• Carbon letters
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2016

Lignocellulosic biomass conversion to biofuels such as ethanol and other value-added bio-products including activated carbons has attracted much attention. The development of an efficient, cost-effective, and eco-friendly pretreatment process is a major challenge in lignocellulosic biomass to biofuel conversion. Although several modern pretreatment technologies have been introduced, few promising technologies have been reported. Microwave irradiation or microwave-assisted methods (physical and chemical) for pretreatment (disintegration) of biomass have been gaining popularity over the last few years owing to their high heating efficiency, lower energy requirements, and easy operation. Acid and alkali pretreatments assisted by microwave heating meanwhile have been widely used for different types of lignocellulosic biomass conversion. Additional advantages of microwave-based pretreatments include faster treatment time, selective processing, instantaneous control, and acceleration of the reaction rate. The present review provides insights into the current research and advantages of using microwave-assisted pretreatment technologies for the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to fermentable sugars in the process of cellulosic ethanol production.

• Korean Journal of Plant Tissue Culture
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.263-271
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• 2001

Inoculated anthers of Capsicum annuum L. were subjected to 4 and 32$^{\circ}C$ pretreatment and their influence on the microspore viability, early cytological changes and the induction frequency of microspore embryo was investigated. Viability of freshly isolated microspores was between 62 and 64%. During temperature pretreatment, microspore viability showed a rapid decrease and this tendency enhanced with the 32$^{\circ}C$ pretreatment. Irrespective of temperature pretreatment, microspore viability declined to nearly zero after nine days. Before temperature pretreatment, most of the microspores in anthers were at late uninucleate stage. Several types of multinuclear microspores appeared from the 2 day after culture onwards, together with many degenerated and non-induced microspores. The 32$^{\circ}C$ pretreatment gave higher proportions of embryogenic microspore than other treatment. However, the temperature pretreatment had no clear effect on the frequencies of symmetrical binucleate rnicrospore. The multinucleate grains might originate either by symmetrical or asymmetrical division. After 2 days of pretreatment at 25 and 32$^{\circ}C$ , degenerated microspore increased above 50%. In contrast, during 4$^{\circ}C$ treatment, nucleus of most microspores remained intact for 14 days. The 32$^{\circ}C$ pretreatment produced more embryos than 4$^{\circ}C$ treatment. The most effective period of 32$^{\circ}C$ pretreatment was 4 days. In contrast, effective period of 4$^{\circ}C$ pretreatment was 2 days and longer time had deleterious effect on induction of microspore embryo.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.135-144
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• 1999

The purposes of this study were to survey types of pretreatment methods adopted by industrial hygiene laboratories in Korea for extracting heavy metals in welding fume samples and to compare performances of two pretreatment methods, the acid extraction and the microwave digestion, in extracting heavy metals contained in the real workplace samples from various welding jobs including arc, argon, and carbon dioxide. A total of 25 analytical chemists in the industrial hygiene laboratories participating the quality control program directed by the Korea Industrial Safety Corporation were interviewed by telephone. For the purpose of comparing performance of extracting heavy metals from real workplace samples, a total of 53 welders from 21 workplaces located in Anyang, Uiwang, and Kunpo areas were sampled from the period of March 22, 1999 to April 20, 1999. It was found that the most frequently adopted method for samples from the quality control program was the acid extraction method(40%) followed by the NIOSH 7300 method(36%). The NIOSH method, however, was the dominant method(36%) for samples from workplace followed by the acid extraction method(28%). In this study, two extraction methods, the acid extraction and the microwave digestion, were compared in terms of recovery rate, accuracy, and precision for both manganese and chromium. Both methods produced comparable results for the samples prepared for the quality control program. In contrast, concentrations of two heavy metals determined from real workplace samples pretreated with the microwave digestion method were statis tically significantly higher, manganese(166%) and chromium (200%), than those of utilizing the acid extraction method. These findings were consistent regardless of types of welding techniques used. The results of this study clearly show the importance of verifying the analytical performances of extraction methods for heavy metals not only for the samples from the quality control program but also from the real world samples collected from welding jobs.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.73-78
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• 1992

The solubilizations of Australian lignite by the fungus Poria cocos, Trichodermareesei, Candide tropicalis, and niger were investigated. Three different types of chemical pretreatment methods were used for increasing biosolubility of lignite. Nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide were proven to be proper chemical pretreatment materials of Australian lignite. Poria cocos showed much better solubilization ability than other strains. Interpretation of the nature of coal solubilization by Poria cocos was based primarily on infrared, ultraviolet and nuclear magnetic resonance spectrum analyses.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.137-144
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• 2012

Among various pretreatment processes for bioethanol production, extrusion pretreatment, one of cheap and simple process was investigated to efficiently produce fermentable sugars from micro alga, Chlorella sp. The biomass was pretreated in a single screw extruder at five different barrel temperatures of 45, 50, 55, 60 and $65^{\circ}C$, respectively with five screw rotation speed of 10, 50, 100, 150 and 200 rpm. The pretreated biomass was reacted with two different hydrolyzing enzymes of cellulase and amyloglucosidase since the biomass contained different types of carbohydrates, compared to cellulose of agricultural by-products such wheat and corn stovers, etc. In general, higher glucose conversion yield was obtained as 13.24 (%, w/w) at $55^{\circ}C$ of barrel temperature and 100 rpm of screw speed conditions. In treating 5 FPU/glucan of cellulase and 150 Unit/mL of amyloglucosidase, ca. 64% of cellulose and 40% of polysaccharides in the micro alga were converted into glucose, which was higher yields than those from other reported data without applying an extrusion process. 84% of the fermentable sugars obtained from the hyrolyzing processes were fermented into ethanol in considering 50% of theoretical maximum fermentation yield of the yeast. These results implied that high speed extrusion could be suitable as a pretreatment process for the production of bioethanol from Chlorella sp.

• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.50-58
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• 2020

Sphacelaria is a filamentous brown algal genus that can be epibiotic on macroalgae, marine plants, and sea turtles. Its important role in benthic ecosystems, exposure to different stressors (e.g., grazing), and use as a model organism make Sphacelaria ideal for assessing physiological responses of organisms to environmental inputs. Single-cell RNA sequencing is a powerful new probe for understanding environmental responses of organisms at the molecular (transcriptome) level, capable of delineating gene regulation in different cell types. In the case of plants, this technique requires protoplasts ("naked" plant cells). The existing protoplast isolation protocols for Sphacelaria use non-commercial enzymes and are low-yielding. This study is the first to report the production of protoplasts from Sphacelaria fusca (Hudson) S.F. Gray, using a combination of commercial enzymes, chelation, and osmolarity treatment. A simple combination of commercial enzymes (cellulase Onozuka RS, alginate lyase, and driselase) with chelation pretreatment and an increased osmolarity (2512 mOsm/L H₂O) gave a protoplast yield of 15.08 ± 5.31 × 10⁴ protoplasts/g fresh weight, with all the Sphacelaria cell types represented. Driselase had no crucial effect on the protoplast isolation. However, the increased osmolarity had a highly significant and positive effect on the protoplast isolation, and chelation pretreatment was essential for optimal protoplast yield. The protocol represents a significant step forward for studies on Sphacelaria by efficiently generating protoplasts suitable for cellular studies, including single-cell RNA sequencing and expression profiling.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.477-483
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• 2007

A coagulation process for RO (reverse osmosis) membrane pretreatment system was an effective technology to remove colloidal and particulate matters. However, coagulant residuals from the pretreatment process may negatively affect RO membrane performance. The bench-scale coagulant exposure study was performed to investigate the effect of their residual on adsorbed mass which related to the membrane performance. Coagulant addition in this study ranged from 0 to 5mg/L ferric chloride, alum, and 2mg/L cationic polymer(poly-di-methyldiallyl ammonium chloride) as coagulant aids. This results showed that adsorbed mass is not significantly increased during short-time period, however, accumulated mass of coagulants on the membrane surface is significantly increased during long-time experimental period. The effect of pH on coagulants adsorption characteristics was significantly differed due to the electrostatic repulsive interactions between soluble coagulants and membrane surface charge. This data suggest that the RO membrane performance of drinking water treatment plant could be decreased by adsorption of residual coagulants when applied for the coagulant pretreatment process.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.63-73
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• 2001

Objectives : The objective of the current study is to determine the protective effect of Ukyium(Yougui-yin) on the apoptosis induced by zinc. Methods : Zinc is known to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS), including superoxide anion ($O_2$) and hydrogen peroxide ($H_2O_2$), which eventually contribute to cytotoxicity in a variety of cell types. We investigated the viablity of cells, $H_2O_2$ generation, chromatin condensation and nuclear fragmentation in Hoechst dye staining and $IkB-{\alpha}$ degradation in C6 glial cells of $ZnCl_2$ between pretreatment- and not pretreatment-group with Ukyium. The former methods were researched by Time- and Dose-dependent manners. Results : We demonstrated that pretreatment with Ukyium prevented zinc-induced cell death of C6 glial cells and apoptotic characteristics including chromatin condensation and nuclear fragmentation. Ukyium also prevented $H_2O_2-induced$ cell death. We further confirmed that Ukyium decreased zinc-induced generation of $H_2O_2$ and inhibited degradation of $IkB-{\alpha}$ by zinc in C6 glial ceHs. Conclusions : These data indicated that Ukyium (Yougui-yin) prevents zinc-induced apoptotic death of C6 glial cells via inhibition of ROS generation, such as $H_2O_2$ as well as inhibition of $IkB-{\alpha}$ degradation.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.122-133
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• 2014

Purpose: This study was to develop an effective process for fabricating biocompatible calcium phosphate powders (CPPs) using horse bones, and to investigate the characteristics of them. Methods: The characteristics of horse bone powders (HBPs) were investigated according to the different osseous tissue types (compact bone and cancellous bone), bone types (spine and tibia), pretreatment methods (cold water, $H_2O_2$, and hot water), sintering time (4, 8 and 12h), and sintering temperature (600, 900, 1100 and $1300^{\circ}C$). In addition, the grinding methods were compared based on the wet grinding (ball mill) and dry grinding (blade grinder) method to make it as powders. Finally, their cytotoxicity and cell viability were checked. Results: Regardless of the types of osseous tissues and bones, HBPs were well fabricated as biocompatible CPPs. It was also found that the pretreatment methods did not influence on the resultants, showing well-fabricated HBPs. Considering the processing time, the hot water method was the most suitable compared to other pretreatment methods. Further, 12h-sintering time was sufficient to remove residual organic compounds. The sintering temperatures greatly affected the properties of bone powders fabricated. The x-ray diffraction (XRD) peak of horse bone sintered at $600^{\circ}C$ was most closed to that of hydroxyapatite (HA). Our bioactivity study demonstrated that the HBPs fabricated by sintering horse bones at $1300^{\circ}C$ showed the best performance in terms of cell viability whereas the HBPs $1100^{\circ}C$ showed the cytotoxicity. Conclusions: Using various types of horse bone tissues, biocompatible CPPs were successfully developed. We conclude that the HBPs may have a great potential as biomaterials for various biological applications including bone tissue engineering.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.117-125
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• 2008

Objectives : Analyze according to types of event causing the adverse outcome due to acupotomy, and discuss problems and safety reqirements to using this therapy in Korea. Methods : Based upon the indication, contraindication, treatment procedures, clinical obsevations, acupotomy-related adverse outcome case reports, the factors of damaging event were classified. Results : The main factors of adverse outcome by acupotomy were anatomical ignorance, contamination of device or hospital staff, failure to notice preexisting disease(cardiovascular disease, hypertension, renal failure, hemophilia, chronic Liver Disease, etc.), unskilled treatment procedures(massive bleeding) and techniques(nerve injury, hepatic and splenic injury, Pneumothorax). Conclusions : It is mandatory to prepare adequate sterilie aseptic technique. The clinician should ensure understand genernal health state of patient and anatomical direction.