• The Korean Journal of Malacology
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.97-104
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• 2008

The gonad index, reproductive cycle and first sexual maturity of Sinonovacula constricta collected from Simpo, Kimje-gun, Korea were investigated by histological analysis. The gonad index(GI) in both sexes of S. constricta increased from April and reached a maximum in July when the water temperature rapidly increased. And then, the GI values gradually decreased by spawning from August through October. Monthly variations in the GI showed a close relationship with ovarian development. The reproductive cycle in females and males can be classified into five successive stages: early active stage(March to June), late active stage(May to July), ripe stage(July to September), partially spawned stage(August to October), spent/inactive stage(October to March). The percentage of first sexual maturations in female and male clams of 50.1-60.0 mm in shell length was over 50%, and for clams over 70.1 mm in shell length, it was 100%. Because harvesting clams < 50.1 mm in shell length could potentially cause a drastic reduction in recruitment, a measure including a prohibitory fishing size should be taken for adequate improved fisheries resource management.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.71-76
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• 2009

Drastic changes in the water quality and phytoplankton community of the new Saemankeum Lakeduring the first decade following the construction of the Saemankeum Sea Wall has been considered to be unavoidable. Input of eutrophicated water through the Mankyeong River and Dongjin River might produce more direct effects on the water quality and phytoplankton community, which lead us to launch a long-term semi-weekly investigation at the "Mankyeong Bridge" monitoring point to resolve its short-term effect as well as long-term stabilization of the ecosystem in the new Saemankeum Lake. During 15 months starting from June 2006, the water temperature varied in accordance with the typical seasonal variations in temperate on the coasts, and no significant daily variations evoked by tidal cycle could be detected. However, there was an inverse relationship between seasonal precipitation and salinity even though the range in annual variation was drastically reduced right after the construction of the Saemankeum Sea Wall. Species richness in the phytoplankton community was also reduced due to the narrowed annual range of salinity, which would eliminate the mid-high salinity species from the Mankyeong Bridge monitoring point. Similarly, species diversity was decreased with increased dominance of the phytoplankton community after the construction. Between the two summer seasons during the present study, species diversity was higher in 2007 than in 2006, which might indicate the early stage of a gradual stabilization in the ecosystem including the phytoplankton community at the monitoring station. The phytoplankton community thus needs to be monitored on a long-term basis to identify indirect signals that can be used to assess the stability of the ecosystem in the young Saemankeum Lake.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.108-112
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• 2012

Purpose: Since a patient's obesity can affect the mortality and morbidity of the surgery, less drastic surgeries may have a major benefit for obese individuals. This study evaluated the feasibility of performing a totally laparoscopic distal gastrectomy, with intracorporeal anastomosis, in obese patients suffering from gastric cancer. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective analysis of the 138 patients, who underwent a totally laparoscopic distal gastrectomy from April 2005 to March 2009, at the National Kyushu Cancer Center. The body mass index of 20 patients was ${\geq}25$, and in 118 patients, it was <25 kg/$m^2$. Results: The mean values of body mass index in the 2 groups were $27.3{\pm}2.2$ and $21.4{\pm}2.3$. Hypertension was significantly more frequent in the obese patients than in the non-obese patients. The intraoperative blood loss, duration of surgery, post-operative complication rate, post-operative hospital stay, and a number of retrieved lymph nodes were not significantly different between the two groups. Conclusions: Intracorporeal anastomosis seemed to have a benefit for obese individuals. Totally laparoscopic gastrectomy is, therefore, considered to be a safe and an effective modality for obese patients.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.405-409
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• 2009

Reliability analysis of coastal structure using importance sampling was shown. When Monte Carlo simulation is used to evaluate overturng failure probability of coastal structure, very low failure probability leads to drastic increase in simulation time. However, importance sampling which uses randomly chosen design candidates around the failure surface makes it possible to analyze very low failure probability efficiently. In the numerical example, failure probability of caisson type quay wall was analyzed by using importance sampling and performance according to the level of failure probability was shown.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.133-154
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• 2022

The Baltic Capesize Index (BCI), which is used as an indicator for marine transportation of steel raw materials, is one of the key economic indexes for managing the risk of loss due to rapid market fluctuations when steel companies establish business strategies and procuring plans for raw materials. Still, the conditions of supply and demand of steel raw materials has been extremely affected by volatility shocks from drastic events like the financial crisis such as the Lehman Brothers incident and changes in the external environment such as COVID-19. And, especially since the 2008 financial crisis, endeavors to predict the market conditions of the steel raw material is becoming more and more arduous for the deepening uncertainty and increased volatility of BCI, which has been used as a leading indicator of the real economy. This study investigates the correlation between the steel raw material market and the marine transportation market by estimating the spillover effect of information between markets. The vector error correction model (VECM) was used to analyze information transfer based on the correlation between the BCI and crude steel production, capesize fleet supply, raw material price, and cargo volume.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.15-28
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• 2016

As the industry of Mobile Internet has been gradually developed, the major device for accessing the web is predicted to shift from PC to Mobile devices in the near future. This drastic increase of demand in Mobile devices has drawn a more convenient standard of living by transcending time and space in our lives, however, it triggered various side effects such as a digital divide. This study was conducted to analyze how people utilize the contents via Mobile devices and their active attitude toward Mobile Internet by dividing individual characteristics into generations, education level and income level, and also identify whether Mobile contents utilization has an effect on the active attitude. The research results could be used for establishing a policy to narrow the gap in Mobile contents use and active attitude by individual characteristics.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.223-231
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• 2003

With the negative influences and damage from Asian dust increasing, it's getting important to investigate the climate and soil condition of the source region of Asian dust. There is a high possibility that the desertification and the drastic decrease of plants in China and Mongolia make worse the situation (bad effects of Asian Dust). To detect the movement of Asian dust caused by air circulation, we need to watch the state of the source region to get useful information for the prevention of the dust pollution, and to predict what part of China will become the source region. Therefore, using TOMS aerosol index data, NCEP reanalysis data that is Remote Sensing data from 1981 to 2000 (except 1993~1996, 4 years), for 16 years, examined the relation between the dust occurrence and weather elements. Dust occurrence appeared much in spring season from March to May in study areas. It had a dry climate during that season as follows : relative humidity about 20~40%, temperature about -5~5$^{\circ}C$, precipitation about 33-180 mm, wind speed about 4-10 ms-1. Dust occurrence and weather element annual change in study areas decreased gradually till 1990, but in Gobi desert the incidence of dust occurrence increased since 1997. As a result, found out that the more the precipitation, the less dust occurrence, because the precipitation and surface wind speed had a direct influence on the soil of the source region of dust.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.32 no.10
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• pp.1611-1620
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• 2019

Objective: The aim was to investigate the influence of ultrasound and adenosine 5'-monophosphate (AMP) marination (UAMP) on tenderness and structure of myofibrillar proteins of beef. Methods: Five groups, the untreated meat (Control), deionized water marination (DW), ultrasound followed by DW (UDW), AMP marination (AMP), and ultrasound followed by AMP (UAMP) were studied. Myofibrillar fragmentation, cooking loss, shear force, thermograms, histological observation of meats and myofibrillar proteins properties were investigated in these different treatments. Results: The results showed that UAMP significantly increased myofibrillar fragmentation index from 152 (Control), 231 (AMP), and 307 (UDW) to 355 (p<0.05), respectively. The lowest cooking loss, shear force and peak denaturation temperature were observed in UAMP. In histological observation, UDW and UAMP had more fragmented muscular bundles than the others. Furthermore, a drastic increase in ${\alpha}$-helix and decrease in ${\beta}$-sheet of myofibrillar proteins was observed in UAMP, implying the disaggregation of protein samples. The synchronous fluorescence spectra of myofibrillar proteins in UAMP suggested the combination of ultrasound and AMP could accelerate the unfolding molecular structure and destroying hydrophobic interactions. The results of circular dichroism and synchronous fluorescence spectra for myofibrillar proteins coincided with the microstructures of beef. Conclusion: The results indicate that ultrasound combined with AMP improved meat tenderness not only by disruption in muscle integrity, increasing water retention, but also altering their spatial structure of myofibrillar proteins.

• The Korean Journal of Malacology
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.313-323
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• 2013

Gonad development, the reproductive cycle, first sexual maturty and size at 50% of group sexual maturity (the biological minimum size) of Gomphina (Macridiscus) veneriformis were investigated for clams collected from the coastal waters of Donghae City, the East Sea of Korea by histological, and morphometric analysis. Monthly variations of the gonad index showed a pattern similar to that of the reproductive cycle. The reproductive cycle with the gonad developmental stages in female and male G. (M.) veneriformis can be classified into five successive stages: early active stage (December to March), late active stage (March to June), ripe stage (June to July), partially spawned stage (June to August), and spent / inactive stage (September to December). The spawning period continued from June to August, with a peak between July and August when the seawater temperature exceeds $20^{\circ}C$. The percentages of first sexual maturities of female and male clams ranging from 25.1 to 30.0 mm were 56.3% in females and 61.1% in males, and for clams over 30.1 mm shell length, it was 100%. Shell lengths at 50% of group sexual maturity (biological minimum size, $RM_{50}$) were 27.71 mm in females and 26.31 mm in males. Because harvesting clams < 26.31 mm in shell length could potentially cause a drastic reduction in recruitment, a measure indicating a prohibitory fishing size should be taken for adequate fisheries management.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.541-550
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• 2020

The use of yeast assist kefir fermentation, but also can cause food spoilage if uncontrolled. Hence, in this study, the microbial composition of an existing commercial kefir starter was modified to produce a functional starter, where Lactobacillus acidophilus KCNU and Lactobacillus brevis Bmb6 were used to replace yeast in the original starter to produce non-yeast kefir-like fermented milk. The functional starter containing L. acidophilus KCNU and L. brevis Bmb6 demonstrated excellent stability with 10¹⁰ CFU/g of total viable cells throughout the 12 weeks low-temperature storage. The newly developed functional starter also displayed a similar fermentation efficacy as the yeast-containing control starter, by completing the milk fermentation within 12 h, with a comparable total number of viable cells (10⁸ CFU/mL) in the final products, as in control. Sensory evaluation revealed that the functional starter-fermented milk highly resembled the flavor of the control kefir, with enhanced sourness. Furthermore, oral administration of functional starter-fermented milk significantly improved the disease activity index score by preventing drastic weight-loss and further deterioration of disease symptoms in DSS-induced mice. Altogether, L. acidophilus KCNU and L. brevis Bmb6 have successfully replaced yeast in a commercial starter pack to produce a kefir-like fermented milk beverage with additional health benefits. The outcome of this study provides an insight that the specific role of yeast in the fermentation process could be replaced with suitable probiotic candidates.