• Title/Summary/Keyword: concern for environment

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The Occupant Perception and Investigation of Indoor Air Quality at Home in Seoul

  • Sohn, Jong-Ryeul;Kim, Young-Whan;Byeon, Sang-Hoon
    • Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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    • v.18 no.1
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    • pp.51-57
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    • 2003
  • Indoor air quality(IAQ) in workplace and residential environments has been concern of people. Recently, Ministry of Environment in Korea has recognized the potential risk on the healthy effect related to indoor air pollution at home. Therefore, the purpose of this study was performed to measure the indoor air pollutants of IAQ at different homes and investigate to compare the perception of IAQ recognition at home from questionnaire survey in Seoul. We estimated the IAQ of selected 6 homes based on site region and housing type. The indoor air pollutants and parameters such as temperature, relative humidity, respirable suspended particulate matter($PM_{10}$), formaldehyde(HCHO), total bacteria counts, carbon monooxide(CO) and carbon dioxide($CO_2$) were monitored for summer and winter. In monitoring results, the respirable suspended particulate matter(($PM_{10}$) and indoor airborne bacteria level of home 5 and 6 were higher than the standard of the public $150{\;}{\mu}g/m^3$ and $500{\;}{\mu}g/m^3$, the level formaldehyde(HCHO) was exceed 0.1 ppm of the standard of Korea at all monitored homes. In statistics analysis, we could find a correlation between the building age and the concentration of CO, TBC were significant at 0.01 level and Relative Humidity was significant at 0.05 level for summer. Finally, the important air pollutants of IAQ in home were HCHO and total bacteria counts(TBC). And we performed a questionnaire survey of 500 people about their awareness for the importance of IAQ in our home during same period. In results, all most response of occupant has recognized the importance of IAQ at home. Therefore, it can be concluded that the IAQ of selected 6 home studied was perceived as acceptable, it is recommended that the government related IAQ was suggested the guideline and control of IAQ problems, and the occupants need to be effort to reduce the exposure of sources to undesirable pollutants.

Patterns of Snake Roadkills on the Roads in the Northeast Region of South Korea (남한 동북부지역 도로에서 뱀류 로드킬의 양상)

  • Park, Daesik;Jeong, Soo-Min;Kim, Seung-Kyu;Ra, Nam-Yong;Lee, Jeong-Hyun;Kim, Ja-Kyeong;Kim, Il-Hun;Kim, Dae-In;Kim, Seok-Bum
    • Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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    • v.31 no.1
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    • pp.42-53
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    • 2017
  • One of the negative ecological effects following road construction is roadkill; animals die on the roads after being struck by vehicles. Roadkills have been a major concern in South Korea due to the large mountain areas in the country and have been mentioned as a causal factor for the decline in wildlife. Although snake roadkills frequently occur, as with mammals, birds, and amphibians, there are not many related studies done on snake roadkills. In this study, we determined snake roadkill patterns in the northeast part of South Korea including most of the Gangwon-do areas and parts of Gyeonggi-do, Chungcheongbuk-do, and Gyeongsangbuk-do by analyzing the snake roadkills found between May 2007 and Aug 2012. We identified a total of 155 roadkilled snakes from 10 different species. Red-sided water snake (Rhabdophis tigrinus), Red-tongue viper snake (Gloydius ussuriensis), Cat snake (Elaphe dione), Red-banded snake (Dinodon rufozonatus), and Viper snake (Gloydius brevicaudus) accounted for more than 90% of the total cases. It was found that more active forager snakes were killed than sit-and-wait foragers, more male snakes were killed than female snakes, and more adult snakes were killed than subadult snakes. The snake roadkill frequency was the highest in September between the altitudes of 200 and 400 m, and on roads between either a mountain and a body of water or between a mountain and a crop field. Our results are expected to enhance the understanding of snake roadkills in general and to determine the areas, specific sites and species for planning projects for snake roadkill reduction in the northeast of South Korea.

Is Fertility Rate Proportional to the Quality of Life? An Exploratory Analysis of the Relationship between Better Life Index (BLI) and Fertility Rate in OECD Countries (출산율은 삶의 질과 비례하는가? OECD 국가의 삶의 질 요인과 출산율의 관계에 관한 추이분석)

  • Kim, KyungHee;Ryu, SeoungHo;Chung, HeeTae;Gim, HyeYeong;Park, HeongJoon
    • International Area Studies Review
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    • v.22 no.1
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    • pp.215-235
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    • 2018
  • Policy concerns related to raising fertility rates are not only common interests among the OECD countries, but they are also issues of great concern to South Korea whose fertility rate is the lowest in the world. The fertility rate in South Korea continues to decline, even though most of the national budget has been spent on measures to address this and many studies have been conducted on the increase in the fertility rates. In this regard, this study aims to verify the effectiveness of the detailed factors affecting the fertility rate that have been discussed in the previous studies on fertility rates, and to investigate the overall trend toward enhancing the quality of life and increasing the fertility rate through macroscopic and structural studies under the recognition of problems related to the policy approaches through the case studies of the European countries. Toward this end, this study investigated if a high quality of life in advanced countries contributes to the increase in the fertility rate, which country serves as a state model that has a high quality of life and a high fertility rate, and what kind of social and policy environment does the country have with regard to childbirth. The analysis of the OECD Better Life Index (BLI) and CIA fertility rate data showed that the countries whose people enjoy a high quality of life do not necessarily have high fertility rates. In addition, under the recognition that a country with a high quality of life and a high birth rate serves as a state model that South Korea should aim for, the social characteristics of Iceland, Ireland, and New Zealand, which turned out to have both a high quality of life and a high fertility rate, were compared with those of Germany, which showed a high quality of life but a low fertility rate. According to the comparison results, the three countries that were mentioned showed higher awareness of gender equality; therefore, the gender wage gap was small. It was also confirmed that the governments of these countries support various policies that promote both parents sharing the care of their children. In Germany, on the other hand, the gender wage gap was large and the fertility rate was low. In a related move, however, the German government has made active efforts to a paradigm shift toward gender equality. The fertility rate increases when the synergy lies in the relationship between parents and children; therefore, awareness about gender equality should be firmly established both at home and in the labor market. For this reason, the government is required to provide support for the childbirth and rearing environment through appropriate family policies, and exert greater efforts to enhance the effectiveness of the relevant systems rather than simply promoting a system construction. Furthermore, it is necessary to help people in making their own childbearing decisions during the process of creating a better society by changing the national goal from 'raising the fertility rate' to 'creating a healthy society made of happy families'

An Analysis of Elements in Yen-Ben Street That Form a Sense of Place as an Ethnic Enclave (소수민족집단체류지역(Ethnic Enclave)으로서의 옌볜거리의 장소성 형성 요인 분석)

  • Han, Sung-Mi;Im, Seung-Bin
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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    • v.36 no.6
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    • pp.81-90
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    • 2009
  • This study seeks those elements that form a sense of place in Yen-Ben Street, which represents a typical ethnic enclave in Seoul, to provide a basic resource in the creation of an urban landscape that can provide a positive space for cultural diversity. The results of the study can be summarized as follows: First, the element of a physical environment that develops a sense of place was in fact the poor dwellings that correspond to the economic condition of Korean Chinese. While this element has a negative cognition to outsiders, Korean Chinese feel positively toward it. Secondly, signboards were a physical element of sense of place which retains cultural identity as a means of communication inside the community. Thirdly, it was found that activities such as shopping, recreation, and the exchange of information that are found in the pursuit of daily life act as an essential element in the formation of a sense of place even more than architectural elements. Fourthly, the appropriation of space by Korean Chinese and the isolation from the surroundings were obvious. This isolation is perceived as a negative sense of place formation to outsiders in Yen-Ben Street. Fifthly, the aspects of cultural dualism, mingling the concepts of home country, language, writing, and food have also affected the formation of a sense of place in the area. Sixthly, transience was a prominent phenomenon of Yen-Ben Street and is strengthened by illegal immigration. Although transience causes negative impacts such as in a lack of concern for the residential environment, it acts as a positive factor in the sense of place by mitigating uneasiness, and strengthening insider ties and cooperation.

Comparison of Deep Learning Frameworks: About Theano, Tensorflow, and Cognitive Toolkit (딥러닝 프레임워크의 비교: 티아노, 텐서플로, CNTK를 중심으로)

  • Chung, Yeojin;Ahn, SungMahn;Yang, Jiheon;Lee, Jaejoon
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.23 no.2
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    • pp.1-17
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    • 2017
  • The deep learning framework is software designed to help develop deep learning models. Some of its important functions include "automatic differentiation" and "utilization of GPU". The list of popular deep learning framework includes Caffe (BVLC) and Theano (University of Montreal). And recently, Microsoft's deep learning framework, Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit, was released as open-source license, following Google's Tensorflow a year earlier. The early deep learning frameworks have been developed mainly for research at universities. Beginning with the inception of Tensorflow, however, it seems that companies such as Microsoft and Facebook have started to join the competition of framework development. Given the trend, Google and other companies are expected to continue investing in the deep learning framework to bring forward the initiative in the artificial intelligence business. From this point of view, we think it is a good time to compare some of deep learning frameworks. So we compare three deep learning frameworks which can be used as a Python library. Those are Google's Tensorflow, Microsoft's CNTK, and Theano which is sort of a predecessor of the preceding two. The most common and important function of deep learning frameworks is the ability to perform automatic differentiation. Basically all the mathematical expressions of deep learning models can be represented as computational graphs, which consist of nodes and edges. Partial derivatives on each edge of a computational graph can then be obtained. With the partial derivatives, we can let software compute differentiation of any node with respect to any variable by utilizing chain rule of Calculus. First of all, the convenience of coding is in the order of CNTK, Tensorflow, and Theano. The criterion is simply based on the lengths of the codes and the learning curve and the ease of coding are not the main concern. According to the criteria, Theano was the most difficult to implement with, and CNTK and Tensorflow were somewhat easier. With Tensorflow, we need to define weight variables and biases explicitly. The reason that CNTK and Tensorflow are easier to implement with is that those frameworks provide us with more abstraction than Theano. We, however, need to mention that low-level coding is not always bad. It gives us flexibility of coding. With the low-level coding such as in Theano, we can implement and test any new deep learning models or any new search methods that we can think of. The assessment of the execution speed of each framework is that there is not meaningful difference. According to the experiment, execution speeds of Theano and Tensorflow are very similar, although the experiment was limited to a CNN model. In the case of CNTK, the experimental environment was not maintained as the same. The code written in CNTK has to be run in PC environment without GPU where codes execute as much as 50 times slower than with GPU. But we concluded that the difference of execution speed was within the range of variation caused by the different hardware setup. In this study, we compared three types of deep learning framework: Theano, Tensorflow, and CNTK. According to Wikipedia, there are 12 available deep learning frameworks. And 15 different attributes differentiate each framework. Some of the important attributes would include interface language (Python, C ++, Java, etc.) and the availability of libraries on various deep learning models such as CNN, RNN, DBN, and etc. And if a user implements a large scale deep learning model, it will also be important to support multiple GPU or multiple servers. Also, if you are learning the deep learning model, it would also be important if there are enough examples and references.

The Effect of Vision Sharing at Social Enterprise on Organizational Socialization - Focusing on Mediation Effects of Organizational Health - (사회적기업 종사자의 비전공유가 조직사회화에 미치는 영향 -조직건강을 매개로-)

  • Cheon, Han-Seul;Cho, Young-Bohk;Lee, Na-Young
    • Management & Information Systems Review
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    • v.37 no.1
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    • pp.75-101
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    • 2018
  • Social enterprise in Korea has faced with many problems such as small size, management capability, lack of technology and weak ability to obtain resources despite its quantitative growth, raising concern over sustainability of social enterprises. Despite such tough environment, unique feature of social enterprise, differentiated from commercial enterprise is that it has clear social mission. In addition, social enterprise has the organizational feature in that vulnerable social group of workers coexists with ordinary workers, and plays a role of helping independence of vulnerable social group. Due to this feature, successful organizational socialization of members in social enterprise is a very important feature. Based on assumption that social mission of social enterprise can be utilized as the unique competitiveness of social enterprise through vision-sharing in the organization, and may give positive effects on successful organizational socialization of organization members, this study aims to conduct empirical research on relationship between vision-sharing and organizational socialization and to explore mediation effects of organizational health as organizational environmental element in relationship between vision sharing and organizational socialization. This study was conducted on 156 employees working at social enterprises. As a result of study, first, vision sharing is found to have positive effects on organizational socialization at social enterprises. Second, vision sharing in social enterprise has positive effects on organizational health. Third, vitality and community-oriented in social enterprise are found to have mediation effects among lower elements of organizational health in relationship between vision sharing and organizational socialization. In conclusion, it is confirmed that the more visions of organization are shared, the more members recognize their organization healthy, resulting in successful organizational socialization. This study is meaningful in that it presents the plans for successful organizational socialization of members of social enterprise including vulnerable groups and that it is the empirical study on plans of social enterprise on human resource management.

The Suitable Region and Site for 'Fuji' Apple Under the Projected Climate in South Korea (미래 시나리오 기후조건하에서의 사과 '후지' 품종 재배적지 탐색)

  • Kim, Soo-Ock;Chung, U-Ran;Kim, Seung-Heui;Choi, In-Myung;Yun, Jin-I.
    • Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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    • v.11 no.4
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    • pp.162-173
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    • 2009
  • Information on the expected geographical shift of suitable zones for growing crops under future climate is a starting point of adaptation planning in agriculture and is attracting much concern from policy makers as well as researchers. Few practical schemes have been developed, however, because of the difficulty in implementing the site-selection concept at an analytical level. In this study, we suggest site-selection criteria for quality Fuji apple production and integrate geospatial data and information available in public domains (e.g., digital elevation model, digital soil maps, digital climate maps, and predictive models for agroclimate and fruit quality) to implement this concept on a GIS platform. Primary criterion for selecting sites suitable for Fuji apple production includes land cover, topography, and soil texture. When the primary criterion is satisfied, climatic conditions such as the length of frost free season, freezing risk during the overwintering period, and the late frost risk in spring are tested as the secondary criterion. Finally, the third criterion checks for fruit quality such as color and shape. Land attributes related to these factors in each criterion were implemented in ArcGIS environment as relevant raster layers for spatial analysis, and retrieval procedures were automated by writing programs compatible with ArcGIS. This scheme was applied to the A1B projected climates for South Korea in the future normal years (2011-2040, 2041-2070, and 2071-2100) as well as the current climate condition observed in 1971-2000 for selecting the sites suitable for quality Fuji apple production in each period. Results showed that this scheme can figure out the geographical shift of suitable zones at landscape scales as well as the latitudinal shift of northern limit for cultivation at national or regional scales.

Polymorphisms in Epigenetic and Meat Quality Related Genes in Fourteen Cattle Breeds and Association with Beef Quality and Carcass Traits

  • Liu, Xuan;Usman, Tahir;Wang, Yachun;Wang, Zezhao;Xu, Xianzhou;Wu, Meng;Zhang, Yi;Zhang, Xu;Li, Qiang;Liu, Lin;Shi, Wanhai;Qin, Chunhua;Geng, Fanjun;Wang, Congyong;Tan, Rui;Huang, Xixia;Liu, Airong;Wu, Hongjun;Tan, Shixin;Yu, Ying
    • Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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    • v.28 no.4
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    • pp.467-475
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    • 2015
  • Improvement for carcass traits related to beef quality is the key concern in beef production. Recent reports found that epigenetics mediates the interaction of individuals with environment and nutrition. The present study was designed to analyze the genetic effect of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in seven epigenetic-related genes (DNMT1, DNMT3a, DNMT3b, DNMT3L, Ago1, Ago2, and HDAC5) and two meat quality candidate genes (CAPN1 and PRKAG3) on fourteen carcass traits related to beef quality in a Snow Dragon beef population, and also to identify SNPs in a total of fourteen cattle populations. Sixteen SNPs were identified and genotyped in 383 individuals sampled from the 14 cattle breeds, which included 147 samples from the Snow Dragon beef population. Data analysis showed significant association of 8 SNPs within 4 genes related to carcass and/or meat quality traits in the beef populations. SNP1 (13154420A>G) in exon 17 of DNMT1 was significantly associated with rib-eye width and lean meat color score (p<0.05). A novel SNP (SNP4, 76198537A>G) of DNMT3a was significantly associated with six beef quality traits. Those individuals with the wild-type genotype AA of DNMT3a showed an increase in carcass weight, chilled carcass weight, flank thicknesses, chuck short rib thickness, chuck short rib score and in chuck flap weight in contrast to the GG genotype. Five out of six SNPs in DNMT3b gene were significantly associated with three beef quality traits. SNP15 (45219258C>T) in CAPN1 was significantly associated with chuck short rib thickness and lean meat color score (p<0.05). The significant effect of SNP15 on lean meat color score individually and in combination with each of other 14 SNPs qualify this SNP to be used as potential marker for improving the trait. In addition, the frequencies of most wild-type alleles were higher than those of the mutant alleles in the native and foreign cattle breeds. Seven SNPs were identified in the epigenetic-related genes. The SNP15 in CAPN1 could be used as a powerful genetic marker in selection programs for beef quality improvement in the Snow Dragon Beef population.

A comparative study of ADL and IADL of residential home and home for the aged dwelling elderly (노인의 거주 형태에 따른 일상생활동작(ADL) 및 도구적 일상 생활 동작(IADL)의 수행능력 비교)

  • Park, Chan-Eui;Chang, Chung-Hoon;Lee, Jae-Hyoung
    • The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.61-70
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    • 2006
  • Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) of residential home dwelling elderly and home for the aged dwelling elderly. In attempt to address medical professional caring the elderly, this comparative study examines the factors associated with dependence in the ADL and IADL in two samples of elderly people living in two different environments. Methods: The instrument of ADL and IADL widely used Katz ADL and IADL. Katz ADL and IADL was not a perfect fit for Korean. In concern with cultural factors Won developed K(Korean)-ADL and K-IADL scale reflecting Korean's own language expression and cultural factors in year of 2002. The assessment tool of this study was K-ADL and K-IADL. Differences of ADL and IADL were tested for statistical significance using group t-test and x2 test for comparisons between the residential home dwelling elderly and the home for the aged dwelling elderly. Results: Comparison of assessment for K-ADL and K-IADL in two different dwelling types was significant. Performance of ADL and IADL depend upon their living environment such as social status, number of children, income, present illness as well as age group. This study also showed significant differences of performance in some activities of ADL and IADL between the elderly who live in their own home and live in home for the aged. Comparison of performance of ADL and IADL in different dwelling types revealed that only one item of ADL was significant but only one item of IADL was not significant. It means that IADL is more difficult activities in the home for the aged dwelling elderly than the residential home dwelling elderly. The coupled elderly has more independent in some ADL and IADL activities compared with the single elderly. Conclusion: Using K-ADL and K-IADL is more convenient for Korean elderly. Medical professional consider some factors like dwelling style, social status, existing diseases and disabilities in order to care the elderly and train him/her activities of daily living as well as instrumental activities of daily living. Medical professional, especially physical and occupational therapist emphasize the training items which are bathing of ADL and grooming, housework, preparing meals, laundry, traveling, public transportation, shopping, using telephone and taking medicine of IADL based on the result of this study.

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Legal Review on the Regulatory Measures of the European Union on Aircraft Emission (구주연합의 항공기 배출 규제 조치의 국제법적 고찰)

  • Park, Won-Hwa
    • The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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    • v.25 no.1
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    • pp.3-26
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    • 2010
  • The European Union(EU) has recently introduced its Directive 2008/101/EC to include aviation in the EU ETS(emissions trading system). As an amendment to Directive 2003/87/EC that regulates reduction of the green house gas(GHG) emissions in Europe in preparation for the Kyoto Protocol, 1997, it obliges both EU and non-EU airline operators to reduce the emission of the carbon dioxide(CO2) significantly in the year 2012 and thereafter from the level they made in 2004 to 2006. Emission allowances allowed free of charge for each airline operator is 97% in the first year 2012 and 95% from 2013 and thereafter from the average annual emissions during historical years 2004 to 2006. Taking into account the rapid growth of air traffic, i.e. 5% in recent years, airlines operating to EU have to reduce their emissions by about 30% in order to meet the requirements of the EU Directive, if not buy the emissions right in the emissions trading market. However, buying quantity is limited to 15% in the year 2012 subject to possible increase from the year 2013. Apart from the hard burden of the airline operators, in particular of those from non-European countries, which is not concern of this paper, the EU Directive has certain legal problems. First, while the Kyoto Protocol of universal application is binding on the Annex I countries of the Climate Change Convention, i.e. developed countries including all Member States of the European Union to reduce GHG at least by 5% in the implementation period from 2008 to 2012 over the 1990 level, non-Annex I countries which are not bound by the Kyoto Protocol see their airlines subjected to aircraft emissions reductions scheme of EU when operating to EU. This is against the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol dealing with the emissions of GHG including CO2, target of the EU Directive. While the Kyoto Protocol mandates ICAO to set up a worldwide scheme for aircraft emissions to contribute to stabilizing GHG concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system, the EU ETS was drawn up outside the framework of the international Civil Aviation Organization(ICAO). Second, EU Directive 2008/101 defines 'aviation activities' as covering 'flights which depart from or arrive in the territory of a Member State to which the [EU] Treaty applies'. While the EU airlines are certainly subject to the EU regulations, obliging non-EU airlines to reduce their emissions even if the emissions are produced during the flight over the high seas and the airspace of the third countries is problematic. The point is whether the EU Directive can be legally applied to extra-territorial behavior of non-EU entities. Third, the EU Directive prescribes 2012 as the first year for implementation. However, the year 2012 is the last year of implementation of the Kyoto Protocol for Annex I countries including members of EU to reduce GHG including the emissions of CO2 coming out from domestic airlines operation. Consequently, EU airlines were already on the reduction scheme of CO2 emissions as long as their domestic operations are concerned from 2008 until the year 2012. But with the implementation of Directive 2008/101 from 2012 for all the airlines, regardless of the status of the country Annex I or not where they are registered, the EU airlines are no longer at the disadvantage compared with the airlines of non-Annex I countries. This unexpected premium for the EU airlines may result in a derogation of the Kyoto Protocol at least for the year 2012. Lastly, as a conclusion, the author shed light briefly on how the Korean aviation authorities are dealing with the EU restrictive measures.

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