• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.279-284
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• 2011

Protected vegetable production area is greater than 26% of the total vegetable production area in Korea, and portion of protected production area is increasing for flowers and fruits. To secure stable productivity and profitability, continuous and intensive monitoring and control of protected crop production environment is critical, which is labor- and time-consuming. Failure to maintain proper environmental conditions (e.g., light, temperature, humidity) leads to significant damage to crop growth and quality, therefore farmers should visit or be present close to the production area. To overcome these problems, application of remote monitoring and control of crop production environment has been increasing. Wireless monitoring and control systems have used CDMA, internet, and smart phone communications. Levels of technology adoption are different for farmers' needs for their cropping systems. In this paper, potential of wireless remote monitoring of protected agricultural environment using CDMA SMS text messages was reported. Monitoring variables were outside weather (precipitation, wind direction and velocity, temperature, and humidity), inside ambient condition (temperature, humidity, $CO_2$ level, and light intensity), irrigation status (irrigation flow rate and pressure), and soil condition (volumetric water content and matric potential). Scenarios and data formats for environment monitoring were devised, tested, and compared. Results of this study would provide useful information for adoption of wireless remote monitoring techniques by farmers.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.747-752
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• 2011

Wireless technology has enabled farmers monitor and control protected production environment more efficiently. Utilization of USN (Ubiquitous Sensor Network) devices also brought benefits due to reduced wiring and central data handling requirements. However, wireless communication loses signal under unfavorable conditions (e.g., blocked signal path, low signal intensity). In this paper, performance of commercial wireless communication devices were evaluated for application to protected crop production. Two different models of wireless communication devices were tested. Sensors used in the study were weather units installed outside and top of a greenhouse (wind velocity and direction, precipitation, temperature and humidity), inside ambient condition units (temperature, humidity, $CO_2$, and light intensity), and irrigation status units (irrigation flow and pressure, and soil water content). Performance of wireless communication was evaluated with and without crop. For a 2.4 GHz device, communication distance was decreased by about 10% when crops were present between the transmitting and receiving antennas installed on the ground, and the best performance was obtained when the antennas were installed 2 m above the crop canopy. When tested in a greenhouse, center of a greenhouse was chosen as the location of receiving antenna. The results would provide information useful for implementation of wireless environment monitoring system for protected crop production using USN devices.

• Agribusiness and Information Management
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.37-44
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• 2014

This study was conducted to evaluate light intensity and uniformity of two SMD (surface-mount device) type LEDs for protected crop production. A low-power (0.1 W) and a high-power (1 W) LEDs were selected and the intensity and uniformity was evaluated at different vertical (height) and horizontal (distance) intervals. When the horizontal interval of the LED bar was fixed, the light intensity increased and the uniformity decreased as the height decreased. At the 30~40 cm heights, 20~30% of the area showed $200{\pm}20{\mu}molm^{-2}s^{-1}$. As the horizontal distance of the LED bars increased, while the uniformity increased as well, the light intensity decreased. At the distances of 6~10 cm, 17~23% of the area showed $200{\pm}20{\mu}molm^{-2}s^{-1}$. When the LED bars were added to the sides, the light intensity and uniformity were generally improved. Results showed that the light intensity and uniformity depended on the height and interval of the LED bulbs; therefore, optimum arrangement for the crops interested should be determined through experiments.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.18-25
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• 1990

The above results indicate that vegetable crop production using vinyl houses continously increases. However, technical support and facility improvement are still insufficent to establish a full production system. In order to improve the cultural environment in facilities for better vegetable culture, several facters should be considered. 1. Facility design and arrangement should be made to improve micro-environments for crop growth and development because direction of facility and covering materials can affect the amount of light trasmitted into vinyl houses. 2. Cultivation of several leading varieties in each crop may not provide stable production and profit especially under undesirable environmental conditions. Thus, it is required to grow not only leading varieties but also other cultivars to decrease the economic losses. 3. Crops should be carefully managed when planted in early season not to experience low temperatures which induce growth retards. Early season cultivation requires proper selection of cultivars which are resistant to low temperture. 4. Active control of micro-environment in facilities should be made via improving the ventilation and irrigation systems.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.753-759
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• 2011

Protected crop production has been popular in Korea as well as in other countries. Intensive and continuous monitoring and control of the environment, which is labor- and time-consuming, is critical for stable crop productivity and profitability, otherwise damage could be happened due to unfavorable ambient and soil conditions. In the study, potential utilization of smartphone and remote access application in protected crop production environment was investigated. Tested available remote access applications provided functions of mouse click (left and right buttons), zooming in and out, and screen size and color resolution control. Wi-Fi data communication speeds were affected by signal intensity and user place. Data speeds at high (> -55 dBm), medium (-70~-56 dBm), and low (< -71 dBm) signal intensity levels were statistically different (${\alpha}=0.05$). Means of data communication speed were 6.642, 4.923, and 2.906 Mbps at hot spot, home, and office, respectively, and the differences were significant at a 0.05 level. Smart phone and remote access application were applied successfully to remote monitoring (inside temperature and humidity, and outside precipitation, temperature, and humidity) and control (window and light on/off) of green house environment. Response times for monitoring and control were less than 1 s at all places for high signal intensity (> -55 dBm), but they were increased to 1 ~ 10 s at home and office and to 10 ~ 30 s at hot spot for low signal intensity (< -71 dBm) for Wi-Fi. Results of the study would provide useful information for farmers to apply these techniques for their crop production.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.8-14
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• 2009

Pueraria lobata (Willd.) Ohwi was investigated to check its modulatory effects on the activation of macrophages upon inflammatory conditions treatment. For this purpose, we examined several inflammatory responses such as nitric oxide (NO) production, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, cytoprotection and phagocytosis under the treatment of methanol extract from P. lobata (Pl-ME). Pl-ME dose-dependently blocked NO production in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)- stimulated RAW264.7 cells but not sodium prusside (SNP)-generated NO release. The NO inhibition seemed to be due to blocking inducible NO synthase (iNOS), since Pl-ME suppressed its expression in a NF-${\kappa}B$-independent manner. Similarly, this extract also effectively protected RAW264.7 cells from LPS-induced cytotoxicity. However, Pl-ME did not block ROS generation and rather it enhanced. Finally, this extract negatively modulated FITC-dextran uptake. Therefore, our data suggested that Pl-ME may be involved in negatively regulating some macrophage-mediated inflammatory responses such as NO production and phagocytic uptake.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.108 no.4
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• pp.618-627
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• 2019

An increase in damage to crops and facilities caused by wildlife such as wild boar causes serious social and economic problems to the rural economy in Korea. This study aims to estimate the economic losses incurred to rural households in mountain villages near protected areas in Korea due to the damage to agricultural and forestry production by wildlife. The case of mountain villages located in Toji-myeon, Gurye-gun near the Jirisan National Park was studied as an example. Data were collected by interviewing 84 households across six mountain villages in April and June 2016. The results indicate that the economic losses due to wildlife damage in 2015 were estimated to be 1.65 million KRW per household, which is a total of 138.63 million KRW for the 84 households. Among local products, the most damaged products were chestnut, fern-brake, wild pear, peach, and potato, whereas the most damaged products per production area were sweet potato, peach, corn, and potato. The potential economic losses caused by wildlife damage to agricultural and forestry production in whole Gurye-gun area was estimated to be around 4.0 billion KRW in 2015. However, the municipal government budget for the compensation of wildlife damage was only 0.9 percent of the potential rural economic losses caused by wildlife damage in 2015. The results of our study suggest that the compensation scheme for wildlife damage is inadequate in the respect of social justice. Considering the low financial capacity of the municipalities in mountain areas, the central government should take a progressive responsibility by allocating more financial resources for compensation of economic losses of rural households due to wildlife damage. The equitable and effective governance of wildlife conservation is required for sustainable development of rural communities near protected areas.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.213-218
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• 2001

In 2000, domestic protected cultivation area was about 52,189 ha including 13,621 ha of heating greenhouses. Recently, heating cost accounts for 25 to 30% of total production cost which has been increased due to the rise of oil price, while the heating cost was about 15% in other advanced countries. To reduce the heating energy cost, the study of minimizing the heating space of greenhouse have been conducted from 1998 to 1999. The system was developed to control the heating space according to crop growth by moving horizontal curtain up and down. Installation of the heating space-control curtain in greenhouse decreased heating capacity to 264 m$^3$compared to 661.5 m$^3$in the traditional curtain, and consumpted fuel was saved about 56% point in semiforcing culture and 28% point in retarding culture of pepper. In addition, uniform distribution of air temperature and relative humidity in greenhouse environment resulted in earlier flowering and higher yields in hot pepper.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.432-437
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• 2022

In this study, strawberries were grown during the two cultivation periods (first: 2020-2021, second: 2021-2022) to analyze the effect of the external light environment and growing degree days (GDD) on crop production. The temperature and humidity during day in a greenhouse in each cultivation period were similarly managed. At night, there was a statistical difference in temperature and humidity in the greenhouse between two periods. The accumulated solar radiation during the first cultivation period was high in September and October. Since January, the accumulated solar radiation during the second cultivation period was high. In the second cultivation period, the initial yield was small because the accumulated solar radiation and GDD was small. But accumulated yields and potential maximum yields in second cultivation period were larger than yields in the first cultivation period as the accumulated solar radiation and GDD increased. The sugar contents of strawberry decreased as GDD increased.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.313-319
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• 2008

Scutellaria barbata was examined to evaluate its modulatory effects on the functional activation of macrophages under lipopolysaccharide (LPS) treatment. To do this, hot water extract (Sb-HWE) was prepared from Scutellaria barbata and several inflammatory parameters such as nitric oxide (NO) production, phagocytosis, reactive oxygen species (ROS) determination and intracellular signaling pathway were selected to be tested. Sb-HWE strongly blocked NO production in LPS-activated RAW264.7 cells in a dose-dependent manner. However, it did not suppress inducible NO synthase (iNOS). In agreement, Sb-HWE did not diminish inflammatory signaling composed of NF-${\kappa}B$ and its upstream activation signaling enzymes such as Akt and $I{\kappa}B{\alpha}$. Sb-HWE protected RAW264.7 cells from LPS-induced cytotoxicity up to 80% at 400\;{\mu}g/ml$. Furthermore, this extract blocked phagocytic uptake of FITC-dextran, while sodium nitroprusside (SNP)-induced ROS generation in RAW264.7 cells was not decreased. Therefore, our data suggest that Sb-HWE may have differential immunoregulatory function depending on macrophage-mediated immune responses.