• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.177-190
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• 2013

Air pollution trends in Japan between 1970 and 2012 were analyzed, and the impact of air pollution countermeasures was evaluated. Concentrations of CO decreased from 1970 to 2012, and in 2012, the Japanese environmental quality standard (EQS) for CO was satisfied. Concentrations of $SO_2$ dropped markedly in the 1970s, owing to use of desulfurization technologies and low-sulfur heavy oil. Major reductions in the sulfur content of diesel fuel in the 1990s resulted in further decreases of $SO_2$ levels. In 2012, the EQS for $SO_2$ was satisfied at most air quality monitoring stations. Concentrations of $NO_2$ decreased from 1970 to 1985, but increased from 1985 to 1995. After 1995, $NO_2$ concentrations decreased, especially after 2006. In 2012, the EQS for $NO_2$ was satisfied at most air quality monitoring stations, except those alongside roads. The annual mean for the daily maximum concentrations of photochemical oxidants (OX) increased from 1980 to 2010, but after 2006, the $98^{th}$ percentile values of the OX concentrations decreased. In 2012, the EQS for OX was not satisfied at most air quality monitoring stations. Non-methane hydrocarbon (NMHC) concentrations generally decreased from 1976 to 2012. In 2011, NMHC concentrations near roads and in the general environment were nearly the same. The concentration of suspended particulate matter (SPM) generally decreased. In 2011, the EQS for SPM was satisfied at 69.2% of ambient air monitoring stations, and 72.9% of roadside air-monitoring stations. Impacts from mineral dust from continental Asia were especially pronounced in the western part of Japan in spring, and year-round variation was large. The concentration of $PM_{2.5}$ generally decreased, but the EQS for $PM_{2.5}$ is still not satisfied. The air pollution trends were closely synchronized with promulgation of regulations designed to limit pollutant emissions. Trans-boundary OX and $PM_{2.5}$ has become a big issue which contains global warming chemical species such as ozone and black carbon (so called SLCP: Short Lived Climate Pollutants). Cobeneficial reduction approach for these pollutants will be important to improve both in regional and global atmospheric environmental conditions.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.431-438
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• 2016

Recently, Both rapid economic growth and high-quality native finishing materials demand in buildings such as local infrastructure facilities and cultural facilities have increased along with local quarries. So, increasing local quarries and environmental pollution occurred in quarries get the eyes to damaged area of the surroundings. As an example, carcinogen such as solid formed to fixing asbestos and dust have damaged to local resident. Especially, Radon gas released from asbestos can exist everywhere on earth, released soil and rock as radioactive substances, can be caused lung cancer followed by a smoking. When pollution source to indoor air quality that lacking ventilation rate of the residential building moved in a cycle, human responses such as headache, dizziness, etc. get appear, so on it threatened resident's physical condition. Thus, we need to urgent attention to reduction harmful substance. In the case of radon gas of the pollution source to indoor air quality in housing, it has characteristic that keep on going through half-life released from source, we need to control radon gas source than source removal. We set on vermiculite addition ratio to 10% which has harmful substances adsorption performance, proceed experiment to basalt waste rock addition ratio 50, 60, 70, 80(%). The result of an experiment, based on 'KS F 4035, precast terrazzo', we can be obtainable in the best terrazzo at basalt waste rock addition ratio 70%.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.27-44
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• 1976

This study was carried out to evaluate the harmful factors in working environments and to investigate the labor productivity after improvement of environments, surveying 93 industrial establishments of 10 industries located in Youngdeungpo industrial area in Seoul. The results obtained were as follows: 1) The highest noise level of 125dB(A) was indicated at the rolling process of transport equipment manufacturing industry. 2) The best illumination level was shown in precise machinery industry and the worst was indicated in rubber products, metallic products and transport equipment manufacturing industries. 3) Thermal conditions were above threshold limit value (TLV) at more than two processes of all industries except printing industry. 4) The highest dust concentration was determined in textile and wearing manufacturing industry. 5) Organic solvents were detected at 52 processes in 93 industrial establishments and 33 processes of them showed higher than TLV. The results about harmful chemicals were as follows: a) sulfur dioxide ($SO_2$)was determined higher than TLV on welding process of metallic product manufacturing industry and heat treatment process of transport equipment manufacturing industry. b) Carbon monoxide (CO) concentration was 700ppm at heat treatment process of transport equipment manufacturing industry, indicating 14 times of TLV. c) vinylchloride concentration in the air of PVC raw material mixing process and PVC preparation process of chemical product manufacturing industry was determined higher than TLV. d) Hydrochloride (HCl) concentration in the air of wire expanding process of transport equipment manufacturing industry was determined higher than TLV. 7) Higher values of lead concentration than TLV were determined at lead welding metallic product manufacturing industry and type planting process of process of printing industry, $1.8mg/m^3$ and $0.3mg/m^3$ respectively. 9) 22, 968 of 52, 855 workers (i.e. 43.5%) in 93 industries were exposed to various harmful agents. 10) It was found that the improvement of illumination in electric apparatus manufacturing industry (from 20~40 lux to 420 lux) resulted in an increase in productivity of 6.5% per capita and a decrease in faulty products of 19%. 11) Improvement of environments using local exhaust ventilation system resulted in a decrease of harmful substances lower than TLV and an increase in productivity of 11.4%. 12) Improvement of shovelling tools based on ergonomics resulted in a reduction in energy expenditure of 25.3% and an increase in productivity of 32.2% per capita.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.599-606
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• 2021

In this study, an experiment and a reaction characteristic study were conducted to enhance the reaction activity of V₂O₅/WO₃/TiO₂ at 300 ℃ or less by adding selenium to the support, in a selective catalytic reduction method using ammonia as a reducing agent to remove nitrogen oxides. Se-TiO₂ and TiO₂ were synthesized using the sol-gel method, and used as a support when preparing V₂O₅/WO₃/TiO₂ and V₂O₅/WO₃/Se-TiO₂ catalysts. The reaction activity of our catalyst was compared with that of a commercial catalyst. The denitration efficiency of the catalyst using TiO₂ prepared by the sol-gel method was lower than that of the catalyst prepared using commercial TiO₂, but was improved by the addition of selenium. Thus, the effect of selenium addition on the catalyst structure was analyzed using BET, XRD, Raman, H₂-TPR, and FT-IR measurements and the effect of the increase in specific surface area by selenium addition and the formation of monomer and complex vanadium species on reaction characteristics were confirmed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.731-736
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• 2021

Oil fences effectively prevent the spread of oil spilled in the sea, thereby reducing the damage to the marine environment. However, the fence is damaged by oil and structures at the accident site and is discarded. When incinerated disposal method for discarded fences, fine dust, and harmful materials are generated. Moreover, as a part of the damaged fence is dumped into the sea, it may cause secondary environmental pollution, such as microplastics. Therefore, in this study, durability was measured using the most common solid foam type oil fences. As a result, the reduction rate of after five days of contact was 13 % in seawater and 3 % in oil, affected by temperature changes. Thus, the durability of the fence should be improved because it is exposed to seawater and oil and affected by wind, light, and waves depending on the weather conditions. Therefore, we suggest a method to improve the oil fence inspection to strengthen the durability of the fence's fabric part.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.507-515
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• 2018

The purpose of this research is to develop a slurry-type accelerator that contains various beneficial properties such as reduction of dust generation, lower alkalinity, early age strength development, etc., and uses such slurry type accelerator to produce high performance shotcrete that present excellent resistant against chloride ion penetration. In this work, shotcrete mixtures of 0.44 and 0.338 water-to-binder ratio (w/b) were produced at construction site using slurry-type accelerator. The mechanical properties and chloride ion penetration resistance of such shotcrete (including base concrete) were evaluated. According to the experimental results, the slurry-type accelerator was successfully used to produce both w/b 0.44 and 0.338 shotcretes. The 1 day and 28 day compressive strength of shotcrete were found to be closer to or higher than 10MPa and 40MPa, respectively. The w/b 0.338 shotcrete that used 40% replacement of blast furnace slag showed lower compressive strength than w/b 0.44 shotcrete without any mineral admixture at 1 day. However, the compressive strength with 40% blast furnace slag increased significantly at 28 day. Moreover, there was more than 50% increase in chloride ion penetration resistance with blast furnace slag, showing its strong potential for higher performance shotcrete application.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.367-379
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• 2019

Although atopic dermatitis (AD) is known to be a representative skin disorder, it also affects the systemic immune response. In a recent study, myoblasts were shown to be involved in the immune regulation, but the roles of muscle cells in AD are poorly understood. We aimed to identify the relationship between mitochondria and atopy by genome-wide analysis of skeletal muscles in mice. We induced AD-like symptoms using house dust mite (HDM) extract in NC/Nga mice. The transcriptional profiles of the untreated group and HDM-induced AD-like group were analyzed and compared using microarray, differentially expressed gene and functional pathway analyses, and protein interaction network construction. Our microarray analysis demonstrated that immune response-, calcium handling-, and mitochondrial metabolism-related genes were differentially expressed. In the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and Gene Ontology pathway analyses, immune response pathways involved in cytokine interaction, nuclear factor-kappa B, and T-cell receptor signaling, calcium handling pathways, and mitochondria metabolism pathways involved in the citrate cycle were significantly upregulated. In protein interaction network analysis, chemokine family-, muscle contraction process-, and immune response-related genes were identified as hub genes with many interactions. In addition, mitochondrial pathways involved in calcium signaling, cardiac muscle contraction, tricarboxylic acid cycle, oxidation-reduction process, and calcium-mediated signaling were significantly stimulated in KEGG and Gene Ontology analyses. Our results provide a comprehensive understanding of the genome-wide transcriptional changes of HDM-induced AD-like symptoms and the indicated genes that could be used as AD clinical biomarkers.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.5_3
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• pp.873-885
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• 2022

The particulate matter (PM) has emerged as a hot topic around the world as it has been reported that PM is related to an increase in mortality and prevalence rates. In South Korea, the importance of PM has been recognized since the late 1990s, and various studies on PM have been conducted. This study investigated the PM research topics and trends for papers (D=2,764) published in Research Information Sharing Service (RISS) using topic modeling based on Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). As a result, a total of 10 topics were identified in the whole papers, and the PM research topics were classified as 'PM reduction (Topic 1)', 'Government policy and management (Topic 2)', 'Characteristics of PM (Topic 3)', 'PM model (Topic 4)', 'Environmental education (Topic 5)', 'Bio (Topic 6)', 'Traffic (Topic 7)', 'Asian dust (Topic 8)', 'Indoor PM (Topic 9)', 'Human risk (Topic 10)'. In particular, the proportion of papers on topics 'Government policy and management (Topic 2)', 'PM model (Topic 4)', 'Environmental education (Topic 5)', and 'Bio (Topic 6)' to the toal number of papers increased over time (linear slope > 0). The results of this study provide the new literature review methodology related to particulate matter and the history and insight.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.1-20
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to analyze the distribution characteristics of spatial and temporal PM_2.5 in urban areas of Changwon-si, and to identify the causes of PM_2.5 by comparing the characteristics of land-use, and to suggest the direction of reduction measures. As the basic data, the every hour average from September 2017 to August 2018 of Airpro data, which has measurement points in kindergartens, elementary schools, and some middle and high schools in Changwon-si was used. Also, by using IDW method among spatial interpolation methods of GIS, monthly and time-slot distribution maps were constructed, and based on this, spatial and temporal PM_2.5 distribution characteristics were confirmed. First, to verify the accuracy of the Airpro data, the correlation with AirKorea data managed by the Ministry of Environment was confirmed. As a result of the analysis, R² was 0.75~0.86, showing a very high correlation and the data was judged that it was suitable for the study. In the monthly analysis, January was the highest year, and August was the lowest. As a result of analysis by time-slot, The clock-in time at 06-09 was the highest, and the activity time at 09-18 was the lowest. By administrative district, Sangnam-dong, Happo-dong, and Myeonggok-dong were the most severe regions of PM_2.5 and Hoeseong-dong was the lowest. As a result of analyzing the land-use characteristics by administrative area, it was confirmed that the ratio of traffic area and commercial area is high in the serious area of PM_2.5. In conclusion, the results of this study will be used as basic data to grasp the characteristics of PM_2.5 distribution in Changwon-si. Also, it is thought that the severe regions and the direction of establishing reduction measures derived from this study can be used to prepare more effective policies than before.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.59 no.1
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• pp.127-137
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• 2021

Air emission charge for nitrogen oxide as a precursor of fine dust has been introduced and implemented within the country from 2020. Therefore, the development of economical combustion technology for NOx reduction has got more needed urgently. This study investigated the air-staging effect as a way to reduce the NOx during combustion of domestic unused forest biomass, recently possible to secure REC (Renewable Energy Certification) as a substitute for overseas wood pellets in a 0.1 MWth circulating fluidized bed combustion test-rig. Operating conditions were comparison with and without air-staging, the supply position of tertiary air (6.4 m, 8.1 m, 9.4 m in the combustor) and variation of air-staging ratio (Primary air:Secondary air:Tertiary air=91%:9%:0%, 82%:9%:9%, 73%:9%:18%). NO and CO concentrations in flue gas, profiles of temperature and pressure at the height of the combustion, unburned carbon in sampled fly ash and combustion efficiency on operating conditions were evaluated. As notable results, NO concentration with air-staging application under tertiary air supply at 9.4 m in the combustor reduced 100.7 ppm compared to 148.8 ppm without air-staging while, CO concentration increased from 52.2 ppm without air-staging to 99.8 ppm with air-staging. However, among air-staging runs, when tertiary air supply amount at 6.4 m in the combustor increased by air-staging ratio (Primary air:Secondary air:Tertiary air=73%:9%:18%), NO and CO concentrations decreased the lowest 90.8 ppm and 66.1 ppm, respectively. Furthermore, combustion efficiency at this condition was improved to 99.3%, higher than that (98.3%) of run without air-staging.