• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.323-333
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• 2016

Background: Ovarian cancer remains a major worldwide health care issue due to the lack of satisfactory diagnostic methods for early detection of the disease. Prior studies on the role of serum cancer antigen 125 (CA125) and human epididymis protein 4 (HE4) in detecting ovarian cancer presented conflicting results. New tools to improve the accuracy of identifying malignancy are urgently needed. We here aimed to evaluate the diagnostic utility of tissue CA125 and HE4 gene expression in comparison to serum CA125 and HE4 in discriminating benign from malignant pelvic masses. Materials and Methods: One-hundred Egyptian women were enrolled in this study, including 60 epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) patients and 20 benign ovarian tumor patients, as well as 20 apparently healthy women. Preoperative serum levels of CA125 and HE4 were measured by immunoassays. Tissue expression levels of genes encoding CA125 and HE4 were determined by quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The diagnostic performance of CA125 and HE4, measured either as mRNA or protein levels, was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results: The serum CA125+HE4 combination and serum HE4, with area under the curve (AUC) values of 0.935 and 0.932, respectively, performed significantly better than serum CA125 (AUC=0.592; P<0.001). Tissue CA125 and HE4 (AUC=1) performed significantly better than serum CA125 (P<0.001), serum HE4 (P=0.016) and the serum CA125+HE4 combination (P=0.018). Conclusions: Measurement of tissue CA125 and HE4 gene expression not only improves discriminatory performance, but also broadens the range of differential diagnostic possibilities in distinguishing EOC from benign ovarian tumors.

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.60-67
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• 2008

We present domestic efforts for superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) application in the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) grid and pending points at issue. KEPCO's decision to upgrade the 154 kV/22.9 kV main transformer from 60 MVA to 100 MVA cast a problem of high fault current in the 22.9 kV distribution lines. The grid planners supported adopting an SFCL to control the fault current. This environment friendly to SFCL application must be highly dependent upon the successful development of SFCL having specifications that domestic utility required. The required conditions are (1) small size of not greater than twice of 22.9 kV gas insulated switch-gear (GIS), (2) sustainability of current limitation without the line breaking by circuit breakers (CB) for maximum 1.5 seconds. Also, optionally, recommended is (3) the reclosing capability. Conventional resistive SFCLs do not meet (1) $\sim$ (3) all together. A hybrid SFCL is an excellent solution to meet the conditions. The hybrid SFCL consists of HTS SFCL components for fault detection and line commutation, a fast switch (FS) to break the primary path, and a limiter. This characteristic structure not only enables excellent current limiting performances and the reclosing capability, but also allows drastic reduction of HTS volume and small size of the cryostat, resulting in economic feasibility and compactness of the equipment. External current limiter also enables long term limitation since it is far less sensitive to heat generation than HTS. Semi-active operation is another advantage of the hybrid structure. We will discuss more pending points at issues such as maintenance-free long term operation, small size to accommodate the in-house substation, passive and active control, back-up plans, diagnosis, and so on.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.139-144
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• 2014

Purpose: Detection and determination of tendon injury in the finger or hand is not easy. Therefore, we aimed to study and evaluate the accuracy and the effectiveness of ultrasonography for the diagnosis of finger tendon injury. Methods: In this study, we enrolled patients, regardless of age and sex, with lacerations on their fingers. Patients with invisible wounds were excluded. We evaluated the accuracy and the effectiveness of ultrasonography and compared the results obtained from ultrasonography and with those obtained by visual observation of the injuries. Results: The sensitivity, the specificity and the accuracy of ultrasonography were found to be 66.7%, 100% and 91.3%, respectively (p<0.001) while those of physical examination were 71.4%, 98.3% and 91.3%, respectively. Small differences were observed between the sensitivities and specificities of the two examinations; however, the accuracies were the same (p<0.001). The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, which was used for diagnosis of tendon rupture using ultrasonography, was found to be 0.985 (95% confidence interval CI: 0.929-0.999),while that of physical examination was 0.938 (95% CI: 0.861-0.980). Conclusion: Ultrasonography can be used an effective diagnostic tool for patients with finger tendon injury.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.6214-6242
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• 2019

Routing in mobile ad hoc networks is performed in a distributed fashion where each node acts as host and router, such that it forwards incoming packets for others without relying on a dedicated router. Nodes are mostly resource constraint and the users are usually inclined to conserve their resources and exhibit selfish behaviour by not contributing in the routing process. The trust and reputation models have been proposed to motivate selfish nodes for cooperation in the packet forwarding process. Nodes having bad trust or reputation are detected and secluded from the network, eventually. However, due to the lack of proper identity management and use of non-persistent identities in ad hoc networks, malicious nodes can pose various threats to these methods. For example, a malicious node can discard the bad reputed identity and enter into the system with another identity afresh, called whitewashing. Similarly, a malicious node may create more than one identity, called Sybil attack, for self-promotion, defame other nodes, and broadcast fake recommendations in the network. These identity-based attacks disrupt the overall detection of the reputation systems. In this paper, we propose a reputation-based scheme that detects selfish nodes and deters identity attacks. We address the issue in such a way that, for normal selfish nodes, it will become no longer advantageous to carry out a whitewash. Sybil attackers are also discouraged (i.e., on a single battery, they may create fewer identities). We design and analyse our rationale via game theory and evaluate our proposed reputation system using NS-2 simulator. The results obtained from the simulation demonstrate that our proposed technique considerably diminishes the throughput and utility of selfish nodes with a single identity and selfish nodes with multiple identities when compared to the benchmark scheme.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.170-175
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• 2009

In this paper, we propose real time automatic speaker verification (ASV) system to protect personal information on personal digital assistant (PDA) device. Recently, the capacity of PDA has extended and been popular, especially for mobile environment such as mobile commerce (M-commerce). However, there still exist lots of difficulties for practical application of ASV utility to PDA device because it requires too much computational complexity. To solve this problem, we apply the method to relieve the computational burden by performing the preprocessing such as spectral subtraction and speech detection during the speech utterance. Also by applying the hidden Markov model (HMM) optimal state alignment and the sequential probability ratio test (SPRT), we can get much faster processing results. The whole system implementation is simple and compact enough to fit well with PDA device's limited memory and low CPU speed.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.393-400
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• 2007

Analysis of protein interactions/functions in a microarray format has been of great potential in drug discovery, diagnostics, and cell biology, because it is amenable to large-scale and high-throughput biological assays in a rapid and economical way. In recent years, the protein microarray have broaden their utility towards the global analysis of protein interactions on a proteome scale, the functional activity analysis based on protein interactions and post-translational modifications (PTMs), and the discovery of biomarkers through profiling of protein expression between sample and reference pool. As a promising tool for proteomics, the protein microarray technology has advanced outstandingly over the past decade in terms of surface chemistry, acquisition of relevant proteins on a proteomic level, and detection methods. In this article, we briefly describe various techniques for development of protein microarray, and introduce developmental state of protein microarray and its applications.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.93-100
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• 1990

To evaluate the utility of autoradiographic technique in the detection of TRH receptor changes in brain after the various kinds of stimulation or drug administration, we tried the characterization of TRH receptor in mouse brain and autoradiography in rat brain as a preliminary study. The Kd value of [3-H] MeTRH to TRH receptors of adult male ICR mouse brain (cebellum and spinal cord were excluded) was 3.55+0.6 nM and Bmax was 3.44+0.52 fmol/mg wet tissue by saturation analysis. The Kd value of TRH to TRH receptors was 133.8+28.2 nM by competition analysis. And we could visualize the distribution of TRH receptors in rat brain by autoradiographic technique.

• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.77.1-77.10
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• 2021

Background: Serum-based parameters are considered non-invasive biomarkers for cancer detection. In human studies, insulin-like growth factor-I and II (IGF-I and IGF-II) and insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) are useful as diagnostic or prognostic markers and potential therapeutic targets. Objectives: This study examined the diagnostic utility of circulating IGF-I, IGF-II, and IGFBP-3 levels in healthy dogs and dogs with tumors. Methods: The serum concentrations of these biomarkers in 86 dogs with tumors were compared with those in 30 healthy dogs using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results: The ELISA results showed no difference between healthy dogs and dogs with tumors in the serum IGF-II concentrations. On the other hand, there was a significant difference in the circulating IGF-I and IGFBP-3 levels between healthy dogs and dogs with tumors. The concentrations of serum IGF-I (median [interquartile range], 103.4 [59.5-175] ng/mL) in dogs with epithelial tumors were higher than those (58.4 ng/mL [43.5-79.9]) in healthy dogs. Thus, the concentrations of serum IGFBP-3 (43.4 ng/mL [33.2-57.2]) in dogs with malignant mesenchymal tumors were lower than those (60.8 ng/mL [47.6-70.5]) in healthy dogs. Conclusions: The serum IGF-I and IGFBP-3 levels can be used as diagnostic biomarkers in dogs with tumors.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.310-316
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• 2020

Microarray technology represents a critical new advance in molecular cytogenetics. The development of this approach has provided fundamental insights into the molecular pathogenesis in clinical cytogenetics and has provided a clue to many unidentified or unexplained diseases. The approach allows a comprehensive investigation of thousands and millions of genomic loci simultaneously and enables the efficient detection of copy number alterations. The application of this technology has shown tremendous fluidity and complexity of the human genome, and has provided accurate diagnosis and appropriate clinical management in a timely and efficient manner for identifying genomic alterations. The clinical impact of the genomic alterations identified by microarrays is evolving into a diagnostic tool to identify high-risk patients better and predict patient outcomes from their genomic profiles. The transformation of conventional cytogenetics into an automated discipline will improve diagnostic yield significantly, leading to accurate diagnosis and genetic counseling. This article reviews cytogenetic technologies used to identify human chromosome alterations and highlights the potential utility of present and future genome microarray technology in the diagnosis.

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.351-357
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• 2022

Purpose: Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have rapidly emerged as one of the most promising artificial intelligence methods in the field of medical and dental research. CNNs can provide an effective diagnostic methodology allowing for the detection of early-staged diseases. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the performance of a deep CNN algorithm for apical lesion segmentation from panoramic radiographs. Materials and Methods: A total of 1000 panoramic images showing apical lesions were separated into training (n=800, 80%), validation (n=100, 10%), and test (n=100, 10%) datasets. The performance of identifying apical lesions was evaluated by calculating the precision, recall, and F1-score. Results: In the test group of 180 apical lesions, 147 lesions were segmented from panoramic radiographs with an intersection over union (IoU) threshold of 0.3. The F1-score values, as a measure of performance, were 0.828, 0.815, and 0.742, respectively, with IoU thresholds of 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5. Conclusion: This study showed the potential utility of a deep learning-guided approach for the segmentation of apical lesions. The deep CNN algorithm using U-Net demonstrated considerably high performance in detecting apical lesions.