• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.357-370
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• 2012

Radiation therapy, the most commonly used for the treatment of brain tumors, has been shown to be of major significance in tumor control and survival rate of brain tumor patients. About 200,000 patients with brain tumor are treated with either partial large field or whole brain radiation every year in the United States. The use of radiation therapy for treatment of brain tumors, however, may lead to devastating functional deficits in brain several months to years after treatment. In particular, whole brain radiation therapy results in a significant reduction in learning and memory in brain tumor patients as long-term consequences of treatment. Although a number of in vitro and in vivo studies have demonstrated the pathogenesis of radiation-mediated brain injury, the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which radiation induces damage to normal tissue in brain remain largely unknown. Therefore, this review focuses on the pathophysiological mechanisms of whole brain radiation-induced cognitive impairment and the identification of novel therapeutic targets. Specifically, we review the current knowledge about the effects of whole brain radiation on pro-oxidative and pro-inflammatory pathways, matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs)/tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs) system and extracellular matrix (ECM), and physiological angiogenesis in brain. These studies may provide a foundation for defining a new cellular and molecular basis related to the etiology of cognitive impairment that occurs among patients in response to whole brain radiation therapy. It may also lead to new opportunities for therapeutic interventions for brain tumor patients who are undergoing whole brain radiation therapy.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.57 no.6
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• pp.665-670
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• 2019

Sporulated oocysts from the feces of infected cats with Toxoplasma gondii can cause detrimental disease in both humans and animals. To investigate the prevalence of feral cats that excrete T. gondii oocysts in the feces, we examined fecal samples of 563 feral cats over a 3-year period from 2009 to 2011. Oocysts of T. gondii excreted into the feces were found from 4 of 128 cats in 2009 (3.1%) and one of 228 (0.4%) in 2010 while none of the 207 cats in 2010 were found positive with oocysts in their feces, resulting in an overall prevalence rate of 0.89% (5/563) between 2009 and 2011. Among the 5 cats that tested positive with T. gondii oocysts, 4 of the cats were male and 1 was a female with an average body weight of 0.87 kg. Numerous tissue cysts of 60 ㎛ in diameter with thin (<0.5 ㎛) cyst walls were found in the brain of one of the 5 cats on necropsy 2 months after the identification of oocysts in the feces. A PCR amplification of the T. gondii-like oocysts in the feces of the positive cats using the primer pairs Tox-5/Tox-8 and Hham34F/Hham3R confirmed the presence of T. gondii oocysts in the feces. This study provides a good indication of the risk assessment of feral cats in the transmission of T. gondii to humans in Korea.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.58 no.2
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• pp.191-194
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• 2020

Free-living amoebas (FLAs) can cause severe disease in humans and animals when they become infected. However, there are no accurate survey reports on the prevalence of FLAs in Korea. In this study, we collected 163 tap water samples from buildings, apartments, and restrooms of highway service areas in 7 Korean provinces with high population density. All these buildings and facilities have water storage tanks in common. The survey was separated into categories of buildings, apartments, and highway service areas. Five hundred milliliters of tap water from each building was collected and filtered with 0.2 ㎛ pore filter paper. The filters were incubated in agar plates with heated E. coli at 25℃. After axenization, genomic DNA was collected from each FLA, and species classification was performed using partial 18S-rDNA PCR-sequencing analysis. We found that 12.9% of tap water from buildings with storage tanks in Korea was contaminated with FLAs. The highway service areas had the highest contamination rate at 33.3%. All of the FLAs, except one, were genetically similar to Vermamoeba vermiformis (Hartmannella vermiformis). The remaining FLA (KFA21) was very similar to Acanthamoeba lugdunensis (KA/E26). Although cases of human infection by V. vermiformis are very rare, we must pay attention to the fact that one-third of tap water supplies in highway service areas have been contaminated.

• Food Science and Biotechnology
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1240-1245
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• 2008

Kimbab is the most popular ready-to-eat (RTE) food in Korea. A rapid detection method based on multiplex PCR technique was developed for detection of major food-borne pathogens like Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., Bacillus cereus, Listeria monocytongenes, and Staphylococcus aureus. Specific bands were obtained as 108 bp (Sau, S. aureus), 284 bp (Sal, S. enterica, S. enteritids, and S. typhmurium), 404 bp (Lmo, L. monocytogenes), 475 bp (Bce, B. cereus), and 600 bp (Shi, S. flexineri and S. sonnei). Visible cell numbers varied from 4.14-5.03, 3.61-4.47, and 4.10-5.11 log CFU/g in randomly collected June, July, and August samples, respectively. Among the 30 kimbab samples obtained 83.3% samples were contaminated and 16.7% samples were free from contamination. The highest rate of contamination was with S. aureus (56.7%) followed by B. cereus (43.3%), Salmonella spp. (36.7%), Shigella spp. (13.3%), and L. monocytogenes (6.7%). The identification of the pathogenic species could be faster using one polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and the ability to test for food-borne pathogenic species in kimbab will save time and increase the ability to assure its quality.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.155-163
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to investigate the carrier rate of S. aureus in the community, antibiotic susceptibility patterns of the organism, detection of MRSA and mecA gene in MRSA. Identification and antibiotic resistance patterns of S. aureus and MRSA were done by MicroScan Panels. MRSA strain was confirmed by disk diffusion method using oxacillin disk. The mecA gene in MRSA was detected by PCR. Eighty-four strains (27.4%) of S. aureus were isolated from the nasal specimens of 307 university students in Busan in 2004. Sixty-eight strains (81.9%) of 83 S. aureus were resistant to penicllin, 16 strains(19.3%) to erythromycin, 15 strains (18.1%) to gentamicin, 12 strains (14.5%) to tetracycline, 6 strains (7.2%) to chloramphenicol, 3 strains (3.6%) to ofloxacin, 2 strains (2.4%) to cefepime, clindamycin, imipenem, meropenem, norfloxacin, respectively. One strain (1.2%) was resistant to ciprofloxacin, cefazolin, cefotaxime, cefuroxime, and oxacillin. And all the strains (100%) of 84 S. aureus were susceptible to amoxicilin/K clavulanate, ticarcillin/K clavulanate, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, rifampin, syncroid, teicoplanin, and vancomycin. One strain of 84 S. aureus isolates was methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The mecA gene was detected from the MRSA strain.

• KIPS Transactions on Computer and Communication Systems
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• v.3 no.10
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• pp.329-336
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• 2014

Pipe spool is the most important element of plant equipment in plant construction site. Currently, the plant construction site manage the pipe spool location and usage history by handwriting. Frequently, the pipe spool is moved to unpredictable places by field workers in many construction sites and in cases like this, the pipe stool is replaced with another similar pipe spool. Since it's hard to determine the exact location of some of the pipe spools, it takes unnecessary time and labour to find the missing pipe spools, which proves that stock management is not under control. The purpose of our system is to make the identification of real-time location of the field pipes possible by attaching UHF RFID tags to the pipe spool, which will be used to connect with UHF RFID reader and antenna on vehicles. A field test conducted by the proposed system resulted in the success rate of 98% and the missing 2% was recuperated by hands-on correction, which proved that stock management through the proposed method can be 100% effective. The proposed system is expected to reduce labour costs and make stock control of assets possible, as well as applicable to similar stock management environments.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Fundamentals of Nursing
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.190-199
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• 2006

Purpose: To provide basic data and to identify the risk of pressure ulcers among neurological patients in ICU. Method: The participants in the study were on 78 neurological patients in the ICU of 3 hospitals. Data were collected every other day from 24 hours after admission, for up to 40 days or until discharge. The total period of data collection was 3 months. The risk assessment scales used for pressure ulcer were the Cubbin & Jackson(1991) scale and the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel(1989) skin assessment tool. Results: There was a significant relationship between having a pressure ulcers and weight, skin condition, mental status, respiration, hygiene and hemodynamic status compared to not having a pressure ulcer. The incidence rate of the pressure ulcer was 28.2%(n=22). Of these patients the mean number of hospitalization days until pressure ulcer development was 5.2 days. The most common pressure ulcer site was the coccyx(39.3%). Based on a cut-off point of 24, 9 patients with risk scores <24 on admission also showed risk score for development of pressure ulcers, 10 patients with pressure ulcer scores ${\geq}24$ were older, hospitalized for a longer time, had low serum albumin, low hemoglobin, diabetes mellitus and surgery. Conclusion: In order to make the Cubbin & Jackson risk assessment scales more useful, there is a need to determine the reliability of the upper cut-off point 24. The result also showed a need to assess other risk factors and for early identification of at-risk patients in order to provide preventive care from admission to discharge.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.53-63
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• 2008

In this paper, we propose the regional travel time measurement algorithm using the sequence pattern matching to the type of vehicles between the origin of the region and the end of the region, that could be able to overcome the limit of conventional method such as Probe Car Method or AVI Method by License Plate Recognition. This algorithm recognizes the vehicles as a sequence group with a definite length, and measures the regional travel time by searching the sequence of the origin which is the most highly similar to the sequence of the end. According to the assumption of similarity cost function, there are proposed three types of algorithm, and it will be able to estimate the average travel time that is the most adequate to the information providing period by eliminating the abnormal value caused by inflow and outflow of vehicles. In the result of computer simulation by the length of region, the number of passing cars, the length of sequence, and the average maximum error rate are measured within 3.46%, which means that this algorithm is verified for its superior performance.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.7
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• pp.15-21
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• 2015

Due to the appearance of various mobile terminals like smartphone, smartpad, and smartwatch and tremendous development of WiFi technology, data utilization rate on WiFi network is significantly increasing. As a result, users are wanting to use WiFi network using only a simple identification at a visited place as if they are at their home institute. In this paper, we review the domestic status of eduroam service which supports global extension of wireless network access environment and present the future development perspective of the service in Korea. Besides, we shed light on the current status of WiFi sharing service between domestic universities and propose some methods to facilitate the join of domestic universities in eduroam service.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.219-224
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• 1999

In our search for the anticonvulsant consitutent of Gastrodia elata repeated column chromatographies guided by activity assay led to isolation of an active compound, which was identified as gastrodin on the basis of spectral data. Brain succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase (SSADH) was inactivated by preincubation with gastrodin in a time-dependent manner and the reaction was monitored by absorption and fluorescene spectroscopic methods. The inactivation followed pseudo-first-order kinetics with the second-rate order constant of $1.2{\times}10^{3} M^{-1} min^{-1}$. The time course of the reaction was significantly affected by the coenzyme NAD^{+}$, which affected complete protection against the loss of the catalytic activity, whereas substrate succinic semialdehyde failed to prevent the inactivation of the enzyme. It is postulated that the gastrodin is able to elevate the neurotransmitter GABA levels in central nervous system by inhibitory action on one of the GABA degradative enzymes, SSADH.