• Title/Summary/Keyword: Comparative research

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Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing: Research Design for International Comparative Studies (고령화연구패널조사의 국제비교연구 활용 가능성)

  • Boo, Ka-Chung;Chang, Ji-Yeun
    • Survey Research
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    • v.7 no.2
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    • pp.97-122
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    • 2006
  • Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing(KLoSA)', launched in 2006, has developed a research network with 'Health and Retirement Study(HRS, US),' Studies on Health and Retirement in Europe(SHARE, EU),' and 'English Longitudinal Study of Ageing(ELSA, UK)'and tried to construct a mega data library. The KLoSA team has designed their research with focusing on the following three points, in order to use KLoSA for international comparative studies. First, KLoSA shares the key research areas such as family structure, health, employment, income, asset, subjective expectations with the comparable studies. Second, KLoSA team has developed the instrument to reflect the Korean culture and institutions. They considered the institutional characteristics in public pension and health care system and in employment practices. They also counted the cultural conventions in family life such as financial management and care exchange, Finally, KLoSA tries to capture the psychological characteristics of the Korean elderly by making the measurement scales more understandable.

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Comparative Genomics Study of Interferon-$\alpha$ Receptor-1 in Humans and Chimpanzees

  • Kim, Il-Chul;Chi, Seung-Wook;Kim, Dae-Won;Choi, Sang-Haeng;Chae, Sung-Hwa;Park, Hong-Seog
    • Genomics & Informatics
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    • v.3 no.4
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    • pp.142-148
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    • 2005
  • The immune response-related genes have been suggested to be the most favorable genes for positive selection during evolution. Comparing the entire DNA sequence of chimpanzee chromosome 22 (PTR22) with human chromosome 21 (HSA21), we have identified 15 orthologs having indel in their coding sequences. Among them, interferon-${\alpha}$ receptor-1 gene (IFNAR1), an immuneresponse-related gene, is subjected to comparative genomic analysis. Chimpanzee IFNAR1 showed the same genomic structure as human IFNAR1 (11 exons and 10 introns) except the 3 bp insertion in exon 4. The sequence alignment of IFNAR1 coding sequence indicated that 'ISPP' amino acid sequence motif is highly conserved in chimpanzee and other animals including mouse and chicken. However, the human IFNAR1 shows that one proline residue is missing in the sequence motif. The homology modeling of the IFNAR1 structures suggests that the proline deletion in human IFNAR1 leads to the formation of the following ${\alpha}$-helix, whereas two sequential prolines in chimpanzee IFNAR1 inhibit it. As a result, human IFNAR1 may adopt a characteristic structure distinct from chimpanzee IFNAR1. This human specific trait could contribute to specific immune response in the most optimized manner for humans. Further molecular biological studies on the IFNAR1 will help us to gain insights into the molecular implication of species-specific host-pathogen interaction in primate evolution.