• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.525-533
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• 1996

Chemical characteristics of the industrial wastewater sludge, degradation of the sludge in soil and CO2 generation and changes of nitrogen in soil treated with the sludge were investigated. The results obtained were summarized as follows: 1. Degradation rate of the sludge in soil was 26% at natural temperature, and 33% at incubation temperature at 12 weeks after treatment. 2. T-C, T-N and the C/N ratio of sludge in soil was 16.0%, 0.63% and 26, respectively, at natural temperature, and 15.0%, 0, 65% and 23, respectively, at incubation temperature at 12 weeks after treatment. 3, Camulative CO2 generation in soil treated with l%, 3% and 5% of sludge was 284, 440 and 512 mg/100 g, respectively, at natural temperature, and 440, 558 g and 654 mg/100g, respectively, at incubation temperature at 12 weeks after treatment. 4, Changes of :norganic nitrogen in soil treated with l%, 3% and 5% of sludge were 7.8, 12.8 and 16.3 mg/100g, respectively, at incubation temperature at 12 weeks after treatment. Mineralization ratio of organic nitrogen in soil treated with 1%, 3% and 5% of sludge was 10.7%, 13.6% and 15.2%, respectively, at incubation temperature at 12 weeks after treatment. 5. Chanties of pH in soil treated with 1%, 3% and 5% of Industrial wastewater sludge were in the range of 6.7~7, 5 at natural temperature, and 6.1~7.9 at incubation temperature at 12 weeks after treatment.

• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.445-453
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• 2016

Fixed robust routing is attracting attention as routing that achieves high robustness against changes in traffic patterns without conducting traffic measurement and performing dynamic route changes. Fixed robust routing minimizes the worst-case maximum link load by distributing traffic of every source-destination (s-d) router pair onto multiple candidate paths (multipath routing). Multipath routing, however, can result in performance degradation of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) because of frequent out-of-order packet arrivals. In this paper, we first investigate the influence of multipath routing on TCP performance under fixed robust routing with a simulation using ns-2. The simulation results clarify that TCP throughput greatly degrades with multipath routing. We next propose a candidate path selection method to improve TCP throughput while suppressing the worst-case maximum link load to less than the allowed level under fixed robust routing. The method selects a single candidate path for each of a predetermined ratio of s-d router pairs in order to avoid TCP performance degradation, and it selects multiple candidate paths for each of the other router pairs in order to suppress the worst-case maximum link load. Numerical examples show that, provided the worst-case maximum link load is less than 1.0, our proposed method achieves about six times the TCP throughput as the original fixed robust routing.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.275-281
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• 2014

Autophagy is a series of catabolic process mediating the bulk degradation of intracellular proteins and organelles through formation of a double-membrane vesicle, known as an autophagosome, and fusing with lysosome. Autophagy plays an important role of death-survival decisions in neuronal cells, which may influence to several neurodegenerative disorders including Parkinson's disease. Chebulagic acid, the major constituent of Terminalia chebula and Phyllanthus emblica, is a benzopyran tannin compound with various kinds of beneficial effects. This study was performed to investigate the autophagy enhancing effect of chebulagic acid on human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cell lines. We determined the effect of chebulagic acid on expression levels of autophagosome marker proteins such as, DOR/TP53INP2, Golgi-associated ATPase Enhancer of 16 kDa (GATE 16) and Light chain 3 II (LC3 II), as well as those of its upstream pathway proteins, AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and Beclin-1. All of those proteins were modulated by chebulagic acid treatment in a way of enhancing the autophagy. Additionally in our study, chebulagic acid also showed a protective effect against 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium ($MPP^+$) - induced cytotoxicity which mimics the pathological symptom of Parkinson's disease. This effect seems partially mediated by enhanced autophagy which increased the degradation of aggregated or misfolded proteins from cells. This study suggests that chebulagic acid is an attractive candidate as an autophagy-enhancing agent and therefore, it may provide a promising strategy to prevent or cure the diseases caused by accumulation of abnormal proteins including Parkinson's disease.

• Journal of Adhesion and Interface
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.45-50
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• 2012

Recently developed polyketone fiber has various applications in the mechanical rubber goods as reinforcement because of its good mechanical properties. However, its surface is not suitable for good adhesion with the rubber matrix. Thus, a surface modification is essential to obtain the good interfacial adhesion. Plasma treatment, in this study, has been conducted to modify the surface of the polyketone fiber. The morphological changes of the fibers by oxygen plasma treatment were observed by using SEM and AFM. The chemical composition changes of PK fiber surface treated with oxygen plasma were investigated using an XPS (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy). Finally, the effect of these changes on the interfacial adhesion between fiber and rubber was analyzed by using a microdroplet debonding test. By the plasma treatment, oxygen moieties on the fiber surface increased with processing time and power. The surface RMS roughness increases until the proper processing condition, but a long plasma processing time resulted in a rather reduced roughness because of surface degradation. When the treatment time and power were 60 s and 80 W, respectively, the highest interfacial shear strength (IFSS) was obtained between the PK fiber and natural rubber. However, as the treatment time and power were higher than 60 s and 80 W, respectively, the IFSS decreased because of degradation of the PK fiber surface by severe plasma treatment.

• Natural Product Sciences
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.242-250
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• 2013

The autophagy-lysosomal pathway is an important protein degradation system, and its dysfunction has been implicated in a number of neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's disease. Raphani Semen, one of the herbs of Yeoldahanso-tang (YH), has neuroprotective effects via the autophagy pathway. The activity-guided method was used to isolate and identify the components of Raphani Semen. In this experiment, the total extract of Raphani Semen was partitioned to n-butanol, methylene chloride, and water fractions. Flow cytometry data showed that only the water fraction showed autophagy-inducing activity in vitro. Compounds 1 and 2 were isolated from this water fraction by preparative HPLC separation. The structures of compounds 1 and 2 were identified as stachyose and raffinose, respectively, by the analysis of various spectral data ($^1H$ NMR, $^{13}C$ NMR, and MS) and comparisons with standard stachyose and raffinose. Of these two compounds, raffinose showed autophagy-inducing activity in PC12 cells through the mTOR pathway.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.185-195
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• 2014

Despite the enormous technical and economic efforts to improve environmental conditions, currently about 40% of the global population (or 2 billion people) are still lack access to safe water supply and adequate sanitation facilities. Pollution problems and transmission of water- related diseases will continue to proliferate. The rapid population growth and industrialization will lead to a reduction of arable land, thus exacerbating the food shortage problems and threatening environmental sustainability. Natural systems in this context are a transdisciplinary approach which employs the activities of microbes, soil and/or plants in waste stabilisation and resource recovery without the aid of mechanical or energy-intensive equipments. Examples of these natural systems are: waste stabilisation ponds, aquatic weed ponds, constructed wetlands and land treatment processes. Although they require relatively large land areas, the natural systems could achieve a high degree of waste stabilisation and at the same time, yield potentials for waste recycling through the production of algal protein, fish, crops, and plant biomass. Because of the complex interactions occurring in the natural systems, the existing design procedures are based mainly on empirical or field experience approaches. An integrated kinetic model encompassing the activities of both suspended and biofilm bacteria and some important engineering parameters has been developed which could predict the organic matter degradation in the natural systems satisfactorily.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.464-468
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• 1999

The effectiveness of current biodegradation test methods for degradable polymers under controlled composting conditions was studied in regards to the test temperature and compost condition. When biodegradability tests for the natural (starch, cellulose, PHB/HV) and synthetic (PCL, SG, PLA) polymers were conducted at temperature levels of 35 and $55^{\circ}C$ with compost cured at ambient temperature, the degradations of cellulose and starch were higher at $35^{\circ}C$ because of the priming effect. On the other hand, degradations of other polymers were higher at $55^{\circ}C$. In the biodegradation test at $55^{\circ}C$, compost harvested right after the thermophilic degradation stage showed higher biodegradation activities than the cured compost for both the synthetic aliphatic polyester (SG) and a natural polymer, cellulose. These results suggest that the biodegradation test conducted at $55^{\circ}C$ with the compost, harvested right after the thermophilic degradation stage during composting, showed the highest biodegradation activity under controlled composting conditions.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.1735-1740
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• 2010

The propellant KM10, a single propellant manufactured nitrocellulose, is known to cause natural degradation phenomena at long term storage. The self-life was estimated using generally used high temperature acceleration aging tests to analyze the content of stabilizer and using the Arrhenius equation & Berthelot equation to calculate reaction rate constants. According to the result of this study, self-life of propellant KM10 using the Arrhenius equation & Berthelot equation appear significantly different as 43.73, 16.53years and when compared with the paper of E. R. Bixon, self-life of propellant KM10 predicted using the Arrhenius equation was reasonably determined.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.735-748
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• 2018

In this paper, the cyclic behavior of steel beam-concrete encased steel (CES) column joints was investigated experimentally and numerically. Three frame middle joint samples with varying concrete slab widths were constructed. Anti-symmetrical low-frequency cyclic load was applied at two beam ends to simulate the earthquake action. The failure modes, hysteretic behavior, ultimate load, stiffness degradation, load carrying capacity degradation, displacement ductility and strain response were investigated in details. The three composite joints exhibited excellent seismic performance in experimental tests, showing high load-carrying capacity, good ductility and superior energy dissipation ability. All three joint samples reached their ultimate loads due to shear failure. Numerical results from ABAQUS modelling agreed well with the test results. Finally, the effect of the concrete slab on ultimate load was analyzed through a parametric study on concrete strength, slab thickness, as well as slab width. Numerical simulation showed that slab width and thickness played an important role in the load-carrying capacity of such joints. As a comparison, the influence of concrete grade was not significant.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.607-612
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• 1990

The biodegradation of Aroclor 1242 was investigated by the mixed cultivation of the natural bacterial isolates and a genetically engineered microorganism (GEM). The natural strain of MS-1003 degraded the Aroclor 1242 through the ortho-cleavage pathway, while the other strains through the meta-cleavage pathway. When the MS-1003 strain was additionally inoculated into the 1 day culture of the DJ-26 strain and then cultivated for 2 days, the Aroclor was degraded up to 86% and resulted in increase of the meta-cleavage product. But in the MS-1003 culture inoculated with the DJ-26, degradation of the Aroclor was limited to the level of each pure culture. By the mixed cultivation of the DJ-26 strain together with the DJ-12 or its GEM strain of DF-10, which degrades the Aroclor through the meta-cleavage pathway, degradation of the Aroclor as well as production of the meta-cleavage compound were lower than those of each pure culture. The degradation of Aroclor 1242 by the GEM strain was not improved over the parental strain. Therefore, a form of cometaboiism of Aroclor 1242 was found in the mixed culture of the DJ-26 and MS-1003 strains which degrade the Aroclor through the different metabolic pathway, but in the mixed culture of the DJ-26 and DJ-12 strains degrading Aroclor 1242 through the same pathway, a kind of competetion for the substrate was observed.