• Title/Summary/Keyword: 학술대회

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Evolutionary Explanation for Beauveria bassiana Being a Potent Biological Control Agent Against Agricultural Pests

  • Han, Jae-Gu
    • 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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    • 2014.05a
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    • pp.27-28
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    • 2014
  • Beauveria bassiana (Cordycipitaceae, Hypocreales, Ascomycota) is an anamorphic fungus having a potential to be used as a biological control agent because it parasitizes a wide range of arthropod hosts including termites, aphids, beetles and many other insects. A number of bioactive secondary metabolites (SMs) have been isolated from B. bassiana and functionally verified. Among them, beauvericin and bassianolide are cyclic depsipeptides with antibiotic and insecticidal effects belonging to the enniatin family. Non-ribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) play a crucial role in the synthesis of these secondary metabolites. NRPSs are modularly organized multienzyme complexes in which each module is responsible for the elongation of proteinogenic and non-protein amino acids, as well as carboxyl and hydroxyacids. A minimum of three domains are necessary for one NRPS elongation module: an adenylation (A) domain for substrate recognition and activation; a tholation (T) domain that tethers the growing peptide chain and the incoming aminoacyl unit; and a condensation (C) domain to catalyze peptide bond formation. Some of the optional domains include epimerization (E), heterocyclization (Cy) and oxidation (Ox) domains, which may modify the enzyme-bound precursors or intermediates. In the present study, we analyzed genomes of B. bassiana and its allied species in Hypocreales to verify the distribution of NRPS-encoding genes involving biosynthesis of beauvericin and bassianolide, and to unveil the evolutionary processes of the gene clusters. Initially, we retrieved completely or partially assembled genomic sequences of fungal species belonging to Hypocreales from public databases. SM biosynthesizing genes were predicted from the selected genomes using antiSMASH program. Adenylation (A) domains were extracted from the predicted NRPS, NRPS-like and NRPS-PKS hybrid genes, and used them to construct a phylogenetic tree. Based on the preliminary results of SM biosynthetic gene prediction in B. bassiana, we analyzed the conserved gene orders of beauvericin and bassianolide biosynthetic gene clusters among the hypocrealean fungi. Reciprocal best blast hit (RBH) approach was performed to identify the regions orthologous to the biosynthetic gene cluster in the selected fungal genomes. A clear recombination pattern was recognized in the inferred A-domain tree in which A-domains in the 1st and 2nd modules of beauvericin and bassianolide synthetases were grouped in CYCLO and EAS clades, respectively, suggesting that two modules of each synthetase have evolved independently. In addition, inferred topologies were congruent with the species phylogeny of Cordycipitaceae, indicating that the gene fusion event have occurred before the species divergence. Beauvericin and bassianolide synthetases turned out to possess identical domain organization as C-A-T-C-A-NM-T-T-C. We also predicted precursors of beauvericin and bassianolide synthetases based on the extracted signature residues in A-domain core motifs. The result showed that the A-domains in the 1st module of both synthetases select D-2-hydroxyisovalerate (D-Hiv), while A-domains in the 2nd modules specifically activate L-phenylalanine (Phe) in beauvericin synthetase and leucine (Leu) in bassianolide synthetase. antiSMASH ver. 2.0 predicted 15 genes in the beauvericin biosynthetic gene cluster of the B. bassiana genome dispersed across a total length of approximately 50kb. The beauvericin biosynthetic gene cluster contains beauvericin synthetase as well as kivr gene encoding NADPH-dependent ketoisovalerate reductase which is necessary to convert 2-ketoisovalarate to D-Hiv and a gene encoding a putative Gal4-like transcriptional regulator. Our syntenic comparison showed that species in Cordycipitaceae have almost conserved beauvericin biosynthetic gene cluster although the gene order and direction were sometimes variable. It is intriguing that there is no region orthologous to beauvericin synthetase gene in Cordyceps militaris genome. It is likely that beauvericin synthetase was present in common ancestor of Cordycipitaceae but selective gene loss has occurred in several species including C. militaris. Putative bassianolide biosynthetic gene cluster consisted of 16 genes including bassianolide synthetase, cytochrome P450 monooxygenase, and putative Gal4-like transcriptional regulator genes. Our synteny analysis found that only B. bassiana possessed a bassianolide synthetase gene among the studied fungi. This result is consistent with the groupings in A-domain tree in which bassianolide synthetase gene found in B. bassiana was not grouped with NRPS genes predicted in other species. We hypothesized that bassianolide biosynthesizing cluster genes in B. bassiana are possibly acquired by horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from distantly related fungi. The present study showed that B. bassiana is the only species capable of producing both beauvericin and bassianolide. This property led to B. bassiana infect multiple hosts and to be a potential biological control agent against agricultural pests.

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High quality topological insulator Bi2Se3 grown on h-BN using molecular beam epitaxy

  • Park, Joon Young;Lee, Gil-Ho;Jo, Janghyun;Cheng, Austin K.;Yoon, Hosang;Watanabe, Kenji;Taniguchi, Takashi;Kim, Miyoung;Kim, Philip;Yi, Gyu-Chul
    • Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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    • 2016.02a
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    • pp.284-284
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    • 2016
  • Topological insulator (TI) is a bulk-insulating material with topologically protected Dirac surface states in the band gap. In particular, $Bi_2Se_3$ attracted great attention as a model three-dimensional TI due to its simple electronic structure of the surface states in a relatively large band gap (~0.3 eV). However, experimental efforts using $Bi_2Se_3$ have been difficult due to the abundance of structural defects, which frequently results in the bulk conduction being dominant over the surface conduction in transport due to the bulk doping effects of the defect sites. One promising approach in avoiding this problem is to reduce the structural defects by heteroepitaxially grow $Bi_2Se_3$ on a substrate with a compatible lattice structure, while also preventing surface degradation by encapsulating the pristine interface between $Bi_2Se_3$ and the substrate in a clean growth environment. A particularly promising choice of substrate for the heteroepitaxial growth is hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), which has the same two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) layered structure and hexagonal lattice symmetry as $Bi_2Se_3$. Moreover, since h-BN is a dielectric insulator with a large bandgap energy of 5.97 eV and chemically inert surfaces, it is well suited as a substrate for high mobility electronic transport studies of vdW material systems. Here we report the heteroepitaxial growth and characterization of high quality topological insulator $Bi_2Se_3$ thin films prepared on h-BN layers. Especially, we used molecular beam epitaxy to achieve high quality TI thin films with extremely low defect concentrations and an ideal interface between the films and substrates. To optimize the morphology and microstructural quality of the films, a two-step growth was performed on h-BN layers transferred on transmission electron microscopy (TEM) compatible substrates. The resulting $Bi_2Se_3$ thin films were highly crystalline with atomically smooth terraces over a large area, and the $Bi_2Se_3$ and h-BN exhibited a clear heteroepitaxial relationship with an atomically abrupt and clean interface, as examined by high-resolution TEM. Magnetotransport characterizations revealed that this interface supports a high quality topological surface state devoid of bulk contribution, as evidenced by Hall, Shubnikov-de Haas, and weak anti-localization measurements. We believe that the experimental scheme demonstrated in this talk can serve as a promising method for the preparation of high quality TI thin films as well as many other heterostructures based on 2D vdW layered materials.

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N- and P-doping of Transition Metal Dichalcogenide (TMD) using Artificially Designed DNA with Lanthanide and Metal Ions

  • Kang, Dong-Ho;Park, Jin-Hong
    • Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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    • 2016.02a
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    • pp.292-292
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    • 2016
  • Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) with a two-dimensional layered structure have been considered highly promising materials for next-generation flexible, wearable, stretchable and transparent devices due to their unique physical, electrical and optical properties. Recent studies on TMD devices have focused on developing a suitable doping technique because precise control of the threshold voltage ($V_{TH}$) and the number of tightly-bound trions are required to achieve high performance electronic and optoelectronic devices, respectively. In particular, it is critical to develop an ultra-low level doping technique for the proper design and optimization of TMD-based devices because high level doping (about $10^{12}cm^{-2}$) causes TMD to act as a near-metallic layer. However, it is difficult to apply an ion implantation technique to TMD materials due to crystal damage that occurs during the implantation process. Although safe doping techniques have recently been developed, most of the previous TMD doping techniques presented very high doping levels of ${\sim}10^{12}cm^{-2}$. Recently, low-level n- and p-doping of TMD materials was achieved using cesium carbonate ($Cs_2CO_3$), octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS), and M-DNA, but further studies are needed to reduce the doping level down to an intrinsic level. Here, we propose a novel DNA-based doping method on $MoS_2$ and $WSe_2$ films, which enables ultra-low n- and p-doping control and allows for proper adjustments in device performance. This is achieved by selecting and/or combining different types of divalent metal and trivalent lanthanide (Ln) ions on DNA nanostructures. The available n-doping range (${\Delta}n$) on the $MoS_2$ by Ln-DNA (DNA functionalized by trivalent Ln ions) is between $6{\times}10^9cm^{-2}$ and $2.6{\times}10^{10}cm^{-2}$, which is even lower than that provided by pristine DNA (${\sim}6.4{\times}10^{10}cm^{-2}$). The p-doping change (${\Delta}p$) on $WSe_2$ by Ln-DNA is adjusted between $-1.0{\times}10^{10}cm^{-2}$ and $-2.4{\times}10^{10}cm^{-2}$. In the case of Co-DNA (DNA functionalized by both divalent metal and trivalent Ln ions) doping where $Eu^{3+}$ or $Gd^{3+}$ ions were incorporated, a light p-doping phenomenon is observed on $MoS_2$ and $WSe_2$ (respectively, negative ${\Delta}n$ below $-9{\times}10^9cm^{-2}$ and positive ${\Delta}p$ above $1.4{\times}10^{10}cm^{-2}$) because the added $Cu^{2+}$ ions probably reduce the strength of negative charges in Ln-DNA. However, a light n-doping phenomenon (positive ${\Delta}n$ above $10^{10}cm^{-2}$ and negative ${\Delta}p$ below $-1.1{\times}10^{10}cm^{-2}$) occurs in the TMD devices doped by Co-DNA with $Tb^{3+}$ or $Er^{3+}$ ions. A significant (factor of ~5) increase in field-effect mobility is also observed on the $MoS_2$ and $WSe_2$ devices, which are, respectively, doped by $Tb^{3+}$-based Co-DNA (n-doping) and $Gd^{3+}$-based Co-DNA (p-doping), due to the reduction of effective electron and hole barrier heights after the doping. In terms of optoelectronic device performance (photoresponsivity and detectivity), the $Tb^{3+}$ or $Er^{3+}$-Co-DNA (n-doping) and the $Eu^{3+}$ or $Gd^{3+}$-Co-DNA (p-doping) improve the $MoS_2$ and $WSe_2$ photodetectors, respectively.

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Chemistry of mist deposition of organic polymer PEDOT:PSS on crystalline Si

  • Shirai, Hajime;Ohki, Tatsuya;Liu, Qiming;Ichikawa, Koki
    • Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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    • 2016.02a
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    • pp.388-388
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    • 2016
  • Chemical mist deposition (CMD) of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) was investigated with cavitation frequency f, solvent, flow rate of nitrogen, substrate temperature $T_s$, and substrate dc bias $V_s$ as variables for efficient PEDOT:PSS/crystalline (c-)Si heterojunction solar cells (Fig. 1). The high-speed camera and differential mobility analysis characterizations revealed that average size and flux of PEDOT:PSS mist depend on f, solvent, and $V_s$. The size distribution of mist particles including EG/DI water cosolvent is also shown at three different $V_s$ of 0, 1.5, and 5 kV for a f of 3 MHz (Fig. 2). The size distribution of EG/DI water mist without PEDOT:PSS is also shown at the bottom. A peak maximum shifted from 300-350 to 20-30 nm with a narrow band width of ~150 nm for PEDOT:PSS solution, whose maximum number density increased significantly up to 8000/cc with increasing $V_s$. On the other hand, for EG/water cosolvent mist alone, the peak maximum was observed at a 72.3 nm with a number density of ~700/cc and a band width of ~160 nm and it decreased markedly with increasing $V_s$. These findings were not observed for PEDOT:PSS/EG/DI water mist. In addition, the Mie scattering image of PEDOT:PSS mist under white bias light was not observed at $V_s$ above 5 kV, because the average size of mist became smaller. These results imply that most of solvent is solvated in PEDOT:PSS molecule and/or solvent is vaporized. Thus, higher f and $V_s$ generate preferentially fine mist particle with a narrower band width. Film deposition occurred when $V_s$ was impressed on positive to a c-Si substrate at a Ts of $30-40^{\circ}C$, whereas no deposition of films occurred on negative, implying that negatively charged mist mainly provide the film deposition. The uniform deposition of PEDOT:PSS films occurred on textured c-Si(100) substrate by adjusting $T_s$ and $V_s$. The adhesion of CMD PEDOT:PSS to c-Si enhanced by $V_s$ conspicuously compared to that of spin-coated film. The CMD PEDOT:PSS/c-Si solar cell devices on textured c-Si(100) exhibited a ${\eta}$ of 11.0% with the better uniformity of the solar cell parameters. Furthermore, ${\eta}$ increased to 12.5% with a $J_{sc}$ of $35.6mA/cm^2$, a $V_{oc}$ of 0.53 V, and a FF of 0.67 with an antireflection (AR) coating layer of 20-nm-thick CMD molybdenum oxide $MoO_x$ (n= 2.1) using negatively charged mist of 0.1 wt% 12 Molybdo (VI) phosphoric acid n-Hydrate) $H_3(PMo_{12}O_40){\cdot}nH_2O$ in methanol. CMD. These findings suggest that the CMD with negatively charged mist has a great potential for the uniform deposition of organic and inorganic on textured c-Si substrate by adjusting $T_s$ and $V_s$.

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The Influence of University Entrepreneurship Education's Creativity Capacity to Entrepreneurship Willingness: The Moderating Role of Social Support (창의성 역량 교육이 창업의지에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 사회적 지지의 조절효과를 중심으로)

  • Ahn, Tae Uk;Park, Jae Hwan;Lee, Il han
    • 한국벤처창업학회:학술대회논문집
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    • 2017.08a
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    • pp.1-13
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    • 2017
  • In the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution, as the importance of creative talent became more and more important, we recognized the urgent need for start-ups to innovate new growth industries and creative talents to lead these eras.And the importance of entrepreneurship education emphasized in entrepreneurship education and the necessity of creativity competency education.However, there is a lack of research on how creativity competency education affects entrepreneurship intention for college students. Especially, research on the moderating effect of social support on the effect of entrepreneurship through education is very insufficient. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of creativity competence education on the will of entrepreneurship and empowerment of social support. For this purpose, 393 college students were used for empirical analysis for 1 month from August 2016. As a result of this study, the ability of communicative communication and creative problem solving had a positive effect on self - efficacy. On the other hand, innovative work behavior abilities did not directly affect self-efficacy. In addition, creative problem solving ability and innovative work behavior ability had a positive effect on the will to start up. Collaborative communication skills, however, did not directly affect the willingness to start a business. Self - efficacy has a positive effect on the will of founding. Finally, the moderating effect of social support between self-efficacy and willingness to work was not directly affected. The implication of this study is that the effect of the creativity competency education on college students has a positive effect on the self - efficacy of self and the positive influence on the will to start up. The results of this study are as follows. First, it is found that the influence of social support (parental support) is not positively influenced by the control effect of the parents. In the case of college students, As well as the need to do so. Therefore, in order to further increase the willingness of young people to establish a university in the university, it is necessary to provide education and programs not only for direct education for college students, but also for improving the understanding of the talents and entrepreneurship required by the age of their parents.

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The Analysis of Korea Science Academy and Min Jok Leadership Academy Students's Leisure Activity property and Life satisfaction (한국과학영재학교와 민족사관고 학생들의 여가활동특성 및 생활만족 분석)

  • Song, Kang-Young;An, Jeong-Deok
    • Proceedings of the Korea Contents Association Conference
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    • 2006.11a
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    • pp.133-140
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    • 2006
  • The purpose of this study was to analyse the properties of leisure activity and the life satisfaction in the case of Korea Science Academy(KSA) students and Min Jok Leadership Academy(MLA) students. The participants consisted of KSA students(male:122, female:44) and MLA students(male:71, female:113) with voluntary consent. We had achieved the following results. 1) For leisure activity, KSA and MLA's male students showed the highest ratio for participation in the sports, KSA's female students in the taste-culture activity and MLA's female students in the sight-seeing. 2) The response showed that stress treatment was the principal reason of leisure activity's need. 3) Over 50% of the male students were satisfied with the present leisure activity but 12% of the KSA male students and 14% of the MLA female 14% answered to the "unsatisfactory" or "very unsatisfactory". 4) Mental stress treatment showed the highest ratio in the response to the question asking the principal straight motive of leisure activity. 5) 75$\sim$80% students considered the leisure activity as an important means to maintain health and physical fitness. 6) Though most students participated in the activities with friends, 30% of the students answered that they participate by themselves. 7) It was shown that 51% and 40% of KSA male and female students, 40% of MLA male students and 48% of MLA female students participated in leisure Activity planlessly. 8) The average leisure time of the most students was less than 2 hours a day and Male students were observed to have more leisure time than female, and KSA students to have more time than MLA students. 9) In weekdays, KSA's male students enjoyed mostly the sport for leisure activity, but taste-culture activity showed the highest ratio in the case of MLA students and KSA female students. 10) In the case of male students, 38% of KSA and 54% students of MLA did not play computer game at all, and 70% of the female students in total did not play computer game. Also, the proper control-method was in need because the result showed that KSA's male students spent more time in playing computer game than MLA's male students did. 61% of KSA female students and 53% of MLA female students answered that they did not play compute game at all during weekends. Whereas It showed that 26% of KSA male students played computer game over 3 hours during weekends. 11) The biggest reason for being unable to participate in the leisure activity was the insufficiency of time due to homework or studying for quiz. The laziness also showed high percentage of 19$\sim$25% varying between the groups. 12) The life satisfaction of KSA male students was visibly higher(p<.05) than that of MLA male students but the significantly difference wasn't shown in the case of female students.

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A Study on Partially Applied Color Image in Black and White Moving Imagery (흑백영상의 부분 색채화에 관한 연구)

  • Yeo, Myoung;Kim, Ji-Hong
    • Proceedings of the Korea Contents Association Conference
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    • 2006.11a
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    • pp.322-326
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    • 2006
  • Though human being has ability to percept a full colored vision, the technology of early photography only can produce black and white images. For cinema filming imagery also captured mono tone with black and white, until developed a color film technology. The desire for presenting color imagery and the technique for producing film and color ink, photography and print utilize color on it with noticeable color impact to viewers. It, however, abusing fun colors image each and every printed and filmed imagery, the freshness of eye catching power diminished now. On contrast, color becomes black and white or partially used for making discrepancy among full colored images. This image detected commercial and music video, and it spread to film. To use those bleached color images is for evoking a nostalgia and a visual differentiation. Especially, it can be provocative images brought to audience with that. such as "Anycall", "Dimchae" for CF, and "Schindler's list," and "Sin city" for movie. It is hard to investigate on the color studies for partially used images. Therefore, this study is to research that through CF and film, base on it, to investigate the application for this image. To collect data from survey, it will be established a basic concept for understanding the partial color applying.

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A Study on Body Image of Women Who Participate in Physical Exercise (스포츠 센터 운동 참여에 따른 여성의 신체이미지에 관한 연구)

  • Kang, Byeol-Nim
    • Proceedings of the Korea Contents Association Conference
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    • 2006.11a
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    • pp.145-148
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    • 2006
  • This study aimed at preventing women from suffering from health problems and stress due to excessive lookism and encouraging them to participate in sports activities to form desirable body image and eventually to live a healthy and sound life. To achieve this goal, this study formed a population with members of sports centers located in Seoul and Daejeon areas as of 2006 and made a sample of 450 participants in physical exercise at a sports center through stratified cluster random sampling and that of 450 non-participants through a survey with mothers and sisters of those students from elementary and secondary schools within the areas for sampling the participants' group, thereby analyzing the data on a total of 900 persons. A questionnaire was used as a tool to collect data; a reliability test presented weight-, health-, and figure-related factors as a=.807, a=.819, and a=.784, respectively. This study used such statistical analysis methods as t-test, One-way ANOVA, and the Analysis of Covariance to analyze data. This study produced the following conclusions through these research methods and procedure. Pticipation in physical exercise has a positive effect on body image. Pticipation in physical exercise at a sports center show higher satisfaction with body image than non-participats.

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Why A Multimedia Approach to English Education\ulcorner

  • Keem, Sung-uk
    • Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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    • 1997.07a
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    • pp.176-178
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    • 1997
  • To make a long story short I made up my mind to experiment with a multimedia approach to my classroom presentations two years ago because my ways of giving instructions bored the pants off me as well as my students. My favorite ways used to be sometimes referred to as classical or traditional ones, heavily dependent on the three elements: teacher's mouth, books, and chalk. Some call it the 'MBC method'. To top it off, I tried audio-visuals such as tape recorders, cassette players, VTR, pictures, and you name it, that could help improve my teaching method. And yet I have been unhappy about the results by a trial and error approach. I was determined to look for a better way that would ensure my satisfaction in the first place. What really turned me on was a multimedia CD ROM title, ELLIS (English Language Learning Instructional Systems) developed by Dr. Frank Otto. This is an integrated system of learning English based on advanced computer technology. Inspired by the utility and potential of such a multimedia system for regular classroom or lab instructions, I designed a simple but practical multimedia language learning laboratory in 1994 for the first time in Korea(perhaps for the first time in the world). It was high time that the conventional type of language laboratory(audio-passive) at Hahnnam be replaced because of wear and tear. Prior to this development, in 1991, I put a first CALL(Computer Assisted Language Learning) laboratory equipped with 35 personal computers(286), where students were encouraged to practise English typing, word processing and study English grammar, English vocabulary, and English composition. The first multimedia language learning laboratory was composed of 1) a multimedia personal computer(486DX2 then, now 586), 2) VGA multipliers that enable simultaneous viewing of the screen at control of the instructor, 3) an amplifIer, 4) loud speakers, 5)student monitors, 6) student tables to seat three students(a monitor for two students is more realistic, though), 7) student chairs, 8) an instructor table, and 9) cables. It was augmented later with an Internet hookup. The beauty of this type of multimedia language learning laboratory is the economy of furnishing and maintaining it. There is no need of darkening the facilities, which is a must when an LCD/beam projector is preferred in the laboratory. It is headset free, which proved to make students exasperated when worn more than- twenty minutes. In the previous semester I taught three different subjects: Freshman English Lab, English Phonetics, and Listening Comprehension Intermediate. I used CD ROM titles like ELLIS, Master Pronunciation, English Tripple Play Plus, English Arcade, Living Books, Q-Steps, English Discoveries, Compton's Encyclopedia. On the other hand, I managed to put all teaching materials into PowerPoint, where letters, photo, graphic, animation, audio, and video files are orderly stored in terms of slides. It takes time for me to prepare my teaching materials via PowerPoint, but it is a wonderful tool for the sake of presentations. And it is worth trying as long as I can entertain my students in such a way. Once everything is put into the computer, I feel relaxed and a bit excited watching my students enjoy my presentations. It appears to be great fun for students because they have never experienced this type of instruction. This is how I freed myself from having to manipulate a cassette tape player, VTR, and write on the board. The student monitors in front of them seem to help them concentrate on what they see, combined with what they hear. All I have to do is to simply click a mouse to give presentations and explanations, when necessary. I use a remote mouse, which prevents me from sitting at the instructor table. Instead, I can walk around in the room and enjoy freer interactions with students. Using this instrument, I can also have my students participate in the presentation. In particular, I invite my students to manipulate the computer using the remote mouse from the student's seat not from the instructor's seat. Every student appears to be fascinated with my multimedia approach to English teaching because of its unique nature as a new teaching tool as we face the 21st century. They all agree that the multimedia way is an interesting and fascinating way of learning to satisfy their needs. Above all, it helps lighten their drudgery in the classroom. They feel other subjects taught by other teachers should be treated in the same fashion. A multimedia approach to education is impossible without the advent of hi-tech computers, of which multi functions are integrated into a unified system, i.e., a personal computer. If you have computer-phobia, make quick friends with it; the sooner, the better. It can be a wonderful assistant to you. It is the Internet that I pay close attention to in conjunction with the multimedia approach to English education. Via e-mail system, I encourage my students to write to me in English. I encourage them to enjoy chatting with people all over the world. I also encourage them to visit the sites where they offer study courses in English conversation, vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, reading, and writing. I help them search any subject they want to via World Wide Web. Some day in the near future it will be the hub of learning for everybody. It will eventually free students from books, teachers, libraries, classrooms, and boredom. I will keep exploring better ways to give satisfying instructions to my students who deserve my entertainment.

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The Hepatotprotective and Antioxidative Effects of Onion (Allium cepa) Extracts in Rat Hepatocyte Primary Culture (양파(Allium cepa) 추출물의 간보호 및 항산화 효과)

  • Rhim, Tae-Jin;Lim, Sang-Cheol
    • Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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    • v.18 no.1
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    • pp.52-60
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    • 2005
  • The objectives of present study were to investigate the hepatoprotective and antioxidative effects of onion extracts. Primary cultures of rat hepatocytes were incubated with 1.5 mM tert-butyl hydroperoxide(t-BHP), potent oxidizing agent for liver injury for 1 hr in the presence or absence of various concentrations (0, 0.01, 0.05, 0.1 or 0.3 mg/ml) of onion extract. Cytotoxicity and cell viability were determined by measuring glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase(GOT) activity, lactate dehydrogenase(LDH) activity and 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide(MTT) value. Lipid peroxidation was evaluated using thiobarbituric acid reactive substances(TBARS) assay. Effects on antioxidant system were determined by measuring catalase, glutathione peroxidase(GSH-Px), glutathione reductase(GSH-Rd) activities as well as DNA strand breaking assay. Incubation with t-BHP alone increased GOT and LDH activities and TBARS concentration but decreased MTT reduction. Onion extracts at the concentration of 0.05 mg/ml began to decrease GOT and LDH activities induced by 1.5 mM t-BHP. Decreased MTT reduction began to be increased by onion extract at the concentration of 0.01 mg/ml. Onion extracts at the concentration of 0.01 mg/ml began to decrease TBARS concentration induced by t-BHP. Taken together, onion extracts prevented t-BHP-induced hepatocyte injury and lipid peroxidation. Catalase, GSH-Px and GSH-Rd activities of hepatocytes were significantly decreased by 1.5 mM t-BHP for 1 hr incubation. Onion extracts, on the other hand, at the concentration of 0.1 mg/ml began to prevent t-BHP-induced decrease in catalase, GSH-Px and GSH-Rd activities. Onion extracts prevented hydroxyl radical-induced single-strand breakage in dose-dependent manner when plasmid DNA was incubated with various concentrations of onion extracts in the presence of Fenton regents producing hydroxyl radical. These results demonstrate that onion extracts suppressed t-BHP-induced cytoctoxicity, decreased viability and lipid peroxidation and increased GSH-Px, GSH-Rd and catalase activities. Thus hepatoprotective and antioxidant effects of onion extract seem to be due to, at least in part, the increase in antioxidant enzyme activities as well as prevention from hydroxyl radical-induced oxidation, followed by inhibition in lipid peroxidation.

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