In Sri Lanka, the shoulder in asphalt pavements has been constructed using the materials transported from borrow pit in the iRoad Project due to the low quality of in-situ soils. After excavating 150~200mm thick and 500mm wide shoulder area, the borrow pit materials are placed and compacted according to specifications. The excavated in-situ soils are dumped in designated location. It is estimated that this process of shoulder construction is not economical due to high material transportation cost and can also induce the environmental issues by disposal of in-situ soils. It can also cause distresses such as surface rutting and edge drop-off in soft shoulder section due to bearing capacity failure and off-tracking of vehicle. The heavy rainfall in Sri Lanka can induce severe erosion problem when using the soft shoulder. To improve the strength and durability of pavement shoulders in the iRoad Project, the soil stabilization will be a good alternative to solve the above mentioned problems. The use of in-situ soils with addition of soil stabilizer enables to reduce the construction cost of shoulder section and mitigate the environment issues. The objective of this task is to review the application of soil stabilization method for soft shoulder construction in the iRoad Project. Firstly, the quantitative analysis of soil strength improvement due to soil stabilization was done for soil samples collected from iRoad construction sites. Two types of soils were selected from iRoad Project sites and prepared for soil stabilization testing by the Road Development Authority. Secondly, the appropriate stabilizer was selected at given soil type based on test results. Three different stabilizers, ST-1, ST-2, and ST-3, produced in Korea were used for estimating soil strength improvements. Finally, the optimum stabilizer content was determined for improving shoulder performance. The uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) test was conducted to evaluate the strength of stabilized soil samples in accordance with ASTM D 1633. The use of bottom ash as a stabilizer produced from power plant in Sri Lanka was also reviewed in this task.

This study was to investigate pregnancy rate of IVM/IVF/IVC Korean cattle (registered in government) embryos according to transport time course. For the production of embryos, oocytes recovered from slaughtered excellent grade cow and highly motile frozen‐thawed bull semen (purchased from LIMC, KPN#497) was used. In vitro produced embryos were cultured in CR1aa medium for 8 days and some of them were frozen. The rate of average cleavage (>2‐cell) was 83.0% (308/371) and blastocyst rate at day 8 was 34.7% (107/308). Among in vitro produced blastocyst embryos at day 8, most healthy embryos were freshly transferred on production day and some frozen embryos were direct transferred on appropriate day. These embryos were produced in a laboratory, embryo transfer (ET) was planned in 10 areas of the remote island (Jeju) from the laboratory by airplane. Thus, we examined the pregnancy rate in recipient cow according to embryo of transport time course before ET. From embryo transferred 44 recipient cows, overall pregnancy was 40.9% (18/44), these 18 cows were all calved [single, 94% (17/18); twin, 6% (1/18)] and total embryo implantation rate was 26% (19/66). Comparing transport time in the base of 6 hr, pregnancy rate in ET group required less 4 hr (60%, 9/15) was significantly higher than that required more 6 hr (26.3%, 5/19). In direct ET of freezing embryos, the pregnancy rate was 40% (4/10). However, it was difficult to find the meaning of temperature, pH and corpus luteum quality of recipients on comparison of pregnancy rate. When the cell death level of embryos according to storage time in thermos (straw container) before ET was measured by TUNEL staining, apoptotic index was increased with storage time‐dependent. These results demonstrated that long distance transfer of IVM/IVF/IVC embryos is possible and the time of embryo transport is very important for the pregnancy rate on field trial.

Korean economic growth in exports has been phenomenal in the past two decades. This paper deals with a series of export studies of small- and medium-sized manufacturing firms in Korea which look at export behavior and the conditions which influence export sales in these firms. Profiles of the firms are provided, in addition to discussions of the key influences on initiating exports, channels selection, profitability, and attitudes toward exporting.