• Title/Summary/Keyword: acid rain

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An Analysis of Korean Middle School Student Achievement in Environmental Science in TIMSS 2003 (우리나라 중학생들의 환경 영역 성취도 국제 비교 분석)

  • Jeong, Eun-Young
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.26 no.2
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    • pp.200-211
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    • 2006
  • The purpose of this study was to analyze Korean middle school student achievement in environmental science based on the TIMSS 2003 (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study), a student comparison of 46 participating nations. Korea ranked the fourth with a mean score of 554 in environmental science. However, all 3 environment science topics assessed in TIMSS are not included in the Korean science curriculum through 8th grade, even though they are included in most other participating nations' curricula. The average percent correct of items was analyzed according to the main topic, the item type and the cognitive domain. Items that showed differences between the average percent correct of Korea and the international average as well as differences between the average percent correct of boys and girls were further analyzed. Results revealed that Korean students performed better than the international average, especially in 'use and conservation of natural resources', multiple-choice items, and items requiring 'factual knowledge'. Also, male students demonstrated significantly higher achievement than female students. On the other hand, Korean students showed relatively lower achievement in constructed-response items, items that contained content they had not learned in science lessons and items requiring descriptions of the uses and effect of science and technology. Moreover, Korean student lacked understanding about acid rain, global warming, and ozone layer destruction. Korean female students showed relatively lower environmental conceptions and lower performance on items requiring data analysis than Korean male students. On the basis of these results, this study suggested that topics of environmental science be included in the science curriculum and taught in the science classroom to help middle school students more fully comprehend environmental issues.

Evaluation of Digital PCR as a Technique for Monitoring Acute Rejection in Kidney Transplantation

  • Lee, Hyeseon;Park, Young-Mi;We, Yu-Mee;Han, Duck Jong;Seo, Jung-Woo;Moon, Haena;Lee, Yu-Ho;Kim, Yang-Gyun;Moon, Ju-Young;Lee, Sang-Ho;Lee, Jong-Keuk
    • Genomics & Informatics
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    • v.15 no.1
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    • pp.2-10
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    • 2017
  • Early detection and proper management of kidney rejection are crucial for the long-term health of a transplant recipient. Recipients are normally monitored by serum creatinine measurement and sometimes with graft biopsies. Donor-derived cell-free deoxyribonucleic acid (cfDNA) in the recipient's plasma and/or urine may be a better indicator of acute rejection. We evaluated digital PCR (dPCR) as a system for monitoring graft status using single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based detection of donor DNA in plasma or urine. We compared the detection abilities of the QX200, RainDrop, and QuantStudio 3D dPCR systems. The QX200 was the most accurate and sensitive. Plasma and/or urine samples were isolated from 34 kidney recipients at multiple time points after transplantation, and analyzed by dPCR using the QX200. We found that donor DNA was almost undetectable in plasma DNA samples, whereas a high percentage of donor DNA was measured in urine DNA samples, indicating that urine is a good source of cfDNA for patient monitoring. We found that at least 24% of the highly polymorphic SNPs used to identify individuals could also identify donor cfDNA in transplant patient samples. Our results further showed that autosomal, sex-specific, and mitochondrial SNPs were suitable markers for identifying donor cfDNA. Finally, we found that donor-derived cfDNA measurement by dPCR was not sufficient to predict a patient's clinical condition. Our results indicate that donor-derived cfDNA is not an accurate predictor of kidney status in kidney transplant patients.

A Study of the Combustion Flow Characteristics of a Exhaust Gas Recirculation Burner with Both Outlets Opening (양쪽 출구가 트인 배기가스 재순환 버너의 연소 유동 특성에 관한 연구)

  • Ha, Ji-Soo
    • Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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    • v.19 no.6
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    • pp.696-701
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    • 2018
  • The nitrogen oxides generated during combustion reactions have a great influence on the generation of acid rain and fine dust. As an NOx reduction method, exhaust gas recirculation combustion using Coanda nozzles capable of recirculating a large amount of exhaust gas with a small amount of air has recently been utilized. In this study, for the burner outlet with dual end opening, the use of a recirculation burner was investigated for the distribution of the pressure, streamline, temperature, combustion reaction rate and nitrogen oxides using computational fluid analysis. The gas mixed with the combustion air and the recirculated exhaust gas flow in the tangential direction of the circular cylinder burner, so that there is a region with low pressure in the vicinity of the fuel nozzle exit. As a result, a reverse flow is formed in the central portion of the burner near the center of the circular cylinder burner and the exhaust gas is discharged to the outside region of the circular cylinder burner. The combustion reaction occurs on the right side of the burner and the temperature and NOx distribution are relatively higher than those on the left side of the burner. It was found that the average NOx production decreased from an air flow ratio of 1.0 to 1.5. When the air flow ratio is 1.8, the NOx production increases abruptly. It is considered that the NOx production reaction increases exponentially with temperature when the air ratio is more than 1.5 and the NOx production reaction rate increases rapidly on the right-hand side of the burner.

Impacts of Air Pollution on Forests : A Summary of Current Situations (대기오염이 삼림에 미치는 영향 : 피해현황과 원인을 중심으로)

  • Binkley, Dan;Son, Yowhan;Kim, Zin Suh
    • Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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    • v.83 no.2
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    • pp.229-238
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    • 1994
  • Issues of declining growth and vigor in forests are major concerns in many areas around the world, especially in response to predictions in the 1980s of widespread forest declines. This paper summarizes the current state of knowledge for forests in North America, Europe, and East Asia. Forest declines near point-sources of pollution(such as metal smelters) have been well recognized for a century, but evidence of widespread impacts away from point-sources remains relatively uncommon. In North America, significant forest decline has resulted from high concentrations of ozone near Los Angeles, California, and around Mexico City. Some high-elevation forests of red spruce in the eastern U.S. have declined in the past 20 years ; evidence indicates a role of low-pH fog in reducing they cold-tolerance of spruce. In Europe. most attention has focused on Norway spruce stands that developed yellow foliage, needle loss, and in some cases mortality. This syndrome appears to be related generally to an inadequate supply of magnesium, perhaps coupled with a very high supply of nitrogen. Despite localized areas that show declining trees, overall stand growth and standing biomass in Europe increased from. 1970 to 1990. Much less information is available for East Asia. Many industrialized regions in China have a pH of rain <4.5, and some connections between pollution and forest decline have been suggested. Pollution impacts on forests near cities in Korea include needle chlorosis, reduced needle retention, and declining species diversity. Overall, temperate forests show no widespread declines, and no evidence of substantial effects of pollutants on forest growth or vigor. Small areas showing declining forests may indeed demonstrate pollution impacts, and may provide cause for concerns about future impacts on larger areas.

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Characteristics of Ionic Composition of Rainwater in Taean (태안지역 강우의 이온 조성)

  • Lee, Jong-Sik;Kim, Gun-Yeob;Lee, Jeong-Taek;Lee, Kwan-Yong;Park, Byoung-Yong
    • Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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    • v.9 no.1
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    • pp.49-54
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    • 2007
  • The issue of acid precipitation and related environmental problems in East Asia has been emerging. To evaluate the acidity and chemical characteristics of rainwater in Korea, its chemical properties during cultivation season from April to October in 2005 were investigated at Taean. Also, to estimate the contribution of ions on acidity, ion composition characteristics and neutralization effects by cations were determined. The electrical conductivity balance between measured and estimated values showed a high correlation. Rainwater was highly distributed in the range of pH $4.5{\sim}5.0$. The acidity of rainwater was relatively low during the month of June compared with other monitored periods. $Na^+$ was the main cation, followed by $H^+>Ca^{2+}>NH_4^+>K^+>Mg^{2+}$. Among these ions, $Na^+,\;NH_4^+,\;Ca^{2+}$ and $H^+$ comprised over 94% of the total cations. Rainwater anion composition was more than 80% with $SO_4^{2-}$ and $NO_3^-$. In rainwater samples, $NH_4^+$ and $Ca^{2+}$ contributed greatly to neutralizing the rain acidity. The sulfate content decreased until September, and sea salt derivatives were higher in May and October than during other monitored periods. Also, 78% of the soluble sulfate in rainwater was nss-$SO_4^{2-}$ (non-sea salt sulfate).

HOW TO DEFINE CLEAN VEHICLES\ulcorner ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT RATING OF VEHICLES

  • Mierlo, J.-Van;Vereecken, L.;Maggetto, G.;Favrel, V.;Meyer, S.;Hecq, W.
    • International Journal of Automotive Technology
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    • v.4 no.2
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    • pp.77-86
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    • 2003
  • How to compare the environmental damage caused by vehicles with different foe]s and drive trains\ulcorner This paper describes a methodology to assess the environmental impact of vehicles, using different approaches, and evaluating their benefits and limitations. Rating systems are analysed as tools to compare the environmental impact of vehicles, allowing decision makers to dedicate their financial and non-financial policies and support measures in function of the ecological damage. The paper is based on the "Clean Vehicles" research project, commissioned by the Brussels Capital Region via the BIM-IBGE (Brussels Institute for the Conservation of the Environment) (Van Mierlo et at., 2001). The VriJe Universiteit Brussel (ETEC) and the universite Libre do Bruxelles (CEESE) have jointly carried out the workprogramme. The most important results of this project are illustrated in this paper. First an overview of environmental, economical and technical characteristics of the different alternative fuels and drive trains is given. Afterward the basic principles to identify the environmental impact of cars are described. An outline of the considered emissions and their environmental impact leads to the definition of the calculation method, named Ecoscore. A rather simple and pragmatic approach would be stating that all alternative fuelled vehicles (LPG, CNG, EV, HEV, etc.) can be considered as ′clean′. Another basic approach is considering as ′clean′ all vehicles satisfying a stringent omission regulation like EURO IV or EEV. Such approaches however don′t tell anything about the real environmental damage of the vehicles. In the paper we describe "how should the environmental impact of vehicles be defined\ulcorner", including parameters affecting the emissions of vehicles and their influence on human beings and on the environment and "how could it be defined \ulcorner", taking into account the availability of accurate and reliable data. We take into account different damages (acid rain, photochemical air pollution, global warming. noise, etc.) and their impacts on several receptors like human beings (e.g., cancer, respiratory diseases, etc), ecosystems, or buildings. The presented methodology is based on a kind of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in which the contribution of all emissions to a certain damage are considered (e.g. using Exposure-Response damage function). The emissions will include oil extraction, transportation refinery, electricity production, distribution, (Well-to-Wheel approach), as well as the emission due to the production, use and dismantling of the vehicle (Cradle-to-Grave approach). The different damages will be normalized to be able to make a comparison. Hence a reference value (determined by the reference vehicle chosen) will be defined as a target value (the normalized value will thus measure a kind of Distance to Target). The contribution of the different normalized damages to a single value "Ecoscore" will be based on a panel weighting method. Some examples of the calculation of the Ecoscore for different alternative fuels and drive trains will be calculated as an illustration of the methodology.

The Study on Characteristics of Rainwater in Saemangeum (재난을 대비한 새만금지역의 강우특성에 관한 연구)

  • Lim, Ik Hyun;Hwang, Eui Jin;Ryu, Ji Hyeob
    • Journal of Korean Society of societal Security
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    • v.4 no.2
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    • pp.65-72
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    • 2011
  • This study was carried out to investigate the cause of acidification of rainwater and to evaluate the possibility of alternative water resource in Saemangeum. The rainwater were collected in the kwangwhal-myun, Saemangeum from March to September, 2009. The collected 7 samples were analyzed with pH meter, IC (ion chromatography) and ICP (inductively coupled plasma) about the pH and the major ions ($SO{_4}^{2-}$, $NO_3{^-}$, $Cl^-$, $Ca^{2+}$, $K^+$, $NH^{4+}$, $Na^+$ and $Mg^{2+}$) of rainwater. The order of the major anion concentration and the acidification contribution in the rainwater was $SO{_4}^{2-}$>$NO_3{^-}$>$Cl^-$, and that of the major cation was $Ca^{2+}$>$K^+$>$NH_4{^+}$>$Na^+$>$Mg^{2+}$. In the initial rainwater, the major ions concentration were higher than the middle period. pH of the rainwater was the lowest at May, but similar to the results of the others. And pH of the rainwater were significant correlation with $SO{_4}^{2-}$ and $Cl^-$ in Saemangeum. From this results, the rainwater was slight acidic, and $SO{_4}^{2-}$ was the main factor contributed to the rainwater acidification in Saemangeum.

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Effect of Coating Materials for Steel on the Threshold of Corrosive Amount of Airborne Chlorides and the Evaluation of Their Corrosion Speeds (강재마감별 부식개시 임계 비래염분량 및 부식속도 평가)

  • Cho, Gyu-Hwan;Lim, Myung-Hyun;Park, Dong-Cheon
    • Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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    • v.15 no.2
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    • pp.143-151
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    • 2015
  • Many studies have investigated the airborne chlorides that can weaken the overall durability of the concrete structures due to the corrosion of steel materials, but most of the studies have aimed to examine weathering by exposing various construction materials to the actual oceanic environment. However, with the exposure test, it was difficult to find the threshold of precise corrosive amount of airborne chlorides due to diverse deteriorating environmental factors such as ultraviolet ray, acid rain, floating material from industrial pollution as well as airborne chlorides. Therefore, in this study, an airborne chloride simulator was set up, in oder to conduct a corrosion accelerating test for steels coated by five different finishing materials. As results, it was found that the corrosion began to be observed at $0.58{\sim}0.73mg/dm^2$ for no-coated steel, at $7.89{\sim}8.46mg/dm^2$for urethane-coated steel, at $57.95{\sim}69.48mg/dm^2$ for red lead-coated steel, and at $80.73{\sim}89.35mg/dm^2$ for stainless-coated steel, respectively. Hence, these specific data can be considered as the threshold ranges of corrosion for each coating material for steel.

The Effect of Passing Aged Years to the Polarization Characteristics of Embedded Steel Bar of Mortar Specimen(W/C:0.4) (몰타르 시험편(W/C:0.4) 내부철근의 분극특성에 미치는 재령년수의 영향)

  • Moon, Kyung-Man;Won, Jong-Pil;Park, Dong-Hyun;Lee, Sung-Yul;Jeong, Jin-A;Lee, Myeong-Hoon;Baek, Tae-Sil
    • Corrosion Science and Technology
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    • v.13 no.1
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    • pp.20-27
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    • 2014
  • The structures of reinforced concrete has been extensively increased with rapid development of industrial society. Futhermore, these reinforced concretes are easy to expose to severe corrosive environments such as sea water, contaminated water, acid rain and seashore etc.. Thus, corrosion problem of inner steel bar embedded in concrete is very important in terms of safety and economical point of view. In this study, multiple mortar test specimen(W/C:0.4) with six types having different cover thickness each other was prepared and was immerged in seawater solution for five years to evaluate the effect of cover thickness and immersion years to corrosion property of embedded steel bar. And the polarization characteristics of these embedded steel bars was investigated using electrochemical methods such as measuring corrosion potential, cathodic polarization curve, and cyclic voltammogram. At the beginning of immersion, the corrosion potentials exhibited increasingly nobler values with increasing cover thickness. However, after immersed for 5 years, the thicker cover of thickness, the corrosion potentials shifted in the negative direction, and the relationship between corrosion potential and cover thickness was not in good agreement with each other. Therefore, it is considered that the thinner cover of thickness, corrosive products deposited on the surface of the embedded steel bar plays the role as a resistance polarization which is resulted in decreasing the corrosion rate as well as shifting the corrosion potential in the positive direction. As a result, it seemed that the evaluation which corrosion possibility of the reinforced steel would be estimated by only measuring the corrosion potential may not be a completely desirable method. Therefore, it is suggested that we should take into account various parameters, including cover thickness, passed aged years as well as corrosion potential for more accurate assessment of corrosion possibility of reinforced steel which is exposed to partially or fully in marine environment for long years.

Spatial Estimation of Point Observed Environmental Variables: A Case Study for Producing Rainfall Acidity Map (점관측 환경 인자의 공간 추정 - 남한 지역의 강우 산도 분포도 작성)

  • 이규성
    • Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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    • v.11 no.3
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    • pp.33-47
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    • 1995
  • The representation of point-observed environmental variables in Geographic Information Systems(GIS) has often been inadequate to meet the need of regional-scale ecological and environmental applications. To create a map of continuous surface that would represent more reliable spatial variations for these applications, I present three spatial estimation methods. Using a secondary variable of the proximity to coast line together with rainfall acidity data collected at the 63 acid rain monitoring stations in Korea, average rainfall acidity map was cteated using co-kriging. For comparison, two other commonly used interpolation methods (inverse distance weighting and kriging) were also applied to rainfall acidity data without reference to the secondary variable. These estimation methods were evaluated by both visual assessments of the output maps and the quantitative comparison of error measures that were obtained from cross validation. The co-kriging method produced a rainfall acidity map that showed noticeable improvement in repoducing the inherent spatial pattern as well as provided lower statistical error as compared to the methods using only the primary variable.