• International Journal of Oral Biology
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.41-47
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• 2014

Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) is a facultative anaerobic bacterium mainly found in the oral cavity and is known to contribute to tooth decay and gingivitis. Recent studies on intestinal microbiota have revealed that microorganisms forming a biofilm play important roles in maintaining tissue homeostasis through their own metabolism. However, the physiological roles of oral microorganisms such as S. mutans are still unclear. In our current study, we identified that constituents released from S. mutans (CR) reduce arecoline-mediated cytotoxicity without producing toxic effects themselves. Arecoline, as a major alkaloid of areca nut, is known to mediate cytotoxicity on oral epithelial cells and induces a sustained intracellular $Ca^{2+}$ ($[Ca^{2+}]_i$) increase that is cytotoxic. The exposure of human gingival fibroblast (HGF) cells to CR not only inhibited the sustained $[Ca^{2+}]_i$ increase but also the initial $[Ca^{2+}]_i$ elevation. In contrast, CR had no effects on the gene regulation mediated by arecoline. These results demonstrate that S. mutans has physiological role in reducing cytotoxicity in HGF cells and may be considered a novel pharmaceutical candidate.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.608-612
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• 2010

Uvarovite Garnet is green pigment prepared by using $Cr_2O_3$, CaO and $SiO_2$ which are widely used in ceramic industry. The synthesis of above pigment was carried out by mixing $K_2Cr_2O_7$, $SiO_2$ and $CaCO_3$ as formulated and then firing at $1000{\sim}1200^{\circ}C$. To investigate the optimum synthesis condition of the Uvarovite Garnet. it was prepared by using CaO to replace $CaCO_3$, $CaF_2$ and $CaCl_2$. To get green brighter color, $Al^{3+}$ was substituted for $Cr^{3+}$. They were characterized by X-ray diffraction, UV-Vis spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and SEM analysis. When the pigments were applied to lime glazes (6 wt%), color parameters of Uvarovite Garnet showed the $L^*$=40.99, $a^*$=-16.23 and $b^*$=17.04.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.155-160
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• 2017

Doped-$LaCrO_3$ perovskites, because of their good electrical conductivity and thermal stability in oxidizing and/or reducing environments, are used in high temperature solid oxide fuel cells as a gas-tight and electrically conductive interconnection layer. In this study, perovskite $(La_{0.8}Ca_{0.2})(Cr_{0.9}Co_{0.1})O_3$ (LCCC) coatings manufactured by atmospheric plasma spraying followed by heat treatment at $1200^{\circ}C$ have been investigated in terms of microstructural defects, gas tightness and electrical conductivity. The plasma-sprayed LCCC coating formed an inhomogeneous layered structure after the successive deposition of fully-melted liquid droplets and/or partially-melted droplets. Micro-sized defects including unfilled pores, intersplat pores and micro-cracks in the plasma-sprayed LCCC coating were connected together and allowed substantial amounts gas to pass through the coating. Subsequent heat treatment at $1200^{\circ}C$ formed a homogeneous granule microstructure with a small number of isolated pores, providing a substantial improvement in the gas-tightness of the LCCC coating. The electrical conductivity of the LCCC coating was consequently enhanced due to the complete elimination of inter-splat pores and micro-cracks, and reached 53 S/cm at $900^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.432-442
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• 2011

Anodized tubular $TiO_2$ electrodes (ATTEs) with three noticeably different lengths are prepared to determine their optimum length for the photo-driven activity in the reaction of Cr(VI) reduction and hydrogen evolution. The ATTEs with ethylene glycol have longer $TiO_2$ tubes (7-15.6 ${\mu}m$) than those with hydrfluoric acid (0.6-0.8 ${\mu}m$). These samples, which differ only in the length of the tubes, with a wall thickness of ca. 20 nm, consist mainly of an anatase crystalline phase after heat treatment at $650^{\circ}C$, since the anatase crystallites at the tube walls do not undergo transformation into rutile phase, due to the constraints imposed by the wall thickness. Among them, the medium size (ca. 8 ${\mu}m$) tubes provide the optimum conditions, irrespective of the light intensity, which is explained in terms of the correlation between the amount of photons and the adsorbed electron acceptors and their location. Photocatalytic Cr(VI) reduction leads to ca. 60% reduction of Cr(VI) even under 1 sun irradiation with the medium-sized anodized $TiO_2$ tubes, but only ca. 20% with the short- and long-sized tubes. For hydrogen evolution, tubes longer than 8 ${\mu}m$ do not exhibit better performance with any light intensity.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.4603-4608
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• 2015

Background: To determine the potential value of serum tumor markers in predicting pCR (pathological complete response) during neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively monitored the pro-, mid-, and post-neoadjuvant treatment serum tumor marker concentrations in patients with locally advanced breast cancer (stage II-III) who accepted pre-surgical chemotherapy or chemotherapy in combination with targeted therapy at Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center between September 2011 and January 2014 and investigated the association of serum tumor marker levels with therapeutic effect. Core needle biopsy samples were assessed using immunohistochemistry (IHC) prior to neoadjuvant treatment to determine hormone receptor, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2(HER2), and proliferation index Ki67 values. In our study, therapeutic response was evaluated by pCR, defined as the disappearance of all invasive cancer cells from excised tissue (including primary lesion and axillary lymph nodes) after completion of chemotherapy. Analysis of variance of repeated measures and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were employed for statistical analysis of the data. Results: A total of 348 patients were recruited in our study after excluding patients with incomplete clinical information. Of these, 106 patients were observed to have acquired pCR status after treatment completion, accounting for approximately 30.5% of study individuals. In addition, 147patients were determined to be Her-2 positive, among whom the pCR rate was 45.6% (69 patients). General linear model analysis (repeated measures analysis of variance) showed that the concentration of cancer antigen (CA) 15-3 increased after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in both pCR and non-pCR groups, and that there were significant differences between the two groups (P=0.008). The areas under the ROC curves (AUCs) of pre-, mid-, and post-treatment CA15-3 concentrations demonstrated low-level predictive value (AUC=0.594, 0.644, 0.621, respectively). No significant differences in carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) or CA12-5 serum levels were observed between the pCR and non-pCR groups (P=0.196 and 0.693, respectively). No efficient AUC of CEA or CA12-5 concentrations were observed to predict patient response toward neoadjuvant treatment (both less than 0.7), nor were differences between the two groups observed at different time points. We then analyzed the Her-2 positive subset of our cohort. Significant differences in CEA concentrations were identified between the pCR and non-pCR groups (P=0.039), but not in CA15-3 or CA12-5 levels (p=0.092 and 0.89, respectively). None of the ROC curves showed underlying prognostic value, as the AUCs of these three markers were less than 0.7. The ROC-AUCs for the CA12-5 concentrations of inter-and post-neoadjuvant chemotherapy in the estrogen receptor negative HER2 positive subgroup were 0.735 and 0.767, respectively. However, the specificity and sensitivity values were at odds with each other which meant that improving either the sensitivity or specificity would impair the efficiency of the other. Conclusions: Serum tumor markers CA15-3, CA12-5, and CEA might have little clinical significance in predicting neoadjuvant treatment response in locally advanced breast cancer.

• Journal of Breast Cancer
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.382-390
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• 2018

Purpose: PIK3CA mutation is considered to be a possible cause for resistance to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer. We investigated the association between PIK3CA mutations and the outcome of NAC in HER2-positive breast cancers. Methods: A total of 100 HER2-positive breast cancer patients who had undergone NAC and surgery between 2004 and 2016 were examined. Mutation status was sequentially assessed in pre-NAC, post-NAC, and recurrent specimens taken from these patients. Results: PIK3CA mutations were identified in the sequential specimens of 17 patients (17.0%). These 17 patients experienced shorter disease-free survival (DFS) than the rest of the patients (58.3 months vs. 119.3 months, p=0.020); however, there was no significant difference in pathologic complete response (pCR) and overall survival (OS) (pCR, 17.6% vs. 33.7%, p=0.191; OS, 84.5 months vs. 118.0 months, p=0.984). While there was no difference in pCR between the wild-type and mutant PIK3CA groups in pre-NAC specimens (25.0% vs. 31.8%, p=0.199), PIK3CA mutations correlated with lower pCR in postNAC specimens (0.0% vs. 24.3%, p<0.001). Multivariate analysis revealed significantly worse DFS in the mutant PIK3CA group than in the wild-type group (hazard ratio, 3.540; 95% confidence interval, 1.001-12.589; p=0.050). Moreover, the DFS curves of the change of PIK3CA mutation status in sequential specimens were significantly different (p=0.016). Conclusion: PIK3CA mutation in HER2-positive breast cancer was correlated with a lower pCR rate and shorter DFS. These results suggest that PIK3CA mutation is a prognostic marker for NAC in HER2-positive breast cancer, especially in post-NAC specimens.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.24 no.8
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• pp.1215-1218
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• 2003

An analysis of the bonding situation in CaM₂P₂ (M=Fe, Ni) with ThCr₂Si₂ structure is made in terms of DOS and COOP plots. The main contributions to covalent bonding are due to M-P and P-P interactions in both compounds. Particularly, the interlayer P-P bonding by variation in the transition metal is examined in more detail. It turns out that the shorter P-P bonds in CaNi₂P₂ form as a result of the decreasing electron delocalization into ${{\sigma}_p}^*$ of P₂ due to the weaker bonding interaction between the metal d and ${{\sigma}_p}^*$ as the metal d band is falling from Fe to Ni.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.9-15
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• 1997

This experiment was carried out to examine the roles of selenium in arsenic- and chromium-induced oxidative stress, which results in chromosomal damage, such as sister chromatid exchange (SCE) and chromosomal aberration (CA). For this purpose, the frequency of CA and SCE related to the level of 0xidative stress were analyzed. Selenium decreased the frequency of CA induced by As. In order to evaluate the effect of selenium on clastogenic factors, media from As- and Cr-treated cells were ultrafiltered and added again to cells in the presence or absence of selenium. Selenium decreased the frequency of SCE by As and Cr. This observation indicates the possibility of presence of clastogenic factor. In addition, the clastogenic factor would be involed in oxidative stress since selenium decreased the level of oxidative stress. Thus, it is suggested that selenium may play a role as an anti-clastogenic effector by preventing the oxidative stress, thereby decreasing the frequency of Asand Cr-induced chromosomal damage.

• Journal of Internet Technology
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.301-313
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• 2019

In this paper, we propose a new MAC protocol for Cognitive Radio (CR)-based IoT networks, called MSMA/CA. We extend the standard CSMA/CA, adopted in IEEE 802.11 WLANs, to the CR networks with the minimal modification since it works well in the real world. We resolve the classical hidden/exposed terminal problems by a variant of RTS/CTS mechanism and further, the hidden primary terminal problem by the mutual spectrum sensing at the transmitter and the receiver. We also modify the backoff process of CSMA/CA to incorporate the blocking of secondary transmitters, with the aim of protecting ongoing primary transmissions from aggressive secondary users. We analyze the throughput and delay of our proposed scheme using the Markov chain model on the backoff procedure, and verify its accuracy by simulations. Simulation results demonstrate that our protocol is suitable for IoT networks since the performance is insensitive to the number of users or devices.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.90-98
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• 1996

The mineral contents were analyzed for 12 varieties of Korean apples and 9 commercial apple juices by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. On the fresh matter basis, the ash contents of tested apples ranged 0.21-0.48%, Mn 0.20-2.52 ppm, Cu 0.10-1.03 ppm, Fe 0.24-9.88 ppm, Zn 0.09-1.06 ppm, Mg 21.08-99.00 ppm, Ca 15.16-99.56 ppm, K 842.10-1788.10 ppm, Na 10.32-40.53 ppm, P 24.43-90.07 ppm, Pb nd-98.05 ppb, Cd nd-36.08 ppb and Cr 2.25-123.76 ppb. Overally mineral contents of Aori and Jonathan were higher than those of Fuji. The mineral contents of apple cultivated at Wonju, Kangwon and Taegu, $Ky{\check{o}}ngbuk$ were higher than those of the other growing region. The mineral contents of commercial apple juice were ash 0.13-0.36%, Mn 0.24-0.99 ppm, Cu 0.10-0.61 ppm, Fe 0.19-3.70 ppm. Zn 0.20-1.77 ppm, Mg 18.16-49.56 ppm, Ca 14.42-42.30 ppm, K 785.07-1440.30 ppm, Na 14.71-52.58 ppm, P 16.57-63.56 ppm, Pb nd-95.55 ppb, Cd nd-17.65 ppb and Cr 8.60-110.98 ppb, respectively. Comparing mineral contents of apples and commercial apple juices, Cu, Mg, K, Ca and Fe contents of apples were higher and Zn, Na contents were lower than those of apple Juices.