• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.249-258
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• 2015

Objectives: This study aims to investigate the correlations between the prevalence of allergic rhinitis (AR) and cytokines among elementary school children in an industrial city, Ulsan, South Korea, and to identify major environmental risk factors associated with AR prevalence. Methods: We conducted a case-control study in June 2009 and February 2010 in order to evaluate the relationship between AR and related cytokines. Data on physician-treated prevalence over the past 12 months and potential risk factors for AR were compiled through a questionnaire from a survey of 339 schoolchildren living in different urban environments. Logistic regression analysis was carried out with propensity score matched data (n=180) to assess the influences of cytokines (IL-13, IL-33, IL-4 and IL-5) on AR prevalence and to determine which environmental factors affected AR. Results: In univariate analysis, the AR prevalence was influenced by family history of AR (mother and siblings), environmental factors (odor condition and irritated symptoms of air pollution), and indoor allergens (D. farinae and D. pteronyssinus). The t-test demonstrated that eosinophils, Immunoglobulin E (IgE), and interleukins (IL-13 and IL-5) were statistically significantly different according to treatment of allergic rhinitis over the preceeding 12 months. The results of the multiple logistic regression analysis showed that a statistically significant association between several factors (such as irritated symptoms of air pollution (OR 4.075, CI 1.735-9.568), IL-13 (OR 0.825, CI 0.734-0.928), odor condition (OR 2.409, CI 0.908-6.389), and AR history of siblings (OR 2.217, CI 0.999-4.921)) and the prevalence of AR was found after adjusting for confounders. Conclusion: These results suggest that AR prevalence is significantly associated with cytokine level, genetic background, and outdoor environmental factors. Although living in a polluted area and genetic background can contribute to an increased risk of childhood AR, cytokine level should be considered as an important factor in the treatment of AR in the last 12 months.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Geothermal and Hydrothermal Energy
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.7-12
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• 2014

Government has recently restricted heating and cooling set temperatures for the commercial and public buildings due to increasing national energy consumption. The goal of this paper is to visualize a future two way indoor set temperature control impact on building energy consumption by using TRNSYS simulation modeling. The building was modelled based on the twin test cell with the same dimension. Air source ground coupled heat pump performance data has been used for modeling by TRNSYS 17. Daejeon weather data has been used from Korea Solar Energy Society. The heating set temperature in the reference room is $24^{\circ}C$ as well as the target room set temperature are $23^{\circ}C$, $22^{\circ}C$, $21^{\circ}C$ and $20^{\circ}C$. The cooling set temperature of the reference room is also $24^{\circ}C$ as well as the target room set temperature of $25^{\circ}C$, $26^{\circ}C$, $27^{\circ}C$ and $28^{\circ}C$. For the air source heat pump system, heating season energy consumption is $35.52kWh/m^2y$ in the reference room. But the heating energy consumption in the target room is reduced to 7.5% whenever the set temperature decreased every $1^{\circ}C$. The cooling energy consumption in the reference room is $4.57kWh/m^2y$. On the other hand, the energy consumption in the target room is reduced to 22% whenever the set temperature increased every $1^{\circ}C$ by two way controller. For the geothermal heat pump system, heating energy consumption in the reference room is reduced to 20.7%. The target room heating energy consumption is reduced to 32.6% when the set temperature is $22^{\circ}C$. The energy consumption in the target room is reduced to 59.5% when the set temperature is $26^{\circ}C$.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.73-84
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• 2009

The stone Buddha and Shrine of Unjusa temple (Korean Treasure No. 797) at Hwasun formed in Koryo Dynasty is unique style which faces each other the back parts of south and north within the stone Shrine. The stone Buddha and Shrine is highly evaluated in historical, artistic and academic respects. But, the stone properties have been exposed in the open system various aspects of degradations weathered for a long time without specific protective facilities. To inquire into relative deterioration and environmental factor, air temperature and relative humidity of the stone Buddha and Shrine were monitored for a year of the indoor and outdoor, respectively. As a result, the temperature shows increase and decrease according to the seasons in the tendency to clear. While the relative humidity is high to keep all four seasons. Highly relative humidity environment induces dew condensation on the interior of stone Buddha and Shrine. The dew condensation is recorded at the spring, summer and winter season. The summer season is double the total of spring and winter season. In the case of summer, dew condensation is long time continued due to high temperature and relative humidity that is kept by more than nearly 100%. There is progress towards chemical weathering throughout dissolve rock properties and alteration on the rock surface. In the case of winter, dew condensation is not kept for a long time as summer. In the winter, which showing a below zero may add physical weathering throughout moisture that happen by dew condensation to repeat freezing and thawing. Therefore, the reduction plan of the relative humidity effect on dew condensation should be prepared.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.123-132
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• 2012

Gas sensors has been used very differently that depending on following purposes; Automotive (exhaust gas, fuel mixture gas, oxygen, particulates), agriculture / food industry (fresh, stored, CO2, humidity, NH3, nitrogen oxide gas, organic gas, toxic gas emitted from pesticides and insecticides), industrial / medical (chemical gas, hydrogen, oxygen and toxic gases), military (chemical weapon), environmental measurements (CO and other air pollution consisting of sulfur and nitrogen gas), residential (LNG, LPG, butane, indoor air, humidity). The types of industrial toxic substances are known about 700 species and many of these exist in gaseous form under normal conditions. he multi-gas detection sensors will be developed for casualties that detect the most important and find easy three kinds of gases in marine plant; carbon dioxide(CO2), carbon(CO), ammonia(NH3). Package block consists of gas sensing device minor ingredient, rf front end, zigbee chip. Develope interworking technology between the sensor and zigbee chip inside a package. Conduct a performance test through test jig about prototype zigbee sensor module with rf output power and unwanted emission test. This research task available early address when poisonous gas leaked from large industrial site and contribution for workers' safety at the enclosed space.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.204-211
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to provide basic data for setting environmental design standards for domestic greenhouses. We conducted experiments on thermal environment measurement at two commercial greenhouses where hot water heating system is adopted. We analyzed heat transfer characteristics of hot water heating pipes and heat emission per unit length of heating pipes was presented. The average air temperature in two greenhouses was controlled to $16.3^{\circ}C$ and $14.6^{\circ}C$ during the experiment, respectively. The average water temperature in heating pipes was $52.3^{\circ}C$ and $45.0^{\circ}C$, respectively. Experimental results showed that natural convection heat transfer coefficient of heating pipe surface was in the range of $5.71{\sim}7.49W/m^2^{\circ}C$. When the flow rate in heating pipe was 0.5m/s or more, temperature difference between hot water and pipe surface was not large. Based on this, overall heat transfer coefficient of heating pipe was derived as form of laminar natural convection heat transfer coefficient in the horizontal cylinder. By modifying the equation of overall heat transfer coefficient, a formula for calculating the heat emission per unit length of hot water heating pipe was developed, which uses pipe size and temperature difference between hot water and indoor air as input variables. The results of this study were compared with domestic and foreign data, and it was found to be closest to JGHA data. The data of NAAS, BALLS and ASHRAE were judged to be too large. Therefore, in order to set up environmental design standards for domestic greenhouses, it is necessary to fully examine those data through further experiments.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.64 no.6
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• pp.327-333
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• 2020

Performance of a portable GC that can be utilized for the real time determination of volatile organic compounds in air was evaluated. It employs purified/compressed ambient air as the carrier gas eliminating the need for high pressure gas tanks. The compact system with dimensions of 35 × 26 × 15 ㎤ and weight of 5 kg is powered by either a 24 V DC external adapter or battery pack. Chromatograms of the mixture sample including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and oxylene at concentrations of 1 ppmv and 20 ppmv represent a good reproducibility: 3.79% and 0.48% relative standard deviations (RSDs) for peak area variations; 0.40% and 0.08% RSDs for retention times. The method detection limit was 0.09 ppmv. A 30 m long, 0.28 mm I.D. column operated at an optimal condition yielded a peak capacity of 61 with good resolution for a 10 min isothermal analysis. The relative standard deviations (RSD) of the peak area variations and retention times during consecutive measurements over 27 h were less than 2.4%RSD and 0.5%RSD, respectively. Thus, this instrument makes it suitable for continuous and field analysis of low-concentration VOC mixtures in the indoor/outdoor environment as well as the spillage accident of hazardous chemicals.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.41-50
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• 2022

Recently, research on carbon adsorbents has been active as an interest in improving the environment such as indoor and outdoor air quality. Considering that causative substances deteriorate the air quality are basically volatile organic compounds, it is important to improve the hydrophobicity of the carbon materials for better removal efficiency. This study presents a method for improving hydrophobicity of carbon and a measurement of the hydrophobicity. Generally, methods of improving the hydrophobicity of carbon materials are heat treatment, acid/alkali treatment, coating and immersion with hydrophobic materials. However, it collapses the pore structure and reduces the adsorption capacity. Therefore, this study briefly introduce not only the general method for improving carbon materials' hydrophobicity but also the method for converting the precursor of the material is briefly introduced. Futhermore, this study introduces a analytical technique used to determine hydrophobic modification or not, and aims to enhance the understanding of carbon materials.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.12 no.8
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• pp.31-37
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• 2021

As the size of buildings increases due to urbanization due to the development of industry, the need to purify the air and maintain a comfortable indoor environment is also increasing. With the development of monitoring technology for refrigeration systems, it has become possible to manage the amount of electricity consumed in buildings. In particular, refrigeration systems account for about 40% of power consumption in commercial buildings. Therefore, in order to develop the refrigeration system failure diagnosis algorithm in this study, the purpose of this study was to understand the structure of the refrigeration system, collect and analyze data generated during the operation of the refrigeration system, and quickly detect and classify failure situations with various types and severity . In particular, in order to improve the classification accuracy of failure types that are difficult to classify, a three-step diagnosis and classification algorithm was developed and proposed. A model based on SVM and LGBM was presented as a classification model suitable for each stage after a number of experiments and hyper-parameter optimization process. In this study, the characteristics affecting failure were preserved as much as possible, and all failure types, including refrigerant-related failures, which had been difficult in previous studies, were derived with excellent results.

• Particle and aerosol research
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.23-35
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• 2022

Recently, passengers using public transport are concerned about the effects of COVID-19 and fine dust. Therefore, from February 2020 to February 2021, we investigated whether SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected even after disinfection in 55 public transportation places visited by confirmed patients in Seoul. 34 air samples and 702 object surface samples were collected and tested with RT-PCR, one surface sample was positive. In addition, preemptive investigations were conducted in 22 subway trains that passengers were being on board at that time. 1,018 preemptive tests were performed, and all were negative. Although PM-2.5 is dangerous in itself, it can be a potential carrier of viruses. It seemed that a solution was needed as one line continuously exceeded the criteria of PM-2.5. Through this study, it is judged that cluster infection in public transportation can be prevented if efforts to reduce the concentration of fine dust, appropriate disinfection management, and personal disinfection such as wearing a mask in public transportations.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.59-67
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• 2023

Background: This study aims to reevaluate natural radiation exposure, following up on our previous study conducted in 2019, and to assess the associated risk of lung cancer to the public residing in the gold mining areas of Betare-Oya, east Cameroon, and its vicinity. Materials and Methods: Gamma-ray spectra collected using a 7.62 cm×7.62 cm in NaI(Tl) scintillation spectrometer during a car-borne survey, in situ measurements and laboratory measurements performed in previous studies were used to determine the outdoor absorbed dose rate in air to evaluate the annual external dose inhaled by the public. For determining internal exposure, radon gas concentrations were measured and used to estimate the inhalation dose while considering the inhalation of radon and its decay products. Results and Discussion: The mean value of the laboratory-measured outdoor gamma dose rate was 47 nGy/hr, which agrees with our previous results (44 nGy/hr) recorded through direct measurements (in situ and car-borne survey). The resulting annual external dose (0.29±0.09 mSv/yr) obtained is similar to that of the previous study (0.33±0.03 mSv/yr). The total inhalation dose resulting from radon isotopes and their decay products ranged between 1.96 and 9.63 mSv/yr with an arithmetic mean of 3.95±1.65 mSv/yr. The resulting excess lung cancer risk was estimated; it ranged from 62 to 216 excess deaths per million persons per year (MPY), 81 to 243 excess deaths per MPY, or 135 excess deaths per MPY, based on whether risk factors reported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, United Nations Scientific Committee on the effects of Atomic Radiation, or International Commission on Radiological Protection were used, respectively. These values are more than double the world average values reported by the same agencies. Conclusion: There is an elevated level of risk of lung cancer from indoor radon in locations close to the Betare-Oya gold mining region in east Cameroon. Therefore, educating the public on the harmful effects of radon exposure and considering some remedial actions for protection against radon and its progenies is necessary.