• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.10
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• pp.1199-1206
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• 2017

The lymphotoxin ${\beta}$ receptor ($LT{\beta}R$), a member of the tumor necrosis factor receptor family, plays an important role in lymphoid tissue's architecture and organogenesis. We found that $LT{\beta}R$ stimulation induced changes in stress fibers (SFs) in fibroblastic reticular cells (FRCs). MLCK and ROCK play critical roles in the regulation of SF formation in cells. The present study was performed to investigate the antifibrotic effects on SF regulation of $LT{\beta}R$ signaling, with a focus on MLCK inhibition. The effect of $LT{\beta}R$ on the SF change was analyzed using immunoblot and fluorescence assays and agonistic $anti-LT{\beta}R$ antibody-treated FRCs. In addition, we checked the level of Rho-guanosine diphosphate (GDP)/guanosine triphosphate (GTP) exchange activity with FRC lysate. Phospho-ezrin proteins acting as membrane-cytoskeleton linkers completely de-phosphorylated in agonistic $anti-LT{\beta}R$ antibody-treated FRCs. The actin bundles rearranged into SFs, where phospho-myosin light chain (p-MLC) co-localized in FRCs. ML7-treated FRCs completely blocked SFs and showed retraction and shrinkage processes comparable to those observed in agonistic $anti-LT{\beta}R$ antibody-treated cells. Inhibition of ROCK activity induced changes in the actin cytoskeleton organization; however, some SFs remained in the cells, while they were completely disrupted by MLCK inhibition with ML7. We showed that the phosphorylation of MLC was completely abolished with $LT{\beta}R$ stimulation in FRCs. When $LT{\beta}R$ was stimulated with the agonistic $anti-LT{\beta}R$ antibody, the Rho-GDP/GTP exchange activity was reduced, however, the activity was not completely abolished. Collectively, the results illustrated that MLCK was potently responsible for the SF regulation triggered via $LT{\beta}R$ signaling in FRCs.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.11
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• pp.1256-1261
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• 2017

${\beta}$-glucan is a constituent of the cell wall of fungi, yeast and plants. It plays an important role in the immune system such as activation of immunocyte, release of pro-inflammatory and anti-cancer effect. The immune system maintains a healthy immune homeostasis. However, when pathogenic substances enter the body, immune homeostasis can break down and disease can be triggered. Therefore, we studied a substance that regulates immune homeostasis. The purpose of the study we demonstrated whether the ${\beta}$-glucan can be applied to the immune-modulation effects in human monocytic THP-1 cells. ${\beta}$-glucan was incubated in THP-1 cells at various concentrations. The $TNF-{\alpha}$ mRNA expression and protein levels were analyzed by ELISA and Real-time PCR. Additionally, the expression of MAPKs (p38 and JNK), $I{\kappa}B-{\alpha}$ and $NF-{\kappa}B$ p50 were analyzed by western blot. ${\beta}$-glucan enhanced the production of $TNF-{\alpha}$ mRNA expression and protein levels in human monocytic THP-1 cells. In addition, activation of MAPKs (p38 and JNK) and $NF-{\kappa}B$ p50 induced by ${\beta}$-glucan were increased. The study suggests that ${\beta}$-glucan contributes to immune-stimulation effect by production $TNF-{\alpha}$ in human monocytic THP-1 cells, and that MAPKs and $NF-{\kappa}B$ p50 are involved in the process. Synthetically, we have suggested ${\beta}$-glucan may be improved to immune system effect in human monocytic THP-1 cells.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.11
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• pp.1315-1323
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• 2017

Turmeric is a rhizomatous herbaceous perennial plant (Curcuma longa (CL)) of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae. A yellow-pigmented fraction isolated from the rhizomes of CL contains curcuminoids belonging to the dicinnamoyl methane group. Curcumin is an important active ingredient responsible for the biological activity of CL. However, CL is not usually used as a food source due to its bitter taste. The present study was designed to determine the effect of the CL fermented by Rhizopus oryzae (FCL) on pro-inflammatory factors such as nuclear factor ${\kappa}B$ ($NF-{\kappa}B$), tumor necrosis factor alpha ($TNF-{\alpha}$), interleukin-6 (IL-6), nitric oxide (NO), prostaglandin $E_2$ ($PGE_2$), inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced RAW 264.7 cell line. The cell viability was determined by MTT assay. To evaluate the anti-inflammatory effect of FCL 80% EtOH extracts, IL-6 and $TNF-{\alpha}$ were measured by ELISA kit. Also, the amount of $NO/PGE_2/NF-{\kappa}B$ was measured using the $NO/PGE_2/NF-{\kappa}B$ detection kit and the iNOS/COX-2 expression was measured by Western blotting. The results showed that the FCL reduced NO, $PGE_2$, iNOS, COX-2, $NF-{\kappa}B$, IL-6 and $TNF-{\alpha}$ production without cytotoxicity. These results suggest that FCL extracts may be a developed the functional food related to anti-inflammation due to the significant effects on inflammatory factors.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.11
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• pp.1245-1255
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• 2017

Most cancer cells produce ATP predominantly through glycolysis instead of through mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation, even in the presence of oxygen. The phenomenon is termed the Warburg effect, or the glycolytic switch, and it is thought to increase the availability of biosynthetic precursors for cell proliferation. EMTs have critical roles in the initiation of the invasion and metastasis of cancer cells. The glycolytic switch and EMT are important for tumor development and progression; however, their correlation with tumor progression is largely unknown. The Snail transcription factor is a major factor involved in EMT. The Snail expression is regulated by distal-less homeobox 2 (Dlx-2), a homeodomain transcription factor that is involved in embryonic and tumor development. The Dlx-2/Snail cascade is involved in Wnt-induced EMTs and the glycolytic switch. This study showed that in response to Wnt signaling, the Dlx-2/Snail cascade induces the expression of PFKFB2, which is a glycolytic enzyme that synthesizes and degrades fructose 2, 6-bisphosphate (F2,6BP). It also showed that PFKFB2 shRNA prevents Wnt-induced EMTs in the breast-tumor cell line MCF-7. The prevention indicated that glycolysis is linked to Wnt-induced EMT. Additionally, this study showed PFKFB2 shRNA suppresses in vivo tumor metastasis and growth. Finally, it showed the PFKFB2 expression is higher in breast, colon and ovarian cancer tissues than in matched normal tissues regardless of the cancers' stages. The results demonstrated that PFKFB2 is an important regulator of EMTs and metastases induced by the Wnt, Dlx-2 and Snail factors.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.524-531
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• 2018

The essential oil from Abies koreana E.H. Wilson had been developed, however, its efficacy has not yet been studied especially in terms of skin care research. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of Abies koreana extracts (AKE) on melanogenesis and wrinkle formation in B16F10 melanoma cells (B16F10) and human dermal fibroblast cell line (HDF). The essential oil was extracted by hydrodistillation method and purified by anhydrous sodium sulfate. At a concentration of $10^{-5}$-fold, viability in these cells had been defined by cytotoxicity assays. Anti-melanogenic effects on B16F10 were evaluated using tyrosinase inhibition assay, and real-time PCR for verifying gene expression of tyrosinase, tyrosinase related protein-1 and -2 (TRP-1 and -2). AKEs reduced about 5-fold of tyrosinase inhibitory activity compared to ${\alpha}$-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (${\alpha}$-MSH)-induced group and about 30% reduction compared to Arbutin induced group. The mRNA levels of three melanin-related factors were increased, separately. To investigate the effects of anti-wrinkle, procollagen type I c peptide synthesis assay (PIP) and Western blot were performed. At AKE-treated group, PIP was up-regulated and the expression of collagen type 1 and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-1 were improved. Furthermore, AKE presented anti-wrinkle effects by increasing UVB-inhibited collagen type 1 expression, and reducing UVB-induced MMP-1 production at $60mJ/cm^2$ of UVB radiation. Therefore, Abies koreana extracts has potentials as a safe and an effective skin ingredient for whitening and anti-wrinkle.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.517-523
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• 2018

Elevated levels of cortisol caused by chronic stress may lead to neuron damage in the hippocampus by activating the glucocorticoid receptors (GRs). In cortisol-deficient animals, corticosterone is known to function as a stress hormone. In humans however, corticosterone is considered a precursor of aldosterone and a glucocorticoid with similar properties to cortisol. Recently, many studies have been conducted on the role of cortisol and other synthetic glucocorticoids like dexamethasone in humans, but the exact function of corticosterone is unknown. This study examined the viability of human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells treated with various concentrations of corticosterone for 24 and 48 hr via MTT assay. The MTT-assay results showed that corticosterone had an antiproliferation effect on SH-SY5Y cells at higher concentrations (500 and $1,000{\mu}M$), while in lower concentrations ($100{\mu}M$), it showed no antiproliferation effect. Cytotoxicity analysis of extracts from three medicinal crops (Liriope muscari, Schisandra chinensis, and Wolfiporia extensa) revealed that they all possessed deleterious effects on SH-SY5Y cells depending on dosage. However, it was observed that, at a concentration of $500{\mu}g/ml$, Liriope muscari attenuated the corticosterone-induced antiproliferation on SY-SH5Y cells and restored cell growth after 48 hours of treatment. The study examined the synergistic effect of six mixtures each containing $500{\mu}g/ml$ of Liriope and various concentrations of Schisandra (50 or $100{\mu}g/ml$) and Wolfiporia (10, 30, and $50{\mu}g/ml$). The results showed minor growth-restoration activity but less than that of Liriope muscari only, suggesting that Schisandra and Wolfiporia had no additive or synergistic effects.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.605-614
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• 2018

Bee pollen has an outer wall which is resistant to both acidic and basic solutions and even the digestive enzymes in the gastrointestinal tract. Therefore, the oral bioavailability of bee pollen is only 10-15%. A previous study reported on wet-grinding technology which increased the extraction of active ingredients from bee pollen by 11 times. This study was designed to investigate the safety of wet-ground bee pollen. First, a single dose of wet-ground bee pollen was tested in both rats and beagle dogs at dosages of 5, 10, and 20 g/kg and 1.5, 3, and 6 g/kg, respectively. In rats, compound-colored stools were found in those administered 10 g/kg or more of wet-ground bee pollen. In beagle dogs, 6 g/kg of wet-ground bee pollen induced diarrhea in one male for four hours. However, no obvious clinical signs were found through the end of the experiment in rats and beagle dogs. In addition, no histological abnormality was found in all animals. The data indicates that a single dose of up to 20 g/kg of wet-ground bee pollen is safe. Next, the genetic toxicity of nano-sized bee pollen was tested. This study employed a bacterial reverse mutation test, a micronucleus assay, and a chromosomal aberration assay. In the micronucleus assay, there was no genetic toxicity up to the dosage of 2 g/kg. There was also no genetic toxicity in the bacterial reverse mutation test and chromosomal aberration assay. This data provides important information in developing nano-sized bee pollen into more advanced functional foods and herbal medicines.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.9 no.10
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• pp.303-308
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• 2020

The ReLU(Rectified Linear Unit) function has been dominantly used as a standard activation function in most deep artificial neural network models since it was proposed. Later, Leaky ReLU, Swish, and Mish activation functions were presented to replace ReLU, which showed improved performance over existing ReLU function in image classification task. Therefore, we recognized the need to experiment with whether performance improvements could be achieved by replacing the RELU with other activation functions in the super resolution task. In this paper, the performance was compared by changing the activation functions in EDSR model, which showed stable performance in the super resolution task. As a result, in experiments conducted with changing the activation function of EDSR, when the resolution was converted to double, the existing activation function, ReLU, showed similar or higher performance than the other activation functions used in the experiment. When the resolution was converted to four times, Leaky ReLU and Swish function showed slightly improved performance over ReLU. PSNR and SSIM, which can quantitatively evaluate the quality of images, were able to identify average performance improvements of 0.06%, 0.05% when using Leaky ReLU, and average performance improvements of 0.06% and 0.03% when using Swish. When the resolution is converted to eight times, the Mish function shows a slight average performance improvement over the ReLU. Using Mish, PSNR and SSIM were able to identify an average of 0.06% and 0.02% performance improvement over the RELU. In conclusion, Leaky ReLU and Swish showed improved performance compared to ReLU for super resolution that converts resolution four times and Mish showed improved performance compared to ReLU for super resolution that converts resolution eight times. In future study, we should conduct comparative experiments to replace activation functions with Leaky ReLU, Swish and Mish to improve performance in other super resolution models.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.109-116
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• 2017

This paper describes the investigation into the durability alkali-activated materials(AAM) mortar and paste samples manufactured using fly-ash(FA) and ground granulated blast furnace slag(GGBFS) exposed to a sulfate environment with different GGBFS replace ratios(30, 50 and 100%), sodium silicate modules($Ms[SiO_2/Na_2O]$ 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0). The tests involved immersions into 10% sodium sulfate solution($Na_2SO_4$), 10% magnesium sulfate solution($MgSO_4$), 10% magnesium nitrate solution($Mg(NO_3)_2$) and 5% magnesium nitrate($Mg(NO_3)_2$+5% sodium sulfate solution+$Na_2SO_4$). The evolution of compressive strength, weight, length expansion and microstructural observation such as x-ray diffraction were studied. As a results, in case of immersed in $Na_2SO_4$, $Mg(NO_3)_2$ and $Mg(NO_3)_2+Na_2SO_4$ shows increase in long-term strength. However, for samples immersed in $MgSO_4$, the general observation was that the compressive strength decreased after immersion. The most drastic reduction of compressive strength and expansion of weight and length occurred when GGBFS or Ms ratios were higher. Also, the XRD analysis of samples immersed in magnesium sulfate indicated that expansion of AAM caused by gypsum($CaSO_4{\cdot}2H_2O$) and brucite(MgOH). The results showed that, an additional condition $Mg^{2+}$ in which ${SO_4}^{2-}$ is the presence of a certain concentration, sulfate erosion has to be accelerated.

• Restorative Dentistry and Endodontics
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.123-131
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• 1982

The purpose of this study was to observe the responses of the remaining pulp tissue after pulpotomy upon the several kinds of $Ca(OH)_2$ products and the responses of periapical tissue upon some root canal filling materials after extirpation. For pulpotomy, the class V cavities were prepared on the premolars, molars and upper canines, and the pulp was amputated. Each drug was placed over the amputated tissue and cavity was sealed with zinc oxide eugenol cement. The drugs which were used for the study were Dycal (Caulk Co. U.S.A.), Cavitec (Kerr Co. U.S.A.), Calvital, Nobudyne and Neodyne (Neo Dental Chemical Products). For extirpation, the endodontic cavities were prepared on the lingual surfaces of anterior teeth, and the pulp tissues were extirpated as routine method. After enlarging, irrigation, and measuring of root length by taking X-ray, each root canal filling material was filled in the canal with gutta percha cone, and endodontic cavity was sealed with zinc oxide eugenol cement. Zinc oxide eugenol, $Ca(OH)_2$ (Eli Lilly Co. U.S.A.) and Vitapex (Neo Dental Chemical Products) were used as root canal filling materials. Animals were sacrificed after 1, 3 and 6 weeks following the operation. The teeth were decalcified in formic acid, sectioned and stained with hematoxylin eosin. Microscopic examination revealed as follows. 1. Dycal: The dentin bridge formation was observed at the 3rd week after pulpotomy. Inflammatory conditions which were infiltration of inflammatory cells and dilatation of blood vessels were kept in remaining pulp tissue at the 6th week. 2. Calvital: The dentin bridge was observed at the 1st week after pulpotomy. As the time clasped, the pulp tended to be the fibrous degeneration. 3. Cavitec, Nobudyne and Neodyne: In the case of Cavitec and Nobudyne, the incompleted and irregular dentin bridge was observed at the 6th week, and in Neodyne, was observed at the 3rd week. The severe inflammatory changes were seen in the remaining pulp tissue. As the time clasped, the fibrous degeneration tended to spread in the remaining pulp tissue. 4. $Ca(OH)_2$: Osteocementum was formed at the 3rd week, the matrix of cementum and dentin were resorted, and infiltration of lymphocytes was seen in periapical tissue when $Ca(OH)_2$ was used as canal-filling materials. S. ZOE and Vitapex The cementum like substance was seen in periapical portion at the 1st week, when ZOE and Vitapex were used as root canal filling materials. As the time elapsed, the matrix of cementum and dentin tended to be resorted. At the 6th week, the inflammatory condition of periapical tissue was continued in the case of ZOE, but was reduced in the case of Vitapex.