• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.127-135
• /
• 2008

The mission of the Forest Inventory and Analyis (FIA) program of the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, is to conduct the national forest inventory of the United States of America for purposes of estimating the area of forest land; the volume, growth, and removal of forest resources; and the health of the forest. Users of FIA data, estimates, and related products include land managers, policy and decision-makers, forest industry, environmental organizations, and university researchers. To accomplish its mission, the FIA program has established a sampling design with an intensity of approximately one permanent plot per 2,400 ha across the entire country. Depending on the region of the country, each plot is remeasured at intervals of five or 10 years. The program releases data annually and reports estimates at the county level for each state every five years. Due to budgetary constraints and natural variability among plot observations, sufficient numbers of plots cannot be measured to satisfy precision guidelines for the estimates of many variables unless the estimation process is enhanced using ancillary data. Classified satellite imagery has been demonstrated to be a source of ancillary data that can be used with stratified estimation techniques to increase the precision of estimates with little corresponding increase in costs. A crucial factor restricting the utility of FIA data is that the exact locations of inventory plots cannot be released to the public. Thus, users are generally not able to obtain estimates for small areas or for their own areas of interest if exact plot locations are required. To compensate, satellite imagery, inventory plot data, and the k-Nearest Neighbors technique are being used to construct Internet-based maps of forest attributes from which estimates for arbitrary user-defined areas of interest may be obtained.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
• /
• v.33 no.9
• /
• pp.1369-1377
• /
• 2020

Objective: The main objectives of the present study were to assess the genetic diversity, population structure and to appraise the efficiency of ongoing selective breeding program in the closed nucleus herd of Nellore sheep through pedigree analysis. Methods: Information utilized in the study was collected from the pedigree records of Livestock Research Station, Palamaner during the period from 1989 to 2016. Genealogical parameters like generation interval, pedigree completeness, inbreeding level, average relatedness among the animals and genetic conservation index were estimated based on gene origin probabilities. Lambs born during 2012 and 2016 were considered as reference population. Two animal models either with the use of F_i or ΔF_i as linear co-variables were evaluated to know the effects of inbreeding on the growth traits of Nellore sheep. Results: Average generation interval and realized effective population size for the reference cohort were estimated as 3.38±0.10 and 91.56±1.58, respectively and the average inbreeding coefficient for reference population was 3.32%. Similarly, the effective number of founders, ancestors and founder genome equivalent of the reference population were observed as 47, 37, and 22.48, respectively. Fifty per cent of the genetic variability was explained by 14 influential ancestors in the reference cohort. The ratio f_e/f_a obtained in the study was 1.21, which is an indicator of bottlenecks in the population. The number of equivalent generations obtained in the study was 4.23 and this estimate suggested the fair depth of the pedigree. Conclusion: Study suggested that the population had decent levels of genetic diversity and a non-significant influence of inbreeding coefficient on growth traits of Nellore lambs. However, small portion of genetic diversity was lost due to a disproportionate contribution of founders and bottlenecks. Hence, breeding strategies which improve the genetic gain, widens the selection process and with optimum levels of inbreeding are recommended for the herd.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
• /
• 2011.05a
• /
• pp.21-21
• /
• 2011

Many Asian countries are suffered from various problems on water, which include the need for increased access to improves water supplies and sanitation through investments in infrastructure and capacity building, the balances water management system between development and ecosystem, and the need to reduce the human populations'vulnerability to water-related disasters, in particular, from climate variability and evolution. Decison makers are the most influential people in policy making and solving global water problems is central issue in eradicating poverty and achieving sustainable development (MDG). They across the world form an integral part of the architecture of national or regional governance. Their role covers a range of decision-making processes including passing legislation, scrutinizing government policy, and representing citizen through the election. We must ensure that these quiet but important issues get the political space, financial priority and public attention they deserve. Regional bodies such as the EU have also enacted legislation which introduces rules on water quality and other enforceable mattera across state boundaries. With this growing body of laws and policies on water issues, the role of decision makers is growing. Recognizing this role, decison makers' platform is essential to provide an opportunity to discuss crucial water issues in each country or region and for the purpose "2010 Parliaments for Water in Asia" has planned and organized to investigate our common issues and goals. During the meeting, we have an opportunity to observe water policy of Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Mongolia, New Zealand and the Philippines and share the views on what needs to be done to move forward by decision makers for the future of water. In conclusion, the process of developing the decision makers' platform in each region would be ultimately essential point to increase the awareness of the developed and developing countries' roles, knowledge to clarify roles and responsibilities of each stake holders and finally be a major actor for resolving not only water challenges also issues of human settlements.

• Journal of KIISE
• /
• v.42 no.11
• /
• pp.1361-1371
• /
• 2015

Depending on the increase amongst various cloud services, the technology of the Cloud Service Broker (CSB) to find the most appropriate services to meet the needs of cloud service consumers has emerged. In order to advance for cloud services to be used through the CSB, it is important to ensure the quality level that meets the demands of consumers through a negotiation process based on the Service Level Agreement (SLA). However, quality metrics of cloud services are different from each other based on the measurement scale, which represents the quality level, and the calculation for each type of cloud services. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the variability of the quality of cloud services and establish a SLA model for ensuring and improving the level of quality. In this paper, we analyze the quality metrics for the specific type of cloud services by applying the cross-cutting concept and propose a Virtual SLA (VSLA) meta-model.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.93-100
• /
• 2004

We have investigated characteristic solar wind dynamics associated with relativistic electron events at geosynchronous orbit. Most of the events for April, 1999 through December, 2002 are found to be accompanied by a prolonged solar quiet period which is characterized as low solar wind density, weak interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), and fast alfvenic fluctuations in IMF $B_z$. In a typical relativistic event, electron fluxes begin to increase by orders of magnitude when solar wind parameters drop to low values (e.g., $n_{sw}∼5 cm^{-3}$ and ｜$B_{IMF}$∼5 nT) after sharp peaks. Then the elevated electron fluxes stay at the high level during the solar quiet period. This observation may suggest the following scenario for the occurrence of a geosynchronous relativistic event: (ⅰ) Quiet solar winds can yield a stable and more dipole-like magnetospheric configurations in which the geosynchronous orbit locates well inside the trapping boundary of the energetic electrons. (ⅱ) If a large population of MeV electrons are generated (by whatever acceleration process(es)) in the inner magnetosphere, they can be trapped and effectively accumulated to a high intensity. (ⅲ) The high electron flux can persist for a number of days in the geosynchronous region as long as the solar wind dynamics stays quiet. Therefore the scenario indicates that the occurrence of a relativistic event would be a result of a delicate balance between the effects of electron acceleration and loss. In addition, the sensitive dependence of a relativistic event on the solar wind conditions makes the prediction of solar wind variability as important as understanding of electron acceleration processes in the forecast of a relativistic event.

• Ocean Science Journal
• /
• v.40 no.2
• /
• pp.67-78
• /
• 2005

Complex physical, chemical and biological interactions off the Korean coast created several striking patterns in the phytoplankton blooms, which became conspicuous during the measurements of ocean color from space. This study concentrated on analyzing the spatial and temporal aspects of phytoplankton chlorophyll variability in these areas using an integrated dataset from a Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS), Advanced Very High Resolution (AVHRR) sensor, and Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD) sensor. The results showed that chlorophyll concentrations were elevated in coastal and open ocean regions, with strong summer and fall blooms, which appeared to spread out in most of the enclosed bays and neighboring waters due to certain oceanographic processes. The chlorophyll concentration was observed to range between 3 and $54\;mg\;m^{-3}$ inside Jin-hae Bay and adjacent coastal bays and 0.5 and $8\;mg\;m^{-3}$ in the southeast sea offshore waters, this gradual decrease towards oceanic waters suggested physical transports of phytoplankton blooms from the shallow shelves to slope waters through the influence of the Tsushima Warm Current (TWC) along the Tsushima Strait. Horizontal distribution of potential temperature $(\theta)$ and salinity (S) of water off the southeastern coast exhibited cold and low saline surface water $(\theta and warm and high saline subsurface water $({\theta}>12^{\circ}C; S>34.4)$ at 75dBar, corroborating TWC intrusion along the Tsushima Strait. An eastward branch of this current was called the East Korean Warm Current (EKWC), tracked with the help of CTD data and satellite-derived sea surface temperature, which often influenced the dynamics of mesoscale anticyclonic eddy fields off the Korean east coast during the summer season. The process of such mesoscale anticyclonic eddy features might have produced interior upwelling that could have shoaled and steepened the nutricline, enhancing phytoplankton population by advection or diffusion of nutrients in the vicinity of Ulleungdo in the East Sea.

• Plant Biotechnology Reports
• /
• v.5 no.3
• /
• pp.265-271
• /
• 2011

The cultivated potato as well as its tuber-bearing relatives are considered model plants for cell and tissue culture, and therefore for exploiting the genetic variation induced by in vitro culture. The association between molecular stability and tissue culture in different genetic backgrounds and ploidy levels has already been explored. However, it still remains to be ascertained whether somaclonal variation differs between callus-derived chromosome-doubled and undoubled regenerants. Our research aimed at investigating, through amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers, the genetic changes in marker-banding patterns of diploid and tetraploid regenerants obtained from one clone each of Solanum bulbocastanum Dunal and S. cardiophyllum Lindl (both 2n = 2x = 24) and tetraploids from cultivated S. tuberosum L. (2n = 4x = 48). Pairwise comparisons between the banding patterns of regenerants and parents allowed detecting considerable changes associated to in vitro culture both at diploid and tetraploid level. The percentages of polymorphic bands between diploid and tetraploid regenerants were, respectively, 57 and 69% in S. bulbocastanum and 58 and 63% in S. cardiophyllum. On average, the frequencies of lost parental fragments in regenerants were significantly higher than novel bands both in S. bulbocastanum (48 vs. 22%) and S. tuberosum (36 vs. 18%) regenerants. By contrast, in S. cardiophyllum, a similar incidence of the two events was detected (32 vs. 29%). Our results revealed that structural changes after tissue culture process strongly affected the genome of the species studied, but diploid and tetraploids regenerated plants responded equally.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.23-32
• /
• 2020

There has been a significant decline in the number of rail accidents in Korea since system safety management activities were introduced. Nonetheless, analyzing and preventing human error-related accidents is still an important issue in railway industry. As a railway system is increasingly automated and intelligent, the mechanism and process of an accident occurrence are more and more complicated. It is now essential to consider a variety of factors and their intricate interactions in the analysis of rail accidents. However, it has proved that traditional accident models and methods based on a linear cause-effect relationship are inadequate to analyze and to assess accidents in complex systems such as railway systems. In order to supplement the limitations of traditional safety methods, recently some systemic safety models and methods have been developed. Of those, FRAM(Functional Resonance Analysis Method) has been recognized as one of the most useful methods for analyzing accidents in complex systems. It reflects the concepts of performance adjustment and performance variability in a system, which are fundamental to understanding the processes of an accident in complex systems. This study aims to apply FRAM to the analysis of a rail accident involving human errors, which occurred recently in South Korea. Through the application of FRAM, we found that it can be a useful alternative to traditional methods in the analysis and assessment of accidents in complex systems. In addition, it was also found that FRAM can help analysts understand the interactions between functional elements of a system in a systematic manner.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.36 no.4
• /
• pp.102-108
• /
• 2008

At the University of Maine, a hemicellulose pre-extraction technology is now being investigated to improve pulp yields, reduce the organic and inorganic load for liquor recovery, and create a feed stream for the generation of new biomaterials. It is important to understand the composition of unextracted wood, extracted wood, and pulping extracts in the design of an economically viable pilot-scale ethanol plant. For analysis of wood pulp composition, the total analytical mass balance closure was 100.6, 100.3, and 81.6% for unextracted chips, extracted chips, and pulping extracts from HPLC-H column analysis. Meanwhile, the total analytical mass balance from the HPLC-P column was 97.8, 86.3, and 80.7%, respectively. This slight variability between H- and P-column results for analytical mass balance may be within the experimental error of the measurement. The data generated by this analysis are important to further design work in commercializing this process.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.147-158
• /
• 2000

For the large scale reinforced concrete cooling tower shells, the shape imperfection can be introduced due not only to mistakes in the process of construction but also to the long term behavior of concrete. The shape imperfection evokes the additional responses such as displacements and stresses in addition to the design values. In this study, the statistical behavior of the RC cooling tower shell due to the shape imperfection is investigated using the Monte Carlo simulation. The radius of cooling tower and the shell thickness are adopted as the parameters which cause the shape imperfection. The shape imperfection is modeled as a stochastic field rather than the local one of axisymmetric or bulge type of imperfection. The randomness in the radius is shown to be more affecting the structural responses than the randomness in the shell thickness. In addition to the geometrical randomness, the effect of randomness in the modulus of elasticity on the structural response is also investigated and compared with that of the geometrical ones.