• Speech Sciences
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.91-102
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• 1998

The present study attempted to modify the conventional Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT) in three aspects: number of syllables of adjacent target utterances (ATU), melody patterns of ATU, and initial listening of melody and intoned speech with the eyes closed. The modified Melodic Intonation Therapy (MMIT) was applied to two severe Korean aphasics. The patients exhibited a severely nonfluent aphasia resulting from a left CVA(Cerebrovascular Accident). The purpose of the modification was to avoid perseveration and improve reflective listening skills. First, the treatment program avoided ATU with the same number of syllables. Second, four different patterns of melody were developed: rising type, falling type, V-type, and inverted V-type. One type of prosodic pattern was preceded and followed by another type of melody. These two variations were to decrease perseverative behaviors. Finally, the patients kept their eyes closed when the clinician played and hummed a target melody at the initial stage of the program in order to improve reflective listening skills. A single-subject alternating treatment design was used. The effects of MMIT were compared to the conventional MIT. Differing the number of syllables and the type of melodic patterns decreased perseverative behaviors and produced more correct names. The initial listening of the target melody with the patients' eyes closed seemed to increase their attentiveness and result in a more fluent production of target utterances. Probable reasons for the effectiveness of MMIT were discussed.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.164-170
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• 2017

One of the methods to consider the effect of respiratory motion of a tumor target in radiotherapy is to establish a treatment plan with the internal target volume (ITV) created based on an accurate analysis of the target motion displacement. When this method is applied to intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), it is expected to yield a different treatment dose distribution under the motion condition according to the IMRT method. In this study, we prepared ITV-based IMRT plans with conventional IMRT using fixed gantry angle beams, RapidArc using volumetric modulated arc therapy, and tomotherapy using helical therapy. Then, the variation in dose distribution caused by the target motion was analyzed by the dose measurement in the actual motion condition. A delivery quality assurance plan was prepared for the established IMRT plan and the dose distribution in the actual motion condition was measured and analyzed using a two-dimensional diode detector placed on a moving phantom capable of simulating breathing movements. The dose measurement was performed considering only a uniform target shape and motion in the superior-inferior (SI) direction. In this condition, it was confirmed that the error of the dose distribution due to the target motion is minimum in tomotherapy. This is thought to be due to the characteristic of tomotherapy that treats the target sequentially by dividing it into several slices. When the target shape is uniform and the main target motion direction is SI, it is considered that tomotherapy for the ITV-based IMRT method has a characteristic which can reduce the dose difference compared with the plan dose under the target motion condition.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.493-508
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• 2023

Round timber materials of 600 mm length, cut from large-cross-section round timber of red pine (Pinus densiflora S. et Z.) of 450 mm width and 4.2 m length, were prepared as the target of kiln drying in this study. After treating the target materials through end sealing (ES), end sealing - kerfing (ES-K), lateral sealing - end sealing - boring (LS-ES-B), or lateral sealing - partial end sealing (LS-PES), the effects of the treatment on the incidence of drying defects were determined. The target materials with exposed lateral surface and sealed cross surface were steamed at the initial temperature of 65℃ above the official pest control temperature of 56℃, followed by kiln drying toward the final temperature of 75℃. The target materials with sealed lateral surfaces, on the other hand, were dried at the initial temperature of 90℃ at almost the maximum temperature of conventional kiln drying, as there is no risk of early check formation caused by surface moisture evaporation. The final temperature was set at approximately 100℃. The drying time, taken for the target materials with initial moisture content of 70%-80% to reach the target moisture content of 19%, varied across treatment conditions. The measured drying time was 1,146 hours (approximately 48 days) for the timber with sealed cross surface and 745 hours (approximately 31 days) for the timber with sealed lateral surface, until the moisture content reached the target level. The formation of surface checks could not be prevented in the control and ES groups, but a definite preventive effect was obtained for the LS-ES-B and LS-PES groups.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.61-67
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• 2013

Thin film solar cells have attracted much attention due to their high cell efficiency, comparatively low process cost, and applicability to flexible substrates. In particular, CIGS solar cells have been widely studied and produced because they demonstrated the highest cell efficiency. However, the deposition process of CIGS films generally includes the selenization process conducted at elevated temperature using toxic $H_2Se$ gas. To avoid this selenization process, CIGS thin films were, in this study, deposited by RF sputtering using single composite CIGS target. In addition, the effects of sputtering bias voltage and heat treatment on the microstructural and morphological changes in deposited CIGS films were investigated and discussed.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.923-931
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• 2013

Rapamycin, known as an inhibitor of Target of Rapamycin (TOR), is an immunosuppressant drug used to prevent rejection in organ transplantation. Despite the close association of the TOR signaling cascade with various scopes of metabolism, it has not yet been thoroughly investigated at the metabolome level. In our current study, we applied mass spectrometric analysis for profiling primary metabolism in order to capture the responsive dynamics of the Chlamydomonas metabolome to the inhibition of TOR by rapamycin. Accordingly, we identified the impact of the rapamycin treatment at the level of metabolomic phenotypes that were clearly distinguished by multivariate statistical analysis. Pathway analysis pinpointed that inactivation of the TCA cycle was accompanied by the inhibition of cellular growth. Relative to the constant suppression of the TCA cycle, most amino acids were significantly increased in a time-dependent manner by longer exposure to rapamycin treatment, after an initial down-regulation at the early stage of exposure. Finally, we explored the isolation of the responsive metabolic factors into the rapamycin treatment and the culture duration, respectively.

• Journal of Digestive Cancer Research
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.45-49
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• 2018

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cause of cancer-related death in the world. Although the long-term outcome of patients with metastatic CRC is still poor, target therapy including anti EGFR agents and anti VEGF agents and immunotherapy including anti PD-1 antibody and anti CTLA-4 antibody have shown clinical benefits in the treatment of patient with metastatic CRC. In the future, the personalized treatment strategy based on the clinical characteristics and biologic features of patients with metastatic CRC will be necessary. In this review, we summarized the mechanisms and clinical evidences of target therapy and immunotherapy, and the guideline of clinical practice in patients with metastatic CRC.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.18-23
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• 2016

Depression is a complicated psychiatric illness with severe consequences. Despite recent advanced achievements of molecular neurobiology, pathophysiology of depression has not been well elucidated. Among new findings of pathophysiology of depression, the possible fast antidepressant effect by N-methyl-D-asparate receptor antagonist, such as ketamine, is regarded as a promising treatment target of depression. Ketamine stimulates the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway and activation of mTOR signaling pathway may be a key mechanism of the antidepressant effect of ketamine. Thus, this review describes the role of mTOR signaling in the pathophysiology of depression and developing a new treatment target of depression.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.181-189
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• 2017

The conventional delivery quality assurance (DQA) process for RapidArc (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, USA), has the limitation that it measures and analyzes the dose in a phantom material and cannot analyze the dosimetric changes under the motional organ condition. In this study, a DQA method was designed to overcome the limitations of the conventional DQA process for internal target volume (ITV) based RapidArc. The dynamic DQA measurement device was designed with a moving phantom that can simulate variable target motions. The dose distribution in the real volume of the target and organ-at-risk (OAR)s were reconstructed using 3DVH with the ArcCHECK (SunNuclear, Melbourne, USA) measurement data under the dynamic condition. A total of 10 ITV-based RapidArc plans for liver-cancer patients were analyzed with the designed dynamic DQA process. The average pass rate of gamma evaluation was $81.55{\pm}9.48%$ when the DQA dose was measured in the respiratory moving condition of the patient. Appropriate method was applied to correct the effect of moving phantom structures in the dose calculation, and DVH data of the real volume of target and OARs were created with the recalculated dose by the 3DVH program. We confirmed the valid dose coverage of a real target volume in the ITV-based RapidArc. The variable difference of the DVH of the OARs showed that dose variation can occur differently according to the location, shape, size and motion range of the target. The DQA process devised in this study can effectively evaluate the DVH of the real volume of the target and OARs in a respiratory moving condition in addition to the simple verification of the accuracy of the treatment machine. This can be helpful to predict the prognosis of treatment by the accurate dose analysis in the real target and OARs.

• Journal of Medicine and Life Science
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.79-89
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• 2022

Whereas systolic blood pressure (SBP) continuously rises with age, diastolic blood pressure (DBP) gradually decreases after the age of 55 years. Therefore, hypertension in the elderly shows the pattern of isolated systolic hypertension. There is evidence on the benefits of controlling blood pressure (BP) in elderly patients with hypertension. The BP lowering effect has also been demonstrated in patients over 80 years of age with hypertension. The BP threshold for the initiation of antihypertensive drug treatment for older adults with hypertension is gradually decreasing. The antihypertensive treatment is recommended if, despite therapeutic lifestyle modifications, SBP ≥140 mmHg or DBP ≥90 mmHg in those aged 65-79 years old, and SBP ≥140-160 mmHg or DBP ≥90 mmHg in those aged ≥80 years old. Although there is no consensus on the target BP for older adults with hypertension, a target SBP of <130-140 mmHg and DBP of <80-90 mmHg are recommended. In older adults over 80 years of age with hypertension, the target SBP is <140-150 mmHg. When the dose of antihypertensive drugs is increased to reach the target SBP, DBP may decrease to less than 70 mmHg, but it should not be <60 mmHg. Thiazide diuretics, calcium channel blockers, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, or angiotensin receptor blockers can be selected as the first-line drug for older adults with hypertension. Beta-blockers may be selected in case of compelling indications.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.403-409
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• 1995

Purpose : Authors tried to enhance the safety and accuracy of radiosurgery by verifying stereotacitc target point in actual treatment position prior to irradiation. Materials and Methods : Before the actual treatment, several sections of anthropomorphic head phantom were used to create a condition of unknown coordinates of the target point. A film was sandwitched between the phantom sections and punctured by sharp needle tip. The tip of the needle represented the target point. The head phantom was fixed to the stereotactic ring and CT scan was done with CT localizer attached to the ring. After the CT scanning, the stereotactic coordinates of the target point were determined. The head phantom was secured to accelerator's treatment couch and the movement of laser isocenter to the stereotactic coordinates determined by CT scanning was performed using target positioner. Accelerator's anteroposterior and lateral portal films were taken using angiographic localizers. The stereotactic coordinates determined by analysis of portal films were compared with the stereotactic coordinates previously determined by CT scanning. Following the correction of discrepancy the head phantom was irradiated using a stereotactic technique of several arcs. After the irradiation, the film which was sandwitched between the phantom sections was developed and the degree of coincidence between the center of the radiation distribution with the target point represented by the hole in the film was measured. In the treatment of the actual patients, the way of determining the stereotactic coordinates with CT localizers and angiograuhic localizers was the same as the phantom study. After the correction of the discrepancy between two sets of coordinates, we proceeded to the irradiation of the actual patient. Results : In the phantom study, the agreement between the center of the radiation distribution and the localized target point was very good. By measuring optical density profiles of the sandwitched film along axes that intersected the target point, authors could confirm the discrepancy was 0.3 mm. In the treatment of an actual patient, the discrepancy between the stereotactic coordinates with CT localizers and angiographic localizers was 0.6 mm. Conclusion : By verifying stereotactic target point in actual treatment position prior to irradiation, the accuracy and safety of streotactic radiosurgery procedure were established.