Monitoring of Atmospheric Mercury at a Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) Site on An-Myun Island, Korea

In order to investigate the regional background concentration levels of mercury (Hg), measurements were routinely recorded on An-Myun Island off the coast of Korea (December 2004 to April 2006). The mean concentration of Hg computed from the entire measurement period was 4.61?±?2.21 ng m^?3 with a range of 0.10–25.4 ng m^?3 (N?=?10,485). Using these data, we inspected various aspects of Hg behavior from the relatively remote island of An-Myun in Korea. Inspection of the seasonal patterns of Hg indicated that its concentration levels generally peaked in spring, while reached a minimum in summer. The summertime deficiency of Hg along with the lack of diurnal variation suggests that the environmental behavior of Hg at the study site was strongly suppressed by heavy precipitation during specific period. The diurnal variations of Hg, typically characterized by a relative daytime dominance, are distinguishable between seasons so that such patterns disappear during the summer. The results of our analysis, when inspected in terms of long-range transport of airborne pollutants, imply that Hg concentration levels can be affected intensively by trans-boundary input processes over certain period of time. Its springtime dominance hence suggests the combined effects of various local source processes and the meteorological conditions favorable for the massive air mass transport phenomenon (such as Asian Dust storms) during that time period.     

Development of an objective fabric pilling evaluation method. II. Fabric pilling grading using artificial neural network

An objective pilling evaluation method has been developed using image analysis and artificial neural network. Pilling parameters obtained in the previous study were used as the input values for neural network. A total of 9 data sets including 5 standard grades and 4 interpolated intermediate grades were used for training the network. Nine samples were prepared to verify the validity of the trained network in comparison with the subjective evaluation results. 18 woven and 12 knitted samples were tested to investigate the effect of the fabric structure on the performance of the network. Finally, 55 woven fabric samples were tested to evaluate the performance of the newly developed method and it was proven to be suitable for the evaluation of pilling grade especially for woven fabrics.     

Evaluation of fabric pilling using hybrid imaging methods

A study has been made on the quantification and evaluation of fabric pilling using two-dimensional and three-dimensional hybrid imaging methods. Two-dimensional imaging method was good for some samples while three-dimensional measurement method for others, according to the properties of their base fabric. Various image processing techniques as well as three-dimensional data processing algorithms were applied for the extraction of pills from measured data and a series of shape parameters have been defined for the objective evaluation of fabric pilling. An evaluation criterion that is compatible with the conventional evaluation method has been proposed by applying the new evaluation method to the current photographic standards.     

Development of a platform for realistic garment drape simulation

An integrated platform for garment drape simulation system has been developed. In this system, garment patterns from conventional two-dimensional CAD systems can be assembled into a three-dimensional garment on a parametrically resizable realistic human body model. A fast and robust particle-based physical calculation engine has been developed for garment shape generation. Then a series of geometric and graphical techniques were applied to create realistic impressions on simulated garments. This system can be used as the rapid prototyping tool for garments in the future quick-response system.     

Garment pattern nesting using image analysis and three-dimensional simulation

A software system has been developed that designs garments made of figured fabrics and arranges the flat patterns on the fabric automatically. A series of image analysis techniques were used to find the repeat unit images of figured fabrics. Three-dimensional garment drape simulation was used to design garments using those repeat unit images as texture maps. Finally, a pattern nesting system was developed to arrange numerous flat garment patterns quickly keeping the continuity of the figures on them. This method could contribute to the increase of the reliability as well as the reduction of production cost by eliminating the unnecessary trial-and-error based processes.     

Enzymatic Synthesis of Piceid Glucosides Using Maltosyltransferase from Caldicellulosiruptor bescii DSM 6725

Piceid is widely used in food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals because of its therapeutic benefits. However, the use of piceid as a drug is limited because of its low solubility. To increase solubility, we synthesized piceid glucosides using maltosyltransferase from Caldicellulosiruptor bescii . The MTase gene was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli . The enzyme had a unique transfer specificity to the transfer of maltosyl units. Four piceid transglycosylation products were present and identified by thin-layer chromatography and recycling preparative high-performance liquid chromatography. The major product was purified by C(18) and gel filtration chromatography, and its molecular structure was determined using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to be α-d-maltosyl-(1→4)-piceid. The solubility of maltosyl piceid was 8.54 × 10(3) and 1.86 × 10(3) times those of natural resveratrol and piceid, respectively, suggesting that the transglycosylation greatly increased the water solubility. This suggests that dietary intake of this compound can enhance the bioavailability of resveratrol in the human body.     

New production method for a plain weave figured fabric

A new production method for figured fabric has been developed. The figured fabric generated in this study is a plain weave piled fabric and it shows the same figure on both sides unlike those fabrics woven on dobby or jacquard looms. It is woven by a specialty yarn called the chenille yarn which is obtained by separating each warp of a base fabric woven in leno structure. The base fabric is woven by inserting different colored weft each time in a certain sequence arranged according to the target figure image. A CAD software and a computerized controller have been developed to control all the motions of a conventional rapier loom and to handle the numerous weft insertion schedule efficiently.     

Development of an objective fabric pilling evaluation method. I. Characterization of pilling using image analysis

An objective evaluation method for woven fabric pilling has been developed using image processing and statistical analysis. Five ASTM photographic standard images were analyzed to determine a characterization method for fabric pilling. Images were filtered by various image analysis techniques such as fast Fourier transformation (FFT) and fast wavelet transformation (FWT). Three parameters including the number of pills, the total pixel area of pilling, and the sum of the gray values of pill images have been defined and extracted automatically from the images. Finally, the relationship between pilling grade and those parameters has been established by a series of statistical analyses.     

Introduction of normal preserving force into garment drape simulation for stable sewing process

A new force term for the particle based cloth drape simulation has been defined in this study. In the sewing process which is the starting point of a cloth drape simulation, usually large constraint forces are assigned along the sewing edges and this may generate a very stiff linear system which tends to diverge easily. Therefore, especially for a dynamic cloth simulation with a large time step, additional large damping should be introduced to stabilize the sewing process which slows down the process significantly. The new force term defined in this study was proved to be able to stabilize the sewing process without such a large damping by preserving the surface normal directions of mesh elements.