• Journal of Life Science
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.718-725
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• 2018

Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) has been implicated in cell proliferation and apoptosis in several types of cancer. In this study, the impact of TLR4 activation on apoptotic cell death in gynecologic cancers induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was investigated. Cervical cancer cell lines were produced from isolated surgical specimens supplied by Paik Hospital. The primary cultures of normal myometrium and gynecologic cancers, including cervical, endometrial, and ovarian cancers, were used to examine the differences in morphological characteristics between normal and cancerous cells. A reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction analysis was used to determine the relative expression levels of TLR4 gene involved in apoptosis-associated signaling in cervical cancer cells. The cancer cell colonies showed a tendency to reach high levels of confluency compared with normal cells. In addition, an enhanced growth rate and loss of contact inhibition were observed in gynecologic cancer cells compared with normal cells (doubling times of 16.6 hr vs. 26 hr, respectively). The expression level of ITGA5, an alpha-5 integrin marker, was upregulated in normal myometrial cells, but this tendency was not exhibited in cervical cancer cells. Furthermore, p53 tumor suppressor gene expression was upregulated, whereas TLR4 and caspase-3 gene expressions were downregulated in cervical cancer cells. Notably, the expression levels of TLR4 and caspase-3 were increased significantly in LPS-treated cancer cells compared with those in non-LPS-treated cells. These results suggest that the TLR4-mediated caspase-dependent apoptotic signaling pathway could be suggested as a therapeutic target for the treatment of gynecologic cancers, including cervical cancers.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.204-212
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• 2005

Recognition has emerged that nutrient inputs from the submarine discharge of fresh, brackish, and marine groundwaters into the coastal ocean are comparable to the inputs via river discharge. The coastal areas of the Korea peninsula and adjacent seas exhibit particular importance in the role of submarine groundwater discharge (SGD), in terms of the magnitude of SGD and associated continental material fluxes. For example, in the southern sea of Korea, SGD transports excess nutrients into the coastal regions and thus appears to influence ecosystem changes such as the outbreak of red tides. Around volcanic island, Jeju, which is composed of high permeability rocks, the amount of SGD is higher by orders of magnitude relative to the eastern coast of North America where extensive SGD studies have been conducted. In particular, nutrient discharge through SGD exerts a significant control on coastal ecosystem changes and results in benthic eutrophication in semi-enclosed Bang-du bay, Jeju. In the entire area of the Yellow Sea, tile submarine discharge of brackish groundwater and associated nutrients are found to rival the river discharges into the Yellow Sea, including those through Yangtze River, Han River, etc. In the eastern coast of the Korea peninsula, SGD is significantly higher during summer than winter due to high hydraulic gradients and due to wide distribution of high permeability sandy zones, faults, and fractures. On the other hand, in the estuarine water, downstream construction of the dam in the Nakdong River, SGD was highest when the river discharge was lowest (but water level of the dam was highest). This suggests that even though there is no visible freshwater discharge into this estuary, the discharge of chemical species is significant through SGD. On the basis of the results obtained from the coastal areas of the Korea peninsula, SGD is considered to be an important pathway of continental contaminants influencing tidal-flat ecosystems, red tides, and coral ecology. Thus, future costal management should pay great attention to the impact of SGD on coastal pollution and eutrophication.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.274-286
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• 2010

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the rearing, health and nutrition services through intervention in GP-GC (grandparents-grandchildren) families. Methods: A structured questionnaire was administered in January 2008 and January 2009 to 55(70) grandparents of GP-GC families who received intervention services also GP-GC families that did not receive services. The study area was the city of Chunnam Province, South Korea. The intervention services were provided by electronic voucher one day per week. The questionnaire assessed the general characteristics of the grandparents, childcare stress and burden, health status (ADL, IADL, depression, subjective health status and fall index) and mini nutritional assessment(MNA). The data were analyzed using SPSS software and an F-test, Chi-squared test and t-test. Results: The stress of grandparents resulting from childcare was high, but depression in grandparents perceived by grandchildren was significantly lower in served GP-GC families than in non-served GP-GC families. Differences in scores of affection (t=2.12, df=116, p<.05), automatics (t=2.92, df=116, p<.01), realistic(t=2.24, df=116, p<.05), and level of depression(t=2.90, df=116, p<.01) were significant. Incidences of acute disease, IADL cognitive fuction and depression of grandparents were slightly higher. Intervention services for GP-GC families had an impact on the childcare attitude and health status of grandparents. The intervention services of nutrition for grandparents were not promoted, but the scoring for subjective nutrition status were statistically higher for the served group (t=18.230, p<.0001). Conclusions: This study found that intervention programs of childcare services and health and nutrition management are effective for grandparents of GP-GC families. Intervention services for GP-GC family should establish the political issue.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.74-82
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• 2011

During the industrialization and urbanization of the country, urban rivers have been covered over and developed without forethought and thus became estranged from spaces utilized by area residents in everyday life. Recently, an influx of people and uses have increased largely because accessibility improved through restoration projects which have transformed these river areas into pleasant environments. It thus appears that these projects have an impact on community consciousness for area residents who live near the restored rivers to some extent. The purpose of this study was to determine via questionnaire the effects and influences of urban river restoration on area residents targeting visitors to Seongnaecheon(stream), Songpa-gu, Seoul, which has been restored recently. Factors in the questionnaire analysis included such items as the use status of Seongnaecheon, community consciousness(feeling of belonging, solidarity, feeling settled), and a before and after comparison of the restoration(change of consciousness, regional effects), etc. According to the results of analysis, visitors who have utilized the stream more than 1~2 times per week after the restoration project accounted for the greatest portion. The main purposes of these visits were to 'rest' and 'exercise' while the ratio of using it as a 'meeting space with neighbors and strangers' was low. Community consciousness of area residents using Seongnaecheon was generally high. As a result of an analysis of consciousness differences between groups after dividing visitors into 3 groups according to the frequency of visits, there were significant differences in the consciousness level between groups with high community consciousness levels in visitors who visited frequently. In consideration of these results, the provision of programs along with proper facilities that can be used is deemed important for area residents so as to inspire community consciousness of the area by means of activating both community activities and the progressive use of the restored river.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.51 no.7
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• pp.742-746
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• 2008

Purpose : The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects and adverse side-effects of growth hormone (GH) therapy in children with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS). Methods : Forty-one patients who had been treated with GH for more than two years (24 boys and 17 girls, mean age $7.3{\pm}3.3$ years during treatment initiation) were enrolled for this study. Results : After 2 years of GH therapy, the height and weight standard deviation scores (SDS) increased significantly ($-1.19{\pm}1.37$ vs. $-0.02{\pm}1.45$, and $1.02{\pm}2.42$ vs. $1.63{\pm}2.22$, P<0.002); however the percentage body fat decreased ($44.6{\pm}9.9%$ vs. $38.1{\pm}10.5%$, P<0.001). Further, no change was observed in the thyroid and serum glucose levels, but the total cholesterol level decreased. GH therapy did not impact glucose control in the patients with diabetes. The most common adverse effects of GH therapy were the progression of scoliosis and adenoid hypertrophy. Conclusion : GH therapy improved the height SDS and body composition in patients with PWS. However, GH should be used with caution in patients with scoliosis and adenoid hypertrophy.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.101-123
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• 2010

Recently, firms are operating a number of teams to accomplish organizational performance. Especially, ad hoc teams like proposal preparation team are quite different from permanent teams like R&D team in the sense of how the team forms network structure and deals with organizational learning culture and knowledge management participation efforts. Moreover, depending on the team characteristics, individual creativity will differ from each other, which will lead to organizational performance eventually. Previous studies in the field of creativity are lacking in this issue. So main objectives of this study are organized as follows. First, the issue of how to improve individual creativity and organizational performance will be analyzed empirically. This issue will be performed depending on team characteristics such as ad hoc team and permanent team. Antecedents adopted for this research objective are cultural and knowledge factors such as organizational learning culture, and knowledge management participation. Second, the network structure such as degree centrality, and structural hole is used to analyze its influence on individual creativity and organizational performance. SI (System Integration) companies are facing severely tough requirements from clients to submit very creative proposals. Also, R&D teams are widely accepted as relatively creative teams because their responsibilities are focused on suggesting innovative techniques to make their companies remain competitive in the market. SI teams are usually ad hoc, while R&D teams are permanent on an average. By taking advantage of these characteristics of the two kinds of teams, we will prove the validity of the proposed research questions. To obtain the survey data, we accessed 7 SI teams (74 members), and 6 R&D teams (63 members), collecting 137 valid questionnaires. PLS technique was applied to analyze the survey data. Results are as follows. First, in case of SI teams, organizational learning culture affects individual creativity significantly. Meanwhile, knowledge management participation has a significant influence on Individual creativity for the permanent teams. Second, degree centrality Influences individual creativity significantly in case of SI teams. This is comparable with the fact that structural hole has a significant impact on individual creativity for the R&D teams. Practical implications can be summarized as follows: First, network structure of ad hoc team should be designed differently from one of permanent team. Ad hoc team is supposed to show a high creativity in a rather short period, implying that network density among team members should be improved, and those members with high degree centrality should be encouraged to show their Individual creativity and take a leading role by allowing them to get heavily engaged in knowledge sharing and diffusion. In contrast, permanent team should be designed to take advantage of structural hole instead of focusing on network density. Since structural hole can be utilized very effectively in the permanent team, strong arbitrators' merits in the permanent team will increase and therefore helps increase both network efficiency and effectiveness too. In this way, individual creativity in the permanent team is likely to lead to organizational creativity in a seamless way. Second, way of Increasing individual creativity should be sought from the perspective of organizational culture and knowledge management. Organization is supposed to provide a cultural atmosphere in which Innovative idea suggestions and active discussion among team members are encouraged. In this way, trust builds up among team members, facilitating the formation of organizational learning culture. Third, in the ad hoc team, organizational looming culture should be built such a way that individual creativity can grow up fast in a rather short period. Since time is tight, reasonable compensation policy, leader's Initiatives, and learning culture formation should be done In a short period so that mutual trust is built among members quickly, and necessary knowledge and information can be learnt rapidly. Fourth, in the permanent team, it should be kept in mind that the degree of participation in knowledge management determines level of Individual creativity. Therefore, the team ought to facilitate knowledge circulation process such as knowledge creation, storage, sharing, utilization, and learning among team members, which will lead to team performance. In this way, firms must control knowledge networks in permanent team and ad hoc team in a way mentioned above so that individual creativity as well as team performance can be maximized.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.255-264
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• 2017

To evaluate the water quality changes in agricultural reservoir covered with floating photovoltaic solar-tracking systems, the water quality variations with time and depth were monitored on both six sites for light blocking zones and four sites for light penetration zones after the installation of floating photovoltaic solar-tracking systems in Geumgwang reservoir at Anseong-si, Kyeonggi province. For one year with 16 monitoring events, water quality parameters [i.e., water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), chlorophyll-a (Chl-a), and blue-green algae (BGA)] were monitored at depths of 0.3 m, 1 m, 3 m, and 5 m, while chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) were monitored at depths of 0.3 m. Statistically, the difference in all water quality parameters was not significantly different (p > 0.05) at the level of significance of 0.05. Based on these results, the water quality data from light blocking zones (site 1~6) and light penetration zones (site 7~10) were clustered, and were compared with time and depth. As a result, the difference in water temperature, pH, DO, COD, TN, TP, Chl-a, and BGA between light blocking zones and light penetration zones was not significant (p > 0.05) with different time and depth. For Chl-a and BGA, some data from light blocking zones greater than light penetration zones were temporary observed due to the severe drought, low water storage rate, and over growth of periphyton. However, this temporal phenomenon did not impact the water quality. Considering the small water surface area (${\leq}0.5%$) covered by floating photovoltaic solar-tracking systems, the mixing effect of whole Geumgwang reservoir caused by Ekman current and continuous discharge were more dominant than the effect of reduced solar irradiance. Further study is warranted to monitor the changes in water quality and aquatic ecosystems with greater water surface area covered by floating photovoltaic solar-tracking systems for a long time.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.35-43
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• 2018

Objectives : Effects of multiple trauma are complex and extend beyond core PTSD symptoms. However, few psychological instruments for trauma assessment address this issue of symptom complexity. The Trauma Symptom Checklist-40 (TSC-40) is a self-report scale that assesses wide range of symptoms associated with childhood or adult traumatic experience. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the validity of the Korean Version of the TSC-40 in a sample of psychiatric outpatients. Methods : Data of 367 treatment-seeking patients with DSM-IV diagnoses were obtained from an outpatient department of psychiatric unit at a university hospital. The diagnoses were anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, depressive disorder, adjustment disorder and others. Included in the psychometric data were the TSC-40, the Life events checklist, the Impact of Event Scale-Revised, the Zung's Self-report Depression Scale, and the Zung's Self-report Anxiety Scale. Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ for internal consistency were calculated. Convergent and concurrent validity was approached with correlation between the TSC-40 and other scales (PTSD, anxiety and depression). Results : Exploratory factor analysis of the Korean Version of TSC-40 extracted seven-factor structure accounted for 59.55% of total variance that was contextually similar to a six-factor structure and five-factor structure of the original English version. The Korean Version of TSC-40 demonstrated a high level of internal consistency. (Cronbach's ${\alpha}=0.94$) and good concurrent and convergent validity with another PTSD scale and anxiety and depression scales. Conclusions : Excellent construct validity of The Korean Version of TSC-40 was proved in this study. And subtle difference in the factor structure may reflect the cultural issues and the sample characteristics such as heterogeneous clinical population (including non-trauma related disorders) and outpatient status. Overall, this study demonstrated that the Korean version of TSC-40 is psychometrically sound and can be used for Korean clinical population.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.243-253
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• 2018

This study aimed to investigate the effects of DCI on glucose control, quality of life(SF-36 Version 2.0, Korean) and SDSCA(Summary of Diabetes Self-Care Activities) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was performed on 46 patients with HbA1c 7.0% taking triple anti-diabetic drug regimen who visited the department of Endocrinology and Metabolism in Chungnam National University Hospital between March 2015 and May 2016. As a result, DCI treatment in the intervention group resulted in significantly reduced HbA1c levels $8.75{\pm}0.79%$(baseline), $8.36{\pm}1.03%$(after 12weeks), and $8.65{\pm}0.81%$(after 24weeks). However, patients in the control group did not show any significant change. Interestingly, both DCI treatment group and the control group significantly showed improvements in SDSCA. Participants in the intervention group showed a small yet significant improvement in their only fasting blood glucose test in SDSCA and revealed significant increase in the quantitative levels of quality of life, from $73.05{\pm}16.85$ to $82.74{\pm}10.68$. By using pathway analysis, improvement of SDSCA scores(${\beta}=-0.505$, t=-2.743) was the most influential factor to the fasting blood glucose. The quality of life of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus was affected by changes of SDSCA scores(${\beta}=0.411$, t=2.024) and fasting c-peptide(${\beta}=-0.445$, t=-2.668) in DCI treatment group. In conclusion, treatment of DCI effectively improved glucose control in patients with type 2 DM(HbA1c level>7.0%) after 12 weeks of treatment, although it had no impact on glucose control after 24 weeks of treatment. Improved glucose control may encourage diabetic patients to conduct self-care activities and improve the quality of life. Based on the present study, we suggest that diabetes self-management, as well as consideration of comprehensive laboratory findings, may be important factor in regulating the quality of life in type 2 DM patients.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.219-227
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• 2006

Objective: To evaluate the impact of endometriosis on IVF-ET cycles and to compare IVF outcomes between stage I/II and stage III/IV endometriosis. Methods: We analyzed 697 patients (1,199 cycles) with endometriosis (stage I-II:638 cycles, stage III-IV: 561 cycles) and 325 pts (459 cycles) with tubal factor as controls between January 1994 and April 2004. Pts with endometriosis were diagnosed by laparoscopy and medical and surgical treatment were done in 353 cycles (55.3%) and 466 cycles (83.1%) of stage I-ll/stage III-IV endometriosis. Cycles with age>35 years or FSH>20 miU/mL or severe male factor infertility were excluded. Results: The number of retrieved oocytes ($9.97{\pm}7.2$ vs. $13.4{\pm}7.9$ (p<0.0001 )), total number of embryos ($6.5{\pm}4.8$ vs. $9.1{\pm}5.6$ (p<0.0001)), and good quality embryos ($2.43{\pm}1.6$ vs. $2.74{\pm}1.7$ (p=0.013)) significantly decreased in stage III-IV endometriosis than in control. But pregnancy rate of stage III-IV endometriosis was comparable with control (35.7% vs. 36.8%). Fertilization rate and number of total embryos were lower in stage I-II endometriosis than in control ($64.8{\pm}22.9$ vs. $70.8{\pm}20.8$ (p<0.0001), $7.6{\pm}5.0$ vs. $9.1{\pm}5.6$ (p<0.0001)). In patients with medical and surgical treatment of endometriosis, pregnancy rate and live birth rate was significantly lower in stage I-II than in stage III-IV endometriosis (29.2 vs. 36.2 (%), p=0.045, 23.9 vs. 31.5 (%), p=0.043). There was no difference in the mean age, but the duration of infertility was significantly longer ($56.5{\pm}26.3$ vs. $46.9{\pm}25.8$ (mon), p<0.0001) and fertilization rate was lower ($64.7{\pm}23.3$ vs. $70.5{\pm}22.7$ (%), p=0.001) in stage I-II than stage III-IV endometriosis. Conclusion: We suggest that IVF should be considered earlier in patients with minimal to mild endometriosis because of significantly decreased fertilization rates.