• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.1491-1495
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• 2004

Small Tail Han Sheep has significant characteristics of high prolificacy and non-seasonal ovulatory activity and is an excellent local sheep breed in P. R. China. Recently a novel member of the transforming growth factor $\beta$ (TGF$\beta$) superfamily termed bone morphogenetic protein 15 (BMP15) was shown to be specifically expressed in oocytes and to be essential for female fertility. Therefore, BMP15 is a candidate gene for reproductive performance of Small Tail Han Sheep. The whole genomic nucleotide sequence of BMP15 gene in Small Tail Han Sheep was searched for polymorphisms by PCR-SSCP and direct sequencing, and only one polymorphism was found. The polymorphism was a result of a 3 base pair deletion, which eliminated a single Leu codon (CTT). The allelic frequencies for A (without deletion) and B (with a codon deletion) are 0.73 and 0.27 respectively. The effects of BMP15 genotype on litter size were evaluated using the least squares model. This indicated that there was a significant association between litter size of Small Tail Han Sheep and a deletion in BMP15 gene (p=0.02<0.05). Small Tail Han Sheep ewes with AA and AB genotype produce on average 0.5 and 0.3 more lambs per litter than those ewes with BB genotype.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.20
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• pp.8741-8747
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• 2014

Purpose: We aimed to investigate the associations between polymorphisms of interleukin-1A (IL-1A), IL-1B, and IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1RN) and prostate cancer (PCa) risk. Materials and Methods: A comprehensive search for articles of MEDLINE and EMBASE databases and bibliographies of retrieved articles published up to August 3, 2014 was performed. Methodological quality assessment of the trials was based on a standard quality scoring system. The meta-analysis was performed using STATA 12.0. Results: We included 9 studies (1 study for IL-1A, 5 studies for IL-1B, and 3 studies for IL-1RN), and significant association was found between polymorphisms of IL-1B-511 (rs16944) as well as IL-1B-31 (rs1143627) and PCa risk. IL-1B-511 (rs16944) polymorphism was significantly associated with PCa risk in homozygote and recessive models, as well as allele contrast (TT vs CC: OR, 0.74; 95%CI, 0.58-0.94; P=0.012; TT vs TC+CC; OR, 0.79; 95%CI, 0.63-0.98; P=0.033; T vs C: OR, 0.86; 95%CI, 0.77-0.96; P=0.008). The association between IL-1B-31 (rs1143627) polymorphism and PCa risk was weakly significant under a heterozygote model (OR, 1.35; 95%CI, 1.00-1.80; P=0.047). Conclusions: Sequence variants in IL-1B-511 (rs16944) and IL-1B-31 (rs1143627) are significantly associated with PCa risk, which provides additional novel evidence that proinflammatory cytokines and inflammation play an important role in the etiology of PCa.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.28.4-29
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• 2009

The 'Amon-Ra' instrument of the proposed 'EARTHSHINE' satellite is a dual (i.e. imaging and energy) channel instrument for monitoring the total solar irradiance (TSI) and the Earth's irradiance at around the L1 halo orbit. Earlier studies for this instrument include, but not limited to, design and construction of breadboard Amon-Ra imaging channel, stray light suppression and system performance computation using Integrated Ray Tracing (IRT) technique. The Amon-Ra instrument is required to produce 0.3% in uncertainty for both Sunlight and Earthlight measurement. In this study, we report accurate estimation of the output electric signal derived from the orbital variation of radiant exitance from the Sun and the Earth arriving at the aperture and detector plane of the Amon-Ra. For this, orbital irradiance are computed analytically first and then confirmed by simulation using Integrated Ray Tracing (IRT) model. Specially, the results show the arriving power at the bolometer detector surface is $1.24{\mu}W$ for the Sunlight and $1.28{\mu}W$ for the Earthlight, producing the output signal pulses of 34.31 mV and 35.47 mV respectively. These results demonstrate successfully that the arriving radiative power is well within the bolometer detector dynamic range and, therefore, the proposed detector can be used for the in-orbit measurement sequence. We discuss the computational details and implications as well as the simulation results.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.818-825
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• 2012

Keratinases are exciting keratin-degrading enzymes; however, there have been relatively few studies on their immobilization. A keratinolytic protease from Chryseobacterium sp. kr6 was purified and its partial sequence determined using mass spectrometry. No significant homology to other microbial peptides in the NCBI database was observed. Certain parameters for immobilization of the purified keratinase on chitosan beads were investigated. The production of the chitosan beads was optimized using factorial design and surface response techniques. The optimum chitosan bead production for protease immobilization was a 20 g/l chitosan solution in acetic acid [1.5% (v/v)], glutaraldehyde ranging from 34 g to 56 g/l, and an activation time between 6 and 10 h. Under these conditions, above 80% of the enzyme was immobilized on the support. The behavior of the keratinase loading on the chitosan beads surface was well described using the Langmuir model. The maximum capacity of the support ($q_m$) and dissociation constant ($K_d$) were estimated as 58.8 U/g and 0.245 U/ml, respectively. The thermal stability of the immobilized enzyme was also improved around 2-fold, when compared with that of the free enzyme, after 30 min at $65^{\circ}C$. In addition, the activity of the immobilized enzyme remained at 63.4% after it was reused five times. Thus, the immobilized enzyme exhibited an improved thermal stability and remained active after several uses.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.38-40
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• 2009

The EST Knowledge Integrated System, EKIS (http://ekis.kribb.re.kr), was established as a part of Korea's Ministry of Education, Science and Technology initiative for genome sequencing and application research of the biological model organisms (GEAR) project. The goals of the EKIS are to collect EST information from GEAR projects and make an integrated database to provide transcriptomic and metabolomic information for biological scientists. The EKIS constitutes five independent categories and several retrieval systems in each category for incorporating massive EST data from high-throughput sequencing of 65 different species. Through the EKIS database, scientists can freely access information including BLAST functional annotation as well as Genechip and pathway information for KEGG. By integrating complex data into a framework of existing EST knowledge information, the EKIS provides new insights into specialized metabolic pathway information for an applied industrial material.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.41 no.9
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• pp.1120-1131
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• 2016

In this paper, we propose a smoker recognition algorithm, detecting smokers in a video sequence in order to prevent fire accidents. We use description-based method in hierarchical approaches to recognize smoker's activity, the algorithm consists of background subtraction, object detection, event search, event judgement. Background subtraction generates slow-motion and fast-motion foreground image from input image using Gaussian mixture model with two different learning-rate. Then, it extracts object locations in the slow-motion image using chain-rule based contour detection. For each object, face is detected by using Haar-like feature and smoke is detected by reflecting frequency and direction of smoke in fast-motion foreground. Hand movements are detected by motion estimation. The algorithm examines the features in a certain interval and infers that whether the object is a smoker. It robustly can detect a smoker among different objects while achieving real-time performance.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.101-107
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• 2000

The automotive paints could be generally differentiated by color, layer sequence and chemistry of the paint layers comprising each of the topcoat and the primer system. The successful identification of hit-andrun a and traffic accidental vehicles from evidential paint fiagments is greatly facilitated with a comprehensive laboratory collection of reference paint samples and the technique for direct analysis without sample preparation. The Pyrolysis-Gas Chromatography(PGC) is a precise and reliable method for performing both quantitative and qualitative analysis of polymeric materials and forensic samples. Our Forensic Laboratory is conducting the examination and identification of 73 reference paint samples; 4 colors of each domestic automotive make that is popular in Korea, by Curie Point Pyrolyzer(JHP-3) and GC with capillary column(ultra alloy-5). This method can be used not only to compare paint traces with their suspected sources, but also to identify the type, make and model of the automotive car.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.285-298
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• 2019

For super long-span bridges, the aerodynamic forces induced by the flow passing the box girder should be considered carefully. And the Reynolds number sensitively of aerodynamic characteristics is one of considerable issue. In the study, a numerical study on the Reynolds number sensitivity of aerodynamic characteristic (flow pattern, pressure distribution and aerodynamic forces) of a twin-box girder were carried out using large eddy simulation (LES) with the dynamic Smagorinsky-Lilly subgrid model. The results show that the aerodynamic characteristics have strong correlation with the Reynolds number. At the leading edge, the flow experiences attachment, departure, and reattachment stages accompanying by the laminar transition into turbulence, causing pressure plateaus to form on the surface, and the pressure plateaus gradually shrinks. Around the gap, attributing that the flow experiences stages of laminar cavity flow, the wake with alternate shedding vortices, and turbulent cavity flow in sequence with an increase in the Reynolds number, the pressures around the gap vary greatly with the Reynold number. At the trailing edge, the pressure gradually recovers as the flow transits to turbulence (the flow undergoes wake instability, shear layer transition-reattachment station), In addition, at relative high Reynolds numbers, the drag force almost does not change, however, the lift force coefficient gradually decreases with an increase in Reynolds number.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.308-313
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• 2021

In this study, tweets about the 2019 Koreas-US DMZ Summit were collected along with a time sequence and analyzed by a sequential topic modeling method, Dynamic Topic Modeling(DTM). In microblogging services such as Twitter, unstructured data that mixes news and an opinion about a single event occurs at the same time on a large scale, and information and reactions are produced in the same message format. Therefore, to grasp a topic trend, the contextual meaning can be found only by performing pattern analysis reflecting the characteristics of sequential data. As a result of calculating the DTM after obtaining the topic coherence score and evaluating the Latent Dirichlet Allocation(LDA), 30 topics related to news reports and opinions were derived, and the probability of occurrence of each topic and keywords were dynamically evolving. In conclusion, the study found that DTM is a suitable model for analyzing the trend of integrated topics in a specific event over time.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.65-74
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• 2021

Serine proteases are the most versatile proteolytic enzymes with tremendous applications in various industrial processes. This study was designed to investigate the biochemical properties, critical residues, and the catalytic potential of alkaline serine protease using in-silico approaches. The primary sequence was analyzed using ProtParam, SignalP, and Phyre2 tools to investigate biochemical properties, signal peptide, and secondary structure, respectively. The three-dimensional structure of the enzyme was modeled using the MODELLER program present in Discovery Studio followed by Molecular Dynamics simulation using GROMACS 5.0.7 package with CHARMM36m force field. The proteolytic potential was measured by performing docking with casein- and keratin-enriched residues, while the effect of the inhibitor was studied using phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride, (PMSF) applying GOLDv5.2.2. Molecular weight, instability index, aliphatic index, and isoelectric point for serine protease were 39.53 kDa, 27.79, 82.20 and 8.91, respectively. The best model was selected based on the lowest MOLPDF score (1382.82) and DOPE score (-29984.07). The analysis using ProSA-web revealed a Z-score of -9.7, whereas 88.86% of the residues occupied the most favored region in the Ramachandran plot. Ser327, Asp138, Asn261, and Thr326 were found as critical residues involved in ligand binding and execution of biocatalysis. Our findings suggest that bioengineering of these critical residues may enhance the catalytic potential of this enzyme.