• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.4D
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• pp.377-386
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• 2012

Crack sealing has been widely used in the pavement maintenance due to its advantage of repairing the cracks at the preliminary stages. However, it has been analyzed that the crack sealing work process is dangerous and labor intensive. Moreover, quality and productivity of crack sealing work are highly depended on labor experience and skills. Therefore, various crack sealing machines have been researched but revealed many limitations in practical application. This research analyses conventional crack sealing work process and previously developed crack sealing machines in order to develop an automated pavement crack sealing machine which can be practically and widely applied in the construction fields. This paper develops the previously proposed conceptual design by drawing detailed designs and fabricating the hardware(manipulator and end-effector) of the automated pavement crack sealing machine. The crack sealing machine suggested in this paper overcomes limitations of existing crack sealing machines and designed to meet the domestic road conditions and regulations. It is expected that automating the conventional crack sealing method contributes to the improvement of quality, economy and reduce accidents.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.426-438
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• 2016

Plant disease resistance occurs as a hypersensitive response (HR) at the site of attempted pathogen invasion. This specific event is initiated in response to recognition of pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) and subsequent PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI) and effector-triggered immunity (ETI). Both PTI and ETI mechanisms are tightly connected with reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and disease resistance that involves distinct biphasic ROS production as one of its pivotal plant immune responses. This unique oxidative burst is strongly dependent on the resistant cultivars because a monophasic ROS burst is a hallmark of the susceptible cultivars. However, the cause of the differential ROS burst remains unknown. In the study here, we revealed the plausible underlying mechanism of the differential ROS burst through functional understanding of the Magnaporthe oryzae (M. oryzae) AVR effector, AVR-Pii. We performed yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) screening using AVR-Pii as bait and isolated rice NADP-malic enzyme2 (Os-NADP-ME2) as the rice target protein. To our surprise, deletion of the rice Os-NADP-ME2 gene in a resistant rice cultivar disrupted innate immunity against the rice blast fungus. Malic enzyme activity and inhibition studies demonstrated that AVR-Pii proteins specifically inhibit in vitro NADP-ME activity. Overall, we demonstrate that rice blast fungus, M. oryzae attenuates the host ROS burst via AVR-Pii-mediated inhibition of Os-NADP-ME2, which is indispensable in ROS metabolism for the innate immunity of rice. This characterization of the regulation of the host oxidative burst will help to elucidate how the products of AVR genes function associated with virulence of the pathogen.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.30 no.8
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• pp.1175-1182
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• 2017

Objective: To create genetically modified goat as a biopharming source of recombinant human lacotoferrin (hLF) with transcription activator-like effector nucleases. Methods: TALENs and targeting vector were transferred into cultured fibroblasts to insert hLF cDNA in the goat beta-lactoglobulin (BLG) locus with homology-directed repair. The gene targeted efficiency was checked using sequencing and TE7I assay. The bi-allelic gene targeted colonies were isolated and confirmed with polymerase chain reaction, and used as donor cells for somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Results: The targeted efficiency for BLG gene was approximately 10%. Among 12 Bi-allelic gene targeted colonies, five were used in first round SCNT and 4 recipients (23%) were confirmed pregnant at 30 d. In second round SCNT, 7 (53%), 4 (31%), and 3 (23%) recipients were confirmed to be pregnant by ultrasound on 30 d, 60 d, and 90 d. Conclusion: This finding signifies the combined use of TALENs and SCNT can generate biallelic knock-in fibroblasts that can be cloned in a fetus. Therefore, it might lay the foundation for transgenic hLF goat generation and possible use of their mammary gland as a bioreactor for large-scale production of recombinant hLF.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.6 no.4 s.26
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• pp.142-151
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• 2005

Several advanced countries have been continually developed PHC pile cutting automation machines for improving productivity, safety and quality of the conventional PHC pile cutting work. However, the target work of the previously developed PHC pile cutting automation machines is only crushing the head of PHC pile. Dangerous grinding work is still performed by workers with seven inch hand grinder. In domestic construction industry, the PHC pile cutting work is usually performed by a crusher and three to four skilled workers. Recent analysis results of the PHC pile cutting work reveal that it frequently makes a lot of cracks which significantly reduce the strength of the pile and is labor-intensive work. The primary objective of this study is to propose the end-effector which can effectively break PHC pile without any longitudinal cracks and to develop an automated pile cutting machine having unified grinder and crusher parts through a wide variety of laboratory and field tests. It is anticipated that the development of the automated pile cutting machine would be able to bring improvements in safety, productivity, quality as well as cost saving.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.123-130
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• 2014

Oriental melon (Cucumis melo var. makuwa) should be cultivated on the soil and be harvested. It is difficult to find because it is covered with leaves, and furthermore, it is very hard to grip it due to its climbing stems. This study developed and tested oriental melon harvesting robots such as an end-effector, manipulator and identification device. The end effector is divided into a gripper for harvest and a cutter for stems. In addition, it was designed to control the gripping and cutting forces so that the gripper could move four fingers at the same time and the cutter could move back and forth. The manipulator was designed to realize a 4-axis manipulator structure to combine orthogonal coordinate-type and shuttle-type manipulators with L-R type model to rotate based on the central axis. With regard to the identification device, oriental melon was identified using the primary identification global view camera device and secondary identification local view camera device and selected in the prediction of the sugar content or maturity. As a result of the performance test using this device, the average harvest time was 18.2 sec/ea, average pick-up rate was 91.4%, average damage rate was 8.2% and average sorting rate was 72.6%.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.307-313
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• 1994

We have previously shown that crude water extract of Euonymus alatus (EA) had strong prophylactic effect against chemically induced-and tumor cell implanted-cancer, and that the mechanisms responsible for its antitumor effects were due to nonspecific enhancement of the NK cell activities and the cell mediated immunity. However, it was unknown that any components of crude extract did work so, since it consisted of several components. In this paper, we fractionated the crude watar EA-extract into several fraction such as hexane-, ethylether-, ethyl acetate-, n-butanol- and water soluble-fraction, and screened the immune regulating activities of each fraction by the evaluation of lymphokine production and activated lymphocyte proliferation. As a result of the component fraction of EA-extract, it was found that n-butanol fraction was a potent immunostimulator, and the remained water soluble fraction also contained some stimulator, But, other fraction did not showed any remarkable effect. It is therefore suggested that EA-glycosides in n-butanol fraction may be new one of the potent biological response modifiers. The present study was also undertaken in an efforts to investigate the effects of elm-bark(EB, Ulmus clavidiana var japonica), which has been used for curing ulcer and inflammation as a folk medicine without any kind of experimental evidence to support this, on the cellular- and humoral-immune responses, lymphocyte function and NK cell activities in mice. Regardless of time and duration of EB-treatment, Arthus reaction and antibody response to SRBC were not modified by EB, but delayed hypersensitivity to SRBC was significantly enhanced only when EB was treated prior to SRBC-sensitization. EB slightly inhibited the proliferation responses of splenocytes to PHA-stimulation, but it significantly augmented the responses of these cells to S aureus Cowan 1 and Con A-activation, and these effects were manifested only when EB was added at culture initiation. EB did not influence Ig secretion of spleen cells but it significantly augmented the Con A-induced 1L 2 and MIF production of splenocytes. NK cell activities of splenocytes were markedly riled when effector cells were pretreated with EB and this augmentation was dine to the increase of binding affinity of effector cells to target cells and the target cell lytic activities of effector cells. These results led to the conclusion that EB triggers increase of cellular immune responses, such as delayed hypersensitivitiy, lymphokine production and NK cell activities. Also these results suggested that EB contains potent immune stimulants, which may provide the rational basis for their therapeutic use as one of the new biological response modifiers.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.17 no.2 s.82
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• pp.235-240
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• 2007

AvrRpt2 protein triggers hypersensitive response (HR) and strong disease resistance when it is translocated from a bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas sp. to host plant cells containing a cognate RPS2 resistance protein through Type III Secretion System (TTSS). However, AvrRpt2 protein can function as the effector that suppresses a basal defense and enhances the disease symptom when functional RPS2 resistance protein is absent in the infected plant cells. Using Affymetrix Arabidopsis DNA chip, we found that many genes were specifically regulated by AvrRpt2 protein in the rps2 Arabidopsis mutant. Here, we showed that expression of AtERF11 that is known as a member of B1a subcluster of AP2/ERF transcription factor family was down regulated specifically by AvrRpt2. To determine its function in plant resistance, we also generated the Arabidopsis thaliana transgenic plants constitutively overexpressing AtERF11 under CaMV 355 promoter, which conferred an enhanced resistance against a bacterial pathogen, Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000. Thus, these results collectively suggest that AtERF11 plays a role as a positive regulator for disease resistance against biotrophic bacterial pathogen in plant.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.164-171
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• 2017

Our previous study suggested that S-allylcysteine (SAC) inhibits the proliferation of the human cervical cancer cell line, HeLa, at least in part through the induction of apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. To further analyze the specific molecular mechanism(s) by which SAC mediates its antiproliferative effects, this study examined the role of SAC in regulating the protein expression of initiator caspase (caspase-9), effector caspases (caspase-3 and caspase-7), and poly-ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) in HeLa. Western blot analysis showed that when cells were treated with 50 mM SAC for 48 hr, the expression of procaspase-3, -7, and -9 and PARP was reduced by 94%, 38%, 95%, and 64%, respectively, as compared to the untreated control. In contrast, the expression of caspase-3, -7, and -9 and cleaved-PARP was markedly increased by SAC treatment. The SAC-mediated changes in the expression of these proteins were correlated with the concomitant inhibition of cellular proliferation by SAC. The cell proliferation assay showed that HeLa treatment with more than 20 mM SAC for 6-48 hr resulted in both concentration- and time-dependent inhibition of cellular proliferation. These results indicate that the SAC-induced antiproliferative effect in HeLa may be mediated at least in part through the activation of caspase-9, followed by the activation of caspase-3 and caspase-7 as well as the inactivation of PARP, thus leading to cellular apoptosis.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.11-22
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• 2017

This study proposes IMToon(IMage-based carToon) which is an image-based cartoon authoring system using an image processing algorithm. The proposed IMToon allows general users to easily and efficiently produce frames comprising cartoons based on image. The authoring system is designed largely with two functions: cartoon effector and interactive story editor. Cartoon effector automatically converts input images into a cartoon-style image, which consists of image-based cartoon shading and outline drawing steps. Image-based cartoon shading is to receive images of the desired scenes from users, separate brightness information from the color model of the input images, simplify them to a shading range of desired steps, and recreate them as cartoon-style images. Then, the final cartoon style images are created through the outline drawing step in which the outlines of the shaded images are applied through edge detection. Interactive story editor is used to enter text balloons and subtitles in a dialog structure to create one scene of the completed cartoon that delivers a story such as web-toon or comic book. In addition, the cartoon effector, which converts images into cartoon style, is expanded to videos so that it can be applied to videos as well as still images. Finally, various experiments are conducted to verify the possibility of easy and efficient production of cartoons that users want based on images with the proposed IMToon system.

• International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.197-203
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• 2006

This paper addresses dynamic modeling and task-space trajectory following issues for nonholonomic mobile manipulators moving on a slope. An integrated dynamic modeling method is proposed considering nonholonomic constraints and interactive motions. An adaptive neural-fuzzy controller is presented for end-effector trajectory following, which does not rely on precise apriori knowledge of dynamic parameters and can suppress bounded external disturbances. Effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is verified through simulations.