• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.53 no.7
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• pp.493-505
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• 2020

The rainfall-runoff model has been generally adopted to obtain a consistent runoff sequence with the use of the long-term ground-gauged based precipitation data. The Thiessen polygon is a commonly applied approach for estimating the mean areal rainfall from the ground-gauged precipitation by assigning weight based on the relative areas delineated by a polygon. However, spatial bias is likely to increase due to a sparse network of the rain gauge. This study aims to generate continuous runoff sequences with the mean areal rainfall obtained from radar rainfall estimates through a PRMS rainfall-runoff model. Here, the systematic error of radar rainfall is corrected by applying the G/R Ratio. The results showed that the estimated runoff using the corrected radar rainfall estimates are largely similar and comparable to that of the Thiessen. More importantly, one can expect that the mean areal rainfall obtained from the radar rainfall estimates are more desirable than that of the ground in terms of representing rainfall patterns in space, which in turn leads to significant improvement in the estimation of runoff.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.15-22
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• 2006

A 4,971 bp chromosomal DNA fragment containing the pqrA, paraquat resistance gene, was cloned from Ochrobactrum anthropi JW-2, and the complete nucleotide sequence was determined. Nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequences of the fragment revealed the presence of 4 complete ORFs (orf2, pqrA, orf3, orf4) and two incomplete ORFs(orf1, orf5). Orf1, pqrA, orf4 and orf5 exists at the direct strand but orf2 and orf3 exists at the reverse complementary strand. Orf1 which of incomplete sequences without start codon shares homology with ATP binding region of the response regulator receiver. Orf2 shares high homology with members of the tetR family of transcriptional repressor which have a helix-turn-helix (H-T-H) motif. Therefore, the orf2 is predicted as a transcriptional repressor of pqrA and is designated as pqrR2. Orf3 shares high homology with the members of the lysR family acting as a transcriptional activator which have both of a H-T-H motif at the N-terminal region and substrate binding domain at the C-terminal region. Therefore, the orf3 is predicted as a transcriptional activator of pqrA and is designated as pqrR1. Orf4 shows homology with the periplasmic substrate-binding protein of amino acid ABC transporter. Orf5 which of incomplete sequences without stop codon revealed the homology with the permeases protein of amino acid ABC transporter.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.301-310
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• 2010

Bacillus subtilis strains produce a broad spectrum of bioactive peptides. The lipopeptide surfactin belongs to one well-known class, which includes amphiphilic membrane-active biosurfactants and peptide antibiotics. Both the srfA promoter and the ComP-ComA signal transduction system are an important part of the factor that results in the production of surfactin. Bs-M49, obtained by means of low-energy ion implantation in wild-type Bs-916, produced significantly lower levels of surfactin, and had no obvious effects against R. solani. Occasionally, we found strain Bs-M49 decreased spore formation and the development of competence. Blast comparison of the sequences from Bs-916 and M49 indicate that there is no difference in the srfA operon promoter PsrfA, but there are differences in the coding sequence of the comA gene. These differences result in three missense mutations within the M49 ComA protein. RT-PCR analyses results showed that the expression levels of selected genes involved in competence and sporulation in both the wild-type Bs-916 and mutant M49 strains were significantly different. When we integrated the comA ORF into the chromosome of M49 at the amyE locus, M49 restored hemolytic activity and antifungal activity. Then, HPLC analyses results also showed the comA-complemented strain had a similar ability to produce surf actin with wild-type strain Bs-916. These data suggested that the mutation of three key amino acids in ComA greatly affected the biological activity of Bacillus subtilis. ComA protein 3D structure prediction and motif search prediction indicated that ComA has two obvious motifs common to response regulator proteins, which are the N-terminal response regulator receiver motif and the C-terminal helix-turn-helix motif. The three residues in the ComA N-terminal portion may be involved in phosphorylation activation mechanism. These structural prediction results implicate that three mutated residues in the ComA protein may play an important role in the formation of a salt-bridge to the phosphoryl group keeping active conformation to subsequent regulation of the expression of downstream genes.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.690-698
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• 2010

Contamination of groundwater resources by organic chemicals has become an issue of increasing environmental concern. Surfactant-enhanced aquifer remediation (SEAR) is widely recognized as one of the most promising techniques to remediate organic contaminations in-situ. Solutions of surfactant or surfactant with polymer are used to dramatically expedite the process, which in turn, may reduce the treatment time of a site compared to use of water alone. In the design of surfactant-based technologies for remediation of organic contaminated aquifers, it is very important to have a considerable analysis using extensive numerical simulations prior to full-scale implementation. This study investigated the formation and flow of microemulsions during SEAR of organic-contaminated aquifer using the finite difference model UTCHEM, a three-dimensional, multicomponent, multiphase, compositional model. The remediation process variables considered in this study were the sequence of injection fluids, the injection and extraction rate, the concentrations of polymer in surfactant slug and chase water, and the duration of surfactant injection. For each variable, temporal changes in injection and production wells and spatial distributions of relative saturations in the organic phase were compared. Cleanup time and cumulative organic recovery were also quantified. The study would provide useful information to design strategies for the remediation of nonaqueous phase liquid-contaminated aquifers.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.379-383
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• 2018

The present study was performed with morphological and molecular analysis (cox1 and nad1 mitochondrial genes) to identify the proglottids of spirometrid tapeworm found in the stool of an African lion, Panthera leo, in the Serengeti plain of Tanzania. A strand of tapeworm strobila, about 75 cm in length, was obtained in the stool of a male African lion in the Serengeti National Park ($34^{\circ}$ 50' E, $02^{\circ}$ 30' S), Tanzania, in February 2012. The morphological features of the adult worm examined exhibited 3 uterine coils with a bow tie appearance and adopted a diagonal direction in the second turn. The posterior uterine coils are larger than terminal uterine ball and the feature of uteri are swirling rather than spirally coiling. The sequence difference between the Spirometra species (Tanzania origin) and S. erinaceieuropaei (GenBank no. KJ599680) was 9.4% while those of S. decipiens (GenBank no. KJ599679) differed by 2.1% in the cox1 and nad1 genes. Phylogenetic tree topologies generated using the 2 analytic methods were identical and presented high level of confidence values for the 3 major branches of the 3 Spirometra species in the cox1 gene. The morphological and molecular findings obtained in this study were nearly coincided with those of S. ranarum. Therefore, we can know for the first time that the African lion, Panthera leo, is to the definitive host of this tapeworm.

• Journal of Music and Human Behavior
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.19-43
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• 2017

This study aimed to examine the effects of a reciprocal attention intervention on the joint attention behaviors of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by comparing the music and nonmusic conditions. An alternating treatment design was applied as one of the single subject designs and the reciprocal attention intervention included music and nonmusic conditions implemented alternately within a session. The participants were four children between the ages 4 and 5 years and each participant who participated in 23 intervention sessions that followed the sequence of baseline (3 sessions), treatment (15 sessions), and follow-up (5 sessions). The music condition consisted of structured joint instrument playing, trials for attentional shift, and interactive instrument playing. The nonmusic condition consisted of joint toy play, trials for attentional shift, and turn taking-based play. The occurrence of target behaviors (i. e., joint attention behavior, eye gaze, and joint action) was analyzed across sessions. At pretest and posttest, the Early Social Communication Scale was administered. All participants showed increasing tendency in all target behaviors, but such occurrence was greater in the music condition than in the nonmusic condition. The findings support the use of a reciprocal attention intervention with musical stimuli to effectively improve joint attention in this population.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.57-65
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• 2018

The geology of Hidalgo state in Mexico is formed by a Precambrian metamorphic rock base which discordantly supports a strong Paleozoic sedimentary rock sequence. Triassic-Jurassic and Cretaceous sedimentary rocks overlie the above-mentioned rocks at a discordant angle. These Mesozoic rocks are in turn covered by a Cenozoic structure which is marine at its base. At the top, the structure changes to andesitic and basaltic composition volcanic rocks. And, a great variety of mineral deposits, both metallic and nonmetallic, is present in Hidalgo state. The host rocks of these deposits are also very varied in age from Mesozoic to Tertiary. Mineralization age corresponds to Tertiary in 90% of the area. Hidalgo state occupies as an important place in national silver and manganese production. Main mineral deposits correspond to argentiferous veins hosted in sedimentary rocks. Following in order of importance are lead and zinc, as well as some small iron deposits. There is evidence of tin and molybdenum mineralization, but these deposits have not been exploited because of their low grade and volume. And, Hidalgo state has different types of nonmetallic mineral deposits such as sedimentary, hydrothermal, metamorphic and volcanic origins.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.241-241
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• 2012

Semiconductor industry has been taking the advantage of improvements in process technology in order to maintain reduced device geometries and stringent performance specifications. This results in semiconductor manufacturing processes became hundreds in sequence, it is continuously expected to be increased. This may in turn reduce the yield. With a large amount of investment at stake, this motivates tighter process control and fault diagnosis. The continuous improvement in semiconductor industry demands advancements in process control and monitoring to the same degree. Any fault in the process must be detected and classified with a high degree of precision, and it is desired to be diagnosed if possible. The detected abnormality in the system is then classified to locate the source of the variation. The performance of a fault detection system is directly reflected in the yield. Therefore a highly capable fault detection system is always desirable. In this research, time series modeling of the data from an etch equipment has been investigated for the ultimate purpose of fault diagnosis. The tool data consisted of number of different parameters each being recorded at fixed time points. As the data had been collected for a number of runs, it was not synchronized due to variable delays and offsets in data acquisition system and networks. The data was then synchronized using a variant of Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) algorithm. The AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model was then applied on the synchronized data. The ARIMA model combines both the Autoregressive model and the Moving Average model to relate the present value of the time series to its past values. As the new values of parameters are received from the equipment, the model uses them and the previous ones to provide predictions of one step ahead for each parameter. The statistical comparison of these predictions with the actual values, gives us the each parameter's probability of fault, at each time point and (once a run gets finished) for each run. This work will be extended by applying a suitable probability generating function and combining the probabilities of different parameters using Dempster-Shafer Theory (DST). DST provides a way to combine evidence that is available from different sources and gives a joint degree of belief in a hypothesis. This will give us a combined belief of fault in the process with a high precision.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.103-109
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• 1999

Objective: Heat shock protein 70-2 (Hsp70-2) gene knockout mice are found to have premeiotic arrest at the primary spermatocyte stage with a complete absence of spermatids and spermatozoa. This observation led to the hypothesis that hspA2 may be disrupted in human testes with abnormal spermatogenesis. To test this hypothesis, we studied the mRNA expression of hspA2 in infertile men with azoospermia. Design: The mRNA expression were analyzed by competitive RT-PCR among testes with normal spermatogenesis, pachytene spermatocyte arrest, and sertoli-cell only syndrome. Materials and methods: Testicular biopsy was performed in men with azoospermia (n=15). Specimens were subdivided into three groups: (group 1) normal spermatogenesis (n=5), (group 2) spermatocyte arrest (n=5), (group 3) Sertoli-cell only syndrome (n=5). Total RNA was extracted by Trizol reagent. Total extracted RNA was reverse transcribed into cDNA and amplified by PCR using specific primers for hspA2 target cDNAs. A competitive cDNA fragment was constructed by deleting a defined fragment from the target cDNA sequence, and then coamplified with the target cDNA for competitive PCR. Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) gene was used as an internal control. Results: On Competitive RT-PCR analyses for hspA2 mRNA, significant amount of hspA2 expression was observed in group 1, whereas a constitutively low level of hspA2 was expressed in groups 2 and 3. Conclusion(s): The study demonstrates that the hspA2 gene expression is down-regulated in human testes with abnormal spermatogenesis, which in turn suggests that hspA2 gene may play a specific role during meiosis in human testes.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.63-70
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• 2017

A functional screen of 60,672 fosmid metagenomic clones amplified from marine sediment obtained from the Dokdo islets in Korea identified the gene EstES1, whose product, EstES1, displayed lipolytic properties on tributyrin-supplemented media. EstES1 is a 576 amino acid protein with a predicted molecular weight of 59.4 kDa including 37 N-terminal leader amino acids. EstES1 exhibited the highest sequence similarity (44%) to a carboxylesterase found in Haliangium ochraceum DSM14365. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that EstES1 belongs to a currently uncharacterized family of lipases. Within the conserved domain, EstES1 retains the catalytic triad that consists of the consensus penta-peptide motif, GESAG. EstES1 demonstrated a broad substrate specificity toward the long acyl group of ethyl esters (C2-C12), and its optimal activity was recorded toward p-Nitrophenyl butyrate (C4) at pH 9.0 and $40^{\circ}C$ (specific activity of 255.4 U/mg). The enzyme remained stable in the ranges of $60-65^{\circ}C$ and pH 9.0-10.5 and in the presence of methanol, ethanol, isopropanol, and dimethyl sulfoxide. Therefore, EstES1 has potential for use in industrial applications involving high temperature, organic solvents, and/or alkaline conditions.