Workplace offense and victims' reactions: the effects of victim‐offender (dis)similarity,offense‐type,and cultural differences

This study examined the effects of workplace offenders' characteristics and offense‐type on victims' reactions. Responses from 352 employed graduate students in the U.S. and South Korea to a hypothetical offense incident revealed that employees from the U.S. and Korea differ in their expressed desirability of avoiding, seeking revenge against, and reconciling with an offending coworker depending on the offenders' similarity/dissimilarity to the victim and on the type of offense. As expected, Koreans (but not U.S. Americans) were more likely to avoid and to seek revenge on a coworker whose offensive remark was group‐ rather than personally‐directed. In addition, Koreans were most motivated to reconcile when an offensive remark came from a similar rather than dissimilar coworker and when the offense targeted them personally (not their group). However, U.S. Americans were most motivated to reconcile when an offensive remark came from a similar rather than dissimilar other and when the offense targeted their group (not them personally). Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Heavy metal immobilization in soil near abandoned mines using eggshell waste and rapeseed residue

Heavy metal contamination of agricultural soils has received great concern due to potential risk to human health. Cadmium and Pb are largely released from abandoned or closed mines in Korea, resulting in soil contamination. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of eggshell waste in combination with the conventional nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium fertilizer (also known as NPK fertilizer) or the rapeseed residue on immobilization of Cd and Pb in the rice paddy soil. Cadmium and Pb extractabilities were tested using two methods of (1) the toxicity characteristics leaching procedure (TCLP) and (2) the 0.1 M HCl extraction. With 5 % eggshell addition, the values of soil pH were increased from 6.33 and 6.51 to 8.15 and 8.04 in combination with NPK fertilizer and rapeseed residue, respectively, compared to no eggshell addition. The increase in soil pH may contribute to heavy metal immobilization by altering heavy metals into more stable in soils. Concentrations of TCLP-extracted Cd and Pb were reduced by up to 67.9 and 93.2 % by addition of 5 % eggshell compared to control. For 0.1 M HCl extraction method, the concentration of 0.1 M HCl-Cd in soils treated with NPK fertilizer and rapeseed residue was significantly reduced by up to 34.01 and 46.1 %, respectively, with 5 % eggshell addition compared to control. A decrease in acid phosphatase activity and an increase in alkaline phosphatase activity at high soil pH were also observed. Combined application of eggshell waste and rapeseed residue can be cost-effective and beneficial way to remediate the soil contaminated with heavy metals.     

Application of eggshell waste for the immobilization of cadmium and lead in a contaminated soil

Liming materials have been used to immobilize heavy metals in contaminated soils. However, no studies have evaluated the use of eggshell waste as a source of calcium carbonate (CaCO?) to immobilize both cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) in soils. This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of eggshell waste on the immobilization of Cd and Pb and to determine the metal availability following various single extraction techniques. Incubation experiments were conducted by mixing 0-5% powdered eggshell waste and curing the soil (1,246 mg Pb kg?1 soil and 17 mg Cd kg?1 soil) for 30 days. Five extractants, 0.01 M calcium chloride (CaCl?), 1 M CaCl?, 0.1 M hydrochloric acid (HCl), 0.43 M acetic acid (CH?COOH), and 0.05 M ethylendiaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), were used to determine the extractability of Cd and Pb following treatments with CaCO? and eggshell waste. Generally, the extractability of Cd and Pb in the soils decreased in response to treatments with CaCO? and eggshell waste, regardless of extractant. Using CaCl? extraction, the lowest Cd concentration was achieved upon both CaCO? and eggshell waste treatments, while the lowest Pb concentration was observed using HCl extraction. The highest amount of immobilized Cd and Pb was extracted by CH?COOH or EDTA in soils treated with CaCO? and eggshell waste, indicating that remobilization of Cd and Pb may occur under acidic conditions. Based on the findings obtained, eggshell waste can be used as an alternative to CaCO? for the immobilization of heavy metals in soils.     

Correction to: Determining soil quality in urban agricultural regions by soil enzyme-based index

Environmental Geochemistry and Health - Unfortunately, in the original publication of the article, Prof. Yang Sik Ok’s affiliation was incorrectly published. The author’s affiliation is...     

Correction to: Effects of carbon nanotube and biochar on bioavailability of Pb,Cu and Sb in multi-metal contaminated soil

Environmental Geochemistry and Health - Unfortunately, in the original publication of the article, Prof. Yong Sik Ok’s affiliation was incorrectly published. The author’s affiliation is...     

Correction to: Contrasting effects of engineered carbon nanotubes on plants: a review

Environmental Geochemistry and Health - Unfortunately, in the original publication of the article, Prof. Yong Sik Ok’s affiliation was incorrectly published. The author’s affiliation is...     

Combined toxicity of copper and phenol derivatives to Daphnia magna: effect of complexation reaction

The complexation of Cu with phenol was investigated in aqueous solution to find the changes in toxicity toward Daphnia magna in mixtures of copper and phenol derivatives and determine an appropriate prediction model for the toxicity of these mixtures. In the titration experiment, the results showed that phenol played an important role in the remarkable reduction of the Cu(2+) concentration, due to its complexation with Cu, with the subsequent reduction in the toxicity of aqueous mixtures containing both Cu and phenol. As a result, it was clearly demonstrated that Cu-phenol formed a non-toxic complex toward D. magna as the mortality declined, despite the addition of phenol to a fixed Cu concentration. Meanwhile, prediction of the combined toxicity for binary mixtures of Cu and 11 phenol derivatives more accurately followed an independent action model (p = 0.143, df = 124, and t = -1.475 in t-test) than an effect summation model (p approximately 0, df = 134, and t = 7.528 in t-test) due to the dissimilar modes of action and the complexation reactions between Cu and each of the phenolic compounds. Consequently, this study supports the importance of considering complexation reactions in assessing the combined toxicity for the formulation of water quality in mixtures of heavy metals and organic compounds, and in these cases, an independent action model was found to be appropriate.     

Safety assessment for accident of cooling loop failure (ACLF) in lunar nuclear power reactor (LNPR)

The safety assessment of an accident in the lunar base power plant is investigated for the stability of the operation. The lunar surface reactor is modeled for this study. The accident of cooling loop failure (ACLF) is one of the important scenarios for the virtual case in the moon nuclear power plant (NPP). The newly designed lunar nuclear power reactor (LNPR) is suggested for the commercial purpose. The system dynamics (SD) is used for the simulation of the safety assessment. The cyclic variation of the lunar surface temperature can affect to the physical situation of the coolant, which is expressed by the time step. The result shows the performance possibility of the long term cooling increases slightly in the short period of the time step. The dynamical simulation of the lunar environment is performed for the conceptual design of the NPP.     

Assessment of the small modular reactor (SMR) marketing using modified network dynamics-based system dynamics (SD) method

Following the export success of the South Korean small modular reactor (SMR), it has been investigated for the marketing strategy of nuclear power plants (NPPs). The information feedback oriented method for the social-business matters, system dynamics (SD), is applied to the assessment of the marketing strategy in which the forecasting skills are performed. Each element has the Boolean value as 0 or 1 in which the values are selected by the random number generation. If the generated values are higher than the designed value decided by the operator, it is 1. Otherwise, it is 0. The networking based dynamical modeling is discussed. The modification of the linear networking is changed by the SD algorithm where the feedback and multiple connections are added to the original network dynamics theory. This new method has shown the complexity of the marketing strategy, especially for the NPPs.     

Amelioration of acidic soil using various renewable waste resources

In this study, improvement of acidic soil with respect to soil pH and exchangeable cations was attempted for sample with an initial pH of approximately 5. Acidic soil was amended with various waste resources in the range of 1 to 5 wt.% including waste oyster shells (WOS), calcined oyster shells (COS), Class C fly ash (FA), and cement kiln dust (CKD) to improve soil pH and exchangeable cations. Upon treatment, the soil pH was monitored for periods up to 3 months. The exchangeable cations were measured after 1 month of curing. After a curing period of 1 month, a maize growth experiment was conducted with selected-treated samples to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment. The treatment results indicate that in order to increase the soil pH to a value of 7, 1 wt.% of WOS, 3 wt.% of FA, and 1 wt.% of CKD are required. In the case of COS, 1 wt.% was more than enough to increase the soil pH value to 7 because of COS's strong alkalinity. Moreover, the soil pH increases after a curing period of 7 days and remains virtually unchanged thereafter up to 1 month of curing. Upon treatment, the summation of cations (Ca, Mg, K, and Na) significantly increased. The growth of maize is superior in the treated samples rather than the untreated one, indicating that the amelioration of acidic soil is beneficial to plant growth, since soil pH was improved and nutrients were replenished.