• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.26 no.2 s.62
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• pp.231-240
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• 2005

Objectives: In order to investigate the efficacy and safety of the newly developed herbal medicine Jetongdan, a placebo­controlled, randomized clinical trial of patients with osteoarthritis of the knee was undertaken. Methods: Data were obtained from 80 patients with OA of the knee. After enrollment, they were asked to answer a disease-specific questionnaire (Western Ontario and McMaster Universities (WOMAC) OA index) and analyzed with the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) in order to evaluate the efficacy of Jetongdan, and analyzed for aspartate transaminase (AST) level, alanine transaminase (ALT) level, blood mea nitrogen (BUN) level, and creatinine (Cr) level in order to evaluate the safety of Jetongdan. Results: The liver function and renal function did not deteriorate after treatment with Jetongdan. Composite WOMAC score and physical function subscale was improved, but pain subscale, stiffness subscale, and ESR were not improved by. This was possibly because the baseline characteristics of the two groups were not homogenized after randomization. Conclusions: Jetongdan could be a promising treatment option for osteoarthritis of the knee. Further study in a larger population with appropriate severity grades is recommended.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.398-405
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• 2020

Nutrient manipulation is a promising strategy for controlling plant diseases in sustainable agriculture. Although many studies have investigated the relationships between certain elements and plant diseases, few have comprehensively explored how differing mineral nutrition levels might affect plant-fungal pathogen interactions, namely plant susceptibility and resistance. Here, we systematically explored the effects of the seven mineral elements that plants require in the greatest amounts for normal development on the susceptibility of soybean plants (Glycine max) to Fusarium oxysporum infection in controlled greenhouse conditions. Nitrogen (N) negligibly affected plant susceptibility to infection in the range 4 to 24 mM for both tested soybean cultivars. At relatively high concentrations, phosphorus (P) increased plant susceptibility to infection, which led to severely reduced shoot and root dry weights. Potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), sulfur (S), and iron (Fe) induced plant resistance to infection as their concentrations were increased. For K and Ca, moderate concentrations had a positive effect on plant resistance to the pathogen, whereas relatively high doses of either element adversely affected plant growth and promoted disease symptoms. Further experiments were conducted, assessing disease suppression by selected combinations of macro-elements and Fe at screened concentrations, i.e., K (9 mM) plus Fe (0.2 mM), and S (4 mM) plus Fe (0.2 mM). The disease index was significantly reduced by the combination of K plus Fe. In conclusion, this systematic investigation of soybean plant responses to F. oxysporum infection provides a solid basis for future environmentally-friendly choices for application in soybean disease control programs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.312-312
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• 2013

GaN based light emitting diodes (LEDs) are important devices that are being used extensively in our daily life. For example, these devices are used in traffic light lamps, outdoor full-color displays and backlight of liquid crystal display panels. To realize high-brightness GaN based LEDs for solid-state lighting applications, the development of p-type ohmic electrodes that have low contact resistivity, high optical transmittance and high refractive index is essential. To this effect, indiumtin oxide (ITO) have been investigated for LEDs. Among the transparent electrodes for LEDs, ITO has been one of the promising electrodes on p-GaN layers owing to its excellent properties in optical, electrical conductivity, substrate adhesion, hardness, and chemical inertness. Sputtering and e-beam evaporation techniques are the most commonly used deposition methods. Commonly, ITO films on p-GaN by sputtering have better transmittance and resistivity than ITO films on p-GaN by e-bam evaporation. However, ITO films on p-GaN by sputtering have higher specific contact resistance, it has been demonstrated that this is due to possible plasma damage on the p-GaN in the sputtering process. In this paper, we have investigated the advanced sputtering using plasma damage-free p-electrode. Prepared the ITO films on the GaN based LEDs by e-beam evaporation, normal sputtering and advanced sputtering. The ITO films on GaN based LEDs by sputtering showed better transmittance and sheets resistance than ITO films on the GaN based LEDs by e-beam evaporation. Finally, fabricated of GaN based LEDs by using advanced sputtering. And compared the electrical properties (measurement by using C-TLM) and structural properties (HR-TEM and FE-SEM) of ITO films on GaN based LEDs produced by e-beam evaporation, normal sputtering and advanced sputtering. As a result, It is expected to form plasma damage free-electrode, and better light output power and break down voltage than LEDs by e-beam evaporation and normal sputter.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.21-31
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• 2008

Objective This study was performed to investigate whether Bee Venom Pharmacopuncture(BVP) could be a more effective modality than Warm Needling(WN) in relieving pain and symptoms of knee osteoarthritis(OA). Design Prospective, randomized and controlled clinical trial. Setting Single center trial in Korea Patients 49 volunteers with knee OA participated in the study. All the participants were screened through an inclusion and exclusion criteria. 33 participants were completed the clinical trial. Intervention The subjects were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group received BVP(n=18), while the other group received WN(n=15). Sixteen sessions of BVP or WN were given at the pain region of the problematic knee for 8 weeks. Primary outcome measure is the Korean translation of Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index scores(Korean WOMAC, KWOMAC). Secondary outcome measure is the physical health scores based on the 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey(SF-36) and Patient Global Assessment(PGA). KWOMAC and SF-36 were measured third (baseline, 4 and 8 weeks). PGA was measured twice(4 and 8 weeks). Results BVP group showed significant decrease compared to WN group in pain, function and total scores of KWOMAC according to the Mann-Whitney U-test. In the PGA, BVP group, compared to WN group, showed a significant increase. Conclusions BVP was more effective in relieving pain of knee OA than WN. These findings suggest that BVP is a promising alternative for treating knee OA.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.1921-1929
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• 2015

The smart substation is the heart of a transmission system, which is particularly emphasized as the most significant composition of smart grids in China. In order to assess the functionality performance of substation technologies, this paper presents methods used to identify the most promising solutions for smart substation design and to evaluate the technical levels of available technologies. The multi-index optimization model is presented to address the issue of smart substation planning. A mathematical model of the planning decision problem is established with multiple objectives consisting of economic, reliability, and green key indices, and many kinds of concerns including physical and environmentally friendly operations are formulated as a set of constraints. With respect to the assessment of the technical level regarding integration of advanced technologies into a substation, a modified grey whitenization weight function is adopted to structure a novel grey clustering method. The proposed grey clustering approach is used to overcome the difficulty of insufficient quantitative assessment capacity for traditional methods. The evaluation of technical effects provides the classification definition for the development phase and the maturity level of the smart substation. The effectiveness of the proposed approaches in planning decision-making and evaluation of construction efforts is demonstrated with case studies involving the actual smart substation projects of Wenchongkou substation in China Southern Power Grid (CSG) and Mengzi substation in State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC).

• Anxiety and mood
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.115-122
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• 2017

Objective : The experiences in close relationships questionnaire-revised (ECR-R) (Fraley, Waller & Brennan, 2000) is a valuable tool for measuring adult attachment, and its Korean version, the ECRR-K (Kim, 2004), is widely used in Korea. However, given its substantial length, this study was aimed to develop and validate a short version of the ECRR-K called the ECRR-K14. Methods : Two hundred and ninety-four medical students participated in this study in 2016. They completed the ECRR-K, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), and the UCLA Loneliness Scale (UCLA-LS). The study authors applied the Rasch rating scale to check each item's model fit and then performed confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) to test the new scale's validity. Results : The authors selected seven items each for the anxiety and avoidance subscales, and the ECRR-K14 showed fair to good internal consistency (Cronbach's ${\alpha}=0.93$ and 0.92 for anxiety and avoidance, respectively). The anxiety subscale showed concurrent validity with the PSS and the RSES while the avoidance subscale showed concurrent validity with the UCLA-LS. The CFAs also demonstrated the validity of the model with a goodness-of-fit index of 0.916. Conclusion : The ECRR-K14 showed excellent reliability and validity and appears to be a promising instrument for measuring the two attachment dimensions in adults.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.287-295
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• 2007

This paper proposes a novel data editing techniques with genetic algorithm (GA) in case-based reasoning (CBR) for the prediction of Korea Stock Price Index (KOSPI). CBR has been widely used in various areas because of its convenience and strength in compelax problem solving. Nonetheless, compared to other machine teaming techniques, CBR has been criticized because of its low prediction accuracy. Generally, in order to obtain successful results from CBR, effective retrieval of useful prior cases for the given problem is essential. However. designing a good matching and retrieval mechanism for CBR system is still a controversial research issue. In this paper, the GA optimizes simultaneously feature weights and a selection task for relevant instances for achieving good matching and retrieval in a CBR system. This study applies the proposed model to stock market analysis. Experimental results show that the GA approach is a promising method for data editing in CBR.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.383-390
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• 2013

Objectives: We evaluated the effects of an allergy control program on children with atopic dermatitis (AD) in five schools located within Gyeonggi-do. Methods: Based on the results of the 12-month prevalence of AD symptoms from an International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) questionnaire of all students (n=2109; 1040 boys, 1069 girls) at five randomly selected schools, 227 students with AD symptoms were screened. Finally, 188 students with greater than 1 on SCORAD (SCORing Atopic Dermatitis) determined by a physician were selected. The allergy control program includes education related to allergic diseases, skin prick tests, and SCORAD evaluation, as well as keeping a daily journal to check the usage of moisturizer at least once a day. To determine the effectiveness of the allergy control program, SCORAD evaluation was performed again six weeks later. Results: The most common symptom for 12-month prevalence was rhinorrhea (33.9%), followed by atopic skin lesions (14.8%) and wheezing (4.0%). The 12-month prevalences of the three allergic diseases were higher for boys than for girls, and a significant difference was found for allergic rhinitis (P<0.001). The mean SCORAD index decreased significantly from 26.1 to 17.5 after the completion of the six-week control program (P<0.01). In particular, these differences were more pronounced for the group which used the daily journal (P<0.001). Conclusions: Our findings indicate that the allergy control program including usage of a daily journal as well as regular monitoring could be a promising tool for preventing and alleviating the symptoms of allergic diseases.

• BMB Reports
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.166-171
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• 2020

A chemical library comprising 2,354 drug-like compounds was screened using a transcription and replication-competent viruslike particle (trVLP) system implementing the whole Ebola virus (EBOV) life cycle. Dose-dependent inhibition of Ebola trVLP replication was induced by 15 hit compounds, which primarily target different types of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Based on the chemical structure, the compounds were divided into three groups, diphenylmethane derivatives, promazine derivatives and chemicals with no conserved skeletons. The third group included sertindole, raloxifene, and ibutamoren showing prominent antiviral effects in cells. They downregulated the expression of viral proteins, including the VP40 matrix protein and the envelope glycoprotein. They also reduced the amount of EBOV-derived tetracistronic minigenome RNA incorporated into progeny trVLPs in the culture supernatant. Particularly, ibutamoren, which is a known agonist of growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR), showed the most promising antiviral activity with a 50% effective concentration of 0.2 μM, a 50% cytotoxic concentration of 42.4 μM, and a selectivity index of 222.8. Here, we suggest a strategy for development of anti-EBOV therapeutics by adopting GHSR agonists as hit compounds.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.8
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• pp.3815-3819
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• 2012

The CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cell (Treg) is a special kind of T cell subset. Studies have showed that Treg cells are involved in a number of physiological processes and pathologic conditions such as autoimmune diseases, transplantation tolerance and cancer. Tregs with unique capacity for immune inhibition can impair anti-tumour immunity and help tumor cells to escape from immune surveillance. The aim of our study was to investigate whether Tregs are involved in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). A BABL/C mouse with HCC in situ model was established to evaluate the Treg existence in carcinoma tissues and the changes of Tregs in spleen using flow cytometry and immunohistochemistry methods. Granzyme B expression in carcinoma tissues was analyzed by immunohistochemistry to investigate the tumor local immune status.The proportion of CD4+CD25+/CD4+ spleen lymphocytes of tumor bearing mice ($18.8%{\pm}1.26%$) was found to be significantly higher than that in normal mice ($9.99%{\pm}1.90%$) (P<0.01 ). Immunohistochemistry of spleen tissue also confirmed that there was an increase in Treg in tumor-bearing mice, while in carcinomas it showed Treg cells to be present in tumor infiltrating lymphocyte areas while Granzyme B was rarely observed. Anti-tumour immunity was suppressed, and this might be associated with the increase of Tregs. Our observations suggest that the CD4+CD25+Treg/CD4+ proportion in spleen lymphocytes can be a sensitive index to evaluate the change of Tregs in hepatocellular carcinoma mice and the Treg may be a promising therapeutic target for cancer.