• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.113-133
• /
• 2007

The present study was conducted to measure health-related utility for post-menopausal symptoms among Korean woman. A survey questionnaire was developed to measure utility based on visual analogue scale(VAS) and time trade-off method (TTO). From January 29 to February 3, 2007, a face-to-face interview was conducted with 274 women aged 45 to 60 to ask about their subjective utility for hypothetical health status of mild or severe post-menopausal symptoms. Among the participants, 160 were recruited from outpatient departments of 3 hospitals and 114 from 2 sports centers located in Seoul. For mild symptom, the average utility score of the respondents was $0.63{\pm}0.14$ based on VAS and $0.61{\pm}0.26$ based on ITO. For severe symptoms, the average utility was $0.39{\pm}0.16$(VAS) and $0.44{\pm}0.27$ (TTO). For severe symptom, a higher utility score was observed for TTO than for VAS, which is consistent with earlier studies and thus supports the validity of the utility measurement in this study. Overall, the severity of post-menopausal symptoms of the respondents themselves was not significantly associated with the utility score that the respondents answered for hypothetical health status. Multiple regression analysis results showed that the utility score was significantly higher among respondents with older age, higher education, higher family income, and from hospitals. It is expected that the utility score measured in this study will enhance the understanding of the quality of life of women after menopause and will be used to conduct cost-utility analysis of health care interventions to treat post-menopausal symptoms.

• Journal of KIISE:Databases
• /
• v.34 no.5
• /
• pp.409-419
• /
• 2007

Database community focuses on the similar music retrieval systems for music database when a humming query is given. One of the approaches is converting the midi data to time series, building their indices and performing the similarity search on them. Queries based on humming can be transformed to time series by using the known pitch detection algorithms. The recently suggested algorithm, scaled and warped matching, is based on dynamic time warping and uniform scaling. This paper proposes Humming BIRD(Humming Based sImilaR mini music retrieval system) using sliding window and center-aligned scaled and warped matching. Center-aligned scaled and warped matching is a mixed distance measure of center-aligned uniform scaling and time warping. The newly proposed measure gives tighter lower bound than previous ones which results in reduced search space. The empirical results show the superiority of this algorithm comparing the pruning power while it returns the same results.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
• /
• v.47 no.4
• /
• pp.396-402
• /
• 2004

For industrial application to manufacturing functional foods for health using browned oak mushroom, we examined its reducing power, inhibitory effect on intracellular reactive oxygen species, phenolic compounds and phytates contents, modulatory effects on NO radical and matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9) generation by activated macrophages, and antimutagenicity in order to evaluate the functionality of browned oak mushroom for health. While overall ethanolic extracts have higher reducing power than aqueous extracts, browning reaction was found to increase reducing power by up to 28% at a 3.32 mg/ml sample concentration. Browning reaction also increased phenolic compound content by about 73% compared to raw mushroom. However, any significant change in phytate content could not be detected. At a concentration of $100\;{\mu}g/ml$, treatment of ethanolic extract of oak mushroom increased NO generation over 43% in LPS-stimulated macrophage. On the contrary, the aqueous extracts rather decreased it over 17% at the same sample dose. However, any solvent extract from browned oak mushroom seems not to cause any change in both NO production and MMP9 activity. In addition, browning reaction did not allow any significant change in suppressive effect on mitomycin C-induced mutagenesis as examined with SOS chromotest. These results suggest a possible use of browned oak mushroom with unmarketable quality as a material for development of a variety of processed functional foods for health.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
• /
• v.17 no.6
• /
• pp.724-736
• /
• 2012

This study was intended to investigate the sodium-related perception, dietary behavior, and practicability of methods for reducing sodium intake(RSI) according to the stage of change in consumers. The survey was conducted to 770 housewives, among them 553 subjects who answered the key questions for the stage of change were categorized into 'Maintenance (M)' stage (maintaining reduced salt intake for more than 6 months; n = 287, 51.90%), 'Action (A)' stage (maintaining reduced salt intake for less than 6 months; n=139, 25.14%), and 'Pre-Action (P)' stage (not starting reduced salt intake; n = 127, 22.97%). The subjects in M and A were significantly older than those in P (p < 0.01). The scores of desirable dietary habit and dietary balance were the highest in M followed by A and P. When eating out, the subjects in P considered 'price' more and 'healthiness of food' less than those in M and A did. Among the guidelines for RSI, 'Avoid Processed Foods', 'Eat enough vegetables and fruits' and 'Add little amount of dipping sauce for fried food' were selected as the three easiest items to perform. With regard to the sodium-related perception, the subjects in M considered eating-out food to be more salty than homemade dishes, read nutrition labels more, avoided table salt or dipping sauce for fried food more, and had 'own low-sodium recipe' than those in P (p < 0.001). It is suggested that practicability of actions for RSI and the stage of change should be considered to develop effective personalized education program and nutrition guidance.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.264-276
• /
• 2010

The objectives of this study were to introduce the methods of soil respiration measurement, to review soil respiration studies conducted in Korea, and to suggest potential issues generated from using various methods for soil respiration measurement. According to the measurement principles, the methods of soil respiration measurements are classified as: alkali absorption method (AA), closed chamber method (CC), closed dynamic chamber method (CDC), and open flow method (OF). Based on the litereaure review on soil respiration studies in Korea, the CDC method was mostly used by the researchers (62%), followed by the AA (17%), OF (13%) and CC (8%) methods. Along with these methods, various instruments were used such as LI-6400-09, EGM-3, EGM-4, and automatic soil respiration chamber. Most of the soil respiration measurements were carried out in forest ecosystems and the reported soil respiration showed a wide range of variations from 130 to 900 mg $CO_2\;m^{-2}h^{-1}$. Continuous monitoring of soil respiration with minimal disturbance and the potential inconsistency in measurements are still the challenges facing the researchers, causing a paucity in quality datasets of sufficient quantity. Few attempts of intercomparison among different methods hinder the data users from synthetic analysis and assessment of the collected datasets. In order to better estimate soil carbon budget and understand their exchange mechanisms in key ecosystems of Korea, it is necessary to measure soil respiration at various plant functional types, soils, and climate conditions over a decadal time scale along with the study on the partitioning of soil respiration into autotrophic and heteorotrophic components.

• Applied Microscopy
• /
• v.32 no.3
• /
• pp.285-290
• /
• 2002

The therapeutic effect of safflower seed powder on experimental osteoporosis in the rat induced by ovariectomy was evaluated. Thirty Sprague-Dawley rats were ovariectomized at the age of 12 weeks. Seven weeks postovariectomy, rats were divided into two groups: control and safflower seed powder treated group. Five animals from each group were sacrificed at the following time points: 1, 3, and 5 weeks. Scanning electron microscopic observation and morphometric analysis of the tibiae epiphysis showed that the administration of safflower seed powder significantly prevented reduction of cortical bone width and bone volume compared with the control group. In conclusion, safflower seed powder contains something that prevent bone loss due to estrogen deficiency, and was effective in preventing the osteoporotic decrease of bone mass.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
• /
• v.28 no.5
• /
• pp.845-849
• /
• 2010

This study was conducted to compare various culture methods and evaluate economic feasibility of each method for mass propagation of new ever-bearing strawberry 'Goha'. Four different methods such as semi-solid culture, solid culture, liquid suspension culture and bioreactor culture were compared. The solid culture and bioreactor culture showed the shortest and longest root length, such as 3.6 cm and 8.3 cm, respectively. Fresh weights of plants cultured in bioreactor were 2,261 mg, which were heavier than those of cultures. Dry weights of plants cultured in bioreactor were the heavier compared to those in other cultures. The number of axillary bud developed in bioreactor was seven, but axillary bud was not developed in other cultures. Production cost through bioreactor culture was calculated to be 303 won per plant which was 542 won less than that of solid culture. As a result, we found that the bioreactor culture was the most cost effective culture method for in vitro mass propagation in new ever-bearing strawberry 'Goha'.

• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
• /
• v.1 no.4
• /
• pp.268-274
• /
• 2006

Bacillus sp. DYL130 producing biosurfactant was isolated from soil samples in the Duck-yu mountain and identified as Bacillus sp. by analysis of 16S rDNA sequence. Purification of the biosurfactant was performed by using affinity chromatography and TLC. The biosurfactant of culture medium from Bacillus sp. DYL130 was eluted with 100% methanol using affinity chromatography. To remove methanol, a rotary evaporator was used and enrichment sample was dissolved in alkaline water(pH 10). The purified biosurfactant was identified by TLC. It was confirmed that the Rf value of the biosurfactant was 0.78. Antifungal activity against Botrytis cineria was showed the strongly activity as active antagonist. Maximum emulsification activity and stability were obtained from soybean oil. The critical micelle concentration (CMC) of purified biosurfactant was 35mg/l and the purified biosurfactant inhibited biofilm forming by Bacillus sp..

• Journal of Life Science
• /
• v.20 no.11
• /
• pp.1589-1594
• /
• 2010

Glutaraldehyde was used to cross-link chitosan beads to immobilize the crude enzyme $\beta$-glucosidase from Exiguobacterium sp. DAU5. The conditions for preparing cross-linking chitosan beads and immobilization such as concentration of glutaradehyde, cross-linking time, immobilization pH and time were optimized. The chitosan beads were cross-linked with 1.5% glutaraldehyde for 1.5 hr. The immobilized $\beta$-glucosidase had an overall yield of 20% and specific activity of 5.22 U/g. The optimized pH and temperature were 9.0 and $55^{\circ}C$, respectively. More than 80% of its activity at pH 7.0-10.0, 80% at $40^{\circ}C$ for 2 hr and 48% at $50^{\circ}C$ for 1 hr, were retained. However, the immobilization product showed higher pH and thermal stabilities than free enzymes. It also showed high hydrolyzing activity on soybean isoflavone glycoside linkage. These results suggest the broad application prospects of immobilization enzymes.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.273-279
• /
• 1999

Forty plants used as tea materials were chosen for determining the contents of total phenolics, selenium (Se), ${\beta}-carotene$, ${\alpha}-tocopherol$ and ascorbate. Total phenolics and ascorbate contents were analyzed colorimetrically. The Se contents were measured by hydride-atomic absorption spectrometry. The contents of ${\beta}-carotene$ and ${\alpha}-tocopherol$ were simultaneously determined by high performance liquid chromatography using separate detectors, UV for ${\beta}-carotene$ and FL for ${\alpha}-tocopherol$ analyses. The contents of these antioxidants were as follows (per 100 g dry plant); Contents of total phenolics in green tea leaf, black tea leaf, oolong tea leaf and instant coffee were about 7 g and the Se contents in corni fructus and arrowroot were found to be about $4{\mu}g$, which were the highest among all plants used. Contents of ${\beta}-carotene$ in eucommiae cortex, persimmon leaf and green tea leaf were 8587, 6222 and $3652\;{\mu}g$ respectively. The persimon leaf contained the highest ${\alpha}-tocopherol$ content (33 mg) and then followed by eucommiae cortex (26 mg), green tea leaf (16 mg) and black tea leaf (13 mg) in order. Ascorbate contents were found to be high in green tea leaf (199 mg) and black tea leaf (117 mg).