• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.48 no.8
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• pp.839-845
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• 2005

Purpose : Neck masses, in pediatric population, derive from a multitude of congenital, inflammatory, or neoplastic diseases. The majority of these masses represent benign conditions. However, thorough clinical evaluation is required to rule out malignant diseases. We evaluated the causes, clinical characteristics and outcomes of children with neck masses who underwent tissue biopsy. Methods : A total of 28 medical records of children with neck mass who underwent tissue biopsy at Chungnam National University Hospital, from January 2000 to March 2004 were retrospectively analyzed. The methods of biopsy were ultrasonography guided core biopsy(CB), fine needle aspiration biopsy(FNAB) and excisional biopsy. Results : Out of 28 patients, half were boys. The most common location of the mass was the posterior cervical area(N=19, 67.9%). Laboratory findings of peripheral blood and serologic studies were nonspecific. In 25(89.3%) cases, CB or FNAB was initially performed for neck masses. Among them 10 cases(40%) were reactive hyperplasia, 8(32%) inflammatory granulation tissues, 4(16%) necrotizing lymphadenitis, and 3(12%) acute suppurative inflammations. Initially, excisional biopsy was performed for diagnosis in 3(10.7%) cases. Diagnosis of these cases was thyroglossal duct cyst, dermoid cyst and lymphoblastic lymphoma, respectively. Conclusion : Most neck masses in children were benign. CB and FNAB were safe methods for tissue sampling, without need for general anesthesia.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.539-544
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• 2005

Purpose : The aim of this study was to investigate the pathophysiologic role of serum E-selectin, vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF)-induced cell adhesion mollecule in Kawasaki disease(KD) and to look for the evidence of direct relationship between the plasma levels of soluble E-selectin and the incidence of coronary artery lesion(CAL). Methods : Changes in plasma levels of sE-selectin(n=98) over time were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA) in 23 patients with acute KD and 25 age-matched febrile children. Results : Compared with control values, the peak levels of plasma sE-selectin were significantly elevated($mean{\pm}S.E$. : $22.89{\pm}12.53ng/mL$ vs $10.65{\pm}3.42ng/mL$, P=0.01) in KD. 5 patients with CAL, plasma sE-selectin levels before treatment were higher than in 18 patients without CAL($mean{\pm}S.E$. : $39.43{\pm}15.08ng/mL$ and $19.00{\pm}8.32ng/mL$, respectively; P=0.01). Plasma sE-selectin declined rapidly in the majority of KD patients regardless of the presence of CAL. Plasma sE-selectin levels after treatment and convalesent period were similar in KD patients with and without CAL. The plasma levels sE-selectin were correlated with those of white blood cell count(r=0.299, P<0.05), CRP(r=0.430, P<0.05), serum albumin(r=-0.483, P<0.05), serum protein(r=-0.502, P<0.05) and hemoglobin(r=-0.372, P<0.05) not with those of ESR, platelet, or duration of fever. There were significant differences in the initial level of serum sE-selectin between KD with and without CAL($mean{\pm}S.E$. : $39.44{\pm}15.08ng/mL$ vs. $19.00{\pm}17.18ng/mL$) in multivariated linear tests. Conclusion : Plasma sE-selectin levels were significantly higher in KD than in other febrile illness. Higher plamsa levels of sE-selectin may have potential as a predictor of CAL in patients with KD.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.15-22
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• 2009

Objectives : Prevalence of postpartum depressive disorders reaches approximately 10-15% of childbearing women. This preliminary study was intended to explore the relationships between postpartum depressive disorders and family adaptability and cohesion. Methods : Childbearing women(n=24) were assessed for risk factors for postpartum depression before and after childbirth prospectively. At gestational age between 36th and 40th week, the questionnaire about various factors before childbirth, Edinburgh postnatal depression scale(EPDS), Family adaptability-cohesion evaluation scale (FACES), and Beck anxiety inventory(BAI) were assessed. After childbirth, for the diagnosis of postpartum depressive disorders, a structured diagnostic interview according to MINI International Neuropsychiatric Interview was performed, furthermore, the questionnaire about various factors after childbirth, EPDS, and BAI were assessed at 4-6 weeks postpartum. Results : Among various factors and scales, family adaptability and cohesion, mood symptom and change during pregnancy were associated with postpartum depressive disorder in comparison with non-postpartum depressive disorder subjects. In addition, low family adaptability and cohesion and mood change during pregnancy were significantly associated factors with postpartum depressive disorder using logistic regression analysis. Conclusion : The results suggest the postpartum depressive disorder could be related with prenatal low family adaptability and cohesion. This preliminary study, however, includes only a few subjects, so that further large-sized study will be needed to replicate our results.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.104-120
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• 1979

I. Title of the Study Studies on the Development of Improved Subsurface Drainage Methods. -Drainage Performance of Various Subsurface Drain Materials- II. Object of the Study Studies were carried out to select the drain material having the highest performance of drainage; And to develop the water budget model which is necessary for the planning of the drainage project and the establishment of water management standards in the water-logged paddy field. III. Content and Scope of the Study 1. The experiment was carried out in the laboratory by using a sand tank model. The drainage performance of various drain materials was compared evaluated. 2. A water budget model was established. Various parameters necessary for the model were investigated by analyzing existing data and measured data from the experimental field. The adaptability of the model was evaluated by comparing the estimated values to the field data. IV. Results and Recommendations 1. A corrugated tube enveloped with gravel or mat showed the highest drainage performance among the eight materials submmitted for the experiment. 2. The drainage performance of the long cement tile(50 cm long) was higher than that of the short cement tile(25 cm long). 3. Rice bran was superior to gravel in its' drain performance. 4. No difference was shown between a grave envelope and a P.V.C. wool mat in their performance of drainage. Continues investigation is needed to clarify the envelope performance. 5. All the results described above were obtained from the laboratory tests. A field test is recommended to confirm the results obtained. 6. As a water balance model of a given soil profile, the soil moisture depletion D, could be represented as follows; $$D=\Sigma\limit_{t=1}^{n}(Et-R_{\ell}-I+W_d)..........(17)$$ 7. Among the various empirical formulae for potential evapotranspiration, Penman's formular was best fit to the data observed with the evaporation pans in Jinju area. High degree of positive correlation between Penman;s predicted data and observed data was confirmed. The regression equation was Y=1.4X-22.86, where Y represents evaporation rate from small pan, in mm/100 days, and X represents potential evapotranspiration rate estimated by Penman's formular. The coefficient of correlation was r=0.94.** 8. To estimate evapotranspiration in the field, the consumptive use coefficient, Kc, was introduced. Kc was defined by the function of the characteristics of the crop soil as follows; $Kc=Kco{\cdot}Ka+Ks..........(20)$ where, Kco, Ka ans Ks represents the crop coefficient, the soil moisture coefficient, and the correction coefficient, respectively. The value of Kco and Ka was obtained from the Fig.16 and the Fig.17, respectively. And, if $Kco{\cdot}Ka{\geq}1.0,$ then Ks=0, otherwise, Ks value was estimated by using the relation; $Ks=1-Kco{\cdot}Ka$. 9. Into type formular, $r_t=\frac{R_{24}}{24}(\frac{b}{\sqrt{t}+a})$, was the best fit one to estimate the probable rainfall intensity when daily rainfall and rainfall durations are given as input data, The coefficient a and b are shown on the Table 16. 10. Japanese type formular, $I_t=\frac{b}{\sqrt{t}+a}$, was the best fit one to estimate the probable rainfall intensity when the rainfall duration only was given. The coefficient a and b are shown on the Table 17. 11. Effective rainfall, Re, was estimated by using following relationships; Re=D, if $R-D\geq}0$, otherwise, Re=R. 12. The difference of rainfall amount from soil moisture depletion was considered as the amount of drainage required. In this case, when Wd=O, Equation 24 was used, otherwise two to three days of lag time was considered and correction was made by use of storage coefficient. 13. To evaluate the model, measured data and estimated data was compared, and relative error was computed. 5.5 percent The relative error was 5.5 percent. 14. By considering the water budget in Jinju area, it was shown that the evaporation amount was greater than the rainfall during period of October to March in next year. This was the behind reasonning that the improvement of surface drainage system is needed in Jinju area.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.391-398
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• 2002

This study was conducted to determine the polymorphism of transferrin exons 13, 15 and 16 by Single-Strand Conformation Polymorphism(SSCP) analysis and to compare their genotypes of Cheju horse Group I (Cheju Institute), Cheju horse Group II (farms), and Thoroughbred (KRA). SSCP of transferrin exon 13, 15, and 16 showed two (A, B), three (A, B, C) and three (A, B, C) codominant alleles, respectively. The Group I and Thoroughbred showed the similar frequencies of allele A and B in transferrin exon 13, but only allele A was observed in Group Ⅱ. In transferrin exons 15 and 16, the frequencies of each allele were different in each Groups. The multiple allele frequencies in exons 15 and 16 suggested that the genotyping of this locus could be used to identify an individual and to test the parentage of offspring. The probability for parentage exclusion were 0.46 and 0.374 for exons 15 and 16 for Cheju horse Group I. Among the 13 combined genotypes of exons 13, 15 and 16, the genotype AA-AB-AB (0.372) is the most common in Cheju horse Group I, but genotype AA-AA-AA is common in the Cheju horse Group II (0.366) and Thoroughbred (0.767). The present study showed two new SNP, which was at the cDNA position 1626 (A/G) in B allele of the exon 13 and 2075 (C/T) in C allele of the exon 16 resulting in amino acid change (Threonine $\longrightarrow$ Methionine). Result showed that polymorphism of exons 13, 15 and 16 in Cheju horses was as high as in Thoroughbred and there was a differences of transferrin allele frequencies in Cheju horses.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.313-322
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• 2016

Purpose: This study was conducted to examine the relationship among cognitive function, nutrition screening initiative (NSI) score, and food intake status. Methods: A total of 409 subjects aged over 60 years were recruited from the Yongin dementia prevention and control center. Mini Mental State Examination Dementia Screening (MMSE-DS) method was used to assess the cognitive function of the subjects. Information on health related behaviors and food intake was collected by face to face interview using a structured questionnaire. The questionnaires included the NSI DETERMINE checklist, food intake sheets by 24 hr recall method and by semi-quantified food frequency questionnaire. Results: Subjects were divided into low cognitive or normal groups according to the MMSE-DS result. The prevalence of low cognitive function in the subjects was 25.7%. The low cognitive group exercised less and had higher nutritional health risk than the normal group. The low cognitive group had lower consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acid and higher tendency of thiamin, riboflavin, and iron deficiency. The low cognitive group had less frequency of eating mackerel, pepper, tangerine, and watermelon and higher frequency of eating white rice and cookies than the normal group. Conclusion: The results of this study imply that the cognitive function of elderly is related to exercise behavior, nutritional health risk, and food and nutrient intake status.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.35-41
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• 2001

This paper describes Linear Discriminant Analysis and common vector extraction for speech recognition. Voice signal contains psychological and physiological properties of the speaker as well as dialect differences, acoustical environment effects, and phase differences. For these reasons, the same word spelled out by different speakers can be very different heard. This property of speech signal make it very difficult to extract common properties in the same speech class (word or phoneme). Linear algebra method like BT (Karhunen-Loeve Transformation) is generally used for common properties extraction In the speech signals, but common vector extraction which is suggested by M. Bilginer et at. is used in this paper. The method of M. Bilginer et al. extracts the optimized common vector from the speech signals used for training. And it has 100％ recognition accuracy in the trained data which is used for common vector extraction. In spite of these characteristics, the method has some drawback-we cannot use numbers of speech signal for training and the discriminant information among common vectors is not defined. This paper suggests advanced method which can reduce error rate by maximizing the discriminant information among common vectors. And novel method to normalize the size of common vector also added. The result shows improved performance of algorithm and better recognition accuracy of 2％ than conventional method.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.505-511
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• 2002

Purpose : Mean platelet volume(MPV) and platelet distribution width(PDW) are useful parameters in evaluating disorders of platelets. In cases with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura(ITP), they change as platelet count increases. In this study, we compared the values of MPV and PDW in ITP patients at diagnosis with those of normal children. We also studied whether the early changes in MPV may predict the clinical course. Methods : From December 1995 to May 2001, 71 patients with ITP were admitted to Ajou University Hospital. They were treated with IVIg 400 mg/kg for five days and MPV, PDW, platelet count were analysed. Normal control group(n=38) was compared. The study group was divided into acute and chronic forms, and also divided into group A, good early responders whose platelets increased more than $100,000/{\mu}L$ within 5 days and group B who did not. Results : Mean value of MPV at diagnosis in ITP patients was lower than the normal control group(P<0.05). In group A, MPV was abruptly increased on the first day after IVIg and then started to decrease. But in group B, MPV was steadily increased until the fourth day after IVIg. In the normal control group, there were inverse correlations between platelet count and MPV(r=-0.415, P<0.05), but in ITP patients, there were positive relationships between platelet count and MPV(r=0.646, P<0.05) at diagnosis. Conclusions : MPV at diagnosis of ITP was lower than the normal control. MPV and PDW could not predict the course of ITP patients, but MPV could distinguish good early responders. More research is needed to find out the reasons of decreased MPV at diagnosis of ITP.

• The Korean Journal of Pharmacology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.33-44
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• 1982

The binding in vitro of an opiate agonist, $(^3H)-morphine$, was studied using rat brain slices which were incubated in the modified Krebs-Henseleit bicarbonate buffer solution containing various concentrations of electrolytes with or without morphine, naloxone or morphine+naloxone at $4^{\circ}C$ for 24 hours. The binding of $(^3H)-morphine$ may be seperated into two component; one a saturable binding and the other nonsaturable. The saturable binding may be calculated from the differences in binding observed in the absence and presence of high concentration of morphine. The maximal saturable binding and $K_D$ value in the naive preparations were $0.32{\pm}0.02\;pmole/mg$ protein and $0.75{\pm}0.07\;nM$ respectively. The saturable binding of $(^3H)-morphine$ was significantly increased by low temperature-treatment, while $K_D$ value was not changed. Morphine in the incubation media significantly increased the saturable binding of $(^3H)-morphine$ and $K_D$ value. Naloxone also increased the maximal saturable binding of $(^3H)-morphine$ and $K_D$ value of the drug. Decrease of $K^+\;and\;Mg^{++}$, and addition of $Mn^{++}$ in the incubation media significantly increased the saturable binding of $(^3H)-morphine$, but decrease of $Na^+$and increase of $Ca^{++}$ in the incubation media did not influence the binding. The increment of the saturable binding of $(^3H)-morphine$ by nonlabeled morphine in the incubation media was notaffected by decrease of $Na^+,\;K^+\;or\;Mg^{++}$, or addition of $Mn^{++}$ into the incubation media, but was inhibited by increase of $Ca^{++}$ in the incubation media, while the increment of the saturable binding of $(^3H)-morphine$ was net observed by decrease of $Na^+,\;K^+\;or\;Mg^{++}$, or increase of $Ca^{++}$ in the incubation media. The above results indicate that change of opiate binding sites in quality, i.e. affinity, and quantity, i.e. number of binding sites, may occur by low temperature-treatment in the absence and presence of morphine or naloxone and that electrolytes play role of the changes of opiate binding sites.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.14-22
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• 2009

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of powdered young barley leaf and its water extract on body weight and lipid metabolism in high-fat fed mice. Male mice were divided into normal group, high-fat (HF) group, high-fat group supplemented with powdered young barley leaf (HF-YBL) and high-fat group supplemented with water extract of the powdered young barley leaf (HF-WYBL). The powdered young barley leaf or its water extract was added to a standard diet based on 1% dried young barley leaf (1 g YBL/100 diet and 0.28 g WYBL/100 g diet) for 8 weeks. Supplementation of YBL and WYBL significantly reduced body weight and epididymal adipose tissue weight in high-fat fed mice. Food intake and daily energy intake were significantly lower in the YBL group than in the HF group. After 8 weeks, plasma triglyceride and cholesterol concentrations were significantly higher in the HF group than in the Normal group; however, both YBL and WYBL significantly lowered those of the high-fat fed mice. The ratio of HDL-cholesterol/total cholesterol of the YBL and WYBL groups were significantly elevated compared to that of HF group. Both YBL and WYBL significantly increased fecal excretion of triglyceride in high-fat fed mice, whereas they did not affect fecal cholesterol concentration. The triglyceride levels of liver, adipose tissue and heart were significantly lower in the YBL and WYBL groups than in the HF group. Supplementation of WYBL also lowered the kidney triglyceride and heart cholesterol concentrations compared to those of HF group. Hepatic lipid regulating enzyme activities, fatty acid synthase, HMG-CoA reductase and acyl-coenzyme A: cholesterol acyltransferase, were significantly lower in the YBL and WYBL groups than in the HF group. Accordingly, these results suggest that YBL and WYBL improve plasma and organ lipid levels partly by increasing fecal lipid excretion and inhibiting fatty acid and cholesterol biosynthesis in the liver.