Even in an era where 8-meter class telescopes are common, small telescopes are considered very valuable research facilities since they are available for rapid follow-up or long term monitoring observations. To maximize the usefulness of small telescopes in Korea, we established the SomangNet, a network of 0.4{1.0 m class optical telescopes operated by Korean institutions, in 2020. Here, we give an overview of the project, describing the current participating telescopes, its scientic scope and operation mode, and the prospects for future activities. SomangNet currently includes 10 telescopes that are located in Australia, USA, and Chile as well as in Korea. The operation of many of these telescopes currently relies on operators, and we plan to upgrade them for remote or robotic operation. The latest SomangNet science projects include monitoring and follow-up observational studies of galaxies, supernovae, active galactic nuclei, symbiotic stars, solar system objects, neutrino/gravitational-wave sources, and exoplanets.

In late 1950’s, the beginning of container revolution has started a new paradigm shift in maritime industry worldwide. This new paradigm has become a major reason for seaport systems to prepare their physical capacity, space availability, multi-modalism, transport connectivity via regionalisation. However, in early 2010’s the introduction of industrial revolution 4.0 (IR4.0) which starts the era of immersive digitalization proved that seaport systems need to be prepared to face pattern of unstable magnitudes in dynamic maritime trade. Therefore, this paper analyses key components required for Malaysian seaport system to be aligned with the key requirements in IR4.0. By employing document analysis, this research analyses the challenges faced by Malaysian seaport system as well as suggests strategies to muddle through the key requirements of IR4.0. The findings from this research indicate that Malaysian seaport system need to be improved by enforcing skill-based education system, flexibility in labour structure, development in skill and competence level as well as improvement in infrastructure suitability. The findings from this research also reflect significant strategies to improve seaport system in the era of IR4.0 including enhancing requirements for intermodal terminals, improving preparation for seaport alliances, developing mechanism for interoperability, improving utilisation of intra and interregional economic development as well as scrutinising safety and security.

Polarbear is a ground-based experiment located in the Atacama desert of northern Chile. The experiment is designed to measure the Cosmic Microwave Background B-mode polarization at several arcminute resolution. The CMB B-mode polarization on degree angular scales is a unique signature of primordial gravitational waves from cosmic in ation and B-mode signal on sub-degree scales is induced by the gravitational lensing from large-scale structure. Science observations began in early 2012 with an array of 1,274 polarization sensitive antenna-couple Transition Edge Sensor (TES) bolometers at 150 GHz. We published the first CMB-only measurement of the B-mode polarization on sub-degree scales induced by gravitational lensing in December 2013 followed by the first measurement of the B-mode power spectrum on those scales in March 2014. In this proceedings, we review the physics of CMB B-modes and then describe the Polarbear experiment, observations, and recent results.

We describe a survey of nearby core-collapse supernova (SN) explosion sites using integral field spec- troscopy (IFS) techniques, which is an extension of the work described in Kuncarayakti et al. (2013). The project aims to constrain SN progenitor properties based on the study of the immediate environment of the SN. The stellar populations present at the SN explosion sites are studied by means of integral field spectroscopy, which enables the acquisition of both spatial and spectral information of the object simultaneously. The spectrum of the SN parent stellar population gives an estimate of its age and metal- licity. With this information, the initial mass and metallicity of the once coeval SN progenitor star are derived. While the survey is mostly done in optical, the additional utilization of near-infrared integral field spectroscopy assisted with adaptive optics (AO) enables us to examine the explosion sites in high spatial detail, down to a few parsecs. This work is being carried out using multiple 2-8 m class telescopes equipped with integral field spectrographs in Chile and Hawaii.

We introduce a method of identifying evidence of shocks in the X-ray emitting gas in clusters of galaxies. Using information from synthetic observations of simulated clusters, we do a blind search of the synthetic image plane. The locations of likely shocks found using this method closely match those of shocks identified in the simulation hydrodynamic data. Though this method assumes nothing about the geometry of the shocks, the general distribution of shocks as a function of Mach number in the cluster hydrodynamic data can be extracted via this method. Characterization of the cluster shock distribution is critical to understanding production of cosmic rays in clusters and the use of shocks as dynamical tracers.

The hormone resistin is associated with typeII diabetes mellitus in rodent model. Resistin impairs glucose tolerance and insulin action. A new class of anti-diabetic drugs were called thiazolidinediones (TZDs) downregulates a resistin which is induced during adipocyte differentiation. But the connection between increased adiposity and resistin remains unknown. The objectives of this study was to clone a mouse resistin cDNA and to generate transgenic mice overexpressing mouse resistin gene. The 555 bp of mouse resistin was amplified from mob cDNAS by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and cloned into pCR(R)/ 2.1 TOPO T-vector. Mouse resistin mRNA on the basis of Genbank sequence (acession no. AF323080). Then, the PCR product was cloned into pTargeTTM/ mammalian expression vector that has pCMV promoter and chimeric intron. Restriction enzyme analysis with BamH I and Not I was carried out to determine an orientation of the insert in the vector. The pCMV-mus/resistin gene was prepared from previous recombinant pTargeTTM/-mus/resistin by digestion of Bgl II, and has used for microinjection into pronuclei of one cell embryos. The microinjected embryos were transfered to pseudopregnant foster-mother. Mouse resistin expression was detected in transgenic F1 mice by Reverse Transcriptase- Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). Resistin gene expression mouse has heavier body weight which was measured higher level of plasma glucose than that of normal mouse. And in diet-induced experiments, the abdominal fat pads were isolated from each 24h starvation and re-feeding after fasting group mice that were assessed by RT-PCR analysis. In fasting group mice, resistin expression was higher than that of re-feeding group mice. This result suggests that the resistin gene overexpressing mice may be became to obesity and be useful as an animal disease model to be diabetes mellitus caused by insulin resistance of resistin.