• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.125-133
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• 2017

KAERI is conducting research on spent cladding hulls and additive metals to generate a solidification host matrix for the noble metal fission product waste in anode sludge from the electro-refining process to minimize the volume of waste that needs to be disposed of. In this study, alloy compositions Zr-17Cr, Zr-22Cr, and Zr-27Cr were prepared with or without eight noble metals representing fuel waste using induction melting. The microstructures of the resulting alloys were characterized and electrochemical corrosion tests were conducted to evaluate their corrosion characteristics. All the compositions had better corrosion characteristics than other Zr-based alloys that were evaluated for comparison. Analysis of the leach solution after the corrosion test of the Zr-22Cr-8NM specimen indicated that the noble metals were not leached during corrosion under 500 mV imposed voltage, which simulates a highly oxidizing disposal environment. The results of this study confirm that Zr-Cr based compositions will likely serve as chemically stable waste forms.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.130-134
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• 1986

This study was performed to determine the aquatic toxicity of 3 chemicals(butachlor, trichlorfon, and BPMC) to 3 teat organisms (fish, crustacean, and algae) which represent each trophic level in freshwater ecosystem, and to compare the sensitivity of these organisms to 3 chemicals with short-term test. Scenedesmus subspicatus, unicellular algae, was the most sensitive species of 3 organisms to butachlor and the ratio between least and most sensitive organisms was 5.7. Moina rectirostris, freshwater invertebrate, was also more sensitive organism than S. subspicatus and Oryzias latipes to trichlorfon and BPMC, and their ratios were 260,000 and 5,090. As a result, remarkable differences were observed in the sensitivities among the test organisms with different chemical structure and mode of action of the chemicals. Therefore, it is recommended that a set of tests on different species, including the representative species of fish, invertebrate, and algae, should be required in short-term aquatic toxicity test for chemicals introduced into the Korean environment.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.57-66
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• 2015

A numerical analysis was performed of the seepage from and stability of a mine waste-dump slope in Imgi, Busan, considering rainfall intensity. The 40-45° slope angle of the waste dump is relatively steep, and the depth of the waste dump down to bedrock is 7-8 m. The groundwater level was 6.6 m below the surface. Various laboratory tests on samples obtained from the waste dump were performed to determine the input data for seepage and stability analyses of the waste-dump slope during rainfall. The results of seepage analysis for various rainfall intensities using the SEEP/W program show that the wetting front moved down with increasing rainfall duration. When the rainfall intensity was > 50 mm/ hour and the duration was > 24 hours, the waste dump became fully saturated because the wetting front reached the groundwater level. The results of slope stability analysis coupled with seepage analysis using the SLOPE/W program show that the safety factor of the slope decreased as the wetting front moved down due to rainfall infiltration. After continuous rainfall for 5-6 hours, the safety factor of the slope suddenly decreased but then recovered and converged. The sudden decrease was induced by an increase in pore-water pressure and a decrease in matric suction down to a certain depth as the wetting front approached the potential sliding surface.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.45-51
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to explore the evaluation of transfer and elicit the implications regarding the improvement of educational curriculum, educational method, and educational environment. In order to do this, concepts of the transfer and related theories were explored. In terms of data collection method, the researchers conducted survey and semi-structured interview with 30 graduates who majored in Mechanical engineering by using the transfer tool developed by No and Park (2011). According to the result of the survey, a high average (4.27) between major subjects and one's current jobs was revealed. In addition to this, the participants' opportunity to apply what they learned from the college to transfer to their current job setting scored average of 4.10 and this score implies fairly high application of the transfer. In terms of the participants' extent to remember the liberal arts subjects, it scored average 2.90 which was fairly low. According to the survey about the curriculum, whether the major subjects as well as the liberal arts subjects were necessary for the transfer, the participants showed average score of 3.90. Concerning the item of whether the participants received lectures including practical problems, cases, or experiences in order to increase the transfer, the participants showed 2.63 which was fairly low. The followings are the results of the interview. First, regarding majors in educational curriculum, it was shown that educational curriculum were directly applied to the transfer. Especially, it was shown that involvement in the major-related activities and team projects played a positive role, thus, the involvement in such activities should be enforced. With respect to the improvements of the major, emphasizing the internship of the major-related subjects, courses centered on monitoring the latest programs and job recruiting trends, and information of professional engineers' tests were suggested for the improvements.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.501-512
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• 2018

The acid leachate derived from the sulfide mineral such as pyrite can cause problems such as aging of infrastructure and environment contamination around the civil construction site. The purpose of this study is to assess the environmental effect of an acid leachate derived from pyrite in the Miryang area under road construction. In this study, 13 samples of situ core were used for the net acid generation (NAG) experiment. The chemical composition including pH, oxidation and reduction potential (ORP) and electrical conductance of water samples produced from the NAG test was analyzed. In additional, five polished thin sections of rock cores were made for electro microprobe analyses. In the results of the NAG tests, 7 samples showed lower values than pH 3.5. It strongly indicated that these areas are under the environmental and infrastructure damage by the acid leachate. The chemical type of the 7 samples was classified as the $Fe(Ca)-SO_4$ type, which is totally a different type compared to general groundwater. The concentration of total sulfur ranges from 0.004% to 12.5%. 6 rock samples are plotted on a potentially acid forming zone in the relation diagram between the total sulfide and NAG-pH. In conclusion, it is suggested that a protection method against an environmental demage and an infrastructure corrosions by the acid leachate should be prepared in all of areas under a road construction.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.35-41
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• 2003

The on-site sewage sludge vermicomposting equipment was designed and evaluated on the batch and continuous tests. The vermicomposting equipment was designed to consider the mechanization as well as automation. Especially, the automatic controls of water content and temperature and the mechanization of the sludge feeding and cast separating were the important factors. In terms of changes in chemical characteristics when the equipments for experiments are operated continuously, the ORP, EC, $NH_3-N$ and $NO_3-N$ were found to be higher before and after treatment. In addition, it was found that changes in properties were low. Furthermore, the $NO_3-N$ concentration of the humus produced after treatment was found to be higher than the $NH_3-N$ concentration showing that it was appropriate based on the recycling criteria.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.595-628
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• 2011

This study investigates the issues and suggests reform measures in applying CV methods to the Korea Development Institute's (KDI's) Preliminary Feasibility Test (PFT) of public projects. Most public projects on culture, science and environment evaluated under the PFT system belong to the category of "nonstandard" projects whose outputs are non-marketed, and CV is currently the main tool used for their benefit estimation. A careful discussion and investigation is recommended for the selection of target population, payment vehicle, and number of payment times. Operating expert reviews, focus group interviews, and pre-tests is highly recommended to reduce the potential bias involved in the CV studies. A single or double bounded dichotomous choice format is the most popular design of questionnaire, but we identify several undissolved issues in designing and implementing the format. Some other forms of inducing WTPs may still deserve our consideration. Various specifications of the WTP function need to be tried and tested based on their stability, in particular. Employing a nonparametric approach is also recommended. Treatments of 0 or negative WTPs and protest bids are shown to be the most serious issues that affect the estimation results significantly. We review diverse measures of handling those issues and summarize their advantages and shortcomings.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.333-352
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• 2017

A comparison study is made between the dynamic properties of an argillaceous siltstone and its grouting-reinforced body. The purpose is to investigate how grout injection can help repair broken soft rocks. A slightly weathered argillaceous siltstone is selected, and part of the siltstone is mechanically crushed and cemented with Portland cement to simulate the grouting-reinforced body. Core specimens with the size of $50mm{\times}38mm$ are prepared from the original rock and the grouting-reinforced body. Impact tests on these samples are then carried out using a Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) apparatus. Failure patterns are analyzed and geotechnical parameters of the specimens are estimated. Based on the experimental results, for the grouting-reinforced body, its shock resistance is poorer than that of the original rock, and most cracks happen in the cementation boundaries between the cement mortar and the original rock particles. It was observed that the grouting-reinforced body ends up with more fragmented residues, most of them have larger fractal dimensions, and its dynamic strength is generally lower. The mass ratio of broken rocks to cement has a significant effect on its dynamic properties and there is an optimal ratio that the maximum dynamic peak strength can be achieved. The dynamic strain-softening behavior of the grouting-reinforced body is more significant compared with that of the original rock. Both the time dependent damage model and the modified overstress damage model are equally applicable to the original rock, but the former performs much better compared with the latter for the grouting-reinforced body. In addition, it was also shown that water content and impact velocity both have significant effect on dynamic properties of the original rock and its grouting-reinforced body. Higher water content leads to more small broken rock pieces, larger fractal dimensions, lower dynamic peak strength and smaller elastic modulus. However, the water content plays a minor role in fractal dimensions when the impact velocity is beyond a certain value. Higher impact loading rate leads to higher degree of fragmentation and larger fractal dimensions both in argillaceous siltstone and its grouting-reinforced body. These results provide a sound basis for the quantitative evaluation on how cement grouting can contribute to the repair of broken soft rocks.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.121-133
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• 2020

Globally, the frequency and intensity of abnormal climate events are increasing. Since this can directly damage lives and property, it is important to establish and implement an appropriate maintenance strategy in response to abnormal weather. Facilities built in cold regions where cold wave or heavy snow occurs frequently can be more damaged by freeze-thaw than facilities located in other regions. However, there are no clear criteria for quantitatively identifying the damage of freeze-thaw and how to cope with it. Therefore, based on the results of indoor freezing tests, the freezing conditions considering regional climate characteristics were selected as one day at -14℃, two days at -7℃ or three days at -5℃. As a result, it was confirmed that they were in the freeze-thaw environment in order of Daegwallyeing (8.3 times), Cheorwon (5.3 times) and Taebeak (4.9 times) in Gangwon region. Through this study, the evaluation criteria of freeze-thaw of road tunnels were newly proposed. The freeze-thaw evaluation criteria of the road tunnel presented in this study can be used for the quantitative evaluation and maintenance strategy of tunnels in cold regions.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.645-651
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• 2018

The carcinogenicity of chemicals in the environment is a major concern. Recently, numerous studies have attempted to develop methods for predicting carcinogenicity, including rodent and cell-based approaches. However, rodent carcinogenicity tests for evaluating the carcinogenic potential of a chemical to humans are time-consuming and costly. This study focused on the development of an alternative method for predicting carcinogenicity using quantitative PCR (qPCR) and colon cancer stem cells. A toxicogenomic method, mRNA profiling, is useful for predicting carcinogenicity. Using microarray analysis, we optimized 16 predictive gene sets from five carcinogens (azoxymethane, 3,2'-dimethyl-4-aminobiphenyl, N-ethyl-n-nitrosourea, metronidazole, 4-(n-methyl-n-nitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone) used to treat colon cancer stem cell samples. The 16 genes were evaluated by qPCR using 23 positive and negative carcinogens in colon cancer stem cells. Among them, six genes could differentiate between positive and negative carcinogens with a p-value of ${\leq}0.05$. Our qPCR-based prediction system for colon carcinogenesis using colon cancer stem cells is cost- and time-efficient. Thus, this qPCR-based prediction system is an alternative to in vivo carcinogenicity screening assays.