• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.44 no.4
• /
• pp.369-378
• /
• 2012

A load-following operation in APR+ nuclear plants is necessary to reduce the need to adjust the boric acid concentration and to efficiently control the control rods for flexible operation. In particular, a disproportion in the axial flux distribution, which is normally caused by a load-following operation in a reactor core, causes xenon oscillation because the absorption cross-section of xenon is extremely large and its effects in a reactor are delayed by the iodine precursor. A model predictive control (MPC) method was used to design an automatic load-following controller for the integrated thermal power level and axial shape index (ASI) control for APR+ nuclear plants. Some tracking controllers employ the current tracking command only. On the other hand, the MPC can achieve better tracking performance because it considers future commands in addition to the current tracking command. The basic concept of the MPC is to solve an optimization problem for generating finite future control inputs at the current time and to implement as the current control input only the first control input among the solutions of the finite time steps. At the next time step, the procedure to solve the optimization problem is then repeated. The support vector regression (SVR) model that is used widely for function approximation problems is used to predict the future outputs based on previous inputs and outputs. In addition, a genetic algorithm is employed to minimize the objective function of a MPC control algorithm with multiple constraints. The power level and ASI are controlled by regulating the control banks and part-strength control banks together with an automatic adjustment of the boric acid concentration. The 3-dimensional MASTER code, which models APR+ nuclear plants, is interfaced to the proposed controller to confirm the performance of the controlling reactor power level and ASI. Numerical simulations showed that the proposed controller exhibits very fast tracking responses.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.53 no.2
• /
• pp.205-226
• /
• 2015

Finite element method (FEM) is an effective quantitative method to solve complex engineering problems. The basic idea of FEM for a complex problem is to be able to find a solution by reducing the problem made simple. If mathematical tools are inadequate to obtain precise result, even approximate result, FEM is the only method that can be used for structural analyses. In FEM, the domain is divided into a large number of simple, small and interconnected sub-regions called finite elements. FEM has been used commonly for linear and nonlinear analyses of different types of structures to give us accurate results of plane stress and plane strain problems in civil engineering area. In this paper, FEM is used to investigate stress analysis of a shear wall which is subjected to concentrated loads and fundamental principles of stress analysis of the shear wall are presented by using matrix displacement method in this paper. This study is consisting of two parts. In the first part, the shear wall is discretized with constant strain triangular finite elements and stiffness matrix and load vector which is attained from external effects are calculated for each of finite elements using matrix displacement method. As to second part of the study, finite element analysis of the shear wall is made by ANSYS software program. Results obtained in the second part are presented with tables and graphics, also results of each part is compared with each other, so the performance of the matrix displacement method is demonstrated. The solutions obtained by using the proposed method show excellent agreements with the results of ANSYS. The results show that this method is effective and preferable for the stress analysis of shell structures. Further studies should be carried out to be able to prove the efficiency of the matrix displacement method on the solution of plane stress problems using different types of structures.

• Animal cells and systems
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.29-36
• /
• 2011

Insect lysozymes are basic, cationic proteins synthesized in fat body and hemocytes in response to bacterial infections and depolymerize the bacterial cell wall. The c-type lysozyme of the insect Spodoptera litura (SLLyz) is a single polypeptide chain of 121 residues with four disulfide bridges and 17 rare codons and is approximately 15 kDa. The full-length SLLyz cDNA is 1039 bp long with a poly(A) tail, and contains an open reading frame of 426 bp long (including the termination codon), flanked by a 54 bp long 5' UTR and a 559 bp long 3' UTR. As a host for the production of high-level recombinant proteins, E. coli is used most commonly because of its low cost and short generation time. However, the soluble expression of heterologous proteins in E. coli is not trivial, especially for disulfide-bonded proteins. In order to prevent inclusion body formation, GST was selected as a fusion partner to enhance the solubility of recombinant protein, and fused to the amplified products encoding mature SLLyz. The expression vector pGEX-4T-1/rSLLyz was then transformed into E. coli BL21(DE3)pLysS for soluble expression of rSLLyz, and the soluble fusion protein was purified successfully. Inhibition zone assay demonstrated that rSLLyz showed antibacterial activity against B. megaterium. These results demonstrate that the GST fusion expression system in E. coli described in this study is efficient and inexpensive in producing a disulfide-bonded rSLLyz in soluble, active form, and suggest that the insect lysozyme is an interesting system for future structural and functional studies.

• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.61-65
• /
• 2003

This study was investigated to identify the regulatory mechanism of ACC gene expression by hormones and nutrition. The fragment of ACC promoter I (PI) -220 bp region was recombined to pGL3-Basic vector with luciferase as a reporter gene. The primary hepatocyte from the rat was used to investigate the regulation of ACC PI activity. ACC PI (-220 bp)/luciferase chimeric plasmid was transfected into primary rat hepatocyte by using lipofectin. ACC PI activity was shown by measuring luciferase activity. The addition of insulin, dexamethasone, and triiodothyronine to the culture medium increased the activity of ACC PI by 2.5-, 2.3- and 1.8-fold, respectively. In the presence of 1 $\mu$M dexamethasone, the effects of insulin was amplified about 1.2-fold showing the additional effects of dexamethasone. Moreover the activity of luciferase was increased by insulin, dexamethasone, and triiodothyronine treatment approximately 4-fold. These results indicated that insulin, dexamethasone and thyroid hormone coordinately regulate ACC gene expression via regulation of promoter I activity. On the -220 to ＋21 region of ACC PI, the addition of the glucose to the culture medium increased the activity of ACC PI. With 25 mM glucose, luciferase activity increased by 7-fold. On the other hand, on the -220 bp region, ACC PI activity was not changed by polyunsaturated fatty acids. Therefore, it can be postulated that there are response elements for insulin, triiodothyronine, dexamethasone, and glucose, but not PUFAs on the -220 bp region of ACC PI.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
• /
• v.23 no.7
• /
• pp.844-847
• /
• 2012

By using LHTL(Left-Handed Transmission Line) which is a form of a metamaterial and conventional RHTL (Right-Handed Transmission Line), we designed, fabricated and tested a broadband $90^{\circ}$ coupler which is a basic circuit for I-Q vector signal generation. Synthetic LHTL and RHTL were implemented with capacitors and inductors only, that the size is minimized. Also, by implementing a Wilkinson power divider which is required for the suggested circuit using a synthetic RHTL, the size of whole circuit is only $11mm{\times}12mm$. For the frequency range 0.8~1.25 GHz, the phase difference at the outputs maintained $90^{\circ}{\pm}5^{\circ}$ and thus, a broadband $90^{\circ}$ coupler could be made in a compact form. for the same frequency range, the insertion loss is less than 1.6 dB and return loss is more than 10.1 dB. To the best of our knowledge, this is the smallest and broadband $90^{\circ}$ coupler for the frequency range and if the circuit is made with MMIC(Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit) technology, the size will be reduced much further.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
• /
• v.26
• /
• pp.5.1-5.11
• /
• 2011

Objectives: In order to identify the possibility of slender bitterling (SB) (Acheilognathus yamatsutae) being used as a test species for estrogenic endocrine disrupting chemicals (EEDCs), we carried out the cloning and sequence characterization of the estrogen receptor (ER). Methods: The ER from a slender bitterling was obtained by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), 5'- and 3'-rapid amplification of cDNA ends (5'-RACE and 3'-RACE) and T-vector cloning. The expression of ER mRNA was also analyzed in six tissues (brain, liver, kidney, gill, gonad, and intestines) by real-time PCR. Results: We obtained an ER from the slender bitterling. The SB ER cDNA was 2189 base pairs (bp) in length and contained a 1707 bp open reading frame that encoded 568 amino acid residues. The SB ER amino acid sequence clustered in a monophyletic group with the $ER{\alpha}$ of other fish, and was more closely related to zebrafish $ER{\alpha}$(88% identity) than to the $ER{\alpha}$ of other fish. The SB ER cDNA was divided into A/B, C, D, E and F domains. The SB ER has conserved important sequences for ER functions, such as the DNA binding domain (D domain), which are consistent with those of other teleosts. Conclusions: The ER of the slender bitterling could provide basic information in toxicological studies of EEDCs in the slender bitterling.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
• /
• 2009.10a
• /
• pp.945-949
• /
• 2009

This paper proposes an enhanced motion estimation that is one of core parts affecting the coding performance and visual quality in video coding. Although the full search technique, which is the most basic method of the motion estimation, presents the best visual quality, its computational complexity is great, since the search procedures to find the best matched block with each block in the current frame are carried out for all points inside the search area. Thus, various fast algorithms to reduce the computational complexity and maintain good visual quality have been proposed. The PMVFAST adopted the MPEG-4 visual standard produces the visual quality near that by the full search technique with the reduced computational complexity. In this paper, we propose a new motion vector prediction method using median processing. The proposed method reduces the computational complexity for the motion estimation significantly. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is faster than the PMVFAST and better than the full search in terms of search speed and average PSNR, respectively.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.19 no.12
• /
• pp.896-902
• /
• 2018

This study examined the flow and noise inside a sirocco fan for ventilation as a commercial program. To confirm only the location and power of the noise source, flow analysis was performed with steady state flow analysis. Through flow analysis, the flow was observed in the sirocco fan and the velocity vector. The pressure distribution inside was observed with contours. From the results of steady analysis, the position and size of the noise source could be seen using the 'Curle surface acoustic power' and 'Proudman acoustic power'. The Curle surface acoustic power can be used to observe the noise from the surface. The Proudman acoustic power can be used to detect noise generated in the flow region because the position and size of the noise source generated inside the sirocco fan can be seen only in the steady state. Therefore it is necessary to further analyze the unsteady state to check the frequency of the noise generated. This study provides basic data for improving the performance of the Sirocco fan and reducing the noise.

• Molecules and Cells
• /
• v.42 no.5
• /
• pp.418-425
• /
• 2019

Multicistronic elements, such as the internal ribosome entry site (IRES) and 2A-like cleavage sequence, serve crucial roles in the eukaryotic ectopic expression of exogenous genes. For utilization of multicistronic elements, the cleavage efficiency and order of elements in multicistronic vectors have been investigated; however, the dynamics of multicistronic element-mediated expression remains unclear. Here, we investigated the dynamics of encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV) IRES- and porcine teschovirus-1 2A (p2A)-mediated expression. By utilizing real-time fluorescent imaging at a minute-level resolution, we monitored the expression of fluorescent reporters bridged by either EMCV IRES or p2A in two independent cultured cell lines, HEK293 and Neuro2a. We observed significant correlations for the two fluorescent reporters in both multicistronic elements, with a higher correlation coefficient for p2A in HEK293 but similar coefficients for IRES-mediated expression and p2A-mediated expression in Neuro2a. We further analyzed the causal relationship of multicistronic elements by convergent cross mapping (CCM). CCM revealed that in all four conditions examined, the expression of the preceding gene causally affected the dynamics of the subsequent gene. As with the cross correlation, the predictive skill of p2A was higher than that of IRES in HEK293, while the predictive skills of the two multicistronic elements were indistinguishable in Neuro2a. To summarize, we report a significant temporal correlation in both EMCV IRES- and p2A-mediated expression based on the simple bicistronic vector and real-time fluorescent monitoring. The current system also provides a valuable platform to examine the dynamic aspects of expression mediated by diverse multicistronic elements under various physiological conditions.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
• /
• v.48 no.2
• /
• pp.353-365
• /
• 2021

Previously, we reported that tissue factor (Tf) was included in the list of differentially expressed genes as an upregulated gene in a rejected porcine heart after xenotransplantation into monkey. In this study, we analyzed that expression of Tf in aortic endothelial cells (pAEC) isolated from alpha 1,3-galactosyltransferase knockout pig in response to allogeneic porcine serum and xenogeneic human serum. The consequence was significant upregulation of Tf expression by responding to human serum compared with porcine serum. To analyze the function of Tf gene as a promoter, we constructed reporter vectors for expression of luciferase linked to 1,246 and 787 base pairs of porcine Tf (pTF1246 and pTF787), and 535 base pairs of human TF (hTF535) sequences including putative promoter regions and AP-1 biding site at the 5' end. The reporter vectors were transfected into pAEC including cytomegalovirus enhancer/chicken β-actin (CAG)-luciferase vector as a control. Luciferase assay showed that all of the promoters were insufficient to express luciferase compared with CAG promoter in basic culture conditions. Notably, pTF1246, pTF787, and hTF535 led to a significant increase of luciferase expression in response to human serum compared with porcine serum while no change of CAG. pTF1246 and pTF787 showed higher expression than hTF535. Taken together, our findings suggest that pTF1246 and pTF787 promoters could mediate target gene expression specifically at xenogeneic stress condition.