• Annals of Clinical Microbiology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.9-13
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• 2019

Background: The isolation of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) has become increasingly common. Continuous surveillance for these organisms is essential because their infections are closely related to outbreaks of illness and are associated with high mortality rates. The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate multiplex PCR as a means of detecting several important CPE genes simultaneously. Methods: We aimed to develop a multiplex PCR that could detect seven CPE genes simultaneously. The multiplex PCR was composed of seven primer sets for the detection of KPC, IMP, VIM, NDM-1, GES, OXA-23, and OXA-48. We designed different PCR product sizes of at least 100 bp. We evaluated the performance of this new test using 69 CPE-positive clinical isolates. Also, we confirmed the specificity to rule out false-positive reactions by using 71 carbapenem-susceptible clinical strains. Results: A total of 69 CPE clinical isolates showed positive results and were correctly identified as KPC (N=14), IMP (N=13), OXA-23 (N=12), OXA-48 (N=11), VIM (N=9), GES (N=5), and NDM (N=5) by the multiplex PCR. All 71 carbapenem-susceptible clinical isolates, including Enterococcus faecalis, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, showed negative results. Conclusion: This multiplex PCR can detect seven CPE genes at a time and will be useful in clinical laboratories.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.14-21
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• 2019

Objectives Thyroid hormone deficiency during the neurodevelopmental period can impair brain development and induce psychiatric symptoms. This study examined the association between thyroid dysfunction and the severity of symptoms in schizophrenia patients, and the treatment response of patients with schizophrenia. Methods Three hundred thirty-eight schizophrenia patients, with no prior history of thyroid disease or taking medication associated with it, were studied. We assessed the blood thyroid hormone level, the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) scores on the day of admission and discharge, admission period, dose of administered antipsychotics, and the number of antipsychotic combinations. The collected data were subsequently analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis test and Pearson's chi-square test. Results The percentage of schizophrenia patients who presented with abnormal thyroid hormone level was 24.6%. High total triiodothyronine (TT3) (p = 0.003), low TT3 (p = 0.001), and high free thyroxine (fT4) (p < 0.001) groups showed a higher BPRS score on admission than did the normal thyroid hormone group, while thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) levels were not significantly correlated with the severity of symptoms. Furthermore, thyroid hormone was not associated with the treatment response assessed by the rate of BPRS score reduction, admission days, use of clozapine, and dose of antipsychotics. Conclusions The TT3 and fT4 hormone levels were significantly associated with the severity of symptoms in schizophrenia patients. These relations suggested that thyroid dysfunction may be associated with the severity of schizophrenia. And hence, further analysis of the results of the thyroid function test, which is commonly used in cases of psychiatric admission, is required.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.54-59
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• 2006

Background: Although there have been several studies regarding the clinical value of an automated TB-PCR study using sputum, bronchial washing, and other body fluid samples for the detection of pulmonary tuberculosis, there are only a few reports on the use of fresh tissue samples. Materials and methods: The acid-fast bacilli stain(AFB), tuberculosis culture, automated TB-PCR study, and histopathology examination were performed in 42 fresh tissue samples. Results: Among the 42 cases, 18 cases were diagnosed with tuberculosis based on the clinical findings. Sixteen of the 18 cases were TB-PCR positive and of these 16 cases, only 2 cases were positive in the AFB stain or culture study. However, all 18 cases showed the histopathology findings of chronic granulomatous inflammation that was compatible with tuberculosis. Based on the clinical findings, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictability, and negative predictability of the automated TB-PCR study were 88.9%, 100%, 100%, and 92.3% respectively. Conclusion: An automated TB-PCR assay is an important diagnostic tool for diagnosing tuberculosis in fresh tissue samples.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.1321-1331
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• 2018

The aim of this study was to separate the photosensitizer that induces apoptosis of U937 and SK-HEP-1 cells from Nostoc commune. Dried N. commune was extracted with $CH_2Cl_2/MeOH$ (1:1) to separate the photosensitizer using various chromatographic techniques. The isolated compound was identified as pheophytin a ($C_{55}H_{74}N_4O_5$) with a molecular weight of 870. Its photodynamic activities were assessed under different irradiation conditions (light and non-light) at the same concentration range of $1.15-23.0{\mu}M$. The apoptosis inducing activity in U937 or SK-HEP-1 cells appeared only in the light. The mechanisms underlying the pheophytin a-mediated photodynamic inhibition of cancer cells were further investigated by examining cell morphology changes, cytotoxicity, caspase-3/7 activity, fluorescence staining, flow cytometry analysis, and DNA fragmentation in these two cell lines. The positive control and the light irradiation group showed typical apoptotic responses, including morphological changes, cytotoxicity, caspase activity, nucleus shrinkage owing to chromatin condensation, DNA laddering, and the presence of apoptotic bodies. Cytotoxicity markedly increased in a dose-dependent manner after a 12 hr exposure. Caspase-3/7 activity was higher in U937 cells than in SK-HEP-1 cells. Apoptosis induction therefore appeared to be both concentration- and light-dependent. In conclusion, pheophytin a, isolated from the blue green alga N. commune, had a photodynamic apoptosis-inducing effect on U937 and SK-HEP-1 cells. The findings reported here can be used as basic data for the development of next-generation photosensitizers from N. commune.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.365-374
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• 2019

Unlike benign tumors, malignant tumors are capable of metastasis, easy to relapse, poor survival, and low quality of life. In Korea, here is a tendency to treat the tumors collectively according to the General Principles of Cancer Chemotherapy(GPCC) of the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service (HIRA). But recently, companion diagnostics(CDx) is recommended rather than unilateral medication because biomarker-based molecular diagnostics is possible to predict the drug response of patients before drug treatment. Not only domestic but also overseas Food and Drug Administratio (FDA) recommends the development of the CDx system at the stage of drug development to ensure the responsiveness and safety of medicines. In this study, I focused on the necessity of CDx development direction as well as CDx development status through literature review. Furthermore I also discussed CDx types according to the molecular diagnostic technology such as immunohistochemistry (IHC), polymerase chain reaction (PCR), in situ hybridization (ISH), and next-generation sequencing (NGS) not only in the approved CDx but also in the developing one by US FDA. And I suggested the technology issue of CDx development process such as a selection of molecular diagnostics at the time of release, a clear understanding of the CDx mechanism, and a convergence of drug with CDx development. The necessity of social insurance system also was proposed for CDx development.

• 재활복지
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.247-264
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• 2016

The Children's Home Inventory for Listening Difficulties (CHILD) questionnaire has been applied for assessing listening and communication difficulties in various home situations for children with hearing loss. The purpose of the study was to translate the CHILD questionnaire for parents into Korean and verify reliability and validity of Korean version of CHILD (CHILD-K). CHILD-K was completed by 55 parents of children (from ages 3~12 years) using cochlear implants (CI). Among the 55 children, 27 were in preschool and 28 in elementary. Internal consistency reliability of CHILD-K was verified by Chronbach's alpha. The mixed factorial ANOVA was conducted to compare the effects of the age group and situation factors (Quiet, Noise, Distance, Social, and Media factors) on the score of CHILD. The results indicated that CHILD-K showed excellent internal consistency reliability (${\alpha}=.96$). The CHILD scores among age groups were significantly different as the older age group resulted in higher scores in all situations except Distance. For both groups the mean scores for the Quiet situation were significantly higher than other situations, and the mean scores for the Social situation were significantly lower than other situations. Moreover, analysis showed that children with CI had difficulties in the Social situation combined with other situation factors. The results indicate that the Korean version of CHILD questionnaire is a reliable tool for the assessment of communication abilities in home situation in Korean-speaking children using CI.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.1379-1385
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• 2018

Glycans are attached to proteins as in glycoproteins and proteoglycans. They are found on the exterior surface of cells. O- and N-linked glycans are very common in eukaryotic cells but may also be found in prokaryotes. The interaction of cell surface glycans with complementary glycan binding proteins located on neighboring cells, other cell types, pathogens like virus, or bacteria is crucial in biologically and biomedically important processes like pathogen recognition, cell migration, cell-cell adhesion, development, and infection. Their implication in pathological condition, suggests an important role for glycans as disease markers. In addition, a great amount of research has been shown that appropriate glycosylation of a recombinant therapeutic protein is critical for product solubility, stability, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, bioactivity, and safety. Besides, cancer-associated glycosylation changes often involve sialic acid in glycan branch which play important roles in cell-cell interaction, recognition and immunological response. This review aims at giving a comprehensive overview of the glycan's biological function and describing the relevance among the glycosylation, disease diagnosis and treatment methods. Furthermore, the high-throughput analytic methods available to measure the profile changing patterns of glycan in the blood serum as well as possible underlying biochemical mechanisms.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.629-635
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• 2019

In term of the factors affecting psychosocial adjustment of breast cancer patients, their quality of life after surgical operation, radiation, and chemotherapy were systematically meta-analyzed. As a result, their qualities of life of the patients that had radiation therapy was the lowest right after the therapy, and gradually increased after the end of the therapy. However, after six months, their quality of life failed to reach the same level before the therapy. They had depression and side effects the most right after the therapy, and somewhat reduced them after the end of the therapy. In case of surgical operation, the more they were educated, the more they had psychosocial adjustment, and the more they had a medical examination and took out an insurance policy, the more they had psychosocial adjustment. In case of chemotherapy, their cognitive function is influenced so that they have impairments in memory, learning, and thinking stages. Since subjective cognitive impairment has a relationship with depression, it is necessary to monitor depression of chemotherapy patients. Given the results of this systematic meta-analysis, when three types of therapies (surgical operation, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy) are applied to patients with breast cancer, it is necessary to recognize their psychosocial adjustment, depression, anxiety, and quality of life in the nursing and radiation therapy fields and thereby to introduce an intervention program for a holistic approach.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.133-140
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• 2019

Triglycerides (TG) are one of the triggers of chronic inflammatory lesions in the blood vessels. In the key factors in the development of inflammatory diseases, Pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha $(TNF-){\alpha}$ and interleukin-1 beta ($IL-1{\beta}$) contribute to the development of inflammatory lesions by recruiting other immune cells in the inflamed area or causing cell necrotic death. In this study, I investigated the effect of Jurkat T lymphocytes and U937 monocytes involved in vascular inflammation development on the expression of $TNF-{\alpha}$ and $IL-1{\beta}$ on exposure to TGs. In Jurkat cells, mRNA expression of $TNF-{\alpha}$ is increased by exposure to TGs. However, the expression levels of $TNF-{\alpha}$ and $IL-1{\beta}$ were increased by TGs in U937 cells. To investigate whether inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) is involved in the increase of expression of $TNF-{\alpha}$ and $IL-1{\beta}$ by TGs, treatment of W1400 (an iNOS inhibitor) resulted in recovery of expression level both $TNF-{\alpha}$ and $IL-1{\beta}$. Based on the present study, it was confirmed that the expression of $TNF-{\alpha}$ and $IL-1{\beta}$ in monocytes and T lymphocytes. This increased cytokines contribute to development of vascular inflammatory lesions. In addition, iNOS is involved in the increase of $TNF-{\alpha}$ and $IL-1{\beta}$ expression by TGs.

• Journal of Internet of Things and Convergence
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.33-38
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• 2020

It was reported that a mobile application was designed to easily provide natural dyeing information such as natural dye related resources, colors and dyed fabrics in 2007. Since studies on the linkage, application, etc. between natural dye dyeing and IoT are still lacking, diversity of information on the change of dyeing pattern by natural dye dyeing is required. In this study, it was to construct dyeing information by natural dyes, e.g., Lithospermum erythrorhizon, on silk, which has been traditionally used as many fibers in Korea. The extraction of the dye from L. erythrorhizon was carried out under pH4. The dried root of L. erythrorhizon showed dark brownish purple. Silk fabric by a without a mordant typically showed a purple dyed pattern. In the staining by sodium tartrate plus citric acid, silk fabric was stained clear brown. Interestingly, the mordant of iron (II) sulfate, the silk fabric was dyed in a light gray color rather than black. When the mordant of aluminum potassium sulfate was treated with L. erythrorhizon-extracted dye, the results were almost the same as when the mordant was not treated. When the degree of dyeing was evaluated numerically, the treatment of the mordant of potassium dichromate was about 50% darker, and the dyeing by iron (II) sulfate was about 75% darker. These results will be helpful in the study of applying various dye colors using L. erythrorhizon, and it will provide information on dyeing controller and database system construction by dyeing parameters such as dyeing degree, pH concentration, and chromaticity change.