• Journal of the Korean Society of Groundwater Environment
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.116-121
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• 1998

For the application of study on pollution and conservation of environment determination of 33 elemental concetrations in different sediment samples were carried out using instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). For verification and evaluation of the analytical method, three standard reference materials (two NIST SRMs and one NRCC CRM) were chosen and the accuracy and precision of the analysis were estimated by comparison to the certified values. Under the optimum condition, the analytical procedure to apply a practical sample was estimated. Neutron irradiation of sample was done at the irradiation facilities (neutron flux, 1-3${\times}$10$\^$13/n/$\textrm{cm}^2$$.$s) of the TRIGA MARK-III and HANARO research reactor in the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. In addition, analysis of two IAEA's sediment was performed according to the pre-established analytical method. The analytical results of elements such as Al, As, Co, Cr, Fe, Sb and Zn by INAA were intercompared with those of WD-XRF, ICP-MS and AAS, and are relatively agreed with each other.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.22-28
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• 2017

The accuracy of analytical results in response to the use of different additives ($NH_4Cl$, KCl, $LaCl_3$) and oxidant gases was evaluated and compared by using Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS). Identification of spectroscopic interferences and possible improvements in Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICP-AES) analysis were also discussed. The average accuracies of total chromium using Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) were found to be 72.1~94.2% in air/acetylene flame condition by AAS, and they were improved to 100.5~110.5% when the oxidants was changed to nitrous oxide rather than adding the additives. The field samples showed similar trends to CRMs, but chromium concentrations were highly variable depending on analytical conditions. The average accuracies using CRMs were estimated to be 89.3~166.1% by ICP-AES, and improved to below 121.7% after eliminating iron interference. Field samples with low chromium and high iron concentration were measured to be > 30% lower in total chromium concentrations by ICP-AES than AAS in nitrous oxide/acetylene flame. Total chromium concentrations in soil could be analyzed with better accuracy under nitrous oxide/acetylene flame by AAS because it was more effective to increase the temperature of the flame than to eliminate the chemical interference for maximizing atomization of chromium. When using ICP-AES, interference substances, total chromium levels, and analytical conditions should be also considered.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.477-484
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• 2000

To estimate the degree of intake of $^{238}$ U and $^{232}$ Th through daily diet, a Korean mixed diet sample was prepared after the investigation of the amount of consumption of the daily diet which corresponds to the age of 20 to 60 years. For the analysis of U and Th, the RNAA method was applied. Two standard reference materials were used for quality control and assurance and the analytical results were compared with a certified value. The determination of U and Th in the Korean mixed diet sample was carried out under the same analytical conditions and procedures with SRM. It is found that the concentration of U and Th in a Korean mixed diet was about 35.4 ppb and 3.4 ppb. From these results, the daily intake of $^{238}$ U and $^{232}$ Th by diet is evaluated to be 6.98 and 0.67 $\mu\textrm{g}$ per day, respectively. Radioactivities related to the intake of $^{238}$ U and $^{232}$ Th were estimated to be about 86 mBq and 27 mBq per person per day and the annual dose equivalents from $^{238}$ U and $^{232}$ Th revealed as 3.18 $\mu$Sv and 0.29 $\mu$Sv per person, respectively.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.309-315
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• 2020

Advances in biotechnology have led to progress in crop genetic engineering to improve agricultural productivity. The use of genetically modified (GM) crops has increased, as have consumers' and regulators' concerns about the safety of GM crops to human health, and ecological biodiversity. As such, the identification of GM crops is a critical issue for developers and distributors, and their labeling is mandatory. Multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been developed and its use validated for the detection and identification of GM crops in quarantine. Herein, we established a simultaneous detection method to identify four GM maize events. Event-specific primers were designed between the junction region of transgene and genome of four GM maize lines, namely 5307, DAS-40278-9, MON87460, and MON87427. To verify the efficiency and accuracy of the multiplex PCR we used specificity analysis, limit of detection evaluation, and mixed certified reference materials identification. The multiplex PCR method was applied to analyze 29 living, modified maize volunteers collected in South Korea in 2018 and 2019. We performed multiplex PCR analysis to identify events and confirmed the result by simplex PCR using each event-specific primer. As a result, rather than detecting each event individually, the simultaneous detection PCR method enabled the rapid analysis of 29 GM maize volunteers. Thus, the novel multiplex PCR method is applicable for living modified organism volunteer identification.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.147-153
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• 2011

This study is to measure the differences of the trace-metals resulted from the different ecologies, such as nickel(Ni), copper(Cu), zinc(Zn), cadmium(Cd), plumbum(Pb), arsenic(As) and chrome(Cr) remaining in the parts of Korean Yeongdeok Crab (KYC) and Russian Snow Crab (RSC) based on ICP-MS. The recovery rate of each metal certified the reference materials (CRM) was in the average of 81~99%, which corresponded with the level required in Codex. The level of metals in the parts of KYC was in the order of Ni > As > Zn > Cu > Cr > Cd in the both male and female shell; the order of Zn > As > Cu > Cr > Ni > Cd in the leg flesh; the order of Zn > As > Cu > Cr > Cd > Ni in the body flesh; the order of Cu > Zn > As > Cd > Cr > Ni in the gill; the order of Cu > As > Zn > Cd > Ni > Cr in the male hepatopancreas; the order of Cu > Zn > As > Cd > Cr > Ni in the female hepatopancreas, thereby showing some differences. It was revealed that the levels of most metals (nickel, copper, zinc, arsenic and chrome) were similar between KYC and RSC except cadmium which was somewhat lower than that of KYC. However, the cadmium in RSC was discovered in high level in most of the parts, two times higher in the hepatopancreas, and four times in the gill. It was also revealed that the trace metal contents were changing according to the size of KYC; the metals with the highest level of Ni in shell, Zn in leg and body flesh, Cu in gill tended to decrease as growing, whereas the cadmium contents tended to increase overall and accumulated the most in hepatopancreas. The results showed there was a possibility that the phenomenon of bioaccumulation within hepatopancreas would increase as growing.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.33-42
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• 2012

This study was performed to find the problems according to interference factors (organic matter, pH, Cr, Mn, Fe, clay, and etc.) when we analyzed the hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] in soils using UV/VIS spectrometer (US EPA 7196A), attempted to evaluate the domestic applicability of analytical method (US EPA 7199) using IC-UV/VIS spectrometer as alternative method. The recovery rate of certified reference materials was 75.0% (US EPA 7196A) and 101.4% (US EPA 7199) by the analytical methods. As the results of performing QA/QC about US EPA 7199, method detection limit (MDL) and limit of quantification (LOQ) were 0.062 mg/kg, 0.196 mg/kg, respectively. The LOQ of US EPA 7199 was lower than that of the current soil official testing method in Korea (0.5 mg/kg). Cr(VI) contents in 23 soil samples were compared by the analytical methods of EPA 7196A and 7199. Cr(VI) was detected in 13 of 23 soil samples by EPA 7196A, while EPA 7199 was not detected in any soil samples. The Cr(VI) content in 23 soil samples by EPA 7196A was not clearly correlated with Cr, Fe, Mn and clay content in the soil samples. However, the contents of Cr(VI) and organic matter of the soil samples had the highest coefficient of determination ($R^2$) of 0.80. In order to evaluate the correlation between the recovery rates of Cr(VI) and organic matter contents in the soil samples, the recovery rates of 5 soil samples added Cr(VI) standard solution were analyzed by the analytical methods. According to the results, the higher the organic matter contents in soil samples, the lower the recovery rates of Cr(VI) by US EPA 7196, while in case of US EPA 7199, the recovery rates were stable regardless of the organic matter contents.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.84-91
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• 2018

In this study, a novel soft information based most probable classification scheme is proposed for sorting recyclable metal alloys with laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). Regression analysis with LIBS captured spectrums for estimating concentrations of common elements can be efficient for classifying unknown arbitrary metal alloys, even when that particular alloy is not included for training. Therefore, partial least square regression (PLSR) is employed in the proposed scheme, where spectrums of the certified reference materials (CRMs) are used for training. With the PLSR model, the concentrations of the test spectrum are estimated independently and are compared to those of CRMs for finding out the most probable class. Then, joint soft information can be obtained by assuming multi-variate normal (MVN) distribution, which enables to account the probability measure or a prior information and improves classification performance. For evaluating the proposed schemes, MVN soft information is evaluated based on PLSR of LIBS captured spectrums of 9 metal CRMs, and tested for classifying unknown metal alloys. Furthermore, the likelihood is evaluated with the radar chart to effectively visualize and search the most probable class among the candidates. By the leave-one-out cross validation tests, the proposed scheme is not only showing improved classification accuracies but also helpful for adaptive post-processing to correct the mis-classifications.

• Journal of Korean Traditional Oncology
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.41-53
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• 2011

Background and Objectives: Iodine is an essential constituent of the thyroid hormones associated with the growth and development of humans and animals as an inorganic nutrition. This element may be accumulated in human blood, tissues and body through the intake of foodstuffs, a beverage, a nutritional supplement and a medicine, among others. The aim of the research is to find out a better medicinal stuff for the thyroid cancer patient who required a low level of iodine diet. Methods: Neutron activation analysis (NAA) used for the iodine analysis is one of nuclear analytical techniques using radiation and radioisotopes and very useful as sensitive analytical technique for performing both qualitative and quantitative multi-elemental non-destructive analysis of major, minor and trace components in variety of environmental and biological materials. In this study, iodine contents in ten kinds of oriental herb medicinal products, which is frequently used to cancer patients are determined by using instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) at the HANARO research reactor. The samples prescribed are manufactured as powdered form for taking medicine easily. The analytical quality control is performed to assure an uncertainty of the measurement and to compensate the measured data using a biological certified reference material, NIST SRM 1572, Citrus Leaves. The measured value is $1.89{\pm}0.35mg/kg$, and the relative error is 2.88%, and relative standard deviation is 19 % due to high counting error by small counts of gamma ray spectrum. The standard deviations for other elements such as Cl, K, Mn and Na were in the range of 2 to 8%. Result: The level of iodine contents of Biki-huan, Chungryong-huan and Chungcho-huan, samples detected is less than 6 mg/kg except Hangam Plus sample (more than 210 mg/kg) and six samples were not detected. Iodine in the samples of Shoxiho-tang, Shopunghualhyl-tang, Shocungryong-tang, Banhasaxim-tang, Insampaedox-san and Myunyuk Plus were not measured, but possible level of content can be estimated from the detection limits. In addition, the concentrations of some major elements like Cl, K, Mn, Na, in the samples were determined with the detection limits. Conclusions: Most of samples showed low iodine contents of less than 6 mg/kg but it turned out that most of testing samples can be used to classify the level of iodine diet samples considering the recommended low level of iodine diet 50 ${\mu}g$/day, and a better medicinal stuff for the thyroid cancer patient can be found.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.40-45
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• 2020

Over 500 genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been developed since 1996, of which nearly 44% have glufosinate herbicide-tolerant traits. Identification of specific markers that can be used to identify herbicide-tolerant traits is challenging as the DNA sequences of the gene(s) of a trait are highly variable depending on the origin of the gene(s), plant species, and developers. To develop specific PCR marker(s) for the detection of the glufosinate-tolerance trait, DNA sequences of several pat or bar genes were compared and a diverse combination of PCR primer sets were examined using certified reference materials or transgenic plants. Based on both the qualitative and quantitative PCR tests, a primer set specific for pat and non-specific for bar was developed. Additionally, a set of markers that can detect both pat and bar was developed, and the quantitative PCR data indicated that the primer pairs were sensitive enough to detect 0.1% of the mixed seed content rate.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.117-123
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• 2010

Plutonium is by far the most important of the transuranic elements which have been released into the environment due to radio-toxicity and long term radiation effects on humans. And Pu isotope ratio ($^{240}Pu/^{239}Pu$) is of great interest because this ratio is used as a fingerprint for different sources. Mass spectrometry has been used as an useful atom counting technique with several advantages over decay counting techniques for the determination of Pu isotopes. It enables a determination of Pu isotope ratio in the environmental samples with a low detection limit and a short determination time. An ICP-MS is the representative mass spectrometry for Pu determination. In this study, the precision of $^{240}Pu/^{239}Pu$ isotope ratio was improved by using 4 multiple ion counters of MC-ICP-MS. The detection limit of $^{239}Pu$ and $^{240}Pu$ were $0.10\;fg\;ml^{-1}$ ($0.24\;{\mu}Bq\;ml^{-1}$), $0.12\;fg\;ml^{-1}$ ($0.97\;{\mu}Bq\;ml^{-1}$), respectively. The relative standard deviation of $^{240}Pu/^{239}Pu$ isotope ratio was less than 1 % in trace level. The various reference materials (seawater, soil and sediment) were analyzed to verify this method and their analytical results were in good agreement with the certified (or recommended value) value.