• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.203-206
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• 2017

The seroprevalence of human toxoplasmosis has been increasing in Korea, and it is controversial whether cats are an important infection source or not. This study was performed to evaluate the seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii infection in a high risk group (cat sitters) and to determine the possible importance of cats as an infection source in Korea. Risk factors, including the age, sex, and diet of cat sitters, their contact experience and contact frequency with stray cats, and origin, number, and outdoor activity of their pet cats, were analyzed using structured questionnaires. A total of 673 serum samples from people who have frequent contact with cats (high risk group) and 1,114 samples from general people (low risk group) were examined for specific IgG antibodies against T. gondii by ELISA. The results revealed that the overall seroprevalence of T. gondii infection was 7.4% (n=1,787). The seroprevalence among low risk group was 8.0% (89/1,114), whereas that among high risk group was rather lower 6.4% (43/673), though this difference was statistically not significant (P=0.211). Among the risk factors, only the outdoor activity of pet cats was important; people having cats with outdoor activities revealed 2 times higher seroprevalence than people having cats with only indoor activities (P=0.027). In conclusion, the seroprevalence of T. gondii was not significantly different between the high risk group and low risk group, and the importance of cats as a source of infection in Korea is questionable.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.454-456
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• 2014

A 9-month-old intact male Persian cat (3.2 kg of body weight) was referred with primary complaint of constipation. Diagnostic studies found severe constipation and megacolon. After immediate medical treatment (e.g. enema), the physical examination was performed and revealed that the unusual urethral opening was found approximately 0.5 cm ventral to the tip of the penis where a 3.5 fr tomcat catheter was easily advanced into the bladder. The case was diagnosed as hypospadias. The cat was treated with castration and medical therapy for constipation. To our best knowledge, this case is the first case report for feline hypospadias complicated with chronic constipation in Korea.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 1983

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of prostaglandin $E_2(PGE_2)$ and indomethacin upon the electrical activity of the isolated cat stomach muscle strips$(1.5{\times}7.0\;cm)$. Fifty-seven muscle strips, obtained from 57 cat stomachs(including corpus and antrum) were studied in a muscle chamber filled with Krebs solution(pH 7.4, temperature $36{\pm}0.5^{\circ}C$) aerated with 5% $CO_2$ in $O_2$. The electrical activity was recorded by five capillary electrodes (Ag-AgCl), of which two were placed on the corpus and three on the antrum. After recording of the electrical activity in normal Krebs solution, $PGE_2$ in concentrations of 0.25(N=7), 0.5(=7), 1(N=7) and $2{\times}10^{-7}\;M(N=6)$ were administered to 27 muscle strips, while indomethacin was applied in concentretions of 0.25(N=9), 0.5(N=10), 1(N=6) and $2{\times}10^{-3}\;M(N=5)$ to the remaining 30 strips. The mean frequency were minutely measured from each electrogastrogram. 1) By adding $PGE_2$ in all doses, gastric slow wave frequency increased significantly compared with that in resting state. 2) Following $PGE_2$ administration, peak slow wave frequency increased dose-dependently. 3) After indomethacin addition in all doses, the slow wave frequency decreased significantly compared with that in resting state. 4) Following indomethacin administration, incidence of complete abolition of slow wave increased dose-dependently, and its latent period decreased also in a dose-dependent manner. It is inferred from the above results that prostaglandin $E_2$ has a facilitatory role in the development of gastric slow wave in cat.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.199-201
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• 2008

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular zoonotic protozoan with a worldwide distribution. It infects humans as well as a broad spectrum of vertebrate hosts. Cats and wild felidae play crucial roles in the epidemiology of toxoplasmosis. This study was performed to survey the prevalence of T. gondii infection among stray cats in the Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea. A total of 174 stray cat blood samples were collected from Gwacheon-si (n = 20), Bucheon-si (82), and Yangju-si (72). Positive sera for T. gondii were identified in 14 samples (8.1%) exclusively via the latex agglutination test, 28 (16.1%) via ELISA, and 23 (13.2%) via PCR analysis. The overall infection rate of female stray cats (29.2%) presented as higher than that of male cats (24.0%). This study suggests that T. gondii is widespread in the stray cat population of Gyeonggi-do, Korea. It is urgently needed to control urban stray cat population and to reduce the risk of zoonotic transmission of toxoplasmosis to other animal hosts and humans.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.983-991
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• 2019

This study investigated the use of a hydroxyl-radicals-generated microbubble/catalyst (MB/Cat) system for removing organic pollutants, nitrogen, and phosphorous from liquid fertilizer produced by livestock wastewater treatment. Use of the MB/Cat system aims to improve the quality of liquid fertilizer by removing pollutants originally found in the wastewater. In addition, a reduction effect has been reported for antibiotics classified as representative non-biodegradable matter. Samples of liquid fertilizer produced by an aerobic biological reactor for swine wastewater treatment were first analyzed for initial concentrations of pollutants and antibiotics. When the MB/Cat system was applied to the liquid fertilizer, TCOD, TOC, $BOD_5$, and $NH_3-N$, and $PO_4-P$ removal efficiencies were found to be approximately 52%, 51%, 30%, 21%, and 66%, respectively. Additionally, Amoxicillin hydrate was removed by 10%, and Chlortetracycline HCl and Florfenicol were not present at detectable levels These findings confirm that the MB/Cat system can be used with livestock wastewater treatment to improve liquid fertilizer quality and to process wastewater that is safe for agricultural re-use.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2006

Cathepsin K (cat K) is the major cysteine protease expressed in osteoclasts and was thought to play a key role in matrix degradation during bone resorption. It was shown that the intracellular maturation of cat K was prevented by the cAMP antagonist, Rp-cAMP, and the protein kinase A (PKA) inhibitors of KT5720 and H89. In contrast, forskolin, a adenylate cyclase agonist, rather induced Cat K processing and maturation in osteoclasts. Furthermore, to determine whether cat K processing and maturation signaling involves protein kinase C (PKC), mouse total bone cells were treated with calphostin C, a specific inhibitor of PKC, however, no effect was observed, indicating that calphostin C did not affect to osteoclast-mediated cat K processing and maturation. Thus, it is indicated that the cAMP-PKA signaling pathway regulates cat K maturation in osteoclasts. Since secreted proenzymes have the potential to reenter the cell via M6P receptor, to prevent this possibility, it was tested cAMP antagonist Rp-cAMP and the PKA inhibitors KT5720 and H89 in the absence or presence of M6P. Inhibition of cat K processing by Rp-cAMP, KT5720, or H89 was observed in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, the addition of M6P resulted in enhanced potency of Rp-cAMP, KT5720 and H89. These dose-dependently inhibited in vitro bone resorption with a potency similar to that observed for inhibition of cat K processing.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.192-194
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• 2008

A 15-month-old, intact male, domestic short hair cat was presented with ataxia, protrusion of the right third eyelid, and anorexia. Clinical signs were firstly noted after ear cleaning at home. Symptoms of the Homer's syndrome were evident. However, postural and proprioceptive reaction deficits were not detected on neurologic examination. Otoscopic examination revealed foreign body in right ear canal. A diagnosis of peripheral vestibular syndrome was made based on results of physical examination including neurologic and otic examination, blood work, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Based on these examinations, the present patient was definitely diagnosed as otitis medial interna induced by foreign body. The vestibular signs were resolved 10 days after removal of cotton tips in right ear canal. This case report indicates that home-care cotton swab can iatrogenically induce otitis media/interna in cats.

• The Journal of Korean Association of Computer Education
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.21-29
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to design and implementation of the Web-based Individual Computerized Adaptive Testing(CAT) system. The Web-based Individual CAT is a kind of test system to present a set of the problems divided into basic level, intermediate level and advanced level according to the saved results after doing a diagnostic test related to each unit. The diagnostic test is done to pull out the necessary items which learners have to study. The strong points of the web-based computerized adaptive testing system are to reduce the problems of distributed teachers and to have the effect of individual learning by using this system.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.91-93
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• 2015

A 6-month-old, castrated male, Korean short-haired cat was referred with intermittent hematuria. Physical and laboratory examination including complete blood count and serum biochemistry profiles showed no specific findings. Ultrasonography revealed a cystic lesion of the mid-abdomen, which was approximately $2{\times}2cm$ in size. FNA cytology of cystic fluid showed numerous cholesterol crystals of varying size and shape and granulomatous inflammation. CT examination showed fluid-filled large cystic lesion in the left side of the abdomen. Taken together, this case was diagnosed as unilateral (left) renal dysplasia and cystic inflammation led by cholesterol crystallization in the left kidney.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.1000-1013
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• 2017

Clustering is a NP-hard problem that is used to find the relationship between patterns in a given set of patterns. It is an unsupervised technique that is applied to obtain the optimal cluster centers, especially in partitioned based clustering algorithms. On the other hand, cat swarm optimization (CSO) is a new meta-heuristic algorithm that has been applied to solve various optimization problems and it provides better results in comparison to other similar types of algorithms. However, this algorithm suffers from diversity and local optima problems. To overcome these problems, we are proposing an improved version of the CSO algorithm by using opposition-based learning and the Cauchy mutation operator. We applied the opposition-based learning method to enhance the diversity of the CSO algorithm and we used the Cauchy mutation operator to prevent the CSO algorithm from trapping in local optima. The performance of our proposed algorithm was tested with several artificial and real datasets and compared with existing methods like K-means, particle swarm optimization, and CSO. The experimental results show the applicability of our proposed method.