• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.398-409
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• 2020

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate environmental exposure to tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) by conducting an analysis of the concentration of TSNAs in deposited dust collected from a fertilizer plant and the surrounding village, a simulation of high-temperature drying of tobacco waste, and CALPUFF modeling. Methods: The raw materials of the products, deposited dust (inside and outside the plant and residential area), soil, and wastewater were sampled and the TSNA concentrations were analyzed by LC-MS/MS. As the plant was closed down before the investigation, simulation tests were conducted to confirm the substances discharged during high-temperature (300℃) drying of tobacco waste. CALPUFF modeling was performed to identify the area of influence due to exposure to TSNAs. Results: TSNAs were detected in organic fertilizers estimated to contain tobacco waste, deposited dust, and soil collected from inside and outside the plant. N'-nitrosonornicotine (NNN), 4-(methylnitrosoamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK), and N'-nitrosoanatabine (NAT) components were detected in five of 15 deposited dust samples collected from the residential area around the plant, while TSNAs were not detected in the five sampling points in the control area. Also, the simulation test for the high temperature drying of tobacco waste found emissions of TSNAs. The CALPUFF modeling results showed that the survey area was likely to be included in the area of influence of TSNA emissions from the plant. Conclusions: It is estimated that harmful tobacco ingredients such as TSNAs were dispersed in nearby areas due to the illegal use of tobacco waste as a raw material to produce organic fertilizers at the plant. These findings assume that the residents have been exposed to TSNAs and suggest that the need for the establishment of measures to manage environmental health.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.71-78
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• 2009

Korea Marine Environment Management Corporation (KOEM) has waste oil facilities in 13 ports to collect and treat waste oil, bilge, etc. from ships based upon the Marine Environment Management Act of Korea and MARPOL 73/78 convention. Those facilities were designed and have been operated simply to discharge water under the level 15 ppm of oil contents. However, bad smells occurred from rotten organic matters in waste water and direct discharge of harmful substances to receiving water caused civil appeals. Therefore, KOEM tried to develop new process for treatment of oily waste water from ships, which could mitigate harmful substances, save cost, calm down civil appeals and contribute to marine environment preservation. This process consists of 3 steps to remove oil contents via gravity variation at first, $O_3$ input to contact water and organism deposition by inputting condensate deposits. Then finally upper water will be discharged, and the deposited substances in the bottom will be compressed through spinning machine to transfer to the designated contractors for treatment of wastes. This is very effective and innovative in that it could reduce 3 or 4 steps compared with existing process and mitigate not only waste oil concentration but also hard resolving materials such as colloid, ABS, phosphorus, nitrogen and bad smells. This method is expected to minimize bad smells and harmful gases, to save more than 10% of maintenance cost, and to arrange the good base for garbage treatment business dealing with waste water and bad smell.

• The Korean Nurse
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.61-76
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• 1993

This study was done in order La provide basic data to a Fee System for hospital based Home Health Care services in Korea in the future. It was done by investigating activities provided to possible Home Health Care clients who could be discharged early from genera] hospitals and then estimating the nursing care fee according to each nursing activity based upon the time used for activity. The subjects of the study were selected by convenience sampling and consisted of 35 clients who might be clients for Home Nursing Care and were presently admitted to a medical- surgical ward of Y University Medical Center located in Seoul, Korea. The data collection period was from September 1, 1991 to September 30, 1991. The research in strum nets utilized for the study were a client selection criterial for Home Health Care developed by Choo(l991) and a check-list of nursing activity developed by researcher. The results of the study were as follows : 1. There were 44 different nursing activities provided in the seven days but the time was calculated for only 25 of the nursing activities. 2. Fees for the 25 different nursing activities were calculated by multipling the median of the average wage of a staff nurse having five years experience in an A grade general hospital to the Lime of the nursing activity. The results were compared with the insurance fee which the government recognized as an appropriate fee for that activity. The nursing activities with a lower calculated fee than the insurance fee were suction, catheterization, exercise education and dressing change. The nursing activities with a higher calculated fee than the government recognized fee were 1M injection and vital sign check. 3. There was a range of 1-15 nursing activities provided daily to the client. For the average number of nursing activities per day of 6.26 events the nursing care fee was calaulated at W 6136 per day. 4. Based upon the results of the study, a recommentdation for a Home Health Care fee per visit based on the nursing activities provided could be formulated for a Home Health Care fee system. It could be formulated as following: 1) Home health Care fee per visit $=[(direct{\;} nursing{\;}fee(direct{\;}nursing{\;}care{\;}time{\;}per{\;}activity{\;}{\times}{\;}average{\;}nursing{\;}wage)+indirect fee]{\times}average$ nursing activity per visit]+management fee+ materials fee+a travel fee In this way a nursing fee could be calculated based upon the result of the study of the nursing fees per visit. 2) Nursing activity fees per visit. = $([direct nursing{\;}care{\;}fee+indirect{\;}nursing{\;}fee]{\times}average$ number of nursing activities provided per visit] (W 6, 136) + travel fee(\ 5, 542) +management fee material $fee({\alpha})\{\;}16, 436+{\alpha}$ The nursing fee per visit as calculated in this research of $\{\;}15, 0000+{\alpha}$ could be adjusted according to the patient's condition or the use of high technology nursing care or according to the amount of time spent for travel. The nursing care fee per visit presented in this study can be validated through a Home Health Care demonstration project.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.232-241
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• 2017

This paper presents an automated cow-feeding system based on an AGV and screw conveyor for domestic livestock farms, which are becoming larger and more commercialized. The system includes a hopper module for loading pellet-type mixed feed at the top of the system, a transfer module mounted with a screw conveyor to transfer feed from the hopper module to the outlet module, an outlet module composed of belt conveyors, and an electromagnetic guided driving-type AGV. The weight of the loaded feed is measured by a load cell located under the transfer module. The system reads the feed discharge information stored in RFID tags installed in each cowshed cell, and a predetermined amount of feed is discharged while the AGV is moving. A cow-feed test system was constructed to determine the design parameters of the screw conveyor in the transfer module that determine the feeding capacity. These parameters include the screw's outer diameter, the screw shaft outer diameter, and screw pitch. The parameters were applied to the finalized cow-feed system construction. A DSP-based main controller and cow-feeding algorithm for different scenarios were also developed to control the system. Experimental results confirmed that the system could supply a total of 21 kg of feed uniformly at 420 g/s for a cowshed cell which has 7 cows. The driving distance was 5 m and the speed was 0.1 m/s. Thus, the proposed system could be applied to standardized domestic livestock farms.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.319-326
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• 2017

In this study, a lightweight geopolymer was prepared using by slag discharged from IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) power plant and its physical properties, the density and compressive strength, were analyzed as a function of the concentration of alkali activators, W/S ratio and aging times. Also the possibility of applying it to lightweight materials by adding Si sludge as a foaming agent to the geopolymerg was investigated. In particular, a complex composition of alkali activator and a pre-curing process were applied to improve the strength properties of lightweight geopolymers. While the compressive strength of the lightweight geopolymer using a single activator was 9.5 MPa, the specimen made with a complex composition of alkali activator had compressive strength of 2~5 times higher. In addition, the lightweight geopolymer with pre-curing process showed a compressive strength value of 18~48 % higher than that of specimen made with no precuring process. In this study, by using a complex activator and a pre-curing process. the maximum compressive strength of lightweight geopolymer was obtained as 40 MPa (The specimen was aged for 3 days and had density of $1.83g/cm^3$), which is comparable to cement concrete. By analyzing the crystal phase and microstructure of geopolymers obtained in this study using by XRD and SEM, respectively, it was confirmed that the flower-bud-like zeolite crystal was homogeneously distributed on the surface of the C-S-H gel (sodium silicate hydrate gel) in the geopolymer.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.125-129
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• 2016

Background: Patients with differentiated thyroid cancers (DTC) who receive radioactive iodine-131 (RAI) are released from isolation when their dose rate is below the regulatory requirements. The purpose of this study was establish predicting factors for early release from the isolation facility after RAI administration in patients with DTC. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective study which included 96 (58 females and 38 males) patients with DTC who had received RAI from April 2013 till August 2015. The study was duly approved by the ethical committee of the institute. Patients who had complete information of primary tumor size (PTS), serum TSH, stimulated thyroglobulin level [sTg] with antibodies (IU/ml) at the time of RAI treatment were included. All had a normal serum creatinine level. To attain lower effective half-life good hydration and administration of soft laxative were ensured. Dose rate was measured (immediately, 24 h and 36 h) at 1 meter distance from anterior mid trunk and a dose rate <$50{\mu}Sv/h$ was considered as the releasing criterion. At 24 h 50 patients were released while the remaining 46 patients were released at 36 h. A post-ablative whole body scan (PA-WBIS) was performed 5-8 days after RAI ablation in all patients. Results: Patients released after 24 h were significantly younger, had smaller lesions with higher proportion of papillary cancer, lower sTg, lower sTg/TSH ratio and had received a lower dose of RAI as comapred to those who were discharged after 36 h. Serum TSH and gender were not found to have any significant correlation between two cohorts. ROC and multivariate analysis have shown age ${\leq}37years$, PTS ${\leq}3.8cm$, $RAI{\leq}150mCi$, $sTg{\leq}145ng/ml$ and $sTg/TSH{\leq}1.085$ as strong indepedent predictors for early release. Conclusions: We conclude that younger age (${\leq}37years$), smaller tumor size (${\leq}3.8cm$), lower RAI dose (${\leq}150mCi$), lower sTg (${\leq}145ng/ml$) and a lower sTg/TSH ratio (${\leq}1.085$) are significant independent predictors for release at 24 h after RAI treatment in DTC patients. Effective utilization of these factors could help the treating physicians to use limited number of internment facilities with higher throughput, lower cost and lower psychological stress to patients.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2017

Nepal is a landlocked mountainous country in South Asia, located between China to the north and India to the south, east, and west. As such, wastewater management has become one of the most significant problems in urban area of Nepal. In Nepal, the centralized wastewater treatment systems were dysfunctional due to high cost of operation, discontinuous power supply, lack of proper maintenance and proper technical workforce to address the issues. As such, constructed wetlands (CW) were applied to treat various secondary wastewater as alternative to wastewater treatment facilities. Generally, efficiency and sustainability of CW technology depends on proper operation and maintenance and active community involvement. This study summarizes information about 26 CW in Nepal. Specifically, factors including data banking, removal efficiency, quality of discharged water, compliance to water quality standard of Nepal and operation and maintenance were investigated. Considering removal efficiency per pollutant, Ka-1 achieved the greatest reduction for most pollutant followed by B-1, L-3, Ka-5 and K-1. Nepal has practiced CW technology for more than 2 decades but currently, development of technology was interrupted by the inefficient performance of existing facilities. Public awareness about the technology, natural disaster, unavailability of specified substrate materials, lack of fund for further research and experiments has hindered the expansion of technology. In spite of these concerns, CW was still proven as an alternative solution to the present wastewater problems in urban areas of Nepal.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.55-61
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• 2016

In this study, to determine whether it is possible to apply Polyethylene (PE) compound pipe, which was developed to solve the problem caused by the corrosion of the fire protection piping currently in usein water based fire extinguishing systems, we performed an actual mockup fire test. Since no test standard was available related to the developed compound pipe, we compared and analyzed domestic and international technical materials and test standards and selected suitable fire test standards to evaluate the performance of the PE compound pipe. we applied two fire test standards to the PE compound pipe, viz. those for CPVC and metallic pipes, and conducted a total of 6 experiments to evaluate its performance. According to the results of the first and second fire tests based on the test standard for the CPVC pipe, neither the fitting nor the piping was damaged or deformed and no leakage was observed in the pressure test, which was performed for 5 minutes. For the fire test based on the metallic pipe test standard, a total of 4 experiments were conducted. The first two experiments were conducted to simulate the wet piping system. In the results of this fire test, neither leakage nor rupture was observed from the PE compound pipe and no damage was caused, such as the secession of the PE material. However, in the next two experiments, which simulated the dry system, the PE compound pipe suffered damage and rupture, including deformation before the fire fighting water was discharged. Therefore, we found that the piping performance of the PE compound pipe did not undergo any deterioration, including fusion, deformation, or damage, in the wet piping system simulated fire test.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.274-278
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• 2013

Background: Coronary involvement in Takayasu's arteritis is a rare but fatal disease. The aim of this study was to evaluate the early and mid-term results of Takayasu's arteritis patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Materials and Methods: Of 2,280 patients who underwent isolated CABG from January 1998 to June 2012, Takayasu's arteritis was identified in 5 patients. There were 3 female patients, and the mean age was $58{\pm}9$ years. Takayasu's arteritis was diagnosed during preoperative evaluation for coronary artery disease in 4 patients, and the initial manifestation was angina pectoris in 4 patients. All of the patients underwent anaortic off-pump CABG (OPCAB) using the in situ left or right internal thoracic arteries (ITA); 3 patients had severe stenosis of the proximal left subclavian artery and the in situ right ITA was used instead. Medical treatment for inflammatory arteritis during the perioperative and follow-up period was performed if indicated. Early, 1-year, and 5-year angiographic results and clinical outcomes were analyzed. Results: There was no surgical mortality, and all of the patients were discharged without complications on postoperative $8{\pm}2$ days. Early postoperative (postoperative $2{\pm}1$ days) angiography demonstrated a graft patency of 100% (12 of 12 distal anastomoses). One-year ($13{\pm}3$ months) angiography was performed in 4 patients, and all of the grafts were patent (100%, 9 of 9 distal anastomoses). Conclusion: By performing anaortic OPCAB in patients with Takayasu's arteritis, we were able to avoid complications associated with manipulating an atherosclerotic and severely calcified ascending aorta. The early and mid-term graft patency of OPCAB in Takayasu's arteritis was maintained when concomitant with medical treatment.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.252-259
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• 2020

Olefins are industrially important materials used for the synthesis of various petrochemicals. During the polymerization process, unreacted olefin monomers are discharged together with a large amount of nitrogen. For economic benefits, these olefin gases should be efficiently separated from nitrogen. In this study, a poly(glycidyl methacrylate-co-methyl methacrylate) (PGM) comb-like copolymer was synthesized and 4,4'-diaminoazobenzene (DAAB) was introduced to the copolymer to prepare a cross-linked membrane for C₃H₆/N₂ separation. PGM and DAAB were readily reacted at room temperature through an epoxide-amine reaction without additional thermal treatment. PGM-based membrane, which is a glassy polymer, showed a faster permeation of N₂ compared to C₃H₆. The pristine PGM membrane exhibited the N₂ permeability of 0.12 barrer and the high N₂/C₃H₆ selectivity of 32.4. As DAAB was introduced as a cross-linker, the thermal stability of the membrane was significantly improved, which was confirmed by TGA result. The N₂/C₃H₆ selectivity was decreased at 1 wt% of DAAB content, but the N₂ permeability increased by approximately 4.7 times. We analyzed N₂/C₃H₆ gas separation properties through a glassy polymer-based membrane, which has not been widely studied. Also, we proposed that thermal stability of the membrane can be greatly improved by the cross-linking method.