• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.63 no.2
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• pp.51-60
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• 2021

Effective nonpoint source (NPS) pollution management requires frequent water quality monitoring, which is, however, often costly to be implemented in practice. Statistical techniques and machine learning methods allow us to identify and focus on fundamental environmental variables that have close relationships with NPS pollutants of interest. This study developed surrogate models to predict the concentrations of suspended sediment (SS) and total phosphorus (T-P) from turbidity and runoff discharge rates using multiple linear regression (MLR) and random forest (RF) methods. The RF models provided acceptable performance in predicting SS and T-P, especially when runoff discharge rates were high. The RF models outperformed the MLR models in all the cases. Such finding highlights the potential of RF techniques and models as a tool to identify fundamental environmental variables that are measured in relatively inexpensive ways or freely available but still able to provide information required to quantify the concentrations of NP S pollutants. The analysis of relative importance rates showed that the temporal variations of SS and T-P concentrations could be more effectively explained by that of turbidity than runoff discharge rate. This study demonstrated that the advanced statistical techniques such as machine learning could help to improve the efficiency of NPS pollutants monitoring.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.715-731
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• 2021

Uncertainties are calculated for pressurized water reactor (PWR) spent nuclear fuel (SNF) characteristics. The deterministic code STREAM is currently being used as an SNF analysis tool to obtain isotopic inventory, radioactivity, decay heat, neutron and gamma source strengths. The SNF analysis capability of STREAM was recently validated. However, the uncertainty analysis is yet to be conducted. To estimate the uncertainty due to nuclear data, STREAM is used to perturb nuclear cross section (XS) and resonance integral (RI) libraries produced by NJOY99. The perturbation of XS and RI involves the stochastic sampling of ENDF/B-VII.1 covariance data. To estimate the uncertainty due to modeling parameters (fuel design and irradiation history), surrogate models are built based on polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) and variance-based sensitivity indices (i.e., Sobol' indices) are employed to perform global sensitivity analysis (GSA). The calculation results indicate that uncertainty of SNF due to modeling parameters are also very important and as a result can contribute significantly to the difference of uncertainties due to nuclear data and modeling parameters. In addition, the surrogate model offers a computationally efficient approach with significantly reduced computation time, to accurately evaluate uncertainties of SNF integral characteristics.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.137-150
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• 2019

In this paper, surrogate models such as multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) and M5P model tree (M5P MT) methods have been investigated in order to propose a new formulation for the 28-days compressive strength of self-compacting concrete (SCC) incorporating metakaolin as a supplementary cementitious materials. A database comprising experimental data has been assembled from several published papers in the literature and the data have been used for training and testing. In particular, the data are arranged in a format of seven input parameters covering contents of cement, coarse aggregate to fine aggregate ratio, water, metakaolin, super plasticizer, largest maximum size and binder as well as one output parameter, which is the 28-days compressive strength. The efficiency of the proposed techniques has been demonstrated by means of certain statistical criteria. The findings have been compared to experimental results and their comparisons shows that the MARS and M5P MT approaches predict the compressive strength of SCC incorporating metakaolin with great precision. The performed sensitivity analysis to assign effective parameters on 28-days compressive strength indicates that cementitious binder content is the most effective variable in the mixture.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.23-32
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• 2022

Pyroprocessing is a promising technology for managing spent nuclear fuel. The nuclear material accounting of feed material is a challenging issue in safeguarding pyroprocessing facilities. The input material in pyroprocessing is in a solid-state, unlike the solution state in an input accountability tank used in conventional wet-type reprocessing. To reduce the uncertainty of the input material accounting, a double-stage homogenization process is proposed in considering the process throughput, remote controllability, and remote maintenance of an engineering-scale pyroprocessing facility. This study tests two types of mixing equipment in the proposed double-stage homogenization process using surrogate materials. The expected heterogeneity and accounting uncertainty of Pu are calculated based on the surrogate test results. The heterogeneity of Pu was 0.584% obtained from Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) spent fuel of 59 WGd/tU when the relative standard deviation of the mass ratio, tested from the surrogate powder, is 1%. The uncertainty of the Pu accounting can be lower than 1% when the uncertainty of the spent fuel mass charged into the first mixers is 2%, and the uncertainty of the first sampling mass is 5%.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.16-25
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• 2019

Anthropogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are formed by the incomplete combustion of fuels and industrial waste. PAHs can be widely exposed to the environment (water, soil and groundwater). PAHs are potentially toxic, mutagenic and/or carcinogenic. Fundamental studies such as biota uptake (e.g., earthworm and plant) of PAHs are highly needed. It is necessary to develop alternative ways to evaluate bioavailability of PAHs instead of using living organisms because it is time-consuming, difficult to apply in the field, and also exaction method is tedious and time-consuming. In this study, sorption behaviors of phenanthrene were evaluated to predict the fate of PAHs in soils. Moreover, bioaccumulation of PAHs in an artificially contaminated soil was evaluated using pea plant (Pisum sativum) as a bioindicator. A novel passive sampler, organic-diffusive gradient in thin-film (o-DGT) for PAHs was newly synthesized, tested as a biomimic surrogate and compared with plant accumulation. Sorption partitioning coefficient (K_P) and sorption capacity (K_F) were in the order of natural soil > loess corresponding to the increase in organic carbon content (f_oc). Biota-to-soil accumulation factor (BSAF) and DGT-to-soil accumulation factor (DSAF) were evaluated. o-DGT uptake was linearly correlated with pea plant uptake of phenanthrene in contaminated soil (R²=0.863). The Tenax TA based o-DGT as a biomimic surrogate can be used for the prediction of pea plant uptake of phenanthrene in contaminated soil.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.33-40
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• 2016

In this study, a fluorescent silica nano particle is used as the surrogate for challenging test of membrane surface integrity. The particles are functionalized by a fluorescent dying agent so that as an ultraviolet light is imposed a bright fluorescent image from the particles can be taken. If a membrane surface is damaged and has a compromised part larger than the size of surrogate the fluorescent particles would pass through and contained in the permeate. An operator can directly notice whether the membrane surface is damaged or not by detecting a fluorescent image taken from the permeate. Additionally, the size of compromised part is estimated through analysing the fluorescent image in which we surmise the mass of particles included in the permeate by calculating an average RGB value of the image. The pilot scale experiments showed that this method could be applied successfully to determine if a membrane surface had a damaged parts regardless of the test condition. In the testing on the actual damaged area of $4.712mm^2$, the lowest error of estimating the damaged area was -1.32% with the surrogate concentration of 80 mg/L, flux of $40L/m^2/hr$ for 25 minutes of detection. A further study is still going on to increase the lowest detection limit and thus decrease the error of estimation.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.399-405
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• 2010

In order to quantify removal efficiency of Cryptosporidium in water treatment process and evaluate factors influencing removal efficiency of Cryptosporidium in each step of water treatment process, large pilot plant system ($100m^3/day$) and Cryptracer, surrogate of Cryptosporidium, were used. The removal efficiency of Cryptracer was around 0.8~1 log in coagulation process and 3.3~4.8 log in sand filtration process under ordinary environmental conditions. Factors influenced removal efficiency of Cryptracer were high fluctuate turbidity and water temperature. High fluctuate turbidity made difficult to adjust optimum PAC concentration, caused to drop removal efficiency of coagulation process (0.5 log). Inadequate coagulation process influenced to sand filtration process (2.1 log), caused to decline of removal efficiency in the whole process (2.6 log). Low temperature below $2^{\circ}C$ also influenced coagulation process (0.6 log). Therefore, It is shown that careful attention in the control of Cryptosporidium is needed in flood period, when high fluctuate turbidity would be, and winter period of low temperature.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.434-441
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• 2017

Containment venting is one of several essential measures to protect the integrity of the final barrier of a nuclear reactor during severe accidents, by which the uncontrollable release of fission products can be avoided. The authors seek to develop an optimization approach to venting operations, from a simulation-based perspective, using an integrated severe accident code, THALES2/KICHE. The effectiveness of the containment-venting strategies needs to be verified via numerical simulations based on various settings of the venting conditions. The number of iterations, however, needs to be controlled to avoid cumbersome computational burden of integrated codes. Bayesian optimization is an efficient global optimization approach. By using a Gaussian process regression, a surrogate model of the "black-box" code is constructed. It can be updated simultaneously whenever new simulation results are acquired. With predictions via the surrogate model, upcoming locations of the most probable optimum can be revealed. The sampling procedure is adaptive. Compared with the case of pure random searches, the number of code queries is largely reduced for the optimum finding. One typical severe accident scenario of a boiling water reactor is chosen as an example. The research demonstrates the applicability of the Bayesian optimization approach to the design and establishment of containment-venting strategies during severe accidents.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2021.06a
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• pp.96-96
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• 2021

수문기상인자 중 하나인 증발산량은 수자원 계획 및 관리 시 고려되며, 특히 물수지 모형 등의 입력자료로 활용된다. 우리나라를 포함한 각국 기상청 및 국제기구에서는 직접 관측이 아닌 FAO56 Penman-Monteith(PM)을 통해 증발산량을 산출하고 있다. FAO56 PM 방법은 복사(radiation), 대기온도(air temperature), 습도(humidity), 풍속(wind speed) 등의 기상인자로부터 기준증발산량(reference evapotransipiration)을 추정하며, 상대적으로 높은 정확성을 보여준다. 그러나 FAO56 PM 방법은 많은 기상인자를 요구하므로 미계측 유역을 포함한 일부지역에 대한 증발산량 자료 구축이 어려운 실정이다. 또한, 기준증발산량의 특성이 시간에 따라 변화하므로 비정상성(nonstationary)을 고려한 분석이 요구된다. 본 연구에서는 온도인자 기반의 대체모형(surrogate model)을 개발하여 기준증발산량의 비정상성을 고려하고자 한다. 한강유역에 위치한 관측소를 대상으로 모형을 개발하였으며, 시간에 따라 변동하는 기준증발산량의 특성을 고려하기 위해 Bayesian 추론기법을 통해 매개변수를 시간에 따라 추정하였다. 또한, 본 연구에서는 대체모형으로 산정된 증발산량을 활용해 가뭄지수인 EDDI(evaporative demand drought index)를 제시하였다. 가뭄 모니터링 및 조기 경보 안내를 위해 개발된 EDDI를 활용하여 기존 가뭄보다 빠르게 진행되는 초단기 가뭄(flash drought)를 평가하였다. 본 연구에서 개발된 모형은 미계측 지역에서도 적용이 가능하므로 수자원분야에서 활용성이 높을 것으로 사료된다.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2020.06a
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• pp.184-184
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• 2020

수자원 계획 및 관리 시 증발산량의 정량적 분석은 필수적으로 고려되는 사항 중 하나이다. 일단위 이하의 잠재증발산량 산정은 세계식량기구(FAO)가 Penman-Monteith 방법을 기반으로 개발한 FAO56 PM 방법을 주로 활용하며, 이는 다른 방법에 비하여 높은 정확성과 적용성이 뛰어나다. 그러나 FAO56 PM 방법의 입력 매개변수는 다양한 기상자료이며, 장기간의 신뢰성 높은 자료를 구축하는 것은 어려운 실정이다. 이에 본 연구에서는 증발산량 공식인 Hargreaves 공식을 활용하여 FAO56 PM 방법으로 산정된 잠재증발산량과 기온차 사이의 시계열 관계를 재구성한 회귀분석 기법을 개발하였다. 개발된 모형에 유역면적을 적용하여 유역면적별 잠재증발산량을 산정하였으며, 이를 기존의 잠재증발산량과의 비교를 통해 모형의 적합성을 평가하였다. 결과적으로, 복잡한 잠재증발산량식을 단순한 대체모형(surrogate model)으로 제시함으로써 효율적인 증발산량 정량적 평가와 제한적인 기상자료 조건에 보편적 활용이 가능하다. 향후 연구에서는 회귀분석방법에 Bayesian 추론기법을 활용하여 구성함으로 잠재증발산량의 불확실성을 정량적으로 표현하고자 한다.