Pine Wilt Disease (PWD) is a disease causing mass deaths of pine trees in South Korea, and the dead trees serve as breeding grounds for insect vectors responsible for spreading the disease to other host trees. Because the PWD requires early monitoring to minimize its damage on domestic forestry, this study aims to develop a species distribution model for predicting the potential distribution of PWD by using artificial neural network (ANN) with time-series data. Among the architectures, the Convolutional Neural Network exhibited the highest performance, achieving a validation accuracy of 0.854 and a cross-entropy loss of 0.401, and the InceptionTime model emerged as the second-best performer. This study identified the best-performing ANN architecture for a spatiotemporal evaluation of PWD occurrence, emphasizing the importance for determining hyperparameters with ecological characteristics and data types to apply deep learning into SDMs.
In Korea, where the residential environment of well-being has been especially developed, marketing using well-being brands has been actively carried out, and more recently, there has been a growing interest in the well-being brand experience and the correct understanding of consumers' perceptions and attitudes. This study was intended to reveal that the experience of well-being brands increases the attitude and confidence of brands, and consequently positively acts on the intention and loyalty of purchasing them. First of all, the well-being brand experience not only works positively on brand trust and attitude, but also raises the intention of buying again. Second, well-being brand trust is showing a positive effect on brand attitudes and intent to buy back. Third, the well-being brand attitude turned out to have a positive effect on the intention of repurchase. Unlike conventional well-being brand-related research, this study focuses on brand experience, so it provides a new understanding of well-being brand experience and consumer psychology and behavior in well-being brand marketing. Thus, adding a new perspective to existing well-being brand research, the company's perspective provides practical implications that should be considered for successful well-being marketing.
Climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide are significant factors in ecological risk assessments, suggesting their consideration is required in predicting potential distribution of a invasive species. CLIMEX model is one of species distribution models (SDMs) and provides potential geographical distribution by focusing on climatic effect on species inhabitation. Most SDMs, such as Bioclim, Domain, GARP and MaxEnt, focus on relationship between the occurrences of the species and static environmental covariates, whereas CLIMEX model depends on limitations of species' geographical distribution and reactions to climatic variables at an appropriate temporal scale (called seasonal phenology). In this study, we described the basic concept of CLIMEX and reviewed previous applications. Also, we demonstrated the various utilization of CLIMEX differed by study purposes and methodology for analyzing the model.
The red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) is categorized into the world’s 100 worst invasive alien species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Accordingly, the prediction of potential distribution of the red imported fire ant is demanded in order to provide the possibility of dispersion into new sites, and to identify vulnerable regions to be attacked. In general, species distribution model can predict potential distribution of a specific species, but most of them have used air temperature as the most important variable. However, red imported fire ant has life cycle under ground, requiring soil temperature for more reliable prediction of potential habitats. For this reason, this study was to insert soil temperature into CLIMEX, and to evaluate potential distribution of the red imported fire ant.
Oak wilt disease caused by Raffaelea quercus-mongolicae is one of the serious diseases in Korea. Infected trees showed wilting and discolourations on the cambium when the bark of a tree is peeled, since it deters moisture migration. Raffaelea quercus-mongolicae is vectored by Platypus koryoensis. In this regard, it was assumed that there might be a positive correlation between the number of gallery generated by P. koryoensis and the level of damage on the infected tree by the oak wilt disease. In order to link the occurrence of dead oak trees with the number of galleries produced by P. koryoensis, five regions (Incheon, Anyang, Gwangmyeong, Icheon and Gimhae) were selected in Korea. The number of galleries on Mongolian oaks produced by attack of P. koryoensis was counted in four directions between 50cm and 100cm from the ground level. Furthermore, Vegetation was investigated from the area where the oak wilt disease occurred, and a data logger was set up to collect data including temperature and relative humidity in each region at the elevation between 100~200m. A significant difference was observed in the number of galleries made by the insect vector between dead trees and trees infected with oak wilt disease, while no difference was observed from the vegetation on the area investigated. We will further investigate as to whether climate factors might contribute to the density and the successful invasions of the insect vector to the oak trees.
Transcellular transport in epithelial cell is a method for absorbing calcium from intestine to blood, providing effective mechanism of utilizing calcium at low calcium intake. In this study, we aimed at theoretically developing a simple mechanistic model explaining transcellular transport in calcium absorption process. Transcellular calcium transport was schematized into 3 steps which were entry, diffusion, and extrusion. Each step was separately modeled to include the specific feature of them. In detail, electro-diffusion, facilitated diffusion, and Michaelis-Menten kinetics were employed to model calcium entry, diffusion, and extrusion, respectively. Then, the developed models were numerically solved to find a solution which simultaneously satisfied 3 models under steady-state assumption. Result of model simulation was consistent with the known behavior of transcellular calcium absorption, showing that transcellular calcium transport became saturated with increase of luminal calcium concentration. Because transcellular calcium transport depends on calcium binding protein mediated by vitamin D we expect that this model can be used to find optimal regulatory point for increasing calcium absorption.
Prediction of the seasonal occurrence and potential distribution of agricultural pests has accomplished by software toolsimplementing species distribution models (SDMs). In this aspect, we used CLIMEX software to evaluate the seasonaloccurrence and potential distribution of Indian meal moth, Plodia interpunctella (Hübner), which is one of household mothsdamaging dried fruits in pantries. Based on the simulation, the beginning of period for suitable climate was predictedto be from mid-March to end-March, while it might be end in late October to early November. The peak time for P.interpunctella was ranged from early or mid-July to mid-August, but depended on local geography. When applying RCP8.5 climate change scenario, it was predicted that P. interpunctella would not occur due to intensive rainfall in July andAugust in 2060.
On the 15 days after hatching, the larvae was 4.24-5.10 mm (mean 4.66±2.18 mm) in total length, and the fins of the membrane started to develop into a fan shape and the melanophore was deposited upper the alimentary canal of the abdomen and on the bladder. At 35 days after hatching, the post-larvae formed a branch-shaped melanophore on the head part with a total length of 6.98-12.5 (mean 9.35±1.71) mm, formed on the upper and lower parts of the caudal part, formed on the upper and lower parts of the caudal part, and deposited under the head part and abdomen. At 40 days after hatching, the juvenile was 11.3-18.1 (mean 14.9±1.53) mm in total length.