• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.691-702
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• 2023

This study aimed to develop high value-added mulberry (Morus alba) vinegar by fermenting mulberry with yeast and acetic acid bacteria, for using it in various foods. To select the optimal strain for mulberry fermentation, different strains were tested and Saccharomyces cerevisiae SRCM101756 and Acetobacter pasteurianus SRCM102419, exhibiting excellent alcohol and acetic acid production ability during mulberry fermentation, were selected for fermentation. Mulberry vinegar was prepared using mulberry wine and the selected acetic acid bacteria, and the physicochemical properties and physiological effects were measured. The pH was 2.98 and total acidity was 4.70% by day 9 of fermentation, establishing the possibility of developing them into vinegars for industrial use. The angiotensin-glucosidase inhibition activity of mulberry vinegar increased from 13.22% to 19.19% in the 100-fold dilution, and from 42.35% to 46.11% in the 50-fold dilution, from before fermentation to after fermentation, respectively. The angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition activity of mulberry vinegar was found to significantly increase from 44.82% before fermentation to 63.88% after fermentation in the 25-fold dilution. Moreover, a significant increase in pancreatic lipase inhibition activity after fermentation was observed. Thus, mulberry vinegar can be used as a functional material in vinegar and other foods.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.392-399
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• 2020

Background: Surgical treatment of empyema thoracis in patients with chronic kidney disease is challenging, and few studies in the literature have evaluated this issue. In this study, we aim to report the surgical outcomes of empyema and to analyze factors predicting perioperative mortality in patients with chronic kidney disease. Methods: This retrospective study included data from 34 patients with chronic kidney disease (estimated glomerular filtration rate <60 mL/min/1.73 ㎡ for 3 or more months) who underwent surgery for empyema between 2012 and 2020. An analysis of demographic characteristics and perioperative variables, including complications, was carried out. Postoperative mortality was the primary outcome measure. Results: Patients' age ranged from 20 to 74 years with a 29-to-5 male-female ratio. The majority (n=19, 55.9%) of patients were in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) requiring maintenance hemodialysis. The mean operative time was 304 minutes and the mean intraoperative blood loss was 562 mL. Postoperative morbidity was observed in 70.5% of patients (n=24). In the subgroup analysis, higher values for operative time, blood loss, intensive care unit stay, and complications were found in ESRD patients. The mortality rate was 38.2% (n=13). In the univariate and multivariate analyses, poor performance status (Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group >2) (p=0.03), ESRD (p=0.02), and late referral (>8 weeks) (p<0.001) significantly affected mortality. Conclusion: ESRD, late referral, and poor functional status were poor prognostic factors predicting postoperative mortality. The decision of surgery should be cautiously assessed given the very high risk of perioperative morbidity and mortality in these patients.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.20-32
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• 2023

Purpose: This study aimed to identify the etiology and risk factors of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) requiring hospitalization in Korean children during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Methods: Clinical information of children admitted with CAP to Seoul National University Children's Hospital (SNUCH) between January 1, 2021, and February 28, 2022, was retrospectively collected and analyzed. In addition, the etiologic diagnosis and demographic data of children with CAP who were discharged at the other seven hospitals between January and February 2022 were collected. Pneumonia was diagnosed using strict criteria comprising clinical symptoms, physical examination findings, and chest radiographic findings. Results: Among 91 children hospitalized with CAP at SNUCH during the 14-month period, 68.4% were aged <5 years and 79.1% had underlying diseases. Among the 95 CAP cases, respiratory assistance was required in 70.5%, and the use of a ventilator was required in 20.0%. A total of five patients expired, all of whom were either immunocompromised or had underlying neurological diseases. Neurological diseases and immunosuppression were significantly correlated with respiratory assistance (P=0.003) and death (P=0.014). A total of 55% of the detected respiratory pathogens were viruses, the most common of which was rhinovirus at 35.9%. Among the 169 children hospitalized for CAP at the eight institutions, ≥1 respiratory virus was detected in 92.3%, among which respiratory syncytial virus (79.8%) was the most prevalent. Conclusions: Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, Korean children were hospitalized with CAP caused by seasonal respiratory viral pathogens. Although atypical and pyogenic bacteria were not detected, continuous clinical monitoring and further prospective studies should be conducted.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.83-90
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• 2007

Insulin-like growth factor II (IGF2) and H19 genes are mutually imprinted genes which may be responsible for abnormalities in the cloned fetuses and offspring. This study was performed to identify putative differentially methylated regions (DMRs) of porcine H19 locus and to explore its genomic imprinting in in vitro fertilized (IVF) and somatic cell nuclear transferred (SCNT) embryos. Based on mice genomic data, we identified DMRs on H19 and found porcine H19 DMRs that included three CTCF binding sites. Methylation patterns in IVF and SCNT embryos at the 2-, 4-, $8{\sim}16$-cells and blastocyst stages were analyzed by BS (Bisulfite Sequencing)-PCR. The CpGs in CTCF1 was significantly unmethylated in the 2-cell stage IVF embryos. However, the 4- (29.1%) and $8{\sim}16$-cell (68.2%) and blastocyst (48.2%) stages showed higher methylation levels (p<0.01). On the other hand, SCNT embryos were unmethylayted ($0{\sim}2%$) at all stages of development. The CpGs in CTCF2 showed almost unmethylation levels at the 2-,4- and $8{\sim}16$-cell and blastocyst stages of development in both IVF ($0{\sim}14.1%$) and SCNT ($0{\sim}6.4%$) embryos. At all stages of development, CTCF3 was unmethylated in IVF ($0{\sim}17.3%$) and SCNT ($0{\sim}1.2%$) embryos except at the blastocyst stage (54.5%) of IVF embryos. In conclusion, porcine SCNT embryos showed an aberrant methylation pattern comprised to IVF embryos. Therefore, we suggest that the aberrant methylation pattern of H19 loci may be a reason for increased abnormal fetus after embryo transfer of porcine SCNT embryos.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.10
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• pp.1460-1471
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• 2013

Microalgal biofuel production from wastewater has economic and environmental advantages. This article investigates the lipid production from high chemical oxygen demand (COD) bioethanol wastewater without dilution or additional nutrients, using a newly isolated heterotrophic microalga, Chlorella vulgaris LAM-Q. To enhance lipid accumulation, the combined effects of important operational parameters were studied via response surface methodology. The optimal conditions were found to be temperature of $22.8^{\circ}C$, initial pH of 6.7, and inoculum density of $1.2{\times}10^8cells/ml$. Under these conditions, the lipid productivity reached 195.96 mg/l/d, which was markedly higher than previously reported values in similar systems. According to the fatty acid composition, the obtained lipids were suitable feedstock for biodiesel production. Meanwhile, 61.40% of COD, 51.24% of total nitrogen, and 58.76% of total phosphorus were removed from the bioethanol wastewater during microalgal growth. In addition, 19.17% of the energy contained in the wastewater was transferred to the microalgal biomass in the fermentation process. These findings suggest that C. vulgaris LAM-Q can efficiently produce lipids from high-concentration bioethanol wastewater, and simultaneously performs wastewater treatment.

• The Magazine of the Society of Air-Conditioning and Refrigerating Engineers of Korea
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.67-81
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• 1990

The objective of this is to develop a practical software package to calculate annual energy consumption of HVAC (Heating Ventilating, and Air Conditioning) System in a building. It can quickly estimate loads and energy consumption, and have a function of economic analysis through the estimation of operating cost. Techniques of save energy consumption used in a building are necessary from the stage of design process to operation. The single most significant task is on HVAC Systems. Their installation costs, and related operating costs have enormous influence upon initial and maintenance costs. HVAC designers and engineers now have a wide variety of software choices available, but only a few of them have been developed in this country and no source program has been disclosed. Neither load culculation nor estimation of energy consumption is systematically made by the domestic HVAC design firms. Even though computer improved over the years with a trend of large scale load calculation and system selection through simulaion, the utilization of software nowadays does not make good progress due to lack of working environment. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a practical software package with which load calculation can be made with ease and kind manner. This study concerns the development of a software package which makes it possible to design HVAC system and save energy consumption in operation. The algorithm used in this program is a Modified Bin Method widely known as a simplified energy analysis means.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.19-25
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• 2006

With the use of Agrobacterium and gene-gun, cold regulated gene (BN115) has been injected in Chrysanthemum leaf disc and transgenic plants have been produced successfully on the selection media containing phytohormone. To determine the presence of the transferred cold regulated gene (BN115) in the transgenic Chrysanthemum, PCR-amplification indicated the presence of that gene. Real-Time PCR for confirmation of the putative transgenic plants was established. The copy number of cold regulated gene (BN115) is extrapolated on the basis of a standard curve. Serial dilutions of known number of gene copies were in triplicates. In this diagram, PCR cycles are plotted against the fluorescence intensity. The cycle at which the fluorescence reaches a threshold cycle is inversely proportional to the starting amount of target DNA.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.49-59
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• 2023

Recently, attention to the pandemic situation represented by COVID-19 emerged problems caused by unexpected shortage of medical personnel. In this paper, we present a method for diagnosing the presence or absence of lesional sign on PA chest X-ray images as computer vision solution to support diagnosis tasks. Method for visual anomaly detection based on feature modeling can be also applied to X-ray images. With extracting feature vectors from PA chest X-ray images and divide to patch unit, region-specific abnormality can be detected. As preliminary experiment, we created simulation data set containing multiple objects and present results of the comparative experiments in this paper. We present method to improve both efficiency and performance of the process through hard masking of patch features to aligned images. By summing up regional specificity and global anomaly detection results, it shows improved performance by 0.069 AUROC compared to previous studies. By aggregating region-specific and global anomaly detection results, it shows improved performance by 0.069 AUROC compared to our last study.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.40 no.4 s.273
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• pp.292-296
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• 2007

Background: This retrospective study was undertaken to assess the effectiveness of the 8-French (Fr) catheter ($Pleuracan^{(R)}$) for the initial treatment of primary spontaneous pneumothorax. Material and Method: Between July 2004 and July 2006, 59 patients (72 cases) underwent a closed thoracostomy for primary spontaneous pneumothorax. We divided these patients into two groups: group T (large bore (>20 Fr) chest tube group) and group P ($Pleuracan^{(R)}$ group). Result: Initially, the $Pleuracan^{(R)}$ catheters were inserted in 41 cases. There were four catheter malfunctions (9.8%) : three cases had a subsequent closed thoracostomy with a large bore chest tube. Ultimately, there were 34 cases in group T and 38 cases in group P. There were no significant differences in indwelling catheter time ($T:\;2.1{\pm}1.5\;days,\;P:\;2.1{\pm}1.3\;days$), hospital stay ($T:\;6.4{\pm}5.4\;days,\;P:\;5.2{\pm}2.9\;days$) and complications (T: 3%, P: 0%) between the two groups. The percentage of cases that needed intravenous analgesics in group P was 60% (23/38); this was significantly lower than the number for group T (90%, 31/34) (p=0.003). In a subgroup of patients that did not undergo bullectomy(T: 17 cases, P: 19 cases), there were no significant differences in the duration of air leakage ($T:\;0.5{\pm}0.7\;days,\;P:\;0.5{\pm}1.2\;days$) and in the percentage of patients with complete lung re-expansion (T: 94%, P: 84%) between the two groups. Conclusion: Application of the $Pleuracan^{(R)}$ catheter for the initial treatment of primary spontaneous pneumothorax was as effective as the large bore chest tube.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.33 no.2 s.90
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• pp.176-186
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• 2000

The present study was carried out to clarify the structure and dynamics of copepod community and the relationship between this community and environmental factors during the period from February 1998 to July 1999. Copepods consists of 21 genera and 32 species, monthly variations of number of species were 15 species in May, 1998 and 2 species November, 1998. The number of species were 22 species in station 12 and station 1, 2, 3 occurred nauplii of copepoda only. Average abundance ranged from $8,330\;ind./m^3$ (in June, 1999) to $177\;ind./m^3$ (in November, 1998). Relationships between water temperature and number of species were as follows: 20 species occurred from 20.1 to $25.0^{\circ}C$ and nuplii of copepoda only occurred from 0.0 to $5.0^{\circ}C$. The number of species by salinity range were 19 species in $20.1{\sim}25.0%_o$ and 9 species in $0{\sim}0.5%_o$. The number of species by trophic state index (TSIm) of chlorophyll a were 25 species in oligotrophic state and 9 species in eutrophic state. Relationships between pH and number of species were as follows: 20 species occurred from 7.6 to 8.0 and from 9.1 to 9.5 was none. The number of species by DO range were 22 species in 6.5 to 7.5 mg/l and 1 species in 14.5 to 15.5 mg/l. The percentage calculated effect by stepwise multiple regression of the pearson correlation coefficient value of environmental factors and copepoda abundance (station 1-station 4) revealed that positive effect was 15.49% in COD, 25.86% in $Cl^-$, 19.75% in $NO_2-N$ and negative effect was 28.30% in $NO_3-N$. Also, Positive effect (station 5-station 12) revealed that 29.49% in water temperature, 28.27% in $NO_3-N$, 22.87% in $NO_2-N$ and negative effect was 30.18% in conductivity and 13.53% in DO.