The immune system protects the body from bacterial infection and disease, as well as cancer that develops following the mutation of cells. Aging exerts adverse effects on the immune system, such as chronic inflammation, resulting in rheumatoid arthritis. The purpose of this study was to investigate the anti-inflammatory effectiveness of Scutellaria baicalensis, which contains baicalin. HPLC analysis showed that S. baicalensis hot water extracts (SBWE) contained 42.2 mg/g of baicalin. To evaluate the cytotoxicity of SBWE, an MTT assay was carried out in Raw264.7 cells. No cytotoxicity was observed below 160 μg/ml of SBWE. SBWE at 40 μg/ml reduced the amount of nitric oxide produced by macrophages stimulated with lipopolysaccharide by 40%. In addition, SBWE inhibited phagocytosis stimulated with zymosan. Furthermore, the content of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) produced by the macrophages was decreased in the presence of SBWE in a dose-dependent manner. SBWE also inhibited the production of interleukin-1 beta (IL-1 β) in a time course experiment. Moreover, treatment with 20 μg/ml of SBWE remarkably decreased the expression level of cyclooxynase-2. The results provide evidence that SBWE may exert an anti-inflammatory effect through modulation of the immune system.

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Spatial information has been widely used for efficient land use and management, disaster management, environment management, infrastructure management, corporate marketing, and cultural assets management, and the need for spatial information is expected to be increased. For this reason, central government, local government and public institutions must establish a National Spatial Information System (Fifteen systems related to spatial information managed by National Spatial Data Infrastructure Policy office, NSIS) framework that guarantees high accuracy and quality. The NSIS will provide convenience usage of spatial information in the field of decision-making or civil support. However the current National Spatial Information System is mainly established with separate processes, which causes data redundancy, deterioration of information, passive opening, and sharing of the spatial data. This study suggests 4 standards, which has been derived by applying value-chain model to NSIS data flow, and they are 'Production and Establishment', 'Integration and Sharing', 'Application and Fusion' and 'Release and Opening'. Based on these standards, the 15 NSIS were analyzed to draw out implications and reforming directions were suggested. By following these suggestions we expect more recent, consist, accurate, and connected National Spatial Information Service which will be more open to public and then satisfy the demands.

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