• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.470-478
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• 2017

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: Orostachys japonicus A. Berger (Crassulaceae) has been used in traditional herbal medicines in Korea and other Asian countries to treat various diseases, including liver disorders. In the present study, the anti-fibrotic effects of O. japonicus extract (OJE) in cellular and experimental hepatofibrotic rat models were investigated. MATERIALS/METHODS: An in vitro hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) system was used to estimate cell viability, cell cycle and apoptosis by MTT assay, flow cytometry, and Annexin V-FITC/PI staining techniques, respectively. In addition, thioacetamide (TAA)-induced liver fibrosis was established in Sprague Dawley rats. Briefly, animals were divided into five groups (n = 8): Control, TAA, OJE 10 (TAA with OJE 10 mg/kg), OJE 100 (TAA with OJE 100 mg/kg) and silymarin (TAA with Silymarin 50 mg/kg). Fibrosis was induced by treatment with TAA (200 mg/kg, i.p.) twice per week for 13 weeks, while OJE and silymarin were administered orally two times per week from week 7 to 13. The fibrotic related gene expression serum biomarkers glutathione and hydroxyproline were estimated by RT-PCR and spectrophotometry, respectively, using commercial kits. RESULTS: OJE (0.5 and 0.1 mg/ mL) and silymarin (0.05 mg/mL) treatment significantly (P < 0.01 and P < 0.001) induced apoptosis (16.95% and 27.48% for OJE and 25.87% for silymarin, respectively) in HSC-T6 cells when compared with the control group (9.09%). Further, rat primary HSCs showed changes in morphology in response to OJE 0.1 mg/mL treatment. In in vivo studies, OJE (10 and 100 mg/kg) treatment significantly ameliorated TAA-induced alterations in levels of serum biomarkers, fibrotic related gene expression, glutathione, and hydroxyproline (P < 0.05-P < 0.001) and rescued the histopathological changes. CONCLUSIONS: OJE can be developed as a potential agent for the treatment of hepatofibrosis.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.210-217
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• 2006

Many types of interspinous distraction devices (IDDs) have been recently developed as an alternative surgical treatment to laminectomy and fusion with pedicle screws for the treatment of the lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS). They are intended to keep the lumbar spine in a slightly flexed posture to relieve pain caused by narrowing of the spinal canal and vertebral foramen. However, their biomechanical efficacies are not well known. In this study, we evaluated the kinematic behaviors and changes in intradiscal pressure (IDP) of the porcine lumbar spine implanted with IDD. For kinematics analysis, five porcine lumbar spines (L2-L6) were used and the IDD was inserted at L4-L5. Three markers (${\phi}{\le}0.8mm$) were attached on each vertebra to define a rigid body motion for stereophotogrammetric assessment of the spinal motion in 3-D. A moment of 7.5Nm in flexion-extension, lateral bending, and axial rotation were imparted with a compressive force of 700N. Then, IDD was implanted at L3-L4. IDPs were measured using pressure transducer under compression (700N) and additional extension moment (700N+7.5Nm). In kinematic behaviors, insertion of IDD resulted in statistically significant decrease 42.8% at the implanted level in extension. There were considerable changes in ROM at the adjacent levels, but statistically insignificant. In other motions, there were no significant changes in ROM as well regardless of levels. IDPs at the surgical level (L3-L4) under compression and extension moment decreased by 12.9% and 18.8% respectively after surgery (p<0.05). At the superiorly adjacent levels, IDPs increased by 19.4% and 12.9% under compression and extension, respectively (p<0.05). Corresponding changes at the inferiorly adjacent levels were 29.4% and 6.9%, but they were statistically insignificant (p>0.05). The magnitude of pressure changes due to IDD, both at the operated and adjacent levels, were far less than the previously reported values with conventional fusion techniques. Our experimental results demonstrated the IDDs can be very effective in limiting the extension motion that may cause narrowing of the spinal canal and vertebral foramens while maintaining kinematic behaviors and disc pressures at the adjacent levels.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.300-309
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• 2016

Curved beams are increasingly used in buildings, vehicles, ships, and aircraft, which has resulted in considerable effort towards developing an accurate method for analyzing the dynamic behavior of such structures. The stability behavior of elastic curved beams has been the subject of many investigations. Solutions to the relevant differential equations have traditionally been obtained by the standard finite difference or finite element methods. However, these techniques require a great deal of computer time for a large number of discrete nodes with conditions of complex geometry and loading. One efficient procedure for the solution of partial differential equations is the differential quadrature method (DQM). This method has been applied to many cases to overcome the difficulties of complex algorithms and high storage requirements for complex geometry and loading conditions. Out-of-plane buckling of curved beams with rotatory inertia were analyzed using DQM under uniformly distributed radial loads. Critical loads were calculated for the member with various parameter ratios, boundary conditions, and opening angles. The results were compared with exact results from other methods for available cases. The DQM used only a limited number of grid points and shows very good agreement with the exact results (less than 0.3% error). New results according to diverse variation are also suggested, which show important roles in the buckling behavior of curved beams and can be used for comparisons with other numerical solutions or experimental test data.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.141-152
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• 2008

The 3D building modeling is one of crucial components in constructing 3D geospatial information. The existing methods for 3D building modeling depend mainly on manual photogrammetric processes, which indeed take great amount of time and efforts. In recent years, many researches on 3D building modeling using aerial LiDAR data have been actively performed to aim at overcoming the limitations of existing 3D building modeling methods. Either techniques with interpolated grid data or data fusion with digital map and images have been investigated in most of existing researches on 3D building modeling with aerial LiDAR data. The paper proposed a method of 3D building modeling with LiDAR data only. Firstly, octree-based segmentation is applied recursively to LiDAR data classified as buildings in 3D space until there are no more LiDAR points to be segmented. Once octree-based segmentation is completed, each segmented patch is thereafter merged together based on its geometric spatial characteristics. Secondly, building model components are created with merged patches. Finally, a 3D building model is generated and composed with building model components. The experimental results with real LiDAR data showed that the proposed method was capable of modeling various types of 3D buildings.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.153-165
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• 1997

In male reproducible health, fertility and IVF (in-vitro fertilization), semen analysis has been most important. Semen analysis can be divided into concentration, motional and morphological analysis of sperm. The existing method which was developed earlier to analyze semen concentrated on the sperm motility analysis. To provide more useful and precise solutions for clinical problems such as infertility, semen analysis must include sperm morphological analysis. But the traditional tools for semen analysis are subjective, imprecise, inaccurate, difficult to standardize, and difficult to reproduce. Therefore, with the help of development of microcomputers and image processing techniques, we developed a new sperm morphology analyzer to overcome these problems. In this study the agreement on percent normal morphology was studied between different observers and a computerized sperm morphology analyzer on a slide-by-slide basis using strict criteria. Slides from 30 different patients from the SNUH andrology laboratory were selected randomly. Microscopic fields and sperm cells were chosen randomly and percent normal morphology was recorded. The ability of sperm morphology analyzer to repeat the same reading for normal and abnormal cells was studied. The results showed that there was no significant bias between two experienced observers. The limits of agreement were 4.1%${\sim}$-3.8%. The Pearson correlation coefficient between readers was 0.79. Between the manual and sperm morphology analyzer, the same findings were reported. In this experiments the slides were stained by two different methods, PAP and Diff-Quik staining methods. The limits of agreement were 7.2%${\sim}$-5.7% and 6.0%${\sim}$-6.3%, respectively. The Pearson correlation coefficients ware 0.76 and 0.91, respectively. The limits of agreement was tighter below 20% normal forms. In the experiments of repeatability, 52 cells stained by PAP and Diff-Quik staining methods were analyzed three times in succession. Estimating pairwise agreement, the kappa statistic for the pairs were 0.76, 0.81, 0.86, and 0.75, 0.88, 0.88 respectively. In this study it was shown that there was good agreement between manual and computerized assessment of normal and abnormal cells. The repeatability and agreement per slide of computerized sperm morphology analyzer was excellent. The computer's ability to classify normal morphology per slide is promising. Based on results obtained, this system can be of clinical value both in andrology laboratories and IVF units.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.129-134
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• 2018

Objective: In frozen and thawed embryos, the zona pellucida (ZP) can be damaged due to hardening. Laser-assisted hatching (LAH) of embryos can increase the pregnancy rate. This study compared thinning and drilling of the ZP before frozen embryo transfer (FET). Methods: Patients were randomly allocated into two groups for LAH using thinning or drilling on day 2 after thawing. Twenty-five percent of the ZP circumference and 50% of the ZP thickness was removed in the thinning group, and a hole $40{\mu}m$ in diameter was made in the drilling group. Results: A total of 171 in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection FET cycles, including 85 cycles with drilling LAH and 86 cycles with thinning LAH, were carried out. The thinning group had a similar ${\beta}$-human chorionic gonadotropin-positive rate (38.4% vs. 29.4%), implantation rate (16.5% vs. 14.4%), clinical pregnancy rate (36.0% vs. 25.9%), miscarriage rate (5.8% vs. 2.4%), ongoing pregnancy rate (30.2% vs. 23.5%), and multiple pregnancy rate (7.0% vs. 10.6%) to the drilling LAH group. There were no significant differences in pregnancy outcomes between subgroups defined based on age (older or younger than 35 years) or ZP thickness (greater or less than $17{\mu}m$) according to the LAH method. Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that partial ZP thinning or drilling resulted in similar outcomes in implantation and pregnancy rates using thawed embryos, irrespective of women's age or ZP thickness.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.89-96
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• 2008

This paper investigates the effect of blade deformation, caused by manufacturing inaccuracies, on the performance of a 2-stage axial steam turbine. A high fidelity 3D coordinate Measurement Machine has been employed to obtain the exact geometrical model of the blades. A Streamline Curvature solver was used to predict the overall performance of the turbine. During the manufacturing process of the casts and of the blades themselves, several types of errors can occur which lead to a different geometry from that envisaged by the designer. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effect of those errors on the performance of a 2-stage experimental axial steam turbine. A high fidelity measurement of the actual geometry of both stator and rotor blades has been carried out, using a 3D Coordinate Measurement Machine. The cross sections of the blades obtained by the measurement were compared with those produced by the design process to evaluate the change in blade inlet/exit angles. In addition, the geometrical deviations from the initial design have been subjected to a statistical study in order to locate the nature of the error. The actual(measured) model has been used as input into a Streamline Curvature solver to evaluate its performance. Finally, a comparison with the performance plots of the original geometry has been carried out. A measurable change of efficiency as well as in the total power delivered by the turbine was found. This suggests that the accumulated error caused during the manufacturing procedure plays a significant role in the overall performance of the machine by making it less efficient by more than 1%. Reverse engineering techniques are proposed to predict and alleviate these errors leading thereby to a final design of each stage with improved performance.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.594-603
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• 2018

Recently, according to the development of measurement techniques, it has become possible to take complicated and time-consuming field measurements in a simple and convenient manner. In this background, this study estimated the tension of cables under ambient vibration using minimized measurement and signal processing. The VBDM using video-only by low-cost equipment was used as a minimized measurement. An estimation of the natural frequency using the mirror frequency concept was also proposed to solve the shortage of frequency band in this case. Furthermore, the FDD method was adopted for a natural frequency estimation in the ambient vibration related to field application. Experimental studies using a cable-stayed bridge model were carried out to examine the properties of the mirror frequency and the applicability of FDD with the proposed minimized system. The results showed that FDD for ambient vibration also works properly in an estimation of the natural frequency using the minimized system. In addition, the mirror frequency concept can allow a high natural frequency estimation even in a distorted signal by low-speed recording, which can overcome the limit of the minimized system. Overall, the proposed minimized system can be effective for the tension estimations of a cable under ambient vibration.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.62 no.5
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• pp.179-186
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• 2019

Purpose: Information about overweight and obesity among students in rural areas of Thailand is limited. Therefore, we aimed to determine overweight and obesity prevalences and associated factors among school-aged children in a rural community of Thailand. Methods: We selected 9 public schools through cluster sampling in 2 provinces located in central Thailand in 2016. Anthropometric measurements were measured using standard techniques, classified as overweight (>1 standard deviation [SD]) and obese (>2 SD) with respect to their age and sex using 2007 World Health Organization reference charts. Standardized questionnaires on risk factors were sent to parents to be completed together with their child. Results: Among 1,749 students, 8.98% had overweight and 7.26% had obesity. Mean age (range) was 11.5 years (5-18 years). Independent factors associated with overweight and obesity included primary school student (reference as secondary school) (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 2.25; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.24-4.08; P=0.07), mother's body mass index (aOR, 1.07; 95% CI, 1.02-1.12; P=0.001), self-employed father (aOR, 1.99; 95% CI, 1.12-3.55; P=0.018), number of siblings (aOR, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.47-0.81; P=0.001), having sibling(s) with obesity (aOR, 1.82; 95% CI, 1.20-2.77; P=0.005), more than one (aOR, 7.16; 95% CI, 2.40-21.32; P<0.001), consuming 2-3 ladles of rice/meal (aOR, 2.14; 95% CI, 1.38-3.32; P=0.001), consuming >3 ladles of rice/meal (aOR, 2.69; 95% CI, 1.11-6.46; P=0.27), watching <2 hours of television/day (aOR, 2.18; 95% CI, 1.19-4.01; P=0.012), and watching >2 hours of television/day (aOR, 2.60; 95% CI, 1.36-4.96; P=0.004). Conclusion: Many sociodemographic, dietary, and behavioral factors were related to overweight and obesity among school-aged children not only in urban but also rural communities of Thailand.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Fisheries and Ocean Technology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.29-38
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• 2019

In order to investigate the behavioral characteristics of Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus) released at the entrance of Jinhae Bay, Korea, the direction and range of movement, swimming speed of the fish were measured with an acoustic telemetry techniques in winter, 2015. Three wild Pacific codes WC1 to WC3 (total length 66.0, 75.0, 76.0 cm; body weight 2.84, 2.79, 3.47 kg, respectively) were tagged with the acoustic transmitter. WC1 tagged with an acoustic transmitter internally by surgical method, WC2 and WC3, externally with the acoustic data logger and a micro data logger for recording audible sound waves including timer release unit. The movement routes of the tagged fish were measured more than five hours using VR100 receiver and a directional hydrophone. The directionality of the fish movement was tested by Rayleigh's z-Test, the statistical analysis, and a statistical program SPSS. Three tagged fishes were individually released on the sea surface around the entrance to the Jinhae Bay on 10 to 24 January 2015. WC1 moved about 13.32 km with average swimming speed of 0.63 m/s for six hours. The average swimming depth and water depth of the seabed on the route of WC1 were 7.2 and 32.9 m, respectively. The movement range of WC2 and WC3 were 7.95 and 11.06 km, approximately, with average swimming speed of 0.44 and 0.58 m/s for 5.1 and 5.3 hours, respectively. The average swimming depth of WC2 and WC3 were 18.7 and 5.0 m, and the water depth on the route, 34.4 and 29.8 m, respectively. Three fishes WC1 to WC3 were shown significant directionality in the movement (p < 0.05). Movement mean angles of WC1 to WC3 were 77.7, 76.3 and $88.1^{\circ}$, respectively. There was no significant correlation between the movement direction of fish (WC1 and WC2) and the tidal currents during the experimental period (p >= 0.05). Consequently, three tagged fishes were commonly moved toward outside of the entrance and headed for eastward of the Korean Peninsula, approximately, after release. It may estimate positively that the tidal current speed may affect to the swimming speed of the Pacific cod during the spring tide than the neap tide.