• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.29-38
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• 2018

Background: Radon contributing about 42% of annual average dose, mainly comes from soil. In this paper, standard measurement procedures for soil radon exhalation rate are suggested and their measurement uncertainties are analyzed. Materials and Methods: We used accumulation method for estimating surface exhalation rate. The closed-loop measurement system was made up with a RAD7 detector and a surface chamber. Radon activity concentrations in the system were observed as a function of time, with data collection of 5 and 15-minute and the measurement time of 4 hours. Linear and exponential fittings were used to obtain radon exhalation rates from observed data. Standard deviations of measurement uncertainties for two approaches were estimated using usual propagation rules. Results and Discussion: The exhalation rates (E) from linear approach, with 30 minutes measurement time were $44.8-48.6mBq{\cdot}m^{-2} {\cdot}s^{-1}$ or $2.14-2.32atom{\cdot}cm^{-2}{\cdot}s^{-1}$ with relative measurement uncertainty of about 10%. The contributions of fitting parameter A, volume (V) and surface (S) to the estimated measurement uncertainty of E were 59.8%, 30.1% and 10.1%, in average respectively. In exponential fitting, at 3-hour measurement we had E ranged of $51.6-69.2mBq{\cdot}m^{-2} {\cdot}s^{-1}$ or $2.46-3.30atom{\cdot}cm^{-2}{\cdot}s^{-1}$ with about 15% relative uncertainty. Fitting with 4-hour measurement resulted E about $51.3-68.2mBq{\cdot}m^{-2} {\cdot}s^{-1}$ or $2.45-3.25atom{\cdot}cm^{-2}{\cdot}s^{-1}$ with 10% relative uncertainty. The uncertainty contributions in exponential approach were 75.1%, 13.4%, 8.7%, and 2.9% for total decay constant k, fitting parameter B, V, and S, respectively. Conclusion: In obtaining exhalation rates, the linear approach is easy to apply, but by saturation feature of radon concentrations, the slope tends to decrease away from the expected slope for extended measurement time. For linear approach, measurement time of 1-hour or less was suggested. For exponential approach, the obtained exhalation rates showed similar values for any measurement time, but measurement time of 3-hour or more was suggested for about 10% relative uncertainty.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.3-10
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• 2017

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Sargassum horneri is an edible brown alga that grows in the subtidal zone as an annual species along the coasts of South Korea, China, and Japan. Recently, an extreme amount of S. horneri moved into the coasts of Jeju Island from the east coast of China, which made huge economic and environmental loss to the Jeju Island. Thus, utilization of this biomass becomes a big issue with the local authorities. Therefore, the present study was performed to evaluate the anti-inflammatory potential of crude polysaccharides (CPs) extracted from S. horneri China strain in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells. MATERIALS/METHODS: CPs were precipitated from S. horneri digests prepared by enzyme assistant extraction using four food-grade enzymes (AMG, Celluclast, Viscozyme, and Alcalase). The production levels of nitric oxide (NO) and pro-inflammatory cytokines, including tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-${\alpha}$ and interleukin (IL)-$1{\beta}$ were measured by Griess assay and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, respectively. The levels of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), nuclear factor (NF)-${\kappa}B$, and mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) were measured by using western blot. The IR spectrums of the CPs were recorded using a fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) spectrometer. RESULTS: The polysaccharides from the Celluclast enzyme digest (CCP) showed the highest inhibition of NO production in LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells ($IC_{50}$ value: $95.7{\mu}g/mL$). Also, CCP dose-dependently down-regulated the protein expression levels of iNOS and COX-2 as well as the production of inflammatory cytokines, including TNF-${\alpha}$ and IL-$1{\beta}$, compared to the only LPS-treated cells. In addition, CCP inhibited the activation of NF-${\kappa}B$ p50 and p65 and the phosphorylation of MAPKs, including p38 and extracellular signal-regulated kinase, in LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells. Furthermore, FT-IR analysis showed that the FT-IR spectrum of CCP is similar to that of commercial fucoidan. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that CCP has anti-inflammatory activities and is a potential candidate for the formulation of a functional food ingredient or/and drug to treat inflammatory diseases.