• Title/Summary/Keyword: environmental issue

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Survey on robotics and automation technologies for civil infrastructure

  • Myung, Hyun;Wang, Yang;Kang, Shih-Chung Jessy;Chen, XiaoQi
    • Smart Structures and Systems
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    • v.13 no.6
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    • pp.891-899
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    • 2014
  • Over the past several decades, substantial amounts of sensors and sensing systems have been developed for civil infrastructure systems. This special issue focuses on state-of-the-art robotics and automation technologies, including construction automation, robotics, instrumentation, monitoring, inspection, control, and rehabilitation for civil infrastructure. The issue also covers construction informatics supporting sensing, analysis and design activities needed to operate smart and sustainable civil infrastructure. Examples include robotic systems applied to civil infrastructure and equipped with various sensing technologies, such as optical sensors, laser sensors, wireless sensors, multi-sensor fusion, etc. This special issue is published in an effort to disseminate current advances of various robotics and automation technologies for civil infrastructure and built environment.

Effects of Consumers' Altruistic and Egocentric Values on Social Responsibility and Willingness-to-pay a Price Premium for Ethical Fashion Products (소비자의 이타주의적 가치관과 자기중심적 가치관이 사회적 책임의식과 윤리적 패션제품에 대한 프리미엄 가격 지불의도에 미치는 영향)

  • Choi, Yeong-Hyeon;Ahn, Ga Young;Kim, Eun-Hye;Lee, Kyu-Hye
    • Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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    • v.22 no.5
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    • pp.570-583
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    • 2020
  • The fashion industry is accountable for labor and environment-related issues. With such issues raised, consumers' social responsibility for environmental and labor issues has become an important factor that shapes the perception of companies. This study investigates the relationship between consumer values, concerns regarding social issues, and willingness to pay a premium for ethical fashion products. This study included two exogenous variables of altruistic value and egocentric value. In the conceptual model, consumers' social responsibility was conceptualized as two constructs of environmental consciousness and labor-issue consciousness. It was then analyzed as mediating variables. Willingness to pay a premium for ethical fashion products was the endogenous variable. Data was collected and analyzed with PLS-SEM from 600 consumers. The assessment of discriminant validity and construct validity using CFA were conducted before analyzing the model. Structural equation modeling results revealed that altruistic value directly influenced environmental consciousness and labor-issue consciousness. However, egocentric value was directly and significantly influenced only by labor-issue consciousness. Both environmental and labor issue consciousness directly influenced customers' willingness to pay a premium, but did not significantly change their willingness to pay a premium. Two-stage serial mediation analysis results indicated that the constructs did not have a significant mediation effect on the exogenous variables (altruistic value and egocentric value) and the endogenous variable (willingness to pay a premium) for ethical fashion products. This study found the influence of consumer's personal values on their willingness to pay a higher price for ethical fashion products.

Obesity : Genetic vs Environmental Factors (비만 : 유전이냐 환경이냐)

  • Lee, Soyoung Irene;Jung, Han-Yong
    • Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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    • v.10 no.1
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    • pp.45-53
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    • 2003
  • Debates relevant to the etiology of weight gain or obesity, i.e., the dichotomous understandings about whether obesity arises from the genetic predisposition or from the environmental influences, has long existed. This is an important issue because it is related to the therapists's prejudice when treating patients with obesity. In this review, the authors first discuss the environmental and the genetic factors that cause the obesity, and in the latter part, the interactions between genetic and environmental factors will be discussed. This issue is considered and described especially in a conceptual aspect for the therapists ultimately to understand how the genetic and the environmental factors interact to arise obesity. Conclusively, obesity is best understood as a complex, multifactorial, and chronic disabled state, which cause an individual with genetic predispostion to obesity under the environmental influences. In future, in favor of the accumulated knowledge about the genetic and environmental impacts and their interactions in detail, we will be able to provide a client-specific management or prevention of obesity.

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Developing a composite vertical flow constructed wetlands for rainwater treatment

  • Ahmed, Sanjrani Manzoor;Zhou, Boxun;Zhao, Heng;Zheng, You Ping;Wang, Yue;Xia, Shibin
    • Membrane and Water Treatment
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    • v.11 no.2
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    • pp.87-95
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    • 2020
  • The worldwide shortage of water resources is a major environmental issue. Using pure water for drinking and domestic purposes is a bigger issue than other environmental issues. Industrialization and Urbanization have even polluted rainwater. In China, when it rains, rainwater is stored on the roof or other sources of storage for daily use resulting in pollution. Several studies have been conducted to treat rainwater. The objective of this study is to evaluate the efficiency of constructed wetlands by using ACF as a medium. So, this study aims to treat rainwater in Wuhan city through a Composite Vertical Flow Constructed Wetlands. First, rainwater was stored in the tank while it flows out of the roof, further it is processed in constructed wetlands. The constructed wetlands is consisted with plants Calamus and Chives, adding ACF (prepared from luffa) has achieved great results in this study. Results show that the pollutants have been removed to a considerable level, there were significant differences in removal rates under different HRT at 6h, 9h and 12h respectively. Therefore, Composite Vertical Flow Constructed Wetlands is recommended for total nitrogen and Ammonia nitrogen and total phosphorus.

Study on the Campaign of Using T-Shirts to Establish an Environmentally-Friendly Fashion Culture (친환경 패션 문화 조성을 위한 캠페인 티셔츠에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Mi-Hyun
    • The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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    • v.19 no.5
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    • pp.917-928
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    • 2011
  • The hot-wave of campaign for fashion brands has itself become a fashion trend now. In order to participate in this popular trend, every brand has launched a new campaign of developing T-shirts each season with a social issue as the design concept. Such a campaign plan is related to the brand's image-making. Each brand has its own slogan based on various themes related to social issues. Since the environment is the hottest social issue these days, most campaigns' T-shirts also focus on the image of environmental-friendliness. The purpose of this study is to elucidate environmentally-friendly fashion culture in daily life so that "environmental-friendliness" would be positively cognized by people in everyday life. For that, the design of these T-shirts following the environmental campaign will be developed and their utilization potential will be clarified. The detail contents of the study are as follow. First, the meaning of the environmental campaign and trends of environmental campaigns in Korea and overseas will be explored in order to identify their theoretical contents. Second, the environmental campaigns will be classified by case. Analysis of the expression and characteristic of each case will determine the utilization plan. Third, design directions will be suggested based on the characteristics produced from the case study. As the study conclusion, five environmental campaign T-shirts will be produced.

The Impact of Socio-Scientific Issue Debate about Local Environmental Problem on High School Students' Environmental Perception Change (지역환경문제에 관한 사회과학쟁점 토론이 고등학교 학생들의 환경인식 변화에 미치는 영향)

  • Yoo, Ye-jin;Nam, Younkyeong
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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    • v.13 no.3
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    • pp.284-296
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    • 2020
  • This study investigates the effect of SSI debate on first-year high school student's opinions about environmental issue, their judgment grounds, and solutions to regional environmental problems. The SSI debate was about white heron habitats near the village where students live. As the main data of the study, environmental perception questionnaires, and students' workbook including open-ended questions were collected before and after class. The environmental perception questionnaire was analyzed by descriptive statistics, and the response of the open-ended questions was analyzed through inductive qualitative research methods. First, the results of this study shows that the SSI debate has a statistically significant impact on students' environmental attitude. Second, a majority of students agreed on the idea that villagers should drive the birds out of town and they did not change their after the discussion class. However, after the discussion class, students' solutions about the issue were changed in a way that more short-term, feasible, concrete, and less time-consuming solutions to the problem. Based on the results of this study, this study implies that SSI issue debate using local problem should be used more often in science classroom so the students recognize local SSI and improve real world problem solving skills.

A Study on the Multilateral Environmental Cooperation (다자간 환경협력에 관한 연구)

  • 김성수
    • Journal of Environmental Science International
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    • v.7 no.6
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    • pp.735-744
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    • 1998
  • This research emphasizes the necessity of building a multilateral environmental cooperation. The Process and Problems of multilateral environmental cooperation system are discussed, and some policy proposals are suggested. Especially for Northeast Asia, a comprehensive multilateral environmental cooperation system is required because of transborder pollutions. Within the contractual environment, international institutions can help the parties of conference to build up national capacity to cope with environmental threat.

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Effects of a Teacher's Opinion Presentation on Students Decision-making in a Class Introducing Environmental Issues (환경쟁점을 도입하는 수업에서 교사의 의견 제시가 학생들의 의사결정에 미치는 영향)

  • Yun, Ho-Chan;Lee, Jae-Young
    • Hwankyungkyoyuk
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    • v.18 no.1 s.26
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    • pp.70-81
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    • 2005
  • The importance of classes aiming at enhancing students ability in problem solving and decision making has been being recognized as chances of individual citizen for taking part in social decision making processes. This study was intended to find whether teachers' opinion presentation have effects on students' decision making in a class introducing environmental issues. Total of 6 classes, 202 middle school students have participated in a series of experiments including 4 different environmental issues. Only two issues had been addresses in classes as experimental issues and other two issues not addressed as control issues. For each of the two experimental issues, the teacher researcher applied three different approaches to his students that included positive, negative, or no opinion. The results of this study can be summarized as follows; First, the results showed that students changed their decisions on environmental issues more frequently when dealing with those issues in a class than when not dealing with them. Second, as examining the relationship between patterns in which students make decisions and whether a teacher proposed his opinions or not, it is shown that the rates of students whose opinions is not changed nearly have no difference, while when teachers propose their opinions, it is shown that students who haven't yet chosen their positions easily make their decisions into pros or cons, compared with the opposite case. Third, the results of this study partly supported the third hypothesis that teachers opinion presentation would effect on decision-making of students. It was found that there has been a significant effect in the case of car free day system issue, but no statistically meaningful result in the case of no pets in the national park issue. However, in the issue of car free day system, it seems pretty clear that the students followed the direction of teachers' opinion no matter what it was pros or cons.

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Critical Reviews of Academic Research and Perspectives for Understanding the Humidifier Disinfectant Disaster (가습기살균제 참사에 관한 학술연구의 비판적 검토와 다양한 관점의 이해)

  • Kim, Jiwon;Bahng, Yewon;Park, Moon Young;Zoh, Kyung Ehi;Choi, Yeyong
    • Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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    • v.45 no.4
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    • pp.340-357
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    • 2019
  • The purpose of this paper is to help develop a comprehensive understanding of the humidifier disinfectant disaster from diverse perspectives based on a critical review of the relevant academic research papers published so far in the fields of both natural and social science. The authors reviewed pertinent articles in the six academic areas of law, social science, humanities, medicine, toxicology, and environmental health. A proper understanding of the issue of humidifier disinfectant is a challenging task because diverse aspects of it have become related over the more than two decades since such products were first released to the market in 1994. Technical and esoteric issues such as the complex system for relief and compensation for health damages and the approval of chemical toxicity are known to be major impediments to viewing the bigger picture regarding this tragedy. The authors believe that experts need to consider a comprehensive perspective going beyond their individual research arena to gain a better understanding of this issue, especially since it was an alarm signal on ethics and the role of experts and scholars in Korean society. Besides the two professors arrested by the prosecutor's office, it should be remembered that medical doctors recommended patients use humidifiers and disinfectants, and the media was inactive in reporting on this issue. Furthermore, the current paucity of examination of the social and political implications of this tragedy calls for more active engagement by researchers in the humanities and social sciences. In this regard, this paper is a work of self-examination and self-criticism by the authors that could resonate with the overall academic community.

Establishment of Alarm Criteria for Automatic Water Quality Monitoring System in Korea

  • Lim, Byung-Jin;Hong, Eun-Young;Kim, Hyun-Ook;Jeong, Eun-Sook;Heo, Woo-Myung;Kim, Yoon-Hee
    • Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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    • v.41 no.4
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    • pp.423-430
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    • 2008
  • As of September 2008,45 Automatic Water Quality Monitoring Systems (AWQMS) have been installed at different sites on the 4 rivers to detect early the presence of pollutants in water and to issue an alarm. We count the number of issuing alarms by AWQMS, however, we will find the alarm has hardly been issued. The reasons for the scarcity of alarm issue are extensively being examined. The National Institute of Environmental Research attributes wrong alarm criteria for each AWQMS station to one the reasons. In this study, a suggestion has been made to modify the current alarm criteria to correspond with characteristics of river water quality. The current system with only two criteria (low and high) should be replaced as four-criteria systems (low, medium, high, and severe) based on cases of other advanced countries and stream conditions of Korea. The highest value of data collected for 5 years was suggested as the alarm criteria for each parameter. Meanwhile the alarm criteria for VOCs, phenol and heavy metals were established as same as drinking water quality criteria.