The genus Margarinotus Marseul, 1854 is one of the highly diverse groups of Histeridae (Histerinae), consisting more than 100 described species in the world. About 80 species are known to distributed in Palaearctic region, among them, 11 species have been reported from Korea. In this study, we report a new species, Margarinotus pseudoboleti sp. nov. and a new record, Margarinotus yezoensis Ôhara from Korea. Also, we provide a revised taxonomic key for Korean Margarinotus, including above two species and images of adults.

This study (1) explored spatio-temporal population distribution patterns in Jeonju by using emerging hot spot analysis and (2) identified the influential factors to determine the spatio-temporal patterns by using multinomial logit model. The major findings are as follows. First, the results of emerging hot spot analysis indicated that the 100*100m grid in the urban area of Jeonju was found to have a category of hot spots, whereas most of the cold spot series was concentrated in the outskirts of the city. Also, new towns such as Jeonju Eco City, Jeonbuk Innovation City, and Hyocheon District were persistent or intensifying hot spots, Third, the results of multinomial logit model revealed that the factors influencing deterrmining the spatio-temporal patterns were accessibility to schools, hospitals, parks, and walfare services. This study offered a deeper understanding of urbanization and regional changes in Jeonju, and important information for urban planning.

This study investigated ethopabate (EPB) residues in edible tissues of broiler chickens given in drinking water and established the withdrawal time (WT) of EPB in poultry tissues. Twenty-four healthy Ross broiler chickens were orally administered with EPB at the concentration of 3.8 mg/L for 14 days (EPB-1, n=24) and 15.2 mg/L for 7 days (EPB-2, n=24) through drinking water, respectively. After the drug treatment, tissue samples were collected from six broiler chickens at 0, 1, 3, and 5 days, respectively. EPB residue concentrations in poultry tissues were determined using LC-MS/MS. Correlation coefficient values ranged from 0.9980 to 0.9998, and the limits of detection and quantification (LOQ) were 0.03~0.09 and 0.1~0.3 μg/kg, respectively. Mean recoveries in muscle, liver, kidney and skin/fat tissues were 95.9~109.8, 108.7~115.3, 89.9~96.6 and 86.7~96.8%, respectively, and coefficient of variations were less than 17.11%. At the end of the drug-administration period (0 day), EPB was detected at levels under the LOQ in all tissues from both the EPB-1 and EPB-2 groups. According to the results of EPB residue in Ross broiler tissues, withdrawal periods of both EPB-1 and EPB-2 in poultry tissues were established to 0 day. In conclusion, the developed analytical method is suitable for the detection of EPB in poultry tissues, and the estimated WT of EPB in poultry tissues will contribute to ensuring the safety of Ross broiler chickens.

Background: Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) including embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) offer the immense therapeutic potential in stem cell-based therapy of degenerative disorders. However, clinical trials of human ESCs cause heavy ethical concerns. With the derivation of iPSCs established by reprogramming from adult somatic cells through the transgenic expression of transcription factors, this problems would be able to overcome. In the present study, we tried to differentiate porcine iPSCs (piPSCs) into endothelial cells (ECs) for stem cell-based therapy of vascular diseases. Methods: piPSCs (OSKMNL) were induced to differentiation into ECs in four differentiation media (APEL-2, APEL-2 + 50 ng/mL of VEGF, EBM-2, EBM-2 + 50 ng/ mL of VEGF) on cultured plates coated with matrigel® (1:40 dilution with DMEM/F-12 medium) for 8 days. Differentiation efficiency of these cells were exanimated using qRT-PCR, Immunocytochemistry, Western blotting and FACS. Results: As results, expressions of pluripotency-associated markers (OCT-3/4, SOX2 and NANOG) were higher observed in all porcine differentiated cells derived from piPSCs (OSKMNL) cultured in four differentiation media than piPSCs as the control, whereas endothelial-associated marker (CD-31) in the differentiated cells was not expressed. Conclusions: It can be seen that piPSCs (OSKMNL) were not suitable to differentiate into ECs in the four differentiation media unlike porcine epiblast stem cells (pEpiSCs). Therefore, it would be required to establish a suitable PSCs for differentiating into ECs for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

The market for counterfeit luxury goods is growing rapidly, with estimates suggesting that counterfeit trades are valued at around $4.5 trillion globally, with 60% to 70% of this being made up of counterfeit luxury goods. Research has shown that counterfeits dilute the perceived quality of luxury brands and reduce consumers' purchase intentions. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a form of ownership record that is linked and stored on a blockchain.

The hospitality, tourism, and travel (HTT) industry has a significant environmental impact due to its water, energy, and waste production. One of the main challenges faced by the HTT industry is the reduction of the negative environmental impact of hotel businesses. Recent studies have shown that consumers are willing to pay a premium for green hotels that adopt environmentally friendly practices to minimize their impact on the environment. While interest in these practices has been increasing, not all consumers are familiar with actual benefits of green hotels. Therefore, it is necessary to employ strategies to increase consumers’ awareness and encourage positive pre-purchasing decisions when selecting a green hotel.

According to NSSC Notice No. 2021-10, safety analysis needs to be introduced in the decommissioning plan. Public and occupational dose analyses should be conducted, specifically for unexpected radiological accidents. Herein, based on the risk matrix and analytic hierarchy process, the method of selecting accident scenarios during the decommissioning of nuclear power plants has been proposed. During decommissioning, the generated spent resin exhibits relatively higher activity than other generated wastes. When accidents occur, the release fraction varies depending on the conditioning method of radioactive waste and type of radioactive nuclides or accidents. Occupational dose analyses for 2 (fire and drop) among 11 accident scenarios have been performed. The radiation doses of the additional exposures caused by the fire and drop accidents are 1.67 and 4.77 mSv, respectively.

From 2020, Korean Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency has reset the withdrawal time (WT) for veterinary drugs typically used in livestock in preparation for the introduction of positive list system (PLS) program in 2024. This study was conducted to reset the MRL for amprolium (APL) in broiler chickens as a part of PLS program introduction. Forty-eight healthy Ross broiler chickens were orally administered with APL at the concentration of 60 mg/L (APL-1, n=24) for 14 days and 240 mg/L (APL-2, n=24) for 7 days through drinking water, respectively. After the drug treatment, tissue samples were collected from six broiler chickens at 0, 1, 3 and 5 days, respectively. Residual APL concentrations in poultry tissues were determined using LC-MS/MS. Correlation coefficient (0.99 >), the limits quantification (LOQ, 0.3~5.0 μg/kg), recoveries (81.5~112.4%), and coefficient of variations (<15.5%) were satisfied the validation criteria of Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. In APL-1, APL in all tissues except for kidney was detected less than LOQ at 3 days after drug treatment. In APL-2, APL in liver and kidney was detected more than LOQ at 5 days after treatment. According to the European Medicines Agency’s guideline on determination of withdrawal periods, withdrawal periods of APL-1 and APL-2 in poultry tissues were established to 3 and 2 days, respectively. In conclusion, the developed analytical method is sensitive and reliable for detecting APL in poultry tissues. The estimated WT of APL in poultry tissues is longer than the current WT recommendation of 2 days for APL in broiler chickens.

A low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste repository contains different types of radionuclides and organic complexing agents. Their chemical interaction in the repository can result in the formation of radionuclide-ligand complexes, leading to their high transport behaviors in the engineered and natural rock barriers. Furthermore, the release of radionuclides from the repository can pose a significant risk to both human health and the environment. This study explores the impact of different experimental conditions on the transport behaviors of 99Tc, 137Cs, and 238U through three types of barrier samples: concrete, sedimentary rock, and granite. To assess the transport behavior of the samples, the geochemical characteristics were determined using X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), Fouriertransform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. The adsorption distribution coefficient (Kd) was used as an indicator of transport behavior, and it was determined in batch systems under different conditions such as solution pH (ranging from 7 to 13), temperature (ranging from 10 to 40°C), and with the presence of organic complexing agents such as ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA), and isosaccharinic acid (ISA). A support vector machine (SVM) was used to develop a prediction model for the Kd values. It was found that, regardless of the experimental parameters, 99Tc may migrate easily due to its anionic property. Conversely, 137Cs showed low transport behaviors under all tested conditions. The transport behaviors of 238U were impacted by the order of EDTA > NTA> ISA, particularly with the concrete sample. The SVM models can also be used to predict the Kd values of the radionuclides in the event of an accidental release from the repository.

The organic complexing agents such as ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA), and isosaccharinic acid (ISA) can enhance the radionuclides’ solubility and have the potential to induce the acceleration of radionuclides’ mobility to a far-field from the radioactive waste repository. Hence, it is essential to evaluate the effect of organic complexing agents on radionuclide solubility through experimental analysis under similar conditions to those at the radioactive waste disposal site. In this study, five radionuclides (cesium, cobalt, strontium, iodine, and uranium) and three organic complexing agents (EDTA, NTA, and ISA) were selected as model substances. To simulate environmental conditions, the groundwater was collected near the repository and applied for solubility experiments. The solubility experiments were carried out under various ranges of pHs (7, 9, 11, and 13), temperatures (10°C, 20°C, and 40°C), and concentrations of organic complexing agents (0, 10-5, 10-4, 10-3, and 10-2 M). Experimental results showed that the presence of organic complexing agents significantly increased the solubility of the radionuclides. Cobalt and strontium had high solubility enhancement factors, even at low concentrations of organic complexing agents. We also developed a support vector machine (SVM) model using some of the experimental data and validated it using the rest of the solubility data. The root mean square error (RMSE) in the training and validation sets was 0.012 and 0.016, respectively. The SVM model allowed us to estimate the solubility value under untested conditions (e.g., pH 12, temperature 30°C, ISA 5×10-4 M). Therefore, our experimental solubility data and the SVM model can be used to predict radionuclide solubility and solubility enhancement by organic complexing agents under various conditions.

In this study, we evaluate artificial neural network (ANN) models that estimate the positions of gamma-ray sources from plastic scintillating fiber (PSF)-based radiation detection systems using different filtering ratios. The PSF-based radiation detection system consists of a single-stranded PSF, two photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) that transform the scintillation signals into electric signals, amplifiers, and a data acquisition system (DAQ). The source used to evaluate the system is Cs-137, with a photopeak of 662 keV and a dose rate of about 5 μSv/h. We construct ANN models with the same structure but different training data. For the training data, we selected a measurement time of 1 minute to secure a sufficient number of data points. Conversely, we chose a measurement time of 10 seconds for extracting time-difference data from the primary data, followed by filtering. During the filtering process, we identified the peak heights of the gaussian-fitted curves obtained from the histogram of the time-difference data, and extracted the data located above the height which is equal to the peak height multiplied by a predetermined percentage. We used percentage values of 0, 20, 40, and 60 for the filtering. The results indicate that the filtering has an effect on the position estimation error, which we define as the absolute value of the difference between the estimated source position and the actual source position. The estimation of the ANN model trained with raw data for the training data shows a total average error of 1.391 m, while the ANN model trained with 20%-filtered data for the training data shows a total average error of 0.263 m. Similarly, the 40%-filtered data result shows a total average error of 0.119 m, and the 60%-filtered data result shows a total average error of 0.0452 m. From the perspective of the total average error, it is clear that the more data are filtered, the more accurate the result is. Further study will be conducted to optimize the filtering ratio for the system and measuring time by evaluating stabilization time for position estimation of the source.