• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.173-195
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• 2022

Like vertebrates, insects synthesize various eicosanoids after the committed catalytic step of phospholipase A₂ (PLA₂). However, the subsequent biosynthetic steps exhibit some deviation from those of vertebrates. Due to little composition of arachidonic acid in insect phospholipids, PLA₂ releases linoleic acid, which is another polyunsaturated fatty acid and relatively rich in insect phospholipids, to synthesize arachidonic acid via chain extension and desaturation. Resulting arachidonic acid is then oxygenated into a prostaglandin (PG), PGH₂, by a specific peroxidase called peroxynectin, but not by cyclooxygenase. PGH₂ is then isomerized to various PGs such as PGA₂, PGD₂, PGE₂, PGI₂, and a thromboxane (TXB₂). All four epoxyeicosatrienoic acids such as 5,6-EET, 8,9-EET, 11,12-EET, and 14,15-EET are also synthesized from arachidonic acid by oxygenation of vertebrate types of monooxygenases. However, the other type of eicosanoids called leukotrienes are found in insect tissues but their synthetic pathway is unclear. Eicosanoids mediate various insect physiological processes such as metabolism, excretion, immunity, and reproduction. Thus, identification of novel compounds interrupting eicosanoid biosynthesis would be a novel approach to develop insecticides. This review focuses on PGs and their immune mediation.

• Journal of Digestive Cancer Research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.97-104
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• 2017

Background: Cachexia is a multi-factorial syndrome presenting with chronic illness, decreases in body weight, and loss of adipose tissue and skeletal muscle, mostly in patients with advanced cancer and chronic wasting disease. Even after years of intensive researches, there remains no convincing therapy to prevent cancer cachexia. Methods: In this in vivo study, we have established C26 adenocarcinoma-induced cancer cachexia model in mice to explore the underlying core changes in cytokine, signal transduction, and muscle wasting. The ultimate aim of establishing animal model is to find optimal therapeutics to mitigate cancer cachexia. Results: We have administered C26 adenocarcinoma cells onto BALB/c mice and observed 4 weeks to assess the progression of cancer cachexia. Significant loss of weight accompanied with loss of appetite was noted. As C26 adenocarcinoma xenograft progressed, mortality was started from 3 weeks, accompanied with significant sarcopenia and decreased mice movement. Surges in TNF-α and IL-6 were noted with the commencement of cancer cachexia. Conclusion: Using C26 adenocarcinoma cancer cachexia model, we can screen the optimal therapeutics to mitigate cancer cachexia, in which agents to modulate IL-6, TNF-α, and NF-κB were essential.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.387-410
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• 2016

This study conducted a review of the existential and psychological perspective about the risks and safe. The risk was identified as existential task through the existential philosophy and psychology discussed were the safety regulations as existential need. As existential anxiety that is caused by unmet and insufficiency of the existential needs and the existential task that was presented to identify the subjective risk. Subjective risk as existential anxiety, and suggested that serves as a compass to advance to the completion and the facing the existential. In addition, existential anxiety as a subjective function as a signal that can identify the problem conditions that expressed phenomena. Problematic aspect of a subjective risk was suggested that it can be adjusted through a method for supplying information that can be recognized by an experienced and symmetrical state with the direction of the expressed symptoms. The attempt to determine the existence of and psychological point of view, it gave provided the underlying psychological spokesman for the analysis of human society, including the Sewol ferry of Korea-type disaster. There are also presented some implications that can be applied effectively to give more psychological approach to future risk reduction and safety enhancement. In addition, this study through the various views presented by a comprehensive existential subject of several ways to adjust the status Theme conditioning method (Theme Condition Adjustment Theory: TCAT) to establish a theoretical basis for expecting it to be that.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.91-100
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• 2023

Reverberation time (T60) is a typical acoustic parameter that provides information about reverberation. Since the impacts of reverberation vary depending on the frequency bands even in the same space, frequency-dependent (FD) T60, which offers detailed insights into the acoustic environments, can be useful. However, most conventional blind T60 estimation methods, which estimate the T60 from speech signals, focus on fullband T60 estimation, and a few blind FDT60 estimation methods commonly show poor performance in the low-frequency bands. This paper introduces a modified approach based on Attentive pooling based Weighted Sum of Spectral Decay Rates (AWSSDR), previously proposed for blind T60 estimation, by extending its target from fullband T60 to FDT60. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms conventional blind FDT60 estimation methods on the acoustic characterization of environments (ACE) challenge evaluation dataset. Notably, it consistently exhibits excellent estimation performance in all frequency bands. This demonstrates that the mechanism of the AWSSDR method is valuable for blind FDT60 estimation because it reflects the FD variations in the impact of reverberation, aggregating information about FDT60 from the speech signal by processing the spectral decay rates associated with the physical properties of reverberation in each frequency band.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.21-29
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• 2006

In this Paper a split bandwidth wideband speech coder and its highband coding method are Proposed. The coder uses a split-band approach. where the wideband input speech signal is split into two equal frequency bands from 0-4kHz and 4-8kHz. The lowband and the highband are coded respectively by the 11.8kb/s G.729 Annex E and the proposed coding method. After the LPC analysis, the highband is divided by two modes according to the properties of signals. In stationary mode. the highband signals are compressed by the mixture excitation model; CELP algorithm and W (Matching Pursuit) algorithm. The others are coded by the only CELP algorithm. We compare the performance of the new wideband speech coder with that of G.722 48kbps SB-ADPCM and G.722.2 12.85kbps in a subjective method. The simulation results show that the Performance of the proposed wideband speech coder has better than that of 48kbps G.722 and no better than that of 12.85kbps G.722.2.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.77-83
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• 2009

This paper proposes a new noise-biased compensation of minimum statistics(MS) method using a nonlinear function and a priori speech absence probability(SAP) for speech enhancement in non-stationary noisy environments. The minimum statistics(MS) method is well known technique for noise power estimation in non-stationary noisy environments. It tends to bias the noise estimate below that of true noise level. The proposed method is combined with an adaptive parameter based on a sigmoid function and a priori speech absence probability (SAP) for biased compensation. Specifically. we apply the adaptive parameter according to the a posteriori SNR. In addition, when the a priori SAP equals unity, the adaptive biased compensation factor separately increases ${\delta}_{max}$ each frequency bin, and vice versa. We evaluate the estimation of noise power capability in highly non-stationary and various noise environments, the improvement in the segmental signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and the Itakura-Saito Distortion Measure (ISDM) integrated into a spectral subtraction (SS). The results shows that our proposed method is superior to the conventional MS approach.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.81 no.2
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• pp.379-394
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• 2020

Purpose To design a scoring system to predict malignancy of additional MRI-detected lesions in breast cancer patients. Materials and Methods Eighty-six lesions (64 benign and 22 malignant) detected on preoperative MRI of 68 breast cancer patients were retrospectively included. The clinico-radiologic features were correlated with the histopathologic results using the Student's t-test, Fisher's exact test, and logistic regression analysis. The scoring system was designed based on the significant predictive features of malignancy, and its diagnostic performance was compared with that of the Breast Imaging-Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) category. Results Lesion size ≥ 8 mm (p < 0.001), location in the same quadrant as the primary cancer (p = 0.005), delayed plateau kinetics (p = 0.010), T2 isointense (p = 0.034) and hypointense (p = 0.024) signals, and irregular mass shape (p = 0.028) were associated with malignancy. In comparison with the BI-RADS category, the scoring system based on these features with suspicious non-mass internal enhancement increased the diagnostic performance (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve: 0.918 vs. 0.727) and detected three false-negative cases. With this scoring system, 22 second-look ultrasound examinations (22/66, 33.3%) could have been avoided. Conclusion The scoring system based on the lesion size, location relative to the primary cancer, delayed kinetic features, T2 signal intensity, mass shape, and non-mass internal enhancement can provide a more accurate approach to evaluate MRI-detected lesions in breast cancer patients.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.84-93
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• 2024

Rosmarinic acid (RA) is a phenolic ester that protects human keratinocytes against oxidative damage induced by ultraviolet B (UVB) exposure, however, the mechanisms underlying its effects remain unclear. This study aimed to elucidate the cell signaling mechanisms that regulate the antioxidant activity of RA and confirm its cyto-protective role. To explore the signaling mechanisms, we used the human keratinocyte cell line HaCaT and SKH1 hairless mouse skin. RA enhanced glutamate-cysteine ligase catalytic subunit (GCLC) and glutathione synthetase (GSS) expression in HaCaT cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Moreover, RA induced nuclear factor erythroid-2-related factor 2 (NRF2) nuclear translocation and activated the signaling kinases protein kinase B (AKT) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK). Treatment with the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor LY294002, the ERK inhibitor U0126, and small interfering RNA (siRNA) gene silencing suppressed RA-enhanced GCLC, GSS, and NRF2 expression, respectively. Cell viability tests showed that RA significantly prevented UVB-induced cell viability decrease, whereas the glutathione (GSH) inhibitors buthionine sulfoximine, LY294002, and U0126 significantly reduced this effect. Moreover, RA protected against DNA damage and protein carbonylation, lipid peroxidation, and apoptosis caused by UVB-induced oxidative stress in a concentration-dependent manner in SKH1 hairless mouse skin tissues. These results suggest that RA protects against UVB-induced oxidative damage by activating AKT and ERK signaling to regulate NRF2 signaling and enhance GSH biosynthesis. Thus, RA treatment may be a promising approach to protect the skin from UVB-induced oxidative damage.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.209-223
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• 2024

In the context of the fourth industrial revolution, data-driven decision-making has increasingly become pivotal. However, the integrity of data analysis is compromised if data quality is not adequately ensured, potentially leading to biased interpretations. This is particularly critical for water level data, essential for water resource management, which often encounters quality issues such as missing values, spikes, and noise. This study addresses the challenge of noise-induced data quality deterioration, which complicates trend analysis and may produce anomalous outliers. To mitigate this issue, we propose a noise removal strategy employing Wavelet Transform, a technique renowned for its efficacy in signal processing and noise elimination. The advantage of Wavelet Transform lies in its operational efficiency - it reduces both time and costs as it obviates the need for acquiring the true values of collected data. This study conducted a comparative performance evaluation between our Wavelet Transform-based approach and the Denoising Autoencoder, a prominent machine learning method for noise reduction.. The findings demonstrate that the Coiflets wavelet function outperforms the Denoising Autoencoder across various metrics, including Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), and Mean Squared Error (MSE). The superiority of the Coiflets function suggests that selecting an appropriate wavelet function tailored to the specific application environment can effectively address data quality issues caused by noise. This study underscores the potential of Wavelet Transform as a robust tool for enhancing the quality of water level data, thereby contributing to the reliability of water resource management decisions.