• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2019

Reversible solid oxide fuel cell (ReSOC) system was integrated with waste steam for electrical energy storage in distributed energy storage application. Waste steam was utilized as external heat in SOEC mode for higher hydrogen production efficiency. Three system configurations were analyzed to evaluate techno-economic performance. The first system is a simple configuration to minimize the cost of balance of plant. The second system is the more complicated configuration with heat recovery steam generator (HRSG). The third system is featured with HRSG and fuel recirculation by blower. Lumped models were used for system performance analyses. The ReSOC stack was characterized by applying area specific resistance value at fixed operating pressure and temperature. In economical assessment, the levelized costs of energy storage (LCOS) were calculated for three system configurations based on capital investment. The system lifetime was assumed 20 years with ReSOC stack replaced every 5 years, inflation rate of 2%, and capacity factor of 80%. The results showed that the exergy round-trip efficiency of system 1, 2, 3 were 47.9%, 48.8%, and 52.8% respectively. The high round-trip efficiency of third system compared to others is attributed to the remarkable reduction in steam requirement and hydrogen compression power owning to fuel recirculation. The result from economic calculation showed that the LCOS values of system 1, 2, 3 were 3.46 ¢/kWh, 3.43 ¢/kWh, and 3.14 ¢/kWh, respectively. Even though the systems 2 and 3 have expensive HRSG, they showed higher round-trip efficiencies and significant reduction in boiler and hydrogen compressor cost.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.397-410
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• 2018

When considering the long-term safety assessment of spent-nuclear fuel management, americium is one of the most radio-toxic actinides. Although spectroscopic methods are widely used for the study of actinide chemistry, application of those methods to americium chemistry has been limited. Herein, we purified $^{241}Am$ to obtain a highly pure stock solution required for spectroscopic studies. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of purified $^{241}Am$ were carried out using liquid scintillation counting, and gamma and alpha radiation spectrometry. Highly sensitive absorption spectrometry coupled with a liquid waveguide capillary cell and time-resolved laser fluorescence spectroscopy were employed for the study of Am(III) hydrolysis and oxalate (Ox) complexation. $Am^{3+}$ ions under acidic conditions exhibit maximum absorbance at 503 nm, with a molar absorption coefficient of $424{\pm}8cm^{-1}{\cdot}M^{-1}$. $Am(OH)_3(s)$ colloidal particles formed under near neutral pH conditions were identified by monitoring the absorbance at around 506-507 nm. The formation of ${Am(Ox)_3}^{3-}$ was detected by red-shifts of the absorption and luminescence spectra of 4 and 5 nm, respectively. In addition, considerable enhancements of the luminescence intensities were observed. The luminescence lifetime of ${Am(Ox)_3}^{3-}$ increased from 23 to 56 ns, which indicates that approximately six water molecules are replaced by carboxylate ligands in the inner-sphere of the Am(III). These results suggest that ${Am(Ox)_3}^{3-}$ is formed through the bidentate coordination of the oxalate ligands.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.6A
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• pp.765-778
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• 2008

Performance Profiles are essential to predict the performance variation over time for the bridge management system (BMS) based on risk management. In general, condition profiles based on experts opinion and/or visual inspection records have been used widely because obtaining profiles based on real performance is not easy. However, those condition profiles usually don't give a good consistency to the safety of bridges, causing practical problems for the effective bridge management. The accuracy of performance evaluation is directly related to the accuracy of BMS. The reliability of the evaluation is important to produce the optimal solution for distributing maintenance budget reasonably. However, conventional methods of bridge assessment are not suitable for a more sophisticated decision making procedure. In this study, a method to compute quantitative performance profiles has been proposed to overcome the limitations of those conventional models. In Bridge Management Systems, the main role of performance profiles is to compute and predict the performance of bridges subject to lifetime activities with uncertainty. Therefore, the computation time for obtaining an optimal maintenance scenario is closely related to the efficiency of the performance profile. In this study, the Response Surface Method (RSM) based on independent and important design variables is developed for the rapid computation. Steel box bridges have been investigated because the number of independent design variables can be reduced significantly due to the high dependency between design variables.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.1A
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• pp.75-89
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• 2006

This paper presents a practical and realistic Life-Cycle Cost (LCC) optimum design methodology of steel bridges considering time effect of bridge reliability under environmental stressors such as corrosion and heavy truck traffics. The LCC functions considered in the LCC optimization consist of initial cost, expected life-cycle maintenance cost and expected life-cycle rehabilitation costs including repair/replacement costs, loss of contents or fatality and injury losses, road user costs, and indirect socio-economic losses. For the assessment of the life-cycle rehabilitation costs, the annual probability of failure which depends upon the prior and updated load and resistance histories should be accounted for. For the purpose, Nowak live load model and a modified corrosion propagation model considering corrosion initiation, corrosion rate, and repainting effect are adopted in this study. The proposed methodology is applied to the LCC optimum design problem of an actual steel box girder bridge with 3 continuous spans (40 m+50 m+40 m=130 m), and various sensitivity analyses of types of steel, local corrosion environments, average daily traffic volume, and discount rates are performed to investigate the effects of various design parameters and conditions on the LCC-effectiveness. From the numerical investigation, it has been observed that local corrosion environments and the number of truck traffics significantly influence the LCC-effective optimum design of steel bridges, and thus realized that these conditions should be considered as crucial parameters for the optimum LCC-effective design.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.34 no.12
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• pp.810-820
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• 2012

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) contents in marine sediment and edible fish (4 species) from the estuary near the Yongho wharf in Busan were determined to assess their presence and their potential health risk to the local population through fish consumption was also assessed. Levels of ${\Sigma}PCBs$ and ${\Sigma}DDTs$ in marine sediment were 3.22~197.65 and 1.77~20.27 ng/g dw, respectively. HCHs and endosulfan sulfate concentrations in bottom sediment were 1.42~6.08, 0.56~13.89 ng/g dw, respectively. The bottom sediment in the offshore of the Yongho wharf may be characterized as semi-polluted status with potential adverse marine biological effects in terms of sediment quality guidelines of US NOAA. The mean concentrations of ${\Sigma}PCBs$ in the tissues of olive flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus), Korean rockfish (Sebastes schlegelii), file fish (Stephanolepis cirrhifer) and abbysal searobin (Lepidotrigla abyssalis) were 67.37, 10.20, 48.26, 22.81 ng/g lw, respectively. DDTs and HCHs were also detected in all fish samples. Lifetime cancer risk and target hazard quotient to local residents due to those fish consumption were found to pose negligible cancer and non-cancer risk.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2004

This study was executed to determine the cumulative dietary risk of PAHs exposed by food ingestion. Food samples including barbecued beef, barbecued pork, grilled chicken, ham, bacon and vegetable oil which were collected from food markets. These samples were saponified, extracted and cleaned up to purify PAHs, and then the purified sample solutions were analyzed by HPLC-FL. Generally, the levels of total PAHs in barbecued beef (0.2 ppb), bacon (0.3 ppb), barbecued pork (0.7 ppb), ham (0.8 ppb), and vegetable oil (1.2 ppb) were low, whereas the level of total PAHs in grilled chicken (9.3 ppb) was significantly high. For the exposure assessment of PAHs due to food ingestion, PAHs levels converted into TEQ$_{BaP}$, the average body weight for 20-73 age group and consumed levels of food proposed from report on the National Health and Nutrition Survey were used. The estimated lifetime average daily intake of dietary PAHs was 4.32${\times}$10$^{-4}$ $\mu\textrm{g}$-TEQ$_{BaP}$kg/day as the mean value. The dietary risk adjusted to cancer potency of benzo(a)pyrene as 7.3 (mg/kg/day)$^{-1}$ was 3.44${\times}$10$^{-6}$ based on current data.ata.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.177-198
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• 2018

Recently, as economic property it has become necessary to acquire and utilize the framework for water resource measurement and performance management as the property of water resources changes to hold "public property". To date, the evaluation of water technology has been carried out by feasibility study analysis or technology assessment based on net present value (NPV) or benefit-to-cost (B/C) effect, however it is not yet systemized in terms of valuation models to objectively assess an economic value of technology-based business to receive diffusion and feedback of research outcomes. Therefore, K-water (known as a government-supported public company in Korea) company feels the necessity to establish a technology valuation framework suitable for technical characteristics of water resources fields in charge and verify an exemplified case applied to the technology. The K-water evaluation technology applied to this study, as a public interest goods, can be used as a tool to measure the value and achievement contributed to society and to manage them. Therefore, by calculating the value in which the subject technology contributed to the entire society as a public resource, we make use of it as a basis information for the advertising medium of performance on the influence effect of the benefits or the necessity of cost input, and then secure the legitimacy for large-scale R&D cost input in terms of the characteristics of public technology. Hence, K-water company, one of the public corporation in Korea which deals with public goods of 'water resources', will be able to establish a commercialization strategy for business operation and prepare for a basis for the performance calculation of input R&D cost. In this study, K-water has developed a web-based technology valuation model for public interest type water resources based on the technology evaluation system that is suitable for the characteristics of a technology in water resources fields. In particular, by utilizing the evaluation methodology of the Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan to match the expense items to the expense accounts based on the related benefit items, we proposed the so-called 'K-water's proprietary model' which involves the 'cost-benefit' approach and the FCF (Free Cash Flow), and ultimately led to build a pipeline on the K-water research performance management system and then verify the practical case of a technology related to "desalination". We analyze the embedded design logic and evaluation process of web-based valuation system that reflects characteristics of water resources technology, reference information and database(D/B)-associated logic for each model to calculate public interest-based and profit-based technology values in technology integrated management system. We review the hybrid evaluation module that reflects the quantitative index of the qualitative evaluation indices reflecting the unique characteristics of water resources and the visualized user-interface (UI) of the actual web-based evaluation, which both are appended for calculating the business value based on financial data to the existing web-based technology valuation systems in other fields. K-water's technology valuation model is evaluated by distinguishing between public-interest type and profitable-type water technology. First, evaluation modules in profit-type technology valuation model are designed based on 'profitability of technology'. For example, the technology inventory K-water holds has a number of profit-oriented technologies such as water treatment membranes. On the other hand, the public interest-type technology valuation is designed to evaluate the public-interest oriented technology such as the dam, which reflects the characteristics of public benefits and costs. In order to examine the appropriateness of the cost-benefit based public utility valuation model (i.e. K-water specific technology valuation model) presented in this study, we applied to practical cases from calculation of benefit-to-cost analysis on water resource technology with 20 years of lifetime. In future we will additionally conduct verifying the K-water public utility-based valuation model by each business model which reflects various business environmental characteristics.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.178-184
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• 2004

Objectives : This study was conducted to investigate the association of the COMT polymorphism with the TD in Korean sample of families with TD probands. The relationship between risk alleles and specific clinical features (tic severity, comorbidity, drug response) was also explored. Method : Patients were recruited from the Tic Disorder clinic at the Child & Adolescent Psychiatric Division of Seoul National University Hospital and assessed through 2 stage evaluation. Firstly, all the patients and parents received semistructured interview using Korean version of K-SADS-PL. Secondly all the patients received clinical interview and tic severity assessment with Korean version of YGTSS. The subjects in control group were recruited from the health promotion center in out hospital and were evaluated by SCL-90 and SCID-IV. Through these process, total of 42 children and adolescents with TD, their 84 parents and 86 control subjects were finally recruited. Genotyping for The Val158Met polymorphism of the COMT gene was done by standardized method. After collection of genetic data of all the patients, parents and control subjects, case-control comparison and tranmission dysequilibrium test was executed by SPSS version 11. Result : From the case-control comparison, the frequency of L-allele and LL genotype was significantly higher in TD group. However, no differences were found from the TDT. No significant differences were found in in family history of tic, ADHD, OCD, drug response and comorbid conditions among the three different genotypes in patients with TD. Conclusion : Though this study results should be interpreted cautiously due to small sample size and negative finding in TDT test, this study is the first report that there is positive association between the functional polymorphism of COMT gene the TD.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.15
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• pp.6521-6526
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• 2015

Background: This study aimed toanalyze the risk behavior for cervical cancer (CC) and the human papillomavirus (HPV) prevalence and resolution among women who received care through the private healthcare network of a municipality in southern Brazil. Materials and Methods: This descriptive and retrospective study was conducted with 25 women aged 20 to 59 years who received care through the private healthcare network and were treated at a specialty clinic in the period from January to December 2012 in a municipality in Northwest Parana, Southern Brazil. Data from medical records with cytological and HPV results were used. Following treatment, these women were followed-up and reassessed after 6 months. Data were statistically analyzed using the t-test and chi-squared test at a 5% significance level. Results: The mean age of the studied women was $27.8{\pm}7.75$ years old, and the majority were married, with paid employment and were non-smokers. The mean age at menarche was $13.0{\pm}0.50$ years old, and the mean age at first intercourse was $17.5{\pm}1.78$ years, with only 8.0% (2) initiating sexual activity at an age ${\leq}15$ years old. The majority had 1 to 2 children (60.0%), while 88.0% reported having had one sexual partner in their lifetime, and all the women were sexually active. A total of 68.0% used a hormonal contraceptive method. All the women had leukorrhea and pain and were infected by a single HPV type. Regarding the lesion grade, 80.0% showed high risk and 20.0% low risk. The most prevalent high-risk HPV strain was 16. Conclusions: These findings provide relevant information on HPV risk factors and infection, as well as the treatment and 6-month follow-up results, in economically and socially advantaged women with no traditional risk factors, corroborating previous reports that different risk factors may be described in different populations. Thus, this study reinforces the fact that even women without the traditional risk factors should undergo HPVmonitoring and assessment to determine the persistence of infection, promoting early diagnosis of the lesions presented and appropriate treatment to thus prevent the occurrence of CC.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.108-118
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• 2022

The subventricular zone (SVZ) in the brain contains neural stem cells (NSCs) that generate new neurons throughout one's lifetime. Many extracellular and intracellular factors that affect cell proliferation and neuronal differentiation of NSCs are already well-known. Recently, L-type calcium channels have been reported to regulate neural development and are present in NSCs, differentiating neuroblasts, and mature neurons in the SVZ. Nifedipine, a blocker of L-type calcium channels, has been long used as a therapeutic drug for hypertension. However, studies on the use of nifedipine to inhibit L-type calcium channels of NSCs are lacking. Herein, we treated NSCs cultured from mouse postnatal SVZ with nifedipine during neuronal differentiation. Nifedipine increased the number of Tuj1-positive neurons but did not significantly change the number of Olig2-positive oligodendrocytes. Nifedipine increased cell division during early differentiation, which was detected using the 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine incorporation assay and immunocytochemistry assessment by staining the cells with phosphorylated histone H3, a mitosis marker. Nifedipine increased the transcription of Dlx2, a neurogenic transcription factor, and the level of Mash1, a marker for early neurogenesis. In addition to nifedipine, verapamil, which is also an L-type calcium channel blocker, showed a slight increase in neurogenesis, but its statistical significance was very low. In contrast, pimozide, a T-type calcium channel blocker, did not affect neurogenesis, although T-type calcium channel genes Cav3.1, Cav3.2, and Cav3.3 were expressed. In summary, nifedipine might promote the neuronal fate of NSCs during early differentiation and calcium signaling through L-type calcium channels might be involved in neuronal differentiation, especially during the early stages of differentiation.