• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.3639-3644
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• 2015

Oral, cervical and breast cancers, which are either preventable and/or amenable to early detection and treatment, are the leading causes of cancer-related morbidity and mortality in India. In this paper, we describe implementation science research priorities to catalyze the prevention and control of these cancers in India. Research priorities were organized using a framework based on the implementation science literature and the World Health Organization's definition of health systems. They addressed both community-level as well as health systems-level issues. Community-level or "pull" priorities included the need to identify effective strategies to raise public awareness and understanding of cancer prevention, monitor knowledge levels, and address fear and stigma. Health systems-level or "push" and "infrastructure" priorities included dissemination of evidence-based practices, testing of point-of-care technologies for screening and diagnosis, identification of appropriate service delivery and financing models, and assessment of strategies to enhance the health workforce. Given the extent of available evidence, it is critical that cancer prevention and treatment efforts in India are accelerated. Implementation science research can generate critical insights and evidence to inform this acceleration.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.3811-3816
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• 2015

Background: Hairy and enhancer of split 1 (Hes-1) protein is a downstream target of Notch signaling and is a basic helix-loop-helix transcriptional repressor. However, definitive evidence for a role in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells has not been reported. Here, Hes-1 was revealed to an important component of the Notch signaling cascade in HCC cell lines possessing different potential for lung metastasis. Materials and Methods: RNAi mediated by plasmid constructs was used to analyze the role of Hes-1 in MHCC-97L HCC cells by assessing proliferation, apoptosis, cell migration and matrigel invasion following transfection. Hes-1 protein expression analysis in HCC tissue was also conducted by immunohistochemistry. Results: Our studies revealed that Hes-1 was decreased in HCC cell lines with higher lung metastasis potential at both the mRNA and protein levels. Down-regulation of the Hes-1 gene in MHCC-97L cells resulted in increased cell proliferation, reduced apoptosis and increased migration and invasion. Conclusions: Hes-1 has potential prognostic value in post-surgical HCC patients and may be an independent prognostic indicator for overall survival and tumor recurrence. These findings have important implications for understanding the mechanisms by which Hes-1 participates in tumor proliferation and invasion.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.3667-3671
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• 2015

Invasion and metastasis is the major cause of tumor recurrence, difficulty for cure and low survival rate. Excavating key transcription factors, which can regulate tumor invasion and metastasis, are crucial to the development of therapeutic strategies for cancers. PU.1 is a master hematopoietic transcription factor and a vital regulator in life. Here, we report that, compared to adjacent non-cancerous tissues, expression of PU.1 mRNA in metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but not primary HCC, was significantly down-regulated. In addition, levels of PU.1 mRNA in metastatic hepatoma cell lines MHCC97L and MHCC97H were much lower than in non-metastatic Hep3B cells. Transwell invasion assays after PU.1 siRNA transfection showed that the invasion of hepatoma cell lines was increased markedly by PU.1 knockdown. Oppositely, overexpression of PU.1 suppressed the invasion of these cells. However, knockdown and overexpression of PU.1 did not influence proliferation. Finally, we tried to explore the potential mechanism of PU.1 suppressing hepatoma cell invasion. ChIP-qPCR analysis showed that PU.1 exhibited a high binding capacity with miR-615-5p promoter sequence. Overexpression of PU.1 caused a dramatic increase of pri-, pre- and mature miR-615-5p, as well as a marked decrease of miR-615-5p target gene IGF2. These data indicate that PU.1 inhibits invasion of human HCC through promoting miR-615-5p and suppressing IGF2. These findings improve our understanding of PU.1 regulatory roles and provided a potential target for metastatic HCC diagnosis and therapy.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.17
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• pp.7789-7794
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• 2015

Background: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of a community-based health education and communication programme on reducing liver fluke infections caused by the consumption of uncooked fish among people in a high-risk area of Thailand. Materials and Methods: The study was quasi-experimental in nature, with three-stages. Stage 1 involved a situational and capacity analysis of designated communities in Khon Kaen province. This was followed by the development of a model for community-based health education and communication to prevent liver fluke infections among high-risk people, and, lastly, implementation and evaluation of the model were performed. Data were collected using both qualitative and quantitative methods. In total, 390 people were surveyed, and quasi-experimental and comparison groups, each with 90 people, were assessed between May 2011 and April 2012. Analysis was using statistical OR, 95 % CI, the Willcoxon matched pairs signed ranks test, the chi-square test, and the Mann-Whitney U test. Results: The findings showed that most respondents had a high level of knowledge and understanding of liver fluke disease (89.5%, 95% CI:86.0-92.4), and positive attitudes toward the prevention of the disease (94.4%, 95% CI:91.6-96.4). However, with regard to changes in consumption of uncooked fish, most respondents were still in the pre-contemplation phase (55.1%, 95% CI:50.0-60.1), followed by the contemplation phase, 22.6%. Furthermore, four factors were found to be associated with the consumption of uncooked fish - the consumption of alcohol (OR 4.16, 95% CI:1.79-9.65), gender (OR 3.17, 95% CI:1.53-6.54), smoking (OR 3.03, 95% CI:1.31-7.05), and age 40 years and above (OR 2.68, 95% CI:1.02-7.05). After nine months of the health education and communication programme using local media based on local wisdom, culture and persons, the results showed that, compared to the control group, members of the experimental group had a higher level of knowledge, a better attitude and lower levels of ill-advised consumption behaviour. Also, it was found that consumption of uncooked fish, by an assessment of the level of stage of change, was reduced. (p-value 0.002). Conclusions: The health education and communication programme developed as part of the study was effective in changing the consumption of uncooked fish. Therefore, this approach should be promoted in other high-risk areas in Thailand in the future.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and Dermatology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.134-149
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• 2016

Objectives : Gal-Geun-Tang (GT) has been described from SANGHAN in Korean traditional medicine and known to act against cold, fever, hypertension, and nasal catarrh. However, little has yet been learned about the effect of GT on immune function. In the current study, in vitro and in vivo immunomodulatory activity of GT (water extract) was investigated.Methods : Water extract of GT induced in vitro proliferation of spleen cells and significantly increased their proliferative responses during anti-CD3 activation. Using purified splenic T and B cells, it was revealed that GT has a mitogenic activity to B cells and promotes their proliferation induced by lipopolysaccharide, whereas T cell proliferation was not triggered and GT was rather inhibitory to T cell activation caused by anti-CD3 antibody. In the presence of antigen presenting cells (APC), GT addition resulted in a significant increase of IFNγ and IL-4, but not IL-2, production. However, addition of high concentration (1,000㎍/㎖) of GT led to a marked reduction in T cell cytokine production and under such condition, GT facilitated apoptosis of T cells when examined by flow cytometry with propidium iodide staining.Results : In vivo immunomdulation of GT was also investigated using a mouse model. Following keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH) immunization, GT (1 ㎎/day) was orally administered for 9 days. Cell numbers in thymus, spleen and peripheral blood were not altered by GT administration, indicating that such dose is not immunotoxic. Cell numbers in draining lymph nodes (LN) and ex vivo Ag-specific proliferation of LN cells were significantly elevated by GT administration. However, any preferential stimulation of T or B and CD4⁺ or CD8⁺ T cell subpopulations was not observed in a flow cytometric analysis of LN cells. This result shows that GT does not promote in vivo B cell proliferation while GT enhances Ag-specific proliferation of LN cells, unlike what was observed in vitro.Conclusions : For a further understanding of in vivo immunomodulatory activity of GT, ex vivo cytokine production of LN cells obtained from KLH-immunized mice was evaluated. Ag-specific IFNγ production was significantly higher in GT-treated mice when compared to PBS-treated control mice. In contrast, IL-4 production in GT-treated group was comparable to control group unlike to in vitro data. In addition, GT administration did not result in any significant differences in serum levels of Ig (IgM, IgG1 and IgG2a) between GT-treated and control groups. Taken together, these data strongly support that GT promotes immune response, more profoundly type 1 helper T cell (Th1) activity and GT may be applicable for treatment of intracellular parasite infection such as viral diseases.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.69-83
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• 2018

The South China Sea (SCS) is a typical marginal sea characterized with the deep basin, shelf break, shallow shelf, many straits, and complex bathymetry. This study investigated the tidal characteristics and propagation, and reproduced typhoon-induced storm surge in this region using the regional real-time tide-surge model, which was based on the unstructured grid, resolving in detail the region of interest and forced by tide at the open boundary and by wind and air pressure at the surface. Typhoon Haiyan, which occurred in 2013 and caused great damage in the Philippines, was chosen as a case study to simulate typhoon's impact. Amplitudes and phases of four major constituents were reproduced reasonably in general, and the tidal distributions of four constituents were similar to the previous studies. The modelled tide seemed to be within the acceptable levels, considering it was difficult to reproduce the tide in this region based on the previous studies. The free oscillation experiment results described well the feature of tide that the diurnal tide is prevailing in the SCS. The tidal residual current and total energy dissipation were discussed to understand the tidal and sedimentary environments. The storm-surge caused by typhoon Haiyan was reasonably simulated using this modeling system. This study established the regional real-time barotropic tide/water level prediction system for the South China Sea including the seas around the Philippines through the validation of the model and the understanding of tidal characteristics.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2017.06a
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• pp.159-159
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• 2017

Drought, a common environmental constraint, induces a range of physiological, biochemical and molecular changes in plants, and can cause severe reductions in crop yield. Consequently, understanding the molecular mechanisms of drought tolerance is an important step towards crop biotechnology. Here, we report that the rice (Oryza sativa) homeodomain-leucine zipper class IV transcription factor gene, ${\underline{R}ice}$ ${\underline{o}utermost}$ ${\underline{c}ell-specific}$ gene 10 (Roc10), enhances drought tolerance and grain yield by increasing lignin accumulation in ground tissues. Overexpression of Roc10 in rice significantly increased drought tolerance at the vegetative stages of growth and promoted both more effective photosynthesis and a reduction in water loss rate, compared with non-transgenic controls or RNAi transgenic plants. Importantly, Roc10 overexpressing plants had a higher drought tolerance at the reproductive stage of growth and a higher grain yield compared with the controls under field-drought conditions. Roc10 is mainly expressed in outer cell layers including the epidermis and the vasculature of the shoots, which coincides with areas of cell wall lignification. Roc10 overexpression elevated the expression levels of lignin biosynthetic genes in shoots, with a concomitant increase in the accumulation of lignin, while the overexpression and RNAi lines showed opposite patterns of lignin accumulation. We identified downstream target genes of Roc10 by performing RNA-seq and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-seq analyses of shoot tissues. Roc10 was found to directly bind to the promoter of PEROXIDASEN/PEROXIDASE38, a key gene in lignin biosynthesis. Together, our findings suggest that Roc10 confers drought stress tolerance by promoting lignin biosynthesis in ground tissues.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2017.06a
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• pp.364-364
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• 2017

Saemangeum reclaimed land is a part of Saemangeum Development Project. Most of the persistent problems of Saemangeum reclaimed land remain to be related to soil salinity. Soil salinity is a major abiotic factor related to microbial community structure and also fungi have been reported to be more sensitive to salinity stress than bacteria. The aim of this study was conducted to investigate the effect of soil salinity levels on the microbial communities in Saemangeum reclaimed land using 454 pyrosequencing analysis. Soil samples was collected from 12 sites of in Saemangeum reclaimed land. For pyrosequencing, 27F/518R (bacteria) and ITS3/ITS4 (fungi) primers were used containing the Roche 454 pyrosequencing adaptor-key-linker (underlined) and unique barcodes (X). Pyrosequencing was performed by Chun's Lab (Seoul, Korea) using the standard shotgun sequencing reagents and a 454 GS FLX Titanium sequencing System (Roche, Inc.). In the soil samples, Proteobacteria (bacteria) and Ascomycota (fungi) shows the highest relative abundance in all the soil sample sites. Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Plantomycetes, Gemmatimonadetes and Parcubacteria were shown to have significantly higher abundance in high salinity level soils than low salinity level soils, while Acidobacteria and Nitrospirae has significantly higher relative abundance in low salinity level soils. The abundance of fungal, Ascomycota has the highest relative abundance in soil samples, followed by Basidiomycota, Chlorophyta, Zygomycota and Chytridiomycota. Basidiomycota, Zygomycota, Glomeromycota and Cerozoa were show significantly higher relative abundance in low salinity level soils. The principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) and correlation analysis shown to salinity-related soil parameters such as ECe, Na+, SAR and EPS were affected to bacterial and fungal community structure. Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Plantomycetes exhibited significantly positive correlation with soil salinity, while Acidobacteria exhibited significantly negative correlation. In the case of fungal community, Basidiomycota and Zygomycota were seen show significantly negative correlation with salinity related soil parameters. These results suggest that provide understanding effect of soil salinity on microbial community structure and correlation of microbial community with soil parameters in Saemangeum reclaimed land.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.633-643
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• 2009

Objectives : This study is aimed to help the dental hygiene department students to improve their adaptive ability to the field work by letting them know the performing levels required of the job world, by renovating the knowledge-centered curriculum, and by finding out the core competencies needed for successfully performing their duties and tasks in the work field. Methods : The survey tool was recomposed through the examination of the preceeding studies on basic vocational competencies and skills, and the survey has been done to 200 dentists in Seoul and Gyunggi provice. Results : 1. As for the job-getting routs, 35.1% of them finds their jobs through the job portal sites, and 21.3% through the recommendation by professors. So we can see the meaningful difference in the employment ways. 2. Dental hygiene clinics think that the purpose of their cooperation with the colleges is mainly to secure human resources by requiring the colleges to give field-centered education the colleges through. 3. The clinics for dental hygienic students' field learning have a great power for hiring the students. So it is necessary to set up a good management system of the clinics for dental hygienic students' field learning in order to reinforce the students' competitive power in getting jobs. 4. The priorities in basic working abilities needed for the task performance are in the order of vocational responsibility, self-managing & developing ability, interpersonal skill, and problem solving ability. 5. The core competencies required of those who graduate from dental hygiene school show the following scores by Likert measurement; good personality and vocational consciousness 2.16(${\pm}.677$), understanding power of major-related knowledge 2.19(${\pm}.723$), field adapting ability 2.31(${\pm}.748$), get-along-with ability 2.32(${\pm}.799$), interpersonal skill 2.42(${\pm}.768$), and self-development ability such as getting certificates 2.43(${\pm}.729$). Among the core competencies, the only meaningful factor which influences on their satisfaction measurement has been identified as the professional ability related to the major. Conclusions : The results suggest that the knowledge and skill related to the major are core competencies of able human resources and closely related with the professionality of the job, and so they are very important. However, job basic abilities are also proved to be important, which reinforce the students' activeness, self-regulation, and creativeness, and help them to pursue their lasting growth in their abilities.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.31-49
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• 2010

This study held two objectives. One was to clarify life skill differences between Japanese and Korean university students. The other was to gain suggestions for further development of Japanese and Korean home economics education. A survey on life skills was delivered to university students in Japan and Korea in 2008. The survey included 82 life skills. The participants were asked the same three questions for each life skill: if the life skill was one a participant was already practicing ("Practice"), if the life skill was one the participant wanted to learn more to improve his/her life ("To be improved"), and if the life skill was one the participant expected people should learn in Home Economics ("Expectation"). The results did not show outstanding differences with the "Practice" rates between Japan and Korea, but characterized strength and weakness of each country's life skill "Practice." Both Japanese and Korean participants mainly showed a greater desire to improve the life skills they indicated low "Practice" for. As well, the Korean participants revealed significantly lower "Expectation" to learn most of the life skills. As a result, this study created several implications for Japanese and Korean home economics education. For example, one implication is necessity to increase substantively enough class hours for all school levels. Another is promoting the social understanding for the meaningfulness of home economics education.