• Proceedings of the PSK Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.165.1-165.1
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• 2003

This research was designed to examine the presence of mutagenic/carcinogenic compounds in airborne pollutants in diesel particulate matter using an integrated biological approach. Respirable air borne particulate matter (PM2.5: <2.5mm) was collected from diesel engine exhaust using a high-volume sampler equipped with a cascade impactor. (omitted)

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.177-179
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• 2001

Traditional wet chemical methods for testing of soil properties require extensive time and labor, and cause the discharge of pollutants, making them undesirable for routine soil analyses. This research was conducted to improve the accuracy of soil properties in soil fertility assessments. A total of 140 finely ground soil samples were used to obtain accurate calibrations and validation for estimating soil moisture, OM, and T-N. Finely ground soil samples satisfied the improved accuracy for routine NIR measuring of the field soils. The results indicated that NIR spectroscopy could be used as a routine method for quantitatively determining OM, moisture, and T-N of field soil, although this technique requires many combinations of sample pretreatments and data manipulations to obtain optimal predictions.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.23-30
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• 2009

Slow sand filtration (SSF) was the first engineered/mechanical filtration process used in drinking water treatment. In SSF, untreated water slowly percolate through a bed of porous sand. Biological activity within the sand bed have the strongest influence on removal efficiency of pollutants by slow sand filtration. In this study, the microbial population distributions in slow sand filters operated at the various operation conditions was evaluated. The concentrations of $10^4$ to $10^5$ CFU per g dry wt. were observed. No significant differences were seen between the number of filter-covered materials. The data indicate that the temperature has affect on population distribution. Also, the light exposure was influenced on microorganism in slow sand filtration according to the heterotropic plate counts. The role of microorganism within the sand media requires further study.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 1992.12a
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• pp.1-18
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• 1992

The contaminatlon of soil and groundwater by leachate from impmperly managed landfills, or by cheiicals and gasoline leaked flu underground storage tanks has buou a serious urldwide environmental problei. Most of those contaminants are adsorptive and absorptive into soul, while they are hardly soluble in water. Thus, the rate of self purification is very slow, causing persistent problems in water use and environmental protection when the contamination is left untreated. Biological remediatlon technologies utilize the ertraordlnary caperbllity of microorganisms In degrading a tilde spectrum of organic compounds. Among them, an in situ bioremediation technology Involves injection of supplementary materials into the subsurfce in order to bring about a significant Increase in the microbial activity. The Increased microbial activity helps remove the pollutants in situ, that is, without digging out contaminants, soil, or water. This paper focused on the features, possibilities, and limitations of the bioremedition technology.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.815-821
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• 2011

This study aims to estimate the biological decomposition capacity of MPC(Microorganism Porous-Concrete). MPC has specific surface area formed by inside pores, and bio compound was added to those pores to reduce pollutants loading. To evaluate the water purification capacity of MPC, we carried out the comparative studies using different media types [GPC(General Porous-concrete), CPC(Compound porous-concrete), LPC(Lightweight aggregate porous-concrete)] under the condition of CFSTR, and different retention times (30, 60 and 120 min). We also estimated the purification capacity of MPC under different concentrations of pollutant loadings. The MPC showed higher efficiency in water purification function than other conventional porous concretes with efficient decrease rates of SS, BOD, COD, and nutrient concentrations. In the comparison experiment for different retention times, MPC showed the highest removal efficiency for all tested pollutants in the longest retention time(120 min). In the long period test, the removal efficiencies of MPC concrete were high until 100 days after the set up of the operation, but began to decrease. Outflow flux was invariable compared with inflow flux so that extra detention time for media fouling such as back washing is not needed. But the results suggested that appropriate management is necessary for long-term operation of MPC. As the final outcome, MPC using bio organisms is considered to be efficient for stream water purification when they used as substrates for artificial river structure.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.225-229
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• 2003

Plant ash and soil drainage, derived by frequent mountain fires during winter, might cause biological contamination to seaweeds at seashore and river mouse area. To thalli of Ulva pertusa, maximum non-lethal concentration(MNLC), lethal concentration 50 $(LC_{50})$ and minimum lethal concentration (MLC) of pine needle ash were shown as 60, 350 and 550 mg/mL, respectively. The yellow loess and granite sand did not damage at concentrations of 20 and 200 mg/mL, respectively To thalli of Porphyra yezoensis, the MNLC, LC5O, MLC of pine needle ash were shown as 0.08, 0.4 and 1.0 mg/mL, respectively. Effects of yellow loess and granite sand were approximately 1/2 and 1/10 of the ash. To thalli of Undaria pinnatifida, the pine needle ash, yellow loess and granite sand did not damage at the concentration range of 20 to 40 mg/mL. Change of pigments $(chlorophyll\;\alpha,\;lutein,\;\beta-carotene,\;phycoerthrin)$ was also determined at the MNLC, $LC-{50}$ and MLC of pine needle ash. Among three seaweeds tested, P. yezoensis produced the most 2.7-fold of lutein and 2.3-fold of $\beta-carotene$ at $LC-{50}$ of the ash. Thus the P. yezoensis, appeared as a sensitive indicator, could be used as one of test organisms for determination of the biological effect of pollutants contaminated in marine environment.

• Molecular & Cellular Toxicology
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.179-186
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• 2009

Hexachlorobenzene (HCB) is a bioaccumulative, persistent, and toxic pollutant. HCB is one of the 12 priority of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) intended for global action by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Governing Council. POPs are organic compounds that are resistant to environmental degradation through chemical, biological, and photolytic processes. Some of HCB is ubiquitous in air, water, soil, and biological matrices, as well as in major environmental compartments. HCB has effects on various organs such as thyroid, bone, skin, kidneys and blood cells and especially, revealed strong toxicity to liver. In this study, we identified genes related to hepatotoxiciy induced by HCB in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2) cells using microarray and gene ontology (GO) analysis. Through microarray analysis, we identified 96 up- and 617 down-regulated genes changed by more than 1.5-fold by HCB. And after GO analysis, we determined several key pathways which known as related to hepatotoxicity such as metabolism of xenobiotics by cytochrome P450, complement and coagulation cascades, and tight junction. Thus, our present study suggests that genes expressed by HCB may provide a clue for hepatotoxic mechanism of HCB and gene expression profiling by toxicogenomic analysis also affords promising opportunities to reveal potential new mechanistic markers of toxicity.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.381-391
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• 2011

Many lichens have been used as bioindicators for air pollutants such as $SO_2$. The first ecological study on lichens in Korea was conducted in 1975 by Kim and Lee, disclosing that areas adjacent to the center of Seoul were lichen deserts. Air quality in Seoul has improved significantly since the 1980s. However, the distribution of lichen species has not been reevaluated since then. We examined the spatial and temporal pattern of lichen distribution by selecting six (inner city green [ICG] and four (outer city green [OCG]) sites, based on the distance from the city center of Seoul and the land use pattern. The change in lichen distribution was related to yearly mean concentrations of $SO_2$, $NO_2$, and $O_3$ for the years 1980-2009. Four and 13 lichen species were found in ICGs and OCGs, respectively. Although mean sample numbers per species were much higher in the former, species richness tended to increase with distance from the city center. Since 1980, $SO_2$ has declined drastically to < 0.01 ppm in both ICGs and OCGs, indicating that $SO_2$ is no longer a limiting factor for lichen establishment and growth. In contrast, $NO_2$ has increased steadily for 20 years (1989-2009) and a considerable proportion of lichen species in both ICGs and OCGs are known as nitrophilic or pollution-tolerant species. Appearance of nitrophiles in both ICGs and OCGs and the dominance of a few lichen species in ICGs may reflect the effects of the increase in $NO_2$. In contrast to $SO_2$ and $NO_2$, $O_3$ was higher in OCGs, but it was difficult to identify a causal relationship between $O_3$ and lichen distribution.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.63 no.4
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• pp.401-406
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• 2020

The plant uptake of endosulfan, a new persistent organic pollutants from soil environment was investigated on ginseng through the field survey in Korea. The endosulfan residues in soil for this survey were ranged on 0.013-0.136 mg kg-1. The plant uptake factor (PUF) for endosulfan in ginseng was 0.243-1.708 and the highest PUF was found on 3-year-old ginseng. The PUF for endosulfan decreased in the longer cultivation period and it might be caused by the dilution effect of ginseng growth. In addition, the soil organic matter (SOM) content affected on the PUF negatively and Pearson correlation coefficient (r) between SOM and PUF was -0.7812 (p <0.05). Thus, higher SOM would positively affect to reduce the endosulfan residue in ginseng root.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.67-77
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• 2008

It has been observed that the linear relationship between the logarithm of bioconcentration factor (log BCF) of highly hydrophobic chemicals and their log $K_{ow}$ breaks when log $K_{ow}$ becomes greater than 6.0. Consequently, super hydrophobic chemicals were not thought to cause baseline toxicity as a single compound. Researchers often call this phenomenon as "hydrophobicity cutoff" meaning that bioconcentration or corresponding baseline toxicity has a certain cutoff at high log $K_{ow}$ value of hydrophobic organic pollutants. The underlying assumption is that the increased molecular size with increasing hydrophobicity prohibits highly hydrophobic compounds from crossing biological membranes. However, there are debates among scientists about mechanisms and at which log $K_{ow}$ this phenomenon occurs. This paper reviews three hypotheses to explain observed "cutoff": steric effects, kinetic or physiological limitations, and chemical activity cutoff. Although the critical molecular size that makes biological membranes not permeable to hydrophobic organic chemicals is uncertain, size effects in combination with kinetic limitation would explain observed non-linearity between log BCF and log $K_{ow}$. Chemical activity of hydrophobic chemicals generally decreases with increasing melting point at their aqueous solubility. Thus, there may be a chemical activity cutoff of baseline toxicity if there is a critical chemical activity over which baseline effects can be observed.