• Mycobiology
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.64-71
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• 2018

The aim of this study was to investigate the pattern of distribution of mating type (MAT) genes of Tuber indicum in ectomycorhizosphere soils from natural T. indicum-producing areas and cultivated truffle orchards and ascocarp samples from different regions. Quantitative real-time PCR and multiplex PCR were used to weight the copy numbers of MAT1-1-1 and MAT1-2-1 in natural truffle soils and cultivated orchard soils. The effect of limestone on the pattern of truffle MAT genes and the correlation between soil properties and the proportion of MAT genes were also assessed. These results indicated that an uneven and nonrandom distribution of MAT genes was common in truffle-producing areas, cultivated truffle orchards, and ascocarps gleba. The competition between the two mating type genes and the expansion of unbalanced distribution was found to be closely related to truffle fructification. Limestone treatments failed to alter the proportion of the two mating type genes in the soil. The content of available phosphorus in soil was significantly correlated with the value of MAT1-1-1/MAT1-2-1 in cultivated and natural ectomycorhizosphere soils. The application of real-time quantitative PCR can provide reference for monitoring the dynamic changes of mating type genes in soil. This study investigates the distributional pattern of T. indicum MAT genes in the ectomycorhizosphere soil and ascocarp gleba from different regions, which may provide a foundation for the cultivation of T. indicum.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.75-103
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• 2008

It is widely recognized that destruction of the eco-system with the counter-effect from the rapid industrialization threatens the life of human species. Furthermore, the extinction of some wild species keeps sending a warning message on the threat to human lives in the sense that both the human and wild lives have coexisted for a long time before the industrialization. Therefore, this study will shed a light on the importance of a natural ecology protection, focusing on wild-life conservation. This will provide an opportunity to consider the economic value of biodiversity through conservation of diverse wild lives and a natural ecology. Also, the irreversible damage to natural resources and extinction of certain species represent the urgency of this issue. This paper will perform a theoretical examination on the concept of wild plants and animals, an analysis of factors influencing their survivals, as well as the theory of natural ecology protections. This also examine the problems arising out of current domestic legislation of a natural ecology protection, comparing it with case studies of foreign countries. Through these analysis, this paper will seek for a maintenance of the currently enforcing natural ecology protection law to overcome its limits and will ultimately find alternatives to current system.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.108-116
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• 2015

This study intends to research the spatial characteristics of Asian interim housing that accommodates sufferers pro tempore after disasters. The scope of this research covers the interim spaces used for housing people after natural disasters that occurred in Asia for the past fifteen years. Within this scope, literature review was conducted as the basis to derive the characteristics and environmental elements of interim housing, which provided the criteria to compare and evaluate cases of interim housing along with characteristic elements required of interim housing found in previous studies. According to literature review, interim housing can be classified by life-span, region, economy, climate, type, number of household, square measure, residential cost, structure/material, and service life. Within the scope of the present research, literature review showed a total of twenty-eight cases of interim housing in fifteen countries revealing a high rate of disaster occurrence in the subtropic and tropic climate of Southeast Asia. A great percentage of interim housing was used for long-term stay of over a year. The structure of interim housing varied from lightweight steel, wooden, masonry, membrane, to traditional structure and the type were divided into temporary shelter, transitional housing, temporary housing, and permanent housing. Followed by literature review, the characteristics required of post-disaster interim housing were analyzed based on previous research and case studies. The characteristics of interim housing can be divided into environmental, technological, and socio-cultural ones. Sub-characterical items according to such division include amenity, health, surroundings, structure, convenience, eco-friendliness, safety, communication, and locality. As a result of evaluation, most items met the required characteristics of interim housing, while technological characteristics such as structure and convenience varied with the types of interim housing and appeared even unnecessary in some cases. According to analysis, amenity is maintained through the structural and material characteristics of interim housing and is also facilitated by increasing number of infrastructure such as educational, sanitary, and convenience facilities provided by the governmental and organizational bodies. It is expected that this study will be utilized as preliminary data for follow-up studies that improve the environment of post-disaster interim housing suitable for domestic circumstances in environmental, technological, and socio-cultural respects.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.83-89
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• 2017

The Jeju Olle Trail Route No. 1 has opened in 2007, and over one million visitors per year trek total of 26 Olle trails throughout the island of Jeju as of 2017. The Olle trekking is one of eco-friendly tourism activities in the era of social issues with environmental collapse and threats. Up until now, studies on the Jeju Olle trail are focused on the visitors while the studies on residents who are the other major pillar of Jeju Olle trail have been limited. The study aims to compare the visit types, satisfaction level and pro-environmental behaviors between the visitors and residents on Jeju Olle trails. Total of 290 survey was collected in three month period from December, 2016 to February, 2017. The survey result indicates the Jeju residents trek the Jeju Olle in a larger group than the Jeju Olle visiting trekkers and show lower level in the visit satisfaction and pro-environmental behaviors. The noticeable lower level in the pro-environmental behaviors of residents can directly connect to the issue of Jeju environment as a whole, and the continuing environmental education program and promotion for residents to improve the pro-environmental behavior level is essential.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.189-205
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• 2014

Most local governments make an attempt to attract tourists through the large-scale development projects or regional festival events. But, its possibility of success is actually low, so they must take care of ecotourism industry which has higher efficiency in comparison with investing expense. Seocheon area couldn't be focused greatly in spite of the excellent ecological and cultural resources. However, there are lots of possibilities to be a new center of ecotourism because of newly opened National Institute of Ecology and National Marine Biology Resource Institute. Therefore, the purposes of this thesis are to analyze several eco-cultural property all over Seocheon, introduce ecotourism, a main function of ecosystem services, and develop the program satisfying 3 elements of ecotourism; natural environment, visitors and residents. In Seocheon located in where the sea meets the river, ecological property could be reorganized into 4 areas in relation to existing famous tourist attractions. As a measure to let visitors stay, we induced them to lodge in the region through the field work. To realize slow life, we designed it so that they can enjoy each landscape slowly. we also suggested the program which can guide visitors onto the vicinity of habitat for migratory birds at the mouth of Geumgang River and Seocheon foreshore nominated as Ramsar wetlands by focusing on National Institute of Ecology and National Marine Biology Resource Institute which will be the Mecca of ecology research. Through this research, there will be an opportunity to satisfy visitors of Seocheon and enrich local residents' lives.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.13-26
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• 2019

The rural areas in South Korea have changed rapidly in the process of national land development. Rural landscapes have become discoloured, and their attractiveness has decreased as cities have expanded. But the attractiveness or multifunctional values of rural areas has become more important in contemporary society around the world. According to this social demand, the efforts of conserving the rural landscape are of high priority and the recovery of ruralism in the area is required. This study has tried to understand how the public image of ruralism in South Korea has been influenced by the news media. The study retrieved news articles using the web searching portal site from the six keywords, commonly used to refer to ruralism, including 'rural landscape', 'rural community', 'rural tourism', 'rural life', 'rural amenity', and 'rural environment'. News data from the six keywords were also collected respectively from within the year-period of 2004-05, 2007-08, 2012-13, and 2016-17. In the text mining analysis, the nouns with high Degree Centrality were figured out, and the changes by year-period were identified. Then, LDA topic analysis was performed for text datasets of six keywords. As a result, the study found that the news articles gave an informed focus on only a handful of issues such as 'poor rural living condition', 'regional or village improvement projects', 'rural tourism promotion projects', and 'other government support projects'. On the other hand, nouns related to virtues and values in the rural landscape were less shown in news articles. These results have become more apparent in recent years. In the topic analysis, 35 topics were identified. 'village development projects', 'rural tourism', and 'urban-rural exchange projects' were appeared repeatedly in several keywords. Among the topics, there are also topics closely related to ruralism such as 'rural landscape conservation', 'eco-friendly rural areas', 'local amenity resources', 'public interest values of agriculture', and 'rural life and communities'. The study presented an image map showing ruralism in South Korea using a network map between all topics and keywords. At the end of the study, implications for Korean rural area policy and research directions were discussed.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.49 no.10
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• pp.809-821
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• 2016

The study area is local river of 671 (total length 3,741 km) in Gyeongnam prefecture, the results are as follows. Total number of river-crossing structures was investigated as 7,730, and it was found that structures were installed in 2.1 sites per 1 km (river length) on average. Diversion weirs for agriculture were 4006 (51.82%) and drop structures for channel bed maintenance were 3670 (47.48%), but the rest (riverbed road etc.) were 54 (0.70%). The number of high structures (height > 1.0 m) that affect many impact in upstream and downstream was investigated as 3,897 (51%), and the number of low structures (height < 0.5 m) that affect negligibly was 1109 (14%). Fish ladders have been installed on 640 (8%) structures in 153 (23%) rivers. In flood control and environment conservation, river-crossing structures brought about various impact that flood water level is raises and the eco-corridor is intercept. In order to improve these problems, we proposed a few engineering measures that can be realize with respect to river-crossing structures.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.290-303
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• 2003

Modern agriculture has been heavily dependent on chemical fertilizers to meet the food demands of ever increasing population. Progressive depletion of major plant nutrients in soil due to intensive cultivation practices has also necessitated the use of higher dose of chemical fertilizers particularly in soils where the organic matter content is very low. Indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and pressure on agriculturists to enhance per area crop yields has led to fast depletion of fossil fuel resources with concomitant increase in the prices of chemical fertilizers and also led to environmental pollution. Hence, the current trend throughout the world is to explore the possibility of using alternate nutrient sources or increasing the efficiency of chemical fertilizers by supplementing them with organic fertilizers and bioinoculants comprising largely microbes like, bacteria, fungi, algae etc to enhance nitrogen and phosphates in the soil thus creating a sustainable agricultural environment. Among the different microbial inoculants or biofertilizers, Azospirillum could be a potential candidate due to its non specific host root colonization. It had the capability to fix $N_2$ in wide pH regimes and even in presence of combined nitrogen. Azospirillum inoculation can increase the crop yield to 10-25% and substitute 25% of recommended doses of nitrogenous fertilizers. Apart from nitrogen fixation, Azospirillum is also involved in the root improvement, the activity which was attributed to an increase in the rate of water and mineral uptake by roots. The ability of Azospirillum to produce phytohormones was reported to enhance the root respiration rate, metabolism and root proliferation. They have also been reported to produce polyhydroxybutyrate, that can be used as a biodegradable thermosplastic. A lot of studies have addressed improvements in enhancing its efficiency to fix nitrogen fixation and hormone production.

• Biomaterials Research
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.328-336
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• 2018

Background: Biogenic fabrication of silver nanoparticles from naturally occurring biomaterials provides an alternative, eco-friendly and cost-effective means of obtaining nanoparticles. It is a favourite pursuit of all scientists and has gained popularity because it prevents the environment from pollution. Our main objective to take up this project is to fabricate silver nanoparticles from lichen, Usnea longissima and explore their properties. In the present study, we report a benign method of biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles from aqueous-ethanolic extract of Usnea longissima and their characterization by ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses. Silver nanoparticles thus obtained were tested for antimicrobial activity against gram positive bacteria and gram negative bacteria. Results: Formation of silver nanoparticles was confirmed by the appearance of an absorption band at 400 nm in the UV-vis spectrum of the colloidal solution containing both the nanoparticles and U. longissima extract. Poly(ethylene glycol) coated silver nanoparticles showed additional absorption peaks at 424 and 450 nm. FTIR spectrum showed the involvement of amines, usnic acids, phenols, aldehydes and ketones in the reduction of silver ions to silver nanoparticles. Morphological studies showed three types of nanoparticles with an abundance of spherical shaped silver nanoparticles of 9.40-11.23 nm. Their average hydrodynamic diameter is 437.1 nm. Results of in vitro antibacterial activity of silver nanoparticles against Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus pyrogenes, Streptococcus viridans, Corynebacterium xerosis, Corynebacterium diphtheriae (gram positive bacteria) and Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneuomoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (gram negative bacteria) showed that it was effective against tested bacterial strains. However, S. mutans, C. diphtheriae and P. aeruginosa were resistant to silver nanoparticles. Conclusion: Lichens are rarely exploited for the fabrication of silver nanoparticles. In the present work the lichen acts as reducing as well as capping agent. They can therefore, be used to synthesize metal nanoparticles and their size may be controlled by monitoring the concentration of extract and metal ions. Since they are antibacterial they may be used for the treatment of bacterial infections in man and animal. They can also be used in purification of water, in soaps and medicine. Their sustained release may be achieved by coating them with a suitable polymer. Silver nanoparticles fabricated from edible U. longissima are free from toxic chemicals and therefore they can be safely used in medicine and medical devices. These silver nanoparticles were stable for weeks therefore they can be stored for longer duration of time without decomposition.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.709-720
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• 2019

Due to global warming and abnormal climate, the incidence and scale of green tracts in rivers and water intake dam are increasing every year. Therefore, in this study, developed eco friendly positively charged Torrefied Wood Flour(TWF) coagulant by reusing wood damaged by blight as a natural material. In order to evaluate the effect of coagulant on water ecosystem, green algae contaminated water was collected and TOC showed high removal rate of 86% ~ 92% under 1% and 5% TWF C-PAM treatment condition. The $NH_3-N$ showed 53% removal efficiency. The average pH of the polluted water was 7.9 in the case of hydrogen ion concentration, and the pH of the treated water was in the range of 6.5 ~ 7.7, It was found to be suitable for water quality standards. In ecotoxicity tests, all the results of the experiment showed that both the number of green algae and that of treated water were not affected by the survival of the daphnia. Therefore, as a result of the analyzing, developed paste type TWF coagulants is considered to be able to remove algae using natural resources.