• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.511-519
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• 2019

Objectives: The standard method for the enumeration of environmental Legionella is culturing, which has several disadvantages, including long incubation and poor sensitivity. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the usefulness of real-time PCR and to improve the standard method. Methods: In 200 environmental water samples, a real-time PCR and culture were conducted to detect and quantify Legionella. Using with the results of the survey, we compared the real-time PCR with the culture. Results: Each real-time PCR assay had 100% specificity and excellent sensitivity (5 GU/reaction). In the culture, 36 samples were positive and 164 samples were negative. Based on the results of the culture, real-time PCR showed a high negative predictive value of 99%, 35 samples were true positive, 105 samples were true negative, 59 samples were false positive and one sample was a false negative. Quantitative analysis of the two methods indicated a weak linear correlation ($r^2=0.29$, $r^2=0.61$, respectively). Conclusions: Although it is difficult to directly apply quantitative analysis results of real-time PCR in the enumeration of environmental Legionella, it can be used as a complementary means of culturing to rapidly screen negative samples and to improve the accuracy of diagnosis.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.30-34
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• 2019

We analyzed how the features in plasma information based virtual metrology (PI-VM) for SiO₂ etching depth with variation of 5% contribute to the prediction accuracy, which is previously developed by Jang. As a single feature, the explanatory power to the process results is in the order of plasma information about electron energy distribution function (PI_EEDF), equipment, and optical emission spectroscopy (OES) features. In the procedure of stepwise variable selection (SVS), OES features are selected after PI_EEDF. Informative vector for developed PI-VM also shows relatively high correlation between OES features and etching depth. This is because the reaction rate of each chemical species that governs the etching depth can be sensitively monitored when OES features are used with PI_EEDF. Securing PI_EEDF is important for the development of virtual metrology (VM) for prediction of process results. The role of PI_EEDF as an independent feature and the ability to monitor variation of plasma thermal state can make other features in the procedure of SVS more sensitive to the process results. It is expected that fault detection and classification (FDC) can be effectively developed by using the PI-VM.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.98-105
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• 2021

Background: In recent events of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, computed tomography (CT) scans are being globally used as a complement to the reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests. It will be important to be aware of major organ dose levels, which are more relevant quantity to derive potential long-term adverse effect, for Korean pediatric and adult patients undergoing CT for COVID-19. Materials and Methods: We calculated organ dose conversion coefficients for Korean pediatric and adult CT patients directly from Korean pediatric and adult computational phantoms combined with Monte Carlo radiation transport techniques. We then estimated major organ doses delivered to the Korean child and adult patients undergoing CT for COVID-19 combining the dose conversion coefficients and the international survey data. We also compared our Korean dose conversion coefficients with those from Caucasian reference pediatric and adult phantoms. Results and Discussion: Based on the dose conversion coefficients we established in this study and the international survey data of COVID-19-related CT scans, we found that Korean 7-year-old child and adult males may receive about 4-32 mGy and 3-21 mGy of lung dose, respectively. We learned that the lung dose conversion coefficient for the Korean child phantom was up to 1.5-fold greater than that for the Korean adult phantom. We also found no substantial difference in dose conversion coefficients between Korean and Caucasian phantoms. Conclusion: We estimated radiation dose delivered to the Korean child and adult phantoms undergoing COVID-19-related CT examinations. The dose conversion coefficients derived for different CT scan types can be also used universally for other dosimetry studies concerning Korean CT scans. We also confirmed that the Caucasian-based CT organ dose calculation tools may be used for the Korean population with reasonable accuracy.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.626-636
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• 2021

Boron-neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a cancer treatment method that exploits the high neutron reactivity of boron. Monitoring the prompt gamma rays (PGs) produced during neutron irradiation is essential for ensuring the accuracy and safety of BNCT. We investigate the imaging of PGs produced by the boron-neutron capture reaction through Monte Carlo simulations of a gamma camera with a SrI₂ scintillator and parallel-hole collimator. GAGG scintillator is also used for a comparison. The simulations allow the shapes of the energy spectra, which exhibit a peak at 478 keV, to be determined along with the PG images from a boron-water phantom. It is found that increasing the size of the water phantom results in a greater number of image counts and lower contrast. Additionally, a higher septal penetration ratio results in poorer image quality, and a SrI₂ scintillator results in higher image contrast. Thus, we can simulate the BNCT process and obtain an energy spectrum with a reasonable shape, as well as suitable PG images. Both GAGG and SrI₂ crystals are suitable for PG imaging during BNCT. However, for higher imaging quality, SrI₂ and a collimator with a lower septal penetration ratio should be utilized.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.309-315
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• 2020

Advances in biotechnology have led to progress in crop genetic engineering to improve agricultural productivity. The use of genetically modified (GM) crops has increased, as have consumers' and regulators' concerns about the safety of GM crops to human health, and ecological biodiversity. As such, the identification of GM crops is a critical issue for developers and distributors, and their labeling is mandatory. Multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been developed and its use validated for the detection and identification of GM crops in quarantine. Herein, we established a simultaneous detection method to identify four GM maize events. Event-specific primers were designed between the junction region of transgene and genome of four GM maize lines, namely 5307, DAS-40278-9, MON87460, and MON87427. To verify the efficiency and accuracy of the multiplex PCR we used specificity analysis, limit of detection evaluation, and mixed certified reference materials identification. The multiplex PCR method was applied to analyze 29 living, modified maize volunteers collected in South Korea in 2018 and 2019. We performed multiplex PCR analysis to identify events and confirmed the result by simplex PCR using each event-specific primer. As a result, rather than detecting each event individually, the simultaneous detection PCR method enabled the rapid analysis of 29 GM maize volunteers. Thus, the novel multiplex PCR method is applicable for living modified organism volunteer identification.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.25-32
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• 2019

Influenza A (H1N1) virus caused a worldwide pandemic in 2009-2010 and still remains in seasonal circulation. Continuous surveillance activities are encouraged in the post pandemic phase to watch over the trend of occurrence every year, this is better to be done by a rapid and sensitive method for its detection. This study was conducted to detect proportions of occurrence of influenza A virus (H1N1) in patients with influenza-like illness. Samples from 500 patients with influenza or influenza-like clinical presentation were tested by real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and virus tissue culture. Among the total 500 participants, 193 (38.6%) were females and 307 (61.4%) males. Seventy-one patients (14.2%) were positive for H1N1 virus infection with real-time RT-PCR while 52 (10.4%) were positive by tissue culture. Non-statistically significant relation was found between age and gender with the positivity of H1N1. Sensitivity and specificity of real-time RT-PCR was 98.08% and 95.54%, respectively, in comparison to virus isolation with accuracy 95.8%. This study showed that H1N1 virus was responsible for a good proportion of influenza during the post-pandemic period. Real-time RT-PCR provides rapidity and sensitivity for the detection of influenza A virus (H1N1) compared with virus isolation and thus it is recommended as a diagnostic tool.

• Journal of Biomedical and Translational Research
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.130-139
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• 2018

This study aimed to analyze a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) separation using a pentafluorophenyl column of parent drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and its active metabolite, desethylhydroxchloroquine (DHCQ) applying to determine bioequivalence of two different formulations administered to patients. A rapid, simple, sensitive and specific liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method has been developed and validated for bioanalysis of HCQ and its metabolite DHCQ in human whole blood using deuterium derivative $hydroxychloroquine-D_4$ as an internal standard (IS). A triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer was operated using electrospray ionization in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. Sample preparation involves a two-step precipitation of protein techniques. The removed protein blood samples were chromatographed on a pentafluorophenyl (PFP) column ($50mm{\times}4.6mm$, $2.6{\mu}m$) with a mobile phase (ammonium formate solution containing dilute formic acid) in an isocratic mode at a flow rate of 0.45 mL/min. The standard curves were found to be linear in the range of 2 - 500 ng/mL for HCQ; 2 - 2,000 ng/mL for DHCQ in spite of lacking a highly sensitive MS spectrometry system. Results of intra- and inter-day precision and accuracy were within acceptable limits. A run time of 2.2 min for HCQ and 2.03 min for DHCQ in blood sample facilitated the analysis of more than 300 human whole blood samples per day. Taken together, we concluded that the assay developed herein represents a highly qualified technology for the quantification of HCQ in human whole blood for a parallel design bioequivalence study in a healthy male.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.1123-1130
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• 2018

A cat robot for the Autism Spectrum Disorders(ASD) treatment was designed and conducted field test. The designed robot had emotion expressing action through interaction by the touch, and performed a reasonable emotional expression based on Artificial Neural Network(ANN). However these operations were difficult to use in the various healing activities. In this paper, we describe a motion design that can be used in a variety of contexts and flexibly reaction with various kinds of situations. As a necessary element, the speech recognition system using the speech data collection method and ANN was suggested and the classification results were analyzed after experiment. This ANN will be improved through collecting various voice data to raise the accuracy in the future and checked the effectiveness through field test.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.466-473
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• 2018

This paper presents an estimation method for the static configuration of a steel lazy wave riser (SLWR) using the dynamic relaxation method applied to estimate the configuration of structures with strong geometric non-linearity. The lumped mass model is introduced to reflect the flexible structural characteristics of the riser. In the lumped mass model, the tensions, shear forces, buoyancy, self-weights, and seabed reaction forces at nodal points are considered in order to find the static configuration of the SLWR. The dynamic relaxation method using a viscous damping formulation is applied to the static configuration analysis. Fictitious masses are defined at nodal points using the sum of the largest direct stiffness values of nodal points to ensure the numerical stability. Various case studies were performed according to the bending stiffness and size of the buoyancy module using the dynamic relaxation method. OrcaFlex was employed to validate the accuracy of the developed numerical method.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.178-185
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• 2019

Three spherical quaternary composites composed of metal/metal oxide/high explosive/oxidizer were prepared by a crystallization/agglomeration process. From the characteristics of composites by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), the shortening of the decomposition zone of high explosives in the quaternary composite was observed, which may be attributed to the autocatalytic reaction caused by $ClO_2$ or HCl which are ammonium perchlorate (AP) degradation products. The activation energy analysis showed that the activation energy abruptly decreases at the end of the decomposition zone of high explosives, and it was considered to be caused by $HNO_2$ which is common in decomposition products of high explosives. The activation energy predicted from complex pyrolysis results by the distributed activation energy model (DAEM) showed much better in accuracy than those by model-fitting methods such as Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose and Flynn-Wall-Ozawa models.