• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.34-44
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• 2015

Fish fauna, difference of stable isotope ratio between freshwater and seawater, and trophic guilds of freshwater fishes were investigated in the lower Geum River. The study was conducted in 2011, and total study area was about 30 km of 20 km upstream and 10 km downstream from the Geum River estuary barrage. Only freshwater fishes were used for analyzing trophic guilds, and discriminant function analysis (DFA) was utilized to reclassify trophic guilds based on stable isotope ratio. Fish fauna in freshwater and seawater areas were entirely different each other, but small number of migratory species such as Coilia nasus and Chelon haematocheilus occurred both areas. Other species were not collected in the different areas because they did not have physiological ability to adapt different salinity concentrations. Stable isotope ration of two areas were different considerably due to food sources. Estuary and seawater fishes uptake food sources originated from marine, and freshwater fishes were from freshwater and terrestrial. Some migratory species showed reverse stable isotope ratio. Even though they collected in freshwater, they showed stable isotope ratio of seawater. This is because ecological characteristics of each species. Trophic guilds of freshwater fishes were reclassified by DFA, and showed slight difference with literatures. However, because this result is related with ontogenetic shift of species, more studies are needed to explain exact and correct trophic guilds. Stable isotope ratio can be changed among regions, seasons and ontogenetic stage, thus we always consider these aspects when analyzing results to get a right answer.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.287-294
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• 2003

Background: In kidney transplantation, donor specific transfusion may induce tolerance as a result of some immune regulatory cells against the graft. In organ transplantation, the immune state arises from a relationship between the immunocompromised graft and the immunocompetent host. However, a reverse immunological situation exists between the graft and the host in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). In addition, early IL-2 injections after an allogeneic murine HSCT have been shown to prevent lethal graft versus host disease (GVHD) due to CD4+ cells. We investigated the induction of the regulatory CD4+CD25+ cells after a transfusion of irradiated recipient cells with IL-2 into a donor. Methods: The splenocytes (SP) were obtained from 6 week-old BALB/c mice ($H-2^d$) and irradiated as a single cell suspension. The donor mice (C3H/He, $H-2^k$) received $5{\times}10^6$ irradiated SP, and 5,000 IU IL-2 injected intraperitoneally on the day prior to HSCT. The CD4+CD25+ cell populations in SP treated C3H/He were analyzed. In order to determine the in vivo effect of CD4+CD25+ cells, the lethally irradiated BALB/c were transplanted with $1{\times}10^7$ donor BM and $5{\times}10^6$ CD4+CD25+ cells. The other recipient mice received either $1{\times}10^7$ donor BM with $5{\times}10^6$ CD4+ CD25- cells or the untreated SP. The survival and GVHD was assessed daily by a clinical scoring system. Results: In the MLR assay, BALB/c SP was used as a stimulator with C3H/He SP, as a responder, with or without treatment. The inhibition of proliferation was $30.0{\pm}13%$ compared to the control. In addition, the MLR with either the CD4+CD25+ or CD4+CD25- cells, which were isolated by MidiMacs, from the C3H/He SP treated with the recipient SP and IL-2 was evaluated. The donor SP treated with the recipient cells and IL-2 contained more CD4+CD25+ cells ($5.4{\pm}1.5%$) than the untreated mice SP ($1.4{\pm}0.3%$)(P<0.01). There was a profound inhibition in the CD4+CD25+ cells ($61.1{\pm}6.1%$), but a marked proliferation in the CD4+CD25- cells ($129.8{\pm}65.2%$). Mice in the CD4+CD25+ group showed low GVHD scores and a slow progression from the post-HSCT day 4 to day 9, but those in the control and CD4+CD25- groups had a high score and rapid progression (P<0.001). The probability of survival was 83.3% in the CD4+CD25+ group until post-HSC day 35 and all mice in the control and CD4+CD25- groups died on post-HSCT day 8 or 9 (P=0.0105). Conclusion: Donor graft engineering with irradiated recipient SP and IL-2 (recipient specific transfusion) can induce abundant regulatory CD4+CD25+ cells to prevent GVHD.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.61-62
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• 2003

Clonal propagation of high-value forest trees through somatic embryogenesis (SE) has the potential to rapidly capture the benefits of breeding or genetic engineering programs and to improve raw material uniformity and quality. A major barrier to the commercialization of this technology is the low quality of the resulting embryos. Several factors limit commercialization of SE for Corsican pine, including low initiation rates, low culture survival, culture decline causing low or no embryo production, and inability of somatic embryos to fully mature, resulting in low germination and reduced vigour of somatic seedlings. The objective was to develop a Corsican pine maturation medium that would produce cotyledonary embryos capable of germination. Treatments were arranged in a completely randomized design. Data were analyzed by analysis of variance, and significant differences between treatments determined by multiple range test at P=0.05. Corsican pine (Pinus nigra var. maritima) cultures were initiated on modified !P6 medium. Modifications of the same media were used for culture multiplication and maintenance. Embryogenic cultures were maintained on the same medium semi solidified with 2.5 g/l Gelrite. A maturation medium, capable of promoting the development of Corsican pine somatic embryos that can germinate, is a combination of iP6 modified salts, 2% maltose, 13% polyethylene glycol (PEG), 5 mg!l abscisic acid (ABA), and 2.5 g/l Gelrite. After initiation and once enough tissue developed they were grown in liquid medium. Embryogenic cell suspensions were established by adding 0.951.05 g of 10- to 14-day-old semisolid-grown embryogenic tissue to 9 ml of liquid maintenance media in a 250ml Erlenmeyer flask. Cultures were then incubated in the dark at 2022$^{\circ}$C and rotated at 120 rpm. After 2.53 months on maturation medium, somatic embryos were selected that exhibited normal embryo shape. Ten embryos were placed horizontally on 20 ml of either germination medium ($\frac{2}{1}$strength Murashige and Skoog (1962) salts with 2.5 g/l activated charcoal) or same medium with copper sulphate adjusted to 0.25 mg/1 to compensate for copper adsorption by activated carbon. 2% and 4% maltose was substituted by 7.5% and 13% PEG respectively to improve the yield of the embryos. Substitution of' maltose with PEG was clearly beneficial to embryo development. When 2% of the maltose was replaced with 7.5% PEG, many embryos developed to large bullet-shaped embryos. At latter stages of development most embryos callused and stopped development. A few short, barrel-shaped cotyledonary embryos formed that were covered by callus on the sides and base. When 4% of the maltose was removed and substituted with 13% PEG, the embryos developed further, emerging from the callus and increasing yield slightly. Microscopic examination of the cultures showed differing morphologies, varying from mostly single cells or clumps to well-formed somatic embryos that resembled early zygotic embryos only liquid cultures with organized early-stag. A procedure for converting and acclimating germinants to growth in soil and greenhouse conditions is also tested. Seedling conversion and growth were highly related to the quality of the germinant at the time of planting. Germinants with larger shoots, longer, straighter hypocotyls and longer roots performed best. When mature zygotic embryos germinate the root emerges, before or coincident with the shoot. In contrast, somatic embryos germinate in reverse sequence, with the cotyledons greening first, then shoot emergence and then, much later, if at all, the appearance of the root. Somatic seedlings, produced from the maturation medium, showed 100% survival when planted in a field setting. Somatic seedlings showed normal yearly growth relative to standard seedlings from natural seed.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.39-55
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• 2019

Recently banks and large financial institutions have introduced lots of Robo-Advisor products. Robo-Advisor is a Robot to produce the optimal asset allocation portfolio for investors by using the financial engineering algorithms without any human intervention. Since the first introduction in Wall Street in 2008, the market size has grown to 60 billion dollars and is expected to expand to 2,000 billion dollars by 2020. Since Robo-Advisor algorithms suggest asset allocation output to investors, mathematical or statistical asset allocation strategies are applied. Mean variance optimization model developed by Markowitz is the typical asset allocation model. The model is a simple but quite intuitive portfolio strategy. For example, assets are allocated in order to minimize the risk on the portfolio while maximizing the expected return on the portfolio using optimization techniques. Despite its theoretical background, both academics and practitioners find that the standard mean variance optimization portfolio is very sensitive to the expected returns calculated by past price data. Corner solutions are often found to be allocated only to a few assets. The Black-Litterman Optimization model overcomes these problems by choosing a neutral Capital Asset Pricing Model equilibrium point. Implied equilibrium returns of each asset are derived from equilibrium market portfolio through reverse optimization. The Black-Litterman model uses a Bayesian approach to combine the subjective views on the price forecast of one or more assets with implied equilibrium returns, resulting a new estimates of risk and expected returns. These new estimates can produce optimal portfolio by the well-known Markowitz mean-variance optimization algorithm. If the investor does not have any views on his asset classes, the Black-Litterman optimization model produce the same portfolio as the market portfolio. What if the subjective views are incorrect? A survey on reports of stocks performance recommended by securities analysts show very poor results. Therefore the incorrect views combined with implied equilibrium returns may produce very poor portfolio output to the Black-Litterman model users. This paper suggests an objective investor views model based on Support Vector Machines(SVM), which have showed good performance results in stock price forecasting. SVM is a discriminative classifier defined by a separating hyper plane. The linear, radial basis and polynomial kernel functions are used to learn the hyper planes. Input variables for the SVM are returns, standard deviations, Stochastics %K and price parity degree for each asset class. SVM output returns expected stock price movements and their probabilities, which are used as input variables in the intelligent views model. The stock price movements are categorized by three phases; down, neutral and up. The expected stock returns make P matrix and their probability results are used in Q matrix. Implied equilibrium returns vector is combined with the intelligent views matrix, resulting the Black-Litterman optimal portfolio. For comparisons, Markowitz mean-variance optimization model and risk parity model are used. The value weighted market portfolio and equal weighted market portfolio are used as benchmark indexes. We collect the 8 KOSPI 200 sector indexes from January 2008 to December 2018 including 132 monthly index values. Training period is from 2008 to 2015 and testing period is from 2016 to 2018. Our suggested intelligent view model combined with implied equilibrium returns produced the optimal Black-Litterman portfolio. The out of sample period portfolio showed better performance compared with the well-known Markowitz mean-variance optimization portfolio, risk parity portfolio and market portfolio. The total return from 3 year-period Black-Litterman portfolio records 6.4%, which is the highest value. The maximum draw down is -20.8%, which is also the lowest value. Sharpe Ratio shows the highest value, 0.17. It measures the return to risk ratio. Overall, our suggested view model shows the possibility of replacing subjective analysts's views with objective view model for practitioners to apply the Robo-Advisor asset allocation algorithms in the real trading fields.