• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.264-275
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• 2023

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder characterized by tremors, bradykinesia, and rigidity. PD is caused by loss of dopaminergic (DA) neurons in the midbrain substantia nigra (SN) and therefore, replenishment of DA neurons via stem cell-based therapy is a potential treatment option. Astrocytes are the most abundant non-neuronal cells in the central nervous system and are promising candidates for reprogramming into neuronal cells because they share a common origin with neurons. The ability of neural progenitor cells (NPCs) to proliferate and differentiate may overcome the limitations of the reduced viability and function of transplanted cells after cell replacement therapy. Achaete-scute complex homolog-like 1 (Ascl1) is a well-known neuronal-specific factor that induces various cell types such as human and mouse astrocytes and fibroblasts to differentiate into neurons. Nurr1 is involved in the differentiation and maintenance of DA neurons, and decreased Nurr1 expression is known to be a major risk factor for PD. Previous studies have shown that direct conversion of astrocytes into DA neurons and NPCs can be induced by overexpression of Ascl1 and Nurr1 and additional transcription factors genes such as superoxide dismutase 1 and SRY-box 2. Here, we demonstrate that astrocytes isolated from the ventral midbrain, the origin of SN DA neurons, can be effectively converted into DA neurons and NPCs with enhanced viability. In addition, when these NPCs are inducted to differentiate, they exhibit key characteristics of DA neurons. Thus, direct conversion of midbrain astrocytes is a possible cell therapy strategy to treat neurodegenerative diseases.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.1195-1201
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• 2009

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary alpha-lipoic acid (LA) on growth performance, carcass characteristics and meat quality in Arbor Acres broilers. A total of 240 1-d-old male Arbor Acres broilers were randomly allocated to 4 dietary treatments (0, 300 ppm, 600 ppm, and 900 ppm dietary LA supplementation, respectively). Birds were slaughtered at 42 days old. Live body weight (BW), average daily gain (ADG), average feed intake (AFI), feed conversion ratio (FCR), dressing percentage, breast muscle percentage, thigh muscle percentage, abdominal fat percentage, muscle color (L*, a*, b*), pH values at 24 h postmortem, meat shear force value (SFV) and anti-oxidative ability were measured. Results showed that addition of 600 ppm or 900 ppm LA decreased BW (p<0.01), ADG (p<0.01) and AFI (p<0.05) compared with other diets. FCR was not affected by dietary LA content. LA had no marked effect on dressing percentage, breast muscle percentage or thigh muscle percentage. Abdominal fat percentage was lower (p<0.05) in the 900 ppm LA supplementation group than the control group. Dietary 900 ppm LA increased (p<0.05) breast and thigh muscle pH value at 24 h postmortem compared with the control treatment. Dietary LA increased thigh muscle a* value, though no significant difference was found in thigh muscle a* value among the treatments. Dietary LA significantly decreased breast muscle L* value (p<0.05), breast muscle b* value (p<0.01) and thigh muscle b* value (p<0.05). Broilers fed LA had higher breast muscle a* value (p<0.05) and thigh muscle L* value (p<0.05). All test groups had lower (p<0.05) breast muscle SFV than the control group. Dietary 600 ppm or 900 ppm LA both decreased (p<0.01) thigh muscle SFV compared with the control treatment. Dietary 900 ppm LA significantly increased (p<0.05) TAOC, SOD and GSHPx compared with no LA treatment. Broilers fed LA had lower (p<0.01) MDA compared with the control treatment. These results suggested that dietary LA enhanced the anti-oxidative ability and oxidative stability, and contributed to the improvement of meat quality in broilers.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.18-34
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• 2024

This study aimed to examine the effects of a science-learning program based on data visualization on the science inquiry and creative problem-solving abilities of elementary school science-gifted students. Accordingly, this research developed a data visualization science-learning program using Tableau, which had twelve sessions. The subjects encompassed 61 students in three gifted classes taught by the researcher. The scientific inquiry ability test and creative problem-solving ability test modified to suit the environment and situation were given to the subjects before and after the treatment. The results confirmed that science learning based on data visualization had no significant impact on basic science inquiry skills. Among the subdomains, significant results were obtained only in the reasoning subdomain. Moreover, integrative inquiry ability was significantly affected, unlike basic inquiry abilities. Among the five subdomains, significant differences were observed in three subdomains (data conversion, data interpretation, and variable control). However, concerning the generation of hypotheses and the control of variables, students exhibited confusion regarding the process of variable control and the exact concept of hypothesis development. This study also evaluated the effects of the program's application on creative problem-solving abilities and found a significant impact. Additionally, it was significantly different in all four subdomains. The results were interpreted to be owing to the students' mastery of Tableau's features, collaborative learning through discussion and debate, and the thematic impact of the data visualization program emphasizing procedural thinking. Finally, this study presented implications for science learning based on data visualization and the future direction of education.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.427-432
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• 2014

Isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) is of great importance in cell metabolism and energy conversion. IDH mutation in glioma cells is reported to be associated with an increased overall survival. However, effects biological behavior of therapy of gliomas are unclear. Here, we investigated the influence of wild-type and mutated IDH genes on glioma cell biological behavior and response to chemotherapy. Relevant mechanisms were further explored. We designed our study on the background of the IDHR132H mutation. Stable cell lines were constructed by transfection. The CCK-8 method was used to assess cell proliferation, flow cytometry for the cell cycle and cell apoptosis, and the transwell method for cell invasion. Nude mouse models were employed to determine tumorigenesis and sensitivity to chemotherapy. Western blotting was used to detect relevant protein expression levels. We found that overexpression of wild IDH1 gene did not cause changes in the cell cycle, apoptosis and invasion ability. However, it resulted in chemotherapy resistance to a high dose of temozolomide (TMZ) in vivo and in vitro. The IDH1 mutation caused cell cycle arrest in G1 stage and a reduction of proliferation and invasion ability, while raising sensitivity to chemotherapy. This may provide an explanation for the better prognosis of IDH1 mutated glioma patients and the relative worse prognosis of their wild-type IDH1 counterparts. We also expect IDH1 mutations may be optimized as new targets to improve the prognosis of glioma patients.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.1754-1766
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• 1993

The application of VXIbus system, an Industry standard, is rapidly spreading with its ability to offer the easiness of integration from GPIB and the fast data transmission from VMEbus system. Compared with VXIbus Register Based Device, VXIbus Message Based Device has a drawback In the aspect of speed. But it is possible to utilize high level ASCII commands to control a Message Based Device, therefore system integration is much easier with Message Based Device than with Register Based Device. And, the FFT analyzer is an instrument for signal analysis which can be inexpensively implemented to be fast and have high resolution. Its wide ability of analysis presents numerous application. So, it is necessary to apply VXIbus system to FFT analyzer. In this paper, the implementation of FFT analyzer is performed using a DSP module and by implementing all A/D conversion circuit and a control module which performs VXIbus interface. The device can be controlled by Slot0 Commender which supports VXIbus Shared Memory Protocol through VXIbus.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.667-673
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• 2004

The XML is emerging as standard language for data exchange on the Web. Therefore the demand of XML Schema(W3C XML Schema Spec.) that verifies XML document becomes increasing. However, XML Schema has a weak point for design because of its complication despite of various data and abundant expressiveness. This paper shows a simple way of design for XML Schema using a fundamental means for database design, the Entity-Relationship model. The conversion from the Entity-Relationship model to XML Schema can not be directly on account of discordance between the two models. So we present some algorithms to generate XML Schema from the Entity-Relationship model. The algorithms produce XML Schema codes using a hierarchical view representation. An important objective of this automatic generation is to preserve XML Schema's characteristics such as reusability, global and local ability, ability of expansion and various type changes.

• BMB Reports
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.39-44
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• 1999

Pyruvate decarboxylase (PDC) catalyzes the conversion of pyruvate to acetaldehyde as the penultimate step in alcohol fermentation. The enzyme requires two cofactors, thiamin diphosphate (ThDP) and $Mg^{2+}$, for activity. Zymomonas mobilis PDC shows a strong preference for pyruvate although it will use the higher homologues 2-ketobutyrate and 2-ketovalerate to some extent. We have investigated the effect of mutagenesis of valine 111 and leucine 112 on the substrate specificity. V111 was replaced by glycine, alanine, leucine, and isoleucine while L112 was replaced by alanine, valine, and isoleucine. With the exception of L112I, all mutants retain activity towards pyruvate with $k_{cat}$ values ranging from 40% to 139% of wild-type. All mutants show changes from wild-type in the affinity for ThDP, and several (V111A, L112A, and L112V) show decreases in the affinity for $Mg^{2+}$. Two of the mutants, V111G and V111A, show an increase in the $K_m$ for pyruvate. The activity of each mutant towards 2-ketobutyrate and 2-ketovalerate was investigated and some changes from wild-type were found. For the V111 mutants, the most notable of these is a 3.7-fold increase in the ability to use 2-ketovalerate. However, the largest effect is observed for the L112V mutation which increases the ability to use both 2-ketobutyrate (4.3-fold) and 2-ketovalerate (5.7-fold). The results suggest that L112 and, to a lesser extent, V111 are close to the active site and may interact with the alkyl side-chain of the substrate.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.1153-1158
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• 2012

The objective of this study was to evaluate the antioxidant capacity of Lactobacillus plantarum ZLP001 and its effects on growth performance and antioxidant status in weaning piglets. The survival in hydrogen peroxide and free radical-scavenging activity of Lactobacillus plantarum ZLP001 were analysed in vitro. The Lactobacillus plantarum ZLP001 showed high viability in 1.0 mmol/L hydrogen peroxide and high scavenging ability against hydroxyl, superoxide anion, and DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) radicals which was dose dependent. Ninety-six weaning piglets were selected ($7.45{\pm}0.79kg$) and divided into three groups comprising of negative control without any supplementation, treatment group with supplemented $6.8{\times}10^7$ Lactobacillus plantarum ZLP001 CFU/g of diet, and positive control with antibiotic treatment (chlorotetracycline, 80 mg/kg diet). The results showed that Lactobacillus plantarum ZLP001 supplementation enhanced feed conversion rates in piglets compared with control (p<0.05). Supplementation of Lactobacillus plantarum ZLP001 increased the concentration of superoxide dismutase (p<0.05), glutathione peroxidase (p<0.01) and catalase in serum (p<0.10), while decreased the concentration of malondialdehyde (p<0.05). The present study implies that the strain Lactobacillus plantarum ZLP001 had high antioxidant ability and its supplementation improved the growth performance and antioxidant status of weaning piglets, so it can be considered useful to alleviate oxidative stress and increase productive performance of pigs.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartD
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• v.12D no.1 s.97
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• pp.1-12
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• 2005

The XML is emerging as standard language for data exchange on the Web. Therefore a demand of XML Schema(W3C MLL Schema Spec.) that verifies XML document becomes increasing. However, XML Schema has a weak point for design because of its complication despiteof various data and abundant expressiveness. This paper shows a simple way of design for XML Schema using a fundamental means for database design, the Entity-Relationship model. The conversion from the Entity-Relationship model to XML Schema can not be directly on account of discordance between the two models. So we present some algorithms to generate XML Schema from the Entity-Relationship model. The algorithms produce XML Schema codes using a hierarchical view representation. An important objective of this automatic generation is to preserve XML Schema's characteristics such as reusability, global and local ability, ability of expansion and various type changes.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.239-242
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• 2003

To develop a nicotine-degrading material (NDM), the natural herbal extract was studied. For the in vitro verification, the herbal extract was mixed into the dilute nicotine solution and the ability of NDM to degrade nicotine into cotinine was measured spectrophotometically. In the in vivo study, the rats in experimental and control groups were orally fed with the herbal extract and water, respectively, for 2 weeks. And then, 3 ㎎/㎏ nicotine was administered to both groups by intraperitoneal injection. In results, the ability of NDM to degrade nicotine into cotinine was shown 2.5 fold higher after 90 min reaction in comparison with the control group. In addition, a decrease of 33% in nicotine concentration and a increase of 57% in cotinine concentration were shown in rat blood. Therefore, NDM was shown to be effective in the conversion of nicotine into cotinine.