• Membrane Journal
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.282-292
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• 2021

In this work, we tested commercial organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) membranes using both in-house dead-end and crossflow systems. Four different crosslinked polyimide Duramem (DM) OSN membranes with various MWCO (molecular weight cut off) values were tested in organic solvents such as ethanol, N,N-dimethylformamide, acetone and acetonitrile. The membranes exhibited more reliable and reproducible performance in the crossflow system, and the performance changed significantly depending in the physical properties of the testing solvent. This is due to the initial stabilization period via pressure-induced compaction phenomenon, which can be vastly different between membrane samples. Hence, to obtain reliable and reproducible results, crossflow system is the preferred choice.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.523-532
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• 2020

As the height and flexibility of high-rise buildings increase, the wind loads become more dominant and the combination coefficient of Equivalent Static Wind Loads (ESWLs) should be considered when they are used in the structural design. In the first phase of the study, a brief introduction to the theory on the combination coefficient for high-rise buildings was given and then the time history of wind-induced responses of a 208-meter high-rise building with an elliptical cross-section was presented based on the wind tunnel test results for pressure measurement. The correlation between wind-induced responses was analyzed and the combination coefficients of ESWLs of the high-rise buildings using Turkstra's rule, and Asami's method, were calculated and compared with related design codes, e.g., AIJ-RLB, ASCE 7-10, and China Load Code for structural design. The results of the study showed that the combination coefficients from Asami's method are conservative compared with the other three methods. The results of this paper would be helpful to the wind-resistant design of high-rise buildings with elliptical cross-section.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1847-1870
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• 2021

With the development of information and communication technologies, especially wireless networks and cell phones, the e-voting system becomes popular as its cost-effectiveness, swiftness, scalability, and ecological sustainability. However, the current e-voting schemes are faced with the problem of privacy leakage and further cause worse vote-buying and voter-coercion problems. Moreover, in large-scale voting, some previous e-voting system encryption scheme with pairing operation also brings huge overhead pressure to the voting system. Thus, it is a vital problem to design a protocol that can protect voter privacy and simultaneously has high efficiency to guarantee the effective implementation of e-voting. To address these problems, our paper proposes an efficient unidirectional proxy re-encryption scheme that provides the re-encryption of vote content and the verification of users' identity. This function can be exactly applied in the e-voting system to protect the content of vote and preserve the privacy of the voter. Our proposal is proven to be CCA secure and collusion resistant. The detailed analysis also shows that our scheme achieves higher efficiency in computation cost and ciphertext size than the schemes in related fields.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.883-893
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• 2021

Clostridium difficile present in feces of food animals may contaminate their meats and act as a potential source of C. difficile infection (CDI) to humans. C. difficile resistance to antibiotics, its production of toxins and spores play major roles in the pathogenesis of CDI. This is the first study to evaluate C. difficile prevalence in retail raw animal meats, its antibiotics susceptibilities and toxigenic activities in Al-Jouf, Saudi Arabia. Totally, 240 meat samples were tested. C. difficile was identified by standard microbiological and biochemical methods. Vitek-2 compact system confirmed C. difficile isolates were 15/240 (6.3%). Toxins A/B were not detected by Xpect C. difficile toxin A/B tests. Although all isolates were susceptible to vancomycin and metronidazole, variable degrees of reduced susceptibilities to moxifloxacin, clindamycin or tetracycline antibiotics were detected by Epsilon tests. C. difficile strains with reduced susceptibility to antibiotics should be investigated. Variability between the worldwide reported C. difficile contamination levels could be due to absence of a gold standard procedure for its isolation. Establishment of a unified testing algorithm for C. difficile detection in food products is definitely essential to evaluate the inter-regional variation in its prevalence on national and international levels. Proper use of antimicrobials during animal husbandry is crucial to control the selective drug pressure on C. difficile strains associated with food animals. Investigating the protective or pathogenic potential of non-toxigenic C. difficile strains and the possibility of gene transfer from certain toxigenic/ antibiotics-resistant to non-toxigenic/antibiotics-sensitive strains, respectively, should be worthy of attention.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.502-508
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• 2021

SiAlON-based ceramics are a type of oxynitride ceramics, which can be used as cutting tools for heat-resistant super alloys (HRSAs). These ceramics are derived from Si3N4 ceramics. SiAlON can be densified using gas-pressure reactive sintering from mixtures of oxides and nitrides. In this study, we prepare an α-/β-SiAlON ceramic composite with a composition of Yb_0.03Y_0.10Si_10.6Al_1.4O_1.0N_15.0. The structure and mechanical/thermal properties of the densified SiAlON specimen are characterized and compared with those of a commercial SiAlON cutting tool. By observing the crystallographic structures and microstructures, the constituent phases of each SiAlON ceramic, such as α-SiAlON, β-SiAlON, and intergranular phases, are identified. By evaluating the mechanical and thermal properties, the contribution of the constituent phases to these properties is discussed as well.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.230-236
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• 2022

The formation behavior of a passive state film on the surface of STS304 in electrolytic solution was analyzed to determine its metallic ion composition. The properties of passive state films vary depending on the Fe and Cr ions in the electrolytic solution. It was observed that the passive state film surface became flat and glossy as the concentration of Fe and Cr ions in the electrolytic solution increased. The corrosion resistance property of the passive state film was proportional to the amount of Fe and Cr in the electrolytic solution. An initial passive state film with high Fe concentration was formed on the surface of STS304 during early electrolytic polishing. Osmotic pressure of Fe ions occurs between the passive state film and electrolytic solution due to the Fe ion concentration gradient. The Fe in the passive state film is dissolved into the electrolyte, and Cr fills up the Fe ion vacancies. As a result, a good corrosion-resistant floating film was formed. The more Fe ions in the electrolytic solution, the faster the film is formed, and as a result, a flat passive state film containing a large amount of Cr can be formed.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.41-60
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• 2020

The goal of the study is to understand the role of social norm in purchase decisions where demand is revealed in the form of multiple-discreteness. Consumers are socially engaged in various activities through the expectation from others in their community. Actions or decisions are likely to reflect this influence. This implicit or explicit social norm is revealed as the rules, regulations, and standards that are understood, shared, endorsed, and expected by group members. When consumers' decisions are in distance from the norm, they come to face discomfort such as shame, guilt, embarrassment, and anxiety. These pressure act as a constraint as opposed to utility in their decision making. In this study, the effect of social norms on consumer demand is captured via multiple constraint model where constraints are not only from budget equation but also from psychological burden induced by the deviation from the norm. The posterior distributions of model parameters were estimated via conjoint study allowing for heterogeneity via hierarchical Bayesian framework. Individual characteristics such as age, gender and work experience are also used as covariates for capturing the observed heterogeneity. The empirical results show the role of social norm as constraint in consumers' utility maximization. The proposed model accounting for social constraint outperforms the standard budget constraint-only model in terms of model fit. It is found that people with longer job experience tend to be more robust and resistant to the deviation from the norm. Incorporating social norm into the utility model allows for another means to disentangle the reason for no-purchase as 'not preferred' and 'not able to buy'.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.452-461
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• 2023

Hypertension caused by high-fat and high-salt diets is is a well-known significant risk factor for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. In this study, to confirm the relationship between hypertension and immune cells, angiotensin (Ang) II was administered to Dahl salt-sensitive (SS) rats and Dahl salt-resistant (SR) rats. Then the expression of immune cells and the proinflammatory cytokines were compared between the SS and SR rats. It was observed that after administration of Ang II (50ng/kg/min) for three weeks, blood pressure was increased in the SS rats, but there was no significant change in the SR rats. In addition, the expression of T helper (Th) cells and Th 17 cells in the spleen and the expression of Th cell Rorγt and regulatory T regulatory (Treg) cells in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells did not show a significant difference between the two experimental groups even after the administration of Ang II.IL-1β expression was significantly increased in the kidney tissue of the SS rats, while there was no significant difference in the IL-6 expression in all the experimental groups. The results of this study suggest that Ang II induces hypertension by stimulating IL-1β secretion from renal macrophage in SS rats.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.190-201
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• 2024

This study examined the effect of the distance Infection Control Education Program (ICEP), developed based on the ADDIE model, on infection control knowledge, attitude, and performance among care workers in long-term care facilities nationwide. The program, developed based on the ADDIE model, was applied to 173 care workers directly responsible for nursing care of elderly residents in lomg-term care facilities. The distance ICEP for care workers was conducted through the website and lasted 30 minutes for each of the eight topics. To determine the effectiveness of the education, infection control knowledge, attitude, performance, and satisfaction were surveyed before and four weeks after the program. Differences in infection control knowledge, attitude, and performance before and after the distance ICEP were assessed by a t-test. A significant difference was observed in knowledge and infection control performance after the distance ICEP was administered to care workers. In the sub-domains of infection control performance, overall understanding of infection, regular infection control education, infection control by special pathogen (multidrug-resistant bacteria, tuberculosis, tick-borne infectious diseases), and detailed infection control education by infection site (pressure ulcers and urinary tract infections) were significantly improved. Infection control knowledge and performance improved through the distance ICEP applied to care workers. Satisfaction also displayed high scores on most items and indicated that it was helpful for infection control in facilities, confirming the effectiveness of infection control education. Based on the survey of care workers nationwide, the infection education program can be effectively used for care workers in the future.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.71-77
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• 2024

Hydrogen has emerged as an eco-friendly and sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. However, the utilization of hydrogen requires high-pressure compression, storage, and transportation, which poses challenges to the durability of compressor components, particularly the diaphragm. This study aims to improve the durability of 304 stainless steel diaphragms in hydrogen compressors by optimizing their surface roughness and corrosion resistance through wet etching. The specimens were prepared by immersing 304 stainless steel in a mixture of sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide, followed by etching in hydrochloric acid for various durations. The surface morphology, roughness, and wettability of the etched specimens were characterized using optical microscopy, surface profilometry, and water contact angle measurements. The friction and wear characteristics were evaluated using reciprocating sliding tests. The results showed that increasing the etching time led to the development of micro/nanostructures on the surface, thereby increasing surface roughness and hydrophilicity. The friction coefficient initially decreased with increasing surface roughness owing to the reduced contact area but increased during long-term wear owing to the destruction and delamination of surface protrusions. HCl-30M exhibited the lowest average friction coefficient and a balance between the surface roughness and oxide film formation, resulting in improved wear resistance. These findings highlight the importance of controlling the surface roughness and oxide film formation through etching optimization to obtain a uniform and wear-resistant surface for the enhanced durability of 304 stainless steel diaphragms in hydrogen compressors.