‘Well-being’ is an important trend and issue that requires consumers to be satisfied with various functional fabrics; subsequently, functional fabrics that are highly sensible, functional, and environmentally friendly have a competitive edge (O’Mahony & Braddock, 2002; Hui, Lau & Ng, 2004). Recent interest in environmental protection due to global warming has led to various energy reduction campaigns. Fabric research has focused on developing cool summer fabrics and warm winter fabrics. The selection of a correct textile material is important to form a pleasant clothing climate. New fabric development requires new measurement methods. Warm/cool touch is a major factor that influences thermal clothing comfort. Current measurements of warm/cool touch is mainly assessed by Q-max using Thermo-LaboⅡ. The potential of using an infrared thermography camera (widely used because of its relatively cheap price) on warm/cool touch research has increased because it can visually show changes in clothing surface temperature. Skin temperature is a factor that influences heat exchange between the body and environment. It also indicates the effectiveness of the heat transfer process. It is an important standard to evaluate thermal comfort in thermal physiology. The techniques to measure skin temperature have been investigated to find more accurate data (Min, Chung, Sung, Jeon, & Kim, 2001). A thermometer is generally used to measure body temperature; however, there are some difficulties to accurately measure skin temperature using a thermometer. First, skin temperature was determined by only a few points on the body. Second, heat occurs during exercising due to fabric and thermometer friction that creates difficulties for the accurate measurement of skin temperature. A previous study by Choi & Lee (2008) indicated that it would be possible to evaluate the thermal properties of clothing using infrared thermal images. This study used a garment with different triacetate and PET high absorbance quick dry filament blending ratios and chose three healthy female subjects in their twenties to evaluate wear comfort sensations. They walked at 3.3 km/h for 20 minutes under conditions of 29±2℃ and 75±5% R.H. Subjective assessments of wear coolness, microclimate, and the thermogram image under the clothing were measured before and after exercising. We compared the results of the microclimate and subjective assessments with the results of the thermogram analyses. Clothing, high blended with triacetate, had a small average temperature difference as indicated by infrared thermal image. This result corresponded to subjective thermal sensation, microclimate humidity, and subjective wear comfort.

Clothing comfort indicates the comfortableness of the in varying environmental situations while wearing specific clothing. Various factors affect clothing comfort such as skin moisture perception and heat transmission characteristics via clothing; however, cool and warm touch are the most important factors (Kwon, Yi, & Sung,1999; Hong & Kim, 2007; Manshahia & Das, 2014). The thermal comfort of clothing is perceived through sensory receptors on the skin surface and is highly related to a cool and warm touch. An infrared thermography camera detects infrared-ray-form energy, a type of electromagnetic wave radiated from the subject's surface that assesses the intensity of radiant heat. The changing intensity then presents a real-time infrared thermal distribution using various colors. The advantages of an infrared thermography camera are the ability to use a non-contacting method to measure temperature distribution and analyze temperatures. Therefore, an infrared thermography camera is widely used in material characteristic assessment, boiler heat distribution analysis, process control, and building insulation assessments that indicate system deficiencies. This technique has also recently been used in human-body-related temperature measurements with potential for application to medical fields that include breast cancer examinations, joint muscle disorders, and body reactions under specific conditions. The most significant advantage of infrared thermography cameras to evaluate heat conductivity according to wearing conditions are its inexpensive price, ease-of-use and visual representation of surface heat dispersion on clothing that maintains body temperature and helps dissipate sweat(B. Lee, Hong, & Y. Lee, 2010; Lee, K. Hong, & S. A. Hong, 2007). This technique is also used in a quantitative analysis of thermal sensation when wearing clothes (Choi & Lee, 2008). This study helps develop a method to evaluate the warm feeling of fabrics using an infrared thermal image of a small test specimen. An infrared thermal image helped develop5 types of fabrics for heat storage fabric; consequently, the average temperature difference of the human palm when the fabric is on or off was used for the scale of the fabrics’ warm feeling. The relationshipbetween this average temperature difference on the palm surface Qmax, and warmth keep-ability rate was examined. Fabric had a significant average temperature difference in the infrared thermal image with alow Qmax value and was evaluated with high values in the warmth keep-ability rate. Infrared thermography camera was shown to be effective in the fabric's warm feeling evaluation.

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.

A full genomic DNA microarray technique was employed to investigate the effects of Dongchunghacho on aortal and hepatic gene expression in apolipoprotein E knockout mice fed a high-fat/high-cholesterol diet. Male 8- week - old ApoE-/- mice were randomly divided into two groups, control(high cholesterol group; HC) and supplementation of Dongchunghacho (SD). All of the mice were fed a high-fet/high cholesterol diet with or without Dongchunghacho supplemented by 1% for 6 weeks. At first, lipid profile of the Dongchunghacho was measured by biochemical analysis. No differences were observed in serum triglyceride and total cholesterol levels between the two groups. Antigenotoxic effect of the Dongchunghacho was measured by the single cell gel electrophoresis assay (Comet assay) and quantified as % fluorescence in tail. Dongchunghacho supplementation decreased significantly leukocytic DNA damage and also there was a tendency of reduction in hepatic DNA damage in Dongchunghacho group compared with the control group. In up regulated genes in liver and aorta of the mice, genes with 0 to 2- fold difference in expression level between the two group (HD and SD) was very much more in liver than in aorta, on the contrary, those with 2-fold to 16-flod difference increased greatly rather in aorta than in liver. Also, almost the same results were observed in down regulated genes in liver and aorta between the two groups. These results suggested that supplementation of Dongchunghacho might be helpful in preventing leukocytic DNA damage induced by high fat diet, and has a more crucial roles in aortal gene expression.

In Korea, production of super sweet corn has been economically feasible and is substituting for traditional sweet corn due to better flavor in recent years. Major limiting factors for super sweet corn production are low field emergence and low seedling vigor. The optimum water potential (WP) for the priming of normal and aged seeds of dent, sweet (su) and super sweet (sh2) corns was studied to improve low seed quality. Seeds were primed at 0, -0.3, -0.6, -0.9, and -1.2 MPa of polyethylene glycol (PEG) 8000 solution at 15~circC for 2 days. Priming effects differed depending on the type of corn, seed quality, and WP of PEG solution. Although WP of priming solution did not influence the emergence rate of extremely high quality normal dent corn seeds, it reduced time to 50~% emergence (T50) and increased plumule weight. In contrast, the emergence rate of aged field corn was improved by seed priming at 0 MPa and plumule weight and α-amylase activity was enhanced. The optimum WP for both normal and aged sweet and super sweet corn seeds was between -0.3 and -0.6 Mpa. At the optimum WP emergence rate, α-amylase activity, and content of DNA and soluble protein increased, while T50 and leakage of total sugars and electrolytes reduced.