• Title/Summary/Keyword: Biological systems

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Development and Application of a Physics-based Soil Erosion Model (물리적 표토침식모형의 개발과 적용)

  • Yu, Wansik;Park, Junku;Yang, JaeE;Lim, Kyoung Jae;Kim, Sung Chul;Park, Youn Shik;Hwang, Sangil;Lee, Giha
    • Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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    • v.22 no.6
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    • pp.66-73
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    • 2017
  • Empirical erosion models like Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) models have been widely used to make spatially distributed soil erosion vulnerability maps. Even if the models detect vulnerable sites relatively well utilizing big data related to climate, geography, geology, land use, etc within study domains, they do not adequately describe the physical process of soil erosion on the ground surface caused by rainfall or overland flow. In other words, such models are still powerful tools to distinguish the erosion-prone areas at large scale, but physics-based models are necessary to better analyze soil erosion and deposition as well as the eroded particle transport. In this study a physics-based soil erosion modeling system was developed to produce both runoff and sediment yield time series at watershed scale and reflect them in the erosion and deposition maps. The developed modeling system consists of 3 sub-systems: rainfall pre-processor, geography pre-processor, and main modeling processor. For modeling system validation, we applied the system for various erosion cases, in particular, rainfall-runoff-sediment yield simulation and estimation of probable maximum sediment (PMS) correlated with probable maximum rainfall (PMP). The system provided acceptable performances of both applications.

Relationship Between Egg Shell Quality and Shell Breakage and Factors that Affect Shell Breakage (란각질과 란각파열과의 관계 및 란각파열에 영향하는 제요인)

  • 이유방
    • Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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    • v.7 no.1
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    • pp.1-11
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    • 1980
  • About 6 to 8% of the eggs annually produced are broken or cracked between the hen and the consumer's carton. The majority of this breakage is due to interrelationships between egg shell quality and the many biological, environmental and managerial factors which have been individually identified as affecting breakage. Some of the factors associated with shell damage discussed in this review include age of hens, temperature ana humidity of the laying house, design of the cage systems and of the cage floors, type of material used to manufacture the cages frequency of daily egg collection in the laying house and, Probably most important, the frequency and quality of handling equipment maintenance. Age and genetic constitution of the hens, environmental temperature, and design and quality of equipment maintenance are the major factors that influence shell breakage. There is a curvilinear relationship between shell quality and shell breakage which explains why small changes in shell quality may be associated with large changes in the incidence of breakage. Published data indicate the incidence of breakage may range from as low as 1 to 2% to 35% or more for other egg producers.

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Evaluation of Cropping Model of Green Manure Crops with Main Crops for Upland-Specific

  • Chung, Doug Young;Park, Misuk;Cho, Jin-Woong;Lee, Sang-Eun;Han, Kwang-Hyun;Ryu, Jin-Hee;Hyun, Seong-Hoon
    • Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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    • v.46 no.2
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    • pp.81-86
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    • 2013
  • For organic farming, green manure crops such as leguminous forages and barley have been broadly used to improve soil fertility and soil physical and chemical properties by repeatedly cutting and mulching them directly as winter crop in the field in the rotation. In this investigation we selected 78 agricultural farm corporations as well as individual organic farmhouses related to crop rotation from greenmanure crops to main crops in order to analyze the relationship of cropping system between main crops and green manure crops. The results showed that the green manure crops were divided into two groups as leguminous and nonleguminous crops, representing that those are limited to specific climate and farming systems of regions. Also the 10 or less green manure crops including sudangrass, hairyvetch, italian ryegrass, sorghun, buckwheat, oat, pea, rye, clover, and canola which belong to leguminous crops which are presently cultivated from the organic farmhouses within the rotational crop system. We also confirmed that the major main crops are sweet potato, soybean, corn, tobacco, spinach from usage frequency analyzed by NetMiner H 2.6 which was used to estimate the rotational cropping system among the green manure crops and main crops.

A Comparative Study on the USA and Japan National Innovation System in Biotechnology (생명공학 혁신시스템의 미.일 비교 연구 - 우리나라의 시사점 도출을 위하여 -)

  • 현병환;김흥열
    • Journal of Technology Innovation
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    • v.7 no.1
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    • pp.36-59
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    • 1999
  • Fundamental advances in the biotechnologies are exerting a profound influence on the health care, agricultural, industrial chemical, environmental, and other industrial fields. Korean government are now more and more realizing the importance of biotechnology as a main technology for the 21st century. But any technical progress is largely the result of a complex set of relationships among the firms, institutions and others involved in development. So understanding the complexity is very important to make promoting strategies and it is even critical in the field of biotechnology. The reason is that commercialization of research results in biotechnology is strongly related with the national science bases provided by academic and public institutes. And its applicable industrial sectors are very diverse. So it is very important to make a effective collaboration system among many R&D related agents. This article discusses and compares both USA and Japanese framework of national innovation systems in the field of biotechnology. The American Innovation system encourages basic research in the biological sciences, and fosters the creation of small venture firms that focus on the development of novel products. America's peculiar incentive structure, derived from its research and educational system, financial system, and regulatory environment has driven USA labs and firms to the forefront of many biotechnology fields. The Japanese institutional environment in contrast, supported the strategy of building production expertise. Firms were urged to use the new techniques as a way of leapfrogging into a second generation of bio-products, in that cost and production advantages count. But the strategy was not effective as expected and Japanese firms have remained competent but not prominent rivals. The differing situations in USA and Japan with regard to biotechnology have many suggestions for our bioindustry. In the conclusion of this article, we translate USA and Japan's experiences to some suggestions which guide for promoting Korea's biotechnology R&D and commercialization activities.

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The Roles of Peroxiredoxin and Thioredoxin in Hydrogen Peroxide Sensing and in Signal Transduction

  • Netto, Luis E.S.;Antunes, Fernando
    • Molecules and Cells
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    • v.39 no.1
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    • pp.65-71
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    • 2016
  • A challenge in the redox field is the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms, by which $H_2O_2$ mediates signal transduction in cells. This is relevant since redox pathways are disturbed in some pathologies. The transcription factor OxyR is the $H_2O_2$ sensor in bacteria, whereas Cys-based peroxidases are involved in the perception of this oxidant in eukaryotic cells. Three possible mechanisms may be involved in $H_2O_2$ signaling that are not mutually exclusive. In the simplest pathway, $H_2O_2$ signals through direct oxidation of the signaling protein, such as a phosphatase or a transcription factor. Although signaling proteins are frequently observed in the oxidized state in biological systems, in most cases their direct oxidation by $H_2O_2$ is too slow ($10^1M^{-1}s^{-1}$ range) to outcompete Cys-based peroxidases and glutathione. In some particular cellular compartments (such as vicinity of NADPH oxidases), it is possible that a signaling protein faces extremely high $H_2O_2$ concentrations, making the direct oxidation feasible. Alternatively, high $H_2O_2$ levels can hyperoxidize peroxiredoxins leading to local building up of $H_2O_2$ that then could oxidize a signaling protein (floodgate hypothesis). In a second model, $H_2O_2$ oxidizes Cys-based peroxidases that then through thiol-disulfide reshuffling would transmit the oxidized equivalents to the signaling protein. The third model of signaling is centered on the reducing substrate of Cys-based peroxidases that in most cases is thioredoxin. Is this model, peroxiredoxins would signal by modulating the thioredoxin redox status. More kinetic data is required to allow the identification of the complex network of thiol switches.

Swell Correction of Shallow Marine Seismic Reflection Data Using Genetic Algorithms

  • park, Sung-Hoon;Kong, Young-Sae;Kim, Hee-Joon;Lee, Byung-Gul
    • Journal of the korean society of oceanography
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    • v.32 no.4
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    • pp.163-170
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    • 1997
  • Some CMP gathers acquired from shallow marine seismic reflection survey in offshore Korea do not show the hyperbolic trend of moveout. It originated from so-called swell effect of source and streamer, which are towed under rough sea surface during the data acquisition. The observed time deviations of NMO-corrected traces can be entirely ascribed to the swell effect. To correct these time deviations, a residual statics is introduced using Genetic Algorithms (GA) into the swell correction. A new class of global optimization methods known as GA has recently been developed in the field of Artificial Intelligence and has a resemblance with the genetic evolution of biological systems. The basic idea in using GA as an optimization method is to represent a population of possible solutions or models in a chromosome-type encoding and manipulate these encoded models through simulated reproduction, crossover and mutation. GA parameters used in this paper are as follows: population size Q=40, probability of multiple-point crossover P$_c$=0.6, linear relationship of mutation probability P$_m$ from 0.002 to 0.004, and gray code representation are adopted. The number of the model participating in tournament selection (nt) is 3, and the number of expected copies desired for the best population member in the scaling of fitness is 1.5. With above parameters, an optimization run was iterated for 101 generations. The combination of above parameters are found to be optimal for the convergence of the algorithm. The resulting reflection events in every NMO-corrected CMP gather show good alignment and enhanced quality stack section.

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Trabecular bone Thickness Measurement of Rat Femurs using Zoom-in Micro-tomography and 3D Fuzzy Distance Transform (Zoom-in Micro-tomography와 3차원 Fuzzy Distance Transform을 이용한 쥐 대퇴부의 해면골 두께 측정)

  • Park, Jeong-Jin;Cho, Min-Hyoung;Lee, Soo-Yeol
    • Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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    • v.27 no.4
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    • pp.189-196
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    • 2006
  • Micro computed tomography (micro-CT) has been used for in vivo animal study owing to its noninvasive and high spatial resolution capability. However, the sizes of existing detectors for micro-CT systems are too small to obtain whole-body images of a small animal object with $\sim$10 micron resolution and a part of its bones or other organs should be extracted. So, we have introduced the zoom-in micro-tomography technique which can obtain high-resolution images of a local region of an live animal object without extracting samples. In order to verify our zoom-in technique, we performed in vivo animal bone study. We prepared some SD (Sprague-Dawley) rats for making osteoporosis models. They were divided into control and ovariectomized groups. Again, the ovariectomized group is divided into two groups fed with normal food and with calcium-free food. And we took 3D tomographic images of their femurs with 20 micron resolution using our zoom-in tomography technique and observed the bone changes for 12 weeks. We selected ROI (region of interest) of a femur image and applied 2D FDT (fuzzy distance transform) to measure the trabecular bone thickness. The measured results showed obvious bone changes and big differences between control and ovariectomized groups. However, we found that the reliability of the measurement depended on the selection of ROI in a bone image for thickness calculation. So, we extended the method to 3D FDT technique. We selected 3D VOI (volume of interest) in the obtained 3D tomographic images and applied 3D FDT algorithm. The results showed that the 3D technique could give more accurate and reliable measurement.

Surface Immobilization of $(1{\to}3)(1{\to}6)-{\beta}-glucan$ onto Biodegradable Polymer for Tissue Regeneration (조직 재생을 위한 Poly (D, L-lactide-co-glycolide) 표면에 $(1{\to}3)(1{\to}6)-{\beta}-glucan$ 고정에 대한 세포 점착 및 성장 효과)

  • Lee, S.G.;Lee, J.B.;Yu, S.M.;Park, J.C.;Choi, J.B.;Kim, J.K.
    • Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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    • v.27 no.5
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    • pp.218-223
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    • 2006
  • We examined the effects of ${\beta}$-glucan-reinforced PLGA film and scaffold on HDFs (human dermal fibroblast) attachment and proliferation. The PLGA films were prepared by simple solvent-casting method. The prepared films were grafted with $(1{\to}3)(1{\to}6)-{\beta}-glucan$ in various ratios after plasma treatment on surface. The surface of the film was characterized by contact angle measurement, scanning electron microscope (SEM), and Fourier-transform infrared spectrophotometer (FT-IR). The amount of $(1{\to}3)(1{\to}6)-{\beta}-glucan$ in the prepared film was indirectly determined by phenol-sulfuric acid method. The HDFs (Human dermal fibroblasts) were used to evaluate the cell attachment and proliferation on PLGA specimens before and after plasma/${\beta}-glucan$ treatment. The result showed that the plasma treated groups exhibited more mont of ${\beta}-glucan$ might be grafted than the non plasma treated groups. Cell attachment was significantly enhanced in the plasma/${\beta}-glucan$ grafted group after 4 hours incubation (p<0.05) due to the improved hydrophilicity and cytoactivity effect of the ${\beta}-glucan$. The cell proliferation of plasma/${\beta}-glucan$ (2mg/ml) grafted group was the highest rate among the groups (p<0.05).

The Influence of Fixation Rigidity on Intervertebral Joints - An Experimental Comparison between a Rigid and a Flexible System

  • Kim, Won-Joong;Lee, Sang-Ho;Shin, Song-Woo;Rivard, Charles H.;Coillard, Christine;Rhalmi, Souad
    • Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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    • v.37 no.5
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    • pp.364-369
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    • 2005
  • Objective: Spinal instrumentation without fusion often fails due to biological failure of intervertebral joints (spontaneous fusion, degeneration, etc). The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of fixation rigidity on viability of intervertebral joints. Methods: Twenty pigs in growing period were subjected to posterior segmental fixation. Twelve were fixed with a rigid fixation system(RF) while eight were fixed with a flexible unconstrained implant(FF). At the time of the surgery, a scoliosis was created to monitor fixation adequacy. The pigs were subjected to periodic radiological examinations and 12pigs (six in RF, six in FF) were euthanized at 12-18months postoperatively for analysis. Results: The initial scoliotic curve was reduced from $31{\pm}5^{\circ}$ to $27{\pm}8^{\circ}$ in RF group (p=0.37) and from $19{\pm}4^{\circ}$ to $17{\pm}5^{\circ}$ in FF group (p=0.21). Although severe disc degeneration and spontaneous fusion of facet joints were observed in RF group, disc heights of FF group were well maintained without major signs of degeneration. Conclusion: The viability of the intervertebral joints depends on motion spinal fixation. Systems allowing intervertebral micromotion may preserve the viability of intervertebral discs and the facet joint articular cartilages while maintaining a reasonably stable fixation.

The Inhibitory Potency of Hesperidin on Protein Kinase C Activity Using a Biochip (바이오칩을 이용한 Protein Kinase C의 활성에 대한 헤스페리딘의 저해 효과)

  • Kang, Jung Ae;Rho, Jong Kook;Choi, Mi Hee;Jung, Young Jin;Park, Sang Hyun
    • Journal of Radiation Industry
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    • v.5 no.1
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    • pp.15-20
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    • 2011
  • Protein kinases are the most important drug targets for the treatment of numerous diseases. The involvement of protein kinase C (PKC) in many biological processes such as development, memory, cell differentiation, and proliferation has been demonstrated. PKC is recognized as an important player in carcinogenesis. Thus, a variety of PKC inhibitors have been investigated. Among them, flavonoids have been demonstrated to affect the activity of many mammalian in vitro enzyme systems. The recent investigation was performed to evaluate the inhibitory effects of hesperidin, which is a flavonoid, on the proliferation and carcinogenesis of many cancers. In this study, an efficient kinase assay based on a biochip using radio-phosphorylation was established and performed for an examination of the inhibitory effects of hesperidin on PKC activity at different concentrations of 50, 200, 500 nM. It was found that hesperidin shows inhibitory potency on PKC, and that the biochip can be used to rapidly screen kinase inhibitors resulting in the therapeutic agents.