• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.725-735
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• 2021

This study investigates whether the Islamic Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) provide significant benefit to investors relative to conventional ETFs. Six pairs of Islamic and conventional ETFs with 10-year daily price data from 2010 to 2019 have been selected from major market indices like MSCI World Index, MSCI Emerging Markets, MyETF Dow Jones Islamic Market Malaysia, MSCI South East Asia and Wahed FTSE Shariah USA Index for this study. For ETFs that are launched after 2010, the price data from launch date to 2019 are used. Our results show: First, Islamic ETFs are more likely to trade at a premium rather than at a discount, implying the investors are willing to pay a premium. Second, it is also found that Islamic ETFs have a relatively shorter period of price deviation from the benchmark, implying more price stability. Third, conventional ETFs have higher return and lower tracking errors relative to Islamic ETFs. These new findings add to the stylized facts of Islamic ETFs in the extant literature for investors, plan sponsors and regulators as to the differences between the ETFs. As policy suggestion, asset management companies can design new investment products to bridge the gap between conventional and Islamic finance.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.409-417
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• 2021

The incorporation of non-biodegradable tyre waste in cement-based material has gained more interest towards sustainable construction these days. Crumb rubber (CR) from waste tyre is an alternative for sand replacement in low strength applications. Many researchers have studied CR cement-based materials produced by normal mixing (NM) method and reported a significant decrease in compressive strength due to CR. To compensate this strength loss, this research aims to study the innovative incorporation of CR in cement composite via the preplaced mixing (PM) method. In this investigation, cement composite was produced with NM and PM methods by replacing sand with 0%, 50%, and 100% CR by volume. The test results showed no significant difference in terms of densities of cement composite prepared with both mixing methods. However, cement composite prepared with PM method had lower strength reduction (about 10%) and lowered drying shrinkage (about 20%). In addition, the sound absorption coefficient and noise reduction coefficient of CR cement composite prepared by PM method were in similar range as those prepared with NM method. Overall, the results demonstrate that the PM method is promising, and the maximum replacement level of 50% is recommended for CR in the cement composite.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.217-224
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• 2021

In this study, Monte Carlo (MC) simulation is conducted with recurrence relation to study the effect of SiO₂ with different particle size and their roles in enhancing the ionic conductivity and lithium transference number of PMMA composite polymer electrolytes (CPEs). The MC simulated ionic conductivity is verified with the measurements from Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). Then, the lithium transference number of CPEs is calculated using recurrence relation with the MC simulated current density and the reference transference number obtained. Incorporation of micron-size SiO₂ (≤10 ㎛) fillers into the mixture improves the ionic conductivity from 8.60×10^-5 S/cm to 2.35×10^-4 S/cm. The improvement is also observed on the lithium transference number, where it increases from 0.088 to 0.3757. Furthermore, the addition of nano-sized SiO₂ (≤12 nm) fillers further increases the ionic conductivity up towards 3.79×10^-4 S/cm and lithium transference number of 0.4105. The large effective surface area of SiO₂ fillers is responsible for the improvement in ionic conductivity and the transference number in PMMA composite polymer electrolytes.

• Mycobiology
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2023

Wound care has become increasingly important over the years. Various synthetic products for wound care treatment have been reported to cause toxic side effects and therefore natural products are in significant demand as they have minimal side effects. The presence of bioactive compounds in medicinal mushrooms contributes to various biological activities which assist in the early inflammatory phase, keratinocyte proliferation, and its migration enhancement which are pertinent to wound rehabilitation. Lignosus rhinocerus (tiger milk mushroom) can reduce the inflammation phase in wound healing by fighting off bacterial infection and modulating pro-inflammatory cytokines expression in the early stage to avoid prolonged inflammation and tissue damage. The antibacterial, immunomodulating, and anti-inflammatory activities exhibited by most macrofungi play a key role in enhancing wound healing. Several antibacterial and antifungal compounds sourced from traditional botanicals/-products may prevent further complications and reoccurrence of injury to a wounded site. Scientific studies are actively underway to ascertain the potential use of macrofungi as a wound healing agent.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2023.05a
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• pp.687-688
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• 2023

Bone age assessment is a crucial task in pediatric radiology for assessing growth and development in children. In this paper, we explore the potential of Vision Transformer, a state-of-the-art deep learning model, for bone age assessment using X-ray images. We generate heatmap outputs using a pre-trained Vision Transformer model on a publicly available dataset of hand X-ray images and show that the model tends to focus on the overall hand and only the bone part of the image, indicating its potential for accurately identifying the regions of interest for bone age assessment without the need for pre-processing to remove background noise. We also suggest two methods for extracting the region of interest from the heatmap output. Our study suggests that Vision Transformer holds great potential for bone age assessment using X-ray images, as it can provide accurate and interpretable output that may assist radiologists in identifying potential abnormalities or areas of interest in the X-ray image.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.577-582
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• 2009

The development of a high-throughput functional genomic screening provides a novel and expeditious approach in identifying critical genes involved in specific biological processes. Here we describe a cell-based cDNA screening system to identify the transcription activators of BiP, an endoplasmic reticulum (ER) chaperone protein. BiP promoter contains the ER stress element which is commonly present in the genes involved in unfolded protein response (UPR) that regulates protein secretion in cells. Therefore, the positive regulators of BiP may also be utilized to improve the recombinant protein production through modulation of UPR. Four BiP activators, including human UDP-glucose:glycoprotein glucosyltransferase 1 (HUGT1), are identified by the cDNA screening. Overexpression of HUGT1 leads to a significant increase in the production of recombinant erythropoietin, interferon ${\gamma}$, and monoclonal antibody in HEK293 cells. Our results demonstrate that the cDNA screening for BiP activators may be effective to identify the novel BiP regulators and HUGT1 may serve as an ideal target gene for improving the recombinant protein production in mammalian cells.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2002.07b
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• pp.943-945
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• 2002

This paper presents conceptual design and 3-D electromagnetic analysis of 1MVA transformer with BSCCO-2223 High Tc Superconducting (HTS) tapes. The rated voltages of each sides of the transformer are 22.9 kV and 6.6 kV, and double pancake windings were adopted. High voltage and Low voltage sides were composed of several double pancake windings. Four HTS tapes were wound in parallel for the windings of low voltage side and were transposed in order to distribute the currents equally in each conductor. The transformer core was designed as a shell type core made of laminated silicon steel plates and the core is separated with the windings by a cryostat with Fiberglass Reinforced Plastics(FRP). A sub-cooling system using $LN_2$ were designed to maintain the coolant temperature of 65K. Finally perpendicular components of magnetic field applied to tapes were calculated 0.24T in the rated operation using 3-D analysis. A real 1MVA HTS transformer will be manufactured in near future based on the design parameters presented in this paper.

• BMB Reports
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.97-102
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• 2010

Clenbuterol, a $\beta_2$-adrenoceptor agonist, has been proven to be a powerful repartition agent that can decrease fat deposition. Based on results from our previous cDNA microarray experiment of pig clenbuterol administration, a novel up-regulated EST was full-length cloned (4859 bp encoding 1041 amino acids) and found to be the pig homolog of large tumor suppressor 2 (Lats2). We mapped pig Lats2 to chromosome 11p13-14 by using FISH, and western blotting demonstrated that pig Lats2 protein was most abundant in adipose. In Drosophila, Lats2 ortholog was reported as a key component of the Hippo pathway which regulates cell differentiation and growth. Here, we show that pig Lats2 exhibit inverted expression to YAP1, another member of the Hippo pathway which positively regulates cell growth and proliferation, during the differentiation of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes. Our results suggested that Lats2 may involve in Hippo pathway regulating the fat reduction by inhibiting adipocyte differentiation and growth.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.81-91
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• 2012

Many risk factors exist for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV). This study utilized a multivariate projection technique to identify which risk factors were predictive of CINV in clinical practice. A single-centre, prospective, observational study was conducted from January 2007~July 2010 in Singapore. Patients were on highly (HECs) and moderately emetogenic chemotherapies with/without radiotherapy. Patient demographics and CINV risk factors were documented. Daily recording of CINV events was done using a standardized diary. Principal component (PC) analysis was performed to identify which risk factors could differentiate patients with and without CINV. A total of 710 patients were recruited. Majority were females (67%) and Chinese (84%). Five risk factors were potential CINV predictors: histories of alcohol drinking, chemotherapy-induced nausea, chemotherapy-induced vomiting, fatigue and gender. Period (ex-/current drinkers) and frequency of drinking (social/chronic drinkers) differentiated the CINV endpoints in patients on HECs and anthracycline-based, and XELOX regimens, respectively. Fatigue interference and severity were predictive of CINV in anthracycline-based populations, while the former was predictive in HEC and XELOX populations. PC analysis is a potential technique in analyzing clinical population data, and can provide clinicians with an insight as to what predictors to look out for in the clinical assessment of CINV. We hope that our results will increase the awareness among clinician-scientists regarding the usefulness of this technique in the analysis of clinical data, so that appropriate preventive measures can be taken to improve patients' quality of life.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.621-628
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• 2016

Hypertension can be caused by various factors while the predominant causes include increase in body fluid volume and resistance in the circulatory system that elevate the blood pressure. Consumption of probiotics has been proven to attenuate hypertension; however, the effect is much strain-dependent. In this study, a newly isolated Lactobacillus casei (Lb. casei ) strain C1 was investigated for its antihypertensive properties in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) suspension of 11 log colony-forming unit (CFU) was given to SHR (SHR+LAB, n=8), and phosphate buffer saline (PBS) was given as a control in SHR (SHR, n=8) and in Wistar rats as sham (WIS, n=8). The treatment was given via oral gavage for 8 weeks. The results showed that the weekly systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and aortic reactivity function were remarkably improved after 8 weeks of bacterial administration in SHR+LAB. These effects were mostly attributed by restoration of wall tension and tensile stress following the bacterial treatment. Although not statistically significant, the level of malondialdehye (MDA) in SHR+LAB serum was found declining. Increased levels of glutathione (GSH) and nitric oxide (NO) in SHR+LAB serum suggested that the bacterium exerted vascular protection through antioxidative functions and relatively high NO level that induced vasodilation. Collectively, Lb. casei strain C1 is a promising alternative for hypertension improvement.