• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.217-227
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• 2013

Passive air samplers (PAS) have been developed since the early 2000s and widely used for the atmospheric monitoring of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). PAS are useful especially for the investigation of source-receptor relationship of POPs because they provide higher spatial resolution data. In Korea, however, only a few research groups have conducted POPs monitoring using PAS. One of the reasons for the limited application of PAS might be due to a complicated calculation method for air concentration. In this study, therefore, we introduced the principle of polyurethane foam (PUF)-PAS, which has been most widely used in the world, and provided an example of the calculation of air concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). As all data tables and equations for this calculation were provided, this method can be used for the conversion of the amount of POPs (ng) in a PUF disk to air concentration ($ng/m^3$).

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.34-47
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• 2010

Long-range transport of air pollutants was simulated using Comprehensive Acid Deposition Model (CADM) and Yonsei University-Sulfuric Acid Deposition Model (YU-SADM). For the simulation, weather patterns that represent the four seasons were derived through a clustering analysis with 5-years of meteorological data. The simulation result showed that in spring, influenced by strong low pressure from China, air pollutants of moved to the Korean Peninsula. In summer, humid air moved into the Korean Peninsula across the Yellow Sea while the north pacific high pressure extended, making the concentration of air pollutants lower than that in the other seasons. In autumn, air pollutants were transported by the northwest wind caused by the movement of high pressure over the Yellow Sea, while in winter air pollutants were influenced by northwest winds from continental highs. The amount of air pollutants in each season showed that high amount of pollutants were transported in winter due to the strong northwest wind. The in-flows were 3 to 8 times higher than those of the other seasons, and out-flows were about as twice as high. The amount of wet deposition in summer and autumn increased significantly compared to the amount in the other seasons due to the increase of rainfall. Source-receptor relationship analysis for sulfur showed that 70 to 91 precent of the total deposition came from the self-contribution by the Korean Peninsula. In winter, contribution from China was about 25 percent of the total deposition which was higher amount than any other season.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.12
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• pp.4801-4807
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• 2014

Background: Previous studies have investigated the association between the vitamin D receptor (VDR) BsmI polymorphism and colorectal cancer (CRC) susceptibility, but the results were conflicting. The aim of this study is to quantitatively summarize the relationship between this polymorphism and CRC risk. Materials and Methods: Two investigators independently searched the Medline, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Chinese Biomedicine databases for studies published before November 2013. Summary odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CIs) for VDR BsmI polymorphism and CRC were calculated in a fixed-effects model (the Mantel-Haenszel method) and a random-effects model (the DerSimonian and Laird method) when appropriate. Results: This meta-analysis included 14 case-control studies, which included 10,822 CRC cases and 11,779 controls. Overall, the variant genotype (BB) of the BsmI was associated with a lower CRC risk when compared with the wild-type bb homozygote (OR=0.66, 95%CI: 0.49-0.88). Similarly, a decreased CRC risk was also found in the dominant and recessive models. When stratifying for ethnicity, source of controls, and study sample size, associations were observed among Caucasians, population-based studies and studies with large study sample size (>1000 subjects). Limiting the analysis to the studies within Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, the results were persistent and robust. No publication bias was found in the present study. Conclusions: This updated meta-analysis suggests that the VDR BsmI polymorphism may be associated with a moderate protective effect against CRC.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.73-86
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• 2011

Haze phenomena were analyzed to assess the impact of long range transport process on the air quality of Seoul and Busan. We statistically classified haze days observed in both Seoul and Busan into two types of haze cases: stagnant case and long-range transport case, and analyzed the air pollutant levels comparatively for each of the two cases for the period of 2000~2007. The results showed that the long-range transport haze case occurs less frequently with the occurrence frequency of 35.5% than stagnant case with the occurrence frequency of 64.5%. During the observed all haze days, all pollutants have high concentration in comparison with those under other meteorological conditions (Rain, Mist, Dust, Clear, Rain+Mist) except for only $PM_{10}$ of Dust case where its level shows highest among total 6 categorized conditions. The long range transport haze case shows similar levels of $PM_{10}$ and $NO_2$, but higher $SO_2$ and lower $O_3$ compared with stagnant haze cases, suggesting the importance of sulfur chemistry for long range transport haze case and local photochemistry for stagnant haze case. In addition, by employing the NOAA/HYSPLIT-4 backward trajectory model, we subdivided the long range transport haze cases into two different sources: urban anthropogenic high emission areas of central China, and natural emission sources over north China and/or Mongolia. The former long range transport haze case shows higher occurrence (with Seoul 70% and Busan 85%) than the latter haze case (with Seoul 30% and Busan <10%). This is also implying that the long haze phenomena occurred over Korea have been influenced by not only the anthropogenic emissions but also the natural dust emissions. These both emission sources can be good contributors in calculating the source-receptor relationship over Korean atmospheric environment.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.549-560
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• 2019

The effects of the coal-fired power plant emissions, as the biggest point source of air pollutants, on spatiotemporal surface air pollution over the remote area are investigated in this study, based on a set of date selection and statistical technique to consider meteorological and geographical effects in the emission-concentration (source-receptor) relationship. We here proposed the sophisticated technique of data processing to separate and quantify the effects. The data technique comprises a set of data selection and statistical analysis procedure that include data selection criteria depending on meteorological conditions and statistical methods such as Kolmogorov-Zurbenko filter (K-Z filter) and empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis. The data selection procedure is important for filtering measurement data to consider the meteorological and geographical effects on the emission-concentration relationship. Together with meteorological data from the new high resolution ECMWF reanalysis 5 (ERA5) and the Korea Meteorological Administration automated surface observing system, air pollutant emission data from the telemonitoring system (TMS) of Dangjin and Taean power plants as well as spatio-temporal air pollutant concentrations from the air quality monitoring system are used for 4 years period of 2014-2017. Since all the data used in this study have the temporal resolution of 1 hour, the first EOF mode of spatio-temporal changes in air pollutant concentrations over the Seoul metropolitan area (SMA) due to power plant emission have been analyzed to explain over 97% of total variability under favorable meteorological conditions. It is concluded that SO₂, NO₂, and PM₁₀ concentrations over the SMA would be decreased by 0.468, 1.050 ppb, and 2.045 ㎍ m^-3 respectively if SO₂, NO₂, and TSP emissions from Dangjin power plant were reduced by 10%. In the same way, the 10% emission reduction in Taean power plant emissions would cause SO₂, NO₂, and PM₁₀ decreased by 0.284, 0.842 ppb, and 1.230 ㎍ m^-3 over the SMA respectively. Emissions from Dangjin power plant affect air pollution over the SMA in higher amount, but with lower R value, than those of Taean under the same meteorological condition.