• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.1026-1031
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• 2009

An experiment was conducted to study the effect of graded levels of butyric acid (butyrate) on performance, gastrointestinal tract health and carcass characteristics in young broiler chickens. Control starter (0-3 wk) and finisher (4-5 wk) diets were formulated to contain 2,900 kcal ME/kg and 22% CP, and 3,000 kcal ME/kg and 20% CP, respectively. Subsequently, four other experimental diets were formulated to contain 0.05% antibiotic (furazolidone) or 0.2, 0.4 and 0.6% butyric acid. Each diet was fed at random to 8 replicates of 6 chicks each throughout the experimental period (0-5 wk). The results showed that 0.4% butyrate in the diet was similar to antibiotic in maintaining body weight gain and reducing E. coli numbers but superior for feed conversion ratio. No added advantage on these parameters was obtained by enhancing the concentration of butyrate from 0.4 to 0.6% in the diet. Feed intake and mortality were not influenced by the dietary treatments. A reduction in pH of the upper GI tract (crop, proventiculus and gizzard) was observed by inclusion of butyrate in the diets of broilers compared to either control or antibiotic-fed group. Butyrate at 0.4% was more effective in reducing the pH than 0.2% butyrate. Within the lower GI tract, 0.4 and 0.6% butyrate was effective in lowering pH in the duodenum, but no effect was found in either the jejunum or ileum. The villus length and crypt depth in the duodenum increased significantly in all the butyrate treated diets irrespective of the level tested. Carcass yield was higher and abdominal fat content was lower significantly in all the butyrate treatment groups compared to the control or antibiotic group. From these findings, it is concluded that 0.4% butyric acid supplementation maintained performance, intestinal tract health, and villi development and carcass quality in broiler chickens.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.24 no.8
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• pp.1031-1040
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• 2011

The objective of this study was to characterize factors influencing genetic improvement of dairy cattle for milk production at farm level. Data were accumulated from 305-day milk yields and pedigree information from 1,921 first-lactation dairy cows that calved from 1990 to 2007 on 161 farms in Central Thailand. Variance components were estimated using average information restricted maximum likelihood procedures. Animal breeding values were predicted by an animal model that contained herd-year-season, calving age, and regression additive genetic group as fixed effects, and cow and residual as random effects. Estimated breeding values from cows that calved in a particular month were used to estimate genetic trends for each individual farm. Within-farm genetic trends (b, regression coefficient of farm milk production per month) were used to classify farms into 3 groups: i) farms with negative genetic trend (b<-0.5 kg/mo), ii) farms with no genetic trend (-0.5 kg/$mo{\leq}b{\leq}0.5$ kg/mo), and iii) farms with positive genetic trend (b>0.5 kg/mo). Questionnaires were used to gather information from individual farmers on educational background, herd characteristics, farm management, decision making practices, and opinion on dairy farming. Farmer's responses to the questionnaire were used to test the association between these factors and farm groups using Fisher's exact test. Estimated genetic trend for the complete population was $0.29{\pm}1.02$ kg/year for cows. At farm level, most farms (40%) had positive genetic trend ($0.63{\pm}4.67$ to $230.79{\pm}166.63$ kg/mo) followed by farms with negative genetic trend (35%; $-173.68{\pm}39.63$ to $-0.62{\pm}2.57$ kg/mo) and those with no genetic trend (25%; $-0.52{\pm}3.52$ to $0.55{\pm}2.68$ kg/mo). Except for educational background (p<0.05), all other factors were not significantly associated with farm group.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.13-18
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• 2018

Objective: Meat quality including muscle color in chickens is an important trait and continuous selective pressures for fast growth and high yield have negatively impacted this trait. This study was conducted to investigate genetic variations responsible for regulating muscle color. Methods: Whole genome re-sequencing analysis using Illumina HiSeq paired end read method was performed with pooled DNA samples isolated from two broiler chicken lines divergently selected for muscle color (high muscle color [HMC] and low muscle color [LMC]) along with their random bred control line (RAN). Sequencing read data was aligned to the chicken reference genome sequence for Red Jungle Fowl (Galgal4) using reference based genome alignment with NGen program of the Lasergene software package. The potential causal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) showing non-synonymous changes in coding DNA sequence regions were chosen in each line. Bioinformatic analyses to interpret functions of genes retaining SNPs were performed using the ingenuity pathways analysis (IPA). Results: Millions of SNPs were identified and totally 2,884 SNPs (1,307 for HMC and 1,577 for LMC) showing >75% SNP rates could induce non-synonymous mutations in amino acid sequences. Of those, SNPs showing over 10 read depths yielded 15 more reliable SNPs including 1 for HMC and 14 for LMC. The IPA analyses suggested that meat color in chickens appeared to be associated with chromosomal DNA stability, the functions of ubiquitylation (UBC) and quality and quantity of various subtypes of collagens. Conclusion: In this study, various potential genetic markers showing amino acid changes were identified in differential meat color lines, that can be used for further animal selection strategy.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.873-885
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• 2016

Onions are grown in a few specific regions of Korea that depend on the climate and the regional characteristic of the production area. Therefore, when onion yields are to be estimated, it is reasonable to use a statistical model in which both the climate and the region are considered simultaneously. In this paper, using a spatial panel regression model, we predicted onion yields with the different weather conditions of the regions. We used the spatial auto regressive (SAR) model that reflects the spatial lag, and panel data of several climate variables for 13 main onion production areas from 2006 to 2015. The spatial weight matrix was considered for the model by the threshold value method and the nearest neighbor method, respectively. Autocorrelation was detected to be significant for the best fitted model using the nearest neighbor method. The random effects model was chosen by the Hausman test, and the significant climate variables of the model were the cumulative duration time of sunshine (January), the average relative humidity (April), the average minimum temperature (June), and the cumulative precipitation (November).

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.1881-1900
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• 2014

Since 802.11 wireless LANs are so widely used, it has become common for numerous access points (APs) to overlap in a region, where most of those APs are managed individually without any coordinated control. This pattern of wireless LAN usage is called the private OBSS (Overlapping Basic Service Set) environment in this paper. Due to frame collisions across BSSs, each BSS in the private OBSS environment suffers severe performance degradation. This study approaches the problem from the perspective of congestion control rather than noise or collision resolution. The retry limit, one of the 802.11 attributes, could be used for traffic control in conjunction with TCP. Reducing the retry limit causes early discard of a frame, and it has a similar effect of random early drops at a router, well known in the research area of congestion control. It makes the shared link less crowded with frames, and then the benefit of fewer collisions surpasses the penalty of less strict error recovery. As a result, the network-wide performance improves and so does the performance of each BSS eventually. Reducing the retry limit also has positive effects of merging TCP ACKs and reducing HOL-like blocking time at the AP. Extensive experiments have validated the idea that in the OBSS environment, reducing the retry limit provides better performance, which is contrary to the common wisdom. Since our strategy is basically to sacrifice error recovery for congestion control, it could yield side-effects in an environment where the cost of error recovery is high. Therefore, to be useful in general network and traffic environments, adaptability is required. To prove the feasibility of the adaptive scheme, a simple method to dynamically adjust the value of the retry limit has been proposed. Experiments have shown that this approach could provide comparable performance in unfriendly environments.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.28.1-28.9
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• 2019

Bar-code (tag) microarrays of yeast gene-deletion collections facilitate the systematic identification of genes required for growth in any condition of interest. Anti-sense strands of amplified bar-codes hybridize with ~10,000 (5,000 each for up-and down-tags) different kinds of sense-strand probes on an array. In this study, we optimized the hybridization processes of an array for fission yeast. Compared to the first version of the array (11 ㎛, 100K) consisting of three sectors with probe pairs (perfect match and mismatch), the second version (11 ㎛, 48K) could represent ~10,000 up-/ down-tags in quadruplicate along with 1,508 negative controls in quadruplicate and a single set of 1,000 unique negative controls at random dispersed positions without mismatch pairs. For PCR, the optimal annealing temperature (maximizing yield and minimizing extra bands) was 58℃ for both tags. Intriguingly, up-tags required 3× higher amounts of blocking oligonucleotides than down-tags. A 1:1 mix ratio between up- and down-tags was satisfactory. A lower temperature (25℃) was optimal for cultivation instead of a normal temperature (30℃) because of extra temperature-sensitive mutants in a subset of the deletion library. Activation of frozen pooled cells for >1 day showed better resolution of intensity than no activation. A tag intensity analysis showed that tag(s) of 4,316 of the 4,526 strains tested were represented at least once; 3,706 strains were represented by both tags, 4,072 strains by up-tags only, and 3,950 strains by down-tags only. The results indicate that this microarray will be a powerful analytical platform for elucidating currently unknown gene functions.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.35-41
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• 2013

This paper applies an active period based bottleneck detection method to flow shop manufacturing system with limited buffer size. Manufacturing systems are constrained by one or more bottlenecks which degrades the system throughput. Conventional bottleneck detection methods include the waiting time or queue length of production stations and their utilization. Due to the random events such as production time of items, machine failure and repair times, the systems may change over time, and subsequently bottlenecks shift from one station to another station. Active period of working station may cause other stations to wait for productions. Information when and where active periods occur helps to find bottlenecks in production systems. Based on these informations, we predict bottlenecks in applying AweSim simulation language. We compare the simulation results of conventional methods with those obtained from duration of active period method, and duration ratio method of both sole and shift bottleneck periods. Even though simulation results are from simple flow shop model, they are quite promising for predicting bottlenecks of production stations. We hope this study aids in decision making regarding the improving system production yield and allocation of available resources of system.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.959-982
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• 2015

In this study, a non-stationary random earthquake Clough-Penzien model is used to describe earthquake ground motion. Using stochastic direct integration in combination with an equivalent linear method, a solution is established to describe the non-stationary response of lead-rubber bearing (LRB) system to a stochastic earthquake. Two parameters are used to develop an optimization method for bearing design: the post-yielding stiffness and the normalized yield strength of the isolation bearing. Using the minimization of the maximum energy response level of the upper structure subjected to an earthquake as an objective function, and with the constraints that the bearing failure probability is no more than 5% and the second shape factor of the bearing is less than 5, a calculation method for the two optimal design parameters is presented. In this optimization process, the radial basis function (RBF) response surface was applied, instead of the implicit objective function and constraints, and a sequential quadratic programming (SQP) algorithm was used to solve the optimization problems. By considering the uncertainties of the structural parameters and seismic ground motion input parameters for the optimization of the bearing design, convex set models (such as the interval model and ellipsoidal model) are used to describe the uncertainty parameters. Subsequently, the optimal bearing design parameters were expanded at their median values into first-order Taylor series expansions, and then, the Lagrange multipliers method was used to determine the upper and lower boundaries of the parameters. Moreover, using a calculation example, the impacts of site soil parameters, such as input peak ground acceleration, bearing diameter and rubber shore hardness on the optimization parameters, are investigated.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.37-43
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• 2010

In this paper, a reliability-based design optimization is developed for the topology design of linear structures using a performance measure approach. Spatial domain is discretized using three dimensional Reissner-Mindlin plate elements and design variable is taken as the material property of each element. A continuum based adjoint variable method is employed for the efficient computation of sensitivity with respect to the design and random variables. The performance measure approach of RBDO is employed to evaluate the probabilistic constraints. The topology optimizationproblem is formulated to have probabilistic displacement constraints. The uncertainties such as material property and external loads are considered. Numerical examples show that the developed topology optimization method could effectively yield a reliable design, comparing with the other methods such as deterministic, safety factor, and worst case approaches.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.43-52
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• 1988

This study is intended to reveal the nutritional realities of school children due to their box lunch. The samples were chosen at random from the third grade to the sixth grade children in an elementary school in Seoul : 122 male and 111 female children, 233 children in all. among the subjects, 44.3% have a family of four, 34.3% have over 500,000 won of family income a month, and 44.3% of their mothers graduated from a high school. The average intake of calories is 573.6 Kcal, and the ratios of the calory intakes to the recommended amounts are 90.6% in the third grade children and from the fourth grade to the sixth grade, 79.5% in the male children and 82.9% in the female children. The average consumption of protein is 21.0g and the ratio of animal protein is 41.4%. the ratio of energy yield nutrients is 67.4% : 14.5 : 18.0 (carbohydrate : protein " fat). Considering the recommended amounts, the intake of protein is enough; the consumption of vit, A, thiamine, niacin are appropriate;and the intake of calories, Riboflabin and ascorbic acid, calcium, iron are deficient. Even though there is no significant difference between the socioeconomic factors (the standard of education of the subjects' mothers and family income0 and the intakes of calories and protein, there is a tendency that the consumption of protein intake si more abundant in the middle class than in any other class. The subjects' distribution of the physical growth index, is as follows; A (6.9%), B(19.3%), C(48.5%), D(13.7%) and E (11.6%). As the subjects' intake of calcium increases, the weight shows significant improvement (p<0.001). As the consumption of calories increases, the physical development shows significant improvement (p<0.05), and the weight shows significant increase (p<0.001).