• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.443-450
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• 2012

Recently, NADPH oxidase 4 (NOX4)-mediated generation of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) was proposed to accelerate adipogenesis of 3T3-L1 cell. We have previously shown that Cheonnyuncho (Opuntia humifusa) extract significantly inhibited adipocyte differentiation via downregulation of $PPAR{\gamma}$ (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma) gene expression. In this study, we focused on the molecular mechanism(s) of NOX4, G6PDH (glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase) and antioxidant enzymes in anti-oxidative activities of 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Our results indicate that Cheonnyuncho extracts markedly inhibits ROS production during adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 cells. Cheonnyuncho extracts suppressed the mRNA expression of the pro-oxidant enzyme such as NOX4 and the NADPH-producing G6PDH enzyme. In addition, treatment with Cheonnyuncho extract was found to upregulate mRNA levels of antioxidant enzymes such as Mn-SOD (manganese-superoxide dismutase), Cu/Zn-SOD (copper/zinc-SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), glutathion reductase (GR), and catalase, all of which are important for endogenous antioxidant responses. These data suggest that Cheonnyuncho extract may be effective in preventing the rise of oxidative stress during adipocyte differentiation through mechanism(s) that involves direct down regulation of NOX4 and G6PDH gene expression or via upregulation of endogenous antioxidant responses.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.280-290
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• 2003

The incorporation of RAPD markers into the previous classical and RFLP genetic linkage maps will facilitate the generation of a detailed genetic map by compensating for the lack of one type of marker in the region of interest. The objective of this paper was to present features we observed when we associated RAPD map from an intraspecific cross of a Glycine max$\times$G. max, 'Essex'$\times$PI 437654 with the public RFLP map developed from an interspecific cross of G. max$\times$G. soja. Among 27 linkage groups of RAPD map, eight linkage groups contained probe/enzyme combination RFLP markers, which allowed us the incorporation of RAPD markers into the public RFLP map. Map position rearrangement was observed. In incorporating L.G.C-3 into the public RFLP linkage group a1 and a2, both pSAC3 and pA136 region, and pA170/EcoRV and pB170/HindIII region were in opposite order, respectively. And, pk400 was localized 1.8 cM from pA96-1 and 8.4 cM from pB172 in the public RFLP map, but was localized 9.9 cM from i locus and 18.9 cM from pA85 in our study. A noticeable expansion of the map distances in the intraspecific cross of Essex and PI 437654 was also observed. Map distance between probes pA890 and pK493 in L.G.C-1 was 48.6 cM, but it was only 13.3 cM in the public RFLP map. The distances from the probe pB32-2 to pA670 and from pA670 to pA668 in L.G. C-2 were 50.9 cM and 31.7 cM, but they were 35.9 cM and 13.5 cM in the public RFLP map. The detection of duplicate loci from the same probe that were mapped on the same or/and different linkage group was another feature we observed.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.1070-1077
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• 2017

Chondrocyte apoptosis induced by reactive oxygen species (ROS) plays an important role in the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis. Schisandrin A, a bioactive compound found in fruits of the Schisandra genus, has been reported to possess multiple pharmacological and therapeutic properties. Although several studies have described the antioxidant effects of analogues of schisandrin A, the underlying molecular mechanisms of this bioactive compound remain largely unresolved. The present study investigated the cytoprotective effect of schisandrin A against oxidative stress (hydrogen peroxide [$H_2O_2$]) in SW1353 human chondrocyte cells. The results showed that schisandrin A preconditioning significantly inhibited $H_2O_2-induced$ growth inhibition and apoptotic cell death by blocking the degradation of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase proteins and down-regulating pro-caspase-3. These antiapoptotic effects of schisandrin A were associated with attenuation of mitochondrial dysfunction and normalization of expression changes of proapoptotic Bax and antiapoptotic Bcl-2 in $H_2O_2-stimulated$ SW1353 chondrocytes. Furthermore, schisandrin A effectively abrogated $H_2O_2-induced$ intracellular ROS accumulation and phosphorylation of histone H2AX at serine 139, a widely used marker of DNA damage. Thus, the present study demonstrates that schisandrin A provides protection against $H_2O_2-induced$ apoptosis and DNA damage in SW1353 chondrocytes, possibly by prevention of ROS generation. Collectively, our data indicate that schisandrin A has therapeutic potential in the treatment of oxidative disorders caused by overproduction of ROS.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.41 no.10
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• pp.1371-1377
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• 2012

Biological activities of Korean Panax ginseng 55% ethanol extract (KPGE) were investigated. The measured total polyphenol content of KPGE was 357.45 mg/100 g. KPGE showed the highest ${\alpha},{\alpha}$-diphenyl-${\beta}$-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,2'-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzo-thiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS) radical scavenging activities of 80% and 86% at 1,000 ${\mu}g/mL$, respectively. DPPH and ABTS radical scavenging activities significantly increased in a KPGE concentration-dependent manner. SOD-like activity of KPGE (1, 10, and 100 ${\mu}g/mL$) increased from 22% up to 33% at KPGE concentrations of 500 and 1,000 ${\mu}g/mL$. KPGE treatment significantly suppressed the generation of pro-inflammatory mediators, including nitric oxide (NO), prostaglandin $E_2$ ($PGE_2$), and cytokines (tumor necrosis factor-alpha: TNF-${\alpha}$, interleukin-6: IL-6, interleukin-$1{\beta}$: IL-$1{\beta}$), in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW 264.7 macrophages. KPGE demonstrated strong anti-inflammatory activity that reduced NO and $PGE_2$ production in LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells. Even low concentrations of KPGE (1 and 10 ${\mu}g/mL$) reduced $PGE_2$ and NO production in RAW 264.7 macrophages without LPS-stimulation, respectively. At concentrations of 100, 500, and 1,000 ${\mu}g/mL$, TNF-${\alpha}$, IL-$1{\beta}$ and IL-6 production were significantly suppressed. The results of our study suggest the potential of Korean Panax ginseng as an excellent antioxidant substance for inhibiting inflammatory mediators. Therefore, Korean Panax ginseng (KPGE) may be used as a therapeutic approach to various inflammatory diseases.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.143-159
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• 2015

Predicting IT trends has been a long and important subject for information systems research. IT trend prediction makes it possible to acknowledge emerging eras of innovation and allocate budgets to prepare against rapidly changing technological trends. Towards the end of each year, various domestic and global organizations predict and announce IT trends for the following year. For example, Gartner Predicts 10 top IT trend during the next year, and these predictions affect IT and industry leaders and organization's basic assumptions about technology and the future of IT, but the accuracy of these reports are difficult to verify. Social media data can be useful tool to verify the accuracy. As social media services have gained in popularity, it is used in a variety of ways, from posting about personal daily life to keeping up to date with news and trends. In the recent years, rates of social media activity in Korea have reached unprecedented levels. Hundreds of millions of users now participate in online social networks and communicate with colleague and friends their opinions and thoughts. In particular, Twitter is currently the major micro blog service, it has an important function named 'tweets' which is to report their current thoughts and actions, comments on news and engage in discussions. For an analysis on IT trends, we chose Tweet data because not only it produces massive unstructured textual data in real time but also it serves as an influential channel for opinion leading on technology. Previous studies found that the tweet data provides useful information and detects the trend of society effectively, these studies also identifies that Twitter can track the issue faster than the other media, newspapers. Therefore, this study investigates how frequently the predicted IT trends for the following year announced by public organizations are mentioned on social network services like Twitter. IT trend predictions for 2013, announced near the end of 2012 from two domestic organizations, the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA) and the National Information Society Agency (NIA), were used as a basis for this research. The present study analyzes the Twitter data generated from Seoul (Korea) compared with the predictions of the two organizations to analyze the differences. Thus, Twitter data analysis requires various natural language processing techniques, including the removal of stop words, and noun extraction for processing various unrefined forms of unstructured data. To overcome these challenges, we used SAS IRS (Information Retrieval Studio) developed by SAS to capture the trend in real-time processing big stream datasets of Twitter. The system offers a framework for crawling, normalizing, analyzing, indexing and searching tweet data. As a result, we have crawled the entire Twitter sphere in Seoul area and obtained 21,589 tweets in 2013 to review how frequently the IT trend topics announced by the two organizations were mentioned by the people in Seoul. The results shows that most IT trend predicted by NIPA and NIA were all frequently mentioned in Twitter except some topics such as 'new types of security threat', 'green IT', 'next generation semiconductor' since these topics non generalized compound words so they can be mentioned in Twitter with other words. To answer whether the IT trend tweets from Korea is related to the following year's IT trends in real world, we compared Twitter's trending topics with those in Nara Market, Korea's online e-Procurement system which is a nationwide web-based procurement system, dealing with whole procurement process of all public organizations in Korea. The correlation analysis show that Tweet frequencies on IT trending topics predicted by NIPA and NIA are significantly correlated with frequencies on IT topics mentioned in project announcements by Nara market in 2012 and 2013. The main contribution of our research can be found in the following aspects: i) the IT topic predictions announced by NIPA and NIA can provide an effective guideline to IT professionals and researchers in Korea who are looking for verified IT topic trends in the following topic, ii) researchers can use Twitter to get some useful ideas to detect and predict dynamic trends of technological and social issues.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.353-361
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• 1998

Hypothermia is widely acknowledged as fundamental component of myocardial protection during cardiac operations. Although it prolongs the period of ischemic arrest by reducing oxygen demands, hypothermia is associated with a number of major disadvantages, including its detrimental effects on enzymatic function, energy generation, and cellular integrity. The ideal way to rotect the heart is to electromechanically arrest it and perfus it with blood that is aerobic arrest. However alternative technique has been developed, based on the principles of electromechanical arrest and normothermic aerobic perfusion using continuous warm blood cardioplegia. To determine if continuous warm blood cardioplegia was beneficial in clinical practice during valvular surgery, we studied two groups of patients matched by numbers and clinical characteristics. Group included is 31 patients undergoing valvular surgery who received intermittent cold crystalloid cardioplegia. Group II included 30 patients undergoing valvular surgery who received continuous warm blood cardioplegia. Our results suggest that the heartbeat in 100% of patients treated with continuous warm blood cardioplegia converted to normal sinus rhythm spontaneously after the removal of the aortic cross-clamp, compared to only 31% of the cold cardioplegia group. After operation, pericardial closure rate was 90% area in the warm group, compared to 35% area in the cold group. 12 hours after the operation, the total amount of urine output in the warm group was greater than that in the cold group(2863${\pm}$127 ml versus 2257${\pm}$127 ml; p<0.05). After the operation, left diaphragmatic elevation developed in 55% of the cold group but in 0% of the warm group. CK-MB level in the warm group was significantly lower than cold group(2.28${\pm}$0.62 versus 9.96${\pm}$2.12; p<0.01) 1 hour after operation and CK-MB level in the warm group was significantly lower than cold group(1.80${\pm}$1.01 versus 6.00${\pm}$1.74; p<0.05) 12hours after operation. Continuous warm blood cardioplegia is at least as safe and effective as hypothermic technique in patients undergoing cardiac valvular surgery. Conceptually, this represents a new approach to the problem of maintaining myocardial preservation during cardiac operations.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.49 no.7
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• pp.777-783
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• 2006

Purpose : Urinary tract infection(UTI) is one of the most frequent infections in children. E. coli is the most frequent etiological micropathogen in pediatric community UTI, and E. coli has developed resistance to many antibiotics, highlighting the need for regular surveys of this organism resistant patterns in the community. The aim of this study was to determine the oral antibiotic susceptibility patterns of E. coli, isolated from pediatric patients with uncomplicated community acquired UTI. Methods : E. coli isolates, obtained from pediatric patients with uncomplicated community acquired UTI between October in 2004 to September in 2005. And minimal inhibitory concentrations(MICs) of oral aminopenicillins and beta-lactamase inhibnitors(ampicillin, amoxacillin, ampicillin-sulbactam), oral cephalosporins(cefaclor, cefixime) and sulfa drug(trimethoprime-sulfamethoxazole) were performed according to the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards(NCCLS) guide line. Results : Total 211 organisms were isolated from pediatric out-patients with community UTI. E. coli was the most common organism(89 percent), followed by E. fecalis, Proteus species, S. aureus, M. morganii, and P. aeruginosa. The resistant rates of aminopenicillins and beta-lactamase inhibitors, cefaclor and sulfa drug to E. coli were very high. But, the resistant rate of cefixime was markedly low, and ESBL strains were isolated with small rates. Conclusion : Our study results suggest that aminopenicillins, cefaclor and sulfa drug may not be useful as first line empirical antibiotics to treat pediatric patients with community UTI in Korea. But, 3rd generation cephalosporin such as cefixime can be used as effective second line antibiotics after primary treatment failure, also may be useful as an empirical first line antibiotic. Finally, we conclude that a continuous surveillance study to monitor susceptibility patterns of E. coli in community UTI will be needed for the standard guide lines of empirical oral antibiotic treatment.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.17 no.5 s.85
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• pp.634-640
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• 2007

Our previous study suggested that n-3 fatty acid deficiency was associated with significantly reduced spatial learning as assessed by Morris water maze test. Here we investigated an effect of n-3 fatty acid deficiency on rat brain, retina and serum fatty acyl compositions at 15 wks age using a first generational artificial rearing technique. Newborn Rat pups were separated on day 2 and assigned to two artificial rearing groups or a dam-reared control group. Pups were hand fed artificial milk via custom-designed nursing bottles containing either 0.02%(n-3 Deficient) or 3.1% (n-3 Adequate) of total fatty acids as a-linolenic acid(LNA). At day 21, rats were weaned to either n-3 deficient or n-3 adequate pelleted diets and fatty acid compositions of brain, retina and liver were analyzed at 15 wks age. Brain docosahexaenoic acid(DHA) was lower(58% and 61%, P<0.05) in n-3 deficient in comparison to n-3 adequate and dam-reared groups, receptively, while brain docosapentaenoic acid(DPAn-6) was increased in the n-3 deficient group. In retina and serum fatty acid compositions, the decreased precentage of DHA and increased precentage of DPAn-6 were observed. These results suggested that artificial rearing method can be used to produce n-3 fatty acid deficiency in the first generation and that adequate brain DHA levels are required for optimal brain function.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.67-74
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• 2010

Law-protected trees are our precious asset as natural resources with history and tradition and natural heritage which should be protected and maintained well to bequeath next generation. Law-protected trees have not only thremmatologic and genetic meaning but also environmental and emotional meaning for their value to be high. This study investigated location, vitality, wrapping condition of root area and status of maintenance of the trees to figure out their growth environment and status of maintenance in a small-middle city through survey on those of law-protected trees in Je-cheon. There showed 300 more year old trees in Je-cheon mostly and the number of trees located in flat fields was the highest. For location type, village, hill and road types were presented in the order and for degree of development, land for building was found most frequently. The average electric resistance of the formative layer was measured to be $8.4k{\Omega}$ and four trees showed bark separation. Most law-protected trees underwent tree surgery, and complete bareness of root area was observed in a tree. The root area of two trees was covered with concrete. pH of soil was recorded to be 5.0~8.4 with its average of 7.1 and electric conductivity(EC) was less than 0.5 dS/m. For status of maintenance rearing facilities were placed for 16 trees out of totally 48 ones and stone fence was done for three ones. Tree surgery was conducted for 33 trees to prevent and to treat decomposed parts of holes. Direction boards were installed for 23 trees. Based on these results, measures to manage systematically law-protected trees in Jecheon could be suggested as follows. First, a sufficient space for growth of low part of trees should be secured. Second, a voluntary management should be induced by advertising them to residents in a community. Third, rearing facilities and direction boards of law-protected trees should be placed and related education should be conducted. Fourth, through operation of the department for law-protected trees consisting of related professions and cooperation among related departments the trees should be maintained continuously.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.173-180
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• 2019

Amyloid ${\beta}$-protein ($A{\beta}$) is the principal component of senile plaques characteristic of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and elicits a toxic effect on neurons in vitro and in vivo. Many environmental factors, including antioxidants and proteoglycans, modify $A{\beta}$ toxicity. It is worthwhile to isolate novel natural compounds that could prove therapeutic for patients with AD without causing detrimental side effects. In this study, we investigated the in vitro neuroprotective effects of the ethyl acetate fraction of methanol extract of Ophiophogon japonicas (OJEA fraction). We used an MTT reduction assay to detect protective effects of the OJEA fraction on $A{\beta}_{25-35}$-induced cytotoxicity to PC12 cells. We also used a cell-based ${\beta}$-secretase assay system to investigate the inhibitory effect of the OJEA fraction on ${\beta}$-secretase activity. In addition, we performed an in vitro lipid peroxidation assay to evaluate the protective effect of the OJEA fraction against oxidative stress induced by $A{\beta}_{25-35}$ in PC12 cells. The OJEA fraction had strong protective effects against $A{\beta}_{25-35}$-induced cytotoxicity to PC12 cells and was strongly inhibitory to ${\beta}$-secretase activity, which resulted in the attenuation of $A{\beta}$ generation. In addition, the OJEA fraction significantly decreased malondialdehyde (MDA) content, which is induced by the exposure of PC12 cells to $A{\beta}_{25-35}$. Our results suggested that the OJEA fraction contained active compounds exhibiting a neuroprotective effect on $A{\beta}$ toxicity.