• Journal of Life Science
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.11-22
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• 2022

N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors have received considerable attention regarding their involvement in glutamate-induced neuronal excitotoxicity. Resveratrol has been shown to exhibit neuroprotective effects against this kind of overactivation, but the underlying cellular mechanisms are not yet clearly understood. In this study, HT-22 neuronal cells were treated with NMDA in Mg²⁺-free buffer and subsequently used as an experimental model of glutamate excitotoxicity to elucidate the mechanisms of resveratrol-induced neuroprotection. We found that NMDA treatment causes a drop in MTT reduction ability, disrupts inside-negative transmembrane potential of mitochondria, depletes cellular ATP levels, and stimulates intracellular ROS production. Double fluorescence imaging studies demonstrated an increased formation of mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT) pores accompanied by apoptotic cell death, while cobalt protoporphyrin and bilirubin showed protective effects against NMDA-induced mitochondrial injury. On the other hand, zinc protoporphyrin IX significantly attenuated the protective effects of resveratrol which was itself shown to enhance heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) mRNA and protein expression levels. In cells transfected with HO-1 small interfering RNA, resveratrol failed to suppress the NMDA-induced effects on MTT reduction ability and MPT pore formation. The present study suggests that resveratrol may prevent mitochondrial injury in NMDA- treated HT-22 cells and that enhanced expression of HO-1 is involved in the underlying cellular mechanism.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.56-65
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• 2022

Copper is one of the non-ferrous metals used in the electrical/electronic manufacturing industries due to its superior properties particularly the high conductivity and less resistivity. The effluent generated from the surface finishing process of these industries contains higher copper content which gets discharged in to water bodies directly or indirectly. This causes severe environmental pollution and also results in loss of an important valuable metal. To overcome this issue, continuous R & D activities are going on across the globe in adsorption area with the purpose of finding an efficient, low cost and ecofriendly adsorbent. In view of the above, present investigation was made to compare the performance of a plant root (Datura root powder) as a bio-adsorbent to that of the synthetic one (Tulsion T-42) for copper adsorption from such effluent. Experiments were carried out in batch studies to optimize parameters such as adsorbent dose, contact time, pH, feed concentration, etc. Results of the batch experiments indicate that 0.2 g of Datura root powder and 0.1 g of Tulsion T-42 showed 95% copper adsorption from an initial feed/solution of 100 ppm Cu at pH 4 in contact time of 15 and 30 min, respectively. Adsorption data for both the adsorbents were fitted well to the Freundlich isotherm. Experimental results were also validated with the kinetic model, which showed that the adsorption of copper followed pseudo-second order rate expression for the both adsorbents. Overall result demonstrates that the bio-adsorbent tested has a potential applicability for metal recovery from the waste solutions/effluents of metal finishing units. In view of the requirements of commercial viability and minimal environmental damage there from, Datura root powder being an effective material for metal uptake, may prove to be a feasible adsorbent for copper recovery after the necessary scale-up studies.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.5_2
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• pp.747-763
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• 2022

Ocean salinity affects ocean circulation on a global scale and low salinity water around coastal areas often has an impact on aquaculture and fisheries. Microwave satellite sensors (e.g., Soil Moisture Active Passive [SMAP]) have provided sea surface salinity (SSS) based on the dielectric characteristics of water associated with SSS and sea surface temperature (SST). In this study, a Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LGBM)-based model for generating high resolution SSS from Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI) data was proposed, having machine learning-based improved SMAP SSS by Jang et al. (2022) as reference data (SMAP SSS (Jang)). Three schemes with different input variables were tested, and scheme 3 with all variables including Multi-scale Ultra-high Resolution SST yielded the best performance (coefficient of determination = 0.60, root mean square error = 0.91 psu). The proposed LGBM-based GOCI SSS had a similar spatiotemporal pattern with SMAP SSS (Jang), with much higher spatial resolution even in coastal areas, where SMAP SSS (Jang) was not available. In addition, when tested for the great flood occurred in Southern China in August 2020, GOCI SSS well simulated the spatial and temporal change of Changjiang Diluted Water. This research provided a potential that optical satellite data can be used to generate high resolution SSS associated with the improved microwave-based SSS especially in coastal areas.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.47-66
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• 2023

This study reviews prior studies on the residential environment characteristics, residential satisfaction, residential ownership consciousness and housing movement of MZ generation and analyze the structural equation models using the 2020 Korea Housing Survey data. Using 14 residential characteristics based on three classifications, we explore the effects on residential satisfaction, residential ownership consciousness, and housing movement. The empirical results are summarized as follows. First, based on factor analysis with Varimax of principal component analysis, parking facility items were excluded from the analysis by hindering validity, and as a result, KMO was 0.925 and Bartlett's test result showed a significant probability of less than 0.01. This indicates that the factor analysis model was suitable. Second, the results of the structural equation analysis for the MZ generation show that the surrounding environment, which is a potential variable of the residential environment characteristics, was statistically significant, but the accessibility and convenience were not statistically significant. Third, we find that the higher the satisfaction with the accessibility of commercial facilities, the more significant the sense of housing ownership appears. This suggests that the younger generation such as the MZ generation has a stronger desire for consumption. Fourth, the overall housing satisfaction of the MZ generation was significant for housing movement, but not for housing ownership. Compared to the industrialized generation, the baby boom generation, and the X generation, MZ generation shows distinct factors for housing satisfaction, housing ownership, and housing movement. Therefore, the residential environment characteristics of the residential survey should be improved and supplemented following the trend of the times. In addition, the government and local governments should prioritize actively participating in the housing market that suits the environment and characteristics of the target generation. Finally, our study provides implications regarding the need for housing-related research on how differ in special temporal situations such as COVID-19 in the future.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.111 no.4
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• pp.461-472
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• 2022

Natural and anthropogenic factors cause forest types to continuously change. Since the ratio of forest area by forest type is important information for identifying the characteristics of national forest resources, an accurate understanding of the prospect of forest type change is required. The study aim was to use National Forest Inventory (NFI) time-series data to understand the characteristics of forest type change and to estimate future prospects of nationwide forest type change. We used forest type change information from the fifth and seventh NFI datasets, climate, topography, forest stand, and disturbance variables related to forest type change to analyze trends and characteristics of forest type change. The results showed that the forests in Korea are changing in the direction of decreasing coniferous forests and increasing mixed and broadleaf forests. The forest sites that were changing from coniferous to mixed forests or from mixed to broadleaf forests were mainly located in wet topographic environments and climatic conditions. The forest type changes occurred more frequently in sites with high disturbance potential (high temperature, young or sparse forest stands, and non-forest areas). We used a climate change scenario (RCP 8.5) to establish a forest type change model (SVM) to predict future changes. During the 40-year period from 2015 to 2055, the SVM predicted that coniferous forests will decrease from 38.1% to 28.5%, broadleaf forests will increase from 34.2% to 38.8%, and mixed forests will increase from 27.7% to 32.7%. These results can be used as basic data for establishing future forest management strategies.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.47-72
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• 2022

This study aims to understand the trends of subjects related to real estate policies and public's emotional opinion on the policies. Two keywords related to real estate policies such as "real estate policy" and "real estate measure" were used to collect tweets created from February 25, 2008 to August 31, 2021. A total of 91,740 tweets were collected and we applied sentiment analysis and dynamic topic modeling to the final preprocessed and categorized data of 18,925 tweets. Sentiment analysis and dynamic topic model analysis were conducted for a total of 18,925 posts after preprocessing data and categorizing them into supply, real estate tax, interest rate, and population variance. Keywords of each category are as follows: the supply categories (rental housing, greenbelt, newlyweds, homeless, supply, reconstruction, sale), real estate tax categories (comprehensive real estate tax, acquisition tax, holding tax, multiple homeowners, speculation), interest rate categories (interest rate), and population variance categories (Sejong, new city). The results of the sentiment analysis showed that one person posted on average one or two positive tweets whereas in the case of negative and neutral tweets, one person posted two or three. In addition, we found that part of people have both positive as well as negative and neutral opinions towards real estate policies. As the results of dynamic topic modeling analysis, negative reactions to real estate speculative forces and unearned income were identified as major negative topics and as for positive topics, expectation on increasing supply of housing and benefits for homeless people who purchase houses were identified. Unlike previous studies, which focused on changes and evaluations of specific real estate policies, this study has academic significance in that it collected posts from Twitter, one of the social media platforms, used emotional analysis, dynamic topic modeling analysis, and identified potential topics and trends of real estate policy over time. The results of the study can help create new policies that take public opinion on real estate policies into consideration.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.403-417
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• 2023

In this research, a methodology was developed for constructing an appropriate rainfall image database for estimating rainfall intensity based on CCTV video. The database was constructed in the Large-Scale Climate Environment Chamber of the Korea Conformity Laboratories, which can control variables with high irregularity and variability in real environments. 1,728 scenarios were designed under five different experimental conditions. 36 scenarios and a total of 97,200 frames were selected. Rain streaks were extracted using the k-nearest neighbor algorithm by calculating the difference between each image and the background. To prevent overfitting, data with pixel values greater than set threshold, compared to the average pixel value for each image, were selected. The area with maximum pixel variability was determined by shifting with every 10 pixels and set as a representative area (180×180) for the original image. After re-transforming to 120×120 size as an input data for convolutional neural networks model, image augmentation was progressed under unified shooting conditions. 92% of the data showed within the 10% absolute range of PBIAS. It is clear that the final results in this study have the potential to enhance the accuracy and efficacy of existing real-world CCTV systems with transfer learning.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.847-870
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• 2023

The safe disposal of high-level radioactive waste requires accurate predictions of the long-term geochemical behavior of radionuclides. To achieve this, the present study was conducted to model geochemical behaviors of uranium (U), plutonium (Pu), and palladium (Pd) under different hydrogeochemical conditions that represent deep groundwater in Korea. Geochemical modeling was performed for five types of South Korean deep groundwater environment: high-TDS saline groundwater (G1), low-pH CO₂-rich groundwater (G2), high-pH alkaline groundwater (G3), sulfate-rich groundwater (G4), and dilute (fresh) groundwater (G5). Under the pH and Eh (redox potential) ranges of 3 to 12 and ±0.2 V, respectively, the solubility and speciation of U, Pu, and Pd in deep groundwater were predicted. The result reveals that U(IV) exhibits high solubility within the neutral to alkaline pH range, even in reducing environment with Eh down to -0.2 V. Such high solubility of U is primarily attributed to the formation of Ca-U-CO₃ complexes, which is important in both G2 located along fault zones and G3 occurring in granitic bedrocks. On the other hand, the solubility of Pu is found to be highly dependent on pH, with the lowest solubility in neutral to alkaline conditions. The predominant species are Pu(IV) and Pu(III) and their removal is predicted to occur by sorption. Considering the migration by colloids, however, the role of colloid formation and migration are expected to promote the Pu mobility, especially in deep groundwater of G3 and G5 which have low ionic strengths. Palladium (Pd) exhibits the low solubility due to the precipitation as sulfides in reducing conditions. In oxidizing condition, anionic complexes such as Pd(OH)₃^-, PdCl₃(OH)₂^-, PdCl₄^2-, and Pd(CO₃)₂^2- would be removed by sorption onto metal (hydro)oxides. This study will improve the understanding of the fate and transport of radionuclides in deep groundwater conditions of South Korea and therefore contributes to develop strategies for safe high-level radioactive waste disposal.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.802-811
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• 2023

Marine spatial planning (MSP) is a crucial element for rational allocation and sustainable use of marine areas. Particularly, Fishing Activity Protected Areas constitute essential zones accounting for 45.6% designated for sustainable fishing activities. However, the current assessment of these zones does not adequately consider future demands and potential values, necessitating appropriate evaluation methods and predictive tools for long-term planning. In this study, we selected key fish species (Scomber japonicus, Trichiurus lepturus, Engraulis japonicus, and Larimichthys polyactis) within the Fishing Activity Protected Area to predict their distribution and compare it with the current designated zones for evaluating the ability of the prediction tool. Employing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report scenarios (SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5), we used species distribution models (such as MaxEnt) to assess the movement and distribution changes of these species owing to future variations. The results indicated a 30-50% increase in the distribution area of S. japonicus, T. lepturus, and L. polyactis, whereas the distribution area of E. japonicus decreased by approximately 6-11%. Based on these results, a species richness map for the four key species was created. Within the marine spatial planning boundaries, the overlap between areas rated "high" in species richness and the Fishing Activity Protected Area was approximately 15%, increasing to 21% under the RCP 2.6 scenario and 34% under the RCP 8.5 scenario. These findings can serve as scientific evidence for future evaluations of use zones or changes in reserve areas. The current and predicted distributions of species owing to climate change can address the limitations of current use zone evaluations and contribute to the development of plans for sustainable and beneficial use of marine resources.