• Mycobiology
• /
• 제49권2호
• /
• pp.151-160
• /
• 2021

Despite recent studies, relatively few are known about the diversity of fungal communities in the deep Atlantic Ocean. In this study, we investigated the diversity of fungal communities in 15 different deep-sea sediments from the South Atlantic Ocean with a culture-dependent approach followed by phylogenetic analysis of ITS sequences. A total of 29 fungal strains were isolated from the 15 deep-sea sediments. These strains belong to four fungal genera, including Aspergillus, Cladosporium, Penicillium, and Alternaria. Penicillium, accounting for 44.8% of the total fungal isolates, was a dominant genus. The antiaflatoxigenic activity of these deep-sea fungal isolates was studied. Surprisingly, most of the strains showed moderate to strong antiaflatoxigenic activity. Four isolates, belonging to species of Penicillium polonicum, Penicillium chrysogenum, Aspergillus versicolor, and Cladosporium cladosporioides, could completely inhibit not only the mycelial growth of Aspergillus parasiticus mutant strain NFRI-95, but also the aflatoxin production. To our knowledge, this is the first report to investigate the antiaflatoxigenic activity of culturable deep-sea fungi. Our results provide new insights into the community composition of fungi in the deep South Atlantic Ocean. The high proportion of strains that displayed antiaflatoxigenic activity demonstrates that deep-sea fungi from the Atlantic Ocean are valuable resources for mining bioactive compounds.

• 한국산업정보학회논문지
• /
• 제27권5호
• /
• pp.73-82
• /
• 2022

고혈압과 같은 만성질환은 발병의 원인은 다양한 요인들이 복합적으로 작용하기 때문에 생애주기에 따라 차별화된 관리가 필요하다. 본 연구는 머신러닝을 이용해 고혈압 발병에 영향을 미치는 요인들의 생애주기별로 차이를 분석한다. 이를 위해, 질병관리청의 국민건강영양조사 데이터에 대한 전처리 및 변수 선택 과정을 거쳐 총 35개의 변수를 활용했다. 분석결과, 트리기반 머신러닝 모델 중 XGBoost가 중년과 노년 모두 예측 성능이 높은 모델로 나타났다. 변수중요도를 통해 도출된 생애주기별 고혈압 위험요인을 살펴보면 중년의 경우 개인특성 요인, 유전적 요인, 영양섭취 요인이 고혈압 위험요인으로 나타났고, 노년의 경우 영양섭취 요인, 식생활 요인, 생활습관 요인이 고혈압 위험요인으로 도출되었다. 본 연구 결과는 생애주기별 고혈압 관리에 유용한 기초자료로 사용될 수 있을 것으로 기대된다.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
• /
• 제22권9호
• /
• pp.195-207
• /
• 2022

COVID-19 has remained one of the most serious health crises in recent history, resulting in the tragic loss of lives and significant economic impacts on the entire world. The difficulty of controlling COVID-19 poses a threat to the global health sector. Considering that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has contributed to improving research methods and solving problems facing diverse fields of study, AI algorithms have also proven effective in disease detection and early diagnosis. Specifically, acoustic features offer a promising prospect for the early detection of respiratory diseases. Motivated by these observations, this study conceptualized a speech-based diagnostic model to aid in COVID-19 diagnosis. The proposed methodology uses speech signals from confirmed positive and negative cases of COVID-19 to extract features through the pre-trained Visual Geometry Group (VGG-16) model based on Mel spectrogram images. This is used in addition to the K-means algorithm that determines effective features, followed by a Genetic Algorithm-Support Vector Machine (GA-SVM) classifier to classify cases. The experimental findings indicate the proposed methodology's capability to classify COVID-19 and NOT COVID-19 of varying ages and speaking different languages, as demonstrated in the simulations. The proposed methodology depends on deep features, followed by the dimension reduction technique for features to detect COVID-19. As a result, it produces better and more consistent performance than handcrafted features used in previous studies.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
• /
• 제38권6호
• /
• pp.656-664
• /
• 2022

Pectobacterium odoriferum is the primary causative agent in Kimchi cabbage soft-rot diseases. The pathogenic bacteria Pectobacterium genera are responsible for significant yield losses in crops. However, P. odoriferum shares a vast range of hosts with P. carotovorum, P. versatile, and P. brasiliense, and has similar biochemical, phenotypic, and genetic characteristics to these species. Therefore, it is essential to develop a P. odoriferumspecific diagnostic method for soft-rot disease because of the complicated diagnostic process and management as described above. Therefore, in this study, to select P. odoriferum-specific genes, species-specific genes were selected using the data of the P. odoriferum JK2.1 whole genome and similar bacterial species registered with NCBI. Thereafter, the specificity of the selected gene was tested through blast analysis. We identified novel species-specific genes to detect and quantify targeted P. odoriferum and designed specific primer sets targeting HAD family hydrolases. It was confirmed that the selected primer set formed a specific amplicon of 360 bp only in the DNA of P. odoriferum using 29 Pectobacterium species and related species. Furthermore, the population density of P. odoriferum can be estimated without genomic DNA extraction through SYBR Green-based real-time quantitative PCR using a primer set in plants. As a result, the newly developed diagnostic method enables rapid and accurate diagnosis and continuous monitoring of soft-rot disease in Kimchi cabbage without additional procedures from the plant tissue.

• 한국농공학회논문집
• /
• 제64권5호
• /
• pp.27-39
• /
• 2022

The smart farm is recognized as a solution for future farmers having positive effects on the sustainability of the poultry industry. Intelligent microclimate control can be a key technology for broiler production which is extremely vulnerable to abnormal indoor air temperatures. Furthermore, better control of indoor microclimate can be achieved by accurate prediction of indoor air temperature. This study developed predictive models for internal air temperature in a mechanically-ventilated broiler house based on the data measured during three rearing periods, which were different in seasonal climate and ventilation operation. Three machine learning models and a mechanistic model based on thermal energy balance were used for the prediction. The results indicated that the all models gave good predictions for 1-minute future air temperature showing the coefficient of determination greater than 0.99 and the root-mean-square-error smaller than 0.306℃. However, for 1-hour future air temperature, only the mechanistic model showed good accuracy with the coefficient of determination of 0.934 and the root-mean-square-error of 0.841℃. Since the mechanistic model was based on the mathematical descriptions of the heat transfer processes that occurred in the broiler house, it showed better prediction performances compared to the black-box machine learning models. Therefore, it was proven to be useful for intelligent microclimate control which would be developed in future studies.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• 제32권7호
• /
• pp.911-917
• /
• 2022

As valuable antibiotics, microbial natural products have been in use for decades in various fields. Among them are polyene compounds including nystatin, amphotericin, and nystatin-like Pseudonocardia polyenes (NPPs). Polyene macrolides are known to possess various biological effects, such as antifungal and antiviral activities. NPP A1, which is produced by Pseudonocardia autotrophica, contains a unique disaccharide moiety in the tetraene macrolide backbone. NPP B1, with a heptane structure and improved antifungal activity, was then developed via genetic manipulation of the NPP A1 biosynthetic gene cluster (BGC). Here, we generated a Streptomyces artificial chromosomal DNA library to isolate a large-sized NPP B1 BGC. The NPP B1 BGC was successfully isolated from P. autotrophica chromosome through the construction and screening of a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) library, even though the isolated 140-kb BAC clone (named pNPPB1s) lacked approximately 8 kb of the right-end portion of the NPP B1 BGC. The additional introduction of the pNPPB1s as well as co-expression of the 32-kb portion including the missing 8 kb led to a 7.3-fold increase in the production level of NPP B1 in P. autotrophica. The qRT-PCR confirmed that the transcription level of NPP B1 BGC was significantly increased in the P. autotrophica strain containing two copies of the NPP B1 BGCs. Interestingly, the NPP B1 exhibited a previously unidentified SARS-CoV-2 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) inhibition activity in vitro. These results suggest that the Streptomyces BAC cloning of a large-sized, natural product BGC is a valuable approach for titer improvement and biological activity screening of natural products in actinomycetes.

• Proceedings of the National Institute of Ecology of the Republic of Korea
• /
• 제4권1호
• /
• pp.28-42
• /
• 2023

Seed dispersal supports community structure, maintains genetic connectivity across fragmented landscapes, and influences vegetation assemblages. In the Philippines, only two seed dispersal studies have compared different dispersal agents. We examined the seed dispersal patterns of water, wind, birds, and bats in the Caliraya Watershed, Philippines. We aimed to determine the floral species that were dispersed and how the forest characteristics influenced seed dispersal. By running seed rain traps and drift litter collection from March to June 2022, we analyzed 14,090 seeds in a privately owned study site within the watershed. Water did not exclusively disperse any species and acted as a secondary disperser. Seed density (seeds/trap) was significantly higher for bird-dispersed (n=166) and bat-dispersed (n=145) seeds than for wind-dispersed (n=79) seeds (One-way analysis of variance [ANOVA]: F_2,87=16.21, P<0.0001). Species number (species/trap) was significantly higher for bird-dispersed (n=3.7) and bat-dispersed (n=3.9) seeds than for wind-dispersed (n=0.2) seeds (One-way ANOVA: F_2,87 =16.67, P<0.0001). Birds dispersed more species because they are more diverse and access a wider variety of fruits, unlike bats. Birds and bats target different fruits and provide separate seed dispersal services. Generalized linear model analyses revealed that the number and basal area of fleshy fruit trees most strongly influenced the bird seed dispersal patterns. Therefore, we recommend a three-way approach to restoration efforts in the Caliraya Watershed: (1) ensure the presence of fleshy fruit trees in restoration zones, (2) assist the establishment of mid-successional and wind-dispersed trees, and (3) intensify the conservation efforts for both flora and faunal diversity.

• 한국미생물학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 한국미생물학회 2000년도 추계학술발표대회
• /
• pp.78-82
• /
• 2000

The AIDS epidemic continues unabated in many part of the world. After near two decades, no vaccine is available to combat the spread of this deadly disease. Much of the HIV -1 vaccine effort during the past decade has focused on the viral envelope glycoprotein, largely because it is the only protein that can elicit neutralizing antibodies (Nabs). Eliciting broadly cross-reactive Nabs has been a primary goal. The intrinsic genetic diversity of the viral envelope, however, has been one of the major impediments in vaccine development. We have recently completed a comprehensive study examining whether it is possible to elicit broadly acting Nabs by immunizing monkeys with mixtures of envelope proteins from multiple HIV -1 isolates. We compared the humoral immune responses elicited by vaccination with either single or multiple envelope proteins and evaluated the importance of humoral and non-humoral immune response in protection against a challenge virus with a homologous or heterologous envelope protein. Our results show that (1) Nab is the correlate of sterilizing immunity, (2) Nabs against primary HIV -1 isolates can be elicited by the live vector-prime/protein boost approach, and (3) polyvalent envelope vaccines elicit broader Nab response than monovalent vaccines. Nonetheless, our findings clearly indicate that the increased breadth of Nab response is by and large limited to strains included in the vaccine mixture and does not extend to heterologous non-vaccine strains. Our study strongly demonstrates how difficult it may be to elicit broadly reactive Nabs using envelope proteins and sadly predicts a similar fate for many of the vaccine candidates currently being evaluated in clinical trials. We have started to evaluate other vaccine candidates (e.g. genetically modified envelope proteins) that might elicit broadly reactive Nabs. We are also exploring other vaccine strategies to elicit potent cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses. Preliminary results from some of these experiments will be discussed.

• 대한소아치과학회지
• /
• 제50권2호
• /
• pp.131-141
• /
• 2023

치아우식증은 치아, 바이오필름(biofilm), 식이 요인의 상호작용을 기본으로 타액, 불소 등의 구강 환경요인과 생물학적, 행동적, 사회문화적, 유전적 요인이 관여하는 복잡한 다인성질환이다. 최근 치아우식증은 외부 병원체의 감염에 의한 것이 아닌 구강 미생물군의 생태적 변화에 따른 불균형(dysbiosis)의 결과로 이해되면서 전염성질병에서 비전염성 질병(non-communicable diseases, NCD)으로 전환되었다. 치아우식증은 심혈관질환이나 당뇨병과 같이 만성적으로 진행되는 비전염성 질환(NCD) 특성을 가지며, 식이섭취와 생활 습관과 환경적 요소들이 관여한다는 점에서 유사성이 있다. 높은 유병률과 함께 사람들의 건강과 삶의 질에 미치는 영향을 감안할 때 효과적인 구강 건강관리를 목표로 비전염성질환(NCD)로서 치아우식증에 대한 이해가 필요하며, 구강 미생물군의 생태적 균형을 이루기 위한 적절한 예방법과 효율적인 공중보건 정책들이 제공되어야 할 것이다.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• 제86권5호
• /
• pp.647-661
• /
• 2023

It is recognized that the installation of energy dissipation devices, such as the tuned mass damper (TMD), decreases the dynamic response of structures, however, the best parameters of each device persist hard to determine. Unlike many works that perform only a deterministic optimization, this work proposes a complete methodology to minimize the dynamic response of footbridges by optimizing the parameters of multiple tuned mass dampers (MTMD) taking into account uncertainties present in the parameters of the structure and also of the human excitation. For application purposes, a steel footbridge, based on a real structure, is studied. Three different scenarios for the MTMD are simulated. The proposed robust optimization problem is solved via the Circle-Inspired Optimization Algorithm (CIOA), a novel and efficient metaheuristic algorithm recently developed by the authors. The objective function is to minimize the mean maximum vertical displacement of the footbridge, whereas the design variables are the stiffness and damping constants of the MTMD. The results showed the excellent capacity of the proposed methodology, reducing the mean maximum vertical displacement by more than 36% and in a computational time about 9% less than using a classical genetic algorithm. The results obtained by the proposed methodology are also compared with results obtained through traditional TMD design methods, showing again the best performance of the proposed optimization method. Finally, an analysis of the maximum vertical acceleration showed a reduction of more than 91% for the three scenarios, leading the footbridge to acceleration values below the recommended comfort limits. Hence, the proposed methodology could be employed to optimize MTMD, improving the design of footbridges.