• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
• /
• v.42 no.1
• /
• pp.58-66
• /
• 2014

In the course of study for a use for non-edible parts of broccoli (Brassica oleracea L), and the development of processed food utilizing these parts, edible floret and non-edible stalk were extracted with ethanol and different organic solvent fractions were prepared. With 10 different extracts and fractions, their useful components and various biological activities, such as antioxidant, antimicrobial and anti-proliferation activity, were investigated. The stalk has more abundant water soluble carbohydrate when compared with the floret, and floret has higher hexane-soluble pigments. Analysis of total flavonoid and total polyphenol contents showed that the floret has 1.5~1.99 times higher concentrations than the stalk. Among the fractions, ethylacetate (EA) fractions have the highest amount of total flavonoid and total polyphenol. The stalk and floret possessed 9.45 and 42.01 mg-total flavonoid/g, respectively. In the antioxidation activity assay, the EA fraction of floret showed strong radical scavenging activity and reducing power, while the n-hexane fraction of the stalk exhibited nitrite scavenging activity. In the antimicrobial activity assay, the EA fraction of floret showed a strong and broad-range of antibacterial activity, irrespective of gram positive or gram negative bacteria. In a while, the hexane and EA fractions revealed anti-proliferative effects against the human colorectal cancer cell HCT-116. Strong anti-proliferative activities were found in the hexane fraction of stalk (18.4% of cell viability), and the n-butanol fraction of floret (6.9% of cell viability). Our results suggest that the further study of the characterization of active fractions and the identification of active components from different parts of broccoli are needed to develop functional foods or novel plant-derived medicines.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
• /
• v.43 no.2
• /
• pp.111-118
• /
• 2016

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by molds, such as Aspergillus, Fusarium and Penicillium, that have adverse effects on animals and humans. Aflatoxin, ochratoxin, zearalenone, fumonisin and deoxynivalenol are the mycotoxins of greatest agro-economic importance and cause acute disease called mycotoxicoses. Mycotoxicosis in poultry birds results in decreased meat/egg production, immunosuppressant, and hepatotoxicosis. Some of toxins or their metabolites may be retained in animal or human tissues and induce health problems. This study was designed to develop a sensitive liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for the simultaneous detection and quantification of mycotoxins, such as aflatoxin $B_1$, aflatoxin $M_1$, ochratoxin A, zearalenone, fumonisin B and deoxynivalenol, in chicken liver and kidney tissues. The mycotoxins were extracted and purified using modified QUECHERS methods, separated by LC and detected by an electrospray ionisation interface (ESI) and tandem MS. Good precision and linearity were observed for most of six mycotoxins. The recovery test for each mycotoxin in liver and kidney tissues mostly indicated good average recovery rates between 80.94% and 98.10% and the coefficient of variation mostly under 13.78%, except for aflatoxin $M_1$ and fumonisin $B_1$. The limit of detection (LOD) for six mycotoxins was $7.6{\sim}145.79{\mu}g/kg$ in liver tissues and $6.07{\sim}197.20{\mu}g/kg$ in kidney tissues. The quantification limits (LOQ) for 6 mycotoxins were in the range $23.04{\sim}441.78{\mu}g/kg$ in liver tissues and $18.40{\sim}597.59{\mu}g/kg$ in kidney tissues, respectively. The developed multi-mycotoxin method in this study permits simultaneous, simple, and rapid determination of several co-existing mycotoxins in chicken liver and kidney tissues.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
• /
• v.22 no.6
• /
• pp.133-144
• /
• 2004

A model and a measure which can evaluate the risk of rear end collision are developed. Most traffic accidents involve multiple causes such as the human factor, the vehicle factor, and the highway element at any given time. Thus, these factors should be considered in analyzing the risk of an accident and in developing safety models. Although most risky situations and accidents on the roads result from the poor response of a driver to various stimuli, many researchers have modeled the risk or accident by analyzing only the stimuli without considering the response of a driver. Hence, the reliabilities of those models turned out to be low. Thus in developing the model behaviors of a driver, such as reaction time and deceleration rate, are considered. In the past, most studies tried to analyze the relationships between a risk and an accident directly but they, due to the difficulty of finding out the directional relationships between these factors, developed a model by considering these factors, developed a model by considering indirect factors such as volume, speed, etc. However, if the relationships between risk and accidents are looked into in detail, it can be seen that they are linked by the behaviors of a driver, and depending on drivers the risk as it is on the road-vehicle system may be ignored or call drivers' attention. Therefore, an accident depends on how a driver handles risk, so that the more related risk to and accident occurrence is not the risk itself but the risk responded by a driver. Thus, in this study, the behaviors of a driver are considered in the model and to reflect these behaviors three concepts related to accidents are introduced. And safe stopping distance and accident occurrence probability were used for better understanding and for more reliable modeling of the risk. The index which can represent the risk is also developed based on measures used in evaluating noise level, and for the risk comparison between various situations, the equivalent risk level, considering the intensity and duration time, is developed by means of the weighted average. Validation is performed with field surveys on the expressway of Seoul, and the test vehicle was made to collect the traffic flow data, such as deceleration rate, speed and spacing. Based on this data, the risk by section, lane and traffic flow conditions are evaluated and compared with the accident data and traffic conditions. The evaluated risk level corresponds closely to the patterns of actual traffic conditions and counts of accident. The model and the method developed in this study can be applied to various fields, such as safety test of traffic flow, establishment of operation & management strategy for reliable traffic flow, and the safety test for the control algorithm in the advanced safety vehicles and many others.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Applied Pharmacology
• /
• 2007.11a
• /
• pp.79-92
• /
• 2007

Oxidative stress have known to be a risk factor for the degenerative processes and closely related to a lot of diseases. It is well established that antioxidants are good in protection and therapeutic means against oxidative damage. There is increasing interest in natural antioxidants and many natural antioxidants have been found and utilized as the possible protection for various diseases and skin aging. We have screened natural antioxidant agents for cosmeceuticals, nutraceuticals, and drugs as therapeutic and preventive means against oxidative stress, and have developed a number of novel antioxidants from various natural sources. A novel melanin synthesis inhibitor, Melanocin A, isolated from the metabolite of a fungal strain Eupenicillium shearii F80695 inhibited mushroom tyrosinase and melanin biosynthesis of B16 melanoma cells with $IC_{50}$ value of 9.0 nM and MIC value of $0.9\;{\mu}M$, respectively. Melanocin A also exhibited potent antioxidant activity by scavenging of DPPH and superoxide anion radicals. UV was found to increase the level of hydrogen peroxides and other reactive oxygen species (ROS) in skin tissues. This increase in ROS may not only alter the structure and function of many genes and proteins directly but may also modulate their expressions through signal transduction pathways and, ultimately, lead to skin damage. We investigated the effect of Melanocin A on UV-induced premature skin aging. Firstly, the effect of Melanocin A on UV-induced matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9 expression in an immortalized human keratinocyte cell line, HaCaT in vitro was investigated. Acute UV irradiation induced MMP-9 expression at both the mRNA and protein levels and Melanocin A suppressed this expression in a dose-dependent manner. We then investigated UV-induced skin changes in hairless mice in vivo by Melanocin A. Chronic exposure of hairless mouse dorsal skin to UV increased skin thickness and induced wrinkle formation and the gelatinase activities of MMP-2 and MMP-9. Moreover, Melanocin A significantly suppressed UV-induced morphologic skin changes and MMP-2 and MMP-9 expression. These results show that Melanocin A can prevent the harmful effects of UV that lead to skin aging. Therefore, we suggest that Melanocin A should be viewed as a potential therapeutic agent for preventing and/or treating premature skin aging. Terrein is a bioactive fungal metabolite isolated from Penicillium species. Terrein has a relatively simple structure and can be easily synthesized. However, the biologic effects of terrein are comparatively unknown. We found for the first time that terrein potently inhibit melanin production in melanocytes and has a strong hypopigmentary effect in a spontaneously immortalized mouse melanocyte cell line, Mel-Ab. Treatment of Mel-Ab cells with terrein (10-100 mM) for 4 days significantly reduced melanin levels in a dose-dependent manner. In addition, terrein at the same concentration also reduced tyrosinase activity. We then investigated whether terrein influences the extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase (ERK) pathway and the expression of microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF), which is required for tyrosinase expression. Terrein was found to induce sustained ERK activation and MITF down-regulation, and luciferase assays showed that terrein inhibits MITF promoter activity in a dose-dependent manner. To elucidate the correlation between ERK pathway activation and a decreased MITF transcriptional level, PD98059, a specific inhibitor of the ERK pathway, was applied before terrain treatment and found to abrogate the terrein-induced MITF attenuation. Terrein also reduced the tyrosinase protein level for at least 72 h. These results suggest that terrain reduces melanin synthesis by reducing tyrosinase production via ERK activation, and that this is followed by MITF down-regulation.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.493-513
• /
• 2014

With the development of related technologies, Location-Based Services (LBS) are growing fast and being used in many ways. Past LBS studies have focused on adoption of LBS because of the fact that LBS users have privacy concerns regarding revealing their location information. Meanwhile, the number of LBS users and revenues from LBS are growing rapidly because users can get some benefits by revealing their location information. Little research has been done on how LBS affects consumers' information search behavior in product purchase. The purpose of this paper is examining the effect of LBS information filtering on buyers' uncertainty and their information search behavior. When consumers purchase a product, they try to reduce uncertainty by searching information. Generally, there are two types of uncertainties - knowledge uncertainty and choice uncertainty. Knowledge uncertainty refers to the lack of information on what kinds of alternatives are available in the market and/or their important attributes. Therefore, consumers having knowledge uncertainty will have difficulties in identifying what alternatives exist in the market to fulfil their needs. Choice uncertainty refers to the lack of information about consumers' own preferences and which alternative will fit in their needs. Therefore, consumers with choice uncertainty have difficulties selecting best product among available alternatives.. According to economics of information theory, consumers narrow the scope of information search when knowledge uncertainty is high. It is because consumers' information search cost is high when their knowledge uncertainty is high. If people do not know available alternatives and their attributes, it takes time and cognitive efforts for them to acquire information about available alternatives. Therefore, they will reduce search breadth. For people with high knowledge uncertainty, the information about products and their attributes is new and of high value for them. Therefore, they will conduct searches more in-depth because they have incentive to acquire more information. When people have high choice uncertainty, people tend to search information about more alternatives. It is because increased search breadth will improve their chances to find better alternative for them. On the other hand, since human's cognitive capacity is limited, the increased search breadth (more alternatives) will reduce the depth of information search for each alternative. Consumers with high choice uncertainty will spend less time and effort for each alternative because considering more alternatives will increase their utility. LBS provides users with the capability to screen alternatives based on the distance from them, which reduces information search costs. Therefore, it is expected that LBS will help users consider more alternatives even when they have high knowledge uncertainty. LBS provides distance information, which helps users choose alternatives appropriate for them. Therefore, users will perceive lower choice uncertainty when they use LBS. In order to test the hypotheses, we selected 80 students and assigned them to one of the two experiment groups. One group was asked to use LBS to search surrounding restaurants and the other group was asked to not use LBS to search nearby restaurants. The experimental tasks and measures items were validated in a pilot experiment. The final measurement items are shown in Appendix A. Each subject was asked to read one of the two scenarios - with or without LBS - and use a smartphone application to pick a restaurant. All behaviors on smartphone were recorded using a recording application. Search breadth was measured by the number of restaurants clicked by each subject. Search depths was measured by two metrics - the average number of sub-level pages each subject visited and the average time spent on each restaurant. The hypotheses were tested using SPSS and PLS. The results show that knowledge uncertainty reduces search breadth (H1a). However, there was no significant correlation between knowledge uncertainty and search depth (H1b). Choice uncertainty significantly reduces search depth (H2b), but no significant relationship was found between choice uncertainty and search breadth (H2a). LBS information filtering significantly reduces the buyers' choice uncertainty (H4) and reduces the negative relationship between knowledge uncertainty and search breadth (H3). This research provides some important implications for service providers. Service providers should use different strategies based on their service properties. For those service providers who are not well-known to consumers (high knowledge uncertainty) should encourage their customers to use LBS. This is because LBS would increase buyers' consideration sets when the knowledge uncertainty is high. Therefore, less known services have chances to be included in consumers' consideration sets with LBS. On the other hand, LBS information filtering decrease choice uncertainty and the near service providers are more likely to be selected than without LBS. Hence, service providers should analyze geographically approximate competitors' strength and try to reduce the gap so that they can have chances to be included in the consideration set.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
• /
• v.34 no.1
• /
• pp.112-121
• /
• 2016

Development of genetically-modified (GM) crops enables the introduction of new traits to the plant to confer characteristics such as disease resistance, herbicide resistance and human health-promoting bioactivity. Successful commercialization of newly developed GM crops requires stable inheritance of integrated T-DNA and newly introduced traits through the multiple generations. This study was carried out to confirm the stable inheritance of the integrated T-DNA in $T_1$ and $T_2$ transgenic Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa ssp. pekinensis) that was genetically modified to increase concentrations of phenylethylisothiocyanate (PEITC), which is a potential anti-carcinogenic phytochemical. For this purpose, the IGA 1-3 ($T_1$ generation) and IGA 1-3-5 ($T_2$ generation) lines were selected by PCR and a IGA 1-3 transgenic plant ($T_1$ generation) was analyzed to confirm the T-DNA insertion site in the Chinese cabbage genome by VA-TAIL PCR. The results of this study showed that the introduced T-DNA in IGA 1 line was stably inherited to the next generations without any variations in terms of the structure of the transgenes, and this line also showed the expected transgene function that resulted in increased concentration of PEITC through the multiple generations. Finally, we confirmed the increased QR activity in IGA 1 $T_1$ and $T_2$ transgenic lines, which indicates an enhanced potential anti-carcinogenic bioactivity and its stable inheritance in IGA1 $T_1$ and $T_2$ transgenic lines.

• Journal of Fashion Business
• /
• v.9 no.6
• /
• pp.160-174
• /
• 2005

Despite the decrease in the number of children due to low birth rate, the domestic children's apparel market has been achieving steady growth as family income is rising thanks to more opportunities for working women, parents spend more on their children, and they prefer brand products that make their children look special. In addition, the market is suffering from hard competition as large enterprises have joined the race. The present study purposed to survey the children's apparel market in Korea, which is in a transitional period, and to contribute to the development of the market with Korean brands. For this purpose, we analyzed the characteristics of children's apparel brands in the 21st century based on the current state of the domestic children's apparel market and, based on the findings, forecasted the future trend of children's apparel brands, suggested improvements for expected problems, proposed standards for coping with changes such as diversification, high quality and differentiation in the children's apparel market, and provided consumers with information on how to purchase products. According to the result of analyzing the characteristics of children's apparel brands in the 21st century, brands are categorized largely into four types - life cultural brands, functional product brands, character brands and brands advancing to China. Life cultural brands equipped with all necessities for children are expanding, and with the deepening social problems of environmental pollution and the reduction of the child population, functional products made of environment-friendly materials are spreading widely, targeting infants and children. Furthermore, for extending age targets and diversifying products, children's apparel is using characters. The use of characters is expected to have a considerable effect on the growth of brands because children are more subjective as consumers than before and they are more easily persuaded with characters. Domestic children's apparel brands advancing to China have a high expectation of success in overcoming the limitation of the local market that has reached its peak and growing into global brands. Korean apparel makers are struggling to overcome the depressed domestic market, to recover consumers' consumption, to cope with market opening, to pursue high value of sensibility and to expand the seniors' market, etc. In this situation, future trends of children's apparel brands will be the expansion of family brands, brand totalization, quality price, niche market (pre-teen market), etc. In response to these trends, we made the following suggestions for improvement. 1. Children's apparel brands are evolving into family brands as well as into total brands through voluming. Today, however, apparel makers are advancing to the children's apparel market with the concept of adults' apparel and, as a result, children's apparel is merely adults' apparel of reduced size, having problems in design, color and materials. Thus, apparel makers must develop design considering the wide range of size and the characteristics of children's apparel, strengthen sourcing abilities to create revenues, and make thorough survey of customers to find common denominators between adults' apparel and children's apparel considering that characteristic that the target class is different from the buyer class. Furthermore, they must make active investments in human resources, develop outstanding products through advanced planning and design, and support marketing techniques and management systems to stores. 2. As the declining birth rate will continue to have a negative effect on the market, it may be difficult to expand the market size but there is still a margin for growth through high-sensibility and high-quality products. The competitiveness of brands is determined by their market shares. Accordingly, concepts should be specialized according to lifestyle, customers' diverse needs should be satisfied, and cross-coordination should be achieved within a brand. 3. Considering Korean parents who do not spare investment in their children despite shrinking consumption, functional products must be high value-added goods that can enhance efficiency. However, in the current situation of the infants' apparel industry where a textile manufacturer supply its products to multiple brands, it is difficult to develop unique products only based on materials. Thus, it is considered urgent to appeal to consumers not by relying on materials only but by finding methods of applying their own characters to children's dress.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
• /
• v.30 no.5
• /
• pp.993-999
• /
• 2001

The purpose of the study was to develop a nutritional counseling program using expert system to assist obese people to lose weight through behavior modification in the internet. The counseling internet program for weight loss was developed by the accumulation of knowledge for dealing with eating habits and exercising behaviors into expert system tool, Knowledge Engineering Agent (KEA) by a dietitian without any help of computer expert. KEA was built based on the theory of Multiple Classification Ripple Down Rules. To accumulate knowledge into KEA, survey was performed in 150 obese people, the dietitian reviewed and consulted each survey case, and the consulted contents were learned and accumulated into KEA. Survey questionnaires were the same as those of the internet consulting program, and they included general characteristics, dietary habits, lifestyle, and exercise patterns related to obesity. KEA was used for nutritional counseling of obese people after KEA had enough knowledge for weight loss based on behavior modification by the dietitian. To accumulate knowledge to KEA, the dietitian selected proper factors inferred from the survey questionnaire of each case, and added the conclusions for them. Conclusions were made for helping clients to correct bad eating behaviors and accumulate good behaviors for losing weight. When clients answered survey questionnaires in a counseling internet program, KEA gave the recommendation how to eat, to exercise and the deal with stress in a real time for each case. If KEA did not have enough knowledge for a specific case, the conclusion window wrote no conclusion and the dietitian needed to add conclusions for the case. The conclusions for the new case added to the KEA knowledge base. In conclusions, a counseling internet program for weight reduction can be used for give advices how to deal with obesity in a man-to-man way in a real time using KEA where nutritional knowledge based on behavior modification for weight loss was accumulated.

• Food Science and Preservation
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.938-945
• /
• 2011

Epimedium koreanum Nakai is a wild herb commonly consumed in South Korea due to its beneficial health effects. In the present study, the antimutagenic and immunoactivities of extracts from E. koreanum Nakai containing different icariin quantities were investigated for food use. In the Ames test, both the water and ethanol extracts were found not to have a mutagenic effect on Salmonella typhimurium TA98 and TA100, respectively. The E. koreanum Nakai extracts showed over 80 and 90% antimutagenic effects on benzo(${\alpha}$)pyrene (B(a)P) in S. typhimurium TA98 and TA100, respectively. Moreover, all the extracts showed over 70% antimutagenicity on S. typhimurium TA98 and TA100 against 4-nitroquinoline-1-oxide (4NQO). The E. koreanum Nakai extract with ethanol showed strong antimutagenic activity, higher than that of the water extract and the sequenced KE9412, KE9408, and KE9405. In the immunomodulating activity test, the effect of E. koreanum Nakai on the B (Rhamos) and T (Jukat) cells were investigated. The immunoactivity results showed that the growth and viability of the B and T cells increased and were activated more in KE9405 (1.8 times), KE9408 (1.6 times), and KE9412 (1.32 times) in the water extracts, and least in KE9412 (1.74 times), KE9408 (1.52 times), and KE9405 (1.4 times) in the ethanol extracts. In the case of both the water and ethanol extracts ($500{\mu}g/mL$) from E. koreanum Nakai, the highest cell number of the human B (Rhamos) and T (Jukat) cells was observed on day 4 in KE9405 and KE9412, and on day 5 in KE9408. Based on the obtained results, the development of E. koreanum Nakai as a food material is recommended.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
• /
• v.42 no.1
• /
• pp.21-28
• /
• 2009

Detailed information on soil characteristics is of great importance for the use and conservation of soil resources that are essential for human welfare and ecosystem sustainability. This paper introduces soil inventory of Korea focusing on national soil database establishment, information systems, use, and future direction for natural resources management. Different scales of soil maps surveyed and soil test data collected by RDA (Rural Development Administration) were computerized to construct digital soil maps and database. Soil chemical properties and heavy metal concentrations in agricultural soils including vulnerable agricultural soils were investigated regularly at fixed sampling points. Internet-based information systems for soil and agro-environmental resources were developed based on 'National Soil Survey Projects' for managing soil resources and for providing soil information to the public, and 'Agroenvironmental Change Monitoring Project' to monitor spatial and temporal changes of agricultural environment will be opened soon. Soils data has a great potential of further application in estimation of soil carbon storage, water capacity, and soil loss. Digital mapping of soil and environment using state-of-the-art and emerging technologies with a pedometrics concept will lead to future direction.