Search Results (21)

This paper introduces a configuration and integration model for mobile robots deployed in emergency and special operations scenarios. The proposed method is designed for implementation within the operational technology (OT) domain, enforcing security protocols that ensure both data encryption and network isolation. The primary objective is to establish a dedicated operational environment encompassing a command and control center where the robotic network server resides, alongside real-time data storage from network clients and remote control of field-deployed mobile robots. Building on this infrastructure, operational strategies are developed to enable an efficient robotic response in critical situations. By leveraging remote robotic networks, significant benefits are achieved in terms of personnel safety and mission efficiency, minimizing response time and reducing the risk of injury to human operators during hazardous interventions. Unlike generic IoT or IoRT systems, this work focuses on secure robotic integration within segmented OT infrastructures. The technologies employed create a synergistic system that ensures data integrity, encryption, and safe user interaction through a web-based interface. Additionally, the system includes mobile robots and a read-only application positioned within a demilitarized zone (DMZ), allowing for secure data monitoring without granting control access to the robotic network, thus enabling cyber-physical isolation and auditability. Full article

Groundwater discharge is critical for maintaining river flow during dry seasons, especially in lowland areas. Despite its significance, groundwater resources have often been overlooked highlighting the need for comprehensive studies amidst growing pressure to develop new water resources. This study focuses on the Soyang River Basin, South Korea, including its ungauged northern regions, the nearby DMZ (Demilitarized Zone), using the physically based Gridded Surface Subsurface Hydrologic Analysis (GSSHA) model. A three-year simulation was conducted to examine variable aquifer depth distribution patterns by assuming an inverse relationship between surface elevation and aquifer bottom depth. Three case studies (i.e., equal distribution, linear regression, and logarithmic regression) were evaluated and compared. The method to identity optimal aquifer depth distributions to enhance groundwater simulation accuracy in regions with significant topographical variation was incorporated. Groundwater levels at six monitoring sites showed that altitude-based variable aquifer depths outperformed the equal distribution case. The results showed strong agreement between simulated and observed values, particularly in the linear regression case with an R-squared statistic of 0.858 and Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency index of 0.789, indicating that linear regression-based aquifer depth estimation can significantly improves long-term runoff modeling and groundwater simulation accuracy. The logarithmic regression case had the lowest relative peak error in peak flow. These findings highlight the importance of adjusting aquifer depth distributions in physically based hydrologic models to better reflect real-world conditions. Overall, this study contributes to advance groundwater modeling by integrating variable aquifer depth distributions into a physically based hydrologic model for large scale watersheds. Full article

The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) is an area where human disturbance has been strictly restrained for about seven decades since 1953. As a result, compared with rural and urban areas in Korea with similar ecological conditions, the landscape structure of the Korean DMZ today shows a big difference in that it has a riparian forest and lacks any of the artificial landscape elements, such as agricultural and residential areas. The vegetation maps made in the 1950s and those made in recent years of a model site that extends throughout the DMZ, the Civilian Control Zone (CCZ), and adjacent rural areas show that successional changes in the DMZ and CCZ areas are remarkable, while changes in the rural areas are not clear. Rice fields have been replaced by riparian forests, whereas young forests in areas previously subjected to excessive use and pine forests have been replaced by broad-leaved forests. Among the three landscape elements that changed, it was found that riparian zones, where natural disturbance is usually frequent, could mitigate the impacts of human disturbance and restore the original features of nature sooner than any other elements. The results of analyses on landscape change that focused on rice fields before the Korean War also showed similar results: most of these fields had turned into riparian vegetation. Stand ordination of riparian vegetation investigated in the CCZ, rural areas, and urban areas showed clear differences in species composition and diversity among regions. In this study, we confirmed the passive restoration of the Korean DMZ and CCZ through natural regeneration processes as a result of restricted human disturbance over a period of about seven decades. Full article

This investigation delineated an ecological network within South Korea’s Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to enhance ecosystem functionality, with a focus on forest landscape connectivity. The study employed spatial autocorrelation analysis and the minimum cumulative resistance model to identify key source patches. These patches are vital for maintaining connectivity across various topographies and land uses in the DMZ. Morphological spatial pattern analysis in the DMZ’s forest area showed a variation in forest patch types. The core class, less affected by external influences, was more prevalent in the eastern part. In contrast, the edge class, influenced by different environmental boundaries, was dominant in the western part. A 452.36 km long ecological network was constructed, serving as an essential corridor linking habitats of endangered species. This network covers a total forest area of 730.17 km², which includes an existing forest protection area of 165.84 km² (22.7%). The study also identified 564.33 km² (77.3%) of previously non-designated forest regions as potential conservation areas. This aims to significantly increase forest connectivity within the DMZ. The research highlights the effectiveness of spatial planning tools in promoting ecosystem integrity in politically sensitive and restricted-access areas. Full article

The Civilian Access Control Zone (CACZ), south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea, has functioned as a unique bio-reserve owing to restrictions on human use. However, it is now increasingly threatened by damaged land and slope failures. In this study, a machine-learning-based method was used to assess slope stability by introducing the random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), and logistic regression (LR) approaches. These classification models were trained and evaluated on 393 slope stability cases from 2009 to 2019 to assess slope stability in the northern area of the Civilian Control Line, South Korea. For comparison, the performance of these classification models was measured by considering the accuracy, Cohen’s kappa, F1-score, recall rate, precision, and area under the ROC curve (AUC). Furthermore, 14 influencing factors (slope, vegetation, structure conditions, etc.) were considered to explore feature importance. The evaluation and comparison of the results showed that the performance of all classifier models was satisfactory for assessing the stability of the slope, the ability of LR was validated (accuracy = 0.847; AUC = 0.838), and XGBoost proved to be the most efficient method for predicting slope stability (accuracy = 0.903; AUC = 0.900). Among the 14 influencing factors, the external condition was the most important. The proposed supervised learning method offers a promising method for assessing slope status, may be beneficial for government agencies in early-stage risk mitigation, and provides a database for efficient restoration management. Full article

The possible applications of communication based on big data have steadily increased in several industries, such as the autonomous vehicle industry, with a corresponding increase in security challenges, including cybersecurity vulnerabilities (CVs). The cybersecurity-related symmetry of big data communication systems used in autonomous vehicles may raise more vulnerabilities in the data communication process between these vehicles and IoT devices. The data involved in the CVs may be encrypted using an asymmetric and symmetric algorithm. Autonomous vehicles with proactive cybersecurity solutions, power-based cyberattacks, and dynamic countermeasures are the modern issues/developments with emerging technology and evolving attacks. Research on big data has been primarily focused on mitigating CVs and minimizing big data breaches using appropriate countermeasures known as security solutions. In the future, CVs in data communication between autonomous vehicles (DCAV), the weaknesses of autonomous vehicular networks (AVN), and cyber threats to network functions form the primary security issues in big data communication, AVN, and DCAV. Therefore, efficient countermeasure models and security algorithms are required to minimize CVs and data breaches. As a technique, policies and rules of CVs with proxy and demilitarized zone (DMZ) servers were combined to enhance the efficiency of the countermeasure. In this study, we propose an information security approach that depends on the increasing energy levels of attacks and CVs by identifying the energy levels of each attack. To show the results of the performance of our proposed countermeasure, CV and energy consumption are compared with different attacks. Thus, the countermeasures can secure big data communication and DCAV using security algorithms related to cybersecurity and effectively prevent CVs and big data breaches during data communication. Full article

The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) was established in 1953 during the cessation of the Korean War, which divided the Korean Peninsula into North and South Korea. The DMZ is a representative biodiversity resource because it limits human activities. The current status of faunal diversity in adjacent areas of the DMZ was investigated in five regions at 91 sites from 2015 to 2019. A total of 19,562 individuals were collected and identified, including 81 species, 19 families, and 11 orders. Zacco koreanus was the most abundant fish species (relative abundance of 21.9%), while other key species were Zacco platypus (18.2%), Rhynchocypris oxycephalus (5.2%), Rhynchocypris steindachneri (4.9%), and Pungtungia herzi (3.7%). Notably, twenty-nige endemic and seven Red Data Book species were recorded, and three exotic species, Carassius cuvieri, Micropterus salmoides, and Lepomis macrochirus were found at five sites. Human activities and disturbances were found at 34.0% of all sampling sites, and the highest disturbance factors were river dredging and agricultural use (seven sites), sewage (five sites), and fisheries and development (two sites). We recommend that the governments of South and North Korea collaboratively manage the DMZ to protect ecological diversity and maintain its status as a symbol of peace. Full article

The analysis of the electrocardiogram (ECG) is critical for the diagnosis of arrhythmias. Recent advances in information and communications technology (ICT) have led to the development of wearable ECG devices and arrhythmia-detection algorithms. This study aimed to develop an ICT-based clinical trial service platform using a self-reporting technique for real-time arrhythmia detection. To establish a clinical-trial service platform, a mobile application (app), a demilitarized zone (DMZ), an internal network, and Amazon web services virtual private cloud (AWS-VPC) were developed. The ECG data acquired by a wearable device were transmitted to the mobile app, which collected the participants’ self-reported information. The mobile app transmitted raw ECG and self-reported data to the AWS-VPC and DMZ, respectively. In the AWS-VPC, the live-streaming and playback-reviewer services were operational to display the currently and previously acquired ECG data to clinicians through the web client. All the measured data were transmitted to the internal network, in which the arrhythmia-detection algorithm was executed and all the data were saved. The self-reporting technique and arrhythmia-detection algorithm are the key elements of this platform. In particular, subjective information of participants can be easily collected using a self-reporting technique. These features are particularly of critical importance for treating painless, sparsely occurring arrhythmias. Full article

This study examines the land-use and land-cover changes (LUCCs) in Kaesong, a North Korean city, and the area adjacent to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). An intensity analysis—a framework decomposing LUCCs into interval, category, and transition levels—is applied to the land-cover maps of 1916, 1951, and 2015 to understand the importance of the historical period and associated land regimes (imperialism and socialism) in shaping LUCCs. The five land-cover classes—Built, Agriculture, Forest, Water, and Others—were analyzed among the two historical periods from Imperial Japan’s colonization (1910–1945) and the South–North division since the Korean War (1953–present). The results show that, at the interval level, the colonial period LUCCs were more intensive than the division period. However, >50% of the study area underwent changes during each period. At the category level, river channel modifications were the most intensive, followed by deforestation. In terms of transition, consistent intensity trends from Others to Built and Agriculture were observed across both land regimes. In conclusion, the LUCCs were more intensive under Japanese imperialism than the North Korean socialist regime, but the economic and geographic factors were not substantially affected by such land regimes. These underlying forces may be more significant fundamental drivers of LUCCs than land regimes themselves. Full article

This qualitative study investigated the process of Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) storytelling created by tour guides. It explored the strategies that DMZ guides use and their influences at this complex site. This study investigates the training of the guides, their viewpoints on the DMZ, and the factors that influence their storytelling, taking guide status into consideration. A total of thirteen tour guides were interviewed. The findings identify various storytelling components that are used to build relationships with tourists, deliver an immersive experience, and provide the core information and regulations of the tour. Therefore, the proposed conceptual model includes three components that contribute to the creation of a memorable experience: the guide and the tourists, the guide and the site, and the tourists and the site. The findings enrich the body of literature on storytelling and could be used by travel agencies to create new training programs for DMZ tour guides and travel package group management. In addition, DMZ tours could be redesigned to increase the effectiveness of storytelling. Full article

After the Korean War, human access to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) was highly restricted. However, limited agricultural activity was allowed in the Civilian Control Zone (CCZ) surrounding the DMZ. In this study, land cover and vegetation changes in the western DMZ and CCZ from 1919 to 2017 were investigated. Coniferous forests were nearly completely destroyed during the war and were then converted to deciduous forests by ecological succession. Plains in the DMZ and CCZ areas showed different patterns of land cover changes. In the DMZ, pre-war rice paddies were gradually transformed into grasslands. These grasslands have not returned to forest, and this may be explained by wildfires set for military purposes or hydrological fluctuations in floodplains. Grasslands near the floodplains in the DMZ are highly valued for conservation as a rare land type. Most grasslands in the CCZ were converted back to rice paddies, consistent with their previous use. After the 1990s, ginseng cultivation in the CCZ increased. In addition, the landscape changes in the Korean DMZ and CCZ were affected by political circumstances between South and North Korea. Our results provide baseline information for the development of ecosystem management and conservation plans for the Korean DMZ and CCZ. Given the high biodiversity and ecological integrity of the Korean DMZ region, transboundary governance for conservation should be designed. Full article

We propose a magnetometer system fitted on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV, or drone) and a data-processing method for detecting metal antipersonnel landmines (M16) in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in Korea, which is an undeveloped natural environment. The performance of the laser altimeter was improved so that the drone could fly at a low and stable altitude, even in a natural environment with dust and bushes, and a magnetometer was installed on a pendulum to minimize the effects of magnetic noise and vibration from the drone. At a flight altitude of 1 m, the criterion for M16 is 5 nT. Simple low-pass filtering eliminates magnetic swing noise due to pendulum motion, and the moving average method eliminates changes related to the heading of the magnetometer. Magnetic exploration was conducted in an actual mine-removal area near the DMZ in Korea, with nine magnetic anomalies of more than 5 nT detected and a variety of metallic substances found within a 1-m radius of each detection site. The proposed UAV-based landmine detection system is expected to reduce risk to detection personnel and shorten the landmine-detection period by providing accurate scientific information about the detection area prior to military landmine-detection efforts. Full article

Republic of Korea (ROK) military installations are scattered across South Korea, but there is a higher concentration of fortifications in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and eastern and western coastlines. These facilities range from relatively small structures, such as individual and artillery fighting positions, to large buildings, such as ammunition depots and command posts. These military installations have a significant thickness of concrete members to provide a high degree of protection against bombs and projectiles. The Korean military will carry out the integration and dismantling of these protection facilities over the next ten years through the Army transformation plan. Such large-scale construction projects have an impact on the environment in terms of the carbon footprint, because building construction and operations account for 36% of the world’s energy use and 40% of energy-related carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. It is very important to reduce the concrete materials and reinforcement steel during protective structure construction near the DMZ, which is now recognized as one of the most well-preserved areas in the world. In this study, new sustainable design considerations that allow elasto-plastic or plastic design of concrete elements were evaluated using a case study of an artillery fighting position. The new sustainable design considerations were developed on the basis of mission, enemy, terrain and weather, troops and support available, time and civil considerations (METT + TC) within the context of the current battle situation, as well as protection against near misses. From this study, it was found that new sustainable design considerations provide a reasonable degree of protection that permits good construction practices and maximum structural stability with minimum amount of materials. It was also found that if the new design procedure is used to replace 1000 artillery positions through the Army transformation plan, the CO₂ emissions can be reduced by 476,582.4 tons and the cost reduced by USD 23,829,120. Full article

Traditional data analytics tools are designed to deal with the asymmetrical type of data i.e., structured, semi-structured, and unstructured. The diverse behavior of data produced by different sources requires the selection of suitable tools. The restriction of recourses to deal with a huge volume of data is a challenge for these tools, which affects the performances of the tool’s execution time. Therefore, in the present paper, we proposed a time optimization model, shares common HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System) between three Name-node (Master Node), three Data-node, and one Client-node. These nodes work under the DeMilitarized zone (DMZ) to maintain symmetry. Machine learning jobs are explored from an independent platform to realize this model. In the first node (Name-node 1), Mahout is installed with all machine learning libraries through the maven repositories. The second node (Name-node 2), R connected to Hadoop, is running through the shiny-server. Splunk is configured in the third node (Name-node 3) and is used to analyze the logs. Experiments are performed between the proposed and legacy model to evaluate the response time, execution time, and throughput. K-means clustering, Navies Bayes, and recommender algorithms are run on three different data sets, i.e., movie rating, newsgroup, and Spam SMS data set, representing structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data, respectively. The selection of tools defines data independence, e.g., Newsgroup data set to run on Mahout as others cannot be compatible with this data. It is evident from the outcome of the data that the performance of the proposed model establishes the hypothesis that our model overcomes the limitation of the resources of the legacy model. In addition, the proposed model can process any kind of algorithm on different sets of data, which resides in its native formats. Full article

The Peace Dam is one of two flood control dams in South Korea. Located near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea, the Peace Dam was constructed as a counter measure to the Imnam Dam of North Korea. However, the recent reconciliation efforts between North and South Korea have raised the possibility for the redevelopment of the Peace Dam to be a multi-purpose dam. This study evaluates the possible increase of the flood control ability of the Peace Dam under the condition of its redevelopment. The allocation of flood control and water conservation storage as well as the reservoir operation method is determined to follow the other similar-sized dams in Korea. The flood control ability is quantified by introducing the concept of a storage coefficient. In order to estimate the storage coefficient, an exponential nonlinear reservoir model was used. The results can be summarized as follows: First, the current Peace Dam, a flood control dam, is found to have a small flood control ability. Quantified by the storage coefficient, the flood control ability of the current Peace Dam is estimated to be just 3.9 h. Second, the maximum storage coefficient of the Peace Dam can be increased up to 22.6 h. Here, it is assumed that the dam is operated by the rigid reservoir operation method (rigid ROM) in which the discharge is determined by applying a constant rate (specifically, 0.5 in this study) to the inflow until the peak inflow is reached. In addition, this result is based on the assumption that the ratio between water conservation storage and flood control storage is three. That is, even though the flood control storage is set at just 25% of the total storage, the storage coefficient is increased to be more than five times that of the current Peace Dam. In addition, secured water conservation storage can significantly increase the benefits associated with the redevelopment of the Peace Dam. Full article