• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.145-158
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• 2023

Constructed wetlands (CWs) are effective technologies for urban wastewater management, utilizing natural physico-chemical and biological processes to remove pollutants. This study employed a bibliometric analysis approach to investigate the progress and future research trends in the field of CWs. A comprehensive review of 100 most-recently published and open-access articles was performed to analyze the performance of CWs in treating wastewater. Spain, China, Italy, and the United States were among the most productive countries in terms of the number of published papers. The most frequently used keywords in publications include water quality (n=19), phytoremediation (n=13), stormwater (n=11), and phosphorus (n=11), suggesting that the efficiency of CWs in improving water quality and removal of nutrients were widely investigated. Among the different types of CWs reviewed, hybrid CWs exhibited the highest removal efficiencies for BOD (88.67%) and TSS (95.67%), whereas VSSF, and HSSF systems also showed high TSS removal efficiencies (83.25%, and 78.83% respectively). VSSF wetland displayed the highest COD removal efficiency (71.82%). Generally, physical processes (e.g., sedimentation, filtration, adsorption) and biological mechanisms (i.e., biodegradation) contributed to the high removal efficiency of TSS, BOD, and COD in CW systems. The hybrid CW system demonstrated highest TN removal efficiency (60.78%) by integrating multiple treatment processes, including aerobic and anaerobic conditions, various vegetation types, and different media configurations, which enhanced microbial activity and allowed for comprehensive nitrogen compound removal. The FWS system showed the highest TP removal efficiency (54.50%) due to combined process of settling sediment-bound phosphorus and plant uptake. Phragmites, Cyperus, Iris, and Typha were commonly used in CWs due to their superior phytoremediation capabilities. The study emphasized the potential of CWs as sustainable alternatives for wastewater management, particularly in urban areas.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.69-84
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• 2023

Despite the continuous installation and regular inspection of waste treatment facilities, complaints about excessive incineration and illegal dumping stench continue to occur at on-site treatment facilities. In addition, field surveys were conducted on the waste treatment facilities currently in operation (6 type) to understand the waste treatment process for each field, to grasp the main operating factors applied to the inspection. In addition, we calculated the material·energy balance for each main process and confirmed the proper operation of the waste disposal facility. As a result of the site survey, in the case of heat treatment facilities such as incineration, cement kilns, and incineration heat recovery facilities, the main factors are maintenance of the temperature of the incinerator required for incineration and treatment of the generated air pollutants, and in the case of landfill facilities Retaining wall stability, closed landfill leachate and emission control emerged as major factors. In the case of sterilization and crushing facilities, the most important factor is whether or not sterilization is possible (apobacterium inspection).In the case of food distribution waste treatment facilities, retention time and odor control during fermentation (digestion, decomposed) are major factors. Calculation results of material balance and energy resin for each waste treatment facility In the case of incineration facilities, it was confirmed that the amount of flooring materials generated is about 14 % and the amount of scattering materials is about 3 % of the amount of waste input, and that the facility is being operated properly. In addition, among foodwaste facilities, in the case of an anaerobic digestion facility, the amount of biogas generated relative to the amount of inflow is about 17 %, and the biogas conversion efficiency is about 81 %, in the case of composting facility, about 11 % composting of the inflow waste was produced, and it was comfirmend that all were properly operated. As a result, in order to improve the inspection method for waste treatment facilities, it is necessary not only to accumulate quantitative standards for detailed inspection methods, but also to collect operational data for one year at the time of regular inspections of each facility, Grasping the flow and judging whether or not the treatment facility is properly operated. It is then determined that the operation and management efficiency of the treatment facility will increase.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.566-574
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• 2022

Heavy metals are one of the dangerous pollutants that threaten urban biodiversity due to their accumulation over a long period without being decomposed in vivo. Accordingly, there is a need for biological monitoring to compare accumulation concentrations in living organisms according to the degree of heavy metal exposure to evaluate heavy metal contamination in the air in urban areas. This study aims to examine the possibility of using nesting materials as heavy metal monitoring samples and determine the effects of heavy metals on Paridae. We installed 54 artificial nest boxes in the research areas that included campus green spaces (14), urban forests (11), and urban parks (29) on a university campus in Cheonan City, Chungcheongnam Province. The birds' use rate of artificial nest boxes was 11/14 (78.57%) in campus green spaces, 8/11 (72.72%) in urban forests, and 6/29 (20.68%) in urban parks. Moss materials were collected from collected nests, and the heavy metal accumulation characteristics of each type of urban green space and the effects of heavy metals on the success of fledging of Paridae were compared through heavy metal analysis. The analysis showed that the average concentrations of zinc and lead were 228.08±209.62 ㎍/dry g and 17.67 ± 6.72 ㎍/dry g, respectively. There was no significant difference in zinc concentration for each type of urban green space (Kruskal-Wallis test, p-value=0.28), but lead concentration showed a significant difference (Kruskal-Wallis test, p<0.05^*). Of the 21 Paridae, nests analyzed for heavy metals, fledging of birds was observed in 11 nests (52.38%). Fledging of birds observed in each urban green space type was 7 campus green spaces (77.78%), 6 in urban forests (85.71%), and 1 in urban park (20%), mainly in urban forests and green spaces on campus. Heavy metal concentrations were compared to check the effect of heavy metal accumulation on the successful fledging of Paridae, but there was no statistically significant difference (Zn: W=44, p-value=0.74, Pb: t=0.64676, df =7.2422, p-value=0.54). This study is a basic study using the nesting materials of Paridae as heavy metal monitoring samples, and it is determined that it can be used as basic data for non-invasive biological monitoring.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.383-392
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• 2007

The water soluble components were analyzed in the $PM_{2.5}$ fine particles collected at the 1100 site of Mt. Halla for the spring seasons between 1998 and 2004. The $PM_{2.5}$ mass concentrations were within $13.4{\pm}9.6{\sim}21.7{\pm}20.0{\mu}g/m^3$, and the concentrations of ionic components were in the order of nss-$SO{_4}^{2-}$ > $NH{_4}{^+}$ > $NO{_3}{^-}$ > $Ca^{2+}$ > $K^+$ > $Na^+$ > $Cl^-$ > $Mg^{2+}$, in which the concentration of nss-$SO{_4}^{2-}$($3.41{\pm}2.42{\mu}g/m^3$) was the highest. The concentrations of $NH{_4}{^+}$, $SO{_4}^{2-}$, and $NO{_3}{^-}$, the secondary pollutants, were respectively 0.60~1.50, 2.86~4.42, and $0.24{\sim}1.57{\mu}g/m^3$, which had occupied 88 % of the total ionic components, on the other hand, the concentrations of marine species were less than 5 %. The nss-$SO{_4}^{2-}$ showed the high correlation with $NH{_4}{^+}$, $K^+$, so that $NH{_4}{^+}$ and nss-$SO{_4}^{2-}$ might exist in the form of $(NH_4)_3H(SO_4)_2$ and $(NH_4)_2SO_4$ in fine particles. From the backward trajectory analysis, in case of high concentrations of $NH{_4}{^+}$ and nss-$SO{_4}^{2-}$ simultaneously, the air masses were originated and stagnated at the east region of China for a while, then moved into the atmosphere of Jeju. However, in case of $NO{_3}{^-}$ and nss-$Ca^{2+}$, the air masses originated at China and Siberia were moved into Jeju via the eastern China.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.306-314
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• 2023

Stream sediments are an important component of water quality management because they are receptors of various pollutants such as heavy metals and organic matters emitted from upland sources and can be secondary pollution sources, adversely affecting water environment. To effectively manage the stream sediments, identification of primary sources of sediment contamination and source-associated control strategies will be required. We evaluated the performance of machine learning models in identifying primary sources of sediment contamination based on the physico-chemical properties of stream sediments. A total of 356 stream sediment data sets of 18 quality parameters including 10 heavy metal species(Cd, Cu, Pb, Ni, As, Zn, Cr, Hg, Li, and Al), 3 soil parameters(clay, silt, and sand fractions), and 5 water quality parameters(water content, loss on ignition, total organic carbon, total nitrogen, and total phosphorous) were collected near abandoned metal mines and industrial complexes across the four major river basins in Korea. Two machine learning algorithms, linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and support vector machine (SVM) classifiers were used to classify the sediments into four cases of different combinations of the sampling period and locations (i.e., mine in dry season, mine in wet season, industrial complex in dry season, and　industrial complex in wet season). Both models showed good performance in the classification, with SVM outperformed LDA; the accuracy values of LDA and SVM were 79.5% and 88.1%, respectively. An SVM ensemble model was used for multi-label classification of the multiple contamination sources inlcuding landuses in the upland areas within 1 km radius from the sampling sites. The results showed that the multi-label classifier was comparable performance with sinlgle-label SVM in classifying mines and industrial complexes, but was less accurate in classifying dominant land uses (50~60%). The poor performance of the multi-label SVM is likely due to the overfitting caused by small data sets compared to the complexity of the model. A larger data set might increase the performance of the machine learning models in identifying contamination sources.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.12-23
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• 2023

The goal of international development projects is to assist sustainable development in recipient countries through foreign aid from donor countries. However, despite the need for both countries to negotiate and work together from the initial stages to maintain sustainability after the project, clear guidelines or standards have not been established. Additionally, despite the need for donor countries, which are relatively advanced, to understand the situation of recipient countries, many projects are donor-centric and fail to prioritize the value of sustainability. Therefore, this study extracted economic, social, and environmental risks that threaten sustainability through literature review and proposed a sustainability framework based on these criteria. To validate framework, actual international development cases conducted by advanced donor countries such as Australia, the United States, and Japan, in collaboration with South Korea, were analyzed by applying content analysis with the reports, which covers the overall contents from the planning stage to the operation stage. Analysis of sustainability perspectives focused on economy, society and the environment, advanced donor countries emphasized (1) the importance of pre-assessment, (2) the need for coordination with the local population and communities despite the existence of donor-specific values, and (3) addressing economic considerations such as pre-operational and maintenance costs, social communication with the local population, and environmental considerations starting from the initial stages of construction regarding the treatment of pollutants as values to be improved. Compared to other advanced donor countries, the Republic of Korea should also focus on consultation with local residents to achieve social integration, and improve sustainability by deployment the managers in local sites for better negotiation.The proposed framework in this study will serve as a tool to enhance communication among the countries and the locals, with the expectation of increasing project efficiency and sustainability.

• Journal of Marine Life Science
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.104-114
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• 2023

As plastic usage increases globally, the amount of plastic waste entering the marine environment is steadily rising. Microplastics, in particular, can be ingested by marine organisms and accumulated in their digestive tracts, causing harmful effects on their growth and reproduction. Cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes are known to metabolize various environmental pollutants as detoxification enzymes, but their role in crustaceans is not well understood. In this study, sequences of nine CYP genes (CYP370A4, CYP370C5 from clan 2; CYP350A1, CYP350C5, CYP361A1 from clan 3; CYP4AN-like, CYP4AP2, CYP4AP3, CYP4C33-like1 from clan 4) were analyzed using conserved domains in the brackish water flea Diaphanosoma celebensis. Additionally, after exposure to three different sizes of polystyrene beads (0.05-, 0.5-, 6-㎛ PS beads; 0.1, 1, and 10 mg/L) for 48 hours, the expression of these nine CYP genes were investigated using real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The results showed that all CYP genes possessed conserved motifs, indicating that D. celebensis CYP has evolutionarily conserved functions. Among these CYP genes, the expression of CYP370C5, CYP360A1, and CYP4C122 showed a significant increase after exposure to 0.05-㎛ PS beads, suggesting their involvement in PS metabolism. This research will contribute to understanding the molecular mode of actions of microplastics on marine invertebrates.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.61 no.4
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• pp.523-541
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• 2023

As accessibility to 3D printers increases, there is a growing frequency of exposure to chemicals associated with 3D printing. However, research on the toxicity and harmfulness of chemicals generated by 3D printing is insufficient, and the performance of toxicity prediction using in silico techniques is limited due to missing molecular structure data. In this study, quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) model based on data-centric AI approach was developed to predict the toxicity of new 3D printing materials by imputing missing values in molecular descriptors. First, MissForest algorithm was utilized to impute missing values in molecular descriptors of hazardous 3D printing materials. Then, based on four different machine learning models (decision tree, random forest, XGBoost, SVM), a machine learning (ML)-based QSAR model was developed to predict the bioconcentration factor (Log BCF), octanol-air partition coefficient (Log Koa), and partition coefficient (Log P). Furthermore, the reliability of the data-centric QSAR model was validated through the Tree-SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) method, which is one of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) techniques. The proposed imputation method based on the MissForest enlarged approximately 2.5 times more molecular structure data compared to the existing data. Based on the imputed dataset of molecular descriptor, the developed data-centric QSAR model achieved approximately 73%, 76% and 92% of prediction performance for Log BCF, Log Koa, and Log P, respectively. Lastly, Tree-SHAP analysis demonstrated that the data-centric-based QSAR model achieved high prediction performance for toxicity information by identifying key molecular descriptors highly correlated with toxicity indices. Therefore, the proposed QSAR model based on the data-centric XAI approach can be extended to predict the toxicity of potential pollutants in emerging printing chemicals, chemical process, semiconductor or display process.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.697-703
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• 2023

As a part of the global industrial efforts to reduce environmental pollution owing to air pollution, regulations have been established by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The IMO has implemented various regulations such as EEXI, EEDI, and CII to reduce air pollution emissions from ships. They are also promoting measures to decrease the power consumption in ships, aiming to conserve energy. Most of the power used in ships is consumed by electric motors. Among the motors installed on ships, the engine room blower that takes up a significant load, operates at a constant irrespective of demand. Therefore, energy savings can be expected through frequency control. In this study, we demonstrated the efficacy of energy savings by controlling the frequency of the electric motor of the generator blower that supplies combustion air to the generator's turbocharger. The system was modeled based on the output data of the turboharger outlet temperature in response to the blower frequency inpu. A PI control system was established to control the frequency with the target being the turbocharger outlet temperature. By maintaining the turbocharger design standard outlet temperature and controlling the blower frequency, we achieved an annual energy saving of 15,552kW in power consumption. The effectiveness of energy savings through frequency control of blower fans was verified during the summer (April to September) and winter (March to October) periods. Based on this, we achieved annual fuel cost savings of 6,091 thousand won and reduction of 8.5 tons of carbon dioxide, 2.4 kg of SOx, and 7.8 kg of NOx air pollutants on the training ship.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.87-98
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• 2024

This study was conducted to investigate the efficiency of the filtering sets composed of fiberboards, which were fabricated with lignocellulosic fiber and cork oak bark-based activated carbon (COA), as well as traditional Korean paper handmade from mulberry trees (KP) for the filtration of PM, TVOC and HCHO. Three-layers fiberboards (WRF) were fabricated with wood fiber in its surface layers and recycled fiber/COA in its core layer using a protein-based adhesive with the resin content of 8%. Filtering sets were composed of three WRF and one sheet of KP. Concentrations of PM, TVOC and HCHO generated with the combustion of a incense in a sealed laboratory hood were reduced efficiently with the operation of air-purifier installed the filtering sets. Except for the WRF fabricated with 4%/4% resin contents, other WRF were prepared with 5%/3% and 6%/2% resin contents in surface/core layers, and then the WRF were used with KP for the fabrication of filtering sets. Filtration efficiency of the filtering sets was improved as the core-layer resin content applied in the fabrication of WRF decreased. In addition, filtration efficiency of the WRF-based filtering set fabricated with KP of 25 g/m² basis weight was higher than that with KP of 45 g/m² basis weight. Filtering sets composed of three-layers fiberboards (RWF) that recycled fiber and wood fiber/COA were used in its surface and core layers, respectively, and KP-25g showed higher filtration efficiency than those of WRF-based filtering sets. Air-inhalation equipment installed the RWF-based, WRF-based filtering sets and without filtering set were operated in small indoor and large outdoor spaces. Efficiency for filtering PM and TVOC of the RWF-based filtering sets was higher than that of other filtering sets. It is concluded that fiberboard-based filtering sets composed of RWF and KP-25g can be used as a filter for reducing the concentrations of PM and TVOC existed in indoor and outdoor spaces.