• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.35-41
• /
• 1998

This study was carried out to investigate the development rates of human embryos co-cultured with cumulus cells to each blastocyst stage. Human zygotes were co-cultured on cumulus cell monolayer in YS medium supplemented with 20% hFF. On day 2, if patient had four or more "good" embryos (regular blastomeres without fragmentation), embryos were further cultured for 72hrs. Blastocysts on day 5 were classified into early blastocyst (ErB), early expanding blastocyst (EEB), middle expanding Blastocyst (MEB), and expanded blastocyst (EdB) on the basis of their morphological aspects of trophectoderm cells and blastocoele. Subsequently, maximum 3 of best blastocysts were transferred in 486 cycles. The results in this study were as follows: Patients who had four or more "good" embryos on day 2 were 498 persons, but patients whose embryos could not be transferred due to failure in development to the blastocyst stage on day 5 were 12 persons (2.4%). The development rate of embryos to the blastocyst stage was 58.2% (2,885/4,957) on day 5, and the rates that developed to the ErB, EEB, MEB, and EdB stage were 15.0% (743/4,957), 14.9% (739/4,957), 14.4% (714/ 4,957), and 13.9% (689/4,957), respectively. Total 1366 blastocysts were transferred in 486 cycles (mean number=2.81). The implantation rate and the ongoing implantation rate obtained by observing the number of G-sac and FHB were 29.9% (409/1,366) and 22.5% (308/1,366), respectively. The clinical pregnancy rate was 51.2% (249/486), and the ongoing pregnancy rate' was 39.1% (190/486). Among women showing ongoing pregnancy, women with singleton were 50% (95/190), women with twin were 37.9% (72/190), and women with triplet were 12.1% (23/190). Although triplet pregnancy rate in this study was high such as 12.1%, because many blastocysts with high viability were produced in our co-culture system using cumulus cells on day 5, we really believe that a multiple pregnancy except twin should not occur by selecting good embryos for maximum two blastocyst transfer. These results demonstrate that autologous cumulus cells may be used for the production of blastocysts with high developmental competence, and the use of autologous cumulus cells to be collected easily, and to be treated conveniently at OPU must be an effective means for obtaining high implantation and pregnancy rate.

• International Journal of Contents
• /
• v.10 no.4
• /
• pp.11-17
• /
• 2014

The influence of acquisition environment on music score images captured by a camera has not yet been seriously examined. All existing Optical Music Recognition (OMR) systems attempt to recognize music score images captured by a scanner under ideal conditions. Therefore, when such systems process images under the influence of distortion, different viewpoints or suboptimal illumination effects, the performance, in terms of recognition accuracy and processing time, is unacceptable for deployment in practice. In this paper, a novel, lightweight but effective approach for dealing with the issues caused by camera based music scores is proposed. Based on the staff line information, musical rules, run length code, and projection, all regions of interest are determined. Templates created from inverse filter are then used to recognize the music symbols. Therefore, all fragmentation and deformation problems, as well as missed recognition, can be overcome using the developed method. The system was evaluated on a dataset consisting of real images captured by a smartphone. The achieved recognition rate and processing time were relatively competitive with state of the art works. In addition, the system was designed to be lightweight compared with the other approaches, which mostly adopted machine learning algorithms, to allow further deployment on portable devices with limited computing resources.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.15-21
• /
• 1999

The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of paternal sex chromosome on early development of buffalo embryos fertilized and cultured in vitro. Embryos were produced in vitro from abattoir derived buffalo oocytes. The cleaved embryos were cocultured with buffalo oviductal epithelial cells and evaluated on day 7 under the phase contrast microscope to classify development. The embryos which reached the morula/blastocyst stage were fast developing, the embryos which were at 16-32 cell stage were medium developing and the embryos below 16 cell stage were slow developing. The embryos which showed some fragmentation in the blastomeres or degenerated blastomeres, were degenerating. Sex of emberyos (n=159) was determined using PCR for amplification of a male specific BRY. 1 (301 bp) and a buffalo specific satellite DNA (216 bp) fragments. The results thus obtained show that 1) X and Y chromosome bearing sperms fertilize oocytes to give almost equal numbers of cleaved XX and XY embryos, 2) male embryos develop faster than female embryos to reach advanced stage and 3) degeneration of buffalo embryos is not linked with the paternal sex chromosome. We suggest that faster development of males is due to differential processing of X and Y chromosome within the zygote for its activation and / or differential expression of genes on paternal sex chromosome sex chromosome during development of buffalo embryos fertilized and cultured in vitro which may be attributed to a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.38 no.2
• /
• pp.65.1-65.1
• /
• 2013

Our understanding of how brown dwarfs form is limited by observational evidence. We report identification of a L328-IRS as a proto-brown dwarf embedded in an isolated dense molecular core. This source exhibits typical properties of a protostar, however, its luminosity (~0.05 $L{\odot}$) is far below than expected from the least massive protostar by the standard star formation theory. The most likely mass accretion rate (~2.4 10-7 $M{\odot}$ yr-1) inferred from its small bipolar outflow is an order of magnitude less than the canonical value for a protostar. The mass available in its envelope is less than 0.1 $M{\odot}$. These points suggest that L328-IRS will accrete the mass of a brown dwarf, but not that of a star. L328 is found to be fairly well isolated from other nearby clouds and seems to be forming three sub-cores simultaneously through a gravitational fragmentation process. Altogether with these, our direct detection of inward motions in L328 which harbors this proto-brown dwarf clearly supports the idea that a brown dwarf forms like a normal star.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
• /
• v.17 no.6
• /
• pp.357-366
• /
• 2008

It is certain that urbanization has transformed the ecological consequences severely, but urban ecosystem is not fully understood yet. Urban growth is not like a static form and it spreads spatially and temporally. Therefore in studying urban ecosystem, it is important to relate the spatial pattern of urbanization to ecological processes. Using gradient analysis, we attempted to quantify the urbanization's spatial impacts in Daejeon-city and Cheonan-city, Chungcheong-province, Korea. Because of Multifunctional Administrative City Planning (MACP), a lot of development projects are planned in Chungcheong-province, Korea. It's important to study about original cities' patterns and impacts. These results can be adopted to future city planning. So several measures such as fragmentation, vegetation index, surface temperature, population density, and income rate were computed along a 75km long and 3km wide transect. The results showed that Daejeon-city has a wider urban center, lower vegetation indexes, and higher surface temperature than Cheonan-city. Therefore in the perspective of urban environments and sustainable urbanism, it seems that Cheonan-city is better than Daejeon-city. The changes along the transect have important ecological implications, and quantifying the urbanization gradient is an important step in understanding urban ecology.

• Analytical Science and Technology
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.41-52
• /
• 1994

The importance of separation comes from demands on study for exact effect of synthetic drugs and the reactivity of enantiomer in biological system. Racemization rate was measured under the influence of heat, acid, UV-light, enzyme(trypsin) and 6N-HCl at $105^{\circ}C$ on alanine, threonine, isoleucine, lecuine, aspartic acid, methionine, glutamic acid, tyrosine. The method for the identification of overlapped amino acids with GC was developed from the close study of fragmentation pattern with mass spectrometry. With cyclodextrin bonded phase by HPLC, the separation of dansyl amino acid was tested for compartison.

• Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy
• /
• v.41 no.3
• /
• pp.182-193
• /
• 2011

As a part of the on-going effort to conserve endangered Scrophularia takesimensis Nakai in Korea, its genetic structure and diversity from 3 population, consisted of 14 subpopulations in Ulleung Island were analyzed using RAPD band patterns. Out of 60 primers tested, 33 generated amplified bands with its genome, including 149 polymorphic and 67 monomorphic bands. The highest number (146) was found in northern population, especially, 64 in HY subpopulation; the smallest (40) in eastern population. An examination of its genetic structure with AMOVA revealed that about 60% of all variations could be assigned to among subpopulations within populations. Population differentiation among populations and subpopulations is seriously going now because of habitat fragmentation due to human activities, such as road and small port construction. Although the habitats of S. takesimensis in Ulleung Island, Korea are disappeared at an alarming rate, significant levels of genetic variation still exist at species level, and population level, especially northern population. Therefore, three conservation strategies should be needed urgently; 1) preservation of populations as it stands, 2) establishment of recovery plan to connect population and subpopulations genetically, and 3) long-term monitoring.

• The Journal of Korean Obstetrics and Gynecology
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.1-12
• /
• 2006

Purpose : This study was aimed to investigate the inhibitory effect of Leonurus sibiricus on the proliferation of human uterine leiomyoma cells and the expression of gene related the mechanism of cell apoptosis. Methods : We counted the number of death cells treated with indicated concentration of Leonurus sibiricus and investigated cell death rate by MTS assay. Furthermore, flow cytometry analysis and DNA fragmentation assay were used to dissect between necrosis and apoptosis and then we observed the differential gene expression by western blot analysis. Results : Leonurus sibiricus significantly inhibited the proliferation of uterine leiomyoma cell in a dose-dependent and time dependent manner. Fluorescence activated cell sorter (FACS) analysis indicated that Leonurus sibiricus induced G1 cell cycle arrest. Leonurus sibiricus enhanced the expression of p27 and p53 with cell cycle arrest. Conclusion : These findings suggest that Leonurus sibiricus is a candidate agent for the treatment of uterine leiomyoma. p27, $p53^{1}$ may play an important role in Leonurus sibiricus-induced cell cycle arrest and cell growth inhibition.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
• /
• v.17 no.5
• /
• pp.343-347
• /
• 1994

Effects of betaine on glutamate-induced neurotoxicity were examined on primary culturs of chicken embryonic brain cells and on rat cortical cultures. Betaine was found to attenuate glutamate-induced neurotoxicity both morphologically and biochemically. A 30 min exposure of chicken embryonic brain cells cultured for 12 days to 500 .mu.M glutamate produced wide-spread acute neuronal swelling and neurtic fragmentation. A 2-h pretreatment of cultured chicken embryonic brain cells with i mM betaine prior to a 30 min exposure to 500 , mu, M glutamate significantly raised the survival rate of neurons in the culture. When chicken embryonic brain cells were pretreated for 2 h with i mM betaine followed by exposure to 100 .mu.M glutamate for 42 h, lactate dehydrogenase levels within the cells remained at 62% of .mu.M untreated control values while glutamate-treated control fell to 0% lactate dehydrogenase. Betaine also exerted attenuating effects on N-methyl-D-asparte-, kainate-and quisqualate-induced neurotoxicity in a similar manner to that observed with glutamate. Similar neuroprotective effects of betaine with rat cortical cultures.

• BMB Reports
• /
• v.50 no.4
• /
• pp.214-219
• /
• 2017

Mitochondria play pivotal roles in the ATP production, apoptosis and generation of reactive oxygen species. Although dynamic regulation of mitochondria morphology is a critical step to maintain cellular homeostasis, the regulatory mechanisms are not yet fully elucidated. In this study, we identified miR-200a-3p as a novel regulator of mitochondrial dynamics by targeting mitochondrial fission factor (MFF). We demonstrated that the ectopic expression of miR-200a-3p enhanced mitochondrial elongation, mitochondrial ATP synthesis, mitochondrial membrane potential and oxygen consumption rate. These results indicate that miR-200a-3p positively regulates mitochondrial elongation by downregulating MFF expression.