• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.267-272
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• 2007

Environmental and anthropogenic changes affect the health and stability of marine ecosystem. In this study we aimed to identify molecular biomarkers for ecotoxicological pollutants risk assessment in the rockfish (Sebastes schlegeli). We designed primers based on conserved sequences by multiple alignments of target genes from related species, and cloned the partial cDNAs of cytochrome P450 (CYP1A1), glutathione S-transferase (GST), metallothionein (MT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), ubiquitin (UB), vitellogenin (VTG) and $\beta$-actin by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) from S. schlegeli. Northern blot results indicated that these six genes expressions were significantly induced by benzo[a]pyrene (BaP, 1 ${\mu}M$) and that the level of each of their transcripts increased in BaP-exposed rockfish in a time-dependent manner. This study suggests that transcriptional changes in these six genes may be used for monitoring environmental exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

• Journal of the Korean Society of Fisheries and Ocean Technology
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.416-429
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• 2010

The market-based fisheries resources management system was reviewed and the improvement scheme was studied for seeking the sustainability of marine ecosystems and their fisheries resources. A demand-side policy is currently emerging to the management of fisheries resources by reducing over-exploitation, based on the consumer's selection. The role of consumers in the sustainable fishery was studied by comparing the social responsibility and consumer's activity between Korea and foreign countries and international NGO groups, based on the FAO guideline. The adoption of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)'s eco-labelling certificate was suggested by expanding the existing environment-friendly certification system in Korea. This new system will contribute to the protection of young immature fish and spawners in coastal and offshore fisheries as well as to the international trade of seafood in terms of fish products from well-managed fisheries. It is noted that the consumer's activities in the markets as regulators will contribute to the ecosystem health and sustainability.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.473-483
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• 2023

This study was conducted to better understand the impact of marine fish farming by estimating mass balances of carbon and nitrogen. According to the results, 94.55% of carbon and 95.66% of nitrogen inputs were from the feed supplied in the farm. Of the total carbon emissions in the farm, 47.28% was due to fish respiration, which was subsequently released into seawater. Advection and diffusion in the farm contributed to 30.29% of the carbon released. In the case of nitrogen, 50.70% of the nitrogen released into the seawater was produced by fish excreta, and 31.37% was advected and diffused into the system. The sedimentary environment received 3.82% and 3.10% of the carbon and nitrogen released from the farm, respectively. The fish feed used for healthy growth contained 11.64% carbon and 9.17% nitrogen. Since the feed type was floating pellets, the load released into the sedimentary environment was relatively lower than that released into the marine environment. These findings suggest that the identification of an optimal fish feed that respects fish physiology and preserves a healthy ecology is critical for the future of aquaculture. Furthermore, ecosystem-based aquaculture systems that decrease environmental burden, while endeavoring to improve environmental health, are required.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.397-401
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• 2005

Acid mine drainage and waste of abandoned mine area have caused serious water pollution and destruction of an ecosystem because of exposing to environment without an appropriate treatment. Gwang-yang mine area also has a serious problem in the nearby residential area and waterway ecosystems. The objectives of this research are to develop the most suitable remediation system for acid mine drainage by using waste materials, and to diagnose stream environments impacted by acid mine drainage through the new ecological health assessment methodology, and thus ultimately providing a restoring methodology to mining regions. In the water system health assessment, the result of ESHI model, RBP and Karr suggested by US EPA is revised by ecological features of our country, come to ESHI score 13; 'Very poor' at some points. Together with pH value and heavy metal concentration, it's the aggravation of ecological health index caused by chemical disturbances. In the acid mine drainage treatment, we apply marine shells and slags to this system. Slags had the best removal ability for heavy metals, but pH value was more than 10 exceeding the standard for drain water. In case of marine shells, pH of treated water maintained 7 to 8, and concentrations of Fe and Zn decreased significantly after treatment.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.34-52
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• 2007

This study analyses the management and utilization of Korean inland fisheries and suggests directions for reorganizing the fisheries in order to achieve qualitative growth. Inland fisheries developing into a unique fishery according to various aquatic systems in different areas have played various roles such as the efficient use of aquatic resources, development of local areas and economy vitalization in under-developed local areas. However, recently Korean inland fisheries are facing a lot of difficulties due to the circumstantial changes surrounding the fisheries. Even though it is difficult to expect the external expansion of the Korean inland fisheries, we could expect qualitative internal growth by achieving the sustainable management and aquatic ecosystem health. Therefore, this study suggests the followings in order to achieve the qualitative growth of the Korean inland fisheries : first, construction of integrated management system according the aquatic systems ; second, organization of fishermen's interest groups such as cooperatives or associations in order to increase the competitive advantage and spread voluntary fisheries management ; third, boosting stock enhancement through systematic stock assessment and stocking ; fourth, expansion and activation of administrative system and research organizations.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.23 no.2 s.58
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• pp.146-151
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• 2005

Recent studies indicated the utility of whole effluent assessment as a measure to control discharge of toxic effluents to receiving water in Korea. However, most studies have been focussed on acute lethal effects of toxic wastewater with little consideration of chronic sublethal impacts which are of growing concern in protecting aquatic ecosystem. We conducted acute and chronic toxicity tests with effluents discharged from five different dyeing plants in Gyeong-gi province using a marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri and a freshwater macroinvertebrate Daphnia magna to demonstrate the importance of assessing chronic sublethal effects. Various levels of acute and chronic toxicities were observed in many samples tested in this study. In 21-d chronic toxicity tests using D. magna all samples showed effects on reproduction and growth. Notable mortalities were also noted in three out of five effluents. The result of the Microtox assay indicated that acute microbial toxicity existed in effluents from two out of five plants and acute daphnid toxicity was observed in only one effluent. The result of this study clearly suggests chronic toxicity tests are more suitable to assess biological effects of effluents because it was shown from this study that even an effluent with no acute toxicity could cause chronically lethal and/or sublethal adverse effects on aquatic biota which may affect the population dynamics in aquatic ecosystem.

• Journal of Marine Life Science
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2022

Benthic animals are important indicators in benthic environmental quality assessment. This study investigated the environmental characteristics and the distribution pattern of benthic animals, and assessed the benthic ecosystem using AMBI (AZTI's marine biotic index) and WQI (water quality index) in the subtidal zone of Muan bay. Samplings were collected from 10 stations in the subtidal zone of Muan bay on summer. In the upper area of Muan bay, grain size was finer and organic content was higher than those of in the lower area. The pollution indicator organism such as Musculista senhousia, Theora fragilis and Lumbrineris longifolia were dominant at some stations. The benthic community was distinguished into three groups of upper, center and lower area of Muan bay, and which were coincided with the results by correlation analysis between organic matter content and benthic health assessment (WQI and AMBI). As a result of this study, the health condition of the subtidal zone in Muan bay were good. However, from the results that benthic animals were not evenly distributed, and also the opportunistic species appeared, the load of organic matter in Muan bay seems to be increasing.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.35-41
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• 2018

The analysis of plankton species distribution in sea or fresh water is very important in preserving marine ecosystem health. Since manual analysis is infeasible, many automatic approaches were proposed. They usually use images from in situ towed underwater imaging sensor or specially designed, lab mounted microscopic imaging system. Normally they assume that only single plankton is present in an image so that, if there is a clumping among multiple plankton of same species (homogeneous clumping) or if there are multiple plankton of different species scattered in an image (heterogeneous interspersion), they have a difficulty in recognition. In this work, we propose a deep learning based method that can detect and recognize individual plankton in images with homogeneous clumping, heterogeneous interspersion, or combination of both.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.293-300
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• 2011

Many countries of the world, including IMO, has noticed that foreign marine hazardous organisms, which were introduced by ballast water, have disturbed the marine ecosystem of its own nation, and posed a serious threat to human health and the value of environment and economy. Therefore, IMO has tried to manage the introduced species by assessing the risk of ballast water, and suggested three risk assessment methods, such as environmental matching risk assessment, speciesbiogeographical risk assessment, and species-specific risk assessment. In this thesis, species-specific risk assessment method was considered, and a risk assessment program established by applying it was described.

• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Health Society Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.345-350
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• 2005

Acute toxicities of five pharmaceutical products were evaluated with aquatic microbes, invertebrates, and fish. The test pharmaceuticals, i.e., cimetidine, carbamazepine, diltiazem, acetaminophene, and metformin have been often detected in aquatic environment, but theire cological hazard on receptors of various trophic levels has seldom been evaluated. In the present study, we conducted acute toxicity assays with a marine bacterium, Vibrio fischeri, an invertebrate, Daphnia magna, and a fish, Japanese medake (Oryzias latipes). In general, D. magna, showed the most sensitive response to the test chemicals. Diltiazem exhibited the lowest EC50 value after 96 hr of exposure at 7.6 mg/L, followed by cimetidine >acetaminophen > metformin = carbamazepine in an order of decreasing susceptibility. With the fish, diltiazem and carbamazepine showed the 96 hr EC50 values at 14.1${\sim}$35.4 mg/L while acetaminophen, cimetidine, and metformin did not cause 50% mortality at 100 mg/L. Similar pattern was noted with the Microtox Assay, with which the median effective concentrations for acetaminophen, cimetidine, and metformin were found at the range between 301.8 and 755.4 mg/L. Carbamazepine and diltiazem exposure to the microbes resulted in EC50 values around 50 mg/L. Predicted no effect concentrations (PECs) of these pharmaceuticals derived from the EC5O values obtained from this study, and predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) obtained from available literatures were utilized to estimate ecological risks of the test compounds. No test pharmaceuticals resulted in risk quotients (PEC/PNEC) greater than 1, which suggests no serious potential ecological concerns. It should be noted however that further studies including the refinement of PEC derivation, identification and toxicity assessment of the metabolites and/or their interactions with other stressors may be warranted to better understand the environmental consequences of the residual pharmaceutical discharge to the waterway.