• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.170-189
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• 2017

Purpose: This paper presents Raman chemical imaging technology for inspecting food and agricultural products. Methods The paper puts emphasis on introducing and demonstrating Raman imaging techniques for practical uses in food analysis. Results & Conclusions: The main topics include Raman scattering principles, Raman spectroscopy measurement techniques (e.g., backscattering Raman spectroscopy, transmission Raman spectroscopy, and spatially offset Raman spectroscopy), Raman image acquisition methods (i.e., point-scan, line-scan, and area-scan methods), Raman imaging instruments (e.g., excitation sources, wavelength separation devices, detectors, imaging systems, and calibration methods), and Raman image processing and analysis techniques (e.g., fluorescence correction, mixture analysis, target identification, spatial mapping, and quantitative analysis). Raman chemical imaging applications for food safety and quality evaluation are also reviewed.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2016

Flocculation is a widely used phase separation technique in industrial unit processes and is typically observed in many natural flow systems. Advances in colloidal chemistry over the past decades has vastly improved our understanding of this phenomenon. However, in many practical applications, process engineering still lags developments in colloidal science thereby creating a gap in knowledge. While significant progress has been made in environmental process engineering research over the past decades, there is still a need to align these two inter-dependent fields of research more closely. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the flocculation mechanism from empirical and theoretical perspective, discuss its practical applications, and examines the need and direction of future research.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.737-746
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• 2010

Restraint to drying shrinkage is the most common cause of concrete cracking. In many applications, drying shrinkage cracks are inevitable. In this paper, the surface cracks of soil concrete caused by drying shrinkage were considered to become an one of concrete textures. So, laboratory shrinkage tests were conducted and the results were applied to the field applications. The study results were summarized as follows; First, the use of vinyl sheets and concrete polymers helped to control the concrete cracking. Second, crack propagation usually started at the interfaces of soil concrete slabs and the cracks grew to the inner slabs. Third, surface cracks of soil concrete slabs could be an one of good concrete textures

• Membrane Journal
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 1992

Classical membrane processes like microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF) and reverse osmosis (RO) are being applied in the last years more frequently in environmental and effluent process problems. Newer technologies and developments like pervaporation (PV) and gas sepaxation (GS) recently found commercial applications in the treatment of waste waters and gas streams. The incentive here is either the clean-up from organic components to comply with federal emission regulations or the recovery of the organics for economical reasons. Processes still in their development stage are combinations of chemical reactions with membrane processes to separate and treat $SO_x$ and $NO_x$ laden waste gas streams in the clean-up of stack-gases. In this paper we will first give a short overview of the more recent developments in MF, UF and RO. This is followed by a closer look on newer technologies applied in environmental problems. The applications looked at are the recovery of organic components from solvent laden gas streams and the separation of organic volatiles from aqueous waste waters via pervaporation. Technical solutions, the advantages and disadvantages of the processes and. where possible, cost estimations will be presented.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.129-135
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• 2007

This study evaluated microbial risk that could develop within soil microbial communities after amended with organic fertilizers from stabilized swine manure waste. For this purpose, we assessed the occurrences and competitiveness of antibiotic resistance and pathogenicity in soil microbial communities that were amended with swine manure wastes stabilized by a traditional lagoon fermentation process and an autothermal thermophilic aerobic digestion process, respectively. According to laboratory cultivation detection analysis, soil applications of the stabilized organic fertilizers resulted in increases in absolute abundances of antibiotic resistant bacteria and of two tested pathogenic bacteria indicators. The increase in occurrences might be due to the overall growth of microbial communities by the supplement of nutrients from the fertilizers. Meanwhile, the soil applications were found to reduce competitiveness for various types of antibiotic resistant bacteria in the soil microbial communities, as indicated by the decrease in relative abundances (of total viable heterotrophic bacteria). However, competitiveness of pathogens in response to the fertilization was pathogens-specific, since the relative abundance of Staphylococcus was decreased by the soil applications, while the relative abundance of Salmonella was increased. Further testes revealed that no MAR (multiple antibiotic resistance) occurrence was detected among cultivated pathogen colonies. These findings suggest that microbial risk in the soil amended with the fertilizers may not be critical to public health. However, because of the increased occurrences of antibiotic resistance and pathogenicity resulted from the overall microbial growth by the nutrient supply from the fertilizers, potential microbial risk could not be completely ruled out in the organic-fertilized soil samples.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.339-345
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• 2006

Accumulation of nitrate in green vegetables is undesirable due to potential risks to human health. Lettuce was cultivated in pots under greenhouse conditions with compost applications of 2,000 and 4,000 kg/10a, and the growth and nitrate accumulation of lettuce were compared with those found in the lettuce cultivated with chemical fertilizers of recommended levels. Content of $NH_4-N$ in the soils of compost applications were much lower than those found in the soil of chemical fertilizer application. Two weeks after lettuce transplant $NH_4-N$ was not found in the soils of compost applications, and in the soils of chemical fertilizers application $NH_4-N$ was not found three weeks after lettuce transplant. One week after lettuce transplant content of $NO_3-N$ was much higher in the soils of compost applications, and the contents were rapidly decreased. While, the content of $NO_3-N$ in the soil of chemical fertilizers application was rapidly increased due to the nitrification of $NH_4$ released from the applied urea. At the time of harvest contents of $NO_3-N$ in the soils of compost applications were less than 1.4 mg/kg, but in the soil of chemical fertilizers application the content of $NO_3-N$ was 54.2 mg/kg. Contents of $NH_4$ in lettuce were about 20 mg/kg FW and were not much different among the treatments. However, contents of $NO_3$ in lettuce were significantly different between the treatments of chemical fertilizer and compost. There were significant differences in fresh and dry weights, and growth of lettuce in the compost treatment of 4,000 kg/10a was highest among the treatments. These results indicate that the cultivation with compost only as N source can produce higher yield of lettuce and significantly reduce nitrate accumulation as compared to the conventional cultivation with chemical fertilizers.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.51-65
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• 2008

The increasing demand for energy in the near future has created strong motivation for environmentally clean alternative energy resources. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have opened up new ways of utilizing renewable energy sources. MFCs are devices that convert the chemical energy in the organic compounds to electrical energy through microbial catalysis at the anode under anaerobic conditions, and the reduction of a terminal electron acceptor, most preferentially oxygen, at the cathode. Due to the rapid advances in MFC-based technology over the last decade, the currently achievable MFC power production has increased by several orders of magnitude, and niche applications have been extended into a variety of areas. Newly emerging concepts with alternative materials for electrodes and catalysts as well as innovative designs have made MFCs promising technologies. Aerobic bacteria can also be used as cathode catalysts. This is an encouraging finding because not only biofouling on the cathode is unavoidable in the prolonged-run MFCs but also noble catalysts can be substituted with aerobic bacteria. This article discusses some of the recent advances in MFCs with an emphasis on the performance, materials, microbial community structures and applications beyond electricity generation.

• Proceedings of the Microbiological Society of Korea Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.22-26
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• 2002

There are a number of ways in which environmental microbiology and microbial ecology will benefit from DNA micro array technology. These include community genome arrays, SSU rDNA arrays, environmental functional gene arrays, population biology arrays, and there are clearly more different applications of microarray technology that can be applied to relevant problems in environmental microbiology. Two types of the applications, bacterial identification chip and functional gene detection chip, will be presented. For the bacterial identification chip, a new approach employing random genome fragments that eliminates the disadvantages of traditional DNA-DNA hybridization is proposed to identify and type bacteria based on genomic DNA-DNA similarity. Bacterial genomes are fragmented randomly, and representative fragments are spotted on a glass slide and then hybridized to test genomes. Resulting hybridization profiles are used in statistical procedures to identify test strains. Second, the direct binding version of microarray with a different array design and hybridization scheme is proposed to quantify target genes in environmental samples. Reference DNA was employed to normalize variations in spot size and hybridization. The approach for designing quantitative microarrays and the inferred equation from this study provide a simple and convenient way to estimate the target gene concentration from the hybridization signal ratio.

• Proceedings of the National Institute of Ecology of the Republic of Korea
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.298-304
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• 2021

This study aimed to determine the applicability of drones and air quality sensors in environmental monitoring of air pollutant emissions by developing and testing two new methods. The first method used orthoimagery for precise monitoring of pollutant-emitting facilities. The second method used atmospheric sensors for monitoring air pollutants in emissions. Results showed that ground sample distance could be established within 5 cm during the creation of orthoimagery for monitoring emissions, which allowed for detailed examination of facilities with naked eyes. For air quality monitoring, drones were flown on a fixed course and measured the air quality in point units, thus enabling mapping of air quality through spatial analysis. Sensors that could measure various substances were used during this process. Data on particulate matter were compared with data from the National Air Pollution Measurement Network to determine its future potential to leverage. However, technical development and applications for environmental monitoring of pollution-emitting facilities are still in their early stages. They could be limited by meteorological conditions and sensitivity of the sensor technology. This research is expected to provide guidelines for environmental monitoring of pollutant-emitting facilities using drones.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.21-29
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• 1993

We live in an age of information and an era of rising environmental awareness. As a result, efficient and judicious use of environmental information has become a prerequisite to planning and management of environmental affairs in contemporary societies. So, we have embarked on a study of Environmental Information System(EIS). In the first article, we discussed the status analysis of EIS in Korea, USA, and Japan. This study as the second project has three major components. First, it classifies items and sources of 22 EIA factors. Second, it explains building of environmental information comprising geographic and attribute data of 17 factors. Finally, the study presents applications of EIS as an alternative assessment of suitability analysis. Based on these analysis, the study makes some recommendations and conclusions.