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Short-Term Efficacy of Steroid and Immunosuppressive Drugs in Patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis and Pre-treatment Factors Associated with Favorable Response (특발성폐섬유화증에서 스테로이드와 면역억제제의 단기 치료효과 및 치료반응 예측인자)

  • Kang, Kyeong-Woo;Park, Sang-Joon;Koh, Young-Min;Lee, Sang-Pyo;Suh, Gee-Young;Chung, Man-Pyo;Han, Jung-Ho;Kim, Ho-Joong;Kwon, O-Jung;Lee, Kyung-Soo;Rhee, Chong-H.
    • Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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    • v.46 no.5
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    • pp.685-696
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    • 1999
  • Background : Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a diffuse inflammatory and fibrosing process that occurs within the interstitium and alveolus of the lung with invariably poor prognosis. The major problem in management of IPF results from the variable rate of disease progression and the difficulties in predicting the response to therapy. The purpose of this retrospective study was to evaluate the short-term efficacy of steroid and immunosuppressive therapy for IPF and to identify the pre-treatment determinants of favorable response. Method : Twenty patients of IPF were included. Diagnosis of IPF was proven by thoracoscopic lung biopsy and they were presumed to have active progressive disease. The baseline evaluation in these patients included clinical history, pulmonary function test, bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), and chest high resolution computed tomography (HRCT). Fourteen patients received oral prednisolone treatment with initial dose of 1mg/kg/day for 8 to 12 weeks and then tapering to low-dose prednisolone (0.25mg/kg/day). Six patients who previously had experienced significant side effects to steroid received 2mg/kg/day of oral cyclophosphamide with or without low-dose prednisolone. Follow-up evaluation was performed after 6 months of therapy. If patients met more than one of followings, they were considered to be responders : (1) improvement of more than one grade in dyspnea index, (2) improvement in FVC or TLC more than 10% or improvement in DLco more than 20% (3) decreased extent of disease in chest HRCT findings. Result : One patient died of extrapulmonary cause after 3 month of therapy, and another patient gave up any further medical therapy due to side effect of steroid. Eventually medical records of 18 patients were analyzed. Nine of 18 patients were classified into responders and the other nine patients into nonresponders. The histopathologic diagnosis of the responders were all nonspecific interstitial pneumonia (NSIP) and that of nonresponders were all usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP) (p<0.001). The other significant differences between the two groups were female predominance (p<0.01), smoking history (p<0.001), severe grade of dyspnea (p<0.05), lymphocytosis in BAL fluid ($23.8{\pm}16.3%$ vs $7.8{\pm}3.6%$, p<0.05), and less honeycombing in chest HRCT findings (0% vs $9.2{\pm}2.3%$, p<0.001). Conclusion : Our results suggest that patients with histopathologic diagnosis of NSIP or lymphocytosis in BAL fluid are more likely to respond to steroid or immunosuppressive therapy. Clinical results in large numbers of IPF patients will be required to identify the independent variables.

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Prevalence of Musculoskeletal Symptom in Rural Farmers (농촌지역주민의 근골격계 증상 경험률)

  • Oh, Hae-Ok;Kam, Sin;Han, Chang-Hyun;Hwang, Byung-Deog;Mun, Hyo-Jung;Cha, Byung-Jun;Park, Sang-Yeon
    • Journal of muscle and joint health
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    • v.8 no.1
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    • pp.86-108
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    • 2001
  • This study was performed to examine the annual experience rate of musculoskeletal symptom and its related factors in rural farmers. Six-hundred and sixty one rural farmers were investigated by questionnaire survey through interview from July 1 to July 31 in 2000. The results were as follows; The rural farmers who had experienced musculoskeletal symptom during recent 1 year was 82.7% in male, 92.1% in female. The annual experience rate of musculoskeletal symptom by part of the body in male were turned out as back; 42.3% leg and knee; 36.4%, shoulder; 21.4%, arm and hand; 12.7%, elbow; 7.7%, hip; 6.8% neck; 6.4%, ankle and foot; 6.4% in order. The annual experience rate of musculoskeletal symptom by part of the body in female were turned out as back; 59.4%, leg and knee; 48.5%, shoulder; 20.2%, arm and hand; 13.8%, hip; 10.7%, neck; 6.8%, ankle and foot; 6.3%, elbow; 5.0% in order. The annual experience rate of musculoskeletal symptom, back pain, and pain on leg and knee were significantly higher in female. In male, the experience rate of musculoskeletal symptom was different significantly according to educational level, family size, economic status, status of smoking, duration of farming, type of major agricultural affairs. By the multiple logistic regression analysis for experience of musculoskeletal symptom, family size and economic status were the significant variables. It was higher in male with no or one family living together and low economic status. In female, the experience rate of musculoskeletal symptom was different significantly according to body mass index, perceived health status, type of agricultural affairs. By the multiple logistic regression analysis for experience of musculoskeletal symptom, body mass index, perceived health status, and type of major agricultural affairs were the significant variables. It was higher as female farmer's body mass index was increasing and when female farmer's perceived health status was not healthier, and it was lower when female farmer did livestock farming as major agricultural affair. The experience rate of musculoskeletal symptom was higher in the busy season for farmers and treatment methods for musculoskeletal symptom were physical therapy, medication, herb medical treatment, etc. In conclusion, because most of farmers experience musculoskeletal symptom, continuous systematic study on musculoskeletal symptom of farmers and active effort to prevent and manage musculoskeletal symptom of farmers are necessary.

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An Empirical Study on the Determinants of Supply Chain Management Systems Success from Vendor's Perspective (참여자관점에서 공급사슬관리 시스템의 성공에 영향을 미치는 요인에 관한 실증연구)

  • Kang, Sung-Bae;Moon, Tae-Soo;Chung, Yoon
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.139-166
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    • 2010
  • The supply chain management (SCM) systems have emerged as strong managerial tools for manufacturing firms in enhancing competitive strength. Despite of large investments in the SCM systems, many companies are not fully realizing the promised benefits from the systems. A review of literature on adoption, implementation and success factor of IOS (inter-organization systems), EDI (electronic data interchange) systems, shows that this issue has been examined from multiple theoretic perspectives. And many researchers have attempted to identify the factors which influence the success of system implementation. However, the existing studies have two drawbacks in revealing the determinants of systems implementation success. First, previous researches raise questions as to the appropriateness of research subjects selected. Most SCM systems are operating in the form of private industrial networks, where the participants of the systems consist of two distinct groups: focus companies and vendors. The focus companies are the primary actors in developing and operating the systems, while vendors are passive participants which are connected to the system in order to supply raw materials and parts to the focus companies. Under the circumstance, there are three ways in selecting the research subjects; focus companies only, vendors only, or two parties grouped together. It is hard to find researches that use the focus companies exclusively as the subjects probably due to the insufficient sample size for statistic analysis. Most researches have been conducted using the data collected from both groups. We argue that the SCM success factors cannot be correctly indentified in this case. The focus companies and the vendors are in different positions in many areas regarding the system implementation: firm size, managerial resources, bargaining power, organizational maturity, and etc. There are no obvious reasons to believe that the success factors of the two groups are identical. Grouping the two groups also raises questions on measuring the system success. The benefits from utilizing the systems may not be commonly distributed to the two groups. One group's benefits might be realized at the expenses of the other group considering the situation where vendors participating in SCM systems are under continuous pressures from the focus companies with respect to prices, quality, and delivery time. Therefore, by combining the system outcomes of both groups we cannot measure the system benefits obtained by each group correctly. Second, the measures of system success adopted in the previous researches have shortcoming in measuring the SCM success. User satisfaction, system utilization, and user attitudes toward the systems are most commonly used success measures in the existing studies. These measures have been developed as proxy variables in the studies of decision support systems (DSS) where the contribution of the systems to the organization performance is very difficult to measure. Unlike the DSS, the SCM systems have more specific goals, such as cost saving, inventory reduction, quality improvement, rapid time, and higher customer service. We maintain that more specific measures can be developed instead of proxy variables in order to measure the system benefits correctly. The purpose of this study is to find the determinants of SCM systems success in the perspective of vendor companies. In developing the research model, we have focused on selecting the success factors appropriate for the vendors through reviewing past researches and on developing more accurate success measures. The variables can be classified into following: technological, organizational, and environmental factors on the basis of TOE (Technology-Organization-Environment) framework. The model consists of three independent variables (competition intensity, top management support, and information system maturity), one mediating variable (collaboration), one moderating variable (government support), and a dependent variable (system success). The systems success measures have been developed to reflect the operational benefits of the SCM systems; improvement in planning and analysis capabilities, faster throughput, cost reduction, task integration, and improved product and customer service. The model has been validated using the survey data collected from 122 vendors participating in the SCM systems in Korea. To test for mediation, one should estimate the hierarchical regression analysis on the collaboration. And moderating effect analysis should estimate the moderated multiple regression, examines the effect of the government support. The result shows that information system maturity and top management support are the most important determinants of SCM system success. Supply chain technologies that standardize data formats and enhance information sharing may be adopted by supply chain leader organization because of the influence of focal company in the private industrial networks in order to streamline transactions and improve inter-organization communication. Specially, the need to develop and sustain an information system maturity will provide the focus and purpose to successfully overcome information system obstacles and resistance to innovation diffusion within the supply chain network organization. The support of top management will help focus efforts toward the realization of inter-organizational benefits and lend credibility to functional managers responsible for its implementation. The active involvement, vision, and direction of high level executives provide the impetus needed to sustain the implementation of SCM. The quality of collaboration relationships also is positively related to outcome variable. Collaboration variable is found to have a mediation effect between on influencing factors and implementation success. Higher levels of inter-organizational collaboration behaviors such as shared planning and flexibility in coordinating activities were found to be strongly linked to the vendors trust in the supply chain network. Government support moderates the effect of the IS maturity, competitive intensity, top management support on collaboration and implementation success of SCM. In general, the vendor companies face substantially greater risks in SCM implementation than the larger companies do because of severe constraints on financial and human resources and limited education on SCM systems. Besides resources, Vendors generally lack computer experience and do not have sufficient internal SCM expertise. For these reasons, government supports may establish requirements for firms doing business with the government or provide incentives to adopt, implementation SCM or practices. Government support provides significant improvements in implementation success of SCM when IS maturity, competitive intensity, top management support and collaboration are low. The environmental characteristic of competition intensity has no direct effect on vendor perspective of SCM system success. But, vendors facing above average competition intensity will have a greater need for changing technology. This suggests that companies trying to implement SCM systems should set up compatible supply chain networks and a high-quality collaboration relationship for implementation and performance.

Recent Research for the Seismic Activities and Crustal Velocity Structure (국내 지진활동 및 지각구조 연구동향)

  • Kim, Sung-Kyun;Jun, Myung-Soon;Jeon, Jeong-Soo
    • Economic and Environmental Geology
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    • v.39 no.4 s.179
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    • pp.369-384
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    • 2006
  • Korean Peninsula, located on the southeastern part of Eurasian plate, belongs to the intraplate region. The characteristics of intraplate earthquake show the low and rare seismicity and the sparse and irregular distribution of epicenters comparing to interplate earthquake. To evaluate the exact seismic activity in intraplate region, long-term seismic data including historical earthquake data should be archived. Fortunately the long-term historical earthquake records about 2,000 years are available in Korea Peninsula. By the analysis of this historical and instrumental earthquake data, seismic activity was very high in 16-18 centuries and is more active at the Yellow sea area than East sea area. Comparing to the high seismic activity of the north-eastern China in 16-18 centuries, it is inferred that seismic activity in two regions shows close relationship. Also general trend of epicenter distribution shows the SE-NW direction. In Korea Peninsula, the first seismic station was installed at Incheon in 1905 and 5 additional seismic stations were installed till 1943. There was no seismic station from 1945 to 1962, but a World Wide Standardized Seismograph was installed at Seoul in 1963. In 1990, Korean Meteorological Adminstration(KMA) had established centralized modem seismic network in real-time, consisted of 12 stations. After that time, many institutes tried to expand their own seismic networks in Korea Peninsula. Now KMA operates 35 velocity-type seismic stations and 75 accelerometers and Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources operates 32 and 16 stations, respectively. Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety and Korea Electric Power Research Institute operate 4 and 13 stations, consisted of velocity-type and accelerometer. In and around the Korean Peninsula, 27 intraplate earthquake mechanisms since 1936 were analyzed to understand the regional stress orientation and tectonics. These earthquakes are largest ones in this century and may represent the characteristics of earthquake in this region. Focal mechanism of these earthquakes show predominant strike-slip faulting with small amount of thrust components. The average P-axis is almost horizontal ENE-WSW. In north-eastern China, strike-slip faulting is dominant and nearly horizontal average P-axis in ENE-WSW is very similar with the Korean Peninsula. On the other hand, in the eastern part of East Sea, thrust faulting is dominant and average P-axis is horizontal with ESE-WNW. This indicate that not only the subducting Pacific Plate in east but also the indenting Indian Plate controls earthquake mechanism in the far east of the Eurasian Plate. Crustal velocity model is very important to determine the hypocenters of the local earthquakes. But the crust model in and around Korean Peninsula is not clear till now, because the sufficient seismic data could not accumulated. To solve this problem, reflection and refraction seismic survey and seismic wave analysis method were simultaneously applied to two long cross-section traversing the southern Korean Peninsula since 2002. This survey should be continuously conducted.

The Patterns of CH4 and N2O fluxes from used Litter Stockpile from Korean Native Cattle (Hanwoo) (사용한 한우 깔짚에서 배출되는 CH4 및 N2O의 배출 특성)

  • Park, Kyu-Hyun;Choi, Dong-Yoon;Yoo, Yong-Hee
    • Journal of Animal Environmental Science
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    • v.18 no.3
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    • pp.145-150
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    • 2012
  • This study was conducted to measure methane ($CH_4$) and nitrous oxide ($N_2O$) emissions from the 6 month old litter stockpile used for korean native cattle (Hanwoo) from August 3, 2007 to October 4, 2007. Daily mean $CH_4$ emissions was peaked to 273.013 ${\mu}g\;m^{-2}\;s^{-1}$ (SE : ${\pm}1.047{\mu}g\;m^{-2}\;s^{-1}$) on first day and then gradually decreased to 2.309 ${\mu}g\;m^{-2}\;s^{-1}$ (SE : ${\pm}0.061{\mu}g\;m^{-2}\;s^{-1}$) at the end of this experiment. Daily mean $N_2O$ emissions was as little as 0.269 ${\mu}g\;m^{-2}\;s^{-1}$ (SE : ${\pm}0.018{\mu}g\;m^{-2}\;s^{-1}$) on first day, but exponentially increased up to 3.569 ${\mu}g\;m^{-2}\;s^{-1}$ (SE : ${\pm}0.454{\mu}g\;m^{-2}\;s^{-1}$) on 43rd day and then slowly decreased to 1.888 ${\mu}g\;m^{-2}\;s^{-1}$ (SE : ${\pm}0.012{\mu}g\;m^{-2}\;s^{-1}$) at the end of this experiment. Carbon dioxide equivalent ($CO_2$-eq), calculated by global warming potentials of $CH_4$ or $N_2O$, of $CH_4$ on first day occupied approximately 99% of sum of $CO_2$-eq of $CH_4$ and $N_2O$. Methane emissions decreased and $N_2O$ emissions increased so that $CO_2$-eq ratio of $CH_4$ to $N_2O$ was 50:50 on 34th day. The effect of $N_2O$ on the ratio was increase thereafter. The ratio of daily mean $CH_4$ and $N_2O$ emissions to daily error of the mean was calculated to find daily fluctuation of $CH_4$ and $N_2O$ emissions. The ratio of $CH_4$ was less than 1.0% till 11th day but increased to 10.9% on 57th day. The ratio of $N_2O$ (0.4%~51.0%) was higher than that of $CH_4$, showing high in early stage and then gradually decrease, which was different from the pattern of $CH_4$. The ratio of daily mean emissions to daily error of the mean was little in case of active $CH_4$ or $N_2O$ generation period, which would be caused by the temporal and spatial heterogeneity of composting process. Hence more air supply on early stage to decrease $CH_4$ generation and proper turning to reduce spatial heterogeneity are needed to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Studies on Biology and Control of the Mulberry Small Weevil, Baris deplanata ROELOFS (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) (뽕나무애바구미의 생태 및 방제에 관한 연구)

  • 백현준;백운하
    • Journal of Sericultural and Entomological Science
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.65-78
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    • 1976
  • The mulberry small weevil, Baris deplanata ROELOFS, has highly infested mulberry trees in Korea. As the damage caused by the mulberry small weevil in mulberry fields has been increased over the country since 1969, the authors has carried out a series of biological and controlling studies on the pest from 1971 to 1972. The results obtained are summarized as follows. 1. The adult weevil is elongate oval in shape with black in color and the probocis is long as usual in curculionidae. The size of adult female is 3.30${\pm}$0.04mm in length, 1.47${\pm}$0.04mm in width, and the length of proboscis is 1.25${\pm}$0.014mm, while adult male is 3.28${\pm}$0.06mm in length, 1.40${\pm}$0.04mm in width, and the length of proboscis is 1.30${\pm}$0.02mm. The antenna is geniculate consisting of 12 segments. The terminal sternite of the abdomen has a pointed tip in male but not in female. 2. The egg is long oval in shape, milky white in color, 0.51${\pm}$0.05mm in length and 0.32${\pm}$0.02mm in width. 3. The mature larva is cylindrical and light yellowow in color except the head of dark brown, and legless, 3.88${\pm}$0.06mm in length, 1.40${\pm}$0.02mm width, each segment bearing many wrinkless and short setae. 4. The pupa is long oval, milky white and exarate, 3.53${\pm}$0.09 in length, 1.40${\pm}$0.03mm in width. 5. Majority of the species has one generation through a year and overwinters as adult in xylem of withered branch and come out again from late April to early May in next year. But some of the female oviposit in the same year and the offsprings overwinter as larva (0.4%) or pupa (0.1%) 6. The eggs are mostly laid under the cork layer of withered branch and the number of eggs deposited by an adult female is 73.44${\pm}$8.74, the average egg-laying period is 33.88${\pm}$6.04 days. The incubation period is 11.69${\pm}$0.39 days, the larval period 45.04${\pm}$1.63 and the pupal period 11.05${\pm}$0.49 days. The period of adult's activity is 46.7${\pm}$5.90 days. 7. The larvae feed on the cambium under the bark and adults feed on the winter bud, the latent bud, the leaf stalk and the base of newly shoot. 8. An active period of adults was observed during the period of 4 months from April to July. However, the peak of adult-density occurred in the early May (in the fields of spring-prunning) and early to middle June(in the fields of summer-prunning). 9. There is a positive correlation between the density of larvae and diameter and length of the branches. 10. The pattern of distributions of the adult of mulberry small weevil is negative binomial distribution. 11. The chalcid fly was disclosed to be a natural enemy which was parasite on the larvae of mulberry small weevil and its parasitic ratio was 11.9%. 12. Phosvel D, Malix D, Salithion EC, DDVP EC, and Phosvel EC were effective for the control of adults and Satchukoto-S EC, and Salithio EC were effective for the control of larvae.

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A survey on daily physical activity level, energy expenditure and dietary energy intake by university students in Chungnam Province in Korea (충남지역 대학생의 신체활동수준, 에너지소비량 및 에너지섭취량 조사)

  • Kim, Sun Hyo
    • Journal of Nutrition and Health
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    • v.46 no.4
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    • pp.346-356
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    • 2013
  • This study investigated the daily physical activity level, energy expenditure, energy balance, and body composition and their relationship with university students. The participants were 130 male students ($19.5{\pm}0.5$ yrs) and 139 female students ($19.5{\pm}0.3$ yrs) at a university in Chungnam province. Physical activity level was evaluated by an equation based on 24 hr-activity record and dietary nutrient intake was evaluated using the food record method during a three-day period consisting of two week days and one weekend. Body composition was measured using Inbody 430 (Biospace Co., Cheonan, Korea). As a result, mean body mass index (BMI) of subjects indicated that they had normal weight, however mean body fat ratio was $19.1{\pm}5.4%$ for males and $28.4{\pm}5.0%$ for females, indicating that they had higher than normal weight. Daily mean physical activity level was 1.55 for males and 1.47 for females, which was regarded as 'low active', respectively. Females had more light activity than males (p<0.01). Daily mean energy expenditure was $2,803.5{\pm}788.9$ kcal/d for males and $1,915.4{\pm}510.2$ kcal/d for females (p<0.001). Daily mean dietary energy intake was $2,327.0{\pm}562.5$ kcal/d for males and $1,802.1{\pm}523.6/d$ for females (p<0.001), and daily mean energy balance was $-476.5{\pm}955.9$ kcal/d for males and $-113.3{\pm}728.1$ kcal/d for females (p<0.01). Daily mean dietary intake of protein, vitamins, and minerals, except Ca, satisfied recommended nutrient intake. Daily energy expenditure was positively related to body weight (p<0.01), BMI (p<0.01), and fat free mass ratio (p<0.05), but was negatively related to body fat ratio (p<0.01). In conclusion, subjects had a negative energy balance and low physical activity. They had a normal weight by BMI but had a more fat than normal weight by body fat ratio. This appears to be related to their low physical activity. Thus, nutrition education should be provided for university students in order to increase their physical activity for maintenance of normal weight by body composition and health promotion.

Studies on Development of Prediction Model of Landslide Hazard and Its Utilization (산지사면(山地斜面)의 붕괴위험도(崩壞危險度) 예측(豫測)모델의 개발(開發) 및 실용화(實用化) 방안(方案))

  • Ma, Ho-Seop
    • Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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    • v.83 no.2
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    • pp.175-190
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    • 1994
  • In order to get fundamental information for prediction of landslide hazard, both forest and site factors affecting slope stability were investigated in many areas of active landslides. Twelve descriptors were identified and quantified to develop the prediction model by multivariate statistical analysis. The main results obtained could be summarized as follows : The main factors influencing a large scale of landslide were shown in order of precipitation, age group of forest trees, altitude, soil texture, slope gradient, position of slope, vegetation, stream order, vertical slope, bed rock, soil depth and aspect. According to partial correlation coefficient, it was shown in order of age group of forest trees, precipitation, soil texture, bed rock, slope gradient, position of slope, altitude, vertical slope, stream order, vegetation, soil depth and aspect. The main factors influencing a landslide occurrence were shown in order of age group of forest trees, altitude, soil texture, slope gradient, precipitation, vertical slope, stream order, bed rock and soil depth. Two prediction models were developed by magnitude and frequency of landslide. Particularly, a prediction method by magnitude of landslide was changed the score for the convenience of use. If the total store of the various factors mark over 9.1636, it is evaluated as a very dangerous area. The mean score of landslide and non-landslide group was 0.1977 and -0.1977, and variance was 0.1100 and 0.1250, respectively. The boundary value between the two groups related to slope stability was -0.02, and its predicted rate of discrimination was 73%. In the score range of the degree of landslide hazard based on the boundary value of discrimination, class A was 0.3132 over, class B was 0.3132 to -0.1050, class C was -0.1050 to -0.4196, class D was -0.4195 below. The rank of landslide hazard could be divided into classes A, B, C and D by the boundary value. In the number of slope, class A was 68, class B was 115, class C was 65, and class D was 52. The rate of landslide occurrence in class A and class B was shown at the hige prediction of 83%. Therefore, dangerous areas selected by the prediction method of landslide could be mapped for land-use planning and criterion of disaster district. And also, it could be applied to an administration index for disaster prevention.

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Pilot-scale Applications of a Well-type Reactive Barrier using Autotrophic Sulfur-oxidizers for Nitrate Removal (독립영양 황탈질 미생물을 이용한 관정형 반응벽체의 현장적용성 연구)

  • Lee, Byung-Sun;Um, Jae-Yeon;Lee, Kyu-Yeon;Moon, Hee-Sun;Kim, Yang-Bin;Woo, Nam-C.;Lee, Jong-Min;Nam, Kyoung-Phile
    • Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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    • v.14 no.3
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    • pp.40-46
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    • 2009
  • The applicability of a well-type autotrophic sulfur-oxidizing reactive barrier (L $\times$ W $\times$ D = $3m\;{\times}\;4\;m\;{\times}\;2\;m$) as a long-term treatment option for nitrate removal in groundwater was evaluated. Pilot-scale (L $\times$ W $\times$ D = $8m\;{\times}\;4\;m\;{\times}\;2\;m$) flow-tank experiments were conducted to examine remedial efficacy of the well-type reactive barrier. A total of 80 kg sulfur granules as an electron donor and Thiobacillus denitrificans as an active bacterial species were prepared. Thiobacillus denitrificans was successfully colonized on the surface of the sulfur granules and the microflora transformed nitrate with removal efficiency of ~12% (0.07 mM) for 11 days, ~24% (1.3 mM) for 18 days, ~45% (2.4 mM) for 32 days, and ~52% (2.8 mM) for 60 days. Sulfur granules attached to Thiobacillus denitrificans were used to construct the well-type reactive barrier comprising three discrete barriers installed at 1-m interval downstream. Average initial nitrate concentrations were 181 mg/L for the first 28 days and 281 mg/L for the next 14 days. For the 181 mg/L (2.9 mM) plume, nitrate concentrations decreased by ~2% (0.06 mM), ~9% (0.27 mM), and ~15% (0.44 mM) after $1^{st}$, $2^{nd}$, and $3^{rd}$ barriers, respectively. For the 281 mg/L (4.5 mM) plume, nitrate concentrations decreased by ~1% (0.02 mM), ~6% (0.27 mM), and ~8% (0.37 mM) after $1^{st}$, $2^{nd}$, and $3^{rd}$ barriers, respectively. Nitrate plume was flowed through the flow-tank for 49 days by supplying $1.24\;m^3/d$ of nitrate solution. During nitrate treatment, flow velocity (0.44 m/d), pH (6.7 to 8.3), and DO (0.9~2.8 mg/L) showed little variations. Incomplete destruction of nitrate plume was attributed to the lack of retention time, rarely transverse dispersion, and inhibiting the activity of denitrification enzymes caused by relatively high DO concentrations. For field applications, it should be considered increments of retention time, modification of well placements, and intrinsic DO concentration.

A Folksonomy Ranking Framework: A Semantic Graph-based Approach (폭소노미 사이트를 위한 랭킹 프레임워크 설계: 시맨틱 그래프기반 접근)

  • Park, Hyun-Jung;Rho, Sang-Kyu
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.21 no.2
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    • pp.89-116
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    • 2011
  • In collaborative tagging systems such as Delicious.com and Flickr.com, users assign keywords or tags to their uploaded resources, such as bookmarks and pictures, for their future use or sharing purposes. The collection of resources and tags generated by a user is called a personomy, and the collection of all personomies constitutes the folksonomy. The most significant need of the folksonomy users Is to efficiently find useful resources or experts on specific topics. An excellent ranking algorithm would assign higher ranking to more useful resources or experts. What resources are considered useful In a folksonomic system? Does a standard superior to frequency or freshness exist? The resource recommended by more users with mere expertise should be worthy of attention. This ranking paradigm can be implemented through a graph-based ranking algorithm. Two well-known representatives of such a paradigm are Page Rank by Google and HITS(Hypertext Induced Topic Selection) by Kleinberg. Both Page Rank and HITS assign a higher evaluation score to pages linked to more higher-scored pages. HITS differs from PageRank in that it utilizes two kinds of scores: authority and hub scores. The ranking objects of these pages are limited to Web pages, whereas the ranking objects of a folksonomic system are somewhat heterogeneous(i.e., users, resources, and tags). Therefore, uniform application of the voting notion of PageRank and HITS based on the links to a folksonomy would be unreasonable, In a folksonomic system, each link corresponding to a property can have an opposite direction, depending on whether the property is an active or a passive voice. The current research stems from the Idea that a graph-based ranking algorithm could be applied to the folksonomic system using the concept of mutual Interactions between entitles, rather than the voting notion of PageRank or HITS. The concept of mutual interactions, proposed for ranking the Semantic Web resources, enables the calculation of importance scores of various resources unaffected by link directions. The weights of a property representing the mutual interaction between classes are assigned depending on the relative significance of the property to the resource importance of each class. This class-oriented approach is based on the fact that, in the Semantic Web, there are many heterogeneous classes; thus, applying a different appraisal standard for each class is more reasonable. This is similar to the evaluation method of humans, where different items are assigned specific weights, which are then summed up to determine the weighted average. We can check for missing properties more easily with this approach than with other predicate-oriented approaches. A user of a tagging system usually assigns more than one tags to the same resource, and there can be more than one tags with the same subjectivity and objectivity. In the case that many users assign similar tags to the same resource, grading the users differently depending on the assignment order becomes necessary. This idea comes from the studies in psychology wherein expertise involves the ability to select the most relevant information for achieving a goal. An expert should be someone who not only has a large collection of documents annotated with a particular tag, but also tends to add documents of high quality to his/her collections. Such documents are identified by the number, as well as the expertise, of users who have the same documents in their collections. In other words, there is a relationship of mutual reinforcement between the expertise of a user and the quality of a document. In addition, there is a need to rank entities related more closely to a certain entity. Considering the property of social media that ensures the popularity of a topic is temporary, recent data should have more weight than old data. We propose a comprehensive folksonomy ranking framework in which all these considerations are dealt with and that can be easily customized to each folksonomy site for ranking purposes. To examine the validity of our ranking algorithm and show the mechanism of adjusting property, time, and expertise weights, we first use a dataset designed for analyzing the effect of each ranking factor independently. We then show the ranking results of a real folksonomy site, with the ranking factors combined. Because the ground truth of a given dataset is not known when it comes to ranking, we inject simulated data whose ranking results can be predicted into the real dataset and compare the ranking results of our algorithm with that of a previous HITS-based algorithm. Our semantic ranking algorithm based on the concept of mutual interaction seems to be preferable to the HITS-based algorithm as a flexible folksonomy ranking framework. Some concrete points of difference are as follows. First, with the time concept applied to the property weights, our algorithm shows superior performance in lowering the scores of older data and raising the scores of newer data. Second, applying the time concept to the expertise weights, as well as to the property weights, our algorithm controls the conflicting influence of expertise weights and enhances overall consistency of time-valued ranking. The expertise weights of the previous study can act as an obstacle to the time-valued ranking because the number of followers increases as time goes on. Third, many new properties and classes can be included in our framework. The previous HITS-based algorithm, based on the voting notion, loses ground in the situation where the domain consists of more than two classes, or where other important properties, such as "sent through twitter" or "registered as a friend," are added to the domain. Forth, there is a big difference in the calculation time and memory use between the two kinds of algorithms. While the matrix multiplication of two matrices, has to be executed twice for the previous HITS-based algorithm, this is unnecessary with our algorithm. In our ranking framework, various folksonomy ranking policies can be expressed with the ranking factors combined and our approach can work, even if the folksonomy site is not implemented with Semantic Web languages. Above all, the time weight proposed in this paper will be applicable to various domains, including social media, where time value is considered important.