• Advances in nano research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.127-140
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• 2017

Metal nanoparticles have been intensively studied within the past decade. Nano-sized materials have been an important subject in basic and applied sciences. Zinc oxide nanoparticles have received considerable attention due to their unique antibacterial, antifungal, and UV filtering properties, high catalytic and photochemical activity. In this study, microbiological aspects of scale formation in PVC pipelines bacteria and fungi were isolated. In the emerging issue of increased multi-resistant properties in water borne pathogens, zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticle are being used increasingly as antimicrobial agents. Thus, the minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) and minimum fungal concentration of ZnO nanoparticles towards pathogens microbe were examined in this study. The results obtained suggested that ZnO nanoparticles exhibit a good anti fungal activity than bactericidal effect towards all pathogens tested in in-vitro disc diffusion method (170 ppm, 100 ppm and 30 ppm). ZnO nanoparticles can be a potential antimicrobial agent due to its low cost of production and high effectiveness in antimicrobial properties, which may find wide applications in various industries to address safety issues. Stable ZnO nanoparticles were prepared and their shape and size distribution characterized by Dynamic light scattering (35.7 nm) and transmission electron microscopic TEM study for morphology identification (20 nm), UV-visible spectroscopy (230 nm), X-ray diffraction (FWHM of more intense peak corresponding to 101 planes located at $36.33^{\circ}$ using Scherrer's formula), FT-IR (Amines, Alcohols, Carbonyl and Nitrate ions), Zeta potential (-28.8). The antimicrobial activity of ZnO nanoparticles was investigated against Bacteria and Fungi present in drinking water PVC pipelines biofilm. In these tests, Muller Hinton agar plates were used and ZnO nanoparticles of various concentrations were supplemented in solid medium.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.137-143
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• 1993

The tetranuclear heterometallic complex CpMo$Os_3(CO)_{10}({\mu]-H)2[{\mu}3-{\eta}^2-C(O)CH_2Tol]\;(1,\;Cp={\eta}^5-C_5H_5,\;Tol=p-C_6H_4Me)$ has been examined by variable-temperature $^{13}$C-NMR spectroscopy and by a full three-dimensional X-ray structual analysis. Complex 1 crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Pna2$_1$ with a = 12.960(1) ${\AA}$, b = 11.255(l) ${\AA}$, c = 38.569(10)${\AA}$, V = 5626(2) ${\AA}^3$ and ${\rho}$(calcd) = 2.71 gcm$^{-3}$ for Z = 8 and molecular weight 1146.9. Diffraction data were collectedon a CAD4 diffractometer, and the structure was refined to $R_F$ = 9.7% and $R_{W^F}$ = 9.9% for 2530 data (MoK${\alpha}$ radiation). There are two essentially equivalent molecules in the crystallographic asymmetric unit. The tetranuclear molecule contains a triangulated rhomboidal arrangement of metal atoms with Os(2) and Mo at the two bridgehead positions. The metal framework is planar; the dihedral angle between Os(l)-Os(2)-Mo and Os(3)-Os(2)-Mo planes is 180$^{\circ}$. A triply bridging (${\mu}_3,\;{\eta}^2$) acyl ligand lies above the Os(l)-Os(2)-Mo plane; the oxygen atom spans the two bridgehead positions, while the carbon atom spans one bridgehead position and an acute apical position. The molecular architecture is completed by an ${\eta}^5$-cyclopentadienyl ligand and a semi-triply bridging carbonyl ligand on the molybdenum atom, and nine terminal carbonyl ligands-four on Os(3), three on Os(l), and two on Os(2). The two hydride ligands are inferred to occupy the Os(l)-Os(2) and Mo-Os(3) edges from structural and NMR data.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.793-802
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• 2019

The centrifuge model test is usually used for two-dimensional deformation and instability study of the soil slopes. As a typical loose slope, the municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill is easy to slide with large deformation, under high water levels or large earthquakes. A series of centrifuge model tests of landfill slide induced by rising water level and earthquake were carried out. The particle image velocimetry (PIV), laser displacement transducer (LDT) and marker tracer (MT) methods were used to measure the deformation of the landfill under different centrifugal accelerations, water levels and earthquake magnitudes. The PIV method realized the observation of continuous deformation of the landfill model, and its results were consistent with those by LDT, which had higher precision than the MT method. The deformation of the landfill was mainly vertically downward and increased linearly with the rising centrifugal acceleration. When the water level rose, the horizontal deformation of the landfill developed gradually due to the seepage, and a global slide surface formed when the critical water level was reached. The seismic deformation of the landfill was mainly vertical at a low water level, but significant horizontal deformation occurred under a high water level. The results of the tests and analyses verified the applicability of PIV in the two-dimensional deformation measurement in the centrifuge model tests of the MSW landfill, and provide an important basis for revealing the instability mechanism of landfills under extreme hydraulic and seismic conditions.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.567-585
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• 2019

In the past two decades, structural health monitoring (SHM) systems have been widely installed on various civil infrastructures for the tracking of the state of their structural health and the detection of structural damage or abnormality, through long-term monitoring of environmental conditions as well as structural loadings and responses. In an SHM system, there are plenty of sensors to acquire a huge number of monitoring data, which can factually reflect the in-service condition of the target structure. In order to bridge the gap between SHM and structural maintenance and management (SMM), it is necessary to employ advanced data processing methods to convert the original multi-source heterogeneous field monitoring data into different types of specific physical indicators in order to make effective decisions regarding inspection, maintenance and management. Conventional approaches to data analysis are confronted with challenges from environmental noise, the volume of measurement data, the complexity of computation, etc., and they severely constrain the pervasive application of SHM technology. In recent years, with the rapid progress of computing hardware and image acquisition equipment, the deep learning-based data processing approach offers a new channel for excavating the massive data from an SHM system, towards autonomous, accurate and robust processing of the monitoring data. Many researchers from the SHM community have made efforts to explore the applications of deep learning-based approaches for structural damage detection and structural condition assessment. This paper gives a review on the deep learning-based SHM of civil infrastructures with the main content, including a brief summary of the history of the development of deep learning, the applications of deep learning-based data processing approaches in the SHM of many kinds of civil infrastructures, and the key challenges and future trends of the strategy of deep learning-based SHM.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.30.1-30.9
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• 2022

Hereditary spastic paraplegia is a not common inherited neurological disorder with heterogeneous clinical expressions. ALDH18A1 (located on 10q24.1) gene-related spastic paraplegias (SPG9A and SPG9B) are rare metabolic disorders caused by dominant and recessive mutations that have been found recently. Autosomal recessive hereditary spastic paraplegia is a common and clinical type of familial spastic paraplegia linked to the SPG11 locus (locates on 15q21.1). There are different symptoms of spastic paraplegia, such as muscle atrophy, moderate mental retardation, short stature, balance problem, and lower limb weakness. Our first proband involves a 45 years old man and our second proband involves a 20 years old woman both are affected by spastic paraplegia disease. Genomic DNA was extracted from the peripheral blood of the patients, their parents, and their siblings using a filter-based methodology and quantified and used for molecular analysis and sequencing. Sequencing libraries were generated using Agilent SureSelect Human All ExonV7 kit, and the qualified libraries are fed into NovaSeq 6000 Illumina sequencers. Sanger sequencing was performed by an ABI prism 3730 sequencer. Here, for the first time, we report two cases, the first one which contains likely pathogenic NM_002860: c.475C>T: p.R159X mutation of the ALDH18A1 and the second one has likely pathogenic NM_001160227.2: c.5454dupA: p.Glu1819Argfs Ter11 mutation of the SPG11 gene and also was identified by the whole-exome sequencing and confirmed by Sanger sequencing. Our aim with this study was to confirm that these two novel variants are direct causes of spastic paraplegia.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.895-908
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• 2023

Disposal of waste containing heavy metals into the environment is a major threat to human health and can result in toxic or chronic poisoning in aquatic life. In the current study, metal-resistant Raoultella ornithinolytica was isolated from metal-contaminated samples collected from the Tanjaro River, located southwest of Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. R. ornithinolytica was identified by partial amplification of 16S rRNA. The uptake potency of heavy metals was assessed using inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and indicated that R. ornithinolytica removed 67, 89, 63.4, 55.6, 56.5, 65, and 61.9% of Cd, Pb, Cr, Ni, Zn, Co, and Fe, respectively. These removal rates were influenced by temperature, pH, and contact time; at 35℃ and pH 5 with a change in the incubation time, the reduction rate improved from 89 to 95% for Pb, from 36.4 to 45% for Cu, and from 55.6 to 64% for Ni. Gene analysis indicated that R. ornithinolytica contained pbrT, chrB, nccA, iroN, and czcA genes, but the pcoD gene was absent. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) images showed evidence of metal ion binding on the cell wall surface with different rates of binding. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) detected different mechanisms for metal particle localization; cell surface adsorption was the main mechanism for Pb, Zn, and Co uptake, while Cd, Ni, and Fe were accumulated inside the cell. The current study describes, for the first time, the isolation of R. ornithinolytica from metal-contaminated water, which can be used as an eco-friendly biological expedient for the remediation and detoxification of metals from contaminated environments.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.158-168
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• 2023

The global output of Pyropia yezoensis (dried seaweed or laver, also called 'Gim' in Korea) has been reduced over the half-decade due to the wide spread of red rot disease, a serious algal disease affecting P. yezoensis. Recently, Gold 1 (G1), which is a resistant strain of P. yezoensis to red rot disease, was developed and commercialized in South Korea, yet its physiological activity has not been investigated. In this study, a comparative study was performed on G1 and commercially available strain of P. yezoensis (CP) for their antioxidative activities. Aqueous extract of G1 showed more marked 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) radical scavenging activity compared to that of CP. In 293T cells, antioxidant activity against H₂O₂-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation was only observed in G1 extract. In addition, G1 extract showed more potent inhibitory effect on H₂O₂-induced apoptotic cell death than CP extract, as examined by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay and fluorescence microscopy. Expression levels of various apoptosis-related genes, including B-cell lymphoma 2-associated X protein, p53, capase-3, and inflammatory cytokines, in H₂O₂-treated cells were significantly decreased by the treatment of G1. Taken together, the present study suggests that a new strain of red seaweed G1 can recover oxidative stress effectively by improving the imbalance of ROS generation and has a potential to be used a functional ingredient as an antioxidant source.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.63-78
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• 2024

The continuous increasing of the global demand of copper and nickel metals raises the interest in developing alternative technologies to produce them from copper sulfide ore. Also, in line with Egypt's vision 2030 for achieving the sustainable socioeconomic development which aims at developing alternative and eco-friendly technologies for processing the Egyptian ores to produce these strategic products instead of its importing. These metals enhance the advanced electrical and electronic industries. The current work aims at investigating the recovery of copper and nickel from Abu Swayeil copper ore using pug leaching technique by sulfuric acid. The factors affecting the pug leaching process including the sulfuric acid concentration, leaching time and temperature have been investigated. The copper ore sample was characterized chemically using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and scanning electron microscope (SEM-EDX). A response surface methodology develops a quadratic model that expects the nickel and copper leaching effectiveness as a function of three controlling factors involved in the procedure of leaching was also investigated. The obtained results showed that the maximum dissolution efficiency of Ni and Cu are 99.06 % and 95.30%, respectively which was obtained at the following conditions: 15 % H₂SO₄ acid concentration for 6 hr. at 250 ℃. The dissolution kinetics of nickel and copper that were examined according to heterogeneous model, indicated that the dissolution rates were controlled by surface chemical process during the pug leaching. The activation energy of copper and nickel dissolution were 26.79 kJ.mol^-1 and 38.078 kJ.mol^-1 respectively; and the surface chemical was proposed as the leaching rate-controlling step.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.12-16
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• 2015

Purpose Principal component analysis (PCA) is a method often used in the neuroimagre analysis as a multivariate analysis technique for describing the structure of high dimensional correlation as the structure of lower dimensional space. PCA is a statistical procedure that uses an orthogonal transformation to convert a set of observations of correlated variables into a set of values of linearly independent variables called principal components. In this study, in order to investigate the usefulness of PCA in the brain PET image analysis, we tried to analyze C[11]-PIB PET image as a representative case. Materials and Methods Nineteen subjects were included in this study (normal = 9, AD/MCI = 10). For C[11]-PIB, PET scan were acquired for 20 min starting 40 min after intravenous injection of 9.6 MBq/kg C[11]-PIB. All emission recordings were acquired with the Biograph 6 Hi-Rez (Siemens-CTI, Knoxville, TN) in three-dimensional acquisition mode. Transmission map for attenuation-correction was acquired using the CT emission scans (130 kVp, 240 mA). Standardized uptake values (SUVs) of C[11]-PIB calculated from PET/CT. In normal subjects, 3T MRI T1-weighted images were obtained to create a C[11]-PIB template. Spatial normalization and smoothing were conducted as a pre-processing for PCA using SPM8 and PCA was conducted using Matlab2012b. Results Through the PCA, we obtained linearly uncorrelated independent principal component images. Principal component images obtained through the PCA can simplify the variation of whole C[11]-PIB images into several principal components including the variation of neocortex and white matter and the variation of deep brain structure such as pons. Conclusion PCA is useful to analyze and extract the main pattern of C[11]-PIB image. PCA, as a method of multivariate analysis, might be useful for pattern recognition of neuroimages such as FDG-PET or fMRI as well as C[11]-PIB image.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.18 no.9
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• pp.475-481
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• 2008

Positive temperature coefficient of resistivity (PTCR) characteristics of (1-x)$BaTiO_3-x(Bi_{0.5}K_{0.5})TiO_3$ ceramics doped with $Nb_2O_5$ were investigated in order to develop the Pb-free PTC thermistor available at high temperatures of > $120^{\circ}C$. The PTCR characteristics appearing in the ($B_{i0.5}K_{i0.5})TiO_3$ (< 5 mol%) incorporated $BaTiO_3$ ceramics, which might be mainly due to $Bi^{+3}$ ions substituting for $Ba^{+2}$ sites. The 0.99$BaTiO_3-0.01(Bi_{0.5}K_{0.5})TiO_3$ ceramics showed good PTCR characteristics of a low resistivity at room temperature (${\rho}_r$) of $31{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ a high ${\rho}_{max}/{\rho}_{min}$ ratio of $5.38{\times}10^3$, and a high resistivity temperature factor (${\alpha}$) of $17.8%/^{\circ}C$. The addition of $Nb_2O_5$ to 0.99$BaTiO_3-0.01(Bi_{0.5}K_{0.5})TiO_3$ ceramics further improved the PTCR characteristics. Especially, 0.025 mol% $Nb_2O_5$ doped 0.99$BaTiO_3-0.01(Bi_{0.5}K_{0.5})TiO_3$ ceramics exhibited a significantly increased ${\rho}_{max}/{\rho}_{min}$ ratio of $8.7{\times}10^3$ and a high ${\alpha}$ of $18.6%/^{\circ}C$, along with a high $T_c$ of $148^{\circ}C$ despite a slightly increased ${\rho}_r$ of $31{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$.