• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.4251-4256
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• 2015

Background: Exposure to cigarette may affect human health and increase risk of a wide range of diseases including pulmonary diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, lung fibrosis and lung cancer. However, the molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis induced by cigarettes still remain obscure even with extensive studies. With systemic view, we attempted to identify the specific gene modules that might relate to injury caused by cigarette smoke and identify hub genes for potential therapeutic targets or biomarkers from specific gene modules. Materials and Methods: The dataset GSE18344 was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and divided into mouse cigarette smoke exposure and control groups. Subsequently, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to construct a gene co-expression network for each group and detected specific gene modules of cigarette smoke exposure by comparison. Results: A total of ten specific gene modules were identified only in the cigarette smoke exposure group but not in the control group. Seven hub genes were identified as well, including Fip1l1, Anp32a, Acsl4, Evl, Sdc1, Arap3 and Cd52. Conclusions: Specific gene modules may provide better understanding of molecular mechanisms, and hub genes are potential candidates of therapeutic targets that may possible improve development of novel treatment approaches.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.445-454
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• 2004

A search for contraction and relaxation responses on the smooth muscles, antimicrobial and antioxidant activity in different body parts of 4 freshwater fish and 4 marine fish were conducted. The four freshwater fish studied were Sarotherodon niloticus (tilapia), Channa arus (snake head), Cyprinus carpio (Israel carp) and Siluru osotus (catfish), and the four marine fish were Scyliorhinus torazame (tiger shark), Ateiepus japonicus (tadpole fish), Mugil cephalus (gray mullet) and Thamnaconus modestus (file fish). Frozen samples were extracted with distilled water containing $1{\%}$ acetic acid. Antimicrobial activity against Bacillus subtilis and Eschrrichia coli was detected in extracts from several tissues in all species tested. Relatively high antimicrobial activity could also be detected in the bile extracts from C. carpio, M. cephalus, and T. modestus. Contraction and relaxation responses on smooth muscles could be detected in all species tested, especially in the intestine extracts. Antioxidant activity was also detected in extracts from several tissues in all species tested, while in the extracts from S. osotus, excluding livers and spleens, no antioxidant activity was detected. Results from this study suggest that fish are a potential source for the discovery of novel bioactive materials.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.461-469
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• 2017

BACKGROUND/OBSECTIVE: Airway inflammation by eosinophils, neutrophils and alveolar macrophages is a characteristic feature of asthma that leads to pathological subepithelial thickening and remodeling. Our previous study showed that oxidative stress in airways resulted in eosinophilia and epithelial apoptosis. The current study investigated whether glutathione-containing dry yeast extract (dry-YE) ameliorated eosinophilia, goblet cell hyperplasia and mucus overproduction. MATERIALS/METHOD: This study employed $2{\mu}g$/mL lipopolysaccharide (LPS)- or 20 ng/mL eotaxin-1-exposed human bronchial epithelial cells and ovalbumin (OVA)-challenged mice. Dry-YE employed in this study contained a significant amount of glutathione (140 mg in 100 g dry yeast). RESULTS: Human bronchial epithelial cell eotaxin-1 and mucin 5AC (MUC5AC) were markedly induced by the endotoxin LPS, which was dose-dependently attenuated by nontoxic dry-YE at 10-50 ${\mu}g$/mL. Moreover, dry-YE inhibited the MUC5AC induction enhanced by eotaxin-1, indicating that eotaxin-1-mediated eosinophilia may prompt the MUC5AC induction. Oral supplementation with 10-100 mg/kg dry-YE inhibited inflammatory cell accumulation in airway subepithelial regions with a reduction of lung tissue level of intracellular adhesion molecule-1. In addition, ${\geq}50$ mg/kg dry-YE diminished the lung tissue levels of eotaxin-1, eosinophil major basic protein and MUC5AC in OVA-exposed mice. Alcian blue/periodic acid schiff staining revealed that the dry-YE supplementation inhibited goblet cell hyperplasia and mucus overproduction in the trachea and bronchiolar airways of OVA-challenged mice. CONCLUSIONS: Oxidative stress may be involved in the induction of eotaxin-1 and MUC5AC by endotoxin episode and OVA challenge. Dry-YE effectively ameliorated oxidative stress-responsive epithelial eosinophilia and mucus-secreting goblet cell hyperplasia in cellular and murine models of asthma.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.36-42
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• 2005

Purpose : To develop a novel approach to calculate the sensitivity profiles of the phased array coil for use in non-uniform intensity correction. Materials and Methods : The proposed intensity correction method estimates the sensitivity profile of the coil to extract intensity variations that represent the scanned image. The sensitivity profile is estimated by fitting a non-linear curve to various angles of projections through the imaged object in order to eliminate the high-frequency image content. Filtered back projection is then used to compute the estimates of the sensitivity profile of each coil. The method was applied both to phantom and brain images from 8-channel phased-array coil and 4-channel phased-array coil, respectively. Results : Intensity-corrected images from the proposed method have more uniform intensity than those from the commonly used 'sum-of-squares' approach. By using the proposed correction method, the intensity variation was reduced to $6.1\%$ from $13.1\%$, acquired from the 'sum-of-squares'. Conclusion : The proposed method is more effective at correcting the intensity non-uniformity of the phased-array surface-coil images than the conventional 'sum-of-squares' method.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.470-476
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• 2003

In order to obtain high refractive plastic materials, 1,2 -ethylenedisulfanylbis(2-mercaptomethyl-1-ethanthiol) (ESTT) was newly prepared in good yield by the reaction of 1,2-ethylenedisulfanylbis(2-bromomethyl-1-ethanthiol) (ESTB) with thiourea followed by hydrolysis using an aqueous ammonia solution and characterized by $^1$H-NMR (-SH at 1.7 ppm), $\^$13/C-NMR(-CH$_2$SH at 28.4 ppm) and FT-IR (-SH at 2540 cm$\^$-1/) spectroscopy, etc. Polythiourethanes (PTU) were obtained from the combinations of ESTT with each of 4,4＇-methylenebis(phenylisocyanate) (MDI), tolyene 2,4-diisocyanate (TDI), isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI), mxylene diisocyanate (XDI), and 1,6-diisocyanatohexane (HMDI) in the presence of dibutyltin dilaurylate as a catalyst, in a casting mold, and characterized by FT-IR (existence of N=C=O) spectroscopy and elemental analyzer (sulfur content). Accordingly, their thermal, mechanical and optical properties were investigated by using DSC, TGA, hardness tester and refractometer: both the melting point on DSC and crystallinity on X -ray diffraction (XRD) for specimens of PTUs were not observed. PTUs with T$\_$g/s above 110 $^{\circ}C$ showed good hardness (Shore D) in the range of 86 to 89. Thermal stabilities of PTUs obtained by using ESTT and each of diisocyanates containing aromatic rings were especially good. Also, the optical transmittances of amorphous PTUs through UV-visible source in the range of 400 to 600 nm were good. PTUs showed refractive indexes above 1.60, and their refractive indexes gradually increased with increase of sulfur contents.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.103-107
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• 2008

Membrane process has been focused as an alternative separation process because not only it exhibits a high selectivity compared with a traditional distillation process, but also it is known to be an energy saving separation process. Inorganic membrane, especially zeolite membrane, has been studied since it can be operated in severe conditions compared to the organic membranes. Recently, new zeolite materials are tested as an inorganic membrane material to overcome disadvantages of existing zeolite membranes. Kalsilite can be used as an inorganic membrane material for gas separation and selective water separation from water/organic mixtures because it is expected to be hydrophilic resulted from Si/Al ratio of 1 like zeolite 4A and has a narrow pore size of 0.36 nm. In this study, kalsilite was synthesized by a new economical hydrothermal process using Si : Al : K : $H_2O$ mole ratio of 1 : 1 : 8 : 60. The synthesized kalsilite powder was confirmed by XRD and has a mean diameter of $2.73{\mu}m$. The vapor adsorption test showed the synthesized kalsilite is hydrophilic.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.596-603
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• 2020

'Electro-Mechanical Brake (EMB) is a novel braking system for automobiles and railway vehicles, and research in this area is actively underway. The current braking system for railway vehicles generates a braking force using a pneumatic cylinder, but the EMB system generates the force through a combination of an electric motor and gears. In this study, the design of an EMB system that meets the domestic standards was conducted through the finite element modeling and fatigue analysis of an eccentric rotating shaft-based EMB system capable of generating a high clamping force. At this time, to improve the accuracy of fatigue analysis, three types of fatigue test specimens, which were subjected to the same heat treatment as the materials used in the prototype, were produced, and the fatigue tests were performed for each material. The fatigue properties (S-N curves) were obtained from the fatigue test results for each material and reflected in the analysis model. The results of fatigue analysis confirmed that the design of the EMB prototype could satisfy the maximum commercial braking/relaxation of 530,000 times, which was the endurance life condition for domestic railway vehicles. In addition, based on this design, a prototype will be manufactured, and endurance testing will be completed to demonstrate the durability characteristics of the developed prototype.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.15-26
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• 2003

Ultrasonic inspection methods are widely used for detecting flaws in materials. The signal analysis step plays a crucial part in the data interpretation process. A number of signal processing methods have been proposed to classify ultrasonic flaw signals. One of the more popular methods involves the extraction of an appropriate set of features followed by the use of a neural network for the classification of the signals in the feature space. This paper describes an alternative approach which uses the least mean square (LMS) method and expectation maximization (EM) algorithm with the model based deconvolution which is employed for classifying nondestructive evaluation (NDE) signals from steam generator tubes in a nuclear power plant. The signals due to cracks and deposits are not significantly different. These signals must be discriminated to prevent from happening a huge disaster such as contamination of water or explosion. A model based deconvolution has been described to facilitate comparison of classification results. The method uses the space alternating generalized expectation maximization (SAGE) algorithm In conjunction with the Newton-Raphson method which uses the Hessian parameter resulting in fast convergence to estimate the time of flight and the distance between the tube wall and the ultrasonic sensor Results using these schemes for the classification of ultrasonic signals from cracks and deposits within steam generator tubes are presented and showed a reasonable performances.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.11 no.11
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• pp.49-61
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• 2011

In recent, library is considered as an integrated knowledge convergence center that can respond to various requests about information service of users. Therefor it is necessary to establish a novel information system based on information communications technologies of the era. In other words, it is currently required to develop mobile information service available in portable devices such as smart phones or tablet PCs, and to establish information system reflecting cloud computing, SaaS, Annotation, and Library 2.0 etc. In this paper we design and implement a library information system using collective intelligence and cloud computing. This information system can be adapted for the varieties of mobile service paradigm and abruptly increasing amount of electronic materials. Advantages of this concept model are resource sharing, multi-tenant supporting, configuration, and meta-data supporting etc. In addition it can offer software on-demand type user services. In order to test the performance of our system, we perform an effectiveness analysis and TTA authentication test. The average response time corresponding to variance of data reveals 0.692 seconds which is very good performance in timing effectiveness point of view. And we detect maturity level-3 or 4 authentication in TTA tests such as SaaS maturity, performance, and application programs.

• Composites Research
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2018

In the case of a conventional composite patch repair using a heat blanket, the adhesive is pressurized using only a vacuum bag. In this study, however, a pressurization system has been developed to apply additional air pressure on the vacuum bag. In order to verify the performance of the developed system, the composite laminates were repaired with scarf patches and then tested under tensile load to be compared with the strength of the defect-free laminate. Tensile tests were also conducted on specimens with the same configuration but bonded in an autoclave. As a result of the test, the tensile strengths of the specimens repaired using the heat blanket with vacuum only without external pressure, the specimens repaired with additional pressure by the developed system, and the specimens repaired with the same external pressure in an autoclave, showed the strength recovery ratios of 74.9, 81.0, and 78.2%, respectively. The results of the tensile test after moisture saturation and the dried fatigue test also showed that the strength recovery ratios of the specimens repaired under the external pressure of 1 atm using the developed system are slightly higher than that of specimens bonded in autoclave.