• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
• /
• v.55 no.5
• /
• pp.467-477
• /
• 2003

Background : Pleural effusions are generally divided into transudates and exudates. If it is exudative, more diagnostic tests are required in order to determine the cause of the local disease. A malignancy is a common and important cause of exudative pleural effusions. Because the pleural fluid cytology and pleural biopsy specimens do not provide a diagnosis in a high percentage of malignant effusions, several tumor markers have been examined. In order to overcome this limitation, this study hypothesized that C-reactive protein(CRP) and vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF) measurements would be useful for differentiating trasudates from exudates and determining the differences between a benign and malignant effusion. Methods : Eighty consecutive patients with a pleural effusion (tuberculous 20, parapneumonic 20, malignant 20, transudative 20) were examined prospectively: 60 of them were classified according to Light's criteria as having an exudative fluid and 20 had a transudative fluid. The standard parameters of a pleural effusion were examined and the serum and pleural effusion VEGF levels were measured using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA). CRP in the serum and pleural fluid was determined by a turbidimetric immunoassay. Results : The pleural CRP levels in the exudates were significantly higher than those in the transudates, $4.19{\pm}4.22mg/d{\ell}$ and $1.29{\pm}1.45mg/d{\ell}$, respectively. The VEGF levels in the pleural effusions were significantly elevated in the exudates compared to the transudate, $1,011{\pm}1,055pg/m{\ell}$ and $389{\pm}325pg/m{\ell}$, respectively. The VEGF ratio in the exudative effusion is significantly higher than a transudative effusions, $3.9{\pm}4.7$ and $1.6{\pm}0.9$, respectively. The pleural CRP levels in the patients with a benign effusion($4.15{\pm}4.20mg/d{\ell}$) were significantly higher than those in the malignant effusion($1.43{\pm}1.91mg/d{\ell}$). The VEGF ratio is significantly higher in malignant effusions($4.9{\pm}5.5$) than in benign effusions($2.8{\pm}3.6$). Conclusion : In conclusion, the CRP and VEGF levels in the serum and pleural effusion can distinguish between transudates and exudates. Moreover it can differentiate between benign and malignant pleural effusions.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.53 no.2
• /
• pp.224-230
• /
• 2015

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of several variables on the durability of wood pellets fabricated with torrefied larch (LAR) and tulip tree (TUT) chips. Microscopic observation by scanning electron microscope-energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer was also performed to identify the surface of the wood pellets visually. In addition, torrefied-LAR and TUT pellets were fabricated with the addition of moisture, lignin, starch and protein as binders, and durabilities of the pellets were analyzed statistically. Durabilities of torrefied-LAR and TUT pellets were lower than one of non-torrefied-LAR and TUT pellets. Durabilities of both pellets fabricated with the wood chips, which were torrefied with $230^{\circ}C$ and 30 min, were the highest among all torrefaction conditions used in this study. From the microscopic observations, lignin was distributed broadly on the surface of non-torrefied wood pellets, whereas congregated partially on the surface of torrefied wood pellets. Durability of LAR pellets increased with the addition of moisture, but that of TUT pellets was reduced. Addition of binders contributed to increase the durability of LAR and TUT pellets. As a binder, lignin and protein were more effective than starch for improving the durability. In conclusion, mild torrefaction treatment, such as $230^{\circ}C$ and 30 min, might be an optimal condition to minimize the durability reduction of the LAR and TUT pellets. In addition, when torrefied woody materials with high and low specific gravities are used as a raw material for the production of durable wood pellets, it might be required to adjust moisture content and torrefaction conditions of woody materials, respectively.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.58 no.1
• /
• pp.84-91
• /
• 2020

The efficiency of the synthetic magnesium silicate used in basic polyols and edible oil purification is evaluated by its purification ability and filtration rate and is affected by the particle size and surface area of magnesium silicate. In this study, it was investigated the change on the particle size of magnesium silicate was influenced by the reaction temperature, injection rate, injection order (Si, Mg) and Mg/Si reaction mole ratio. The synthesized magnesium silicate was compared and analyzed for the synthesis, grinding, and refining processes. In the synthesis process, the reaction temperature and feed rate did not affect the average particle size change of magnesium silicate, while the reaction molar ratio of Mg / Si and the order of injection acted as main factors for the change of average particle size. The average particle size of magnesium silicate increased by 8.7 ㎛ from 54.4 ㎛ to 63.1 ㎛ at Mg injection when Mg molar ratio increased from 0.125 to 0.500, and increased by about 4.8 ㎛ from 47.3 ㎛ to 52.1 ㎛ at Si injection. The average particle size according to the order of injection was 59.1 ㎛ for Mg injection and 48.4 ㎛ for Si injection and the difference was shown 10.7 ㎛, therefore the filtration rate was about 2 times faster under the condition of Mg injection. That is, as the particle size increases, the filtration time is shortened and washing filtration rate can be increased to improve the productivity of magnesium silicate. The cake form of separated magnesium silicate after filtration becomes a solid through drying process and is used as powdery adsorbent through the grinding process. As the physical strength of the dried magnesium silicate increased, the average particle size of the powder increased and it was confirmed that this strength was affected by the reaction molar ratio. As the reaction molar ratio of Mg / Si increased, the physical strength of magnesium silicate decreased and the average particle size after grinding decreased by about 40% compared to the average particle size after synthesis. This reduction of strength resulted in an improvement of the refining ability due to the decrease of the average particle size and the increase of the amount of fine particle after the pulverization, but it resulted in the decrease of the purification filtration rate. While the molar ratio of Mg/Si was increased from 0.125 to 0.5 at Mg injection, the refining ability increased about 1.3 times, but the purification filtration rate decreased about 1.5 times. Therefore, in order to improve the productivity of magnesium silicate, the reaction molar ratio of Mg / Si should be increased, but in order to increase the purification filtration rate of the polyol, the reaction molar ratio should be decreased. In the synthesis parameters of magnesium silicate, the order of injection and the reaction molar ratio of Mg / Si are important factors affecting the changes in average particle size after synthesis and the changes of particle size after grinding due to the changes of compressive strength, therefore the synthetic parameter is an important thing that determines productivity and refining capacity.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.95-100
• /
• 2012

This study was determined to analysis marine environmental and phytoplankton monitoring in Wando coastal waters in August during the period of 2009-2010 and provided the basic environmental data against Southwest Sea of Korea. In August, 2009, the distribution of water temperature and salinity showed an unique characteristics for all of stations, which was associated with a long duration of rainfall after July, 2009 and a lack of sunshine. In the lower of August, 2010, the stratification of water temperature and salinity was shown, which was caused by an intensive sunshine after the middle of August, 2010. Gangjin Bay and Gogeundo waters showed a highly different water temperature and transparency. It is thought that two regions have a distinct water mass and characteristics. In dissolved oxygen and oxygen saturation were higher according to higher water depth regardless of stations. In August, 2009, different dominant species occurred that Gangjin Bay showed a higher cell density of diatom, but Gonyaulax polygramma played an important role in dominant species in Gogeundo waters. It is associated with the introduction red tide water of G. polygramma occurring to southern coastal water in August, 2009. In August, 2010, diatom was extremely higher cell density compared with that of dinoflagellate that regarded as adaptive microrganism against higher quantity of suspended solid in Wando waters. Although Wando has a record of Cochlodinium red tide, this species may be difficult to grow and persist. Dominant species, diatom, play an important role in food organism for shellfish and forming a ecological lineage.

• Clean Technology
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.221-232
• /
• 2018

This research was conducted to evaluate the operational performance of landfill facility and landfill gas energy facility from the questionnaire survey. In order to evaluate overall operational performance, three types of weighting methods were applied to each technical, economical, and environmental item. There was no significant difference between an equal weighted method, a weighted method of 40% for technology, 30% for economy, and 30% for environment, and a weighted method of 30% for technology, 40% for economy, and 30% for environment. In technical performance, large and middle scales of landfill facilities showed higher scores of 14.8 ~ 19.7 and 14.3 ~ 19.0 than 9.8 ~ 13.0 of small scale one. In environmental performance, large, middle, and small scales of landfill facilities showed 21.3 ~ 23.7, 17.6 ~ 19.6, and 20.8 ~ 23.1 scores, respectively. However, in economical performance, there was significant difference between them with scale. Large and middle scales of landfill facilities showed higher scores of 22.0 ~ 29.3 and 20.5 ~ 27.3 than 6.0 ~ 8.0 of small scale one. As a result of evaluation for landfill gas energy facility, large scale facility showed 19.2 ~ 25.6 and 17.8 ~ 23.7 scores in technical performance and 23.1 ~ 25.7 and 21.3 ~ 23.7 scores in environmental performance, respectively. However, in economical performance evaluation, large scale of landfill gas energy facility showed relatively higher of 27.8 ~ 33.3 score than 18.8 ~ 25.1 of small scale one. From these results, it was shown that economy evaluation heavily effect on the operational performance of landfill facility and landfill gas energy facility compared to technology and environment evaluation.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.156-162
• /
• 1995

This study was carried out to select the useful mutants among 20 lines treated with mutagen, gamma ray. These materials were treated with 15, 20, 25 and 30Krads, respectively and sowed at experimental field of College of Agriculture on 27th May, 1995. Items surveyed were germination rate and loss of chlorophyll at seedling stages, abnormal reproductive organs, discordance of flowering times and stem and ear height at ripening stages. The germination rate of lines treated with 15 Krad was different. The germination rate of the IK1, IK2 and Sinki lines were high, while the IK3, A632 and FR140 lines were very low. At same dose level, the germination rate of both IK1/H26 and Puyo synthetic variety were different; the germination rate of the IK1/H26 was high as above 70% at all treatments, while that of the Puyo synthetic variety was very poor at above 20 Krad. Generally stem adn ear height of the IK1/H26 were gradually decreased as the dose of mutagen increased, but there was no difference in stem and ear height of the IK1/H26 when this line was treated with 20Krad. The stem and ear height of lines treated with 15 Krad were shown to be decreased than those of check with non-treatment. The number of tiller of tillering lines were not greatly affected by ${\gamma}$-ray treatment.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• v.36 no.11
• /
• pp.846-851
• /
• 2003

Background: To clarify the clinical significance of the aortic nodes in resected non-small cell lung cancer of the left upper lobe. Material and Method: One hundred fifty six patients with resected non-small cell lung cancer of the left upper lobe were studied. Patients who received preoperative induction therapy, non-curative operation or defined as operative mortality were excluded from this study. Result: In N2 left upper lobe tumors, aortic nodes comprised 52.7% of the metastatic mediastinal lymph nodes. In single station N2 disease, a frequently metastasized station was aortic node (64.3%). 5-year actuarial survival according to the N status was 65.0% in N0, 30.4% in N1, and 17.9% in N2. There was no statistically significant difference in survival between N1 and N2 diseases (p=0.06). The patients with metastasis to aortic node alone had a comparatively good prognosis (5-year survival: 35.6%) than other N2 diseases (5-year survival: 4.6%) (p=0.01) and had a similar survival outcome as N1 diseases (p=0.97). Considering the aortic node as N1 node, 5-year survival according to the N status was 65.0% in N0, 31.2% in N1, 4.6% in N2 and significant survival difference was observed between N1 and N2 disease (p=0.00). In multivariate analysis, the male sex (hazard ratio 6.892, p=0.011) and the involvement to the aortic node alone (hazards ratio 2.799, p=0.009) were the significant factors affecting postoperative survival. Conclusion: According to the our data, involvement to the aortic node alone in left upper lobe tumors should be grouped with N1 disease because this combined category reflects the surgical outcome more accurately.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
• /
• v.46 no.3
• /
• pp.240-247
• /
• 2010

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram (-) opportunistic human pathogen causing a wide variety of infections on lung, urinary tract, eyes, and burn wound sites and quorum sensing (QS), a cell density-sensing mechanism plays an essential role in Pseudomonas pathogenesis. In order to investigate the importance of QS in the Pseudomonas infections of Korean patients, we isolated 189 clinical strains of P. aeruginosa from the patients in Pusan Paik Hospital, Busan, South Korea. The QS signal production of these clinical isolates was measured by signal diffusion assay on solid media using reporter strains. While most clinical strains (79.4%) produced the QS signals as similar level as a wild type strain, PAO1 did, where LasR, the initial QS signal sensor-regulator was fully activated, a minority of them (4.2%) produced much less QS signals at the level to which LasR failed to respond. Similarly, while 72.5% of the clinical isolates produced QS signals enough to activate QscR, an another QS signal sensor-regulator, some few of them (9%) produced the QS signals at much lower level where QscR was not activated. For further analysis, we selected 74 clinical strains that were obtained from the patients under suspicion of Pseudomonas infection and investigated the total protease activity that is considered important for virulence. Interestingly, significant portion of them showed very low protease activity (44.6%) or no detectable protease activity (12.2%). When the biofilm-forming ability that is considered very important in chronic infection was examined, most isolates showed lower biofilm-forming activity than PAO1. Similarly, significant portion of clinical isolates showed reduced motility (reduced swarming activity in 51.4% and reduced twitching activity in 41.9%), or non-detectable motility (swarming-negative in 28.4% and twitching-negative in 28.4%). Our result showed that the clinical isolates that produced QS signals at the similar level to wild type could have significantly reduced activities in the protease production, biofilm formation, and motility, and some clinical isolates had unique patterns of motility, biofilm formation, and protease production that are not correlated to their QS activity.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.25-32
• /
• 2004

Purpose : Evaluate the efficacies and toxicities of concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT), with or without intraluminal brachytherapy (ILB), using a retrospective analysis in esophageal carcinomas with respect to survival. Materials and Methods : From April 1995 to July 2001, a total of 65 patients, diagnosed with an esophageal carcinoma, were treated by CCRT, with 21 also treated by ILB after CCRT. External radiotherapy was peformed using 6 or 10 MV X-rays, with a dose range of $46.8~\69.6$ Gy (median; 59.4). The ILB was peformed using high-dose-rate brachytherapy with Ir-192. The fractionation of ILB was 3 Gy by 4, or 5 Gy by 2 fractions. Cisplatin $(75\;mg/m^2)$ was given on each first day of weeks 1, 5, 9 and 13, and 5-FU $(1,000\;mg/m^2)$ as a continuous infusion for the first 4 days of each course. Results : The median survival time of all patients was 15 months, and the 1, 2 and 3-year survival rates were 55.4, 29.2 and $20.7\%$, respectively. The 2-year survival rates of the patients with and without ILB were 33.3 and $27.3\%$, respectively (p=0.80). The 2-year survival rates of the patients with a complete, partial and no response were 44.1, 13.8 and $0\%$, respectively (p=0.02). The response to treatment was the only significant factor affecting the overall survival from a multivariate analysis. Conclusion : This study has shown that the survival outcomes of CCRT were much better than previous results with radiotherapy alone. However, the addition of ILB after CCRT showed no advantage over that of CCRT alone.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.257-264
• /
• 2001

This study was performed to investigate the effects of chitosan-trimer (CT) on the prevention of postoperative adhesion formation in the rate model. All animals divided into PBS (control), 1% CT, 3% CT, and chitin treated group. The mean adhesion score in 1% CT group (1.03$\pm$0.63), 3% CT group (0.64$\pm$0.53) and chitin group (1.67$\pm$0.71) was found to be lower than that in control group (2.07$\pm$0.81). More favorable adhesion prevention was achieved in 3% CT group (0.64$\pm$0.53) in comparison with the control group, 1% CT group, and chitin group without any hemorrhagic complications. A statistically significant difference was observed in adhesion formation between control group and 3% CT group (p<0.001). In control group, 44 of 45 sites (97.7%) formed adhesions between the intestine defects. In contrast, 3% CT was effective in reducing the incidence of adhesion formation to 17 to 45 sites (62.2%) (p<0.05). The locations of adhesions were observed in serosa-serosa (60%), serosa-mesentery (13.3%), serosa-connective tissue of testis (10%), omentum-liver (10%), serosa-omentum (3.3%), serosa-cecum (3.3%), and serosa-incision (0%). On the results of histological analysis, grade of inflammation and fibrosis at the sites of postoperative peritoneal adhesion formation were not significantly different in all groups. But, 3% CT showed the lowest score of inflammation and fibrosis. In 3% CT group, the rate of increase of plasma fibrinogen was significantly lower compared with that in control group from pre-operation to 10 days later (p<0.05). There were no appreciable difference in the CBC, leukocyte differential counts and total protein concentrations among four groups. In conclusion, our data suggested that CT should be effective on reducing adhesion formation in experimental rat models. The results also showed that 3% CT does not adversely affect normal wound healing and healthy recovery after operation.