• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.1010-1016
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• 2000

Effect on the bio-mass and nutrient yield of Lemna perpusilla Torry was studied at two nutrient loading frequencies. Six polythene sinks ($6{\times}2{\times}0.5m^{3}$ area) randomly allocated to two treatments having three sinks in each treatment. Each sink containing $6{\times}2{\times}0.35m^{3}$ water body, was changed either daily with 12.6 kg anaerobically fermented cattle manure (effluent) or with 76 kg efluent at six-day interval. Media Kjeldhal-N (40 vs. 36 mg/L; p>0.05) and $NH_3$-N (9 vs 7 mg/L; p<0.05) concentration were higher in daily charged sinks than those charged at six-day interval. However, temperature ($28.48{^{\circ}C}\;vs.\;28.60{^{\circ}C}$) and pH (6.82 vs. 6.84) were sinilar in both groups of sinks. Biomass (93 vs. $80g/m^{2}/d$) and crude protein (1.24 vs. $1.11g/m^{2}/d$) yield were non-significantly (p>0.05) higher in the daily charged than 6-d interval charged ponds. However, dry matter (4.52 vs. 4.15%), organic matter (83 vs. 84%), crude protein (31.4 va. 29.6%) and organic carbon (47 vs. 47%) content were similar in both daily and 6-d interval charged ponds. There were no apparent relationships between the crude protein content of Lemna and the media Kjeldhal-N or $NH_3$-N concentration apparently due to saturated level of nutrient (N in particular). It was concluded that with the level of effluent used for two treatments, nutrient-loading frequency had no significant effect on the biomass and protein yield of Lemna. Technique described here can be used for year-round duckweed production from fermented cattle manure for feeding poultry/fish in smallholder production system.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.991-996
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• 2015

Side population (SP) cells have stem cell-like properties with a capacity for self-renewal and are resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Therefore the presence of SP cells in human breast cancer probably has prognostic value. Objective: To investigate the characteristics of SP cells and identify the relationship between the SP cells levels and clinico-pathological parameters of the breast tumor and disease-free survival (DFS) in breast cancer patients. Materials and Methods: A total of 122 eligible breast cancer patients were consecutively recruited from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2007 at Yunnan Tumor Hospital. All eligible subjects received conventional treatment and were followed up for seven years. Predictors of recurrence and/or metastasis and DFS were analyzed using Cox regression analysis. Human breast cancer cells were also obtained from fresh human breast cancer tissue and cultured by the nucleic acid dye Hoechst33342 with Verapami. Flow cytometry (FCM) was employed to isolate the cells of SP and non-SP types. Results: In this study, SP cells were identified using flow cytometric analysis with Hoechst 33342 dye efflux. Adjusted for age, tumor size, lymph nodal status, histological grade, the Cox model showed a higher risk of recurrence and/or metastasis positively associated with the SP cell level (1.75, 1.02-2.98), as well as with axillary lymph node metastasis (2.99, 1.76-5.09), pathology invasiveness type (1.7, 1.14-2.55), and tumor volume doubling time (TVDT) (1.54, 1.01-2.36). Conclusions: The SP cell level is independently associated with tumor progression and clinical outcome after controlling for other pathological factors. The axillary lymph node status, TVDT and the status of non-invasive or invasive tumor independently predict the prognosis of breast cancer.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.1559-1571
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• 2008

A rule was developed to constrain the annual rate of inbreeding to a predefined value in a population with different lifetimes between sires and dams, and to maximize the selection response over generations. This rule considers that the animals in a population should be divided into sex-age classes based on the theory of gene flow, and restricts the increase of average inbreeding coefficient for new offspring by limiting the increase of the mean additive genetic relationship for parents selected. The optimization problem of this rule was formulated as a quadratic programming problem. Inputs for the rule were the BLUP estimated breeding values, the additive genetic relationship matrix of all animals, and the long-term contributions of sex-age classes. Outputs were optimal number and contributions of selected animals. In addition, this rule was combined with the optimization of emphasis given to QTL, and further increased the genetic gain over the planning horizon. Stochastic simulations of closed nucleus schemes for pigs were used to investigate the potential advantages obtained from this rule by combining the standard QTL selection, optimal QTL selection and conventional BLUP selection. Results showed that the predefined rates of inbreeding were actually achieved by this rule in three selection strategies. The rule obtained up to 9.23% extra genetic gain over truncation selection at the same rates of inbreeding. The combination of the extended rule and the optimization of emphasis given to QTL allowed substantial increases in selection response at a fixed annual rate of inbreeding, and solved substantially the conflict between short-term and long-term selection response in QTL-assisted selection schemes.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.5586-5593
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• 2013

This study investigates how the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) performance of a firm is associated with its financial performance in the stock market. Prior studies provide mixed evidence on the relation between CSR and financial performance. This study sheds some lights on the positive effect of CSR on firms' financial performance. Using a unique set of data on CSR performance of Korean firms provided by Morgan Stanley Capital International (MCSI), we find that firms' CSR performance is positively associated with their contemporaneous stock returns and Tobin's Q in the Korean market. This finding suggests that stock market participants value firms' CSR activities. This is the first study that provides empirical evidence on the existence of the positive association between the CSR performance of Korean firms and their financial performance using MCSI data which is considered more reliable than the data used in the prior CSR studies in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.683-689
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• 2000

The present study was carried out to investigate the blood markers of Thoroughbred horses (TB) The blood red cell types and blood protein types (biochemical polymorphisms) were tested from 1,125 Thoroughbred horses by serological and electrophoretic procedures, and their phenotypes, gene frequencies, heterozygosity, polymorphic information content values and exclusion probability were estimated. The blood group and biochemical polymorphism phenotypes observed with high frequency were Aaf(91.7%), Ca(94.7%), K-(94.5%), Ua(75.9%), P-(50.6%), Qabc(82.6%), ALB-BB(67.7%), GC-FF(92.7%), AIB-KK(99.6%), ES-II(77.9%), TF-DF1(23.6%), PI-LL(23.2%), HB-B2B2(73.6%), PGD-FS(45.4%) and genotypes Dcgm/dk(16.9%), Dbcm/cgm(13.6%), Dbcm/dk(11.9%), Dcegmn/cegmn(10.0%), Dcgm/cgm(8.7%) in TB. Alleles observed with high frequency were Aaf(0.796), Ca(0.769), Ddk(0.266), Dcgm(0.261), Dbcm(0.211), K-(0.972), P-(0.710), Qabc(0.565), Q-(0.368), Ua(0.509), $HB^{B2}$(0.858), $PGD^F$(0.634), $ALB^B$(0.825), $GC^F$(0.927), $AIB^K$(0.998), $ES^I$(0.881), $TF^{F1}$(0.346), $TF^D$(0.319), $TF^{F2}$(0.184), $PI^L$(0.479), $PI^N$(0.214), $PI^U$(0.116) in TB. The heterozygosity, polymorphic information content (PIC) and exclusion probability (PE) were calculated. The mean heterozygosity and PIC value were 0.3899 and 0.3375, respectively. The highest heterozygosity and PIC were estimated 0.7834 and 0.7492 in blood group D locus, respectively. The cumulated PE obtained by blood groups and biochemical polymorphisms was 0.9813.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.285-293
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• 2017

The effects of sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) on the corrosion and scaling of the Q235 carbon steel has been investigated in the simulated sewage water and oil field gathering pipelines production water, using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive x-ray spectrometry (EDS), and three-dimensional stereoscopic microscope. Results indicated that the concentration of SRB reached the maximum value on the ninth day in simulated sewage water with a large amount of scaling on the surface of specimen. In oil field gathering pipelines, a large amount of scaling and mineralization of mineral salts and thick deposition of extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) layers were also observed on the surface of specimen. The thickness of biofilm was about $245{\mu}m$ within 30 days. After adding microbicides, the thickness of corrosion products film was only up to $48-106{\mu}m$ within 30 days, suggesting that SRB could induce biomineralization. Under-deposit corrosion morphology was uniform in the absence of microbicides while local corrosion was observed in the presence of microbicides.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.256-262
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• 2011

A 20.9-kDa metalloprotease was isolated from dried fruiting bodies of the wild basidiomycete mushroom Lepista nuda. The N-terminal amino acid sequence of the protease was seen to be ATFVLTAATNTLFTA, thus displaying no similarity with the sequences of previously reported metalloproteases. The protease was purified using a procedure that entailed ion-exchange chromatography on CM-Cellulose, Q-Sepharose, and Mono S, and FPLC-gel filtration on Superdex 75. The protease functioned at an optimum pH of 7.0 and an optimum temperature of $50^{\circ}C$. It was also noted that the protease demonstrated a proteolytic activity of 1,756 U/mg toward casein. The $K_m$ of the purified protease toward casein was 6.36 mg/ml at a pH of 7.0 and with a temperature of $37^{\circ}C$, whereas the $V_{max}$ was 9.11 ${\mu}g\;ml^{-1}\;min^{-1}$. The activity of the protease was adversely affected by EDTA-2Na, suggesting that it is a metalloprotease. PMSF, EGTA, aprotinin, and leupeptin exerted no striking inhibitory effect. The activity of the protease was enhanced by $Fe^{2+}$, but was curtailed by $Cd^{2+}$, $Cu^{2+}$, $Hg^{2+}$, $Pb^{2+}$, $Zn^{2+}$, and $Fe^{2+}$ ions. The protease also exhibited inhibitory activity against HIV-1 reverse transcriptase with an $IC_{50}$ value of 4.00 ${\mu}M$. The $IC_{50}$ values toward hepatoma Hep G2 and leukemia L1210 cells in vitro were 4.99 ${\mu}M$ and 3.67 ${\mu}M$, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.602-608
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• 2011

In this study, a method of designing a neurointerface using neural network (NN) is proposed for controlling nonholonomic mobile robots. According to the concept of virtual master-slave robots, in particular, a partially stable inverse dynamic model of the master robot is acquired online through the NN by applying a feedback-error learning method, in which the feedback controller is assumed to be based on a PD compensator for such a nonholonomic robot. The NN for the online feedback-error learning can composed that the input layer consists of six units for the inputs $x_i$, i=1~6, the hidden layer consists of two hidden units for hidden outputs $o_j$, j=1~2, and the output layer consists of two units for the outputs ${\tau}_k$, k=1~2. A tracking control problem is demonstrated by some simulations for a nonholonomic mobile robot with two-independent driving wheels. The initial q value was set to [0, 5, ${\pi}$].

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.126-130
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• 2008

In this study, in order to develop low loss multilayer piezoelectric actuator, PZN-PZT ceramics were fabricated using $Li_2CO_3,\;Bi_2O_3$, CuO and ZnO as sintering aids, their structural, piezoelectric and dielectric characteristics were investigated according to the amount of ZnO addition, At the sintering temperature of $870^{\circ}C$, the density, electromechanical coupling factor(kp), mechanical quality factor(Qm), dielectric constant(${\epsilon}_r$) and piezoelectric constant($d_{33}$) of 0.4 wt% ZnO added specimen (sintered at $870^{\circ}C$) showed the optimum value of $7.812g/cm^3$, 0.535, 916, 1399, 335 pC/N respectively. Taking into consideration above piezoelectric properties of the specimen sintered at low temperature, it was concluded that PZN-PZT ceramics using 0.4 wt% ZnO as additive showed the optimum characteristics as the composition ceramics for low loss multilayer piezoelectric actuator application.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.251-262
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• 2017

This study distinguishes between factors that affect mental health of college students, establishes an effective approach to integrating model building, mental health promotion, and development of nursing intervention based on the Bronfenbrenner's ecological system theory. The study method investigate the causal relationship between the factors. The SPSS 20.0 program was used for general characteristics and mental health related characteristics. The fitness of the model was verified and the Amos 20.0 program was used for hypothesis verification. In the study, the fit index of the model was $x^2=614.90$ (p = .000), Q value = 3.5, GFI = .88, AGFI = .84, NFI = .92, NNFI = .94, CFI = .02, and RMSEA = .08, respectively. The results showed that stress was the most influential on mental health, and that stress coping strategies, self - esteem and parenting attitude affect mental health. In order to improve the mental health of college students, intervention should be carried out to develop nursing interventions to improve stress management, self - esteem, and coping with stress.