• Atmosphere
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.203-216
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• 2024

The National Institute of Meteorological Sciences in Korea has developed the Weather Modification Hybrid Rocket (WMHR), an advanced system that offers enhanced stability and cost-effectiveness over conventional solid-fuel rockets. Designed for precise operation, the WMHR enables accurate control over the ejection altitude of pyrotechnics by modulating the quantity of oxidizer, facilitating specific cloud seeding at various atmospheric layers. Furthermore, the rate of descent for pyrotechnic devices can be adjusted by modifying parachute sizes, allowing for controlled dispersion time and concentration of seeding agents. The rocket's configuration also supports adjustments in the pyrotechnic device's capacity, permitting tailored seeding agent deployment. This innovation reflects significant technical progression and collaborations with local manufacturers, in addition to efforts to secure testing sites and address hybrid rocket production challenges. Notable outcomes of this project include the creation of a national framework for weather modification technology utilizing hybrid rockets, enhanced cloud seeding methods, and the potential for broader meteorological application of hybrid rockets beyond precipitation augmentation. An illustrative case study confirmed the WMHR's operational effectiveness, although the impact on cloud seeding was limited by unfavorable weather conditions. This experience has provided valuable insights and affirmed the system's potential for varied uses, such as weather modification and deploying high-altitude meteorological sensors. Nevertheless, the expansion of civilian weather rocket experiments in Korea faces challenges due to inadequate infrastructure and regulatory limitations, underscoring the urgent need for advancements in these areas.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.41-54
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• 2024

In this study, we compare and analyze the performance of three inventory management policies for raw material inventory management in a Precast Concrete production plant: Fixed Order Quantity Policy (FOQP), Fixed Order Interval Policy (FOIP), and (s, S) Ordering Policy (sSOP). In order to make more realistic conclusion, we developed and utilized the ARENA simulation model, a performance evaluation tool that considers the variance of raw material demand and supply for the entire production process in a PC production plant using multiple raw materials. For the three policies, reorder point, order quantity, target level, and order interval parameters were initialized by using Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) model and then optimized through OptQuest. As a result of optimization, inventory management costs were reduced by an average of 97.28% compared to the EOQ model that does not consider the variance of demand and supply. After setting three influencing factors, Project Occurrence Cycle (POC), Raw Material Lead-time (RML), and Unit Stock-out Cost (USC), a performance evaluation was conducted for the three policies. As a result of evaluation, the inventory management costs of FOQP and sSOP, which determine order intervals by considering inventory levels by real-time or daily, were 30.6% and 27.9% lower than FOIP with fixed order intervals respectively. In addition, inventory management costs were affected by RML and USC factors excluding POC, but the differences were 2.17% and 2.09% respectively, which were not large due to the optimization of parameters for responding the variance of raw material demand and supply.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2024.07a
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• pp.1307-1307
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• 2024

Recent research on heavy equipment has been conducted for the purposes of enhanced safety, productivity improvement, and carbon neutrality at construction sites. A sensor-based approach is being explored to monitor the location and movements of heavy equipment in real time. However, it poses significant challenges in terms of time and cost as multiple sensors should be installed on numerous heavy equipment at construction sites. In addition, there is a limitation in identifying the collaboration or interference between two or more heavy equipment. In light of this, a vision-based deep learning approach is being actively conducted to effectively respond to various working conditions and dynamic environments. To enhance the performance of a vision-based activity recognition model, it is essential to secure a sufficient amount of training datasets (i.e., video datasets collected from actual construction sites). However, due to safety and security issues at construction sites, there are limitations in adequately collecting training dataset under various situations and environmental conditions. In addition, the videos feature a sequence of multiple activities of heavy equipment, making it challenging to clearly distinguish the boundaries between preceding and subsequent activities. To address these challenges, this study proposed a domain adaptation in vision-based transfer learning for automated excavator activity recognition utilizing 3D ResNet (residual deep neural network). Particularly, this study aimed to identify the optimal depth of 3D ResNet (i.e., the number of layers of the feature extractor) suitable for domain adaptation via fine-tuning process. To achieve this, this study sought to evaluate the activity recognition performance of five 3D ResNet models with 18, 34, 50, 101, and 152 layers, which used two consecutive videos with multiple activities (5 mins, 33 secs and 10 mins, 6 secs) collected from actual construction sites. First, pretrained weights from large-scale datasets (i.e., Kinetic-700 and Moment in Time (MiT)) in other domains (e.g., humans, animals, natural phenomena) were utilized. Second, five 3D ResNet models were fine-tuned using a customized dataset (14,185 clips, 60,606 secs). As an evaluation index for activity recognition model, the F1 score showed 0.881, 0.689, 0.74, 0.684, and 0.569 for the five 3D ResNet models, with the 18-layer model performing the best. This result indicated that the activity recognition models with fewer layers could be advantageous in deriving the optimal weights for the target domain (i.e., excavator activities) when fine-tuning with a limited dataset. Consequently, this study identified the optimal depth of 3D ResNet that can maintain a reliable performance in dynamic and complex construction sites, even with a limited dataset. The proposed approach is expected to contribute to the development of decision-support systems capable of systematically managing enhanced safety, productivity improvement, and carbon neutrality in the construction industry.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.397-432
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• 2015

This paper investigates the effects of technology collaboration between the main supplier and buyer on buyer's new product development under dynamic environment. Based on 428 Korean manufacturing firms, we conducted regression analysis. The technology collaboration between the main supplier and buyer is adopted as a independent variable and quality, cost and lead time performance of new product development projects are used as dependents variables. Environment dynamic is also used as a moderate variables. We found that the in general, technology collaboration is positively associated with the performance of buyers' new product development, but in the high degree of dynamic environment, technology collaboration is negatively associated with the performance of buyers' new product development unlike our expectation. Thus, we divide our sample into two groups; shipbuilding industry with the low degree of environment dynamic and electronic and IT device industry with the high degree of environment dynamic and conducted a post hoc analysis. As a result, in ship building industry, the technology collaboration is significant to improve NPD projects performance, while in electronic and IT device industry, the technology collaboration with a main supplier is not significant as well as coefficient is negative. In that, under the highly dynamic condition with the fast change of technology and products obsolescence the NPD collaboration with the main supplier does not works unlike a stable environment. This implies that the NPD attributes of buyer are different by their environmental factor and the fit between given environmental feature and the collaboration synergy is critical factor for improving the effect of NPD collaboration between supplier and buyer.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.153-185
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• 2020

In principle, even if serious consequences such as death or serious injury of a patient occur as a result of a medical accident, if the medical malpractice of a health care worker is not recognized, the health care worker is not held liable for said consequences. However, with the opening of the Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency on April 7, 2012, a system was established to compensate health care personnel for their medical malpractices only in the case of "injuries caused by medical accidents in the course of childbirth" (hereinafter referred to as "program for compensation of medical accidents"). Article 46 paragraph 1 of the current Medical Dispute Mediation Act, which is the basis of the Force Majeure Medical Accident Compensation System, stipulates that "medical accidents under delivery" claims are to be determined by the Medical Accident Compensation Review Committee are subject to the compensation project. And the details of the compensation, ratio of sharing financial resources for compensation, scope of compensation, and the guidelines and procedure for the payment of compensations are prescribed by Presidential Decree. In other words, the Presidential Decree requires the state to pay 70 percent of the compensation funds, and 30 percent of the above funds among health care providers. The Constitutional Court has decided on the 2015Hun-Ga13 that the scope of the health care institution's founders and the share of the compensation funds cannot be directly determined by the law, and that the portion delegated by the Presidential decree does not violate the Principle of Legal Protection nor Comprehensive Nondelegation Doctrine. However, this can be seen as an exclusion of accountability for force-induced delivery accidents even if there is no negligence of the medical staff. If the nature of the system is a type of social security system with a social compensatory nature, it could consider eliminating the health care innovator's cost-sharing provisions, leaving the full cost to the state. However, it is also necessary to review institutional protocols that strengthen the efforts of medical institutions in areas such as analysis of the causes of medical accidents and measures to prevent their recurrence. In addition, I think that the conclusion of the Act is in line with the purpose of the Comprehensive Wage Support Regulations that at minimum the law sets an upper limit of the compensation funds that are to be paid by health and medical institutions. Moreover, it is reasonable for the Medical Accident Compensation Review Committee to specify gestational age and weight of births, which are the criteria for compensation, under the Enforcement Decree of the Medical Dispute Mediation Act, in relation to the criteria for payment of contributions by the Medical Accident Compensation Review Committee, and to set the detailed criteria.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2014

With continued economic growth, Korea has seen an increase in the nighttime activities of its citizens as hours of activity have extended into night. There is an increasing trend in energy consumption related to citizens' nighttime activities. In order to analyze ideas for an efficient replacement of the power consumption of streetlights and for profit generation by applying grid-type solar systems, this study used an RETScreen model. Through energy analysis and cost analysis, the application benefit and viability of grid-type solar street light systems were analyzed. With analysis result of a total weekly power generation of 114 kWh via a grid-connected solar streetlight system, it was shown that the net present value of a grid-connected solar street light system is 155,362 KRW, which would mean a payback period of about 5.2 years, and as such, it was shown that profit could be generated after about 6 years. In addition, if the grid-connected solar power generation system proposed by this study is to be applied, it was shown that 401,935 KRW in profit could be generated after the 20-year useful life set for the solar system. In addition, the sensitivity analysis was performed taking into account the price fluctuations of SMP, maintenance. As a result, a payback period has increased by 1~2 years, and there were no significant differences. Because the most important factor that affect the economic analysis is the cost of supply certification of renewable energy, a stable sales and acquisition of this certification are very important. the Seoul-type Feed in Tariff(FIT) connected to other institutions will enable steady sales by confirming to purchase the certification for 12 years. Therefore, if those issues mentioned above are properly reflected, Central-grid PV system project will be able to perform well in the face of unfavorable condition of solar PV installation.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.30-41
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• 2024

The way we work is changing significantly with the rapid development of digitaltechnology, and paper documents are being replaced by electronic documents. However, in accordance with the Enforcement Decree and Enforcement Regulation of the Environmental Impact Assessment Act, the environmental impact assessment report must submit a set number of paper reports to organizations related to the project, and about 42 years have passed since it was submitted as a paperreport. In 2022, the National Institute of Ecology introduced a system to review paperreports as electronic documents in line with the trend of digital transformation. The cost reduction and carbon emission reduction effects of electronic document review were analyzed for 1,398 environmental impact assessments submitted and reviewed in 2022. In addition, a satisfaction survey was conducted targeting type 1 environmental impact assessment companies that were directly affected, and a total of 134 people responded. As a result of analyzing the effect of reviewing electronic documents, costs are reduced by a total of 101,424,900 won per year and carbon emissions are reduced by about 59.7 tons. As a result of the satisfaction survey, 94.8% of the respondents said electronic documentreview was very helpful, and 4.5% said it was helpful. The effectiveness of electronic documentreview was high, with 94.8% of respondents saying it was helpful in economic terms and 91.8% saying it was helpful in reducing work hours. If electronic documents are reviewed through the revisions to the Enforcement Decree and Enforcement Regulation of the Environmental Impact Assessment Act, the implementation of electronic document review is expected to have a ripple effect across the country, not only reducing costs and carbon emissions, but also reducing administrative time and saving storage space. Rapid changes in law and administration are needed to adapt to the digital transformation era.

• Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
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• v.19
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• pp.45-54
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• 2001

This study was carried out to provide fundamental data for prospective forest-road project and forest-road network arrangement through appraising existing forest-road network with density, extension distance, maximum yarding distance and yarding area, position of forest-road line considered above foundation of two theories, one is "theory of optimal forest-road density" which has expense for yarding cost and constructing forest-road minimized, the other is "theory of optimal forest-road arrangement" which has investment effect maximized. The results are as follows. 1. In density and extension distance of the forest-road by site, it was showed up that density of existing forest-road is lower than that of calculated forest-road. So, it is thought that some additional forest-roads have to be constructed. 2. In the arrangement of the forest-road network by site, it was showed up that the arrangement of calculated forest-road is higher than that of existing forest-road arrangement for the forestry and yarding function. So, it is thought that the arrangement of forest-road network have to be considered to maximize the investment effect. 3. In "mean maximum distance for yarding" and "mean area which yarding can be done" by horizontal and inclined distance, the existing forest-road networks were different from those of calculated forest-road network. So, calculated forest-road network making investment effect maximize is more effective than existing forest-road network. Hence, in prospective forest-road project, it is needed that forest-road network having "area which yarding can be done" maximized through considering function for yarding have to be constructed.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.59-77
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• 2015

In order to meet the new requirements for landfill materials, this study planned a study to apply mixed soil of mixing bottom ash and coastal dredged soil to the dredged ground. Coal ash generated from thermal power plant is divided into fly ash and bottom ash. In the case of fly ash, many studies have been conducted because small particles causes permeability coefficient to be small during recycling so no problem has been raised in the environmental area but the utilization of bottom ash has been limited because environmental problems have been raised during recycling due to its larger particle size and greater permeability coefficient. According to recently published studies, however, the results of the study that conducted the water analysis of leachate generated in the ground improvement section using bottom ash showed that heavy metal contamination levels were found to be within the reference value and no significant environmental problems were found so utilization of bottom ash is evaluated to increase significantly in the future. This bottom ash has the particle size of sand and only transportation costs need to be considered when providing materials because the majority has been disposed and it is judged as the most suitable material in dredging landfill in the economic aspect because most thermal power plants are located in the coast and transportation costs can be reduced by ship. Also, research on mixed soil that can maximize the effect of the construction period and construction cost savings than dredged soil is determined as needed because the demand for coastal dredging reclamation is increasing such as Saemangeum project etc. Therefore, we studied self-weight consolidation characteristics depending on sample processing and mixing method of mixed soil by carrying out interior self-weight consolidation experiments on mixed soil of mixing bottom ash and Kaolinite according to the new development needs of recent coastal reclaimed ground and these result findings are expected to be used as basic data when applying the large coastal dredged ground in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.24-34
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• 2008

To mitigate the climate change and global warming, various technologies have been internationally proposed for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Especially, in recent, carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technology is regarded as one of the most promising emission reduction options that $CO_2$ be captured from major point sources (eg., power plant) and transported for storage into the marine geological structure such as deep sea saline aquifer. The purpose of this paper is to review the latest progress on the development of technologies for $CO_2$ storage in marine geological structure and its perspective in republic of Korea. To develop the technologies for $CO_2$ storage in marine geological structure, we carried out relevant R&D project, which cover the initial survey of potentially suitable marine geological structure fur $CO_2$ storage site and monitoring of the stored $CO_2$ behavior, basic design for $CO_2$ transport and storage process including onshore/offshore plant and assessment of potential environmental risk related to $CO_2$ storage in geological structure in republic of Korea. By using the results of the present researches, we can contribute to understanding not only how commercial scale (about 1 $MtCO_2$) deployment of $CO_2$ storage in the marine geological structure of East Sea, Korea, is realized but also how more reliable and safe CCS is achieved. The present study also suggests that it is possible to reduce environmental cost (about 2 trillion Won per year) with developed technology for $CO_2$ storage in marine geological structure until 2050.