• Korea and Global Affairs
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.69-92
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• 2018

North Korea conducted a total of six nuclear tests from the 1st test of 2006 to September, 2017. North Korea developed an armed forces security strategy at the level of regime protection and defense to respond to U.S. hostile policy. However, it is certain that strategic goals of North Korea's nuclear test were to overcome a crisis in North Korea's regime through US-North Korea negotiation and complete nuclear armed forces for socialist unification on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea's continuous nuclear test is a direct factor in threatening peace on the Korean Peninsula and an indirect factor in security dynamics of Northeast Asia. The U.N. Security Council has enforced sanctions against North Korea through six resolutions against North Korea's reckless nuclear test for the past 10 years. However, Kim Jong-Un's regime is in a position to stick to simultaneous pursuit of nuclear and economic development in spite of anti-North sanction of international society including U.N. and U.S.A. It is understood that North Korea was stimulated to conduct intense nuclear test as U.N. and U.S.A's anti-North sanction was not effective on North Korea. Full-scale and local wars are expected as military options, one of anti-North sanctions of the Trump administration. The Trump administration has attempted diplomatic pressure strategy as a secondary boycott unlike previous administrations. Nevertheless, North Korea has stood against U.N. and U.S.A's anti-North sanction with brinkmanship tactics, announcing full-scale military confrontation against U.S. It is judged that North Korea will pursue simultaneous nuclear weapons and economic development in terms of regime survival. North Korea will have less strategic choices in that its regime may collapse because of realistic national strategy between U.S.A. and China.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.12
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• pp.1445-1451
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• 2017

Mitochondria play a central role in energy generation by using electron transport coupled with oxidative phosphorylation. They also participate in other important cellular functions including metabolism, apoptosis, signaling, and reactive oxygen species production. Therefore, mitochondrial dysfunction is known to contribute to a variety of human diseases. Furthermore, there are various inherited diseases of energy metabolism due to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations. Unfortunately, therapeutic options for these inherited mtDNA diseases are extremely limited. In this regard, mitochondrial replacement techniques are taking on increased importance in developing a clinical approach to inherited mtDNA diseases. In this study, green fluorescence protein (GFP)-tagged mitochondria were isolated by differential centrifugation from a mammalian cell line. Using microinjection technique, the isolated GFP-tagged mitochondria were then transferred to bovine oocytes that were triggered for early development. During the early developmental period from bovine oocytes to blastocysts, the transferred mitochondria were observed using fluorescent microscopy. The microinjected mitochondria were dispersed rapidly into the cytoplasm of oocytes and were passed down to subsequent cells of 2-cell, 4-cell, 8-cell, morula, and blastocyst stages. Together, these results demonstrate a successful in vitro transfer of isolated mitochondria to oocytes and provide a model for mitochondrial replacement implicated in inherited mtDNA diseases and animal cloning.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.99-123
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• 2004

We focus in this study on incremental financing decisions and estimate a logit model for the probability a firm will choose a private placement over a public bond issue. We hypothesize that information asymmetry, financial risk, agent cost, and proprietary information may affect a firm's choice between public debt and private placements. We find that as the size of firm increases, the probability of choosing a private placement declines significantly. The age of the firm, however, is not a significant factor affecting the firm's choice between public and privately-placed bond. The coefficients on the firm's leverage and non-investment grade dummy are significantly positive, meaning firms with high financial risk and credit risk select private placements. The findings regarding agency-related variables, PER and Tobin's Q, are somewhat complex. We find significant evidence that firms with high PER prefer private placements to public bonds, suggesting that borrowers with options to engage in asset substitution or underinvestment are more likely to choose private placements. The coefficient of Tobin's Q is negative, but not significant, which weakly support the hold-up hypothesis. When we construct an interaction term on the Tobin's Q with a non-investment rating dummy, however, the Tobin's Q interaction term becomes positive and significant. Thus, high Tobin's Q firms with a speculative rating are significantly more likely to choose a private placement, regardless of the potential hold-up problems. The ratio of R&D to sales, proxy for proprietary information, is positively significant. This result can be interpreted as evidence in favor of a role for proprietary information in the debt sourcing decision process for these firms.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.98 no.1
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• pp.55-65
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• 2009

Annex I parties continued its consideration of how to address, the definitions, modalities, rules and guidelines for the treatment of Land Use, Land-use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) in the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol by the year of 2009. In the AWG-KP conference held in Accra, Ghana in 2008, four alternatives (gross-net carbon accounting, net-net with base year or base period accounting, net-net with forward looking baseline accounting, and land-based accounting method) for negotiations were decided in order to revise gross-net accounting method applied during the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. In this study, alternative scenarios are set in consideration with reporting system (voluntary or compulsory), discount factors and cap about these three alternatives except for the method of net-net with forward looking baseline accounting, and then estimates the Removal Unit (RMU) among the countries. In the case that article 3.4 activities under the Kyoto Protocol revises from voluntary reporting to mandatory reporting, it is estimated that the loss of RMU would be huge in Russia, Australia, New Zealand, as well as Canada potentially. Net-net with base year or base period carbon accounting and land-based carbon accounting method have big difference of RMU in accordance with the base year or the base period. So the more unfavorable the country with a lot of old-age forests was, the closer the base year or period comes to the commitment period in the context of RMU. If it is getting lowered for the current rate of 85% in discount factors, RMU is getting higher to the whole countries. Therefore in Korea with little potential for afforestation and reforestation, there was the most sensitive response to the change of discount factors. Post-2012 LULUCF hereafter, it is strongly expected for the succession of current carbon accounting system which is voluntary reporting of gross-net carbon accounting and the activity for article 3.4. Other carbon accounting method is hard to accept in aspect that there is big differentiated interests among the countries and it is required enormous cost and time to develop reliable method. Provide for Post-2012 mandatory greenhouse gas reduction, Korea needs to have a competitive negotiation strategies differentiated from Annex I countries. The most reliable alternative would be to lower the discounting factors about the activities for forest management.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.419-427
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• 2012

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of two shading methods, shading agent spray on the glasshouse and internal shading screen treatment, on the growth and fruit quality of paprika (Capsicum annuum L. 'Cupra' and 'Coletti') in summer season cultivation. In the shading agent treatment, a commercial shading agent diluted with water at a ratio of 1 : 4 was sprayed on the roof of a glasshouse. In the internal shading screen treatment, a 10~20% shaded screen was used during the day time when the sun radiation was greater than $700W{\cdot}m^{-2}$. Compared to the unshaded control, photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) decreased in the greenhouse in the shading agent (SA) and shading screen (SS) treatments by 20% and 30%, respectively. Lower air temperatures and higher relative humidities were observed in the SA than in both the control and the SS treatment. Time to reach the break point of humidity deficit $8g{\cdot}m^{-3}$ was 2 hours late in the SA than in both the control and the SS treatment. Compared to control, both the SA and the SS treatments showed lower instantaneous temperatures of leaf, fruit, and flower by $2^{\circ}C$, $5^{\circ}C$ and $3^{\circ}C$, respectively. There were no differences in number of branches, stem diameter, and leaf size among treatments although both shading treatments promoted plant height in both cultivars. Botrytis infection ratio declined with the SA treatment by 14.7% in 'Cupra' and 22.1% in 'Coletti' as compared to that in the control. Shading increased fruit size in both cultivars, whereas no differences were observed in the number of locules and thickness of fruit tissue among treatments. Shading treatment increased mean fruit weight by a range of 10 to 15 g per fruit, while it decreased soluble solids contents as compared to that in the control. Similar Hunter values were observed among treatments, while fruit firmness increased slightly in shading treatments. Compared to the control, shading treatments improved marketable fruits by 11.7~22.6% and increased the number of fruits per plant by 4~9.2 in both 'Cupra' and 'Coletti'. The results of this study indicate that shading agent application on the roof of glasshouse would be one of the most effective options to reduce heat stress imposed on the paprika crop in summer cultivation, resulting in improved crop growth and fruit yield.

• Clinics in Shoulder and Elbow
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.61-66
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• 2009

Purpose: Several authors have reported excellent results of delayed reconstruction of non-union & malunion in displaced mid-shaft fractures of the clavicle and these results were equal to that of immediate fixation. But direct comparison between these treatments is rare. We evaluated the results between the immediate fixation group and delayed reconstruction group for treating displaced mid-shaft fractures of the clavicle. Materials and Methods: We studied the results of 18 cases with immediate fixation of displaced mid-shaft fractures of the clavicle and 15 cases with delayed reconstruction of non-union & malunion after conservative management, and these cases were seen from March 2000 to February, 2006. The final postoperative outcome was analyzed according to the clinical outcomes with using the Constant score and the radiological findings of bony union. Results: The constant score was low in the delayed reconstruction group compare to that of the immediate fixation group (p value=0.045). For the pain score & the activities of daily living score, a statistically significant difference was seen between the two groups (p<0.05), but not for the range of motion score & the power score (p>0.05). Radiological findings of bony union were seen for both groups at an average of 8.8 weeks for the immediate fixation group and at an average of 9.8 weeks for the delayed reconstruction group. Conclusion: Though the delayed reconstruction group was shown good clinical and radiological results, the immediate fixation group had a significantly better pain score, a better activities of daily living score and a better Constant score. It is important to choose the initial treatment option for displaced mid-shaft fractures of the clavicle after sufficient explanation to patients about the merits and demerits between these two treatment options.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.18-29
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• 2010

Offshore subsurface storage of $CO_2$ is regarded as one of the most promising options to response severe climate change. Marine geological storage of $CO_2$ is to capture $CO_2$ from major point sources, to transport to the storage sites and to store $CO_2$ into the offshore subsurface geological structure such as the depleted gas reservoir and deep sea saline aquifer. Since 2005, we have developed relevant technologies for marine geological storage of $CO_2$. Those technologies include possible storage site surveys and basic designs for $CO_2$ transport and storage processes. To design a reliable $CO_2$ marine geological storage system, we devised a hypothetical scenario and used a numerical simulation tool to study its detailed processes. The process of transport $CO_2$ from the onshore capture sites to the offshore storage sites can be simulated with a thermodynamic equation of state. Before going to main calculation of process design, we compared and analyzed the relevant equation of states. To evaluate the predictive accuracies of the examined equation of states, we compare the results of numerical calculations with experimental reference data. Up to now, process design for this $CO_2$ marine geological storage has been carried out mainly on pure $CO_2$. Unfortunately the captured $CO_2$ mixture contains many impurities such as $N_2$, $O_2$, Ar, $H_{2}O$, $SO_{\chi}$, $H_{2}S$. A small amount of impurities can change the thermodynamic properties and then significantly affect the compression, purification and transport processes. This paper analyzes the major design parameters that are useful for constructing onshore and offshore $CO_2$ transport systems. On the basis of a parametric study of the hypothetical scenario, we suggest relevant variation ranges for the design parameters, particularly the flow rate, diameter, temperature, and pressure.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.43-56
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• 2020

Recommender systems help users make the best choice among various options. Especially, recommender systems play important roles in internet sites as digital information is generated innumerable every second. Many studies on recommender systems have focused on an accurate recommendation. However, there are some problems to overcome in order for the recommendation system to be commercially successful. First, there is a lack of transparency in the recommender system. That is, users cannot know why products are recommended. Second, the recommender system cannot immediately reflect changes in user preferences. That is, although the preference of the user's product changes over time, the recommender system must rebuild the model to reflect the user's preference. Therefore, in this study, we proposed a recommendation methodology using topic modeling and sequential association rule mining to solve these problems from review data. Product reviews provide useful information for recommendations because product reviews include not only rating of the product but also various contents such as user experiences and emotional state. So, reviews imply user preference for the product. So, topic modeling is useful for explaining why items are recommended to users. In addition, sequential association rule mining is useful for identifying changes in user preferences. The proposed methodology is largely divided into two phases. The first phase is to create user profile based on topic modeling. After extracting topics from user reviews on products, user profile on topics is created. The second phase is to recommend products using sequential rules that appear in buying behaviors of users as time passes. The buying behaviors are derived from a change in the topic of each user. A collaborative filtering-based recommendation system was developed as a benchmark system, and we compared the performance of the proposed methodology with that of the collaborative filtering-based recommendation system using Amazon's review dataset. As evaluation metrics, accuracy, recall, precision, and F1 were used. For topic modeling, collapsed Gibbs sampling was conducted. And we extracted 15 topics. Looking at the main topics, topic 1, top 3, topic 4, topic 7, topic 9, topic 13, topic 14 are related to "comedy shows", "high-teen drama series", "crime investigation drama", "horror theme", "British drama", "medical drama", "science fiction drama", respectively. As a result of comparative analysis, the proposed methodology outperformed the collaborative filtering-based recommendation system. From the results, we found that the time just prior to the recommendation was very important for inferring changes in user preference. Therefore, the proposed methodology not only can secure the transparency of the recommender system but also can reflect the user's preferences that change over time. However, the proposed methodology has some limitations. The proposed methodology cannot recommend product elaborately if the number of products included in the topic is large. In addition, the number of sequential patterns is small because the number of topics is too small. Therefore, future research needs to consider these limitations.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.38 no.6 s.251
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• pp.410-414
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• 2005

There are several options for choosing a graft in CABG, we routinely chose LIMA for LAD and great saphenous vein for other target vessels. To evaluate the posoperative graft patency, we have studied the results using a 16 slices multi-detector computed tomography. Material and Method: From 1995 to 2003, 80 CABG patients who did not complain any event of MACE have been examined by 16-MDCT, mostly in an out patient clinic. Result: There were 61 men and 19 women. MDCT was used as early as 7 days to 9 years post-operatively with a median follow-up period of 6.5 years, and mean follow-up peiod of $31.5\pm25.4$ months. Mean age was $58.4\pm12.6$ years old in men and $61.5\pm17.2$ years old in women. 72180 patients received LIMA to LAD, and all other patients received vein grafts for bypass. The target vessel of vein grafts were 8 in LAD, 47 in RCA, 60 in diagonals, and 61 in obtuse marginals. Among them 42 sequential anastomoses were performed. The mean graft number was $3.1\pm1.8$ grafts. 5 year graft patency rate of each grafts was as followings; $93.1\%$ in LIMA to LAD, $94.9\%$ in vein to diagonals, $92.1\%$ in vein to obtuse marginals, and $79.2\%$ in vein to RCA. Sequential grafting showed better graft patency than the isolated grafting $(95.2\%\;vs\;78.7\~95.0\%)$. Conclusion: In this study, CABG with LIMA and saphenous veins showed satisfactory longterm results. 16-MDCT provided good images for follow-up study after CABG. Additionally, as radiologic tools (64-MDCT, MRI) improve more in the future, they can be used for diagnosing preoperative anatomical coronary disease as well as cardiac functions.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.40 no.6 s.275
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• pp.414-419
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• 2007

Background: Replacing the ascending aorta is a standard surgical option for treating acute type A aortic dissection. But replacing the aortic arch has recently been reported as an acceptable procedure for this disease. We compared the effects of aortic arch replacement for treating acute type A aortic dissection with the effects of ascending aortic replacement. Material and Method: From 2002 to 2006, 25 patients undewent surgical treatment for acute type A aortic dissection, 12 patients undewent ascending aortic replacement and 13 patients underwent aortic arch replacement. Among the aortic arch group, an additional distal stent-graft was inserted during the operation in 5 patients. 19 patients (11 arch replaced patients and 8 ascending aortic replaced patients) were followed up at the out patient clinic for an average of $756{\pm}373$ days. All the patients undewent CT scanning and we analyzed their distal aortic segments. Result: 4 patients who underwent ascending aortic replacement died, so the overall mortality rate was 16%. Among the 11 long term followed-up arch replacement patients, 2 patients (18.1 %) developed distal aortic dilatation and one of them underwent thoracoabdominal aortic replacement later on. However, among the 8 the ascending aortic replaced patients, 5 patients (62.5%) developed distal aortic dilatation. Conclusion: Aortic arch replacement is one of the safe options for treating acute type A aortic dissection. Aortic arch replacement for treating acute type A aortic dissection could contribute to a reduced distal aortic dilatation rate and fewer secondary aortic procedures.