• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.82-93
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• 1999

Stroke is a serious disease despite recent improvement in medical and surgical treatment. Hence, identification of modifiable risk factors for stroke is important. This case-control study was done to demonstrate that relationship between smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity, perception of saltness and the incidence of stroke and to identify that smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity and perception of saltness, after adjusting for age, hypertension. A structured interview was carried out from April 15, 1996 to May 3, 1996 in Yonsei Medical Center. The study group consisted of 59 neurologically confirmed stroke patients as the study group and 59 non-stroke patients as controls. Analysis of the data was done by means of ${\chi}^2$-test and logistic regression analysis. The results were as follows. In the study group: 1) Hypertension in males had a 10.2 odds ratio (p<0.05), cardiovascular disease in females had a 11.3 odds ratio (p<0.05) and a farnily history of stroke in males had a 3.1 odds ratio (p<0.05). 2) Females smoking one or more cigarettes had a 8.3 odds ratio (p<0.1), but males had no direct relationship with odds ratio of 1.5 (non-significant). 3) Alcohol consumption in males had a 0.4 odds ratio, and in females had a 0.8 odds ratio. The odds ratio was decreased in alcohol consumption group (non-significant). 4) Males with more than 20 cigarettes pack-years history had a 2.5 odds ratio (p<0.05), more than 25 Body Mass Index had a 3.1 odds ratio (p<0.05) and more than 220 ml ethanol weekly consumption had a 1.5 odds ratio (non-significant). 5) Female smokers had a 8.3 odds ratio (p<0.1), drinkers a 0.8 odds ratio and more than 25 Body Mass Iidex, a 43.1 odds ratio (p<0.05). 6) Females without saltness perception from a 0.5% salt solution had a 6.8 odds ratio (non-significant). 7) By logistic regression analysis independent risk factors for stroke in males were found to be hypertention, age, and obesity. The study was limited because number of subjects was too small for practical implications. However, like as other results, this study suggest that people should be advised to control hypertension, and obesity since these carry a risk of stroke.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.1599-1607
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• 2004

This study examined the effects of pre-slaughter fasting, chasing stress and chiller ageing on objective meat quality, and their relations to the proteome profile of longissimus muscle using 20 male Korean native black pigs. Treatments were composed of two levels of pre-slaughter feed withdrawal, two levels of pre-slaughter stress and four chiller ageing times. A 15 min chasing stress immediately prior to slaughter significantly (p<0.05) decreased detectable levels of $\mu$-calpain activity during rigor development and chiller ageing, but did not have any direct effect on objective meat quality. On the other hand, pigs fed until the morning of slaughter resulted in significantly (p<0.05) higher hunter L* value and cooking loss than those which received an 18 h feed withdrawal prior to slaughter. Cooking loss and hunter L* value were constant during 7 d of chiller ageing, followed by significant increases at 14 d. The fed animals showed a significantly (p<0.05) higher hunter a* value at both 3 and 7 d, while the other group maintained a stable redness for 7 d. WB-shear force was not affected by the pre-slaughter treatments, but had significant (p<0.05) linear reduction from 1 to 7 d. A gelbased proteome analysis was performed on selected animals for low and high hunter L* values at 1 d. Ten and five spots had greater than two-fold spot densities for the low and high hunter L* groups, respectively. The ten spots included chain A, deoxyribounclease I complex with actin, heat shock protein 27 kDa, a protein similar to cardiac $Ca^{2+}$ release channel, and myosin heavy chain, while the five spots included chain A aldehyde dehydrogenase, glycerol-3 phosphate dehydrogenase, and hemoglobin alpha chain. In general, feeding until the morning of slaughter resulted in more desirable meat color, but appeared to reduce palatability due to increased cooking loss. Proteome analysis demonstrated that various proteins were concomitantly involved in the determination of final meat color. The most noticeable observation in the current study was that various isoforms for a particular protein differed in degradation and/or expression rate depending on meat quality.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.13
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• pp.5449-5454
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• 2014

Although genetic characteristics are considered to be a factor influencing the geographic variation in the prevalence of gallbladder cancer (GBC), they have not been well studied in Bolivia, which has a high prevalence rate of GBC. The purpose of this study was to examine the frequency of TP53 and K-ras mutations in Bolivian patients with GBC and to compare them with our previous data obtained in other high-GBC-prevalence countries, namely Japan, Chile, and Hungary. DNA was extracted from cancer sites in paraffin-embedded tissue from 36 patients using a microdissection technique. TP53 mutations at exons 5 to 8 and K-ras mutations at codons 12, 13 and 61 were examined using direct sequencing techniques. The data obtained were compared with those in the other high-GBC-prevalence countries. Of the 36 patients, 18 (50.0%) had a TP53 mutation (one mutation in each of 17 patients and three mutations in one patient), and only one (2.8%) had a K-ras mutation. Of the 20 TP53 mutations, 12 were of the transition type (60.0%). This rate was significantly lower than that in Chile (12/12, P<0.05). In addition, three mutations were of the CpG transition type (15.0%), which is a feature of endogenous mutation. All three were found in the hot spot region of the TP53 gene. In contrast, G:C to T:A transversion was found in Bolivia, suggesting the presence of exogenous carcinogens. Our findings suggest that the development of GBC in Bolivia is associated with both exogenous carcinogens and endogenous mechanisms. The identification of an environmental risk factor for GBC is needed to confirm these findings.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.471-480
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• 2015

The market of public-private partnership (PPP) projects has reduced from 9.4 trillion won in 2007 to 4.5 trillion won in 2012. However, the need of PPP projects is brought up by a massive down scale of government financial business. Previous studies regarding PPP projects mostly evaluate profitability from the financial perspective or analyze risk factors as a whole. Although PPP projects generally have complex structure involving diverse stakeholders, such as contractor, financial investor, and special purpose company (SPC) operators, existing studies have rarely considered the different viewpoints of PPP project stakeholders. Therefore, purpose of this study is to develop a structural equation model (SEM) considering the diverse stakeholders of PPP projects. To this end, the authors first reviewed the organizational structure of PPP projects. Next, the identification of the factors affecting project profitability are done via comprehensive literature reviews. After that, we conducted in-depth interviews and questionnaire surveys to reflect stakeholders' perspectives (contractors, financial investors, and SPC operators). As a result, a SEM model is developed to analyze direct and indirect effect on the PPP project performances. Finally, using the analysis results, relevant implications and directions for improvements are discussed. The prediction of the business performance of contractor, financial investor, and SPC operator is expect to be possible through the model developed and supports the strategy deduction that is appropriate for the participants.

• Journal of Computing Science and Engineering
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.40-50
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• 2012

Increase in the number of older people due to demographic changes poses great challenges to the social healthcare systems both in the Western and as well as in the Eastern countries. Support for older people by formal care givers leads to enormous temporal and personal efforts. Therefore, one of the most important goals is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of today's care. This can be achieved by the use of assistive technologies. These technologies are able to increase the safety of patients or to reduce the time needed for tasks that do not relate to direct interaction between the care giver and the patient. Motivated by this goal, this contribution focuses on applications of acoustic technologies to support users and care givers in ambient assisted living (AAL) scenarios. Acoustic sensors are small, unobtrusive and can be added to already existing care or living environments easily. The information gathered by the acoustic sensors can be analyzed to calculate the position of the user by localization and the context by detection and classification of acoustic events in the captured acoustic signal. By doing this, possibly dangerous situations like falls, screams or an increased amount of coughs can be detected and appropriate actions can be initialized by an intelligent autonomous system for the acoustic monitoring of older persons. The proposed system is able to reduce the false alarm rate compared to other existing and commercially available approaches that basically rely only on the acoustic level. This is due to the fact that it explicitly distinguishes between the various acoustic events and provides information on the type of emergency that has taken place. Furthermore, the position of the acoustic event can be determined as contextual information by the system that uses only the acoustic signal. By this, the position of the user is known even if she or he does not wear a localization device such as a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag.

• The Korean Journal of Pesticide Science
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.332-337
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• 2004

A suspected biotype of Scirpus planiculmis to be resistant to sulfonylurea(SU) herbicides was identified in Seosan reclaimed paddy fields in Korea, in 2004. The fields have been cultivated for monocultural rice production with wet-direct seeding method and continuously treated with SU-based herbicide mixtures for thirteen years since 1990. In greenhouse studies, 6 different SU herbicides, such as azimsulfuron, bensulfuron-methyl, cinosulfuron, ethoxysulfuron imazosulfuron and pyrazosulfuron-ethyl, completely controlled the Musan assession of Scirpus planiculmis at the recommended dose of each herbicide, however, the Seosan accession of S. planiculmis biotype was survived 20 to 45% even treated with 5 times higher dose of each recommended rate of all herbicides treated. The $GR_{50}$ values of 6 SU herbicides for Seosan accession of S. planiculmis were 47 to 100 times higher than those for Musan accession of S. planiculmis. The $I_{50}$ values pyrazosulfuron-ethyl to acetolactate synthase(ALS) extracted from Sesan and Muan accession of S. planiculmis were 409 nM and 0.8 nM, respectively. The $I_{50}$ value of Seosan was 511 times higher than that of Muan accession. These results suggested that the Seosan accession of S. planiculmis have strong resistant characteristics to 6 SU herbicides, respectively, indicating that resistance might be due to the alteration in the target site of ALS.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.84-92
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• 2015

Interferon inducible transmembrane protein (IFITM) family genes have been implicated in various cellular processes such as the homotypic cell adhesion functions of IFNs and cellular anti-proliferative activities. The present study aimed to investigate whether the polymorphisms of the IFITM2 and IFITM5 genes are associated with susceptibility to UC. We identified a total of thirteen polymorphisms (eleven SNPs and two variations) in the IFITM2 gene and twelve polymorphisms (eleven SNPs and one variation) in the IFITM5 gene, by the direct sequencing method. Genotype analysis in the IFITM2 and IFITM5 SNPs was performed by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) and Taq-Man probe analysis, and the haplotype frequencies of IFITM2 and IFITM5 SNPs for multiple loci were estimated using the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm. The genotype and allele frequencies of IFITM2 SNPs, as well as IFITM5 SNPs, in UC patients were not significantly different from those of the healthy controls. We also analyzed the combined frequencies of rs77537847 of IFITM1, rs909097 of IFITM2, and rs56069858 of IFITM5 in the UC patients and the healthy controls. Although the distribution of the major combined genotype frequency did not differ significantly between the healthy controls and the UC patients, the GGT combined frequency in the healthy controls was significantly different from that in the UC patients (P=0.002). This result suggests that the combined genotype of the IFITMs polymorphisms may be associated with a susceptibility to UC and could be a useful genetic marker for UC.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.223-234
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• 2013

Poultry industry is abounding day by day as it engrosses less cost of investment per bird as compared to large animals. Poultry have the most copious genomic tool box amongst domestic animals for the detection of quantitative trait loci (QTL) and marker assisted selection (MAS). Use of multiple markers and least square techniques for mapping of QTL affecting quality and production traits in poultry is in vogue. Examples of genetic tests that are available to or used in industry programs are documented and classified into causative mutations (direct markers), linked markers in population-wide linkage disequilibrium (LD) with the QTL (LD markers), and linked markers in population wide equilibrium with the QTL (LE markers). Development of genome-wide SNP assays, role of 42 K, 60 K (Illumina) and 600 K (Affymetrix$^{(R)}$ Axim$^{(R)}$) SNP chip with next generation sequencing for identification of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) has been documented. Hybridization based, PCR based, DNA chip and sequencing based are the major segments of DNA markers which help in conducting of MAS in poultry. Economic index-marker assisted selection (EI-MAS) provides platform for simultaneous selection for production traits while giving due weightage to their marginal economic values by calculating predicted breeding value, using information on DNA markers which are normally associated with relevant QTL. Understanding of linkage equilibrium, linkage dis-equilibrium, relation between the markers and gene of interest are quite important for success of MAS. This kind of selection is the most useful tool in enhancing disease resistance by identifying candidate genes to improve the immune response. The application of marker assisted selection in selection procedures would help in improvement of economic traits in poultry.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.24 no.8
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• pp.873-879
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• 2014

The constituents from the needles of the pine tree, Pinus densiflora, were purified and investigated for antithrombotic activity. The needles were initially extracted three times with 70% ethanol, and the extract was sequentially fractionated with chloroform and n-butanol. The aqueous layer formed after n-butanol fractionation was subjected to purification by medium pressure and high pressure liquid chromatography. The two neolignans, 2, 3-dihydro-7-hydroxyl-3-hydroxymethyl-2-(4'-hydroxyl -3-methoxyphenyl)-5-benzofuranpropanol-3-O-${\alpha}$-rhamnopyranoside (a neolignan glycoside) and 2, 3-dihyro-3-hydroxymethyl-7-methoxy-2-(4'-hydroxyphenyl-3'-methoxy)-5-benxofuran propanol 4'-O-${\alpha}$-rhamnopyranoside (icariside $E_4$) were identified by $^1H$ and $^{13}C$ NMR spectra. The effect of the purified compounds, the neolignan glycoside and icariside $E_4$ on thrombin inhibition were investigated by measuring thrombin clotting time in plasma. As a result, the clotting of the neolignan glycoside was delayed four times compared to that of icariside $E_4$. In addition, an analysis of the inhibition effect by changing the concentration showed that the clotting time was delayed in accordance with an increase in the concentration of the neolignan glycoside. Furthermore, we examined the interaction of thrombin and fibrinogen to clarify the action mechanism. As a result, the delay of clotting time in the response of thrombin and pure fibrinogen may indicate that neolignan glycosides inhibit the thrombin action in a direct manner, leading to the suppression of fibrin generation.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.757-767
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• 1999

Background: Diagnosis by smear and/or cultures of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis from body fluid or biopsy specimen is "Gold standard". However the sensitivity of the direct microscopy is relatively low and culture of mycobacteria is time consuming. Despite an explosion in the techniques of rapid identification of mycobacteria by molecular genetic means, it is laborious and expensive and then rapid, inexpensive serodiagnosis is interested in diagnosis of tuberculosis. But sensitivity and specificity of known serologic antigen is not full sufficient level and then new antigen develop and combination cocktails of new developed antigens by ELISA are needed. Method: To compare the efficacy of different mycobacterial specific antigen and to assess the applicability of the combination of several different antigens in the diagnosis of tuberculosis, five ELISA tests derived 14KDa, 16KDa, 19KDa, 23KDa, 38KDa were evaluated in 57 active pulmonary patient and 24 inactive post-therapy follow up patient and 48 normal control. Results: The optical densities of ELISA test with 14KDa, 16KDa, 19KDa, 23KDa, 38KDa were significantly higher in active tuberculosis cases than in normal control(P<0.001, P<0.001, P<0.027, P<0.001, P<0.001) and those with 16KDa, 38KDa were significant higher in active tuberculosis cases than in inactive post-therapy follow up cases(P<0.01. P<0.001) and those of 14KDa, 16KDa, 23KDa, 38KDa were significant higher in inactive post-therapy follow up cases than in normal control(P<0.008. P<0.01. P<0.006. P<0.001). The sensitivity of 14KDa, 16KDa, 19KDa, 23KDa, 38KDa in active pulmonary patient cases was 42.1%, 43.9%, 15.8%, 28.0%, 70.2%, respectively and the specificity of 14KDa, 16KDa, 19KDa, 23KDa, 38KDa in active pulmonary patient cases was 95.8%, 95.8%, 91.7%, 89.6%, 93.8%, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of combination 38KDa with 16KDa was 87% and 93.7%. Conclusion: The sensitivity and specificity of new antigens for serodiagnosis of the tuberculosis still remains limited at around 70%, which makes its a poor diagnostic tool for disease confirmation. A combination of cocktail antigens provided by cut-off value adjustment for serodiagnosis of tuberculosis some improved diagnostic yield than single antigen serologic test.