• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
• /
• v.33 no.3
• /
• pp.195-207
• /
• 2006

Stem cells are the primordial, initial cells which usually divide asymmetrically giving rise to on the one hand self-renewals and on the other hand progenitor cells with potential for differentiation. Zygote (fertilized egg), with totipotency, deserves the top-ranking stem cell - he totipotent stem cell (TSC). Both the ICM (inner cell mass) taken from the 6 days-old human blastocyst and ESC (embryonic stem cell) derived from the in vitro cultured ICM have slightly less potency for differentiation than the zygote, and are termed pluripotent stem cells. Stem cells in the tissues and organs of fetus, infant, and adult have highly reduced potency and committed to produce only progenitor cells for particular tissues. These tissue-specific stem cells are called multipotent stem cells. These tissue-specific/committed multipotent stem cells, when placed in altered environment other than their original niche, can yield cells characteristic of the altered environment. These findings are certainly of potential interest from the clinical, therapeutic perspective. The controversial terminology 'somatic stem cell plasticity' coined by the stem cell community seems to have been proved true. Followings are some of the recent knowledges related to the stem cell. Just as the tissues of our body have their own multipotent stem cells, cancerous tumor has undifferentiated cells known as cancer stem cell (CSC). Each time CSC cleaves, it makes two daughter cells with different fate. One is endowed with immortality, the remarkable ability to divide indefinitely, while the other progeny cell divides occasionally but lives forever. In the cancer tumor, CSC is minority being as few as 3-5% of the tumor mass but it is the culprit behind the tumor-malignancy, metastasis, and recurrence of cancer. CSC is like a master print. As long as the original exists, copies can be made and the disease can persist. If the CSC is destroyed, cancer tumor can't grow. In the decades-long cancer therapy, efforts were focused on the reducing of the bulk of cancerous growth. How cancer therapy is changing to destroy the origin of tumor, the CSC. The next generation of treatments should be to recognize and target the root cause of cancerous growth, the CSC, rather than the reducing of the bulk of tumor, Now the strategy is to find a way to identify and isolate the stem cells. The surfaces of normal as well as the cancer stem cells are studded with proteins. In leukaemia stem cell, for example, protein CD 34 is identified. In the new treatment of cancer disease it is needed to look for protein unique to the CSC. Blocking the stem cell's source of nutrients might be another effective strategy. The mystery of sternness of stem cells has begun to be deciphered. ESC can replicate indefinitely and yet retains the potential to turn into any kind of differentiated cells. Polycomb group protein such as Suz 12 repress most of the regulatory genes which, activated, are turned to be developmental genes. These protein molecules keep the ESC in an undifferentiated state. Many of the regulator genes silenced by polycomb proteins are also occupied by such ESC transcription factors as Oct 4, Sox 2, and Nanog. Both polycomb and transcription factor proteins seem to cooperate to keep the ESC in an undifferentiated state, pluripotent, and self-renewable. A normal prion protein (PrP) is found throughout the body from blood to the brain. Prion diseases such as mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) are caused when a normal prion protein misfolds to give rise to PrP$^{SC}$ and assault brain tissue. Why has human body kept such a deadly and enigmatic protein? Although our body has preserved the prion protein, prion diseases are of rare occurrence. Deadly prion diseases have been intensively studied, but normal prion problems are not. Very few facts on the benefit of prion proteins have been known so far. It was found that PrP was hugely expressed on the stem cell surface of bone marrow and on the cells of neural progenitor, PrP seems to have some function in cell maturation and facilitate the division of stem cells and their self-renewal. PrP also might help guide the decision of neural progenitor cell to become a neuron.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.16 no.4
• /
• pp.85-97
• /
• 2010

Internet communities are a typical space for knowledge creation and use on the Internet as people discuss their common interests within the internet communities. When we define 'Knowledge Communities' as internet communities that are related to knowledge creation and use, they are categorized into 4 different types such as 'Search Engine,' 'Open Communities,' 'Specialty Communities,' and 'Activity Communities.' Each type of knowledge community does not remain the same, for example. Rather, it changes with time and is also affected by the external business environment. Therefore, it is critical to develop processes for practical use of such changeable knowledge communities. Yet there is little research regarding a strategic framework for knowledge communities as a source of knowledge creation and use. The purposes of this study are (1) to find factors that can affect knowledge creation and use for each type of knowledge community and (2) to develop a strategic framework for practical use of the knowledge communities. Based on previous research, we found 7 factors that have considerable impacts on knowledge creation and use. They were 'Fitness,' 'Reliability,' 'Systemicity,' 'Richness,' 'Similarity,' 'Feedback,' and 'Understanding.' We created 30 different questions from each type of knowledge community. The questions included common sense, IT, business and hobbies, and were uniformly selected from various knowledge communities. Instead of using survey, we used these questions to ask users of the 4 representative web sites such as Google from Search Engine, NAVER Knowledge iN from Open Communities, SLRClub from Specialty Communities, and Wikipedia from Activity Communities. These 4 representative web sites were selected based on popularity (i.e., the 4 most popular sites in Korea). They were also among the 4 most frequently mentioned sitesin previous research. The answers of the 30 knowledge questions were collected and evaluated by the 11 IT experts who have been working for IT companies more than 3 years. When evaluating, the 11 experts used the above 7 knowledge factors as criteria. Using a stepwise linear regression for the evaluation of the 7 knowledge factors, we found that each factors affects differently knowledge creation and use for each type of knowledge community. The results of the stepwise linear regression analysis showed the relationship between 'Understanding' and other knowledge factors. The relationship was different regarding the type of knowledge community. The results indicated that 'Understanding' was significantly related to 'Reliability' at 'Search Engine type', to 'Fitness' at 'Open Community type', to 'Reliability' and 'Similarity' at 'Specialty Community type', and to 'Richness' and 'Similarity' at 'Activity Community type'. A strategic framework was created from the results of this study and such framework can be useful for knowledge communities that are not stable with time. For the success of knowledge community, the results of this study suggest that it is essential to ensure there are factors that can influence knowledge communities. It is also vital to reinforce each factor has its unique influence on related knowledge community. Thus, these changeable knowledge communities should be transformed into an adequate type with proper business strategies and objectives. They also should be progressed into a type that covers varioustypes of knowledge communities. For example, DCInside started from a small specialty community focusing on digital camera hardware and camerawork and then was transformed to an open community focusing on social issues through well-known photo galleries. NAVER started from a typical search engine and now covers an open community and a special community through additional web services such as NAVER knowledge iN, NAVER Cafe, and NAVER Blog. NAVER is currently competing withan activity community such as Wikipedia through the NAVER encyclopedia that provides similar services with NAVER encyclopedia's users as Wikipedia does. Finally, the results of this study provide meaningfully practical guidance for practitioners in that which type of knowledge community is most appropriate to the fluctuated business environment as knowledge community itself evolves with time.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.30 no.5
• /
• pp.837-847
• /
• 2016

In this study, the bird fauna of Sihwa Lake in Gyeonggi Province were investigated from 2009 to 2014 to identify the effect of the restored intertidal zone on bird community. Based upon the analysis of the habitat status and distribution change of water birds in the intertidal zone, the following conclusions were obtained. The number of water bird individuals increased by approx. 40 thousand after the restoration. Most of water bird species increased, but diving ducks decreased. Analysis of the number of individuals of water birds before and after the intertidal zone restoration showed that there was a significant increase in the number of shorebird individuals. There is a habitat use pattern change in the southern tideland intertidal zone that includes the largest area of widened intertidal zone and the inland waters of the intertidal zone. This is related to the change of benthic ecosystem which is the food source of birds. The benthic ecosystem in restoring Sihwa Lake has been stabilized with a decrease in opportunistic species and consistent increase in equilibrium species that are sensitive to pollution. As a result, the environmental conditions for shorebirds have been improved. The restoration of intertidal zone affected the habitat use and distribution patterns of water birds in a short period of time. Compared to before restoration, all the water birds now use the wide area of the intertidal zone with no partiality and it is confirmed that the restoration greatly affected the distribution of shorebirds and swan & geese. This study was conduced to identify the effects of an artificial restoration of intertidal zone due to tidal power generation of bird species. In terms of maintaining and improving biodiversity, the intertidal zone restoration was recognized to be important and still shows positive results. This study is expected to provide a direction when an alternative is required to maintain and improve biodiversity in a similar situation in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
• /
• v.19 no.5
• /
• pp.467-475
• /
• 2013

In order to seize quantitative materials as part of studies on measures for oil pollution prevention and control, the statistics of oil pollution incidents in Korean coastal waters for 10 years from 2003 to 2012 were analyzed with relation to the number of oil spills and the volume of oil spilt according to causes, sources and sea areas of spills. Total number and total volume of oil spills for 10 years were found to be 2,833 cases and 17,877 kL, respectively. 50.4 %(1,429 cases) of total number of oil spills were caused by negligence, although oil spillage due to negligence was 294 kL(1.7 %). While oil spillage caused by marine accidents was 17,400 kL(97.3 %), marine accidents accounted for 27.9 %(790 cases) of total number of oil spills. While negligence had a great influence on the number of oil spills, marine accidents had a huge impact on the amount of oil spilt. Fishing boats accounted for 42.7 %(1,210 cases) of the number of oil spills, and although oil tankers accounted for 9.2 %(261 cases) of the number of oil spills, oil spillage from oil tankers was 15,488kL(86.7 %). It means that oil tankers such as VLCC or ULCC may be the main sources of major oil spills and a few very large spills are responsible for a high percentage of the amount of oil spilt. While the number of oil spill incidents was closely related to the accidents of fishing boats, the volume of oil spilt was greatly affected by the major oil spill incidents of oil tankers such as M/T Hebei Spirit. The number and volume of oil spills were shown to be 1,613 cases(56.9 %) and 3,804 kL(21.3 %) in South Sea, 700 cases(24.7 %) and 13,501 kL(75.5 %) in West Sea, and 520 cases(18.2 %) and 572 kL(3.2 %) in East Sea of Korea, respectively. The highest number of oil spills was found in South Sea and the most volume of oil spilt was shown in West Sea of Korea for 10 years.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.52 no.11
• /
• pp.917-929
• /
• 2019

Denitrification in streams is of great importance because it is essential for amelioration of water quality and accurate estimation of $N_2O$ budgets. Denitrification is a major biological source or sink of $N_2O$, an important greenhouse gas, which is a multi-step respiratory process that converts nitrate ($NO_3{^-}$) to gaseous forms of nitrogen ($N_2$ or $N_2O$). In aquatic ecosystems, the complex interactions of water flooding condition, substrate supply, hydrodynamic and biogeochemical properties modulate the extent of multi-step reactions required for $N_2O$ flux. Although water flow in streambed and residence time affect reaction output, effects of a complex interaction of hydrodynamic, geomorphology and biogeochemical controls on the magnitude of denitrification in streams are still illusive. In this work, we built a two-dimensional water flow channel and measured $N_2O$ flux from channel sediment with different bed geomorphology by using static closed chambers. Two independent experiments were conducted with identical flume and geomorphology but sediment with differences in dissolved organic carbon (DOC). The experiment flume was a circulation channel through which the effluent flows back, and the size of it was $37m{\times}1.2m{\times}1m$. Five days before the experiment began, urea fertilizer (46% N) was added to sediment with the rate of $0.5kg\;N/m^2$. A sand dune (1 m length and 0.15 m height) was made at the middle of channel to simulate variations in microtopography. In high- DOC experiment, $N_2O$ flux increases in the direction of flow, while the highest flux ($14.6{\pm}8.40{\mu}g\;N_2O-N/m^2\;hr$) was measured in the slope on the back side of the sand dune. followed by decreases afterward. In contrast, low DOC sediment did not show the geomorphological variations. We found that even though topographic variation influenced $N_2O$ flux and chemical properties, this effect is highly constrained by carbon availability.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.33 no.5
• /
• pp.605-619
• /
• 2019

The objective of this study was to analyze eutrophication characteristics, empirical model analysis, and variation of water quality according to monsoon intensity in Hapcheon Reservoir for 16 years from 2002 to 2017. Long-term annual water quality analysis showed that Hapcheon Reservoir was in a meso-nutrition to eutrophic condition, and the eutrophic state intensified after the summer monsoon. Annual rainfall volume (high vs. low rainfall) and the seasonal intensity in each year were the key factors that regulate the long-term water quality variation provided that there is no significant change of the point- and non-point source in the watershed. Dry years and wet years showed significant differences in the concentrations of TP, TN, BOD, and conductivity, indicating that precipitation had the most direct influence on nutrients and organic matter dynamics. Nutrient indicators (TP, TN), organic pollution indicators (BOD, COD), total suspended solids, and chlorophyll-a (Chl-a), which was an estimator of primary productivity, had significant positive relations (p<0.05) with precipitation. The Chl-a concentration, which is an indicator of green algae, was highly correlated with TP, TN, and BOD, which differed from other lakes that showed the lower Chl-a concentration when nutrients increased excessively. Empirical model analysis of log-transformed TN, TP, and Chl-a indicated that the Chl-a concentration was linearly regulated by phosphorus concentration, but not by nitrogen concentration. Spatial regression analysis of the riverine, transition, and lacustrine zones of $log_{10}TN$, $log_{10}TP$, and $log_{10}CHL$ showed that TN and Chl-a had significant relations (p<0.005) while TN and Chl-a had p > 0.05, indicating that phosphorus had a key role in the algal growth. Moreover, the higher correlation of both $log_{10}TP$ and $log_{10}TN$ to $log_{10}CHL$ in the riverine zone than the lacustrine zone indicated that there was little impact of inorganic suspended solids on the light limitation in the riverine zone.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.187-201
• /
• 2019

This study examined the physicochemical water quality and evaluated the ecological health in 14 sites of Geum River (upstream, mid-stream, and downstream) using the fish community distribution and guilds and eight multi-variable matrices of FAI (Fish Assessment Index) during June 2008-May 2009. The analysis of the water quality variables showed no significant variation in the upstream and mid-stream but a sharp variation due to the accumulation of organic matter from the point where the treated water of Gap and Miho streams flew. The analysis of physicochemical water properties showed that BOD, COD, TN, TP, Cond, and Chl-a tended to increase while DO decreased to cause eutrophication and algae development from the downstream where Miho and Gap stream merged. The analysis of fish community showed that the species richness index and species diversity index increased in the mid-stream area but decreased in the downstream area, indicating the stable ecosystem in the upper stream and the relatively unstable ecosystem in the downstream. The analysis of the species distribution showed that the dominant species were Zacco platypus that accounted for 20.9% of all fish species and Zacco koreanus that accounted for 13.1%. The analysis of the fish tolerance and feeding guild characteristics showed that the sensitive species, the insectivore species, and the aquatic species were dominant in the mid-stream point. On the other hand, contaminants from the sewage water treatment plant of Miho stream had a profound effect in the downstream to show the dominance of tolerant species, omnivorous species, and lentic species. Therefore, it is necessary to improve water quality by reducing the load of urban pollutants and to pay attention to the conservation and restoration of aquatic ecosystems.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.32 no.6
• /
• pp.686-697
• /
• 2018

Due to the advance in remote sensing technology, it has become easier to more frequently obtain high resolution imagery to detect delicate changes in an extensive area, particularly including forest which is not readily sub-classified. Time-series analysis on high resolution images requires to collect extensive amount of ground truth data. In this study, the potential of land coverage mapas ground truth data was tested in classifying high-resolution imagery. The study site was Wonju-si at Gangwon-do, South Korea, having a mix of urban and natural areas. KOMPSAT-3A imagery taken on March 2015 and land coverage map published in 2017 were used as source data. Two pixel-based classification algorithms, Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Random Forest (RF), were selected for the analysis. Forest only classification was compared with that of the whole study area except wetland. Confusion matrixes from the classification presented that overall accuracies for both the targets were higher in RF algorithm than in SVM. While the overall accuracy in the forest only analysis by RF algorithm was higher by 18.3% than SVM, in the case of the whole region analysis, the difference was relatively smaller by 5.5%. For the SVM algorithm, adding the Majority analysis process indicated a marginal improvement of about 1% than the normal SVM analysis. It was found that the RF algorithm was more effective to identify the broad-leaved forest within the forest, but for the other classes the SVM algorithm was more effective. As the two pixel-based classification algorithms were tested here, it is expected that future classification will improve the overall accuracy and the reliability by introducing a time-series analysis and an object-based algorithm. It is considered that this approach will contribute to improving a large-scale land planning by providing an effective land classification method on higher spatial and temporal scales.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.216-227
• /
• 2019

The purpose of this study is to propose the rational mountain stream management strategy considering the natural conditions and social needs of the Republic of Korea. We reviewed domestic and overseas studies related to mountain streams, identified the study areas by text mining and co-word analysis using the VOSviewer program, and then analyzed the spatial and temporal study trends and topics of each study area. The results showed that domestic studies on mountain streams are still in an initial stage compared to overseas studies. Overseas studies on mountain streams can be classified into four groups: (i) habitat and species composition of fish and invertebrates, (ii) hydrological phenomena and nutrient migration, (iii) transport of sediment and organic materials and the relevant morphological changes by runoff flows, and (iv) plant species composition in mountain streams. Of these study subjects, domestic studies belonging to the (i) group mainly focused on macroinvertebrates while domestic studies belonging to the (iii) group regarded transport of sediment and organic materials as not the ecological disturbance but the source of sediment-related disasters. We then analyzed the rate of each research group to all papers by period and country. The results showed that the overseas studies belonging to (iii) and (iv) groups have increased with time, and the increase was mostly due to the studies in the United States, Brazil, Canada, and China. On the other hand, domestic studies belonging to (i) and (iii) groups increased somewhat with time, but there was a slight lack of correlation between the two subjects. Therefore, the hybridity studies to complement the shortage is necessary for the future.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.1-13
• /
• 2018

Both Platform as a Service (PaaS) as one of the cloud computing service models and the e-government (e-Gov) standard framework from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) provide developers with practical computing environments to build their applications in every web-based services. Web application developers in the geo-spatial information field can utilize and deploy many middleware software or common functions provided by either the cloud-based service or the e-Gov standard framework. However, there are few studies for their applicability and performance in the field of actual geo-spatial information application yet. Therefore, the motivation of this study was to investigate the relevance of these technologies or platform. The applicability of these computing environments and the performance evaluation were performed after a test application deployment of the spatial image processing case service using Web Processing Service (WPS) 2.0 on the e-Gov standard framework. This system was a test service supported by a cloud environment of Cloud Foundry, one of open source PaaS cloud platforms. Using these components, the performance of the test system in two cases of 300 and 500 threads was assessed through a comparison test with two kinds of service: a service case for only the PaaS and that on the e-Gov on the PaaS. The performance measurements were based on the recording of response time with respect to users' requests during 3,600 seconds. According to the experimental results, all the test cases of the e-Gov on PaaS considered showed a greater performance. It is expected that the e-Gov standard framework on the PaaS cloud would be important factors to build the web-based spatial information service, especially in public sectors.