• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.283-298
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• 2022

As Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image can be acquired regardless of the weather and day or night, it is highly recommended to be used for Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) in the fields of surveillance, reconnaissance, and national security. However, there are some limitations in terms of cost and operation to build various and vast amounts of target images for the SAR-ATR system. Recently, interest in the development of an ATR system based on simulated SAR images using a target model is increasing. Attributed Scattering Center (ASC) matching and template matching mainly used in SAR-ATR are applied to target classification. The method based on ASC matching was developed by World View Vector (WVV) feature reconstruction and Weighted Bipartite Graph Matching (WBGM). The template matching was carried out by calculating the correlation coefficient between two simulated images reconstructed with adjacent points to each other. For the performance analysis of the two proposed methods, the Synthetic and Measured Paired Labeled Experiment (SAMPLE) dataset was used, which has been recently published by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). We conducted experiments under standard operating conditions, partial target occlusion, and random occlusion. The performance of the ASC matching is generally superior to that of the template matching. Under the standard operating condition, the average recognition rate of the ASC matching is 85.1%, and the rate of the template matching is 74.4%. Also, the ASC matching has less performance variation across 10 targets. The ASC matching performed about 10% higher than the template matching according to the amount of target partial occlusion, and even with 60% random occlusion, the recognition rate was 73.4%.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.75-88
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• 2024

It would be advantageous to predict acreage and yield of crops in major grain-exporting countries, which would improve decisions on policy making and grain trade in Korea. A climate suitability model can be used to assess crop acreage and yield in a region where the availability of observation data is limited for the use of process-based crop models. The objective of this study was to determine the climate suitability index of wheat by province in Ukraine, which would allow for the spatial assessment of acreage and yield for the given crop. In the present study, the official data of wheat acreage and yield were collected from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine. The EarthStat data, which is a data product derived from satellite data and official crop reports, were also gathered for the comparison with the map of climate suitability index. The Fuzzy Union model was used to create the climate suitability maps under the historical climate conditions for the period from 1970 to 2000. These maps were compared against actual acreage and yield by province. It was found that the EarthStat data for acreage and yield of wheat differed from the corresponding official data in several provinces. On the other hand, the climate suitability index obtained using the Fuzzy Union model explained the variation in acreage and yield at a reasonable degree. For example, the correlation coefficient between the climate suitability index and yield was 0.647. Our results suggested that the climate suitability index could be used to indicate the spatial distribution of acreage and yield within a region of interest.

• Convergence Security Journal
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.167-174
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• 2024

While reserve forces play a critical role in modern warfare, the primary focus on reserve forces has been on men. Women's reserve forces have received little attention. The purpose of this study is to examine the need to increase the number of women in the reserve and the impact of increasing the number of women on active duty. The reasons for the need for women in the military are the decrease in the resources of the reserve force as well as the regular force due to the decrease in population, the development of fields where women can perform missions with advantages due to the changing patterns of warfare, and the changing situation of gender equality and the increasing role of women in society. However, it is currently optional, not mandatory, for female veterans to join the Reserve. The number of cadres entering the reserve may decrease as the number of active-duty women increases. Using a 2018 estimate of 13.9 percent of women transitioning to the Reserve, 194 of the 1,402 projected transitioning women in '27 will transition to the Reserve. This leaves an estimated shortfall of 1,208 reserve officers and NCO. This suggests that the policy of increasing the number of women on active duty could have a significant impact on the reserve force in the future, and further policy research is needed.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.224-238
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• 2022

North Korea has actively participated in the international community related to environmental agreements. It has proposed various environmental policies internally since the Kim Jong-un regime. In particular, it emphasizes activities related to climate change response, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the conservation of ecosystems including forests and wetlands. In this study, a new security cooperation plan was proposed with an understanding of the climate crisis and environmental regime as a starting point. To this end, trends and recent activities for climate-environment cooperation in the international community and on the Korean Peninsula were analyzed. In addition, North Korea's conditions for cooperation on the Korean Peninsula, technology demand, and the projected future environment of the Korean Peninsula were dealt with. Ultimately, through advice of experts, we were able to discover cooperation agendas by sector and propose short-term and long-term environmental cooperation strategies for the Korean Peninsula based on them. In this study, conditions and directions for cooperation in fields of climate technology, biological resources, air/weather, water environment, biodiversity, renewable energy, bioenergy, and so on were considered comprehensively. Among 21 cooperation agendas discovered in this study, energy showed the largest number of areas. Renewable energy, forest resources, and environmental and meteorological information stood out as agendas that could be cooperated in the short term. As representative initiatives, joint promotion of 'renewable energy' that could contribute to North Korea's energy demand and carbon neutrality and 'forest cooperation' that could be recognized as a source of disaster reduction and greenhouse gas sinks were suggested.

• Journal of National Security and Military Science
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• s.9
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• pp.313-340
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• 2011

The National Defense Reformation bill of "National Defense Reformation 2020" which have been constantly disputed and reformed by the government went through various levels of complementary measures after the North Korean sinking on the Republic of Korea (ROK) Naval Vessel "Cheonan". The final outcome of this reform is also known as the 307 Plan and this was announced on the 8th March. The reformed National Defense Reformation is to reduce the number of units and military personnel under the military structure reformation. However, in order for us to undertake successful National Defense Reformation, the use of privatized civilian resources are essential. Therefore according to this theory, the ROK Ministry of National Defense (MND) have selected the usage of privatized resources as one of the main core agenda for the National Defense Reformation management procedures, and under this agenda the MND plans to further expand the usage of private Especially the MND plans to minimize the personnel resources applied in non-combat areas and in turn use these supplemented personnel with optimization. In order to do this, the MND have initiated necessary appropriate analysis over the whole national defense section by understanding various projects and acquisition requests required by each militaries and civilian research institutions. However for efficient management of privatized civilian resources, first of all, those possible efficient private resources which can achieve optimization will need to be identified, and secondly continuous systematic reinforcements will need to be made in private resource usage legislations. Furthermore, we would need to consider the possibility of labor disputes because of privatization expansion. Therefore, full legal and systematic complementary measures are required in all possible issue arising areas which can affect the combat readiness posture. There is another problem of huge increase in operational expenses as reduction of standby forces are only reducing the number of soldiers and filling these numbers with more cost expensive commissioned officers. However, to overcome this problem, we would need to reduce the number of positions available for active officers and fill these positions with military reserve personnel who previously had working experiences with the related positions (thereby guaranteeing active officers re-employment after completing active service). This would in tum maintain the standards of combat readiness posture and reduce necessary financial budgets which may newly arise. The area of maintenance, supply, transportation, training & education duties which are highly efficient when using privatized resources, will need to be transformed from military management based to civilian management based system. For maintenance, this can be processed by integrating National Maintenance Support System. In order for us to undertake this procedure, we would need to develop maintenance units which are possible to be privatized and this will in turn reduce the military personnel executing job duties, improve service quality and prevent duplicate investments etc. For supply area, we will need to establish Integrated Military Logistics Center in-connection with national and civilian logistics system. This will in turn reduce the logistics time frame as well as required personnel and equipments. In terms of transportation, we will need to further expand the renting and leasing system. This will need to be executed by integrating the National Defense Transportation Information System which will in turn reduce the required personnel and financial budgets. Finally for training and education, retired military personnel can be employed as training instructors and at the military academy, further expansion in the number of civilian professors can be employed in-connection with National Defense Reformation. In other words, more active privatized civilian resources will need to be managed and used for National Defense Reformation.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.83-92
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• 2007

In view of stringent environment regulations to control the emission of green house gases and also depleting fossil fuel reserves, it is high quality desirable to develop alternative technologies to produce high quality fuels. To this end Biomass to Liquid (BTL) technology has received much attention in recent years. BTL process generally consists of gasification of biomass to produce bio-syngas, cleaning and control of $H_{2}/CO$ mole ratio of bio-syngas and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis & upgrading systems. Choren, Germany has first developed the commercial BTL process using unique gasification system i.e., Carbo-V. A new technology to remove tars and BTX has been developed by ECN in Netherlands employing a gasification system combined with OLGA technology. Several other countries including USA and Japan are showing great interest in BTL technology. Thus in view of our national energy security and also the environmental regulations, it is essential to develop alternative technologies like BTL in order to meet the increasing demand of energy though our insufficient biomass resources. In this paper we present an overview and development status of BTL-diesel technology.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.429-435
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• 2020

North Korea declared itself complete with nuclear force after its sixth nuclear test in 2017. Despite efforts at home and abroad to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, the prospects for the denuclearization are not bright. Along with political and diplomatic efforts to deter NK's WMD threats, the government is required to strengthen its consequence management capabilities against 'catastrophic situations' expected in case of emergency. Accordingly, this study was conducted to present measures to strengthen follow-up management against CBRN threats. The research model was partially supplemented and utilized by the THIRA process adopted and utilized by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security among national-level disaster management plan development models. Korea's consequence management (CM) system encompasses risk and crisis management on disaster condition. The system has been carried out in the form of a civil, government and military integrated defense operations for the purpose of curbing the spread or use of CBRNs, responding to threats, and minimizing expected damages. The preventive stage call for the incorporation of CBRN concept and CM procedures into the national management system, supplementing the integrated alarm systems, preparation of evacuation facilities, and establishment of the integrated training systems. In the preparation phase, readjustment of relevant laws and manuals, maintenance of government organizations, developing performance procedures, establishing the on-site support systems, and regular training are essential. In the response phase, normal operations of the medical support system for first aid and relief, installation and operation of facilities for decontamination, and development of regional damage assessment and control guidelines are important. In the recovery phase, development of stabilization evaluation criteria and procedures, securing and operation of resources needed for damage recovery, and strengthening of regional damage recovery capabilities linked to local defense forces, reserve forces and civil defense committees are required.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.611-616
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• 2018

With the recent increase in awareness of the diversification of patterns of warfare and security, technological evolution is occurring in the field of autonomous defense robots. As defense science and technology develops with the development of the concept of military utilization focusing on human lives and economic operation, the importance of autonomous robots in the effect-oriented future battlefield is increasing. The major developed countries have developed core technologies, investment strategies, priorities, data securing strategies and infrastructure development related to the field of autonomous defense robots, and research activities such as technology planning and policy strategy for autonomous defense robots in Korea have already begun. In addition, the field of autonomous defense robots encompasses technologies that represent the fourth industrial revolution, such as artificial intelligence, big data, and virtual reality, and so the expectations for this future area of technology are very high. It is difficult to predict the path of technological development due to the increase in the demand for new rather than existing technology. Moreover, the selection and concentration of strategic R&D is required due to resource constraints. It is thought that a preemptive response is needed. This study attempts to derive 6 new technologies that will shape the future of autonomous defense robots and to obtain meaningful results through an empirical study.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.312-333
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• 2020

Korea-Africa relations date back to the period of independence of African countries. During this time, the ties between Korea and Africa has passed through stagnation, inconsistencies and weak diplomatic exchanges. Recently, Korea began to refocus its efforts towards Africa in order to revitalize their relations. This paper examines Korea's public diplomacy strategies towards Africa and how its various strategies are working in the interest of Korea as well as Africa. The study shows that Korea's renewed interest in Africa is primarily driven by the security threat from North Korea and the need to diversify its market for industrial goods as well as energy sources. The latter motives override Korea's interest in the continent. These motives are not at variance with those pursued by large powers like the US and China in Africa. Furthermore, the paper shows that Korea is employing a mixture of public diplomacy instruments in Africa with varied outcomes. Economic linkages between Korea and Africa are on an upward trajectory since the late 2000s. In order to build sustainable relations, the paper provides a number suggestions with far-reaching implications on Korea's public diplomacy towards Africa in the future.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.79-103
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• 2016

The Korean Army has to construct a system that will enable it to cope immediately with the flexible military relationships in Northeast Asia by systematizing and improving the efficiency of operations. These improvements include building a smart and strong army, concentrating on cost-effective combat skills, maximizing the utilization of private resources, and establishing a military structure based on information and technology. Accordingly, this study proposes solutions to solve the problems affecting the success of outsourcing in the defense industry. Unlike outsourcing in other government ministries, outsourcing in the national defense sector may be unrealistic because this strategy is related to the renovation project of the Ministry of the National Defense. In general, the objective of outsourcing in the defense industry, similar to other businesses, is to improve efficiency and not to reduce troops and national defense budget. Several factors, such as identification and security guarantee, risk reduction, cost saving, quality improvement, the reliability of enterprise, and professional technology, are necessary to ensure outsourcing success in the national defense sector. In terms of effectiveness, the improvement in service quality significantly influences outsourcing success in the national defense sector. Eventually, the national defense forces must be strengthened to prevent the provocative actions of North Korea and other threats by improving identification, sense of national security, and quality unlike the current outsourcing of the government, as well as emulating German GEBB or PMC, which utilizes social capital.