• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.281-290
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• 2024

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has a poor prognosis owing to its desmoplastic stroma. Therefore, therapeutic strategies targeting this tumor stroma should be developed. In this study, we describe the heterogeneity of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and their diverse roles in the progression, immune evasion, and resistance to treatment of PDAC. We subclassified the spatial distribution and functional activity of CAFs to highlight their effects on prognosis and drug delivery. Extracellular matrix components such as collagen and hyaluronan are described for their roles in tumor behavior and treatment outcomes, implying their potential as therapeutic targets. We also discussed the roles of extracellular matrix (ECM) including matrix metalloproteinases and tissue inhibitors in PDAC progression. Finally, we explored the role of the adaptive and innate immune systems in shaping the PDAC microenvironment and potential therapeutic strategies, with a focus on immune cell subsets, cytokines, and immunosuppressive mechanisms. These insights provide a comprehensive understanding of PDAC and pave the way for the development of prognostic markers and therapeutic interventions.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.380-388
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• 2017

Factors affecting spatial distribution of halophytes were analyzed in June 2012 at the Goraebul coastal dunes. In the Goraebul sand dune, distribution of halophytes was divided into three groups. The first group belonging to Elymus mollis, Carex kobomugi, Calystegia soldanella, Ixeris repens and Glehnia littoralis was distributed in the ridge of primary sand dune and dune slack. The second group belonging to Lathyrus japonicus and Zoysia macrostachya was distributed in the dune slack. The third group belonging to Pinus thunbergii, Vitex rotundifolia and Linaria japonicus was distributed in the pine forest of the secondary sand dune. E. mollis, C. kobomugi, C. soldanella, I. repens and G. littoralis was distributed in relatively unstable habitat of sand dunes due to the large amount of sand movement. V. rotundifolia was distributed in a relatively stable habitat. Factors that have the greatest influence on distribution of halophytes in the Goraebul sand dunes are distance from the seashore, topography, and the pine forest. The Goraebul sand dune is a relatively well-preserved area with minimal human intervention. Therefore, different distribution of physico-chemical factors by natural processes is essential to spatial distribution of halophytes than other sand dunes in Korea. Significant natural processes in the Goraebul sand dunes were advance and retreat of coastlines from waves, erosion and sedimentation of sand due to wind and waves, and dispersal of seawater.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.917-934
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• 2014

Geographically weighted regression(GWR) model has been widely used to estimate spatially heterogeneous real estate prices. The GWR model, however, has some limitations of the selection of different price determinants over space and the restricted number of observations for local estimation. Alternatively, the geographically weighted LASSO(GWL) model has been recently introduced and received a growing interest. In this paper, we attempt to explore various local price determinants for the real estate by utilizing the GWL and its applicability to forecasting the real estate price. To do this, we developed the three hedonic models of OLS, GWR, and GWL focusing on the sales price of apartments in Seoul and compared those models in terms of model fit, prediction, and multicollinearity. As a result, local models appeared to be better than the global OLS on the whole, and in particular, the GWL appeared to be more explanatory and predictable than other models. Moreover, the GWL enabled to provide spatially different sets of price determinants which no multicollinearity exists. The GWL helps select the significant sets of independent variables from a high dimensional dataset, and hence will be a useful technique for large and complex spatial big data.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.96 no.6
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• pp.730-736
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• 2007

The heterogeneity of forest environment plays an important role in the structure and dynamics of tree population, the composition of forest community, and the maintenance of species diversity. Based upon the research data of the nine hectare permanent plot in the typical mixed broadleaved-Korean pine forest, this study was conducted to analyze the characteristics of spatial pattern of Acer tegmentosum population for seedlings, saplings, and living and dead trees so as to evaluate the effect of micro-topography on spatial pattern of the species. The results noted that A. tegmentosum preferred to gentle slopes. There was no difference in density of seedlings by the variation of aspect, but the density of saplings, and living and dead trees was high on the western and southeastern slopes. Living trees of A. tegmentosum showed the clumped pattern for all scales within 150 m and highest at the scale of 30 m. Dead stems of the species indicated the clumped pattern within 111 m, highest at the scale of 72 m, and random pattern beyond the scale of 111 m (P < 0.01 ). The similarity of occurrence by developmental stages of A. tegmentosum showed that seedlings vs. saplings, saplings vs. living trees, and living trees vs. dead stems had highly positive correlation to each other, respectively (P < 0.01 ), indicating that the occurrence of previous developmental stages was positively correlated to following stages.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.439-450
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• 2016

For the design of infrastructures controlling the flood events at ungauged basins, this study tries to find the regional flood frequencies using peak flow data generated by the spatial extension of flood records. The Chungju Dam watershed is selected to validate the possibility of regional flood frequency analysis using the spatially extended flood data. Firstly, based on the index flood method, the flood event data from the spatial extension method is evaluated for 22 mid/smaller sub-basins at the Chungju Dam watershed. The homogeneity of the Chungju dam watershed was assessed in terms of the different size of watershed conditions such as accumulated and individual sub-basins. Based on the result of homogeneity analysis, this watershed is heterogeneous with respect to individual sub-basins because of the heterogeneity of rainfall distribution. To decide the regional probability distribution, goodness-of fit measure and weighted moving averages method from flood frequency analysis were adopted. Finally, GEV distribution was selected as a representative distribution and regional quantile were estimated. This research is one step further method to estimate regional flood frequency for ungauged basins.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.68-79
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• 2021

The recent occurrence of vacant houses in urban areas is a remarkable social problem. One of the physical declines, the occurrence of vacant houses, accelerates various social and economic declines, such as a decline in population and a slump in the commercial district. Vacant houses have regional characteristics and spatial influence, and it is necessary to approach them locally in order to grasp the exact status of vacant houses. Therefore, in this study, the effect of urban decline on the occurrence of vacant homes was examined by region using global Moran's I and Geographic Weighted Regression(GWR) model. As a result of the analysis, there were spatial autocorrelation and heterogeneity in the occurrence of vacant houses in each eup·myeon·dong, Busan metropolitan city. In addition, there is a difference in the influence of each variable of urban decline on the occurrence of vacant houses, and even the same variable of urban decline has different effects on the occurrence of vacant houses in different regions. Therefore, it is expected that a more efficient vacant home management plan can be presented if the GWR model is used to analyze the coefficient values differentiated by region and categorize the occurrence of vacant houses.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.218-236
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• 2023

This study attempted to analyze the environmental equity of fine dust(PM₁₀) in Daegu using MGWR(Multi-scale Geographically Weighted Regression) and KT(Korea Telecom Corporation) sensor data. Existing national monitoring network data for measuring fine dust are collected at a small number of ground-based stations that are sparsely distributed in a large area. To complement these drawbacks, KT sensor data with a large number of IoT(Internet of Things) stations densely distributed were used in this study. The MGWR model was used to deal with spatial heterogeneity and multi-scale contextual effects in the spatial relationships between fine dust concentration and socioeconomic variables. Results indicate that there existed an environmental inequity by land value and foreigner ratio in the spatial distribution of fine dust in Daegu metropolitan city. Also, the MGWR model showed better the explanatory power than Ordinary Least Square(OLS) and Geographically Weighted Regression(GWR) models in explaining the spatial relationships between the concentration of fine dust and socioeconomic variables. This study demonstrated the potential of KT sensor data as a supplement to the existing national monitoring network data for measuring fine dust.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.149-160
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• 2007

KoFlux Gwangneung Supersite comprises complex topography and diverse vegetation types (and structures), which necessitate complementary multi-disciplinary measurements to understand energy and matter exchange. Here, we report the results of this ongoing research with special focuses on carbon/water budgets in Gwangneung forest, implications of inter-dependency between water and carbon cycles, and the importance of hydrology in carbon cycling under monsoon climate. Comprehensive biometric and chamber measurements indicated the mean annual net ecosystem productivity (NEP) of this forest to be ${\sim}2.6\;t\;C\;ha^{-1}y^{-1}$. In conjunction with the tower flux measurement, the preliminary carbon budget suggests the Gwangneung forest to be an important sink for atmospheric $CO_2$. The catchment scale water budget indicated that $30\sim40%$ of annual precipitation was apportioned to evapotranspiration (ET). The growing season average of the water use efficiency (WUE), determined from leaf carbon isotope ratios of representative tree species, was about $12{\mu}mol\;CO_2/mmol\;H_2O$ with noticeable seasonal variations. Such information on ET and WUE can be used to constrain the catchment scale carbon uptake. Inter-annual variations in tree ring growth and soil respiration rates correlated with the magnitude and the pattern of precipitation during the growing season, which requires further investigation of the effect of a monsoon climate on the catchment carbon cycle. Additionally, we examine whether structural and functional units exist in this catchment by characterizing the spatial heterogeneity of the study site, which will provide the linkage between different spatial and temporal scale measurements.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.84-98
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• 2022

Estuary is important in terms of biodiversity because it has the characteristics of transition waters, created by the mixing of fresh- and seawater. The estuarine water circulation provides a variety of habitats with different environments by inducing gradients in the chemical and physical environment, such as water quality and river bed structure, which are ultimately the main factors influencing biological community composition. If the water circulation is interrupted, the loss of brackish areas and the interception of migration of biological communities will lead to changes in the spatial distribution of biodiversity. In this study, among the sites covered by the Estuary Aquatic Ecosystem Health Assessment, we selected study sites where changes in biodiversity can be assessed by spatial gradient from the upper reaches of the river to the lower estuarine area. The α-, γ- and β-diversity of diatom, benthic macroinvertebrates, and fish communities were calculated, and they were divided into open and closed estuary data and compared to determine the trends in biodiversity variation due to estuarine circulation. As results, all communities showed higher γ-diversity at open estuary sites. The benthic macroinvertebrate community showed a clear difference between open and closed estuaries in β-diversity, consequently the estuarine transects were considered as a factor that decreases spatial heterogeneity of their diversity among sites. The biodiversity trends analyzed in this study will be used to identify estuaries with low γ- and β-diversity by community, providing a useful resource for further mornitoring and management to maintain estuarine health.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.433-445
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• 2014

The objective of study was to analyze seasonal and inter-annual patterns of water chemistry of Miho Stream watershed during 2004 - 2007 along with some influences of tributaries and summer monsoon on the stream water quality. For the study, eight physico-chemical parameters such as nitrogen, phosphorus, BOD, COD and chlorophyll-a (CHL) etc. were analyzed in relation to spatial and temporal variability of seven sampling sites of the mainstream and some tributaries in the watershed. In the upstream reach, Mean of BOD, COD and TP averaged 3.2 mg/L, 6.5 mg/L and $186{\mu}g/L$, respectively, indicating an eutrophic conditions as a III-rank in the stream water quality criteria from the Ministry of Environment, Korea(MEK). The eutrophic water was due to a combined effect of Chiljang tributary with high nutrients ($TP=844{\mu}g/L$, TN=8.087 mg/L) and the point sources from some wastewater treatment plants. In the meantime, BOD, TN, and TP in the downstream reach were about > 1.2-1.5 folds than the values of the midstream reaches. This was mainly attributed to effluents of nutrient rich-water (mean TN: 11.980 mg/L) from two tributaries of Musim Stream and Suknam Stream, which is directly influenced by nearby wastewater disposal plants. Seasonal analysis of water chemistry showed that summer monsoon rainfall was one of the important factors influencing the water quality, and water quality had a large spatial heterogeneity during the rainfall period. In the premonsoon, BOD in the downstream averaged $6.0{\pm}2.47mg/L$, which was 1.4-fold greater than the mean of upstream reach. Mean of CHL-a as an indicator of primary productivity in the water body, was > 2.2 - 2.9 fold in the downstream than in the upstream, and this was a result of the high phosphorus loading from the watershed. Overall, our data suggest that some nutrient controls in point-source tributary streams are required for efficient water quality management of Miho Stream.