• Journal of the Korean Society of School Health
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.93-104
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• 2005

Purpose： This study compared lifestyles of middle school students with and without atopic dermatitis in order to obtain the baseline information for health education. Methods： This study involved 256 students from 20 middle schools in Busan who suffered from atopic dermatitis and 231 students from 2 middle schools in Busan who did not have atopic dermatitis. Results： Students with atopic dermatitis had a lower family income (탑=16.99, p<.001) and were more likely to come from a nuclear family (탑=10.28, p<.001) than control students. 98% of the students with atopic dermatitis had several skin symptoms. 78.5% of students with atopic dermatitis reported experiencing difficulties in their daily because of their condition. Students with atopic dermatitis took shorter baths and used soap less frequently than the students in the control group. The students with atopic dermatitis cleaned their houses and bedclothes more often than normal students in an attempt to remove cockroaches and house-dust mites. Students with atopic dermatitis also ate fast and instant foods more often than normal students. Conclusions： Some lifestyle differences exist between students with and without atopic dermatitis. Therefore, education and guidance may be important to promote good health and improve lifestyle quality.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.3-10
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• 2020

The purpose of this paper is to make a game design to overcome traditional prevention system. Cases such as recent cockroach floodings in Seoul, which shows difficulties on understanding the appearance pattern of cockroaches and limitations of the quarantine systems are increasing frequently theses days. In particular public sewer systems which is essential for urban development, face problems due to urban sprawl. In order to solve the problem this study proposes a game design building collective intelligence through citizen participation on cockroach prevention problems.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.43 no.3 s.135
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• pp.101-110
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• 2005

In this study, the trypsin gene (bgtryp-1) from the German cockroach, Blattella germanica, was cloned via the immunoscreening of patients with allergies to cockroaches. Nucleotide sequence analysis predicted an 863 bp open reading frame which encodes for 257 amino acids. The deduced amino acid sequence exhibited $42-57\%$ homology with the serine protease from dust mites, and consisted of a conserved catalytic domain (GOSGGPLV). bgtryp-1 was determined by both Northern and Southern analysis to be a 0.9 kb, single-copy gene. SDS-PAGE and Western blotting analyses of the recombinant protein (Bgtryp-1) over-expressed in Escherichia coli revealed that the molecular mass of the expressed protein was 35 kDa, and the expressed protein was capable of reacting with the sera of cock-roach allergy patients. We also discussed the possibility that trypsin excreted by the digestive system of the German cockroach not only functions as an allergen, but also may perform a vital role in the activation of PAR-2.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.444-449
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• 2020

I proposed small ambulatory robot actuators using piezoelectric benders. In order to make the motion of the biomimetic robot legs similar to the movements of the cockroaches or similar insects, two pairs of legs in the diagonal direction in the four leg structures are required to make the same movement. And elliptical displacement is realized by taking into account horizontal and vertical displacement of multimode oscillations and driving them by electrical signals with differences step by step, for example of 90° the T-shaped robot actuator showed wide range of speed (From 2 mm/sec. up to 266 mm/sec.) and ability of transportation (up to 10 g with 50 mm/s). Locomotive performance of the robot was competitive to the preceding robots, and moreover, the modular type actuators of a segmented myriapods robot could be added and removed for different tasks or performances.

• Animal Systematics, Evolution and Diversity
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.87-100
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• 1995

Fauna of medically important arthropods in Chindo Island was studied in July 1994. Among eight speices of mosquitoes (Diptera : Culicidae), Culex tritenirohyunchus was predomiant (46.5% of the total0, and Anopheles sinensis the next. Seven specimens of the unidentified Culex sp. which seemed to be new were also collected. Total 23 species of non-biting midges(Diptera : Chiornomidae) were found in Chindo Is. Of them , Chironomus kiiensis was the predominant species (67.3%) , and Ch.flaviplumus the next (15.6%). Three species, Cladopelma viridula, Dicrotendipes septemmaculatus and Harnischia urtilamellata are reported for the first time in Korea, and they are fully re-described with illustrations. Among five species of biting midges (Diptera : Ceraopogenidae) collected, Culicoides punctatus was predominant (88.7%). A species of Foreipomia was also collected, and this genus is not recorded in Korean fauna. Only two species of domiciliary cockroaches, Periplaneta japonica and P.americana were collected in small numbers and Blatella germanica which is known as the most predominant speices in Korea was not found. The predominant speices of field rodents was Apodemus agrarius and thier ectoparasites were Leptotrombidium orientale (Acarina : Tromicibulidae), Lxodes nipponensis (Acarina : Ixodidae) ; Laelaps jettmani and Eulaelaps stabularis (Acarina : Laelapidae).

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.356-361
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• 2020

This paper presents a lightweight milli-scale crawling robot that can crawl on both sides, which was inspired by the movement of insects. This robot has an excellent ability to overcome obstacles, such as the narrow gaps and the rough terrain. In addition, the robot can crawl steadily and rapidly through triangular alternation, such as ants or cockroaches. The process of smart composite microstructures (SCM) was employed to make a lightweight robot structure. The SCM process replaced the conventional mechanical parts with flexure joints and composite links, which allows the weight of the robot to be reduced. In addition, the robot structure was robust against external impacts owing to the compliance of the constituent materials. Using the SCM process, the robot weighed only 32g with twelve legs in total on both sides. The robot showed a crawling speed of 0.52m/s on the front side and 0.42m/s on the backside.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.31-36
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• 2009

Cockroaches have been recognized as a major cause of asthma. Bla g 4 is one of the most important German cockroach allergens. The aim of this study is to investigate IgE reactivity to the recombinant Bla g 4 (rBla g 4) in the sera of allergic patients and identify linear IgE binding epitope. For protein expression, full-length Bla g 4 (EF202172) was divided into 5 overlapping peptide fragments (E1: aa 1-100, E2: aa 34-77, E3: aa 74-117, E4: aa 114-156, and E5: aa 153-182). The full-length and 5 peptide fragments of Bla g 4 was generated by PCR and over-expressed in E. coli BL21 (DE3). The IgE binding reactivities of the full-length and peptide fragments were measured by ELISA using 32 serum samples of cockroach allergy. The sera of 8 patients (25%) reacted with rBla g 4. Four sera (100%) showed IgE-binding reactivity to full-length and peptide fragment 4, and 2 sera (50%) reacted with peptide fragment 2. One (20%) serum reacted with peptide fragment 3. The results of ELISA using overlapping recombinant fragments indicated that the epitope region was located at amino acid sequences 34-73 and 78-113, and major IgE epitope of Bla g 4 was located at amino acid sequences 118-152 of C-terminal. B-cell epitope analysis of German cockroach allergen Bla g 4 could contribute to the strategic development of more specific and potentially efficacious immunotherapy.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.1343-1349
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• 2021

Cockroaches live in places where various pathogens exist and thus are more likely to use antimicrobial compounds to defend against pathogen intrusions. We previously performed an in silico analysis of the Periplaneta americana transcriptome and detected periplanetasin-5 using an in silico antimicrobial peptide prediction method. In this study, we investigated whether periplanetasin-5 has anticancer activity against the human leukemia cell line K562. Cell growth and survival of K562 cells treated with periplanetasin-5 were decreased in a dose-dependent manner. By using flow cytometric analysis, acridine orange/ethidium bromide (AO/EB) staining and DNA fragmentation, we found that periplanetasin-5 induced apoptotic and necrotic cell death in leukemia cells. In addition, these events were associated with increased levels of the pro-apoptotic proteins Fas and cytochrome c and reduced levels of the anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2. Periplanetasin-5 induces the cleavage of pro-caspase-9, pro-caspase-8, pro-caspase-3, and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP). The above data suggest that periplanetasin-5 induces apoptosis via both the intrinsic and extrinsic pathways. Moreover, caspase-related apoptosis was further confirmed by using the caspase inhibitor carbobenzoxy-valyl-alanyl-aspartyl-[O-methyl]-fluoromethylketone (Z-VAD-FMK), which reversed the periplanetasin-5-induced reduction in cell viability. In conclusion, periplanetasin-5 caused apoptosis in leukemia cells, suggesting its potential utility as an anticancer therapeutic agent.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.60 no.4
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• pp.289-293
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• 2022

Blastocystis is a genus of unicellular heterokont parasites belonging to a group of organisms known as Stramenopiles, which includes algae, diatoms, and water molds. Blastocystis includes several species that habitat in the gastrointestinal tracts of organisms as diverse as humans, farm animals, birds, rodents, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and cockroaches. It is important to public health and distributed globally, but its prevalence in dogs in Korea has not been reported to date. Here, we collected 787 canine fecal samples and assessed Blastocystis infection by age, sex, region, season, and diarrhea symptoms. We determined Blastocystis subtypes using phylogenetic analyses based on 18S rRNA gene sequences. We identified, 10 Blastocystis positive samples (1.3%). A higher proportion of infected dogs was asymptomatic; however, infection rates did not significantly differ according to region, age, sex, and season. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the Blastocystis sp. identified belonged to 4 subtypes (STs), ST1, ST5, ST10, and ST14, thus revealed the genetic diversity of Blastocystis sp. in dogs Korean. This is first report on the presence of Blastocystis sp. in dogs Korean. This study revealed a lower infection rate than expected and differed from previous studies in STs. Further studies are warranted to observe the national infection status of Blastocystis in dogs and the genetic characteristics of this genus.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.202-209
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• 2023

Lophomonas blattarum is an anaerobic protozoan living in the intestine of cockroaches and house dust mites, with ultramicroscopic characteristics such as the presence of a parabasal body, axial filament, and absence of mitochondria. More than 200 cases of Lophomonas infection of the respiratory tract have been reported worldwide. However, the current diagnosis of such infection depends only on light microscopic morphological findings from respiratory secretions. In this study, we attempted to provide more robust evidence of protozoal infection in an immunocompromised patient with atypical pneumonia, positive for Lophomonas-like protozoal cell forms. A direct search of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid via polymerase chain reaction (PCR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and metagenomic next-generation sequencing did not prove the presence of protozoal infection. PCR results were not validated with sufficient rigor, while de novo assembly and taxonomic classification results did not confirm the presence of an unidentified pathogen. The TEM results implied that such protozoal forms in light microscopy are actually non-detached ciliated epithelial cells. After ruling out infectious causes, the patient's final diagnosis was drug-induced pneumonitis. These findings underscore the lack of validation in the previously utilized diagnostic methods, and more evidence in the presence of L. blattarum is required to further prove its pathogenicity.