• Animal cells and systems
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.323-329
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• 2009

We analyzed partial sequences of cytochrome b (cyt-b), a mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) gene, to determine the genetic relationships between six horsehead fish species: Branchiostegus japonicus, Branchiostegus albus, Branchiostegus auratus, Branchiostegus argentatus, Branchiostegus wardi, and an unidentified Branchiostegus species. The specimens were collected in Korea, China, Japan, and Vietnam. We compared their molecular phylogenetic relationships inferred from mtDNA cyt-b sequences with an osteological analysis. The unidentified species, B. sp., was similar to B. albus in terms of the lack of triangular silver-white dot at the posterior region of eyes (vs. large one present in B. japonicus), but was also similar to B. japonicus in terms of the presence of a straight-shaped first hemal spine (vs. a curve-shaped hemal spine in B. albus). Analysis of the mtDNA cyt-b sequences indicated that the smallest estimated sequence divergence was between the B. japonicus and B. sp. (0.70-0.94%), whereas the largest difference was between B. auratus and B. argentatus (23.06-23.36%). Both the maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood trees showed that the B. sp. was closely clustered with B. japonicus, and that B. auratus was most distant from the other species. When comparing the osteological characters, UPGMA tree showed that the B. japonicus and B. sp. were the most closely clustered species, and B. auratus was the most distantly clustered fish relative to the other species. The shape of the nasal, otolith and first hemal spine was informative for distinguishing B. auratus from the other species. These osteological differences were consistent with the differences in mtDNA.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.252-261
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• 2016

This study examined the health status of female foreign spouses of multicultural families in Korea. More specifically, this study examined whether within-group difference exists depending on their country of origin in health status as well as determinants of their health status. For the analyses, data from the 2012 National Survey of Multicultural Families was used and a total of 165,451 spouses from China (both Korean-Chinese and Han Chinese), Vietnam, and The Philippines were included. The result showed that Vietnamese and Filipino women were healthier than Korean-Chinese and Han Chinese. The determinants and their size of the effect also varied across four groups of women. The results of this study highlight the importance of understanding immigrant women in the context of their ethnic background for interventions of their health. In addition, understanding their status and experiences in Korea must be in place for immigrant health studies, and potential differences by their country of origin must be considered in the development of health policies and practice.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.14-19
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• 2007

Caffeine is one of the most well known stimulants which can potentially increase mental performance, release fatigue and decrease depression. Green beans from different soils and climates contain different levels of caffeine, and as well as extracted coffee with different roasting and extracting methods. An investigation looking at pH, acidity, extractable solid and caffeine contents was assessed according to roasting and extracting conditions of various coffee beans. Brazilian coffee beans did not show much variation in pH with respect to roasting and extracting temperature, however, acidity increased in low roasting and extracting temperatures. This was however most prominently observed in Ethiopian and Indonesian coffee beans. The large expansion of coffee bean cells renders them highly porous to the passage of water, consequently extracted solids were found to increase with increasing temperature. This was especially apparent in Columbian coffee which had the highest extracted solids. The amount of caffeine extracted from coffee beans also increased with the higher temperature extraction. The Indonesian and Vietnam robusta coffee varieties showed the highest caffeine content.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.353-362
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• 2024

This study examined the spectral characteristics of sediments according to moisture content using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based hyperspectral sensor and evaluated the efficiency of moisture content detection at different flight altitudes. For this purpose, hyperspectral images in the 400-1000nm wavelength range were acquired and analyzed at altitudes of 40m and 80m for sediment samples with various moisture contents. The reflectance of the sediments generally showed a decreasing trend as the moisture content increased. Correlation analysis between moisture content and reflectance showed a strong negative correlation (r < -0.8) across the entire 400-900nm range. The moisture content detection model constructed using the Random Forest technique showed detection accuracies of RMSE 2.6%, R² 0.92 at 40m altitude and RMSE 2.2%, R² 0.95 at 80m altitude, confirming that the difference in accuracy between altitudes was minimal. Variable importance analysis revealed that the 600-700nm band played a crucial role in moisture content detection. This study is expected to be utilized in efficient sediment moisture management and natural disaster prediction in the field of environmental monitoring in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2009

Nowadays, Tra catfish fat is given attention as an appropriate material for biodiesel production in Vietnam. The aim of this work is to investigate the optimal conditions of refining biodiesel and recovering glycerin by the transesterification from Tra catfish fat using KOH catalyst. As our results, the yield of transesterification was achieved to 94.17% at $50^{\circ}C$ for 45 min with 6:1 molar ratio of methanol to fat in the presence of 0.8% KOH catalyst, and wherein the biodiesel was refined by washing with distilled water at $70^{\circ}C$ and dried in a microwave oven. The yield of raw glycerin recoveries from the transesterification process was 78.58%. The purity of raw glycerin was 84.14% by the conditions of neutralization state with $H_{3}PO_{4}$ solution (pH = 5), $70^{\circ}C$, and 60 min. Activated carbon (3.0 wt.%) was used for the bleaching process at $80^{\circ}C$ for 20 min. The biodiesel was obtained in accordance with for ASTM D 6751 (biodiesel standard). The ash and water of raw glycerins were 7.32 and 8.01%, respectively, and implied that the raw glycerin is very promising candidate to be used as a raw material for textile and cosmetic industries.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.441-455
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• 2009

Studying the spatial distribution in coherent fields such as turbulence and turbulence-induced force is important to model and evaluate turbulence-induced forces and response of structures in the turbulent flows. Turbulence field-based coherence function is commonly used for the spatial distribution characteristic of the turbulence-induced forces in the frequency domain so far. This paper will focus to study spectral coherent structure of the turbulence and induced forces in not only the frequency domain using conventional Fourier transform-based coherence, but also temporo-spectral coherence one in the time-frequency plane thanks to wavelet transform-based coherence for better understanding of the turbulence and force coherences and their spatial distributions. Effects of spanwise separations, bluff body flow, flow conditions and Karman vortex on coherent structures of the turbulence and induced pressure, comparison between turbulence and pressure coherences as well as intermittency of the coherent structure in the time-frequency plane will be investigated here. Some new findings are that not only the force coherence is higher than the turbulence coherence, the coherences of turbulence and forces depend on the spanwise separation as previous studies, but also the coherent structures of turbulence and forces relate to the ongoing turbulence flow and bluff body flow, moreover, intermittency in the time domain and low spectral band is considered as the nature of the coherent structure. Simultaneous measurements of the surface pressure and turbulence have been carried out on some typical rectangular cylinders with slenderness ratios B/D=1 (without and with splitter plate) and B/D=5 under the artificial turbulent flows in the wind tunnel.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.1245-1252
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• 2012

Acinetobacter venetians V28 was isolated from the intestine of righteye flounder, Poecilopsetta plinthus caught in Vietnam seawater, and the esterase gene was cloned using a shotgun method. The amino acid sequence deduced from the nucleotide sequence (1,017 bp) corresponded to a protein of 338 amino acid residues with a molecular weight of 37,186. The esterase had 87% and 72% identities with the lipases of A. junii SH205 and A. calcoaceticus RUH2202, respectively. The esterase contained a putative leader sequence, as well as the conserved catalytic triad (Ser, His, Asp), consensus pentapeptide GXSXG, and oxyanion hole sequence (HG). The protein from the strain V28 was produced in both a soluble and an insoluble form when the Escherichia coli cells harboring the gene were cultured at $18^{\circ}C$. The maximal activity of the purified enzyme was observed at a temperature of $40^{\circ}C$ and pH 9.0 using p-NP-caprylate as substrate; however, relative activity still reached to 70% even at $5^{\circ}C$ with an activation energy of 3.36 kcal/mol, which indicated that it was a cold-adapted enzyme. The enzyme was a nonmetallo-protein and was active against p-nitrophenyl esters of $C_4$, $C_8$, and $C_{14}$. Remarkably, this enzyme retained much of its activity in the presence of commercial detergents and organic solvents. This cold-adapted esterase will be applicable as catalysts for reaction in the presence of organic solvents and detergents.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.1501-1510
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• 2011

In recent years novel potential pharmocological candidates have been looked for in animal, seaweed, sponge, fungi and marine bacteria resources. In this study, matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) that play an important role in metastasis, arthritis, chronic inflammation and wrinkle formation were used as target enzymes to screen therapeutic agents. The inhibitory effects of several marine algae including green algae (5 species), red algae (18 species) and brown algae (4 species) methanolic extracts on MMPs were investigated in human dermal fibroblasts and human fibrosarcoma cell line (HT1080 cells) using gelatin zymography. In human dermal fibroblasts, the inhibition of MMP-2 was observed in Laurencia okamurae, Polysiphonia japonica, Grateloupia lanceolate and Sinkoraena lancifolia of red algae. In contrast, MMP-2 activation was enhanced in Enteromorpha compressa and E. linza of green algae, and Peltaronia bighamiae and Sargassum thunbergii of brown algae. In human fibrosarcoma cells, MMP-9 activation was decreased in the presence of S. thunbergii of brown algae, Polysiphonia japonica in red algae and E. compressa and E. linza of green algae. The interesting finding is that E. compressa and E. linza of green algae, and S. thunbergii of brown algae exhibited a positive effect on MMP-2 in normal cells, but a negative effect on MMP-9 in cancer cell lines. These results suggest that E. compressa and E. linza of green algae, and S. thunbergii of brown algae contain potential therapeutic ingredients for cancer treatment.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.141-154
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• 2016

This study examined the nature of multi-cultural families' housing problems living in South Korea. A qualitative research was conducted through in-depth interviews with immigrant women from three Southeast Asian countries. The subjects of this study were 15 married immigrants from the Philippine, Cambodia, and Vietnam living in Seoul. The major findings were as follows: firstly, reciprocity for the in-between person and environment: the preferred to blend into Korean society instead of making a community based on national origin. Secondly, intention to housing: all participants were passive about moving and the Vietnamese and Cambodians placed more importance on the family community than the Filipinas. Thirdly, meaning of housing and interaction: for the most important area in the house, the Vietnamese and Cambodians stated that rooms were for a couple and treated family space more importantly than Filipinas who pursuit personal comfort. Fourthly, housing adaptation process: adapting to climate difference between home countries and Korea was the biggest difficulty. Fifthly, residential satisfaction/dissatisfaction: mostly satisfied with housing facilities; however, they were dissatisfied with the number of rooms and house size due to a necessity for personal space. In conclusion, ideas implied from native country of married immigrants in multicultural families did not change significantly in preference of the current environment. The needs for an ethnic community was not great, because they seemed able to assimilate positively by living with a Korean husband and relatives. Gradual assimilation through a cultural acculturation process can be considered desirable.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.95-113
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• 2016

This study investigates the potential for multi-cultural youths, given their innate bilingual and dual culture, to be trained as the competent ODA professionals. For the purpose of collecting information, we organized two different kinds of FGI in 2015. The first FGI was conducted with a group of 10 expert participants from August 17 to September 25. The second FGI was conducted four times, from October 5 to October 23, with 13 adolescents from multi-cultural families from Russia, Mongolia, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Japan, and China. The semi-structured interview items were passed through a formal review process of the Institutional Ethics Committee. Furthermore, with the participants' pre-consent to recording, all recorded data were categorized through the transcription process. The results are as follows. While the potential for nourishing bilingual and dual cultural capabilities are high for the adolescent children of multi-cultural families, the expert group also emphasized the negative aspects of these capabilities being suppressed due to the relatively oppressed family environment. The expert group therefore suggests the following: building parent awareness of ODA human resources, developing an educational career transition roadmap, and providing institutional incentives for ODA. In addition, to some extent, the researchers were able to detect some positive self-esteem among the adolescent children of multi-cultural families as a result of the bilingual and dual cultural competencies required to be ODA personnel. In sum, the research provides insight into the need for national social support for the adolescent children of multi-cultural families, so that their strengths are not extinguished, in order that they might grow up as competent ODA personnel.