• Journal of Life Science
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.291-297
• /
• 2008

We investigated whether 1) the combined capsaicin (75 mg), sesamin (30 mg), and L-carnitine (900 mg) (CCSC) ingestion enhances autonomic nervous system (ANS) activities including thermogenic sympathetic activity as energy metabolic modulator, 2) ${\beta}_3-AR$ polymorphism of each subject influences with ANS activity. Seven healthy males $(22.0{\pm}0.5\;yr)$ volunteered for this study. The cardiac autonomic nervous activities evaluated by means of heart rate variability of power spectral analysis were continuously measured during 5 min every 30 min for total 120 min resting condition with CCSC or placebo oral administration chosen at random. The results indicated that, there are not $Arp/Arg^{64}$ variants of the ${\beta}_3-AR$ genotypes in our subjects. There were not also significant differences in heart rate during rest between both trials. The difference of ANS activity did not reach the statistical significance between both trials. However, the significant improvement showed TOTAL power, HF component, and the indices of SNS and PNS activities before and at 30 min after CCSC ingestion (p<0.05, respectively). In conclusions, although each component of combined CCSC is associated with lipolysis and/or fat oxidation, the combined CCSC consumption is not influenced in stimulation of thermogenic sympathetic activity as modulator of energy metabolism. In rather, our results suggested that CCSC ingestion improves the balance of both SNS and PNS activities. Therefore, it will be considered many combined nutrient components for ergogenic and/or lipolysis effects as well as genetic variants affecting ANS activity in further studies.

• Journal of Life Science
• /
• v.23 no.3
• /
• pp.426-431
• /
• 2013

With the objective of developing a functional food source, we established optimal processing conditions for the larvae of Allomyrina dichotoma, which have been used in traditional medicine to treat hepatic disorders in Korea. Without suitable processing, the larvae are difficult to consume as a food because of their disgusting taste and smell; moreover, in this form they might be a potential microbial hazard. In this study, we investigated the effect of feeding material, sterilization, and powdering after freeze-drying on the food quality of the larvae of A. dichotoma and on cytotoxicity against Raw 264.7 cells. Three to five days feeding with the sawdust from discarded oak-trees is sufficient for the breeding process. The sawdust was sterilized by vapor for five minutes. Sterilization of the larvae at a high temperature ($115^{\circ}C$ for 5 min, 0.9 $kgf/cm^2$) is necessary to eliminate pathogenic bacteria and fungi. The results of the cytotoxicity assay showed no toxicity in the prepared extract from larvae of A. dichotoma. In addition, to prepare the larvae for human consumption, various feeds were used and the smell, color, and taste were evaluated. Our results suggested that larvae of A. dichotoma could be developed as food source when a suitable processing method is established.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
• /
• v.32 no.2
• /
• pp.278-286
• /
• 2003

Alcohol is well known agent which can damage the human tissues such as liver via stimulating lipid peroxidation. On the other hand, carotenoids in addition to vitamins A, C and I play important roles in protecting these oxidative damages as well as preventing the production of free radicals. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of dietary vitamin A on lipid peroxidation and antioxidants status in ethanol-treated rats. In the experiment, male Sprague-Dawley rats weighing 160~180 g were given a liquid diet containing 36% of total calories as ethanol for 7 weeks. The pair-fed control rats received an isocaloric amount of diet containing sucrose instead of ethanol on the following day Additionally, the liquid diet contained adequate amount of $\beta$-carotene, retinyl acetate or 13-sis-reinoic acid except vitamin A-deficient diet. The results obtained are as follows. The levels of plasma and hepatic lipid peroxide were increased after chronic ethanol feeding in rats. Retinyl acetate supplementation significantly reduced lipid peroxidation induced by ethanol feeding Glucose 6-phosphatase activity was significantly reduced in rats fed vitamin A-deficient diet with ethanol and alkaline phosphatase activity was significantly induced in rats fed 13-cis-reinoic acid diet with ethanol. Catalase and alcohol dehydrogenase activities did not show a consistent tendency in experiment groups. The hepatic antioxidant enzyme activities did not significantly changed by chronic ethanol feeding groups. The striking decrease in conversion of $\beta$-carotene to retinol was observed in rats fed a $\beta$-carotene diet with ethanol feeding The level of retinol and retinoic acid in plasma and liver was decreased after chronic ethanol administration Based on this result, these data suggest that ethanol feeding enhances oxidative stress especially in those fed a vitamin A-deficient diet, and vitamin A supplementation, especially, retinyl acetate intake can prevent enhanced lipid peroxidation and related damage to some extent.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.97-117
• /
• 2012

Nowadays, Internet users tend to do a variety of actions at the same time such as web browsing, social networking and multimedia consumption. While watching a video, once a user is interested in any product, the user has to do information searches to get to know more about the product. With a conventional approach, user has to search it separately with search engines like Bing or Google, which might be inconvenient and time-consuming. For this reason, a video annotation platform has been developed in order to provide users more convenient and more interactive ways with video content. In the future of smart TV environment, users can follow annotated information, for example, a link to a vendor to buy the product of interest. It is even better to enable users to search for information by directly discussing with friends. Users can effectively get useful and relevant information about the product from friends who share common interests or might have experienced it before, which is more reliable than the results from search engines. Social networking services provide an appropriate environment for people to share products so that they can show new things to their friends and to share their personal experiences on any specific product. Meanwhile, they can also absorb the most relevant information about the product that they are interested in by either comments or discussion amongst friends. However, within a very huge graph of friends, determining the most appropriate persons to ask for information about a specific product has still a limitation within the existing conventional approach. Once users want to share or discuss a product, they simply share it to all friends as new feeds. This means a newly posted article is blindly spread to all friends without considering their background interests or knowledge. In this way, the number of responses back will be huge. Users cannot easily absorb the relevant and useful responses from friends, since they are from various fields of interest and knowledge. In order to overcome this limitation, we propose a method to filter a user's friends for information search, which leverages semantic video annotation and social networking services. Our method filters and brings out who can give user useful information about a specific product. By examining the existing Facebook information regarding users and their social graph, we construct a user profile of product interest. With user's permission and authentication, user's particular activities are enriched with the domain-specific ontology such as GoodRelations and BestBuy Data sources. Besides, we assume that the object in the video is already annotated using Linked Data. Thus, the detail information of the product that user would like to ask for more information is retrieved via product URI. Our system calculates the similarities among them in order to identify the most suitable friends for seeking information about the mentioned product. The system filters a user's friends according to their score which tells the order of whom can highly likely give the user useful information about a specific product of interest. We have conducted an experiment with a group of respondents in order to verify and evaluate our system. First, the user profile accuracy evaluation is conducted to demonstrate how much our system constructed user profile of product interest represents user's interest correctly. Then, the evaluation on filtering method is made by inspecting the ranked results with human judgment. The results show that our method works effectively and efficiently in filtering. Our system fulfills user needs by supporting user to select appropriate friends for seeking useful information about a specific product that user is curious about. As a result, it helps to influence and convince user in purchase decisions.

• Journal of Life Science
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.433-440
• /
• 2015

Several studies suggest that regular consumption of walnuts may have beneficial effects against oxidative stress-mediated disease such as cancer. The present study reports the total phenolic and flavonoid contents, together with the antioxidant and antibacterial activities of several solvent extracts (methanol, n-hexane, ethyl acetate, n-butanol, and water) obtained from walnut (Juglans regia L.) green husk. MIC (minimal inhibitory concentration) values of the walnut extracts for 8 human pathogenic bacteria strain were determined using agar dilution method. Antioxidant activity of extracts were assessed using DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) and ABTS (2,2’-azino-bis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid)) assays, EC₅₀ of DPPH and ABTS scavenging activities, and determination of total phenolic and flavonoid content and its correlation with DPPH and ABTS scavenging capacities. Among the six extracts, ethyl acetate extract (EtOAc Ex) showed the highest antimicrobial activity at 3.2 mg/ml of MICs against Staphylococcus aureus SG511. Total flavonoids and polyphenol contents of EtOAc Ex were 42.48 mg of quercetin equivalents (QE)/g and 223.25 mg of gallic acid equivalents (GAE)/g respectively. The highest antioxidative potential was shown by the sample extracted with EtOAc Ex (EC₅₀=13.43 μg/ml for DPPH and EC₅₀=41.83 μg/ml for ABTS radical scavenging activity assay). These results showed that J. regia green husk extracts can be used as an easily accessible source of natural antibacterial agents and natural antioxidants.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
• /
• v.32 no.6
• /
• pp.942-947
• /
• 2003

The effects of anti-stress rose (Rosa mutiflora) fruit extract yoghurts (RFEY-1.0, RFEY-3.0, RFEY-5.0 containing with 1.0, 3.0 and 5.0% of rose fruit extract) were tested for the anti-stress effects. ICR male mice (20$\pm$2 g) were fed with basic experimental diets and given free access to water containing these ingredients for 18 days. Psychological stress and sociopsychological stress exposed by foot-shock for 1 hour (10 sec duration at intervals of 120 sec) every day for 3 days. RFEY-1.0, RFEY-3.0, RFEY-5.0 groups in the sociopsychological stress resulted in a significant decrease of 11.7%, 16.0% and 24.7% in plasma corticosterone (CS) secretion compared with psychological stress (control group). Noradrenaline (NA) secretions in the brain were significantly increased 15.6%, 25.0% and 40.8%, respectively, in RFEY-1.0, RFEY-3.0, RFEY-5.0 groups compared with control group. MHPG -SO$_4$ (3-methoxy-4-hydroxy-phenylethyleneglycol sulfate) levels in the brain resulted in a marked decreases of 17.0%, 25.3% and 28.4%, respectively, in RFEY-1.0, RFEY-3.0, RFEY-5.0 groups compared with control group. NA/MHPG-SO$_4$ ratios in the brain of RFEY-1.0, RFEY-3.0, RFEY-5.0 groups resulted in a significantly increase of 39.5%, 67.3% and 96.3%, respectively, compared with control group. These results suggest that rose fruit extract yoghurt may be tried to apply for human consumption such as sociopsychological stress.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
• /
• v.61 no.2
• /
• pp.113-118
• /
• 2016

This experiment was conducted to identify the variations in inorganic nutrients and plant growth in millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) due to soil salinity. The soil series was Munpo and soil texture was silt loam. The experimental soil was amended so that the soil had salinities of $0.8dS\;m^{-1}$, $1.6dS\;m^{-1}$, $3.2dS\;m^{-1}$ and $4.8dS\;m^{-1}$. Millet was transplanted 15 days after sowing. As soil salinity increased, the degree of reduced growth was in the order of seed production > root dry matter > plant dry matter > culm length > tiller number > stem thickness > Panicle length. Seed production was decreased to 18.9% in soil salinity of $1.6dS\;m^{-1}$, 36.9% in of $3.2dS\;m^{-1}$, and 50.7% in EC of $4.8dS\;m^{-1}$. Root dry matter decreased to 35.8% in EC of $3.2dS\;m^{-1}$, and to 40.5% in EC of $4.8dS\;m^{-1}$. As soil salinity increased, Total nitrogen content increased in all aboveground parts, roots and seeds. However, There was no difference in CaO, $P_2O_5$, $K_2O$ and, MgO in soils of different salinity. On the other hand, $Na_2O$ content was higher in the order roots> shoots> seed, and in the case of roots, $Na_2O$ content increased to 1.02% in soil salinity of $4.8dS\;m^{-1}$. However, up to soil salinity of $1.6dS\;m^{-1}$, the $Na_2O$ content of the seed was similar to that in plant grown in the Control conditions($0.8dS\;m^{-1}$). In conclusion, taking into consideration economic factors, millet could be cultivated in soil with salinities of up to approximately $1.6dS\;m^{-1}$, and seed produced from reclaimedland would be suitable for human consumption.

• Korean Journal of Breeding Science
• /
• v.40 no.4
• /
• pp.512-516
• /
• 2008

A new naked oat cultivar 'Choyang' (Avena sativa L.) was developed by the breeding team at the Department of Rice and Winter Cereal Crop, NICS, RDA in 2007. It was derived from a cross between 'Sikyonggwiri' and 'Gwiri23'. The cultivar, Sikyonggwiri is early heading while the breeding line Gwiri23 has a high yielding potential with large-size grain. Bulk method combined with pedigree selection program was employed in subsequent generations, and the promising line SO96025-B-303-44-2-5 was selected for agronomic performance in 2002. The line showed both high yield and good husking rate of seed in the Yield Trial tested at Suwon in 2003 to 2004, and was subsequently designated as 'Gwiri57'. Gwiri57 was evaluated for winter hardiness, earliness, and yield in four locations, Gimje, Iksan, Jeongeup and Jinju from 2005 to 2007 and was released as Choyang. Choyang headed 11 days earlier and matured 5 days earlier than the check cultivar 'Sunyang' in the paddy field condition. The new cultivar Choyang had 97 cm of culm length and 23.4 cm of spike length, 658 spikes per $m^2$, 75 grains per spike, 28.8 g of 1,000-grain weight, and 636 g of test weight. Choyang showed better winter hardiness than that of the check cultivar Sunyang, and similar seed quality to the check cultivar in respect to crude protein (12.9%) and ${\beta}$-glucan content (4.7%). However, it showed higher husking rate than the check cultivar. The grain yield of Choyang in the regional yield trial for 3 consecutive years was averaged $4.67MT\;ha^{-1}$, which was 38% higher than that of the check cultivar Sunyang. Choyang is recommended for the fall sowing cropping only in the southern area where daily minimum mean temperatures are averaged higher than $-4^{\circ}C$ in January, and is not recommended the in mountain area where frost damage is presumable.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
• /
• v.33 no.6
• /
• pp.417-426
• /
• 2018

Food preservatives are very important food additives for the biological and chemical safety of processed foods. The purposes of this study were to investigate Korean consumer's perception and information needs on food preservatives, to develop an educational booklet as a risk communication material on food preservatives, and to assess the educational effect of the developed booklet. To understand perception on food preservatives, a self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted by 381 parents having elementary school students at Seoul and Geoynggi area in Korea. Based on the survey results, brain storming of the authors along with consultation from the professionals, we developed a risk communication booklet about food preservatives. It was exposed to 35 parents of elementary school children, and their evaluation was collected by using a questionnaire and analyzed statistically. Respondents considered food safety (44.8%) as the most important factor while purchasing processed foods. They still perceived food additives as the most hazardous one (41.5%), and among those, food preservatives were the most concerned (45.9%). Total 67.7% of the respondents considered the consumption of food preservatives as hazardous or very hazardous. However, 90.6% of respondents did not have any educational experience about food additives and food preservatives. Based on their information needs, a science-based booklet consisting of the definition, classification, safety, intake, and management of food preservatives was developed. When the booklet titled as 'Food preservatives, Just Know Them!' was exposed to the parents via elementary school teacher, their negative perceptions on food additives and food preservatives were changed positively by increasing the understanding level on preservatives from 18.9% to 90.9% and obtaining 72.7% positive answers on their safety. Therefore, it could be used as an effective risk communication material on food preservatives.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.23-33
• /
• 2021

In Korea, many reservoirs have been built for the purpose of solving the food shortage problem and supplying agricultural water. However, the current 75.6% of the reservoirs are in serious aged as more than 50 years have passed since the year of construction. In the case of such an aging reservoir, the stability due to scour and erosion inside the reservoir is very reduced, and if concentrated rainfall due to recent abnormal weather occurs, the aging reservoir may collapse, leading to a lot of damage to property and human life. Accordingly, each agency that manages aging reservoirs uses Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) as an injection material and applies the grouting method. However, in the case of OPC, it may deteriorate over time and water leakage may occur again. And there are environmental problems such as consumption of natural resources and generation of greenhouse gases. So, there is a need to develop new materials and methods that can replace the OPC. In this study, an laboratory test and analysis were performed on the grout material developed to induce a curing reaction similar to that of OPC by recycling power plant byproduct. In addition, test in the field such as electric resistivity survey, Standard Penetration Test (SPT), and field permeability test were performed to analyzed to reinforcement effect and determine the possibility of using instead of OPC. As a results of the test, in the case of recycled power plant byproduct, the compressive strength was 2.9 to 3.2 times and the deformation modulus was 2.3 to 3.3 times higher, indicating that it is excellent in strength and can be used instead of OPC. And it was analyzed that the N value of the reservoir was increased by 1~2, and the coefficient of permeability (k) decreased to the level of 8.9~42.5%. showing sufficient reinforcing effect in terms of order.