• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.310-317
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• 1992

Background: Angiotensin converting enzyme is a glycoprotein peptidyldipeptide hydrolase which cleaves the c-terminal dipeptides of several oligopeptides. It is a menbrane-bound protein mainly synthesized by the endothelial cells. Since the lung has the largest capillary bed of any organ in the body, it is here that ACE acts on circulating substrates like angiotensin I and bradykinin. It is well known that ACE correlates with disease activity in sarcoidosis and also there are reports that changes in serum ACE activity are found in many acute and chronic lung diseases. So we planned this study to see if serum ACE activity can act as a prognostic factor in lung cancer. Methods: Forty-one newly diagnosed lung cancer patients were included in the study group. There were 19 patients with squamous cell lung cancer, 13 with adenocarcinoma, and 9 with small cell carcinoma. Patients were excluded from the study if they had high blood pressure, heart disease, liver disease, renal disease, or other lung disease. Serum ACE activity was analyzed according to cell type, staging, mode of treatment, and clinical response to treatment. Results: 1) There was no difference in serum ACE activity between lung cancer patients and the control group. Also no difference in serum ACE activity was found according to cancer cell type or staging. 2) In patients who underwent curative resection of lung cancer, serum ACE activity was decreased significantly after the operation. 3) In patients who were diagnosed as non-small cell lung cancer and were treated with 4 cycles of anti-cancer chemotherapy without clinical improvement, changes in serum ACE activity were not seen after the treatment. 4) In patients diagnosed as small cell lung cancer treated with 4 cycles of anti-cancer chemotherapy with clinical improvement, changes in serum ACE activity were also not observed. Conclusion: Serum ACE activity was decreased after lung resection but had no relation to cell type, staging, or clinical response to treatment in lung cancer patients. Therefore, serum ACE activity is not suitable in predicting clinical outcome of lung cancer patients.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.510-514
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• 2007

Twenty-five bacterial strains that secrete mucous materials were isolated from sediment obtained from King George Island, Antarctica. Seven of these strains proved capable of producing cryoprotective exopolysaccharides. The strain KOPRI 21653 was selected for the further study of an anti-ice-nucleating polysaccharide (ANP), which originated from a polar region. KOPRI 21653 was identified as Pseudoalteromonas arctica as the result of 16S rRNA analysis. The exopolysaccharide, P-21653, was purified completely from the KOPRI 21653 cell culture via column chromatography and protease treatment. The principal sugar components of P-21653 were determined to be galactose and glucose, at a ratio of 1:1.5, via GC-MS analysis. The cryoprotective activity of P-21653 was characterized via an E. coli viability test. In the presence of 0.1% (w/v) P-21653, the survival ratio of E. coli cells was as high as 82.6% over three repeated freeze-thaw cycles. The survival ratio decreased drastically to 71.5 and 48.1 %, respectively, in five and seven repeated cycle conditions; however, the survival ratios were greater over three (96.6-92.1%) to seven (100.5-91.6%) freeze-thaw cycles in the presence of 0.5 and 1.0% (w/v) P-21653. In addition, at much lower concentrations (0.1-1.0%), P-21653 resulted in survival ratios (83.1-98.4%) similar to those of two commercially available cryoprotectants ($V_{EG}$ plus X-1000, 92.9% and $V_{M3}$, 95.3%), which were utilized at the recommended concentrations (90%). The biochemical characteristics of exopolysaccharide P-21653 reflect that this compound may be developed as a useful cryoprotectant for use in medical applications and in the food industry.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.203-207
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• 2005

Electrical rhythmicity in the gastrointestinal (GI) muscles is generated by pacemaker cells, known as interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC). In the present study, we investigated the effect of external divalent cations on pacemaking activity in cultured ICC from murine small intestine by using whole-cell patch clamp techniques. ICC generated pacemaker currents under a voltage clamp or electrical pacemaker potentials under a current clamp, and showed a mean amplitude of $-500{\pm}50$ pA or $30{\pm}1$ mV and the frequency of $18{\pm}2$ cycles/min. Treatments of the cells with external 0 mM $Ca^{2+}$ stopped pacemaking activity of ICC. In the presence of 2 mM $Ca^{2+}$, 0 mM external $Mg^{2+}$ depolarized the resting membrane potential, and there was no change in the frequency of pacemaking activity. However, 10 mM external $Mg^{2+}$ decreased the frequency of pacemaking activity ($6.75{\pm}1$ cycles/min, n=5). We replaced external 2 mM $Ca^{2+}$ with equimolar $Ba^{2+}$, $Mn^{2+}$ and $Sr^{2+}$, and they all developed inward current in the sequence of $Ba^{2+}$>$Mn^{2+}$>$Sr^{2+}$. Also the frequency of the pacemaking activity was stopped or irregulated. We investigated the effect of 10 mM $Ba^{2+}$, $Mn^{2+}$ and $Sr^{2+}$ on pacemaking activity of ICC in the presence of external 0 mM $Mg^{2+}$, and found that 10 mM $Ba^{2+}$ and $Mn^{2+}$ induced large inward current and stopped the pacemaking activity of ICC (n=5). Interestingly, 10 mM $Sr^{2+}$ induced small inward current and potentiated the amplitude of pacemaking activity of ICC (n=5). These results indicate that extracellular $Ca^{2+}$ and $Mg^{2+}$ are requisite for the pacemaking activity of ICC.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.765-770
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• 2012

In this paper, we proposed an effective hardware structure using DCT-based inra-prediction mode selection to reduce computational complexity caused by intra mode decision. In this hardware structure, the input block is transformed at first and then analyzed to determine its texture directional tendency. the complexity has solved by performing intra prediction in only predicted edge direction. $4{\times}4$ DCT is calculated in one cycle using Multitransform_PE and Inta_pred_PE calculates one prediction mode in two cycles. Experimental results show that the proposed Intra prediction encoding needs only 517 cycles for one macroblock encoding. This architecture improves the performance by about 17% than previous designs. For hardware implementation, the proposed intra prediction encoder is implemented using Verilog HDL and synthesized with Megnachip $0.18{\mu}m$ standard cell library. The synthesis results show that the proposed architecture can run at 125MHz.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.522-531
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• 2018

A public-key cryptography processor EC-RSA was designed, which integrates a 224-bit prime field elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) defined in the FIPS 186-2 as well as RSA with 2048-bit key length into a single hardware structure. A finite field arithmetic core used in both scalar multiplication for ECC and exponentiation for RSA was designed with 32-bit data-path. A lightweight implementation was achieved by an efficient hardware sharing of the finite field arithmetic core and internal memory for ECC and RSA operations. The EC-RSA processor was verified by FPGA implementation. It occupied 11,779 gate equivalents (GEs) and 14 kbit RAM synthesized with a 180-nm CMOS cell library and the estimated maximum clock frequency was 133 MHz. It takes 867,746 clock cycles for ECC scalar multiplication resulting in the estimated throughput of 34.3 kbps, and takes 26,149,013 clock cycles for RSA decryption resulting in the estimated throughput of 10.4 kbps.

• The Korea Journal of Herbology
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.77-82
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• 2005

Objectives : A morphological classification among Achyranthes japonica Nakai (produced in Korea), A. bidentata Blume (imported from China), and Cyathula officinalis Kuan (used in China exclusively) was made through microscopic observation. Method : The slice of the tested material made by paraffin section technique was colored with Safranine Malachite Green contrast methods, and then observed and photographed by olymphus-BHT. Result : 1. Korean A. japonica Nakai has slim roots, whose diameter is $1{\sim}5\;mm$. 1) Most of its intersection is stele, which includes a lot of vascular bundles. The inside of vascular bundles shows the arrangement of $2{\sim}4$ cycles, the innermost wheel of which is divided into two parts. 2) Parts of parenchymatous cell include Crystal sand of calcium oxalate. 2. The diameter of the roots of Chinese A. bidentata Blume is $0.4{\sim}1\;cm$. 1) The xylem in the vascular bundle in the middle of its intersection is rather big, around which the inner parts of the vascular bundles are arranged in the shape of $2{\sim}4$ cycles around. The most outside part of it is small, and the middle part is gathered into $2{\sim}3$ groups. 2) Parts of parenchymatous cells include Crystal sand of calcium oxalate. 3. The roots of Chinese C. officinalis Kuan is thick, whose diameter is $0.5{\sim}3\;cm$. 1) Vascular bundle of its intersection is spotted, arranged in the shape of $4{\sim}11$ concentric circles, whose center is divided into $2{\sim}9$ groups. 2) Parenchymatous cells include crystal sand and square crystal of calcium oxalate. Conclusion : It is concluded that Achyranthes japonica Nakai, A. bidentata Blume, and C. officinalis Kuan have different shapes in both external forms and internal intersections, so that they can be easily distinguished from one another through microscopic observation.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.403-408
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• 2012

A sample of ultra low carbon IF steel was processed by six-layer stack accumulative roll-bonding (ARB) and annealed. The ARB was conducted at ambient temperature after deforming the as-received material to a thickness of 0.5 mm by 50% cold rolling. The ARB was performed for a six-layer stacked, i.e. a 3 mm thick sheet, up to 3 cycles (an equivalent strain of ~7.0). In each ARB cycle, the stacked sheets were, first, deformed to 1.5 mm thickness by 50% rolling and then reduced to 0.5 mm thickness, as the starting thickness, by multi-pass rolling without lubrication. The specimen after 3 cycles was then annealed for 0.5 h at various temperatures ranging from 673 to 973 K. The microstructural evolution with the annealing temperature for the 3-cycle ARB processed IF steel was investigated in detail by transmission electron microscopy observation. The ARB processed IF steel exhibited mainly a dislocation cell lamella structure with relatively high dislocation density in which the subgrains were partially observed. The selected area diffraction (SAD) patterns suggested that the misorientation between neighboring cells or subgrains was very small. The thickness of the grains increased in a gradual way up to 873 K, but above 898 K it increased drastically. As a result, the grains came to have an equiaxed morphology at 898 K, in which the width and the thickness of the grains were almost identical. The grain growth occurred actively at temperatures above 923 K.

• Food Science and Biotechnology
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.1537-1540
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• 2009

Enterobacter sakazakii is a representative microorganism whose presence in infant foods can cause serious disease. The purposes of this study were to determine the inactivation effects of intense pulsed light (IPL) on E. sakazakii and the commercial feasibility of this sterilization method. The inactivation of E. sakazakii increased with increasing electric power and treatment time. The cells were reduced by 5 log cycles for 4.6 and 1.8 msec of treatment at 10 and 15 kV of electric field strength, respectively. The sterilization effects on commercial infant foods were investigated at 15 kV. The cell population in an infant beverage, an infant meal, and an infant powdered milk product inoculated with E. sakazakii were inactivated exponentially as a function of time and reduced by 4.0, 2.5, and 1.5 log cycles for 9.4, 7.0, and 7.0 msec of treatment time, respectively.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.311-315
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• 2011

The objective of this study was to evaluate the antimicrobial effects of various natural flavonoids against growth of psychotropic Bacillus cereus strains, which cause dairy food outbreaks. Flavonoids were first screened for their ability to inhibit growth of B. cereus strains using the paper-disc diffusion test. Second, the growth inhibitory effect of selected flavonoids was evaluated in tryptic soy broth supplemented with 0.6% yeast extract, and the bactericidal effect of the flavonoids was measured in 0.8% (w/v) NaCl solution. Based on the paper-disc diffusion test, kaempferol was effectively active against B. cereus P14 and B. cereus KCCM 40935. Kaempferol had an antimicrobial effect at concentrations greater than 100 ${\mu}M$, and the numbers of B. cereus P14 and B. cereus KCCM 40935 decreased by 3.55 and 1.5 log cycles, respectively. The cell numbers of B. cereus P14 and B. cereus KCCM 40935 treated with 50 ${\mu}M$ kaempferol were reduced by 4.18 and 2.84 log cycles during a 24 h incubation to test the bactericidal effect of kaempferol (p<0.05). The results indicate that kaempferol had the greatest antimicrobial effect among the psychotropic B. cereus strains and the natural flavonoids tested.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2014.11a
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• pp.273-273
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• 2014

Quantum-dot sensitized solar cells (QDSCs) are an emerging class of solar cells owing to their easy fabrication, low cost and material diversity. Despite of the fact that the maximum conversion efficiency of QDSCs is still far less than that of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (>12 %), their unique characteristics like Multiple Exciton Generation (MEG), energy band tune-ability and tendency to incorporate multiple co-sensitizers concurrently has made QDs a suitable alternative to expensive dyes for solar cell application. Lead Sulfide (PbS) Quantum dot sensitized solar cells are theoretically proficient enough to have a photo-current density ($J_{sc}$) of $36mA/cm^2$, but practically there are very few reports on photocurrent enhancement in PbS QDSCs. Recently, $Hg^{2+}$ incorporated PbS quantumdots and Cadmium Sulfide (CdS) co-sensitized PbS solarcells are reported to show an improvement in photo-current density ($J_{sc}$). In this study, we explored the efficacy of $In_2S_3$ as an interfacial layer deposited through SILAR process for PbS QDSCs. $In_2S_3$ was chosen as the interfacial layer in order to avoid the usage of hazardous CdS or Mercury (Hg). Herein, the deposition of $In_2S_3$ interfacial layer on $TiO_2$ prior to PbS QDs exhibited a direct enhancement in the photo-current (Isc). Improved photo-absorption as well as interfacial recombination barrier caused by $In_2S_3$ deposition increased the photo-current density ($J_{sc}$) from $13mA/cm^2$ to $15.5mA/cm^2$ for single cycle of $In_2S_3$ deposition. Increase in the number of cycles of $In_2S_3$ deposition was found to deteriorate the photocurrent, however it increased $V_{oc}$ of the device which reached to an optimum value of 2.25% Photo-conversion Efficiency (PCE) for 2 cycles of $In_2S_3$ deposition. Effect of Heat Treatment, Normalized Current Stability, Open Circuit Voltage Decay and Dark IV Characteristics were further measured to reveal the characteristics of device.