• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.491-501
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• 2018

Objectives: The aims of this study were to compare concentrations and the correspondence of human blood cadmium by using graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GF-AAS) and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), which are representative methods of heavy metal analysis. Methods: We randomly selected 79 people who agreed to participate in the research project. After confirming the linearity of the calibration curves for GF-AAS and ICP-MS, the concentrations of cadmium in a quality control standard material and blood samples were measured, and the correlation and the degree of agreement were compared. Results: The detection limit of ICP-MS (IDL: $0.000{\mu}g/L$, MDL: $0.06{\mu}g/L$) was lower than that of GF-AAS (IDL: $0.085{\mu}g/L$, MDL: $0.327{\mu}g/L$). The coefficient of variation of the quality control standard material showed stable values for both ICP-MS (clinchek-1: 5.35%, clinchek-2: 6.22%) and GF-AAS (clinchek-1: 7.92%, clinchek-2: 5.22%). Recovery was relatively high for both ICP-MS (clinchek-1: 95.1%, clinchek-2: 92.8%) and GF-AAS (clinchek-1: 91.4%, clinchek-2: 98.8%), with more than 90%. The geometric mean, median, and percentile of blood samples were all similar. The agreement of the two instruments compared with the bias of the analytical values found that about 81% of the analytical values were within ${\pm}30%$ of the deviation from the ideal reference line (y=0). As a result of the agreement limit, the value included in the confidence interval was about 94%, which shows high agreement. Conclusion: In this study, we confirmed there was no significant difference in concentrations of a quality control standard material and blood samples. Since ICP-MS showed lower concentrations than GF-AAS at concentrations below the method detection limit of GF-AAS, it is expected that more precise results will be obtained by analyzing blood cadmium with ICP-MS.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.177-196
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• 2005

In the Korean curriculum, students learn the concept of sample, sampling and other concepts related to sample and sampling, when they have reached the 10th grade of high school. But before the 10th grade, they have an activity about data collection, data analysis and the formulation of conclusion. We then investigated and analyzed the informal knowledge of students before they receive formal instructions. The results enabled the identification of the maximum response rate for each question that each student agreed or disagreed with. In particular, it didn't agree with how students consider the characteristic of population in the process of sampling, and the students agreed on a sampling process without considering the characteristic of the population or the components that consist the population. It showed that 5th grade students didn't investigate the data connected with sampling, and didn't understand the validity of sample survey process. While, 6th grade students equally understood sample size, sampling process, the reliance of data acquired through sample survey that applied to the source of judgment. But in details, it revealed that student had a misconception, or stayed at a subjective judgment level. The significant point is that many high school students didn't adequately understood a sample size with sampling. Though statistics instruction has traditionally been delayed until upper secondary education, this inquiry convinced us that this delay is unnecessary.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.32 no.4 s.91
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• pp.304-315
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• 2006

This study is performed to reexamine the association between ambient air pollution and daily mortality in seven major cities of Korea using a method of meta-analysis with the data filed for the period 1998-2001. These cities account for half of the Korean population (about 23 million). The observed concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO, mean=1.08 ppm), ozone ($O_3$, mean=33.97 ppb), particulate matter less than 10 ${\mu}m$ ($PM_{10},\;mean=57.11\;{\mu}g/m^3$), nitrogen dioxide ($NO_2$, mean=25.09 ppb), and sulfur dioxide ($SO_2$, mean=9.14 ppb) during the study period were at levels below Korea's current ambient air quality standards. Generalized additive models were applied to allow for the highly flexible fitting of seasonal and long-term time trends in air pollution as well as nonlinear associations with weather variables, such as air temperature and relative humidity. Also, we calculated a weighted mean as a meta-analysis summary of the estimates and its standard error. In city-specific analyses, an increase of $41.17{\mu}g/m^3(IQR)\;of\;PM_{10}$ corresponded to $1{\sim}12%$ more deaths, given constant weather conditions. Like most of air pollution epidemiologic studies, this meta-analysis cannot avoid fleeing from measurement misclassification since no personal measurement was taken. However, we can expect that a measurement bias be reduced in district-specific estimate since a monitoring station is better representative of air quality of the matched district. Significant heterogeneity was found for the effect of all pollutants. The estimated relative risks from meta-like analysis increased compared to those relative risks from pooled analysis. The similar results to those from the previous studies indicated existence of health effect of air pollution at current levels in many industrialized countries, including Korea.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.117-123
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• 2010

Plutonium is by far the most important of the transuranic elements which have been released into the environment due to radio-toxicity and long term radiation effects on humans. And Pu isotope ratio ($^{240}Pu/^{239}Pu$) is of great interest because this ratio is used as a fingerprint for different sources. Mass spectrometry has been used as an useful atom counting technique with several advantages over decay counting techniques for the determination of Pu isotopes. It enables a determination of Pu isotope ratio in the environmental samples with a low detection limit and a short determination time. An ICP-MS is the representative mass spectrometry for Pu determination. In this study, the precision of $^{240}Pu/^{239}Pu$ isotope ratio was improved by using 4 multiple ion counters of MC-ICP-MS. The detection limit of $^{239}Pu$ and $^{240}Pu$ were $0.10\;fg\;ml^{-1}$ ($0.24\;{\mu}Bq\;ml^{-1}$), $0.12\;fg\;ml^{-1}$ ($0.97\;{\mu}Bq\;ml^{-1}$), respectively. The relative standard deviation of $^{240}Pu/^{239}Pu$ isotope ratio was less than 1 % in trace level. The various reference materials (seawater, soil and sediment) were analyzed to verify this method and their analytical results were in good agreement with the certified (or recommended value) value.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.1-7
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• 2020

Deep neural networks(DNN), which are used as approximation functions in reinforcement learning (RN), theoretically can be attributed to realistic results. In empirical benchmark works, time difference learning (TD) shows better results than Monte-Carlo learning (MC). However, among some previous works show that MC is better than TD when the reward is very rare or delayed. Also, another recent research shows when the information observed by the agent from the environment is partial on complex control works, it indicates that the MC prediction is superior to the TD-based methods. Most of these environments can be regarded as 5-step Q-learning or 20-step Q-learning, where the experiment continues without long roll-outs for alleviating reduce performance degradation. In other words, for networks with a noise, a representative network that is regardless of the controlled roll-outs, it is better to learn MC, which is robust to noisy rewards than TD, or almost identical to MC. These studies provide a break with that TD is better than MC. These recent research results show that the way combining MC and TD is better than the theoretical one. Therefore, in this study, based on the results shown in previous studies, we attempt to exploit a random balance with a mixture of TD and MC in RL without any complicated formulas by rewards used in those studies do. Compared to the DQN using the MC and TD random mixture and the well-known DQN using only the TD-based learning, we demonstrate that a well-performed TD learning are also granted special favor of the mixture of TD and MC through an experiments in OpenAI Gym.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.47-57
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• 2015

Along with climate change, the occurrence and severity of natural disasters have been increased globally. In particular, the increase of localized heavy rainfalls have caused severe flood damage. Thus, it is needed to consider climate change into the estimation of design flood, a principal design factor. The main objective of this study was to estimate design floods for an agricultural reservoir watershed based on the RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways) scenarios. Gyeryong Reservoir located in the Geum River watershed was selected as the study area. Precipitation data of the past 30 years (1981~2010; 1995s) were collected from the Daejeon meteorological station. Future precipitation data based on RCP2.6, 4.5, 6.0, 8.5 scenarios were also obtained and corrected their bias using the quantile mapping method. Probability rainfalls of 200-year frequency and PMPs were calculated for three different future spans, i.e. 2011~2040; 2025s, 2041~2070; 2055s, 2071~2100; 2085s. Design floods for different probability rainfalls were calculated using HEC-HMS. As the result, future probability rainfalls increased by 9.5 %, 7.8 % and 22.0 %, also design floods increased by 20.7 %, 5.0 % and 26.9 %, respectively, as compared to the past 1995s and tend to increase over those of 1995s. RCP4.5 scenario, especially, resulted in the greatest increase in design floods, 37.3 %, 36.5 % and 47.1 %, respectively, as compared to the past 1995s. The study findings are expected to be used as a basis to reduce damage caused by climate change and to establish adaptation policies in the future.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.569-583
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• 2013

This study is to evaluate the future climate change impact on hydrological components in the Seolmacheon ($8.54km^2$) mixed forest catchment located in the northwest of South Korea using SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model. To reduce the uncertainty, the model was spatially calibrated (2007~2008) and validated (2009~2010) using daily observed streamflow, evapotranspiration, and soil moisture data. Hydrological predicted values matched well with the observed values by showing coefficient of determination ($R^2$) from 0.74 to 0.91 for streamflow, from 0.56 to 0.71 for evapotranspiration, and from 0.45 to 0.71 for soil moisture. The HadGEM3-RA future weather data of Representative Concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) AR5 (Assessment Report 5) were adopted for future assessment after bias correction of ground measured data. The future changes in annual temperature and precipitation showed an upward tendency from $0.9^{\circ}C$ to $4.2^{\circ}C$ and from 7.9% to 20.4% respectively. The future streamflow showed an increase from 0.6% to 15.7%, but runoff ratio showed a decrease from 3.8% to 5.4%. The future predicted evapotranspiration about precipitation increased from 4.1% to 6.8%, and the future soil moisture decreased from 4.3% to 5.5%.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.156-169
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• 2015

This study was to evaluate the RCP climate change impact on hydrological components in the Imha-Dam watershed using SWAT(Soil and Water Assessment Tool) Model. The model was calibrated for six year(2002~2007) and validated for six year(2008~2013) using daily observed streamflow data at three watershed stations. The overall simulation results for the total released volume at this point appear reasonable by showing that coefficient of determination($R^2$) were 0.70~0.85 and Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency(NSE) were 0.67-0.82 for streamflow, respectively. For future hydrologic evaluation, the HadGEM3-RA climate data by scenarios of Representative Concentration Pathway(RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 of the Korea Meteorological Administration were adopted. The biased future data were corrected using 34 years(1980~2013, baseline period) of weather data. Precipitation and temperature showed increase of 10.8% and 4.9%, respectively based on the baseline data. The impacts of future climate change on the evapotranspiration, soil moisture, surface runoff, lateral flow, return flow and streamflow showed changes of +11.2%, +1.9%, +10.0%, +12.1%, +18.2%, and +11.2%, respectively.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.185-185
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• 2019

Sustaining future wheat production is challenged by anthropogenically forced climate warming and drying led by increased concentration of greenhouse gases all around the globe. Warming stresses, originating from the elevated $CO_2$ concentration, are continuously reported to have negative impacts on wheat growth and yield. Yet, elevated $CO_2$ concentration, despite being disparagingly blamed for promoting warming, is also associated with a phenomenon called $CO_2$ enrichment; in which wheat yield can improve due to the enhanced photosynthesis rates and less water loss through transpiration. The conflicting nature of climate warming and $CO_2$ enrichment and their interplay can have specific implications under different environments. It is established form the field and simulation studies that the two contrasting phenomena would act severely in their own respect under arid and semi-arid environments. Wheat is a dietary staple for masses in Pakistan. The country's wheat production system is under constant stress to produce more from irrigated agricultural lands, primarily lying under arid to semi-arid environments, to meet the rapidly growing domestic needs. This work comprehensively examines the warming impacts over wheat yield and water productivity (WP), with and without the inclusion of $CO_2$ enrichment, under semi-arid environment of Punjab which is the largest agricultural province of Pakistan. Future wheat yields and WPs were simulated by FAO developed AquaCrop model v 5.0. The model was run using the bias-correction climate change projections up to 2080 under two representative concentration pathways (RCP) scenarios: 4.5 and 8.5. Wheat yield and WPs decreased without considering the $CO_2$ enrichment effects owing to the elevated irrigation demands and accelerated evapotranspiration rates. The results suggested that $CO_2$ enrichment could help maintain the current yield and WPs levels during the 2030s (2021-2050); however, it might not withhold the negative climate warming impacts during the 2060s (2051-2080). Furthermore, 10 - 20 day backward shift in sowing dates could also help ease the constraints imposed by climate warming over wheat yields and WPs. Although, $CO_2$ enrichment showed promises to counteract the adverse climate warming impacts but the interactions between climate warming and $CO_2$ concentrations were quite uncertain and required further examination.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.196-206
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• 2024

Background: Most of the biomass equations were developed using sample trees collected mainly from pan-tropical and tropical regions that may over- or underestimate biomass. Site-specific models would improve the accuracy of the biomass estimates and enhance the country's measurement, reporting, and verification activities. The aim of the study is to develop site-specific biomass estimation models and validate and evaluate the existing generic models developed for pan-tropical forest and newly developed allometric models. Total of 140 trees was harvested from each diameter class biomass model development. Data was analyzed using SAS procedures. All relevant statistical tests (normality, multicollinearity, and heteroscedasticity) were performed. Data was transformed to logarithmic functions and multiple linear regression techniques were used to develop model to estimate aboveground biomass (AGB). The root mean square error (RMSE) was used for measuring model bias, precision, and accuracy. The coefficient of determination (R² and adjusted [adj]-R²), the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and the Schwarz Bayesian information Criterion was employed to select most appropriate models. Results: For the general total AGB models, adj-R² ranged from 0.71 to 0.85, and model 9 with diameter at stump height at 10 cm (DSH₁₀), ρ and crown width (CW) as predictor variables, performed best according to RMSE and AIC. For the merchantable stem models, adj-R² varied from 0.73 to 0.82, and model 8) with combination of ρ, diameter at breast height and height (H), CW and DSH₁₀ as predictor variables, was best in terms of RMSE and AIC. The results showed that a best-fit model for above-ground biomass of tree components was developed. AGB_Stem = exp {-1.8296 + 0.4814 natural logarithm (Ln) (ρD²H) + 0.1751 Ln (CW) + 0.4059 Ln (DSH₃₀)} AGB_Branch = exp {-131.6 + 15.0013 Ln (ρD²H) + 13.176 Ln (CW) + 21.8506 Ln (DSH₃₀)} AGB_Foliage = exp {-0.9496 + 0.5282 Ln (DSH₃₀) + 2.3492 Ln (ρ) + 0.4286 Ln (CW)} AGB_Total = exp {-1.8245 + 1.4358 Ln (DSH₃₀) + 1.9921 Ln (ρ) + 0.6154 Ln (CW)} Conclusions: The results demonstrated that the development of local models derived from an appropriate sample of representative species can greatly improve the estimation of total AGB.