• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1197-1206
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• 2005

Vibrio vulnificus is an opportunistic pathogen that causes a septicemia and expresses numerous virulence factors, in which luxS and smcR are genes encoding for components responsible for quorum-sensing regulation. In the present study, null mutants were constructed with lesions in each or both of these two genes from the V. vulnificus Vv$\Delta$Z strain, which is a lacZ$^{-}$ and chloramphenicol/streptomycin-resistant derivative of the wild-type ATCC29307 strain, and their phenotypes related to virulence were compared with those of the parental cells. $LD_{50}$ and histopathological findings of luxS-, smcR-, or luxS- smcR- deficient mutant were not different from those of the parent strain, a lacZ-deficient streptomycin-resistant strain in mice. However, time of death in mice was delayed, and numbers of bacteria survived in bloodstream after intraperitoneal injection in mice were decreased by mutation, especially luxS and smcR double mutant (VvSR$\Delta$ZSR). These phenomena were supported by increased serum sensitivity and delayed bacterial proliferation in both murine blood and iron-restricted medium. These results suggest that the luxS and luxR homologous genes in V. vulnificus could playa role in bacterial survival in host by enhancing proliferation and adjusting to changed environment.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.9-15
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• 2010

Cognitive radio is a technology, which automatically recognizes and searches for temporally and spatially unused frequency spectrum, then actively determines the communication method, bandwidth, etc. according to the environment, thus utilizing the limited spectrum resources efficiently. In this paper, with the imperfect sensing of misdetection and false alarm, we quantitatively investigate the effects of primary and secondary user's queue on the primary and secondary users' spectrum usage through the analysis of continuous time Markov Chain. With the queue primary user's spectrum usage improved up to 18%, and the secondary user's spectrum usage improved up to 50%.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.1606-1612
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• 2012

Cognitive radio technology enables us to utilize the extra spectrum which is not used by the primary users by sensing the channel condition. To use such an extra spectrum, spectrum allocation is one of the important issues in the cognitive radio networks. The network is dynamic and the available channels are changeable, and the opportunistic channel allocation is required to use the resource efficiently without interference to the primary networks. In this paper, modified proportional fairness scheduling is proposed for cognitive radio networks to satisfy the both fairness and system throughput, and the modified scheduling was designed to reduce the interference to the primary users.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.444-454
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• 2016

Voice service is very demanding in cognitive radio networks (CRNs). The available spectrum in a CRN for CR users varies owing to the presence of licensed users. On the other hand, voice packets are delay sensitive and can tolerate a limited amount of delay. This makes the support of voice traffic in a CRN a complicated task that can be achieved by devising necessary considerations regarding the various network functionalities. In this paper, the support of secondary voice users in a CRN is investigated. First, a novel packet scheduling scheme that can provide the required quality of service (QoS) to voice users is proposed. The proposed scheme utilizes the maximum packet transmission rate for secondary voice users by assigning each secondary user the channel with the best level of quality. Furthermore, an analytical framework developed for a performance analysis of the system, is described in which the effect of erroneous spectrum sensing on the performance of secondary voice users is also taken into account. The QoS parameters of secondary voice users, which were obtained analytically, are also detailed. The analytical results were verified through the simulation, and will provide helpful insight in supporting voice services in a CRN.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.460-470
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• 2015

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is one of the most widely used technologies in current wireless communication systems and standards. Cognitive radio (CR) provides a robust solution to the problem of spectrum congestion as it offers opportunistic usage of frequency bands that are not occupied by primary users. Due to the underlying sensing, spectrum shaping, scaling, and interoperable capabilities of OFDM, it has been adapted as a best transmission technology for CR wireless systems. However, the performance of an OFDM-based CR wireless system is affected by the existence of narrowband interference (NBI) from other users. Further, due to carrier frequency offset in NBI sources, NBI energy may spread over all subcarriers of an OFDM signal. In this paper, a fixed Amplify-and-Forward (AF) relay that operates at a frequency band that is different from that of direct mode is introduced to suppress the effect of NBI. Analytical expressions are derived for outage probability in direct, AF-relay, and incremental relaying modes. The outage performance of the proposed AF relay-based CR network is proven to be better than that of direct mode.

• Convergence Security Journal
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.19-27
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• 2009

In this paper, we propose a safety management system which prevents the occurrence of crime and accident from rising in school neighborhood. This system offers a monitoring method for safety of children which make intelligent space from environment and location sensing data through wireless communication between sensors attached to children and fixed sensor network in school neighborhood. Also, We propose a strategic safety management plan using opportunistic network when node is out of school zone network. Many students can easily receive the service of low cost from WSN-based School zone network than existing service from GPS individually by using our scheme.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.172-183
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• 2015

To provide an efficient link maintenance approach, we propose a cross layer medium access control (LM-MAC) protocol for multichannel cognitive radio ad hoc networks. Link establishment and reliable transmission are two key problems for a perfect link maintenance mechanism. Since the cognitive user (CU) pairs have to reestablish their links each frame, in the proposed MAC protocol, three different access modes are designed to guarantee transmission efficiency in continuous frames. To enhance the transmission reliability, each CU will create a father spectrum list (FSL) after joining in the network. FSL is divided into three groups of sub-channels with different functions to compensate the packet loss caused by the primary users' appearance and the deep fading. Meanwhile, since the transmitter and the receiver will share the same FSL, periodical cooperative sensing is adopted to further optimize the former problem. Finally, compared with the existing opportunistic multichannel (OMC)-MAC protocol, the proposed LM-MAC protocol achieves better system performance in terms of saturation throughput, continuity and access delay.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.85-92
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• 2008

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic human pathogen, causing a wide variety of infections including cystic fibrosis, microbial keratitis, and burn wound infections. The cell-to-cell signaling mechanism known as quorum sensing (QS) plays a key role in these infections and the QS systems of P. aeruginosa have been most intensively studied. While many literatures that introduce the QS systems of P. aeruginosa have mostly focused on two major acyl-homo serine lactone (acyl-HSL) QS signals, N-3-oxododecanoyl homoserine lactone (3OC12) and N-butanoyl homoserine lactone (C4), several new signal molecules have been discovered and suggested for their significant roles in signaling and virulence of P. aeruginosa. One of them is PQS (Pseudomonas quinolone signal; 2-heptyl-3-hydroxy-4-quinolone), which is now considered as a well-characterized major signal meolecule of P. aeruginosa. In addition, recent researches have also suggested some more putative signal molecules of P. aeruginosa, which are diketopiperazines (DKPs) and pyocyanin. DKPs are cyclic dipeptides and structurally diverse depending on what amino acids are involved in composition. Some DKPs from the culture supernatant of P. aeruginosa are suggested as new diffusible signal molecules, based on their ability to activate Vibrio fischeri LuxR biosensors that are previously considered specific for acyl-HSLs. Pyocyanin (1-hydroxy-5-methyl-phenazine), one of phenazine derivatives produced by P. aeruginosa is a characteristic blue-green pigment and redox-active compound. This has been recently suggested as a terminal signaling factor to upregulate some QS-controlled genes during stationary phase under the mediation of a transcription factor, SoxR. Here, details about these newly emerging signaling molecules of P. aeruginosa are discussed.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.497-507
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• 2008

With the reduction of tidal currents by the closing of the Saemangeun 4th dyke, sedimentary environments on the Gunsan tidal flat, the nearest inner flat from the 4th dyke, has been severely changed, which might affect macrobenthic assemblages on the habitats. In order to investigate changes in macrobenthic community structure on Gunsan tidal flat, field surveys were seasonally conducted at seven stations from April 2002 to November, 2005. Sedimentary facies on the study area were shifted into muddominant facies. The fine sediment has been greatly deposited on the tidal flat with accumulation of organic materials after closing the water passage of 4th dyke section. These drastic variations in environments gave rise to change in macrobenthic community structure. Since the closure of the 4th dyke, the number of species of macrobenthos has gradually decreased. And the filter feeders and sand-favored species such as Urothoe convexa, Macrophthalmus dilatatus, Umbonium thomasi, and Mactra veneriformis have been replaced by the deposit feeders such as Macrophthalmus japonicus and Ilyoplax pingi. MDS ordination based on Bray-Curtis similarity from forth-root transformed species abundance data showed that the macrobenthic communities have passed through three succession stages from 2002 to 2005. During the third stage of 2005 opportunistic species such as Prionospio japonica, Heteromastus filiformis and Sinocorophium sinensis increased in population on the tidal flat.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2011

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that causes various infections on urinary track, cornea, respiratory track, and burn wound site, and mainly relies on quorum sensing (QS) for its virulence. To control the infectivity of P. aeruginosa, we previously synthesized the structural analogues of a major QS signal, N-3-oxododecanoyl homoserine lactone (3OC12-HSL) to use as a QS inhibitor. Two of them (5b and 5f) had been confirmed to have an inhibitory effect on LasR, a major QS signal receptor of P. aeruginosa in the screening by the recombinant Escherichia coli reporter. To further evaluate these compounds, we tested their efficacy to control the QS and virulence of P. aeruginosa. Unlike the result from E. coli reporter, both 5b and 5f failed to affect the LasR activity in P. aeruginosa, but instead they selectively affected the activity of QscR, another 3OC12-HSL receptor of P. aeruginosa. Interestingly, their effect on QscR was complex and opposite to what we obtained with E. coli system. Both 5b and 5f enhanced the QscR activity at the low concentration range (< 10 ${\mu}m$), but high concentration of 5f (${\approx}$1 mM) strongly inhibited QscR. While 5b and 5f didn't affect the production of proteases, the key virulence factor, they significantly reduced the biofilm formation that is important in mediating chronic infections. Especially, 5f inhibited the initial attachment of P. aeruginosa, rather than the biofilm maturation. Based on our results, we suggest that 5f can be applied for an anti-biofilm agent without increasing virulence of P. aeruginosa.