This empirical study examines the relation between the audit committee effectiveness and the quality of financial reporting measured as the magnitude of market reactions to earnings announcements. Results show that market reactions increase (1) as audit committee directors have more stock ownership in their firms; (2) as audit committees meet more frequently; (3) as audit committees are composed of a higher percentage of directors with expertise in the financial reporting and auditing process; and (4) when the external auditor of a firm is a Big 4 audit firm. Market reactions decrease when there are unaffiliated large block-holders. Results provide empirical evidence in supporting the proposition that a firm with the effective audit committee will maintain a high-quality financial reporting system and that capital markets respond more favorably to earnings news from such a firm. As such, these results support the public and professional efforts to improve the quality of financial reporting by strengthening the effectiveness of audit committees in their oversight role in the financial reporting and auditing process.

A composite adsorbent was synthesized by immobilizing ferric oxide or three different iron oxides into alginate beads (HFOAB) for the removal of arsenate [As(V)] and heavy metals from aqueous phase.Sorption studies were conducted on single and binary sorbate systems, and the effects of contact time, initial adsorbate concentration, and pH on adsorption performance of HFOAB were monitored.The sorption process for As(V) and Cu(II) reached an equilibrium state within 240 h and 24 h.The maximum sorption capacity of As(V) was 13.8 mg g -1 after 168 h.The effect of arsenic species on Cu(II) sorption was insignificant.The adsorption of As(III), As(V), and Cu(II) followed pseudo second order kinetics.Kinetic studies showed that adsorption process reached equilibrium within 8 h at an initial concentration of 10 mg/L.Pb(II) and Cd(II) showed a greater sorption capacity on NCBs, which might be due to sorption sites provided by the immobilized GNC.The sorption affinity of divalent metal ions on NCB was in the following order: Pb=Cu=Cd >Zn=Ni> Co>Mn.The study demonstrates that the synthesized sorbent could be useful for the simultaneous removal of both anionic and cationic contaminants from wastewater.

For application in small-scale water facilities, important boundary conditions for decentralized systems include low costs, low maintenance, sustainability.Although some low-cost systems are available, their application is limited by time-consuming daily operation and maintenance.On the other hand, membrane systems are attractive since they provide an absolute barrier for organic compounds and remove turbidity.Accordingly, we developed the membrane based water treatment package system for small-scale water supply facilities, and its applicability was examined.The decentralized water treatment package system consisted of DMF, UF, and UV unit.Each unit combination was made to ensure the processing capacity of 100 m 3 per day.In addition, a decentralized water treatment package system was manufactured using 10ft containers compliant with IOS standards due to limitation of grounds at small-scale water supply facility.In case of small-town in Korea, underground water is mainly used as raw water.Therefore, this package system was installed and operated at the upper region of the ANDONG in Korea.Four items including temperature, pH, conductivity, turbidity were monitored to analyze underground water quality.In addition, the water treated by the system was analyzed to identify whether it satisfies drinking water quality standards.After the examination of applicability, on the basis of water usage per capita per day, the system was able to produce enough water for 300 people.During the operation, the produced water satisfied all 48 items of drinking water quality standards.Thus it is surmised that the system could be used for small-scale water supply facilities.

Isolated fallopian tube torsion is a rare pregnancy-related complication. It is frequently misdiagnosed as acute appendicitis or ovarian torsion owing to the lack of specific symptoms or signs. Here, the authors report a case of a 35-year-old primigravida at 30 weeks and six days of gestation who had presented with right isolated fallopian tube torsion and a history of right oophorectomy. The authors propose that isolated fallopian tube torsion should be included in the list of differential diagnosis when encountered with patients complaining of lower abdominal pain.

This study investigated to choose the water treatment process prototype after carrying a field survey to construct E³ Water System in Mongolia which was chosen among the major target countries, selecting water quality evaluation standards, and drawing up elementary technologies applicable to the local areas. The process plan for was applied in Mongolia to catch water from underground water as the major source of water supply and the riverside filtered water which has better water quality. In addition, it was considered that the concentration of manganese and bacteria was detected more than our domestic standards or their standards through water quality analysis in Mongolia. In Mongolia, there was a problem that we should consider the pollutants in the water source due to climate change and industrial development. It is necessary to package and standardize each water treatment process suitable for water quality conditions and processing objectives for each region.

As of the end of 2013, the population using the facilities other than the municipal water service includes 943,000 people using the village waterworks (42.5%), 472,000 people using the small-sized water supply systems (21.3%), 143,000 people using the exclusive waterworks (6.5%), and 659,000 people using well and other means(29.7%). Currently, the dependency on small-sized water supply systems is very high in small cities and rural areas which have relatively low distribution of waterworks compared to metropolitan areas, and 80 to 150 units are installed and operated in each region. Although the smallsized water supply system should be systematically managed as there were 18,383 of them as of 2013, they are mostly managed by the village residents themselves, and only 7.3% of them are equipped with the water purification system such as slow sand filtration and membrane filtration. [1] Therefore, the water purification system to actively cope with pollution of raw water and unmanned management through remote control and other means are needed. This study intended to develop and apply the remote monitoring system to integrate the smaller scale waterworks in order to stabilize the water quality.

Mobile water treatment package system comprises an alternative for stable emergency water supply in response to various situations. This study is aimed at developing technologies to ensure mobility by simplifying process configuration and realizing modularization of various process technologies. Based on the various combinations of unit processes, they were presented according to each treatment process, indicating the possibility of achieving the water quality objectives. Water treatment unit processes were established by setting water quality objectives. Four kinds of water treatment process combinations were proposed based on the classification of water treatment unit process into pre-treatment or primary treatment (filtration using PCF, MF, RO), and posttreatment (filtration process using AC and disinfection process using UV). Each process combination was made to ensure the processing capacity of 30 m/day. In addition, a mobile water treatment package system was manufactured using two 20ft containers compliant with IOS standards for increased mobility. In this study, the removal efficiency and power consumption of each process combination was assessed by installing a mobile water treatment package system. Based on the operation results of the mobile water treatment package system, reviews are being made on advancing the module to maximize performance of the mobile water treatment package system.

The concept of water security has become an important social issue and the need to deploy emergency management systems of water supply has increased.This study observes the water sources available for emergency water supply and the characteristics of the pollutant leakage into each water source.The study also reviews suitable combinations of treatment processes based on the observations and presents a water treatment system for emergency water supply to manage such situations quickly.The cassette-type water treatment system developed in this study modularized the water treatment equipment manufactured by various manufacturers for a specific space so that the process could be structured selectively.Each module was designed to treat the water independently, and featured self-diagnosis, automatic operation, intelligent process selection, and communication functions.Compared to the existing emergency water supply systems, the presented system could intelligently select an operational process according to the raw water properties, and the power unit for self-generation was designed in the form of a cassette, so that it could operate for 2.0 h or longer, even under the condition of no power supply.Therefore, it could be used in case of not only a natural disaster but also an interruption of the water service.

This study was conducted to examine the community structure and diversity of beetles (Coleoptera) inhabiting diverse forest management areas in the Gariwangsan Mountain. The survey was carried out monthly at five study sites of the national forest including a clear-cut area, a heavily thinned forest, a selectively thinned forest, a larch plantation, and a deciduous forest from May 2011 to September in 2011. Beetles were sampled using pitfall trap, Malaise trap, black light, and sweeping. A total of 4883 beetles belonging to 310 species in 43 families were collected. The diversity in the selectively thinned site was lower compared with that in other sites. Of the sampling methods, Malaise traps showed the highest efficiency for collecting diverse beetles. The composition of the functional guild for beetles directly sampled using the sweeping method was different from the composition of those sampled by other methods (e.g. pitfall trap, Malaise trap, and black light), which depended on the activity of the insects.

The Escherichia coli 6-carboxytetrahydropterin synthase (eCTPS), a homolog of 6-pyruvoyl tetrahydropterin synthase (PTPS), possesses a much stronger catalytic activity to cleave the side chain of sepiapterin in vitro rather than the genuine PTPS activity and catalyzes the conversion of dihydroneopterin triphosphate to 6-carboxy-5,6,7,8-tetrahydropterin in vivo. We have determined crystal structures of a wild type apo-eCTPS and a Cys27Ala mutant eCTPS complexed with sepiapterin up to 2.3 and 2.5 Å, respectively. The structures are highly conserved at the active site and the Zn2+ binding site. However, comparison of the eCTPS structures with those of mammalian PTPS homologs revealed that two specific residues Trp51 and Phe55, not existing in the mammalian PTPS, kept the substrate bound by stacking it with their side chains. Replacements of these two residues by site-directed mutagenesis to the residues, Met and Leu, existing only in mammalian PTPS, converted the eCTPS to have the mammalian PTPS activity. Our studies confirm that these two aromatic residues in eCTPS play an essential role in stabilizing the substrate and for the specific enzyme activity different from the original PTPS activity. These aromatic residues Trp51 and Phe55 are a key signature of bacterial PTPS enzymes that distinguish them from mammalian PTPS homologs.

Forest fires are one of the most frequent and important causes of forest disturbances, the occurrence of which is globally increasing due to the effects of climate change. This study aimed to determine the impacts of fire and human activity on arthropod communities in affected forests. Twelve study sites in three burned areas were selected for this study. Intensities of disturbance in the study sites were characterized as follows: Disturbance Degree (DD) 0 (no fire), DD 1 (surface fire), DD 2 (crown fire), and DD 3 (crown fire followed by reforestation). Arthropods were collected using pitfall traps. Fourteen arthropod taxa (families, orders or classes), which are relatively homogeneous in their feeding habits and abundant, were analyzed. Depth of litter layer was selected as an environmental indicator for disturbance intensity, as it decreases linearly as the degree of disturbance increased. Changes of arthropod abundance in response to disturbance differed among functional guilds. As disturbance intensity increased, the abundance of detritivores decreased, but the abundance of herbivores increased. However, the abundance of predators varied between taxa. Formicidae and Araneae increased in disturbed sites, whereas Carabidae and Staphylinidae did not change. The abundance of Thysanura and Diptera was highly correlated with disturbance intensity, and may be suitable as a bioindicator for forest disturbance. Arthropod communities were more heterogeneous in forests of intermediate disturbance.

This study was conducted to estimate the effects of fire intensity and recovery methods on coleopteran communities in three burned forests, Goseong, Gangneung, and Samcheok in Gangwon province, Korea. Four sampling sites were selected in each study area according to disturbance degree (DD) caused by fire intensity and recovery methods. DD in the study sites were categorized as 0 (no fire), 1 (weak fire), 2 (strong fire), and 3 (strong fire followed by human disturbance). Beetles collected by pitfall traps were classified into 3 functional guilds: detritivore, herbivore, and carnivore. Diversity and abundance were slightly higher in the burned sites (DD = 1-3) than in the unburned sites (DD = 0), although there was no statistical significance. Coleopteran communities differed according to fire intensity and recovery method. This suggests that recovery of burned forests using both natural recovery and reforestation may increase the diversity of coleopteran communities.