• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.1051-1056
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• 2015

Aberrant expression of genes in de novo lipogenesis (DNL) pathway were associated with various cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of DNL genes have been reported to be associated with prognosis of some malignancies. However, the effects of SNPs in DNL genes on overall survival of HCC patients receiving transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) treatment are still unknown. In present study, nine SNPs in three genes (ACLY, ACACA and FASN) in DNL pathway were genotyped using the Sequenom iPLEX genotyping system in a hospital-based cohort with 419 HCC patients treated with TACE, and their associations with HCC overall survival were evaluated by Cox proportional hazard regression analysis under three genetic models (additive, dominant and recessive). Although we did not find any significant results in total analysis (all p>0.05), our stratified data showed that SNP rs9912300 in ACLY gene was significantly associated with overall survival of HCC patients with lower AFP level and SNP rs11871275 in ACACA gene was significantly associated with overall survival of HCC patients with higher AFP level. We further identified the significant interactions between AFP level and SNP rs9912300 or rs11871275 in the joint analysis. Conclusively, our data suggest that genetic variations in genes of DNL pathway may be a potential biomarker for predicting clinical outcome of HCC patients treated with TACE.

• The Korean Journal of Malacology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.19-31
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• 2010

Seogundo is a small island adjacent to the southern coast of Jeju Island and connected to it by a boulder beach at low tide Surveys of this area were conducted from 2001 to 2009 to enumerate the mollusks there and also to examine their diversity, relative abundance, and ecological relationships. Both the boulder beach itself and several large tide pools were studied, including the coarse sand substrate and several species of seaweed and coralline algae found in the tide pools. Of the 121 species obtained or observed, there were 97 gastropods, 16 bivalves, and 8 polyplacophorans. Live specimens were obtained for about half of those species. About one third were found on rocky substrate, with the most common species being Nodilittorina radiata and Nerita japonica in the upper intertidal zone, N. radiata and Littorina brevicula in the middle intertidal, and Turbo (Lunella) coronata coreensis and Acanthopleura japonica in the lower intertidal and shallow subtidal. The seaweeds and coralline algae contained about 40% of all mollusk species. The most common mollusks in two species of brown seaweed were Ittibittum parcum, Musculus nanus, and Euplica scripta. In a species of red seaweed, Komaitrochus pulcher was the most frequent, as in the coralline algae, along with M. nanus. The coarse sand in the tidepools contained about 25% of the species, with the Cerithiidae having the largest number. A sample of beach drift contained 17 species, with Bittium aleutaceum and Rissoina (Phosinella) pura being most common. Most species, about 60%, were found in a variety of habitats, especially the marine flora; few species exhibited any habitat preferences. Biographically, Jeju Island is part of the Warm Temperate Northwest Pacific Province and the East China Sea ecoregion with a strong faunal affinity with southern Japan, eastern China, and northeastern Taiwan. Zonal-geographical groupings reveal that the fauna is mainly subtropical-low boreal, preferring moderately warm water, with a somewhat smaller number of tropical-subtropical species.

• Atmosphere
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.55-70
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• 2008

The global time slice approach is a transient experiment using high resolution atmosphere-only model with boundary condition from the low resolution globally coupled ocean-atmosphere model. The present study employs this "time slice concept" using ECHAM4 atmosphere-only model at a horizontal resolution of T106 with the lower boundary forcing obtained from a lower-resolution (T42) greenhouse gas + aerosol forcing experiment performed using the ECHO-G/S (ECHAM4/HOPE-G) coupled model. In order to assess the impact of horizontal resolution on simulated East Asian summer monsoon climate, the differences in climate response between the time slice experiments of the present and that of IPCC SRES AR4 participating 21 models including coarser (T30) coupled model are compared. The higher resolution model from time slice experiment in the present climate show successful performance in simulating the northward migration and the location of the maximum rainfall during the rainy season over East Asia, although its rainfall amount was somewhat weak compared to the observation. Based on the present climate simulation, the possible change of East Asian summer monsoon rainfall in the future climate by the IPCC SRES A1B scenario, tends to be increased especially over the eastern part of Japan during July and September. The increase of the precipitation over this region seems to be related with the weakening of northwestern part of North Pacific High and the formation of anticyclonic flow over the south of Yangtze River in the future climate.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.2419-2423
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• 2015

Background: There are few choices for treatment of advanced cancer patients who do not respond to or tolerate conventional anti-cancer treatments. Therefore this study aimed to deploy the benefits and clinical efficacy of continuous dendritic cell-cytokine induced killer cell infusions in such patients. Materials and Methods: A total of 381 infusions (from 67 advanced cases recruited) were included in this study. All patients underwent peripheral blood mononuclear cell apheresis for the following cellular therapy and dendritic cells-cytokine induced killer cells were expanded in vitro. Peripheral blood T lymphocyte subsets were quantified through flow cytometry to address the cellular immunity status. Clinical efficacy and physical activities were evaluated by RECIST criteria and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group scores respectively. Logistic regression model was used to estimate the association between cellular infusions and clinical benefits. Results: An average of $5.7{\pm}2.94{\times}10^9$ induced cells were infused each time and patients were exposed to 6 infusions. Cellular immunity was improved in that cytotoxic $CD8^+CD28^+$ T lymphocytes were increased by 74% and suppressive $CD8^+CD28^-$ T lymphocytes were elevated by 16% (p<0.05). Continuous infusion of dendritic cells-cytokine induced killer cells was associated with improvement of both patient status and cellular immunity. A median of six infusions were capable of reducing risk of progression by 70% (95%CI 0.10-0.91). Every elevation of one ECOG score corresponded to a 3.90-fold higher progression risk (p<0.05) and 1% increase of $CD8^+CD28^-$ T cell proportion reflecting a 5% higher risk of progression (p<0.05). Conclusions: In advanced cancer patients, continuous dendritic cell-cytokine induced killer cell infusions are capable of recovering cellular immunity, improving patient status and quality of life in those who are unresponsive to conventional cancer treatment.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.9.1-9.7
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• 2018

To establish a comprehensive management strategy, as part of the optimization of cultural practice for an oyster rack culture system, we used a numerical model to estimate the primary production in the waters on the eastern coast of Wando island, South Korea. The estimated primary production ranged from 17.12 to $1052.55mgC\;m^{-2}day^{-1}$ ($204.22{\pm}224.75mgC\;m^{-2}day^{-1}$ in average). Except for the times of peak phytoplankton blooms, the estimated primary production (PP) was consistently under $200mgC\;m^{-2}day^{-1}$, which is more similar to the value of PP measured off the western coast of South Korea than the southern coast. No clear relationship was observed between nitrogen content and rainfall with the exception of heavy rainfall events, indicating that precipitation might not be the main source of nutrients in these waters. No clear influence was observed from Doam tidal discharge, located 24 km north from these waters due to main tide comes in this area from the channel between Gunwe-myeon in Wando island and Pukpyeong-myeon in Haenam-gun. Because of the shallow water depth and strong tidal current, resuspension of sediments, which causes an input of nitrogen into the system, could be easily caused by even mild wind and the infrequent passing of ships. Microscopic examination of the phytoplankton composition showed additional contribution of benthic species such as Paralia sulcata into the waters, which increase the productivity of oyster farms in the waters. The availability of nitrate and phosphate for primary production was temporarily limited throughout most of the spring and autumn blooming season.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.34 no.7
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• pp.662-668
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• 2013

We examine the effects of El Ni$\tilde{n}$o on tropospheric ozone through the simulation of a Climate-Chemistry model for a 40-year period (1971-2010). The Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis reveals that the tropospheric ozone concentration in the central-eastern Pacific decreases when the El Ni$\tilde{n}$o occurs, which is consistent with the observation. However, the increase of ozone over Indian Ocean-Indonesia regions is weak in the simulation compared to the observations. We analyze details of the 2006 El Ni$\tilde{n}$o event to understand the mechanism that caused the change of ozone due to El Ni$\tilde{n}$o. It is found that enhanced convection as well as higher water vapor followed by shortened lifetime has led to lower the tropospheric ozone. Downward motion induced by the changes of atmospheric circulation due to sea surface temperature forcing, together with the decrease of water vapor, has brought ozone produced in the upper troposphere over the Indian Ocean.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.339-347
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• 2009

It is possible to obtain accurate temperature and salinity profiles of the oceans using a SBE 911plus CTD and accompanying data conversion packages. To obtain highly accurate results, CTD data needs to be carefully processed in addition to proper and regular maintenance of the CTD itself. Since the manufacturer of the CTD provides tools that are necessary for post processing, it is possible to conduct proper processing without too much effort. Some users, however, are not familiar with all of the processes and inadvertently ignore some of these processes at the expense of data quality. To draw attention to these and other similar issues, we show how it is possible to improve data quality by utilizing a few extra processes to the standard or default data process procedures with CTD data obtained from the equatorial Eastern Pacific between 2001 and 2005, and 2007. One easy step that is often ignored in the standard data process procedure is "wild edit", which removes abnormal values from the raw data. If those abnormal values are not removed, the abnormality could spread vertically during subsequent processes and produce abnormal salinity in a range much wider than that of the raw data. To remove spikes in salinity profiles the "align CTD" procedure must be carried out not with the default values included in the data processing software but with a proper time constant. Only when "cell thermal mass" correction is conducted with optimal parameters, we can reduce the difference between upcast and downcast, and obtain results that can satisfy the nominal accuracy of the CTD.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.268-281
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• 2023

Coral reef fisheries are prominent for the archipelagic countries' food sufficiency and security. Studies showed that fish abundance and biomass are affected by biophysical variables. The present study determines which biophysical variables are important predictors of fish diversity, abundance, and biomass. The study used available monitoring data from the Indonesian Research Center for Oceanography, the National Board for Research and Innovation. Data were collected from 245 transects in 19 locations distributed across the Indonesian Archipelago, including the eastern Indian Ocean, Sunda Shelf (Karimata Sea), Wallacea (Flores and Banda Seas), and the western Pacific Ocean. Principal component analysis and multiple regression model were administered to 13 biophysical metrics against 11 variables of coral reef fishes, i.e., diversity, abundance, and biomass of coral reef fishes at three trophic levels. The results showed for the first time that the covers of other fauna, coral rubbles, and soft corals were the three most important predictor variables for nearly all coral reef fish variables. Other fauna cover was the important predictor for all 11 coral reef fish variables. Coral rubble cover was the predictor for ten variables, but carnivore fish abundance. Soft coral cover was a good predictor for corallivore, carnivore, and targeted fishes. Despite important predictors for corallivore and carnivore fish variables, hard coral cover was not the critical predictor for herbivore fish variables. The other important predictor variables with a consistent pattern were dead coral covered with algae and rocks. Dead coral covered with algae was an important predictor for herbivore fishes, while the rock was good for only carnivore fishes.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.1-17
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• 2015

This study compares the most widely used parametric and non-parametric techniques to measure cost and profit efficiency of banks, namely the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). We formulate the specification form of both stochastic cost and profit frontier models and constant return to scale Cost DEA and Profit DEA models and provide an empirical assessment of the cost and profit frontiers based on a panel dataset of National Commercial Banks (NCBs) and Private Banks (PBs) in Bangladesh over the 2001-2010 period. The cost inefficiency and profit efficiency are slightly higher for PBs than NCBs in case of both SFA and DEA. The coefficients of advance and off-balance sheet items are significant that positively influence the banks in stochastic cost frontier model while the advance, other earning assets, price of borrowed fund are significant and negative effects on the banks in stochastic profit frontier model. The average cost inefficiency and average profit efficiency are recorded with 16.3% and 91% respectively. The highest and lowest cost inefficiency are observed for Janata Bank and United Commercial Bank Limited whilst the highest and lowest profit efficiency are recorded for Eastern Bank Limited and Janata Bank respectively. The average technical and allocative efficiency are 68.8% and 35.9%, respectively in case of CRS cost-DEA model whereas they are 70.3% and 31.8% in case of CRS profit-DEA model. The average cost inefficiency is recorded 6.3% by SFA whereas it is 24.5% by DEA. The average profit efficiency is found 91% by SFA while it is 22.1% by DEA, and SFA method shows better bank efficiency than DEA.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.383-390
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to show distribution pattern of comfortable Indoor-Temperature in South Korea based on 10-days normal data(June 3rd, July 2nd, August 1st). Comfortable Indoor-Temperature values and Heat flow equation values for the 68 stations are constructed to show how man tend to feel in various areas. In the early summer, comfortable Indoor-Temperature is very low in Taegwallong regions and the Southern interior regions due to the influence of the orographic effects or the altitude. In the hot summer, All regions except Taegwallong and Central interior regions have been the high value. These are largely derived from the low Clo-values due to the stable weather with the highest insolation, humidity and strong radiation heat by the North Pacific Anticyclone appears in Eastern Asia.