• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.334-342
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• 2001

Background : RpoB gene mutations have been found in about 96-98% of rifampicin (RMP)-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Recent reports confirm that the in laboratory settings a rpoB gene mutation can be used as a surrogate marker for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. However, its usefulness in clinical applications has not been evaluated. This study was performed to confirm whether mutation analysis of the rpoB gene of M. tuberculosis is useful in clinical settings. Methods : The medical records of 33 patients in whom rpoB gene analysis was conducted using an INNOLiPA Rif. TB assay (LiPA) from June, 1998, to July, 2000, at the Asan Medical Center were retrospectively reviewed in 33 patients. The clinical characteristics in addition to the drug susceptibility and LiPA results were analyzed. The drug susceptibility test was considered as a gold standard method for M. tuberculosis susceptibility and these results were compared with those of the rpoB gene study and sequencing analysis. Sequencing analysis of the rpoB gene was done in cases where there was a discrepancy between the results of the drug susceptibility an d rpoB gene study. Results : The mean age and sex ratio was $42{\pm}18$, and 24:9 (M:F), respectively. There were 19 RMP susceptible (58%) and 14 RMP-resistant cases (42%) according to the rpoB gene study. The mean time from the request to reporting the results of the rpoB gene study was $5.2{\pm}2.6$ days. The mean gap from reporting the rpoB gene study to reporting the susceptibility was $56{\pm}35$ days. Twenty-eight cases (85%) showed identical results compared with the drug susceptibility results, whereas five cases (15%) showed contradictory results. When compared with the sequencing analysis, of the five cases that showed contradictory results, two had LiP A analysis errors and the remaining three were identical to the sequencing results. The rpoB gene study was of assistance in choosing the appropriate drugs in 28 cases (85%). Conclusions : An rpoB gene study using an LiP A assay was useful in rapidly diagnosing RMP-resistant tuberculosis, which enabled a proper choice of the appropriate drugs in clinical practices. However, an LiPA assay always should be performed in conjunction with microscopy, culture, and susceptibility tests.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.187-210
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• 2009

Space law(or outer space law) and the law of the sea are branches of international law dealing with activities in geographical ares which do not or do only in part come under national sovereignty. Legal rules pertaining to the outer space and sea began to develop once activities emerged in those areas: amongst others, activities dealing with transportation, research, exploration, defense and exploitation. Naturally the law of the sea developed first, followed, early in the twentieth century, by air law, and later in the century by space law. Obviously the law of the sea, of the air and of outer space influence each other. Ideas have been borrowed from one field and applied to another. This article examines some analogies and differences between the outer space law and the law of the sea, especially from the perspective of the legal status, the exploration and exploitation of the natural resources and environment. As far as the comparisons of the legal status between the outer space and high seas are concerned the two areas are res extra commercium. The latter is res extra commercium based on both the customary international law and treaty, however, the former is different respectively according to the customary law and treaty. Under international customary law, whilst outer space constitutes res extra commercium, celestial bodies are res nullius. However as among contracting States of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, both outer space and celestial bodies are declared res extra commercium. As for the comparisons of the exploration and exploitation of natural resources between the Moon including other celestial bodies in 1979 Moon Agreement and the deep sea bed in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the both areas are the common heritage of mankind. The latter gives us very systematic models such as International Sea-bed Authority, however, the international regime for the former will be established as the exploitation of the natural resources of the celestial bodies other than the Earth is about to become feasible. Thus Moon Agreement could not impose a moratorium, but would merely permit orderly attempts to establish that such exploitation was in fact feasible and practicable, by allowing experimental beginnings and thereafter pilot operations. As Professor Carl Christol said until the parties of the Moon Agreement were able to put into operation the legal regime for the equitable sharing of benefits, they would remain free to disregard the Common Heritage of Mankind principle. Parties to one or both of the agreements would retain jurisdiction over national space activities. In so far as the comparisons of the protection of the environment between the outer space and sea is concerned the legal instruments for the latter are more systematically developed than the former. In the case of the former there are growing tendencies of concerning the environmental threats arising from space activities these days. There is no separate legal instrument to deal with those problems.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.45 no.8
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• pp.795-804
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• 2012

Recently, changes in rainfall intensity and patterns have been causing increasing soil loss worldwide. As a result, the water ecosystem becomes worse and crops yield are reduced with soil loss and nutrient loss with it. Many studies have been proposed to estimate runoff and soil loss to predict or decrease non-point source pollution. Although the USLE has been used for many years in estimating soil losses, the USLE cannot reflect effects on soil loss of changes in rainfall intensity and patterns. The WEPP, physically based model, is capable of predicting soil loss and runoff using various rainfall intensity. In this study, the WEPP model was simulated for sediment yield, runoff and peak runoff using data of 5, 10, 30, 60 minute term rainfall, Huff's method and design rainfall. In case of rainfall interval of 5 minutes and 60 minutes, the sediment and runoff values decreased by 24% and 19%, respectively. The peak rate runoff values decreased by 16% when rainfall interval changed from 5 minutes to 60 minutes, indicating the peak rate runoff values are affected by rainfall intensity to some degrees. As a result of simulating using Huff's method, all values (sediment yield, runoff, peak runoff) were found to be the greatest at third quartile. According to the analysis under various design rainfall conditions (2, 3, 5, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, 200, 300 years frequency), sediment yield, runoff, and peak runoff of 906.2%, 249.4% and 183.9% were estimated using 2 year to 300 year frequency rainfall data.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.178-184
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• 2012

This study was carried out to decide ITS (internal transcribed spacer) sequence of some Korean native $Aster$ species and to resolve their relationship among Korean native $Aster$, including $Kalimeris$, $Gymnaster$, $Heteropappus$ genus separated from $Aster$ in a previously study based on the pappus length. We registered 11 ITS sequences of $Aster$ species including $A.$ $glehni$ to GenBank and those sequences were used for the cluster analysis with $Kalimeris$ species. The size of ITS1 was varied from 248 to 256 bp, while ITS2 was varied from 220 to 222 bp. The G + C content of the ITS region ranged from 49.4 to 53.5%. Pairwise comparison results showed that the substitution rate of ITS1 and ITS2 region was 9% and 10%, respectively. $Kalimeris$ sensu strict substitution rate was lower than that of $Aster$ sensu strict species. The strict consensus parsimonious cluster analysis showed $A.$ $tripolium$ is the first branching from the clade and the next is $A.$ $scaber$. The $Kalimeris$ species except for the $A.$ $hispidus$ were grouped into the same clade with high bootstrap value (91%) within $Aster$. $Gymnaster$ and $Heteropappus$ that has been classified by morphological characters were also grouped into broad sense $Aster$ clade. These results implied these three genera could be merged together into $Aster$ based on the ITS sequences.

• 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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• 2014.10a
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• pp.32-32
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• 2014

Meju is a brick of dried fermented soybeans and is the core material for Jang such as Doenjang and Ganjang. Jang is produced by addition of salty water to Meju and is considered the essential sauces of authentic Korean cuisine. Meju is fermented by diverse microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi and yeasts. It is known that fungi play an important role in the Meju fermentation and they degrade macromolecules of the soybeans into small nutrient molecules. In previous study, 26 genera and 0 species were reported as Meju fungi. However, it is not comprehensively examined where the fungi present on the Meju are originated. In order to elucidate the origin of the fungi present on the Meju, the mycobiota of 500 samples soybean kernels, 296 rice straw pieces and air samples of Jang factories was determined in 0, 2 and 7 Jang factories respectively. Forty-one genera covering 86 species were isolated from the soybeans and 33 species were identical with the species from Meju. From sodium hypochlorite untreated soybeans, Eurotium herbariorum, Eurotium repens, Cladosporium tenuissimum, Fusarium fujikuroi, Aspergillus oryzae/flavus and Penicillium steckii were the predominant species. In case of sodium hypochlorite-treated soybeans, Eurotium herbariorum, E. repens and Cladosporium tenuissimum were the predominant species. Of the 4 genera and 86 species isolated from soybeans, 3 genera and 33 species were also found in Meju. Thirty-nine genera and 92 species were isolated from the rice straws and 40 species were identical with the species from Meju. Fusarium asiaticum, Cladosporium cladosporioides, Aspergillus tubingensis, A. oryzae, E. repens and Eurotium chevalieri were frequently isolated from the rice straw obtained from many factories. Twelve genera and 40 species of fungi that were isolated in the rice straw in this study, were also isolated from Meju. Especially, A. oryzae, C. cladosporioides, E. chevalieri, E. repens, F. asiaticum and Penicillium polonicum that are abundant species in Meju, were also isolated frequently from rice straw. C. cladosporioides, F. asiaticum and P. polonicum that are abundant in low temperature fermentation process of Meju fermentation, were frequently isolated from rice straw incubated at $5^{\circ}C$ and $25^{\circ}C$, while A. oryzae, E. repens and E. chevalieri that are abundant in high temperature fermentation process of Meju fermentation, were frequently isolated from rice straw incubated at $25^{\circ}C$ and $35^{\circ}C$. This suggests that the mycobiota of rice straw have a large influence in mycobiota of Meju. Thirty-nine genera and 92 species were isolated from the air of Jang factories and 34 species were identical with the species from Meju. In outside air of the fermentation room, Cladosporium sp. and Cladosporium cladosporioides were the dominant species, followed by Cladosporium tenuissimum, Eurotium sp., Phoma sp. Sistotrema brinkmannii, Alternaria sp., Aspergillus fumigatus, Schizophyllum commune, and Penicillium glabrum. In inside air of the fermentation room, Cladosporium sp., Aspergillus oryzae, Penicillium chrysogenum, A. nidulans, Aspergillus sp., C. cladosporioides, Eurotium sp., Penicillium sp., C. tenuissimum, A. niger, E. herbariorum, A. sydowii, and E. repens were collected with high frequency. The concentrations of the genus Aspergillus, Eurotium and Penicillium were significantly higher in inside air than outside air. From this results, the origin of fungi present on Meju was inferred. Of the dominant fungal species present on Meju, Lichtheimia ramosa, Mucor circinelloides, Mucor racemosus, and Scopulariopsis brevicaulis are thought to be originated from outside air, because these species are not or are rarely isolated from rice straw and soybean; however, they were detected outside air of fermentation room and are species commonly found in indoor environments. However, A. oryzae, P. polonicum, E. repens, P. solitum, and E. chevalieri, which are frequently found on Meju, are common in rice straw and could be transferred from rice straw to Meju. The fungi grow and produce abundant spores during Meju fermentation, and after the spores accumulate in the air of fermentation room, they could influence mycobiota of Meju fermentation in the following year. This could explain why concentrations of the genus Aspergillus, Eurotium, and Penicillium are much higher inside than outside of the fermentation rooms.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.143-159
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• 2015

Predicting IT trends has been a long and important subject for information systems research. IT trend prediction makes it possible to acknowledge emerging eras of innovation and allocate budgets to prepare against rapidly changing technological trends. Towards the end of each year, various domestic and global organizations predict and announce IT trends for the following year. For example, Gartner Predicts 10 top IT trend during the next year, and these predictions affect IT and industry leaders and organization's basic assumptions about technology and the future of IT, but the accuracy of these reports are difficult to verify. Social media data can be useful tool to verify the accuracy. As social media services have gained in popularity, it is used in a variety of ways, from posting about personal daily life to keeping up to date with news and trends. In the recent years, rates of social media activity in Korea have reached unprecedented levels. Hundreds of millions of users now participate in online social networks and communicate with colleague and friends their opinions and thoughts. In particular, Twitter is currently the major micro blog service, it has an important function named 'tweets' which is to report their current thoughts and actions, comments on news and engage in discussions. For an analysis on IT trends, we chose Tweet data because not only it produces massive unstructured textual data in real time but also it serves as an influential channel for opinion leading on technology. Previous studies found that the tweet data provides useful information and detects the trend of society effectively, these studies also identifies that Twitter can track the issue faster than the other media, newspapers. Therefore, this study investigates how frequently the predicted IT trends for the following year announced by public organizations are mentioned on social network services like Twitter. IT trend predictions for 2013, announced near the end of 2012 from two domestic organizations, the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA) and the National Information Society Agency (NIA), were used as a basis for this research. The present study analyzes the Twitter data generated from Seoul (Korea) compared with the predictions of the two organizations to analyze the differences. Thus, Twitter data analysis requires various natural language processing techniques, including the removal of stop words, and noun extraction for processing various unrefined forms of unstructured data. To overcome these challenges, we used SAS IRS (Information Retrieval Studio) developed by SAS to capture the trend in real-time processing big stream datasets of Twitter. The system offers a framework for crawling, normalizing, analyzing, indexing and searching tweet data. As a result, we have crawled the entire Twitter sphere in Seoul area and obtained 21,589 tweets in 2013 to review how frequently the IT trend topics announced by the two organizations were mentioned by the people in Seoul. The results shows that most IT trend predicted by NIPA and NIA were all frequently mentioned in Twitter except some topics such as 'new types of security threat', 'green IT', 'next generation semiconductor' since these topics non generalized compound words so they can be mentioned in Twitter with other words. To answer whether the IT trend tweets from Korea is related to the following year's IT trends in real world, we compared Twitter's trending topics with those in Nara Market, Korea's online e-Procurement system which is a nationwide web-based procurement system, dealing with whole procurement process of all public organizations in Korea. The correlation analysis show that Tweet frequencies on IT trending topics predicted by NIPA and NIA are significantly correlated with frequencies on IT topics mentioned in project announcements by Nara market in 2012 and 2013. The main contribution of our research can be found in the following aspects: i) the IT topic predictions announced by NIPA and NIA can provide an effective guideline to IT professionals and researchers in Korea who are looking for verified IT topic trends in the following topic, ii) researchers can use Twitter to get some useful ideas to detect and predict dynamic trends of technological and social issues.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.110 no.3
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• pp.406-418
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• 2021

This study was conducted to evaluate optimal storage techniques for bare root plants and container seedlings of Quercus variabilis and Zelkova serrata in order to maintain high quality of seedlings until planting. Refrigerated storage treatments were given at two temperatures (-2℃ [freezing] and 2℃ [cooling]) for nine different durations (0, 15, 30, 60, 120, 180, 240, 300, and 360 days after storage). We analyzed total nonstructural carbohydrate (TNC) content and measured shoot moisture content (SMC) during the storage stage and survival rate (SR) and dry weight during the planting stage of seedlings. The TNC content and SMC of the seedlings of the two species decreased with an increase in storage duration. The TNC content of seedlings rapidly decreased after 180~240 days of storage. The TNC reduction rate in the freezing treatment was lower than that in the cooling treatment. Also, with an increase in the storage duration of the two species, the SMC reduction rate in the cooling treatment increased in comparison with that in the freezing treatment. In both the species, the SR after planting decreased rapidly after 60 days of cooling storage and 180 days of freezing storage, respectively. The SR after planting was less than 60% when the TNC content for both the species dropped below 20 mg g^-1. In addition, the SR was lower than 80% when SMC measured before storage decreased by approximately 30% and 20% for Q. variabilis and Z. serrata, respectively. Our results suggest that cooling (1~2℃) storage is recommended for a short-term period (2 months or less), whereas freezing (-2~-4℃) storage is suitable for longer periods (2~6 months). These optimal storage techniques, allied with seedling harvesting and handling systems, will improve the quality of seedling production in nursery stages and increase seedling growth performances in plantations.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.146-151
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• 2009

Purpose : To evaluate magnetic resonance (MR) imaging features of non-surgically treated tuberculous spondylitis and to evaluate the relationships between these features and clinical outcomes. Materials and Methods : Data from ten patients (male:female=6:4, mean age=45 years) with clinically proven tuberculous spondylitis who were treated nonsurgically over three months were analyzed retrospectively from 2000 to 2007. MRI was performed at least three times for each patient, at baseline, every three or six months, and at the end of treatment. All images were analyzed by two radiologists. Results : The mean follow-up period for the MR examination was 10.1 months (range, 4-17 months). Six patients had clinically complete resolution of tuberculous spondylitis with medication treatment only. Four patients were treated with surgical management alongside medication. All ten patients were divided into two groups by clinical outcome; six patients with complete treatment and four patients with incomplete treatment. In the complete treatment group, follow-up MR findings showed a loss of subligamentous spread of abscesses, decreased size of abscesses, no interval changes in vertebral body heights, and fatty changes in spinal lesions. MR findings in the incomplete treatment group showed bone marrow edema extension to adjacent vertebra, extension of the abscesses, and decreased height of the vertebral bodies. Conclusion : During the nonsurgical management of tuberculous spondylitis, MR imaging may play a role in predicting patient response to antituberculous drug treatment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.37 no.7
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• pp.432-440
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• 2015

Biochar, a by-product from pyrolysis of biomass, is a promising option to mitigate climate change by increasing soil carbon sequestration. This material is also considered to have potential to remediate a soil with heavy metal pollution by increasing the soil's adsorptive capacity. This study conducted the assessment of two biochars considering the climate change mitigation potential and heavy metal removal capacity at the same time. Two kinds of biochars (BC_Ch, TW_Ch) were prepared by pyrolyzing the biomass of burcucumber (BC_Bm) and tea waste (TW_Bm). The soils polluted with Pb were mixed with biochars or biomass and incubated for 60 d. During the incubation, $CO_2$, $CH_4$, and $N_2O$ were regularly measured and the soil before and after incubation was analyzed for chemical and biological parameters including the acetate extractable Pb. The results showed that only the BC_Ch treatment significantly reduced the amount of Pb after 60 d incubation. During the incubation, the $CO_2$ and $N_2O$ emissions from the BC_Ch and TW_Ch were decreased by 24% and 34% compared to the BC_Bm and TW_Bm, respectively. The $CH_4$ emissions were not significantly affected by biochar treatments. We calculated the GWP considering the production of amendment materials, application to the soils, removal of Pb, and soil carbon storage. The BC_Ch treatment had the most negative value because it had the higher Pb adsorption and soil carbon sequestration. Our results imply that if we apply biochar made from burcucumber, we could expect the pollution reduction and climate change mitigation at the same time.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.262-273
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• 2010

In the enzymatic hydrolysis of rice straw and wood meals using extra-cellular enzymes from Fomitopsis palustris, key factors which enhanced the sugar conversion yield were investigated in this work, such as enzyme production and enzyme reaction conditions, surfactant effects, and the surface structure of substrates. F. palustris cultured with softwood mixture produced 12.0 U/$m{\ell}$ for endo-${\beta}$-1,4-gulcanase (EG), 116.68 U/$m{\ell}$ for ${\beta}$-glucosidase (BGL), 18.82 U/$m{\ell}$ for cellobiohydrolase (CBH), and 13.33 U/$m{\ell}$ for ${\beta}$-xylosidase (BXL). These levels of BGL, CBH, and BXL activities were two to four folds more than enzyme activities of F. palustris cultured with rice straw. The optimum reaction conditions of cellulase-RS which produced by F. palustris with rice straw and cellulase-SW which produced by F. palustris with softwood mixture were pH 5.0 at $45^{\circ}C$ and pH 5.0 at $50^{\circ}C$, respectively. The sugar conversion yield of cellulase-SW had the highest value of $40.6{\pm}0.6%$ within 72 h when rice straw was used as substrate. By adding 0.1% Tween 20 (w/w-substrate), the sugar conversion yield of rice straw was increased to 44%, which was about four fifths sugar conversion yield of commercial enzyme, Celluclast 1.5L (Novozyme A/S). A low crystallinity and an intensive fibril surface observed by the scanning electron microscope may explain the high sugar conversion yield of rice straw.