• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.547-553
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• 2004

The pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs), contained in a number of traditional remedies in Africa and Asia, show wide variations in metabolism between animal species but little work has been done to investigate differences between animal strains. The metabolism of the PA senecionine (SN) in Fischer 344 (F344) rats has been studied in order to compare to that found in the previously investigated Sprague-Dawley (SO) rats (Drug Metab. Dispos. 17: 387, 1989). There was no difference in the formation of ($\pm$) 6,7-dihydro-7-hydroxy-1-hydroxymethyl-5H-pyrrolizine (DHP, bioactivation) by hepatic microsomes from either sex of SO and F344 rats. However, hepatic microsomes from male and female F344 rats had greater activity in the Noxidation (detoxication) of SN by 88% and 180%, respectively, when compared to that of male and female SD rats. Experiments conducted at various pH showed an optimum pH of 8.5, the optimal pH for flavin-containing monooxygenase (FMO), for SN N-oxidation by hepatic microsomes from F344 females. In F344 males, however, a bimodal pattern was obtained with activity peaks at pH 7.6 and 8.5 reflecting the possible involvement of both cytochrome P450 (CYP) and FMO. Use of specific inhibitors (SKF525A, 1-benzylimidazole and methimazole) showed that the N-oxide of SN was primarily produced by FMO in both sexes of F344 rats. In contrast, SN N-oxide formation is known to be catalyzed mainly by CYP2C11 rather than FMO in SD rats. This study, therefore, demonstrated that there were substantial differences in the formation of SN N-oxide by hepatic microsomes from F344 and SD rats and that this detoxification is catalyzed primarily by two different enzymes in the two rat strains. These findings suggest that significant variations in PA biotransformation can exist between different animal strains.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.609-616
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• 1992

This study has been investigated on the milling of Aluminium Distearate (ADS) powder and characteristics of the ADS-doped UO2 pellets. As-received ADS powder of the agglomerated particles has not shown any milling effect because of heat generated during planetary milling. But the use of coolant to effectively remove heat generated during milling has been found an effective way in breaking up the agglomerates of ADS powder. The green density of the UO2 pellet decreases with the amount of ADS powder doped. Therefore, in order to get the sintered density of 95% pellet decreases with the amount of ADS powder doped. Therefore, in order to get the sintered density of 95% theoretical density, the 200 ppm ADS-doped UO2 pellet has to be pressed under higher compacting pressure of 3500~4000 kgf/$\textrm{cm}^2$ compared with the ADS-undoped UO2 pellet pressed under around 3000 kgf/$\textrm{cm}^2$. The ADS-dpoed UO2 pellet with even relatively low sintered density of 10.27 g/㎤ exhibits open porosity of 1% while open porosity of the ADS-undoped UO2 pellet is reduced to around 1% only after its sintered density increases to 10.43g/㎤. It is, therefore, concluded that doping of ADS powder significantly contributes to the decrease in open porosity of the UO2 pellet. The dilatometry of the ADS doped UO2 pellet shows the sintering rate curve with the bimodal mode, which could be attributed to a phase reaction between UO2 and ADS. The X-ray diffraction analysis indicates that there occurs not any new phase formed but the shift of the peaks. It would be expected that a phase reaction resulting in solid solution would happen in the temperature range of 130$0^{\circ}C$ to 150$0^{\circ}C$ between UO2 and ADS.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.266-278
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• 1993

Ecological and taxonomical studies on the copepods were reviewed in order to dake data bases on the species composition, abundance, distributional pattern, and seasonal variations of copepods in the South Sea of Korea. Total 179 species have been reported in this area. The dominant species in the coastal waters and embayments, such as Acartia clausi, Paracalanus parvus, Oithona similis, and Oithona nana, were different from those reported in the offshore waters around Cheju Island. Indicator species of the South Sea were also discussed in this paper. Copepod abundances were higher in the coastal waters, up to more than 390,000 individuals/$m^3$(collected with a $150{\mu}m$ mesh net), than in the offshore waters. There were two types of temporal variations in copepod abundances in the coastal waters, i.e., bimodal abundance peaks in spring and fall, md unimodal peak during summer to early fall.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.43-50
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• 2021

A newly cloned 4-α-glucanotransferase (αGT) from Deinococcus geothermalis and two typical bacterial αGTs from Thermus scotoductus and Escherichia coli (MalQ) were investigated. Among 4 types of catalysis, the cyclization activity of αGTs that produces cycloamylose (CA), a valuable carbohydrate making inclusion complexes, was intensively studied. The new αGT, DgαGT, showed close protein sequence to the αGT from T. scotoductus (TsαGT). MalQ was clearly separated from the other two αGTs in the phylogenetic and the conserved regions analyses. The reaction velocities of disproportionation, cyclization, coupling, and hydrolysis of three αGTs were determined. Intriguingly, MalQ exhibited more than 100-fold lower cyclization activity than the others. To lesser extent, the disproportionation activity of MalQ was relatively low. DgαGT and TsαGT showed similar kinetics results, but TsαGT had nearly 10-fold lower hydrolysis activity than DgαGT. Due to the very low cyclizing activity of MalQ, DgαGT and TsαGT were selected for further analyses. When amylose was treated with DgαGT or TsαGT, CA with a broad DP range was generated immediately. The DP distribution of CA had a bimodal shape (DP 7 and 27 as peaks) for the both enzymes, but larger DPs of CA quickly decreased in the DgαGT. Cyclomaltopentaose, a rare cyclic sugar, was produced at early reaction stage and accumulated as the reactions went on in the both enzymes, but the increase was more profound in the TsαGT. Taken together, we clearly demonstrated the catalytic differences between αGT groups from thermophilic and pathogenic bacteria that and showed that αGTs play different roles depending on their lifestyle.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.278-284
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• 2014

Water temperature due to climate change can be estimated using the air temperature because the air and water temperatures are closely related and the water temperatures have been widely used as the indicators of the environmental and ecological changes. It is highly necessary to estimate the frequency distribution of the air and water temperatures, for the climate change derives the change of the coastal water temperatures. In this study, the distribution function of the air temperatures is estimated by using the long-term coastal air temperature data sets in Korea. The candidate distribution function is the bi-modal distribution function used in the previous studies, such as Cho et al.(2003) on tidal elevation data and Jeong et al.(2013) on the coastal water temperature data. The parameters of the function are optimally estimated based on the least square method. It shows that the optimal parameters are highly correlated to the basic statistical informations, such as mean, standard deviation, and skewness coefficient. The RMS error of the parameter estimation using statistical information ranges is about 5 %. In addition, the bimodal distribution fits good to the overall frequency pattern of the air temperature. However, it can be regarded as the limitations that the distribution shows some mismatch with the rapid decreasing pattern in the high-temperature region and the some small peaks.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.11-19
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• 2013

As the temperature data show a distribution pattern with a number of peaks, assumption of normal distribution will result in a serious bias in the analysis. In this study, the Gaussian Mixture Distribution (GMD), a type of bimodal distribution, is presumed as a frequency distribution for the water temperature, in order to estimate the optimal parameter and to carry out the relation analysis between the optimal parameter and the basic statistical information such as mean and variance on the data. By the way, an estimation formulae to compute the frequency distribution of the data is developed by computing the parameters of GMD (i.e. ${\alpha}_1$, ${\mu}_1$, ${\sigma}_1$, ${\alpha}_2$, ${\mu}_2$, ${\sigma}_2$) by means of the major characteristic values, such as mean, standard deviation and skewness of the data. The formulae shows an excellent coincidence with the result from the observation data, in the RMS limit accuracy of 5%.

• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.234-243
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• 2012

The wintertime high loading for atmospheric pollutants is certainly expected in the Byunsan Peninsula of Korea because of a great-scale reclamation project having construction of 33 km tidal sea dike impounding an area of over 40,000 ha and long-range transport. The goal of this study is to trace the origin of this wintertime burden for ambient particulate matter (hereafter called "PM") in the Byunsan Peninsula of Korea. The size-segregated (i.e., cutoff size from 0.01 ${\mu}m$ to 4.7 ${\mu}m$) PM sampling was conducted at a ground-based site of Byunsan Peninsula located in the west coast of Korean Peninsula during the height of dike constructing. Data archived in this study are the mass concentrations of ionic, elemental, and carbonic components in size-fractioned PM. The elemental mass of individual submicrometer particles was also analyzed. The sum of 5-source (i.e., elemental carbon, organic materials, inorganic secondary pollutants, crustal matter, and sea-salts) concentrations shows the bimodal distribution (major and minor peaks formed around $D_p$, 0.65 ${\mu}m$ and $D_p$, 4.7 ${\mu}m$, respectively) by border with 0.19 ${\mu}m$ of cutoff size. The concentrations of EC in $PM_{1.1-0.01}$ in winter and spring times were 4.62 ${\mu}g\;m^{-3}$ and 3.74 ${\mu}g\;m^{-3}$, respectively. Elemental masses of submicron individual particles are classified into two groups, i.e., the major elements (Cl, Al, Si, S, and P) and the minor trace elements. Cluster analysis differentiated the elements in submicron individual particles into 4-cluster. Among them, three clusters are in agreement with the major (Al, Si, S, and P), minor (Fe, Ca, and K), and trace compositions of coal burning. Meanwhile, Cl classified as an independent cluster has different source profile which was mainly due to the Saemangeum seawall project. Some highly toxic elements (e.g., Cr, Mn, and As (and/or Pb)) were also detected in some part of submicron individual PM. As a consequence, the combination of the Saemangeum project and winter monsoon played a considerable part in the double aggravation of wintertime air pollution in the Byunsan Peninsular.

• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.109-126
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• 2018

This paper presents seasonal variation of $PM_{10}$ over five urban sites in Sabah, Malaysia for the period of January through December 2012. The variability of $PM_{10}$ along with the diurnal and weekly cycles of CO, $NO_2$, $SO_2$, and $O_3$ at Kota Kinabalu site were also discussed to investigate the possible sources for increased $PM_{10}$ concentration at the site. This work is crucial to understand the behaviour and possible sources of $PM_{10}$ in the urban atmosphere of Sabah region. In Malaysia, many air pollution studies in the past focused in west Peninsular, but very few local studies were dedicated for Sabah region. This work aims to fill the gap by presenting the descriptive statistics on the variability of $PM_{10}$ concentration in the urban atmosphere of Sabah. To further examine its diurnal and weekly cycle pattern, its responses towards the variations of CO, $NO_2$, $SO_2$, and ozone were also investigated. The highest mean value of $PM_{10}$ for the whole study period is seen from Tawau ($35.7{\pm}17.8{\mu}g\;m^{-3}$), while the lowest is from Keningau ($31.9{\pm}18.6{\mu}g\;m^{-3}$). The concentrations of $PM_{10}$ in all cities exhibited seasonal variations with the peak values occurred during the south-west monsoons. The $PM_{10}$ data consistently exhibited strong correlations with traffic related gaseous pollutants ($NO_2$, and CO), except for $SO_2$ and $O_3$. The analysis of diurnal cycles of $PM_{10}$ levels indicated that two peaks were associated during the morning and evening rush hours. The bimodal distribution of $PM_{10}$, CO, and $NO_2$ in the front and at the back of ozone peak is a representation of urban air pollution pattern. In the weekly cycle, higher $PM_{10}$, CO, and $NO_2$ concentrations were observed during the weekday when compared to weekend. The characteristics of $NO_2$ concentration rationed to CO and $SO_2$ suggests that mobile sources is the dominant factor for the air pollution in Kota Kinabalu; particularly during weekdays.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.335-347
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• 2010

The statistical characteristics of Cloud-to-Ground (CG) lightning data, observed by the total lightning detection system (TLDS) of KMA during the recent seven years (2002-2008), have been analyzed. Lightning frequency shows a strong interannual, seasonal and diurnal variations without regard to the polarity. The 74% and 0.6% of the total lightning occurred during the summer and winter, respectively. And it has a bimodal diurnal variation with two peaks (dawn: 0500-0700 LST, mid-afternoon: 1500-1600 LST). The ratio of positive flashes to negative ones also has a strong seasonal variation with the maximum and minimum during winter (62.5%) and summer (7.3%), respectively. Unlike the lightning frequency, the lightning intensity of negative flashes shows a weak interannual, seasonal and diurnal variations. However, the lightning intensity of positive flashes exhibits an inverse seasonal variation to that of lightning frequency, with the minimum and maximum during summer and winter, respectively. The lightning density is greatly higher in the western inland areas and the West/South Sea than in the eastern part and the East Sea. In general, the lightning intensity is stronger in the ocean, especially in the East Sea than in the inland area, regardless of the polarity.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.69-78
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• 2017

Purpose: This study reports the clinical features of infant, child, school aged and adolescent patients treated for acute poisoning in nationwide emergency departments (EDs). Methods: We retrospectively analyzed clinical data pertaining to patients under 19 years of age who were treated for acute poisoning in nationwide EDs from 2013 to 2015. The data were collected by the National Emergency Department Information System (NEDIS). All patients were divided into three groups: 'Infant and child group' (0 to 5 years), 'school age group' (6 to 12 years) and 'adolescent group' (13 to 18 years). General characteristics, Korea Standard Classification of Disease $7^{th}$ (KCD-7) codes and results of care were collected. Results: There were 14,500 pediatric poisoning cases during the study period. The distribution of patient age was bimodal with two peaks among infant, child and adolescent group. The proportion of alert mentality at the ED visit of the infant and child group was 99.3%, while that of the adolescent group was 86.4%. The proportion of intentional intoxication was higher in the adolescent group (40.7%) than other age groups. Among children less than 13 years of age, various poisonous substances and therapeutic drugs were common. Conclusion: There were some clinical differences in acute poisoning patients between age groups. It is necessary to establish a preventive plan considering characteristics by age. Since the KCD-7 code has limitations in analyzing the characteristics of poisoning patients, it is necessary to consider the registration system of poisoning patients.