• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.60-67
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• 2000

The wavelength of the surface plasmon absorption depends on the dielectric matrix. $TiO_2/SiO_2$ complex oxide films doped with Au nanoclusters were prepared by sol-gel spin-coating method using $Ti(OPr^i)_4$, $Si(OEt)_4$, and $HAuCl_4{\cdot}7H_2O$. The wavelength of the maximum absorption of Au nanoehrsters in the $TiO_2/SiO_2$ thin films was obtained with lineality from 540 nm to 615 nm depending on the molar ratio of $TiO_2$. The particle sizes and structures of these nanoclusters have been identified through a TEM and X-ray diffraction patterns. The dielectric constants of $TiO_2/SiO_2$ thin films were calculated from the experimental results.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.148-155
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• 2013

The steam generators of OPR-1000 plants have Alloy 600 and Alloy 690 as the tube material and its tube expansion method is the explosive expansion method. According to the experience of these plants, circumferential cracks were largely occurred in steam generator tubes expanded by the explosive expansion method and their locations were the outer surface of tube expansion transition region surrounding with piled-up sludge. But even though tubes have the same conditions, tubes with the hydraulic expansion method shows the prevail trend of axial cracks compared to circumferential cracks. Therefore in this study, in order to identify the difference of such phenomena as above, configurations of tube and tubesheet were modeled and at operating conditions, stress values applied in the tube expansion transition area in accordance with tube expansion methods were calculated by using computational program and the direction and the predominance of cracks were evaluated.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.1-11
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• 2014

Objectives: To evaluate the effect of acupuncture as an adjunct treatment to increase the success rate of in vitro fertilisation (IVF). Methods: A review of the English and Korean literature was conducted to identify studies on acupuncture as an adjunct treatment to IVF. The main outcome measures were the biochemical pregnancy rate (BPR), the implantation rate (IR), the clinical pregnancy rate (CPR), the miscarriage rate (MR), the on-going pregnancy rate (OPR) and the live birth rate (LBR). Results: Nine meta-analyses of 11 systematic reviews (SRs) were included in this review. In four SRs, the overall IVF outcomes regardless of the procedural steps were documented; two of these SRs reported a significant effect on the CPR. One SR reported that acupuncture at the time of controlled ovarian hyperstimulation had a significant effect on the BPR. Seven SRs reported that acupuncture had no significant impact on transvaginal oocyte retrieval (TVOR). In eight SRs, significant impacts on the CPR, LIBR and OPR were reported when acupuncture was performed around the time of embryo transfer (ET). The results of repeated acupuncture after ET were included in two SRs, which included the same primary studies. The results of the SRs showed that acupuncture had a positive effect on the CPR. Conclusions: When the complete IVF procedure is analysed, there is conflicting evidence in that some reviews have found that acupuncture leads to an increased CPR but others have not. In addition, the reviews presented no evidence to suggest that acupuncture has any specific risks.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.121-127
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• 2020

Since the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, the public were concerned about the safety of Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) in extreme natural disaster situations, such as earthquakes, flooding, heavy rain and tsunami, have been increasing around the world. Accordingly, the Stress Test was conducted in Europe, Japan, Russia, and other countries by reassessing the safety and response capabilities of NPPs in extreme natural disaster situations that exceed the design basis. The extreme natural disaster can put the NPPs in beyond-design-basis conditions such as the loss of the power system and the ultimate heat sink. The behaviors and capabilities of NPPs with losing their essential safety functions should be measured to find and supplement weak areas in hardware, procedures and coping strategies. The Loss of Ultimate Heat Sink (LUHS) accident assumes impairment of the essential service water system accompanying the failure of the component cooling water system. In such conditions, residual heat removal and cooling of safety-relevant components are not possible for a long period of time. It is therefore very important to establish coping strategies considering all available equipment to mitigate the consequence of the LUHS accident and keep the NPPs safe. In this study, thermal hydraulic behavior of the LUHS event was analyzed using RELAP5/Mod3.3 code. We also performed the sensitivity analysis to identify the effects of the operator recovery actions and operation strategy for charging pumps on the results of the LUHS accident.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.1291-1302
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• 2016

This paper presents a new and efficient scheme to determine the optimal neutron source position in a model near-equilibrium pressurized water reactor, which is based on the OPR1000 Hanul Unit 3 Cycle 7 configuration. The proposed scheme particularly assigns importance of source positions according to the local adjoint flux distribution. In this research, detailed pin-by-pin reactor adjoint fluxes are determined by using the Monte Carlo KENO-VI code from solutions of the reactor homogeneous critical adjoint transport equations. The adjoint fluxes at each allowable source position are subsequently ranked to yield four candidate positions with the four highest adjoint fluxes. The study next simulates ex-core detector responses using the Monte Carlo MAVRIC code by assuming a neutron source is installed in one of the four candidate positions. The calculation is repeated for all positions. These detector responses are later converted into an inverse count rate ratio curve for each candidate source position. The study confirms that the optimal source position is the one with very high adjoint fluxes and detector responses, which is interestingly the original source position in the OPR1000 core, as it yields an inverse count rate ratio curve closest to the traditional 1/M line. The current work also clearly demonstrates that the proposed adjoint flux-based approach can be used to efficiently determine the optimal geometry for a neutron source and a detector in a modern pressurized water reactor core.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.1487-1503
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• 2019

The methods and performance of a pin-level nuclear reactor core thermal-hydraulics (T/H) code ESCOT employing the drift-flux model are presented. This code aims at providing an accurate yet fast core thermal-hydraulics solution capability to high-fidelity multiphysics core analysis systems targeting massively parallel computing platforms. The four equation drift-flux model is adopted for two-phase calculations, and numerical solutions are obtained by applying the Finite Volume Method (FVM) and the Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure-Linked Equation (SIMPLE)-like algorithm in a staggered grid system. Constitutive models involving turbulent mixing, pressure drop, and vapor generation are employed to simulate key phenomena in subchannel-scale analyses. ESCOT is parallelized by a domain decomposition scheme that involves both radial and axial decomposition to enable highly parallelized execution. The ESCOT solutions are validated through the applications to various experiments which include CNEN $4{\times}4$, Weiss et al. two assemblies, PNNL $2{\times}6$, RPI $2{\times}2$ air-water, and PSBT covering single/two-phase and unheated/heated conditions. The parameters of interest for validation include various flow characteristics such as turbulent mixing, spacer grid pressure drop, cross-flow, reverse flow, buoyancy effect, void drift, and bubble generation. For all the validation tests, ESCOT shows good agreements with measured data in the extent comparable to those of other subchannel-scale codes: COBRA-TF, MATRA and/or CUPID. The execution performance is examined with a mini-sized whole core consisting of 89 fuel assemblies and for an OPR1000 core. It turns out that it is about 1.5 times faster than a subchannel code based on the two-fluid three field model and the axial domain decomposition scheme works as well as the radial one yielding a steady-state solution for the OPR1000 core within 30 s with 104 processors.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.75-84
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• 2024

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) on clinical outcomes among high-risk patients. Methods: This retrospective study involved 1,368 patients and the same number of cycles, including 520 cycles with PGT-A and 848 cycles without PGT-A. The study participants comprised women of advanced maternal age (AMA) and those affected by recurrent implantation failure (RIF), recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL), or severe male factor infertility (SMF). Results: PGT-A was associated with significant improvements in the implantation rate (IR) and the ongoing pregnancy rate/live birth rate (OPR/LBR) per embryo transfer cycle in the AMA (39.3% vs. 16.2% [p<0.001] and 42.0% vs. 21.8% [p<0.001], respectively), RIF (41.7% vs. 22.0% [p<0.001] and 47.0% vs. 28.6% [p<0.001], respectively), and RPL (45.6% vs. 19.5% [p<0.001] and 49.1% vs. 24.2% [p<0.001], respectively) groups, as well as the IR in the SMF group (43.3% vs. 26.5%, p=0.011). Additionally, PGT-A was associated with lower overall incidence rates of early pregnancy loss in the AMA (16.7% vs. 34.3%, p=0.001) and RPL (16.7% vs. 50.0%, p<0.001) groups. However, the OPR/LBR per total cycle across all PGT-A groups did not significantly exceed that for the non-PGT-A groups. Conclusion: PGT-A demonstrated beneficial effects in high-risk patients. However, our findings indicate that these benefits are more pronounced in carefully selected candidates than in the entire high-risk patient population.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.268-275
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• 2024

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) on clinical outcomes among high-risk patients. Methods: This retrospective study involved 1,368 patients and the same number of cycles, including 520 cycles with PGT-A and 848 cycles without PGT-A. The study participants comprised women of advanced maternal age (AMA) and those affected by recurrent implantation failure (RIF), recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL), or severe male factor infertility (SMF). Results: PGT-A was associated with significant improvements in the implantation rate (IR) and the ongoing pregnancy rate/live birth rate (OPR/LBR) per embryo transfer cycle in the AMA (39.3% vs. 16.2% [p<0.001] and 42.0% vs. 21.8% [p<0.001], respectively), RIF (41.7% vs. 22.0% [p<0.001] and 47.0% vs. 28.6% [p<0.001], respectively), and RPL (45.6% vs. 19.5% [p<0.001] and 49.1% vs. 24.2% [p<0.001], respectively) groups, as well as the IR in the SMF group (43.3% vs. 26.5%, p=0.011). Additionally, PGT-A was associated with lower overall incidence rates of pregnancy loss in the AMA (16.7% vs. 34.3%, p=0.001) and RPL (16.7% vs. 50.0%, p<0.001) groups. However, the OPR/LBR per total cycle across all PGT-A groups did not significantly exceed that for the control groups. Conclusion: PGT-A demonstrated beneficial effects in high-risk patients. However, our findings indicate that these benefits are more pronounced in carefully selected candidates than in the entire high-risk patient population.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.10
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• pp.1137-1144
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• 2017

The microalgae Chlorella vulgaris has been considered an important alternative resource for biodiesel production. However, its industrial-scale production has been constrained by the low productivity of the biomass and lipid. To overcome this problem, we isolated and characterized a potentially economical oleaginous strain of C. vulgaris via the random mutagenesis technique using UV irradiation. Two types of mass production systems were compared for their yield of biomass and lipid content. Among the several putatively oleaginous strains that were isolated, the particular mutant strain designated as UBM1-10 in the laboratory showed an approximately 1.5-fold higher cell yield and lipid content than those from the wild type. Based on these results, UBM1-10 was selected and cultivated under outdoor conditions using two different types of reactors, a tubular-type photobioreactor (TBPR) and an open pond-type reactor (OPR). The results indicated that the mutant strain cultivated in the TBPR showed more than 5 times higher cell concentrations ($2.6g\;l^{-1}$) as compared to that from the strain cultured in the OPR ($0.5g\;l^{-1}$). After the mass cultivation, the cells of UBM1-10 and the parental strain were further investigated for crude lipid content and composition. The results indicate a 3-fold higher crude lipid content from UBM1-10 (0.3%, w/w) as compared to that from the parent strain (0.1% w/w). Therefore, this study demonstrated that the economic potential of C. vulgaris as a biodiesel production resource can be increased with the use of a photoreactor type as well as the strategic mutant isolation technique.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.3473-3478
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• 2007

A dual side cooling annular fuel having internal and external coolant channels has many advantages basically due to low fuel temperature and high DNBR margin, which can make a significant increase of core power density possible. So recently a 12x12 square annular fuel array was proposed for the fuel assembly to be reloaded without structural interference with operating reactors of OPR-1000s. Even through the inherent potential of the annular fuel on the high power density, it may be seriously eroded in the case of a severe unbalanced mass flux split to the internal and external channels in standpoint of DNB. Mass flux split is determined pressure drop characteristics between inner and outer channels. The spacer grids binding fuel array influence greatly the pressure drop in outer channels and the mass flux split. As an important factor of DNB behavior, the enthalpy differences at both channel exits were evaluated using the mass flux splits.