• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.219-230
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• 2010

Digital content makes big changes to our daily lives while bringing opportunities and challenges for companies. Creative firms integrate pictures, texts, videos, audios, and data by digitalization to develop new products or services and create digital experiences to promote their brands. Most articles on digital content contribute to the basic concept or development of marketing it in literature. Actually, compared with traditional value chains for common products or services, the digital content industry seems to have more potential value. Because quite a bit of digital content is free to the consumer, price is not necessarily perceived as an indicator of the quality or value of information (Rowley 2008). It becomes evident that a current theme in digital content is the issue of "value," and research on customers' perceived value of digital content is a necessity. This article argues that experiential value has an advantage in customers' evaluations of digital content. Two different but related contributions to the understanding of "value" of digital content are made here. First, based on the comparison of digital content with products and services, the article proposes two key characteristics that make experiential strategy available for digital content: intangibility and near-zero reproduction cost. On top of that, based on the discussion of the gap between company's idealized value and customer's perceived value, this article emphasizes that digital content prices and pricing of digital content is different from products and services. As a result of intangibility, prices may not reflect customer value. Moreover, the cost of digital content in the development stage may be very high while reproduction costs shrink dramatically. Moreover, because of the value gap mentioned before, the pricing polices vary for different digital contents. For example, flat price policy is generally used for movies and music (Magiera 2001; Netherby 2002), while for continuous demand, digital content such as online games and anti-virus programs involves a more complicated matter of utility and competitive price levels. Digital content companies have to explore various kinds of strategies to overcome this gap. Rethinking marketing solutions such as advertisements, images, and word-of-mouth and their effect on customers' perceived value becomes essential. China's digital content industry is becoming more and more globalized and drawing special attention from different countries and regions that have respective competitive advantages. The 2008-2009 Annual Report on the Development of China's Digital Content Industry (CCIDConsulting 2009) indicates that, with the driven power of domestic demand and governmental policy support, the country's digital content industry maintained a fast growth of some 30 percent in 2008, obviously indicating the initial stage of industry expansion. In China, anti-virus programs and other software programs which need to be updated use a quarter-based pricing policy. Customers can download a trial version for free and use it for six months or a year. If they want to use it longer, continuous payment is needed. They examine the excellence of the digital content during this trial period and decide whether to pay for continued usage. For China’s music and movie industries, as a result of initial development, experiential strategy has not been much applied, even though firms in other countries find the trial experience and explore important strategies(such as customers listening to music for several seconds for free before downloading it). For the above reasons, anti-virus program may be a representative for digital content industry in China and an exploratory study of the advantage of experiential value in customer's perceived value of digital content is done in the anti-virus market of China. In order to enhance the reliability of the survey data, this study focused on people who were experienced users of anti-virus programs. The empirical results revealed that experiential value has a positive effect on customers' perceived value of digital content. In other words, because digital content is intangible and the reproduction costs are nearly zero, customers' evaluations are based heavily on their experience. Moreover, image and word-of-mouth do not have a positive effect on perceived value, only on experiential value. That is to say, a digital content value chain is different from that of a general product or service. Experiential value has a notable advantage and mediates the effect of image and word-of-mouth on perceived value. The results of this study help provide an understanding of why free digital content downloads exist in developing countries. Customers can perceive the value of digital content only by using and experiencing it. This is also why such governments support the development of digital content. Other developing countries whose digital content business is also in the beginning stage can make use of the suggestions here. Moreover, based on the advantage of experiential strategy, companies should make more of an effort to invest in customers' experience. As a result of the characteristics and value gap of digital content, customers perceive more value in the intangible digital content only by experiencing what they really want. Moreover, because of the near-zero reproduction costs, companies can perhaps use experiential strategy to enhance customer understanding of digital content.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.332-342
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• 2000

Background : The importance of pro-inflammatory cytokines, especially tumor necrosis factor $\alpha$ (INF-$\alpha$) and interleukin-1$\beta$ (IL-1$\beta$), have been extensively documented in the generation of inflammatory lung disease. Lung epithelial cells are also actively involved in initiating and maintaining inflammation by producing pro-inflammatory mediators. Understanding the mechanism of pro-inflammatory cytokine expression in lung epithelial cells is crucial to the development of new therapeutic modalities for inflammatory lung disease. Transcription of most pro-inflammatory cytokines is dependent on the activation of NF-${\kappa}B$. However, the relationship between pro-inflammatory cytokine expression and NF-${\kappa}B/I{\kappa}B$ pathway in lung epithelial cells is not clear. Methods : BEAS-2B, A549, Na-H157, NCI-H719 cells were stimulated with IL-$1{\beta}$ or TNF-$\alpha$ at various times, and then IL-8 and TNF-$\alpha$mRNA expressions were assayed by Northern blot analysis. IL-$1{\beta}$ or TNF-$\alpha$-induced NF-${\kappa}B$ activation was assessed by the nuclear translocation of p65 NF-${\kappa}B$ subunit. The degradation of $I{\kappa}B{\alpha}$ and $I{\kappa}B{\beta}$ by IL-$1{\beta}$ or TNF-$\alpha$stimulation was assayed by Western blot analysis. The phosphorylation of $I{\kappa}B{\alpha}$ was evaluated by Western blot analysis after pre-treating cells with proteasome inhibitor followed by IL-$1{\beta}$ or TNF-$\alpha$ stimulation. The basal level of IKK $\alpha$ expression was evaluated by Western blot analysis. Results: $I{\kappa}B{\alpha}$ and $I{\kappa}B{\alpha}$ was rapidly degraded after 5 minutes of incubation with IL-$1{\beta}$ or TNF-$\alpha$ in BEAS-2B, A549, and NCI-H157 cells. The activation of NF-${\kappa}B{\alpha}$ and the induction of IL-8 and TNF-$\alpha$ mRNA expression were observed by IL-$1{\beta}$ or TNF-$\alpha$ stimulation in these cells. In contrast, neither the changes in NF-${\kappa}B/I{\kappa}B$ pathway nor IL-8 and TNF-$\alpha$mRNA expression was induced by IL-$1{\beta}$ or TNF-$\alpha$ stimulation in NCI-H719 cells. IL-$1{\beta}$ and TNF-$\alpha$-induced $I{\kappa}B$ phosphorylation was observed in BEAS-2B, A549, and NCI-H157 cells, but not in NCI-H719 cells. The basal level of IKK$\alpha$ expression was not different between cell. Conclusion : NF-${\kappa}B/I{\kappa}B$ pathway plays an important role in the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokine in most lung epithelial cells. The absence of the effect on NF-${\kappa}B/I{\kappa}B$ pathway in NCI-H719 cells sæms to be due to the defect in the intracellular signal transduction pathway upstream to IKK.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.340-349
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• 2011

This study examined the roles of autolytic enzymes and microorganisms in the ripening process of salted Alaska pollack tripe made with various concentrations of salt i.e, 7.5% and 20% by weight. Salted Alaska pollack tripe treated with antibiotic agents for the inhibition of microbial growth and a control were prepared experimentally, and changes in chemical composition and viable cell counts were investigated, individually, during the ripening process. Just after the preparation of the low salt Alaska pollack tripe made with 7.5% salt, viable bacterial cells occurred at a level of $10^5$ CFU/g. In the control, bacterial counts increased rapidly to $10^7$ CFU/g by the 14th day of ripening. However, in the sample treated with antibiotic agents, counts were decreased to a level of $10^4$ CFU/g by the 3rd day of ripening and increased gradually to $10^6$ CFU/g by the 5th day of ripening, and then the same value was maintained there-after. Just after the preparation of the high salt Alaska pollack tripe made with 20% salt, viable bacterial cells occurred at a level of $10^3$ CFU/g. In both the samples treated with antibiotic agents and the control, bacterial counts decreased rapidly to $10^0$ CFU/g by the 45th day of ripening and increased gradually there-after. The content of amino type nitrogen was 76.3 mg% just after the preparation of the low salt Alaska pollack tripe made with 7.5% salt. Amino type nitrogen content was increased to 283.5 mg% by the 5th day of proper ripening in the control, but it was increased to 208.0 mg% in the sample treated with antibiotic agents. The difference in amino type nitrogen content was 75.5 mg/100 g. The content of amino type nitrogen was 57.2 mg% just after the preparation of the high salt Alaska pollack tripe made with 20% salt. Amino type nitrogen content was increased to 198.3 mg by the 60th day of proper ripening in the control, but it was increased to 162.0 mg% in the sample treated with the antibiotic agents. The difference in amino type nitrogen content was 36.3 mg/100 g. The contents of VBN and TMA-N were 102.1 mg% and 20.5 mg%, respectively, at the 7th day of ripening in the low salt Alaska pollack tripe made with 7.5% salt. The content of VBN was 60.0 mg% and TMA-N was not detected at the 21st day of ripening in the sample treated with antibiotic agents. The control sample was spoiled by the 7th day of ripening but the sample treated with antibiotic agents was not spoiled by the 21st day of ripening. On the other hand, VBN content was 37.2 mg% and TMA-N was not detected at the 90th day of ripening in the high salt Alaska pollack tripe made with 20% salt, and the control sample was not spoiled.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.40-50
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• 1992

This experiment was carried out to stimulate lactic starter culture for yoghurt manufacturing. A each of 1.5% of Bios 2000, CR starter medium, and Yeast extract were added to bulk medium, acidity, pH and changes in the number of lactic acid bacteria were investigated at, intervals of two hours for Lactobacillus bulgaricus and four hours for Streptococus thermophilus and Lactobacillus casei. The results obtained were summarized as follows. 1. The acidity of control arrived at 0.99% after 16 hours of incubation during the incubation of Lactobacillus bulgaricus. Whereas that of CR starter medium reached 1.00% at 12 hours of incubation. Yeast extract, 1.12% at 12 hours, and Bios 2000 reached 0.97% at 10 hours respectively, Thus, Bios 2000 showed the fastest rate of acid production. 2. When the acidity of experiment medium peaked on optimum levels. pH of control was 4.03 in 16 hours of incubation during the incubation of Lactobacillus bulgaricus. Whereas that of Bios 2000 reached 4.10 of Yeast extract reached 3.97 at 12 hours, and of CR starter medium reached 4.05 at 12 hours. 3. Lactic acid bacterial counts were $3.1{\times}10^{10}/ml$ after 16 hours of incubation during the incubation of lactobacillus bulgaricus, Whereas those of Bios 2000 reached $2.1{\times}10^{10}/ml$ at 10 hours, with the fastest stimulation of growth, The counts in CR starter medium were at $2.9{\times}10^{10}/ml$ at 12 hours, and Yeast extract were $3.8{\times}10^{10}/ml$ at 12 hours. 4. The acidity of control, CR starter medium, and Yeast extract reached 0.92% at 44 hours, and 0.96% at 32 hours, and 0.90% at 32 hours respectively, Also, that of Bios 2,000 reached 0.97% at 32 hours, which exhibited the highest, among the treatments. 5. The pH of control was 4.27 at 44 hours. that of CR starter medium was 4.33 at 40 hours and that of Yeast extract was 4.25 at 32 hours during the incubation in Streptococcus thermophilus. Besides, pH of Bios 2000 is lowest as 4.18 at 32 hours. 6. Lactic acid bacterial counts in control, CR starter medium, and Yeast extract during the incubation of Streptococcus thermophilus were $9.8{\times}10^{9}/ml$ at 44 hours,$9.5{\times}10^{8}/ml$ at 40 hours, and $9.6{\times}10^{8}/ml$ at 32 hours. And, the highest number was $2.0{\times}10^{9}/ml$ for Bios 2000 at 32 hours. 7. The acidity of control during the incubation of Lactobacillus casei reached 0.92% at 40 hours, and those of CR starter medium and Yeast extract were 0.95% at 40 hours, and 1.01% at 36 hours respectively. Also, Bios 2000 had the highest acidity as 0.94% at 32 hours. 8. The pH of control, CR starter medium and Yeast extract during the incubation Lactobacillus casei was 4.27 at 40 hours. 4.21 at 40 hours, and 4.15 at 36 hours respectively. Also, Bios 2000 showed the lowest pH, as 4.23, at 32 hours. 9. Lactic acid bacterial counts in control, CR starter medium and Yeast extract during the incubation of Lactobacillus casei were $9.4{\times}10^{7}/ml$ at 40 hours, $1.1{\times}10^{8}/ml$ at 40 hours, and $5.0{\times}10^{8}/ml$ at 36 hours respectively. And, the progress of 32 hours showed the highest number of lactic acid bacteria as$6.4{\times}10^{8}/ml$ in Bios 2000.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.69-89
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• 1981

Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni) is a perennial herb widely distributed in the mountainous area of Paraguay. It belongs to the family Compositae and contains 6 to 12 percent stevioside in the leaves. Stevioside is a glucoside having similar sweetening character to surgar and the degree of sweetness is approximately 300 times of sugar. Since Korea does not produce any sugar crops, and the synthetic sweetenings are potentially hazardous for health, it is rather urgent to develop an economical new sweetener. Consequently, the current experiments are conducted to establish cultural practices of stevia, a new sweetening herbs, introduced into Korea in 1973 and the results are summarized as followings: 1. Days from transplanting of cuttings to the flower bud formation of 6 stevia lines were similar among daylengths of 8, 10 and 12 hours, but it was much greater at daylengths of 14 or 24 hour and varietal differences were noticable. All lines were photosensitive, but a line, 77013, was the most sensitive and 77067 and Suweon 2 were less sensitive to daylength. 2. Critical daylength of all lines seemed to be approximately 12 hours. Growth of plants was severely retarded at daylengths less than 12 hours. 3. Cutting were responded to short daylength before rooting. Number of days from transplanting to flower bud formation of 40-day old cuttings in the nursery bed was 20 days and it was delayed as duration of nursery were shorter. 4. Number of days from emergence to flower bud formation was shortest at short day treatment from 20 days after emergence. It was became longer as initiation of short day treatment was earlier or later than 20 days. 5. Plant height, number of branches, and top dry weight of stevia were reduced as cutting date was delayed from March 20 to May 20. The highest yield of dry leaf was obtained at nursery duration of 40-50 days in march 20 cutting, 30-40 days in April 20 cutting, and 30 days in May 20 cutting. 6. An asymptotic relationship was observed between plant population and leaf dry weight. Yield of dry leaf increased rapidly as plant population increased from 5,000 to 10,000 plants/10a with a reduced increasing rate from 10,000 to 20,000 plants/l0a, and levelled off at the plant population higher than 20,000 plants/l0a. 7. Stevia was adaptable in Suweon, Chengju, Mokpo and Jeju and drought was one of the main factors reducing yield of dry leaf. Yield of dry leaf was reduced significantly (approximately 30%) at June 20 transplanting compared to optimum transplanting. 8. Yield of dry leaf was higher in a vinyl house compared to unprotected control at long daylength or natural daylength except at short day treatment at March 20. Higher temperature ill a vinyl house does not have benefital effects at April 20 transplanting. 9. The highest content of stevioside was noted at the upper leaves of the plant but the lowest was measured at the plant parts of 20cm above ground. Leaf dry weight and stevioside yield was mainly contributed by the plant parts of 60 to 120cm above ground but the varietal differences were also significant. 10. Delayed harvest by the time of flower bud formation increased leaf dry weight remarkably. However, there were insignificant changes of yield as harvests were made at any time after flower bud formation. Content of stevioside was highest at the time of flower bud formation and earlier or later harvest than this time was low in its content. The optimum harvesting time determined by leaf dry weight and stevioside content was the periods from flower bud formation to right before flowering that would be the period from September 10 to September 15 in Suweon area. 11. Stevioside and rebaudioside content in the leaves of Stevia varieties were ranged from 5.4% to 14.3% and 1.5% to 8.3% respectively. However, no definit relationships between stevioside and rebaudioside were observed in these particular experiments.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.127-147
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• 2020

The world is suffering from numerous human and economic losses due to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19). The Korean government established a strategy to overcome the national infectious disease crisis through research and development. It is difficult to find distinctive features and changes in a specific R&D field when using the existing technical classification or science and technology standard classification. Recently, a few studies have been conducted to establish a classification system to provide information about the investment research areas of infectious diseases in Korea through a comparative analysis of Korea government-funded research projects. However, these studies did not provide the necessary information for establishing cooperative research strategies among countries in the infectious diseases, which is required as an execution plan to achieve the goals of national health security and fostering new growth industries. Therefore, it is inevitable to study information services based on the classification system and classification model for establishing a national collaborative R&D strategy. Seven classification - Diagnosis_biomarker, Drug_discovery, Epidemiology, Evaluation_validation, Mechanism_signaling pathway, Prediction, and Vaccine_therapeutic antibody - systems were derived through reviewing infectious diseases-related national-funded research projects of South Korea. A classification system model was trained by combining Scopus data with a bidirectional RNN model. The classification performance of the final model secured robustness with an accuracy of over 90%. In order to conduct the empirical study, an infectious disease classification system was applied to the coronavirus-related research and development projects of major countries such as the STAR Metrics (National Institutes of Health) and NSF (National Science Foundation) of the United States(US), the CORDIS (Community Research & Development Information Service)of the European Union(EU), and the KAKEN (Database of Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research) of Japan. It can be seen that the research and development trends of infectious diseases (coronavirus) in major countries are mostly concentrated in the prediction that deals with predicting success for clinical trials at the new drug development stage or predicting toxicity that causes side effects. The intriguing result is that for all of these nations, the portion of national investment in the vaccine_therapeutic antibody, which is recognized as an area of research and development aimed at the development of vaccines and treatments, was also very small (5.1%). It indirectly explained the reason of the poor development of vaccines and treatments. Based on the result of examining the investment status of coronavirus-related research projects through comparative analysis by country, it was found that the US and Japan are relatively evenly investing in all infectious diseases-related research areas, while Europe has relatively large investments in specific research areas such as diagnosis_biomarker. Moreover, the information on major coronavirus-related research organizations in major countries was provided by the classification system, thereby allowing establishing an international collaborative R&D projects.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.35-55
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• 2013

Information technology is a critical resource necessary for any company hoping to support and realize its strategic goals, which contribute to growth promotion and sustainable development. The selection of information technology and its strategic use are imperative for the enhanced performance of every aspect of company management, leading a wide range of companies to have invested continuously in information technology. Despite researchers, managers, and policy makers' keen interest in how information technology contributes to organizational performance, there is uncertainty and debate about the result of information technology investment. In other words, researchers and managers cannot easily identify the independent factors that can impact the investment performance of information technology. This is mainly owing to the fact that many factors, ranging from the internal components of a company, strategies, and external customers, are interconnected with the investment performance of information technology. Using an agent-based simulation technique, this research extracts factors expected to affect investment performance on information technology, simplifies the analyses of their relationship with economic modeling, and examines the performance dependent on changes in the factors. In terms of economic modeling, I expand the model that highlights the way in which product quality moderates the relationship between information technology investments and economic performance (Thatcher and Pingry, 2004) by considering the cost of information technology investment and the demand creation resulting from product quality enhancement. For quality enhancement and its consequences for demand creation, I apply the concept of information quality and decision-maker quality (Raghunathan, 1999). This concept implies that the investment on information technology improves the quality of information, which, in turn, improves decision quality and performance, thus enhancing the level of product or service quality. Additionally, I consider the effect of word of mouth among consumers, which creates new demand for a product or service through the information diffusion effect. This demand creation is analyzed with an agent-based simulation model that is widely used for network analyses. Results show that the investment on information technology enhances the quality of a company's product or service, which indirectly affects the economic performance of that company, particularly with regard to factors such as consumer surplus, company profit, and company productivity. Specifically, when a company makes its initial investment in information technology, the resultant increase in the quality of a company's product or service immediately has a positive effect on consumer surplus, but the investment cost has a negative effect on company productivity and profit. As time goes by, the enhancement of the quality of that company's product or service creates new consumer demand through the information diffusion effect. Finally, the new demand positively affects the company's profit and productivity. In terms of the investment strategy for information technology, this study's results also reveal that the selection of information technology needs to be based on analysis of service and the network effect of customers, and demonstrate that information technology implementation should fit into the company's business strategy. Specifically, if a company seeks the short-term enhancement of company performance, it needs to have a one-shot strategy (making a large investment at one time). On the other hand, if a company seeks a long-term sustainable profit structure, it needs to have a split strategy (making several small investments at different times). The findings from this study make several contributions to the literature. In terms of methodology, the study integrates both economic modeling and simulation technique in order to overcome the limitations of each methodology. It also indicates the mediating effect of product quality on the relationship between information technology and the performance of a company. Finally, it analyzes the effect of information technology investment strategies and information diffusion among consumers on the investment performance of information technology.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.179-196
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• 2019

Recently, the "Smart Consumer" has been emerging. He or she is increasingly inclined to search for and purchase products by taking into account personal judgment or expert reviews rather than by relying on information delivered through manufacturers' advertising. This is especially true when purchasing cosmetics. Because cosmetics act directly on the skin, consumers respond seriously to dangerous chemical elements they contain or to skin problems they may cause. Above all, cosmetics should fit well with the purchaser's skin type. In addition, changes in global cosmetics consumer trends make it necessary to study this field. The desire to find one's own individualized cosmetics is being revealed to consumers around the world and is known as "Finding the Holy Grail." Many consumers show a deep interest in customized cosmetics with the cultural boom known as "K-Beauty" (an aspect of "Han-Ryu"), the growth of personal grooming, and the emergence of "self-culture" that includes "self-beauty" and "self-interior." These trends have led to the explosive popularity of cosmetics made in Korea in the Chinese and Southeast Asian markets. In order to meet the customized cosmetics needs of consumers, cosmetics manufacturers and related companies are responding by concentrating on delivering premium services through the convergence of ICT(Information, Communication and Technology). Despite the evolution of companies' responses regarding market trends toward customized cosmetics, there is no "Intelligent Data Platform" that deals holistically with consumers' skin condition experience and thus attaches emotions to products and services. To find the Holy Grail of customized cosmetics, it is important to acquire and analyze consumer data on what they want in order to address their experiences and emotions. The emotions consumers are addressing when purchasing cosmetics varies by their age, sex, skin type, and specific skin issues and influences what price is considered reasonable. Therefore, it is necessary to classify emotions regarding cosmetics by individual consumer. Because of its importance, consumer emotion analysis has been used for both services and products. Given the trends identified above, we judge that consumer emotion analysis can be used in our study. Therefore, we collected and indexed data on consumers' emotions regarding their cosmetics experiences focusing on consumers' language. We crawled the cosmetics emotion data from SNS (blog and Twitter) according to sales ranking ($1^{st}$ to $99^{th}$), focusing on the ample/serum category. A total of 357 emotional adjectives were collected, and we combined and abstracted similar or duplicate emotional adjectives. We conducted a "Consumer Sentiment Journey" workshop to build a "Consumer Sentiment Dictionary," and this resulted in a total of 76 emotional adjectives regarding cosmetics consumer experience. Using these 76 emotional adjectives, we performed clustering with the Self-Organizing Map (SOM) method. As a result of the analysis, we derived eight final clusters of cosmetics consumer sentiments. Using the vector values of each node for each cluster, the characteristics of each cluster were derived based on the top ten most frequently appearing consumer sentiments. Different characteristics were found in consumer sentiments in each cluster. We also developed a cosmetics experience pattern map. The study results confirmed that recommendation and classification systems that consider consumer emotions and sentiments are needed because each consumer differs in what he or she pursues and prefers. Furthermore, this study reaffirms that the application of emotion and sentiment analysis can be extended to various fields other than cosmetics, and it implies that consumer insights can be derived using these methods. They can be used not only to build a specialized sentiment dictionary using scientific processes and "Design Thinking Methodology," but we also expect that these methods can help us to understand consumers' psychological reactions and cognitive behaviors. If this study is further developed, we believe that it will be able to provide solutions based on consumer experience, and therefore that it can be developed as an aspect of marketing intelligence.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.140-153
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• 2003

Background : The cell-mediated immune reaction to tuberculosis infection involves a complex network of cytokines. The extent of inflammation, tissue damage and severity of the disease suggested to be determined by the balance between extent and duration of the proinflammatory cytokine response versus those of the suppressive cytokines. The systemic cytokine response in pathogenesis of tuberculosis can be assessed by measuring serum cytokine levels. Method : Serum interleukin-1 beta(IL-$1{\beta}$), IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, IL-12(p40), tumor necrosis factor-alpha(TNF-${\alpha}$), interferon-gamma(IFN-${\gamma}$) and transforming growth factor-beta(TGF-${\beta}$) levels were measured in 83 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis, 10 patients with endobronchial tuberculosis before treatment and 20 healthy subjects by using a sandwich ELISA. In patients with pulmonary tuberculosis, they were divided into mild, moderate and far advanced group according to the severity by ATS guidelines. To compare with those of pretreatment levels, we measured serum IL-$1{\beta}$, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, IL-12(p40), TNF-${\alpha}$, IFN-${\gamma}$ and TGF-${\beta}$ levels in 45 of 83 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis after 2 and 6 months of treatment. Results : 1) In sera of patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis(n=83), IL-$1{\beta}$, IL-6(p<0.05), TNF-${\alpha}$, and IFN-${\gamma}$ were elevated and TGF-${\beta}$ was decreased comparing to control. IL-2, Il-12(p40), IL-4 and IL-10 were similar between the patients with tuberculosis and control. 2) In endobronchial tuberculosis, IL-6 and TNF-${\alpha}$ were elevated and TGF-${\beta}$ was decreased comparing to control. IL-12(p40) seemed to be elevated comparing to pulmonary tuberculosis. 3) Far advanced tuberculosis showed markedly elevated IL-6 and IFN-${\gamma}$ level(p<0.05). 4) The significant correlations were noted between IL-1, IL-6 AND TNF-${\alpha}$ and between IL-12, Il-2 and IL-4(p<0.01). 5) After 2 and 6 months of standard treatment, the level of IL-6 and IFN-${\gamma}$ was significantly decreased(p<0.05). Conclusion : These results showed that an altered balance between cytokines is likely to be involved in the extent of inflammation, tissue damage and severity of the disease tuberculosis. But, it should be considered diversities of cytokine response according to type of tuberculosis and immunity in clinical application and interpreting future studies.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.45-52
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• 2001

Purpose : Granulocyle-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) has been widely used to treat neutropenia caused by chemotherapy or radiotherapy. The efficacy of recombinant human hematopoietic growth factors in improving oral mucositis after chemotherapy or radiotherapy has been recently demonstrated in some clinical studies. This study was designed to determine whether G-CSF can modify the radiation injury of the intestinal mucosa in mice. Materials and Methods : One hundred and five BALB/c mice weighing 20 grams were divided into nine subgroups including G-CSF alone group $(I:10\;{\mu}g/kg\;or\;II:100\;{\mu}g/kg)$, radiation alone group (7.5 or 12 Gy on the whole body), combination group with G-CSF and radiation (G-CSF I or II plus 7.5 Gy, G-CSF I or II plus 12 Gy), and control group. Radiation was administered with a 6 MV linear accelerator (Mevatron Siemens) with a dose rate of 3 Gy/min on day 0. G-CSF was injected subcutaneously for 3 days, once a day, from day -2 to day 0. Each group was sacrificed on the day 1, day 3, and day 7. The mucosal changes of jejunum were evaluated microscopically by crypt count per circumference, villi length, and histologic damage grading. Results : In both G-CSF I and II groups, crypt counts, villi length, and histologic damage scores were not significantly different from those of the control one (p>0.05). The 7.5 Gy and 12 Gy radiation alone groups showed significantly lower crypt counts and higher histologic damage scores compared with those of control one (p<0.05). The groups exposed to 7.5 Gy radiation plus G-CSF I or II showed significantly higher crypt counts and lower histologic damage scores on the day 3, and lower histologic damage scores on the day 7 compared with those of the 7.5 Gy radiation alone one (p<0.05). The 12 Gy radiation plus G-CSF I or II group did not show significant difference in crypt counts and histologic damage scores compared with those of the 12 Gy radiation alone one (p>0,05). Most of the mice in 12 Gy radiation with or without G-CSF group showed intestinal death within 5 days. Conclusion : These results suggest that G-CSF may protect the jejunal mucosa from the acute radiation damage following within the tolerable ranges of whole body irradiation in mice.