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Structural Behavior of Mixed $LiMn_2O_4-LiNi_{1/3}Co_{1/3}Mn_{1/3}O_2$ Cathode in Li-ion Cells during Electrochemical Cycling

  • Yun, Won-Seop;Lee, Sang-U
    • Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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    • 2011.05a
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    • pp.5-5
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    • 2011
  • The research and development of hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) and electric vehicle (EV) are intensified due to the energy crisis and environmental concerns. In order to meet the challenging requirements of powering HEV, PHEV and EV, the current lithium battery technology needs to be significantly improved in terms of the cost, safety, power and energy density, as well as the calendar and cycle life. One new technology being developed is the utilization of composite cathode by mixing two different types of insertion compounds [e.g., spinel $LiMn_2O_4$ and layered $LiMO_2$ (M=Ni, Co, and Mn)]. Recently, some studies on mixing two different types of cathode materials to make a composite cathode have been reported, which were aimed at reducing cost and improving self-discharge. Numata et al. reported that when stored in a sealed can together with electrolyte at $80^{\circ}C$ for 10 days, the concentrations of both HF and $Mn^{2+}$ were lower in the can containing $LiMn_2O_4$ blended with $LiNi_{0.8}Co_{0.2}O_2$ than that containing $LiMn_2O_4$ only. That reports clearly showed that this blending technique can prevent the decline in capacity caused by cycling or storage at elevated temperatures. However, not much work has been reported on the charge-discharge characteristics and related structural phase transitions for these composite cathodes. In this presentation, we will report our in situ x-ray diffraction studies on this mixed composite cathode material during charge-discharge cycling. The mixed cathodes were incorporated into in situ XRD cells with a Li foil anode, a Celgard separator, and a 1M $LiPF_6$ electrolyte in a 1 : 1 EC : DMC solvent (LP 30 from EM Industries, Inc.). For in situ XRD cell, Mylar windows were used as has been described in detail elsewhere. All of these in situ XRD spectra were collected on beam line X18A at National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) at Brookhaven National Laboratory using two different detectors. One is a conventional scintillation detector with data collection at 0.02 degree in two theta angle for each step. The other is a wide angle position sensitive detector (PSD). The wavelengths used were 1.1950 ${\AA}$ for the scintillation detector and 0.9999 A for the PSD. The newly installed PSD at beam line X18A of NSLS can collect XRD patterns as short as a few minutes covering $90^{\circ}$ of two theta angles simultaneously with good signal to noise ratio. It significantly reduced the data collection time for each scan, giving us a great advantage in studying the phase transition in real time. The two theta angles of all the XRD spectra presented in this paper have been recalculated and converted to corresponding angles for ${\lambda}=1.54\;{\AA}$, which is the wavelength of conventional x-ray tube source with Cu-$k{\alpha}$ radiation, for easy comparison with data in other literatures. The structural changes of the composite cathode made by mixing spinel $LiMn_2O_4$ and layered $Li-Ni_{1/3}Co_{1/3}Mn_{1/3}O_2$ in 1 : 1 wt% in both Li-half and Li-ion cells during charge/discharge are studied by in situ XRD. During the first charge up to ~5.2 V vs. $Li/Li^+$, the in situ XRD spectra for the composite cathode in the Li-half cell track the structural changes of each component. At the early stage of charge, the lithium extraction takes place in the $LiNi_{1/3}Co_{1/3}Mn_{1/3}O_2$ component only. When the cell voltage reaches at ~4.0 V vs. $Li/Li^+$, lithium extraction from the spinel $LiMn_2O_4$ component starts and becomes the major contributor for the cell capacity due to the higher rate capability of $LiMn_2O_4$. When the voltage passed 4.3 V, the major structural changes are from the $LiNi_{1/3}Co_{1/3}Mn_{1/3}O_2$ component, while the $LiMn_2O_4$ component is almost unchanged. In the Li-ion cell using a MCMB anode and a composite cathode cycled between 2.5 V and 4.2 V, the structural changes are dominated by the spinel $LiMn_2O_4$ component, with much less changes in the layered $LiNi_{1/3}Co_{1/3}Mn_{1/3}O_2$ component, comparing with the Li-half cell results. These results give us valuable information about the structural changes relating to the contributions of each individual component to the cell capacity at certain charge/discharge state, which are helpful in designing and optimizing the composite cathode using spinel- and layered-type materials for Li-ion battery research. More detailed discussion will be presented at the meeting.

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A Study on the Development Trend of Artificial Intelligence Using Text Mining Technique: Focused on Open Source Software Projects on Github (텍스트 마이닝 기법을 활용한 인공지능 기술개발 동향 분석 연구: 깃허브 상의 오픈 소스 소프트웨어 프로젝트를 대상으로)

  • Chong, JiSeon;Kim, Dongsung;Lee, Hong Joo;Kim, Jong Woo
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.25 no.1
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    • pp.1-19
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    • 2019
  • Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the main driving forces leading the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The technologies associated with AI have already shown superior abilities that are equal to or better than people in many fields including image and speech recognition. Particularly, many efforts have been actively given to identify the current technology trends and analyze development directions of it, because AI technologies can be utilized in a wide range of fields including medical, financial, manufacturing, service, and education fields. Major platforms that can develop complex AI algorithms for learning, reasoning, and recognition have been open to the public as open source projects. As a result, technologies and services that utilize them have increased rapidly. It has been confirmed as one of the major reasons for the fast development of AI technologies. Additionally, the spread of the technology is greatly in debt to open source software, developed by major global companies, supporting natural language recognition, speech recognition, and image recognition. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the practical trend of AI technology development by analyzing OSS projects associated with AI, which have been developed by the online collaboration of many parties. This study searched and collected a list of major projects related to AI, which were generated from 2000 to July 2018 on Github. This study confirmed the development trends of major technologies in detail by applying text mining technique targeting topic information, which indicates the characteristics of the collected projects and technical fields. The results of the analysis showed that the number of software development projects by year was less than 100 projects per year until 2013. However, it increased to 229 projects in 2014 and 597 projects in 2015. Particularly, the number of open source projects related to AI increased rapidly in 2016 (2,559 OSS projects). It was confirmed that the number of projects initiated in 2017 was 14,213, which is almost four-folds of the number of total projects generated from 2009 to 2016 (3,555 projects). The number of projects initiated from Jan to Jul 2018 was 8,737. The development trend of AI-related technologies was evaluated by dividing the study period into three phases. The appearance frequency of topics indicate the technology trends of AI-related OSS projects. The results showed that the natural language processing technology has continued to be at the top in all years. It implied that OSS had been developed continuously. Until 2015, Python, C ++, and Java, programming languages, were listed as the top ten frequently appeared topics. However, after 2016, programming languages other than Python disappeared from the top ten topics. Instead of them, platforms supporting the development of AI algorithms, such as TensorFlow and Keras, are showing high appearance frequency. Additionally, reinforcement learning algorithms and convolutional neural networks, which have been used in various fields, were frequently appeared topics. The results of topic network analysis showed that the most important topics of degree centrality were similar to those of appearance frequency. The main difference was that visualization and medical imaging topics were found at the top of the list, although they were not in the top of the list from 2009 to 2012. The results indicated that OSS was developed in the medical field in order to utilize the AI technology. Moreover, although the computer vision was in the top 10 of the appearance frequency list from 2013 to 2015, they were not in the top 10 of the degree centrality. The topics at the top of the degree centrality list were similar to those at the top of the appearance frequency list. It was found that the ranks of the composite neural network and reinforcement learning were changed slightly. The trend of technology development was examined using the appearance frequency of topics and degree centrality. The results showed that machine learning revealed the highest frequency and the highest degree centrality in all years. Moreover, it is noteworthy that, although the deep learning topic showed a low frequency and a low degree centrality between 2009 and 2012, their ranks abruptly increased between 2013 and 2015. It was confirmed that in recent years both technologies had high appearance frequency and degree centrality. TensorFlow first appeared during the phase of 2013-2015, and the appearance frequency and degree centrality of it soared between 2016 and 2018 to be at the top of the lists after deep learning, python. Computer vision and reinforcement learning did not show an abrupt increase or decrease, and they had relatively low appearance frequency and degree centrality compared with the above-mentioned topics. Based on these analysis results, it is possible to identify the fields in which AI technologies are actively developed. The results of this study can be used as a baseline dataset for more empirical analysis on future technology trends that can be converged.

Analysis of Quantization Noise in Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems (자기공명영상 시스템의 양자화잡음 분석)

  • Ahn C.B.
    • Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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    • v.8 no.1
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    • pp.42-49
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    • 2004
  • Purpose : The quantization noise in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems is analyzed. The signal-to-quantization noise ratio (SQNR) in the reconstructed image is derived from the level of quantization in the signal in spatial frequency domain. Based on the derived formula, the SQNRs in various main magnetic fields with different receiver systems are evaluated. From the evaluation, the quantization noise could be a major noise source determining overall system signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in high field MRI system. A few methods to reduce the quantization noise are suggested. Materials and methods : In Fourier imaging methods, spin density distribution is encoded by phase and frequency encoding gradients in such a way that it becomes a distribution in the spatial frequency domain. Thus the quantization noise in the spatial frequency domain is expressed in terms of the SQNR in the reconstructed image. The validity of the derived formula is confirmed by experiments and computer simulation. Results : Using the derived formula, the SQNRs in various main magnetic fields with various receiver systems are evaluated. Since the quantization noise is proportional to the signal amplitude, yet it cannot be reduced by simple signal averaging, it could be a serious problem in high field imaging. In many receiver systems employing analog-to-digital converters (ADC) of 16 bits/sample, the quantization noise could be a major noise source limiting overall system SNR, especially in a high field imaging. Conclusion : The field strength of MRI system keeps going higher for functional imaging and spectroscopy. In high field MRI system, signal amplitude becomes larger with more susceptibility effect and wider spectral separation. Since the quantization noise is proportional to the signal amplitude, if the conversion bits of the ADCs in the receiver system are not large enough, the increase of signal amplitude may not be fully utilized for the SNR enhancement due to the increase of the quantization noise. Evaluation of the SQNR for various systems using the formula shows that the quantization noise could be a major noise source limiting overall system SNR, especially in three dimensional imaging in a high field imaging. Oversampling and off-center sampling would be an alternative solution to reduce the quantization noise without replacement of the receiver system.

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Studies on the Production of Intra- and Extra-cellular Lipids by the Strains in the Genus RHODOTORULA (Rhodotorula 속(屬) 균주(菌株)에 의(依)한 세포(細胞) 내외(內外) 지질생산(脂質生産)에 관(關)한 연구(硏究))

  • Park, Sung-Oh
    • Applied Biological Chemistry
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    • v.17 no.2
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    • pp.93-116
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    • 1974
  • A potent intracellular-lipid-producing yeast, Rhodotorula glutinis var. glutinis SW-17, was screened out from a variety of arable soils, compost heaps, and fodders, and two strains of excellent extracellular-lipid-producing yeasts, Rhodotorula glutinis var. glutinis SW-5 and Rhodotorula graminis SW-54, were screened out from the surface of many species of leaves. And then the intra- and extra-cellular lipid productions by those Rhodotorula yeasts were studied. The results were as follows: 1. During the shaking culture of 8 days at $24^{\circ}C$, both the intra- and extra-cellular lipid accumulation started almost at the stationary phase of growth, when the nitrogen source in the medium was a little more than half used up. The intracellular lipid production by Rhodotorula glutinis var. glutinis SW-17 reached 58.42% (w/w) of dried yeast, and the extracellular lipid production by Rhodotorula graminis SW-54 amounted to 2.62g per liter of the medium. 2. After the carbon and nitrogen sources in the medium were almost consumed, if the yeasts were shake-cultured further in a state of starvation, the yeast cells re-utilized the already produced intra- and extra-cellular lipids and the lipids completely disappeared in the medium in about 90 days. 3. The relative concentration of carbon and nitrogen sources in the media greatly influenced both the intra- and extra-cellular lipid production. When the nitrogen source in the medium was almost used up for the growth of yeast, and excess carbon sources were still available, the lipid production vigorously proceeded. As long as the nitrogen source concentration in the medium was high, the lipid production was greatly suppressed. 4. The optimum pH for both the intra- and extra-cellular lipid production by those yeasts was pH 5.0-6.0. 5. The fatty acid components of the intracellular lipid of Rhodotorula glutinis var. glutinis SW-17 were myristic, palmitic, palmitoleic, stearic, oleic, linoleic, and linolenic acids. The largest components of the fatty acids were palmitic acid equivalent to 30-45% of the whole fatty acids and oleic acid equivalent to 35-50%. 6. The fatty acid components of the extracellular lipid of Rhodotorula glutinis var. glutinis SW-5 and Rhodotorula graminis SW-54 were myristic, palmitic, stearic, oleic, linoleic, linolenic, 3-D-hydroxypalmitic, and 3-D-hydroxystearic acids. The largest components of the fatty acids were 3-D-hydroxypalmitic acid equivalent to 22-25% of the acids and 3-D-hydroxystearic acid equivalent to 13-17%. 7. The polyol component of the intracellular lipids was only glycerol, whereas the polyols of extracellular lipids were glycerol, mannitol, xylitol and arabitol.

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S-wave Velocity and Attenuation Structure from Multichannel Seismic surface waves: Geotechnical Characteristics of NakDong Delta Soil (다중채널 표면파 자료를 이용하여 구한 S파 속도와 감쇠지수 구조: 낙동강 하구의 연약 지반 특성)

  • Jung, Hee-Ok
    • Journal of the Korean earth science society
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    • v.25 no.8
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    • pp.774-783
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    • 2004
  • The S wave velocity and Q$s^{-1}$ structure of the uppermost part of the soil in Nakdong Delta area have been obtained to determine the characteristics of the forementioned soil. The phase and attenuation coefficients of multichannel seismic records were inverted to obtain the S wave velocity and Q$s^{-1}$ structure of the soil. The inversion results have been compared with the borehole measurements of the area. The seismic signal of the nearest geophone from a seismic source was used as the source signal to obtain the attenuation coefficients. Amplitude ratios of the signal at each geophone to the source signal wave plotted as a function of distance for the frequency range between 10 Hz and 45 Hz. The slope of a linear regression line which fits amplitude ratio-distance relationship best for a given frequency was used as the attenuation coefficients for the frequency. The dispersion curve of Rayleigh waves and the attenuation coefficients were inverted to obtain the S-wave velocity and Q$s^{-1}$, respectively, in the uppermost 8 meter of soil layer. The borehole measurements of the area show that are two distinct layers; the upper 4 meter of silty-sand and the lower 4 meter of silty-clay. The inversion results indicate that the shear wave velocity of the upper layer is 80 m/sec and 40m/sec in the lower silty-clay layer. The spacial resolution of the shear wave velocity structure is very good down to a depth of 8 meter. The Q$s^{-1}$ in the upper silty-sand layer is 0.02 and increase to 0.03 in the lower silty-sand layer. The spacial resolution of quality factor is relatively good down to a depth of 5 meter, but very poor below the depth. In this study, the S-wave velocity is higher in the silty-clay and the Q$s^{-1}$ is smaller silty-sand than in the silty-clay. However, much more data should be analyzed and accumulated before making any generalization on the shear wave velocity and Q$s^{-1}$ of the sediments.

An Area-Efficient Time-Shared 10b DAC for AMOLED Column Driver IC Applications (AMOLED 컬럼 구동회로 응용을 위한 시분할 기법 기반의 면적 효율적인 10b DAC)

  • Kim, Won-Kang;An, Tai-Ji;Lee, Seung-Hoon
    • Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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    • v.53 no.5
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    • pp.87-97
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    • 2016
  • This work proposes a time-shared 10b DAC based on a two-step resistor string to minimize the effective area of a DAC channel for driving each AMOLED display column. The proposed DAC shows a lower effective DAC area per unit column driver and a faster conversion speed than the conventional DACs by employing a time-shared DEMUX and a ROM-based two-step decoder of 6b and 4b in the first and second resistor string. In the second-stage 4b floating resistor string, a simple current source rather than a unity-gain buffer decreases the loading effect and chip area of a DAC channel and eliminates offset mismatch between channels caused by buffer amplifiers. The proposed 1-to-24 DEMUX enables a single DAC channel to drive 24 columns sequentially with a single-phase clock and a 5b binary counter. A 0.9pF sampling capacitor and a small-sized source follower in the input stage of each column-driving buffer amplifier decrease the effect due to channel charge injection and improve the output settling accuracy of the buffer amplifier while using the top-plate sampling scheme in the proposed DAC. The proposed DAC in a $0.18{\mu}m$ CMOS shows a signal settling time of 62.5ns during code transitions from '$000_{16}$' to '$3FF_{16}$'. The prototype DAC occupies a unit channel area of $0.058mm^2$ and an effective unit channel area of $0.002mm^2$ while consuming 6.08mW with analog and digital power supplies of 3.3V and 1.8V, respectively.

Sesquiterpenoids Bioconversion Analysis by Wood Rot Fungi

  • Lee, Su-Yeon;Ryu, Sun-Hwa;Choi, In-Gyu;Kim, Myungkil
    • 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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    • 2016.05a
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    • pp.19-20
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    • 2016
  • Sesquiterpenoids are defined as $C_{15}$ compounds derived from farnesyl pyrophosphate (FPP), and their complex structures are found in the tissue of many diverse plants (Degenhardt et al. 2009). FPP's long chain length and additional double bond enables its conversion to a huge range of mono-, di-, and tri-cyclic structures. A number of cyclic sesquiterpenes with alcohol, aldehyde, and ketone derivatives have key biological and medicinal properties (Fraga 1999). Fungi, such as the wood-rotting Polyporus brumalis, are excellent sources of pharmaceutically interesting natural products such as sesquiterpenoids. In this study, we investigated the biosynthesis of P. brumalis sesquiterpenoids on modified medium. Fungal suspensions of 11 white rot species were inoculated in modified medium containing $C_6H_{12}O_6$, $C_4H_{12}N_2O_6$, $KH_2PO_4$, $MgSO_4$, and $CaCl_2$ for 20 days. Cultivation was stopped by solvent extraction via separation of the mycelium. The metabolites were identified as follows: propionic acid (1), mevalonic acid lactone (2), ${\beta}$-eudesmane (3), and ${\beta}$-eudesmol (4), respectively (Figure 1). The main peaks of ${\beta}$-eudesmane and ${\beta}$-eudesmol, which were indicative of sesquiterpene structures, were consistently detected for 5, 7, 12, and 15 days These results demonstrated the existence of terpene metabolism in the mycelium of P. brumalis. Polyporus spp. are known to generate flavor components such as methyl 2,4-dihydroxy-3,6-dimethyl benzoate; 2-hydroxy-4-methoxy-6-methyl benzoic acid; 3-hydroxy-5-methyl phenol; and 3-methoxy-2,5-dimethyl phenol in submerged cultures (Hoffmann and Esser 1978). Drimanes of sesquiterpenes were reported as metabolites from P. arcularius and shown to exhibit antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus (Fleck et al. 1996). The main metabolites of P. brumalis, ${\beta}$-Eudesmol and ${\beta}$-eudesmane, were categorized as eudesmane-type sesquiterpene structures. The eudesmane skeleton could be biosynthesized from FPP-derived IPP, and approximately 1,000 structures have been identified in plants as essential oils. The biosynthesis of eudesmol from P. brumalis may thus be an important tool for the production of useful natural compounds as presumed from its identified potent bioactivity in plants. Essential oils comprising eudesmane-type sesquiterpenoids have been previously and extensively researched (Wu et al. 2006). ${\beta}$-Eudesmol is a well-known and important eudesmane alcohol with an anticholinergic effect in the vascular endothelium (Tsuneki et al. 2005). Additionally, recent studies demonstrated that ${\beta}$-eudesmol acts as a channel blocker for nicotinic acetylcholine receptors at the neuromuscular junction, and it can inhibit angiogenesis in vitro and in vivo by blocking the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway (Seo et al. 2011). Variation of nutrients was conducted to determine an optimum condition for the biosynthesis of sesquiterpenes by P. brumalis. Genes encoding terpene synthases, which are crucial to the terpene synthesis pathway, generally respond to environmental factors such as pH, temperature, and available nutrients (Hoffmeister and Keller 2007, Yu and Keller 2005). Calvo et al. described the effect of major nutrients, carbon and nitrogen, on the synthesis of secondary metabolites (Calvo et al. 2002). P. brumalis did not prefer to synthesize sesquiterpenes under all growth conditions. Results of differences in metabolites observed in P. brumalis grown in PDB and modified medium highlighted the potential effect inorganic sources such as $C_4H_{12}N_2O_6$, $KH_2PO_4$, $MgSO_4$, and $CaCl_2$ on sesquiterpene synthesis. ${\beta}$-eudesmol was apparent during cultivation except for when P. brumalis was grown on $MgSO_4$-free medium. These results demonstrated that $MgSO_4$ can specifically control the biosynthesis of ${\beta}$-eudesmol. Magnesium has been reported as a cofactor that binds to sesquiterpene synthase (Agger et al. 2008). Specifically, the $Mg^{2+}$ ions bind to two conserved metal-binding motifs. These metal ions complex to the substrate pyrophosphate, thereby promoting the ionization of the leaving groups of FPP and resulting in the generation of a highly reactive allylic cation. Effect of magnesium source on the sesquiterpene biosynthesis was also identified via analysis of the concentration of total carbohydrates. Our current study offered further insight that fungal sesquiterpene biosynthesis can be controlled by nutrients. To profile the metabolites of P. brumalis, the cultures were extracted based on the growth curve. Despite metabolites produced during mycelia growth, there was difficulty in detecting significant changes in metabolite production, especially those at low concentrations. These compounds may be of interest in understanding their synthetic mechanisms in P. brumalis. The synthesis of terpene compounds began during the growth phase at day 9. Sesquiterpene synthesis occurred after growth was complete. At day 9, drimenol, farnesol, and mevalonic lactone (or mevalonic acid lactone) were identified. Mevalonic acid lactone is the precursor of the mevalonic pathway, and particularly, it is a precursor for a number of biologically important lipids, including cholesterol hormones (Buckley et al. 2002). Farnesol is the precursor of sesquiterpenoids. Drimenol compounds, bi-cyclic-sesquiterpene alcohols, can be synthesized from trans-trans farnesol via cyclization and rearrangement (Polovinka et al. 1994). They have also been identified in the basidiomycota Lentinus lepideus as secondary metabolites. After 12 days in the growth phase, ${\beta}$-elemene caryophyllene, ${\delta}$-cadiene, and eudesmane were detected with ${\beta}$-eudesmol. The data showed the synthesis of sesquiterpene hydrocarbons with bi-cyclic structures. These compounds can be synthesized from FPP by cyclization. Cyclic terpenoids are synthesized through the formation of a carbon skeleton from linear precursors by terpene cyclase, which is followed by chemical modification by oxidation, reduction, methylation, etc. Sesquiterpene cyclase is a key branch-point enzyme that catalyzes the complex intermolecular cyclization of the linear prenyl diphosphate into cyclic hydrocarbons (Toyomasu et al. 2007). After 20 days in stationary phase, the oxygenated structures eudesmol, elemol, and caryophyllene oxide were detected. Thus, after growth, sesquiterpenes were identified. Per these results, we showed that terpene metabolism in wood-rotting fungi occurs in the stationary phase. We also showed that such metabolism can be controlled by magnesium supplementation in the growth medium. In conclusion, we identified P. brumalis as a wood-rotting fungus that can produce sesquiterpenes. To mechanistically understand eudesmane-type sesquiterpene biosynthesis in P. brumalis, further research into the genes regulating the dynamics of such biosynthesis is warranted.

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A Case of Acute Eosinophilic Pneumonia after Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (혈연간 동종 조혈모세포 이식 후 이식편대숙주질환과 함께 발생한 급성 호산구성 폐렴 1예)

  • Park, Hwan-Sung;Ok, Tae-Jin;Kim, You-Jae;Kim, Guang-Un;Park, So-Eun;An, Ji-Hyun;Kim, Yun-Ku;Jeong, Jae-Ho;Kim, Su-Jeong;Lee, Yu-Mi;Lee, Ho-Su;Kang, Bo-Hyoung;Kim, Ga-Hee;Kim, Dae-Young;Kim, Woo-Sung;Kim, Dong-Soon;Song, Jin-Woo
    • Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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    • v.71 no.6
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    • pp.459-463
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    • 2011
  • Pulmonary complications occur in 40~60% of patients who receive hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and are a source of substantial morbidity and mortality. Acute eosinophilic pneumonia (AEP) is an uncommon, non-infectious pulmonary complication occurring in HSCT recipients. We now report the case of a 52-year-old man with AEP who was treated with allogenic HSCT due to acute myeloid leukemia. He complained of fever, cough and dyspnea 390 days after allogenic HSCT. He also had skin and hepatic graft versus host disease (GVHD). Hypoxemia, diffuse pulmonary infiltrates on a chest x-ray and eosinophilia in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid were also noted in several tests. His symptoms, pulmonary infiltrates, hepatic dysfunction and skin lesions rapidly improved after treatment with corticosteroid therapy. Our case supports the idea that AEP is a late phase non-infectious pulmonary complication and one of the manifestations of chronic GVHD.

Enhancement of radiation effect using beta-lapachone and underlying mechanism

  • Ahn, Ki Jung;Lee, Hyung Sik;Bai, Se Kyung;Song, Chang Won
    • Radiation Oncology Journal
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    • v.31 no.2
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    • pp.57-65
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    • 2013
  • Beta-lapachone (${\beta}$-Lap; 3,4-dihydro-2, 2-dimethyl-2H-naphthol[1, 2-b]pyran-5,6-dione) is a novel anti-cancer drug under phase I/II clinical trials. ${\beta}$-Lap has been demonstrated to cause apoptotic and necrotic death in a variety of human cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. The mechanisms underlying the ${\beta}$-Lap toxicity against cancer cells has been controversial. The most recent view is that ${\beta}$-Lap, which is a quinone compound, undergoes two-electron reduction to hydroquinone form utilizing NAD(P)H or NADH as electron source. This two-electron reduction of ${\beta}$-Lap is mediated by NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase (NQO1), which is known to mediate the reduction of many quinone compounds. The hydroquinone forms of ${\beta}$-Lap then spontaneously oxidizes back to the original oxidized ${\beta}$-Lap, creating futile cycling between the oxidized and reduced forms of ${\beta}$-Lap. It is proposed that the futile recycling between oxidized and reduced forms of ${\beta}$-Lap leads to two distinct cell death pathways. First one is that the two-electron reduced ${\beta}$-Lap is converted first to one-electron reduced ${\beta}$-Lap, i.e., semiquinone ${\beta}$-Lap $(SQ)^{{\cdot}-}$ causing production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which then causes apoptotic cell death. The second mechanism is that severe depletion of NAD(P)H and NADH as a result of futile cycling between the quinone and hydroquinone forms of ${\beta}$-Lap causes severe disturbance in cellular metabolism leading to apoptosis and necrosis. The relative importance of the aforementioned two mechanisms, i.e., generation of ROS or depletion of NAD(P)H/NADH, may vary depending on cell type and environment. Importantly, the NQO1 level in cancer cells has been found to be higher than that in normal cells indicating that ${\beta}$-Lap may be preferentially toxic to cancer cells relative to non-cancer cells. The cellular level of NQO1 has been found to be significantly increased by divergent physical and chemical stresses including ionizing radiation. Recent reports clearly demonstrated that ${\beta}$-Lap and ionizing radiation kill cancer cells in a synergistic manner. Indications are that irradiation of cancer cells causes long-lasting elevation of NQO1, thereby sensitizing the cells to ${\beta}$-Lap. In addition, ${\beta}$-Lap has been shown to inhibit the repair of sublethal radiation damage. Treating experimental tumors growing in the legs of mice with irradiation and intraperitoneal injection of ${\beta}$-Lap suppressed the growth of the tumors in a manner more than additive. Collectively, ${\beta}$-Lap is a potentially useful anti-cancer drug, particularly in combination with radiotherapy.

Investigation on Formation Behaviors of Synthesized Natural Gas Hydrates (합성 천연가스의 하이드레이트 형성 거동 연구)

  • Lee, Jong-Won;Lee, Ju-Dong
    • Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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    • v.50 no.5
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    • pp.890-893
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    • 2012
  • Gas hydrates are solid crystal structures formed by enclathration of gaseous guest species into 3-dimensional lattice structure of hydrogen-bonded water molecules. These compounds can be potentially used as an energy storage/transportation medium because they can hold a large amount of gas in a small volume of the solid phase. In addition, huge amount of natural gas, buried in seabeds or permafrost region in the form of the solid hydrate, is regarded as a future energy source. In this study, synthesized natural gas, whose composition is 90.0 mol% of methane, 7.0 mol% of ethane, and 3.0 mol% of propane, was used to identify formation behaviors of natural gas hydrates for the purpose of applying the gas hydrate to a storage/transportation medium of natural gas. According to the experimental results obtained by means of the solid-state NMR and high-resolution powder XRD methods, it is found that formed natural gas hydrates have crystal structure of the structure-II hydrate, and that methane occupies both small and large cages, while the others only occupy large ones. In addition, both the NMR spectroscopy and the gas chromatograph showed that there exists preferential occupation among the natural gas components during the hydrate formation. Compositional changes after the hydrate formation revealed that the preferential occupation is in order of propane, ethane, and methane (propane is the most preferential guest species when forming natural gas hydrates).