• Toxicological Research
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.283-290
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• 2017

The host immune system is the first line of host defense, consisting mainly of innate and adaptive immunity. Immunity must be maintained, orchestrated, and harmonized, since overactivation of immune responses can lead to inflammation and autoimmune diseases, while immune deficiency can lead to infectious diseases. We investigated the regulation of innate and adaptive immune cell activation by Artemisia capillaris and its components (ursolic acid, hyperoside, scopoletin, and scopolin). Macrophage phagocytic activity was determined using fluorescently labeled Escherichia coli, as an indicator of innate immune activation. Concanavalin A (ConA)- and lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced splenocyte proliferation was analyzed as surrogate markers for cellular and humoral adaptive immunity, respectively. Neither A. capillaris water extract (WAC) nor ethanol extract (EAC) greatly inhibited macrophage phagocytic activity. In contrast, WAC suppressed ConA- and LPS-induced proliferation of primary mouse splenocytes in a dose-dependent manner. Similarly, EAC inhibited ConA- and LPS-induced splenocyte proliferation. Oral administration of WAC in mice decreased ConA- and LPS-induced splenocyte proliferation, while that of EAC suppressed LPS-induced splenocyte proliferation. Repeated administration of WAC in mice inhibited ConA- and LPS-induced splenocyte proliferation. Ursolic acid, scopoletin, and scopolin reduced ConA- and LPS-induced primary mouse splenocyte proliferation, while hyperoside did not show such activity. These results indicate that A. capillaris and its components, ursolic acid, scopoletin, and scopolin, suppress ConA- and LPS-induced adaptive immune cell activation. The results suggest that A. capillaris is useful as a regulator of adaptive immunity for diseases involving excessive immune response activation.

• The Journal of Information Technology and Database
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.45-63
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• 1996

This paper presents an integrated object-oriented database approach for managing the evolution of products in agile manufacturing environments, Schema evolution modification facilities are provided to support full potential versioning of type definitions. All of the possible versions for a composite product are not explicitly represented to avoid version proliferation. However, valid configurations of any composite products can be provided to comply with customer demands, The attributes of composite products are classified in order to provide well-defined representation scheme for composite products and to be exploited in version control. The attributes are partitioned into composite-related and non composite-related categories. Composite-related attributes consist of subproducts and description ones. Subproducts attributes represent physical constituents of a composite product. Description attributes represent external features, assembling, and correspondence property. Interface attributes are introduced for managing configurability and version propagation. Version derivations due to the changes to the interface attributes are propagated toward the product composition hierarchy, The validity of configurations of composite products is checked by using configurability maps. Instance objects which represent the actual product instances are stored and manipulated in the database in order to support traceability during product life cycle.

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.232-241
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• 2000

Even though we have greater chances to accomplish successful collaborative design by utilizing recent proliferation of networks, current practices do not fully take advantage of the information infrastructure. There are so much data over the networks, but not enough knowledge about the data is available to users. The main objectives of the product data interface system proposed in this paper are to capture more knowledge on managing product data and to provide users effective search capability. We define the metadata model for product data defined in STEP AP 203 and manage the metadata from product data in a repository system. Because we utilize the standard formats such as STEP for product data and RDF for metadata, the proposed approach can be applied to various fields of industries independently on commercial products.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.548-555
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• 2003

Customer satisfaction level is usually measured in terms of price, quality, customization, after-sale-service, product variety etc. Each finn sets up a distinctive production/marketing strategy to gain competitive advantage by prioritizing the customer satisfaction measures. The market differentiation strategy directly results in supply chain performance such as lead time, inventory, customer fill rate and market share. Product proliferation desirable in customization sense often conflicts the economies of scale effect in production side. This paper focuses the relationship between product variety and market share. Specifically, we investigate how introduction of new product affects the current market share, i.e.,) formation of customer preference and provide some insight into the optimal range of product variety.

• Natural Product Sciences
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 1996

Flavonoids are widely distributed polyphenol compounds in plant kingdom and known to possess varieties of biological/pharmacological activities in vitro and in vivo. A search for antiinflammatory/immunoregulatory flavonoids as potential therapeutic agents has been continued, since serious side effects of currently used nonsteroidal and steroidal antiinflammatory drugs limit their long term uses for the inflammatory disorders. In this reserch, various flavonids were isolated and tested for their in vivo antiinflammatory activity and in vitro inhibitory activity of lymphocyte proliferation. Using a mouse ear edema assay, it was found that certain flavones/flavonols possess mild antiinflammatory activity and a C-2,3-double bond might be essential. Isoflavones were less active. These flavonoids inhibited in vitro lymphocyte proliferation, relatively specific for T-cell proliferation $(IC_{50}=1-10\;{\mu}M)$ and the inhibition was reversible. We have also tested several biflavonoid derivatives, since we recently found that biflavones were phospholipase $A_2$ inhibitors. It was demonstrated that biflavones such as ochnaflavone and ginkgetin inhibited lymphocyte proliferation induced by both concanavaline A and lipopolysaccharide. The inhibition was irreversible in contrast to that of flavones/flavonols. And antiinflammatory activity of biflavonoids are discussed.

• Natural Product Sciences
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.123-127
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• 2007

We investigated effect of small black soybean fraction (SBSF) T cell-mediated responses for tumor surveillance and proliferation in leukemia cells in vitro. Each SBSF butanol fraction (SBSFBu) and SBSF chloroform fraction (SBSFCh) was administered p.o. once a day far 21 days in BALB/c mice and then levels of serum cytokines and subpopulation of lymphocytes were measured. Moreover, SBSF fraction was treated into the cultured various cell lines for proliferation in leukemia cell lines, NO production by RAW264.7 cells, and expression of p53 gene in U937 leukemia cells. These results showed that SBSFBu increased levels of serum IL-4but not IL-2 and IFN-${\gamma}$, and increased expression of CD4$^+$ T cells and CD8$^+$ T cells in splenocytes in vivo, while SBSFCh increased levels of serum IL-2 and IFN-${\gamma}$ but decreased IL-4, and increased CD8$^+$ T cells but not CD4$^+$ T cells. Moreover, both of SBSFBu and SBSFCh inhibited proliferation of HL60, U937, and L1210 leukemia cell lines in a dose-dependent manner, up-regulated NO production by RAW264.7 cells in a dose-dependent manner, and enhanced expression of p53 gene in U937 leukemia cells. Our findings indicate that SBSFBu and SBSFCh may enhance T cell-dependent immune responses, and that both of SBSFBu and SBSFCh may inhibit proliferation of leukemia cells by up-regulation of NO production and expression of p53 gene.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.65-72
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• 2018

The purpose of this paper is to understand the influence of country personality dimensions and product involvement on European consumers purchase and visit intentions, considering the Portuguese context. The increasing economic globalisation has resulted in the reducing of trade barriers between nations and the availability of more foreign products and services across borders. Therefore, the place associations of these products and services might be regarded as a potential competitive differentiator in their respective markets. Despite the proliferation of literature devoted to assessing the effects of country-of-origin, the symbolic dimension of a country's image remains understudied. A questionnaire measuring country personality dimensions, product involvement, and consumer's purchase and visit intention was passed on a sample of 335 European consumers. Country personality indeed matters both positively and negatively. Findings show that while assiduousness positively influences consumer's visit intentions, wickedness has a negative influence on consumer's purchase intentions. Findings also reveal that product involvement has a positive significant influence on consumer's purchase and visit intentions. On developing marketing strategies, international marketers and governmental decision-makers should consider product involvement attributes and specific country personality traits to provide the country's products with a competitive edge, as well as to promote the country as a travelling destination.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.159-166
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• 2018

The proliferation of information technologies made it possible to produce information products of different versions at much lower cost comparing to traditional physical products. Thus it is common for information product manufacturers to consider vertically differentiated product line for more profit through improved market coverage. Another salient characteristic of most information product is network externality. Existing researches dealing with vertical differentiation and network externality usually assumed oligopolistic market where vertically differentiated products are provided by competing companies, respectively. Moreover, they analyzed the essentially dynamic characteristic of network externality statically. In this study, different from the previous researches, the vertical differentiation strategy of a monopolistic company under network externality is dynamically analyzed. We used a two-period model to accommodate the dynamic feature of network externality. Based on the two-period model, the profit maximizing solutions are analyzed. The results showed that a monopolistic company has no incentive to differentiate products vertically when the network externality is absent. On the contrary, when the network externality exists, the monopolistic company can derive more profit by vertically differentiating the product line. It is also shown that, for more profit, the monopolistic company should keep the quality difference between the high quality product and the low quality product as greater as possible.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.145-148
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• 2007

Gynura procumbens (Lour.) Merr. has been used in some parts of Southeast Asia as a folk medicine to treat kidney diseases, diabetes mellitus, and hyperlipidemia. The present work was undertaken to prove the mechanisms of G. procumbens in the management of glomerular diseases. We investigated the effect of an aqueous extract of G. procumbens on cell proliferation, DNA synthesis, and the expressions of $TGF-{\beta}1$, PDGF-BB, CDK1, CDK2, and CDK4 in fetal bovine serum-activated human mesangial cells (MCs). The G. procumbens extract inhibited proliferation, DNA synthesis, expressions of PDGF-BB, CDK1, and CDK2 mRNA, and expression of $TGF-{\beta}1$ protein in MCs. The inhibitory effect of G. procumbens on MC proliferation may be mediated by suppression of PDGF-BB and $TGF-{\beta}1$ expressions and the modulation of CDK1 and CDK2 expression. Therefore, G. procumbens shows promise as an adjunct therapy in preventing progressive renal diseases.

• Natural Product Sciences
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.31-37
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• 2023

In this study, we investigated the efficacy of Celtis choseniana Nakai (C. choseniana) as complementary herbal medicine to ameliorate androgenic alopecia (AGA). The effects of C. choseniana on AGA were evaluated using testosterone propionate-induced AGA mouse model and dihydrotestosterone-treated human hair follicle dermal papilla cells. In vivo, C. choseniana treatment deactivated androgen signaling by reducing the concentration of serum dihydrotestosterone level and expressions of 5α-reductase 2 and androgen receptor. Next, C. choseniana treatment increased the hair regrowth rate. Histological studies demonstrated that C. choseniana induced the anagen phase in testosterone propionate-induced AGA mouse model. Cellular proliferation was promoted by C. choseniana treatment via increasing the expression of proliferation factors, such as proliferating cell nuclear antigen and cyclin D1. Furthermore, C. choseniana treatment increased the expression of proteins related to the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. In addition, dickkopf-1, a Wnt inhibitor, was downregulated with C. choseniana treatment. Likewise, C. choseniana treatment promoted cellular proliferation in vitro. This study demonstrated the inhibitory effect of C. choseniana on androgen-induced AGA. Moreover, C. choseniana induced activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling, resulting in prolonged anagen and cellular proliferation. Therefore, we suggest that C. choseniana can be used as a therapeutic agent to alleviate AGA.