• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.61-68
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• 2018

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to test the association between APOA5 3'-UTR variants (rs662799) and cardiometabolic traits in Koreans. SUBJECTS/METHODS: For this study, epidemiological data, Apolipoprotein A5 (APOA5) genotype information, and lymphoblastoid cell line (LCL) biospecimens from a subset of the Ansung-Ansan cohort within the Korean Genome and Epidemiology study (KoGES-ASAS; n = 7,704) as well as epidemiological data along with genomic DNA biospecimens of participants from a subset of the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES 2011-12; n = 2,235) were obtained. APOA5 mRNA expression was also measured. RESULTS: APOA5 rs662799 genotype distributions in both the KoGES-ASAS and KNHANES groups were 50.6% for TT, 41.3% for TC, and 8.1% for CC, which are similar to those in previous reports. In both groups, minor C allele carriers, particularly subjects with CC homozygosity, had lower high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and higher triglyceride levels than TT homozygotes. Linear regression analysis showed that the minor C allele significantly contributed to reduction of circulating HDL cholesterol levels [${\beta}=-2.048$, P < 0.001; ${\beta}=-2.199$, P < 0.001] as well as elevation of circulating triglyceride levels [${\beta}=0.053$, P < 0.001; ${\beta}=0.066$, P < 0.001] in both the KoGES-ASAS and KNHANES groups. In addition, higher expression levels of APOA5 in LCLs of 64 healthy individuals were negatively associated with body mass index (r = -0.277, P = 0.027) and circulating triglyceride level (r = -0.340, P = 0.006) but not significantly correlated with circulating HDL cholesterol level. On the other hand, we observed no significant difference in the mRNA level of APOA5 according to APOA5 rs662799 polymorphisms. CONCLUSIONS: The C allele of APOA5 rs662799 was found to be significantly associated with cardiometabolic traits in a large Korean population from the KoGES-ASAS and KNHANES. The effect of this genotype may be associated with post-transcriptional regulation, which deserves further experimental confirmation.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.236-243
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• 2001

Background: An immunological approach for aging mechanism appears to be important. Lymphocyte subsets analysis in peripheral blood is widely performed to assess the immune status and to diagnose and monitor various diseases. Some lymphocyte subsets are known to change with age, but only few data about age-related reference ragnes for these subsets in healthy individuals have been reported. So we attempted to report reference ranges for these subsets in each age group and review changes of the results with age for the secondary studies about immune cell function as lymphocyte blast transformation and immunoglobulin gene rearrangement (VDJ) including recombination activating genes (RAG-1 and RAG-2). Methods: Lymphocyte subset analysis was performed on 302 subjects, 189 males and 113 females with age group of all decades of life. Two color direct immunofluorescene flow cytometry (FCM) was done using $Simultest^{TM}$ IMK-Lymphocyte kit (Becton Dickinson, USA), $FACScan^{TM}$ (Becton Dickinson, USA) and $FACSCalibur^{TM}$ (Becton Dickinson, USA). Lymphocyte subsets analysed were T ($CD3^+$) and B cells ($CD19^+$), helper/inducer T ($CD4^+$) and suppressor/cytotoxic T cells ($CD8^+$), helper/suppressor ($CD4^+/CD8^+$) ratio and natural killer (NK) cells ($CD3^-CD16^+/CD56^+$). The absolute numbers of each subset were calculated from total lymphocyte counts. Data collected was analysed using SAS 6.12. A P-value of < 0.05 was considered significant. Results: We reported the counts and percentages of lymphocyte and these subsets in each age group. There were no statistically significant differences between male and female subjects. The percentage of $CD4^+$ T cells, and the count of NK cells did not show the significant difference among the various age groups. The age-related changes observed in our study were as following: 1) a decrease in the percentages of T cells, B cells and $CD8^+$ T cells ; 2) a decrease in the counts of B cells and $CD8^+$ T cells ; 3) an increase in the percentage and count of NK cells ; and 4) an increase in the $CD4^+/CD8^+$ ratio. Conclusion: The characteristics of aging process appeared to be showing a marked decrease of lympocyte subsets T and B cells as well as T8 ($CD8^+$). The age-related increase of the percentage of cells bearing NK marker can be interpreted as a compensatory consequence to cope with the decrease of T cells related to the thymic involution. These changes with age appeared to be for the secondary study about immune cell function as lymphocyte blast transformation and immunoglobulin gene rearrangement.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.49-57
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• 2020

In comparison with the existing static reliability analysis methods, the dynamic reliability analysis(DyRA) method is more suitable for estimating the failure probability of a structure subjected to earthquake excitations because it can take into account the frequency characteristics and damping capacity of the structure. However, the DyRA is known to have an issue of numerical stability due to the uncertainty in random sampling of the earthquake excitations. In order to solve this numerical stability issue in the DyRA approach, this study proposed two earthquake-scale factors. The first factor is defined as the ratio of the first earthquake excitation over the maximum value of the remaining excitations, and the second factor is defined as the condition number of the matrix consisting of the earthquake excitations. Then, we have performed parametric studies of two factors on numerical stability of the DyRA method. In illustrative example, it was clearly confirmed that the two factors can be used to verify the numerical stability of the proposed DyRA method. However, there exists a difference between the two factors. The first factor showed some overlapping region between the stable results and the unstable results so that it requires some additional reliability analysis to guarantee the stability of the DyRA method. On the contrary, the second factor clearly distinguished the stable and unstable results of the DyRA method without any overlapping region. Therefore, the second factor can be said to be better than the first factor as the criterion to determine whether or not the proposed DyRA method guarantees its numerical stability. In addition, the accuracy of the numerical analysis results of the proposed DyRA has been verified in comparison with those of the existing first-order reliability method(FORM), Monte Carlo simulation(MCS) method and subset simulation method(SSM). The comparative results confirmed that the proposed DyRA method can provide accurate and reliable estimation of the structural failure probability while maintaining the superior numerical efficiency over the existing methods.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2004.11c
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• pp.346-348
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• 2004

In this rarer, we introduce a new Fuzzy Polynomial Neural Networks (FPNNs)-like structure whose neuron is based on the Fuzzy Set-based Fuzzy Inference System (FS-FIS) and is different from that of FPNNs based on the Fuzzy relation-based Fuzzy Inference System (FR-FIS) and discuss the ability of the new FPNNs-like structurenamed Fuzzy Set-based Polynomial Neural Networks (FSPNN). The premise parts of their fuzzy rules are not identical, while the consequent parts of the both Networks (such as FPNN and FSPNN) are identical. This difference results from the angle of a viewpoint of partition of input space of system. In other word, from a point of view of FS-FIS, the input variables are mutually independent under input space of system, while from a viewpoint of FR-FIS they are related each other. In considering the structures of FPNN-like networks such as FPNN and FSPNN, they are almost similar. Therefore they have the same shortcomings as well as the same virtues on structural side. The proposed design procedure for networks' architecture involves the selection of appropriate nodes with specific local characteristics such as the number of input variables, the order of the polynomial that is constant, linear, quadratic, or modified quadratic functions being viewed as the consequent part of fuzzy rules, and a collection of the specific subset of input variables. On the parameter optimization phase, we adopt Information Granulation (IG) based on HCM clustering algorithm and a standard least square method-based learning. Through the consecutive process of such structural and parametric optimization, an optimized and flexible fuzzy neural network is generated in a dynamic fashion. To evaluate the performance of the genetically optimized FSPNN (gFSPNN), the model is experimented with using gas furnace process dataset.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.611-619
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• 2013

Although the need of crop production has increased in Mongolia, crop cultivation is very limited because of the harsh climatic and topographic conditions. Crop lands are sparsely distributed with relatively small sizes and, therefore, it is difficult to survey the exact area of crop lands. The study aimed to find an easy and effective way of accurate classification to map crop lands in Mongolia using satellite images. To classify the crop lands over the study area in northern Mongolia, four classifications were carried out by using 1) Thematic Mapper (TM) image August 23, 2) TM image of July 6, 3) combined 12 bands of TM images of July and August, and 4) both TM images of July and August by layered classification. Wheat and potato are the major crop types and they show relatively high variation in crop conditions between July and August. On the other hands, other land cover types (forest, riparian vegetation, grassland, water and bare soil) do not show such difference between July and August. The results of four classifications clearly show that the use of multi-temporal images is essential to accurately classify the crop lands. The layered classification method, in which each class is separated by a subset of TM images, shows the highest classification accuracy (93.7%) of the crop lands. The classification accuracies are lower when we use only a single TM image of either July or August. Because of the different planting practice of potato and the growth condition of wheat, the spectral characteristics of potato and wheat cannot be fully separated from other cover types with TM image of either July or August. Further refinements on the spatial characteristics of existing crop lands may enhance the crop mapping method in Mongolia.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.433-436
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• 2004

In this paper, we introduce a new Fuzzy Polynomial Neural Networks (FPNNS)-like structure whose neuron is based on the Fuzzy Set-based Fuzzy Inference System (FS-FIS) and is different from that of FPNNS based on the Fuzzy relation-based Fuzzy Inference System (FR-FIS) and discuss the ability of the new FPNNS-like structure named Fuzzy Set-based Polynomial Neural Networks (FSPNN). The premise parts of their fuzzy rules are not identical, while the consequent parts of the both Networks (such as FPNN and FSPNN) are identical. This difference results from the angle of a viewpoint of partition of input space of system. In other word, from a point of view of FS-FIS, the input variables are mutually independent under input space of system, while from a viewpoint of FR-FIS they are related each other. The proposed design procedure for networks architecture involves the selection of appropriate nodes with specific local characteristics such as the number of input variables, the order of the polynomial that is constant, linear, quadratic, or modified quadratic functions being viewed as the consequent part of fuzzy rules, and a collection of the specific subset of input variables. On the parameter optimization phase, we adopt Information Granulation (IC) based on HCM clustering algorithm and a standard least square method-based learning. Through the consecutive process of such structural and parametric optimization, an optimized and flexible fuzzy neural network is generated in a dynamic fashion. To evaluate the performance of the genetically optimized FSPNN (gFSPNN), the model is experimented with using the time series dataset of gas furnace process.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.143-151
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• 1997

The present study was designed to investigate if antithyroid antibodies (ATA) could affect the pregnancy outcome in euthyroid women undergoing in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer (IVF-ET). From October 1995 to September 1996, 28 euthyroid women with ATA who underwent IVF-ET were studied. Fifty-one euthyroid women without ATA who underwent IVF-ET served as control. Thyroid peroxidase antibody (TPOA) and thyroglobulin antibody (TGA) were assayed using radio ligand assay kits as ATA. All patients included in study and control groups had only tubal factor in infertility. Long protocol of gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRH-a) was used for controlled ovarian hyperstimulation (COH) in all patients. There were no significant differences between study and control groups in patient characteristics such as age, infertility duration and hormonal profile. There were also no significant differences between two groups with respect to the clinical response to COH and IVF results such as number of retrieved oocytes, fertilization rate, number of embryos frozen and number of embryos transfered. There were no correlations between ATA (TPOA and TGA) titers and fertilization rate. The clinical pregnancy rate per cycle seemed to be lower in the study group than in the control group (26.3% vs 39.3%), but the difference was not statistically significant. The biochemical pregnancy rate per cycle and miscarriage rate were significantly higher in the study group at 18.4% (7/38) and 40.0% (4/10) compared with 5.6% (5/89) and 11.4% (4/35) in the control group. In the study group, both TPOA and TGA titers were significantly higher in the biochemical pregnancy group than in the clinical pregnancy group or non-pregnancy group. In 10 women with ATA who achieved pregnancy following IVF-ET, both TPOA and TGA titers were significantly higher in the miscarriage group than in the ongoing or delivery group. In conclusion, euthyroid women with ATA appear to represent a less favorable subset within other tubal factor patients when treated with IVF-ET.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2017.06a
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• pp.14-14
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• 2017

The discipline of plant breeding is experiencing a renaissance impacting crop improvement as a result of new technologies, however fundamental questions remain for predicting the phenotype and how the environment and genetics shape it. Inexpensive DNA sequencing, genotyping, new statistical methods, high throughput phenotyping and gene-editing are revolutionizing breeding methods and strategies for improving both quantitative and qualitative traits. Genomic selection (GS) models use genome-wide markers to predict performance for both phenotyped and non-phenotyped individuals. Aerial and ground imaging systems generate data on correlated traits such as canopy temperature and normalized difference vegetative index that can be combined with genotypes in multivariate models to further increase prediction accuracy and reduce the cost of advanced trials with limited replication in time and space. Design of a GS training population is crucial to the accuracy of prediction models and can be affected by many factors including population structure and composition. Prediction models can incorporate performance over multiple environments and assess GxE effects to identify a highly predictive subset of environments. We have developed a methodology for analyzing unbalanced datasets using genome-wide marker effects to group environments and identify outlier environments. Environmental covariates can be identified using a crop model and used in a GS model to predict GxE in unobserved environments and to predict performance in climate change scenarios. These new tools and knowledge challenge the plant breeder to ask the right questions and choose the tools that are appropriate for their crop and target traits. Contemporary plant breeding requires teams of people with expertise in genetics, phenotyping and statistics to improve efficiency and increase prediction accuracy in terms of genotypes, experimental design and environment sampling.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.57-64
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• 2018

Background: Patients experience significant differences in aspects of mortality, quality of life, and costs between during the year of receiving liver transplant (LT) and the subsequent years (post-LT). This study aimed to estimate the medical utilization and cost of LT for patients compared to post-LT patients by using a recent National Patient Sample (NPS) data provided by the Korean Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA). Methods: This study used a subset of the 2015 HIRA-NPS. Patient claims data that included Z944 (Korean Standard Classification of Diseases code for LT status) were selected. Within the selected data, LT patients were identified based on whether the national health insurance number code of Q80 (procedure code for LT surgery) was included, and they were compared to post-LT patients. Results: In the analysis, 330 patients were included. The average cost per patient was $90,066{\pm}36,959$ thousand KRW and $10,557{\pm}9,668$ thousand KRW for LT and post-LT patients, respectively. Especially, LT patients' costs for injection/procedure, surgery/treatment, and examination were higher than other costs, being $35,983{\pm}18,115$ thousand KRW, $28,246{\pm}9,408$ thousand KRW, and $12,131{\pm}6,604$ thousand KRW, respectively. For inpatients, the average number of hospitalized days was $63.5{\pm}66.0$ days for LT patients and $22.3{\pm}35.1$ days for post-LT patients. Conclusion: Compared to post-LT patients, LT patients had higher costs, especially for injection/procedure, surgery/treatment, and examination. Additionally, the LT group had longer hospitalization duration and higher costs for their hospital admission, whereas they did not show a significant difference in number of visits and medical costs for outpatient-care.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.225-228
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• 2011

Background: Conventional treatment (i.e. chest tube insertion and chemical pleurodesis) still remains standard for patients with secondary spontaneous pneumothorax because the risk of surgical bullectomy is deemed high in this subset. However, it has been suggested that surgical treatment using thoracoscopy may expedite postoperative recovery and, thus, may reduce hospital stay. Materials and Methods: Retrospective review of 61 patients with secondary spontaneous pneumothorax, who underwent conventional treatment (n=39) or video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) (n=22) between January 2007 and December 2009, was performed. Talc was used for chemical pleurodesis in both groups. Results: Hospital stay of conventional treatment group and VATS group was $14.2{\pm}14.2$ days (4~58 days) and $10.6{\pm}5.8$ days (5~32 days), respectively, with statistically significant difference (p=0.033). Recurrence rate of conventional treatment group was also significantly higher (12/39, 30%) compared to VATS group (1/22, 4.5%) (p=0.016). Conclusion: In selected patients with secondary spontaneous pneumothorax with continuous air leak or inadequate lung expansion, thoracoscopic surgery with chemical pleurodesis using talc results in shorter hospital stay and lower recurrence rate compared to conventional approach.