• Journal of Life Science
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.389-398
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• 2013

Platycodin D is a major constituent of triterpene saponins, which is found in the root of Platycodon grandiflorum, Platycodi Radix, which is widely used in traditional Oriental medicine for the treatment of many chronic inflammatory diseases. Several pharmacological effects of this compound have been reported recently, such as anti-inflammation, immunogenicity, anti-adipogenesis, lowered cholesterol, and anti-cancer activity. However, the mechanism by which this action occurs is poorly understood. In this study, we found that platycodin D greatly increased the potential of the anti-proliferative effect in various cancer cell lines. Our data revealed that platycodin D treatment resulted in a time- and concentration-response growth inhibition of U937 cells by inducing apoptosis, as evidenced by the formation of apoptotic bodies, chromatin condensation, and the accumulation of cells in the sub-G1 phase. Apoptosis induction of U937 cells by platycodin D correlated with an increase in the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio and caused the down-regulation of IAP family members. In addition, platycodin D treatment resulted in proteolytic activation of caspase-3, the concomitant degradation of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerases, and the collapse of the mitochondria membrane potential (${\Delta}{\Psi}_m$). However, the cytotoxic effects induced by platycodin D treatment were significantly inhibited by z-DEVD-fmk, a caspase-3 inhibitor, which demonstrated the important role that caspase-3 played in the observed cytotoxic effect. These findings suggest that platycodin D may be a potential chemotherapeutic agent for use in the control of human leukemia U937 cells. These findings also provided important new insights into possible molecular mechanisms of the anti-cancer activity of platycodin D.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.689-697
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• 2013

In the United States, about 40,000 new cases of oral cancer are diagnosed each year and nearly 7,800 patients died from it in 2012. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids have been found to have anticancer effects in a variety of cancer cell lines and animal models, but their effect in oral cancer remains unclear. This study was designed to examine the effect of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, a kind of omega-3 fatty acid) on oral cancer cells and the molecular mechanism of its action. We found that exposure of squamous cell carcinoma-4 (SCC-4) and squamous cell carcinoma-9 (SCC-9) human oral cancer cells to DHA induced growth inhibition in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Meanwhile, in addition to the elevated levels of apoptotic markers, such as cleaved PARP, subG1 portion and TUNEL-positive nuclei, DHA led to autophagic vesicle formation and an increase in autophagic flux, indicating the involvement of both apoptosis and autophagy in the inhibitory effects of DHA on oral cancer cells. Further experiments revealed that the apoptosis and autophagy induced by DHA were linked to inhibition of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling by AKT inhibition and AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activation in SCC-9 cells. Together, our results suggest that DHA induces apoptosis- and autophagy-associated cell death through the AMPK/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway in oral cancer cells. Thus, utilization of omega-3 fatty acids may represent a promising therapeutic approach for chemoprevention and treatment of human oral cancer.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.500-506
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• 1994

For comparison of beef quality, four kinds of beef (Korean native cattle beef, dairy cattle beef, imported beef, cross-bred beef) were investigated through tenderness, juiciness and flavor related components measurement and organoleptic tests. Flavor related chemical components such as NPN, IMP, free fatty acid and free amino acids were analyzed, water holding capacity, contents of hydroxyproline and intramuscular fat were measured for evaluation of beef tenderness. Instron was also used for measuring beef tenderness as an objective method. Triangle test and descriptive analysis test were conducted for comparison and evaluation of preference of various beef samples. In hardness analysis using Instron, imported and cross-bred beefs had higher value than that of Korean native cattle or dairy cattle beef. Water holding capacity and pH of Korean cattle beef was higher than that of others. The intramuscular fat content of Korean cattle beef was highest, so it was expected juicier than other beef. In flavor related compound analysis, NPN content of Korean native cattle beef was the lowest, which shows it spent the least time among sample meats after slaughter. IMP, hypoxantine and inosine were most abundant in Korean native cattle beef. In free amino acids analysis showed that the proportion of basic acid and aromatic acid content of Korean native cattle beef was highest, whereas that of sulfur containing amino acid of imported beef was highest. TBA value of Korean native cattle beef was the lowest, and analysis of fatty acid composition revealed that the proportion of unsaturated fatty acid of Korean native cattle beef was higher than imported and dairy cattle beef, but similar to cross-bred beef. Organoleptic test was performed by triangle test and descriptive analysis. In triangle test, most panelist could distinguish Korea native cattle beef from imported beef and cross-bred beef, imported beef from cross-bred beef. In descriptive analysis which relys on subjective standards of panelists, there was no difference among beef in aroma, flavor and tenderness except juiciness. Even though contents of non volatile flavor compounds in Korean native cattle beef were higher than those of other beef samples, there were no significant differences in subjective panel test. The results showed that Korean consumers do not have common standards for beef quality evaluation.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.359-368
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• 2000

The purpose of this study is to develope and apply NIE programs related to sub-chapter 'The Change of Weather and Circulation of Water' in 2nd grade science text book of middle school, and thereby to investigate the effects of NIE approach on science-related attitude and teaming achievement of students, and interaction between treatment methods and students' learning ability. Subjects consisted of 2nd grade students of four classes in a girls middle school located at the southern part of Seoul. Four classes were divided into experimental and control groups by two classes randomly. The experimental groups have been instructed on the related-general concepts for six times and then received seven NIE programs developed by researcher for seven times. The control groups have received the instruction through the conventional teaching method. The NIE learning has been progressed following the steps using in the Iowa Chautaugua Program, e.g. invite, explore, propose explanation and solutions, and take action. NIE programs, e.g. project studying, topic studying and a crossword puzzle have been developed and applied using 'science first' approach of the STS instruction. Twenty questions related to social implications of science and leisure interest in science within seven frameworks of TOSRA have been used in this study as an evaluation instrument of science-related attitude. Learning achievement has been evaluated using an instrument developed by researcher. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. (1) NIE approach was more effective in progressing learning achievement of middle school students than conventional teaching method (p<.01). (2) Experimental groups show statistically significant improvement on science-related attitude than control groups (p<.01). There were no significant interactions between treatment methods and students' learning ability on learning achievement and leisure interest in science. The NIE approach were more effective than the conventional one on social implications of science, especially to low ability students.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.131-152
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• 2007

The purpose in this study was to develope the concept maps of sub-units included in 'resource management and environment' area of Home Economics(HE) as an advance organizer after analyzing the overlapped and connected contents between HE textbooks and those of other subject matters(Ethics, Social Studies, Sciences, and Physical Education) taught in the middle schools. The results of this study were as follows. First, the unit of 'resource facilitation and environment' of HE is dealt in Ethics. Specifically the overlapped content in this unit between HE and Ethics is the content of the savings of resources, recycling, and environment conservation. The unit of 'work and time of youth' is dealt in Ethics and Science. The overlapped content of this unit is that of the concept of 'work'. While Ethics focuses on the general concept of work, Science focuses on the scientific concept of work. Home Economics doesn't focus on the concept of work but on how to manage the work. In the unit of the 'adolescents and their consumption', there are many overlapped contents among three subject matters, HE, Ethics and Social Studies. Second, the 7 concept maps were developed by following the steps: (1) confirming the learning objectives presented in the 'resource management and environment' area of HE; (2) identifying the overlapped and connected contents between HE and other subject matters(Eethics, Social Studies, Sciences, and Physical Education); (3) organizing the overlapped and connected contents between HE textbooks and those of other subject matters.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.99-112
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• 2010

Ensemble learning is a method for improving the performance of classification and prediction algorithms. It is a method for finding a highly accurateclassifier on the training set by constructing and combining an ensemble of weak classifiers, each of which needs only to be moderately accurate on the training set. Ensemble learning has received considerable attention from machine learning and artificial intelligence fields because of its remarkable performance improvement and flexible integration with the traditional learning algorithms such as decision tree (DT), neural networks (NN), and SVM, etc. In those researches, all of DT ensemble studies have demonstrated impressive improvements in the generalization behavior of DT, while NN and SVM ensemble studies have not shown remarkable performance as shown in DT ensembles. Recently, several works have reported that the performance of ensemble can be degraded where multiple classifiers of an ensemble are highly correlated with, and thereby result in multicollinearity problem, which leads to performance degradation of the ensemble. They have also proposed the differentiated learning strategies to cope with performance degradation problem. Hansen and Salamon (1990) insisted that it is necessary and sufficient for the performance enhancement of an ensemble that the ensemble should contain diverse classifiers. Breiman (1996) explored that ensemble learning can increase the performance of unstable learning algorithms, but does not show remarkable performance improvement on stable learning algorithms. Unstable learning algorithms such as decision tree learners are sensitive to the change of the training data, and thus small changes in the training data can yield large changes in the generated classifiers. Therefore, ensemble with unstable learning algorithms can guarantee some diversity among the classifiers. To the contrary, stable learning algorithms such as NN and SVM generate similar classifiers in spite of small changes of the training data, and thus the correlation among the resulting classifiers is very high. This high correlation results in multicollinearity problem, which leads to performance degradation of the ensemble. Kim,s work (2009) showedthe performance comparison in bankruptcy prediction on Korea firms using tradition prediction algorithms such as NN, DT, and SVM. It reports that stable learning algorithms such as NN and SVM have higher predictability than the unstable DT. Meanwhile, with respect to their ensemble learning, DT ensemble shows the more improved performance than NN and SVM ensemble. Further analysis with variance inflation factor (VIF) analysis empirically proves that performance degradation of ensemble is due to multicollinearity problem. It also proposes that optimization of ensemble is needed to cope with such a problem. This paper proposes a hybrid system for coverage optimization of NN ensemble (CO-NN) in order to improve the performance of NN ensemble. Coverage optimization is a technique of choosing a sub-ensemble from an original ensemble to guarantee the diversity of classifiers in coverage optimization process. CO-NN uses GA which has been widely used for various optimization problems to deal with the coverage optimization problem. The GA chromosomes for the coverage optimization are encoded into binary strings, each bit of which indicates individual classifier. The fitness function is defined as maximization of error reduction and a constraint of variance inflation factor (VIF), which is one of the generally used methods to measure multicollinearity, is added to insure the diversity of classifiers by removing high correlation among the classifiers. We use Microsoft Excel and the GAs software package called Evolver. Experiments on company failure prediction have shown that CO-NN is effectively applied in the stable performance enhancement of NNensembles through the choice of classifiers by considering the correlations of the ensemble. The classifiers which have the potential multicollinearity problem are removed by the coverage optimization process of CO-NN and thereby CO-NN has shown higher performance than a single NN classifier and NN ensemble at 1% significance level, and DT ensemble at 5% significance level. However, there remain further research issues. First, decision optimization process to find optimal combination function should be considered in further research. Secondly, various learning strategies to deal with data noise should be introduced in more advanced further researches in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.33-40
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• 2010

Many trails have been built and utilized in each sub-basin of Apsan Park. This study focused on the conditions and the present flora of several overused trails within three basins called Kun-Gol, Anjiroung-Gol, and Meaja-Gol in Apsan Park. There are two purposes for this study. The first is to make a plan for restoration by classifying the type of damage to these overused trails. The second is to provide preliminary data for reestablishing a more pleasant urban nature park. As a result of the survey, the average length of these trails is 9.0km and mean width is 2.0 to 2.6m. 2,108m of the sections studied(23.4% of the total) had exposed root, 3,199m of the sections studied (35.5% of the total) had exposed rock, 3,270m of the sections studied(36.6% of the total) displayed damaged pathways, and 4,841m of the sections studied (53.8% of the total) had higher soil hardness. Eighty-three areas of deterioration were found and there has been extensive property destruction. As an indication of human disturbances, the Naturalization Index and Urbanization Index appeared as: Kun-Gol, 7.0%, 5.5%; Anjiroung-Gol, 8.3%, 4.5%; Meaja-Gol 8.6%, 6.2%; in total, 7.8%, 8.3%. As a method of checking the level and extent of the damage process, an impact rating classification was used at each point on the trails. Kun-Gol had the highest rating and Anjiroung-Gol had the lowest rating in impact rating classification. With the impact rating classification, it was found that each trail would continue to worsen, meaning that roots and rocks are more likely to be further exposed and the trail width will continue to widen through overuse. An actual plan for reparations and restoration of the trails is needed through further study.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.377-382
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• 2009

The culture condition of growing Chlorella minutissima was optimized to produce biodiesel for fed-batch cultivation. First, under heterotrophic cultivation, the optimum level of glucose was determined to be 10 g/L for 20 days. After, three cultivation conditions were operated: autotrophic, heterotrophic, and mixotrophic growth. The lipid level and the maximum cell concentration from the fed-batch heterotrophic process were 32.0 (%, v/v) and 15.0 (g-dry wt./L) in 20 L flask, respectively. In addition, since the relatively constant specific lipid production rate was observed as 0.040 (% lipid/g-dry wt./day) at the latter period of cultivation time, the fed-batch process could maintain continuous lipid production. Fed-batch process is higher than those values from the batch process. The lipids from the fed-batch process contained over 38% of $C_{18}$, known as the suitable composition for the biodiesel application. For mixotrophic and heterotrophic growth under fed-batch condition, glucose was proved to be an appropriate carbon source for a large scale outdoor cultivation. For fed-batch cultivation, the feeding rate of seawater medium containing glucose was decided to be 0.5 L/day. The mixotrophic cultivation maintained maximum cell concentration of 24 (g-dry wt./L) and the lipid level of 43 (%, w/w). The lipid composition from this process was also proved to be suitable for the biodiesel production. The fatty acids from the mixotrophic growth contains 18% of $C_{17}$ and 49% of $C_{18}$, implying It also tells that C. minutissima is a suitable resource of biodiesel. Especially, the mixotrophic cultivation with fed-batch process might be useful for the large scale cultivation for the biodiesel production.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.7
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• pp.994-1002
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• 2009

A bacteriocin-producing bacterium identified as Bacillus licheniformis was isolated from soybean sauce. Antibacterial activity was confirmed by paper disc diffusion method, using Micrococcus luteus as a test organism. The bacteriocin also showed antibacterial activities against Bacillus sphaericus, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Lactobacillus planiarum, Paenibacillus polymyxa, and Pediococcus dextrinicus. Optimal culture conditions for the production of bacteriocin was attained by growing the cells in an MRS medium at a pH of 6.5~ 7.0 and a temperature of 37$^\circ$C for 36$\sim$48 hr. Solvents such as chloroform, ethanol, acetone, and acetonitrile had little effect on bacteriocin activity. However, about 50% of bacteriocin activity diminished with treatment of methanol and isopropanol at the final concentration of 50% at 25$^\circ$C for 1 hr. It was stable against a pH variation range from 3.0 and 7.0, but the activity reduced to 50% at a pH range from 9.0 to 11.0. It's activity was not affected by heat treatment at 100$^\circ$C for 30 min and 50% of activity was retained after heat treatment at 100$^\circ$C for 60 min, showing high thermostability. The bacteriocin was purified to a homogeneity through ammonium sulfate precipitation, SP-Sepharose ion-exchange chromatography, and reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The entire purification protocol led to a 75-fold increase in specific activity and a 13.5% yield of bacteriocin activity. The molecular weight of purified bacteriocin was estimated to be about 2.5 kDa by tricine-SDS-PAGE.

• 대한공업교육학회지
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.149-168
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to verify the effect of PSpice instruction on academic achievement in 'Combination logic circuit' unit of 'Digital Logic Circuit' in industrial high school. Three kinds of null hypotheses were formulated. Two classes of the third grade of C technical high school in Gyeong-buk were divided into experimental group and control group in order to verify null hypotheses. In the experimental design, 'Non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest' model was utilized. This experiment was conducted for six classes, the experimental group was applied to PSpice instruction method before the circuit traning while the control group was applied to traditional lecture oriented method before the circuit traning. Window SPSS 10.0 korean language version program was used for the data analysis and independent sample t-test was used to identify the average of each group. Significance level was set to .05 level. The results obtained in this study were as follows; First, PSpice instruction had not an effect on academic achievement according to a group type. However, these instruction had an effect on the following sub-domains; the psychomotor domain. Second, PSpice instruction had not an effect on academic achievement according to a studies level. However, these instruction for middle and low level students had an effect on the cognitive and psychomotor domain, and for middle level students had an effect on the affective domain. Third, PSpice instruction had not an effect on shortening of a training requirement. However, this instruction for low level students had an effect on shortening of a training requirement. The study results of simulation instruction was chiefly efficient in the psychomotor domain. We could know that simulation instruction is efficient as went to a low level students than an upper level students. Thus, We may make the study effectiveness in various instruction method.