• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.125-133
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• 2017

Purpose: After the introduction of Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine in 1995 in Korea, it was included in the national immunization program in 2013. In the post-Hib vaccine era, some studies in other countries reported that invasive Hib disease affects adults, especially the elderly and immunocompromised persons, more often than it affects children. To evaluate disease susceptibility, quantitative and qualitative analysis of anti-polyribosylribitol phosphate (PRP) antibodies were carried out in Korean adults aged 20 to 85 years. Methods: Sera were collected from 39 healthy adults (20 to 50 years of age) and from 30 elderly adults (75 to 85 years of age) who did not have immune-compromising conditions. The concentration of anti-PRP immunoglobulin G (IgG) and serum bactericidal indices (SBIs) were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and serum bactericidal assay. Results: Geometric mean concentrations of anti-PRP IgG and geometric mean SBIs were $0.88{\mu}g/mL$ (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.17 to 3.85) and 354 (95% CI, 50 to 2,499) in young adults and $1.67{\mu}g/mL$ (95% CI, 0.53 to 5.24) and 449 (95% CI, 146 to 1,376) in elderly adults, respectively. When the threshold of seropositivity for anti-PRP IgG was applied as 0.15 or $1.0{\mu}g/mL$, which is the protective antibody level in children, seropositive rates were 87.2% or 53.8% in young adults and 100% or 60% in elderly adults. The seropositivity rates of the SBI ($SBI{\geq}4$) were 82.1% and 100% in the groups, respectively. Conclusions: Most subjects in the adult and elderly adult groups display immunity to Hib based on quantitative and qualitative antibody levels, but not all. Because high immunization and low Hib circulation rates may reduce the natural Hib immunity in the population, monitoring Hib immunity as well as disease are needed continuously.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.190-198
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• 2008

There is an increasing concern over heavy metal contamination of paddy soils and the subsequent translocation of heavy metals to rice. Objective is to monitor the status and long-term trend of heavy metal contamination in paddy soils, periodically. In 2007 survey, the average concentrations of As(arsenic), Cd(cadmium), Cu(copper), Ni(nickel), Pb(lead), and Zn(zinc) in 2,010 paddy soils nationwide were 0.87, 0.08, 3.33, 1.19, 4.95 and $4.67mg\;kg^{-1}$, respectively. Few sites, which were contaminated by As in 2003 and 2007 survey and by Ni in 1999 and 2007 survey, were over the threshold level for soil contamination designated by the Soil Environmental Conservation Act in Korea. Long-term change was shown that As, Ni, and Zn were gradually increased whereas Cd and Cu were decreased. In the distribution of extractable heavy metal contents, the modes of each heavy metal content were similar with the average contents of each heavy metals. Mean value of heavy metals except copper in paddy soils was higher than median value. It means that the downward distribution of heavy metal content in paddy rice was shown against normal distribution.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.317-325
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• 1994

The accuracy of dipyridamole stress/rest $^{99m}Tc$-MIBI myocardial imaging for detection of ischemia depends on reproducible image interpretation. To evaluate the reproducibility of visual assessment, agreement in interpretation among two independent observers, blind-ed to clinical data, was evaluated in SPECT images of 131 patients (94 males, 38 females; mean age $58{\pm}7yr$) with suspected coronary artery disease who underwent both dipyridamole stress/rest $^{99m}Tc$-MIBI myocardial SPECT and coronary angiography. The left ventricle was divided into twenty-nine segments in stress and rest SPECT images and each segment was visually graded according to a five-point scale (segmental score : 0=normal, 1=equivocal, 2=mild decrease, 3=severe decrease and 4=absent uptake). Overall concordance of segmental scoring between the two observers was 80%. The Pear-son's correlation coefficient (r) of the segmental scores for stress and rest images were 0.67 and 0.65, respectively, while the difference in score between the two images showed a correlation of 0.45 (all p<0.001). Agreement between two observers in final SPECT diagnosis as absence or presence of disease was 93%. The degree of agreement in segmental scoring showed no difference between patients with or without agreement as to the presence of disease. Therefore it appeared that cases with inconcordant diagnosis between the 2 observers were mainly due to a difference in individual threshold for interpretating the significance of a particular decreased uptake area rather than to a difference in perceiving the degree of the hypoactivity Thus, establishment of individual optimum thresholds in visual interpretation of myocardial SPECT may be helpful to improve reproducibility and accuracy of scan diagnosis.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.131-138
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• 2009

Heavy metal residues in soil, rice straw, unhulled rice, rice hull, polished rice, and rice barn on the rice paddy in the "Top rice production complex which is non-contaminated area were evaluated. It was observed that the average concentrations of As, Cd, Cu, Pb, and Hg in the paddy soils were 1.235, 0.094, 4.412, 4.728 and 0.0279 mg/kg, respectively. There were no cultivation areas exceeded of the threshold for soil contamination designated by "The Soil Environment Conservation Law" in Korea. For the polished rice, there were no samples exceeded of a permissible level of heavy metal residues such as 0.051 mg/kg of As, 0.040 mg/kg of Cd, 0.345 mg/kg of Cu, 0.065 mg/kg of Pb and 0.0015 mg/kg of Hg. For the uptake and translocation of heavy metals to rice plant, a main part of heavy metal accumulation was rice straw, and then rice bran. Furthermore, it shown that accumulation of heavy metals in unhulled rice, rice hulls, brown rice, and polished rice was approximately similar as low. The slopes of translocation of heavy metals from soil to polished rice were following order as Cd, 0.4321 > Cu, 0.054 ${\fallingdotseq}$ Hg, 0.052 > As, 0.021 > Pb, 0.008. It was observed that potential ability of Cd uptake in rice plant and then its translocation into polished rice was very high. Concentrations of copper and mercury absorbed in the rice plant were moderate for translocating into the polished rice, while the arsenic and lead in the plant were scarcely translocated into the polished rice. The distribution of heavy metals absorbed and translocated into aboveground parts of rice plant was appeared that there were remained at 63.3-93.4% in rice straw, 6.6-36.9% in unhulled rice, 0.6-5.7% in rice hulls, 3.2-31.3% in brown rice, 0.8-4.6% in rice bran and 1.1-26.7% in polished rice. The accumulation ratio of Cd in the aboveground parts of rice plant was remained at 26.7-31.3% in brown and polished rice.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.70-80
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• 2003

We report the first direct measurement of $CO_2$ flux over Kwangneung broadleaf deciduous forest, one of the tower flux sites in KoFlux network. Eddy covariance system was installed on a 30 m tower along with other meteorological instruments from June to August in 2002. Although the study site was non-ideal (with valley-like terrain), turbulence characteristics from limited wind directions (i.e., 90$\pm$45$^{\circ}$) was not significantly different from those obtained at simple, homogeneous terrains with an ideal fetch. Despite very low rate of data retrieval, preliminary results from our analysis are encouraging and worthy of further investigation. Ignoring the role of advection terms, the averaged net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of $CO_2$ ranged from -1.2 to 0.7 mg m$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ from June to August in 2002. The effect of weak turbulence on nocturnal NEE was examined in terms of friction velocity (u*) along with the estimation of storage term. The effect of low uf u* NEE was obvious with a threshold value of about 0.2 m s$^{-1}$ . The contribution of storage term to nocturnal NEE was insignificant; suggesting that the $CO_2$ stored within the forest canopy at night was probably removed by the drainage flow along the hilly terrain. This could be also an artifact of uncertainty in calculations of storage term based on a single-level concentration. The hyperbolic light response curves explained ＞80% of variation in the observed NEE, indicating that $CO_2$ exchange at the site was notably light-dependent. Such a relationship can be used effectively in filling up the missing gaps in NEE data through the season. Finally, a simple scaling analysis based on a linear flow model suggested that advection might play a significant role in NEE evaluation at this site.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.24 no.3 s.64
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• pp.117-121
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• 1985

Through the laboratory and vinyl house experiments, the effects of inoculum density, plant age and temperature on the incidence of Phytophthora crown rot of pepper (Capsicum annum L.) were investigated. The propagule survival was greater in the natural soil than in autoclaved soil within first 2 weeks when the sporangial suspension of the pathogenic fungus was incorporated into soil, thereafter the survivability reduced rapidly. The propagule was not detectable in 35 days by means of Papavizas selective medium neither in natural nor in autoclaved soil. At least 5 sporangia per gram soil were required to induce crown rot for 30 days old pepper seedlings. Further increase in inoculum concentration above this threshold level resulted in higher disease incidence and shorter incubation period. When the same amount of inoculum was infested, higher disease incidence was observed for younger plants until 3 weeks after inoculation. On the other hand after 4 weeks this tendency was not extended any more. Younger plants were recognized as having shorter incubation period upon infection, however, the days from first symptom appearance to complete death were not significantly different among differently aged seedlings. Exposure of inoculated pepper seedlings to $25^{\circ}C$ resulted in highest infection rates and followed by those to $30^{\circ}C\;and\;20^{\circ}C$ but no disease was found at $15^{\circ}C\;and\;35^{\circ}C$ for 10 days. When the plants previously incubated at different temperature for 10 days were moved to $25^{\circ}C$ room temperature, prior exposure to $20^{\circ}C\;and\;30^{\circ}C$ brought continuous disease development. Even those plants preincubated at $15^{\circ}C$ were diseased up to 50%. But the prior exposure to $35^{\circ}C$ induced no symptom developed, indicating no seedlings infected at all.

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.39-47
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• 2003

The leaf aqueous extracts from five gymnosperms plant were investigated for allelopathy with five Hibiscus syriacus varieties. The leaf aqueous extract of Pinus rigida had the highest total phenolic compound of 2.21mg/L, whereas the soil under Pinus koraiensis canopy had the highest total phenolic compound of 1.38mg/L. Fourteen phenolic compounds were isolated from five gymnosperm plants by HPLC. Among them, phenolic compounds were the highest in P. rigida (320.56 g/mg) with the primary compound 5-sulfosalicylic acid (312.55 g/mg). The correlation between leaf total phenolic compound and pH was not significant, while the total phenolic compound of the leaf extract changed soil pH. The relative seed germination of H. syriacus varieties showed 25% was threshold concentration. The germination rates of varieties were similar to the control group or showed slight stimulation to treatment of P. koraiensis extract. H. syriacus Cambanha was similar to the control group or showed stimulation in all treated groups. H. syriacus Seohohyang showed stimulation in both root and shoot growth compared to the control group. In other varieties except Seohohyang, shoot growth was similar to the control group, while root growth was stimulated in all treated groups. The extracts of tested gymnosperms showed significantly more stimulation to transplanted Seohohyang seedlings, whereas others were similar to control or inhibited in the greenhouse. The dry weight of Seohohyang was greater in all treated groups than the control group, while other varieties were inhibited. All gymnosperm extracts stimulated the chlorophyll contents of Seohohyang and H. syriacus Koyoro but other varieties were not significantly affected. Accordingly, it is suggested that Seohohyang seems the most desirable when planted within these five gymnosperms.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.95-108
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• 2016

China has recently advocated a national strategy called "One Belt One Road" and transferred to execution to refine it into detailed action plans and has continued to fix the complement. However, the Korean Peninsula, including the North Korea remains could not be included at all in the Chinese development policy and framework in terms of the International Logistics. Currently it is raised between Korea-China rail ferry system again and that is when we need to make effective policy development on international multimodal transport system in Northeast Asia. This paper introduces the K-LB (Korea LandBridge) as its execution plan and conducted a feasibility study on this. K-LB consists of a Korea-Russian train ferry system based in Pohang Yeongil New Port(light-wing) and a Korea-China train ferry system based in Saemangeum New Port(left-wing). These two wings are linked to the existing rail system in Korea. This study is convinced that the K-LB is an effective international logistics system in the current terms and conditions and also demonstrated that it is feasible to introduce th K-LB on the peninsula. More strictly speaking, through a linear programming under objective function that minimize the transport cost quantified prior to demonstrate the feasibility, the available ranges and conditions for the transportation costs that are ensured the effectiveness of the K-LB are presented as results. According to the results, if the transport cost of K-LB is cheaper about 34.5% than that of sea transport such as container transport, the object goods may be transported by K-LB on this route. It means that the K-LB system has a competitive advantage due to more rapid customs clearance as well as omitted loading and unloading procedures over container transportation system. It also noted that the threshold level may not be large. Therefore, K-LB has competitive enough to prove its introduction in the Northeast Asian logistics system.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2001

Total upland area for cultivating the vegetable crops in the Alpine soils of Northeastern South Korea has been extending its limit to meet the increasing demand of vegetable food in recent decades. About 70% of these alpine soils are located in over 7% of the slope and most of vegetable crops have been cultivated intensively without practicing the best management systems. Thus, soil erosion and continuous cropping system have degenerated the soil fertility and shown detrimental effects on water quality. We initiated an intensive and extensive investigation to characterize the fertility problems encountered in these uplands. Objectives of this paper were to characterize the fertility status in the Alpine soils cultivated with vegetable crops for many years and to provide the recommendations for adequate soil management measures including fertilization and erosion control. Soils in general have good drainage with textural classes of loam or sandy loam. Their topographical characteristics tended to lead them to shallow plow layers, and the steepness of the terrain created erosion hazard. Of the soils examined, about 11% of uplands over 30% gradient was found in need of an urgent reforestation. A high content of gravel and firm hardness of soil attributed to inhibit the utilization of farm machinery and plant-root development. The average soil pH 5.6 was slightly low relative to pH 5.70 of the national average. Organic matter content was high compared with 2.0% of national average, but decreased with the prolonged cultivation periods. Available $P_2O_5$ concentration was unusually high due to the consequence of over dose application with chemical and organic fertilizers. Exchangeable cations as Ca, Mg, and K were appeared to be decreased in these regions with prolonging the cultivation periods. There were no significant differences in cation exchange capacity (CEC) and electrical conductivity (EC) among locations. Heavy metal contents were mostly lower than the threshold of danger level designated by Soil Environment Conservation Law of South Korea. Results indicated that a proper countermeasure and the best management practice should be immediately implemented to conserve the top soil and fertility in the Alpine regions.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.487-494
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• 2008

An experiment was performed for zone refined Re-filament and normal (nonzone refined) Re-filament to reduce the background effect on the measurement of low level uranium samples. From both filaments, the signals which seemed to come from a cluster of light alkali elements, $(^{39}K_6)^+$, $(^{39}K_5+^{41}K)^+$ and $PbO_2$ were identified as the isobaric effect of the uranium isotopes. The isobaric effect signal was completely disappeared by heating the filament about $2000^{\circ}C$ at < $10^{-7}$ torr of vacuum for more than 1.5 hour in zone refined Refilaments, while that from the normal Re-filaments was not disappeared completely and was still remained as 3 pg. of uranium as the impurities after the degassing treatment was performed for more than 5 hours at the same condition of zone refined filaments. A threshold condition eliminating impurities were proved to be at 5 A and 30 minutes of degassing time. The uranium content as an impurity in rhenium filament was checked with a filament degassing treatment using the U-233 spike by isotope dilution mass spectrometry. A 0.31 ng of U was detected in rhenium filament without degassing, while only 3 pg of U was detected with baking treatment at a current of 5.5 A for 1 hr. Using normal Re-filaments for the ultra trace of uranium sample analysis had something problem because uranium remains to be 3 pg on the filament even though degassed for long hours. If the 1 ng uranium were measured, 0.3% error occurred basically. It was also conformed that ionization filament current was recommended not to be increased over 5.5 A to reduce the background. Finally, the contents of uranium isotopes in uranium standard materials (KRISS standard material and NIST standard materials, U-005 and U-030) were measured and compared with certified values. The differences between them showed 0.04% for U-235, 2% for U-234 and 2% for U-236, respectively.