• 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.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.71-96
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• 2011

Within the traditional medical delivery system, patients residing in medically vulnerable areas, those with body movement difficulties, and nursing facility residents have had limited access to good healthcare services. However, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) provides us with a convenient and useful means of overcoming distance and time constraints. ICT is integrated with biomedical science and technology in a way that offers a new high-quality medical service. As a result, rapid technological advancement is expected to play a pivotal role bringing about innovation in a wide range of medical service areas, such as medical management, testing, diagnosis, and treatment; offering new and improved healthcare services; and effecting dramatic changes in current medical services. The increase in aging population and chronic diseases has caused an increase in medical expenses. In response to the increasing demand for efficient healthcare services, a telehealth service based on ICT is being emphasized on a global level. Telehealth services have been implemented especially in pilot projects and system development and technological research. With the service about to be implemented in earnest, it is necessary to study its overall acceptance by consumers, which is expected to contribute to the development and activation of a variety of services. In this sense, the study aims at positively examining the structural relationship among the acceptance factors for telehealth services based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Data were collected by showing audiovisual material on telehealth services to online panels and requesting them to respond to a structured questionnaire sheet, which is known as the information acceleration method. Among the 1,165 adult respondents, 608 valid samples were finally chosen, while the remaining were excluded because of incomplete answers or allotted time overrun. In order to test the reliability and validity of the assessment scale items, we carried out reliability and factor analyses, and in order to explore the causal relation among potential variables, we conducted a structural equation modeling analysis using AMOS 7.0 and SPSS 17.0. The research outcomes are as follows. First, service quality, innovativeness of medical technology, and social influence were shown to affect perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of the telehealth service, which was statistically significant, and the two factors had a positive impact on willingness to accept the telehealth service. In addition, social influence had a direct, significant effect on intention to use, which is paralleled by the TAM used in previous research on technology acceptance. This shows that the research model proposed in the study effectively explains the acceptance of the telehealth service. Second, the research model reveals that information privacy concerns had a insignificant impact on perceived ease of use of the telehealth service. From this, it can be gathered that the concerns over information protection and security are reduced further due to advancements in information technology compared to the initial period in the information technology industry, and thus the improvement in quality of medical services appeared to ensure that information privacy concerns did not act as a prohibiting factor in the acceptance of the telehealth service. Thus, if other factors have an enormous impact on ease of use and usefulness, concerns over these results in the initial period of technology acceptance may become irrelevant. However, it is clear that users' information privacy concerns, as other studies have revealed, is a major factor affecting technology acceptance. Thus, caution must be exercised while interpreting the result, and further study is required on the issue. Numerous information technologies with outstanding performance and innovativeness often attract few consumers. A revised bill for those urgently in need of telehealth services is about to be approved in the national assembly. As telemedicine is implemented between doctors and patients, a wide range of systems that will improve the quality of healthcare services will be designed. In this sense, the study on the consumer acceptance of telehealth services is meaningful and offers strong academic evidence. Based on the implications, it can be expected to contribute to the activation of telehealth services. Further study is needed to assess the acceptance factors for telehealth services, such as motivation to remain healthy, health care involvement, knowledge on health, and control of health-related behavior, in order to develop unique services according to the categorization of customers based on health factors. In addition, further study may focus on various theoretical cognitive behavior models other than the TAM, such as the health belief model.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.147-165
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• 2008

IT education can be summarized as persuading the educatee to accept IT. The persuasion is made by delivering the messages for how-to-use and where-to-use to the educatee, which leads formulation of a belief structure for using IT. Therefore, message based persuasion theory, as well as IT acceptance theories such as technology acceptance model(TAM), would play a very important role for explaining IT education. According to elaboration likelihood model(ELM) that has been considered as one of the most influential persuasion theories, people change attitude or perception by two routes, central route and peripheral route. In central route, people would think critically about issue-related arguments in an informational message. In peripheral route, subjects rely on cues regarding the target behavior with less cognitive efforts. Moreover, such persuasion process is not a one-shot program but continuous repetition with feedbacks, which leads to changing a belief structure for using IT. An educatee would get more knowledge and experiences of using IT as following an education program, and be more dependent on a central route than a peripheral route. Such change would reformulate a belief structure which is different from the intial one. The objectives of this study are the following two: First, an identification of the relationship between ELM and belief structures for using IT. Especially, we analyze the effects of message interpretation through both of central and peripheral routes on perceived usefulness which is an important explaining variable in TAM and perceived use control which have perceived ease of use and perceived controllability as sub-dimensions. Second, a longitudinal analysis of the above effects. In other words, change of the relationship between interpretation of message delivered by IT education and beliefs of IT using is analyzed longitudinally. For achievement of our objectives, we suggest a research model, which is constructed as three-layered. While first layer has a dependent variable, use intention, second one has perceived usefulness and perceived use control that has two sub-concepts, perceived ease of use and perceived controllability. Finally, third one is related with two routes in ELM, source credibility and argument quality which are operationalization of peripheral route and central route respectively. By these variables, we suggest five hypotheses. In addition to relationship among variables, we suggest two additional hypotheses, moderation effects of time in the relationships between perceived usefulness and two routes. That is, source credibility's influence on perceived usefulness is decreased as time flows, and argument quality's influence is increased. For validation of it, our research model is tested empirically. With measurements which have been validated in the other studies, we survey students in an Excel class two times for longitudinal analysis. Data Analysis is done by partial least square(PLS), which is known as an appropriate approach for multi-group comparison analysis with a small sized sample as like this study. In result. all hypotheses are statistically supported. One of theoretical contributions in this study is an analysis of IT education based on ELM and TAM which are considered as important theories in psychology and IS theories respectively. A longitudinal analysis by comparison between two surveys based on PLS is also considered as a methodological contribution. In practice, finding the importance of peripheral route in early stage of IT education should be notable.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.33 no.6_1
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• pp.1029-1040
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• 2017

Wildfires release a large amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere. Fire radiative power (FRP) data obtained from geostationary satellites can play an important role for tracing the GHGs. This paper describes an estimation of the Himawari-8 FRP and fire emissions for Samcheock and Gangnueng wildfire in 6 May 2017. The FRP estimated using Himawari-8 well represented the temporal variability of the fire intensity, which cannot be captured by MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) because of its limited temporal resolution. Fire emissions calculated from the Himwari-8 FRP showed a very similar time-series pattern compared with the AirKorea observations, but 1 to 3 hour's time-lag existed because of the distance between the station and the wildfire location. The estimated emissions were also compared with those of a previous study which analyzed fire damages using high-resolution images. They almost coincided with 12% difference for Samcheock and 2% difference for Gangneung, demonstrating a reliability of the estimation of fire emissions using our Himawari-8 FRP without high-resolution images. This study can be a reference for estimating fire emissions using the current and forthcoming geostationary satellites in East Asia and can contribute to improving accuracy of meteorological products such as AOD (aerosol optical depth).

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.173-180
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• 2020

According to KISA, many people play smartphone games. stress relieving, time is the reason to beat. Attempts to combine mobile games and education in the Korean game market are continuing. Studies have shown that using commercial games for education can be effective. Also, researches for activation educational games are increasing. Creating educational games requires a lot of time and money. Due to the nature of mobile games, the service is often terminated without updating. If you are able to acquire a naturally educational part while playing mobile games, you will see the effect of one pair of fun and education, both at once. We analyzed the education factors of the game with 'Real Farm' which is a simulation farm game. We focused on analyzing information acquisition and utilization part through indirect experience which is characteristic of simulation and examined educational factors based on design elements of educational game. This can signal the positive aspects of the game and the educational content of existing games. If you use smartphones as a pedagogy, you can expect a positive perception of games and an increase in the average life expectancy of mobile games.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.421-428
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• 2022

The earthwork is a core process of all constructions, and compaction measurement of earthwork play an important role in improving productivity. The analog tests such as Plate Bearing Test and Sand-cone occupy current compaction measurement techniques. Due to advanced 4th Industrial Revolution, research on analog tests combined smart construction technology are actively conducted. DCPT (Dynamic Cone penetration Test), simpler and faster than conventional tests, has recently on rise. However, it is also an analog that measures data manually and has several disadvantages such as history management and data verification. The IoT-based DCPT system developed in this study combines digital wire sensors, mobile phones, and Bluetooth with conventional DCPT. Compare to conventional test methods, IoT-based DCPT has advantages such as performance time, single-person measurement, low cost, mobile-based management, and real-time data verification. In addition, a test bed was built to verify IoT-based DCPT. The test bed was built under similar conditions to the actual earthworks site through roller equipment. DCPT data obtained from 322 stations. As a result, IoT-based DCPT showed good performance, and the test bed was also showed stable results as the compaction was carried out.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.129-136
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• 2023

In this paper, we propose the positive effects of Virtual Reality(VR) sports classes and the foundation for VR sports to become the basis of lifelong sports education through the application of physical education classes in sports virtual reality programs are to be provided. For this purpose, the effect of VR sports experience on sports satisfaction, sports immersion, and sports attitude factors was investigated for 281 elementary school students in Busan. Results It was found that VR sports experience had a significant effect on sports satisfaction, sports satisfaction had a significant effect on sports immersion and sports attitude, and sports immersion had a significant effect on sports attitude. The great advantage of sports virtual reality is that sports activities for items that are difficult to deal with in physical education classes and unpopular items will be easily performed. In addition, by using a program that links physical education classes with English and mathematics, physical education will be recognized as a convergence subject by elementary school students, and at the same time, it will become an integrated subject that can acquire fun elements and learning elements at the same time through play or games.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.323-335
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• 2016

The main reason of marine casualties is the human error in respect of ship's operation. The human error of officers in charge of a navigational watch is related to their abilities to handle of navigational equipment. Navigational devices play a key role to help officers decide what to do for safe navigation. Thus, the abilities to handle of navigational equipment mean not only operation of devices but also entire understanding of the system such as interpretation of information obtained from devices, appropriate use of information considering navigational circumstance. Qualification of seafarers is in accordance with STCW and detailed training courses for their qualification are provided by IMO model course series. Recently, ships engaged on international voyages shall be fitted with an ECDIS not later than the first survey on or after 1 July 2018. As increasing use of ECDIS on ships, marine casualties related to ECDIS are on the rise. The primary causes of the accidents are lacking understanding of ECDIS system, wrong presentation of information on display, wrong safety setting by seafarers who use ECDIS, using small-scale chart and missing charts update. As a result of these primary causes, some problems like wrong route planning and use of limited or omitted information occur. It could be happening by inappropriate seafarers' training which is not sufficient to support improving abilities of officers to handle navigational equipment. For efficient training, it is need to develop training courses. Applying full mission simulation system to seafarers' training courses with case studies and best practices which are well-constructed scenarios based on true marine casualties can increase the effect of training. To use the simulation system, it is possible that seafarers are trained under condition that closely resemble real situation. It should be considered that IMO model course be revised depending on the level of seafarers also. It could be helpful for increasing seafarers' abilities of equipment operation in place of accumulation of experience spending much time. In the short term, effort of training courses improvement for seafarers is needed and long term, it should be tried to provide stable system and services relate to ECDIS.

• Convergence Security Journal
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.13-20
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• 2023

This study conducted a digital forensic analysis of Signal and Telegram, two secure messengers widely used in the Android environment. As mobile messengers currently play an important role in daily life, data management and security within these apps have become very important issues. Signal and Telegram, among others, are secure messengers that are highly reliable among users, and they safely protect users' personal information based on encryption technology. However, much research is still needed on how to analyze these encrypted data. In order to solve these problems, in this study, an in-depth analysis was conducted on the message encryption of Signal and Telegram and the database structure and encryption method in Android devices. In the case of Signal, we were able to successfully decrypt encrypted messages that are difficult to access from the outside due to complex algorithms and confirm the contents. In addition, the database structure of the two messenger apps was analyzed in detail and the information was organized into a folder structure and file format that could be used at any time. It is expected that more accurate and detailed digital forensic analysis will be possible in the future by applying more advanced technology and methodology based on the analyzed information. It is expected that this research will help increase understanding of secure messengers such as Signal and Telegram, which will open up possibilities for use in various aspects such as personal information protection and crime prevention.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.105-108
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• 2018

Beef was dry aged for 40-60 days under controlled environmental conditions in a refrigerated room with a relative humidity of 75%-80% and air-flow. To date, there is little information on the microbial diversity and characteristics of dry aged beef. In this study, we explored the effect of change in meat microorganisms on dry aged beef. Initially, the total bacteria and LAB were significantly increased for 50 days during all dry aging periods. There was an absence of representative foodborne pathogens as well as coliforms. Interestingly, fungi including yeast and mold that possess specific features were observed during the dry aging period. The 5.8S rRNA sequencing results showed that potentially harmful yeasts/molds (Candida sp., Cladosporium sp., Rhodotorula sp.) were present at the initial point of dry aging and they disappeared with increasing dry aging time. Interestingly, Penicillium camemberti and Debaryomyces hansenii used for cheese manufacturing were observed with an increase in the dry aging period. Taken together, our results showed that the change in microorganisms exerts an influence on the quality and safety of dry aged beef, and our study identified that fungi may play an important role in the palatability and flavor development of dry aged beef.