• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.678-687
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to understand the unique and complicated feature of urban stream receiving various inflows. The Yangjae stream, the second tier of the Han River, runs through the southern parts of Seoul, Korea and its middle part flows on the boundary of Seoul where land use is actively changing. Stream flow was greatly influenced by rainfall. Other than rainfall events, effluent discharge from wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) comprised 51 % of stream flux. As a result, majority ions water chemistry was changed at the receiving zone of the discharged effluent (Zone A). Its contribution increased to 69.9 % at the second sampling period with low stream flow. In the middle zone, inflows from the northern area, recently developed to a residential district showed low $NO_3-N$ and high $HCO_3$, Ca, $SO_4$, and $SiO_2$ indicating the effects of groundwater and concrete. One inflow (T-8), with extremely high Na and Cl, median $SiO_2$, was assessed to have anthropogenic influence, however its contribution to main stream was under 1 %. Road construction near Y-13 also affected water chemistry leading to the highest Na and Cl concentration. These hydro chemical changes can be critically used to evaluate the changes in water budget and fate of chemicals in a peri-urban watershed occasioned by human activities on the Yangjae.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.161-168
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• 2020

We report the discovery of a giant exoplanet in the microlensing event OGLE-2017-BLG-1049, with a planet-host star mass ratio of q = 9.53 ± 0.39 × 10-3 and a caustic crossing feature in Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet) observations. The caustic crossing feature yields an angular Einstein radius of θE = 0.52 ± 0.11 mas. However, the microlens parallax is not measured because the time scale of the event, tE ≃ 29 days, is too short. Thus, we perform a Bayesian analysis to estimate physical quantities of the lens system. We find that the lens system has a star with mass Mh = 0.55+0.36-0.29 M⊙ hosting a giant planet with Mp = 5.53+3.62-2.87 MJup, at a distance of DL = 5.67+1.11-1.52 kpc. The projected star-planet separation is a⊥ = 3.92+1.10-1.32 au. This means that the planet is located beyond the snow line of the host. The relative lens-source proper motion is μrel ~ 7 mas yr-1, thus the lens and source will be separated from each other within 10 years. After this, it will be possible to measure the flux of the host star with 30 meter class telescopes and to determine its mass.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.44 no.7
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• pp.458-467
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• 2021

GPR43 (also known as FFAR2 or FFA2) is a G-protein-coupled receptor primarily expressed in immune cells, enteroendocrine cells and adipocytes that recognizes short-chain fatty acids, such as acetate, propionate, and butyrate, likely to be implicated in innate immunity and host energy homeostasis. Activated GPR43 suppresses the cAMP level and induces Ca²⁺ flux via coupling to Gα_i and Gα_q families, respectively. Additionally, GPR43 is reported to facilitate phosphorylation of ERK through G-protein-dependent pathways and interacts with β-arrestin 2 to inhibit NF-κB signaling. However, other G-protein-dependent and independent signaling pathways involving GPR43 remain to be established. Here, we have demonstrated that GPR43 augments Rho GTPase signaling. Acetate and a synthetic agonist effectively activated RhoA and stabilized YAP/TAZ transcriptional coactivators through interactions of GPR43 with Gα_q/11 and Gα_12/13. Acetate-induced nuclear accumulation of YAP was blocked by a GPR43-specific inverse agonist. The target genes induced by YAP/TAZ were further regulated by GPR43. Moreover, in THP-1-derived M1-like macrophage cells, the Rho-YAP/TAZ pathway was activated by acetate and a synthetic agonist. Our collective findings suggest that GPR43 acts as a mediator of the Rho-YAP/TAZ pathway.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.79-90
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• 2022

Background: Herbal medicines are popular approaches to capably prevent and treat obesity and its related diseases. Excessive exposure to dietary lipids causes oxidative stress and inflammation, which possibly induces cellular senescence and contribute the damaging effects in brain. The potential roles of selective enhanced ginsenoside in regulating high fat diet (HFD)-induced brain damage remain unknown. Methods: The protection function of Ginsenoside F1-enhanced mixture (SGB121) was evaluated by in vivo and in vitro experiments. Human primary astrocytes and SH-SY5Y cells were treated with palmitic acid conjugated Bovine Serum Albumin, and the effects of SGB121 were determined by MTT and lipid uptake assays. For in vivo tests, C57BL/6J mice were fed with high fat diet for 3 months with or without SGB121 administration. Thereafter, immunohistochemistry, western blot, PCR and ELISA assays were conducted with brain tissues. Results and conclusion: SGB121 selectively suppressed HFD-induced oxidative stress and cellular senescence in brain, and reduced subsequent inflammation responses manifested by abrogated secretion of IL-6, IL-1β and TNFα via NF-κB signaling pathway. Interestingly, SGB121 protects against HFD-induced damage by improving mitophagy and endoplasmic reticulum-stress associated autophagy flux and inhibiting apoptosis. In addition, SGB121 regulates lipid uptake and accumulation by FATP4 and PPARα. SGB121 significantly abates excessively phosphorylated tau protein in the cortex and GFAP activation in corpus callosum. Together, our results suggest that SGB121 is able to favor the resistance of brain to HFD-induced damage, therefore provide explicit evidence of the potential to be a functional food.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 1998.02a
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• pp.156-157
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• 1998

It is a diffcult and challenging pproblem to control the growth of eppitaxial films. Heteroeppitaxy is esppecially idfficult because of the lattice mismatch between sub-strate and depposited layers. This mismatch leads usually to a three dimensional(3D) island growth. But the use of surfactants such as As, Sb, and Bi can be beneficial in obtaining high quality heteroeppitaxial films. In this study medium energy ion scattering sppectroscoppy(MEIS) was used in order to reveal the growth mode of Ge on Si(001) and the strain of depposited film without and with dynamically supplied atomic hydrogen at the growth thempperature of 35$0^{\circ}C$. It was ppossible to control the growth mode from layer-by-layer followed by 3D island to layer-by-layer by controlling the hydrogen flux. In the absent of hydro-gen the film grows in the layer-by-layer mode within the critical thickness(about 3ML) and the 3D island formation is followed(Fig1). The 3D island formation is suppressed by introducing hydrogen resulting in layer-by-layer growth beyond the critical thickness(Fig2) We measured angular shift of blocking dipp in order to obtain the structural information on the thin films. In the ppressence of atomic hydrogen the blocking 야 is shifted toward higher scattering angle about 1。. That means the film is distorted tetragonally and strained therefore(Fig4) In other case the shift of blocking dipp at 3ML is almost same as pprevious case. But above the critical thickness the pposition of blocking dipp is similar to that of Si bulk(Fig3). It means the films is relaxed from the first layer. There is 4.2% lattice mismatch between Ge and Si. That mismatch results in about 2。 shift of blocking dipp. We measured about 1。 shift. This fact could be due to the intermixing of Ge and Si. This expperimental results are consistent with Vegard's law which says that the lattice constant of alloys is linear combination of the lattic constants of the ppure materials.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.154-165
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• 1993

A stochastic method using continuous time Markov process is presented to model the one-dimensional convective nuclide transport in geologic media, which have usually heterogeneous feature in physical/geochemical parameters such as velocity, dispersion coefficient, and retardation factor resulting poor description by conventional deterministic advection-dispersion model. The primary desired quantities from a stochastic model are the mean values and variance of the state variables as a function of time. The time-dependent probability distributions of nuclides are presented for each discretized compartment given the volumetric groundwater flux and the intensity of transition. Since this model is discrete in medium space, physical/geochemical parameters which affect nuclide transport can be easily incorporated for the heterogeneous media as well as remarkably layered media having spatially varied parameters. Even though the Markov process model developed in this study was shown to be sensitive to the number of discretized compartments showing numerical dispersion as the number of compartments are increased, this could be easily calibrated by comparing with the analytical deterministic model.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.42.1-42.1
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• 2021

In this study, we present a visual explanation of a deep learning solar flare forecast model and its relationship to physical parameters of solar active regions (ARs). For this, we use full-disk magnetograms at 00:00 UT from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory/Michelson Doppler Imager and the Solar Dynamics Observatory/Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager, physical parameters from the Space-weather HMI Active Region Patch (SHARP), and Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite X-ray flare data. Our deep learning flare forecast model based on the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) predicts "Yes" or "No" for the daily occurrence of C-, M-, and X-class flares. We interpret the model using two CNN attribution methods (guided backpropagation and Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping [Grad-CAM]) that provide quantitative information on explaining the model. We find that our deep learning flare forecasting model is intimately related to AR physical properties that have also been distinguished in previous studies as holding significant predictive ability. Major results of this study are as follows. First, we successfully apply our deep learning models to the forecast of daily solar flare occurrence with TSS = 0.65, without any preprocessing to extract features from data. Second, using the attribution methods, we find that the polarity inversion line is an important feature for the deep learning flare forecasting model. Third, the ARs with high Grad-CAM values produce more flares than those with low Grad-CAM values. Fourth, nine SHARP parameters such as total unsigned vertical current, total unsigned current helicity, total unsigned flux, and total photospheric magnetic free energy density are well correlated with Grad-CAM values.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.85-95
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• 2023

In recent years, solid-state Li metal batteries (SSLBs) have attracted significant attention as the next-generation batteries with high energy and power densities. However, uncontrolled dendrite growth and the resulting pulverization of Li during repeated plating/stripping processes must be addressed for practical applications. Herein, we report a plastic-crystal-based polymer/ceramic composite solid electrolyte (PCCE) to resolve these issues. To fabricate the one-side ceramic-incorporated PCCE (CI-PCCE) film, a mixed precursor solution comprising plastic-crystal-based polymer (succinonitrile, SN) with garnet-structured ceramic (Li₇La₃Zr₂O₁₂, LLZO) particles was infused into a thin cellulose membrane, which was used as a mechanical framework, and subsequently solidified by using UV-irradiation. The CI-PCCE exhibited good flexibility and a high room-temperature ionic conductivity of over 10^-3 S cm^-1. The Li symmetric cell assembled with CI-PCCE provided enhanced durability against Li dendrite penetration through the solid electrolyte (SE) layer than those with LLZO-free PCCEs and exhibited long-term cycling stability (over 200 h) for Li plating/stripping. The enhanced Li⁺ transference number and lower interfacial resistance of CI-PCCE indicate that the ceramic-polymer composite layer in contact with the Li anode enabled the uniform distribution of Li⁺ flux at the interface between the Li metal and CI-PCCE, thereby promoting uniform Li plating/stripping. Consequently, the Li//LiFePO₄ (LFP) full cell constructed with CI-PCCE demonstrated superior rate capability (~120 mAh g^-1 at 2 C) and stable cycle performance (80% after 100 cycles) than those with ceramic-free PCCE.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.400-407
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• 2013

This study was performed to analyze the effect of light quality of discharge lamp on growth and phytochemicals contents of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L. cv. Jeokchima) grown under metal halide (MH) lamp, high-pressure sodium (HPS) lamp, and xenon (XE) lamp in a plant factory. Cool-white fluorescent (FL) lamp was used as the control. Photoperiod, air temperature, relative humidity, $CO_2$ concentration, and photosynthetic photon flux (PPF) in a plant factory were 16/8 h (day/night), $22/18^{\circ}C$, 70%, 400 ${\mu}mol{\cdot}mol^{-1}$, and 200 ${\mu}mol{\cdot}m^{-2}{\cdot}s^{-1}$, respectively. MH lamp had the greatest fraction of blue light (400-500 nm) of 23.0%. However, HPS lamp had the lowest fraction of 4.7% for blue light and the greatest fraction of 38.0% for red light (600-700 nm). At 11 and 21 days after transplanting, leaf length, leaf width, leaf area, shoot fresh weight, and shoot dry weight of lettuce as affected by the light quality of the discharge lamp were significantly different. The leaf area of lettuce grown under HPS, MH, and XE lamp increased by 45.7%, 16.3%, and 9.5%, respectively, as compared to the control. These results were similar for shoot fresh weight. Growth characteristics of lettuce grown under HPS lamp increased since HPS lamp had more fraction of red light. However, growth of lettuce grown under MH and XE lamp decreased since they had more fraction of blue light. As compared to the control, the ascorbic acid in lettuce leaves grown under discharge lamp decreased. The greatest anthocyanins accumulation of 0.70 mg/100 g was found at MH treatment. Anthocyanins content in lettuce leaves grown under XL and HPS lamp were 79.3% and 8.6%, respectively, compared with the control. Growth and phytochemicals contents of lettuce were highly affected by the different spectral distribution of the discharge lamp. These results indicate that the combination of discharge lamp or LED lamp for enhancing the light quality of discharge lamps is required to increase the growth and phytochemicals accumulation of lettuce in controlled environment such as plant factory.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.37-44
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• 2008

This study was performed to synthesize Na-A type zeolite with melting slag from the Mapo incineration site and recycle the zeolite as an environmental remediation agent. The melting slag used had a favorable composition containing 26.6% $SiO_2$, 10.9% $Al_2O_3$ and 2.7% $Na_2O$ for zeolite synthesis although there were high contents of iron oxides, including 19.6% $Fe_2O_3$ and 18.9% FeO, which had been used as a flux for the melting. It was confirmed that the Na-A type zeolite could be successfully synthesized at $80^{\circ}C$ and $SiO_2/Al_2O_3\;=\;0.80{\sim}1.96$. The cation exchange capacities (CEC) of the zeolites was determined to be about 220 cmol/kg leveled off at the synthetic time more than 10hrs. The adsorption capacities of zeolite to heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Mn and Pb) were high except for As arid Cr. It was also confirmed through the Eh and pH analysis that As and Cr existed in the forms of $HAsO_4^{2-}$ and $CrO_4^{2-}$. The low absorption rates of zeolite for As and Cr are attributed to the fact that the pore size ($4\;{\AA}$) of Na-A type is smaller than those of $HAsO_4^{2-}$ and $CrO_4^{2-}$ ions ($4\;{\AA}$ ionic radii and $8\;{\AA}$ diameter).