• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.113-132
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• 2003

In May 2001, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) for phasing out and eliminating POPs was signed by 90 countries at the Diplomatic Meeting in Stockholm. In 1998, three years before the Convention, the protocols on POPs and heavy metals were adopted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe under the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution. Growing attention on POPs and heavy metals during the past 10 years is primarily due to their toxicity in minute quantities. POPs and some metal compounds are even more toxic because of their bioaccumulation potentials associated with a high lipid solubility. Furthermore, owing to their persistence and semi - volatility, they are widely distributed in the environment, traveling great distances on wind and water currents. Recent international cooperation to address POPs and heavy metals has focused on these issues. Long -range transport of those pollutants are particularly concerned since Korea is located downwind of prevailing westerlies from China. In this paper, a review is provided to assess the properties, sources, emissions, and atmospheric concentrations on POPs and heavy metals.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.21 no.3 s.54
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• pp.255-266
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• 2006

Soil organic matter (OM) is well documented for its capacity to retain persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and thus is important in dictating the environmental partitioning of POPs between media such as air, water, and soil. Black carbon (BC) is a small component of OM and exhibitt a 10$\sim$100 times greater sorption capacity of POPs than humified OM. Furthermore, due to the inherent long environmental life time of BC, a result of its resistance to physical and biological degradation, POPs can continue to accumulate in BC over a long period of time. The unique properties of BC have been of particular interest over the last 30 years and have resulted in broad research being conducted into its effects of POP cycling in atmospheric, oceanographic and soil matrices. The results of such studies have proved valuable In providing new research initiatives into the role of BC in the cycling of hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs) as well as giving further insight into the long range atmospheric transport (LRAT) potential and subsequent risk assessment criteria for persistent organic pollutants (POPs). In this report, we introduce a novel study examining the relationships between BC and OM with respect to their POP sorption capacity and discuss the role of BC in influencing the environmental regulation of organic pollutants.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.481-494
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• 2005

The monitoring of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the atmosphere is a basis for the study of the fate of POPs in multimedia environments. Recently, passive air samplers (PASs) for POPs have been developed. In this paper, we deal with the principle, properties, and applications of the PAS. The principle of PAS, which has no pump, is physical sorption of semi-volatile organic chemicals on various sorbent materials. The PAS is much smaller than a high-volume air sampler and does not need electricity. These properties of the PAS make it possible to conduct various-scaled environmental monitoring all over the world including the Arctic and Antarctic, but the major disadvantage of PAS is its long sampling periods up to 2 years. To date, four kinds of PAS have been developed: polyurethane foam (PUF), polymer-coated glass (POG), semi-permeable membrane devices (SPMDs), and XAD resin-based PAS. Among them, SPMDs have been commercialized and are most widely used now. Meanwhile, the POPs emitted from China have a large potential to influence the levels and fates of POPs in Korea. Since characteristics of PAS are quite useful to monitor long-range transport of POPs, the use of PAS is highly recommended.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.393-398
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• 2006

As ratification of the Stockholm Convention to eliminate or reduce the release of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) into the environment draws near, the Government and industries are actively developing appropriate management and control measures. However, considerable work is needed in order to clarify vast uncertainties imposed in management and control of POPs while handling POPs is extremely difficult because of their toxicity and low levels in the environment. In this note, some major factors to be considered for effective management and control of POPs are reviewed on the basis of recent findings.

• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.10-17
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• 2016

A wide-spread contamination of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as dioxins, PCBs, PBDEs in the aquatic ecosystem has generated a great concern over the potential risk for these substances to impact marine biotas and food web. Since a major exposure route of these substances to the humans is through the consumption of food including fish and marine byproducts, the consumption of contaminated products has been a great public health concern. Exposure to POPs has been associated with a wide spectrum of adverse effects including reproductive, developmental, immunologic, carcinogenic, and neurotoxic effects. This review covers the background information of key POPs substances and the recent development of toxicity studies including the mode of action. Because neurotoxic effects of some POPs have been observed in humans at low concentrations, polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), a representative chemical of POPs, is focused to discuss the possible mode(s) of action for the neurotoxic effects. This review provides the updates of toxicity studies on POPs and paves ways to discuss a possible implication of contaminated marine biota over the human health among the marine biotechnology researchers.

• Proceedings of the Korea Air Pollution Research Association Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.221-222
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• 2003

잔류성유기오염물질(Persistent Organic Pollutants, 이하 POPs)은 환경에 노출되면 장기간 잔류하면서 인체 및 생태계에 악영향을 끼치며 또한 장거리 이동하는 특징으로 인하여 전지구적인 규제ㆍ관리의 필요성이 제기되고 있다. 이러한 필요에 부응하여 UNEP를 중심으로 국제적인 관리를 위한 논의가 이루어져 2001년 5월 스톡홀름협약(Stockholm convention for Persistent Organic Pollutants)이 당사국회의에서 채택되었고, 우리나라는 외교적 서명을 함으로써 협약가입의사를 분명히 하였다. (중략)

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.217-227
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• 2013

Passive air samplers (PAS) have been developed since the early 2000s and widely used for the atmospheric monitoring of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). PAS are useful especially for the investigation of source-receptor relationship of POPs because they provide higher spatial resolution data. In Korea, however, only a few research groups have conducted POPs monitoring using PAS. One of the reasons for the limited application of PAS might be due to a complicated calculation method for air concentration. In this study, therefore, we introduced the principle of polyurethane foam (PUF)-PAS, which has been most widely used in the world, and provided an example of the calculation of air concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). As all data tables and equations for this calculation were provided, this method can be used for the conversion of the amount of POPs (ng) in a PUF disk to air concentration ($ng/m^3$).

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.442-453
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• 2014

Objectives: Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are known to be the detrimental chemicals in the body, even at low levels, and are stored in adipose tissue. Recently, POPs have been reported to be associated with chronic diseases, including cancer and cardiovascular disease, and aging and obesity are reported as common factors in chronic disease. However, there have been only a few studies on the associations of POPs with age and body mass index (BMI) in Korea. Therefore, we analyzed the associations of serum POPs levels with age and BMI in Korea. Methods: This cross-sectional study includes 444 subjects (253 men and 191 women) from the Korean Cancer Prevention Study-II (2004-2011). Serum levels of 33 polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and 19 organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) were measured by a gas chromatographer (Agilent 6890) coupled to high resolution mass spectrometer (JEOL JMS-800D). Results: Concentrations of PCB 153 (men: 12.26 ng/g lipid, women: 10.50 ng/g lipid) and p,p'-DDE (men: 94.66 ng/g lipid, women: 96.66 ng/g lipid) were the highest among serum PCBs and OCPs, respectively. PCBs and OCPs were significantly positively correlated with age in both sexes. After adjustment for age, non-dioxin like PCBs were significantly negatively correlated with body mass in women. However, cis-heptachlor epoxide was significantly positively correlated with body mass index in both sexes. When analyzed by sex, stronger associations were shown between POPs and age in men and POPs and BMI in women. Conclusion: These results may provide baseline data for the study of POPs and for the health management field in Korea.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.62-69
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• 2012

Objectives: Chronic inflammation is now thought to play a key pathogenetic role in the associations of obesity with insulin resistance and diabetes. Based on our recent findings on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) including the lack of an association between obesity and either insulin resistance or diabetes prevalence among subjects with very low concentrations of POPs, we hypothesized that POP concentrations may be associated with inflammation and modify the associations between inflammation and insulin resistance in non-diabetic subjects. Methods: Cross-sectional associations among serum POPs, C-reactive protein (CRP), and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) were investigated in 748 non-diabetic participants aged ${\geq}20$ years. Nineteen types of POPs in 5 subclasses were selected because the POPs were detectable in ${\geq}60%$ of the participants. Results: Among the five subclasses of POPs, only organochlorine (OC) pesticides showed positive associations with CRP concentrations, while polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) showed inverse associations with CRP concentrations. There were statistically significant interactions between CRP and OC pesticides and between CRP and PCBs, in estimating HOMA-IR (P for interaction <0.01 and <0.01, respectively). CRP was not associated with HOMA-IR among subjects with low concentrations of OC pesticides or PCBs, while CRP was strongly associated with HOMA-IR among subjects with high concentrations of these POPs. Conclusions: In the current study, OC pesticides were associated with increased levels of CRP, a marker of inflammation, and both OC pesticides and PCBs may also modify the associations between CRP and insulin resistance.

• Proceedings of the Korea Air Pollution Research Association Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.291-292
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• 2003

잔류성 유기오염물질(POPs; Persistent Organic Pollutants)은 환경 내에서 분해가 느려 잔류성이 높고, 생체 지질에 축적되는 독성이 강한 특성이 있다. 따라서 스톡홀름 협약(2001년 5월 23일)에서 12종의 POPs 물질에 대해 국제적 사용금지 및 관리가 결정되었다. POPs는 대부분 반휘발성(semi-volatile) 이어서 대기 중 장거리 이동되어 배출지와 다른 곳에 침적되는 것이 보고되어있다. 이러한 물질들의 대기 중 잔류량과 기체상과 입자상의 분포 특성을 살펴서 환경 내 이동성을 파악하는 것은 인체위해성 수준을 알아내는데 중요한 자료이다. (중략)