In recent decades, introduction of the alien plant pests into Korea was dramatically increased and the role of plant quarantine became more important than ever. At the same time, early detection of the introduced population of the alien pests is critical for protection of their spread. However, continuous monitoring for their distribution or spread has not been performed yet in Korea. Present monitoring systems in Korea is not unified but sectored according to three institutes. There are some limitations in managing human resources, executing budgets, and collecting information among them, resuling in delayed responses to the introduced alien pests. Our study focused on 1) constructing nation-wide continuous monitoring system, 2) developing a decision flow chart for evaluating risks, 3) performing the benefits and costs analysis. Continuous monitoring will clarify overall distribution of alien pests, support government’s quarantine negotiation, and enable early detection of alien pests. Furthermore, the system will provide scientific data management and early responses to invasion of alien pests.

The citrus flatid planthopper Metcalfa pruinosa, a invasive species causes serious damages to field crops, including sweet persimmon, soybean, maize, especially ginseng (Panax ginseng C.A meyer). We selected six chemical pesticides and one environmental friendly pesticide made from the mixture of derris extracts, citronella oils, and cinnamon extracts in laboratory. These pesticides showed over 90% of control effect in open ginseng field. This study was carried out with the support of the cooperative research program for RDA (project No. PJ0124992018), Republic of Korea.

방울토마토의 수경재배 중 붕소+칼슘+규소 및 칼슘+규소의 복합 엽면시비가 수확 후 품질과 MAP 저장 중 저장성에 미치는 영향을 알아보고자 본 연구를 실시하였다. 엽면시비한 방울 토마토(‘Unicorn’)는 반숙 과상태에서 수확하여 산소투과성 필름으로 포장한 5oC, 11oC, 그리고 24oC에서 25일, 15일, 10일간 저장하였다. 붕소+칼슘+규소 복합처리한 방울토마토가 3가지 저장온도 모두에서 호흡과 에틸렌 발생이 억제되어 MAP 저장중 가장 낮은 생체중 감소와 가장 높은 외관상 품질을 보였다. 수확 후 조사한 방울토마토의 경도, 산도, 비타민 C 함량은 붕소+칼슘+규소 복합처리에서 가장 높았으며, 3가지 온도 모두에서 MAP 저장 후에도 모두 높게 유지되었다. 그러나 과피색, 라이코펜 함량과 당도는 수확 후에는 엽면시비 처리로 차이가 없었으나, 3가지 온도 모두 붕소+칼슘+규소 복합처리에서 가장 낮은 수치를 보였다. 이상의 결과로 볼 때 붕소+칼슘+규소 복합처리는 방울토마토의 수확후 생리 작용을 억제하고 경도, 산도, 비타민 C 함량을 높여 저장성을 향상시키는 것으로 판단되었다

Special law on the development of Jeju Special Self-Governing Province and the formation of Jeju International Free City is the basic law that regulates the order of Jeju society. However, with Jeju Special Law considered to be the development law, criticism has been raised on what was the purpose of the Special Self-Governing Province. Efforts are also being made to reflect the position of Jeju in the constitution in 2018, but it is not easy to drop the label of development-oriented laws again if the actual direction of special laws on Jeju is not established properly. The wrong meeting between Jeju's special autonomous province and the international free city has led to criticism on various issues, such as reckless development, environmental degradation, and the rise of land prices and damage to residents.

In this paper, a mathematical model of regionalization based on graph theory to investigate the patterns induced by movements of livestock vehicles in cities under outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is proposed. We then compare the results of simulation from the regionalization model to actual HPAI outbreaks in 2016/2017 to evaluate the validity of the model. Specifically, we (1) configured a complex network structure with analytic tools and properties in graph theory to abstract the paths among farms and livestock facilities; (2) employed statistical methods to estimate the possibility of propagation between two clusters; (3) applied the developed method to an actual HPAI outbreak in Korea in 2016 and conducted a simulation to determine if the proposed modeling for regionalization is an effective prediction measure. The clustered regions proposed by the simulation correctly reflected the regional clustering of actual cases, while simultaneously contain the cities exposed to potential damage when separated. Based on these findings, we conclude that our proposed regionalization model is suitable for making policy judgments to establish a preemptive biosecurity system.

Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2)-mediated prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) plays a key role in development and progression of inflammatory responses and Porphyromonas gingivalis is a common endodontic pathogen. In this study, we investigated induction of COX-2 and PGE2 by P. gingivalis in human dental pulp cells (HDPCs). P. gingivalis increased expression of COX-2, but not that of COX-1. Increased levels of PGE2 were released from P. gingivalis-infected HDPCs and this PGE2 increase was blocked by celecoxib, a selective COX-2 inhibitor. P. gingivalis activated all three types of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs). P. gingivalis-induced activation of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) was demonstrated by the results of phosphorylation of NF-κ B p65 and degradation of inhibitor of κB-α (IκB-α). Pharmacological inhibition of each of the three types of MAPKs and NF-κB substantially attenuated P. gingivalisinduced PGE2 production. These results suggest that P. gingivalis should promote endodontic inflammation by stimulating dental pulp cells to produce PGE2.

Adhesive capsulitis of the shoulder is a common cause of pain that occurs during shoulder movement, thereby restricting shoulder rotation in clinical practice. Although most patients respond to pain relief treatment (NSAID or corticosteroids) by improving their range of motion, it remains poorly understood without any definitive treatment algorithm. In addition to immune cells, synoviocytes, chondrocytes and osteoblasts in the joint are known to produce pro-inflammatory mediators such as reactive oxygen species (ROS), inflammatory cytokines and lipid mediators, presumably contributing to the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis (OA) and adhesive capsulitis. Although inflammation and also fibrosis are proposed to be the basic pathological changes of a frozen shoulder, there is a lack of information regarding the downstream targets of the pro-inflammatory ROS signaling pathway in the synoviocytes and also how these ROS targets are modulated at the transcription level by a corticosteroid - dexamethasone. In this study, we used human fibroblast like synoviocytes (HFLS) to characterize the signaling targets of ROS by employing a human DNA microarray tool and studied the role of dexamethasone in this process. Our data suggest that several genes such as FOS, FOSB and NFkBIZ, which are known to be involved in pro- or anti- inflammation response, are modulated at the transcription level by ROS and dexamethasone.

This study was conducted to monitoring the insecticidal susceptibility of Western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis,damaging the horticultural crops in Gyeonggi area. Neonicotinoid insecticides, especially acetamiprid SP, clothianidin SC,imidacloprid WP and thiacloprid WG were not toxic to F. occidentalis collected from horticultural crops. Excepting theinsecticide of spinosin or pyrrole class, there was a little class of insecticides for the effective control of F. occidentalisin horticultural crop areas. Considering all the results in this study, spinosin insecticides including over 4 and 10% ofspinetoram and spinosad, and pyrrole insecticide including over 5% of chlorfenapyr should be recommended for the effectivecontrol of F. occidentalis, damaging the horticultural crops in Gyeonggi area.

In the present study, four edible mushrooms, Lentinula edodes, Agaricus bisporus, Pleurotus ostreatus, and Pleurotus eryngii, were air-dried or freeze-dried for a certain period of time. After finely ground the materials, their beta-glucan contents were measured. Beta-glucan is a polysaccharide of plant and fungal cell wall and also a dietary fiber. It has an effect on stimulating immune cells and decreasing cholesterol. In the mushroom materials used in this study, beta-glucan contents were measured as 11-16%. Among them, P. ostreatus represented the highest contents, 16%. The authors also examined the contents of polyphenol, which is a phenolic compound known to have antioxidant activity. The polyphenol concentrations of the selected mushrooms were measured in 1 mg/ml of each sample prepared by hot-air drying and freeze-drying, respectively. As a result, 28-32 mg/ml of polyphenol was measured in hot air dried samples of P. ostreatus. In P. eryngii, air-dried samples had 6 mg/ml more polyphenols than freeze-dried ones, while in P. ostreatus, the former had 10 mg/ml more than the latter, indicating that the polyphenol contents in mushrooms can be changed by the different drying treatments. In other words, for P. eryngii and P. ostreatus, hot-air drying is more suitable processing method than freeze-drying in the light of physiological activity.

Lignosus rhinocerotis, commonly known as Tiger Milk Mushroom, has been long extolled for its medicinal properties and used for treatment of asthma, cough, fever, cancer, liver-related illnesses, joint pains and as tonic. The history of usage for Tiger Milk Mushroom dates back to almost 400 years, ago but there were no records of scientific studies done due to inavailability of sufficient samples. Even when there were samples collected from the wild, the supply and quality was inconsistent. With the advent of cultivation success of one of the most utilized species of Tiger milk mushroom (L. rhinocerotis) in 2009 (known as TM02), scientific investigation was done to validate its traditional use and to investigate its safety for consumption, biochemical and biopharmacological properties. Preclinical toxicology evaluations showed that TM02 did not induce adverse effects on fertility. It also poses neither teratogenic effects nor genotoxicity. The no-observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) dose of the TM02 in 180-day chronic toxicity study is 1000 mg/kg which is equivalent to 162 mg/kg human dose, anticipated dose for a 60 kg adult is ~10g. The effective dosage of TM02 is as low as 0.5g per day for an adult. There is therefore, a huge margin for the safe consumption of TM02. TM02 is proven to be effective in supporting the lung and respiratory health, immune health, maintenance of joint health (caused by inflammation), improving vitality and stamina and improving the quality of life for cancer patients. Recent scientific findings have shown that TM02 contains various active components such as the polysaccharides-protein complexes, β-glucans, proteins, immuno-modulatory proteins all of which could play possible roles in rendering significant therapeutic properties such as anti-inflammatory, immuno-modulatory, anti-proliferative, anti-oxidative, neurite outgrowth stimulation etc. The revelation of the genome, transcriptome, proteome of L. rhinocerotis by MMRG has provided valuable insights into the biomolecule discovery and provided the foundation for future research and exploitation of L. rhinocerotis in pharmacological and functional food applications. These data forms a valuable foundation for future research in the exploitation of the L. rhinocerotis in pharmacological and industrial applications.

We have previously shown that the specific phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibitor LY294002 (LY29), and its inactive analog LY303511 (LY30), inhibit a monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) expression in human umbilical vein endothelial cells; these results suggest the potential of LY30 as an anti-inflammatory drug. In this study, we determined the effects of LY30 on the production of various inflammatory cytokines in human macrophagic THP-1 cells which were stimulated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS). LY30 selectively suppressed the mRNA expression of IL-12 p40, TNF-α, and MCP-1 without affecting the expression of IL-1α, IL-6, and IL-8. Inhibition of the production of IL-12 and TNF-α by LY30 was also demonstrated using ELISA assays. In order to elucidate the mechanisms of the action of LY30, we examined the role played by the mitogen-activated protein kinases and the key transcription factors, AP-1 and NF-κB in LPS-stimulated THP-1 cells. The results revealed that LY30 inhibited LPS-induced activation of ERK, but not p38 or JNK. Furthermore, the AP-1 DNA binding activity was suppressed by LY30 based upon the dosage, whereas NF-κB DNA binding was not affected. These results suggest that LY30 selectively inhibits cytokine production in the LPS-stimulated macrophagic THP-1 cells by downregulating the activation of ERK and AP-1.

Skin barrier function can be assessed non-invasively, including by transepidermal water loss (TEWL), skin hydration, and sebum level. The aim of this study was to evaluate day-to-day variation in measurements of TEWL, skin hydration, and sebum level at various anatomic sites and the relationship between these parameters in normal dogs. Measurements were repeated five times on two separate days in five clinically normal Beagle dogs at seven anatomic sites, i.e., the left and right pinnae, left and right axillae, left and right groin areas, and ventrum. Coefficient of variation was used to show the variation in measurements. Correlations between each of the measurements were analyzed to determine the contribution of skin hydration and sebum level to TEWL. There was no variation in the measurements obtained according to time or anatomic site (P>.0.05). The coefficient of variation was highest for sebum level (209.0 ± 81.8%) followed in descending order by skin hydration (62.7 ± 34.5%) and TEWL (41.1 ± 6.9%). Of the seven anatomic sites sampled, the left and right pinnae showed the lowest variation in repeated measurements for TEWL (39.2%), skin hydration (29.6%), and sebum level (75.5%). There was no significant relationship between the results for each measurement (P>.0.05). Because of its relatively low variation on repeated measurement, TEWL might be the most useful way of evaluating skin condition in dogs.