• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2014

This study investigated the effects of temperature on the shoot growth and flowering of potted kumquat [Fortunella margarita ( Lour.) Swingle] trees grown in subtropical conditions of I-Lan County in Taiwan. Temperature treatments included T 25-32, T 17-25, T 22, and T 18. The T 25-32 treatment trees were to the day/night temperatures of $25/18^{\circ}C$ for 2 weeks, followed by 28 weeks at $32/25^{\circ}C$. T 17-25 was exposed for 4 weeks to $17/10^{\circ}C$ followed by 26 weeks at $25/18^{\circ}C$. T 22 and T 18 were exposed at $22/18^{\circ}C$ and $18/13^{\circ}C$, respectively, for the entire duration of the experiment. Control trees were placed in a plastic greenhouse under conditions similar to the natural environment. The kumquat trees exposed to high-temperature environment of $32/25^{\circ}C$ showed more frequent and speedy sprouting of new buds, but induced the earlier termination of shoot elongation growth, resulting in decreased vegetative growth. The temperature treatments lower than $22^{\circ}C$ suppressed the new shoot production but increased the shoot growth period, resulting in increased shoot length and diameter. Temperatures higher than $25/18^{\circ}C$ readily induced flowering, with flowering being advanced under the higher temperature conditions such as $32/25^{\circ}C$. However, flowering was substantially inhibited under temperature conditions lower than $22/18^{\circ}C$, indicating the negative role of relatively lower temperatures on flowering of kumquat trees.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.21 no.8
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• pp.1073-1079
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• 2008

The objectives of this study were to identify polymorphisms of insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) gene and to investigate their association with growth traits in Nanjiang Huang goats. Five hundred and ninety-two animals were used to detect the polymorphisms in the complete coding sequence, part of introns and the 5'-regulatory region of the IGF-I gene by means of PCR-SSCP. A new single nucleotide polymorphism (G to C transversion) was identified at intron 4 of the IGF-I gene in the goats. Two alleles and three genotypes were observed in this group. The frequency of G and C alleles was 54.6 and 45.4%, respectively. The statistical analysis showed that polymorphism of the IGF-I gene had a significant association (p<0.05) with birth weight (BW), body weight at 6 months (W6) and at 12 months (W12), heart girth at 2 months (G2), body length at 6 months (L6), wither height at 6 months (H6) and at 12 months (H12) and heart girth at 12 months (G12). The goats with genotype CC had significantly higher BW, W6, W12, G2, L6, H6, H12 and G12 than those with genotype GC and had significantly higher W12, H6, H12 and G12 than those with genotype GG. Therefore, genotype CC may be the most advantageous for growth traits in the Nanjiang Huang goat. However, no significant association between SNP genotypes and other growth traits was observed. These results indicated that the SNP marker of the IGF-I gene may be a potential molecular marker for growth traits in Nanjiang Huang goats.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.499-509
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• 2008

Foxo1 plays an important role in the integration of hormone-activated signaling pathways with the complex transcriptional cascade that promotes preadipocyte differentiation of clonal cell lines from rodents. We isolated the full-length cDNA of porcine FoxO1 gene using RACE, confirmed by visual Northern blotting. The deduced amino acids indicated 94% and 90% identities with the corresponding human and mice aa. Analysis of the aa sequence, showed that it included a Forkhead domain (aa 167-247), a transmembrane structure domain (aa 90-113), a LXXLL motif (aa 469-473), and 51 Ser, 8 Thr, and 4 Tyr phosphorylation sites, indicating a potential important role for FoxO1 transcriptional activity in vivo. Using the IMpRH panel, we mapped FoxO1 gene to chromosome 11p13. Our data provide basic molecular information useful for the further investigation on the function of FoxO1 gene. Time-course analysis of FoxO1 expressions indicated that levels of mRNA and protein gradually increased from day 0 to 3, and it reached almost maximal level at day 3, then decreased from day 5 to 7 in porcine primary preadipocyte differentiation. After induction by IGF-1, GPDH activity and accumulation of lipid increased, however, expressions of FoxO1 mRNA and protein were inhibited in a dose dependent manner. These results suggest that FoxO1 takes part in porcine preadipocyte differentiation and expressions of FoxO1 were regulated by IGF-1.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.451-455
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• 2017

Echinostoma cinetorchis is an oriental intestinal fluke causing significant pathological damage to the small intestine. The aim of this study was to determine a full-length cDNA sequence of E. cinetorchis endoribonuclease (RNase H; EcRNH) and to elucidate its molecular biological characters. EcRNH consisted of 308 amino acids and showed low similarity to endoribonucleases of other parasites (<40%). EcRNH had an active site centered on a putative DDEED motif instead of DEDD conserved in other species. A recombinant EcRNH produced as a soluble form in Escherichia coli showed enzymatic activity to cleave the 3'-O-P bond of RNA in a DNA-RNA duplex, producing 3'-hydroxyl and 5'-phosphate. These findings may contribute to develop antisense oligonucleotides which could damage echinostomes and other flukes.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.59-71
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• 2018

This study was initiated to develop an optimal signal control algorithm for coordinated signalized intersections using individual vehicle's information which can be collected in a format of prove vehicle data (PVD) via V2I (Vehicle to Infrastructure) communication environment. For developing this signal optimization algorithm, three modules were developed for phase group length computation, split distribution, and phase sequence assignment. The simulation analysis using the microscopic simulation model, Vissim, was conducted for evaluating the effectiveness of the developed algorithm. The analysis result represented that the performance of the developed algorithm is far superior to that of the fixed coordinated signal control method which is the most common signal control method for coordinated signalized intersections in Korea.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.65-70
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• 2018

The objective of this study was to describe a radiofrequency (RF) coil design for in vivo sodium magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for use in small animals. Accumulating evidence has indicated the importance and potential of sodium imaging with improved magnet strength (> 7T), faster gradient, better hardware, multi-nucleus imaging methods, and optimal coil design for patient and animal studies. Thus, we developed a saddle-shaped sodium volume coil with a diameter/length of 30/30 mm. To evaluate the efficiency of this coil, bench-level measurement was performed. Unloaded Q value, loaded Q value, and ratio of these two values were estimated to be 352.8, 211.18, and 1.67, respectively. Thereafter, in vivo acquisition of sodium images was performed using normal mice (12 weeks old; n = 5) with a two-dimensional gradient echo sequence and minimized echo time to increase spatial resolution of images. Sodium signal-to-noise ratio in mouse kidneys (renal cortex, medulla, and pelvis) was measured. We successfully acquired sodium MR images of the mouse kidney with high spatial resolution (approximately 0.625 mm) through a combination of sodium-proton coils.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.773-780
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• 2017

Objective: "Hatchability" is an important economic trait in domestic poultry. Studies on poultry hatchability focus mainly on the genetic background, egg quality, and incubation conditions, whereas the molecular mechanisms behind the phenomenon that some ducklings failed to break their eggshells are poorly understood. Methods: In this study, the transcriptional differences between the livers of normally hatched and assisted ducklings were systematically analyzed. Results: The results showed that the clean reads were de novo assembled into 161,804 and 159,083 unigenes (${\geq}200-bp$ long) by using Trinity, with an average length of 1,206 bp and 882 bp, respectively. The defined criteria of the absolute value of log2 fold-change ${\geq}1$ and false discovery rate${\leq}0.05$ were differentially expressed and were significant. As a result, 1,629 unigenes were identified, the assisted ducklings showed 510 significantly upregulated and 1,119 significantly down-regulated unigenes. In general, the metabolic rate in the livers of the assisted ducklings was lower than that in the normal ducklings; however, compared to normal ducklings, glucose-6-phosphatase and ATP synthase subunit alpha 1 associated with energy metabolism were significantly upregulated in the assisted group. The genes involved in immune defense such as major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I antigen alpha chain and MHC class II beta chain 1 were downregulated in the assisted ducklings. Conclusion: These data provide abundant sequence resources for studying the functional genome of the livers in ducks and other poultry. In addition, our study provided insight into the molecular mechanism by which the phenomenon of weak embryos is regulated.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.6-16
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• 2015

This study established the genetic characterisation of 10 microsporidian isolates infecting non-mulberry silkworms (Antheraea assamensis and Samia cynthia ricini) collected from biogeographical forest locations in the State of Assam, India, using PCR-based markers assays: inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD). A Nosema type species (NIK-1s_mys) was used as control for comparison. The shape of mature microsporidian spores were observed oval to elongated, measuring 3.80 to $4.90{\mu}m$ in length and 2.60 to $3.05{\mu}m$ in width. Fourteen ISSR primers generated reproducible profiles and yielded 178 fragments, of which 175 were polymorphic (98%), while 16 RAPD primers generated reproducible profiles with 198 amplified fragments displaying 95% of polymorphism. Estimation of genetic distance coefficients based on dice coefficients method and clustering with un-weighted pair group method using arithmetic average (UPGMA) analysis was done to unravel the genetic diversity of microsporidians infecting Indian muga and eri silkworm. The similarity coefficients varied from 0.385 to 0.941 in ISSR and 0.083 to 0.938 in RAPD data. UPGMA analysis generated dendrograms with two microsporidian groups, which appear to be different from each other. Based on Euclidean distance matrix method, 2-dimensional distribution also revealed considerable variability among different identified microsporidians. Clustering of these microsporidian isolates was in accordance with their host and biogeographic origin. Both techniques represent a useful and efficient tool for taxonomical grouping as well as for phylogenetic classification of different microsporidians in general and genotyping of these pathogens in particular.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.34 no.1_2
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• pp.58-63
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• 1998

Fragment assembly problem is to reconstruct DNA sequence contigs from a collection of fragment sequences. We have developed an efficient X-window program, XFAP, for assembling DNA fragments. In the XFAP, the dimer frequency comparison method is used to quickly eliminate pairs of fragments that can not overlap. This method takes advantage of the difference of dimer frequencies within the minimum acceptable overlap length in each fragment pair. Hirschberg algorithm is applied to compute the maximal-scoring overlapping alignment in linear space. The perfomance of XFAP was tested on a set of DNA fragment sequences extracted from long DNA sequences of GenBank by a fragmentation program and showed a great improvement in execution time, especially as the number of fragments increases.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.51-58
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• 2020

Recently, deep learning that is the most popular and effective class of machine learning algorithms is widely applied to various industrial areas. A number of research on various topics about structural engineering was performed by using artificial neural networks, such as structural design optimization, vibration control and system identification etc. When nonlinear semi-active structural control devices are applied to building structure, a lot of computational effort is required to predict dynamic structural responses of finite element method (FEM) model for development of control algorithm. To solve this problem, an artificial neural network model was developed in this study. Among various deep learning algorithms, a recurrent neural network (RNN) was used to make the time history response prediction model. An RNN can retain state from one iteration to the next by using its own output as input for the next step. An eleven-story building structure with semi-active tuned mass damper (TMD) was used as an example structure. The semi-active TMD was composed of magnetorheological damper. Five historical earthquakes and five artificial ground motions were used as ground excitations for training of an RNN model. Another artificial ground motion that was not used for training was used for verification of the developed RNN model. Parametric studies on various hyper-parameters including number of hidden layers, sequence length, number of LSTM cells, etc. After appropriate training iteration of the RNN model with proper hyper-parameters, the RNN model for prediction of seismic responses of the building structure with semi-active TMD was developed. The developed RNN model can effectively provide very accurate seismic responses compared to the FEM model.