• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.48 no.2
• /
• pp.77-87
• /
• 2006

The reuse of wastewater for agricultural irrigation may cause human health risk as a result of exposure to pathogens. This study conducted the quantitative microbial risk assessment in paddy field irrigated with treated wastewater. Six treatments were used to irrigate the paddy field from Year 2003 to Year 2005: biofilter-effluent, UV-disinfected water (6, 16, 40, 68 $mW s cm^{-2}$), pond-treated water, wetland-treated water, conventional irrigation water and tap water. Total coliforms, fecal coliforms and E. coli were monitored during rice growing period. Beta - Poisson model was employed to calculate the microbial risk of pathogens ingestion that may occur to farmers and neighbor children. Uncertainty of risk was estimated using Monte Carlo simulation. In this study, the microbial risk was higher during initial cultivation (end of May$\sim$June), and it decreased with time. Biofilter effluent (secondary effluent) irrigation showed higher risk values than others (>$10^{-4}$) and irrigation with UV-disinfected water has the lowest risk range ($10^{-6}{\sim}10^{-5}$). The risk value estimated in 2005 was lower than risk value in 2003 and 2004, it is likely due to clean tap water irrigation in initial transplanting stage. It is suggested that irrigation with UV-disinfected water and pond-treated water would reduce the microbial risk associated with wastewater irrigation in paddy field. In addition, the first irrigation water quality significantly affected the subsequent microbial risk.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.69-75
• /
• 2009

Water stress has become a major concern in agriculture. Korea suffers from limited agricultural water supply, and wastewater reuse has been recommended as an alternative solution. A study was performed to examine the effects of microorganism concentration in the ponded-water of a paddy rice field with reclaimed-water irrigation for evaluating the microbial risk to farmers and neighborhood children. Most epidemiological studies were performed based on an upland field, and they may not directly applicable to paddy fields. Beta-Poisson model was used to estimate the microbial risk of pathogen ingestion. Their risk value increased significantly high level after irrigation and precipitation. It implies that agricultural activities such as plowing, and fertilizing, and precipitation need be practiced a few days after irrigation considering health risks. The results about field application of the microbial risk assessment using E. coli showed difference according to monitoring time and treatment plot. Result of the microbial risk assessment showed that risk values of ground-water and reclaimed secondary wastewater irrigation were lower than directly use of wastewater treatment plants' effluent. This paper should be viewed as a first step in the application of quantitative microbial risk assessment of E. coli to wastewater reuse in a paddy rice farming.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
• /
• v.17 no.12
• /
• pp.1674-1680
• /
• 2004

The objective of this study was to compare the Dutch DVE/OEB system and the NRC-2001 model in the prediction of supply of protein to dairy cows from processed field tick beans. Comparisons were made in terms of 1) ruminally synthesized microbial CP, 2) truly absorbed protein in the small intestine, and 3) degraded protein balance. The results showed that the predicted values from the DVE/OEB system and the NRC-2001 model had significant correlations with high R (>0.90) values. However, using the DVE/OEB system, the overall average microbial protein supply based on available energy was 16% higher and the truly absorbed protein in the small intestine was 9% higher than that predicted by the NRC-2001 model. The difference was also found in the prediction of the degraded protein balances (DPB), which was 5% lower than that predicted based on data from the NRC-2001 model. These differences are due to considerably different factors used in calculations in the two models, although both are based on similar principles. It need to mention that this comparison was based on the limited data, the full comparison involving various types of concentrate feeds will be investigated in the future.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• v.30 no.6
• /
• pp.429-439
• /
• 2021

Food waste is both an industrial and residential source of pollution, and there has been a great need for food waste reduction. As a preliminary step in this study, waste reduction is quantitatively modeled. This study presents two models based on kinetics: a simple kinetic model and a mass transport-shrinking model. In the simple kinetic model, the smaller is the reaction rate constant ratio k₁, the lower the rate of conversion from the raw material to intermediate products. Accordingly, the total elapsed reaction time becomes shorter. In the mass transport-shrinking model, the smaller is the microbial decomposition resistance versus the liquid mass transfer resistance, the greater is the reduction rate of the radius of spherical waste particles. Results showed that the computed reduction of waste mass in the second model agreed reasonably with that obtained from a few experimantal trials of biodegradation, in which the microbial effect appeared to dominate. All calculations were performed using MATLAB 2020 on PC.

• Food Science and Biotechnology
• /
• v.15 no.5
• /
• pp.664-671
• /
• 2006

Modeling the growth kinetics of lactic acid bacteria (LAB), one of the most valuable microbial groups in the food industry, has been actively pursued in order to understand, control, and optimize the relevant fermentation processes. Most modeling approaches have focused on the development of single population models. Primary single population models provide fundamental kinetic information on the proliferation of a primary LAB species, the effects of biological factors on cell inhibition, and the metabolic reactions associated with cell growth. Secondary single population models can evaluate the dependence of primary model parameters, such as the maximum specific growth rate of LAB, on the initial external environmental conditions. This review elucidates some of the most important single population models that are conveniently applicable to the LAB fermentation analyses. Also, a well-defined mixed population model is presented as a valuable tool for assessing potential microbial interactions during fermentation with multiple LAB species.

• Food Science and Biotechnology
• /
• v.15 no.5
• /
• pp.773-777
• /
• 2006

Growth of Bacillus cereus was assessed during the storage of seasoned soybean sprouts at 0,5, 10, and $15^{\circ}C$. No lag time in its growth curve was observed and thus the specific growth rate of B. cereus in the exponential growth phase was estimated for bootstrapped microbial count data. The distribution of the specific growth rate could be explained by the BetaGeneral distribution function, and temperature dependence was described by the Ratkowsky square root model. The temperature dependence of the growth could be successfully incorporated into the differential equation of microbial growth to predict the B. cereus count on the seasoned soybean sprouts under fluctuating temperature conditions. Safe shelf lives with different probabilities to reach $10^5\;CFU/g$ were presented at four different temperatures, considering the variation in initial contamination and specific growth rate by the Monte Carlo method and 2-step bootstrapping, respectively. Safe shelf lives defined as the time with a probability of less than 0.1% of reaching the critical limit, were 13.4, 5.2, 3.6, and 2.8 days at 0, 5, 10, and $15^{\circ}C$, respectively.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.70-77
• /
• 2003

Theoretical estimation of overall stoichiometry for the microbial degradation of hazardous organic compounds is described. Half-reaction method based on microbial energetics was used in the theoretical estimation. In addition to the half-reaction method, other theoretical methods such as intermediate formation, oxygenation reaction, and estimation of the standard free energy of formation by group contribution theory were also applied. As a case study, the application of these methods was demonstrated for the estimation of microbial kinetics in the biodegradation of phenanthrene which was chosen as a model hazardous organic compound along with glucose and hexadecane. The cell yield, oxygen requirement, nitrogen requirement, and mineralization ratio could be estimated from the overall stoichiometry. It is believed that these theoretical estimation methods are useful tools for practical design and assessment of bioremediation of soil and groundwater contaminated with hazardous organic compounds.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
• /
• v.30 no.3_4
• /
• pp.379-387
• /
• 2003

A lot of microbial genome projects have been completed to pour the enormous amount of genomic sequence data. In this context. the problem of identifying promoters in genomic DNA sequences by computational methods has attracted considerable research attention in recent years. In this paper, we propose a new model of prokaryotic core promoter region including the -10 region and transcription initiation site, that is Dependency-Reflecting Decomposition Model (DRDM), which captures the most significant biological dependencies between positions (allowing for non-adjacent as well as adjacent dependencies). DRDM showed a good result of performance test and it will be employed effectively in predicting promoters in long microbial genomic Contigs.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
• /
• v.40 no.4
• /
• pp.248-259
• /
• 2021

BACKGROUND: Contaminated water was a major source of food-borne pathogens in various recent fresh produce-related outbreaks. This study was conducted to investigate the microbial contamination level and correlations between the level of sanitary indicator bacteria and the detection ratio of pathogens in agricultural water by logistic regression analysis. METHODS AND RESULTS: Agricultural water was collected from 457 sites including surface water (n=300 sites) and groundwater (n=157 sites) in South Korea from 2018 to 2020. Sanitary indicator bacteria (total coliform, fecal coliform, and Escherichia coli) and food-borne pathogens (pathogenic E. coli, E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella spp., and Listeria monocytogenes) were analyzed. In surface water, the coliform, fecal coliform, and E. coli were 3.27±0.89 log CFU/100 mL, 1.90±1.19 log CFU/100 mL, and 1.39±1.26 log CFU/100 mL, respectively. For groundwater, three kinds of sanitary indicators ranged in the level from 0.09 - 0.57 log CFU/100 mL. Pathogenic E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes were detected from 3%-site, 1.5%- site, and 0.6%-site water samples, respectively. According to the results of correlations between the level of sanitary indicator bacteria and the detection ratio of pathogens by logistic regression analysis, the probability of pathogen detection increased individually by 1.45 and 1.34 times as each total coliform and E. coli concentration increased by 1 log CFU/100mL. The accuracy of the model was 70.4%, and sensitivity and specificity were 81.5% and 51.7%, respectively. CONCLUSION(S): The results indicate the need to manage the microbial risk of agricultural water to enhance the safety of fresh produce. In addition, logistic regression analysis is useful to analyze the correlation between the level of sanitary indicator bacteria and the detection ratio of pathogens in agricultural water.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.25 no.6
• /
• pp.759-764
• /
• 2015

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are one of the critical components in host innate immune responses to imbalanced and invading microbial pathogens. Although the antimicrobial activity and mechanism of action have been thoroughly investigated for decades, the exact biological properties of AMPs are still elusive. Most AMPs generally exert the antimicrobial effect by targeting the microbial membrane, such as barrel stave, toroidal, and carpet mechanisms. Thus, the mode of action in model membranes and the discrimination of AMPs to discrepant lipid compositions between mammalian cells and microbial pathogens (cell selectivity) have been studied intensively. However, the latest reports suggest that not only AMPs recently isolated but also well-known membrane-disruptive AMPs play a role in intracellular killing, such as apoptosis induction. In this mini-review, we will review some representative AMPs and their antimicrobial mechanisms and provide new insights into the dual mechanism of AMPs.