• Animal Bioscience
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.680-691
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• 2021

Objective: This study was conducted to investigate the effect of fermented cottonseed meal (FCSM) on growth performance, carcass traits, and fat deposition in white-feather broiler chickens. Methods: A total of 480 male one-day-old white-feather broiler chickens were selected randomly and divided into four groups with six replicates of 20 chickens in each. The experimental chickens were fed diets including 3%, 6%, or 9% FCSM fermented by Candida tropicalis until 42 days old. In the experiment, the chickens of the control group were fed soybean meal. Results: FCSM supplementation linearly decreased the feed conversion ratio from d 15 to 21 and d 36 to 42, respectively (p<0.05). The percentage of carcass and semi-eviscerate increased in response to dietary FCSM supplementation at d 21 (p<0.05). The percentage of eviscerated and semi-eviscerate of 3FCSM was higher than that in other groups at d 35 (p<0.05). At the age of 42 d, the percentage of carcass increased in a quadratic way among increasing FCSM in diets (p<0.05). The subcutaneous fat thickness linearly decreased with the increasing levels of FCSM at d 21 (p<0.05). Gompertz and Logistic functions provided a better fit on abdominal fat and subcutaneous fat, respectively. The best fitted equation predicted that the maximum growth rate of abdominal fat weight and subcutaneous fat thickness occurred at d 28. FCSM had no significant effects on the shape of growth curve of abdominal fat weight and subcutaneous fat thickness, but reduced the height of the curve. Birds receiving the 6FCSM diet for 21 d had smaller adipocyte surface and lower serum glucose as well as triglyceride concentration. Conclusion: FCSM is beneficial for broiler chickens as it positively affects their growth and carcass in addition to altering their fat deposition.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.45 no.7
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• pp.465-478
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• 2022

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding RNAs that regulate the expression of target messenger RNA (mRNA) complementary to the 3' untranslated region (UTR) at the post-transcriptional level. Hsa-miR-422a, which is commonly known as miRNA derived from transposable element (MDTE), was derived from short interspersed nuclear element (SINE). Through expression analysis, hsa-miR-422a was found to be highly expressed in both the small intestine and liver of crab-eating monkey. AT-Rich Interaction Domain 5 B (ARID5B) was selected as the target gene of hsa-miR-422a, which has two binding sites in both the exon and 3'UTR of ARID5B. To identify the interaction between hsa-miR-422a and ARID5B, a dual luciferase assay was conducted in HepG2 cell line. The luciferase activity of cells treated with the hsa-miR-422a mimic was upregulated and inversely downregulated when both the hsa-miR-422a mimic and inhibitor were administered. Nuclear factor erythroid-2 (NF-E2) was selected as the core transcription factor (TF) via feed forward loop analysis. The luciferase expression was downregulated when both the hsa-miR-422a mimic and siRNA of NF-E2 were treated, compared to the treatment of the hsa-miR-422a mimic alone. The present study suggests that hsa-miR-422a derived from SINE could bind to the exon region as well as the 3'UTR of ARID5B. Additionally, hsa-miR-422a was found to share binding sites in ARID5B with several TFs, including NF-E2. The hsa-miR-422a might thus interact with TF to regulate the expression of ARID5B, as demonstrated experimentally. Altogether, hsa-miR-422a acts as a super enhancer miRNA of ARID5B by collaborating with TF and NF-E2.

• Animal Bioscience
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• v.35 no.11
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• pp.1733-1743
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• 2022

Objective: This study was aimed to explore the efficacy of combination of endo-xylanase (Xyn) and xylan-debranching enzymes (arabinofuranosidase, Afd and feruloyl esterase, FE) in improving utilization of bran in piglet diet. Methods: In vitro experiments were firstly conducted to examine the enzymological properties of Xyn, Afd, and FE, concurrent with their effect on degradation of arabinoxylan (Abx) in bran. In vivo experiment was then implemented by allocating two hundred and seventy 35-d-old postweaning piglets into 3 groups (6 replicates/group), which received bran-containing diet supplemented with Xyn (1,600 U/kg) or its combination with Afd (0.8 U/kg) and FE (4 U/kg) or without enzyme. Results: Both Xyn, Afd, and FE are relatively stable against the changes in temperature and pH value. Combining Xyn with Afd and FE had a superiority (p<0.05) over Xyn alone and its combination with Afd or FE in promoting (p<0.05) degradation of Abx in different brans. Combined treatment with Xyn, Afd, and FE was more beneficial than Xyn alone to induce increasing trends (p<0.10) of average daily gain, final body weight and feed efficiency of piglets fed bran-containing diet. Moreover, combination of Xyn, Afd, and FE showed advantages (p<0.05) over Xyn alone in causing reductions (p<0.05) in diarrhea rate and cecal pH value, concurrent with increases (p<0.05) in cecal and colonic acetic acid and total volatile fatty acid concentrations, as well as cecal butyric acid concentration of piglets fed bran-containing diet. Conclusion: Combining Xyn with Afd and FE was more beneficial than Xyn alone in promoting degradation of Abx in bran, along with growth performance and intestinal volatile fatty acid profile of piglets received bran-containing diet. Thereby, combination of Xyn, Afd, and FE had a superior efficacy relative to Xyn alone in improving application of cereal bran in piglet diet.

• Animal Bioscience
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.385-398
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• 2022

Objective: The objective was to evaluate the influence of different dietary crude protein (CP) levels during the growth phase on reproductive characteristics and reproductive efficiency as well as the body development of adult male Japanese quail. Methods: Three hundred one-day-old male quails were distributed into five treatments with diets containing different CP levels (18%, 20%, 22%, 24%, and 26%) in a completely randomized design, with six replicates of ten birds each. The CP diets were applied only during the growth phase (1 to 35 days). At 36 days of age, the birds were transferred to 30 laying cages with three males and nine females each, and all birds received the same diet formulated to meet production-phase requirements until 96 days of age. Results: The growth rate of the birds increased linearly (p<0.01) with increasing dietary CP, but the age of maximum growth decreased (p<0.05). At growth maturity, all birds had the same body weight (p>0.05). At 35 days of age, higher weight gain was obtained (p<0.05) with diets containing 22% CP or higher. No effects on feed conversion were observed in this phase. The increase in dietary CP enhanced (p<0.01) nitrogen intake and nitrogen excretion but did not affect (p>0.05) nitrogen retention. Testis size, seminiferous tubular area, number of spermatogonia, and germinal epithelial height at 35 days of age increased linearly (p<0.05) with dietary CP, while the number of Leydig cells decreased (p<0.01). The Sertoli cell number at 60 days of age increased linearly (p<0.01) with dietary CP. Dietary CP levels did not affect cloacal gland size, foam weight, foam protein concentration, semen volume, or flock fertility at 90 days of age. Conclusion: Dietary CP concentration affected body and testicular development in male Japanese quails but did not affect reproductive efficiency.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.431-435
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• 2022

The reduction of nitrogen-containing compounds (NC) containing the model crude methylnaphthalene oil (CMNO) of 5 compounds system was experimentally studied by solvent extraction. The model CMNO consisting of 3 kinds of NC including quinolone (QU), iso-quinoline (IQU), indole(IN) and 2 kinds of bicyclic aromatic compounds such as 1-methylnaphthalene (1MNA), 2-methylnaphthalene (2MNA) as raw materials, as well as the aqueous solution of formamide as a solvent, were used. The increase in the volume fraction of water to the solvent at the initial state (y_w,0) sharply decreased, but the distribution coefficient and the yield of NC conversely increased the selectivity of NC based on 2MNA, and an increase in the volume fraction of solvent to feed (S/F) simultaneously increased the distribution coefficient, yield and selectivity of NC. The yields of QU, IQU and IN under constant conditions (y_w,0 = 0.1, S/F = 1, equilibrium temperature 303 K) were 30%, 31% and 10%, respectively, and selectivity was 15, 15 and 20, respectively. From the excellent yield and selectivity of NC, the formamide extraction method of this study was expected as a method for reducing the NC contained in the model CMNO.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.55-60
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• 2022

In this study, a heat treatment experiment was conducted to select a new melt composition that can easily control the unintentionally doped nitrogen (N-UID) without degrading the SiC single crystal quality during TSSG process. The experiment was carried out for about 2 hours at a temperature of 1900℃ under Ar atmosphere. The used melt composition is based on either Si-Ti 10 at% or Si-Cr 30 at%, and also Co or Sc transition metals, which are effective for carbon solubility, were added at 3 at%, respectively. After the experiment, the crucible was cross-sectionally cut, and evaluated the Si-C reaction layer on the crucible-melt interface. As a result, with Sc addition, Si-C reaction layers uniformly occurred with a Si-infiltrated layer (~550 ㎛) and a SiC interlayer (~23 ㎛). This result represented that the addition of Sc is an effective transition metal with high carbon solubility and can feed carbon sources into the melt homogeneously. In addition, Sc is well known to have low reactivity energy with nitrogen compared to other transition metals. Therefore, we expect that both growth rate and Nitrogen UID can be controlled by Si-Sc based melt in the TSSG process.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.359-366
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• 2022

In this paper, we present the Korean menu-ordering Sentence Text-to-Speech (TTS) system using conformer-based FastSpeech2. Conformer is the convolution-augmented transformer, which was originally proposed in Speech Recognition. Combining two different structures, the Conformer extracts better local and global features. It comprises two half Feed Forward module at the front and the end, sandwiching the Multi-Head Self-Attention module and Convolution module. We introduce the Conformer in Korean TTS, as we know it works well in Korean Speech Recognition. For comparison between transformer-based TTS model and Conformer-based one, we train FastSpeech2 and Conformer-based FastSpeech2. We collected a phoneme-balanced data set and used this for training our models. This corpus comprises not only general conversation, but also menu-ordering conversation consisting mainly of loanwords. This data set is the solution to the current Korean TTS model's degradation in loanwords. As a result of generating a synthesized sound using ParallelWave Gan, the Conformer-based FastSpeech2 achieved superior performance of MOS 4.04. We confirm that the model performance improved when the same structure was changed from transformer to Conformer in the Korean TTS.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.20-26
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• 2023

Cow pea (Vigna unguiculata) was intercropped with Ziziphus spina-christi as summer forage in two consecutive seasons of 2017 and 2018. The aims to find out suitable agroforestry practice for saline soils of Khartoum State. And to investigate effect of tree spacing on forage biomass yield under semi -irrigated systems. Completely randomized block design with 3 replicates was conducted for this trial. Thus Z.spina-christi that fixed at 4×4 m was intercropped with cowpea at 1 m and 1.5 m spacing from trees trunk. Tree growth parameters were measured in terms of tree height, tree collar diameter, tree crown diameter and fruit yield per tree. While crop were parameters were determined in terms of plant height, number of plant, forage biomass yield per ha and land equivalent ratio. Soil profile of 1×1 m and 1.5 m depth was excavated and its features were described beside its chemical and physical properties were analyzed for 0-10 cm, 0-30 cm, and 30-60 cm and 60-100 cm layers. The results revealed that soil pH, CaCO₃, SAR, ESP, and EC ds/m were increased by increasing soil depths. Meanwhile tree growth in terms of tree height was significant in the first season 2017 when compared with tree collar diameter and tree crown diameter. Also significant differences were recorded for tree growth when compared with sole trees in the second season in 2018. Tree fruit showed marked variations between the two seasons, but it was higher under intercropping particularly at ZS2. Crop plant height was highly significant under sole cropping than intercropping in first season in 2017. In contrast forage biomass yield was significant under intercropping in ZS1 and ZS2 treatments. Land equivalent ratio was advantageous under this agroforestry system particularly under ZS2. Thus it recorded 5 and 9 for ZS2 in the two consecutive seasons respectively. Therefore, it is feasible to introduce this agroforestry system under such arid lands to provide summer forage yield of highly nutritive value and low cost for animals feed as well as to increase farmers' income and to halt desertification and to sequester carbon.

• Journal of the Korean Society of International Agriculture
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.513-519
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• 2011

In recent, the cultivation of maize in the world is being increased as a feed for the animal due to the increase of the large amount of meat consumption. However, reduction of supply for the feeding maize by the natural disaster such as drought, flooding, and demanding materials for bioenergy are attributed to increase the cereal price of the world that caused for the fluctuation of prices. The research has been done to provide useful information to the Korean agricultural investor regarding the current status of maize production and distribution in Cambodia. The maize cultivation of Cambodia in 2009 presented as a second major crop at the area of 6.8% in the total crop production area, and it continuously increased maize production yearly basis for the internal uses as well as for the exportation. The total amount of production showed by amount of 0.92 million tons due to the increased production of unit area. The yield production of unit area in current shows about 4 tones per hectare. About 90% of total production produced during August to September at wet season, and area of Batambang province produced about 70% of the total production. The production of feeding maize cultivated about 70% of the total cultivation area, and the exportation have done around 60% and remains were consumed as a domestic uses. The prospects of maize production in Cambodia will be increased due to the acceleration of livestock industry as 8.7% of annual growth rate.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.536-542
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• 2021

In this paper, we proposed a triple band printed monopole antenna with a bent branch strips for WiFi / 5G. An antenna structure in which bent strips for generating multiple resonance are attached in the form of branches was newly proposed based on a typical monopole strip vertically erected as a triple band antenna structure. The proposed antenna is designed on a FR-4 substrate with dielectric constant 4.3, thickness of 1.6 mm, and size of 28×40 mm². The measured impedance bandwidth is 430 MHz (2.22~2.65 GHz) in the 2.4 GHz WLAN, 450 MHz (3.38~3.83 GHz) in the 3.5 GHz and 2390 MHz (4.95~7.34 GHz), In particular, it has been observed that antenna has a stable omnidirectional radiation patterns as well as gain of 1.537 dBi, 1.878 dBi and 2.337 dBi in the entire frequency band of interest.