• Development and Reproduction
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.219-225
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• 2016

Most of the commercial devices for vitrification are directly immersed into the warming solution (WS) for increasing of warming rate. However, the previous modified cut standard straw (MCS) which has reported is difficult to immerse into the WS. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the long cut straw (LCS) could be useful as a stable tool for vitrified-warmed human blastocysts. A total of 138 vitrified-warmed cycles were performed between November 2013 and November 2014 (exclusion criteria: women ${\geq}38$ years old, poor responder, surgical retrieval sperm, and severe male factor). The artificial shrinkage was conducted using 29-gauge needles. Ethylene glycol and dimethyl sulfoxide (7.5% and 15% (v/v)) were used as cryoprotectants. Freezing and warming were conducted using the LCS tool. The cap of LCS was removed using the forceps in the liquid nitrogen ($LN_2$) and then directly immersed into the first WS for 1 min at $37^{\circ}C$ (1 M sucrose). Only re-expanded blastocysts were transferred after it was cultured in sequential media for 18-20 h. A total of 294 blastocysts were warmed, and all were recovered (100%). Two hundred eighty-five embryos were survived (96.9%). The vitrified-warmed blastocysts of all patients were transferred without any cancellation. We were able to achieve a reasonable implantation (24.2%), following by clinical pregnancy (36.2%), which then continued to ongoing pregnancy (36.2%), and live birth (31.2%). Using LCS is achieved the acceptable rates of survival, pregnancy and live birth. Therefore, the LCS could be considered as a stable and simple tool for human embryo vitrificaton.

• Water Engineering Research
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.131-147
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• 2005

Today, a trend that tries to return the artificial space of a river to a natural one is expanding. But in Korea, which lies in the monsoon climate zone, rivers endure flood damage every year. Moreover, climatic change from global warming causes severe variations in precipitation patterns. Until recently, river restoration practices in Korea have followed partial restoration. These restorative treatments transformed artificial structures of the stream to natural ones and introduced natural vegetation by imitating natural or semi-natural streams. Treatment transformed the riparian structure and increased the diversity of micro-topography and vegetation. Furthermore, restoration recovered species composition, increased species diversity, and inhibited the establishment of exotic species. In particular, the Suip stream, which was left to its natural process for approximately 50 years, recovered its natural features almost completely through passive restoration. An urban stream, the Yangjae, and a rural stream, the Dongmoon, were restored partially by applying ecological principles. On the contrary, technological treatment applied to recover flood damage induced species composition far from the natural vegetation and decreased species diversity. Additionally, this treatment increased exotic species. The same results were found also in benthic invertebrate and fish fauna. The above-mentioned results reflect the importance of ecological considerations in river management.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.127-132
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• 2011

Since the late 20th century, countries of the world have made every effort to solve environmental problems due to global warming. The Korean Government has also made various efforts on reducing energy and $CO_2$ emission under the motto of "Low-Carbon Green Growth". In order to achieve the goal to reduce energy in the construction field, severe design standards and regulations on saving energy in new buildings have been established. However, for maximizing the reduction of energy in buildings, it is time to focus on deteriorated buildings where applications of energy saving designs and techniques have been insufficient. Especially, there are little guidelines and researches on reducing energy through remodeling at deteriorated school buildings which were built over 20 years ago. This paper suggests the priority of factors to reduce energy on the remodeling process at deteriorated school buildings using the AHP(Analytic Hierarchy Process) method. For applying the AHP method, the survey of staffs in the Education Offices and board members in the Korea Institute of Ecological Architecture and Environment was conducted via e-mail. As a result, factors of insulation, daylighting, system control, and windows turned out important in the energy reducing remodeling process at deteriorated school buildings, while factors of artificial lighting, solar heating, ventilation, and system did relatively unimportant.

• Entomological Research
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.540-549
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• 2018

Climate change due to global warming and changes in land use increase the development time and distribution, as well as the abundance, of mosquitoes, thereby negatively affecting human life and health. In this study, we investigated the habitat characteristics of mosquito occurrence sites in Danwon-gu, Ansan city, Korea, based on a daily record of civil pest complaints lodged at the Danwon-gu Community Health Center. We considered two types of factors (natural and artificial) known to affect mosquito occurrence. We confirmed a total of 554 cases of mosquito occurrence from March 2014 to August 2017. The total study area was $49.11km^2$, with urban areas constituting the largest proportion. Additionally, we investigated habitat preferences of mosquitoes in terms of terrain factors; generally, mosquitoes occurred at low elevations and on low slopes. Regarding the preference of oviposition sites, mosquitoes occurred at higher rates near streams and crops lands. The rate of mosquito occurrence tended to increase in areas with dense human populations. Regarding climatic factors, the rate of mosquito occurrence increased in areas with high temperature and low precipitation.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.357-371
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• 2016

Buildings in the city acts as a cause of distorted wind direction, wind speed, causing the stagnation of the air flow. In the recent trend of climate change can not but consider the temperature rise of the urbanization. This study was aimed to analyze the thermal comfort of planetary boundary layer in different artificial constructions areas which has a direct impact on urban climate, and estimating the warming phenomena. Envi-met model was used to consider the urban structure associated with urban growth in order to precisely determine the impact of the building on the city weather condition. The analyzed values of thermal comfort index were temperature, wind speed, horizontal and vertical turbulent diffusivity. In particular, analysis of the PPD(Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied) represents the human thermal comfort. In this study, by adjusting the arrangement and proportion of the top floor building in the urban it was found that the inflow of the fresh air and cooling can be derived low PPD. Vertical heat flux amount of the city caused by climate change was a factor to form a high potential temperature in the city and the accumulation of cold air does not appear near the surface. Based on this, to make the city effectively respond to climate change may require a long-term restructuring of urban spatial structure and density management.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.505-514
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• 2021

Among non-timber forest products, Tricholoma matsutake is a high value added item. Many countries, including Korea, China, and Japan, are doing research and technology development to increase artificial cultivation and productivity. However, the production of T. matsutake is on the decline due to global warming, abnormal temperatures and pine tree pest problems. Therefore, it is necessary to identify trends in domestic and foreign research on T. matsutake, respond to preemptive research and development to preserve the genetic resources of T. matsutake and increase its productivity. Based on the correlation between keywords in the high frequency keywords, it was observed that microbial clusters of T. matsutake are mainly found in Korea. The main focus in China has been the pharmacology studies on the ingredients of T. matsutake. The main focus in Japan has been on preserving the genetic diversity and species of T. matsutake. Thus, future domestic studies of T. matsutake will require pharmacological studies on the ingredients of T. matsutake and on its genetic diversity and species conservation. In addition, unlike China and Japan, genetic keywords did not appear in Korea at high frequency. Therefore, Korea will have to proceed with research using modern molecular biology techniques.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.127-135
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• 2022

With the advent of high technologies such as the 4th Industrial Revolution and artificial intelligence and big data, efforts are being made to solve urban problems and improve the quality of life by applying new technologies in the smart city field. In addition, as carbon neutrality has emerged as an important issue due to global warming, smart city energy platform technologies such as urban energy management, efficiency improvement, and carbon reduction are in the spotlight. In order to effectively manage urban energy, energy resource information such as electricity, water, gas, hot water, heating, etc. must be collected from the management system of various energy utilities and managed on the central platform. The centrally integrated data is delivered to external city management systems that require city energy information through an energy platform. This study developed a CIM profile for smart city energy monitoring required to provide energy data to external systems. Electric data model were designed using the CIM class of IEC 61970, and water, gas, and heat data model were designed in compliance with the UML-based design ideas of IEC 61970.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.409-425
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• 2021

Carbon dioxide has been known to be a typical greenhouse gas causing global warming, and a number of efforts have been proposed to reduce its concentration in the atmosphere. Among them, carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) has been taken into great account to accomplish the target reduction of carbon dioxide. In order to commercialize the CCS, its safety should be secured. In particular, if the stored carbon dioxide is leaked in the arable land, serious problems could come up in terms of crop growth. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of carbon dioxide leaked from storage sites on soil fertility. The leakage of carbon dioxide was simulated using the facility of its artificial injection into soils in the laboratory. Several soil chemical properties, such as pH, cation exchange capacity, electrical conductivity, the concentrations of exchangeable cations, nitrogen (N) (total-N, nitrate-N, and ammonia-N), phosphorus (P) (total-P and available-P), sulfur (S) (total-S and available-S), available-boron (B), and the contents of soil organic matter, were monitored as indicators of soil fertility during the period of artificial injection of carbon dioxide. Two kinds of soils, such as non-cultivated and cultivated soils, were compared in the artificial injection tests, and the latter included maize- and soybean-cultivated soils. The non-cultivated soil (NCS) was sandy soil of 42.6% porosity, the maize-cultivated soil (MCS) and soybean-cultivated soil (SCS) were loamy sand having 46.8% and 48.0% of porosities, respectively. The artificial injection facility had six columns: one was for the control without carbon dioxide injection, and the other five columns were used for the injections tests. Total injection periods for NCS and MCS/SCS were 60 and 70 days, respectively, and artificial rainfall events were simulated using one pore volume after the 12-day injection for the NCS and the 14-day injection for the MCS/SCS. After each rainfall event, the soil fertility indicators were measured for soil and leachate solution, and they were compared before and after the injection of carbon dioxide. The results indicate that the residual concentrations of exchangeable cations, total-N, total-P, the content of soil organic matter, and electrical conductivity were not likely to be affected by the injection of carbon dioxide. However, the residual concentrations of nitrate-N, ammonia-N, available-P, available-S, and available-B tended to decrease after the carbon dioxide injection, indicating that soil fertility might be reduced. Meanwhile, soil pH did not seem to be influenced due to the buffering capacity of soils, but it is speculated that a long-term leakage of carbon dioxide might bring about soil acidification.

• Journal of Korean Society for Geospatial Information Science
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.45-53
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• 2013

Global warming causes sea levels to rise and global changes apparently taking place including coastline changes. Coastline change due to sea level rise is also one of the most significant phenomena affected by global climate change. Accordingly, Coastline change detection can be utilized as an indicator of representing global climate change. Generally, Coastline change has happened mainly because of not only sea level rise but also artificial factor that is reclaimed land development by mud flat reclamation. However, Arctic coastal areas have been experienced serious change mostly due to sea level rise rather than other factors. The purposes of this study are automatic extraction of coastline and identifying change. In this study, in order to extract coastline automatically, contrast of the water and the land was maximized utilizing modified NDWI(Normalized Difference Water Index) and it made automatic extraction of coastline possibile. The imagery converted into modified NDWI were applied image processing techniques in order that appropriate threshold value can be found automatically to separate the water and land. Then the coastline was extracted through edge detection algorithm and changes were detected using extracted coastlines. Without the help of other data, automatic extraction of coastlines using LANDSAT was possible and similarity was found by comparing NLCD data as a reference data. Also, the results of the study area that is permafrost always frozen below $0^{\circ}C$ showed quantitative changes of the coastline and verified that the change was accelerated.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.496-505
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• 2020

Background: Panax ginseng is a marvelous herbal remedy for all ailments of body. That may be why it is called Panax, which means "cure for all". Melanin is a pigment that gives color to our skin; however, increased melanin production can lead to tumor formation. Human exposure to ultraviolet B radiation has increased extensively owing to the increased sunlight due to global warming. Consequently, a phenomenon called photoaging has been observed for all skin colors and types. As a result of this phenomenon, a set of enzymes called matrix metalloproteinases, which serve as degradation enzymes for extracellular matrix proteins, mainly collagen, is increased, causing depletion of collagen and resulting in early wrinkle formation. Methods: Therefore, in our study, we used the murine melanoma cell line B16/F10 to study the inhibition of melanogenesis by Korean Red Ginseng (KRG) extract in vitro and HRM-2 hairless mice exposed to artificial ultraviolet B to examine the efficacy of KRG in vivo. We prepared a 3% red ginseng extract cream and evaluated its effects on human skin. Results: Our results demonstrated that KRG induced potent suppression of tyrosinase activity and melanin production in B16/F10 cells; moreover, it reduced the transcription and translation of components involved in the melanin production pathway. In the in vivo experiments, KRG potently suppressed the expression of matrix metalloproteinases, reduced wrinkle formation, and inhibited collagen degradation. On human skin, ginseng cream increased skin resilience and skin moisture and enhanced skin tone. Conclusion: Therefore, we conclude that KRG is an excellent skin whitening and antiaging product.