• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.185-212
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• 2017

The National League for Democracy (NLD) has restored a civilian government since the military had taken political power in 1962 as a result of general elections on 7, November 2015. But Daw Aung San Suu Kyi could not take part in the presidential election due to some restraints in constitution, so new government created the state counsellor position and the ministry of sate counsellor's office against military's resistance. It never publicized whether the military has to back to barracks including abolish of military's occupying the parliament seats. The ruling party is still taking laissez-faire to the military's political and economic role. The National level Ceasefire Agreement called the 21st Panglong conference launched in the end of August for a week, but stakeholders only insisted their demands. Rohingya issue is not involved in the 21st Panglong conference which aims to achieve national unity. The U.S. fully lifted a comprehensive sanction toward Myanmar since 1993, Japan promised huge grant assistance succeeding the former quasi civilian government. China strived to restore alienated relations of two countries. Although Korea kept Official Development Assistance, the summit which was planed two times in 2016 did not hold. The civilian government announced twelve points of developmental agenda in July 2016, instead of destroying the national development policy of the Thein Sein government. This agenda only showed the direction of policy not road map which was the same trend of the former government. The main direction of economic development stressed agriculture but manufacture like light industry was ignored.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.845-856
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• 2020

This study proposes a bridge evaluation system for indivisible permit vehicles such as hydraulic cranes. The permit loads for the bridge evaluation are divided into three categories: routine permit loads, special permit 1 loads, and special permit 2 loads. Routine permit and special permit 1 vehicles are allowed to cross a bridge with normal traffic. For these two permits, the standard lane model in the Korean Highway Bridge Design Code was adopted to consider normal traffic in the same lane. Special permit 2 vehicles are assumed to cross a bridge without other traffic. Structural analyses of two prestressed-beam bridges and two steel box girder bridges were conducted for the proposed permit loads. The rating factors of the four bridges for all permit loads were calculated as sufficiently large values for the moment and shear force so that crossing the bridges can be permitted. A reliability assessment of the bridges was performed to identify the reliability levels for the permit vehicles. It was confirmed that the reliability level of the minimum required strength obtained by the load-resistance factors yields the target reliability index of the design code for the permit vehicles.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.149-157
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• 2021

One year has passed since the pandemic of COVID-19, which occurred in Wuhan, China, in November 2019 began. Worldwide, as of January 2021, more than 95 million people have been infected, and the death toll is higher than 2 million. In Korea, there are 74,262 infected and 1,328 dead, and government policies such as social distancing to prevent infection are being implemented. Accordingly, many inconveniences occurred in the physical activity environment, such as the closure of various sports facilities. It was necessary to consider physical activities to maintain healthy life while cooperating with the national policy while preventing infection. This study investigated the benefits of physical activity to reduce the risk of trichomoniasis and diabetes, improve bone mineral density, prolong healthy lifespan, maintain activity performance with aging, and improve psychological anxiety and depression. In addition, the physiological changes that may occur in the situation of stopping exercise due to social distancing to prevent COVID-19 infection were reviewed. In addition, moderate-intensity exercise that helps strengthen immune function by activating natural killer cells, neutrophils, and antibody responses was investigated. In addition, it reduces the level and function of blood B-cells, T-cells, and natural killer cells for several hours, decreases phagocytosis of neutrophils in the nasal cavity, increases inflammatory cytokines, decreases immune function, and increases infection. High-intensity exercise was considered. Therefore, in the age of COVID-19, long-term high-intensity exercise such as marathon, which causes impaired immune function, should be refrained from. And you should do moderate-intensity regular aerobic exercise such as fast walking to help prevent infection. It is also recommended to participate in resistance exercises to prevent loss of muscle mass.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.31 no.11
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• pp.969-979
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• 2021

Type 2 diabetes is a serious chronic metabolic disease, and the goal of diabetes treatment is to keep blood glucose at a normal level and prevent complications from diabetes. Hyperglycemia is a key pathologic feature of type 2 diabetes that mainly results from insulin resistance and pancreatic β-cell dysfunction. Chronic exposure of β-cells to elevated glucose concentrations induces glucotoxicity. In this study, we examined whether an 80% ethanol extract of Oxya chinensis sinuosa Mishchenko (OEE) protected INS-1 pancreatic β-cells against glucotoxicity-induced apoptosis and oxidative stress. Pretreatment with a high concentration of glucose (high glucose = 30 mM) induced glucotoxicity and apoptosis of INS-1 pancreatic β cells. Treatment with OEE significantly increased cell viability. Treatment with 0.01-0.20 mg/ml OEE dose dependently decreased intracellular reactive oxygen species, lipid peroxidation, and nitric oxide levels and increased insulin secretion in high glucose-pretreated INS-1 β cells. OEE also significantly increased the activities of antioxidant enzymes in response to high-glucose-induced oxidative stress. Moreover, OEE treatment significantly reduced the expressions of pro-apoptotic proteins, including Bax, cytochrome C, caspase-3, and caspase-9, and increased anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 expression. Apoptotic cells were identified using Annexin-V/propidium iodide staining, which revealed that treatment with OEE significantly reduced high-glucose-induced apoptosis. These findings implicate OEE as a valuable functional food in protecting pancreatic β-cells against glucotoxicity-induced apoptosis and oxidative stress.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2022

In this study, a new lactic acid bacterium (LAB) that could produce gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) was isolated from Oenanthe javanica (water celery) and identified as an Enteroccoccus casseliflavus strain. Until recently, there have been many studies on the gamma-aminobutyric acid producing lactic acid bacterium, as well as on some lactic acid bacterium in Enteroococcs genus, but none on the species E. casseliflavus. Therefore, in the purpose of finding the optimal conditions for GABA production of E. casseliflavus PL05, the effects of several conditions including the type of mediums, growth temperatures, initial pH, growth time, L-mono sodium glutamate (MSG) concentration, and carbon source were tested. The study revealed that the PL05 strain grew better in the Brain Heart Infusion (BHI) medium than in the Man, Rogosa, and Sharpe (MRS) or Tryptic Soy Broth (TSB) medium. Also, similar results were obtained with GABA production conditions. As a result of analysis on the GABA production yield by concentration of MSG, a GABA substrate, the highest production was found at 7% of MSG concentration. However, since similar level of production was found at 5%, it is considered to be more efficient to use 5% MSG concentration. The analysis on the growth and GABA production yield by carbon sources showed the highest results when maltose was used. From the final test under the optimal conditions found, 140.06±0.71 mM of GABA was produced over 24 hours with the conversion rate of 78.95%. Lastly, from the sensitivity analysis on the 10 different antibiotics, including vancomycin, it was found that there were not confirmed cases of resistance.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.189-196
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• 2023

This paper analyzes the level of satisfaction of two groups of teachers who were educated about artificial intelligence using App Inventor. The participants were 13 pre-service and 9 in-service elementary school teachers and the data was collected using a questionnaire. As a result of the study, in-service teachers were all more satisfied than pre-service teachers in terms of interest, difficulty, and participation in the education. In addition, the questions investigating whether education helped motivate learning of artificial intelligence and whether there is a willingness to apply it to elementary classes in the future were also more positive for in-service teachers than for pre-service teachers. In general, pre-service teachers had somewhat more negative views than in-service teachers, but they were more positive than in-service teachers in terms of whether the education helped improve their understanding of artificial intelligence and whether they were willing to participate in additional education. Analysis of the Mann-Whitney test to see if there was a significant difference in satisfaction between the two groups showed no significance. This may be because most of the students in the two groups already had block-type or text-type programming experience, so they were able to participate in the education without any special resistance or difficulty with App Inventor, resulting in high levels of satisfaction from both groups. The results of this study can provide basic data for the future development and operation of programs for artificial intelligence education for both pre-service and in-service elementary school teachers.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.32 no.12
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• pp.956-961
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• 2022

Plant Chloroplast have several advantages as an expression platform of biopharmaceuticals over conventional expression platforms such as mammalian cells, yeast and bacteria. First, plants do not serve as a host for mammalian infectious virus and have endotoxin like bacteria which can cause anaphylactic shock. In addition, high copy number of chloroplast genome allows for chloroplast transformants to reach the high level of expression of heterologous genes. Moreover, the integration of transgenes into specific region of chloroplast genomes makes chloroplast transformants unaffected by positional effect which can be frequently observed from nuclear transformants, resulting in loss of transgene expressions. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a kind of innate immunity which is found from bacteria to humans. Unlike conventional antibiotics, very less dosage of AMPs can have catastrophic effect on bacterial survival. Further, the repeated use of AMPs does not trigger the development of bacterial resistance. Moricin, one of the AMPs, was isolated from Bombyx mori, a silkworm moth. The C-terminal of moricin consists largely of basic amino acids, and the N-terminal has an α-helix structure. Moricin was chosen and expressed in a SUMO/SUMOase without leaving any unwanted amino acids which could potentially affect the anti-bacterial activity of the moricin. The transformation vector used in this study has already been created in this lab for the expression in both prokaryotic systems such as E. coli and chloroplast. The expressed moricin was purified using Ni columns and SUMOase, and the antibacterial activity of the purified moricin was confirmed using an agar diffusion assay.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.123-132
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• 2023

Background: Pseudotyped virus systems that incorporate viral proteins have been widely employed for the rapid determination of the effectiveness and neutralizing activity of drug and vaccine candidates in biosafety level 2 facilities. We report an efficient method for producing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pseudovirus with dual luciferase and fluorescent protein reporters. Moreover, using the established method, we also aimed to investigate whether Korean Red Ginseng (KRG), a valuable Korean herbal medicine, can attenuate infectivity of the pseudotyped virus. Methods: A pseudovirus of SARS-CoV-2 (SARS-2pv) was constructed and efficiently produced using lentivirus vector systems available in the public domain by the introduction of critical mutations in the cytoplasmic tail of the spike protein. KRG extract was dose-dependently treated to Calu-3 cells during SARS2-pv treatment to evaluate the protective activity against SARS-CoV-2. Results: The use of Calu-3 cells or the expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) in HEK293T cells enabled SARS-2pv infection of host cells. Coexpression of transmembrane protease serine subtype 2 (TMPRSS2), which is the activator of spike protein, with ACE2 dramatically elevated luciferase activity, confirming the importance of the TMPRSS2-mediated pathway during SARS-CoV-2 entry. Our pseudovirus assay also revealed that KRG elicited resistance to SARS-CoV-2 infection in lung cells, suggesting its beneficial health effect. Conclusion: The method demonstrated the production of SARS-2pv for the analysis of vaccine or drug candidates. When KRG was assessed by the method, it protected host cells from coronavirus infection. Further studies will be followed for demonstrating this potential benefit.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.241-256
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• 2023

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Diabetes-specific oral nutritional supplements (ONS) have anti-hyperglycemic effects, while D-allulose exerts anti-diabetic and anti-obesity effects. In this study, we investigated the efficacy and safety of diabetes-specific ONS, including allulose, on glycemic and weight changes in overweight or obese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). SUBJECTS/METHODS: A single-arm, historical-control pilot clinical trial was conducted on 26 overweight or obese patients with T2DM (age range: 30-70 yrs). The participants were administered 2 packs of diabetes-specific ONS, including allulose (200 kcal/200 mL), every morning for 8 weeks. The glycemic profiles, obesity-related parameters, and lipid profiles were assessed to evaluate the efficacy of ONS. RESULTS: After 8 weeks, fasting blood glucose (FBG) level significantly decreased from 139.00 ± 29.66 mg/dL to 126.08 ± 32.00 mg/dL (P = 0.007) and glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) improved (7.23 ± 0.82% vs. 7.03 ± 0.69%, P = 0.041). Moreover, the fasting insulin (δ: -1.81 ± 3.61 μU/mL, P = 0.017) and homeostasis model assessment for insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) (δ: -0.87 ± 1.57, P = 0.009) levels decreased at 8 weeks, and body weight significantly decreased from 67.20 ± 8.29 kg to 66.43 ± 8.12 kg (P = 0.008). Body mass index (BMI) also decreased in accordance with this (from 25.59 ± 1.82 kg/m² to 25.30 ± 1.86 kg/m², P = 0.009), as did waist circumference (δ: -1.31 ± 2.04 cm, P = 0.003). CONCLUSIONS: The consumption of diabetes-specific ONS with allulose in overweight or obese patients with T2DM improved glycemic profiles, such as FBG, HbA1c, and HOMA-IR, and reduced body weight and BMI.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.51-60
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• 2023

The foodborne illness is the important public health concerns, and the livestock feces are known to be one of the major reservoirs of foodborne pathogens. Also, it was reported that 45.5% of foodborne illness outbreaks have been associated with the animal products contaminated with the livestock feces. In addition, it has been known that the persistence of a pathogens depends on many potential virulent factors including the various virulent genes. Therefore, the first step to understanding the public health risk of livestock feces is to identify and describe microbial communities and potential virulent genes that contribute to bacterial pathogenicity. We used the whole metagenome shotgun sequencing to evaluate the prevalence of foodborne pathogens and to characterize the virulence associated genes in pig and chicken feces. Our data showed that the relative abundance of potential foodborne pathogens, such as Bacillus cereus was higher in chickens than pigs at the species level while the relative abundance of foodborne pathogens including Campylobacter coli was only detected in pigs. Also, the microbial functional characteristics of livestock feces revealed that the gene families related to "Biofilm formation and quorum sensing" were highly enriched in pigs than chicken. Moreover, the variety of gene families associated with "Resistance to antibiotics and toxic compounds" were detected in both animals. These results will help us to prepare the scientific action plans to improve awareness and understanding of the public health risks of livestock feces.