• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.151-163
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• 2024

Background: Galangin, commonly employed in traditional Chinese medicine for its diverse medicinal properties, exhibits potential in treating inflammatory pain. Nevertheless, its mechanism of action remains unclear. Methods: Mice were randomly divided into 4 groups for 7 days: a normal control group, a galangin-treated (25 and 50 mg/kg), and a positive control celecoxib (20 mg/kg). Analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects were evaluated using a hot plate test, acetic acid-induced writhing test, acetic acid-induced vascular permeability test, formalin-induced paw licking test, and carrageenan-induced paw swelling test. The interplay between galangin, transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1), NF-κB, COX-2, and TNF-α proteins was evaluated via molecular docking. COX-2, PGE2, IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α levels in serum were measured using ELISA after capsaicin administration (200 nmol/L). TRPV1 expression in the dorsal root ganglion was analyzed by Western blot. The quantities of substance P (SP) and calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) were assessed using qPCR. Results: Galangin reduced hot plate-induced licking latency, acetic acid-induced contortions, carrageenan-triggered foot inflammation, and capillary permeability in mice. It exhibited favorable affinity towards TRPV1, NF-κB, COX-2, and TNF-α, resulting in decreased levels of COX-2, PGE2, IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α in serum following capsaicin stimulation. Galangin effectively suppressed the upregulation of TRPV1 protein and associated receptor neuropeptides CGRP and SP mRNA, while concurrently inhibiting the expression of NF-κB, TNF-α, COX-2, and PGE2 mRNA. Conclusions: Galangin exerts its anti-inflammatory pain effects by inhibiting TRPV1 activation and regulating COX-2, NF-κB/TNF-α expression, providing evidence for the use of galangin in the management of inflammatory pain.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.779-784
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• 2015

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of herbs on memory improvement by focusing on their cholinergic functions in Tg2576 mice. Seven herbs were used to obtain extracts by using alcohol and water. In screening test for cholinergic activities of the extracts, acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity was highly inhibited in Oenanthe javanica alcohol extract (OJAE, 18.76%) as compared with the others. The OJAE-treated Tg2576 (Tg-OJAE) groups showed the statistically significant increases of latency time in passive avoidance test. Also, it was found that the concentration of $A{\beta}1-42$ was significantly reduced in Tg-OJAE groups compared to non-treated Tg2576 groups. In the additional enzyme test, it was found that $IC_{50}$ of OJAE was $991.77{\mu}g/mL$ and OJAE acted as an uncompetitive inhibitor of AChE. Therefore, it seemed that OJAE can be used for the development of processed foods for memory improvement.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.417-425
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• 2013

The aim of this study was to examine improving effect of Platycodon extracts (PE) and/or Platycodon extracts jelly (PEJ) on cognitive impairment in vitro and in vivo. PC12 (Pheochromocytoma) cells were pretreated with PE for 1hr and than incubated with $50{\mu}M$ amyloid ${\beta}(A{\beta})_{25-35}$ for additional 48hr. Cell viability was assessed by WST-1. Animals for Morris water test and passive avoidance test were divided into normal, control and two Platycodon extracts treated groups that were named Normal (n=7), Control (0 mg/kg, n=7), PE (300 mg/kg, n=7), PEJ (10 g/kg, n=7). Cognitive impairment was induced by scopolamine (1 mg/kg/body weight, i.p.) in the three experimental groups but not the normal group. Pretretment of PE (0.01-1 mg/mL) were not induced cytotoxicity but observed in high dose-treated group (5 and 10 mg/mL) in PC12 cells. Protective effects of PE against $A{\beta}$-induced cytotoxicity were increased in dose dependent manner in PC12 cells. Administration of PE and PEJ were significantly reduced escape latency time on Morris water maze test and passive avoidance test in copolamine-induced cognitive impairment animal model. These results suggest that Platycodon extracts and its related product available to ameliorative purpose for cognitive ability impairments.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Next Generation Computing
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.72-83
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• 2017

GPUs can provide high throughput with latency hiding by executing many warps in parallel. MSHR(Miss Status Holding Registers) for L1 data cache tracks cache miss requests until required data is serviced from lower level memory. In recent GPUs, excessive requests for cache resources cause underutilization problem of GPU resources due to cache resource reservation fails. In this paper, we propose a new warp scheduling technique to reduce stall cycles under MSHR resource shortage. Cache miss rates for each warp is predicted based on the observation that each warp shows similar cache miss rates for long period. The warps showing low miss rates or computation-intensive warps are given high priority to be issued when MSHR is full status. Our proposal improves GPU performance by utilizing cache resource more efficiently based on cache miss rate prediction and monitoring the MSHR entries. According to our experimental results, reservation fail cycles can be reduced by 25.7% and IPC is increased by 6.2% with the proposed scheduling technique compared to loose round robin scheduler.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.42 no.4 s.334
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• pp.19-28
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• 2005

In this paper, we proposed a parallel fast 2-D discrete wavelet transform hardware architecture based on lifting scheme. The proposed architecture improved the 2-D processing speed, and reduced internal memory buffer size. The previous lifting scheme based parallel 2-D wavelet transform architectures were consisted with row direction and column direction modules, which were pair of prediction and update filter module. In 2-D wavelet transform, column direction processing used the row direction results, which were not generated in column direction order but in row direction order, so most hardware architecture need internal buffer memory. The proposed architecture focused on the reducing of the internal memory buffer size and the total calculation time. Reducing the total calculation time, we proposed a 4-way data flow scheduling and memory based parallel hardware architecture. The 4-way data flow scheduling can increase the row direction parallel performance, and reduced the initial latency of starting of the row direction calculation. In this hardware architecture, the internal buffer memory didn't used to store the results of the row direction calculation, while it contained intermediate values of column direction calculation. This method is very effective in column direction processing, because the input data of column direction were not generated in column direction order The proposed architecture was implemented with VHDL and Altera Stratix device. The implementation results showed overall calculation time reduced from $N^2/2+\alpha$ to $N^2/4+\beta$, and internal buffer memory size reduced by around $50\%$ of previous works.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.1 no.6
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• pp.603-611
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• 1997

The motor evoked potentials (MEPs) have been advocated as a method of monitoring the integrity of spinal efferent pathways in various injury models of the central nervous system. However, there were many disputes about origin sites of MEPs generated by transcranial electrical stimulation. The purpose of present study was to investigate the effect of major extrapyramidal motor nuclei such as lateral vestibular nucleus (VN) and medullary reticular nucleus (mRTN) on any components of the MEPs in adult Sprague-Dalwey rats. MEPs were evoked by electrical stimulation of the right sensorimotor cortex through a stainless steel screw with 0.5mm in diameter, and recorded epidurally at T9 - T10 spinal cord levels by using a pair of teflon-coated stainless steel wire electrodes with 1mm exposed tip. In order to inject lidocaine and make a lesion, insulated long dental needle with noninsulated tips were placed stareotoxically in VN and mRTN. Lidocaine of $2{\sim}3\;{\mu}l$ was injected into either VN or mRTN. The normal MEPs were composed of typical four reproducible waves; P1, P2, P3, P4. The first wave (P1) was shown at a mean latency of 1.2 ms, corresponding to a conduction velocity of 67.5 m/sec. The latencies of MEPs were shortened and the amplitudes were increased as stimulus intensity was increased. The amplitudes of P1 and P2 were more decreased among 4 waves of MEPs after lidocaine microinjection into mRTN. Especially, the amplitude of P1 was decreased by 50% after lidocaine microinjection into bilateral mRTN. On the other hand, lidocaine microinjection into VN reduced the amplitudes of P3 and P4 than other MEP waves. However, the latencies of MEPs were not changed by lidocaine microinjection into either VN or mRTN. These results suggest that the vestibular and reticular nuclei contribute to partially different role in generation of MEPs elicited by transcranial electrical stimulation.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.94-99
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• 1997

Capsaicin is known to be an analgesic agent, affecting the synthesis, storage, , transport and release of substance p, the principal neurotransmitter of pain from periphery to the central nervous system(CNS). DA-5018, a newly synthesized capsaicin derivative has shown potent analgesic effect comparable to that of morphine in various rat models of experimentally inducted acute pairs. In this study the mechanism of analgesic actlvity of DA-5018 was examined. First, the electrically-evoked contraction of guinea pig trachea was inhibited by DA-5018 and these inhibition was recovered by incubation with capsafepine(3$\muM$), capsaicin receptor antagonist and this result suggested that DA-5018 has affinity on capsaicin receptor. The correlation between the norciceptive threshold and the release of substance P was evaluated. In vivo perfusion of slices of the rat spinal cord with DA-5018(10, 100$\muM$) produced a significant increase of the release of substance P and this increase was less than that of capsaicin(10$\muM$). The norciceptive threshold of rat treated with DA-5018(1 mg/kg, p.o) in tall pinch test increased from 2.9$\pm$0.3 to 23.5 $\pm$6.61. Tail pinch latency increased to a maximun at 15 min after DA-5018 treatment and then declined to control values by 120 min. The capsaicin-evoked release ot substance P from the spinal cord slices of rat treated with DA-5018 reduced from 2.38$\pm$ 0.79 to 0.69$\pm$ 0.26 pg/mg wet weight. This reduction reached to a minium at 15 min after DA-5018 treatment and then recovered to control value by 120 min. These results mean that analgesic activity of DA-5018 is due to release of substance P The effect of DA-5018 cream on electrically-evoked neurogenic inflammation of rat saphenous nerve was compared with capsaicin (zostrix-HP). DA-5018 showed 34% inhibition of the neurogenic extravasation while capsaicin showed significant 67% inhibition. This result indicates that the potency of DA-5018 in the release of substance P is less than that of capsaicin. These results suggest that the release of substance P is partially involved in the mechanism of analgesic action of DA-50l8.

• Journal of KIISE:Computer Systems and Theory
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• v.34 no.9
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• pp.407-415
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• 2007

In parallel cluster computing systems, the efficiency of communication between computing nodes is one of important factors that decide overall system performance. Accordingly, many researchers have studied on high-performance inter-node communication. The recently launched multi-core processor, however. increases the importance of intra-node communication as well because the more the number of cores in a node, the more the number of parallel processes running in the same node. Though there have been studies on intra-node communications, these have limited considerations on the state-of-the-art systems. In this paper, we propose a Linux kernel module that minimizes the number of data copy by exploiting the memory mapping mechanism for high-performance intra-node communication. The proposed kernel module supports the Linux kernel version 2.6. The performance measurements over a multi-core system present that the proposed kernel module can achieve lower latency up to 62% and higher throughput up to 144% than an existing kernel module approach. In addition, the measurements reveal that the performance of intra-node communication can vary significantly based on whether the cores that run the communication processes are belong to the same processor package (i.e., sharing the L2 cache).

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.4169-4173
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• 2016

Background: Mesotheliomas are relatively rare tumors in Lebanon. The only previous study goes back to 14 years ago, when we published epidemiological characteristics of mesotheliomas in Lebanon, showing that the pleural location accounted for the vast majority of cases, with clear evidence of asbestos exposure from the Eternit factory of Chekka region. The objective of this current study was to estimate the incidence of mesothelioma in the past decade and to identify its epidemiological, clinical and therapeutic characteristics, making comparisons with our first study published in 2001. Materials and Methods: Between 2002 and 2014, patients diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma at Hotel-Dieu de France University Hospital were investigated. Epidemiological data focusing on asbestos exposure history were collected from medical records and interviews with the families. Results: A total of 26 patients were diagnosed with mesothelioma, 21 of which were successfully investigated. The mean age of these 21 patients is 62.5 (19-82). Only 3 (14.29%) are women. 18 (85.71%) were smokers. Among the 21 available mesotheliomas, 15 (71.4%) are pleural, while 5 (23.8%) are peritoneal and 1 (4.8%) pericardial. Only 60% of patients with pleural mesothelioma and 50% of those with an obvious exposure to asbestos lived and/or worked in Chekka region. The mean time of asbestos exposure in patients with mesothelioma is 24.5 (1-50) years and the mean latency is 37.4 (4-61) years. Of the 21 patients, 10 (47.6%) underwent surgery during their treatment, 16 (76.2%) received chemotherapy and 3 (14.3%) received best supportive care. Conclusions: Compared to the previous study (1991-2000), substantial changes in the epidemiology of mesothelioma in Lebanon were observed, such as an increase in peritoneal localizations and a lower correlation with Chekka region asbestos contamination.

• International Journal of Oral Biology
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.49-56
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• 2014

We investigated the role of central P2X receptors in inflammatory pain transmission in the orofacial area in rats. Experiments were carried out using male Sprague-Dawley rats weighing 230-280g. Complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA, $40{\mu}L$) was applied subcutaneously to the vibrissa pad to produce inflammatory pain. The intracisternal administration of iso-PPADS tetrasodium salt, a non-selective P2X receptor antagonist, A317491 sodium salt hydrate, a $P2X_{2/3}$ receptor antagonist, 5-BDBD, a $P2X_4$ receptor antagonist, or A438079 hydrochloride, a $P2X_7$ receptor antagonist, was performed 5 days after CFA injection. Subcutaneous injections of CFA produced increases in thermal hypersensitivity. Intracisternal injections of iso-PPADS ($25{\mu}g$) or A438079 (25 or $50{\mu}g$) produced significant anti-hyperalgesic effects against thermal stimuli compared to the vehicle group. A317491 or 5-BDBD did not affect the head withdrawal latency times in rats showing an inflammatory response. Subcutaneous injections of CFA resulted in the up-regulation of OX-42, a microglia marker, and GFAP, an astrocyte marker, in the medullary dorsal horn. The intracisternal administration of A438079 reduced the numbers of activated microglia and astrocytes in the medullary dorsal horn. These results suggest that a blockade of the central $P2X_7$ receptor produces antinociceptive effects, mediated by inhibition of glial cell function in the medullary dorsal horn. These data also indicate that central $P2X_7$ receptors are potential targets for future therapeutic approaches to inflammatory pain in the orofacial area.