• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.3851-3864
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• 2014

Cytokine research is currently at the forefront in cancer research. Deciphering the functions of these multiple small molecules, discovered within the cell and in intercellular spaces, with their abundance and pleotrophism, was initially a great challenge. Advances in analytical chemistry and molecular biology have made it possible to unravel the pathophysiological functions of these polypeptides/proteins which are called interleukins, chemokines, monokines, lymphokines and growth factors. With more than 5 million women contracting cervical cancer every year this cancer is a major cause of mortality and morbidity the world over, particularly in the developing countries. In more than 95% of cases it is associated with human papilloma virus (HPV) infection which is persistent, particularly in those with a defective immune system. Although preventable, the mere magnitude of prevalence of HPV in the world population makes it a dominating current health hazard. The discovery of cytokine dysregulation in cervical cancer has spurted investigation into the possibility of using them as biomarkers in the early diagnosis of cases at high risk of developing cancer. Their critical role in carcinogenesis and progression of cervical cancer is now being revealed to a great extent. From diagnostics to prognosis, and now with a possible role in therapeutics and prevention of cervical cancer, the cytokines are being evaluated in all anticancer approaches. This review endeavours to capture the essence of the astonishing journey of cytokine research in cervical neoplasia.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.3965-3971
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• 2014

Background: In Iran, there are high rates of breast cancer. It is among the five most common cancers, the first among cancers diagnosed, and is the leading cause of cancer deaths among Iranian women. Objectives: The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore perception of breast cancer screening among Iranian women who have never had a mammograph. Materials and Methods: The current study was part of a qualitative research conducted by means of content analysis method and purposive sampling of 16 women over the age of 30 years who had not undergone mammography using individual semi-structured interviews. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data were under continuous consideration and comparative analysis in order to achieve data saturation. Results: After codification of data, three concept categories were achieved including: i) low awareness, ii) worries, and iii) lack of motivation. Conclusions: Although there is a tendency among Iranian women to participate in breast cancer screening, there is a powerful cultural belief that breasts are sexual organs that should not be discussed publicly. Due to the incidence of breast cancer in Iranian women, it is critical that breast awareness education be performed by health care experts to explore the concepts of breast cancer and breast cancer screening.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.1436-1457
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• 2018

Secure routing services in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are essential, especially in mission critical fields such as the military and in medical applications. Additionally, they play a vital role in the current and future Internet of Things (IoT) services. Lightness and efficiency of a routing protocol are not the only requirements that guarantee success; security assurance also needs to be enforced. This paper proposes a Secure-Fuzzy Energy Aware Routing Protocol (S-FEAR) for WSNs. S-FEAR applies a security model to an existing energy efficient FEAR protocol. As part of this research, the S-FEAR protocol has been analyzed in terms of the communication and processing costs associated with building and applying this model, regardless of the security techniques used. Moreover, the Qualnet network simulator was used to implement both FEAR and S-FEAR after carefully selecting the following security techniques to achieve both authentication and data integrity: the Cipher Block Chaining-Message Authentication Code (CBC-MAC) and the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). The performance of both protocols was assessed in terms of complexity and energy consumption. The results reveal that achieving authentication and data integrity successfully excluded all attackers from the network topology regardless of the percentage of attackers. Consequently, the constructed topology is secure and thus, safe data transmission over the network is ensured. Simulation results show that using CBC-MAC for example, costs 0.00064% of network energy while ECDSA costs about 0.0091%. On the other hand, attacks cost the network about 4.7 times the cost of applying these techniques.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.348-352
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• 2009

Over the last decade, the incidence of overweight and obesity has nearly doubled in many countries and is considered a pandemic. Obesity was identified as a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease as the same level as smoking and diabetes. Visceral fat is considered one of the key contributors to outcome and certain ethnic groups such as Asians seem to be more affected than others. Weight reduction through lifestyle changes was found to be impactful to improve overall health, but weight loss and maintenance thereof is limited and difficult to sustain. Surgical intervention demonstrated a greater weight loss in the severely obese and was associated with improved all-cause mortality. Despite numerous pharmacological targets and a high medical need, only few drugs have been successfully developed. Earlier studies with amphetamine-derived compounds showed significant weight loss but their critical safety profiles led to market withdrawals and disappointment. More recent compounds; orlistat - a lipase inhibitor, rimonabant - a cannaboid-1-receptor antagonist, and sibutramine - a combined serotonin/norepinephrine re-uptake inhibitor, all demonstrated similar significant efficacy; however, they carry specific safety profiles making them unsuitable for every patient. The main limitation of pharmacotherapy is the absence of clear benefit-risk assessments through outcome studies. Such a study - the SCOUT trial - was designed to compare sibutramine versus placebo and the effect on morbidity and mortality in nearly 10,000 obese patients with additional risk factors. Such studies could provide new scientific evidence for obesity treatment and may support future pharmacological approaches.

• Journal of the Korean housing association
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.101-109
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• 2010

Various environmental problems due to rapid industrialization and urbanization have worsened to such an extent that they threaten the environmental restitution of the globe and become a critical international issue. Korean government has presented the concept of green growth as a new state vision for the next 60 years and is making efforts to solve these environmental problems. Daegu Metropolitan City has faced various environmental problems including overpopulation of the city, traffic pollution, household waste accumulation and the green zone problem because of the increase of urbanization over the last few decades. As such urbanization continues, the quality of residential environments is rapidly deteriorating and the intensive use of the land leads to an increase of building area, raising the temperatures of cities. There have therefore been demands for healthy, pleasant and satisfying residential environments and for the improvement of existing residential environments, and this demand has been fully recognized by society. Nevertheless, current residential complex developments concentrate only on raising the efficiency of land use. In related laws of the past (Daegu Metropolitan City, Urban Planning Municipal Ordinance as of October 10, 2003) an attempt was made to impose a standard to segmentalize the building-to-land ratio, floor area ratio and regulations of number of floors vertically. However, these laws have now been abolished and the regulations are being eased. The purpose of this study was to analyze the characteristics of the floating wind before and after the vertical segmentation of residential areas (Daegu Metropolitan City, Urban Planning Municipal Ordinance as of October 10, 2003) by using KLAM_21, a model that enables analysis and prediction of the flow and generation of cold wind. The purpose is also to present a plan to improve the quality of residential areas when developing a building lot and redeveloping housing areas.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.697-707
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• 2019

This review paper deals with materials, classification, and a current article investigation on smart textile sensors for wearable vital signs monitoring (WVSM). Smart textile sensors can lose electrical conductivity during vital signs monitoring when applying them to clothing. Because they should have to endure severe conditions (bending, folding, and distortion) when wearing. Imparting electrical conductivity for application is a critical consideration when manufacturing smart textile sensors. Smart textile sensors fabricate by utilizing electro-conductive materials such as metals, allotrope of carbon, and intrinsically conductive polymers (ICPs). It classifies as performance level, fabric structure, intrinsic/extrinsic modification, and sensing mechanism. The classification of smart textile sensors by sensing mechanism includes pressure/force sensors, strain sensors, electrodes, optical sensors, biosensors, and temperature/humidity sensors. In the previous study, pressure/force sensors perform well despite the small capacitance changes of 1-2 pF. Strain sensors work reliably at 1 ㏀/cm or lower. Electrodes require an electrical resistance of less than 10 Ω/cm. Optical sensors using plastic optical fibers (POF) coupled with light sources need light in-coupling efficiency values that are over 40%. Biosensors can quantify by wicking rate and/or colorimetry as the reactivity between the bioreceptor and transducer. Temperature/humidity sensors require actuating triggers that show the flap opening of shape memory polymer or with a color-changing time of thermochromic pigment lower than 17 seconds.

• BMB Reports
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.292-297
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• 2004

The current model for the mechanism of action of the Bacillus thuringiensis Cry $\delta$-endotoxins involves the penetration of the ${\alpha}4-{\alpha}5$ hairpin into the target midgut epithelial cell membranes, followed by pore formation. In this study, PCR-based mutagenesis was employed to identify a critical residue within the ${\alpha}4-{\alpha}5$ loop of the 130-kDa Cry4A mosquito-larvicidal protein. Alanine-substitutions of two charged (Asp-198 and Asp-200) and four polar (Asn-190, Asn-195, Tyr-201 and Tyr-202) residues in the ${\alpha}4-{\alpha}5$ loop were performed. Like the wild-type, all of the mutant toxins were over-expressed as inclusion bodies in Escherichia coli. When E. coli cells expressing each mutant toxin were bioassayed against Aedes aegypti larvae, larvicidal activity was completely abolished for the substitution of only Tyr-202, while replacements at the other positions still retained a high level of toxicity. Further replacement of Tyr-202 with an aromatic side chain, phenylalanine, did not affect the toxicity. These results revealed a crucial role in toxin activity for the conserved aromatic residue at the 202 position within the ${\alpha}4-{\alpha}5$ loop of the Cry4A toxin.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.262-268
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• 2010

Antibodies are powerful and versatile tools to play a critical role in the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases. Their application has been enhanced significantly with the advanced recombinant DNA and heterologonous expression technologies, allowing to produce immunotherapeutic proteins with improved biofunctional properties. However, with currently available technologies, mammalian cell-based therapeutic antibody production, as an alternative for production in humans and animals, is often not plentiful for passive immunotherapeutics in treatment of many diseases. Recently, plant expression systems for therapeutic antibodies have become well-established. Thus, plants have been considered to provide an attractive alternative production system for therapeutic antibodies, as plants have several advantages such as the lack of human pathogens, and low cost of upstream production and flexible scale-up of highly valuable recombinant glycoproteins. Recent advances in modification of posttranslational processing for human-like glycosylation in transgenic plants will make it possible that plant can become a suitable protein expression system over the animal cellbased current production system. This review will discuss recent advances in plant expression technology and issues for their application to therapeutic antibody production.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.73-89
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• 2017

This research aimed to identify the characteristics of outdoor apparel market for new seniors. To achieve this goal, influence of new seniors' lifestyle and apparel purchase criteria of design preferences of outdoor apparel products were investigated. An online-survey was conducted targeting fifties who have bought outdoor apparel within one year. The collected data were carried out for factor analysis, independent sample T-test, and regression analysis by using SPSS 22.0. Results showed that new seniors' lifestyles were composed of appearance-orientation, well-being diet, well-being exercise, self-development, and challenge-orientation. Purchase criteria of outdoor apparels were factored out as practical, aesthetic, and social. Appearance -orientation and self-development affect aesthetic and social factors. Well-being diet influences all factors of purchase criteria. Challenge -orientation has effect only on social factor. Women favored round-and V-neckline more than men did as well as preferred half and 3/4 long for sleeve. Customers who value practical purchase criteria preferred half-sleeve, zipper, and button-closure designs. In contrast, customers who have aesthetic purchase criteria like round/V-neckline and cap sleeve. Social factor affected high neckline and vivid-tone color preference significantly. As outdoor design for new senior it is critical to introduce differentiation of outdoor brand with various designs combining functionalities of outdoor activities and style looking young and dandy, which is highlighted as trendy and casual, over current outdoor apparels' unified design.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.167-176
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• 2020

The automated fish feed system currently used in Korea supplies a certain amounts of feed to water tanks at a certain time. This automated system can reduce the labor cost of managing aqua farms, but it is very difficult to control intelligently and appropriately the amount of expensive feed that is critical to aqua farm productivity. In this paper, we propose the FIIFF Inference Model( Fuzzy Inference-based Intelligent Fish Feeding Model) that can solves the problems of these existing automatic fish feeding devices and maximizes the efficiency of feed supply while properly maintaining the growth rate of fish in aqua farms. The proposed FIIFF inference model has the advantage of being able to control feed amounts appropriately since it computes the amount of feed using the current water environments and fish activity state of the aqua farms. The result of the feed amount yield experiment with the proposed FIIFF Inference Model represents the effect of saving 14.8% over the eight months of actual feed amount in the aqua farm.