• Journal of the Korean Academy of Clinical Electrophysiology
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.43-48
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• 2009

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to study the effect of rectus abdominal muscle contraction by proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation trunk stabilization training using extremity simultaneous pattern (PNF trunk stabilization training) and traditional trunk stabilization training methods. Methods : A group of 24 adults male and female, healthy, with no previous medical history nor disability in neuromuscular system and musculoskeletal system was chosen as subjects, and was divided into a control group, a PNF trunk stabilization training group and a traditional trunk stabilization training group. Experiments were performed on the last two groups, 3 times a week for 6 weeks, totaling 18 times. Using a dynamometer, muscle strength and endurance time on trunk flexion were measured before and after each experiment, and surface electromyography in left and right rectus abdominis were measured. Results : following results were obtained; 1. As for the change in the maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC), all subjects in the trunk stabilization training group showed significant difference from those in the control group. 2. As for surface electromyography measurement and the changes in root mean square at the time of trunk flexion, in the left rectus abdominis, PNF trunk stabilization training group showed significant difference from the control group, while in the right rectus abdominis, traditional trunk stabilization training group showed significant difference. Conclusion : To sum up the results, both trunk stabilization training groups showed improvement in the MVIC of abdominal muscle, motor unit action potential activity, but the difference between two trunk stabilization training groups was not significant. Therefore, while trunk stabilization training significantly improved abdominal muscle contraction, but the difference attributable to training methods was found to be insignificant.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.611-622
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• 2016

Particle morphology change and different experimental condition analysis during composite fabrication process by traditional ball milling with discrete element method (DEM) simulation were investigated. A simulation of the three dimensional motion of balls in a traditional ball mill for research on the grinding mechanism was carried out by DEM simulation. We studied the motion of the balls, the ball behavior energy and velocity; the forces acting on the balls were calculated using traditional ball milling as simulated by DEM. The effect of the operational variables such as the rotational speed, ball material and size on the flow velocity, collision force and total impact energy were analyzed. The results showed that increased rotation speed with interaction impact energy between balls and balls, balls and pots and walls and balls. The rotation speed increases with an increase of the impact energy. Experiments were conducted to quantify the grinding performance under the same conditions. Furthermore, the results showed that ball motion affects the particle morphology, which changed from irregular type to plate type with increasing rotation speed. The evolution was also found to depend on the impact energy increase of the grinding media. These findings are useful to understand and optimize the particle motion and grinding behavior of traditional ball mills.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.28-33
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• 2014

Background: Panax notoginseng has been used as a general tonic agent to invigorate human body for millennia in China and continued to be used until present. Methods: Some chromatographic methods were performed to isolate pure triterpenoids, and their structures were determined by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments. Anti-diabetes activities of isolated compounds were evaluated through their inhibitory activity of protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B) enzyme. Results and Conclusion: Three new dammarane-type triterpenoids, notoginsenoside-LX (1), notoginsenoside-LY (2), and notoginsenoside-FZ (3) together with eighteen known compounds were isolated from the Panax notoginseng leaves. The structure-activity relationship of the compounds with dammaranetype triterpenoids and their PTP1B inhibitory activity were also reported. Results showed that compounds 2, 15, 20, and 21 can significantly inhibit the enzyme activity of PTP1B in a dose-dependent manner, with inhibitory concentration 50 ($IC_{50}$) values of $29.08{\mu}M$, $21.27{\mu}M$, $28.12{\mu}M$, and $26.59{\mu}M$, respectively. The results suggested that Panax notoginseng leaves might have potential as a new therapeutic agent for the treatment of diabetes.

• Journal of Conservation Science
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.39-47
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• 2009

This paper reports a study on physical properties of the traditional adhesives for developing natural adhesives. This is to certify that the superiority of tradition through systematic surveys and experiments as well. We used three kinds of starches differing fermentation time(7 years, 4 years 8 months, and 2 years 8 months) which are fermented from wheat flour starches. The amylose contents, total sugar contents, crystallinity, particle size and shape, viscosity, pH, and adhesive strength were examined. The effect of fermentation time on physical properties of fermented wheat flour were studied. It was found that fermentation time effect various physical properties such as total sugar contents, amylose contents, crystallinity, viscosity, and so on.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.294-303
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• 2016

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the profitability of four selective mechanization systems in rice cultivation. Methods: Field experiments were conducted in the farmers' field during the wet season (June to November) of 2015 in Bangladesh. Mechanization systems were applied to evaluate four different selective levels (treatment) in eleven consequent operations. Seedlings were raised in a traditional seedbed and trays for manual and mechanical transplanting, respectively. Land preparation, irrigation, fertilizer, pesticide, carrying, and threshing and cleaning operations were performed using the same method in all the experimental plots. The mechanical options in the transplanting, weeding, and harvesting operations were changed. The mechanization systems were $S_1$ = hand transplanting + hand weeding + harvesting by sickle, $S_2$ = mechanical transplanting + Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) weeder + reaper, $S_3$ = mechanical transplanting + BRRI power weeder + reaper, and $S_4$ = mechanical transplanting + herbicide + reaper. This experiment was performed in a randomized complete block design with four replications. Power tiller, rice transplanter, BRRI weeder, BRRI power weeder, self-propelled reaper, BRRI open drum thresher, and BRRI winnower were used in the respective operations. Accordingly, the techno-economic performances of the different technologies were calculated and compared with those of the traditional system. Results: The mechanically transplanted plot produced 6-10% more yield than the hand transplanted plot because of the use of tender-aged seedlings. Mechanical transplanting reduced 61% labor and 18% cost compared to manual transplanting. The BRRI weeder, BRRI power weeder, and herbicide application reduced 74, 91, and 98% labor, respectively. The latter also saved 72, 63, and 82% cost, respectively, compared to hand weeding. Herbicide application reduced the substantial amount of labor and cost in the weeding operation. Mechanical harvesting also saved 96% labor and 72% cost compared to the traditional method of harvesting using sickle. Selective mechanization saved 15-17% input cost compared to the traditional method of rice cultivation. Conclusions: Mechanical transplanting with the safe use of herbicide and harvesting by reaper is the most cost- and labor-saving operation. The method might be the recommended set of selective mechanization for enhancing productivity.

• English & American cultural studies
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.129-162
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• 2017

Ruth Ozeki(Japanese-American female novelist)?s recent novel, A Tale for the Time Being (2013) draws our attention because the fiction shows very interesting fictional experiments, especially in terms of post-humanism. Indeed, the novel is not a science fiction at all which has been, and still is, the typical fictional field employed in the discussion for the transhumanism and posthumanism. It also does not include any cybogs, robots, or aliens which provoke the posthumanism-related issues like mind/body, human/nonhuman, nature/culture relations. Indeed, it seems "merely" represent realistic day-to-day lives of ordinary people living in contemporary Japan and Canada, and in very minute and particular details at that. Indeed, the central action of the main characters of the novel seems very traditional, that is on the one hand writing a diary by a teenage girl who is counting the days and weeks before her suicide and on the other hand reading it by a female novelist who happens to find her diary several years later. Nevertheless, I would like to suggest that underneath this traditional narrative surface are simmering post-humanist and post-anthropocentric worldviews beyond liberal Humanism which takes human beings to be exceptional against human or non-human others. Not only in narrative contents and characterizations but also through narrative structure and strategies, the novel enacts post-humanist and post-anthropocentric worldviews which are interestingly drawn from both age-old Buddhist ideas and modern eco-philosophy and quantum physics. I would like to stress that what triggers the author's fictional experiments helping our rethinking and redefining "what human beings are" and "what the relation between humans and nonhumans" is not merely intellectual interests but her keen and passionate response to the heart-breaking pains and sufferings of human and nonhuman beings caused by the contemporary natural-artificial catastrophes and techno-scientific predicaments.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.195-206
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• 2022

Crack detection is essential for inspection of existing structures and crack segmentation based on deep learning is a significant solution. However, datasets are usually one of the key issues. When building a new dataset for deep learning, laborious and time-consuming annotation of a large number of crack images is an obstacle. The aim of this study is to develop an approach that can automatically select a small portion of the most informative crack images from a large pool in order to annotate them, not to label all crack images. An active learning method with difficulty learning mechanism for crack segmentation tasks is proposed. Experiments are carried out on a crack image dataset of a steel box girder, which contains 500 images of 320×320 size for training, 100 for validation, and 190 for testing. In active learning experiments, the 500 images for training are acted as unlabeled image. The acquisition function in our method is compared with traditional acquisition functions, i.e., Query-By-Committee (QBC), Entropy, and Core-set. Further, comparisons are made on four common segmentation networks: U-Net, DeepLabV3, Feature Pyramid Network (FPN), and PSPNet. The results show that when training occurs with 200 (40%) of the most informative crack images that are selected by our method, the four segmentation networks can achieve 92%-95% of the obtained performance when training takes place with 500 (100%) crack images. The acquisition function in our method shows more accurate measurements of informativeness for unlabeled crack images compared to the four traditional acquisition functions at most active learning stages. Our method can select the most informative images for annotation from many unlabeled crack images automatically and accurately. Additionally, the dataset built after selecting 40% of all crack images can support crack segmentation networks that perform more than 92% when all the images are used.

• The Korea Journal of Herbology
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.39-47
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• 2024

Objectives : This study evaluates how various traditional Korean herbal medicines assess MUC5AC expression for esophageal mucosal defense and analyzes the associated mechanisms involved in inflammation. Methods : Forty types of traditional Korean herbal medicines were assessed for in vitro antioxidant activities, and the real-time PCR method was employed to analyze MUC5AC expression under pH 4.5 conditions in human esophageal epithelial cells (HET-1A). Eight types of Korean herbal medicines were evaluated for in vitro antioxidant activities, and Reactive oxygen specise (ROS) expression was analyzed under bile salt (480 𝜇M) and pH 5.5 conditions in human esophageal epithelial cells (HET-1A). Simulation experiments involving bile salts and acidity were conducted for one hour to assess the efficacy of four drugs, and the activities of Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase (MEK), Nuclear Factor Kappa B (NF-𝜅B), and Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) were detected through Western blot analysis. Results : Compared to the Normal group, the Control group exhibited higher ROS generation. Such increased ROS levels were significantly reduced by four extracts: Citrus Unshius Pericarpium (CUP), Cnidium officinale Rhizoma (CR), Ginseng Radix (GR), and Linderae Radix (LR). The protein expression of COX-2 decreased with the treatment of LR, CUP, and CR. Particularly, CUP and CR exhibited superior effects compared to other groups in inhibiting the phosphorylation of NF-𝜅B. Conclusion : Based on the results obtained, we have identified drugs that inhibit oxidative stress and inflammation caused by bile acid in esophageal epithelial cells. Our future plans involve comparing and analyzing the efficacy of these herbal medicines through animal experiments.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.105-114
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• 1996

Certain Fungi Including Aspergillus flavus produce low molecular secondary metabolite that is toxic to human and animals, which have been termed mycotoxin. Given the proper humidity and temperature like summer in Korea, are capable of growing of those hazard fungi and elaborating mycotoxin on almost any organic substrate such as traditional foodstuffs and their raw materials including rice, barley, corn, meju, doenjang and gochujang etc. Until now, some people have examined to isolate various fungi such as Aspergillus sp., Penicillium sp. and Fusarium sp. from traditional foodstuffs and raw materials, and have screened various mycotoxin producing strains. Some mycotoxin contamination such as aflatoxin, ochratoxin, deoxynivalenol (DON) and zearalenone etc. also have been confirmed from similar above samples. But these data are different each other and inconsistent in experimental conditions and methods. Especially, almost experiments have been finished for one time. So more consistent experimental method and data are necessary to evaluate objectiely the safety of traditional foodstuffs subjected to the mycotoxin. For this purpose, we have to apply a new advanced technology to develop more simple and rapid methods for determination of mycotoxin and also have to concentrate our efforts on activation of research and accumulation of technology nth sustaining investment of financial support and enlargement of research installation. With those harmonious efforts, it should be possible to examine continuously nd systematically the mycotoxin contamination in our traditional foodstuffs and to assure the safety of them. Then we can maintain and develop the better traditional foodstuffs suited to internationalization.

• Design & Manufacturing
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.7-11
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• 2007

The fabrication of precision optical components by deterministic CNC grinding is an area of great current interest. Replacement of the traditional, craftsman driven, optical fabrication process is essential to reduce costs and increase process flexibility and reliability. Moreover, CNC grinding is well suited to the fabrication of complex shapes such as aspheres, making it possible to design optical systems with fewer components and reduced weight. Current technology is capable of producing surfaces with less than 2 microns peak to valley error, 50 nm rms surface roughness, and less than 1 micron subsurface damage. Bound abrasive tools, in which the abrasive particles are fixed in a second (matrix) material, play an important part in achieving this performance. In this paper, the factors affecting the ultra-fine surface roughness and profile accuracy of machined surfaces of aspheric parts has been analyzed experimentally and theoretically and on ultra-precision aspheric grinding system and precise adjusting mechanism have been designed and manufactured. In the paper we report the results of experiments and modeling performed to examine the effects of machinability, occurring during grinding of optical surfaces, on the tool surface profile. Profiles of machined surface were measured by using SEM. In order to optimize grinding conditions of aspheric lens processing, we performed experiments by design of experiments.