Governments around the world are enacting laws mandating explainable traceability when using AI(Artificial Intelligence) to solve real-world problems. HAI(Human-Centric Artificial Intelligence) is an approach that induces human decision-making through Human-AI collaboration. This research presents a case study that implements the Human-AI collaboration to achieve explainable traceability in governmental data analysis. The Human-AI collaboration explored in this study performs AI inferences for generating labels, followed by AI interpretation to make results more explainable and traceable. The study utilized an example dataset from the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries to reproduce the Human-AI collaboration process used in actual policy-making, in which the Ministry of Science and ICT utilized R&D PIE(R&D Platform for Investment and Evaluation) to build a government investment portfolio.
The safe, efficient and cost-effective decommissioning and dismantling of radioactive facilities requires the accurate characterization of the radionuclide activities and dose rate environment. And it is critical across many nuclear industries to identify and locate sources of radiation accurately and quickly. One of the more challenging aspects of dealing with radiation is that you cannot see it directly, which can result in potential exposure when working in those environments. Generally, semiconductor detectors have better energy resolution than scintillation detectors, but the maximum achievable count rates are limited by long pulse signals. Whereas some high pure germanium detectors have been developed to operate at high count rates, and these HPGe detectors could obtain gamma-ray spectra at high count rates exceeding 1 Mcps. However, HPGe detectors require cooling devices to reduce the leak currents, which becomes disadvantageous when developing portable radiation detectors. Furthermore, chemicalcompound semiconductor detectors made of cadmium telluride and cadmium zinc telluride are popular, because they have good energy resolution and are available at room temperature. However, CdTe and CZT detectors develop irradiation-induced defects under intense gamma-ray fields. In this Review, we start with the fundamentals of gamma rays detection and review the recent developments in scintillators gamma-ray detectors. The key factors affecting the detector performance are summarized. We also give an outlook on the field, with emphasis on the challenges to be overcome.
We demonstrated an effective way of preparing melt spinnable mesophase pitches via catalytic hydrogenation of petroleum residue (fluidized catalytic cracking-decant oil) and their subsequent thermal soaking. The mesophase pitches thus obtained were analyzed in terms of their viscosity, elemental composition, solubility, molecular weight, softening point and optical texture. We found that zeolite-induced catalytic hydrogenation under high hydrogen pressure contributed to a large variation in the properties of the pitches. As the hydrogen pressure increased, the C/H ratio decreased, and the solubility in n-hexane increased. The mesophase pitch with entirely anisotropic domains of flow texture exhibited good meltspinnability. The mesophase carbon fibers obtained from the catalytically hydrogenated petroleum residue showed moderate mechanical properties.
This study determined diagnostic threshold of polymorphonuclear cells (PMN) for cytological endometritis (CEM) and its impacts on reproductive performance in dairy cows. Uterine cytology using 407 Holstein cows was performed at 4 weeks postpartum and proportion of endometrial cells and PMN was evaluated. A receiver operating characteristics curve was built to assess the cutoff level above which the PMN proportion affected the hazard of pregnancy by 200 days postpartum. The cutoff level for CEM was set at ≥14% PMN (sensitivity = 31.3%, specificity = 81.7%, P < 0.05). Cows with CEM had a lower probability of resumption of cyclicity (OR = 0.58 P < 0.05) and lower hazard of pregnancy by 200 days postpartum (hazard ratio = 0.58, P = 0.0001) than cows without CEM. Cows with CEM tended to have a lower probability of pregnancy to the first insemination (OR = 0.65, P < 0.1) and a greater number of insemination per conception (2.3 vs 2.2, P < 0.1) than cows without CEM. In conclusion, the threshold level of PMN was 14% to define CEM at 4 weeks postpartum and CEM decreased subsequent reproductive performance in dairy cow
This study was aimed at figuring out conditions for making factory-produced nuroong-gi that is rapidly softened and has good flavor being roasted when hot water is poured. In addition, efforts were made to develop nuroong-gi products to be used as meals that can be deliciously eaten with sauce. A research was conducted to know quality and people's preference when sauce is added to nuroong-gi after popping and deep-frying it. For making delicious nuroong-gi, it was good to mix rice varieties of Boramchan and Baegjinju in the ratio of 6:4. When rice was cooked through adding 0.5% salt water 1.8 times of mixed rice in an electric rice cooker, the water binding capacity of nuroong-gi got higher softening nuroong-gi within five minutes and general preference improved because of good taste. According to measurement of preference after adding sauce, deep-frying nuroong-gi was delicious when crab meat sauce was added and popped nuroong-gi was good when capsosiphon fulrescens sauce was added, so nuroong-gi could be used as meals.
As the hangover relieving drink market has been expanded, there have been efforts to produce traditional drinks that can be easily taken through reducing material costs after finding materials with high alcohol-degrading activity from agricultural products and manufacturing drinks in a way to produce sikhye. Studies were made to know quality, the ability to relieve hangover and preference of drinks for which seven kinds of agricultural products, including shiitake mushrooms, were added in the forms of fresh juice, extracts and powder. Farm products showed the highest acetaldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) when they were added in the form of powder before saccharification and shiitake mushrooms showed the highest enzyme activity when they were added in the form of powder. When added in the form of powder, people showed the lowest preference except when radish and hericium erinaceum were added. When bear puree was added to a mixture of powdered shiitake mushrooms, radish, bean sprouts and dadagi cucumber, enzyme activity got higher and people showed higher preference. An experiment of animal behaviors showed that the mixture had a high ability to relieve hangover in one or two hours after 10% or 40% alcohol was orally administered to mice due to long traveling distance of mice.
Physical and electrochemical qualities were analyzed after KOH activation of a direct methanol fuel cell using needle coke as anode supporter. The results of research on support loaded with platinum-ruthenium suggest that an activated KOH needle coke container has the lowest onset potential and the highest degree of catalyst activity among all commercial catalysts. Through an analysis of the CO stripping voltammetry, we found that KOH activated catalysis showed a 21% higher electrochemical active surface area (ECSA), with a value of 31.37 m2/g, than the ECSA of deactivated catalyst (25.82 m2/g). The latter figure was 15% higher than the value of one specific commercial catalyst (TEC86E86).
Peptidoglycan recognition proteins (PGRPs) are family of innate immune molecules that recognize bacterial peptidoglycan. PGRP-LE, a member of the PGRP family, selectively binds to diaminopimelic acid (DAP)-type peptidoglycan to activate both the immune deficiency (IMD) and proPhenoloxidase (proPO) pathways in insects. A PGRP-LE-dependent induction of autophagy to control Listeria monocytogenes has also been reported. We identified and partially characterized a novel PGRP-LE homologue, from Tenebrio molitor and analyzed its functional role in the survival of the insect against infection by a DAP-type PGN containing intracellular pathogen, L. monocytogenes. The cDNA is comprised of an open reading frame (ORF) of 990 bp and encodes a polypeptide of 329 residues. TmPGRP-LE contains one PGRP domain, but lacks critical residues for amidase activity. Quantitative RT-PCR analysis showed a broad constitutive expression of the transcript at various stages of development spanning from larva to adult. RNAi mediated knockdown of the transcripts followed by a challenge with L. monocytogenes showed a significant reduction in survival rate of the larvae, suggesting a putative role of TmPGRP-LE in sensing and control of L. monocytogenes infections in T. molitor. These results implicate PGRP-LE as a defense protein necessary for survival of T. molitor against infection by L. monocytogenes.
CD63, a member of tetraspanin membrane protein family, plays pivotal role in cell growth, motility, signal transduction, host-pathogen interactions and cancer. In this work, the cDNA encoding CD63 homologue (TmCD63) was cloned from larvae of coleopteran beetle, Tenebrio molitor. The cDNA is comprised of an open reading frame of 705 bp, encoding putative protein of 235 amino acid residues. In silico analysis shows that the protein has four putative transmembrane domains and one large extracellular loop. The characteristic ‘Cys-Cys-Gly’ motif and ‘Cys188’ residues are highly conserved in the large extracellular loop. Phylogenetic analysis of TmCD63 revealed that they belong to the insect cluster with 50-56% identity. Analysis of spatial expression patterns demonstrated that TmCD63 mRNA is mainly expressed in gut and Malphigian tubules of larvae and the testis of the adult. Developmental expression patterns of CD63 mRNA showed that TmCD63 transcripts are detected in late larval, pupal and adult stages. Interestingly, TmCD63 transcript was upregulated the maximum 4.5 fold in response to DAP-type peptidoglycan during the first 6 h, although other immune elicitors also made significant increase in the transcript level at later time-points. These results suggest that CD63 might contribute to T. molitor immune response against various microbial pathogens.
Apolipophorin III (apoLp-III) is a well-known hemolymph protein having a functional role in lipid transport and immune response of insects. We cloned full-length cDNA encoding putative apoLp-III from larvae of the coleopteran beetle, Tenebrio molitor (TmapoLp-III), by identification of clones corresponding to the partial sequence of TmapoLp-III, subsequently followed with full length sequencing by a clone-by-clone primer walking method. The complete cDNA consists of 890 nucleotides, including an ORF encoding 196 amino acid residues. Excluding a putative signal peptide of the first 20 amino acid residues, the 176-residue mature apoLp-III has a calculated molecular mass of 19,146 Da. Genomic sequence analysis with respect to its cDNA showed that TmapoLp-III was organized into four exons interrupted by three introns. Several immune-related transcription factor binding sites were discovered in the putative 5’-flanking region. BLAST and phylogenetic analysis reveals that TmapoLp-III has high sequence identity (88%) with Tribolium castaneum apoLp-III but shares little sequence homologies (<26%) with other apoLp-IIIs. Homology modeling of Tm apoLp-III shows a bundle of five amphipathic helices, including a short helix 3’. The ‘helix-short helix-helix’ motif was predicted to be implicated in lipid binding interactions, through reversible conformational changes and accommodating the hydrophobic residues to the exterior for stability. Highest level of TmapoLp-III mRNA was detected at late pupal stages, albeit it is expressed in the larval and adult stages at lower levels. The tissue specific expression of the transcripts showed significantly higher numbers in larval fat body and adult integument. In addition, TmapoLp-III mRNA was found to be highly up-regulated in late stages of L. monocytogenes or E. coli challenge. These results indicate that TmapoLp-III may play an important role in innate immune responses against bacterial pathogens in T. molitor.
Poly(vinylidene chloride) (PVDC)-derived nanoporous carbons were prepared by various activation methods: heat-treatment under an inert atmosphere, steam activation, and potassium hydroxide (KOH) activation at 873, 1073, and 1273 K. The pore structures of PVDC-derived nanoporous carbons were characterized by the N2 adsorption technique at 77 K. Heat treatment in an inert atmosphere increased the specific surface area and micropore volume with elevating temperature, while the average micropore width near 0.65 nm was not significantly changed, reflecting the characteristic pore structure of ultramicroporous carbon. Steam activation for PVDC at 873 and 1073 K also yielded ultramicroporosity. On the other hand, the steam activated sample at 1273 K had a wider average micropore width of 1.48 nm, correlating with a supermicropore. The KOH activation increased the micropore volume with elevating temperature, which is accompanied by enlargement of the average micropore width from 0.67 to 1.12 nm. The average pore widths of KOH-activated samples were strongly governed by the activation temperature. We expect that these approaches can be utilized to simply control the porosity of PVDC-derived nanoporous carbons.
Ski protein is a nuclear transcription factor that does not bind DNA directly. Due to its unique binding properties with multiple factors, Ski could perform various roles in the regulation of both cellular proliferation and differentiation. We had previously reported that Ski protein is present in granulosa cells of atretic follicles, but not in preovulatory follicles, suggesting that Ski has a role in apoptosis of granulosa cells. The alternative fate of granulosa cells other than apoptosis is to differentiate to luteal cells; however, it is unknown whether Ski is expressed and has a role in granulosa cells undergoing luteinization. Thus, the aim of the present study was to examine whether the initiation of luteinization with luteinizing hormone (LH) directly regulates expression of Ski in the luteinized granulosa and luteal cells after ovulation by in vitro models. RT-PCR and real time PCR analysis respectively revealed that LH had no effect on c-Ski mRNA expression in the cultured granulosa cells regardless of LH treatment. Though Ski protein isabsent in granulosa cells of preovulatory follicle, its mRNA(c-Ski) was expressed and the level was unchanged even after LH surge. Taken together, these results demonstrated that Ski protein expression is induced in granulosa cells upon luteinization, and suggested that its expression is regulated post-transcriptionally. Moreover, expression of mRNA of Arkadia, an E3 ubiquitin ligases, in luteinizing granulosa cells in vivo was assessed by real time-PCR. The levels of Arkadia mRNA expression were unchanged during follicular growth and post ovulatory luteinization. These findings suggest that Ski protein level may be regulated during luteinization at translational and/or post-translational level but not by Arkadia.
For reconstituting genetic resource(Korean Native Chicken: KNC) with grem-line chimeric chicken made with cryopreserved biastdermal cells, the experiments were carried out to optimize cryopreservating conditions. Stage X biastdemal cells were collected from KNC embryos and dissociated. Cells were susupended in medium containing cyopretectant and fetal bovine serum(FBS), and distributed into plastic ampules. Cell susupensions were seeded to induce ice formation at —7 ℃ to —35 ℃ at in the experiments, the effect of modification of dissociation way, concentration of FBS and cell density on the vaibility of frezen-thawed cells were investigated by trypan blue exclusion. Then change the way of cell dissociation from pipetting to short time vortexing, viability of frozen-thawed cell tended to be increaced from 29 % to 52 %. Increase concentraition of FBS in frozen medium from 20 % to 80 % made viability of thawed cell from 28 % to 35 %. The viability of thawed cells were 33.9% frozen at 2 embryos/ 0.5ml, and 43.6 % frozen at 20 embryos/0.5 ml. Furthermore, combination of three modifications make big improvement. The viability of frozen-thawed cell was 60 % for combinated method, and 41 % for general method. This result means the advance to practical cryoreservation of blastdermal cell of the KNC(Ogolgye breed).
The dissemination process of agricultural research and development (R&D) results has somewhat different characteristics from that of typical R&D results. However, these characteristics are not adequately considered on the basis of an examination of the current performance system, the resulting management plans, and strategies for the application and dissemination of the results of agricultural R&D in Korea. The performance evaluation indicator exposed the problem of the inadequate consideration of the characteristics of each of these areas, particularly the lack of unified R&D-related institutions and the inadequacy of the system to monitor outcomes. To address these shortcomings in the agricultural R&D programs in Korea, the policies pertaining to agricultural R&D performance, results management, and dissemination in the U.S. and Japan were examined. Based on these investigations, we proposed strategies to improve the agricultural R&D policies in Korea.
Insects or insect remains found in beer are one of major issues in consumer claim. Accurate estimation of inflow time isa critical factor for the settlement of such claims related with beer-contaminating insects but no reliable methods have been developed. In an attempt to establish a molecular marker-based diagnostic method, the degradation rates of 18S rRNA genes in the insectssoaked in 500 ml beer were investigated by quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) over one month period at room temperature. Among the six insect species tested, the house fly (Musca domestica) and honey bee (Apis mellifera) revealed high correlations (r2=0.974-0.990) between the degradation of 18S rRNA gene and inflow time. In these insects, statistically significant distinction was possible between the samples stored in beer less than 14 days and more than 14 days. Other insects, including the fruit fly, common house mosquito, German cockroach and Indian meal moth, displayed poor correlations, which appeared attributed to the inefficient genomic DNA extraction likely due to small sample size or disintegration of body parts during storage in beer. With proper improvement in DNA extraction, this 18S rRNA-based diagnostic method would be applicable for estimating the inflow time of beer-contaminating insects.
Background: Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) is commonly accompanied by premature infants and associated with an increase of comorbidity and mortality. Surgery in the operation room (OR) is more familiar with an anesthesiologist, but transportation of the premature to OR has risks of hypothermia or other unexpected events. These days, PDA ligation in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is highlighted because of its advantages. We compared the postoperative outcome of PDA ligation according to the operating theater in the perspective of an anesthesiologist. Methods: A total of 9 patient who underwent PDA ligation surgery from 2007 to 2018 were enrolled and divided into two groups; Group OR: surgery at the OR, Group NICU: surgery at the NICU. Data of gestational age (GA), body weight (BW), patients’ characteristics, anesthesia and hemodynamic, total hospitalization period, and outcome were collected. Results: There were no significant differences in patient characteristics (GA, BW, PDA size, and comorbidities) and the duration of anesthesia, operation and recovery. Total hospitalization period was shorter in a group OR than NICU, but there were no significant differences in postoperative outcome. Only 1 patient has expired in a group OR. Conclusions: PDA ligation surgery in NICU has the advantage to maintain the body temperature than the surgery in the OR, and there were no significant differences in the outcome of the surgery.