• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.43 no.11
• /
• pp.964-973
• /
• 2020

Recent studies have highlighted that early enhancement of the glycolytic pathway is a mode of maintaining the proinflammatory status of immune cells. Thiamine, a wellknown co-activator of pyruvate dehydrogenase complex, a gatekeeping enzyme, shifts energy utilization of glucose from glycolysis to oxidative phosphorylation. Thus, we hypothesized that thiamine may modulate inflammation by alleviating metabolic shifts during immune cell activation. First, using allithiamine, which showed the most potent anti-inflammatory capacity among thiamine derivatives, we confirmed the inhibitory effects of allithiamine on the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced pro-inflammatory cytokine production and maturation process in dendritic cells. We applied the LPS-induced sepsis model to examine whether allithiamine has a protective role in hyper-inflammatory status. We observed that allithiamine attenuated tissue damage and organ dysfunction during endotoxemia, even when the treatment was given after the early cytokine release. We assessed the changes in glucose metabolites during LPS-induced dendritic cell activation and found that allithiamine significantly inhibited glucose-driven citrate accumulation. We then examined the clinical implication of regulating metabolites during sepsis by performing a tail bleeding assay upon allithiamine treatment, which expands its capacity to hamper the coagulation process. Finally, we confirmed that the role of allithiamine in metabolic regulation is critical in exerting anti-inflammatory action by demonstrating its inhibitory effect upon mitochondrial citrate transporter activity. In conclusion, thiamine could be used as an alternative approach for controlling the immune response in patients with sepsis.

• Journal of Haehwa Medicine
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.11-21
• /
• 2012

New onset diabetes is a major complication after kidney transplantation. However, the natural course of posttransplantation diabetes mellitus (PTDM) remains unclear. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the detailed natural courses of PTDM according to the onset and persistency of hyperglycemia, and to investigate risk factors for development of different courses of PTDM in renal allograft recipients. The purpose of this study is to develop novel immune suppressants for PTDM using of action mechanism of them. The use of immunosuppressive drugs in transplanted patients is associated with the development of diabetes, possibly due to ${\beta}$-cell toxicity. To better understand the mechanisms leading to post-transplant diabetes, we investigated the actions of prolonged exposure of ${\beta}$-cells to therapeutical levels of tacrolimus (FK506) or cyclosporin A(CsA). The immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine(CsA) is a potent agent widely used after organ transplantations and various autoimmune disorders. After using CsA, some patients suffer severe complications including renal and vascular toxicity. The renal or vascular toxicity is influenced by the degree of the endothelial damage. FK506(tacrolimus) is a widely used immunosuppressive agent in the treatment of various medical conditions, including autoimmune disease, bone marrow and organ transplantations. We found some interesting clusters and confirmed the feasibility of cDNA microarray in the study of Immunosuppressant. In this study, we investigated gene expression patterns induced by Immunosuppressant in RIN-m5F of rat insulinoma cell line. Gene expressions evaluated using cDNA microarry in two clusters were increased or decreased. this study provides comprehensive comparison of the patterns of gene expression changes induced by CsA and FK506 in ${\beta}$-cells. This study could establish that the mode of action mechanism by which currently used insulin inhibitors inducing PTDM could be elucidated at least in part, which raises the possibility that novel immune suppressive PTDM can be developed. The molecular biological study on PTDM will also contribute the progress in diabetes research field as well as in that of PTDM.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2009.11a
• /
• pp.13-18
• /
• 2009

Flight vehicles such as wheel wells and bomb bays have many cavities. The flow around a cavity is characterized as an unsteady flow because of the formation and dissipation of vortices brought about by the interaction between the free stream shear layer and the internal flow of the cavity. The resonance phenomena can damage the structures around the cavity and negatively affect the aerodynamic performance and stability of the vehicle. In this study, a numerical analysis was performed for the cavity flows using the unsteady compressible three-dimensional Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equation with Wilcox's turbulence model. The Message Passing Interface (MPI) parallelized code was used for the calculations by PC-cluster. The cavity has aspect ratios (L/D) of 2.5 ~ 7.5 with width ratios (W/D) of 2 ~ 4. The Mach and Reynolds numbers are 0.4 ~ 0.6 and $1.6{\times}106$, respectively. The occurrence of oscillation is observed in the "shear layer and transient mode" with a feedback mechanism. Based on the Sound Pressure Level (SPL) analysis of the pressure variation at the cavity trailing edge, the dominant frequencies are analyzed and compared with the results of Rossiter's formula. The dominant frequencies are very similar to the result of Rossiter's formula and other experimental data in the low aspect ratio cavity (L/D = ~ 4.5). In the large aspect ratio cavity, however, there are other low dominant frequencies due to the leading edge shear layer with the dominant frequencies of the feedback mechanism. The characteristics of the acoustic wave propagation are analyzed using the Correlation of Pressure Distribution (CPD).

• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• v.15 no.12
• /
• pp.1093-1101
• /
• 2006

In the present study we studied the growth, photosynthetic traits and protective mechanisms against oxidative stress in the primary loaves of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) seedlings with or without UV-B treatment. Cucumber seedings were irradiated with UV-B for 10 days in environment-controlled growth chambers. The primary leaves irradiated with UV-B showed reduction in leaf length and decreased biomass production. The reduced biomass production seemed to be due to a negative effect of UV-B radiation on the photosynthetic process. Changes in chemical properties of leaf, such as chi a/b ratio affected photosynthesis. UV-B significantly affected chl b content compared with chi a in the light harvesting complex resulting reduced photosynthetic activity Fv/Fm decreased with an UV-B stress, suggesting that the photosynthetic apparatus, and particularly, PS II was damaged under UV-B stress. Malondialdehyde(MDA) concentration which represents the state of membrane lipid peroxidation Increased significantly under UV-B stress confirming an oxidative stress. UV-B exposure with SA solution(0.1-1.0 mM) can partially ameliorated some of the detrimental effects of UV-B stress. Leaf injuries including loss of chlorophyll and decreased ratio of Fv/Fm were reduced with combined application of UV-B and SA. ABA and JA showed similar mode of action in physiological effects on photosynthetic activities though the levels were lower than those from SA treated plants. Chloroplast ultrastructure was also affected by UV-B exposure. The thickness of leaf tissue components decreased and the number of grana and thylakoids was reduced in chloroplast applied UV-B or SA alone. At combined stress granal and stromal thylakoids were less affected. The leaves under combined stress acquired a significant tolerance to oxidative stress. From these results, it can be suggested that SA may have involved a protective role against UV-B induced oxidative damage.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
• /
• v.16 no.5 s.83
• /
• pp.697-707
• /
• 2004

Most bridge piers were practically designed and constructed with lap spliced longitudinal reinforcing steels before the 1992 seismic design provisions of Korea Bridge Design Specification were implemented. It has been known that lap splice of longitudinal reinforcement in the plastic hinge region is not desirable for seismic performance of RC bridge piers. The objective of this research is to evaluate the seismic performance of existing circular reinforced concrete bridge piers by the Quasi-static test and to propose the need of seismic retrofit of existing bridge piers through the damage level. Test specimens were nonseismically designed with the aspect ratio 4.0 which could induce the flexural failure mode. It was confirmed from this experiment that significant reduction of seismic performance was observed for test specimens with lap spliced longitudinal reinforcing steels. Pertinent seismic retrofit was determined to be needed for existing RC bridge piers with the lap-spliced of $50\%$ longitudinal reinforcing steels.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.159-172
• /
• 2015

Estimation of the residual strength of corroded reinforced concrete beams has been studied from experimental and theoretical perspectives. The former is arduous as it involves casting beams of various sizes, which are then subjected to various degrees of corrosion damage. The latter are static; hence cannot be generalized as new coefficients need to be re-generated for new cases. This calls for dynamic models that are adaptive to new cases and offer efficient generalization capability. Computational intelligence techniques have been applied in Construction Engineering modeling problems. However, these techniques have not been adequately applied to the problem addressed in this paper. This study extends the empirical model proposed by Azad et al. (Mag Concr Res 62(6):405-414, 2010), which considered all the adverse effects of corrosion on steel. We proposed four artificial neural networks (ANN) models to predict the residual flexural strength of corroded RC beams using the same data from Azad et al. (2010). We employed two modes of prediction: through the correction factor ($C_f$) and through the residual strength ($M_{res}$). For each mode, we studied the effect of fixed and random data stratification on the performance of the models. The results of the ANN models were found to be in good agreement with experimental values. When compared with the results of Azad et al. (2010), the ANN model with randomized data stratification gave a $C_f$-based prediction with up to 49 % improvement in correlation coefficient and 92 % error reduction. This confirms the reliability of ANN over the empirical models.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.128-135
• /
• 2007

Combustion characteristics of full-scale gas generators were studied experimentally by changing the injector number installed at the injector head. Three full-scale gas generators were utilized; they have same total mass flow rate but mass flow rates per injector are different. Thirteen, nineteen and thirty seven injectors, which have internal-mixing and double-swirl characteristics, are distributed in injector heads, respectively. The results showed that pressure fluctuations in the gas generators with 13 and 19 injectors didn't occur around longitudinal resonant frequency, however longitudinal-mode pressure fluctuation appeared slightly in the gas generator with 37 injectors. As the number of injectors increased, deviations of temperature distribution in the combustion chamber decreased gradually, but the damage of injector LOx posts became a little severe.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.54-61
• /
• 2000

In order to determine the mode I stress intensity factor ($K_I$) by means of the alternating current potential drop(ACPD) technique, the change in potential drop due to load for a paramagnetic material containing a two-dimensional surface crack was examined. The cause of the change in potential drop and the effects of the magnetic flux and the demagnetization on the change in potential drop were clarified by using the measuring systems with and without removing the magnetic flux from the circumference of the specimen. The change in potential drop was linearly decreased with increasing the tensile load and was caused by the change in conductivity near the crack tip. The reason of decreasing the change in potential drop with increasing the tensile load was that the increase of the conductivity near the crack tip due to the tensile load caused the decreases of the resistance and internal inductance of the specimen. The relationship between the change in potential drop and the change in $K_I$ was not affected by demagnetization and was independent of the crack length.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.35 no.1
• /
• pp.39-45
• /
• 2015

Applications of smart sensors have been extended to safety systems in the aerospace, transportation and civil engineering fields. In particular, structural health monitoring techniques using smart sensors have gradually become necessary and have been developed to prevent dangers to human life and damage to assets. Generally, smart sensors are based on electro-magnets and have several weaknesses, including electro-magnetic interference and distortion. Therefore, fiber optic sensors are an outstanding alternative to overcome the weaknesses of electro-magnetic sensors. However, they require expensive devices and complex systems. This paper proposes a new, affordable and simple sensor system that uses a single fiber to monitor pressures at multiple-points. Moreover, a prototype of the sensor system was manufactured and tested for a feasibility study. Based on the results of this experimental test, a relationship was carefully observed between the bend loss conditions and light-intensity. As a result, it was shown that impacts at multiple-points could be monitored.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
• /
• v.51 no.4
• /
• pp.449-452
• /
• 2013

Taenia pisiformis is one of the most important parasites of canines and rabbits. T. pisiformis cysticercus (the larval stage) causes severe damage to rabbit breeding, which results in huge economic losses. In this study, the genetic variation of T. pisiformis was determined in Sichuan Province, China. Fragments of the mitochondrial cytochrome b (cytb) (922 bp) gene were amplified in 53 isolates from 8 regions of T. pisiformis. Overall, 12 haplotypes were found in these 53 cytb sequences. Molecular genetic variations showed 98.4% genetic variation derived from intra-region. $F_{ST}$ and Nm values suggested that 53 isolates were not genetically differentiated and had low levels of genetic diversity. Neutrality indices of the cytb sequences showed the evolution of T. pisiformis followed a neutral mode. Phylogenetic analysis revealed no correlation between phylogeny and geographic distribution. These findings indicate that 53 isolates of T. pisiformis keep a low genetic variation, which provide useful knowledge for monitoring changes in parasite populations for future control strategies.