The aim of this study was to investigate what components of porcine epididymal fluid (pEF) influences the nuclear maturation of porcine germinal vesicle oocytes. Porcine cumulus-oocytes complexes from follicles were cultured in TCM 199 containing pEF. After 48 h cultures, oocytes were examined for evidence of GV breakdown, metaphase I, anaphase-telophase I, and metaphase II. Maturation rate of oocytes was significantly increased in media supplemented with 10% pEF during in vitro maturation (IVM) than in those without pEF. When lipid component of pEF was removed by treating n-heptane, no significant difference was observed in maturation of oocytes between n-heptane treatrment and intact pEF group. However, the proportion of oocytes reaching at metaphase II (M II) was significantly (p<0.05) decreased in the oocytes cultured in media containing trypsin-treated pEF compared to those in media with intact pEF. When porcine GV oocytes were matured in the medium supplemented with intact pEF or pEF heated at 56'C and 97'C, rates of oocytes remained at GV stage were 11.7%, 29.4% and 42.0%, respectively. However, there were no difference in proportion of oocytes reaching at MII stage among intact pEF group and 56'C group. Present study suggests that 1) pEF contains an enhancing component(s) for nuclear maturation in vitro of oocytes, 2) protein(s) of pEF may be capable to promote nuclear maturation in vitro, and 3) enhancing component for nuclear maturation may consist of two factors, which are responsible for germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD) and promotion of MII stage.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether addition of porcine epididymal fluid (pEF) into culture medium during in vitro maturation influences the nuclear maturation of porcine germinal vesicle (GV) oocytes. Porcine cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) from follicles were cultured in tissue culture medium 199 (TCM 199) containing pEF. After 48 hr of culture, oocytes were examined for evidence of GV breakdown, metaphase I, anaphase-telophase I, and metaphase II. The proportion of oocytes reaching at metaphase II (M II) stage was significantly (p<0.05) increased in oocytes cultured in the media supplemented with 10% pEF during in vitro maturation than in those without pEF regardless of cumulus presence or absence (54.6% vs 22.5%，51.7% vs 24.2%). The supplementation of pEF during maturation of oocyte enhanced oocytes maturation in a dose-dependent manner in vitro. Also significant differences (p<0.05) in the percentage of MII oocytes were observed according to exposure period in pEF. Present study suggests that pEF contains a enhancing component(s) for nuclear maturation of porcine immature oocytes in vitro.

The purpose of this current study aims to examine how much Korean EFL students incorporate their given peer responses into their final versions of writing in two different types of CMC environment, chatting and bulletin board, and whether there was any improvement in participants’ writing quality in the final drafts. 38 Korean EFL participants wrote first drafts, received peers’ responses through either chatting or bulletin board, individually revised their drafts based on their peer responses and wrote their final drafts. The overall results revealed that regardless of using either chatting or bulletin board, the participants incorporated higher portion of their given responses into the revised drafts. Although no significant differences were obtained with respect to two different modes, chatting and bulletin board, in terms of writing improvement in participants’ final drafts, there were significant differences found within chatting and bulletin board classes with both holistic and analytic measurement. Therefore, the present study suggests the importance of utilizing both CMC tools in writing environment for EFL students and applying them at appropriate steps in the writing process.

In this study, the pure iron powder was treated with aqueous phosphoric acid to produce phosphate insulating layer on the surface. After drying the powder, it was compacted in a mold with a diameter of 20mm at 800MPa. The powder compacts were then heat treated at for 1 hour. The results showed that insulated iron powder was obtained with uniform phosphate layer by chemical reaction. With increased amount of phosphate layer, the core loss and density of compacts were decreased. It was also found that the addition of ethyl alcohol during insulating reaction resulted in improved core loss value.

The present investigation has been performed on full densification behavior and mechanical property of the powder injection molded Fe-8wt%Ni nanoalloy powder. The net shaping process of the nanopowder was conducted by powder injection molding (PIM) process. The key-process for fabricating fully densified net-shaped nanopowder by pressureless sintering is an optimal control of agglomerate size of nanopowder. Enhanced mechanical property of PIMed Fe-Ni nanopowder is explained by grain refinement and microstructural uniformity.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have attracted remarkable attention as reinforcement for composites owing to their outstanding mechanical properties. The CNT/Cu nanocomposite is fabricated by a novel fabrication process named molecular level process. The novel process for fabricating CNT/Cu composite powders involves suspending CNTs in a solvent by surface functionalization, mixing Cu ions with CNT suspension, drying, calcination and reduction. The molecular level process produces CNT/Cu composite powders whereby the CNTs are homogeneously implanted within Cu powders. The mechanical properties of CNT/Cu nanocomposite, consolidated by spark plasma sintering of CNT/Cu composite powders, shows about 3 times higher strength and 2 times higher Young's modulus than those of Cu matrix.

Densification behavior of nano-agglomerate powder during pressureless sintering of Fe-Ni nanopowder was investigated in terms of diffusion kinetics and microstructural development. To understand the role of agglomerate boundary for sintering process, densification kinetics of Fe-Ni nano-agglomerate powder with different agglomerate size was investigated. It was found that activation energy for densification was lower in the small-sized agglomerate powder. The increase in the volume fraction of inter-agglomerate boundary acting as high diffusion path might be responsible for the enhanced diffusion process.

This study investigated a mechanism for controlling the shape of Cu nanocrystals fabricated using the polyol process, which considers the thermodynamic transition from a facetted surface to a rough surface and the growth mechanisms of nanocrystals with facetted or rough surfaces. The facetted surfaces were stable at relatively low temperatures due to the low entropy of perfectly facetted surfaces. Nanocrystals fabricated using a coordinative surfactant stabilized the facetted surface at a higher temperature than those fabricated using a non-coordinative surfactant. The growth rate of the surface under a given driving force was dependent on the surface structure, i.e., facetted or rough, and the growth of a facetted surface was a thermally activated process. Surface twins decreased the activation energy for growth of the facetted surface and resulted in rod- or wire-shaped nanocrystals

This study primarily aims at identifying and classifying the most frequently occurring error types in Korean university students’ written work. This study will also try to find some ways to prevent those errors by discussing the issue of error treatment. A total of one hundred and fifteen Korean university students participated for two consecutive studies. The writing samples were collected and errors were extracted from native speaker teachers’ error correction of student writing. After the errors were identified, they were analyzed based on a modified linguistic category taxonomy (Dulay, Burt, & Krashen, 1982). In this study, the most common errors were ‘Noun Phrase’ errors, followed by ‘Verb Phrase’ errors. This possibly suggests the existence of interlanguage and implies that the differences in the two language systems or the absence of certain features in L1 (Korean) caused difficulty in their application in L2 (English) in using the correct forms. Pedagogical implications based on the findings are then discussed.