• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.391-398
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• 2006

$NF-{\kappa}B$ is a transcription factor involved in the innate immunity against bacterial infection and inflammation. It is also known to render cells resistant to the apoptosis caused by some anticancer drugs. Such a chemoresistance of cancer cells may be related to the activation of $NF-{\kappa}B$ transcription factor; however, the mechanism of activation is not well understood. Here, we demonstrate that a chemotherapeutic agent, etoposide, independently stimulates the $I{\kappa}B{\alpha}$ degradation pathway and PI3-kinase/Akt signaling pathway: The classical $I{\kappa}B{\alpha}$ degradation pathway leads to the nuclear translocation and DNA binding of p65 subunit through $IKK{\beta}$ kinase, whereas the PI3-kinase/Akt pathway plays a distinct role in activating this transcription factor. The PI3-kinase/Akt pathway acts on the p50 subunit of the $NF-{\kappa}B$ transcription factor and enhances the DNA binding affinity of the p50 protein. It may also explain the role of the PI3-kinase/Akt pathway in the anti-apoptotic function of $NF-{\kappa}B$ during chemoresistance of cancer cells.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.77-83
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• 2017

Lignocellulosic biomass represents a potentially large resource to supply the world's fuel and chemical feedstocks. Enzymatic bioconversion of this substrate offers a reliable strategy for accessing this material under mild reaction conditions. Owing to the complex nature of lignocellulose, many different enzymatic activities are required to function in concert to perform efficient transformation. In nature, large multienzyme complexes are known to effectively hydrolyze lignocellulose into constituent monomeric sugars. We created artificial complexes of enzymes, called rosettazymes, in order to hydrolyze glucuronoxylan, a common lignocellulose component, into its cognate sugar ${\small{D}}$-xylose and then further convert the ${\small{D}}$-xylose into ${\small{D}}$-xylonic acid, a Department of Energy top-30 platform chemical. Four different types of enzymes (endoxylanase, ${\alpha}$-glucuronidase, ${\beta}$-xylosidase, and xylose dehydrogenase) were incorporated into the artificial complexes. We demonstrated that tethering our enzymes in a complex resulted in significantly more activity (up to 71%) than the same amount of enzymes free in solution. We also determined that varying the enzyme composition affected the level of complex-related activity enhancement as well as overall yield.

• Korean Journal of Animal Reproduction
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.113-123
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• 1985

1. The weights of ovary and uternus in the all treated groups were lighter than those in control group showing significantly differences from 4 weeks after treatment. The significant was not recognized between PTU and Thx. groups, and Thyro. and control groups. 2. In the histological changes of ovary, follicles were disa, pp.ared and alignment of membrana granulosa disnitergration in cell change were serious in Thx. and PTU groups and slight in Thyro. group. 3. In the histological changes of uterus, endometrial epithelium and lamina propria were atrophied from 3 weeks after treatment in Thx. group, from 4 weeks in PTU groups and from 5 weeks in Thyro. group. Muscular layers were atrophied with time elapse in the all treated groups. 4. The changes of the concentrations of serum progesterone at all observation times in Thx. and PTU groups were significantly decreased in comparison with those in control group. While those in Thyro. group were significantly increased in comparison with those in control group. 5. The concentration of serum estradiol-17$\beta$ at all observation times in all experimental groups were below 27.2pg/ml. Therefore, we did not detect any changes of the concentrations.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.1471-1483
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• 2017

The low-frequency characteristics of four-switch three-phase (FSTP) inverter are investigated in this paper. Firstly, a general space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) directly involved the neutral point voltage of DC-link is proposed, where no sector identifications and trigonometric function calculations are needed. Subsequently, to suppress the DC offset in the neutral point voltage, the relationship between the neutral point voltage and the ${\beta}-axis$ component of the load current is derived, and then a new neutral point voltage control scheme is proposed where no low pass filter is adopted. Finally, the relationship between the load power factor and the maximum linear modulation index of the FSTP inverter is revealed. Since the operational region for the FSTP inverter in low frequency is reduced by the enlarged amplitude of the neutral point voltage, a linear modulation range enlargement scheme is proposed. A permanent magnet synchronous motor with preset rotary speed serves as the low-frequency load of the FSTP inverter. Experimental results verify that the new neutral point voltage control scheme is effective in the deviation suppression of the neutral point voltage, and the proposed scheme is able to provide a larger linear operational region in low frequency.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.65 no.6
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• pp.751-760
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• 2018

Damages in concrete structures due to aging and other factors could be a serious and immense matter. Making the best selection of the most viable and practical repairing and strengthening techniques are relatively difficult tasks using traditional methods of structural analyses. This is due to the fact that the traditional methods used for assessing aging structure are not fully capable when considering the randomness in strength, loads and cost. This paper presents a reliability-based methodology for assessing reinforced concrete members. The methodology of this study is based on probabilistic analysis, using statistics of the random variables in the performance function equations. Principles of reliability updating are used in the assessment process, as new information is taken into account and combined with prior probabilistic models. The methodology can result in a reliability index ${\beta}$ that can be used to assess the structural component by comparing its value with a standard value. In addition, these methods result in partial safety factor values that can be used for the purpose of strengthening the R/C elements of the existing structure. Calculations and computations of the reliability indices and the partial safety factors values are conducted using the First-order Reliability Method and Monte Carlo simulation.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.68 no.2
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• pp.247-259
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• 2018

In this study (Part I), an advanced empirical formulation was proposed to predict the ultimate strength of initially deflected steel plate subjected to longitudinal compression. An advanced empirical formulation was proposed by adopting Initial Deflection Index (IDI) concept for plate element which is a function of plate slenderness ratio (${\beta}$) and coefficient of initial deflection. In case of initial deflection, buckling mode shape, which is mostly assumed type in the ships and offshore industry, was adopted. For the numerical simulation by ANSYS nonlinear finite element method (NLFEM), with a total of seven hundred 700 plate scenarios, including the combination of one hundred (100) cases of plate slenderness ratios with seven (7) representative initial deflection coefficients, were selected based on obtained probability density distributions of plate element from collected commercial ships. The obtained empirical formulation showed good agreement ($R^2=0.99$) with numerical simulation results. The obtained outcome with proposed procedure will be very useful in predicting the ultimate strength performance of plate element subjected to longitudinal compression.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.37-41
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• 2015

The oocyte undergoes various events during maturation and requires many substances for the maturation process. Various intracellular organelles are also involved in maturation of the oocyte. During the process glucose is essential for nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation, and adenosine triphosphate is needed for reorganization of the organelles and cytoskeleton. If mitochondrial function is lost, several developmental defects in meiotic chromosome segregation and maturation cause fertilization failure. The endoplasmic reticulum, a store for $Ca^{2+}$, releases $Ca^{2+}$ into the cytoplasm in response to various cellular signaling molecules. This event stimulates secretion of hormones, growth factors and antioxidants in oocyte during maturation. Also, oocyte nuclear maturation is stimulated by growth factors such as epidermal growth factor. This review summarizes roles of organelles with focus on the Golgi apparatus during maturation in oocyte.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.453-462
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• 2020

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Platycodon grandiflorum (PG), an oriental herbal medicine, has been known to improve liver function, and has both anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties. However, little is known about the immune-enhancing effects of PG and its mechanism. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether fermented PG extract (FPGE), which has increased platycodin D content, activates the immune response in a murine macrophage cell line, RAW 264.7. MATERIALS/METHODS: Cell viability was determined by Cell Counting Kit-8 assay and the nitric oxide (NO) levels were measured using Griess reagent. Cytokine messenger RNA levels of were monitored by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. To investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying immunomodulatory actions of FPGE in RAW 264.7 cells, we have conducted luciferase reporter gene assay and western blotting. RESULTS: We found that FPGE treatment induced macrophage cell proliferation in a dose-dependent manner. FPGE also modulated the expression of NO and pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin (IL)-1β, and IL-6. The activation and phosphorylation levels of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) were increased by FPGE treatment. Moreover, 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide ribonucleotide, an activator of AMP-activated kinase (AMPK), significantly reduced both lipopolysaccharides- and FPGE-induced NF-κB reporter gene activity. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, our findings suggest that FPGE may be a novel immune-enhancing agent acting via AMPK-NF-κB signaling pathway.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.17-24
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• 2006

The work presented in this paper is divided into two parts. The first part presents finite urn problems which generate truncated negative binomial random variables. Some combinatorial identities that arose from the negative binomial sampling and truncated negative binomial sampling are established. These identities are constructed and serve important roles when we deal with these distributions and their characteristics. Other important results including cumulants and moments of the distributions are given in somewhat simple forms. Second, the distributions of the maximum of two chi-square variables and the distributions of the maximum correlated F-variables are then derived within the negative binomial sampling scheme. Although multinomial theory applied to order statistics and standard transformation techniques can be used to derive these distributions, the negative binomial sampling approach provides more information and deeper insight regarding the nature of the relationship between the sampling vehicle and the probability distributions of these functions of chi-square variables. We also provide an algorithm to compute the percentage points of these distributions. We supplement our findings with exact simple computational methods where no interpolations are involved.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetic Resonance Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.54-58
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• 2013

SAV0506 is an 87 residue hypothetical protein from Staphylococcus aureus strain Mu50 and also predicted to have similar function to ribosome associated heat shock protein, Hsp 15. Hsp15 is thought to be involved in the repair mechanism of erroneously produced 50S ribosome subunit. In this report, we present the sequence specific backbone resonance assignment of SAV0506. About 82.5% of all resonances could be assigned unambiguously. By analyzing deviations of the $C{\alpha}$ and $C{\beta}$ chemical shift values, we could predict the secondary structure of SAV0506. This study is an essential step towards the structural characterization of SAV0506.