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Water-soluble ginseng oligosaccharides protect against scopolamine-induced cognitive impairment by functioning as an antineuroinflammatory agent

  • Xu, Ting;Shen, Xiangfeng;Yu, Huali;Sun, Lili;Lin, Weihong;Zhang, Chunxiao
    • Journal of Ginseng Research
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    • v.40 no.3
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    • pp.211-219
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    • 2016
  • Background: Panax ginseng root is used in traditional oriental medicine for human health. Its main active components such as saponins and polysaccharides have been widely evaluated for treating diseases, but secondary active components such as oligosaccharides have been rarely studied. This study aimed to assess the impact of water-soluble ginseng oligosaccharides (WGOS), which were isolated from the warm-water extract of Panax ginseng root, on scopolamine-induced cognitive impairment in mice and its antineuroinflammatory mechanisms. Methods: We investigated the impact of WGOS on scopolamine-induced cognitive impairment in mice by using Morris water maze and novel object recognition task. We also analyzed the impact of WGOS on scopolamine-induced inflammatory response (e.g., the hyperexpression of proinflammatory cytokines IL-$1{\beta}$ and IL-6 and astrocyte activation) by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction and glial fibrillary acid protein (GFAP) immunohistochemical staining. Results: WGOS pretreatment protected against scopolamine-induced learning and memory deficits in the Morris water maze and in the novel object recognition task. Furthermore, WGOS pretreatment downregulated scopolamine-induced hyperexpression of proinflammatory cytokines interleukin (IL)-$1{\beta}$ and IL-6 mRNA and astrocyte activation in the hippocampus. These results indicate that WGOS can protect against scopolamine-induced alterations in learning and memory and inflammatory response. Conclusion: Our data suggest that WGOS may be beneficial as a medicine or functional food supplement to treat disorders with cognitive deficits and increased inflammation.

Endless Management of Mind and Body for Healing: The Process of Pursuing Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Patients with Breast Cancer (유방암 환자의 보완대체요법 추구 과정: 치유를 향한 끝없는 심신 다스리기)

  • Tae, Young Sook;Kwon, Suhye;Lee, Young Sook;Bae, Ju Young
    • Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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    • v.27 no.6
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    • pp.728-741
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    • 2015
  • Purpose: The purpose of the study was to explore and describe the experience of pursuing complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in breast cancer patients. Methods: Ten women with breast cancer participated in the study. Data were collected through individual in-depth unstructured and individualized interviews with each participant from February to July, 2015. Theoretical sampling was used upto the point of theoretical saturation. Data were analyzed using Corbin & Strauss's grounded theory methodology. Results: Through open coding, 22 sub-categories, and 13 categories were identified. Analysis revealed that the core category was 'endless management of mind and body for healing', which consisted of four phases; exploring, applying, grasping, and integrating. Through this process, the participants utilized various action/interactional strategies such as 'dealing with information', 'trying out blindly', 'enduring volitionally', 'experiencing effects on mind and body,' and 'grasping one's own way.' The consequences of these strategies were integrating the habit of health remedy into one's life, becoming a main agent for change, and tolerating one's weak body. Conclusion: In-depth understanding of the CAM pursuing experiences of patients with breast cancer would guide clinical nurses and policy makers to develop effective interventions and policies for better supporting them with regard to the usage of CAM.

The Cytotoxic and Anti-proliferative Effects of 3-Hydrogenkwadaphnin in K562 and Jurkat Cells Is Reduced by Guanosine

  • Moosavi, Mohammad Amin;Yazdanparast, Razieh;Sanati, Mohammad Hasan
    • BMB Reports
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    • v.38 no.4
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    • pp.391-398
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    • 2005
  • 3-hydrogenwadaphnin (3-HK) is a new daphnane-type diterpene ester isolated from Dendrostellera lessertii with strong anti-tumoral activity in animal models and in cultures. Here, prolonged effects of this new agent on proliferation and viability of several different cancerous cell lines were evaluated. Using [$^3H$]thymidine incorporation, it was found that the drug inhibited cell proliferation and induced G1/S cell cycle arrest in leukemic cells 24 h after a single dose treatment. The cell viability of Jurkat cells was also decreased by almost 10%, 31% and 40% after a single dose treatment (7.5 nM) at 24, 48 and 72 h, respectively. The drug-treated cells were stained with acridine orange/ethidium bromide to document the chromatin condensation and DNA fragmentation. These observations were further confirmed by detection of DNA laddering pattern in the agarose gel electrophoresis of the extracted DNA from the treated cells. Treatment of K562 cells with the drug at 7.5, 15 and 30 nM caused apoptosis in 25%, 45% and 65% of the cells, respectively. Exogenous addition of $25-50\;{\mu}M$ guanosine and/or deoxyguanosine to the cell culture of the drug-treated cells restored DNA synthesis, released cell arrest at G1/S checkpoint and decreased the apoptotic cell death caused by the drug. These observations were not made using adenosine. However, the drug effects on K562 cells were potentiated by hypoxanthine. Based on these observations, perturbation of GTP metabolism is considered as one of the main reasons for apoptotic cell death by 3-HK.

Effect of Melatonin on Differentiating 3T3-L1 Preadipocytes (3T3-L1 지방전구세포의 지방분화에서 멜라토닌의 영향)

  • Lee, Jeongkun;Lee, Yeong Hun;Kim, Chi Hyun
    • Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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    • v.41 no.3
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    • pp.138-145
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    • 2020
  • Adipocytes are the main constituent of adipose tissue. Understanding the molecular basis of adipogenesis is pivotal to finding the therapeutic targets for treatment of obesity. Melatonin is associated with obesity and its mechanism is currently under intensive investigation. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of melatonin on adipogenesis in differentiating preadipocytes. 3T3-L1 preadipocytes were cultured in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM) containing 5% calf serum at 37℃ with 5% CO2 in a humidified incubator. Differentiation was induced using DMEM with 10% fetal bovine serum supplemented with MDI two days after cell confluence (day 0). Cells were treated with 0, 10 and 100 μM melatonin on either day 0 or day 5. 72 hours after each treatment, lipid accumulation was measured by oil red O staining. Proteins were resolved by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and transferred to membranes. As a result, lipid accumulation decreased with melatonin treatment. ERK pathway, activated when differentiation is induced, also decreased with an increase in melatonin concentration. Furthermore, the expression of key adipogenic factors, C/EBPα, C/EBPβ, and PPARγ, were reduced by melatonin treatment. These results imply that melatonin may inhibit the process of adipogenesis and may have a role as a new anti-obesity agent.

On the Study of the Interaction between Syntax and Semantics in See Verb Construction in English (영어 '보다(see)' 구문에 나타나는 통사와 의미의 상호관련성 연구)

  • Kim, Mija
    • Cross-Cultural Studies
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    • v.39
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    • pp.329-354
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    • 2015
  • The major goals of this paper are to identify the degree into which the meanings of 'see' verb can be extended, focusing on the extended meanings shown in the expressions that denote our instinctive actions for survival, such as eating or drinking, etc., and to clarify the doubt on whether any syntactic pattern can be associated with the meaning in the process of meaning extension of 'see' verb. For doing this task, this paper picked out 2,000 examples randomly from COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English), in which the verb 'see' is used. This paper classified the sentences into thirteen different sentence types, according to the syntactic patterns. This research showed that these thirteen syntactic types lead us to figure out the process of the meaning extension of the verb 'see'. With this result, this paper made an attempt to provide the four steps toward the meaning extension of verb 'see'. The verb 'see' in the first step denotes the meaning of purely seeing the visualized objects. This verb in the second step expresses the shifted function, under which the agent in the subject position takes the seeing action as a secondary task in order to carry out other main task. The verb in the third step denotes the extended meanings irrelevant to the seeing action, because the sentences on this step do not contain any visualized objects. In the last step this verb functions as conventional implicature whose meaning does not contribute to the whole meaning of a sentence. In addition, this paper identified that the syntactic properties are deeply associated with the process of meaning extension of the verb 'see', and tried to formalize this relationship between the syntax and semantics within the framework of Construction Grammar based on A. Goldberg.

A Target Leaf Spot Disease Caused by Corynespora cassiicola on Cucumber Cultivated in Green House (시설하우스에서 Corynespora cassiicola에 의해 발생하는 오이 갈색무늬병)

  • Kwon, Mi-Kyung;Yang, Kwang-Yeol;Cho, Baik-Ho
    • Research in Plant Disease
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    • v.10 no.2
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    • pp.121-125
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    • 2004
  • An epidemic of target leaf spot of cucumber (Cucumis sativus) occurred in commercial greenhouses in Korea in 2000/2001. The early symptoms on the leaves were small brown spots with yellow halos. These lesions became irregular enlarging in diameter and eventually defoliation resulted. The causal agent was a fungus with morphological characteristics matching Corynespora cassiicola. The sequence of the ITS region of C. cassiicola CM2000-1 was identical to that of an authentic strain of Corynespora cassiicola. Optimal germination of spores and mycelial growth on plate was at 3$0^{\circ}C$. A long dew period on the leaf surface and high temperatures were the main contributing factors for disease development and the greenhouse epidemic. Artificial inoculation of the Korean isolate of C. cassiicola revealed resistance in some Korean cucumber cultivars.

Landscape Design for the National Athlete Training Camp (국가대표 선수 훈련원 마스터플랜 설계경기 조경계획)

  • Kim Ah-Yeon;Yoo Seon-Keun;Oh Hyung-Seok
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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    • v.33 no.6 s.113
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    • pp.109-126
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    • 2006
  • As the national interest in sports has been increased over time, sports facilities and sports complex are considered more than just physical environments for training athletes or watching games. Sports facilities now become symbolic spatial devices to represent the national and cultural pride of any countries. The existing national training camp located in Taenung, Seoul is gotting outdated and degraded. The polluted air in the city risks athletes' health condition. The government planned to construct the second training camp at Jincheon, Chungbuk at the area of $2,171,910m^2$. The Korea Sports Council called for proposals to envision the future training camp, and they held a design competition from August to November, 2005. The first phase was to present the masterplan for the entire site including training buildings, outdoor training facilities, dormitories, a visitor center, a research center, education and administration buildings. Considering the size of the site, the planning process required a strong relationship between landscape and architecture. This study tries to provide general explanations on the winning proposal focused on the landscape-related issues. It also attempts to have reference points for contemporary planning and design issues to situate the project in the stream of continuing design effort to avoid the dichotomy between nature and culture. The landscape proposal for the new national taming camp suggests four main strategies; 1) The camp has two intersecting and interweaving parks which represent the natural and urban order. 2) The entire site is organized and networked by the flow of landscape called landscape ribbon in terms of topography, vegetation, and water flow. 3) The landscape is choreographed through the time and process. 4) The ecological process and the digital contents are juxtaposed in the landscape. This winning proposal is the first step to portray the national vision for the sustainable environment coexisting with sports industry. Landscape in this proposal is an active agent to network various parts of the site which enables landscape to be infrastructure. Landscape design in this proposal should be considered open-ended strategies rather than determined concrete forms and its engaging further development will be tested in following Design-Build phase.

Organizing Korean International Broadcasting's Programming Strategy and Channel Positioning map (한국 해외홍보방송의 편성전략과 채널 포지셔닝 설정)

  • Yoon, Hong Keun
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.13 no.4
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    • pp.97-103
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    • 2013
  • The research is centered towards analyzing the differentiation of the characteristics and organization of programming strategy and channel positioning by selecting Korean International Public Relations Broadcasting Stations Arirang TV and KBS World. According to the results, Arirang TV positions Korean culture content-implied educational programs as their strategy while KBS World places the main programs of KBS1, 2TV with many entertainment programs such as dramas and entertainment shows. Arirang TV's programming strategy is well-fulfilling the purpose of promoting Korea's culture contents by organizing their programming with documentaries, tourist information, and daily living information. On the other hand, KBS World works as the agent of the spread of the Korean Wave by filling their program with dramas and K-pop programs such as . Due to the difference in programming strategy of these two broadcasting stations, Arirang TV has positioned itself as a diplomatic channel to spread Korean culture and KBS World a channel representing the Korean Wave. However, there are problems of inefficiency due to recurrent investments because of the fact that both broadcasting stations' programming strategy is to promote Korean culture and spread the Korean Wave by aiming similar targets such as foreigners or overseas Koreans.

The Ethics of Robots and Humans in the Post-Human Age (포스트휴먼 시대의 로봇과 인간의 윤리)

  • You, Eun-Soon;Cho, Mi-Ra
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.18 no.3
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    • pp.592-600
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    • 2018
  • As the field of robots is evolving to intelligent robots that can replace even humans' mental or emotional labor, 'robot ethics' needed in relationship between humans and robots is becoming a crucial issue these days. The purpose of this study is to consider the ethics of robots and humans that is essential in this post-human age. It will deal with the followings as the main contents. First, with the cases of developing ethics software intended to make robots practice ethics, the authors begin this research being conscious about the matter of whether robots can really judge what is right or wrong only with the ethics codes entered forcibly. Second, regarding robot ethics, we should consider unethicality that might arise from learning data internalizing human biasness and also reflect ethical differences between countries or between cultures, that is, ethical relativism. Third, robot ethics should not be just about ethics codes intended for robots but reflect the new concept of 'human ethics' that allows humans and robots to coevolve.

Deduction on The Problems and Improve The Way of The Successful Bidder Determination Method for Turnkey·Alternative Bid Construction (턴키·대안입찰공사 낙찰자 결정방식의 문제점 및 개선 방안 도출)

  • Park, Hong-Tae;Lee, Yang-kyu
    • KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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    • v.34 no.6
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    • pp.1881-1891
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    • 2014
  • Full system of turnkey deliberation committee in 2010 was abolished and permanent Deliberation committee was introduced. So far, ordering organization selected the best method suitable for the design and comprehensive evaluation method in the turnkey bid construction. Comprehensive evaluation method have bid price design score coordination, weighted basis, the best design approach fixed amount, five successful bidder decision method in addition. Design deliberation branch committee in the successful bidder decision way configured and operated branch members of special design consultation committee, But main agent changed from committee deliberation pull system to permanent committee deliberation, as well as and The lobby burden was not improved. This similar to the past at the portion of the design deliberation and the way of the design deliberation in the turnkey bid construction. Therefore it is necessary to improve the design deliberation system. In other words, design score and technology competition should be adapted to determine a successful bid. This study suggested the operating system of the design deliberation, the decision method problems of the successful bidder and ways to improve the design deliberation.