• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.67.1-67.11
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• 2022

Background: Budgerigar fledgling disease polyomavirus (BFDV) is the pathogen that causes budgerigar fledgling disease in psittacine species. The clinical signs of PBFV infection include ascites, hepatitis, and crop stasis. BFDV is associated with a high mortality rate in nestling birds. In contrast, adult birds only have mild symptoms such as feather dystrophy. Objectives: This study aimed to determine the prevalence, genetic characteristics, and phylogenetic analysis of BFDV in pet parrots in Korea. Methods: Fecal and tissue samples were collected from 217 pet parrots from 10 veterinary hospitals including Chungbuk National University Veterinary Hospital. The molecular screening was performed using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis of the small t/large T antigen gene segment. Full-length genome sequencing with the Sanger and phylogenetic analysis were performed on BFDV-positive samples. Results: The PCR results based on the small t/large T antigen gene marker indicated that BFDV DNA was present in 10 out of 217 screened samples. A whole-genome sequence was obtained from six strains and phylogenetic analysis revealed no significant relationship existed between the species and geographical locations amongst them. Conclusions: The prevalence of BFDV infection in South Korea is not high when compared to the prevalence of BFDV in other parts of the world, however, it has been reported sporadically in various species and geographic locations. The whole-genome analysis revealed 0.2%-0.3% variation in intragenomic homogeneity among the six strains analyzed. Korean strains are separately on the phylogenetic tree from their counterparts from China and Japan which might reflect the substantial genetic variation.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.52-60
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• 2006

This study investigated how wood properties (i.e., annual rings, sapwood, heartwood, and cracks) might affect preservative treatment in Japanese larch (Larix leptolepis) round-wood product. We specially focused on small-diameter (~10 cm diameter) wood that is commercially sold in market. Among 100 wood samples, the groups of sample with 13~16, 17~20 annual rings represented 33 and 27 in each frequency, while 2~3 and 4~5 mm annual ring width accounted for 72 and 68 in frequency. More than a half (54%) of wood samples contained a mix of heartwood and sapwood in its surface. The rest (46%) had only heartwood exposed in the wood surface. A wide range of checks were showed in the wood samples, but the highest frequency was observed in samples with 1~6 surface (1~14 mm in size) checks and 1~4 end-grain (8~14 mm in size) checks in each round-wood sample. Pressure treatment resulted in a wide range of penetration of ACQ (Alkaline Copper Quat) into the wood, showing $4.3{\pm}4.19mm$ penetration in the wood samples contained a mix of heartwood and sapwood in its surface. However preservative treatment was much less effective for the heartwood only wood samples, ranging average 1.3 mm with ACQ and 1.1 mm with CCA (Chromated Copper Arsenate). These penetration results shown in heartwood samples did not meet the penetration standard that is required for H3 by the Korean Forest Service in relation to wood preservation treatment. These low penetration results were not significantly improved even if we incised wood samples to improve treatment effect, showing only small increase of 0.7 mm with ACQ and 0.6 mm with CCA. When preservative treatment was tested with heartwood, penetration of preservatives decrease with increase of annual rings per a cross-section area (r=0.5345). We also found that the length and number of check had no effect on preservative treatment, showing r=0.1301 and r=0.1802, respectively.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.19-26
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• 2013

Pseudo sample neural network (PSNN) is a variant of traditional neural network using pseudo samples to mitigate the local-optima-convergence problem when the size of training samples is small. PSNN can take advantage of the smoothed solution space through the use of pseudo samples. PSNN has a focus on the quantity problem in training, whereas, methods stressing the quality of training samples is presented in this paper to improve further the performance of PSNN. It is evident that typical samples and highly correlated features help in training. In this paper, therefore, kernel density estimation is used to select typical samples and correlation factor is introduced to select features, which can improve the performance of PSNN. Debris flow data set is used to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed methods.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.66 no.6
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• pp.677-691
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• 2018

Reliability assessment of complex structures using simulation methods is time-consuming. Thus, surrogate models are usually employed to reduce computational cost. AK-MCS is a surrogate-based Active learning method combining Kriging and Monte-Carlo Simulation for structural reliability analysis. This paper proposes three modifications of the AK-MCS method to reduce the number of calls to the performance function. The first modification is related to the definition of an initial Design of Experiments (DoE). In the original AK-MCS method, an initial DoE is created by a random selection of samples among the Monte Carlo population. Therefore, samples in the failure region have fewer chances to be selected, because a small number of samples are usually located in the failure region compared to the safe region. The proposed method in this paper is based on a uniform selection of samples in the predefined domain, so more samples may be selected from the failure region. Another important parameter in the AK-MCS method is the size of the initial DoE. The algorithm may not predict the exact limit state surface with an insufficient number of initial samples. Thus, the second modification of the AK-MCS method is proposed to overcome this problem. The third modification is relevant to the type of regression trend in the AK-MCS method. The original AK-MCS method uses an ordinary Kriging model, so the regression part of Kriging model is an unknown constant value. In this paper, the effect of regression trend in the AK-MCS method is investigated for a benchmark problem, and it is shown that the appropriate choice of regression type could reduce the number of calls to the performance function. A stepwise approach is also presented to select a suitable trend of the Kriging model. The numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed modifications.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.181-186
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• 2017

This paper aimed to evaluate the results of alternative acute toxicity test on 83 wastewater samples. Each sample was tested by traditional method (using laboratory cultured D. magna as a test organism) and alternative method (using Toxikit which can be purchased from a specialized company). The relationship between Lab. culture toxicity and Toxkits toxicity indicated good relation ($r^2=0.84$, p<0.01, n = 83). Number of samples which showed a small difference of lower than 0.5 between two test methods were 52 and they account for 63 percent of collected samples. In addition, these 52 samples had a lower average toxicity of TU 0.5 (Lab. culture method) and TU 0.45 (Toxkits method). Whereas samples which indicated big difference of test results between two methods, had a tendency to show higher toxicity. From these results, alternative toxicity test method could be applied to the official test method, if samples would have a lower toxicity less than TU 2. Also, Toxikit standard toxicant test results indicated $EC_{50}$ values between 0.93 and 1.68 mg/L and these results were considered as valid for quality control standard.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.27 no.10
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• pp.1436-1442
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• 2014

Preservation of forage crops as silage offers opportunity to avoid the high risk of rain-damaged hay in the humid south-central USA. Recent developments with baled silage or baleage make silage a less expensive option than typical chopped silage. Silage has been important in the region primarily for dairy production, but baleage has become an option for the more extensive beef cattle industry in the region. Silage samples submitted to the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center Forage Quality Lab from 2006 through 2013 were assessed for dry matter (DM) and forage nutritive characteristics of chopped silage and baleage of the different forage types from commercial farms primarily in Louisiana and Mississippi. Of the 1,308 silage samples submitted, 1,065 were annual ryegrass (AR) with small grains (SG), the warm-season annual (WA) grasses, sorghums and pearl millet, and the warm-season perennial (WP) grasses, bermudagrass and bahiagrass, providing the remaining samples. Concentration of DM was used to indicate an effective ensiling opportunity, and AR silage was more frequently within the target DM range than was the WA forage group. The AR samples also indicated a high-quality forage with average crude protein (CP) of 130 g/kg and total digestible nutrient (TDN) near 600 g/kg. The cooler winter weather at harvest apparently complicated harvest of SG silage with chopped SG silage lower in both CP and TDN (104 and 553 g/kg, respectively) than either AR silage or baleage of SG (137 and 624 g/kg for CP and TDN, respectively). The hot, humid summer weather along with large stems and large forage quantities of the WA grasses and the inherently higher fiber concentration of WP grasses at harvest stage indicate that preservation of these forage types as silage will be challenging, although successful commercial silage samples of each forage type and preservation approach were included among samples of silages produced in the region.

• Textile Coloration and Finishing
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.282-291
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• 2010

Digital textile printing(DTP) is becoming more important because the production trend of textile printing goods is adapting to small-lot multiple items. Recently enhanced use of DTP is closely connected with production of high value-added products in fashion industry, which is also appropriate for quick response system(QRS). Quality of DTP depends on pre-treatment, after-treatment, ink, media, printer, etc. One of these parameters, Selection of good media is very important to obtain high quality of DTP products. Especially, the effects of media on printing quality of DTP according to yarn twist and structure of knitting fabric were examined in this study. Two types of yarn twist of 830 t.p.m and 1630 t.p.m for cotton knit were used and five types of media structures were knitted with single circular knitting machine. First, MIU, MMD, SMD's values are closely related with surface roughness of sample as well as printing quality. The hard twist samples were higher values than normal twist samples in the same media structure. In case of SMD, the values increased from plain to corduroy types. Second, aspect of line sharpness, line area, and line width values of hard twist samples decreased from plain to corduroy than those of normal twist samples. Third, line deviation values of hard twist samples, blurriness of line, also decreased than those of normal twist samples.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.863-871
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• 2007

Spectroscopic characteristics of river water from four major watersheds in the Ulsan area were measured to examine their potential for estimating water quality parameters. The total 176 river samples were collected from 44 sites of small streams within the watersheds during the year 2006. Spectroscopic characteristics investigated included protein-like fluorescence (FLF) intensity, fulvic-like fluorescence (FLF) intensity, terrestrial humic-like fluorescence (TLF) intensity, UV absorbance at 254 nm, and UV absorbance difference at 220 nm and 254 nm. Protein-like fluorescence intensity showed linear relationships with biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total phosphorous (TP) concentrations of the samples with the correlation of 0.784, 0.779, and 0.733, respectively. Due to the UV absorption characteristics of nitrate at 220 nm, UV absorbance difference at 220 nm and 254 nm was selected to represent total nitrogen (TN) concentration. Exclusion of some samples with PLF intensity higher than 5.0 improved the correlation between the UV absorbance difference and TN as demonstrated by the increase of the correlation coefficient from 0.392 to 0.784. Instead, for the samples with PLF intensity lower than 5.0, the highest correlation of TN was achieved with UV absorbance at 254 nm. The results suggest that PLF intensity could be used as the estimation index for BOD, COD, and TP concentration of river water, and as the primary screening index for the prediction of TN using UV absorbance difference. Some BOD-based water quality levels among the river water were statistically discriminated by the PLF intensity. Low p-values were obtained from the t-tests on the samples with the first level and the second level (p=0.0003) and the samples with the second and the third levels (p=0.0413). Our combined results demonstrated that the selected spectroscopic characteristics of river water could be utilized as a tool for on-site real-time monitoring and/or the primary estimation of water quality.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.518-523
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• 2018

This study analyzed the food safety in processing process of simple-processed fishery products. A total of 88 samples analyzed for the presence of pathogenic bacteria and physicochemical hazards. No major foodborne pathogenic bacteria, such as Salmonella sp., Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli O157:H7, were detected in any of the samples. However, Bacillus cereus (12 samples, 13.6%) and Staphylococcus aureus (15 samples, 17.0%) were frequently detected in both the intermediate processing stages and the final products, although cell populations were not high. Very small amounts of heavy metals and histamine were detected in some samples, in quantities that did not exceed the safe guidelines according to Korean Government regulations. Similarly, no other physical hazards such as foreign material were observed in any of the samples. We concluded that there are no significant pathogenic bacteria or physicochemical food hazards in simply processed fish products from Korea. The present study strongly suggests that increased food sanitation measures should be implemented to decrease the prevalence of S. aureus in simple-processed fishery products.

• Advances in materials Research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.93-105
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• 2016

KNN-based ceramics modified with small amounts of $Bi_4Zr_3O_{12}$ (BiZ) has been synthesized using high-throughput experimentation (HTE). The results from X-ray diffraction show that for samples with base composition $(K_{0.5}Na_{0.5})NbO_3$ (KNN), the phase present changes from orthorhombic to pseudo-cubic with more than 0.2 mol% BiZ addition; for samples with base composition $(K_{0.48}Na_{0.48}Li_{0.04})(Nb_{0.9}Ta_{0.1})O_3$ (KNNLT), the phase present changes from a mixture of orthorhombic and tetragonal symmetry to pseudo-cubic with more than 0.4 mol % while for samples with base composition $(K_{0.48}Na_{0.48}Li_{0.04})(Nb_{0.86}Ta_{0.1}Sb_{0.04})O_3$ (KNNLST), the phase present is tetragonal with <0.3 mol% BiZ addition and transforms to pseudo-cubic with more dopant addition. The microstructures of the samples show that addition of BiZ decreases the average grain size and increases the volume of pores at the grain boundaries. The values of dielectric constant for KNN and KNNLT compositions increase slightly with BiZ addition while that for KNNLST decreases gradually with BiZ addition. The dielectric loss values are between 0.02 and 0.04 for KNNLT and KNNLST compositions while they are ~ 0.05 for KNN samples. The resistivity values increases with BiZ addition and values in the range of $10^{10}{\Omega}cm$ and $10^{12}{\Omega}cm$ are obtained. The piezoelectric charge coefficient ($d{^*}_{33}$) is highest for KNNLST samples and decreases gradually from ~400 pm/V to ~100 pm/V with BiZ addition.