• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.427-434
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• 2024

This study took six individuals (three females and three males) from October 2017 to October 2018 to analyze the home range of Pteromys volans. A 3.5-g GPS tag was used to track the ranges, and a nest box was used to capture them. The home range was analyzed using MCP and KDE with the home range tool ArcGIS 10.3 (ESRI). As a result, it was found that the mean home ranges were MCP 100% 6.63±7.96 ha, MCP 95% 5.47±6.44 ha, and KDE 50% 4.43±5.87 ha. It was also found that the males (11.16±9.69 ha, MCP 100%) had wider home ranges than the females (2.11±1.76 ha, MCP 100%). In addition, during the non-winter season, males had a wider home range, including the home ranges of several females, and other overlapping home ranges were observed. In the winter season, the home ranges (0.15±0.47 ha, MCP 100%) became much smaller than in the non-winter season (9.88±6.90 ha, MCP 100%), and no overlap of the home ranges was observed.

• Smart Media Journal
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.24-34
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• 2024

If the future can be predicted from network traffic data, which is a time series, it can achieve effects such as efficient resource allocation, prevention of malicious attacks, and energy saving. Many models based on statistical and deep learning techniques have been proposed, and most of these studies have focused on improving model structures and learning algorithms. Another approach to improving the prediction performance of the model is to obtain a good-quality data. With the aim of obtaining a good-quality data, this paper applies a dense sampling technique that augments time series data to the application of network traffic prediction and analyzes the performance improvement. As a dataset, UNSW-NB15, which is widely used for network traffic analysis, is used. Performance is analyzed using RMSE, MAE, and MAPE. To increase the objectivity of performance measurement, experiment is performed independently 10 times and the performance of existing sparse sampling and dense sampling is compared as a box plot. As a result of comparing the performance by changing the window size and the horizon factor, dense sampling consistently showed a better performance.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.31-38
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• 2024

In this paper, we propose an ASAP(AI-driven Service for Advertisement Production) application that provides a generative AI-based automatic advertising image production service. This application utilizes GPT-3.5 Turbo Instruct to generate suitable background mood and promotional copy based on user-entered keywords. It utilizes OpenAI's DALL·E 3 model and Stability AI's SDXL model to generate background images and text images based on these inputs. Furthermore, OCR technology is employed to improve the accuracy of text images, and all generated outputs are synthesized to create the final advertisement. Additionally, using the PILLOW and OpenCV libraries, text boxes are implemented to insert details such as phone numbers and business hours at the edges of promotional materials. This application offers small business owners who face difficulties in advertising production a simple and cost-effective solution.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.21.1-21.21
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• 2022

As far the current severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), respiratory disease is still the biggest threat to human health. In addition, infectious respiratory diseases are particularly prominent. In addition to killing and clearing the infection pathogen directly, regulating the immune responses against the pathogens is also an important therapeutic modality. Sirtuins belong to NAD+-dependent class III histone deacetylases. Among 7 types of sirtuins, silent information regulator type-1 (SIRT1) played a multitasking role in modulating a wide range of physiological processes, including oxidative stress, inflammation, cell apoptosis, autophagy, antibacterial and antiviral functions. It showed a critical effect in regulating immune responses by deacetylation modification, especially through high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1), a core molecule regulating the immune system. SIRT1 was associated with many respiratory diseases, including COVID-19 infection, bacterial pneumonia, tuberculosis, and so on. Here, we reviewed the latest research progress regarding the effects of SIRT1 on immune system in respiratory diseases. First, the structure and catalytic characteristics of SIRT1 were introduced. Next, the roles of SIRT1, and the mechanisms underlying the immune regulatory effect through HMGB1, as well as the specific activators/inhibitors of SIRT1, were elaborated. Finally, the multitasking roles of SIRT1 in several respiratory diseases were discussed separately. Taken together, this review implied that SIRT1 could serve as a promising specific therapeutic target for the treatment of respiratory diseases.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.36.1-36.13
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• 2020

Hippo signaling pathways are evolutionarily conserved signal transduction mechanisms mainly involved in organ size control, tissue regeneration, and tumor suppression. However, in mammals, the primary role of Hippo signaling seems to be regulation of immunity. As such, humans with null mutations in STK4 (mammalian homologue of Drosophila Hippo; also known as MST1) suffer from recurrent infections and autoimmune symptoms. Although dysregulated T cell homeostasis and functions have been identified in MST1-deficient human patients and mouse models, detailed cellular and molecular bases of the immune dysfunction remain to be elucidated. Although the canonical Hippo signaling pathway involves transcriptional co-activator Yes-associated protein (YAP) or transcriptional coactivator with PDZ motif (TAZ), the major Hippo downstream signaling pathways in T cells are YAP/TAZ-independent and they widely differ between T cell subsets. Here we will review Hippo signaling mechanisms in T cell immunity and describe their implications for immune defects found in MST1-deficient patients and animals. Further, we propose that mutual inhibition of Mst and Akt kinases and their opposing roles on the stability and function of forkhead box O and β-catenin may explain various immune defects discovered in mutant mice lacking Hippo signaling components. Understanding these diverse Hippo signaling pathways and their interplay with other evolutionarily-conserved signaling components in T cells may uncover molecular targets relevant to vaccination, autoimmune diseases, and cancer immunotherapies.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.83-91
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• 2024

Hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1α) is a transcription factor activated under hypoxic conditions, and it plays a crucial role in cellular stress regulation. While HIF-1α activity is essential in normal tissues, its presence in the tumor microenvironment represents a significant risk factor as it can induce angiogenesis and confer resistance to anti-cancer drugs, thereby contributing to poor prognoses. Typically, HIF-1α undergoes rapid degradation in normoxic conditions via oxygen-dependent degradation mechanisms. However, certain cancer cells can express HIF-1α even under normoxia. In this study, we observed an inclination toward increased normoxic HIF-1α expression in cancer cell lines exhibiting increased HDAC6 expression, which prompted the hypothesis that HDAC6 may modulate HIF-1α stability in normoxic conditions. To prove this hypothesis, several cancer cells with relatively higher HIF-1α levels under normoxic conditions were treated with ACY-241, a selective HDAC6 inhibitor, and small interfering RNAs for HDAC6 knockdown. Our data revealed a significant reduction in HIF-1α expression upon HDAC6 inhibition. Moreover, the downregulation of HIF-1α under normoxic conditions decreased zinc finger E-box-binding homeobox 1 expression and increased E-cadherin levels in lung cancer H1975 cells, consequently suppressing cell invasion and migration. ACY-241 treatment also demonstrated an inhibitory effect on cell invasion and migration by reducing HIF-1α level. This study confirms that HDAC6 knockdown and ACY-241 treatment effectively decrease HIF-1α expression under normoxia, thereby suppressing the epithelial-mesenchymal transition. These findings highlight the potential of selective HDAC6 inhibition as an innovative therapeutic strategy for lung cancer.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.100004.1-100004.11
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• 2024

Insulin is essential for maintaining normoglycemia and is predominantly secreted in response to glucose stimulation by β-cells. Incretin hormones, such as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, also stimulate insulin secretion. However, as obesity and type 2 diabetes worsen, glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide loses its insulinotropic efficacy, whereas GLP-1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonists continue to be effective owing to its signaling switch from Gs to Gq. Herein, we demonstrated that endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress induced a transition from Gs to Gq in GLP-1R signaling in mouse islets. Intriguingly, chemical chaperones known to alleviate ER stress, such as 4-PBA and TUDCA, enforced GLP-1R's Gq utilization rather than reversing GLP-1R's signaling switch induced by ER stress or obese and diabetic conditions. In addition, the activation of X-box binding protein 1 (XBP1) or activating transcription factor 6 (ATF6), 2 key ER stress-associated signaling (unfolded protein response) factors, promoted Gs utilization in GLP-1R signaling, whereas Gq employment by ER stress was unaffected by XBP1 or ATF6 activation. Our study revealed that ER stress and its associated signaling events alter GLP-1R's signaling, which can be used in type 2 diabetes treatment.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.189-199
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• 2024

To properly extract the strain components under varying operational conditions is very important in bridge health monitoring. The abnormal sensor readings can be correctly identified and the expected operational performance of the bridge can be better understood if each strain components can be accurately quantified. In this study, strain components under varying load conditions, i.e., temperature variation and live-load variation are evaluated based on field strain measurements collected from a real concrete box-girder bridge. Temperature-induced strain is mainly regarded as the trend variation along with the ambient temperature, thus a smoothing technique based on the wavelet packet decomposition method is proposed to estimate the temperature-induced strain. However, how to effectively extract the vehicle-induced strain is always troublesome because conventional threshold setting-based methods cease to function: if the threshold is set too large, the minor response will be ignored, and if too small, noise will be introduced. Therefore, an autoencoder framework is proposed to evaluate the vehicle-induced strain. After the elimination of temperature and vehicle-induced strain, the left of which, defined as the model error, is used to assess the operational performance of the bridge. As empirical techniques fail to detect the degraded state of the structure, a clustering technique based on Gaussian Mixture Model is employed to identify the damage occurrence and the validity is verified in a simulation study.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.239-249
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• 2024

A new layered shear continuum model box was developed to address the dynamic response issues of buried oil and gas pipelines under multi-point excitation. Vibration table tests were conducted to investigate the seismic response of buried pipelines and the surrounding soil under longitudinal multi-point excitation. A nonlinear model of the pipeline-soil interaction was established using ABAQUS finite element software for simulation and analysis. The seismic response characteristics of the pipeline and soil under longitudinal multi-point excitation were clarified through vibration table tests and simulation. The results showed good consistency between the simulation and tests. The acceleration of the soil and pipeline exhibited amplification effects at loading levels of 0.1 g and 0.2 g, which significantly reduced at loading levels of 0.4 g and 0.62 g. The peak acceleration increased with increasing loading levels, and the peak frequency was in the low-frequency range of 0 Hz to 10 Hz. The amplitude in the frequency range of 10 Hz to 50 Hz showed a significant decreasing trend. The displacement peak curve of the soil increased with the loading level, and the nonlinearity of the soil resulted in a slower growth rate of displacement. The strain curve of the pipeline exhibited a parabolic shape, with the strain in the middle of the pipeline about 3 to 3.5 times larger than that on both sides. This study provides an effective theoretical basis and test basis for improving the seismic resistance of buried oil and gas pipelines.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.253-261
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• 2023

Objective: Azoospermia (the total absence of sperm in the ejaculate) affects approximately 10% of infertile males. Despite diagnostic advances, azoospermia remains the most challenging issue associated with infertility treatment. Our study evaluated transition nuclear protein 2 (TNP2) and synaptonemal complex protein 3 (SYCP3) polymorphisms, azoospermia factor a (AZFa) microdeletion, and gene expression levels in 100 patients with azoospermia. Methods: We investigated a TNP2 single-nucleotide polymorphism through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis using a particular endonuclease. An allele-specific PCR assay for SYCP3 was performed utilizing two forward primers and a common reverse primer in two PCR reactions. Based on the European Academy of Andrology guidelines, AZFa microdeletions were evaluated by multiplex PCR. TNP2, SYCP3, and the AZFa region main gene (DEAD-box helicase 3 and Y-linked [DDX3Y]) expression levels were assessed via quantitative PCR, and receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used to determine the diagnostic capability of these genes. Results: The TNP2 genotyping and allelic frequency in infertile males did not differ significantly from fertile volunteers. In participants with azoospermia, the allelic frequency of the SYCP3 mutant allele (C allele) was significantly altered. Deletion of sY84 and sY86 was discovered in patients with azoospermia and oligozoospermia. Moreover, SYCP3 and DDX3Y showed decreased expression levels in the azoospermia group, and they exhibited potential as biomarkers for diagnosing azoospermia (area under the curve, 0.722 and 0.720, respectively). Conclusion: These results suggest that reduced SYCP3 and DDX3Y mRNA expression profiles in testicular tissue are associated with a higher likelihood of retrieving spermatozoa in individuals with azoospermia. The homozygous genotype TT of the SYCP3 polymorphism was significantly associated with azoospermia.