• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.481-487
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• 2007

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) induce innate immune responses that are essential for host defenses against invading microbial pathogens, thus leading to the activation of adaptive immune responses. In general, TLRs have two major downstream signaling pathways: the MyD88- and TRIF-dependent pathways, which lead to the activation of $NF-{\kappa}B$ and IRF3. Numerous studies have demonstrated that certain phytochemicals possessing anti-inflammatory effects inhibit $NF-{\kappa}B$ activation induced by pro-inflammatory stimuli, including lipopolysaccharides and $TNF{\alpha}$. However, the direct molecular targets for such anti-inflammatory phytochemicals have not been fully identified. Identifying the direct targets of phytochemicals within the TLR pathways is important because the activation of TLRs by pro-inflammatory stimuli can induce inflammatory responses that are the key etiological conditions in the development of many chronic inflammatory diseases. In this paper we discuss the molecular targets of resveratrol, (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), and curcumin in the TLR signaling pathways. Resveratrol specifically inhibited the TRIF pathway in TLR3 and TLR4 signaling, by targetting TBK1 and RIP1 in the TRIF complex. Furthermore, EGCG suppressed the activation of IRF3 by targetting TBK1 in the TRIF-dependent signaling pathways. In contrast, the molecular target of curcumin within the TLR signaling pathways is the receptor itself, in addition to $IKK{\beta}$. Together, certain dietary phytochemicals can modulate TLR-derived signaling and inflammatory target gene expression, and in turn, alter susceptibility to microbial infection and chronic inflammatory diseases.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.109-114
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• 2011

The number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), especially those involved with research and development (R&D) programs and employed virtual teams to create the greatest competitive advantage from limited labor are increasing. Global and localized virtual R&D teams are believed to have high potential for the growth of SMEs. Due to the fast-growing complexity of new products coupled with new emerging opportunities of virtual teams, a collaborative approach is believed to be the future trend. This research explores the effectiveness of virtuality in SMEs' virtual R&D teams. Online questionnaires were emailed to Malaysian manufacturing SMEs and 74 usable questionnaires were received, representing a 20.8 percent return rate. In order to avoid biases which may result from pre-suggested answers, a series of open-ended questions were retrieved from the experts. This study was focused on analyzing an open-ended question, whereby four main themes were extracted from the experts' recommendations regarding the effectiveness of virtual teams for the growth and performance of SMEs. The findings of this study would be useful to product design managers of SMEs in order to realize the key advantages and significance of virtual R&D teams during the new product development (NPD) process. This is turn, leads to increased effectiveness in new product development's procedure.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 2009

In this study we tried to construct a more efficient tetracycline-inducible gene expression system by replacing previous key elements with more advance ones. At the beginning, we substituted PGK (phophoglycerate kinase) promoter for CMV (cytomegalovirus) promoter to control "$rtTA2^sM2$" which has been known for high induction efficiency in response to tetracycline. With this modification, expression of the EGFP marker gene under the induction condition was significantly increased. Next, we replaced "TRE" fragment with a modified version named "TRE-tighf" which has been reported to have higher affinity and specificity to the transactivator by minor base change of the "TRE" DNA fragment sequence. Use of "TRE-tighf" instead of "TRE" resulted in more than 10 fold increment in terms of induction efficiency and significant decrement of background expression in non-inducible condition. By combining PGK promoter and "TRE-tight" fragment, we could upgrade previous tetracycline-inducible system to show more stringent turn on/off gene switch ability and stronger expression of the gene of our interest. Use of this newly developed system must be very helpful to the studies of gene expression, especially to the transgenic animal study in which non-controllable constitutive expression of the transgene has been one of the urgent problems to be solved.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.611-624
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• 2015

Humanities-collaborated practices in various fields have been supported by several governmental policies as a way to overcome recent social problems. Museum, due to its roles in preserving and sharing cultural and historical heritage for the development of society and communities, has emerged as a key base for the humanities-collaborated practices. This study, in this context, aimed to analyze how the humanities-based museum education programs have been practiced in the museums, which, in turn, might provide a basic data for the future direction and development of the programs and the related governmental policy as well. For this purpose, this study first examined theoretical framework for the link between humanities and museum education, from which a survey was developed. The survey was conducted to 75 museum educators who have been in charge of humanities-based educational programs. The result showed that most programs seemed to reflect the basic direction and purpose of the humanities-linked with museum education. Yet, more needs were found in terms of the educational themes and methods which can facilitate multicultural literacy and reflective thinking and activities within experiential learning environments.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.25-33
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• 2019

Purpose - With the economic development in China, the lifestyle of Chinese customers has changed dramatically. Chinese customers are more likely to have coffee in a shop with the ability to make them happy than those with high quality coffee in a nice physical environment. Happiness becomes a critical driver of customers' intention to purchase a cup of coffee in a specific coffee shop again and again. As a result, happiness becomes an important factor for managers to make strategies for attracting customers. Although managers and scholars pay more attention to emphasize the importance of happiness in customers' consumption, little research has been conducted to investigate the relationship between happiness and coffee shop's continuous usage intention in the Chinese coffee industry. Research design, data, and methodology - A research model is made to explain the impact of happiness on customer's behavior. To understand the influence of happiness better, we consider two dimensions of happiness which are subjective well-being and psychological well-being. In order to confirm the relationships of the variables in the research model, the online survey is constructed in China. Customers who have experienced the services in a coffee shop are asked to do the questionnaire. With 453 reliable questionnaires, structural equation modeling is used to analyze the causal relationships of the coffee quality, physical environment, subjective well-being, psychological well-being, and continuous usage intention. Results - Results indicate that coffee quality and physical environment are not the direct factors that influence customers' continuous usage intention. However, good coffee quality and physical environment are the significant predictors of Chinese customers' happiness associated with subjective well-being and psychological well-being, which in turn affects customers' continuous usage intention. Conclusions - In this study, it is proposed that coffee quality and physical environment may be the key factors influencing customers' happiness. Happiness, including subjective well-being and psychological well-being matters in decision making process. More importantly, happiness increases the continuous usage intention when the coffee shop can serve customers with higher quality coffee at a good atmospheric place. Managers should consider happiness as an important factor in making marketing strategies to compete in this industry.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.81-89
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• 2014

Approximately 8.5 million tons of fly ash and 740,000 tons of briquette ash were produced in 2010. Inefficient recycling of coal ash has been a heavy economic and environmental burden and economical coal ash utilization technologies are required to turn coal ash into valuable resources. In this study the patents and literature were analyzed to understand the present situation of coal ash recycling technologies and to promote utilization of coal ash for producing a non-sintering green cement, geopolymer. The survey was based on the open patents of USA, European Union, Japan and Korea, and the papers in SCI - indexed journals published between 1979 and 2013. Technical key words were used for data collection and noise filtering. Trends of recycling technologies in utilization of coal ash for producing geopolymers were discussed in terms of time periods, countries, companies and various forms of technologies.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.88-103
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• 2017

The rapid growth in the popularity of social media sites has meant that social media has become an important communication channel for brands. Brands create brand pages on social media to cultivate positive and strong relationships with consumers. This study seeks to enhance our understanding of how fashion brand pages in social media foster consumer-brand relationships by exploring the factors that affect the development of consumer-brand relationships. Drawing on the parasocial interaction theory, this study proposes parasocial interaction as a key factor of this process. Specifically, this study proposes four antecedents (vividness, interactivity, social presence, and focused attention) of consumers' parasocial interaction with brand pages, which further affects consumer responses in terms of affective engagement and brand loyalty. An online survey was administered with consumers who have followed and visited at least one fashion brand page via a social networking site (SNS). Structural equation modeling revealed that consumers' perceptions of vividness, interactivity, social presence, and focused attention on a fashion brand page positively affected their feelings towards parasocial interaction with the brand page, which in turn led to their affective engagement with the brand page and consequent brand loyalty. These findings suggest that consumers build relationships of varying degrees with brand pages in a similar manner to that with people, which leads to their development of a positive relationship with the brand. This study concludes with discussions and practical implications.

• The Journal of Advanced Prosthodontics
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.51-55
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• 2015

PURPOSE. Bone density at implant placement site is a key factor to obtain the primary stability of the fixture, which, in turn, is a prognostic factor for osseointegration and long-term success of an implant supported rehabilitation. Recently, an implant motor with a bone density measurement probe has been introduced. The aim of the present study was to test the objectiveness of the bone densities registered by the implant motor regardless of the operator performing them. MATERIALS AND METHODS. A total of 3704 bone density measurements, performed by means of the implant motor, were registered by 39 operators at different implant sites during routine activity. Bone density measurements were grouped according to their distribution across the jaws. Specifically, four different areas were distinguished: a pre-antral (between teeth from first right maxillary premolar to first left maxillary premolar) and a sub-antral (more distally) zone in the maxilla, and an interforaminal (between and including teeth from first left mandibular premolar to first right mandibular premolar) and a retroforaminal (more distally) zone in the lower one. A statistical comparison was performed to check the inter-operators variability of the collected data. RESULTS. The device produced consistent and operator-independent bone density values at each tooth position, showing a reliable bone-density measurement. CONCLUSION. The implant motor demonstrated to be a helpful tool to properly plan implant placement and loading irrespective of the operator using it.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.126-135
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• 2009

Recently, operation of highway is the complex digital Infrastructure based on complicated IT. The application of IT is increasing more and more in digital Infrastructure. Though IT is very convenient, if unpredicted operating risk of highway occurs, widespread damage can be large. When operating risk of highway occurs, road users are out of smoothly-run service because of the operating interruption. This risk causes unpredicted operating management cost and additional maintenance cost. It will excess over the planned operating cost, which may leads to users's unsafety and operator's insolvency because of income loss. Until now, related studies to find out the risk are not sufficient. The purpose of this study is to suggest risk cost items and to estimate the reasonable risk cost by using simulation method in case of occurring the huge power failure at the operating digitalized highway. This study indicates the several plans to hedge against risk cost and the management of highway project. From now on, it will be used as basic data to confirm the soundness of operating system in Digital Infrastructure.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.2575-2580
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• 2013

In this paper, we watch out key measure of the level of transportation service about travel time and delay time. And we measured vehicle traffic by moving vehicle method using CCTV which is one of the travel time measure. We should be measured in place of continuous traffic flow characteristics with wide traffic light interval. In addition, traffic flow on the other side of the interval must be sufficiently identifiable and at the end of this section must be possible U-turn. This method it requires only the driver of the vehicle because of the CCTV measure. In addition, We cannot require time, distance, and traffic equipment that can be recorded. Because equipped with the software to do that. In addition to traffic, average travel time, average space speed, traffic density are also available.