• Development and Reproduction
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.227-234
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• 2015

The objective of this study was to investigate the expression of bovine luteum expressed sequence tags (ESTs), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and tumor necrosis factor receptor 1 (TNFR1) and the presence of functional ESTs in the bovine corpus luteum (CL) during different stages of the estrus cycle. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis showed a difference in the expression of ESTs during the CL stage. Concentration of ESTs in the CL tissue increased significantly from the mid-luteal stage and decreased thereafter. RT-PCR analysis showed higher levels of the EST genes in the CL of the mid-luteal stage than in other stages, and the same level of expression of VEGF. Immunohistochemistry analysis of the tissue from CL formation to regression showed low cytosol and aggregation of the nucleus. And activity caspase 3 (apoptosis detector) was most strongly detected in the CL1 stage of bovine. During the estrous cycle, the cytosol was magnified and differentiation of the nucleus was clearly manifested. The ESTs affected the CL, and the relationship between VEGF and TNFR1 played a pivotal role for CL development and activation, dependent on the stage of CL. These results suggest local production of ESTs, the presence of functional ESTs in the bovine CL, and that ESTs play a role in regulating the function of cell death in bovine CL.

• Carbon letters
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.22-27
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• 2010

The precipitation polymerization of acrylonitrile (AN) was carried out in a mixture solution of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and water at $50{\sim}65^{\circ}C$ using ${\alpha},{\alpha}'$-azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) as an initiator. The increased molecular weight polyacrylonitrile (PAN) was prepared with increasing the $H_2O$/DMSO ratio from 10/90 to 80/20. The viscosity average molecular weight of $H_2O$/DMSO solvent was 4.4 times larger than that of $H_2O$/DMF solvent, and precipitation polymerization was accelerlated due to the far decreased chain transfer effect of DMSO. Based on the experimental results, the increased PAN molecular weight was regarded as the summation of two mechanisms: i) particle-particle aggregation and ii) particle-radical attachment. The theoretical equation derived from the mechanisms was well coincided with the experimental results showing the linear relationship between the viscosity average molecular weight and the H2O/DMSO ratio.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.573-578
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• 2006

Three different, polymer-platinum conjugates (hydrogels, microparticles, and nanoparticles) were synthesized by complexation of cis-dichlorodiammineplatinum(II) (cisplatin) with partially succinylated glycol chitbsan (PSGC). Succinic anhydride was used as a linker to introduce cisplatin to glycol chitosan (GC). Succinylation of GC was investigated systematically as a function of the molar ratio of succinic anhydride to glucosamine, the methanol content in the reaction media, and the reaction temperature. By controlling the reaction conditions, water-soluble, partially water-soluble, and hydrogel-forming PSGCs were synthesized, and then conjugated with cisplatin. The complexation of cisplatin with water-soluble PSGC via a ligand exchange reaction of platinum from chloride to the carboxylates induced the formation of nano-sized aggregates in aqueous media. The hydrodynamic diameters of PSGC/cisplatin complex nano-aggregates, as determined by light scattering, were 180-300 nm and the critical aggregation concentrations (CACs), as determined by a fluorescence technique using pyrene as a probe, were $20-30{\mu}g/mL$. The conjugation of cisplatin with partially water-soluble PSGC, i.e., borderline between water-soluble and water-insoluble PSGC, produced micro-sized particles $<500{\mu}m$. Cisplatin-complexed PSGC hydrogels were prepared from water-insoluble PSGCs. All of the cisplatin-incorporated, polymer matrices released platinum in a sustained manner without any significant initial burst, suggesting that they may all be useful as slow release systems for cisplatin. The release rate of platinum increased with the morphology changes from hydrogel through microparticle to nanoparticle systems.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.53-60
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• 2020

Evaluating the operational efficiency of electric vehicle charging stations (EVCSs) is important to understand charging network evolution and the charging behavior of electric vehicle users. However, aggregation of efficiency performance metrics poses a significant challenge to practitioners and researchers. In general, the operational efficiency of EVCSs can be measured as a complicated function of various factors with multiple criteria. Such a complex aspect of managing EVCSs becomes one of the challenging issues to measure their operational efficiency. Considering the difficulty in the efficiency measurement, this paper suggests a way to measure the operational efficiency of EVCSs based on data envelopment analysis (DEA). The DEA model is formulated as constant returns of output-oriented model with five types of inputs, four of them are the numbers of floating population and nearby charging stations, distance of nearby charging stations and traffic volume as desirable inputs and the other is the traffic speed in congestion as undesirable one. Meanwhile, the output is given by the charging frequency of EVCSs in a day. Using real-world data obtained from reliable sources, we suggest operational efficiencies of EVCSs in Seoul and discuss implications on the development of electric vehicle charging network. The result of efficiency measurement shows that most of EVCSs in Seoul are inefficient, while some districts (Nowon-gu, Dongdaemun-gu, Dongjak-gu, Songpa-gu, Guro-gu) have relatively more efficient EVCSs than the others.

• BMB Reports
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.186-193
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• 2002

The acid-bible subunit (ALS) associates with the insulinlike growth factor (IGF)-I or II, and the IGF binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) in order to form a 150-kD complex in the circulation. This complex may regulate the serum IGFs by restricting them in the vascular system and promoting their endocrine actions. Little is known about how ALS binds to IGFBP3, which connects the IGFs to ALS. Xenopus oocyte was utilized to study the function of ALS in assembling IGFs into the ternary complexes. Xenopus oocyte was shown to correctly translate in vitro transcribed mRNAs of ALS and IGFBP3. IGFBP3 and ALS mRNAs were injected in a mixture, and their products were immunoprecipitated by antisera against ALS and IGFBP3. Contrary to traditional reports that ALS interacts only with IGF-bound IGFBP3, this study shows that ALS is capable of forming a binary complex with IGFBP3 in the absence of IGF When cross-linked by disuccinimidyl suberate, the band that represents the ALS-IGFBP3 complex was evident on the PAGE. IGFBP3 movement was monitored according to the distribution between the hemispheres. Following a localized translation in the vegetal hemisphere, IGFBP3 remained in the vegetal half in the presence of ALS. However, the mutant IGFBP3 freely diffused into the animal half, despite the presence of ALS, which is different from the wild type IGFBP3. This study, therefore, suggests that ALS may play an important role in sequestering IGFBP3 polypeptides via the intermolecular aggregation. Studies using this heterologous model will lead to a better understanding of the IGFBP3 and ALS that assemble into the ternary structure and circulate the IGF system.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartD
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• v.15D no.5
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• pp.629-646
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• 2008

Because most metricsin the literatures are described by a natural language, they can be interpreted in an ambigous manner. To cope with this problem, there are some researches to express based on Object Constraint Language(OCL). Because OCL has been proposed to describe structural constraintsfor Unified Modeling Language(UML) diagrams, it is difficult and awkward. In this paper, we propose Metric Description Language(MDL) which is a high level language to describe metrics. MDL supports a modular description of complex metrics, aggregation function, and automatic navigation between entities. Moreover, we develop MetriUs for describing metrics using MDL and supporting an automated computation for UML diagrams. In a case study, we have described a variety of existing metrics using MDL and found that MDL contributes to producing simpler expression of metrics than OCL.

• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.359-371
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• 2001

Project scheduling under resource constraint conditions have contained to many uncertain factors and it is perfonned by human experts. The expert identifies the activities of the project, decides the precedent relationships between these activities, and then construct the schedule using expected activity's duration. At this time, most of the scheduling methods concentrate on one of scheduling factor between activity duration and cost. And the activity duration, which is the most important factor in scheduling, is decided by heuristic of expert. Therefore it may cause uncertainty of activity duration decision and the use of this activity duration may increase the uncertainty of constructed schedule. This paper proposes Fuzzy-MOEH scheduling algorithm, which is the aggregation of the fuzzy number for deciding activity duration and applies the cost function for solving the problems of previous scheduling methods. This paper also analyze the utility and property of Fuzzy-MEOH algorithm through the comparison between Fuzzy-MEOH algorithm and existing MEOH algorithm.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.131-135
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• 2011

In this study, we fabricated the HDPE and ${\alpha}-Al_2O_3$ composites with PE-g-MA as a function of the ${\alpha}-Al_2O_3$ nanopowder weight ratios. The electron beam irradiations on HDPE/${\alpha}-Al_2O_3$ composites were carried out over a range of absorbed doses from 20 to 200 kGy to make three-dimensional network structures. The mechanical properties were characterized using UTM for confirming the changes of the flexural strength and tensile strength. It was observed that the mechanical properties of HDPE were enhanced by the addition of ${\alpha}-Al_2O_3$. However, the strength of the 5 wt% ${\alpha}-Al_2O_3$ added composites decreased due to the nano-powder aggregation. The mechanical properties of composites were increased as increasing the electron beam irradiation up to 150 kGy. We believed that the electron beam irradiated HDPE/${\alpha}-Al_2O_3$ composites can be a good candidate for a variety of industrial applications.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.3494-3510
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• 2019

Wireless sensor networks encounter energy saving as a major issue as the sensor nodes having no rechargeable batteries and also the resources are limited. Clustering of sensors play a pivotal role in energy saving of the deployed sensor nodes. However, in the cluster based wireless sensor network, the cluster heads tend to consume more energy for additional functions such as reception of data, aggregation and transmission of the received data to the base station. So, careful selection of cluster head and formation of cluster plays vital role in energy conservation and enhancement of lifetime of the wireless sensor networks. This study proposes a new mutation chemical reaction optimization (MCRO) which is an algorithm based energy efficient clustering protocol termed as MCRO-ECP, for wireless sensor networks. The proposed protocol is extensively developed with effective methods such as potential energy function and molecular structure encoding for cluster head selection and cluster formation. While developing potential functions for energy conservation, the following parameters are taken into account: neighbor node distance, base station distance, ratio of energy, intra-cluster distance, and CH node degree to make the MCRO-ECP protocol to be potential energy conserver. The proposed protocol is studied extensively and tested elaborately on NS2.35 Simulator under various senarios like varying the number of sensor nodes and CHs. A comparative study between the simulation results derived from the proposed MCRO-ECP protocol and the results of the already existing protocol, shows that MCRO-ECP protocol produces significantly better results in energy conservation, increase network life time, packets received by the BS and the convergence rate.

• BMB Reports
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.178-183
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• 2023

Huntington's disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder, of which pathogenesis is caused by a polyglutamine expansion in the amino-terminus of huntingtin gene that resulted in the aggregation of mutant HTT proteins. HD is characterized by progressive motor dysfunction, cognitive impairment and neuropsychiatric disturbances. Histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6), a microtubule-associated deacetylase, has been shown to induce transport- and release-defect phenotypes in HD models, whilst treatment with HDAC6 inhibitors ameliorates the phenotypic effects of HD by increasing the levels of α-tubulin acetylation, as well as decreasing the accumulation of mutant huntingtin (mHTT) aggregates, suggesting HDAC6 inhibitor as a HD therapeutics. In this study, we employed in vitro neural stem cell (NSC) model and in vivo YAC128 transgenic (TG) mouse model of HD to test the effect of a novel HDAC6 selective inhibitor, CKD-504, developed by Chong Kun Dang (CKD Pharmaceutical Corp., Korea). We found that treatment of CKD-504 increased tubulin acetylation, microtubule stabilization, axonal transport, and the decrease of mutant huntingtin protein in vitro. From in vivo study, we observed CKD-504 improved the pathology of Huntington's disease: alleviated behavioral deficits, increased axonal transport and number of neurons, restored synaptic function in corticostriatal (CS) circuit, reduced mHTT accumulation, inflammation and tau hyperphosphorylation in YAC128 TG mouse model. These novel results highlight CKD-504 as a potential therapeutic strategy in HD.