• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.45-52
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• 2009

Fossil power plants firing lower grade coals or equipped with modified system for $NO_x$ controls are challenged with maintaining good combustion conditions while maximizing generation and minimizing emissions. In many cases significant derate, availability losses and increase in unburned carbon levels can be attributed to poor combustion conditions as a result of poorly controlled local fuel and air distribution within the boiler furnace. In order to develop a on-line combustion tuning system, field test was conducted at operating power boiler. During the field test the exhaust gases' $O_2,\;NO_x$ and CO was monitored by using a spatially distributed monitoring grid located in the boiler's high temperature vestibule and upper convective rear pass region. At these locations, the flue gas flow is still significantly stratified, and air in-leakage is minimal which enables tracing of poor combustion zones to specific burners and over-fire air ports. using these monitored information we can improving combustion at every point within the furnace, therefore the boiler can operate at reduced excess $O_2$ and gas temperature deviation, reduced furnace exit gas temperature levels while also reducing localized hot spots, corrosive gas conditions, slag or clinker formation and UBC. Benefits include improving efficiency, reducing $NO_x$ emissions, increasing output and maximizing availability. Discussion concerning the reduction of greenhouse gases is prevalent in the world. When taking a practical approach to addressing this problem, the best way and short-term solution to reduce greenhouse gases on coal-fired power plants is to improve efficiency. From this point of view the real time optimized combustion tuning approach is the most effective and implemented with minimal cost.

• Journal of the Korean Geophysical Society
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.311-320
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• 2006

Digital filters designed using wavelet theory are applied to bathymetry data acquired from KR5 area of Korea Deepsea Mining Area. The filters used in this study are the linear B-spline wavelet filter and derivative of a Cubic B-spline filter. With proper tuning of the digital filters, we can identify the location and orientation of the abyssal hill and abyssal trough in bathymetry. These features obtained from the digital filters are well correlated with bathymetric image. This quantitative information, which can be used to understand the underlying geophysical processes, can be further processed to obtain the spacing, orientation and distribution of the abyssal hill. This wavelet analysis of bathymetry provides good data to select the mining site.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2017.06a
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• pp.84-84
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• 2017

Eleutherococcus senticosus (Siberian ginseng) is an important medicinal tree found in Russian taiga, and northern regions of Korea, Japan, and China. In this study, we analyzed the genome-wide distribution of microsatellites in E. senticosus using developed SSR markers. A total of 711 clones from an SSR-enriched genomic DNA library were sequenced, of which 47 clones (6.6%) were redundant. Of the 664 independent clones, only 12 polymorphic SSR markers were obtained, which also revealed successful amplicons in E. senticosus accessions. Using the developed SSR markers, we estimated genetic diversity and population structure among 131 E. senticosus accessions in Korea and China. The number of alleles ranged from 2 to 11, with an average of 7.4 alleles. The mean values of observed heterozygosity ($H_O$) and expected heterozygosity ($H_E$) were 0.59 and 0.56, respectively. The average polymorphism information content (PIC) was 0.51 in all 131 E. senticosus accessions. E. senticosus accessions in Korea and China showed a close genetic similarity. Significantly low pairwise genetic divergence was observed between the two regions, suggesting a relatively narrow level of genetic basis among E. senticosus accessions. Our results not only provide molecular tools for genetic studies in E. senticosus but are also helpful for conservation and E. senticosus breeding programs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2017.06a
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• pp.113-113
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• 2017

Downy mildew (DM), caused by several species in the Peronosclerospora and Scleropthora genera, is a major maize (Zea mays L.) disease in tropical or subtropical regions. DM is an obligate parasite species in the higher plants and spreads by oospores, wind, and mycelium in seed surface, soil, and living hosts. Owing to its geographical distribution and destructive yield reduction, DM is one of the most severe maize diseases among the maize pathogens. Positional cloning in combination with phenotyping is a general approach to identify disease resistant gene candidates in plants; however, it requires several time-consuming steps including population or fine mapping. Therefore, in the present study, we suggest a new combination strategy to improve the identification of disease resistant gene candidates. Downy mildew (DM) resistant maize was selected from five cultivars using the spreader row technique. Positional cloning and bioinformatics tools identified the DM resistant QTL marker (bnlg1702) and 47 protein coding genes annotations. Eventually, 5 DM resistant gene candidates, including bZIP34, Bak1, and Ppr, were identified by quantitative RT-PCR without fine mapping of the bnlg1702 locus. Specifically, we provided DM resistant gene candidates with our new strategy, including field selection by the spreader row technique without population preparation, the DM resistance region identification by positional cloning using bioinformatics tools, and expression level profiling by quantitative RT-PCR without fine mapping. As whole genome information is available for other crops, we propose applying our novel protocol to other crops or for other diseases with suitable adjustment.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 1980

The local earthquake data, observed by Wiechert seismograph in Korea during Feb. 1926-May 1943, was provided and investigated. Using S-P monogram of JMA, mainly Tsuboi's formula and additional intensity data, the earthquake parameters are obtained as much as possible within a reasonable discrepancy. The seismic characteristics as to the epicenter distribution was discussed under the viewpoint of its relation to the adjacent geologic structure. Some statistical results are analyzed comparing with Kyushu region which provide a reasonable interpretation on the seismicity of Korea. By superposing the available information of the individual events, the general trend of stress field was found to be east-west compression, which mostly agree with that of the southwestern Japan.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.66-77
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• 2009

This study aims to examine the effect of socioeconomic status (hereafter, SES) on healthcare utilization of the patients with rare and incurable diseases. Information of 2,973 patients who were self-employed insured and utilized healthcare service in 2007 was drawn from the National Health Insurance (hereafter, NHI) claim data. SES was set as four groups based on the monthly contribution. Outcome variable was the expense for outpatient and in-hospital services, which was log-transformed and square-rooted in oder to obtain normal distribution. Covariates included age, gender, residence and diagnosis. To examine the effects after controlling for covariates, we employed generalized estimating equation model, since patients with the same diagnosis are likely to have similar characteristics of demographics and healthcare utilization. Univariate statistics showed that lower SES was associated with less utilization of healthcare services. After controlling for covariates, a significantly smaller amount of money was expended for the lowest SES group compared to the highest one. Rural residence was associated with less utilization, except that residents in Seoul significantly more utilized outpatient services in tertiary hospitals. Considering that there is a subsidy program for the low income patients, such differences in healthcare utilization according to SES seems to result from the burden of out-of-pocket payments for uncovered services of the NHI.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.121-127
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• 2006

The conventional water quality measurements by point sampling provide only site specific temporal water quality information but not the synoptic geographic coverage of water quality distribution. To circumvent these limitations in temporal and spatial measurements, the use of remote sensing is increasingly involved in the water quality monitoring research. In other to assess a trophic state of Yongdam reservoir using satellite imagery data, I obtained Landsat ETM data and water quality data on 16th September and 18th October 2001. The approach involved acquisition of water quality samples from boats at 33 sites on 16th September and 30 sites on 18th October 2001, simultaneous with Landsat-7 satellite overpass. The correlation coefficients between the DN values of the imagery and the concentrations of chlorophyll-a were analyzed. The visible bands(band 1,2,3) and near infrared band(band 4) data of September image showed the correlation coefficient values higher than 0.9. The October image showed the correlation coefficient values about 0.7 due to the atmospheric effect and low variation of chlorophyll-a concentration. Regression models between the chrophyll-a concentration and DN values of the Landsat imagery data have been developed for each image. The regression model was determined based on the spectral characteristics of chlorophyll, so the green band(band 2) and near infrared band(band 4) were selected to generate a trophic state map. The coefficient of determination(R2) of the regression model for 16th September was 0.95 and that of the regression model for 18th October was 0.55. According to the trophic state map made based on Aizaki's TSI and chlorophyll-a concentration, the trophic state of Yongdam reservoir was mostly eutrophic state during this study.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.677-693
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• 2013

IPCC showed that calculation of climate vulnerability index requires standardization process of various proxy variables for the estimation of climate exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. In this study, four different methodologies of standardization methods: Z-score, Rescaling, Ranking, and Distance to the reference country, are employed to evaluate climate vulnerability-VRI (Vulnerability-Resilience Indicator) over Korean peninsula, and the error ranges of VRI, arising from employing the different standardization are estimated. All of proxy variables are provided by CCGIS (Climate Change adaptation toolkit based on GIS) which hosts information on both past and current socio-economic data and climate and environmental IPCC SRES (A2, B1, A1B, A1T, A1FI, and A1 scenarios) climate data for the decades of 2000s, 2020s, 2050s, and 2100s. The results showed that Z-score and Rescaling methods showed statistically undistinguishable results with minor differences of spatial distribution, while Ranking and Distance to the reference country methods showed some possibility to lead the different ranking of VRI among South Korean provinces, depending on the local characteristics and reference province. The resultant VRIs calculated from different standardization methods showed Cronbach's alpha of more than 0.84, indicating that all of different methodologies were overall consistent. Similar horizontal distributions were shown with the same trends: VRI increases as province is close to the coastal region and/or it close toward lower latitude, and decreases as it is close to urbanization area. Other characteristics of the four different standardization are discussed in this study.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.16 no.2 s.61
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• pp.135-145
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• 2006

In this study, conditional simulation was conducted to estimate rock mass rating(RMR) in unsurveyed regions. Sequential Gaussian simulation(SGS) and sequential indicator simulation(SIS) were applied for estimating RMR from the bore hole logging data. The uncertainty of SGS and SIS was verified by sample cross validation. A subset composed of 5 bore hole logging data among the original 30 bore hole logging data was set aside as test data. The remainder was training data. The quality of SGS and SIS estimation on the testing data reflects how well it would perform in an unsupervised setting. SGS and SIS were useful stochastic methods to estimate the spatial distribution of rock mass classes correctly and assess the uncertainty of estimation quantitatively. The result of conditional simulation can offer useful information of rock mass classes such as RMR in unsurveyed regions.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.226-233
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• 1998

Microcracks in rock materials, whether natural or induced, provide useful information on the engineering performance of in situ rockmasses. A population of preferentially oriented microcracks has observable effects on the physical properties of a rockmass, but their effects may not be evident if the rock material is highly anisotropic due to other causes. An experimental program was undertaken to investigate the effect of rock fabrics on the physical properties of rock materials. In this study, anisotropy in the circumferential wave velocity and the direction of induced fractures under axial point loading were measured. Rock specimens (NX-size) of the leucocractic Pocheon granite were cored from rock blocks, retaining the relative directions of each specimen. Another set of specimens was prepared from the rock cores of the same meterial, obtained in the field. The master orientation line (MOL) was set to be the representative direction of the microcracks in the specimen. Variation of the circumferential wave velocity of each specimen was then measured along the core, keeping the MOL as reference. The direction of the minimum wave velocity was nearly perpendicular to the direction of the MOL. Coring of smaller-sized (EX-size), concentric specimens from the NX specimens were then followed, and axial point loading was applied. The direction of induced fractures due to axial point loading was closely related to the MOL direction, confirming the prior test result.