• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.227-234
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• 2019

An analytical method was developed for the determination of oxytetracycline in agricultural products using the QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged and Safe) method by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). After the samples were extracted with methanol, the extracts were adjusted to pH 4 by formic acid and sodium chloride was added to remove water. Dispersive solid phase extraction (d-SPE) cleanup was carried out using $MgSO_4$ (anhydrous magnesium sulfate), PSA (primary secondary amine), $C_{18}$ (octadecyl) and GCB (graphitized carbon black). The analytes were quantified and confirmed with LC-MS/MS using ESI (electrospray ionization) in positive ion MRM (multiple reaction monitoring) mode. The matrix-matched calibration curves were constructed using six levels ($0.001{\sim}0.25{\mu}g/mL$) and coefficient of determination ($r^2$) was above 0.99. Recovery results at three concentrations (LOQ, $10{\times}LOQ$, and $50{\times}LOQ$, n=5) were from 80.0 to 108.2% with relative standard deviations (RSDs) less than of 11.4%. For inter-laboratory validation, the average recovery was in the range of 83.5~103.2% and the coefficient of variation (CV) was below 14.1%. All results satisfied the criteria ranges requested in the Codex guidelines (CAC/GL 40-1993, 2003) and the Food Safety Evaluation Department guidelines (2016). The proposed analytical method was accurate, effective and sensitive for oxytetracycline determination in agricultural commodities. This study could be useful for safety management of oxytetracycline residues in agricultural products.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.1-25
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• 2020

Sentiment Analysis (SA) is a Natural Language Processing (NLP) task that analyzes the sentiments consumers or the public feel about an arbitrary object from written texts. Furthermore, Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis (ABSA) is a fine-grained analysis of the sentiments towards each aspect of an object. Since having a more practical value in terms of business, ABSA is drawing attention from both academic and industrial organizations. When there is a review that says "The restaurant is expensive but the food is really fantastic", for example, the general SA evaluates the overall sentiment towards the 'restaurant' as 'positive', while ABSA identifies the restaurant's aspect 'price' as 'negative' and 'food' aspect as 'positive'. Thus, ABSA enables a more specific and effective marketing strategy. In order to perform ABSA, it is necessary to identify what are the aspect terms or aspect categories included in the text, and judge the sentiments towards them. Accordingly, there exist four main areas in ABSA; aspect term extraction, aspect category detection, Aspect Term Sentiment Classification (ATSC), and Aspect Category Sentiment Classification (ACSC). It is usually conducted by extracting aspect terms and then performing ATSC to analyze sentiments for the given aspect terms, or by extracting aspect categories and then performing ACSC to analyze sentiments for the given aspect category. Here, an aspect category is expressed in one or more aspect terms, or indirectly inferred by other words. In the preceding example sentence, 'price' and 'food' are both aspect categories, and the aspect category 'food' is expressed by the aspect term 'food' included in the review. If the review sentence includes 'pasta', 'steak', or 'grilled chicken special', these can all be aspect terms for the aspect category 'food'. As such, an aspect category referred to by one or more specific aspect terms is called an explicit aspect. On the other hand, the aspect category like 'price', which does not have any specific aspect terms but can be indirectly guessed with an emotional word 'expensive,' is called an implicit aspect. So far, the 'aspect category' has been used to avoid confusion about 'aspect term'. From now on, we will consider 'aspect category' and 'aspect' as the same concept and use the word 'aspect' more for convenience. And one thing to note is that ATSC analyzes the sentiment towards given aspect terms, so it deals only with explicit aspects, and ACSC treats not only explicit aspects but also implicit aspects. This study seeks to find answers to the following issues ignored in the previous studies when applying the BERT pre-trained language model to ACSC and derives superior ACSC models. First, is it more effective to reflect the output vector of tokens for aspect categories than to use only the final output vector of [CLS] token as a classification vector? Second, is there any performance difference between QA (Question Answering) and NLI (Natural Language Inference) types in the sentence-pair configuration of input data? Third, is there any performance difference according to the order of sentence including aspect category in the QA or NLI type sentence-pair configuration of input data? To achieve these research objectives, we implemented 12 ACSC models and conducted experiments on 4 English benchmark datasets. As a result, ACSC models that provide performance beyond the existing studies without expanding the training dataset were derived. In addition, it was found that it is more effective to reflect the output vector of the aspect category token than to use only the output vector for the [CLS] token as a classification vector. It was also found that QA type input generally provides better performance than NLI, and the order of the sentence with the aspect category in QA type is irrelevant with performance. There may be some differences depending on the characteristics of the dataset, but when using NLI type sentence-pair input, placing the sentence containing the aspect category second seems to provide better performance. The new methodology for designing the ACSC model used in this study could be similarly applied to other studies such as ATSC.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.449-470
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• 1984

The cercaria of Bacciger herengulae which is parasitized on the gonad of Solen strictus was investigated in order to reveal its entire life history. The area covered for the study was in the vicinity sea of Naechodo, the estuary of the Kum river in the western coast of Korea during the period of 1980-1983. Morphology and development as well as infection rates of sporocyst and cercaria within Solen strictus were examined. For accomplishing the objectives of this study, an artificial infection experiment and some investigations on the second intermediate host, the final host and the growing stages were also studied in both laboratory and natural habitat of Solen strictus. According to the study, it was revealed that the first intermediate hosts were Meretrix lusoria, Solen strictus, Tapes japonica and Laternula limicola, the second intermediate host was Palaemon (Exopalaemon) carinicauda and the final hosts were Konosirus punctatus and Harengula zunasi. A mature sporocyst which was found in the gonad of Solen strictus was $4.0-4.3{\times}0.2-0.21\;mm$ insize, and the cercaia with 27 pairs of setae, each seta consisting of 6 tufts, was $270{\times}147{\mu}m$ in body size and $550{\times}52{\mu}m$ in tail size. Oral sucker($52{\times}42{\mu}m$), pharynx, vental sucker and two testese were obviously seen within the cercaria. The excretory vesicles of cercaria were in V-shape and the flame cell were formula was expressed as 2[(3+3)+(3+3)]=24. The infection of cercaria in the first intermediate host, Solen strictus, was found throughout the year regardlless of the water temperature, and its mean infection rate was $9.67\%$ during the study period. The infection rate fluctuated with temperature, the highest being $28.0\%\;at\;28.0^{\circ}C$ water temperature in July and the lowest $2.4\%\;at\;19.5^{\circ}C$ in October, and it increased in proportion to the shell length on the host. But cercaria was not detected at below 4.0 cm in size of the host. Mature cercariae were found 6 months from May to October when water temperature was above $19.5^{\circ}C$. On the other hand, when water temperature was below $19.5^{\circ}C$, only immature cercariae and sporocysts were found. The cercariae were active for 35 hours and survived for 71 hours at $20^{\circ}C$, and 29 and 34 hours at $25^{\circ}C$ respectively, whereas the cercariae were inactive at less than $20^{\circ}C$ in water temperature. Cercaria, from Solen strictus, approached shrimp of 1-3 cm in body length as its second host. Then, it began to intrude in to the muscle of shrimp after 2-3 hours. The infected cercaria formed cyst after 7-8 hours, and became mature metacercaria. $420{\times}310{\mu}m$ in size, 15 days afer infection. The infection rate of metaceria to shrimp in the laboratory was highest, at $25^{\circ}C$ being $61\%$ and at $20^{\circ}C\;17%$. The infection rate of metacearia in shrimp was highest in the first abdominal segment, followed by cephalothorax, the second, and fifth abdominal segments, and in that order. Also, the infection rate of metacercaria in wild shrimp was high $9.6-11.1\%$ at $26.5^{\circ}C$ in June, and low $1.56-2.5\%$ at $28-29.5^{\circ}C$ from July to August. The infected shrimp with metacercaria was experimentally fed to Konosirus punctatus in the laboratory in order to know its final host. The metacercaria developed into the adult worm, $440-520{\times}310-360{\mu}m$ in size, within the intestine of Konosirus punctatus 20 days after infection. The adult worm was oval shape and $20-24{\times}11-20{\mu}m$ in size. The infection rate of adult worm to Konosirus punctatus and Harengula zunasi ranged 87.3 to $100\%$, the mean being $95.2\%$, regardless of the body length of their hosts. The infection rate was $100\%$ in June and July, but it decreased in September and October. The size and body structure of the trematode observed during the present study were well agreed with those ievestigated by Yamaguti(1938), thus, it may be concluded that the adult worm it identified as Bacciger harengulae.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.51-66
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• 2004

Objectives : The matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) that participate in the extracellular matrix metabolism play a important role in the progression of pulmonary fibrosis. The effects of the MMPs are regulated by several factors including Th-1 cytokines, $interferon-{\gamma}$ ($IFN-{\gamma}$). Up to now, $IFN-{\gamma}$ is known to inhibit pulmonary fibrosis, but little is known regarding the exact effect of $IFN-{\gamma}$ on the regulation of the MMPs. This study investigated the effects of $interferon-{\gamma}$ on the pulmonary fibrosis and the expression of the lung MMP-2,-9, TIMP-1,-2, and Th-2 cytokines in aa rat model of bleomycin induced pulmonary fibrosis. Materials and methods : Male, specific pathogen-free Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to an intratracheal bleomycin instillation. The rats were randomized to a saline control, a bleomycin treated, and a bleomycin+$IFN-{\gamma}$ treated group. The bleomycin+$IFN-{\gamma}$ treated group was subjected to an intramuscular injection of $IFN-{\gamma}$ for 14 days. At 3, 7, 14, and 28 days after the bleomycin instillation, the rats were sacrificed and the lungs were harvested. In order to evaluate the effects of the $IFN-{\gamma}$ on lung fibrosis and inflammation, the lung hydroxyproline content, inflammation and fibrosis score were measured. Western blotting, zymography and reverse zymography were performed at 3, 7, 14, 28 days after bleomycin instillation in order to evaluate the MMP-2,-9, and TIMP-1,-2 expression level. ELISA was performed to determine the IL-4 and IL-13 level in a lung homogenate. Results : 1. 7 days after bleomycin instillation, inflammatory changes were more severe in the bleomycin+$IFN-{\gamma}$ group than the bleomycin group (bleomycin group : bleomycin+$IFN-{\gamma}$ group=$2.08{\pm}0.15:2.74{\pm}0.29$, P<0.05), but 28 days after bleomycin instillation, lung fibrosis was significantly reduced as a result of the $IFN-{\gamma}$ treatment (bleomycin group : bleomycin+$IFN-{\gamma}$ group=$3.94{\pm}0.43:2.64{\pm}0.13$, P<0.05). 2. 28 days after bleomycin instillation, the lung hydroxyproline content was significantly reduced as a result of $IFN-{\gamma}$ treatment (bleomycin group : bleomycin+$IFN-{\gamma}$ group=$294.04{\pm}31.73{\mu}g/g:194.92{\pm}15.51{\mu}g/g$, P<0.05). 3. Western blotting showed that the MMP-2 level was increased as a result of the bleomycin instillation and highest in the 14 days after bleomycin instillation. 4. In zymography, the active forms of MMP-2 were significantly increased as a result of the $IFN-{\gamma}$ treatment 3 days after the bleomycin instillation, bleomycin+$IFN-{\gamma}$ group (bleomycin group : bleomycin+$IFN-{\gamma}$ group=$209.63{\pm}7.60%:407.66{\pm}85.34%$, P<0.05), but 14 days after the bleomycin instillation, the active forms of MMP-2 were significantly reduced as a result of the $IFN-{\gamma}$ treatment (bleomycin group : bleomycin+$IFN-{\gamma}$ group=$159.36{\pm}20.93%:97.23{\pm}12.50%$, P<0.05). 5. The IL-4 levels were lower in the bleomycin and bleomycin+$IFN-{\gamma}$ groups but this was not significant, and the IL-13 levels showed no difference between the experiment groups. Conclusion : The author found that lung inflammation was increased in the early period but the pulmonary fibrosis was inhibited in the late stage as a result of $IFN-{\gamma}$. The inhibition of pulmonary fibrosis by $IFN-{\gamma}$ appeared to be associated with the inhibition of MMP-2 activation by $IFN-{\gamma}$. Further studies on the mechanism of the regulation of MMP-2 activation and the effects of MMP-2 activation on pulmonary fibrosis is warranted in the future.