• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.215-217
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• 2016

Background: Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most frequent form of leukemia in Europe and North America, and it mainly affects older individuals. Many approaches are implemented in the management of CLL from a watch and wait (W&W) strategy to chemotherapeutic regimens. We here reviewed our clinical practice for the relevance of the W&W strategy in Lebanese CLL patients. Materials and Methods: A total of 95 patients with CLL diagnosed in four institutions in Lebanon, between 1992 and 2013, were selected and their files were reviewed. Characteristics of these patients were noted including age, sex, RAI and Binet scores, CBC values, presence of hepatomegaly or splenomegaly, performance of bone marrow biopsy or peripheral blood flux cytometry for diagnosis, adoption of W&W strategy, different chemotherapeutic regimens and the indications for treatment. Results: Some 38 patients (40%) diagnosed with CLL were women and 57 (60%) were men with a mean age of 65.1 years [36-89]. Of the total, 50.5%, 17.2%, 14%, 7.5% and 10.8% had an RAI score at diagnosis of 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively, while 65.6%, 17.2% and 17.2% had Binet scores of I, II and III. The mean lymphocyte count at diagnosis was $39885/mm^3$ [1596-290000], the mean hemoglobin level was 12.7 g/dl [6.2-17] and the mean platelet count was $191255/mm^3$ [14000-458000]. While 26.3% of patients with CLL had splenomegaly, only 7.4% had hepatomegaly. Some 33.7% had undergone a bone marrow biopsy, 66.3% flow cytometry of circulating blood and 5.3% a lymph node biopsy. Overall, the W&W was adopted in 62.4% (58) of patients with a mean duration of 37.7 months [3-216]. The W&W was used in 82.6%, 73.3%, 46.2%, 14.3% and 0% of patients having RAI scores of 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively, and, it was used in 80%, 46.7% and 6.25% with Binet scores of I, II and III. The most frequent indication for treatment was anemia and thrombocytopenia, accounting for 32.7% of cases. The most frequently used chemotherapeutical regimens were chlorambucil until the end of the last century and flufarabine-cyclophosphamide-rituximab during the last decade. Conclusions: This retrospective review of CLL clinical practice showed an important implementation of the W&W strategy with a long duration, especially in early stage cases with low RAI or Binet scores.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.6135-6140
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• 2013

Background: Breast cancer is a common malignant tumor which affects health of women and multidrug resistance (MDR) is one of the main factors leading to failure of chemotherapy. This study was conducted to establish paclitaxel-resistant breast cancer cell line and nude mice models to explore underlying mechanisms of MDR. Methods: The breast cancer drug-sensitive cell line MCF-7 (MCF-7/S) was exposed in stepwise escalating paclitaxel (TAX) to induce a resistant cell line MCF-7/TAX. Cell sensitivity to drugs and growth curves were measured by MTT assay. Changes of cell morphology and ultrastructure were examined by optical and electron microscopy. The cell cycle distribution was determined by flow cytometry. Furthermore, expression of proteins related to breast cancer occurrence and MDR was tested by immunocytochemistry. In Vivo, nude mice were injected with MCF-7/S and MCF-7/TAX cells and weights and tumor sizes were observed after paclitaxel treatment. In addition, proteins involved breast cancer and MDR were detected by immunohistochemistry. Results: Compared to MCF-7/S, MCF-7/TAX cells had a higher resistance to paclitaxel, cross-resistance and prolonged doubling time. Moreover, MCF-7/TAX showed obvious alterations of ultrastructure. Estrogen receptor (ER) expression was low in drug resistant cells and tumors while expression of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and Ki-67 was up-regulated. P-glycoprotein (P-gp), lung resistance-related protein (LRP) and glutathione-S-transferase-${\pi}$ (GST-${\pi}$) involved in the MDR phenotype of resistant cells and tumors were all overexpressed. Conclusion: The underlying MDR mechanism of breast cancer may involve increased expression of P-gp, LRP and GST-${\pi}$.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.5915-5920
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• 2013

Aim: Although aberrant miRNA expression has been documented, altered miR-101 expression in cervical cancer and its carcinogenic effects and mechanisms remain unexplored. The aim of our study was to investigate the role of miR-101 alteration in cervical carcinogenesis. Methods: Expression of miR-101 was examined by quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR) in Hela cells. After modulating miR-101 expression using miR-101 mimics, cell growth, apoptosis and proliferation, and migration were tested separately by MTT or flow cytometry and cell wound healing assay and protein expression was detected by qRT-PCR. The expression of COX-2 in Hela cell was also examined by immunohistochemical staining and the correlation with miR-101 expression was analysed. Results: The miR-101 demonstrated significantly low expression in Hela cell. When we transfected miR-101 mimics into Hela cells, the modulation of miR-101 expression remarkably influenced cell proliferation, cycling and apoptosis: 1) The expression of microRNA-101 tended to increase after transfection; 2) Overexpression of miR-101 was able to promote cell apoptosis, the apoptosis rate being markedly higher (97.6%) than that seen pre-transfection (12.2%) (P<0.05); 3) The miR-101 negatively regulates cell migration and invasion, scratch results being lower ($42.7um{\pm}2um$) than that observed pre-transfection ($181.4um{\pm}2um$); 4) miRNA-101 inhibits the proliferation of Hela cells as well as the level of COX-2 protein, which was negatively correlated with miR-101 expression. Conclusions: Overexpression of miR-101 has obvious inhibitory effects on cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Thus reduced miR-101 expression could participate in the development of cervical cancer at least partly through loss of inhibition of target gene COX-2, which probably occurs in a relative late phase of carcinogenesis. Our data suggest an important role of miR-101 in the molecular etiology of cancer and indicate potential application of miR-101 in cancer therapy.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.290-302
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• 2014

Purpose : Susceptibility-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) sequence is three-dimensional (3D), spoiled gradient-echo pulse sequences that provide a high sensitivity for the detection of blood degradation products, calcifications, and iron deposits. This pictorial review is aimed at illustrating and discussing its main clinical applications. Materials and Methods: SWI is based on high-resolution, 3D, fully velocity-compensated gradient-echo sequences using both magnitude and phase images. To enhance the visibility of the venous structures, the magnitude images are multiplied with a phase mask generated from the filtered phase data, which are displayed at best after post-processing of the 3D dataset with the minimal intensity projection algorithm. A total of 200 patients underwent MR examinations that included SWI on a 3 tesla MR imager were enrolled. Results: SWI is very useful in detecting multiple brain disorders. Among the 200 patients, 80 showed developmental venous anomaly, 22 showed cavernous malformation, 12 showed calcifications in various conditions, 21 showed cerebrovascular accident with susceptibility vessel sign or microbleeds, 52 showed brain tumors, 2 showed diffuse axonal injury, 3 showed arteriovenous malformation, 5 showed dural arteriovenous fistula, 1 showed moyamoya disease, and 2 showed Parkinson's disease. Conclusion: SWI is useful in detecting occult low flow vascular lesions, calcification and microbleed and characterising diverse brain disorders.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.52-62
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• 1974

The fresh water prawn, Macrobrachium rosenbergi (De Maan) is a very common species in Info-pacific region inhabiting both fresh and brackish waters in low land areas, and especially abundant in the lower reaches of most rivers which are influenced by seawater, It is one of the largest and commercial species of genus Macrobrachium. As a place of the researches to clear the possibilities of transplantation and propagation of this species in the Far East region the larval development, growth, optimum temperature and metamorphose rate up to first post larvae in aquaruim are cleared under the conditions of salinity $6.58-7.05\%_{\circ}$ Cl, pH 8.0-8.2, the rate of flow 0.3 liter per minute and illumination 3000 lux. Temperature ranged from 27.5 to $28.7^{\circ}C$ during the period of earlier larval development. For the study oil the relationship between temperature and metamorphose rate from zoea to first post larvae, the temperatures in experimental tank were $22.2^{\circ}C\pm1$, $26.1^{\circ}C\pm0.85$, $28.1^{\circ}C\pm0.34$, $30.4^{\circ}C\pm0.66$, $33.7^{\circ}C\pm0.66$, $33.7^{\circ}C\pm0.38$ and $36.8^{\circ}C\pm0.26$. During the work, food used for the larvae was Artemia salina nauplius in the filter-circulation aquariums. This species metamorphosed to the first post-larvae through eleven zoea stages, and the characters of each larval stage are described and optimum temperature for metamorphosis rate and survivals to the first post larvae is $28.1^{\circ}C\pm0.34$.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.102-109
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• 2017

The high pressure pump of a diesel injection system compresses the fuel supplied at low pressure into high pressure fuel and maintains the fuel of the common rail at the required pressure level according to the engine operating conditions. The high pressure pump is required to operate normally in order to compress the fuel to a high pressure of 2000 bar during the entire lifetime of the vehicle. Consequently, a suitable design technique, material durability and high precision machining are required. In this study, the high pressure pump simulation model of a 1-plunger radial piston pump is modelled by using the AMESim code. The main simulation parameters are the displacement, flow rate and pressure characteristics of the inlet and outlet valves, cam torque characteristics, and operating characteristics of the fuel metering valve and overflow valve. In addition, the operating characteristics of the pump are simulated according to the parameter changes of the hole diameter and the spring initial force of the inlet valve. The simulation results show that the operation of the developed pump model is logically valid. This paper also proposes a simulation model that can be used for current pump design changes and new pump designs.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.41 no.8
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• pp.855-862
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• 2008

Surface Image Velocimetry (SIV) is an instrument to measure water surface velocity by using image processing techniques. To improve its measuring accuracy, it is essential to get high quality images with low skewness. A truck-mounted SIV system would be a good way to get images, since its crane gives high altitude to the images. However, the images taken with a truck-mounted SIV would be swayed due to the movement of crane and the camera by winds. In that case, to analyze the images, it is necessary to compensate the side sway in the images. The present study is to develop an algorithm to analyze the swayed images by combining common image processing techniques and coordinate transform techniques. The system follows the traces of some selected fixed points and calculates the displacements of the video camera. By subtracting the average velocity of the fixed points from that of grid points, the velocity fields of the flow can be corrected. To evaluate the system's performance, two image sets were used, one image set without side sway and another set with side sway. The comparison of their results showed very close with the error of around 6 %.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.144-149
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• 2014

Large residual stresses are remained in the conventional injection molded products because of the high cavity pressure in packing phase during injection molding process. Conventional injection molding (CIM) invokes distribution of cavity pressure and it has a limitation to obtain product with uniform physical property. Multi-cavity conventional injection molding contains quality deviation among the cavities since flow imbalance occurs during filling phase. Injection compression molding (ICM) is adopted to overcome these limitations of CIM. In this study, molding characteristics of CIM and ICM have been investigated using multi-cavity injection mold. Researches were performed by both experiment and computer simulation through observations of birefringence for transparent resins, polycarbonate and polystyrene in CIM and ICM. As a result, low and uniform birefringence and mold shrinkage were showed in the specimens by ICM that could give a uniform cavity pressure. Deviation of physical property among the specimens in multi-cavity mold shown in CIM was significantly reduced in the specimens by ICM. Through this study it was concluded that the ICM in multi-cavity molding was valid for molding products with uniform property in an individual cavity and also reduced property deviation among the cavities.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.63-68
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• 2014

Manufacturing facility for non-alcoholic drink, the parts of the food industry, disposes wastewater which includes high organic concentration and low nitrogen, phosphorus concentration. For this kind of wastewater, the treatment plant consists mainly of aerobic reactor and chemical coagulation process. And sand-filter or activated carbon process is normally installed further. However, aerobic reactor must have long HRT to treat high concentration of organic contaminant included in this wastewater, so the large site area is required. And settling tank which is normally applied for wastewater treatment facility has some problems such as water quality degradation caused by the sludge spill. To solve these problems, we applied MBR system for the wastewater. And the MBR pilot plant was installed nearby the wastewater treatment facility of W food factory and operated during long term to evaluate treatment efficiency. This plant was operated about 3 months and than the result was 97% of organic removal rate on conditions of flow rate $20m^3/day$, HRT 29 hr, recycle 4Q. However, contaminant removal ratio of bio-reactor decreased and TMP of membrane increased rapidly on more conditions.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.432-438
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• 2009

Here, we demonstrated simple nucleic acid, RNA, concentration method using polymer micro chip containing glass bead ($100\;{\mu}m$). Polymer micro chip was fabricated by PDMS ($1.5\;cm\;{\times}\;1.5\;cm$, $100\;{\mu}m$ in the height) including pillar structure ($160\;{\mu}m\;(I)\;{\times}\;80\;{\mu}m\;(w)\;{\times}\;100\;{\mu}m\;(h)$, gap size $50\;{\mu}m$) for blocking micro bead. RNA could be adsorbed on micro glass bead at low pH by hydrogen bonding whereas RNA was released at high pH by electrostatic force between silica surface and RNA. Amount of glass beads and flow rate were optimized in aspects of adsorption and desorption of RNA. Adsorption and desorption rate was measured with real time PCR. This concentrated RNA was applied to amplification micro chip in which NASBA (Nucleic Acid Sequence Based Amplification) was performed. As a result, E.coli O157 : H7 in the concentration of 10 c.f.u./10 mL was successfully detected by these serial processes (concentration and amplification) with polymer micro chips. It implies this simple concentration method using polymer micro chip can be directly applied to ultra sensitive method to measure viable bacteria and virus in clinical samples as well as environmental samples.