• Journal of Life Science
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• v.26 no.8
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• pp.928-935
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• 2016

Hypsizygus marmoreus (white cultivar), also called white beech mushrooms, are edible mushrooms commercially cultivated in Korea and Japan. This study was carried out to evaluate the antioxidant properties of H. marmoreus. H. marmoreus fruit bodies were divided into pileus and stipe. The pileus and stipe were extracted into water and 80% ethanol and their antioxidant activities were analyzed. The total polyphenol content was highest in the water extract (pileus 1137.39±0.38 mg of GAE (gallic acid equivalents)/100 g, stipe 700.86±0.06 mg of GAE/100 g) compared to the ethanol extract (pileus 923.47±0.18 mg of GAE/ 100 g, stipe 324.05±0.03 mg of GAE/100 g). Ethanol extracts from pileus showed better scavenging ability on DPPH (47.32±0.23% at 10 mg/ml) and ABTS (57.33±0.10% at 10 mg/ml) than the stipe and water extract groups. Water extract from pileus were more effective in reducing power and ORAC (oxygen radical absorbance capacity) value than stipe and ethanol extract. The toxicity of water and ethanol extracts was investigated using WST-1 (Water Soluble Tetrazolium salt) assay on the mouse macrophage cell line RAW 264.7. Overall, total polyphenol content and antioxidant activities of extracts from H. marmoreus increased in a dose dependent manner while pileus was showed better total polyphenol content and antioxidant activities than stipe.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.12-20
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• 2009

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to analyze the association between the pattern of prophylactic antibiotic use(PAU) and the surgical site infection(SSI) rate for major surgeries in Korea. Methods : We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients who underwent cardiac, colon and gastric surgery, hysterectomies and hip/knee replacements at 20 hospitals, and inclusive of over 500 beds. We randomly sampled 60 cases per surgery type for patients discharged between September and November, 2006. A total fo 2,924 cases were included in our analysis. Cox's proportional hazard analysis was conducted to evaluate the association between the pattern of PAU and SSI rate. Results : The proportion of patients who received their first prophylactic antibiotics(PA) 1 hour before incision was 65.5%, who received inappropriate PAs was 80.8%, and the proportion of patients whose PA was discontinued within 24 hours of surgery was 0.5%. The average duration of PAU after surgery was 9 days. The relative risk(RR) of SSI in patients who received their first PA more than 1 hour before incision was significantly higher than for those who received it within 1 hour prior to incision(RR=8.20, 95% CI=4.81-13.99). Inappropriate PA selection increased SSI rate, albeit with marginal significance(RR=1.97, 95% CI=0.96-4.03). Also, prolonged PAU following surgery had no effect on SSI rate. Conclusions : These results suggest that the pattern of PAU in the surgeries examined was not appropriate. Errors in the timing of PAU and of PA selection increase SSI rate. SSI rate remained unaltered following prolonged PAU after surgery.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.124-145
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• 1993

General practitioners, internists, pediatricians, and family physicians are classified as so-called primary care physicians in the United States. We carried out this study for the purpose of answering the following question; "Who are the primary care physicians in Korea\ulcorner" We analyzed the 663, 154 claims which were drawn from the health insurance processing file made during the period of one month, April 1992 on the basis of systemic random sampling technique. The 663, 154 cases were matched with the doctor's file registered at the National Federation Medical Insurance by using the indivisual physician code number and analyzed according to the kind of specialty. If we follow the Geyman's definition of primary care physician in the United States, this study shows that they can take care of 43.2% of the total private clinic's claims in Korea. Provided that general practitioners and family physicians are considered the same way as in the United Kingdom, they could with only 8.3% of the total claims in Korea. The most frequent diseases are those which rank first to 46th in the total private clinic's claims. The proportion of the most frequent diseases was highest for pediatricians(90.4%) and followed by internists(81.4%), otolaryngologists(78.7%) and family physicians(76.5%). The proportion of the most frequent diseases in the most common 46 diseases was highest for radiologists(80.4%) and the next was as follows : general practitioners(78.3%), family physicians(67.4%), and internists(67.4%). We classified the most common 20 diseases of each specialty into 17 categories of ICD-9 and compared it with those of general practitioners. The specialists who had managed a similar disease pattern to those of general practitioners were identified as anesthesiologists, family physicians, general surgeons, and internists. Some specialists practicing at private clinics managed the diseases which were not quite appropriate for their specialties. After we evaluated each specialty by the most common diseases, the most frequent diseases, and the most frequent 20 diseases of each specialty in terms of the 17 categories of ICD-9, a tentative assumption is made that the primary physicians in the Republic of Korea are general practitioners, anesthesiologists, family physicians, internists, and general surgeons. This study has concluded that the categories of the primary care physicians are so diverse that their roles and distributions are distorted accordingly. Vigorous health policy efforts in correcting the malcomposition need to be made for the better provision of primary health care in Korea. in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.37 no.5_3
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• pp.1425-1434
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• 2021

Continuous and periodic data acquisition must be preceded to maintain and manage the river facilities effectively. Adapting the existing general facilities methods, which include river surveying methods such as terrestrial laser scanners, total stations, and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), has limitation in terms of its costs, manpower, and times to acquire spatial information since the river facilities are distributed across the wide and long area. On the other hand, the Mobile Mapping System (MMS) has comparative advantage in acquiring the data of river facilities since it constructs three-dimensional spatial information while moving. By using the MMS, 184,646,009 points could be attained for Anyang stream with a length of 4 kilometers only in 20 minutes. Levee points were divided at intervals of 10 meters so that about 378 levee cross sections were generated. In addition, the waterside maximum and average slope could be automatically calculated by separating slope plane form levee point cloud, and the accuracy of RMSE was confirmed by comparing with manually calculated slope. The reference slope was calculated manually by plotting point cloud of levee slope plane and selecting two points that use location information when calculating the slope. Also, as a result of comparing the water side slope with slope standard in basic river plan for Anyang stream, it is confirmed that inspecting the river facilities with the MMS point cloud is highly recommended than the existing river survey.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2019.04a
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• pp.111-111
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• 2019

Glycyrrhizae radix is one of the most frequently prescribed ingredients in Oriental medicine, and G. radix extract has been shown to exert anti-cancer effects. However, the cellular and molecular mechanisms of apoptosis by G. radix are poorly defined. In the present study, it was examined the biochemical mechanisms of apoptosis by water extract of G. radix (WEGR) in human bladder T24 cancer cells. It was found that WEGR could inhibit the cell growth of T24 cells in a dose-dependent manner, which was associated with the induction of apoptotic cell death, as evidenced by the formation of apoptotic bodies, DNA fragmentation and increased populations of annexin-V positive cells. The induction of apoptotic cell death by WEGR was connected with an up-regulation of pro-apoptotic Bax protein expression and down-regulation of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL proteins, and inhibition of apoptosis family proteins (XIAP, cIAP-1 and cIAP-2). In addition, apoptosis-inducing concentrations of WEGR induced the activation of caspase-9, an initiator caspase of the mitochondrial-mediated intrinsic pathway, and caspase-3, accompanied by proteolytic degradation of poly (ADP-ribose)-polymerase. WEGR also induced apoptosis via a death receptor-mediated extrinsic pathway by caspase-8 activation, resulting in the down-regulation of total Bid and suggesting the existence of cross-talk between the extrinsic and intrinsic pathways. Taken together, the present results suggest that WEGR may be a potential chemotherapeutic agent for the control of human bladder cancer cells.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2019.04a
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• pp.112-112
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• 2019

Baicalein is one of the main flavonoids derived from roots of Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi, a traditional Oriental medicine. Although baicalein has high antitumor effect on several human carcinomas, the mechanism responsible for this property is not unclear. In this study, the data revealed that baicale-ininduced growth inhibition was associated with the induction of apoptosis connecting with cytochrome c release, down-regulation of anti-apoptotic Bcl-xl and increased the percentage of cells with a loss of mitochondria membrane permeabilization. Baicalein also induced the proteolytic activation of caspases and cleavage of PARP; however, blockage of caspases activation by z-VAD-fmk inhibited baicalein-induced apoptosis. In addition, baicalein enhanced the formation of autophagosomes and up-regulated LC3-II/LC3-I ratio. Interestingly, the pretreatment of bafilomycin A1 recovered baicalein-induced cell death suggesting that autophagy by baicalein roles as protective autophagy. Taken together, our results indicated that this flavonoid induces apoptosis and cell protective autophagy. These data means combination treatment with baicalein and autophagy inhibitor might be a promising anticancer drug.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2019.04a
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• pp.113-113
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• 2019

Diallyl trisulfide (DATS) is an organic polysulfide compound found in garlic. Although certain studies have demonstrated that DATS possesses strong anti-inflammatory activity, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain largely unresolved. In this study, we examined whether DATS exerts anti-inflammatory activity and investigated the possible mechanisms. Our results indicated that DATS significantly suppressed the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced release of nitric oxide (NO) and prostaglandin E2 by inhibiting inducible NO synthase and cyclooxygenase-2 expression at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels in RAW 264.7 macrophages. DATS also down-regulated Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and myeloid differentiation factor 88 expression, and inhibited nuclear translocation of nuclear transcription factor-kappa B (NF-${\kappa}B$) in LPS-stimulated 264.7 macrophages. Furthermore, we found that these inhibitory effects of DATS were associated with the inhibition of chemokine receptor (CXCR4) and ligand (CXCL12) expression, and reactive oxygen species generation. Overall, the present data indicated that DATS had anti-inflammatory effects on LPS-activated macrophages, possibly via inhibiting the TLR4/NF-kB and/or chemokine signaling pathways, and DATS could be a potential drug therapy for inflammation and its associated diseases.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.195-200
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to investigate the melanogenesis inhibiting activity of the ethanol extract from Polygonum amphibium L. Firstly, the n-hexane (Hx), chloroform ($CHCl_3$), ethyl acetate (EA), n-butanol (BuOH), and water (Water) fractions were isolated from the P. amphibium L. ethanol extract. The efficacy of melanogenesis was found to significantly decrease via the EA and BuOH fractions when compared to the control in B16F10 cells. EA particularly showed the lowest melanin content in B16F10 cells when compared to all the other extracts. Concentration-dependent inhibition of melanin synthesis was also observed in the EA fraction at concentrations below $50{\mu}g/ml$, which did not exhibit cytotoxicity in B16F10 cells. Notably, the expression of three key proteins (tyrosinase, tyrosinase-related protein-1 (TRP-1), and TRP-2), which are involved in melanogenesis, were significantly decreased via the EA fraction. EA also inhibited body pigmentation in vivo in a zebrafish model. Overall, we demonstrated melanogenesis suppression using the EA fraction from P. amphibium L., which could be a potential candidate for an antimelanogenesis agent.

• Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.377-384
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• 2020

Korean Sedum formosanum N. E. Br. (Ju-geog-nip-gaet-bi-reum in Korean) was first recorded in 1887, 133 years ago. Since then, the species has not been collected and its current state has remained unclear. However, these plants were collected in 2020 and the corresponding taxonomic entity and distribution status were revealed. It is known to be distributed only in the southern region of Japan, the northern islands of the Philippines, and in Taiwan, with Taiwan being the collection site of the type specimen. However, on the basis of the findings of the fourth national natural environment survey, it has recently been established that this plant also grows in the crevices of rocks along the seashores of the Korean islands of Hataedo Island and Sangtaedo Island, Sinan-gun, Jeollanam-do. S. formosanum inhabiting Korea is a large succulent biennial that can attain a height of up to 65 cm and differs from its congeneric species in having erect follicles during the fruiting period. Notably, among the Korean Sedum species, S. formosanum is most similar to S. tosaense, although it can be distinguished from this species with respect to its monomorphic leaves that have rounded apices, and it also bears separate flowering and sterile stems. In this paper, we present a description and photographs of the Korean S. formosanum, indicate the differences between this and related species, and provide a key to related taxa.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.75-85
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• 2004

The natural dyes from Gardenia jasminoides, Carthamus tinctorius L., Rhus javanica, Lithospermum erythrorhizon, Caesalpinia sappan L., and Castanea crenata were extracted under different pH in distilled water, As the pH in distilled water went from acid to alkali, the much deeper colors in the same color tone were generated from the individual plant species. Before dyeing, wood species were treated by different mordants including AI, Cu, Cr and Fe for color-fixing between wood and the natural dyes. Each mordant could develop independent color on the surface of the woods. The wood species dyed by the natural dyes created deep-tone colors according to higher pH and temperature of the dyeing solution, leading to deeper penetration of the dyes into the wood tissues. Finally through the computer modelling of natural-dyed wood furniture, it was confirmed that the colored furniture can adequately be compatible with the current interior spaces of diverse colors.