• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.81-94
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• 2005

This study is aimed at giving the basic information for individual farm households to make decisions for optimizing their farm sizes and for the government to implement farm size optimization policies through the identification of combinations among rice production factors in plain areas like Cheolwon district and the suggestion of the optimal farm sizes of individual farmers based on the scale of economy calculated. The data of agricultural production costs of 50 rice farmers in the plain area which is located in Dongsong-eup Cholwon district, Kangwon province were used in the analysis. The 'translog' cost function among various methods which is a flexible function type was adopted to calculate the scale of economy in rice production. Seemingly unrelated regression(SUR) method was used in forecasting functions and processing other statistics by SHAZAM which is one of the computer aid program for quantitative econometric analysis. In conclusion, the long-run average cost(LAC) curve showed 'U-shape' which was different from 'L-type' one which was shown in the previous studies by others. The lowest point of the LAC was 9.764ha and the concerned production cost amounted to 633 Won/kg. Based on these results, it have to be suggested that around 10 ha of paddy is the target size for policy assistances to save costs under the present level of farming practices and technology. The above results show that the rice production costs could be saved up to 10ha in Cheolwon plain area which is a typical paddy field. However, land use, land condition, land ownership and manager's ability which may affect scale of economy should be considered. Furthermore, reasonable management will have to be realized by means of labor saving technology and cost saving management skill like enlargement of farm size of rice.

• Solar Energy
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.63-79
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• 1990

It has been recognized that a policy for supplying solar house and hot water production systems utilizing solar energy needs to be driven to save civilian comsuming energy or to develop alternative energy. However, the economic feasibility study of solar energy systems must be carried out before their practical use. The purpose of this study is to furnish information for supplying policy and enlightening users with the economic feasibility study of solar house and hot water production systems. Decision support systems are established to carry out economic analysis on solar systems more accurately. Therefore, computer simulation is carried out to analyze the performance of solar systems and also economic feasibility study by trial and error method is carried out. Fuel cost and additional cost for solar systems are estimated employing present worth concept and economic analysis has been conducted using the break-even point analysis method and life-cycle cost analysis method.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.53-58
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• 2020

Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) uses large amount of SF₆, one of the potent greenhouse gases, in electric equipment for electrical insulation. KEPCO is developing SF₆ recovery and purification technology to minimize the release of SF₆ into the environment, to secure certified emission reduction, and to save purchase cost of new SF₆ by reusing the refined SF₆. A prototype SF₆ purification system using cryogenic solidification technology has been built in demonstration scale. To evaluate the feasibility of the commercialization, the system has been operated to purify large amount of used SF₆ in a long-term operation and the performance has been economically evaluated. The system was stable enough for commercial operation such that it was able to purify 5.4 tons of used SF₆ from power transmission equipment in 2-month operation. Over 99% of the SF₆ was recovered from the used gas and the purity of the purified gas was over 99.7 vol%. The operation cost, which is the cost of refrigerant (liquid nitrogen), electricity and labor, per kilogram of purified SF₆ was 6,526 KRW. Considering the price of new SF₆ in Korea is about 15,000 KRW per kilogram this year, about 56% of the purchase cost can be saved.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.115-123
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• 1999

Sewage has been almost treated by secondary treatment process. Secondary-treated effluent of sewage treatment plant caused the pollution of nearby beach. Nitrogen(N) and Phosphorus(P) in effluent water have caused many problems on estuary, such as red tide, eutrophication and aquatic toxicity. Therefore, the effective nitrogen and phosphorus removal from sewage treatment plants is necessary to prevent those pollution problems. However, little sewage treatment plant in Korea is effectively being operated for the removal of the nutrients. This study is analyzed for the effectiveness of cost when tertiary treatment process and Ocean Outfall are applied for the water quality of Suyong Bay After secondary treatment process, the effluent was discharged from the seabed in the depth of 32m of 4000m offshore. Pollutant concentration is decreased as much as the 180 times after the result of initial dilution, so that environmental protection requirement of Suyong Bay can satisfied. This Ocean Outfall process can save the 2.6~3.5 times as much as the cost of construction and operation for tertiary treatment process running over a 20 year.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.296-300
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• 2004

Performance evaluation and economic estimation were conducted on the water to water GSHP (Ground Source Heat Pump) installed in existing building. Ground heat exchanger was a closed vertical loop type and sized to be 5 boreholes and 100m depth per borehole. Operation efficiency of the system shows that, COP increased from 3.0 to 4.2 with entering water temperature in heating operation, however, COP decreased from 5.0 to 3.7 in cooling operation. Economic estimation was analyzed by LCC (Life Cycle Cost) method and it showed that GSHP could save 68% of cost compare to the conventional oil source. Thus, despite of the large amount of initial cost, GSHP has a economic advantage to the other energy sources.

• Journal of muscle and joint health
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.4-22
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• 1996

Purposes of this study were to identify a hospital-based home care model and to improve the physical, emotional and economical effectiveness of arthritic patients through medical and nursing team approach. The design in nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design with matched samples in terms of age, sex and disease severity. Fifty two patients in each group were assigned in Seoul, Kyunggi, Kangwon and Kwangju. Before and after 6-month period of home care, level of pain, duration of morning stiffness, Richie Index, ADL, self efficacy, depression, cost expenditure were measured. Nine patients were excluded from the control group in the period of study because of denial of participation. Contents of home care provided to the experimental group include mainly distribution of prescribed drugs, 'assessment of patients' condition and side-reactions of drug. All of the information related to the home care patient were reported to the physician. On the bases of these data, the physician prescribe the specific drugs to each patient. Each patient visited the physician every 2 or 3 month for laboratory test. Patients assigned to the control group visited the outpatient clinic once a month as usual. Null hypotheses were selected because physicians concerned about the ineffective change of patients' conditions due to indirect communication with patients through nurses. Level of pain, Richie index, ADL, self-efficacy, depression, duration of morning stiffness and direct medical cost were the home care provided to them. If a family member accompany in a home care group can save 10,676 Won/month in Seoul, 34,000 Won/month in other districts. Other in-direct cost for transportation and meal can also be saved. In conclusion, those patients with low level of ADL, high level of pain and Richie index, living in the remote area definitely need the home care.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.697-706
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• 2011

There are more than 800 railway steel plate girder bridges which are in use and the total length is approximately 50 km. Among these, it shall be pointed out that non-ballast rail systems which lay on wood sleepers are the most critical members. To strengthen this type of structures, mainly two methods have been applied. The first one is the most typical method which is to replace the girders with slab girder system or steel composite girders and to add ballast. It is not uncommon that the construction cost of substructure is more than ten time higher than that of superstructures and even in this case, the structural uncertainty for the substructures is not diminished. To resolve above mentioned problems, new method was developed to rehabilitate railway steel girder bridge by adding PC-slab using transport equipment. Using this method, substructure strengthen is rarely required because the additional weight to the bridge superstructure is only up to 1.0t/m. Also it was possible to save the construction cost by reducing construction duration and by simplifying the construction process. Experimental construction was performed for Jewon bridge and measurements were performed before and after construction to verify the bridge capacity.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.391-407
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• 2019

Tracking the location (position) of a surface or underwater marine vehicle is important as part of guidance and navigation. While the Global Positioning System (GPS) works well in an open sea environment but its use is limited whenever testing scaled-down models of such vehicles in the laboratory environment. This paper presents the design, development and implementation of a low energy ultrasonic augmented single beacon-based localization technique suitable for such requirements. The strategy consists of applying Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) to achieve location tracking from basic dynamic distance measurements of the moving model from a fixed beacon, while on-board motion sensor measures heading angle and velocity. Iterative application of the Extended Kalman Filter yields x and y co-ordinate positions of the moving model. Tests performed on a free-running ship model in a wave basin facility of dimension 30 m by 30 m by 3 m water depth validate the proposed model. The test results show quick convergence with an error of few centimeters in the estimated position of the ship model. The proposed technique has application in the real field scenario by replacing the ultrasonic sensor with industrial grade long range acoustic modem. As compared with the existing systems such as LBL, SBL, USBL and others localization techniques, the proposed technique can save deployment cost and also cut the cost on number of acoustic modems involved.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.47 no.8
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• pp.53-60
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• 2010

This paper proposes an efficient path maintaining scheme in the grid based wireless sensor networks. The proposed scheme provides the shortest path from a source node to a mobile sink node in a re-established dissemination path. The shortest path can save energy consumption to deliver data to the destination. The proposed scheme can also reduce the cost for path maintenance by reusing the existing path. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme reduces the path maintenance cost by 60% compared to the conventional schemes.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.133-142
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• 2018

Subway metro scheduling is one of the most important problems impacting passenger convenience today. To operate efficiently, the Seoul metro uses regular, periodic schedules for all lanes, both north and southbound. However, many past studies suggest that non-periodic scheduling would better optimize costs. Since the Seoul metro is continuously facing a deficit, adopting a non-periodic schedule may be necessary. Two objectives are presented; the first, to minimize the average passengers' waiting time, and the second, to minimize total costs, the sum of the passenger waiting time, and the operational costs. In this paper, we use passenger smart card data and a precise estimation of transfer times. To find the optimal time-table, a genetic algorithm is used to find the best solution for both objectives. Using Python 3.5 for the analysis, for the first objective, we are able to reduce the average waiting time, even when there are fewer trains. For the second objective, we are able to save about 4.5 thousand USD with six fewer trains.