• Title/Summary/Keyword: new health technology

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Effect of Zinc on Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Death Mediated by PDTC

  • Moon Sung-Kwon;Ha Sang-Do
    • Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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    • v.5 no.1
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    • pp.40-43
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    • 2000
  • Pyrrolidinedithiocarbamate (PDTC) and N-Acetylcysteine (NAC) are metal and nonmetal-chelating antioxidant which can induce rat and human smooth muscle cell death. When the smooth muscle cells from mouse aorta (MASMC) that we successfully cultured recently was exposed to PDTC and NAC in a normal serum state, the cells were induced to death by these compounds. However, PDTC did not induce the cell death in a serum depleted medium. This data suggests that certain factors in the serum may mediate the cytotoxic effect of PDTC. The metal chelator, Ca-EDTA blocked PDTC-induced cell death, but Cu-, Fe-, and Zn-EDTA did not block the PDTC-induced cell death. This data indicated that copper, iron, and zinc in the serum may lead to the cytotoxic effect of PDTC. Investigation of the intracellular zinc level in PDTC-induced smooth muscle cell death using the zinc probe dye N-(6-methoxy-8-quinolyl)-p-toluenesulfonamide shows that only the muscle-containing layers of the arteries have higher level of zinc. As expected, PDTC increased the intracellular fluorescence level of the zinc. In agreement with these results, the addition of an exogenous metal, zinc, induced the vascular aortic smooth muscle cell death which led to an increased intracellular zinc level. We concluded that PDTC induced mouse aortic smooth muscle cell death required not only zinc level but also intracellular copper and iron level. The mechanism of this antioxidant to induce vascular smooth muscle cell death may provide a new strategy to prevent their proliferation in arteriosclerotic lesions.

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A Study on Characteristics of Street Furniture Design in Modern Public Space (현대 공공공간의 스트리트 퍼니처 디자인 특성에 관한 연구)

  • Hwang, Mee-Young
    • Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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    • v.20 no.4
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    • pp.191-200
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    • 2011
  • Street furniture such as benches, streetlamps, and shades which are easily accessible in cities has contributed to the promotion of active, lively environment for people living in cities. Furthermore, they make the characteristics of specific regions and cities, and are valued as a communication interface to restore the relationships between people and cities. The street furniture design with inherent publicness is an essential element for leisurely life and refined image of modern people who have experienced severance and mental poverty in uniform, vertical modern city space with the development of advanced science and technology. The purpose of this study is to analyze the new design approaches to street furniture which plays an important role in the determination of the images of modern city environment and to examine the characteristics and trends of such designs. First, in accordance with the flow of studies from publicness and public space to street furniture, the concept and meaning of publicness which is the basic element of public space were identified through theoretical examination, and the characteristics and roles of modern public space were analyzed through literature review, data review, and international cases. Based on the results of this theoretical analysis, the concept and meaning elements, function elements, and design elements of the street furniture which was planned in accordance with the goal and functions of public space were identified. For the meaning elements of street furniture design, fun, health, culture, sustainability, and vitalization were identified. For the function elements of street furniture design, convenience, safety, and delivery were identified. As the characteristics of modern street furniture design, convergent, green, digilog, functional, and universal designs were analyzed. This study is meaningful in that it recognized the roles of street furniture in modern public space as a concrete, practical environmental design element and estimated the development directions of street furniture design in public space.

Synchronized sensing for wireless monitoring of large structures

  • Kim, Robin E.;Li, Jian;Spencer, Billie F. Jr;Nagayama, Tomonori;Mechitov, Kirill A.
    • Smart Structures and Systems
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    • v.18 no.5
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    • pp.885-909
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    • 2016
  • Advances in low-cost wireless sensing have made instrumentation of large civil infrastructure systems with dense arrays of wireless sensors possible. A critical issue with regard to effective use of the information harvested from these sensors is synchronized sensing. Although a number of synchronization methods have been developed, most provide only clock synchronization. Synchronized sensing requires not only clock synchronization among wireless nodes, but also synchronization of the data. Existing synchronization protocols are generally limited to networks of modest size in which all sensor nodes are within a limited distance from a central base station. The scale of civil infrastructure is often too large to be covered by a single wireless sensor network. Multiple independent networks have been installed, and post-facto synchronization schemes have been developed and applied with some success. In this paper, we present a new approach to achieving synchronized sensing among multiple networks using the Pulse-Per-Second signals from low-cost GPS receivers. The method is implemented and verified on the Imote2 sensor platform using TinyOS to achieve $50{\mu}s$ synchronization accuracy of the measured data for multiple networks. These results demonstrate that the proposed approach is highly-scalable, realizing precise synchronized sensing that is necessary for effective structural health monitoring.

Variations in mitochondrial cytochrome b region among Ethiopian indigenous cattle populations assert Bos taurus maternal origin and historical dynamics

  • Tarekegn, Getinet Mekuriaw;Ji, Xiao-yang;Bai, Xue;Liu, Bin;Zhang, Wenguang;Birungi, Josephine;Djikeng, Appolinaire;Tesfaye, Kassahun
    • Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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    • v.31 no.9
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    • pp.1393-1400
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    • 2018
  • Objective: This study was carried out to assess the haplotype diversity and population dynamics in cattle populations of Ethiopia. Methods: We sequenced the complete mitochondrial cytochrome b gene of 76 animals from five indigenous and one Holstein Friesian${\times}$Barka cross bred cattle populations. Results: In the sequence analysis, 18 haplotypes were generated from 18 segregating sites and the average haplotype and nucleotide diversities were $0.7540{\pm}0.043$ and $0.0010{\pm}0.000$, respectively. The population differentiation analysis shows a weak population structure (4.55%) among the populations studied. Majority of the variation (95.45%) is observed by within populations. The overall average pair-wise distance ($F_{ST}$) was 0.049539 with the highest ($F_{ST}=0.1245$) and the lowest ($F_{ST}=0.011$) $F_{ST}$ distances observed between Boran and Abigar, and Sheko and Abigar from the indigenous cattle, respectively. The phylogenetic network analysis revealed that all the haplotypes detected clustered together with the Bos taurus cattle and converged to a haplogroup. No haplotype in Ethiopian cattle was observed clustered with the reference Bos indicus group. The mismatch distribution analysis indicates a single population expansion event among the cattle populations. Conclusion: Overall, high haplotype variability was observed among Ethiopian cattle populations and they share a common ancestor with Bos taurus.

Application of Bioinformatics for the Functional Genomics Analysis of Prostate Cancer Therapy

  • Mousses, Spyro
    • Proceedings of the Korean Society for Bioinformatics Conference
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    • 2000.11a
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    • pp.74-82
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    • 2000
  • Prostate cancer initially responds and regresses in response to androgen depletion therapy, but most human prostate cancers will eventually recur, and re-grow as an androgen independent tumor. Once these tumors become hormone refractory, they usually are incurable leading to death for the patient. Little is known about the molecular details of how prostate cancer cells regress following androgen ablation and which genes are involved in the androgen independent growth following the development of resistance to therapy. Such knowledge would reveal putative drug targets useful in the rational therapeutic design to prevent therapy resistance and control androgen independent growth. The application of genome scale technologies have permitted new insights into the molecular mechanisms associated with these processes. Specifically, we have applied functional genomics using high density cDNA microarray analysis for parallel gene expression analysis of prostate cancer in an experimental xenograft system during androgen withdrawal therapy, and following therapy resistance, The large amount of expression data generated posed a formidable bioinformatics challenge. A novel template based gene clustering algorithm was developed and applied to the data to discover the genes that respond to androgen ablation. The data show restoration of expression of androgen dependent genes in the recurrent tumors and other signaling genes. Together, the discovered genes appear to be involved in prostate cancer cell growth and therapy resistance in this system. We have also developed and applied tissue microarray (TMA) technology for high throughput molecular analysis of hundreds to thousands of clinical specimens simultaneously. TMA analysis was used for rapid clinical translation of candidate genes discovered by cDNA microarray analysis to determine their clinical utility as diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic targets. Finally, we have developed a bioinformatic approach to combine pharmacogenomic data on the efficacy and specificity of various drugs to target the discovered prostate cancer growth associated candidate genes in an attempt to improve current therapeutics.

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Influencing Factors for the Adoption of Smartphone Healthcare Application (스마트폰 헬스케어 애플리케이션 수용을 위한 주요 영향요인)

  • Wang, Bo-Ram;Park, Ji-Yun;Choi, In-Young
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.11 no.10
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    • pp.396-404
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    • 2011
  • With increasing of smartphone users various smartphone studies have been carried out. The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors influencing the usage intention of smartphone healthcare application. The influencing factors found from literature reviews on Technology Acceptance Model and the diffusion of innovations theory are user interface design, self-efficacy, innovativeness, and entertainment. Survey is conducted to 220 people in Seoul metropolitan area. The survey results are analyzed regarding the difference for the intention of healthcare application in accordance with respondents' demographic and application usage characteristics. We also examine the difference among four influencing factors by users and non-users. As a result there are significant differences in self-efficacy and innovativeness. This gives some implications to application developers: the system should be easy to use and provide new and useful health contents that can attract early-adopters' attention in order to increase the number of application users.

Trends of Government Funded Research for Kampo Medicine in Japan and It's Implication (일본에서의 한방의학(漢方醫學)에 대한 국비 지원 연구 동향과 그 함의)

  • Jeung, Chang-Woon;Choi, Chang-Hyuk;Jo, Hee-Geun;Song, Min-Yeong;Baek, Eun-Hye
    • Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
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    • v.28 no.1
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    • pp.121-131
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    • 2018
  • Objectives We analyzed the trends of government-funded research on Kampo medicine in Japan to provide advanced evidence to R&D support policy for Korean medicine, and to introduce new research fields and trends to the researchers. Methods We reviewed the researches on Kampo medicine through 'research-er.jp' and 'KAKEN' database which contain R&D status in Japan and scientific research funding project issued by the Japan Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Results Since 1976, government-funded research on Kampo medicine has been continuously announced, and now 533 tasks have been completed or are in progress. The average duration of the study is 2.54 years, but it has been prolonged to 3.52 years in recent years. 4~5 million yen was supported per project for laboratory research, and an average of 44,342 thousand yen was supported per project for specialized laboratory research and clinical research. Conclusions Despite the absence of systematically supporting departments, the researches on Kampo medicine in Japan were qualitatively superior since they focused on providing the scientific basis for clinical application. As competition in the world's traditional medicine market becomes more intense, it is necessary to improve the competitiveness of Korean medicine. Therefore, a keen interest in Korean medicine and active support from the government is needed.

Novel mechanism of a CDH1 splicing mutation in a Korean patient with signet ring cell carcinoma

  • Kim, Sol-Lip;Ki, Chang-Seok;Kim, Kyoung-Mee;Lee, Myoung-Gun;Kim, Se-Hwa;Bae, Jae-Moon;Kim, Jong-Won
    • BMB Reports
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    • v.44 no.11
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    • pp.725-729
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    • 2011
  • We report a novel mechanism of a CDH1 splicing mutation in a patient with signet ring cell carcinoma of the stomach. A 27-year-old man complaining of aggravated dyspepsia was diagnosed with signet ring cell carcinoma. Both his father and uncle had died of stomach cancer at a young age. DNA sequencing analysis of the CDH1 gene revealed a splice site mutation (c.833-2A>G). By RNA/cDNA sequencing analysis, CDH1 c.833-2A>G generated a new acceptor site within intron 6, causing the insertion of a 79-bp intronic sequence between exon 6 and 7 (r.833-79_833-1ins), and resulting in a frame shift. E-cadherin immunohistochemical staining revealed a loss of CDH1 expression. This study reveals the disease-causing mechanism of this splicing mutation, and emphasizes the need for functional studies using RNA samples for the accurate interpretation of detected splicing variant. This is the first reported case of a CDH1 mutation in a Korean patient.

Main Region and Color Extraction of Face for Heart Disease Diagnosis (심장 질환 진단을 위한 얼굴 주요 영역 및 색상 추출)

  • Cho Dong-Uk
    • The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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    • v.13B no.3 s.106
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    • pp.215-222
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    • 2006
  • People health improvement is becoming new subject through the combining with the oriental medicine diagnosis theory and IT technology. To do this, firstly, it needs sicked data that supply the visualization, objectification and quantification method. Especially, if an ocular inspection can be more objective and visual expression in oriental medicine, it seems to offer the biggest opportunity in diagnosis field. In this study, I propose a diagnosis to check the symptoms of heart diagnosis. Our research aim is on the visualization of diagnosis using image processing system which it can be actual analysis about the symptom of heart. To catch up this study, through the color support assistance by face image processing, I devide the face area and analyze the face form and also extract face characteristic point in heart disease diagnosis using oriental medicine based on an ocular inspection method. I would like to prove the usefulness of the method that proposed by an experiment.

Respiratory air flow measuring technique without sensing element on the flow stream (호흡경로 상에 감지소자가 없는 새로운 호흡기류 계측기술)

  • Lee, In-Kwang;Park, Jun-Oh;Lee, Su-Ok;Shin, Eun-Young;Kim, Kyung-Chun;Kim, Kyung-Ah;Cha, Eun-Jong
    • Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.294-300
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    • 2009
  • Cardiopulmonary resuscitation(CPR) is performed by artificial ventilation and thoracic compression for the patient under emergent situation to maintain at least the minimum level of respiration and blood circulation for life survival. Quality of the pre-hospital CPR not only significantly affects the patient's survival rate but also minimizes side effects caused by CPR. Good quality CPR requires monitoring respiration, however, traditional respiratory air flow transducers cannot be used because the transducer elements are located on the flow axis. The present study developed a new technique with no physical object on the flow stream but enabling the air flow measurement and easily incorporated with the CPR devices. A turbulence chamber was formed in the middle of the respiratory tube by locally enlarging the cross-sectional area where the flow related turbulence was generated inducing energy loss which was in turn converted into pressure difference. The turbulence chamber was simply an empty enlarged air space, thus no physical object was placed on the flow stream, but still the flow rate could be evaluated. Both inspiratory and expiratory flows were obtained with symmetric measurement characteristics. Quadratic curve fitting provided excellent calibration formula with a correlation coefficient>0.999 (P<0.0001) and the mean relative error<1 %. The present results can be usefully applied to accurately monitor the air flow rate during CPR.