• Atmosphere
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.277-290
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• 2017

Characteristics of precipitation in South Korea during the 2016 Changma period (6/18~7/30) are analyzed in great details. El $Ni{\tilde{n}}o$-induced tropical Indian Ocean (IO) basin-wide warming lasts from spring to early summer and induces the western North Pacific subtropical high (WNPSH) circulation anomaly through an equatorial Kelvin wave during the 2016 Changma period. Along the northern edge of the WNPSH, strong precipitation occurred, in particular, over eastern China and southern Japan. During the Changma period, South Korea had the near-normal mean precipitation amount (~332 mm). However, about 226 mm of rain fell in South Korea during 1 July to 6 July, which amounts to 67% of total Changma precipitation in that year. Upper-level synoptic migratory lows and low-level moisture transport played an essential role, especially from 1 July to 3 July, in triggering an abrupt development of fronts over the Korean Peninsula and the eastern continent China. The front over the eastern China migrates progressively eastward, which results in heavy rainfall over the Korean peninsula from 1 to 3 July. In contrast, from 4 to 6 July, the typhoon (NEPARTAK) affected an abrupt northward advance of the North Pacific subtropical high (NPSH). The northward extension of the NPSH strengthens the Changma front and induces the southerly flows toward the Korean peninsula, giving rise to an increase in heavy rainfall. The NEPARTAK is generated due to interaction of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), equatorial Rossby wave and Kelvin waves.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.146-151
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• 2017

Six major outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) occurred from 2003 to 2016 in Korea. Epidemiological investigations of each outbreak revealed that migratory birds were the primary source of the HPAI virus. During the last five years, the geographic transmission pattern of domestic HPAI seems to have extended from local to nationwide; therefore, it is necessary to identify specific locations in which poultry farms are at elevated risk for HPAI outbreak to enable targeted surveillance and other mitigation strategies. Here, a geographical information system (GIS)-based analysis was used to identify geographic areas at high risk for future HPAI incidents in Korea based on historical outbreak data collected between December 2003 and April 2016. To accomplish this, seven criteria were used to identify areas at high-risk for HPAI occurrence. The first three criteria were based on defined spatial criteria buffering of 200 bird migration sites to some defined extents and the historical incidence of HPAI outbreaks at the buffering sites. The remaining criteria were based on combined attribute information such as number of birds or farms at district levels. Based on the criteria established for this study, the most-likely areas at higher risk for HPAI outbreak were located in Chungcheong, Jeolla, Gyeonggi, and Gyeongnam provinces, which are densely populated poultry regions considered major poultry-production areas that are located along bird migration sites. The proportion of areas at risk for HPAI occurrence ranged from 4.5% to 64.9%. For the worst criteria, all nine provinces, including Jeju Island, were found to be at risk of HPAI. The results of this study indicate that the number of poultry farms at risk for HPAI outbreaks is largely underestimated by current regulatory risk assessment procedures conducted for biosecurity authorization. The HPAI risk map generated in this study will enable easy use of information by policy makers to identify surveillance zones and employ targeted surveillance to reduce the impact of HPAI transmission.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.43-56
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• 1998

The purpose of this study is to identify distributional characteristics of climatic elements and to analyze synoptic characteristics on the pressure fields for spring droughts in Korea. In the distributions of minimum temperature during the spring droughts, positive anomalies and negative anomalies are mixed up, but in March the negative anomaly areas are widely distributed in Korea. It implies that the droughts of March have more frequent occurrences of the west-high, east-low pressure patterns. In the maximum air temperatures, the positive anomalies appear in Korea. It indicates that the spring droughts have rain days, cloud amount and humidities less than normal. As a result, the amount of evaporation is increased in Korea. In the pressure anomaly of surface pressure fields, the positive anomalies appear in the west, negative anomalies in the east in March, but in May the positive anomalies appeared zonally around the Korean peninsula. It indicates that March droughts have more frequent occurrences of the west-high. east-low patterns, but in May the Korean Peninsula has more frequent recurrences of the migratory anticyclone patterns. The height anomaly patterns of 500hPa pressure surface in spring droughts are similarly shown to those of surface fields. In March droughts, the positive height anomalies appear in the west, the negative height anomalies in the east, but in April the negative height anomaly areas are extended to the west part. In May the positive anomalies appear zonally around the Korean Peninsula, and strong positive height anomalies appear around the Kamchatka Peninsula and the sea of Okhotsk. These are the result of circulations that inhibit the eastward movement of westerlies and that has persistent anticyclone circulation patterns around the Korean Peninsula. As a result, the zonal indices of westerlies during March and April droughts are lower than normal, but higher in May. These data indicate that early spring droughts are associated with weak zonal flow, but the late spring droughts are obviously related with strong zonal flow. In addition, during early spring droughts the abnormally deep trough over the west coast of the North Pacific Ocean that accompanied the anticyclone was associated with frequent advection of air from the dry regions in the Central Asia into the Korean Peninsula. The atmospheric circulation patterns at the height of the 500hPa pressure surface in May was quite different from March and April circulation patterns. Instead of the abnormal ridge in the west and trough in the east, the circulation pattern in May was characterized by a much stronger than normal anticyclone over the Korean Peninsula. Also, the zonal indices of westerlies in May are higher than normal. The occurrences of drought in early spring, therefore, have mechanism different from those of late spring.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.14-20
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• 2015

We created species richness maps of mammals, birds and plants using "Nnational Ecosystem Survey" data and identified correlations between species richness maps of each taxa. We examine the distribution of species richness of each taxa and calculated conservation priority rank through plotting species-area curves using an additive benefit function in Zonation. The conclusions of this study are as follows. First, plant showed high species richness in Gangwon province and Baekdudaegan, and mammals showed high species richness at eastern slope of Baekdudaegan in Gangwon province unusually and the species richness of mammals distributed equally except Gyeonggi and Chungnam province. However, birds showed high species richness in the west costal because the area is the major route of winter migratory birds. Second, correlation of each taxa's distribution is not significant. Correlation between mammals and birds is positive but correlations between birds and others are negative. Because mammals inhabit in forest but birds mostly live in coastal wetlands and rivers. Therefore, bird's habitats are not shared with other habitats. Third, the probability of mammals occurrence is very low under 25% in species-area curve, others increase proportionally to area. Birds increase dramatically richness at 10% because bird's habitat is concentrated in coastal wetlands and rivers. Plants increased gently species richness due to large forest in Gangwon province. We can calculate the predicted number of species in curves and plan various conservation strategies using the marginal number of species. Finally, high priority ranks for conservation distributed mainly in Gangwon province and Baekdudaegan. When we compared with priority map and terrestrial national parks, the parks were evaluated as high priority ranks. However, the rank of parks away from Baekdudaegan was low. This study has the meaning of selecting conservation priority area using National Ecosystem Survey. In spite of the omission of survey data in national parks and Baekdudaegan, the results were good. Therefore, the priority rank method using species distribution models is useful to selecting protected areas and improving conservation plans. However, it is needed to select protected areas considering various evaluation factors, such as rarity, connectivity, representativeness, focal species and so on because there is a limit to select protected area only using species richness.

• Korean Journal of Ichthyology
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.191-199
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• 2009

Fisheries resources collected by set net in the Mizo fishing ground off Namhae Island were studied from March to December 2004 to determine species composition and catch variation. The water temperature of the fishing ground ranged $10.9{\sim}25.1^{\circ}C$ A total of 69,147.5 kg comprising 39 species was caught during the survey period. Most of the catch was fishes (33 species); others included cephalopods (5 species) and crustaceans (1 species). The dominant species were migratory, such as Trichiurus lepturus, Ammodytes personatus, Engraulis japonicus, and Scomberomorus niphonius, and accounted for 81.2% of the total catch. Sub-dominant species were Sardinops melanostictus, Acanthopagrus schlegeli, shrimps, and Todarodes pacificus, but they accounted for only 12.1% of the total. The catch by set net during the fishing period was much higher in spring and in autumn than in summer, relating to the recruitment of dominant species. Although the number of species had a tendency to decreased after summer, the catch in autumn was also higher than that in spring due to high temperatures (>$17^{\circ}C$ and seasonal variation of dominant species. The dominant species in spring were A. personatus and E. japonicus and in autumn were T. lepturus, S. niphonius, and E. japonicus.

• ALGAE
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.139-153
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• 2017

The ability of a red tide species to take up nutrients is a critical factor affecting its red tide dynamics and species competition. Nutrient uptake by red tide species has been conventionally measured by incubating nutrient-depleted cells for a short period at 1 or 2 light intensities. This method may be applicable to certain conditions under which cells remain in oligotrophic water for a long time and high nutrients are suddenly introduced. Thus, a new method should be developed that can be applicable to the conditions under which cells are maintained in eutrophicated waters in healthy conditions and experience light and dark cycles and different light intensities during vertical migration. In this study, a new repletion method reflecting these conditions was developed. The nitrate uptake rates of the red tide dinoflagellate Prorocentrum micans originally maintained in nitrate repletion and depletion conditions as a function of nitrate concentration were measured. With increasing light intensity from 10 to $100{\mu}E\;m^{-2}s^{-1}$, the maximum nitrate uptake rate ($V_{max}$) of P. micans increased from 3.6 to $10.8 pM\;cell^{-1}d^{-1}$ and the half saturation constant ($K_{s-NO3}$) increased from 4.1 to $6.9{\mu}M$. At $20{\mu}E\;m^{-2}s^{-1}$, the $V_{max}$ and $K_{s-NO3}$ of P. micans originally maintained in a nitrate repletion condition were similar to those maintained in a nitrate depletion condition. Thus, differences in cells under nutrient repletion and depletion conditions may not affect $K_{s-NO3}$ and $V_{max}$. Moreover, different light intensities may cause differences in the nitrate uptake of migratory phototrophic dinoflagellates.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.288-292
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• 2009

Interactions between tumor cells and the extracellular matrix (ECM) strongly influence tumor development, affecting cell survival, proliferation and migration. Fibronectin, a major component of ECM, has been shown to interact with integrins especially the ${\alpha}5{\beta}1$ integrin. Cell invasion and metastasis are often associated with matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) which are capable of digesting the different components of the ECM and basement membrane. MMP-2 is produced as a latent pro-MMP-2 (72 kDa) to be activated, resulting the 62 kDa active MMP-2. In this study, we investigated the effect of fibronectin on activation of pro-MMP-2 and the cellular invasiveness in H-Ras-transformed MCF10A human breast epithelial cells. Here we show that fibronectin induces activation of pro-MMP-2 and up-regulation of MT1-MMP and TIMP-2 in H-Ras MCF10A cells. These results demonstrate that H-Ras MCF10A cells secrete high levels of active MMP-2 when cultured with fibronectin, suggesting a possible interaction between the ECM network and H-Ras MCF10A cells to generate active MMP-2 which is important for proteolysis and ECM remodeling. Invasive and migratory abilities of H-Ras MCF10A cells were enhanced by fibronectin. Fibronectin up-regulated the expression of ${\beta}1$ integrin which may play a role in cellular responses exerted by fibronectin. Since acquisition of pro-MMP-2 activation can be associated with increased malignant progression, this study provides a mechanism for the cell surface-matrix degrading effect of fibronectin which will be crucial to breast cell invasion and migration.

• Korean Journal of Ichthyology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.184-190
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• 1999

A total of 43 species, 493 individuals, and 89,367.1 g of fishes were collected by a gill net in the coastal water off Goeje Island. Samples were collected by bimonthly from February to October, 1996. The dominant species were Stephanolepis cirrhifer, Ditrema temmincki, Hexagrammos otakii, Limanda yokohamae, Sebastes schlegeli, Paralichthys olivaceus, which accounted for 61.7% of the total numbers and 66.3% of biomass of fish collected. Fishes collected in the study area were mainly consisted of coastal species, but a few fishes were migratory species including Stephanolepis cirrhifer, Pleuroniohthys cornutus, Paralichthys oliuaceus, Thamnaconus modestus, Pagrus major, Engraulis japonicus. The number of species and abundance showed a peak in October, and low in February. Monthly species diversity indices ranged between 1.99 and 2.81, and high in June.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.95-105
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• 2020

Purpose: Gastric cancer is a highly metastatic malignant tumor, often characterized by chemoresistance and high mortality. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the role of B-cell lymphoma 3 (Bcl-3) protein on cell migration and chemosensitivity of gastric cancer. Materials and Methods: The gastric cancer cell lines, AGS and NCI-N87, were used for the in vitro studies and the in vivo studies were performed using BALB/c nude mice. Western blotting, wound healing assay, Cell Counting Kit-8 assay, immunohistochemistry, and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling assay were used to evaluate the role of Bcl-3 in gastric cancer. Results: We found that the protein expression of hypoxia (HYP)-inducible factor-1α and Bcl-3 were markedly upregulated under hypoxic conditions in both AGS and NCI-N87 cells in a time-dependent manner. Interestingly, small interfering RNA-mediated knockdown of Bcl-3 expression affected the migration and chemosensitivity of the gastric cancer cells. AGS and NCI-N87 cells transfected with si-RNA-Bcl-3 (si-Bcl-3) showed significantly reduced migratory ability and increased chemosensitivity to oxaliplatin, 5-fluorouracil, and irinotecan. In addition, si-Bcl-3 restored the autophagy induced by HYP. Further, the protective role of si-Bcl-3 on the gastric cancer cells could be reversed by the autophagy inducer, rapamycin. Importantly, the in vivo xenograft tumor experiments showed similar results. Conclusions: Our present study reveals that Bcl-3 knockdown inhibits cell migration and chemoresistance of gastric cancer cells through restoring HYP-induced autophagy.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.209-215
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• 2018

To evaluate the radical scavenging activity of phenolic-rich fractions of Gardenia jasminoides, we first measured the levels of total polyphenols in hexane, ethyl acetate, and butanol fractions from the extract of G. jasminoides. The ethyl acetate fraction of G. jasminoides extract (GJ-EA) showed high level of phenolics, potent reducing power, and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl/2,2'-azino-bis 3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid radical scavenging effect. In addition, GJ-EA inhibited the overproduction of nitric oxide in lipopolysaccharide-activated BV-2 microglia. Furthermore, we found that GJ-EA suppressed $H_2O_2$-induced PANC-1 pancreatic cancer cell proliferation in a concentration-dependent manner and also reduced their migratory ability. These results suggest that GJ-EA may be a good source for functional foods with antioxidant and chemo-preventive activities.