• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.50
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• pp.127-136
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• 2023

Water scarcity decreases the rate of photosynthesis and, consequently, the yield of banana plants (Musa spp). In this study, transcriptome analysis was performed to identify photosynthesis-related genes in banana plants and determine their expression profiles under water stress conditions. Banana plantlets were in vitro cultured on Murashige and Skoog agar medium with and without 10% polyethylene glycol and marked as BP10 and BK. Chlorophyll contents in the plant shoots were determined spectrophotometrically. Two cDNA libraries generated from BK and BP10 plantlets, respectively, were used as the reference for transcriptome data. Gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis was performed using the Database for Annotation, Visualization, and Integrated Discovery (DAVID) and visualized using the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway prediction. Morphological observations indicated that water deficiency caused chlorosis and reduced the shoot chlorophyll content of banana plantlets. GO enrichment identified 52 photosynthesis-related genes that were affected by water stress. KEGG visualization revealed the pathways related to the 52 photosynthesisr-elated genes and their allocations in four GO terms. Four, 12, 15, and 21 genes were related to chlorophyll biosynthesis, the Calvin cycle, the photosynthetic electron transfer chain, and the light-harvesting complex, respectively. Differentially expressed gene (DEG) analysis using DESeq revealed that 45 genes were down-regulated, whereas seven genes were up-regulated. Four of the down-regulated genes were responsible for chlorophyll biosynthesis and appeared to cause the decrease in the banana leaf chlorophyll content. Among the annotated DEGs, MaPNDO, MaPSAL, and MaFEDA were selected and validated using quantitative real-time PCR.

• Anatomy and Cell Biology
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.119-128
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• 2024

Glucocorticoids play a physiologic role in the adult male reproductive functions, modulating gonadal steroid synthesis and spermatogenesis, through the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). The expression of GR has been described in several key testicular cell types, including somatic cells and early germ cell populations. Nothing is known on GR in human spermatozoa. Herein, we explored the GR expression and its possible role in normal and testicular varicocele semen samples from volunteer donors. After semen parameter evaluation by macro- and microscopic analysis, samples were centrifuged; then spermatozoa and culture media were recovered for further investigations. By western blotting and immunofluorescence analyses we evidenced for the first time in spermatozoa the presence of GR-D3 isoform which was reduced in sperm from varicocele patients. By treating sperm with the synthetic glucocorticoid dexamethasone (DEXA), we found that survival, motility, capacitation, and acrosome reaction were increased in both healthy and varicocele samples. GR involvement in mediating DEXA effects, was confirmed by using the GR inhibitor mifepristone (M2F). Worthy, we also discovered that sperm secretes different cortisol amounts depending on its physio-pathological status, suggesting a defence mechanism to escape the immune system attach in the female genital tract thus maintaining the immune-privilege as in the testis. Collectively, our data suggests a role for glucocorticoids in determining semen quality and function, as well as in participating on sperm immune defensive mechanisms. The novelty of this study may be beneficial and needs to take into account in artificial insemination/drug discovery aimed to enhancing sperm quality.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.80-85
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• 2017

Purpose The D530c have cadmium zinc telluride(CZT) detectors that are arranged focus on the heart. This structural characteristic allows for quicker imaging without rotation, but this is sensitive to patient movement and can affect the test results. The aim of this study is to optimize the image quality by reducing patient movement during the examination. Materials and Methods We analyzed the patients' movements, and performed various activities such as provided patient education about correct breathing techniques and avoiding patient movements, and created breathing correction tools to minimize patient movement during exam. The 70 patients who underwent myocardial perfusion SPECT with D530c in November 2016 were categorized as the group before the corrective steps. Another 70 patients who underwent the procedure with D530c from February 14, 2017 to February 21, 2017 were categorized as the improvement group. Images acquired during stress and at rest were compared and analyzed by measuring the durations of heart movements over certain distances (4 mm, 8 mm, 12 mm, or more) noted on the x-, y-, and zaxes. Results After the activities, the durations of heart movements decreased in the images acquired both under stress and at rest. In particular, there were no large motions greater than 12 mm recorded in the stress images after the improvement. There was a significant difference (p<0.005) in the 4-mm and 8-mm fluctuations on the X-axis and the 8-mm fluctuations on the Z axis in the stress images, but there was no significant difference (p>0.005) in the other stress and rest intervals. Conclusion The decrease in the time of motion occurrence due to the 4 mm fluctuation distance that can occur through breathing can be understood as a result of the breathing being corrected through training and motion prevention tools. It is expected that the image quality will be improved by reducing the occurrence time according to the variation distance of 8 mm or 12 mm, which is expected as the actual movement of the patient other than the breathing.

• Journal of the korean academy of Pediatric Dentistry
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.268-277
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• 2008

Authors evaluated 1171 patients at the department of Pediatric Dentistry in Kyoungpook National University Hospital through clinical records and radiographs. And the following features were studied ; age, sex distribution, number of mesiodens per patients, cause of discovery of mesiodens, location, status of eruption, shape and orientation of crown, complication, dental age of adjacent upper incisor tooth at the time of surgical extraction of mesiodens and the relationship between the resolution rate of complication after extraction of mesiodens and the dental age of adjacent upper incisor tooth, length of diastema, the eruption status of lateral incisor and the crowding status of premaxilla. The followings are the results : 1. The cause of discovery of mesiodens were as follows ; delayed eruption of the permanent incisors in 13.8%, midline diastema in 11.6%, radiographs taken for other reasons in 23.4% and for caries treatment in 15.1%. 2. Complication due to the presence of mesiodens did not occur in 36.8%, delayed eruption of adjacent teeth was observed in 16.1%, midline diastema in 34.4%, rotation in 8.8%, displacement in 2.4%, and crowding in 1.0% of all evaluated patients. 3. As for the dental age of adjacent upper incisor tooth at the time of surgical extraction of mesiodens, below 1/3 of total root length were observed in 3.5%, $1/3{\sim}1/2$ of total root length in 19.9%, $1/2{\sim}2/3$ of total root length in 54.7% and over 2/3 in 21.9% of all evaluated patients. 4. Resolution rate of delayed eruption after the extraction of mesiodens was significant higher in the group with the root length below 1/2. Resolution rate of midline diastema was significant higher in the group with diastema width below 3mm and with non-crowding of adjacent upper incisor teeth.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.255-261
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• 2016

In this study, among various factors having influence on SUV, we intended to compare and analyze the change of SUV using CT(4 type) and MRI(3 type) contrast agents which are commercialized now. We used Discovery 690 PET/CT(GE) and NEMA NU2 - 1994 PET phantom as experimental equipment. We have conducted a study as follows; first, we filled distilled water to phantom about two-thirds and injected radioisotope(18F-FDG 37 MBq), contrast agent. Second, we mixed CT contrast agent with distilled water and MRI contrast agent with that water separately. And then, we stirred the fluid and filled distilled water fully not to make air bubble. In emission scan, we had 15minutes scanning time after 40 minutes mixing contrast agent with distilled water. In transmission scan, we used CT scanning and its measurement conditions were tube voltage 120 kVp, tube current 40 mA, rotation time 0.5 sec, slice thickness 3.27 mm, DFOV 30 cm. Analyzing results, we set up some ROIs in 10th, 15th, 20th, 25th, 30th slice and measured SUVmean, SUVmax. Consequently, all images mixed 3 types of MRI contrast agent with distilled water have high SUVmean as compared with pure FDG image but there was no statistical significance. In SUVmax, they have high score and there was statistical significance. And other 4 images mixed 4 types of CT contrast agent with distilled water have significance in both SUVmean and SUVmax. Attenuation correction in PET/CT has been executed through various methods to make high quality image. But we figured out that using CT and MRI contrast agents before PET/CT scanning could make distortion of image and decrease diagnostic value. In that reason, we have to sort out the priority of examination in hospital not to disturb other examination's results. Through this process, we will be able to give superior medical service to our customers.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.65-82
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• 2015

Recently, there has been a surge of interest in finding core issues and analyzing emerging trends for the future. This represents efforts to devise national strategies and policies based on the selection of promising areas that can create economic and social added value. The existing studies, including those dedicated to the discovery of future promising fields, have mostly been dependent on qualitative research methods such as literature review and expert judgement. Deriving results from large amounts of information under this approach is both costly and time consuming. Efforts have been made to make up for the weaknesses of the conventional qualitative analysis approach designed to select key promising areas through discovery of future core issues and emerging trend analysis in various areas of academic research. There needs to be a paradigm shift in toward implementing qualitative research methods along with quantitative research methods like text mining in a mutually complementary manner. The change is to ensure objective and practical emerging trend analysis results based on large amounts of data. However, even such studies have had shortcoming related to their dependence on simple keywords for analysis, which makes it difficult to derive meaning from data. Besides, no study has been carried out so far to develop core issues and analyze emerging trends in special domains like the aviation industry. The change used to implement recent studies is being witnessed in various areas such as the steel industry, the information and communications technology industry, the construction industry in architectural engineering and so on. This study focused on retrieving aviation-related core issues and emerging trends from overall research papers pertaining to aviation through text mining, which is one of the big data analysis techniques. In this manner, the promising future areas for the air transport industry are selected based on objective data from aviation-related research papers. In order to compensate for the difficulties in grasping the meaning of single words in emerging trend analysis at keyword levels, this study will adopt topic analysis, which is a technique used to find out general themes latent in text document sets. The analysis will lead to the extraction of topics, which represent keyword sets, thereby discovering core issues and conducting emerging trend analysis. Based on the issues, it identified aviation-related research trends and selected the promising areas for the future. Research on core issue retrieval and emerging trend analysis for the aviation industry based on big data analysis is still in its incipient stages. So, the analysis targets for this study are restricted to data from aviation-related research papers. However, it has significance in that it prepared a quantitative analysis model for continuously monitoring the derived core issues and presenting directions regarding the areas with good prospects for the future. In the future, the scope is slated to expand to cover relevant domestic or international news articles and bidding information as well, thus increasing the reliability of analysis results. On the basis of the topic analysis results, core issues for the aviation industry will be determined. Then, emerging trend analysis for the issues will be implemented by year in order to identify the changes they undergo in time series. Through these procedures, this study aims to prepare a system for developing key promising areas for the future aviation industry as well as for ensuring rapid response. Additionally, the promising areas selected based on the aforementioned results and the analysis of pertinent policy research reports will be compared with the areas in which the actual government investments are made. The results from this comparative analysis are expected to make useful reference materials for future policy development and budget establishment.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.174-181
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• 2005

Purpose: Reduction of respiratory motion artifacts in PET images was studied using respiratory-gated PET (RGPET) with moving phantom. Especially a method of generating simulated helical CT images from 4D-CT datasets was developed and applied to a respiratory specific RGPET images for more accurate attenuation correction. Materials and Methods: Using a motion phantom with periodicity of 6 seconds and linear motion amplitude of 26 mm, PET/CT (Discovery ST: GEMS) scans with and without respiratory gating were obtained for one syringe and two vials with each volume of 3, 10, and 30 ml respectively. RPM (Real-Time Position Management, Varian) was used for tracking motion during PET/CT scanning. Ten datasets of RGPET and 4D-CT corresponding to every 10% phase intervals were acquired. from the positions, sizes, and uptake values of each subject on the resultant phase specific PET and CT datasets, the correlations between motion artifacts in PET and CT images and the size of motion relative to the size of subject were analyzed. Results: The center positions of three vials in RGPET and 4D-CT agree well with the actual position within the estimated error. However, volumes of subjects in non-gated PET images increase proportional to relative motion size and were overestimated as much as 250% when the motion amplitude was increased two times larger than the size of the subject. On the contrary, the corresponding maximal uptake value was reduced to about 50%. Conclusion: RGPET is demonstrated to remove respiratory motion artifacts in PET imaging, and moreover, more precise image fusion and more accurate attenuation correction is possible by combining with 4D-CT.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.41-46
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• 2011

Purpose: The result of exam using an imaging device is very closely related with the image quality. Moreover, this image quality can be changed according to the condition of image acquisition and evaluation method. In this study, we evaluated the image quality according to the difference of pre-set method in PET/CT image. Materials & Methods: PET/CT Discovery STe16 (GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, USA), Chest PET phantom (Experiment 1) and 94 NEMA phantom (Experiment 2) were used. Phantom were filled with $^{18}F$-FDG maintaining hot sphere and background ratio to 4:1. In the case of experiment 1, we set the radio activity concentration on 3.5, 6.0, 8.6 kBq/mL. In the case of experiment 2, we set the radio activity concentration on 3.3, 5.5, 7.7, 9.9, 12.1, 16.5 kBq/mL. All experiments were performed with the time-set method for 2 minutes 30 seconds per frame and the count-set method with one hundred million counts in 3D mode after CT transmission scan. For the evaluation of the image quality, we compared each results by using the NECR and SNR. Results: In the experiment 1, both the NECR and SNR were increased as radioactivity concentration getting increased. The NECR was shown as 53.7, 66.9, 91.4. and SNR was shown as 7.9, 10.0, 11.7. Both the NECR and SNR were increased in time-set method. But the count-set method's pattern was not similar with the time-set method. The NECR was shown as 53.8, 69.1, 97.8, and SNR was shown as 14.1, 14.7 14.4. The SNR was not increased in count-set method. In experiment 2, results of both the NECR and SNR were shown as 45.1, 70.6, 95.3, 115.6, 134.6, 162.2 and 7.1, 8.8, 10.6, 11.5, 12.7, 14.0. These results were shown similar patten with the experiment 1. Moreover, when the count-set method was applied, the NECR was shown as 42.1, 67.3, 92.1, 112.2, 130.7, 158.7, and SNR was shown as 15.2, 15.9, 15.6, 15.4, 15.5, 14.9. The NECR was increased but SNR was not shown same pattern. Conclusion: Increment of administered radioactivity improves the quality of image unconcerned with the pre-set method. However, NECR was not influenced by increment of total acquisition counts through simple increasing scan duration without increment of administered activity. In case of count-set method, the SNR was shown similar value despite of increment of radioactivity. So, the administered activity is more important than the scan duration. And we have to consider that evaluation of image quality using only SNR may not be appropriate.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.17-23
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• 2009

Purpose: It has been known that PET/CT is very valuable in follow-up study of diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Generally, in DLBCL, radiotherapy and chemotherapy has been progressed, because the lesion hasn‘t been limited to one site. And, it has lead to the decrease of leukocyte like neutropenia, due to myelosuppression of chemotherapy. So, in that case, administration of Filgrastim (Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor; G-CSF) is universal. However, in short time after administration, PET/CT has limitation to offer accurate images, through the uptake of $^{18}F$-FDG is increased in the region that is activated bone marrow by hematopoietic growth. Therefore, the aim of this study is that PET/CT in a certain period of time after administration of Filgrastim is able to show normal degree of $^{18}F$-FDG uptake. Materials and Methods: 10 patients under follow-up study of diffuse large B cell lymphoma were examined in this study from January, 2007 to January, 2009 (Male: 4 persons; Female: 6 persons; The mean age: 53.8 years old; The mean weight: 57.3 Kg). Using PET/CT (Discovery STe; GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, WI, USA), whole body images were acquired in 1 hour after $^{18}F$-FDG injection. For image analysis, each ROI ($120\;mm^2$) was drawn on $C^6$ (the sixth C-spine), $L_4$ (the forth L-spine), liver, spleen, and lung, then SUV (Standard Uptake Value)s were measured. We compared with each uptake between in 1-day and 5~7 days after administration of Filgrastim at same patient, so confirmed significance about these by SPSS version 12. Results: In case of $C_6$, $L_4$, spleen, every SUV of 1 day later was remarkably higher than that of 5~7 days later, but liver and lung were similar. Also, the images acquired after 5~7 days distinct remarkably and show normal degree of $^{18}F$-FDG uptake, because uptake of bone was almost disappeared. Conclusions: In this study, each SUV was prominent difference as a period of time after Filgrastim’s administration. And Filgrastim makes concentrate uptake of $^{18}F$-FDG in bone, but, after 5~7 days, bone‘s uptake was greatly decreased. Therefore, we are able to infer a certain period of time that shows normal degree of uptake, by numerical value proven. Also, we consider that this study contribute to advanced study about the other agent like Pegfilgrastim, Lenograstim besides Filgrastim, afterwards.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.103-112
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• 2012

This paper is based on the perspective that the YTN Science, a science channel in Korea which plays a key role in the popularization of science, is suffering from low viewing ratings, insufficient content, and shortage of production. First, this study employs an exploratory method to identify current status of programming and operation of the Korean science channel along with its promotional strategy. Second, it aims to conduct an analysis on the science channels, specifically some major programs, of other nations including the U.S. (Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel), United Kingdom (BBC Knowledge), Japan (Science Channel), and China (CCTV 10), seeking the possibility to apply and combine them afterward to the Korean TV channels specialized in science. A number of implications are derived from our diagnosis of present situation and analysis of abroad cases, and this helps us suggest the content development and promotional strategies as follows: First, due to the rising need for change in the programming strategy to enhance the value of the content, it is required to rearrange the programming in terms of the target audience and the viewer lifestyle, adopt a new strategy for building up the viewers' watching habit through 'stripping', and place strategic programs in prime-time. Second, as for the specific schemes of content production and application, it is recommended to establish a dual strategy in creating the content (one for conveying knowledge, the other for delivering fun), plan and use a representative character of the program, select scientific and technological topics with more Korean backgrounds, attempt strategic ties with SNS, deepen and diversify the material for programs, and implement a strategy to boost the OSMU. Finally, with regard to the promotional strategy, a constructive proposal may include raising channel awareness through science-related events and live broadcasting, performing promotional strategies by way of expanding to printed media like magazine and book publications, and intensifying online and mobile promotional strategy.