• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.402-409
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• 2024

High energy neutron irradiations impact on structural and electrical properties of alumina are studied with particular emphasis on real time in-situ radiation induced conductivity measurement in low flux region. Polycrystalline Al₂O₃ samples are subjected to high energy neutrons produced from D-T neutron generator and Am-Be neutron source. 14 MeV neutrons from D-T generator are chosen to study the role of fast neutron irradiation in the structural modification of samples. Real time in-situ electrical measurement is performed to investigate the change in insulation resistance of Al₂O₃ due to radiation induced conductivity at low flux regime. During neutron irradiation, a significant transient decrease in insulation resistance is observed which recovers relative higher value just after neutron exposure is switched off. XRD results of 14 MeV neutron irradiated samples suggest annealing effect. Impact of relatively low energy neutrons on the structural properties is also studied using Am-Be neutrons. In this case, clustering is observed on the sample surface after prolonged neutron exposure. The structural characterizations of pristine and irradiated Al₂O₃ samples are performed using XRD, SEM, and EDX. The results from these characterizations are analysed and interpreted in the manuscript.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.980-992
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• 2024

Steam line break accident (SLB) in the nuclear reactor is one of the representative Non-LOCA accidents in which thermal-hydraulics and neutron kinetics are strongly coupled each other. Thus, the multi-scale and multi-physics approach is applied in this study in order to examine a realistic safety margin. An entire reactor coolant system is modelled by system scale node, whereas sub-channel scale resolution is applied for the region of interest such as the reactor core. Fuel performance code is extended to consider full core pin-wise fuel behaviour. The MARU platform is developed for easy integration of the codes to be coupled. An initial stage of the steam line break accident is simulated on the MARU platform. As cold coolant is injected from the cold leg into the reactor pressure vessel, the power increases due to the moderator feedback. Three-dimensional coolant and fuel behaviour are qualitatively visualized for easy comprehension. Moreover, quantitative investigation is added by focusing on the enhancement of safety margin by means of comparing the minimum departure from nucleate boiling ratio (MDNBR). Three factors contributing to the increase of the MDNBR are proposed: Various geometric parameters, realistic power distribution by neutron kinetics code, Radial coolant mixing including sub-channel physics model.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.11-22
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• 2010

An analysis method is proposed for the transient linear or nonlinear analysis of dynamic interactions between a flexible dam body and reservoir impounding compressible water under earthquake loadings. The coupled dam-reservoir system consists of three substructures: (1) a dam body with linear or nonlinear behavior; (2) a semi-infinite fluid region with constant depth; and (3) an irregular fluid region between the dam body and far field. The dam body is modeled with linear and/or nonlinear finite elements. The far field is formulated as a displacement-based transmitting boundary in the frequency domain that can radiate energy into infinity. Then the transmitting boundary is transformed for the direct coupling in the time domain. The near field region is modeled as a compressible fluid contained between two substructures. The developed method is verified and applied to various earthquake response analyses of dam-reservoir systems. Also, the method is applied to a nonlinear analysis of a concrete gravity dam. The results show the location and severity of damage demonstrating the applicability to the seismic evaluation of existing and new dams.

• Archives of Reconstructive Microsurgery
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2010

Schwannoma of the brachial plexus region is very rare. There has not been general agreement in terms of surgical outcome from limited number of studies. We analyzed surgical outcomes from 11 cases of schwannomas which occurred in the brachial plexus. From February 2000 to August 2009, 11 patients with schwannomas of the brachial plexus region were surgically treated by a single surgeon. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records and MRI of our cases, and evaluated the neurologic deficit and the recurrence of tumors after surgery. All the cases were proven histologically as schwannomas. The mean age of the patients was 52.6(36~67) years old, 4 of them were male and 7 were female. The tumor was located in the left side in 9 patients, and right in 2. The mean postoperative follow-up was 24.7(6~78) months. Initial presentation was usually painless, palpable mass. The mass was located in various level of the brachial plexus such as root, trunk, cord, or terminal branch level. The size of mass was from $1.5{\times}1.5{\times}0.5$ cm to $11.0{\times}10.0{\times}6.0$ cm. Eight of 11 patients showed no neurologic deficit. Three patients showed postoperative neurologic deficit; two of them had transient sensory deficit, and one of them had weakness of flexor pollicis longus and 2nd flexor digitorum profundus. There were no recurrences. The schwannoma of the brachial plexus region should be considered as a curable lesion with an acceptable surgical risk of injury to neurovascular structures. With precise surgical techniques, these tumors can be removed to improve patient's symptoms with minimal morbidity.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.655-661
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• 2010

To elucidate the mechanism underlying the suppressive regulation of hST8Sia I expression in retinoic acid (RA)-induced SK-MEL-2 cells, we characterized the promoter region of the hST8Sia I gene. Functional analysis of the 5‘-flanking region of the hST8Sia I gene by the transient expression method showed that the -1146 to -646 region, which contains putative binding sites for transcription factors c-Ets-1, CREB, AP-1 and NF-kB, functions as the RA-repressive promoter in SK-MEL-2 cells. Site-directed mutagenesis and ChIP analyses indicated that the NF-kB binding site at -731 to -722 is crucial for the RA-induced repression of hST8Sia I in SK-MEL-2 cells. In addition, the transcriptional activity of hST8Sia I suppressed by RA in SK-MEL-2 cells was strongly inhibited by extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase (ERK) inhibitor U0126 and protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor GO6976, as determined by RT-PCR and luciferase assay of hST8Sia I promoter containing the -1146 to -646 regions. These results suggest that RA markedly modulates transcriptional regulation of hST8Sia I gene expression through the PKC/ERK signal pathway in SK-MEL-2 cells.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.10-20
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• 2014

To study the water-entry impact noise, on-board experiment using a small launcher firing various objects was performed in the Yellow Sea. As the launcher fires a cylindrical object from the ship vertically, generated noise is measured with a hydrophone on the starboard of Chung-hae, Marine surveyor. Three types of cylindrical objects, which have noses of flat-faced, conical, and hemisphere, were used during the experiment. The measured noise exhibits a time-dependency which can be divided into three phases: (1) initial impact phase, (2) open cavity flow phase, (3) cavity collapse and bubble oscillation phase. In most cases, the waveform of bubble oscillation phase is dominant rather than that of initial impact phase. Pinch-off time, where a cavity begins to collapse, occurs at 0.18 ~ 0.2 second and the average lasting time of bubble was 0.9 ~ 1.3 second. The energy of water-entry impact noise is focused in the frequency region lower than 100 Hz, and the generated noise is influenced by the nose shapes, object mass, and launching velocity. As a result, energy spectral density on the bubble frequency is higher in the order of flat-faced, conical, hemisphere nose, and the increase of initial energy raises the energy spectral density on the bubble frequency in the cylinder body of same shape. Finally, we compare the measurements with the simulated signals and spectrum based on the bubble explosion physics, and obtain satisfactory agreements between them.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.97-106
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• 1989

This paper is on the modeling of two-dimensional groundwater flow, which is the first step of the development of Dynamic System Model for groundwater flow and pollutant transport in subsurface porous media. The particular features of the model are its versatility and flexibility to deal with as many real-world problems as possible. Points as well as distributed sources/sinks are included to represent recharges/pumping and rainfall infiltrations. All sources/sinks can be transient or steady state. Prescribed hydraulic head on the Dirichlet boundaries and fluxes on Neumann or Cauchy boundaries can be time-dependent or constant. Sources/sinks strength over each element and node, hydraulic head at each Dirichlet boundary node and flux at each boundary segment can vary independently of each other. Either completely confined or completely unconfined aquifers, or partially confined and partially unconfined aquifers can be dealt with effectively. Discretization of a compound region with very irregular curved boundaries is made easy by including both quadrilateral and triangular elements in the formulation. Large-field problems can be solved efficiently by including a pointwise iterative solution strategy as an optional alternative to the direct elimination solution methed for the matrix equation approximating the partial differential equation of groundwater flow. The model also includes transient flow through confining leaky aquifers lying above and/or below the aquifer of interest. The model is verified against three simple cases to which analytical solutions are available. The groundwater flow model shall be combined with the model of pollutant transport in subsurface porous media. Then the combined model, with the applications of the Eigenvalue technique and the Dynamic system theory, shall be improved to the Dynamic System Model which can simulate the real groundwater flow and the pollutant transport accurately and effectively for the analyses and predictions.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.95-101
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• 1999

We have studied the 1.54$\mu\textrm{m}$ forward and backward stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) and stimulated Brillouin scattering (SRS) for various $CH_4$pressures by 1.06$\mu\textrm{m}$ Q-switched Nd:YAG laser pumping under a repetition rate of Hz in single pass. We obtained that the output of backward SRS was more efficient than that of the forward SRS. The output energy and conversion efficiency of forward and backward SRS were higher than those of SBS since SRS is a steady state, but SBS is a transient state. In a $CH_4$gas uncirculating system, the output energy of the backward SRS and SBS were reduced the about 47% due to a thermal heating of $CH_4$medium in a focusing region for a repetition rate of 5 Hz. But, the output energy of forward SRS was slightly enhanced by about 8.5% due to the increase of the undepleted pump beam in the backward SRS generation. Inthe Raman half resonator using a dichromatic focusing lens, the conversion efficiency of SRS was more than 37% for a input pump laser energy of 40 mJ.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.753-762
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• 2015

This paper presents a nonlinear sliding mode control (SMC) scheme with a variable damping ratio for interior permanent magnet synchronous motors (IPMSMs). First, a nonlinear sliding surface whose parameters change continuously with time is designed. Actually, the proposed SMC has the ability to reduce the settling time without an overshoot by giving a low damping ratio at the initial time and a high damping ratio as the output reaches the desired setpoint. At the same time, it enables a fast convergence in finite time and eliminates the singularity problem with the upper bound of an uncertain term, which cannot be measured in practice, by using a simple adaptation law. To improve the efficiency of a system in the constant torque region, the control system incorporates the maximum torque per ampere (MTPA) algorithm. The stability of the nonlinear sliding surface is guaranteed by Lyapunov stability theory. Moreover, a simple sliding mode observer is used to estimate the load torque and system uncertainties. The effectiveness of the proposed nonlinear SMC scheme is verified using comparative experimental results of the linear SMC scheme when the speed reference and load torque change under system uncertainties. From these experimental results, the proposed nonlinear SMC method reveals a faster transient response, smaller steady-state speed error, and less sensitivity to system uncertainties than the linear SMC method.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.249-255
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• 2013

Intercellular interactions are important for the proper development and regulation of tissue function. This is especially necessary in the epididymis, a part of male reproductive tract where sperm become mature and acquire their fertilizing capacity. The caput region of the epididymis consists of several types of cells, including principal, basal, and apical cells. Direct intercellular communication is thus required to precisely regulate the functions of the caput epididymis. In this regard, connexin (Cx) is a molecule that forms channels, which allow the direct exchange of small molecules between cells, enabling intercellular communication. In this study, the expression of Cx isoforms in the caput epididymis at different postnatal ages was determined by using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis. Nine of 13 Cx isoforms were detected. The transcript levels of Cx30.3, 31, 31.1, 32, and 40 were highest at 45 days of age, while the expression of Cx43 and 45 gradually decreased with age. A substantial fluctuation of Cx26 expression was detected, with significant decreases before and during puberty, followed by a transient increase at adult-hood and rapid decreases at an old age. A significant increase in Cx37 transcript was observed at 25 days of age, followed by gradual decreases at adult and old ages. These results indicate the significant differential expression of various Cx isoforms in the caput epididymis during postnatal development. It further suggests that the functional regulation and developmental maturation of the caput epididymis are highly related to the postnatal age-related differential expression of Cx isoforms.