• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.131-140
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• 2007

Phospho-gypsum a primary waste by-product in phosphate fertilizer manufacturing industry and a potential source of electron acceptors, such as mainly of sulfate and a trace amount of iron and manganese oxides, was selected as soil amendment for reducing methane $(CH_4)$ emissions during rice cultivation. The selected amendment was added into potted soils at the rate of 0, 2, 10, and 20 Mg $ha^{-1}$ before rice transplanting. $CH_4$ flux from the potted soil with rice plant was measured along with soil Eh and floodwater pH during the rice cultivation period. $CH_4$ emission rates measured by closed chamber method decreased with increasing levels of phospho-gypsum application, but rice yield markedly increased up to 10 Mg $ha^{-1}$ of the amendment. At this amendment level, total $CH_4$ emissions were reduced by 24% along with 15% rice grain yield increment over the control. The decrease in total $CH_4$ emission may be attributed due to shifting of electron flow from methanogenesis to sulfate reduction under anaerobic soil conditions.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.580-586
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• 2002

We investigated the effect of ionic component on crystalline morphology development during isothermal annealing in a sodium neutralized sulfonated poly(ethylene terephthalate) ionomer (Ion-PET) by time-resolved small-angle x-ray scattering (TR-SAX S) using synchrotron radiation. At early stage in Ion-PET, SAXS intensity at a low annealing temperature (Ta = 120 $^{\circ}C)$ decreased monotonously with scattering angle for a while. Then SAXS profile showed a peak and the peak position progressively moved to wider angles with isothermal annealing time. Finally, the peak intensity decreased, shifting the peak angle to wider angle. It is revealed that ionic aggregates (multiplets structure) of several nm, calculated by Debye-Bueche plot, are formed at early stage. They seem to accelerate the crystallization rate and make fine crystallites without spherulite formation (supported by optical microscopy observation). From decrease of peak intensity in SAXS,it is suggested that new lamellae are inserted between the preformed lamellae so that the concentration of ionic multiplets in amorphous region decreases to lower the electron density difference between lamellar crystal and amorphous region. In addition, analysis on the annealing at a high temperature (Ta = 210 $^{\circ}C)$ by optical microscopy, light scattering and transmission electron microscopy shows a formation of spherulite, no ionic aggregates, the retarded crystallization rate and a high level of lamellar orientation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.11
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• pp.2660-2666
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• 2020

Korea successfully achieved energy independence in the shortest period of time from being the poorest country in terms of energy 50 years ago through steady development of nuclear technology. In the past, the nuclear industry has been driven through government-centered policy development, public institution-based research, and industrial facility and infrastructure construction. Consequently, South Korea became a nuclear energy powerhouse exporting nuclear power plants to the UAE, surpassing the level of domestic technological independence. However, in recent years, the nuclear industry in Korea has experienced a decline in new plant construction since the Fukushima accident in Japan, which caused changes in public perspectives regarding nuclear power plant operation, more stringent safety standards on the operation of nuclear power plants, and a shift in governmental energy policy. These changes are expected to change the domestic nuclear industry ecosystem. Therefore, in this study, we investigate the priority of technology development investment from the perspective of experts in private nuclear power companies, shifting the focus from government-led nuclear R&D policies. To establish a direction in nuclear technology development, a survey was conducted by applying an analytic hierarchy analysis to experts who have worked in nuclear power plants for more than 15 years. The analysis items of focus were the 3 attributes of strategic importance, urgency, and business feasibility of four major fields related to nuclear energy: nuclear safety, decommissioning, radioactive waste management, and strengthening industrial competitiveness.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.9
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• pp.1423-1431
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• 2001

Based on the exponential intervening variable, a new two-point approximation method is presented. This introduces the shifting level into each exponential intervening variable to avoid the lack of def inition of the conventional exponential intervening variables due to zero-or negative-valued design variables. Then a new quadratic approximation whose Hessian matrix has only diagonal elements of different values is proposed in terms of these intervening variables. These diagonal elements are determined in a closed form that corrects the typical error in the approximate gradient of the TANA series due to the lack of definition of exponential type intervening variables and their incomplete second-order terms. Also, a correction coefficient is multiplied to the pre-determined quadratic term to match the value of approximate function with that of the previous point. Finally, in order to show the numerical performance of the proposed method, a sequential approximate optimizer is developed and applied to solve six typical design problems. These optimization results are compared with those of TANA-3. These comparisons show that the proposed method gives more efficient and reliable results than TANA-3.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.149-155
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• 2006

NOx reduction experiments were conducted by direct injection of urea into a diesel fueled, combustion-driven flow reactor which simulated a single engine cylinder ($966cm^3$). NOx reduction tests were carried out over a wide range of air/fuel ratios (A/F=20-40) using an initial NOx level of 530ppm, and for normalized stoichiometric ratios of reductant to NOx (NSR) of 1.5 to 4.0. The results show that effective NOx reduction with urea occurred over an injection temperature range of 1100 to 1350K. NOx reduction increased with increasing NSR values, and about a 40%-60% reduction of NOx was achieved with NSR=1.5-4.0. Most of the NOx reduction occurred within the cylinder and head section (residence time <40msec), since temperatures in the exhaust pipe were too low for additional NOx reduction. Relatively low NOx reduction is believed to be due to the existence of higher levels of CO and unburned hydrocarbons (UHC)inside the cylinder, and large temperature drops along the reactor. Injection of secondary combustible additives (diesel fuel/$C_2H_6$) into the exhaust pipe promoted further substantial NOx reduction (5%-30%) without shifting the temperature windows. Diesel fuel was found to enhance NOx reduction more than $C_2H_6$, and finally practical implications are further discussed.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.3 no.3_4
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• pp.611-628
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• 2012

The inelastic earthquake response of existing, reinforced concrete buildings with an open ground story, designed according to the old Greek codes, is investigated before and after their seismic strengthening with steel braces restricted to the open ground stories. The seismic performance evaluation is based on Part 3 of Eurocode 8 for assessment and retrofitting of buildings. Three and five-story, symmetric and non-symmetric buildings are subjected to a set of seven pairs of synthetic accelerograms, compatible with the design spectrum, and conclusions are drawn regarding the effectiveness of the strengthening solutions. Seismic behavior of the selected models confirms results of previous work regarding the insufficient capacity of the open ground stories for design level earthquakes. It is also shown that strengthening only the weak ground story, a choice having the substantial advantage of low cost and continued usage of the building during its seismic retrofitting, can remove the inherent weakness without shifting the problem to the stories above and thus making such buildings at least as strong as those without a weak first story. This partial strengthening is possible for symmetric as well as eccentric buildings, in which torsion plays a further detrimental role.

• Smart Media Journal
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.46-57
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• 2019

In recent research, deep learning-based methods have achieved state-of-the-art performance in various computer vision tasks. However, these methods are commonly supervised, and require huge amounts of annotated data to train. Acquisition of data demands an additional costly effort, particularly for the tasks where it becomes challenging to obtain large amounts of data considering the time constraints and the requirement of professional human diligence. In this paper, we present a data level synthetic sampling solution to learn from small and imbalanced data sets using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). The reason for using GANs are the challenges posed in various fields to manage with the small datasets and fluctuating amounts of samples per class. As a result, we present an approach that can improve learning with respect to data distributions, reducing the partiality introduced by class imbalance and hence shifting the classification decision boundary towards more accurate results. Our novel method is demonstrated on a small dataset of 2789 tomato plant disease images, highly corrupted with class imbalance in 9 disease categories. Moreover, we evaluate our results in terms of different metrics and compare the quality of these results for distinct classes.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.33-43
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• 2022

This study started from a critical review of the current problem of ethics education in engineering colleges, how it has become stereotyped and perfunctory and hence, is failing to properly foster engineers with a sense of responsibility. Existing engineering ethics education occupies a very limited role and weight in the periphery of the engineering curriculum, unable to hold a central position. This situation is of grave concern, especially when the leadership of engineers with social and professional responsibility is of great importance. Therefore, this study explored new directions and strategies for engineering ethics education while reviewing domestic and foreign studies dealing with the current status and problems of engineering ethics education. First, this study discussed the need for and direction of shifting to ethical engineering education instead of ethics education centered on liberal arts courses. Second, this study presented specific practical strategies to construct the ethical engineering curriculum. For example, it is necessary to establish the ethical engineering curriculum with an education linking ethics with human development goals, ethics education using Korea's current issues and agendas, micro- and macro-level analysis related to engineering, and leadership education.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.9
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• pp.54-62
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• 2015

Although NAND flash-based SSD (Solid-State Drive) provides superior performance in comparison to HDD (Hard Disk Drive), it has a major drawback in write endurance. As a result, the lifetime of SSD is determined by the workload and thus it becomes a big challenge in current technology trend of such as the shifting from SLC (Single Level Cell) to MLC (Multi Level cell) and even TLC (Triple Level Cell). Most previous studies have dealt with wear-leveling or improving SSD lifetime regarding hardware architecture. In this paper, we propose the optimal configuration of host I/O stack focusing on file system, I/O scheduler, and link power management using JEDEC enterprise workloads in terms of WAF (Write Amplification Factor) which represents the efficiency perspective of SSD life time especially for host write processing into flash memory. Experimental analysis shows that the optimum configuration of I/O stack for the perspective of SSD lifetime is MinPower-Dead-XFS which prolongs the lifetime of SSD approximately 2.6 times in comparison with MaxPower-Cfq-Ext4, the best performance combination. Though the performance was reduced by 13%, this contributions demonstrates a considerable aspect of SSD lifetime in relation to I/O stack optimization.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.19-30
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• 2016

This study provides a framework to assess network design under the regime of QoE (Quality of Experience). Our approach is expected to reveal the necessity of developing the QoE measures and applying this notion to network design, particularly in the mobile environment. Furthermore, our model shows the ample potential that both users and network providers are able to attain a win-win case by shifting the focus on network design and service operations from QoS (Quality of Service) to QoE. Since the former considers only relevant technological specifications, it may fail in capturing critical factors surrounding users, such as a context where the corresponding user is working on. For example, according to one study [13], the bit-rate, a widely employed QoS measure, shows inferior performance in provisioning network resources to the MOS (Mean Opinion Score), a representative QoE measure. Our framework develops the idea and construct a prototype to systematically assess network design and operations in terms of QoE. The proposed prototype aims at achieving a higher level of efficiency without severely deteriorating users' satisfaction level. We also provide some simulation results which support our idea. That is, reducing the chance of over-provisioning on the basis of the QoE paradigm results in a great flexibility. It may give price cut for users or postponement of network investment for providers or both. Our simulation results also seem robust irrespective of the forms of the QoS-QoE relationship.