• Journal of Korean Academy of Oral Health
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.290-295
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• 2017

Objectives: Dental plaque emits red fluorescence under a visible blue light near the ultra-violet end of the light spectrum. The fluorescence characteristics of each microorganism have been reported in several studies. The aim of this study was to evaluate changes in red fluorescence of oral microorganisms that is affected by blood in the culture media. Methods: The gram-positive Actinomyces naeslundii (AN, KCTC 5525) and Lactobacillus casei (LC, KCTC 3109) and gram negative Prevotella intermedia (PI, KCTC 3692) that are known to emit red fluorescence were used in this study. Each bacterium was activated in broth and cultivated in different agar media at $37^{\circ}C$ for 7 days. Tryptic soy agar with hemin and vitamin $K_3$ (TSA), TSA with sheep blood (TSAB), basal medium mucin (BMM) medium, and BMM with sheep blood (BMMB) were used in this study. Fluorescence due to bacterial growth was observed under 405-nm wavelength blue light using the quantitative light-induced fluorescence-digital (QLF-D) device. The red, green, and blue fluorescence values of colonies were obtained using image-analysis software and the red to green ratio (R/G value) and red to total RGB ratio (R/RGB value) were calculated for quantitative comparison. Results: The QLF-D images of the AN, LC, and PI colonies showed red fluorescence in all media, but the fluorescence of all bacteria was reduced in TSA and BMM media, compared with in TSAB and BMMB media. Both the R/G and the R/RGB values of all bacteria were significantly reduced in growth media without blood (P<0.001). Conclusions: Based on this in vitro study, it can be concluded that red fluorescence of oral bacteria can be affected by growth components, especially blood. Blood-containing medium could be a significant factor influencing red fluorescence of oral bacteria. It can be further hypothesized that bleeding in the oral cavity can increase the red fluorescence of dental plaque.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.324-330
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• 2020

Ozone (O₃) is a general disinfectant to remove micro-pollutants in water treatment system. Previous studies have reported effect of ozone to bacteria and pathogens removal, but its effect to the relatively large organisms has little known. In this study, we investigated potential effects of ozone toxicity to the non-bite midge larvae (Glyptotendipes tokunagai) with accumulate mortality, coloration change and expression of heat shock protein 70 (HSP70). The accumulate mortality rate of G. tokunagai increased in a dose-time dependent manner and the highest mortality rate was observed to 75% at 30 minute of exposure duration with 2.0 ppm of ozone concentration. Exposure to ozone was a factor increasing body color of the larvae. The tendency of HSP70 mRNA expression showed up-regulation in ozone exposure at 20 minute. After that time, the expression of HSP70 in exposed group decreased to a similar level of control group. Our results clearly showed that ozone toxicity affects physical and molecular activity of G. tokunagai, implying the potential hazardous of ozone in the aquatic ecosystem including macroinvertebrates.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.64 no.1
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• pp.75-81
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• 2021

Recent gut microbiota studies have revealed the important roles of gut microbiota for our health. Increasing numbers of health functional foods have been developed every year. Development of functional food often includes ex- and in-vivo experiment to verify the beneficial effects of the functional food. To investigate effects of functional food on gut microbiota, animal models were often conducted. Beneficial effects of food can be evaluated based on how gut microbiota was shifted by food, which results in either increase in beneficial bacteria, decrease in potentially pathogenic bacteria or both. As animal experiments are generally time-consuming and laborious, we investigate how well in-vitro investigation of fecal microbiota may reflect dietary health benefits. Here, we tested 15 kinds of diets using two human subjects' fecal materials. Our results showed varying gut microbiota shifts according to diets, which suggested generally known beneficial diets (i.e. Kimchi, Chunggukjang) increased Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. Therefore, we suggest that in vitro fecal microbiota analysis could be used to evaluate beneficial effects of diets. Moreover, this method may be ideal to establish personalized diet.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.135-146
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• 2022

Obesity is closely associated with profound dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, and fatty liver disease. Recent reports have suggested that alterations in gut microbiota can be linked to diet-induced obesity. In this study, the anti-obesity effects of Weissella confusa WIKIM51 isolated from kimchi were investigated, as evidenced by: i) reduced lipid accumulation and downregulated adipogenesis-related genes in 3T3-L1 adipocytes; ii) suppressed gains in body weight and epididymal fat mass; iii) reduced serum lipid levels, for example, triglyceride and total cholesterol; iv) increased serum adiponectin levels and reduced serum leptin levels; v) downregulated lipogenesis and upregulated β-oxidation-related genes in the epididymal fat; and vi) altered microbial communities. The collective evidence indicate the potential value of W. confusa WIKIM51 as a functional food supplement for the prevention and amelioration of obesity.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.438-446
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• 2022

Some flowers have a high sensual appeal owing to their unique shape, color, smell, and taste and have been used as functional food and oriental medicine. Recently, edible dry flowers (EDFs) have attracted social attention as noble sources of functional teas. In this study, for the risk assessment of EDFs, pathogenic bacteria, heavy metals, and pesticide residues were monitored in 23 types of commercial EDF. No Enterobacteria spp. and Listeria spp. were found in all EDF products. However, common aerobic bacteria (3.24~3.85 Log CFU/g) were found in EDF, namely, Pueraria lobata, Chamaemelum nobile, Acacia decurrens, Rhododendron mucronulatum Turcz, Oenothera lamarckiana, Brassica napus, and Prunus serrulata. Staphylococcus aureus was found in 11 and Salmonella sp. was found in 8 of the 23 EDFs. Considering the cold extraction of EDF for tea and beverages, the regulation of pathogenic bacteria in EDFs is necessary. No heavy metals such as Pb, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, and As were found in all EDFs, except the dry flower of Hemerocallis fulva, which contained Pb at 0.08 ppm. Different pesticides and fungicides were found in EDFs, but their concentrations were very low (0.01~0.08 ppm) and below the maximal residue level. Only the dry flower of Chrysanthemum morifolium had a high content of chlorpyrifos (0.215 ppm), which is long-lasting pesticide. Our results suggest that the establishment of EDF regulations for pesticide residue, culture separation between edible and garden flowers, and guidelines for preventing pathogenic microbial contamination are necessary.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.383-393
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• 1991

Lodging of rice plant is the most important damage by unfavourable weather conditions in rice cultivation. High levels of nitrogen application and growing of Japonica rice variety is one factor to increase the lodging damage. Lodging of rice plant decreasing grain yield; 34% at milky. 21% at dough. 20% at yellow stage. decreasing grain Quality. increasing green rice. and increasing labor cost to harvest. To decrease lodging damage. the lodging resistant varieties will be selected and cultural practices such as amount and time of nitrogen application. planting density. water management. and disease and pest control methods have to be study for the short and strong culm. and good rooting system. Also. application methods such amount and time of plant growth regulators and new types of chemicals will be develop for the reducing lodging of rice plant. To decrease the lodging damage in direct seeding cultivation. first identifying the differences of lodging mechanisms between hand transplanting and direct seeding, second establish the suitable direct seeding methods such as seedling establishement. fertilization. and water menagement.

• Journal of Practical Agriculture & Fisheries Research
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.131-140
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• 2013

Offspring of 14 sows were used to evaluate the effect of yogurt substituted for creep feed on growth performance, diarrhea score and blood profiles. The piglets of sows were randomly allocated into 1 of 2 treatments (1 treatment separated piglets of 7 sows). The dietary treatments were as followed: CF, creep feed; YG, yogurt. The creep feed and yogurt diets were given from 3 d after piglets were born to the day of weaning (21 d after piglets were born). The body weight and feed consumption were weighed and recorded at d 0, 7, 14, and 21 after piglets were born for calculating average daily gain (ADG) and average daily feed intake (ADFI). At the weaning day, two piglets were randomly chosen from each pen and bled via jugular venipuncture to obtain blood samples for WBC and IgG measurement. All data were subjected to the GLM procedures of SAS (2002) as a randomized complete block design, with pen as the experimental unit. Differences among dietary treatments were separated by Duncan's multiple range test, and P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. No significant difference (P > 0.05) were observed in number of born piglets, weaning pigs, survival rate, body weight of piglets at d 0, 7, 14, and 21, ADG and ADFI. At d 21, piglets fed with creep feed had a higher (P < 0.05) IgG compared with piglets fed with yogurt. No significant difference (P > 0.05) was observed in WBC among treatments at d 21. In conclusion, yogurt substituted for creep feed had no adverse effect on growth performance in lactating piglets.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.217-228
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• 2023

Video instance segmentation is an intelligent visual task with high complexity because it not only requires object instance segmentation for each image frame constituting a video, but also requires accurate tracking of instances throughout the frame sequence of the video. In special, human instance segmentation in drama videos has an unique characteristic that requires accurate tracking of several main characters interacting in various places and times. Also, it is also characterized by a kind of the class imbalance problem because there is a significant difference between the frequency of main characters and that of supporting or auxiliary characters in drama videos. In this paper, we introduce a new human instance datatset called MHIS, which is built upon drama videos, Miseang, and then propose a novel video data augmentation method, CDVA, in order to overcome the data imbalance problem between character classes. Different from the previous video data augmentation methods, the proposed CDVA generates more realistic augmented videos by deciding the optimal location within the background clip for a target human instance to be inserted with taking rich spatio-temporal context embedded in videos into account. Therefore, the proposed augmentation method, CDVA, can improve the performance of a deep neural network model for video instance segmentation. Conducting both quantitative and qualitative experiments using the MHIS dataset, we prove the usefulness and effectiveness of the proposed video data augmentation method.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.31-36
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• 2023

This study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of sodium hypochlorite in eliminating Escherichia coli strains from leafy green and stem vegetables, which are frequently sold at community service centers. A cocktail of non-pathogenic E. coli and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (E. coli O157:H7) was used to artificially contaminate the vegetables (initial numbers of bacteria 7-8 log CFU/g). The contaminated vegetables were soaked in sodium hypochlorite for 5 min and then washed three times with running water. After the treatment, number of viable bacterial cells on the vegetables was estimated. Sodium hypochlorite treatment reduced the E. coli population by 1-2 log CFU/g on leafy green and stem vegetables, a significant reduction from the initial number. Further, sodium hypochlorite showed better antimicrobial efficacy for leaves with a larger surface area, less roughness, and softness. There was no significant difference in the antimicrobial effect between 100 and 200 mg/kg of sodium hypochlorite. Therefore, it is not necessary to increase sodium hypochlorite concentration than the level suggested in the school meal hygiene management guidelines. However, sodium hypochlorite treatment is not sufficient to achieve a safe level of microorganisms on leafy green and stem vegetables since they generally have a high abundance of microorganisms on their surface. Thus, an alternative cooking method for fresh leafy green and stem vegetables in summer should be developed to ensure they are safe for consumption.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.19-25
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• 2023

Addition of spice for inhibition of bacterial growth in ground chicken meat was investigated. The ground chicken meat approximately contained 72.98±0.15% moisture, 23.37±0.46% crude protein, 1.00±0.03% crude fat, and 1.90±0.03% ashes. Addition of rosemary showed the maximum bacterial inhibition, followed by garlic and mustard. The inhibitory effect increased with the addition of a greater quantity of spices. The optimal added concentration of spices for inhibition of total viable cell and proliferation of Escherichia coli in ground chicken meat was 2%, 4%, and 1.2% for rosemary, garlic, and mustard, respectively. The growth inhibition of total viable cells and E. coli differed during storage period for MixA (97.4%) > rosemary (96.9%) > MixB (96.3%) > garlic (53.7%) > mustard (33.3%). The addition of sterilized garlic to ground chicken meat showed that the total viable cells was low at 2.6-3.0 log CFU/g on the 0-day and 2.4-3.2 log CFU/g on the 9-day, and the number decreased as the storage lengthened. Non-sterilized garlic treatment showed a higher number of total viable cells than the control group, and this increased with elapse of storage time. The number of E. coli, was low at 0.4-1.0 log CFU/g on the 0-day and 0.5-1.5 log CFU/g on the 9-day for the sterilized group, and the change during the storage showed a similar trend for the total viable cells. In conclusion, the microbial safety of ground chicken meat products was improved by various mixed applications of rosemary, garlic, and mustard.