• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.61-71
• /
• 1999

For a high-rate fermentation and recovery of organic acid, we have developed a new organic acid fermentation reactor with membrane filter, which is the most important part in the new advanced wastewater treatment system. The recovered organic acid is to be reused as an organic carbon source at denitrification process. Some experiments were conducted to compare the performance of acid fermentation at different SRTs, such as 5, 10, and 20 days. The total organic acid concentration produced during the runs was in the range of 2,100-2,900 (mgC/L). The conversion efficiency from substrate to organic acid reached to from 43% to 59%. The recovery rate of organic acid from substrate based on TOC was from 26% to 53%. Regardless of operational conditions, it has been able to maintain the membrane flux constantly, in the range of 0.4-0.46 ($m^3/m^2/day$). The transmembrane pressure drop was 0.2-0.3 (kg/cm) for 100 day's operation. The result of simulation is as follows. Organic removal efficiency of the new advanced treatment system is 95%. 73% of Nitrogen is removed. The removal efficiency of Phosphorus is 93%. By coqulation, soluble phosphorus is able to remove from the water treatment lines, which is impossible at conventional activated sludge system. The unit construction cost is 65000 (yen/m3) and it was 1.4 times than that of the standard activated sludge system. The unit operation cast is 7.7 ($yen/m^3/day$) and it was 1.3 times than that of the standard activated sludge system.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
• /
• v.34 no.1
• /
• pp.55-66
• /
• 2016

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of artificial light sources with different light qualities on the growth and flowering characteristics of a herbaceous long-day plant, Petunia ${\times}$ hybrida Hort. Seedlings of petunia cultivar 'Madness Rose' were potted, acclimated for one week, and grown in a phytotron equipped with tube- and bulb-type fluorescent lamps (FL tube and bulb), tube-type white light-emitting diodes (LED tube), halogen lamps (HL), metal halide lamps (MH), and high pressure sodium lamps (HPS) for 10 weeks. The temperature, photoperiod, and photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) in the phytotron were $22{\pm}2^{\circ}C$, 16 h, and $25{\pm}2{\mu}mol{\cdot}m^{-2}{\cdot}s^{-1}$, respectively. Light sources combined with HL promoted stem elongation, and plant height and internode length decreased with increasing red to far-red (R:FR) ratio. FL tube + LED tube, HPS, and FL tube promoted branching, whereas plants grown under light sources combined with HL did not have any branches. Days to flowering (from longest to shortest) occurred as follows: FL tube + HL > FL tube + HL > MH > HPS = FL tube + FL bulb > FL tube + LED tube > LED tube > FL tube, indicating that reducing the R:FR ratio of the light sources promoted flowering. Only 20% of plants grown under an FL tube flowered, whereas under all other treatments, 100% of plants flowered. At 10 weeks after treatment, plants grown under HPS and MH had (cumulatively) 12 open flowers, and those grown under FL tube + FL bulb, LED tube, FL tube + LED tube, and HPS treatment had approximately seven flower buds. These results suggest that light sources with low R:FR ratios promote flowering and stem elongation in petunia, but they reduce its ornamental value due to overgrowth and poor branching.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.10 no.4
• /
• pp.287-298
• /
• 2019

Lotus leaf has a special dual micro and nano surface structure which gives its highly hydrophobic surface characteristics and so-called self cleaning effect. In order to endow PVDF hollow fiber membrane with this special structure and improve the hydrophobicity of membrane surface, PVDF hollow fiber composite membranes was obtained through the immersion coating of poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-HFP) dilute solution on the outside surface of PVDF support membrane. The prepared PVDF composite membranes were used in the vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) for the desalination. The effects of PVDF-HFP dilute solution concentration in the dope solution and coating time on VMD separation performance was studied. Membranes were characterized by SEM, WCA measurement, porosity, and liquid entry pressure of water. VMD test was carried out using $35g{\cdot}L^{-1}$ NaCl aqueous solution as the feed solution at feed temperature of $30^{\circ}C$ and the permeate pressure of 31.3 kPa. The vapour flux reached a maximum when PVDF-HFP concentration in the dilute solution was 5 wt% and the coating time was kept in the range of 10-60 s. This was attributed to the well configuration of micro-nano rods which was similar with the dual micro-nano structure on the lotus leaf. Compared with the original PVDF membrane, the salt rejection can be well maintained which was greater than 99.99 % meanwhile permeation water conductivity was kept at a low value of $7-9{\mu}S{\cdot}cm^{-1}$ during the continuous testing for 360 h.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
• /
• v.34 no.6
• /
• pp.678-687
• /
• 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
• /
• v.53 no.6
• /
• pp.161-168
• /
• 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
• /
• v.44 no.7
• /
• pp.458-467
• /
• 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
• /
• v.46 no.1
• /
• pp.79-90
• /
• 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
• /
• 1998.02a
• /
• pp.156-157
• /
• 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
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.154-165
• /
• 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
• /
• v.46 no.1
• /
• pp.42.1-42.1
• /
• 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.