• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.370-374
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• 2021

Corals are the remains of animals that grow on warm beaches. They have been used as decorative jewels because of their variety of colors, and as medicinal materials for treating cancers, AIDS, and other therapeutic uses because of their chemical elements. Corals are mainly composed of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃) and have many air pores, tens to hundreds of micrometers in size. The refractive indices and absorption coefficients of dried sliced staghorn corals are investigated using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. The measured values are similar to those for CaCO₃, as expected. It is observed that a sample with a microstructure formed by air pores can guide terahertz waves. The dispersion, effective index, and loss of the guiding modes of coral core surrounded by five triangular air pores are numerically calculated. The simulated spatial distribution of the electric field of the guide mode at 1.25 THz shows the mode to be tightly confined to the core.

• BMB Reports
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.65-71
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• 2022

Regenerative medicine is a research field that develops methods to restore damaged cell or tissue function by regeneration, repair or replacement. Stem cells are the raw material of the body that is ultimately used from the point of view of regenerative medicine, and stem cell therapy uses cells themselves or their derivatives to promote responses to diseases and dysfunctions, the ultimate goal of regenerative medicine. Stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) are recognized as an attractive source because they can enrich exogenous microRNAs (miRNAs) by targeting pathological recipient cells for disease therapy and can overcome the obstacles faced by current cell therapy agents. However, there are some limitations that need to be addressed before using miRNA-enriched EVs derived from stem cells for multiplexed therapeutic targeting in many diseases. Here, we review various roles on miRNA-based stem cell EVs that can induce effective and stable functional improvement of stem cell-derived EVs. In addition, we introduce and review the implications of several miRNA-enriched EV therapies improved by multiplexed targeting in diseases involving the circulatory system and nervous system. This systemic review may offer potential roles for stem cell-derived therapeutics with multiplexed targeting.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.247-259
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• 2022

Immunotherapy, which uses an immune mechanism in the body, has received considerable attention for cancer treatment. Suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA), also known as a histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi), is used as a cancer treatment to induce active immunity by increasing the expression of T cell-induced chemokines. However, this SAHA treatment has the disadvantage of causing PD-L1 overexpression in tumor cells. In this study, we prevented PD-L1 overexpression by blocking the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway using PD-L1 siRNA. We designed two types of liposomes, the neutral lipid 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholin (POPC) for SAHA, and 1,2-dioleoyl-3-trimethylammoniumpropane (DOTAP) for siRNA. To effectively target PD-L1 in cancer cells, we conjugated PD-L1 antibody with liposomes containing SAHA or PD-L1 siRNA. These immunoliposomes were also evaluated for cytotoxicity, gene silencing, and T-cell-induced chemokine expression in human non-small cell lung cancer A549 cells. It was confirmed that the combination of the two immunoliposomes increased the cancer cell suppression efficacy through Jurkat T cell induction more than twice compared to SAHA alone treatment. In conclusion, this combination of immunoliposomes containing a drug and nucleic acid has promising therapeutic potential for non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC).

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.291-298
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• 2003

Purpose: We report upon a web-based system for Patterns of Care Study (PCS) devised for Korean radiation oncology. This PCS was designed to establish standard tools for clinical quality assurance, to determine basic parameters for radiation oncology processes, to offer a solid system for cooperative clinical studies and a useful standard database for comparisons with other national databases. Materials and Methods: The system consisted of a main server with two back-ups in other locations. The program uses a Linux operating system and a MySQL database. Cancers with high frequencies in radiotherapy departments in Korea from 1998 to 1999 were chosen to have a developmental priority. Results: The web-based clinical PCS .system for radiotherapy in www.pcs.re.kr was developed in early 2003 for cancers of the breast, rectum, esophagus, larynx and lung, and for brain metastasis. The total number of PCS study items exceeded one thousand. Our PCS system features user-friendliness, double entry checking, data security, encryption, hard disc mirroring, double back-up, and statistical analysis. Alphanumeric data can be input as well as image data. In addition, programs were constructed for IRB submission, random sampling of data, and departmental structure. Conclusion: For the first time in the field of PCS, we have developed a web-based system and associated working programs. With this system, we can gather sample data in a short period and thus save, cost, effort and time. Data audits should be peformed to validate input data. We propose that this system should be considered as a standard method for PCS or similar types of data collection systems.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.399-403
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• 2015

Peritoneal dialysis (PD) is a treatment for renal failure and acute poisoning, and uses the patient's peritoneum in the abdomen as a membrane across which fluids and dissolved substances are exchanged from the blood. In this study, we evaluated the therapeutic efficacy and complications of automated peritoneal dialyzer (APD) in dogs with renal failure. PD was performed in 10 dogs using a swan neck catheter (Neonatal, Coviden) and automatic APD. The efficacy for each dog was assessed by calculating urea reduction ratio (URR) and creatinine reduction ratio (CRR). Mean concentrations of pre-dialysis creatinine and blood urea (BUN) were $7.09{\pm}3.84$ and $145.8{\pm}48.5$, respectively. The mean number of peritoneal dialysis cycles applied was $6{\pm}1$ cycles. Peritoneal dialysis resulted in a significant decrease in BUN concentration in 7/10 dogs, while a significant decrease in creatinine concentration in 9/10 dogs. The mean of URR was higher than that of CRR ($0.39{\pm}0.16$ vs $0.38{\pm}0.13$). The mean CRR and URR per dialysis cycles were $0.064{\pm}0.023$ and $0.065{\pm}0.023$, respectively. Complications found in this study were catheter occlusion, subcutaneous dialysate leakage, septic peritonitis, hypoalbuminemia and overhydration. This study found PD using a swan neck catheter and APD machine showed acceptable efficacy for successful peritoneal dialysis in dogs. However, close monitoring is required to minimize the risk of complication.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.103-113
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• 2012

In the U.S. where Direct-to-Consumer Advertising (DTCA) of prescription medications is permitted, spending on DTCA has been accelerating. As a result, it has been an issue of intense public policy attention regarding whether DTCA is beneficial to the public by promoting a healthy lifestyle. Most of the literature concerning DTCA focuses on its impact on demand and empirical evidence regarding its impact on health-related behavior is scant. This study uses a database of DTCAs for high blood cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, and overweight treatment medications that have appeared in nationally circulated U.S. consumer magazines during 2000 to 2004 and the Simmons National Consumer Survey in order to compute the level of individual advertising exposure and examines whether those who are exposed to DTCA are more likely to engage in regular exercise and diet control. The study finds evidence that for those with chronic conditions, greater exposure to DTCA leads to less exercise but more diet control. By therapeutic class level, exposure to DTCA leads to less exercise for those with hypertension and who are overweight, whereas those with high blood cholesterol are more likely to engage in regular exercise. Looking into differential responses by socioeconomic status, those with less education are more likely to engage in exercise after being exposed to DTCA. The results imply that the effects of DTCA vary by therapeutic class. In order to enhance the benefits of DTCA, it is important to closely monitor the messages in DTCA and require it to include messages that promote lifestyle change should it be a part of the treatment.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.483-490
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• 2020

The ubiquitin system uses ligases and deubiquitinases (DUBs) to regulate ubiquitin position on protein substrates and is involved in many biological processes which determine stability, activity, and interaction of the target substrate. DUBs are classified in six groups according to catalytic domain, namely ubiquitin-specific proteases (USPs); ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolases (UCHs); ovarian tumor proteases (OTUs); Machado Joseph Disease proteases (MJDs); motif interacting with Ub (MIU)-containing novel DUB family (MINDY); and Jab1/MPN/MOV34 metalloenzymes (JAMMs). Otubain 1 (OTUB1) is a DUB in the OTU family which possesses both canonical and non-canonical activity and can regulate multiple cellular signaling pathways. In this review, we describe the function of OTUB1 through regulation of its canonical and non-canonical activities in multiple specifically cancer-associated pathways. The canonical activity of OTUB1 inhibits protein ubiquitination by cleaving Lys48 linkages while its non-canonical activity prevents ubiquitin transfer onto target proteins through binding to E2-conjugating enzymes, resulting in the induction of protein deubiquitination. OTUB1 can therefore canonically and non-canonically promote tumor cell proliferation, invasion, and drug resistance through regulating FOXM1, ERα, KRAS, p53, and mTORC1. Moreover, clinical research has demonstrated that OTUB1 overexpresses with high metastasis in many tumor types including breast, ovarian, esophageal squamous, and glioma. Therefore, OTUB1 has been suggested as a diagnosis marker and potential therapeutic target for oncotherapy.

• Therapeutic Science for Rehabilitation
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.23-39
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• 2022

Objective : To summarize clinical and demographic variables and machine learning uses for predicting functional outcomes of patients with stroke. Methods : We searched PubMed, CINAHL and Web of Science to identify published articles from 2010 to 2021. The search terms were "machine learning OR data mining AND stroke AND function OR prediction OR/AND rehabilitation". Articles exclusively using brain imaging techniques, deep learning method and articles without available full text were excluded in this study. Results : Nine articles were selected for this study. Support vector machines (19.05%) and random forests (19.05%) were two most frequently used machine learning models. Five articles (55.56%) demonstrated that the impact of patient initial and/or discharge assessment scores such as modified ranking scale (mRS) or functional independence measure (FIM) on stroke patients' functional outcomes was higher than their clinical characteristics. Conclusions : This study showed that patient initial and/or discharge assessment scores such as mRS or FIM could influence their functional outcomes more than their clinical characteristics. Evaluating and reviewing initial and or discharge functional outcomes of patients with stroke might be required to develop the optimal therapeutic interventions to enhance functional outcomes of patients with stroke.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.729-736
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• 2010

In this study, a magnetic stimulation (MS) device with controllable pulse forming technology and pulse shape (MS) is described. The MS device uses an IGBT with appropriate snubbers to switch coil currents up to 6 kA, enabling pulse forming technology control from 5 s to over 100 s. The induced electric field pulses use 2% - 34% less energy and generate 57% - 67% less coil heating compared to matched conventional cosine pulses. MS is used to stimulate rhesus monkey motor cortex in vivo with pulse forming technology of 20 to 100 s, demonstrating the expected decrease of threshold pulse amplitude with increasing pulse forming technology. The technological solutions used in the MS prototype can expand functionality, and reduce power consumption and coil heating in MS, enhancing its research and therapeutic applications.

• Journal of Music and Human Behavior
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.93-102
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• 2008

In Jungian theory the developmental stages of human life are symbolized as a circle that represents the wholeness, and the open ended process towards the wholeness is called Individuation. In the belief that every human being has his or her own "Music Child" that represents one of the creative, genuine, healthy cores of the self, we are all musical beings, and each individual has his or her own relationship to music. Musical individuation therefore refers an open-ended process towards the wholeness in music. Being a Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapist, who values the therapeutic essence of innate creativity and uses improvisational music to maximize it, helped me realize that not only the client but also the therapist has to reach his or her own musical self, Music Child, in order to facilitate any change or growth through music. This realization led me to start a journey towards my own musical individuation. Hence, this essay is a very personal document illustrating my ongoing journey towards musical individuation that will allow me to become more whole and genuine in music.