• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.368-376
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• 2014

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this study were to investigate the effects of lycopene on the migration, adhesion, tube formation capacity, and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38 MAPK) activity of endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) cultivated with high glucose (HG) and as well as explore the mechanism behind the protective effects of lycopene on peripheral blood EPCs. MATERIALS/METHODS: Mononuclear cells were isolated from human peripheral blood by Ficoll density gradient centrifugation. EPCs were identified after induction of cellular differentiation. Third generation EPCs were incubated with HG (33 mmol/L) or 10, 30, and $50{\mu}g/mL$ of lycopene plus HG. MTT assay and flow cytometry were performed to assess proliferation and apoptosis of EPCs. EPC migration was assessed by MTT assay with a modified boyden chamber. Adhesion assay was performed by replating EPCs on fibronectin-coated dishes, after which adherent cells were counted. In vitro vasculogenesis activity was assayed by Madrigal network formation assay. Western blotting was performed to analyze protein expression of both phosphorylated and non-phosphorylated p38 MAPK. RESULTS: The proliferation, migration, adhesion, and in vitro vasculogenesis capacity of EPCs treated with 10, 30, and $50{\mu}g/mL$ of lycopene plus HG were all significantly higher comapred to the HG group (P < 0.05). Rates of apoptosis were also significantly lower than that of the HG group. Moreover, lycopene blocked phosphorylation of p38 MAPK in EPCs (P < 0.05). To confirm the causal relationship between MAPK inhibition and the protective effects of lycopene against HG-induced cellular injury, we treated cells with SB203580, a phosphorylation inhibitor. The inhibitor significantly inhibited HG-induced EPC injury. CONCLUSIONS: Lycopene promotes proliferation, migration, adhesion, and in vitro vasculogenesis capacity as well as reduces apoptosis of EPCs. Further, the underlying molecular mechanism of the protective effects of lycopene against HG-induced EPC injury may involve the p38 MAPK signal transduction pathway. Specifically, lycopene was shown to inhibit HG-induced EPC injury by inhibiting p38 MAPKs.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.29-44
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• 2009

A variety of research efforts, using advanced wireless communication technologies, have been made to develop more reliable traffic information system. This study presents a novel decentralized traffic information system based on vehicle infrastructure integration (VII). A major objective of this study was also to devise a methodology for determining appropriate spacing of roadside equipment (RSE) to fully exploit the benefits of the proposed VII-based traffic information system. Evaluation of travel time estimation accuracy was conducted with various RSE spacings and the market penetration rates of equipped vehicle. A microscopic traffic simulator, VISSIM, was used to obtain individual vehicle travel information for the evaluation. In addition, the ANOVA tests were conducted to draw statistically significant results of simulation analyses in determining the RSE spacing. It is expected that the proposed methodology will be a valuable precursor to implementing capability-enhanced next generation traffic information systems under the forthcoming ubiquitous transportation environment.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.102-109
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• 2010

Fructan has been found to accumulate in various tissues during periods when light levels increased carbon fixation where low temperatures reduced growth rates while photosynthesis continued. In this study, we have cloned 1-sucrose:sucrose fructosyl transferase(1-sst) and 1-fructan: fructan fructosyl transferase (1-fft, a key enzyme for the synthesis of fuctan) from Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus L.). The recombinant vector with 1-sst and 1-fft has been constructed under the control of 35S promoter of KJGV-B2 vector and transgenic plants obtained by Agrobacterium tumefaciens LBA4404. PCR analysis carried out on the putative transgenic plants for amplification of the coding region of specific gene (1-sst, 1-fft), and HPT genes. Transgenic lines carrying of 1-sst and 1-fft were confirmed for integration into the rice genome using Southern blot hybridization and RT-PCR. The transgenic plants in $T_2$ generation were selected and expression pattern analysis revealed that 1-sst and 1-fft were stable. This analysis confirmed the presence of low-molecular-weight fructan in the seedling of the transgenic rices. Therefore, cold tolerance and carbohydrate metabolism will be possible to develop resistant plants using the transgenic rice.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.27-32
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• 2010

Ultraviolet-B (UVB) radiation induces the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and depletes stores of cellular antioxidants. Fucoidan, polysaccharides containing L-fucose and sulfate ester groups, are constituents of brown algae. In this study, the protective effects of fucoidan on UVB-induced oxidative stress in cultured human skin fibroblast HS68 cells were assessed. Pretreatment with fucoidan significantly reduced malondialdehyde (MDA) content in a dose-dependent manner. With fucoidan pretreatment at a dose of $100\;{\mu}g/ml$, the level of intracellular glutathione was increased by 21.5%, compared to UVB irradiation alone. Fucoidan significantly reduced UVB-induced ROS generation by 40.1% and 68.4% at 10 and $100\;{\mu}g/ml$, respectively, compared to UVB irradiation alone. The positive staining rates of senescence-associated $\beta$-galactosidase were reduced by 23.1% and 16.4% with 10 and $100\;{\mu}g/ml$ of fucoidan, compared to UVB irradiation alone. Fucoidan may exert a photoprotective effect against UVB radiation-induced oxidative stress.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.34 no.8
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• pp.1143-1150
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• 2005

Antioxidative activities of 5 common edible seaweeds in Korea, three brown algae (seaweed fusiforme, sea mustard, sea tangle), one green algae (sea lettuce) and one red algae (laver), were examined. The antioxidative activities of ethanol extracts from these seaweeds were examined by measuring of inhibition rates against iron-induced linoleate peroxidation, DPPH (1,1-diphenyl -2-picrylhydrazyl) radical generation and MDA-BSA (malondialdehyde-bovine serum albumin) conjugation. Sea lettuce ethanol extract showed the strongest anti-oxidative activity among them, especially in inhibition against conjugation of lipid peroxide and protein. Second to sea lettuce, laver and sea tangle ethanol extracts showed high DPPH radical scavenging activity and inhibition against MDA-BSA conjugation. However, seaweed fusiforme and sea mustard ethanol extracts did not show antioxidative activities. Sea mustard contained the highest total flavonoids (11.33 mg/g dry wt) and sea lettuce contained the highest total polyphenol (8.97 mg/g dry wt) among these seaweeds. In addition, there was strong positive correlation between the antioxidative activity and total polyphenol content in these seaweeds, suggesting polyphenol compounds may contribute to antioxidative effect of seaweeds. From these data, it is suggested to consume much of seaweeds such as sea lettuce, laver and sea tangle to prevent age-related chronic diseases, and also develope neutraceutical products using polyphenol rich fraction from sea lettuce.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.386-395
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• 1992

The black pine bast scale, Matsucoccus thunbergianae, causes severe damage to the black pines of southern coastal areas. It has one generation a year, coming out of the pine bark to mate a and lay eggs from early March to early May. Especially, its peak time is from late March to m mid-April. The host plants were found to be 7 species, Pinus thunbergii, P. strobus, P. taeda, P. b banksiana, P. massoniana, P. taiwannesis, and P. densiflora. The percentage of damaged black p pine by the age were 0.8% for I-year old ones, 3.7% for 4-6 years, 5.2% for 7-9 years, 9.3% f for 10-12 years, 8.1% for 13-15 years, 7.8% for 16-18 years, 6.7% for 19-21 years, 3.3% for 2 22-24 years, 1.9% for 25-27 years, and 1.1 % for 28 years. The highest rate of damage happened to 7 -20 years old trees, whereas the highest rate of damage upon branches happened to 6 6-7 years old ones. Finally, as far as the trunk is concerned, the damages proceeded from the m middle parts of the trunk, whose branches were alive up to the top. The rates of damage s spread in pure forest/mixed forest area were turned out to be 81.3/52.5% in Koheung, 80.3/ 5 58.1 % in Haenam, and 76.3/48.5% in Muan. That is, the damage rate was higher in the pure f forest areas than the mixed forest ones. The higher the density of trees beyond 20 trees per m 100$m^2$, the higher the damage rate was.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.1175-1188
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• 2015

The Ministry of Education of Korea announced the university structural reform plans which reduces 160,000 of the university entrance quota during 10 years from January 2014. Because the reduction plans of entrance quota influence regional economy as well as students and universities, naive evidence of the Ministry of Education of Korea is disappointed. In this research, we forecast the total number of the university entrance exam candidate by 2032 including not only third grade high school students but also repeaters according to the 16 metropolises and provinces in Korea. We also forecast the regional university recruiting rate using the forecasts of the total number of the university entrance exam candidates. However, we can not make more realistic results because we can not apply the inter-regional movement of students to the forecast. In order to handle this limitation, we first estimated the rank of the whole 7,277 departments of all universities in Korea and assigned the quotas according to the estimated rank for each departments and then we calculated the local university recruiting rate. The estimated the university recruiting rates of 16 metropolises and provinces can provide more noticeable results of characteristics and problems than that of nationwide.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.16-31
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• 2003

The water quality environment in Youngsan and Seumjin river basins was investigated based on the concept of the comprehensive Water Quality Index (WQI) and a spacial pollution source. Artificial factors influencing to river water quality have been analyzed. The specific delivery load of Youngsan river basin was found to be 8.34~97.25 kg/day/$\textrm{km}^2$, Gomagwon stream and Gwangju stream showed the relatively high rates as 97.25 kg/day/$\textrm{km}^2$ and 86.06 kg/day/$\textrm{km}^2$, respectively. The specific delivery load in Seumjin river basin was estimated to be 10.98∼19.51 kg/day/$\textrm{km}^2$, Suggesting no Significant Contribution of pollution. WQI of Youngsan watershed revealed 1.36~3.45, whereas Seumjin watershed showed a relatively low value of 0.5~1.47 And it is concluded that the specific delivery load suggested in this study provides the essential core data of the upper limit of pollutants receptor in the watershed area studied. From this study, it is suggested that the integrated environmental management of river basin requires the analysis of pollutants generation rate of the basin and the receptor capability for the self-purification.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.506-512
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• 2013

Biomass and low-grade coals are known to be better potential sources of energy compared to crude oil and natural gas since these materials are readily available and found to have large reserves, respectively. Gasification of these carbonaceous materials produced syngas for chemical synthesis and power generation. Woodchip, sawdust and lignite were gasified with steam in a thermobalance reactor under atmospheric pressure in order to evaluate their kinetic rate information. The effects of gasification temperature ($600{\sim}900^{\circ}C$) and partial pressure of steam (20~90 kPa) on the gasification rate were investigated. The three different types of gas-solid reaction models were applied to the experimental data to predict the behavior of the gasification reactions. The modified volumetric model predicted the conversion data well, thus the model was used to evaluate kinetic parameters in this study. The observed activation energy of biomass, sawdust and lignite gasification reactions were found to be in reasonable range and their rank was found to be sawdust > woodchip > lignite. The expression of apparent reaction rates for steam gasification of the three solids was proposed to provide basic information on the design of coal gasification processes.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.69-77
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• 2015

Heap bioleaching for detoxification of mine tailings is a promising technology; however, long-term studies that aim to understand the potential of this process are scarce. Therefore, this study assesses the feasibility of column bioleaching as an alternative technology for treatment of mine tailings with high concentrations of arsenic during a long-term experiment (436 days). To accomplish this objective, we designed a 350-mm plastic column that was packed with 750 g of mine tailings and inoculated with an acidophilic bacterial culture composed of A. thiooxidans and A. ferrooxidans. Redox potential, pH, ferric ion generation, and arsenic concentration of the off-solution were continuously monitored to determine the efficiency of the technology. After 436 days, we obtained up to 70% arsenic removal. However, several drops in removal rates were observed during the process; this was attributed to the harmful effect of arsenic on the bacteria consortium. We expect that this article will serve as a technical note for further studies on heap bioleaching of mine tailings.