• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.409-441
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• 2018

This study is a case study about the Valero Energy Corporation, the largest American independent refinery company, examining the characteristics of human resource management as a union avoidance strategy. The main research questions here are whether union substitution strategy differs clearly from union suppression strategy in the context of Valero Energy. Since the establishment in 1980, the Valero had maintained non-union tradition. The typical examples of human resource management in the non-unionized American companies are easily found in the Valero, such as strong CEO leadership, manpower policy emphasizing corporate culture and teamwork, direct communication between company and individual employees, no lay-off policy and no outsourcing policy of HRM, salary level around average of industry and best level of fringe benefits in the industry, non-union tradition and well-functioned alternative dispute resolution system and so on. Until now, based on tremendous growth and profitability, the company have applied union substitution method adopted by good companies as concrete method of union avoidance strategy instead of union suppression method that marginal enterprise prefers.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.455-460
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• 2019

Hydrotreating catalysis refers to a various hydrogenation which saturate an unsaturated hydrocarbon, together with removing heteroatoms such as sulfur, nitrogen, oxygen, and trace metals from different petroleum streams in a refinery. Most refineries include at least three hydrotreating units for upgrading naphtha, middle distillates, gas oils, intermediate process streams, and/or residue. Among them, hydrotreating catalysis for residue are the core of the process, because of its complexity. This article reviews recent progress in tackling the issues found in the upgrading residues by hydrotreating, focusing on the chemistry of hydrodemetallization (HDM) and hydrodesulfurization (HDS). We also discuss the composition and functions of hydrotreating catalysts, and we highlight areas for further improvement.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.107-113
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• 2019

Recently, due to global warming, the trend shows an increase in number of lightning strikes which increase risk regarding industry infrastructures. Especially in case where the lightning strikes infrastructures including refinery, petorchemical plant facilities or storage tanks, it can cause power failures, electrical machine malfunction and damage which can lead to fire explosion and multiple calamities. Therefore, detailed case studies must be conducted through a systematic research regarding lightning strike accidents in order to understand its mechanism and devise preventive measures. This paper aims to study cases of explosion regarding waste water storage tanks in refineries and petrochemical plants in order to analyze its root cause and provide preventive measures for avoiding lightning related incidents.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.31-35
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• 2019

Andong-dam was built up in 1967 and it is one of the biggest dams in Korea. Previous studies showed that the sediments are highly contaminated with heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, and lead. Many research projects are going on to find out the source of the contamination, to evaluate the toxicities to ecosystem, to estimate the volume of sediment to be treated and to find out a good remediation method. Reports show that the sediment is highly contaminated and the main contamination source is supposed to be abandoned mines and a zinc refinery located upper stream of the river. A magnetic separation has been tested as a treatment method for the dredged sediment. Lab scale test showed that the magnetically captured portion is about 10% in weight but the contamination of heavy metal is much higher than the contamination of the passed portion. This indicates that a magnetic separation could be applied for the purpose of reduction of sediment to be treated and for increasing the volume of low toxic sediments which can be dumped as general waste. A magnetic separation using a HGMS has been tested for the sediment with variable magnetic field and the results showed the higher magnetic field increase the captured portion but the concentrating effect of heavy metal was weakened. Further study is needed to establish a useful technology and optimization between decontamination and reduction of sediment volume.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.135-145
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• 2019

Zymomonas mobilis has been recognized as a potential industrial ethanologen for many decades due to its outstanding fermentation characteristics, including high ethanol tolerance, fast sugar uptake rate, and high theoretical ethanol yield. With the emergence of the postgenomic era and the recent announcement of DuPont's world largest cellulosic ethanol production process, research on this bacterium has become even more important to harness successful application not only for use in the bioethanol process but also in other biochemical processes, which can be included in bio-refinery. As an important industrial microorganism, Z. mobilis will likely be exposed to various stressful environments, such as toxic chemicals, including the end-product ethanol and fermentative inhibitory compounds (e.g., furan derivatives, organic acids, and lignin derivatives in pretreatment steps), as well as physical stresses, such as high temperature during large-scale ethanol fermentation. This review focuses on recent information related to the industrial robustness of this bacterium and strain development to improve the ethanol yield and productivity in the lignocellulosic ethanol process. Although several excellent review articles on the strain development of this bacterium have been published, this review aims to fill gaps in the literature by highlighting recent advances in physiological understanding of this bacterium that may aid strain developments and improve the ethanol productivity for lignocellulosic biomass.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.155-160
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• 2011

An animal fat is an attractive biodiesel energy source for its high stability against oxidation and low incomplete combustion ratio due to the high heating value and cetane value. However, it requires a refinery process because of the high content of saturated acid and impurity which increas the boiling point. In this study, the optimum biodiesel synthetic process of lard is suggested. Indeed, we demonstrate new biodiesel production processes to alter conventional process of heating and mixing by applying ultrasonic energy. While the optimum reaction temperature and mole ratio of methanol and lard, when using conventional mixing and heating process, were $55^{\circ}C$ and 12, respectively, the reaction time were reduced to 30 minutes by applying ultrasonic irradiation power of 500 W. The new process applying ultrasonic irradiation yielded synthetic biodiesel properties as followings: 3.34 cP of the viscosity, 37.0 MJ/kg of the caloric value and below 0.25 mgKOH/g of the acidic value, which satisfy biodiesel quality criteria.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.358-367
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• 2023

Background: This study aimed to develop and assess the psychometric features of the Physical Activity at Workplace Questionnaire (PAWPQ) based on the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) to evaluate employees' physical activity (PA) behaviors at the workplace. Methods: This psychometric cross-sectional study was conducted on 455 employees working in one of the gas refineries in Iran. The participants were selected using the proportional stratified sampling method in 2019. The data collection tools were a demographic information questionnaire, the short form of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), and a questionnaire developed based on the SCT, whose psychometric features were confirmed in terms of validity and reliability. Data were analyzed using SPSS₂₂ and AMOS₂₀ software. Results: The first version of PAWPQ-SCT had 74 items. After evaluating content and face validity, nine items were removed. The results of the content validity index (0.98), content validity ratio (0.86), and impact score (3.62) were acceptable for the whole instrument. In exploratory factor analysis, after removing seven items-58-item final version of the scale-six factors could explain 73.54% of the total variance. The results of structural equation modeling showed the acceptable fit of the model into the data (RMSEA = 0.052, CFI = 0.917, NFI = 0.878, TLI = 0.905, IFI = 0.917, CMIN/DF = 2.818). Cronbach's alpha coefficient and Intraclass Correlation were 0.90 and 0.86, respectively. Conclusion: This study confirmed that the psychometric features of the 58-item final version of PAWPQSCT constructs were acceptable in a sample of Iranian employees. This questionnaire can be used as a valid and reliable tool to evaluate Iranian employees' PA behaviors and develop effective educational interventions for workers and managers.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.62-67
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• 2008

Oil shale is a sedimentary rock that contains organic compounds called kerogen that are released as petroleum-like liquids by retorting. In order to evalute oil shale as alternative oil resources, the physical properties of oil shale samples from US and Russia were investigated and Fischer assays were carried out. Thermogravimetric analysis shows that thermal degradation of oil shale consisted of two stage processes, with hydrocarbon release from kerogen followed by $CO_2$ release by carbonate decomposition. Organic compounds in oil shale have an high hydrogen/carbon ratio, and therefore liquid hydrocarbons could be obtained easily. Shale oil yields from Russian and US oil shales by Fischer assay were 12.7% and 18.5%, respectively. The density and boiling point of shale oils are higher than that of Middle East crude oil, indicating that further upgrading processes are necessary for refinery. On the other hands, sulfur contents are relatively low, and the amounts of Vanadium and Nickel are extremely small in shale oil. It was found that paraffins were rich in US shale oil while main components of Russian shale oil were oxygenated hydrocarbons.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.195-199
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• 2010

The reversible chemical absorption using MEA (monoethanolamine), one of alkanolamine, is generally used as a conventionally method for $CO_{2}$ capture. Even MEA absorbent has excellent reactivity with $CO_{2}$, it has been known to have the decrease of absorption capacity caused by $CO_{2}$, $O_{2}$ or other acid gases in flue gas, corrosion and thermal degradation. In this study, MEA solutions degraded in the steam reforming process of refinery used and the absorption performance were compared for the used of conventional MEA solution. In case of 30 wt% MEA and mixture of 20 wt% thermal degraded absorbent (DP) and 10 wt% PZ, the absorption capacities were $0.5365mol-CO_{2}$/mol-absorbent and $0.5939mol-CO_{2}$/mol-absorbent respectively. PZ added thermally degraded absorbent showed the enhanced absorption capacity. On the contrary, the absorption rates were $1.1610kg_{f}/cm^2{\cdot}min$ for 30 wt% MEA, $0.5310kg_{f}/cm^2{\cdot}min$ for mixture of 20 wt% thermal degraded absorbent (DP) and 10 wt% PZ and $0.3525kg_{f}/cm^2{\cdot}min$ for 30 wt% thermally degraded absorbent only. The absorption rates of PZ added thermally degraded absorbent was higher than that of thermally degraded absorbent only. Therefore, it can be confirmed that thermally degraded absorbent can be reused as an absorbent for $CO_{2}$ by the addition of suitable additives.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.107-117
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• 2008

In this study, surveys and interviews are used to evaluate technological competitiveness of each product with respect to that of foreign leading firms, for seven leading domestic construction products which have been determined to have competitive edge in offshore markets, Such evaluation provides a more in depth study than previously conducted research, and is meaningful in that corporate level, rather than industry level, perspective is projected. Major findings of such evaluations are the following. First, as expected, it has been evaluated that domestic technological competitiveness in desalination plant and power plant has reached the point where it can compete with foreign leading firms. Moreover, a noteworthy result of the evaluation is that development program sector, including urban development of satellite cities, has reached considerable level of competitiveness in offshore market. In the case of the development market, domestic firms have accumulated sufficient experience in domestic market and engineering technology is not a decisive factor as in plant sector, and these factors lead to such an evaluation. Second, in the cases of gas, oil refinery and petro-chemical plants, domestic products' technological competitiveness that can contest in offshore market is still centered around production and construction. On the other hand, there are still weaknesses in license technology and basic design capabilities, which constitute the "value added" area. Third, skyscrapers, a promising product in offshore construction market and a product group which domestic firms have much performance record and projects in progress both in domestic and offshore markets, are considered. While direct comparison between skyscrapers and plant sector is not feasible, with the exception of production and construction, overall domestic capability in this sector has been assessed to be the lowest amongst those products that were surveyed. Fourth, it has been indicated that competitiveness is relatively higher in common technology than in key technology. In project management capability, it has been assessed that there are weaknesses in procedure document area. Also, a characteristic is the point that low overall assessments have been given across all product groups for corporate and management areas, not technological areas. Especially, financing, contracting/claim, risk management and investment on research and development received low evaluations. Fifth, it has been assessed that overall corporate and governmental supports are weak. This result is especially evident for corporate management and support areas across all product groups surveyed.