• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.219-226
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• 2017

Electrochemical double layer capacitors (EDLCs) have received a tremendous interest due to their suitability for diverse applications. They have been fabricated using different carbon based electrodes including activated carbons, single walled/multi walled carbon nano tubes. But, graphite which is one of the natural resources in Sri Lanka has not been given a considerable attention towards using for EDLCs though it is a famous carbon material. On the other hand, EDLCs are well reported with various liquid electrolytes which are associated with numerous drawbacks. Gel polymer electrolytes (GPE) are well known alternative for liquid electrolytes. In this paper, it is reported about an EDLC fabricated with a nano composite polyethylene oxide based GPE and two Sri Lankan graphite based electrodes. The composition of the GPE was [{(10PEO: $NaClO_4$) molar ratio}: 75wt.% PC] : 5 wt.% $TiO_2$. GPE was prepared using the solvent casting method. Two graphite electrodes were prepared by mixing 85% graphite and 15% polyvinylidenefluoride (PVdF) in acetone and casting n fluorine doped tin oxide glass plates. GPE film was sandwiched in between the two graphite electrodes. A non faradaic charge discharge mechanism was observed from the Cyclic Voltammetry study. GPE was stable in the potential windows from (-0.8 V-0.8 V) to (-1.5 V-1.5 V). By increasing the width of the potential window, single electrode specific capacity increased. Impedance plots confirmed the capacitive behavior at low frequency region. Galvanostatic charge discharge test yielded an average discharge capacity of $0.60Fg^{-1}$.

• Journal of Adhesion and Interface
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.44-52
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• 2002

Composite materials are created by combining two or more component to achieve desired properties which could not be obtained with the separate components. The use of reinforcing fillers, which can reduce material costs and improve certain properties, is increasing in thermoplastic polymer composites. Currently, various inorganic fillers such as talc, mica, clay, glass fiber and calcium carbonate are being incorporated into thermoplastic composites. Nevertheless, lignocellulose fibers have drawn attention due to their abundant availability, low cost and renewable nature. In recent, interest has grown in composites made from lignocellulose fiber in thermoplastic polymer matrices, particularly for low cost/high volume applications. In addition to high specific properties, lignocellulose fibers offer a number of benefits for lignocellulose fiber/thermoplastic polymer composites. These include low hardness, which minimize abrasion of the equipment during processing, relatively low density, biodegradability, and low cost on a unit-volume basis. In spite of the advantage mentioned above, the use of lignocellulose fibers in thermoplastic polymer composites has been plagued by difficulties in obtaining good dispersion and strong interfacial adhesion because lignocellulose fiber is hydrophilic and thermoplastic polymer is hydrophobic. The application of lignocellulose fibers as reinforcements in composite materials requires, just as for glass-fiber reinforced composites, a strong adhesion between the fiber and the matrix regardless of whether a traditional polymer matrix, a biodegradable polymer matrix or cement is used. Further this article gives a survey about physical and chemical treatment methods which improve the fiber matrix adhesion, their results and effects on the physical properties of composites. Coupling agents in lignocellulose fiber and polymer composites play a very important role in improving the compatibility and adhesion between polar lignocellulose fiber and non-polar polymeric matrices. In this article, we also review various kinds of coupling agent and interfacial mechanism or phenomena between lignocellulose fiber and thermoplastic polymer.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.105-111
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• 2015

The beta2-adrenergic receptor (${\beta}2AR$) belongs to the G protein coupled receptor (GPCR) family, which is the largest family of cell surface receptors in humans. Extra attention has been focused on the human GPCRs because they have been studied as important protein targets for pharmaceutical drug development. In fact, approximately 40% of marketed drugs directly work on GPCRs. GPCRs respond to various extracellular stimuli, such as sensory signals, neurotransmitters, chemokines, and hormones, to induce structural changes at the cytoplasmic surface, activating downstream signaling pathways, primarily through interactions with heterotrimeric G proteins or through G-protein independent pathways, such as arrestin. Most GPCRs, except for rhodhopsin, which contains covalently linked 11 cis-retinal, bind to diffusible ligands, having various conformational states between inactive and active structures. The first human GPCR structure was determined using an inverse agonist bound ${\beta}2AR$ in 2007 and since then, more than 20 distinct GPCR structures have been solved. However, most GPCR structures were solved as inactive forms, and an agonist bound fully active structure is still hard to obtain. In a structural point of view, ${\beta}2AR$ is relatively well studied since its fully active structure as a complex with G protein as well as several inactive structures are available. The structural comparison of inactive and active states gives an important clue in understanding the activation mechanism of ${\beta}2AR$. In this review, structural features of inactive and active states of ${\beta}2AR$, the interaction of ${\beta}2AR$ with heterotrimeric G protein, and the comparison with ${\beta}1AR$ will be discussed.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.1303-1310
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• 2010

Recently, researches related with automative mechanism have been widely studied to increase the driver's safety by continuously monitoring the driver's health condition to prevent driver's drowsiness. This paper describes the design of wearable chest belt for ECG and reflectance pulse oximetry for SpO2 sensors based on wireless sensor network to monitor the driver's healthcare status. ECG, SpO2 and heart rate signals can be transmitted via wireless sensor node to base station connected to the server. Intelligent monitoring system is designed at the server to analyze the SpO2 and ECG signals. HRV (Heart Rate Variability) signals can be obtained by processing the ECG and PPG signals. HRV signals are further analyzed based on time and frequency domain to determine the driver's drowsiness status.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartD
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• v.9D no.4
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• pp.629-638
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• 2002

As the application area of software grows bigger and the importance of software quality increases, software quality evaluation method is also getting a lot of attention. To evaluate the software quality properly, we need an objective and concrete evaluation mechanism. In general, practitioners customize the international standards to their own needs for this purpose. Package software documents plat an important role in software quality evaluation because it provides the information that helps customers use the software effectively and conveniently. h great deal of efforts has been made in terms of international standards for documentation and documentation process. However, those international standards are too abstract to be applied directly to domestic software packages. In this paper, we developed a guidelines and checklists for writing and evaluating package software documents. Our research basically followed ISO 12119, ISO 9127 and some related research results. Also we proved the effectiveness of this research through actual tests with package softwares.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.510-513
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• 2006

Mobile Ad-hoc networks have recently attracted a lot of attention in the research community as well as in industry. Although the previous research mainly focused on various of Ad-hoc in routing we consider, in this paper, how to efficiently support applications such as variable Geocasting basd on Ad-hoc networks. The goal of a geocasting protocol is deliver data packets to a group of nodes that are located within a specified geocasting region. Previous research that support geocast service in mobilie computing based on Ad-hoc have the non-optimization problem of data delivery path, overhead by frequent reconstruction of the geocast tree, and service disruption problem. In this paper, we propose the mobility pattern based geocast technique using variable service range according to the mobility of destination node and resource reservation to solve this problem. The experimental results show that our proposed mechanism has improved performance than previous research.

• KIPS Transactions on Computer and Communication Systems
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• v.2 no.8
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• pp.327-334
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• 2013

Today's network traffic has become extremely complex and diverse since the speed of network became faster and a variety of application services appear. Moreover, many applications appear and disappear fast and continuously. However, the current traffic classification system does not give much attention to this dynamic change of applications. In this paper, we propose an application awareness system in order to solve this problem. The application awareness system can provide the information, such as the usage trend of conventional applications and the emergence of new applications by recognizing the application name in a rapidly changing network environment. In order to recognize the application name, the Host field of HTTP protocol has been utilized. The proposed mechanism consists of two steps. First, the system generates the candidates of application name by extracting the domain name from the Host field in HTTP packet. Second, the administrator confirms the name afterward. The validity of the proposed system has been proved through the experiments in campus network.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.149-164
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• 2012

The purpose of the present study is to construct a rural development strategy from the nexus between spatial changes in specialized crops and suitable cultivation area of the crops. This paper pays particular attention to identify product life cycle of specialized crops in rural areas and estimate the impact of climate change on alterations in spatial distribution of the crops. In order to do so, first of all, this study applies multi-level model (Random coefficient model) to estimate the regional coefficient of five orchard crops. It utilizes the data 1995 to 2010 Korea Agricultural Census. Futhermore, it also adopts overlay analysis by ArcGIS to identify the development path of the crops and the relationship with climate change. Based on the results, it suggests a mechanism activating regional agriculture. The findings propose re-searching and relocating specialized regions of the crops. Especially, it proves each rural area can drive the new agricultural strategy to strengthen regional agriculture by estimating the relationship between development of specialized crops and suitable cultivation areas. For instance, shifting specialized crops in particular regions and enriching genetic or species varieties can be primary measures and it will contribute to improve the reliable base for income sources in the rural communities. This paper also offers specific policy implications regarding rural development plans in response to crops' life cycle and climate changes.

• Mycobiology
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.302-309
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• 2016

The role of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) in honey as antifungal activity has received little attention and their mechanism of inhibitory of fungi is not fully understood. In this study, LAB were isolated from honey samples from Malaysia, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Twenty-five isolates were confirmed LAB by catalase test and Gram staining, and were screened for antifungal activity. Four LAB showed inhibitory activity against Candida spp. using the dual agar overlay method. And they were identified as Lactobacillus plantarum HS isolated from Al-Seder honey, Lactobacillus curvatus HH isolated from Al-Hanon honey, Pediococcus acidilactici HC isolated from Tualang honey and Pediococcus pentosaceus HM isolated from Al-Maray honey by the 16S rDNA sequence. The growth of Candida glabrata ATCC 2001 was strongly inhibited (>15.0 mm) and (10~15 mm) by the isolates of L. curvatus HH and P. pentosaceus HM, respectively. The antifungal activity of the crude supernatant (cell free supernatant, CFS) was evaluated using well diffusion method. The CFS showed high antifungal activity against Candida spp. especially The CFS of L. curvatus HH was significantly (p < 0.05) inhibited growth of C. glabrata ATCC 2001, C. parapsilosis ATCC 2201, and C. tropicalis ATCC 750 with inhibitory zone 22.0, 15.6, and 14.7 mm, respectively. While CFS of P. pentosaceus HM was significantly (p < 0.05) effective against C. krusei, C. glabrata, and C. albicans with inhibition zone 17.2, 16.0, and 13.3 mm, respectively. The results indicated that LAB isolated from honey produced compounds which can be used to inhibit the growth of the pathogenic Candida species.

• Geosciences Journal
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.989-1000
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• 2018

The provenance of the Central Yellow Sea Mud (CYSM) in the Yellow Sea has been attracted a great deal of attention over the last three decades, but a consensus is not yet reached. In this study, 101 surface sediment samples collected from the CYSM were investigated to determine provenance and transport mechanisms in the area using the clay minerals and major element components. The Huanghe sediments are characterized by higher smectite, but the Changjiang sediments are more abundant illite contents. Western Korean rivers contain more kaolinite and chlorite than do Chinese rivers. The Chinese rivers have higher $Fe_2O_3$, MgO, and CaO than the Korean rivers at the same $Al_2O_3$ concentration. Therefore, the clay minerals and major element concentrations can be useful indicator for the source. Based on our results, we suggest that the surface sediments in CYSM were composed mainly of Changjiang sediments, mixed a partly with sediments from the Huanghe and the western Korean rivers. Although the northwestern part of CYSM is proximate to the Huanghe, the contents of smectite and CaO were extremely low. It could be evidence that the Huanghe materials do not enter directly into the CYSM due to the Shandong Peninsula Front. Considering the oceanic circulation in the Yellow Sea, the Changjiang sediments could be transported eastward with the Changjiang Diluted Water and then mixed in CYSM via the Yellow Sea Warm Current (YSWC). Huanghe sediments could be provided by coastal currents (Shandong Coastal Current and Yellow Sea Coastal Current) and the YSWC. In addition, sediments from western Korean rivers might be supplied into the CYSM deposit via the Korean Coastal Current, Transversal Current, and YSWC.