• Title/Summary/Keyword: Social Design

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Development of a Slope Condition Analysis System using IoT Sensors and AI Camera (IoT 센서와 AI 카메라를 융합한 급경사지 상태 분석 시스템 개발)

  • Seungjoo Lee;Kiyen Jeong;Taehoon Lee;YoungSeok Kim
    • Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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    • v.23 no.2
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    • pp.43-52
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    • 2024
  • Recent abnormal climate conditions have increased the risk of slope collapses, which frequently result in significant loss of life and property due to the absence of early prediction and warning dissemination. In this paper, we develop a slope condition analysis system using IoT sensors and AI-based camera to assess the condition of slopes. To develop the system, we conducted hardware and firmware design for measurement sensors considering the ground conditions of slopes, designed AI-based image analysis algorithms, and developed prediction and warning solutions and systems. We aimed to minimize errors in sensor data through the integration of IoT sensor data and AI camera image analysis, ultimately enhancing the reliability of the data. Additionally, we evaluated the accuracy (reliability) by applying it to actual slopes. As a result, sensor measurement errors were maintained within 0.1°, and the data transmission rate exceeded 95%. Moreover, the AI-based image analysis system demonstrated nighttime partial recognition rates of over 99%, indicating excellent performance even in low-light conditions. Through this research, it is anticipated that the analysis of slope conditions and smart maintenance management in various fields of Social Overhead Capital (SOC) facilities can be applied.

Mechanical Properties Evaluation of 3D Printing Recycled Concrete utilizing Wasted Shell Aggregate (패각 잔골재를 활용한 3D 프린팅 자원순환 콘크리트의 역학적 성능 평가)

  • Jeewoo Suh;Ju-Hyeon Park;Tong-Seok Han
    • Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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    • v.37 no.1
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    • pp.33-40
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    • 2024
  • The volume of shells, a prominent form of marine waste, is steadily increasing each year. However, a significant portion of these shells is either discarded or left near coastlines, posing environmental and social concerns. Utilizing shells as a substitute for traditional aggregates presents a potential solution, especially considering the diminishing availability of natural aggregates. This approach could effectively reduce transportation logistics costs, thereby promoting resource recycling. In this study, we explore the feasibility of employing wasted shell aggregates in 3D concrete printing technology for marine structures. Despite the advantages, it is observed that 3D printing concrete with wasted shells as aggregates results in lower strength compared to ordinary concrete, attributed to pores at the interface of shells and cement paste. Microstructure characterization becomes essential for evaluating mechanical properties. We conduct an analysis of the mechanical properties and microstructure of 3D printing concrete specimens incorporating wasted shells. Additionally, a mix design is proposed, taking into account flowability, extrudability, and buildability. To assess mechanical properties, compression and bonding strength specimens are fabricated using a 3D printer, and subsequent strength tests are conducted. Microstructure characteristics are analyzed through scanning electron microscope tests, providing high-resolution images. A histogram-based segmentation method is applied to segment pores, and porosity is compared based on the type of wasted shell. Pore characteristics are quantified using a probability function, establishing a correlation between the mechanical properties and microstructure characteristics of the specimens according to the type of wasted shell.

Interaction Between Seasons and Auditory Elements, Features and Impressions of Soundscape in Influencing Auditory Preferences (청각선호도에 미치는 청각적 경관의 요소, 특징, 인상 요인과 계절의 상호작용 효과)

  • Han, Myung-Ho;Oh, Yang-Ki
    • The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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    • v.26 no.7
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    • pp.306-316
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    • 2007
  • Based on a concept of soundscape, this study aims to investigate Koreans' preference for auditory elements, features, and impressions depending upon the season, and examine how these auditory factors of soundstape and seasons interact with each other and attempt to discover their influence on people's auditory preferences. According to an environmental psychological approach called the caption evaluation method, 45 college students examined the soundscape of Namwon City while racing the streets in four seasons. In order to analyze the interactions between seasons and such auditory factors as elements, features, and impressions, it was conducted the GLM univariate analysis and the NPAR tests for independent samples. The results of the analyses show that there are interactive effects between seasons and auditory factors like elements, features, and impressions and that the auditory factors have an effect on auditory preference. Moreover, as for seasonal preference for auditory elements, it was found that people prefer natural sound in spring, summer, and fall while they prefer social sound in winter. Concerning seasonal preference for auditory features, people place a focus on the behaviors in spring, summer, and winter while they stress the surroundings in autumn, as for seasonal preference for auditory impressions, they make much of sound characteristics in spring and winter but they value the atmosphere of streets in summer and fall. The results of this study can he utilized as useful data in determining which auditory factors among elements, features, and impressions to take into consideration in a soundscape design.

A Study on the Analysis of Park User Experiences in Phase 1 and 2 Korea's New Towns with Blog Text Data (블로그 텍스트 데이터를 활용한 1, 2기 신도시 공원의 이용자 경험 분석 연구)

  • Sim, Jooyoung;Lee, Minsoo;Choi, Hyeyoung
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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    • v.52 no.3
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    • pp.89-102
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    • 2024
  • This study aims to examine the characteristics of the user experience of New Town neighborhood parks and explore issues that diversify the experience of the parks. In order to quantitatively analyze a large amount of park visitors' experiences, text-based Naver blog reviews were collected and analyzed. Among the Phase 1 and 2 New Towns, the parks with the highest user experience postings were selected for each city as the target of analysis. Blog text data was collected from May 20, 2003, to May 31, 2022, and analysis was conducted targeting Ilsan Lake Park, Bundang Yuldong Park, Gwanggyo Lake Park, and Dongtan Lake Park. The findings revealed that all four parks were used for everyday relaxation and recreation. Second, the analysis underscores park's diverse user groups. Third, the programs for parks nearby were also related to park usage. Fourth, the words within the top 20 rankings represented distinctive park elements or content/programs specific to each park. Lastly, the results of the network analysis delineated four overarching types of park users and the networks of four park user types appeared differently depending on the park. This study provides two implications. First, in addition to the naturalistic characteristics, the differentiation of each park's unique facilities and programs greatly improves public awareness and enriches the individual park experience. Second, if analysis of the context surrounding the park based on spatial information is performed in addition to text analysis, the accuracy of interpretation of text data analysis results could be improved. The results of this study can be used in the planning and designing of parks and greenspaces in the Phase 3 New Towns currently in progress.

Development of a Design Model for Community Service Activities based Learning (CSAL) (지역사회 봉사활동과 연계한 교양 교과목 개발)

  • Hee Hwa Lee;Hyun-ju Kim
    • The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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    • v.10 no.1
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    • pp.297-305
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    • 2024
  • As society changes rapidly, the role and status of general education has produced many changes, and accordingly, it is forming a close relationship with various social and cultural environments around the school. Especially, the direction in which general education should proceed and the development of regional-linked general education models have been actively studied at a time when the relationship between local regions and universities is getting strong. In this study, we have provided significant policy implications related to the development and application of future university-local cooperation models by developing a subject of community service activities based learning (CSAL) to get closer to community service and by analyzing actual educational cases and applying them to real community service organizations. In addition, we closely collaborated with local volunteer organizations operated by this local government system to connect with local community service, and through this, we reviewed actual cooperative classes with a local university and local volunteer organizations for the class curriculum, and developed a model to activate the university-local educational ecosystem.

A Preliminary Study on Competency Extraction for Fashion Design and Merchandising Majors (패션디자인 및 머천다이징 전공의 역량 추출에 대한 기초 연구)

  • Lee, Hana;Lee, Yhe-Young
    • Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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    • v.36 no.2
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    • pp.101-117
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    • 2024
  • The aim of this study is to identify the competencies required for fashion-related majors that meet contemporary demands, align with the objectives of university education, and reflect the qualities desired in graduates. To achieve this goal, we conducted content analysis of relevant data and in-depth interviews with experts. First, the content analysis involved coding key information from the introductions, educational goals, desired qualities of graduates, and curricula published on the websites of both South Korea and international fashion-related universities. Additionally, we analyzed the National Competency Standards (NCS) and the Meta-goals of higher education programs set by the International Textile Apparel Association (ITAA), extracting six core competencies. Second, in-depth interviews were conducted with six experts, each with 23 to 31 years of experience in Korean and international apparel industry and academia. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and keywords were extracted. To ensure the validity of the coding results, cross-checks were performed among the researchers. The analysis identified the following competencies: empathic communication, social responsibility, professional thinking, creative and integrative thinking, global perspective, and challenging leadership. Based on these findings, establishing competencies that meet contemporary demands and developing corresponding curricula are essential steps towards creating a feedback system. Future research should focus on developing and implementing curricula that foster a virtuous cycle, ultimately enhancing students' competency levels.

The Influence of Store Environment on Service Brand Personality and Repurchase Intention (점포의 물리적 환경이 서비스 브랜드 개성과 재구매의도에 미치는 영향)

  • Kim, Hyoung-Gil;Kim, Jung-Hee;Kim, Youn-Jeong
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.17 no.4
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    • pp.141-173
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    • 2007
  • The study examines how the environmental factors of store influence service brand personality and repurchase intention in the service environment. The service industry has been experiencing the intensified competition with the industry's continuous growth and the influence from rapid technological advancement. Under the circumstances, it has become ever more important for the brand competitiveness to be distinctively recognized against competition. A brand needs to be distinguished and differentiated from competing companies because they are all engaged in the similar environment of the service industry. The differentiation of brand achievement has become increasingly important to highlight certain brand functions to include emotional, self-expressive, and symbolic functions since the importance of such functions has been further emphasized in promoting consumption activities. That is the recent role of brand personality that has been emphasized in the service industry. In other words, customers now freely and actively express their personalities or egos in consumption activities, taking an important role in construction of a brand asset. Hence, the study suggests that it is necessary to disperse the recognition and acknowledgement that the maintenance of the existing customers contributes more to boost repurchase intention when it is compared to the efforts to create new customers, particularly in the service industry. Meanwhile, the store itself can offer a unique environment that may influence the consumer's purchase decision. Consumers interact with store environments in the process of,virtually, all household purchase they make (Sarel 1981). Thus, store environments may encourage customers to purchase. The roles that store environments play are to provide informational cues to customers about the store and goods and communicate messages to stimulate consumers' emotions. The store environments differentiate the store from competing stores and build a unique service brand personality. However, the existing studies related to brand in the service industry mostly concentrated on the relationship between the quality of service and customer satisfaction, and they are mostly generalized while the connective studies focused on brand personality. Such approaches show limitations and are insufficient to investigate on the relationship between store environment and brand personality in the service industry. Accordingly, the study intends to identify the level of contribution to the establishment of brand personality made by the store's physical environments that influence on the specific brand characteristics depending on the type of service. The study also intends to identify what kind of relationships with brand personality exists with brand personality while being influenced by store environments. In addition, the study intends to make meaningful suggestions to better direct marketing efforts by identifying whether a brand personality makes a positive influence to induce an intention for repurchase. For this study, the service industry is classified into four categories based on to the characteristics of service: experimental-emotional service, emotional -credible service, credible-functional service, and functional-experimental service. The type of business with the most frequent customer contact is determined for each service type and the enterprise with the highest brand value in each service sector based on the report made by the Korea Management Association. They are designated as the representative of each category. The selected representatives are a fast-food store (experimental-emotional service), a cinema house (emotional-credible service), a bank (credible-functional service), and discount store (functional-experimental service). The survey was conducted for the four selected brands to represent each service category among consumers who are experienced users of the designated stores in Seoul Metropolitan City and Gyeonggi province via written questionnaires in order to verify the suggested assumptions in the study. In particular, the survey adopted 15 scales, which represent each characteristic factor, among the 42 unique characteristics developed by Jennifer Aaker(1997) to assess the brand personality of each service brand. SPSS for Windows Release 12.0 and LISREL were used in the analysis of data verification. The methodology of the structural equation model was used for the study and the pivotal findings are as follows. 1) The environmental factors ware classified as design factors, ambient factors, and social factors. Therefore, the validity of measurement scale of Baker et al. (1994) was proved. 2) The service brand personalities were subdivided as sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness, which makes the use of the brand personality scales by Jennifer Aaker(1997) appropriate in the service industry as well. 3) One-way ANOVA analysis on the scales of store environment and service brand personality showed that there exist statistically significant differences in each service category. For example, the social factors were highest in discount stores, while the ambient factors and design factors were highest in fast-food stores. The discount stores were highest in the sincerity and excitement, while the highest point for banks was in the competence and ruggedness, and the highest point for fast-food stores was in the sophistication, The consumers will make a different respond to the physical environment of stores and service brand personality that are inherent to the corresponding service interface. Hence, the customers will make a different decision-making when dealing with different service categories. In this aspect, the relationships of variables in the proposed hypothesis appear to work in a different way depending on the exposed service category. 4) The store environment factors influenced on service brand personalities differently by category of service. The factors of store's physical environment are transferred to a brand and were verified to strengthen service brand personalities. In particular, the level of influence on the service brand personality by physical environment differs depending on service category or dimension, which indicates that there is a need to apply a different style of management to a different service category or dimension. It signifies that there needs to be a brand strategy established in order to positively influence the relationship with consumers by utilizing an appropriate brand personality factor depending on different characteristics by service category or dimension. 5) The service brand personalities influenced on the repurchase intention. Especially, the largest influence was made in the sophistication dimension of service brand personality scale; the unique and characteristically appropriate arrangement of physical environment will make customers stay in the service environment for a long time and will lead to give a positive influence on the repurchase intention. 6) The store environment factors influenced on the repurchase intention. Particularly, the largest influence was made on the social factors of store environment. The most intriguing finding is that the service factor among all other environment factors gives the biggest influence to the repurchase intention in most of all service types except fast-food stores. Such result indicates that the customers pay attention to how much the employees try to provide a quality service when they make an evaluation on the service brand. At the same time, it also indicates that the personal factor is directly transmitted to the construction of brand personality. The employees' attitude and behavior are the determinants to establish a service brand personality in the process of enhancing service interface. Hence, there should be a reinforced search for a method to efficiently manage the service staff who has a direct contact with customers in order to make an affirmative improvement of the customers' brand evaluation at the service interface. The findings suggest several managerial implications. 1) Results from the empirical study indicated that store environment factors have a strong positive impact on a service brand personality. To increase customers' repurchase intention of a service brand, the management is required to effectively manage store environment factors and create a friendly brand personality based on the corresponding service environment. 2) Mangers and researchers must understand and recognize that the store environment elements are important marketing tools, and that brand personality influences on consumers' repurchase intention. Based on such result of the study, a service brand could be utilized as an efficient measure to achieve a differentiation by enforcing the elements that are most influential among all other store environments for each service category. Therefore, brand personality established involving various store environments will further reinforce the relationship with customers through the elevated brand identification of which utilization to induce repurchase decision can be used as an entry barrier. 3) The study identified the store environment as a component of service brand personality for the store's effective communication with consumers. For this, all communication channels should be maintained with consistency and an integrated marketing communication should be executed to efficiently approach to a larger number of customers. Mangers and researchers must find strategies for aligning decisions about store environment elements with the retailers' marketing and store personality objectives. All ambient, design, and social factors need to be orchestrated so that consumers can take an appropriate store personality. In this study, the induced results from the previous studies were extended to the service industry so as to identify the customers' decision making process that leads to repurchase intention and a result similar to those of the previous studies. The findings suggested several theoretical and managerial implications. However, the situation that only one service brand served as the subject of analysis for each service category, and the situation that correlations among store environment elements were not identified, as well as the problem of representation in selection of samples should be considered and supplemented in the future when further studies are conducted. In addition, various antecedents and consequences of brand personality must be looked at in the aspect of the service environment for further research.

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Applying an IPA(Importance-Performance Analysis) Model to Comparative Study on the Elementary School Students' Parents' Crime Prevention Design Element(CPTED) Awareness for Crime Prevention (범죄예방을 위한 초등학교 학부모의 범죄예방설계(CPTED)요소 인식에 관한 비교 연구: IPA(중요도-실행도 분석)기법을 중심으로)

  • Choi, Hyun-Sick
    • Korean Security Journal
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    • no.40
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    • pp.209-242
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    • 2014
  • This study is to understand sure the primary crime prevention has been incidence as a social problem intended for parents through the analysis of the Crime Prevention Design (CPTED) CPTED element of recognize elements that target crime prevention strategy to effectively help students be and an object of the present invention is to provide a policy suggestion haryeoneunde proposed basic data required for orientation. To achieve the study objectives such as the core framework in this study IPA: Importance-Performance Analysis) also was selected. Subjects of study in 2010 Gyeongju Elementary parents name and were 203 first research group investigating the secondary school population of the region in 2014 to nomadic parents of 297 people sampled selection. Questionnaire that use by this study applies "Important-Performance Analysis : IPA" technique that Martilla & James(1977) presented and analyzed awareness for CPTED elements of strategy for student's crime prevention to elementary school pupil students' parentse. It was the first group, 0.886, 0.920, 0.895 and 2nd group 0.880, 0.906, 0.878 that reliability of (Cronbach' s ${\alpha}$) the importance, and believability of run chart was the first group, 0.880, 0.917, 0.878 and 2nd group, 0.735, 0.840, 0.830. Analysis of the data carried out frequency analysis, reliability analysis, Frequency analysis was performed, paired sample t-Test for the reliability analysis, and the technical statistical analysis of the data is. The analysis of lattice bars execution through the IPA, the importance of the primary parents elements of CPTED strategies are generally very high, but found that the variation depending on the components that Performance. This study, an important element of the strategy to eliminate the school building for students from inside and outside the criminal fears CPTED is a mechanical surveillance in the first group, organizational surveillance, and the second group is the region intensified I'll showed mechanically and organizational factors in the investigation, and request that the investment is urgently important element is also execution low, crime prevention personnel security higher importance than expanding the front door. The analysis result of this study expects that basic data can be used in policy direction presentation that examines closely CPTED elements of strategy for crime prevention of students and applies CPTED's component effectively at elementary school hereafter.

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Comparison of Association Rule Learning and Subgroup Discovery for Mining Traffic Accident Data (교통사고 데이터의 마이닝을 위한 연관규칙 학습기법과 서브그룹 발견기법의 비교)

  • Kim, Jeongmin;Ryu, Kwang Ryel
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.21 no.4
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    • pp.1-16
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    • 2015
  • Traffic accident is one of the major cause of death worldwide for the last several decades. According to the statistics of world health organization, approximately 1.24 million deaths occurred on the world's roads in 2010. In order to reduce future traffic accident, multipronged approaches have been adopted including traffic regulations, injury-reducing technologies, driving training program and so on. Records on traffic accidents are generated and maintained for this purpose. To make these records meaningful and effective, it is necessary to analyze relationship between traffic accident and related factors including vehicle design, road design, weather, driver behavior etc. Insight derived from these analysis can be used for accident prevention approaches. Traffic accident data mining is an activity to find useful knowledges about such relationship that is not well-known and user may interested in it. Many studies about mining accident data have been reported over the past two decades. Most of studies mainly focused on predict risk of accident using accident related factors. Supervised learning methods like decision tree, logistic regression, k-nearest neighbor, neural network are used for these prediction. However, derived prediction model from these algorithms are too complex to understand for human itself because the main purpose of these algorithms are prediction, not explanation of the data. Some of studies use unsupervised clustering algorithm to dividing the data into several groups, but derived group itself is still not easy to understand for human, so it is necessary to do some additional analytic works. Rule based learning methods are adequate when we want to derive comprehensive form of knowledge about the target domain. It derives a set of if-then rules that represent relationship between the target feature with other features. Rules are fairly easy for human to understand its meaning therefore it can help provide insight and comprehensible results for human. Association rule learning methods and subgroup discovery methods are representing rule based learning methods for descriptive task. These two algorithms have been used in a wide range of area from transaction analysis, accident data analysis, detection of statistically significant patient risk groups, discovering key person in social communities and so on. We use both the association rule learning method and the subgroup discovery method to discover useful patterns from a traffic accident dataset consisting of many features including profile of driver, location of accident, types of accident, information of vehicle, violation of regulation and so on. The association rule learning method, which is one of the unsupervised learning methods, searches for frequent item sets from the data and translates them into rules. In contrast, the subgroup discovery method is a kind of supervised learning method that discovers rules of user specified concepts satisfying certain degree of generality and unusualness. Depending on what aspect of the data we are focusing our attention to, we may combine different multiple relevant features of interest to make a synthetic target feature, and give it to the rule learning algorithms. After a set of rules is derived, some postprocessing steps are taken to make the ruleset more compact and easier to understand by removing some uninteresting or redundant rules. We conducted a set of experiments of mining our traffic accident data in both unsupervised mode and supervised mode for comparison of these rule based learning algorithms. Experiments with the traffic accident data reveals that the association rule learning, in its pure unsupervised mode, can discover some hidden relationship among the features. Under supervised learning setting with combinatorial target feature, however, the subgroup discovery method finds good rules much more easily than the association rule learning method that requires a lot of efforts to tune the parameters.

Manganese and Iron Interaction: a Mechanism of Manganese-Induced Parkinsonism

  • Zheng, Wei
    • Proceedings of the Korea Environmental Mutagen Society Conference
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    • 2003.10a
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    • pp.34-63
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    • 2003
  • Occupational and environmental exposure to manganese continue to represent a realistic public health problem in both developed and developing countries. Increased utility of MMT as a replacement for lead in gasoline creates a new source of environmental exposure to manganese. It is, therefore, imperative that further attention be directed at molecular neurotoxicology of manganese. A Need for a more complete understanding of manganese functions both in health and disease, and for a better defined role of manganese in iron metabolism is well substantiated. The in-depth studies in this area should provide novel information on the potential public health risk associated with manganese exposure. It will also explore novel mechanism(s) of manganese-induced neurotoxicity from the angle of Mn-Fe interaction at both systemic and cellular levels. More importantly, the result of these studies will offer clues to the etiology of IPD and its associated abnormal iron and energy metabolism. To achieve these goals, however, a number of outstanding questions remain to be resolved. First, one must understand what species of manganese in the biological matrices plays critical role in the induction of neurotoxicity, Mn(II) or Mn(III)? In our own studies with aconitase, Cpx-I, and Cpx-II, manganese was added to the buffers as the divalent salt, i.e., $MnCl_2$. While it is quite reasonable to suggest that the effect on aconitase and/or Cpx-I activites was associated with the divalent species of manganese, the experimental design does not preclude the possibility that a manganese species of higher oxidation state, such as Mn(III), is required for the induction of these effects. The ionic radius of Mn(III) is 65 ppm, which is similar to the ionic size to Fe(III) (65 ppm at the high spin state) in aconitase (Nieboer and Fletcher, 1996; Sneed et al., 1953). Thus it is plausible that the higher oxidation state of manganese optimally fits into the geometric space of aconitase, serving as the active species in this enzymatic reaction. In the current literature, most of the studies on manganese toxicity have used Mn(II) as $MnCl_2$ rather than Mn(III). The obvious advantage of Mn(II) is its good water solubility, which allows effortless preparation in either in vivo or in vitro investigation, whereas almost all of the Mn(III) salt products on the comparison between two valent manganese species nearly infeasible. Thus a more intimate collaboration with physiochemists to develop a better way to study Mn(III) species in biological matrices is pressingly needed. Second, In spite of the special affinity of manganese for mitochondria and its similar chemical properties to iron, there is a sound reason to postulate that manganese may act as an iron surrogate in certain iron-requiring enzymes. It is, therefore, imperative to design the physiochemical studies to determine whether manganese can indeed exchange with iron in proteins, and to understand how manganese interacts with tertiary structure of proteins. The studies on binding properties (such as affinity constant, dissociation parameter, etc.) of manganese and iron to key enzymes associated with iron and energy regulation would add additional information to our knowledge of Mn-Fe neurotoxicity. Third, manganese exposure, either in vivo or in vitro, promotes cellular overload of iron. It is still unclear, however, how exactly manganese interacts with cellular iron regulatory processes and what is the mechanism underlying this cellular iron overload. As discussed above, the binding of IRP-I to TfR mRNA leads to the expression of TfR, thereby increasing cellular iron uptake. The sequence encoding TfR mRNA, in particular IRE fragments, has been well-documented in literature. It is therefore possible to use molecular technique to elaborate whether manganese cytotoxicity influences the mRNA expression of iron regulatory proteins and how manganese exposure alters the binding activity of IPRs to TfR mRNA. Finally, the current manganese investigation has largely focused on the issues ranging from disposition/toxicity study to the characterization of clinical symptoms. Much less has been done regarding the risk assessment of environmenta/occupational exposure. One of the unsolved, pressing puzzles is the lack of reliable biomarker(s) for manganese-induced neurologic lesions in long-term, low-level exposure situation. Lack of such a diagnostic means renders it impossible to assess the human health risk and long-term social impact associated with potentially elevated manganese in environment. The biochemical interaction between manganese and iron, particularly the ensuing subtle changes of certain relevant proteins, provides the opportunity to identify and develop such a specific biomarker for manganese-induced neuronal damage. By learning the molecular mechanism of cytotoxicity, one will be able to find a better way for prediction and treatment of manganese-initiated neurodegenerative diseases.

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