• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.43-49
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• 2022

Solid-state supercapacitors with high safety and robust mechanical properties are attracting global attention as next-generation energy storage devices. As an electrode of a supercapacitor, an economical carbon-based electrode is widely used. However, when an aqueous electrolyte is introduced, the charge transfer resistance increases because the interfacial contact between the hydrophobic electrode surface and aqueous electrolyte is not good. In this regard, we propose a method to obtain higher electrochemical performance based on improved interfacial properties by treating the electrode surface with oxygen plasma. The surface hydrophilization induced by the enriched oxygen functionalities was confirmed by the contact angle measurement. As a result, the degree of hydrophilization was easily adjusted by controlling the power and duration of the oxygen plasma treatment. As the electrolyte of the supercapacitor, PVA/H₃PO₄, which is a typical solid-state aqueous electrolyte, was used. Free-standing membranes of PVA/H₃PO₄ electrolyte were prepared and then pressed onto the electrode. The optimal condition was to perform oxygen plasma treatment for 5 seconds with a low power of 15 W, and the energy density of the supercapacitor increased by about 8%.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.175-184
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• 2022

The present study investigated the neuroprotective effects of Coreopsis lanceolate extract against hydrogen-peroxide (H₂O₂)-induced oxidative damage and cell death in pheochromocytoma 12 (PC12) cells. Reactive oxygen species (ROS), 2,2'-azinobis (3-ethylbebzothiazoloine-6-sulfonic acid) diammonium salt, and 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrrylhydrazyl radical scavenging activities, as well as the expression levels of proteins associated with oxidative damage and cell death were investigated. According to the results, C. lanceolate extract exhibited inhibitory activity against intracellular ROS generation and cell-damaging effects induced by hydroxyl radicals in a dose-dependent manner. Total phenolic and flavonoid contents were 22.3 mg·g^-1 gallic acid equivalent and 16.2 mg·g^-1 catechin equivalent, respectively. Additionally, a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) assay based on the internal standard method used to detect phenolic compounds. The phenolic compounds identified in C. lanceolata extract contained (+)-catechin hydrate (5.0 ± 0.0 mg·g^-1), ferulic acid (1.6 ± 0.0 mg·g^-1), chlorogenic acid (1.5 ± 0.0 mg·g^-1), caffeic acid (1.2 ± 0.0 mg·g-1), naringin (0.9 ± 0.0 mg·g^-1), and p-coumaric acid (0.5 ± 0.0 mg·g^-1). C. lanceolata extract attenuated pro-apoptotic Bax expression levels and enhanced the expression levels of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2, caspase-3, and caspase-9 proteins. Therefore, C. lanceolata is a potential source of materials with neuroprotective properties against neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.437-444
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• 2009

${\gamma}-Aminobutyric$ acid (GABA) producing lactic acid bacteria, Lactobacillus acidophilus RMK567 was cultivated in 50 L of sterilized MRS broth using a fermenter at $40^{\circ}C$ for 24 h. The cell number was increased to $10.04{\pm}0.13$ Log CFU/mL with a growth rate constant (k) of 0.454 generation/h and a generation time (g) of 2.303 h after a lapse of a lag phase (L) of 5.16 h. A total of 487 g of cell paste with 40.5% moisture was harvested with viable cell number of 12.48 Log CFU/g cell paste. The cell pastes after preparation with glycerol, glucose, and polydextrose as cryo-protectants were lyophilized under a vacuum of 84 m torr. A total of 408 g of freeze dried (FD) cell powders were mixed with a commercial strain of Streptococcus thermophilus to prepare of three types FD starter cultures with the viable cell numbers of 12.42 (FDA-GY), 12.60 (FDBGG) and 12.91 (FDC-GP) Log CFU/g. During preservation the FD cultures at -$18^{\circ}C$, the cell viability of the FD starter cultures were rapidly dropped to below 3.24% of the day of storage. No significant difference was found in the cell viabilities among three types of FD starters cultures, but significant difference (p<0.01) was found in storage periods. Yoghurts fermented through FD starter culture of L. acidophilus RMK567 were determined to contain $155.16{\pm}8.53$ ppm, $243.82{\pm}4.27$ ppm, and $198.64{\pm}23.46$ ppm of GABA, respectively. This study shows that GABA production activity of L. acidophilus RMK567 is not affected during the freeze drying process and would be available for commercial production of yoghurt containing high GABA content.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.23 no.3 s.60
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• pp.158-165
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• 1984

These studies were carried out to investigate the bionomics of Gonatocerus sp. y (Hymenoptera: Mymaridae) , an egg parasite of the green rice leafhopper, Nephotettix cincticeps Uhler (Homoptera: Deltocephalidae) under laboratory and field conditions at Gyeongnam Provincial O.R.D. in Jinju from 1982 to 1983. The developmental period of each life stage was observed under four different temperature conditions from $15^{\circ}C\;to\;30^{\circ}C\;with\;5^{\circ}C$ increment. The development from egg to adult at 15^{\circ}C,\;20^{\circ}C,\;25^{\circ}C,\;and\;30^{\circ}C $ was completed in an average of 53, 25, 15, and 12 days and the females laid an average of 28, 48, 42, and 32 eggs respectively, with a maximum of 98. And most of the eggs were laid in the first two days after emergence. The time of adult emergence was determined under $25{\pm}1^{\circ}C$ condition. More than $76\%$ of the wasps emerged in the morning and the rest of them emerged in the afternoon. The average sex ratio between male and female was 1 : 5 when the wasps were developed from fertilized eggs. The longevity of female was greater than that of male when honey and water were provided as food, however, it was not when only water was supplied as food. The average longevities of females were 30 days at $15^{\circ}C$ and 15 days at $20^{\circ}C$ when honey and water were given as food. The peak precent parasitism of Gonatocerus sp. v on Nephotettix cincticeps in fallow fields was observed between late April and early May. The percent parasitism of the wasps In fallow fields was an average of 49\~59.9\% $ in Gyeochang, Namji and $23.2\~36\%$ in Namhae. The parasitic activities of the parasite had four peaks in paddy field, however, the highest peak was observed between late August and early September. The Percent e99 Parasitism of Gonatocerus sp. y was an average of $12.3\%$ on second the generation and $24.6\%$ of third genera lion of Nephotettix cinrticeps.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.199-218
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• 1986

Arsenopyrite in arsenic and polymetallic ores from calcic Fe-W skarn deposit of the Ulsan mine, Republic of Korea, has been investigated by means of electron microprobe analysis and X-ray diffractometry. As a result, it is revealed that the Ulsan arsenopyrite may be classified into the following three species with different generation on the basis of its mode of occurrence, chronological order during polymetallic mineralization and chemical composition; arsenopyrites I, II and III. 1) Arsenopyrite I-(Ni, Co)-bearing species belonging to the oldest generation, which has crystallized together with (Ni, Co)-arsenides and -sulpharsenides in the early stage of polymetallic mineralization. In rare cases, it contains a negligible amount of antimony. It occurs usually as discrete grains with irregular outline, showing rarely subhedral form, and is diffused in skarn zone. The maximum contents of nickel and cobalt are 10.04 Ni and 2.45 Co (in weight percent). Occasionally, it shows compositional zoning with narrow rim of lower (Ni+Co) content. 2) Arsenopyrite II-arsenian species, in which (Ni+Co) content is almost negligible, may occur widely in arsenic ores, and its crystallization has followed that of arsenopyrite I. It usually shows subhedral to euhedral form and is closely associated with $l{\ddot{o}}llingite$, bismuth, bismuthinite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite, bismuthian tennantite, etc. It is worthy of note that arsenopyrite II occasionally contains particles consisting of both bismuth and bismuthinite. 3) Arsenopyrite III-(Ni, Co)-free, S-excess and As-deficient species is close to the stoichiometric composition, FeAsS. It occurs in late hydrothermal veins, which cut clearly the Fe-W ore pipe and the surrounding skarn zone. It shows euhedral to subhedral form, being extremely coarse-grained, and is closely associated with pyrite, "primary" monoclinic pyrrhotite, galena, sphalerite, etc. Among three species of the Ulsan arsenopyrite, arsenopyrite I does not serve as a geothermometer, because (Ni+Co) content always exceeds 1 weight percent. In spite of the absence of Fe-S minerals as sulphur-buffer assemblage, the presence of $Bi(l)-Bi_2S_3$ sulphur-buffer enables arsenopyrite II to apply successfully to the estimation of either temperature and sulphur fugacity, the results are, $T=460{\sim}470^{\circ}C$, and log $f(S_2)=-7.4{\sim}7.0$. With reference to arsenopyrite III, only arsenopyrite coexisting with pyrite and "primary" monoclinic pyrrhotite may serve to restrict the range of both temperature and sulphur fugacity, $T=320{\sim}440^{\circ}C$, log $f(S_2)=-9.0{\sim}7.0$. These temperature data are consistent with those obtained by fluid inclusion geothermometry on late grandite garnet somewhat earlier than arsenopyrite II. At the beginning of this paper, the geological environments of the ore formation at Ulsan are considered from regional and local geologic settings, and physicochemical conditions are suspected, in particular the formation pressure (lithostatic pressure) is assumed to be 0.5kb (50MPa). The present study on arsenopyrite geothermometry, however, does not bring about any contradictions against the above premises. Thus, the following genetical view on the Ulsan ore deposit previously advocated by two of the present authors (Choi and Imai) becomes more evident; the ore deposit was formed at shallow depth and relatively high-temperature with steep geothermal gradient-xenothermal conditions.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.16 no.3 s.76
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• pp.454-458
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• 2006

HSF1 is the heat shock transcription factor in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. S. cerevisiae KNU5377 can ferment at high temperature such as $40^{\b{o}}C$. We have been the subjects of intense study because Hsf1p mediates gene expression not only to heat shock, but to a variety of cellular and environmental stress challenges. Basing these facts, we firstly tried to construct the hsf1 gene-deleted mutant. PCR-method for fast production of gene disruption cassette was introduced in a thermotolerant yeast S. cerevisiae KNU5377, which allowed the addition of short flanking homology region as short as 45 bp suffice to mediate homologous recombination to kanMX module. Such a cassette is composed of linking genomic DNA of target gene to the selectable marker kanMX4 that confers geneticin (G418) resistance in yeast. That module is extensively used for PCR-based gene replacement of target gene in the laboratory strains. We describe here the generation of hsf1 gene disruption construction using PCR product of selectable marker with primers that provide homology to the hsf1 gene following separation of haploid strain in wild type yeast S. cerevisiae KNU5377. Yeast deletion overview containing replace cassette module, deletion mutant construction and strain confirmation in this study used Saccharomyces Genome Deletion Project (http:://www-sequence.standard.edu/group/yeast_deletion_project). This mutant by genetic manipulation of wild type yeast KNU5377 strain will provide a good system for analyzing the research of the molecular biology underlying their physiology and metabolic process under fermentation and improvement of their fermentative properties.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.279-288
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• 2014

Nuclear energy is expected to meet the growing energy demand while avoiding CO2 emission. However, the problem of accumulating spent fuel from current nuclear power plants which is mainly composed of uranium oxides should be addressed. One of the most practical solutions is to reduce the spent oxide fuel and recycle it. Next-generation fuel cycles demand innovative features such as a reduction of the environmental load, improved safety, efficient recycling of resources, and feasible economics. Pyroprocessing based on molten salt electrolysis is one of the key technologies for reducing the amount of spent nuclear fuel and destroying toxic waste products, such as the long-life fission products. The oxide reduction process based on the electrochemical reduction in a LiCl-$Li_2O$ electrolyte has been developed for the volume reduction of PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor) spent fuels and for providing metal feeds for the electrorefining process. To speed up the electrochemical reduction process, the influences of the feed form for the cathode and the type of anode shroud on the reduction rate were investigated.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.310-317
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• 2017

Mammalian cells control cellular homeostasis using a variety of defensive enzymes in order to combat against environmental oxidants and electrophiles. NF-E2-related factor-2 (NRF2) is a transcription factor that, in response to an exposure to oxidative stress, translocates into the nucleus and modulates the inducible expression of various phase II cytoprotective enzymes by binding to the antioxidant response element (ARE). In the present study, we have acquired 400 ethanol extracts of traditional medicinal plants and attempted to find out possible extract(s) that can increase the NRF2/ARE-dependent gene expression in human keratinocytes. As a result, we have identified that ethanol extracts of Rheum undulatum and Inula japonica strongly activated the ARE-dependent luciferase activity in HaCaT- ARE-luciferase cells. Exposure of ethanol extracts of Rheum undulatum and Inula japonica increased the viability and activated transcription and translation of NRF2-dependent phase II cytoprotective enzymes in HaCaT cells, such as heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) and NAD[P]H:quinone oxidorecutase-1 (NQO1). In addition, ethanol extracts of Rheum undulatum and Inula japonica suppressed 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA)-induced generation of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), thereby inhibiting the formation of 8-hydroxyguanosine (8-OHG) and 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE) in HaCaT cells. Together, our results demonstrate that ethanol extracts of Rheum undulatum and Inula japonica exert anti-oxidant effects via the induction of NRF2/ARE-dependent gene expression in human keratinocytes.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.569-575
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• 2020

Recently, research on renewable energy technologies has come into the spotlight due to rising concerns over the depletion of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions. Demand for portable electronic and wearable devices is increasing, and electronic devices are becoming smaller. Energy harvesting is a technology for overcoming limitations such as battery size and usage time. In this paper, the V-I characteristic curve and internal resistance of thermal electric devices were analyzed, and MPPT control methods were compared. The Perturbation and Observation (P&O) control method is economically inefficient because two sensors are required to measure the voltage and current of a Thermoelectric Generator(TEG). Therefore, this paper proposes a new MPPT control method that tracks MPP using only one sensor for the regulation of the output voltage. The proposed MPPT control method uses the relationship between the output voltage of the load and the duty ratio. Control is done by periodically sampling the output voltage of the DC-DC converter to increase or decrease the duty ratio to find the optimal duty ratio and maintain the MPP. A DC-DC converter was designed using a cascaded boost-buck converter, which has a two-switch topology. The proposed MPPT control method was verified by simulations using PSIM, and the results show that a voltage, current, and power of V=4.2 V, I=2.5 A, and P=10.5 W were obtained at the MPP from the V-I characteristic curve of the TEG.

• Animal Bioscience
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• v.35 no.9
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• pp.1327-1339
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• 2022

Objective: Fat deposition in poultry is an important factor in production performance and meat quality research. miRNAs also play important roles in regulating adipocyte differentiation process. This study was to investigate the expression patterns of miRNAs in duck adipocytes after differentiation and explore the role of miR-214 in regulating carnitine palmitoyltransferases 2 (CPT2) gene expression during duck adipocyte differentiation. Methods: Successful systems for the isolation, culture, and induction of duck primary fat cells was developed in the experiment. Using Illumina next-generation sequencing, the miRNAs libraries of duck adipocytes were established. miRanda was used to predict differentially expressed (DE) miRNAs and their target genes. The expression patterns of miR-214 and CPT2 during the differentiation were verified by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction and western blot. Luciferase reporter assays were used to explore the specific regions of CPT2 targeted by miR-214. We used a miR-214 over-expression strategy in vitro to further investigate its effect on differentiation process and CPT2 gene transcription. Results: There were 481 miRNAs identified in duck adipocytes, included 57 DE miRNA candidates. And the 1,046 targets genes of DE miRNAs were mainly involved in p53 signaling, FoxO signaling, and fatty acid metabolism pathways. miR-214 and CPT2 showed contrasting expression patterns before and after differentiation, and they were selected for further research. The expression of miR-214 was decreased during the first 3 days of duck adipocytes differentiation, and then increased, while the expression of CPT2 increased both in the transcriptional and protein level. The luciferase assay suggested that miR-214 targets the 3'untranslated region of CPT2. Overexpression of miR-214 not only promoted the formation of lipid droplets but also decreased the protein abundance of CPT2. Conclusion: Current study reports the expression profile of miRNAs in duck adipocytes differentiated for 4 days. And miR-214 has been proved to have the regulator potential for fat deposition in duck.