• Title/Summary/Keyword: bio technology

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Influences of Major Nutrients in Surface Water, Soil and Growth Responses to Application of Supplemental Activated Biochar Pellet Fertilizers in Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Cultivation (벼 재배 시 활성 바이오차 팰렛 비료 시용에 따른 논 표면수와 토양의 주요 양분 함량 및 벼 생육에 미치는 영향)

  • Lee, SangBeom;Park, DoGyun;Jeong, ChangYoon;Nam, JooHee;Kim, MinJeong;Nam, HongShik;Shim, ChangKi;Hong, SeungGil;Shin, JoungDu
    • Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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    • v.30 no.2
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    • pp.17-28
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    • 2022
  • The application of supplemental activated biochar pellet fertilizers (ABPFs) was evaluated by investigating key factors such as changes of surface paddy water and soil chemical properties and rice growth responses during the growing season. The treatments consisted of control, activated rice hull biochar pellet (ARHBP-40%), and activated palm biochar pellet (APBP-40%) applications. It was shown that the lowest NH4+-N and PO4--P concentrations were observed in surface paddy water to the ARHBP-40%, while the NH4+-N concentration in the control was abruptly decreased until 30 days after transplant in the soil. However, the lowest NH4+-N concentration in the blended biochar application was 9.18 mg L-1 at 1 day of transplant, but its ABPFs application was observed to be less than 1 mg L-1 at 56 days after transplant. The lowest PO4--P concentration in paddy water treated ARHBP-40% ranged from 0.06 mg L-1 to 0.08 mg L-1 until 30 days after transplant among the treatments. For the paddy soil, the NH4+-N concentration in the control was abruptly decreased from 177.7 mg kg-1 to 49.4 mg kg-1, while NO3--N concentration was highest, 13.2 mg kg-1 in 14 days after transplant. The P2O5 concentrations in the soils increased from rice transplants until the harvesting period regardless of the treatments. The highest K2O concentration was 252.8 mg kg-1 in the APBP-40% at 84 days after transplant. For the rice growth responses, plant height in the control was relatively high compared to others, but grain yield was not significantly different between the control and ARHBP-40%. The application of ARHBP-40% can minimize nitrogen and phosphorous application rates into the agro-ecosystem.

Distribution and Frequency of SSR Motifs in the Chrysanthemum SSR-enriched Library through 454 Pyrosequencing Technology (국화 SSR-enriched library에서 SSR 반복염기의 분포 및 빈도)

  • Moe, Kyaw Thu;Ra, Sang-Bog;Lee, Gi-An;Lee, Myung-Chul;Park, Ha-Seung;Kim, Dong-Chan;Lee, Cheol-Hwi;Choi, Hyun-Gu;Jeon, Nak-Beom;Choi, Byung-Jun;Jung, Ji-Youn;Lee, Kyu-Min;Park, Yong-Jin
    • Journal of the Korean Society of International Agriculture
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    • v.23 no.5
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    • pp.546-551
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    • 2011
  • Chrysanthemums, often called mums or chrysanths, belong to the genus Chrysanthemum, which includes about 30 species of perennial flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. We extracted DNA from Dendranthema grandiflorum ('Smileball') to construct a simple sequence repeat (SSR)-enriched library, using a modified biotin-streptavidin capture method. GS FLX (Genome Sequencer FLX System which provides the flexibility to perform the broad range of applications) sequencing (at the 1/8 run specification) resulted in 18.83 mega base pairs (Mbp) with an average read length of 280.06 bp. Sequence analyses of all SSR-containing clones revealed a predominance of di-nucleotide motifs (16,375, 61.5%) followed by tri-nucleotide motifs (6,616, 24.8%), tetra-nucleotide motifs (1,674, 6.3%), penta-nucleotide motifs (1,283, 4.8%), and hexa-nucleotide motifs (693, 2.6%). Among the di-nucleotide motifs, the AC/CA class was the most frequently identified (93.5% of all di-nucleotide types), followed by the GA/AG class (6.1%), the AT/TA class (0.4%), and the CG/GC class (0.03%). When we analyzed the distribution of different repeat motifs and their respective numbers of repeats, regardless of the motif class, of 100 SSR markers, we found a higher number of di-nucleotide motifs with 70 to 80 repeats; we also found two di-nucleotide motifs with 83 and 89 repeats, respectively, but their product lengths were within optimum size (297 and 300 bp). In future work, we will screen for polymorphisms of possible primer pairs. The results will provide a useful tool for assessing molecular diversity and investigating the population structure among and within Chrysanthemum species.

Estimation of Chlorophyll Contents in Pear Tree Using Unmanned AerialVehicle-Based-Hyperspectral Imagery (무인기 기반 초분광영상을 이용한 배나무 엽록소 함량 추정)

  • Ye Seong Kang;Ki Su Park;Eun Li Kim;Jong Chan Jeong;Chan Seok Ryu;Jung Gun Cho
    • Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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    • v.39 no.5_1
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    • pp.669-681
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    • 2023
  • Studies have tried to apply remote sensing technology, a non-destructive survey method, instead of the existing destructive survey, which requires relatively large labor input and a long time to estimate chlorophyll content, which is an important indicator for evaluating the growth of fruit trees. This study was conducted to non-destructively evaluate the chlorophyll content of pear tree leaves using unmanned aerial vehicle-based hyperspectral imagery for two years(2021, 2022). The reflectance of the single bands of the pear tree canopy extracted through image processing was band rationed to minimize unstable radiation effects depending on time changes. The estimation (calibration and validation) models were developed using machine learning algorithms of elastic-net, k-nearest neighbors(KNN), and support vector machine with band ratios as input variables. By comparing the performance of estimation models based on full band ratios, key band ratios that are advantageous for reducing computational costs and improving reproducibility were selected. As a result, for all machine learning models, when calibration of coefficient of determination (R2)≥0.67, root mean squared error (RMSE)≤1.22 ㎍/cm2, relative error (RE)≤17.9% and validation of R2≥0.56, RMSE≤1.41 ㎍/cm2, RE≤20.7% using full band ratios were compared, four key band ratios were selected. There was relatively no significant difference in validation performance between machine learning models. Therefore, the KNN model with the highest calibration performance was used as the standard, and its key band ratios were 710/714, 718/722, 754/758, and 758/762 nm. The performance of calibration showed R2=0.80, RMSE=0.94 ㎍/cm2, RE=13.9%, and validation showed R2=0.57, RMSE=1.40 ㎍/cm2, RE=20.5%. Although the performance results based on validation were not sufficient to estimate the chlorophyll content of pear tree leaves, it is meaningful that key band ratios were selected as a standard for future research. To improve estimation performance, it is necessary to continuously secure additional datasets and improve the estimation model by reproducing it in actual orchards. In future research, it is necessary to continuously secure additional datasets to improve estimation performance, verify the reliability of the selected key band ratios, and upgrade the estimation model to be reproducible in actual orchards.

Genetic Characterization of Antigenic Variant Infectious Bursal Disease Virus (IBDV) in Chickens in Korea

  • Jong-Yeol Park;Ki-Woong Kim;Ke Shang;Sang-Won Kim;Yu-Ri Choi;Cheng-Dong Yu;Ji-Eun Son;Gyeong-Jun Kim;Won-Bin Jeon;In-Hwan Kim;Bai Wei;Min Kang;Hyung-Kwan Jang;Se-Yeoun Cha
    • Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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    • v.50 no.4
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    • pp.231-240
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    • 2023
  • Infectious bursal disease (IBD) is an acute, highly contagious, and immunosuppressive disease in young chickens, and causes considerable economic losses to the poultry industry. More than 30 years ago, an antigenic variant IBDV (avIBDV) was reported in chicken farms in the United States. Recently, a novel avIBDV exhibited clear differences in molecular characteristics compared with previous variant strains. This study investigated the molecular characteristics of recently isolated avIBDV strains in Korea. Strains of avIBDV were confirmed by reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) and were propagated in 10-day-old specific-pathogen-free (SPF) embryonated chicken eggs through chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) inoculation. Multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic analyses of hypervariable regions VP2 gene revealed that the strains originated from two different avIBDV lineages (G2a and G2d). In our results, we confirmed the co-existence and prevalence of avIBDV genogroup G2a and G2d in chicken farms. It is necessary to study the protective efficacy of current vaccines against avIBDVs.

Removal Velocities of Pollutants under Different Wastewater Injection Methods in Constructed Wetlands for Treating Livestock Wastewater (인공습지 축산폐수처리장에서 주입방법에 따른 오염물질의 제거속도 평가)

  • Kim, Seong-Heon;Seo, Dong-Cheol;Park, Jong-Hwan;Lee, Choong-Heon;Lee, Seong-Tea;Jeong, Tae-Uk;Kim, Hong-Chul;Ha, Yeong-Rae;Cho, Ju-Sik;Heo, Jong-Soo
    • Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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    • v.45 no.2
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    • pp.272-279
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    • 2012
  • In order to effectively treat livestock wastewater in constructed wetlands by natural purification method, removal velocities of pollutants under different injection methods in constructed wetlands were investigated. The removal velocities of chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solid (SS), T-N and T-P by continuous injection method were slightly rapid than those by intermittent injection method in full-scale livestock wastewater treatment plant. The removal velocity (K; $day^{-1}$) of COD by continuous injection method was $0.38\;d^{-1}$ for $1^{st}$ bed, $0.13\;d^{-1}$ for $2^{nd}$ bed, $0.17\;d^{-1}$ for $3^{rd}$ bed, $0.05\;d^{-1}$ for $4^{th}$ bed and $0.17\;d^{-1}$ for $5^{th}$ bed. The removal velocities (K; $day^{-1}$) of COD in $1^{st}$, $2^{nd}$, $3^{rd}$, $4^{th}$ and $5^{th}$ beds by intermittent injection method were $0.210\;d^{-1}$, $0.086\;d^{-1}$, $0.222\;d^{-1}$, $0.053\;d^{-1}$ and $0.137\;d^{-1}$, respectively. The removal velocity (K; $day^{-1}$) of SS by continuous injection method was $0.750\;d^{-1}$ for $1^{st}$ bed, $0.108\;d^{-1}$ for $2^{nd}$ bed, $0.120\;d^{-1}$ for $3^{rd}$ bed, $0.086\;d^{-1}$ for $4^{th}$ bed and $0.292\;d^{-1}$ for $5^{th}$ bed. The removal velocities (K; $day^{-1}$) of SS in $1^{st}$, $2^{nd}$, $3^{rd}$, $4^{th}$ and $5^{th}$ beds by intermittent injection method were $0.485\;d^{-1}$, $0.056\;d^{-1}$, $0.174\;d^{-1}$, $0.081\;d^{-1}$ and $0.227\;d^{-1}$, respectively. The removal velocity (K; $day^{-1}$) of T-N by continuous injection method was $0.361\;d^{-1}$ for $1^{st}$ bed, $0.121\;d^{-1}$ for $2^{nd}$ bed, $109\;d^{-1}$ for $3^{rd}$ bed, $0.047\;d^{-1}$ for $4^{th}$ bed and $0.155\;d^{-1}$ for $5^{th}$ bed. The removal velocities (K; $day^{-1}$) of T-N in $1^{st}$, $2^{nd}$, $3^{rd}$, $4^{th}$ and $5^{th}$ beds by intermittent injection method were $0.235\;d^{-1}$, $0.071\;d^{-1}$, $0.171\;d^{-1}$, $0.058\;d^{-1}$ and $0.126\;d^{-1}$, respectively. The removal velocity (K; $day^{-1}$) of T-P by continuous injection method was $0.803\;d^{-1}$ for $1^{st}$ bed, $0.084\;d^{-1}$ for $2^{nd}$ bed, $0.076\;d^{-1}$ for $3^{rd}$ bed, $0.118\;d^{-1}$ for $4^{th}$ bed and $0.301\;d^{-1}$ for $5^{th}$ bed. The removal velocities (K; $day^{-1}$) of T-P in $1^{st}$, $2^{nd}$, $3^{rd}$, $4^{th}$ and $5^{th}$ beds by intermittent injection method were $0.572\;d^{-1}$, $0.049\;d^{-1}$, $0.090\;d^{-1}$, $0.112\;d^{-1}$ and $0.222\;d^{-1}$, respectively.

Health Assessment of the Nakdong River Basin Aquatic Ecosystems Utilizing GIS and Spatial Statistics (GIS 및 공간통계를 활용한 낙동강 유역 수생태계의 건강성 평가)

  • JO, Myung-Hee;SIM, Jun-Seok;LEE, Jae-An;JANG, Sung-Hyun
    • Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.174-189
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    • 2015
  • The objective of this study was to reconstruct spatial information using the results of the investigation and evaluation of the health of the living organisms, habitat, and water quality at the investigation points for the aquatic ecosystem health of the Nakdong River basin, to support the rational decision making of the aquatic ecosystem preservation and restoration policies of the Nakdong River basin using spatial analysis techniques, and to present efficient management methods. To analyze the aquatic ecosystem health of the Nakdong River basin, punctiform data were constructed based on the position information of each point with the aquatic ecosystem health investigation and evaluation results of 250 investigation sections. To apply the spatial analysis technique, the data need to be reconstructed into areal data. For this purpose, spatial influence and trends were analyzed using the Kriging interpolation(ArcGIS 10.1, Geostatistical Analysis), and were reconstructed into areal data. To analyze the spatial distribution characteristics of the Nakdong River basin health based on these analytical results, hotspot(Getis-Ord Gi, $G^*_i$), LISA(Local Indicator of Spatial Association), and standard deviational ellipse analyses were used. The hotspot analysis results showed that the hotspot basins of the biotic indices(TDI, BMI, FAI) were the Andong Dam upstream, Wangpicheon, and the Imha Dam basin, and that the health grades of their biotic indices were good. The coldspot basins were Nakdong River Namhae, the Nakdong River mouth, and the Suyeong River basin. The LISA analysis results showed that the exceptional areas were Gahwacheon, the Hapcheon Dam, and the Yeong River upstream basin. These areas had high bio-health indices, but their surrounding basins were low and required management for aquatic ecosystem health. The hotspot basins of the physicochemical factor(BOD) were the Nakdong River downstream basin, Suyeong River, Hoeya River, and the Nakdong River Namhae basin, whereas the coldspot basins were the upstream basins of the Nakdong River tributaries, including Andong Dam, Imha Dam, and Yeong River. The hotspots of the habitat and riverside environment factor(HRI) were different from the hotspots and coldspots of each factor in the LISA analysis results. In general, the habitat and riverside environment of the Nakdong River mainstream and tributaries, including the Nakdong river upstream, Andong Dam, Imha Dam, and the Hapcheon Dam basin, had good health. The coldspot basins of the habitat and riverside environment also showed low health indices of the biotic indices and physicochemical factors, thus requiring management of the habitat and riverside environment. As a result of the time-series analysis with a standard deviation ellipsoid, the areas with good aquatic ecosystem health of the organisms, habitat, and riverside environment showed a tendency to move northward, and the BOD results showed different directions and concentrations by the year of investigation. These aquatic ecosystem health analysis results can provide not only the health management information for each investigation spot but also information for managing the aquatic ecosystem in the catchment unit for the working research staff as well as for the water environment researchers in the future, based on spatial information.

The Audience Behavior-based Emotion Prediction Model for Personalized Service (고객 맞춤형 서비스를 위한 관객 행동 기반 감정예측모형)

  • Ryoo, Eun Chung;Ahn, Hyunchul;Kim, Jae Kyeong
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.73-85
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    • 2013
  • Nowadays, in today's information society, the importance of the knowledge service using the information to creative value is getting higher day by day. In addition, depending on the development of IT technology, it is ease to collect and use information. Also, many companies actively use customer information to marketing in a variety of industries. Into the 21st century, companies have been actively using the culture arts to manage corporate image and marketing closely linked to their commercial interests. But, it is difficult that companies attract or maintain consumer's interest through their technology. For that reason, it is trend to perform cultural activities for tool of differentiation over many firms. Many firms used the customer's experience to new marketing strategy in order to effectively respond to competitive market. Accordingly, it is emerging rapidly that the necessity of personalized service to provide a new experience for people based on the personal profile information that contains the characteristics of the individual. Like this, personalized service using customer's individual profile information such as language, symbols, behavior, and emotions is very important today. Through this, we will be able to judge interaction between people and content and to maximize customer's experience and satisfaction. There are various relative works provide customer-centered service. Specially, emotion recognition research is emerging recently. Existing researches experienced emotion recognition using mostly bio-signal. Most of researches are voice and face studies that have great emotional changes. However, there are several difficulties to predict people's emotion caused by limitation of equipment and service environments. So, in this paper, we develop emotion prediction model based on vision-based interface to overcome existing limitations. Emotion recognition research based on people's gesture and posture has been processed by several researchers. This paper developed a model that recognizes people's emotional states through body gesture and posture using difference image method. And we found optimization validation model for four kinds of emotions' prediction. A proposed model purposed to automatically determine and predict 4 human emotions (Sadness, Surprise, Joy, and Disgust). To build up the model, event booth was installed in the KOCCA's lobby and we provided some proper stimulative movie to collect their body gesture and posture as the change of emotions. And then, we extracted body movements using difference image method. And we revised people data to build proposed model through neural network. The proposed model for emotion prediction used 3 type time-frame sets (20 frames, 30 frames, and 40 frames). And then, we adopted the model which has best performance compared with other models.' Before build three kinds of models, the entire 97 data set were divided into three data sets of learning, test, and validation set. The proposed model for emotion prediction was constructed using artificial neural network. In this paper, we used the back-propagation algorithm as a learning method, and set learning rate to 10%, momentum rate to 10%. The sigmoid function was used as the transform function. And we designed a three-layer perceptron neural network with one hidden layer and four output nodes. Based on the test data set, the learning for this research model was stopped when it reaches 50000 after reaching the minimum error in order to explore the point of learning. We finally processed each model's accuracy and found best model to predict each emotions. The result showed prediction accuracy 100% from sadness, and 96% from joy prediction in 20 frames set model. And 88% from surprise, and 98% from disgust in 30 frames set model. The findings of our research are expected to be useful to provide effective algorithm for personalized service in various industries such as advertisement, exhibition, performance, etc.

Medical Information Dynamic Access System in Smart Mobile Environments (스마트 모바일 환경에서 의료정보 동적접근 시스템)

  • Jeong, Chang Won;Kim, Woo Hong;Yoon, Kwon Ha;Joo, Su Chong
    • Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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    • v.16 no.1
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    • pp.47-55
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    • 2015
  • Recently, the environment of a hospital information system is a trend to combine various SMART technologies. Accordingly, various smart devices, such as a smart phone, Tablet PC is utilized in the medical information system. Also, these environments consist of various applications executing on heterogeneous sensors, devices, systems and networks. In these hospital information system environment, applying a security service by traditional access control method cause a problems. Most of the existing security system uses the access control list structure. It is only permitted access defined by an access control matrix such as client name, service object method name. The major problem with the static approach cannot quickly adapt to changed situations. Hence, we needs to new security mechanisms which provides more flexible and can be easily adapted to various environments with very different security requirements. In addition, for addressing the changing of service medical treatment of the patient, the researching is needed. In this paper, we suggest a dynamic approach to medical information systems in smart mobile environments. We focus on how to access medical information systems according to dynamic access control methods based on the existence of the hospital's information system environments. The physical environments consist of a mobile x-ray imaging devices, dedicated mobile/general smart devices, PACS, EMR server and authorization server. The software environment was developed based on the .Net Framework for synchronization and monitoring services based on mobile X-ray imaging equipment Windows7 OS. And dedicated a smart device application, we implemented a dynamic access services through JSP and Java SDK is based on the Android OS. PACS and mobile X-ray image devices in hospital, medical information between the dedicated smart devices are based on the DICOM medical image standard information. In addition, EMR information is based on H7. In order to providing dynamic access control service, we classify the context of the patients according to conditions of bio-information such as oxygen saturation, heart rate, BP and body temperature etc. It shows event trace diagrams which divided into two parts like general situation, emergency situation. And, we designed the dynamic approach of the medical care information by authentication method. The authentication Information are contained ID/PWD, the roles, position and working hours, emergency certification codes for emergency patients. General situations of dynamic access control method may have access to medical information by the value of the authentication information. In the case of an emergency, was to have access to medical information by an emergency code, without the authentication information. And, we constructed the medical information integration database scheme that is consist medical information, patient, medical staff and medical image information according to medical information standards.y Finally, we show the usefulness of the dynamic access application service based on the smart devices for execution results of the proposed system according to patient contexts such as general and emergency situation. Especially, the proposed systems are providing effective medical information services with smart devices in emergency situation by dynamic access control methods. As results, we expect the proposed systems to be useful for u-hospital information systems and services.

Effects of Dietary Germanium Biotite in Weaned, Growing and Finishing Pigs (이유자돈, 육성돈 및 비육돈에 있어 게르마늄흑운모의 급여 효과)

  • Kwon, O.S.;Kim, I.H.;Hong, J.W.;Lee, S.H.;Jung, Y.K.;Min, B.J.;Lee, W.B.;Shon, K.S.
    • Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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    • v.45 no.3
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    • pp.355-368
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    • 2003
  • In Exp. 1, this study was conducted to determine the effect of dietary germanium biotite on growth performance and nutrient digestibility in nursery pigs. A total of sixty crossbred pigs (initial body weight 15.09$\pm$0.18kg) were used in this experiment. This study was carried out for 28 days. The five treatments were control (CON; basal diet), GB0.1 (basal diet + germanium biotite 0.1%), GB0.3 (basal diet + germanium biotite 0.3%), GB0.6 (basal diet + germanium biotite 0.6%) and GB1.0 (basal diet + germanium biotite 1.0%). For overall period, ADG and Gain/feed were not significantly different among the treatments. In Exp. 2, a study was conducted to evaluate the effect of germanium biotite as a substitute for antibiotics in growing pigs. A total of fifty five crossbred pigs (initial body weight 32.47$\pm$0.9kg) were used in this experiment. The three treatments were negative control (NC: basal diet without antibiotic), positive control (PC: basal diet + 200ppm CTC) and GB0.3 (basal diet + germanium biotite 0.3%). Pigs fed PC (17%, 385 vs 451 g/d) and GB0.3 (14%, 385 vs 438 g/d) diets grew faster(P<0.05) than pigs fed NC diet. Pigs fed PC and GB0.3 diets resulted higher(P<0.05) ADFI than pigs fed CON diet. However, pigs fed GB0.3 diet had improved gain/feed compared to pigs fed NC diet(P<0.05). Apparent digestibility of DM and N by pigs fed PC and GB0.3 diets were greater(P<0.05) than those by pigs fed NC diet. In Exp. 3, a study was conducted to determine the effect of dietary germanium biotite on growth performance, plasma characteristics, backfat thickness and fecal ammonia gas concentration in finishing pigs. A total of seventy-two finishing pigs (initial body weight 78.56$\pm$1.32kg) were used in this experiment. The treatments included 1) Control (CON; basal diet) 2) GB1.0 (basal diet + germanium biotite 1.0%), 3) GB3.0 (basal diet + germanium biotite 3.0%). Pigs fed GB1.0 diet grew faster than pigs fed CON diet and GB0.3 diet (P<0.05). Also, pigs fed CON diet showed higher(p<0.05) ADFI than pigs fed GB3.0 diet. Pigs fed GB diets had improved gain/feed compared to pigs fed CON diet(P<0.05). Total?and VLDL concentrations in plasma of pigs fed GB diets treatments were significantly decreased compared to those in pig fed CON diet(P<0.05). However, HDL-cholesterol concentration in plasma of the pig was significantly increased compared to those in pigs fed CON diet (P<0.05). Pigs fed CON diet exerted higher(P<0.05) backfat thickness than pigs fed GB1.0 (5.4%, 27.19 vs 25.71mm) and GB3.0 (16.1%, 27.19 vs 22.81mm) diets. Feces from CON treatment were higher in fecal ammonia gas concentration than faces from pigs fed GB1.0 (64.1%, 17.00 vs 6.10mg/kg)and GB3.0 (61.8%, 17.00 vs 6.50mg/kg) treatments(P<0.05). In conclusion, the results suggest that the dietary addition of germanium biotite into diets for nursery pigs did not affect growth performance. The results also suggest the possibility of germanium biotite to replace antibiotic in diets for growing pigs. In finishing pigs, dietary supplementation of germanium biotite was an effective means for improving growth performance and for decreasing Total-and LDL+VLDL-plasma cholesterols, backfat and fecal ammonia gas concentration.

A study on the improvement of distribution system by overseas agricultural investment (해외농업투자에 따른 유통체계 개선방안에 관한 연구)

  • Sun, Il-Suck;Lee, Dong-Ok
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.8 no.3
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    • pp.17-26
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    • 2010
  • Recently concerns have been raised due to the unbalanced supply of crops: the price of crops has been unstable and at one point the price went up so high that the word Agflation(agriculture+ inflation) was coined. Korea, in particular, is a small-sized country and needs to secure the stable supply of crops by investing in the produce importation at a national level. Investment in foreign produce importation is becoming more important as a measure for sufficient supply of crops, limited supply of domestic crops, weakened farming conditions worldwide, as well as recent changes in the use of crops due to the development of bio-fuels, influence of carbon emission on crops, the price increase in crops, and influx of foreign hot money. However, there are many problems with investing in foreign produce importation: lack of support from the government; lack of farming information and technology; difficulty in securing the capital; no immediate pay-off from the investment and insufficient management. Although foreign produce is originally more price-competitive than domestic produce, it loses its competiveness in the process of importation (due to high tariffs) and poor distribution system, which makes it difficult to sell in Korea. Therefore, investment in foreign produce importation is being questioned for feasibility; to make it possible, foreign produce must maintain the price-competitiveness. Especially, harvest of agricultural products depends on natural and geographical conditions of each country and those products have indigenous properties, so distribution system according to import and export of agricultural products should be treated more carefully than that of other industries. Distribution costs are differentiated into each item and include cost of sorting and wrapping, cost of wrapping materials, cost of domestic transport, cost of international transport and cost of clearing customs for import and export. So transporting and storing agricultural products generates considerable costs compared with other products. Also, due to upgrade of dietary life, needs for stability, taste and visible quality toward food including agricultural products are being raised and wrong way of storage causes decomposition of food and loss of freshness, making the storage more difficult than that in room temperature, so storage and transport in distribution of agricultural products needs specialty. In addition, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. However, existing distribution system of agricultural products is exposed to various problems including problems in distribution channel, making distribution and strategy for distribution and those problems are as follows. First, in case of investment in overseas agricultural industry, stable supply of the products is difficult because areas of production are dispersed widely and influenced by outer factors due to including overseas distribution channels. Also, at the aspect of quality, standardization of products is difficult, distribution system is quite complicated and unreasonable due to long distribution channels according to international trade and financial and institutional support is not enough. Especially, there are quite a lot of ineffective factors including multi level distribution process, dramatic gap between production cost and customer's cost, lack of physical distribution facilities and difficulties in storage and transport due to lack of wrapping containers. Besides, because import and export of agricultural products has been manages under the company's own distribution according to transaction contract between manufacturers and exporting company, efficiency is low due to excessive investment in fixed costs and lack of specialty in dealing with agricultural products causes fall of value of products, showing the limit to lose price-competitiveness. Especially, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. Second, among tangible and intangible services which promote the efficiency of the whole distribution, a function building distribution environment which includes distribution information, system for standard and inspection, distribution finance, system for diversification of risks, education and training, distribution administration and tax system is wanted. In general, such a function building distribution environment is difficult to be changed and supplement innovatively because its effect compared with investment does not appear immediately despite of its necessity. Especially, in case of distribution of agricultural products, as a function of collecting and distributing is performed individually through various channels, the importance of distribution information and standardization is getting more focus due to the problem of repetition of work and lack of specialty. Also, efficient management of distribution is quite difficult due to lack of professionals in distribution, so support to professional education is needed. Third, though effort to keep self-sufficiency ratio of staple food, rice is regarded as important at the government level, level of dependency on overseas of others crops is high. Therefore, plan for stable securing food resources aside from staple food is also necessary. Especially, governmental organizations of agricultural products distribution in Korea are production-centered and have unreasonable structure whose function at the aspect of distribution and consumption is quite insufficient. And development of new distribution channels which can deal with changes in distribution environment and they do not achieve actual results of strategy for distribution due to non-positive strategy for price distribution. That is, it implies the possibility that base for supply will become vulnerable because it does not mediate appropriate interests on total distribution channels such as manufacturers, wholesale dealers and vendors by emphasizing consumer protection excessively in the distribution of agricultural products. Therefore, this study examined fundamental concept and actual situation for our investment to overseas agriculture, drew necessities, considerations, problems, etc. of overseas agricultural investment and suggested improvements at the level of distribution for price competitiveness of agricultural products cultivated in overseas under five aspects; government's indirect support, distribution's modernization and distribution information function's strengthening, government's political support for distribution facility, transportation route, load and unloading works' improvement, price competitiveness' securing, professional manpower's cultivation by education and training, etc. Here are some suggestions for foreign produce importation. First, the government should conduct a survey on the current distribution channels and analyze the situation to establish a measure for long-term development plans. By providing each agricultural area with a guideline for planning appropriate production of crops, the government can help farmers be ready for importation, and prevent them from producing same crops all at the same time. Government can sign an MOU with the foreign government and promote the importation so that the development of agricultural resources can be stable and steady. Second, the government can establish a strategy for an effective distribution system by providing farmers and agriculture-related workers with the distribution information such as price, production, demand, market structure and location, feature of each crop, and etc. In order for such distribution system to become feasible, the government needs to reconstruct the current distribution system, designate a public organization for providing distribution information and set the criteria for level of produce quality, trade units, and package units. Third, the government should provide financial support and a policy to seek an efficient distribution channel for foreign produce to be delivered fresh: the government should expand distribution facilities (for selecting, packaging, storing, and processing) and transportation vehicles while modernizing old facilities. There should be another policy to improve the efficiency of unloading, and to lower the cost of distribution. Fourth, it is necessary to enact a new law covering exceptional cases for importing produce in order to maintain the price competitiveness; currently the high tariffs is keeping the imported produce from being distributed domestically. However, the new adjustment should be made carefully within the WTO regulations since it can create a problem from giving preferential tariffs. The government can also simplify the distribution channels in order to reduce the cost in the distribution process. Fifth, the government should educate distributors to raise the efficiency and to modernize the distribution system. It is necessary to develop human resources by educating people regarding the foreign agricultural environment, the produce quality, management skills, and by introducing some successful cases in advanced countries.

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