After the permanent shut down of Kori Unit 1, various decommissioning activities will be implemented, including decontamination, segmentation, waste management, and site restoration. During the decommissioning period, waste management is among the most important activities to ensure that the process proceeds smoothly and within the expected timeframe. Furthermore, the radioactive waste generated during the operation should be sent to a disposal facility to complete the decommissioning project. Square and cylindrical concrete re-package drums were generated during the 1980s and 1990s. The square, containing boron concentrates, and cylindrical, containing spent resin, concrete re-package drums have been stored in a radioactive waste storage building. Homogeneous radioactive waste, including boron concentrates, spent resin, and sludge, should be solidified or packaged in high-integrity containers (HICs). This study investigates the sequential segmentation process for the separation of contaminated and non-contaminated regions, the re-packaging process of segmented or crushed cement-solidified boron concentrate, and re-packaging in HICs. The conceptual design evaluates the re-packaging plan for the segmented and crushed cement-solidified waste using HICs, which is acceptable in a disposal facility, and the quantity of generated HICs from the treatment process.

Ticks are obligatory hematophagous ectoparasites, which can transmit various pathogens including bacteria, protozoa, and viruses via salivary secretion during feeding. Understanding salivation in ticks is crucial for the development of novel methods to prevent tick-borne disease transmission. The central nervous system (synganglion) of ticks controls salivary glands via several neuropeptidergic innervation: myoinhibitory peptide (MIP), SIFamide, and elevenin. These neuropeptides are thought to be modulators of dopamine’s action controlling the salivary glands including inward fluid transport into the lumen of salivary glands acini and emptying lumen solute into salivary duct by pumping and gating. These actions are via two distinct dopamine receptors, dopamine receptor (D1) and invertebrate D1-like dopamine receptor (InvD1L), respectively.

Ginger is generally consumed as food or medicine in Korea and mostly imported from China. During quarantine inspection,genus of nematodes, Meloidogyne spp. and Pratylenchus spp., are mainly detected and regulated under the procedure ofquarantine in Korea. We tested the susceptibility and mortality rates of Meloidogyne spp., which are infected in ginger,against a fumigant, Ethanedinitrile (EDN). Juveniles of the nematode showed 100 % mortality against EDN at 2.5 mg/Lfor 2 h at 13°C, meanwhile, egg mass showed 0 % hatching at 5 mg/L for 2 h at 13°C. A concentration × time product(CTP) was determined as 7.24 ghm-3. Under the 35% filling rate of ginger in cold chamber, 100% mortality was observedin both juveniles and eggs at 50 mg/L for 2 h at 13°C. At that condition, CTP was determined as 14.12 ghm-3. Basedon this study, EDN fumigation will be effectively apply to control of nematodes.

Wood pellets are used by Biomass-solid refuse fuel (Bio-SRF) has been imported from many East-Asia countries especially,Vietnam in Korea. Wood pellets are made through grind and high-pressure process shows different physical characterizationlike high methyl bromide (MB) absorption unlike other wood materials. Furthermore, detected pests in wood pellets havesimilarity with detected pests in stored grain. In this study, we analyzed susceptibility on pupa and adult stages of redflour beetle, Tribolium castaneum in wood pellets against mixture of MB and phosphine (PH3). Mixture treatment ofMB and PH3 was more effective than single MB treatment compare with control. Pupal stage showed more tolerant thanadult stage on each fumigant and 100% mortality was determined at 27 mg/L of MB only at 20°C. However, PH3 increasedMB toxicity on pupae that 100% mortality was observed at 100:1 ratio of MB (5 mg/L) and PH3 (0.05 mg/L) at 20°C.Based on this study, mixture treatment of different type of fumigant will be applied to control of quarantine pests.

Ticks are obligatory ectoparasites of many vertebrates and transmit pathogens causing diseases such as Heartland virus and Ehrlichiosis. The lone star tick, Ambloyomma americanum L., is the primary vector of Ehrlichia chaffeensis, which causes human monocytic Ehrlichiosis. We aimed to investigate the genomic levels of gene regulation in the processes of acquiring the pathogen and of immune to pathogen. We designed six experimental groups: E. chaffeensis positive and negative groups of males and females, and pathogen free male and female ticks. Illumine HiSeq 2500 sequenced six libraries with 100-cycle single direction. Raw sequence reads (more than 209 million) were trimmed and filtered based on minimum quality score (Q-value >30) and size (> 40nt) for de novo assembly. Assembly using Trinity pipeline produced 140,574 contigs from trimmed and filtered sequence reads (about 117 million reads, 56% of raw data). For quality control of the de novo assembly of transcripts, we filtered out the sequences for mitochondrial, E. chaffeensis, and transposable elements sequences, and tested for contig redundancy and gap separations of the assembled sequences. RSEM and edgeR analyses of 61,802 contigs for identifying differentially expressed genes were followed by Blast2GO analyses for annotations of contigs and enriched-gene ontology (GO) term analyses in pairwise comparisons of the libraries. Further investigation of major groups of genes induced by pathogen would provide better understanding of pathogen-vector interaction, which will allow us to prevent of pathogen transmission by interrupting interaction between pathogen and ticks.

Tick salivary secretion during blood-feeding is crucial for successful tick feeding. Control of salivary secretion involves dopamine, which is the most potent inducer of tick salivation. Dopamine activates salivation by orchestrating two different physiological responses through two distinct dopamine receptors. In addition, the study demonstrated that two different types of cells in the salivary gland acini are responsible for each of the diverging physiological pathways: epithelial cells for inward fluid transport and myoepithelial cells for expelling fluid out through the acinar ducts. We were further interested in the downstream physiology of the dopamine receptors. A candidate gene (Na/K-ATPase), which is highly expressed in the salivary glands, was investigated. Immunoreactivity revealed that Na/K-ATPase is expressed in epithelial cells of acini. Ouabain, a Na/K-ATPase blocker, significantly suppressed both dopamine induced inward fluid transport and dopamine induced salivation in a dose-dependent manner. We measured the salivary contents to determine Na, K, and Cl ion, and protein concentrations. Treatment of ouabain at the low dose produced hyperosmolar saliva, but with same amount of protein as the control saliva. The results suggest that ouabain-sensitive Na/K-ATPase is the main downstream pathway for dopamine response in the epithelial cells of salivary gland for water transport, but not for protein secretion.