• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.84-96
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• 2020

The Republic of Korea (Korea) and the Russian Federation (Russia) are actualizing the cooperation in the Arctic area. As a result, Korean companies have begun to enjoy real economic benefits. However, since there are some troublesome aspects associated with this cooperation, measures that can lead to sustainable development through the supplementation of relevant norms are critical. Russia is also aware of these problems in obtaining economic benefits in the future; cooperation between the two countries should be extended to sufficiently cover this point. The laws related to the region are vague and do not encompass every field. In addition, when it comes to national interests, many situations arise from areas where international and national laws are not clearly harmonized. Therefore, efforts should be made to reflect the interests of both sides and to maintain economic benefits, in case Korea participates in Russia's development of the area, as well as for the legal foundation to reduce negative issues. The Korea-Russia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiation is on the track for the purpose. The two governments should consider various tasks, such as harmonizing with the former FTAs and dealing with the domestic law in accordance with the new FTA. The two countries also have to conduct researches on the efficient use of the FTA and for the 'Sustainable Arctic Development'.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.48-68
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• 2017

Manual elections processes in Egypt have several negative effects; that mainly leads to political corruption due to the lack of transparency. These issues negatively influence citizen's participation in the political life; while electronic voting systems aim to increase efficiency, transparency, and reduce the cost comparing to the manual voting. The main research objectives are, finding the successful factors that positively affects E-voting implementation in Egypt, in addition of finding out the reasons that keep Egyptian government far from applying E-voting, and to come up with the road map that Egyptian government has to take into consideration to successfully implement E-voting systems. The findings of the study suggest that there are seven independent variables affecting e-voting implementation which are; leadership, government willingness, legal framework, technical quality, awareness, citizen's trust in government and IT literacy. Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) theory was used to provide an analytical framework for the study. A quantitative approach (i.e., survey questionnaire) strategy was used to collect data. A random sampling method was used to select the participants for the survey, whom are targeted voters in Egypt and have access to the internet, since the questionnaire was distributed online and the data is analyzed using regression analysis. Practical implications of this study will lead for more citizen participation in the political life due to the transparency that E-voting system will create, in addition to reduce the political corruption.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.142-145
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• 1995

The pumb gene encoding a basic amino acid transport protein in Neurospora crassa could be cloned by using a mutant strain defective in pmb gene as a host strain, using a negative selection on the media containing amino acid analogue canavanine. To select positive transformants of the genes for cloning, an auxotrophic marker (his-2) was added to a pmb mutant strain by mating ; a triple mutant (pmn : pmb : his-2) was constructued by crossing a strain defective in basic amino acid transport system (# 1683-bat um 535 "A") to a double mutant strain defective in neutral amino acid transport and histidine production (mitrol : his-2 "a"). Crossing was performed on synthetic crossing (SC) media containing histidine. The pmn : pmb and pmn :pmb : his-2 strains were selected among the progeny colonies from crosses on plates containing 5- .mu.g/ml para-fluoro-phenylalanine (PFPA), 200 .mu.g/ml canavanine, and 500 .mu.g/ml histidine. The selected colonies were cultured on minimal media with or without histidine for discarding pmn : pmb strain, because the pmn : pmb : his -2 strain grows only on histidine containing media. The pmn :pmb : his-2 strain selected can be used as a host strain for the cloning of the pmb and the pmn genes from a Neurospora genomic library by means of positive selections.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.31-41
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• 2020

A new type of bridge deck section consisting of four-box decks, two side decks for vehicular traffic lanes and two middle decks for railway traffic, has been experimentally investigated for determining its aerodynamic properties. The eight flutter derivatives were determined by the Iterative Least Squares (ILS) method for this new type of four-box deck model, with two windshields of 30 mm and 50 mm height respectively. Wind tunnel experiments were performed for angles of attack α = ±6°, ±4°, ±2° and 0° and Re numbers of 4.85×105 to 6.06×105 and it was found that the four-box deck with the 50 mm windshields had a better aerodynamic performance. Also, the results showed that the installation of the windshields reduced the values of the lift coefficient CL for the negative angles attack in the range of -6° to 0°, but the drag coefficient CD increased in the positive angle of attack range. However, galloping instability was not encountered for the tested reduced wind speeds, of up to 9.8. The aerodynamic force coefficients and the flutter derivatives for the four-box deck model were consistent with the results reported for the Messina triple-box bridge deck, but were different from those reported for the twin-box bridge decks.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.2177-2185
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• 2015

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women around the world. About one in 12 women in the West develop breast cancer at some point in life. It is estimated that 5%-10% of all breast cancer cases in women are linked to hereditary susceptibility due to mutations in autosomal dominant genes. The two key players associated with high breast cancer risk are mutations in BRCA 1 and BRCA 2. Another highly important mutation can occur in TP53 resulting in a triple negative breast cancer. However, the great majority of breast cancer cases are not related to a mutated gene of high penetrance, but to genes of low penetrance such as CHEK2, CDH1, NBS1, RAD50, BRIP1 and PALB2, which are frequently mutated in the general population. In this review, we discuss the entire spectrum of mutations which are associated with breast cancer.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.2735-2738
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• 2012

Background: Our objective was to clarify the clinical and biological characteristics of basal-like breast cancer (BLBC) and non-basal-like breast cancer (TN3BKE) in Heilongjiang. Methods: We examined, by immunohistochemistry, expression of biological markers cytokeratin (CK) 5/6 and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and B cell specific moloney murine leukemia virus integration site 1( Bmi-1) in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). We studied the correlation between BLBC and several factors related to tumor progression, along with its prognostic value. Results: In the 229 cases of operable TNBC, BLBC was detected in 178 (77.7%) and TN3BKE- in 51 (22.2%). There was no significant difference in clinicopathological factors between them, However, BLBC was significantly associated with Bmi-1 expression (P=0.000) and shorter disease-free survival (DFS) (P = 0.045) and overall survival (OS) (P = 0.041). Conclusions: Compared with the non-basal group, patients with BLBC have a high expression of Bmi-1 and a poor prognosis.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.2983-2986
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• 2013

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, non-coding RNAs (18-25 nucleotides) that post-transcriptionally modulate gene expression by negatively regulating the stability or translational efficiency of their target mRNAs. In this context, the present study aimed to evaluate the in vitro effects of miR-153 inhibition in the breast carcinoma cell line MDA-MB-231. Forty-eight hours after MDA-MB-231 cells were transfected with the miR-153 inhibitor, an MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) assay was utilized to determine the effects of miR-153 on cell viability. Flow cytometry analysis and assessment of caspase 3/7 activity were adopted to determine whether miR-153 affects the proliferation rates and apoptosis levels of MDA-MB-231 cells. Our results showed that silencing of miR-153 significantly inhibited growth when compared to controls at 48 hours, reducing proliferation by 37.6%, and inducing apoptosis. Further studies are necessary to corroborate our findings and examine the potential use of this microRNA in future diagnostic and therapeutic interventions.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.24
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• pp.10585-10589
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• 2015

Breast cancer susceptibility gene 1 (BRCA1), mapped on chromosome 17q21, is implicated in the mechanisms of cellular DNA repair. Inactivation of this gene is involved in the development of many human cancers, including breast cancer. This study aimed to investigate the prognostic value of BRCA1 promoter hypermethylation and expression in breast cancer cases. Sixty-one breast cancers were examined for BRCA1 hypermethylation by methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and 45 paired normal breast tissues were analyzed for altered BRCA1 mRNA levels by quantitative real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Aberrant methylation status in BRCA1 was detected in 15 of 61 cases (24.6%), while reduced expression was found in 7 of 45 (15.6%). BRCA1 hypermethylation was statistically associated with tumor grade III (p=0.04), a high frequency of stage IIB (p=0.02), and triple-negative phenotype (OR= 3.64, 95%CI =1.1-12.3, p=0.03). Our findings indicated that BRCA1 promoter hypermethylation is a useful prognostic marker for breast cancer.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.163-168
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• 2016

Caffeine has both positive and negative effects on physiological functions in a dose-dependent manner. C. elegans has been used as an animal model to investigate the effects of caffeine on development. Caffeine treatment at a high dose (30 mM) showed detrimental effects and caused early larval arrest. We performed a comparative proteomic analysis to investigate the mode of action of high-dose caffeine treatment in C. elegans and found that the stress response proteins, heat shock protein (HSP)-4 (endoplasmic reticulum [ER] chaperone), HSP-6 (mitochondrial chaperone), and HSP-16 (cytosolic chaperone), were induced and their expression was regulated at the transcriptional level. These findings suggest that high-dose caffeine intake causes a strong stress response and activates all three stress-response pathways in the worms, including the ER-, mitochondrial-, and cytosolic pathways. RNA interference of each hsp gene or in triple combination retarded growth. In addition, caffeine treatment stimulated a food-avoidance behavior (aversion phenotype), which was enhanced by RNAi depletion of the hsp-4 gene. Therefore, up-regulation of hsp genes after caffeine treatment appeared to be the major responses to alleviate stress and protect against developmental arrest.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.11-17
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• 1969

Conidio spores of Aspergillus niger (strain No. NRRL 330) cultured on potato dextrose agar media were studied by electron microscopy, using the thin sectioning techniques. Conidio spores to be sectioned were fixed by triple methods with $K_2Cr_2O_7$, Glutaraldehyde and $OsO_4$. After dehydrated with alcohol, the specimens were embedded in metacrylate and epon resin media, and thinly sectioned by Porter-Blum MT-2. After sectioned these specimens were negative-stained with uranyl acetate and observed. by Hitachi HS-6 electron microscope. The results of this experiment were summarized as follows. 1. The structures of spore ,wall system seem to be formed 4 layers; exosporium, basal layer, spore coat and unit cell membrane. The protuberance of spore surface that was looked like hair appears to be protrusived from the basal layer. 2. The 3 layers of unit cell membrane was constituted outer layer membrane, inner layer membrane and inter-mediate light layer. 3. The structures of intra cytoplasmic membrane appear as spiral form which was consisted of 3 layers membrane system; outer membrane, inner membrane, and intermediate layer, which has pits. 4. The cement substance of spore coat and cortex may be changed quantitatively by physiological state in cell. 5. In some cases, we observed that the ribosome was transformed into poly ribosome group, and the storage materials and the protein crystals were changed variously. It. has been suggested that the morphological change of some cytoplasmic materials may be caused by some specialized function of the physiological stage.