operators. Agent-based M&S system may be able to efficiently support the analysis of effectiveness and/or the operational tactics development of given warfare by providing autonomous reasoning capabilities without the intervention of human controller. To do this, the paper propose the design concept and methodology using the advanced modeling and simulation framework as well as autonomous agent design principle. Several simulation tests performed on the battleship warfare case study on Korea Yellow sea will illustrate our techniques.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.10-17
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• 2021

The controversy over the risk of the human body being affected by electromagnetic fields emitted from 60 Hz power lines continues without end. There are currently no new studies or research progress being made in this direction that is notable, and the number of civil complaints is gradually increasing. The problem is that each study produces different results, among which the effect of exposure to magnetic fields on childhood leukemia is a major one. In Korea, an electrician who was maintaining a 22.9 kV power line died of leukemia, which has recently been recognized as an occupational disease. Methods to reduce magnetic fields from power lines include shielding with wire loops, incorporating split phases and compaction techniques, installing underground power lines, converting to high-voltage direct current (HVDC), and increasing the ground clearance of transmission towers. Depending on whether a separate power supply is needed or not, there are two types of wire loops: passive loop and active loop. Magnetic field reduction is currently done through underground power lines; however, the disadvantage of this process is high construction costs. Installing passive loops, with relatively low construction costs, leads to lower magnetic field reduction rates than installing underground cables and a weakness to not solving the landscape problem. This methodological study aims at designing methods and reducing the effects of 2-wire set loops-the simplest and most practical. Since the method proposed in this study has been designed after analyzing the distribution of complex electromagnetic fields near the expected loop installation location, a practical design can be implemented without the need for any difficult optimization programming.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.454-464
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• 2019

Salmonellosis is a highly contagious bacterial disease that threatens both human and poultry health. Tests that can detect Salmonella in the field are urgently required to facilitate disease control and for epidemiological investigations. Here, we combined loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) with a chromatographic lateral flow dipstick (LFD) to rapidly and accurately detect Salmonella. LAMP primers were designed to target the Salmonella invA gene. LAMP conditions were optimized by adjusting the ratio of inner to outer primers, $MgSO_4$ concentration, dNTP mix concentration, amplification temperature, and amplification time. We evaluated the specificity of our novel LAMP-LFD method using six Salmonella species and six related non-Salmonella strains. All six of the Salmonella strains, but none of the non-Salmonella strains, were amplified. LAMP-LFD was sensitive enough to detect concentrations of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Pullorum genomic DNA as low as $89fg/{\mu}l$, which is 1,000 times more sensitive than conventional PCR. When artificially contaminated feed samples were analyzed, LAMP-LFD was also more sensitive than PCR. Finally, LAMP-LFD gave no false positives across 350 chicken anal swabs. Therefore, our novel LAMP-LFD assay was highly sensitive, specific, convenient, and fast, making it a valuable tool for the early diagnosis and monitoring of Salmonella infection in chickens.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.227-235
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• 2005

It has been reported that endurance performance is influenced by various environmental and genetic factors. In view of an important role of human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) as a candidate for endurance performance, this study focused on the relationships between $VO_{2max}$ value as a measure of endurance performance or other associated phenotypes and four mtDNA restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) (Bam HI, Hinc II1, Hinc II2 and Nci I) in the NADH dehydrogenase subunit 5 and one (Kpn I) in the D-loop region of mtDNA. MtDNA was purified from buffy coat in human peripheral blood, and PCR-RFLP analysis was performed to estimate the allele frequencies of each polymorphism in the mtDNA. There were no significant differences in allele distributions of all polymorphisms studied between male athletes and controls, respectively (P>0.05). However, the Kpn I polymorphism was significantly associated with diastolic blood pressure level in male athletes, respectively (P<0.05). Therefore, our results suggest that this polymorphism might be one of the factors modifying inter-individual difference in cardiovascular risk. Further studies using larger sample size will be required to generalize these results from the study described herein.

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.42-50
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• 2016

Traditional tactile controls that include push buttons and rotary switches may cause significant visual and biomechanical distractions if they are located away from the driver's line of sight and hand position, for example, on the central console. Gestural controls, as an alternative to traditional controls, are natural and can reduce visual distractions; however, their types and numbers are limited and have no feedback. To overcome the problems, a driver interface combining gestures and visual feedback with a head-up display has been proposed recently. In this paper, we investigated the effect of this type of interface in terms of driving performance measures. Human-in-the-loop experiments were conducted using a driving simulator with the traditional tactile and the new gesture-based interfaces. The experimental results showed that the new interface caused less visual distractions, better gap control between ego and target vehicles, and better recognition of road conditions comparing to the traditional one.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.176-183
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• 2010

It is considered that the urea injection DeNOx SCR(selective catalytic reduction) system is the only promising method to satisfy the worldwide NOx emission standards. As for the theoretical aspect, reactants of NO and $NO_2$ with $NH_3$ produce $H_2O$, $N_2$ and $O_2$ which do not harm human beings and environmental as well. The realization of maximum NOx conversion (without using a post oxidation catalyst) is only possible with closed loop controlled urea dosing. It means built-in $NH_3$ gas sensor have to be developed for detecting accurate $NH_3$ concentration for the feedback system. Using YSZ(yttria-stabilized zirconia) as a solid state electrolyte and $In_2O_3$ as a sensing material, this paper aims to study dependable $NH_3$ gas sensor for the promising solution of DeNOx technology, which have a reproducible electric output signal, a high sensitivity and fast response.

• The Journal of Korean Obstetrics and Gynecology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.44-62
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• 2020

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of herbal medicine for recovery and treatment of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) after loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP). Methods: We searched two english, one chinese and four korean database up to November 4, 2019. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) were eligible. Primary outcome included Human papilloma virus (HPV) clearance rate and the effective ratio of treatment. And vaginal bleeding time and volume, improvement of symptoms, and recovery of wound were regarded as secondary outcomes. The risk of bias was assessed by two independent authors using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Results: Of 47 screened, 10 RCTs were included. Number of participants per study ranged from 58 to 360. The studies which used HPV clearance rate as primary outcome were considered as low risk of bias. Most of the studies had considerable heterogeneity in terms of type of intervention, comparison and time-points for outcome measurement. Compared to LEEP alone, herbal vaginal suppository combined group showed favorable results for HPV clearance in patients (5 studies, n=627, 95% CI 1.26 to 1.55, I²=75%). And compared to LEEP alone, herbal external application also showed favorable results for HPV clearance in patients (2 studies, n=252, 95% CI 1.19 to 1.61, I²=86%). Three studies reported mild and temporary adverse events, and no serious adverse events were reported. Conclusions: The studies showed that herbal medicine can significantly effective on recovery of CIN after LEEP. However, included studies suffered from incomplete reporting, high or unclear risk of bias and substantial heterogeneity between studies. In the Future, further high-quality RCTs are needed to prove effectiveness of herbal medicine for CIN after LEEP and reduce the risk of bias.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.85-95
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• 2013

As the conventional hydraulic power steering system in the passenger vehicles is being rapidly replaced by EPS (Electric Power Steering) system, performance evaluation of the EPS system has become an important issue in the automotive industries. But the evaluation process takes significant expertise since steering conditions in the test protocols must be implemented with high accuracy. EPS HILS (Hardware-In the-Loop Simulation) system is developed together with robot steering system in this study. Main components of EPS HILS system include: C-EPS hardware, CarSim vehicle model, and road reaction force generation system powered by servo motor. The robot steering system, operated by another servo motor, was combined with EPS HILS system to substitute for steering efforts of human driver. The road reaction force generation system and the robot steering system were carefully validated by using the data obtained from vehicle tests. An on-center handling test was conducted by using EPS HILS system combined with the robot steering system. In the result of this study, robot-steered EPS HILS system developed with its high reliability and no need of skilled driver's, can be widely adopted to evaluate any performance of EPS system.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.610-620
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• 2021

There has been increasing interest in the head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) that is caused by high-risk human papillomavirus (HR-HPV) and has posed a significant challenge to Otolaryngologists. A rapid, sensitive, and reliable method is required for the detection of HR-HPV in clinical specimens to prevent and treat HPV-induced diseases. In this study, a multiple cross-linking spiral amplification (MCLSA) assay was developed for the visual detection of HPV-16. In the MCLSA assay, samples were incubated under optimized conditions at 62℃ for 45 min, and after mixing with the SYBR Green I (SGI) dye, the positive amplicons showed bright green fluorescence while the negative amplicons exhibited no obvious change. The specificity test revealed that the developed MCLSA technique had high specificity and could effectively distinguish all five HPV-16 strains from other pathogenic microorganisms. In terms of analytical sensitivity, the limit of detection (LoD) of MCLSA assay was approximately 5.4 × 101 copies/tube, which was 10-fold more sensitive than loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) and RT-PCR. The detection results of laryngeal cancer specimens collected from 46 patients with suspected HPV infection in the Liaoning region demonstrated that the positive detection rates of MCLSA and hybridized capture 2 kit were 32.61% (15/46). The true positive rate of the MCLSA assay was higher than that of RT-PCR (100% vs. 93.33%) and LAMP (100% vs. 86.67%). Therefore, the MCLSA assay developed in the present study could be a potentially useful tool for the point-of-care (PoC) diagnosis of HR-HPV, especially in resource-limited countries.