• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.208-213
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• 2013

The suitability of the site criteria is a basic requirement for securing safety of nuclear power plants. The suitability should be confirmed through the estimation of environmental radiation effects at the exclusion area boundary under the severe weather conditions. In this study, field tracer experiments over short range of 1 km radius under severe weather conditions were conducted at flat area in Daejeon. Severe weather conditions are represented with stable atmospheric condition and low wind speed. In general, the condition is appeared at clean night time with weak wind. The analysis of the measured distribution of the released tracer gas shows two big differences between the results of the past experiments conducted under the favorable weather conditions. One is the difficulty of finding the typical distribution of the released tracer gas with peak concentration in the downwind direction. The other one is the appearance of the contour of the concentration of tracer gas at several hundred meters even though the gas released at 10 m height over the ground.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.17-22
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• 1982

Measurement of the radon concentration close to the ground surface can be used in search of environmental radiation for human safety, exploration for uranium, premonitory signals from earthquakes. We can detect radons in soil gas by alpha particle track method using the plastic track detectors, cellulose nitrate (LR115-Type 2 and CA80-15, Kodak $Path\'{e}$) and CR-39. For present works, radon cups having these detectors were made in our laboratory and their conversion factor was determined. A typical conversion factor was $1tr/cm^2{\cdot}30days=1.2{\times}10^{-2}pCi/l$. In the radon cups, some of $CaSO_4$ were used as desiccant for reducing the moisture effects on plastic track detectors. With these radon cups, underground radon concentrations of Kyungpook area were measured. Average radon concentration in Daegu from Jan. 1981 to Feb. 1982 was 39.7pCi/l. From Aug. 1981 to Feb. 1982, average radon concentrations of Daegu, Angang, Kyungju, Pohang, Chungha, and Andong were 31.8pCi/l, 124.5pCi/l, 127.0pCi/l, 79.1pCi/l, 144.4pCi/l, and 70.9pCi/l, respectively. The results were compared with the environmental radiation measured by TLD method.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.16-21
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• 2022

Background: Epidemiological observations such as mental retardation, physical deformities, etc., in children besides different types of cancer in the adult population of the Malwa region have been reported. The present study is designed to get insight into the role of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) in causing detrimental health effects observed in the general population of this region. Materials and Methods: Deep soil samples were collected from different locations in the Malwa region. Their activity concentrations were determined using low-level background gammaray spectrometry. High efficiency and high purity germanium detector capped in a lead-shielded chamber having a resolution of 1.8 keV at 1,173 keV and 2.0 keV at the 1,332 keV line of ⁶⁰Co was used in the present work. Data were evaluated with Genie-2000 software. Results and Discussion: Mean activity concentrations of ²³⁸U, ²³²Th, and ⁴⁰K in deep soil were found to be 101.3 Bq/kg, 65.8 Bq/kg, and 688.6 Bq/kg, respectively. The mean activity concentration of ²³⁸U was found to be three and half times higher than the global average prescribed by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR). It was further observed that the activity concentration of ²³²Th and ⁴⁰K has a magnitude that is nearly one and half times higher than the global average prescribed by UNSCEAR. In addition, the radioisotope ¹³⁷Cs which is likely to have its origin in radiation fallout was also observed. It is postulated that the NORM present in high quantity in deep soil somehow get mobilized into the water aquifers used by the general population and thereby causing harmful health problems. Conclusion: It can be stated that the present work has been able to demonstrate the use of low background gamma-ray spectrometry to understand the role of NORM in causing health-related effects in a general population of the Malwa region of Punjab, India.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.603-613
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• 2004

Extensive forest fires occurred across the border in Russia. particularly east of Lake Baikal between the Amur and Lena rivers in May 2003. These forest fires released large amounts of particulates and gases into the atmosphere. resulting in adverse effects on regional air quality and the global radiation budget. Smoke pollution from the Russian fires near Lake Baikal was sometimes transported to Korea through Mongolia and eastern China. In this study ground based radiation (visible and UV-B) data measured during May 2003 at Seoul and Kwangju were analyzed to estimate smoke aerosol impacts on solar radiation. Surface criteria air pollutants ($PM_{10}$, CO, $O_3$) data were also obtained from National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER) during smoke aerosol event period (19 May~24 May 2003). Large Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) 1.0~3.0 was observed during this period due to the influence of the long range transport of smoke aerosol plume from the Russian fires, resulting in short-wavelength direct aerosol radiative forcing of -90~ -200W/$m^2$. These smoke aerosol plume caused decrease in surface UV-B radiation up to 80% and increase in PM_(10) concentration up to 200${\mu}g/m^3$ exceeding the 24 hour ambient air quality standard.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.7-10
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• 2007

A thick film catalytic gas sensors which can be operated at $142^{\circ}C$ in presence of ultra violet-light emitting diode has been developed to measure hydrogen concentration in 0-5 % range. The sensing material as a combustion catalyst consists of $TiO_{2}$ (5 wt%) and Pd/Pt (20 wt%) supported on $Al_{2}O_{3}$ powder and the reference material to compensate the heat capacity of it in a bridge circuit was an catalyst free $Al_{2}O_{3}$ powder. Platinum heater and sensor materials were formed on the alumina plate by screen printing method and heat treatment. The effect of UV radiation in the presence of photo catalyst $TiO_{2}$ on the sensor sensitivity, response and recovery time has been investigated. The reduction of operating temperature from $192^{\circ}C$ to $142^{\circ}C$ for hydrogen gas sensing property in presence of UV radiation is attributed to the hydroxy radical and superoxide which was formed at the surface of $TiO_{2}$ under UV radiation.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2007

In this study, the sulfonated ion exchange fiber was synthesized by $Co^{60}\;{\gamma}-ray$ radiation-induced graft copolymerization. Degree of grafting (DG) increased with increasing the total dose and showed the highest value at 50 v/v% styrene monomer. And also, the degree of sulfonation (DS) increased with increasing the DG and reaction temperature. DS showed the maximum value at 20 min. Ion exchange capacity and swelling ratio of ion exchange fibers increased with increasing the DS and their maximum values were 4.76 meq/g and 23.5%, respectively. Ammonia adsorption increased as increasing the ammonia concentration and ion exchange capacity and remained constant over 10 cycles.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.317-323
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• 2014

Odyssey, one of the NASA's Mars exploration program and SELENE (Kaguya), a Japanese lunar orbiting spacecraft have a payload of Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (GRS) for analyzing radioactive chemical elements of the atmosphere and the surface. In these days, gamma-ray spectroscopy with a High-Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector has been widely used for the activity measurements of natural radionuclides contained in the soil of the Earth. The energy spectra obtained by the HPGe detectors have been generally analyzed by means of the Window Analysis (WA) method. In this method, activity concentrations are determined by using the net counts of energy window around individual peaks. Meanwhile, an alternative method, the so-called Full Spectrum Analysis (FSA) method uses count numbers not only from full-absorption peaks but from the contributions of Compton scattering due to gamma-rays. Consequently, while it takes a substantial time to obtain a statistically significant result in the WA method, the FSA method requires a much shorter time to reach the same level of the statistical significance. This study shows the validation results of FSA method. We have compared the concentration of radioactivity of $^{40}K$, $^{232}Th$ and $^{238}U$ in the soil measured by the WA method and the FSA method, respectively. The gamma-ray spectrum of reference materials (RGU and RGTh, KCl) and soil samples were measured by the 120% HPGe detector with cosmic muon veto detector. According to the comparison result of activity concentrations between the FSA and the WA, we could conclude that FSA method is validated against the WA method. This study implies that the FSA method can be used in a harsh measurement environment, such as the gamma-ray measurement in the Moon, in which the level of statistical significance is usually required in a much shorter data acquisition time than the WA method.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1997 no.05
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• pp.447-450
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• 1997

A new technique for the preparation of porous vascular prostheses was investigated. Polyurethane solution (10 to 14wt%) was injected into a mold. After freezing at low temperature $(0^{\circ}C\sim-40^{\circ}C)$, solvent was dissolved out with water at $0^{\circ}C$ to form porous tubes. The average pore size $(<10{\mu}m)$and pore occupation (10% to 51%) were easily changed by changing polyurethane concentration, freezing temperature, and freezing methods. This technique can give a proper pore size $(30\sim60{\mu}m)$ for tissue ingrowth, and suitable compliances for matching with arteries and veins. This method might give a desired compliant graft for artificial implantation with the presently valid medical polymers.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.175-179
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• 2016

In this study, we evaluated the reusable leuco malachite green (LMG) micelle gel properties dependent on various components of chemical concentration and compared with leuco crystal violet (LCV). The gels were delivered to 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 Gy at 6 MV photon beam from linear accelerator and analyzed using spectrophotometry. We confirmed that the reusable LMG and LVC absorbance wavelength peak were made up at 630 nm and 600 nm respectively. The transparency of reusable LMG decreased with higher amount of trichloroacetic acid (TCAA) and lower reusable LMG dyes. 1 mM reusable LMG was the lowest transparency. The sensitivity was increased depending on lower trichloroacetic acid (TCAA) concentrations and the amount of suitable surfactant (Triton X-100), which was found to be 7 mM. However, we were not able to investigate sensitivity effects factor from reusable LMG dyes. The gel dosimeter containing 16 mM TCAA, 7 mM Triton X-100 gel dosimeter showed the highest sensitivity at $0.0021{\pm}0.0001cm^{-1}.Gy^{-1}$. The sensitivity of LCV was found to be higher than reusable LMG at $0.0037{\pm}0.0005cm^{-1}.Gy^{-1}$. The reusable LMG and LCV dose responses were shown to be $R^2=0.997$, $R^2=0.999$ respectively, as stable measurement results. Future research is necessary to improve dose sensitivity, dose rate dependency and gel fading with extensive chemical formulations.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.391-394
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• 2002

There has recently been much interest and research in developing digital x-ray systems based on using amorphous selenium(a-Se) photoconductors as the image receptor. The amorphous selenium layer that is currently being studied for use as an x-ray photoconductor is not pure a-Se but rather amorphous selenium alloyed with arsenic. We fabricated samples using the selenium and arsenic alloy with various concentrations of the arsenic. In this work, x-ray photoconductor using amorphous selenium alloyed with arsenic were fabricated with different concentrations of the arsenic (0.1 wt.%, 0.3wt.%, 0.5wt.%, 1wt.%, 1.5wt.%, 3wt.%, 5wt.%). The seven kind of samples was fabricated with a-Se alloyed with arsenic through vacuum thermal evaporation. We also investigate the arsenic concentration dependence on the device performance in radiation detector. The electric characteristics of radiation detector devices with changing additive ratio of the arsenic is performed by measuring the x-ray induced photocurrent and integrating it over time to find the total charge. The thickness of a-Se is $100{\mu}m$. Bias voltages $3V/{\mu}m$, $6V/{\mu}m$， $9V/{\mu}m$ are applied at the samples. As results, the net charge of a-Se 0.3% As sample is $526.0pC/mR/cm^2$ at $9V/{\mu}m$ bias. The net charge is decreased as with the increasing additive ratio of arsenic.