The PoN (Proof of Nonce) distributed consensus algorithm basically uses a non-competitive consensus method that can guarantee an equal opportunity for all nodes to participate in the block generation process, and this method was expected to resolve the first trilemma of the blockchain, called the decentralization problem. However, the decentralization performance of the PoN distributed consensus algorithm can be greatly affected by the network transaction transmission delay characteristics of the nodes composing the block chain system. In particular, in the consensus process, differences in network node performance may significantly affect the composition of the congress and committee on a first-come, first-served basis. Therefore, in this paper, we presented a problem by analyzing the decentralization performance of the PoN distributed consensus algorithm, and suggested a fairness control algorithm using a learning-based probabilistic acceptance rule to improve it. In addition, we verified the superiority of the proposed algorithm by conducting a numerical experiment, while considering the block chain systems composed of various heterogeneous characteristic systems with different network transmission delay.

Metformin (1,1-dimethylbiguanide hydrochloride), derived from French lilac (Galega officinalis), is a first-line anti-diabetic drug prescribed for patients with type 2 diabetes. However, the role of metformin in odontoblastic cell differentiation is still unclear. This study therefore undertook to examine the effect of metformin on regulating odontoblast differentiation in MDPC-23 mouse odontoblastic cells derived from mouse dental papilla cells. As compared to controls, metformin significantly accelerated the mineralization, significantly increased and accelerated the expressions of ALP and Col I mRNAs, and significantly increased the accelerated expressions of DSPP and DMP-1 mRNAs, during differentiation of MDPC-23 cells. There was no alteration in cell proliferation of MDPC-23 cells, on exposure to metformin. These results suggest that the effect of metformin on MDPC-23 mouse odontoblastic cells derived from mouse dental papilla cells, facilitates the odontoblast differentiation and mineralization, without altering the cell proliferation.

Background : Water uptake and flow across cellular membranes is a fundamental requirement for plant growth and development, and plant water status is important not only for plant growth under favorable conditions but also for ability of a plant to tolerate adverse environmental conditions. Thus identification of plasma membrane water channel genes (aquaporins) in ginseng provides extensive information for functional studies and the development of markers for salinity stress tolerance. Methods and Results : For salinity treatment, the plants were grown for 4 weeks in culture medium gelled with 0.8% Phytoagar, and the old media were replaced with the fresh medium containing NaCl at 0, 50, 100, 200 and 400 mM, respectively. The samples for stress treated and non-stressed plants were collected from 6h to 72h, and frozen immediately into liquid nitrogen. According to the sequence information from the assembled transcripts, four primer pairs were designed from the aquaporin gene regions. In order to determine the pattern of aquaporins expression in ginseng seedlings to salinity stress, we conducted semi-quantitative RT-PCR. Conclusion : A tonoplast intrinsic protein 1 (TIP1)-type aquaporin is not only believed to be essential for plant life, but also to be beneficial for growth under salinity stress. Therefore, a deeper understanding of aquaporin genes in ginseng will be essential for crop improvement, which could help us to understand the molecular genetic basis for the ginseng genetic improvement and also provide the functional genetic resources for selective breeding and transgenic research.

Background : This study was carried out to understand the effect of seedling weight (SW) on growth and flowering in Panax ginseng. Methods and Results : The testing materials were Chunpoong (CP), Yunpoong (YP) and Jakyeongjong (JK). The increase of seedling (1yr) weight led to an increase in ratio of flowering plant and in number of flower per plant. The seed setting rate of two year-old plant (CP, YP, JK) increased with increase of SW at the planting time (PT) and number of flower per plant of three year-old plant (CP, YP) increased also. In the two year-old plant (JK), the ratio of three leaves per plant was 8.8, 19.6, 31.0, 42.0, 44.7 and 58.2%, respectively, in the SW of >0.6, 0.6~0.8, 0.8~1.0, 1.02~1.2, 1.2~1.4 and 1.4g<. The growth of ginseng plant was good with increase of SW at the PT. Conclusion : There was a highly positive correlation between seedling weight and flowering characteristics.

Background : Due to immature development of embryo in ripened berries, dehiscence process is required for the proper germination of ginseng seeds. Such process involves the preparation of the container with alternating layers of seed and moist sand. In order to make sand fully moist, water sprayer has been usually used by farmers, which is labor intensive, time consuming and causing uneven sand moisture. Methods and Results : In this study, we investigated the effects of different stratification methods on dehiscence ratio of ginseng seeds. Ginseng seeds were stratified for 90 days in a total of 12 different treatments and the dehiscence ratios were compared; drainage methods, drainage time, the ratio between ginseng seeds and sand, and etc. Seed stratification process was performed according to the guideline of ginseng GAP. One thousand ginseng seeds were used for each treatment. It was found that the average of dehiscence of the 12 treatments was 84.6 %. The highest dehiscence ratio (90.3 %) was observed in the seeds that were treated with water soaking, immediately followed by drainage. Higher ratio was also observed in the seeds that were soaked for 60 min, followed by drainage. Therefore, our findings indicate that ginseng seeds soaked in water less than 60 min could dehisce more efficiently than traditional method. Conclusion : Our study demonstrated that ginseng seeds that are subjected to water soaking and then drainage showed better ration of dehiscence. This method will eventually decrease the time and labor used for seed stratification.

We determined intravitreal levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and pigment epithelium derived factor (PEDF) in patients with early phase rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD). Twenty five eyes of 25 RRD patients with symptom onset from one day to 21 days prior to vitrectomy were selected. Concentrations of VEGF and PEDF in vitreous were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and relationships between these concentrations and durations and involved quadrants were analyzed. Duration of RRD was found to show significant correlation with PEDF concentration. However, number of involved quadrants did not show correlation with PEDF concentration in vitreous.

The genus Rubus belongs to the Rosaceae family and is comprised of 600-800 species distributed worldwide. Understanding the genetic relationships and genetic structure in Rubus species is important for enabling efficient management, conservation, characterization and utilization of the species. However, as a minor crop, genetic research foundation was limited to explore genetic diversity and relationships in Rubus species. The present study shows the results of application SSR markers that were developed from SSR-enriched libraries of the one Rubus species (Rubus coreanus Mique.) in our previous study. We used 34 polymorphic microsatellite markers to analysis of genetic diversity within the Rubus species, including redraspberry, blackraspberry, blackberry and mountainberry. All the 34 SSR primers pairs produced 483 polymorphic and reproducible amplification fragments. The largest number of alleles per primer pair was confirmed at GB-RC-167, GB-RC-100, GB-RC-076 and GB-RC-245, which contained 26, 25, 23 and 21, respectively. An average value of polymorphic information contents (PIC) were 0.74 with a range of 0.36 to 0.92. Population structure and phylogenetic analyses showed that all Rubus species formed three largely distinct clusters, which were confirmed by principal coordinate analysis (PCoA). We obtained the results that the developed SSR markers showed a substantial degree of genetic diversity in the various Rubus species distributed in Korea.

Soybean (Glycine max, 2n = 2x = 40) is broadly distributed throughout East and South East Asia, and important crop as a source of protein, oil, food and animal feed. In order to better understand the morphological differentiation of soybean germplasm collected from China, Japan, Korea, Philippines, America, we analyzed the morphological variabilities among 629 soybeans with 11 morphological traits, such as growth type, leaflet, flower color, trichome, seed coat color, color inside seed etc. and measured the fatty acid composition. The result of the principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) based on the 11 morphological traits revealed diversity among all accessions. The PCoA separated the accessions into two main groups, each group with distinctive features. Among tested germplasm, the contents of five fatty acids were as follows: linolenic acid (2.8%－16.23%), linoleic acid (27.4%－56.6%), oleic acid (9.2%－35.0%), stearic acid (2.9%－8.8%), and palmitic acid (8.7%－17.1%). The fatty acid composition has not shown significant variation among all accessions. IT 22268 was the highest linolenic acid composition (16.2%), while IT 154687 was the lowest (2.8%). Forty three of 629 accessions showed the arachidic acid (0.5%-3.6%), which is the saturated fatty acid with a 20 carbon chain and is as a minor constituent of peanut oil (1.1%-1.7%). This result of this characterization served as reliable resources for detailed description and new functional plant breeding of soybean varieties.

During the last decade, considerable progress has been made to understand the molecular mechanisms of M. grisea infection in rice plants and 10 rice blast R genes have been identified and characterized via map-based cloning methods. In case of rice germplasm, the genetic backgrounds of each germplasm accessions are not uniform and the evaluation for pathogenicity is difficult. To solve these problems, we applied the single resistance gene markers to rice germplasm accessions. A molecular survey was conducted to identify the presence of major blast resistance (R) gene in 363 accessions of Korea landrace rice germplasm. The results revealed that the resistance gene Pik-p (100%), Pib (98%), Pi-d(t)2 (98%) and Piz (76%) were widely observed in tested rice germplasm, but Pita-2, Pik and Pi39 gene were identified in less than 10 accessions. Most of landrace contain the four or five different resistant genes, but these results was not consist of field nursery screening. 13 accessions were shown the blast resistance in field nursery screening and Pik-p, Pib, Pi-d(t)2 and Piz genes were observed in these accessions. The evaluation results of blast resistance genes in rice germplasm will help in breeding of multi disease resistant varieties.