• Title/Summary/Keyword: International Agricultural Development

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Effect of degumming conditions on the fluorescence intensity of fluorescent silk cocoons: A combined experimental and molecular dynamics study

  • Chan Yeong, Yu;Ezekiel Edward, Nettey-Oppong;Elijah, Effah;Su Min, Han;Seong-Wan, Kim;Seung Ho, Choi
    • International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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    • v.45 no.2
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    • pp.56-69
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    • 2022
  • Silk is a unique natural biopolymer with outstanding biocompatibility, high mechanical strength, and superior optical transparency. Due to its excellent properties, silk has been widely reported as an ideal biomaterial for several biomedical applications. Recently, fluorescent silk protein, a variant of native silk, has been reported as a biophotonic material with the potential for bioimaging and biosensing. Despite the realization of fluorescent silk, the traditional degumming process of fluorescence silk is crude and often results in fluorescence loss. The loss of fluorescent properties is attributed to the sensitivity of silk fibroin to temperature and solvent concentration during degumming. However, there is no comprehensive information on the influence of these processing parameters on fluorescence evolution and decay during fluorescent silk processing. Therefore, we conducted a spectroscopic study on fluorescence decay as a function of temperature, concentration, and duration for fluorescent silk cocoon degumming. Sodium carbonate solution was tested for degumming the fluorescent silk cocoons with different concentrations and temperatures; also, sodium carbonate solution is combined with Alcalase enzyme and triton x-100 to find optimal degumming conditions. Additionally, we conducted a molecular dynamics study to investigate the fundamental effect of temperature on the stability of the fluorescent protein. We observed degumming temperature as the prime source of fluorescent intensity reduction. From the MD study, fluorescence degradation originated from the thermal agitation of fluorescent protein Cα atoms and fluctuations of amino acid residues located in the chromophore region. Overall, degumming fluorescent silk with sodium carbonate and Alcalase enzyme solution at 25 ℃ preserved fluorescence.

AQS: An Analytical Query System for Multi-Location Rice Evaluation Data

  • Nazareno, Franco;Jung, Seung-Hyun;Kang, Yu-Jin;Lee, Kyung-Hee;Cho, Wan-Sup
    • Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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    • v.15 no.2
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    • pp.59-67
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    • 2010
  • Rice varietal information exchange is vital for agricultural experiments and trials. With the growing size of rice data gathered around the world, and numerous research and development achievements, the effective collection and convenient ways of data dissemination is an important aspect to be dealt with. The collection of this data is continuously worked out through various international cooperation and network programs. The problem in acquiring this information anytime anywhere is the new challenge faced by rice breeders, scientist and crop information specialists, in order to perform rapid analysis and obtain significant results in rice research, thus alleviating rice production. To address these constraints, we propose an Online Analytical Query System, a web query application to provide breeders and rice scientist around the world a fast web search engine for rice varieties, giving the users the freedom to choose from which trial it has been used, trait observation parameters as well as geographical or weather conditions, and location specifications. The application uses data warehouse techniques and OLAP for summarization of agricultural trials conducted, and statistical analysis in deriving outstanding varieties used in these trials, consolidated in an Model-View-Controller Web framework.

Nonlinear Finite Element Method for Local Buckling in Plastic Greenhouse

  • Yerim Jo;Sangik Lee;Jonghyuk Lee;Byung-hun Seo;Dongsu Kim;Yejin Seo;Dongwoo Kim;Won Choi
    • International conference on construction engineering and project management
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    • 2024.07a
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    • pp.1317-1317
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    • 2024
  • As climate change escalates extreme weather events, the structural durability of plastic greenhouses, constituting 90% of Korea's facility agriculture, emerges as a critical issue. These greenhouses are pivotal for year-round crop cultivation and high-quality agricultural production. In 2021, collapses caused around US$2 million in damages, mainly due to heavy snowfall and strong winds, accounting for 97% of incidents. The Korean Ministry of Agriculture responded by disseminating disaster-resistant standardized designs, yet more robust standards are needed. Current designs rely on elastic analysis, but plastic greenhouses display nonlinear behavior due to factors like residual stress and local buckling. Our study employs a refined plastic hinge method and finite element analysis to analyze structures, considering progressive yielding. We conducted loading tests using scale down models of plastic greenhouses in accordance with similitude laws. Based on these tests, the deformation of models under different load conditions was measured and compared with the deformation of greenhouse using our nonlinear structural analysis. This study will contribute to the development of reliable design criteria for plastic greenhouses in response to climate extremes such as heavy snowfall and typhoons. In addition, by identifying the deformation characteristics of plastic greenhouses due to loads, it can contribute to establishing usability standards for greenhouses, and reinforcement measures for vulnerable areas which are easily deformed under load can be considered.

Analysis of Utilization and Maintenance of Major Agricultural machinery (Tractor, Combine Harvester and Rice Transplanter) (핵심 농기계(트랙터, 콤바인 및 이앙기) 이용 및 수리실태 분석)

  • Hong, Sungha;Choi, Kyu-hong
    • Journal of the Korean Society of International Agriculture
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    • v.30 no.4
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    • pp.292-299
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    • 2018
  • In a survey in which farmers were asked about their levels of satisfaction with agricultural machines, Japanese products scored higher than local products by 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4 times for tractors, combine harvesters, and rice transplanter, respectively. Japanese products corresponded to generally high satisfaction levels in terms of operating performance, operability, frequency of breakdowns, and durability, excluding sales price and after-sales services. Effective countermeasures through quality improvement are therefore necessary for Korean products. Furthermore, a survey of dealers showed that the components and consumables for core agricultural machines had high frequencies of breakdowns and repairs. Four major components of tractors represented 85.3% of all breakdowns and repairs, five components of combine harvesters represented 89.6%, and three components of rice transplanters represented 80.5%. Moreover, a comparison of the technological levels between local and imported machines showed that the local machines' levels were at 60-100% for tractors, 70-100% for combine harvesters, and 70-95% for rice transplanters. Small and mid-sized tractors, 4 interrow combine harvesters, and 6 interrow rice transplanters showed similar levels of technology. The results of the analysis suggest that action is urgently needed at a policy level to establish an agricultural machinery component research center for the development, production, and supply of commonly-used components, with the participation of manufacturers of agricultural machines and components, in order to enhance the competitiveness of local manufacturers and to revitalize the agricultural machine market.

Pre-Natal Epigenetic Influences on Acute and Chronic Diseases Later in Life, such as Cancer: Global Health Crises Resulting from a Collision of Biological and Cultural Evolution

  • Trosko, James E.
    • Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
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    • v.16 no.4
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    • pp.394-407
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    • 2011
  • Better understanding of the complex factors leading to human diseases will be necessary for both long term prevention and for managing short and long-term health problems. The underlying causes, leading to a global health crisis in both acute and chronic diseases, include finite global health care resources for sustained healthy human survival, the population explosion, increased environmental pollution, decreased clean air, water, food distribution, diminishing opportunities for human self-esteem, increased median life span, and the interconnection of infectious and chronic diseases. The transition of our pre-human nutritional requirements for survival to our current culturally-shaped diet has created a biologically-mismatched human dietary experience. While individual genetic, gender, and developmental stage factors contribute to human diseases, various environmental and culturally-determined factors are now contributing to both acute and chronic diseases. The transition from the hunter-gatherer to an agricultural-dependent human being has brought about a global crisis in human health. Initially, early humans ate seasonally-dependent and calorically-restricted foods, during the day, in a "feast or famine" manner. Today, modern humans eat diets of caloric abundance, at all times of the day, with foods of all seasons and from all parts of the world, that have been processed and which have been contaminated by all kinds of factors. No longer can one view, as distinct, infectious agent-related human acute diseases from chronic diseases. Moreover, while dietary and environmental chemicals could, in principle, cause disease pathogenesis by mutagenic and cytotoxic mechanisms, the primary cause is via "epigenetic", or altered gene expression, modifications in the three types of cells (e.g., adult stem; progenitor and terminally-differentiated cells of each organ) during all stages of human development. Even more significantly, alteration in the quantity of adult stem cells during early development by epigenetic chemicals could either increase or decrease the risk to various stem cell-based diseases, such as cancer, later in life. A new concept, the Barker hypothesis, has emerged that indicates pre-natal maternal dietary exposures can now affect diseases later in life. Examples from the studies of the atomic bomb survivors should illustrate this insight.

Effect of Temperature and Leaf Wetness Period on the Components of Resistance to Late Leaf Spot Disease in Groundnut

  • Pande, Suresh;Rajesh, T.Ratna;Kishore, G.Krishna
    • The Plant Pathology Journal
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.67-74
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    • 2004
  • A complete understanding of the epidemiological factors required for optimum for disease development facilitates the design of effective and reliable screening techniques and also disease prediction models. An attempt was made to study the effects of different temperatures ($15-35^{\circ}C$) and leaf wetness periods (4-24 h) on the development of late leaf spot (LLS) in three groundnut genotypes differing in their susceptibility to LLS infection. Irrespective of the genotype, the disease progress evaluated based on different components of resistance was maximum between $15-20^{\circ}C$ and minimum between $20-25^{\circ}C$. At temperatures $\geq$$30^{\circ}C$, LLS development was insignificant. The overall severity of LLS increased with an increase in the leaf wetness period from 4 h to 12 h a day. Further increase of wetness period to 16 h resulted in a rapid increase in the severity. Thereafter, the disease severity gradually decreased with an increase in the wetness period. The effect of temperature and wetness periods on the individual component of disease quantification was not uniform compared between genotypes with different levels of susceptibility/resistance to LLS infection. The results of this study indicate that temperature and leaf wetness period are critical in late leaf spot screening programs since the expression of disease symptoms measured from disease initiation till defoliation, varied differently in the test genotypes with respect to change in these two parameters.

Present Status and Prospects of Horticultural Seed Industry (원예종묘산업의 현황과 발전전망)

  • Kim Byung Soo;Om Young Hyun
    • Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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    • 1998.10a
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    • pp.336-352
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    • 1998
  • The horticultural seed industry has made great progress in the last fifty years of its history after the independence of this country. The industry has accomplished self-sufficiency in major vegetable seeds and has even gained international competitive edge in certain crop seeds, particularly in hybrid cultivar development. However, the industry is facing a crisis at present coming from excessive competition among the domestic seed companies as well as the foreign currency crisis of the country. Several major seed companies have already been acquired by multinational corporations. Many people in the country as well as agriculturists are concerned about this situation. Although it is true that the industry is undergoing hard times, this crisis can be turned into a chance for making new progress depending on the joint efforts of the groups responsible, i.e., private companies, public institutions, and policy makers. Therefore, we have to turn this crisis into an opportunity for self-reform and progress. We should not be discouraged or give up. We Propose some ideas for the Progress of the seed industry. Public institutions and policy makers should do such things in cooperation as 1) training human resources for future breeders, 2) securing a wide range of genetic resources and improvement of the management system, 3) basic science research including biotechnology, 4) releasing breeding stocks from germplasm enhancement through use of exotic accessions, 5) support for breeding region- or use-specific cultivars, and 6) collection of foreign agricultural information for breeding cultivars for overseas markets. Eventually the responsible group for the final development of commercial cultivars, production, sales and management is private companies. Therefore, private companies also should have to do their best to develop competitive cultivars with a missionary spirit and endeavor for both domestic and overseas markets in cooperation with public institutions. Management based on competition, professionalism and rationalism is also urged. We are going to conclude with optimism that we can make a new vault of progress once the private and public sectors closely cooperate for the development of Korean horticultural seed industry by overcoming this crisis.

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Review of the Current Research on Fetal Bovine Serum and the Development of Cultured Meat

  • Lee, Da Young;Lee, Seung Yun;Yun, Seung Hyeon;Jeong, Jae Won;Kim, Jae Hyeon;Kim, Hyun Woo;Choi, Jung Seok;Kim, Gap-Don;Joo, Seon Tea;Choi, Inho;Hur, Sun Jin
    • Food Science of Animal Resources
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    • v.42 no.5
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    • pp.775-799
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    • 2022
  • The purpose of this review is to summarize studies that investigate blood and the main components of fetal bovine serum (FBS) in vertebrates, including major livestock, and review the current research on commercializing cultured meat. Detailed research on FBS is still lacking; however, some studies have shown that FBS consists of proteins, carbohydrates, growth factors, cytokines, fats, vitamins, minerals, hormones, non-protein nitrogen, and inorganic compounds. However, there are few studies on how the composition of FBS differs from blood or serum composition in adult animals, which is probably one of the main reasons for not successfully replacing FBS. Moreover, recent studies on the development of FBS replacers and serum-free media have shown that it is difficult to conclude whether FBS has been completely replaced or serum-free media have been developed successfully. Our review of the industrialization of cultured meat reveals that many basic studies on the development of cultured meat have been conducted, but it is assumed that the study to reduce or replace ingredients derived from fetuses such as FBS has not yet been actively developed. Therefore, developing inexpensive and edible media is necessary for the successful industrialization of cultured meat.

EU organic policies reflected on EU, Wales and England organic action plans for the development of Korean organic action plan

  • Cho, Youn-Sup;Nicholas, Phillipa;Lampkin, Nicolas;Padel, Susanne
    • Proceedings of the Korean Society of Organic Agriculture Conference
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    • 2009.12a
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    • pp.281-281
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    • 2009
  • Although national and regional environmentally friend agriculture (EFA) and food development programmes such as the Life-Food Development Plan (LFDP) have been established in Korea, some policy measures in these programmes seem to be unsuitable for Korean organic farming development. Policy measures tend to support external input purchases of organic fertilizers rather than market development actions such as providing consumer information, research, education, training and statistical data collection. The development of an organic action plan (OAP) for Korea is therefore considered essential for the sustainable future of organic farming in Korea. The purposes of OAP are 1) to define and set the clear goals/targets for the organic sector development, 2) to integrate various organic stakeholders and public institutions in partnership, 3)to focus on specific issues with tailored measures and 4) to integrate and develop different policy measures (Stolze, 2005). Most EU member state countries have developed their own OAPs and each reflects its own priorities with regard to organic sector development. This study compares and contrasts the Welsh, England and EU OAP with the Korean Jeonnam Life-Food Development Plan (LFDP) in order to facilitate the development of the organic food and farming sector in Korea. Early action plan, for example, the first Welsh OAP(1999) focused support on developing the supply of organic products whereas later action plans (e.g. England OAPs in 2002 and 2004 and the second Welsh OAP in 2005) focussed more on developing consumer demands for organic products. The EU OAP (2004) also aims at market support related to consumer demand and then organic farming production for its environmental and other social benefits. OAPs not only provide specific issue-solving tools but also perform a role as providing a focus for organic sector development as a whole. The Korean LFDP provides issue-solving tools but plays no regulatory role such as policy development, harmonizing various policy measures and conflicting factors and providing evaluation tools for further development. A national-level OAP could also facilitate international trade of organic products. To achieve better harmonized and sustainable approaches for the Korean organic industry, National- as well as regional- regulatory policy systems are urgently required in the form of an Organic Action Plan.

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Feeding Effect of Whole Crop Rice based TMR on Meat Quality of Hanwoo Steers (사료용 벼 위주 TMR 급여가 거세 한우의 육질 특성에 미치는 영향)

  • Kim, Jong Geun;Jo, Cheroun;Zhao, Guo Qiang;Liu, Chang;Nan, Wei Sheng;Kim, Hak Jin;Ahn, Eok Geun;Min, Hyung-Gyu
    • Journal of The Korean Society of Grassland and Forage Science
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    • v.39 no.4
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    • pp.264-271
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    • 2019
  • This study was conducted to investigate the effect of whole crop rice based TMR on the meat quality of Korean Native Cattle (Hanwoo). Sixteen Hanwoo steers (average 8 months old) were divided into the control group (commercially marketed TMR) and the WCR-TMR group (whole crop rice based TMR). Feeding trials were carried out up to 30 months of age, and after slaughter, the strip loin were collected and analyzed for meat quality. There were no significant differences in proximate compositions of Hanwoo (P>0.05), and crude protein, crude fat and crude ash were 19.51~20.23 %, 11.53~11.35 % and 1.10~1.12 %, respectively. There was no significant difference in water holding capacity and cooking loss between treatments (P>0.05), but it was slightly lower in the control group. Among the various functional components in meat, β-carotene was not detected, but α-tocopherol was significantly higher in WCR-TMR group and vitamin A content in control (P<0.05). The a-value in the meat color index decreased significantly with longer storage period in the control group, whereas the WCR-TMR fed group showed no significant difference (P>0.05) according to the storage period. There were no difference between the treatments in the TBARS (2-Thiobarbituric acid reactive substances) value used as an indicator of lipid oxidation and in fatty acid content. But the control group had high myristic acid content, whereas the WCR-TMR supplemented group showed higher oleic acid and linoleic acid content. In conclusion, feeding of WCR based-TMR increased the α-tocopherol content, which is a functional ingredient in meat, and the other components were not significantly different from the control. Therefore, it was judged that there was no significant difference between WCR based and conventional TMR in meat quality characteristics.