Optimized Use Of Water From Multiple Sources In Micro Water Grid Systems: A Modeling Approach

Micro water grid (MWG) is a novel approach to allow high reliability, diversification of water sources, low energy consumption, and cost reduction. Although it is not well-defined, it has potential for efficient management of urban water. MWG is suitable for use in small-scale buildings and towns, which have various uses of water produced from multiple source waters. Accordingly, design of MWG is challenging without proper tools to predict its performance. This research focused on the development and application of a model for optimized use of water from multiple sources in MWG systems. The model was comprised of two modules including strategy identification and mass balance calculator. The former assists in identifying strategy under the given natural and infrastructural conditions. The latter helps to determine water demand/supply and dimension of the water treatment system. Water from various sources including tap water, ground water, rainwater, reclaimed water, and desalinated water was considered in the model. The model and its graphic user interface (GUI) were built under the Matlab environment. Results show that the simulation model was found to be effective to optimize the performance of MWG. Based on the sensitivity analysis of the model, factors affecting the effectiveness of MWG could be identified. Moreover, this model was applied to design a pilot-scale MWG system in a building, predict its water quantity and water quality, and estimate the specific energy consumption. ACKNOWLEDGEMNET This research was supported by a grant (12-TI-C01) from Advanced Water Management Research Program funded by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of Korean government

Cell Deformation by Single-beam Acoustic Trapping: A Promising Tool for Measurements of Cell Mechanics

We demonstrate a noncontact single-beam acoustic trapping method for the quantification of the mechanical properties of a single suspended cell with label-free. Experimentally results show that the single-beam acoustic trapping force results in morphological deformation of a trapped cell. While a cancer cell was trapped in an acoustic beam focus, the morphological changes of the immobilized cell were monitored using bright-field imaging. The cell deformability was then compared with that of a trapped polystyrene microbead as a function of the applied acoustic pressure for a better understanding of the relationship between the pressure and degree of cell deformation. Cell deformation was found to become more pronounced as higher pressure levels were applied. Furthermore, to determine if this acoustic trapping method can be exploited in quantifying the cell mechanics in a suspension and in a non-contact manner, the deformability levels of breast cancer cells with different degrees of invasiveness due to acoustic trapping were compared. It was found that highly-invasive breast cancer cells exhibited greater deformability than weakly-invasive breast cancer cells. These results clearly demonstrate that the single-beam acoustic trapping technique is a promising tool for non-contact quantitative assessments of the mechanical properties of single cells in suspensions with label-free.1

Enhanced ceramides production by Lactobacillus rhamnosus IDCC 3201 and its proposed mechanism

The use of probiotics has been applied for a variety of fields (e.g., immune system, mental health, and heart). In this study, the feasibility of lysates from L. rhamnosus IDCC 3201 for cosmetic ingredients was evaluated. More specifically, enhanced ceramides production in human epidermal keratinocytes by the lysates and its proposed machanism were investigated through in vitro and genome analysis. In results, enhanced spingomyelinase activity and thereby increased ceramides production by the lysates from L. rhamnosus IDCC 3201 was observed. Furthermore, it was found that the existence of glucosylceramdase in L. rhamonsus IDCC 3201 was attributed to enhanced ceramides production. Finally, it was verified that the lysates from L. rhamonsus IDCC 3201 was regarded as safe for its use as cosmetic materials. Thus, these findings have significant implications that might lead to the development of functional and safe cosmetic products from probiotics.Ceramides Glucosylceramidase Probiotics Skin health Sphingomyelinas

Genome-wide analysis of DNA methylation patterns in horse

Background: DNA methylation is an epigenetic regulatory mechanism that plays an essential role in mediating biological processes and determining phenotypic plasticity in organisms. Although the horse reference genome and whole transcriptome data are publically available the global DNA methylation data are yet to be known. Results: We report the first genome-wide DNA methylation characteristics data from skeletal muscle, heart, lung, and cerebrum tissues of thoroughbred (TH) and Jeju (JH) horses, an indigenous Korea breed, respectively by methyl-DNA immunoprecipitation sequencing. The analysis of the DNA methylation patterns indicated that the average methylation density was the lowest in the promoter region, while the density in the coding DNA sequence region was the highest. Among repeat elements, a relatively high density of methylation was observed in long interspersed nuclear elements compared to short interspersed nuclear elements or long terminal repeat elements. We also successfully identified differential methylated regions through a comparative analysis of corresponding tissues from TH and JH, indicating that the gene body regions showed a high methylation density. Conclusions: We provide report the first DNA methylation landscape and differentially methylated genomic regions (DMRs) of thoroughbred and Jeju horses, providing comprehensive DMRs maps of the DNA methylome. These data are invaluable resource to better understanding of epigenetics in the horse providing information for the further biological function analyses.open1

Is an Incentive Policy for Energy Efficient Products Effective for Air Purifiers? The Case of South Korea

Recent increases in fine and ultrafine dust in South Korea have led to sharp increases in the sale of air purifiers, and that trend is expected to continue. As the sale of air purifiers increases, the energy that is consumed by air purifiers also increases. Therefore, improving the energy efficiency of air purifiers is an important part of improving the overall energy efficiency of society. We studied how different incentive policies affect consumer behavior because encouraging people to buy energy efficient air purifiers is important. We first investigated consumer preferences regarding air purifiers. Stated preference data were gathered from a choice experiment and a mixed logit model was used for the analysis. The results show that the most preferred attribute was price, followed by an eco-label. Based on that result, we conducted a scenario analysis to examine the economic and environmental effects of an incentive policy and eco-labeling. The monetary incentive policy increased the market share for air purifiers with a first-grade energy efficiency rating to 2.2%. The annual electricity use reduction was 5.9 GWh, with a CO2 emission reduction of 2520 tons and a policy monetary benefit of KRW 441,340,922 when we converted the effect of that market share change into economic and environmental terms. Eco-labeling also brought considerable change in the market share. These results provide a reference for implementing policies to encourage consumers to purchase energy efficient air purifiers

Revealing role of the Korean Physics Society with keyword co-occurrence network

Science and society inevitably interact with each other and evolve together. Studying the trend of science helps recognize leading topics significant for research and establish better policies to allocate funds efficiently. Scholarly societies such as the Korean Physics Society (KPS) also play an important role in the history of science. Figuring out the role of these scholarly societies motivate our research related with our society since societies pay attention to improve our society. Although several studies try to capture the trend of science leveraging scientific documents such as paper or patents, these studies limited their research scope only to the academic world, neglecting the interaction with society. Here we tried to understand the trend of science along with society using a public magazine named Physics and High Technology, published by the KPS. We built keyword co-occurrence networks for each time period and applied community detection to capture the keyword structure and tracked the structure's evolution. In the networks, a research-related cluster is consistently dominant over time, and sub-clusters of the research-related cluster divide into various fields of physics, implying specialization of the physics discipline. Also, we found that education and policy clusters appear consistently, revealing the KPS's contribution to science and society. Furthermore, we applied PageRank algorithm to selected keywords ("semiconductor", "woman", "evading", etc.) to investigate the temporal change of the importance of keywords in the network. For example, the importance of the keyword "woman" increases as time goes by, indicating that academia also pays attention to gender issues reflecting the social movement in recent years.11Nsciescopuskc

Polarization-Induced Two-Dimensional electron gas at BeO/ZnO interface

© 2022 Elsevier B.V.Beryllium oxide (BeO) is a unique metal oxide with excellent thermal conductivity and dielectric strength. BeO tends to grow as wurtzite single crystals via atomic layer deposition, leading to the strong polarization of heterostructures with various substrates. We demonstrated the formation of a polarization-induced two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) at a BeO/ZnO heterostructure interface. The polarity discontinuity induced by the c-axis-grown crystalline BeO film caused charges to accumulate on the ZnO substrate. The sheet carrier concentration and mobility of the BeO/ZnO heterostructure were 2.0 × 1014 cm−2 and 22 cm2·V−1·s−1 at room temperature, respectively, approximately 57 times and 11 times greater than those of bare ZnO, respectively. In addition, the carrier concentration was nearly constant over the temperature range of 150 K – 350 K. The 2DEG layers formed via ALD BeO films are possible channel materials for use in various electronic devices such as thin film transistors.11Nsciescopu