• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.757-767
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• 2006

Biological assessments are the primary tool for evaluating the biological condition of a water body and makes it possible to understand accumulative and long-term effect of stressors. They also provide reliable biological information for which disturbed systems are to be restored. Sustainable water environment is not enough with attaining only the clean water, but it should sustain healthy and diverse aquatic life. Aquatic organisms are affected by various factors, including not only water quality but also habitat condition and stressors, and thus good condition of both physical and chemical water quality is prerequisite for sustaining healthy organisms. Therefore, biological assessment, along with other physical and chemical assessments, are crucial for evaluating the health of a water body. Overall, sustainability of water environment demands the attainment and maintenance of ecological integrity, which is resulted from the combination of physical, chemical and biological integrity. The biological criteria will play very important role in the water resource management and policy issues, and thus bioassessment program should be fully implemented and supported eventually by the law. To keep ecosystem health of water environment safely from the toxic pollutants and other stressors, the following suggestions need to be considered in environmental quality standards in Korea. For the first step, the biological indicators need to be introduced in evaluating river quality condition; they provide a qualitative description of biological condition of water body. Secondly, the biological water quality standards using biotic indices should be developed and implemented under the consideration of characteristics of Korean river systems. Lastly, the ecological status classification regime (ESCR) should be developed and introduced; it could be used in quality assessment of the water environment in general. In developing ESCR, integration of physico-chemical, biological, and habitat parameters should be taken into account.

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.51-57
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• 2000

Concentrations of cadmium, copper and zinc were determined in three molluscan species including Sacculosiphonaria japonica, Reishia clavigera and Crassostrea gigas to assess heavy metal contamination in the Onsan Bay. The range of cadmium concentrations were 3.83∼39.67 ㎍/g d.w. in S. japonica, 7.47∼103.47 ㎍/g d.w. in R. clavigera, 1.32∼92.17 ㎍/g d.w. in C. gigas. Concentration of cadmium at contaminated site in C. gigas was 70 folds higher than that of reference site. The range of copper concentrations were 22.92∼1287.56 ㎍/g d.w. in S. japonica, 37.53∼656.97 ㎍/g d.w. in R. clavigera, 161.50∼3208.52 ㎍/g d.w. in C. gigas. The concentration of copper at contaminated site in S. japonica was 56 folds higher than that of reference site. The range of zinc concentrations were 93.48∼377.40 ㎍/g d.w. in S. japonica, 423.65∼1075.57 ㎍/g w. in R. clavigera, 2018.13∼22275.00 ㎍/g d.w. in C. gigas. The difference of zinc concentrations between reference site and contaminated site was relatively small than those of cadmium and copper in all the species tested. The largest difference was 11 folds in C. gigas. In the present work, we confirmed that all of these species, S. japonica, R. clavigera and C. gigas, could be used as biological indicators to monitor heavy metal contamination.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.82-87
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• 2019

Global warming has a significant impact on diverse ecosystems including agroecosystem through; changing of phenology, physiology and distribution. Monitoring of biological responses emanating from global warming is required to understand the challenges of biological diversity conservation posed by climate change. The Korean government selected four butterfly species as indicators of climate change in agroecosystem: Papilio xuthus, Pieris rapae, Colias erate, and Eurema mandarina. The aim of this study was to investigate the different monitoring methods of the butterflies in Korea and suggest a suitable monitoring method to track the population trends of butterflies in the agroecosystem. Butterfly monitoring was conducted in eight sites throughout Korea from April to October, 2018 using three survey methods: point census at rice paddy area, point census at the border between rice paddy and hill and line transect along the rice paddy and hill. Each method took approximately 30 min. to count the butterflies. A total of 4,691 butterflies and 92 species were counted: The most dominant species was Pieris rapae with a total count of 1,205 individuals followed by Polygonia c-aureum, Zizeeria maha, Colias erate, Cupido argiades and Papilio xuthus. Among the three census methods, the total number of species and individuals when using line transect method was statistically higher than in the other methods. However, the numbers of the four butterflies indicators showed no difference throughout three census methods. Based on the number of species and the total individuals butterflies in agroecosystem, we advocate for the application of line transect method as it can find more butterflies in agroecosystem. In addition, we advised for the implementation of education programs on the line transect method in butterfly identification to participants of the national monitoring program.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.94-100
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• 2020

Objectives Amyloid β positron emission tomography (Aβ PET) is widely used as a diagnostic tool in patients who have symptoms of cognitive impairment, however, this diagnostic examination is too expensive. Thus, predicting the positivity of Aβ PET before patients undergo the examination is essential. We aimed to analyze clinical predictors of patients who underwent Aβ PET retrospectively, and to develop a predicting model of Aβ PET positivity. Methods 468 patients who underwent Aβ PET with cognitive impairment were recruited and their clinical indicators were analyzed retrospectively. We specified the primary outcome as Aβ PET positivity, and included variables such as age, sex, body mass index, diastolic blood pressure, systolic blood pressure, education, dementia family history, Mini Mental Status Examination (MMSE), Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR), Clinical Dementia Rating-Sum of Box (CDR-SB), hypertension (HTN), diabetes mellitus (DM) and presence of apolipoprotein E (ApoE) E4 as potential predictors. We developed three final models of amyloid positivity prediction for total subjects, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia using a multivariate stepwise logistic regression analysis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed and the area under curve (AUC) value was calculated for the ROC curve. Results Aβ PET negative patients were 49.6% (n = 232), and Aβ PET positive patients were 50.4% (n = 236). In the final model of all subjects, older age, female sex, presence of ApoE E4 and lower MMSE are associated with Aβ PET positivity. The AUC value was 0.296. In the final model of MCI subjects (n = 244), older age and presence of ApoE E4 are associated with Aβ PET positivity. The AUC value was 0.725. In the final model of AD subjects (n = 173), lower MMSE scores, the presence of ApoE E4 and history of HTN are associated with Aβ PET positivity. The AUC value was 0.681. Conclusions The cerebral amyloid positivity model, which was based on commonly available clinical indicators, can be useful for prediction of amyloid PET positivity in MCI or AD patients.

• Journal of Korean Biological Nursing Science
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.20-31
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• 2023

Purpose: This study aimed to determine the consistency of 1-day and 3-day average dietary intake using the 24-hour diet recall method and to investigate the relationship of diet intake with physiological indicators potentially associated with diabetic complications in patients with diabetes. Methods: This study conducted a secondary data analysis using pretest data of a nursing intervention study entitled "Development of deep learning based AI coaching program for diabetic patients with high risk and examination of its effects." Data were analyzed through descriptive analysis, one-way repeated-measures analysis of variance, and Pearson correlation coefficients using SPSS 26.0. Results: The average total daily calorie intake over 3 days was 1,494.48 ± 436.47 kcal/day: 1,510.90 ± 547.76 kcal/day on the first day, 1,414.22 ± 527.58 kcal/day on the second day, 1,558.34 ± 645.83 kcal/ day on the third day, showing significant differences (F = 3.59, p = .031). The correlation coefficient between the 1-day and 3-day average dietary intake was 0.41-0.77 for each nutrient and 0.62-0.80 for each food group. Vegetable intake showed negative correlations with body mass index (BMI; r = -.19, p = .023) and triglycerides (r = -.18, p = .036), whereas dairy intake was positively associated with low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL; r = -0.18, p = .034) and triglycerides (r = .40, p<.001). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that 1-day dietary intake was highly correlated with 3-day average dietary intake using the 24-hour diet recall method. Food groups showed significant associations with physiological indicators of potential diabetic complications such as BMI, triglycerides, and LDL levels. Further studies are needed to improve the knowledge base on the relationships between physiological indicators and food groups.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.93-111
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• 2005

Defining soil quality in scopes and applications is one of the prerequisite for the sustainable management of soil environment to orient researches, strategies and policies. However, definition of soil quality is controversial depending upon a viewpoint of soil science or soil environment. Soil quality can be, irrespective of the disciplines, defined as the capacity of a soil to function within ecosystem boundaries to sustain biological productivity, maintain environmental quality and promote plant and animal health. Common to all of the soil quality concepts can be summarized as the capacity of soil to function effectively at present and in the future. The OECD includes soil quality as one of the agri-environment indicators. This article intends to i) summarize the current soil quality research, and ii) provide information on protocol of soil quality assessment. A framework for soil quality was divided into three steps: indicator selection as minimum data set (MDS), scoring of the selected indicators, and integration of scores into soil quality index. Korean government suggested possible physical and chemical indicators such as bulk density and organic matter for paddy and upland soils to OECD. The framework of soil quality assessment is not yet implemented in Korea. Countries such as USA, Canada and New Zealand have constructed the framework on soil quality assessment and developed a user-friendly version of soil quality assessment tools to evaluate the integrated effects of various soil management practices. The protocol provided in this review might help policymakers, scientists, and administrators improve awareness about soil quality and understand the way of soil environment management.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.1551-1559
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• 2013

This study was conducted to compare benthic macroinvertebrate communities of urban stream and nature stream in Daegu-si, Gyeongju-si, Gyeongsan-si, Andong-si, and Cheongsong-gun. The survey was carried out with 12 points in total six points for urban stream, six points for nature stream from Sept. 2011 to July 2012. In the urban stream were 33 species belonged to 24 families, 11 orders, 7 classes and 4 phyla while in the nature stream were 73 species belonged to 38 families, 12 orders, 5 classes and 4 phyla. In general, species diversity indices and species richness indices appeared low in urban stream but dominance indices was high. Functional feeding groups and Habitat Oriented Groups appeared comparatively simple in urban stream rather than nature stream. As a result of analysis of community stability, species included to area I and area III equally appeared in nature stream while species included to area I mostly appeared in urban stream. An analysis of the correlation between the population density and the number of species, the population number and biological indicators such as DI, H', RI, and ESB revealed that there was a significant correlativity with the diversity index and a very high correlativity with the number of species, abundance index and the ESB. On the other hand, the population number and the dominance index did not reveal any correlativity. For indicator species, Hydroptila KUa, Physa acuta appeared in urban stream while Paraleptophlebia chocolata, Epeorus pellucidus appeared in nature stream.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.14
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• pp.5535-5538
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• 2014

Background: To determine the amount of co-expression of IDO and EGFR in breast cancer patients. Materials and Methods:In order to obtain the distribution of co-expression of IDO and EGFR in breast cancer, we tested 110 breast cancer paraffin tissue blocks with immunohistochemical methods. Then we investigated the relationship between the diagnostic and pathologic characteristics (tumor size, lymph node status, histologic grade, the gene expression of ER, PR, HER2, p53, Ki67 and PCNA) with the situation of co-expression of IDO and EGFR by reviewing the medical records of 32 breast cancer patients. Results: Among 110 breast cancers, 32 cases demonstrated IDO and EGFR co-expression (29.1%), IDO and EGFR synchronous co-expression being found in 19.1% and asynchronous in 10.0%. Conclusions: IDO and EGFR were co-expressed in breast cancer, including synchronous and asynchronous co-expression. The results suggest that considering IDO and EGFR as two indicators for breast cancer treatment or prognosis analysis provides a potential option of individual treatment for the portion of breast cancer patients with co-expression of IDO and EGFR.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.303-316
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• 2009

Benthic macroinvertebrate communities collected from eight different streams in South Korea were analyzed to compare community and biological indices across different levels of water pollution. The Self-Organizing Map (SOM) was utilized to provide overview on association of the proposed indices. The sample sites were accordingly clustered according to the gradient of pollution on the SOM. While the general trends of the indices were commonly observable according to different levels of pollution, the detailed differences among the indices were also illustrated on the SOM. The conventional diversity and evenness indices tended to be high even though the water quality state was poor representing relatively weak gradient at polluted sites, while the index presenting the saprobic degree such as family biotic index showed the stronger gradient at the polluted area and was robust to present the gradient. Our results also confirmed the general characterization of two indices: The Shannon index is more strengthened by the number of species occurring at the sample sites, while the Simpson index is more influenced by the degree of evenness among the species. The patterning based on the SOM was efficient in comparatively characterizing the proposed indices to present ecological states and water quality.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.478-482
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• 2017

In order to identify key nations and bird species of conservation concern we described multinational collaborations as defined using network analysis linked by birds that are found in all nations in the network. We used network analysis to assess the patterns in bird occurrence for 10,422 bird inventories from 244 countries and territories. Nations that are important in multinational collaborations for bird conservation were assessed using the centrality measures, closeness and betweenness centrality. Countries important for the multinational collaboration of bird conservation were examined based on their centrality measures, which included closeness and betweenness centralities. Comparatively, the co-occurrence network was divided into four groups that reveal different biogeographical structures. A group with higher closeness centrality included countries in southern Africa and had the potential to affect species in many other countries. Birds in countries in Asia, Australia and the South Pacific that are important to the cohesiveness of the global network had a higher score of betweenness centrality. Countries that had higher numbers of bird species and more extensively distributed bird species had higher centrality scores; in these countries, birds may act as excellent indicators of trends in the co-occurrence bird network. For effective bird conservation in the world, much stronger coordination among countries is required. Bird co-occurrence patterns can provide a suitable and powerful framework for understanding the complexity of co-occurrence patterns and consequences for multinational collaborations on bird conservation.