쑥은 세포 손상과 위염 회복에 효능이 있는 유파틸 린을 가지고 있는 약용작물이다. 본 연구의 목적은 강 화쑥의 온실에서의 주년 생육 특성을 분석하고, 환경 스트레스를 처리하여 유파틸린의 함량을 증대시키는 것이다. 유리 온실에서 강화쑥을 육묘 6주, 정식 후 8 주간 재배하여 생육 특성과 유파틸린 함량을 비교하였 다. 광합성은 상대적으로 고광도인 1,200μmol·m-2·s-1에 서도 포화되지 않았다. 생육속도는 정식 후 2주후에 최고에 도달하였고 정식 후 8주부터 감소하기 시작하 였다. 강화쑥은 다년생 숙근초로 계절 변화에 민감하게 반응하여 봄 여름의 영양 생장기에는 높은 생육과 성 분 함량을 나타내었으나, 가을과 겨울에는 개화 및 월 동으로 인하여 생육 및 유파틸린 성분 함량이 크게 감 소하였다. 따라서 강화쑥의 주년 재배를 위하여는 이를 억제하기 위한 야파 처리의 적용이 필수적인 것으로 판단되었다. 2종류의 스트레스와 1종류의 eliciter를 처 리하였다. 건조 스트레스는 수확 전 5, 6, 7, 8 일간 관수을 중단하였고, 염류 스트레스는 수확 3일전 양액 에 염화나트륨 추가하여 2, 4, 6, 8dS·m-1 농도로 하였 고, 메틸자스모네이트는 수확 3일전 12.5, 25, 50, 100μM 농도로 엽면 시비하였다. 건조 스트레스 처리 구 중 7일 및 8일간 관수를 중단한 경우와 메틸자스모 네이트를 25μM 엽면 시비한 경우 유파틸린 함량이 증 가하였다. 염류 스트레스 처리구에서는 유파틸린 함량 증대가 발견되지 않았다. 본 연구 결과는 환경 처리를 통해 유용 성분의 증대가 가능하고 의약 원료로써 강 화쑥의 생산성과 품질을 크게 향상시킬 수 있음을 증 명하였다.

True hermaphrodites are animals of equivocal sex in which both male and female gonads develop simultaneously. The frequency of true hermaphroditism is higher in pigs than in other domestic animals. Two Korean pigs were diagnosed with true hermaphroditism showing ovotestes, epididymes, penes, and uteri. Histomorphologically, the testicular tissues consisted of Sertoli cells that were devoid of spermatogenic germ cells and showed proliferation of interstitial cells. However, the uteri were of normal architecture and had well-developed uterine endometrial glands. The samples were 38, XX female karyotype without the sex-determining region Y (SRY) gene. The findings of this study could contribute to the understanding of true hermaphroditism in the Korean pig industry. * This work was supported by a grant (Code# PJ008148) from BioGreen21 Program, Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea.

The faulty regulation of imprinting gene lead to the abnormal development of reconstructed embryo after nuclear transfer. However, the correlation between the imprinting status of donor cell and preimplantation stage of embryo development is not yet clear. In this study, to determine this correlation, we used the porcine spermatogonial stem cell (pSSC) and fetal fibroblast (pFF) as donor cells. As the results, the isolated cells with laminin matrix selection strongly expressed the GFRα-1 and PLZF genes of SSCs specific markers. The pSSCs were maintained to 12 passages and positive for the pluripotent marker including OCT4, SSEA1 and NANOG. The methylation analysis of H19 DMR of pSSCs revealed that the zinc finger protein binding sites CTCF3 of H19 DMRs displayed an androgenic imprinting pattern (92.7%). Also, to investigate the reprogramming potential of pSSCs as donor cell, we compared the development rate and methylation status of H19 gene between the reconstructed embryos from pFF and pSSC. This result showed no significant differences of the development rate between the pFFs (11.2±0.8%) and SSCs (13.3±1.1%). However, interestingly, while the CTCF3 methylation status of pFF-NT blastocyst was decreased (36.3%), and the CTCF3 methylation status of pSSC-NT blastocyst was maintained. Therefore, this result suggested that the genomic imprinting status of pSSCs is more effective than that of normal somatic cells for the normal development because the maintenance of imprinting pattern is very important in early embryo stage.

This paper presents interaction force control between a balancing robot and a human operator. The balancing robot has two wheels to generate movements on the plane. Since the balancing robot is based on position control, the robot tries to maintain a desired angle to be zero when an external force is applied. This leads to the instability of the system. Thus a hybrid force control method is employed to react the external force from the operator to guide the balancing robot to the desired position by a human operator. Therefore, when an operator applies a force to the robot, desired balancing angles should be modified to maintain stable balance. To maintain stable balance under an external force, suitable desired balancing angles are determined along with force magnitudes applied by the operator through experimental studies. Experimental studies confirm the functionality of the proposed method.