• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2017

'The worstest environment disaster', 'World's first biocide massacre', 'Home-based Sewol ferry disaster' are all phrases attached to the recent humidifier disinfectant disaster. In the spring of 2011, four of 8 pregnant women including 1 adult man passed away at a university hospital in Seoul due to breathing failure. Epidemiologic investigation conducted by the Korean CDC soon revealed the inhalation of humidifier disinfectant, which had been widely used in Korea during the winter, to be responsible for the disease. As well as lung fibrosis hardening of the lungs, other diseases including asthma, rhinitis, skin disease, liver disease, fetal disease or cancers have been researched for their relation with exposure to the products. By February 9, 2017, 5,342 cases had registered for health problems and 1,131 of them were already dead (20.8% mortality rate). Based on studies by government agencies and a telephone survey of the general population by Seoul National University and civic groups, around 20% of the general public of Korea has used these products. Since the market release of the first product by SK Chemical in 1994, over 7.1 million items from around 20 brands were sold up to 2011. Most of the products were manufactured by well-known large conglomerates such as SK, Lotte, Samsung, Shinsegye, LG, and GS, as well as some European companies including UK-based Reckitt Benckiser and TESCO, the German firm Henkel, the Danish firm KeTox, and an Irish company. Even though this disaster was unveiled in 2011 by the Korean government, the issue of the victims was neglected for over five years. In 2016, an unexpected but intensive investigation by prosecutors found that Reckitt Benckiser manipulated and concealed animal tests for its own brand and brought several university experts and company employees to court. The matter was an intense social issue in Korea from May to June with a surge in media coverage. The prosecutor's investigation and a nationwide boycott campaign organized by victims and environmental groups against Reckitt Benckiser, whose product had been used by more than 70% of victims, led to the producer's official apology and a compensation scheme. A legislative investigation organized after the April 2016 national election revealed the producers' faults and the government's responsibility, but failed to meet expectations. A special law for the victims passed the National Assembly in January 2017 and a punitive system together with a massive environmental epidemiology investigation are expected to be the only solutions for this tragedy. Sciences of medicine, toxicology and environmental health have provided decisive evidence so far, but for the remaining problems the perspectives of social sciences such as sociology and jurisprudence are highly necessary, similar to with the Minamata disease and Wonjin Rayon events. It may not be easy to follow this issue using unfamiliar terminology from medical and chemical science and the long, complicated history of the event. For these reasons the author has attempted to write this article in a question and answer format to render it easier to follow. The 17 questions are: Q1 What is humidifier disinfectant? Q2 What kind of health problems are caused by humidifier disinfectant? Q3 How many victims are there? Q4 What is the analysis of the 1,112 cases of death? Q5 What is the problem with the government's diagnostic criteria and the solution? Q6 Who made what brands? Q7 Has there been a recall? What is still on sale? Q8 Was safety not checked by any producers? Q9 What are the government's responsibilities? Q10 Is it true that these products were sold only in Korea? Q11 Why and how was it unveiled only in 2011 after 17 years of sales? Q12 What delayed the resolution of the victim issue? Q13 What is the background of the prosecutor's investigation in early 2016? Q14 Is it possible to report new victim cases without evidence of product purchase? Q15 What is happening with the victim issue? Q16 How does it compare with the cases of Minamata disease and Wonjin Rayon? Q17 Are there prevention measures and lessons?

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.17-30
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• 2011

This study has analyzed the vegetation composition in the areas using different slope revetment techniques of riverbanks, in a way to improve the vegetation induction in the future considering the ecological aspects of the induction in Garaeyoul Village, Gangdong-gu, Seoul. The result of the vegetation distribution in each different slope revetment technique was analyzed, that the naturalized herb was dominant in the pole block accounting for 70.7%, while native herb was dominant in the lawn block occupying 48.5% and in the crib block occupying 55.7%. The vegetation coverage measured by different slope revetment techniques was highest in the crib block(average 97.5%), followed by the lawn block(average 95.3%) and pole block(average 27.9%). The vegetation base area was the most wide in the crib block and the most narrowest in the pole block. The result of community analysis in areas using different slope revetment techniques, dry herbs and vine herbs were dominated and the coverage was very poor in the pole block. In the lawn block, the barb was fragmented into narrow areas due to the blocks, which prevented the creation of large-scale plant communities. In the crib block, Miscanthus sacchariflorus, Fescue arundinacea and Aster pilosus, which also consisted of large-scale communities. Average dry weight was also measured by each slope revetment technique. The weight was heaviest in the crib block with $187.63g/m^2$, followed by the lawn block($137.65g/m^2$) and pole block($6.75g/m^2$). The soil moisture contents in the crib block and lawn block was 16.3% and 15.2%, respectively, while that of the pole block was 4.7%, which revealed the highly dry condition of the pole block soil. The analysis result of soil chemical property showed that there was little difference in soil texture, soile acidity(pH), and exchangeable ion content, however, the soil organic matter(OM) content and available $P_2O_5$ were highest in the pole block. In the future, in order to induce more vegetation into river banks and walls, a proper construction method should be applied so that the vegetation area can be expanded as much as possible, considering the safety of the banks.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.284-290
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• 2013

This study analyzed the geometric, compressive, cutting and friction properties of oriental melons in order to design a gripper capable of soft handling and a cutter for cutting oriental melon vine among the end effector of oriental melon as a preliminary step for developing the end effector of the robot capable of harvesting oriental melons in protected cultivation. As a result, the average length, diameter at the midpoint, weight, volume and roundness of the oriental melons were 108 mm, 70 mm, 188 g, 333 mL and 3.8 mm. Nonlinear regression analysis was performed on the equation $W=L^a{\times}D_2^b$ with variation of the length (L) and diameter (D2) of the weight (W) of the oriental melons. As a result, it was shown that there was a correlation between a of 2.0279 and b of -0.9998 as a constant value. The average diameter of the oriental melon vine was 3.8 mm, and most vines were distributed within a radius of 5 mm from the center. The average yield value, compressive strength and hardness of the oriental melons were $36.5N/cm^2$, $185.7N/cm^2$ and $636.7N/cm^2$, respectively. The average cutting force and shear strength of the oriental melon vines were $2.87{\times}10^{-2}\;N$ and $5.60N/cm^2$, respectively. The maximum friction coefficient of the oriental melons was rubber of 0.609, followed by aluminium of 0.393, stainless steel of 0.177 and teflon of 0.079. It was considered possible to apply it to the size of the gripper and cutter, turning radius, dynamics of drive motor and selection of materials and their quality in light of the position error and safety factor according to the movement when designing end effector based on the analyzed data.

• Archives of design research
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.275-284
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• 2002

To improve the social and economic position of the disabled people and secure their human rights, an integrated society should be buill. To build such a society, an adequate access should be provided to the movement or in using buildings or facilities. The inconveniences from social life on the part of the disabled people might not result from their impairment or disability, but from physical and social barriers in the environment surrounding them. Therefore, it is necessary to reconstruct entire systems of the society as a disabled people-friendly structure in order to remove those barriers, make them stand their own feet in our communities and freely participate in the social activities. This will eventually lead to build a society in which all people including the disabled people can use those facilities in a more convenient way. It is almost impossible for the disabled people to safely and conveniently access to and use facilities and equipments and freely move to their desired places, without any help from others in Korea. Even though, there are currently many disabled people-related convenience facilities, they have been independently built without a connection with other facilities and buildings, thus not greatly useful. Even when convenience facilities have been built, mostly they are superficially set up; therefore, in many cases, the disabled peOple cannot use those facilities. In this. research, I tried a new concept of mobile wheelchair lift design, which the disabled people can operate without restrictions, when using the public facilities. The key to this research was to develop the existing import-oriented simple functional products to a new system with functional safety and high quality orientation. Also, this research aimed at bringing an. import substitution effect, as well as preempting the mobile wheelchair lift market by advancing into overseas markets through application of new image designs in the field of disabled people aid equipments.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.306-320
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• 2018

Emission inventory is the essential component for improving the performance of air quality forecasting system. This study evaluated the simulated daily mean $PM_{2.5}$ concentrations in South Korea and China for 1-year period (Sept. 2016~Aug. 2017) using air quality forecasting system which was applied by the emission inventory of E2015 (predicted CAPSS 2015 for South Korea and KORUS 2015 v1 for the other regions). To identify the impacts of emissions on the simulated $PM_{2.5}$, the emission inventory replaced by E2010 (CAPSS 2010 and MIX 2010) were also applied under the same forecasting conditions. These results showed that simulated daily mean $PM_{2.5}$ concentrations had generally suitable performance with both emission data-sets for China (IOA>0.87, R>0.87) and South Korea (IOA>0.84, R>0.76). The impacts of the changes in emission inventories on simulated daily mean $PM_{2.5}$ concentrations were quantitatively estimated. In China, normalized mean bias (NMB) showed 5.5% and 26.8% under E2010 and E2015, respectively. The tendency of overestimated concentrations was larger in North Central and Southeast China than other regions under both E2010 and E2015. Seasonal differences of NMB were higher in non-winter season (28.3% (E2010)~39.3% (E2015)) than winter season (-0.5% (E2010)~8.0% (E2015)). In South Korea, NMB showed -5.4% and 2.8% for all days, but -15.2% and -11.2% for days below $40{\mu}g/m^3$ to minimize the impacts of long-range transport under E2010 and E2015, respectively. For all days, simulated $PM_{2.5}$ concentrations were overestimated in Seoul, Incheon, Southern part of Gyeonggi and Daejeon, and underestimated in other regions such as Jeonbuk, Ulsan, Busan and Gyeongnam, regardless of what emission inventories were applied. Our results suggest that the updated emission inventory, which reflects current status of emission amounts and spatio-temporal allocations, is needed for improving the performance of air quality forecasting.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.263-272
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• 2012

Carbon dioxide, emitted by human activities since the industrial revolution, is regarded as a major contributor of global warming. There are many efforts to mitigate climate change, and carbon dioxide capture and geological storage (CCS) is recognized as one of key technologies because it can reduce carbon dioxide emissions from large point sources such as a power station or other industrial installation. The inclusion of CCS as clean development mechanism (CDM) project activities has been considered at UNFCCC as financial incentive mechanisms for those developing countries that may wish to deploy the CCS. Although the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the UNFCCC's Kyoto Protocol (CMP), at Cancun in December 2010, decided that CCS is eligible as CDM project activities, the issues identified in decision 2/CMP.5 should be addressed and resolved in a satisfactory manner. Major issues regarding modalities and procedure are 1) Site selection, 2) Monitoring, 3) Modeling, 4) Boundaries, 5) Seepage Measuring and Accounting, 6) Trans-Boundary Effects, 7) Accounting of Associated Project Emissions (Leakage), 8) Risk and Safety Assessment, and 9) Liability Under the CDM Scheme. The CMP, by its decision 7/CMP.6, invited Parties to submit their views to the secretariat of Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), SBSTA prepared a draft modalities and procedure by exchanging views of Parties through workshop held in Abu Dhabi, UAE (September 2011). The 7th CMP (Durban, December 2011) finally adopted the modalities and procedures for CCS as CDM project activities (CMP[2011], Decision-/CMP.7). The inclusion of CCS as CDM project activities means that CCS is officially accredited as one of $CO_2$ reducing technologies in global carbon market. Consequently, it will affect relevant technologies and industry as well as law and policy in Korea and aboard countries. This paper presents a progress made on discussion and challenges regarding the issue, and aims to suggest some considerations to policy makers in Korea in order to demonstrate and deploy the CCS project in the near future. According to the adopted modalities and procedures for CCS as CDM project activities, it is possible to implement relevant CCS projects in Non-Annex I countries, including Korea, as long as legal and regulatory frameworks are established. Though Korea enacted 'Framework Act on Low Carbon, Green Growth', the details are too inadequate to content the requirements of modalities and procedures for CCS as CDM project. Therefore, it is required not only to amend the existing laws related with capture, transport, and storage of $CO_2$ for paving the way of an prompt deployment of CCS CDM activities in Korea as a short-term approach, but also to establish the united framework as a long-term approach.

• Korean Security Journal
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• no.62
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• pp.255-276
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• 2020

The mandatory police system, which plays a pivotal role in securing security and securing social safety as a security assistant, is expected to face difficulties in supplying the mandatory police manpower and securing absolute police manpower in the future according to the Ministry of Defense's abolition of the conversion service system. In this situation, this study intends to provide a concrete plan to replace the mandatory police officers as security assistants, recruiting contractors from civilians who are not military service resources or regular police officers, and using them for security assistance. More ultimately, this study goes beyond securing obligatory police to reduce or abolish mandatory police, which has been dealt with in previous studies. It aims to present the rescue and operation directions so that the police can provide quality public security services. In order to achieve the purpose of this study, this study 1) analyzes the current situation of police personnel, derives the necessity and justification of securing the police personnel or increasing the number of police personnel due to changes in security demand and security environment, and 2) After discussing the necessity and direction of reorganization, 3) deriving policy implications through analysis of foreign cases operating similar systems to derive specific plans for the introduction of security contractors for private contract workers in Korea. This study reviewed the specific operation plan and legal and institutional maintenance plan of private contract workers. In order to achieve these research objectives, this study 1) analyzes the current status of the police manpower and derives the necessity and justification of securing an absolute police manpower or increasing the manpower of the police in response to changes in security demand and security environment, and the current security aid system. 2) After discussing the necessity and orientation of reorganization of exinsting system of assistant police officer, 3) derive policy implications through analysis of foreign cases utilizing security aids similar to Korea, and 4) The specific operation plan and legal and institutional maintenance plan were presented. including security aids for private contract workers in Korea, from recruitment procedures to activities.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.225-231
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• 2016

Glasshouse heating package technologies to improve energy usage efficiency in winter were developed. Heating package was composed of the ground water source heat pump with heating capacity of 105kW, the aluminum multi-layer thermal curtain with six layers of different materials and the root zone local heater with XL pipes of ${\phi}20mm$. Venlo type glasshouse($461m^2$) with the heating package was compared with the same type and area control glasshouse with the light oil boiler, the usual non-woven fabric thermal curtain with respect to the glasshouse inside temperature, relative humidity, crop growth, and heating energy consumption. The results of test in paprika cultivation glasshouses showed that the air temperature inside glasshouse with aluminum multi-layer thermal curtain was maintained $2.2^{\circ}C$ higher than that of control glasshouse in un-heating night time and the temperature in bed with root zone local heating was $4.7^{\circ}C$ higher than that in bed without local heating. Average heating coefficient of performance(COP) of the ground water source heat pump used in paprika cultivation was 3.7 and the glasshouse inside temperature was maintained at $21^{\circ}C$ of heating set up temperature. The heating energy consumptions per 10a were measured at 14,071L of light oil and 364kWh of electric power for the control glasshouse and 35,082kWh for the glasshouse applied heating package. As results, the heating cost of the glasshouse applied heating package was 87 percent lower than that of control glasshouse. The growths of paprika in glasshouses of control and applied heating package did not show any significant difference.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.353-360
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• 2017

In this study, the design and performance test of the air to water heat pump capable of producing hot water for greenhouse heating by using the surplus solar heat inside the greenhouse and the air heat outside greenhouse as the selective heat source were conducted. The heat storage operations using the surplus solar heat and the outside air heat were designed to be switched according to the setting temperature of the greenhouse in consideration of the optimum temperature range of the crop. In the developed system, it was possible to automatically control the switching of heat storage operation, heating and ventilation by setting 12 reference temperatures on the control panel. In the selective heat storage operation with the surplus solar heat and outside air heat, the temperature of thermal storage tank was controlled variably from $35^{\circ}C$ to $52^{\circ}C$ according to the heat storage rate and heating load. The heat storage operation times using the surplus solar heat and outside air heat were 23.1% and 30.7% of the experimental time respectively and the heat pump pause time was 46.2%. COP(coefficient of performance) of the heat pump of the heat storage operation using the surplus solar heat and outside air heat were 3.83 and 2.77 respectively and was 3.24 for whole selective heat storage operation. For the comparative experiment, the heat storage operation using the outside air heat only was performed under the condition that the temperature of the thermal storage tank was controlled constantly from 50 to $52^{\circ}C$, and COP was analyzed to be 2.33. As a result, it was confirmed that the COP of the heat storage operation using the surplus solar heat and outside air heat as selective heat source and the variable temperature control of the thermal storage tank was 39% higher than that of the general heat storage operation using the outside air heat only and the constant temperature control of the thermal storage tank.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.3-9
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• 2017

Recently, in 3rd Generation Partnership Project(3GPP), there is a study of the Long Term Evolution(LTE) based vehicle communication which has been actively conducted to provide a transport efficiency, telematics and infortainment. Because the vehicle communication is closely related to the safety, it requires a reliable communication. Because vehicle speed is very fast, unlike the movement of the user, radio channel is rapidly changed and generate a number of problems such as transmission quality degradation. Therefore, we have to continuously updates the channel estimates. There are five types of conventional channel estimation scheme. Least Square(LS) is obtained by pilot symbol which is known to transmitter and receiver. Decision Directed Channel Estimation(DDCE) scheme uses the data signal for channel estimation. Constructed Data Pilot(CDP) scheme uses the correlation characteristic between adjacent two data symbols. Spectral Temporal Averaging(STA) scheme uses the frequency-time domain average of the channel. Smoothing scheme reduces the peak error value of data decision. In this paper, we propose the novel channel estimation scheme in LTE based Vehicle-to-Vehicle(V2V) environment. In our Hybrid Reliable Channel Estimation(HRCE) scheme, DDCE and Smoothing schemes are combined and finally the Linear Minimum Mean Square Error(LMMSE) scheme is applied to minimize the channel estimation error. Therefore it is possible to detect the reliable data. In simulation results, overall performance can be improved in terms of Normalized Mean Square Error(NMSE) and Bit Error Rate(BER).