• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.253-261
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• 2020

In this paper, we present an experimental investigation of the frequency characteristics and a visual inspection of an oxidizer pump with a modified rear-floating ring seal for a 7-tonf turbopump. An oxidizer pump typically operates at high rotational speeds and under cryogenic conditions. Despite its low hydraulic efficiency, the floating ring seal is frequently employed as a leakage control solution for turbomachinery because it effectively reduces abrasion by friction. When the oxidizer pump starts up, the floating ring moves excursively but locks up stably against the pump casing when the contact pressure increases. The compressive force on the floating ring depends on the hydrodynamic forces induced by the flow through the floating ring. This force is controlled by the nose position of the floating ring. Based on a validation test for a 7-tonf turbopump with two types of floating rings, we concluded that the floating ring with a small diameter nose can move easily with a low contact pressure in the cooling path. This leads to instability of the pressure fluctuation around the floating ring. In contrast, a floating ring with a large diameter nose has a high contact pressure and attaches strongly to the casing, which causes wear and frictional oxidation between the contact surfaces of the impeller and the floating ring.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1666-1672
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• 2005

Oriental medicinal drugs have a broad spectrum of clinical use for the cure of nervous system diseases including brain ischemic damages or neuropathies. Yet, specific drugs or drug components used in the oriental medicine in relation to none fiber regeneration are not known. In the present study, possible growth promoting effects of oriental medicinal drugs were investigated in the injured sciatic nerve system in the rat. By immunofluorescence staining, we found that Jahageo (JHG, Hominis placenta) increased Induction levels of axonal growth associated protein GAP-43 in the rat sciatic none. Small growth promoting activity was found in Golsebo (GSB, Drynariae rhizoma) and Baikhasuo (BHSO, Polygoni multiflori radix) drugs. JHG also increased cell cycle protein Cdc2 levels in the injured area of the sciatic nerves. Immunofluorescence staining indicated that induced Cdc2 protein was mostly localized in the Schwann cells in the injury area, implying that JHG activity might be related to increased Schwann cell proliferation during axonal regeneration. Moreover, levels of phospho-extracellular signal-regulated (ERK) pathway in the injured neNes were elevated by JHG treatment while levels of total ERK were unaltered. In vivo measurement of axonal regeneration using retrograde tracer showed that JHG, GSB and BHSO significantly enhanced Dil-labeled regenerating motor neurons compared with saline control. The present data suggest that oriental medicinal drugs such as JHG, GSB, and BHSO may be a useful target for developing specific drugs of axonal regeneration.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.117-124
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• 2009

Toxoplasma gondii provokes rapid and sustained nuclear translocation of the signal transducer and activator of transcription 6 (STAT6) in HeLa cells. We observed activation of STAT6 as early as 2hr after infection with T. gondii by the nuclear translocation of fluorescence expressed from exogenously transfected pDsRed2-STAT6 plasmid and by the detection of phosphotyrosine-STAT6 in Western blot. STAT6 activation occurred only by infection with live tachyzoites but not by co-culture with killed tachyzoites or soluble T. gondii extracts. STAT6 phosphorylation was inhibited by small interfering RNA of STAT6 (siSTAT6). In view of the fact that STAT6 is a central mediator of IL-4 induced gene expression, activation of STAT6 by T. gondii infection resembles that infected host cells has been stimulated by IL-4 treatment. STAT1 was affected to increase the transcription and expression by the treatment of siSTAT6. STAT6 activation was not affected by any excess SOCS's whereas that with IL-4 was inhibited by SOCS-1 and SOCS-3. T. gondii infection induced Eotaxin-3 gene expression which was reduced by $IFN-{\gamma}$. These results demonstrate that T. gondii exploits host STAT6 to take away various harmful reactions by $IFN-{\gamma}$. This shows, for the first time, IL-4-like action by T. gondii infection modulates microbicidal action by $IFN-{\gamma}$ in infected cells.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.464-473
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• 2018

Cripto is a small glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored signaling protein that can detach from the anchored membrane and stimulate proliferation, migration, differentiation, vascularization, and angiogenesis. In the present study, we demonstrated that Cripto positively affected proliferation and survival of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) without affecting multipotency. Cripto also increased expression of phosphorylated janus kinase 2 (p-JAK2), phosphorylated signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (p-STAT3), 78 kDa glucose-regulated protein (GRP78), c-Myc, and cyclin D1. Notably, treatment with an anti-GRP78 antibody blocked these effects. In addition, pretreatment with STAT3 short interfering RNA (siRNA) inhibited the increase in p-JAK2, c-Myc, cyclin D1, and BCL3 levels caused by Cripto and attenuated the pro-survival action of Cripto on MSCs. We also found that incubation with Cripto protected MSCs from apoptosis caused by hypoxia or $H_2O_2$ exposure, and the level of caspase-3 decreased by the Cripto-induced expression of B-cell lymphoma 3-encoded protein (BCL3). These effects were sensitive to down-regulation of BCL3 expression by BCL3 siRNA. Finally, we showed that Cripto enhanced expression levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), fibroblast growth factor (FGF), and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF). In summary, our results demonstrated that Cripto activated a novel biochemical cascade that potentiated MSC proliferation and survival. This cascade relied on phosphorylation of JAK2 and STAT3 and was regulated by GRP78. Our findings may facilitate clinical applications of MSCs, as these cells may benefit from positive effects of Cripto on their survival and biological properties.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.9
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• pp.669-679
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• 2016

N-acetyl-D-glucosamine kinase (GlcNAc kinase or NAGK) primarily catalyzes phosphoryl transfer to GlcNAc during amino sugar metabolism. Recently, it was shown NAGK interacts with dynein light chain roadblock type 1 (DYNLRB1) and upregulates axo-dendritic growth, which is an enzyme activity-independent, non-canonical structural role. The authors examined the distributions of NAGK and NAGK-dynein complexes during the cell cycle in HEK293T cells. NAGK was expressed throughout different stages of cell division and immunocytochemistry (ICC) showed NAGK was localized at nuclear envelope, spindle microtubules (MTs), and kinetochores (KTs). A proximity ligation assay (PLA) for NAGK and DYNLRB1 revealed NAGK-dynein complex on nuclear envelopes in prophase cells and on chromosomes in metaphase cells. NAGK-DYNLRB1 PLA followed by Lis1/NudE1 immunostaining showed NAGK-dynein complexes were colocalized with Lis1 and NudE1 signals, and PLA for NAGK-Lis1 showed similar signal patterns, suggesting a functional link between NAGK and dynein-Lis1 complex. Subsequently, NAGK-dynein complexes were found in KTs and on nuclear membranes where KTs were marked with CENP-B ICC and nuclear membrane with lamin ICC. Furthermore, knockdown of NAGK by small hairpin (sh) RNA was found to delay cell division. These results indicate that the NAGK-dynein interaction with the involvements of Lis1 and NudE1 plays an important role in prophase nuclear envelope breakdown (NEB) and metaphase MT-KT attachment during eukaryotic cell division.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.39 no.9
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• pp.848-857
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• 2011

Vision-based collision avoidance system for air traffic management requires a excellent multiple target detection algorithm under low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) levels. The track-before-detect (TBD) approaches have significant applications such as detection of small and dim targets from an image sequence. In this paper, two detection algorithms with the TBD approaches are proposed to satisfy the multiple target detection requirements. The first algorithm, based on a dynamic programming approach, is designed to classify multiple targets by using a k-means clustering algorithm. In the second approach, a hidden Markov model (HMM) is slightly modified for detecting multiple targets sequentially. Both of the proposed approaches are used in numerical simulations with variations in target appearance properties to provide satisfactory performance as multiple target detection methods.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.1856-1863
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• 2012

Two separate antennas are usually adopted in high performance radar systems to achieve the high degree of isolation since the transmission and reception of signals cannot be separated in time. However, even though two spatially separated antennas are installed in the system, strong signals from a transmission antenna can cause the serious interference problem in a receiving antenna. These strong interference signals from the transmission antenna can cause serious problems in detection and analysis of much weaker echo signals which are reflected by small targets. Also the increased level of background noise power due to interference can cause the serious degradation of the system performance. Therefore, in this paper, the proper cancellation method is suggested and results are shown and analyzed for removal of strong interference and background noise power.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.45-53
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• 2002

This paper presents an algorithm for the appropriate parameter selection of a power system stabilizer and power converters in two-area power systems with a series HVDC links. The method for PSS is one of the classical techniques by allocating properly poly-zero positions to fit as closely as desired the ideal phase lead and by changing the gain to produce a necessary damping torque. Proper parameter of power converters are obtained in order to have sufficient speed and stability margin to cope with changing reference values and disturbances based on the Root-locus technique. The small signal and transient stability studies using the PSS and power converters parameters obtained from these methods show that a natural oscillation frequency of the study case system is adequately damped. The simulation used in the paper was performed by the Power System Toolbox software program based on MATLAB.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.78-84
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• 2005

In the chemical laser system with a radial expansion nozzle array, the laser beam generation is achieved by mixing F atom from supersonic nozzle and $D_{2}$ molecule from holes of round-bended supply line. Based on that the fuel injection angle with main stream has a great influence of performance on supersonic combustor, the effects of $D_{2}$ injection angles with the main F flow on mixing enhancement are numerically investigated. The results are discussed by comparison with three cases of $D_{2}$ injection angles; $10^{o}$, $20^{o}$ and $40^{o}$ with the main flow direction. Major results reveal that as the $D_{2}$ injection angle increases, the maximum small signal gains and the static pressure in the laser cavity become higher. Consequently, the $D_{2}$ injection angle between $20^{o}$ and $40^{o}$ is recommended as an optimized geometric parameter in consideration of both of high gains and low cavity pressure.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.598-605
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• 2015

Effective alerts will drastically mitigate the disaster impacts. One way to enhance the effectiveness is to prepare multiple alert distribution channels. In this paper, we propose a new emergency alert distribution system that will solve the weaknesses of the current distribution systems, such as Cell Broadcasting System and T-DMB Automatic Emergency Alert Service. The weaknesses are: the limitation of message length, small portions of terminals that can receive and display the alert signal, and one-way communication service. To solve these problems, we propose an emergency alert distribution system over the Internet with RSS (Rich Site Summary) format. The system also has the capability of adaptive alert filtering according to the receiver characteristics. We analyzed the characteristics of RSS as an alerting format, and draw functional requirements satisfying use case scenarios. We designed the system only with major requirements and verified it on our test bed. Sending richer message contents through various receiving terminals, the system will achieve more effective emergency alert service.