• Journal of Marine Life Science
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.68-77
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• 2023

In this study, we investigated the quantitative distribution of microplastics in the surface seawater at 8 points near the Taean Peninsula using fluorescence staining. The study revealed a detection range of microplastics from 0 to 360.5 particles/l, with an average of 149.7 ± 46.0 particles/l. When classifying the microplastics by size, it was found that particles smaller than 50 ㎛ were dominant, although there were differences at Site 3. Moreover, it was not possible to identify clear correlations when comparing the number of microplastics based on collection area and particle size. Various physical and chemical factors, including plastic material, dynamic ocean conditions (such as currents, wind, waves, tides), geological characteristics (topography, slope), sediment materials including coastal organisms, human activities (fishing, development, tourism), and weather conditions (floods, rainfall), affect the behavior of microplastics. Therefore, future efforts should focus on standardizing quantitative analysis methods and conducting fundamental research on microplastic monitoring, including the analysis of environmental factors.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.523-529
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• 2023

Ubiquitination is a post-translational modification that is involved in the quality control of proteins and responsible for modulating a variety of cellular physiological processes. Protein ubiquitination and deubiquitination are reversible processes that regulate the stability of target substrates. The ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) helps regulate tumor-promoting processes, such as DNA repair, cell cycle, apoptosis, metastasis, and angiogenesis. The UPS comprises a combination of ubiquitin, ubiquitin-activating enzymes (E1), ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes (E2), and ubiquitin-ligase enzymes (E3), which complete the degradation of target proteins. Ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes (UBE2s) play an inter-mediate role in the UPS process by moving activated ubiquitin to target proteins through E3 ligases. UBE2s consist of 40 members and are classified according to conserved catalytic ubiquitin-conjugating (UBC) domain-flanking extensions in humans. Since UBE2s have specificity to substrates like E3 ligase, the significance of UBE2 has been accentuated in tumorigenesis. The dysregulation of multiple E2 enzymes and their critical roles in modulating oncogenic signaling pathways have been reported in several types of cancer. The elevation of UBE2 expression is correlated with a worse prognosis in cancer patients. In this review, we summarize the basic functions and regulatory mechanisms of UBE2s and suggest the possibility of their use as therapeutic targets for cancer.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.399-407
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• 2024

Angiogenesis is the process by which new blood vessels form from existing blood vessels. This phenomenon occurs during growth, healing, and menstrual cycle changes. Angiogenesis is a complex and multifaceted process that is important for the continued growth of primary tumors, metastasis promotion, the support of metastatic tumors, and cancer progression. Impaired angiogenesis can lead to cancer, autoimmune diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disease, and delayed wound healing. Currently, there are only a handful of effective antiangiogenic drugs. Recent studies have shown that natural marine products exhibit antiangiogenic effects. In a previous study, we reported that the hexane extract of H. fusiformis (HFH) could inhibit the development of new blood vessels both in vitro and in vivo. The aim of this study was to describe the inhibitory effect of chloroform extracts of H. fusiformis on angiogenesis. To investigate how chloroform extract prevents blood vessel growth, we examined its effects on HUVEC, including cell migration, invasion, and tube formation. In a mouse Matrigel plug assay, H. fusiformis chloroform extract (HFC) also inhibited angiogenesis in vivo. Certain proteins associated with blood vessel growth were reduced after HFC treatment. These proteins include vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)/extracellular signal transduction kinase, and serine/threonine kinase 1 (AKT). These studies have shown that the chloroform extract of H. fusiformis can inhibit blood vessel growth both in vitro and in vivo.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.68-77
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• 2024

Airborne particulate matter (PM) is an environmentally hazardous pollutant that originates from various sources. PM is comprised of solid particles and liquid droplets of diverse composition and size. Hazardous chemical compositions of PM include elemental and organic carbon, organic compounds, biological compounds and metals. Upon acute and chronic PM exposure, toxic contaminants enter and accumulate within physiological systems and prompt cell structure changes accompanied with intracellular endoplasmic reticulum stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, inflammation, lipid accumulation, and cell cycle arrest. Ultimately, these cellular response leads to the development of key characteristics of aging. In addition, PM internalization enhances autophagy reflux and lysosomal dysfunction, which is involved in cell aging. Previous studies have emphasized a positive association between PM and increased mortality or decreased lifespan, although these are evidenced mostly by observational studies. Direct evidence of the link between PM and aging is still limited. This review evaluates the evidence from not only observational studies but also in vitro and in vivo evidence of PM on aging progression and age-related diseases development. This evidence is based on age-associated cellular changes including endoplasmic reticulum stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, inflammation, adipose accumulation, autophagy, which strengthen the association between PM exposure and aging. Understanding the underlying cellular responses under PM may allow for the development of new therapeutic targets for PM-induced aging.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.34 no.8
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• pp.594-607
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• 2024

Plastic products have long been widely used in both industrial and household applications. However, tiny plastic particles derived from plastic products, such as microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs), can infiltrate the human body through inhalation, ingestion, or skin contact. Once inside cells via endocytosis, MPs and NPs (MNPs) can trigger autophagy, but lysosomal dysfunction can block autophagic flux. Accumulating in the cytoplasm, these particles induce cellular stress, including oxidative stress from free radicals, mitochondrial dysfunction, and increased inflammatory response. Meanwhile, cellular senescence is a hallmark of aging and is defined as the stable termination of the cell cycle in response to cell damage and stress. In particular, the accumulation of oxidative stress, a key factor in inducing cellular senescence, induces the expression of major senescence markers. Senescent cells increase the secretion of senescence-associated secretory phenotype, including inflammatory cytokines and chemokines. Despite growing interest in how MNPs induce cellular senescence, there remains a gap regarding their onset and therapeutic targets. Therefore, this review focuses on identifying recent research trends on how MNPs induce cellular aging in key human cell types and proposes future research directions to overcome these challenges.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.107-113
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• 2024

For efficient soil water management in open fields, the proper use of soil moisture sensors is a prerequisite. Particularly in open-field environments like orchards with extensive root systems, the appropriate positioning of sensors is very important. The present study was conducted to identify the optimal placement of soil moisture sensors by assessing changes in soil water potential across various positions within orchard field soils after installing tensiometers. In apple and Asian pear orchards located in two regions of Korea, nine soil water potential sensors (TEROS 21, METER Group) were installed at distances of 20, 40, and 60 cm from the tree trunk and depths of 10, 20, and 30 cm from the soil surface, and monitored the soil water potential changes over two years. Results indicated that the positions closer to the tree trunk and the soil surface exhibited more pronounced changes in soil water potential. The greatest magnitude of change in soil water potential was observed at a distance of 20 cm and a depth of 10 cm, suggesting this position as the most suitable for soil moisture sensor installation. However, variations in the degree and pattern of changes in soil water potential were noted across sensor positions due to root system growth over time. Therefore, periodic observation and adjustments in sensor placement would be advisable to accurately monitor the soil moisture condition in long-term crops such as fruit trees in open fields.

• The Transactions of the Korea Information Processing Society
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.509-523
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• 1995

With the diversified and enlarged softwares, the issue of software maintenance became more complex and difficult consequently, the cost of software maintenance took up the highest portion in the software life cycle. At the same time, in order to develop or use software for general computers the development environment will be changed to incorporate user-friendly 4GL (Fourth generation Language). Therefore, it is required to take a closer look at the languages such as COBOL, C, FORTRAN, PASCAL which have source code comprised of 4GL and investigate the method of analysis and reuse for program understanding since a lot of research has been done with these languages in program maintenance. The purpose of this paper is to propose reverse engineering tool in 4GL and find an effective way of understanding and maintaining the program by transforming source code comprised of 4GL to meta language and designing and implementing Document Generator, Report Generator, Module Generator, Code Translator for program understanding.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.171-182
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• 2014

Common Criteria is a scheme that minimize IT products's vulnerabilities in accordance with the evaluation assurance level. SSDLC(Secure Software Development Lifecycle) is a methodology that reduce the weakness that can be used to generate vulnerabilities of software development life cycle. However, Common Criteria does not consider certificated IT products's vulnerabilities after certificated it. So, it can make a problem the safety and reliability of IT products. In addition, the developer and the evaluator have the burden of duplicating evaluations of IT products that introduce into the government business due to satisfy both Common Criteria and SSDLC. Thus, we researched the relationship among the Common Criteria, the static code analysis tools, and the SSDLC. And then, we proposed how to combine SSDLC into Common Criteria.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.179-185
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• 2018

Technology of Internet of Things (IoT) which is receiving the spotlight recently as a new growth engine of Information Communications Technology (ICT) industry in the $4^{th}$ Industrial Revolution needs trustworthiness beyond simple technology of security. IoT devices should consider trustworthiness from planning and design of IoTs so that everyone who develop, evaluate and use the device can measure and trust its security. Increased number of IoTs and long lifetime result in the increased securituy vulnerability due to the difficulty of software patch and update. In this paper, we investigated security and scalability issues of current IoT devices through research of the technical, political and industrial trend of IoT. In order to overcome the limitations, we propose an automatic verification of software integrity utilizing and a political solution to apply cyber killchain based security mechanism using hash which is an element technology of blockchain to solve these problems.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.43-50
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• 2011

Sensor networks are expected to play key roles in establishment of fundamental infrastructures, information collection, and devices control to provide services for ubiquitous society in the near future, where recent issues include energy efficient energy supply scheme in the sensor network based systems has been getting more attention. This paper formulates an energy supply problem that minimizes the total energy supplied to clustered sensor networks while maintaining the network lifetime. An energy supply scheme is suggested that determines the the amount of engergy supply to each cluster head based on the solution of the problem. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme achieves better energy efficiency compared with a simple scheme of maximum possible energy supply to each cluster head.