• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.345-353
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• 2022

A wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) is a major gateway for the engineered nano-particles (ENPs) entering the water bodies. However existing studies have reported that many WWTPs exceed the No Observed Effective Concentration (NOEC) for ENPs in the effluent and thus they need to be designed or operated to more effectively control ENPs. Understanding and predicting ENPs behaviors in the unit and \the whole process of a WWTP should be the key first step to develop strategies for controlling ENPs using a WWTP. This study aims to provide a modeling tool for predicting behaviors and removal efficiencies of ENPs in a WWTP associated with process characteristics and major operating conditions. In the developed model, four unit processes for water treatment (primary clarifier, bioreactor, secondary clarifier, and tertiary treatment unit) were considered. Additionally the model simulates the sludge treatment system as a single process that integrates multiple unit processes including thickeners, digesters, and dewatering units. The simulated ENP was nano-sized TiO₂, (nano-TiO₂) assuming that its behavior in a WWTP is dominated by the attachment with suspendid solids (SS), while dissolution and transformation are insignificant. The attachment mechanism of nano-TiO₂ to SS was incorporated into the model equations using the apparent solid-liquid partition coefficient (Kd) under the equilibrium assumption between solid and liquid phase, and a steady state condition of nano-TiO₂ was assumed. Furthermore, an MS Excel-based user interface was developed to provide user-friendly environment for the nano-TiO₂ removal efficiency calculations. Using the developed model, a preliminary simulation was conducted to examine how the solid retention time (SRT), a major operating variable affects the removal efficiency of nano-TiO₂ particles in a WWTP.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.47-57
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• 2016

PURPOSES : This study aims to examine the differences between the existing traffic demand forecasting method and the traffic demand forecasting method considering future regional development plans and new road construction and expansion plans using a four-step traffic demand forecast for a more objective and sophisticated national highway maintenance. This study ultimately aims to present future pavement deterioration and budget forecasting planning based on the examination. METHODS : This study used the latest data offered by the Korea Transport Data Base (KTDB) as the basic data for demand forecast. The analysis scope was set using the Daejeon Metropolitan City's O/D and network data. This study used a traffic demand program called TransCad, and performed a traffic assignment by vehicle type through the application of a user equilibrium-based multi-class assignment technique. This study forecasted future traffic demand by verifying whether or not a realistic traffic pattern was expressed similarly by undertaking a calibration process. This study performed a life cycle cost analysis based on traffic using the forecasted future demand or existing past pattern, or by assuming the constant traffic demand. The maintenance criteria were decided according to equivalent single axle loads (ESAL). The maintenance period in the concerned section was calculated in this study. This study also computed the maintenance costs using a construction method by applying the maintenance criteria considering the ESAL. The road user costs were calculated by using the user cost calculation logic applied to the Korean Pavement Management System, which is the existing study outcome. RESULTS : This study ascertained that the increase and decrease of traffic occurred in the concerned section according to the future development plans. Furthermore, there were differences from demand forecasting that did not consider the development plans. Realistic and accurate demand forecasting supported an optimized decision making that efficiently assigns maintenance costs, and can be used as very important basic information for maintenance decision making. CONCLUSIONS : Therefore, decision making for a more efficient and sophisticated road management than the method assuming future traffic can be expected to be the same as the existing pattern or steady traffic demand. The reflection of a reliable forecasting of the future traffic demand to life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) can be a very vital factor because many studies are generally performed without considering the future traffic demand or with an analysis through setting a scenario upon LCCA within a pavement management system.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.163-167
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• 2012

Since D-xylose is not fermentable in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, its conversion to D-xylulose is required for its application in biotechnological industries using S. cerevisiae. In order to convert D-xylose to D-xylulose by way of an enzyme immobilized system, D-xylose isomerase (XI) of Escherichia coli was fused with 10-arginine tag (R10) at its C-terminus for the simple purification and immobilization process using a cation exchanger. The fusion protein XIR10 was overexpressed in recombinant E. coli and purified to a high purity by a single step of cation exchange chromatography. The purified XIR10 was immobilized to a cation exchanger via the electrostatic interaction with the C-terminal 10-arginine tag. Both the free and immobilized XIR10 exhibited similar XI activities at various pH values and temperatures, indicating that the immobilization to the cation exchanger has a small effect on the enzymatic function of XIR10. Under optimized conditions for the immobilized XIR10, D-xylose was isomerized to D-xylulose with a conversion yield of 25%. Therefore, the results of this study clearly demonstrate that the electrostatic immobilization of XIR10 via the interaction between the 10-arginine tag and a cation exchanger is an applicable form of the conversion of D-xylose to D-xylulose.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.21 no.8
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• pp.808-817
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• 2011

Because of its elevated cellulolytic activity, the filamentous fungus Trichoderma harzianum has a considerable potential in biomass hydrolysis applications. Trichoderma harzianum cellobiohydrolase I (ThCBHI), an exoglucanase, is an important enzyme in the process of cellulose degradation. Here, we report an easy single-step ion-exchange chromatographic method for purification of ThCBHI and its initial biophysical and biochemical characterization. The ThCBHI produced by induction with microcrystalline cellulose under submerged fermentation was purified on DEAE-Sephadex A-50 media and its identity was confirmed by mass spectrometry. The ThCBHI biochemical characterization showed that the protein has a molecular mass of 66 kDa and pI of 5.23. As confirmed by smallangle X-ray scattering (SAXS), both full-length ThCBHI and its catalytic core domain (CCD) obtained by digestion with papain are monomeric in solution. Secondary structure analysis of ThCBHI by circular dichroism revealed ${\alpha}$- helices and ${\beta}$-strands contents in the 28% and 38% range, respectively. The intrinsic fluorescence emission maximum of 337 nm was accounted for as different degrees of exposure of ThCBHI tryptophan residues to water. Moreover, ThCBHI displayed maximum activity at pH 5.0 and temperature of $50^{\circ}C$ with specific activities against Avicel and p-nitrophenyl-${\beta}$-D-cellobioside of 1.25 U/mg and 1.53 U/mg, respectively.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.17B no.4
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• pp.295-302
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• 2010

Example-based super resolution(EBSR) is a method to reconstruct high-resolution images by learning patch-wise correspondence between high-resolution and low-resolution images. It can reconstruct a high-resolution from just a single low-resolution image. However, when it is applied to a text image whose font type and size are different from those of training images, it often produces lots of noise. The primary reason is that, in the patch matching step of the reconstruction process, input patches can be inappropriately matched to the high-resolution patches in the patch dictionary. In this paper, we propose a new patch matching method to overcome this problem. Using an image observation model, it preserves the correlation between the input and the output images. Therefore, it effectively suppresses spurious noise caused by inappropriately matched patches. This does not only improve the quality of the output image but also allows the system to use a huge dictionary containing a variety of font types and sizes, which significantly improves the adaptability to variation in font type and size. In experiments, the proposed method outperformed conventional methods in reconstruction of multi-font and multi-size images. Moreover, it improved recognition performance from 88.58% to 93.54%, which confirms the practical effect of the proposed method on recognition performance.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.60-67
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• 2008

A low-power 2.4GHz fractional-N frequency synthesizer has been designed for 2.4GHz ISM band applications such as Bluetooth, Zigbee, and WLAN. To achieve low-power characteristic, the design has been focused on the power optimization of power-hungry blocks such as VCO, prescaler, and ${\Sigma}-{\Delta}$ modulator. An NP-core type VCO is adopted to optimize both phase noise and power consumption. Dynamic D-F/Fs with no static DC current are employed in designing the low-power prescaler circuit. The ${\Sigma}-{\Delta}$ modulator is designed using a modulus mapping circuit for reducing hardware complexity and power consumption. The designed frequency synthesizer which was fabricated using a $0.18{\mu}m$ CMOS process consumes 7.9mA from a single 1.8V supply voltage. The experimental results show that a phase noise of -118dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset, the reference spur of -70dBc at 25MHz offset, and the channel switching time of $15{\mu}s$ over 25MHz transition have been achieved. The designed chip occupies an area of $1.16mm^2$ including pads where the core area is only $0.64mm^2$.

• Proceedings of the Microbiological Society of Korea Conference
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• 1991.04a
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• pp.225-236
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• 1991

The genes encoding the thermostable $\alpha$-amylase and maltogenic amylase from Bacillus lichenciformis were cloned and expressed in E. coli. The recombinant plasmid pTA322 was found to contain a 3.1kb EcoRI genomic DNA fragment of the thermostable $\alpha$-amylase. The cloned $\alpha$-amylase was compared with the B. licheniformis native $\alpha$-amylase. Both $\alpha$-amylase have the same optimal temperature of $70^{\circ}C$ and are stable in the pH range of 6 and 9. The complete nucleotide sequences of the thermostable $\alpha$-amylase gene were determined. It was composed of one open reading rame of 1,536 bp. Start and stop codons are ATG and TAG. From the amino acid sequence deduced from the nucleotide sequence, the cloned thermostable $\alpha$-amylase is composed of 483 amino acid residues and its molecular weight is 55,200 daltons. The content of guanine and cytosine is $47.46mol\%$ and that of third base codon was $53_41mol\%$. The recombinant plasmid, pIJ322 encoding the maltogenic amylase contains a 3.5kb EcoRI-BamHI genomic DNA fragment. The optimal reaction temperature and pH of the maltogenci amylase were $50^{\circ}C$ and 7, respectively. The maltogenic amylase was capable of hydrolysing pullulan, starch and cyclodextrin to produce maltose from starch and panose from pullulan. The maltogenic amylase also showed the transferring activity. The maltogenic amylase gene is composed of one open reading frame of 1,734bp. Start and stop codons are ATG and ATG. At 2bp upstream from start codon, the nucleotide sequence AAAGGGGGAA seems to be the ribosome-binding site(RBS, Shine-Dalgarno sequence). A putative promoter(-35 and-10 regions) was found to be GTTAACA and TGATAAT. From deduced amino acid sequence from the nucleotide srquence, this enzyme was comosed of 578 amino acid residues and its molecular weight was 77,233 daltons. The content of guanine and cytosine was $48.1mol\%$. The new recombinant plasmid, pTMA322 constructed by inserting the thermostable $\alpha$-amylase gene in the EcoRI site of pIJ322 to produce both the thermostable $\alpha$-amylase and the maltogenic amylase were expressed in the E. coli. The two enzymes expressed from E. coli containing pTMA322 was reacted with the $15\%$ starch slurry at $40^{\circ}C$ for 24hours. The distribution of the branched oligosaccharides produced by the single-step process was of the ratio 50 : 50 between small oligosaccharide up DP3 and large oligosaccharide above DP3.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.235-241
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• 2012

Sumoylation is a reversible conjugation process that attaches the small ubiquitin modifier (SUMO) peptide to target proteins and regulates a wide variety of cellular functions in eucaryotes. As final step of the sumoylation, SUMO E3 ligases facilitate conjugation of SUMO to target proteins. To characterize the functions of the SUMO E3 ligases in Oryza sativa, we isolated a single recessive rice SUMO E3 ligase, Ossiz1-2 mutant. In addition, we also confirmed the interaction between OsSIZ1/-2 and OsSUMO1, respectively, by using an Agrobacterium-based tobacco luciferase transient expression system. Ossiz1-2 mutant exhibited approximately 20% reduction in growth and developmental units compared with wild type. Especially, number of filled seeds and total seed weight were dramatically decreased in the Ossiz1-2 mutant rice. Thus, these results suggest that sumoylation by the OsSIZ1 as SUMO E3 ligase plays an important role in regulating growth and development in rice.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.37-47
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• 1999

The spreading fire of very small floating particles after they are ignited is fast and t therefore dangerous. The research on this area has been limited to experiments and global simulations which treat them as dusts or gaseous fuel with certain concentration well m mixed with air. This research attempted micro-scale analysis of ignition of those particles modeling them as liquid droplets. For the beginning, the in-line array of fuel droplets is modeled by two-dimensional, unsteady conservation equations for mass, momentum, energy and species transport in the gas phase and an unsteady energy equation in the liquid phase. They are solved numerically in a generalized non-orthogonal coordinate. The single step chemical reaction with reaction rate controlled by Arrhenius’ law is assumed to a assess chemical reaction numerically. The calculated results show the variation of temperature and the concentration profile with time during evaporation and ignition process. Surrounding oxygen starts to mix with evaporating fuel vapor from the droplet. When the ignition condition is met, the exothermic reactions of the premixed gas initiate a and burn intensely. The maximum temperature position gradually approaches the droplet surface and maximum temperature increases rapidly following the ignition. The fuel and oxygen concentration distributions have minimum points near the peak temperature position. Therefore the moment of ignition seems to have a premixed-flame aspect. After this very short transient period minimum points are observed in the oxygen and fuel d distributions and the diffusion flame is established. The distance between droplets is an important parameter. Starting from far-away apart, when the distance between droplets decreases, the ignition-delay time decreases meaning faster ignition. When they are close and after the ignition, the maximum temperature moves away from the center line of the in-line array. It means that the oxygen at the center line is consumed rapidly and further supply is blocked by the flame. The study helped the understanding of the ignition of d droplet array and opened the possibility of further research.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.526-532
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• 2008

The proposed $CO_2$ storage technology in the present study is a one-step sequestration process that stabilizes $CO_2$ in a reactor with Serpentine. The advantage of this technology is associated with its high stability of final product so that the entire system is recognized as permanent environment-friendly $CO_2$ removal method. Since the sequestration reaction mechanisms are generally understood that carbonation reaction proceeds with very slow rate, so that pretreatment method to increases reaction rate of $CO_2$ carbonation reaction should be developed. To increase the reactivity of Serpentine with $CO_2$, two different methods of pretreatment are carried out in the present investigation. One is heat-treatment, the other is chemical pretreatment. In this study, only chemical pretreatment is considered leaching method of magnesium from Serpentine using sulfuric acid at the various reaction temperatures, times, and acid concentrations. Experimental results illustrated that pretreatment by sulfuric acid increases surface area of serpentine from $11.1209m^2/g$ to $98.7903m^2/g$ and extracts magnesium compounds. Single variable experiment demonstrated the enhancements of magnesium extraction with increased reaction temperature and time. Amount of magnesium extraction is obtained by using the data of ICP-AES as maximum extraction condition of magnesium is 2 M acid solution, $75^{\circ}C$ and 1hr. After performing chemical pretreatment, carbonation yield increased from 23.24% to 46.30% of weight.