Earticle

Improvements in technology and the advent of smart devices have led to the development of smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs. Further, in recent years, wearable devices have gained considerable research attention. In addition, the increasing interest in the field of healthcare has resulted in an increase in the research and development of wearable healthcare devices. Wearable devices that are incorporated into clothes and accessories allow individuals the free use of their hands. The basic concept of these devices—a device that can be worn instead of being carried—supplements the intellectual capacity of a human; therefore, in this paper, we aim to implement a computing environment to integrate large-scale equipment with these devices. In order to respond to user needs in real time, it is necessary to develop wearable devices that ensure the user’s safety. Further, to reduce the discomfort of using multiple devices, wearable devices should be compatible with other devices such that only a single device is necessary. Therefore, in this paper, we combined a smart TV, wearable smart band, and smartphone to enable the user to effectively store physical information; moreover, we developed a system to manage this information.

Recently, with the advent HTML5, the performance of Web service has improved. It was difficult to configure the web services using only HTML. However, communication between the client and the server is now possible because of HTML5. HTML5 was designed to be platform independent, and can be used on an increasing number of mobile devices for creating both mobile websites and mobile applications. It is frequently cited as the primary solution for enabling effective cross-platform deployment onto various smart devices. HTML5 has many new features. One of the most powerful features is the WebSocket. Updated HTML5 specifications for web sockets, web browsers, and web servers allow sending and receiving data in real time, via an always-on TCP connection. The crucial differences between pre-HTML5 communication methods and HTML5 WebSocket are located in the new HTML5 protocol. WebSocket protocol uses HTTP to establish a connection, but the subsequent communication is performed by the WebSocket reader protocol. In addition, the feature header is very small, resulting in reduced communication overhead. The WebSocket aims to solve the problems of the conventional communication method, though it has several restrictions. Therefore, in this study, experiments were conducted to measure the performance analysis of WebSocket. We conclude by presenting the direction of future research in this field.

Recently, the attack trends have been changed from fast and widespread malware propagation attacks to more sophisticated “targeted” attacks such as spy/adware, password stealers, ransom-ware, and botenets etc. and the attacks are tried via the automated malwares. In this situation, the malware is the most powerful weapon for the attackers. So, the attackers do not want their malwares to be reviled by anti-virus analyzer. In order to conceal their malware, malware programmers are getting utilize the anti reverse engineering techniques and code changing techniques such as the packing, encoding and encryption techniques. If the malware is packed or encrypted, then it is very difficult to analyze. Therefore, to prevent the harmful effects of malware and to generate signatures for malware detection, the packed and encrypted executable codes must initially be unpacked. The first step of unpacking is to detect the packed executable files. In this paper, a packed file detection technique based on a PE Header Analysis is proposed. In many cases, to pack and unpack the executable codes, PE files have unusual attributes in their PE headers. In this paper, these characteristics are utilized to detect the packed files. A Characteristic Vector (CV) that consists of eight elements is defined, and the Euclidean distance (ED) of the CV is calculated. The EDs of the packed files are calculated and represent the base threshold for the detection of packed files.

This paper reports the fabrication of various micro-lensed single-mode optical fibers through the use of an enhanced peak power $CO_2$ laser beam. The end faces of the optical fibers are exposed to the $CO_2$ laser beam to form convex, concave, and conical shape optical fiber tips. Peak power of the $CO_2$ laser beam was varied from 0.8 W to 1.5 W depending on the shape of the optical fiber tip. We also discover the dependence of the angle of the optical fiber tip on the rotation angle and the number of $CO_2$ laser irradiations. The angle shows an increasing trend with both these parameters. We achieve a wide range of lenticular fibers with end face angle varying from $4.47^{\circ}$ to $8.13^{\circ}$. Furthermore, we investigate the emission pattern of light from the developed micro-lensed fibers. The proposed $CO_2$ laser based optical fiber reshaping technique shows great consistency, and thus is suitable for commercial applications.

The components of Magnolia officinalis have well known to act anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative and neuroprotective activities. These efficacies have been sold many products as nutritional supplement extracted from bark of Magnolia officinalis. Thus, to assess and compare neuroprotective effect in the nutritional supplement (Magnolia $Extract^{TM}$, Health Freedom Nutrition LLC, USA) and our ethanol extract of Magnolia officinalis (BioLand LTD, Korea), we investigated memorial improving and anti-Alzheimer's disease effects of extract products of Magnolia officinalis in a transgenic AD mice model. Oral pretreatment of two extract products of Magnolia officinalis (10 mg/kg/day in 0.05% ethanol) into drinking water for 3 months ameliorated memorial dysfunction and prevented $A{\beta}$ accumulation in the brain of Tg2576 mice. In addition, extract products of Magnolia officinalis also decreased expression of ${\beta}$-site APP cleaving enzyme 1 (BACE1), amyloid precursor protein (APP) and its product, C99. Although both two extract products of Magnolia officinalis could show preventive effect of memorial dysfunction and $A{\beta}$ accumulation, our ethanol extract of Magnolia officinalis (BioLand LTD, Korea) could be more effective than Magnolia $Extract^{TM}$ (Health Freedom Nutrition LLC, USA). Therefore, our results showed that extract products of Magnolia officinalis were effective for prevention and treatment of AD through memorial improving and anti-amyloidogenic effects via down-regulating ${\beta}$-secretase activity, and neuroprotective efficacy of Magnolia extracts could be differed by cultivating area and manufacturing methods.

Amyloid beta ($A{\beta}$)-induced neurotoxicity is a major pathological mechanism of Alzheimer's disease (AD). In this study, we investigated the inhibitory effect of L-theanine, a component of green tea (Camellia sinensis) on $A{\beta}_{1-42}$-induced neurotoxicity and oxidative damages of macromolecules. L-theanine inhibited $A{\beta}_{1-42}$-induced generation of reactive oxygen species, and activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase and p38 mitogenic activated protein kinase as well as the activity of nuclear factor kappa-B. L-theanine also signifi cantly reduced oxidative protein and lipid damage, and elevated glutathione level. Consistent with the reduced neurotoxic signals, L-theanine (10-50 ${\mu}g$/ml) concomitantly attenuated $A{\beta}_{1-42}$ (5 ${\mu}M$)-induced neurotoxicity in SK-N-MC and SK-N-SH human neuroblastoma cells. These data indicate that L-theanine on $A{\beta}$-induced neurotoxicity prevented oxidative damages of neuronal cells, and may be useful in the prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative disease like AD.

Thiacremonone, the main component isolated from heated garlic (Allium sativum L.), is interested for using as a cancer preventive or therapeutic agent since garlic has been known to be useful plant in the treatment of cancers. Nuclear factor kappaB (NF-${\kappa}B$) is constitutively activated in the prostate cancer and activation of NF-${\kappa}B$ is implicated in drug resistance in cancer cells. Docetaxel, a semisynthetic analog of paclitaxel, is an antineoplastic drug widely used for advanced various cancer. In previous studies, we found that thiacremonone inhibited activation of NF-${\kappa}B$ in cancer cells and marcrophages. In the present study, we investigated whether thiacremonone could increase susceptibility of prostate cancer cells (PC-3 and DU145) to docetaxel via inactivation of NF-${\kappa}B$. We found that the combination treatment of thiacremonone (50 ${\mu}g$/ml) with docetaxel (5 nM) was more effective in the inhibition of prostate cancer cell growth and induction of apoptosis accompanied with the significant inhibition of NF-${\kappa}B$ activity than those by the treatment of thiacremonone or docetaxel alone. It was also found that NF-${\kappa}B$ target gene expression of Bax, caspase-3 and caspase-9 was much more significantly enhanced, but the expression of Bcl-2 was also much more significantly inhibited by the combination treatment. These results indicate that thiacremonone inhibits NF-${\kappa}B$, and enhances the susceptibility of prostate cancer cells to docetaxel. Thus, thiacremonone could be useful as an adjuvant anti-cancer agent.

Laser ablation with femtosecond lasers is highly promising for microfabrication of materials. Also, the high peak power of femtosecond lasers could induce a multiphoton absorption to ablate transparent materials. Similar results have also been were obtained in the case of optical fibers. In this paper, we present our experimental results of femtosecond laser microstructuring of optical fiber and its applications to microelectronic components and fiber optic devices. Finally, we directly produced micro holes with femtosecond laser pulses in a single step by moving an optical fiber in a preprogrammed structure. When water was introduced into a hole drilled from the bottom surface of the optical fiber, the effects of blocking and redeposition of ablated material were greatly reduced and the aspect ratio of the depth of the hole was increased. We have presented circular and rectangular-shaped holes in optical fiber.

Citral is a major compound of lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus L.) that has many pharmacological activities such as anti-fungal and anti-bacterial effects. In this study, we investigated the anti-inflammatory effect of citral and defined its mechanism of action in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells. Citral (3-12 ${\mu}g/mL$) significantly inhibited LPS-induced nitric oxide (NO) production in a concentration-dependent manner ($IC_{50}:\;6.5\;{\mu}g/mL$). Furthermore, it was found that citral effectively inhibited the transcriptional activity and expression of iNOS, and potently suppressed the DNA binding activity and nuclear translocation of $NF-{\kappa}B$ as well as $I{\kappa}B$ phosphorylation in a concentration dependent manner. These results suggest that citral is anti-inflammatory, and its effects may be due to the inhibition of NO production through the suppression of $NF-{\kappa}B$ activation.

Collagenase, a matrix metalloproteirases (MMPs), is a key regulator in the photoaging process of skin due to the reactive oxygen species generated after exposure to ultraviolet A(UVA). Flavonoid compounds have been demonstrated to possess antioxidant properties, and could be useful in the prevention of photoaging. In this study, to investigate the structure-activity relationship of flavonoid compounds on their antioxidant property and inhibitory effects against the MMP activity, the effects of several flavonoids; myricetin, quercetin, kaempferol, luteolin, apigenin and chrysin, on the reactive oxygen species scavengering activity and inhibit of effect against the MMP activity were examined in vitro and in human dermal fibroblasts induced by UVA. The relative order of antioxidative efficacy, as determined using the 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method and the xanthine/xranthine oxidase system, was as follows; flavones: luteolin > apigenin > chrysin, flavonols: myricetin > quercetin > kaempferol, and correlated with the respective number of OH group on their B-ring. In good correlation with the antioxidant properties, the flavonoids inhibited the collagenase activities, in a dose-dependent manner, and the MMP expression. These results suggested the UVA induced antioxidative activity and inhibitory effects of flavonoids on the collagenase in human dermal fibroblasts depends on the number of OH group in the flavonoid structure, and those with a higher number of OH group may be more useful in the prevention of UV stressed skin aging.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an abnormal accumulation of the ${\beta}$-amyloid protein $(A{\beta})$ in specific brain region. It has been speculated that disturbance in cholesterol homeostasis may contribute to the etiology of AD by increasing $A{\beta}$ generation. However, conclusive evidence and possible mechanism has not been reported. In the present study, we demonstrated that rabbits treated with 0.5% cholesterol for 16 weeks increased serum total cholesterol, triacylglycerol, and low-density lipoprotein levels. $A{\beta}$ levels is higher in the hippocampus of brain in cholesterol dieted rabbits than that of normal diet rabbis. Expression and activities of ${\beta}-$ and ${\gamma}-$ secretases, the enzymes that cleave ${\beta}$-amyloid precursor protein to generate $A{\beta}$, were also increased in hippocampus of high cholesterol dieted rabbit than those of normal dieted rabbits. Our results suggest that high cholesterol diet may be associated with increased $A{\beta}$ accumulation in the brain of rabbits, and suggest that high cholesterol diet may be causal factor in the development or progression of AD.

Mutation in the presenilin 2 (PS2mt) is known to be one of factors involved in the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD). It was recently revealed that an abnormality of lipid metabolism is a phenomenon occurring in AD. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the potential relationship between the mutation of PS2 and alterations of the lipid profile within the brain. The results showed there increases in the levels of cholesterol, low density lipoprotein and triglyceride, but a decrease in the level of high density lipoprotein in brain tissues expressing mutant PS2. These findings indicated that PS2mt is involved in the abnormalities of the lipid profile, which could cause or result in the development of AD.

Bee venom (BY) has been utilized to relieve pain and to treat inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, the molecular mechanism by which BV-induced anti-arthritis effect has been not reported yet. Therefore, in the present study we investigated anti-inflammatory effect of BV in a murine marcrophage cell line Raw 264.7 cell and synoviocyte obtained from RA patients. The present data showed that BV has a preventive effect on lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and sodium nitroprusside (SNP) induced induction of COX-2, cPLA2 and iNOS. (omitted)

A large number of chemical pollutants including phthalates, alkylphenolic compounds, organochlorine pesticides and bisphenol A have the ability to disrupt endocrine function in animals. and alter cognitive function. Because hormone mediated events playa important role in central nervous system development and functions. The speculations that the changes in cognitive function are mediated by the endocrine-like action of these chemicals. (omitted)

Activation of the apoptosis program by an increased production of beta-amyloid peptides (A${\beta}$) has been implicated in the neuronal cell death of Alzheimer's disease. Bcl-2 is a well demonstrated anti-apoptotic protein, however, the mechanism of anti-apoptotic action of Bcl-2 in A${\beta}$-induced apoptosis of neuronal cells is not fully understood. (omitted)