• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.1 no.2 s.2
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• pp.371-398
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• 2001

Sciences and technologies are the sources which have formed presently highly developed civilizations and cultures and have enhanced the quality of human lives. But we see the dark sides of them as well as the bright sides, and we have the consciousness of environmental crisis and destruction of lives caused by them. Thus were are criticisms against human-tropism or technology-tropism from nature-tropism or deep ecology. However, if people would continue to have the desire of enjoying the present quality of their lives, they should try to develop and improve pro-environmental technologies. In this vein, we have the necessity of making environmental decisions and solving environmental problems by information technologies. Since the second half of the last century, 'environment' is the key word because we have the consciousness of environment strongly. As we solve human problems by making decisions of actions, we must face with environmental decisions in order to solve our environmental problems. If we have the better understanding of the nature of information and the role of information technology, and the relation of information technology and decision-making, we are able to design environmental systems and implement their optimal interfaces of environmental components. For this purpose, we are obliged to combine several useful technologies including GIS, DSS, Knowledge-based system and artificial neural networks. Therefore the developments and cooperations of these fields in environmental decision making enables us to live in the better and comfortable surrounding in the near future.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.340-347
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• 2001

Seasonal variation of the elemental and biochemical composition of the suspended particulate matter (SPM) was investigated in terms of quantity and quality of diets for suspension feeders from July 1999 to August 2000 in two coastal bay systems of Gosung and Kangjin Bays in Korea. No clear patterns in the seasonal variations of SPM concentration were found in these two bay systems. The results indicated that the seasonal variation of SPM could not be considered the variation of food available to suspension-feeders. The simultaneous peaks in chlorophyll a and biochemical components in summer indicated that the quantity of the particulate organic matter primarily depended on phytoplankton productivity. However, no correlation between chlorophyll a and biochemical components [particulate protein (PPr), carbohydrate (PCHO) and lipid] were found, indicating that other processes might also contribute to the particulate organic matter in the period when the phytoplankton biomass was low. High C: Chl a and C:N, and carbohydrate peaks during the autumn to spring period suggested that resuspension of surface sediments was a probable process to supply the particulate organic matter. The food material, represented by summing up the total quantity of three biochemical components, was highest in spring with minor peaks during the period from autumn to the next spring, The food index, calculated as the ratio of food material to total SPM, did not generally exceed $6\%$ with short peaks during the year. Therefore, nutritional quality of SPM in the bays are relatively poor than in other more productive coastal waters in the world. Our results confirm that the measurement of a single chemical variable cannot describe fully the nutritive value of the seston available to suspension-feeders as previously proposed, and the biochemical composition of SPM can provide effective information on its origin and nutritive Quality.