• Herbal Formula Science
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.429-441
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• 2020

Objectives : Systemic sclerosis(SSc) is an autoimmune disease characterized by fibrosis of the skin and internal organs and vasculopathy. The purpose of this study was to investigate the trend in the research on SSc using herbal medicine. Methods : We searched for papers which had both systemic sclerosis and herbal medicine from Pubmed, KCI and NDSL. After searching papers, we classified according to the study design and analyzed selected studies. Results : 18 studies were searched. The types and numbers of study were as follows: 11 were in vitro or in vivo studies using herbal medicine or active components, and 7 were clinical research including case reports. 1. Herbal medicines include the therapeutic effects of "tonifying qi(補氣)" or "active blood(活血)" improved systemic sclerosis in vivo and in vitro studies. 2. Active components isolated from Herbal Medicine such as Astragalus membranaceus(黃芪), Zhizi(梔子), Salvia miltiorrhiza(丹蔘) have anti-fibrotic effects. 3. Clinical trials showed that herbal medicine can improve the symptom of systemic sclerosis including skin fibrosis, Raynaud's phenomenon, pain and gastric dysmotility. Conclusions : This study showed that herbal medicine can be effective for treating SSc. However, further studies are needed to develop novel medicine for SSc.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.166-176
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• 2012

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate the potential of interactance mode of NIR spectroscopy technology for the estimation of soluble solids content (SSC) and firmness of muskmelons. Methods: Melon samples were taken from local greenhouses in three different harvesting seasons (experiments 1, 2, and 3). The fruit attributes were measured at the 6 points on an equator of each sample where the spectral data were collected. The prediction models were developed using the original spectral data and the spectral data sets preprocessed by 20 methods. The performance of the models was compared. Results: In the prediction of SSC, the highest coefficient of determination ($R_{cv}{^2}$) values of the cross-validation was 0.755 (standard error of prediction, SEP=$0.89^{\circ}Brix$) with the preprocessing of normalization with range in experiment 1. The highest coefficient of determination in the robustness tests, $R_{rt}{^2}$=0.650 (SEP=$1.03^{\circ}Brix$), was found when the best model of experiment 3 was evaluated with the data set of experiment 2. The best $R_{cv}{^2}$ for the prediction of firmness was 0.715 (SEP=3.63 N) when no preprocessing was applied in experiment 1. The highest $R_{rt}{^2}$ was 0.404 (SEP=5.30 N) when the best model of experiment 3 was applied to the data set of experiment 1. Conclusions: From the test results, it can be concluded that the interactance mode of VIS/NIR spectroscopy technology has a great potential to measure SSC and firmness of thick-skinned muskmelons.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.219-229
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• 2020

Objective: Considering the physiological and clinical importance of leptin receptor (LEPR) in regulating obesity and the fact that porcine LEPR expression is not known to be controlled by lncRNAs and miRNAs, we aim to characterize this gene as a potential target of SSC-miR-323 and the lncRNA TCONS_00010987. Methods: Bioinformatics analyses revealed that lncRNA TCONS_00010987 and LEPR have SSC-miR-323-binding sites and that LEPR might be a target of lncRNA TCONS_00010987 based on cis prediction. Wild-type and mutant TCONS_00010987-target sequence fragments and wild-type and mutant LEPR 3'-UTR fragments were generated and cloned into pmiRRB-REPORT^TM-Control vectors to construct respective recombinant plasmids. HEK293T cells were co-transfected with the SSC-miR-323 mimics or a negative control with constructs harboring the corresponding binding sites and relative luciferase activities were determined. Tissue expression patterns of lncRNA TCONS_00010987, SSC-miR-323, and LEPR in Anqing six-end-white (AQ, the obese breed) and Large White (LW, the lean breed) pigs were detected by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction; backfat expression of LEPR protein was detected by western blotting. Results: Target gene fragments were successfully cloned, and the four recombinant vectors were constructed. Compared to the negative control, SSC-miR-323 mimics significantly inhibited luciferase activity from the wild-type TCONS_00010987-target sequence and wild-type LEPR-3'-UTR (p<0.01 for both) but not from the mutant TCONS_00010987-target sequence and mutant LEPR-3'-UTR (p>0.05 for both). Backfat expression levels of TCONS_00010987 and LEPR in AQ pigs were significantly higher than those in LW pigs (p<0.01), whereas levels of SSC-miR-323 in AQ pigs were significantly lower than those in LW pigs (p<0.05). LEPR protein levels in the backfat tissues of AQ pigs were markedly higher than those in LW pigs (p<0.01). Conclusion: LEPR is a potential target of SSC-miR-323, and TCONS_00010987 might act as a sponge for SSC-miR-323 to regulate LEPR expression.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.677-692
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• 2011

Suspended sediment is an important oceanic variable for monitoring changes in coastal environment related to physical and biogeochemical processes. In order to estimate suspended sediment concentration (SSC) from satellite data, we derived SSC coefficients by fitting satellite remote sensing reflectances to in-situ suspended sediment measurements. To collect in-situ suspended sediment, we conducted ship cruises at 16 different locations three times for the periods of Sep.-November 2009 and Jul. 2010 at the passing time of Landsat $ETM_+$. Satellite data and in-situ data measured by spectroradiometers were converted to remote sensing reflectances ($R_{rs}$). Statistical approaches proved that the exponential formula using a single band of $R_{rs}$(565) was the most appropriate equation for the estimation of SSC in this study. Satellite suspended sediment using the newly-derived coefficients showed a good agreement with insitu suspended sediment with an Root Mean Square (RMS) error of 1-3 g/$m^3$. Satellite-observed SSCs tended to be overestimated at shallow depths due to bottom reflection presumably. This implies that the satellite-based SSCs should be carefully understood at the shallow coastal regions. Nevertheless, the satellite-derived SSCs based on the derived SSC coefficients, for the most cases, reasonably coincided with the pattern of in-situ suspended sediment measurements in the study region.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.1617-1624
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• 2011

Caustic (NaOH) solution is used to remove $H_2S$ from hydrocarbon streams in petroleum refining industry, gradually being, so called, spent sulfidic caustic (SSC) which has high levels of $H_2S$ and alkalinity. Thus, SSC can be used as an electron donor and a buffering agent for autotrophic denitrification. As SSC, however, contains some non-biodegradable organics, air stripping was conducted to remove the non-biodegradable organics. As a result, over 93 % of the non-biodegradable organics was removed within 30 min of aeration. Then, $Na_2S_2O_3{\cdot}5H_2O$, methanol and organic matters, which are produced from a biodiesel production plant, were added to reform the air-stripped SSC and their products being referred to new sulfidic caustics (NSCs) I, II and III, respectively. Thereafter, to investigate the effect of these products on the removal of COD and TN, these products were injected to a biological nitrogen removal (BNR) process, resulting in additional 44 % TN removal without noticeable increase in the effluent COD level. Therefore, it can be said that the BNR process is a promising option to treat NSC as demonstrated in this study whose results can be useful for developing resource recovery technologies.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.77-83
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• 2016

Intricate deflection requires many conventional actuators (motors, pistons etc.), which can be financially and spatially wasteful. Novel smart soft composite (SSC) actuators have been suggested, but fabrication complexity restricts their widespread use as general-purpose actuators. In this study, a hybrid manufacturing process comprising 3-D printing and casting was developed for automated fabrication of SSC actuators with $200{\mu}m$ precision, using a 3-D printer (3DISON, ROKIT), a simple polymer mixer, and a compressor controller. A method to improve precision is suggested, and the design compensates for deposition and backlash errors (maximum, $170{\mu}m$). A suitable flow rate and tool path are suggested for the polymer casting process. The equipment and process costs proposed here are lower than those of existing 3D printers for a multi-material deposition system and the technique has $200{\mu}m$ precision, which is suitable for fabrication of SSC actuators.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.624-637
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• 2020

High-quality and high-phytonutrient watermelon fruits have strong market opportunities besides their health related benefits. Hence, investigating quality and nutritional related traits of watermelon genetic resources could provide important baseline data in breeding for increased lycopene content thereby increasing the marketability of watermelon. To this end, we have examined some fruit morphological traits and lycopene content of 105 genetic resources. Seeds, originally obtained from 22+ countries, were obtained from the National Agrobiodiversity Center, Jeonju, South Korea, grown in an experimental field and harvested at a fully mature stage. The size of pistil scar (SPS), the width of stripes (WS), weight of fruit (WF), length of fruit (LF), width of fruit (WIF), the thickness of pericarp (TP), soluble solids content (SSC), fruit shape in longitudinal section, ground color of skin, the intensity of the green color of skin, fruit shape at the apical part, grooving distribution, conspicuousness of stripes, and main color of the flesh were recorded on the field and inside laboratory and the lycopene was measured using spectrophotometric and HPLC methods. Watermelon fruits have shown a diverse morphological characters. Red and pink fleshed fruits dominated in the entire collections. Fruits with higher thickness of rind were found to exhibit less soluble solid content (SSC). Korean origin fruits were characterized by intermediate SSC while the United States of America (USA), Russia (RUS), Tajikistan (TJK), Turkmenistan (TKM), Taiwan (TWN), and Uruguay (URY) originated fruits had the highest SSC. The lycopene content varied between 41.37 and 182.82 ㎍/g, 2.81 and 163.72 ㎍/g, and 3.54 and 255.47 ㎍/g using HPLC, UV-Vis spectrophotometer, and microplate reader spectrophotometer, respectively. Red- and pink-fleshed fruits had the highest levels of lycopene content compared to the yellow- and orange-fleshed. Lycopene content had a significant positive correlation with SSC, however, no correlations were detected between lycopene and other quantitative fruit morphological characters. Our study demonstrated high diversity exists in fruit morphological traits and lycopene content of the germplasm collections which provide beneficial baseline data for a future breeding program and utilization of watermelon germplasm collections in gene banks for the maintenance and improvement of the current levels of production, marketability, and health-related benefit of watermelon fruits.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.66 no.12
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• pp.1772-1781
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• 2017

In this study, the design methodology for alleviating the overfitting problem of Polynomial Neural Networks(PNN) is realized with the aid of two kinds techniques such as L2 regularization and Sum of Squared Coefficients (SSC). The PNN is widely used as a kind of mathematical modeling methods such as the identification of linear system by input/output data and the regression analysis modeling method for prediction problem. PNN is an algorithm that obtains preferred network structure by generating consecutive layers as well as nodes by using a multivariate polynomial subexpression. It has much fewer nodes and more flexible adaptability than existing neural network algorithms. However, such algorithms lead to overfitting problems due to noise sensitivity as well as excessive trainning while generation of successive network layers. To alleviate such overfitting problem and also effectively design its ensuing deep network structure, two techniques are introduced. That is we use the two techniques of both SSC(Sum of Squared Coefficients) and $L_2$ regularization for consecutive generation of each layer's nodes as well as each layer in order to construct the deep PNN structure. The technique of $L_2$ regularization is used for the minimum coefficient estimation by adding penalty term to cost function. $L_2$ regularization is a kind of representative methods of reducing the influence of noise by flattening the solution space and also lessening coefficient size. The technique for the SSC is implemented for the minimization of Sum of Squared Coefficients of polynomial instead of using the square of errors. In the sequel, the overfitting problem of the deep PNN structure is stabilized by the proposed method. This study leads to the possibility of deep network structure design as well as big data processing and also the superiority of the network performance through experiments is shown.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.49-51
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• 2004

고전압 기기의 절연물 내부에서 부분방전 현상이 발생되면 절연파괴로 진전된다. 회전기기가 운전중인 상태에서 on-line 부분방전시험은 고정자 권선의 절연상태를 검사, 평가 할 수 있는 중요한 수단으로서 이러한 부분방전시험을 통하여 회전기기 시스템의 사고예방을 위한 진단을 할 수 있다. 부분방전 펄스는 10MHz $\sim$ 1GHz의 대역폭을 갖는 것으로 알려져 있으며, 이러한 고주파 대역의 전자파 에너지의 효과적인 검출을 위한 센서 중 하나로 웨이브가이드 구조의 고주파 검출센서가 존재한다. 기존의 전자기적 에너지를 검출하는 SSC (Stator Slot Coupler)센서를 한쪽 포트를 가지는 마이크로스트립센서 형태로 사용할 경우 접지면이 도체전체로 씌워져 있고 임피던스 정합을 위한 50옴의 칩저항이 신호라인과 접지사이 루프를 형성하여 기기 운전시 기기의 성능에 영향을 미칠 수 있는 단점을 가지고 있다. 이 단점을 보완하기 위해서 본 논문에서는 회전기내 부분방전 펄스의 전자기적 에너지를 검출할 수 있는 2선 평행 전송선로 라인을 응용한 부분방전 검출 센서를 제안하였고 시뮬레이션을 통해 성능을 입증하였다. 제안된 센서의 성능을 입증하기 위하여 2선 평행 전송선로 타입의 센서와 기존의 SSC (Stator Slot Coupler) 센서를 약간 변형시킨 마이크로 스트립 센서를 고정자 슬롯의 Wedge 부착한 후 두 센서 비교 분석하였다. 결과적으로 제안된 센서는 기존 SSC 타입의 마이크로스트립 센서에 비하여 더 간단한 형상을 가지며 운전 중 기기의 성능에 영향을 덜 미치는 효과를 얻을 수 있었다.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.177-183
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• 2012

Purpose: In near infrared spectroscopy, interactance configuration of a light source and a spectrometer probe can provide more information regarding fruit internal attributes, compared to reflectance and transmittance configuration. However, there is no through study on the parameters of interactance measurement setup. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of the parameters on the estimation of soluble solids content (SSC) and firmness of muskmelons. Methods: Melon samples were taken from greenhouses at three different harvesting seasons. The prediction models were developed at three distances of 2, 5, and 8 cm between the light source and the spectrometer probe, three measurement points of 2, 3, and 6 evenly distributed on each sample, and different number of fruit samples for calibration models. The performance of the models was compared. Results: In the test at the three distances, the best results were found at a 5 cm distance. The coefficient of determination ($R_{cv}{^2}$) values of the cross-validation were 0.717 (standard error of prediction, SEP=$1.16^{\circ}Brix$) and 0.504 (SEP=4.31 N) for the estimation of SSC and firmness, respectively. The minimum measurement point required to fully represent the spectral characteristics of each fruit sample was 3. The highest $R_{cv}{^2}$ values were 0.736 (SEP=$0.87^{\circ}Brix$) and 0.644 (SEP=4.16 N) for the estimation of SSC and firmness, respectively. The performance of the models began to be saturated when 60 fruit samples were used for developing calibration models. The highest $R_{cv}{^2}$ of 0.713 (SEP=$0.88^{\circ}Brix$) and 0.750 (SEP=3.30 N) for the estimation of SSC and firmness, respectively, were achieved. Conclusions: The performance of the prediction models was quite different according to the condition of interactance measurement setup. In designing a fruit grading machine with interactance configuration, the parameters for interactance measurement setup should be chosen carefully.