We address improved plant image segmentation based on histograms which requires using a vegetation index and threshold. Image segmentation is the most important step for extracting targets, such as vegetation, from images; this affects successful detection of plant information. Forty-two field images were acquired from a soybean field using an RGB camera. Through K-means clustering analysis, we built a new vegetation index        and generated gray-scale images. Otsu and Triangle thresholds were used to convert contrast images to binary. Optimal threshold values were generally located between the Otsu and Triangle threshold values. The combined threshold method shows 98.79% and 0.95% of mean accuracy and standard deviation, respectively, whereas the Otsu and Triangle method results show 98.17±1.71% and 97.85±1.87%, respectively. These results show that the combined method has significant segmentation potential through one-way ANOVA. Then we compared the results with K-means clustering using two-sample t-test. The K-means method’s mean accuracy is 98.18±1.79%, with no significant difference between the proposed and K-means methods. However, the proposed method’s processing time is 0.60±0.01 s, i.e., twice faster than the K-means method (1.72±0.24 s).

Purpose: Aims of this study were to investigate the agreement and test-retest repeatability of two methods for measuring magnitude of soft toric lens rotation. The two methods assessed were a newly developed mobile application for iPhone which uses the built-in camera function and the slit lamp biomicroscope. Methods: Agreement of ToriExpertä against known reference source was tested under experimental situation. For clinical measurement, thirty three participants (66 eyes) wore toric lens (prism ballast design) both eyes. Two investigators measured toric lens rotation using the two methods which are slit-lamp measurement(HS-700) and mobile application. First investigator used the same method twice for assessment of test-retest repeatability of each method. Inter- and intra-investigator agreement and repeatability were assessed using Bland-Altman analysis. Results: Against the known reference sources, mean variance was 0.52±0.75 degree and limits of agreement was ±1.47 degree (95% of Cls). The limits of agreement between the silt-lamp biomicroscope and mobile application methods was ±9.1 degree (95% CIs). Measurements using the two different methods showed no statistically significant mean difference (paired t-test, p=0.32). Inter-investigator agreement of lens rotation was ±7.9 degree (95% CIs) using the slit-lamp microscope and ±7.8 degree using mobile application. Intra-investigator repeatability was ±6.6 degree using the slit lamp microscope and ±6.8 using mobile application. Conclusions: The results should be considered in view of the fact that soft toric lenses are not static but move with the blink thus the location of the reference point is unlikely to be at exactly the same location at the different measurement times. Despite this source of variability in the results, the newly developed mobile application provides clinically comparable performance to slit lamp biomicroscope measurement which does not appear to be investigator dependent. This mobile application may provide sufficient precision to those optometric practices have limited access to slit-lamp biomicroscope for measuring soft toric lens rotation.

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) causes acute diarrhea and dehydration in pigs with high mortality. PEDV is belong to Coronavirus, enveloped, single-stranded, positive-sense RNA virus. PEDV particles were composed of four structure proteins such as a glycosylated peplomer (spike, S) protein, envelope (E), glycosylated membrane (M) protein, and unglycosylated RNA-binding nucleocapsid (N) protein. Many of previous studies talk about this four structure proteins have a great potential to diagnosis and prevent PEDV. In this study we investigated expression of these structure proteins using the bacterial and baculovirus expression system. In bacterial expression system, our results showed that structure proteins fused polyhedrin and intein gene were expressed higher than non-fusion structure proteins. The expressed fusion proteins were used to immune mice for generating a polyclonal antibodies. In baculovirus expression system, co-infection of insect cells with these four recombinant baculoviruses led to self-assembly of virus-like particles as demonstrated by Transmission electron microscopy. They were confirmed by western blot analysis using pre-made polyclonal antibodies. Finding in this study may provide important information for vaccine and diagnostic development.

Insects are among the most diverse groups of animals on the planet, representing more than half of all known living organisms. These insects are found in nearly every environment. Although humans regard certain insects as pests and attempt to control them using insecticides, most insects perform complex ecological functions, and provide either direct or indirect economic benefits to humans. Recently, the importance of insects used as food sources or as pets has increased in many countries, including Korea. In addition, several insects have a strong influence on people's emotion. Insect-mediated mental healthcare program is designed to help people who have disorders with physical, behavior and development. Children who have mental disorder, the experimental group that was provided with an insect-mediated mental healthcare program over a total of 8 sections, one section per week, 60 minutes per section, followed by pre-test and post-test. They responded to therapeutic effect after the completion of the program. Further research on the basis of this study is expected to help children with emotional therapy in other areas.

The population of managed honey bees has been dramatically declining the recent past in worldwide. The one of most common disease of bees is nosemosis, the nosemosis is caused by microsporidia in the genus Nosema. Nosema apis and N. ceranae have been described as honeybee pathogens. These microsporidia are highly evoloved fungi with an obligately intracellular parasitic lifstyle. The disease causes significant detriment to honey production and results in economic losses. In our knowledge, Fumagillin is the only antibiotic approved for control of nosemosis in honey bees, however this antibiotic may have unintended effects on the honey bee host, ultimately contributing to increased prevalence and pathogenicity of Nosema. Therefore, we screened anti-Nosema substances from entomopathogenic fungal culture filtrates using in vitro polar tube germination assay. These fungal metabolites are employed as antibiotic agents. As results, Total 3 samples (23% of 13 total samples) showing the germinating inhibition against N. ceranae. This screening method may be useful for the detection of anti-Nosema substances from various samples and selected samples in this study may be a good feature to be used in the development of a new biocontrol method of nosemosis.

This study was conducted to determine the toxicity to adult Myzus persicae (Sulzer) and Aphis gossypii Glover of 88 plant essential oils and six experimental spray formulations containing bitter orange or marjoram oil was examined using the vapor-phase mortality and spray bioassays. Results were compared with those of two conventional insecticides deltamethrin and dichlorvos. As judged by 24 h LC50 values, bitter orange oil (0.0212 and 0.0192 mg/cm3) was the most active material, followed by marjoram, celeryseed, and cypress oils (0.0239-0.0508 and 0.0209-0.0542 mg/cm3). These essential oils were significantly less toxic than dichlorvos, respectively. These essential oils were consistently more toxic to adult M. persicae in closed versus open containers, indicating that toxicity was achieved mainly through the action of vapor. Bitter orange oil and marjoram oil applied as 1% spray provided complete mortality toward two aphid species adults. Reasonable aphid control in greenhouses can be achieved by a spray formulation containing the 1% oil as potential contact-action fumigant.

Bean bug, Riptortus pedestris is an agriculturally serious pest in north eastern Asian countries, damaging to several legumes and fruit trees. Chemical pesticides have been largely used to control the pest but it encounters insecticide-resistance and environmental toxicity issues. Alternatively different mode of action and environmentally sound pest management system can be found in entomopathogenic fungal insecticides. Herein we developed a platform to optimize the fungal production to express their maximum virulence against bean bug, by focusing on solid culture system for thermotolerance, formulation to select effective surfactants to carry the fungal conidia on the cuticles, and relationship between environmental abiotic factors and fungal mortality. First to produce highly thermotolerance fungal conidia, Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae isolates were cultured on several granular cereal substrates, which could be subjected to formulation process. Among the tested media, four media (millet, non-glutinous italian foxtail millet, glutinous italian foxtail millet, brown rice) were superior to the other grains in the spore production and thermotolerance. Next to efficiently deliver the fungal conidia on the cuticles of bean bug, total of six surfactant (CO-2.5, CO-12, LE-7, PE-61, TED-3 and Siloxane) was used to experiment. CO-12 was superior to the other surfactant in mortality of 100 ppm consistence. This work suggests that solid culture system and formulation and application should be seriously considered to reach an optimal level of mortality by inducing their maximum virulence.