• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.138-148
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• 2014

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous small RNA molecules best known for their function in post-transcriptional gene regulation. Immunologically, miRNA regulates the differentiation and function of immune cells and its malfunction contributes to the development of various autoimmune diseases including systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Over the last decade, accumulating researches provide evidence for the connection between dysregulated miRNA network and autoimmunity. Interruption of miRNA biogenesis machinery contributes to the abnormal T and B cell development and particularly a reduced suppressive function of regulatory T cells, leading to systemic autoimmune diseases. Additionally, multiple factors under autoimmune conditions interfere with miRNA generation via key miRNA processing enzymes, thus further skewing the miRNA expression profile. Indeed, several independent miRNA profiling studies reported significant differences between SLE patients and healthy controls. Despite the lack of a consistent expression pattern on individual dysregulated miRNAs in SLE among these studies, the aberrant expression of distinct groups of miRNAs causes overlapping functional outcomes including perturbed type I interferon signalling cascade, DNA hypomethylation and hyperactivation of T and B cells. The impact of specific miRNA-mediated regulation on function of major immune cells in lupus is also discussed. Although research on the clinical application of miRNAs is still immature, through an integrated approach with advances in next generation sequencing, novel tools in bioinformatics database analysis and new in vitro and in vivo models for functional evaluation, the diagnostic and therapeutic potentials of miRNAs may bring to fruition in the future.

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.51-57
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• 2018

Purpose: To perform a comparative analysis of the palatal bone thickness in Thai patients exhibiting class I malocclusion according to whether they exhibited a normal or open vertical skeletal configuration using cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT). Materials and Methods: Thirty CBCT images of Thai orthodontic patients (15-30 years of age) exhibiting class I malocclusion with a normal or open vertical skeletal configuration were selected. Palatal bone thickness was measured in a 3.0-mm grid pattern on both the right and left sides. The palatal bone thickness of the normal-bite and open-bite groups was compared using the independent t-test. The level of significance was established at P<.05. Results: The palatal bone thickness in the normal-bite group ranged from $2.2{\pm}1.0mm$ to $12.6{\pm}4.1mm$. The palatal bone thickness in the open-bite group ranged from $1.9{\pm}1.1mm$ to $13.2{\pm}2.3mm$. The palatal bone thickness was lower at almost all sites in patients with open bite than in those with normal bite. Significant differences were found at almost all anteroposterior sites along the 3 most medial sections (3.0, 6.0, and 9.0 mm lateral to the midsagittal plane)(P<.05). Conclusion: Class I malocclusion with open vertical skeletal configuration may affect palatal bone thickness, so the placement of temporary anchorage devices or miniscrew implants in the palatal area in such patients should be performed with caution.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.145-161
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• 2015

This research was conducted in order to understand the hybridization between Quercus aliena Blume and Q. serrata Murray in Korea which show wide range of morphological variations within species and interspecific variations of diverse overlapping characteristics caused by hybridization. Morphological analysis (principal components analysis; PCA) of 116 individuals representing two species and their intermediates were performed. As a result, two species were clearly distinguished in terms of morphology, and intermediate morpho-types assumed to be hybrids between the two species were mostly located in the middle of each parent species in the plot of the principal components analysis. There was a clear distinction between two species in trichome distribution pattern which is an important diagnostic character in taxonomy of genus Quercus, whereas intermediate morpho-types showed intermediate state between two species' trichome distributions. Forty-two individuals representing two species and their intermediates were examined for leaf flavonoid constituents. Twenty-three flavonoid compounds were isolated and identified: They were glycosylated derivatives of flavonols, kaempferol, quercetin, isorhamnetin and myricetin. The flavonoid constituents of Q. aliena were five glycosylated derivatives: kaempferol 3-O-galactoside, kaempferol 3-O-glucoside, quercetin 3-O-galactoside, quercetin 3-O-glucoside, and Isorhamnetin 3-O-glucoside. The flavonoid constituents of Q. serrata had 20 diverse flavonol compounds including five flavonoid compounds found in Q. aliena. It was found that there is a clear difference in flavonoid constituents of Q. aliena and Q. serrata. Flavonoid chemistry is very useful in recognizing each species and putative hybrids. The flavonoid constituents of intermediates were a mixture of the two species' constituents and they generally showed similar characteristics to morpho-types. The hybrids between Q. aliena and Q. serrata showed morphologically and chemically diverse characteristics and it is assumed that there are frequent interspecific hybridization and introgression.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.61 no.6
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• pp.585-590
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• 2006

Pulmonary arteriovenous malformations (PAVMs) are abnormal direct communications between the pulmonary arteries and veins. PAVMs may occur as either an isolated abnormality or in association with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, also called Osler-Weber-Rendu disease. The topic of PAVM has recently been extensively reviewed, but little is known about the clinical characteristics and course of patients having a diffuse pattern of the disease. Herein, is reported a case of unilateral diffuse PAVM in an 18 year old female patient, who underwent a right pneumonectomy, under a video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) approach, as the diffuse small pulmonary arteriovenous malformation involved the whole right lung.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.68 no.2
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• pp.93-96
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• 2010

A 23-year old woman was admitted to our hospital with hemoptysis. The chest X-ray showed reticulonodular opacity and multiple cysts throughout the entire lung field. The chest CT scan revealed numerous bilateral cysts with various sizes, some of them with thickened walls. An open lung wedge resection was performed. The resected specimen showed scattered small nodules, 0.3 to 0.6 cm in size. Microscopically, each nodule was composed of atypical glands with an occasional papillary architecture spreading to the alveolar septa, which were morphologically consistent with a papillary adenocarcinoma with a bronchioloalveolar carcinoma growth pattern. Immunochemically, the tumor cells were negative for the S-100 protein. The patient was diagnosed with an adenocarcinoma of the lung. A variety of diseases can produce or mimic multiple, thin-walled cysts in the lung. Lung cancer with multiple cysts is quite rare. Nevertheless, adenocarcinoma should be a diagnostic consideration. We report a case of a multiple cystic adenocarcinoma of the lung.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.55-62
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• 2006

For the fault diagnosis of three-phase induction motors, we construct a experimental unit and then develop a diagnosis algorithm based on pattern recognition. The experimental unit consists of machinery module for induction motor drive and data acquisition module to obtain the fault signal. As the first step for diagnosis procedure, preprocessing is performed to make the acquired current simplified and normalized. To simplify the data, three-phase current is transformed into the magnitude of Concordia vector. As the next step, feature extraction is performed by kernel principal component analysis(KPCA) and linear discriminant analysis(LDA). Finally, we used the classifier based on radial basis function(RBF) network. To show the effectiveness, the proposed diagnostic system has been intensively tested with the various data acquired under different electrical and mechanical faults with varying load.

• The Journal of Korean Obstetrics and Gynecology
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.120-130
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• 2012

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to investigate the symptoms accompanied with acne and HRV pattern of the acne patients. Methods: We reviewed 60 acne patients(age 15-38) who visited ${\bigcirc}{\bigcirc}$ hospital from January 2010 to October 2011. We investigated the symptoms accompanied with acne of 60 patients and evaluated HRV of 41 acne patients. The data were analyzed by Mann-Whitney test using SPSS/PC ver 13.0 program. Results: 1. Prevalence of female post-adolescent acne was 66.7% in this study. The symptoms accompanied with acne were dischezia(35%), gastric discomfort(28.3%) in all patients and dysmenorrhea(40%), leukorrhea(38%), irregular menstrual period (24%) in female patients. 2. SDNN, RMSSD, VLF and HF of female were significantly lower than male. 3. SDNN, TP and VLF of un-dysmenorrhea group were significantly lower than dysmenorrhea group. 4. PSI of under 6 months group was significantly higer than over 6 months group. 5. In postadolescent acne patients SDNN, RMSSD, TP, LF and HF were significantly lower and PSI was significantly higher than adolescent acne patients. Conclusions: There are many female post-adolescent acne pateints and the assessment of the symptoms accompanied with acne and stress degree is helpful in treating acne. The further research and development about the diagnostic and therapeutic methods of acne are needed in oriental obstetrics and gynecology field.

• The Journal of Korean Obstetrics and Gynecology
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.175-202
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• 2017

Objectives: This study was conducted towards developing a screening tool for syndrome differentiation in the diagnosis of menopause in menopausal and perimenopausal women. Methods: We conducted a literature review of studies on menopausal diagnosis based on syndrome differentiation, and examined well-founded differentiated syndromes and their respective clinical symptoms. Based on the findings, we created a questionnaire through consultations with Oriental medicine experts in physiology, pathology, and diagnostics. Finally, the research team conducted an expert Delphi study on differentiated syndromes and the associated clinical symptoms. Results: Seven differentiated syndromes were selected, including Liver Depression (肝鬱), Kidney Yin Deficiency (腎陰虛), Kidney Yang Deficiency (腎陽虛), Liver and Kidney Yin Deficiency (肝腎陰虛), Kidney Yin and Yang Deficiency (腎陰陽兩虛), Heart-Kidney Noninteraction (心腎不交), and Dual Deficiency of Heart and Spleen (心脾兩虛); 4 disease locations, including liver (肝), heart (心), spleen (脾), and kidney (腎); and 3 disease natures, including Yin Deficiency (陰虛), Qi Stagnation (氣滯), and Blood Deficiency (血虛). In addition, we added 3 supplemental disease natures, including Yang Deficiency (陽虛), Qi Deficiency (氣虛), and Heat (火熱), in consideration of syndrome differentiation categories that may possibly be added in a follow-up clinical questionnaire. Conclusions: This resulted in a total of 7 differentiated syndromes, 4 disease locations, and 6 disease natures. We translated the clinical symptoms of these 17 categories into Korean Hangeul. After consulting with 5 Oriental medicine experts and a psychology expert, we produced a questionnaire for use in diagnosing menopause based on syndrome differentiation. The calculation of scores for the syndrome differentiation screening tool will be confirmed through clinical research based on the results of a review of existing literature.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.128-135
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• 2008

Purpose: As the care of surgical patients becomes increasingly complex and catheter-based techniques are more frequently applied, the pattern of iatrogenic vascular injuries may be increasing. Major vascular injuries can jeopardize a patient's life or limb survival. The purpose of this study was to examine the current etiology and prognosis for iatrogenic vascular injuries. Methods: We reviewed medical records of 29 cases of iatrogenic vascular injury that were treated Seoul National University Bundang Hospital between October 2003 and October 2008. We studied clinical variables including demographics, cause of injury, clinical presentations, management and prognosis. Results: The mean age was 60.8 years (range: 25-86), and the male to female ratio was 1.9 : 1. The causes of injuries were operation related complication in 18 cases (62.1%), endovascular intervention and diagnostic angiography in 11 cases (37.9%). The types of vascular injury were partial severance in 14 cases, pseudoaneurysm in 8, arteriovenous fistula (AVF) in 3, thrombosis in 2, complete severance in 2. Especially, device related complication including percutaneous closing device were occurred in 9 and the others came from inadvertent physician's procedure. Primary repair were done in 12 cases, end-to-end anastomosis in 5, interposition graft in 4, ligation in 2, patch angioplasty in 1, peudoaneurysm excision and arteriorrhaphy in 1, hematoma evacuation in 1, and endovascular repair in 3. There were 2 cases of mortality, one of them due to hemorrhagic shock and the other due to septic shock. Conclusion: Proper selection of treatment modalities should be important to have better outcome according to the type of injury as well as anatomical location. Each physician should be familiar to new device as well as patient's topographical feature. Immediate referral to vascular specialist is also essential to reduce morbidity.

• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.276-282
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• 2004

Marginal Zn deficiency is prevalent through the world and yet human zinc status has not been properly assessed due to the lack of a reliable diagnostic indicator. One potential possibility for zinc status assessment using Zn-binding protein, metallothionein (MT)-mRNA, has been proposed. The purpose of the present study was aimed to show whether measurement of mononuclear cell (MNC) MT mRNA, using a competitive-reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (competitive-RT-PCR) assay, could indicate zinc status in human subjects. In this study, MNC MT-mRNA expression was measured using a competitive-RT-PCR to compare before and after 14 days of zinc supplementation (50 mg Zn/das zinc gluconate). RT-PCR oligonucleotide primers which were designed to amplify both a 278 bp segment of the human MT-2A cDNA and a 198 bp mutant competitor cDNA template from MNCs, were prepared. MT-2A mRNA was normalized by reference to the housekeeping gene, $\beta$-actin, mRNA for which was also measured by competitive-RT-PCR. There was considerable inter-individual variation in MT-mRNA concentration and yet, the mean MT-2A mRNA level increased 4.7-fold after Zn supplementation, as compared to before Zn supplementation. This MT-2A mRNA level was shown as the same pattern and, even more sensitive assay, compared to the conventional plasma and red blood cells (RBCs) Zn assessment in which plasma and RBCs zinc levels increased 2.3- and 1.2-fold, respectively (p<0.05). We suggest that MT competitive-RT-PCR can be a useful assessment tool for evaluating human zinc status.