• Journal of Korean Medical Science
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• v.33 no.44
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• pp.273.1-273.15
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• 2018

Background: Sparganosis is a larval cestodiasis caused by the plerocercoid of Spirometra spp. Since the first description of human sparganosis in 1924, several hundred cases have been reported in Korea. However, systematic approaches for literature surveys of Korean sparganosis have seldom appeared. Methods: We searched publicly available databases such as PubMed, Research Information Sharing Service, and Korea Medical Citation Index with relevant Medical Subject Headings. Results: At least 438 Korean sparganosis cases have been described from 1924 to 2015. Preoperative diagnosis has been significantly increased since the 1980s due to popularization of serological and imaging diagnostics. Cases were largely detected from fifth decades in general, but cerebral sparganosis was detected in relatively young age groups (third and fourth decades). Sparganosis was prevalent in men (75.9%). Consumption of frog/snake and drinking unfiltered water were found in 63.4% and 16.9% of patients, respectively. Most frequently affected sites were subcutaneous tissues (49.9%), followed by the central nervous system (36.2%). Involvements of visceral organs (7.6%), ocular regions (3.6%), and muscles (2.7%) were noticed. In women, breast sparganosis constituted a large proportion (34.2%). Sparganosis associated with immunocompromised patients has recently been reported. Conclusion: Sparganosis has been continuously reported in Korea during the past 90 years, although its incidence has decreased during the last 20 years. The disease is mostly characterized by subcutaneous nodule, but infection of the worm in vital organs often results in serious illness. Continuous awareness is warranted to monitor sparganosis occurrence and associated clinical consequences.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2019.10a
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• pp.43-43
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• 2019

The collection, evaluation and conservation of crop germplasm have been treated as one of the basics to breeding program. An understanding of genetic relationships among germplasm resources is vital for future breeding process like yield, quality, and resistance. In the present study, EST-SSR markers were employed to assess the polymorphism and genetic diversity of 192 accessions of Proso millet preserved in the National Agrobiodiversity Center of RDA. We evaluated the efficiency of EST-SSR markers developed for proso millet species. A total of 98 alleles were detected with an average allele number of 4.5 per locus among 192 proso millet millet accessions using 22 EST-SSR markers. The averaged values of gene diversity ($H_E$) and polymorphism information content (PIC) for each EST-SSR marker were 0.362 and 0.404 within populations, respectively. Our results showed the moderate level of the molecular diversity among the proso millet accessions from diverse countries. A phylogenetic tree revealed three major groups of accessions that did not correspond with geographical distribution patterns with a few exceptions. The less correlation between the clusters and their geographic location might be considered due to their type difference. Our study provided a better understanding of genetic relationships among various germplasm collections, and it could contribute to more efficient utilization of valuable genetic resources. The EST-SSR markers developed here will serve as a valuable resource for genetic studies, like linkage mapping, diversity analysis, quantitative trait locus/association mapping, and molecular breeding.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2018.05a
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• pp.154-154
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• 2018

To interpret the climate projections for the future as well as present, recognition of the consequences of the climate internal variability and quantification its uncertainty play a vital role. The Korean Peninsula belongs to the Far East Asian Monsoon region and its rainfall characteristics are very complex from time and space perspective. Its internal variability is expected to be large, but this variability has not been completely investigated to date especially using models of high temporal resolutions. Due to coarse spatial and temporal resolutions of General Circulation Models (GCM) projections, several studies adopted dynamic and statistical downscaling approaches to infer meterological forcing from climate change projections at local spatial scales and fine temporal resolutions. In this study, stochastic downscaling methodology was adopted to downscale daily GCM resolutions to hourly time scale using an hourly weather generator, the Advanced WEather GENerator (AWE-GEN). After extracting factors of change from the GCM realizations, these were applied to the climatic statistics inferred from historical observations to re-evaluate parameters of the weather generator. The re-parameterized generator yields hourly time series which can be considered to be representative of future climate conditions. Further, 30 ensemble members of hourly precipitation were generated for each selected station to quantify uncertainty. Spatial map was generated to visualize as separated zones formed through K-means cluster algorithm which region is more inconsistent as compared to the climatological norm or in which region the probability of occurrence of the extremes event is high. The results showed that the stations located near the coastal regions are more uncertain as compared to inland regions. Such information will be ultimately helpful for planning future adaptation and mitigation measures against extreme events.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.711-734
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• 2012

The foundation of a tall building frame resting on settable soil mass undergoes differential settlements which alter the forces in the structural members significantly. For tall buildings it is essential to consider seismic forces in analysis. The building frame, foundation and soil mass are considered to act as single integral compatible structural unit. The stress-strain characteristics of the supporting soil play a vital role in the interaction analysis. The resulting differential settlements of the soil mass are responsible for the redistribution of forces in the superstructure. In the present work, the nonlinear interaction analysis of a two-bay ten-storey plane building frame- layered soil system under seismic loading has been carried out using the coupled finite-infinite elements. The frame has been considered to act in linear elastic manner while the soil mass to act as nonlinear elastic manner. The subsoil in reality exists in layered formation and consists of various soil layers having different properties. Each individual soil layer in reality can be considered to behave in nonlinear manner. The nonlinear layered system as a whole will undergo differential settlements. Thus, it becomes essential to study the structural behaviour of a structure resting on such nonlinear composite layered soil system. The nonlinear constitutive hyperbolic soil model available in the literature is adopted to model the nonlinear behaviour of the soil mass. The structural behaviour of the interaction system is investigated as the shear forces and bending moments in superstructure get significantly altered due to differential settlements of the soil mass.

• ALGAE
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.315-326
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• 2021

Ion channels are membrane protein complexes mediating passive ion flux across the cell membranes. Every organism has a certain set of ion channels that define its physiology. Dinoflagellates are ecologically important microorganisms characterized by effective physiological adaptability, which backs up their massive proliferations that often result in harmful blooms (red tides). In this study, we used a bioinformatics approach to identify homologs of known ion channels that belong to 36 ion channel families. We demonstrated that the versatility of the dinoflagellate physiology is underpinned by a high diversity of ion channels including homologs of animal and plant proteins, as well as channels unique to protists. The analysis of 27 transcriptomes allowed reconstructing a consensus ion channel repertoire (channelome) of dinoflagellates including the members of 31 ion channel families: inwardly-rectifying potassium channels, two-pore domain potassium channels, voltage-gated potassium channels (K_v), tandem K_v, cyclic nucleotide-binding domain-containing channels (CNBD), tandem CNBD, eukaryotic ionotropic glutamate receptors, large-conductance calcium-activated potassium channels, intermediate/small-conductance calcium-activated potassium channels, eukaryotic single-domain voltage-gated cation channels, transient receptor potential channels, two-pore domain calcium channels, four-domain voltage-gated cation channels, cation and anion Cys-loop receptors, small-conductivity mechanosensitive channels, large-conductivity mechanosensitive channels, voltage-gated proton channels, inositole-1,4,5-trisphosphate receptors, slow anion channels, aluminum-activated malate transporters and quick anion channels, mitochondrial calcium uniporters, voltage-dependent anion channels, vesicular chloride channels, ionotropic purinergic receptors, animal volage-insensitive cation channels, channelrhodopsins, bestrophins, voltage-gated chloride channels H⁺/Cl^- exchangers, plant calcium-permeable mechanosensitive channels, and trimeric intracellular cation channels. Overall, dinoflagellates represent cells able to respond to physical and chemical stimuli utilizing a wide range of G-protein coupled receptors- and Ca²⁺-dependent signaling pathways. The applied approach not only shed light on the ion channel set in dinoflagellates, but also provided the information on possible molecular mechanisms underlying vital cellular processes dependent on the ion transport.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.61 no.3
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• pp.77-88
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• 2019

Drought is the recurrent natural disasters which harshly affect agricultural production and society in various parts in Bangladesh. Information on the spatiotemporal variability of drought events plays a vital role to take necessary action towards drought mitigation and sustainable development. This study aims to analyze the spatial and temporal variation of meteorological drought in Bangladesh during 1981-2015 using Effective Drought Index (EDI). Monthly precipitation data for 36 years (1980-2015) were obtained from 27 meteorological stations. Drought frequency (DF) and areal extent of drought were considered to investigate the spatiotemporal structure of drought. The DF analysis showed that the northern, southwestern and central regions of the country are comparatively vulnerable to meteorological drought. The frequency of drought in all categories has considerably increased during the recent five years from 2011 to 2015. Furthermore, the most significant increasing trend of the drought-affected area was found over the central region especially for pre-monsoon (March-May) season during this period while the decreasing trend of the affected area was found within the eastern region during the study period. To prevent and mitigate the damages of drought disasters in Bangladesh, agricultural and government managers should pay more attention to those regional drought events that occur in pre-monsoon season. The outcome of the present study can be used as explanatory data in building the strategies to drought monitoring and mitigation activities in Bangladesh.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.22-32
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• 2019

On offshore platforms, oil and gas leaks are apt to be the initial events of major accidents that may result in significant loss of life and property damage. To prevent accidents induced by leakage, it is vital to perform a case-specific and accurate risk assessment. This paper presents an integrated method of Ddynamic Qquantitative Rrisk Aassessment (DQRA)-using the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL)-Bayesian Network (BN)-for evaluation of the system vulnerabilities and prediction of the occurrence probabilities of accidents induced by leakage. In the method, three-level indicators are established to identify factors, events, and subsystems that may lead to leakage, fire, and explosion. The critical indicators that directly influence the evolution of risk are identified using DEMATEL. Then, a sequential model is developed to describe the escalation of initial events using an Event Tree (ET), which is converted into a BN to calculate the posterior probabilities of indicators. Using the newly introduced accident precursor data, the failure probabilities of safety barriers and basic factors, and the occurrence probabilities of different consequences can be updated using the BN. The proposed method overcomes the limitations of traditional methods that cannot effectively utilize the operational data of platforms. This work shows trends of accident risks over time and provides useful information for risk control of floating marine platforms.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.1044-1051
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• 2019

Objective: Recent studies have implied that gene expression has high tissue-specificity, and therefore it is essential to investigate gene expression in a variety of tissues when performing the transcriptomic analysis. In addition, the gradual increase of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) annotation database has increased the importance and proportion of mapped reads accordingly. Methods: We employed simple statistical models to detect the sexually biased/dimorphic genes and their conjugate lncRNAs in 40 RNA-seq samples across two factors: sex and tissue. We employed two quantification pipeline: mRNA annotation only and mRNA+lncRNA annotation. Results: As a result, the tissue-specific sexually dimorphic genes are affected by the addition of lncRNA annotation at a non-negligible level. In addition, many lncRNAs are expressed in a more tissue-specific fashion and with greater variation between tissues compared to protein-coding genes. Due to the genic region lncRNAs, the differentially expressed gene list changes, which results in certain sexually biased genes to become ambiguous across the tissues. Conclusion: In a past study, it has been reported that tissue-specific patterns can be seen throughout the differentially expressed genes between sexes in cattle. Using the same dataset, this study used a more recent reference, and the addition of conjugate lncRNA information, which revealed alterations of differentially expressed gene lists that result in an apparent distinction in the downstream analysis and interpretation. We firmly believe such misquantification of genic lncRNAs can be vital in both future and past studies.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.11-18
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• 2021

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect on lung capacity of healthy men and women in their twenties by performing an intervention using the chest extension exercise and the bridge exercise, which are respiratory muscle strengthening exercises. Methods : Thirty adult men and women in their 20s participated in this study. All subjects participated in the study after hearing the explanation of the purpose and method of the study, filling out a consent form. All subjects were randomly assigned to the chest extension exercise (CEE) group and the bridge exercise (BE) group of fifteen each. Each exercise was performed twice a week for 4 weeks. Lung capacity was measured by forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV₁) using spirometry. Lung capacity was measured before and after exercise. The measured data were compared through the dependent t-test and the independent t-test. The statistical significance level was set at .05. Results : After the intervention, the CEE group showed a significant increase in FVC and FEV₁ compared to before the intervention (p<.05). After the intervention, the BE group also had a significant increase in FVC and FEV₁ compared to before the intervention (p<.05). However, there was no difference in FVC and FEV₁ between groups before and after the intervention (p>.05). Conclusion : There was no difference between groups in lung capacity after exercise. However, both the chest extension exercise and the bridge exercise increased FVC and FEV1, which was thought to be because both exercise methods were effective in increasing lung capacity. Therefore, both chest extension exercises and bridge exercises can be effectively applied as a way to increase lung capacity.

• Journal of Platform Technology
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.40-45
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• 2021

Our daily lives have changed a lot because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is essential to reduce the spread of COVID-19 due to public health measures such as social distancing. At the same time, however, they are exposed to depression, anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, trauma and stress-related disorders. For this, we developed an application that can check HRV data and stress index by measuring ECG and PPG based on a Smart Watch device that can measure bio-signals in real time. In the case of the developed application, the heart rate is measured and displayed in real time to deliver basic exercise information by measuring exercise, steps and calories, and total distance, and smoothly based on blood pressure, heart rate, and HRV data as a measurement program. Through this, I believe that the IoT Smart Stress Care Application, which can manage mental health by itself, will be helpful to patients with stress and depressive trauma disorders.