• Proceedings of the Microbiological Society of Korea Conference
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.86-88
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• 2008

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.77-80
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• 2018

The focus of this paper is to present techniques to overcome certain difficulties in quantitative analysis with a time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF-MS). The method is based on conventional solid-phase extraction, followed by reversed-phase ultra high performance liquid chromatography of the extract, and mass spectrometric analysis. The target compounds included atenolol, atrazine, caffeine, carbamazepine, diclofenac, estrone, ibuprofen, naproxen, simazine, sucralose, sulfamethoxazole, and triclosan. The matrix effects caused by high concentrations of organic compounds in wastewater are especially significant in electrospray ionization mass spectroscopy. Internal-standard calibration with isotopically labeled standards corrects the results for many matrix effects, but some peculiarities were observed. The problems encountered in quantitation of carbamazepine and triclosan, due to nonlinear calibration were solved by changing the internal standard and using a narrower mass window. With simazine, the use of a quadratic calibration curve was the best solution.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.8-22
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• 2019

Among numerous chemicals used globally, the number of emerging contaminants is increasing. Numerical modeling for contaminant fate and transport in the subsurface is critical to evaluate environmental and health risk. In general, such models require physicochemical properties of contaminants as input values, which can be found in numerous chemical databases (DB). However, there exist lack of information specific to recently emerging contaminants, which requires estimation of physicochemical properties using regression programs. The purpose of the study is to introduce the workflow for identifying physicochemical properties of potential contaminants utilizing numerous chemical DBs, which frequently lists up potential contaminants for estimating chemical behavior. In this review paper, details of several chemical DBs such as KISChem, TOXNET, etc. and regression programs including EPI $Suite^{TM}$, ChemAxon, etc. were summarized and also benefit of using such DBs were explained. Finally, a few examples were introduced to estimate predominant phase, removal ratio, partitioning, and eco-toxicities by searching or regressing physicochemical properties.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.902-910
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• 2012

The photodegradation characteristics of 30 pharmaceuticals were investigated by batch experiments using Ultraviolet (UV) reactor. The investigated pharmaceuticals include antibiotics, analgesics and antiarrhythmic agents etc. Tested water was prepared by simultaneously spiking 30 pharmaceuticals into pure water, and each experiment was conducted using 3 types of UV lamps. As a result, batch experiments showed that reactions of all the investigated pharmaceuticals followed pseudo-first order reaction regardless of the applied UV lamps. Among the pharmaceuticals, Cyclophosphamide, 2-Quinoxaline carboxylic acid and Clarithromycin proved to be the most UV-resistant compounds. Contrarily, Ceftiofur, Diclofenac and Ketoprofen were easily degraded by all the UV lamps. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration hardly changed although the concentration of the pharmaceuticals concentration gradually decreased with time, indicating that the degradation of parent pharmaceuticals may produce their intermediates during UV treatment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.797-803
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• 2013

Recently, a number of countries are now considering the reuse of effluents from wastewater treatment for various water applications. To improve the reuse of wastewater effluent, the development of appropriate micro-pollutant removal technology is necessary. Although several researche have been studied for removing micro-pollutants in water, little study has been conducted for the removal of emerging contaminant such as antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) by disinfection processes. Therefore, the aim of this study is to compare the capacity of disinfection technologies such as chlorination, ozone, and electron beam, for removing antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) and ARGs. Based on this study, better ARG removal can be achieved by ozonation and electron beam. Relatively, high CT values of chlorination or ozonation are needed to remove ARB and ARG compared to conventional pathogens.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.353-364
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• 2021

Since the mid-twentieth century, geology has gradually evolved as an interdisciplinary context in South Korea. The journal of Economic and Environmental Geology (EEG) has a long history of over 52 years and published interdisciplinary articles based on geology. In this study, we performed a literature review using topic modeling based on Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), an unsupervised machine learning model, to identify geological topics, historical trends (classic topics and emerging topics), and association by analyzing titles, keywords, and abstracts of 2,571 publications in EEG during 1968-2020. The results showed that 8 topics ('petrology and geochemistry', 'hydrology and hydrogeology', 'economic geology', 'volcanology', 'soil contaminant and remediation', 'general and structural geology', 'geophysics and geophysical exploration', and 'clay mineral') were identified in the EEG. Before 1994, classic topics ('economic geology', 'volcanology', and 'general and structure geology') were dominant research trends. After 1994, emerging topics ('hydrology and hydrogeology', 'soil contaminant and remediation', 'clay mineral') have arisen, and its portion has gradually increased. The result of association analysis showed that EEG tends to be more comprehensive based on 'economic geology'. Our results provide understanding of how geological research topics branch out and merge with other fields using a useful literature review tool for geological research in South Korea.

• BMB Reports
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• v.53 no.11
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• pp.565-575
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• 2020

Gene therapy is emerging as a treatment option for inherited genetic diseases. The success of this treatment approach greatly depends upon gene delivery vectors. Researchers have attempted to harness the potential of viral vectors for gene therapy applications over many decades. Among the viral vectors available, gutless adenovirus (GLAd) has been recognized as one of the most promising vectors for in vivo gene delivery. GLAd is constructed by deleting all the viral genes from an adenovirus. Owing to this structural feature, the production of GLAd requires a helper that supplies viral proteins in trans. Conventionally, the helper is an adenovirus. Although the helper adenovirus efficiently provides helper functions, it remains as an unavoidable contaminant and also generates replication-competent adenovirus (RCA) during the production of GLAd. These two undesirable contaminants have raised safety concerns and hindered the clinical applications of GLAd. Recently, we developed helper virus-free gutless adenovirus (HF-GLAd), a new version of GLAd, which is produced by a helper plasmid instead of a helper adenovirus. Utilization of this helper plasmid eliminated the helper adenovirus and RCA contamination in the production of GLAd. HF-GLAd, devoid of helper adenovirus and RCA contaminants, will facilitate its clinical applications. In this review, we discuss the characteristics of adenoviruses, the evolution and production of adenoviral vectors, and the unique features of HF-GLAd as a new platform for gene therapy. Furthermore, we highlight the potential applications of HF-GLAd as a gene delivery vector for the treatment of various inherited genetic diseases.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.289-297
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• 2011

Objectives: To estimate the microbial contaminant load discharged from livestock farms, we randomly selected livestock farmers of cattle, swine, and fowl and collected bacterial strains from domestic animals' feces and compost samples. Recently, as multi-antibiotic-resistant bacteria and super bacteria showing resistance to a variety of antibiotics have been reported one after another, the ecological and health hazard of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is emerging as an important issue. Methods: Monitored indicator microorganism constituents were totak coliform (TC), fecal coliform (FC), and aerobic bacteria. The multi-antibiotic-resistant bacteria were identified from investigated indicator microorganisms by 16S rRNA sequencing. Results: By microbiological analysis, the largest population of aerobic bacteria ($1.5{\times}10^5$ CFU/g) was found in cattle fecal compost, and total coliforms ($1.1{\times}10^7$ CFU/g) and fecal coliforms ($1.0{\times}10^5$ CFU/g) were found primarily in swine fecal compost, while the lowest population was found in fowl fecal compost. Among the 67 strains separated from aerobic bacteria, five strains expressing high antibiotic resistance were selected in each sample. We found the multi-antibiotic resistant strains to be Shigella boydii, Staphylococcus lentus, Acinetobacter sp. and Brevibacterium luteolum. Conclusions: These results suggest that increasing numbers of multi-antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the environment have a close relation to the reckless use of antibiotics with livestock.

• 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.09a
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• pp.23-33
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• 2001

Soil and groundwater contamination is an emerging national issue in recognition of the potential adverse impact to human health and ecosystem. In a recent registration, property owner's liability was addressed on the damages to neighbor's soil and groundwater caused by contaminant-plume migration. Soil and groundwater remediation is a technical and engineering project. But, the scientific and technical solutions for the project have been greatly influenced by social and political movement in the country. Governmental sectors, including local and central, should actively engage on this important issue through long-term planning and public investments. Government made regulations to prevent soil and groundwater contamination, not to punish private sector that has no technical and financial capability for solving such problems.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.26
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• pp.12.1-12.7
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• 2011

Objectives: Perchlorate is an emerging contaminant that is found everywhere, including various foods. Perchlorate is known to disturb the production of thyroid hormones and leads to mental disorders in fetuses and infants, as well as metabolic problems in adults. In this study, we attempted to establish an LC-MS/MS method for measuring perchlorate in dairy products and used this developed method to investigate perchlorate levels in Korean milk and yogurt samples. Methods: The developed method of perchlorate analysis requires a shaker and 1% acetic acid/acetonitrile as the extracting solvent. Briefly, the samples were extracted and then centrifuged (4000 rpm, 1hour), and the supernatant was then passed through a $Envi^{TM}$ Carb SPE cartridge that had been prewashed sequentially with 6 mL of acetonitrile and 6 mL of 1% acetic acid in water. The final volume of the sample extract was adjusted to 40 mL with reagent water and the final sample was filtered through a 0.20-${\mu}m$ pore size PTFE (Polytetrafluoroethylene) syringe filter prior to LC-MS/MS. Results: The average levels of perchlorate in milk and yogurt samples were $5.63{\pm}3.49\;{\mu}g/L$ and $3.65{\pm}2.42\;{\mu}g/L$, respectively. The perchlorate levels observed in milk samples in this study were similar to those reported from China, Japan, and the United States. Conclusions: The exposure of Koreans to perchlorate through the consumption of dairy products was calculated based on the results of this study. For all age groups, the calculated exposure to perchlorate was below the reference of dose (0.7 ${\mu}g/kg$-day) proposed by the National Academy of Science, USA, but the perchlorate exposure of children was higher than that of adults. Therefore, further investigation of perchlorate in other food samples is needed to enable a more exact assessment of exposure of children to perchlorate.