• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.183-190
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• 2004

Objectives: Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) mutation are commonly associated with hyperhomocysteinemia, and through their defects in homocysteine metabolism, they have been implicated as a risk factor for recurrent spontaneous abortion. Recent report describe that 28-bp tandem repeat polymorphism in thymidylate synthase enhancer region (TSER) that influence enzyme activity would affect plasma homocysteine level. We have investigated the relationship between TSER genotype and plasma homocysteine level in 54 patients with recurrent spontaneous abortion. Methods: Plasma homocysteine level was measured by fluorescent polarizing immunoassay. MTHFR mutation (C677T and A1298C) was identified by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism assay and TSER mutation was analyzed by PCR method. The data were analyzed using the program SAS 8.2 for Windows. Results: Total homocysteine level was significantly higher in MTHFR 677TT genotype ($9.80{\pm}3.87{\mu}mol/L$) than MTHFR 677CC genotype ($8.14{\pm}1.74{\mu}mol/L$) in Korean patients with unexplained recurrent spontaneous abortion (p=0.0143). However, the plasma homocysteine level was not significantly different in the MTHFR 1298AA ($8.42{\pm}2.65{\mu}mol/L$) and 1298CC ($6.09{\pm}0.32{\mu}mol/L$; p=0.2058) and, TSER 2R2R ($8.61{\pm}1.68{\mu}mol/L$) and 3R3R ($8.05{\pm}2.81{\mu}mol/L$; p=0.9319) mutant genotypes, respectively. In this study, we found the combination effects of TSER and MTHFR C677T genotypes. Plasma homocysteine levels were the highest ($11.47{\pm}4.66{\mu}mol/L$) in individuals with TSER 3R3R ($8.05{\pm}2.81{\mu}mol/L$) and MTHFR 677TT ($9.80{\pm}3.87{\mu}mol/L$) genotypes. Individuals with a combination of both TSER 2R2R/2R3R and MTHFR 677CC/CT genotypes ($7.69{\pm}1.77{\mu}mol/L$) had lower plasma homocysteine levels than TSER 2R2R ($8.61{\pm}1.68{\mu}mol/L$) and MTHR 677CC ($8.14{\pm}1.74{\mu}mol/L$) genotypes, respectively. The effect of MTHFR polymorphism in the homocysteine metabolism appears to be stronger than that of TSER polymorphism. Conclusion: Although statistically not significant, we found the elevated level of plasma homocysteine in combined genotypes with TSER and MTHFR (C677T and A1298C) in Korean patients with unexplained habitual abortion. In this study, we reported the possibility that TSER polymorphism is a genetic determinant of plasma homocysteine levels in the Korean patients as well as MTHFR C677T polymorphism. A large prospective study is needed to verify our findings.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.311-318
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• 1997

Bypassing acrosome reaction and fusion process in intracytoplasmic sperm injection(ICSI), most of injected spermatozoa still contain intact acrosome contents and plasma membrane. It Is not known yet what acrosome contents and plasma membrane of spermatozoa have effect on the development of embryo. For further understanding of fertilization process after ICSI, we studied the time of pronucleus formation, disappearance and first cleavage in human zygote, and pregnancy rate in relation to acrosome reaction rate of spermatozoa after ICSI. Seventy cycles undergoing ICSI program were randomly selected. Sperm suspension from 38 cycles were treated 50% human follicular fluid(hFF) for 3 hours in order to induce acrosome reaction, others were not treated as control. Acrosome reaction in hFF treated and non-treated group was assessed by fluorescein isothiocyanate(FITC)-conjugated Arachis hypogea(PNA) and Pisum sativum agglutinin(PSA). Oocytes were classified into 'good' and 'poor' according to their morphology. After ICSI, fertilization of oocytes were assessed by detection of two pronuclei at 16 hours. The pronuclei disappearance and first cleavage of zygotes were observed at 24 hours, and then embryos were transferred to uterus after culture for 72 hours. The rate of acrosome reaction of spermatozoa in hFF treated group was significantly higher than that in control(p<0.01). Fertilization rates of good oocytes were not different both control and hFF treated group(81.3%(174/206) vs. 72.1%(102/130)). But, in poor oocytes, the fertilization rates in hFF treated group(72.1%(149/183)) were increased compared than those of control group (63.6%(98/140), p<0.01). In either good or poor oocytes, the rates of pronuclei disappearance in hFF treated-spermatozoa injected oocytes were higher than control (59.1%(103/174), 56.4%(84/149) vs. 32.4%(33/102), 37.8%(37/98), p<0.01). Also, the rates of thirst cleavage were increased in hFF treated group (31%(54/174), 24.1%(36/149)) compared than those of control group (10.8%(11/102), 13.2%(13/98), p<0.01). The pregnancy rates of hFF treated group (42.1%(16/38)) were slightly higher than control group (28.1%(9/32), p>0.05). But, the pregnancy rate of group which possessed more than one cleavaged zygote at 24 hours was higher than group which did not (45.2%(19/42) vs. 21.4%(6/28), p<0.05). From these results, the development of zygotes were faster in higher acrosome reacted sperm group than lower acrosome reacted sperm group after ICSI. Our results may be explained that acrosomal membrane and plasma membrane are easily detached from spermatozoa in acrosome reacted spermatozoa compared with acrosome intact sperm in the cytoplasm of oocyte during pronuclear formation. We conclude that the injection of acrosome reacted spermatozoa will increase the pregnancy rate as they can induce fast embryonic development in ICSI.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.305-312
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• 2007

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of split insemination method in treatments for non-male factor infertility. Method: Laboratory and clinical data were collected from 505 cycles of split insemination during 2002$\sim$2005 in our center. The subjects were non-male factor infertility such as endometriosis, tubal, uterine, PCOS and idiopathic infertility without any sperm defects. Retrieved oocytes were randomly divided, and inseminated by conventional IVF or ICSI. Fertilized zygotes were cultured for 2$\sim$5 days to ET date, and surplus zygotes and embryos were frozen for subsequent frozen-thawed ET cycles. Clinical outcomes according to insemination method were compared by statistical analysis. Results: The overall fertilization per retrieved oocytes was significantly higher in ICSI than that of conventional IVF in sibling oocytes (62.5$\pm$22.3% vs 52.9$\pm$28.0%, p<0.01). Total fertilization failure occurred only in 2 of 505 cycles (0.4%) in split insemination cycles. Incidence of fertilization failure and poor fertilization rate less than 30% by ICSI were significantly lower than those of conventional IVF (1.1% and 7.5% vs 8.5% and 22.0%, p<0.01). Delivery rates after transfer of fresh and thawed embryos from split insemination cycles were 40.0% (185/462) and 35.0% (55/157), respectively. There was no significant difference in the implantation and delivery rates of ET with embryos from conventional IVF or ICSI. Conclusion: Taken together, the split insemination method improves poor fertilization rates resulting in successful clinical outcomes and thus could be used for non-male factor infertile couples in human ART program.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.107-115
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• 2007

Objective: A quality management system of international standardization organization (ISO) 9001:2000 has been proposed to properly evaluate and improve the quality of productions and services. The purpose of this article was to describe on successful introduction and application of the ISO system to human assisted reproductive technology (ART) center. Methods: Center for reproductive medicine and infertility of Cheil General Hospital started the action for ISO 9001:2000 certification at January-2004. The ISO system of our center was monitored by measuring the customer satisfaction index and periodical internal and external audit. Reports of non-conformity described corrective and preventive actions for problems and occurrences that were not consistent with the standard process and operation of our center. Continuous management and improvement were performed on the project of customer dissatisfaction. Results: Our center has got the certification of ISO 9001:2000 for "Research and development of IVF-ET program for infertility treatment" from Korean Foundation for Quality at June-2004. The policy of ISO was "To establish the best center of reproductive medicine and infertility" and "To establish the best quality management system". We found 140 cases and 7 cases of non-conformity in internal and external audit for three years, respectively, and performed corrective action. Conclusion: Improvement of customer satisfaction, systemic documentation and transparency and efficacy of working procedure were achieved by application and operation of the ISO system to our center. This ISO system could be used as a basic institutional management system for the national guideline to the human ART center.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.66-72
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• 2009

The detection methods are required to monitor and diagnose the abnormality on the insulation condition inside a gas-insulated switchgear (GIS). Due to a good sensitivity to the products decomposed by partial discharges (PDs) in $SF_6$ gas, the development of a SWNT gas sensor is actively in progress. However, a few numerical studies on the diffusion mechanism of the $SF_6$ decomposition products by PD have been reported. In this study, we modeled $SF_6$ decomposition process in a chamber by calculating temperature, pressure and concentration of the decomposition products by using a commercial CFD program in conjunction with experimental data. It was assumed that the mass production rate and the generation temperature of the decomposition products were $5.04{\times}10^{-10}$ [g/s] and over 773 K respectively. To calculate the concentration equation, the Schmidt number was specified to get the diffusion coefficient functioned by viscosity and density of $SF_6$ gas instead rather than setting it directly. The results showed that the drive potential is governed mainly by the gradient of the decomposition concentration. A lower concentration of the decomposition products was observed as the sensors were placed more away from the discharge region. Also, the concentration increased by increasing the discharge time. By installing multiple sensors the location of PD is expected to be identified by monitoring the response time of the sensors, and the information should be very useful for the diagnosis and maintenance of GIS.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether 12-weeks of movement training would increase the psoas major cross-sectional area (CSA) in senior men and women. Fifty eight men and women aged 65 to 80 years old ($69.6{\pm}3.7$, 30 male, 28 female) were divided into a control (n=19) and exercise group (n=39). Subjects were assessed before and after the training program for stature, body mass, and magnetic resonance imaging of the psoas major and the quadriceps muscle. The experimental group performed exercises using machines designed to improve the movement of the hip at a frequency of twice every week, with a total of 23 trainings in 12-weeks. Magnetic resonance images of both thighs and the abdomen and psoas major were obtained, aimed at 50% of the length of the greater trochanter and the lower edge of the femur and between the fourth (L4) and fifth (L5) lumbars. A 9.4% increase in the psoas major CSA in the training group was observed. In the male and female breakdown, a 11.5% and 8.4% change was observed in males and females, respectively. In the quadriceps, there was no significant statistical improvement in either males or females. Furthermore, in the control group, there was no significant change seen in either the psoas major or the quadriceps. As a result of conducting training that enables upkeep of posture and smooth linkage of the lumbar spine, the pelvis and thighbone, the psoas major CSA of older adults were improved in a short period of time. For this reason, the possibility of improving the psoas CSA, which decreases remarkably with increased age, by improving the linkage of the body trunk is also suggested.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.81-95
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• 1995

Now, safety assurance in construction sites should be accomplished by its own organization rather than control of the code or government. It is believed that the safety assurance can be considerably improved by a lecture or an education using the existing theories or literatures up to now, but it is thought that fundamental safety assurance we not able to be accomplished without developing safety devices '||'&'||' equipment or taking fundamental measures, based on the result analyzed from workers behaviors. There are various behaviors of the workers showed in construction site, but only tests for hammerusing works such as form, re-bar, stone workers directly related to the grip strength are mainly performed, investigated and measured here for the study. The above works are similar to power grip, 7th picture on seven items which are categorized for hand grip types(Ammermin 1956 ; Jones ; Kobrick 1958). Measurements of grip strength are commonly taken in anthropometric surveys. They are easy to administer but unfortunately it is rather dubious whether they yield any data that are of interest to the engineer. Very fewer controls of tools are grasped and squeesed studies showed very little overall correlation between grip strength and other measures of bodily strength (Laubach, Kromer, and Thordsen 1972), but hammer-using work which is practically progressed in construction site are mainly influenced with grip strength. According to the investigation on work measurement, it is shown that 77% of form worker are using hammer to be related to grip strength. In this study, it is particularly noticed that wearing safety gloves in construction site is required for workers safety but 20% difference between grip strength with safety gloves and without ones are commonly neglected in the site(Fig. 1). Nevertheless, safety operation with consideration of the above 20% difference is not considered in the construction site. Factors of age, kinds of work, working time, with or without safety gloves are in vestigated '||'&'||' collected at the sites for this study. Test, not at each working hour but at 14 : 00 when the almost all of the workers think the most tired, resulting from the questionaires, also when it is shown on the research report has been performed and compared for main kinds of works : form '||'&'||' re-bar work. Tests were performed with both left SE rightand of the workers simultaneously in construction site using Rand Dynamometer(Model 78010, Lafayette Instrument Co., Indiana, U.S.A) by reading grip strength on the gauge while they are pulling, and then by interviewing on their ages, works, experiences and etc., directly. The above tests have been performed for the dates of 15th march-26th May '95 with consideration of site condition. And even if various factors of ambient temperature on the testing date, working condition, individual worker's habit and worker's condition of the previous ate are concerned with the study. Those are considered as constants in this study. Samples are formwork 53, rebar 62, electrician 5, plumber 4, welding 1 from D construction Co., Ltd, ; formwork 12, re-bar 5, electrician 2, from S construction Co., Ltd, , formwork 78, re-bar 18, plumber 31, electrician 13, labor 48, plumber 31, plasterer 15, concrete placer 6, water proof worker 3, maisony 5 from B construction Co., Ltd. As In the previously mentioned, main aspect to be investigated in this study will be from '||'&'||' re-bar work because grip strength will be directly applied to these two kinds of works ; form '||'&'||' re-bar work, eventhough there are total 405 samples taken. It is thought that a frequency of accident occurrence will be mainly two work postures "looking up '||'&'||' looking down" to be mainly sorted, but this factor is not clarified in this study because It will be needed a lot of work more. Tests has been done at possible large scale of horizontally work-extended sites within one hour in order to prevent or decrease errors '||'&'||' discrepancies from time lag of the test. Additionally, the statistical package computer program SPSS PC＋has been used for the study.

• Restorative Dentistry and Endodontics
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.408-415
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• 1999

When a zinc-oxide eugenol type sealer was placed in root canals treated previously with calcium hydroxide, acceleration of its setting and the yellowish discoloration were observed clinically. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the properties of calcium hydroxide-eugenol compound. Some physical properties of calcium hydroxide-eugenol compound were compared with a manufactured zinc-oxide eugenol based root canal sealer, Tubli-seal$^{(R)}$ in terms of water solubility, water sorption, film thickness and microleakage. Solubility and water sorption were determined by the use of the method described in American Dental Association Specification(ADAS) no. 57. Ten samples of each material were prepared into disks 20mm in diameter and 1.5mm in thickness. The samples were immersed in 50ml of distilled water at $37{\pm}1^{\circ}C$ for 7 days. The samples were then removed and placed in a desiccator. The values for solubility and water sorption were calculated using differences between the weights of same sample. Film thickness was determined by the use of the method described in ADAS no. 57 too. A small quantity of mixed cement was placed between two glass plates of which thickness was measured previously. 15Kg loading was applied and total thickness of the glass plates and the cement film was measured. The thickness difference was recorded as the material's film thickness. Microleakage was determined with a dye penetration method. Experimental materials were placed between the dentin surface of bovine tooth and the acrylic rod. These units were immersed in Pelican ink (W-Germany) for three days. Dye-penetrated dentin surfaces of bovine tooth were measured using the NIB Image 1.60 Macintosh program. The results are as follows: 1. Water solubility value of calcium hydroxide-eugenol compound (20.98${\pm}$2.94%) was statistically higher than those of Tubli-seal$^{(R)}$(2.52${\pm}$0.49%)(p<0.05). 2. Water sorption value of calcium hydroxide-eugenol compound (59.72${\pm}$17.75%) was statistically higher than those of Tubli-seal$^{(R)}$(3.15${\pm}$0.76%)(p<0.05). 3. Film thickness value of calcium hydroxide-eugenol compound (0.36${\pm}$0.03mm) was statistically higher than those of Tubli-seal$^{(R)}$(0.12${\pm}$0.1mm)(p<0.05). 4. Dye penetration value after 3 days-immersion of calcium hydroxide-eugenol compound(57.63${\pm}$25.85%) was statistically higher than those of Tubli-seal$^{(R)}$(28.05${\pm}$23.46%)(p<0.05).

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.333-357
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• 2014

This study resulted from a study regarding creative STEAM System based upon an experiment with the center of gravity. The results of the study are constructed by a fusion of mathematics and physics, showing that they are the same as mathematical calculations. Also, students can find that center of gravity of an object is in equilibrium on a metal rod when the center of gravity exactly is placed on the rod. The fact that an experimental results are correspond to calculations can maximize the effectiveness of teaching. And also this study has the following effectiveness. First, the exact construction and calculations arouses good competition among students. Second, this experiment can give students a motivation for study and increase their thinking in classes because the theoretical background of center of gravity experiment is basically attributed to math and science classes in school. This study includes three different types of center-of-gravity experiments. One is a simple type of experiment in which center of gravity exists inside of an object. Another is a complicated one in which the center of gravity is also inside of an object. However, the third type is an experiment in where the center of gravity is outside of an object. Therefore, it gives students an opportunity to discuss how to confirm equilibrium on a metal rod when the object has its center of gravity outside. Having discussions in class will allow students to have a critical way of thinking. In addition, searching for a way to solve a problem will increase creativity of students as well. And the last type is finding the center of gravity of a big acrylic panel where multiple objects are on the panel. According to the survey and interview conducted by students who participated in this program, teaching based on creative STEAM system helps students to get a better understanding and more fast acquisition of knowledge. We can expect that a well-planned creative STEAM system through a continuous study will be both effective and efficient in educating critical and creative students.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.125-141
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• 2012

These days, the malicious attacks and hacks on the networked systems are dramatically increasing, and the patterns of them are changing rapidly. Consequently, it becomes more important to appropriately handle these malicious attacks and hacks, and there exist sufficient interests and demand in effective network security systems just like intrusion detection systems. Intrusion detection systems are the network security systems for detecting, identifying and responding to unauthorized or abnormal activities appropriately. Conventional intrusion detection systems have generally been designed using the experts' implicit knowledge on the network intrusions or the hackers' abnormal behaviors. However, they cannot handle new or unknown patterns of the network attacks, although they perform very well under the normal situation. As a result, recent studies on intrusion detection systems use artificial intelligence techniques, which can proactively respond to the unknown threats. For a long time, researchers have adopted and tested various kinds of artificial intelligence techniques such as artificial neural networks, decision trees, and support vector machines to detect intrusions on the network. However, most of them have just applied these techniques singularly, even though combining the techniques may lead to better detection. With this reason, we propose a new integrated model for intrusion detection. Our model is designed to combine prediction results of four different binary classification models-logistic regression (LOGIT), decision trees (DT), artificial neural networks (ANN), and support vector machines (SVM), which may be complementary to each other. As a tool for finding optimal combining weights, genetic algorithms (GA) are used. Our proposed model is designed to be built in two steps. At the first step, the optimal integration model whose prediction error (i.e. erroneous classification rate) is the least is generated. After that, in the second step, it explores the optimal classification threshold for determining intrusions, which minimizes the total misclassification cost. To calculate the total misclassification cost of intrusion detection system, we need to understand its asymmetric error cost scheme. Generally, there are two common forms of errors in intrusion detection. The first error type is the False-Positive Error (FPE). In the case of FPE, the wrong judgment on it may result in the unnecessary fixation. The second error type is the False-Negative Error (FNE) that mainly misjudges the malware of the program as normal. Compared to FPE, FNE is more fatal. Thus, total misclassification cost is more affected by FNE rather than FPE. To validate the practical applicability of our model, we applied it to the real-world dataset for network intrusion detection. The experimental dataset was collected from the IDS sensor of an official institution in Korea from January to June 2010. We collected 15,000 log data in total, and selected 10,000 samples from them by using random sampling method. Also, we compared the results from our model with the results from single techniques to confirm the superiority of the proposed model. LOGIT and DT was experimented using PASW Statistics v18.0, and ANN was experimented using Neuroshell R4.0. For SVM, LIBSVM v2.90-a freeware for training SVM classifier-was used. Empirical results showed that our proposed model based on GA outperformed all the other comparative models in detecting network intrusions from the accuracy perspective. They also showed that the proposed model outperformed all the other comparative models in the total misclassification cost perspective. Consequently, it is expected that our study may contribute to build cost-effective intelligent intrusion detection systems.