• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.24
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• pp.10659-10663
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• 2015

Background: Rapamycin is an effective anti-angiogenic drug. However, the mode of its action remains unclear. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to elucidate the antitumor mechanism of rapamycin, hypothetically via apoptotic promotion, using MCF-7 breast cancer cells. Materials and Methods: MCF-7 cells were plated at a density of $1{\times}10^5$ cells/well in 6-well plates. After 24h, cells were treated with a series of concentrations of rapamycin while only adding DMEM medium with PEG for the control regiment and grown at $37^{\circ}C$, 5% $CO_2$ and 95% air for 72h. Trypan blue was used to determine the cell viability and proliferation. Untreated and rapamycin-treated MCF-7 cells were also examined for morphological changes with an inverted-phase contrast microscope. Alteration in cell morphology was ascertained, along with a stage in the cell cycle and proliferation. In addition, cytotoxicity testing was performed using normal mouse breast mammary pads. Results: Our results clearly showed that rapamycin exhibited inhibitory activity on MCF-7 cell lines. The $IC_{50}$ value of rapamycin on the MCF-7 cells was determined as $0.4{\mu}g/ml$ (p<0.05). Direct observation by inverted microscopy demonstrated that the MCF-7 cells treated with rapamycin showed characteristic features of apoptosis including cell shrinkage, vascularization and autophagy. Cells underwent early apoptosis up to 24% after 72h. Analysis of the cell cycle showed an increase in the G0G1 phase cell population and a corresponding decrease in the S and G2M phase populations, from 81.5% to 91.3% and 17.3% to 7.9%, respectively. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that rapamycin may potentially act as an anti-cancer agent via the inhibition of growth with some morphological changes of the MCF-7 cancer cells, arrest cell cycle progression at G0/G1 phase and induction of apoptosis in late stage of apoptosis. Further studies are needed to further characterize the mode of action of rapamycin as an anti-cancer agent.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.83-91
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• 2012

Quorum sensing (QS) is a cell-to-cell communication system, which is used by many bacteria to regulate diverse gene expression in response to changes in population density. Bacteria recognize the differences in cell density by sensing the concentration of signal molecules such as N-acyl-homoserine lactones (AHL) and autoinducer-2 (AI-2). In particular, QS plays a key role in biofilm formation, which is a specific bacterial group behavior. Biofilms are dense aggregates of packed microbial communities that grow on surfaces, and are embedded in a self-produced matrix of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). QS regulates biofilm dispersal as well as the production of EPS. In some bacteria, biofilm formations are regulated by c-di-GMP-mediated signaling as well as QS, thus the two signaling systems are mutually connected. Biofilms are one of the major virulence factors in pathogenic bacteria. In addition, they cause numerous problems in industrial fields, such as the biofouling of pipes, tanks and membrane bioreactors (MBR). Therefore, the interference of QS, referred to as quorum quenching (QQ) has received a great deal of attention. To inhibit biofilm formation, several strategies to disrupt bacterial QS have been reported, and many enzymes which can degrade or modify the signal molecule AHL have been studied. QQ enzymes, such as AHL-lactonase, AHL-acylase, and oxidoreductases may offer great potential for the effective control of biofilm formation and membrane biofouling in the future. This review describes the process of bacterial QS, biofilm formation, and the close relationship between them. Finally, QQ enzymes and their applications for the reduction of biofouling are also discussed.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.18 no.9
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• pp.1518-1521
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• 2008

Bacteria sense their population density and coordinate the expression of target genes, including virulence factors in Gram-negative bacteria, by the N-acylhomoserine lactones (AHLs)-dependent quorum sensing (QS) mechanism. In contrast, several soil bacteria are able to interfere with QS by enzymatic degradation of AHLs, referred to as quorum quenching. A potent AHL-degrading enzyme, AiiA, from Bacillus thuringiensis has been reported to effectively attenuate the virulence of bacteria by quorum quenching. However, little is known about the role of AiiA in B. thuringiensis itself. In the present study, an aiiA-defective mutant was generated to investigate the role of AHA in rhizosphere competence in the root system of pepper. The aiiA mutant showed no detectable AHL￢-egrading activity and was less effective for suppression of soft-rot symptom caused by Erwinia carotovora on the potato slice. On the pepper root, the survival rate of the aiiA mutant significantly decreased over time compared with that of wild type. Interestingly, viable cell count analysis revealed that the bacterial number and composition of E. carotovora were not different between treatments of wild type and the aiiA mutant. These results provide evidence that AHA can play an important role in rhizosphere competentce of B. thuringiensis and bacterial quorum quenching to Gram-negative bacteria without changing bacterial number or composition.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.1163-1170
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• 2005

The microbial adsorption characteristics of two different media for biological treatment were studied using attached diverse microbes onto activated carbon and ceramic. The results in the experiments of the characteristics of physical adhesion on two different media with addition of high and low concentrated substrate in the culture were observed that the efficient of adhesion onto F-400 activated carbon was higher over that of ceramic due to the surface area of media. The irradiation treatment by ultrasonication with 400 W power and 3 min retention time on the media without addition substrate conditions and subsequent mixing throughly the culture showed the highest efficiency of cell detachment on the media. Three different microbes, P. ovalis, A calcoaceticus, and B. subtillis were used for the study of the characteristics of microbial adhesion on the media. p ovalis showed the highest adhesion capability while B. subtillis showed the lowest capability adhesion onto media either addition of substrate in the culture. The mixed bacterial culture showed $10\%$ lower removal efficiency of DOC in the low concentrated substrate culture compared to the single pure culture. Whileas, it did not show significant difference between two cultures at high concentrated substrate. It was also observed same population density of microorganism by counting of microbes adhered to microbial media with an ultrasound treatment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.399-408
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• 2012

The overall goal of this study was to characterize and quantify ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) in four different full-scale sequence batch reactor (SBR) wastewater treatment plants. Also, this study focused on assessing the occurrence of the alternative ammonia-oxidizing microbes such as anammox (anaerobic ammonia oxidation) bacteria (AMX) and ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) in these systems. Based on total AOB numbers and the estimated cell density in the mixed liquor samples, AOB constituted 0.3 - 1.8% of the total bacterial population in the four WWTPs. Based on clone library, Nitrosomonas ureae-like AOB were dominant in plant A and B, while plant C and D had Nitrosomonas nitrosa-like AOB as major AOB group. The four different AMX primer sets targeting AMX 16S rRNA gene produced PCR amplicons distantly related to Chlamydia and Planctomycetales group bacteria. However, it was not clear these groups of bacteria perform anammox reaction in the SBR plants. Also, molecular evidence of AOA was found in one of the SBR plants, with a sequence located in the deep branch of the sediment creanarchaeota group.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.71-77
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• 2016

Air pollutants nitrogen oxides are inevitably generated in the combustion reaction. Its amount trend is steadily increasing because the rapid modern industrialization and population growth. For this reason, NOx is controlled to reducing the harmful components in the exhaust gas. So Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) take effect 'Tier I', 'Tier II' of air pollution regulation in 2005 and 2011 respectively. According to NOx emissions are strictly regulated management of the vessel through them. In addition, since 2016 the regulation enter into force in the next step 'Tier III' was confirmed by MEPC 66th committee. It's 80% enhanced emissions limits than the 'Tier I' Alternatively these emission regulation, research is actively being carried out about exhaust gas after-treatment methods through the vessel application of Selective Catalytic Reduction(SCR). Therefore depending on the basic specification of cell density according to the Area velocity, Space velocity, Linear velocity is studied the effects of NOx removal efficiency

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.128-136
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• 2008

An attempt was made in the Veeranam freshwater lake with the objectives to collect, identify, describe and document the algae occurring from March 2007 to August 2007. Qualitative and quantitative characterization of phytoplankton and analysis of physico-chemical parameters of water samples were carried out at monthly intervals during the study period in the western and eastern sides of the lake. It was found that the phytoplankton community embraced 68 genera belonging to four classes viz., Bacillariophyceae (40), Chlorophyceae (22), Cynophyceae (4) and Euglenophyceae (2). There were significant influences of various physico-chemical parameters on the phytoplankton population density. Commonly occurred genera, Oscillatoria (Cyanophyceae), Navicula (Bacillariophyceae) and Scenedesmus (Chlorophyceae), were subjected to energy dispersive spectroscopic analysis (EDS). They were found to accumulate different elements such as Zn, P, S, Ca, Mg, Fe, N, Si, Cl and Mn. Among these the member Cyanophyceae contained Zn, P, Mg, Ca, Mn, S and N. Bacillariophyceae Si, Zn, Mg, Cl, N, Fe, and Ca. Chlorophyceae Ca, Mg, N, Fe, Cl, Zn, Si and Mn. Thus these observations would determine the chemical dialogue between the cell structures and role of the elements. Further, it gives the clue about the phytoplankton growth requirements.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartC
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• v.9C no.6
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• pp.945-952
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• 2002

For a successful inter-system handoff, several important issues must be handled and additional new features must be considered. This paper focuses on the cellular structure of small cells which are required for the high density of population and a handoff scheme designed between two heterogenous networks. Incase of inter-system handoff (ISHO), the time required to complete the handoff can vary and depends on the structure of networks. And also the transmission of additional signals can increase the probability of failure for ISHO. Here we propose the sub-boundary cell base station (Sub-BBS) to alleviate the role of the BBS. The Sub-BBS is adjacent to BBS in the same regional mobile network. 쪼en the mobile terminal enters Sub-BBS, the network starts finding a new route and after entering BBS, it initiates the transformation process. The proposed scheme significantly reduces the ISHO failure rate compared to the existing one which is the most recent and known as efficient.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.9
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• pp.3347-3352
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• 2022

In 2013, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) changed the recommended maximum range of the Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) to 30 km, and the Kori Nuclear Power Plant in Republic of Korea has also expanded the EPZ to 30 km, following the recommendation. As a result, metropolitan cities with a high population density are contained within the EPZ, and evacuating millions of people should be considered if the 30 km range of evacuation is to take place. This study proposes an evacuation plan using buses (public transportation) to transport people outside of the EPZ, quickly and efficiently. To verify the appropriate mode share ratio of buses that can guarantee the right of vulnerable road users and reduce traffic congestion, a model was built simulating the Kori Nuclear Power Plant in Ulsan Metropolitan City. The scenarios were established by changing the mode share ratio of buses and passenger cars by 10%. Considering a large-scale network analysis at the city level, a cell transmission model was applied to calculate the evacuation time in each scenario. The result shows that the optimal mode share ratio of buses is 40%, with a total evacuation time of 132 min, considering feasible bus fleets in Ulsan Metropolitan City.

• Journal of Korean Medicine for Obesity Research
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.66-73
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• 2013

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics in elderly population with obesity by analyzing their blood test. Methods: Included 130 subjects of aged 60 or older went through body composition test, and blood test. We divided them into obesity group and normal group based on body mass index (BMI) results, and then the blood test results were compared between the groups. Results: Forty out of 130 subjects had BMI of 25 or more. Two groups showed significant difference in bilirubin total, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), cholesterol total, triglyceride, high density lipoprotein (HDL), red blood cell (RBC), hematocrite, mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration, and platelet. All but HDL levels showed significantly higher results in obesity group than normal group. When compared with BMI, blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, ALT, cholesterol total, triglyceride, white blood cell (WBC), and RBC had significant positive correlations. Among those, cholesterol total, triglyceride, WBC, and RBC showed significant difference between two groups, with correlation to BMI. Especially, the average of triglyceride was higher than normal limit in obesity group, whereas it was lower than normal limit in normal group. Conclusions: Triglyceride, cholesterol total, WBC, and RBC are highly related to obese elderly in this study. Old people with obesity need to be careful of cardiovascular and metabolic disease that can be caused by these factors.