• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.67-77
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• 2015

Purpose: Fungal secondary metabolite (mycotoxin) contamination in foods can pose a serious threat to humans and animals. Spectroscopic techniques have proven to be potential alternative tools for early detection of mycotoxins. Thus, the aim of this review is to provide an overview of the current developments in nondestructive food safety testing techniques, particularly regarding fungal contamination testing in grains, focusing on the application of spectroscopic techniques to this problem. Methods: This review focuses on the use of spectroscopic techniques for the detection of fungi and mycotoxins in agricultural products as reported in the literature. It provides an overview of the characteristics of the main spectroscopic methods and reviews their applications in grain analysis. Results: It was found that spectroscopy has advantages over conventional methods used for fungal contamination detection, particularly when combined with chemometrics. These advantages include the rapidness and nondestructive nature of this approach. Conclusions: While spectroscopy offers many benefits for the detection of mycotoxins in agricultural products, a number of limitations exist, which must be overcome prior to widespread adoption of these techniques.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.267-270
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• 2016

We determined the nationwide seroprevalence of hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection in the wild boar population in Korea. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) results showed that 42% of the 528 wild boars that were hunted between 2013 and 2014 were anti-HEV antibody positive. Furthermore, all Korean provinces showed an HEV seroprevalence between 9.8% and 51.1%, suggesting that wild boar HEV infection occurs throughout the country. Importantly, infected wild boar could act as a potential reservoir for HEV and could aid transmission to other animals and humans.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.143-154
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• 1996

This paper reviews the toxicological role of median lethal dose ($LD_50$) based on animal and human data. Animal oral $LD_50$ values of eighty seven chemicals were collected and comparatively evaluated with human minimum toxic dose ($TD_50$). In general, animal $LD_50$ values were much higher than human $TD_50$. The ratios between $LD_50$ and TDlo were ranged from 0.01 and over 1000, suggesting safety factor of up to 1000 between humans and animals in the case of acute toxicity data. However, about 40% of chemicals investigated were within the ratio of 10. Although the cases (N=20) were small, $LD_50$ values of guinea pig were closer to human TDlo than those of other animal species. In interanimal species (rat, mouse, rabbit, dog), the ratios of $LD_50$ values were between 0.1 and 5 (up to 50-fold difference). When the data are analyzed by chemical strut-ares, human $TD_50$ values were very close to rat oral $LD_50$ values. These data suggest that rat oral $LD_50$ value might be a useful parameter predicting human TDlo and one animal species could be sufficient for acute toxicity test.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.19-24
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• 2004

Dose-response models in microbial risk assessment can be divided into biologically plausible models and empirical models. Biologically plausible models are formed by the assumptions in dose distribution of microbes, host sensitivity to microbes, and minimal infectious dose of microbes : there are Exponential model and $\beta$-Poisson model, representatively. Empirical models are mainly used to express the toxicity of chemicals : there are Weibull-Gamma model etc. Deviance function (Y) is used to fit available data to dose-response models, and some dose-response models for food-borne pathogens are developed in humans and experimental animals.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.295-298
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• 2019

Fasciolopsiasis is rarely known as the parasitic disease in Nepal. Herein, we report a case of fasciolopsiasis in a 22-year-old man who was admitted in the hospital with abdominal pain, distension and loss of appetite for a month. He had previously diagnosed with acute viral hepatitis but, his abdominal pain was not resolving despite improvement in his liver function and general condition. During endoscopy an adult digenean worm was seen in the first part of the duodenum. After isolation, the worm was identified morphologically as Fasciolopsis buski. Microscogic examination of the patient's stool revealed eggs with a morphology consistent with F. buski. Eggs were yellow-brown, ellipsoidal, unembmbryonated, operculated, filled with yolk cells, with thin shell and ranging $118-130{\mu}m$ in length and $60-69{\mu}m$ in width. The abdominal pain of the patient was resolved after treatment with praziquantel. By the present study, it was confirmed for the first time that fasciolopsiasis is indigenously transmitted in Nepal. Accordingly, the epidemiological studies in humans and reservoir host animals should be performed intensively in near future.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.1193-1200
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• 2015

An effective swing trajectory of legged robots is different from the swing trajectories of humans or animals because of different dynamic characteristics. Therefore, it is important to find optimal parameters through experiments. This paper proposes a real-time nonlinear programming (RTNLP) method for optimization of the swing trajectory of the legged robot. For parameterization of the trajectory, the swing trajectory is approximated to parabolic and cubic spline curves. The robotic leg is position-controlled by a high-gain controller, and a cost function is selected such that the sum of the motor inputs and tracking errors at each joint is minimized. A simplified dynamic model is used to simulate the dynamics of a robotic leg. The purpose of the simulation is to find the feasibility of the optimization problem before an actual experiment occurs. Finally, an experiment is carried out on a real robotic leg with two degrees of freedom. For both the simulation and the experiment, the design variables converge to a feasible point, reducing the cost value.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.99-108
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• 1997

A great amount of research and reform has teen done in education, but not much about education has been improved. Much of the research and debate has stemmed from the attempt at making education a science. But, in most of this research, a very important factor has been left out - the individual, Techniques and procedures that are used by scientists on animals in controlled situations in laboratory setting can not be used effectively on humans. Therefore, we must team from our past, decide what we want from education - from the student and the teacher, match our methods with our goals, and look towards the future, while always keeping in mind-the human factor.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.349-353
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• 2011

The ascomycete fungus Fusarium graminearum is an important plant pathogen responsible for Fusarium head blight in small grains and ear rot on maize. This fungus also produces the estrogenic metabolite, zearalenone (ZEA) that causes estrogenic disorders in humans and animals. Previously, we developed a conditional gene expression system for this fungus using a ZEA-inducible promoter (Pzear). In the present study, four other estrogenic compounds, including ${\beta}$-estradiol, estriol, estrone, and secoisolariciresinol, were screened as possible substitutes for ZEA in this system. Among them, ${\beta}$-estradiol was able to successfully induce the expression of a gene controlled by Pzear, while estrone was only able to partially induce its expression but the other two compounds were not effective. In combination, these results demonstrate that ${\beta}$-estradiol can replace ZEA in this conditional gene expression system, thereby eliminating the need to use the more expensive reagent, ZEA, and facilitating high-throughput functional analyses of F. graminearum in future studies.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.417-424
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• 2011

Ketoconazole (KET) is an antifungal drug with a broad spectrum of activity that also induces reproductive toxicity in humans and animals. KET inhibits C17-20 lyase which blocks the conversion of 17 ${\alpha}$-hydroxyprogesterone to androstenedione. The effect of Cuscutae semen(CS) extract against KET-induced testicular damage was evaluated in male rats. CS extract was administered orally (100 and 200 mg/kg) for 26 days. Three weeks after CS extract administration, KET was CS-administered intraperitoneally at a dose of 100 mg/kg once a day for 5 days. KET-induced reproductive toxicity was associated with clear reductions of the weights of testes and epididymides, sperm indices and serum testosterone levels. In addition, marked oxidative damage to testicular lipids and alterations of natural antioxidant enzymes were reported in association with KET toxicity. Most of the KET-induced effects were greatly decreased with the concomitant application of CS extract. This study suggests a protective role of Cuscutae semen extract that could be attributed to its antioxidant properties.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.269-274
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• 2015

Chronic inflammation has been proposed as one of the main molecular mechanisms of aging and age-related diseases. Although evidence in humans is limited, short-term calorie restriction (CR) has been shown to have anti-inflammatory effects in aged experimental animals. We reported on the long-term treatment of daumone, a synthetic pheromone secreted by Caenorhabditis elegans in an energy deficient environment, extends the life-span and attenuates liver injury in aged mice. The present study examined whether late onset short-term treatment of daumone exerts anti-inflammatory effects in the livers of aged mice. Daumone was administered orally at doses of 2 or 20 mg/kg/day for 5 weeks to 24-month-old male C57BL/6J mice. Increased liver macrophage infiltration and gene expression of proinflammatory cytokines in aged mice were significantly attenuated by daumone treatment, suggesting that short-term oral administration of daumone may have hepatoprotective effects. Daumone also dose-dependently suppressed tumor necrosis factor-${\alpha}$ (TNF-${\alpha}$ )-induced nuclear factor-${\kappa}B$ (NF-${\kappa}B$) phosphorylation in HepG2 cells. The present data demonstrated that short-term treatment of daumone has anti-inflammatory effects in aged mouse livers possibly through suppression of NF-${\kappa}B$ signaling and suggest that daumone may become a lead compound targeting aging and age-associated diseases.