A total of 31 bacterial strains were isolated from the Geum River basin in the Republic of Korea during our investigation of indigenous prokaryotic species. The isolated bacterial strains had high 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity (>98.7%) with those of validly published bacterial species, which have not been reported in Republic of Korea. The 31 bacterial strains were phylogenetically diverse and assigned to 4 phyla, 8 classes, 18 orders, 21 families, and 27 genera. At the genus level, the unreported species were affiliated with Kineococcus, Pedococcus, Rhodoluna, Salinibacterium, Rhodoluna, Arthrobacter, Williamsia, Nakamurella, Nocardioides of the class Actinobacteria, Patulibacter of the class Thermoleophilia, Pontibacter, Hymenobacter of the class Cytophagia, Flavobacterium of the class Flavobacteriia, Geomicrobium of the class Bacilli, Brevundimonas, Gellertiella, Rhizobium, Paracoccus, Taonella, Sphingomonas of the class Alphaproteobacteria, Burkholderia, Polaromonas, Hydrogenophaga, Chitinilyticum, Azospira, Zoogloea of the class Betaproteobacteria, and Pseudomonas of the class Gammaproteobacteria. The unreported bacterial species were further characterized by examining their morphological, cultural, physiological, and biochemical properties. The detailed descriptions of the 31 bacterial strains were provided.

Global concerns have grown regarding emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) caused by previously unknown pathogens. Considering that strengthening surveillance capacity for unknown diseases is one of the core capacities for preparedness and early response to EIDs, identifying areas with poor capacity could be beneficial to prioritize regions for the improvement of surveillance. In this regard, we aimed to develop prediction models to identify high risk areas for low surveillance capacity for unknown diseases in a global scale. Unexplained death events reported between 2015 and 2019 were collected from two internet-based surveillance systems, ProMED-mail and Global Public Health Intelligence Network. From the reports, the number of reported unexplained deaths at the first report and the time gap between death and report were extracted as measures for sensitivity and timeliness of surveillance capacity, respectively. Using geographical locations of the reports and published global scale spatial data, including demographic, socioeconomic, public health and geographical variables, we fitted two boosted regression tree models to predict regions with the low sensitivity and timeliness. The performance of prediction model for the low sensitivity showed moderate validity, but in terms of the model for timeliness, the performance was unreliable. Therefore, we provided predicted risk only for low sensitivity. The mean predicted risks of low sensitivity were, respectively, 45.2%, 37.4%, 12.5%, and 3.0% in low-income, lower middle-income, upper middle-income, and high-income countries. Enhancing surveillance capacity in low-income countries is highly required, given the predicted low level of sensitivity despite the importance of early response.

Plasma Arc Melter (MSO) system has been developed for the treatment and the stabilization of various kinds of hazardous and radioactive waste into the readily disposable solidification products. Molten salt oxidation system has been developed for the for the treatment of halogen- and sulfurbearing hazardous and radioactive waste without emissions of PCDD/Fs and acid gases. However, PAM system has showed some difficulty in the off-gas treatment system due to the volatilization of radionuclides and toxic metals at extremely high-temperature plasma arc melter and the emissions of acid gases. MSO system has also showed the difficulty in the treatment of spent molten salt into the disposable waste form. Present study discussed the results of organics destruction performance tests for the PAM-MSO combination system, which is proposed and developed to compensate the drawbacks of each system. The worst-case condition tests for the organics destruction were conducted at lowest temperatures and the worst-case condition tests for the retention of metals and radionuclides were conducted at highested temperatures under the range of normal operating condition. For the worst-case organic destruction test, C6H5Cl was selected as a POHCs (Principal Organic Hazardous Constituents) because of its high incinerability ranking and the property of generation of chlorine gases and PCDD/Fs when incompletely destroyed. Simulated concrete waste spiked with 1 L of C6H5Cl was treated and the emissions of 17 kinds of PCDD/Fs and other hazardous gases such as CO, THCs, NOx, SO2 and HCl/Cl2 were measured. For the worst-case condition tests for the retention of metals and radionuclides, Pb and Cs were selected because of its high volatility characteristics. The emissions of PCDD/Fs was extremely lowered than the emission limit and those of other hazardous constituents were below their emission limit. The results of performance tests on the organics destruction suggested that tested PAM-MSO combination system could readily treat PCBs-bearing spent insulation liquid, spent ion-exchange resins used for the treatment of spent decontamination liquid in the decommission process and the concreted debris bearing hazardous organic coating materials. The decontamination factor of Cs and Co were 1.4×105, 1.4×105, respectively. The emisison of Pb was 0.562 ppm. These results suggested that tested PAM-MSO system treated low-level radioactive and pb-bearing mixed waste.

Designing and producing a low-cost, high-current-density electrode with good electrocatalytic activity for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is still a major challenge for the industrial hydrogen energy economy. In this study, nanostructured Fe-doped CuCo(OH)2 was discovered to be a precedent electrocatalyst for OER with low overpotential, low Tafel slope, good durability, and high electrochemically active surface sites at reduced mass loadings. Fe-doped CuCo(OH)2 nanosheets are made using a hydrothermal synthesis process. These nanosheets are clumped together to form a highly open hierarchical structure. When used as an electrocatalyst, the Fe-doped CuCo(OH)2 nanosheets required an overpotential of 260 mV to reach a current density of 50 mA cm−2. Also, it showed a small Tafel slope of 72.9 mV dec−1, and superior stability while catalyzing the generation of O2 continuously for 20 hours. The Fe-doped CuCo(OH)2 was found to have a large number of active sites which provide hierarchical and stable transfer routes for both electrolyte ions and electrons, resulting in exceptional OER performance.

분화국화 ‘솔라에그(등록번호 8569)’는 2015년 경상남도농 업기술원 화훼연구소에서 분홍색 ‘포인트에그’를 감마선 처리 를 하여 육성하였다. 특성검정과 형질 안정성은 2017년에서 2018년까지 3회를 수행하였다. ‘솔라에그’는 분홍색 꽃잎(54D) 과 적자색 중심부(59B)를 가진 ‘아네모네’ 형태이다. 꽃과 잎 색깔과 모양에서는 ‘솔라에그’와 ‘포인트에그’ 간의 차이는 거 의 없었다. ‘솔라에그’의 식물체와 개화 연구에서 조명과 억제 재배를 했을 때 약 42일로 개화소요시간은 비슷했다. 그러나 초장, 꽃 크기, 꽃 중심부 크기와 착화수에서 ‘포인트에그’와 비교했을 때 차이가 있었다. 특히, 자연재배조건에서 꽃 크기 는 4cm으로 대조품종과 비교했을 때 컸다. 국화 품종에서는 꽃의 크기가 상업적으로 중요한 형질이다. ‘솔라에그’의 표현 형과 개화기 연구와 비교하여 배수성, RAPD, 세포 크기 및 수 분석을 하였다. 이들 결과에서는 표현형의 변화는 작은 유전 적 변이와 세포 분열 증가와 관련이 있을 것이라고 추정하고 있다. 중형 크기의 ‘솔라에그’는 분화국화로 이용되며 농가의 평균소득 증대를 기대할 수 있다.

The PoN (Proof of Nonce) distributed consensus algorithm basically uses a non-competitive consensus method that can guarantee an equal opportunity for all nodes to participate in the block generation process, and this method was expected to resolve the first trilemma of the blockchain, called the decentralization problem. However, the decentralization performance of the PoN distributed consensus algorithm can be greatly affected by the network transaction transmission delay characteristics of the nodes composing the block chain system. In particular, in the consensus process, differences in network node performance may significantly affect the composition of the congress and committee on a first-come, first-served basis. Therefore, in this paper, we presented a problem by analyzing the decentralization performance of the PoN distributed consensus algorithm, and suggested a fairness control algorithm using a learning-based probabilistic acceptance rule to improve it. In addition, we verified the superiority of the proposed algorithm by conducting a numerical experiment, while considering the block chain systems composed of various heterogeneous characteristic systems with different network transmission delay.