• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.168-172
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• 2012

Background: The aim of the study was to investigate the feasibility of fluoroscopy-guided anterior approach for suprascapular nerve block (SSNB). Methods: Twenty patients with chronic shoulder pain were included in the study. All of the nerve blocks were performed with patients in a supine position. Fluoroscopy was tilted medially to obtain the best view of the scapular notch (medial angle) and caudally to put the base of coracoid process and scapular spine on same line (caudal angle). SSNB was performed by introducing a 100-mm, 21-gauge needle to the scapular notch with tunnel view technique. Following negative aspiration, 1.0 ml of contrast was injected to confirm the scapular notch, and 1 % mepivacaine 2 ml was slowly injected. The success of SSNB was assessed by numerical rating scale (NRS) before and after the block. Results: The average NRS was decreased from $4.8{\pm}0.6$ to $0.6{\pm}0.5$ after the procedure (P < 0.05). The best view of the scapular notch was obtained in a medial angle of $15.1{\pm}2.2$ ($11-19^{\circ}$) and a caudal angle of $15.4{\pm}1.7^{\circ}$ ($12-18^{\circ}$). The average distance from the skin to the scapular notch was $5.8{\pm}0.6$ cm. None of the complications such as pneumothorax, intravascular injection, and hematoma formation was found except one case of partial brachial plexus block. Conclusions: SSNB by fluoroscopy-guided anterior approach is a feasible technique. The advantage of using a fluoroscopy resulted in an effective block with a small dose of local anesthetics by an accurate placement of a tip of needle in the scapular notch while avoiding pneumothorax.

• Journal of Periodontal and Implant Science
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.251-258
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• 2014

Purpose: The preferred material for bone augmentation beyond the envelope of skeletal bone is the bone block graft, due to its dimensional stability. We evaluated the necessity of rigid fixation for the bone block graft, and compared the bone regeneration and volume maintenance associated with grafting using a synthetic hydroxyapatite block (HAB) and an autogenous bone block (ABB) without rigid fixation on rabbit calvaria over two different periods. Methods: Cylinder-shaped synthetic HAB and ABB were positioned without fixation on the rabbit calvarium (n=16). The animals were sacrificed at 4 or 8 weeks postoperatively, and the grafted materials were analyzed at each healing period using microcomputed tomography and histologic evaluation. Results: Integration of the graft and the recipient bed was observed in all specimens, although minor dislocation of the graft materials from the original position was evident in some specimens (six ABB and ten HAB samples). A tendency toward progressive bone resorption was observed in the grafted ABB but not in the grafted HAB, which maintained an intact appearance. In the HAB group, the area of new bone increased between 4 and 8 weeks postoperatively, but the difference was not statistically significant. Conclusions: The nonfixed HAB was successfully integrated into the recipient bed after both healing periods in the rabbit calvaria. In spite of limited bone formation activity in comparison to ABB, HAB may be a favorable substitute osteoconductive bone material.

• Journal of Periodontal and Implant Science
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.283-299
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• 1993

The purpose of this study was to observe early connective tissue attachment on dentin surface treated with citric acid, tetracycline, and fibrin sealants and compare their conditioning effects on dentin surface. Experimental dentin blocks conditioned with citric acid, tetracycline or fibrin sealant, and only root planned control block were surgically implanted in the pouch under buccal mucoperiosteal flaps of left mandible, right maxilla, left maxilla, right mandible of 18 male rabbits. Rabbits were sacrificed after 1 and 6 hours, 1, 3, 7 and 14 days after implantation and then specimens including dentin block and surrounding soft tissue were obtained, and prepared for light and transmission electron microscopic examination. 1 and 6 hours after dentin block implantation, there was plasma proteins adsorption followed by fibrin clot formation and no differences among specimens. At the 1-day observation interval, delicate fibrin network was observed in the all groups, and there were proliferative fibroblasts, angiogenesis and macrophage in the all 3-day specimens. Cellular aggregates and abundant connective tissue adhered dentin surface and tetracycline or citric acid treated group showed much proliferative fibroblast and abundant collagen fibers at 1 week. But at 2 week, citric acid treated group showed much proliferative fibroblast and abundant collagen fibers. These observations suggested that new connective tissue attachment to dentin was initiated by the adsorption of plasma proteins to the dentin surface and followed by fibrin clot formation. Tetracycline and citric acid seemed to make dentin surface more biologically favorable for the connective tissue attachment.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.17-30
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• 2013

Barley stripe mosaic virus (BSMV) induces massive actin filament thickening at the infection front of infected Nicotiana benthamiana leaves. To determine the mechanisms leading to actin remodeling, fluorescent protein fusions of the BSMV triple gene block (TGB) proteins were coexpressed in cells with the actin marker DsRed: Talin. TGB ectopic expression experiments revealed that TGB3 is a major elicitor of filament thickening, that TGB2 resulted in formation of intermediate DsRed:Talin filaments, and that TGB1 alone had no obvious effects on actin filament structure. Latrunculin B (LatB) treat-ments retarded BSMV cell-to-cell movement, disrupted actin filament organization, and dramatically decreased the proportion of paired TGB3 foci appearing at the cell wall (CW). BSMV infection of transgenic plants tagged with GFP-KDEL exhibited membrane proliferation and vesicle formation that were especially evident around the nucleus. Similar membrane proliferation occurred in plants expressing TGB2 and/or TGB3, and DsRed: Talin fluorescence in these plants colocalized with the ER vesicles. TGB3 also associated with the Golgi apparatus and overlapped with cortical vesicles appearing at the cell periphery. Brefeldin A treatments disrupted Golgi and also altered vesicles at the CW, but failed to interfere with TGB CW localization. Our results indicate that actin cytoskeleton interactions are important in BSMV cell-to-cell movement and for CW localization of TGB3.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.29 no.11
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• pp.767-774
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• 2002

Conventional research on image restoration has focused on restoring degraded images resulting from image formation, storage and communication, mainly in the signal processing field. Related research on recovering original image information of caption regions includes a method using BMA(block matching algorithm). The method has problem with frequent incorrect matching and propagating the errors by incorrect matching. Moreover, it is impossible to recover the frames between two scene changes when scene changes occur more than twice. In this paper, we propose a method for recovering original images using EBMA(Extended Block Matching Algorithm) and a region compensation method. To use it in original image recovery, the method extracts a priori knowledge such as information about scene changes, camera motion and caption regions. The method decides the direction of recovery using the extracted caption information(the start and end frames of a caption) and scene change information. According to the direction of recovery, the recovery is performed in units of character components using EBMA and the region compensation method. Experimental results show that EBMA results in good recovery regardless of the speed of moving object and complexity of background in video. The region compensation method recovered original images successfully, when there is no information about the original image to refer to.

• The Korean Journal of Mycology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.109-112
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• 2002

Present experiments were conducted to determine the possibility of artificial culture with oak sawdust block of Phellinus gilvus Mushrooms, Mycelial growth in sawdust block (oak 90 + rice bran 10, V/N) after 25 days. It took 12 days to make fruitbody from burying of sawdust block to pinhead formation. The fruitbodies produced the total fresh weight 577 g (dried weight 97 g) in a block.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.95-102
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• 2011

An amphiphilic cationic branched methoxy poly (ethylene glycol)-branched polyethylenimine - poly(L-phenylalanine) (mPEG-bPEI-pPhe) block copolymer was successfully synthesized by ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of N-carboxyanhydride of L-phenylalanine (Phe-NCA) with mPEG-bPEI for the preparation of more stable polyelectrolyte complex (PEC) included a hydrophobic interaction. mPEG-bPEI was firstly prepared by the coupling of mPEG and bPEI using hexamethylene diisocyanate (HMDI). The structural properties of mPEG-bPEI-pPhe copolymers were confirmed by $^1H$ NMR. The copolymers exhibited a self-assemble behavior in water above critical aggregate concentration (CAC) in the range of 0.01-0.14 g/L. The CAC of copolymers obviously depended on the hydrophobic block content in the copolymers (the value decreased with the increase of the pPhe block content). The cationic copolymers have the ability to form multi-interaction complex (MIC) with bovine serum albumin (BSA) and plasmid DNA through multi-interaction (electrostatic and hydrophobic interaction). The physicochemical characterization of the complex was carried out by the measurement of zeta potential and particle size. Their zeta-potentials were positive (approximately +10 mV) and their sizes decreased with increasing pPhe contents in the copolymers (PPF/BSA wt% ratio = 2). The complex showed good stability at high ionic strength. Therefore, mPEG-bPEI-pPhe block copolymer was considered as a potential material to enhance the stability of complex including biotherapuetic drugs.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.69-70
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• 1997

Polyimides and related polymers, when synthesized from aromatic monomers, have generally rigid chain structures resulting in a low gas permeability. The rigidity of polymer chains reduces the segmental motion of chains and works as a good barrier against gas transport. To overcome the limit of use as materials of gas separation membranes due to low gas permeability, block copolymers with the incorporation of flexible segments like siloxane linkage and ether linkage have been studied. These block copolymers have microphase-separated structures composed of microdomains of flexible poly(dimethylsiloxane) or polyether segments and of rigid polyimides segments. In case of rigid-flexible block copolymers, the characteristics of both phases for gas permeation are of great difference. The permeation of gas molecules occurs favorably through microdomains of flexible segments, whereas those of rigid segments hinder the permeation of gas molecules. Accordingly the increase of content of flexible segments in a rigid polymer matrix will increase the gas permeability of the membrane linearly. However, this prediction does not satisfy enough many experimental results and in particular the drastic increase of the permeability is observed in a certain volume fraction. It was proposed that the gas transport mechanism is dominated by diffusion rather than gas solubility in a certain content of flexible phase if solution-diffusion mechanism is adopted. However, the transition from solubility-dependent to diffusion-dependent cannot be explained by the understanding of mechanism itself. Therefore, we consider an effective chemical path which permeable phase can form in a microheterogenous medium, and percolation concept is introduced to describe the permeability transition at near threshold where for the first time a percolation path occurs. The volume fraction of both phases is defined as V$_{\alpha}$ and V$_{\beta}$ in block copolymers, and the volume of $\beta$ phase in the threshold forming geometrically a traversing channel is defined as V$_{\betac}$. The formation mechanism of shortest chemical channel is schematically depicted in Fig. 1.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.403-408
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• 2020

Objectives: Appropriate and accurate local anesthetic (LA) techniques are indispensable in the field of oral and maxillofacial surgery to obtain a satisfactory outcome for both the operating surgeon and the patient. When used alone, the inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB) technique requires supplemental injections like long buccal nerve block for extraction of mandibular molars leading to multiple traumatic experiences for the patient. The aim of this study was to anesthetize the inferior alveolar, lingual, and long buccal nerves with single-needle penetration requiring a minimal skillset such as administering a conventional IANB through introduction of the Benny Joseph technique for extraction of mandibular molars. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective study conducted in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Kunhitharuvai Memorial Charitable Trust (KMCT) Dental College, Calicut, India. The duration of the study was 6 months, from June to November 2017, with a maximum sample size of 616 cases. The LA solution was 2% lignocaine with 1:100,000 adrenaline. The patients were selected from a population in the range of 20 to 40 years of age who reported to the outpatient department for routine dental extraction of normally positioned mandibular right or left first or second molars. Results: Of the 616 patients, 42 patients (6.8%) required re-anesthetization, a success rate of 93.2%. There were no complications such as hematoma formation, trismus, positive aspiration, and nerve injuries. None of the cases required re-anesthetization in the perioperative period. Conclusion: The Benny Joseph technique can be employed and is effective compared with conventional IANB techniques by reducing trauma to the patient and also requires less technique sensitivity.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.131-134
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• 1995

Hiccup is characterized by a myoclonus in the diaphragm, resulting in a sudden inspiration associated with an audible closure of the glottis. The reflex arc in hiccups comprises three pars: an afferent, a central and an efferent part. The afferent portion of the neural pathway of hiccup formation is composed of the vagus nerve, the phrenic nerve, and the sympathetic chain arising from T6 to T12. The hiccup center is localised in the brain stem and the efferent limb comprises phrenic pathways. All stimuli affecting the above mentioned reflex arc may produce hiccups. The pathogenesis of persistent hiccups is not known. Hiccup can present a symptom of a subphrenic abscess or gastric distention, and metabolic alterations may also cause hiccups. Numerous treatment modalities have been tried but with questionable success. We describe a patient whose persistant hiccups was treated successfully by a cervical epidural block.