• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.297-310
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• 2012

Aging-related degradation of nuclear power plant components is an important aspect to consider in securing the long term safety of the plant, especially the seismic safety, since the degradation of the components affects not only their seismic capacity but their response. This can cause a change in the seismic margin of a component and the overall seismic safety of a system. To better understand the status and characteristics of degradation of components in Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs), the degradation occurrences of components in the U.S. NPPs were identified by reviewing recent publicly available information sources and the characteristics of these occurrences were evaluated and compared to observations from the past. Ten categories of components that are of high risk significance in Korean NPPs were identified, comprising anchorage, concrete, containment, exchanger, filter, piping systems, reactor pressure vessels, structural steel, tanks, and vessels. Software tools were developed to expedite the review process. Results from this review effort were compared to previous data in the literature to characterize the overall degradation trends.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.211-217
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• 2013

A herd of polish lowland local sheep was divided into two equal groups: the first group was kept under an overhead shelter, and the second group was kept in a warm barn. The effect of maintenance on ewe's reproductive performance, survival as well as the growth rate of lambs, and their carcasses quality was investigated. The lack of differences in fertility and prolificacy of ewes as well as in the survival and growth rate between the groups confirmed a good adaptation of $\dot{Z}$ela$\acute{z}$nie$\acute{n}$ska sheep to low temperature. Harsh environmental conditions did not cause a significant decrease of the body weight growth; however, they brought in an (insignificant) reduction of subcutaneous fat thickness and meatiness of the loin part of a lamb's body. The fat content of carcasses obtained from lambs reared under the overhead shelter was significantly lower, with no differences of meat and bones contribution between the groups.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.181-187
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• 2018

Background: This study aimed to investigate out the influence of drought stress on the physiological responses of Dendropanax morbifera seedlings. Methods and Results: Drought stress was induced by discontinuing water supply for 30 days. Under drought stress, photosynthetic activity was significantly reduced with decreasing soil water content (SWC), as revealed by the parameters such as Fv/Fm, maximum photosynthetic rate ($P_{N\;max}$), stomatal conductance ($g_s$), stomatal transpiration rate (E), and intercellular $CO_2$ concentration (Ci). However, water use efficiency (WUE) was increased by 2.5 times because of the decrease in $g_s$ to reduce transpiration. Particularly, E and $g_s$ were remarkably decreased when water was withheld for 21 days at 6.2% of SWC. Dendropanax morbifera leaves showed osmotic adjustment of -0.30 MPa at full turgor and -0.13 MPa at zero turgor. In contrast, the maximum bulk modulus of elasticity ($E_{max}$) did not change significantly. Thus, Dendropanax morbifera seedlings could tolerate drought stress via osmotic adjustment. Conclusions: Drought avoidance mechanisms of D. morbifera involve reduction in water loss from plants, through the control of stomatal transpiration, and reduction in cellular osmotic potential. Notably photosynthetic activity was remarkably reduced, to approximately 6% of the SWC.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.380-388
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• 2017

Since the carrier sequence is not reproducible in a period of the random carrier pulse width modulation (RCPWM) and a higher harmonic spectrum amplitude is likely to affect the quality of the power supply. In addition, electromagnetic interference (EMI) and mechanical vibration will appear. To solve these problems, this paper has proposed an optimal RCPWM based on a genetic algorithm (GA). In the optimal modulation, the range of the random carrier frequency is taken as a constraint and the reciprocal of the maximum harmonic spectrum amplitude is used as a fitness function to decrease the EMI and mechanical vibration caused by the harmonics concentrated at the carrier frequency and its multiples. Since the problems of the hardware make it difficult to use in practical engineering, this paper has presented a hardware system. Simulations and experiments show that the RCPWM is effective. Studies show that the harmonic spectrum is distributed more uniformly in the frequency domain and that there is no obvious peak in the wave spectra. The proposed method is of great value to research on RCPWM and integrated power systems (IPS).

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.427-432
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• 2013

A new trichostome ciliate, Balantidium honghuensis n. sp., was isolated from the recta of Rana nigromaculata and R. limnocharis during parasite surveys in Honghu Lake, Hubei Province, central China in summmer of 2010 and 2011. Its detailed morphometric characters based on LM and SEM studies were described herein. The organism is oval in shape and thickly ciliated. The vestibulum is "V" shaped and occupies about 1/3 to 2/5 of the body length. The vestibular and nearby regions possess strong peripheral fibers which form a marked axial fiber about the cytopharynx. More than 10 contractile vacuoles are distributed along the periphery of the latter body. Comparisions were made between this new species and B. sinensis Nie, 1935. They were discriminated from each other in terms of general body forms, body size, and vestibulum shapes. Besides, special attention was paid to its high-speed daughter swarmers which we believed to be the infective stage of B. honghuensis. Possible infection routes of anura amphibian balantidia were discussed.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.72-76
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• 2006

Plasma-derived products are produced from plasma via fractionation and chromatography techniques, but can also be produced by other methods. In the performance of nucleic acid amplification tests (NAT) with plasma-derived products, it is necessary to include an internal control for the monitoring of all procedures. In order to avoid false negative results, we confirmed the usefulness of the bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) for use as an internal control in the detection of hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA in plasma-derived products. These products, which were spiked with BVDV, were extracted and then NAT was performed. Specificity and sensitivity were determined via the adjustment of primer concentrations and annealing temperatures. BVDV detection allows for validation in the extraction, reverse transcription, and amplification techniques used for HCV detection in plasma-derived products.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.100-105
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• 2011

The perception of the 20 adverse events of targeted therapy for metastatic renal cell carcinoma was compared among medical professionals. Thirty-seven oncologists, 167 nurses and 79 pharmacists participated in the survey, and the response rate was 61.9%, 98.2%, 84.9%, respectively. Results showed that the most serious adverse event was GI perforation (8.83 points, 10 being the most serious), whereas the least serious was anemia (5.32 points). There were significant differences among oncologists, nurses and pharmacists especially for the moderately-serious adverse event such as wound-healing complication and lymphopenia. Adverse Events Composite Score (AECS) for each targeted therapy was calculated by multiplying adverse event incidence rate and seriousness score. Sunitinib had the highest score at 6.86 point and bevacizumab had the lowest at 2.1. Among professional groups oncologists showed the lowest AECS, whereas nurses had the highest. The gap on the perception of the adverse events among medical professionals needs to be reduced to get better outcomes of medical therapies for cancer patients.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.124-130
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• 2020

The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas [L.] Lam.) is the sixth-most important crop in the world following rice, wheat, potato, maize, and cassava. Four varieties ('Beniharuka', 'Annobeni', 'Pungwonmi', 'Hogammi') and their Japanese cultivars are broadly distributed in South Korea. In the Korean marketplace, sweet potatoes are classified by color and shape, not by variety, making it necessary to differentiate varieties for uniform production and consumption. In this study, molecular markers were developed to distinguish the four varieties of sweet potato using SNPs and genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) analysis via a tetra-primer amplification refractory mutation system (ARMS)-PCR. The results revealed that three variety-specific fragments (164 bp and 241 bp of SNP 04-27457768 and 292 bp of SNP 03-16195623) were amplified in the 'Beniharuka', 'Pungwonmi', and 'Annobeni' sweet potato varieties. There were instances where some varieties produced three bands within the gel electrophoresis, indicating heterozygosity at the given SNPs loci. DNA sequencing analysis also confirmed the results of electrophoresis at the SNPs loci. Overall, these molecular markers would provide a useful, rapid, and, simple evaluation method for the Korean sweet potato marketplace, where the mixing of varieties is a serious issue.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.5631-5652
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• 2019

The existing defense strategy selection methods based on game theory basically select the optimal defense strategy in the form of mixed strategy. However, it is hard for network managers to understand and implement the defense strategy in this way. To address this problem, we constructed the incomplete information stochastic game model for the dynamic analysis to predict multi-stage attack-defense process by combining Bayesian game theory and the Markov decision-making method. In addition, the payoffs are quantified from the impact value of attack-defense actions. Based on previous statements, we designed an optimal defense strategy selection method. The optimal defense strategy is selected, which regards defense effectiveness as the criterion. The proposed method is feasibly verified via a representative experiment. Compared to the classical strategy selection methods based on the game theory, the proposed method can select the optimal strategy of the multi-stage attack-defense process in the form of pure strategy, which has been proved more operable than the compared ones.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.313-333
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• 2013

The web-encased steel-concrete composite (WESCC) beam is a new developed steel-concrete composite beam. Experiments of six simply supported WESCC beam specimens were conducted. The effects of the shear-span ratio and steel section type were all investigated on the static behaviors such as failure modes, failure mechanism and bearing capacity. The experimental results denoted that all specimens failed in bending mode and the degree of combination between the bottom armor plate of steel shape and concrete were very well without any evident slippage, which demonstrated that the function of bottom armor plate and web were fully exerted in the WESCC beams. It could be concluded the WESCC beams have high stiffness, high load carrying capacity and advanced ductility. The design methods are proposed which mainly consist the bearing capacity calculation of bending and flexural rigidity. The calculation results of the bearing capacity and deflection which take the shear deflection into account are in agreement with the experimental results. The design methods are useful for design and application of the innovative composite beams.