• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.30 no.8
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• pp.25-37
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• 2014

In load and resistance factor design (LRFD) method, resistance factors are typically calibrated using resistance bias factors obtained from either only the data within ${\pm}2{\sigma}$ or the data except the tail values of an assumed probability distribution to increase the reliability of the database. However, the data selection approach has a shortcoming that any low-quality data inadvertently included in the database may not be removed. In this study, a data quality evaluation method, developed based on the quality of static load test results, the engineering characteristics of in-situ soil, and the dimension of aggregate piers, is proposed for use in constructing database. For the evaluation of the method, a total 65 static load test results collected from various literatures, including static load test reports, were analyzed. Depending on the quality of the database, the comparison between bias factors, coefficients of variation, and resistance factors showed that uncertainty in estimating bias factors can be reduced by using the proposed data quality evaluation method when constructing database.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.72-79
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• 2015

An efficient and practical reliability evaluation method is proposed for the coastal structures in this paper. It is capable of evaluating reliability of real complicated coastal structures considering uncertainties in various sources of design parameters, such as wave and current loads, resistance-related design variables including Young's modulus and compressive strength of the reinforced concrete, soil parameters, and boundary conditions. It is developed by intelligently integrating the Latin Hypercube sampling (LHS), Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) and the finite element method (FEM). The LHS-based MCS is used to significantly reduce the computational effort by limiting the number of simulation cycles required for the reliability evaluation. The applicability and efficiency of the proposed method were verified using a caisson-type breakwater structure in the numerical example.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.34-44
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• 2017

Background: Monitoring terrestrial vegetation cover condition is important to evaluate its current condition and to identify potential vulnerabilities. Due to simplicity and low cost, point intercept method has been widely used in evaluating grassland surface and quantifying cover conditions. Field-based digital photography method is gaining popularity for the purpose of cover estimate, as it can reduce field time and enable additional analysis in the future. However, the caveats and uncertainty among field-based vegetation cover estimation methods is not well known, especially across a wide range of cover conditions. We compared cover estimates from point intercept and digital photography methods with varying sampling intensities (25, 49, and 100 points within an image), across 61 transects in typical steppe, forest steppe, and desert steppe in central Mongolia. We classified three photosynthetic groups of cover important to grassland ecosystem functioning: photosynthetic vegetation, non-photosynthetic vegetation, and bare soil. We also acquired normalized difference vegetation index from satellite image comparison with the field-based cover. Results: Photosynthetic vegetation estimates by point intercept method were correlated with normalized difference vegetation index, with improvement when non-photosynthetic vegetation was combined. For digital photography method, photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic vegetation estimates showed no correlation with normalized difference vegetation index, but combining of both showed moderate and significant correlation, which slightly increased with greater sampling intensity. Conclusions: Results imply that varying greenness is playing an important role in classification accuracy confusion. We suggest adopting measures to reduce observer bias and better distinguishing greenness levels in combination with multispectral indices to improve estimates on dry matter.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.153-171
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• 2015

The observational method in tunnel engineering allows the evaluation in real time of the actual conditions of the ground and to take measures if its behavior deviates considerably from predictions. However, it lacks a consistent and structured methodology to use the monitoring data to adapt the support system in real time. The definition of limit criteria above which adaptation is required are not defined and complex inverse analysis procedures (Rechea et al. 2008, Levasseur et al. 2010, Zentar et al. 2001, Lecampion et al. 2002, Finno and Calvello 2005, Goh 1999, Cui and Pan 2012, Deng et al. 2010, Mathew and Lehane 2013, Sharifzadeh et al. 2012, 2013) may be needed to consistently analyze the problem. In this paper a methodology for the real time adaptation of the support systems during tunneling is presented. In a first step limit criteria for displacements and stresses are proposed. The methodology uses graphics that are constructed during the project stage based on parametric calculations to assist in the process and when these graphics are not available, since it is not possible to predict every possible scenario, inverse analysis calculations are carried out. The methodology is applied to the "Bois de Peu" tunnel which is composed by two tubes with over 500 m long. High uncertainty levels existed concerning the heterogeneity of the soil and consequently in the geomechanical design parameters. The methodology was applied in four sections and the results focus on two of them. It is shown that the methodology has potential to be applied in real cases contributing for a consistent approach of a real time adaptation of the support system and highlight the importance of the existence of good quality and specific monitoring data to improve the inverse analysis procedure.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.29-41
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• 2017

There are uncertainties about the seismic load caused by seismic waves, which cannot be predicted due to the characteristics of the earthquake occurrence. Therefore, it is necessary to consider these uncertainties by probabilistic analysis. In this paper, procedures to develop a fragility curve that is a representative method to evaluate the safety of a structure by stochastic analysis were proposed for cut slopes. Fragility curve that considers uncertainties of soil shear strength parameters was prepared by Monte Carlo Simulation using pseudo static analysis. The fragility curve considering the uncertainty of the input ground motion was developed by performing time-history seismic analysis using selected 30 real ground input motions and the Newmark type displacement evaluation analysis. Fragility curves are represented as the cumulative probability distribution function with lognormal distribution by using the maximum likelihood estimation method.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.643-646
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• 2007

As increase of the land price at downtown area, it makes people more and more interested of improving the space utilization such as makes buildings bigger, deeper and higher. Therefore, the importance of the underground construction which is the basic principle has been increased. As constructors have to complete underground construction as soon as possible with the minimum costs, they concentrate on the whole process of underground structure. Although they makes every these efforts, construction failure still happen because of the uncertainty of the condition of soil and the unexpected danger of underground construction. To make matter worse, there are only some examples without detailed information like 'how much this breakdown damage to the construction?' so it is the anther problem that most of people doesn't recognize the economical negative impact of underground structure breakdown. This report would make people understood the importance and risk of the underground construction by showing some analysis which was assumed from the real accidents.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.35-47
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• 2017

Thermal behavior of soils is mainly focused on thermal conduction, and the study of natural convection is very limited. Increase of soil temperature causes natural convection due to buoyancy from density change of pore water. The limitations of the analysis using fluid dynamics for natural convection in the porous media is discussed and a new numerical analysis is presented for natural convection in porous media using THM governing equations fully coupled in the macroscopic view. Numerical experiments for thermal probe show increase in the uncertainty of thermal conductivity estimated without considering natural convection, and suggest appropriate experimental procedures to minimize errors between analytical model and numerical results. Burial of submarine power cable should not exceed the temperature changes of $2^{\circ}C$ at the depth of 0.2 m under the seabed, but numerical analysis for high permeable ground exceeds this criterion. Temperature and THM properties of the seafloor are important design factors for the burial of power cable, and in this case effects of natural convection should be considered. Especially, in the presence of heat sources in soils with high permeability, natural convection due to the variation of density of pore water should be considered as an important heat transfer mechanism.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.34 no.11
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• pp.43-55
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• 2018

AGF (Artificial Ground Freezing) method is a temporary ground improvement method which can apply to all types of soil with the purpose of high stiffness and low hydraulic conductivity. However, the groundwater flow and the heterogeneity of the ground increase the uncertainty of the ice-column formation which hinders the reliability of this method. The effects of groundwater flow and layered heterogeneity on ice-wall integrity by AGF method were analyzed using finite element analysis program for a coupled thermo-hydro phenomena in the freezing ground. Groundwater flow changes circular ice-column into elliptical shapes and increases the time required for the formation of ice walls. The previous theoretical formula overestimated the completion time of the ice wall and the critical groundwater velocity by neglecting the thermal interaction between adjacent ice-columns. Numerical results presented the corrected formula and verified the proposed equation for the dimensionless ice-wall completion time. In the layered heterogeneous ground, the thickness of the layer with higher hydraulic conductivity and its relative magnitude were found to be important factors in the ice-wall completion time and critical velocity.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.27 no.12
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• pp.1169-1178
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• 2018

Two man-made carbon emissions, fossil fuel emissions and land use emissions, have been perturbing naturally occurring global carbon cycle. These emitted carbons will eventually be deposited into the atmosphere, the terrestrial biosphere, the soil, and the ocean. In this study, Simple Global Carbon Model (SGCM) was used to simulate global carbon cycle and to estimate global carbon budget. For the model input, fossil fuel emissions and land use emissions were taken from the literature. Unlike fossil fuel use, land use emissions were highly uncertain. Therefore land use emission inputs were adjusted within an uncertainty range suggested in the literature. Simulated atmospheric $CO_2$ concentrations were well fitted to observations with a standard error of 0.06 ppm. Moreover, simulated carbon budgets in the ocean and terrestrial biosphere were shown to be reasonable compared to the literature values, which have considerable uncertainties. Simulation results show that with increasing fossil fuel emissions, the ratios of carbon partitioning to the atmosphere and the terrestrial biosphere have increased from 42% and 24% in the year 1958 to 50% and 30% in the year 2016 respectively, while that to the ocean has decreased from 34% in the year 1958 to 20% in the year 2016. This finding indicates that if the current emission trend continues, the atmospheric carbon partitioning ratio might be continuously increasing and thereby the atmospheric $CO_2$ concentrations might be increasing much faster. Among the total emissions of 399 gigatons of carbon (GtC) from fossil fuel use and land use during the simulation period (between 1960 and 2016), 189 GtC were reallocated to the atmosphere (47%), 107 GtC to the terrestrial biosphere (27%), and 103GtC to the ocean (26%). The net terrestrial biospheric carbon accumulation (terrestrial biospheric allocations minus land use emissions) showed positive 46 GtC. In other words, the terrestrial biosphere has been accumulating carbon, although land use emission has been depleting carbon in the terrestrial biosphere.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.241-255
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• 2020

Background: The stem exclusion stage is a stage of forest development that is important for understanding the subsequent understory reinitiation stage and maturation stage during which horizontal heterogeneity is formed. Over the past 11 years (2009-2019), we observed a deciduous broad-leaved forest in the Albongbunji Basin in Ulleungdo, South Korea in its stem exclusion stage, where Fagus engleriana (Engler's beech) is the dominant species, thereby analyzing the changes in the structure (density and size distributions), function (biomass and species richness), and demographics. Results: The mean stem density data presented a bell-shaped curve with initially increasing, peaking, and subsequently decreasing trends in stem density over time, and the mean biomass data showed a sigmoidal pattern indicating that the rate of biomass accumulation slowed over time. Changes in the density and biomass of Fagus engleriana showed a similar trend to the changes in density and biomass at the community level, which is indicative of the strong influence of this species on the changing patterns of forest structure and function. Around 2015, a shift between recruitment and mortality rates was observed. Deterministic processes were the predominant cause of tree mortality in our study; however, soil deposition that began in 2017 in some of the quadrats resulted in an increase in the contribution of stochastic processes (15% in 2019) to tree mortality. The development of horizontal heterogeneity was observed in forest gaps. Conclusions: Our observations showed a dramatic shift between the recruitment and mortality rates in the stem exclusion stage, and that disturbance increases the uncertainty in forest development increases. The minor changes in species composition are likely linked to regional species pool and the limited role of the life-history strategy of species such as shade tolerance and habitat affinity. Our midterm records of ecological succession exhibited detailed demographic dynamics and contributed to the improvement of an ecological perspective in the stem exclusion stage.