• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.185-196
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• 2010

Clay veins that occurred in a slope by hydrothermal alteration, can significantly affect its slope stability. The effect of clay veins on the slope stability was investigated by numerical modeling study. Various parameters such as cohesion, internal friction angle, orientation, groundwater level, rainfall intensity and duration, have been modelled. As shear strength increased, factor of safety increased. As groundwater level developed, factor of safety decreased. For the case of slip surface developed on interface, factor of safety was lower than that for case of slip surface developed on either weathered soil or clay vein. The effect of various soil types of the slope stability was also investigated by simulating seepage through the slopes with various soils. The groundwater level significantly increased on the slopes with silty and generic soils. For the slope with sandy soil, almost no change in groundwater level was observed due to rapid drainage.

• Reproductive and Developmental Biology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.485-489
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• 2011

The present study was conducted to examine the reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation levels and subsequent DNA damage in the bovine cultured somatic cells. Bovine ear skin cells were classified by serum starvation, confluence and cycling cells. Cells were stained in 10 ${\mu}M$ dichlorohydrofluorescein diacetate ($H_2DCFDA$) or 10 ${\mu}M$ hydroxyphenyl fluorescein (HPF) dye to measure the $H_2O_2$ or $^{\cdot}OH$ radical levels. The samples were examined with a fluorescent microscope, and fluorescence intensity was analyzed in each cell. $H_2O_2$ and $^{\cdot}OH$ radical levels of cultured somatic cells were high in confluence group ($7.1{\pm}0.7$ and $8.4{\pm}0.4$ pixels/cell, respectively) and significantly low in serum starvation group ($4.9{\pm}0.4$ and $7.0{\pm}0.4$ pixels/cell, respectively, p<0.05). Comet tail lengths of serum starvation ($148.3{\pm}5.7$ ${\mu}M$) and confluence ($151.1{\pm}5.0$ ${\mu}M$) groups were found to be significantly (p<0.05) increased in comparison to that of cycling group ($137.1{\pm}7.5$ ${\mu}M$). These results suggest that the culture type of donor cells can affect the ROS generation, which leads the DNA fragmentation of the cells.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.421-430
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• 2015

The parasite Plasmodium falciparum causes severe malaria and is the most dangerous to humans. However, it exhibits resistance to their drugs. Farnesyltransferase has been identified in pathogenic protozoa of the genera Plasmodium and the target of farnesyltransferase includes Ras family. Therefore, the inhibition of farnesyltransferase has been suggested as a new strategy for the treatment of malaria. However, the exact functional mechanism of this agent is still unknown. In addition, the effect of farnesyltransferase inhibitor (FTIs) on mitochondrial level of malaria parasites is not fully understood. In this study, therefore, the effect of a FTI R115777 on the function of mitochondria of P. falciparum was investigated experimentally. As a result, FTI R115777 was found to suppress the infection rate of malaria parasites under in vitro condition. It also reduces the copy number of mtDNA-encoded cytochrome c oxidase III. In addition, the mitochondrial membrane potential (${\Delta}{\Psi}m$) and the green fluorescence intensity of MitoTracker were decreased by FTI R115777. Chloroquine and atovaquone were measured by the mtDNA copy number as mitochondrial non-specific or specific inhibitor, respectively. Chloroquine did not affect the copy number of mtDNA-encoded cytochrome c oxidase III, while atovaquone induced to change the mtDNA copy number. These results suggest that FTI R115777 has strong influence on the mitochondrial function of P. falciparum. It may have therapeutic potential for malaria by targeting the mitochondria of parasites.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.279-287
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• 2015

Stray cats are a common feature roaming the streets and alleys of Kuwait; they could be a source of parasites, including trematodes, that affect humans. A survey was conducted to identify feline trematodes and throw the light on their public health significance in Kuwait. Out of 240 stray cats trapped from different localities of Kuwait from June 2011 to May 2012, 59 (24.6%) were found to be infected with 14 species of trematodes. The most common were trematodes of the genus Heterophyes, particularly H. heterophyes and H. dispar that were found in respectively 15.8% and 10.8% of the cats examined. Other trematodes recorded, with lower prevalences, were Heterophyes nocens (2.9%), Haplorchis taichui (3.8%), Stictodora sawakinensis (2.1%), Stellantchasmus falcatus (1.6%), Echinochasmus japonicus (1.6%), and Mesostephanus dottrensi (1.3%). Centrocestus cuspidatus, Galactosomum fregatae, Ascocotyle sp., Mesostephanus appendiculatus, Haplorchis yokogawai, and Pygidiopsis genata showed the lowest prevalence (0.4%) and intensity. The majority of the trematodes are recorded for the first time in Kuwait and even in the Gulf region. The study reveals that stray cats are good indicators of fish-borne trematodes in the environment. As all trematodes recovered are zoonotic, their significance to public health should be considred.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.79-84
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• 1999

An image processing technology was developed to measure the dimension of nuclear fuel rods and the diameter of nuclear fuel rods was measured by this method. It was confirmed that parameters such as camera-to-specimen distance. camera location, light intensity and light characteristic would affect dimension measurement of nuclear fuel rods. The percent relative error and percent standard deviation of measuring the diameter of nuclear fuel rods using image processing method were 4.88%, ${\pm}3.34%$ while the percent relative error and percent standard deviation using conventional method were 12.7%, ${\pm}9.72%$, respectively. The accuracy of diameter measurement of nuclear fuel rods using image processing method was about 3 times as high as that using conventional method.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 1996.06c
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• pp.263-269
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• 1996

In indian agricultural , the energy use pattern has played dominant role in influencing the level of mechanization . Besides that the agro-climatic factors as well as the size of holdings do affect the degree of mechanization . Nearly 30 percent of total cultivated area is owned by l76 percent of the small and tiny land holders each owning even less than a hectare. On the other hand, about 2 percent of land owners cultivate land. These variabilitieshave greatly influenced the ownership of power sources on Indian farms. Small farmers, employ human and animal energies with the use of hand tools and animal drawn equipments. Whereases, the use of tractors, power tillers, electric motors, etc. on small farms is on a marginal scale. There are few pockets and also extensive wheat growing regions where mechanical and electrical power sources are extensively used in production agriculture leading to about 185% of cropping intensity . In that region, the animal energy is employed for on the farm transport of fertilizers, fodders and fuel to support milch animals and other household activities . Inspite of high degree of mechanization, the harvesting of crops is done by human labour with few exceptions of harvesting wheat crops by combines in few pockets. In overall assessment of mechanization, the following conclusions are drawn : ⅰ) Farm operation which show a growing trend of mechanization are (a) tillge, (b) seedling (c) Irrigation (d) Plant protection application (e) Threshing and (f) Transport . ⅱ) Crop cultivation system in respect of wheat, maize and sorghum have been greatly mechanized. ⅲ) The least mechanized cropping systems are (a) vegetable production and (b) cultivation of sugarcane, cotton, rice and pulses. ⅳ) Annual production of tractor has touched the figure of 280.000 by 1995 and the total number has crossed 1.5million on Indian farms.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2000

The genes involved in riboflavin synthesis (ribI, II, III, and IV) were found immediately downstream of luxG in the lux operon from Photobacterium species. The single stranded DNA containing the intergenic region of lux genes and rib genes from Photobacterium phosphoreum was fully protected by P. phosphoreum mRNA from the S1 nuclease mapping assay suggesting that a transcriptional terminator was not present in the region. In addition, the levels of riboflavin synthase activity in P. phosphoreum was increased during the development of bacterial bioluminescence in the same fashion as the luciferase and fatty acid reductase activities. Insertion of the Photobacterium leiognathi DNA extending from luxB to ribII, between a strong lux promoter and a reporter gene (chloramphenicol acetyltransferase, CAT) and transferred by conjugation into P. leiognathi, did not affect expression of reporter gene. Moreover the CAT gene was not expressed in an analogous construct missing the lux promoter indicating that a promoter was not present in this region. Based on the data here, it can be concluded that the lux genes and rib genes in Photobacterium species are under common regulation.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.97-103
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• 2010

In this paper, we propose a new digital watermarking technique. The main idea of the proposed algorithm relies on the assumption that any real number can be expressed as a summation of the exponential form with base of 2 and if only consider the first few summations some numbers can be expressed in the same form. Therefore, we can be sure that some amount of changes does not affect the first few summations. The algorithm decomposes a host image in wavelet domain and intensity of the significant wavelet coefficient is expressed in exponential form with base of 2. Multiple barcode watermarks are then embedded by modifying the parity of the exponent. The proposed scheme is semi-blind and also offers either objective or subjective deteew su as well. From extracted watermarks, more accurate watermark is obtained by merging technique as a final watermark. As a simulation result, the proposed algorithm could resist most cases of salt and pepper noise, Gaussian noise and JPEG compression.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.687-694
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• 2015

A photoluminescence (PL) imaging method using a vision camera was employed to inspect InGaN/GaN quantum-well light-emitting diode (LED) epi-wafers. The PL image revealed dark spot defective regions (DSDRs) as well as a spatial map of integrated PL intensity of the epi-wafer. The Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) nonradiative recombination coefficient increased with the size of the DSDRs. The high nonradiative recombination rates of the DSDRs resulted in degradation of the optical properties of the LED chips fabricated at the defective regions. Abnormal current-voltage characteristics with large forward leakages were also observed for LED chips with DSDRs, which could be due to parallel resistances bypassing the junction and/or tunneling through defects in the active region. It was found that the SRH nonradiative recombination process was dominant in the voltage range where the forward leakage by tunneling was observed. The results indicated that the DSDRs observed by PL imaging of LED epi-wafers were high density SRH nonradiative recombination centers which could affect the optical and electrical properties of the LED chips, and PL imaging can be an inspection method for evaluation of the epi-wafers and estimation of properties of the LED chips before fabrication.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2017

A method for inspecting defects in display substrates utilizing Fourier optics is proposed in this paper. A cost-effective inspection system can be realized with the proposed method, because it does not require a high-magnification microscope. Also, the proposed method can avoid tight tolerance for variations in displacement between substrate and camera, which is stems from shallow depth of field of the high-magnification microscope. In addition, possible damage caused by collisions between substrate and the inspection equipment can be avoided. The decision algorithm can be simpler than for a conventional inspection system, because spatial shift of periodic substrate patterns does not affect the intensity distribution of the diffracted light, by the Fourier transform property. The proposed method is explained with numerical studies, and experiments are carried out to check its feasibility for color-filter substrates of a liquid-crystal display.