• Proceedings of the KSAR Conference
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• 2001.03a
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• pp.68-68
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• 2001

Blastocyst formation, consisting of the inner cell mass (ICM) and trophectoderm (TE), is the first differentiation process during embryonic development in mammals. It has been hypothesized that the proportion of ICM to TE in the blastocyst may be crucial for subsequent developmental competence of early embryos, which it may be expressed as a sensitive indicator for evaluating in vitro systems. In this study ICM/total cell ratio of nuclear transfer (NT) embryos was compared with IVF-derived and in vivo embryos. Somatic cell nuclei obtained from a fetus at Day 40 of gestation were transferred into the enucleated oocyte and then cultured in NCSU 23 medium for 6 days as previously described (Koo et al., Biol. Reprod. 2000; 63:986-992). ICM and TE cells of blastocysts were determined by using a differential staining method (Han et al., Biol. Reprod. 1999; 60:1110-1113). Development rate (9.8$\pm$2.5%, 23/225) to the blastocyst stage of NT embryos was lower than IVF embryos (23.8$\pm$2.7%, 53/223). Thus, a difference was detected in the in vitro developmental rate to blastocyst stage between NT and IVF-derived embryos (P<0.05). In the next experiment, we investigated ICM and TE nuclei to assess the quality of blastocysts that produced by NT, IVF and in vivo, respectively. NT blastocysts (27.6$\pm$8.3) showed a smaller total cell number than IVF-derived (42.6$\pm$17.4) and in vivo embryos (283.9$\pm$103.5) (P<0.05). Ratios of ICM/total cells in NT, IVF and in vivo blastocysts were 15.1$\pm$ 18.6% (n=56), 12.3$\pm$9.2% (n=57) and 30.4$\pm$6.8% (n=40), respectively. Individual blastocysts for the ratio of ICM/total cells were assigned to 3 groups (I; <20%, II; 20 to 40% and III;>40%). As the results, most in vivo blastocysts (97.5%, 39/40) were distributed into group II while most NT (78.6%, 44/56) and IVF-derived blastocysts (82.5%, 47/57) were allocated to group I. Thus, our data show that NT or IVF-derived embryos have aberrant morphology during early development in vitro systems, suggesting that these anomalies may result in developmental failures of the NT embryos to term.

• ANNALS OF ANIMAL RESOURCE SCIENCES
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.97-107
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• 2017

The present study was conducted to investigate the effects on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, and gut health of broiler chickens when a dietary supplementation of multienzymes was added to diets, containing different energy levels. A total of 480 broiler chickens of similar body weight (Ross 308, 1-day-old) were randomly subjected to four treatments. The dietary treatments included a corn-soybean meal-based diet supplemented with: multienzyme (amylase+protease+ mannanase+xylanase+phytase), 0.05% enzyme, and different energy levels (3010 and 3060 kcal/kg). The experimental diets were fed to the chicks in a mash form for 35 days in two phases (1-21 d, phase I; and 22-35 d, phase II). During the overall period, chicks fed with diets supplemented with multienzymes had a better weight gain (p<0.05) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) than those fed with diets without enzymes. There was no difference in the growth rate and FCR among the chicks fed with diets supplemented with enzymes, even though the dietary energy levels were different. The apparent fecal and ileal digestibility of dry matter, gross, crude protein, calcium, and phosphorus were significantly enhanced (p<0.05). The population of cecal and ileal Lactobacillus spp. was significantly increased (p<0.05), and Clostridium spp. and coliforms were significantly decreased (p<0.05) in diets supplemented with enzymes. Villus height and villus height to crypt depth ratio in the small intestine was also significantly enhanced (p<0.05) in diets supplemented with enzymes. In conclusion, multienzyme supplementation had positive effects on the weight gain of broilers, FCR, digestibility of nutrients, and on the growth of intestinal microbiota.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.697-706
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• 2002

Authigenic siderite grains, ranging 100 to 250-${\mu}$m in diameter, are abundant in an about 8,600-year-old sediment layer in Namyang Bay, west coast of Korea. The siderites exhibit the aggregated spherulitic morphology with well-developed rhombs on the grain surfaces. They consist mostly of FeCO$_3$ (average, 65%) and MnCO$_3$ (average, 22%) with low Mg/Ca ratio (less than 0.4) in their bulk composition. A series of compositional ternary discrimination diagrams, together with high Mn and low Mg contents, show that only meteoric porewater was involved in siderite precipitation, assuming that depositional environment of host sediment is an organic-rich freshwater system. Considering a series of results such as radiocarbon age, authigenic Mn-rich siderite and lithological features, siderite-hosting sediment (unit Tl) is interpreted as freshwater swamp or bog deposition, infilling the topographic depressions that locally existed before the formation of mid-to-late Holocene tidal deposits. Center-to-margin compositional variation within individual grain is very systematic; Mn and Ca decrease towards the margin of a siderite grain, while Fe and Mg increase. It suggests that the spherulitic siderites were precipitated in this sedimentary layer in a series during the early diagenesis of MnOx-FeOx reduction under steady-state.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.857-869
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• 2010

Objectives : The aim of this study was to evaluate whether rats with non-obstructive antral dilation could be a useful tool resembling functional dyspeptic patients. We also investigated the effect of Bojoongikki-tang (BJ), and Youngkaechulgam-tang (YK) in antral dilated rats. Methods : Non-obstructive antral dilation was performed by first wrapping a non-absorbable rubber ring (D:6mm, W:4mm, T:1mm) around the 1st portion of the duodenum causing pyloric obstruction (PO). After 12 weeks, except for some PO group rats used for the control, the rubber ring was removed by performing another operation. The antral dilated rats (AD) were then divided into three groups, a non-treatment group (AD-NT), and two herbal medicine groups each given an extract solution containing 125 mg/kg of Youngkaechulgam-tang (AD-YK) or Bojoongikki-tang (AD-BJ) for 4 weeks. Then gastric contractility was evaluated by bowel sound measurement, and afterwards the changes of the weight, and morphologic changes of the stomach were evaluated for each group including the normal intact group (NI). Results : Loss of weight and enlargement of the stomach surface area was seen in the PO group. Decrease of gastric motility index was observed in the AD-NT group, while the increased surface area of the stomach was not significantly different from the PO group. Youngkaechulgam-tang seemed to increase gastric contraction, whereas Bojoongikki-tang showed no effect. Weight gain of rats was observed in both the AD-YK and AD-BJ groups, but there seemed to be no change of the dilated stomach surface area. Conclusions : The non-obstructive antral dilated rat seems to be an experimental pathologic model that reflects the gastric dysmotility similar to functional dyspeptic patients with antral dilation. Therefore patients with dysmotility-like dyspepsia with antral function disorders should be treated efficiently. As Youngkaechulgam-tang is shown to increase both gastric contraction and weight in antral dilated rats, it may be used for treating functional dyspepsia. However, Bojoongikki-tang should be used with caution in patients with gastric dysmotility.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2014

Patients with cerebral palsy or arthritis have deformities in lower limb which cause unstable gait or posture and pains. Surgeons perform a deformity correction osteotomy with surgical plan. But sometimes they find the unexpected angular or rotational deformation after surgery. The problems are that there is no method to predict the result of a surgical plan and also there are so many factors to must consider in surgical planning step such as clinical measurements, rotation angle, wedge angle, morphology of lower limb, etc. This paper presents new methods for planning the deformity correction osteotomy efficiently. There are two approaches based on the 3D mesh model and the accurate assessment of the patient's lower limb. One is the manual pre-simulation of surgery using forward kinematics. And the other is the automatic surgical planning using inverse kinematics and nonlinear optimization. Using these methods, we can predict and verify the results of various surgical treatments and also we can find a more effective surgical plan easily compared to conventional methods.

• Journal of Sericultural and Entomological Science
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-26
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• 1975

These studies were attempted to find out the optimum silk reeling system by use of automatic silk reeling machine to increase raw silk yield and reeling efficiency with various silk reelable cocoons. The obtained results are as follows; 1. The mean silk reelability ratio(X)of the Korean cocoons during the last ten years was 61 per cent, beside 64.7 per cent in autumn cocoon and 57.3 per cent in spring cocoon. However, the ratio variation of autumn cocoons was larger than that of spring cocoons. 2. A positive correlation between cocoon filament breaks during its process and silk reelability levels was shown to be significant. The cocoons of both poor and good reelability evidenced "J" shape distribution on the filament break graph by the order of reeling cocoon end. Many bave breaks were found at the inner shell of the cocoons, or in case of poor reelability cocoons. 3. The morphology of broken cocoon ends during the process was classified into A, B, C, D, E and F types, The occurrence of B type was majority, but that of F type was minority among them. 4. In case of the cocoon cooking, H-type ion-exchanged soft water was better for good reelability cocoons, Na and H-type ion exchanged neutral soft water for those of fair reelability, and alkaline (Na-type) soft water for those of poor reelability, respectively. 5. The modification of cooking water by mixing the above different types of water (50％ Na-type and 50％ H-type passed by standard natural water; 75％ Na-type and 25％ H-type passed by hard natural water; 25％ Na-type and 75％ H-type passed by soluble natural water) made higher yield of raw silk with tess breaks of thread. 6, In case cocoon ends groping water included sodium hexametaphosphate as much as 800 ppm. the groping efficiency and raw silk yield of cocoon was improved. The effect was pronounced in case of poor reelability cordons. 7. The most reasonable cocoon cooking and silk reeling condition for automatic silk reeling process were observed to be rather incomplete cook with good reelability cocoons and optimum cook with poor reelability cocoons succeeded by the reeling bath temperature of 45$^{\circ}C$, 8. The reasonable silk reeling velocities were observed to be about 150m per min. for good reelability cocoons, 120m per min. for fair reelability ones and 90 to 120m per min. for poor reelability ones. 9. In order to improve the raw silk yield of cocoons and reeling efficiency, the cocoon stand-by-ratio for reeling should be kept at the level of 40 per cent for good reelability cocoons or at 60 per cent for poor reelability ones beside necessary end found cocoon condition.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.3195-3201
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• 2015

Objectives: To investigate the effects of betaine on HeLa cell growth and apoptosis and molecular mechanisms. Materials and Methods: Concentrations of 0.1, 1.0, 5.0, 20.0, 100.0 mg/ml of betaine were used to evaluate the anticancer efficacy for HeLa cells respectively, and MCF-10A was also detected as a normal diploid cell control. Results: We found that proliferation of HeLa cells was inhibited significantly upon exposure to increasing betaine levels with the MTT test (p<0.05). The percentage of S phase cells in the low dose groups (<5mg/ml) were distinctly higher than in high dose groups, and the rates of Sub-G1 phase were the opposite (p<0.01); A high concentration of betaine (>5.0mg/ml) significantly promoted the apoptosis of HeLa cells (p<0.01). SOD activities of the low dose groups were slightly higher than the control group (p<0.05) and there were obvious synchronicity and correlation among the expression of promoting apoptosis genes Bax, P53, Caspase 3 and apoptosis suppression gene Bcl-2. In response to an apoptosis-inducing stimulus, p53 and cyclin D1 could be activated with blockage of the cell cycle at G1/S or S/G2 checkpoints. Conclusions: Our data showed that betaine could promote HeLa cells proliferation in vitro at low concentrations. In contrast, high concentrations could significantly inhibit cell growth and migration, and induce apoptosis of HeLa cells through caspase 3 signaling and further promoted necrosis. This might imply that betaine exhibits tumoricidal effects and acts as a biological response modifier in cancer treatment by inducing apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in a dose and time-dependent manner.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.194-204
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• 2015

Six study sites in Gumi, Goryeong in Gyeongbuk province and Naju in Jeonnam province were selected to investigate soil properties of poorly drained horizons in paddy soils. The horizons were re-established layers which were parent material layers originated from fluvial deposits. Topsoil layers were differentiated from piled parent materials while soil structure of the topsoil layer was massive with striated microstructure. Compaction at soil re-establishment and a lack of structure and aggregate development in these soils may cause the limitation of vertical water movement and result in poorly drained horizons. Soil samples were taken from paddy fields with top soils of sandy loam, silt loam and silty clay loam and re-established soils of coarse and fine texture. The samples were taken from each horizon for the analyses of soil chemical and mineral properties. Soils with re-established soils of coarse texture had greater amounts of sands from top soil texture distributions, while soils with fine texture had greater amounts of silts. Chemical properties of top soils were analyzed from rice cultivated soils at the time of re-establishments and one year after the re-establishments. The coarse texture of the re-established horizons decreased in EC values from 0.23 to $0.11(dS\;m^{-1})$, available phosphate values from 112 to $54(mg\;kg^{-1})$, and exchangeable Ca values from 6.6 to $4.9(cmol_c\;kg^{-1})$. On the other hand, soils with fine texture showed decrease only in pH and exchangeable Ca values. Especially, organic matter and available phosphate contents showed heterogeneous distributions from each horizon. This result may be caused by mixture of plough layer and subsurface layer during and consolidation. Hydraulic conductivity values were low at the boundaries of top soil and parent material layers except SL/coarse soil. Soil microstructure was massive structure without soil clods or pores and showed striated structure. Therefore, re-established paddy fields with fluvial deposits as parent material layers showed limited vertical movements of soil water because of occurrence of compacted layers and less-development of soil clods and aggregates.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.173-181
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• 2009

One of the most extensively studied populations of multipotent adult stem cells are mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). MSCs derived from the human umbilical cord vein (HUC-MSCs) are morphologically and immunophenotypically similar to MSCs isolated from bone marrow. HUC-MSCs are multipotent stem cells, differ from hematopoietic stem cells and can be differentiated into neural cells. Since neural tissue has limited intrinsic capacity of repair after injury, the identification of alternate sources of neural stem cells has broad clinical potential. We isolated mesenchymal-like stem cells from the human umbilical cord vein, and studied transdifferentiation-promoting conditions in neural cells. Dopaminergic neuronal differentiation of HUC-MSCs was also studied. Neural differentiation was induced by adding bFGF, EGF, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) in N2 medium and N2 supplement. The immunoreactive cells for $\beta$-tubulin III, a neuron-specific marker, GFAP, an astrocyte marker, or Gal-C, an oligodendrocyte marker, were found. HUC-MSCs treated with bFGF, SHH and FGF8 were differentiated into dopaminergic neurons that were immunopositive for tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) antibody. HUC-MSCs treated with DMSO and BHA rapidly showed the morphology of multipolar neurons. Both immunocytochemistry and RT-PCR analysis indicated that the expression of a number of neural markers including NeuroD1, $\beta$-tubulin III, GFAP and nestin was markedly elevated during this acute differentiation. While the stem cell markers such as SCF, C-kit, and Stat-3 were not expressed after neural differentiation, we confirmed the differentiation of dopaminergic neurons by TH/$\beta$-tubulin III positive cells. In conclusion, HUC-MSCs can be differentiated into dopaminergic neurons and these findings suggest that HUC-MSCs are alternative cell source of therapeutic treatment for neurodegenerative diseases.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics S
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• v.36S no.1
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• pp.70-80
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• 1999

In this paper, a new hierarchical image segmentation algorithm based on human visual system(HVS) characteristic is proposed which can efficiently reduce and control transmission information quantity without the degradation of the subjective and objective image quality. It consists of image segmentation based on mathematical morphology and region merging considering HVS characteristic for the pairs of two adjacent regions at each level of the hierarchy. Image segmentation is composed of 3-level hierarchical structure. In the region merging structure of each level, we extract the pairs of two adjacent regions which human vision can't discriminate, and then merge them. The proposed region merging method extracts pairs of two neighbor regions to be merged and performs region merging according to merging priority based on HVS characteristics. The merging priority for each adjacent pair is determined by the proposed merging priority function(MPF). First of all, the highest priority pair is merged. The information control factor is used to regulate the transmission information at each level. The proposed segmentation algorithm can efficiently improve bottleneck problem caused by excessive contour information at region-based very low bit rate coding. And it shows that it is more flexible structure than that of conventional method. In experimental results, though PSNR and the subjective image quality by the proposed algorithm is similar to that of conventional method, the contour information quantity to be transmitted is reduced considerably. Therefore it is an efficient image segmentation algorithm for region-based very low bit rate coding.