• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.477-483
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• 2018

Transcranial doppler is a non-invasive method that measures the blood flow velocity and the direction of cerebral blood vessels through the doppler principle. The pulsatility index is an index for measuring the transcranial doppler that reflects the distal vascular resistance and is used as an index for the presence and diffusion of cerebral small vessel diseases. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the risk factors affecting the basilar artery pulsatility index in ischemic stroke patients. From January 2014 to May 2015, 422 patients were selected by measuring the transcranial doppler pulsatility index, considering their basilar artery pulsatility index. Univariate analysis was performed using the basilar artery pulsatility index as a dependent variable. Multiple regression analysis was performed considering the factors affecting the pulsatility index as variables. Univariate analysis revealed age, presence of hypertension, presence of diabetes mellitus, presence of hyperlipidemia, and hematocrit (P<0.1) as factors. Multiple regression analysis showed statistically significant results with age (P<0.001), presence of diabetes (P=0.004), and presence of hyperlipidemia (P=0.041). The risk factors affecting the basilar artery pulsatility index of transcranial doppler were age, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia. Further research will be needed to increase the cerebral pulsatility index as a surrogate marker of the elderly, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.406-413
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• 2018

The emergence of carbapenem resistance among Pseudomonas aeruginosa has become an increasing problem worldwide. In particular, $metallo-{\beta}-lactamases$ (MBLs) are responsible for the high-level resistance to carbapenem. Sequence type 235 (ST235) has been found internationally in a multidrug-resistant clone and is involved in the dissemination of genes encoding IMP-6 and VIM-2. This study examined the prevalence of MBLs and the epidemiological relationship in carbapenem-resistant P. aeruginosa (CRPA) isolates obtained from a tertiary hospital in Daejeon, Korea, between March 2008 and June 2014. The antimicrobial susceptibilities were determined using the disk-diffusion method and PCR and DNA sequencing were used to identify the MBL genes. In addition, an epidemiological relationship was investigated by multilocus sequence typing (MLST). Among the 110 CRPA isolates, 32 isolates (29.1%) were MBL-producers; the major type was IMP-6 (29 isolates, 90.6%). VIM-2 was identified in 3 isolates (9.4%) of ST357. IMP-6-producing isolates were multidrug-resistant (MDR) and belonged to ST235. ST235 (55 isolates, 50.0%) was the clone most frequently detected and has gradually emerged during a seven-year period. To prevent the spread of MDR ST235 P. aeruginosa isolates, the current widespread use of carbapenems needs to be curtailed, and novel continuous monitoring strategies should be developed as soon as possible.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.1477-1488
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• 2018

This study investigated the muscles, intestines, and gonads of Sulculus diversicolor supertexta to examine the diversity of microbial communities within examples collected from the Jeju Coast. Using different media, initial pure isolation in MA, 1% BHIA, and 1% TSA indicated that the muscles, intestines, and gonads supported more communities, respectively. In analysis of relative similarity with 16s rRNA sequencing, 190 pure colonies were isolated, and further analysis with NBLAST identified 71 species, 39 genera, 25 families, and five phyla. Homogeny with the reference strain was 91-100%. Microbial communities in S. supertexta consisted of gamma and alpha Proteobacteria (48%), Actinobacteria (32.5%), Firmicutes (16.9%), Deinococcus-Thermus (1.3%), and Bacteroides (1.3%). In all tissue, Psychrobacter cibarius in Moraxellaceae was dominant. Alteromonadaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, Pasturellaceae, Moraxellaceae, Rhodobacteraceae, Geminicoccaceae, Dietziaceae, Intrasporangiaceae, Microbacteriaceae, Micrococcaceae, Micromonosporaceae, Streptomycetaceae, Aerococcaceae, Bacillaceae, Paenibacillaceae, Planococcaceae, and Staphylcoccaceae were commonly isolated across all tissues, and Flavobacteriaceae, Corynebacteriaceae, Yesiniaceae, Vibrionaceae, Hahellaceae, Pseudomonadaceae were also identified from the intestines. In microbial monitoring of four harmful bacteria, Streptomyces albus (96%) showed antibacterial activity against all four strains, and Agrococcus baldri (99%) and Psychrobacter nivimaris (99%) presented against E. Coli and E. aerogens. In addition, some strains with low homogeny were isolated and further experiments are therefore required, for example to refine the antimicrobial substances including new strain investigations. These additional experiments would aim to establish generic resources for the microbial communities in S. Supertexta and provide basic data for applied microbiological research.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.1536-1544
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• 2018

Depression is a common, serious, and recurring mental disorder. The pathogenesis of depression involves many factors such as environmental factor, genetic factor and alteration of structure and function in neurobiological systems. Increasing evidence supports that epigenetic alteration may be associated with depression. The epigenetics is explained as the mechanisms by which environmental factor causes changes in chromatin structure and alters gene expression without changing DNA base sequence. DNA methylation and histone modification involving histone acetylation and methylation are the main epigenetic mechanisms. Animal studies have shown that stressful environment such as early life stress can leave persistent epigenetic marks in the genome, which alter gene expression and influence neural and behavioral function through adulthood. A potentially important gene in depression is brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF plays a central role in depression and antidepressant action. In studies of the rodent, exposure to stress at prenatal, postnatal, and adult stages alters BDNF expression through histone modification and DNA methylation of the BDNF gene which results in anxiety and depressive-like behavior. This review discusses recent advances in the study of the epigenetic mechanisms that contribute to depression, particularly histone modification and DNA methylation of the BDNF gene, that may help in the development of new targets for depression treatment.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.30-38
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• 2019

Tracking, which is one of the main causes of electrical fires, is perceived as a physical phenomenon of electrical discharge. Hence tracking should be explained based on electric field analysis, conduction path by electron generation, and gas discharge physics. However, few papers have considered these details. This paper proposes a tracking mechanism including their effects on tracking progress. In order to prove this mechanism, a tracking experiment, an electric field analysis for the carbonization evolution model, and an explanation of the tracking process by gas discharge physics were conducted. From the tracking experiment, the current waveforms were measured at each stage of the tracking progress from corona discharge to tracking breakdown. The electric field analysis was carried out in order to determine the electric field on the surface of a dry-band and the high electric field region for electron generation during the generation and progress of carbonization. In this paper, the proposed tracking mechanism consisted of six stages including electron avalanche by corona discharge, accumulation of positive ions, expansion of electron avalanche, secondary electron emission avalanche, streamer, and tracking by conductive path. The pulse current waveforms measured in the tracking experiment can be explained by the proposed tracking mechanism. The results of this study will be used as the technical data to detect tracking phenomenon, which is the cause of electric fire, and to improve the proof tracking index.

• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.458-477
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• 2019

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the trend in the research on alcoholic liver disease (ALD) using Korean traditional medicine. Methods: This review was conducted using six electronic databases (NDSL, KMBASE, Koreantk, KISS, KISTI, and KoreaMed) with no restrictions in year. The search terms were "alcoholic liver disease", "alcoholic fatty liver", "alcoholic hepatitis", "alcoholic cirrhosis", "herbal medicine", "acupuncture" and "traditional medicine". The searched studies were analyzed according to the type of research. Results: After screening, 37 studies were selected among 552. The types of studies were as follows: 8 in vivo studies, 17 case reports, 7 case series, 1 assessment scale study, 1 randomized controlled trial, and 3 research reviews. The in vivo studies reported the efficacy and its mechanism in the animal phase of single or complex herbal medicine. In the clinical research, interventions such as herbal medicine and acupuncture were most commonly used for ALD treatment. Conclusions: We analyzed the trends in ALD treatment using Korean traditional medicine through this review. The results showed that Korean traditional medicine could be an effective method for ALD treatment. Conducting related in-depth studies, such as well-designed randomized controlled trial based on the results of experimental research, is necessary.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.241-248
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• 2019

Pesticide exposure may induce biochemical alterations including oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation. However, in the context of developmental origin of health and disease, putative trans-generational effect of exposure to pesticides are insufficiently studied. We therefore aimed to evaluate the biochemical effect of gestational exposure to four pesticides on female Wistar rats and their offspring at adult age. We studied 30 female nulliparous Wistar rats divided into 5 equal groups. Group 1 served as the control group and received distilled water while group 2, 3, 4 and 5 received orally pesticide 1 (imidacloprid), pesticide 2 (chlorpyrifos), pesticide 3 (imidacloprid + lambda cyhalothrin) and pesticide 4 (oxamyl) respectively once daily throughout gestation at a dose equivalent to 1/10 lethal dose 50. The mothers were followed up until one month post gestation. The offspring were followed up from birth until adult age (12 weeks). In all animals at each time point we evaluated malondialdehyde (MDA), oxidative stress and liver function enzymes. There was similar variation of total body weight in all the groups during and after gestation. However, Female Wistar rats of the exposed groups had significant alterations in liver SOD (-30.8% to +64.1%), catalase (-38.8% to -85.7%) and GSH (-29.2% to -86.5%) and; kidney catalase (> 100%), GSH (> 100%). Moreover, MDA, alanine transaminase (ALT) and aspartate transaminase (AST) levels were significantly higher in pesticide exposed rats compared to the control group. Similar alterations in antioxidant enzymes, MDA and liver function enzymes were observed in offspring of treated rats evidenced at weaning and persisting until adult age. Exposure to pesticides causes oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation in exposed female Wistar rats and their offspring. The persistence in offspring at adult age suggests transgenerational adverse effects.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.105-115
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• 2019

Brain tumor surgery may be difficult, but it is also incredibly important. The technological improvements for traditional brain tumor surgeries have always been a focus to improve the precision of surgery and release the potential of the technology in this important area of the body. The need for precision during brain tumor surgery has led to an increase in Robotic-assisted surgeries (RAS). One of the challenges to the widespread acceptance of RAS in the neurosurgery is to recognize invisible tumor accurately. Therefore, it is important to detect brain tumor size and location because surgeon tries to remove as much tumor as possible. In this paper, we proposed brain tumor detection procedures for MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) system. A method of automatic brain tumor detection is needed to accurately target the location of the lesion during brain tumor surgery and to report the location and size of the lesion. In the qualitative assessment, the proposed method showed better results than those obtained with other brain tumor detection methods. Comparisons among all assessment criteria indicated that the proposed method was significantly superior to the threshold method with respect to all assessment criteria. The proposed method was effective for detecting brain tumor.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.445-451
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• 2019

The fluorescence intensity and fluorescence lifetime of $Ba_2GdV_3O_{11}$, a vanadate compound based on $Ba^{2+}$ ion, were investigated by adding $Eu^{3+}$ as a rare earth ion which is an alkaline earth metal, which is distributed around active ions and has a large influence on fluorescent properties when used as a host in a phosphor. $Ba_2GdV_3O_{11}:Eu^{3+}$ phosphor was synthesized by solid state method and the crystallinity of the phosphor was confirmed by X - ray diffraction analysis. The fluorescence properties of the $Ba_2GdV_3O_{11}:Eu^{3+}$ phosphor were measured using optical and laser. The energy transfer and diffusion of the $Ba_2GdV_3O_{11}:Eu^{3+}$ phosphor are highly dependent on the concentration of $Eu^{3+}$. When the concentration of $Eu^{3+}$ is low, it shows strong fluorescence to the CT band. However, as the concentration of $Eu^{3+}$ increases, the fluorescence due to 4f - 4f transition is strong. The concentration of $Eu^{3+}$ ion increased and the energy between ions was diffused, and the lifetime of fluorescence decreased. Energy transfer occurs between two $Eu^{3+}$ ions at low $Eu^{3+}$ concentration and energy diffusion occurs at high $Eu^{3+}$ concentration.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.333-338
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• 2019

In the field of radiotherapy, the Quality Assurance(QA) procedure to verify the safety of treatment is considered to be very important. However, due to various problems of the conventional dosimeters used for the QA, researches on these dosimeters have been actively carried out to replace them. In this study, to maximize the sensitivity by visible light(VL) emitted from phosphors, blended hybrid sensors were fabricated by blending various weight percent(wt%) of $Gd_2O_2S:Tb$ which is a phosphor with excellent fluorescence efficiency into $PbI_2$. Then, the electrical properties to high energy radiation from the blended sensors and the pure $PbI_2$ sensor were compared and evaluated. As a result of the sensitivity evaluation, the sensor of 3wt% showed the highest value with more than 40% difference from the other sensors, and gradual decreasing in sensitivity was observed with increasing wt% except for the sensor of 3wt%. Also, in the reproducibility evaluation, the pure $PbI_2$ sensor exhibited a large variation in coefficient of variation(CV)>0.015, while all the blended sensors showed CV<0.015.