• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.342-346
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• 2018

Background: Green tea extracts are approved as nonprescription drug and available as health functional foods, health foods, and beverages. Clinical information on the products is lacking. Methods: Information about the products on green tea nonprescription drugs was obtained from the website of the Korea Pharmaceutical Information Center. The Naver, i.e., a top ranking online search portal, was used for compiling the list of the health functional food products using key words of 'green tea catechin' on August 23, 2018. The recommended daily dosages of catechins were calculated as 30% of the total dried mass of green tea and about 50% of the catechins were considered as epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). Results: A total of two types of nonprescription drugs containing green tea powder or extracts, nine health functional food products, and three types of health foods were found. The regulatory requirements of the EGCG exceeding 800 mg were reported to be associated with adverse effects of elevated liver enzyme. If consumers take several green tea products concurrently, such as nonprescription drugs with health functional foods or health foods, it could exceed the recommended amount of EGCG. Conclusion: The concurrent use of green tea products as nonprescription drugs, health functional foods, and healthy foods may lead to an increased exposure to EGCG. Pharmacists should be aware the availability of various types of green tea products and the potential risk of liver toxicity due to excessive consumption of EGCG.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.29 no.12
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• pp.915-923
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• 2018

A concrete embedded antenna design is proposed for probing the durability of a building at an industrial scientific medical band of 902~908 MHz. The proposed antenna is designed with a stacked slot patch structure for lower impedance variation to a dielectric constant of concrete, as a dielectric constant difference is derived from the moisture content. The proposed structure has a wider bandwidth when a parasitic patch structure is used, which reduces antenna performance degradation resulting from the moisture content of concrete. The measured voltage standing wave ratio of the proposed structure is less than 2 and the beam width is approximately $80^{\circ}$, whereas the gain is greater than 7 dBi. The proposed antenna is fabricated with a rectangle-type concrete block, which is simulated and measured for return loss and antenna gain.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.271-279
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• 2019

Background: We utilized diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to evaluate the cerebral white matter changes that are associated with phantom limb pain in patients with unilateral arm amputation. It was anticipated that this would complement previous research in which we had shown that changes in cerebral blood volume were associated with the cerebral pain network. Methods: Ten patients with phantom limb pain due to unilateral arm amputation and sixteen healthy age-matched controls were enrolled. The intensity of phantom limb pain was measured by the visual analogue scale (VAS) and depressive mood was assessed by the Hamilton depression rating scale. Diffusion tensor-derived parameters, including fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity, axial diffusivity (AD), and radial diffusivity (RD), were computed from the DTI. Results: Compared with controls, the cases had alterations in the cerebral white matter as a consequence of phantom limb pain, manifesting a higher AD of white matter in both hemispheres symmetrically after adjusting for individual depressive moods. In addition, there were associations between the RD of white matter and VAS scores primarily in the hemispheres related to the missing hand and in the corpus callosum. Conclusions: The phantom limb pain after unilateral arm amputation induced plasticity in the white matter. We conclude that loss of white matter integrity, particularly in the hemisphere connected with the missing hand, is significantly correlated with phantom limb pain.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.27-39
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• 2019

Background: This study is designed to estimate the factors that affect the level of three different performance (publicity, efficiency, profitability) among regional public hospitals. Methods: The units of analysis are the regional 30 hospitals, which have the operating data during 22 years (from 1933 to 2014). The research method is used by fixed panel analysis. The publicity is measured by medicaid outpatient proportion and medicaid inpatient proportion. The efficiency is measured by two types of efficient score by DEA (data envelopment analysis). The profitability is measured by medical income to medical revenue and ROA (return on total asset). Results: At first, the increase of bed gives negative affect to the publicity but give positive effect to the efficiency and profitability. Because it means the increase of the region population, it gives more profitability compare to hospital with small number of beds. The more the operating period is the higher effect to the publicity and efficiency because of it's refutation. The debt ratio gives negative effect to publicity, but positive effect to profitability. It is the normal belief that there is inverse relationship between publicity and profitability. The turnover rate of bed gives the negative affect to the publicity, but positive affect to the efficiency and profitability. That give us the implication that type of the inpatient make different effect the hospital performance. The ratio of labor cost give negative effect to all kind of performance. That means that the higher labor cost don't mean the higher publicity and labor cost control is very important factors to hospital performance. So the region hospital have to focus the labor factors more to make higher performance. Conclusion: As the conclusion, the independent variables give similar effect to the efficiency and the profitability, but give inverse effect to the publicity. That means that if an region hospital want to make the more publicity, it loss the higher efficiency and profitability. Specially publicity is higher negative relation with the profitability.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.99-105
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• 2019

This study presents an experimental investigation of the wear and oxidation of the bristles of a brush seal in a super-heated steam environment. We construct a model reflecting normal force and radial interference to predict the amount of wear. To monitor the volume loss of the bristle induced by the swirl phenomenon of the rotor, we measure the clearance between the rotor and the brush seal by using a non-contact 3-D device. We calculate the area by using the area-wise measurement method. Considering the obvious brush seal wear variables, we use two disks with different roughness($Ra=0.1{\mu}m$ and $100{\mu}m$) to determine the effect of roughness on wear. Considering an actual steam turbine, we utilize a steam generator and super-heater to generate a working fluid (0.95MPa, 523.15K) that has high kinetic energy. We observe the abrasion of the bristles in the hot steam environment through a scanning electron microscope image. This study also conducted energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis for a qualitative evaluation of local chemistry. The results indicate that the wear and elimination of bristles occur on the disk with high roughness, and the weight increases due to oxidation. Furthermore these results, reveal that the bristle oxidation is accelerated more under super-heated steam conditions than under conditions without steam.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.39-46
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• 2019

The liquefaction is a phenomenon that the effective stress becomes zero due to the rapidly accumulated excess pore water pressure when a strong load acts on the ground for a short period of time, such as an earthquake or pile driving, resulting in the loss of the shear strength of the ground. Since the Geongju and Pohang earthquake, liquefaction brought increasing domestic attention. This liquefaction can be assessed mainly through the semi-empirical procedures proposed by Seed and Idriss (1982) and the liquefaction risk based on the penetration resistance obtained from borehole DB and SPT. However, the geotechnical information data obtained by the in-situ tests or boring information fundamentally have an issue of the representative of the target area. Therefore, this study sought to construct a ground information database by classifying and reviewing the ground information required for liquefaction assessment, and tried to solve the representative problem of the soil layer that is subject to liquefaction evaluation by performing spatial interpolation using GIS.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.548-555
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• 2019

Objective: The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of different feeding levels of a total mixed ration silage-based diet on feed intake, total tract digestion, enteric methane emissions, and energy partitioning in two beef cattle genotypes. Methods: Six mature bulls (three Thai natives, and three Thai natives - Charolais crossbreeds) were assigned in a replicated $3{\times}3$ Latin square design, with cattle breed genotype in separate squares, three periods of 21 days, and three energy feeding above maintenance levels (1.1, 1.5, and 2.0 MEm, where MEm is metabolizable energy requirement for maintenance). Bulls were placed in a metabolic cage equipped with a ventilated head box respiration system to evaluate digestibility, record respiration gases, and determine energy balance. Results: Increasing the feeding level had no significant effect on digestibility but drastically reduced the enteric methane emission rate (p<0.05). Increasing the feeding level also significantly increased the energy retention and utilization efficiency (p<0.01). The Thai native cattle had greater enteric methane emission rate, digestibility, and energy utilization efficiency than the Charolais crossbred cattle (p<0.05). The daily metabolizable energy requirement for maintenance in Thai native cattle ($388kJ/kg\;BW^{0.75}$, where $BW^{0.75}$ is metabolic body weight) was 15% less than that in Charolais crossbred cattle ($444kJ/kg\;BW^{0.75}$). Conclusion: Our results suggested that the greater feeding level in zebu beef cattle fed above maintenance levels resulted in improved energy retention and utilization efficiency because of the reduction in enteric methane energy loss. The results also indicated higher efficiency of metabolisable energy utilization for growth and a lower energy requirement for maintenance in Bos indicus than in Bos taurus.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.145-159
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• 2019

A good number of drought indices have been introduced and applied in different regions for monitoring drought conditions, but some of those are region-specific and have limitations for use under other climatic conditions because of the inherently complex characteristics of drought phenomenon. Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) indices are widely used all over the world, including Bangladesh. Although newly developed, studies have demonstrated The Effective Drought Index (EDI) to perform better compared to SPIs in some areas. This research examined the performance of EDI to the SPI for detecting drought events throughout 35 years (1981 to 2015) in Bangladesh. Rainfall data from 27 meteorological stations across Bangladesh were used to calculate the EDI and SPI values. Results suggest that the EDI can detect historical records of actual events better than SPIs. Moreover, EDI is more efficient in assessing both short and long-term droughts than SPIs. Results also indicate that SPI3 and the EDI indices have a better capability of detecting drought events in Bangladesh compared to other SPIs; however, SPI1 produced erroneous estimates. Therefore, EDI is found to be more responsive to drought conditions and can capture the real essence of the drought situation in Bangladesh. Outcomes from this study bear policy implications on mitigation measures to minimize the loss of agricultural production in drought-prone areas. Information on severity level and persistence of drought conditions will be instrumental for resource managers to allocate scarce resources optimally.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.43-53
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• 2019

This paper described a result of finite element analysis considering sewerage damage scale and soil depth, in order to analyze quantitatively for cavity and relaxation zone of underground due to sewerage damage. The mechanical model, which was verified by previous studies, was applied to the finite element analysis. In addition, the mechanical behavior of the soil around the sewerage damage due to the soil loss was simulated by using the forced displacement. Based on finite element analysis results, characteristics of the void ratio distribution, ground subsidence, and shear stress distribution according to sewerage damage scale and soil depth were analyzed. And then, The boundaries of the underground cavity and relaxation zone were determined by using the shear stress reduction characteristics of the ground. Also, an occurrence scope of the cavity and relaxation zone was quantitatively evaluated by the change of sewerage damage scale and soil depth.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.25-33
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• 2019

Lactobacillus rhamnosus BFE5264, isolated from a Maasai fermented milk product ("kule naoto"), was previously shown to exhibit bile acid resistance, cholesterol assimilation, and adhesion to HT29-MTX cells in vitro. In this study, we re-annotated and analyzed the previously reported complete genome sequence of strain BFE5264. The genome consists of a circular chromosome of 3,086,152 bp and a putative plasmid, which is the largest one identified among L. rhamnosus strains. Among the 2,883 predicted protein-coding genes, those with carbohydrate-related functions were the most abundant. Genome analysis of strain BFE5264 revealed two consecutive CRISPR regions and no known virulence factors or antimicrobial resistance genes. In addition, previously known highly variable regions in the genomes of L. rhamnosus strains were also evident in strain BFE5264. Pairwise comparison with the most studied probiotic strain L. rhamnosus GG revealed strain BFE5264-specific deletions, probably due to insertion sequence-mediated recombination. The latter was associated with loss of the spaCBA pilin gene cluster and exopolysaccharide biosynthetic genes. Comparative genomic analysis of the sequences from all available L. rhamnosus strains revealed that they were clustered into two groups, being within the same species boundary based on the average nucleotide identities. Strain BFE5264 had a sister group relationship with the group that contained strain GG, but neither ANI-based hierarchical clustering nor core-gene-based phylogenetic tree construction showed a clear distinctive pattern associated with the isolation source, implying that the genotype alone cannot account for their ecological niches. These results provide insights into the probiotic mechanisms of strain BFE5264 at the genomic level.