• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.147-155
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• 1998

Acupuncture and Radix Astragali aqua-acupuncture stimuli have long been used to cure human diseases. However, it still remains to be unkown on its action mechanism, physiolosical and biochemical aspects. Thus, many attempts were made to show the scientific background covering the above mentioned mechanisms. Most recent studies show that these tests improve blood circulatory system and increase leucocyte counts. In this study, we have applied the acupuncture stimuli to mouse Sinsu(BL-23), which is a stimulative point of oriental medicine, to see if cytokine such as IL-6 can be detected. Mice were treated with lipopolysaccharide(LPS) for inflammation induction, and then reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) using each primer set was performed to trace the amounts of mRNA. The results are summarized as follows ; 1. IL-6 was not temporarily expressed in normal mice 15 min after the acupuncture was pulled out. But, it started to show a feeble expression at 30 min after the removal of acupuncture and it started to reduce at 1h. after the acupuncture was pulled out 2. IL-6 was specifically expressed in LPS-treated mouse 30 min after the acupuncture was pulled out. The transcriptional expressions of LPS-treated mice were more effective than those of normal mice at 30 min after the removal of acupuncture 3. IL-6 was not temporarily expressed in normal mice 15 min after Radix Astragali aqua-acupuncture. But it expressed most highly at 30 min, and the transcriptional expressions of IL-6 was continued to 3 h. 4. IL-6 was not expressed in all the time after Radix Astragali aqua-acupuncture in LPS-treated mice. Therefore, a follow-up of cytokine IL-6 can be used not only a basis of the effect of acupuncture and Radix Astragali aqua-acupuncture but a diagnosis giude through the immunological action of thats. And, it is suggested that cytokine's expression by Acupuncture and Radix Astragali aqua-acupuncture stimulation should be continuously elucidated.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.193-202
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• 2011

Objective: We found previously that $interferon$ $regulatory$ factor ($Irf$)-1 is a germinal vesicle (GV)-selective gene that highly expressed in GV as compared to metaphase II oocytes. To our knowledge, the function of $Irf-1$ in oocytes has yet to be examined. The present study was conducted to determine the relationship between retinoic acid (RA) and RA-mediated expression of $Irf-1$ and the mouse oocyte maturation. Methods: Immature cumulus-oocyte-complexes (COCs) were collected from 17-day-old female mice and cultured $in$ $vitro$ for 16 hours in the presence of varying concentrations of RA (0-10 ${\mu}M$). Rate of oocyte maturation and activation was measured. Gene expression was measured by quantitative real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and cytokine secretion in the medium was measured by Bio-Plex analysis. Apoptosis was analyzed by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay. Results: The rates of oocyte maturation to metaphase II and oocyte activation increased significantly with RA treatment (10 nM-1 ${\mu}M$). With 100 nM RA treatment, lowest level of $Irf-1$ mRNA and cumulus cell's apoptosis was found. Among 23 cytokines measured by Bio-Plex system, the substantial changes in secretion of tumor necrosis factor-${\alpha}$, macrophage inflammatory protein-$1{\beta}$, eotaxin and interleukin-12 (p40) from COCs in response to RA were detected. Conclusion: We concluded that the maturation of oocytes and $Irf-1$ expression are negatively correlated, and RA enhances the developmental competence of mouse immature oocytes $in$ $vitro$ by suppressing apoptosis of cumulus cells. Using a mouse model, results of the present study provide insights into improved culture conditions for $in$ $vitro$ oocyte maturation and relevant cytokine production and secretion in assisted reproductive technology.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.2449-2453
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• 2007

L-[18F]FMAU ([18F]1b) was prepared from the precursor 2-O-[(trifluoromethyl)-sulfonyl]-1,3,5-tri-Obenzoyl- α-L-ribofuranose, by coupling the radioactive fluoro-sugar with the corresponding silylated thymine in 4 steps. The final products, including the α and β anomers, were purified using reverse phase HPLC with an appropriate solvent (5% CH3CN/H2O) at a flow rate of 3.0 mL/min. The total elapsed time of synthesis was about 180-200 min from EOB. The α/β anomeric ratio of the compounds was about 1:9, and the radiochemical purity of the product (β-form) was >98% with decay-corrected yields of 25-35%. All radioactive samples were confirmed using co-injection with pure non-radioactive analogues in every step. In the cellular uptake in vitro test of herpes simplex virus-thymidine kinase (HSV1-TK) gene expressed cells, the percent uptake of injected dose (%ID) of L- and D-FMAU was 37.28 and 65.86, respectively after 240 min incubation. However, the relative uptake (MCA-TK/MCA cellular uptake ratio) of L-FMAU was higher than that of D-FMAU (%ID of L-FMAU, 0.36 and D-FMAU, 0.93 after 240 min incubation in MCA cells). This means that L-FMAU will show better specific HSV1-TK gene expressed cell uptake for selective HSV1-TK gene imaging.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.69 no.1
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• pp.24-30
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• 2010

Background: A novel 2009 influenza A (H1N1) virus emerged and disseminated to all over the world. There are few reports on the clinical characteristics of patients with complications. We describe the clinical features of pneumonia in adult patients hospitalized, who have novel influenza infection. Methods: There were 43 adult patients enrolled into the study with pneumonia of 528 hospitalized patients confirmed influenza A (H1N1) virus infection by real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction testing, between 24 August 2009 and 31 January 2010. The clinical data of patients with pneumonia were collected retrospectively. Results: There were 22 of 43 (51.2%) influenza patients with pneumonia that had higher risk factors for complications. Compared to 28 patients with influenza A (H1N1) viral pneumonia and 15 patients, who had isolated bacteria from cultures, those with mixed viral and bacterial pneumonia were significantly more likely to have unilobar consolidations on chest radiographs (53.3 vs. 10.7%, p<0.01) and higher scores of pneumonia severity index (PSI; 90 [66~100] vs. 53 [28~90], p=0.04). Six patients required mechanical ventilation support in an Intensive Care Unit and were more likely to have dyspnea (83.3 vs. 29.3%, p=0.02) and low levels of $PaO_2$ (48.3 [37.0~70.5] vs 64.0 [60.0~74.5] mm Hg, p=0.02) and high levels of pneumonia severity index (PSI) score (108.0 [74.5~142.8] vs. 56.0 [40.5~91.0], p=0.03). Conclusion: The majority of pneumonia patients infected with novel influenza improved. Chest radiographic findings of unilobar consolidations suggest that mixed pneumonia is more likely. Initial dyspnea, hypoxemia, and high levels of PSI score are associated with undergoing mechanical ventilation support.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.780-787
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• 2005

Many researches and validations for the complexity metrics of the object-oriented systems have been studied. Most of them are aimed for the measurement of the partial aspects of the systems, for example, the coupling between objects, the complexity of inheritance structures, the cohesion of methods, and so on. But the software practitioners want to measure the complexity of overall system, not partial. We studied the complexity of the overall structures of object-oriented systems by analyzing the class diagram of UML. The class diagram is composed of classes and their relations. There are three kinds of relations, association, generalization, and aggregation, which are making the structure of object-oriented systems to be difficult to understand. We proposed a heuristic metric to measure the complexity of object-oriented systems by putting together the three kinds of the relations. Tn analyze the complexity of the structure of a object-oriented system for the maintainability of the system, we measured the degree of understandability of it, the reverse engineering time to draw a class diagram from the source codes, and the number of errors in the diagram. The results of this experiment shows that our proposed metric has a considerable relationship with the complexity of object-oriented systems. The metric will be helpful to the software developers for their designing tasks by evaluating the complexity of the structures of object-oriented systems and redesigning tasks , of them for the future maintainability.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.1-28
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• 1990

The severe atrophic edentulism with poor neuromuscular control militates against successful conventional denture therapy. To such situation, a prescribing of dental implant treatment has been considered with some probability. Implant materials used as a trial for dental implants includes metals, plastic polymers and ceramics. The purpose of this study was to observe histologic response in osseointegration process at titanium implant-tissue interface based on biocompatibility at specific period of sequential natures which were divided into a half month, one, month, two months, three months and immediate as a base line. In this study, unilateral lower left premolar and molar teeth were extraced in three dogs. After allowing to heal for 6 months, three kinds of osseointegrated implant, $Br{\aa}nemark$, Corevent and kimplant(a prototype of SNU implant study)were inserted in each dog respectively according to the above sequence from front to back. The specimens were taken from those dogs at the same time since implant were inserted quite reverse order of the specified periods, and decalcified and processed for histologic examination for the light microscopy and the electron microscopy. The microscopic histologic findings at the interface between titanium implants and tissue were interpretated as follows : A. Light microscopic findings : a. Immediate : Implant were surrounded by compact bone and spongy bone. Microcrak was observed in the superficial bone tissue. Osteocytes were disappeared and bone lacunae were observed as a vacant space in some parts. In the contacting with the spongy bone, bone trabeculae and bone marrow were in contact with the implant. b. A half Month : Osteoblasts exist as a monolayer in th inner bone trabeculae and do bone additiocn. Osteoblasts&inflammatory cells were observed in some parts. c. One Month : The presence of osteoclasts decreased. Osteoblasts did active bone fromation, and bone marrow was in contact with the implant in the many places. d. Two Months : Bone formation was advanced in comparison with the b and c. The presence of osteoclsts was not observed. e. Three Months : The superficial bone tissue contacted with the implants was entirely composed by the compact bone. B. Electron microscopic findings : a. A half month and one month group : In the parts of the active bone formation, osteoblasts with the well developed endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi apparatus were arranged in the monolayer. In the parts of the bone resorption, ruffled border was well developed and many osteoclasts with the well-developed golgi apparatus, mitochondria, vacuole, vesicle and lysosome were existed. b. Three months group : No osteoblasts were observed in the superficial bone tissue. Bone matrix with collaen fiber was observed. c. No significant dirrerence in the histologic findings was observed in $Br{\aa}nemark$, Core-vent and kimplant.

• The Journal of Pediatrics of Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.69-81
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• 2013

Objectives In this study, effects of Macmundongtang (MMT) on ATP or TNF-${\alpha}$ or PMA or EGF induced MUC5AC mucin production and gene expression from human airway epithelial cells and the increase in airway epithelial mucosubstances of rats were investigated. Materials and Methods Confluent NCI-H292 cells were pretreated for 30min in the presence of MMT and treated with ATP ($200{\mu}M$) or PMA (10 ng/ml) or EGF (25 ng/ml) or TNF-${\alpha}$ (0.2 nM) for 24hrs, to assess the effect of MMT both on ATP- or PMA- or EGF- or TNF-${\alpha}$-induced MUC5AC mucin production using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and on gene expression by the same inducers using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). At the same time, hypersecretion of airway mucus was induced by exposure of rats to SO2 during 3 weeks. Effect of orally-administered MMT during 2 weeks on increase in airway epithelial mucosubstances from tracheal goblet cells of rats was assesed using histopathological analysis after staining the epithelial tissue with PAS-alcian blue. Possible cytotoxicity of MMT was assessed by investigating the potential damage of kidney and liver functions by measuring serum GOT/GPT activities and serum BUN concentration of rats and the body weight gain during experiment, after administering MMT orally. Results (1) MMT did not only inhibit but also increased MUC5AC mucin productions and expression levels of MUC5AC gene from NCI-H292 cells. (2) MMT did not decrease the amount of intraepithelial mucosubstances of trachea of rats. (3) MMT did not show renal and hepatic toxicities and did not affect body weight gain of rats during experiment. Conclusions The result from the present study suggests that MMT might normalize the production and gene expression of airway mucin observed in various respiratory diseases accompanied by yin-deficiency, without in vivo toxicity to liver and kidney functions after oral administration.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.53-68
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• 2006

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of diurnal alternation of nutrient solution salinity on growth and fruit quality of tomatoes (Lycoperisicon esculentum cv. 'House momotaro') hydroponically grown in root intercept bag-NFT (RIB-NFT) system. Plant height was the lowest in the high concentration during daytime (6/1 $dS\;m^{-1}$, day/night). Yield was very high in the concentration of 1/1 $dS\;m^{-1}$, it decreased with increasing the concentration of nutrient Yield was higher at low concentration (4/1 $dS\;m^{-1}$) at nighttime compared to the same concentration (4/4 $dS m^{-1}$) at daytime and nighttime, and the reverse (1/4 $dS\;m^{-1}$) was similar to the control (perlite culture). Yield was greatly reduced by higher concentration at daytime than nighttime, and the decrease was alleviated by lower concentration at nighttime. With increasing the concentration of nutrient solution during daytime, sugar content of tomato fruit was increased, but yield was decreased. In the other experiment, tomato plants were hydropoically cultured in NFT system diurnally alternated between Aichi's solution and $Ca(NO_3)_2$ solution. $Ca(NO_3)_2$ solution was supplied for 4 hours from 10:00 to 14:00 at daytime and from 22:00 to 2:00 at nighttime, respectively, and Aichi's solution was supplied for the time except the 4 hours. Ca content of leaves and sugar content of fruit were increased by supplying $Ca(NO_3)_2$ solution at daytime compared to nighttime, but plant growth was greatly suppressed by supplying $Ca(NO_3)_2$ solution with the concentration of 4 $dS\;m^{-1}(4/4^{Ca}\;dS\;m^{-1})$ at nighttime.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.113-119
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• 2000

Purpose : Rotavirus is a most common etiologic agent of pediatric gastroenteritis. The standard method to diagnose rotavirus infection was the detection of viral particles in specimens through electron microscopy. But it was complex. Enzyme immunoassay and latex agglutinin are preferred because they are relatively handy, inexpensive and take a short time, in comparison with electron microscopy. However, several reports have shown that the use of ELISA to diagnose rotavirus infection in neonates can result in false positive reactions. The main purpose of this study is to compare ELISA and RT-PCR in the diagnosis of neonatal rotavirus infection. Methods : Data presented in this study were obtained form 123 newborn babies in the nursery of the Fatima Hospital, Masan, Korea, form Jury to December, 1997. We obtained two samples of stool from each of the newborn babies and then performed the Rotazyme test and the RT-PCR. In the Rotazyme test, the results were interpreted according to visual findings. The samples were used for the RT-PCR test after at stock $-30^{\circ}C$ to identify rotavirus group A. The result of the two tests were compared. Results : The informations are divided into 73 males and females. Out of the total informations 15 were transferred from other hospitals. Their average gestational age was $38.5{\pm}1.6$ weeks. The average birth weight was $3134.8{\pm}539gm$. In the Rotazyme test, 75 samples turned out to be positive. Out of them, 55 samples(75.3%) were positive and 18 samples(24.7%) were negative in the RT-PCR. On the other hand, in the Rotazyme test, 50 samples turned out be negative. Out of them, 27 samples(54%) were positive and 23 samples(46%) were negative in the RT-PCR. Conclusion : Rotavirus infection in uncommon in neonates. The diagnosis based on visual findings using Rotazyme test has a disadvantage in the sense that it can result in false positive reactions and false negative reactions in the diagnosis of neonatal rotavirus infection.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.17 no.8 s.88
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• pp.1115-1120
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• 2007

In the present study, we investigated whether several phytochemicals (resveratrol, genistein, epicatechin gallate, dially disulfide, caffeic acid phenetyl ester) and sulindac sulfide could induce expression of tumor suppressor p53 protein in human colorectal HCT116 cells. We found that p53 was dramatically induced by all phytochemical treatments except sulindac sulfide. Among treated phytochemicals, we selected resveratrol for further experiments because it is one of the highest p53 inducer. Using a Western blot analysis, we found that resveratrol induced p53 in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Additionally, using membrane-based microarray analysis, we found that twenty-five genes were up-regulated and two genes were down-regulated by resveratrol treatment. Among the up-regulated genes, we selected 4 genes and performed reverse-transcription-PCR to confirm microarray data. The results of RT-PCR were highly accorded with those of membrane microarray. In addition, we found that thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1) expression was not dependent on p53 presence, whereas mammary serine protease inhibitor (MASPIN) expression was dependent on p53 expressed by resveratrol treatment. The results of this study may help to promote our understandings of the molecular mechanisms of chemoprevention that are mediated by resveratrol in human colorectal cancer.