• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.1202-1208
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• 2020

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify a distribution pattern of meat quality grade (MQG) as a function of carcass yield index (CYI) and the gender of Hanwoo (bull, cow, and steer) to determine the optimum point between both yield and quality. We also attempted to identify how pre- and post-deboning variables affect the gender-specific beef quality of Hanwoo. Methods: A total of 31 deboning variables, consisting of 7 pre-deboning and 24 post-deboning variables from bulls (n = 139), cows (n = 69), and steers (n = 153), were obtained from the National Institute of Animal Science (NIAS) in South Korea. The database was reconstructed to be suitable for a statistical significance test between the CYI and the MQG as well as classification of meat quality. Discriminant function analysis was used for classifying MQG using the deboning parameters of Hanwoo by gender. Results: The means of CYI according to 1+, 1, 2, and 3 of MQG were 68.64±2.02, 68.85±1.94, 68.62±5.88, and 70.99±3.32, respectively. High carcass yield correlated with low-quality grade, while high-quality meat most frequently was obtained from steers. The classification ability of pre-deboning parameters was higher than that of post-deboning parameters. Moisture and the shear force were the common significant parameters in all discriminant functions having a classification accuracy of 80.6%, 71%, and 56.9% for the bull, cow, and steer, respectively. Conclusion: This study provides basic information for predicting the meat quality by gender using pre-deboning variables consistent with the actual grading index.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.1313-1320
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• 2014

Introduction: Although most prostate cancers initially respond to castration with luteinizing hormonereleasing analogues or bilateral orchiectomy, progression eventually occurs. Based on the exciting results of several randomized controlled trials (RCTs), it seems that patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) might benefit more from treatment withabiraterone. Therefore we conducted a systematic review to evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of abiraterone in the treatment of mCRPC. Methods: Literature was searched from Embase, PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library up to July, 2013. Quality of the study was evaluated according to the Cochrane's risk of bias of randomized controlled trial (RCT) tool, then the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) System was used to rate the level of evidence. Stata 12.0 was used for statistical analysis. Summary data from RCTs comparing abiraterone plus prednisone versus placebo plus prednisone for mCRPC were meta-analyzed. Pooled hazard ratios (HRs) for overall survival (OS), radiographic progression-free survival (RPFS) and time to PSA progression (TTPP); Pooled risk ratios (RR) for PSA response rate, objective response rate and adverse event were calculated. Results: Ten trials were included in the systematic review; Data of 2,283 patients (1,343 abiraterone; 940 placebo) from two phase 3 trials: COU-AA-301 and COU-AA-302 were meta-analyzed. Compared with placebo, abiraterone significantly prolonged OS (HR, 0.74; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.66 to 0.84), RPFS (HR, 0.59; 95% CI, 0.48 to 0.74) and time to PSA progression (HR, 0.55; 95% CI, 0.43 to 0.70); it also significantly increased PSA response rate (RR, 3.63; 95% CI, 1.72 to 7.65) and objective response rate (RR, 3.05; 95% CI, 1.51 to 6.15). This meta-analysis suggested that the adverse events caused by abiraterone are acceptable and can be controlled. Conclutios: Abiraterone significantly prolonged OS, RPFS and time to progression patients with mCRPC, regardless of prior chemotherapy or whether chemotherapy-na$\ddot{i}$ve, and no unexpected toxicity was evident. Abiraterone can serve as a new standard therapy for mCRPC.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.158-166
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• 2016

Purpose: To understand clinical significance of irregular interface between meningioma and adjacent brain parenchyma in predicting histological grading of tumor, focusing on brain parenchymal invasion. Materials and Methods: Pathologically confirmed 79 cases with meningiomas with pathological reports about the presence of parenchymal invasion were included. We defined the presence of interface irregularity as either spiculations or fuzzy margins between the tumor and brain parenchyma. We counted number of spiculations and measured ratio of fuzzy margin length to whole length of mass with consensus of two neuroradiologists. We classified the patients into Present group and Absent group, and the two groups were compared by using the Mann-Whitney U test. Statistical correlations between the presence of an interface irregularity and brain parenchymal invasion by the tumor as well as meningioma histological grade were tested with chi-square test. The optimal cutoff values of spiculation numbers and the ratio of fuzzy margins were determined. The sensitivity and specificity of number of spiculations, ratio of fuzzy margin and the presence of irregular interface as combined parameters for predicting the parenchymal invasion were calculated using ROC curve analysis. Results: Statistically significant differences were noted between the Present and Absent groups for number of spiculations and ratio of fuzzy margin (P = 0.038 and P = 0.028, respectively). The optimal cutoff value for number of spiculations (> 4.5 with 61.1% sensitivity and 68.9% specificity) and the ratio of fuzzy margin (> 0.24 with 66.7% sensitivity and 65.6% specificity) were determined. The sensitivity and specificity of interface irregularity as the combined parameters were 72% and 59%, respectively. The interface irregularity between tumor and brain parenchyma significantly correlated with not only brain parenchymal invasion (P = 0.001) and but also histological grade (P < 0.001). Conclusion: The interface irregularity between tumor and brain parenchyma in MRI can be a strong predictive factor for brain parenchymal invasion and high grade meningioma.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.323-331
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• 2013

This study aims at investigating and comparing the diphthongs, words, and sentences between two Korean highschool students groups using the Praat program. To do this English words and sentences were uttered and recorded by twenty Korean subjects; each group has ten subjects. All the subjects are female and their grades range from freshman to sophomore. Acoustic features were measured from a sound spectrogram with the help of the Praat software program and analyzed through statistical analysis. Results showed that the lengths of diphthongs and words were different between two groups, but the difference was not significant. However, in the lengths of sentence utterance, the group of 5 to 6 grade students in the current grading system pronounced longer than that of 1 to 2 grade students. Especially in the pronunciation of the first two sentences with more than five words, the difference was significant. From the data of the overall sum of words between the two subject groups, we were able to find out that the differences of the lengths of the words with the diphthongs were not significant, but those of the sentences with more than five words were significant. In the pronunciation of the words between coat and code, the length of the diphthong in coat was smaller than that of in code.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.5775-5781
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• 2013

Background: The gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasm (GEP-NEN) is the most common type of neuroendocrine neoplasm. We summarized data in our centre to investigate the clinicopathological features, diagnostic methods, therapeutic approaches and prognosis for this neoplasm to increase knowledge of this disease in Asian populations. Method: A total of 122 patients treated at Sun Yet-san Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University between January 2000 and December 2011 were analyzed retrospectively. Results: Pancreas was the most common site of involvement (65/122, 53.3%); this disease has no special symptoms; positive rates of chromogranin A (CgA) and synaptophysin (Syn) were 81.1% and 87.7%, respectively. The positive rate of Syn had statistical difference among the three grades, but not CgA. Some 68 patients had G1 tumors, 32 G2 tumors and 22 G3 tumors, and Chi-square test showed that higher grading was correlated with worse prognosis (${\chi}^2=32.825$, P=0.0001). A total of 32 patients presented with distant metastasis, and 8 cases emerged during following up. Cox proportional hazards regression modeling showed that the tumor grade (P=0.01), lymphatic metastasis (P=0.025) and distant metastasis (P=0.031) were predictors of unfavorable prognosis. The overall 5-year survival rate was 39.6%, the 5-year survival rate of G1 was 55.7%, and the G2 and G3 were 34.2% and 0%, respectively. Conclusions: The incidence of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors has risen over the last 12 years. All grades of these diseases metastasize readily, and further research regarding the treatment of patients after radical surgery is needed to prolong disease-free survival.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.777-782
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• 2002

Reciprocal effects among local breeds and additive and heterosis effects were estimated for total milk production per lactation (TLP), lactation length (LL) and daily milk yield (DMY). Procedures for an optimum crossbreeding system were examined by comparing various crossbred combinations. Three data sets were chosen from the total records collected from 1962 to 1997. Data set I with a total of 5,938 records composed of 9 breed groups for reciprocal crosses, data set II with a total of 6,064 records composed of 5 breed groups for additive and heterosis effects and data set III with a total of 10,319 records composed of 42 breed groups for optimum crossbreeding system were analyzed. The least squares ANOVA was used. The reciprocal crosses between Red Sindhi and the Bangladeshi Local showed significant difference. When the Red Sindhi was used as cow, the cross was superior to the opposite in terms of the three performance traits. The results showed that additive breed effects on both TLP and DMY were positive and highly significant between Bos indicus and Bos taurus, whereas the individual heterosis effects were not significant. In general, any local breeds were improved two to three times by crossing with the Friesian once or twice. However, the effect was reduced when the grading up with the Friesian was repeated more than twice. On the other hand, when the local breed was crossed with the other breeds such as Holstein and Jersey, the improvement of TLP was less. Crossing the F1 cows with the Friesian bull gave further improvement. Almost the same trends were found also for LL and DMY. The local breeds and their crosses are raised mainly for draft animals, then it is recommended that the crossbreds between the local cows and Friesian are used for dairy purposes and more than 75% Friesian blood is used for beef.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.237-243
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• 2002

Objective : The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of different media on blastulation, mean cell number, percentage of inner cell mass (ICM) of total cells and ICM : trophectoderm (TE) ratio in mice. Materials and methods: A total 552 two cell embryos were retrieved from ICR female mice (4 weeks old) at 48 hr after hCG injection (mated just after hCG injection) and cultured in MEM (n=276) or TCM (n=276) supplemented with 20% hFF. The grading of blastocysts from zona-intact (ZiB) to -escape (hatching and hatched, ZeB) was performed at 72 hours after culture. Total, TE and ICM cell numbers were analyzed by differential staining of blastocyst. Statistical analysis was performed using t-test with SigmaPlot-2001. P-values < 0.05 were accepted as statistically significant. Results: The blastulation rate in MEM ($64.9{\pm}4.95%$) was significantly higher (p=0.0031) than that in TCM ($57.2{\pm}5.22%$). No differences were found in the number of ZiB and ZeB between MEM ($31.9{\pm}2.62$, $33.0{\pm}4.58%$), and TCM ($27.2{\pm}4.28$, $30.1{\pm}4.58%$). A total 314 blastocysts (MEM=166; TCM=148) were stained differentially. Mean cell number of blastocysts was significantly higher (p=0.0002) in TCM ($73.1{\pm}3.3$) than in MEM ($61.7{\pm}2.5$). Differential staining was successfully performed in 155 blastocysts (MEM=77; TCM=78). The percentage of ICM was significantly higher in MEM than in TCM ($20.9{\pm}1.3$ vs. $17.1{\pm}1.2%$, p=0.0281). The ICM : TE ratio was higher in TCM than in MEM (1 : $4.85{\pm}0.68$ vs. 1 : $3.78{\pm}0.78$, NS). Conclusion: These results show that MEM increase the blastocyst formation and percentage of ICM of total cells comparing with TCM in mice.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.122-125
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• 2013

Objective: The majority of embryo transfers (ETs) to date have been performed on day 3 to reduce the potential risk of developmental arrest of in vitro cultured embryos before ET. Development of sequential media has significantly improved culture conditions and allowed blastocyst transfer on day 5. While day 5 ET provides higher clinical pregnancy outcomes with reduced risks of multiple pregnancies, it still has potential risks of developmental arrest of IVF embryos. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical outcomes of day 4 ETs and compare the efficacy of day 4 ET with day 5 ET. Methods: From 2006 to 2009, a total of 747 fresh IVF-ET cycles were retrospectively analyzed (day 4, n=440 or and day 5, n=307). The cycles with any genetic factors were excluded. The rates of matured oocytes, fertilization, good embryos, and clinical pregnancy of the two groups were compared. The chi-square test and t-test were used for statistical analysis. Results: There were no significant differences between the two groups with respect to the mean age of the females and rates of matured oocytes. The pregnancy outcomes of day 4 ET (40.7%) were similar to those of day 5 ET (44.6%). The implantation rate of day 5 ET (24.2%) was significantly higher than that of day 4 ET (18.4%) (p=0.003). Conclusion: Day 4 ET can be chosen to avoid ET cancellation in day 5 ET resulting from suboptimal circumstances in the IVF laboratory, but the decremented quality of embryos for transfer and the decreased pregnancy rate must be taken into consideration.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.165-172
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• 2000

Objective: In vitro fertilization (IVF) and a prolonging the time of culture may be helpful in establishing a viable pregnancy through a selection effect. Some embryos do not develop beyond the 4-cell stage and some may not develop to the blastocyst stage. We have evaluated the safety of SET and the outcomes of pregnancy. Methods: Sperms were treated with Ham's F-10 supplemented with 10% human follicular fluid (hFF). oocytes or fertilized oocytes were cultured in Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM) with 10% or 20% hFF respectively. Up to five oocytes were inseminated with approximately 200,000 sperm cells/2 ml in each well. Fertilization was examined in the following morning and fertilized oocytes were co-cultured until embryo transfer. Vero cells for co-culture were prepared in Tissue Culture Medium - 199 (TCM-199) with 10% fetal bovine serum. At the two to four cell and blastocyst on day 2 and day 5, embryo and blstocyst grading were evaluated. Pregnancy rate was determined after transfer of human embryos at the two to four cell stage on day 2 (Group I) or subsequent transfer of embryos on day 2 and at the blastocyst stage on day 5 (Group II). For statistical analysis, Student's t-test and Chi-square (${\chi}^2$_test) were used. Results were considered statistically significant when p value was less than 0.05. Results: No differences was found in the fertilization between Group I (81.0%, 98/121) and Group II (81.8%, 180/220). In case of cleavage rate, no difference was found in Group I (95.9%, 94/98) and Group II (97.8%, 174/178). However, the rate of-clinical pregnancy was significantly higher (p=0.014) in Group II (66.7%, 12/18) than in Group I (26.3%, 5/19). Conclusion: The results of this study showed that SET is safe and effective, and significantly increases the pregnancy rate.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.135-142
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• 2021

The aim of this study was to evaluate the contrast effect if a saline flush following low-volume contrast medium bolus improves vascular and parenchymal enhancement using a saphenous vein in abdominal CT for small animals. Six clinically healthy beagle dogs underwent abdominal contrast-enhanced CT. They were divided into nine groups (each group, n = 6), according to the volume of contrast medium 1, 2, and 3 mL/kg, and volume of the saline solution 0, 5, and 10 mL. Dynamic CT scanning was performed at the hepatic hilum level. The maximum contrast enhancement, time to maximum enhancement, and time to equilibrium phase were calculated from the time attenuation curves. Mean attenuation values for all groups were measured in the aorta, portal vein, and liver. After contrast enhancement, grading of image quality regarding surrounding artifacts and evaluation of the hepatic hilum structures was performed. For comparison of the effect of the contrast material and saline solution doses, differences in mean attenuation values between the contrast medium 2 mL/kg without saline flush group and the remaining groups, and between contrast medium 3 mL/kg without saline flush group and the remaining groups, were analyzed for statistical significance. There were no significant differences between with and without saline flushing at the same contrast medium dose groups. There were no significant differences in peak values between the 3 mL/kg dose of contrast medium alone and the 2 mL/kg dose of contrast medium with saline solution flush. However, there was a significant difference in peak values between the 3 mL/kg dose of the contrast medium without the saline flush group and the 2 mL/kg dose of the contrast medium alone group. Grades of the artifacts were not significantly different in the saline flush regardless of the dose of the contrast medium. Using 2 mL/kg of contrast medium with saline solution flush resulted in similar liver parenchyma attenuation, compared with using 3 mL/kg of contrast medium without saline solution flush. In CT evaluation of hepatic parenchymal diseases, using 2 mL/kg of contrast medium with saline solution flush may yield decreased risk of contrast nephropathy and cost-saving.