Domestic ports are becoming increasingly complex due to the introduction of various marine 4th industry new technologies and the increase in marine logistics. Accordingly, the number of lightings behind the port is also increasing significantly, and there is a great demand for improving the visibility of the AtoN used as a means of transmitting information to vessel operators. This paper describes the development of the performance inspection system that can verify the synchronization and sequential flashing of maritime lanterns that is being introduced to enhance the visibility of AtoN.

Recent increase of raw sequences generated by next generation sequencing (NGS) machines enabled re-analyzing raw sequences for diverse purposes: one is assembling organelle genome. One recent study completed the mitochondrial genomes of 14 ants from public raw sequences in subfamily Pseudomyrmecinae not having organelle genomes. Along with this approach, we have found four ant species of which genome papers were published and its raw sequences were open to public but its mitochondrial genome has not been assembled yet: Harpegnathos saltator and three Pogonomyrmex species (P. rugosus, P. anergismus, and P. colei). We assembled four complete mitochondrial genomes, presenting mitogenome of H. saltator 16,467 bp long and those of three Pogonomyrmex species above 21 kb long, ranking top among all known Hymenopteran mitogenomes. Four mitochondrial genomes contain 13 PCGs, 22 tRNAs, and 2 rRNAs, conserved as in all other insects. Phylogenomic tree based on partial or complete mitogneomes covering 26 genera provides insights of ant mitogenomic phylogeny and evolution.

Due to rapid increase of international trade, many invasive and exotic pests have been introduced in Korea. One of typical example is Solenopsis invicta found in harbor and nearby areas unexpectedly triggering alerts of invasive and exotic pests. Practically, critical limitation to identify these species based on morphology exists because of lack of experts, so that it is very important to develop fast and accurate methods to identify these species. Molecular marker is one of candidates for satisfying these requirements of invasive and exotic pests: usually COI gene has been used for identifying insect species efficiently. Here, we developed web-based integrated platform for identifying invasive and exotic pests. As a first step, we collected 71,146 COI sequences from 529 species which are potentially invasive and exotic pests in Korea. In addition, we are collecting their complete mitochondrial genome sequences for evaluating additional marker regions which can be more effective for identifying species. Web-based interfaces are under development to access these raw data as well as bioinformatic analysis function to identify species based on mitochondrial sequences. Our platform will be a fundamental resources not only to identify invasive and exotic pests effectively but also to understand ecology of these species to find anticipative policies to prevent invasion of these species.

The genus Camponotus Mayr, 1861 distributes all over the world, even ranging from the African desserts to the Antarctic islands. Number of species in this genus is the largest: 1,488 taxa (species and subspecies) accounting for 10% ant species. Despite of it, number of available complete mitochondrial genomes was only one, Camponotus atrox (subgenus Camponotus). To decipher characteristics of mitochondrial genome of this genus, we completed mitochondrial genomes of Camponotus nipponensis Santschi, 1937, belonging to subgenera Myrmentoma using Illumina HiSeqX. The total length of mitochondrial genome of C. nipponensis is 15,532bp with 79.8% A + T content. It consists of 13 PCGs, 22 tRNA, and 2 rRNA genes and an A+T–rich control region. This mitochondrial genome will be a useful resource to understand features of Camponotus genus with adding more mitochondrial genomes of other subgenera, such as Paramyrmamblys.

Although the concept of “common sense” is often taken for granted, judging whether behavior or knowledge is common sense requires a complex series of mental processes. Additionally, different perceptions of common sense can lead to social conflicts. Thus, it is important to understand how we perceive common sense and make relevant judgments. The present study investigated the dynamics of neural representations underlying judgments of what common sense is. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants indicated the extent to which they thought that a given sentence corresponded to common sense under the given perspective. We incorporated two different decision contexts involving different cultural perspectives to account for social variability of the judgments, an important feature of common sense judgments apart from logical true/false judgments. Our findings demonstrated that common sense versus non-common sense perceptions involve the amygdala and a brain network for episodic memory recollection, including the hippocampus, angular gyrus, posterior cingulate cortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, suggesting integrated affective, mnemonic, and social functioning in common sense processing. Furthermore, functional connectivity multivariate pattern analysis revealed that interactivity among the amygdala, angular gyrus, and parahippocampal cortex reflected representational features of common sense perception and not those of non-common sense perception. Our study demonstrated that the social memory network is exclusively involved in processing common sense and not non-common sense. These results suggest that intergroup exclusion and misunderstanding can be reduced by experiencing and encoding long-term social memories about behavioral norms and knowledge that act as common sense of the outgroup.

Recently, rice growth and production have been influenced by climatic change worldwide. In particular, under low solar radiation and cloudy weather, rice plants show abnormal physiological responses. In this experiment, plants of the rice cultivar Samgwangbyeo grown 40% and 70% shading and natural conditions at the primordium initiation stage (PI) for 30 days and the booting stage for 10 days up to heading were compared. After shading treatments, culm lengths were significnatly longer than that in natural condition plots, and panicle lengths were shorter in the 40% and 70% shading treatment plots compared to control plots. After heading, the production of dry matter treated at the PI stage was significantly lower than that at the booting stage. SPAD values of the leaf color and N concentration of leaves treated with shading were greater than those under natural conditions. In the shading treatment, the lodging index at 20 days after heading was significantly higher than that in natural condition. For yield components, number of panicles, spikelet number per panicle, and ripened grain ratio significantly decreased with shading treatment; thus, rice yield decreased significantly. For rice quality, the protein content of the head rice treated with shading was significantly higher than that in the control plot, but the amylose content of rice treated with shading was signifiantly lower than that in rice in control plots.

Barnyard grasses are dominant weed that are not eliminated easily in the direct water seeding cultivation. So, deep water treatment can reduce their growth at the early growing stage of submerged paddy. This study was carried out to investigate the reducing growth of the barnyard grasses through flooding at seedling stages of rice plant in the green house. Under the normal condition, the plant height of rice variety, Samgwangbyeo, and 3 species of barnyard grass, E. caudata, E. pratocola and E. utilis were not showed the difference up to 10 days after seeding while the plant height of 3 barnyard grass species, especially E. utilis, was more elongated than the rice at 25 days after seeding. Plant height of the 3 barnyard grasses were not elongated largely during 3, 5 and 7 days of flooding treatment at 10 days after seeding. Interestingly, the rice seedlings was grown over 20 cm, and the flooding tolerance of rice seedling was higher than the 3 barnyard grass varieties. However, after flooding treatment for 3, 5 and 7 days, the elongation of plant height of 3 barnyard grasses, especially E. utilis was more speedy compared to rice seedlings as 6 to 9 days passes. And the protein spots from barnyard grasses were also reduced and eliminated more than the spots of rice seedling after flooding treatment.