• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.30
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• pp.10.1-10.14
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• 2015

Recent cohort studies have relied on exposure prediction models to estimate individual-level air pollution concentrations because individual air pollution measurements are not available for cohort locations. For such prediction models, geographic variables related to pollution sources are important inputs. We demonstrated the computation process of geographic variables mostly recorded in 2010 at regulatory air pollution monitoring sites in South Korea. On the basis of previous studies, we finalized a list of 313 geographic variables related to air pollution sources in eight categories including traffic, demographic characteristics, land use, transportation facilities, physical geography, emissions, vegetation, and altitude. We then obtained data from different sources such as the Statistics Geographic Information Service and Korean Transport Database. After integrating all available data to a single database by matching coordinate systems and converting non-spatial data to spatial data, we computed geographic variables at 294 regulatory monitoring sites in South Korea. The data integration and variable computation were performed by using ArcGIS version 10.2 (ESRI Inc., Redlands, CA, USA). For traffic, we computed the distances to the nearest roads and the sums of road lengths within different sizes of circular buffers. In addition, we calculated the numbers of residents, households, housing buildings, companies, and employees within the buffers. The percentages of areas for different types of land use compared to total areas were calculated within the buffers. For transportation facilities and physical geography, we computed the distances to the closest public transportation depots and the boundary lines. The vegetation index and altitude were estimated at a given location by using satellite data. The summary statistics of geographic variables in Seoul across monitoring sites showed different patterns between urban background and urban roadside sites. This study provided practical knowledge on the computation process of geographic variables in South Korea, which will improve air pollution prediction models and contribute to subsequent health analyses.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.140-147
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• 2018

Objectives: Environmental pollution is a negative consequence of the development process, and many countries are grappling with this phenomenon. As a developing country, Iran is not exempt from this rule, and Iran pays huge expenditures for the consequences of pollution. The aim of this study was to analyze the long- and short-run impact of air pollution, along with other health indicators, on private and public health expenditures. Methods: This study was an applied and developmental study. Autoregressive distributed lag estimating models were used for the period of 1972 to 2014. In order to determine the co-integration between health expenditures and the infant mortality rate, fertility rate, per capita income, and pollution, we used the Wald test in Microfit version 4.1. We then used Eviews version 8 to evaluate the stationarity of the variables and to estimate the long- and short-run relationships. Results: Long-run air pollution had a positive and significant effect on health expenditures, so that a 1.00% increase in the index of carbon dioxide led to an increase of 3.32% and 1.16% in public and private health expenditures, respectively. Air pollution also had a greater impact on health expenditures in the long term than in the short term. Conclusions: The findings of this study indicate that among the factors affecting health expenditures, environmental quality and contaminants played the most important role. Therefore, in order to reduce the financial burden of health expenditures in Iran, it is essential to reduce air pollution by enacting and implementing laws that protect the environment.

• Advances in environmental research
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.277-288
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• 2012

This study investigated exposure to air pollutants in rooms in low-income houses at Shomolu (R1), Mafoluku (R2) and Mushin (R3) in Lagos state. The concentrations of most measured exceeded limits of Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) for indoor air quality. Air quality index (AQI) in rooms studied was unhealthy for sensitive people in terms of CO, unhealthy in terms of $SO_2$ and very unhealthy in terms of $NO_2$ while moderate air quality was obtained in terms of $PM_{10}$ in most rooms. High concentrations of carbontetrachloride, formaldehyde and xylene measured could have been responsible for some of the health complaints of the occupants. Factor analysis shows that cooking with kerosene, use of gasoline generator and insecticide were the major contributors to indoor air pollution in these rooms. Therefore, there is need to urgently tackle poverty as all affected by these pollutants were poor who live in substandard houses without kitchens.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.143-156
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• 2011

Recently, the environmental problems become a serious social issue, there are many efforts to manage it efficiently. As one of the ways to measure the environment in quantitative index, the environmental indicators are used in decision-making process. Air Environmental Index(AEI), which is derived from the U.S. Air Quality Index(AQI), illustrates the degree of air pollution. In study as follows: to find the charateristics of administrative dongs in Seoul, correlation analysis is conducted based on the land-use patterns and daily traffic data that represent AEI and urban spatial structure of Seoul.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.25-32
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• 1985

To examine the effects of air pollution on Pinus thunbergii growing around Yocheon Industrial Complex, evaluation of visible injury based on Injury Index and chemical analysis of water-soluble sulfur and fluorine contents in needles were carried out on 30 sampling sites. Histological responses of needles were also investigated on the necrotic needle tissues. Not only Injury Index but water-soluble sulfur and fluorine contents were higher at all sites than those at control site, and showed significant correlationship among them. Especially, they were rather higher in the vicinity of air pollutants sources. Water-soluble sulfur contents were positively correlated with average atomospheric $SO_3$ concentrations. Microscopic examination of necrotic needle tissues showed that mesophyll cells were collapsed with hypertrophy and collapse of transfusion cells.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.83-117
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• 2004

This study investigates the spatial distributions of the ambient levels of air pollutants ($SO_2$, $NO_2$, $O_3$, CO, and PM) in Seoul metropolitan area using the data obtained by the air pollution observation stations. This study estimated a non-parametric kernel density function and two types of inequality indices, Gini and Entropy. Our estimation results show that the degree of inequality in spatial distribution of air pollution, in general, tends to be stable or slightly decreasing for the period of 1990~2001. In addition, we found that there are significant dynamics of air pollution levels in terms of spatial ranking.

• Proceedings of the Korea Air Pollution Research Association Conference
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• 2010.04a
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• pp.329-330
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• 2010

• Proceedings of the Korea Air Pollution Research Association Conference
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• 1999.04a
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• pp.309-311
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• 1999

• Proceedings of the Korea Air Pollution Research Association Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.295-296
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• 1999

경제발전과 건축기술의 진보로 인해 건물이 고층화, 대형화되어 실내공간을 이용하는 시간이 늘어나면서 실내공기 오염문제가 대두되고 있다. 특히, 사람은 하루 중 80％ 이상의 시간을 실내에서 생활하고 있으므로 실내공기오염이 인체에 미치는 영향은 매우 중요하다고 할 수 있다. (중략)

• Proceedings of the Korea Air Pollution Research Association Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.371-372
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• 2008