• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.9
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• pp.3501-3511
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• 2024

Titanium alloys play a vital role in optimizing the effectiveness and security of nuclear reactors, strengthening structural durability, and facilitating the effective handling of nuclear waste. The aim of this study is to investigate the gamma-ray, neutron, and transmission properties of four common titanium alloys through the examination of the deposited energy amount in the liquid sodium coolant material, in relation to the mechanical properties of these alloys. MCNP (version 6.3) is utilized for designing the titanium pipes. Next, the pipes were re-designed considering the elemental mass fractions and densities of the investigated titanium alloys. Grade 26 sample is reported with the highest values of mass attenuation coefficients and the lowest HVL values among those investigated alloys. Grade 26 is reported to have the lowest TF value, whereas Grade 12 demonstrated the highest TF value. The highest Effective Removal Cross Section (Σ_R, 1/cm) value against fast neutrons is reported for Grade 26. The utilization of Grade 26 sample as pipe material resulted in the lowest deposited energy amount (MeV/g) and subsequent lowest contamination in the coolant material. Out of the alloys that were chosen for analysis, it has been determined that Grade 26 exhibits the highest level of strength. It can be concluded that the Grade 26 alloy exhibits desirable characteristics for applications in nuclear technologies that require superior gamma-ray and neutron absorption properties, as well as exceptional mechanical properties. Nevertheless, it is essential to emphasize the importance for ongoing studies to enhance the existing material properties of Grade 26, with the aim of achieving improved safety and efficacy in nuclear applications.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.19-38
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• 2017

Collaborative filtering (CF) algorithm has been popularly used for implementing recommender systems. Until now, there have been many prior studies to improve the accuracy of CF. Among them, some recent studies adopt 'hybrid recommendation approach', which enhances the performance of conventional CF by using additional information. In this research, we propose a new hybrid recommender system which fuses CF and the results from the social network analysis on trust and distrust relationship networks among users to enhance prediction accuracy. The proposed algorithm of our study is based on memory-based CF. But, when calculating the similarity between users in CF, our proposed algorithm considers not only the correlation of the users' numeric rating patterns, but also the users' in-degree centrality values derived from trust and distrust relationship networks. In specific, it is designed to amplify the similarity between a target user and his or her neighbor when the neighbor has higher in-degree centrality in the trust relationship network. Also, it attenuates the similarity between a target user and his or her neighbor when the neighbor has higher in-degree centrality in the distrust relationship network. Our proposed algorithm considers four (4) types of user relationships - direct trust, indirect trust, direct distrust, and indirect distrust - in total. And, it uses four adjusting coefficients, which adjusts the level of amplification / attenuation for in-degree centrality values derived from direct / indirect trust and distrust relationship networks. To determine optimal adjusting coefficients, genetic algorithms (GA) has been adopted. Under this background, we named our proposed algorithm as SNACF-GA (Social Network Analysis - based CF using GA). To validate the performance of the SNACF-GA, we used a real-world data set which is called 'Extended Epinions dataset' provided by 'trustlet.org'. It is the data set contains user responses (rating scores and reviews) after purchasing specific items (e.g. car, movie, music, book) as well as trust / distrust relationship information indicating whom to trust or distrust between users. The experimental system was basically developed using Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), but we also used UCINET 6 for calculating the in-degree centrality of trust / distrust relationship networks. In addition, we used Palisade Software's Evolver, which is a commercial software implements genetic algorithm. To examine the effectiveness of our proposed system more precisely, we adopted two comparison models. The first comparison model is conventional CF. It only uses users' explicit numeric ratings when calculating the similarities between users. That is, it does not consider trust / distrust relationship between users at all. The second comparison model is SNACF (Social Network Analysis - based CF). SNACF differs from the proposed algorithm SNACF-GA in that it considers only direct trust / distrust relationships. It also does not use GA optimization. The performances of the proposed algorithm and comparison models were evaluated by using average MAE (mean absolute error). Experimental result showed that the optimal adjusting coefficients for direct trust, indirect trust, direct distrust, indirect distrust were 0, 1.4287, 1.5, 0.4615 each. This implies that distrust relationships between users are more important than trust ones in recommender systems. From the perspective of recommendation accuracy, SNACF-GA (Avg. MAE = 0.111943), the proposed algorithm which reflects both direct and indirect trust / distrust relationships information, was found to greatly outperform a conventional CF (Avg. MAE = 0.112638). Also, the algorithm showed better recommendation accuracy than the SNACF (Avg. MAE = 0.112209). To confirm whether these differences are statistically significant or not, we applied paired samples t-test. The results from the paired samples t-test presented that the difference between SNACF-GA and conventional CF was statistical significant at the 1% significance level, and the difference between SNACF-GA and SNACF was statistical significant at the 5%. Our study found that the trust/distrust relationship can be important information for improving performance of recommendation algorithms. Especially, distrust relationship information was found to have a greater impact on the performance improvement of CF. This implies that we need to have more attention on distrust (negative) relationships rather than trust (positive) ones when tracking and managing social relationships between users.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2006

A parallel plate detector containing PTFE films in FEP film for relative dosimetry was designed to measure the response of detectors to S and 10 MV X-rays from a medical linear accelerator through different thicknesses of lead. The dielectric materials were 100 m thick. The set-up conditions for measurements with this detector were as follows: SSD=100 cm the test detector was at a depth of 5 cm and the reference chamber was at a depth of 10 cm from the phantom surface for 6 and 10 MV X-rays. Lead blocks were designed to cover the irradiated field. They were added to the tray to increase thickness sequentially. We found that the detector response decreased exponentially with the thickness of lead added. The linear attenuation coefficients of the test detector and reference chamber were 0.1414 and 0.541, respectively, for 6 MV X-rays and 0.1358 and 0.5279 for 10 MV X-rays. The test detector response was greater than that of the reference chamber. The response function was calculated from the measured values of the test detector and reference chamber using optimization. These optimized constants for the detector response function were independent of theenergy. As a result of optimizing the response function between detectors, the use of a relative dosimeter was validated, because the response of the test detector was 1% for 6 MV X-rays and 4% for 10 MV X-rays.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.36 no.4 s.105
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• pp.403-412
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• 2003

Temporal and spatial variations of size-structured phytoplankton (chlorophyll a) were investigated over an annual cycle (February-October, 2003) to elucidate phytoplankton dynamics in the Juam Reservoir, Chonnam. Physical properties were also measured to investigate the relationship between the properties and temporal and spatial variations of size structured phytoplankton using simple linear regression. Phytoplankton (chlorophyll a) were grouped into three size classes: micro-size(> 20 ${\mu}m$), nano-size (3-20 ${\mu}m$) and pico-size (< 3 ${\mu}m$) in this study. Physical properties included water temperature, light attenuation coefficients, PAR (photosynthetically active radiation) and turbidity. Maximum chlorophyll a was observed in April, 2003 in the lower region whereas a peak of chlorophyll a developed in October, 2003 in the upper region. Large cell-sized phytoplankton (micro-size class)were dominant in the events of the chlorophyll a peaks. Potential mechanisms in the physical properties affecting the size-structured phytoplankton dynamics in the Juam Reservoir were discussed.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.11-26
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• 2017

Approximate empirical equations obtained by measuring overall noise levels at different distances have been used to evaluate environmental influence of the railway noise though the accurate prediction of noise levels is important. In this paper, a noise prediction model considering the frequency characteristics of noise sources and propagation was suggested to improve the accuracy of noise prediction. The railway noise source was assorted into track, wheel, traction and aerodynamic components and they were characterized with the source strength and speed coefficient at each octave-band frequency. Correction terms for the acoustic roughness and the track/bridge condition were introduced. The sound attenuation from a source to a receiver was calculated taking account of the geometrical divergence, atmospheric absorption, ground effect, diffraction at obstacles and directivity of source by applying ISO 9613-2. For obtaining the source strength and speed coefficients, the results of rolling noise model, numerical analysis and measurements of pass-by noise were analyzed. We compared the predicted and measured noise levels in various vehicles and tracks, and verified the accuracy of the present model. It is found that the present model gives less error than the conventional one, so that it can be applied to make the accurate prediction of railway noise effect and establish its countermeasures efficiently.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.64-72
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• 2010

In general, due to the interactions among subsystems, it is difficult to design an decentralized controller for nonlinear interconnected systems. In this study, the model of nonlinear interconnected systems is studied via decentralized fuzzy control method with time delay and polytopic uncertainty. First, the nonlinear interconnected system is represented by an equivalent Takagi-Sugeno type fuzzy model. And the represented model can be rewritten as Parameterized Linear Matrix Inequalities(PLMIs), that is, LMIs whose coefficients are functions of a parameter confined to a compact set. We show that the resulting fuzzy controller guarantees the asymptotic stability and disturbance attenuation of the closed-loop system in spite of controller gain variations within a resulted polytopic region by example and simulations.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
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• 2002.09a
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• pp.407-410
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• 2002

Monochromatic x-ray CT has several advantages over conventional CT, which utilizes bremsstrahlung white x-rays from an x-ray tube. There are several methods to produce such monochromatic x-rays. The most popular one is crystal diffraction monochromatization, which has been commonly used because of the fact that the energy spread is very narrow and the energy can be changed continuously. The alternative method is the use of fluorescent x-ray, which has several advantages such as large beam size and fast energy change. We have developed a parallel-beam and a fan-beam monochromatic x-ray CT, and compared some characteristics such as accuracy of CT numbers between those systems. The fan beam monochromatic x-rays were generated by irradiating target materials by incident white x-rays from a bending magnet beam line NE5 in 6.5 GeV Accumulation Ring at Tukuba. The parallel beam monochromatic x-rays were generated by using a silicon double crystal monochromator at the bending magnet beam line BL-20BM in Spring-8. A Cadmium telluride (CdTe) 256 channel array detector with 512mm sensitive width capable of operating at room temperature was used in the photon counting mode. A cylindrical phantom containing eight concentrations of gadolinium was used for the fan beam monochromatic x-ray CT system, while a phantom containing acetone, ethanol, acrylic and water was used for the parallel monochromatic x-ray CT system. The linear attenuation coefficients obtained from CT numbers of those monochromatic x-ray CT images were compared with theoretical values. They showed a good agreement within 3%. It was found that the quantitative measurement can be possible by using the fan beam monochromatic x-ray CT system as well as a parallel beam monochromatic X-ray CT system.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.553-558
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• 2022

The purpose of this work was a simulation study to evaluate the virtual monochromatic (VM) image quality of blood vessels compared to the monochromatic image. Dual-energy images were obtained based on the linear attenuation coefficients of five materials at 50 keV and 80 keV at low- and high-energies, respectively. A weighting factor is required to synthesize the VM image, and the liver and bone were used as basis materials to obtain the weighting factor. VM images were synthesized at energies ranging from 30 keV to 100 keV. Image quality was evaluated by Contrast to noise ratio (CNR) and noise by setting calcium and contrast medium as signals and blood as background. According to the results, the energies with the maximum CNR were 50 keV and 60 keV for calcium and contrast medium, respectively. The energies showing the minimum noise were 70 keV, 70 keV, and 60 keV in calcium, iodine contrast medium, and blood, respectively. The VM image can contribute to the improvement of diagnostic performance in CT examination because it can implement an image at the optimal energy that minimize noise and maximize CNR.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.47-54
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• 2023

Purpose PET-CT imaging require an appropriate quality assurance system to achieve high efficiency and reliability. Quality control is essential for improving the quality of care and patient safety. Currently, there are performance evaluation methods of UN2-1994 and UN2-2001 proposed by NEMA and IEC for PET-CT image evaluation. In this study, we compare phantom images with the same experiments before and after PET-CT 3D normalization and well counter correction and evaluate the usefulness of quality control. Materials and methods Discovery 690 (General Electric Healthcare, USA) PET-CT equiptment was used to perform 3D normalization and well counter correction as recommended by GE Healthcare. Based on the recovery coefficients for the six spheres of the NEMA IEC Body Phantom recommended by the EARL. 20kBq/㎖ of ¹⁸F was injected into the sphere of the phantom and 2kBq/㎖ of ¹⁸F was injected into the body of phantom. PET-CT scan was performed with a radioacitivity ratio of 10:1. Images were reconstructed by appliying TOF+PSF+TOF, OSEM+PSF, OSEM and Gaussian filter 4.0, 4.5, 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, 6,5 mm with matrix size 128×128, slice thickness 3.75 mm, iteration 2, subset 16 conditions. The PET image was attenuation corrected using the CT images and analyzed using software program AW 4.7 (General Electric Healthcare, USA). The ROI was set to fit 6 spheres in the CT image, RC (Recovery Coefficient) was measured after fusion of PET and CT. Statistical analysis was performed wilcoxon signed rank test using R. Results Overall, after the quality control items were performed, the recovery coefficient of the phantom image increased and measured. Recovery coefficient according to the image reconstruction increased in the order TOF+PSF, TOF, OSEM+PSF, before and after quality control, RCmax increased by OSEM 0.13, OSEM+PSF 0.16, TOF 0.16, TOF+PSF 0.15 and RCmean increased by OSEM 0.09, OSEM+PSF 0.09, TOF 0.106, TOF+PSF 0.10. Both groups showed a statistically significant difference in Wilcoxon signed rank test results (P value<0.001). Conclusion PET-CT system require quality assurance to achieve high efficiency and reliability. Standardized intervals and procedures should be followed for quality control. We hope that this study will be a good opportunity to think about the importance of quality control in PET-CT

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.8
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• pp.3307-3314
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• 2024

For traditional spent fuel shielding materials, due to physical and chemical defects and cost constraints, they have been unable to meet the needs. Therefore, this paper carries out the first discussion on the application and performance of bismuth in neutron shielding by establishing Monte Carlo simulation on the neutron flux model of shielded spent fuel. Firstly, functional fillers such as bismuth oxide, lead oxide, boron oxide, gadolinium oxide and tungsten oxide are added to the matrices to compare the shielding rates of aluminum alloy matrix and silicone rubber matrix. The shielding rate of silicone rubber mixture is higher than aluminum alloy mixture, reaching more than 56%. The optimal addition proportion of bismuth oxide and lead oxide is 30%, and the neutron radiation protection efficiency reaches 60%. Then, the mass attenuation coefficients of bismuth oxide, lead oxide, boron oxide, gadolinium oxide and tungsten oxide in silicone rubber matrix are simulated with the change of functional fillers proportion and neutron energy. This simulation result shows that the mixture with functional fillers has good shielding performance for low energy neutrons, but poor shielding effect for high energy neutrons. Finally, in order to further evaluate the possibility of replacing lead oxide with bismuth oxide as shielding material, the half-value layers and various properties of bismuth oxide and lead oxide are compared. The results show that the shielding properties of bismuth oxide and lead oxide are basically the same, and the mechanical properties, heat resistance, radiation resistance and environmental protection of bismuth oxide are better than that of lead oxide. Therefore, in the case of neutron source strengths in the range of 0.01-6 MeV and secondary gamma rays produced below 2.5 MeV, bismuth can replace lead in neutron shielding applications.