• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.18-24
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• 2016

Purpose: There is a the great diagnostic challenge in pediatric tuberculosis especially in high burden setting. The purpose of this preliminary study is to evaluate the agreement between tuberculin skin test (TST) and interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) including T-SPOT$^{(R)}$.TB and QuantiFERON$^{(R)}$-TB Gold (QFT-G) in Korean children. Method: This retrospective study included children and adolescents who visited to Asan Medical Center to evaluate tuberculosis infection using at least two assays of TST, T-SPOT.TB and QFT-G, from January 2014 to April 2015. Results: A total of 20 patients were included, whose median age was 13.3 years (range, 3.8-18.1 years), and all of them had history of BCG vaccination. Eleven patients had underlying diseases including 7 patients with immunosuppressant medication. The concordance rate between T-SPOT.TB and QFT-G was 90%. However, the concordance rate between TST and T-SPOT.TB was 50%, and between TST and QFT-G was 42.9%. Specificity for the diagnosis of tuberculosis infection of T-SPOT.TB, QFT-G, and TST was 93.3%, 86.7%, and 58.3%, respectively. Conclusions: Although there was a discrepancy between TST and IGRA to diagnose tuberculosis, agreement between T-SPOT.TB and QFT-G was relatively high. Further prospective study to validate the clinical usefulness of each assay for immunologic evidence of tuberculosis infection in Korean children will be mandatory.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.73 no.3
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• pp.143-150
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• 2012

Background: The release of interferon-gamma (IFN-${\gamma}$) by T lymphocytes increases after rechallenge with Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigen, especially, at a localized site of tuberculosis (TB) infection. We aimed to compare the clincial efficacy of two commercial IFN-${\gamma}$ release assays from pleural fluid for the diagnosis in tuberculous pleurisy. Methods: We performed T-SPOT.TB and QuantiFERON-TB Gold tests simultaneously on pleural fluid and peripheral blood samples from patients with pleural effusion, in South Korea, an area with intermediate TB burden. Results: Thirty-six patients were enrolled prospectively, and tuberculous pleurisy was found in 21 patients. Both the numbers of IFN-${\gamma}$ secreting T cells and the concentration of IFN-${\gamma}$ were greater in the pleural tuberculous group, comparing with the non-tuberculous group. Moreover, in the tuberculous group, there was a significant difference in IFN-${\gamma}$ producing spot-forming cells using the T-SPOT.TB method between pleural fluid and peripheral blood. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, was the greatest for pleural fluid T-SPOT.TB test, followed by peripheral blood T-SPOT.TB test, peripheral blood QuantiFERON-TB Gold test, and pleural fluid QuantiFERON-TB Gold test (area under the ROC curve of 0.956, 0.890, 0.743, and 0.721, respectively). The T-SPOT.TB assay produced less indeterminate results than did QuantiFERON-TB Gold assay in both pleural fluid and peripheral blood. Conclusion: These findings suggest that the pleural fluid T-SPOT.TB test could be the most useful test among the IFN-${\gamma}$ release assays for diagnosing tuberculous pleurisy in an area with an intermediate prevalence of TB infection.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.261-279
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• 2005

The hot spot stress approach is usually adopted in the fatigue design and analysis of tubular welded joints. To apply the hot spot stress approach for fatigue evaluation of long span suspension bridges, the FEM is used to determine the hot spot stress of critical fatigue location. Using the local finite element models of the Tsing Ma Bridge, typical joints are developed and the stress concentration factors are determined. As a case for study, the calculated stress concentration factor is combined with the nominal representative stress block cycle to obtain the representative hot spot stress range cycle block under traffic loading from online health monitoring system. A comparison is made between the nominal stress approach and the hot spot stress approach for fatigue life evaluation of the Tsing Ma Bridge. The comparison result shows that the nominal stress approach cannot consider the most critical stress of the fatigue damage location and the hot spot stress approach is more appropriate for fatigue evaluation.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.282-288
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• 2014

It is difficult to control welding variables during spot welding of non-ferrous metals like aluminum because of the low electrical resistance of the material. It has been suggested that a solid state welding process such as friction stir spot welding or extru-spot welding can be used to spot weld aluminum plates. In the extru-spot welding, there is a need to increase the weld strength by improving the shape of the welding die. The current study shows that the weld strength for an extru-spot welding can be increased by using a pin placed on the inside of the upper electrode in the welding die. In the current study, the deformed shape of the insert rivet and the stress distribution in the welding zone were analyzed by simulation. Extru-rivet spot welding experiments were performed by changing the height of pin on the inside of the upper electrode. From the experimental result, it is shown that the weld strength for an extru-rivet spot welding can be increased by adjusting the height of the pin. The optimal shape of the deformed rivet after the extru-rivet spot welding can be observed from the simulation results. The deformed shape of the insert rivet can also be controlled by the height of pin.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.588-595
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• 2016

IFN-γ release assays (IGRAs) have been developed as viable alternative diagnostic tools for detecting latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI). A customized homogeneous sandwich luminescent oxygen channeling immunoassay (LOCI) was used to quantify IFN-γ levels in IGRAs. Samples were collected from healthy volunteers (n = 40) who were T-Spot-negative and T-Spot-positive patients (n = 32) at rest. Then the amount of IFN-γ in the supernatant of IGRAs was measured by LOCI. The results demonstrated a low background, and high sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and reproducibility, and a short assay time (only 30 min) with LOCI for IFN-γ. The recovery range was 81.63-102.06%, the coefficients of variation were below 5%, and the limit of detection was 19.0 mIU/ml. Excellent agreement between LOCI IFN-γ and the T-SPOT.TB test was obtained (97.2% agreement, κ = 0.94). The LOCI IFN-γ concentrations were significantly higher in T-Spot-positive patients than in the healthy group (p < 0.001). Moreover, as observed for the comparative LOCI IFN-γ assay, IFN-γ concentrations were related to the numbers of T-SPOT.TB spots. We have established an in vitro blood test for LTBI diagnosis, defined as LOCI IFN-γ. A high level of agreement between the LOCI IFN-γ method and T-SPOT.TB assay was observed in clinical studies that showed the LOCI IFN-γ method could determine LTBI. This study shows acceptable performance characteristics of the LOCI IFN-γ assay to diagnose LTBI.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.7415-7419
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• 2013

The diagnosis of latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection (LTBI) is recommended in hematological malignancy patients and before hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (Guidelines for the prevention and management of infectious complications of solid organ transplantation, 2004). Compared to traditional methods such as tuberculin skin test (TST), T-SPOT.TB has been shown to be more specific. In the present study we enrolled 536 patients for whom T-SPOT.TB was performed, among which 295 patients also received the TST test. The agreement (79%) between T-SPOT.TB and TST was poor (x=0.274, P<0.001). The patients with positive T-SPOT.TB results numbered 62 (11.6%), in which only 20 (48.8%) of the 41 receiving the TST test had positive results. A majority of the patients with T-SPOT.TB positive results had some other evidence ofTB, such as TB history, clinical symptoms and an abnormal chest CT scan. Active TB was found in 9 patients, in which 2 had negative TST results. We followed up the patients and no one developed active TB. Our study suggested that the T-SPOT.TB may be more useful for screening LTBI and active TB in hematological malignancy patients and hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients than the TST test.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.231-235
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• 2015

This study was performed to investigate the change of the body surface temperature during socialization of weaning pigs. A total of 108 piglets (Landrace 60 and Yorkshire 48) aged 31 (${\pm}1.1$) day was used for this study. Experiment was designed as follows; familiar group (T1), randomly mixed with unfamiliar piglets (T2), mixed based on weight of unfamiliar piglet (T3). The transport and mixing of pigs were performed at 10:00, and then body surface temperature was taken by thermo-graphic camera after 4 hours (14:00). Average surface temperature and hot-spot-temperature, which is the hottest spot of the body surface, were analyzed using Testo IRsoft 3.1 software. Average temperature of body surface were 36.0, 38.2, and 37.5 in T1, T2, and T3, respectively. Average of body surface temperature in T2 and T3 were higher (p<0.001) than T1, and average temperature of body surface of T3 was greater (p<0.001) than that of T2. The hot-spot-temperature of T1, T2, and T3 were 38.7, 39.5, and 39.6, respectively. The hot-spot-temperature of T2 (p<0.01) and T3 (p<0.001) were significantly higher than that of T1. Above results demonstrate that grouping unfamiliar pigs leads to increase in the body temperature possibly by pigs aggressive behavior during social conflict. By the result on average body temperature, this study suggests that the mixing with similar body weight would increase the struggle time and frequency.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 1999.05a
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• pp.215-218
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• 1999

With increasing demand of energy saving, -many efforts were made to employ aluminium alloys in the automobile industry. Especially, resistance spot welding has been widely used in the steel metal joining process because of its high productively and convenience. In this paper, spot weldability of 7075-T6 aluminium thin sheets for various welding conditions were examined by series of experiments. The tensile shear strength and microstructure of welded specimens was observed, and The optimal welding conditions were found for each welding conditions.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1990.10b
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• pp.1162-1166
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• 1990

We present a system to measure 3-dimensional coordinates of huge structures like ships, buildings and oil tanks. Two important units are a laser spot projector and a laser spot tracker. Employing a tactful image processing, our system has some features :e.g. compactness, cost, accuracy and robustness to hazardous emvironments.

• Asian Journal of Turfgrass Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.191-201
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• 2006

Dollar spot caused by Sclerotinia homeocarpa is one of major diseases in putting greens. Microorganisms antagonistic to S. homeocarpa, a pathogen of dollar spot, were primarily screened through in vitro tests, including dual culture method and triple layer agar diffusion method. In vivo tests were also conducted to select the best candidate for a biocontrol microorganism, using pot experiment. Bacillus subtilis EW42-1 and Trichoderma harziaum GBF-0208 were finally selected as biocontrol agents against dollar spot. Relative Performance Index(RPI) was used as a criterion of selecting potential biocontrol agents. B. subtilis EW42-1 and T. harzianum GBF-0208 showed resistance to several agrochemicals mainly used in a golf course. B. subtilis EW42-1 and T. harzianum GBF-0208 suppressed effectively the disease progress of dollar spot like synthetic fungicide tebuconazole in the nursery where dollar spot had seriously occurred. B. subtilis EW42-1 and T. harzianum GBF-0208 have a potential to be biocontrol agents for the control of dollar spot.