• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.727-741
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• 2018

To mitigate vibrations, tuned mass dampers(TMD) are widely used for long span bridges or high-rise buildings. Due to some durability concerns, such as fluid degradation, oil leakage, etc., the alternative solutions, such as the non-contacted eddy current damping (ECD), are proposed for mechanical devices in small scales. In the present study, a new eddy current damping TMD (ECD-TMD) is proposed and developed for large scale civil infrastructure applications. Starting from parametric study on finite element analysis of the ECD-TMD, the new design is enhanced via using the permanent magnets to eliminate the power need and a combination of a copper plate and a steel plate to improve the energy dissipation efficiency. Additional special design includes installation of two permanent magnets at the same side above the copper plate to easily adjust the gap as well as the damping. In a case study, the proposed ECD-TMD is demonstrated in the application of a steel arch bridge to mitigate the wind-induced vibrations of the flexible hangers. After a brief introduction of the configuration and the installation process for the damper, the mitigation effects are measured for the ambient vibration and forced vibration scenarios. The results show that the damping ratios increase to 3% for the weak axis after the installation of the ECD-TMDs and the maximum vibration amplitudes can be reduced by 60%.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.145-162
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• 2019

This study aimed to increase the sugar and ethanol yield from the mengkuang plant biomass through biological and liquid hot water (LHW) pretreatment and their combination. The results showed that biological pretreatments with 5% inoculum of the fungus Trametes versicolor resulted in the highest alpha cellulose content incubated for 30 days, and 10% inoculum resulted in the lowest lignin content. LHW pretreatment decreased the hemicellulose content of pulps from 10.17% to 9.99%. T. versicolor altered the structure of the mengkuang pulp by degrading the lignin and lignocellulose matrix. The resulting delignification and cellulose degradation facilitate the hydrolysis of cellulose into sugars. The alpha cellulose content after biological-LHW pretreatment was higher (78.99%) compared to LHW-biological pretreatment (76.85%). Scanning electron microscopy analysis showed that biological-LHW combinated treatment degrades the cell wall structures. The ethanol yield for biological-LHW pretreated sample was observed 43.86% (13.11 g/L ethanol by weight of the substrate, which is much higher than that of LHW-biological pretreatment (34.02%; 9.097 g/L). The highest reducing sugar content about 45.10% was observed with a resulting ethanol content of 15.5 g/L at LHW pretreatment temperature of $180^{\circ}C$ for 30 min.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.320-331
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• 2019

Background: Dioecious plant species having both male and female plants have been investigated regarding sex-related characteristics such as sex ratio, sex-differential resource requirements, and spatial segregation of the sexes. Habitat loss and fragmentation are major threats to the survival of plant populations, but dioecious species are particularly more prone to such habitat degradation than non-dioecious species because of their dimorphic sexual system. We examined the sex-related demographics of two Ilex cornuta populations being different regarding land use history. Methods: During 2016-2017, we examined I. cornuta trees with a basal diameter ${\geq}1.5cm$ in the Yongsu-ri population (YS population) and the Gotjawal Provincial Park population (GP population). Plant sex (male, female, or unsexed) was identified. The tree size (basal diameter and height of the main stem), clonal production (the ramet numbers per genet), and vitality for each clone were measured. The associations between population, sex, tree size, clonal production, and vitality were examined using ANOVAs and contingency table analyses. Finally, point pattern analyses using O-ring statistics were conducted to assess spatial patterns. Results: Upon excluding unsexed trees, the YS population with 74 trees was significantly male-biased (0.66), while the GP population with only 26 trees had a 1:1 sex ratio. In both populations, males and females did not differ in tree size. Although the mean number of ramets differed significantly between populations, females tended to produce more ramets than males. The proportion of weak trees was significantly higher in the YS than in the GP population. Neither population showed evidence of spatial segregation of the sexes. Conclusions: The two populations of dioecious I. cornuta are characterized by the small number of trees and relatively high frequencies of non-reproductive trees. Both indicate that these populations are quite susceptible to environmental and genetic stochasticity. On the other hand, the differences between populations in sex ratio, clonal production, and vitality suggest that conservation efforts for I. cornuta need to be population-specific. In order to help recover and enable this vulnerable species to persist, it is necessary to find ways to enhance their sexual reproduction and simultaneously reduce habitat disturbances due to anthropogenic activities.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.61 no.3
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• pp.55-65
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• 2019

Although crack on concrete exists from its early formation, crack requires attention as it affects stiffness of structure and can lead demolition of structure as it grows. Detecting cracks on concrete is needed to take action prior to performance degradation of structure, and deep learning can be utilized for it. In this study, transfer learning, one of the deep learning techniques, was used to detect the crack, as the amount of crack's image data was limited. Pre-trained Inception-v3 was applied as a base model for the transfer learning. Web scrapping was utilized to fetch images of concrete wall with or without crack from web. In the recognition of crack, image post-process including changing size or removing color were applied. In the visualization of crack, source images divided into 30px, 50px or 100px size were used as input data, and different numbers of input data per category were applied for each case. With the results of visualized crack image, false positive and false negative errors were examined. Highest accuracy for the recognizing crack was achieved when the source images were adjusted into 224px size under gray-scale. In visualization, the result using 50 data per category under 100px interval size showed the smallest error. With regard to the false positive error, the best result was obtained using 400 data per category, and regarding to the false negative error, the case using 50 data per category showed the best result.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.309-323
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• 2019

Fish oil consists of omega-3 fatty acids which play an important role in human health. Its susceptibility to oxidation causes considerable degradation during the processing and storage of food products. Accordingly, encapsulation of this ingredient through freeze drying was studied with the aim of protecting it against environmental conditions. Gum arabic (GA) was used as the wall material for fish oil nanoencapsulation where tween 80 was applied as the emulsifier. A water-in-oil (W/O) emulsion was prepared by sonication, containing 6% fish oil dispersed in aqueous solutions including 20% and 25% total wall material. The emulsion was sonicated at 24 kHz for 120 s. The emulsion was then freeze-dried and the nanocapsules were incorporated into probiotic fermented milk, with the effects of nanocapsules examined on the milk. The results showed that the nanoparticles encapsulated with 25% gum arabic and 4% emulsifier had the highest encapsulation efficiency (EE) (87.17%) and the lowest surface oil (31.66 mg/100 kg). Using nanoencapsulated fish oil in fermented milk significantly (p<0.05) increased the viability of Lactobacillus plantarum as well as eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) contents. The fermented milk sample containing fish oil nanoencapsulated with 25% wall material and 4% emulsifier yielded the greatest probiotic bacterial count (8.41 Log CFU/mL) and the lowest peroxide value (0.57 mEq/kg). Moreover, this sample had the highest EPA and DHA contents. Utilizing this nanoencapsulated fish oil did not adversely affect fermented milk overall acceptance. Therefore, it can be used for fortification of low fat probiotic fermented milk.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.28-38
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• 2019

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to contribute to improvement of measurement management level of construction structure and technology development of monitoring sensor by presenting the detailed causes and improvement plans of construction monitoring sensor's decline in durability. Method: The causes and improvement plans of the durability degradation of the construction monitoring sensor were divided into the construction field and the electric, electronic field. The detailed status was reviewed. Results: In the field of construction, approval and inspection, inspection and testing, verification and calibration, and minimization of loss and damage ratio were reviewed. In the field of electric and electronics, sensor package and sealing, disconnection of stress concentration area, damage caused by lightning and corrosion were reviewed. Conclusion: It is expected that the durability of monitoring sensors applied to the construction site will become longer than the present status based on the study that analyzed causes and improvement plans of construction monitoring sensor's decline in durability in the field of construction and electric, electronic devices.

• Journal of the Korean Physical Society
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• v.73 no.9
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• pp.1393-1398
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• 2018

In conventional single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), only the photoelectric events in the detectors are used for image reconstruction. However, if the $^{131}I$ isotope, which emits high-energy radiations (364, 637, and 723 keV), is used in nuclear medicine, both photoelectric and Compton scattering events can be used for image reconstruction. The purpose of our work is to perform simulations for Compton SPECT by using the Geant4 application for tomographic emission (GATE). The performance of Compton SPECT is evaluated and compared with that of conventional SPECT. The Compton SPECT unit has an area of $12cm{\times}12cm$ with four gantry heads. Each head is composed of a 2-cm tungsten collimator and a $40{\times}40$ array of CdZnTe (CZT) crystals with a $3{\times}3mm^2$ area and a 6-mm thickness. Compton SPECT can use not only the photoelectric effect but also the Compton scattering effect for image reconstruction. The correct sequential order of the interactions used for image reconstruction is determined using the angular resolution measurement (ARM) method and the energies deposited in each detector. In all the results of simulations using spherical volume sources of various diameters, the reconstructed images of Compton SPECT show higher signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) without degradation of the image resolution when compared to those of conventional SPECT because the effective count for image reconstruction is higher. For a Derenzo-like phantom, the reconstructed images for different modalities are compared by visual inspection and by using their projected histograms in the X-direction of the reconstructed images.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.124-128
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• 2020

Output power of photovoltaic (PV) modules installed outdoors decreases every year due to environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity, and ultraviolet irradiations. In order to promote the installation of PV modules, the reliability must be guaranteed. One of the important factors affecting reliability is intermetallic compounds (IMC) layer formed in ribbon solder joint. For this reason, various studies on soldering properties between the ribbon and cell have been performed to solve the reliability deterioration caused by excessive growth of the IMC layer. However, the IMC layer of the PV module interconnected by multi-wires has been studied less than using the ribbon. It is necessary to study soldering characteristics of the multi-wire module for improvement of its reliability. In this study, we analyzed the growth of IMC layer of the PV module with multi-wire and the degradation of output power through damp-heat test. The fabricated modules were exposed to damp-heat conditions (85 ºC and 85 % relative humidity) for 1000 hours and the output powers of the modules before and after the damp-heat test were measured. Then, the process of dissolving ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) as an encapsulant of the modules was performed to observe the IMC layer. The growth of IMC layer was evaluated using OM and FE-SEM for cross-sectional analysis and EDS for elemental mapping. Based on these results, we investigated the correlation between the IMC layer and output power of modules.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.141-151
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• 2022

Soil seed banks as natural storage of plant seeds play an important role in the maintenance and regeneration of watershed. Natural regeneration potential of the soil seed bank of Land use types (LUTs) in Ogun River watershed (ORW) was investigated. ORW was stratified using proportionate sampling technique into Guinea Savannah (GS), Rainforest (RF) and Swamp Forest (SF) Ecological Zones (EZs). Three LUTs: Natural Forest (NF), Disturbed Forest (DF) and Farmland (FL) were purposively selected in GS: GSNF, GSDF, GSFL; RF: RFNF, RFDF, RFFL and SF: SFNF, SFDF, SFFL, respectively. Systematic line transects was used in the laying of the sample plots. Sample plots of 25 m×25 m were established in alternate positions. Ten 1 m×1 m quadrats were randomly laid for soil core sampling from previously randomly selected ten plots. The core samples (10) were pooled per plot in each LUT and placed in individual trays. Ten trays with sterilized soil were used as control. The trays were watered regularly and checked for seedlings emergence fortnightly for 18 months. The experimental design used was 3×3 factorial experiments. ANOVA, Diversity index (H') and Similarity index (SI) were used to analyze the data. There was significant difference in seedling emergence among ecological zones and land use types (p<0.05). A total of 4,400 seedlings emerged from the soil samples. All species were distributed among 32 families. FL in the RF had the highest number of germinated seeds (705±37.33 seedlings) followed by DF in the RF (701±49.6 seedlings). The lowest emergence was in NF of the SF (199±28.41 seedlings). DF in the RF had highest number of species (34) distributed among 22 families. Emergence from soil seed bank of NF in ORW was generally with more of tree species than herbs that were predominant in FL and DF.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.283-298
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• 2022

Wood has always been used for various day-to-day applications such as interior or exterior construction materials, and household products. However, it can undergo photodegradation and discoloration by environmental factors including ultraviolet (UV) light, and thus has shortened its service life. Bleaching or delignification of wood surfaces is a suitable solution to stabilize wood against weathering by UV because these techniques can alter or remove the chromophores in lignin, which is a main factor of wood discoloration. To improve the color stability of wood surface according to the lifespan, surface delignification was conducted using peracetic acid (PAA) and hydrogen peroxide (HP) on the woods of Larix kaempferi and Quercus mongolica. After the PAA treatment, L^* increased considerably from 60-70 to 90-95. Furthermore, wood surface color did not change significantly after UV exposure. The color differences (𝜟E^*) between before and after PPA treatment of wood showed the 4.8-12.2 of L. kaempferi, and 1.7-3.7 of Q. mongolica, respectively. The lignin-related peaks in Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) spectra disappeared with increased duration of PAA treatment. These results confirmed that the lignin component was partially or completely removed after the PAA treatment; the color differences (𝜟E^*) clearly showed that there was a reduction in redness (a^*) and yellowness (b^*), and an increase in lightness (L^*) owing to the removal of lignin. Based on these results, this study demonstrated that the partial removal of lignin from wood surfaces is a fundamental method for resolving photo-degradation.