• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.269-277
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• 2013

Amoebic keratitis (AK) caused by Acanthamoeba is one of the most serious corneal infections. AK is frequently misdiagnosed initially as viral, bacterial, or fungal keratitis, thus ensuring treatment delays. Accordingly, the early detection of Acanthamoeba would contribute significantly to disease management and selection of an appropriate anti-amoebic therapy. Recently, the loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) method has been applied to the clinical diagnosis of a range of infectious diseases. Here, we describe a rapid and efficient LAMP-based method targeting Acanthamoeba 18S rDNA gene for the detection of Acanthamoeba using clinical ocular specimens in the diagnosis of AK. Acanthamoeba LAMP assays detected 11 different strains including all AK-associated species. The copy number detection limit for a positive signal was 10 DNA copies of 18S rDNA per reaction. No cross-reactivity with the DNA of fungi or other protozoa was observed. The sensitivity of LAMP assay was higher than those of Nelson primer PCR and JDP primer PCR. In the present study, LAMP assay based on directly heat-treated samples was found to be as efficient at detecting Acanthamoeba as DNA extracted using a commercial kit, whereas PCR was only effective when commercial kit-extracted DNA was used. This study showed that the devised Acanthamoeba LAMP assay could be used to diagnose AK in a simple, sensitive, and specific manner.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2016

The objectives of this study are to produce monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) against Vibrio parahaemolyticus and to develop an immuno-selective filtration (ISF) method for the rapid and sensitive detection of V. parahaemolyticus. The characterization of the MAb produced from HKVP 4H9-9 hybridoma cell was validated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and western blot. The produced MAb was specific to V. parahaemolyticus and showed weak cross-reaction to V. alginolyticus, V. vulnificus and Staphylococcus aureus. After optimization of the method, $5{\times}10^1cell/mL$ of V. parahaemolyticus in a pure culture could be detectable. Although weak cross-reactivity to V. vulnificus, V. alginolyticus and Staphylococcus aureus was observed, the ISF was confirmed to be highly specific to V. parahaemolyticus. Especially, the ISF showed the most sensitivity compared to the immunoassays currently reported is easier to perform and quicker than ID-ELISA.

• The Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.73-95
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• 1986

A total of 5,462 isolates suspicious of Salmonella, Shigella and E. coli which were isolated during 1983 to 1985 by 12 City Hygine Laboratories and General Hospital Laboratories were received and identified at the National Salmonella Center, Seoul, Korea. The result of identification of these strains were summarized as follows: 1. It was confirmed that the total organisms broke down into 2,014 strains of Salmonella 1,294 of which were S. typhi, 887 strains of Shigella and 2,561 strains of E. coli. 2. For seasonal distribution of enteric pathogens, July was the month with the highest out breaks of salmonellosis, May was the month of Shigellosis, and April was of the highest month it in the case of E. coli. 3. Salmonella typhi with the highest incidence of isolation was shown to belong to various phage types, especially with the strains detected in Seoul. M1 type was widely distributed all over the country, but the majority was E1 type in 1983. 4. For age distribution of patients, the 20-29 age group had the highest incidence of salmonellosis whileas the 1 to 9 age group had the highest incidence of Shigellosis. 5. For sexuly distribution of Salmonella and Shigella infections seemed to be relatively higher in the female than in the male. However, E. coli. had no relationship to both sex. 6. The antibiotic sensitivity patterns of S. typhi cultures showed a tendancy to be resistant to colistin, gentamycin, neomycin, tetracycline and streptomycin. 7. The isolates of S. paratyphi-A, S. typhimurium and S. enteritidis seemed to have a tendency of multiple drug resistance. 8. 93.9 percent of 1,568 E. coli strains showed negative reactions to the antisera of enteropathogenic E. coli and 15.6 percent of them produced a heat-labile enterotoxin, but positive reaction to the antisera was 6.1 percent and 11.6 percent of them producled the enterotoxin.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.305-310
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• 2014

Ascidian soft tunic syndrome (AsSTS) caused by Azumiobodo hoyamushi (A. hoyamushi) is a serious aquaculture problem that results in mass mortality of ascidians. Accordingly, the early and accurate detection of A. hoyamushi would contribute substantially to disease management and prevention of transmission. Recently, the loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) method was adopted for clinical diagnosis of a range of infectious diseases. Here, the authors describe a rapid and efficient LAMP-based method targeting the 18S rDNA gene for detection of A. hoyamushi using ascidian DNA for the diagnosis of AsSTS. A. hoyamushi LAMP assay amplified the DNA of 0.01 parasites per reaction and detected A. hoyamushi in 10 ng of ascidian DNA. To validate A. hoyamushi 18S rDNA LAMP assays, AsSTS-suspected and non-diseased ascidians were examined by microscopy, PCR, and by using the LAMP assay. When PCR was used as a gold standard, the LAMP assay showed good agreement in terms of sensitivity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV). In the present study, a LAMP assay based on directly heat-treated samples was found to be as efficient as DNA extraction using a commercial kit for detecting A. hoyamushi. Taken together, this study shows the devised A. hoyamushi LAMP assay could be used to diagnose AsSTS in a straightforward, sensitive, and specific manner, that it could be used for forecasting, surveillance, and quarantine of AsSTS.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.439-445
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• 2001

The destructive method is reliable and widely used lot the estimation of material degradation but, it have time-consuming and a great difficulty in preparing specimens from in-service industrial facilities. Therefore, the estimation of degraded structural materials used at high temperature by nondestructive evaluation such as electric resistance method, replica method, Barkhausen noise method, electro-chemical method and ultrasonic method are strongly desired. Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation technique has been reported good to attain efficiency of measurement, high sensitivity of measurement, and rapidity and reliability of result interpretation. In this study, it was verified experimentally the feasibility of the evaluation of degraded 2.25Cr-1Mo steel specimens which were prepared by the isothermal aging heat treatment at $630^{\circ}C$ by high frequency longitudinal wave method investigating the change of attenuation coefficient by FFT analysis and wavelet transform. Because of carbide precipitation increase and spheroidization near grain boundary of microstructure to aging degradation, attenuation coefficient had a tendency to increase as degradation proceeded. It was identified possibly to evaluate degradation using the characteristics of high-frequency ultrasonics. Frequency dependence of ultrasonic attenuation coefficient to aging degradation appeared large, which made sure that attenuation coefficient is an important parameter for evaluation of aging degradation.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.1-17
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• 1991

It is widely recognized that the embryonic or fetal loss after breeding is common in the cattle and that it is an important factor affecting reproductive efficiency. The causes of this loss have been subject of extensive researches and the results indicate that the embryonic mortality may he primary factor responsible for low pregnancy rates in non-embryo transfer bovine populations as well as embryo transfer programs. However, it's causes are still not clearly understood. The embryonic mortality or pregnancy rate has been influenced by various embryonic and maternal effects related to genetic and environmental factors. The timing and extent of embryonic mortality vanes greatly according to authors and estimating methods, because it is difficult to make direct measurements. The major important factors that may influence the embryonic losses or pregnancy rates after embryo transfer can be summeirized. 1.When an embryo is transferred to unmated recipients, the contralateral transfer to corpus luteum results in a lower survival rate than ipsilateral deposition. When the embryos are transferred for the production of twin calves, their survivals and twin pregnancies have quite inconsistent according to the transfer methods either to the unmated-synchronized or already mated recipients and more works are needed to accurrately clarify the previous results. 2.Although embryos can be cultured in vitro some hours without the great declines in pregnancy rates, the rates differ markedly among culture times and media but may be improved by co-transfer systems. 3.Embryo developmental stages and quality grades clearly affect the survival rate following freezing and the pregnancy rate after transfer and the selection of embryos without chromosome abnormalities and of high fertile semen may also be considered to increase the pregnancy rates. 4.Many researches have attempted to relate the plasma progesterone levels to pregnancy rates and others have done either direct progesterone supplementation or luteal stimulation by hCG treatment in order to increase the pregnancy rates. However, these effects on pregnancy rates are inconsistent and also contradictory. 5.The asynchrony between donors or embryos and recipients may he a major cause of embryo death and low pregnancy rate and the sensitivity to uterine asynchyony differs in according to the quality and stages of embryos. 6.The extremes of poor or over nutrition during early pregnancy in the recipients are detrimental to the survival of embryos and the good body condition is required to prevent a reduejion of pregnancy rates. The uterine pathogens in embryonic mortality or fertility have been questioned but the infection of C.pyogenes and Campylobacter fetus is still important pathogens. 7.The heat stress during early pregnancy may reduce conceptus weight and possibly increase the embryonic mortality.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.510-515
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• 1997

Packaging takes an extremely important element of optical module cost due primarily to the added complication of alignment between semiconductor devices and optical fiber, and many efforts have been devoted on reducing the cost by eliminating the complicated optical alignment procedures in passive manner. In this study, we fabricated silicon optical benches on which the optical alignments are accomplished passively. To improve the positioning accuracy of a flip-chip bonded LD, we adopted fiducial marks and solder dams which are self-aligned with V-groove etch patterns, and a stand-off to control the height and to improve the heat dissipation of LD. Optical sub-assemblies exhibited an average efficiency of -11.75$\pm$1.75 dB(1$\sigma$) from the LD-to-single mode fiber coupling and an average sensitivity of -35.0$\pm$1.5 dBm from the fiber and photodetector coupling.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.86-96
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• 1984

In order to provide basic data for food processors and to improve eating habits and healthy diets, four primary tastes and hot taste threshold of Koreans, physio-chemical properties of foods and food preference were investigated. The results of this study were as follows; 1. The recognition threshold concentration of four primary tastes was 0.016 % of salt, 0.245${\sim}$0.249 % of sweet, 0.004${\sim}$0.008 % of sour and 0.008${\sim}$0.012 % of bitter. Threshold concentration of hot taste was 170,000${\sim}$600,000 Scoville Heat Unit(S.H.U.) 2. The most acceptable tastes were 0.3 % saltiness in 0.375 % broth(at $60^{\circ}C$), 6 % sweetness in 2 % instant coffee(at $60^{\circ}C$) and 19.3 sugar-acid ratio(16.8 brix/0.8736 % citric acid) in 100 % valencia orange juice(at $20^{\circ}C$). 3. The salt concentrations of soup were 1.127 % in average. S. H. U. (scale of hot taste) of soybean sprout soup and spinach bean paste soup ranged between 12,500 and 47,500 equivalent to oleoresin capsicum content of 1.990${\sim}$5.911 (mg %). 4. 'Jigae' (Korean style stew) was the most favorable food and it was revealed that the father influences the formation of his children's eating habits.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.7-12
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• 2001

Sintered LiF:Mg,Cu,Na,Si thermoluminescence (TL) pellets were developed for application in radiation dosimetry. In the present study, the TL dosimetric properties of LiF:Mg,Cu,Na,Si TL pellets have been investigated for emission spectrum, dose response, energy response, and fading characteristics. LiF:Mg,Cu,Na,Si TL pellets were made by using a sintering process, that is, pressing and heat treatment from TL powders. Photon irradiations for the experiments were carried out using X-ray beams and a $^{137}Cs$ gamma source at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI). The average energies and the dose were in the range of 20-662 keV and $10^{-6}-10^{-2}\;Gy$, respectively. The glow curves were measured with a manual type TLD reader(System 310, Teledyne) at a constant nitrogen flux and a linear heating rate. For a constant heating rate of $5^{\circ}C\;s^{-1}$, the main dosimetric peak of glow curve appeared at $234^{\circ}C$, the activation energy was 2.34 eV and frequency factor was $1.00{\times}10^{23}$. TL emission spectrum is appeared at the blue region centered at 410 nm. A linearity of photon dose response was maintained up to 100 Gy. The photon energy responses relative to $^{137}Cs$ response were within ${\pm}20%$ at overall photon energy region. The fading of TL sensitivity of the pellets stored at the room temperature was not found for one year.

• Clean Technology
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.13-21
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• 2014

Because of the water scarcity caused by the increase of salinity in the underground water, seawater desalination stands out as one of the most promising solution. As there are so much energy costs in operating desalination plants, new hybrid process which is more effective should be researched. A geothermal VMD (vacuum membrane distillation) hybrid process is a competitive alternative for seawater desalination. Because geothermal energy has significant characteristics of high capacity factor to operate the power plant at full capacity for 24 hour per day, it can be a priority heat source of VMD superior to any other renewable energies such as solar and wind power. In this study, we design a geothermal VMD hybrid process, analyze it economically and finally compare the result with a case of conventional VMD process. Geothermal VMD hybrid process generates $23,822,409 of NPV (net present value) more than the conventional VMD process in case of 5% discount rate. The break-even point between these processes is 5.36 year. Sensitivity analysis indicates that steam cost is the most decisive influence variable to the economic outcome.