• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.128-135
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• 2016

5-hydroxytryptamine (serotonin) receptor ($5-HT_7R$) 7 is one of G-Protein coupled receptors, which is activated by the neurotransmitter Serotonin. After activation by serotonin, $5-HT_7$ activates the production of the intracellular signaling molecule cyclic AMP. $5-HT_7$ receptor has been found to be involved in the pathophysiology of various disorders. It is reported that $5-HT_7$ receptor antagonists can be used as antidepressant agents. In this study, we report the important structural and chemical parameters for 2-methoxyphenylpiperazinylakanamides as $5-HT_7R$ inhibitors. A 3D QSAR study based on comparative molecular field analysis (CoMFA) was performed. The best predictions were obtained for the best CoMFA model with $q^2$ of 0.594 with 6 components, $r^2$ of 0.986, Fisher value as 60.607, and an estimated standard error of 0.043. The predictive ability of the test set was 0.602. Results obtained the CoMFA models suggest that the data are well fitted and have high predictive ability. The contour maps are generated and studied. The contour analyses may serve as tool in the future for designing of novel and more potent $5-HT_7R$ derivatives.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.101-108
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• 2007

This paper presents an efficient meshless method for analyzing cracked piezoelectric structures subjected to mechanical and electrical loading. The method employs an element free Galerkin (EFG) formulation and an enriched basic function as well as special shape functions that contain discontinuous derivatives. Based on the moving least squares (MLS) interpolation approach, The EFG method is one of the promising methods for dealing with problems involving progressive crack growth. Since the method is meshless and no element connectivity data are needed, the burdensome remeshing procedure required in the conventional finite element method (FEM) is avoided. The numerical results show that the proposed method yields an accurate near-tip stress field in an infinite piezoelectric plate containing an interior hole. Another example is to study a ceramic multilayer actuator. The proposed model was found to be accurate in the simulation of stress and electric field concentrations due to the abrupt end of an internal electrode.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.11
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• pp.3219-3223
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• 2014

Ochnaflavone, a naturally occurring biflavonoid composed of two units of apigenin (5,7,4'-trihydroxyflavone) joined via a C-O-C linkage, was first synthesized and evaluated its inhibitory activity on $PGE_2$ production. Total synthesis was accomplished through modified Ullmann diaryl ether formation as a key step. Coupling reactions of 4'-halogenoflavones and 3'-hydroxy-5,7,4'-trimethoxyflavone were explored in diverse reaction conditions. The reaction of 4'-fluoro-5,7-dimethoxyflavone (2c) and 3'-hydroxy-5,7,4'-trimethoxyflavone (2d) in N,N-dimethylacetamide gave the coupled compound 3 in 58% yield. Synthetic ochnaflavone strongly inhibited PGE2 production ($IC_{50}=1.08{\mu}M$) from LPS-activated RAW 264.7 cells, which was due to reduced expression of COX-2. On the contrary, the inhibition mechanism of wogonin was somewhat different from that of ochnaflavone although wogonin, a natural occurring anti-inflammatory flavonoid, showed strong inhibitory activity of $PGE_2$ production ($IC_{50}=0.52{\mu}M$), and seems to be COX-2 enzyme inhibition. Our concise total synthesis of ochnaflavone enable us to provide sufficient quantities of material for advanced biological studies as well as to efficiently prepare derivatives for structure-activity relationship study.

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.89-98
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• 2015

Chemoattractant receptor homologous molecule expressed on Th2 cells (CRTh2) is a G-protein coupled receptor targeted for inflammatory diseases such as asthma, allergic rhinitis and atopic dermatitis. In this study, pharmacophore modeling and comparative molecular field analysis (CoMFA) were performed on the series of 2-(2-(benzylthio)-1H-benzo[d]imidazol-1-yl) acetic acids derivatives. Five highly active compounds were used for generation of pharmacophore models using GASP module. The best pharmacophore model was selected and used as template for the alignment of compounds which was used for CoMFA analysis. The best predictions obtained for CoMFA was $q^2=0.545$, $r^2=0.756$. The predictive ability of the model was investigated using 15 test set compounds. Contour maps suggested that presence of bulky substituents at $5^{th}$ position of benzene ring connected to suphur atoms attached to imidazol ring will increase the activity of the compounds. The results obtained from this study will be useful to design more potent CRTh2 antagonists.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.351-365
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• 2017

The minimization method is widely used to predict the dynamic characteristics of a system. Generally, data recorded by experiment (for example displacement) tends to contain noise, and the error in the properties of the system is proportional to the noise level (NL). In addition, the accuracy of the results depends on various factors such as the signal character, filtering method or cut off frequency. In particular, coupled terms in multimode systems show larger differences compared to the true value when measured in an environment with a high NL. The iterative least square (ILS) method was proposed to reduce these errors that occur under a high NL, and has been verified in previous research. However, the ILS method might be sensitive to the signal processing, including the determination of cutoff frequency. This paper focused on improving the accuracy of the ILS method, and proposed the modified ILS (MILS) method, which differs from the ILS method by the addition of a new calculation process based on correlation coefficients for each degree of freedom. Comparing the results of these systems with those of a numerical simulation revealed that both ILS and the proposed MILS method provided good prediction of the dynamic properties of the system under investigation (in this case, the damping ratio and damped frequency). Moreover, the proposed MILS method provided even better prediction results for the coupling terms of stiffness and damping coefficient matrix.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.403-418
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• 2020

To investigate the effects of central buckles on the dynamic behavior and flutter stability of long-span suspension bridges, four different connection options between the main cable and the girder near the mid-span position of the Aizhai Bridge were studied. Based on the flutter derivatives obtained from wind tunnel tests, formulations of self-excited forces in the time domain were obtained using a nonlinear least square fitting method and a time-domain flutter analysis was realized. Subsequently, the influences of the central buckles on the critical flutter velocity, flutter frequency, and three-dimensional flutter states of the bridge were investigated. The results show that the central buckles can significantly increase the frequency of the longitudinal floating mode of the bridge and have greater influence on the frequencies of the asymmetric lateral bending mode and asymmetric torsion mode than on that of the symmetric ones. As such, the central buckles have small impact on the critical flutter velocity due to that the flutter mode of the Aizhai Bridge was essentially the symmetric torsion mode coupled with the symmetric vertical mode. However, the central buckles have certain impact on the flutter mode and the three-dimensional flutter states of the bridge. In addition, it is found that the phenomenon of complex beat vibrations (called intermittent flutter phenomenon) appeared in the flutter state of the bridge when the structural damping is 0 or very low.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.254-263
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• 2017

The cavitation erosion remains an industrial issue for many applications. This paper deals with the cavitation intensity, which can be described as the fluid mechanical loading leading to cavitation damage. The estimation of this quantity is a challenging problem both in terms of modeling the cavitating flow and predicting the erosion due to cavitation. For this purpose, a numerical methodology was proposed to estimate cavitation intensity from 3D unsteady cavitating flow simulations. CFD calculations were carried out using Code_Saturne, which enables U-RANS equations resolution for a homogeneous fluid mixture using the Merkle's model, coupled to a $k-{\varepsilon}$ turbulence model with the Reboud's correction. A post-process cavitation intensity prediction model was developed based on pressure and void fraction derivatives. This model is applied on a flow around a hydrofoil using different physical (inlet velocities) and numerical (meshes and time steps) parameters. The article presents the cavitation intensity model as well as the comparison of this model with experimental results. The numerical predictions of cavitation damage are in good agreement with experimental results obtained by pitting test.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.796-801
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• 2002

The goal of this research is the shape design of the valve using a computer simulation. For an analysis a basic mathematical model describing compression cycle is considered as consisting of five sets of coupled equations. These are the volume equation (kinematics), valve dynamic equation (dynamics), ideal gas equation (thermodynamics), Bernoulli equation (fluid dynamics), and dynamic equation of fluid particle based on Helmholtz equation (acoustics). Valve motion is made by the superposition of free vibration modes obtained by the finite element method. That is, the eigenvalues and eigenvectors are the sufficient modeling factors fur the valve in the simulation program. Thus, to design a shape of the valve, shape design sensitivity through chain-ruled derivatives is considered from two sensitivity coefficients, one is the design sensitivity of the capability of compressor with respect to the eigenvalues of the valve, and the other is the design sensitivity of the eigenvalue with respect to the shape change of the valve. In this research, the continuum design sensitivity analysis concepts are used for the latter.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.286-292
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• 2017

Magnesium alloy shows strong anisotropy and asymmetric behavior in tension and compression curve, especially at room temperature. These characteristics limit the application of finite element method (FEM) which is based on conventional continuum mechanics. To accurately predict the material behavior of magnesium alloy at microstructural level, a methodology of fully coupled multiscale simulation is presented and a crystal plasticity model as a constitutive equation in the simulation of metal forming process is introduced in this study. The existing constitutive equation for rigid plastic FEM is modified to accommodate deviatoric stress component and its derivatives with respect to strain rate components. Viscoplastic self-consistent (VPSC) polycrystal model was selected as a constitutive model because it was regarded as the most robust model compared to Taylor model or Sachs model. Stiffness matrix and load vector were derived based on the new approach and implemented into $DEFORM^{TM}-3D$ via a user subroutine handling stiffness matrix at an elemental level. The application to extrusion and rolling process of pure magnesium is presented in this study to assess the validity of the proposed multiscale process.

• Proceedings of the SCSK Conference
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• 2003.09b
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• pp.319-329
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• 2003

Ursolic acid (UA) and oleanolic acid (OA) are pentacyclic triterpenoids which are widely distributed in plants, and their derivatives are aglycones of many naturally occurring saponins. It is known that pentacyclic acids may possibly enhance the mechanical barrier functions of cell membranes in plants. Recently, it has been reported that OA and UA have interesting biological activities on skin, such as anti-inflammatory and anti-wrinkle activities. Since triterpenoids are extremely insoluble and their solubility problem limits skin-care application, OA and UA were encapsulated in liposomes via micelle-to-vesicle transition to overcome poorly soluble property and enhance biological efficacy. Optimal molar ratio of OA to lecithin was found to exist for producing liposomes of small hydrodynamic size and liposomal suspensions without recrystallized precipitation of OA. From electron micrograph and dynamic light scattering studies, reconstituted OA-containing liposomes without severe mechanical treatment showed small hydrodynamic size about 150 nm. Wide-angle X-ray diffraction coupled with dynamic light scattering revealed that optimal amount of OA in liposome was 25.4 mole %. In biological evaluation, OA-containing liposome significantly increased filaggrin and transglutaminase as markers of keratinocyte differentiation in epidermal layer of hairless mouse, whereas ursolic acid-containing liposome did not show noticeable increase of filaggrin and transglutaminase compared to empty liposome. It is concluded that nano-scaled liposomes containing triterpenoids were spontaneously prepared by vesicular transition from mixed micelle and liposomal triterpenoids can enhance skin absorption of triterpenoid and biological efficacy.