• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.33-40
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• 2012

In this study, we characterized the physical form of allergenic Cry j 1 in the urban atmosphere. Through an immunofluorescence antibody method, we showed that allergenic Cry j 1 exists as fine particles (${\leq}1.1{\mu}m$). To determine Cry j 1 concentrations and its particle size distribution, we used the ELISA method to confirm that most Cry j 1 exists as fine particles in the urban atmosphere and is found at high concentrations on fine day next to rainy day. Furthermore, we evaluated Cry j 1 denaturation by using the Biacore J system based on the surface plasmon resonence (SPR) principle and sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). We showed that the dissociation constant ($K_D$) of Cry j 1 that has been exposed to urban polluted air is lower ($1.76{\times}10^{-14}$ M) than that of Cry j 1 ($1.32{\times}10^{-9}-3.37{\times}10^{-9}$ M) of original pollen grains that has not been exposed to air pollutants. Cry j 1 turns into low molecular weight proteins by reacting with various acidic solutions. In sum, we showed that allergenic Cry j 1 exists as fine particles that can deposit in the lower respiratory tract. This finding clarifies the relationship between Japanese cedar pollinosis and air pollutants.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.55 no.9
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• pp.322-329
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• 2012

Purpose: Aeroallergens are important causative factors of allergic diseases. Previous studies on aeroallergen sensitization rates investigated patients groups that had visited pediatric allergy clinics. In contrast, we investigated sensitization rates in a general population group of elementary school to teenage students in Incheon, Jeju, and Ulsan. Methods: After obtaining parental consent, skin-prick tests were performed on 5,094 students between March and June 2010. Elementary school students were tested for 18 common aeroallergens, whereas middle and high school students were tested for 25 allergens. The 25 allergens included Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus, Dermatophagoides farinae, pollen (birch, alder, oak, Japanese cedar, pine, willow, elm, maple, Bermuda grass, timothy grass, rye grass, orchard grass, meadow grass, vernal grass, mugwort, Japanese hop, fat hen, ragweed, and plantain), and mold (Penicillatum, Aspergillus, Cladosporium, and Alternaria). Results: The sensitization rates in descending order were 25.79% (D. pteronyssinus ), 18.66% (D. farinae ), 6.20% (mugwort), and 4.07% (willow) in Incheon; 33.35% (D. pteronyssinus ), 24.78% (D. farinae), 15.36% (Japanese cedar), and 7.33% (Alternaria) in Jeju; and 32.79% (D. pteronyssinus), 30.27% (D. farinae), 10.13% (alder), and 8.68% (birch) in Ulsan. The dust mite allergen showed the highest sensitization rate among the 3 regions. The sensitization rate of tree pollen was the highest in Ulsan, whereas that of Alternaria was the highest in Jeju. The ragweed sensitization rates were 0.99% in Incheon, 1.07% in Jeju, and 0.81% in Ulsan. Conclusion: The differences in sensitization rates were because of different regional environmental conditions and distinct surrounding biological species. Hence, subsequent nationwide studies are required.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.753-761
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• 2017

The heartwood (HW) of Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) has usually a reddish color. But some trees have black-colored heartwood (BHW). BHW of Japanese cedar has a low commercial value because of the appearance. Therefore, in this study, a comparative analysis was conducted to evaluate the differences in the physical, mechanical, and inorganic element properties, and decay resistance of red-colored heartwood tree (RHW) and BHW. The physical properties showed significant difference between sapwood (SW) and HW, but there was no significant difference between RHW and BHW. From the results of mechanical properties, no significant difference was recognized in SW of RHW, HW of RHW, SW of BHW, and HW of BHW. There were decay resistance differences between RHW and BHW in HW, and between HW and SW in both RHW and BHW, respectively. The magnesium (Mg), potassium (K), and calcium (Ca) contents had significant differences between SW and HW in both RHW and BHW. In this present study, the decay resistances and the contents of Mg and K were higher in HW than in SW both for RHW and BHW, while these measurements were lower in RHW than in BHW. Therefore, BHW was considered to be worthy as a high-quality material as RHW.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.345-363
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• 2020

This study was conducted to identify the effect of kerfing and incising pretreatments on high-temperature drying characteristics of cedar and larch boxed-heart timbers with a cross section of less than 150 mm. The result showed that the pretreatments have made a significant difference regarding surface check and shrinkage. Although the kerfing was suitable as a pretreatment to reduce the occurrence of surface check, the incising was not suitable as a pretreatment since the knives of timber joined together, causing the conversion to the surface checks. The shrinkage showed a significant result that the final moisture content was reduced in the order of incising, kerfing, and kerfing-incising after the drying process based on the pretreatment condition. Twist was more affected by the grain angle than the anisotropy of the juvenile wood, and there was no effect of pretreatments.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.285-292
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• 2014

Essential oil yields and chemical compositions from 5 populations of Chamaecyparis obtusa with several environmental factors were investigated through essential oil extracted distillation apparatus and metabolite profiling by GC-MS analysis. Among the populations, content of essential oil at Gokseong was significantly higher than other populations. To compare the several environmental factors affecting on chemical composition and essential oil yields from C. obtuse at Gokseong, the environmental factors (soil condition, temperature, humidity, and moisture content) were measured during 1 year. The essential oils at Goksung based on humidity on March, July, and November was significantly different from other months. The essential oils at Goksung based on temperature on July and August was significantly different from other months. The essential oils at Goksung based on the moisture content on September were significantly different from other months. The percentage of T-N, OM, and yield of oil at Gokseong were significantly different on from other populations. The main constituents of C. obtusa at all populations were ${\alpha}$-pinene, ${\beta}$-pinene, ${\alpha}$-terpinene, ${\gamma}$-terpinene, terpinene-4-ol, isobonyl acetate, terpinyl acetate, and cedar acetate. Specially, Essential oil compositions (%) of ${\alpha}$-terpinene and cedar acetate were higher at Gokseong than at other populations. The chemical compositions of essential oils were variable depend on populations and environmental conditions. Therefore, this study might be used as fundamental research on study for selection of high productive terpenoids and for understanding about biosynthesis of essential oils in C. obtusa.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.84 no.3
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• pp.394-405
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• 1995

Certain ericaceous understory plants of temperate forests proliferate following forest clearcutting and fire. Rapid vegetative growth of these plants may affect conifer regeneration due to their strong competitive abilities and allelopathic properties. Planted conifers in these shrub-dominated habitats experience "growth check" which may result in a loss of productivity or in extreme cases total failure of forest regeneration. This growth check phenomenon is exemplified in Calluna Sitca spruce Scots pine ecosystems of western Europe, Kalmia black spruce ecosystem of eastern Canada and Gaultheria-cedar/hemlock ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Dynamics of Kalmia black spruce ecosystem following disturbance was used to explain the mechanism of conifer growth inhibition and their regeneration failure. It is argued that in addition to competition for nutrients, Kalmia allelopathy plays a major role in growth inhibition of black spruce. This conclusion is supported by the results of various field, laboratory and greenhouse experiments. Eight phenolic compounds were isolated and identified from the leaves of Kalmia angustifolia, four of which are known to be highly phyotoxic to black spruce. Methods of overcoming the allelopathic effects of Kalmia in order to enhance black spruce regeneration in Kalmia-dominated sites are discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.36-41
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• 2000

This study was carried out to introduce functional groups onto wood by reacting with 2-methacryloyloxyethyl isocyanate(MOI). The effects of the catalyst and the reaction conditions(temperature and time) on the treatment were investigated. The evidence of bonding between wood and MOI were examined by infrared(IR) spectroscopy. The change in surface characteristics of MOI treated wood was examined by water contact angle measurement and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS). Wood reacted quickly with MOI in the presence of di-n-butiltin dilaurate catalyst. Especially, the increase in weight percent gain(WPG) with increasing in reaction time was remarkable at the reaction temperature of over $50^{\circ}C$. The IR spectrum of wood reacted with MOI showed a strong urethane absorption(1715 $cm^{-1}$) but no isocyanate(2235 $cm^{-1}$) absorption. It also showed a sharp olefinic C=C double bond absorption at 1635 $cm^{-1}$. This means that an introduced methacrylate group becomes the starting point of further graft copolymerization with another vinyl monomers. The wood modified with MOI showed a gradual increase in contact angle with increasing in WPG, which means that the hydrophilic wood surface become quite hydrophobic. Also, it was cleared that most parts of the wood surface were modified with MOI by XPS analysis.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.18 no.1 s.116
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• pp.96-104
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• 2007

Currently, there is a lack of suitable prediction model and measurement data for vegetation loss. So in this paper, vegetation loss measurement has been performed for seven different tree-species, including dawn-redwood tree, plane tree, pine tree and hymalaya cedar in the frequency range of $1.0{\sim}6.0\;GHz$, for the two years, from 2005 to 2006 years. And then, extraction and revision for the proposed RET model input parameters in ITU-R P.833 has been performed. The key results of measurement and RET modeling has been presented in this paper. The results of this study have been adapted for ITU-R recommendation at the ITU-R meeting in 2005 and 2006.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.202-212
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• 2017

This study was to establish the interrelation between chemical compositions and near infrared (NIR) spectra for the classification on distinguishability of domestic gymnosperms. Traditional wet chemistry methods and infrared spectral analyses were performed. In chemical compositions of five softwood species including larch (Larix kaempferi), red pine (Pinus densiflora), Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis), cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa), and cedar (Cryptomeria japonica), their extractives and lignin contents provided the major information for distinction between the wood species. However, depending on the production region and purchasing time of woods, chemical compositions were different even though in same species. Especially, red pine harvested from Naju showed the highest extractive content about 16.3%, whereas that from Donghae showed about 5.0%. These results were expected due to different environmental conditions such as sunshine amount, nutrients and moisture contents, and these phenomena were also observed in other species. As a result of the principal component analysis (PCA) using NIR between five species (total 19 samples), the samples were divided into three groups in the score plot based on principal component (PC) 1 and principal component (PC) 2; group 1) red pine and Korean pine, group 2) larch, and group 3) cypress and cedar. Based on the chemical composition results, it was concluded that extractive content was highly relevant to wood classification by NIR analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics B
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• v.33B no.4
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• pp.209-216
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• 1996

In this paper, we propose a learning method of multi-layer perceptrons (MLPs) with 8-bit data precision. The suggested method uses the cross-entropy cost function to remove the slope term of error signal in output layer. To decrease the possibility of overflows, we use 16-bit weighted sum results into the 8-bit data with appropriate range. In the forwared propagation, the range for bit-conversion is determined using the saturation property of sigmoid function. In the backwared propagation, the range for bit-conversion is derived using the probability density function of back-propagated signal. In a simulation study to classify hadwritten digits in the CEDAR database, our method shows similar generalization performance to the error back-propagation learning with 16-bit precision.