• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.177-183
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• 2000

We examined the neurotoxic effects of 3 glutathione (GSH) depletors, buthionine sulfoximine (BSO), diethyl maleate (DEM) and phorone, under the presence of trolox, cycloheximide (CHX), pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (PDTC) or MK-801 in primary mouse cortical cell cultures. All three depletors induced neuronal death in dose and exposure time dependent manner, and decreased total cellular GSH contents. The patterns of the neuronal death and the GSH decrements were dependent on the individual agents. DEM $(200\;{\mu}M)$ induced rapid and irreversible decrement of the GSH. BSO (1 mM) also decreased the GSH irreversibly but the rate of decrement was more progressive than that of DEM. Phorone (1 mM) reduced the GSH content to 40% by 4 hr exposure, that is comparable to the decrement of BSO, but the GSH recovered and reached over the control value by 36 hr exposure. BSO showed a minimal neurotoxicity $(0{\sim}10%)$ at the end of 24 hr exposure, but marked neuronal cell death at the end of 48 hr exposure. The BSO (1 mM)-induced neurotoxicity was markedly inhibited by trolox or CHX and partially attenuated by MK-801. DEM induced dose-dependent cytotoxicity at the end of 24 hr exposure. Over the doses of $400\;{\mu}M,$ glial toxicity also appeared. DEM $(200\;{\mu}M)-induced$ neurotoxicity was markedly inhibited by trolox or PDTC. Phorone (1 mM) induced moderate neurotoxicity (40%) at the end of 48 hr exposure. Only CHX showed significant inhibitory effect on the phorone-induced neurotoxicity. These results suggest that the GSH depletors induce neuronal injury via different mechanisms and that GSH depletors should be carefully employed in the researches of neuronal oxidative injuries.

• International Journal of Oral Biology
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.183-190
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• 2016

Anthricin (Deoxypodophyllotoxin), a naturally occurring flavolignan, has well known anti-cancer properties in several cancer cells, such as prostate cancer, cervical carcinoma and pancreatic cancer. However, the effects of Anthricin are currently unknown in oral cancer. We examined the anticancer effect and mechanism of action of Anthricin in human FaDu hypopharyngeal squamous carcinoma cells. Our data showed that Anthricin inhibits cell viability in a dose- and time-dependent manner ($IC_{50}$ 50 nM) in the MTT assay and Live & Dead assay. In addition, Anthricin treated FaDu cells showed marked apoptosis by DAPI stain and FACS. Furthermore, Anthricin activates anti-apoptotic factors such as caspase-3, -9 and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP), suggesting that caspase-mediated pathways are involved in Anthricin- induced apoptosis. Anthricin treatment also leads to accumulation of the pro-apoptotic factor Bax, followed by inhibition of cell growth. Taken together, these results indicate that Anthricn-induced cell death of human FaDu hypopharyngeal squamous carcinoma cells is mediated by mitochondrial-dependent apoptotic pathway. In summary, our findings provide a framework for further exploration on Anthricin as a novel chemotherapeutic drug for human oral cancer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.57-58
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• 2008

We have studied an organic layer and semitransparent Al electrode thickness dependent optical properties and microcavity effects for top-emission organic light-emitting diodes. Manufactured top-emission device structure is Al(100nm)/TPD(xnm)/Alq(ynm)/LiF(0.5nm)/Al(25nm). While a thickness of total organic layer was varied from 85nm to 165n, a ratio of those two layers was kept to be about 2:3. Semitransparent Al cathode was varied from 20nm to 30nm for the device with an organic layer total thickness of 140nm. As the thickness of total organic layer increases, the emission spectra show a shift of peak wavelength from 490nm to 580nm, and the full width at half maxima from 90nm to 35nm. The emission spectra show a blue shift as the view angle increases. Emission spectra depending on a transmittance of semitransparent cathode show a shift of peak wavelength from 515nm to 593nm. At this time, the full width at half maximum was about to be a constant of 50nm. With this kind of microcavity effect, we were able to control the emission spectra from the top-emission organic light-emitting diodes.

• Atmosphere
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.233-243
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• 2012

The Barnes scheme is used in Digital Forecast System (DFS) of the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) for real-time analysis. This scheme is an objective analysis scheme with a distance-dependent weighted average. It has been widely used for mesoscale analyses in limited geographic areas. The isotropic Gaussian weight function with a constant effective radius might not be suitable for certain conditions. In particular, the analysis error can be increased for stations located near mountains. The terrain of South Korea is covered with mountains and wide plains that are between successive mountain ranges. Thus, it is needed to consider the terrain effect with the information of elevations for each station. In order to improve the accuracy of the temperature objective analysis, we modified the weight function which is dependent on a distance and elevation in the Barnes scheme. We compared the results from the Barnes scheme used in the DFS (referred to CTL) with the new scheme (referred to EXP) during a year of 2009 in this study. The analysis error of the temperature field was verified by the root-mean-square-error (RMSE), mean error (ME), and Priestley skill score (PSS) at the DFS observation stations which is not used in objective analysis. The verification result shows that the RMSE and ME values are 1.68 and -0.41 in CTL and 1.42 and -0.16 in EXP, respectively. In aspect of spatial verification, we found that the RSME and ME values of EXP decreased in the vicinity of Jirisan (Mt. Jiri) and Taebaek Mountains. This indicates that the new scheme performed better in temperature verification during the year 2009 than the previous scheme.

• Progress in Superconductivity
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.127-131
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• 2007

We have measured the Hall conductivity (${\sigma}_{xy}$) of c-axis-oriented $MgB_2$ thin films as functions of temperatures and magnetic fields. We found that the Hall conductivity (${\sigma}_{xy}$) is expressed by the sum of two terms, ${\sigma}_{xy}=C_l/H+C_3H$, where the coefficient $C_1\;and\;C_3$ are independent of the magnetic fields and have positive values. The coefficient $C_1$ is strongly dependent on the temperature, while the $C_3$ is weakly dependent on the temperature. We have obtained that the $C_1$ is proportional to $(1- T/T_c)^n$ with n = 4.2, which is consistent with the data observed in $La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_4$ superconductors with low anisotropy ratio.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Applied Pharmacology
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• 2002.07a
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• pp.203-203
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• 2002

Rheum palmatum L. has been used for treatment of hypertension, lipemia, and paramenia in the oriental gerbal medicines for a long time. We have examined the relaxational response to the water extract of Rheum palmaum L. in isolated thoracic aorta from sprague dawley (SD) rat in the presence and absence of endothelium. Rat thoracic aorta was investigated in vessel segments suspended for isometric tension recording by polygraph. Responses to Rhizoma Rhei were investigated in vessels precontracted with 5-hydroxytryptamine. We found that the ghoracic aorta segments responded to the water extract of Rheum palmatum L. (ERP) with a dose-dependent vasorelaxation. We found that 1.The thoracic aorta sehments responded to ERP with a dose-dependent vasodiliation. 2.The 5-HT induced contraction at 10$\^$-4/M were inhibited by 85.8% after addition of the 0.1 g/mL water extract of ERP. 3. The 5-HT induced contraction at 10$\^$-4/ M with and without endothelium were inhibited by 86.4% and 85.8% after addition of the 0.1g/mL ERP. 4. After pre-treatment of the thoracic aorta with 10$\^$-4/M N$\^$G/-monomethyl-L-arginine(L-NMMA), inducible niric oxide synthase inhibitor, the vessels has not response to the contraction. In conclusion, ERP induced reaxation in the isolated rat thoracic aorta were composed of dose-dependent relaxation. and it has potent vasodilation.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.41-50
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• 2009

Fucoidan is a uniquely-structured sulfated fucose-rich polysaccharide derived from brown algae. Recently, the abalone glycosidase-digested fucoidan extract (fucoidan extract) derived from seaweed Cladosiphon novae-caledoniae Kylin (Mozuku) draws much attention because of its clinical anti-cancer effect in Japan. Here, we report the cancer cells-specific apoptosis inducing effects of the fucoidan extract. The fucoidan extract suppressed the growth of various anchorage-dependent and -independent cancer cells. The fucoidan extract contained low molecular weight components, which induced apoptosis of human leukemic HL 60 cells but not of human lymphocytes. It was shown that the fucoidan extract lead caspase 3/7 activation and loss of mitochondrial membrane potential in HL 60 cells. Another function of the fucoidan extract was also observed. It has been known that sugar chain expression on the surface of cancer cell membrane changes dependent on their malignancy. The analysis on sugar chain expression profiling using FITC-labeled lectins revealed that the expression of concanavalin A (Con A) binding sugar chain was enhanced by the treatment of human lung adenocarcinoma A549, human uterine carcinoma HeLa and human fibrosarcoma HT1080 cells with the fucoidan extract. Con A-induced apoptosis of cancer cells was stimulated in a dose-and time-dependent manner by the treatment with the fucoidan extract but not of human normal fibroblast TIG-1 cells.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.312-318
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• 2006

The conventional lip-synch system has a two-step process, speech segmentation and recognition. However, the difficulty of speech segmentation procedure and the inaccuracy of training data set due to the segmentation lead to a significant Performance degradation in the system. To cope with that, the connected vowel recognition method using Head-Body-Tail (HBT) model is proposed. The HBT model which is appropriate for handling relatively small sized vocabulary tasks reflects co-articulation effect efficiently. Moreover the 7 vowels are merged into 3 classes having similar lip shape while the system is optimized by employing a class dependent SCHMM structure. Additionally in both end sides of each word which has large variations, 8 components Gaussian mixture model is directly used to improve the ability of representation. Though the proposed method reveals similar performance with respect to the CHMM based on the HBT structure. the number of parameters is reduced by 33.92%. This reduction makes it a computationally efficient method enabling real time operation.

• Animal cells and systems
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.99-106
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• 1998

In this study, we have examined the role of cAMP in gap junctional communication (GJC) in preimplantation mouse embryos. GJC was monitored by Lucifer Yellow (LY) injected into one blastomere of compacted embryos. The speed of GJC was defined as the time taken for the last blastomere of the embryo to become visibly fluorescent. The median time for 8-cell embrvos (140 sec) was similar to that for 16-cell (135 sec). To determine whether cAMP and cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) are involved in the regulation of GJC, the effects of PKA inhibitor (H8) and cAMP analogues (Rp-cAMP and 8-Br-cAMP) on dye transfer between blastomeres of compacted embryos were examined. Some of the embryos treated with either H8 or Rp-cAMP failed to transfer LY to all blastomeres within 10 min. In contrast, 8-Br-cAMP speeded up fluorescent dye transfer. The median time to fill all blastomeres with LY was 140 sec in untreated controls and 90 sec in siblings treated with 8-Br-cAMP. Inhibition of PKA by H8 or Rp-cAMP induced delay or arrest in embryo development after compaction, but the increase of intracellular cAMP showed no effect. These findings suggest that GJC in preimplantation mouse embryos is regulated by cAMP-PKA pathway and transient interference by PKA inhibitors induces the developmental delay beyond compaction.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.109-115
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• 1986

Experiments were performed on mice to investigate the effects of a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, 3-methylcholanthrene (MCA) on Arthus reaction, delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) and antibody production to sheep red blood cells (SRBC). Mice were sensitized iv with 0.1ml of 1% SRBC suspension were treated with a single ip injection of olive oil alone or with different doses of MCA in oil (0.5~50mg/Kg) at various time before (-) or after (+) sensitization (day 0) and were challenged at 4 days after SRBC. Arthus reaction was measured at 3 hours after challenge and other responses at 24 hours. Treatment with MCA inhibited Arthus reaction and DTH to SRBC, measured by footpad swelling reaction, and this immunosuppressing effect was dependent on the dose and time of MCA treatment in relation to SRBC sensitization. Humoral immune responses as measured by serum hemagglutinin-and hemolysin-titers to SRBC were significantly depressed when MCA was injected before or at the same time of sensitization. However, the response was slightly depressed when injected after SRBC. These results indicate that MCA suppress the function of the cells involved in immune responses.