• Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• v.35 no.4
• /
• pp.279-289
• /
• 2012

This study conducted a comparative analysis of benthic macroinvertebrate communities in the Fosu and Benya lagoons in Ghana, based on the anthropogenic effect on the two lagoons. Salinity, oxygen, temperature, conductivity, turbidity and pH were measured, invertebrate richness and species densities were determined. The AZTI Marine Biotic Index (AMBI) and multivariate statistics were used to determine the different responses of fauna to pollution. The fauna were categorized into five ecological groups based on the degree of tolerance of the different species to pollution: disturbance-sensitive species; disturbance-indifferent species, disturbance-tolerant species, second-order opportunistic species; and first-order opportunistic species. The Fosu Lagoon supported more pollution tolerant species, whereas the Benya Lagoon had more species that were sensitive to organic enrichment under relatively unpolluted conditions. Chironomus sp., which is adapted to virtually anoxic conditions, was the most abundant in the Fosu Lagoon whereas Nemertea sp. was the most abundant in the Benya Lagoon. The numerical and relative abundance (%) of all 7 taxa in the Fosu Lagoon was 1,359 and 92.35%, respectively. The numerical and relative abundance (%) of all 34 taxa in the Benya Lagoon was 2,459 and 87.52%, respectively. Expectedly, the level of dissolved oxygen in the less saline Fosu Lagoon was higher than that in the more saline Benya Lagoon. The reduced photoperiod and photosynthetic activities of aquatic plants might account for this trend. There is a need to implement comprehensive monitoring and management initiatives for sustaining the ecological health of coastal lagoons in Ghana in order to support the many people that depend upon these ecosystems for their livelihood.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• v.41 no.4
• /
• pp.541-546
• /
• 2008

The purpose of this study was to evaluate ecosystem health effect in the physiological levels, based on ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) and total oxyradical scavenging capacity (TOSC) assays using sentinel fish species. We collected fish samples of Zacco platypus in May 2008 from 3 sampling sites including upstream, midstream, and downstream of the Gap Stream. EROD activity was averaged 4.54 in the downstream, 2.7 fold higher than upstream and indicated that stream condition was degraded along with longitudinal gradient from up to downstream. Downstream, especially was significantly increased (p < 0.01) so that indicated various pollutants including nutrient enrichment and toxicant exposure from the point sources, wastewater treatment plant and industrial complex may impact to the stream condition. In the mean time, TOSC assays showed higher in the midstream than other sites, but the values were not significant, compared to the previous report on oxidative stress. Overall results indicated that our approaches applying two biomarkers can be effectively used for diagnosis of the physiological levels in an integrative stream health assessments and can be applied as useful pre-warning techniques as a biochemical alarm system of organic pollutions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Sciences Society Conference
• /
• 2003.11a
• /
• pp.79-84
• /
• 2003

The main objective of this study was to investigate the chemical characteristics of post-harvest biomass burning aerosols from field burning of barley straw in late spring and rice straw in late fall in rural area in Korea. 12-hr integrated intensive sampling of $PM_{10}$ and $PM_{2.5}$ biomass burning aerosols had been conducted continuously at Gwangju, Korea 4-15 June 2001 and 8 October-14 November 2002. The fine and coarse particles of biomass burning aerosols were collected for mass, ionic, elemental, and carbonaceous species analysis. Average fine and coarse mass concentrations of biomass burning aerosols were measured to be 129.6, 24.2 ${{\mu}gm}^{-3}$ in June 2001 and 47.1, 33.2 ${{\mu}gm}^{-3}$ in October to November 2002, respectively. Exceptionally high level of $PM_{2.5}$ concentration up to 157.8 ${{\mu}gm}^{-3}$ well above 24-hour standard was observed during the biomass burning event days under stagnant atmosphere condition. During biomass burning periods dominant ionic species were $Cl^{-}$, ${NO_3}^{-}$, ${SO_4}^{2-}$, and ${NH_4}^{+}$ in fine and coarse mode. In the fine mode $Cl^{-}$ and ${KCl}^{+}$ were unusually rich due to the high content of the semiarid vegetation. High OC values and OC/EC ratios were also measured during the biomass burning periods. Increased amount of fine aerosols with high enrichment, which were originated from biomass burning of post-harvest agricultural waste, resulted in extremely severe particulate air pollution and visibility degradation in the region. Particulate matters from open field burning of agricultural wastes cause great adverse impact on local air quality and regional climate.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
• /
• v.48 no.4
• /
• pp.542-554
• /
• 2015

Grain size, the content of ignition loss (IL), and the concentrations of chemical oxygen demand (COD), acid volatile sulfide (AVS), and trace metals (Fe, Mn, Cu, Pb, Zn, Cd, Cr, As, and Hg) in surface sediments from the Taehwa River estuary, Ulsan, were measured to evaluate pollution levels and potential ecological risks of organic matter and trace metals in estuarine sediment. The mean grain size (Mz) of sediments in the study region ranged from $-0.8-7.7{\varphi}$ (mean $2.8{\pm}2.4{\varphi}$). Surface sediments in the upstream region of the Taehwa River were mainly composed of coarse sediments compared to the downstream region. The concentrations of IL, COD, AVS and trace metals in the sediment were much higher at downstream sites of Myeongchon Bridge in the vicinity of industrial complexes than at upstream sites of those in the vicinity of the residential areas due to the anthropogenic input of organic matter and trace metals by industrial activities. On the basis of several geochemical assessment techniques [sediment quality guidelines (SQGs), enrichment factor (EF), geoaccumulation index ($I_{geo}$), pollution load index (PLI) and ecological risk index (ERI)], the surfaces sediments in the study region are not highly polluted for trace metals, except for As. However, the higher concentrations in downstream study regions of the Taehwa River could impact benthic organisms including shellfish (i.e. Manila clam) in sediments.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.291-302
• /
• 1995

Most middle school and high school students learns under the same study plans and educational courses. Such an equal level education policies prevent the science-gifted from developing and promoting their ability. So it is severely necessary to sort out the gifted in science and make them develop their ability. In this paper, the attitudes of teachers and parents toward the science-gifted student in middle school were investigated as well as the characteristics of the gifted. One hundred science teachers of middle school who recommended the gifted in science and their parents in Seoul area were questionnaired. The follows are the consequences of investigation. 1. Most teachers and parents of the gifted considered that the school should do a special care for the gifted in science. That is, they prefer the enrichment course to the acceleration course for it. 2. The teachers play the role of motivating the study and promotion very well, but do not well as either the advisor or the cooperator with the parents because of their excessive work and lack of professional knowledgement about education of the gifted. 3. The parents play the role of the advisor or the counselor well, but do not well as the cooperator with school. 4. Among the characteristics of the gifted, there are not any differences between boys and girls in conduct characteristics. But there are meaningful difference in emotion characteristics. 5. The education of the gifted is very important for developing of country and personal promotion. So the administrative and financial support are necessary in order to sort out the gifted in science earlier and provide various programs.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
• /
• v.35 no.3
• /
• pp.245-249
• /
• 2007

Chloroanilines are widely used in the production of dyes, drugs and herbicides. Chloroanilines, however, are considered potential pollutants due to their toxic and recalcitrant properties to humans and other species. With the increase of necessity of bioremediation, this study was conducted to isolate the chloroanilines-degrading bacteria. A bacterium capable of growth on 3,4-dichloroaniline (DCA) was isolated by the 3,4-DCA-containing enrichment culture. The strain KB35B was identified as Pseudomonas sp. and also able to degrade several chloroanilines. The isolated strain showed high level of catechol 2,3-dioxygenase activity in the presence of 3,4-DCA. The activity of catecho1 2,3-dioxygenase was supposed to be ones of the important factors for 3,4-DCA degradation. The activity toward 4-methykatechol was 60.6% of that of catechol, while the activity toward 3-methylcatechol and 4-chlorocatechol were 27.0 and 13.5%, respectively.

• Genomics & Informatics
• /
• v.5 no.4
• /
• pp.143-151
• /
• 2007

To understand the mechanism of transcriptional regulation, it is essential to detect promoters and regulatory elements. Various kinds of methods have been introduced to improve the prediction accuracy of regulatory elements. Since there are few experimentally validated regulatory elements, previous studies have used criteria based solely on the level of scores over background sequences. However, selecting the detection criteria for different prediction methods is not feasible. Here, we studied the calibration of thresholds to improve regulatory element prediction. We predicted a regulatory element using MATCH, which is a powerful tool for transcription factor binding site (TFBS) detection. To increase the prediction accuracy, we used a regulatory potential (RP) score measuring the similarity of patterns in alignments to those in known regulatory regions. Next, we calibrated the thresholds to find relevant scores, increasing the true positives while decreasing possible false positives. By applying various thresholds, we compared predicted regulatory elements with validated regulatory elements from the Open Regulatory Annotation (ORegAnno) database. The predicted regulators by the selected threshold were validated through enrichment analysis of muscle-specific gene sets from the Tissue-Specific Transcripts and Genes (T-STAG) database. We found 14 known muscle-specific regulators with a less than a 5% false discovery rate (FDR) in a single TFBS analysis, as well as known transcription factor combinations in our combinatorial TFBS analysis.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.77-98
• /
• 2007

It has been said that the level of teacher professionalism determines the quality of education. The same notion allies for gifted education. Therefore, exploration of teacher professionalism in gifted education may provide fundamental bases for raising the quality of gifted education. In this study, first, literature review was conducted to extract elements of teacher professionalism in gifted education and a survey instrument was developed to find out categories of those elements and differences of teacher perception to professionalism at school levels and subject areas of gifted education. Research subjects included 212 teachers who participated in 2005 KEDI teacher training program of gifted education, 60 hour-clock introductory program and 232 teachers who participated in 2005 KEDI teacher training program of gifted education, 120 hour-clock enrichment program. It was found that elements of teacher professionalism in gifted education were categorized into knowledge-based, abilitybased and context-based. It was also found that secondary school teachers' perception to knowledge-based professionalism was significantly higher than those at elementary and science teachers' perception to ability-based and context-based professionalism was significantly higher than mathematics teachers. The research findings may provide insights for better teacher training program in gifted education as well as gifted education policies.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.208-212
• /
• 1987

In order to enrich the nutritional value of instant noodle and diverse utilization of Alaska pollack meat paste(AMP), several quality parameters of instant noodle mixed with AMP as enrichment of protein were investigated. Protein and amino acid contents of instant noodle were increased to $4.7\%\;and\;4,\;006.1mg\%$ by incremental level up to $30\%$ of AMP. Hardness, cooking weight and volume of noodle were also increased by the increments of AMP added, but tensile strength and soup turbidity were decreased. Sensory scores in flavor, color and soup taste of instant noodle mixed with AMP were revealed higher than that of without AMP, but texture scores were decreased with the increase of the AMP over $20\%$.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.48 no.3
• /
• pp.613-623
• /
• 2016

Molybdenum-99 ($^{99}Mo$) is the most important isotope because its daughter isotope, technetium-99m ($^{99m}Tc$), has been the most widely used medical radioisotope for more than 50 years, accounting for > 80% of total nuclear diagnostics worldwide. In this review, radiochemical routes for the production of $^{99}Mo$, and the aspects for selecting a suitable process strategy are discussed from the historical viewpoint of $^{99}Mo$ technology developments. Most of the industrial-scale $^{99}Mo$ processes have been based on the fission of $^{235}U$. Recently, important issues have been raised for the conversion of fission $^{99}Mo$ targets from highly enriched uranium to low enriched uranium (LEU). The development of new LEU targets with higher density was requested to compensate for the loss of $^{99}Mo$ yield, caused by a significant reduction of $^{235}U$ enrichment, from the conversion. As the dramatic increment of intermediate level liquid waste is also expected from the conversion, an effective strategy to reduce the waste generation from the fission $^{99}Mo$ production is required. The mitigation of radioxenon emission from medical radioisotope production facilities is discussed in relation with the monitoring of nuclear explosions and comprehensive nuclear test ban. Lastly, the $^{99}Mo$ production process paired with the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute's own LEU target is proposed as one of the most suitable processes for the LEU target.