• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.633-649
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• 2016

Exposure to high temperatures during the reproductive period of crops decreases their productivity. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) fifth Assessment Report predicts that the frequency of high temperatures will continue to increase in the future, resulting in significant impacts on the world's food supply. This study evaluate climate change-induced heat stress on four major agricultural crops (rice, maize, soybean, and wheat) at a global level, using the coupled atmosphere-ocean model of Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 2 (HadGEM2-AO) and FAO/IIASA Global Agro-Ecological Zone (GAEZ) model data. The maximum temperature rise ($1.8-3.5^{\circ}C$) during the thermal-sensitive period (TSP) from the baseline (1961-1990) to the future (2070-2090) is expected to be larger under a Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 climate scenario than under a RCP2.6 climate scenario, with substantial heat stress-related damage to productivity. In particular, heat stress is expected to cause severe damage to crop production regions located between 30 and $50^{\circ}N$ in the Northern Hemisphere. According to the RCP8.5 scenario, approximately 20% of the total cultivation area for all crops will experience unprecedented, extreme heat stress in the future. Adverse effects on the productivity of rice and soybean are expected to be particularly severe in North America. In Korea, grain demands are heavily dependent on imports, with the share of imports from the U.S. at a particularly high level today. Hence, it is necessary to conduct continuous prediction on food security level following the climate change, as well as to develop adaptation strategy and proper agricultural policy.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.385-392
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• 2007

Currently, portable equipment for recycling of waste asphalt concrete (ASCON) has been used. However, any air pollution control devices are not attached in the simple portable one. Thus, a lot of air pollutants have been produced from recycling processes of waste ASCON which resulted from aging of paved roads or repavement of roads. This study deals with a preliminary result of concentration analysis of air pollutants obtained from a pilot and a real recycling processes of waste ASCON using simple portable recycling equipment. Air pollutants were taken from 4 steps of the pilot recycling process including an initial heating by liquid petroleum gas (LPG), intermediate heating and melting (H&M) process, final H&M process, and pavement processes using recycled ASCON at the recycling site. Also, air pollutants were taken front 4 steps of the real recycling processes including an initial H&M, final H&M and mixing, loading of recycled ASCON to dump trucks, and at the recycling site after leaving the loaded dump trucks for real pavement sites. The air pollutants measured in this study include volatile organic compounds (VOCs), aldehydes, particulate matter (PM: PM1, PM2.5, PM7, PM10, TSP (total suspended particulate)). The identified concentrations of VOCs increased with increasing time or degree for H&M of waste ASCON. In particular, very high concentrations of the VOCs at the status of complete melting, which is exposed to the air, of the waste ASCON just before paving tv the recycled ASCON at the recycling site. Also, considerable amount of VOCs were identified from the recycling equipment after the dump trucks leaded by recycled ASCON leaved the recycling site for the pavement sites. The relative level of formaldehyde exceeded 80% of the aldehydes Identified in the recycling processes. This is because the waste ASCON is exposed to direct flame of LPG during H&M processes. The PM concentrations measured in the winter recycling processes, such as the loading and rotation processes of waste ASCON into/in the recycling equipment for H&M, were much higher than those in the summer ones. In particular, the concentrations of coarse particles such as PM7 and PM10 during the winter recycling were very high as compared those during the summer one.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.197-211
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• 2004

Visibility impairment was known as an indicator of the increased air pollution. In many previous studies, it is known that both directly emitted fine particles mainly from vehicles and secondary aerosols from photochemical reactions could contribute to this visibility impairment in addition to the meteorological condition. Furthermore, the visibility showed different change patterns according to the geographical condition. In order to research into the influence of these factors on visibility, this study analyzed the visibility at 15:00, observed from 1990 to 2001 in Seoul, Ganghwa, Susan, Gwangju, Jeju. As a result, the visibility was increased in Seoul except the rainfall period, but in Susan, Gwangju, Jeju, it decreased with the relative humidity (RH). Especially, in Seoul, the number of low visibility days was larger than other sites and variations of the visibility were sensitive to the concentration of air pollutants, such as TSP, $NO_2$, $O_3$. The visibility impairment was mainly observed in meteorological condition of RH<50% and relatively stationary front. Therefore it is inferred that photochemical smog could lead to the low visibility in Seoul. On the other hands, in Ganghwa and Susan, when RH was 60~70%, the low visibility observed under the influence of the transports of air pollutants from nearby cities as well as humid air mass from coastal region. And in Jeju, sea fog and humid air mass caused the visibility impairment when the RH was larger than 80%. Finally, during the observational period, some cases of low visibility phenomena were simultaneously observed in the vast region including Seoul, Susan, Ganghwa. It not only includes the visibility aggravation by Asian Dust, but also could be caused by the movement and diffusion of flying dust or secondary aerosols. Moreover, the result shows that these phenomena could be mainly influenced by meteorological factors covering the wide regions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.513-522
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• 2013

The ODSCC detected in the TSP position of Ulchin 3&4 SGs are typical ODSCC of Alloy 600MA tubes. The causative chemical environment is formed by concentration of impurities inside the occluded region formed by the tube surface, egg crate strips, and sludge deposit there. Most cracks are detected at or near the line contacts between the tube surface and the egg crate strips. The region of dense crack population, as defined as between $4^{th}$ and $9^{th}$ TSPs, and near the center of hot leg hemisphere plane, coincided well with the region of preferential sludge deposition as defined by thermal hydraulics calculation using SGAP computer code. The cracks developed homogeneously in a wide range of SGs, so that the number of cracks detected each outage increased very rapidly since the first detection in the $8^{th}$ refueling outage. The root cause assessment focused on investigation of the difference in microstructure and manufacturing residual stress in order to reveal the cause of different susceptibilities to ODSCC among identical six units. The manufacturing residual stress as measured by XRD on OD surface and by split tube method indicated that the high residual stress of Alloy 600MA tube played a critical role in developing ODSCC. The level of residual stress showed substantial variations among the six units depending on details of straightening and OD grinding processes. Youngwang 3&4 tubes are less susceptible to ODSCC than U3 and U4 tubes because semi-continuous coarse chromium carbides are formed along the grain boundary of Y3&4 tubes, while there are finer less continuous chromium carbides in U3 and U4. The different carbide morphology is caused by the difference in cooling rate after mill anneal. There is a possibility that high chromium content in the Y3&4 tubes, still within the allowable range of Alloy 600, has made some contribution to the improved resistance to ODSCC. It is anticipated that ODSCC in Y5&6 SGs will be retarded more considerably than U3 SGs since the manufacturing residual stress in Y5&6 tubes is substantially lower than in U3 tubes, while the microstructure is similar with each other.