• Korean Journal of Plant Tissue Culture
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.203-211
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• 2000

In this study to produce large-scale scopolamine we were examined in the tumor calli of Datura metel L. induced by Agrobacterium tumefaciens $Ery{101}$. The growth and scopolamine contents of tumor calli were higher under light condition than in dark. The optimum condition of growth and scopolamine production were fluence rate of 16 $\mu$mol $m^{-2}s^{-1}$, spectra of red light region and 16 hour light periods on 50 mL SH liquid medium in 4 weeks culture. To increase of the scopolamine contents in tumor calli, the optimum concentration of nitrogen source were 1.8 mM NH$_4$+ and 40 mM NO$_3$. The optimum elicitor concentration for production of scopolamine were 10 mg/L chitosan and 15 mg/L yeast extract. The effect of precursors were good at the concentration of 0.2 mM tropine and 0.3 mM tropic acid, respectively. In order to increase of growth and scopolamine contents. we induced mutant from Datura metel L. tumor callus. Mutants of tumor calli were obtained by 3 Krad, 4 Krad and 6 Krad of ${60}^Cor-ray$. Among them, 3 Krad tumor callus was excellent on the growth and teratoma induction. The 4 Krad tumor callus was negligible for both growth and teratoma induction. But the 6 Krad tumor callus was the best in growth and teratoma induction. The formation of the mutant calli can be enhanced through hormonal combination of 1 mg/L 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 0.5 mg/L benzyladenine. We carry out selection mutant tumor calli for high content tropane alkaloid and suspension cultures for scopolamine production.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.315-324
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• 1991

Each of SPF chicken(Hi-Line strain, 2-day-old males) was inoculated with 2.5 or $5\times10^4$ oocysts by stomach tube. The oocyst was the medium type of Cryptosporidium previously isolated from Korean chicken origin, and passed in 2-day-old SPF chicken. The patterns of oocyst discharge were monitored daily, and in order to observe the ultrastructure of the developmental stages, the bursa of Fabricius of the chicken was examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) on the 12th day postinoculation. The prepatent period for 8 chicken was 5.9 days postinoculation on the average, and the patent period was 12.9 days. The number of oocysts discharged per day for the chicken was reached peak on day 12 postinoculation on the average. A large number of oocysts was found in fecal samples obtained from inoculated chicken on days 8~14 postinoculation. The ultrastructural feature of almost every developmental stage of the medium type from chicken was very similar to that of Cryptosporidium previously isolated from mammalia including human and birds except for the attachment site of C. tsuris to the mucus cell from mammalia, but dimension of the oocysts from fecal samples of the medium type was different from those of C. meleagridis and mammalia origin. The above results reveal that the medium type of Cryptosporidium of Korean chicken origin is identified as Cryptosporidium baileyi.

• Journal of Genetic Medicine
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.11-15
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• 2020

Purpose: The objective of this study was to analyze the results of several noninvasive prenatal tests (NIPTs) from a single center and confirm their efficacy and reliability. In addition, we aimed to confirm the changes in the number of invasive tests performed after introducing NIPT. Materials and Methods: NIPT data from a large single center from March 2014 to November 2018 were analyzed. Karyotyping was confirmed based on chorionic villus sampling, amniocentesis, or postnatal cord/peripheral blood sampling. Data on maternal age, gestational age, fetal fraction, and ultrasonographic results were analyzed. As the secondary outcome, the number of amniocentesis cases before and after the introduction of NIPT was compared. Results: Overall, 1,591 single pregnancy cases that underwent NIPT were enrolled. The mean maternal age was 36.05 (22-45) years. The average gestational age and fetal fraction were 12⁺¹ (9⁺³ to 27⁺¹) weeks and 10.95% (3.6% to 31.3%), respectively. A total of 1,544 cases (97.0%) were reported to have negative NIPT results and 40 (2.5%) had positive NIPT results. The sensitivity and specificity of the overall abnormalities in NIPT were 96.29% and 99.36%, respectively. The positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value were 72.22% and 99.93% respectively. The mean number of amniocentesis cases were 21.7 per month (21.7±3.9), which significantly decreased from 31.5 per month (31.5±4.8) before conducting NIPT as a screening test. Conclusion: NIPT is currently a useful, powerful, and safe screening test. In particular, trisomy 21 is highly specific due to its high PPV. NIPT can reduce the potential risks of procedure-related miscarriages during invasive testing.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.99-111
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• 2009

The result of Image segmentation, an indispensable process in image processing, significantly affects the analysis of an image. Despite the significance of image segmentation, it produces some problems when the variation of pixel values is large, or the boundary between background and an object is not clear. Also, these problems occur frequently when many objects in an image are placed very close by. In this paper, when the shape of objects in an image is circular, we proposed an algorithm which segment an each object in an image using the geometric characteristic of circular shape. The proposed algorithm is composed of 4 steps. First is the boundary edge extraction of whole object. Second step is to find the candidate points for further segmentation using the boundary edge in the first step. Calculating the representative circles using the candidate points is the third step. Final step is to draw the line connecting the overlapped points produced by the several erosions and dilations of the representative circles. To verify the efficiency of the proposed algorithm, the algorithm is compared with the three well-known cell segmentation algorithms. Comparison is conducted by the number of segmented region and the correctness of the inner segment line. As the result, the proposed algorithm is better than the well-known algorithms in both the number of segmented region and the correctness of the inner segment line by 16.7% and 21.8%, respectively.

• The Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.175-184
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• 1987

The use of alkylating agent cyclophosphamide(CY), a widely used antitumor drug is well known as a potent immunosuppressant and has been used as a probe for investigating the functional capabilities of lymphocyte subsets of both T and B cells that play an important role in the regulation of the immune response. The present study was undertaken in an effort to assess the effects of CY on immunological memory in murine model. CY, given as a single dose of CY(250mg/kg) before sensitization with sheep red blood cells(SRBC) enhanced the primary response of Arthus and delayed-type hypersensitivity(DTH), as measured by footpad swelling reaction, but suppressed their tertiary DTH response. The similar CY pretreatment enhanced both the primary and tertiary hemagglutinin(HA) responses to SRBC, and the tertiary antibody response against polyvinylpyrroridone(PVP), a thymus-independent antigen but not the primary response against PVP. CY, given as a single dose of 250mg/kg 2 days before the primary immunization and two doses of 100mg/kg 2 days before the secondary and tertiary immunization, markedly suppressed the tertiary DTH and HA responses to SRBC. However, CY, given as small multiple daily doses(10mg/kg) over 4 days before sensitization but not after sensitization, enhanced the secondary HA response to SRBC. Contact sensitivity to dinitrofluorobenzene(DNFB) was suppressed by the drug, given either as a single large dose(300mg/kg) or as multiple dose(10mg/kg) administered 2 days before, together with or after DNFB sensitization. This suppression was more pronounced and more significant when CY was given as multiple dose. However, the enhancement of the secondary contact sensitivity to DNFB by CY was not clear-cut. The splenectomy appears to increase the enhancing effect of CY on contact sensitivity. These results suggest that CY selectively influences the immune response depending on the time of the drug administration relative to immunization and that the secondary or tertiary immune response involve memory cells with different susceptibilities to CY. Moreover, these results suggest that multiple low doses may sesectivley inhibit suppressor T cell proliferation involving DTH, HA or contact sensitivity without effecting helper T cells, but high doses presumably inhibit helper T cells and suppressor T cells with effecting B cells.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartD
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• v.16D no.4
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• pp.487-496
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• 2009

This paper addresses an indexing scheme capable of efficiently processing range queries in a large-scale trajectory database. After discussing the drawbacks of previous indexing schemes, we propose a new scheme that divides the temporal dimension into multiple time intervals and then, by this interval, builds an index for the line segments. Additionally, a supplementary index is built for the line segments within each time interval. This scheme can make a dramatic improvement in the performance of insert and search operations using a main memory index, particularly for the time interval consisting of the segments taken by those objects which are currently moving or have just completed their movements, as contrast to the previous schemes that store the index totally on the disk. Each time interval index is built as follows: First, the extent of the spatial dimension is divided onto multiple spatial cells to which the line segments are assigned evenly. We use a 2D-tree to maintain information on those cells. Then, for each cell, an additional 3D $R^*$-tree is created on the spatio-temporal space (x, y, t). Such a multi-level indexing strategy can cure the shortcomings of the legacy schemes. Performance results obtained from intensive experiments show that our scheme enhances the performance of retrieve operations by 3$\sim$10 times, with much less storage space.

• Korean Journal of Breeding Science
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.252-260
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• 2009

Rice is the most important cereal crop not only in supplying the basic staple food for more than half of the world's population but also as a model plant for functional genomic studies of monocotyledons. Although rice transformation method using A. tumefaciens has already been widely used to generate transgenic plants, the transformation rate is still low in most Korean elite cultivars. We made several modifications of the standard protocol especially in the co-cultivation step to improve the efficiency of the rice transformation. The co-culture medium was modified by the addition of three antioxidant compounds (10.5 mg/L L-cysteine, 1 mM sodium thiosulfate, 1 mM dithiothreitol) and of Agrobacterium growth-inhibiting agent (5 mg/L silver nitrate). Co-cultivation temperature ($23.5^{\circ}C$ for 1 day, $26.5^{\circ}C$ for 6 days) and duration (7 days) were also changed. The plasmid of pMJC-GB-GUS carrying the GUS reporter gene and the bar gene as the selectable marker was used to evaluate the efficiency of the transformation. After co-cultivation, a high level of GUS gene expression was observed in calli treated with the modified method. It is likely that those newly added compounds helped to minimize the damage due to oxidative bursts during plant cell-Agrobacterium interaction and to prevent necrosis of rice cells. And the transformation rate under the modified method was also remarkably increased approximately 8-fold in Heungnambyeo and 2-fold in Ilmibyeo as compared to the corresponding standard method. Furthermore, we could produce the transgenic plants stably from Ilpumbyeo which is a high-quality rice but its transformation rate is extremely low. Transformation and the copy number of transgenes were confirmed by PCR, bar strip and Southern blot analysis. The improved method would attribute reducing the effort and the time required to produce a large number of transgenic rice plants.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.75-80
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• 2019

Silicon solar cells have been widely used as a most promising renewable energy source due to eco-friendliness and high efficiency. As modules of silicon solar cells are connected in series for a practical electricity generation, a large voltage of 500-1,500 V is applied to the modules inevitably. Potential-induced degradation (PID), a deterioration of the efficiency and maximum power output by the continuously applied high voltage between the module frames and solar cells, has been regarded as the major cause that reduces the lifetime of silicon solar cells. In particular, the migration of the $Na^+$ ions from the front glass into Si through the anti-reflection coating and the accumulation of $Na^+$ ions at stacking faults inside Si have been reported as the reason of PID. In this research, the thickness effect of $SiO_x$ layer that can block the migration of $Na^+$ ions on the reduction of PID is investigated as it is incorporated between anti-reflection coating and p-n junction in p-type PERC solar cells. From the measurement of shunt resistance, efficiency, and maximum power output after the continuous application of 1,000 V for 96 hours, it is revealed that the thickness of $SiO_x$ layer should be larger than 7-8 nm to reduce PID effectively.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.397-403
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• 2015

Heavy metals reduce the photosynthetic efficiency and disrupt metabolic reactions in a concentration-dependent manner. Moreover, by replacing the metal ions in metalloproteins that use essential metal ions, such as Cu, Zn, Mn, and Fe, as co-factors, heavy metals ultimately lead to the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). These, in turn, cause destruction of the cell membrane through lipid peroxidation, and eventually cause the plant to necrosis. Given the aforementioned factors, this study was aimed to understand the physiological responses of rice to cadmium (Cd) and arsenic (As) toxicity and the effect of essential metal ions on homeostasis. In order to confirm the level of physiological inhibition caused by heavy metal toxicity, hydroponically grown rice (Oryza sativa L. cv. Dongjin) plants were exposed with $0-50{\mu}M$ cadmium (Cd, $CdCl_2$) and arsenic (As, $NaAsO_2$) at 3-leaf stage, and then investigated malondialdehyde (MDA) contents after 7 days of the treatment. With increasing concentrations of Cd and As, the MDA content in leaf blade and root increased with a consistent trend. At 14 days after treatment with $30{\mu}M$ Cd and As, plant height showed no significant difference between Cd and As, with an identical reduction. However, As caused a greater decline than Cd for shoot fresh weight, dry weight, and water content. The largest amounts of Cd and As were found in the roots and also observed a large amount of transport to the leaf sheath. Interestingly, in terms of Cd transfer to the shoot parts of the plant, it was only transported to upper leaf blades, and we did not detect any Cd in lower leaf blades. However, As was transferred to a greater level in lower leaf blades than in upper leaf blades. In the roots, Cd inhibited Zn absorption, while As inhibited Cu uptake. Furthermore, in the leaf sheath, while Cd and As treatments caused no change in Cu homeostasis, they had an antagonist effect on the absorption of Zn. Finally, in both upper and lower leaf blades, Cd and As toxicity was found to inhibit absorption of both Cu and Zn. Based on these results, it would be considered that heavy metal toxicity causes an increase in lipid peroxidation. This, in turn, leads to damage to the conductive tissue connecting the roots, leaf sheath, and leaf blades, which results in a reduction in water content and causes several physiological alterations. Furthermore, by disrupting homeostasis of the essential metal ions, Cu and Zn, this causes complete heavy metal toxicity.

• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.39.18-39.18
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• 2021

Background: Interferon lambda receptor 1 (IFNLR1) is a type II cytokine receptor that clings to interleukins IL-28A, IL29B, and IL-29 referred to as type III IFNs (IFN-λs). IFN-λs act through the JAK-STAT signaling pathway to exert antiviral effects related to preventing and curing an infection. Although the immune function of IFN-λs in virus invasion has been described, the molecular mechanism of IFNLR1 in that process is unclear. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to elucidate the role of IFNLR1 in the pathogenesis and treatment of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV). Methods: The effects of IFNLR1 on the proliferation of porcine alveolar macrophages (PAMs) during PRRSV infection were investigated using interference and overexpression methods. Results: In this study, the expressions of the IFNLR1 gene in the liver, large intestine, small intestine, kidney, and lung tissues of Dapulian pigs were significantly higher than those in Landrace pigs. It was determined that porcine IFNLR1 overexpression suppresses PRRSV replication. The qRT-PCR results revealed that overexpression of IFNLR1 upregulated antiviral and IFN-stimulated genes. IFNLR1 overexpression inhibits the proliferation of PAMs and upregulation of p-STAT1. By contrast, knockdown of IFNLR1 expression promotes PAMs proliferation. The G0/G1 phase proportion in IFNLR1-overexpressing cells increased, and the opposite change was observed in IFNLR1-underexpressing cells. After inhibition of the JAK/STAT signaling pathway, the G2/M phase proportion in the IFNLR1-overexpressing cells showed a significant increasing trend. In conclusion, overexpression of IFNLR1 induces activation of the JAK/STAT pathway, thereby inhibiting the proliferation of PAMs infected with PRRSV. Conclusion: Expression of the IFNLR1 gene has an important regulatory role in PRRSV-infected PAMs, indicating it has potential as a molecular target in developing a new strategy for the treatment of PRRSV.