• IMMUNE NETWORK
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.1-10
• /
• 2011

Interleukin-7 (IL-7) is an essential cytokine for T cells. However, IL-7 is not produced by T cells themselves such that T cells are dependent on extrinsic IL-7. In fact, in the absence of IL-7, T cell development in the thymus as well as survival of naive T cells in the periphery is severely impaired. Furthermore, modulating IL-7 availability in vivo either by genetic means or other experimental approaches determines the size, composition and function of the T cell pool. Consequently, understanding IL-7 expression is critical for understanding T cell immunity. Until most recently, however, the spatiotemporal expression of in vivo IL-7 has remained obscured. Shortage of such information was partly due to scarce expression of IL-7 itself but mainly due to the lack of adequate reagents to monitor IL-7 expression in vivo. This situation dramatically changed with a recent rush of four independent studies that describe the generation and characterization of IL-7 reporter mice, all utilizing bacterial artificial chromosome transgene technology. The emerging consensus of these studies confirmed thymic stromal cells as the major producers of IL-7 but also identified IL-7 reporter activities in various peripheral tissues including skin, intestine and lymph nodes. Strikingly, developmental and environmental cues actively modulated IL-7 reporter activities in vivo suggesting that IL-7 regulation might be a new mechanism of shaping T cell development and homeostasis. Collectively, the availability of these new tools opens up new venues to assess unanswered questions in IL-7 biology in T cells and beyond.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.847-856
• /
• 2013

In this paper, we deal with testing goodness-of-fit for normal distribution based on parametric and nonparametric entropy estimators. The minimum variance unbiased estimator for the entropy of the normal distribution is derived as a parametric entropy estimator to be used for the construction of a test statistic. For a nonparametric entropy estimator of a data-generating distribution under the alternative hypothesis sample entropy and its modifications are used. The critical values of the proposed tests are estimated by Monte Carlo simulations and presented in a tabular form. The performance of the proposed tests under some selected alternatives are investigated by means of simulations. The results report that the proposed tests have better power than the previous entropy-based test by Vasicek (1976). In applications, the new tests are expected to be used as a competitive tool for testing normality.

• Child Health Nursing Research
• /
• v.5 no.2
• /
• pp.136-150
• /
• 1999

The subjects, under 18 old, 2,694 children who visited ER during 1998, were surveyed by the Triage and other statitical data. The results were as follows 1. The male to female ratio was 1.7 : 1, and the toddler(1-4 old) was the majority. 2. Triage ; critical 1.3%, acute 14.6%, urgent 29.5%, nonemergent 54.6%. 3. The reasons of visiting ER ; 1) The children had diseases(46.5%), injury (36.9%), TA(5.6%) and toxication(1.0%). 2) In diseases, male to female ratio was 1.5 : 1 and in injury, male to female was 2 : 1. 3) Among the children having in TA, 12-18 old groups was the majority(34.9%). 4. The time of visiting : the 20:00 - 22:00 was the majority(16.9%). 5. By monthly and seasonal distribution ; Jan. (9.7%), Mar. and May(9% respectively, Dec. and July(6.7%) respectively. The children who visted ER in spring and autumn showed higher portion than those of summer and winter. 6. Results ; admission(27.4%), discharge(68.4%), operations(2.8%), and DOA and DAA(0.4%), The mortality of the infancy and toddler groups was 83.3%. The infancy group showed the highest rate of admission. 7. The time of staying in ER ; 1-2 hrs was the major group(23.3%) and the average was 4.6 hours. 8. By clinical departments ; Ped. was 34.4%, PS was 20.8%, Dental Surgery was 10.3% and Dermatology was 0.9%. 9. The types of visting ; the group who visited by themselves was 80%, transfer from the primary and secondary clinic was 17% and OPD was 3.0%. 10. The traffic means . by the own cars and taxi were 87.6%, by hospital ambulance was 6.1% and by 119 ambulance was 4.3%.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.138-143
• /
• 2001

Sleepiness is associated with many different conditions and, as a neglected topic, it can be the cause of serious psychological and social disadvantages. In the aspect of learning, additional problems may arise from poor progress in school caused by the effect of sleepiness on concentration, memory, and other cognitive functions. Narcolepsy is by no means the most common cause of excessive sleepiness. Nonetheless, it is not a rarity, especially in young people. The non-specific nature of early features of narcolepsy, combined with very limited awareness that the condition can start in various ways, leads to many misinterpretations. Misinterpretation of narcolepsy symptoms is not confined to the medical profession. Teachers may well be critical of a student with narcolepsy because of their perception of narcolepsy symptoms as laziness, poor motivation, or difficult behavior and dull learning ability. Inappropriate reactions by parents, teachers, and peers, based on misinterpretation of narcolepsy symptoms or the patient's reactions to them, make a difficult situation worse. Especially in Korea, where schooling is focused on college entrance examinations, the problem is very serious and intensified by inappropriate or delayed diagnosis and treatment. Therefore, psychiatrists should be aware that narcolepsy in young adolescents is not rare and that they need to be familiar with its clinical features in both its classic and less obvious forms. Narcolepsy should be suspected if a adolescent's excessive sleepiness can not be explained in other ways. Therefore, we report on two patients who portray the tendency of dull learning ability and are mistaken as idle students. We diagnosed narcolepsy through polysomnography and multiple sleep latency testing. We treated the students with methylphenidate and pemolin. The students showed improvement in learning ability and were able to adapt better to school.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
• /
• v.42 no.2 s.119
• /
• pp.280-294
• /
• 2007

This paper aims to examine the ways in which the Singaporean government has promoted the "global city" imaging strategy as a means for marketing Singapore. Since the 1990s, Singapore has pursued a place-marketing strategy that aims at imaging itself as a "creative", "culturally vibrant" and "cosmopolitan" global city by utilizing various cultural, tourist and spatial policy measures. It argues that the Singaporean government has promoted this particular imaging strategy under a broader economic resoucturing program, aiming at transforming the Singapore's economy into a "knowledge-driven" one, under which the attraction of international knowledge workers is seen as crucial for the competitiveness and innovation. This paper also discusses the limitations of this strategy, focusing on growing tensions between the global and the local in the Singaporean society and the ways in which the authoritarian and top-down nature of governance have restricted the genuine development of the "culturally vibrant" environment in Singapore.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
• /
• v.34 no.9C
• /
• pp.848-854
• /
• 2009

DVB-SSP is a new broadcasting system for hybrid satellite communications, which supports mobile handhold systems and fixed terrestrial systems. An upper layer, including erasure Reed-Solomon error correction combined with cyclic redundancy check. However, a critical factor must be considered in upper layer decoding. If there is only one bit error in an IP packet, the entire IP packet is considered as unreliable bytes, even if it contains correct bytes. If, for example, there is one real byte error, in an If packet of 512 bytes, 511 correct bytes are erased from the frame. Therefore, this paper proposed upper layer decoding methods; hybrid decoding. By means of simulation we show that the performance of the proposed decoding algorithm is superior to that of the conventional one in AWGN channel and TI channel.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.17 no.6
• /
• pp.917-933
• /
• 2016

In a prestressed concrete bridge, the magnitude of the prestress force (PF) decreases with time. This unexpected loss can cause failure of a bridge which makes prestress force identification (PFI) critical to evaluate bridge safety. However, it has been difficult to identify the PF non-destructively. Although some research has shown the feasibility of vibration based methods in PFI, the requirement of having a determinate exciting force in these methods hinders applications onto in-service bridges. Ideally, it will be efficient if the normal traffic could be treated as an excitation, but the load caused by vehicles is difficult to measure. Hence it prompts the need to investigate whether PF and moving load could be identified together. This paper presents a synergic identification method to determine PF and moving load applied on a simply supported prestressed concrete beam via the dynamic responses caused by this unknown moving load. This method consists of three parts: (i) the PF is transformed into an external pseudo-load localized in each beam element via virtual distortion method (VDM); (ii) then these pseudo-loads are identified simultaneously with the moving load via Duhamel Integral; (iii) the time consuming problem during the inversion of Duhamel Integral is overcome by the load-shape function (LSF). The method is examined against different cases of PFs, vehicle speeds and noise levels by means of simulations. Results show that this method attains a good degree of accuracy and efficiency, as well as robustness to noise.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2005

An experimental study was carried out to obtain the fundamental data about the effects of radical ignition on premixture combustion. A CVC(constant volume combustor) divided into the sub-chamber and the main chamber was used. Numerous narrow passage holes are arranged between the main chamber and the sub-chamber. The products including radicals generated by spark ignition in tile sub-chamber derives the simultaneous multi-point ignition in the main chamber. We have examined the effects of the sub-chamber volume, the diameter and number of passage holes, and the equivalence $ratio({\Phi})$ on the combustion characteristics by means of burning pressure measurement and flame visualization. In a CVC, the overall burning time including the ignition delay became very short and the maximum burning pressure was slightly increased by the radical ignition(RI) method in comparison with those by the conventional spark ignition(SI) method. Combustible lean limit by RI method is extended by ${\Phi}=0.25$ compared with that by SI method. Also, In cases of charging the number and the diameter for the fixed total cross section of the passage holes, combustion period increased significantly at a sub-chamber with a single hole, but those of the other conditions had almost a similar tendency in the sub-chamber with 4 or more holes. regardless of equivalence ratio. Therefore, it was Proved that a critical cross section exists with the number of passage holes.

• KSCI Review
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.209-217
• /
• 2007

Korea's seas have the potentials of dispute against China or Japan due to the overlap of the territorial waters and EEZ. In case of marine accidents, the nature of the sea tends to eliminate much of the track, making it another hardship in evidence adoption in case of an international dispute along with the false entries of fishing vessels' journals. Marine Digital Forensics protects the functions of computers and IT appliance on vessels and extracts evidence of voyage and accidents to resolve international dispute. The digital evidence, if tampered with its integrity, may lead to the rejection to a critical claim or may even fail to make a case. As a solution, this thesis suggests Marine Digital Forensics as a way to extract evidence and prove a claim. This may be utilized as means of scientific investigation on sea as overseas exchange increases and the vessels digitalize, leading to a solution in international disputes that may occur in the future.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
• /
• 2004.03a
• /
• pp.644-648
• /
• 2004

In the present study were examined numerically and experimentally the off-design performance characteristics on an axisymmetric plug nozzle with variable throat area. In this nozzle concept, its throat area can be changed by translating the plug into the axial direction. First, a mixed-expansion plug nozzle, in which two expansion parts are arranged both inside and outside, was designed by means of the method of characteristics. Second, the CFD analysis was verified by the cold-flow wind tunnel test. Third, its performance characteristics were evaluated over a wide range of pressure ratio from half to double throat area through the design point, using the CFD code verified by the wind tunnel tests. It was made clear from the study that not so critical thrust efficiency losses were found and the maximum thrust efficiency loss was at most approximately 5 % under off-design conditions without external flow. This result shows that a plug nozzle can give the altitude compensation even under off-design geometry operations. However, shock waves were observed in the inner expansion part under the doubled throat area operation and thus some thermal problems may be caused on the plug surface. Furthermore, collapse of cell structure on the plug surface was observed with external flow (around Mach number 2.0) as it became lower pressure ratio below the design point and the fact may result in big efficiency loss regardless of geometrical configuration.