• Asia-pacific Journal of Multimedia Services Convergent with Art, Humanities, and Sociology
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.291-299
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• 2015

With recent surge of attention to heating and air conditioning energy consumption, the need for evaluating performance of heating and air conditioning energy is also on the rise. This research aims to propose daily-life based evaluation method as an alternative to existing one, as well as to apply the method in real life to prove its validity. The results are as following. 1) I studied temperatures preferred by persons indoors and appropriate level of temperature, and the results show that properties of such persons such as age is directly linked with pleasantness of the room, but the issue lies with the fact that such properties are not considered in existing performance evaluation of heating and air conditioning. 2) Daily life based evaluation proposed herein reflects such properties of persons indoors. It controls heating / air conditioning devices installed in the test bed with the same size as a real life room to get quantitative and visual performances in our daily life as well as simple temperature information. 3) To verify validity of daily life based evaluation, I conducted different evaluation sessions with and without a blind and also based on ages of persons indoors. Results based on properties of persons showed difference of 77.6%, leading to effective analysis of energy consumption pattern by heating / air conditioning devices. This research takes significance in that it comes with a new performance evaluation method based on real life, and I gather that further studies are required to develop more multilateral performance evaluation in order to verify and improve technology for reduction of energy consumption.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.67-78
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• 2023

The rare metals used as raw materials in high-tech industries undergo changes in demand structures and supply chains following domestic industrial structural shifts and technological advancements, exhibiting high price volatility. Therefore, it is necessary to periodically analyze changes in the demand structures of rare metals. Since domestic demand for most rare metals relies on imports in Korea, the changes in domestic demand for rare metals can be identified by analyzing changes in their trade structure. In the present study, we analyze the changes in trade volume, trade growth rate, trade rankings, and trading countries from 2000 to 2022 for 35 rare metals, categorized into five types-ores, metals, alloys, compounds, and scrap. The trade of the raw materials of rare metals in Korea has generally increased since the 2000s, except for a significant decline in 2009 and 2016. The total trade volume, encompassing both exports and imports, has increased by approximately tenfold in 2022 compared to 2001. Until the mid-2010s, the trade of the raw materials of rare metals was primarily focused on those used in steel-manufacturing such as silicon, nickel, chrome, molybdenum, manganese, and others. However, after that period, there has been an increase in the trade of platinum group metals like palladium, rhodium, platinum, and the raw materials of rare metals for secondary battery-manufacturing such as lithium and cobalt. Particularly in 2022, lithium has become the largest share in trade of the raw materials of rare metals in Korea, due to the price surge and increase in demand.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.770-778
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• 2023

Sea surface wind is an important variable for elucidating the atmospheric-ocean interactions and predicting the dangerous weather conditions caused by oceans. Accurate sea surface wind data are required for making correct predictions; however, there are limited observational datasets for oceans. Therefore, this study aimed to obtain long-period high-resolution sea surface wind data. First, the ERA5 reanalysis wind field, which can be used for a long period at a high resolution, was regridded and synthesized using the asymmetric typhoon wind field calculated via the Generalized Asymmetric Holland Model of the numerical model named ADvanced CIRCulation model. The accuracy of the asymmetric typhoon synthesized wind field was evaluated using data obtained from Korea Meteorological Administration and Japan Meteorological Administration. As a result of the evaluation, it was found that the asymmetric typhoon synthetic wind field reproduce observations relatively well, compared with ERA5 reanalysis wind field and symmetric typhoon synthetic wind field calculated by the Holland model. The sea surface wind data produced in this study are expected to be useful for obtaining storm surge data and conducting frequency analysis of storm surges and sea surface winds in the future.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.699-708
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• 2023

Nuclear power plants (NPPs) consider possible external events, including natural hazards, during the design phase to ensure safe operation. However, in recent years, due to the increasing probability of natural hazards exceeding the design, a careful review of extreme natural hazards and unforeseen external events during the design phase has become necessary. In this study, the objective was to screen potential extreme natural hazards at NPP sites in Korea. Initially, we investigated and analyzed the characteristics of NPP sites and the events caused by external hazards. Furthermore, we analyzed existing literature and research data to establish screening procedures and criteria that suit the actual conditions of domestic NPPs. Based on these criteria and data, we conducted qualitative screening for each NPP site and identified potential extreme natural hazards through quantitative screening and walkdown. As a result of the screening, in addition to internal flooding caused by heavy rain, wind pressure and extreme air pressure caused by extreme winds were screened as potential extreme natural hazards common to all sites. Additionally, at the Kori site, storm surge was selected as the most significant potential extreme natural hazard.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.61-72
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• 2019

Since the financial crisis in 1997, large scale unemployment and poverty have become serious, but there has been a surge in public and social job creation projects. However, with the limitations of low-wage and short-term jobs, the need for long-term, high quality jobs gradually began to garner attention. In recent years, social enterprises have grown both quantitatively and qualitatively and interest in social enterprises has increased; more specifically, scholars are interested in the determinants of success and failure of social enterprises in the academic field. In this study, we examined the effects of social enterprise characteristics on financial and social performance. In particular, we empirically analyzed social enterprises registered in the Korea Social Enterprise Agency. The financial performance of the social enterprise was measured using the net income ratio, operating income ratio, and the return on asset. The social performance of the social enterprise was measured by the total number of workers and the employment rate of vulnerable social groups. The characteristics of the social enterprise included CEO characteristics (gender, age, experience in operating the social enterprise), firm size, and the elapsed time of authentication. The results of the empirical analysis are as follows. First, as a result of analysis for the effect on financial performance, we found that the financial performance has a statistically significant, positive relationship with firm size, organizational form, government subsidies, and capital adequacy ratio. And we found that the social performance has a statistically significant, negative relationship with CEO age and credit debt dependence. Second, as a result of analysis for the effect on social performance, we found that the total number of workers had a significant, positive relationship with CEO gender and CEO age, as well as firm size, government subsidies; whereas the total number of workers had a significant, negative relationship with certification type and industry dummy. Comparatively, the employment rate of the vulnerable social groups had a significant, positive relationship with CEO gender and certification type, but there was no statistically significant relationship with the government subsidies or firm size.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.181-191
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• 2024

In the realm of cement manufacturing, concerted efforts are underway to mitigate the emission of greenhouse gases. A significant portion, approximately 60%, of these emissions during the cement clinker sintering process is attributed to the decarbonation of limestone, which serves as a fundamental ingredient in cement production. Prompted by these environmental concerns, there is an active pursuit of alternative technologies and admixtures for cement that can substitute for limestone. Concurrently, initiatives are being explored to harness technology within the cement industry for the capture of carbon dioxide from industrial emissions, facilitating its conversion into carbonate minerals via chemical processes. Parallel to these technological advances, economic growth has precipitated a surge in construction activities, culminating in a steady escalation of construction waste, notably waste concrete. This study is anchored in the innovative production of calcium silicate cement clinkers, utilizing finely powdered waste concrete, followed by a thorough analysis of their mineral phases. Through X-ray diffraction(XRD) analysis, it was observed that increasing the substitution level of waste concrete powder and the molar ratio of SiO₂ to (CaO+SiO₂) leads to a decrease in Belite and γ-Belite, whereas minerals associated with carbonation, such as wollastonite and rankinite, exhibited an upsurge. Furthermore, the formation of gehlenite in cement clinkers, especially at higher substitution levels of waste concrete powder and the aforementioned molar ratio, is attributed to a synthetic reaction with Al₂O₃ present in the waste concrete powder. Analysis of free-CaO content revealed a decrement with increasing substitution rate of waste concrete powder and the molar ratio of SiO₂/(CaO+SiO₂). The outcomes of this study substantiate the viability of fabricating calcium silicate cement clinkers employing waste concrete powder.

• Clean Technology
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.276-286
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• 2024

Since the Paris Agreement and the surge in global interest in climate change, the importance of measuring and managing national-level resource productivity has steadily grown. However, concerns about the reliability of productivity indicators persist due to inherent uncertainties. This study estimated the metal and non-metal resource productivities of 38 OECD countries through multiple regression analysis and conducted a comparative analysis of their ranking changes according to their current resource productivities. The study results revealed that the 38 OECD countries could be classified into four categories. First, countries with low overall resource productivities due to a high economic dependence on low-value metal resources by weight exhibited a substantial rise in their non-metal resource productivity rankings. Second, countries that have minimal metal industries in their national economies but generate high value-added from these sectors showed a notable increase in their metal resource productivity rankings. Third, countries with a low proportion of metal industry in their economies and low metal resource productivities experienced significant declines in their metal resource productivity rankings. Fourth, countries with a small disparity between their metal and non-metal resource productivities showed minimal changes in their rankings for both categories. These results highlight that changes in metal resource productivity rankings were more pronounced than those for non-metal resources, which implies that the influence of non-metal resources (biomass, fossil fuels, non-metallic minerals) dominates national-level resource productivity because their economic value is higher than metal resources. These findings suggest that it is necessary to manage the economic value of each resource type as distinct statistical data to provide a more nuanced understanding of national resource productivity.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.3 no.10
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• pp.441-450
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• 2014

The stock market is constantly changing and sometimes the stock prices unaccountably plummet or surge. So, the stock market is recognized as a complex system and the change on the stock prices is unpredictable. Recently, many researchers try to understand the stock market as the network among individual stocks and to find a clue about the change of the stock prices from big data being created in real time from Internet. We focus on the correlation between the stock prices and the human interactions in Internet especially in the stock message boards. To uncover this correlation, we collected and investigated the articles concerning with 57 target companies, members of KOSPI200. From the analysis result, we found that there is no significant correlation between the stock prices and the article volume, but the strength of correlation between the article volume and the stock prices is relevant to the stock return. We propose a new method for recommending stock portfolio base on the result of our analysis. According to the simulated investment test using the article data from the stock message boards in 'Daum' portal site, the returns of our portfolio is about 1.55% per month, which is about 0.72% and 1.21% higher than that of the Markowitz's efficient portfolio and that of the KOSPI average respectively. Also, the case using the data from 'Naver' portal site, the stock returns of our proposed portfolio is about 0.90%, which is 0.35%, 0.40%, and 0.58% higher than those of our previous portfolio, Markowitz's efficient portfolio, and KOSPI average respectively. This study presents that collective human behavior on Internet stock message board can be much helpful to understand the stock market and the correlation between the stock price and the collective human behavior can be used to invest in stocks.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.70-82
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• 2023

The recent surge of IT and data acquisition is shifting the paradigm in all aspects of life, and these advances are also affecting academic fields. Research topics and methods are being improved through academic exchange and connections. In particular, data-based research methods are employed in various academic fields, including landscape architecture, where continuous research is needed. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the possibility of developing a landscape preference evaluation and prediction model using machine learning, a branch of Artificial Intelligence, reflecting the current situation. To achieve the goal of this study, machine learning techniques were applied to the landscaping field to build a landscape preference evaluation and prediction model to verify the simulation accuracy of the model. For this, wind power facility landscape images, recently attracting attention as a renewable energy source, were selected as the research objects. For analysis, images of the wind power facility landscapes were collected using web crawling techniques, and an analysis dataset was built. Orange version 3.33, a program from the University of Ljubljana was used for machine learning analysis to derive a prediction model with excellent performance. IA model that integrates the evaluation criteria of machine learning and a separate model structure for the evaluation criteria were used to generate a model using kNN, SVM, Random Forest, Logistic Regression, and Neural Network algorithms suitable for machine learning classification models. The performance evaluation of the generated models was conducted to derive the most suitable prediction model. The prediction model derived in this study separately evaluates three evaluation criteria, including classification by type of landscape, classification by distance between landscape and target, and classification by preference, and then synthesizes and predicts results. As a result of the study, a prediction model with a high accuracy of 0.986 for the evaluation criterion according to the type of landscape, 0.973 for the evaluation criterion according to the distance, and 0.952 for the evaluation criterion according to the preference was developed, and it can be seen that the verification process through the evaluation of data prediction results exceeds the required performance value of the model. As an experimental attempt to investigate the possibility of developing a prediction model using machine learning in landscape-related research, this study was able to confirm the possibility of creating a high-performance prediction model by building a data set through the collection and refinement of image data and subsequently utilizing it in landscape-related research fields. Based on the results, implications, and limitations of this study, it is believed that it is possible to develop various types of landscape prediction models, including wind power facility natural, and cultural landscapes. Machine learning techniques can be more useful and valuable in the field of landscape architecture by exploring and applying research methods appropriate to the topic, reducing the time of data classification through the study of a model that classifies images according to landscape types or analyzing the importance of landscape planning factors through the analysis of landscape prediction factors using machine learning.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2017

'The worstest environment disaster', 'World's first biocide massacre', 'Home-based Sewol ferry disaster' are all phrases attached to the recent humidifier disinfectant disaster. In the spring of 2011, four of 8 pregnant women including 1 adult man passed away at a university hospital in Seoul due to breathing failure. Epidemiologic investigation conducted by the Korean CDC soon revealed the inhalation of humidifier disinfectant, which had been widely used in Korea during the winter, to be responsible for the disease. As well as lung fibrosis hardening of the lungs, other diseases including asthma, rhinitis, skin disease, liver disease, fetal disease or cancers have been researched for their relation with exposure to the products. By February 9, 2017, 5,342 cases had registered for health problems and 1,131 of them were already dead (20.8% mortality rate). Based on studies by government agencies and a telephone survey of the general population by Seoul National University and civic groups, around 20% of the general public of Korea has used these products. Since the market release of the first product by SK Chemical in 1994, over 7.1 million items from around 20 brands were sold up to 2011. Most of the products were manufactured by well-known large conglomerates such as SK, Lotte, Samsung, Shinsegye, LG, and GS, as well as some European companies including UK-based Reckitt Benckiser and TESCO, the German firm Henkel, the Danish firm KeTox, and an Irish company. Even though this disaster was unveiled in 2011 by the Korean government, the issue of the victims was neglected for over five years. In 2016, an unexpected but intensive investigation by prosecutors found that Reckitt Benckiser manipulated and concealed animal tests for its own brand and brought several university experts and company employees to court. The matter was an intense social issue in Korea from May to June with a surge in media coverage. The prosecutor's investigation and a nationwide boycott campaign organized by victims and environmental groups against Reckitt Benckiser, whose product had been used by more than 70% of victims, led to the producer's official apology and a compensation scheme. A legislative investigation organized after the April 2016 national election revealed the producers' faults and the government's responsibility, but failed to meet expectations. A special law for the victims passed the National Assembly in January 2017 and a punitive system together with a massive environmental epidemiology investigation are expected to be the only solutions for this tragedy. Sciences of medicine, toxicology and environmental health have provided decisive evidence so far, but for the remaining problems the perspectives of social sciences such as sociology and jurisprudence are highly necessary, similar to with the Minamata disease and Wonjin Rayon events. It may not be easy to follow this issue using unfamiliar terminology from medical and chemical science and the long, complicated history of the event. For these reasons the author has attempted to write this article in a question and answer format to render it easier to follow. The 17 questions are: Q1 What is humidifier disinfectant? Q2 What kind of health problems are caused by humidifier disinfectant? Q3 How many victims are there? Q4 What is the analysis of the 1,112 cases of death? Q5 What is the problem with the government's diagnostic criteria and the solution? Q6 Who made what brands? Q7 Has there been a recall? What is still on sale? Q8 Was safety not checked by any producers? Q9 What are the government's responsibilities? Q10 Is it true that these products were sold only in Korea? Q11 Why and how was it unveiled only in 2011 after 17 years of sales? Q12 What delayed the resolution of the victim issue? Q13 What is the background of the prosecutor's investigation in early 2016? Q14 Is it possible to report new victim cases without evidence of product purchase? Q15 What is happening with the victim issue? Q16 How does it compare with the cases of Minamata disease and Wonjin Rayon? Q17 Are there prevention measures and lessons?