• Biomedical Science Letters
• /
• v.18 no.4
• /
• pp.362-368
• /
• 2012

Enterotoxigenic Bacteroides fragilis (ETBF) is an intestinal commensal bacterium implicated as a risk factor for colon cancer. The key virulence factor is a secreted toxin called B. fragilis toxin (BFT). In this study we used an in vitro bioassay to examine the prevalence of ETBF in colonic washings from patients with colorectal polyps and normal control patients. We found that 9.3% of polyp patients and 10.9% of non-polyp patients harbored ETBF, respectively. A total of nine ETBF clinical isolates were isolated and confirmed to be positive for the BFT gene by PCR analysis and the ability to induce IL-8 secretion in the colonic epithelial cell line HT29/c1. Two of the ETBF clinical strains were characterized further in vitro and in vivo. We found that the two ETBF clinical isolates induced E-cadherin cleavage in HT29/c1 cells and promoted colonic inflammation in C57BL/6 mice. Our results indicate that the prevalence of ETBF in polyp patients were similar in non-polyp patients suggesting that ETBF carriage does not positively correlate to polyp incidence.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.47 no.1
• /
• pp.127-132
• /
• 2009

This report examines the economic feasibility of a commercial 50,000 barrel per day direct coal liquefaction(DCL) facility to produce commercial-grade diesel and naphtha liquids from medium-sulfur bituminous coal. The scope of the study includes capital and operating cost estimates, sensitivity analysis and a comparative financial analysis. Based on plant capacity of 50,000BPD, employing Illinois #6 bituminous coal as feed coal the total capital cost appeared $3,994,858,000. Also, the internal rate of return of DCL appeared 6.60% on the base condition. In this case, coal price and sale price of products were the most influence factors. And DCL's payback period demanded a long time(12.3 years), because of high coal price at the present time. According to sensitivity analyses, the important factors on DCL processes were product sale price, feed coal price and the capital cost in order.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
• /
• v.43 no.5
• /
• pp.701-714
• /
• 2008

This study examines the prevailing synoptic-scale mechanisms favorable for long-lived summer Persistent Positive Temperature Anomalies (PPTAs) as well as winter PPTAs in the United States. Such long-lived PPTAs usually occur in the south-central region of the United States in summer, but in the southwestern part of the United States in winter. Composite analyses of surface and pressure level data demonstrate that the formation of both winter and summer PPTAs is closely related to the movement of subtropical high pressure systems in the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean, respectively. The occurrence of long-lived summer PPTAs usually coincides with an extremely stable atmospheric condition caused by persistent blocking by mid- to upper-tropospheric anticyclones. Significant surface forcing is also easily identified through relatively high Bowen ratios at the surface. Warm air advection is, however, weak and appears to be an insignificant element in the formation of long-lived summer PPTAs. On the other hand, synergistic warming effects associated with adiabatic heating under an anticyclonic blocking system as well as significant warm air advection characterize the favorable synoptic environments for long-lived winter PPTAs. However, the impact of surface forcing mechanisms on winter PPTAs is insignificant.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.23-28
• /
• 2002

Sets of weather variables for estimation of LWD were evaluated using CART(Classification And Regression Tree) models. Input variables were sets of hourly observations of air temperature at 0.3-m and 1.5-m height, relative humidity(RH), and wind speed that were obtained from May to September in 1997, 1998, and 1999 at 15 weather stations in iowa, Illinois, and Nebraska, USA. A model that included air temperature at 0.3-m height, RH, and wind speed showed the lowest misidentification rate for wetness. The model estimated presence or absence of wetness more accurately (85.5%) than the CART/SLD model (84.7%) proposed by Gleason et al. (1994). This slight improvement, however, was insufficient to justify the use of our model, which requires additional measurements, in preference to the CART/SLD model. This study demonstrated that the use of measurements of temperature, humidity, and wind from automated stations was sufficient to make LWD estimations of reasonable accuracy when the CART/SLD model was used. Therefore, implementation of crop disease-warning systems may be facilitated by application of the CART/SLD model that inputs readily obtainable weather observations.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.54-65
• /
• 2011

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of community visiting health service units using DEA and to compare the results with those of traditional evaluation methods. Methods: Data were collected using 2008 annual reports of 10 districts in one city. Input variables were number of staff and operational budget per year and output variables were number of managed household per nurse, rate of controlled hypertension, and diabetes mellitus. EMS Window version 3.1 was used to measure efficiency score and bootstrapping Chi-square test was applied to identify differences between efficient and non-efficient unit by organizational factors. Results: The average efficiency score of 10 community visiting health services was about 66%. Only two of the units operated program efficiently. The career of the staff was one among other factors associated with efficiency. The evaluation results from the traditional method and DEA were totally different. Conclusion: These results indicate that, evaluation methods have very important and significant effects on the evaluation results of community visiting health service units. The DEA method is recommend as an alterative method for evaluating community visiting health service.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.77-84
• /
• 2008

Soil purification theory is the method using the soil micro-organism like aerobic and anaerobic for treatment of wastewater. The soil has many kinds of micro-organism and it multiply as change of the environment. Unlikely other methods, the soil purification theory is adaptable to inflow water change; moreover, it can process the T-N, T-P without any special method and management. The top is covered with the improved soil which can remove the bad smell and is used for resting place according to planting the lawn. This study is focused on analysis of the treatment processing of wastewater comparing inflow with outflow water. As a results, removal rate of the processing the BOD, COD and SS is almost 90~100% and it is 60~80% in T-N, T-P.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.27 no.9
• /
• pp.1649-1656
• /
• 2017

In simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) for production of cellulosic biofuels, engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae capable of fermenting cellobiose has provided several benefits, such as lower enzyme costs and faster fermentation rate compared with wild-type S. cerevisiae fermenting glucose. In this study, the effects of an alternative intracellular cellobiose utilization pathway-a phosphorolytic pathway based on a mutant cellodextrin transporter (CDT-1 (F213L)) and cellobiose phosphorylase (SdCBP)-was investigated by comparing with a hydrolytic pathway based on the same transporter and an intracellular ${\beta}$-glucosidase (GH1-1) for their SSF performances under various conditions. Whereas the phosphorolytic and hydrolytic cellobiose-fermenting S. cerevisiae strains performed similarly under the anoxic SSF conditions, the hydrolytic S. cerevisiae performed slightly better than the phosphorolytic S. cerevisiae under the microaerobic SSF conditions. Nonetheless, the phosphorolytic S. cerevisiae expressing the mutant CDT-1 showed better ethanol production than the glucose-fermenting S. cerevisiae with an extracellular ${\beta}$-glucosidase, regardless of SSF conditions. These results clearly prove that introduction of the intracellular cellobiose metabolic pathway into yeast can be effective on cellulosic ethanol production in SSF. They also demonstrate that enhancement of cellobiose transport activity in engineered yeast is the most important factor affecting the efficiency of SSF of cellulose.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
• /
• v.35 no.6
• /
• pp.443-449
• /
• 2010

A machine vision-based instrument to measure a droplet size spectrum of a spray nozzle was developed and tested to evaluate its accuracy on measuring spray droplet sizes and classifying nozzle sizes. The instrument consisted of a machine vision, light emitting diode (LED) illumination and a desktop computer. The illumination and machine vision were controlled by the computer through a C++ program. The program controlled the machine vision to capture droplet images under controlled illumination, and processed the droplet images to characterize the droplet size distribution of a spray nozzle. An image processing algorithm was developed to improve the accuracy of the system by eliminating random noise and out-of-focus droplets in droplet images while measuring droplet sizes. The instrument measured sizes of the three different balls (254.0, 497.8 and $793.8\;{\mu}m$) and the measurement ranges were $241.2-273.6\;{\mu}m$, $492.9-529.6\;{\mu}m$ and $800.8-824.1\;{\mu}m$ for 254.0-, 497.84- and $793.75-\;{\mu}m$ balls, respectively. Error of the measured droplet mean was less than 3.0 %. Droplet statistics, $D_{V0.1}$, $D_{V0.5}$ and $D_{V0.9}$, of a reference nozzle set were measured, and droplet size spectra of five spray nozzles covering from very fine to extremely coarse were measured to classify spray nozzle sizes. Ninety percent of the classification results of the instrument agreed with manufacturer's classification. A comparison study was carried out between developed and commercial instruments, and measurement results of the developed instrument were within 20 % of commercial instrument results.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.23 no.6
• /
• pp.589-613
• /
• 2019

Cables are prone to vibration due to their low inherent damping characteristics. Recently, negative stiffness dampers have gained attentions, because of their promising energy dissipation ability. The viscous inertial mass damper (termed as VIMD hereinafter) can be viewed as one realization of the inerter. It is formed by paralleling an inertial mass part with a common energy dissipation element (e.g., viscous element) and able to provide pseudo-negative stiffness properties to flexible systems such as cables. A previous study examined the potential of IMD to enhance the damping of stay cables. Because there are already models for common energy dissipation elements, the key to establish a general model for IMD is to propose an analytical model of the rotary mass component. In this paper, the characteristics of the rotary mass and the proposed analytical model have been evaluated by the numerical and experimental tests. First, a series of harmonic tests are conducted to show the performance and properties of the IMD only having the rotary mass. Then, the mechanism of nonlinearities is analyzed, and an analytical model is introduced and validated by comparing with the experimental data. Finally, a real-time hybrid simulation test is conducted with a physical IMD specimen and cable numerical substructure under distributed sinusoidal excitation. The results show that the chosen model of the rotary mass part can provide better estimation on the damper's performance, and it is better to use it to form a general analytical model of IMD. On the other hand, the simplified damper model is accurate for the preliminary simulation of the cable responses.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.31 no.7
• /
• pp.1035-1043
• /
• 2021

Although engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae fermenting cellobiose is useful for the production of biofuels from cellulosic biomass, cellodextrin accumulation is one of the main problems reducing ethanol yield and productivity in cellobiose fermentation with S. cerevisiae expressing cellodextrin transporter (CDT) and intracellular β-glucosidase (GH1-1). In this study, we investigated the reason for the cellodextrin accumulation and how to alleviate its formation during cellobiose fermentation using engineered S. cerevisiae fermenting cellobiose. From the series of cellobiose fermentation using S. cerevisiae expressing only GH1-1 under several culture conditions, it was discovered that small amounts of GH1-1 were secreted and cellodextrin was generated through trans-glycosylation activity of the secreted GH1-1. As GH1-1 does not have a secretion signal peptide, non-conventional protein secretion might facilitate the secretion of GH1-1. In cellobiose fermentations with S. cerevisiae expressing only GH1-1, knockout of TLG2 gene involved in non-conventional protein secretion pathway significantly delayed cellodextrin formation by reducing the secretion of GH1-1 by more than 50%. However, in cellobiose fermentations with S. cerevisiae expressing both GH1-1 and CDT-1, TLG2 knockout did not show a significant effect on cellodextrin formation, although secretion of GH1-1 was reduced by more than 40%. These results suggest that the development of new intracellular β-glucosidase, not influenced by non-conventional protein secretion, is required for better cellobiose fermentation performances of engineered S. cerevisiae fermenting cellobiose.