• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.201-208
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• 2017

BVDV causes significant infections in ruminants, resulting in reproductive disorders, diarrhea, reduced milk production and enormous damage to farms. In particular, identification and culling of persistent infectious calf is an important task to eliminate infectious nidus in cattle households. However, studies on physiological characteristics of PI bull are still insufficient to understand reproductive effects of BVDV. In this study, one PI bull was confirmed in herd and complete blood analysis was performed. The lymphocyte count of PI at age 4 was below the normal range and the number of WBCs was also in the lower level of normal range in blood. The sperm number produced by PI male becomes lower and the viability of fresh sperm comes to poor with ages (P<0.05). The sperm abnormality was also increased, especially in nuclear vacuoles of head and droplets of midpeace (P<0.05). The PI male becomes infertile due to poor semen quality at age 4. With these results, we concluded that BVDV in PI bull cause decreased sperm cell and abnormality in semen so causes infertility. However, it appears that BVDV could not be transmitted by indirect contact of PI bull, because there was no evidence of BVDV infection in the herd, when regular vaccination program was applied.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.26-33
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• 1984

This study was undertaken to investigate the general attitude toward science and scientific inquiry behavior of underachiever at the junior high school level. In this study, underachiever was defined as the one who is below the minimum acceptable performance level because of his/her deficiencies in prerequisites but who has the capability to reach the required mastery level in normal classroom. For the identification of the underachiever, IQ test and achievement test in science which were developed by the investigators were used. The attitude test which was to measure the general attitude toward science and scientific inquiry behaviors of the underachiever was also developed by the investigators. The tests were given to 250 1st grade junior high school students in one experimental school. Out of 250, 55 underachievers were identified. For the study, 55 underachievers with 57 normal students were compared. The findings of this study showed that there were significant differencies between underachievers and normal students in both attitude toward science and scientific inquiry behavior. They can be summarized as follows; 1. Awareness on science by underachievers was minimal compared to normal students. 2. Compared to normal students, there was a tendency by underachievers to think the influence of science on their real life is remote. 3. Underaschievers were less positive, less voluntary and were less persistent in science activities than normal students. 4. Underachievers were less interested in science than normal students. These findings showed us that there were significant relation between the attitude and achievement level. This suggests that fostering attitude toward science and scientific inquiry behavior is needed for the improvement of achievement level of underachievers.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.16
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• pp.7327-7330
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• 2015

Background: Essential thrombocythemia (ET) is a clonal hemopoietic stem cell myeloproliferative neoplasm characterized by persistent thrombocytosis along with megakaryocytic hyperplasia. In the last decade following the identification of an acquired JAK2 V617F mutation, there has been acceleration in our understanding of this disease. The rational of this study was to determine the mutational profile of JAK2 V617F in Pakistan patients with ET. Materials and Methods: In this retrospective cross sectional study, 21 patients with ET were enrolled from January 2011 to December 2014. Patients were diagnosed based on WHO criteria for essential thrombocythemia. Complete blood count was done on an automated hematology analyzer, while JAK2 V617F expression was evaluated by polymerase chain reaction. Results: The mean age was $56.7{\pm}19.0$ years (range 18-87) and the male to female ratio was 1:1.1. The frequency of JAK2 V617F positivity in our ET patients was found to be 61.9%. The mean hemoglobin was $11.7{\pm}2.4$ g/dl with a total leukocyte count of $13.3{\pm}8.1{\times}109/l$ and a platelet count of $1188{\pm}522{\times}109/l$. Positive correlations for JAK2 V617F mutation were established with high TLC count and raised LDH (P<0.05). No correlation of JAK2 V617F could be established with age and gender (P>0.05). Conclusions: JAK2 V617F mutation frequency in our ET patients was similar to those reported previously. Screening for the mutation in all suspected essential thrombocythemia cases could be beneficial in differentiating patients with reactive and clonal thrombocytosis.

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.113-119
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• 2009

Benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) is a persistent environmental contaminant and is present in tobacco smoke. BaP is considered a major contributor of cardiovascular disease. While the activation of endothelial cells by stimuli including tobacco smoke and air pollution contributes importantly to cardiovascular disease, the nature of BaP's mechanism is unclear. In this study, gene expression profiles were investigated in BaPtreated human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). Various atherosclerosis related genes could be up- and down-regulated more than 2-fold by BaP, and mRNA levels of atherosclerosis related genes encoding apolipoproteinC III, TLR 2, ICAM 1 and exportin 4 were significantly increased by BaP. Our data suggest that BaP-mediated changes in gene expression contribute to the progression of cardiovascular disease.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.161-166
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• 1997

HIV-1 Rev protein plays an important role in regulating the expression of viral structural proteins. It allows the nuclear export and accumulation of unspliced and partially spliced viral mRNA in the cytoplasm. The Rev-responsive element RNA, present in the env gene, forms a higly ordered RNA secondary structure and is required for the Rev-mediated mRNA export. For this process to complete factor(s) are strongly suggested. From our experiments of electrophoretic mobility shift, UV-crosslinking and SDS/PAGE, RRE RNA was found to be recognized to several nuclear factors such as 36/37, 56, 41. 76, 150 kD proteins in the order of reactivity. Among them, 36/37 and 56 kD proteins are more reactive upon a brief UV treatment (5 min) and more persistent in the presence of high amount of nonspecific competitor, heparin. Certain nuclear protein9s) seemed to recognize the RRE RNA structure in competition with Rev to gel mobility shift assay.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.6_2
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• pp.1155-1163
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• 2018

Recently, much attention has been focused on the change and role of the Arctic region due to climate change. Studies using various platforms are being conducted in the polar regions. Among them, monitoring of Arctic cryosphere information using remote sensing is the most important observational role of various scientific activities. This special issue introduces several studies on polar exploration monitoring in polar research. We hope that this special issue contributes to the sharing of information on the role of polar exploration in remote areas, as well as the identification of the current status of domestic polar exploration and remote environmental exploration. We are also looking forward to the efforts of Korean remote sensing experts to find out the persistent polar exploration field and to increase national support.

• Journal of Gynecologic Oncology
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.93.1-93.11
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• 2018

The introduction of checkpoint inhibitors revolutionized immuno-oncology. The efficacy of traditional immunotherapeutics, like vaccines and immunostimulants was very limited due to persistent immune-escape strategies of cancer cells. Checkpoint inhibitors target these escape mechanisms and re-direct the immune system to anti-tumor toxicity. Phenomenal results have been reported in entities like melanoma, where no other therapy was able to demonstrate survival benefit, before the introduction of immunotherapeutics. The first experience in ovarian cancer (OC) was reported for nivolumab, a fully human anti-programmed cell death protein 1 (PD1) antibody, in 2015. While the data are extraordinary for a mono-immunotherapeutic agent and very promising, they do not match up to the revolutionary results in entities like melanoma. The key to exceptional treatment response in OC, could be the identification of the most immunogenic patients. We hypothyse that BRCA mutation could be a predictor of improved response in OC. The underlying DNA-repair-deficiancy should result in increased immunogenicity because of higher mutational load and more neoantigen presentation. This hypothesis was not tested to date and should be subject to future trials. The present article gives an overview of the immunologic background of checkpoint inhibition (CI). It presents current data on nivolumab and other checkpoint-inhibitors in solid tumors and OC specifically and depicts important topics in the management of this novel substance group, such as side effect control, diagnostic PD-1/programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression assessment and management of pseudoprogression.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.287-295
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• 2022

Citrus tristeza virus (CTV) is efficiently transmitted in a semi-persistent manner by the brown citrus aphid (Toxoptera citricida (Kirkaldy)). Currently, the most sensitive method for detecting plant viruses in insect vectors is reverse-transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). In this study, the elongation factor-1 alpha (EF-1α) gene and acidic p0 ribosomal protein (RPAP0) gene were confirmed to be suitable reference genes for RT-qPCR normalization in viruliferous T. citricida aphids using the geNorm, NormFinder, and BestKeeper tools. Then the relative CTV titer in aphids (T. citricida) at different post-acquisition feeding times on healthy plants was quantified by RT-qPCR using EF-1α and RPAP0 as reference genes. The relative CTV titer retained in the aphids gradually decreased with increasing feeding time. During the first 0.5 h of feeding time on healthy plants, the remaining CTV titer in aphids showed about 80% rapid loss for the highly transmissible isolate CT11A and 40% loss for the poorly transmissible isolate CTLJ. The relative CTV titer in aphids during more than 12 h post-acquisition times for CT11A was significantly lower than at the other feeding times, which is similar to the trend found for CTLJ. To our knowledge, this is the first report about the relative titer variation of CTV remaining in T. citricida at different post-acquisition feeding times on healthy plants.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.323-333
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• 2000

Objectives : Chronic HBsAg carriers are the principal source of infection for other susceptible people, and are themselves at high risk of developing serious liver diseases. In Korea, it has been estimated that 65-75% of the HBsAg positives remained as persistent carriers. Additionally, familial clustering of MBV infection has frequently been observed among carriers. Some would become progressive, chronic hepatitis patients, and others would not. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between various factors, such as the duration of infection, type of virus, mutation of precore/core region in HBV, major histocompatibility class-I, and developing chronic liver diseases among familial HBV carriers. Methods : Chronic carrier status was identified by repeated serological tests for HBsAg at intervals of six months or more. A familial chronic carrier was defined when the disease was observed in a family member over two generations. Two families were recruited, among which a total of 20 chronic HBsAg carriers(11 carriers in No.1, and 9 in No.2 family) were identified. Data on the general characteristics and liver disease status were collected. Identification of the HBV-DNA was successful only for 13 subjects among the 20 carriers. Analysis of viral DNA in terms of subtype, pre-core and core region mutations was carried out. The type of major histocompatibility class-1 for the 13 subjects was also analysed. Results & Conclusions : Seven of 10 chronic HBV carriers of the 1st generation and one of 10 of the 2nd generation were clinical patients with chronic hepatitis, the others, three of the 1 st and nine of the 2nd generation, were asymptomatic carriers. This data indicates that the duration of HBV carriage is one of the major factors for disease severity. The subtype of HBsAg analysed using MBV-DNA identified in 13 carriers were adr, and the pattern of precore nonsense mutation in HBV-DNA was identical among family members, which meads that the same virus strains were transmitted between the family members. The association between the precore or core mutations in HBV-DNA and the disease severity was not observed. While it was suggested that a specific type of MHC class-I may be related to disease progression.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.9
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• pp.5441-5447
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• 2013

Purpose: To demonstrate the value of sequential determinations of pelvic drainage in the identification of increased risk of anastomotic leakage (AL) after anterior resection for rectal cancer with a double stapling technique. Patients and Methods: Between January 2004 and December 2011, data for the daily postoperative pH of pelvic drainage fluid in 753 consecutive patients with rectal cancer who initially underwent anterior resection with a double stapling technique were reviewed. All patients experienced a total mesorectal excision. Patients with anastomotic leakage (Group AL, n=57) were compared to patients without leakage (Group nAL, n=696). Patients with perioperatively abdominopelvic implants that were likely to affect pH value (determined at $25^{\circ}C$) other than leakage were excluded. Mean postoperative values were compared. Results: Anastomotic leakage was noted in 57 (7.6%) of 753 patients with rectal cancer. The diagnosis of AL was made between the $6^{th}$ and $12^{th}$ postoperative day (POD; mean $8^{th}$ POD). There was no significance of the daily average values of pH on POD1 & 2 in group AL while a significantly sharp declining mean pH value reached its diagnostic point of AL (p<0.001) on POD3. A cut-off value of 6.978 on the $3^{rd}$ POD maximized the sensitivity (98.7.0%) and specificity (94.7%) in assessing the risk of leakage. Conclusion: According to these results, an early and persistent declining of pH value of pelvic drainage fluid after rectal surgery with anastomosis, is a marker of AL. A cut-off value of 6.798 determined at $25^{\circ}C$ on POD3 maximizes sensitivity and specificity.