• Korean Journal of Oriental Medicine
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.87-93
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• 2012

Objectives : The present study is to verify whether the deformation of ear acupuncture needle tips that are currently on the market is caused during the process of initial packaging. Methods : Ear acupuncture needles distributed from three different companies were collected to measure the size of the groove on the transparent plate which is used in for the intial packaging. Then the tolerance range for off-centered tips, which represent the range of the groove size that is safe from damaging the needle tip, was determined based on the vertical length measured from tip to handle. 200 ear acupuncture needles were dipped in alcohol and scanned to confirm the position of the needles. Stereo-microscope was used to observe the needle tips that were located outside the tolerance range. Results : The increased number of ear acupuncture needle tips placed outside the tolerance range were seen from in the order of C company, A company and B company. The increased deformation of the needle tips caused by initial packaging was observed in the order of A company, C company and B company. Conclusion : Only the ear acupuncture needles from B company showed the strong correlation between needle tip deformation and initial packaging. It has been observed that the deformation of the ear acupuncture needles is mainly due to manufacturing process, not the packaging process.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2018

Smokers keep smoking despite knowing that tobacco claims many lives, including their own and others'. What makes it hard for them to quit smoking nonetheless? Tobacco companies insist that smokers choose to smoke, according to their right to self-determination. Moreover, they insist that with motivation and willpower to quit smoking, smokers can easily stop smoking. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to discuss the addictive disease called tobacco use disorder, with an assessment of the addictiveness of tobacco and the reasons why smoking cessation is challenging, based on neuroscientific research. Nicotine that enters the body via smoking is rapidly transmitted to the central nervous system and causes various effects, including an arousal response. The changes in the nicotine receptors in the brain due to continuous smoking lead to addiction symptoms such as tolerance, craving, and withdrawal. Compared with other addictive substances, including alcohol and opioids, tobacco is more likely to cause dependence in smokers, and smokers are less likely to recover from their dependence. Moreover, the thinning of the cerebral cortex and the decrease in cognitive functions that occur with aging accelerate with smoking. Such changes occur in the structure and functions of the brain in proportion to the amount and period of smoking. In particular, abnormalities in the neural circuits that control cognition and decision-making cause loss of the ability to exert self-control and autonomy. This initiates nicotine dependence and the continuation of addictive behaviors. Therefore, smoking is considered to be a behavior that is repeated due to dependence on an addictive substance, nicotine, instead of one's choice by free will.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.110-117
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• 2003

A thermotolerant yeast strain, Saccharomyces cerevisiae KNU5377 (abbreviated as KNU5377, was exposed to inorganic acids including sulfuric, nitric and hydrochloric acid. As a stressor, each inorganic acid is very easily dissociated in water, resulting in lowering environmental pH. When compared with a reference S. cerevisiae ATCC24858, KNU5377 could overcome such a severe condition containing a final 0.4% concentration of sulfuric acid or nitric acid to grow at the overnight culture, but this reference could not. Additionally, this strain showed a surprisingly strong tolerance by surviving despite of exposure to the regime of 0.35% of hydrochloric acid for over 90 min and also to 0.6% of sulfuric acid for 30 min. On the contrary, both strains could not survive against a final 0.45% concentration of nitric acid. This strain KNU5377 could produce ethanol of 3% in 2 days by using the fermentation medium containing a final 0.3% concentration of sulfuric arid. Moreover, change into a final 0.2% concentration of sulfuric acid caused this strain to enhance fermentation productivity up to about 4.5% even at $40^{\circ}C$. In exposure to a final 0.2% of sulfuric acid for 60 min, trehalose was most accumulated within 30 min in KNU5377, and this suggested a cellular defense system led by this disaccharide was profitable for this strain to lead to no morphological changes.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.373-381
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• 2019

Site-directed mutagenesis was employed to generate five different triple point mutations in the double mutant (C295A/I86A) of Thermoanaerobacter ethanolicus alcohol dehydrogenase (TeSADH) by computer-aided modeling with the aim of widening the small alkyl-binding pocket. TeSADH engineering enables the enzyme to accept sterically hindered substrates that could not be accepted by the wild-type enzyme. The underline in the mutations highlights the additional point mutation on the double mutant TeSADH introduced in this work. The catalytic efficiency ($k_{cat}/K_M$) of the ${\underline{M151A}}$/C295A/I86A triple TeSADH mutant for acetophenone increased about 4.8-fold higher than that of the double mutant. A 2.4-fold increase in conversion of 3'-methylacetophenone to (R)-1-(3-methylphenyl)-ethanol with a yield of 87% was obtained by using ${\underline{V115A}}$/C295A/I86A mutant in asymmetric reduction. The ${\underline{A85G}}$/C295A/I86A mutant also produced (R)-1-(3-methylphenyl)-ethanol (1.7-fold) from 3'-methylacetophenone and (R)-1-(3-methoxyphenyl)-ethanol (1.2-fold) from 3'-methoxyacetophenone, with improved yield. In terms of thermal stability, the ${\underline{M151A}}$/C295A/I86A and ${\underline{V115A}}$/C295A/I86A mutants significantly increased ${\Delta}T_{1/2}$ by $+6.8^{\circ}C$ and $+2.4^{\circ}C$, respectively, with thermal deactivation constant ($k_d$) close to the wild-type enzyme. The ${\underline{M151A}}$/C295A/I86A mutant reacts optimally at $70^{\circ}C$ with almost 4 times more residual activity than the wild type. Considering broad substrate tolerance and thermal stability together, it would be promising to produce (R)-1-(3-methylphenyl)-ethanol from 3'-methylacetophenone by ${\underline{V115A}}$/C295A/I86A, and (R)-1-phenylethanol from acetophenone by ${\underline{M151A}}$/C295A/I86A mutant, in large-scale bioreduction processes.

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.886-893
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• 2013

Several indigenous sulfite-resistant yeasts were isolated at the microbial succession stage of yeast flora during spontaneous fermentation of Campbell Early grapes using a YPD plate that contained 200 mg/L or 500 mg/L potassium metabisulfite. When they were applied to the wine fermentation using the Campbell Early grape and apple juices, strains S13 and D8 showed strong alcohol fermentation and good flavor production. They were identified as Saccharomyces cerevisiae in the phylogenetic analysis based on their ITS 1-5.8S-ITS II DNA sequences. The two yeast strains grew to a high cell density in the YPD media supplemented with 40%(w/v) glucose. They also grew rapidly in the YPD media at $40^{\circ}C$. While strain S13 showed some differences in cell density at the two temperatures, no marked difference was observed during the culture of strain D8. The strains grew relatively well at pH 5.0 and 9.0 compared with pH 7.0, which was the optimum pH for their growth. Especially, strain S13 cultivated in the YPD media at pH 9.0 grew to 93% of the growth of strain D8, which was obtained at pH 7.0.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.168-186
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• 1979

Three hundred gram of Korean ginseng root was extracted with 95% ethanol on a boiling water bath for about 300 hr. Evaporation of alcohol yieled 50.2g of dark brown residue which was used by dissolving 4 mg of the residue in 1 ml of physiological saline. The ginseng group and the saline group received each day 0.5 ml per 100 g body weight of ginseng extract and physiological saline, respectively. Both the ginseng and saline group with stress were exposed to positive radial acceleration (1∼29g), cold (5$^{\circ}C$, 0$^{\circ}C$ &-10$^{\circ}C$) and heat (35$^{\circ}C$) environment, and surgical stress. After termination of the last stress, the tolerance, body weight, visceral organ weight, basal metabolism rate, rectal temperature, the number of erythrocyte and leucocyte, hemoglobin level, hematocrit ratio, total serum protein content and it's fraction and the content of adrenal ascorbic acid in the experimental animal exposed to stress were measured and at the corresponding periods, the same measurements were also carried out with the ginseng and the saline groups without stress exposure (serving as control). Results obtained were as follows. 1. Administration of ginseng does depressed the decrease of the tolerance, body weight, visceral organ weight, basal metabolism rate, the number of erythrocyte, hemoglobin value, hematocrit ratio and the A/G ratio in the mice and rats exposed to various stress. 2. The change of the rectal temperature, eosinophile counts, total serum protein content and the content of adrenal ascorbic acid of ginseng group that exposured to various stress facilitates the reaction to, and accelerates the recovery from the stress. 3. Even after hypophysectomy which served the link between the central and the peripheral portion of the stress mechanism, the adrenal ascorbic acid content of ginseng group decreased significantly more than that of the saline group 30 min. after administration of ACTH, while the value approached the normal level significantly closer in the ginseng group than in the saline group 1 and 2 hr after ACTH administration. Judging from the above results, it is concluded that administration of ginseng extract tolerated the experimental animals under the environment of stressfu1 stmuli, although the ginseng has no significant influence upon the stress mechanism in the absence of stressful stimuli. The site of action of the ginseng appears to be in the peripheral portion of the stress mechanism.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.794-801
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• 2013

This paper reports the production and characterization of crude xylanase from the newly isolated Humicola sp. Ly01. The highest (41.8 U/ml) production of the crude xylanase was obtained under the optimized conditions (w/v): 0.5% wheat bran, 0.2% $KH_2PO_4$, and 0.5% peptone; initial pH 7.0; incubation time 72 h; $30^{\circ}C$; and 150 rpm. A considerable amount of the crude xylanase was induced using hulless barley bran or soybean meal as the carbon source, but a small amount of the enzyme was produced when supplementary urea was used as the nitrogen source to wheat bran. The crude xylanase showed apparent optimal cellulase-free xylanase activity at $60^{\circ}C$ and pH 6.0, more than 71.8% of the maximum xylanase activity in 3.0-30.0% (v/v) ethanol and more than 82.3% of the initial xylanase activity after incubation in 3.0-30.0% (v/v) ethanol at $30^{\circ}C$ for 2 h. The crude xylanase was moderately resistant to both acid and neutral protease digestion, and released 7.9 and 10.9 ${\mu}mol/ml$ reducing sugar from xylan in the simulated gastric and intestinal fluids, respectively. The xylooligosaccharides were the main products of the hydrolysis of xylan by the crude xylanase. These properties suggested the potential of the crude enzyme for being applied in the animal feed industry, xylooligosaccharides production, and high-alcohol conditions such as ethanol production and brewing.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.56-64
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• 2015

It has been known for some time to the wine industry that non-Saccharomyces yeasts play an important role in increasing volatile components through the secretion of extracellular enzymes. The objective of this study was to investigate what types of enzymes are produced by 1,007 non-Saccharomyces yeast strains isolated from Korean fermented foods. Among 1,007 yeast strains, the 566, 45 and 401 strains displayed β-glucosidase, glucanase and protease activity, respectively. In addition, the 563 and 610 strains possessed tolerances against cerulenin and TFL, and the 307 strain was tolerant to 15% ethanol. Yeasts producing harmful biogenic amines and hydrogen sulfide were excluded from further study, and eventually 12 yeast strains belonging to the genera Wickerhamomyces, Hanseniaspora, Pichia, Saccharomyces were identified, based on the 26S rRNA gene sequences. Among the 12 strains, the 9 and 5 strains possessed glucose and ethanol tolerance, respectively. Yeasts belonging to the genus Saccharomyces produced more than 8% alcohol, but non-Saccharomyces yeasts produced only 3% alcohol.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.400-405
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• 2005

Wet-injury often occurs in upland cereals growing in the paddy field due to oxygen deficiency in the rhizosphere caused by excessive water in the soil. Under hypoxia, energy metabolism is diminished causing non­reversible damage to root cells. This study was conducted to investigate effects of hypoxia on root growth and enzymes involved in the fermentative energy metabolism in upland cereals including barley, wheat, rye and triticale. Young seedlings were subject to hypoxia for up to 7 days. Root fresh weight and dry weight were decreased significantly by hypoxia for 5 to 7 days in all cereal seedlings. Root growth retardation under hypoxia was lowest in barley. Hypoxia-induced increases in activity and isozyme expression of alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) were commonly observed in roots of all cereal seedlings. The inherent ADH activity levels were higher in barley but the hypoxia-induced increases in ADH activities were lowest in barley than other cereals. The inherent LDH activity levels were lower in barley and the hypoxia-induced increases in LDH activities were lower in barley than other cereals. The results suggest the importance of the rapid enhancement of fermentative enzyme systems for increased tolerance to hypoxia.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.282-294
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• 2001

n accordance with the National Health Promotion Act of 1995, newly designed National Health and Nutrition Survey was carried out in winter of 1998. Although this survey amended most of the problems noted in previous Nutrition Surveys, it still had a limitation in reflecting seasonal variation in food intake due to the survey period which was confined to November and December. In order to counterbalance this limitation and estimate the yearly food intake of Korean population, three seasonal nutrition surveys were taken place in spring, summer, and fall of 1999. Seasonal Nutritional survey targeted 15 households each in 60 nationwide primary sampling units(PSUS) which were part of 200 PSUS of 1998 National Health and Nutrition Survey. Therefore, total of 2,700 households were surveyed in 3 seasons. The interviewers visited each household members and carried out face to face interview on household. Daily food intake was monitored using 24 hour recall method. According to the survey results, fruits, beverage and alcohol intake showed large variation with season while processed foods showed almost no variation. And intake of vegetables and fruits were influenced by their own harvesting time and had impact on the list of foods consumed most. With the result of the 1998 NHNS, this study made it possible to estimate the yearly average food intake of Korean population. The result of this survey is expected to be used in planning food supply and setting tolerance level of contaminants of each foods at the government level.