• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.85-91
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• 2005

Much of the interest on the chemopreventive properties of herbs and plants has been raised, whereas little is regarding to anti-tumor effect of farming and aquatic products. In the present study, the anti-tumor effect of hot-water extract of a seaweed, BLC (Sargassum fulvellum) and BLC/HEN egg was investigated using MCF-7 cells in vitro and in vivo systems. We found that the BLC extract and BLC/HEN egg inhibited cell proliferation in a dose-dependent manner, which might be mediated through up-regulation of p53. Furthermore, this test compound can directly induce apoptosis in MCF-7 cells, which might be mediated through up-regulation of a pro-apoptotic Bax protein and down-regulation of a anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 protein, not by immune system. Nude mice bearing established breast tumors (with exogenous estradiol) were treated with BLC extract and BLC/HEN egg. Treatment BLC extract and BLC/HEN egg caused a 42% and 71% inhibition of tumor growth, respectively. Both agents caused a significant inhibition of volume and weight growth of estrogen independent human breast tumors established from MCF-7 cells. Our results suggested that BLC extract and BLC/HEN egg have the efficacious effect of human breast cancer not only in vitro but also in vivo.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.159-172
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• 2008

This study was carried out to obtain ecological information necessary for a conservation plan based on the distributional patterns, wetland types, and hydrophytic characteristics of urban wetlands in Seongnam City, Kyunggi Province where representing the various patterns of land use made by rapid urbanization since 1970s. Total 162 sites of four wetland types were identified as urban wetlands during the first survey. The sites were classified into 55 forested swamps, 4 riverine wetlands, 62 abandoned paddy fields, 37 small ponds, and 4 reservoirs, etc. The second survey targeted 107 sites which were identified as good wetlands. It showed that 42 sites(about 39%) were already degraded due to drainage, landfill, and crop cultivation at 6 months intervals. Both hydrologic conditions and hydrophytic characteristics of 27 good wetlands help maintain current ecological status, but most wetlands have been degraded by artificial impacts. Among 184 species identified, only 75 species(about 40.7%) were hydrophytes. Prevalence Index of hydrophyte based on three categories of OBL(obligatory wetland plant), FAC(facultitative plant), UPL(obligatory upland plant) was 3.7, indicating that vegetation data alone is inadequate to designate as wetlands. This study revealed that as critical habitats for wildlife they playa vital role in ecotone between both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem with its proper distributional pattern in spite of their small areas compared to the entire geographic region of the City.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.6_3
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• pp.1777-1788
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• 2022

The reservoir is a major water supply source in the domestic agricultural environment, and the monitoring of water storage of reservoirs is important for the utilization and management of agricultural water resource. Remote sensing via satellite imagery can be an effective method for regular monitoring of widely distributed objects such as reservoirs, and in this study, image classification and image segmentation algorithms are applied to Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery for water body detection in 53 reservoirs in South Korea. Six algorithms are used: Neural Network (NN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), Otsu, Watershed (WS), and Chan-Vese (CV), and the results of water body detection are evaluated with in-situ images taken by drones. The correlations between the in-situ water surface area and detected water surface area from each algorithm are NN 0.9941, SVM 0.9942, RF 0.9940, Otsu 0.9922, WS 0.9709, and CV 0.9736, and the larger the scale of reservoir, the higher the linear correlation was. WS showed low recall due to the undetected water bodies, and NN, SVM, and RF showed low precision due to over-detection. For water body detection through SAR imagery, we found that aquatic plants and artificial structures can be the error factors causing undetection of water body.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.303-311
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• 2022

Gadolinium, commonly used as a contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), is discharged into aquatic environments without removal after treatment in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) because of its high stability. In this study, we collected water samples from Suyeong WWTP, Busan, to investigate the dissolved rare earth element (REE) removal capacity of each wastewater treatment process and to evaluate the discharge of anthropogenic Gd (Gd_anth) from effluents. As wastewater passed through each stage of treatment, the concentrations of light REEs (La-Eu) decreased, whereas those of heavy REEs (Tb-Lu) were relatively consistent. Negative Sm anomalies (<1) were observed in several samples, indicating that Sm can be removed by adsorption onto particles or phosphate during the biological removal process. Positive Gd anomalies (149±50, n=9) were observed in all samples. The ratios of Gd_anth concentrations to measured Gd concentrations in all wastewater treatment processes were higher than 97%. This indicates that Gd_anth was discharged to the Suyeong River without removal during the wastewater treatment process. Considering the daily treatment capacity in each process, the total flux of Gd_anth was estimated to be 259 mmol/day. Our results suggest that mid- and/or long-term monitoring of Gd is needed because Gd_anth is continuously discharged into Suyeong Bay through WWTPs.

• Korean Journal of Ichthyology
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.262-269
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• 2022

A distribution survey was conducted from 2018 to 2020 to evaluate the distribution status, habitat characteristics, and extinction threat of the short ninespine stickleback Pungitius kaibarae (Gasterosteidae). Literature reports of P. kaibarae distribution have been sorted by each period, 1980~1996, 1997~2005, and 2007~2017, and the samples were collected in 32, 43, and 64 stations for each period. Among the 75 streams and 193 sampling sites investigated during the study period, 1,400 P. kaibarae individuals were collected from 26 streams at 39 sites. The main habitat of P. kaibarae was downstream or brackish water zones with a low altitude, slow water velocity, and many aquatic plants. The main reasons for the decline in population size were assumed to be drought and flood, river work for flood restoration and river maintenance, bridges construction, and predation by the exotic fish species Micropterus salmoides. Previous evidence reported a 42.6% reduction in occupancy within 10 years, a decline in habitat quality, and the spread and impact of the exotic fish species Micropterus salmoides. Therefore, P. kaibarae is now considered a Vulnerable (VU A2ace) species based on the IUCN Red List categories and criteria. Therefore, P. kaibarae should be redesignated as an endangered species by the Ministry of Environment and systematically managed.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.33 no.10
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• pp.842-850
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• 2023

Pyrrolnitrin, pyrrolomycin, and pyoluteorin are functional halogenated phenylpyrrole derivatives (HPDs) derived from microorganisms with diverse antimicrobial activities. Pyrrolnitrin is a secondary metabolite produced from L-tryptophan through four-step reactions in Pseudomonas fluorescens, Burkholderia cepacia, Serratia plymuthica, etc. It is currently used for the treatment of superficial dermatophytic fungal infections, has high antagonistic activities against soil-borne and foliar fungal infections, and has many industrial applications. Since pyrrolnitrin is easily decomposed by light, it is difficult to widely use it outdoors. As an alternative, fludioxonil, a synthetically produced non-systemic surface fungicide that is structurally similar and has excellent light stability, has been commercialized for seed and foliar treatment of plants. However, due to its high toxicity to aquatic organisms and adverse effects in human cell lines, many countries have established maximum residue levels and strictly control its levels. Pyrrolomycin and pyoluteorin, which have antibiotic/antibiofilm activity against Gram-positive bacteria and high anti-oomycete activity against the plant pathogen Pythium ultimum, respectively, were isolated and identified from microorganisms. This review summarizes the biosynthesis and production of natural pyrrolnitrin derived from bacteria and the characteristics of synthetic fludioxonil and other natural phenylpyrrole derivatives among the HPDs. We expect that a plethora of highly effective, novel HPDs that are safe for humans and environments will be developed through the generation of an HPD library by microbial biosynthesis and chemical synthesis.

• Korean Journal of Ichthyology
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.160-170
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• 2023

Life history of the endangered endemic species, Rhynchocypris semotilus, was investigated to obtain baseline data for its ecological characteristics in Songhyeoncheon, Hyeonnae-myeon, Goseong-gun, Gangwon-do, Korea from April to October, 2022. A total of 10 families and 18 species of fishes were collected from 4 survey stations, and R. semotilus was a subdominant species in the survey period (seven times). The main habitat of R. semotilus was the middle-upper stream of rock and boulder bottoms with aquatic plants and slow rapids and pools. The age groups for R. semotilus estimated by the frequency distribution of total length in spawning season (May) indicated the 4~12 mm is 0-year old, 32~49 mm is 1-year old, the 50~65 mm group is 2-years old, the 66~91 mm is 3-years old, and the 92~116 mm is more than 4-years old, and showed rapid growth from May to September. Total length range of female and male were the relatively similar, and sex ratio (♂/♀) was 0.78. The spawning period is from May to July (water temperature is 17 to 21℃), and gonad was developed more than three years old (more than TL 66 mm). In May, the gonadosomatic index (GSI) was 10.6±2.99% for females and 8.2±2.34% for males, fecundity was 6,830±1,943, and mature eggs size was 1.34±0.16 mm. Finally, life history characteristics of R. semotilus was discussed between the genus Rhynchocypris and Phoxinus species.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.221-230
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• 2016

Multi-functional floating wetland island (mFWI) was developed in order to prevent algal bloom and to improve water quality through several unit purification processes. A test bed was applied in the stagnant watershed in an urban area, from the summer to the winter season. For the advanced treatment, an artificial phosphorus adsorption/filtration medium was applied with micro-bubble generation, as well as water plants for nutrient removal. It appeared that the efficiency of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total phosphorus (T-P) removal was higher in the warmer season (40.9%, 45.7%) than in the winter (15.9%, 20.0%), and the removal performance (suspended solid, chlorophyll a) in each process differs according to seasonal variation; micro-bubble performed better (33.1%, 39.2%) in the summer, and the P adsorption/filtration and water plants performed better (76.5%, 59.5%) in the winter season. From the results, it was understood that the mFWI performance was dependent upon the pollutant loads in different seasons and unit processes, and thus it requires continuous monitoring under various conditions to evaluate the functions. In addition, micro-bubbles helped prevent the formation of anaerobic zones in the lower part of the floating wetland. This resulted in the water circulation to form a new healthy aquatic ecosystem in the surrounding environment, which confirmed the positive influence of mFWI.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.97-107
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• 2015

Wetlands constitute a transitional zone between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and have unique characteristics such as frequent inundation, inflow of nutrients from terrestrial ecosystems, presence of plants adapted to grow in water, and soil that is occasionally oxygen deficient due to saturation. These characteristics and the presence of vegetation determine physical and chemical properties that affect decomposition rates of organic matter (OM). Decomposition of OM is associated with activities of various extracellular enzymes (EE) produced by bacteria and fungi. Extracellular enzymes convert macromolecules to simple compounds such as labile organic carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and sulfur (S) that can be easily taken up by microbes and plants. Therefore, the enzymatic approach is helpful to understand the decomposition rates of OM and nutrient cycling in wetland soils. This paper reviews the physical and biogeochemical factors that regulate extracellular enzyme activities (EEa) in wetland soils, including those of ${\beta}$-glucosidase, ${\beta}$-N-acetylglucosaminidase, phosphatase, arylsulfatase, and phenol oxidase that decompose organic matter and release C, N, P, and S nutrients for microbial and plant growths. Effects of pH, water table, and particle size of OM on EEa were not significantly different among sites, whereas the influence of temperature on EEa varied depending on microbial acclimation to extreme temperatures. Addition of C, N, or P affected EEa differently depending on the nutrient state, C:N ratio, limiting factors, and types of enzymes of wetland soils. Substrate quality influenced EEa more significantly than did other factors. Also, drainage of wetland and increased temperature due to global climate change can stimulate phenol oxidase activity, and anthropogenic N deposition can enhance the hydrolytic EEa; these effects increase OM decomposition rates and emissions of $CO_2$ and $CH_4$ from wetland systems. The researches on the relationship between microbial structures and EE functions, and environmental factors controlling EEa can be helpful to manipulate wetland ecosystems for treating pollutants and to monitor wetland ecosystem services.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.545-553
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• 2019

This study was conducted to determine whether the water in which nitrate accumulated during long-term fish culture in an aquaponics system without water exchange could be removed and reused as catfish-culturing water. The catfish (Silurus asotus) were cultured in the urban aquaculture system using BFT (Biofloc Technology) aquaculture and an aquaponics system (two rearing tanks, 3 tons each) without exchanging the rearing water. After 151 days (from March to August) of rearing, 2.8 g of fry had grown to an average weight of 171.3 g (total weight, 56.53 kg) and 235.5 g (total weight 71.1 kg), respectively. The overall survival rate was 65% in the urban aquaculture system. However, the survival rate was 77.7% before separation into the two tanks. The survival rates after the separation were 92.9% and 78.0%. In the early biofloc watermaking process, there was a high mortality rate. After water stabilization, the mortality rate decreased and some mortality occurred during the period when the total amount of suspended solids (TSS) increased. The results of monthly blood analysis of the catfish showed that the AST concentration was significantly higher in April. Blood ALT levels and triglycerides showed no difference in the rearing period and the glucose, cholesterol, and total protein levels were significantly higher in July. There was no difference in the other periods. The plants produced by the aquaponics system using catfish-rearing water were lettuce, basil, chard, and red chicory. These showed smooth growth and a total of 148.85 kg of plants were harvested in five months. It was possible to remove nitric acid from the aquaponics system and reuse it as catfish-rearing water. Maintaining proper plant quantity according to the capacity of the catfish showed that the combination of agricultural and aquatic products was possible.