• Title/Summary/Keyword: characteristic ratio

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Beta-asarone Induces LoVo Colon Cancer Cell Apoptosis by Up-regulation of Caspases through a Mitochondrial Pathway in vitro and in vivo

  • Zou, Xi;Liu, Shen-Lin;Zhou, Jin-Yong;Wu, Jian;Ling, Bo-Fan;Wang, Rui-Ping
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.13 no.10
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    • pp.5291-5298
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    • 2012
  • Beta-asarone is one of the main bioactive constituents in traditional Chinese medicine Acorus calamu. Previous studies have shown that it has antifungal and anthelmintic activities. However, little is known about its anticancer effects. This study aimed to determine inhibitory effects on LoVo colon cancer cell proliferation and to clarify the underlying mechanisms in vitro and in vivo. Dose-response and time-course anti-proliferation effects were examined by MTT assay. Our results demonstrated that LoVo cell viability showed dose- and time-dependence on ${\beta}$-asarone. We further assessed anti-proliferation effects as ${\beta}$-asarone-induced apoptosis by annexin V-fluorescein isothiocyanate/propidium iodide assay usinga flow cytometer and observed characteristic nuclear fragmentation and chromatin condensation of apoptosis by microscopy. Moreover, we found the apoptosis to be induced through the mitochondrial/caspase pathway by decreasing mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) and reducing the Bcl-2-to-Bax ratio, in addition to activating the caspase-9 and caspase-3 cascades. Additionally, the apoptosis could be inhibited by a pan-caspase inhibitor, carbobenzoxy-valyl-alanyl-aspartyl-[O-methyl]-fluoromethylketone (Z-VAD-FMK). When nude mice bearing LoVo tumor xenografts were treated with ${\beta}$-asarone, tumor volumes were reduced and terminal deoxynucleotide transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) assays of excised tissue also demonstrated apoptotic changes. Taken together, these findings for the first time provide evidence that ${\beta}$-asarone can suppress the growth of colon cancer and the induced apoptosis is possibly mediated through mitochondria/caspase pathways.

Selection and optimization of nutritional risk screening tools for esophageal cancer patients in China

  • Dong, Wen;Liu, Xiguang;Zhu, Shunfang;Lu, Di;Cai, Kaican;Cai, Ruijun;Li, Qing;Zeng, Jingjing;Li, Mei
    • Nutrition Research and Practice
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    • v.14 no.1
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    • pp.20-24
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    • 2020
  • BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Malnutrition has multiple impacts on surgical success, postoperative complications, duration of hospital stay, and costs, particularly for cancer patients. There are various nutrition risk screening tools available for clinical use. Herein, we aim to determine the most appropriate nutritional risk screening system for esophageal cancer (EC) patients in China. SUBJECTS/METHODS: In total, 138 EC patients were enrolled in this study and evaluated by experienced nurses using three different nutritional screening tools, the Nutrition Risk Screening 2002 tool (NRS2002), the Patient-generated Subjective Globe Assessment (PG-SGA), and the Nutrition Risk Index (NRI).We compared sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative likelihood ratios, and Youden index generated by each of the three screening tools. Finally, cut-off points for all three tools were re-defined to optimize and validate the best nutritional risk screening tool for assessing EC patients. RESULTS: Our data suggested that all three screening tools were 100% sensitive for EC patients, while the specificities were 44.4%, 2.96%, and 59.26% for NRS 2002, PG-SGA, and NRI, respectively. NRI had a higher positive likelihood ratio as well as a higher area under the receiver operating characteristic curve compared to those of NRS 2002 and PG-SGA; although, all three tools had null negative likelihood ratios. After adjusting the cut-off points, the specificity and accuracy for all tools were significantly improved, however, the NRI remained the most appropriate nutritional risk screening system for EC patients. CONCLUSIONS: The NRI is the most suitable (highest sensitivity and accuracy) nutritional risk screening tool for EC patients. The performance of the NRI can be significantly improved if the cut-off point is modified according to the results obtained using MedCalc software.

A Study on Empirical Model for the Prevention and Protection of Technology Leakage through SME Profiling Analysis (중소기업 프로파일링 분석을 통한 기술유출 방지 및 보호 모형 연구)

  • Yoo, In-Jin;Park, Do-Hyung
    • The Journal of Information Systems
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    • v.27 no.1
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    • pp.171-191
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    • 2018
  • Purpose Corporate technology leakage is not only monetary loss, but also has a negative impact on the corporate image and further deteriorates sustainable growth. In particular, since SMEs are highly dependent on core technologies compared to large corporations, loss of technology leakage threatens corporate survival. Therefore, it is important for SMEs to "prevent and protect technology leakage". With the recent development of data analysis technology and the opening of public data, it has become possible to discover and proactively detect companies with a high probability of technology leakage based on actual company data. In this study, we try to construct profiles of enterprises with and without technology leakage experience through profiling analysis using data mining techniques. Furthermore, based on this, we propose a classification model that distinguishes companies that are likely to leak technology. Design/methodology/approach This study tries to develop the empirical model for prevention and protection of technology leakage through profiling method which analyzes each SME from the viewpoint of individual. Based on the previous research, we tried to classify many characteristics of SMEs into six categories and to identify the factors influencing the technology leakage of SMEs from the enterprise point of view. Specifically, we divided the 29 SME characteristics into the following six categories: 'firm characteristics', 'organizational characteristics', 'technical characteristics', 'relational characteristics', 'financial characteristics', and 'enterprise core competencies'. Each characteristic was extracted from the questionnaire data of 'Survey of Small and Medium Enterprises Technology' carried out annually by the Government of the Republic of Korea. Since the number of SMEs with experience of technology leakage in questionnaire data was significantly smaller than the other, we made a 1: 1 correspondence with each sample through mixed sampling. We conducted profiling of companies with and without technology leakage experience using decision-tree technique for research data, and derived meaningful variables that can distinguish the two. Then, empirical model for prevention and protection of technology leakage was developed through discriminant analysis and logistic regression analysis. Findings Profiling analysis shows that technology novelty, enterprise technology group, number of intellectual property registrations, product life cycle, technology development infrastructure level(absence of dedicated organization), enterprise core competency(design) and enterprise core competency(process design) help us find SME's technology leakage. We developed the two empirical model for prevention and protection of technology leakage in SMEs using discriminant analysis and logistic regression analysis, and each hit ratio is 65%(discriminant analysis) and 67%(logistic regression analysis).

A Depth-map Coding Method using the Adaptive XOR Operation (적응적 배타적 논리합을 이용한 깊이정보 맵 코딩 방법)

  • Kim, Kyung-Yong;Park, Gwang-Hoon
    • Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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    • v.16 no.2
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    • pp.274-292
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    • 2011
  • This paper proposes an efficient coding method of the depth-map which is different from the natural images. The depth-map are so smooth in both inner parts of the objects and background, but it has sharp edges on the object-boundaries like a cliff. In addition, when a depth-map block is decomposed into bit planes, the characteristic of perfect matching or inverted matching between bit planes often occurs on the object-boundaries. Therefore, the proposed depth-map coding scheme is designed to have the bit-plane unit coding method using the adaptive XOR method for efficiently coding the depth-map images on the object-boundary areas, as well as the conventional DCT-based coding scheme (for example, H.264/AVC) for efficiently coding the inside area images of the objects or the background depth-map images. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm improves the average bit-rate savings as 11.8 % ~ 20.8% and the average PSNR (Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio) gains as 0.9 dB ~ 1.5 dB in comparison with the H.264/AVC coding scheme. And the proposed algorithm improves the average bit-rate savings as 7.7 % ~ 12.2 % and the average PSNR gains as 0.5 dB ~ 0.8 dB in comparison with the adaptive block-based depth-map coding scheme. It can be confirmed that the proposed method improves the subjective quality of synthesized image using the decoded depth-map in comparison with the H.264/AVC coding scheme. And the subjective quality of the proposed method was similar to the subjective quality of the adaptive block-based depth-map coding scheme.

Combined MRI and Relaxogram: A New Method of Fat Study (MRI와 Relaxogram을 이용한 지질 연구의 새로운 기법에 관한 연구)

  • Yongmin Chang;Yoo, Done-Sik;Kim, Tae-Hun;Kim, Yong-Joo;Kang, Duk-Sik;Robert B. Clarkson
    • Progress in Medical Physics
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    • v.10 no.1
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    • pp.23-32
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    • 1999
  • Combined MRI and Relaxogram approach was introduced as a very useful tool for fat study. The phantoms simulating homogeneous mixture of fat and non-fat environments were measured with spin echo pulse sequence on a 0.15 T whole body imager. From 45 scans, the Tl values were obtained by fitting the data to continuous distribution (CONTIN) of relaxation time. This relaxogram gives broad distributions of relaxation time, which are characterized by a number of peaks with characteristic T1 values. Two distinct peaks in relaxogram were observed and identified as signals from com oil and gelatin gel. This model system can be served as simulating the distribution of fat in muscle. Also the relative ratio of two components, which is proportional to the area under the peak, is estimated and compared to nominal values. Based on the good agreement between two predictions, the values from our proposed method agreed with nominal values within $\pm$7 % error. The effects of different concentration of contrast agent and different region of interest are presented. To optimize total scan times, the minimum required data points and so further reduction in total scan times are discussed.

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Electrical Characteristic of IGZO Oxide TFTs with 3 Layer Gate Insulator

  • Lim, Sang Chul;Koo, Jae Bon;Park, Chan Woo;Jung, Soon-Won;Na, Bock Soon;Lee, Sang Seok;Cho, Kyoung Ik;Chu, Hye Yong
    • Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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    • 2014.02a
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    • pp.344-344
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    • 2014
  • Transparent amorphous oxide semiconductors such as a In-Ga-Zn-O (a-IGZO) have advantages for large area electronic devices; e.g., uniform deposition at a large area, optical transparency, a smooth surface, and large electron mobility >10 cm2/Vs, which is more than an order of magnitude larger than that of hydrogen amorphous silicon (a-Si;H).1) Thin film transistors (TFTs) that employ amorphous oxide semiconductors such as ZnO, In-Ga-Zn-O, or Hf-In-Zn-O (HIZO) are currently subject of intensive study owing to their high potential for application in flat panel displays. The device fabrication process involves a series of thin film deposition and photolithographic patterning steps. In order to minimize contamination, the substrates usually undergo a cleaning procedure using deionized water, before and after the growth of thin films by sputtering methods. The devices structure were fabricated top-contact gate TFTs using the a-IGZO films on the plastic substrates. The channel width and length were 80 and 20 um, respectively. The source and drain electrode regions were defined by photolithography and wet etching process. The electrodes consisting of Ti(15 nm)/Al(120 nm)/Ti(15nm) trilayers were deposited by direct current sputtering. The 30 nm thickness active IGZO layer deposited by rf magnetron sputtering at room temperature. The deposition condition is as follows: a rf power 200 W, a pressure of 5 mtorr, 10% of oxygen [O2/(O2+Ar)=0.1], and room temperature. A 9-nm-thick Al2O3 layer was formed as a first, third gate insulator by ALD deposition. A 290-nm-thick SS6908 organic dielectrics formed as second gate insulator by spin-coating. The schematic structure of the IGZO TFT is top gate contact geometry device structure for typical TFTs fabricated in this study. Drain current (IDS) versus drain-source voltage (VDS) output characteristics curve of a IGZO TFTs fabricated using the 3-layer gate insulator on a plastic substrate and log(IDS)-gate voltage (VG) characteristics for typical IGZO TFTs. The TFTs device has a channel width (W) of $80{\mu}m$ and a channel length (L) of $20{\mu}m$. The IDS-VDS curves showed well-defined transistor characteristics with saturation effects at VG>-10 V and VDS>-20 V for the inkjet printing IGZO device. The carrier charge mobility was determined to be 15.18 cm^2 V-1s-1 with FET threshold voltage of -3 V and on/off current ratio 10^9.

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Annealed effect on the Optical and Electrical characteristic of a-IGZO thin films transistor.

  • Kim, Jong-U;Choe, Won-Guk;Ju, Byeong-Gwon;Lee, Jeon-Guk
    • Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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    • 2010.05a
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    • pp.53.2-53.2
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    • 2010
  • 지금까지 능동 구동 디스플레이의 TFT backplane에 사용하고 있는 채널 물질로는 수소화된 비정질 실리콘(a-Si:H)과 저온 폴리실리콘(low temperature poly-Si)이 대표적이다. 수소화된 비정질 실리콘은 TFT-LCD 제조에 주로 사용되는 물질로 제조 공정이 비교적 간단하고 안정적이며, 생산 비용이 낮고, 소자 간 특성이 균일하여 대면적 디스플레이 제조에 유리하다. 그러나 a-Si:H TFT의 이동도(mobility)가 1 cm2/Vs이하로 낮아 Full HD 이상의 대화면, 고해상도, 고속 동작을 요구하는 UD(ultra definition)급 디스플레이를 개발하는데 있어 한계 상황에 다다르고 있다. 또한 광 누설 전류(photo leakage current)의 발생을 억제하기 위해서 화소의 개구율(aperture ratio)을 감소시켜야하므로 패널의 투과율이 저하되고, 게이트 전극에 지속적으로 바이어스를 인가 시 TFT의 문턱전압(threshold voltage)이 열화되는 문제점을 가지고 있다. 문제점을 극복하기 위한 대안으로 근래 투명 산화물 반도체(transparent oxide semiconductor)가 많은 관심을 얻고 있다. 투명 산화물 반도체는 3 eV 이상의 높은 밴드갭(band-gap)을 가지고 있어 광 흡수도가 낮아 투명하고, 광 누설 전류의 영향이 작아 화소 설계시 유리하다. 최근 다양한 조성의 산화물 반도체들이 TFT 채널 층으로의 적용을 목적으로 활발하게 연구되고 있으며 ZnO, SnO2, In2O3, IGO(indium-gallium oxide), a-ZTO(amorphous zinc-tin-oxide), a-IZO (amorphous indium-zinc oxide), a-IGZO(amorphous indium-galliumzinc oxide) 등이 그 예이다. 이들은 상온 또는 $200^{\circ}C$ 이하의 낮은 온도에서 PLD(pulsed laser deposition)나 스퍼터링(sputtering)과 같은 물리적 기상 증착법(physical vapor deposition)으로 손쉽게 증착이 가능하다. 특히 이중에서도 a-IGZO는 비정질임에도 불구하고 이동도가 $10\;cm2/V{\cdot}s$ 정도로 a-Si:H에 비해 월등히 높은 이동도를 나타낸다. 이와 같이 a-IGZO는 비정질이 가지는 균일한 특성과 양호한 이동도로 인하여 대화면, 고속, 고화질의 평판 디스플레이용 TFT 제작에 적합하고, 뿐만 아니라 공정 온도가 낮은 장점으로 인해 플렉시블 디스플레이(flexible display)의 backplane 소재로서도 연구되고 있다. 본 실험에서는 rf sputtering을 이용하여 증착한 a-IGZO 박막에 대하여 열처리 조건 변화에 따른 a-IGZO 박막들의 광학적, 전기적 특성변화를 살펴보았고, 이와 더불어 a-IGZO 박막을 TFT에 적용하여 소자의 특성을 분석함으로써, 열처리에 따른 Transfer Curve에서의 우리가 요구하는 Threshold Voltage(Vth)의 변화를 관찰하였다.

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Patent Technologies for Reducing Micro-Dust (미세먼지 저감을 위한 특허기술들)

  • Cho, Taejun;Kim, Tae-Soo
    • Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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    • v.24 no.2
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    • pp.9-14
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    • 2020
  • Four developed patents have applied for a new type of Composite Cyclone Scrubber followed by the previous research (Cho and Kim, 2017), including dust reducing fan with filters. Regarding target installation and maintenance cost, 64% reduction for investment costs (6.2 billion won vs. 17 billion won) compared to existing road pollution reduction system, while social benefit costs increase by 43% compared to existing road pollution reduction measures (72.6 billion won vs. 50.8 billion won). The composition of the device is an air blower type spiral guide vane, and an injection pressure collecting dust efficiency. A nozzle varies Injection angle and contact range, spray liquid species (waterworks, salty water). The proposed patent tests are circulation water Time-by-Time Spray and collected 41.4% more increased micro dust since the sprayed water meets contaminated gas due to the 45° degree colliding, which is 141% increased conventional dust collector. (Ratio of collection over 85%). As regards the source of collection liquid, circulated rainwater and well water, we expect a huge amount of energy and economically saved eco-friendly system in our patent. Finally, the guided vane and metal filter reduced over 90% micro-dust, while sprayed water cleans the vane and filters, resultantly minimizing the maintenance budget. The preliminary evaluations of the developed design make it possible to reduce not only cheaper maintenance budget due to the characteristic water spraying but the cost of water comes from mainly rain and underground.

A Study on the Noodle Quality Made from Hovenia dulcis Composite Flour (헛개나무 열매 분말을 첨가한 국수의 품질특성)

  • Choi, Sook;Park, Geum-Soon
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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    • v.34 no.10
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    • pp.1586-1592
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    • 2005
  • In order to develop Houenia dulcis with natural food application the effect of Hovenia dulcis fruits powder content the physical, textural and sensory properties of noodles were examined. The analysis of the contents of free amino acids showed that 17 kinds of amino acids were detected and highest in 3$\%$ Hovenia dulcis fruits powder contents. The weight and the volume of cooked noodle were highest in control the more added of Houenia dulcis fruits powder contorts lessen the weight and the volume (p < 0.01, p < 0.001), the water absorption ratio was highest in control group. Hunter color value of noodle showed that L value was 7.62 in control, a and b values were highest in 5$\%$ added group. More added Houenia dulcis fruits powder contents increased a and b values (p < 0.001). Hardness, cohesiveness (p < 0.05), gumminess and brittleness (p < 0.001) were highest in control, springiness was highest in 1$\%$ added group (p < 0.001). Scanning electron micrographs of noodle showed that more added of Houenia dulcis fruits powder contents made the particle uniform, so softer and larger. Sensory properties showed that color of noodle and herb flavor were thicker in more added of Houenia duzcis fruits powder contents (p < 0.001). The taste was highest in 3$\%$ added Houenia dulcis fruits powder contents. Overall acceptability was also highest in 3% added group (p < 0.01).

Prototype Development of Marine Information based Supporting System for Oil Spill Response (해양정보기반 방제지원시스템 프로토타입 구축에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Hye-Jin;Lee, Moonjin
    • Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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    • v.11 no.4
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    • pp.182-192
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    • 2008
  • In oder to develop a decision supporting system for oil spill response, the prototype of pollution response support system which has integrated oil spill prediction system and pollution risk prediction system has developed for Incheon-Daesan area. Spill prediction system calculates oil spill aspects based on real-time wind data and real-time water flow and the residual volume of spilt oil and spread pattern are calculated considering the characteristic of spilt oil. In this study, real-time data is created from results of real-time meteorological forecasting model(National Institute of Environmental Research) using ftp, real-time tidal currents datasets are built using CHARRY(Current by Harmonic Response to the Reference Yardstick) model and real-time wind-driven currents are calculated applying the correlation function between wind and wind-driven currents. In order to model the feature which is spilt oil spreading according to real-time water flow is weathered, the decrease ratio by oil kinds was used. These real-time data and real-time prediction information have been integrated with ESI(Environmental Sensitivity Index) and response resources and then these are provided using GIS as a whole system to make the response strategy.

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