• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.565-571
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• 2012

This study was conducted to investigate the tolerance of some resistant fungal strains from soils contaminated with heavy metals. Various fungal strains were isolated from soil samples collected from studied sites which heavy metals and other pollutants have been emitted in effluents for several years. Fungi isolated belong to different genera; however, Penicillium spp. showed the most frequent species. The microbial number was remarkably higher in the control soil than contaminated soil samples collected from mining areas. $Pb^{2+}$ and $Zn^{2+}$ had the highest concentration in the polluted soils ranging from 89 - 3,521 ppm and 98 - 4,383 ppm, respectively. The minimum inhibition concentrations (MICs) of $Pb^{+2}$ and $Zn^{+2}$ showed the highest values against the fungal strains. $Ni^{+2}$ and $Co^{+2}$ were the lowest contaminants in the polluted soils with the concentration of 5 to 12.1 ppm and 1.8 to 4.8 ppm, respectively. The tested resistant strains showed the strongest inhibition for $Ni^{+2}$ and $Co^{+2}$ up to 200-400 ppm. Cadmium was the most highly toxic heavy metal for most of strains, however, 1 mM of $Cr^{3+}$, $Cu^{2+}$ and $Pb^{2+}$ accelerated the growth of Penicillium verrucosum KNU3. $Cu^{+2}$ and $Zn^{+2}$ at concentration of 1 mM did not affect the growth rate P. funiculosum KNU4. Tolerance of fungal species to heavy metals appears to be strain and origin dependent.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.8-13
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• 2008

Emissions from automobiles have long been considered a prime source of pollutants involved in smog formation and ozone production. Especially VOCs are associated with serious environmental problems such as photo-chemical smog as well as human health effects. Since motor vehicles are a major source of VOCs, estimating of emission from mobile source is the most important factor to control VOCs. VOCs are emitted from various pollution like motor vehicles, mobile and stationary source that has characteristics of toxicity, cancer-causing, bio-accumulation, durability in air and diffusion can exert a bad influence upon human health and environment. However we don't have any standard or regulation about VOCs emissions. This study is summarized as VOCs emission characteristics from in-use light-duty diesel and LPG fueled vehicles. The vehicle exhaust-gas test mode is CVS cycle and nier-10 cycles that developed on EPA and National Institute of Environmental Research. TO-14 method (Toxic Organic) was chosen for VOCs analysis from EPA in USA. This study results will be useful when make a emission factor and rule making of emission standard about domestic VOCs emission for the improve to air condition.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.75-86
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• 2008

The wetlands have functions those were retention of diverse biota, purification of water quality, control of climate and flood, eco-tourism and supply of agricultural water, and that was the ecosystem of high biodiversity as the zone of transition between inland and water. Therefore, this study showed the conservation and management plan by analyzing in the abiotic and biotic environment of forest swamp, Gyeongsangbuk-do. The results were as follows. Examining the management plan of the abiotic environment, there will need to establish the hydrological plan in continuous expediting the supply of water to maintain a humid soil of swamp, and to try to find the organic farming, use of low toxic agrichemicals and so on to prevent occurring a non-point source pollutants. To prevent changing the flowing of ground water and inflow of earth and sand in modifying the land character, there will be needed to restrict the construction of farmland and slope around swamp. To manage the biotic environment, there needed to offer the habitat by removing the regular interval and individual of a dead tree, and to improve the growth environment of vegetation. Because the naturalized plants disturb the natural vegetation, they will be removed. The afforested trees like Robinia pseudoacacia and Amorpha truticosa will be renewed to prevent the heterogeneity of landscape ecology, and the active conservation plan on wetland species will be established. As this study was carried out to study on the partial swamp, Gyeongsanbuk-do, the ecological environments distributing a swamp in Korea show a some problem. In the future, the study will accomplish to study the accurately and objectively ecological environment and management of a swamp by analyzing the extensive sites.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.1011-1016
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• 2006

Recently, volatile organic compound(VOC) has been noted as a main cause of air pollution. VOC, with its toxic and offensive odor, is hazardous to health. Furthermore indoor, underground and hish-rise buildings are preferable living spaces. People spend more than 80% of the day indoor, so indoor air pollution is a matter of importance. In Korea, from 2004, 10 types of indoor pollutants in public facilities have been identified. However, there is no standard for individual VOC, so the regulation has not yet effectively been carried out. In this study, we have studied on the diffusion of Benzene in a room using a numerical analysis for various air-controlled conditions consisted of door, window and ventilation system. This study investigates spatial concentration distribution and time-history of room-averaged benzene concentration for several cases. The results of this study show that when the room is ventilated by a small fan only for 30 minutes, the average concentration of benzene is decreased a very little, thus the impact to human body would be serious compared to the case of natural ventilation by window and door, In the case of natural ventilation by window and door, if the wind speed is higher than 0.5m/s, it takes small than 4 minutes for benzene to spread to the target concentration of $1.2mg/m^3$.

• Proceedings of KOSOMES biannual meeting
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.43-49
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• 2007

The metals we are familiar with(Al, Ag, Au, Cu, Cd, Co, Fe, Ni, Pb, Zn, etc) are common elements and conservative pollutants. Although metals are often vital constituents of the metabolism of living organisms(trace elements}, a number of them are toxic if their concentration exceeds a certain threshold. It has long been recognized that measurements of trace metals in natural waters are often subject to large errors in terms of precision and accuracy. Since 1975 in US and European countries, seawater concentration of many trace metals have been shown to be factors of 10-1,000 lower than those previously accepted. Vertical profiles have been found to be consistent with known biological, physical and/or geochemical processes. These are resulted from major advances in analytical instrumentation and methodology for trace elements, and greater attention has been given to assuring the elimination of contamination during sampling, storage, and analysis.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.70-79
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• 2013

Since crude oil contains various pollutants including heavy metals, the environmental impact should be assessed for heavy metals as well as oil itself. In order to estimate the extent of heavy metal contamination, surface sediments were collected at the intertidal and coastal zone around the Herbei sprit oil spill area during December 2007 and January 2008. Organic carbon, sulfur and heavy metals were determined to assess heavy metal contamination in sediments. The crude oils contained C, S, V and Ni, but little toxic metals such as As, Cd, etc. From organic carbon content, the highest contaminated site was estimated that oils contributed to sediments up to 10%, and this site showed high V concentration. Potentially contaminated sediments by crude oil could be differentiated from unaffected sediments through V/Al and Ni/Al ratios, which can be used as indicators of oil contamination even after the oils were fully degraded.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.1123-1129
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• 2006

Pyrene of natural and anthropogenic sources is one of the toxic, mutagenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) listed as priority pollutants. The objectives of this research are to break down pyrene by using ozonation, identify the intermediates and byproducts of pyrene, and test the biodegradability of intermediates and byproducts of pyrene in the aqueous phase. Since pyrene is non-polar, hexane was chosen as a solvent to effectively dissolve pyrene. Pyrene solutions were treated with ozone, as it has high oxidation capacity and electrophilic characteristic. After different ozonation pretreatment times (2, 3, and 10 minutes), intermediates of pyrene in the form of yellowish solid were collected from the hexane solution using a centrifuge. They were identified by gas chromatography/mass spectrometer (GC/MS). $BOD_5$, COD, and E-coli toxicity tests have been performed to assess the ozonation products.

• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Sciences Society Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.85-88
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• 2003

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PARs) are an important group of organic contaminants present in sewage sludge, due to their persistence, toxic, bioaccumulative and long range transfer. These characters make themselves as Persistent Organic Pollutants(POPs) in Long Range Transboundary Air Pollutions convention(LRT AP) of Europe. A method of the gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) determination of PARs present in sewage sludge was developed and applied to analyzed samples from five sewerage treatment plants (SWTPs), having different treatment types. PARs were extracted from freeze-dried samples by toluene 16 hours in a soxhlet extraction system. The sludge extracts were cleaned-up by an activated silica gel column chromatography. The sum of the 16 US Environmental Protection Agency PARs sewage sludge samples varied from 2.44 to 4.82 ${\mu}g$/g. Concentration of emission carcinogen PARs(PARcarc), such as Benzo(a)anthracene, Benzo(b)fluoranthene, Benzo(k)fluoranthene, Benzo(a)pyrene, Dibenzo(a, h)anthracene and Indeno(1, 2, 3-cd)pyrene ranged from 0.62 to 1.03 ${\mu}g$/g. The total amount of PAHs emission from sewage sludge in Korea was calculated as a top-down approach. PARs and $\sum$PAHcarc from sewage treatment plants had several pathway each by-products. In the ocean dumping, PAHs and $\sum$PAHcarc emissions were 1155.95 kg/year and 5040.32 kg/year. In recycle, PAHs and $\sum$PAHcarc emissions were 98.36 kg/year and 428.87 kg/year. In the landfill, PAHs and $\sum$PAHcarc emissions were 190.40 kg/year and 830.21 kg/year. In the incineration, PAHs and $\sum$PAHcarc emission were 33.10 kg/year and 830.21 kg/year. (In case of incineration, the whole provisions of PARs and $\sum$PAHcarc contained to flowed in sludge was supposed to be exhausted to environment through exhaust after incineration.)

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.51-58
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• 2003

This study was carried out to investigate the preventive and therapeutic effect of Panax ginseng water extract (PG-WE) on the toxicity induced by 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), one of the most notorious toxic environmental pollutants belonging to the group of polyhalogenated aromatic hydrocarbons. Normal control (NC) group guinea pigs (180~200 g) received vehicle and saline, and TCDD-treated (TT) group was given TCDD and saline. P100 and P200 group animals received PG-WE for 28 days since 1 week before TCDD exposure at daily doses of 100 mg/kg b.w. and/or 200 mg/kg b.w., respectively. C100 and C200 group received PG-WE for 14 days starting 1 week after TCDD-exposure. Toxicity was induced by a single intraperitoneal injection of TCDD (1 $\mu\textrm{g}$/kg b.w.). Abnormal increase in AST and ALT activities in TT group was significantly improved by the administration of PC-WE. Microscopically, there were mild to moderate swelling of hepatocytes, hyperchromatism of individual cells, acidophilic cytoplasm and cytoplasm vacuolation of some hepatocytes, slight to moderate variations of staining density, occasional single cell necrosis, variable size and shape of some hepatocytes, small groups of degenerating hepatocytes surrounded by mononuclear cells, dilated sinusoids of centrilobular zone and some loss of lobular architecture in TT group liver. From these results, we could find the protective and therapeutic role of PG-WE in TCDD-induced liver toxicity by examining the blood chemical parameters and histopathological observation.

• Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.345-353
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• 2014

Copper has been widely used to control algae and pathogens in fish culture ponds. However, its toxic effects on fish depend not only on its concentration in the water but also on the water quality. A laboratory experiment was conducted to assess copper toxicity in the black rockfish Sebastes schlegeli using a panel of antioxidant enzymes, including glutathione (GSH), glutathione S-transferase (GST), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), glutathione reductase (GR) and superoxide dismutase (SOD), at different levels of copper at three water temperatures (WT, 18, 23, $28^{\circ}C$) for 4 days. After exposure to two copper concentrations (100 and $200{\mu}g/L$), GSH levels and GST activities increased significantly, depending on WT (P < 0.05) in the liver, gill, and kidney of the black rockfish. GPx and SOD activities decreased significantly with both increasing WT and copper treatment in the organs of black rockfish (P < 0.05). These changes can be seen as initial responses to temperature stress and as a sustained response to copper exposure. This also indicates that GSH and related enzymes activities were sensitive indexes to stress by toxicants such as copper. The present findings suggest that simultaneous stress due to temperature change and copper exposure can accelerate changes in enzymes activities in the black rockfish. This provides another example of synergism between environmental temperature and pollutants, which may have important implications for the survival of fish in polluted environments during seasonal warming and/or global climate change.