• The Korean Journal of Cytopathology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.119-125
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• 2007

Urine cytology is an important screening tool for urinary tract neoplasms. Liquid-based preparation methods, such as $ThinPrep^{(R)}$, have been introduced for non-gynecological samples. We aimed to assess the diagnostic accuracy of liquid-based preparations in urine cytology by comparing the results of the conventional Cytospin preparation method for the same samples. A total of 236 cases subject to urine cytology were enrolled in this study from January 2005 to December 2005. All cases were subjected to cystoscopy and if a malignancy was suspected, a biopsy was performed. Urine cytology slides were made using the $ThinPrep^{(R)}$ preparation method and the conventional Cytospin and/or direct smear method from the individual samples. The results of urine cytology were compared with the final cystoscopic or histological diagnoses. We analyzed the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy of both cytology preparation methods. A total of 236 slides made using the liquid based method were satisfactory for slide quality, whereas 5 slides (2.1%) prepared by conventional methods were unsatisfactory because of air-drying, a thick smear, or a bloody or inflammatory background. The $ThinPrep^{(R)}$ method showed 53.1% sensitivity, 92.6% specificity, a 92,6% positive predictive value, a 94.1% negative predictive value and 85,6% accuracy, while the conventional method showed 51% sensitivity, 98.4% specificity, a 92.6% positive predictive value, a 98.4% negative predictive value and 88,6% accuracy. Although the diagnostic values were equivalent between the use of the two methods, the quality of the cytology slides and the time consumed during the microscopic examination for a diagnosis were superior for the $ThinPrep^{(R)}$ method than for the conventional method. In conclusion, our limited studies have shown that the use of the liquid based preparation method is beneficial to improve the quality of slides and reduce the duration for a microscopic examination, but did not show better sensitivity, accuracy and predictive values.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.417-424
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• 2019

Despite its superior ability to show distinct cellular morphology and for long-term storage, conventional tissue fixation by formalin has many drawback, including slower fixation, the exposure to harmful chemicals and extensive protein modification. Herein, we assessed the effects of rapid microwave-assisted tissue fixation on histological examination and on protein integrity by comparing these microwave irradiation fixated tissues with the formalin-fixed tissues. One of the paired mouse tissues (liver and kidney) was fixed in formalin and the other was fixed by using microwave irradiation in phosphate buffered saline. Each slide from the paraffin-embedded tissues was examined by H & E staining for the adequacy of fixation and by immunohistochemical staining for antigenicity in a blinded fashion. Evaluation of protein recovery and the protein quality from the fixed tissues were analyzed by the BCA method and Western blotting, respectively. The results from H & E staining and immunohistochemical staining showed that the sections obtained from microwave-fixed tissues under our experimental conditions were comparable to those of the formalin-fixed tissues except for the integrity of RBCs. Furthermore, proteins were effectively extracted from the microwave-fixed tissues with acceptable preservation of the proteins' quality. Taken together, this microwave-assisted tissue processing yields a quick fixation and better protein recovery in higher amounts, as well as the adequacy of fixation and the antigenicity being comparable to formalin-fixed tissues, and this all suggests that this new fixation technique can be applied in an environment where rapid tissue fixation is required.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.5-12
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• 2015

Civil engineers have taken the numerous slope monitoring data for an engineering project subjected to hazard potential of slide. However, the topics on how to deal with and draw out proper information from the data related to the slope behavior have not been widely discussed. Recently, several researchers had installed the real-time monitoring system to cope with slope failure; however they are mainly focused on the hardware system installation. Therefore, this study tries to show how the measured data could be grouped and connected each other. The basic idea of analyzing method studied in this paper came from the clustering, which is the part of data mining analysis. Therefore, at the base of classification of time series data, the authors suggest three mathematical data analyzing methods; Average Index of different displacement ($AD_{i,j}$), Difference of average relative displacement ($\overline{RD}_{i,j}$) and Coordinate system of average and relative displacement ($\overline{RD}$, AD). These analyzing methods are based on the statistical method and failure mechanism of slope. Therefore they showed clustering relationships of the similar parts of the slope which makes the same sliding mechanism.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.179-192
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• 2014

Keeping in line with the recent changes in the information technology environment, the online learning environment that supports multiple users' participation such as MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) has become important. One of the largest professional associations in Information Technology, IEEE Computer Society, announced that "Supporting New Learning Styles" is a crucial trend in 2014. Popular MOOC services, CourseRa and edX, have continued to build active learning environment with a large number of lectures accessible anywhere using smart devices, and have been used by an increasing number of users. In addition, collaborative web services (e.g., blogs and Wikipedia) also support the creation of various user-uploaded learning materials, resulting in a vast amount of new lectures and learning materials being created every day in the online space. However, it is difficult for an online educational system to keep a learner' motivation as learning occurs remotely, with limited capability to share knowledge among the learners. Thus, it is essential to understand which materials are needed for each learner and how to motivate learners to actively participate in online learning system. To overcome these issues, leveraging the constructivism theory and collective intelligence, we have developed a social bookmarking system called WeStudy, which supports learning material sharing among the users and provides personalized learning material recommendations. Constructivism theory argues that knowledge is being constructed while learners interact with the world. Collective intelligence can be separated into two types: (1) collaborative collective intelligence, which can be built on the basis of direct collaboration among the participants (e.g., Wikipedia), and (2) integrative collective intelligence, which produces new forms of knowledge by combining independent and distributed information through highly advanced technologies and algorithms (e.g., Google PageRank, Recommender systems). Recommender system, one of the examples of integrative collective intelligence, is to utilize online activities of the users and recommend what users may be interested in. Our system included both collaborative collective intelligence functions and integrative collective intelligence functions. We analyzed well-known Web services based on collective intelligence such as Wikipedia, Slideshare, and Videolectures to identify main design factors that support collective intelligence. Based on this analysis, in addition to sharing online resources through social bookmarking, we selected three essential functions for our system: 1) multimodal visualization of learning materials through two forms (e.g., list and graph), 2) personalized recommendation of learning materials, and 3) explicit designation of learners of their interest. After developing web-based WeStudy system, we conducted usability testing through the heuristic evaluation method that included seven heuristic indices: features and functionality, cognitive page, navigation, search and filtering, control and feedback, forms, context and text. We recruited 10 experts who majored in Human Computer Interaction and worked in the same field, and requested both quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the system. The evaluation results show that, relative to the other functions evaluated, the list/graph page produced higher scores on all indices except for contexts & text. In case of contexts & text, learning material page produced the best score, compared with the other functions. In general, the explicit designation of learners of their interests, one of the distinctive functions, received lower scores on all usability indices because of its unfamiliar functionality to the users. In summary, the evaluation results show that our system has achieved high usability with good performance with some minor issues, which need to be fully addressed before the public release of the system to large-scale users. The study findings provide practical guidelines for the design and development of various systems that utilize collective intelligence.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.64 no.4
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• pp.278-284
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• 2008

Background: TRAIL is a promising anticancer agent which induces selective tumor cell death due to a unique receptor system that includes death receptors and decoy receptors. DR5 TRAIL receptor is an originally identified p53-regulated death receptor gene that was induced, by doxorubicine, only in cells with a wild-type p53 status. We investigated that focused on the correlation between the DR5 and p53 expressions in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: Immunohistochemical analysis, with using avidin-biotinylated horseradish peroxidase complex, was carried out in 89 surgically resected NSCLC formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue sections. As primary antibodies, we used anti-DR5 polyclonal antibody and anti-p53 monoclonal antibody. A negative control was processed with each slide. The positive tumor cells were quantified twice and these values were expressed as percentage of the total number of tumor cells, and the intensity of immunostaining was expressed. The analysis of the DR5 expression was done separately in tumor area and in a nearby region of normal tissue. Results: The DR5 expression was high in the bronchial epithelium (89% of cases) but this was almost absent in type I & II pneumocytes, lymphocytes and smooth muscle cells. High DR5 expression rate in tumor was seen in 28% (15/53) of squamous cell carcinomas, in 47% (15/32) of adenocarcinomas and, in 50% (2/4) of large cell carcinomas. The DR5 expression did not show any statistical significance relationship with the T stage, N stage, or survival. However, the DR5 expression showed significant inverse correlation with the p53 expression. (p< 0.01). Conclusion: We demonstrated that the DR5 expression in NSCLC via immunohistochemical analysis is relatively tumor-specific except for that in the normal bronchial epithelium and it is significantly dependent on the p53 status. This might be in vivo evidence for the significance of the DR5 gene as a p53 downstream gene.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.101 no.4
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• pp.710-721
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• 2012

This study is to find out the search of the desirable tree cutting permit system by investigating and analyzing timber logger's consciousness in Korea. A sample group, including 64 officers in 5 Regional Forest Services and 27 National Forest Stations, 161 local government of 322 officers and team leaders with cutting permits, and 308 tree loggers was surveyed. The survey results showed that the ongoing harvest year plan for national, public and private-type forests, which was applied differently, could be integrated as 3.73 points, which was not significant among the groups. A total of 95.1% of the national forest officers stated that the environmentally friendly harvesting system could be improved and that it is exempted from bad broadleaf trees and renewal of forest type (4.14 points). An environmentally friendly harvesting system including the type of forest and location status (slide, soil, etc) is needed (3.87 points). Additionally, the round timber purchased from tree loggers managed in 2009 was about 10.6% of the domestic timber supply ($3,176,000m^3$) and round timber sales were about 50.1%. A total of 72% of the loggers suggested that a environmentally friendly harvesting system is needed (4.11 points). These results show that a new system for harvesting timber is needed to replace the current environmentally unfriendly harvesting system, and that tree loggers should be registered for management.

• Journal of Periodontal and Implant Science
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.199-211
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• 2002

Digital substraction technique and computer-assisted densitometirc analysis detect minor change in bone density and thus increase the diagnostic accuracy. This advantage as well as high sensitivity and objectivity which precludes human bias have drawn interest in radiologic research area. The objectives of this study are to verify if Radiographic density can be recognized in linear pattern when density profile of standard periapical radiograph with the aluminium stepwedge as the reference, was investigated under varies circumstances which can be encountered in clinical situations, and in addition to that to obtain mutual relationship between the existing standard radiographic system, and future digital image systems, by confirming the corelationship between the standard radiograph and Digora system which is a digital image system currently being used. In order to make quantitative analysis of the bone tissue, digital image system which uses high resolution automatic slide scanner as an input device, and Digora system were compared and analyzed using multifunctional program, Brain3dsp. The following conclusions were obtained. 1. Under common clinical situation that is 70kVp, 0.2 sec., and focal distance 10cm, Al-Equivalent image equation was found to be Y=11.21X+46.62 $r^2=0.9898$ in standard radiographic system, and Y=12.68X+74.59, $r^2=0.9528$ in Digora system, and linear relation was confirmed in both the systems. 2. In standard radiographic system, when all conditions were maintained the same except for the condition of developing solution, Al-Equivalent image equation was Y=10.07X+41.64, $r^2=0.9861$ which shows high corelationship. 3. When all conditions were maintained the same except for the Kilovoltage peak, linear relationship was still maintained under 60kVp, and Al-Equivalent image equation was Y=14.60X+68.86, $r^2=0.9886$ in the standard radiograhic system, and Y=13.90X+80.68, $r^2=0.9238$ in Digora system. 4. When all conditions were maintained the same except for the exposure time which was varied from 0.01 sec. to 0.8 sec., Al-Equivalent image equation was found to be linear in both the standard radiographic system and Digora system. The R-square was distributed from 0.9188 to 0.9900, and in general, standard radiographic system showed higher R-square than Digora system. 5. When all conditions were maintained the same except for the focal distance which was varied from 5cm to 30cm, Al-Equivalent image equation was found to be linear in both the standard radiographic system and Digora system. The R-square was distributed from 0.9463 to 0.9925, and the standard radiographic system had the tendency to show higher R-square in shorter focal distances.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.29-41
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• 2001

Background : The appearance of multiple-drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains has been seriously compromising successful control of tuberculosis. Rifampin-resistance, caused by mutations in the rpoB gene, can be indicative of multiple-drug-resistance, and its detection is of great importance. The present study aimed to develop an oligonucleotide chip for accurate and convenient screening of drug-resistance. Methods : In order to detect point mutations in the rpoB gene, an oligonucleotide chip was prepared by immobilizing specific probe DNA to a microscopic slide glass by a chemical reaction. The probe DNA that was selected from the 81 bp core region of the rpoB gene was designed to have mutation sites at the center. A total of 17 mutant probes related to rifampin-resistance including 8 rifabutin-sensitive mutant probes were used in this study. For accurate determination, wild type probes were prepared for each mutation position with an equal length, which enabled a direct comparison of the hybridization intensities between the mutant and wild type. Results : Mycobacterial genomic DNA from clinical samples was tested with the oligonucleotide chip and the results were compared with those of the drug-susceptibility test in addition to sequencing and INNO-LiPA Rif. TB kit test in some cases. Out of 15 samples, the oligonucleotide chip results of 13 samples showed good agreement with the rifabutin-sensitivity results. The two samples with conflicting result also showed a discrepancy between the other tests, suggesting such possibilities as existence of mixed strains and difference in drug-sensitivity. Further verification of these samples in addition to more case studies are required before the final evaluation of the oligonucleotide chip can be made. Conlcusion : An oligonucleotide chip was developed for the detection of rpoB gene mutations related to drugsusceptibility. The results to date show the potential for using the oligonucleotide chip for accurate and convenient screening of drug-resistance to provide useful information in antituberculosis drug therapy.