• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.123-131
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• 2008

In Oriental medicine, the status of a tongue is the important indicator to diagnose the condition of one's health like the physiological and the clinicopathological changes of internal organs in a body. A tongue diagnosis is not only convenient but also non-invasive, and therefore widely used in Oriental medicine. However, the tongue diagnosis is affected by examination circumstances like a light source, patient's posture, and doctor's condition a lot. To develop an automatic tongue diagnosis system for an objective and standardized diagnosis, segmenting a tongue region from a facial image captured and classifying tongue coating are inevitable but difficult since the colors of a tongue, lips, and skin in a mouth are similar. The proposed method includes preprocessing, over-segmenting, detecting the edge with a local minimum over a shading area from the structure of a tongue, correcting local minima or detecting the edge with the greatest color difference, selecting one edge to correspond to a tongue shape, and smoothing edges, where preprocessing consists of down-sampling to reduce computation time, histogram equalization, and edge enhancement, which produces the region of a segmented tongue. Finally, the systematic procedure separated only a tongue region from a face image with a tongue, which was obtained from a digital tongue diagnosis system. Oriental medical doctors' evaluation for the results illustrated that the segmented region excluding a non-tongue region provides important information for the accurate diagnosis. The proposed method can be used for an objective and standardized diagnosis and for an u-Healthcare system.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.361-370
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• 1982

The effects of climatic factors on organisms lire variable and complex, and it, however, can be interpreted in terms of those on the distribution and those on the population densities. The distribution of an organism may largely be determined by the temperatures, except some temporal organisms which are depended on the air mass movements. Population density of an organism is determined by various climatic factors, such as previous winter temperature, temperature of growing season and rainfall. The start of growing season of the rice plants has been shifted to earlier since last decade in Korea. This may mean that the overall climatic condition during the growing season might be considerably different from those in past years, and such a difference in climatic conditions might have close relation with the recent status of the diseases and insect pests through direct effects on the physiology and population dynamics of the organisms, as well as through on the biotic associations of the pest organisms. The white back planthopper and brown planthopper have become the key insect pests in Korea in recent years. They are migratory and have high reproductive pontentials and more generations than average residential insects. The synchronization of the migrants and physiological condition of the rice plants seems to be the important factors in relation to the recent outbreaks of these insects; the high reproductive rate can be obtained with the growth stage of rice being 30-50 days after transplanting. The modication of the microclimate associated with high plant density and some other introduced new cultural techniques also have some relation with the outbreak. The key diseases of the rice are the blast disease, sheath blight and the bacterial leaf blight. For the rice blast, the seedling blast and leaf blast during the early growing season and the neck blast, have become more serious, the former may be related to hotbed nursery and the later may be related to the high humidity in early August, and synchronization of the heading time which has been shifted to early part from middle or late part of August. In general, for the rice diseases, the development of the new races have been the most serious which are largely resulted from the introduction of the new varieties, but it also seems to be related with the prolonged periods of the favorable condition associated with the shifted growing seasons. In general, the diseases and insect pest problems have become much more variable and complex, and control measures should be based on the thorough knowledge of the ecology of the pest organisms, that is, effects of various environmental factors on the disease cycle; spore release, spore deposition, infection, colonization and sporulation of the disease organisms, and those on the development, reproductive potentials, dispersal, age specific responses of the insects. The well organized real-time pest management systems, such as alfalfa weevil management system developed at the Purdue University in U.S., is the prime importance for the implementation of the pest management principles.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.97-106
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• 1983

For the purpose of implementing health and nutrition education for college women, we investigated changes in height, weight, and daily living schedule, as well as the relationship between energy intake and expenditure, and food and nutrients intake levels for the six years from 1977 to 1982. A special form of questionaires was prepared and distributed to well-trained subjects (total 213) in order to find out their general characteristics, daily living schedule and dietary intakes. The recovery of questionaires distributed to each subject was 90%. Then the quality of their living, energy balance, nutrient intake and food intake were evaluated and the F-test was used to test the statistical significances. It was found that : 1) The range of weights and heights of subjects were between 48-50 kg, 157-161cm respectively over the 6 year period. 2) In daily living schedule, that is, the average physiological activity time including sleeping ranged from 760 to 801 minutes. Free time decreased gradually, from 318 minutes per day in 1977 to 275 minutes in 1982. Average time for study and for house work was 196-280 minutes and 68 - 157 minutes respectively for 6 years, and study time was significantly varied in each year. 3) The energy intake of the subjects averaged 1762 Kcal, whereas the expended energy was 1892 Kcal. In the energy balance determined by the relationship between energy intake and expendituye, the ratio of subjects who maintained a negative energy balance gradually increased from 53% (1977) to 64%(1982). 4) The average nutrient intake was higher than the recommended dietary allowance except for calorie (1997 - 1982), calcium (1979) and iron (1979, 1980). The total calorie intake was composed of 59-63% carbohydrate, 19 - 24% fat and 15 - 18% protein Of the total protein intake the percentage of animal was 47 -51% for six years, showing acceptable nutritional status. 5) The average total food intake of the subjects increased from 1,080 g (1977) to 1,184g (1982), but this was not a significant difference. Cereal composed the highest proportion among the total food intakes, and rice intake was 58-78% of cereals. Cereal was followed in decreasing order by vegetables, dairy products, fruits, meat and fish products. The option available for the selection of cooking methods as well as the selection of food item was limited, so there were few changes over time.

• Korean Journal of Oriental Medicine
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• v.13 no.2 s.20
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• pp.47-52
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• 2007

In Oriental medicine, the status of tongue is the important indicator to diagnose one's health, because it represents physiological and clinicopathological changes of inner parts of the body. The method of tongue diagnosis is not only convenient but also non-invasive, therefore, tongue diagnosis is one of the most widely used in Oriental medicine. But tongue diagnosis is affected by examination circumstances a lot. It depends on a light source, degrees of an angle, doctor's condition and so on. So it is not easy to make an objective and standardized tongue diagnosis. As part of way to solve this problem, in this study, we tried to design a discriminant function for white and yellow coating with multi-dimensional color vectors. There were 62 subjects involved in this study, among them 48 subjects diagnosed as white-coated tongue and 14 subjects diagnosed as yellow-coated tongue by oriental doctors. And their tongue images were acquired by a well-made Digital Tongue Diagnosis System. From those acquired tongue images, each coating section were extracted by oriental doctors, and then mean values of multi -dimensional color vectors in each coating section were calculated. By statistical analysis, two significant vectors, R in RGB space and H in HSV space, were found that they were able to describe the difference between white coating section and yellow coating section very well. Using these two values, we designed the discriminant function for coating classification and examined how good it works. As a result, the overall accuracy of coating classification was 98.4%. We can expect that the discriminant function for other coatings can be obtained in a similar way. Furthermore, if an automated segmentation algorithm of tongue coating is combined with these discriminant functions, an automated tongue coating diagnosis can be accomplished.

• Herbal Formula Science
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.483-497
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• 2017

Background : Behavioral stress has been suggested as one of the significant factors that is able to disrupt physiological systems and cause depression as well as changes in various body systems. The stressful events can alter cognition, learning, memory and emotional responses, resulting in mental disorders such as depression and anxiety. Results : We used a restraint stress model to evaluate the alteration of behavior and stress-related blood parameter. The animals were randomly divided into two groups of five animals each group. Furthermore, we assessed the change of body weight to evaluate the locomotor activity as well as status of emotional and anxiety in mice. After 7 days of restraint stress, the body weight had significantly decreased in the restraint stress group compared with the control group. We also observed stress-associated behavioral alterations, as there was a significant decrease in open field and forced swim test, whereas the immobilization time was significantly increased in the stress group compared to the control group. We observed the morphological changes of neuronal death and microglia by immunohistochemistry and western blot. In our study restraint stress did not cause change in neuronal cell density in the frontal cortex and CA1 hippocampus region, but there was a trend for an increased COX-2 and iNOS protein expression and microglia (CD11b) in brain, which is restraint stress. Conclusion : Our study, there were significant alterations observed in the behavioral studies. We found that mice undergoing restraint stress changed behavior, confirming the increased expression of inflammatory factors in the brain.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.15-21
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• 1986

An experiment was conducted for 14 days using 108 Manina Brown laying hens of 27 weeks of age to study the effects of dietary phosphorus levels on egg production, feed intake, feed efficiency, time of oviposition, specific gravity and weight of eggs. Hens were divided into 12 pens and each was assigned to one of the three treatments with 4 replications. Each hen was housed in individual cage. Birds on treatment 1 were fed a control diet (0.70% P) continuously and served as control. Hens on treatment 2 received a high phosphorus diet (HP: 2.54% P) between 06:00 and 10:00 and a low phosphorus diet(LP;0.33% P) for the rest of the day, Treatment 3 was fed HP diet for four hours immediately following oviposition and LP diet for the rest of the day. All diets contained a constant level of calcium (4.04 %). Results indicated that egg production, feed intake, feed efficiency were not significantly affected by the treatments. Hens in treatment 3 tended to lay earlier than those in treatments 1 (P〈.0.05 ) and 2 (P〈.0.01 ). There were no significant differences in egg weights among treatments. Egg specific gravity, however, was significantly (P〈0.01) improved by feeding HP diet for 4 hours immediately fellowing oviposition (treatment 3). There was no significant difference in the specific gravity between eggs from the control and treatment 2. There were found a linear relationship for egg weight and a quadratic relationship for egg specific gravity (P〈0.01) with time of oviposition. Specific gravity of eggs tended to be low as the egg weight increased.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.16-26
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• 2007

Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) is a serine protease catalyzing the proteolytic conversion of plasminogen into plasmin, which is involved in thrombolysis. During last two decades, the role of tPA in brain physiology and pathology has been extensively investigated. tPA is expressed in brain regions such as cortex, hippocampus, amygdala and cerebellum, and major neural cell types such as neuron, astrocyte, microglia and endothelial cells express tPA in basal status. After strong neural stimulation such as seizure, tPA behaves as an immediate early gene increasing the expression level within an hour. Neural activity and/or postsynaptic stimulation increased the release of tPA from axonal terminal and presumably from dendritic compartment. Neuronal tPA regulates plastic changes in neuronal function and structure mediating key neurologic processes such as visual cortex plasticity, seizure spreading, cerebellar motor learning, long term potentiation and addictive or withdrawal behavior after morphine discontinuance. In addition to these physiological roles, tPA mediates excitotoxicity leading to the neurodegeneration in several pathological conditions including ischemic stroke. Increasing amount of evidence also suggest the role of tPA in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis even though beneficial effects was also reported in case of Alzheimer's disease based on the observation of tPA-induced degradation of $A{\beta}$ aggregates. Target proteins of tPA action include extracellular matrix protein laminin, proteoglycans and NMDA receptor. In addition, several receptors (or binding partners) for tPA has been reported such as low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein (LRP) and annexin II, even though intracellular signaling mechanism underlying tPA action is not clear yet. Interestingly, the action of tPA comprises both proteolytic and non-proteolytic mechanism. In case of microglial activation, tPA showed non-proteolytic cytokine-like function. The search for exact target proteins and receptor molecules for tPA along with the identification of the mechanism regulating tPA expression and release in the nervous system will enable us to better understand several key neurological processes like teaming and memory as well as to obtain therapeutic tools against neurodegenerative diseases.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.14-25
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• 2012

Objectives : To observe physiological changes during clinical acupuncture treatment. Methods : We recruited 40 healthy volunteers who had experienced an acupuncture treatment at least once within the past three years. The experimental group was divided into four groups according to the needling site and frequency of electrical stimulation. Sites consisted of abdomen and legs. Frequencies consisted of 100 Hz and 2 Hz. The procedures of experimental treatment consisted of seven phases, Resting I phase (Resting I), Needle insertion phase (Insertion), Maintenance of needle insertion I phase (Maintain I), Electrical stimulation phase (ES), Maintenance of needle insertion II phase (Maintain II), Needle removal phase (Removal) and Resting II phase (Resting II). We measured the surface electromygraphy (SEMG) through an electrode on the frontalis muscle during all phases consecutively. Results : When SEMGs of all seven phases were analyzed, they significantly increased or decreased according to phases. SEMGs of Insertion, Maintain I, ES and Maintain II phase significantly increased more than RestingI in abdomen and legs groups. SEMGs of the abdomen group were measured as being $4.78{\pm}0.74{\mu}V$ on Resting I, $16.48{\pm}3.97{\mu}V$ on Insertion, $46.31{\pm}10.56{\mu}V$ on Maintain I, $45.88{\pm}9.72{\mu}V$ on ES, $45.56{\pm}9.69{\mu}V$ on Maintain II, $18.76{\pm}3.05{\mu}V$ on Removal, and $3.75{\pm}0.65{\mu}V$ on Resting II. SEMGs of the legs group were measured as being $3.34{\pm}0.35{\mu}V$ on Resting I, $12.11{\pm}1.76{\mu}V$ on Insertion, $36.74{\pm}6.99{\mu}V$ on Maintain I, $33.57{\pm}6.30{\mu}V$ on ES, $32.66{\pm}6.03{\mu}V$ on Maintain II, $14.08{\pm}2.15{\mu}V$ on Removal, and $2.88{\pm}0.32{\mu}V$ on Resting II. Conclusions : SEMG changed differently according to processes of acupuncture. Electrical stimulation showed different change of SEMG. Thus, acupuncture treatment may change the status of the autonomic nervous system.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.357-365
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• 2002

A survey was under taken of six district of Northern India viz. Bareilly, Pilibhit, Udham Singh Nagar, Nainital, Almora and Rampur. The age, breed, sex and physiological status recorded. A total number of 854 cattle examined out of which lactating (274 cases), non lactating (302 cases) heifers (128 cases), calves (82 cases) and adult male (68 cases) were examined. An incidence of 4.92 percent (42) of microfilarisis was recorded. The highest prevalence was observed in Rudrapur District of Udham Singh Nagar (33.33%, 4/12), followed by Lalkaun in Nanital District (21.74%, 10/46), Rampur (12.50%, 2/16), Bareilly (8.16%, 8/98) and Pilibhit (1.22%, 1/82). No infection was observed in Almora region. Amongst 854 cattle of different group incidence was highest in adult male (12.20%, 10/82), followed by non lactating (3.82%, 12/314) and lactating (2.70%, 2/74), (7.64%, 12/157) was found in Heifers. For haemeto-biochemical, serum minerals estimations and therapeutic study 32 animals suffering from filariasis and 18 healthy animals were taken. 16 animals were treated with ivermectin $@200{\mu}g/kg $ body weight. Effect of this disease on production has also been estimated for which body weight and milk production was observed. The main clinical manifestations observed were anaemia, loss of appetite, debility, oedematous swelling especially in the abdominal region, increased heart rate, and respiration rate. Haematological changes indicated decrease in hemoglobin, total erythrocyte count, packed cell volume, erthrocyte fragility and neutrophil, whereas there was significant increase in erythrocytes sedimentation rate (ESR), total leukocyte count (TLC), lymphocyte and eosinophils. Biochemical changes showed significant reduction in the values of serum albumin, A : G ratio, where as there was significant increase in blood glucose, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), globulin, total lipid, total cholesterol, phospholipids, serum bilirubin. Serum mineral profile also altered markedly, which indicate a significant decrease in Ca, Cu, Fe, Zn, and Mn with increase value of Na and Cl. There was no significant change in P and K values. Enzyme pattern in micro filaria infected animal indicated increased level of AST, ALT, alkaline phosphatase, ornithine carbamyl transferase, sorbitol dehydrogenase, glutamate dehydrogenase, isocitric dehydrogenase and lactate dehydrogenase. In blood gas values and acid/base balance, there was an increase in $PVCo_2$ and $PVo_2$. It has been observed that microfilaria infected cattle showed decrease in body weight and milk production. Animal treated with ivermectin showed the return of these above values toward normalcy.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.1359-1366
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• 2000

An experiment was carried out to study plasma levels of hormones and metabolites of crossbred Holstein cattle during late pregnancy (28 days pre partum), early lactation (30 days post partum), mid-lactation (120 days post partum) and late lactation (210 days post partum). Two breed types of Holstein $Friesian{\times}Red$ Sindhi (50:50 = 50%HF) and Holstein $Friesian{\times}Red$ Sindhi (87.5:12.5 = 87.5%HF) were divided into four groups of four animals each. Two groups of each breed were fed with either rice straw treated with 5% urea or pangola hay (Digitaria decumbens) as the source of roughage throughout the experiments. There were a substantial increases in the mean levels of total triiodothyronine ($T_3$), insulin and glucagon at the onset of lactation, and maintained in a high levels during lactation advance for all groups of experiments. The mean levels of prolactin and thyroxine ($T_4$) were not significantly different among groups of animals, but the plasma cortisol concentration was slightly higher in both groups of 50%HF in comparison with those of 87.5%HF animals. The mean levels of plasma growth hormone (GH) of both groups of 87.5%HF animals feeding on either hay or urea treated rice straw markedly rose in the early period of lactation and markedly reduced in mid- and late lactation. These changes were accompanied with changes of milk yield. In contrast to 50%HF animals, plasma GH levels were considerably higher in the late pregnant period than in the early period of lactation and it remained constant as its value at the early lactation throughout the experimental period. The high levels of both plasma progesterone and estradiol concentration significantly declined after parturition and remained low through lactating period. The plasma glucose level in the 50%HF animals feeding on either hay or urea treated rice straw was higher than the 87.5%HF animals in all periods of experiments. Changes in plasma FFA levels of both types of crossbred animals were depended on the endocrine status during late pregnancy and lactation. The levels of plasma FFA of 50%HF animals were significantly higher (p<0.05) than those of 87.5%HF animals during late pregnancy. Both plasma ${\beta}$-hydroxybutyrate and lactate concentrations were not affected by feeding on either hay or urea treated rice straw during late pregnancy and lactation. These data demonstrate that there were no differences in the physiological performances in the same crossbred animals fed either hay or urea treated rice straw. The 87.5%HF animal has the genetic potential for a high milk yield and homeorhetic adaptation for mammary function differed from 50%HF animals during periods of lactation. Altering lactation persistency in 87.5%HF is regulated mainly by chronically acting growth hormones through the period of lactation.