• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.49-53
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• 2024

Ceramide is a lipid in which sphingoid bases and fatty acids are linked by amide bonds. As a marker of skin disease in the human stratum corneum, its disease-causing and therapeutic effects have been partially confirmed, and it is therefore an important element in commercially available cosmetic formulations. However, structural diversity caused by differences in the chain length, number, and location of hydroxyl groups makes quality control difficult. In this study, a method was established to separate different ceramide species using reversed-phase LC-MS/MS and thus enable qualitative evaluation. Separation of four standards was achieved within a short retention time, and the accuracy and sensitivity of the method were demonstrated by the low limit of detection (LOD) calculated based on the calibration curve showing linearity, with R² > 0.994. After verification of reproducibility and reliability through intra- and inter-day analyses, the efficiency of the method was confirmed through analysis of commercial cosmetic raw materials.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.79-83
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• 2009

We report a useful method to estimate the electron dose rate which may be a decisive factor to characterize sample properties. Even though most mircoscopes have their own exposure meters, there are several practical concerns when such exposure meters are used to measure the electron dose rate: 1) Specimen should be avoided within the entire area of exposure meter; 2) beam current has to be always recorded whenever the operation mode is changed; 3) the electron dose rate can not be calculated for the beam current beyond the detectable range. To overcome these limitations, we suggest a useful method which utilize a CCD (charge coupled device) camera which is now a popular detector to obtain the final electron micrographs. We have evaluated the CCD sensitivity using the linear relationship between electron current on the exposure meter and counter ratio on the CCD camera which are built in KBSI-HVEM (high voltage electron microscope). Applying the new method, we obtained the CCD sensitivity which are approximately 0.039 counts/$e^-$ and 1.37 counts/$e^-$ for the Top-TV and the HV-GIF CCD cameras, respectively.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.49-52
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• 2012

For TEM study of biological samples or polymers that are contained in organic structure, it is often required that the sample is prepared by using ultramicrotome and stained with proper agents to increase the contrast of organic structure. In this study, we investigated an efficient TEM sample preparation method for ductile heterogeneity material by using ultramicrotomy. Cryo-ultramicrotomy is a suitable method that is capable of rendering sample hardness for various ductile materials. However, it has several factors to consider, such as experimental cost, working time and finding the optimal staining conditions. To satisfy these considerations, we prepared TEM sample by using ultramicrotome without cryofunction, and secured the sample hardness by applying the staining process prior to ultrathin sectioning. The cross-linked polyethylene structure in the sample was stained with the 2% $RuO_4$ solution in a sealed test tube for 24 hours at $4^{\circ}C$. After the sample staining, ultrathin sections of sample were prepared using ultramicrotome. As a result, it was revealed that the difficulties associated with staining of ultrathin sections prepared by low-temperature conditions were improved. In addition, appropriate staining depth of sample could be selected for sectioning process. The quality of TEM sample obtained by using this method was better than that of cryo-ultramicroscopy. Finally, it is expected that our method could be effectively applied in TEM sample preparation for a variety of nano-bio convergence materials.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.411.1-411.1
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• 2014

This study evaluates the utility of an antibacterial microneedle composed of green tea extract (GT) and hyaluronic acid (HA), for the efficient delivery of GT. These microneedles have the potential to be a patient-friendly method for the conventional sustained release of drugs. In this study, a fabrication method using a mold-based technique to produce GT/HA microneedles with a maximum area of ${\sim}60mm^2$ with antibacterial properties was used to manufacture transdermal drug delivery systems. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometry was carried out to observe the potential modifications in the microneedles, when incorporated with GT. The degradation rate of GT in GT/HA microneedles was controlled simply by adjusting the HA composition. The effects of different ratios of GT in the HA microneedles were determined by measuring the release properties. In HA microneedles loaded with 70% GT (GT70), a continuous higher release rate were sustained for 72 h. The in vitro cytotoxicity assays demonstrated that GT/HA microneedles are not generally cytotoxic to chinese hamster ovary cells (CHO-K1), human embryonic kidney cells (293T), and mouse muscle cells (C2C12), which were treated for 12 and 24 h. Antimicrobial activity of the GT/HA microneedles was demonstrated by ~95% growth reduction of gram negative [Escherichia coli (E. coli), Pseudomonas putida (P. putida) and Salmonella typhimurium (S. typhimurium)] and gram positive bacteria [Staphylococcus aureus (S. Aureus) and Bacillus subtilis (B. subtilis)], with GT70. Furthermore, GT/HA microneedles reduced bacterial growth in the infected skin wound sites and improved skin wound healing process in rat model.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.55-61
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• 2007

The KASINICS (Korea Astronomy and Space science Institute Near Infrared Camera System) is a ground-based near-infrared (NIR) imaging instrument. KASINICS has offner relay optics to reduce unwanted infrared light. For the offner optics, we adopted an ultra precision machining process which is installed at KBSI (Korea Basics Science research Institute). Since the offner relay optics is made of aluminum 6061 metal material, we did several tests to reach the specification. We found that a 0.497mm radius nose bite and 220m/min machining speed are best tool and condition to make this offner optics with the precision machine. In this paper, we report the technical method of ultra precision machining and results of the KASINICS offner optics.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.73-77
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• 2009

Contaminative artifacts such as carbonaceous materials on carbon-coated microgrids are unavoidable, which is induced by electron beam exposure inside electron microscopes. This phenomenon raise a source to produce confusing information to the samples investigated by analytical TEM, which should be alleviated as much as possible. As experimental precautions for reducing this unwanted effect, the use of $LN_2$ cooled anti-contaminator and pre-illumination of electron beam at low magnification can be helpful. Nevertheless, we should be cautious to set an illumination condition for microanalysis because the contaminative effect is dependent with the types of irradiation situations, which is well known to be a decisive factor for causing the carbonaceous artifacts. Accordingly, it is necessary that optimal illumination to minimize the contaminative effect should be selected for improving the accuracy of microanalysis. In this paper, we introduce the practical method to determine the optimal illumination condition by evaluating the contaminative effect as a function of instrumental spot size, which is directly linked with electron current density.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.111-121
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• 2007

Coefficient of spherical aberration of the objective lens in the KBSI-HVEM was evaluated by diffractogram method. Instrumental resolution was also discussed with this method. In order to improve the accuracy, digital processing and graphical curve fitting for intensity profile of diffractogram were employed. Experimental concerns where the optimal procedure of the measurement con be accomplished for this study were discussed. The spherical aberration coefficient $(C_s)$ was estimated to be $2.628{\pm}0.04\;mm$ from this study, which was almost coincident with the value of the manufacture's suggestion $(C_s=2.65\;mm)$.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.90-94
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• 2020

Interest in aspects of industrialization relating to human health has increased. Accordingly, the use of labels such as 'natural foods' and 'organic ingredients' has become more widespread, and greater emphasis is being placed on improving quality of life. Water is an essential element for human life, and water quality has a significant impact on human health. However, technology that can precisely determine the substances present in water is still lacking. This study was conducted to establish a complete mass spectrometry process, from pretreatment to analysis, to measure and characterize natural organic matter (NOM) in Korean spring water samples. Salts and other matrices were removed from the samples using solid-phase extraction (SPE) with two different columns (PPL and C18). After establishing an accurate analysis method, the experimental results were evaluated based on Van Krevelen diagrams and analysis of molar O/C and H/C ratios. The method for characterizing NOM introduced herein should facilitate evaluation of water quality.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.277-281
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• 2009

Practical difficulties for preparing a good crosssectional specimen of GaN-based materials for transmission electron microscopy have arisen due to large difference of mechanical properties between hard ceramic substrate and soft GaN-layered materials. Uneven polishing, sudden cracking, delamination, and selective sputtering during the conventional wedge polishing technique are often encountered as experimental hindrances. The preparation technique based on Strecker's method can be applied to overcome these difficulties, which eventually leads to mechanically stable TEM samples independent of the mechanical properties of materials. The basic idea is to use hard ceramic dummy filler for embedding the sample of interest into the dummy frame. In this study, we applied this technique into preparing cross-sectional TEM specimen of the GaN-based materials with mechanical instability and demonstrated usefulness of this hard dummy filler method in which the possible modifications of the sample of interest during the preparation must be avoidable. In addition, practical precautions during the preparation were discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.414-417
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• 2005

Single point diamond turning technique for optical crystals is studied in this paper. The main factors which are influential the machined surface quality are discovered and regularities of machining process are drawn. Optical crystals have found more and more important applications in the field of modern optics. Optical crystals are mostly brittle materials of poor machinability. The traditional machining method is polishing which has many shortcomings such as low production efficiency, poor ability to be automatically controlled and edge effect of the workpiece. The purpose of our research is to find the optimal machining conditions for ductile cutting of optical crystals and to apply the SPDT technique to the manufacturing of ultra precision optical components of brittle material(Ge). Many technical challenges are being tried for the large space infrared telescope, which is one of the major objectives of the National Strategic Technology Road Map (NSTRM).