• Title/Summary/Keyword: Biological systems

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Evaluation of Four Plant Species as Potential Banker Plants to Support Predatory Orius laevigatus (Fieber) (Hemiptera: Anthocoridae) in Cucumber Plant Systems (시설오이에서 미끌애꽃노린재의 천적유지식물로서 4종 식물의 평가)

  • YongSeok Choi;Gun-Woo Lee;Gyung-Ju Lee;Han-Jung Na;InSu Hwang
    • Korean journal of applied entomology
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    • v.63 no.1
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    • pp.25-32
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    • 2024
  • Frankliniella occidentalis and Thrips palmi are economically important pests of cucumber. The chemicals used to control them can be effective; however, they should not be used frequently on cucumbers that are consumed raw. Banker plants were selected to increase the control efficiency of Orius laevigatus, a natural enemy that can replace the chemicals. The hatching rate, emergence rate, nymph developmental period, survival rate, and reproductive capacity (fecundity and oviposition period) of O. laevigatus for four plants (moss rose, basil, broad bean, and cucumber) were investigated. The density of O. laevigatus on two selected banker plants was investigated in a cucumber greenhouse. The hatching rate of O. laevigatus eggs was highest at 92% in moss rose; however, there was no significant difference in survival rates between moss rose and basil. The fecundity and oviposition period of O. laevigatus were better in moss rose than in basil, with no significant difference between them. The flowering period of basil was longer than that of moss rose, from April to September. Therefore, basil has potential value as a banker plant for O. laevigatus and is expected to increase the biological control effect of O. laevigatus.

Development Plan for the Consequence Management in Response to Large-Scale Wildfire Disasters Using Air Force Transport Aircraft (C-130) (공군 수송기(C-130)를 활용한 대형산불 재난 대응 시 사후관리(CM) 발전방안)

  • Sangduk Kim;Minki Kim
    • Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.232-243
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    • 2024
  • Purpose: Recently, large-scale forest fires caused by climate change, natural disasters, and human factors have been increasing every year in the East Coast and Taebaek Mountains region. Although forest fire extinguishing using helicopters is currently increasing, the need to introduce air force transport aircraft has continued to be raised due to the importance of early fire extinguishment to respond to large forest fires and the difficulty of extinguishing forest fires between sheep. This study seeks to present a plan for developing a post-fire management system for several aspects - achieving operational objectives, overcoming the operating environment, selecting a staging area, and efficient operation measures - to efficiently perform forest fire extinguishing missions using Air Force transport aircraft. Method: Based on literature research on forest fire extinguishing, forest fire extinguishing experiments using fixed-wing aircraft, and the operation status and operation method of forest fire extinguishing helicopters, the pros and cons of helicopter operation and the effects of large forest fire extinguishing using a large transport aircraft (C-130) Analyze the effectiveness of operation through analysis. Results: When extinguishing a large forest fire, an effective CM (Consequence Management) application plan was derived, including effective operation, control, command system, dispatch request, and forest fire extinguishment when integrating helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft (C-130). Conclusion: The application of the concept of CM (Consequence Management) is partially applied to some areas of chemical, biological, and radiological (CBRNE) protection in Korea, but efficient operation, control, and command systems are established when integrated operation of helicopters and large aircraft (C-130) in forest fire extinguishment. the concept of CM (Consequence Management), which is operated in advanced countries, was applied for safety management, dispatch requests, and forest fire extinguishing, thereby contributing to the establishment of a more advanced disaster and post-disaster management system.

Active Phytochemicals of Indian Spices Target Leading Proteins Involved in Breast Cancer: An in Silico Study

  • Ashok Kumar Krishnakumar;Jayanthi Malaiyandi;Pavatharani Muralidharan;Arvind Rehalia;Anami Ahuja;Vidhya Duraisamy;Usha Agrawal;Anjani Kumar Singh;Himanshu Narayan, Singh;Vishnu Swarup
    • Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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    • v.68 no.3
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    • pp.151-159
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    • 2024
  • Indian spices are well known for their numerous health benefits, flavour, taste, and colour. Recent Advancements in chemical technology have led to better extraction and identification of bioactive molecules (phytochemicals) from spices. The therapeutic effects of spices against diabetes, cardiac problems, and various cancers has been well established. The present in silico study aims to investigate the binding affinity of 29 phytochemicals from 11 Indian spices with two prominent proteins, BCL3 and CXCL10 involved in invasiveness and bone metastasis of breast cancer. The three-dimensional structures of 29 phytochemicals were extracted from PubChem database. Protein Data Bank was used to retrieve the 3D structures of BCL3 and CXCL10 proteins. The drug-likeness and other properties of compounds were analysed by ADME and Lipinski rule of five (RO5). All computational simulations were carried out using Autodock 4.0 on Windows platform. The proteins were set to be rigid and compounds were kept free to rotate. In-silico study demonstrated a strong complex formation (positive binding constants and negative binding energy ΔG) between all phytochemicals and target proteins. However, piperine and sesamolin demonstrated high binding constants with BCL3 (50.681 × 103 mol-1, 137.76 × 103 mol-1) and CXCL10 (98.71 × 103 mol-1, 861.7 × 103 mol-1), respectively. The potential of these two phytochemicals as a drug candidate was highlighted by their binding energy of -6.5 kcal mol-1, -7.1 kcal mol-1 with BCL3 and -6.9 kcal mol-1, -8.2 kcal mol-1 with CXCL10, respectively coupled with their favourable drug likeliness and pharmacokinetics properties. These findings underscore the potential of piperine and sesamolin as drug candidates for inhibiting invasiveness and regulating breast cancer metastasis. However, further validation through in vitro and in vivo studies is necessary to confirm the in silico results and evaluate their clinical potential.

Isolation and Mycelial Cultivation Submerged of Phellinus sp. (Phellinus sp.의 분리 및 균사체의 액체배양)

  • Kang, Tae-Su;Lee, Dong-Gi;Lee, Shin-Young
    • The Korean Journal of Mycology
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    • v.25 no.4 s.83
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    • pp.257-267
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    • 1997
  • Fruit bodies similar to the Phellinus sp. residing on the mulberry were collected at Yang-yang in Kang-won-do province and one strain of Phellinus sp. was isolated from the fruit bodies. For mass production of the isolated mycelia in a submerged culture, the culture conditions, medium composition, and the effect of various culture systems on the mycelial growth, were investigated. The morphological characteristics of the fruit body were as follows: covered with blackish to black and rough, lower surface with yellowish-brown to dull-brown and smooth, 5-7 cm thick and hard woody. Also, the pure cultured mycelia showed yellowish-brown color, capability of purplish-brown pigment production on the PDA plate media, no-formation of clamp-connection, much binding branch, and enzyme activities such as laccase, tyrosinase and peroxidase. Therefore, pure cultured strain was identified to be Phellinus sp. In the flask culture, the optimum culture conditions for the mycelial production were obtained after cultivation of 8 days at inoculum level of 5%(v/v), media volume of 70 mL, 150 rpm, initial pH 6, and temperature of $30^{\circ}C$. Optimum medium composition from the response surface analysis were determined to be glucose 12.12 g/L, sucrose 12.12 g/L, yeast extract 11.15 g/L, malt extract 11.15 g/L, $KH_2PO_4$ 0.855 g/L and $CaCl_2$ 0.855 g/L. The production of the mycelia after 4 and 8 days of cultivation was 1.95 and 9.89 g/L, respectively. The maximum specific growth rate and productivity were $0.020\;hr^{-1}$ and 1.25 g/L/day, respectively. Among the three different culture systems for the growth of mycelia, the maximum mycelial dry weight of 7.5 g/L was obtained after cultivation of 4 days in the air-lift fermentor under aeration rate of 2.5 vvm. The maximum specific growth rate and productivity were $0.033\;hr^{-1}$ and 1.9 g/L/day, respectively, which were about 1.7 and 4.2 times higher than those of flask culture.

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Physiological Ecology of parasitic Dinoflagellate Amoebophrya and Harmful Algal Blooms (기생성 와편모류 Amoebophrya의 생리 생태적 특성과 적조)

  • 박명길
    • The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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    • v.7 no.3
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    • pp.181-194
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    • 2002
  • Parasitism is a one-sided relationship between two organisms in which one benefits at the expense of the other. Parasitic dinoflagellates, particularly species of Amoebophrya, have long been thought to be a potential biological agent for controlling harmful algal bloom(HAB). Amoebophrya infections have been reported for over 40 species representing more than 24 dinoflagellate genera including a few toxic species. Parasitic dinoflagellates Amoebophrya spp. have a relatively simple life cycle consisting of an infective dispersal stage (dinospore), an intracellular growth stage(trophont), and an extracellular reproductive stage(vermiform). Biology of dinospores such as infectivity, survival, and ability to successfully infect host cells differs among dinoflagellate host-parasite systems. There are growing reports that Amoebophrya spp.(previously, collectively known as Amoebophrya ceratii) exhibit the strong host specificity and would be a species complex composed of several host-specific taxa, based on the marked differences in host-parasite biology, cross infection, and molecular genetic data. Dinoflagellates become reproductively incompetent and are eventually killed by the parasite once infected. During the infection cycle of the parasite, the infected host exhibits ecophysiologically different patterns from those of uninfected host in various ways. Photosynthetic performance in autotrophic dinoflagellates can be significantly altered following infection by parasitic dinoflagellate Amoebophrya, with the magnitude of the effects over the infection cycle of the parasite depending on the site of infection. Parasitism by the parasitic dinoflagellate Amoebophrya could have significant impacts on host behavior such as diel vertical migration. Parasitic dinoflagellates may not only stimulate rapid cycling of dissolved organic materials and/or trace metals but also would repackage the relatively large sized host biomass into a number of smaller dinospores, thereby leading to better retention of host's material and energy within the microbial loop. To better understand the roles of parasites in plankton ecology and harmful algal dynamics, further research on a variety of dinoflagellate host-parasite systems is needed.

Performance Characteristics of Agitated Bed Manure Composting and Ammonia Removal from Composting Using Sawdust Biofiltration System (교반식 축분 퇴비화 및 톱밥 탈취처리 시스템의 퇴비화 암모니아 제거 성능)

  • Hong, J.H.;Park, K.J.
    • Journal of Animal Environmental Science
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    • v.13 no.1
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    • pp.13-20
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    • 2007
  • Sawdust biofiltration is an emerging bio-technology for control of ammonia emissions including compost odors from composting of biological wastes. Although sawdust is widely used as a medium for bulking agent in composting system and for microbial attachment in biofiltration systems, the performance of agitated bed composting and sawdust biofiltration are not well established. A pilot-scale composting of hog manure amended with sawdust and sawdust biofiltration systems for practical operation were investigated using aerated and agitated rectangular reactor with compost turner and sawdust biofilter operated under controlled conditions, each with a working capacity of approximately $40m^3\;and\;4.5m^3$ respectively. These were used to investigate the effect of compost temperature, seed germination rate and the C/N ratio of the compost on ammonia emissions, compost maturity and sawdust biofiltration performance. Temperature profiles showed that the material in three runs had been reached to temperature of 55 to $65^{\circ}C$ and above. The ammonia concentration in the exhaust gas of the sawdust biofilter media was below the maximum average value as 45 ppm. Seed germination rate levels of final compost was maintained from 70 to 93% and EC values of the finished compost varied between 2.8 and 4.8 ds/m, providing adequate conditions for plant growth.

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Effect of D-Fructose on Sugar Transport Systems in Trichoplusia ni Cells and Photolabeling of the Trichoplusia ni Cell-Expressed Human HepG2 Type Glucose Transport Protein (Trichoplusia ni 세포에 내재하는 당 수송체에 D-fructose가 미치는 효과와 Trichoplusia ni 세포에 발현된 사람 HepG2형 포도당 수송 단백질의 photolabelling)

  • Lee, Chong-Kee
    • Journal of Life Science
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    • v.24 no.1
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    • pp.86-91
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    • 2014
  • Trichoplusia ni cells are used as a host permissive cell line in the baculovirus expression system, which is useful for large-scale production of human sugar transport proteins. However, the activity of endogenous sugar transport systems in insect cells is extremely high. Therefore, the transport activity resulting from the expression of exogenous transporters is difficult to detect. Furthermore, very little is known about the nature of endogenous insect transporters. To exploit the expression system further, the effect of D-fructose on 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2dGlc) transport by T. ni cells was investigated, and T. ni cell-expressed human transporters were photolabeled with [$^3H$] cytochalasin B to develop a convenient method for measuring the biological activity of insect cell-expressed transporters. The uptake of 1 mM 2dGlc by uninfected- and recombinant AcMPV-GTL infected cells was examined in the presence and absence of 300 mM of D-fructose, with and without $20{\mu}M$ of cytochalasin B. The sugar uptake in the uninfected cells was strongly inhibited by fructose but only poorly inhibited by cytochalasin B. Interestingly, the AcMPV-GTL-infected cells showed an essentially identical pattern of transport inhibition, and the rate of 2dGlc uptake was somewhat less than that seen in the non-infected cells. In addition, a sharply labeled peak was produced only in the AcMPV-GTL-infected membranes labeled with [$^3H$] cytochalasin B in the presence of L-glucose. No peak of labeling was seen in the membranes prepared from the uninfected cells. Furthermore, photolabeling of the expressed protein was completely inhibited by the presence of D-glucose, demonstrating the stereoselectivity of labeling.

Identifying Bridging Nodes and Their Essentiality in the Protein-Protein Interaction Networks (단백질 상호작용 네트워크에서 연결노드 추출과 그 중요도 측정)

  • Ahn, Myoung-Sang;Ko, Jeong-Hwan;Yoo, Jae-Soo;Cho, Wan-Sup
    • Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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    • v.12 no.5
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    • pp.1-13
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    • 2007
  • In this research, we found out that bridging nodes have great effect on the robustness of protein-protein interaction networks. Until now, many researchers have focused on node's degree as node's essentiality. Hub nodes in the scale-free network are very essential in the network robustness. Some researchers have tried to relate node's essentiality with node's betweenness centrality. These approaches with betweenness centrality are reasonable but there is a positive relation between node's degree and betweenness centrality value. So, there are no differences between two approaches. We first define a bridging node as the node with low connectivity and high betweenness value, we then verify that such a bridging node is a primary factor in the network robustness. For a biological network database from Internet, we demonstrate that the removal of bridging nodes defragment an entire network severally and the importance of the bridging nodes in the network robustness.

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Development and Application of Okara-based Adhesives for Plywood Panels (두부비지를 이용한 합판용 접착제의 개발 및 적용)

  • Oh, Sei-Chang;Ahn, Sye-Hee;Choi, In-Gyu;Jeong, Han-Seob;Yoon, Young-Ho;Yang, In
    • Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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    • v.36 no.3
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    • pp.30-38
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    • 2008
  • Petroleum-based resin adhesives have extensively been used for the production of wood panels. However, with the increase of manufacturing cost and the environmental issue, such as the emission of volatile organic compounds, of the adhesive resins, it is necessary to be developed new adhesive systems. In this study, the potential of okara, which is a residue wasted from the production of tofu, for the development of bio-based adhesives was investigated. At first, the physical and chemical properties of okara were examined. After okara was hydrolyzed in acidic and/or alkaline solutions, okara-based adhesive resins were formulated with the mixtures of the okara hydrolyzates and phenol formaldehyde (PF) prepolymer. The adhesive resins were used for the fabrication of plywood panels, and then the adhesive strength and formaldehyde emission of the plywood panels were measured to examine the applicability of the resin adhesives for the production of plywood panels. The solids content and pH of the okara used in this study were around 20% and weak acidic state, respectively. In the analysis of its chemical composition, the content of carbohydrate was the highest, and followed by protein. The shear strengths of plywood fabricated with okara-based resin adhesives exceeded a minimum requirement of KS standard for ordinary plywood, but its wood failure did not reach the minimum requirement. In addition, the formaldehyde emissions of all plywood panels were higher than that of E1 specified in the KS standard. Based on these results, okara has the potential to be used as a raw material of environmentally friendly adhesive resin systems for the production of wood panels, but further researches - biological hydrolysis of okara and various formulations of PF prepolymer - are required to improve the adhesive strength and formaldehyde emission of okara-based resin adhesives.

Optimization of Multiclass Support Vector Machine using Genetic Algorithm: Application to the Prediction of Corporate Credit Rating (유전자 알고리즘을 이용한 다분류 SVM의 최적화: 기업신용등급 예측에의 응용)

  • Ahn, Hyunchul
    • Information Systems Review
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    • v.16 no.3
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    • pp.161-177
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    • 2014
  • Corporate credit rating assessment consists of complicated processes in which various factors describing a company are taken into consideration. Such assessment is known to be very expensive since domain experts should be employed to assess the ratings. As a result, the data-driven corporate credit rating prediction using statistical and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques has received considerable attention from researchers and practitioners. In particular, statistical methods such as multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) and multinomial logistic regression analysis (MLOGIT), and AI methods including case-based reasoning (CBR), artificial neural network (ANN), and multiclass support vector machine (MSVM) have been applied to corporate credit rating.2) Among them, MSVM has recently become popular because of its robustness and high prediction accuracy. In this study, we propose a novel optimized MSVM model, and appy it to corporate credit rating prediction in order to enhance the accuracy. Our model, named 'GAMSVM (Genetic Algorithm-optimized Multiclass Support Vector Machine),' is designed to simultaneously optimize the kernel parameters and the feature subset selection. Prior studies like Lorena and de Carvalho (2008), and Chatterjee (2013) show that proper kernel parameters may improve the performance of MSVMs. Also, the results from the studies such as Shieh and Yang (2008) and Chatterjee (2013) imply that appropriate feature selection may lead to higher prediction accuracy. Based on these prior studies, we propose to apply GAMSVM to corporate credit rating prediction. As a tool for optimizing the kernel parameters and the feature subset selection, we suggest genetic algorithm (GA). GA is known as an efficient and effective search method that attempts to simulate the biological evolution phenomenon. By applying genetic operations such as selection, crossover, and mutation, it is designed to gradually improve the search results. Especially, mutation operator prevents GA from falling into the local optima, thus we can find the globally optimal or near-optimal solution using it. GA has popularly been applied to search optimal parameters or feature subset selections of AI techniques including MSVM. With these reasons, we also adopt GA as an optimization tool. To empirically validate the usefulness of GAMSVM, we applied it to a real-world case of credit rating in Korea. Our application is in bond rating, which is the most frequently studied area of credit rating for specific debt issues or other financial obligations. The experimental dataset was collected from a large credit rating company in South Korea. It contained 39 financial ratios of 1,295 companies in the manufacturing industry, and their credit ratings. Using various statistical methods including the one-way ANOVA and the stepwise MDA, we selected 14 financial ratios as the candidate independent variables. The dependent variable, i.e. credit rating, was labeled as four classes: 1(A1); 2(A2); 3(A3); 4(B and C). 80 percent of total data for each class was used for training, and remaining 20 percent was used for validation. And, to overcome small sample size, we applied five-fold cross validation to our dataset. In order to examine the competitiveness of the proposed model, we also experimented several comparative models including MDA, MLOGIT, CBR, ANN and MSVM. In case of MSVM, we adopted One-Against-One (OAO) and DAGSVM (Directed Acyclic Graph SVM) approaches because they are known to be the most accurate approaches among various MSVM approaches. GAMSVM was implemented using LIBSVM-an open-source software, and Evolver 5.5-a commercial software enables GA. Other comparative models were experimented using various statistical and AI packages such as SPSS for Windows, Neuroshell, and Microsoft Excel VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). Experimental results showed that the proposed model-GAMSVM-outperformed all the competitive models. In addition, the model was found to use less independent variables, but to show higher accuracy. In our experiments, five variables such as X7 (total debt), X9 (sales per employee), X13 (years after founded), X15 (accumulated earning to total asset), and X39 (the index related to the cash flows from operating activity) were found to be the most important factors in predicting the corporate credit ratings. However, the values of the finally selected kernel parameters were found to be almost same among the data subsets. To examine whether the predictive performance of GAMSVM was significantly greater than those of other models, we used the McNemar test. As a result, we found that GAMSVM was better than MDA, MLOGIT, CBR, and ANN at the 1% significance level, and better than OAO and DAGSVM at the 5% significance level.