• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.548-555
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• 2018

Objectives: We conducted ecological risk assessment for cadmium, a heavy metal and carcinogen, to identify safety standards by environmental media and to determine its impact on ecosystems by estimating and evaluating exposure levels. Methods: Species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) were generated using ECOTOX DB. A hazardous concentration of 5% (HC5) protective of most species (95%) in the environment was estimated. Using this estimate, predicted no effect concentrations (PNECs) were calculated for aquatic organisms. Based on the calculated PNECs for aquatic organisms, PNEC values for soil and sediment were calculated using the partition coefficient. Predicted exposure concentrations (PECs) were also calculated from environmental monitoring data with hazard quotients (HQs) calculated using PNECs for environmental media. Results: Chronic toxicity data were categorized into four groups and 11 species. In species sensitivity distribution (SSD) analysis, HC5 was $0.340{\mu}g/L$. Based on this value, the PNEC value for aquatic organisms was calculated as $0.113{\mu}g/L$. PNEC values for soil and sediments using a partition coefficient were calculated as 15.02 mg/kg and 90.61 mg/kg, respectively. In an analysis of environmental monitoring data, PEC values were calculated as $0.017{\mu}g/L$ for water, 1.01 mg/kg for soil, and 0.521 mg/kg for sediment. Conclusions: HQs were 0.150, 0.067 and 0.006 for water, soil and sediment, respectively. HQs of secondary toxicity were 0.365 for birds and 0.024 for mammals. In principle, it is judged that an HQ above 1 indicates a high level of risk concern while an HQ less than 1 indicates an extremely low level of risk concern. Therefore, with HQs of cadmium in the environment being <1, its risk levels can be considered low for each media.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.20-28
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• 2021

Perfluorinated compounds(PFCs), an emerging environmental pollutant, are environmentally persistent and bioaccumulative organic compounds that possess a toxic impact on human health and ecosystems. PFCs are distributed widely in environment media including groundwater, surface water, soil and sediment. PFCs in contaminated solid can potentially leach into groundwater. Therefore, understanding PFCs partitioning between the aqueous phase and solid phase is important for the determination of their fate and transport in the environment. In this study, the sorption equilibrium batch and kinetic experiment of PFCs were carried out to estimated the sorption coefficient(K_d) and the fraction between aqueous-solid phase partition, respectively. Sorption branches of the PFDA(Perfluoro-n-decanoic acid), PFNA(Perfluoro-n-nonanoic acid), PFOA(Perfluoro-n-octanoic acid), PFOS(Perfluoro-1-octane sulfonic acid) and PFHxS(Perfluoro-1-hexane sulfonic acid) isotherms were nearly linear, and the estimated K_d was as follow: PFDA(1.50) > PFOS(1.49) > PFNA(0.81) > PFHxS(0.45) > PFOA(0.39). The sorption kinetics of PFDA, PFNA, PFOA, PFOS and PFHxS onto soil were described by a biexponential adsorption model, suggesting that a fast transport into the surface layer of soil, followed by two-step diffusion transport into the internal water and/or organic matter of soil. Shorter times(<20hr) were required to achieve equilibrium and fraction for adsorption on solid(F₁, F₂) increased with perfluorinated carbon chain length and sulfonate compounds in this study. Overall, our results suggested that not only the perfluorocarbon chain length, but also the terminal functional groups are important contributors to electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions between PFCs and soils, and organic matter in soils significantly affects adsorption maximum capacity than kinetic rate.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.848-854
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• 2011

The objective of this research was to experimentally test the effect of rice straw mats on the reduction of runoff, sediment and discharge under a laboratory scale with different rainfall intensity and slopes. We used the small runoff plots of $1m{\times}1m{\times}0.65m$ ($L{\times}W{\times}H$) in size were filled with loamy sand. Experimental treatments were bare (control), rice straw mats + PAM(SP), rice straw mats + PAM + sawdust(SPS) and rice straw mats + PAM + rice husks(SPR); slope of 10% or 20%; and rainfall intensity of 30 or 60 mm/hr. Runoff volume and coefficient from covered plots were significantly lower than those from control plots. Under the 30 mm/hr and 10% simulations, average runoff coefficient of covered plots decreased more than 92%. Under 60 mm/hr and 20% simulations, the ratios were between 39.8~58.1%. Under the condition of 30 mm/hr rainfall and 10% slope, sediment discharge from covered plots was practically zero. And at 20% plots, sediment reduction ratio was more than 95%. Under the condition of 60 mm/hr rainfall, sediment reduction ratio of 10 and 20% plots ranged between 86.3~95.3% and between 79.8~86.5%, respectively. The differences in initial runoff time, runoff and sediment discharge among different cover materials were not significant. Rainfall intensity showed higher impact on initial runoff time, runoff, and sediment discharge than slope. It was also shown that even if runoff reduction by surface cover were low, sediment discharge reduction could be very significant and contribute to improve the water quality of streams in sloping agricultural regions. It was concluded that the use of straw mat and PAM on sloping agricultural fields could reduce soil erosion and muddy runoff significantly and help improve the water quality and aquatic ecosystem in receiving waters.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.522-528
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• 2021

This is an investigative study to identify the degree of post-traumatic stress and anxiety of nurses in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to analyze the relationship with the nurse's belief in behavior and control that affects nursing intentions to determine their impact on the belief in behavior. The subjects of this study were nurses with experience of directly nursing COVID-19 patients at medical institutions located in Gyeonggi-do. The SPSS 22.0 version was used for the descriptive analysis, independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficients and multiple regression. Post-traumatic stress of the participants in this study was found to be 24.20±20.58, anxiety 48.31±6.61, behavior beliefs -1.00±17.12, and control beliefs 3.41±11.66. According to this study, the belief in conduct is negatively correlated with post-traumatic stress (r=-4.71, p<).001) and showed a significant negative correlation with anxiety (r=-2.248, p<.05). There was no significant correlation with control beliefs (p>.05). Based on the results of this study, it is proposed to develop an appropriate psychological arbitration program for mediating post-traumatic stress in order to promote the nurse's behavior beliefs.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.75-85
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• 2022

Background: Various types of semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) exist in the public's living environment. They occur in different forms in terms of their physical and chemical properties and partition coefficients. As a consequence, indoor exposure to SVOCs occurs via various routes, including inhalation of air and airborne particles, skin contact, and dust intake. Objectives: To propose a method for assessing human exposure to the SVOCs occurring in the air of an indoor environment, the concentrations of SVOCs in house dust and organic films measured in a real residential environment were estimated in terms of gas-phase concentration using the partition coefficient. Assessment of inhalation exposure to SVOCs was performed using this method. Methods: Phthalates were collected from samples of house dust and organic films from 110 households in a real residential environment. To perform an exposures assessment of the phthalates present in organic films, gas-phase concentration was calculated using the partition coefficient. The airborne gas-phase concentrations of phthalates from the house dust and organic films were estimated and exposure assessment was performed based on the assumption of inhalation exposure from air. Results: As a result of the exposure assessment for gas-phase phthalates from house dust and organic films, preschool children showed the highest level of inhalation of phthalates, followed by school children, adults, and adolescents. Conclusions: This study includes the limitation of not considering different SVOCs exposure pathways in the health impact assessment, including those of phthalates in the indoor living environment. However, this study has the significance of performing exposure assessment based on exposure to SVOCs present in indoor air that originated from organic films in the indoor residential environment. Therefore, the results of this study should be useful as basic data for exposure and health risk assessments of SVOCs associated with organic films in the indoor environment.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.100-106
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• 2022

The relationships between river length and weir density versus fish species observed were analyzed for 210 local rivers in the Seomjin River system (SJR). A nonlinear exponential relationship between river length and number of fish species were observed. Model coefficient was 0.03 and coefficient of determinant (R²) was 0.59, meaning that about 59.0% of total variance was explained by river length variable. Predicted value by model and observed number of species showed a difference. About 110 local rivers (about 52.4%) showed lower value than predictive value. The average index of weir's density (IWD) in the SJR was about 2.7/km, which was significantly higher than that of other river basins. As a result of nonparametric 2-Kimensional Kolmogorov-Smirnov (2-DKS) analysis based on the IWD, the threshold value affecting fish diversity was about 2.5/km (D_max=0.048, p<0.05). Above the threshold value, it means that the number of fish species would be decreased. In fact, the ratio of the expected species to the observed species was lowered to less than 70%, when the IWD is higher than the threshold value. To maintain aquatic ecological connectivity in future, it is necessary to manage IWD below the threshold value.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.1B
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• pp.125-135
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to quantify the erosion parameters of cohesive sediments in Keum Estuary. This study also involves the examinations on the local/seasonal variation of them in Keum Estuary and on their spatial variation comparing with those of other sites. As erosional properties of cohesive sediments are in general influenced largely by the physico-chemical properties of cohesive sediments themselves, this study also involves the qualitative analyses on the impact by the physico-chemical properties. Erosion tests have been performed under the uniform bed condition using the Chonbuk annular flume and total 16 tests have been carried out with various bed densities and bottom shear stresses. Experimental results show that the critical shear stress for erosion varies in the range of $0.19{\sim}0.41N/m^2$ and the coefficient of erosion rate varies in the range of $54.26{\sim}7.70mg/cm^2{\cdot}hr$, over the corresponding bulk-density range of $1.14{\sim}1.38g/cm^3$. While erosion parameters estimated for Keum estuary sediments are found to be remarkably different in quantity compared with those for cohesive sediments from other sites, their local/seasonal variabilities within Keum Estuary are found to be insignificant.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.911-917
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• 2023

The method of observing nodular changes on the liver surface using clinical ultrasonography is useful for diagnosing cirrhosis. However, the speckle noise that inevitably occurs in ultrasound images makes it difficult to identify changes in the liver surface and echo patterns, which has a negative impact on the diagnosis of cirrhosis. The purpose of this study is to model the median modified Wiener filter (MMWF), which can efficiently reduce noise in cirrhotic ultrasound images, and confirm its applicability. Ultrasound images were acquired using an ACR phantom and an actual cirrhotic patient, and the proposed MMWF algorithm and conventional noise reduction algorithm were applied to each image. Coefficient of variation (COV) and edge rise distance (ERD) were used as quantitative image quality evaluation factors for the acquired ultrasound images. We confirmed that the MMWF algorithm improved both COV and ERD values compared to the conventional noise reduction algorithm in both ACR phantom and real ultrasound images of cirrhotic patients. In conclusion, the proposed MMWF algorithm is expected to contribute to improving the diagnosis rate of cirrhosis patients by reducing the noise level and improving spatial resolution at the same time.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.673-687
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• 2023

Exploratory data analysis is the process of observing and understanding data collected from various sources to identify their distributions and correlations through their structures and characterization. This process can be used to identify correlations among conditioning factors and select the most effective factors for analysis. This can help the assessment of landslide susceptibility, because landslides are usually triggered by multiple factors, and the impacts of these factors vary by region. This study compared two stages of exploratory data analysis to examine the impact of the data exploration procedure on the landslide prediction model's performance with respect to factor selection. Deep-learning-based landslide susceptibility analysis used either a combinations of selected factors or all 23 factors. During the data exploration phase, we used a Pearson correlation coefficient heat map and a histogram of random forest feature importance. We then assessed the accuracy of our deep-learning-based analysis of landslide susceptibility using a confusion matrix. Finally, a landslide susceptibility map was generated using the landslide susceptibility index derived from the proposed analysis. The analysis revealed that using all 23 factors resulted in low accuracy (55.90%), but using the 13 factors selected in one step of exploration improved the accuracy to 81.25%. This was further improved to 92.80% using only the nine conditioning factors selected during both steps of the data exploration. Therefore, exploratory data analysis selected the conditioning factors most suitable for landslide susceptibility analysis and thereby improving the performance of the analysis.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.117-124
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• 2023

This study is a descriptive research study to determine the relationship between nursing students' emotional intelligence, communication competence, interpersonal competence, and adaptation to college life, and to identify factors that adaptation to college life. The subjects of the study were 173 nursing students attending a university in G City, and data collection was conducted from September 10 to October 10, 2022 Descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient, and multiple regression analysis were performed on the collected data using SPSS 25.0 program. The results showed a significant positive correlation between emotional intelligence(r=.760, p<.001), communication competence(r=.600, p<.001), and interpersonal competence(r=.451, p<.001). Factors that have a significant impact on adaptation to college life include emotional intelligence(𝛽=.543, p<.001), communication competence(𝛽=.433, p=.001), and interpersonal competence(𝛽=.283, p<.031). The total explanatory power of these variables on adaptation to college life was 59.9%, and emotional intelligence was confirmed to be the main influencing factor.