Background: Sperm quality and the number of sperm introduced into the uterus during artificial insemination (AI) are pivotal factors influencing pregnancy outcomes. However, there have been no reports on the relationship between sperm concentration at AI and sperm quality in Hanwoo cattle. In this study, we examined sperm quality and pregnancy rates after AI using sperm inseminated at different concentrations. Methods: We evaluated the motility, viability, and acrosomal membrane integrity of sperm at different concentrations (10, 15, 18, and 20 million sperm/straw) in 0.5-mL straws. Subsequently, we compared the pregnancy rates after AI with different sperm concentrations. Results: After freeze-thawing, sperm at the assessed concentrations showed similar viability and acrosomal membrane integrity. After AI, cattle in the 10 million group had significantly lower pregnancy rates compared to those in the 18 and 20 million groups. Conversely, there were no statistically significant variances observed between cattle in the 10 and 15 million groups. Conclusions: Sperm at concentrations of 10, 15, 18 and 20 million per straw exhibited comparable motility, viability, and acrosomal membrane integrity. However, a concentration of at least 18 million sperm per straw is required to achieve a consistent rate of pregnancy rate in Hanwoo cattle after AI.

Bangladeshi medicinal plants (BMP) have a history of traditional use in treating chronic inflammatory diseases, but a BMP bark’s antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects remain largely unexplored. This study assessed methanolic extracts’ antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties from the bark of 15 medicinal plant species native to Bangladesh. The methanol extracts of BMP bark were evaluated for their total antioxidant activity and ability to counteract inflammation induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in RAW 264.7 macrophages. Among the 15 bark extracts from BMP, Albizia odoratissima (A. odoratissima), Engelhardia spicata (E. spicata), and Shorea robusta (S. robusta) showed the highest total phenolic contents and total antioxidant capacity by effectively scavenging free radicals. In particular, these three bark extracts significantly reduced the mRNA expression of LPS-induced inflammatory cytokines and enzymes inducible by inflammation in macrophages. Also, the mRNA expression of NADPH oxidase 2 was significantly suppressed by the three bark extracts in LPS-induced RAW 264.7 macrophages. These results suggest that out of the 15 bark extracts obtained from medicinal plants in Bangladesh, the extracts from A. odoratissima, E. spicata, and S. robusta exhibit substantial total antioxidant capacity by efficiently scavenging free radicals and also inhibit LPS-induced inflammation in macrophages.

Background: Porcine pluripotent stem cells (pPSCs) would provide enormous potential for agriculture and biomedicine. However, authentic pPSCs have not established yet because standards for pPSCs-specific markers and culture conditions are not clear. Therefore, the present study reports comparative pluripotency characteristics in porcine induced pluripotent stem cells (piPSCs) derived from different viral transduction and reprogramming factors [Lenti-iPSCs (OSKM), Lenti-iPSCs (OSKMNL) and Sev-iPSCs (OSKM)]. Methods: Porcine fibroblasts were induced into Lenti-iPSCs (OSKM) and Lenti-iPSCs (OSKMNL) by using Lentiviral vector and Sev-iPSCs (OSKM) by using Sendaiviral vector. Expressions of endogenous or exogenous pluripotency-associated genes, surface marker and in vitro differentiation in between Lenti-piPSCs (OSKM), Lenti-iPSCs (OSKMNL) and Sev-piPSCs (OSKM) were compared. Results: Colonial morphology of Lenti-iPSCs (OSKMNL) closely resembles the naïve mouse embryonic stem cells colony for culture, whereas Sev-iPSCs (OSKM) colony is similar to the primed hESCs. Also, the activity of AP shows a distinct different in piPSCs (AP-positive (+) Lenti-iPSCs (OSKMNL) and Sev-iPSCs (OSKM), but AP-negative (-) LentiiPSCs (OSKM)). mRNAs expression of several marker genes (OCT-3/4, NANOG and SOX2) for pluripotency was increased in Lenti-iPSCs (OSKMNL) and Sev-iPSCs (OSKM), but Sev-iPSCs (OSKM). Interestingly, SSEA-1 of surface markers was expressed only in Sev-iPSCs (OSKM), whereas SSEA-4, Tra-1-60 and Tra-1-81 were positively expressed in Lenti-iPSCs (OSKMNL). Exogenous reprogramming factors continuously expressed in Lenti-iPSCs (OSKMNL) for passage 20, whereas Sev-iPSCs (OSKM) did not express any exogenous transcription factors. Finally, only Lenti-iPSCs (OSKMNL) express the three germ layers and primordial germ cells markers in aggregated EBs. Conclusions: These results indicate that the viral transduction system of reprograming factors into porcine differentiated cells display different pluripotency characteristics in piPSCs.

This study was conducted to reset the maximum residue limit (MRL) for didecyldimethylammonium chloride (DDAC) in broiler chickens. The disinfectant containing DDAC (10%, w/w) was diluted 160 times and evenly sprayed on the bodies of twenty-four broiler chickens at a rate of 15 mL per day per bird for 7 days. After the disinfectant treatment, tissue samples were collected from six broiler chickens at 0.25, 1, 3 and 5 days, respectively. Residual DDAC concentrations in poultry tissues were determined using LC-MS/MS. Correlation coefficient (0.99 >), the limits quantification (LOQ, 2.0~10.0 μg/kg), recoveries (86.9~118.6%), and coefficient of variations (<19.98%) were satisfied the validation criteria of Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. In all tissues except for liver, DDAC was detected more than LOQ at 5 days after the disinfectant treatment. In liver tissues, DDAC was detected more than LOQ at 3 days after treatment. According to the European Medicines Agency’s guideline on determination of withdrawal periods, withdrawal period of DDAC in poultry tissues was established to 26 days. In conclusion, the developed analytical method is sensitive and reliable for detecting DDAC in poultry tissues. When DDAC disinfectant is sprayed on a poultry house in the presence of broiler chickens, it is necessary to keep the disinfectant from contacting the body of the livestock.

This study evaluated the fungicidal efficacy of weakly acidic hypochlorous acid water (WAHW) against Microsporum canis (M. canis) and its therapeutic effect on M. canis-infected mouse skin. WAHW was produced by a WAHW generation module. A fungicidal efficacy test by the broth dilution method was used to determine the lowest effective concentration of the WAHW. The lowest effective concentration of WAHW was less than 10 ppm. For T-1, T-2, and T-3, 30 ppm of WAHW was applied to the infected skin once, twice, and three times a day, respectively, and for T-4, 50 ppm of WAHW was applied once a day. On the 3rd day after the initiation of treatment, skin scores in all of the WAHW-treated groups were significantly decreased compared to those in the positive control group (PC) (p<0.05), and there were no significant differences compared to the normal control (NC). The area of the infected skin in all of the WAHW-treated groups was significantly decreased compared to PC from the first day after the initiation of WAHW treatment (p<0.05). The results showed that WAHW had a fungicidal efficacy on M. canis at less than 10 ppm, and it was effective in improving skin symptoms when 30 ppm of WAHW was applied to the M. canis-infected area once a day for five days or 50 ppm of WAHW was applied once a day.

Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) is one of the 4th generation nuclear power systems which is its verified technology in physically and chemically. Among the various salts used for MSR system, the eutectic composition of NaCl-MgCl2 system maintains the liquid state at around 450°C, in the same time, it has high solubility for nuclear fuel chlorides. This characteristic has high advantage for lowering the operating temperature for the MSR, which could reduce the problem of hightemperature corrosion by salt for structural materials significantly. In particular, since MgCl2 has the similar standard reduction potential with nuclear fuel, is used as a surrogate for, many basic researches have been conducted for verifying characteristic of MgCl2. It is well-known that main short-advantage of MgCl2 is hygroscopic properties. MgCl2 changes to MgCl2-xH2O state easily by absorbing moisture in air condition. The hydrated MgCl2 is producing MgOHCl by thermally decomposing at high temperature, the formed MgOHCl corrodes structural materials, even small amount of MgOHCl gives significant damage. Therefore, the purification of MgCl2 has been required for long-term operation of MSR using MgCl2 as a base salt. In this study, the purification of eutectic composition salt for NaCl-MgCl2 has been mainly performed by considering its thermodynamic properties and electrochemical characteristic, and the experimental results have been discussed.

The nuclear power plant (NPP) decommissioning market is expected to expand not only domestically but also overseas. Proven technologies must be applied to decommission NPP. This is based on Article 41-2, Paragraph 2 of the domestic ‘Enforcement Decree Of The Nuclear Safety Act’. Proven technology refers to technology that has verified that it can be applied in the field through demonstration. In other words, in order to carry out NPP decommissioning, verification must be done. Demonstration refers to reducing technological uncertainty and directly verifying services implemented in the field. From a technology commercialization perspective, demonstration requires an approach based on technology readiness level (TRL) from a technology perspective and market readiness level (MRL) from a market perspective. The characteristics of demonstration also differ depending on the characteristics of each field. The demonstration in the field of nuclear energy is the demonstration of demand matching. This is to confirm the feasibility of the technology in the company’s required environment. In order to perform demonstration, a scenario must be derived by reflecting demonstration design considerations. After evaluating the derived scenario, an actual assessment is conducted using lab-based demonstration/virtual environment demonstration/real environment demonstration. What must be preceded by an actual assessment is confirming the consumer’s requirements. In this study, the necessary environment and requirements of consumer’s to perform NPP decommissioning were reviewed. The domestic decommissioning procedure requirements management system presents decommissioning procedures, potential worker accidents, and worker requirements. In the case of foreign countries, it was confirmed that complex wide need, cost benefit, risk reduction, waste generation, operation, reliability and maintenance (RAM) improvement and quantitative measures were evaluated for the technology to be demonstrated. Also the requirements for demonstrating decommissioning need to a detailed review of actual decommissioning cases. Therefore, a comparison must be made between the requirements based on actual NPP decommissioning cases and the requirements derived from this research process. Afterwards, the empirical research approach proposed by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy was applied. The empirical research approach proposed by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy is to secure a track record over a certain period of time and performance under conditions similar to the actual environment in the final research stage at the TRL level 6 to 8. Through this, it will be possible to confirm the suitability of overseas technology for domestic application.

Economical radioactive soil treatment technology is essential to safely and efficiently treat of high-concentration radioactive areas and contaminated sites during operation of nuclear power plants at home and abroad. This study is to determine the performance of BERAD (Beautiful Environmental construction’s RAdioactive soil Decontamination system) before applying magnetic nanoparticles and adsorbents developed by the KAERI (Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) which will be used in the national funded project to a large-capacity radioactive soil decontamination system. BERAD uses Soil Washing Process by US EPA (402-R-007-004 (2007)) and can decontaminate 0.5 tons of radioactive soil per hour through water washing and/or chemical washing with particle size separation. When contaminated soil is input to BERAD, the soil is selected and washed, and after going through a rinse stage and particle size separation stage, it discharges decontaminated soil separated by sludge of less than 0.075 mm. In this experiment, the concentrations of four general isotopes (A, B, C, and D which are important radioisotopes when soil is contaminated by them.) were analyzed by using ICP-MS to compare before and after decontamination by BERAD. Since BERAD is the commercial-scale pilot system that decontaminates relatively large amount of soil, so it is difficult to test using radioactive isotopes. So important general elements such as A, B, C, and D in soil were analyzed. In the study, BERAD decontaminated soil by using water washing. And the particle size of soil was divided into a total of six particle size sections with five sieves: 4 mm, 2 mm, 0.850 mm, 0.212 mm, and 0.075 mm. Concentrations of A, B, C, and D in the soil particles larger than 4 mm are almost the lowest regardless of before and after decontamination by BERAD. For soil particles less than 4 mm, the concentrations of C and D decreased constantly after BERAD decontamination. On the other hand, the decontamination efficiency of A and B decreased as the soil particle became smaller, but the concentrations of A and B increased for the soil particle below 0.075 mm. As a result, decontamination efficiency of one cycle using BERAD for all nuclides in soil particles between 4 mm and 0.075 mm is about 45% to 65 %.

The presence of organic components in spent scintillation liquid should be considered during all steps of radioactive waste processing for final disposal. Scintillation liquids often referred to as cocktails are generated form radiochemical analyses of radionuclides, which mainly consists of mixtures of liquid organic materials such as toluene and xylene. Typical features of these liquid organic materials are volatility, combustibility and toxicity. These are the reason why special attention must be paid to the management of liquid organic radioactive wastes. To select an appropriate waste management strategy and to design the treatment process of spent scintillation cocktails, it is required to investigate the nature of the waste such as specific radioactivity and moisture content. The analysis results of spent scintillation liquid generated at Wolsong nuclear power plants will be discussed. An overview of the technical approaches available for the treatment of organic radioactive waste will be additionally provided.

The PRIDE scale mechanical decladder is decladding apparatus for separating and recovering fuel material and cladding hull by horizontally slitting rod-cut. In order to enhance mechanical decladdng efficiency, the main requirements were considered as follows. Decladding of the fuel rods may be performed by rotation of three circular cutting blades inserted among the rollers arranged at 120° portion. In a mechanical decladder, a slitting assembly as a unit for slitting the cladding tube may include cutting blades for slitting and rollers for guiding extrusion of the cladding tube. Rotation of the cutting blades may be caused by the fuel rods being extruded from a plurality of rollers. Slitting intervals of rod-cuts having different diameters may be controlled by adding or removing a spacing plate between the cutting blade and a ranch bolt for fixing the slitting blade to the slitting assembly. An extrusion velocity with respect to the fuel rods may be controlled by a hydraulic pressure applied to the fuel rods. A force for cutting the fuel rods may be adjusted by controlling steel plates. Forces applied to a plurality of rollers may be generated by the hydraulic cylinder. The hydraulic pressure may be controlled by hydraulic pressure controller. The PRIDE scale mechanical decladder mainly consists of auto feeding module, hydraulic cylinder module and blade module. A load cell was installed between the hydraulic cylinder and the extrusion pin to measure the decladding force and slitting velocity, and a data acquisition system capable of obtaining data by using the RSC 232 was constructed. Also, the control panel can control the forward and backward movement of the extrusion pin, the hydraulic flow rate, and the hydraulic velocity. In the mechanical decladding test, 40 pieces of simulated rod-cuts were loaded in two auto feeding basket and slit by utilizing the 3-CUT blade modules in the housing, and hulls and simulated pellets were collected in the collection container. As a result, 80 pieces of simulated rodcut (brass pellets + Zry4 tube) were slit continuously without any problem. About 35 min was required to slit 80 rod-cuts and average decladding force was 260 kg. The decladding force of the ceramic simulated rod-cuts (castable) requires 25 kg less force than the brass pellets. Therefore, it is estimated that the spent fuel rod-cut can be fully split into three pieces using the mechanical decladder.

Characteristics and useful effects for human health of antioxidant carbon nanodots contained in microwave-assisted Opuntia humifusa extract (MA-OHE(CD)) were investigated in this work. MA-OHE(CD) was characterized using transmission electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering analysis, X-ray diffraction, UV–vis spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy. Besides, total phenolic content and antioxidant activity of MA-OHE(CD) were measured. It was revealed that the MA-OHE(CD) increases aquaporin-3 expression in human epidermal keratinocytes cell with hydrophilic characteristics. Moreover, the bio-active compound extraction efficacy and antioxidant activity of microwave-assisted extraction were great when compared to maceration.

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.

2022년 국내 노지 마늘, 대파, 양파, 부추 작물재배지에서 채집한 파총채벌레 지역집단들에 대하여 살충제 저항성을 조사하였다. 제조사 추천약량에서의 살충력은 acrinathrin SC를 제외한 6종 약제들이 안성 등 8개 집단 에서 모두 90%이상을 보였으며, Spinetoram SC와 fluxametamide EC는 추천농도의 100배 희석농도에서도 전 지역 집단에 걸쳐 높은 살충력을 보여주었다. 미리 저항성 진단농도로 코팅한 바이알을 이용한 지역집단의 저항성 검정을 실시한 결과, emamectin benzoate의 저항성이 신안 등 9개 지역집단에서 매우 높았으며, chrantraniliprole은 부산 등 4개 , spinetoram은 의성 등 3개, actamiprid와 chlorfenapyr는 각각 1개의 지역집단에서 저항성이 높게 발달 하고 있는 것을 확인할 수 있었으며, 지역별로는 주요 대파 및 양파 재배지인 안성, 서산, 진도, 신안 지역의 저항성 이 모든 약제에 대하여 전반적으로 높게 나타났다.