• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.423-432
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• 2004

In coastal area of Inchon, dredging and the disposal of dredged material for sea-wall construction and reclamation have increased in recent years. These activities may impact the benthic environment and result in changes in benthic communities, but little information is available on the extent and direction of these changes. We investigated whether there have been changes in the dominant macrobenthic species and benthic community over the last decade, and explored the relationship between environmental variables and spatial patterns of macrobenthic community structure. We sampled macrobenthos and recorded environmental variables in the coastal habitats of Inchon in March and June 2004. In total, 212 macrobenthic species were recorded during this study, predominately crustaceans $(34{\%})$, mollusks $(32{\%})$ and polychaetes $(21{\%})$. The mean density of macrobenthos was $1,393\;ind./m^{2}$.The most abundant species was Amphioplus japonicus $(20.5{\%})$, followed by Heteromastus filiformis $(14.4{\%})$, Theora fragilis $(8.2{\%})$ and Ampharete sp. $(4.0{\%})$. Over the past decade the dominant macrobenthic species in this area shifted. Multivariate analysis (multidimensional scaling) revealed significant differences in community structure among three regions: the middle part of the sampling area (B), site 8 (C) and other sites (A). Mean density varied significantly among the three regions, but no differences in the number of species and diversity (H') were observed. The distribution of the macrobenthic community was affected by environmental variables such as percentage sand content and sediment kurtosis. Species that were important in different areas included A. japonicus in region A, Raeta puchella in region B and T. fragilis in region C. The important species in regions B and C were filter-feeding bivalves, and the abundance of these species may be related to the increase in percentage sand content. We suggest that the sediment composition (percentage sand content) may be an important factor in determining the dominant species and structure of the macrobenthic communities in coastal Inchon. Long-term monitoring programs are necessary to understand ongoing changes in the benthic communities of this area.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.11
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• pp.1532-1539
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• 2012

The ${\alpha}$-galactosidase-coding gene agaAJB13 was cloned from Sphingomonas sp. JB13 showing 16S rDNA (1,343 bp) identities of ${\leq}97.2%$ with other identified Sphingomonas strains. agaAJB13 (2,217 bp; 64.9% GC content) encodes a 738-residue polypeptide (AgaAJB13) with a calculated mass of 82.3 kDa. AgaAJB13 showed the highest identity of 61.4% with the putative glycosyl hydrolase family 36 ${\alpha}$-galactosidase from Granulicella mallensis MP5ACTX8 (EFI56085). AgaAJB13 also showed <37% identities with reported protease-resistant or Sphingomonas ${\alpha}$-galactosidases. A sequence analysis revealed different catalytic motifs between reported Sphingomonas ${\alpha}$-galactosidases (KXD and RXXXD) and AgaAJB13 (KWD and SDXXDXXXR). Recombinant AgaAJB13 (rAgaAJB13) was expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). The purified rAgaAJB13 was characterized using p-nitrophenyl-${\alpha}$-D-galactopyranoside as the substrate and showed an apparent optimum at pH 5.0 and $60^{\circ}C$ and strong resistance to trypsin and proteinase K digestion. Compared with reported proteaseresistant ${\alpha}$-galactosidases showing thermolability at $50^{\circ}C$ or $60^{\circ}C$ and specific activities of <71 U/mg with or without protease treatments, rAgaAJB13 exhibited a better thermal stability (half-life of >60 min at $60^{\circ}C$) and higher specific activities (225.0-256.5 U/mg). These sequence and enzymatic properties suggest AgaAJB13 is the first identified and characterized Sphingomonas ${\alpha}$-galactosidase, and shows novel protease resistance with a potential value for basic research and industrial applications.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.141-148
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• 2001

Postharvest decay of onion bulbs was examined by inspecting the commercial packages in the market or in storage. Bulb rot incidence was unexpectedly high, and onion bulbs with 1st quality grade were rotten most severely by 51%, followed by 32% for 2nd and 21% for 3rd grades. This indicates that larger bulbs had higher incidences of bulb rots. Major pathogens associated with basal and neck rots were Fusarium oxysporum and Aspergillus sp. or Botrytis allii, respectively, of which basal rot was most prevalent and damaging during storage. Among the epiphytic microorgani는 from onion plants, several Bacillus and Paenibacillus spp. and previously selected Pseudomonas putida and Trichoderma harzianum had inhibitory efficacy against bulb rot pathogens. Among these B. amyloliquefaciens BL-3, Paenibacillus polymyxa BL-4, and P. putida Cha 94 were highly inhibitory to conidial germination of F. oxysporum and B. allii. P. putida Cha 94, B. amyloliquefaciens BL-3, P. polymyxa BL-4, and T. harzianum TM were applied in the rhizoplane of onion at transplanting. Initially antagonist populations decreased rapidly during the first one month. However, among these antagonists, rhizoplane population densities of BL-3, Cha 94, and TM were consistently high thereafter, maintaining about 10$^4$-10$^{5}$ cells or spores per gram of onion root up to harvest time. The other bacterial antagonist BL-4 survived only for two months. TM was the most effective biocontrol agent against basal rot, with the number of rotten bulbs recorded at 4%, while that of the control was 16%. Cha 94 was effective for the first 20 days, but basal rot increased thereafter and had about the same control efficacy as that of BL-3 and BL-4. When the antagonists were applied to the topping areas of onion bulbs at harvest, TM was the most effective in protecting the stored onion bulbs from neck rotting. The second effective antagonist was BL-3. TM and BL-3 completely suppressed the neck rot in another test, suggesting that biocontrol of postharvest decay of onion using these microorganisms either at the time of transplanting or at harvesting may be promising.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.222-228
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• 2013

Although the role of ${\alpha}$-synuclein aggregation on Parkinson's disease is relatively well known, the physiological role and the regulatory mechanism governing the expression of ${\alpha}$-synuclein are unclear yet. We recently reported that ${\alpha}$-synuclein is expressed and secreted from cultured astrocytes. In this study, we investigated the effect of valproic acid (VPA), which has been suggested to provide neuroprotection by increasing ${\alpha}$-synuclein in neuron, on ${\alpha}$-synuclein expression in rat primary astrocytes. VPA concentration-dependently increased the protein expression level of ${\alpha}$-synuclein in cultured rat primary astrocytes with concomitant increase in mRNA expression level. Likewise, the level of secreted ${\alpha}$-synuclein was also increased by VPA. VPA increased the phosphorylation of Erk1/2 and JNK and pretreatment of a JNK inhibitor SP600125 prevented the VPA-induced increase in ${\alpha}$-synuclein. Whether the increased ${\alpha}$-synuclein in astrocytes is involved in the reported neuroprotective effects of VPA awaits further investigation.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.75-83
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• 2008

We propose a welfare interface using multiple fecial features tracking, which can efficiently implement various mouse operations. The proposed system consist of five modules: face detection, eye detection, mouth detection, facial feature tracking, and mouse control. The facial region is first obtained using skin-color model and connected-component analysis(CCs). Thereafter the eye regions are localized using neutral network(NN)-based texture classifier that discriminates the facial region into eye class and non-eye class, and then mouth region is localized using edge detector. Once eye and mouth regions are localized they are continuously and correctly tracking by mean-shift algorithm and template matching, respectively. Based on the tracking results, mouse operations such as movement or click are implemented. To assess the validity of the proposed system, it was applied to the interface system for web browser and was tested on a group of 25 users. The results show that our system have the accuracy of 99% and process more than 21 frame/sec on PC for the $320{\times}240$ size input image, as such it can supply a user-friendly and convenient access to a computer in real-time operation.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.11-21
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• 2008

In conventional video coding, the complexity of encoder is much higher than that of decoder. However, as more needs arises for extremely simple encoder in environments having constrained energy such as sensor network, much investigation has been carried out for eliminating motion prediction/compensation claiming most complexity and energy in encoder. The Wyner-Ziv coding, one of the representative schemes for the problem, reconstructs video at decoder by correcting noise on side information using channel coding technique such as turbo code. Since the encoder generates only parity bits without performing any type of processes extracting correlation information between frames, it has an extremely simple structure. However, turbo decoding errors occur in noisy side information. When there are high-motion or occlusion between frames, more turbo decoding errors appear in reconstructed frame and look like Salt & Pepper noise. This severely deteriorates subjective video quality even though such noise rarely occurs. In this paper, we propose a computationally extremely light encoder based on symbol-level Wyner-Ziv coding technique and a new corresponding decoder which, based on a decision whether a pixel has error or not, applies median filter selectively in order to minimize loss of texture detail from filtering. The proposed method claims extremely low encoder complexity and shows improvements both in subjective quality and PSNR. Our experiments have verified average PSNR gain of up to 0.8dB.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.31-41
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• 1994

Morphological estimation of human spermatozoa is complicated by the fact that there is great natural variation in shape. This natural variation in shapes makes it difficult to say which forms are associated with infertility and which are normal variations. Possibly post coital test or in vitro cervical mucus penetration tests will help to clarify this question by showing which sperm are capable of penetration. The purpose of this investigation was performed to assess distribution of various morphological abnormalities according to the ability of sperm to penetrate cervical mucus. The sperm-mucus penetration using hen's egg white as substituting mucus for human cervical mucus was done in 45 fertile men with normal semen analysis and 122 infertile men with abnormal seminal parameters more than one. The female partners of 122 infertile couples showed normal results in the female fundamental test for fertility. Conventional semen analysis was evaluated according to the WHO standard normal(l980). The detailed classification of the abnormal sperm was made according to David et al(l975). The vitality of the sperm samples determined by eosin yellow-nigrosin stainig according to the method of Eliasson(l977). Results were as follw; 1. The patients had significantly lower total sperm count, motility (%), normal morphology (%), viability and total functional sperm fractions(TFSF) than fertile donors. 2. The mean value of sperm penetration distance of the patients(28.69${\pm}$11.02mm) showed significantly lower than fertile donors(37.33${\pm}$5.49mm). And 43/45 fertile donors(95.5%) as well as 57/122 patients(46.7%) had over 30mm in sperm penetration distance respectively. While 2/45 fertile donors(4.5 %) and 65/122 patient(53.3%) had under 30mm in sperm penetration distance respectively. 3. The morphological abnormalities in fertile donors were significantly lower 23.04${\pm}$5.83% (head = 12.89${\pm}$4.98, neck=6.11${\pm}$3.83%, and tail=3.43${\pm}$2.65%), compared to 36.03${\pm}$14. 40% in patients(head = 15.98 8.60%, neck 11.20${\pm}$6.56% and tail=8.70${\pm}$6.55%). Also, 3 types of sperm abnormalities including head, neck and tail were significantly lower in patient than fertile donors, respectively. Both the patients and fertile donors showed higher distribution of sperm with abnormal head than abnormal neck and tail. 4. The mean morphological abnormalities(SP>30mm) of the patients(30.68 11.64%; head = 15.95${\pm}$9.35%, neck=8.14${\pm}$4.21 %, tail=6.56${\pm}$5.64%) were significantly lower compared to patients(40.72${\pm}$15.01 %; head=16.02${\pm}$7.69%, neck 13.89${\pm}$7.82%, tail=1O.58${\pm}$6.75%) under 30mm in sperm penetration distance. Also, both groups over 30mm and under 30mm in sperm penetration showed distance higher distribution of sperm with abnormal head than abnormal neck and tail. The morphological abnormalities of head did not show significant difference but abnormal neck and tail were significant difference between the over 30mm and under 30mm group in sperm penetration distance.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.60-67
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• 2012

BACKGROUND: Anthracnose disease caused by Collectotrichum spp. is one of the most important worldwide devastating diseases in red pepper plants. Fungicides using plant extracts have several advantages, compared to synthetic chemical fungicides, because they are naturally occurring compounds, are usually safe for agricultural environment and are used for producing highly valuable agricultural products. Efforts for seeking an anti-fungal activities using naturally occurring compounds were mostly conducted from medicinal plant extracts. Sap of Rhus verniciflus was known to have healing effects on several human diseases. Recently, the extracts of Rhus verniciflus were actively tested for anti-cancer, anti-oxidative, and anti-fungal effects. In this study, the extract of Rhus verniciflus was tested for anti-fungal activity against Colletotrichum spp., which cause anthracnose in red-pepper. METHODS AND RESULTS: After neutralizing extracts of Rhus verniciflus (urushiol contents 70%) with autoclave, the crude extracts were used to investigate inhibitory effects for mycelial growth and spore germination of Colletotrichum spp. on PDA media. The mycelial growth and spore germination of Colletotrichum spp. were inhibited 18-39% and over 50% in response to crude extract of R. verniciflus (1.0 mg/mL). After spraying the extracts at the same concentrations above and then artificially inoculating Colletotrichum spp. on blue and red-pepper fruits, in vitro inhibition effects were examined. At 1.0 mg/mL, the crude extract of R. verniciflus showed inhibition activity in anthracnose incidence on blue- and red-pepper as 68.1-75.0%, through a artificial inoculation of Colletotrichum spp. in a laboratory. For in vivo inhibitory effects, the extracts (1.0, 0.1, and 0.01 mg/mL) were treated on red-pepper plants grown in green house 3 times at the interval of 1 week. Then inhibitory effects were determined by counting diseased fruits at 1 week after final treatment. The incidence of anthracnose was inhibited over 60% in the greenhouse by treatment of crude extract of R. verniciflus (1.0 mg/mL). CONCLUSION(s): Extracts of Rhus verniciflus were shown to have inhibitory effects on mycelial growth, spore germination of Colletotrichum spp. in vitro and on occurrence of anthracnose on pepper fruit in green house.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.43-49
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• 2007

This study was conducted to examine the pattern and characteristics of flowering and leaf emergence for twenty two kinds of the genus of Lycoris sp. One species of Lycoris was flowered on July to August, twelve species on August, and nine species on September. Shape of flowers were as follows : Nine species belong to L. radiara-shaped flower, seven species L. squamigera-shaped flower, and seven species the intermediate type. Flower color of three kind were an order of descent red and pink. seven kind white, four kind yellow, three kind orange, and two kind purple colors. Ten Lycoris species were good fertile, and two kinds were poor fertile. The average length of pollen grain was ranged from $48.53\;to\;88.62{\mu}m$, and the width from $22.87\;to\;33.67{\mu}m$. Eleven kinds were spring-leaf emergence type, and ten kind autumn-leaf emergence types. Hunter values in leaves were as follows : $L^*$ value was ranged from 31.6 to 45.2; $a^*$ values from -6.74 to -17.46; $b^*$ values from 6.19 to 21.89 Leaf width was ranged from 0.90 to 2.35cm, and its shape was oblong. The length of epidermal cells was 0.33 to 0.75mm, and the width was $38.53\;to\;90.00{\mu}m$. Most of stomata were distributed in the back side of leaves. The length of stomata was ranged from $67.12\;to\;104.89{\mu}m$, and its width was from $14.90\;to\;71.52{\mu}m$.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.121-136
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• 1986

Recently there have been some reports on human infections of Echinostoma hortense in Korea. It was found that a few species of freshwater fishes were playing the role of the second intermediate host of E. hortense. However, molluscan intermediate host has not been identified yet in Korea. The present study aimed to establish the life cycle of E. hortense in laboratory. Experimental studies such as egg production from the rat, development of the eggs in vitro, exposure of miracidia to freshwater snails, shedding pattern of cercariae from infected snails, morphology of cercariae, cercarial infection to the second intermediate host and infection of metacercariae to the definitive hosts were done. In addition, epidemiological surveys on the infection status in inhabitants and house rats, and on the natural infection of larval echinostomes in the snails and fishes were carried out along the South Hangang-river. The results obtained were as follows: 1. The eggs deposited from adults in physiological saline were cultivated at room temperature($20{\sim}24^{\circ}C$). The miracidia were firstly observed on 8 days after cultivation, and 85.5% of the eggs contained the mature miracidia on 11 days after cultivation. More than 90% formed the miracidia when cultivated at temperature $22{\sim}27^{\circ}C$. Hatching of the miracidia began on 12 days after cultivation and continued for a week. The size of the miracidia was $103.0{{\times}}51.4{\mu}m$ in average. The motility of the miracidia were active up to 8 hours after shedding, but they were all dead within 10 hours after shedding. 2. A freshwater snail, Radix auricularia coreana was cultivated in aquaria. A hatched $F_1$ snails from the egg masses were exposed to 20 miracidia respectively. Escape of cercariae started on 15 days after infecton. Radix auricularia coreana was experimentally identified as the first intermediate host of E. hortense in Korea. 3. Cercarial shedding started on $15{\sim}20$ days after infection by snail, continued for about 10 days (8.8 days in average). Infected snails were dead within 32 days after the miracidial infection. About 1,335 cercariae($328{\sim}1,994$) per snail were shed in its life, and 119 cercariae in average per snail per day were shed. The cercariae were motile for more than 24 hours, and then squirming at the bottom until death. The body and tail sizes of cercariae were $356{\times}186{\mu}m$ and $510{\times}68{\mu}m$ in average, respectively. The rediae parasitized in the snail hosts were found mainly around the pericardial regions, and their size was $1,575{\times}258{\mu}m$ in average. The numbers of developing cercariae in a mature redia were 14 in average ($7{\sim}20$ in range). The numbers of rediae in a snail were 102 in average on 15 days after miracidial infection and 221 in average on 28 days. 4. Three uninfected Misgurnus anguillicaudatus, less than 6.5cm long were used in for the cercarial infection. They were all exposed with 755 cercariae, and examined at 5-day intervals starting from 10 days after infection. All the fishes were infected with metacercariae of E. hortense and a total of 275 was found infected(36.4%). The metacercariae were fed to rats and the adult worms were obtained on 15 days after infection. 5. The infected rats began to deposit the eggs on 11 days after infection. The number of eggs deposited per day per worm (EPD/worm) was $400{\sim}500$ on 3 weeks after infection and was increased to $1,000{\sim}1,500$ on 4 to 17 weeks, then decreased to 800 on 21 weeks after infection. 6. A total of 745 stool specimens collected from 576 male and 169 female residents of 8 different villages along South Hangang basin was examined. Out of 745 specimens, the eggs of Echinostoma sp. were found in 2 cases (0.3%). Of 34 house rats one showed egg-positive (2.9%). 7. Total 971 Radix auricularia coreana collected from 7 sampling stations were examined for shedding of cercariae. Three snails (0.3%) shed the cercariae of E. hortense. A total of 119 out of 542 freshwater fishes (22.0%) had the metacercariae of E. hortense. The fishes parasitized with the metacercariae were 4 out of 14 examined species. The infection rates of 4 species were 34.1% (106 out of 311) in Misgurnus anguillicaudatus, 30.4% (7 out of 23) in Misgurnus mizolepis, 4.3% (2 out of 46) in Moroco oxycephalus and 22.2% (4 out of 18) in Odontobutis obscura interrupta. In summarizing the above results, the first intermediate host of E. hortense was found as Radix auricularia coreana in Korea. Also, it took about 46 days for the shortest completion of a life cycle of E. hortense in summer; that is, 10 days for miracidial development in eggs, 15 days for cercarial development in the snail, about 10 days for metacercarial development in the second intermediate hosts, and 11 days for the maturation as the adults in the definitive hosts. The natural infection rates of E. hortense in the intermediate hosts were relatively high but those in the definitive hosts were low in the middle areas of South Hangang basin.