• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.53-77
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• 2013

As advertising and promotions are categorized as operating expenses, managers tend to reduce marketing budget to improve their short term profitability. Gauging the value and accountability of marketing spending is therefore considered as a major research priority in marketing. To respond this call, recent studies have documented that financial market reacts positively to a firm's marketing activity or marketing related outcomes such as brand equity and customer satisfaction. However, prior studies focus on the relation of marketing variable and financial market variables. This study suggests a channel about how marketing activity increases firm valuation. Specifically, we propose that a firm's marketing activity increases the level of the firm's product market information and thereby the dispersion in financial analysts' earnings forecasts decreases. With less uncertainty about the firm's future prospect, the firm's managers and shareholders have less information asymmetry, which reduces the firm's cost of capital and thereby increases the valuation of the firm. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to examine how informational benefits can mediate the effect of marketing activity on firm value. To test whether marketing activity contributes to increase in firm value by mitigating information asymmetry, this study employs a longitudinal data which contains 12,824 firm-year observations with 2,337 distinct firms from 1981 to 2006. Firm value is measured by Tobin's Q and one-year-ahead buy-and-hold abnormal return (BHAR). Following prior literature, dispersion in analysts' earnings forecasts is used as a proxy for the information gap between management and shareholders. For model specification, to identify mediating effect, the three-step regression approach is adopted. All models are estimated using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods to test the statistical significance of the mediating effect. The analysis shows that marketing intensity has a significant negative relationship with dispersion in analysts' earnings forecasts. After including the mediator variable about analyst dispersion, the effect of marketing intensity on firm value drops from 1.199 (p < .01) to 1.130 (p < .01) in Tobin's Q model and the same effect drops from .192 (p < .01) to .188 (p < .01) in BHAR model. The results suggest that analysts' forecast dispersion partially accounts for the positive effect of marketing on firm valuation. Additionally, the same analysis was conducted with an alternative dependent variable (forecast accuracy) and a marketing metric (advertising intensity). The analysis supports the robustness of the main results. In sum, the results provide empirical evidence that marketing activity can increase shareholder value by mitigating problem of information asymmetry in the capital market. The findings have important implications for managers. First, managers should be cognizant of the role of marketing activity in providing information to the financial market as well as to the consumer market. Thus, managers should take into account investors' reaction when they design marketing communication messages for reducing the cost of capital. Second, this study shows a channel on how marketing creates shareholder value and highlights the accountability of marketing. In addition to the direct impact of marketing on firm value, an indirect channel by reducing information asymmetry should be considered. Potentially, marketing managers can justify their spending from the perspective of increasing long-term shareholder value.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.61 no.4
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• pp.576-583
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• 2023

This study aimed to investigate the impact of enhancing the electrode conductivity and mitigating the production of hydrogen peroxide - a by-product arising from lactate oxidation - on the performance of lactate electrodes. The electrical conductivity of the electrode was improved by modifying the surface of carbon paper with single-walled carbon nanotubes. Catalase was introduced to effectively eliminate the hydrogen peroxide produced during the lactate oxidation reaction. The carbon paper electrode, with simultaneous immobilization of both lactate oxidase and catalase, yielded a current 1.7 times greater than the electrode where only lactate oxidase was immobilized. The electrode in which lactate oxidase and catalase were co-immobilized on the surface of carbon paper modified with single-walled carbon nanotubes, produced a current of 171 µA, which was more than twice as much current as the carbon paper with only lactate oxidase immobilized. The optimized electrode showed a linear response up to lactate concentration of 20 mM, confirming that it can be used as a sensor electrode.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.167-176
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of a visual-analogical learning model based on theoretical research on visual thinking and analogical learning. To examine the effect of visual-analogical learning, both an experimental group and a control group were selected from 6th graders at H elementary school in Yeonsugu, Incheon and tested on creativity and science achievement Results of this study showed as that visual-analogical learning produced statistically significant differences for changes in student creativity, For the individual components of creativity; openness, fluency, and originality, results showed greater increases for the experimental group, whereas flexibility showed only statistically significant differences. In regards to science achievement, the experimental group showed a bigger increase than the control group, but these findings were statistically nonsignificant For changes to creativity in the group divided according to creativity score, this instructional method was more effective in the middle and lower group than the higher group, An investigation of attitude, revealed a positive student reaction students felt these science classes to be more interesting than previous science classes. Moreover, students wanted to create new innovative product themselves.

• International Journal of Stem Cells
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.326-341
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• 2023

Background and Objectives: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative disease that leads to the progressive destruction of articular cartilage. Current clinical therapeutic strategies are moderately effective at relieving OA-associated pain but cannot induce chondrocyte differentiation or achieve cartilage regeneration. We investigated the ability of wedelolactone, a biologically active natural product that occurs in Eclipta alba (false daisy), to promote chondrogenic differentiation. Methods and Results: Real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, immunohistochemical staining, and immunofluorescence staining assays were used to evaluate the effects of wedelolactone on the chondrogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). RNA sequencing, microRNA (miRNA) sequencing, and isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation analyses were performed to explore the mechanism by which wedelolactone promotes the chondrogenic differentiation of MSCs. We found that wedelolactone facilitates the chondrogenic differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived MSCs and rat bone-marrow MSCs. Moreover, the forkhead box O (FOXO) signaling pathway was upregulated by wedelolactone during chondrogenic differentiation, and a FOXO1 inhibitor attenuated the effect of wedelolactone on chondrocyte differentiation. We determined that wedelolactone reduces enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2)-mediated histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation of the promoter region of FOXO1 to upregulate its transcription. Additionally, we found that wedelolactone represses miR-1271-5p expression, and that miR-1271-5p post-transcriptionally suppresses the expression of FOXO1 that is dependent on the binding of miR-1271-5p to the FOXO1 3'-untranscribed region. Conclusions: These results indicate that wedelolactone suppresses the activity of EZH2 to facilitate the chondrogenic differentiation of MSCs by activating the FOXO1 signaling pathway. Wedelolactone may therefore improve cartilage regeneration in diseases characterized by inflammatory tissue destruction, such as OA.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.1278-1288
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• 2023

Hesperidin(HD) is a a potent antioxidant flavonoid found in various plants. In this study, the recovery of cell death, anti-inflammatory, and melanogenesis inhibitory activities of Hesperidin glucoside (HDG), a water-soluble HD, were compared with HD in vitro. HDG was prepared by an enzymatic glycosylation reaction from HD, and the water solubility of HDG was increased by more than 20,000 times compared to HD. Cell toxicity was significantly lower for HDG than HD. Both HD and HDG increase cell viability in UV damaged HaCaT cells. HD and HDG also reduced an inflammatory mediator such as nitric oxide (NO), and pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in the cells irradiated with UV, and the reducing effect of HDG was slightly higher than that of HD. In the melanogenesis inhibition assay using the Melanoma B16F10 cells, HDG showed a superior inhibitory activity compared to HD. In conclusion, HDG, a glucosylated product of HD with high water solubility showed more than equal ability of cell recovery and anti-inflammatory potential, and higher melanogenesis inhibition activity compared to HD in vitro.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.43-51
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• 2024

[⁶⁸Ga]Ga-FAPI-04 is a promising radiopharmaceutical that binds specifically to fibroblast activation protein, which is overexpressed in more than 90% of malignant epithelial tumors but not in normal healthy tissue. This study aimed to develop an efficient method for producing ⁶⁸Ga-labelled FAPI-04 using a cassette-based automated synthesizer. [⁶⁸Ga]GaCl₃ was eluted from an Eckert & Ziegler Medical germanium-68/gallium-68 generator using 2.5 mL of 0.1 M HCl. The synthesis of the [⁶⁸Ga]Ga-FAPI-04 was performed using different concentrations of HEPES (1~2.5 M; 4-(2-hydroxyethyl) piperazine-1-ethanesulfonic acid) in 3~10 minutes; amounts of FAPI-04 precursor (5~50 ㎍) and reaction temperature (25℃~100℃) were optimized on the BIKBox^® synthesizer. The labeling efficiency of [⁶⁸Ga]Ga-FAPI-04 was greater than 96% (decay corrected) using 25 ㎍ FAPI-04 synthesized in 10 minutes at 100℃ in 2 M HEPES (pH 3.85), and its stability was greater than 99% at 6 hours. The total synthesis time of [⁶⁸Ga]Ga-FAPI-04 was 32.4 minutes, and the product met all quality control criteria. In this study, we developed and optimized a labeling method using [⁶⁸Ga]Ga-FAPI-04 using a cassette-based synthesizer. The devised method is expected to be useful for supplying [⁶⁸Ga]Ga-FAPI-04 for diagnosis in clinical practice.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.2174-2181
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• 2024

In this work, Sr_0.5Zr₂(PO₄)₃-SmPO₄ dual-phase ceramics were prepared via in-situ synthesis process, which is a potential novel nuclear waste form for immobilizing the fission product ⁹⁰Sr and the trivalent actinide radionuclides in high-level waste (HLW). And the preparation technology, microstructure and chemical durability of Sr_0.5Zr₂(PO₄)₃-SmPO₄ dual-phase ceramics were systematically investigated. It was confirmed that the optimum microwave-sintering temperature (1050 ℃) and heat preservation time (1.5 h) is estimated by Archimedes method. Besides, the as-prepared samples that were consisted of strontium zirconium phosphate (SrZP) and monazite showed the remarkable densification, in which the two crystalline phases were intermixed well with each other. Meanwhile, the formation and evolution of microstructure was also consistent with the variational rule of Sr_0.5Zr₂(PO₄)₃/SmPO₄, indicating that there was not mutual reaction during the in-situ synthesis process. The PCT and MCC-1 experimental results demonstrated that the elemental normalized leaching rates of tested samples are all at a low level (LR_Sr ~10^-4 g·m^-2·d^-1, LR_Zr ~10^-8-10^-6 g·m^-2·d^-1, LR_Sm ~10^-7-10^-5 g·m^-2·d^-1 and LR_P ~10^-4 g·m^-2·d^-1). It is indicated that Sr_0.5Zr₂(PO₄)₃-SmPO₄ dual-phase ceramics possesses excellent chemical durability for HLW disposal.

• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.219-228
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• 2024

Pepper anthracnose, caused by Colletotrichum spp., leads to a decrease in the quantity of pepper fruit production. Molecular diagnosis is crucial for rapid identification of pathogens and determination of fungicide resistance. However, the traditional process of isolating the pathogen, extracting genomic DNA, and analyzing the gene sequence is time-consuming, which delays rapid diagnosis. In this study, we introduced a method using conidia of Colletotrichum spp. instead of genomic DNA, eliminating the need for DNA extraction or special processing for diagnosis. To elucidate this method, sensitivity was assessed through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) tests using internal transcribed spacer-based primer pairs. Both PCR and qPCR tests showed that detection is feasible with just one conidia, with over 1,000 conidia yielding results comparable to approximately 1 pg of genomic DNA. For amplifying the cytochrome b gene for quinone-outside inhibitor fungicide susceptibility testing, detection from a single conidium is achievable, but a stable PCR product is obtained by increasing the number of cycles to 35. Additionally, the addition of 10% grinding fresh chili pepper paste to V8-Juicea gar medium, which is known for inducing conidia rapidly from the isolates, resulted in 3.2 to 6.0 times more conidia compared to the commonly used potato dextrose agar medium, enhancing the potential for swift testing. Taken together, this study presents a direct utilization of pepper anthracnose conidia through PCR or qPCR, offering a valuable technique for amplifying target genes, such as the minimum conidial amount and barcode genes, for molecular identification of anthracnose disease in pepper through PCR and qPCR analysis.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.330-337
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• 2011

In this research, the preparation processes for making a series of $\omega$-mercapto alkylamine 1 and $\omega$-mercapto alkanoic acid 2 useful for studying of the self-assembled monolayer(SAM) are described. The preparation methods of the first goal materials, $\omega$-mercapto alkylamines 1 were carried out as follows: First, $\omega$-phthalimide alkanol 3 was synthesized from commercially available potassium phthalimide derivatives and $\omega$-bromoalkanol in DMF at $80{^{\circ}C}$ via substitution reaction. After refluxing $\omega$-phthalimide alkanol 3 with hydrazine hydrate in ethanol followed by treating with c-HCl, $\omega$-aminoalkanol 4 was obtained in 76-98% yield, accompanied with side-product 5. Bromination of hydroxyl moiety of $\omega$-aminoalkanol 4 using aqueous hydrobromic acid furnished $\omega$-bromoamine 6 in 34-97% yields. Substitution reaction 6 with thiourea in 95% ethanol gave $\omega$-aminoalkanthiuronium 7, which was treated with aqueous strong base and aqueous strong sulfuric acid gave desired products, $\omega$-mercapto alkylamines 1 through overall 5 steps. The second target material, $\omega$-mercapto alkanoic acid 2 was prepared via 2 steps. $\omega$-bromo alkanoic acid was reacted with thiourea to give $\omega$-thiourea alkanoic acid 7 in 69-85%, which was treated with aqueous strong base and strong acid to furnish $\omega$-mercapto alkanoic acid 2 in 50-98%. The fabricated long-chain alkylthiol(LCAT) can be used as linkers to immobilize protein, enzyme and various kinds of biomolecules on the surface of metallic materials(Au, Pt, Ti) by SAM, and can be useful chemical tools for the application study on the surface modification of metallic materials.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.627-635
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• 2019

Cement-asbestos slate is the main asbestos containing material. It is a product made by combining 10~20% of asbestos and cement components. Man- and weathering-induced degradation of the cement-asbestos slates makes them a source of dispersion of asbestos fibres and represents a priority cause of concern. When the asbestos enters the human body, it causes cellular damage or deformation, and is not discharged well in vitro, and has been proven to cause diseases such as lung cancer, asbestos, malignant mesothelioma and pleural thickening. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has designated asbestos as a group 1 carcinogen. Currently, most of these slats are disposed in a designated landfill, but the landfill capacity is approaching its limit, and there is a potential risk of exposure to the external environment even if it is land-filled. Therefore, this study aimed to exam the possibility of detoxification of asbestos-containing slate by using exothermic reaction and heat treatment. Cement-asbestos slate from the asbestos removal site was used for this experiment. Exothermic catalysts such as calcium chloride(CaCl₂), magnesium chloride(MgCl₂), sodium hydroxide(NaOH), sodium silicate(Na₂SiO₃), kaolin[Al₂Si₂O₅(OH)₄)], and talc[Mg₃Si₄O₁₀(OH)₂] were used. Six catalysts were applied to the cement-asbestos slate, respectively and then analyzed using TG-DTA. Based on the TG-DTA results, the heat treatment temperature for cement-asbestos slate transformation was determined at 750℃. XRD, SEM-EDS and TEM-EDS analyses were performed on the samples after the six catalysts applied to the slate and heat-treated at 750℃ for 2 hours. It was confirmed that chrysotile[Mg₃Si₂O₅(OH₅)] in the cement-asbestos slate was transformed into forsterite (Mg₂SiO₄) by catalysts and heat treatment. In addition, the change in the shape of minerals was observed by applying a physical force to the slate and the heat treated slate after coating catalysts. As a result, the chrysotile in the cement-asbestos slate maintained fibrous form, but the cement-asbestos slate after heat treatment of applying catalyst was broken into non-fibrous form. Therefore, this study shows the possibility to safely verify the complete transformation of asbestos minerals in this catalyst- and temperature-induced process.