• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.25 no.11
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• pp.1773-1781
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• 2015

Environmental security is one of the major concerns for the safety of living organisms from a number of harmful pollutants in the atmosphere. Different initiatives, legislative actions, as well as scientific and social concerns have been discussed and adopted to control and regulate the threats of environmental pollution, but it still remains a worldwide challenge. Therefore, there is a need for developing certain sensitive, rapid, and selective techniques that can detect and screen the pollutants for effective bioremediation processes. In this perspective, isolated enzymes or biological systems producing enzymes, as whole cells or in immobilized state, can be used as a source for detection, quantification, and degradation or transformation of pollutants to non-polluting compounds to restore the ecological balance. Biosensors are ideal for the detection and measurement of environmental pollution in a reliable, specific, and sensitive way. In this review, the current status of different types of microbial biosensors and mechanisms of detection of various environmental toxicants are discussed.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.42-47
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• 2016

Increasing the efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) by the fabrication of new photoelectrodes (PEs) is an important challenge. This study examined the photovoltaic parameters of DSSCs composed of a $TiO_2$ PE with $WO_3$ nanoparticles (NPs). A number of PEs with the same thickness but different concentrations of $WO_3$ NPs in the $TiO_2PE$ were prepared. The morphology and structural properties of the prepared PEs were examined by field-emission scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction, respectively. The effects of the $WO_3$ NPs mixing concentration on the efficiency of DSSCs were investigated under simulated solar light irradiation.

• Proceedings of the Korea Multimedia Society Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.190-192
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• 2012

Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) is the new wireless networking concept of mobile ad hoc networks in research community. Routing in vehicular is a major challenge and research area. The majority of current routing algorithms for VANETs utilize indirect metrics to select the next hop and produce optimal node path. In this paper, we propose a distance and angle based routing algorithm for VANETs, which combines a distance approach with an angle based geographical strategy for selecting the next hop, with the purpose of using direct metrics to build a optimal node route. The proposed algorithm has better performance than the previous scheme.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.18
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• pp.8059-8065
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• 2016

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a common tumor in southern China and south-eastern Asia. Effective strategies for the prevention or screening of NPC are limited. Exploring effective biomarkers for the early diagnosis and prognosis of NPC continues to be a rigorous challenge. Evidence is accumulating that DNA methylation alterations are involved in the initiation and progression of NPC. Over the past few decades, aberrant DNA methylation in single or multiple tumor suppressor genes (TSGs) in various biologic samples have been described in NPC, which potentially represents useful biomarkers. Recently, large-scale DNA methylation analysis by genome-wide methylation platform provides a new way to identify candidate DNA methylated markers of NPC. This review summarizes the published research on the diagnostic and prognostic potential biomarkers of DNA methylation for NPC and discusses the current knowledge on DNA methylation as a biomarker for the early detection and monitoring of progression of NPC.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.5-9
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• 2014

Although much research has been conducted to reduce the thickness of PET bottles in order to save manufacturing costs, the challenge remains of guaranteeing mechanical strength for top-loaded thin PET bottles. The current study investigates the large deformation characteristics of a circle shaped PET bottle and a square shaped PET bottle when compressively loaded using FEA. The arc length method is used in the nonlinear FEA to understand the buckling phenomenon. For PET bottles with the same capacity, the circle shaped bottle shows more resistance to buckling and compression loading than the square shaped bottle.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.24 no.10
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• pp.109-116
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• 2007

Focused ion beams are a potential tool for micro/nano structure fabrication while several problems still have to be overcome. Redeposition of sputtered atoms limits the accurate fabrication of micro/nano structures. The challenge lies in accurately controlling the focused ion beam to fabricate various arbitrary curved shapes. In this paper a basic approach for the focused ion beam induced direct fabricate of fundamental features is presented. This approach is based on the topography simulation which naturally considers the redeposition of sputtered atoms and sputtered yield changes. Fundamental features such as trapezoidal, circular and triangular were fabricated with this approach using single or multiple pass box milling. The beam diameter(FWHM) and maximum current density are 68 nm and $0.8 A/cm^2$, respectively. The experimental investigations show that the fabricated shape is well suited for the pre-designed fundamental features. The characteristics of ion beam induced direct fabrication and shape formation will be discussed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.151-171
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• 2013

The current paper presents the numerical blind prediction of nonlinear seismic response of two full-scale, three dimensional, one-story reinforced concrete structures subjected to bidirectional earthquake simulations on shaking table. Simulations were carried out at the laboratories of LNEC (Laboratorio Nacional de Engenharia Civil) in Lisbon, Portugal. The study was motivated by participation in the blind prediction contest of shaking table tests, organized by the challenge committee of the 15th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering. The test specimens, geometrically identical, designed for low and high ductility levels, were subjected to subsequent earthquake motions of increasing intensity. Three dimensional nonlinear analytical models were implemented and subjected to the input base motions. Reasonably accurate reproduction of the measured displacement response was obtained through appropriate modeling. The goodness of fit between analytical and measured results depended on the details of the analytical models.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.22-25
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• 2007

Industry faces a considerable challenge to meet the high demand for reduced impacts and improved environmental performance. With this current stream, railway industry launched a systematic scheme for environmental friendly EMU and its system. An assessment tool which evaluate the environmental impacts of the product through its entire life cycle has been developed. The next step to environmentally sound and sustainable product design, shortly ECODESIGN has come to be essential and necessary as well. Ecodesign requires to identify possible stakeholder requirements first. The paper illustrates way how to define stakeholder requirements in terms of environment and shows approach linking stakeholder requirements to environmental parameters.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.9 no.12
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• pp.4759-4775
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• 2015

The reduction of power consumption in large-scale datacenters is highly-dependent on the use of virtualization to consolidate multiple workloads. However, these consolidation strategies must also take into account additional important parameters such as performance, reliability, and profitability. Resolving these conflicting goals is often the major challenge encountered in the design of optimization strategies for cloud data centers. In this paper, we put forward a data center monitoring strategy which dynamically alters its approach depending on the cloud system's current state. Results show that our proposed scheme outperformed strategies which only focus on a single metric such as SLA-Awareness and Energy Efficiency.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.235-243
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• 2008

While in some instances, loss of diversity results from acute toxicity (e.g. major pollution incidents), in most cases it results from long-term sub-lethal effects that alter the relative competitive ability and fitness of certain organisms. In such cases the sub-lethal effects will cause a physiological response in the organism that ultimately leads to community level changes. Very sensitive tools are now available to study sub-lethal responses at the molecular level. However, relating such laboratory measurements to ecological effects represents a substantial challenge that can only be met by investigation at all scales (molecular, individual organism and community level) with an appropriate group of organisms. Among the various in vertebrates which can be used as model organisms in such a way, the soil nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans appear to be a promising biological model to diagnose environmental quality. This paper reviews the current status of multilevel biomarkers in environmental toxicology, and C. elegans as promising organisms for this approach.