• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.65-71
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• 2003

The corneal epithelium is constantly being shed. The mechanism of corneal desquamation is not fully understood. Apoptosis, programmed cell death, may play a role. Apoptosis can be induced by a number of factors and different mechanisms. The study was performed to examine the apoptotic index induced in human corneal epithelial cells maintained in tissue culture by various apoptotic inducers. Various inducers, recombinant human cytokines($INF{\gamma}$, $TNF{\alpha}$, FASAb), actinomycin D. camptothecin, cycloheximide, dexamethasone and etoposide, were purchased from commercial suppliers. Inducers at manufacturer-recommended concentration were added to the corneal epithelial cells for 48 hours. Cell viability was measured using MTT assay. The cells were then assessed for the level of apoptosis. Morphologic changes and quantification of apoptotic cells were determined and counted under fluorescence microscope after inducers-treated human corneal epithelial (HCE) cells for 48 hours with Hoechst 33342 staining. Annexin V-FITC/PI staining and DePsipher assay. The expression of Fas protein was studied by immunocytochemistry. All inducers induced apoptosis in HCE cells in a dose dependent manner. Actinomycin D. camptothecin and etoposide induced apoptosis at lower than manufacturer-recommended concentration, while cytokines, cycloheximide and dexamethasone induced apoptosis at higher concentrations at the end of 48 hours. All inducers elicited typical apoptotic morphologic changes (chromatin condensation, nucleus fragmentations non-orange-red colored mitochondria) and expresses Fas protein highly. Apoptotic index of HCE cells by these inducers was different from the other cell lines. RNA synthesis inhibitor and topoisomerase inhibitors induced apoptosis at lower concentration than manufacturer-recommended concentration. Cytokines, cycloheximide and dexamethasone were able to produce apoptosis at 10 times higher concentrations. RNA synthesis inhibitor and topoisomerase inhibitors are more sensitive than intracellular receptor-activators in apoptotic induction of HCE cells.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.26-35
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• 2008

Objective : In the evaluation of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), most neurologists only see their patients during a limited period of their fluctuating 24-hour-a-day lives. This study aimed to assess the short-term outcome of STN stimulation for patients with advanced PD evaluated in a 24-hour monitoring unit for movement disorder (MUMD) using a prospective protocol. Methods : Forty-two patients with advanced PD consecutively treated with bilateral STN stimulation using multi-channel microelectrode recording were included in this study. All patients were evaluated using a 24-hour MUMD with a video recording/editing system and were evaluated with a prospective protocol of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale, Hoehn and Yahr Staging, Schwab and England Activities of Daily Living, levodopa equivalent daily dose (LEDD), Short Form-36 Health Survey, and neuropsychological tests. Magnetic resonance (MR) images of the brain were performed prior to and six months after surgery. Results : All patients were evaluated at three and six months after surgery. There was a rapid and significant improvement of the motor symptoms, especially in tremor and rigidity, after STN stimulation with low morbidity. Dyskinesia was markedly decreased with much lowered LEDD values by 50% after STN stimulation. 1.5T MR images were safely taken according to the manufacturer's guidelines at six months after surgery without any adverse effects in 41 patients treated with STN stimulations. Conclusion : Evaluations in a 24-hour monitoring unit could reduce the dose of medication efficiently to an optimal level with patients' comfort and improve the clinical symptoms in harmony with STN stimulation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.594-598
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• 2002

The changes in DNA damage were investigated during storage after irradiation. Kiwi, orange and pear were irradiated at 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7 and 1.0 kGy and stored for 3 months at 4$^{\circ}C$. The comet assay was applied to the sample seeds alt the beginning of irradiation and at the end of storage. Seeds were isolated and crushed, and the suspended cells were embedded in an agarose layer. After lysis of the cells, they were electrophoresed for 2 min and then stained. DNA fragmentation in seeds caused by irradiation was quantified as tail length and tail moment (tail length $\times$ % DNA in tail) by comet image analyzing system. Immediately after irradiation, the differences in tail length between unirradiated and irradiated fruit seeds were significant (p<0.05) in kiwi, orange and pear seeds. With in-creasing the irradiation doses, statistically significant longer extension of the DNA from the nucleus toward anode was observed. The results represented as tail moment showed similar tendency to those of tail length, but tile latter parameter was more sensitive than the former. Similarly even 3 months after irradiation, all the irradiated fruit seeds significantly showed longer tail length than the unirradiated controls. These results indicate that the comet assay could be one of the simple methods of detecting irradiated fruit seeds. Moreover, the method could detect DNA damage even after 3 months after irradiation.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.145-152
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• 2013

The growth behavior of nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) film has been studied for three different substrates, i.e. bare Si wafer, 1 ${\mu}m$ thick W and Ti films deposited on Si wafer by DC sputter. The surface roughness values of the substrates measured by AFM were Si < W < Ti. After ultrasonic seeding treatment using nanometer sized diamond powder, surface roughness remained as Si < W < Ti. The contact angles of the substrates were Si ($56^{\circ}$) > W ($31^{\circ}$) > Ti ($0^{\circ}$). During deposition in the microwave plasma CVD system, NCD particles were formed and evolved to film. For the first 0.5h, the values of NCD particle density were measured as Si < W < Ti. Since the energy barrier for heterogeneous nucleation is proportional to the contact angle of the substrate, the initial nucleus or particle densities are believed to be Si < W < Ti. Meanwhile, the NCD growth rate up to 2 h was W > Si > Ti. In the case of W substrate, NCD particles were coalesced and evolved to the film in the short time of 0.5 h, which could be attributed to the fact that the diffusion of carbon species on W substrate was fast. The slower diffusion of carbon on Si substrate is believed to be the reason for slower film growth than on W substrate. The surface of Ti substrate was observed as a vertically aligned needle shape. The NCD particle formed on the top of a Ti needle should be coalesced with the particle on the nearby needle by carbon diffusion. In this case, the diffusion length is longer than that of Si or W substrate which shows a relatively flat surface. This results in a slow growth rate of NCD on Ti substrate. As deposition time is prolonged, NCD particles grow with carbon species attached from the plasma and coalesce with nearby particles, leaving many voids in NCD/Ti interface. The low adhesion of NCD films on Ti substrate is related to the void structure of NCD/Ti interface.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.162-169
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• 1994

Blockade of cervicothoracic sympathetic ganglion (stellate ganglion controls pain on face, head, neck, shoulder, upper limbs, and upper chest, including their viscera and sympathetically maintained pain. This procedure also increases blood flow to the above areas and relieves hyperreactivity of sympathetic nervous system. Clinically, repeated stellate ganglion blocks with local anesthetic agent may become difficult with complications such as accidental intravascular or subdural injection, recurrent laryngeal nerve or bracheal plexus paralysis, pneumothorax and edema on injection site. Therefore, at times long-term cervicothoracic ganglion block with neurolytics is necessitated but its applications are prohibited by the critical structures surrounding ganglion. There are also few reports of neurolytic stellate ganglion block. This study was performed to observe the complications, gross changes of surrounding structures, and microscopic findings of ganglion cells after neurolytic block and to certify the possibility of clinical use of neruolytic stellate ganglion block. The unilateral superior cervical sympathetic ganglion of rabbit was blocked with absolute ethyl alcohol 0.4 ml at the level of cricoid cartilage. Normal ganglion was used as a control and 5 animals were sacrificed at each intervals of 7, 15 and 50 days after block. The results were as follows; 1) All experimental animals showed no specific changes of behavior, motor function. No necrotic tissues were present in the block area during the observation period. There were some gross scar tissues along the fascia of muscles surrounding the needle injection site, but gross atrophy of muscles or injured major vessels were not found. 2) Microscopically, structures of normal ganglion of rabbit were very similar to those of humans. Seven days after absolute ethyl achohol injection there were marked edema of ganglion cells and nuclei with irregular nuclear membrane. Some of the ganglion cells lost their nuclei and showed degenerative changes. Fifteen days after block, cell edema were decreased and loss of the Nissl's body was prominant. The ganglion cell structures looked close to normal but the cytoplasm and nucleus were generally contracted 50 days after block. These results suggest absolute ethyl alcohol injection on cervical sympathetic ganglion with above method mainly blocks pre- and post-synaptic fibers and the long-term neurolytic blockade of this ganglion may be possible in rabbits.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.209-223
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• 2016

We present analyses of ~1250 variable sources identified in a 20 square degree field toward NGC 2784 by the KMTNet Supernova Program. We categorize the variable sources into three groups based on their B-band variability. The first group consists of 31 high variability sources with their B-band RMS variability greater than 0.3 magnitudes. The second group of medium variability contains 265 sources with RMS variability between 0.05 and 0.3 magnitudes. The remaining 951 sources belong to the third group of low variability with an RMS variability smaller than 0.05 magnitudes. Of the entire ~1250 sources, 4 clearly show periods of variability greater than 100 days, while the rest have periods shorter than ~51 days or no reliable periods. The majority of the sources show either rather irregular variability or short periods faster than 2 days. Most of the sources with reliable period determination between 2 and 51 days belong to the low-variability group, although a few belong to the medium-variability group. All the variable sources with periods longer than 35 days appear to be very red with B - V > 1.5 and V - I > 2.1 magnitudes. We classify candidates of 51 Cepheids, 17 semi-regular variables, 3 Mira types, 2 RV(B) Tauri stars, 26 eclipsing binary systems and 1 active galactic nucleus. The majority of long-term variables in our sample belong to either Mira or semi-regular types, indicating that long-term variability may be more prominent in post-main sequence phases of late-type stars. The depth of the eclipsing dips of the 26 candidates for eclipsing binaries is equivalent to ~0.61 as the average relative size of the two stars in the binary system. Our results illustrate the power of the KMTNet Supernova Program for future studies of variable objects.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2000

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of microamperage electrical stimulation on the number of argyrophilic nucleolar organizer region (AgNOR) in rat skin. Twenty four male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into electrical stimulation and control group. Bach animals hair on the back was removed. The electrical stimulation group received an positive rectangular positive electrical stimulation with $500{\mu}A$, while the control group was given the same treatment without electricity. The rats were sacrificed at 4 and 7 day of stimulation, respectively. The biopsy specimens were fixed in formalin, embedded in paraffin and stained with silver nitrate. The AgNOR were counted using a light microscope and computerized image analysis system and calculated as the mean number of AgNOR per nucleus in the epidermal keratinocyte. In control skin, the mean AgNOR count of epidermal keratinocyte at 4 and 7 day were 1.67 and 1.72, whereas electrical stimulated rat had mean AgNOR counts of 2.0 and 2.14, respectively. A Student's t-test showed a significantly higher mean AgNOR number at 4 ana 7 day in the electrical stimulated rats than control rats (p<0.05). The microamperage electric current stimulation increased the epidermal AgMOR expression in incisional wound skin. These results suggest that the microamperage electrical stimulation may promote migration and proliferative activity of epidermal keratinocyte in surgical wound.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.16B no.2
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• pp.131-140
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• 2009

This paper presents a new algorithm to the segmentation of the FISH images. First, for segmentation of the cell nuclei from background, a threshold is estimated by using the gaussian mixture model and maximizing the likelihood function of gray value of cell images. After nuclei segmentation, overlapped nuclei and isolated nuclei need to be classified for exact nuclei analysis. For nuclei classification, this paper extracted the morphological features of the nuclei such as compactness, smoothness and moments from training data. Three probability density functions are generated from these features and they are applied to the proposed Bayesian networks as evidences. After nuclei classification, segmenting of overlapped nuclei into isolated nuclei is necessary. This paper first performs intensity gradient transform and watershed algorithm to segment overlapped nuclei. Then proposed stepwise merging strategy is applied to merge several fragments in major nucleus. The experimental results using FISH images show that our system can indeed improve segmentation performance compared to previous researches, since we performed nuclei classification before separating overlapped nuclei.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.473-480
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• 2015

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) in the eukaryotic cells is the first compartment in the secretory pathway. Almost secretory proteins and membrane proteins are secreted through the ER, in which post-translational modifications occur via diverse signals from the ER lumen to the cytoplasm and nucleus. Only then are correctly-folded proteins secreted to the outside cells. Unfolded proteins that accumulate in the ER cause a kind of intracellular stress, ER stress, and activate an unfolded protein response (UPR) system. The 3 major transducers of the UPR are inositol requiring 1 (IRE1), PKR-like ER kinase (PERK) and activating transcription factor 6 (ATF6), all of which are ER transmembrane proteins. Recently, novel types of a new ATF6 family have been identified. Those commonly have an ER-transmembrane domain, a transcription-activation domain and a basic leucine zipper (bZIP) domain―Luman, OASIS, BBF2H7, CREBH and CREB4. Each factor functions by regulating the UPR in specific organs and tissues. Although the detailed molecular mechanisms of OASIS family members are unknown, in this study we comprehensively introduce these molecular signals.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.13
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• pp.95-119
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• 1986

The objective of this study is to search for a theoretical and practical solution to the question of what is the most effective and qualitative method of information service for the college and university libraries in Korea. Assuming the maximum service or total service theory in information services, therefore, it appears natural that the subject specialist who is highly knowledgeable in his subject is indispensable in raising the quality of information librarians. The procedure of this research was as follows: There was no college and university library employing any full-time subject spceialist in Korea. This research, however, was proceeded on the assumption that subject specialists are already employed in all of the college and university libraries after the subject specialist system is established. The least qualification of subject specialist is limited, based on the criteria given by the foreign literature, to those who have master's degree in Library Science and bachelor's degree in any other subject area, those who have bacholor's degree in Library Science and master's degree in any other subject area, or those who have both bacholor's and master's degrees in Library Science with minor in any subject field . To prove the research hypothesis that the subject specialist will perform his role more efficiently than the generalist in effectively providing information service based on both accuracy and speed, this research as an obtrusive testing method analyzed the effectiveness by presenting information questions to the generalists and subject specialists who are information librarians in college and university libraries. For this study 20 librarians working at 12 university libraries were tested for performance levels of information services. The result showed $59.75\%$ an absolute performance rate and $75.20\%$ an adjust performance rate. Compared to Thomas Childer's 1970 study in which he used the unobtrusive testing method, these results were $5\%$ higher in the absolute performance rate and $11.36\%$ higher in the adjust performance rate. In comparing the generalist with the subject specialist in efficiency of information service, while the absolute performance rate was $57.08\%$ and the adjust performance rate was $73.08\%$ in the case of the generalist, the absolute rate was $63.75\%$ and the adjust rate was $78.38\%$ in the case of specialist, therefore, the efficiency of the subject specialist was $6.67\%$ higher in the absolute performance rate and $5.30\%$ higher in the adjust performance rate than that of generalist. But the factor of speediness was excluded from the analysis because of the difference between the time the interviewers recorded and the time the interviewee recorded. On the basis of the result of this research, it should be desirable to educate subject specialists and employ them as information librarians and for them to function as efficient subject specialists in order to improve the effectiveness of information services, the nucleus of the raison d'etre of college and university libraries.