• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.379-394
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• 2021

Air pollution data in South Korea is provided on a real-time basis by Air Korea stations since 2005. Previous studies have shown the feasibility of gridding air pollution data, but they were confined to a few cities. This paper examines the creation of nationwide gridded maps for PM10 concentration using 333 Air Korea stations with variogram optimization and ordinary kriging. The accuracy of the spatial interpolation was evaluated by various sampling schemes to avoid a too dense or too sparse distribution of the validation points. Using the 114,745 matchups, a four-round blind test was conducted by extracting random validation points for every 365 days in 2019. The overall accuracy was stably high with the MAE of 5.697 ㎍/m³ and the CC of 0.947. Approximately 1,500 cases for high PM10 concentration also showed a result with the MAE of about 12 ㎍/m³ and the CC over 0.87, which means that the proposed method was effective and applicable to various situations. The gridded maps for daily PM10 concentration at the resolution of 0.05° also showed a reasonable spatial distribution, which can be used as an input variable for a gridded prediction of tomorrow's PM10 concentration.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.202-217
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• 2022

Purpose: The recent increased use of Personal Mobility (PM) has been accompanied by a rise in the annual number of accidents. Accordingly, the safety requirements for PM use are being strengthened, but the laws/systems, infrastructure, and management systems remain insufficient for fostering a safe environment. Therefore, this study comprehensively searches the main problems and improvement methods through a review of previous studies that are related to PM. Then the priorities according to the importance of the improvement methods are presented through the Delphi survey. Method: The research method is mainly composed of a literature study and an expert survey (Delphi survey). Prior research and improvement cases (local governments, government departments, companies, etc.) are reviewed to derive problems and improvements, and a problem/improvement classification table is created based on keywords. Based on the classification contents, an expert survey is conducted to derive a priority improvement plan. Result: The PM-related problems were in 'non-compliance with traffic laws, lack of knowledge, inexperienced operation, and lack of safety awareness' in relation to human factors, and 'device characteristics, road-drivable space, road facilities, parking facilities' in relation to physical factors. 'Management/supervision, product management, user management, education/training' as administrative factors and legal factors are divided into 'absence/sufficiency of law, confusion/duplication, reduced effectiveness'. Improvement tasks related to this include 'PM education/public relations, parking/return, road improvement, PM registration/management, insurance, safety standards, traffic standards, PM device safety, PM supplementary facilities, enforcement/management, dedicated organization, service providers, management system, and related laws/institutional improvement', and 42 detailed tasks are derived for these 14 core tasks. The results for the importance evaluation of detailed tasks show that the tasks with a high overall average for the evaluation items of cost, time, effect, urgency, and feasibility were 'strengthening crackdown/instruction activities, education publicity/campaign, truancy PM management, and clarification of traffic rules'. Conclusion: The PM market is experiencing gradual growth based on shared services and a safe environment for PM use must be ensured along with industrial revitalization. In this respect, this study seeks out the major problems and improvement plans related to PM from a comprehensive point of view and prioritizes the necessary improvement measures. Therefore, it can serve as a basis of data for future policy establishment. In the future, in-depth data supplementation will be required for each key improvement area for practical policy application.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.67-76
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• 2022

The furniture industry has a high possibility to create value-added and a high potential to create new occupations due to the characteristics of the industry, which mainly consists of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, the used furniture, which has sufficient reuse value, is also crushed and used as solid refuse fuel (SRF) recently. Besides, the number of waste treatment companies continues to decrease, and it occurs congestion of wood waste. As a way to solve the issue, a business model development of remanufacturing used furniture can be suggested as an alternative due to its high circular economic efficiency. Remanufacturing business including furniture industry creates positive effects in various aspects such as economic, environmental and job creation. In other words, remanufacturing is an effective recycling way to reduce input resources and energy in the production process. The results of economic analysis show that the expected annual revenue from the single worker furniture remanufacturing site was 104 million won which is 3.11 times more than the average income of a single-worker household in Korea and its B/C ratio was estimated about 30 which means high business feasibility. Revenue through furniture remanufacturing also showed 320 times higher than that of SRF production from the perspective of weight. In addition, it is shown that the GHGs reduction from the furniture remanufacturing is 2.2 ton CO₂-eq. per year, which is similar to the amount of GHGs absorption effect of 937 pine trees or 622 Korean oak trees annually. Thus the results of this study demonstrate that it is important to adopt an appropriate recycling method considering the economic and environmental effects at the end-of-life stage.

• Korea Science and Art Forum
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• v.36
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• pp.391-400
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• 2018

To ensure a user-centered treatment environment, hospital construction needs an approach that is not centered on functional aspects such as efficiency or economic feasibility but on the consideration of needs as reflected in user psychology and behavior. Patients who are physically and psychologically vulnerable experience psychological pressure when they are placed in an unfamiliar environment. Most of existing studies however focus on the evaluation of the physical environment, without paying attention to the psychological or behavioral approach to anxiety and stress that patients may experience in a special environment that a hospital may be to them. This study examines general hospital inpatients to understand the usage of major space available and their satisfaction with privacy. This study provides useful primary information needed for the user-centered design of general hospital for improved patient health and welfare. For the purpose of the study, literature review, site investigation, and survey were conducted. Major functional space and privacy in general hospitals were studied, and the site investigation was performed to identify the plans and their status. Survey was also performed to understand the usage of functional space and satisfaction with such space usage as well as satisfaction with privacy. The findings were as follows: (1) Space usage was rated as average in general. It was found that patients used their rooms and lobby on a daily basis. By age, the usage was highest in the group in their 40s; the usage was relatively lower in the groups in their 30s or younger. (2) Space satisfaction was above average, indicating that patients were fairly satisfied. Satisfaction was highest in the lobby space designed with distinct features. By case, satisfaction was highest in Case B, characterized by its wide horizontal space in the rural settings. (3) Satisfaction with privacy in hospital was average, indicating that the demand for privacy was relatively higher but what patients receive in return was lower than their expectation. It was also found that satisfaction with privacy was a crucial element that affected the overall satisfaction with hospital.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.325-338
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• 2023

Korean fir (Abies koreana Wilson) is one of the most important environmental indicator tree species for assessing climate change impacts on coniferous forests in the Korean Peninsula. However, due to the nature of alpine and subalpine regions, it is difficult to conduct regular field surveys of Korean fir, which is mainly distributed in regions with altitudes greater than 1,000 m. Therefore, this study analyzed the vegetation change trend of Korean fir using regularly observed remote sensing data. Specifically, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), land surface temperature (LST), and precipitation data from Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievalsfor GPM from September 2003 to 2020 for Hallasan and Jirisan were used to analyze vegetation changes and their association with environmental variables. We identified a decrease in NDVI in 2020 compared to 2003 for both sites. Based on the NDVI difference maps, areas for healthy vegetation and high mortality of Korean fir were selected. Long-term NDVI time-series analysis demonstrated that both Hallasan and Jirisan had a decrease in NDVI at the high mortality areas (Hallasan: -0.46, Jirisan: -0.43). Furthermore, when analyzing the long-term fluctuations of Korean fir vegetation through the Hodrick-Prescott filter-applied NDVI, LST, and precipitation, the NDVI difference between the Korean fir healthy vegetation and high mortality sitesincreased with the increasing LST and decreasing precipitation in Hallasan. Thissuggests that the increase in LST and the decrease in precipitation contribute to the decline of Korean fir in Hallasan. In contrast, Jirisan confirmed a long-term trend of declining NDVI in the areas of Korean fir mortality but did not find a significant correlation between the changes in NDVI and environmental variables (LST and precipitation). Further analyses of environmental factors, such as soil moisture, insolation, and wind that have been identified to be related to Korean fir habitats in previous studies should be conducted. This study demonstrated the feasibility of using satellite data for long-term monitoring of Korean fir ecosystems and investigating their changes in conjunction with environmental conditions. Thisstudy provided the potential forsatellite-based monitoring to improve our understanding of the ecology of Korean fir.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.311-330
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• 2023

Development of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technique is becoming increasingly important as a method to mitigate the strengthening effects of global warming, generated from the unprecedented increase in released anthropogenic CO₂. In the recent years, the characteristics of basaltic rocks (i.e., large volume, high reactivity and surplus of cation components) have been recognized to be potentially favorable in facilitation of CCS; based on this, research on utilization of basaltic formations for underground CO₂ storage is currently ongoing in various fields. This study investigated the feasibility of underground storage of CO₂ in basalt, based on the examination of the CO₂ storage mechanisms in subsurface, assessment of basalt characteristics, and review of the global research on basaltic CO₂ storage. The global research examined were classified into experimental/modeling/field demonstration, based on the methods utilized. Experimental conditions used in research demonstrated temperatures ranging from 20 to 250 ℃, pressure ranging from 0.1 to 30 MPa, and the rock-fluid reaction time ranging from several hours to four years. Modeling research on basalt involved construction of models similar to the potential storage sites, with examination of changes in fluid dynamics and geochemical factors before and after CO₂-fluid injection. The investigation demonstrated that basalt has large potential for CO₂ storage, along with capacity for rapid mineralization reactions; these factors lessens the environmental constraints (i.e., temperature, pressure, and geological structures) generally required for CO₂ storage. The success of major field demonstration projects, the CarbFix project and the Wallula project, indicate that basalt is promising geological formation to facilitate CCS. However, usage of basalt as storage formation requires additional conditions which must be carefully considered - mineralization mechanism can vary significantly depending on factors such as the basalt composition and injection zone properties: for instance, precipitation of carbonate and silicate minerals can reduce the injectivity into the formation. In addition, there is a risk of polluting the subsurface environment due to the combination of pressure increase and induced rock-CO₂-fluid reactions upon injection. As dissolution of CO₂ into fluids is required prior to injection, monitoring techniques different from conventional methods are needed. Hence, in order to facilitate efficient and stable underground storage of CO₂ in basalt, it is necessary to select a suitable storage formation, accumulate various database of the field, and conduct systematic research utilizing experiments/modeling/field studies to develop comprehensive understanding of the potential storage site.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.13-29
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• 2023

Urban parks are social infrastructure supporting citizens' health, quality of life, and community formation. As the proportion of urban parks that have been established for more than 20 years is increasing, the need for refurbishment to improve the physical space environment and enhance the functions of aging urban parks is increasing. Since the government's refurbishment of aging urban parks has limitations in securing financial resources and promoting attractiveness, they must be promoted through public-private partnerships. Japan, which suffered from the problem of aging urban parks, has successfully promoted several park refurbishment projects by introducing the Park-PFI through the revision of the 「Urban Park Act」 in 2017. This study examines and analyzes the characteristics of the Japan Park-PFI as an alternative to improving the quality of aging domestic urban park services through public-private partnerships and the validity of the aging urban park refurbishment projects through Park-PFI. The main findings are as follows. First, it is necessary to start discussions on introducing Japan's Park-PFI according to the domestic conditions as a means of public-private partnership to improve the service quality and diversify the functions of aging urban parks. In order to introduce Park-PFI social discussions and follow-up studies on the deterioration of urban parks. Must be conducted. The installation of private capital and profit facilities and improvements of related regulations, such as the 「Parks and Green Spaces Act」 and the 「Public Property Act」, is required. Second, it is judged that the Park-PFI project is a policy alternative that can enhance the benefits to citizens, local governments, and private operators under the premise that the need to refurbish aging urban parks is high and the location is suitable for promoting the project. As a result of a pilot application of the Park-PFI project to Seyeong Park, an aging urban park located in Bupyeong-gu, Incheon, it was analyzed to be profitable in terms of the profitability index (PI), net present value (FNPV), and internal rate of return (FIRR). It is considered possible to participate in the business sector. At the local government level, private capital is used to improve the physical space environment of aging urban parks, as well as the refurbishment of the urban parks by utilizing financial resources generated by returning a portion of the facility usage fees and profits (0.5% of annual sales) of private operators. It was found that management budgets could be secured.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.84 no.1
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• pp.170-184
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• 2023

Purpose To assess the magnitude of differences between attenuation values of the true non-contrast image (TNC) and virtual non-contrast image (VNC) derived from twin-beam dual-energy CT (tbDECT) and dual-source DECT (dsDECT). Materials and Methods This retrospective study included 62 patients who underwent liver dynamic DECT with tbDECT (n = 32) or dsDECT (n = 30). Arterial VNC (AVNC), portal VNC (PVNC), and delayed VNC (DVNC) were reconstructed using multiphasic DECT. Attenuation values of multiple intra-abdominal organs (n = 11) on TNCs were subsequently compared to those on multiphasic VNCs. Further, we investigated the percentage of cases with an absolute difference between TNC and VNC of ≤ 10 Hounsfield units (HU). Results For the mean attenuation values of TNC and VNC, 33 items for each DECT were compared according to the multiphasic VNCs and organs. More than half of the comparison items for each DECT showed significant differences (tbDECT 17/33; dsDECT 19/33; Bonferroni correction p < 0.0167). The percentage of cases with an absolute difference ≤ 10 HU was 56.7%, 69.2%, and 78.6% in AVNC, PVNC, and DVNC in tbDECT, respectively, and 70.5%, 78%, and 78% in dsDECT, respectively. Conclusion VNCs derived from the two DECTs were insufficient to replace TNCs because of the considerable difference in attenuation values.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.205-212
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• 2007

To evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of a pulsatile aortic aneurysm phantoms for in-vitro study. The phantoms consisted of a pulsating motor part(heart part) and an aortic aneurysm part, which mimicked true physiologic conditions. The heart part was created from a high-pressured water pump and a pulsatile flow solenoid valve for the simulation of aortic flow. The aortic aneurysm part was manufactured from paper clay, which was placed inside a acrylic plastic square box, where liquid silicone was poured. After the silicone was formed, the clay was removed, and a silicone tube was used to connect the heart and aneurysm part. We measured the change in pressure as related to the opening time(pulse rate, Kruskal-Wallis method) and pressure before and after the stent-graft implantation(n = 5, Wilcoxon's signed ranks test). The changes in blood pressures according to pulse rate were all statistically significant(p<0.05). The systolic/diastolic pressures at the proximal aorta, the aortic aneurysm, and the distal aorta of the model were $157.80{\pm}1.92/130.20{\pm}1.92$, $159.40{\pm}1.14/134.00{\pm}2.92$, and $147.20{\pm}1.480/129.60{\pm}2.70\;mmHg$, respectively, when the pulse rate was 0.5 beat/second. The pressures changed to $161.40{\pm}1.34/90.20{\pm}1.64$, $175.00{\pm}1.58/93.00{\pm}1.58$, and $176.80{\pm}1.48/90.80{\pm}1.92\;mmHg$, respectively, when the pulse rate was 1.0 beat/second, and $159.40{\pm}1.82/127.20{\pm}1.48$, $166.60{\pm}1.67/138.00{\pm}1.87$, and $161.00{\pm}1.22/135.40{\pm}1.67\;mmHg$, respectively, when it was 1.5 beat/second. When pulse rate was set at 1.0 beat/second, the pressures were $143.60{\pm}1.67/90.20{\pm}1.64$, $147.20{\pm}1.92/84.60{\pm}1.82$, and $137.40{\pm}1.52/88.80{\pm}1.64\;mmHg$ after stent-graft implantation. The changes of pressure before and after stent-graft implantation were statistically significant(p<0.05) except the diastolic pressures at the proximal(p =1.00) and distal aorta(p=0.157). The aortic aneurysm phantoms seems to be useful for the evaluation of the efficacy of stent-graft before animal or clinical studies because of its easy reproducibility and ability to display a wide range of pressures.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.79-104
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• 2020

Recently, as deep learning has attracted attention, the use of deep learning is being considered as a method for solving problems in various fields. In particular, deep learning is known to have excellent performance when applied to applying unstructured data such as text, sound and images, and many studies have proven its effectiveness. Owing to the remarkable development of text and image deep learning technology, interests in image captioning technology and its application is rapidly increasing. Image captioning is a technique that automatically generates relevant captions for a given image by handling both image comprehension and text generation simultaneously. In spite of the high entry barrier of image captioning that analysts should be able to process both image and text data, image captioning has established itself as one of the key fields in the A.I. research owing to its various applicability. In addition, many researches have been conducted to improve the performance of image captioning in various aspects. Recent researches attempt to create advanced captions that can not only describe an image accurately, but also convey the information contained in the image more sophisticatedly. Despite many recent efforts to improve the performance of image captioning, it is difficult to find any researches to interpret images from the perspective of domain experts in each field not from the perspective of the general public. Even for the same image, the part of interests may differ according to the professional field of the person who has encountered the image. Moreover, the way of interpreting and expressing the image also differs according to the level of expertise. The public tends to recognize the image from a holistic and general perspective, that is, from the perspective of identifying the image's constituent objects and their relationships. On the contrary, the domain experts tend to recognize the image by focusing on some specific elements necessary to interpret the given image based on their expertise. It implies that meaningful parts of an image are mutually different depending on viewers' perspective even for the same image. So, image captioning needs to implement this phenomenon. Therefore, in this study, we propose a method to generate captions specialized in each domain for the image by utilizing the expertise of experts in the corresponding domain. Specifically, after performing pre-training on a large amount of general data, the expertise in the field is transplanted through transfer-learning with a small amount of expertise data. However, simple adaption of transfer learning using expertise data may invoke another type of problems. Simultaneous learning with captions of various characteristics may invoke so-called 'inter-observation interference' problem, which make it difficult to perform pure learning of each characteristic point of view. For learning with vast amount of data, most of this interference is self-purified and has little impact on learning results. On the contrary, in the case of fine-tuning where learning is performed on a small amount of data, the impact of such interference on learning can be relatively large. To solve this problem, therefore, we propose a novel 'Character-Independent Transfer-learning' that performs transfer learning independently for each character. In order to confirm the feasibility of the proposed methodology, we performed experiments utilizing the results of pre-training on MSCOCO dataset which is comprised of 120,000 images and about 600,000 general captions. Additionally, according to the advice of an art therapist, about 300 pairs of 'image / expertise captions' were created, and the data was used for the experiments of expertise transplantation. As a result of the experiment, it was confirmed that the caption generated according to the proposed methodology generates captions from the perspective of implanted expertise whereas the caption generated through learning on general data contains a number of contents irrelevant to expertise interpretation. In this paper, we propose a novel approach of specialized image interpretation. To achieve this goal, we present a method to use transfer learning and generate captions specialized in the specific domain. In the future, by applying the proposed methodology to expertise transplant in various fields, we expected that many researches will be actively conducted to solve the problem of lack of expertise data and to improve performance of image captioning.