• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
• /
• v.16
• /
• pp.69-85
• /
• 2003

Death has been one of the basic objects in philosophy and religion. Why do people feel afraid about death? Maybe it is because they don't know the situation after death or because they have a wrong idea about it. Someone may think that he/she doesn't care the situation. But this attitude is wrong. We must understand that our attitude about life is shaped by our knowledge of the situation after death. A recurrent theme about death in popular thought is the idea that death is mysterious. As we have seen, it is difficult to formulate a satisfactory philosophical analysis of the concept of death. If it is impossible to analyse the concept of death, then it is impossible to explain precisely what we mean when we say that something dies. It might be said therefore that, in virtue of this fact, death is mysterious. Of course, death is not distinctively mysterious - all other unanalysable concepts are equally mysterious in this way. Reflection on death gives rise to a variety of philosophical questions. One of the deepest of these is a question about the nature of death. Typically, philosophers interpret this question as a call for an analysis or definition of the concept of death. Plato, for example, proposed to define death as the separation of soul from body. However, this definition is not acceptable to those who think that there are no souls. It is also unacceptable to anyone who thinks that plants and lower animals have no souls, but can nonetheless die. Others have defined death simply as the cessation of life. This too is problematic, since an organism that goes into suspended animation ceases to live, but may not actually die. The eastern philosophers proposed to define death as the nonduality of life and death. Taoists, for example, do not believe in the Wheel of Life of the Buddhists nor in the Heaven or Hell of Christianity. Taoists view existence as glorious. The whole Universe, they teach, is a marvelous, vibrant Unity wherein everything, visible and invisible, pulses with energy and changes. As being develops through the experience of existence, its vessels are swept onwards by the mighty stream of the eternal TAO to other forms of expression and activity. Man does not die; he merely extends into new fields. Taoists teach that the end of a person is the return to the Ultimate Reality. "Life is uncertain - Death is certain": This is a well known saying in Buddhism. Knowing very well that death is certain and it is a natural phenomenon that everyone has to face, we should not be afraid of death. Yet, instinctively, all of us fear death because we do not know how to think of its inevitability. We like to cling to our life and body and so develop too much craving and attachment.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• v.56 no.4
• /
• pp.375-383
• /
• 2023

To determine the cause of the population decline in Gobiobotia naktongensis, substrate preference and burying behaviour were investigated in this study. In general, the species was shown to prefer a substrate size of 1 mm or less, depending on the flow. In addition, the burying depth varied according to the size of the fish and increased with a decrease in water temperature. Our findings showed that the main cause of the population reduction was the physical changes in the substrate structure due to the dams or barrages construction. Notably, the accumulation of silt and mud in the substrate upon the formation of an upstream lentic water region for structural construction and bed armouring caused by scouring and reduced downstream inflow of fine sediment were deterministic in the fish habitat changes, causing problems in burying. As sand substrate structure is critical for the survival and inhabitation of psammophilous species, efficient strategies should be developed with proper habitat management to reduce the anthropogenic damage

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
• /
• v.10 no.4
• /
• pp.116-124
• /
• 2023

As the flood damage on small streams increase due to the increase in frequency of extreme climate events, the need to measure hydraulic data of them has increased for disaster risk management. National Disaster Management Institute, Ministry of Interior and Safety develops CADMT, a CCTV-based automatic discharge measurement technology, and operates pilot small streams to verify its performance and develop disaster risk management technology. The research selects two small streams such as the Neungmac and the Jungsunpil streams to develop the Nomograph by using the 4-Parameter Logistic method using only the observed rainfall data from the Automatic Weather System operated by the Korea Meteorological Agency closest to the small streams and discharge data collected by using the CADMT. To evaluate developed Nomograph, the research forecasts floods discharges in each small stream and compares the result with the observed discharges. As a result of the evaluations, the forecasted value is found to represent the observed value well, so if more accurate observed data are collected and the Nomograph based on it is developed in the future, the high-accuracy flood prediction and warning will be possible.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
• /
• v.10 no.4
• /
• pp.135-142
• /
• 2023

A various technology of remote sensing and image analysis are applied to study landscape changes and their influencing factors in stream corridors. We developed a method to detect landscape changes over time by calculating the optical index using multispectral images taken from satellites at various time points, calculating the threshold to delineate the boundaries of water bodies, and creating binarized maps into land and water areas. This method was applied to the upstream reach of the weirs in the Geumgang River to track changes in the sandbar formed by the opening of the weir gate. First, we collected multispectral images with a resolution of 10 m × 10 m taken from the Sentinel-2 satellite at various times before and after the opening of the dam in the Geumgang River. The normalized difference water index (NDWI) was calculated using the green light and near-infrared bands from the collected images. The Otsu's threshold of NDWI calculated to delineate the boundary of the water body ranged from -0.0573 to 0.1367. The boundary of the water area determined by remote sensing matched the boundary in the actual image. A map binarized into water and land areas was created using NDWI and the Otsu's threshold. According to these results of the developed method, it was estimated that a total of 379.7 ha of new sandbar was formed by opening the three weir floodgates from 2017 to 2021 in the longitudinal range from Baekje Weir to Daecheong Dam on the Geumgang River. The landscape detection method developed in this study is evaluated as a useful method that can obtain objective results with few resources over a wide spatial and temporal range.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
• /
• v.28 no.6
• /
• pp.71-89
• /
• 2023

A groundwater potential map (GPM) was built for the Nakdonggang River Basin based on ten variables, including hydrogeologic unit, fault-line density, depth to groundwater, distance to surface water, lineament density, slope, stream drainage density, soil drainage, land cover, and annual rainfall. To integrate the thematic layers for GPM, the criteria were first weighted using the Analytic Hierarchical Process (AHP) and then overlaid using the Technique for Ordering Preferences by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) model. Finally, the groundwater potential was categorized into five classes (very high (VH), high (H), moderate (M), low (L), very low (VL)) and verified by examining the specific capacity of individual wells on each class. The wells in the area categorized as VH showed the highest median specific capacity (5.2 m³/day/m), while the wells with specific capacity < 1.39 m³/day/m were distributed in the areas categorized as L or VL. The accuracy of GPM generated in the work looked acceptable, although the specific capacity data were not enough to verify GPM in the studied large watershed. To create GPMs for the determination of high-yield well locations, the resolution and reliability of thematic maps should be improved. Criterion values for groundwater potential should be established when machine learning or statistical models are used in the GPM evaluation process.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.587-598
• /
• 2023

To assess the distribution and temporal changes in radon concentration within a region in Yeonpung-myeon, Goesan-gun, known for elevated groundwater radon levels, we conducted a series of analyses, measuring radon concentration and DTW (Depth to water table) at 2-month intervals over 12 cycles. The investigation covered 10 groundwater wells and one stream within the designated area. The groundwater in the central part of the region exhibited high radon concentrations, ranging from 37.0 to 2,675.2 Bq/L. Conversely, the peripheral zones displayed comparatively lower radon concentrations, ranging from 10.6 to 37.9 Bq/L. This variation is attributed to the presence of granite porphyry that intruded into the Okcheon Formation, forming a fracture zone and contributing to elevated radon levels in the central part. In contrast, the peripheral locations, located within the Okcheon Formation and away from the granite porphyry intrusion, demonstrated lower radon concentrations. The observed significant fluctuation in radon concentration in the central area is associated with its low-lying topography. The pronounced seasonal changes in groundwater levels contribute to the migration of shallow, low-radon groundwater into areas with higher radon concentrations, explaining the observed variations in radon levels within the central part of the studied area.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• v.56 no.3
• /
• pp.196-206
• /
• 2023

Benthic attached diatoms (BADs), a major primary producer in lotic stream and river ecosystems are micro-sized organisms and require a highly magnified microscopic technique in the observation work. Thus, it is often not easy to ensure accuracy and precision in both qualitative and quantitative analyses. This study proposed a new technique applicable to improve quality control of aquatic ecosystem monitoring and assessment using BADs. In order to meet the purpose of quality control, we developed a permanent mounting slide technique which can be used for both qualitative and quantitative analyses simultaneously. We designed specimens with the combination of grid on both cover and slide glasses and compared their efficiency. As a result of observation and counting of BADs, the slide glass designed with the color-lined grid showed the highest efficiency compared to other test conditions. We expect that the method developed in this study could be effectively used to analyze BADs and contributed to improve the quality control in aquatic ecosystem health monitoring and assessment.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
• /
• v.33 no.5
• /
• pp.388-398
• /
• 2023

The changes in groundwater flow due to mining development act as a contributing factor to major issues such as ground subsidence, strength reduction and collapse. For the sustainable mining development, measures for dealing with fluctuations in seasonal underground water inflow, power losses, pump damage, and unexpected increases in inflow must be put in place. In this study, the aim is to identify the causes of underground seepage through the examination of hydrological connectivity between the study area and nearby limestone mine. A tracer tes for assessing subsurface connectivity has been planned. A variety of tracers, such as dyes and ions, were applied in lab test to select the optimal tracer material, and a hydrological model of the study area was implemented through field test. Finally, the hydrological connectivity between the external stream and underground water in the mine was analyzed.

• Information Systems Review
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.183-198
• /
• 2021

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the home-training app market is growing rapidly and numerous apps are entering the market. It is becoming more difficult for an app to secure the profitability. In this study, by analyzing actual user data of a reward-based home-training app, we propose a model that predicts cash-cow users of the app. Cash-cow users are the users who watch in-stream ads to watch training videos although they cannot earn any rewards by doing so. Thus, these users make profits for the app yet do not incur any costs. The results of this study show that the users who irregularly watch training videos are more likely to be cash-cow users than the users who regularly watch training videos. This result suggests that, paradoxically, for sustainable profitability, home-training apps may need to find a way to retain the users who watch training videos irregularly so that they can be satisfied with the service and continue use the apps.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.82-91
• /
• 2006

We investigated the possibility of using effluents from a municipal sewage treatment plant (STP) as tracers a tracer for hydrologic studies of rivers. The possibility was checked in a 12-km long reach downstream of Jeonju Municipal Sewage Treatment Plant (JSTP). Time-series monitoring of the water chemistry reveals that chemical compositions of the effluent from the JSTP are fluctuating within a relatively wide range during the sampling period. In addition, the signals from the plant were observed at the downstream stations consecutively with increasing time lags, especially in concentrations of the conservative chemical parameters (concentrations f3r chloride and sulfate, total concentration of major cations, and electric conductivity). Based on this observation, we could estimate the stream flow (Q), velocity (v), and dispersion coefficient (D). A 1-D nonreactive solute-transport model with automated optimization schemes was used for this study. The values of Q, v, and D estimated from this study varied from 6.4 to $9.0m^3/sec$ (at the downstream end of the reach), from 0.06 to 0.10 m/sec, and from 0.7 to $6.4m^2/sec$, respectively. The results show that the effluent from a large-scaled municipal STP frequently provides good, multiple natural tracers far hydrologic studies.