• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.181-193
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• 2009

This paper presents a framework for controlling mobile multiple robots connected by communication networks. This framework provides novel methods to control coordinated systems using mobile agents. The combination of the mobile agent and mobile multiple robots opens a new horizon of efficient use of mobile robot resources. Instead of physical movement of multiple robots, mobile software agents can migrate from one robot to another so that they can minimize energy consumption in aggregation. The imaginary application is making "carts," such as found in large airports, intelligent. Travelers pick up carts at designated points but leave them arbitrary places. It is a considerable task to re-collect them. It is, therefore, desirable that intelligent carts (intelligent robots) draw themselves together automatically. Simple implementation may be making each cart has a designated assembly point, and when they are free, automatically return to those points. It is easy to implement, but some carts have to travel very long way back to their own assembly point, even though it is located close to some other assembly points. It consumes too much unnecessary energy so that the carts have to have expensive batteries. In order to ameliorate the situation, we employ mobile software agents to locate robots scattered in a field, e.g. an airport, and make them autonomously determine their moving behaviors by using a clustering algorithm based on the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). ACO is the swarm intelligence-based methods, and a multi-agent system that exploit artificial stigmergy for the solution of combinatorial optimization problems. Preliminary experiments have provided a favorable result. In this paper, we focus on the implementation of the controlling mechanism of the multi-robots using the mobile agents.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.9-16
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• 2013

Artificial insemination (AI) has been performed widely in swine industry using fresh liquid sperm instead of frozen type of sperm. However fresh sperm are not able to preserve more than three days with optimal motility and other sperm parameters for the successful fertilization, since in vitro stored sperm has an oxidative stress that resulted increase of abnormality and acrosome reation. To overcome these major problems, novel preservative formulation is needed to neutralize the oxidative stress and to provide suitable physiological environment for sperm in in vitro. In this study, naturally derived substances such as Poncirus trifoliate (Trifoliate orange), Garcinia mangostana (Mangosteen), pig placenta and testis extracts were tested as sperm preservative agents. Placenta extracts (PE), trifoliate orange extracts (TOE), testes extracts (TE) and mangosteen extracts (ME) were applied to analyze specific parameters for sperm motion characteristics individually and combinatorial. Each individual extract treatment can accelerate the sperm motility but noticeably TOE, TE and ME treatments exhibited the considerable and significant preservation of sperm motility. PE, TE and ME showed a significant (p<0.05) increase in ALH after one week. Further we evaluated the five different combinations of these extracts on sperm motility and its motion characteristics. Surprisingly even after one week ME, TOE and TE combination significantly preserved the sperm motility about 75%. It is noteworthy that unlike individual extract treatment, combination of ME, TOE and TE simultaneously protect the sperm motility and its motion characteristics. Taken together these data conclude that addition of ME, TOE and TE can be effective for preservation of pig sperm.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.911-917
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• 2009

The apoptotic caspases have been classified in accordance with their substrate specificities, as the optimal tetrapeptide recognition motifs for a variety of caspases have been determined via positional scanning substrate combinatorial library technology. Here, we focused on two proteolytic recognition motifs, DEVD and IETD, owing to their extensive use in cell death assay. Although DEVE and IETD have been generally considered to be selective for caspase-3 and -8, respectively, the proteolytic cleavage of these substrates does not display absolute specificity for a particular caspase. Thus, we attempted to monitor the cleavage preference for caspase-3, particularly using the recombinant protein substrates. For this aim, the chimeric GST:DEVD:EGFP and GST:IETD:EGFP proteins were genetically constructed by linking GST and EGFP with the linkers harboring DEVD and IETD. To our best knowledge, this work constitutes the first application for the monitoring of cleavage preference employing the recombinant protein substrates that simultaneously allow for mass and fluorescence analyses. Consequently, GST:IETD:EGFP was cleaved partially in response to caspase-3, whereas GST:DEVD:EGFP was completely proteolyzed, indicating that GST:DEVD:EGFP is a better substrate than GST:IETD:EGFP for caspase-3. Collectively, using these chimeric protein substrates, we have successfully evaluated the feasibility of the recombinant protein substrate for applicability to the monitoring of cleavage preference for caspase-3.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.145-151
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• 2012

In the present work, we studied the structure-activity relationship (SAR) of tautomycetin (TMC) and its derivatives. Further, we demonstrated the correlation between the immunosuppressive fuction, anticancer activity and protein phosphatase type 1 (PP1) inhibition of TMC and its derivatives. We have prepared some TMC derivatives via combinatorial biosynthesis, isolation from fermentation broth or chemical degradation of TMC. We found that the immunosuppressive activity was correlated with anticancer activity for TMC and its analog compounds, indicating that TMC may home at the same targets for its immunosuppressive and anticancer activities. Interestingly, TMC-F1, TMC-D1 and TMC-D2 all retained significant, albeit reduced PP1 inhibitory activity compared to TMC. However, only TMC-D2 showed immunosuppressive and anticancer activities in studies carried out in cell lines. Moreover, TMC-Chain did not show any significant inhibitory activity towards PP1 but showed strong growth inhibitory effect. This observation implicates that the maleic anhydride moiety of TMC is critical for its phosphatase inhibitory activity whereas the C1-C18 moiety of TMC is essential for the inhibition of tumor cell proliferation. Furthermore, we measured $in$ $vivo$ phosphatase activities of PP1 in MCF-7 cell extracts treated with TMC and its related compounds, and the results indicate that the cytotoxicity of TMC doesn't correlate with its $in$ $vivo$ PP1 inhibition activity. Taken together, our study suggests that the immunosuppressive and anticancer activities of TMC are not due to the inhibition of PP1. Our results provide a novel insight for the elucidation of the underlying molecular mechanisms of TMC's important biological functions.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.89-98
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• 1999

In a synchronization (sync) $network^1$containing N nodes, it is shown (Theorem 1c) that an arbitrarily connected sync network & is the union of a countable set of isolated connecting sync networks${&_i,i= 1,2,.., L}, I.E., & = \bigcup_{I=1}^L&_i$ It is shown(Theorem 2e) that aconnecting sync network is the union of a set of disjoint irreducible subnetworks having one or more nodes. It is further shown(Theorem 3a) that there exists at least one closed irreducible subnetwork in $&_i$. It is further demonstrated that a con-necting sync network is the union of both a master group and a slave group of nodes. The master group is the union of closed irreducible subnetworks in $&_i$. The slave group is the union of non-colsed irre-ducible subnetworks in $&_i$. The relationships between master-slave(MS), mutual synchronous (MUS) and hierarchical MS/MUS ent-works are clearly manifested [1]. Additionally, Theorem 5 shows that each node in the slave group is accessible by at least on node in the master group. This allows one to conclude that the synchro-nization information avilable in the master group can be reliably transported to each node in the slave group. Counting and combinatorial arguments are used to develop a recursive algorithm which counts the number $A_N$ of arbitrarily connected sync network architectures in an N-nodal sync network and the number $C_N$ of isolated connecting sync network in &. EXamples for N=2,3,4,5 and 6 are provided. Finally, network examples are presented which illustrate the results offered by the theorems. The notation used and symbol definitions are listed in Appendix A.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.413-428
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• 2013

In this study, Ant Colony Algorithm(ACO) was used for optimal model. ACO which are metaheuristic algorithm for combinatorial optimization problem are inspired by the fact that ants are able to find the shortest route between their nest and food source. For applying the model to water distribution systems, pipes, tanks(reservoirs), pump construction and pump operation cost were considered as object function and pressure at each node and reservoir level were considered as constraints. Modified model from Ostfeld and Tubaltzev(2008) was verified by applying 2-Looped, Hanoi and Ostfeld's networks. And sensitivity analysis about ant number, number of ants in a best group and pheromone decrease rate was accomplished. After the verification, it was applied to real water network from S water treatment plant. As a result of the analysis, in the Two-looped network, the best design cost was found to $419,000 and in the Hanoi network, the best design cost was calculated to $6,164,384, and in the Ostfeld's network, the best design cost was found to $3,525,096. These are almost equal or better result compared with previous researches. Last, the cost of optimal design for real network, was found for 66 billion dollar that is 8.8 % lower than before. In addition, optimal diameter for aged pipes was found in this study and the 5 of 8 aged pipes were changed the diameter. Through this result, pipe construction cost reduction was found to 11 percent lower than before. And to conclusion, The least cost design model on water distribution system was developed and verified successfully in this study and it will be very useful not only optimal pipe change plan but optimization plan for whole water distribution system.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2018.10a
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• pp.21-21
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• 2018

Natural product substances have historically served as the most significant also be prepared by source of new leads for pharmaceutical development. They can chemical synthesis(both semisynthesis and total synthesis) and have played a important role in the field of organic chemistry by providing synthetic targets. Rcently, they have also been extended for commercial purpose to refer to medicinal products, health functional foods, dietary supplements and cosmetics from natural sources. A large number of currently prescribed drugs have been either directly derived from or inspired by natural products. However, with the advent of robotics, bioinformatics, high throughput screening(HTS), molecular biology-biotechnology, combinatorial chemistry, in silico(molecular modeling) and other methodologies, the pharmaceutical industry has largely moved away from plant derived natural products as a source for leads and prospective drug candidates. The strategy for natural prduct industry is now changing from drug approaches to health foods by identifying effective natural products as preparations. In Korea, a lot of development of natural product based drugs have been done, but very few on health functional foods. The concept of natural product based health foods is not active components as lead compounds but standardized extracts or preparation mixed with other medicinal plants. The representative material has been recently known to be a standardized ginseng extract "Ginsana G 115" developed by Swiss Pharmaton company. The purpose of this presentation is to underline how natural products research continues to make significant contributions in the domain of discovery and development of new health functional foods. It is proposed to present the development of high value added health food or health functional foods through scientific investigation on efficacy and standardization of new materials form natural products.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.10B no.7
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• pp.751-756
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• 2003

Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is new meta heuristics method to solve hard combinatorial optimization problem. It is a population based approach that uses exploitation of positive feedback as well as greedy search. It was firstly proposed for tackling the well known Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) . In this paper, we introduce Multi Colony Ant Model that achieve positive interaction and negative interaction through Intensification and Diversification to improve original ACS performance. This algorithm is a method to solve problem through interaction between ACS groups that consist of some agent colonies to solve TSP problem. In this paper, we apply this proposed method to TSP problem and evaluates previous method and comparison for the performance and we wish to certify that qualitative level of problem solution is excellent.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.35 no.7A
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• pp.646-653
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• 2010

This paper provides a unified framework for the joint optimal subchannel and power allocation in multi-hop relay network, where each node in the network has multiple parallel subchannels such as in OFDM or MIMO system. When there are multiple parallel subchannels between nodes, the relay node decides how to match the subchannel at the first hop with the one at the second hop aside from determining the power allocation. Joint optimal design of subchannel matching and power allocation is, in general, known to be very difficult to solve due to the combinatorial nature involved in subchannel matching. Despite this difficulty, we use a simple rearrangement inequality and show that seemingly difficult problems can be efficiently solved. This includes several existing solution methods as special cases. We also provide various design examples to show the effectiveness of the proposed framework.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.271-277
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• 2009

Proteins interact with each other within a cell, and those interactions give rise to the biological function and dynamical behavior of cellular systems. Generally, the protein interactions are temporal, spatial, or condition dependent in a specific cell, where only a small part of interactions usually take place under certain conditions. Recently, although a large amount of protein interaction data have been collected by high-throughput technologies, the interactions are recorded or summarized under various or different conditions and therefore cannot be directly used to identify signaling pathways or active networks, which are believed to work in specific cells under specific conditions. However, protein interactions activated under specific conditions may give hints to the biological process underlying corresponding phenotypes. In particular, responsive functional modules consist of protein interactions activated under specific conditions can provide insight into the mechanism underlying biological systems, e.g. protein interaction subnetworks found for certain diseases rather than normal conditions may help to discover potential biomarkers. From computational viewpoint, identifying responsive functional modules can be formulated as an optimization problem. Therefore, efficient computational methods for extracting responsive functional modules are strongly demanded due to the NP-hard nature of such a combinatorial problem. In this review, we first report recent advances in development of computational methods for extracting responsive functional modules or active pathways from protein interaction network and microarray data. Then from computational aspect, we discuss remaining obstacles and perspectives for this attractive and challenging topic in the area of systems biology.