• Development and Reproduction
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.147-154
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• 2006

Phthalates such as di(2-ethyl hexyl)phthalate(DEHP) are industrial chemicals with wide-ranging human exposures because of their use in plastics and other common consumer products. Consequently, their adverse effects as endocrine disruptor in the reproductive physiology of both laboratory rodents and human have been studied extensively. The present study was undertaken to examine whether prepubertal exposure to DEHP affects on the onset of puberty and the associated reproductive parameters such as hormone receptor expressions in female rats. DEHP(100mg/kg/day) was administered daily from postnatal day 25(PND 25) through the day when the first vaginal opening(VO) was observed, and the animals were sacrificed on the next day. Gross anatomy and weight of reproductive tissues were compared to test the DEHP's effects on the cell proliferation. Furthermore, histological studies were performed to assess the structural alterations in the tissues. Specific radioimmunoassay was carried out to measure serum LH levels. To determine the transcriptional changes in progesterone receptor(PR), total RNAs were extracted and applied to the semi-quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR). As a result, delayed VO was shown in the DEHP group(PND $37.3{\pm}0.7$) compared to the control group(PND $35.3{\pm}0.7$; p<0.05). DEHP treatment significantly decreased the wet weight of ovaries and uteri compared to the control group(p<0.05). Interestingly, elevation of serum LH levels was shown in the DEHP group(p<0.05). Graafian follicles and corpora lutea were observed only in the ovaries from the control animals. Numerous primary, secondary follicles and small atretic follicles were observed in the ovaries from DEHP-treated animals. Similarly, hypotrophy of luminal and glandular uterine epithelium was found in the DEHP-treated group. These effects were probably due to the inhibitory effects of DEHP on the synthesis and secretion of estrogen from granulosa cells. In the semiquantitative RT-PCR studies, the transcriptional activities of PR in both ovary(p<0.05) and uterus(p<0.01) from DEHP-treated animals were significantly lower than those from the control animals. The present studies demonstrated that the acute exposure to DEHP during the critical period of prepubertal stage could inactivate the reproductive system resulting delayed puberty in female rats.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.145-153
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• 2012

Reproductive cycle of the small abalone, Haliotis diversicolor aquatilis which collected from Seong-san coastal waters, Jeju, Korea were investigated monthly from May 2006 to April 2007 using histological methods. The gonad index (GI) of male and female reached a peak in June ($70.72{\pm}5.20$) and July ($55.38{\pm}11.73$). Subsequently, GI decreased in September (Male, $21.27{\pm}2.91$; Female, $27.75{\pm}4.76$) and increased again in October (Male, $48.49{\pm}8.39$; Female, $51.36{\pm}7.47$), respectively. After that, GI gradually decreased. In March 2007, GI was reached the minimum (Male, $8.46{\pm}0.57$; Female, $9.69{\pm}0.88$). The reproductive cycle of female and male could be divided into six successive stages ; In female, multiplication (February and May), growing (February to May), mature (April to July), partial spawning (May to November), degenerating (October to December) and recovery (September to October and December to February) stage. In male, multiplication (February and May), growing (March to May), mature (April to July), spawning (June to November), degenerating (November to February) and recovery (September to February) stage. The yellowish granular cells have been observed more in multiplication, growing, degenerating, and recovery stage than mature and partial spawning stage. The results of GI and histological observations of the gonads suggested that this species could be presumed as multi- spawning characteristics more two times in spawning seasons.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.127-141
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• 2003

The present study conducted a survey on the correlation between job satisfaction of dental hygienists and their workplace satisfaction and quality of life. A total of 249 surveys eligible among all the collected surveys were used in the analysis. The survey consisted of 61 items; 35 items were about self-evaluations of their satisfaction with their tasks, occupation, and workplace, as well as the degree of self-affirmation and their family-related satisfaction; the rests were 26 WHOQOL-BREF items investigating the quality of life. Collected data were processed using the SPSS Ver. 10.0 calculating the reliability with the frequency, percentage, and Cronbach's ${\alpha}$. Besides, one-way ANOVA and linear regression analysis examined the correlation between the variables. The conclusion is as follows: 1. By Age: Job satisfaction and family-related satisfaction were highest in the subjects aged 30 or older($3.5377{\pm}0.6891$ at pF0.05 and $4.1789{\pm}0.5431$ at pF0.05, respectively), though the differences were not statistically significant). Workplace satisfaction and self-affirmation were also highest in those aged 30 or order($3.5753{\pm}0.4210$ at pE0.05 and $3.9695{\pm}0.4616$ at pE0.05, respectively). The differences were statistically significant. Quality of life was also highest in those aged 30 or older($3.4095{\pm}0.3529$, pF0.05). 2. By Types of Dental Institutions: Job satisfaction and workplace satisfaction were highest in the subjects who worked at the dental department in a general hospital($3.7431{\pm}0.5940$ at pF0.05 and $3.6615{\pm}0.4602$ at pF0.05. respectively), though without statistical significance. Self-affirmation was highest in those working in university hospitals($3.773{\pm}0.7151$, pF0.05), while family-related satisfaction was highest, though without statistical significance, in those working at the dental department in general hospitals($4.2500{\pm}0.5528$, pF0.05), who also showed highest quality of life with statistical significance($3.4046{\pm}0.4155$, pE0.05). 3. By Years at Work: The subjects who had worked as a dental hygienist for 12 years or more showed highest satisfaction or scores in all the variables investigated: job satisfaction($3.9326{\pm}0.6673$, pE0.05): workplace satisfaction($3.8316{\pm}0.4342$, pE0.05): self-affirmation($4.2000{\pm}0.4551$, pE0.05); family-related satisfaction($4.3778{\pm}0.4692$, pF0.5): and quality of life($3.5235{\pm}0.4323$, pF0.05). All but quality of life showed a difference with statistical significance. 4. Correlation between Quality of Life and Overall Job Satisfaction: Quality of life doesn't have a correlation with the subjects' satisfaction with their occupation or with their self-affirmation, while it does have a correlation with workplace satisfaction and family-related satisfaction(F=15.983, Sig=0.000, $R^2$=0.209). Besides, workplace satisfaction has a significant correlation with all the variables: job satisfaction, self-affirmation, family-related satisfaction, and quality of life(F=38.563, Sig=0.000, $R^2$=0.389). The above result shows that workplace satisfaction has a high correlation with job satisfaction, self-affirmation, family-related satisfaction and with quality of life. Consequently, to enhance satisfaction of dental hygienists with their workplace, it would be important to promote their autonomy and make desirable wokplace environments so that they can work efficiently with pride for their job.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.753-767
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• 2009

Objectives : The study is to gain some basic material for the improvement of dental clinics' homepages through a survey investigation, in which college students of three Dental Hygienic departments participated in Kwangju and Cheollanamdo Province. Methods : In the investigation three factors were analyzed : the degree of knowledge on dental clinics' homepages, the degree of recognition on them, and whether they have paid a visit on them or not. A total of 509(96.8%) respondents are valid except 17sheets of responses. Results : 1. When asked about the degrees of knowledge on the formation of the homepages by students' years, the correct rate on Information Service was higher in a row of the second year, the first year, and the third year. And it shows statistically significant difference(p<0.05). In the part of Counseling Service, the rate of correct answers was highest in the second year, and then the first year and the third year. It also shows significant difference(p<0.05). In case of Visual Service, the second year got the highest rate of correct answers, and then the first year and the third year. Here is significant difference by the school years<0.01) 2. It was asked whether they have visited the dental clinics' homepages. The results are like this: 145 sophomores(28.5%) have visited them, and 115 juniors(22.6%) and 85 freshmen(16.7%), and it show significant difference (p<0.001). 3. It was asked how many sites they have visited. Among the freshmen, not a few students visited two sites (34, 9.9%), among sophomores 48 students visited five sites(13.9%), and among juniors the highest answers were two sites (41, 11.9%). It shows signigicant difference(p<0.01). 4. It was asked what is the purpose of the visits. At this 27 freshmen answered for having counseling(7.8%), and 80 sophomores(23.3%) and 43 juniors(12.5%) answered they visited them for the purpose of gaining some materials about their major. It shows significant difference(p<0.001). 5. It was asked with what opportunity they have visited them. They answered through searching activities like this : freshmen (68, 19.8%), sophomores (130, 37.9%), and juniors (98, 28.6%). It shows significant difference(p<0.05). 6. In regard with the recognition of the homepages, all the participants said that the management of the homepages are closely related with the images of the clinics($3.96{\pm}0.781$). But it is found that they do not think that the effective management of dental clinics' homepages is the task of dental hygienic workers as a part of dental hygienic($3.12{\pm}0.971$). 7. There is some difference concerned with the homepages among each group of students; sophomores have highest recognition on them and then juniors and freshmen, and it shows significant difference(p<0.01). In addition, those who have visited them show higher recognition than those who have never visited them(p<0.001). Conclusions : There are some differences among each group of students in regard with the formation service, the purpose of visiting them and such experiences, and the opportunities. Whereases they think that the management of the homepages are closely related with the images of the clinics, they do not think that the effective management of dental clinics' homepages is the task of dental hygienic workers as a part of dental hygienic. Therefore it is necessary to study actively for the qualitative improvement of the dental clinics' homepages, which will result in the higher recognition on the homepages by the dental hygienic students and the workers.

• Journal of Dairy Science and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.35-46
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• 2015

Recently, much attention has been paid to the development of a value-added food category containing probiotics so as to improve human health and prevent diseases. Among various foods, the health benefits of milk and dairy products are known to humanity, and could be attributed to the bioactive components present in milk. In fermented milk products, the health benefits could be due to suitable modulation activities produced by the action of probiotic bacteria. Besides the modification of various milk components, probiotics might also act directly as preventive and therapeutic agents against some severe diseases. Probiotics promote health via their positive effects on the immune response, stimulation of natural immunity, and modulation of the production of antimicrobial peptides, cytokines, and so on. Whey proteins, a byproduct of cheese production could also have anticarcinogenic, immunostimulatory, antimicrobial, and health-promoting activities such as improving insulin sensitivity and reducing fat deposition. Therefore, milk and dairy products containing probiotics could provide various opportunities in the field of functional foods. Additionally, these functional foods may be important in the human diet and may help improve human health and prevent diseases.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.28-33
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• 2011

Purpose: Recognition of impending death is crucial not only for efficient communication with the caregiver of the patient, but also determination of the time to refer to a separate room. Current studies simply list the events 'that have already occurred' around 48 hours before the death. This study is to analyze the predictability of each event by comparing the time length from 'change' to death. Methods: Subjects included 160 patients who passed away in a palliative care unit in Incheon. The analysis was limited to 80 patients who had medical records for the last week of their lives. We determined 9 symptoms and 8 signs, and established the standard of 'significant change' of each event before death. Results: The most common symptom was increased sleeping (53.8%) and the most common sign was decreased blood pressure (BP) (87.5%). The mean time to death within 48 hours was 46.8% in the case of resting dyspnea, 13.6% in the ease of low oxygen saturation, and 36.9% in the case of decreased BP. The symptom(s) which had the highest positive predictive value (PV) for death within 48 hours was shown to be resting dyspnea (83%), whereas the combination of resting dyspnea and confusion/delirium (65%) had the highest negative PV. As for the most common signs before death within 48 hours, the positive PVs were more than 95%, and the negative PV was the highest when decreased BP and low oxygen saturation were combined. The difference in survival patterns between symptoms and signs was significant. Conclusion: The most reliable symptoms to predict the impending death are resting dyspnea and confusion/delirium, and decline of oxygen saturation and BP are the reliable signs to predict the event.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.47-60
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• 2010

Most of the researches about classification usually have used kNN(k-Nearest Neighbor), SVM(Support Vector Machine), which are known as learn-based model, and Bayesian classifier, NNA(Neural Network Algorithm), which are known as statistics-based methods. However, there are some limitations of space and time when classifying so many web pages in recent internet. Moreover, most studies of classification are using uni-gram feature representation which is not good to represent real meaning of words. In case of Korean web page classification, there are some problems because of korean words property that the words have multiple meanings(polysemy). For these reasons, LSA(Latent Semantic Analysis) is proposed to classify well in these environment(large data set and words' polysemy). LSA uses SVD(Singular Value Decomposition) which decomposes the original term-document matrix to three different matrices and reduces their dimension. From this SVD's work, it is possible to create new low-level semantic space for representing vectors, which can make classification efficient and analyze latent meaning of words or document(or web pages). Although LSA is good at classification, it has some drawbacks in classification. As SVD reduces dimensions of matrix and creates new semantic space, it doesn't consider which dimensions discriminate vectors well but it does consider which dimensions represent vectors well. It is a reason why LSA doesn't improve performance of classification as expectation. In this paper, we propose new LSA which selects optimal dimensions to discriminate and represent vectors well as minimizing drawbacks and improving performance. This method that we propose shows better and more stable performance than other LSAs' in low-dimension space. In addition, we derive more improvement in classification as creating and selecting features by reducing stopwords and weighting specific values to them statistically.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.187-196
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• 2010

Recently, people have been suffering from stress-related fatigue and psychological disorders. Most people depend on medicine for pain relief; many treat pain also through alternative medicine or replacement therapy. However, drug therapy has many side effects, including increased stress after the therapy. In comparison, alternative therapies such as massage and foot reflexology are less damaging to the body, and such therapies can be provided without physical or psychological discomfort. In this regard, the author had previously co-developed color foot reflexology, which combines the merits of color therapy and foot reflexology; color foot reflexology has been shown to have beneficial effects without undue pain. This study investigates the effects of color foot reflexology on the physiological response of the body by comparing the body’s response to the signal with that to the placebo. Healthy adult subjects were selected for the experiment, which was conducted under optimal experimental conditions and design. The results indicated that when stimulated, parasympathetic nerves increased in HRV and that blood pressure, pulse, body heat, peripheral blood flow were dramatically activated. However, the results for the placebo indicated minimal changes or irregular outcomes. The results provide strong evidence for the beneficial effects of the color foot reflexology instrument on the autonomic nervous system and on the physiological response of the body. Future research is warranted to verify the results of the current study by examining patients suffering from diseases and disorders arising from irregular physiological functions in the context of the foot.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.147-156
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• 2015

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary resveratrol on growth performance, blood biochemical parameters, immunoglobulin, and blood antioxidant activity in broiler chicks. Three hundred twenty one-day old broiler chicks were divided 8 treatments (C(-), basal diet; C(+), basal diet with antibiotics; DL-${\alpha}$-tocopherol 20 IU; DL-${\alpha}$-tocopherol 200 IU; resveratrol 20 ppm; resveratrol 200 ppm; methylated resveratrol 20 ppm; methylated resveratrol 200 ppm) with 4 replicates and 10 birds per replicate. Birds were reared for 35 days, and, at the age of 35 days, eight birds of average weight from each replicate were selected for blood samples collection. There were no significant differences on feed intake and feed conversion ratio. But final body weight and weight gain in antibiotics, resveratrol and methylated resveratrol treatments were significantly higher than no-antibiotics and ${\alpha}$-tocopherol treatments (P<0.05). There were no significant differences on carcass rate and relative organ weights among treatments, however, weights of liver and bursa of februcius in antibiotics, resveratrol and methylated resveratrol treatment were lower than other treatments. Weight of pancreas was high in resveratrol and methylated treatment. On the cecal microflora (total microbes, Coliform bacteria, Salmonella spp., and lactic acid bacteria), these in resveratrol and methylated resveratrol treatments didn't show the differences compared with those in no-antibiotics, antibiotics, and ${\alpha}$-tocopherol treatments. In the serum, there were no significant differences on creatinine, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), total protein, albumin, globulin, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) among treatments, though globulin contents of reseveratrol 200 ppm and methylated resveratrol 20 ppm treatments decreased compared to those of other treatments. Immunoglobulin (IgA, IgG and IgM) were significantly decreased in antibiotics and resveratrol treatments compared to that of no-antibiotics and ${\alpha}$-tocopherol treatments (P<0.05). Superoxide dismutase (SOD) like activity tended to increase in resveratrol groups (P<0.05), however, there was no significant difference on malondiakdehyde (MDA) content among treatments. In conclusion, these results showed that resveratrol derived from mulberry can be used as alternative of antibiotics through improvement of broiler's performance and maintain of health.

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.246-246
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• 1996

Purpose: Some of the properties of the prosodic phrasing and some acoustic and phonological effects of contrastive focus on the tonal pattern of Seoul Korean is explored based on a brief experiment of analyzing the fundamental frequency(=FO) contour of the speech of the author. Data Base and Analysis Procedures: The examples were chosen to contain mostly nasal and liquid consonants, since it is difficult to track down the formants in stops and fricatives during their corresponding consonantal intervals and stops may yield an effect of unwanted increase in the FO value due to their burst into the following vowel. All examples were recorded three times and the spectrum of the most stable repetition was generated, from which the FO contour of each sentence was obtained, the peaks with a value higher than 250Hz being interpreted as a high tone (=H). The result is then discussed within the prosodic hierarchy framework of Selkirk (1986) and compared with the tonal pattern of the Northern Kyungsang dialect of Korean reported in Kenstowicz & Sohn (1996). Prosodic Phrasing: In N.K. Korean, H never appears both on the object and on the verb in a neutral sentence, which indicates the object and the verb form a single Phonological Phrase ($={\phi}$), given that there is only one pitch peak for each $={\phi}$. However, Seoul Korean shows that both the object and the verb have H of their own, indicating that they are not contained in one $={\phi}$. This violates the Optimality constraint of Wrap-XP (=Enclose a lexical head and its arguments in one $={\phi}$), while N.K. Korean obeys the constraint by grouping a VP in a single $={\phi}$. This asymmetry can be resolved through a constraint that favors the separate grouping of each lexical category and is ranked higher than Wrap-XP in Seoul Korean but vice versa in N.K. Korean; $Align-x^{lex}$ (=Align the left edge of a lexical category with that of a $={\phi}$). (1) nuna-ka manll-ll mEk-nIn-ta ('sister-NOM garlic-ACC eat-PRES-DECL') a. (LLH) (LLH) (HLL) ----Seoul Korean b. (LLH) (LLL LHL) ----N.K. Korean Focus and Phrasing: Two major effects of contrastive focus on phonological phrasing are found in Seoul Korean: (a) the peak of an Intonatioanl Phrase (=IP) falls on the focused element; and (b) focus has the effect of deleting all the following prosodic structures. A focused element always attracts the peak of IP, showing an increase of approximately 30Hz compared with the peak of a non-focused IP. When a subject is focused, no H appears either on the object or on the verb and a focused object is never followed by a verb with H. The post-focus deletion of prosodic boundaries is forced through the interaction of StressFocus (=If F is a focus and DF is its semantic domain, the highest prominence in DF will be within F) and Rightmost-IP (=The peak of an IP projects from the rightmost $={\phi}$). First Stress-F requires the peak of IP to fall on the focused element. Then to avoid violating Rightmost-IP, all the boundaries after the focused element should delete, minimizing the number of $={\phi}$'s intervening from the right edge of IP. (2) (omitted) Conclusion: In general, there seems to be no direct alignment constraints between the syntactically focused element and the edge of $={\phi}$ determined in phonology; all the alignment effects come from a single requirement that the peak of IP projects from the rightmost $={\phi}$ as proposed in Truckenbrodt (1995).