• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.962-969
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• 2009

The market of building construction has been competitive in Hong Kong, perhaps as anywhere else in the world. The barrier to entry is low because there are relatively low requirements on the three factors of production - technology, manpower and finance. The prevailing building technology is traditional and labour-intensive. There is also not much need of capital because clients' periodic payments have been the main source of project finance. Further, capitalizing on trade sub-contracting, contractors have been able to keep their direct labour-force small and to transfer much of their business risk to the sub-contractors. Based on interviews to solicit the perception of a sample of building contractors on the particular issues of construction finance, we present the findings in this paper and discuss the various implications. We believe that the current practice of construction financing is both the cause and effect of the competition within, and the competitiveness of, the building construction sector in Hong Kong. We conclude that the building construction sector is "locked or stuck" in this "equilibrium" of traditional technology, reliance on clients' finance and exploitation of sub-contracting. In this "equilibrium" state, there is hardly any motivation for contractors to engage themselves in product or process innovation. Consequently, any talk of industry reform or innovation could only remain just that. We believe that this problem is not unique in Hong Kong. The building construction sector in many other developed and developing economies is posed with similar if not the same problems and constraints. We conclude that there has to be some "external forces" to bring this "equilibrium" state to a higher level "equilibrium" one where higher value-added building construction services are supplied and demanded. This is a state where building contractors possessing innovative technology, better financial and manpower resources could thrive to build better buildings with innovative building methods and processes.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.570-578
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• 2023

Experiments on zebrafish embryo toxicity and whitening efficacy, which is an alternative experimental animal model, were conducted using coffee by-products. As a result of the embryo toxicity test treated with the coffee residue extract, the coagulation rate was 3, 3, and 5% at 24, 48, and 72 hpf and concentration of 125 ppm, respectively. The hatching rate of embryos was 73% at the highest concentration of 125 ppm. In the heart beat rate experiment of zebrafish larva, the heart beat rate after 72 hpf was confirmed to be 153 times/60 s' at a concentration of 125 ppm. The negative control group showed no significant change in heart rate compared to the control group at 148 times/60s', and showed low toxicity. In addition, as a result of evaluating the whitening effect in zebrafish, melanin formation was inhibited as the concentration of the coffee residue extract increased. The results of this study suggest the possibility that naturally derived by-product materials can be used as raw materials for cosmetics, and are expected to be used in the cosmetics industry as an example of research that increases the added value of natural product residue.

• Economic Analysis
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.65-97
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• 2020

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of exports on Korea's employment and to decompose driving factors of change in Korea's employment embodied in exports (EEX). This study uses a multi-regional input-output (MRIO) and structural decomposition analysis (SDA) for empirical analysis, and uses a dataset of World Input-Output Tables (WIOTs) and Socio-Economic Accounts (SEAs) from the World Input-Output Database (WIOD). The main findings of the empirical results are summarized as follows. First, Korea's EEX continues to increase and Korea's share of EEX compared to total employment shows an upward trend. However, Korea's employment inducement coefficient of value-added exports showed a downward trend during the 2000-2014 period. Second, final demand from three countries (China, the United States, and the Rest of the World (RoW)) has affected a significant portion of Korea's EEX. Finally, from the results of the SDA, the effect of changes in final demand was the most important driving factor for the increase in Korea's EEX. Based on the results of this empirical analysis, this study discusses useful policy implications that could increase domestic employment in Korea.

• Animal Bioscience
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.797-809
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• 2023

Objective: Many scientists have investigated solutions to reduce microbiological risks in dry-aged meat after the dry-aging technology was revived for high quality and value-added premium meat product in the market. This study aimed to investigate the effect of scoria powder in onggi (Korean earthenware) on the meat quality of pork loins during 21 days of dry aging and to elucidate its mechanism of action. Methods: The pork loins were randomly divided into three groups: aged in vacuum-packaging, onggi containing red clay only (OR), and onggi containing 30% red clay and 70% scoria powder (OS). Microbial analyses (total plate count and Lactobacillus spp.) and physicochemical analyses (pH, shear force, volatile basic nitrogen [VBN], water activity, 2-thiobarbituric acid reactive substances, water content, water holding capacity, cooking loss, and color analysis) of aged meat were conducted. Far-infrared ray emission, quantification of immobilized L. sakei and microstructure of onggi were investigated to understand the mechanism. Results: On day 21, the meat aged in OS exhibited lower pH, shear force, VBN, and water activity than those aged in OR, along with an increase in the number of Lactobacillus spp. OS had a smaller pore diameter than OR, implying lower gas permeability, which could promote the growth of L. sakei. Conclusion: OS improved the microbiological safety and storage stability of pork loin during dry aging by increasing number of Lactobacillus spp. possibly due to low permeability of OS.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.523-529
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• 2023

Cemented uranium tailings backfill created from alkali-activated slag (CUTB) is an effective method of disposing of uranium tailings. Using some environmental functional minerals with ion exchange, adsorption, and solidification abilities as backfill modified materials may improve the leaching resistance of the CUTB. Natural zeolite, which has good ion exchange and adsorption characteristics, is selected as the backfill modified material, and it is added to the backfill materials with cementitious material proportions of 4%, 8%, 12%, and 16% to prepare CUTB mixtures with environmental functional minerals. After the addition of natural zeolite, the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of the CUTB decreases, but the leaching resistance of the CUTB increases. When the natural zeolite content is 12%, the UCS reaches the minimum value of 8.95 MPa, and the concentration of uranium in the leaching solution is 0.28-8.07 mg/L, the leaching rate R₄₂ is 9.61×10^-7 cm/d, and cumulative leaching fraction P₄₂ is 8.53×10^-4 cm, which shows that the alkali-activated slag cementitious material has a good curing effect on the CUTB, and the addition of environmental functional minerals helps to further improve the leaching resistance of the CUTB, but it reduces the UCS to an extent.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.827-832
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• 2007

This study was carried out to develop and characterize a drinking extract of disk abalone to keep the price level and to raise a added value of disk abalone. Fresh raw disk abalone was composed of 29.3% of the shell part, 17.7% of the intestinal part, and 43.9% of the flesh part. and the amount of nutritive substances in the intestinal part were higher those in the flesh part. Arginine was the most abundant amino acid both in raw and drinking extract of disk abalone. Drinking extract prepared with 250 g of the flesh of disk abalone at $100^{\circ}C$ for 2 hours was better in color and overall taste than those made with 150 g or 200 g of the flesh. As the extracting temperature was gradually increased or the extracting period was gradually extended, the extracting effect was slightly improved but the color of the extract turned out to undesirable one. The desirable sea tangle extract could be made when 15 g of sea tangle was extracted in 1 l of water at $100^{\circ}C$ for 2 hours, and which was accorded well with the color of drinking abalone extract. From these results the best drinking extract of disk abalone can be manufactured with 250 g of the abalone flesh extracted in 1 l of water at $100^{\circ}C$ for 2 hours.

• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.44-64
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• 2017

Russia's push in the Asia-Pacific region stems from its interests that have the national, regional and global dimensions. In their turn, the aims of this policy are civilizational, geopolitical, economic and prospective, with a long-term outlook. In the course of their achievement, cooperation with Northeast Asia's countries will play one of the key roles owing to the factors of geographic proximity, Northeast Asia's economic potential, risk hedging and a growing influence Northeast Asia exerts upon the global development. A new cooperation paradigm between Russia and the states of Northeast Asia should be based upon establishing and cementing self-reproducing ties. This is the central aim of Russian initiatives in relations, with Japan, the Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Mongolia and China. However, numerous obstacles ranging from Russia's absence in the regional free trade agreements and supply-production chains of value-added production to the permanent international instability generated by Pyongyang's missile-nuclear developments hamper the practical implementation of this task. Realizing the necessity to give an additional impetus to this new cooperative paradigm, Russia has to develop directions with an apparent consolidating effect. The most promising may be the establishment of a permanent security forum based upon Northeast Asia Peace and Security Mechanism chaired by the Russian Federation. The urgency of this measure and its expected support stem from the necessity to strengthen security in Northeast Asia, a task neither the US-led hub-and-spoke system nor ASE-AN-led multilateral dialogue venues have been able to resolve. The issues addressed at the security forum must include the unification of approaches to North Korean nuclear issue and producing a document specifying actions of the claimants on the disputed maritime territories in the "direct contact" situations. At the expert level, Russia has elaborated on the idea to establish such a forum outlining the spectrum of the key directions of cooperation. With the urgency in the establishment of this dialogue venue, its agenda has to be coordinated with the agendas of the existing security systems presented by the US alliances and the ASE-AN-led multilateral negotiations. The practical implementation of this initiative will strengthen security in Northeast Asia as its challenges will be resolved in the pre-emptive way based on coordinated approaches. Therefore, Russia as the Eurasian state will be one of the role players in the advent of the Asian century.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2022.10a
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• pp.109-109
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• 2022

The global population is increasing every year, and the amount of food waste is also increasing. Direct landfilling of food waste has been prohibited since 2005, and in accordance with the London Convention in 2013, the discharge of livestock manure, sewage sludge, and food waste into the sea is prohibited. In the case of incineration to treat the discharged food waste, the heat point is lowered due to the moisture in the food waste itself, so fuel must be added. Therefore, this study was conducted to get basic data for setting the limit of application by investigating the growth and yield of crops after treating food waste dry powder mixed fertilizer (MF) on red pepper. In the experiment, continuous cultivation was carried out for two years in 2021 (1st year) and 2022 (2nd year). The treatment groups were set as Not Treatment (NT), Chemical Fertilizer (CF), Mixed Fertilizer (MF), Mixed Fertilizer×2 (MF×2). After harvest, crop growth and yield were investigated. As a result of the 1st years of growth survey, CF, MF, MF×2 show significant difference in shoot length compared to NT. About fresh weight and dry weight, CF show significant difference compared to NT. The 2nd years of growth survey, the shoot and root length, fresh weight did not show significant difference with NT. In case of dry weight, MF is significant increased compared to NT. As a result of the yield survey of the 1st year, all treatment groups did not show a significance in yield compared to the NT. In case of 2nd year, all treatment groups show significantly increased value compared to NT. The yield of MF was highest among the treatment groups. In the future, it is thought that it is necessary to quantitatively evaluate the effect of food waste dry powder mixed fertilizer through additional experiments and continuous cultivation, and to establish an appropriate amount of use and establishment of a manual based on this.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.26 no.6_3
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• pp.1297-1303
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• 2023

Research on enhancing the mechanical strength, lightweight properties, electrical conductivity, and thermal conductivity of composite materials by incorporating nano-materials is actively underway. Thermoplastic resins can change their form under heat, making them highly processable and recyclable. In this study, Polyamide-Nylon 6 (PA6), a thermoplastic resin, was utilized, and as reinforcing agents, fused carbon nano-materials (FCN) formed by structurally combining Carbon Nanotube(CNT) and Graphene were employed. Nano-materials often face challenges related to cohesion and dispersion. To address this issue, Silane functional groups were introduced to enhance the dispersion of FCN in PA6. The manufacturing conditions for the composite materials involved determining the use of a dispersant and varying FCN content at 0.05 wt%, 0.1 wt%, and 0.2 wt%. Tensile strength measurements were conducted, and FE-SEM analysis was performed on fracture surfaces. As a result of the tensile strength test, it was confirmed that compared to pure PA6, the strength of the polymer composite with a content of 0.05 wt% was improved by about 60%, for 0.1 wt%, about 65%, and for 0.2 wt%, the strength was improved by 50%. Also, when compared according to the content of FCN, the best strength value was shown when 0.1 wt% was added. The elastic modulus also showed an improvement of about 15% in the case of surface treatment compared to the case without surface treatment, and an improvement of about 70% compared to pure PA6. Through FE-SEM, it was confirmed that the matrix material and silane-modified nanomaterial improved the dispersibility and bonding strength of the interface, helping to support the load evenly and enabling effective stress transfer.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.38-44
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• 2024

Under the influence of atmospheric turbulence, a star's point image will shake back and forth erratically, and after exposure the originally small star point will spread into a huge spot, which will affect the ground calibration of the star sensor. To analyze the impact of atmospheric turbulence on the positioning accuracy of the star's center of mass, this paper simulates the atmospheric turbulence phase screen using a method based on a sparse spectrum. It is added to the static-star-simulation device to study the transmission characteristics of atmospheric turbulence in star-point simulation, and to analyze the changes in star points under different atmospheric refractive-index structural constants. The simulation results show that the structure function of the atmospheric turbulence phase screen simulated by the sparse spectral method has an average error of 6.8% compared to the theoretical value, while the classical Fourier-transform method can have an error of up to 23% at low frequencies. By including a simulation in which the phase screen would cause errors in the center-of-mass position of the star point, 100 consecutive images are selected and the average drift variance is obtained for each turbulence scenario; The stronger the turbulence, the larger the drift variance. This study can provide a basis for subsequent improvement of the ground-calibration accuracy of a star sensitizer, and for analyzing and evaluating the effect of atmospheric turbulence on the beam.