• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.199-207
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• 2018

Background: Ginseng is a well-known traditional Chinese medicine that has been widely used in a range of therapeutic and healthcare applications in East Asian countries. Microbial transformation is regarded as an effective and useful technology in modification of nature products for finding new chemical derivatives with potent bioactivities. In this study, three minor derivatives of ginsenoside compound K were isolated and the inducing effects in the Wingless-type MMTV integration site (Wnt) signaling pathway were also investigated. Methods: New compounds were purified from scale-up fermentation of ginsenoside Rb1 by Paecilomyces bainier sp. 229 through repeated silica gel column chromatography and high pressure liquid chromatography. Their structures were determined based on spectral data and X-ray diffraction. The inductive activities of these compounds on the Wnt signaling pathway were conducted on MC3T3-E1 cells by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis. Results: The structures of a known 3-keto derivative and two new dehydrogenated metabolites were elucidated. The crystal structure of the 3-keto derivative was reported for the first time and its conformation was compared with that of ginsenoside compound K. The inductive effects of these compounds on osteogenic differentiation by activating the Wnt/b-catenin signaling pathway were explained for the first time. Conclusion: This study may provide a new insight into the metabolic pathway of ginsenoside by microbial transformation. In addition, the results might provide a reasonable explanation for the activity of ginseng in treating osteoporosis and supply good monomer ginsenoside resources for nutraceutical or pharmaceutical development.

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.275-280
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• 2010

By-products from grapes obtained during processing have been considered to be promising materialsfor various functional applications, and to have pharmaceutical properties. A grape powder was developed from a concentrate of by-products obtained during grape processing. As dextrin levels increased, the moisture content, L-, a-, and b- values all decreased, whereas sugar content generally increased. Catechin and resveratrol were detected in most samples, but quercetin was absent. Epicatechin and resveratrol levels either decreased or were not detected as dextrin concentration increased. These physiochemical properties indicate that a concentrate extracted using undiluted ethanol as solvent is optimal for industrial use.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.77-82
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• 2015

The effect of the electrode type on the dielectric and piezoelectric properties of $Pb(Mg_{1/3}Nb_{2/3})O_3-PbZrO_3-PbTiO_3$ (PMN-PZT) single crystals was investigated in an effort to improve their properties for various piezoelectric applications. First, three different types of PMN-PZT single crystals [PMN-PZT-A (piezoelectrically soft type; dielectric constant ~ 10,000), PMN-PZT-B (piezoelectrically soft type; phase-transition temperature between the rhombohedral and tetragonal phases ($T_{RT}$) ~ $145^{\circ}C$), PMN-PZT-C (piezoelectrically hard type; high mechanical quality factor ($Q_m$) ~ 1,000)] were fabricated using the solid-state single crystal growth (SSCG) method. Then, four different types of electrodes [sputtered Au, sputtered Cr/Au, sputtered Ti/Au, and fired Ag] were formed on the single crystals, and their dielectric and piezoelectric properties were measured. The single crystals with a sputtered Ti/Au electrode showed the highest dielectric and piezoelectric constants but the lowest coercive electric field ($E_C$). The single crystals with a fired Ag electrode showed the lowest dielectric and piezoelectric constants but the highest coercive electric field ($E_C$). This dependence on the type of electrode was most significant in the piezoelectrically hard PMN-PZT-C single crystals. However, the effects of the electrode type on the phase transition temperatures ($T_C$, $T_{RT}$) and dielectric loss were negligible. These results clearly demonstrate that it is important to select an appropriate electrode so as to maximize the dielectric and piezoelectric properties of single crystals in each type of piezoelectric application.

• Strategy21
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• s.41
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• pp.30-51
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• 2017

Neighboring powers in the Korean Peninsula have started to develop and operate aircraft carriers or equivalent forces to cope with rising North Korean nuclear and missile threats and also to show its national might. For example, the United States has added a aircraft carrier from the 3rd fleet to western pacific theater of operation, while Peoples Republic of China is undergoing operational test of Liaoning as well as preparing for christening of its 2nd aircraft carrier. Japan is flexing its muscle as well by deploying Izumo capable of operating F-35B to Southeast Asia to participate in multilateral exercises starting this year. It is a high time to know more about aircraft carriers or similar types in terms of maritime strategy and history. The U.S. has had by far the vast amount of experiences in utilizing aircraft carrier that it would be beneficial for us to examine U.S. perspectives and its application in the Korean Peninsula. It will provide us with insights to understand and predict what it would be like in times of crisis in the Korean Peninsula in the perspective of aircraft carrier's involvement. This paper intends to show some aspects of future conflicts in the Korean Peninsula and how the ROK Navy can best be ready for such situation. For research purpose, U.S. maritime strategy has been developed in stages ; establishment phase, WWI phase, WWII phase, Cold war phase, post Cold war phase. Each phase includes such factors as threats, strategic concept, applications, and ways to improve maritime strategy. Finally, the role of aircraft carrier based on past history as well as future conflict shines the importance to have power projection capabilities for the ROK Navy. The intrinsic nature of the navy in the world is to project power ashore just as history proved it.

• IEMEK Journal of Embedded Systems and Applications
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.227-234
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• 2020

In this paper, we propose wav-U-Net to improve speech enhancement in heavy noisy environments, and it has implemented three principal techniques. First, as input data, we use 128 modified Mel-scale filter banks which can reduce computational burden instead of 512 frequency bins. Mel-scale aims to mimic the non-linear human ear perception of sound by being more discriminative at lower frequencies and less discriminative at higher frequencies. Therefore, Mel-scale is the suitable feature considering both performance and computing power because our proposed network focuses on speech signals. Second, we add a simple ResNet as pre-processing that helps our proposed network make estimated speech signals clear and suppress high-frequency noises. Finally, the proposed U-Net model shows significant performance regardless of the kinds of noise. Especially, despite using a single channel, we confirmed that it can well deal with non-stationary noises whose frequency properties are dynamically changed, and it is possible to estimate speech signals from noisy speech signals even in extremely noisy environments where noises are much lauder than speech (less than SNR 0dB). The performance on our proposed wav-U-Net was improved by about 200% on SDR and 460% on NSDR compared to the conventional Jansson's wav-U-Net. Also, it was confirmed that the processing time of out wav-U-Net with 128 modified Mel-scale filter banks was about 2.7 times faster than the common wav-U-Net with 512 frequency bins as input values.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.175-179
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• 2008

Forestry education in vocational high schools is one of the fundamental keys for achieving sustainable forest management. However, support systems for forestry education have not been well developed in Japan. Forest research institutes, which have accumulated relevant information, should have sufficient ability to develop new educational programs in this field. This study examined the possibility of support systems for forestry technical education by a research institute. Educational programs for vocational high schools were developed, and the programs were examined for their practical applications through a workshop for these teachers. We set the following five requirements for the programs: They should 1) incorporate new contents related to sustainable forest management, 2) be based on forestry education textbooks, 3) meet recent demands of the schools and society, 4) allow participants to learn through actual practice and experience, and 5) utilize readily available teaching materials. With these criteria, we developed the following two educational programs: (a) Forest management program to teach advanced techniques, (b) A timber-program to teach about biomass resources. The workshop was held on July $28^{th}$, 2007 with ten teachers attending. The programs were very interesting, who gave them high average evaluation of 4.6 on a scale of 1 to 5. Only a few issues need to be resolved before classroom instruction can begin, such as making wood structure easier to understanding for some teachers, and obtaining base maps of school forests. In conclusion, forest research institutes can effectively support forestry education by providing and implementing programs based on scientific information.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.89-97
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• 2017

The substation is a critical node in the power network where power is transformed in the power generation, transmission and distribution system. The IEC 61850 is a global standard which proposes efficient substation automation by defining interoperable communication and data modelling techniques. In order to achieve this level of interoperability and automation, the IEC 61850 (Part 6) defines System Configuration description Language (SCL). The SCL is an XML based file format for defining the abstract model of primary and secondary substation equipment, communications systems and also the relationship between them. It enables the interoperable exchange of data during substation engineering by standardizing the description of applications at different stages of the engineering process. To achieve the seamless interoperability, multi-vendor devices are required to adhere completely to the IEC 61850. This paper proposes an efficient algorithm required for verifying the interoperability of multi-vendor devices by checking the adherence of the SCL file to specifications of the standard. Our proposed SCL validation algorithm consists of schema validation and other functionalities including information model validation using UML data model, the Vendor Defined Extension model validation, the User Defined Rule validation and the IED Engineering Table (IET) consistency validation. It also integrates the standard UCAIUG (Utility Communication Architecture International Users Group) Procedure validation for quality assurance testing. Our proposed algorithm is not only flexible and efficient in terms of ensuring interoperable functionality of tested devices, it is also convenient for use by system integrators and test engineers.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.11 no.8
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• pp.15-23
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• 2010

Debris flows are a natural hazard which looks like a combination of flood, land and rock slide. Large rainfall in July 2006 produced several large scale debris flows and many small debris flows that resulted in loss of life and considerable property and railway damage, as was widely reported in the national media. The hazard "debris flow" is still insufficiently researched. Furthermore debris flows are very hard to predict. Flexible Ring net barriers are multi-functional mitigation devices commonly applied to rock fall or floating wood protection in floods, snow avalanches and also mud flows or granular debris flows, if properly dimensioned for the process or processes for which they are intended. Overtopping of the barriers by debris flows and sediment transport is possible, supporting the design concept that a series of barriers may be used to stop volumes of debris larger than are possible using only one barrier. The future for these barrier concepts looks promising because these barriers represent the state of art for such applications and are superior to many other available options.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.14
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• pp.6135-6140
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• 2015

Background: The aim of this meta-analysis was to assess the efficacy of the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) value of diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) for differentiating biliary tract cancer (BTC) from benign biliary tract diseases in Asians. Materials and Methods: We systematically searched Embase and PubMed prior to December 2014. Eight studies conducted in Asians met our predetermined inclusion criteria. Results: Our meta-analysis results showed that ADC values in BTC tissues were significantly lower than in benign biliary tract tissues (SMD = -1.54, 95%CI: -1.75~-1.33, P<0.001). Subgroup analysis based on the MRI machine type showed that the ADC values were consistent, accurate and reliable in the diagnosis of BTC when comparing cancer tissue vs. benign tissue under the Siemens 1.5 T/3.0 T, Philips 1.5 T/3.0 T, GE 1.5 T, and Toshiba 1.5 T types, respectively (all P<0.05). Further, ADC values were still consistent and accurate in the differential diagnosis of BTC under the b value of 800 and $1000s/mm^2$ (all P<0.05). Conclusions: Our findings supported potential clinical applications of DWI ADC values in differentiating BTC from benign biliary tract diseases in Asians.

• BMB Reports
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• v.44 no.11
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• pp.758-763
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• 2011

Immunostimulatory CpG-DNA targeting TLR9 is one of the most extensively evaluated vaccine adjuvants. Previously, we found that a particular form of natural phosphodiester bond CpG-DNA (PO-ODN) encapsulated in a phosphatidyl-${\beta}$-oleoyl-${\gamma}$-palmitoyl ethanolamine (DOPE) : cholesterol hemisuccinate (CHEMS) (1 : 1 ratio) complex (Lipoplex(O)) is a potent adjuvant. Complexes containing peptide and Lipoplex(O) are extremely useful for B cell epitope screening and antibody production without carriers. Here, we showed that IL-12 production was increased in bone marrow derived dendritic cells in a CpG sequence-dependent manner when PO-ODN was encapsulated in Lipoplex(O), DOTAP or lipofectamine. However, the effects of Lipoplex(O) surpassed those of PO-ODN encapsulated in DOTAP or lipofectamine and also other various forms of liposome-encapsulated CpG-DNA in terms of potency for protein antigen-specific IgG production and Th1- associated IgG2a production. Therefore, Lipoplex(O) may have a unique potent immunoadjuvant activity which can be useful for various applications involving protein antigens as well as peptides.