• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.45 no.11
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• pp.1533-1543
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• 2016

The anti-stress effects of Punica granatum L. (family Lythraceae, PG) on $H_2O_2$/corticosterone (CORT)-induced stress in cells and sleep-deprived rats were investigated. The PG extract showed neuroprotective effects in SH-SY5Y cells against $H_2O_2$/CORT-induced stress. Sleep deprivation led to behavioral, hormonal, and biochemical alterations in the animal model. The effects of P. granatum on physiological, behavioral, and biochemical parameters aggravated by sleep deprivation were investigated. Sleep deprivation impaired physiological (survival, body weight, and drowsiness scores) and behavioral (rotarod, passive avoidance, hot hyperalgesia, and Y maze) parameters as well as biochemical factors (cortisol, serotonin, dopamine, testosterone, and growth factor I contents in serum). These parameters were significantly recovered by PG extract in a concentration-dependent manner. The PG extract also enhanced catalase, superoxide dismutase, and non-enzymatic antioxidative activities such as glutathione compared to sleep-deprived rats. On the basis of these results, our findings suggest that Punica granatum prevents impairment of body functions induced by sleep deprivation and related oxidative damage.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.45 no.11
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• pp.1673-1680
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to examine how customer orientation (CO) reduces employee stress to customers (CSS). As emotional labor strategies [surface acting (SA) and deep acting (DA)] may mediate a role between CO and CSS, we verified multiple parallel mediator roles of SA and DA between CO and CSS. Our survey was administered to 323 school foodservice employees in Daegu and Gyeongbuk. The results show that CO increased DA but did not decrease SA, and SA had a positive effect on CSS while DA did not influence CSS. These results did not support the parallel multiple mediator model. We conducted post-hoc model modification and proposed the serial multiple mediator model as a modified model. As a result, CO increased DA, DA reduced SA, and SA showed a positive relation with CSS. This double mediating effect through DA and SA between CO and CSS was significant. Based on these results, we found that CO did not have a direct effect on SA and CSS. DA did not directly reduce CSS while CO reduced SA and CSS through DA indirectly. DA had a negative effect on CSS through SA indirectly. Finally, implications and limitations of this are discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.61-84
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• 1999

The purpose of this study is to understand the context of cosumers' lives in Korea with a narrative analysis method. The epistemological orientation of eh narrative analysis is Interpretivism, which blends the two polar philosophical perspectives, Empiricism and Rationalism, and includes Narrotology, Hermeneneutics, Semiotics, and Structural Criticism. Narrative analysis takes as its object of investigation the story itself. This study collects eleven narrative plots from four housewives, into which Labov's structural approach is applied. This study shows clearly that the socio-cultural environment in which consumers live has strong influence on their consumption behavior and also reveals that narrativization tells not only about past actions but how individuals understand those actions, that is, meaning.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.270-276
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• 2006

Purpose: The prognosis of Borrmann type IV gastric cancer is poorer than that of the other gastric carcinomas. We compared the clinicopathological features of Borrmann type IV gastric cancer with those of other types of cancer and analyzed the significance of a Borrmann type IV carcinoma as a prognostic factor Materials and Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the clinicopathologic features, TNM stage and survival rates of 4,389 gastric cancer patients who received surgical management at Samsung Medical Center between January 1995 and December 2004. Results: Patients with a Borrmann type IV gastric carcinoma had a more advanced stage than patients with other types of gastric carcinomas at the initial diagnosis, and the curative resection rate was lower. The 5-year survival rate of patients with Borrmann type IV cancer was 20.7%, and that of patients with other types of cancer was 50.3%. The 5-year survival rate of patients with Borrmann type IV gastric carcinomas was significantly lower than that of patients with other types of gastric carcinomas at the same TNM stage. In univariate and multivariate analyses, the depth of invasion, the nodal state, distant metastasis, the TNM stage, curability and the presence of a Borrmann type IV carcinoma were independent prognostic factors in cases of gastric cancer. Conclusion: Compared to the other types of gastric carcinomas, a Borrmann type IV carcinoma has unique clinicopathological features. The prognosis should be predicated considering the differences between Borrmann type IV qastric carcinomas and other types of gastric carcinomas, and multimodal and intensive therapies are needed in patients with a Borrmann type IV gastric carcinoma.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.244-249
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• 2006

Purpose: Tumor size has been reported to be one of the prognostic factors in the preoperative setting and 8 cm has been confirmed as a cut-off value for large gastric tumors with respect to postoperative complications. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinicopathologic features and the prognosis in patients with tumors larger than 8 cm in diameter. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively studied 2,260 patients with gastric cancer who underwent a gastrectomy from 1983 to 2001 at the Department of Surgery, Korea University College of Medicine. For a comparative analysis we divided the cases into the large and the small groups according to tumor size. The clinicopathological factors associated with large gastric tumors were analyzed by using univariate and multivariate analyses. To determine which variables were independent prognostic factors for overall survival, we applied the Cox proportional hazards model and we used P<0.05 as the cutoff value for statistical significance. Results: Univariate and multivariate analyses disclosed that tumor location (P<0.001), resection type (P<0.001), curability (P<0.001), depth of invasion (P<0.001), number of metastatic lymph nodes (P<0.001), differentiation (P<0.001) and combined resection (P<0.001) were significantly different between the two groups. The independent factors for survival identified by using the Cox proportional hazards model for large gastric tumors were nodal status (P<0.001), curative resection (P<0.001), depth of invasion (P=0.010), type of resection (P=0.018) and age (P=0.033). Conclusion: Large gastric tumors showed more aggressive local findings than their smaller counterparts. In patients with large gastric tumors, a curative resection was the most important factor for the prognosis. Therefore, we suggest that every effort should be made to do a curative gastrectomy and an accurate preoperative examination. (J Korean Gastric Cancer Assoc 2006;6:244-249)

• Proceedings of the Korean Ceranic Society Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1-112
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• 2005

This report is results of a research on recent R&D trends in electroceramics, mainly focusing on the papers submitted to the organizing committee of the International Conference on Electroceramics 2005 (ICE-2005) which was held at Seoul on 12-15 June 2005. About 380 electroceramics researchers attended at the ICE-2005 from 17 countries including Korea, presenting and discussing their recent results. Therefore, we can easily understand the recent research trends in the field of electroceramics by analyses of the subject and contents of the submitted papers. In addition to the analyses of the papers submitted to the ICE-2005, we also collected some informations about domestic and international research trends to help readers understand this report easily. We analysed the R&D trends on the basis of four main categories, that is, informatics electroceramics, energy and environment ceramics, processing and characterization of electroceramics, and emerging fields of electroceramics. Each main category has several sub-categories again. The informatics ceramics category includes integrated dielectrics and ferroelectrics, oxide and nitride semiconductors, photonic and optoelectronic devices, multilayer electronic ceramics and devices, microwave dielectrics and high frequency devices, and piezoelectric and MEMS applications. The energy and environment ceramics category has four sub-categories, that is, rechargable battery, hydrogen storage, fuel cells, and advanced energy conversion concepts. In the processing and characterization category, there exist domain, strain, and epitaxial dynamics and engineering sub-category, innovative processing and synthesis sub-category, nanostructured materials and nanotechnology sub- category, single crystal growth and characterization sub-category, theory and modeling sub-category. Nanocrystalline electroceramics, electroceramics for smart sensors, and bioceramics sub-categories are included to the emerging fields category. We hope that this report give an opportunity to understand the international research trend, not only to Korean ceramics researchers but also to science and technology policy researchers.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.95-120
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• 1990

The underpricing of new shares of a firm that are offered to the public for the first time (initial offerings) is well known and has puzzled financial economists for a long time since it seems at odds with the optimal behavior of the owners of issuing firms. Past attempts by financial economists to explain this phenomenon have not been successful in the sense that the explanations given by them are either inconsistent with the equilibrium theory or implausible. Approaches by such authors as Welch or Allen and Faulhaber are no exceptions. In this paper, we develop a signalling model of capital investment to explain the underpricing phenomenon and also analyze the efficiency of investment. The model focuses on the information asymmetry between the owners of issuing firms and general investors. We consider a firm that has been owned and operated by a single owner and that has a profitable project but has no capital to develop it. The profit from the project depends on the capital invested in the project as well as a profitability parameter. The model also assumes that the financial market is represented by a single investor who maximizes the expected wealth. The owner has superior information as to the value of the firm to investors in the sense that it knows the true value of the parameter while investors have only a probability distribution about the parameter. The owner offers the representative investor a fraction of the ownership of the firm in return for a certain amount of investment in the firm. This offer condition is equivalent to the usual offer condition consisting of the number of issues to sell and the unit price of a share. Thus, the model is a signalling game. Using Kreps' criterion as the solution concept, we obtained an essentially unique separating equilibrium offer condition. Analysis of this separating equilibrium shows that the owner of the firm with high profitability chooses an offer condition that raises an amount of capital that is short of the amount that maximizes the potential profit from the project. It also reveals that the fraction of the ownership of the firm that the representative investor receives from the owner of the highly profitable firm in return for its investment has a value that exceeds the investment. In other words, the initial offering in the model is underpriced when the profitability of the firm is high. The source of underpricing and underinvestment is the signalling activity by the owner of the highly profitable firm who attempts to convince investors that his firm has a highly profitable project by choosing an offer condition that cannot be imitated by the owner of a firm with low profitability. Thus, we obtained two main results. First, underpricing is a result of a signalling activity by the owner of a firm with high profitability when there exists information asymmetry between the owner of the issuing firm and investors. Second, such information asymmetry also leads to underinvestment in a highly profitable project. Those results clearly show the underpricing entails underinvestment and that information asymmetry leads to a social cost as well as a private cost. The above results are quite general in the sense that they are based upon a neoclassical profit function and full rationality of economic agents. We believe that the results of this paper can be used as a basis for further research on the capital investment process. For instance, one can view the results of this paper as a subgame equilibrium in a larger game in which a firm chooses among diverse ways to raise capital. In addition, the method used in this paper can be used in analyzing a wide range of problems arising from information asymmetry that the Korean financial market faces.

• Journal of Genetic Medicine
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.53-58
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• 2010

Purpose: To find the most effective method for extraction of cell-free DNA (cf-DNA) from maternal plasma, we compared a blood DNA extraction system (blood kit) and a viral DNA extraction system (viral kit) for non-invasive first-trimester fetal gender determination. Materials and Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted with maternal plasma collected from 44 women in the first-trimester of pregnancy. The cf-DNA was extracted from maternal plasma using a blood kit and a viral kit. Quantitative fluorescent-polymerase chain reaction (QF-PCR) was used to detect the SRY gene and AMEL gene. The diagnostic accuracy of the QF-PCR results was determined based on comparison with the final delivery records. Results: A total of 44 women were tested, but the final delivery record was only obtained in 36 cases which included 16 male-bearing and 20 female-bearing pregnancies. For the blood kit and viral kit, the diagnostic accuracies for fetal gender determination were 63.9% (23/36) and 97.2% (35/36), respectively. Conclusion: In non-invasive first-trimester fetal gender determination by QF-PCR, using a viral kit for extraction of cf-DNA may result in a higher diagnostic accuracy.

• Journal of Genetic Medicine
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.67-77
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• 2010

Purpose: The aims of this study are to evaluate psychological impact and quality of life according to the cancer diagnosis and mutation status in Korean families with BRCA mutations. Materials and Methods: Seventeen affected carriers (AC), 16 unaffected carriers (UC) and 13 healthy non carriers (NC) from 13 BRCA mutation families were included in the study. Outcomes were compared with regard to depression (Beck Depression Inventory), anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, STAI), optimism (Reevaluation of the Life Orientation test, LOT-R), knowledge of hereditary ovarian cancer, and quality of life (QoL) (SF-36v2 Health Survey, physical component score [PCS], mental component score [MCS]) among three groups. Result: Level of depression, optimism, and PCS were similar in AC, UC, and NC. Anxiety score was elevated in all three groups. MCS was significantly low in AC than in UC and NC (P=0.009, P=0.017). Knowledge of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer was high in AC than NC (P=0.001). MCS was significantly related to whether patient was affected by cancer (P=0.043) and has occupation (P=0.008) or not in multivariable analysis. Conclusion: From this cross sectional study, psychological adverse effect was not related to the carrier status of BRCA mutation. Elevated anxiety in BRCA family members was observed but, independent to affection and the type of genetic mutation. AC showed low mental QoL. Further effort to understand psychological impact and QoL of genetic testing in BRCA family members is required for follow-up in clinical aspects.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.288-292
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• 2008

This study was conducted to identify the effects of irrigation amount to produce high quality melon fruit in fertigation culture. Irrigation amount of during fruit harvesting period was doubled at the low irrigation point ($(-45{\sim}50\;kPa$) treatment as 115 mm as than that of the high irrigation point ($-20{\sim}25\;kPa$) treatment. The plant growth rates such as stem length, leaf weight and plant height were a little diminished at the low irrigation point ($-45{\sim}50\;kPa$) than those of the other treatments. Internode length was however not affected by irrigation amount. Fruit weight was lighter at the low irrigation point ($-45{\sim}50\;kPa$) than that of at the high irrigation point and fruit height was shorter, but fruit diameter was not affected by irrigation amount. Fruit soluble solid was $0.9^{\circ}Bx$ higher at the low irrigation point ($-45{\sim}50\;kPa$) than at the high irrigation point ($-20{\sim}25\;kPa$) and net index was higher. Total marketable yield was highest by 3,937 kg/10a at the high irrigation point ($-20{\sim}25\;kPa$), but the excellent marketable yield was highest by 2,531 kg/10a at the low irrigation point ($-45{\sim}50\;kPa$). Inorganic contents of the soil N, K, Ca and Mg were not affected by irrigation amount. It was therefore thought that optimum irrigation point to produce high quality melon fruit by fertigation culture was $-45{\sim}50\;kPa$ at ripening stage.