• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.57 no.5
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• pp.813-838
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• 2011

Toni Morrison's ninth novel A Mercy delves into the colonial American history of the seventeenth century when Europeans began to migrate to the New World and when the first slaves were brought to Virginia. Morrison presents a diverse group of people such as white Europeans, an American Indian, a free black man, indentured servants, and slaves from Africa in order to explore the subjects of ownership, freedom and racism. She emphasizes the fact that most of the Europeans who came to America in the early seventeenth century were the people who were thrown out from the society such as felons, prostitutes, servants and children. By portraying how these castaways tried to settle in a new environment surrounded by unknown dangers and challenges, Morrison demystifies and reconstructs the myth of the birth of America as a nation state. In continuation of Morrison's writings about love and the betrayal of love, her novel A Mercy explores the subjects of trauma, memory and subjectivity by choosing the topic of motherly love and its betrayal which she dealt with poignantly in Beloved. The female protagonist, Florens, is given away by her mother in partial payment of debt incurred by the owner of Florens's mother. The traumatic memory of Florens's separation from her mother shapes Florence's character. She has to revisit the site of the original traumatic experiences of being given up by her mother in order to reconstruct her fragmented memory and past. The recurring dream of the traumatic incident that takes hold of Florens can be explained by the trauma theory of Freud, Cathy Caruth, Suzette Henke, and Judith Herman. The paper explores the self journey of Florens in which she faces the traumatic past and comprehends its meaning which enables her to construct her subjectivity by understanding the true meaning of being free and of owning oneself. In particular, it demonstrates how the process of writing a confession, a story about one's history, enables one to reclaim the traumatic experience and to locate it in the narrative memory.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.26 no.10
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• pp.1504-1510
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• 2013

Native chickens hold a significant share of the market in China. In response to the huge demand from the market, the productivity of Chinese native chickens needs to be improved. Cross breeding is an effective method to increase productivity, although it might affect meat quality. In this study, two pure lines (SD02 and SD03) of Erlang mountainous chickens were hybridized with a yellow feather and faster growing line (SD01). The effect of hybridization on carcass and meat quality (physiochemical and textural traits) was measured in the $F_1$ population at d 91 of age. The hybrids exhibited higher body weight and dressed weight, and amount of semi-eviscerated, eviscerated, breast muscle and abdominal fat (p<0.05). Abdominal fat yield also increased (p<0.05) compared to the offspring of the two pure-lines. Meanwhile, there was no significant difference in meat quality traits except for the myofiber diameter and density and the shear force of the breast muscle. Overall, the offspring of cross-lines were similar to pure lines in meat color, pH value, inosinic acid, crude protein, crude fat, dry matter, moisture content and amino acid composition in the breast muscle. These results suggest that productivity can be improved via cross-breeding while maintaining meat quality of the Erlang mountainous chicken.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.310-315
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• 2014

Cellular retinol-binding protein II (CRBP II) belongs to the family of cellular retinol-binding proteins and plays a major role in absorption, transport, and metabolism of vitamin A. In addition, because vitamin A is correlated with reproductive performance, we measured CRBP II mRNA abundance in erlang mountainous chickens by real-time PCR using the relative quantification method. The expression of CRBP II showed a tissue-specific pattern and egg production rate-dependent changes. The expression was very high (p<0.05) in jejunum and liver, intermediate in kidney, ovary, and oviduct, and lowest (p<0.05) in heart, hypothalamus, and pituitary. In the hypothalamus, oviduct, ovary, and pituitary, CRBP II mRNA abundance were correlated to egg production rate, which increased from 12 wk to 32 wk, peaked at 32 wk relative to the other time points, and then decreased from 32 wk to 45 wk. In contrast, the expression of CRBP II mRNA in heart, jejunum, kidney, and liver was not different at any of the ages evaluated in this study. These data may help to understand the genetic basis of vitamin A metabolism, and suggest that CRBP II may be a candidate gene to affect egg production traits in chickens.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.297-309
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• 2013

Design optimization is a mathematical process to find an optimal solution through the use of formal optimization algorithms. Design plays a vital role in the engineering field; therefore, using design tools in education and research is becoming more and more important. Recently, numerical design optimization in fluid mechanics, which uses computational fluid dynamics (CFD), has numerous applications in the engineering field, because of the rapid development of high-performance computing resources. However, it is difficult to find design optimization software and contents for educational purposes in aerospace engineering. In the present study, we have developed an aerodynamic design framework specifically for an airfoil, based on the EDucation-research Integration through Simulation On the Net (EDISON) portal. The airfoil design framework is composed of three subparts: a geometry kernel, CFD flow analysis, and an optimization algorithm. Through a seamless interface among the subparts, an iterative design process is conducted. In addition, the CFD flow analysis and the design framework are provided through a web-based portal system, while the computation is taken care of by a supercomputing facility. In addition to the software development, educational contents are developed for lectures associated with design optimization in aerospace and mechanical engineering education programs. The software and content developed in this study is expected to be used as a tool for e-learning material, for education and research in universities.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.1363-1367
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• 2005

A pedigree file of 4,738 records of a purebred flock of Muzaffarnagari sheep, maintained at Central Institute for Research on Goats (CIRG), Makhdoom, for a period of 24 years (1978 to 2001) was used to calculate inbreeding coefficients. The lambtraits studied were birth, 3, 6, 9 and 12 months weights as well as 6 and 12 months fleece yields. The lambs' and ewes' inbreeding coefficients ranged from 0 to 26.4% and 0 to 25%, respectively. The average inbreeding coefficient of lambs was higher than that of ewes in all periods as expected in a closed flock. Fluctuations in lamb and ewe inbreeding were observed in the periods under study. The percentages of animals in the higher inbred categories varied somewhat but generally were relatively constant. The mean rate of inbreeding was 0.63% per generation. The effective population size of the flock was 79.1. On average, an increase of 1% individual inbreeding significantly (p<0.05) reduced weights at birth by 0.010 kg, at 3 month by 0.048 kg, at 6 month by 0.075 kg, at 9 month by 0.129 kg and at 12 month by 0.112 kg. Ewes' inbreeding had non-significant effects on body weight at all ages. Effects of both lambs' and ewes' inbreeding had negative but non-significant effects on fleece weights at 6 and 12 months of age. Thus, inbreeding depression in lambs significantly reduced body weights from birth to 12 months of age but had a negligible effect on fleece yields.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.910-913
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• 2004

Insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) gene is a structural gene associated with the growth and development of the animals. The present investigation was carried out to unravel nucleotide sequence and polymerase chain reactionrestriction fragment polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) of IGFBP-3 gene in buffalo. Genomic DNA was isolated from a total of 157 animals belonging to Murrah, Surti, Jaffarabadi and Nagpuri breeds of Indian riverine buffalo. A 655 bp of IGFBP-3 gene was amplified in all the breeds and amplicons were digested with Hae III, Taq I and Msp I restriction enzymes. On digestion with Hae III yielded single restriction pattern of 8 fragments of sizes 201, 165, 154, 56, 36, 19, 16 and 8 bp in all the animals studied. Similarly Taq I and Msp I also revealed single restriction pattern yielding fragments of sizes 240 and 415 bp and 145 and 510 bp, respectively. This shows nonpolymorphic nature of restriction sites in buffalo. Nucleotide sequencing of 587 bp of IGFBP-3 gene in Murrah buffalo was done and submitted to the GenBank (Accession No. AY304829). Nucleotide sequencing revealed an addition of 4 bases in the intronic region as compared to cattle.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.6799-6806
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• 2015

Electric energy consumption is always followed by the introduction of diversity scale-up and state-of-the-art equipments in logistic centers. In order to analyze the status and the characteristic of the electric energy consumption quantitatively, and also to evaluate the efficiency of the electric energy, this research aims to develop an estimation model of standard electric energy consumption for logistic centers. The proposed model applies the thermodynamics theory so as to effectively reflect the peculiarity that the temperature in the logistic center influences the electric energy consumption. And the model consists of the energy consumed by the refrigerator, which can be subdivided into the heat conducted through the wall, the heat convected by the open doors and the heat lost into the goods, and the electric consumption of the machinery equipments. The model also includes a variety of explanatory variables to support an operator of logistics centers in evaluating the efficiency of energy consumption and establishing improvement strategies for energy efficiency. Application of the model developed in this study is discussed with observed data on energy consumption of a logistics center.

• Korean Journal of Weed Science
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.156-162
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• 1994

To better understand the exact nature of the major toxic compound responsible for phytotoxicity of sorghum stem, the most toxic compound from the stem extract was isolated by rapid chromatography and subsequently purified by thin-layer chromatography(TLC) and high pressure liquid chromatography(HPLC). Of the eight fractions isolated by rapid chromatography, the fraction with solvent combinations of butanol (8) : acetic acid (1) : water (1) had the highest toxicity. Further separation of the fraction by TLC in a solvent mixture of butanol (24) : acetic acid (16.4) : water (7) : propanol (1) showed that the spot with an $R_f$ 0.71 had one major peak with retention time of 20.40 minutes. Upon subjecting gas chromatography and the HPLC fraction to the mass spectrometry, the toxic compound is probably one of the four compounds ; 1-methyl-1-(2-propynyl)-hydrazine, 1-aziridineethanol, 5-chloro-2-pentanone, and 2-(methylseleno)-ethanamine.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.643-650
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• 2009

Two metabolism trials were conducted with 24 wether lambs to investigate the effects of feeding crab meal and other protein supplements on N utilization, digestibility and Ca and P balance in sheep. The lambs (avg. BW, 25 kg) were randomly allotted to eight diets in each of two trials. The supplements were: i) none, negative control (NC); ii) soybean meal (SBM), control; iii) supplement based on industrial byproducts of both plant and animal origin (IPA); iv) experimental supplement based on byproducts of animal origin (ESA); v) hydrolyzed supplement No 4. (HESA); vi) commercial supplement based on animal protein (CS), $Pro-Lak^{(R)}$ vii) crab meal (CM); and viii) urea (U). The supplements supplied 33% of the total dietary N (CP, 9.8%; DM basis). Lambs fed the NC diet had lower (p<0.05) DM and OM digestibility. Lower (p<0.05) apparent absorption of N was recorded for the lambs fed the HESA and NC diets. Sheep fed CM had lower Ca absorption compared to SBM. Highest (p<0.05) P absorption was observed for lambs fed CS and CM and lowest for U and NC diets. Sheep fed CM had higher (p<0.05) total VFA concentration (65.7 ${\mu}mol/ml$), compared to those fed ESA, CS, and NC diets (47.3, 49.8, and 49.5 ${\mu}mol/ml$, respectively). Highest (p<0.05) ruminal $NH_3$ N (29.6 mg/dl) was observed in lambs fed the U diet, while those fed the NC diet had the lowest (p<0.05) average value (7.66 mg/dl). Lambs fed the U diet had the highest (p<0.05) blood urea N (10.67 mg/dl). The present study showed that N utilization of diets supplemented with experimental supplements based on feather meal and blood meal; commercial supplement based on animal protein, $Prolak^{(R)}$ supplement based on plant protein and blood meal; and crab meal are comparable with that of soybean meal.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.48 no.7
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• pp.3-14
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• 2006

The objective of this study was to develop a GIS-based decision support system (GIS-USLE system) to estimate soil erosion and evaluate its effect on concentrated upland plots in Godang district, Korea. This system was developed for the ArcView environment using A VENUE script. Three modules were used in the GIS-USLE system, namely pre-processing, the USLE factors calculator module, and post-processing. This system benefits from a user friendly environment that allows users with limited computer knowledge to use it. This system was applied to 1,285 individual upland plots ranging from 0.005 to 1.347 ha in size with an average slope steepness of 14 %. The rainfall distributions were estimated using the three methods, namely Mononobe and Yen-Chow with Triangle and with Trapezoid type, and then used to calculate the rainfall erosivity factor. The soil erosion amounts from the 1,285 individual plots in the study area by 2 year return period with a 24h maximum rainfall amount of 154.6 mm were estimated at 5 tons/ha on average. Slope appeared to be the most important factor affecting soil erosion estimation, as expected. The prototype model was applied to the project area, and the results appeared to support the practical applications. By examining many fields simultaneously, this system can easily provide fast estimation of soil erosion and thus reveal the spatial pattern of erosion from fields in a region. This study will help estimate and evaluate soil erosion in concentrated upland districts and identify the best management practices.