• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.437-442
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• 2015

In a continuing screening of selected medicinal plants native to South Korea, the antioxidant and pancreatic lipase inhibitory activities of an aqueous methanolic extract from the heartwood of Aquilaria agallocha were investigated. Eighty percent of the methanolic extract of A. agallocha was further divided into $CH_2Cl_2$, EtOAc and n-BuOH in order to yield four solvent-soluble portions, namely $CH_2Cl_2$-soluble, EtOAc-soluble, n-BuOH-soluble and $H_2O$ residue. The antioxidant properties were evaluated by employing radical scavenging assays using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,2'-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) ($ABTS^+$) radicals, while the anti-obesity efficacy of A. agallocha extracts and solvent-soluble portions were tested by porcine pancreatic lipase assay. All tested samples showed dose-dependent radical scavenging and pancreatic lipase inhibitory activities. Among the tested extracts and solvent-soluble portions, the $CH_2Cl_2$-soluble portion showed much higher radical scavenging activity and pancreatic lipase inhibitory properties when compared with other solvent-soluble portions. This result suggested that there was a significant relationship between the total phenolic content and biological efficacies, and A. agallocha extract might be considered as a new potential source of natural antioxidants and as a pancreatic lipase inhibitory source. A more systematic investigation of this biomass will be performed for further investigation of activity against antioxidative and anti-obesity effects.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.50-56
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• 2002

This experiment was carried out to obtain some information about overwintering, physiological and ecological characteristics of apple snails. Another purpose of this experiment was to characterize an appetite for rice plants by apple snails and to elucidate their choice of fresh green ones (vegetables, some other crops, weeds in rice fields). The freshwater snails were found with higher population at sites abundant organic compounds such as plant debris and at regions with high temperature. They also prefer calcium-rich water. This is a naturally occurring process. Apple snails were exceptionally veil-adapted to the south regions of Korea, especially Janghang, Jangseong and Haenam, even if the temperature of winter season is cold below 0$^{\circ}C$. Apple snails were not very selective in their food choice and eat almost everything available in their environment. A snail have something called a radula in its mouth for grinding up its food. A apple snail also chews on fruits and young succulent plant barks. In case of reproduction. apple snails deposit about 157$\sim$784 (average of 321 eggs) milky white to pale orange colored eggs above the waterline. In approximately every 22.4 seconds a new egg appears. The total time needed to deposit a egg mass varies from 58 minutes$\sim$4 hours 13 minutes. Apple snails reproduct actively from May to June and from September to October. An appetite of apple snails for rice plants was the different depending on their size and glowing stage for rice plants. Apple snails had a great appetite of rice plants as well as dropwort, tomato, cabbage, radish, aquatic plants etc. They preferred to eat young rice plants and drastically quit eating rice plants of over 40 cm in height. Thus considering the food preference of apple snail for various plants including rice, they were thought to be a potentially strong predator in fields, especially, at regions with warmer winter.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.158-167
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• 2006

The object of this study is to detect of land-cover change in western DMZ and vicinity. This was performed as a basic study to construct a decision support system for the conservation or a sustainable development of the DMZ and Vicinity near future. DMZ is an is 4km wide and 250km long and it's one of the most highly fortified boundaries in the world and also a unique thin green line. Environmentalists want to declare the DMZ as a natural reserve and a biodiversity zone, but nowadays through the strengthening of the inter-Korean economic cooperation, some developers are trying to construct a new-town or an industrial complex inside of the DMZ. This study investigates the current environmental conditions, especially deforestation of the western DMZ adopting remote sensing and GIS techniques. The Land-covers were identified through the linear spectvral mixture analysis(LSMA) which was used to handle the spectral mixture problem of low spatial resolution imagery of Landsat TM and ETM+ imagery. To analyze quantitative and spatial change of vegetation-cover in western DMZ, GIS overlay method was used. In LSMA, to develop high-quality fraction images, three endmembers of green vegetation(GV), soil, water were driven from pure features in the imagery. Through 15 years, from 1987 to 2002, forest of western DMZ and vicinity was devastated and changed to urban, farmland or barren land. Northern part of western DMZ and vicinity was more deforested than that of southern part. ($52.37km^2$ of North Korean forest and $39.04km^2$ of South Korean were change to other land-covers.) In case of North Korean part, forest changed to barren land and farmland and in South Korean part, forest changed to farmland and urban area. Especially, In North Korean part of DMZ and vicinity, $56.15km^2$ of farmland changed to barren land through 15 years, which showed the failure of the 'Darakbat' (terrace filed) project which is one of food increase projects in North Korea.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.41-50
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• 2013

Objectives: As a newcomer to the medical tourism industry, Korea needs to differentiate itself from the leading competing countries to vitalize its early-stage medical tourism industry. This study aims to introduce a strategic plan to vitalize the Korean integrated medical tourism so that Korea can differentiate itself from competing countries and create high added value. Methods: The concept and actual conditions of medical tourism and Oriental medical tourism were examined. A plan to differentiate Korea from the competing countries in the medical tourism industry was studied to create high added-value through strategic vitalization of its medical tourism industry. Results: Korean integrated medical tourism must be developed differently from those of other South-East Asian countries in order to strategically promote the cash-cow medical tourism industry. In order to develop such medical tourism, Korean medical practice, which integrates Western and Oriental medicine, is to be developed through mutual understanding and fusion of other disciplines among medical doctors and Oriental medical doctors who are working in local healthcare for health promotion of local residents and disease prevention and control. This will play a key role in developing a unique medical tourism product of Korea by means of strategic alliances as an integrated medicine. Manpower specialized for integrated medicine is to be specially supplied for Oriental medicine-related business lines at city, county and borough levels, among local governments, that are enthusiastically carrying forward Oriental medical tourism with an interest to promoting more active and strategic business development and raise the effectiveness and efficiency of public health centers handling related medical tourism. Manpower specialized for Korean integrated medical tourism is to be specially supplied for the Ministry of Culture, Health and Tourism, a policy control tower to develop and vitalize high value-added fusion (theme) tourism products such as the Korean integrated medical tourism, in order to discover, promote and support Korean integrated medical tourism's differences from existing medical tourism. Conclusions: The differentiated integrated medical tourism that only Korea can offer in a variety of forms, in order to create a key area of high value-added medical tourism, should be strategically vitalized through a liaison between integrated medicine and tourism and the realization of patient-centered health care services with medical technology developed based on mutual understanding of Western and Oriental medicine.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.153-166
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• 1991

Laver is sea weeds that might have been eaten by Korean people since ancient times. The begining of laver culture is not known exactly, but it appears to be prehistoric age. Some laver culture complexes have been built in southern coastal sea of Korea around 1910. This paper was considered about the origin and development process of Korean laver culture industry by investigating Korean and Asian old books concerned. The results are as follows. 1. According to the Korean old books ralated, the name of laver is classified into 10kinds. Gim and Hae-I were called by Korean. Gim means weeds and Hae-I means the manufactured laver by cutting and drying like paper sheet. Ja-Chae and Hae-Tae are come from Chinese, however they are commonly called by Korean, Japanese and Chinese. Rest six names are come from Chinese botany. 2. As Chinese used laver as medicine for wen, scrofula, fever, vomiting, diarrhoea and. so on, they didn't regard it as foods and took into account an warning by Chinese botany that they could take ill when overeating it. On the other as Korean people have eaten it with pleasure nevertheless the Chinese warning, various foods using laver have been developed. The typical food is rice covering laver sheet. It is also popular to Japanese. 3. Laver culture can be carried out in all coastal seas around Korean peninsula, the best sea area for it is the middle west of south sea. 4. Seopkkoji type is a laver culture method that when branches of tree are put in tidal flat laver sporules are attached and gronm on them. It was begun by Hae-Jak Kun(a group of fishery slaves) on Kwang-Yang bay the most suitable for. laver growth at the beginning of King $Sung-long(1469{\~}1481)$. It is assumed that when Hae-Jak Kun set Oe-Jeon(a sort of fixing fishing gear) to catch tributary fish for king, they could find grown laver attached on Oe-Jeon and invent Seopkkoji type for exclusive laver culture. That was carried out 200 fears earlier than in Japan. Dde-Bal type is more advanced and productive laver culture method with thinly spilt bamboo tied like screen(one end fixed on bottom and other end set free in water), It is assumed that Dde-Bal type was begun in Wan-Do county in King Chull-Jong(1830). All laver culture methods developed were transfered to Japan.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.101-115
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• 2024

The ocean heatwave is emerging as a major issue due to global warming, posing a direct threat to marine ecosystems and humanity through decreased food resources and reduced carbon absorption capacity of the oceans. Consequently, the prediction of ocean heatwaves in the vicinity of the Korean Peninsula is becoming increasingly important for marine environmental monitoring and management. In this study, an LSTM model was developed to improve the underestimated prediction of ocean heatwaves caused by the coarse vertical grid system of the Korean Peninsula Ocean Prediction System. Based on the results of ocean heatwave predictions for the Korean Peninsula conducted in 2023, as well as those generated by the LSTM model, the performance of heatwave predictions in the East Sea, Yellow Sea, and South Sea areas surrounding the Korean Peninsula was evaluated. The LSTM model developed in this study significantly improved the prediction performance of sea surface temperatures during periods of temperature increase in all three regions. However, its effectiveness in improving prediction performance during periods of temperature decrease or before temperature rise initiation was limited. This demonstrates the potential of the LSTM model to address the underestimated prediction of ocean heatwaves caused by the coarse vertical grid system during periods of enhanced stratification. It is anticipated that the utility of data-driven artificial intelligence models will expand in the future to improve the prediction performance of dynamical models or even replace them.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.30 no.10
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• pp.912-918
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• 2020

The Korean native black goat (Capra hircus coreanae) is the goat species to be officially registered in Korea under the Food and Agriculture Organization. The object of this study is to establish a set of microsatellite (MS) markers for the individual identification and parentage verification of goats. In this study, we analyzed alleles of MS markers in crosses between Korean native black goats and crossbred goats (n=304 animals), and, based on the diversity of alleles for each marker, we selected 11 MS markers for individual identification and parentage verification. Using these 11 MS markers, the probabilities of different individuals with the same genotype being found within random and half-sib mating populations were 5.58×10^-10 and 1.15×10^-7, respectively. The parentage verification accuracy was 0.999996 when information about the parents was available and 0.999833 with no information. Thus, even given the total rearing population of 576,150 animals in South Korea, we concluded that these markers could be used for the individual identification and parentage verification of goats. Moreover, by analyzing the genetic relationships between the four lines of Korean native black goats and the crossbred goats, we verified the genetic characteristics of Korean native black goats, confirming their conservation value as a unique genetic resource.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.25 no.11
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• pp.1265-1272
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• 2015

Barnyard millet Miryang 3 [Echinochloa esculenta (A. Braun)] grains have recently been acknowledged for beneficial health properties due to phenolic ingredients and dietary fiber. This study has been conducted on the anti-diabetic activity of barnyard millet Miryang 3 which shows the strongest anti-inflammatory activity among barnyard millet inhabiting in South Korea. When 80% ethanol (EtOH) extract of barnyard millet Miryang 3 grains were orally administered into db/db diabetic mice for 8 weeks (600 mg/kg/day), the glucose level in blood following fasting appeared to be improved compared to the control group. The results of glucose tolerance test and blood lipid profile assay were similar to those of the metformin-administered positive control group. In addition, the level of body weight increase (8.54±2.24) was lower than the level of metformin-administered group (10.36±3.15); however, there was no subtle difference with negative and positive control groups in terms of food efficiency rates. In addition, total cholesterol levels of the 80% EtOH extract-administered group (160.7±7.6) were significantly reduced compared to the diabetic control group (229.3±47.8) and metformin-administered group (176.0±25.6). Consequently, these results show that barnyard millet grains alleviates many of the diabetic symptoms in vivo non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, and suggest that barnyard millet grains can be applicable in developing new functional food materials.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.21 no.spc
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• pp.141-148
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• 2019

South Korea is a nation highly reliant on virtual water imports, which raises concerns of water crisis and food crisis at the national level. Virtual water and water footprint studies that consider the environment, social, and economic issues have been consistently addressed. However, there is a lack of Korean research, so the calculation method and comparison analysis are greatly dependent on foreign research results. The calculation results for Korean domestic agricultural products have been released in earnest since 2014. Thus, there has been an increase in comparison studies using domestic virtual water and water footprint results. This study identified the Korean agricultural and livestock water footprint research direction to determine the citation relationship trends. Domestic and foreign research results were analyzed from Korean water footprint related literature from the past 10 years. Therefore, a citation relationship diagram was formed from the literature analysis results. Virtual water and water footprint related research performance are provided in the appendix so researchers can utilize the various information related to this field in the future. In addition, national strategy policy making is expected to be presented for effective water resources management.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.368-380
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• 2022

Biomonitoring of an invasive alien crayfish species, Procambarus clarkii (Girard, 1852), was performed from February to October 2021, along with environmental DNA analysis, at five locations including Wanju-gun, Hampyeong-gun, Naju-si, Gurye-gun, and Cheongju-si. For the investigation, an umbrella-shaped trap for adults and a hand net for young crayfish were used, and 8 to 10L of freshwater was collected for eDNA analysis. The current status and past distributional records of crayfish in Korea were analyzed along with benthic macroinvertebrates at each survey site. As a result of the investigation, a total of 122 individuals were identified, and Hampyeong-gun recorded the largest number of populations with 59 individuals (48.36%) and the highest environmental DNA (eDNA). The frequency of appearance of P. clarkii was highest in May. The ratio of females to males was 21:5, and the body size was 72.2±21.1mm for female, 80.5±15.6mm for male, and 25.3±9.8mm for young crayfish. P. clarkii introduced into Korea is mainly spreading in the southwest region and it has not been observed in Seoul where there had been a record of appearance in the past. No external symbiosis (Branchiobdellida) of P. clarkii has been identified, and P. clarkii that has appeared in Korea was presumed to be imported from Japan. There are more than eight kinds of exotic crayfish distributed in Korea, and among them, the marbled crayfish (P. virginalis) was identified as a harmful species to the ecosystem of Korea by the Ministry of Environment in 2021. The identified species of benthic macroinvertebrates inhabiting the survey area where P. clarkii has appeared were 69 belonging to 39 families, 15 orders, five classes, and three phyla. Among them, Odonata were the most abundant (16 spp.; 24.62%), followed by Coleoptera (11 spp.; 16.92%) and Hemiptera (11 spp.; 16.92%). In the survey area, one Korean endemic species (Rhoenanthus coreanus), one species (Helophorus auriculatus) classified as Near Threatened (NT) on the Korean Red List, and six species of Crustaceans appeared. In the functional feeding group, the predators appeared predominantly while in habitat oriented group, the climbers appeared to be abundant. It was confirmed that P. clarkii in the survey area prefers an area rich in aquatic vegetation with waterside vegetation, and has high resistance to turbid water quality. The omnivore invader P. clarkii is expected to maintain a competitive relationship with carnivorous benthic macroinvertebrates that are predominant in the same species, and is expected to continue to generate ecosystem disturbance along the food chains.