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Poloxamer 407 Hydrogels for Intravesical Instillation to Mouse Bladder: Gel-Forming Capacity and Retention Performance

  • Kim, Sang Hyun;Kim, Sung Rae;Yoon, Ho Yub;Chang, In Ho;Whang, Young Mi;Cho, Min Ji;Kim, Myeong Joo;Kim, Soo Yeon;Lee, Sang Jin;Choi, Young Wook
    • The Korean Journal of Urological Oncology
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    • 제15권3호
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    • pp.178-186
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    • 2017
  • Purpose: Poloxamer 407 (P407) thermo-sensitive hydrogel formulations were developed to enhance the retention time in the urinary bladder after intravesical instillation. Materials and Methods: P407 hydrogels (P407Gels) containing 0.2 w/w% fluorescein isothiocyanate dextran (FD, MW 4 kDa) as a fluorescent probe were prepared by the cold method with different concentrations of the polymer (20, 25, and 30 w/w%). The gel-forming capacities were characterized in terms of gelation temperature (G-Temp), gelation time (G-Time), and gel duration (G-Dur). Homogenous dispersion of the probe throughout the hydrogel was observed by using fluorescence microscopy. The in vitro bladder simulation model was established to evaluate the retention and drug release properties. P407Gels in the solution state were administered to nude mice via urinary instillation, and the in vivo retention behavior of P407Gels was visualized by using an in vivo imaging system (IVIS). Results: P407Gels showed a thermo-reversible phase transition at $4^{\circ}C$ (refrigerated; sol) and $37^{\circ}C$ (body temperature; gel). The G-Temp, G-Time, and G-Dur of FD-free P407Gels were approximately $10^{\circ}C-20^{\circ}C$, 12-30 seconds, and 12-35 hours, respectively, and were not altered by the addition of FD. Fluorescence imaging showed that FD was spread homogenously in the gelled P407 solution. In a bladder simulation model, even after repeated periodic filling-emptying cycles, the hydrogel formulation displayed excellent retention with continuous release of the probe over 8 hours. The FD release from P407Gels and the erosion of the gel, both of which followed zero-order kinetics, had a linear relationship ($r^2=0.988$). IVIS demonstrated that the intravesical retention time of P407Gels was over 4 hours, which was longer than that of the FD solution (<1 hour), even though periodic urination occurred in the mice. Conclusions: FD release from P407Gels was erosion-controlled. P407Gels represent a promising system to enhance intravesical retention with extended drug delivery.

Effect of Herbal Extracts on the Ruminal Dry Matter Digestibility, Volatile Fatty Acid Production and Growth Rate of Microbes in Vitro (한약재 추출물이 반추위 in vitro 건물소화율, 휘발성 지방산 생성 및 미생물 성장률에 미치는 영향)

  • Moon, Yea-Hwang
    • Journal of agriculture & life science
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    • v.43 no.6
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    • pp.67-75
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    • 2009
  • This study was conducted to investigate the effect of herbal (Obtusifolia, Cinnamon, Chinese pepper, Licorice) extracts on the rumen fermentation in vitro. Comparing to the control, in vitro dry matter digestibility was significantly (P<0.05) decreased at zero hour in the Cinnamon and the Chinese pepper, and at three hour after supplementation in the Licorice. The ratio of volatile fatty acids were significant (P<0.05) differences at 3 hour after fermentation only, acetic acid was higher (P<0.05) in the control compare to the herbal extract treatments, but the ratios of butyrate, iso-butyrate, iso-valerate and valerate were lowest in the control. The growth rate of rumen microbes in vitro was significantly (P<0.05) higer in the herbal extract treatments excluding the Obtusifolia than the control during three hour fermentation, but was not significant difference among treatments in the other fermentation times. From above results, even though the extracts of Cinnamon, Chinese pepper and Licorice inclined to inhibit the activity of rumen microbes during early fermentation period, but did not affect on the growth rate of rumen microbes in vitro.

New Methods for Correcting the Atmospheric Effects in Landsat Imagery over Turbid (Case-2) Waters

  • Ahn Yu-Hwan;Shanmugam P.
    • Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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    • v.20 no.5
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    • pp.289-305
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    • 2004
  • Atmospheric correction of Landsat Visible and Near Infrared imagery (VIS/NIR) over aquatic environment is more demanding than over land because the signal from the water column is small and it carries immense information about biogeochemical variables in the ocean. This paper introduces two methods, a modified dark-pixel substraction technique (path--extraction) and our spectral shape matching method (SSMM), for the correction of the atmospheric effects in the Landsat VIS/NIR imagery in relation to the retrieval of meaningful information about the ocean color, especially from Case-2 waters (Morel and Prieur, 1977) around Korean peninsula. The results of these methods are compared with the classical atmospheric correction approaches based on the 6S radiative transfer model and standard SeaWiFS atmospheric algorithm. The atmospheric correction scheme using 6S radiative transfer code assumes a standard atmosphere with constant aerosol loading and a uniform, Lambertian surface, while the path-extraction assumes that the total radiance (L/sub TOA/) of a pixel of the black ocean (referred by Antoine and Morel, 1999) in a given image is considered as the path signal, which remains constant over, at least, the sub scene of Landsat VIS/NIR imagery. The assumption of SSMM is nearly similar, but it extracts the path signal from the L/sub TOA/ by matching-up the in-situ data of water-leaving radiance, for typical clear and turbid waters, and extrapolate it to be the spatially homogeneous contribution of the scattered signal after complex interaction of light with atmospheric aerosols and Raleigh particles, and direct reflection of light on the sea surface. The overall shape and magnitude of radiance or reflectance spectra of the atmospherically corrected Landsat VIS/NIR imagery by SSMM appears to have good agreement with the in-situ spectra collected for clear and turbid waters, while path-extraction over turbid waters though often reproduces in-situ spectra, but yields significant errors for clear waters due to the invalid assumption of zero water-leaving radiance for the black ocean pixels. Because of the standard atmosphere with constant aerosols and models adopted in 6S radiative transfer code, a large error is possible between the retrieved and in-situ spectra. The efficiency of spectral shape matching has also been explored, using SeaWiFS imagery for turbid waters and compared with that of the standard SeaWiFS atmospheric correction algorithm, which falls in highly turbid waters, due to the assumption that values of water-leaving radiance in the two NIR bands are negligible to enable retrieval of aerosol reflectance in the correction of ocean color imagery. Validation suggests that accurate the retrieval of water-leaving radiance is not feasible with the invalid assumption of the classical algorithms, but is feasible with SSMM.

Rock-Surface Temperatures of Baeknokdam Northwest Face in the Summit Area of Mt. Halla (한라산 백록담 서북벽 암온의 향별 특성)

  • KIM, Taeho
    • Journal of The Geomorphological Association of Korea
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    • v.19 no.3
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    • pp.109-121
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    • 2012
  • Rock-surface temperatures were observed at a trachytic lava dome, called as Baeknokdam Northwest Face, in the summit area of Mt. Halla, Jeju Island, to examine the frequency and occurrence season of freeze-thaw cycles and the rate of temperature changes during a freezing period. Long-term measurements were recorded over 18 months from November 2006 to April 2008, at a 1-hour logging interval and rock depth of 1.5 cm. Both diurnal freeze-thaw cycles and effective freeze-thaw cycles appear in larger numbers on a south-facing rock face than a north-facing rock face. The diurnal cycles were dominantly observed on February and March for the south face and on November and April for the north face, respectively. The annual freeze-thaw cycles were confirmed in terms of the presence of seasonal freezing periods lasting from mid-November to mid-April for the south face and from early-November to late-April for the north face, respectively. The rate of decreasing temperatures during the seasonal freezing periods is larger on the north face than the south face. Notwithstanding the lower numbers of freeze-thaw events, the north face experiences a higher frost intensity since the number of hours below $-3^{\circ}C$ is larger on the north face than the south face. The number of freeze-thaw events and the duration of days with continuous sub-zero rock temperatures largely depend on the solar radiation controlled by the aspect of the monitored rock surfaces, and thus the high-frequency short-term frost cycle dominantly appears on the south face and the annual frost cycle on the north face, respectively.

Exploring sustainable resources utilization: Interlink between food waste generation and water resources conservation

  • Adelodun, Bashir;Choi, Kyung-Sook
    • Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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    • 2019.05a
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    • pp.232-232
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    • 2019
  • The persistence of drought periods and water scarcity is a growing public concern, as climate change projections indicate a more critical scenario in the future. The sustainability of water resources for the increasing population, and to ensuring crop production will unarguably be a daunting task for the water resources managers, with a projected 9.8 billion people by 2050 as well as the need to increase food production by 70 to 100%. Consequently, there is a need for significant irrigation water use for more crop production in the face of stiff competition among water users. However, the available natural resources are already over-constrained, and the allocation of more resources for food production is not feasible. Currently, about two-thirds of global water withdrawer is used by the agricultural sector while 48% of water resources in Korea is used for agricultural production. Despite the apparent ecological deficit and unfavorable conditions of resources utilization, a staggering amount of food waste occurs in the country. Moreover, wastage of food translates to waste of all the resources involved in the food production including water resources. Food waste can also be considered a serious potential for economic and environmental problems. Hence, exploring an alternative approach to efficient resources utilization in a more sustainable way can ensure considerable resources conservation. We hypothesized that reducing food waste will decline the demand for food production and consequently reduce the pressure on water resources. We investigated the food wastage across the food supply chain using the top-down datasets based on the FAO mass balance model. Furthermore, the water footprint of the estimated food wastage was assessed using the representative of selected food crops. The study revealed that the average annual food wastage across the food supply chain is 9.05 million tonnes, signifying 0.51 kg/capita/day and 48% of domestic food production. Similarly, an average of 6.29 Gm3 per annum of water resources was lost to food wastage, which translates to 40% of the total allotted water resources for agriculture in the country. These considerable resources could have been conserved or efficiently used for other purposes. This study demonstrated that zero food waste generation would significantly reduce the impact on freshwater resources and ensure its conservation. There is a need for further investigation on the food waste study using the bottom-up approach, specifically at the consumer food waste, since the top-down approach is based on estimations and many assumptions were made.

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Exploring sustainable resources utilization: Interlink between food waste generation and water resources conservation

  • Adelodun, Bashir;Choi, Kyung-Sook
    • Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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    • 2019.05a
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    • pp.408-408
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    • 2019
  • The persistence of drought periods and water scarcity is a growing public concern, as climate change projections indicate a more critical scenario in the future. The sustainability of water resources for the increasing population, and to ensuring crop production will unarguably be a daunting task for the water resources managers, with a projected 9.8 billion people by 2050 as well as the need to increase food production by 70 to 100%. Consequently, there is a need for significant irrigation water use for more crop production in the face of stiff competition among water users. However, the available natural resources are already over-constrained, and the allocation of more resources for food production is not feasible. Currently, about two-thirds of global water withdrawer is used by the agricultural sector while 48% of water resources in Korea is used for agricultural production. Despite the apparent ecological deficit and unfavorable conditions of resources utilization, a staggering amount of food waste occurs in the country. Moreover, wastage of food translates to waste of all the resources involved in the food production including water resources. Food waste can also be considered a serious potential for economic and environmental problems. Hence, exploring an alternative approach to efficient resources utilization in a more sustainable way can ensure considerable resources conservation. We hypothesized that reducing food waste will decline the demand for food production and consequently reduce the pressure on water resources. We investigated the food wastage across the food supply chain using the top-down datasets based on the FAO mass balance model. Furthermore, the water footprint of the estimated food wastage was assessed using the representative of selected food crops. The study revealed that the average annual food wastage across the food supply chain is 9.05 million tonnes, signifying 0.51 kg/capita/day and 48% of domestic food production. Similarly, an average of $6.29Gm^3$ per annum of water resources was lost to food wastage, which translates to 40% of the total allotted water resources for agriculture in the country. These considerable resources could have been conserved or efficiently used for other purposes. This study demonstrated that zero food waste generation would significantly reduce the impact on freshwater resources and ensure its conservation. There is a need for further investigation on the food waste study using the bottom-up approach, specifically at the consumer food waste, since the top-down approach is based on estimations and many assumptions were made.

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Characteristics of Static Shift in 3-D MT Inversion (3차원 MT 역산에서 정적효과의 특성 고찰)

  • Lee Tae Jong;Uchida Toshihiro;Sasaki Yutaka;Song Yoonho
    • Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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    • v.6 no.4
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    • pp.199-206
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    • 2003
  • Characteristics of the static shift are discussed by comparing the three-dimensional MT inversion with/without static shift parameterization. The galvanic distortion by small-scale shallow feature often leads severe distortion in inverted resistivity structures. The new inversion algorithm is applied to four numerical data sets contaminated by different amount of static shift. In real field data interpretations, we generally do not have any a-priori information about how much the data contains the static shift. In this study, we developed an algorithm for finding both Lagrangian multiplier for smoothness and the trade-off parameter for static shift, simultaneously in 3-D MT inversion. Applications of this inversion routine for the numerical data sets showed quite reasonable estimation of static shift parameters without any a-priori information. The inversion scheme is successfully applied to all the four data sets, even when the static shift does not obey the Gaussian distribution. Allowing the static shift parameters have non-zero degree of freedom to the inversion, we could get more accurate block resistivities as well as static shifts in the data. When inversion does not consider the static shift as inversion parameters (conventional MT inversion), the block resistivities on the surface are modified considerably to match possible static shift. The inhomogeneous blocks on the surface can generate the static shift at low frequencies. By those mechanisms, the conventional 3-D MT inversion can reconstruct the resistivity structures to some extent in the deeper parts even when moderate static shifts are in the data. As frequency increased, however, the galvanic distortion is not frequency independent any more, and thus the conventional inversion failed to fit the apparent resistivity and phase, especially when strong static shift is added. Even in such case, however, reasonable estimation of block resistivity as well as static shift parameters were obtained by 3-D MT inversion with static shift parameterization.

Magnetic and Magneto-Optical Properties of $Mn_{1-x}Cr_xPt_3$ Ordered Alloy Films ($Mn_{1-x}Cr_xPt_3$ 박막의 자기 및 자기광학 특성)

  • 박문기;조재경
    • Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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    • v.8 no.6
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    • pp.374-379
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    • 1998
  • $Mn_1-xCr_xPt_3$ alloy films have been prepared by depositing (Mn, Cr)/Pt multilayers using a rf magnetron sputterer followed by heat treatment. Small and wide angle x-ray diffractometry, magnetic hysteresis loops and Kerr rotation angle spectra of the films have been measured and used to investigate structural, magnetic and magneto-optic properties of the films. The films had a crystal structure of ordered AuCu$_3$ type and the strong preferred orientation of a (111)plane parallel to the film surface. The saturation magnetization of the films was decreased with Cr content reaching almost zero near x=0.58 and then increased for further increasement of Cr content up to x=0.77 over that stayed almost constant. This indicated that Cr atoms were antiferromagnetically coupled with Mn atoms. The magnetic easy axis of MnPt$_3$(x=0) film was parallel to the film surface but those of the films with x$\geq$0.58 increased as Cr content increased reaching about 4 kOe at x=1(CrPt$_3$). The dependence of the Kerr rotation angle on the Cr content was similar to that of the saturation magnetization on the Cr content. The films with x=0.77 and x=1 showed the larger Kerr rotation angle at the wavelengths of near infrared compared to the magneto-optic recording medium, TbFeCo, currently being used.

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Forced Flow Dryout Heat Flux in Heat Generating Debris Bed (열을 발생하는 Debris층에서의 강제대류 Dryout 열유속)

  • Cha, Jong-Hee;Chung, Moon-Ki
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.273-280
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    • 1986
  • The purpose of this study is to obtain the experimental data of the forced flow dryout heat flux in a heat generating debris bed which simulates the degraded nuclear reactor core after severe accident. An experimental investigation has been conducted of dryout heat flux in an inductively heated bed of steel particles with upward forced flow rising coolant circulation system under atmospheric pressure. The present observations were mainly focused on the effects of coolant mass flux, particle size, bed height, and coolant subcooling on the dryout heat flux The data were obtained when carbon steel particles in the size distribution 1.5, 2.5, 3.0 and 4.0 mm were placed in a 55 mm ID Pyrex glass column and inductively heated by passing radio frequency current through a multiturn work coil encircling the column. Distilled water was supplied with variation of mass flux from 0 to 3.5 kg/$\textrm{cm}^2$ s as a coolant in the tests, while the bed height was selected as 55 mm and 110 mm. Inlet temperature of coolant varied by 2$0^{\circ}C$ and 8$0^{\circ}C$. The principal results of the tests are: (1) Dryout heat flux increases with increase of upward forcing mass flux and particle size; (2) The dryout heat flux at the zero mass flux obviously depends on the Particle size as Previous studies; (3) The forced flow dryout heat flux in the shallow bed is somewhat higher than that in the deep bed,

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Curvature Linear Equation of a Two-Mirror System with a Finite Object Distance (유한 물체 거리를 갖는 2 반사경계의 곡률 선형 방정식)

  • Lee, Jung-Gee;Rim, Cheon-Seog
    • Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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    • v.16 no.5
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    • pp.423-427
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    • 2005
  • In this paper, we propose easily tooling method for Seidel third order aberration, which are not well utilized in actual design process due to the complication of mathematical operation and the difficulty of understanding Seidel third order aberration theory, even though most insightful and systematic means in pre-designing for the initial data of optimization. First, using paraxial ray tracing and Seidel third order aberration theory, spherical aberration coefficient is derived for a two-mirror system with a finite object distance. The coefficient, which is expressed as a higher-order nonlinear equation, consists of design parameters(object distance, two curvatures, and inter-mirror distance) and effective focal length(EFL). Then, the expressed analytical equation is solved by using a computer with numerical analysis method. From the obtained numerical solutions satisfying the nearly zero coefficient condition($<10^{-6}$), linear fitting process offers a linear relationship called the curvature linear equation between two mirrors. Consequently, this linear equation has two worthy meanings: the equation gives a possibility to obtain initial design data for optimization easily. And the equation shows linear relationship to a two-mirror system with a finite object distance under the condition of corrected third order spherical aberration.