• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.127-137
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• 2018

Radioactive contamination has become an important environmental concern after the accident occurred in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plants. $^{134}Cs$ and $^{137}Cs$ are the major fission products and they are main problems in radioactive contamination. Huge amounts of Cs were released during the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plants accident and as a result of this incident, many researchers focused on the development of adsorbents for decontamination of radiotoxic cesium. This review will critically evaluate recent advances in the preparation of Prussian blue and its analogue compounds, which are promising materials for cesium removal. Furthermore, this review will discuss recent studies on the cesium adsorption using different types of clay and clay based adsorbents and summarize various types of newly developed Cs adsorbents reported in recent years.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.226-233
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• 2011

Exactly 25 years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, 11th of March 2011 the Fukushima nuclear accident occurred in Japan and was ranked at level 7 same to the Chernobyl. A Korean and Japanese joint civil survey was conducted around Fukushima on April 13-17. The radiation survey data clearly shows a large hotspot area between 20 km and 50 km radius north and west direction from the accident reactors, with the highest radiation recorded being 55.64 ${\mu}Sv/hr$ in the air, 99.89 ${\mu}Sv/hr$ in the surface air, and 36.16 ${\mu}Sv/hr$ in a car, respectively. 3.65 ${\mu}Sv/hr$ in the air and 6.89 ${\mu}Sv/hr$ in the surface air were detected at the playground of an elementary school in Fukushima City. Spring came with full cherry blossoms in Fukushima, but it was silent spring of radiation contamination. Interviews with Fukushima nuclear refugees reveal serious problems about Japanese nuclear safety systems, such as there was no practical evacuation drill within 1-10 km and no plan at all for 10-30 km areas. Several reforms items for Korean nuclear safety system can be suggested: minimization of accident damage, clear separation of regulatory and safety bureaus with a new and independent administrating agency, community participation and agreement regarding the safety system and levels, which is the major concern of 80% Korean. To tackle threats of nuclear disaster in neighboring nations like China, a new position entitled 'Ambassador for nuclear safety diplomacy' is highly necessary. The nuclear safety of Korea should no longer be the monopoly of those nuclear engineers and limited technocrats criticized as a 'nuclear mafia'.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.445-460
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• 2018

Exposure to indoor air pollution is an emerging world-wide problem, with growing evidence that it is a major cause of morbidity worldwide. Whilst most indoor air pollutants are of outdoor origin, these combine with a range of indoor sourced pollutants that may lead to high pollutant levels indoors. The pollutants of greatest concern are volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and particulate matter (PM), both of which are associated with a range of serious health problems. Whilst current buildings usually use ventilation with outdoor air to remove these pollutants, botanical systems are gaining recognition as an effective alternative. Whilst many years research has shown that traditional potted plants and their substrates are capable of removing VOCs effectively, they are inefficient at removing PM, and are limited in their pollutant removal rates by the need for pollutants to diffuse to the active pollutant removal components of these systems. Active botanical biofiltration, using green wall systems combined with mechanical fans to increase pollutant exposure to the plants and substrate, show greatly increased rates of pollutant removal for both VOCs, PM and also carbon dioxide ($CO_2$). A developing body of research indicates that these systems can outperform existing technologies for indoor air pollutant removal, although further research is required before their use will become widespread. Whilst it is known that plant species selection and substrate characteristics can affect the performance of active botanical systems, optimal characteristics are yet to be identified. Once this research has been completed, it is proposed that active botanical biofiltration will provide a cheap and low energy use alternative to mechanical ventilations systems for the maintenance of indoor environmental quality.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.323-335
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• 2017

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to analyze the current status of nutrition education programs for multicultural families and to provide policy suggestions for improvement. Methods: In-depth interviews of a total of 21 multicultural experts were conducted; 15 people were interviewed individually, while 6 people were interviewed in groups of three. Results: In-depth interviews revealed various problems related to the operation of nutrition education programs. The causes of problems were analyzed and categorized as four factors: systemic, practical, environmental and cultural. As for the systematic factors, insufficient linkage between related organizations and duplicate performance of several projects were identified as concerns Establishment of a control tower and strengthening the linkage among the related organizations may be needed to address this concern. With regard to practical factors, the study identified that language barriers, and lack of nutritional education media and tools translated into multicultural languages were limiting factors. These limitations the development of nutrition education materials that aretranslated into multiple languages, implementation of education programs that are different from the Korean education, and by providing interpreters. As for the environmental factors, low educational level and poor nutritional knowledge of multicultural women made it difficult for them to understand the contents of the education. Demonstration, practical training and urgent education on pregnancy and childbirth nutrition were identified as needs to address these concerns. Withregard to cultural factors, food culture conflict with Korean families, and difficulties in home practices were detected as concerns. Participants in the study suggested that getting education with family and facilitation of weekend and nighttime programs health of this community. Conclusions: Further studies are needed to adopt more effective and efficient nutrition intervention to promote the healthy eating of the married immigrant women based on the study results.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Navigation
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.77-97
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• 1995

The protection of the marine environment is one of the main international legal problems in recent years. In parallel with the industrial development, a great quantity of chemical materials were used and in consequence, mass transportation of oil and other dangerous materials was required on the one hand, and discharge of industrial wasters drew also the attention on the other hand. Furthermore, oil tankers accidents, mass use of nuclear materials, sea-bed exploration and exploitation stimulated further deep human concern on the marine environment. The expansion of international concern to new and more dangerous sources of marine pollution regarded more strict and legal control on the Oil Tanker(DWT 95, 000tons, Cb=0.805) model. Calculation results are compared to the international, especially regional level. In particular, this study is concerned with the preservation of the Northeast Asian Seas surrounded by Japan, the Russian Far East, South Korea, North Korea, China and Taiwan. These adjacent countries must intensify cooperation regarding the prevention, reduction and control of the contamination of the sea. And this cooperation between the States concerned should, as much as possible, be aimed at maximizing the effectiveness of measures to prevent or abate transboundary environmental pollution. To achieve this purpose, States concerned should be imposed upon duties such as duty to assess the environmental impact, duty to inform, duty to consult and duty to assist on the basis of general principle of international law, international customary law and other various resolutions of international bodies. Depending on the nature and extent of actual or potential transboundary pollution with the use of a natural resource or the environment in general the establishment of some form of institutionalized cooperation between the States concerned may become useful or indispensable. The functions of this Organization are, inter alia, to keep the implementation of the Convention and the protocals under continuous observation, to make recommendations on regional or sub-regional rules and standards to be elaborated and on measures to be taken by the Contracting Parties, to be notified of any grave and imminent danger from pollution or threat of pollution by the Contracting Parties and to promote in close cooperation with appropriate governmental bodies additional measures to protect the marine environment of the Northeast Asian Seas, and so on. Above mentioned countries, first of all, are located within the Northeast Asian Seas geographically and, therefore, take responsibilities of preserving the clean sea against marine interferences regardless of any difference of the social, political and economic systems. They must be followed under the UNCLOS and other marine conventions. Under the present circumstances, Northeast Asian Seas will become dead seas in case that there is no instant and prompt action against pollution. Hence we have an absolute obligation to promote the development of the mandatory international environmental law, which in turn can faciliate more effective implementation of the regional cooperation by the neighbouring states within this area.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.13-19
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• 2020

Recently, as the number of earthquakes increases in the Korean Peninsula and surrounding area, the importance of earthquake countermeasures and seismic design has been increasing. As a result, interest and concerns about liquefaction, which is one of the problems that concern the earthquake, are increasing. There are various methods that can assess the possibility of liquefaction by using geotechnical information for specific ground. However, direct comparisons of each method are not yet available. In this study, the two methods using the SPT-N value and the shear wave velocity among the methods for estimating the Cyclic Resistance Ratio (CRR) value required for the simplified liquefaction assessment method were compared. And the correction of the ground information required to use the two methods respectively was compared. As a result, more accurate evaluation results were obtained when the CRR value is calculated using the SPT-N values.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.312-319
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• 2003

In late 90s, organizations recognized the information technology as an key enabler of the business strategic accomplishment which lead them heavy increment on IT investment. These organizations tried to hold the competitive advantage by focusing on their core competency. And these acts raise their interests on IT outsourcing. Recent trends of the organizations concern on evaluating the effectiveness of the previous IT investment and the reasonable selection on IT investment type. Also, the objective evaluation of the service level and continuous improvement are major concern of the outsourcer. Consequently, interests on Service Level Agreement (SLA), an immanence operating tool for managing the level of the information system service objectively and qualitatively, were raised among IT outsourcing service providers, outsourcers, and operating departments. Yet, only a few domestic conglomerates adopted the SLA, and exact usage of the SLA is currently unknown. Because of the importance of the SLA between a service provider and an outsourcer, the agreement is treated with high confidentiality. This raised the problems to both the private and public organizations, are considering the SLA, with absence of concrete guide line to internalize SLA management process. This study provides the organizational and environmental factors of the adopting and applying the Service Level Agreement (SLA) by conducting multiple case research. The sampled companies are currently implementing the SLA over 1 year of usage period. Factors were used to provide the operational contribution for implementing the SLA. The study also provides the effects on IT performance through the SLA. For this, in depth interview was conducted for each sampled company. As a result, if SLA between outsourcer and service provider can be used as an immanence operation tool and actively implemented, SLA will be an strategic tool for various decision making in IT management practice with long term relationship, better shared partnership, and continuous service improvement.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.586-599
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• 2014

During the last two decades, indoor air quality and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have been of concern in Korean society due to their nature of potential health impacts. In order to investigate the pollution levels of VOCss in indoor environments, establishment of a solid test method for monitoring the airborne VOCss is essential. In Korea, a method based on adsorbent sampling and GC analysis coupled with thermal desorption was proclaimed as the Korea Standard Method for Indoor Air Quality Test. This study was carried out to examine some inherent problems of the VOCs measurement method. The VOCs method does not describe in detail preparing the standard samples. The standard samples may be prepared by impregnation of either liquid standard solutions or a mixture of standard gases. In this study, we investigated the optimal temperature condition for transferring the liquid standards onto a standard adsorbent tube. As a result, keeping the impregnation temperature at $250^{\circ}C$ will be recommended in regard of the boiling points of multiple target analytes and the thermal stability of the adsorbent. We also demonstrated some problems associated with handling of a syringe used for transferring the standard solutions onto the adsorbent tubes, and a best way to get rid of the syringe problems was suggested. Finally, a number of field works were conducted to evaluate the performance of adsorbent sampling methods. Comparison of different adsorbent tubes, i.e. tube packed with single sorbent (Tenax) and double sorbents (Tenax with Carbotrap), revealed that 30 to 40% differences between the two groups, implying that sampling efficiency is depending on the volatility and the strength of adsorbents. However, duplicate precisions for VOCs sampling with a same type of adsorbent and at same flow rates appeared to be satisfactory to be all within 20%, which is a quality control guideline. Distributed volume precisions were also found to be within a guideline value, 25%, although the precision was in general inferior to the duplicate precision. The Korea indoor VOCs test method should be more refined and improved in many aspects, particularly procedure and instrumentation for preparing the standard samples and specification of quality control assessment.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.69-89
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• 2020

Scientific trust and quantification of traditional species investigation and results that have been used in ecology for decades has always been a problem and concern for ecologists. Global ecologists have proposed DNA-based species investigation studies to find answers to problems. In this study, we reviewed the global trend of research on environmental DNA(eDNA), which is a method for monitoring species by detecting DNA of organisms naturally mixed in environmental samples such as water, soil, and feces. The first eDNA research confirmed the possibility of species investigation at the molecular level, and commercialization of NGS(Next Generation Sequencing) and DNA metabarcoding elicits efficient and quantitative species investigation results, and eDNA research is increasing in the filed of ecology. In this study, mammals and birds were detected using MiMammal universal primers from 23 samples(3 natural reserves; 20 water bowls) out of 4 patches to verify eDNA for urban ecosystems in Suwon, and eDNA was verified by performing camera trapping and field survey. Most terrestrial species were detected through eDNA, and particularly, mice(Mus musculus), and Vinous-throated Parrotbill (Sinosuthora webbiana) were identified only with eDNA, It has been confirmed to be highly effective by investigating techniques for small and internal species. However, due to the lack of resolution of the primer, weasels(Mustela sibirica) and squirrels(Melanochromis auratus) were not detected, and it was confirmed that the traditional investigation method was effective only for a few species, such as Mogera robusta(Mogera robusta). Therefore, it is judged that the effects of species investigation can be maximized only when eDNA is combined with traditional field survey and Camera trapping to complement each other.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.25-48
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• 1993

International concern over the environmental pollution is ever increasing, and diversified countermeasures must be devised in Korea also. Global trend, damages, problems and countermeasures with respect to issues mentioned in the Rio Declaration, such as prevention of ozone layer destruction, reduction of migratory atmospheric pollution between neighboring countries, and prevention of global greenhouse effect, were discussed in this report. Conclusion of the report is summarized as follows : A. Measurement, Planning and Monitoring (1) Development and implementation of a global network for measurement and monitoring from the global aspects such factors as related to acid rain(Pioneer substances, pH, sulfate, nitrate), effect of global temperature(Air temperature, $CO_2$, $CH_4$, CFC, $N_2O$) and destruction of ozone layer($CFC_S$). (2) Establishment of network system via satellite monitoring movement of regional air mass, damage on the ozone layer and ground temperature distribution. B. Elucidation of Present State (1) Improvement and development of devices for carbon circulation capable of accurately forecasting input and output of carbon. (2) Developmental research on chemical reactions of greenhouse gas in the air. (3) Improvement and development of global circulation model(GCM) C. Impact Assessment Impact assessment on ecosystem, human body, agriculture, floodgate, land use, coastal ecology, industries, etc. D. Preventive Measures and Technology Development (1) Development and consumption of new energy (2) Development of new technology for removal of pioneer substances (3) Development of substitute matter for $CFC_S$ (4) Improvement of agriculture and forestry means to prevent the destruction of ozone layer and the greenhouse effect of the globe (5) Improvement of housing to prevent the destruction of ozone layer and the greenhouse effect of the globe (6) Development of new technology for probing underground water (7) Preservation of forest (8) Biomass 5. Policy Development (1) Development of strategy model (2) Development of long term forecast model (3) Development of penalty charge effect and expense evaluation methods (4) Feasibility study on regulations By establishing the above mentioned measures for environmentally sound and sustainable development to establish the right to live for humankind and to preserve the one and only earth.