• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.283-296
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• 2023

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to actually implement and verify whether welding defects can be detected in real time by utilizing deep learning AI solutions in the welding process of electric vehicle hairpin winding motors. Methods: AI's function and technological elements using synthetic neural network were applied to existing electric vehicle hairpin winding motor laser welding process by making special hardware for detecting electric vehicle hairpin motor laser welding defect. Results: As a result of the test applied to the welding process of the electric vehicle hairpin winding motor, it was confirmed that defects in the welding part were detected in real time. The accuracy of detection of welds was achieved at 0.99 based on mAP@95, and the accuracy of detection of defective parts was 1.18 based on FB-Score 1.5, which fell short of the target, so it will be supplemented by introducing additional lighting and camera settings and enhancement techniques in the future. Conclusion: This study is significant in that it improves the welding quality of hairpin winding motors of electric vehicles by applying domestic artificial intelligence solutions to laser welding operations of hairpin winding motors of electric vehicles. Defects of a manufacturing line can be corrected immediately through automatic welding inspection after laser welding of an electric vehicle hairpin winding motor, thus reducing waste throughput caused by welding failure in the final stage, reducing input costs and increasing product production.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2022.05a
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• pp.334-334
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• 2022

Improvement of old-fashioned rain gauge systems for automatic, timely, continuous, and accurate precipitation observation is highly essential for weather/climate prediction and natural hazards early warning, since the occurrence frequency and intensity of heavy and extreme precipitation events (especially floods) are recently getting more increase and severe worldwide due to climate change. Although rain gauge accuracy of 0.1 mm is recommended by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the traditional rain gauges in both weighting and tipping bucket types are often unable to meet that demand due to several existing technical limitations together with higher production and maintenance costs. Therefore, we aim to introduce a newly developed and cost-effective hybrid rain gauge system at 0.1 mm accuracy that combines advantages of weighting and tipping bucket types for continuous, automatic, and accurate precipitation observation, where the errors from long-term load cells and external environmental sources (e.g., winds) can be removed via an automatic drainage system and artificial intelligence-based data quality control procedure. Our rain gauge system consists of an instrument unit for measuring precipitation, a communication unit for transmitting and receiving measured precipitation signals, and a database unit for storing, processing, and analyzing precipitation data. This newly developed rain gauge was designed according to the weather instrument criteria, where precipitation amounts filled into the tipping bucket are measured considering the receiver's diameter, the maximum measurement of precipitation, drainage time, and the conductivity marking. Moreover, it is also designed to transmit the measured precipitation data stored in the PCB through RS232, RS485, and TCP/IP, together with connecting to the data logger to enable data collection and analysis based on user needs. Preliminary results from a comparison with an existing 1.0-mm tipping bucket rain gauge indicated that our developed rain gauge has an excellent performance in continuous precipitation observation with higher measurement accuracy, more correct precipitation days observed (120 days), and a lower error of roughly 27 mm occurred during the measurement period.

• Korean Circulation Journal
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.351-366
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• 2023

Along with the development of immunosuppressive drugs, major advances on xenotransplantation were achieved by understanding the immunobiology of xenograft rejection. Most importantly, three predominant carbohydrate antigens on porcine endothelial cells were key elements provoking hyperacute rejection: α1,3-galactose, SDa blood group antigen, and N-glycolylneuraminic acid. Preformed antibodies binding to the porcine major xenoantigen causes complement activation and endothelial cell activation, leading to xenograft injury and intravascular thrombosis. Recent advances in genetic engineering enabled knock-outs of these major xenoantigens, thus producing xenografts with less hyperacute rejection rates. Another milestone in the history of xenotransplantation was the development of co-stimulation blockaded strategy. Unlike allotransplantation, xenotransplantation requires blockade of CD40-CD40L pathway to prevent T-cell dependent B-cell activation and antibody production. In 2010s, advanced genetic engineering of xenograft by inducing the expression of multiple human transgenes became available. So-called 'multi-gene' xenografts expressing human transgenes such as thrombomodulin and endothelial protein C receptor were introduced, which resulted in the reduction of thrombotic events and improvement of xenograft survival. Still, there are many limitations to clinical translation of cardiac xenotransplantation. Along with technical challenges, zoonotic infection and physiological discordances are major obstacles. Social barriers including healthcare costs also need to be addressed. Although there are several remaining obstacles to overcome, xenotransplantation would surely become the novel option for millions of patients with end-stage heart failure who have limited options to traditional therapeutics.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.15-29
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• 2020

The aims of this study is to improve physical properties of the sewage sludge and the process sludge generated in the leachate treatment by mixing the dry fuel, to develop the neutral solidifing agents that reduce oder, and to recycle the sewage and the process sludges as landfill cover materials. The mixing ratio (W/W) of sludges and dry fuel was appropriate at about 1:1, and the mixed materials were shown to be homogeneous at that ratio. We could know that when the sludges were mixed with dry fuel, moisture contents and viscosities are reduced, and air passages are formed between particles and particles. The various mixing tests and odor tests showed that the neutral solidifing agent was effective for the odor reduction. The main ingredient of the solidifing agent is the ash of sewage sludge, enabling it competitive in waste recycling and production costs. The landfill cover, using developed neutral solidification agent, improved physical properties to satisfy the quality standards and to increase the compressive strength. It also proved to reduce the value of complex oder and the usage of solidification agent to 1/3 (3,000 to 1,000) and to 1/8 (50% to 6%), respectively, from the comparative study with alkaline solidified landfill cover. Further research is under way to prove that this can be mixed with general soil to be used as a soil improvement agent for plant cultivation.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.125-136
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• 2017

This study focuses on a relative efficiency of 109 operating food companies out of 22 regions in Jeollanam-do. The relative efficiency has been analyzed by 5 input factors(capital, number of employees, annual labor costs, raw material purchase, and site area) and 2 output factors(annual exports and annual production of the companies in Jeollanam-do). This study suggests efficient companies which inefficient companies can benchmark to improve their system in short-mid-long term in phases. The main result of empirical analysis are as follows: Firstly, according to the Traditioanl DEA analysis, 7 companies out of 109 DMU indicate the optimal production scale in score 1 of CCR efficiency value, BCC efficiency value, and scale efficiency value. Secondly, a result from the Tier 1 step of inefficient companies by Post-DEA suggests that it would be better to apply each Tier step to the proper stage of the worst 5 inefficient companies such as Tier 3 step(short-term benchmark)${\rightarrow}$Tier 2 step(mid-term benchmark)${\rightarrow}$Tier 1 step(long-term benchmark) in step. This study expects that the result of the study can reduce the trial and error in inefficient part, lead to improvement, and have a big help in food exporting industry in the end.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.61-69
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• 2023

Recently, as the fishery resources are depleted, expectations for productivity improvement by 'rearing fishery' in land farms are greatly rising. In the case of land farms, unlike ocean environments, it is easy to control and manage environmental and breeding factors, and has the advantage of being able to adjust production according to the production plan. On the other hand, unlike in the natural environment, there is a disadvantage in that operation costs may significantly increase due to the artificial management for fish growth. Therefore, profit maximization can be pursued by efficiently operating the farm in accordance with the planned target shipment. In order to operate such an efficient farm and nurture fish, an accurate growth prediction model according to the target fish species is absolutely required. Most of the growth prediction models are mainly numerical results based on statistical analysis using farm data. In this paper, we present a growth prediction model from a stochastic point of view to overcome the difficulties in securing data and the difficulty in providing quantitative expected values for inaccuracies that existing growth prediction models from a statistical point of view may have. For a stochastic approach, modeling is performed by introducing a Gaussian process regression method based on water temperature, which is the most important factor in positive growth. From the corresponding results, it is expected that it will be able to provide reference values for more efficient farm operation by simultaneously providing the average value of the predicted growth value at a specific point in time and the confidence interval for that value.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Grassland and Forage Science
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.40-49
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• 2024

This study divided the area capable of producing domestic forage into grazing pasture, hay production area, and silage crop area, calculated the required area according to the forage production volume, and examined whether self-sufficiency in forage leads to cost savings. When the self-sufficiency rate of forage for dairy cows and Hanwoo is 80%, the improvement in profitability per heaf ranges from 3% to 9%, typically around 5%, which is considered a significant benefit for both corporate and individual businesses. The average profit per ranch is expected to increase about KRW 50 million per year, and the country as a whole is expected to reduce forage costs by KRW 0.9 trillion per year. Recently, efforts are being made by the government and local authorities to cultivate summer forage at the rice fields for improving self-sufficiency in forage feed to stabilize rice supply and demand. Furthermore, it is also necessary to conduct research on reducing the cost of concentrated feed and TMR (Total mixed ration).

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.17-26
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• 2010

Recently concerns have been raised due to the unbalanced supply of crops: the price of crops has been unstable and at one point the price went up so high that the word Agflation(agriculture+ inflation) was coined. Korea, in particular, is a small-sized country and needs to secure the stable supply of crops by investing in the produce importation at a national level. Investment in foreign produce importation is becoming more important as a measure for sufficient supply of crops, limited supply of domestic crops, weakened farming conditions worldwide, as well as recent changes in the use of crops due to the development of bio-fuels, influence of carbon emission on crops, the price increase in crops, and influx of foreign hot money. However, there are many problems with investing in foreign produce importation: lack of support from the government; lack of farming information and technology; difficulty in securing the capital; no immediate pay-off from the investment and insufficient management. Although foreign produce is originally more price-competitive than domestic produce, it loses its competiveness in the process of importation (due to high tariffs) and poor distribution system, which makes it difficult to sell in Korea. Therefore, investment in foreign produce importation is being questioned for feasibility; to make it possible, foreign produce must maintain the price-competitiveness. Especially, harvest of agricultural products depends on natural and geographical conditions of each country and those products have indigenous properties, so distribution system according to import and export of agricultural products should be treated more carefully than that of other industries. Distribution costs are differentiated into each item and include cost of sorting and wrapping, cost of wrapping materials, cost of domestic transport, cost of international transport and cost of clearing customs for import and export. So transporting and storing agricultural products generates considerable costs compared with other products. Also, due to upgrade of dietary life, needs for stability, taste and visible quality toward food including agricultural products are being raised and wrong way of storage causes decomposition of food and loss of freshness, making the storage more difficult than that in room temperature, so storage and transport in distribution of agricultural products needs specialty. In addition, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. However, existing distribution system of agricultural products is exposed to various problems including problems in distribution channel, making distribution and strategy for distribution and those problems are as follows. First, in case of investment in overseas agricultural industry, stable supply of the products is difficult because areas of production are dispersed widely and influenced by outer factors due to including overseas distribution channels. Also, at the aspect of quality, standardization of products is difficult, distribution system is quite complicated and unreasonable due to long distribution channels according to international trade and financial and institutional support is not enough. Especially, there are quite a lot of ineffective factors including multi level distribution process, dramatic gap between production cost and customer's cost, lack of physical distribution facilities and difficulties in storage and transport due to lack of wrapping containers. Besides, because import and export of agricultural products has been manages under the company's own distribution according to transaction contract between manufacturers and exporting company, efficiency is low due to excessive investment in fixed costs and lack of specialty in dealing with agricultural products causes fall of value of products, showing the limit to lose price-competitiveness. Especially, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. Second, among tangible and intangible services which promote the efficiency of the whole distribution, a function building distribution environment which includes distribution information, system for standard and inspection, distribution finance, system for diversification of risks, education and training, distribution administration and tax system is wanted. In general, such a function building distribution environment is difficult to be changed and supplement innovatively because its effect compared with investment does not appear immediately despite of its necessity. Especially, in case of distribution of agricultural products, as a function of collecting and distributing is performed individually through various channels, the importance of distribution information and standardization is getting more focus due to the problem of repetition of work and lack of specialty. Also, efficient management of distribution is quite difficult due to lack of professionals in distribution, so support to professional education is needed. Third, though effort to keep self-sufficiency ratio of staple food, rice is regarded as important at the government level, level of dependency on overseas of others crops is high. Therefore, plan for stable securing food resources aside from staple food is also necessary. Especially, governmental organizations of agricultural products distribution in Korea are production-centered and have unreasonable structure whose function at the aspect of distribution and consumption is quite insufficient. And development of new distribution channels which can deal with changes in distribution environment and they do not achieve actual results of strategy for distribution due to non-positive strategy for price distribution. That is, it implies the possibility that base for supply will become vulnerable because it does not mediate appropriate interests on total distribution channels such as manufacturers, wholesale dealers and vendors by emphasizing consumer protection excessively in the distribution of agricultural products. Therefore, this study examined fundamental concept and actual situation for our investment to overseas agriculture, drew necessities, considerations, problems, etc. of overseas agricultural investment and suggested improvements at the level of distribution for price competitiveness of agricultural products cultivated in overseas under five aspects; government's indirect support, distribution's modernization and distribution information function's strengthening, government's political support for distribution facility, transportation route, load and unloading works' improvement, price competitiveness' securing, professional manpower's cultivation by education and training, etc. Here are some suggestions for foreign produce importation. First, the government should conduct a survey on the current distribution channels and analyze the situation to establish a measure for long-term development plans. By providing each agricultural area with a guideline for planning appropriate production of crops, the government can help farmers be ready for importation, and prevent them from producing same crops all at the same time. Government can sign an MOU with the foreign government and promote the importation so that the development of agricultural resources can be stable and steady. Second, the government can establish a strategy for an effective distribution system by providing farmers and agriculture-related workers with the distribution information such as price, production, demand, market structure and location, feature of each crop, and etc. In order for such distribution system to become feasible, the government needs to reconstruct the current distribution system, designate a public organization for providing distribution information and set the criteria for level of produce quality, trade units, and package units. Third, the government should provide financial support and a policy to seek an efficient distribution channel for foreign produce to be delivered fresh: the government should expand distribution facilities (for selecting, packaging, storing, and processing) and transportation vehicles while modernizing old facilities. There should be another policy to improve the efficiency of unloading, and to lower the cost of distribution. Fourth, it is necessary to enact a new law covering exceptional cases for importing produce in order to maintain the price competitiveness; currently the high tariffs is keeping the imported produce from being distributed domestically. However, the new adjustment should be made carefully within the WTO regulations since it can create a problem from giving preferential tariffs. The government can also simplify the distribution channels in order to reduce the cost in the distribution process. Fifth, the government should educate distributors to raise the efficiency and to modernize the distribution system. It is necessary to develop human resources by educating people regarding the foreign agricultural environment, the produce quality, management skills, and by introducing some successful cases in advanced countries.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.74-83
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• 2018

Anyone who wants to install local ventilation system must obtain a permission from the Ministry of Employment and Labor even if he has permission from the Ministry of Environment. This is because not only the Atmospheric Environmental Protection Act, but also the manufacturing industry's hazardous risk prevention plan under Article 48 Clause 2 of the Industrial Safety and Health Act is to be submitted by 15 days before the construction. Under the current Environmental Protection Act, the Ministry of Environment regulates only the emission of pollutants from local exhaust ventilation systems into the atmosphere and the contents of workers' safety and health within industrial sites are managed by the Ministry of Employment and Labor. Even with the approval of the Ministry of Environment, the number of unsuccessful cases by the Ministry of Employment and Labor has increased, causing a growing discontent among the sites due to production delays and additional costs of improvement. In addition, local exhaust systems that are at greater risk of fire explosion have increased the risk of severe industrial accidents due to fire explosion. This is due to insufficient design of air volume, control speed, return speed, duct size, and risk of fire explosion. This is because the criteria and procedures for approval of local exhaust ventilation systems are similar, but the Industrial Safety and Health Act adds additional screening items for safety and safety of workers and fire and explosion. In this study, the Environment Ministry and the Employment and Labor Ministry seek to find a reasonable way to operate the system by comparing local exhaust ventilation system installation approval standards.

• Convergence Security Journal
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.177-189
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• 2021

Defense R&D is a key process for securing weapons systems determined by mid- and long-term needs to cope with changing future battlefield environments. In particular, the test and evaluation provides information necessary to determine whether or not to switch to mass production as the last gateway to research and development of weapons systems and plays an important role in ensuring performance linked to the life cycle of weapons systems. Meanwhile, if you look at the recent changes in the operational environment of the Korean Peninsula and the defense acquisition environment, you can see three main characteristics. First of all, continuous safety accidents occurred during the operation of the weapon system, which increased social interest in the safety of combatants, and the efficient execution of the limited defense budget is required as acquisition costs increase. In addition, strategic approaches are needed to respond to future battlefield environments such as robots, autonomous weapons systems (RAS), and cyber security test and evaluation. Therefore, in this study, we would like to present strategies for improving the testing and evaluation of weapons systems by considering the characteristics of the security environment that has changed recently. To this end, the improvement strategy was derived by analyzing the complementary elements of the current weapon system operational test and evaluation system in a multi-dimensional model and prioritized through the hierarchical analysis method (AHP).