Unbalanced contrast

The purpose of this project was to create a unique ready-to-wear style for professional working women. I desired to make a two-piece jacket and skirt reinventing the tartan kilt as a new key design element for women’s ready-to-wear that could be appealing to various professional working women regardless of age and race. Principles of design such as harmony, balance, proportion, emphasis, similarity, and contrast have been incorporated in an unconventional way. Various sizes of knife pleats were created using the tartan fabric and partially attached to the collar, sleeve, and bodies of the jacket, skirt, and pocket flap. This outfit features strong contrasts by mixing colors and patterns in addition to asymmetrically dominated lines and curves for the beauty of unbalance. Unbalanced contrast made out of cotton contributes to the mass market by offering professional working women positive aspects of clothing attributes such as comfort, washability, durability, affordability, and high fashion

A New Hardware Correlator in Korea: Performance Evaluation using KVN observations

We report results of the performance evaluation of a new hardware correlator in Korea, the Daejeon correlator, developed by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). We conducted Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations at 22~GHz with the Korean VLBI Network (KVN) in Korea and the VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry (VERA) in Japan, and correlated the aquired data with the Daejeon correlator. For evaluating the performance of the new hardware correlator, we compared the correlation outputs from the Daejeon correlator for KVN observations with those from a software correlator, the Distributed FX (DiFX). We investigated the correlated flux densities and brightness distributions of extragalactic compact radio sources. The comparison of the two correlator outputs show that they are consistent with each other within $<8\%$, which is comparable with the amplitude calibration uncertainties of KVN observations at 22~GHz. We also found that the 8\% difference in flux density is caused mainly by (a) the difference in the way of fringe phase tracking between the DiFX software correlator and the Daejeon hardware correlator, and (b) an unusual pattern (a double-layer pattern) of the amplitude correlation output from the Daejeon correlator. The visibility amplitude loss by the double-layer pattern is as small as 3\%. We conclude that the new hardware correlator produces reasonable correlation outputs for continuum observations, which are consistent with the outputs from the DiFX software correlator.Comment: 13 pagee, 9 figures, 3 tables, to appear in JKAS (received February 9, 2015; accepted March 16, 2015

The Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus according to Changes in Obesity Status in Late Middle-Aged Adults: A Nationwide Cohort Study of Korea

Background Although obesity is a well-known risk factor of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), there is scant data on discriminating the contribution of previous obesity and recent weight gain on developing T2DM. Methods We analyzed the Korean National Health Insurance Service-Health Screening Cohort data from 2002 to 2015 where Korean residents underwent biennial health checkups. Participants were classified into four groups according to their obesity status (body mass index [BMI] ≥25 kg/m2) before and after turning 50 years old: maintaining normal (MN), becoming obese (BO), becoming normal (BN), and maintaining obese (MO). Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to estimate the risk of T2DM factoring in the covariates age, sex, BMI, presence of impaired fasting glucose or hypertension, family history of diabetes, and smoking status. Results A total of 118,438 participants (mean age, 52.5±1.1 years; men, 45.2%) were prospectively evaluated for incident T2DM. A total of 7,339 (6.2%) participants were diagnosed with T2DM during a follow-up period of 4.8±2.6 years. Incidence rates of T2DM per 1,000 person-year were 9.20 in MN, 14.81 in BO, 14.42 in BN, 21.38 in MO. After factoring in covariates, participants in the groups BN (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 1.15; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04 to 1.27) and MO (aHR, 1.14; 95% CI, 1.06 to 1.24) were at increased risk of developing T2DM compared to MN, whereas BO (hazard ratio, 1.06; 95% CI, 0.96 to 1.17) was not. Conclusion Having been obese before 50 years old increased the risk of developing T2DM in the future, but becoming obese after 50 did not. Therefore, it is important to maintain normal weight from early adulthood to prevent future metabolic perturbations

The relationships among birth season, sunlight exposure during infancy, and allergic disease

PurposeThe recent increase in the prevalence of allergic diseases is hypothetically attributed to immune dysregulation in turn caused by a reduction in exposure to sunlight. We explored relationships between birth season, sunlight exposure, exercise duration, and an allergic disease.MethodsWe performed a questionnaire-based survey on allergic diseases among elementary school students. Birth time was categorized according to the season (summer and winter).ResultsThe prevalence of atopic dermatitis (AD) "symptoms ever" was higher in the children born in winter than in those born in summer (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.24; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03-1.49; P=0.024). Birth in winter was associated with an increase in the "symptoms in the past 12 months" prevalence of food allergy (FA) (aOR, 1.56; 95% CI, 1.09-2.24; P=0.015). The lifetime prevalence of allergic diseases except FA was higher in the children whose parents considered their sunlight exposure prior to 24 months of ageas inadequate than those who considered their exposure as adequate ("diagnosis ever" asthma: aOR, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.17-1.67; P<0.001; allergic rhinitis [AR]: aOR, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.17-1.67; P<0.001; AD: aOR, 1.26; 95% CI, 1.06-1.51; P=0.01). Neither recent sunlight exposure nor exercise duration was associated with the prevalence of an allergic disease.ConclusionBirth in winter may be associated with development of AD and FA. Inadequate sunlight exposure before the age of 24 months might possibly increase the risks of development of asthma, AR, and AD

A study on the tuning parameter of continuous variable valve for reverse continuous damper

Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, South Africa, 1-4 July, 2007.Semi-active suspension systems are greatly expected to be in the mainstream of future controlled suspensions for passenger cars. In this study, a continuous variable damper for a passenger car suspension is developed, which is controlled actively and exhibits high performance with light weight, low cost, and low energy consumption. To get a fast response of the damper, a reverse damping mechanism is adapted, and to get small pressure change rate after blow-off, a pilot controlled proportional valve is designed and analyzed. The reverse continuous variable damper is designed as a HS-SH damper which offers good body control with reduced transferred input force from the tire, compared with any other type of suspension system. The damper structure is designed, so that rebound and compression damping forces can be tuned independently, of which the variable valve is placed externally. The rate of pressure change with respect to the flow rate after blow-off becomes smooth when the fixed orifice size increases, which means that the blow-off slope is controllable using the fixed orifice size. Damping forces are measured with the change of the solenoid current at the different piston velocities to confirm the maximum hysteresis of 20 N, linearity, and variance of damping force. The damping force variance is wide and continuous, and is controlled by the spool opening, of which scheme is usually adapted in proportional valves. The reverse continuous variable damper developed in this study is expected to be utilized in the semi-active suspension systems in passenger cars after its performance and simplicity of the design is confirmed through a real car test

MicroRNA-150 modulates intracellular Ca2+ levels in naïve CD8+ T cells by targeting TMEM20

Regulation of intracellular Ca2+ signaling is a major determinant of CD8+ T cell responsiveness, but the mechanisms underlying this regulation of Ca2+ levels, especially in naïve CD8+ T cells, are not fully defined. Here, we showed that microRNA-150 (miR-150) controls intracellular Ca2+ levels in naïve CD8+ T cells required for activation by suppressing TMEM20, a negative regulator of Ca2+ extrusion. miR-150 deficiency increased TMEM20 expression, which resulted in increased intracellular Ca2+ levels in naïve CD8+ T cells. The subsequent increase in Ca2+ levels induced expression of anergy-inducing genes, such as Cbl-b, Egr2, and p27, through activation of NFAT1, as well as reduced cell proliferation, cytokine production, and the antitumor activity of CD8+ T cells upon antigenic stimulation. The anergy-promoting molecular milieu and function induced by miR-150 deficiency were rescued by reinstatement of miR-150. Additionally, knockdown of TMEM20 in miR-150-deficient naïve CD8+ T cells reduced intracellular Ca2+ levels. Our findings revealed that miR-150 play essential roles in controlling intracellular Ca2+ level and activation in naïve CD8+ T cells, which suggest a mechanism to overcome anergy induction by the regulation of intracellular Ca2+ levels115Ysciescopu

Pilot KaVA monitoring on the M87 jet: confirming the inner jet structure and superluminal motions at sub-pc scales

We report the initial results of our high-cadence monitoring program on the radio jet in the active galaxy M87, obtained by the KVN and VERA Array (KaVA) at 22 GHz. This is a pilot study that preceded a larger KaVA-M87 monitoring program, which is currently ongoing. The pilot monitoring was mostly performed every two to three weeks from December 2013 to June 2014, at a recording rate of 1 Gbps, obtaining the data for a total of 10 epochs. We successfully obtained a sequence of good quality radio maps that revealed the rich structure of this jet from <~1 mas to 20 mas, corresponding to physical scales (projected) of ~0.1-2 pc (or ~140-2800 Schwarzschild radii). We detected superluminal motions at these scales, together with a trend of gradual acceleration. The first evidence for such fast motions and acceleration near the jet base were obtained from recent VLBA studies at 43 GHz, and the fact that very similar kinematics are seen at a different frequency and time with a different instrument suggests these properties are fundamental characteristics of this jet. This pilot program demonstrates that KaVA is a powerful VLBI array for studying the detailed structural evolution of the M87 jet and also other relativistic jets.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in PAS