• Journal of Ship and Ocean Technology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.16-26
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• 2002

In this paper, a motion identification method using neural networks is applied to automatic ship berthing to overcome disturbance effects. Motion identification is used to estimate the effect of environmental disturbance. Two rule-based algorithms have been developed to over-come disturbance. The first rule based-algorithm was designed to overcome lateral disturbance when a ship's lateral speed is affected by it. The second rule-based algorithm was also designed to overcome longitudinal disturbance when a ship's angular velocity is changed by it. Finally, numerical simulations for automatic berthing are carried out, and the suggested control system is proved to be more practical under disturbance circumstances.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2009.03a
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• pp.977-986
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• 2009

Sampling disturbance can introduce considerable errors in the laboratory estimation of geotechnical properties of soils, and the results obtained from sophisticated sampling and careful laboratory testing are not matching with field behavior. Therefore, it is advantage to adopt in-situ testing techniques for the estimation of geotechnical parameters. Therefore, Screw plate loading test, one of new field test technologies, has been investigated in this study. This test can be utilized to find out important properties of soils such as load-displacement, elastic modulus, and shear strength. The screw plate loading test modified from the plate loading test is an experiment underneath ground by inserting a spiral type of auger screw. The structure and characteristics of the screw plate loading test device was examined in detail. In addition, The new screw plate loading test device was manufactured to refer the previous studies. The reliability of developing screw plate loading test was examined through the analysis of the laboratory test.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.29
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• pp.6.1-6.6
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• 2014

Objectives Hospitalized patients are vulnerable to sleep disturbances because of environmental stresses including noise. While most previous studies on hospital noise and sleep have been performed for medical machines in intensive care units, there is a limited data for patients hospitalized in medical wardrooms. The purpose of present study was to measure noise level of medical wardrooms, identify patient-perceived sources of noise, and to examine the association between noise levels and sleep disturbances in hospitalized patients. Methods Noise dosimeters were used to measure noise level in 29 inpatient wardrooms at a university hospital. Sleep pattern and disturbance were assessed in 103 hospitalized patients, using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and Leeds Sleep Evaluation Questionnaire. Results The mean equivalent continuous noise level for 24 hours was 63.5 decibel A (dBA), which was far higher than 30 dBA recommended by the World Health Organization for hospital wardrooms. Other patients sharing a room were perceived as the most common source of noise by the patients, which was usually preventable. Of the patients in the study, 86% had bad sleep as assessed by the PSQI. The sleep disturbance was significantly correlated with increasing noise levels in a dose response manner. Conclusions Systemic organizational interventions are needed to keep wardrooms private and quiet to reduce sleep disturbance.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.98-118
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• 2014

An auto weather-vaning system for a Dynamic Positioning (DP) vessel is proposed. When a DP vessel is operating, its position keeping is hindered by ocean environmental disturbances which include the ocean current, wave and wind. Generally, most ocean vessels have a longitudinal length that is larger than the transverse width. The largest load acts on the DP vessel by ocean disturbances, when the disturbances are incoming in the transverse direction. Weather-vaning is the concept of making the heading angle of the DP vessel head toward (or sway from) the disturbance direction. This enables the DP vessel to not only perform marine operations stably and safely, but also to maintain its position with minimum control forces (surge & sway components). To implement auto weather-vaning, a nonlinear controller and a disturbance observer are used. The disturbance observer transforms a real plant to the nominal model without disturbance to enhance the control performance. And the nonlinear controller deals with the kinematic nonlinearity. The auto weather-vaning system is completed by adding a weather-vaning algorithm to disturbance based controller. Numerical simulations of a semi-submersible type vessel were performed for the validation. The results show that the proposed method enables a DP vessel to maintain its position with minimum control force.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.347-355
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• 2011

Effects of forest thinning on community level properties have not been understood yet in Korea. We investigated regeneration patterns and trajectories after a disturbance by applying a chronosequence approach. Light availability, litter and woody debris cover, and species composition were determined for twenty 50 m line-transect samples representing a disturbance duration gradient (within 11 years). Environmental factors such as light availability and coverage of woody debris and litter changed abruptly after thinning and then returned to the pre-disturbance state. Although species richness was gained at shrub and ground layer in a limited way in both forests, cover of various functional types revealed diversity in their responses. Notably, Alnus firma stands exhibited a larger increment of cover in woody plants. Ordination analysis revealed different regeneration trajectories between natural and planted stands. Based on ordination analysis, rehabilitated stands showed movement to alternative states compared with natural ones, reflecting lower resilience to perturbation (i.e., lower stability). Our results suggest that community resilience to artificial thinning depends on properties of the dominant species. But to get more explanatory ecological information, longer-term static observations are required.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.228-235
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• 2015

Stream ecosystems are closely related to many human activities. Therefore, streams are affected by anthropogenic disturbances such as riverine development and gravel-mining as well as deterioration of water quality. The goal of this study was to elucidate the recolonization process of the macroinvertebrate community after a small-scale anthropogenic disturbance. Field studies were conducted at three sites in a natural stream. The number of recolonizing species tended to increase slightly over time, exceeding the total species number of the control. Ephemeroptera contributed the most to shaping the recolonizing pattern of the entire community. From the result of changes in dominant species, the early recolonizers of each site were the species that showed more frequent occurrence particulary at each sites. But the late recolonizers are Chironomidae at all the sites commonly. This result implies that the actual differences exist among the recolonizing trends of each benthic macroinvertebrate taxon. Collector-gatherers and scrapers comprised about 70% of the recolonizing species. These results indicate that the recolonizing process of an aquatic community after an artificial disturbance depends on the environmental conditions(particularly substratum composition or organic pollution) of the habitat.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.23-30
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• 2015

This study analyzed degree of disturbance, using specimens by laboratory test with large block specimens and piston samplers collected from the Korea's two typical soft ground districts: South coast Gwangyang and Yangsan. To assess the characteristics of compression index of laboratory test incurred by disturbance, the compression index of laboratory test was compared with the back analysis compression index resulting from the analysis of the measured settlement. The analysis of specimen disturbance of the laboratory test results with the piston specimens of the two districts found that the qualities of most specimens were poor and the settlement predicted by the laboratory test compression index was underestimated. The analysis of test material taken from nearby areas proved that the disturbance degrees of large block specimens were lower than that of the piston specimens. The hyperbolic method, Hoshino method, Asaoka method, and ${\sqrt{S}}$ method, all of which are predictive methods using measured settlement, were employed to reach a conclusion that reliabilities of each predictive method except predictive material of a few points were the same. To compensate the disturbance effects on compression index of the piston specimens, we suggested a new modification formula that estimates compression index of piston specimens, using Schmertmann's corrected compression index, and back analysis compression index from the analysis of predictive settlement.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.43-60
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• 2019

Background: Tropical montane forests played an important role in the provision of ecosystem services. The intense degradation and deforestation for the need of agricultural land expansion result in a significant decline of forest cover. However, the expansion of agricultural land did not completely destruct natural forests. There remain forests inaccessible for agricultural and grazing purpose. Studies on these forests remained scant, motivating to investigate biomass and soil carbon stocks. Data of biomass and soils were collected in 80 quadrats ($400m^2$) systematically in 5 forests. Biomass and disturbance gradients were determined using allometric equation and disturbance index, respectively. The regression modeling is employed to explore the spatial distribution of carbon stock along disturbance and environmental gradients. Correlation analysis is also employed to identify the relation between site factors and carbon stocks. Results: The result revealed that a total of 1655 individuals with a diameter of ${\geq}5cm$, representing 38 species, were measured in 5 forests. The mean aboveground biomass carbon stocks (AGB CS) and soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks at 5 forests were $191.6{\pm}19.7$ and $149.32{\pm}6.8Mg\;C\;ha^{-1}$, respectively. The AGB CS exhibited significant (P < 0.05) positive correlation with SOC and total nitrogen (TN) stocks, reflecting that biomass seems to be a general predictor of SOCs. AGB CS between highly and least-disturbed forests was significantly different (P < 0.05). This disturbance level equates to a decrease in AGB CS of 36.8% in the highly disturbed compared with the least-disturbed forest. In all forests, dominant species sequestrated more than 58% of carbon. The AGB CS in response to elevation and disturbance index and SOC stocks in response to soil pH attained unimodal pattern. The stand structures, such as canopy cover and basal area, had significant positive relation with AGB CS. Conclusions: Study results confirmed that carbon stocks of studied forests were comparable to carbon stocks of protected forests. The biotic, edaphic, topographic, and disturbance factors played a significant variation in carbon stocks of forests. Further study should be conducted to quantify carbon stocks of herbaceous, litter, and soil microbes to account the role of the whole forest ecosystem.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.125-131
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• 2017

2-Axis Pan and Tilt Motion Platform, a complex multivariate non-linear system, may incur any disturbance, thus requiring system controller with robustness against various disturbances. In this study, we designed an adaptive backstepping compensated controller by estimating the disturbance and error using the Radial Basis Function Neural Network (RBF NN). In this process, Uniformly Ultimately Bounded (UUB) was demonstrated via Lyapunov and stability was confirmed. By generating progressive disturbance to the irregular frequency and amplitude changes, it was verified for various environmental disturbances. In addition, by setting the RBF NN input vector to the minimum, the estimated disturbance compensation process was analyzed. Only two input vectors facilitated compensatory function of RBF NN via estimating the modeling and control error values as well as irregular disturbance; the application of the process resulted in improved backstepping controller performance that was confirmed through simulation.

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.179-188
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• 1995

Death patterns of gap-makers and changes of environmental factors in gaps formed by disturbance were studied in Pinus densiflora forests of Youngwol, Mt, Mansu, Mt. Songni, Uljin, and Mt, Obong in Korea. Death pattern of gap-makers showed that standing deat type was the most frequent in all the study areas. Longevity of Pinus densiflora was about 140 years, which was about half of that of the temperate deciduous broad-leaved trees. size of gaps were distributed from $20m^2$ to $235m^2$, more than 80% of those were gaps created by death of two or more trees. Relative light intensity and water content of soil in gap area were higher than those in non-gap area and those in the central part of gap were the highest.