• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.561-571
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• 2023

Background: Escalating evidence shows that ginseng possesses an antiaging potential with cognitive enhancing activity. As mountain cultivated ginseng (MCG) is cultivated without agricultural chemicals, MCG has emerged as a popular herb medicine. However, little is known about the MCG-mediated pharmacological mechanism on brain aging. Methods: As we demonstrated that glutathione peroxidase (GPx) is important for enhancing memory function in the animal model of aging, we investigated the role of MCG as a GPx inducer using GPx-1 (a major type of GPx) knockout (KO) mice. We assessed whether MCG modulates redox and cholinergic parameters, and memory function in aged GPx-1 knockout KOmice. Results: Redox burden of aged GPx-1 KO mice was more evident than that of aged wild-type (WT) mice. Alteration of Nrf2 DNA binding activity appeared to be more evident than that of NFκB DNA binding activity in aged GPx-1 KO mice. Alteration in choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) activity was more evident than that in acetylcholine esterase activity. MCG significantly attenuated reductions in Nrf2 system and ChAT level. MCG significantly enhanced the co-localization of Nrf2-immunoreactivity and ChAT-immunoreactivity in the same cell population. Nrf2 inhibitor brusatol significantly counteracted MCG-mediated up-regulation in ChAT level and ChAT inhibition (by k252a) significantly reduced ERK phosphorylation by MCG, suggesting that MCG might require signal cascade of Nrf2/ChAT/ERK to enhance cognition. Conclusion: GPx-1 depletion might be a prerequisite for cognitive impairment in aged animals. MCG-mediated cognition enhancement might be associated with the activations of Nrf2, ChAT, and ERK signaling cascade.

• Journal of KIISE:Computer Systems and Theory
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.330-338
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• 2010

Flash storage devices are very popularly used in portable devices such as cell phones, PDAs and MP3 players. As technology is improved, users want much bigger and faster storage system. Paradoxically, people have to wait more and more time proportionally to the capacity of their storage devices when these are trying to be recovered after file system crash. It is serious problem because booting time of devices is dominated by crash recovery of flash file system. In this paper, we design a crash recovery mechanism, named 'Working Area(WA hereafter)' technique, which has bounded crash recovery execution time. With WA technique, write operations to flash memory are only performed in WA. Therefore, by simply scanning the latest WA. We can recover a file system crash because every change for flash memory is occured only in latest WA. We implement the WA technique based on YAFFS2 and evaluate by comparing with traditional techniques. As a result, WA technique shows that its crash recovery execution time is 25 times faster than Log-based Method when we use 1 gig a bytes NAND flash memory in worst case. This gap will be futher and futher as storage capacity grows.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.94-103
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• 2004

Korean red ginseng is known to have anti-stress and memory enhancing effects. Recent studies suggested that stress-induced inhibition of adult neurogenesis in hippocampus may contribute, in part, to decreased negative feedback inhibition of HPA axis. In order to elucidate the mechanism of Korean red ginseng in anti-stress and memory enhancing effects, we observed the effects of repeated treatment of Korean red ginseng total saponin (GTS, 50 mg/kg, i.p.) in response to repeated unpredictable stress for 10 days. Male Sprague-Dawley rats (230 - 260 g) received with either GTS (50 mg/kg, i.p.) or vehicle (1 ml/kg, i.p.) 1 h before stress for 10 days. Rats were injected with bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU, 50 mg/kg, i.p.) 16-18 he after last stress procedure, and were sacrificed 2 hr later by perfusion. Immunohistochemistry of BrdU was done to measure proliferation of neural progenitor cells in hippocampus, which was used as an index of neurogenesis. Repeated GTS treatment for 10 days increased neurogenesis in subgranular zone area of dentate gyrus (SGZ), but not hilus, compared with vehicle-treated rats. Repeated unpredictable stress did not affect the neurogenesis compared with controls, while repeated GTS treatment increased neurogenesis in SGZ in repeated unpredictable stress-exposed group. BDNF mRNA was also measured in subregions of hippocampus by in situ hybridization. BDNF mRNA expression in CA3 and CA1 pyramidal cell layer was increased by repeated GTS treatment but not in dentate granule cell layer. Repeated unpredictable stresses significantly decreased BDNF mRNA expression in all subregions of hippocampus, but repeated GTS treatment did not prevent stress-induced BDNF mRNA downregulation. Given that repeated GTS treatment increased proliferation of neural progenitor cells in repeated unpredictable stress-exposed rats in the presence of decreased BDNF mRNA expression in dentate granule cell layer, it raise the possibility that BDNF may not playa significant role in GTS-mediated increase of neurogenesis in adult rat hippocampus. Also, these results suggest that repeated GTS treatment increased neurogenesis of SGZ and BDNF mRNA expression, which may account for memory enhancing effect of Korean red ginseng. In addition, repeated GTS treatment appears not to have anti-stress effects in terms of neurotrophin, but GTS-mediated increase of neurogenesis in hippocampus may contribute to increase negative feedback inhibition of HPA axis.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.16-26
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• 2007

Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) is a serine protease catalyzing the proteolytic conversion of plasminogen into plasmin, which is involved in thrombolysis. During last two decades, the role of tPA in brain physiology and pathology has been extensively investigated. tPA is expressed in brain regions such as cortex, hippocampus, amygdala and cerebellum, and major neural cell types such as neuron, astrocyte, microglia and endothelial cells express tPA in basal status. After strong neural stimulation such as seizure, tPA behaves as an immediate early gene increasing the expression level within an hour. Neural activity and/or postsynaptic stimulation increased the release of tPA from axonal terminal and presumably from dendritic compartment. Neuronal tPA regulates plastic changes in neuronal function and structure mediating key neurologic processes such as visual cortex plasticity, seizure spreading, cerebellar motor learning, long term potentiation and addictive or withdrawal behavior after morphine discontinuance. In addition to these physiological roles, tPA mediates excitotoxicity leading to the neurodegeneration in several pathological conditions including ischemic stroke. Increasing amount of evidence also suggest the role of tPA in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis even though beneficial effects was also reported in case of Alzheimer's disease based on the observation of tPA-induced degradation of $A{\beta}$ aggregates. Target proteins of tPA action include extracellular matrix protein laminin, proteoglycans and NMDA receptor. In addition, several receptors (or binding partners) for tPA has been reported such as low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein (LRP) and annexin II, even though intracellular signaling mechanism underlying tPA action is not clear yet. Interestingly, the action of tPA comprises both proteolytic and non-proteolytic mechanism. In case of microglial activation, tPA showed non-proteolytic cytokine-like function. The search for exact target proteins and receptor molecules for tPA along with the identification of the mechanism regulating tPA expression and release in the nervous system will enable us to better understand several key neurological processes like teaming and memory as well as to obtain therapeutic tools against neurodegenerative diseases.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.442-452
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• 2020

Backgroud: Sleep deprivation (SD) impairs learning and memory by inhibiting hippocampal functioning at molecular and cellular levels. Abnormal autophagy and apoptosis are closely associated with neurodegeneration in the central nervous system. This study is aimed to explore the alleviative effect and the underlying molecular mechanism of stem-leaf saponins of Panax notoginseng (SLSP) on the abnormal neuronal autophagy and apoptosis in hippocampus of mice with impaired learning and memory induced by SD. Methods: Mouse spatial learning and memory were assessed by Morris water maze test. Neuronal morphological changes were observed by Nissl staining. Autophagosome formation was examined by transmission electron microscopy, immunofluorescent staining, acridine orange staining, and transient transfection of the tf-LC3 plasmid. Apoptotic event was analyzed by flow cytometry after PI/annexin V staining. The expression or activation of autophagy and apoptosis-related proteins were detected by Western blotting assay. Results: SLSP was shown to improve the spatial learning and memory of mice after SD for 48 h, accomanied with restrained excessive autophage and apoptosis, whereas enhanced activation of phosphoinositide 3-kinase/protein kinase B/mammalian target of rapamycin signaling pathway in hippocampal neurons. Meanwhile, it improved the aberrant autophagy and apoptosis induced by rapamycin and re-activated phosphoinositide 3-kinase/Akt/mammalian target of rapamycin signaling transduction in HT-22 cells, a hippocampal neuronal cell line. Conclusion: SLSP could alleviate cognitive impairment induced by SD, which was achieved probably through suppressing the abnormal autophagy and apoptosis of hippocampal neurons. The findings may contribute to the clinical application of SLSP in the prevention or therapy of neurological disorders associated with SD.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.1041-1049
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• 2013

The root of Polygala radix has been widely known as an oriental traditional medicinal stuff that improves memory. However, its mechanism of action remains unclear. In this study, the effect of Polygala radix hot water extracts (PRHWE) on cognitive function related to the activity of acetylcholinesterase (AchE) derived from neural cells (PC12) in addition to antioxidant activity was examined both in a cell-free system and live cells. First, in the study on cell viability using an MTT assay, PRHWE did not exhibit any cell toxicity at 0.1% (w/v) or below. It also was observed that PRHWE increased the scavenging activity of DPPH radical, hydrogen peroxide and superoxide, reducing power in a dose-dependent manner. In particular, PRHWE had a protective effect on DNA oxidation induced by hydroxyl radicals. Additionally, it inhibited the production of inducible nitric oxide in neuronal cells. Furthermore, the AchE activity decreased with increasing concentrations. In addition, PRHWE increased the expression level of SOD-1 and NOS-2 in PC12 cells. Moreover, the transcriptional activities of p53 and NF-${\kappa}B$ were reduced in the presence of PRHWE in an experiment using a reporter gene assay. Therefore, these results prove that PRHE has antioxidative and protective effects on neuronal cells, suggesting that it may have great potential as a therapeutic agent for human health.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.132-132
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• 2011

For the programming volume of PRAM, Ge2Sb2Te5(GST) thin films have been dominantly used and prepared by physical vapor deposition (PVD), chemical vapor deposition (CVD), atomic layer deposition (ALD). Among these methods, ALD is particularly considered as the most promising technique for the integration of PRAM because the ALD offers a superior conformality to PVD and CVD methods and a digital thickness control precisely to the atomic level since the film is deposited one atomic layer at a time. Meanwhile, although the IST has been already known as an optical data storage material, recently, it is known that the IST benefits multistate switching behavior, meaning that the IST-PRAM can be used for mutli-level coding, which is quite different and unique performance compared with the GST-PRAM. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate a possibility of the IST materials for the application of PRAM. So far there are many attempts to deposit the IST with MOCVD and PVD. However, it has not been reported that the IST can be deposited with the ALD method since the ALD reaction mechanism of metal organic precursors and the deposition parameters related with the ALD window are rarely known. Therefore, the main aim of this work is to demonstrate the ALD process for IST films with various precursors and the conformal filling of a nano size programming volume structure with the ALD?IST film for the integration. InSbTe (IST) thin films were deposited by ALD method with different precursors and deposition parameters and demonstrated conformal filling of the nano size programmable volume of cell structure for the integration of phase change random access memory (PRAM). The deposition rate and incubation time are 1.98 A/cycle and 25 cycle, respectively. The complete filling of nano size volume will be useful to fabricate the bottom contact type PRAM.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.25 no.9
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• pp.1043-1050
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• 2015

Glutamate is one of the principle transmitters in the CNS. Ionotropic receptors of glutamate, selectively activated by N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA), play an important role in the processes of cell development, learning, memory, and etc. On the other hand, many studies discovered that over-activation of glutamate receptors leads to neurodegeneration and are known to be implicated in major areas of brain pathology. Any sustained effect of a transient NMDA receptor activation is likely to involve signaling to the nucleus and to trigger coordinated changes in gene expression. Classically, a set of immediate-early genes are induced first; some of genes are by themselves transcription factors that control expression of other target genes. This study provides understanding of changes of inducible transcription factors mRNA levels with RT-PCR by inducing over-activation of NMDA receptor with intraperitoneal NMDA injection. The experimental conditions were varied by 1, 5, 25, and 125 g/ of body weight NMDA and measured transcription factors mRNA levels are Egr-1, c-Jun, JunB, and FosB. Based on result obtained, inducible transcription factors mRNA in NMDA injection to mice with 5 g/body weight showed the greatest change. And ITF mRNA showed greatest change 24 hr after injection. The expression level of JunB mRNA was markedly changed. Up to the present days, no study clearly understood how ITF mRNA affected the apoptosis of purkinje cells in the cerebellum. The current study improves the understanding of the mechanism of apoptosis of purkinje cells in the cerebellum.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.26-31
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• 2009

A new LFSR based test compression scheme is proposed by reducing the maximum number of specified bits in the test cube set, smax, virtually. The performance of a conventional LFSR reseeding scheme highly depends on smax. In this paper, by using different clock frequencies between an LFSR and scan chains, and grouping the scan cells, we could reduce smax virtually. H the clock frequency which is slower than the clock frequency for the scan chain by n times is used for LFSR, successive n scan cells are filled with the same data; such that the number of specified bits can be reduced with an efficient grouping of scan cells. Since the efficiency of the proposed scheme depends on the grouping mechanism, a new graph-based scan cell grouping heuristic has been proposed. The simulation results on the largest ISCAS 89 benchmark circuit show that the proposed scheme requires less memory storage with significantly smaller area overhead compared to the previous test compression schemes.

• Journal of Oriental Neuropsychiatry
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.125-146
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• 2008

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to suggest for the following experimental study of dementia by reviewing recent oriental medicine journals that have been published since 2000. Methods: We have investigated various types of studies in relation to dementia through 90 articles that have been published from 2000 to 2007 in recent oriental medicine journals were registered Korea research foundation. Results and Conclusions : 1. Since 2000, 88 articles in relation to dementia have been published and almost of them are herbal medicine-centered studies. Also they show a tendency to increase every year. The journal of oriental neuropsychiatry carries the highest number of studies in relation to dementia. 2. According to the experimental paper, there are 30 cases of using herb simplexes, 48 cases of herb-combined prescription, and 10 cases of other ways. Especially 7 cases of using herb-combined prescription relation to Sasang constitution are all for the Taeumin. 3. There are 85 cases of Animal and cellular experimental, 60 cases of using pathologic model induced cytotoxic activity, a case of using L-NAME, 3 cases of 192 saporin, 4 cases of ibotenic acid, 10 cases of focal cerebral ischemia, 3 cases of alcohol-administered, and one case of natural degradation. 4. Moms water maze, Radial arm maze Passive avoidance learning model were using for examining learning and memory of model animal 5. We propose that following studies of dementia are to he investigated of the applied method of using siRNA with tranceduced gene, sample preparation by water-soaking, oriental medical diagnosis, standardization of differentiating symptom and herb simplexes, building the database by classified prescriptions, and experiment model which are based on precise examining mechanism with cell line as like mouse H19-7 hippocampus, rat HT22 hippocampus, astrocyte, microglia, using the model of animals at APP, PS1, BACE, CT99/PS1, APOE4, Tau, APP/PSI/Tau