• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.18-23
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• 2011

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by neuronal loss and extracellular senile plaques containing $\beta$-amyloid peptide (A$\beta$). The deposition of the A$\beta$ peptide following proteolytic processing of amyloid precursor protein (APP) by $\beta$-secretase (BACE1) and $\gamma$-secretase is a critical feature in the progression of AD. Among the plant extracts tested, the ethanol extract of Petasites japonicus leaves showed novel protective effect on B103 neuroblastoma cells against neurotoxicity induced by A$\beta$, as well as a strong suppressive effect on BACE1 activity. Ethanol extracts of P. japonicus leaves were sequentially extracted with methylene chloride, ethyl acetate and butanol and evaluated for potential to inhibit BACE1, as well as to suppress A$\beta$-induced neurotoxicity. Exposure to A$\beta$ significantly reduced cell viability and increased apoptotic cell death. However, pretreatment with ethyl acetate fraction of P. japonicus leaves prior to A$\beta$ (50 ${\mu}M$) significantly increased cell viability (p<0.01). In parallel, cell apoptosis triggered by A$\beta$ was also dramatically inhibited by ethyl acetate fraction of P. japonicus leaves. Moreover, the ethyl acetate fraction suppressed caspase-3 activity to the basal level at 30 ppm. Taken together, these results demonstrated that P. japonicus leaves appear to be a useful source for the inhibition and/or prevention of AD by suppression of BACE1 activity and attenuation of A$\beta$ induced neurocytotoxicity.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.27-35
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• 2016

Purpose: Among RF pulses, a sinc pulse is typically used for slice selection due to its frequency-selective feature. When a sinc pulse is implemented in practice, it needs to be apodized to avoid truncation artifacts at the expense of broadening the transition region of the excited-band profile. Here a sinc pulse tailored by a new apodization function is proposed that produces a sharper transition region with well suppression of truncation artifacts in comparison with conventional tailored sinc pulses. A multiband pulse designed using this newly apodized sinc pulse is also suggested inheriting the better performance of the newly apodized sinc pulse. Materials and Methods: A new apodization function is introduced to taper a sinc pulse, playing a role to slightly shift the first zero-crossing of a tailored sinc pulse from the peak of the main lobe and thereby producing a narrower bandwidth as well as a sharper pass-band in the excitation profile. The newly apodized sinc pulse was also utilized to design a multiband pulse which inherits the performance of its constituent. Performances of the proposed sinc pulse and the multiband pulse generated with it were demonstrated by Bloch simulation and phantom imaging. Results: In both simulations and experiments, the newly apodized sinc pulse yielded a narrower bandwidth and a sharper transition of the pass-band profile with a desirable degree of side-lobe suppression than the commonly used Hanning-windowed sinc pulse. The multiband pulse designed using the newly apodized sinc pulse also showed the better performance in multi-slice excitation than the one designed with the Hanning-windowed sinc pulse. Conclusion: The new tailored sinc pulse proposed here provides a better performance in slice (or slab) selection than conventional tailored sinc pulses. Thanks to the availability of analytical expression, it can also be utilized for multiband pulse design with great flexibility and readiness in implementation, transferring its better performance.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.195-200
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• 2011

Neuronal cell death is a common characteristic feature of a variety of neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. However, there have been no effective drugs to successfully prevent neuronal death in those diseases. In the present study, docosyl cafferate (DC), a derivative of caffeic acid, was isolated from Rhus verniciflua and its protective effects on tBHP-induced neuronal cell death were examined in SH-SY5Y human neuroblastoma cells. Pretreatment of DC significantly attenuated tBHP-induced neuronal cell death in a concentration-dependent manner. DC also significantly suppressed tBHP-induced caspase-3 activation. In addition, DC restored tBHP-induced depletion of intracellular Bcl-2, an anti-apoptotic member of the Bcl-2 family. Furthermore, DC significantly suppressed tBHP-induced degradation of IKB, which retains $NF-{\kappa}B$ in the cytoplasm, resulting in the suppression of nuclear translocation of $NF-{\kappa}B$ and its subsequent activation. Taken together, the results clearly demonstrate that DC exerts its neuroprotective activity against tBHP-induced oxidative stress through the suppression of nuclear translocation of $NF-{\kappa}B$.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.38 no.11
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• pp.925-935
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• 2015

DNA methylation is a well-characterized epigenetic modification that plays central roles in mammalian development, genomic imprinting, X-chromosome inactivation and silencing of retrotransposon elements. Aberrant DNA methylation pattern is a characteristic feature of cancers and associated with abnormal expression of oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes or repair genes. Ten-eleven-translocation (TET) proteins are recently characterized dioxygenases that catalyze progressive oxidation of 5-methylcytosine to produce 5-hydroxymethylcytosine and further oxidized derivatives. These oxidized methylcytosines not only potentiate DNA demethylation but also behave as independent epigenetic modifications per se. The expression or activity of TET proteins and DNA hydroxymethylation are highly dysregulated in a wide range of cancers including hematologic and non-hematologic malignancies, and accumulating evidence points TET proteins as a novel tumor suppressor in cancers. Here we review DNA demethylation-dependent and -independent functions of TET proteins. We also describe diverse TET loss-of-function mutations that are recurrently found in myeloid and lymphoid malignancies and their potential roles in hematopoietic transformation. We discuss consequences of the deficiency of individual Tet genes and potential compensation between different Tet members in mice. Possible mechanisms underlying facilitated oncogenic transformation of TET-deficient hematopoietic cells are also described. Lastly, we address non-mutational mechanisms that lead to suppression or inactivation of TET proteins in cancers. Strategies to restore normal 5mC oxidation status in cancers by targeting TET proteins may provide new avenues to expedite the development of promising anti-cancer agents.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.41-46
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• 2014

In this paper, we propose a novel voice activity detection (VAD) algorithm using feature vectors based on TE (teager energy). Specifically, power spectral deviation (PSD), which is used as the feature for the VAD in the IS-127 noise suppression algorithm, is obtained after the input signal is transfomed by Teager energy operator. In addition, the TE-based likelihhod ratio are derived in each frame to modifiy the PSD for further VAD. The performance of our proposed VAD algorithm are evaluated by objective testing (total error rate, receiver operating characteristics, perceptual evaluation of speech quality) under various environments, and it is found that the proposed method yields better results than conventional VAD algorithms in the non-stationary noise environments under 5 dB SNR (total error rate = 2.6% decrease, PESQ score = 0.053 improvement).

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.289-302
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• 2006

It is becoming a common trend that many designers work on a very complex assembly together in a collaborative environment. In this environment, every designer should be able to see the whole assembly in a full detail or in a rough shape at least. Even though the hardware technology is being improved very rapidly, it is very difficult to display a very complex assembly at a speed to allow smooth interactions for designers. This problem could be solved if a designer could manipulate his portion of the assembly in a full resolution while the remaining portion of the assembly is displayed in a rough resolution. It is also desired that the remaining portion is converted to the full resolution when needed. To realize this environment, the capabilities to simplify the portions of an assembly and to reset to the original resolution should be added to the current CAD systems. Thus operators realizing multi-resolution on B-rep are proposed in this paper. They are: wrap-around, smooth-out, and thinning operator. Through appropriately applying these operators sequentially, an assembly model of any desired resolution can be easily generated. Of course, the assembly can go back to the finer resolution. In this paper, the data structures and the processes to realize these operators are described and a prototype modeling system with these operators is also demonstrated.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.401-407
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• 2009

In this paper, we propose a novel method for the cross-correlation based double-talk detection (DTD), which employing the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) in the frequency domain. The proposed algorithm transforms the cross correlation coefficient used in the time domain into 16 channels in the frequency domain using the discrete fourier transform (DFT). The channels are then selected into seven feature vectors for GMM and we identify three different regions such as far-end, double-talk and near-end speech using the likelihood comparison based on those feature vectors. The presented DTD algorithm detects efficiently the double-talk regions without Voice Activity Detector which has been used in conventional cross correlation based double-talk detection. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated under various conditions and yields better results compared with the conventional schemes. especially, show the robustness against detection errors resulting from the background noises or echo path change which one of the key issues in practical DTD.

• Natural Product Sciences
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.280-284
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• 2010

During liver fibrosis, hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) undergo a complex activation process characterized by increased proliferation and extracellular matrix deposition, which is the major pathological feature of hepatic cirrhosis. Therefore, suppression of HSCs activation has been proposed as therapeutic strategies for hepatic fibrosis. We tried to screen the antifibrotic activity of natural products employing HSC-T6, hepatic stellate cell lines as an in vitro assay system. In the present study, we investigated the antiproliferative activity of aerial parts and roots of Pulsatilla koreana Nakai (Ranunculaceae). Our present study shows that roots of P. koreana exerted more strong inhibitory activity compared to its aerial parts. In addition, among the fractions of the aqueous methanolic extract of P. koreana roots, both n-hexane and $CHCl_3$ fraction showed the strong inhibitory activity on HSC proliferation. Further study also demonstrated that the n-hexane and $CHCl_3$ fraction of P. koreana roots significantly inhibited the HSC proliferation in time- and concentration-related manners.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.91-95
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• 1999

The Streptomyces albulus broth, when the polylysine in the broth, that has powerful growth inhibiting effect far many microbes, is its maximum, had filtered off the cells, to use the broth as preservative for keeping favorable taste of Korean Kimchi. Some microorganisms in their specific growth medium, known to deteriorate the useful nutrient of the Kimchi, has grown with different amounts of the inhibiting broth, to determine the minimum growth inhibition concentration. The ${\varepsilon}$-poly-L-lysine had been identified from the IR spectroscopic analysis of the purified poly lysine of the broth from ion exchange chromatographic separation. The content of the polylysine had been determined by methyl orange decoloration effect. Though the minimum inhibition concentration, evaluated by the naked eye based on the conventional method measuring the turbid feature after 18 hours of culture, has different values each other, the observed effects confirmed that the crude broth could be used as a natural preservative for the Kimchi in extending the fair taste.

• IEMEK Journal of Embedded Systems and Applications
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.231-238
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• 2017

Detecting small infrared targets from the low-SCR images at a long distance is very hard. The previous Local Contrast Method (LCM) algorithm based on the human visual system shows a superior performance of detecting small targets by a background suppression technique through local contrast measure. However, its slow processing speed due to the heavy multi-scale processing overhead is not suitable to a variety of real-time applications. This paper presents a lightweight real-time small target detection algorithm, called by the Improved Selective Local Contrast Method (ISLCM), to reduce the scale-invariant computational overhead. The proposed ISLCM applies the improved local contrast measure to the predicted selective region so that it may have a comparable detection performance as the previous LCM while guaranteeing low scale-invariant computational load by exploiting both adaptive scale estimation and small target feature feasibility. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can reduce its computational overhead considerably while maintaining its detection performance compared with the previous LCM.