• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2019

Transmission tower-line system is one of most critical lifeline systems to cities. However, it is found that the transmission tower-line system is prone to be damaged by earthquakes in past decades. To mitigate seismic demands, this study introduces a tuned-mass damper (TMD) using superelastic shape memory alloy (SMA) spring for the system. In addition, considering the dynamic characteristics of both tower-line system and SMA are affected by temperature change. Particular attention is paid on the effect of temperature variation on seismic behavior. In doing so, the SMA-TMD is installed into the system, and its properties are optimized through parametric analyses. The considered temperature range is from -40 to $40^{\circ}C$. The seismic control effect of using SMA-TMD is investigated under the considered temperatures. Interested seismic performance indices include peak displacement and peak acceleration at the tower top and the height-wise deformation. Parametric analyses on seismic intensity and frequency ratio were carried out as well. This study indicates that the nonlinear behavior of SMA-TMD is critical to the control effect, and proper tuning before application is advisable. Seismic demand mitigation is always achieved in this wide temperature range, and the control effect is increased at high temperatures.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.723-730
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• 2019

Acquiring instrumentation signals generated from nuclear power plants (NPPs) is essential to maintain nuclear reactor integrity or to mitigate an abnormal state under normal operating conditions or severe accident circumstances. However, various safety-critical instrumentation signals from NPPs cannot be accurately measured on account of instrument degradation or failure under severe accident circumstances. Reactor vessel (RV) water level, which is an accident monitoring variable directly related to reactor cooling and prevention of core exposure, was predicted by applying a few signals to deep neural networks (DNNs) during severe accidents in NPPs. Signal data were obtained by simulating the postulated loss-of-coolant accidents at hot- and cold-legs, and steam generator tube rupture using modular accident analysis program code as actual NPP accidents rarely happen. To optimize the DNN model for RV water level prediction, a genetic algorithm was used to select the numbers of hidden layers and nodes. The proposed DNN model had a small root mean square error for RV water level prediction, and performed better than the cascaded fuzzy neural network model of the previous study. Consequently, the DNN model is considered to perform well enough to provide supporting information on the RV water level to operators.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.403-414
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• 2019

Offshore drilling has become a key process for obtaining oil. Offshore platforms have many applications, including oil exploration and production, navigation, ship loading and unloading, and bridge and causeway support. However, vibration problems caused by severe environmental loads, such as ice, wave, wind, and seismic loads, threaten the functionality of platform facilities and the comfort of workers. These concerns may result in piping failures, unsatisfactory equipment reliability, and safety concerns. Therefore, the vibration control of offshore platforms is essential for assuring structural safety, equipment functionality, and human comfort. In this study, an optimal multiple tuned mass damper (MTMD) system was proposed to mitigate the excessive vibration of a three-dimensional offshore platform under ice and earthquake loadings. The MTMD system was designed to control the first few dominant coupled modes. The optimal placement and system parameters of the MTMD are determined based on controlled modal properties. Numerical simulation results show that the proposed MTMD system can effectively reduce the displacement and acceleration responses of the offshore platform, thus improving safety and serviceability. Moreover, this study proposes an optimal design procedure for the MTMD system to determine the optimal location, moving direction, and system parameters of each unit of the tuned mass damper.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.191-201
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• 2019

Before the commercialization of polymeric membranes applicable for industrial application, the homework remains for the high-performance polymers to overcome the practical challenge: long-term stability for prolonged service time. Polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMs), exhibiting exceptionally high fractional free volume and high permeability, are susceptible to physical aging where the extra volume created by the inefficient ladder-type packing will lead them from the volumetric equilibrium and reduce the free volume/permeability over time. Here, we will re-examine the physical aging of polymers of intrinsic microporosity, and discuss some of the most prominent attempts to mitigate physical aging in PIMs.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.81-87
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• 2019

One of the major issues in inertial and magnetic measurement unit (IMMU)-based 3D orientation estimation is compensation for magnetic disturbances in magnetometer signals, as the magnetic disturbance is a major cause of inaccurate yaw estimation. In the proposed approach, a kinematic constraint is used to provide a measurement equation in addition to the accelerometer and magnetometer signals to mitigate the disturbance effect on the orientation estimation. Although a Kalman filter (KF) is the most popular framework for IMMU-based orientation estimation, a complementary filter (CF) has its own advantages over KF in terms of mathematical simplicity and ease of implementation. Accordingly, this paper introduces a quaternion-based CF with a constraint-combined correction equation. Furthermore, the weight of the constraint relative to the magnetometer signal is adjusted to adapt to magnetic environments to optimally deal with the magnetic disturbance. In the results of our validation experiments, the average and maximum of yaw errors were $1.17^{\circ}$ and $1.65^{\circ}$ from the proposed CF, respectively, and $8.88^{\circ}$ and $14.73^{\circ}$ from the conventional CF, respectively, showing the superiority of the proposed approach.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.31-44
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• 2019

The main objective of this research is to develop a hydroclimate drought index (HCDI) using the gridded climate data inputs in a Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) modeling platform. Typical drought indices, including, Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), and Self-calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index (SC-PDSI) in South Korea are also used and compared. Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) method is applied to create the gridded climate data from 56 ground weather stations using topographic information between weather stations and the respective grid cell ($12km{\times}12km$). R statistical software packages are used to visualize HCDI in Google Earth. Skill score (SS) are computed to evaluate the drought predictability based on water information derived from the observed reservoir storage and the ground weather stations. The study indicates that the proposed HCDI with the gridded climate data input is promising in the sense that it can help us to predict potential drought extents and to mitigate its impacts in a changing climate. The longer term drought prediction (e.g., 9 and 12 month) capability, in particular, shows higher SS so that it can be used for climate-driven future droughts.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.419-428
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• 2019

Phytases are enzymes that can hydrolyze phytate and its salts into inositol and phosphoric acid, and have been utilized to increase the availability of nutrients in animal feed and mitigate environmental pollution. However, the enzymes' low thermostability has limited their application during the feed palletization process. In this study, a combination of B-value calculation and protein surface engineering was applied to rationally evolve the heat stability of Escherichia coli phytase. After systematic alignment and mining for homologs of the original phytase from the histidine acid phosphatase family, the two models 1DKL and 1DKQ were chosen and used to identify the B-values and spatial distribution of key amino acid residues. Consequently, thirteen potential amino acid mutation sites were obtained and categorized into six domains to construct mutant libraries. After five rounds of iterative mutation screening, the thermophilic phytase mutant P56214 was finally yielded. Compared with the wild-type, the residual enzyme activity of the mutant increased from 20% to 75% after incubation at $90^{\circ}C$ for 5 min. Compared with traditional methods, the rational engineering approach used in this study reduces the screening workload and provides a reference for future applications of phytases as green catalysts.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.68-78
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• 2019

The emergence of high voltage conversion applications has resulted in a trend of using semiconductor device series associations. Series associations allow for operation at blocking voltages, which are higher than the nominal voltage for each of the semiconductor devices. The main challenge with these topologies is finding a way to guarantee the voltage balance between devices in both blocking and switching transients. Most of the methods that have been proposed to mitigate static and dynamic voltage unbalances result in increased losses within the device. This paper introduces a new series stack topology, where the voltage unbalances are reduced. This in turn, mitigates the switching losses. The proposed topology consists of a circuit that ensures the soft switching of each device, and one auxiliary circuit that allows for switching energy recovery. The principle for the topology operation is presented and experimental tests are performed for two modules. The topology performs excellently for switching transients on each of the devices. The voltage static unbalances were limited to 10%, while the activation/deactivation delay introduced by the lower module IGBT driver takes place in the dynamic unbalances. Thus, the switching losses are reduced by 40%, when compared to hard switching configurations.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.288-289
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• 2019

This paper studies the secrecy capacity for a wireless cooperative network with perfect channel state information at the relays, and receiver. A similar assumption is also made for the instance where there exist a direct link between the transmitter and receiver. Physical Layer security techniques are employed in wireless networks to mitigate against the activity of eavesdroppers. It offers a viable alternative to computationally intensive encryption. In this paper the design of a protocol utilizing jamming (via jamming nodes) for better security and relaying (via relay nodes) for the amplify-and-forward (AF) operation, is investigated. A a signal-to-noise variant of secrecy known as secrecy gap is explored because of its use of lesser computational power - preferable for practical systems. Thus we maximize this signal-to-noise approach instead of the conventional secrecy capacity maximization method. With this, an iterative algorithm using geometric programming (GP) and semi-definite programming (SDP) is presented with appreciable benefits. The results show here highlight the benefits of using fractional components of the powers of the relays to offer better secrecy capacity.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.135-142
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• 2019

Ice accretions on the ship equipment and areas are the most common issues for vessels operating in cold climate and ice-covered waters and it has effect on the vessel safety and operability of equipment and systems, thus ship machineries and structures exposed to low temperature environments should satisfy the winterization requirements specified in ice class rules. The main objective of this study is to review the state-of-the-art of winterization trend for vessels navigating in ice-covered waters. The hazard of icing and how ice accretions affect operations and safety are investigated firstly, and then winterized notations for each classification are summarized. In addition, winterization methods currently used in vessels operating in ice-covered waters are investigated for a better understanding of effective approach and its application. This information will provide a framework for future winterization issues to mitigate the ice accretion phenomena.