• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.553-561
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• 2022

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a slowly progressing hematopoietic cell disorder. Sphingosine kinase 1 (SPHK1) plays established roles in tumor initiation, progression, and chemotherapy resistance in a wide range of cancers, including leukemia. However, small-molecule inhibitors targeting SPHK1 in CML still need to be developed. This study revealed the role of SPHK1 in CML and investigated the potential anti-leukemic activity of hirsuteine (HST), an indole alkaloid obtained from the oriental plant Uncaria rhynchophylla, in CML cells. These results suggest that SPHK1 is highly expressed in CML cells and that overexpression of SPHK1 represents poor clinical outcomes in CML patients. HST exposure led to G2/M phase arrest, cellular apoptosis, and downregulation of Cyclin B1 and CDC2 and cleavage of Caspase 3 and PARP in CML cells. HST shifted sphingolipid rheostat from sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) towards the ceramide coupled with a marked inhibition of SPHK1. Mechanistically, HST significantly blocked SPHK1/S1P/S1PR1 and BCR-ABL/PI3K/Akt pathways. In addition, HST can be docked with residues of SPHK1 and shifts the SPHK1 melting curve, indicating the potential protein-ligand interactions between SPHK1 and HST in both CML cells. SPHK1 overexpression impaired apoptosis and proliferation of CML cells induced by HST alone. These results suggest that HST, which may serve as a novel and specific SPHK1 inhibitor, exerts anti-leukemic activity by inhibiting the SPHK1/S1P/S1PR1 and BCR-ABL/PI3K/Akt pathways in CML cells, thus conferring HST as a promising anti-leukemic drug for CML therapy in the future.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.451-455
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• 2015

The buffalo is an important livestock resource in several countries of South Asia and the Mediterranean regions. However, reproductive efficiency is compromised due to known problems of biological and management origins, such as lack of animal selection and poor nutrition. Under optimal conditions puberty is attained at 15 to 18 months in river buffalo, 21 to 24 months in swamp buffalo and is influenced by genotype, nutrition, management and climate. However, under field conditions these values deteriorate up to a significant extant. To improve reproductive efficiency, several protocols of oestrus and ovulation synchronization have been adopted from their use in commercial cattle production. These protocols yield encouraging pregnancy rates of (30% to 50%), which are comparable to those achieved in buffaloes bred at natural oestrus. The use of sexed semen in buffalo heifers also showed promising pregnancy rates (50%) when compared with conventional non-sexed semen. Assisted reproductive technologies have been transferred and adapted to buffalo but the efficiency of these technologies are low. However, these latest technologies offer the opportunity to accelerate the genetic gain in the buffalo industry after improving the technology and reducing its cost. Most buffaloes are kept under the small holder farming system in developing countries. Hence, future research should focus on simple, adoptable and impact-oriented approaches which identify the factors determining low fertility and oestrus behaviour in this species. Furthermore, role of kisspeptin needs to be explored in buffalo.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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• 2021.11a
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• pp.132-133
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• 2021

In recent years, energy harvesting from natural sources and waste heat has been attracting more attention from researchers in response to ever-growing energy demands, high energy prices, and climate-change-mitigation purposes. It is also an important step towards future sustainable energy usages. In thermal dynamic cycles, expanders are playing as the most important equipment for waste heat recovery and energy harvesting as well. As a kind of expander, the bladeless turbine has a promising future and more widely using owning its advantages on relatively long life, good off-design performance, easy operation cleaning and maintenance, a simple structure, no blade corrosion, and low manufacturing costs. There are numerous studies about using the Tesla Turbine as a key technology for energy harvesting in a wide range of applications and conditions. They are presented to help identify technologies that have sufficient potential for applicating to our life and marine industrial engineering. This review paper, initially, presents an overview of current studies both theoretical and experimental of Tesla Turbine usage for waste heat recovery alongside its challenges and investigation on the effect of its configuration, working fluid selection as well. To conclude, future perspectives besides possible ways of transforming waste heat energy to electricity or work, which leads to circular energy, are discussed. The ambition of this paper is to act as a first-hand reference, through the well-defined possible directions, to the young researchers and senior scientists.

• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.137-149
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• 2020

Several multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) algorithms have achieved overwhelming results in recent years. They have demonstrated their potential in solving complex problems in the field of real-time strategy online games, robotics, and autonomous vehicles. However these algorithms face many challenges when dealing with massive problem spaces in sparse reward environments. Based on the centralized training and decentralized execution (CTDE) architecture, the MARL algorithms discussed in the literature aim to solve the current challenges by formulating novel concepts of inter-agent modeling, credit assignment, multiagent communication, and the exploration-exploitation dilemma. The fundamental objective of this paper is to deliver a comprehensive survey of existing MARL algorithms based on the problem statements rather than on the technologies. We also discuss several experimental frameworks to provide insight into the use of these algorithms and to motivate some promising directions for future research.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.51-65
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• 2008

The increasing demand for energy in the near future has created strong motivation for environmentally clean alternative energy resources. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have opened up new ways of utilizing renewable energy sources. MFCs are devices that convert the chemical energy in the organic compounds to electrical energy through microbial catalysis at the anode under anaerobic conditions, and the reduction of a terminal electron acceptor, most preferentially oxygen, at the cathode. Due to the rapid advances in MFC-based technology over the last decade, the currently achievable MFC power production has increased by several orders of magnitude, and niche applications have been extended into a variety of areas. Newly emerging concepts with alternative materials for electrodes and catalysts as well as innovative designs have made MFCs promising technologies. Aerobic bacteria can also be used as cathode catalysts. This is an encouraging finding because not only biofouling on the cathode is unavoidable in the prolonged-run MFCs but also noble catalysts can be substituted with aerobic bacteria. This article discusses some of the recent advances in MFCs with an emphasis on the performance, materials, microbial community structures and applications beyond electricity generation.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.500-505
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• 2012

Recently, a high speed spindle is an essential part of machine tools to satisfy latest demand of high precision product and machining of hard materials. But, there are many disadvantages such as heat generation of built-in-motor, bearing friction, noise, vibration and displacement because of the high speed. Many researches on spindle systems have been conducted for solving these problems. In this study, technical trend of machine tools spindle systems are analyzed with patent PSM, mapping and grouping. The analysis is carried out for the applied patent during January 2000 and December 2009 in Korea, Japan, EU and U.S.A. And development of the direction, strategy and promising technologies of the spindle system are suggested.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.304-311
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• 2011

Recently, tourism is one of future promising industries having high developing possibilities, so many countries have developed tour resources and tried to attract foreign tourists using the resources. Many researches and attempts have tried to apply for tourism using various technologies such as GPS and RFID. However, the applying areas have been highly restricted to the technology providing contents on the spot for independent tourists. Therefore, this paper designed and implemented "Intelligent Tour Guide System (ITGS)" using GPS and ZigBee. The ITGS is for group tourists, and provides various functions for enjoying their tours in limited schedules.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.1069-1074
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• 2005

In this work, nano-needle structures ate formed to solve problem, related to low density of quantum dots for nano floating gate memory. Such structures ate fabricated and electrical properties' of MIS devices fabricated on the nano-structures are studied. Nano floating gate memory based on quantum dot technologies Is a promising candidate for future non-volatile memory devices. Nano-structure is fabricated by reactive ion etching using $SF_6$ and $O_2$ gases in parallel RF plasma reactor. Surface morphology was investigated after etching using scanning electron microscopy Uniform and packed deep nano-needle structure is established under optimized condition. Photoluminescence and capacitance-voltage characteristics were measured in $Al/SiO_2/Si$ with nano-needle structure of silicon. we have demonstrated that the nano-needle structure can be applicable to non-volatile memory device with increased charge storage capacity over planar structures.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-32
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• 2016

This paper describes the backgrounds, motivations and recent history of structural health monitoring (SHM) developments to various types of engineering structures. Extensive applications of SHM technologies in bridges, high-rise buildings, sport avenues, offshore platforms, underground structures, dams, etc. in mainland China are summarily categorized and listed in tables. Sensors used in implementations, their deployment, damage identification strategies if applicable, preliminary monitoring achievements and experience are presented in the lists. Finally, existing problems and promising research efforts in civil SHM are discussed, highlighting challenges and future trends.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.8 no.11
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• pp.3751-3774
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• 2014

With the rapid development of wireless communication, the confliction between the scarce frequency resources and the low spectral efficiency caused by the stationary spectrum sharing strategies seriously restricts the evolution of the future mobile communication. For this purpose, cognitive radio (CR) emerges as one of the most promising inventions which can overcome the spectrum shortage. As the key technology and main objective of CR, spectrum sharing can make full use of the limited spectrum, alleviate the scarcity of frequency resources and improve the system utilities, playing thereby an important role in improving the system performance of cognitive radio networks (CRNs). In this survey, the spectrum sharing in CRNs is discussed in terms of the sharing process, mainstream sharing technologies and spectrum sharing models. In particular, comparisons of different spectrum sharing strategies are concluded, as well as that of different spectrum sensing schemes in sharing procedure. Moreover, some application examples of the spectrum sharing in CRNs, such as smart grid, public safety, cellular network and medical body area networks are also introduced. In addition, our previous related works are presented and the open research issues in the field of spectrum sharing are stated as well.