• International Area Studies Review
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.351-377
• /
• 2008

Corruption in China became increasingly serious during the early period of its social transition, resulting in severe economic losses and huge challenges to China's government institution, as well as gradually becoming socially widespread. Recently. China's political corruption is an outcome of the attenuated political control, which has been caused by a systemic change from planned economy to market economy since 1978, and the lack of institutionalization to relieve such transition. Besides, the immature market system and state's intervention in the economy are other factors for the corruption. In short, current China's corruption can be regarded as a structuralized phenomenon. This article identified such circumstance by analyzing the scope, degree, and scale of the corruption. Overall assessment of the some factors suggests that present economic modernization is a principal cause for Chinese corruption while the other factors-monopoly power system in the Chinese Communist Party and the transformation of connection-are important but secondary.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
• /
• v.45 no.2
• /
• pp.246-253
• /
• 2021

Background: Ginseng is one of the most valuable herbal supplements. It is challenging to perform quality control of ginseng products due to the diversity of bioactive saponins in their composition. Acid or alkaline hydrolysis is often used for the structural elucidation of these saponins and sugars in their side chains. Complete transformation of the original ginsenosides into their aglycones during the hydrolysis is one of the ways to determine a total saponin group content. The main hurdle of this approach is the formation of various by-products that was reported by many authors. Methods: Separate HPLC assessment of the total protopanaxadiol, protopanaxatriol and ocotillol ginsenoside contents is a viable alternative to the determination of characteristic biomarkers of these saponin groups, such as ginsenoside Rf and pseudoginsenoside F₁₁, which are commonly used for authentication of P. ginseng Meyer and P. quinquefolius L. samples respectively. Moreover, total ginsenoside content is an ideal aggregated parameter for standardization and quality control of ginseng-based medicines, because it can be directly applied for saponin dosage calculation. Results: Different hydrolysis conditions were tested to develop accurate quantification method for the elucidation of total ginsenoside contents in herbal products. Linearity, limits of quantification, limits of detection, accuracy and precision were evaluated for the developed HPLC-MS method. Conclusion: Alkaline hydrolysis results in fewer by-products than sugar elimination in acidic conditions. An equimolar response, as a key parameter for quantification, was established for several major ginsenosides. The developed approach has shown acceptable results in the analysis of several different herbal products.

• Safety and Health at Work
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.193-200
• /
• 2023

Background: International evidence shows that mining workers are at greater risk of suicide than other workers; however, it is not known whether this applies to the Australian mining sector. Methods: Using data from the National Coronial Information System, rates of suicide among male mining workers were compared to those of three comparators: construction workers, mining and construction workers combined, and all other workers. Age-standardized suicide rates were calculated for 2001-2019 and across three intervals '2001-2006', '2007-2011', and '2012-2019'. Incidence rate ratios for suicide were calculated to compare incidence rates for mining workers, to those of the three comparative groups. Results: The suicide rate for male mining workers in Australia was estimated to be between 11 and 25 per 100,000 (likely closer to 25 per 100,000) over the period of 2001-2019. There was also evidence that the suicide rate among mining workers is increasing, and the suicide rate among mining workers for the period 2012-2019 was significantly higher than the other worker group. Conclusions: Based on available data, we tentatively deduce that suicide mortality among male mining workers is of concern. More information is needed on both industry and occupation of suicide decedents in order to better assess whether, and the extent to which, mining workers (and other industries and occupations) are at increased risk of suicide.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
• /
• v.22 no.6
• /
• pp.230-245
• /
• 2023

The importance of evaluating the safety of Automated Vehicles (AV) is increasing with the advances in autonomous driving technology. Accordingly, an evaluation scenario that defines in advance the situations AV may face while driving is being used to conduct efficient stability evaluation. On the other hand, the single scenarios currently used in conventional evaluations address limited situations within short segments. As a result, there are limitations in evaluating continuous situations that occur on real roads. Therefore, this study developed a set of multiple scenarios that allow for continuous evaluation across entire sections of roads with diverse geometric structures to assess the safety of AV. In particular, the conditions for connecting individual scenarios were defined, and a methodology was proposed for developing concrete multiple scenarios based on the scenario evaluation procedure of the PEGASUS project. Furthermore, a simulation was performed to validate the practicality of these multiple scenarios.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
• /
• v.58 no.3
• /
• pp.193-216
• /
• 2024

Academic information providers are working on developing and establishing new types of content in response to the diverse academic content needs of researchers. To efficiently build and manage a wide range of content, these institutions are establishing digital curation platforms. These platforms apply digital transformation technologies to automate the collection, construction, and management of academic content, supporting researchers' activities by providing necessary content. To operate these platforms efficiently, it is essential to establish criteria that can effectively address the diverse content needs of users. We developed indicators for selecting new content and applied these selection priorities on a trial basis to the digital curation platform. The indicators for new content selection include content value, user demand and satisfaction, and the ease and efficiency of content collection, construction, and management. These indicators can be utilized during the acquisition and selection stages of the digital resource lifecycle.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
• /
• v.33 no.3
• /
• pp.171-184
• /
• 2006

According to ISAAA report, the global area of genetically modified (GM) crops increased more than 50 fold during the ten-year period from 1996 to 2005 with a sustained double-digit growth rate of 10%. This biotechnology adoption is one of the highest rates of technology adoption in agriculture history and this phenomenon indicates that the industrial value of the GM crops is highly perspective. In addition, the year 2010, 60% of cereal seeds in the global market would be GM or biotechnology related seeds so that the GM crop regards as the second green revolution that could provide a huge impact to food and agriculture. Nevertheless, there has not been any GM variety ever successfully commercialized in Korea and even none of the GM crops has ever been approved for safety testing by risk assessment. This seems that Korean agriculture industry might be indeed lost in the war of future seed market. However, lots of evidence show that Korean scientists have established advanced technologies and protocols to develop GM crops for last 20 years. Actually there have been many cases of successful transformation of crops that were previously known very difficult in transforming. Therefore, Korean agbiotechnology arena firmly holds an infrastructure for developing GM crops with a superior technology. Then what were the problems? Why has even a single GM crop not been commercialized in Korea? The tardiness shown by business in adopting the GM crop is caused by many factors: academical weakness, poor research funding, short knowledge of risk assessment, public concern, no successful experience, lack of professional leaders on GM variety development, lack of systems toward industrialization and inappropriate target transgenes from the beginning. In order to catch up in the race for the new green industry, each one of us in private sectors alongside academia and national research institutes needs to focus altogether on what can be done best in terms of choosing crops, investing fund and establishing a road map for commercialization of GM crops.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.15 no.9
• /
• pp.3939-3944
• /
• 2014

Background: To elucidate the role of rapamycin and PF4 on apoptosis regulation via Bax (pro-apoptosis), Bcl-2 (anti-apoptosis) and survivin activation on the growth in the 1-methyl-1-nitrosourea-induced invasive breast carcinoma model. Materials and Methods: Thirty five female Sprague Dawley rats at age 21-day old were divided into 4 groups; Group 1 (control, n=10), Group 2 (PF4, n=5), Group 3 (rapamycin, n=10) and Group 4 (rapamycin+PF4, n=10). MNU was administered intraperitionally, dosed at 70mg/kg body weight. The rats were treated when the tumors reached the size of $14.5{\pm}0.5mm$ and subsequently sacrificed after 5 days. Rapamycin and PF4 were administered as focal intralesional injections at the dose of $20{\mu}g$/lesion. The tumor tissue was then subjected to histopathological examinations for morphological appraisal and immunohistochemical assessment of the pro-apoptotic marker, Bax and anti-apoptotic markers, Bcl-2 and survivin. Results: The histopathological pattern of the untreated control cohort showed that the severity of the malignancy augments with mammary tumor growth. Tumors developing in untreated groups were more aggressive whilst those in treated groups demonstrated a transformation to a less aggressive subtype. Combined treatment resulted in a significant reduction of tumor size without phenotypic changes. Bax, the pro-apoptotic marker, was significantly expressed at higher levels in the rapamycin-treated and rapamycin+PF4-treated groups compared to controls (p<0.05). Consequently, survivin was also significantly downregulated in the rapamycin-treated and rapamycin+PF4-treated group and this was significantly different when compared to controls (p). Conclusions: In our rat model, it could be clearly shown that rapamycin specifically affects Bax and survivin signaling pathways in activation of apoptosis. We conclude that rapamycin plays a critical role in the induction of apoptosis in MNU-induced mammary carcinoma.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
• /
• v.62 no.5
• /
• pp.595-604
• /
• 2020

This study investigated the effects of dietary rumen-protected L-tryptophan (TRP) supplementation (43.4 mg of L-tryptophan kg^-1 body weigt [BW]) for 65 days in Hanwoo steers on muscle development related to gene expressions and adipose tissue catabolism and fatty acid transportation in longissimus dorsi muscles. Eight Hanwoo steers (initial BW = 424.6 kg [SD 42.3]; 477 days old [SD 4.8]) were randomly allocated to two groups (n = 4) of control and treatment and were supplied with total mixed ration (TMR). The treatment group was fed with 15 g of rumen-protected TRP (0.1% of TMR as-fed basis equal to 43.4 mg of TRP kg^-1 BW) once a day at 0800 h as top-dressed to TMR. Blood samples were collected 3 times, at 0, 5, and 10 weeks of the experiment, for assessment of hematological and biochemical parameters. For gene study, the longissimus dorsi muscle samples (12 to 13 ribs, approximately 2 g) were collected from each individual by biopsy at end of the study (10 weeks). Growth performance parameters including final BW, average daily gain, and gain to feed ratio, were not different (p > 0.05) between the two groups. Hematological parameters including granulocyte, lymphocyte, monocyte, platelet, red blood cell, hematocrit, and white blood cell showed no difference (p > 0.05) between the two groups except for hemoglobin (p = 0.025), which was higher in the treatment than in the control group. Serum biochemical parameters including total protein, albumin, globulin, blood urea nitrogen, creatinine phosphokinase, glucose, nonesterified fatty acids, and triglyceride also showed no differences between the two groups (p > 0.05). Gene expression related to muscle development (Myogenic factor 6 [MYF6], myogenine [MyoG]), adipose tissue catabolism (lipoprotein lipase [LPL]), and fatty acid transformation indicator (fatty acid binding protein 4 [FABP4]) were increased in the treatment group compared to the control group (p < 0.05). Collectively, supplementation of TRP (65 days in this study) promotes muscle development and increases the ability of the animals to catabolize and transport fat in muscles due to an increase in expressions of MYF6, MyoG, FABP4, and LPL gene.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.3-25
• /
• 2015

Our goal is to verify how changes in water's hydraulic characteristics after urban regeneration stream can affect any possible transformation of its thermal environment. To that end, we analyzed changes in numerous physical characteristics the subject stream along with the meteorological factors and thermal environment affected by it. Cheonggyecheon was selected as our subject as it is a great example of successful urban regeneration stream. As for physical characteristics, we allocated Type I (0.0%) and Type II (20.2%), depending on the green coverage ratio. As for numerical characteristics, at the point of Ba in which the riffle ends, the water temperature fell by $0.2^{\circ}C$ and the flow increased from 0.7m/s to 0.9 m/s with the dissolved oxygen increasing from 0.5mg/L to 0.6mg/L. As for meteorological factors surrounding the subject stream, the temperature dropped from $1.1^{\circ}C$ to $1.4^{\circ}C$ on average and relative humidity increased from 6.6% to 8.7%. Furthermore, there was an irregular change in wind velocity. According to the result of the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT), the change in the values of Type I and II inside and on the surface of the subject stream was negligible. The downstream temperature in Type I fell from $0.3^{\circ}C$ to $0.6^{\circ}C$ and by $0.8^{\circ}C$ in Type II. As for vertical cooling effect, the change of water level was 120cm in Type I and 140cm in Type II. As for horizontal cooling effects, the value of Type I was increased from the point of Ba where the riffle ends and the value of Type II was on a steady decline.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
• /
• v.30 no.5
• /
• pp.223-233
• /
• 2018

The predictability of winter storm waves using KMA's operational wind forecasts has been studied to predict wind waves and swells in the East coast of Korea using SWAN. The nested model were employed along the East coast of Korea to simulate the wave transformation in the coastal area and wave dissipation term of whitecapping is optimized to improve swell prediction accuracy. In this study, KMA's operational meteorological models (RDAPS and LDAPS) are used as input wind fields. In order to evaluate model accuracy, we also simulate wind waves and swells using ECMWF reanalysis and KIOST WRF wind and they are compared with the KMA's operational wave model and the wave measurement data on the offshore and onshore stations. As a result, it has the lowest RMSE and the highest correlation coefficient in the onshore when the input wind fields are KMA's operational meteorological forecasts. In the offshore, all of the simulate results shows good agreements with similar error statistics. It means that it is very feasible to use SWAN model with the modified whitecapping factor and KMA's operational meteorological forecasts for predicting the wind waves and swells in the East coast of Korea.