• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.258-272
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• 2014

Bats hibernating in caves and unused mines were surveyed during six hibernation periods (from December to February, 2005 and 2011) in Korea. We recorded 13,288 individuals of 11 species at 140 hibernacula (60 caves and 80 abandoned mines): Rhinolophus ferrumequinum (n=3,509), Eptesicus serotinus (n=6), Hypsugo alaschanicus (n=349), Miniopterus fuliginosus (n=5,919), Murina hilgendorfi (n=417), Myotis aurascens (n=294), Myotis bombinus (n=2), Myotis formosus (n=401), Myotis macrodactylus (M.mac, n=151), Myotis petax (n=2,131) and Plecotus ognevi (n=109). We studied the thermal preference and selection of hibernacula of seven dominant bat species. Four species (Myotis petax, Hypsugo alaschanicus, Plecotus ognevi and Murina hilgendorfi) hibernated mainly at the cold site below than $7^{\circ}C$, while three species (Myotis formosus, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum and Miniopterus fuliginosus) hibernated at warm site above than $7^{\circ}C$. Rhinolophus ferrumequinum had broad-ranged temperature zone for their hibernating site. The mean body temperature of each species was $2.64{\pm}0.98^{\circ}C$ for Murina hilgendorfi, $2.76{\pm}1.68^{\circ}C$ for Hypsugo alaschanicus, $2.78{\pm}0.98^{\circ}C$ for Plecotus ognevi, $4.52{\pm}1.02^{\circ}C$ for Myotis petax, $7.83{\pm}1.94^{\circ}C$ for Miniopterus fuliginosus, $9.19{\pm}2.35^{\circ}C$ for Rhinolophus ferrumequinum and $13.64{\pm}0.76^{\circ}C$ for Myotis formosus, respectively. The body temperatures of hibernating bats were closely related to the rock surface temperatures rather than the ambient temperatures. In conclusion, the diversity of bats community in hibernacula were closely related to the range of inner ambient temperature of hibernacula, and more species of bats were occupied at sites presenting a broad range of ambient temperatures.

• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Health Society Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.45-72
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• 2005

C. neoformans-associated cryptococcosis is primarily a disease of immunocompromised persons, has a world-wide distribution, and is often spread by pigeons in the urban environment. In contrast, C. gattii causes infection in normal hosts, has only been described in tropical and semi-tropical areas of the world, and has a unique niche in river gum Eucalyptus trees. Cryptococcosis is acquired through inhalation of the yeast propagules from the environment. C. gattii has been identified as the cause of an emerging infectious disease centered on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. No cases of C. gattii-disease were diagnosed prior to 1999; the current incidence rate is 36 cases per million population. A search was initiated in 2001 to find the ecological niche of this basidiomycetous yeast. C. gaftii was found in the environment in treed areas of Vancouver Island. The highest percentage of colonized-tree clusters were found around central Vancouver Island, with decreasing rates of colonization to the north and south. Climate, soil and vegetation cover of this area, called the Coastal Douglas fir biogeoclimatic zone, is unique to British Columbia and Canada. The concentration of airborne C. gattii was highest in the dry summer months, and lowest during late fall, winter, and early spring, months which have heavy rainfall. The study of the emerging colonization of this organism and subsequent cases of environmentally acquired disease will be informative in planning public health management of new routes of exposure to exotic agents in areas impacted by changing climate and land use patterns. Cryptococcosis is an infection associated with an encapsulated, basidiomycetous yeast Cryptococcus neoformans. The route of entry for this organism is through the lungs, with possible systemic spread via the circulatory system to the brain and meninges. There are four cryptococcal serogroups associated with disease in humans and animals, distinguished by capsular polysaccharide antigens. Cryptococcus neoformans: variety grubii (serotype A), variety neoformans (serotype D), and variety gattii (serotypes B and C) (Franzot et at. 1999). C. neoformans variety gattii has recently been elevated to species status, C. gattii. C. neoformans val. grubii and var. neoformans have a world-wide distribution, and are particularly associated with soil and weathered bird droppings. In contrast, C. gattii (CG) is not associated with bird excrement, is primarily found in tropical and subtropical climates, and has a restricted environmental niche associated with specific tree species. (Ellis & Pfiffer 1990) Ellis and Pfeiffer theorize that, as a basidiomycete, CG requires an association with a tree in order to become pathogenic to mammals. In Australia, CG has been found to be associated with five species of Eucalypts, Eucalyptus camaldulensis, E. tereticornis, E. blakelyi, E. gomphocephala, and E. rudis. Eucalypts, although originally native to Australia, now have a world-wide distribution. CG has been found associated with imported eucalypts in India, California, Brazil, and Egypt. In addition, in Brazil and Columbia, where eucalypts have been naturalized, native trees have been shown to harbour CG (Callejas et al. 1998; Montenegro et al. 2000). In British Columbia, Canada, since the beginning of 1999, there have been 120 confirmed cases of cryptococcal mycoses associated with CG in humans, including 4 fatalities (data from British Columbia Centre for Disease Control), and over 200 cases in animal pets in BC (data from Central Laboratory for Veterinarians). What is remarkable about the BC outbreak of C. gattii-cryptococcosis is that all of the cases have been residents of, or visitors to, a narrow area along the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, BC, from the tip of the island in the south (Victoria) to Courtenay on the north-central island as illustrated in Figure 1. Of the first 38 human cases, 58% were male with a mean age of 59.7 years (range 20 - 82): 36 cases (95%) were Caucasian. Ten cases (26%) presented with meningitis, the remainder presented with respiratory symptoms. Cultures recovered from cases of cryptococcosis associated with the outbreak were typed as serogroup B, which is specific to CG (Bartlett et al. 2003). This was the first reported outbreak of CVG in Canada, or indeed, the world. Where infection with CG is endemic, for example, Australia, the incidence of cryptococcosis ranges from 1.8 - 4.7 per million between the southern and northern states (Sorrell 2001). However, the overall incidence of cryptococcosis in immunocompenent individuals has been estimated at 0.2 per million population per year (Kwon-Chung et al. 1984). The population of Vancouver Island is approximately 720,000,consequently, even if the organism were endemic, one would expect a maximum of 0.15 cases of cryptococcal disease annually.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.64-80
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• 1998

The risk of cross-contamination in dental clinic is very high. Those who are engaged in dental clinic are exposed to various microorganisms in saliva and blood of patient. Potential possibility of cross-contamination of patient to patient, patient to dentist, dentist to laboratory technician always exist, which is important in the view of public health. It is well known that microorganisms may cause cross-contamination by suck-back of microorganisms into the water supply line or air supply line of dental unit and sprayed back into the next patient's oral cavity. The majority of microorganisms coming from dental unit are water microorganisms from the main water supply which have colonized the tube within the units and multiplied in the relatively warm and stagnant conditions. The purpose of this study is to measure the extent of microbial contamination of dental unit and ultrasonic scaler, to evaluate that dental unit water supply is suitable for drinking water, and to assess the effect of flushing on reduction of microbial contamination of dental unit and ultrasonic scaler. In the first experiment, water samples(50ml) from 20 dental units and 10 ultrasonic scalers in Seoul National Univ. Hosp. were tested for the presence of coliform. The samples were filtered by membrane filtration technique.(Microfil system, Millipore Co. U. S. A.) The filter was then placed onto MacConkey agar plate and the plates with filter on it were incubated aerobically at $37^{\circ}C$ for 5 days. The colors and shapes of colonies were examined if those were coliform. To verify the presence of coliform, the colonies were inoculated into phenol red lactose broth and incubated aerobically at $37^{\circ}C$ for 2 days. The fomation of gas was observed. In the second experiment, water samples from 20 handpieces, 10 ultrasonic scalers and 30 A/W syringes after 0, 2, 4, 6 min. flushing respectively were taken. $200{\mu}l$ water samples were spreaded on Brain Heart Infusion agar plate and the plates were incubated aerobically at $37^{\circ}C$ for 5 days. The number of colony was counted. The results obtained were summarized as follows 1. The water from dental unit and ultrasonic scaler was not suitable for drinking water. 2. No coliform was founded in dental unit and ultrasonic scaler water supply. 3. The number of colony of dental unit and ultrasonic scaler was highest in the group of o min. flushing(p<0.05). 4. There was no statistically significant difference in the extent of microbial contamination among handpiece, ultrasonic scaler and A/W syringe (p>0.05). 5. The number of colony was lowest in the group of 4 min. flushing, but there was no statistically significant difference among 2, 4, 6 min. flushing groups.(p>0.05) 6. It is recommended to flush dental unit water line for 4 min. after use on each patient.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartC
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• v.15C no.5
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• pp.399-408
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• 2008

Mobile WiMAX provides wireless broadband services for data communication based on IP protocol. The limitation of physical bandwidth in the radio links may cause performance degradation in providing wireless broadband services in WIMAX. To enhance the efficiency of the radio link utilization, Payload Header Suppression (PHS) is defined as an optional header compression mechanism for mobile WiMAX. It has, however, a very limited compression capability since it has very restrictive compression fields. In this paper, hence, we assumed the application of Robust Header Compression (ROHC), a header compression scheme proposed for links characterized by high bit error ratios, long round-trip times (RTT), and scarce resource, to Mobile WiMAX, and studied its performance. Previous studies on ROHC performance merely focused on the impact of high bit error rate. However, bit error is virtually transparent to ROHC in the wireless systems like WiMAX, since the MAC provides the bit error checking function. In order to evaluate the performance of ROHC in the Mobile WiMAX environments, therefore, we evaluated the performance of ROHC with respect to the packet losses instead of bit error. We investigated the impact of the ROHC parameters that are recommended for the implementation in the ROHC and compared the performance of ROHC with PHS.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.1193-1198
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• 2009

Pulse diagnosis is a central diagnosis method used in traditional Oriental medicine. To standardize and modernize the pulse diagnosis method, it is essential to develop an instrument-based reinterpretation of the clinically used pulse images in terms of the physical quantities such as the strength, period, width, length, and depth of the pulse. As a step towards such standardization, we conducted a clinical study on the floating/sinking pulses based on an automated palpation instrument (3D-MAC, Daeyo Medi, Korea) for 213 female subjects in their 20s and 174 female subjects in their 60s. The floating/sinking pulses are the two representative pulse images depending only on the depth of the pulse, and can be conveniently scaled by the coefficient of the floating-sinking pulse ($C_{fs}{\in}(0,1)$), which represents how strong one should apply the hold-down pressure to obtain the maximal pulse strength. As a result, primarily we found that it tends to appear more floating-like pulse ($C_{fs}{\rightarrow}0$) at Gwan and more sinking-like pulse ($C_{fs}{\rightarrow}1$) at Cheek, at both age groups and at both wrists. This result is consistent with a previous study on the geometrical structure of the blood vessel by an ultrasonograph. Second, the pulse tends to be more sinking-like in the age group of 60s than 20s. Finally, the pulses at the right palpation positions were found to be more sinking-like than the left, at both age groups.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.15 no.4 s.71
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• pp.553-560
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• 2005

The stf (Salmonella typhimurium fimbriae) operon consisting of stfA(CDEFG assumes to encode putative fimbriae. The complete stf operon is existed in S. typhimurium and S. choleraesuis, whereas it is absent in S. typhi. Analyses of the amino acid residues between major subunit StfA of the Stf fimbriae and those of known other fimbriaes suggested that Stf belongs to class I type fimbriae. Through comparison of StfD chaperone with the other fimbrial chaperones, and of C-terminus in subunits of Stf fimbriae, it belongs to FGS (with a short Fl-G1 loop) subfamily. In order to investigate the expression of stf operon, we have constructed a Salmonella strain containing a chromosomal stfA::lacZYA transcriptional fusion, resulting in S. typhimurium $_X8532$. The strain $_X8532$ lacked the expression of \beta-galactosidase$ under normal culture conditions. However, with longer incubation time of the S. typhimurium $_X8532$, we have isolated 21 individual strains exhibiting $Lac^+$ phenotype. $Lac^+$ phenotype was appeared as approximately 0.03 frequency per generation. All isolates expressed lacZ constitutively in the various environmental conditions. Various global regulatory proteins including RpoS, OmpR, and CpxR were not involved in the regulation of the stf operon. A S. typhimurium $_X8661$ mutant lacking stfAC function attenuated 6.7 folds more than that of wild type $_X3761$ in the mouse virulence test, suggesting in the somehow involved in the Salmonella pathogenesis.

• The Transactions of the Korea Information Processing Society
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.263-271
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• 1994

Automation of production in modern manufacturing is based on the integration of the various stage of production process by means of processing system. Information processing and network interface are of fundamental importance in programmable device in industrial automation, as they essential in order to active integration in production lines. In this paper, TBC(token bus controller) in the Mini-MAP board performs the function of the MAC sublayer, The LLC sublayer is implemented according to the specification of Class 3 that includes Type 1 and 3. And the MMS services are designed within the scope of implementation MAP 3.0 All the softwares are implemented under the real time executive for real time application of the Mini-MAP and they are loaded into PROMs at the network board. We tested the LLC functions to make use of a protocol analyzer for the token bus protocol. Also the MMS conformance test was carried out by exchanging primitives between a model system(including NIU) and a MMS product that had already passed the conformance the conformance test based on measurement method of network analysis.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.42 no.8 s.338
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• pp.11-16
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• 2005

This paper proposes a bit manipulation accelerator (BMA) having application specific instructions, which efficiently supports scrambling, convolutional encoding, puncturing, and interleaving. Conventional DSPs cannot effectively perform bit manipulation functions since かey have multiply accumulate (MAC) oriented data paths and word-based functions. However, the proposed accelerator can efficiently process bit manipulation functions using parallel shift and Exclusive-OR (XOR) operations and bit jnsertion/extraction operations on multiple data. The proposed BMA has been modeled by VHDL and synthesized using the SEC $0.18\mu m$ standard cell library and the gate count of the BMA is only about 1,700 gates. Performance comparisons show that the number of clock cycles can be reduced about $40\%\sim80\%$ for scrambling, convolutional encoding and interleaving compared with existing DSPs.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.27 no.10
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• pp.1827-1836
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• 2017

The world dairy industry has long been challenged by bovine mastitis, an inflammatory disease, which causes economic loss due to decreased milk production and quality. Attempts have been made to prevent or treat this disease with multiple approaches, primarily through increased abuse of antibiotics, but effective natural solutions remain elusive. Bee venom (BV) contains a variety of peptides (e.g., melittin) and shows multiple bioactivities, including prevention of inflammation. Thus, in the current study, it was hypothesized that BV can reduce inflammation in bovine mammary epithelial cells (MAC-T). To examine the hypothesis, cells were treated with LPS ($1{\mu}g/ml$) to induce an inflammatory response and the anti-inflammatory effects of BV (2.5 and $5{\mu}g/ml$) were investigated. The cellular mechanisms of BV against LPS-induced inflammation were also investigated. Results showed that BV can attenuate expression of an inflammatory protein, COX2, and pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-6 and TNF-${\alpha}$. Activation of NF-${\kappa}B$, an inflammatory transcription factor, was significantly downregulated by BV in cells treated with LPS, through dephosphorylation of ERK1/2. Moreover, pretreatment of cells with BV attenuated LPS-induced production of intracellular reactive oxygen species (e.g., superoxide anion). These results support our hypothesis that BV can decrease LPS-induced inflammatory responses in bovine mammary epithelial cells through inhibition of oxidative stress, NF-${\kappa}B$, ERK1/2, and COX-2 signaling.

• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.691-696
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• 2007

Purpose: The emergency of multi-drug resistant stains of bacteria represents a challenge in the field of plastic surgery. Especially, MRSA(methycillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa have strong pathogenicity as well as multi-drug resistance so that they have become a lot more problematic strains. This study has been planned to reduce the bacterial burden by applying $Acticoat^{(R)}$(Smith & Nephew Healthcare, Hull, England)dressing into the chronic wounds infected by multi-drug resistant strains and to facilitate their healing. Methods: Nanocrystalline silver dressings($Acticoat^{(R)}$) were applied to chronic wound infected by MRSA or Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Multi-drug resistant bacteria were smeared over a slide glass using sterilized cotton swabs and gram stains were performed directly before and after applying $Acticoat^{(R)}$ dressings at 1, 24, 48 and 72 hours. The gram-stained slides were observed using an optical microscope magnified 1000 times(${\times}1000$). The bacterial counts of the control group(0 hour) were compared to those of the experimental groups(1, 24, 48, and 72 hour). Paired T-test was used to assess a statistical significance. MRSA was cultured in two BAPs(blood agar plate) and two MacConkey plates with streak plate method. None were interventions on one culture plate, while on the other culture plate, $Acticoat^{(R)}$ was placed in a square shape and cultured for 72 hours at $37^{\circ}C$, then plates were examined. Pseudomonas aeruginosa was cultured in the same manner as MRSA. Results: There are the large amount of declination of bacterial counts with statistical significance after $Acticoat^{(R)}$ dressing. The bacteria grew in culture plate without specific intervention, but no bacteria grew in culture plate with applying of $Acticoat^{(R)}$ dressing. Conclusion: We believe that $Acticoat^{(R)}$ dressing could be used as an effective method of treating chronic wounds which are infected by multi-drug resistant organisms.