• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.6481-6486
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• 2013

Background: Our previous study demonstrated cytotoxicity of a crude extract from Patrinia heterophylla Bunge (PHEB). In the present study, we aimed to investigate the effects of isovaltrate acetoxyhydrin (IA) isolated from PHEB on the gastric cancer cell SGC-7901, in order to explore a potential treatment for gastric cancer. Methods: MTT assays were employed to determine the effects of IA on cell vitality and proliferation, with monitoring of cell morphology changes and examination of apoptosis with Annexin V-PI staining. Flow cytometry was used to assess cell cycle progression and mitochondrial membrane potential. The activity of caspase 3, 9 was evaluated by spectrophotometry, and the protein levels of Bax, Bcl2 and Cyclin B1 were analyzed with Western blotting of total proteins extracted from cultured cells. Results: The results demonstrated direct toxicity of IA towards SGC-7901 cells. Evidence of apoptosis included blebbing and chromatin condensation. Annexin V-PI assays revealed early apoptosis, involving rapid depolarization of mitochondrial membranes and activity of caspase 3, 9 signaling pathways. Western blotting showed that Bcl2 and Bax proteins was down- and up-regulated, respectively, and cyclin B1 was up-regulated. Cell cycle analysis further indicated that IA could induce G2/M phase arrest in SGC-7901 cells. Conclusions: In conclusion, we believe that IA induces apoptosis of SGC-7901 cells, therefore providing a potential therapeutic agent for treatment of gastric cancer.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.4161-4165
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• 2013

Objective: To investigate discriminating protein patterns and potential biomarkers in serum samples between pre/postoperative pancreatic cancer patients and healthy controls. Methods: 23 serum samples from PC patients (12 preoperative and 11 postoperative) and 76 from healthy controls were analyzed using matrix-assisted laser desorption and ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) technique combined with magnetic beads-based weak cation-exchange chromatography (MB-WCX). ClinProTools software selected several markers that made a distinction between pancreatic cancer patients and healthy controls. Results: 49 m/z distinctive peaks were found among the three groups, of which 33 significant peaks with a P < 0.001 were detected. Two proteins could distinguish the preoperative pancreatic cancer patients from the healthy controls. About 15 proteins may be potential biomarkers in assessment of pancreatic cancer resection. Conclusion: MB-MALDI-TOF-MS method could generate serum peptidome profiles of pancreatic cancer and provide a new approach to identify potential biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis of this malignancy.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.431-439
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• 2012

Dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) was carried out to study the nucleation and crystal growth process of $CeO_2$ nanoparticles in different alcohol aqueous solutions. The results showed that the nucleation and crystal growth process of $CeO_2$ can be classified into three stages: nuclei growth, crystal stabilization and crystal aggregation except the initial induction stage, which could be reproduced by collecting simulation results after different simulation time. Properly selecting the sizes of $CeO_2$ and water bead was crucial in the simulation system. The influence of alcohol type and content in solutions, and precipitation temperature on the particle dimension were investigated in detail and compared with the experimental results. The consistency between simulation results and experimental data verify that the simulation can reproduce the macroscopic particle aggregation process. The effect of solvent on the nucleation and crystal growth of $CeO_2$ nanoparticles are different at three stages and can not be simply described by Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek (DLVO) theory or nucleation thermodynamics theory. Our work demonstrated that DPD methods can be applied to study nanoparticle forming process.

• The Journal of Korean Obstetrics and Gynecology
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.40-54
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• 2015

Objectives : In the theory of Korean medicine, Citri Reticulatae Viride Pericarpium (CRVP) can soothe the liver to break qi stagnation, eliminate mass and relieve dyspepsia. This study was carried out to investigate the effects of CRVP on the apoptotic cell death in breast cancer cells. Methods : In the present experiment, the effects of CRVP on proliferation rates, type of cell death, cell cycle distribution, and intracellular oxidative stress were investigated using MDA-MB-231 cells in vitro. In addition, the effects on expression levels of caspase 3, caspase 9, Bax and Bcl-2 were also investigated. Results : Treatment with CRVP decreased proliferation rates in a dose dependent manner. ID50 (50% inhibitory dosage) was 175.4 μg/ml. In the CRVP treated group, cell volumes showed smaller than non-treated normal. In addition, CRVP increased percentage of apoptotic and sub G1 arrested cells respectively. 200 μg/ml of CRVP treatment increased intracellular ROS level significantly. Finaly the expression level of caspase 3 and Bax/Bcl-2 ratio were elevated by treatment with CRVP respectively. Conclusions : These results suggest that CRVP can trigger intrinsic apoptotic pathway in MDA-MB-231 cells.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.976-995
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• 2016

Workflow scheduling is one of the challenging problems in cloud computing, especially when service reliability is considered. To improve cloud service reliability, fault tolerance techniques such as fault recovery can be employed. Practically, fault recovery has impact on the performance of workflow scheduling. Such impact deserves detailed research. Only few research works on workflow scheduling consider fault recovery and its impact. In this paper, we investigate the problem of workflow scheduling in clouds, considering the probability that cloud resources may fail during execution. We formulate this problem as a multi-objective optimization model. The first optimization objective is to minimize the overall completion time and the second one is to minimize the overall execution cost. Based on the proposed optimization model, we develop a heuristic-based algorithm called Min-min based time and cost tradeoff (MTCT). We perform extensive simulations with four different real world scientific workflows to verify the validity of the proposed model and evaluate the performance of our algorithm. The results show that, as expected, fault recovery has significant impact on the two performance criteria, and the proposed MTCT algorithm is useful for real life workflow scheduling when both of the two optimization objectives are considered.

• Journal of Oriental Neuropsychiatry
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.189-200
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• 2000

Object : The purpose of this study is assistant to medical treatment for patient, who suffers from headache, by classifing etiologies of headache and investigating using meridian and acupuncture point.Method : By considering through the oriental literature, we investigated etiologies and frequency of using meridian and acupuncture point on headache.Result:1. The Oriental etiologies of headache is classified in 'wind(風)', 'hot and feverish(熱)', 'humidity(濕)', 'cold(寒)', 'defidiency of qi(氣處)', 'deficiency of blood(血虛)', 'extravasated blood(瘀血)', 'asthenia of kidney(賢處)', 'anger by depression(鬱怒)', 'Damhwa(痰火)'2. The frequently used meridians on headache are followings : the 1st is Choksoyang-Tam-Kyong(足少陽膽經), the 2nd Choktaeyang-Pabggwabg-Kyong(足太陽膀胱經), the 3rd Tok-maek(督脈), and the 4th Chokyangmyong Wi-Kyong(足陽明胃經).3. The frequently used acupuncture points on headache are followings : the 1st is paek'oe(百會), the 2nd Hapkok(合谷) and the 3rd P'ungji(風池).Conclusion:1. The books about treatment of headache by using acupuncture are The Yellow Emperor's Classic on internal Medicine(黃帝內經) and Gab-UI-Kyoung(甲乙經) and so on.2. In The Yellow Emperor's Classic on Internal Medicine(黃帝內經), they mainly used treatment by following the stream of meridian on headache.3. After Gab-U1-Kyoung(甲乙經), they suggested specialized acupunctre point.4. Three Yang meridians(三陽經) that has many acupuncture point located on head area, are related to medical treatment on headache.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.541-560
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• 2017

In this research, experimental and numerical simulations were adopted to investigate the effects of ligament angle on compressive strength and failure mode of rock-like material specimens containing two non-coplanar filled fissures under uniaxial compression. The experimental results show that with the increase of ligament angle, the compressive strength decreases to a nadir at the ligament angle of $60^{\circ}$, before increasing to the maximum at the ligament angle of $120^{\circ}$, while the elastic modulus is not obviously related to the ligament angle. The shear coalescence type easily occurred when ${\alpha}$ < ${\beta}$, although having the same degree difference between the angle of ligament and fissure. Numerical simulations using $PFC^{2D}$ were performed for flawed specimens under uniaxial compression, and the results are in good consistency with the experimental results. By analyzing the crack evolution process and parallel bond force field of rock-like material specimen containing two non-coplanar filled fissures, we can conclude that the coalescence and propagation of crack are mainly derived from parallel bond force, and the crack initiation and propagation also affect the distribution of parallel bond force. Finally, the displacement vectors in ligament region were used to identify the type of coalescence, and the results coincided with that obtained by analyzing parallel bond force field. These experimental and numerical results are expected to improve the understanding of the mechanism of flawed rock engineering structures.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.272-278
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• 2011

Bovine whey protein expression patterns of colostrum are much different from that of milk. Moreover, bovine colostrum is an important source of protective, nutritional and developmental factors for the newborn. However, to our knowledge, no research has been performed to date using a comparative proteomic method on the changes in the bovine whey proteome during the transition from colostrum to milk. This study therefore separated whey protein of days 1, 3, 7 and 21 after calving using two dimension electrophoresis. Differentially expressed proteins at different collection times were identified using high-performance liquid chromatography in tandem with mass spectrometry (LC/MS) and validated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in order to understand the developmental changes in the bovine whey proteome during the transition from colostrum to milk. The expression patterns of whey protein of days 1 and 3 post-partum were similar except that immunoglobulin G was down-regulated on day 3, and four proteins were found to be down-regulated on days 7 and 21 compared with day 1 after delivering, including immunoglobulin G, immunoglobulin M, albumin, and lactotransferrin, which are involved in immunity and molecule transport. The results of this study confirm the comparative proteomic method has the advantage over other methods such as ELISA and immunoassays in that it can simultaneously detect more differentially expressed proteins. In addition, the difference in composition of milk indicates a need for adjustment of the colostrum feeding regimen to ensure a protective immunological status for newborn calves.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.4849-4852
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• 2015

Tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) has been investigated as an effective agent to treat various cancers. Cancer stem cells are resistant to TRAIL treatment, but the mechanism of TRAIL resistance remains unknown. In this study, brain cancer stem cells were isolated by CD133 magnetic sorting, and the number of CD133 positive cells detected by flow cytometry. The self-renewing capacity of brain cancer stem cells was examined by a neurosphere formation assay, and the percentage of cell death after TRAIL treatment was examined by an MTS assay. Expression of DR5, FADD, caspase 8 and BCL2 proteins was detected by western blot. The amount of CD133 positive cells was enriched to 71% after CD133 magnetic sorting. Brain cancer stem cell neurosphere formation was significantly increased after TRAIL treatment. TRAIL treatment also reduced the amount of viable cells and this decrease was inhibited by a caspase 8 inhibitor or by the pan-caspase inhibitor z-VAD (P<0.05). Brain cancer stem cells expressed lower levels caspase 8 protein and higher levels of BCL2 protein when compared with CD133 negative cells (P<0.05). Our data suggest that TRAIL resistance is related to overexpression of BCL2 and low expression of caspase 8 which limit activation of caspase 8 in brain cancer stem cells.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.3103-3107
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• 2012

Osteosarcoma, the most common primary mesenchymal malignant tumor, usually has bad prognosis in man, with cancer stem-like cells (CSCs) considered to play a critical role in tumorigenesis and drug-resistance. It is known that phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) is involved in regulation of tumor cell fates, such as proliferation, cell cycling, survival and apoptosis. Whether and how PI3K and inhibitors might cooperate in human osteosarcoma CSCs is still unknown. We therefore evaluated the effects of LY294002, a PI3K inhibitor, on the cell cycle and apoptosis of osteosarcoma CSCs in vitro. LY294002 prevented phosphorylation of protein kinase B (PKB/Akt) by inhibition of PI3K phosphorylation activity, thereby inducing G0/G1 cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in osteosarcoma CSCs. Further studies also demonstrated that apoptosis induction by LY294002 is accompanied by activation of caspase-9, caspase-3 and PARP, which are involved in the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway. Therefore, our results indicate PI3K inhibitors may represent a potential strategy for managing human osteosarcoma via affecting CSCs.