• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
• /
• v.53 no.4
• /
• pp.274-291
• /
• 2020

This year is the 50th anniversary of the adoption by UNESCO in 1970 of the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (the '1970 Convention'). Since its ratification of the 1970 Convention in 1983, the Republic of Korea has domestically implemented the Convention through its Cultural Heritage Protection Act, which was first enacted in 1962. This is a different form of implementation than is normally used for other UNESCO Conventions on cultural heritage, in that the Republic of Korea has recently adopted special acts to enforce the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage and the 1972 Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. In addition, the 1970 Convention has been developed further through the introduction of new Operational Guidelines in 2015 for the concrete enforcement of the Convention, which has provided momentum for the Republic of Korea to analyze its current national legislation related to the 1970 Convention as well as consider its amendment in the future. Overall, the Cultural Heritage Protection Act of the Republic of Korea effectively reflects the duties of States Parties under the 1970 Convention. These include measures to introduce export certificates, prohibit the import of stolen cultural property, return other state parties' cultural property, and impose penalties or administrative sanctions in the event of any infringements. Indeed, the Republic of Korea's implementation of the 1970 Convention was introduced as an example of good practice at the Meeting of State Parties in 2019. However, changes in the illegal market for cultural property and development of relevant international law and measures imply that there still exists room for improvement concerning the legal implementation of the 1970 Convention at the national level. In particular, the Operational Guidelines recommend States Parties to adopt legal measures in two respects: detailed criteria for due diligence in assessing bona-fide purchasers, referring to the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects, and measures to address the emerging issue of illegal trade in cultural property on internet platforms. Amendment of the Cultural Heritage Protection Act and other relevant laws should be considered in order to duly reflect these issues. Taking that opportunity, concrete provisions to facilitate international cooperation in respect of the implementation of the 1970 Convention could be introduced as well. Such measures could be expected to strengthen the Republic of Korea's international legal cooperation to respond to the changing environment regarding illicit trafficking of cultural property and its restitution.

• Journal of Life Science
• /
• v.31 no.6
• /
• pp.550-558
• /
• 2021

Fructus Corni, the fruit of Cornus officinalis, has long been used for the prevention and treatment of various diseases. We recently suggested that it was effective against benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). In this study, we investigated the inhibitory effect of Corni Fructus (CF) water extract on BPH induced by testosterone propionate (TP) in noncastrated and castrated animal models. BPH was induced in Sprague Dawley rats by an intramuscular injection of TP in castrated or noncastrated rats. Finasteride (FINA) treatment was used as a positive control for inhibition of BPH. According to our results, CF administration inhibited excessive enlargement of development of the prostate in both the noncastrated and castrated groups compared to the control and FINA-treated groups. The inhibitory effect of CF on BPH was associated with inhibition of expression of hypoxia-inducible factor-1α, 5α-reductase type 2, steroid receptor coactivator-1, androgen receptor (AR), and prostate-specific antigen. Serum levels of the stress hormone cortisol increased during BPH induction by TP in both the noncastrated and castrated groups, but they were attenuated significantly by CF administration. However, insulin and IGF-1 levels were not increased in the BPH-induced groups and CF, and no effective results were found by CF administration. These results point to a beneficial effect of CF on BPH through inhibition of AR signaling pathway activity and imply that CF shows excellent potential as a therapeutic agent for the prevention and treatment of BPH.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.54 no.spc1
• /
• pp.1095-1105
• /
• 2021

The advancement of dam operation is further required due to the upcoming rainy season, typhoons, or torrential rains. Besides, physical models based on specific rules may sometimes have limitations in controlling the release discharge of dam due to inherent uncertainty and complex factors. This study aims to forecast the water level of the nearest station to the dam multi-timestep-ahead and evaluate the availability when it makes a decision for a release discharge of dam based on LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory) of deep learning. The LSTM model was trained and tested on eight data sets with a 1-hour temporal resolution, including primary data used in the dam operation and downstream water level station data about 13 years (2009~2021). The trained model forecasted the water level time series divided by the six lead times: 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 18-hours, and compared and analyzed with the observed data. As a result, the prediction results of the 1-hour ahead exhibited the best performance for all cases with an average accuracy of MAE of 0.01m, RMSE of 0.015 m, and NSE of 0.99, respectively. In addition, as the lead time increases, the predictive performance of the model tends to decrease slightly. The model may similarly estimate and reliably predicts the temporal pattern of the observed water level. Thus, it is judged that the LSTM model could produce predictive data by extracting the characteristics of complex hydrological non-linear data and can be used to determine the amount of release discharge from the dam when simulating the operation of the dam.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.54 no.spc1
• /
• pp.1107-1118
• /
• 2021

Climate change brought on by global warming increased the frequency of flood and drought on the Korean Peninsula, along with the casualties and physical damage resulting therefrom. Preparation and response to these water disasters requires national-level planning for water resource management. In addition, watershed-level management of water resources requires flow duration curves (FDC) derived from continuous data based on long-term observations. Traditionally, in water resource studies, physical rainfall-runoff models are widely used to generate duration curves. However, a number of recent studies explored the use of data-based deep learning techniques for runoff prediction. Physical models produce hydraulically and hydrologically reliable results. However, these models require a high level of understanding and may also take longer to operate. On the other hand, data-based deep-learning techniques offer the benefit if less input data requirement and shorter operation time. However, the relationship between input and output data is processed in a black box, making it impossible to consider hydraulic and hydrological characteristics. This study chose one from each category. For the physical model, this study calculated long-term data without missing data using parameter calibration of the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), a physical model tested for its applicability in Korea and other countries. The data was used as training data for the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) data-based deep learning technique. An anlysis of the time-series data fond that, during the calibration period (2017-18), the Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) and the determinanation coefficient for fit comparison were high at 0.04 and 0.03, respectively, indicating that the SWAT results are superior to the LSTM results. In addition, the annual time-series data from the models were sorted in the descending order, and the resulting flow duration curves were compared with the duration curves based on the observed flow, and the NSE for the SWAT and the LSTM models were 0.95 and 0.91, respectively, and the determination coefficients were 0.96 and 0.92, respectively. The findings indicate that both models yield good performance. Even though the LSTM requires improved simulation accuracy in the low flow sections, the LSTM appears to be widely applicable to calculating flow duration curves for large basins that require longer time for model development and operation due to vast data input, and non-measured basins with insufficient input data.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
• /
• v.31 no.4
• /
• pp.356-365
• /
• 2022

Agrivoltaic systems, also called solar sharing, stated from an idea that utilizes sunlight above the light saturation point of crops for power generation using solar panels. The agrivoltaic systems are expected to reduce the incident solar radiation, the consequent surface cooling effect, and evapotranspiration, and bring additional income to farms through solar power generation by combining crops with solar photovoltaics. In this study, to evaluate if agrivoltaic systems are suitable for viticulture, we investigated the microclimatic change, the growth of vines and the characteristics of grape grown under solar panels set by planting lines compared with ones in open vineyards. There was high reduction of wind speed during over-wintering season, and low soil temperature under solar panel compared to those in the open field. There was not significant difference in total carbohydrates and bud burst in bearing mother branches between plots. Despite high content of chlorophyll in vines grown under panels, there is no significant difference in shoot growth of vines, berry weight, cluster weight, total soluble solid content and acidity of berries, and anthocyanin content of berry skins in harvested grapes in vineyards under panels and open vineyards. It was observed that harvesting season was delayed by 7-10 days due to late skin coloration in grapes grown in vineyards under panels compared to ones grown in open vineyards. The results from this study would be used as data required in development of viticulture system under panel in the future and further study for evaluating the influence of agrivoltaic system on production of crops including grapes.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.59 no.3
• /
• pp.345-358
• /
• 2021

This study focuses on the development of the liquid air production process that uses LNG (liquefied natural gas) cold energy which usually wasted during the regasification stage. The liquid air can be transported to the LNG exporter, and it can be utilized as the cold source to replace certain amount of refrigerant for the natural gas liquefaction. Therefore, the condition of the liquid air has to satisfy the available pressure of LNG storage tank. To satisfy pressure constraint of the membrane type LNG tank, proposed process is designed to produce liquid air at 1.3bar. In proposed process, the air is precooled by heat exchange with LNG and subcooled by nitrogen refrigeration cycle. When the amount of transported liquid air is as large as the capacity of the LNG carrier, it could be economical in terms of the transportation cost. In addition, larger liquid air can give more cold energy that can be used in natural gas liquefaction plant. To analyze the effect of the liquid air production amount, under the same LNG supply condition, the proposed process is simulated under 3 different air flow rate: 0.50 kg/s, 0.75 kg/s, 1.00 kg/s, correspond to Case1, Case2, and Case3, respectively. Each case was analyzed thermodynamically and economically. It shows a tendency that the more liquid air production, the more energy demanded per same mass of product as Case3 is 0.18kWh higher than Base case. In consequence the production cost per 1 kg liquid air in Case3 was $0.0172 higher. However, as liquid air production increases, the transportation cost per 1 kg liquid air has reduced by $0.0395. In terms of overall cost, Case 3 confirmed that liquid air can be produced and transported with $0.0223 less per kilogram than Base case.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
• /
• v.55 no.3
• /
• pp.241-259
• /
• 2022

In general, the REE were produced by mining conventional deposits, such as the carbonatite or the clay-hosted REE deposits. However, because of the recent demand increase for REE in modern industries, unconventional REE deposits emerged as a necessary research topic. Among the unconventional REE recovery methods, the REE-bearing coal deposits are recently receiving attentions. R-types generally have detrital originations from the bauxite deposits, and show LREE enriched REE patterns. Tuffaceous-types are formed by syngenetic volcanic activities and following input of volcanic ash into the basin. This type shows specific occurrence of the detrital volcanic ash-driven minerals and the authigenic phosphorous minerals focused at narrow horizon between coal seams and tonstein layers. REE patterns of tuffaceous-types show flat shape in general. Hydrothermal-types can be formed by epigenetic inflow of REE originated from granitic intrusions. Occurrence of the authigenic halogen-bearing phosphorous minerals and the water-bearing minerals are the specific characteristics of this type. They generally show HREE enriched REE patterns. Each type of REE-bearing coal deposits may occur by independent genesis, but most of REE-bearing coal deposits with high REE concentrations have multiple genesis. For the case of the US, the rare earth oxides (REO) with high purity has been produced from REE-bearing coals and their byproducts in pilot plants from 2018. Their goal is to supply about 7% of national REE demand. For the coal deposits in Korea, lignite layers found in Gyungju-Yeongil coal fields shows coexistence of tuff layers and coal seams. They are also based in Tertiary basins, and low affection from compaction and coalification might resulted into high-REE tuffaceous-type coal deposits. Thus, detailed geologic researches and explorations for domestic coal deposits are required.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
• /
• v.55 no.2
• /
• pp.211-226
• /
• 2022

Choline, an essential nutrient for humans, is required for the structural integrity of the cell membranes, methyl-group metabolism, synthesis of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, synthesis of the membrane phospholipid components of the cell membranes, and the transport of lipids and cholesterol. Choline can be synthesized in the body, but it is insufficient to meet the daily requirements and hence it must be obtained through the diet. In the United States/Canada, Australia/New Zealand, Europe, China, and Taiwan, the adequate intake (AI) and tolerable upper intake level (UL) of choline have been established, while the establishment of the 2020 Dietary Reference Intakes for Koreans (KDRI) for choline was postponed due to the lack of a choline database for Korean foods and studies on the choline intake of Koreans. However, as part of the preparation work for the 2020 DRI revision and finalization, choline intake and the possibility of disease occurrence were verified through analysis of published data. The groundwork for the subsequent establishment of a choline DRI was laid through a literature search, evaluation, and review of the literature reported from 1949 up to 2019. This can be regarded as the culmination of this project. According to the results of randomized controlled trials (RCTs), cohort studies, case-control studies, and cross-sectional observational studies in humans, approximately 400-500 mg/day of choline intake was effective in preventing liver function damage (fatty liver), neural tube damage, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, and cognitive function improvement. The same amount of choline intake, however, also correlated with the risk of prostate and colorectal cancer. At present, there is limited information available on choline intake and health outcomes, particularly for the Korean population. More human studies, including clinical trials on the requirements and the physiological benefits associated with dietary intake, are needed to establish the KDRI for choline.

• Journal of fish pathology
• /
• v.35 no.1
• /
• pp.1-25
• /
• 2022

The aquaculture industry has developed rapidly over the last three decades and is an important industry that supplies over 15% of humans' animal protein intake; therefore, there is a need to increase production to meet the continuous demand. The fish cage farms on the southern coast (Kyengsangnam-do and Jeollanam-do) of Korea are critical resources in aquaculture because they account for approximately 90% of the national total fish cage farms by water area ratio. However, the current aquaculture environment is being gradually affected by climate change, which is a global issue, and its effects are expected to intensify in the future. Therefore, it is urgently imperative to accurately evaluate the effects of climate change on South Korean aquaculture industries and to develop social and national strategies to minimize damage to the fishing industry. The damage to fish farmed in cage farms on the southern coast is increasing annually and the leading causes are high and low water temperature and red tides, which are directly or indirectly related to climate change. At present, global warming can provide opportunities for aquaculture industrialization of fish or other novel species, with economic implications. However, despite such opportunities, the influx of new species can also cause problems such as ecological disturbances, increase in the reproduction frequency of microalgae such as red tide, increase in disease incidence, and occurrence and periods of high water temperatures in summer. The scale of farmed fish mortality is increasing due to the complex effects of these factors. Increased damages due to fish mortality not only have severe economic impacts on the aquaculture industry, but the social costs of responding to the damage and follow-up measures also increase. various active responses can reduce the mortality damage in fish farms such as improving the management skills in aquaculture, improved species breeding, efficient food management, disease prevention, proactive responses, and system-wide improvements. This review article analyzes the large-scale mortality cases occurring in fish cage farms on the southern coast of Korea and proposes measures to mitigate mortality and enhance responses to such scenarios.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• v.55 no.3
• /
• pp.185-200
• /
• 2022

The risk of various hazardous substances in aquatic environment comprises not only the concentration of substances in the environmental medium but also their accumulation in fish through complex food web and the health risks to humans through the fish. In Korea, the monitoring of residual toxicant in aquatic ecosystems began in 2016 following the enforcement of the Acts on registration and evaluation for the management of chemicals used in daily life (consumer chemical products), and attention has been paid to potentially hazardous substances attributed to them. Recently, studies have been carried out to investigate the distribution of these hazardous substances in the ecosystem and calculate their emission factors. These include the accumulation and transport of substances, such as detergents, dyes, fragrances, cosmetics, and disinfectants, within trophic levels. This study summarizes the results of recently published research on the inflow and distribution of hazardous substances from consumer chemical products to the aquatic environment and presents the scientific implication. Based on studies on aquatic environment monitoring techniques, this study suggests research directions for monitoring the residual concentration and distribution of harmful chemical substances in aquatic ecosystems. In particular, this study introduces the directions for research on trophic position analysis using compound specific isotope analysis and trophic magnification factors, which are needed to fulfill the contemporary requirements of selecting target fish based on the survey of major fish that inhabit domestic waters and assessment of associated health risk. In addition, this study provides suggestions for future biota monitoring and chemical research in Korea.