• Journal of Apiculture
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.283-295
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• 2018

As Sacbrood virus (SBV), a causative agent of larval death and colony collapse in Apis cerana honey bee, is prevalent and poses one of the most significant threats to the Korean apiculture, development of methods to counter this viral disease is urgently needed. In this study we tested some SBV controlling methods, such as requeen, shook swam, adding Apis mellifera and spraying yogurt to SBV inoculated colony. Colony size measured by number of sealed brood and adult were evaluated every 15 days until two months while instances of recurrence were recorded up to five months after applying treatment methods. We also test the effects of yogurt on healthy and SBV-infected larvae at both in vitro reared larvae and colony level. Our result showed that all SBV controlling methods had similar success rates with respect to elimination of SBV clinical symptom up to 30 days post treatment. Mix-species and spraying yogurt method had similar pattern of sealed brood and adult number and higher than that of other SBV controlling methods up to 45 days post treatment. These two groups also showed the lower percentage of SBV recurrence (50% and 66.7%) at 120 days post treatment than other group that mostly colony had clinical symptom. Result on in vitro reared larvae challenged with yogurt showed that yogurt have neither harmless on healthy larvae nor remedial effect on SBV infected larvae. However, at colony level, colony in group received yogurt treatment removed significantly more SBV-infected larvae, SBV-killed larvae, and even healthy larvae in comparison to the control, suggested that yogurt could trigger the hygienic behavior of nurse bee. Our results recommended that it is practical in beekeeping by adding A. mellifera and spraying yogurt to control SBV in A. cerana colony.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.343-351
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• 2017

Porcine spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) prefer three-dimensional (3D) culture systems to 2D ones for the maintenance of self-renewal. Of the many 3D culture systems, agar-based hydrogels are candidates for supporting porcine SSC self-renewal, and there are various types of agar powder that can be used. In this study, we sought to identify an agar-based 3D hydrogel system that exhibited strong efficacy in the maintenance of porcine SSC self-renewal. First, 3D hydrogels with different mechanics were prepared with various concentrations of Bacto agar, lysogeny broth (LB) agar, and agarose powder, and the 3D hydrogel with the strongest alkaline phosphatase (AP) activity and greatest increase in colony size was identified for the different types of agar powder. Second, among the porcine SSCs cultured in the different 3D hydrogels, we analyzed the colony formation, morphology, and size; AP activity; and transcription and translation of porcine SSC-related genes, and these were compared to determine the optimal 3D hydrogel system for the maintenance of porcine SSC self-renewal. We found that 0.6% (w/v) Bacto agar-, 1% (w/v) LB agar-, and 0.2% (w/v) agarose-based 3D hydrogels showed the strongest maintenance of AP activity and the most pronounced increase in colony size in the culture of porcine SSCs. Moreover, among these hydrogels, the strongest transcription and translation of porcine SSC-related genes and largest colony size were detected in porcine SSCs cultured in the 0.2% (w/v) agarose-based 3D hydrogel, whereas there were no significant differences in colony formation and morphology. These results demonstrate that the 0.2% (w/v) agarose-based 3D hydrogel can be effectively used for the maintenance of porcine SSC self-renewal.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.184-191
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• 2005

In this article we study the feasibility of the Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) algorithm for finding optimal Kanban allocations in Kanban systems represented by Stochastic Petri Net (SPN) models. Like other optimisation algorithms inspired by nature, such as Simulated Annealing/Genetic Algorithms, the ACO algorithm contains a large number of adjustable parameters. Thus we study the influence of the parameters on performance of ACO on the Kanban allocation problem, and identify the most important parameters.

• Journal of Korean Foot and Ankle Society
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.100-107
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• 2014

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) isolation by the magnetic-activated cell sorting (MACS) method in tendon tissue-derived cells compared to the colony picking method for isolation of MSCs by picking colony-forming cells. Materials and Methods: Human tendon-derived cells were isolated by enzyme digestion using normal tendon tissues from three donors. We used the magnetic kit and well-known MSC markers (CD90 or CD105) to isolate MSCs in tendon-derived cells using MACS. Cloning cylinders were used to isolate colony-forming cells having MSC characteristics in tendon-derived cells. Colony-forming unit-fibroblast (CFU-F) assay was used to evaluate the self-renewal capacity of cells isolated using the colony picking method or MACS. For comparison of differentiation potentials into osteogenic or adipogenic lineage between two groups, alizarin red S and oil red O staining were performed at 14 days after induction of differentiation in vitro. Results: Flow cytometry results showed that early passage tendon-derived cells expressed CD44 in 99.13%, CD90 in 56.51%, and CD105 in 86.19%. In the CFU-F assay, CD90+ or CD105+ cells isolated with MACS showed larger colony formation in size than cells isolated using the colony picking method. We also observed that CD90+ or CD105+ cells were constantly differentiated into both osteogenic and adipogenic lineages in cells from all donors, whereas cells isolated using the colony picking method were heterogeneous in differentiation potentials to the osteogenic and adipogenic lineages. Conclusion: CD90+ or CD105+ cells isolated using MACS showed superior MSC characteristics in the self-renewal and multi-differentiation capacities compared with cells isolated using the colony picking method.

• Mycobiology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.7-11
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• 2005

Twenty-two isolates of Sclerotium rolfsii causing spotted leaf rot from Varanasi, India were grown on 6% Cyperus rotundus rhizome meal agar (CRMA) medium for the induction of athelial stage (Athelia rolfsii). Only one isolate obtained from Sphaeranthus indicus formed basidial stage on CRMA medium while the other 21 isolates did not. Basidial stage was also produced in S. indicus isolate at different concentrations (5.5, 6.0 and 6.5% w/v) of CRMA medium. Size of basidia, sterigmata and basidiospores of this isolate was measured. Basidia clavate, hyaline and measured $10{\sim}12{\times}4{\sim}5\;{\mu}m$ in size, basidiospores hyaline, unicellular, subglobose to ellipsoid produced on sterigmata and measured $3{\sim}5{\times}2{\sim}4\;{\mu}m$ in size, sterigmata hyaline and measured $4{\sim}5{\times}1.5{\sim}2\;{\mu}m$ in size. The results of the present study revealed wide variation in spotted leaf rot isolates of S. rolfsii. A reddish zone around the colony of S. rolfsii isolate from Vernonia sp. was observed on CRMA medium. HPLC analysis of the zone revealed the presence of gallic and ferulic acid which were also thought to be responsible for reduced mycelial growth of the isolate on CRMA medium.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.505-522
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• 2012

An artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is developed for the optimum design of geometrically non-linear steel frames. The ABC is a new swarm intelligence method which simulates the intelligent foraging behaviour of honeybee swarm for solving the optimization problems. Minimum weight design of steel frames is aimed under the strength, displacement and size constraints. The geometric non-linearity of the frame members is taken into account in the optimum design algorithm. The performance of the ABC algorithm is tested on three steel frames taken from literature. The results obtained from the design examples demonstrate that the ABC algorithm could find better designs than other meta-heuristic optimization algorithms in shorter time.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.73 no.4
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• pp.463-479
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• 2020

This paper is aimed to address a simultaneous optimization of the size, shape, and topology of steel lattice towers through a combination of the radial basis function (RBF) neural networks and the artificial bee colony (ABC) metaheuristic algorithm to reduce the computational time because mere metaheuristic optimization algorithms require much time for calculations. To verify the results, use has been made of the CIGRE Tower and a 132 kV transmission towers as numerical examples both based on the design requirements of the ASCE10-97, and the size, shape, and topology have been optimized (in both cases) once by the RBF neural network and once by the MSTOWER analyzer. A comparison of the results shows that the neural network-based method has been able to yield acceptable results through much less computational time.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.562-565
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• 2006

The cell counting of colonial Microcystis spp. is a rather difficult and error-prone proposition, as this genus forms irregularly-shaped and irregularly-sized colonies, which are packed with cells. Thus, in order to facilitate a cell count, four methods of dividing the colonies into single cells were compared, including vortexing, sonication, $TiO_2$ treatment, and boiling. As a result, the boiling method was determined to generate the greatest number of single cells from a colony, and all colonies were found to have divided completely after only 6 min of treatment. Furthermore, no significant cell destruction, which might alter the actual cell density, was detected in conjunction with the boiling method (P=0.158). In order to compute the cell number more simply, the relationship between the colony size and the cell number was determined, via the boiling method. The colony volume, rather than the area or diameter was correlated more closely with the cell number ($r^2=0.727$), thereby suggesting that the cell numbers of colonial Microcystis sp. can also be estimated effectively from their volumes.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.17-23
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• 2015

Objectives: The cytotoxcities of Au, Ag, SWCNT, $SiO_2$, and ZnO nanomaterials were evaluated in order to assess their potential toxicological effects in in vitro cell models using colony forming efficiency (CFE) assay. Methods: The CFE assay of the test materials was carried out on Hep G2 cells. The size distribution of nanomaterials was studied by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Changes in cell viability after treatment with a toxicant will result in a decreased number of colonies formed in comparison to solvent. Results: The TEM images show that all the particles except SWCNT and ZnO can be considered approximately spherical. The gold and $SiO_2$ nanoparticles show no response (no toxicity) in concentration response experiments. A statistically significant toxic effect was found in Hep G2 cells treated with Ag, SWCNT and ZnO nanomaterials. Conclusion: In this study, we considered CFE assay to be a promising test for screening studies for cytotoxicity with physicochemical analysis.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.1-9
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• 2010

This paper propose a novel scheme called selective evaluation to improve convergence of ACO (ant colony optimization) for feature selection. The scheme cutdown the computational load by excluding the evaluation of unnecessary or less promising candidate solutions. The scheme is realizable in ACO due to the valuable information, pheromone trail which helps identify those solutions. With the aim of checking applicability of algorithms according to problem size, we analyze the timing requirements of three popular feature selection algorithms, greedy algorithm, genetic algorithm, and ant colony optimization. For a rigorous timing analysis, we adopt the concept of atomic operation. Experimental results showed that the ACO with selective evaluation was promising both in timing requirement and recognition performance.