• International Journal of Oral Biology
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2009

Cyclosporin A (CsA) has been used clinically as an immunosuppressive drug to prevent organ transplant rejection and in basic research as a mitochondrial permeability blocker. It has been reported that CsA has a protective role in severed neurons and a neurotrophic effect in neuronal cells. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the stimulation of neuronal cell proliferation by CsA have not yet been elucidated. In our current study, we investigated CsA responsive proteins in PC12 cells using a systematic proteomic approach. The viability of these cells following CsA treatment increased in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Proteins in the CsA-treated PC12 cells were profiled by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) and identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of flight (MALDI-TOF) and electrospray ionization quadupole time-of-flight mass spectrometries (EIQ-TOFMS). This differential expression analysis showed significant changes for 10 proteins (6 up-regulated and 4 down-regulated) upon CsA treatment that were related to cell proliferation, metabolism and the stress response. These proteomics data further our understanding of the proliferation mechanisms of PC12 cells exposed to CsA and demonstrate that our methodology has potential to further elucidate the mechanisms and pathways involved.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.1672-1677
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• 2004

Leading edge extension(LEX) in a highly swept shape applied to a delta wing features the modem air-fighters. The LEX vortices generated upon the upper surface of the wing at high angle of attack enhance the lift force of the delta wing by way of increased negative suction pressure over the surfaces. The present 3-D stereo PIV includes the Identification of 2-D cross-correlation equation, stereo matching of 2-D velocity vectors of two cameras, accurate calculation of 3-D velocity vectors by homogeneous coordinate system, removal of error vectors by a statistical method followed by a continuity equation criterion and so on. A delta wing model with or without LEX was immersed in a circulating water channel. Two high-resolution, high-speed digital cameras($1280pixel{\times}1024pixel$) were used to allow the time-resolved animation work. The present dynamic stereo PIV represents the complicated vortex behavior, especially, in terms of time-dependent characteristics of the vortices at given measuring sections. Quantities such as three velocity vector components, vorticity and other flow information can be easily visualized via the 3D time-resolved post-processing to make the easy understanding of the LEX effect or vortex emerging and collapse which are important phenomena occurring in the field of delta wing aerodynamics.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.17-36
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• 2013

Settlement of the piled raft can be estimated even after years of completing the construction of any structure over the foundation. This study is devoted to carry out numerical analysis by the finite element method of the consolidation settlement of piled rafts over clayey soils and detecting the dissipation of excess pore water pressure and its effect on bearing capacity of piled raft foundations. The ABAQUS computer program is used as a finite element tool and the soil is represented by the modified Drucker-Prager/cap model. Five different configurations of pile groups are simulated in the finite element analysis. It was found that the settlement beneath the piled raft foundation resulted from the dissipation of excess pore water pressure considerably affects the final settlement of the foundation, and enough attention should be paid to settlement variation with time. The settlement behavior of unpiled raft shows bowl shaped settlement profile with maximum at the center. The degree of curvature of the raft under vertical load increases with the decrease of the raft thickness. For the same vertical load, the differential settlement of raft of ($10{\times}10m$) size decreases by more than 90% when the raft thickness increased from 0.75 m to 1.5 m. The average load carried by piles depends on the number of piles in the group. The groups of ($2{\times}1$, $3{\times}1$, $2{\times}2$, $3{\times}2$, and $3{\times}3$) piles were found to carry about 24%, 32%, 42%, 58%, and 79% of the total vertical load. The distribution of load between piles becomes more uniform with the increase of raft thickness.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.26 no.9
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• pp.747-755
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• 2003

The aim of the present study was to clarify whether cotinine affects the release of catecholamines (CA) from the isolated perfused rat adrenal gland, and to establish the mechanism of its action, in comparison with the response of nicotine. Cotinine (0.3∼3 mM), when perfused into an adrenal vein for 60 min, inhibited CA secretory responses evoked by ACh (5.32 mM), DMPP (a selective neuronal nicotinic agonist, 100 $\mu$M for 2 min) and McN-A-343 (a selective muscarinic $M_1 -agonist, 100 \mu$ M for 2 min) in dose- and time-dependent manners. However, cotinine did not affect CA secretion by high $K^+$ (56 mM). Cotinine itself also failed to affect basal CA output. Furthermore, in the presence of cotinine (1 mM), CA secretory responses evoked by Bay-K-8644 (an activator of L-type $Ca^{2+}$ channels, 10 $\mu$ M) and cyclopiazonic acid (an inhibitor of cytoplasmic $Ca^{2+}-ATPase, 10 \mu$ M) were relative time-dependently attenuated. However, nicotine (30$\mu$ M), given into the adrenal gland for 60 min, initially rather enhanced CA secretory responses evoked by ACh and high $K^+$, followed by the inhibition later, while it time-dependently depressed the CA release evoked by McN-A-343 and DMPP. Taken together, these results suggest that cotinine inhibits greatly CA secretion evoked by stimulation of cholinergic (both nicotinic and muscarinic) receptors, but does fail to affect that by the direct membrane-depolarization. It seems that this inhibitory effect of cotinine may be exerted by the cholinergic blockade, which is associated with blocking both the calcium influx into the rat adrenal medullary chromaffin cells and $Ca^{2+}$ release from the cytoplasmic calcium store. It also seems that there is a big difference in the mode of action between cotinine and nicotine in the rat adrenomedullary CA secretion.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.637-644
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• 2021

Dynamic response of structures can be evaluated experimentally by conducting cyclic loading tests. It has been known that steel materials are rate-dependent and the lateral response of a structure is significantly affected by the presence of axial force. However, the rate-dependency of steel column structures subjected to both axial and lateral loads has not been sufficiently studied yet due to the difficulty of controlling the axial force in a real-time manner during test. This study introduces an advanced way to apply the axial load in real-time to a column specimen using the adaptive time series (ATS) compensator and the flexible loading beam (FLB), where the H-shape steel columns made of SS275 are used for monotonic and cyclic loading tests with various loading rates with axial loads. The lateral strength and post-yield response of the steel columns are compared for each of monotonic and cyclic loading tests. The estimating equation of yield stress of various strain rate has proposed and finite element analysis were performed for comparison.

• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.238-244
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• 2002

Protective effect of skin by antioxidative dietary buchu (Chinese chives, Allium tuberosum Router), was evaluated in ICR mice fed diets containing 2% or 5% buchu for 12 months. Lipid peroxidation and protein oxidation in skin, with or without ultraviolet B (UVB) irradiation, activities of antioxidative enzymes, total glutathione concentrations, and non-soluble collagen contents were measured. Dietary buchu decreased significantly in TBARS and protein carbonyl levels in skin compared to the control group, and were lower in those fed 5% than 2% buchu diet group. ICR mice exhibited an age-dependent decrease in antioxidative enzyme activities and total glutathione concentrations on the control diet, but in the groups fed buchu diet the enzyme activities and glu-tathione concentrations remained at youthful levels for most of the study. SOD, glutathione peroxidase, and catalase activities as well as total glutathione concentrations increased with time in the skins of the mice fed buchu diets. Lipid peroxidation and protein oxidation provoked by UVB irradiation on ICR mice skin homogenates were also significantly inhibited by dietary buchu. The buchu diets also decreased the formation of non-soluble collagen in mice skin, compared to the control group. These results suggest that antioxidative components and sulfur-compounds in buchu may confer protective effect against oxidative stress resulting from aging and exposure to ultraviolet irradiation.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.134-137
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• 2018

S100A8 and S100A9 are involved in pathogenesis of cancer by induction or inhibition of cancer as well as inflammation. In this study, we investigated the association of S100A8 and S100A9 with pathogenesis of leukemia using human monocytic leukemia cells, THP-1. The expression of TLR4, which is a known receptor of S100A8 and S100A9, was examined by using flow cytometry and Western blotting. THP-1 cells have high surface and cytosol expression of TLR4. S100A8 and S100A9 suppressed the cell survival, and this suppression was found to be associated with apoptosis because they increased the number of apoptotic cells in a dose- and a time-dependent manners. However, S100A8 and S100A9 had no effect on the survival and apoptosis of monocytes isolated from the peripheral blood. We next examined the apoptotic effect of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and monophosphoryl lipid A (MPLA), which are other ligands of TLR4, in THP-1 cells. Lipopolysaccharide had no effect on cell survival, but MPLA is effective on the cell apoptosis. These results suggest that S100A8 and S100A9 may regulate leukemia cell survival via TLR4, which is an essential receptor in the pro-apoptotic mechanism induced by S100A8 and S100A9. These findings may shed light on development of a possible therapeutic drug for leukemia treatment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.415.2-415.2
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• 2016

Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is one of ways to convert mechanical energy sound, waves, wind, vibrations, and human motions to available electrical energy. The principal mechanism to generate electrical energy is based on contact electrification on material surface and electrostatic induction between electrodes. The performance of TENG are dependent on amount of the input mechanical energy and characteristics of triboelectric materials. Furthermore, the whole TENG system including mechanical structure and electrical system can effect on output performance of TENG. In this work, we investigated the effect of gear train on output performance and power conversion efficiency (PCE) of TENG under a given input energy. We applied the gear train on mechanical structure to improve the contact rate. We measured the output energy under a constant input energy by controlling the size of the working gear. We prepared gears with gear ratios (rin/rw) of 1, 1.7, and 5. Under the constant input energy, the voltage and current from our gear-based TENG system were enhanced up to the maximum of 3.6 times and 4.4 times, respectively. Also, the PCE was increased up to 7 times at input frequency of 1.5 Hz. In order to understand the effect of kinematic design on TENG system, we performed a capacitor experiment with rectification circuit that provide DC voltage and current. Under the input frequency of 4.5 Hz, we obtained a 3 times enhanced rectifying voltage at a gear ratio of 5. The measured capacitor voltage was enhanced up to about 8 fold in using our TENG system. It is attributed that our gear-based TENG system could improve simultaneously the magnitude as well as the generation time of output power, finally enhancing output energy. Therefore, our gear-based TENG system provided an effective way to enhance the PCE of TENGs operating at a given input energy.

• Environmental Mutagens and Carcinogens
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2004

Three D-type cyelins (D1, D2, and D3) are expressed in G1 phase of the cell cyele and have been implicated in cell transformation and neoplasia in human and mouse. Cyclin D1 overexpression or amplification was described in various human cancers. However, there is controversy about the role of cyclin D2 in cell cyele progression and human carcinogenesis. Specially, loss of cyelin D2 is involved in a vital tumor suppressor function in normal breast tissue, and that its loss may be related to tumorigenesis. The author examined to effect over-expression of cyclin D2 on the cell proliferation, apoptosis, and cell cycle using cyclin D2 transfected stable T47D breast cancer cells to investigate whether cyclinD2 functions as a positive regulator or negative regulator in cell proliferation. Overexpression of cyclin D2 led to the suppression of cell growth in cyclin D2 transfected T47D in both in its expression level and a time dependent manner with up to 50% reduction of cell growth at 72 hours. Therefore, the authors performed the cell cycle phase analysis using the flow cytometry to investigate the effect of cyclin D2 on the cell cycle phase in cyclin D2 transfected stable T47D cells. The flow cytometry analysis revealed increased sub G0 phase in cyclin D2 transfeted cells up to 23% at 72 hours. To confirm these results induced by overexpression of cyclinD2, the apoptotic bodies were counted in control and cyclin D2 transfected T47 cells. There are markedly increases of apoptotic bodies in cyclin D2-transfected cells up to 18%. These results suggested that Cyclin D2 suppresses the cell proliferation in breast cancers cells via the induction of apotosis.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.123-133
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• 2001

Objective : This study was undertaken to determine whether Cordyceps sinensis Sacc. (CSS) extract exerts the protective effect against oxidant-induced alterations in membrane transport function in renal tubules. Methods : Membrane transport fucntion was estimated by examining alterations in p-aminohippurate (PAH) uptake in rabbit renal cortical slices. For induction oxidative stress, slices were treated with an organic peroxide cumene hydroperoxide for 60 min at $37^{\circ}C$. Cumene hydroperoxide inhibited PAH uptake in a time dependent manner. Results : CSS at 0.5-5% concentrations prevented cumene hydroperoxide-induced inhibition of PAH uptake. CSS at 1% also attenuated LDH release and lipid peroxidation induced by cumene hydroperoxide. When slices were treated with 0.2 mM mercury chloride, PAH uptake was inhibited and lipid peroxidation was increased. These changes by mercury were significantly prevented by CSS. Conclusion : These results suggest that CSS prevents oxidant-induced alterations in membrane transport function in rabbit renal cortical slices. Such protective effect of CSS may be attributed to inhibition of peroxidation of membrane lipid.