Echinochloa species are among the most troublesome weeds inrice cultivation, and grow in a broad habitat range in Korea. Althoughvarious ecotypes of Echinochloa have been collected asgermplasm for future studies, it has been difficult to classify them due totheir high level of morphological similarity. This study was thus conductedto develop and investigate the phylogenetic relationships between 77 Echinochloa accessions with the use of 23 simplesequence repeat (SSR) markers and 24 morphological traits. Of 77 Echinochloa accessions, including 57 accessions fromKorea and 5 reference species, late watergrass was clearly clustered as adistinctive group from barnyardgrass and other Echinochloaspecies. In this analysis, we also identified core genetic and morphologicalmarkers that can be used for the future identification and classification of Echinochloa species. Five out of 23 SSR makers produceddistinctive bands that discriminate late watergrass from barnyardgrass andother Echinochloa species. Four morphological traits of thereproductive organs were the most influential contributors for classifying Echinochloa species. Although there was no clearconsensus generated in this study between SSR markers and morphologicaltrait analyses, our results support the potential use of the selected SSRmarkers and morphological traits in future studies of Echinochloa.

Miscanthus is a promising bioenergy crop due to its high productivity and broad environmental adaptability to tropical and temperate climates. As important Miscanthus species such as M. sinensis and M. sacchariflorus are native to East Asia, implying more diverse Miscanthus genetic resources in this region, in this study, we collected about 300 Miscanthus accessions from East Asia, mainly in Korea. From the whole collections, 66 Miscanthus accessions representing geographical location and latitude were selected and tested through a 3-year field trial to investigate genetic diversity in their agronomic traits. Five agronomic traits associated with biomass production were assessed to investigate the relationships of agronomic traits with biomass yield and latitudes of locations where Miscanthus accessions were collected. Plant height, stem diameter, stem dry weight and heading date exhibited a significantly positive correlation with biomass yield with r= 0.465, 0.780, 0.817 and 0.450, respectively. Stem diameter (r= − 0.495), stem dry weight (r= − 0.393), heading date (r= − 0.914) and estimated yield (r= − 0.425) exhibited a significantly negative correlation with latitudes of the collection sites. The results of the study revealed the existence of considerable genetic diversity in agronomic traits in the Miscanthus accessions collected. The presence of a significant relationship between latitudes and agronomic traits suggests that accessions collected from different geographical latitudes will provide more genetically diverse materials for breeding. Therefore, the results of the present study can provide useful information and materials for Miscanthus breeding programmes.

The present study addresses the questions of (a) whether Korean learners of English show sensitivity to subject–verb agreement violations in an eye-tracking paradigm, and (b) how reading goals (reading for comprehension vs. translation) and second language (L2) proficiency modulate depth of morphological agreement processing. Thirty-six Korean speakers of L2 English and 32 native English speakers read 40 stimulus sentences, half of which contained subject–verb agreement violations in English. The factors were whether a head and a local intervening noun matched in number and whether a sentence was grammatical or not. In linear mixed models analyses, both agreement violations and noun phrase match/mismatch were found to be disruptive in processing for native speakers at the critical regions (verb and following word), and locally distracting number-marked nouns yielded an asymmetric pattern depending on grammaticality. When L2 speakers were asked to produce offline oral translations of the English sentences into Korean, they became more sensitive to agreement violations. In addition, higher L2 proficiency predicted greater sensitivity to morphological violations. The results indicate that L2 speakers are not necessarily insensitive to morphological violations and that L2 proficiency and task modulate the depth of L2 morphological processing.

A self-paced reading and translation task was used with learners of English as a second language (L2) to explore what sorts of information L2 learners use during online comprehension compared to native speakers, and how task (reading for comprehension vs. translation) and proficiency affect L2 comprehension. Thirty-six Korean native speakers of English and 32 native English speakers read plausible and implausible subject relative clauses and object relative clauses. Reading times, comprehension accuracy, and translations were analyzed. Results showed that L2 learners were able to use syntactic information similarly to native speakers during comprehension, and that online L2 processing and offline comprehension were modulated by reading goals and proficiency. Results are interpreted as showing that L2 processing is quantitatively rather than qualitatively different from first language processing, i.e. strategically “good enough”.

Nanoparticles of Cd1–xCuxS (x = 0–0.15) were synthesized by chemical coprecipitation using thiophenol as a capping agent. The x-ray diffraction patterns reveal that the pure and doped CdS nanoparticles are single phase with cubic zinc blende structure. The transmission electron microscopy shows the average size of the nanoparticles is about 8.5 nm. Optical absorption spectra indicate the energy gap decreases with increasing Cu2+ concentration. The broad emission peak around 520 nm is completely quenched with increasing Cu2+ content. The electron spin resonance analysis also confirms the Cu (II) ion to be doped substitutionally in CdS nanoparticles and the Lande factor of all the samples with sharp resonance is g = 2.0.

The complex dielectric constants of several π-conjugated materials were measured, and generalized Langevin equation was used to analyze the dielectric behavior in the frequency domain. From the results of the fitting the experimental data using the generalized Langevin equation, we suggest that the charge carriers are electrically screened by the neighboring charges through the structural relaxation, and the carriers are not interact each other. We confirmed that the generalized Langevin equation offers a very good approach to analyze and understand the transport properties of charge carriers in π-conjugated materials.

To compare the therapeutic efficacy in the management of granular myringitis, 15 patients with chronic granular myringitis were treated with antibiotic ear drops that were used twice to four times a day, and another 15 patients were treated with daily irrigation of the external canal with dilute vinegar solution. All patients treated with dilute vinegar solution had resolution of their original otorrhoea within three weeks, whereas two-thirds of patients recovered within three weeks when treated with antibiotic ear drops. The disadvantages of dilute vinegar therapy were canal irritation with pain and dizziness. When the therapeutic efficacy was compared statistically, a dry ear was attained in the dilute vinegar-treated group at six weeks and six months in the antibiotic ear drop treated group (p<0.01). These results suggest that very low pH therapy using dilute vinegar solution is definitely effective in the management of granular myringitis.

A stress-driven formation of self-assembled InGaAs islands has been studied by the growth on GaAs (100) substrates with sub-micron platinum stripe pattern. Islands or quantum dots preferentially nucleate at the boundary of metal patterns. In addition, a quantum dot-free region near the boundary of the metal pattern is found. Those results are attributed to the stress between metal stripe and GaAs surface, which produces a laterally stressed region around the metal stripe. Adatoms on this region preferentially migrate toward the edge of metal stripes with maximum stress. This result may show a possible way for the interconnection between randomly distributed self-assembled quantum dots and metal stripes.