Bumblebee, Bombus terrestris is widely used to pollinate various crops, especially tomato, in greenhouses. Mason bee, Osmia cornifrons, which is using as apple pollinator. Here we investigated characteristics on pollinating activity of B. terrestris and O. conifrons at different weather conditions in apple orchard. The foraging activity of O. conifrons was more sensitive than that of B. terrestris at weather conditions including temperature, illumination intensity and wind velocity. The pollinating activity of O. conifrons was very low than that of B. terrestris at a low temperature, cloudy, rainy and windy weather. Therefore, Our results indicated that B. terrestris was suitable for apple pollinator than O. conifrons, especially in low temperature and bad weather.

Currently, flies are used to pollinate Welsh onion for seed production. However, the use of flies for pollination has caused problems in Welsh onion seed production due to sanitation issues, smell, and the difficulty of feeding the flies. Therefore, we investigated the effects of pollination with bumblebees (Bombus terrestris), flies (e.g., houseflies, flesh flies, blue bottle flies), mason bees (Osmia cornifrons), honeybees (Apis mellifera) and blowflies (Lucilia illustris) in a small net screen house (2.2m×1.7m×2.5m) for onion seed production. Although the number of flies was about three times than that of other insect pollinators, fies and bumblebees showed equivalent pollination ratios, but the remaining three insect species showed lower values. For the percentage of seed set per umbel, the number of seeds per flower and umbel, bumblebees and flies showed similar results. These results showed that pollination by bumblebees can be used as an alternative approach in breeding Welsh onion. An analysis of the most appropriate colony of bumblebees for use as pollinators for breeding Welsh onion in a small net screen house showed that colony of fifty to eighty bees was the most efficient level. The visiting time on the flower and spending time from a flower to another flower of B. terrestris worker on small net screen house was 2.2 seconds and 1.8 seconds, respectively.

Virus infections of the honeybee(Apis mellifera) have been increasingly investigated during the last decade. In general, honeybee viruses are widespread and most of them persist as inapparent infections. We screened honeybee colonies for the presence of several bee viruses, including deformed wing virus(DWV), black queen virus(BQCV), Kashmir bee virus(KBV), Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV), sacbrood virus(SBV), acute bee paralysis virus(ABPV), using uniplex RT-PCR. Frequently simultaneous infections with different viruses are diagnosed in seemingly healthy bee colonies. Therefore we developed a multiplex RT-PCR assay for the simultaneous detection of multiple bee viruses.

In the livestock feed industry, antibiotics are used to prevent disease, promote growth rate, and improve feed efficiency. However, antibiotic supplementation to animal feed results in increased bacterial resistance to antibiotics as well as antibiotic residues in animal products, which can negatively affect human health. Therefore, alternative sources of antibiotics are need- ed. Probiotics as an alternative to antibiotics in animal feed have been shown to increase feed efficiency and growth rate by improving microbial balance. Further, Bacillus sp. produces a wide spectrum of antibacte- rial peptides. The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary supplementation with CS-32 on safety, growth rate, and feed efficiency. Antibacterial substance (5697.9 molecular weights) produced by CS-32 was isolated and purified from culture broth. Moreover, the results of minimal inhibi- tory concentration (MIC) test confirmed the excellent antibacterial effect of CS-32. In vivo, 0.1% and 1% CS-32 were fed to broiler chickens for 28 days. Feed efficiency was slightly higher in groups of chickens supplemented with 0.1% and 1% CS-32 than those of the control group. CS-32 had no significant effect on necropsy findings, hematology, or serum biochemistry, and there was no mortality. These results suggest that CS-32 among various biologically active substances may be safe and effective as a feed additive to improve growth rate and feed efficiency.

This study was an attempt to investigate whether the Task-Based Instruction (TBI) can fulfill its promises by looking into how a group of EFL college learners would perform in a TBI course. The research findings based on the analyses of the participants'performance on the proficiency tests of speaking and writing, the writing samples produced by the weekly journal task, and their responses to a questionnaire showed that the TBI course was effective enough to assist the learners to significantly improve proficiency levels of the L2 during such a time period of a 15-week long semester. The study also revealed that whether the learners would find the task topic interesting was significantly related to their confidence in using the L2, evaluation on the instructor's way of teaching, and overall evaluation on the TBI course. It also found that the college-level learners did not favor grammar instruction provided in an explicit way while appreciating opportunities to use the L2 in productive modes.

To clarify the role of stem cells in hepatocarcinogenesis, octamer-binding transcription factor 4 (Oct4) expression was investigated in mouse liver and embryonic cell lineages. In vivo, at 14 days of age, ten ICR mice were divided into two groups and treated with saline or diethylnitrosamine (DEN), and were sacrificed at 6 h after treatment. Livers were fixed in 10% neutral phosphate buffered formalin, embedded in paraffin, sectioned to a thickness of 5 μm, and immunohistochemical analysis of Oct4 was performed. In vitro, mouse embryonic stem cells, hepatic progenitor cells and hepatocytes, representing 0, 22, and 40 days of differentiation, respectively, were treated with DEN at four doses (0, 1, 5 and 15 mM; G1, G2, G3 and G4, respectively) for 24 h and RNA was isolated; Oct4 and Gadd45a mRNA were investigated. In vivo, Oct4 expression was not detected in saline-treated livers. However, its expression was observed in hepatocytes of mice treated with DEN, showing cytoplasmic staining. In vitro, Oct4 expression differed significantly for G4 on day 0 (P<0.05) and for G2 on day 22 (P<0.01) and G3 and G4 on day 40 (P<0.05 and P<0.01, respectively) compared with G1 at each time point. Gadd45a expression differed significantly in G4 (P<0.01) on day 0 and G4 on day 40 (P<0.01), compared with that of G1 at each time point. Taken together, Oct4 expression was increased by treatment with DEN in hepatocytes, however, not in embroyonic stem cells and hepatic progenitor cells. This finding suggests that Oct4 expression may be modulated in hepatocarcinogenesis induced by DEN.

전해정련을 이용한 폐 피복관 처리의 타당성을 살펴보기 위하여, 500℃의 LiCl-KCl 용융염 내에서 표면이 산화된 10 g 규모의Zircaloy-4 피복관 및 순수한 Zircaloy-4 피복관의 전기화학적 거동을 살펴보았다. 산화된 Zircaloy-4 피복관이 담긴 basket을 작업전극으로하여 전압-전류 관계를 측정한 결과, 산화되지 않은 Zircaloy-4 피복관과 비교해 Zr의 산화 peak는 Ag/AgCl 기준전극 대비, 약 -0.7 V ~ -0.8 V로 유사한 반면, 산화 전류의 크기는 확연하게 감소하는 것으로 나타난다. 이러한 결과는 -0.78V의 일정전위를 가한 전기화학적 용해 실험에서 살펴본 전류-시간 곡선에서도 유사하게 나타나며, 피복관 조각들의 평균 두께 및 무게 변화로부터 확인할 수 있다. Zircaloy-4 피복관이 산화되었을 경우, 표면의 산화막이 피복관의 전도성에 영향을 주어 basket 내 위치에 따라 전기화학적 용해의 균일성 및 속도를 떨어뜨리는 것으로 나타나지만, 표면의 미세한 결함과 Zr 산화물의 상 특성으로 인해 전기화학적 용해가 진행되는 것으로 판단된다.

Expression of epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) in the early phase of hepatocarcinogenesis induced by diethylnitrosamine (DEN) was investigated. At 14 days of age, 60 ICR mice were divided into two groups and treated with saline (group 1) or DEN (group 2, 10 mg/kg of body weight, i.p. injection), and were sacrificed at 6 h and 1, 2, 3, 7, and 28 days after treatment with saline or DEN. During necropsy, half of the liver from saline- or DEN-treated mice was processed for histopathological examination and immunohistochemical staining of EpCAM and apoptosis. The remaining liver tissue was snap-frozen in liquid nitrogen for RNA extraction and analysis of EpCAM mRNA expression. Immunohistochemical examination showed that EpCAM expression was detected only in a small number of hepatocytes from saline-treated mice and its expression was detected in bile duct cells and round cells around portal areas, as well as hepatocytes in the livers of DEN-treated mice. In addition, multiple apoptotic cells were found in the livers of mice treated with DEN. EpCAM mRNA expression was significantly higher in DEN-treated mice at 1, 7, and 28 days compared to saline-treated mice at 6 h (P<0.01). Taken together, EpCAM expression and apoptosis were increased in liver by DEN treatment.

We developed the “Nest Finder System” to detect the breeding ecology of cavity nesters. Nest Finder System is composed of three parts, camera, transfer and recorder parts. In camera part, we utilized three types like pin camera, CCTV camera and endoscope with CMOS lens. Electricity and information was transferred with cable lines, and the information were directly recorded into sony digital recorder (GV-HD 700) or hard disk. To survey the breeding status of cavity nester, we disassembled the cone lens (TVC-MN4428C) applicable to enter the natural tree hole ranging no less than 30 mm. To support the camera and transfer part reaching at the hole located about 15m height, we used a couples of carbon poles in size of 1.8m, and its slender ending part was designed to fit each other. Nest Finder System can be applied to monitor breeding status of forest wildlife including cavity nesters, canopy nesters and aquatics. We discussed the potential problem in applying the equipment and analyzing the obtained data. Nest Finder System enable us to monitor the inner part of nest located at the upper part of trees not only coniferous and deciduous forests, and it can be applied to monitor the breeding ecology of aquatic organism.

Setdb1/Eset, a histone lysine methyltransferase, is recruited by various transcription factors to modify local chromatin. The observation that Setdb1-null blastocysts fail to produce epiblast-lineage cells suggests a role for Setdb1 in generating mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). When examined in mouse zygotes, Setdb1 proteins appeared as dots at perinucleolar rims of pronuclei, with the dot-shaped signals more prominent in male pronuclei. Setdb1 signals were observed diffusely in the nucleus from the two-cell stage onward and, by the blastocyst, took a punctate form, away from nucleolus. Such varying expression patterns suggest its involvement in diverse biological processes at preimplantation stage. Setdb1 appeared in Oct4-positive cells of inner-cell-mass origin but not in trophectoderm-lineage cells in blastocyst outgrowths. Setdb1 co- immunoprecipitated with Oct4 in mESCs, and Setdb1 expression was markedly reduced upon retinoic acid- induced differentiation. These observations suggest that Setdb1 has an important role in maintaining the self-renewal of mESCs through collaboration with Oct4.

Microtubule-associated protein 1B (MAP1B), a member of MAP1 family, plays a key role in the brain development. MAP1B binds to many kinds of proteins directly or indirectly. In our previous studies, MAP1B and glyceraldehydes 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) were down-regulated in bovine follicular cystic follicles (FCF). This study was performed to examine interaction between MAP1B and GAPDH in bovine follicles using immunoprecipitation (IP) with western blot analysis and immunohistochemisty. MAP1B and GAPDH mRNA expression levels were down-regulated in bovine FCFs. Consistent with the semi-quantitative PCR data, their protein expressions were also down-regulated in FCFs. IP data showed that MAP1B bound to GAPDH in normal follicles, but their binding was absent in FCFs, suggesting that these data might be resulted from a low level of MAP1B and/or GAPDH expression. These results suggest that GAPDH does not as always function as a loading control in bovine follicles.

Sweet potato whitefly (SPW), Bemisia tabaci, is the most serious pest of greenhouse tomato as a vector of tomato yellow leaf curl virus since 2008 in Jeju. This study was conducted for within-plant distribution of SPW nymphs on leaves and the characteristic of spatial distribution of SPW adults using by yellow-color sticky trap in greenhouse-grown tomato plants. The nymphs of SPW were mainly distributed on leaves of mid-lower stratum in three stratum of tomato plant. They were also more distributed on three to four leaflets from basal part in a leaf. Ten plots and three plants per plot were appropriated to estimate of mean density of SPW nymph using by visual inspection in a tomato greenhouse. The more SPW adults were caught on horizontally placed sticky trap above 50～80 cm than vertically placed sticky trap above tomato canopy. The horizontal direction trap should be placed in opened site. SPW adults were shown the aggregated distribution pattern using by Taylor’s power law (TPL) and Iwao’s patchiness regression (IPR) model which are commonly used for spatial distribution pattern analysis. TPL was showed better description than IPR for spatial distribution pattern of SPW adults. The required number of trap tended to decrease according to increase the mean density of SPW adult

Stick insect has several peculiarities like parthenogenesis, unique external features and dropping oviposition, so it is very hopeful to use for industrial insect. The oviposition was established by only female without fertilization with sperm of male which was not discovered during this study. The oviposition period was 37.3±14.9 days and the number of eggs per female was 41.5±16.5 eggs. The hatchability was 73.3% at 25℃and 66.7% after low temperature treatment(8℃, 60 days). The developmental periods and the length of egg were 100.9±4.2 days and 0.33±0.0cm, respectively, and the adult's life span was 49.7±16.0days. Differently other research which reported five nymph stage, the developmental stages of nymph showed five(62.9%) or six(37.1%) stages. The duration and the length of nymph increased according to the increase of nymph stage. Stick insect preferred the leaf of American locust, White oak, Chestnut, Bush clover in order but could be reared with food of the leaf of all these trees. Stick insects are herbivorus but made an attack each other when encountered in the small space. For sustaining mass rearing of stick insect, it is needed that the development of artificial diet and high density rearing method.

Graphene is an attractive material for device applications, but device characteristics are very unstable because the graphene is very sensitive to environmental factors such as charges nearby the graphene, metal contacts, defects, contaminants and other adsorbates. Since the interactions between graphene and environmental factors affect the electrical characteristics of graphene devices, the interpretation of electrical characteristics as simple as current-voltage curves is non-trivial, despite the common practice of using well known electrical characterization methods that have been used in silicon MOSFET. This paper addresses major obstacles in the electrical characterization of graphene devices and offers countermeasures to improve the accuracy of electrical characterization methods.

Gene targeting is a genetic technique that utilizes homologous recombination between an engineered exogenous DNA fragments with the endogenous genome of an organism. In domestic animal, gene targeting has provided an important tool for producing Knock-out pig for GGTA1 gene to use xenotransplantation. The frequency of homologous recombination is a critical parameter for the success of gene targeting. The efficiency of homologous recombination in somatic cells is lower than that in mouse ES cells. So the application of gene targeting in somatic cells has been limited by its low efficiency. Recently, knock-out rat and mouse was generated by introducing nonhomologous end joining (NHE)-mediated deletion or insertion at the target site using zinc-finger nucleases (ZFN). Therefore, the development of effective knock-out and knock-in techniques in domestic animal is very important in biomedical research. In this present study, we investigated whether homologous recombination events occurs at cytidine monophospho-N-acetylneuraminic acid hydroxylase (CMAH) gene locus using ZFN in porcine primary fibroblast. CMAH-targeted ZFN DNA and mRNA were purchased from SIGMA-Aldrich. CMAH neo targeting vector consists of the neomycin resistance gene as a positive selectable marker gene, 789 bp 5’ arm and 763 bp 3’ arm from Exon 8 of CMAH gene. For transfection, the targeting vector and ZFN DNA or mRNA were introduced into ear fibroblasts cells of Chicago miniature pig by electroporation. After selection of G-418, PCR analysis was performed using 213 colonies transfected with ZFN DNA or mRNA. As a result, 39 positive colonies were identified in colonies transfected with ZFN DNA or mRNA. To our knowledge, this study provides the first evidence that the efficiency of gene targeting using ZFN was higher than that of conventional gene targeting in the porcine fibroblast. These cell lines may be used in the production of CMAH knock-out for xenotransplantation.

Sperm examination is an important tool in estimating the fertilizing capacity of an ejaculate. The number of spermatozoa in a semen dose, morphology and motility are important for the fertilization process. By evaluation of semen, artificial insemination (AI) using high quality of semen can increase fertilization rate. Boar semen is subject to contamination by various pathogens that can result in fertility disorders in sows. Among these pathogens, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), porcine parvovirus (PPV), porcine circovirus-2 (PCV-2) are of particular importance and accurate monitoring prior to and during the presence of boars in AI stations is essential. Because of the high risk of dissemination of disease via AI, The absolute goal is to provide pathogen-free semen and this is feasible with the adequate measures. The disease affects boars semen causes a significant reduction quality. In this study we investigated the characterization boar semen in Jeju, interaction of pathogenic virus infection with characterization of boar semen. Forty-two boar semen from 13 farms were investigated. The semen were stored during 5 days at 17℃ and the sperm qualities in the stored semen were analysed. Visual-motility assessment is a tool (Computer- Assisted Semen Analysis) used to determine the quality of boar semen. Percentage of morphologically normal spermatozoa were assessed. PRRS ,PPV and PCV-2 were detected in boar semen using PCR. The motion characteristics in boar semen was showed 68.4±9.1% for motility, 48.6±7.1 μm/s for VAP, 45.3±7.0 μm/s for VSL, 79.1±8.7 μm/s for VCL, 1.3±0.2 μm/s for ALH, 8.3±0.4 Hz for BCF, 93.6±3.5% for STR, 57.9±6.4 % for LIN. The percentage of sperm with abnormal head, midepeice and tail were 0.3±0.7%, 14.4±12.5%, 4.9±6.6%, respectively. Based on the PCR method, PPV was detected in 20 samples (48%). However, PCV-2 and PRRSV were not detected in any cases. Marked differences in motility and morphology between PPV negative and PPV positive semen were not observed. Sperm cell production was not affected by PPV infection. However, slight increases in detached head, coiled tail after infection were observed (p<0.05). The motility of semen in Jeju is similar to case comparing with other regions in Korea. Although PPV in semen was not affected in semen quality, there is the high risk of virus excretion in the semen of Jeju boars. Therefore continuous screening tests for some particular pathogens in boar semen would be warranted.

Entomopathogenic fungus Aschersonia aleyrodis naturally occurred on citrus whitefly, Dialeurodes citri nymph was often observed in organic citrus orchards, Jeju. The genus Aschersonia is also known to be toxic against scale insects and other pests. However, little is known about artificial media for mass production of spores of Aschersonia species. Grains are excellent sources of media for mass conidia production of various entomopathogenic fungi. The yeast extract, which converts carbohydrates to carbon dioxides and alcohols, contains a large amount of vitamin B complexes which facilitate the carbohydrate metabolism. The more yeast extract content the more conidia production on artificial medium made from commercial corn flour and corn gluten feed. The number of conidium produced on oat, millet, sorghum, and unhulled barley medium containing 1% yeast extract were 1.8, 1.8, 1.6, and 2.1×1010/plate (90mm × 15mm), respectively. However, the greatest yeast effect among four media showed appeared on sorghum medium, which produced 25 times higher spore production than sorghum alone. Furthermore, the conidia from solid sorghum medium could be easily harvested with cell scraper.