• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.533-541
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• 2021

Retaining walls have been used to prevent slope failure through resistance of earth pressure in railway, road, nuclear power plant, dam, and river infrastructure. To calculate dynamic earth pressure and determine the characteristics for seismic behavior, many researchers have analyzed the nonlinear response of ground and structure based on various numerical analyses (FLAC, PLAXIS, ABAQUS etc). In addition, seismic fragility evaluation is performed to ensure safety against earthquakes for structures. In this study, we used the FLAC2D program to understand the seismic response of the inverted T-type wall with a backfill slope, and evaluated seismic fragility based on relative horizontal displacements of the wall. Nonlinear site response analysis was performed for each site (S2 and S4) using the seven ground motions to calculate various seismic loadings reflecting site characteristics. The numerical model was validated based on other numerical models, experiment results, and generalized formula for dynamic active earth pressure. We also determined the damage state and damage index based on the height of retaining wall, and developed the seismic fragility curves. The damage probabilities of the retaining wall for the S4 site were computed to be larger than those for the S2 site.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.154-163
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• 2021

This study was carried out to identify the factors affecting the distribution of suitable habitats for Geranium carolinianum, which was naturalized in South Korea, and to predict the changes of distribution in the future. We collected occurrence data of G. carolinianum at 68 sites in South Korea, and applied the MaxEnt model under climate change scenarios (SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5). Precipitation seasonality (bio15), mean temperature of warmest quarter (bio10), and mean temperature of driest quarter (bio09) had high contribution for potential distribution of G. carolinianum. According to climate change scenarios, high suitable habitats of G. carolinianum occupied 6.43% of the land of South Korea in historical period (1981~2010), and 92.60% under SSP2-4.5, and 98.36% undr SSP5-8.5 in far future (2071~2100).

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.36-49
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• 2018

This study analyzed the public preference and acceptance regarding renewable energy projects through Choice Based Conjoint Analysis. The results show that the surveyed respondents consider the leading authority of the projects, as the most important factor when considering participating in renewable energy initiatives. Following this, the mode of participation and profit distribution and the power plant location are also viewed as important, whereas participation through decision making regarding the projects was less important. Also when participating in renewable energy projects, respondents tend to prefer to financially participating through loans or owning shares rather than volunteering support for the business such as sharing information, stating one's views, or providing cooperation and coordination. Therefore, the focus is on distributional justice, such as financial investment and profit distribution, rather than procedural justice, for instance decision making. When analyzing the part-worths utilities for the participation attribute, the respondents most preferred to receiving dividends based on earnings by owning shares with the local government in charge of the entire projects. As a consequence, the results suggest that it is important to have local government get involved and have trust-worthy governing systems in place for the initiation of the public participating-renewable energy projects.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.45-63
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• 2019

In view of the growing industrial use of Bacterial cellulose (BC), and taking into account that it might become airborne and be inhaled after industrial processing, assessing its potential pulmonary toxic effects assumes high relevance. In this work, the murine model was used to assess the effects of exposure to respirable BC nanofibrils (nBC), obtained by disintegration of BC produced by Komagataeibacter hansenii. Murine bone marrow-derived macrophages ($BMM{\Phi}$) were treated with different doses of nBC (0.02 and 0.2 mg/mL, respectively 1 and $10{\mu}g$ of fibrils) in absence or presence of 0.2% Carboxymethyl Cellulose (nBCMC). Furthermore, mice were instilled intratracheally with nBC or nBCMC at different concentrations and at different time-points and analyzed up to 6 months after treatments. Microcrystaline $Avicel-plus^{(R)}$ CM 2159, a plant-derived cellulose, was used for comparison. Markers of cellular damage (lactate dehydrogenase release and total protein) and oxidative stress (hydrogen peroxidase, reduced glutathione, lipid peroxidation and glutathione peroxidase activity) as well presence of inflammatory cells were evaluated in brochoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluids. Histological analysis of lungs, heart and liver tissues was also performed. BAL analysis showed that exposure to nBCMC or CMC did not induce major alterations in the assessed markers of cell damage, oxidative stress or inflammatory cell numbers in BAL fluid over time, even following cumulative treatments. $Avicel-plus^{(R)}$ CM 2159 significantly increased LDH release, detected 3 months after 4 weekly administrations. However, histological results revealed a chronic inflammatory response and tissue alterations, being hypertrophy of pulmonary arteries (observed 3 months after nBCMC treatment) of particular concern. These histological alterations remained after 6 months in animals treated with nBC, possibly due to foreign body reaction and the organism's inability to remove the fibers. Overall, despite being a safe and biocompatible biomaterial, BC-derived nanofibrils inhalation may lead to lung pathology and pose significant health risks.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.30-38
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• 2019

Tracking, which is one of the main causes of electrical fires, is perceived as a physical phenomenon of electrical discharge. Hence tracking should be explained based on electric field analysis, conduction path by electron generation, and gas discharge physics. However, few papers have considered these details. This paper proposes a tracking mechanism including their effects on tracking progress. In order to prove this mechanism, a tracking experiment, an electric field analysis for the carbonization evolution model, and an explanation of the tracking process by gas discharge physics were conducted. From the tracking experiment, the current waveforms were measured at each stage of the tracking progress from corona discharge to tracking breakdown. The electric field analysis was carried out in order to determine the electric field on the surface of a dry-band and the high electric field region for electron generation during the generation and progress of carbonization. In this paper, the proposed tracking mechanism consisted of six stages including electron avalanche by corona discharge, accumulation of positive ions, expansion of electron avalanche, secondary electron emission avalanche, streamer, and tracking by conductive path. The pulse current waveforms measured in the tracking experiment can be explained by the proposed tracking mechanism. The results of this study will be used as the technical data to detect tracking phenomenon, which is the cause of electric fire, and to improve the proof tracking index.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.29 no.10
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• pp.1144-1151
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• 2019

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a chronic liver disease associated with various metabolic syndromes, such as obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and diabetes. Cudrania tricuspidata is a medicinal plant distributed widely in Asia and has been used in clinical practice to treat various diseases. The aim of this study is to determine the lipid-lowering effects of C. tricuspidata fruit extract (CTE) using a cell model induced by free fatty acids (FFAs). HepG2 cells were exposed to 1mM FFAs (palmitic acid:oleic acid = 2:1) for 24 hr to simulate the conditions of NAFLD in vitro. CTE attenuated the increases of lipid accumulation, intracellular triglyceride, and cholesterol content and inhibited 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMG-CoA reductase) activity in the HepG2 cells in a dose-dependent manner. Also, CTE inhibited the protein expression of lipogenesis-related genes, such as sterol regulatory element-binding protein-1/-2 (SREBP-1/-2), fatty acid synthase (FAS), and stearoyl CoA desaturase-1 (SCD-1) in FFAs-induced lipid accumulation in HepG2 cells. In addition, CTE-induced adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) phosphorylation in HepG2 cells. These results suggest that CTE attenuates hepatic lipid accumulation by inhibiting lipogenesis through the modulation of the AMPK signaling pathway on FFAs-induced lipogenesis in HepG2 cells and may potentially prevent NAFLD.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.17-25
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• 2018

This study was conducted to calculate the optimum height of trees, estimating a model for the prediction of tree growth for the landscape improvement of the Gyeonghoeru area. For the verification of measures for management, this study conducted a photographic survey of the Gyeonghoeru area and used the Pressler's formula to examine the growth rate of the pine forest of Mansesan. The results of the study are as follows. First, as a result of a field survey and landscape analysis, trees in the Gyeonghoeru area are large ones with more than a diameter at breast height of 30cm, except for weeping cherry trees and persimmon trees, and especially, it is necessary to manage them or replace with small trees through the landscape of Mansesan, which screens the landscape and pruning the trees in the terraced flower garden in the north. Second, as a result of a measurement of the growth rate of trees, for 10 years on average, they grew up by 14% in source diameter and 5% in tree height 5% in south of Mansesan and by 7% in source diameter and 2.4% in tree height in the north of Mansesan. Furthermore, when a simulation was prepared based on the measured growth rate of trees, it was found out that 20 years later, on the landscape on the second floor of Gyeonghoeru, the pine forest of Mansesan would cut off the skyline of Mt. Inwang-san. Third, this study analyzed a landscape improvement simulation and proposed a plan for tree management to take a view of the landscape of the Gyeonghoeru area. This study has a significance that it drew an efficient planting maintenance policy, considering the landscape characteristics of the Gyeonghoeru area.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.514-520
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• 2019

The reduction in performance due to inbreeding (i.e. inbreeding depression) has long been documented in plant and animal populations. The population of Korean native pigs are small and this breed is valuable in Korea.. This study was aimed to investigate effects of inbreeding depression on total number of piglets born (TNB) and number of piglets born alive (NBA) in Korean native pigs. We used 2,806 pedigree and 303 sows's data with 483 phenotypic records. After estimating genetic parameters for each traits, inbreeding depression was estimated using a mixed model in which the inbreeding coefficient was included as a covariate. Korean native pigs had high heritability for each traits. Inbreeding coefficient constantly increased from 1998 to 2017~2018 but there is no reduction for each traits in 2017~2018 in compared with those in 1998. Significant inbreeding depression was detected for TNB (p=0.03) but not for NBA (p=0.41). In addition there are significantly positive interactions between inbreeding coefficient and breeding value for both traits (p<0.05). These results suggest that Korean native pigs are still having genetic variation for TNB and NBA, which could overcome reproductive risks from inbreeding coefficient increase.

• Korean Journal of Breeding Science
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.364-377
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• 2018

Hexaploid wheat (common wheat/bread wheat) is one of the most important cereal crops in the world and a model for research of an allopolyploid plant with a large, highly repetitive genome. In the heritability of agronomic traits, variation in gene presence/absence plays an important role. However, there have been relatively few studies on the variation in gene presence/absence in crop species, including common wheat. Recently, a reference genome sequence of common wheat has been fully annotated and published. In addition, advanced next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology provides high quality genome sequences with continually decreasing NGS prices, thereby dawning full-scale wheat functional genomic studies in other crops as well as common wheat, in spite of their large and complex genomes. In this review, we provide information about the available tools and methodologies for wheat functional genomics research supported by NGS technology. The use of the NGS and functional genomics technology is expected to be a powerful strategy to select elite lines for a number of germplasms.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.1-14
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• 2021

Excessive development and urbanization have destroyed animal, plant, habitats and reduced biodiversity. In order to preserve species diversity, habitat prediction studies are have been conducted at home and overseas using various modeling techniques. This study was conducted to suggest optimal habitat modeling research by comparing HSI and MaxEnt, which are widely used among habitat modeling techniques. The study was targeted on the endangered species of Prionailurus bengalensis in nearby areas (5460.35km2) including Cheonan City, and the same data were used for analysis to compare those models. According to the HSI analysis, Prionailurus bengalensis's habitat probability was 74.65% for less than 0.5 and 25.34% for more than 0.5 and the top 30% were forest (99.07%). MaxEnt's analysis showed that 56.22% of those below 0.5 and 43.79% of those above 0.5 were found to have a high explanatory power of 78.3% of AUC. The Paired Wilcoxn test, which evaluated the significance of thoes models, confirmed that the mean difference between the two models was statistically significant (p<0.05). Analysis of the differences in the results of those models using the matrix table shows that score 24.43% HSI and MaxEnt was accordance,12.44% of the 0.0 to 0.2 section, 7.22% of the 0.2 to 0.4 section, 2.73% of the 0.4 to 0.6 section, 1.96% of the 0.6 to 0.8, and 0.08% of the 0.9 to 1.0. To verify where the score difference appears, the result values of those models were reset to values from 1 to 5 and overlaid. Overlapping analysis resulted in 30.26% of the Strongly agree values, 56.77% of the agree values, and 11.92% of the Disagree values. The places where the difference in scores occurs were analyzed in the order of forest (45.23%), agricultural land (34.57%), and urbanization area (7.65%). This confirmed that the analysis of the same target species within the same target site also has differences in forecasts depending on the modelling method. Therefore, a novel analysis method combining the advantages of each modeling in habitat prediction studies should be developed, and future study may be used to select Prionailurus bengalensis and species-protected areas and species protection areas in the future. Further research is judged to require higher accuracy studies through the use of various modeling techniques and on-site verification.