Background/AimsBecause of the limited geographic distribution, there have been insufficient data regarding hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 6 in Korea. This study aimed to investigate the clinical characteristics and available treatment outcomes of patients with genotype 6 HCV in Korea.Methods : From 2004 to 2014, data were collected from Korean patients infected with genotype 6 HCV in eight hospitals.Results : Thirty-two patients had genotype 6 HCV. The median age was 44 years, and 6c was the most common subtype. The baseline median alanine transaminase level was 88 (21 to 1,019) IU/mL, and the HCV RNA level was 1,405,000 (96,500 to 28,844,529) IU/mL. Twenty-five patients were treated with peginterferon (PEG-IFN) and ribavirin. Three follow-up losses occurred. Additionally, 13 patients attained a sustained virologic response (SVR), seven patients relapsed, and two patients exhibited a null response. The SVR rates were 40% and 75% for the 24- and more than 48-week treatments, respectively, and five of the six patients who achieved a rapid virologic response (RVR) attained a SVR.Conclusion : sKorean patients infected with genotype 6 HCV are relatively young, and 6c is the most common subtype. When treated with PEG-IFN and ribavirin, the SVR rate was 52%. Similar to other genotypes, a longer duration of treatment and attainment of RVR are important for SVR.

This article describes a pooled analysis of 41 Korean patients with metastatic oral tumours. The data reviewed are from Korean dental and medical case reports published between 1983 and 2004. The mean age was 55.2 years, and the male-to-female ratio was 1.9:1. There were more metastases in the jawbone than in oral soft tissues. The lung was the most common primary site for jawbone metastases, whereas the liver was for those of oral soft tissues. In contrast to reports in Western literature of the breast being the most common primary site, the liver was the most common primary site, followed by the lung and thyroid. These differences may be caused by a relatively high incidence rate of hepatocellular carcinoma in Korea.

This article describes a pooled analysis of Korean individuals with nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome (NBCCS). The data upon which this review is based has been retrieved from published case reports in Korean dental and medical literature between the years 1981 to 2002. We found 33 subjects who met the diagnostic criteria for NBCCS. Relative frequencies of associated complications are presented and compared with those of the English literature. Odontogenic keratocyst (OKC) and palmar and/or plantar pits, and hypertelorism were the most frequently observed anomalies. OKCs are often the first signs of NBCCS and can be detected in patients younger than 20 years of age. However, the incidence and clinical manifestations of NBCCS in Korean individuals were found to be rather different from those of other countries. The relatively low frequency of basal cell carcinomas and falx calcification among the major criteria were two major differences. The frequencies of the minor criteria concur in general with the ranges given by some others. It is concluded that these differences may be attributed to genetic and geographic differences.

Fermented fruits (FF), a product of fruits undergo a process of fermentation using lactic acid bacteria (LAB). The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of different levels of FF as additive on production performance, faecal Enterobacteriaceae and LAB counts and plasma cholesterol in rats. A total of 30 Sprague-Dawley (4 weeks of age) male rats were assigned individually into three groups with 10 rats per treatment. The three dietary treatments were: (i) control diet (basal diet), (ii) basal diet + 10% FF and (iii) basal diet + 20% FF. No differences (p > 0.05) were found in body weight, live weight gain, feed intake (7- 9g/day) and feed conversion ratio for all the dietary groups. Bacteriological analyses were performed in faeces of the rats. The results showed that addition of FF in the diets reduced the Enterobacteriaceae population in faeces of the rats. In contrast, the faeces excreted from rats fed FF had significantly (P<0.05) higher numbers of LAB than faeces from the control rats. The plasma cholesterol concentrations for rats fed with FF were significantly lower than that of control rats.

In order to control the micro-pore structure of glassy carbon (GC), an activation agent of KOH was introduced as the glassy carbon was prepared from phenolic resin with a curing agent of phosphoric acid. The yield and properties of GC were investigated as a function of KOH content. Although the GC produced without KOH had nonporous structure except the trace of bubble formation, the GC with KOH had very porous structure. The surface area of GC with KOH increased continuously up to 870 m(2)/g with the increase of KOH content. The carbonization yield and apparent density measured in water reduced from 40 to 15% and from 1.5 to 0.9 g/cm(3), respectively, and the electrical resistivity increased from 50 x 10(-4) to 60 x 10(-4) Omega . cm with the increase of KOH content.

In this paper, a new partial discharge (PD) detection technique using a Pockels cell is proposed. and considerable apparent chaotic characteristics are discussed. The PD was generated from a needle-plane electrode in air and was defected by using an optical measuring system with a Pockels cell. The optical measuring system was based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer and consisted of a He-Ne laser, a single-mode optical fiber, a 50/50 beam splitter and photo-detector. The presence of chaos in the PD signals was investigated by examining the means of qualitative and quantitative information. For the former, the return map and the 3-dimensional strange attractor were drawn in order to investigate the presence of chaotic characteristics relevant to PD signals, detected through a Pockels sensor, in the normalized time ser ies. The presence of the strange attractor indicators the existence of fractal structures in it's phase space. For the latter, several dimension values of the strange attractor were verified sequentially. Throughout this paper, the chaotic characteristics regarding the PD signals under air are verified.

We study the effects of microwave loss and device length on the nonlinear characteristics of intensity modulation response in 1.55 micrometer traveling-wave coplanar waveguide InGaAsP bulk electro-absorption modulator. By using device length segmentation scheme optical transmission curve reflecting the change of the electro-absorption effects at each segmented position due to the microwave loss is obtained, and then the intermodulation distortion and spurious free dynamic range characteristics of RF signal are analyzed. Device length decreases Vb3, which is the bias voltage minimizing the third order and increases the third order intermodulation distortion (IMD3). On the other hand, microwave loss increases Vb3, and reduces IMD3.

We investigate the effects of high input power on the performance of optical bistable symmetric self-electro-optic effect devices (S-SEEDs) using extremely shallow quantum wells (ESQWs). In this study we consider four ESQW SEEDs: antireflection (AR)-coated ESQW S-SEEDs (E-SEEDs), back-to-back AR-coated ESQW S-SEEDs (BBE-SEEDs), asymmetric Fabry-Perot (AFP)-ESQW S-SEEDs (AE-SEEDs), and back-to-back AFP-ESQW S-SEEDs (BBAE-SEEDs), As the input power increases, device performances such as on/off contrast ratio and on/off reflectivity difference are seriously degraded due to the ohmic heating and exciton saturation. But switching speed of the device increases up to a certain value and then begins to decrease. With reasonable optimization of the input power, we simulate and analyze the system bit rate of a cascading optical interconnection system using the various ESQW S-SEEDs changing the number of quantum wells for the external bias of 0 V and -5 V. The BBE-SEED with 48 quantum wells shows the maximum bit rate of 100 Mbytes/s at O-V bias, while the E-SEED with 60 QWs shows the maximum bit rate of 109 Mbytes/s at -5-V bias. In AFP cavity structures, the AE-SEED with 18 QWs and the BBAE-SEED with 28 QWs show maximum bit rate of 311 and 156 Mbytes/s, respectively, at O-V bias. (C) 1999 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [S0091-3286(99)01004-1].

Transmission characteristics are numerically analyzed for ridge-type traveling-wave coplanar waveguide MQW electro-absorption modulators and N - -I-N microstrip traveling-wave electro-absorption modulators. We investigate the bandwidth limitation factors such as the phase velocity mismatching and microwave loss, and achieve structural optimization changing the conductivity and thickness of N + layer in the traveling wave electro-absorption modulators.

Multiple quantum well (MQW) In 1-x Ga x As y P 1-y /InP electroabsorption waveguide modulators are systematically studied. Structural optimization of the MQW EAM is performed to determine the combination of the well width (L z ) and the Arsenic mole fraction (y) which yield a sufficiently large value of transmission change (ΔT) for a given applied field modulation (6 kV/cm for on-state absorption, 86 kV/cm for off-state absorption). In this process, we consider the change of the optical confinement factor as a function of the well width, mole fraction, and number of quantum wells. The device length (L) is also optimized to maximize the bandwidth.

We present a novel method for the analysis of the rectangular MQW waveguide. Preferentially 2D structure is transformed into 1D structure by using the effective index method. Then, the characteristic matrix of the resultant planar MQW waveguide is analyzed by the scanning angle method proposed in this paper. The effective index, modal field intensity, and confinement factor of rectangular MQW waveguide can be effectively obtained by this method. Our simulation results show excellent agreement with the accurate solutions based on the finite element method. We also introduce the approximation methods for the analysis of rectangular MQW waveguide and investigate their validity.

The performance imitations have been studied for various optical bistable symmetric self-electrooptic effect devices (S-SEEDs) using extremely shallow quantum wells (ESQWs). We consider the four ESQW SEEDs; anti-reflection (AR)-coated ESQW S-SEED, back- to-back AR-coated ESQW S-SEED, asymmetric Fabry-Perot (AFP)-ESQW S-SEED, and back-to-back AFP-ESQW S-SEED. As the optical input power increases, the ohmic heating dominantly reduces the on- state reflectivity, while the exciton saturation dominantly increases the off-state reflectivity, both of which seriously degrade the device performances limiting the maximum input power for fast switching. For the quantitative estimation of the limitation, we simulate and analyze the bit-rates of the optically cascaded set-reset latch systems employing the various ESQW S-SEED. The optimized number of ESQWs for each structure is also obtained.