A seasonal chigger-borne disease surveillance program was established at Geoje from March to November of 2018 in Gyeongnam Province, Republic of Korea. Two species of 84 wild rodents were collected by using Sherman traps for Geoje in 2018. Chigger mites were collected from the live-captured rodents to figure out seasonal prevalence of mite species and to identify chigger-borne pathogens. A total of 4,611 chiggers were collected from two species of the rodents in 2018. The chigger mites were collected mainly from A. agrarius (Chigger Index; CI 68.3). A vector of scrub typhus, Leptotrombidium orientale was predominant species (CI 14.9, Species Ratio; SR 27.2%) followed by L. pallidium (CI 14.2, SR 25.9%) and L. scutellare (CI 13.2, SR 24.2%) in 2018. In the results of the isolation of Orientia tsutsugamushi from the chigger mites, no pathogens detected from the DNA of the 171 pools of the mites in 2018, using a Polymerase Chain Reaction method.

Surveillance of the vectors were conducted at a total of 7 locations from March to November, 2018 in Gyeongnam province. In the surveillance, a total of 13 species belonging to seven genera were collected in a total of 15,935 females and 126.5/trap/night (TI; Trap Index) in 2018. Among the collection sites, a bird refuge in Busan, Eulsukdo recorded the highest TI 230.4 (Species Ratio; SR 60.1%) for Cx. tritaeniorhynchus females in 2018. A Cx. tritaeniorhynchus female collected firstly for 2018 in the nation at the pigsty of Busan at 1st April. In the results of isolation of viral RNA from 12 mosquito species including Cx. tritaeniorhynchus, Cx. pipiens, Ae. vexans, Ae. albopictus, and Oc. togoi. Chaoyang virus was positive at a pool of Ar. subalbatus collected at a bird refuge but negative in the other 543 pools (14,295 individuals) in 2018.

A tick survey was conducted to monitor ticks using tick traps attached dry ice and a flagging method at each four sites in Busan, Ulju, and Geoje areas of Gyeongnam Province from April to November, 2018. Haemaphysalis longicornis was the most frequently collected, representing 99.8% in Ulju. A total of 27,247 ticks were collected as H. longicornis (Trap Index; TI 283.2), H. flava (TI 0.3), and Ix. nipponensis (TI 0.3). In the collection environment, a total number of 15,672, 5,798, 4,876, and 901 ticks were collected from glassland, tump, tomb, and mountain path, respectively. On the other hand, H. longicornis and Ix. nipponensis were collected with flaggings at the four sites in Ulju, Busan, and Geoje in May and June, 2018. A total of 1,517 ticks collected H. longicornis (Flagging Index; FI 9.3) and Ix. nipponensis (FI 0.1) in Ulju. Haemaphysalis longicornis were collected 2,183 (FI 13.6) and 1,596 (FI 10.0) in Geoje and Busan, respectively. In the results of the isolation of Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (SFTS) from the ticks, no pathogens detected from RNA of 557 pools of the ticks using a Polymerase Chain Reaction method in 2018.

Bemisia tabaci is a species complex consist of about 40 cryptic species. This species is also a vector of at least 100 begomovirus including Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV). TYLCV transmitted by B. tabaci in a circulative propagative manner but its molecular mechanism is remain unclear. We investigate the transcriptional response of B. tabaci MED to TYLCV infection using next generation sequencing (NGS) analysis. In total 16757 differentially expressed genes between viruliferous and non-viruliferous whiteflies were analyzed. Among them 289 transcripts found significant, where 116 up-regulated and 173 down-regulated. Our results reveal the whitefly-TYLCV relationship and provide important molecular information about virus transmission of vector insects.

Spodoptera litura Fabricius is the serious, polyphagous pest of various crops. Due to the high resistant to most of chemical pesticides, it is hard to control S. litura in the fields. We investigated the virulence of four entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) in each larval stage. All EPNs were more effective to younger larvae than older larvae. Mortality, larval penetration rate and reproduction rate were significantly higher in H. indica, S. carpocapsae and S. longicaudum than the H. bacteriophora. Three high effective EPNs induced complete mortality of first instar larvae within 48 h, but of fifth instar larvae within 72 h. These EPNs also highly effective to control S. litura in pot assay. Thus, H. indica, S. carpocapsae and S. longicaudum, can be used as efficient biological control agents of S. litura.

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are being faced with rapid changes in their business environments due to evolution of technologies and innovation in societal eco-systems. Particularly, dynamic interactions between such environments and enterprise activities have become significant, so technology planning, which is a process of identifying appropriate directions regarding product and technology development, has received much attention to cope with such dynamics proactively. However, SMEs typically have limits in performing independent, strategical and systematical technology planning activities due to the lack of human, material and financial resources. This paper proposes the development of a product roadmapping method so that SMEs carry out efficient technology planning activities with interconnections of external business environments. The present work provides product roadmap templates that directly accommodate the influence of business environments on the product’s system and its associated super/sub-systems with the use of external environment analysis techniques including TRIZ methodology, PEST and 5Forces analysis. These templates are useful to efficiently forecast the directions of product’s development and evolution, which arise from changes in external environments. Consequently, the present work enables SMEs to flexibly cope with the era of the next R&D generation, which pursues value creation through mutual interconnection between business environments and technology development.

Many β-lactam antimicrobials, including cephalosporins, have been used in both veterinary and human medicine in the treatment of zoonotic and infectious diseases. Especially, third-generation cephalosporins such as ceftiofur have been approved for systemic use in food-producing animals, which has resulted in the emergence of β-lactamase genes. This study aimed to investigate the occurrence of β-lactamase-producing E. coli isolated from commercial layers and characterized their antimicrobial resistance and virulence genes. Among the 85 cefotaxime (CTX)-resistant E. coli, all isolates showed resistance to at least one antimicrobial, and the rates of resistance to nalidixic acid, cephalothin, ampicillin, and cefazolin were more than 50.0%. In particular, 28 isolates were identified as containing b-lactamase genes. The extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) and plasmid-mediated AmpC genes blaCTX-M-1, blaCTX-M-14, blaCTX-M-15, and blaCMY-2 were detected in 1, 6, 5, and 4 isolates, respectively. The non-ESBL/pAmpC gene blaTEM-1 was detected in 12 isolates. The distribution of antimicrobial resistance genes in 28 β-lactamase-producing E. coli was as follows: aac(3)-II (64.3%), sul2 (32.1%), tetA (28.6%), sul1 (25.0%), cmlA gene (25.0%), and tetB (14.3%). In total, 6 virulence genes (astA, eaeA, escV, fimH, iucC, and papC) were also identified and the rates in virulence gene were as below: fimH (92.9%), iucC (25.0%), astA (21.4%), papC (10.7%), eaeA (7.1%) and escV (7.1%). Our findings suggest that antimicrobials used in commercial layer must be regulated in Korea, and comprehensive surveillance is necessary to prevent the dissemination of resistant isolates.

1. 본 연구는 한국 재래종 강낭콩 209자원의 phytochemical 및 항산화활성을 평가하였다. 2. 항산화활성은 DPPH, ABTS, FRAP, SOD를 분석하였으며 phytochemical은 kaempferol, myricetin, quercetin, naringenin 함량을 각각 분석하였다. 3. 항산화활성은 강낭콩 자원 간 다양한 분포를 보였으며 DPPH의 경우 62.3~643.9 (IC50), ABTS의 경우 0.28~1.49 mgAAE/g, FRAP의 경우 0.41~5.44 mgAAE/g, SOD의 경우 50.4 ~ 299.8 (IC50)로 나타났다. 4. Relative antioxidant capacity index (RACI)로 강낭콩 자원의 항산화활성을 비교한 결과 IT104587이 가장 높은 항산화활성을 보였으며 IT189598이 가장 낮은 항산화활성을 보였다. 5. 분석된 Phytochemical 중에서 한국 재래종 강낭콩에서는 Kaempferol이 가장 높은 함량을 나타냈다. 6. PCA 분석 결과 209자원은 3개의 그룹으로 나뉘었으며 이중 그룹 III에 속한 46자원의 강낭콩이 낮은 항산화활성 및 phytochemical 함량을 보였다. 7. 본 연구 결과는 한국 재래종 강낭콩의 항산화활성 및 phytochemical 정보를 제공하며 이 정보는 강낭콩 품종 개발을 위한 기초 정보로 사용될 수 있을 것이다.

1. 중앙 아시아는 5 개의 국가로 구성되어 있으며, 이 국가들은 1991년에 소련 연방에서 독립하였다. 독립 이전에는 5개 국가 모두 공산주의 통치 하에 동일한 소비에트 계획경제 체제를 가지고 있었다 2. 1991년 이래로 중앙 아시아 국가들은 정치적, 사회적, 자연적, 지리적 조건에 따라 각기 다른 개발 경로를 경험하였다. 3. 더 나은 통치 환경은 현대 기술 혁신을 장려하고 토지에 대한 신기술의 적용 및 토지에 대한 권리를 보장하도록 동기를 부여한다. 또한 상대적으로 낮은 거래 비용이 조성될 수 있도록 지원하여 생산 증대로 이어질 투자를 촉진한다. 4. 따라서 통치 환경의 개선은 농업 생산 증대에도 중요한 요인이다. 본 연구는 통치 환경과 농업 생산과의 관계를 실증적으로 분석하고 이를 검증하였다. 5. 본 연구의 결과는 농업 생산의 증대를 위하여 통치 환경의 개선이 중요함을 입증하였으며 , 그 중에서도 부패 통제 및 법의 지배의 개선이 농업 생산 증대에 가장 큰 영향을 미친다는 것을 밝혔다 .

The osmolarity of a medium that is commonly used for in vitro culture (IVC) of oocytes and embryos is lower than that of oviductal fluid in pigs. In vivo oocytes and embryos can resist high osmolarities to some extent due to the presence of organic osmolytes such as glycine and alanine. These amino acids act as a protective shield to maintain the shape and viability in high osmotic environments. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of glycine or/and alanine in medium with two different osmolarities (280 and 320 mOsm) during IVC on embryonic development after parthenogenesis (PA) and somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) in pigs. To this end, IVC was divided into two stages; the 0-2 and 3-7 days of IVC. In each stage, embryos were cultured in medium with 280, 320, or 360 mOsm and their combinations with or without glycine or/and alanine according to the experimental design. Treatment groups were termed as, for example, "T(osmolarity of a medium used in 0-2 days of IVC)-(osmolarity of a medium used in 3-7 days of IVC)" T280-280 was served as control. When PA embryos were cultured in medium with various osmolarities, T320-280 showed a significantly higher blastocyst formation (29.0%) than control (22.2%) and T360-360 groups (6.9%). Glycine treatment in T320-280 significantly increased blastocyst formation (50.4%) compared to T320-280 only (36.5%) while no synergistic was observed after treatment with glycine and alanine together in T320-280 (45.7%). In contrast to PA embryonic development, the stimulating effect by the culture in T320-280 was not observed in SCNT blastocyst development (27.6% and 23.7% in T280-280 and T320-280, respectively) whereas the number of inner cell mass cells was significantly increased in T320-280 (6.1 cells vs. 9.6 cells). Glycine treatment significantly improved blastocyst formation of SCNT embryos in both T280-280 (27.6% vs. 38.0%) and T320-280 (23.7% vs. 35.3%). Our results demonstrate that IVC in T320-280 and treatment with glycine improves blastocyst formation of PA and SCNT embryos in pigs.

Nitric oxide (NO) has an important role in oocyte maturation and embryonic development in mammals. This study examined the effect of exogenous NO donor S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine (SNAP) in a maturation medium on meiotic progression and embryonic development after parthenogenesis (PA) and somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) in pigs. When oocytes were exposed to 0.1 μM SNAP for first 22 h of in vitro maturation (IVM) in Experiment 1, SNAP significantly improved blastocyst development in both defined and standard follicular fluid-supplemented media compared to untreated control (48.4 vs. 31.7-42.5%). SNAP treatment significantly arrested meiotic progression of oocytes at the germinal vesicle stage at 11 h of IVM (61.2 vs. 38.7%). However, there was no effect on meiotic progression at 22 h of IVM (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, when oocytes were treated with SNAP at 0.001, 0.1 and 10 μM during the first 22 h of IVM to determine a suitable concentration, 0.1 μM SNAP (54.2%) exhibited a higher blastocyst formation than 0 and 10 μM SNAP (36.6 and 36.6%, respectively). Time-dependent effect of SNAP treatment was evaluated in Experiment 4. It was observed that SNAP treatment for the first 22 h of IVM significantly increased blastocyst formation compared to no treatment (57.1% vs. 46.2%). Antioxidant effect of SNAP was compared with that of cysteine. SNAP treatment significantly improved embryonic development to the blastocyst stage (49.1-51.5% vs. 34.4-37.5%) irrespective of the presence or absence of cysteine (Experiment 5). Moreover, SNAP significantly increased glutathione (GSH) content and inversely decreased the reactive oxygen species (ROS) level and mitochondrial oxidative activity in IVM oocytes. SNAP treatment during IVM showed a stimulating effect on in vitro development of SCNT embryos (Experiment 7). These results demonstrates that SNAP improves developmental competence of PA and SCNT embryos probably by maintaining the redox homeostasis through increasing GSH content and mitochondrial quality and decreasing ROS in IVM oocytes.