• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.39 no.7
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• pp.609-615
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• 2015

In this study, the combustion and exhaust emission characteristics in a gasoline direct injection engine with variations of the bio-ethanol-gasoline blending ratio and the excess air factor were investigated. To investigate the effects of the excess air factor and the bio-ethanol blends with gasoline, combustion characteristics such as the in-cylinder combustion pressure, rate of heat release (ROHR), and the fuel consumption rate were analyzed. The reduction of exhaust emissions such as carbon monoxide (CO), unburned hydrocarbon (HC), and nitrogen oxides ($NO_x$) were compared with those of gasoline fuel with various excess air factors. The results showed that the peak combustion pressure and ROHR of bio-ethanol blends were slightly higher and were increased as bio-ethanol blending ratio is increased. Brake specific fuel consumption increased for a higher bio-ethanol blending ratio. The exhaust emissions decreased as the bio-ethanol blending ratio increased under all experimental conditions. The exhaust emissions of bio-ethanol fuels were lower than those of gasoline.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.447-452
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• 2016

It is imperative to develop an effective pathway to depolymerize lignin into liquid fuel that can be used as a bioheavy oil. Lignin can be converted into liquid products either by a solvent-free thermal cracking in the absence air, or thermo-chemical degradation in the presence of suitable solvents and chemicals. Here we show that the solvent-assisted liquefaction has produced promising results in the presence of metal-based catalysts. The supercritical ethanol is an efficient liquefaction solvent, which not only provides better solubility to lignin, but also scavenges the intermediate species. The concentrated sulfuric acid hydrolysis lignin (CSAHL) was completely liquefied in the presence of solid catalysts (Ni, Pd and Ru) with no char formation. The effective deoxy-liquefaction nature associated with scEtOH with aid hydrodeoxygenation catalysts, resulted in significant reduction in oxygen-to-carbon (O/C) molar ratio up to 61%. The decrease in oxygen content and increase in carbon and hydrogen contents increased the calorific value bio-oil, with higher heating value (HHV) of $34.6MJ{\cdot}Kg^{-1}$. The overall process is energetically efficient with 129.8% energy recovery (ER) and 70.8% energy efficiency (EE). The GC-TOF/MS analysis of bio-oil shows that the bio-oil mainly consists of monomeric species such as phenols, esters, furans, alcohols, and traces of aliphatic hydrocarbons. The bio-oil produced has better flow properties, low molecular weight, and high aromaticity.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.927-938
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• 2000

When microorganism is injected into porous medium such as soils along with appropriate substrate and nutrients, biomass retained in the soil pore. Soil pore size and shape are varied from the initial condition as a result of biofilm formation, which make hydraulic conductivity reduced. In this research, hydraulic conductivity reduction was measured after microorganism are inoculated and cultured with synthetic substrates and nutrients. Biomass-soil mixture was evaluated its applicability to the field condition as an alternative liner material in landfill by measuring hydraulic conductivity change after repetitive freeze-thaw cycles. Resistance of biofilm to chemical solution and degree of biodegradation were measured through column test.

• Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.5-9
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• 2004

This study was carried out to develop methods of reducing the effect of solar illumination on pixel gray-levels of machine vision for agricultural field use. Two kinds of monochrome CCD cameras with manual and auto-iris lenses were used to take pictures within a range of 15 to 120 klux of solar illumination. A camera having more precise automatic control functions gave much better result. Four kinds of indices using pixel gray-level of the $99\%$ white DRS (diffuse reflectance standard) as a reference were tried to compensate pixel gray-levels of an image for variable illumination. Coefficients of variation of the indices within a range of illumination were used as a criterion for comparison. The study concluded that an index of (A+B)/A, where A is gray-level of the $99\%$ DRS and B is gray-level of the tested material, gave the best consistency in the range of solar illumination.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.456-461
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• 2018

The solid-state anaerobic digestion (SS-AD) has promoted the development and application for biogas production from biomass which operate a high solid content feedstock, as higher than 15% of total solids. However, the digested byproduct of SS-AD can be used as a fertilizer or as solid fuel, but it has serious problems: high moisture content and poor dewaterability. The organic residue from SS-AD has to be improved to address these problems and to make it a useful alternative energy source. Hydrothermal carbonization was investigated for conversion of the organic residue from the SS-AD of livestock waste to solid fuels. The effects of hydrothermal carbonization were evaluated by varying the reaction temperatures within the range of $180-240^{\circ}C$. Hydrothermal carbonization increased the calorific value through the reduction of the hydrogen and oxygen contents of the solid fuel, in addition to its drying performance. Therefore, after the hydrothermal carbonization, the H/C and O/C atomic ratios decreased through the chemical conversion. Thermogravimatric analysis provided the changed combustion characteristics due to the improvement of the fuel properties. As a result, the hydrothermal carbonization process can be said to be an advantageous technology in terms of improving the properties of organic waste as a solid-recovered fuel product.

• Mycobiology
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.467-474
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• 2022

Autophagy serves as a survival mechanism and plays important role in nutrient recycling under conditions of starvation, nutrient storage, ad differentiation of plant pathogenic fungi. However, autophagy-related genes have not been investigated in Colletotrichum scovillei, a causal agent of pepper fruit anthracnose disease. ATG8 is involved in autophagosome formation and is considered a marker of autophagy. Therefore, we generated an ATG8 deletion mutant, ΔCsatg8, via homologous recombination to determine the functional roles of CsATG8 in the development and virulence of C. scovillei. Compared with the wild-type, the deletion mutant ΔCsatg8 exhibited a severe reduction in conidiation. Conidia produced by ΔCsatg8 were defective in survival, conidial germination, and appressorium formation. Moreover, conidia of ΔCsatg8 showed reduced lipid amount and PTS1 selectivity. A virulence assay showed that anthracnose development on pepper fruits was reduced in ΔCsatg8. Taken together, our results suggest that CsATG8 plays various roles in conidium production and associated development, and virulence in C. scovillei.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.75-80
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• 2016

This study was conducted to evaluate effect of chemical amendments on reducing bioavailable fraction of heavy metals in soil along with ecotoxicological effect on earthworms, Eisenia fetida. Three different chemical amendments, lime (L), steel slag (SS), and acid mine drainage sludge (AMDS), were applied with varied application ratio (1, 3, 5%). Heavy metal contaminated soil was mixed with chemical amedments and earthworms, Eisenia fetida, were cultivated for 28 days. Bioavailable fraction of heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn) extracted with 0.1N HCl was monitored and also, mortality, growth, and metal concentration in earthworm were assessed. Result showed that all three amendments had high efficiency to reduce bioavailable fraction of heavy metals in soil. In particular, lime showed the highest reduction rate of Cu (63.9-87.7%), Pb (7.90-24.65%), and Zn (40.83-77.60%) among three amendments. No mortality of earthworm was observed during experimental period except 3% and 5% AMDS treatment indicating that application of chemical amendments is safe in terms of ecotoxicological aspect. However, no positive correlation was observed between reduction of bioavaialble fraction of heavy metals in soil and earthworms. Overall, application of chemical amendments in agricultural field can be adapted for reducing bioavailable fraction of heavy metals and detoxification in soil.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.1271-1278
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• 2012

Genetic fusion of two proteins frequently induces beneficial effects to the proteins, such as increased solubility, besides the combination of two protein functions. Here, we study the effects of the bacterial surface layer protein SgsE from Geobacillus stearothermophilus NRS 2004/3a on the folding of a C-terminally fused enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) moiety. Although GFPs are generally unable to adopt a functional confirmation in the bacterial periplasm of Escherichia coli cells, we observed periplasmic fluorescence from a chimera of a 150-amino-acid N-terminal truncation of SgsE and EGFP. Based on this finding, unfolding and refolding kinetics of different S-layer-EGFP chimeras, a maltose binding protein-EGFP chimera, and sole EGFP were monitored using green fluorescence as indicator for the folded protein state. Calculated apparent rate constants for unfolding and refolding indicated different folding pathways for EGFP depending on the fusion partner used, and a clearly stabilizing effect was observed for the SgsE_C fusion moiety. Thermal stability, as determined by differential scanning calorimetry, and unfolding equilibria were found to be independent of the fused partner. We conclude that the stabilizing effect SgsE_C exerts on EGFP is due to a reduction of degrees of freedom for folding of EGFP in the fused state.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Fisheries and Ocean Technology
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.51-57
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• 2013

A demand for bio-diesel oil increases as one of solution for exhaustion of fossil fuel and reduction of $CO_2$ emission, and research on bio-diesel is being carried out. Bio-diesel oil is mainly esterified from vegetable oil with methanol in order to use for fuel on diesel engine and has demerit that costs are increased as compared with directly using like non-esterified one. Bio-diesel oil within 3% mixed with gas oil is used at present, proportion of bio-diesel oil will be increase by 5% in future. We judged that wasted soybean oil non-esterified could be used on diesel engine with an electronic fuel injection according to previous researches with a mechanical fuel injection. A performance test using only gas oil, gas oil with esterified bio-diesel oil 5% and wasted soybean oil non-esterified 5% on diesel engine with the electronic fuel injection were carried out. It is noticed that gas oil with wasted soybean oil non-esterified 5% has more similar characteristics to gas oil than gas oil with esterified bio-diesel oil 5%.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.25-28
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• 1999

In this article, a new performance index is proposed to re-duce the collision impulsive force by controlling the null motion of redundant manipulators. First, we define the normalized impact ellipsoid in the viewpoint of instantaneous velocity change. Then, we propose a new impact performance index based on velocity direction for null motion to reduce initial impulsive effects. It gives some advantage for the case of unknown environment. The optimization of this index is that the successional impact forces are reduced. The performance of the proposed index is demonstrated by simulation study.