• Natural Product Sciences
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.262-268
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• 2014

Rutaecarpine is one of the major alkaloids present in the fruits of Evodia rutaecarpa. In this study, rutaecarpine was evaluated, both in vitro and in vivo, for its hepatoprotective properties against thioacetamide (TAA)-induced hepatic fibrosis. The results showed that rutaecarpine inhibited TAA-induced cytotoxicity, reduced the expression of the fibrogenic cytokine transforming growth factor ${\beta}1$ ($TGF-{\beta}1$), and induced the expression of bcl-2. To evaluate its in vivo effects, animal models with TAA-induced hepatic fibrosis were utilized. Levels of liver tissue injury-associated enzymes, including alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) were monitored. $TGF-{\beta}1$ and the ${\alpha}$-smooth muscle actin (${\alpha}$-SMA) were measured as markers of the protective effects on hepatic fibrosis. The AST and ALT levels in blood were greatly enhanced by TAA and completely blunted by rutaecarpine. Rutaecarpine led to the down-regulation of $TGF-{\beta}$ and Bax mRNA expression, as well as the up-regulation of Bcl-2 and $Bcl-X_L$ mRNA levels. In conclusion, rutaecarpine inhibited TAA-induced hepatic fibrosis and apoptosis by inducing the expression of Bcl-2 while blocking $TGF-{\beta}1$ in our TAA-intoxicated model.

• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.212-219
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• 2013

Objectives : Cirsium japonicum is a traditional Korean medicine that has been used in the treatment of inflammatory diseases such as appendicitis, hepatitis, pulmonary abscess and tumor. The aim of study was to elucidate anti-migratory activity of CJP(Cirsium japonicum pharmacopuncture) through regulation of inflammatory mediators in C6 glioma cell. Methods : Nitric oxide(NO) production was determined by using nitrite assay. The cell migration was analyzed by wound-healing assay and Boyden chamber assay. The expression levels of iNOS, and protein kinase C(PKC)-${\alpha}$ were measured by western blotting assay. Results : CJP showed a significant decrease on NO production. Moreover, glioma cell migration was effectively suppressed by CJP. Furthermore, CJP inhibited the expressions of iNOS and PKC-${\alpha}$ in C6 glioma cells. Conclusions : These results suggest that CJP inhibits glioma cell migration and iNOS expression through regulation of PKC-${\alpha}$. Therefore, it is expected that CJP could be an effective agents for blocking malignant progression of glioma.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.60 no.1
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• pp.131-148
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• 2016

Tuned Liquid Dampers (TLDs) provide low damping when it comes to deep water condition, and that not all water depth is mobilized in energy dissipation. This research focussed on a method to improve the efficiency of TLDs with deep water condition. Several bottom-mounted baffles were installed inside a TLD and the dynamic characteristics of modified TLDs together with their effect on the vibration control of a SDOF structure were studied experimentally. A series of free vibration and harmonic forced vibration tests were carried out. The controlling parameter in the conducted tests was the Vertical Blocking Ratio (VBR) of baffles. Results indicated that increase in VBR decreases the natural frequency of TLD and increases its damping ratio. It was found that the VBR range of 10% to 30% reduced response of the structure significantly. The modified TLD with the VBR of 30% showed the best performance when reduction in structural responses under harmonic excitations were compared.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.43-53
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• 2001

WT(Wavelet Transform) is used to avoid blocking effect that is the disadvantage of JPEG using DCT(Discrete Cosine Transform). Because the proposed coding scheme is the same as JPEG, the proposed algorithm is compatible with that of JPEG. To achieve the goal, WT'ed image is reconstructed into 8$\times$8 coding block. Each coding block is quantized with the proposed weighting matrix that is derived from human visual characteristic and error analysis in WT'ed domain. By experiments, the proposed algorithm is superior to JPEG, in terms of PSNR(Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) and WMSE(Weighted Mean Square Error).

• ETRI Journal
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.713-718
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• 2012

Sensor nodes in ubiquitous sensor networks require autonomous replacement of deteriorated gas sensors with reserved sensors, which has led us to develop an encapsulation technique to avoid poisoning the reserved sensors and an autonomous activation technique to replace a deteriorated sensor with a reserved sensor. Encapsulations of $In_2O_3$ nanoparticles with poly(ethylene-co-vinyl alcohol) (EVOH) or polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) as gas barrier layers are reported. The EVOH or PVDF films are used for an encapsulation of $In_2O_3$ as a sensing material and are effective in blocking $In_2O_3$ from contacting formaldehyde (HCHO) gas. The activation process of $In_2O_3$ by removing the EVOH through heating is effective. However, the thermal decomposition of the PVDF affects the property of the $In_2O_3$ in terms of the gas reactivity. The response of the sensor to HCHO gas after removing the EVOH is 26%, which is not significantly different with the response of 28% in a reference sample that was not treated at all. We believe that the selection of gas barrier materials for the encapsulation and activation of $In_2O_3$ should be considered because of the ill effect the byproduct of thermal decomposition has on the sensing materials and other thermal properties of the barrier materials.

• Journal of Plant Biology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.227-234
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• 1995

Exogenous putrescine of 0.5 mM or higher concentratons applied during a 16 h inductive dark period could elevate putrescine content in cotyledons of Pharbitis nil Choisy cv. Violet, a short-day plant, resulting in complete blocking of photoperiodic floral induction. Titers of putrescine, spermidine and spermine in the cotyledons were traced throughout a 16 h dark period. While non-induced cotyledons under continous light slightly increased levels of polyamines, induced tissue maintaiend its putrescine, spermidine and spermine levels as low as 66.4%, 60.9% and 84.9% of non-induced levels respecitvely. Endogenous polyamines kept at lower levels in the inductive dark period were found to upsurge by a night break treatment of 10 min light in the middle of the dark and consequently the inductive dark effect was canceled. Elevation of polyamine titers could also be induced by 100 $\mu$L/L ethylene treatment which completely suppressed floral induction. Compared to untreated cotyledons, ehtylene-treated tissues increased putrescine content by as much as 136.5% in 12 h and spermidine level by up to 130.1% in 8 h. Ethylene-treated cotyledons not only increased endogenous polyamine content but also liberate ethylene in the second half of the inductive dark period accumulating up to three to fourfold level supporting a hypothesis that ethylene-treated tissues are stimulated to produce ethylene which in turn accelerates polyamine biosynthesis in the tissues. It is postulated that substantially low polyamine titers in the inductive dark period would be one of the necessary factors controlling photoperiodic induction of flowering in Pharbitis nil and the inhibitory effects of night break and exogenous ethylene treatment may be atributed to their action to stimulate endogenous polyamine production.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.127-133
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• 2016

Purine metabolism is known factor for nuclear maturation of oocytes through both follicle cells and oocyte itself. However, it is largely unknown the roles of purine metabolism in the oocyte competence for fertilization and early development. In this study, the effects of adenosine in oocyte competence for development were examined using adenosine and its synthetic inhibitors. Adenosine treatment from GV intact stage for 18 hr (fGV) caused of decrease the fertilization rate but of increase the cleavage rate compared from the other stage treatment groups. Hadacidin did not effect on fertilization rate but increased cleavage rate without stage specificity. Adenosine did not block the effects of hadacidin with the exception of fGV group. Inhibition of purine synthetic pathways the fertilization rate was decreased in the fGV and fGVB groups but increased in the fMII group. Exogenous adenosine caused of decrease fertilization rate in the fGVB group but increase in the fMII group. Cleavage rate was dramatically increased in the adenosine treatment with synthetic inhibitors. It means that the metabolism of purine has stage specific effects on fertilization and cleavage. Exogenous adenosine had only can improve oocyte developmental competence when it treated at GV intact stage. On the other hand, endogenous synthesis in all maturation stage cause of increase the cleavage rate without effects on fertilization. These data suggest that adenosine at GV stage as a paracrine fashion and inhibitions of endogenous adenosine in all stage improve oocyte developmental competence.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.04b
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• pp.26-29
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• 2004

High density plasma fluorinated silicate glass (HDP FSG) is used as a gap fill film for metal-to-metal space because of many advantages. However, FSG films can cause critical problems such as bonding issue of top metal at package, metal contamination, metal peel-off, and so on. It is known that these problems are caused by fluorine penetration out of FSG film. To prevent it, FSG capping layers such like SRO (Silicon Rich Oxide) are needed. In this study, their characteristics and a capability to block fluorine penetration for various FSG capping layers are investigated. Normal stress and High stress due to denser film. While heat treatment to PETEOS caused lower blocking against fluorine penetration, it had insignificant effect on SiN. Compared with other layers, SRO using ARC chamber and SiN were shown a better performance to block fluorine penetration.

• BMB Reports
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.496-501
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• 2001

Lincomycin, an inhibitor of plastid protein synthesis, was found to block the synthesis of apoprotein P700 with a molecular mass of 72 kDa and the assembly of the Chl a-protein of PS I. Synthesis of the polypeptides of 48, 43.5, and 32 kDa of the PS II complex is also suppressed. This process is accompanied by the disappearance of the PS Two reaction center Chl a at 683 nm, and of the PS One reaction center Chl a at 690, 696, and 705 nm on the fourth derivative of the absorption spectra at 77K. Lincomycin does not affect the synthesis of LHC subunits. It increases the content of the two main Chl forms of LHC at 648 nm (Chl b) and 676 nm (Chl a). The low-temperature fluorescence ratio F736/F685 is also increased. However, the effect of cycloheximide (an inhibitor of cytoplasmic protein synthesis) leads to the reduction of polypeptides of the light-harvesting Chl a/b-protein complex in the range of 29.5-22 kDa. Under these conditions, the relative amount of Chl b and the F736/ F685 fluorescence ratio decrease significantly. This is obviously the result of blocking the LHC I and LHC II synthesis. At the same time rifampicin and actinomycin D (inhibitors which block transcription in chloroplast and nuclear genome, respectively) inessentially affect the characteristics of these complexes.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Industry Society
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• v.3 no.8
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• pp.1085-1092
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• 2002

Studies on image information processing have been performed since long time ago because in daily life most of information are acquired by the since of sight. Since there should be a lot of data to describe image as a digital form, data compression is required in order to store or transmit digital image. Lately among most of image compression methods adopted on image compression standards, transform coding methods have been primarily used which transforms the correlations between pixels of image on frequency domain before image compression. It is blown that the standard methods using especially DCT features blocking effect which is the major cause of degrading the quality of image at high compression rate. Fractal encoding using quadtree partition is applied after reducing original image, and we are to find a optimal encoding for the number of scaling bit and offset bit.