• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.121-133
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• 2014

Block copolymers including ABA triblock architectures are useful as thermoplastic elastomers and toughened plastics depending on the relative glassy and rubbery content. These materials can be blended with other polymers and utilized as additives, toughening agents, and compatibilizers. Most of commercially available block copolymers are derived from petroleum. Renewable alternatives are attractive considering the finite supply of fossil resources on earth and the overall economic and environmental expenses involved in the recovery and use of oil. Furthermore, tomorrow's sustainable materials are demanding the design and implementation with programmed end-of-life. The present review focuses on the preparation and evaluation of new classes of renewable ABA triblock copolymers and also emphasizes on the use of carbohydrate-derived poly(lactide) or plant-based poly(olefins) having a high glass transition temperature and/or high melting temperature for the hard phase in addition to the use of bio-based amorphous hydrocarbon polymers with a low glass transition temperature for the soft components. The combination of multiple controlled polymerizations has proven to be a powerful approach. Precision-controlled synthesis of these hybrid macromolecules has led to the development of new elastomers and tough plastics offering renewability, biodegradability, and high performance.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.423-434
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• 2016

The importance of severe nuclear accidents and probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) were brought to international attention with the occurrence of severe nuclear accidents caused by the extreme natural disaster at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. In Korea, studies on level 3 PSA had made little progress until recently. The code systems of level 3 PSA, MACCS2 (MELCORE Accident Consequence Code System 2, US), COSYMA (COde SYstem from MAria, EU) and OSCAAR (Off-Site Consequence Analysis code for Atmospheric Releases in reactor accidents, JAPAN), were reviewed in this study, and the disadvantages and limitations of MACCS2 were also analyzed. Experts from Korea and abroad pointed out that the limitations of MACCS2 include the following: MACCS2 cannot simulate multi-unit accidents/release from spent fuel pools, and its atmospheric dispersion is based on a simple Gaussian plume model. Some of these limitations have been improved in the updated versions of MACCS2. The absence of a marine and aquatic dispersion model and the limited simulating range of food-chain and economic models are also important aspects that need to be improved. This paper is expected to be utilized as basic research material for developing a Korean code system for assessing off-site consequences of severe nuclear accidents.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 1997

The experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of water stress on yield and quality of Ligusticum chuanxiong Hort. The water stress treatment was imposed artificially on seedling, flowering and rhizome enlargement stage of the plant. The root yield rate decreased to 19.1%, 18.2% and by the water stress treatment at rhizome enlargement, seedling and flowering stage, respectively. Portion of the products having commercial quality grade (above 20g of rhizome weight) was 93.4% at control plot, while it was 85%, 81.7% and 78.3% when stressed for water at seedling, flowering and root enlargement stage, respectively. Content of extract was the higher in the order of control, water stressed at rhizome enlargement, flowering and the seedling stage. Postive correlationship was found between yield of rhizome and rootlet yield or economic production ratio, and between dry weight of stem and rootlet yield.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.822-829
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• 2017

As a method to reduce the total phosphorus in sewage treatment plant, we applied the integral type slow mixing/sedimentation fiber filtration system to compare the control methods for the sewage effluent and the reject water. It was analyzed that about 92.4 kg T-P/day should be removed in order to satisfy the final concentration of phosphorus of 0.2 mg T-P/L, which is reinforced effluent standard. Therefore the total phosphorus removal efficiency should be 96% for sewage effluent and 69.2% for reject water (dehydrated filtrate) respectively. The system operation cost to achieve the target of total phosphorus removal efficiency was assessed. It has been found that the treatment cost of the reject water containing high concentration of phosphorus with a low flow rate is reduced to about 1/2.4 of the coagulant cost and about 1/120 of the electricity cost, compared to that of the sewage effluent treatment. Also the economics of the integral type slow mixing/sedimentation fiber filtration system and the general coagulation and sedimentation system were compared. It was evaluated that the development system was more economical because the installation area of the integral type slow mixing/sedimentation fiber filtration system was about 1/7 smaller than that of the general coagulation and sedimentation system, and the annual operation cost including the required amount of coagulant and electricity cost of the development system was lowered about 1/1.7 than that of the general system.

• 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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• 2014.10a
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• pp.11-11
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• 2014

Fungal pathogens have huge impact on health and economic wellbeing of human by causing life-threatening mycoses in immune-compromised patients or by destroying crop plants. A key determinant of fungal pathogenesis is their ability to undergo developmental change in response to host or environmental factors. Genetic pathways that regulate such morphological transitions and adaptation are therefore extensively studied during the last few decades. Given that epigenetic as well as genetic components play pivotal roles in development of plants and mammals, contribution of microbial epigenetic counterparts to this morphogenetic process is intriguing yet nearly unappreciated question to date. To bridge this gap in our knowledge, we set out to investigate histone modifications among epigenetic mechanisms that possibly regulate fungal adaptation and processes involved in pathogenesis of a model plant pathogenic fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae. M. oryzae is a causal agent of rice blast disease, which destroys 10 to 30% of the rice crop annually. Since the rice is the staple food for more than half of human population, the disease is a major threat to global food security. In addition to the socioeconomic impact of the disease it causes, the fungus is genetically tractable and can undergo well-defined morphological transitions including asexual spore production and appressorium (a specialized infection structure) formation in vitro, making it a model to study fungal development and pathogenicity. For functional and comparative analysis of histone modifications, a web-based database (dbHiMo) was constructed to archive and analyze histone modifying enzymes from eukaryotic species whose genome sequences are available. Histone modifying enzymes were identified applying a search pipeline built upon profile hidden Markov model (HMM) to proteomes. The database incorporates 22,169 histone-modifying enzymes identified from 342 species including 214 fungal, 33 plants, and 77 metazoan species. The dbHiMo provides users with web-based personalized data browsing and analysis tools, supporting comparative and evolutionary genomics. Based on the database entries, functional analysis of genes encoding histone acetyltransferases and histone demethylases is under way. Here I provide examples of such analyses that show how histone acetylation and methylation is implicated in regulating important aspects of fungal pathogenesis. Current analysis of histone modifying enzymes will be followed by ChIP-Seq and RNA-seq experiments to pinpoint the genes that are controlled by particular histone modifications. We anticipate that our work will provide not only the significant advances in our understanding of epigenetic mechanisms operating in microbial eukaryotes but also basis to expand our perspective on regulation of development in fungal pathogens.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.75-85
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• 2016

This research aims to predict and analyze green building certification market of Korean Peninsula after unification. First, it analyzes prospected unification time period, then it forecasts number of new residential and non-residential buildings to be constructed based on estimated number of residences in short at the time in North Korea. There exists a good chance that North Korea's new building market forms similar to that of South Korea, as unification would thoroughly proceed which would result levels of economic culture social politics in quasi-equal state. Thus, assuming the ratio of residential and non-residential building against population is similar in both Korea's, the number against North Korea's house supplied population can be estimated. Based on the expected numbers in North Korea, number of proceeded Building Energy Conservation Plan, Building Energy Rating Certification, and Green Standard for Energy and Environmental Design (G-SEED) are predicted. The research shows certification market related to green building in united Korean Peninsula to be \660 billion over 10 years. Not only certifications to newly built buildings but also including existing buildings, this market is to grow to a considerable extent. As this would largely influence eco-constructive materials, energy plant/equipment, and other relevant markets as well, it would require to make thorough preparations. In sum, to stabilize green building market even before the unification, the research proposes the necessities of appropriate systems in consideration of North Korea, through in-depth discussions and establishment of technology and policy directions in green building sector, such as building energy management and emission reduction technology.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.491-498
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• 2005

J sewage treatment plant (WWTP) in Busan has used methanol as an external carbon source for the biological denitrification process. Methanol is widely used. but rather expensive and very dangerous in handling. Therefore, it has been required that the economic alternative carbon source must be developed. By-product from a fine chemical industry can be Purified by removing high molecular weight substances using the ultrafilter membrane separation process and RBDCOD fraction becomes $98{\sim}99%$ of COD substances in the purified by-product. The purified by-product containing three types of alcohols, methanol, prophylenglycol and methoxypropanol; showed similar chemical characteristics to the methanol, a main external carbon source, in biodegradation pathway. Shown above, the compatibility between main and alternative carbon sources has been achieved. Also very short or no adaptation period is necessary in the case of exchanging these carbon sources. The compatibility between external carbon sources is an essential element for stabilizing WWTP operations. During the full-scale application test of the by-product, the alternative carbon source line got on par with the treatment efficiency of the methanol line. With the test result, J-WWTP changed methanol to a fine chemical by-product, in two out of three J-WWTP lines. Moreover, it is expected that 55.4% of the external carbon source cost reduction can be achieved in the alternative carbon source applied lines.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.485-495
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• 2018

Background: The geographical origin of Panax ginseng Meyer, a valuable medicinal plant, is important to both ginseng producers and consumers in the context of economic profit and human health benefits. We, therefore, aimed to discriminate between the cultivation regions of ginseng using the stable isotope ratios of C, N, O, and S, which are abundant bioelements in living organisms. Methods: Six Korean ginseng cultivars (3-yr-old roots) were collected from five different regions in Korea. The C, N, O, and S stable isotope ratios in ginseng roots were measured by isotope ratio mass spectrometry, and then these isotope ratio profiles were statistically analyzed using chemometrics. Results: The various isotope ratios found in P. ginseng roots were significantly influenced by region, cultivar, and the interactions between these two factors ($p{\leq}0.001$). The variation in ${\delta}^{15}N$ and ${\delta}^{13}C$ in ginseng roots was significant for discriminating between different ginseng cultivation regions, and ${\delta}^{18}O$ and ${\delta}^{34}S$ were also affected by both altitude and proximity to coastal areas. Chemometric model results tested in this study provided discrimination between the majority of different cultivation regions. Based on the external validation, this chemometric model also showed good model performance ($R^2=0.853$ and $Q^2=0.738$). Conclusion: Our case study elucidates the variation of C, N, O, and S stable isotope ratios in ginseng root depending on cultivation region. Hence, the analysis of stable isotope ratios is a suitable tool for discrimination between the regional origins of ginseng samples from Korea, with potential application to other countries.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.483-490
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• 2014

The design procedures for a biological reactor and a secondary settling tank (SST) of an activated sludge system are based on the steady state design method (Ekama et al., 1986; WRC, 1984) and the 1-D flux theory design method (Ekama et al., 1997), respectively. This study combined both of the design procedures, to determine the optimum sludge concentration in the reactor and the best design with the lowest cost. The best design of the reactor volume and the SST diameter at the optimum sludge concentration were specified with varying wastewater and sludge characteristics, temperature, sludge retention time (SRT) and peak flow rate. The effects of the influent wastewater characteristics, such as substrate concentration and unbiodegradable particulate fraction, were found to be considerable, but the effect of unbiodegradable soluble fraction was to be negligible. The effects of sludge settling characteristics, were also significant. SRT, as an operating parameter, was found to be an important factor for determining the optimum sludge concentration. However, the effect of temperature was found to be small. Furthermore, for designing a large scale wastewater treatment plant, the number of reactors or SSTs could be estimated, by dividing the total reactor volume or SST area. The new combined design procedure, proposed in this research, will be able to allow engineers to provide the best design of an activated sludge system with the lowest cost.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.328-334
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• 2007

Chemical heat pump system of 2-propanol/acetone/hydrogen is most suitable to the recovery of waste heat of power plant. various types of 5 wt% Pt-alumina catalysts were prepared for 2-propanol dehydrogenation using sol-gel method. The characteristics and the dehydrogenation reaction rate of each catalyst were investigated. Pt-alumina xerogel catalyst has excellent reaction rate and good durability in comparison with the existing alumina supported Pt catalysts. Pt-alumina aerogel catalyst had the highest reaction rate in all prepared catalysts, but sufficient aging time was necessary to maintain its reaction rate. A potential advantage of the aerogel catalyst is the fact that the high temperature heat treatment is not required. Without heat treatment or with low temperature heat treatment, the Pt-alumina aerogel catalyst has excellent reaction rate as well as durability and this gives us the economic advantage. Alumina xerogel supported Pt catalyst prepared by incipient wetness method showed good reaction rate, and had good mechanical strength. Blank alumina xerogel prepared by sol-gel method can be used for the support of metal catalysts.