• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
• /
• v.30 no.6
• /
• pp.1140-1148
• /
• 2017

For the purpose of developing new immunomodulatory agents from broccoli, ethanol extract (BCEE), hot water extract (BCHW), and crude polysaccharide (BCCP) were isolated from broccoli, and their immunomodulatory activities and chemical properties were examined. In the in vitro cytotoxicity analysis, BCHW and BCCP did not affect the growth of tumor cells and normal cells. Murine peritoneal macrophages stimulated with BCCP showed higher production of IL-6, IL-12, and $TNF-{\alpha}$ cytokines than those stimulated with BCHW. Also, BCHW and BCCP did not show proliferation of splenic lymphocytes. In the in vitro assay for intestinal immunomodulatory activities, only BCCP enhanced GM-CSF secretion and the bone marrow cell-proliferating activity via cells in Peyer's patches at $1,000{\mu}g/mL$. Also, BCHW mainly contained 33.7% neutral sugars, such as arabinose, glucose, and galactose, and 30.7% uronic acid, and BCCP consisted of 42.6% neutral sugars, including arabinose, galactose, and glucose, and 50.5% uronic acid. The above results lead us to conclude that crude polysaccharide (BCCP) isolated from broccoli causes considerably high cytokine production in peritoneal macrophages and bone marrow cell proliferation, and the polysaccharide extraction process is indispensable for separation of new immunomodulatory agents from broccoli.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• v.52 no.4
• /
• pp.394-402
• /
• 2019

The Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated gene transfer is widely used to generate genetic transformation of plants and transient assay of temporal exogenous gene expression. Syringe infiltration system into tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana) leaves is a powerful tool for transient expression of target protein to study protein localization, protein-protein binding and protein production. However, the protocol and technical information of transient gene expression, especially double strand RNA (dsRNA), in tobacco using Agrobacterium is not well known. Recently, dsRNA is crucial for insecticidal effect on destructive agronomic pest such as Corn rootworm. In this study, we investigated the factor influencing the dsRNA expression efficiency of syringe agro-infiltration in tobacco. To search the best combination for dsRNA transient expression in tobacco, applied two Agrobacterium cell lines and three plant vector systems. The efficiency of dsRNA expression has estimated by real-time PCR and digital PCR. As a result, pHellsgate12 vector constructs showed the most effective accumulation of dsRNA in the cell. These results indicated that the efficiency of dsRNA expression was depending on the kind of vector rather than Agrobacterium cells. In summary, the optimized combination of transient dsRNA expression system in tobacco might be useful to in vivo dsRNA expression for functional study and risk assessment of dsRNA.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
• /
• v.23 no.1
• /
• pp.141-149
• /
• 2009

In this paper, quasi-static FDTD method is implemented by FORTRAN programming, and it is used for analysis of body induced current in middle frequencies. The quasi-static FDTD program is validated by comparing the calculation result with analytic solution of the test model, to which it is difficult to apply conventional FDTD. It is confirmed that the time-step is reduced by $5.68{\times}10^6$ times. Using validated numerical technique, body induced current distribution in high resolution 3-D human model is calculated for 20[kHz] magnetic field exposure and 1[MHz] electric field exposure. Also, the effect of grounding condition of both feet on the distribution and amplitude of the induced current is analyzed. It is expected that this research can be applied to various fields including safety assessment of body induced current and development of diagnosis devices using bio-electricity.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.48 no.3
• /
• pp.289-297
• /
• 2018

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the usefulness of a behavioral cue checklist (BCC) containing 17 items developed by Wilkes et al. (2010) for identifying potentially violent patients in emergency departments. Methods: This was a prospective observational study to evaluate the usefulness of the Korean version of a BCC (K-BCC) as an assessment tool for predicting patient violence in emergency departments, and was conducted over 4 weeks in a regional emergency medical center located in B City. A total of 1,324 patients were finally analyzed. Results: Logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate whether each item of the K-BCC predicts violence, and a parsimonious set of 8 statistically significant items was selected for the tool. Receiver operating characteristic analysis of the BCC showed that the area under the curve was .97 (95% confidence interval: .94~1.0). The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value at the cut-off score of 2 were 75.6%, 98.9%, 68.2%, and 99.2%, respectively. Conclusion: The K-BCC was found to be useful in predicting patient violence toward emergency department staff. This tool is simple, and fast to use and can play a significantly role identifying potentially violent patients. Owing to this advance identification, this tool can be helpful in preventing the potential for violence from manifesting as violent behaviors.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
• /
• v.46 no.4
• /
• pp.857-868
• /
• 2019

A flooded rice field is one of the significant sources of anthropogenic methane (CH₄) with the intensity of the emissions dependent on management practices. Incorporation of rice straw, which is one of the organic amendments, induces the increase of methane emissions during the flooding season. In this study, we measured of methane emission according to applications of rice straw in different soil textures during a cultivation period in 2017 and 2018. The fallow treatments were non application of rice straw (NA), spring plowing after spring spreading of rice straw (SPSA), spring plowing after previous autumn spreading of rice straw (SPAA), and autumn plowing after previous autumn spreading of rice straw (APAA). The SPSA treatment emitted the highest total methane from loam soil in both 2017 (596.7 CH₄ kg ha^-1) and 2018 (795.4 CH₄ kg ha^-1). The same trend was observed in silt clay loam soil; the SPSA treatment still emitted the highest amount of methane in both 2017 (845.9 CH₄ kg ha^-1) and 2018 (1,071.7 CH₄ kg ha^-1). The lowest emission among the rice straw incorporated plots came from the APAA treatment for both soil texture types in all the seasons. The conversion factors of the SPAA were 0.79 and 0.65 from the loam and silt clay loam soils, respectively. Relatedly, the conversion factors of the APAA were 0.71 and 0.43 from the loam and silt clay loam soils, respectively. The above observations mean therefore that incorporation of rice straw early in the fallow reduces methane emissions in the main rice growing season.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
• /
• v.49 no.2
• /
• pp.38-45
• /
• 2012

If an infant with congenital hearing loss is diagnosed in good time and get proper treatment as soon as possible, treatment effect could be maximized and the social costs could be considerably reduced. For these reasons, the medical equipment to screen hearing impairment objectively is needed. The ABR(auditory brainstem response) is typical diagnostic tools for this purpose but there are drawbacks in sense that it does not have frequency specificity and shows hearing information of usually high frequency band. The ASSR(auditory steady-state response) is excellent in frequency specificity, but the rate of wrong diagnosis is slightly high. In this study, we proposed the system which can measure both the ABR and the ASSR, and can show the objective and quantitative indices(Fsp and F-test). It was designed to allow various tests without hardware modification by minimizing hardware components and by increasing software roles. The objective assessment of the developed system was evaluated by experiments with 10 normal persons.

• Current Optics and Photonics
• /
• v.3 no.6
• /
• pp.555-565
• /
• 2019

Development of a biomarker for predicting tumor-treatment efficacy is a matter of great concern, to reduce time, medical expense, and effort in oncology therapy. In a preclinical study, we hypothesized that the blood-flow parameter based on laser speckle flowmetry (LSF) could be a potential indicator to estimate the efficacy of breast-cancer treatment. To verify this hypothesis, a 13762-MAT-B-III rat breast tumor was grown in a dorsal skinfold window chamber applied to a nude mouse, and the change in blood flow rate (BFR) - or the speckle flow index (SFI) is used together as the same meaning in this manuscript - was longitudinally monitored during tumor growth and metronomic cyclophosphamide treatment. Based on the daily LSF angiogram, several BFR parameters (baseline SFI, normalized SFI, and △rBFR) were compared to tumor size in the normal, treated, and untreated tumor groups. Despite the incomplete tumor treatment, we found that the daily changes in all BFR parameters tended to have partially positive correlation with tumor size. Moreover, we observed that the changes in baseline SFI and normalized SFI responded one day earlier than the tumor shrinkage during chemotherapy. However, daily variations in the hypercapnia-induced △rBFR lagged tumor shrinkage by one day. This study would contribute not only to evaluating tumor vascular response to treatment, but also to monitoring blood-flow-mediated diseases (in brain, skin, and retina) by using LSF in preclinical settings.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
• /
• v.4 no.4
• /
• pp.216-225
• /
• 2017

We assessed the microhabitat conditions of three fish species (black shinner Pseudopungtungia nigra, striped shinner Pungtungia herzi, Korean shinner Coreoleuciscus splendidus) considering various stream order in the Geumgang River Basin. A total of 1,275 individuals were collected from 19 sites. And the microhabitat condition was assessed measuring flow velocity, water depth and substrate size at each site. The highest relative frequencies for P. herzi, C. splendidus and P. nigra were calculated 100% (n = 310), 78.9% (n = 784) and 47.3% (n = 181) respectively. P. herzi appeared in all streams, irrespective of their stream order; however, appearance in streams with the $2^{nd}$ order or lower was found to be scarcer than in the ones with the $3^{rd}$ order or higher. On the other hand, P. nigra and C. splendidus didn't appear in streams with the $2^{nd}$ order or lower. When it comes to P. nigra, the ones with 7 to 8 cm in length most frequently appeared. They inhabited streams, mainly, with 0.2 to $0.4m\;s^{-1}$ and 0.5 m in velocity and water depth, respectively. The three species all preferred runs as types of habitats with lots of coarse gravels-cobbles. P. herzi, the ones with 5 cm or shorter in length most frequently appeared. They inhabited streams, mainly, with 0 to $0.3m\;s^{-1}$ and 0.4 m in velocity and water depth, respectively. C. splendidus with 7 to 8 cm in length occupied the majority of them. They appeared in streams, mainly, with $0.9m\;s^{-1}$or higher and 0.3 m in velocity and water depth.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• v.22 no.5
• /
• pp.625-638
• /
• 2013

Recently, the occurrences of droughts have been increased because of global warming and climate change. Water resources that mostly rely on groundwater are particularly vulnerable to the impact of precipitation variation, one of the major elements of climate change, are very sensitive to changes in the seasonal distribution as well as the average annual change in the viewpoint of agricultural activity. In this study, the status of drought for the present and future on Jeju Island which entirely rely on groundwater using SPI and PDSI were analyzed considering regional distribution of crops in terms of land use and fluctuation of water demand. The results showed that the precipitation distribution in Jeju Island is changed in intensity as well as seasonal variation of extreme events and the amount increase of precipitation during the dry season in the spring and fall indicated that agricultural water demand and supply policies would be considered by regional characteristics, especially the western region with largest market garden crops. Regarding the simulated future drought, the drought would be mitigated in the SPI method because of considering total rainfall only excluding intensity variation, while more intensified in the PDSI because it considers the evapotranspiration as well as rainfall as time passed. Moreover, the drought in the northern and western regions is getting worse than in the southern region so that the establishment of regional customized policies for water supply in Jeju Island is needed.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.13-17
• /
• 2003

Biotechnology is certainly one of the major landmarks in the 20th century history of science. It may produce enormous utility to human beings, but at the same time, it carries huge potential risks to the environment and public health. Thus, with a view to securing safety for the environment and public health in relation to the development and use of living modified organisms (LMOs), the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety was adopted, in which a regulation Procedure as to the transboundary movements, transportation, handling, and use of LMOs were drawn up. In order to prepare for the entry into force of the Protocol, the Republic of Korea legislated the "Act on the Transboundary Movements of living modified organisms(hereinafter referred as the 'Act')" in Mar 2001, and has pre-announced the enactments of the enforcement ordinance and the enforcement regulation to the Act. Pursuant to the Act, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy, as a Competent National Authority, is making efforts to implement domestic biosafety schemes in cooperation with other bio-related government ministries. In order for these efforts to reap fruits, industry, academia, and research institutions should cooperate with one another, and civic groups and NGOs should narrow the differences in opinions and timely respond to the fast-changing situations. Focusing on the precautionary principle, the Protocol puts a great emphasis on the importance of information sharing amongst countries, and the Act also follows this principle. In order to gurantee biosafety, countries around the world, including the ROK, agreed to establish National Biosafety Clearing, designed to provide the information on the export/import of LMOs, R'||'&'||'Ds, risk assessment, safety control, etc. and register it on the CBD Central Biosafety Clearing House.e.