• Neonatal Medicine
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.7-13
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• 2021

Purpose: To evaluate the risk factors and effects of fluctuations in oxygen saturation on the occurrence and severity of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Methods: From January 1, 2013 to January 31, 2020, 260 patients hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit of Ajou University Hospital were retrospectively analyzed. Results: Sixty-six patients (25%) were diagnosed with ROP; of them 39 required treatment. In the multivariate regression analysis of ROP severity, the odds ratio (OR) of gestational age was 0.32 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.22 to 0.47; P<0.0001). The OR of saturation of peripheral oxygen (SpO₂) fluctuations at the 4th week after birth was 1.02 (95% CI, 1.02 to 1.12; P=0.041). Conclusion: SpO₂ fluctuations in premature infants younger than 30 weeks' gestational age affects ROP severity, especially at the 4th week of life.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.41-61
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• 2010

The Korean government's support towards the establishment of leading research hubs at universities began with the initiation of the Science/ Engineering Research Center in 1990. Such efforts to provide support to research organizations have continued for some twenty years in various forms, which implies that building research hubs was critical in acquiring global leadership in research. However, the effect of such research hub nurturing policies has never been properly evaluated, apart from an assessment of their validity. Therefore, this paper analyzes how major programs to form research groups by providing assistance to joint research by researchers at universities are operated, and the characteristics of such programs through comparative analysis with other programs. There are two major focal points in the analysis: the first is the evaluation of the level of differentiation between Research Organization Support Programs (ROP) and other R&D Programs from an efficiency perspective, and the second is an examination of the extent of systematization of research organizations that exist at universities and impact of Research Organization Support Programs on the activities of participating professors from an effectiveness perspective. The result showed that the ROP were no longer only relevant for the formation and maintenance of research groups. Other R&D Programs are growing increasingly larger in scale and conducted over longer periods of time. Thus, the ROP can no longer be differentiated from other programs in research period and size of funding. An analysis on the effect of ROP demonstrated that all activities by participating professors in organizations that were the beneficiaries of group research assistance were more active compared to their counterparts in organizations that received other research support, but there was little difference in the elements of systematization. This implies that the joint research conducted at universities is not systematized and that it is still research based on individual themes but conducted jointly. In addition, it also means that the ROP is failing to effectively lead the systematization of research. In other words, today, university research organizations are not operated as independent, long-term bodies, but are more relevant as a combination of research units of individual professors.

• Journal of KIISE
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• v.41 no.12
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• pp.1018-1025
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• 2014

An ROP attack creates gadget sequences which consist of existing code snippets in a program, and hijacks the control flow of a program by chaining and executing gadget sequences consecutively. Existing defense schemes have limitations in that they cause high execution overhead, an increase in the binary size overhead, and a low applicability. In this paper, we solve these problems by introducing zero-sum defender, which is a fast and space-efficient mitigation scheme against ROP attacks. We find a fundamental property of gadget execution in which control flow starts in the middle of a function without a call instruction and ends with a return instruction. So, we exploit this property by monitoring whether the execution is abused by ROP attacks. We achieve a very low runtime overhead with a very small increase in the binary size. In our experimental results, we verified that our defense scheme prevents real world ROP attacks, and we showed that there is only a 2% performance overhead and a 1% binary size increase overhead in several benchmarks.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.367-376
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• 2014

Recombinant antigenic proteins of Toxoplasma gondii are alternative source of antigens which are easily obtainable for serodiagnosis of toxoplasmosis. In this study, highly antigenic secretory organellar proteins, dense granular GRA2 and GRA3, rhoptrial ROP2, and micronemal MIC2, were analyzed by bioinformatics approach to express as water-soluble forms of antigenic domains. The transmembrane region and disorder tendency of 4 secretory proteins were predicted to clone the genes into pGEX-4T-1 vector. Recombinant plasmids were transformed into BL21 (DE3) pLysS E. coli, and GST fusion proteins were expressed with IPTG. As a result, GST fusion proteins with $GRA2_{25-105}$, $GRA3_{39-138}$, $ROP2_{324-561}$, and $MIC2_{1-284}$ domains had respectively higher value of IgG avidity. The $rGST-GRA2_{25-105}$ and $rGST-GRA3_{39-138}$ were soluble, while $rGST-ROP2_{324-561}$ and $rGST-MIC2_{1-284}$ were not. $GRA2_{31-71}$, intrinsically unstructured domain (IUD) of GRA2, was used as a linker to enhance the solubility. The $rGST-GRA2_{31-71}-ROP2_{324-561}$, a chimeric protein, appeared to be soluble. Moreover, $rGST-GRA2_{31-71}-MIC2_{1-284}$ was also soluble and had higher IgG avidity comparing to $rGST-MIC2_{1-284}$. These 4 highly expressed and water-soluble recombinant antigenic proteins may be promising candidates to improve the serodiagnosis of toxoplasmosis in addition to the major surface antigen of SAG1.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.205-208
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• 2006

A polymeric film of a biodegradable poly(1,5-dioxepan-2-one) (PDXO) was formed on a gold surface by a combination of the formation of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) presenting hydroxyl groups and the surface-initiated, ring-opening polymerization (SI-ROP) of 1,5-dioxepan-2-one (DXO). The SI-ROP of DXO was achieved by heating a mixture of $Sn(Oct)_2$, DXO, and the SAM-coated substrate in anhydrous toluene at $55^{\circ}C$. The resulting PDXO film was quite uniform. The PDXO film was characterized by polarized infrared external reflectance spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry, atomic force microscopy, ellipsometry, and contact angle goniometry.

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.78-81
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• 2009

In recent years, organometallic polymer containing silane and silole unit has been a topic of interest because of the wide range of optical, electrical and luminescent properties. In previous work, we synthesized functionalsilanebridged[1]ferrocenophane from the reaction of dimethyldichlorosilane[Me2SiCl2] and diphenyldichlorosilane[Ph2SiCl2] and dichloromethylvinylsilane[C3H6SiCl2] with ferrocene$[Fe({\eta}-C5H4)2]$ and n-BuLi. In this work, we have synthesized Poly(ferrocenylsilane) via the Thermal Ring-Opening Polymerization(ROP). characteristics of the poly(ferrocenylsilane) were investigated by gel permeation chromatography(GPC), 1H- and 13C-NMR spectroscopy.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.316-323
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• 1991

We calculated a difference between the YBa$_2Cu _3O_{7-x}$ superconductor (123 system) of critical temperature, 95 K and the YBa$_2Cu_4 O_8$ superconductors (124 system) of critical temperature, 80 K in Y-system superconductors using Extended Huckel Theory (EHT). The valence electron population (VEP), reduced overlap population (ROP) and net charge for the charged cluster models relating to the layer and the chain in 123 and 124 systems were compared. The VEPs of Cu atom in the layer of 123 and 124 systems populated d$_{z^2}$ orbital more than d$_{x^2-y^2}$ orbital, and in the chain of 123 and 124 systems populated d$_{y^2-z^2}$ orbital more than d$_{z^2}$ orbital. The ROP of the Cu(1)-O(1) in the layer of 123 system was larger than the value of the Cu(1)-O(2), but the ROP of the Cu(1)-O(2) in the layer of 124 system was larger than the value of the Cu(1)-O(1). The ROP of Cu(2)-O(4) in the chain of 123 and 124 systems were larger than the value of the Cu(2)-O(3). In 123 system the net charge values of the Cu in the layer was larger than the value of the Cu in the chain. However, in 124 system the net charge value of the Cu in the chain was larger than the value in the layer.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.57 no.5
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• pp.543-547
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• 2019

Toxoplasma gondii can infect humans worldwide, causing serious diseases in pregnant women and immunocompromised individuals. T. gondii rhoptry protein 13 (ROP13) is known as one of the key proteins involved in host cell invasion. In this study, we generated virus-like particles (VLPs) vaccine expressing T. gondii rhoptry ROP13 and investigated VLPs vaccine efficacy in mice. Mice immunized with ROP13 VLPs vaccine elicited significantly higher levels of T. gondii-specific IgG, IgG1, IgG2a, and IgA antibody responses following boost immunization and challenge infection, whereas antibody inductions were insignificant upon prime immunization. Differing immunization routes resulted in differing antibody induction, as intranasal immunization (IN) induced greater antibody responses than intramuscular immunization (IM) after boost and challenge infection. IN immunization induced significantly higher levels of IgG and IgA antibody responses from feces, antibody-secreting cells (ASCs), $CD4^+$ T, $CD8^+$ T cells and germinal center B cell responses in the spleen compared to IM immunization. Compared to IM immunization, IN immunization resulted in significantly reduced cyst counts in the brain as well as lesser body weight loss, which contributed to better protection. All of the mice immunized through either route survived, whereas all na?ve control mice perished. These results indicate that the ROP13 VLPs vaccine could be a potential vaccine candidate against T. gondii infection.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.694-700
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• 2010

Purpose: To assess the validity of individual and combined prognostic effects of severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), brain injury, retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), and parenteral nutrition associated cholestasis(PNAC). Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the medical records of 80 extremely low birthweight (ELBW) infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of the Severance Children's Hospital, and who survived to a postmenstrual age of 36 weeks. We analyzed the relationship between 4 neonatal morbidities (severe BPD, severe brain injury, severe ROP, and severe PNAC) and poor outcome. Poor outcome indicated death after a postmenstrual age of 36 weeks or survival with neurosensory impairment (cerebral palsy, delayed development, hearing loss, or blindness) between 18 and 24 months of corrected age. Results: Each neonatal morbidity correlated with poor outcome on univariate analysis. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that the odds ratios (OR) were 4.9 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.0-22.6; $P$=0.044) for severe BPD, 13.2 (3.0-57.3; $P$<.001) for severe brain injury, 5.3 (1.6-18.1; $P$=0.007) for severe ROP, and 3.4 (0.5-22.7; $P$=0.215) for severe PNAC. Severe BPD, brain injury, and ROP were significantly correlated with poor outcome, but not severe PNAC. By increasing the morbidity count, the rate of poor outcome was significantly increased (OR 5.2; 95% CI, 2.2-11.9; $P$<.001). In infants free of the above-mentioned morbidities, the rate of poor outcome was 9%, while the corresponding rates in infants with 1, 2, and more than 3 neonatal morbidities were 46%, 69%, and 100%, respectively. Conclusion: In ELBW infants 3 common neonatal mornidifies, severe BPD, brain injury and ROP, strongly predicts the risk of poor outcome.

• Korean Journal of Ophthalmology
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.451-458
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• 2018

Purpose: To investigate the efficacy, safety, and anatomical outcomes associated with intravitreal anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) treatment of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Methods: We performed a retrospective review of intravitreal anti-VEGF (bevacizumab or ranibizumab) treatment of 153 eyes (83 infants) diagnosed with ROP at two tertiary hospitals from June 2011 to January 2017. The primary outcome was the rate of recurrence requiring additional treatment; secondary outcomes included incidence of major complications and final refractive error. Results: A total of 101 eyes were treated with bevacizumab, and 52 with ranibizumab. The bevacizumab and ranibizumab groups were characterized by mean birthweights of $941.8{\pm}296.1$ and $1,257.7{\pm}514.5g$, gestational ages at birth of $26.9{\pm}1.9$ and $28.1{\pm}3.2$ weeks, and postmenstrual ages at treatment of $40.4{\pm}2.4$ and $39.2{\pm}2.3$ weeks, respectively. The two groups differed significantly in birthweights and gestational ages at birth, but not in postmenstrual ages at treatment. The mean follow-up duration was $30.9{\pm}18.4$ months for the bevacizumab group, and $13.9{\pm}12.5$ months for ranibizumab. More cases were classified as zone 1 ROP in the ranibizumab group (44.2% vs. 11.9%, p < 0.001). Major surgical interventions included scleral encircling and vitrectomy (one and two eyes, respectively, both in the bevacizumab group). Retinal detachment was noted in one eye treated with bevacizumab. There was no significant difference in the most recent spherical equivalence for the two groups ($+0.10{\pm}3.66$ and $+0.22{\pm}3.00$ diopters for bevacizumab and ranibizumab, respectively). Univariable analysis revealed that only ROP stage influenced the occurrence of major complications (odds ratio, 9.046; p = 0.012). Conclusions: Intravitreal anti-VEGF treatment of ROP with both bevacizumab and ranibizumab achieved stable retinal vascularization with a low rate of complications and recurrence. Ranibizumab achieved similar anatomical outcomes as bevacizumab, without additional risk for major complications.