• The Journal of Korean Academic Society of Nursing Education
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• v.3
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• pp.78-98
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• 1997

Health education, as the most fundamental concept for national health promotion, alms for developing the self-care ability of the general public. High school days are regarded as the period when most important physical, mental and social developments occur, and most health-related behaviors are formed. School health education is one of the major learning resources influencing health potential in the home and community as well as for the individual student. High school health education in Korea has a fundamental systemic flaw in that health-related subjects are divided and taught under various subjects areas at school. In order to achieve the goal of school health education, it is essential to make a systematic assessment of the learner's concerns connected with his health and life, and the factors affecting them. So far, most of the research projects that had been carried out for improving high school health education were limited in their concerns to a particular aspect of health. Even though some had been done in view of comprehensive school health education, they failed to Include a health assessment of the learner. Therefore, in this study the high school students' concerns related to health and life were investigated in the first place on the basis of the PRECEDE model, developed by Green and others for the purpose of a comprehensive diagnostic research on high school health education. This study was done in two steps : one was the basic study for developing research instrument and the other was the main one. The former was conducted at five high schools in Seoul and Cheongju for 2 months-beginning in March, 1996. The students were asked to respond to questions related to their health and lives in unstructured open-ended question forms. On the basis of analysis of the basic study, the diagnostic instruments for the quality of life, health problems, health behavior and educational factors were constructed to be used for the collection of data for main study. An expert panel and the pilot study were used to improve content validity and reliability of the instruments. The reliability of the instruments was measured at between .7697 and .9611 by the Cronbach $\alpha$. The data for this study were collected from the sample consisted of the junior and senior classes of twenty general and vocational high schools in Seoul and Cheongju for two months period beginning in July, 1996. In analyzing the data, both t-test and $X^2$-test were done by using SAS-$PC^+$ Program to compare data between the sexes of the high school students and the types of high school. A canonical correlation analysis was carried out to determine the relationships among the diagnostic variables, and a multivariate multiple regression analysis was conducted by using LISREL 8.03 to ascertain the influences of variables on the high school students' health and quality of life. The results were as follows : 1) The findings of the hypothesis tests (1) The canonical correlation between the educational diagnosis variables and behavioral, epidemiological, social diagnosis variables was .7221, which was significant at the level of p<.001. (2) The canonical correlation between the educational diagnosis variables and the behavior variables was .6851, which also was significant (p<.001). (3) The canonical correlation between the behavioral diagnosis variables and the epidemiological variables was 4295, which was significant (p<.001). (4) The canonical correlation between the epidemiological diagnosis variables and the social variables was .6005, which was also significant (p<.001). Therefore, the relationship between each diagnosis variable suggested by the PRECEDE model had been experimentally proven to be valid, supporting the conceptual framework of the study as appropriate for assessing the multi-dimensional factors affecting high school students' health and quality of life. Health behavior self-efficacy, the level of parents' interest and knowledge of health, and the level of the perception of school health education, all of which are the educational diagnostic variables, are the most influential variables in students' health and quality of life. In particular, health behavior self-efficacy, a causative factor, was one of the main influential variables in their health and quality of life. Other diagnostic variables suggested in the steps of the PRECEDE model were found to have reciprocal relations rather than a unidirectional causative relationship. The significance of this research is that it has diagnosed the needs of high school health education by the learner-centered assessment of variety of factors related to the health and the life of the students. This research findings suggest an integrated system of school health education to be contrived to enhance the effectiveness of the education by strengthening the influential factors such as self-efficacy to improve the health and quality of the lives of high school students.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.73-81
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• 2015

This research is designed to analyze the moderating effect of social capital between organizational slack and managerial practices for open innovation. After controlling the firm size, firm age, and environmental uncertainty, we test two hypotheses. First, we test the hypothesis that organizational slack has a positive effect on managerial practices for open innovation. Especially we focus on the managerial innovation and open innovation because recently managerial innovation and open innovation are more and more important. Second, we test the moderating role of social capital between organizational slack and managerial practices for open innovation. Because social capital is a kind of networking activity, we assume that social capital can contribute to managerial practices for open innovation through the networking activity. For this research, we administered the questionnaire surveys, and got the 250 effective data (companies) in Korea. Then we used the validity, reliability, correlation and multiple regression analysis by means of SPSS 18.0. As a result, we can find the two meaningful results. First, organizational slack, especially not absorbed slack but unabsorbed slack, has positive effect on managerial practices for open innovation. It is because absorbed slack such as excessive facilities, machines, or employees is not useful in managerial practices for open innovation. On the other hand, unabsorbed slack is useful in managerial practices for open innovation because unabsorbed slack such as excessive money or securities is very flexible and active. Taken together, the relationship between managerial practices for open innovation and unabsorbed slack is proven in terms of flexibility. Second, social capital has a moderating effect positively between organizational slack, especially not absorbed slack but unabsorbed slack, and managerial practices for open innovation. A prior study related to the relationship between managerial practices for open innovation and social capital doesn't exist yet, so this analysis result is very meaningful in academic respect. But this research has some limitations. First, this research is analyzed by limited region (Korea) and samples (250 companies), so more global regions and samples are recommended in the future. Second, we focus on managerial practices for open innovation in this paper, so the studies about technological practices for open innovation are recommended in the future.

• Korean Security Journal
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• no.21
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• pp.95-120
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• 2009

This study was designed to investigate the relationship between the stages of exercise behavior change and physical self-concept and self-efficacy of security employees in hotel casinos. The sampling was drawn from employees at 8 casinos which had more than 30 employees. Participants were selected by convenience sampling method and they completed questionnaires about Physical Self-Concept and Self- Efficacy by self-administration method under supervision of trained researchers SPSS 16.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Science) was used for data analysis in the present study. Reliability and validity were examined for the present study. The principle component factor analysis and varimax rotation were used for the present study. Eigen value 1.0 was the criterion for selecting factors. Chi-square (X) 2 test was utilized for measuring the difference in gender and types of job duties at the stages of exercise behavior change. One-way ANOVA was employed to examine the relationship between the stages of exercise behavior change as an independent variable and physical self-concept and self-efficacy as dependent variables. The Scheffe method was used to determine mean differences of groups as a follow-up test. Multiple regression analysis was utilized to test the difference of physical self-concept as dependent variable and self-efficacy as independent variable. To verify hypothesis for the study, a statistical significance level of $\alpha$=.05 was used. The results were as follow: first, there were differences found for gender and types of job responsibilities in the stages of exercise behavior change. Secondly, as security employees progressed through the stages of exercise behavior change, their physical self-concept and self-efficacy improved. Finally, physical activity and body fat had significant main effects on self-efficacy.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.41-51
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• 2004

PURPOSE: Tourette's disorder (TD), which is characterized by multiple waxing and waning motor tics and one or more vocal tics, is known to be associated with abnormalities in the dopaminergic system. To testify our hypothesis that risperidone would improve tic symptoms of TD patients through the change of the dopaminergic system, we measured the dopamine transporter (DAT) densities between drug-naive children with TD and normal children, and investigated the DAT density before and after treatment with risperidone in drug-naive children with TD, using iodine-123 labelled $N-(3-iodopropen-2-yl)-2{\beta}-carbomethoxy-3beta-(4-chlorophenyl)tropane$ ($[^{123}I]IPT$) single photon omission computed tomography (SPECT). MATERIALS and METHODS: $[^{123}I]IPT$ SPECT Imaging and Yale Global Tic Severity Scale-Korean version (YGTSS-K) for assessing the tic symptom severity were carried out before and after treatment with risperidone for 8 weeks in nine drug-naive children with TD. Eleven normal children also underwent SPECT imaging 2 hours after an intravenous administration of $[^{123}I]IPT$. RESULTS: Drug-naive children with TD had a significantly greater increase in the specific/nonspecific DAT binding ratio of both basal ganglia compared with the normal children. However, no significant difference in the specific/nonspecific DAT binding ratio of the basal ganglia before and after treatment with risperidone in children with TD was found, although tic symptoms were significantly improved with risperidone. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that DAT densities are directly associated with the pathophysiology of TD, however, that the effect of risperidone on tic symptoms in children with TD is not attributed to the change of dopaminergic system.

• Restorative Dentistry and Endodontics
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.177-184
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• 2004

Objectives : This study investigated the hypothesis that increasing light-curing time would leave the oxygen-inhibited layer (OIL) of the adhesive thinner, and in turn, result in lower shear bond strength (SBS) than those obtained by the routine curing procedures. Methods：120 human extracted posterior teeth were randomly divided into three groups for bonding with three adhesives：All Bond 2/sup (R)/, One Step/sup (R)/, and Adper Prompt/sup (R)/. They were subsequently divided into four subgourps with different light-curing time (10, 20, 30 and 60s). The assigned adhesives were applied on superficial occlusal dentin according to the manufacturer's instructions and cured with one of the four curing times. Composite resin cylinder, 2.35㎜ in diameter, were built on the cured adhesive and light-cured for 40s. SBS were measured after 24h from the bonding using a universal testing machine (crosshead speed 1.0 ㎜/min). The relative thickness of the OIL and the degree of conversion (DC) were determined from the adhesive on a slide glass using FT-NIR in an absorbance mode. Data were analysed with One-way ANOVA and Duncan's multiple test (p〈0.05), Results：With increasing cure time, although there were no significant difference in th SBS of One-step and Adper Prompt (p〉0.05), those of All Bond 2 decreased significantly (p〈0.05). The relative thicknesses of the OIL on each adhesive were not affected by the cure time (p〉0.05). Although the DC of All-Bond 2 were statistically not different with increasing cure time (p〉0.05), those of One-Step and Adper Prompt showed an increasing trends with increasing cure time (p〈0.05). Conclusions：Increasing light-curing time did not affect on the relative thickness of the OIL of the adhesives, and in turn, on the SBS to dentin.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.30 no.3 s.58
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• pp.508-517
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• 1997

Hepatitis B virus(HBV) infection is one of the major health problems in Korea and HBsAg positive rate was known to be about $5\sim15%$ in general population. This study was conducted to identify the positive rates of serum HBsAg and anti-HBs among community population regarded as having hish HBV vaccination rate than in previous decade, using EIA(Enzyme immunoassay) method, in Seo-Gu, Taegu, Korea. The study subjects were 1,160 who visited Seo-Gu Health Center for check-up serologic markers of hepatitis 3. The data were obtained from the serologic test for hepatitis markers and questionnaire survey was conducted to obtain the general characteristics, vaccination history, past history of hepatitis and other liver disease, and exposure history to risk factors of hepatitis of the study subjects. The positive rates of HBsAg and anti-HBs were 5.2% and 62.4% respectively. The positive rates of HBsAg for male and female were 6.6% and 4.3% respectively. The age was divided into two groups as group I (less than 15 years old), group II (more than 16 years old) according to the hypothesis that these two groups might be different in HBV vaccination rate. HBV vaccination rates for group I and II were 83.1% and 52.3%. The positive rates of HBsAg for group I and II were 2.6% and 6.5%. The positive rates of HBsAg for the vaccinated people of the group I and II were 2.2% and 3.5%, the positive rates of anti-HBs for the vaccinated people of the group I and II were 70.1% and 71.1% respectively. The most significant factor in positive rate of HBsAg was 'hepatitis carrier in family'. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that 'hepatitis history' and 'hepatitis carrier in family' were significant variables for positivity of HBsAg, and 'hepatitis B vaccination' was only a significant variable for positivity of anti-HBs.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.65-82
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• 2021

Stock market investors are generally split into foreign investors, institutional investors, and individual investors. Compared to individual investor groups, professional investor groups such as foreign investors have an advantage in information and financial power and, as a result, foreign investors are known to show good investment performance among market participants. The purpose of this study is to propose an investment strategy that combines investor-specific transaction information and machine learning, and to analyze the portfolio investment performance of the proposed model using actual stock price and investor-specific transaction data. The Korea Exchange offers daily information on the volume of purchase and sale of each investor to securities firms. We developed a data collection program in C# programming language using an API provided by Daishin Securities Cybosplus, and collected 151 out of 200 KOSPI stocks with daily opening price, closing price and investor-specific net purchase data from January 2, 2007 to July 31, 2017. The self-organizing map model is an artificial neural network that performs clustering by unsupervised learning and has been introduced by Teuvo Kohonen since 1984. We implement competition among intra-surface artificial neurons, and all connections are non-recursive artificial neural networks that go from bottom to top. It can also be expanded to multiple layers, although many fault layers are commonly used. Linear functions are used by active functions of artificial nerve cells, and learning rules use Instar rules as well as general competitive learning. The core of the backpropagation model is the model that performs classification by supervised learning as an artificial neural network. We grouped and transformed investor-specific transaction volume data to learn backpropagation models through the self-organizing map model of artificial neural networks. As a result of the estimation of verification data through training, the portfolios were rebalanced monthly. For performance analysis, a passive portfolio was designated and the KOSPI 200 and KOSPI index returns for proxies on market returns were also obtained. Performance analysis was conducted using the equally-weighted portfolio return, compound interest rate, annual return, Maximum Draw Down, standard deviation, and Sharpe Ratio. Buy and hold returns of the top 10 market capitalization stocks are designated as a benchmark. Buy and hold strategy is the best strategy under the efficient market hypothesis. The prediction rate of learning data using backpropagation model was significantly high at 96.61%, while the prediction rate of verification data was also relatively high in the results of the 57.1% verification data. The performance evaluation of self-organizing map grouping can be determined as a result of a backpropagation model. This is because if the grouping results of the self-organizing map model had been poor, the learning results of the backpropagation model would have been poor. In this way, the performance assessment of machine learning is judged to be better learned than previous studies. Our portfolio doubled the return on the benchmark and performed better than the market returns on the KOSPI and KOSPI 200 indexes. In contrast to the benchmark, the MDD and standard deviation for portfolio risk indicators also showed better results. The Sharpe Ratio performed higher than benchmarks and stock market indexes. Through this, we presented the direction of portfolio composition program using machine learning and investor-specific transaction information and showed that it can be used to develop programs for real stock investment. The return is the result of monthly portfolio composition and asset rebalancing to the same proportion. Better outcomes are predicted when forming a monthly portfolio if the system is enforced by rebalancing the suggested stocks continuously without selling and re-buying it. Therefore, real transactions appear to be relevant.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.107-124
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• 2023

As getting in 4th Industrial Revolution Times, Continuing Education Enrolled Students(CEES) trying to find loophole for jepordized current life and need job transfer have surged their interest significantly on starting new business to bring up their post career after retirement through self-improvement. Government and university have actively initiated diverse policies of promoting startup for CEES in kicking off entrepreneurship courses and programs. However, relevant main policy, 'The 2nd University Startup Education Five-Year Plan (draft)' have too chiefly focused on theoretical start-up education rather than practical courses, causing the problem of inappropriate support for implementing real startup and business (Ministry of Education, 2018). This study is brought to empirically investigate the effect of self-efficacy as perspective of the impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intention and behavior to come up with problem of poor entrepreneurial environment and entrepreneurship education to CEES. As to empirical research, this paper deliver on-line survey to CEES from September to October 2022, collect 207 effective feedbacks, In order to verify the reliability of the scale, the Cronbach's Alpha Coefficient (Cronbach's α) was calculated, analyzed, and measured. For hypothesis test, this paper utilize the multiple regression analysis statistical analysis method and use the SPSS 22.0 statistical processing program. Empirical results show, first, it was found that self-efficacy had a significant effect on start-up education. Second, start-up education had a significant effect on the intention to start a business of adult learners. Third, start-up education had a significant effect on the start-up behavior of adult learners. Fourth, self-efficacy had a significant effect on the intention of adult learners to start a business. Fifth, self-efficacy had a significant effect on the start-up behavior of adult learners. Sixth, self-efficacy had a mediating effect in the relationship between entrepreneurship education and adult learners' intention to start a business. Seventh, self-efficacy had a complete mediating effect in the relationship between start-up education and adult learners' start-up behavior. This paper is brought three significant implications. First, main consideration developing entrepreneurship education tools for CEES need to falls on defining potential needs of CEES as segmenting as to coming up with diversity of CEES's characteristics such as gender, age, experience, education, and occupation. Second, as to design specific entrepreneurship education program, both practical training program of utilizing CEES's career field experience benchmarking best practice startup and venture cases from domestic and global, and professional startup program of CEES initiating directly startup from ideation to develop business plan with pitching and discussing. Third, entrepreneurship education for CEES should be designed to incubate self-efficacy to enhance entrepreneurial intention of implementing entrepreneurial behavior as a real, eventually leading solid support system of self-improvement for CEES' Retirement life planning.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.45-69
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• 2016

Recently, sentiment analysis using open Internet data is actively performed for various purposes. As online Internet communication channels become popular, companies try to capture public sentiment of them from online open information sources. This research is conducted for the purpose of analyzing pulbic sentiment of Korean Top-10 companies using a multi-categorical sentiment lexicon. Whereas existing researches related to public sentiment measurement based on big data approach classify sentiment into dimensions, this research classifies public sentiment into multiple categories. Dimensional sentiment structure has been commonly applied in sentiment analysis of various applications, because it is academically proven, and has a clear advantage of capturing degree of sentiment and interrelation of each dimension. However, the dimensional structure is not effective when measuring public sentiment because human sentiment is too complex to be divided into few dimensions. In addition, special training is needed for ordinary people to express their feeling into dimensional structure. People do not divide their sentiment into dimensions, nor do they need psychological training when they feel. People would not express their feeling in the way of dimensional structure like positive/negative or active/passive; rather they express theirs in the way of categorical sentiment like sadness, rage, happiness and so on. That is, categorial approach of sentiment analysis is more natural than dimensional approach. Accordingly, this research suggests multi-categorical sentiment structure as an alternative way to measure social sentiment from the point of the public. Multi-categorical sentiment structure classifies sentiments following the way that ordinary people do although there are possibility to contain some subjectiveness. In this research, nine categories: 'Sadness', 'Anger', 'Happiness', 'Disgust', 'Surprise', 'Fear', 'Interest', 'Boredom' and 'Pain' are used as multi-categorical sentiment structure. To capture public sentiment of Korean Top-10 companies, Internet news data of the companies are collected over the past 25 months from a representative Korean portal site. Based on the sentiment words extracted from previous researches, we have created a sentiment lexicon, and analyzed the frequency of the words coming up within the news data. The frequency of each sentiment category was calculated as a ratio out of the total sentiment words to make ranks of distributions. Sentiment comparison among top-4 companies, which are 'Samsung', 'Hyundai', 'SK', and 'LG', were separately visualized. As a next step, the research tested hypothesis to prove the usefulness of the multi-categorical sentiment lexicon. It tested how effective categorial sentiment can be used as relative comparison index in cross sectional and time series analysis. To test the effectiveness of the sentiment lexicon as cross sectional comparison index, pair-wise t-test and Duncan test were conducted. Two pairs of companies, 'Samsung' and 'Hanjin', 'SK' and 'Hanjin' were chosen to compare whether each categorical sentiment is significantly different in pair-wise t-test. Since category 'Sadness' has the largest vocabularies, it is chosen to figure out whether the subgroups of the companies are significantly different in Duncan test. It is proved that five sentiment categories of Samsung and Hanjin and four sentiment categories of SK and Hanjin are different significantly. In category 'Sadness', it has been figured out that there were six subgroups that are significantly different. To test the effectiveness of the sentiment lexicon as time series comparison index, 'nut rage' incident of Hanjin is selected as an example case. Term frequency of sentiment words of the month when the incident happened and term frequency of the one month before the event are compared. Sentiment categories was redivided into positive/negative sentiment, and it is tried to figure out whether the event actually has some negative impact on public sentiment of the company. The difference in each category was visualized, moreover the variation of word list of sentiment 'Rage' was shown to be more concrete. As a result, there was huge before-and-after difference of sentiment that ordinary people feel to the company. Both hypotheses have turned out to be statistically significant, and therefore sentiment analysis in business area using multi-categorical sentiment lexicons has persuasive power. This research implies that categorical sentiment analysis can be used as an alternative method to supplement dimensional sentiment analysis when figuring out public sentiment in business environment.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.247-268
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• 1996

It has been known for a long time that gonadotropins and steroid hormones play a pivotal role in a series of reproductive biological phenomena including the maturation of ovarian follicles and oocytes, ovulation and implantation, maintenance of pregnancy and fetal growth & development, parturition and mammary development and lactation. Recent investigations, however, have elucidated that in addition to these classic hormones, multiple growth factors also are involved in these phenomena. Most growth factors in reproductive organs mediate the actions of gonadotropins and steroid hormones or synergize with them in an autocrine/paracrine manner. The insulin-like growth factor(IGF) system, which is one of the most actively investigated areas lately in the reproductive organs, has been found to have important roles in a wide gamut of reproductive phenomena. In the present communication, published literature pertaining to the intrauterine IGF system will be reviewed preceded by general information of the IGF system. The IGF family comprises of IGF-I & IGF-II ligands, two types of IGF receptors and six classes of IGF-binding proteins(IGFBPs) that are known to date. IGF-I and IGF-II peptides, which are structurally homologous to proinsulin, possess the insulin-like activity including the stimulatory effect of glucose and amino acid transport. Besides, IGFs as mitogens stimulate cell division, and also play a role in cellular differentiation and functions in a variety of cell lines. IGFs are expressed mainly in the liver and messenchymal cells, and act on almost all types of tissues in an autocrine/paracrine as well as endocrine mode. There are two types of IGF receptors. Type I IGF receptors, which are tyrosine kinase receptors having high-affinity for IGF-I and IGF-II, mediate almost all the IGF actions that are described above. Type II IGF receptors or IGF-II/mannose-6-phosphate receptors have two distinct binding sites; the IGF-II binding site exhibits a high affinity only for IGF-II. The principal role of the type II IGF receptor is to destroy IGF-II by targeting the ligand to the lysosome. IGFs in biological fluids are mostly bound to IGFBP. IGFBPs, in general, are IGF storage/carrier proteins or modulators of IGF actions; however, as for distinct roles for individual IGFBPs, only limited information is available. IGFBPs inhibit IGF actions under most in vitro situations, seemingly because affinities of IGFBPs for IGFs are greater than those of IGF receptors. How IGF is released from IGFBP to reach IGF receptors is not known; however, various IGFBP protease activities that are present in blood and interstitial fluids are believed to play an important role in the process of IGF release from the IGFBP. According to latest reports, there is evidence that under certain in vitro circumstances, IGFBP-1, -3, -5 have their own biological activities independent of the IGF. This may add another dimension of complexity of the already complicated IGF system. Messenger ribonucleic acids and proteins of the IGF family members are expressed in the uterine tissue and conceptus of the primates, rodents and farm animals to play important roles in growth and development of the uterus and fetus. Expression of the uterine IGF system is regulated by gonadal hormones and local regulatory substances with temporal and spatial specificities. Locally expressed IGFs and IGFBPs act on the uterine tissue in an autocrine/paracrine manner, or are secreted into the uterine lumen to participate in conceptus growth and development. Conceptus also expresses the IGF system beginning from the peri-implantation period. When an IGF family member is expressed in the conceptus, however, is determined by the presence or absence of maternally inherited mRNAs, genetic programming of the conceptus itself and an interaction with the maternal tissue. The site of IGF action also follows temporal (physiological status) and spatial specificities. These facts that expression of the IGF system is temporally and spatially regulated support indirectly a hypothesis that IGFs play a role in conceptus growth and development. Uterine and conceptus-derived IGFs stimulate cell division and differentiation, glucose and amino acid transport, general protein synthesis and the biosynthesis of mammotropic hormones including placental lactogen and prolactin, and also play a role in steroidogenesis. The suggested role for IGFs in conceptus growth and development has been proven by the result of IGF-I, IGF-II or IGF receptor gene disruption(targeting) of murine embryos by the homologous recombination technique. Mice carrying a null mutation for IGF-I and/or IGF-II or type I IGF receptor undergo delayed prenatal and postnatal growth and development with 30-60% normal weights at birth. Moreover, mice lacking the type I IGF receptor or IGF-I plus IGF-II die soon after birth. Intrauterine IGFBPs generally are believed to sequester IGF ligands within the uterus or to play a role of negative regulators of IGF actions by inhibiting IGF binding to cognate receptors. However, when it is taken into account that IGFBP-1 is expressed and secreted in primate uteri in amounts assessedly far exceeding those of local IGFs and that IGFBP-1 is one of the major secretory proteins of the primate decidua, the possibility that this IGFBP may have its own biological activity independent of IGF cannot be excluded. Evidently, elucidating the exact role of each IGFBP is an essential step into understanding the whole IGF system. As such, further research in this area is awaited with a lot of anticipation and attention.