• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.213-220
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• 1990

The employees at the Pohang industrial area, where Clonarchis sinensis has been known to be endemic along the Hyungsan River, were examined parasitologically for clonorchiasis and a part of the infected cases were surveyed with a questionaire to outline the recent infection status of C. sinensis and epidemiological parameters in the area. Total of 3, 180 cases were tested by intra- dermal inoculation of C. sinensis antigen (Green Cross Co., Korea), and 834(26.2%) were found positive. Out of the positive cases, 598 were subjected to (ecal examination for helminth ova. The examination revealed 129(21.6%) ova Positive cases of C. sinensis, and Trichuris trichiura 1.7%, Ascaris lumbricoides 0.3%, and Metagonimus yokogawai 0.2%. The questionaire analysis showed some significant difFerences between the infected and non-infected(control) groups. The infected cases were less educated than the control, and they lived at the closer area to the river, and most of them lived there over 20 years. Also they preferred eating raw fresh water fish. Most of the detected cases were treated with prasiquantel and found negative for the eggs in 85.3% of them 1 year after the treatment. The present data reveal markedly decreased endemicity of clonorchiasis compared with previous prevalence rates but still clonorchiasis is endemic in the Hyungsan river basin. A comprehensive measure including case detection, treatment and education for parasite control should be applied to control clonorchiasis in such endemic areas.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.48-53
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• 2011

Purpose : Early diagnosis of active tuberculosis (TB) in children is difficult. The widely used tuberculin skin test has low sensitivity and cross reactivity with non-tuberculous mycobacteria or Bacille Calmette-Gu$\acute{e}$rin vaccination. Interferon gamma release assays have been shown good diagnostic accuracy for active in adults. But studies in children were limited. The purpose of this study was to examine the performance of enzyme-linked immunospot assay (ELISpot) as an initial test in the diagnosis of active tuberculosis in children. Methods : In a hospital-based study, we prospectively examined the performance of ELISPot in 33 children suspected of active TB. TB was confirmed bacteriologically or histologically. Results : Among 33 patients, 9 had active tuberculosis. When tested, they all had a positive test result from the ELISpot. The sensitivity and specificity of the assay were 100% (95% CI, 66.4-100%) and 95.8% (95% CI, 78.9-99.9%) respectively. Conclusion : ELISpot might be an useful and improved clinical diagnostic method for the detection of active TB in children.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.119-129
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• 2011

Vision-based Human computer interaction is an emerging field of science and industry to provide natural way to communicate with human and computer. Especially, recent increasing demands for mobile augmented reality require the development of efficient interactive technologies between the augmented virtual object and users. This paper presents a novel approach to construct marker-less mobile augmented reality object and control the object. Replacing a traditional market, the human hand interface is used for marker-less mobile augmented reality system. In order to implement the marker-less mobile augmented system in the limited resources of mobile device compared with the desktop environments, we proposed a method to extract an optimal hand region which plays a role of the marker and augment object in a realtime fashion by using the camera attached on mobile device. The optimal hand region detection can be composed of detecting hand region with YCbCr skin color model and extracting the optimal rectangle region with Rotating Calipers Algorithm. The extracted optimal rectangle region takes a role of traditional marker. The proposed method resolved the problem of missing the track of fingertips when the hand is rotated or occluded in the hand marker system. From the experiment, we can prove that the proposed framework can effectively construct and control the augmented virtual object in the mobile environments.

• Proceedings of the SCSK Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.780-803
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• 2003

Exposure of skin cells, particularly keratinocytes to various nuclear factor-kappaB ($\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$) activators [e.g. tumor necrosis factor-$\alpha$, interleukin-1, lipopolysaccharides, and ultraviolet light] leads to phosphorylation and degradation of the inhibitory protein, $\textrm{I}_{{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$. Liberated $\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$ is translocated into the nucleus where it can change or alter expression of target genes, resulting in the secretion of extracellular signaling molecules including melanotrophic factors affecting melanocyte. In order to demonstrate the possible role of $\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$ activation on the synthesis of melanotrophic factors from the keratinocytes, the activities of $\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$ induced by melanogenic inhibitors (MIs) were determined in human HaCaT keratinocytes transfected with $\textrm{pNF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$-SEAP-NPT plasmid. Transfectant cells released the secretory alkaline phosphatase (SEAP) as a transcription reporter in response to the $\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$ activity and contain the neomycin phosphotransferase (NPT) gene for the dominant selection marker for geneticin resistance. MIs such as niacinamide, kojic acid, hydroquinone, resorcinol, arbutin, and glycolic acid were preincubated with transfectant HaCaT cells for 3 h and then ultraviolet B (UVB) was irradiated. $\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$ activation was measured with the SEAP reporter gene assay using a fluorescence detection method. Of the Mis tested, kojic acid ($IC_{50}$/ = 60 $\mu$M) was found to be the most potent inhibitor of UVB-upregulating $\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$ activation in transfectant HaCaT cells, which is followed by niacinamide ($IC_{50}$/= 540 $\mu$M). Pretreatment of the transfectant HaCaT cells with the Mis, especially kojic acid and niacinamide, effectively lowered $\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$ binding measured by electrophoretic mobility shift assay. Furthermore, these two inhibitors remarkably reduced the secretion level of IL-6, one of melanotrophic factors, triggered by UV-radiation of the HaCaT cells. These observations suggest that Mis working at the in vivo level might act partially through the modulation of the synthesis of melanotrophic factors in keratinocyte.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.33-42
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• 2010

In this study, we have proposed a simple cardiorespiratory monitoring method based on displacements of human body which occurs due to periodic heartbeat and breathing. The proposed system consists of an aircushion, pressure sensing hardware and heartbeat and respiration signals extraction algorithm. The aircushion was used for unconstrained measurement of the respiration and heartbeats without a sensor attached on the subject's skin surface. The displacements of subject sitting on the aircushion cause small pressure variations. These variations are amplified and filtered with the pressure sensing hardware. Finally, heart rate and respiration rate are extracted by signal processing algorithm based on frequency domain filter. To evaluate the performance, extracted respiration and heart rate from proposed system were compared with conventional methods. The average sensitivity of respiration and heart rate are 98.67% and 99.24%, respectively. These results show the proposed method has advantages of installing and processing simplicity so as to be used easily in unconstrained respiration and heart rate monitoring in daily life.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.155-166
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• 2012

This paper proposes a new method of estimating the hand pose through the Mean-Shift tracking algorithm using the fusion of color and depth information for marker-less augmented reality. On marker-less augmented reality, the most of previous studies detect the hand region using the skin color from simple experimental background. Because finger features should be detected on the hand, the hand pose that can be measured from cameras is restricted considerably. However, the proposed method can easily detect the hand pose from complex background through the new Mean-Shift tracking method using the fusion of the color and depth information from 3D sensor. The proposed method of estimating the hand pose uses the gravity point and two random points on the hand without largely constraints. The proposed Mean-Shift tracking method has about 50 pixels error less than general tracking method just using color value. The augmented reality experiment of the proposed method shows results of its performance being as good as marker based one on the complex background.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.561-567
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• 2012

Objectives: Parabens are widely used as antimicrobial agents in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics as well as by the food industry. Parabens have been reported to show weak estrogenic activity and be related to health effects such as allergic reactions and skin and breast cancer. We evaluated an online solid phase extraction (SPE) method coupled with LC-MS/MS technique using free and conjugated parent parabens in human urine for assessing human exposure to parabens. Methods: We employed LC/MS/MS through online solid phase extraction and column-switching techniques and analyzed free and conjugated parabens as biomarkers of human exposure. Four major parabens, methyl-paraben (MP), ethyl-paraben (EP), propyl-paraben (PP) and butyl-paraben (BP), were analyzed. Method validation was performed by sensitivity, accuracy, precision and comparison of the results of online SPE with offline SPE. Results: The limits of detection (LOD) were in the range of 0.2-2 ng/mL, and actual limits of quantification (LOQ) were in the range of 0.7-6 ng/mL urine, depending upon the compound. Accuracy was in the range of 98.3-106.4%, and precision was in the range of 1.3-8.7% (CV) depending upon the compound. We found a good correlation between the results of analysis by online SPE method and that by off-line SPE method. Conclusions: The online SPE method showed proper LOD and validated accuracy, precision and good correlation with the offline method for analyzing parabens in urine.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.345-352
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• 2014

Objectives: This study is aimed to describe the current situation about urinary biomarker N-methylformamide(NMF) for workers exposed to N,N-dimethylformamide(DMF) according to industrial classification. Materials: Special health examination records of the workers who had undergone urinary biological monitoring in 2013 were collected. The numbers and percentage of workers, whose urinary NMF values were above the limit of detection(LOD) and above the biological exposure index(BEI) were calculated. Health relatedness with DMF as judged by their doctors was also described. All description was classified according to the $9^{th}$ Korean Standard Industrial Classification(KSIC). Results: It appeared that most workers exposed to DMF belong to manufacturing section(80.7%). The geometric mean(GM) values of urinary NMF were 6.25 mg/L, 3.54, and 3.86 for the manufacturing section, professional, scientific and technical activities section, and for the construction section respectively. In detail, it seemed that division of textiles(except apparel) (GM 7.51 mg/L), division of leather, luggage and footwear(11.59 mg/L), and division of rubber and plastic products(6.89 mg/L) were highly exposed to DMF with a high percentage of workers with urinary NMF values above BEI. This was probably due to the effect of skin absorption that the division of leather, luggage and footwear showed the highest urine NMF GM. Conclusions: It seemed that workers in manufacture industries such as textile, leather, luggage, footwear, rubber and plastic products were highly exposed to DMF. So, efforts should be focused on those industries in order to effectively diminish worker's exposure. Further studies to compare DMF air-monitoring with bio-monitoring according to industrial classification should be considered.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.54-60
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• 2014

Aromatic hydrocarbons are toxic environmental pollutants that are detrimental to the ecosystem and human health. Among them, chlorotoluene and nitrotoluene are toxic to hydrobios and irritate the skin, eyes, and respiratory organs of humans. We herein report the development of recombinant microbial biosensors for cheap and rapid monitoring of chlorotoluene and nitrotoluene compounds. Plasmids were constructed by inserting the xylR regulatory gene for BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene) degradation into upstream of Po' (the DmpR activator promoter Po with the deletion of its own upstream activating sequences) or Pu (the cognate promoter of XylR)::lacZ (the ${\beta}$-galactosidase gene) and transformed into Escherichia coli $DH5{\alpha}$. In the presence of inducers, the biosensor cells immobilized in agarose developed a red color in 1-2 h due to the hydrolysis of chlorophenol red ${\beta}$-D-galactopyranoside (CPRG), a substrate of ${\beta}$-galactosidase that was expressed by the inducers. Among BTEX, high responses were specifically observed with o-, m-, p-chlorotoluene ($0.1{\mu}M-100 mM$) and o-, m-, p-nitrotoluene (0.1 mM-100 mM). Po' demonstrated higher responses than those with Pu. The biosensors immobilized in agarose showed good stability after 21 days' storage at $4^{\circ}C$, and responses in untreated wastewater spiked with chlorotoluene and nitrotoluene, suggesting they can be used to detect compounds in wastewater.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.499-509
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• 2018

This study optimized the bone-softening and fishy odor-reducing process for mackerel Scomber japonicus products using response surface methodology (RSM). The RSM showed that the optimum concentrations of doenjang and citric acid for reducing the fishy odor in bone-softened mackerel were 11.8% and 0.04%, respectively, and the optimum immersion time was 52.2 min. The estimated overall acceptance, salinity, and acidity of the products under these optimum conditions were 7.7 points, 1.1%, and 202.6 mg/100 g, respectively, which were similar to the actual measured values of $7.6{\pm}1.2$ points, $1.0{\pm}0.1%$ and $203.2{\pm}3.8mg/100g$. Moreover, the heating temperature and time for bone-softening based on RSM were $107.3^{\circ}C$ and 4.4 h, respectively. The estimated hardness and proportion of skin removed from the product under the optimal conditions were $161.5g/cm^2$ and 0.09%, respectively, which were also similar to the actual measured values of $171.1{\pm}12.6g/cm^2$ and $0.10{\pm}0.02%$. The optimum bone-softening and fishy odor-reducing process for mackerel consisted of the following steps: thawing (${\leq}10^{\circ}C$, 8 h), filleting, washing/dewatering, immersing in an 11.8% doenjang -0.04% citric acid solution for 52 min, washing/dewatering, heating ($107.3^{\circ}C$, 4.4 h), freezing, depanning, internal and external packaging, and X-ray detection treatment.