• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.15
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• pp.6211-6217
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• 2014

Previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have implicated several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the AT-rich interactive domain 5B (ARID5B) gene with childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). However, replicated studies reported some inconsistent results in different populations. Using meta-analysis, we here aimed to clarify the nature of the genetic risks contributed by the two polymorphisms (rs10994982, rs7089424) for developing childhood ALL. Through searches of PubMed, EMBASE, and manually searching relevant references, a total of 14 articles with 16 independent studies were included. Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) were calculated to assess the associations. Both SNPs rs10994982 and rs7089424 showed significant associations with childhood ALL risk in all genetic models after Bonferroni correction. Furthermore, subtype analyses of B-lineage ALL provided strong evidence that SNP rs10994982 is highly associated with the risk of developing B-hyperdiploid ALL. These results indicate that SNPs rs10994982 and rs7089424 are indeed significantly associated with increased risk of childhood ALL.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.335-339
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• 2015

Cryptosporidium andersoni ATP-binding cassette (CaABC) is an important membrane protein involved in substrate transport across the membrane. In this research, the nucleotide binding domain (NBD) of CaABC gene was amplified by PCR, and the eukaryotic expression vector of pEGFP-C1-CaNBD was reconstructed. Then, the recombinant plasmid of pEGFP-C1-CaNBD was transformed into the mouse intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) to study the iron transportation function of CaABC. The results indicated that NBD region of CaABC gene can significantly elevate the transport efficiency of $Ca^{2+}$, $Mg^{2+}$, $K^+$, and $HCO_3{^-}$ in IECs (P<0.05). The significance of this study is to find the ATPase inhibitors for NBD region of CaABC gene and to inhibit ATP binding and nutrient transport of CaABC transporter. Thus, C. andersoni will be killed by inhibition of nutrient uptake. This will open up a new way for treatment of cryptosporidiosis.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.216-226
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• 2015

Grid synchronization is one of the key techniques for the grid-connected power converters used in distributed power generation systems. In order to achieve fast and accurate grid synchronization, a new phase locked loop (PLL) is proposed on the basis of the complex filter matrixes (CFM) orthogonal signal generator (OSG) crossing-decoupling method. By combining first-order complex filters with relation matrixes of positive and negative sequence voltage components, the OSG is designed to extract specific frequency orthogonal signals. Then, the OSG mathematical model is built in the frequency-domain and time-domain to analyze the spectral characteristics. Moreover, a crossing-decoupling method is suggested to decouple the fundamental voltage. From the eigenvalue analysis point of view, the stability and dynamic performance of the new PLL method is evaluated. Meanwhile, the digital implementation method is also provided. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by experiments under unbalanced and distorted grid voltage conditions.

• BMB Reports
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.232-238
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• 2007

The p13 gene is uniquely present in Group II nucleopolyhedroviruses (NPVs) and some granuloviruses, but not in Group I NPVs. p13 gene was first described by our laboratory in Leucania separatamultiple nuclear polyhedrosis virus (Ls-p13) in 1995. However, the functions of Ls-P13 and of its homologues are unknown. When Ls-p13 was inserted into Autographa californica nucleopolyhedrovirus, a Group I NPV, polyhedra yield was inhibited. However, this inhibition was prevented when the leucine zipper-like domain of Ls-p13 was mutated. To determine the cause of this marked difference between Ls-P13 and leucine zipper mutated Ls-P13 (Ls-P13mL), oligomerization and secondary structure analyses were performed. High performance liquid chromatography and yeast two-hybrid assays indicated that neither Ls-P13 nor Ls-P13mL could form oligomers. Informatics and circular dichroism spectropolarimetry results further indicated marked secondary structural differences between Ls-P13 and Ls-P13mL. The LZLD of Ls-P13 has two extended heptad repeat units which form a hydrophobic surface, but it is short of a third hydrophobic heptad repeat unit for oligomerization. However, the mutated LZLD of Ls-P13mL lacks the above hydrophobic surface, and its secondary structure is markedly different. This difference in its secondary structure may explain why Ls-P13mL is unable to inhibit polyhedra yield.

• BMB Reports
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• v.43 no.8
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• pp.567-572
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• 2010

In this study, we cloned the ERF-B3 subfamily transcription factor gene BnaERF-B3-hy15 from Brassica napus L. Huyou15. This 600 bp gene encodes a 199 amino acid classic ethylene responsive factor (ERF), which shown no binding or very weak binding GCC box-binding activity by the yeast one-hybrid assay. We used gene shuffling and the yeast one-hybrid system to obtain three mutated sequences that can bind to the GCC box. Sequence analysis indicated that two residues, Gly156 in the AP2 domain and Phe62 at the N-terminal domain were mutated to arginine and serine, respectively. Changes of Gly156 to arginine and Phe62 to serine increased the GCC-binding activity of BnaERF-B3-hy15 and the alter of Gly156 to arginine changed the AP2-domain structure of BnaERF-B3-hy15.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.261-271
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• 2017

Environment-friendly $(K,Na)NbO_3-based$ (KNN) lead-free piezoelectric materials have been studied extensively in the past decade. Significant progress has been made in this field, manifesting competitive piezoelectric performance with that of lead-based, for specific application scenarios. Further understanding of the relationship between high piezoelectricity and microstructure or more precisely, ferroelectric domain structure, domain wall pinning effect, domain wall conduction and local polarization switching underpins the continuous advancement of piezoelectric properties, with the help of piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM). In this review, we will present the fundamentals of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) and its cardinal derivative in piezoelectric and ferroelectric world, PFM. Some representative operational modes and a variety of recent applications in KNN-based piezoelectric materials are presented. We expect that PFM and its combination with some newly developed technology will continue to provide great insight into piezoelectric materials and structures, and will play a valuable role in promoting the performance to a new level.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.225-239
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• 2005

Applications of the Trefftz boundary element method (BEM) to anti-plane electroelastic problems are presented in this paper. Both direct and indirect methods with domain decomposition are discussed in details. Each crack is treated as semi-infinite thin slit defined in a subregion, for which a particular solution of the anti-plane problem, satisfying exactly the crack-face condition, is derived. The stress intensity factors defined at each crack tip can be directly computed from the coefficients of the particular solution. The performance of the proposed formulation is assessed by two examples and comparison is made with results obtained by other approaches. The Trefftz boundary element approach is demonstrated to be suitable for the analysis of the anti-plane problem of piezoelectric materials.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.859-868
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• 2013

The active noise control (ANC) technique attenuates acoustic noise in a flexible and effective way. Traditional ANC design aims to minimize the residual noise energy, which is indiscriminative in the frequency domain. However, human hearing perception exhibits selective sensitivity for different frequency ranges. In this paper, we aim to improve the noise attenuation performance in perceptual perspective by incorporating noise weighting into ANC design. We also introduce psychoacoustic analysis to evaluate the sound quality of the residual noise by using a predictive pleasantness model, which combines four psychoacoustic parameters: loudness, sharpness, roughness, and tonality. Simulations on synthetic random noise and realistic noise show that our method improves the sound quality and that ITU-R 468 noise weighting even performs better than A-weighting.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.55-70
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• 2013

A composite breakwater with an upper horizontal porous plate and a lower rubble mound is proposed and studied in this work. By means of matched eigenfunction expansions, a semi-analytical solution is developed for analyzing the hydrodynamic performance of the breakwater. The semi-analytical solution is verified by known solutions for special cases and an independently developed multi-domain boundary element method solution. Numerical examples are given to examine the reflection, transmission and energy loss coefficients of the breakwater and the wave force acting on the horizontal porous plate. Some useful results are presented for engineering applications.

• Journal of the Korean Mathematical Society
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.715-731
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• 2012

This paper considers the stability of positive steady-state solutions bifurcating from the trivial solution in a delayed Lotka-Volterra two-species predator-prey diffusion system with a discrete delay and subject to the homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions on a general bounded open spatial domain with smooth boundary. The existence, uniqueness and asymptotic expressions of small positive steady-sate solutions bifurcating from the trivial solution are given by using the implicit function theorem. By regarding the time delay as the bifurcation parameter and analyzing in detail the eigenvalue problems of system at the positive steady-state solutions, the asymptotic stability of bifurcating steady-state solutions is studied. It is demonstrated that the bifurcating steady-state solutions are asymptotically stable when the delay is less than a certain critical value and is unstable when the delay is greater than this critical value and the system under consideration can undergo a Hopf bifurcation at the bifurcating steady-state solutions when the delay crosses through a sequence of critical values.