• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.105-117
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• 2012

Objectives: This study aimed to assess the concentration of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS) in blood and factors controlling their exposure among Koreans. Methods: Study subjects were selected to include 718 members of the general population residing in five metropolitan cities and the Gangwon Province area from August 2008 to January 2009. A questionnaire was administered to investigate lifestyle, socio-demographic characteristics, and other related factors. Blood samples were collected and extracted using solid-phase extraction and anion-exchange methods, and quantified by high-performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC, Agilent 1200 Series) coupled with a Triple Quad LC-MS/MS system (Agilent 6410). Results: Geometric mean concentrations of PFOA and PFOS in the blood were measured as 1.82 and 6.06 ng/ml, respectively. Mean PFOA and PFOS concentrations generally increased with age in both genders. Blood PFOA concentration was significantly different according to such variables as age, family income, residential district, and province. Blood PFOS concentration was significantly different by such variables as gender, age, lifestyle factors such as regular exercise, alcohol consumption, and smoking status. Also, family income, hazardous facilities, job classification, and province contributed significantly to differences in blood PFOS concentration levels. Conclusions: Blood PFOA and PFOS concentrations in Koreans were similar with those found in Japan, the USA, and Germany, but less than those in Australia. PFOA and PFOS exposure seems to be affected by a variety of factors in Korea. Therefore, investigation is required for each factor to assess the relative contribution of different variables.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.3-12
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• 2012

The slowdown of private building industry resulted in growth of remodeling market as a way to improve energy performance. Remodeling is considered more cost-effective and eco-friendly approach for energy efficient building than new construction. Since 2008, Seoul has promoted Building Retrofit Project (BRP) preponderantly to attract energy-saving renovation by supporting building owners to switch building system into energy-saving system when they remodel their old buildings. According to 2012 press release, 254 Private sectors participated in this green building project and annually reduced 41000ton of greenhouse gas emission, 14000TOE, which also result in 7.5 billion won energy cost savings per year. The paper focuses on the building envelope remodeling as a way to improve energy efficiency. Different components of the building envelope such as wall insulation, window, and shading, were applied to the baseline model and the comparison was analyzed to come up with the ideal solution. This study only assesses the building envelope as to suggest the way to redesign the better energy performing building. Offering solution focusing on the architectural feature is essential because it will provide basic information and standard when remodeling a building for energy efficiency, especially, for the nonresidential buildings used as rental offices.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.349-357
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• 2015

Objectives: The 2007 Korea National Survey for Environmental Pollutants in the Human Body found the highest blood mercury levels nationwide among residents in Seoksan-ri, Goro-myeon, Gunwi-gun, Gyeonsangbuk-do. With the aim to reduce the blood mercury levels of residents in this region, we conducted this study to identify the association between mercury exposure levels and shark meat consumption. Methods: This survey was conducted with 118 participants in Seoksan-ri before the Chuseok festival and 113 residents were added afterwards. Information on participants was collected via questionnaires. Total mercury concentrations in biological samples were measured using a mercury analyzer with the gold-amalgam collection method. Results: To identify this, we conducted mercury exposure level analysis before and after the Chuseok festival and found that blood and urinary mercury levels after Chuseok (GM of $6.9{\mu}g/L$ in blood and $1.68{\mu}g/g$_cr in urine) were higher than those before (GM of $5.29{\mu}g/L$ in blood and $1.44{\mu}g/g$_cr in urine). This area maintains a custom of using shark meat as one of the ancestral rite foods, and the performance of such rites and shark meat consumption have been identified as main sources of mercury exposure. Other than this, smoking, dental amalgam treatment and residential period in the area also contributed to an increase in mercury exposure levels. On the other hand, recent consumption of oriental medicine and vaccination did not have a significant influence on mercury levels. Conclusion: The results were attributed to the local custom of consuming shark meat with high mercury concentrations during rituals taking place during the festival and ancestral rites. Given that the blood mercury levels in 23.2% of the residents exceeded the HBM II values recommended by the German Commission on Human Biological Monitoring, it is suggested that further appropriate actions and follow-up measures be taken to reduce the mercury exposure levels of the residents that exceeded the reference values.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.683-692
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• 2011

In piloti-type low-rise RC residential buildings, severe damages have been usually concentrated at piloti stories under the earthquake. In this study, a piloti story was retrofitted by installation of buckling-restrained braces (BRB's) to increase strength and stiffness of piloti story and by application of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) sheet on columns to avoid the brittle shear and axial failure of columns. To verify this retrofit performance, reversed cyclic lateral load tests were performed on 1:5 scale bare and retrofitted frames. The test results showed that yield strength (43.2 kN) appeared to be significantly larger than design value (30 kN) due to the increase of strength in the compression side, but the stiffness value (11.6 kN/mm) turned out to be approximately one-half of the design value (24.2 kN/mm). The reasons for this difference in stiffness were due to slippage at joint between the frame and the BRB's, displacement and rotation at footing. The energy absorption capacity of the retrofitted frame was 7.5 times larger than that of the bare frame. The change of the number of load cells under the footing from 2 to 1 reduced lateral stiffness from 11.6 kN/mm to 6 kN/mm, which was only three times larger than that of the bare frame (2.1 kN/mm).

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.79-89
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to draw the implication for building domestic housing-related co-operatives by understanding activities of housing-related co-operatives from case study and by suggesting the start-up typology for possible domestic housing-related co-operatives and requisites for building them. According to their activities housing-related co-operatives are categorized into three types which are housing supply and operation type, maintain and improve the existing housing type, and design and performance improvement type. National housing policy should be connected to housing co-operatives indirectly. That is, the policy direction ought to be not toward controlling housing co-operatives, letting them supply more houses directly, but toward supporting voluntary co-operatives, showing them the overall housing policy blueprint. Co-operatives cannot be a panacea. Too much protection or support for co-operatives could lead to a reverse discrimination against private companies, and the co-operatives might overuse this kind of prominent position. We need to focus on the possibility of the role of co-operatives as a facilitator for local economy rather than a perfect substitute for the existing economy system.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.563-580
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• 2010

In 2009 the Korea Ministry of Environment announced 'A Comprehensive Plan for the Improvement of Sewer Service in Rural Area' aiming at reduction of the sewer service gap between urban and rural areas as well as improvement in the residential environment of the rural area. According to the plan, the sewer system supply rate for the rural area is expected to reach up to 75% until 2015 with the budget of 4.7 trillion won (Korean currency). It is not certain, however, that the increase in the sewer system supply rate will accompany improvement of water quality in receiving water because several veiled problems that can occur in small-scale sewer treatment plants are poorly addressed in the plan. In this study, those issues for the small-scale sewer treatment plants and their solutions were discussed based on a case study in which we investigated 19 treatment facilities at two rural regions in Gyeonggi province. This study also included strategies useful for the plan. From the results of investigation, some problems, e.g., high hourly variations but low in flowrates and low mass loading were commonly identified. Although operation parameters in sewer treatment plants require to be modified depending on the mass loading, most of the plants were operated with the initial design parameters which causes the decrease of removal efficiency. In the intensive diagnosis, we arranged and applied solutions (e.g., flow equalization, air on/off time control, etc) to the two selected plants and found out improvement of effluent water quality, especially organic matters (COD and SS) and T-N with better denitrification performance.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.269-280
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• 2018

This paper reports the results of field evaluation to determine the levels of heavy metals in major industrial complexes in Korea over a seven year period (2007~2013). The measurement of heavy metal was conducted using quartz fiber filter sampling and ICP-AES analysis. In order to validate the analytical performance of these methods, studies were also carried out to investigate data quality control(QC) parameters, such as the method detection limit (MDL), repeatability, and recovery efficiencies. The average concentrations of total suspended particulates (TSP) for the nine industrial complexes in Korea were $104{\sim}169{\mu}g/m^3$, which was higher than other industrial complexes and urban areas. The Sihwa and Banwol industrial complexes were shown to be the biggest contributing sources to high TSP emission ($159{\mu}g/m^3$ and $169{\mu}g/m^3$, respectively). The concentrations of heavy metals in TSP were higher in the order of Fe>Cu>Zn, Pb, Mn>Cr, Ni, As and Cd. It was observed that Fe was the highest in the Gwangyang and Pohang steel industrial complexes. The concentrations of Zn and Pb were high in Onsan, Sihwa and Banwol industrial complexes, and this was attributed to the emission from the nonferrous industry. Additionally, Cr and Ni concentrations were high in the Sihwa and Banwol industrial complexes due to plating industry. On the other hand, Ulsan and Onsan industrial complexes showed high Cr and Ni concentrations as a response to the emission of metal industry related to automobile. The correlation analysis revealed the high correlation between Cr and Ni in plating industry from Sihwa and Banwol industrial complexes. Adding to this, components related to coal combustion and road dust showed high correlation in Pohang and Gwangyang industrial complexes. Then Onsan and Ulsan industrial complexes showed high correlation among components related to the nonferrous metals.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.329-336
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• 2017

We analyzed the influence of living characteristics as environment related behavior by questionnaire survey analysis. Survey was conducted to 569 people living in Gimhae city, Gyongsangnam-do, Korea. By the results of correlation analysis, items with high levels of practice were related to legal regulations. However, group who are less interested in preserving the environment have lower performance in all aspects of their activities. In the relationship between social characteristics and environment related behavior, residents were generally aware of the practice of detached house dweller group rather than of apartment dweller. As the age increased, have more willing to practice. While the higher levels of education group do not make environment related behave better. However, it seemed that the student group's distinct characteristics was reflected in the education level. As this study, improvement of environmental awareness is needed to improve practice of environment related behavior rather than regal approach. Policy for environment related behavior is necessary to vary the methodology based on analysis of social characteristics, such as gender, residential type and education level rather than generalization.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.59-70
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to review that the VE techniques can be used as a selection tool of borrow pit locations. The analysis of the soil investigation report is performed for the selection of proposed borrow pit site on a large-scale residential development area. Possible earthwork volume of mining is estimated and the weighting matrix evaluation is applied to the VE techniques. After determining the evaluation items for VE assessment, important degree was calculated. The Rating and evaluation of performance is carried out on a proposed borrow pit site. And, development priority has to be decided for a proposed borrow pit sites. As a result, the relative construction cost is closely related to the haulage distance. As the haulage distance increases, the relative construction cost will be increased. Therefore, it was confirmed quantitatively that haulage distance has a significant impact on the select of borrow pits. Also, it was found that the condition of borrow pits itself is important, but it cannot be ignored the impact of the life cycle cost for the selection of optimal borrow pit sites.

• Spatial Information Research
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.71-80
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• 2012

Carbon Point system is Climate Change Action Program by providing incentives in proportion to voluntary reduction of energy consumption such as electricity, gas and water for houses, commercial facilities. So far, existing researches have been limited to construction of GHG(Green House Gas) Inventory and have little attention to empirical impact analysis on carbon reduction policy regarding the residential section. Therefore, this paper is intended to provide convincing findings of impact analysis on carbon reduction, revolving around the carbon point system. For this, we firstly calculated the carbon emission by using electricity and gas usage data in household targeting to Seongbuk-Gu. Carrying out IPA and spatio-temporal analysis. Then, we are capable of visualizing spatial patterns from 2007 to 2009 as a macro analysis. Following that, we explored the effect on carbon point system through Ex ante-Ex post Analysis by paired t-test. To conclude, we can spatially identify the distribution with a significant difference between carbon emissions according to energy use as a micro analysis by Hot Spot to Analysis on point entities. It is to be hoped that this method will be utilized to establish various policies and to evaluate the effect of reduction of GHG.