• Korean Journal of Mineralogy and Petrology
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.303-312
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• 2023

The determination of the oxidation states of metal elements in manganese nodules sheds light on the understanding of the formation mechanism of nodules, providing insights into the paleo-environmental conditions such as the redox potential of the aqueous system. This study aims to reveal the oxidation states and chemical bonding of manganese in the natural polymetallic nodules, utilizing conventional X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Specifically, shallow manganese nodules from the Siberian Arctic Sea, effectively recording mineralogical variations, were used in this study. Detailed analysis of XPS Mn 2p spectra showed changes in the manganese oxidation state from the center to the outer parts of the nodules. The central part of the nodules showed a higher Mn⁴⁺ content, approximately 67.9%, while the outermost part showed about 63% of Mn⁴⁺ due to an increase in the Mn³⁺+Mn²⁺. The decrease in the Mn oxidation state with the growth is consistent with the previously reported mineralogical variations from todorokite to birnessite with growth. Additionally, the O 1s spectra presented a predominance of Mn-O-H bonds in the outer layers compared to the center, suggesting hydration by water in the layered manganates of outer layers. The results of this study demonstrate that XPS can be directly applied to understand changes in paleo-environmental conditions such as the redox states during the growth of manganese nodules. Finally, future studies using high-resolution synchrotron-based XPS experiments could achieve details in oxidation states of manganese and trace metal elements.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.83-89
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• 1979

To improve the physico-chemical properties of sandy alluvial soils for paddy rice, several soil amendments such as wollastonite, dolomite adding red earth and compost were applied compositely. The results are summarized as follows. 1. The application of soil amendments caused an increase of calcium, magnesium and silica contents in the soils, and it was also possible to maintain a high pH during the cropping season. 2. Among the mineral elements in the plant, calcium and silica content were increased by the treatment of adding red earth, dolomite and wollastonite. 3. By the application of wallastonite and dolomite, the phosphorous content in the plant decreased in comparison with no-amendment treatment, and the potash in the plant also decreased after the ear formation stage of the rice. 4. The most desirable treatment (adding red earth+dolomite+extra N) resulted in 19% increase of rice yield, while the composite of wollastonite and compost brought 10% yield increase. The high ripeding ratio was the factor which influenced the yield favorably.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.107-112
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• 2000

One of the physiologically important ginseng diseases is red-colored phenomena (RCP) that is caused by accumulation of red-colored substances on the epidermis of ginseng roots. Although RCP severely deteriorates the quality of ginseng products, there has been little information on what red-colored substance is and how RCP occurs. Therefore, the heavy losses of cultivators and ginseng industry are suffering by RCP, For this reason, we have investigated with the morphochernical characteristics of RCP to find out main cause of it. The red-colored substances (RS) on the epidermis of red-colored ginseng (RCG) were examined using inverted light microscope, confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM)and furier transform infrared (FT/IR) spectrometer. Red brown substances were accumulated in the cell wall of the epidermis from early stage to late stage of RCC. Especially, cell wall of the late stage of RCG was covered with the sub-stances with 80~ 130 fm thick. Therefore, the cell wall of RCG cannot protect the ginseng root cells from the mechanical damages, bacteria and fungi. To analyse red substances of roots, RS were isolated from epidermis of RCG and extracted using various solvents. RS is strongly insoluble but it was bleached by oxidizing agents including 12% (v/v) NaOCl. Therefore, RS was Presumed to make up of high chelation power. The proriles of FT/IR spectra or both healthy ginseng (HEG) and RCG showed a significant difference at two wavelength,2857 cm$\^$-1/(C-H) and 1032 cm$\^$-1/(S=O), respectively. Furthermore, absorption peak of 2857cm$\^$-l/ appears on the only epidermis of RCG. The other peak is shown lower absorption rate on the epidermis of RCG than that of healthy ginseng. Also, FT/IR spectra of the mixture of carboxym-ethylcellulose (CMC) and iron (Fe$\^$3+/) were very similar to RCG spectrum profiles. One of a interesting fact is that the contents of phenolic compounds at the epidermis of healthy ginseng were highest. The results of these experiments sup-port the RCP was closely related with the chemical interaction between inorganic elements (Fe) of rhizosphere and organic matters (cellulose, cellobiose, cell sap, etc.) of ginseng roots.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.102-106
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• 1997

Micro gas sensors including thin film catal) tic type require stress-free memhrancs for etch stop of Si anisotropic etching and sublayer of sensing elements hecause stress is one of the main factors affecting breakdown of thin membranes. This paper reports the effects of deposition conditions on stress and refractive index of $SiN_{x}/SiO_{x}/(NON)$ films deposited by low pressure c11ernic;rl vapor deposition(L, t'CVI)) 2nd reactve sputtering. In the case of I.PCVI1, the stresses of $SiN_{x}$ and NON films arc $7.6{\times}10^{8}dyne/cm^2$ and $3.3{\times}10^{8}dyne/cm^2$, respectibely, and the refractive indices are 3.05 and 152, respectively. In the cxse oi the sputtered SiN, , compressi\e stress decreased in magnitude and then turned to tensility as increasing proc, ess pressure by lmtorr to 30mtorr and cicreasmg applied power density by $2.74W/cm^2$ to $1.10W/cm^2$. The hest value of film stress obt;~ined under condition of lOmtorr and $1.37W/cm^2$ in this' experiment was $1.2{\times}10^{9}dyne/cm^2$ cnnipressive. The refr~ict~ve index decreased from 2 05 to 1 89 as decreasing applied power density by lnitorr to 3Orntorr and increasing process pressure hy $2.74W/cm^2$ to $1.10W/cm^2$. Stresses of films deposited by both LPCVL) and sputtering decreased as incre;lsing temperature and showed plastic behavior as decreasing temperature.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.322-328
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• 2010

This study was initiated to investigate the physical and chemical properties of the clay mineral illite and its effect on the growth of cherry tomato (Hongjak) as affected by the forms and concentrations of illite using the bed soil in the glass house. The composition of illite was analyzed by SEM(scanning electron microscope). The cherry tomato was cultivated in the bed soil in the glass house at Chungbuk National University for 10 weeks of total duration. The application rates of illite used as particulate and powder forms were standard 1:20 (w/w), two times 1:10 (w/w), four times 1:5 (w/w) of standard application, respectively. The surface of illite used in the study appeared to be hexagonal sheet and it included K and the variety of other elements. The growth lengths of cherry tomato were 11-23% greater in the pots treated than in the untreated pots. Based on the analyses of the major cations, K, Ca, and Mg from the cherry tomato the amounts of K taken in the leaf and stem of the cherry tomato were 8-45% and 3-30% greater than untreated pots, respectively. The amount of Ca in the leaf and stem taken up by the cherry tomato were 6-39% and 11-40% greater than untreated pots, respectively. The amounts of Mg in the leaf and stem taken up by the cherry tomato were 17-62% and 19-54% greater than untreated pots, respectively. Based on the analysis for the amount of cations, such as K, Ca, and Mg taken up by cherry tomato in treated and untreated bed soil, it appears that the illite treatment enhanced the early growth of cherry tomato.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.107-111
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• 2012

Miniature pig sperm cryopreservation is continually researched in biotechnology for breed conservation and reproduction. It is important to control the temperature at each stage of cryopreservation and cryoprotectant. It is also necessary to find the optimal cryoprotectant concentration and chemical elements of the extender. Recently, many studies have used various cryoprotectant materials, such as dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO), ethylene glycol (EG), antifreeze protein (AFP), amides, and glycerol. Glycerol is a commonly used cryoprotectant. However, glycerol has critical cytotoxic properties, including osmotic pressure and it can cause irreversible damage to live cells. Therefore, We focused on membrane fluidity modifications can reduce cell damage from freezing and thawing procedures and evaluated on the positive effects of trehalose to the viability, chromatin integrity, and motility of boar sperm. Miniature pig sperm was separated from semen by washing with modified- Modena B (mMB) extender. After centrifugation, the pellet was diluted with the prepared first extender. This experiment was designed to compare the effects that sperm cryopreservation using two different extenders has on sperm chromatin. The control group used the glycerol only and it was compared with the glycerol and glycerol plus trehalose extender. Sperm viability and motility were evaluated using WST1 assays and computer-assisted semen assays (CASA). Chromatin structure was examined using acridine orange staining. For the motility descriptors, trehalose caused a significant (p<0.01) increase in total motility ($57.80{\pm}4.60%$ in glycerol vs. $75.50{\pm}6.14%$ in glycerol + trehalose) and progressive ($51.20{\pm}5.45%$ in glycerol vs. $70.74{\pm}8.06%$ in glycerol + trehalose). A significant (p<0.05) increase in VAP ($42.70{\pm}5.73{\mu}m/s$ vs. $59.65{\pm}9.47{\mu}m/s$), VSL ($23.06{\pm}3.27{\mu}m/s$ vs. $34.60{\pm}6.58{\mu}m/s$), VCL ($75.36{\pm}11.36{\mu}m/s$ vs. $99.55{\pm}12.91{\mu}m/s$), STR ($54.4{\pm}2.19%$ vs. $58.0{\pm}1.63%$), and LIN ($32.2{\pm}2.05%$ vs. $36.0{\pm}2.45%$) were also detected, respectively. The sperm DNA fragmentation index was 48.8% to glycerol only and 30.6% to glycerol plus trehalose. Trehalose added group showed higher percentages of sperm motility, stability of chromatin structure than glycerol only. In this study, we suggest that trehalose is effective in reducing freezing damage to miniature pig sperm and can reduce chromatin damage during cryopreservation.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.135-145
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• 2013

The recycling of coal bottom ash generated from coal power plants in Korea has been limited due to heterogenous characteristics of the materials. The most common management option for the ash is disposal in landfills (i.e. ash pond) near ocean. The presence of large coarse and fine materials in the ash has prompted the desire to beneficially use it in an application such as fill materials. Prior to reuse application as fill materials, the potential risks to the environment must be assessed with regard to the impacts. In this study, a total of nine test cells with bottom ash samples collected from pretreated bottom ash piles and coal ash pond in a coal-fired power plant were constructed and operated under the field conditions to evaluate the leachability over a period of 210 days. Leachate samples from the test cells were analyzed for a number of chemical parameters (e.g., pH, salinity, electrical conductance, anions, and metals). The concentrations of chemicals detected in the leachate were compared to appropriate standards (drinking water standard) with dilution attenuation factor, if possible, to assess potential leaching risks to the surrounding area. Based on the leachate analysis, most of the samples showed slightly high pH values for the coal ash contained test cells, and contained several ions such as sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chloride, sulfate, and nitrate in relatively large quantities. Three elements (aluminum, boron, and barium) were commonly detected above their respective detection limits in a number of leachate samples, especially in the early leaching period of time. The results of the test cell study indicate that the pollutants in the leachate from the coal ash test cells were not of a major concern in terms of leaching risk to surface water and groundwater under field conditions as fill materials. However, care must be taken in extending these results to actual applications because the results presented in this study are based on the limited field test settings and time frame. Structural characteristics and analysis for coal bottom ash may be warranted to apply the materials to actual field conditions.

• Journal of Korea Technical Association of The Pulp and Paper Industry
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.177-186
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• 2015

Until Mandelbrot introduced the concept of fractal geometry and fractal dimension in early 1970s, it has been generally considered that the geometry of nature should be too complex and irregular to describe analytically or mathematically. Here fractal dimension indicates a non-integer number such as 0.5, 1.5, or 2.5 instead of only integers used in the traditional Euclidean geometry, i.e., 0 for point, 1 for line, 2 for area, and 3 for volume. Since his pioneering work on fractal geometry, the geometry of nature has been found fractal. Mandelbrot introduced the concept of fractal geometry. For example, fractal geometry has been found in mountains, coastlines, clouds, lightning, earthquakes, turbulence, trees and plants. Even human organs are found to be fractal. This suggests that the fractal geometry should be the law for Nature rather than the exception. Fractal geometry has a hierarchical structure consisting of the elements having the same shape, but the different sizes from the largest to the smallest. Thus, fractal geometry can be characterized by the similarity and hierarchical structure. A process requires driving energy to proceed. Otherwise, the process would stop. A hierarchical structure is considered ideal to generate such driving force. This explains why natural process or phenomena such as lightning, thunderstorm, earth quakes, and turbulence has fractal geometry. It would not be surprising to find that even the human organs such as the brain, the lung, and the circulatory system have fractal geometry. Until now, a normal frequency distribution (or Gaussian frequency distribution) has been commonly used to describe frequencies of an object. However, a log-normal frequency distribution has been most frequently found in natural phenomena and chemical processes such as corrosion and coagulation. It can be mathematically shown that if an object has a log-normal frequency distribution, it has fractal geometry. In other words, these two go hand in hand. Lastly, applying fractal principles is discussed, focusing on pulp and paper industry. The principles should be applicable to characterizing surface roughness, particle size distributions, and formation. They should be also applicable to wet-end chemistry for ideal mixing, felt and fabric design for papermaking process, dewatering, drying, creping, and post-converting such as laminating, embossing, and printing.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.287.1-287.1
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• 2016

Three-dimensional (3-D) semiconductor nanoarchitectures, including nano- and micro- rods, pyramids, and disks, are emerging as one of the most promising elements for future optoelectronic devices. Since these 3-D semiconductor nanoarchitectures have many interesting unconventional properties, including the use of large light-emitting surface area and semipolar/nonpolar nano- or micro-facets, numerous studies reported on novel device applications of these 3-D nanoarchitectures. In particular, 3-D nanoarchitecture devices can have noticeably different current spreading characteristics compared with conventional thin film devices, due to their elaborate 3-D geometry. Utilizing this feature in a highly controlled manner, color-tunable light-emitting diodes (LEDs) were demonstrated by controlling the spatial distribution of current density over the multifaceted GaN LEDs. Meanwhile, for the fabrication of high brightness, single color emitting LEDs or laser diodes, uniform and high density of electrical current must be injected into the entire active layers of the nanoarchitecture devices. Here, we report on a new device structure to inject uniform and high density of electrical current through the 3-D semiconductor nanoarchitecture LEDs using metal core inside microtube LEDs. In this work, we report the fabrications and characteristics of metal-cored coaxial $GaN/In_xGa_{1-x}N$ microtube LEDs. For the fabrication of metal-cored microtube LEDs, $GaN/In_xGa_{1-x}N/ZnO$ coaxial microtube LED arrays grown on an n-GaN/c-Al2O3 substrate were lifted-off from the substrate by wet chemical etching of sacrificial ZnO microtubes and $SiO_2$ layer. The chemically lifted-off layer of LEDs were then stamped upside down on another supporting substrates. Subsequently, Ti/Au and indium tin oxide were deposited on the inner shells of microtubes, forming n-type electrodes of the metal-cored LEDs. The device characteristics were investigated measuring electroluminescence and current-voltage characteristic curves and analyzed by computational modeling of current spreading characteristics.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.551-556
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• 2019

Recently, due to the fact that the mineral content in the wash water of the GAP-certified melon exceeds the GAP wash water standards, there are cases where the certification cannot be maintained. Therefore, agricultural industry demand requesting relaxation of the inorganic elements standard for water quality has been increasing, taking into account the consumption characteristics of Korean melon, which is eaten after removing the peel. This study was conducted to evaluate the human risks of four inorganic materials (fluorine, arsenic, iron and manganese) based on the water quality data of 142 samples of groundwater that was used for washing GAP-certified Korean melon in Seongju area from 2017 to 2019. As a result, the HQ of four minerals in Koreans who consumed groundwater used for washing GAP-certified Korean melons in the Seongju area was below 0.10 on average. In particular, in the case of iron and manganese which are esthetic influence substances, the average HQ was 0.00. The overexposure group showed 0.01, which was lower than the HQ (average 0.01, overexposure group 0.03) of the group that consumed Korean melon. Based on all the results, even if the groundwater of the Seongju area is used to wash GAP-certified Korean melon, the impact from these four inorganic materials, including iron and manganese, for Korean population consuming Korean melon will be minimal.