• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.549-560
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• 2021

In 2019, at 147 local governments, a total of 872 operations produced aggregates with 414 operations by permission, 458 operations by declaration except the marine operations. The leading aggregate sources were, in descending order of the number of operations, crushed, forest, land, washing, river aggregate. By aggregate type, gravel-only operations were slightly more than sand-only ones. By province, Gyeongsangbuk-do had 149 operations, followed by Gyeonggi-do with 135, Gangwon-do with 113, and Gyeongsangnam-do with 92, Chungcheongbuk-do with 81, and Jeollabuk-do with 70. A review of production by size of operation indicated that about 23,100 thousand m³ (17.6% of the total aggregate) was produced by 17 operations reporting production of more than 1 million m³, about 29,900 thousand m³ was produced by 44 operations reporting production between 500 and <1,000 thousand m³, about 60,000 thousand m³ was produced by 273 operations reporting production between 100 and <200 thousand m³, about 17,000 thousand m³ was produced by 409 operations reporting production between 10 and <100 thousand m³. 129 operations that producted less than 10 thousand m³ accounted for 0.4% of total aggregate produced in Korea in 2019. Operations that produce more than 1 million m³ of aggregate was only from forest and crushed aggregate. The period of permission for aggregate producing based on permission is mostly less than 10 years, and in particular, for river and land aggregates, the permission period is very short, less than 2 years.

• Journal of Appropriate Technology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.136-143
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• 2021

Pacific island countries, including Kiribati, are suffering from a shortage of essential resources as well as a reduction in their living space due to sea level rise and coastal erosion from climate change, groundwater pollution and vegetation changes. Global activities to solve these problems are being progressed by the UN's efforts to implement SDGs. Pacific island countries can adapt to climate change by using abundant marine resources. In other words, seawater plants can assist in achieving SDGs #2, #6 and #7 based on SDGs #14 in these Pacific island countries. Under the auspice of Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Korea Research Institute of Ships and Ocean Engineering (KRISO) established the Sustainable Seawater Utilization Academy (SSUA) in 2016, and its 30 graduates formed the SSUA Kiribati Association in 2017. The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF) of the Republic of Korea awarded ODA fund to the Association. By taking advantage of seawater resource and related plants, it was able to provide drinking water and vegetables to the local community from 2018 to 2020. Among the various fields of education and practice provided by SSUA, the Association hope to realize hydroponic cultivation and seawater desalination as a self-support project through a pilot project. To this end, more than 140 households are benefiting from 3-stage hydroponics, and a seawater desalination system in connection with solar power generation was installed for operation. The Association grows and supplies vegetable seedlings from the provided seedling cultivation equipment, and is preparing to convert to self-support business from next year. The satisfaction survey shows that Tarawa residents have a high degree of satisfaction with the technical support and its benefits. In the future, it is hoped that SSUA and regional associations will be distributed to neighboring island countries to support their SDGs implementations.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.67-76
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• 2021

Biogasification is a technology that produces environmentally friendly fuel using methane gas generated in the process of stably decomposing and processing organic waste. Biogasification is the most used method for energy conversion of organic waste with high moisture content, and is a useful method for organic waste treatment following the prohibition of direct landfill (2005) and marine dumping (2013). Due to African Swine Fever (ASF), which recently occurred in Korea, recycling of wet feed is prohibited, and consumers such as dry feed and compost are negatively recognized, making it difficult to treat food waste. Accordingly, biogasification is attracting more attention for the treatment and recycling of food waste. Korea's energy consumption amounted to 268.41 106toe, ranking 9th in the world. However, it is an energy-poor country that depends on foreign imports for about 95.8% of its energy supply. Therefore, in Korea, the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS) is being introduced. The domestic RPS system sets the weight of the new and renewable energy certificate (REC, Renewable energy certificate) of waste energy lower than that of other renewable energy. Therefore, an additional incentive system is required for the activation of waste-to-energy. In this study, the operation of an anaerobic digester that treats food waste, food waste Leachate and various organic wastes was confirmed. It was intended to be used as basic data for preparing the waste-to-energy incentive system through precise monitoring for a certain period of time. Four sites that produce biogas from organic waste and use them for power generation and heavy gas were selected as target facilities, and field surveys and sampling were conducted. Basic properties analysis was performed on the influent sample of organic waste and the effluent sample according to the treatment process. As a result of the analysis of the properties, the total solids of the digester influent was an average of 12.11%, and the volatile solids of the total solids were confirmed to be 85.86%. BOD and CODcr removal rates were 60.8% and 64.8%. The volatile fatty acids in the influent averaged 55,716 mg/L. It can be confirmed that most of the volatile fatty acids were decomposed and removed with an average reduction rate of 92.3% after anaerobic digestion.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.107-121
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• 2023

This study analyzed the polyphenol, flavonoid contents, antioxidant activity, anti-aging activity and phenol component contents of Saccharina japonica (SJ), Costaria costata (CC) extracts with hot water, 95% methanol, 95% prethanol for investigating possible utilization of SJ and CC extracts. The result revealed that the SJ and CC methanol extracts showed the highest polyphenol and flavonoid contents, 4.63 mg TAN/g, and 4.19 mg QUE/g respectively. Also, the SJ and CC methanol extracts showed higher antioxidant activity than prethanol and hot water extracts, whereas the ABTS radical scavenging activities were the highest in prethanol extracts (IC₅₀ = 15.4, 10.3 ㎍/µL). In anti-aging activity for evaluating the anti-wrinkle activity and skin whitening activity, the CC methanol extracts had high collagenase inhibitory activity (88.3%), and the SJ prethanol extracts showed higher elastase inhibitory activity (19.0%) compared to other extracts. Then the tyrosinase inhibitory activity was significantly higher in the SJ and CC methanol extracts (41.8, 30.3%, respectively), whereas prethanol extracts were the lowest. To identify the phenol component contents of SJ and CC extracts, 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, naringenin, naringin and nicotinic acid were measured using LC-MS/MS. As a result, the phenol contents were the highest in SJ methanol extract (4-hydroxybenzoic acid), SJ and CC prethanol extract (naringin and naringenin) and CC prethanol extract (nicotinic acid). Lastly, the antioxidant activity of SJ and CC showed high correlations with polyphenol and flavonoid contents (R = -0.946~0.883). These results suggest that prethanol or methanol extracts of SJ and CC have higher antioxidant activities, anti-aging activity and the potential to be used as material for health functional food and cosmetics.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.871-885
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• 2023

In 2022, the total of 129 million m³ of aggregate was produced in Korea, a slightly decrease from the total production of 2021. Of these, about 44 million m³ of sand and about 84 million m³ of gravel were produced. About 41% of total quantity of aggregates were produced by permission and the rest were produced after declaration. It estimated that of the 129 million m³ of aggregates in Korea in 2022, about 54.9% was produced by screening crushed aggregate, by 32.8% by forest aggregate, 2.2% by land aggregate, 6.2% by marine aggregate and 3.1% by washing aggregate, and 0.3% by river aggregate. This indicates that screening crushed and forest aggregate are the main producers of domestic aggregate in 2022. Leading producing metropolitan governments were Gyeonggi-do, Gyeongsangnam-do, Chungcheongnam-do, Incheon, Jeollanam-do, Chungcheongbuk-do, Gangwon-do, Gyeongsangbuk-do in order decreasing volume. In 2022, aggregates were produced in 147 local governments, and the 10 leading producing local governments were, in descending order of volume, Hwaseong, Pocheon, Paju, Ongjin, Youngin, Gwangju, west EEZ, Incheon Seo-gu, Namyangju, Asan. The combined production of the 10 leading local governments accounted for 31% of the national total. And 44 local governments have produced aggregates of more than 1 million m³ each other. In 148 local governments that produced aggregate, a total of 800 active operations produced aggregate with 350 operations by river, land and forest aggregate, 450 operations by selective crushed and washing aggregate.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.39.1-39.15
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• 2023

DNA barcoding without assessing reliability and validity causes taxonomic errors of species identification, which is responsible for disruptions of their conservation and aquaculture industry. Although DNA barcoding facilitates molecular identification and phylogenetic analysis of species, its availability in clariid catfish lineage remains uncertain. In this study, DNA barcoding was developed and validated for clariid catfish. 2,970 barcode sequences from mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) and cytochrome b (Cytb) genes and D-loop sequences were analyzed for 37 clariid catfish species. The highest intraspecific nearest neighbor distances were 85.47%, 98.03%, and 89.10% for COI, Cytb, and D-loop sequences, respectively. This suggests that the Cytb gene is the most appropriate for identifying clariid catfish and can serve as a standard region for DNA barcoding. A positive barcoding gap between interspecific and intraspecific sequence divergence was observed in the Cytb dataset but not in the COI and D-loop datasets. Intraspecific variation was typically less than 4.4%, whereas interspecific variation was generally more than 66.9%. However, a species complex was detected in walking catfish and significant intraspecific sequence divergence was observed in North African catfish. These findings suggest the need to focus on developing a DNA barcoding system for classifying clariid catfish properly and to validate its efficacy for a wider range of clariid catfish. With an enriched database of multiple sequences from a target species and its genus, species identification can be more accurate and biodiversity assessment of the species can be facilitated.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.33 no.10
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• pp.808-819
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• 2023

This study was conducted to develop a selection marker for the identification of the Bacillus licheniformis K12 strain in microbial communities. The strain not only demonstrates good growth at moderate temperatures but also contains enzymes that catalyze the decomposition of various polymer materials, such as proteases, amylases, cellulases, lipases, and xylanases. To identify molecular markers appropriate for use in a microbial community, a search was conducted to identify variable gene regions that show considerable genetic mutations, such as recombinase, integration, and transposase sites, as well as phase-related genes. As a result, five areas were identified that have potential as selection markers. The candidate markers were two recombinase sites (BLK1 and BLK2), two integration sites (BLK3 and BLK4), and one phase-related site (BLK5). A PCR analysis performed with different Bacillus species (e.g., B. licheniformis, Bacillus velezensis, Bacillus subtilis, and Bacillus cereus) confirmed that PCR products appeared at specific locations in B. licheniformis: BLK1 in recombinase, BLK2 in recombinase family protein, and BLK3 and BLK4 as site-specific integrations. In addition, BLK1 and BLK3 were identified as good candidate markers via a PCR analysis performed on subspecies of standard B. licheniformis strains. Therefore, the findings suggest that BLK1 can be used as a selection marker for B. licheniformis species and subspecies in the microbiome.

• Journal of Public Diplomacy
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.27-52
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• 2022

Objectives: The neighboring countries of South Korea and Japan in Northeast Asia have interacted in both positive and negative ways, at times as close partners and other times adversaries, throughout their long and thorny history of extensive dynamics. The controversial dispute over Dokdo is one of the most critical issues evoking harsh tensions and arguments asserting wholly opposite claims. Dokdo is a small island between two coastal states, but significant in terms of territorial, botanical, and marine resources, and thus ownership of the island has become a point of conflict accompanied by a troubled history. But why has Dokdo been a source of conflicts and how should the controversial Dokdo issue be addressed in a way that fosters positive influence and co-prosperity? Methods: This study provides comprehensive and critical insights from a wealth of previous research and strategic suggestions for the Korean government. It utilizes the three perspectives of historical documents and political context, international regulations and legal frames, and public diplomacy. Furthermore, it applies these resources to negotiation theories and strategies to propose reasonable solutions. Results: This study suggests that it is important for Korea and Japan to try to build mutual trust through more active communication and interaction in order to understand each other before attempting to create a formal resolution via negotiation. In addition to these efforts, Korea needs to be ready for the inevitable need to take decisive action in terms of negotiation, using analytic and efficient strategies. The study proposes three solutions: 1) Strong Action Strategy, 2) International Legal Strategy, and 3) Public Diplomacy Strategy. Conclusions: From the perspective of public diplomacy, the Dokdo issue needs to be converted from a symbol of conflicts between Korea and Japan into a symbol of peace and co-prosperity. In addition to promoting a positive relationship between the two states, it can also contribute to the security environment of the Northeast Asian region and global peace.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.139-161
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• 1998

This thesis includes a study on the legal regulation, the system and formalities on the control of illegal fishing. And the author analyzed the details of the lists of illegal fishing controlled by fishing patrol vessels of Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries from 1994 to 1996 in adjacent sea area of Korea. The results are summarized as follows ; 1. The fishing patrol vessels controlled total 826 cases in 2,726 days of 292 voyages by 17 vessels in 1994, total 1,086 cases in 3,060 days of 333 voyages by 18 vessels in 1995 and total 933 cases in 3,126 days of 330 voyages by 19 vessels in 1996. 2. The fishing period of illegal fishing was generally concentrated from April to September. But year after year, illegal fishing was scattered throughout the year. 3. The most controlled sea area of illegal fishing was the south central sea area in the sea near Port of Tongyeong. The sea area occupied about 36~51% of totality and the controlled cases were gradually increased every year. The second was the south western sea area in the sea near Port of Yosu. The sea area occupied about 18-27% and the controlled cases were a little bit increased every year. The third was the south eastern sea area in the sea near Pusan. The sea area occupied about 13~23% and the controlled cases were gradually decreased year by year. 4. The most controlled kind of illegal fishing was the small size bottom trawl. This occupied about 81-95% of totality and the controlled cases were gradually increased year by year. The second was the medium size bottom trawl. This occupied about 4-7% and the controlled cases were gradually decreased year by year. The third was the trawl of the coastal sea, this occupied about 2~4% and the controlled cases were a little bit decreased every year. 5. The most controlled address of illegal fishing manager was Pusan city which occupied about 33-51% of totality. The second was Cheonnam which occupied about 24-29%. The third was Kyungnam which occupied about 16~35%. 6. The most controlled violation of regulations was Article 57 of the Fisheries Act which occupied about 56-64% of totality. The second was Article 23 of Protectorate for Fisheries Resources which occupied about 21-36%. And the controlled cases by it were gradually increased every year.

• Korean Journal of Mineralogy and Petrology
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.107-120
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• 2021

The Komdok Pb-Zn deposit, which is the largest Pb-Zn deposit in Korea, is located at the Hyesan-Riwon metallogenic zone in Jiao Liao Ji belt included Paleoproterozoic Macheolryeong group. The geology of this deposit consists of Paleoproterozoic metasedimentary rocks, Jurassic Mantapsan intrusive rocks and Cenozoic basalt. The Komdok deposit which is a SEDEX type deposit occurs as layer ore and vein ore in the Paleoproterozoic metasedimentary rocks. Based on mineral petrography and paragenesis, dolomites from this deposit are classified four types (1. dolomite (D₀) as hostrock, 2. early dolomite (D₁) associated with tremolite, actinolite, diopside, sphalerite and galena from amphibolite facies, 3. late dolomite (D₂) associated with talc, calcite, quartz, sphalerite and galena from amphibolite facies, 4. dolomite (D₃) associated with white mica, chlorite, sphalerite and galena from quartz vein). The structural formulars of dolomites are determined to be Ca_1.00-1.20Mg_0.80-0.99Fe_0.00-0.01Zn_0.00-0.02(CO₃)₂(D₀), Ca_1.00-1.02M_0.97-0.99Fe_0.00-0.01Zn_0.00-0.02(CO₃)₂(D₁), Ca_0.99-1.03Mg_0.93-0.98Fe_0.01-0.05Mn_0.00-0.01As_0.00-0.01(CO₃)₂(D₂) and Ca_0.95-1.04Mg_0.59-0.68Fe_0.30-0.36Mn_0.00-0.01 (CO₃)₂(D₃), respectively. It means that dolomites from Komdok deposit have higher content of trace elements (FeO, MnO, HfO₂, ZnO, PbO, Sb₂O₅ and As₂O₅) compared to the theoretical composition of dolomite. These trace elements (FeO, MnO, ZnO, Sb₂O₅ and As₂O₅) show increase and decrease trend according to paragenetic sequence, but HfO₂ and PbO elements no show increase and decrease trend according to paragenetic sequence. Dolomites correspond to Ferroan dolomite (D₀, D₁ and D₂), and Ferroan dolomite and ankerite (D₃), respectively. Therefore, 1) dolomite (D₀) as hostrock was formed by subsequent diagenesis after sedimentation of Paleoproterozoic (2012~1700 Ma) silica-bearing dolomite in the marine evaporative environment. 2) Early dolomite (D₁) was formed by hydrothermal metasomatism origined metamorphism (amphibolite facies) associated with intrusion (1890~1680 Ma) of Paleoproterozoic Riwon complex. 3) Late dolomte (D₂) was formed from residual fluid by a decrease of temperature and pressure. and dolomite (D₃) in quartz vein was formed by intrusion (213~181 Ma) of Jurassic Mantapsan intrusive rocks.