• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.267-276
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to verify the effectiveness of horticultural activities program for 4th grade nursing students' emotional intelligence and stress coping. The study method was a non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design. Participants were recruited with 4th grade nursing students from two nursing colleges. They were assigned to the experimental group (n=29) or the control group (n=30) using a computerized blocked randomization. Horticultural activities program was consisted of 10 sessions which were 2 times a week for 80 mins at each session during 5 weeks. Pretest and posttest were used to measure emotional intelligence and stress coping using the same structured questionnaires. Data was analyzed using frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, ${\chi}^2-test$, t-test, Fisher's exact test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, independent t-test and paired t-test. The result showed a significant difference that the experimental group's emotional intelligence(t=-3.33, p=.002) and stress coping(t=-2.35, p=.023) score was higher than the control group's. The results of this study suggests that the horticultural activities program is effective in terms of emotional intelligence and stress coping for $4^{th}$ grade nursing students.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.521-535
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• 2020

Background and objective: This study investigated plant type and color preference and conducted a psychological assessment for gardening activities of firefighters in a high-risk occupational group. Methods: A survey was conducted on 117 firefighters aged 39.01±9.17 in Sunchang in March 2020 to examine their preferences in plant type and color and conduct a psychological assessment of firefighters on gardening activities. Results: For plant experience and awareness, plant-related event showed the highest score, followed by plant preference tendency and plant growing experience. The level of plant gardening activities was higher among older age and higher job position. As a result of examining the quality of life according to the demographic characteristic with WHOQOL-BREF (World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment Instrument), it was found that the quality of life was higher among the 20s-30s than 50s, firefighter position than fire lieutenant or higher, those with higher average monthly income, and the singles group than married (p < .05). The administration group showed lower scores than the fire suppression group working in the field, showing statistical significance. Most firefighters showed high preference for herbal plants among the 12 types of flowering plants, in the order of Rosmarinus officinalis>Lavandula spp.>Mentha piperita, Calendula officinalis. Pelargonium spp. was preferred the least out of the flowering plants, Lycopersicon esculentum was preferred the most out of 12 types of vegetable plants, while Angelica acutiloba was preferred the least statistical significance. For the preference of plant colors, yellow was the most preferred color, followed by white, blue, orange, red, and green, showing statistical significance. For the psychological survey responses of emotion words toward 6 plants colors, it was found that 'bright' was the emotion felt most strongly by the white, yellow, and orange groups, 'calm' and 'comfortable' by the green and blue groups, and 'fancy' by the red group. Conclusion: The effect of agro-healing programs can be increased by using mostly yellow plants when creating indoor healing gardens at the workplaces of fire officials in a high-risk occupational group, and using herbal plants and Lycopersicon esculentum in the gardens for agro-healing activities.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.601-609
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• 2014

In this study, the effect of plant extract on the senescence action and cell survival rate in two types of cells, in which aging was derived by adriamycin, was analyzed to find the materials for suppressing cell senescence from natural resources. The results are as follows. For human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), the fruit of Physalis angulata L. and the aerial part of Synurus deltoides (Aiton) Nakai showed excellent cell-senescence inhibition activities in a treatment concentration-dependent manner, demonstrating the high possibility for utilization as a material for prevention and treatment for vascular diseases. The water extract from the root of Polygonatum odoratum var. pluriflorum for variegatum Y. N. Lee showed potent cell-senescence inhibitory effect for human dermal fibroblasts (HDFs). Thus it is considered that the additional study on the plant needs for elucidating the possible utilization as material for skin health improvement.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.28-35
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• 2008

Several extracts of different parts and solvent fractions of Cornus kousa were obtained and their functional material contents, antioxidant activities and tyrosinase inhibition effects were determined. Content of total polyphenols and flavonoids contents in flower were 169.638 $mg{\cdot}g^{-1}$ and 25.418 $mg{\cdot}g^{-1}$, respectively, which were much higher than those of other parts. Also, flower extracts showed the strongest effects on DPPH and ABTS radicals scavenging and ferrous ion chelating. In flower, leaf, and stem extracts, inhibition effects on peroxidation of linoleic acid determined by ferric thiocyanate(FTC) method were higher than a synthetic antioxidant, BHT. Tyrosinase inhibition activities were shown only in flower extract. Flower and leaf extracts, showing high biological activities in various system, were successively reextracted with n-hexane, chloroform, ethylacetate and n-butanol. Total polyphenol contents of water fractions were higher than any other solvent fractions in both flower and leaf, 67.006 $mg{\cdot}g^{-1}$ and 67.739 $mg{\cdot}g^{-1}$, respectively. But total flavonoid contents were higher in ethyl acetate fraction for flower extract and butanol fraction for leaf extract. Among the solvent fractions, the highest efficiency of free radical scavenging activities was obtained in ethyl acetate fraction for flower extract and n-butanol fraction for leaf extract. Tyrosinase inhibition activities were higher in water fraction for both flower and leaf extracts, 49.24% and 31.8%, respectively.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.90-99
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• 2020

This study aimed to screen for plants with antimicrobial potential among the evergreen woody species of South Korea that are used for horticulture and landscaping and to provide basic information about plants with proven antimicrobial activity to underpin future research. The plant materials were extracted under various conditions, and the antimicrobial activities of the extracts were evaluated by agar diffusion assay. The screening tests demonstrated that the crude extracts of 43 species had inhibitory effects against S. aureus. The inhibitory activities of four species (Elaeocarpus sylvestris, Camellia japonica, Cleyera japonica, and Quercus salicina) were relatively higher than that of the synthetic antimicrobial agents methylparaben and phenoxyethanol. The highest inhibitory activity was observed with the leaf extracts (extracted with methanol for 30 minutes) of E. sylvestris, based on induction of the largest inhibition zone of 23.3 mm in size. In addition, solvent fractions of E. sylvestris were evaluated. The largest inhibitory zone of 23.1 mm was observed for the n-butanol fraction, which is likely to contain effective compounds that exhibit inhibitory activity against S. aureus. In contrast, n-hexane and residual aqueous fractions showed no antimicrobial activity. Overall, our findings confirm that evergreen woody plants native to South Korea have potential antimicrobial activity.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.139-148
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• 2020

Urban problems raised by the concentration of population in urban areas have caused residents to migrate to other regions while causing other problems such as deteriorated infrastructure, traffic and environmental pollution problems in existing urban areas. As an alternative to improve this phenomenon, urban regeneration has emerged, and under the assumption that creating community vegetable gardens is effective in revitalizing cities considering their physical, social and cultural environment, frequency and descriptive analyses were conducted on the vegetable gardens in Jungnosong-dong, Wansan-gu, Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do, Korea to examine differences in the components of the surrounding environment and the settlement, and community spirit of the two groups comprised of 30 and 35 persons who did not and did participate in gardening respectively. Regression analysis were conducted to determine whether there were changes in community spirit after participating in gardening. As a component of the surrounding environment, gardening and fence management were found to be important for both the groups, and they seemed to have high satisfaction with their residence because they wanted to continue to live in their neighborhood. Overall, the satisfaction evaluation results showed that those who participated in gardening showed a higher satisfaction level than those who did not. Based on the changes in community spirit after participating in the activity, it was found that there was a high level of perception in all the components, indicating that the gardening had a positive effect on the cultivation of community spirit. As such, the spaces called vegetable gardens are not only for doing physical activities but also as shared conversation topics, and through the activities in the gardens, changes in the awareness of local residents can be brought about through the formation of social networks and natural communication between neighbors. It can be concluded that they encourage residents to actively participate in improving the urban environment through activities such as planting.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.159-170
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to understand the current status of education and programs and to identify the items that urban residents need most for garden management. First of all, there were 45 sites (40.5%) with gardens operated by city and county local governments nationwide, and 41(91.1%) of them had dedicated staff (1.8 persons on average). The average area of gardens was 18,623 m², garden area per person was 20.27m², the average number of participants was 683, and the average period of use was 8.69 months. In addition to gardening activities, 14 (31.1%) out of 45 sites were operating small group meetings, with an average of 2.29 meetings and 67 participants. In the satisfaction survey after gardening activities, 88.9% of 18 sites were satisfied. According to the questionnaire about education and programs related to garden users, an average of four sessions were conducted per education. In terms of education, the contents were in the following order: basic education on garden cultivation (33.9%) > prior education on garden operation (28.9%) > pest control (14.0%) > eco-friendly management (11.6%) > pesticides and Positive List System (9.9%) > others (1.7%). Over 95% of the respondents were generally satisfied. Regarding the perception survey on which items are needed to develop garden management guidelines, the most necessary items were in the order of crop management (38.7%) > public garden etiquettes among users (27.9%) > pest control (14.4%) > weed management (13.5%) > activities using harvest (5.4%). The contents that are to be included in the guidelines were in the order of garden planning and crop selection (17.2%) > cultivation techniques and schedule (16.5%) > pest and soil management (15.7%) > introduction of garden crops and gardening models (12.7%) > garden etiquettes (10.7%). In establishing urban garden management plans by region, the results will have high utility value as the basic data for continuous garden operation by setting a direction that meets the regional characteristics as well as the needs of urban residents.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.123-128
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• 2014

This study investigated the exercise intensity and energy expenditure involved in two gardening activities (planting transplants and sowing seeds in a garden plot) and four common physical activities (running, skipping rope, walking, and throwing a ball) in children. Eighteen children aged 11 to 13 years (mean age, $12.3{\pm}0.7$ years) participated in this study. The children made two visits to a high tunnel in Cheongju, Chungbuk, South Korea and performed randomly selected activities. Each activity was performed for 10 min, with a 5-min rest period between activities. The children wore a Cosmed $K4b^2$ (Cosmed $K4b^2$; Cosmed, Rome, Italy), which is a portable calorimetric monitoring system, to measure indicators of metabolic cost such as oxygen uptake and energy expenditure. The children's heart rates during the activities were measured by radiotelemetry (Polar T 31; FitMed, Kempele, Finland). We found that the two gardening and four physical activities performed by the 11-13 years old children in this study were moderate-to high-intensity physical activities [i.e.,$5.4{\pm}0.7$ to $9.1{\pm}1.4$ metabolic equivalents (METs)]. Running ($9.1{\pm}1.4$ METs) and skipping rope ($8.8{\pm}1.1$ METs) were high-intensity physical activities, whereas walking ($6.1{\pm}0.9$ METs), planting transplants ($5.8{\pm}1.1$ METs), throwing a ball ($5.6{\pm}1.1$ METs), and sowing seeds ($5.4{\pm}0.7$ METs) were moderate intensity physical activities. Running and skipping rope were significantly more intense than the other activities (P < 0.0001). The gardening tasks such as planting transplants and sowing seeds in a garden plot showed similar exercise intensities and energy costs as walking and throwing a ball. This study indicates that gardening can be used as a physical activity intervention to provide health benefits similar to more common physical activities such as walking and running.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.467-473
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• 2011

Flavonoid are large group of the polyphenolic compounds which are distinguished by an aromatic or phenolic ring structure and the phenolic compounds are induced by microbial infection, ultraviolet radiation, temperature and chemical stress. They are known for their antioxidant activity, anti-allergic, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial and anti-cancer activities. In this study, changes in flavonoid content were investigated using heterologous chalcone isomerase (CHI) expression system. Also, phenolic compounds level was measured to examine the relation between flavonoids and phenols contents. Explants of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) were transformed with Agrobacterium tumefaciens LBA 4404 strain containing pFLH-CHI (derived from pPZP2Ha3) vector constructed with CHI gene from Brassica rapa. The putative transgenic plants were confirmed by genomic DNA PCR analysis. Also the transcription levels of the gene were analyzed by semi-quantitative RT-PCR with gene specific primers. The total flavonoid contents were increased at $T_0$ and $T_1$ generations over 1.4 and 4.0 fold, respectively. Total phenol contents also increased at $T_1$ generation. These results indicate that CHI gene plays an important role to regulate the accumulation of flavonoids and its component changes.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.63-73
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• 2021

Background and objective: This study was conducted to investigate the effects and preferences of horticultural therapy programs for stress relief according to MBTI personality types (Judging and Perceiving types) of female undergraduate students. Methods: The participants were divided into 15 Judging and 15 Perceiving types based on lifestyle preferences of the MBTI personality test, and a total of 30 participants participated in the horticultural therapy programs for 6 sessions. Results: Both Judging and Perceiving types showed a significant decrease in stress after participating in the horticultural therapy programs. Among the 8 life stress subfactors, Judging types showed significant stress relieving effects in 5 subfactors (relationship with the opposite sex, relationship with family, economic problems, future problems, value problems), while Perceiving types showed stress relieving effects in only 3 subfactors (relationship with family, economic problems, future problems). However, the changes in stress relief of 8 subfactors were not significantly different between the two personality types. The most preferred program for the Judging types was 'Making a flower basket', while the most preferred ones for the Perceiving types were 'Planting monstera', and 'Making preserved lemons with marigold', suggesting that the preferences varied depending on personality types. Conclusion: Therefore, it is necessary to develop suitable horticultural therapy programs for different subjects based on their personality types to enhance the effect of the programs on the subjects.