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A Revisit to the Recent Human Error Events in Nuclear Power Plants Focused to the Organizational and Safety Culture

  • Lee, Yong-Hee
    • Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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    • v.32 no.1
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    • pp.117-124
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    • 2013
  • Objective: This paper presents additional considerations related to organization and safety culture extracted from recent human error incidents in Korea, such as station blackout(i.e., SBO) in Kori#1. Background: Safety culture has been already highlighted as a major cause of human errors after 1986 Chernobyl accident. After Fukushima accident in Japan, the public acceptance for nuclear energy has taken its toll. Organizational characteristics and culture became elucidated as a major contributor again. Therefore many nuclear countries are re-evaluating their safety culture, and discussing any preparedness and its improvement. On top of that, there was an SBO in 2012 in the Kori#1. Korean public feels frustrated due to the similar human errors causing to a catastrophe like Fukushima accident. Method: This paper reassesses Japan's incidents, and revisits Korea's recent incidents. It focuses on the analysis of the hazards rather than the causes of human errors, the derivation of countermeasures, and their implementation. The preceding incidents and conclusions from Japanese experience are also re-analyzed. The Fukushima accident was an SBO due to the natural disaster such as earthquakes and a successive tsunami. Unlike the Fukushima accident, the Kori#1 incident itself was simple and restored without any loss and radioactive release. However, the fact that the incident was deliberately concealed led to massive distrust. Moreover, the continued violation of rules and organized concealment of the accident are serious signs of a new distorted type of human errors, blatantly revealing the cultural and fundamental weakness of the current organization. Result: We should learn from Japanese experiences who had taken pride in its safety technology and fairly high confidence in safety culture. Japan's first criticality accident in JCO facility splashed cold water on that confidence. It has turned out to be a typical case revealing the problems in the organization and safety culture. Since Japan has failed to gain lessons and countermeasure, the issue persists to the Fukushima incident. Conclusion: Safety culture is not a specific independent element, which makes it difficult to either evaluate it properly or establish countermeasures from the lessons. It may continue to expose similar human errors such as concealment of incident and manipulation of bad data. Application: Not only will this work establish the course of research for organization and safety culture, but this work will also contribute to the revitalization of Korea's nuclear industry from the disappointment after the export contract to UAE.

Input Balun Design Method for CMOS Differential LNA (차동 저 잡음 증폭기의 입력 발룬 설계 최적화 기법)

  • Yoon, Jae-Hyuk
    • The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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    • v.28 no.5
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    • pp.366-372
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    • 2017
  • In this paper, the analysis of baluns that are inevitably required to design a differential low noise amplifier, The balun converts a single signal input from the antenna into a differential signal, which serves as an input to the differential amplifier. In addition, it protects the circuit from ESD(Electrostatic Discharge) coming through the antenna and helps with input matching. However, in the case of a passive balun used in general, since the AC signal is transmitted through electromagnetic coupling formed between two metal lines, it not only has loss without gain but also has the greatest influence on the total noise figure of the receiving end. Therefore, the design of a balun in a low-noise amplifier is very important, and it is important to design a balun in consideration of line width, line spacing, winding, radius, and layout symmetry that are necessary. In this paper, the factors to be considered for improving the quality factor of balun are summarized, and the tendency of variation of resistance, inductance, and capacitance of the balun according to design element change is analyzed. Based on the analysis results, it is proved that the design of input balun allows the design of low noise, high gain differential amplifier with gain of 24 dB and noise figure of 2.51 dB.

The Magnetic Properties of $Fe_{87}Zr_{7}B_{5}Ag_{1}$(at.%) Amorphous Alloy ($Fe_{87}Zr_{7}B_{5}Ag_{1}$ 비정질합금의 연자기 특성)

  • 김병걸;송재성;김현식;오영우
    • Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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    • v.5 no.1
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    • pp.8-14
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    • 1995
  • The magnetic properties of an $Fe_{87}Zr_{7}B_{5}Ag_{1}$(at.%) amorphous alloy have been investigated as a function of annealing temperatures to clarify its application potential as a core material for high-frequency use by adding a small amount of insoluble element of Ag. A new excellent soft magnetic material was developed. The amorphous alloy produced by relatively low temperature annealing at $T_{a}=400^{\circ}C$ exhibited very high initial permeability$(\mu_{i})$ of 288,000 at 1kHz and 2mOe, very low coercivity$(H_{c})$ of 15mOe and low core loss$(W_{c})$ of 50W/kg at 100kHz and 1,000G which is comparable with Co-based amorphous alloys, respectively. It is notable that the values obtained in the present study are the best magnetic properties among various kinds of Fe-based soft amorphous materials reported up to date. The reasons for the achievement of good soft magnetic properties are presumably due to the homogeneous formation of very fine $\alpha$-Fe clusters with the size of 2~3nm in an amorphous matrix, which can be deduced from the increase of resistivity and the TEM observation. The very fine $\alpha$-Fe clusters embedded in an amorphous matrix had a great influence on reduction of magnetostriction and refinement of magnetic domain.

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A Study on Evaluating the Level of Service for Bridges using Fuzzy Approximate Reasoning (퍼지근사추론을 이용한 교량 서비스 수준 산정에 관한 연구)

  • Jo, Byung-Wan;Kim, Heon;Kim, Jang-Wook;Chi, Se-Young
    • Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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    • v.18 no.8
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    • pp.8-17
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    • 2017
  • Infrastructures such as bridges and tunnels are crucial elements of national economic growth, and sudden collapses may lead to great catastrophes with significant social and economic losses, as well as a loss of lives. Hence, an efficient maintenance technique must be applied to guarantee safety, secure budgets to maintain a certain level of service, and prevent maintenance expenditures from being concentrated in a specific time period. Developed countries have experienced rapid increases in maintenance budgets, and maintenance costs now account for about 40% of the total maintenance budget. The level of service in asset management systems is an essential element for setting management goals and making priority decisions. Therefore, this study uses fuzzy theory to develop a new way to assess the level of service.The assessment model was applied to an actual bridge to evaluate the level of service for users.

Analysis and Design Theory of Aperture-Coupled Cavity-Fed Back-to-Back Microstrip Directional Coupler (개구면 결합 공진기 급전 마이크로스트립 방향성결합기 해석 및 설계)

  • Nam, Sang-Ho;Jang, Guk-Hyun;Nam, Kyung-Min;Lee, Jang-Hwan;Kim, Chul-Un;Kim, Jeong-Phill
    • Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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    • v.44 no.3 s.357
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    • pp.7-17
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    • 2007
  • An analysis and design theory of an aperture-coupled cavity-fed back-to-back microstrip directional coupler is presented for the efficient and optimized design. For this purpose, an equivalent network is developed, and simple but accurate calculations of circuit element values are described. Design equations of the coupler are derived based on the equivalent circuit. In order to determine various structural design parameters, the evolutionary hybrid optimization method based on the genetic algorithm and Nelder-Mead method is invoked. As a validation check of the proposed theory and optimized design method, a 10 dB directional coupler was designed and fabricated. The measured coupling was 10.3 dB at 3 GHz, and the return loss and isolation were 31.8 dB and 30.5 dB, respectively. The directional coupler also showed very good quadrature phase characteristics. Good agreements between the measured and the design specifications fully validate the proposed network analysis and design procedure.

Acetylcholinesterase-based Biosensor for Detection of Residual Organophosphates and Carbamates Insecticides (유기인계 및 카바메이트계 농약을 측정할 수 있는 바이오 센서의 개발)

  • Kim, Young-Mee;Kim, Jin-Young;Cho, Moon-Jae;Chang Kong-Man;Hyun, Hae-Nam;Cho, Somi K.
    • Applied Biological Chemistry
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    • v.49 no.4
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    • pp.315-321
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    • 2006
  • Inhibitors of acetylcholinesterase(AchE), such as organophosphates and carbamates, interfere the action of AchE in nerve and may lead to a severe impairment of nerve functions or even death. Therefore, insect AchE is the biological target of predominant insecticides used in agriculture. Biosensors are sensitive and can be used as dispoisable sensors for environmental control. In recent years, the use of AchEs in biosensor technology has gained enormous attention, in particular with respect to insecticide detection. The principle of biosensors using AchE as a biological recognition element is based on the inhibition the catalytic activity by the agents to be detected. We here present a strip-type biosensor based on AchE inhibition. In this study, acetylcholinesterase and PVA-SbQ(polyvinyl alcohol functionalized with methyl pyridinium methyl sulfate) were co-immobilized on immobilone-P membranes. Immobilization of the enzymes showed a stability in 6 months without activity loss in $4^{\circ}C$ storage. Enzymes immobilized on surfaces of membrane responded to organophosphates and carbamate more sensitivitive than enzyme in solution. Organophosphates and carbamates concentrations could be detected by entrapped and surface immobilized enzymes, in 5 min. For chlorpyrifos, carbofuran, cabaryl, and methidathion, the detection limits of AChE-strip were similar to that of HPLC/GC method.

NES Model Development: Expert System for Nitrogen Fertilizer Applications to Cornfields (NES 모델 개발 : 질소비료 적정 시용에 대한 전문가체계)

  • Kim, Won-Il;Jung, Goo-Bok;Fermanian, T.W.;Huck, M.G.;Park, Ro-Dong
    • Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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    • v.34 no.1
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    • pp.55-63
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    • 2001
  • N fertilizer recommendations to optimize with consideration to maximum crop yields, maximum profits, and minimum N losses to ground or runoff water, an advisory system. Nitrogen Expert System (NES), was developed. The system was to estimate the optimal rate of N fertilizer application cornfields in Illinois. NES was constructed using Smart Elements, a knowledge-based system that manages the expertise of human experts. NES was reinforced by addition of the effect of a productivity index (PI), soil organic matter content (SOM), and pre-sidedressing of nitrate concentration (PSNT) to the optimal N fertilizer recommendation. NES contains 49 rules, 1 class, 14 objects, and 2 properties. NES was successfully operated, showing N recommendations with inputs of three soil properties including PI, SOM, and PSNT. NES can reduce N loss to the environment, but adherence to the recommendations may also reduce farmers income. Therefore, NES will be more effective by evaluating both environmental damage assessment and other economic agricultural management parameters and other soil physico-chemical parameters.

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Development of a Rotation Swab Pig Method for Cleaning Water Pipes (상수관의 세척을 위한 회전식 스왑피그 공법 개발)

  • Kicheol Lee;Jaeho Kim;Kisung Kim;Jeongjun Park
    • Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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    • v.23 no.2
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    • pp.63-75
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    • 2024
  • Drinking water is an essential element to ensure the basic human right to live, and the quality of clean water must always be ensured. However, domestic water facilities, which were installed intensively in the early 2000s, are deteriorating. The accidents such as discoloration of water such as chromaticity and turbidity as well as leakage of substances frequently occur. However, since it is virtually impossible to replace all water pipes, the detailed standards for maintenance of water pipe network facilities established in 2021 require water pipe cleaning. The swab pig method, one of the water pipe cleaning methods, is a method of physically removing substances in pipes and is evaluated as having the highest cleaning efficiency. However, Swab is highly likely to be damaged or deformed during the cleaning process, and may even be lost. Therefore, in this study, the material of the pig was changed to a material with high compressibility, and it was made as close as possible to the inner wall of the water pipe. And, to maximize cleaning efficiency, a rotation swab pig with a rotation blade was developed. In addition, high-strength wire and winding equipment were additionally developed to eliminate the possibility of loss and to determine the location of the pig. The inlet and outlet are connected with wires, and after verifying the performance of each detailed technology, the technology was applied on a test bed with a 30m section. As a result of the application, the performance of the technology was verified by measuring the process time and evaluating applicability.

Broadband LTCC Receiver Module for Fixed Communication in 40 GHz Band (40 GHz 대역 고정통신용 광대역 LTCC 수신기 모듈)

  • Kim Bong-Su;Kim Kwang-Seon;Eun Ki-Chan;Byun Woo-Jin;Song Myung-Sun
    • The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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    • v.16 no.10 s.101
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    • pp.1050-1058
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    • 2005
  • This paper presents how to design and implement a very compact, cost effective and broad band receiver module for IEEE 802.16 FWA(Fixed Wireless Access) in the 40 GHz band. The presented receiver module is fabricated in a multi-layer LTCC(Low Temperature Cofired Ceramic) technology with cavity process to achieve excellent electrical performances. The receiver consists of two MMICs, low noise amplifier and sub-harmonic mixer, an embedded image rejection filter and an IF amplifier. CB-CPW, stripline, several bond wires and various transitions to connect each element are optimally designed to keep transmission loss low and module compact in size. The LTCC is composed of 6 layers of Dupont DP-943 with relative permittivity of 7.1. The thickness of each layer is 100 um. The implemented module is $20{\times}7.5{\times}1.5\;mm^3$ in size and shows an overall noise figure of 4.8 dB, an overall down conversion gain of 19.83 dB, input P1 dB of -22.8 dBm and image rejection value of 36.6 dBc. Furthermore, experimental results demonstrate that the receiver module is suitable for detection of Digital TV signal transmitted after up-conversion of $560\~590\;MHz$ band to 40 GHz.

A Geochemical Study on Pyrophyllite Deposits and Andesitic Wall-Rocks in the Milyang Area, Kyeongnam Province (경남 밀양지역 납석광상과 안산암질 모암의 지구화학적 연구)

  • Oh, Dae-Gyun;Chon, Hyo-Taek;Min, Kyoung-Won
    • Economic and Environmental Geology
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    • v.25 no.1
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    • pp.27-39
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    • 1992
  • Several pyrophyllite deposits occur around the Milyang area where Cretaceous andesitic rocks and spatially related granitic rocks are widely distributed. Pyrophyllite ores consist mainly of pyrophyllite, and quartz with small amount of sericite, pyrite, dumortierite, and diaspore. The andesitic rocks and spatially related granitic rocks in this area suggest that they could be formed from the same series of a calc-alkaline magma series. The contents of $SiO_2$, $Al_2O_3$, LOI(loss on ignition) are enriched, and $K_2O$, $Na_2O$, CaO, MgO, $Fe_2O_3$ are depleted in altered andesitic rocks and ores. Enrichment of As, Cr, Sr, V, Sb and depletion of Ba, Cs, Ni, Rb, U, Y, Co, Sc, Zn are characteristic during mineralization. The pyrophyllite ores can be discriminated from the altered-and unaltered wall-rocks by an increasing of $(La/Lu)_{cn}$ from 4.18~22.13 to 8.98~55.05. In R-mode cluster analysis, Yb-Lu-Y, La-Ce-Hf-Th-U-Zr, $TiO_2-V-Al_2O_3$, Sm-Eu, $CaO-Na_2O-MnO$, Cu-Zn-Ag, $K_2O-Rb$ are closely correlated. In the discriminant analysis of multi-element data, $P_2O_5$, As, Cr and $Fe_2O_3$, Sr are helpful to identify the ores from the unaltered-and altered wall-rocks. In the factor analysis, the factors of alteration of andesitic rocks and ore mineralization were extracted. In the change of ions per unit volume, $SiO_2$, $Al^{3+}$ and LOI are enriched and $Na^+$, $K^+$, $Ca^{2+}$, $Mg^{2+}$, $Mn^{2+}$ and $Fe^{3+}$ are depleted during the alteration processes. The Milyang and the Sungjin pyrophyllite deposits could be mineralized by hydrothermal alteration in a geochemical condition of low activity ratio of alkaline ions to hydrogen ion with reference to spatially related granitic rocks.

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