• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.61-69
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• 2008

Purpose: Micro-pinhole SPECT system with conventional multiple-head gamma cameras has the advantage of high magnification factor for imaging of rodents. However, several geometric factors should be calibrated to obtain the SPECT image with good image quality. We developed a simplified geometric calibration method for rotating triple-head pinhole SPECT system and assessed the effects of the calibration using several phantom and rodent imaging studies. Materials and Methods: Trionix Triad XLT9 triple-head SPECT scanner with 1.0 mm pinhole apertures were used for the experiments. Approximately centered point source was scanned to track the angle-dependent positioning errors. The centroid of point source was determined by the center of mass calculation. Axially departed two point sources were scanned to calibrate radius of rotation from pinhole to center of rotation. To verify the improvements by the geometric calibration, we compared the spatial resolution of the reconstructed image of Tc-99m point source with and without the calibration. SPECT image of micro performance phantom with hot rod inserts was acquired and several animal imaging studies were performed. Results: Exact sphere shape of the point source was obtained by applying the calibration and axial resolution was improved. Lesion detectibility and image quality was also much improved by the calibration in the phantom and animal studies. Conclusion: Serious degradation of micro-pinhole SPECT images due to the geometric errors could be corrected using a simplified calibration method using only one or two point sources.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.53-74
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• 2012

A challenge in fostering virtual communities is the continuous supply of knowledge, namely members' willingness to contribute knowledge to their communities. Previous research argues that giving away knowledge eventually causes the possessors of that knowledge to lose their unique value to others, benefiting all except the contributor. Furthermore, communication within virtual communities involves a large number of participants with different social backgrounds and perspectives. The establishment of mutual understanding to comprehend conversations and foster knowledge contribution in virtual communities is inevitably more difficult than face-to-face communication in a small group. In spite of these arguments, evidence suggests that individuals in virtual communities do engage in social behaviors such as knowledge contribution. It is important to understand why individuals provide their valuable knowledge to other community members without a guarantee of returns. In virtual communities, knowledge is inherently rooted in individual members' experiences and expertise. This personal nature of knowledge requires social interactions between virtual community members for knowledge transfer. This study employs the social capital theory in order to account for interpersonal relationship factors and identity theory for individual and group factors that may affect knowledge contribution. First, social capital is the relationship capital which is embedded within the relationships among the participants in a network and available for use when it is needed. Social capital is a productive resource, facilitating individuals' actions for attainment. Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1997) identify three dimensions of social capital and explain theoretically how these dimensions affect the exchange of knowledge. Thus, social capital would be relevant to knowledge contribution in virtual communities. Second, existing research has addressed the importance of identity in facilitating knowledge contribution in a virtual context. Identity in virtual communities has been described as playing a vital role in the establishment of personal reputations and in the recognition of others. For instance, reputation systems that rate participants in terms of the quality of their contributions provide a readily available inventory of experts to knowledge seekers. Despite the growing interest in identities, however, there is little empirical research about how identities in the communities influence knowledge contribution. Therefore, the goal of this study is to better understand knowledge contribution by examining the roles of social capital and identity in virtual communities. Based on a theoretical framework of social capital and identity theory, we develop and test a theoretical model and evaluate our hypotheses. Specifically, we propose three variables such as cohesiveness, reciprocity, and commitment, referring to the social capital theory, as antecedents of knowledge contribution in virtual communities. We further posit that members with a strong identity (self-presentation and group identification) contribute more knowledge to virtual communities. We conducted a field study in order to validate our research model. We collected data from 192 members of virtual communities and used the PLS method to analyse the data. The tests of the measurement model confirm that our data set has appropriate discriminant and convergent validity. The results of testing the structural model show that cohesion, reciprocity, and self-presentation significantly influence knowledge contribution, while commitment and group identification do not significantly influence knowledge contribution. Our findings on cohesion and reciprocity are consistent with the previous literature. Contrary to our expectations, commitment did not significantly affect knowledge contribution in virtual communities. This result may be due to the fact that knowledge contribution was voluntary in the virtual communities in our sample. Another plausible explanation for this result may be the self-selection bias for the survey respondents, who are more likely to contribute their knowledge to virtual communities. The relationship between self-presentation and knowledge contribution was found to be significant in virtual communities, supporting the results of prior literature. Group identification did not significantly affect knowledge contribution in this study, inconsistent with the wealth of research that identifies group identification as an important factor for knowledge sharing. This conflicting result calls for future research that examines the role of group identification in knowledge contribution in virtual communities. This study makes a contribution to theory development in the area of knowledge management in general and virtual communities in particular. For practice, the results of this study identify the circumstances under which individual factors would be effective for motivating knowledge contribution to virtual communities.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.1-12
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• 2014

It is essential factor for business operation to raise funds effectively. However, in Korea, many start-ups and small businesses have difficulties in fund-raising. In recent years, crowdfunding, a new method for funding a project of individuals or organizations by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, has been growing up simultaneously with diffusion of social media. Crowdfunding is on early stage in Korea, and the majority of projects are focused on cultural or art categories. There is high proportion of projects that have social value in start-up sector. Crowdfunding in Korea has great potential because success rate of it is much higher than its of advanced countries, although market size is much smaller than them. The purpose of this paper is to propose success strategies of crowdfunding for start-up through case study. 5 crowdfunding platforms of Korea and Kickstarter, the platform of United States were investigated. Then we checked the figures related to the operation of the whole Korean projects on start-up. Finally, we made comparison between the cases of success and failure by analyzing 8 project characteristics. The study shows that it were the differences in trustworthiness and activeness of project creator, value of reward and efforts for interactivity that have great effects on success of the project. Whereas there was no significant influence of societal contribution and sponsor engagement. The thesis provides success strategies of crowdfunding for start-up as follows. Firstly, creator of the project should make support base by enthusiastic activites before launching funding project. Secondly, there should be contents that can easily show the process of business development in the project information. Thirdly, there must be appropriate design of rewards for each amounts of support money. Finally, efforts for interactivity, such as frequent updates, response for comments and SNS posting, should be followed after the launch of the project.

• Journal of the Korean Society of School Health
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.171-187
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• 1998

In recent years, adolescent issues including smoking, drinking, drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, deviant sexual behavior, mental health problems, high suicide rate, juvenile delinquency and absence without due notice, etc are emerging as serious social problems and the debate on these controversial issues is heating up. The previous studies on adolescent health behavior and social juvenile delinquency such as run-away from home and absence without due notice have been conducted mostly by cause analysis utilizing social demographic factors or biological factors. In other words, the main factors analyzed were demographic and economic factors or parent's educational level, etc, which were the fixed environmental ones that were unable to cause the change in the health behavior. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to analyze factors which are changeable and fixable among the factors influencing the adolescent's health behavior and misconducts and, eventually influencing factors which can be used as the basis to establish health policies and health promotion program to reduce the health risk behavior and misconducts of adolescents. The study subjects were selected by dividing senior high school student in Seoul by region and through random sampling. The 890 subjects were selected from 10 schools including the preparatory school, vocational schools and institutional schools. The duration of the study was for July 1-5, 1997 for the first survey and the second one, for August 25-September 10. Regarding the analysis method, the SAS program was used. The adoptablity of theoretical model was tested through covariance structural analysis utilizing PC-LISREL 8.12 Program. The major findings of the study are as follows: As a result of establishing the model of factors influencing health behavior and juvenile delinquency, in case of male students as the health behavior self-efficacy, education level of fathers, economic level, self-control and the health interest of parent were higher, students were more likely to practice the health promoting behavior. Juvenile delinquency and health risk behavior were prevalent among those with the less shyness, the lower health behavior self-efficacy, lower self-control, lower self-assertiveness, lower economic level. The self-control was the most powerful factor. In case of female students, those with higher health behavior self-efficacy were more likely to practice the health promoting behavior whereas those with lower health behavior self-efficacy, lower self-control, lower self- assertiveness, less shyness were more likely to practice health risk behavior and juvenile delinquency. In case of prep schools, those with higher health behavior self-efficacy and better perceived health status were more likely to practice the health promoting behavior while those with less shyness, lower health behavior self-efficacy and lower academic achievement were more likely to engage in health risk behavior and juvenile delinquency. In case of vocational schools, as health behavior self-efficacy and economic level were higher, the practice rate of health promoting behavior was higher. As the self-control, shyness, self-assertiveness, health behavior self-efficacy were lower, the rate of health risk behavior and juvenile delinquency were higher. In case of social institutional schools, as, the health behavior self-efficacy, social support and economic level, health interest of parents were higher, the rate of health promoting behavior were higher. As the self-control, shyness, self-assertiveness, health behavior self-efficacy and social support were lower, the rate of health risk behavior and juvenile delinquency were higher. So the health promoting behavior was positively related to the health behavior self-efficacy, health interest of parents, social support, education level of fathers, level of perceived health status, economic level. The health risk behavior and juvenile delinquency were higher with the lower health behavior self-efficacy, self-control and self-assertiveness, lower health locus control, less shyness and loneliness, lower economic level and academic achievement. In conclusion, the health risk behavior and juvenile delinquency can be reduced by enhancing self-control, self-assertiveness, health behavior self-efficacy and social support. According to the final model drawn by connecting health behavior and juvenile delinquency, the reduction of health risk behavior can greatly contribute to decreasing social juvenile delinquency as the process of juvenile delinquency was extended from common behaviors to problem behaviors and further into juvenile delinquency.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.40 no.12
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• pp.1662-1667
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• 2011

Anthocyanins belong to a group of flavonoid compounds and are well known for their various health beneficial effects, which include antioxidative activities. Among them, the major anthocyanins isolated from seed coat of black soybean (Glycine max L.) were previously characterized as glycosides containing glucopyranose. Asthma is an allergic disease that is strongly associated with various immune cells, including basophils and mast cells. Eosinophils, basophils, and mast cells play important roles in allergic asthma through the release of inflammatory mediators such as asthma-specific T-helper 2 (Th2) cytokines and subsequent amplification of asthma symptoms via degranulation. Rat basophilic leukemia RBL-2H3 cells are the most common in vitro models for evaluating allergic reactions. In this study, we examined the effects of anthocyanin from seed coat of black soybean on antigen-stimulated degranulation and Th2 cytokine production in RBL-2H3 cells. Cell degranulation was evaluated by measuring the release of ${\beta}$-hexosaminidase. ${\beta}$-Hexosaminidase release and Th2 cytokine production in RBL-2H3 cells was much higher upon stimulation with IgE-antigen complex than those in untreated control cells. Anthocyanins significantly suppressed IgE-antigen complex-induced degranulation of RBL-2H3 cells and inhibited IgE-antigen complex-mediated interleukin (IL)-4, IL-13, and tumor necrosis factor ${\alpha}$ (TNF-${\alpha}$) production in RBL-2H3 cells. These findings suggest that anthocyanins from seed coat of black soybean effectively inhibit allergic reactions and may have beneficial effects against allergic asthma.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.92-100
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• 2011

Objectives：We developed a Korean version of the Brief Measure of Worry Severity(BMWS), and examined its reliability, validity, and factor structures. We also explored the associations of pathological worry with depression and anxiety. Methods：Three hundreds fifty-two subjects including community population and college students completed the BMWS, and 27 subjects repeated the scale three weeks later. Reliability was assessed by Cronbach's coefficient ${\alpha}$ and test-retest correlation. The external validity was examined by the correlation of the BMWS score with the scores of Beck Depression Inventory(BDI), Patient Health questionnaire-2(PHQ-2), State Anxiety Inven-tory(SAI), and Trait Anxiety Inventory(TAI). And principal component analysis was performed to evaluate the construct validity. The associations of pathological worry with depression and anxiety were explored using partial correlation analysis. Results：Cronbach's coefficient ${\alpha}$ for the BMWS was 0.904 and test-retest correlation was 0.56(P<0.01). The Spearman correlation coefficients of the BMWS score with the scores of BDI, PHQ-2, SAI, and TAI were 0.60(P<0.01), 0.42(P<0.01), 0.36(P<0.01), and 0.59(P<0.01), respectively. The BMWS showed unifactorial construct. When controlling for TAI score, the correlation coefficient between the BMWS score and the BDI score was 0.357(P<0.01), and when controlling for BDI score the correlation coefficient between the BMWS score and the TAI score was 0.446(P<0.01). Conclusion：The Korean version of the BMWS was found to be a reliable and valid questionnaire for measuring pathological worry. And we could identify the associations of the pathological worry with depression as well as anxiety.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.131-137
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to examine the sociopsychological stress of dental hygiene students, any possible gaps among them according to their general characteristics and the most influential factor for their stress. The subjects in this study were the dental hygiene students who were selected by convenience sampling from three different colleges. After a survey was conducted for about a month between March and April, 2011, the answer sheets from 561 students were analyzed. As for the sociopsychological stress of the dental hygiene students, economic stress was the heaviest sociopsychological stress that the students suffered(3.17). Regarding differences in each stressor according to general characteristics, they were more stressed out about their economy, families, interpersonal relationships and studies when they had a less conversation with their families. And they had more stress about their economy, families, interpersonal relationships and studies when they found themselves to be more unhealthy. The gaps between them and the others were statistically significant. As a result of analyzing the influential factors for their stress, they had more stress when they had a less conversation with their families(p<0.001) and when they found themselves not to be in good health(p<0.001). It's required to seek ways for dental hygiene students to cope with their stress properly, and the development of stress management programs is necessary. Besides, education and training should be provided for them to regulate their own stress successfully.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.442-448
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• 2016

Dental caries and periodontal disease are considered to be chronic, but can be prevented through an incremental oral health program covering all ages. The National Oral Health Program for adults provides oral health exam and scaling, and is covered by national health insurance for those over 20 years of age in Korea. The aim of this study was to collect basic data for developing an oral health program for adults by identifying factors related to awareness and need. The data were obtained by convenience sampling of 303 subjects. The use of dental plaque disclosing agents affected tooth brushing frequency, toothbrushing time and use of oral auxiliary devices. Education on toothbrushing methods affected toothbrushing time and use of oral auxiliary devices. Of those surveyed, 93.1% replied that an incremental oral health program for adults was needed, and 68.0% intended to participate. In a regression model, the factors that had an effect on the perceived need for an oral health program were education level, use of oral hygiene auxiliary devices, and toothbrushing time, and the factors affecting intent to participate were education for prevention of periodontal disease and the use of oral hygiene auxiliary devices. The subjects stated that the following oral health programs were needed: an oral bacteria exam (74.3%), toothbrushing education (71.6%), a bad breath exam (69.3%), education on use of oral hygiene auxiliary devices (46.9%), a dental plaque exam (42.9%) and a saliva exam (37.6%). Oral health education appears to be an important factor for participation in an incremental oral health program.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.451-459
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• 2015

Raw-red bean (RR) should be boiled in hot water, and only boiled-red bean (BR) has been used in the food industry. In the course of development of functional food using red- bean (Phaseolus radiatus L), hot- water extracts (HWEs) of RR and BR were prepared, respectively and their components and various biological activities were compared. The extraction yield at $100^{\circ}C$ of RR (16.2%) was higher than that of BR (14.8%), and contents of total polyphenols, total flavonoids and reducing sugars of HWE of RR were 2.5-fold, 2.1-fold and 1.5-fold higher than those of HWE of BR. In anti-oxidation activity assay, scavenging activities against DPPH anion and ABTS cation as well as reducing power of RR was higher than those of BR. The results suggest that the anti-oxidant compounds in red bean might be heat-liable or discarded during boiling in hot-water as a cooking drip. Unexpectedly, nitrite scavenging activity was stronger in HWE of BR than RR. In anti-microbial activity assay, HWE of RR ($500{\mu}g/disc$) showed growth inhibition activity against gram-positive bacteria, whereas HWE of BR did not show any activity against any tested bacteria and fungi. Assay of in-vitro anti-diabetes and anti-thrombosis activities, which were previously reported in ethanol extract of red-bean, revealed that HWEs of RR and BR did not show significant activities against ${\alpha}$-amylase, ${\alpha}$-glucosidase, thrombin, prothrombin, or blood coagulation factors. Our results suggest that the anti-oxidation, anti-diabetes and anti-thrombosis activities of HWEs of RR and BR were lower than those of ethanol extracts of red bean, and bioactive substances in RR were destroyed during boiling or discarded after boiling. Further research on suitable boiling and re-use of cooking drip of red bean is necessary.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.879-887
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• 2020

Objective: Numerous studies have indicated that the apoptosis and proliferation of granulosa cells (GCs) are closely related to the normal growth and development of follicles and ovaries. Previous evidence has suggested that miR-126-3p might get involved in the apoptosis and proliferation of GCs, and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase regulatory subunit 2 (PIK3R2) gene has been predicted as one target of miR-126-3p. However, the molecular regulation of miR-126-3p on PIK3R2 and the effects of PIK3R2 on porcine GCs apoptosis and proliferation remain virtually unexplored. Methods: In this study, using porcine GCs as a cellular model, luciferase report assay, mutation and deletion were applied to verify the targeting relationship between miR-126-3p and PIK3R2. Annexin-V/PI staining and 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine assay were applied to explore the effect of PIK3R2 on GCs apoptosis and proliferation, respectively. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction and Western Blot were applied to explore the regulation of miR-126-3p on PIK3R2 expression. Results: We found that miR-126-3p targeted at PIK3R2 and inhibited its mRNA and protein expression. Knockdown of PIK3R2 significantly inhibited the apoptosis and promoted the proliferation of porcine GCs, and significantly down-regulated the mRNA expression of several key genes of PI3K pathway such as insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R), insulin receptor (INSR), pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 1 (PDK1), and serine/threonine kinase 1 (AKT1). Conclusion: MiR-126-3p might target and inhibit the mRNA and protein expressions of PIK3R2, thereby inhibiting GC apoptosis and promoting GC proliferation by down-regulating several key genes of the PI3K pathway, IGF1R, INSR, PDK1, and AKT1. These findings would provide great insight into further exploring the molecular regulation of miR-126-3p and PIK3R2 on the functions of GCs during the folliculogenesis in female mammals.