• Journal of Life Science
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• v.25 no.9
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• pp.984-992
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• 2015

Sanguinarine is a benzophenanthridine alkaloid originally isolated from the roots of Sanguinaria canadensis. It has multiple biological activities (e.g., antioxidant and antiproliferative) and immune-enhancing potential. In this study, we explored the proapoptotic properties and modes of action of sanguinarine in human hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2 cells. Our results revealed that sanguinarine inhibited HepG2 cell growth and induced apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner. The induction of apoptosis by sanguinarine was associated with the up-regulation of Fas and Bax, the release of cytochrome c from the mitochondria to the cytosol, and the loss of the mitochondrial membrane potential. In addition, sanguinarine activated caspase-9 and -8, initiator caspases of the intrinsic and death extrinsic pathways, respectively, and caspase-3, accompanied by proteolytic degradation of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase. Sanguinarine also triggered the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The elimination of ROS by N-acetylcysteine reversed sanguinarine-induced apoptosis. Furthermore, sanguinarine induced the dephosphorylation of Akt and the phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein kinases, including extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), c-jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), and p38. The growth inhibition was enhanced by the combined treatment of sanguinarine with a phosphatidylinositol 3'-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor and an ERK inhibitor but not JNK and p38 inhibitors. Overall, our data indicate that the proapoptotic effects of sanguinarine in HepG2 cells depend on ROS production and the activation of both intrinsic and extrinsic signaling pathways, which is mediated by blocking PI3K/Akt and activating the ERK pathway. Thus, our data suggest that sanguinarine may be a natural compound with potential for use as an antitumor agent in liver cancer.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.173-178
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• 1998

This study presents the influence of ammonium-nitrogen on microorganisms in swine wastewater. For the anaerobic batch fermentation, two different methods were used. One is the dilution of wastewater with water. The other method is the elimination of ammonium-nitrogen from the wastewater. By addition of MgO into wastewater, non-soluble crystall was formed under alkaline condition as MgNH$_4$PO$_4$6$H_2O$ (MAP). The master culture was adapted in swine wastewater for more than 3 months, in water-dilution method, the dilution of wastewater with 25% water gave us the best result in efficiency of COD removal. Two hundred hours later MAP-treated wastewater showed the efficiency of the COD removal more than 80%. Under same condition obtained none MAP-treated wastewater about 50%. MAP treatment carried out the very effective anaerobic digestion with swine wastewater. The important result in this study is that the low ratio of C:N influenced on anaerobic microorganisms more than high concentration of ammonium nitrogen in swine wastewater. The struvite for the crystallforming has no toxic effect on methanogenic bacteria.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.469-476
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• 2010

This study was to investigate the effect of apigenin on the bioavailability of paclitaxel after oral and intravenous administration in rats. The effect of apigenin on P-glycoprotein (P-gp), cytochrome P450 (CYP)3A4 activity was evaluated. The pharmacokinetic parameters of paclitaxel were determined in rats after oral (40 mg/kg) or intravenous (5 mg/kg) administration of paclitaxel with apigenin (0.4, 2 and 8 mg/kg) to rats. Apigenin inhibited CYP3A4 activity with 50% inhibition concentration ($IC_{50}$) of 1.8 ${\mu}M$. In addition, apigenin significantly inhibited P-gp activity. Compared to the control group, apigenin significantly increased the area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC, p<0.05 by 2 mg/kg, 59.0% higher; p<0.01 by 8 mg/kg, 87% higher) of oral paclitaxel. Apigenin also significantly (p<0.05 by 2 mg/kg, 37.2% higher; p<0.01 by 8 mg/kg, 59.3% higher) increased the peak plasma concentration ($C_{max}$) of oral paclitaxel. Apigenin significantly increased the terminal half-life ($t_{1/2}$, p<0.05 by 8 mg/kg, 34.5%) of oral paclitaxel. Consequently, the absolute bioavailability (A.B.) of paclitaxel was significantly (p<0.05 by 2 mg/kg, p<0.01 by 8 mg/kg) increased by apigenin compared to that in the control group, and the relative bioavailability (R.B.) of oral paclitaxel was increased by 1.14- to 1.87-fold. The pharmacokinetics of intravenous paclitaxel were not affected by the concurrent use of apigenin in contrast to the oral administration of paclitaxel. Accordingly, the enhanced oral bioavailability by apigenin may be mainly due to increased intestinal absorption caused via P-gp inhibition by apigenin rather than to reduced renal and hepatic elimination of paclitaxel. The increase in the oral bioavailability might be mainly attributed to enhanced absorption in the gastrointestinal tract via the inhibition of P-gp and reduced first-pass metabolism of paclitaxel via the inhibition of the CYP3A subfamily in the small intestine and/or in the liver by apigenin. It appears that the development of oral paclitaxel preparations as a combination therapy is possible, which will be more convenient than the i.v. dosage form.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.22-27
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• 2016

The Electrostatic Charge Prevention Technology is a core factor that highly influences the yield of Ultra High Resolution Flat Panel Display and high-integrated semiconductor manufacturing processes. The corona or x-ray ionizations are commonly used in order to eliminate static charges during manufacturing processes. To develop such a revolutionary x-ray ionizer that is free of x-ray radiation and has function to control the volume of ion formation simultaneously is a goal of this research and it absolutely overcomes the current risks of x-ray ionization. Under the International Commission on Radiological Protection, it must have a leakage radiation level that should be lower than a recommended level that is $1{\mu}Sv/hour$. In this research, the new generation of x-ray ionizer can easily control both the volume of ion formation and the leakage radiation level at the same time. In the research, the test constraints were set and the descriptions are as below; First, In order not to leak x-ray radiation while testing, the shielding box was fully installed around the test equipment area. Second, Implement the metallic Ring Electrode along a tube window and applied zero to ${\pm}8kV$ with respect to manage the positive and negative ions formation. Lastly, the ion duty ratio was able to be controlled in different test set-ups along with a free x-ray leakage through the metallic Ring Electrode. In the result of experiment, the maximum x-ray radiation leakage was $0.2{\mu}Sv/h$. These outcome is lower than the ICRP 103 recommended value, which is $1{\mu}Sv/h$. When applying voltage to the metallic ring electrode, the positive decay time was 2.18s at the distance of 300 mm and its slope was 0.272. In addition, the negative decay time was 2.1s at the distance of 300 mm and its slope was 0.262. At the distance of 200 mm, the positive decay time was 2.29s and its slope was 0.286. The negative decay time was 2.35s and its slope was 0.293. At the distance of 100 mm, the positive decay time was 2.71s and its slope was 0.338. The negative decay time was 3.07s and its slope was 0.383. According to these research, the observation was shown that these new concept of ionizer is able to minimize the leakage radiation level and to control the positive and negative ion duty ratio while ionization.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.6550-6557
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• 2013

The public road construction projects awarded by the regional construction and management office, which is an affiliate of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, are managed by construction supervision officers. These officials frequently visit a large number of construction sites to conduct inspections and supervision tasks. Therefore, the site management efficiency is essential in terms of the time and money spent in travelling to the sites. The introduction of a site monitoring management system is considered necessary to minimize the number of site visits and enable remote monitoring of the construction progress to enhance the business efficiency of the construction supervision officers. In this study, a remote site monitoring system was constructed using web cameras for public road construction works. The trial applications were implemented by selecting ten constructions sites. The effectiveness of the system was analyzed to assess its applicability. In an assessment of the applicability of the verification results, remote site monitoring showed cost savings of approximately 35% compared to the existing site management. The guidelines for applying the site monitoring management system were provided, the introduction plan was investigated, and the improvement method was presented. The results showed that the system is likely to minimize the unnecessary site visits, remove the risk factors at vulnerable areas in the sites beforehand, and prevent a range of disasters and accidents. In addition, the quality of the infrastructures is likely to improve through the prevention of accidents and the elimination of substandard and faulty construction work.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.168-177
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• 2020

Seabed multiple reflections (seabed multiples) are the main cause of misinterpretations of primary reflections in both shot gathers and stack sections. Accordingly, seabed multiples need to be suppressed throughout data processing. Conventional model-driven methods, such as prediction-error deconvolution, Radon filtering, and data-driven methods, such as the surface-related multiple elimination technique, have been used to attenuate multiple reflections. However, the vast majority of processing workflows require time-consuming steps when testing and selecting the processing parameters in addition to computational power and skilled data-processing techniques. To attenuate seabed multiples in seismic reflection data, input gathers with seabed multiples and label gathers without seabed multiples were generated via numerical modeling using the Marmousi2 velocity structure. The training data consisted of normal-moveout-corrected common midpoint gathers fed into a U-Net neural network. The well-trained model was found to effectively attenuate the seabed multiples according to the image similarity between the prediction result and the target data, and demonstrated good applicability to field data.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2018.10a
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• pp.103-103
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• 2018

Oenothera biennis, commonly known as evening primrose, a potential source of natural bioactive substances: flavonoids, steroids, tannins, fatty acids and terpenoids responsible for a diverse range of pharmacological functions. However, whether extract prepared from aerial part of O. biennis (APOB) protects skin against oxidative stress remains unknown. To investigate the protective effects of APOB against oxidative stress-induced cellular damage and elucidated the underlying mechanisms in the HaCaT human skin keratinocytes. Our results revealed that treatment with APOB prior to hydrogen peroxide ($H_2O_2$) exposure significantly increased viability, and the highest DPPH radical-scavenging activities and reducing power of HaCaT cells. APOB also effectively attenuated H2O2-induced comet tail formation and inhibited the $H_2O_2$-induced phosphorylation levels of the histone ${\gamma}H2AX$, as well as the number of apoptotic bodies and Annexin V-positive cells. In addition, APOB exhibited scavenging activity against intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation and restored the mitochondrial membrane potential loss by $H_2O_2$. Moreover, $H_2O_2$ enhanced the cleavage of caspase-3 and degradation of poly (ADP-ribose)-polymerase (PARP), a typical substrate protein of activated caspase-3, as well as DNA fragmentation; however, these events were almost totally reversed by pretreatment with APOB. Furthermore, APOB increased the levels of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), which is a potent antioxidant enzyme, associated with the induction of nuclear factor-erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2). According to our data, APOB is able to protect HaCaT cells from $H_2O_2$-induced DNA damage and cell death through blocking cellular damage related to oxidative stress through a mechanism that would affect ROS elimination and activating the Nri2/HO-1 signaling pathway.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.642-648
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• 2019

Vessels sail according to the COLREG to prevent a collision. However, it is difficult to apply COLREG under special situation as heavy traffic, at this time personal skills of the operator are required. In this case, traffic control is required through the maritime traffic monitoring system. Therefore, maritime traffic management is globally implemented by VTS. In this system, VTS of icer uses the VTS system to assess risks and recommends possible safety operation to vessels with radio systems. This study considers that the risk analysis method with AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology from the operator's aspect. In addition, the research explains the Maritime Traffic Safety Monitoring System, Including AR (Augmented Reality) technology to increase vessel control efficiency. This system is able to predict hazards and risk priorities, and it leads to sequential elimination of dangerous situations. Especially, the hazard situations can be analyzed from operator's perspective of each vessel instead of the VTS officer's aspect, which is more practical than the conventional method. Furthermore, the result of analysis enables to comprehend quantitative hazardous areas and support recommended routes to avoid a collision. As a result, I firmly believe that the system will support to prevent a collision in complex traffic waters. In particular, it could be adopted as a collision prevention system for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ship, which occupies a significant proportion in Maritime 4th industrial revolution.

• Journal of the Korean Arthroscopy Society
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.69-73
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• 2008

Synovial chondromatosis is an uncommon condition, and the involvement of the shoulder joint is rare. A 15 year old female patient presented to author's institution for right shoulder pain. We checked the plain radiographs and MRI. And they showed that a diagnosis of synovial chondromatosis in the shoulder, and they also demonstrated that the disease involved the bicipital tendon sheath as well as glenohumeral joint. We removed all loose bodies with total synovectomy by arthroscopic procedure, and a miniopen procedure for the lesions of biceps tendon sheath. Arthroscopic treatment affords excellent visualization of the shoulder joint with less morbidity. However, with current arthroscopic techniques, it is difficult to manage the synovial chondromatosis of biceps tendon in bicipital groove. The authors suggest that the complete elimination of synovial chondromatosis involving shoulder requires a mini-open procedure for the lesions of biceps tendon sheath in addition to the arthroscopic resection of the affected synovium and loose body removal in the glenohumeral joint.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.137-147
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• 2005

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate physical health status. depression. activities of daily living (ADL & IADL) of the low-income elderly who live alone in urban areas. Method: The subjects were the 400 low-income elders who live alone in Daegu city and the following instruments were used: 1. The number of self-reported physical health problems and present diseases: 2. CES-D scale for depression by Jo Nam-Oak et al. (1998): and 3. ADL scale by Katz (1989) and IADL scale by Lawton and Brody (1969). Results: 1. Visual difficulty was the most prevailing problem (55.3%) among physical problems. the second bowel elimination and the third hearing disturbance. As for present diseases. arthritis (26.5%), hypertension(24.3%) and DM (11.8%) were the most common diseases. 2. There were significant differences in physical health status according to age (t=3.115. p=.045). kind of medical security (t=-1.973. p=.049). perceived life satisfaction (F=4.966. p=.007) and the number of present diseases (F=2.937. p=.033). 3. There were significant differences in depression according to sex (t=-3.758. p=.000) . kind of medical security (t=-4.368. p=.000). perceived life satisfaction (F=35.743. p=.000) and the number of present diseases (F=4.246. p=.006). 4. There were significant differences in ADL according to sex (t=-2.136. p=.033) and age (F=4.863. p=.008). and in IADL according to sex (t=4.552, p=.000), age (F=3.090. p=.047) and kind of medical security (t=-3.306. p=.001). 5. Physical health state was correlated positively with both the number of present diseases (r=.140. p=.005) and depression (r=.352. p=.000), and negatively with ADL (r=-.176. p= .000) and IADL (r= -.230. p=.000). Depression was correlated positively with the number of present diseases (r=.169. p=.001) and negatively with both ADL (r=-.139. p=.005) and IADL (r=-.203. p= .000). Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that general characteristics are important factors for physical health status, depression. ADL and IADL of the low-income elderly who live alone and there are close relations among physical health status, the number of diseases, depression, ADL and IADL. Therefore, these results must be reflected in community health programs for the low-income elderly who live alone. In addition, this kind of study must be extended to the low-income elderly who live alone in rural areas.