• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.132-137
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• 2014

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: In this study, the apoptogenic activity and mechanisms of cell death induced by hexane extract of aged black garlic (HEABG) were investigated in human leukemic U937 cells. MATERIALS/METHODS: Cytotoxicity was evaluated by MTT (3-(4, 5-dimethyl-thiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyl tetrazoliumbromide) assay. Apoptosis was detected using 4,6-diamidino-2-phenyllindile (DAPI) staining, agarose gel electrophoresis and flow cytometry. The protein levels were determined by Western blot analysis. Caspase activity was measured using a colorimetric assay. RESULTS: Exposure to HEABG was found to result in a concentration- and time-dependent growth inhibition by induction of apoptosis, which was associated with an up-regulation of death receptor 4 and Fas legend, and an increase in the ratio of Bax/Bcl-2 protein expression. Apoptosis-inducing concentrations of HEABG induced the activation of caspase-9, an initiator caspase of the mitochodrial mediated intrinsic pathway, and caspase-3, accompanied by proteolytic degradation of poly(ADP-ribose)-polymerase. HEABG also induced apoptosis via a death receptor mediated extrinsic pathway by caspase-8 activation, resulting in the truncation of Bid, and suggesting the existence of cross-talk between the extrinsic and intrinsic pathways. However, pre-treatment of U937 cells with the caspase-3 inhibitor, z-DEVD-fmk, significantly blocked the HEABG-induced apoptosis of these cells, and increased the survival rate of HEABG-treated cells, confirming that HEABG-induced apoptosis is mediated through activation of caspase cascade. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the overall results, we suggest that HEABG reduces leukemic cell growth by inducing caspase-dependent apoptosis through both intrinsic and extrinsic pathways, implying its potential therapeutic value in the treatment of leukemia.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2010.10a
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• pp.200-202
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• 2010

The number of motor vehicle registrations in Korea is increasing steadily each year, driven by industry development and economic growth. The number of traffic accidents is also rapidly increasing. Korea has a relatively high number of traffic accidents among OECD member countries, and it ranks among the highest in traffic accident death rates. This death rate is higher compared to death rates as a proportion of the number of traffic accidents in each country. It is very common for drivers to lose consciousness in traffic collisions, which leads to a failure to carry out early emergency measures. In order to prevent such situations as well as hit-and-runs and people left uncared for after traffic accidents, there is a need for motor vehicle black boxes and accident report systems. This study addressed the need for an emergency evacuation system for people injured in traffic accidents and a secondary traffic accident prevention system by developing a motor vehicle emergency situation detection and report system combined with a black box, and materializing it as an actual system.

• English & American cultural studies
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.107-128
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• 2017

Gaines depicts the process of transformation of a black young who accepts his execution with dignity in A Lesson Before Dying. There two personas of the protagonist, Jefferson, appear in this novel. The former seen in the black and white community is the persona of falsehood and submission, and the latter appeared in the black community is the true persona. The former, the pig persona in black-and-white community is created, forced onto them by whites and the human persona in the black community is made by their own standards without being forced. Jefferson has been depersonalized by his pig persona. He implements their false persona by mimicking pigs to confront its reality. And then he retrospects the pleasure of relationship throughout his own life. Grant's expensive gift, the radio, becomes a trigger to realize the significance of his existence and the social solidarity. Moreover, many black visitors look at him with expectant eyes of fulfilling their historical burden. After all, Jefferson is executed as a human being with dignity, and the transformation of Jefferson from a pig to a human is getting rid of the white values and standing on the black values. In other words, it is the procedure of creating the new myth out of the false myth, from meaningless life to meaningful death.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.55-60
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• 2011

Skin is a physical barrier against diverse injury and damages. Exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation causes detrimental skin injuries such as inflammation and cell death. The value of natural pigments could be applied to many usages including cosmetics. This study was conducted to examine the protective effect of natural pigments extracted from mulberry, balsam pear, purple-colored sweet potato, pehmannia root, gardenia fruit, and black rice against UV-induced cell death in HaCaT cells, human keratinocyte cell lines. In the present study, the exposure of 50 mJ/$cm^2$ UV-B for 24 hr induced cell death in HaCaT cells, which was prevented by the pretreatment of extracts of mulberry, balsam pear, purple-colored sweet potato, rehmannia root, gardenia fruit, and black rice. In addition, the exposure of 50 mJ/$cm^2$ UV-B for 24 hr also increased lipid peroxide (LPO) formation, compared to control in HaCaT cells, which was prevented by the pretreatment of extracts of mulberry, balsam pear, purple-colored sweet potato, rehmannia root, gardenia fruit, and black rice. In conclusion, the extracts of mulberry, balsam pear, purple-colored sweet potato, rehmannia root, gardenia fruit, and black rice prevented the UV-B-induced cell apoptosis via the inhibition of oxidative stress in HaCaT cells.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.513-527
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• 2022

This study was conducted to examining the socio-cultural impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that swept the world around 2020, and the transformation of norms and social problems due to COVID-19. For this, the characteristics of changes in the socio-cultural norms of the 14th century European Black Death, a representative example of the pandemic, were derived, and based on this, the COVID-19 pandemic was analyzed. The Black Death served as an opportunity to change social norms based on the existing religious authority and the power of the feudal system to the Enlightenment. The population declination and labor shortage also promoted commercialization and mechanization. Printing, which spread during this period, led to the popularization of knowledge, which raised the level of thinking and led to epochal scientific development. This became the foundation of the Industrial Revolution. Like the recent Black Death, COVID-19 has triggered changes in social norms. The technological environment of metaverse, a mixture of virtual and reality, has changed the norm of a consistent identity into free and open identities exerting various potentials through alternate characters. In addition, meme, which are about people being friendly to those with the same worldview as him on the metaverse, weakened the sense of isolation in non-face-to-face situations. Artificial intelligence (AI), which developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, has entered the stage of being used for creative activities beyond the function of assisting humans. Discussions were held on what new social problems would be created by the social norms changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.691-717
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• 2010

Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde is a tale of love framed by an overarching pattern of death, set in the war-torn and doomed Troy, from which the lovers cannot separate their fate. Compared with Boccaccio's poem, the attention paid to death in Chaucer's version underlies his complex treatment of love. Above all, the language of death in Chaucer's poem provides the thread from which the entangled web of love is woven. Death together with desire pervades the language and rhetoric of the poem, prominent not only in the courtly love tropes, but also in the characters' asides and speeches. The prominence of these two concepts, desire and death, seem to be central to the various issues that the poem contains explicitly and implicitly. That is, two concepts are the basis for the breadth and depth of Chaucer's examination of love in light of the social and political realities of late fourteenth century England. The language of death in Chaucer's poem reflects the powerful influence on his imagination. With the devastation wrought by the plague and the changing fortunes of England in the war with France, Chaucer's world was once saturated in death, and one that could amply parallel the turn from prosperity to downfall. In particular, Chaucer's poem is suffused with the language of contagion and death in connection with desire. Troilus's lovesickness mimics the progress of a viral infection. Once breached, his body performs its newly compromised identity through fever, loss of appetite, and physical disintegration. On the other hand, Chaucer depicts Boccaccio's conventional portrait of Criseyde into a elaborate paramour of a pathogen. She is characterized as the contaminant that infects male hero. In addition, Criseyde is cast as sole earthly cure of illness that Troilus suffers from. In spite of Criseyde's role as nurturer and healer, Troilus longs for his own death and feels death clutching his heart. Finally, Troilus's love toward Criseyde is doomed to death.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.1221-1244
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• 2009

The death scenes are the culmination of both Doris Lessing's "To Room Nineteen" and Toni Morrison's Sula. Lessing's Susan, an intelligent white English woman, gradually loses the meaning of life as awealthy housewife in the patriarchal society and commits suicide as her solution in Room Nineteen of Fred's Hotel. Morrison's Sula, an African-American woman, grows up without having the normal ego under Eva's matriarchy in a black community named the Bottom. Sula, after Nel's marriage, becomes a symbol of evil to her community and drifts down to death in Eva's bed. Reading these two death stories from the perspective of Jung's archetypal psychology, Susan is not able to continue to live a meaningful life because her life energy is cut off from its source which is in the unconscious. According to Jung, the symbol is the medium of the psychic energy from the unconscious to consciousness. In modern society which is represented by intelligence, the religious and mythical symbols are removed by rationalism, which means disconnection of the flow of life energy from the unconscious. Susan's death can be read as a kind of creating symbol to connect the modern people to the source of life energy. Sula's case is the opposite of Susan's. She remains in the unconscious world without having the proper ego in the absurd reality of racial and sexual problems. Sula finally rises again in Nel's awareness, becoming a symbol of the feminine goddess like goddess Inanna.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.161-166
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• 2011

Carbon black, a particulate form of pure elemental carbon, is an industrial chemical with the high potential of occupational exposure. Although the relationship between exposure to particulate matters (PM) and cardiovascular diseases is well established, the cardiovascular risk of carbon black has not been characterized clearly. In this study, the cytotoxicity of carbon black to vascular smooth muscle and endothelial cells were examined to investigate the potential vascular toxicity of carbon black. Carbon black with distinct particle size, N330 (primary size, 28~36 nm) and N990 (250~350 nm) were treated to A-10, rat aortic smooth muscle cells and human umbilical vein endothelial cell line, ECV304, and cell viability was assessed by lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) leakage assay. Treatment of carbon black N990 resulted in the significant reduction of viability in A-10 cells at 100 ${\mu}g$/ml, the highest concentration tested, while N330 failed to cause cell death. Cytotoxicity to ECV304 cells was induced only by N330 at higher concentration, 200 ${\mu}g$/ml, suggesting that ECV304 cells were relatively resistant to carbon black. Treatment of 100 ${\mu}g$/ml N990 led to the elevation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) detected by dichlorodihydrofluorescein (DCF) in A-10 cells. Pretreatment of antioxidants, N-acetylcysteine (NAC) and sulforaphane restored decreased viability of N990-treated A-10 cells, and N-acetylcysteine, but not sulforaphane, attenuated N990-induced ROS generation in A-10 cells. Taken together, present study shows that carbon black is cytotoxic to vascular cells, and the generation of reactive oxygen contributes to the development of cytotoxicity. ROS scavenging antioxidant could be a potential strategy to attenuate the toxicity induced by carbon black exposure.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.59-62
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• 2012

A 3-year-old Jeju native black sow with sudden death was requested to the Jeju Self-Governing Provincial Veterinary Research Institute for diagnosis in July 2009. Because the pig died suddenly, we could not find any clinical signs. Gross lesions such as pulmonary edema, redness of heart, liver, kidney and lymph nodes were observed at necropsy. Histopathologically, there were severe eosinophilic meningoencephalitis, atrophy, degeneration and necrosis of laminar neurons, and neovascularization in cerebral cortex. Based on histopathological findings and history taking about temporal suspension of water supply, this case was diagnosed as salt poisoning of a Jeju native sow. In our best knowledge, this is the first report for salt poisoning of sow in Korea, especially in Jeju native pig.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.354-356
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• 2014

Clinostomum (C.) complanatum is one of the trematode helminthes in birds and causes incidental infection in human. A black-tailed gull (Larus crassirostris) was referred to the Jeju wildlife rescue center. Because of the death of bird after two weeks treatment, necropsy was performed to the bird. Grossly, many living worms adhered to the oral mucosa including pharynx and esophagus were observed. The worms removed were identified as C. complanatum after morphological observation. The linguiform adult worms were $5.19{\pm}0.48mm$ long and $1.80{\pm}0.18mm$ wide. Histopathologically, severe necrosis and surrounding inflammation were observed at the infection sites of adult worm in pharynx and esophagus. This is the first report for C. complanatum infection in wild black-tailed gull in Korea.