• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
• /
• v.49 no.6
• /
• pp.610-616
• /
• 2017

${\gamma}$-Glutamyltranspeptidase (GGT, EC 2.3.2.2) transfers ${\gamma}$-glutamyl moiety from glutamine to amino acids or peptides and hydrolyzes glutamine to glutamate and ammonia. In order to overproduce ${\gamma}$-glutamyltranspeptidase from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens (BAGGT), the encoding gene was cloned and expressed in Bacillus subtilis. The productivity of BAGGT in Bacillus subtilis was improved by 42-fold by using a dual-promoter system that was generated by combining promoters from B. subtilis ${\alpha}$-amylase and BAGGT genes. Through optimization of medium composition by Plackett-Burman design and central composition design, BAGGT was produced at $18.3{\times}10^7U/L$ of culture in the optimized medium. Compared to previously used Luria-Bertani medium, the optimized culture medium (15 g/L molasses, 60 g/L corn steep liquor, 6 g/L yeast extract, 4 g/L NaCl, 6 g/L $K_2HPO_4$, and 2 g/L $KH_2PO_4$), resulted in a 4.3-fold increase in production of BAGGT.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.21 no.8
• /
• pp.808-817
• /
• 2011

Because of its elevated cellulolytic activity, the filamentous fungus Trichoderma harzianum has a considerable potential in biomass hydrolysis applications. Trichoderma harzianum cellobiohydrolase I (ThCBHI), an exoglucanase, is an important enzyme in the process of cellulose degradation. Here, we report an easy single-step ion-exchange chromatographic method for purification of ThCBHI and its initial biophysical and biochemical characterization. The ThCBHI produced by induction with microcrystalline cellulose under submerged fermentation was purified on DEAE-Sephadex A-50 media and its identity was confirmed by mass spectrometry. The ThCBHI biochemical characterization showed that the protein has a molecular mass of 66 kDa and pI of 5.23. As confirmed by smallangle X-ray scattering (SAXS), both full-length ThCBHI and its catalytic core domain (CCD) obtained by digestion with papain are monomeric in solution. Secondary structure analysis of ThCBHI by circular dichroism revealed ${\alpha}$- helices and ${\beta}$-strands contents in the 28% and 38% range, respectively. The intrinsic fluorescence emission maximum of 337 nm was accounted for as different degrees of exposure of ThCBHI tryptophan residues to water. Moreover, ThCBHI displayed maximum activity at pH 5.0 and temperature of $50^{\circ}C$ with specific activities against Avicel and p-nitrophenyl-${\beta}$-D-cellobioside of 1.25 U/mg and 1.53 U/mg, respectively.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• v.27 no.2
• /
• pp.89-96
• /
• 2010

BVR CCD observations of GW Cep were made on 15 nights in November through December 2008 with a 1-m reflector at the Jincheon station of the Chungbuk National University Observatory. Nineteen new times of minimum lights for GW Cep were determined and added to a collection of all other times of minima available to us. These data were then intensively analyzed, by reference to an O-C diagram, to deduce the general form of period variation for GW Cep. It was found that the O-C diagram could be interpreted as presenting two different forms of period change: an exclusively quasi-sinusoidal change with a period of 32.6 years and an eccentricity of 0.10; and a quasi-sinusoidal change with a period of 46.2 years and an eccentricity of 0.36 superposed on an upward parabola. Although a final conclusion is somewhat premature at present, the latter seems more plausible because late-type contact binaries allow an inter-exchange of both energy and mass between the component stars. The quasi-sinusoidal characteristics were interpreted in terms of a light-time effect due to an unseen tertiary component. The minimum masses of the tertiary component for both cases were calculated to be nearly the same as the $0.23-0.26M\;{\odot}$-ranges which is hardly detectable in a light curve synthesis. The upward parabolic O-C diagram corresponding to a secular period increase of about $4.12{\times}10^{-8}\;d/yr$ was interpreted as mass being transferred from the lesser to more massive component. The transfer rate for a conservative case was calculated to be about $2.66\;{\times}\;10^{-8}\;M_{\odot}/yr$ which is compatible with other W UMa-type contact binaries.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.257-266
• /
• 2014

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: Licorice has been shown to possess cancer chemopreventive effects. However, glycyrrhizin, a major component in licorice, was found to interfere with steroid metabolism and cause edema and hypertension. The roasting process of licorice modifies the chemical composition and converts glycyrrhizin to glycyrrhetinic acid. The purpose of this study was to examine the anti-carcinogenic effects of the ethanol extract of roasted licorice (EERL) and to identify the active compound in EERL. MATERIALS/METHODS: Ethanol and aqueous extracts of roasted and un-roasted licorice were prepared. The active fraction was separated from the methylene chloride (MC)-soluble fraction of EERL and the structure of the purified compound was determined by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The anti-carcinogenic effects of licorice extracts and licochalcone A was evaluated using a MTT assay, Western blot, flow cytometry, and two-stage skin carcinogenesis model. RESULTS: EERL was determined to be more potent and efficacious than the ethanol extract of un-roasted licorice in inhibiting the growth of DU145 and MLL prostate cancer cells, as well as HT-29 colon cancer cells. The aqueous extracts of un-roasted and roasted licorice showed minimal effects on cell growth. EERL potently inhibited growth of MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 breast, B16-F10 melanoma, and A375 and A2058 skin cancer cells, whereas EERL slightly stimulated the growth of normal IEC-6 intestinal epithelial cells and CCD118SK fibroblasts. The MC-soluble fraction was more efficacious than EERL in inhibiting DU145 cell growth. Licochalcone A was isolated from the MC fraction and identified as the active compound of EERL. Both EERL and licochalcone A induced apoptosis of DU145 cells. EERL potently inhibited chemically-induced skin papilloma formation in mice. CONCLUSIONS: Non-polar compounds in EERL exert potent anti-carcinogenic effects, and that roasted rather than un-roasted licorice should be favored as a cancer preventive agent, whether being used as an additive to food or medicine preparations.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
• /
• v.8 no.11
• /
• pp.1496-1509
• /
• 2005

In this paper, an adaptive license plate recognition system which detects and recognizes license plate at real-time by using projected plane convolution and Decision Tree Classifier is proposed. And it was tested in circumstances which presence of complex background. Generally, in expressway tollgate or gateway of parking lots, it is very difficult to detect and segment license plate because of size, entry angle and noisy problem of vehicles due to CCD camera and road environment. In the proposed algorithm, we suggested to extract license plate candidate region after going through image acquisition process with inputted real-time image, and then to compensate license size as well as gradient of vehicle with change of vehicle entry position. The proposed algorithm can exactly detect license plate using accumulated edge, projected convolution and chain code labeling method. And it also segments letter of license plate using adaptive binary method. And then, it recognizes license plate letter by applying hybrid pattern vector method. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can recognize the front and rear direction license plate at real-time in the presence of complex background environments. Accordingly license plate detection rate displayed $98.8\%$ and $96.5\%$ successive rate respectively. And also, from the segmented letters, it shows $97.3\%$ and $96\%$ successive recognition rate respectively.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
• /
• v.16 no.5
• /
• pp.294-300
• /
• 2008

This study was performed to investigate the increasing of immune activities from Centella asiatica L. Urban by several solvent extraction with ultrasonification process. Ethanol extracts at $60^{\circ}C$ and associated with ultrasofication showed more 15% yield than normal $100^{\circ}C$ water extracts. And ethanol extracts showed higher yield than water extraction at each process. It can be concluded that yield due to polarity of compound in C. asiatica from HPLC peak. All of extracts from C. asiatica revealed lower cytotoxicity than 32%. The ethanol extracts with ultrasofication showed higher promotion on human B and T cell growth, about 10% compared to the control. The secretion of IL-6 and TNF-a was also enhanced as $4.86\;{\times}\;10^{-4}\;pg/cell$ and $5.73\;{\times}\;10^{-4}\;pg/cell$ each, by the addition ethanol extracts with ultrasonification to T cell. NK cell activation was improved up to 10% higher than the control, through adding the samples. It can be concluded that the ethanol extracts from C. asiatica has higher immune activities followed by ultrasonification process, possibly, by higher yield than conventional extraction process.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
• /
• v.16 no.12
• /
• pp.1150-1158
• /
• 2010

In this study, the Polynomial-based Radial Basis Function Neural Networks is proposed as one of the recognition part of overall face recognition system that consists of two parts such as the preprocessing part and recognition part. The design methodology and procedure of the proposed pRBFNNs are presented to obtain the solution to high-dimensional pattern recognition problem. First, in preprocessing part, we use a CCD camera to obtain a picture frame in real-time. By using histogram equalization method, we can partially enhance the distorted image influenced by natural as well as artificial illumination. We use an AdaBoost algorithm proposed by Viola and Jones, which is exploited for the detection of facial image area between face and non-facial image area. As the feature extraction algorithm, PCA method is used. In this study, the PCA method, which is a feature extraction algorithm, is used to carry out the dimension reduction of facial image area formed by high-dimensional information. Secondly, we use pRBFNNs to identify the ID by recognizing unique pattern of each person. The proposed pRBFNNs architecture consists of three functional modules such as the condition part, the conclusion part, and the inference part as fuzzy rules formed in 'If-then' format. In the condition part of fuzzy rules, input space is partitioned with Fuzzy C-Means clustering. In the conclusion part of rules, the connection weight of pRBFNNs is represented as three kinds of polynomials such as constant, linear, and quadratic. Coefficients of connection weight identified with back-propagation using gradient descent method. The output of pRBFNNs model is obtained by fuzzy inference method in the inference part of fuzzy rules. The essential design parameters (including learning rate, momentum coefficient and fuzzification coefficient) of the networks are optimized by means of the Particle Swarm Optimization. The proposed pRBFNNs are applied to real-time face recognition system and then demonstrated from the viewpoint of output performance and recognition rate.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
• /
• v.18 no.4
• /
• pp.11-18
• /
• 2011

The quantitative interfacial adhesion energy of the Cu-Cu direct bonding layers was evaluated in terms of the bonding temperature and Ar+$H_2$ plasma treatment on Cu surface by using a 4-point bending test. The interfacial adhesion energy and bonding quality depend on increased bonding temperature and post-annealing temperature. With increasing bonding temperature from $250^{\circ}C$ to $350^{\circ}C$, the interfacial adhesion energy increase from $1.38{\pm}1.06$ $J/m^2$ to $10.36{\pm}1.01$ $J/m^2$. The Ar+$H_2$ plasma treatment on Cu surface drastically increase the interfacial adhesion energy form $1.38{\pm}1.06$ $J/m^2$ to $6.59{\pm}0.03$ $J/m^2$. The plasma pre-treatment successfully reduces processing temperature of Cu to Cu direct bonding.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.821-832
• /
• 2015

As a part of the short-period variability survey (SPVS) at Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory, we obtained time-series BV CCD images in the region of the open cluster NGC 1039 (M34). The observations were performed for 22 nights from July 29, 2008 to September 26, 2010. We also made LOAO observations for 10 days from September 18, 2009 to October 30, 2010 to confirm the small variabilties of ${\delta}$ Scuti-type variable stars. In this paper we presented the observational properties of 28 variable stars found in the region. They are seven ${\delta}$ Scuti-type variable stars, two ${\gamma}$ Doradus-type variable stars, four-teen eclipsing binary stars and five semi-long periodic or slow irregular variables, respectively. Only three variables were listed in the GCVS and the rest are newly discovered ones. We have performed multiple-frequency analysis to determine pulsation frequencies of the ${\delta}$ Scuti-type and ${\gamma}$ Doradus-type variable stars, using the discrete Fourier transform and linear least-square fitting methods. We also have derived the periods and amplitudes of 12 eclipsing binaries from the phase fitting method, and presented the light curves of all variable stars.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.41 no.2
• /
• pp.44.1-44.1
• /
• 2016

The Sagittarius-Carina spiral arm in the Galaxy contains several massive young open clusters. We present a deep optical photometric study on the massive young open clusters in the Sagittarius-Carina arm, Westerlund 2 and the young open clusters in the ${\eta}$ Carina nebula. Westerlund 2 is a less studied starburst-type cluster in the Galaxy. An abnormal reddening law for the intracluster medium of the young starburst-type cluster Westerlund 2 is determined to be $R_{V,cl}=4.14{\pm}0.08$. The distance modulus is determined from zero-age main-sequence fitting to the reddening-corrected color-magnitude diagrams of the early-type members to be $V_0-M_V=13.9{\pm}0.14mag$. The pre-main sequence (PMS) members of Westerlund 2 are selected by identifying the optical counterparts of X-ray emission sources from the Chandra X-ray observation and mid-infrared emission sources from the Spitzer/IRAC (the Infrared Array Camera) observation. The initial mass function (IMF) shows a slightly flat slope of ${\Gamma}=-1.1{\pm}0.1$ down to $5M_{\odot}$. The age of Westerlund 2 is estimated to be. 1.5 Myr from the main-sequence turn-on luminosity and the age distribution of PMS stars. The ${\eta}$ Carina nebula is the best laboratory for the investigation of the Galactic massive stars and low-mass star formation under the influence of numerous massive stars. We have performed deep wide-field CCD photometry of stars in the ${\eta}$ Carina nebula to determine the reddening law, distance, and the IMF of the clusters in the nebula. We present VRI and $H{\alpha}$ photometry of 130,571 stars from the images obtained with the 4m telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). RV,cl in the η Carina nebula gradually decreases from the southern part (~4.5, around Trumpler 14 and Trumpler 16) to the northern part around Trumpler 15 (~3.5). Distance to the young open clusters in the ${\eta}$ Carina nebula is partly revised based on the zero-age main-sequence fitting to the reddening-corrected color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) and the (semi-) reddening-independent CMDs. We select the PMS members and candidates by identifying the optical counterparts of X-ray sources from the Chandra Carina Complex Survey and mid-infrared excess emission stars from the Spitzer Vela-Carina survey. From the evolutionary stage of massive stars and PMS stars, we obtain that the northern young open cluster Trumpler 15 is distinctively older than the southern young open clusters, Trumpler 14 (${\leq}2.5 Myr$) and Trumpler 16 (2.5-3.5 Myr). The slopes of the IMF of Trumpler 14, Trumpler 15, and Trumpler 16 are determined to be $-1.2{\pm}0.1$, $-1.5{\pm}0.3$, and $-1.1{\pm}0.1$, respectively. Based on the RV,cl of several young open clusters determined in this work and the previous studies of our group, We suggest that higher RV,cl values are commonly found for very young open clusters with the age of < 4 Myr. We also confirm the correlation between the slope of the IMF and the surface mass density of massive stars.