• Title/Summary/Keyword: experimental techniques

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Differential gene expression analysis of human cumulus cells

  • Demiray, Sirin Bakti;Goker, Ege Nazan Tavmergen;Tavmergen, Erol;Yilmaz, Ozlem;Calimlioglu, Nilufer;Soykam, Huseyin Okan;Oktem, Gulperi;Sezerman, Ugur
    • Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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    • v.46 no.2
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    • pp.76-86
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    • 2019
  • Objective: This study was performed to explore the possibility that each oocyte and its surrounding cumulus cells might have different genetic expression patterns that could affect human reproduction. Methods: Differential gene expression analysis was performed for 10 clusters of cumulus cells obtained from 10 cumulus-oocyte complexes from 10 patients. Same procedures related to oocyte maturation, microinjection, and microarray analyses were performed for each group of cumulus cells. Two differential gene expression analyses were performed: one for the outcome of clinical pregnancy and one for the outcome of live birth. Results: Significant genes resulting from these analyses were selected and the top 20 affected pathways in each group were analyzed. Circadian entrainment is determined to be the most affected pathway for clinical pregnancy, and proteoglycans in cancer pathway is the most affected pathway for live birth. Circadian entrainment is also amongst the 12 pathways that are found to be in top 20 affected pathways for both outcomes, and has both lowest p-value and highest number of times found count. Conclusion: Although further confirmatory studies are necessary, findings of this study suggest that these pathways, especially circadian entrainment in cumulus cells, may be essential for embryo development and pregnancy.

Sea trial results of long range underwater acoustic communication based on frequency modulation in the East Sea (동해에서 주파수 변조에 기반한 장거리 수중음향통신의 해상실험 결과)

  • Lee, Joo-Hyoung;Lee, Geun-Hyeok;Kim, Ki-Man;Kim, Wan-Jin
    • The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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    • v.38 no.4
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    • pp.371-377
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    • 2019
  • In this paper, we present the sea trial results of long distance underwater acoustic communication in the East Sea, October 2018. One transmitter and sixteen vertical array receivers were used to collect underwater acoustic communication signals, and the maximum distance between the transmitter and the receiver was 90 km. Information was transmitted by BFSK (Binary Frequency Shift Keying) and BCSK (Binary Chirp Shift Keying) method, which are typical digital frequency modulation techniques. Experimental results show that there is no error in all cases at the transmission distance of 60 km, and BFSK and BCSK have average uncoded bit error rate of 0.0197 and 0.0007 respectively without channel coding at 90 km transmission distance.

Effects of water temperature changes on oxygen consumption and hematological factors in olive flounder Paralichthys olivaceus

  • Lim, Han Kyu;Han, Hyon Sob;Hur, Jun Wook
    • Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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    • v.24 no.2
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    • pp.99-107
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    • 2021
  • Water temperature (WT) is a major environmental factor of metabolic rate in fish; it directly affects food intake, ammonia excretion, oxygen consumption (OC), growth, and survival. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate changes in the OC and the hematological response of olive flounder Paralichthys olivaceus because of WT changes. In Exp. I, WT was increased from 20℃ to 29℃ within 18 h and maintained at 29℃ for 96 h. Then, WT was decreased from 29℃ to 20℃ within 18 h and maintained at 20℃ for 24 h. In Exp. II, WT was decreased from 20℃ to 11℃ within 18 h and maintained at 11℃ for 96 h. Then, WT was increased from 11℃ to 20℃ within 18 h and maintained at 20℃ for 24 h. The Exp. III maintained that the Exp. I and II was consecutively. In Exp. I, the OC increased from 116.7 mg O2 kg-1 hr-1 to 317.5 mg O2 kg-1 hr-1 with increasing WT. In Exp. II, the OC decreased from 96.5 mg O2 kg-1 hr-1 to 71.3 mg O2 kg-1 hr-1 with decreasing WT. In Exp. III, OC tended to increase or decrease in inverse proportion to temperature. In Exp. I, cortisol, glucose, and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) values increased with increasing WT. In Exp. II, Cl-, osmolality, AST, and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) values significantly changed during the experimental period: glucose values increased, whereas cortisol values decreased with decreasing WT. Exp. III was shown to be a more stressful environment to olive flounder than Exp. I and Exp. II. The results of our study will be useful for evaluating current aquaculture procedures of olive flounder and developing techniques to minimize stress in aquaculture farms.

Short-term Benefits of Mobilization for Patients with Non-Specific Neck Pains: Executive Function and Neck Pain Intensity

  • Choi, Wansuk;Heo, Seoyoon
    • Journal of International Academy of Physical Therapy Research
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    • v.10 no.2
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    • pp.1803-1809
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    • 2019
  • Background: Cervical mobilization has been applied mainly for the improvement of arm and neck movements and pain reduction, and little research has been done to improve the executive function. Since this kind of so-called mechanical neck pain is one of most common symptoms, there are controversial issues about this with spine alignment. Posteroanterior (PA) mobilization from the Maitland concept is a process of examination, assessment, and treatment of neuromusculoskeletal disorder by manipulative physical therapy. Objective: To examine the short-term benefits of mobilization for patients with non-specific neck pain. Design: Dual-group Pretest-Posttest Design from the Quasi-Experimental research Methods: Fourteen participants (male 8, female 6; 20's of their age) with non-specific neck pains which are distributed all the unilateral or bilateral body side were recruited. Participants were categorized to Neck Pain with Movement Coordination Impairments (NPMCI) and Neck Pain with Mobility Deficits (NPMD) groups according to the results of physical examination. Professional physical therapist who has over 15-years-of clinical experience applicated manipulative therapy for the neck pain, an occupational therapist only conducted evaluations; K-NDI (Korean version of the Neck Disability Index), VAS (Visual Analog Scale), BDS-K (Korean version of Behavioral Dyscontrol Scale) for decreasing possible adverse effects; there were no person who reported other symptoms followed 4 weeks from the trial. Results: In the NPMCI group, data analysis indicated statistical differences between the PA mobilization interventions in NDI and BDS-K; even though, pain was reduced in VAS, this is not a significantly differ. In the NPMD group, data analysis represented statistical differences between the PA mobilization interventions in NDI, VAS and BDS-K; the scores were represented to be increased or the pain got relief. Conclusions: PA mobilization techniques according to Maitland concept have beneficial effects in patients with neck pain and other clinical positive effects which included neck disability, pain itself and motor function of upper extremity.

An Optimization Method of Spatial Placement for Effective Vehicle Loading (효과적인 차량 선적을 위한 공간 배치의 최적화 기법)

  • Cha, Joo Hyoung;Choi, Jin Seok;Bae, You Su;Woo, Young Woon
    • Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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    • v.24 no.2
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    • pp.186-191
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    • 2020
  • In this paper, we proposed an optimization technique for efficiently placing vehicles on decks in a vehicle-carrying ship to efficiently handle loading and unloading. For this purpose, we utilized the transformation method of the XML data representing the ship's spatial information, merging and branching algorithm and genetic algorithm, and implemented the function to visualize the optimized vehicle placement results. The techniques of selection, crossover, mutation, and elite preservation, which are used in the conventional genetic algorithms, are used. In particular, the vehicle placement optimization method is proposed by merging and branching the ship space for the vehicle loading. The experimental results show that the proposed merging and branching method is effective for the optimization process that is difficult to optimize with the existing genetic algorithm alone. In addition, visualization results show vehicle layout results in the form of drawings so that experts can easily determine the efficiency of the layout results.

Drying Characteristics of Soil by Microwave (Microwave에 의한 흙의 건조 특성 고찰)

  • Cho, Doohwan;Oh, Myounghak;Park, Junboum
    • Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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    • v.12 no.5
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    • pp.5-12
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    • 2011
  • Water content is one of the significant engineering properties of soil for predicting the behavior of soil matrix. Conventional drying oven can be widely used to obtain the values by drying the soil specimens for 16 to 24 hours at $105^{\circ}C$. Although a number of experimental data has been accumulated for the conventional method of drying soil for water contents, shortcomings of the method are still hard to overcome such as long drying time for in situ use and the difficulty of taking prompt actions against emergency cases. Recently, ASTM and JGS have established microwave oven drying techniques for obtaining water contents to cope with those problems. And the reliability evaluation study has been also performed on the microwave oven drying for water contents. Feasibility study of the microwave oven drying was performed to confirm the process of the technique with Jumunjin sand, kaolinite, bentonite, weathered granite soil, and organic soil. Investigation was also conducted on the factors affecting and enhancing the reliability of the technique.

Predictors of intentional intoxication using decision tree modeling analysis: a retrospective study

  • Oh, Eun Seok;Choi, Jae Hyung;Lee, Jung Won;Park, Su Yeon
    • Clinical and Experimental Emergency Medicine
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    • v.5 no.4
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    • pp.230-239
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    • 2018
  • Objective The suicide rate in South Korea is very high and is expected to increase in coming years. Intoxication is the most common suicide attempt method as well as one of the common reason for presenting to an emergency medical center. We used decision tree modeling analysis to identify predictors of risk for suicide by intentional intoxication. Methods A single-center, retrospective study was conducted at our hospital using a 4-year registry of the institute from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2016. Demographic factors, such as sex, age, intentionality, therapeutic adherence, alcohol consumption, smoking status, physical disease, cancer, psychiatric disease, and toxicological factors, such as type of intoxicant and poisoning severity score were collected. Candidate risk factors based on the decision tree were used to select variables for multiple logistic regression analysis. Results In total, 4,023 patients with intoxication were enrolled as study participants, with 2,247 (55.9%) identified as cases of intentional intoxication. Reported annual percentages of intentional intoxication among patients were 628/937 (67.0%), 608/1,082 (56.2%), 536/1,017 (52.7), 475/987 (48.1%) from 2013 to 2016. Significant predictors identified based on decision tree analysis were alcohol consumption, old age, psychiatric disease, smoking, and male sex; those identified based on multiple regression analysis were alcohol consumption, smoking, male sex, psychiatric disease, old age, poor therapeutic adherence, and physical disease. Conclusion We identified important predictors of suicide risk by intentional intoxication. A specific and realistic approach to analysis using the decision tree modeling technique is an effective method to determine those groups at risk of suicide by intentional intoxication.

Removal characteristics of chromium by activated carbon/CoFe2O4 magnetic composite and Phoenix dactylifera stone carbon

  • Foroutan, Rauf;Mohammadi, Reza;Ramavandi, Bahman;Bastanian, Maryam
    • Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering
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    • v.35 no.11
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    • pp.2207-2219
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    • 2018
  • Activated carbon (AC) was synthesized from Phoenix dactylifera stones and then modified by $CoFe_2O_4$ magnetic nanocomposite for use as a Cr(VI) adsorbent. Both $AC/CoFe_2O_4$ composite and AC were fully characterized by FTIR, SEM, XRD, TEM, TGA, and VSM techniques. Based on the surface analyses, the addition of $CoFe_2O_4$ nanoparticles had a significant effect on the thermal stability and crystalline structure of AC. Factors affecting chromium removal efficiency like pH, dosage, contact time, temperature, and initial Cr(VI) concentration were investigated. The best pH was found 2 and 3 for Cr adsorption by AC and $AC/CoFe_2O_4$ composite, respectively. The presence of ion sulfate had a greater effect on the chromium sorption efficiency than nitrate and chlorine ions. The results illustrated that both adsorbents can be used up to seven times to adsorb chromium. The adsorption process was examined by three isothermal models, and Freundlich was chosen as the best one. The experimental data were well fitted by pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The half-life ($t_{1/2}$) of hexavalent chromium using AC and $AC/CoFe_2O_4$ magnetic composite was obtained as 5.18 min and 1.52 min, respectively. Cr(VI) adsorption by AC and $AC/CoFe_2O_4$ magnetic composite was spontaneous and exothermic. In general, our study showed that the composition of $CoFe_2O_4$ magnetic nanoparticles with AC can increase the adsorption capacity of AC from 36 mg/L to 70 mg/L.

Sparse and low-rank feature selection for multi-label learning

  • Lim, Hyunki
    • Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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    • v.26 no.7
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    • pp.1-7
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    • 2021
  • In this paper, we propose a feature selection technique for multi-label classification. Many existing feature selection techniques have selected features by calculating the relation between features and labels such as a mutual information scale. However, since the mutual information measure requires a joint probability, it is difficult to calculate the joint probability from an actual premise feature set. Therefore, it has the disadvantage that only a few features can be calculated and only local optimization is possible. Away from this regional optimization problem, we propose a feature selection technique that constructs a low-rank space in the entire given feature space and selects features with sparsity. To this end, we designed a regression-based objective function using Nuclear norm, and proposed an algorithm of gradient descent method to solve the optimization problem of this objective function. Based on the results of multi-label classification experiments on four data and three multi-label classification performance, the proposed methodology showed better performance than the existing feature selection technique. In addition, it was showed by experimental results that the performance change is insensitive even to the parameter value change of the proposed objective function.

Comparison of pregnancy outcomes using a time-lapse monitoring system for embryo incubation versus a conventional incubator in in vitro fertilization: An age-stratification analysis

  • Chera-aree, Pattraporn;Thanaboonyawat, Isarin;Thokha, Benjawan;Laokirkkiat, Pitak
    • Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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    • v.48 no.2
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    • pp.174-183
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    • 2021
  • Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the pregnancy outcomes of in vitro fertilization with embryo transfer between embryos cultured in a time-lapse monitoring system (TLS) and those cultured in a conventional incubator (CI). Methods: The medical records of 250 fertilized embryos from 141 patients undergoing infertility treatment with assisted reproductive technology at a tertiary hospital from June 2018 to May 2020 were reviewed. The study population was divided into TLS and CI groups at a 1 to 1 ratio (125 embryos per group). The primary outcome was the live birth rate. Results: The TLS group had a significantly higher clinical pregnancy rate (46.4% vs. 27.2%, p=0.002), implantation rate (27.1% vs. 12.0%, p=0.004), and live birth rate (32.0% vs. 18.4%, p=0.013) than the CI group. Furthermore, subgroup analyses of the clinical pregnancy rate and live birth rate in the different age groups favored the TLS group. However, this difference only reached statistical significance in the live birth rate in women aged over 40 years and the clinical pregnancy rate in women aged 35-40 years (p=0.048 and p=0.031, respectively). The miscarriage rate, cleavage rate, and blastocyst rate were comparable. Conclusion: TLS application improved the live birth rate, implantation rate, and clinical pregnancy rate, particularly in the advanced age group in this study, while the other reproductive outcomes were comparable. Large randomized controlled trials are needed to further explore the ramifications of these findings, especially in different age groups.