• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.277-281
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• 2018

Objective : Craniovertebral junctional anomalies constitute a technical challenge. Surgical opening of atlantoaxial joint region is a complex procedure especially in patients with nuchal deformity like basilar invagination. This region has actually very complicated anatomical and functional characteristics, including multiple joints providing extension, flexion, and wide rotation. In fact, it is also a bottleneck region where bones, neural structures, and blood vessels are located. Stabilization surgery regarding this region should consider the fact that the area exposes excessive and life-long stress due to complex movements and human posture. Therefore, all options should be considered for surgical stabilization, and they could be interchanged during the surgery, if required. Methods : A 53-year-old male patient applied to outpatients' clinic with complaints of head and neck pain persisting for a long time. Physical examination was normal except increased deep tendon reflexes. The patient was on long-term corticosteroid due to an allergic disease. Magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography findings indicated basilar invagination and atlantoaxial dislocation.The patient underwent C0-C3-C4 (lateral mass) and additional C0-C2 (translaminar) stabilization surgery. Results : In routine practice, the sites where rods are bound to occipital plates were placed as paramedian. Instead, we inserted lateral mass screw to the sites where occipital screws were inserted on the occipital plate, thereby creating a site where extra rod could be bound.When C2 translaminar screw is inserted, screw caps remain on the median plane, which makes them difficult to bind to contralateral system. These bind directly to occipital plate without any connection from this region to the contralateral system.Advantages of this technique include easy insertion of C2 translaminar screws, presence of increased screw sizes, and exclusion of pullout forces onto the screw from neck movements. Another advantage of the technique is the median placement of the rod; i.e., thick part of the occipital bone is in alignment with axial loading. Conclusion : We believe that this technique, which could be easily performed as adjuvant to classical stabilization surgery with no need for special screw and rod, may improve distraction force in patients with low bone density.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.334-340
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• 2011

Turbo-pumps have weak points, such as the pumping operation is unstable on the positive slope of the head curve and/or the cavitation occurs at the low suction head. To improve simultaneously both weak points, the first author invented the unique pumping unit composed of the tandem impellers and the peculiar motor with the double rotational armatures. The front and the rear impellers are driven by the inner and the outer armatures of the motor, respectively. Both impeller speeds are automatically and smartly adjusted in response to the pumping discharge, while the rotational torques between both impellers/armatures are counter-balanced. Such speeds contribute to suppress successfully not only the unstable operation at the low discharge but also the cavitation at the high discharge, as verified with the axial flow type pumping unit in the previous paper. Continuously, this paper investigates experimentally the effects of the tandem impeller profiles on the pump performances and the rotational speeds against the discharge, using the impellers whose loads are low and/or high at the normal discharge. The worthy remarks are that (a) the unstable operation is suppressed as expected and the shut off power is scarcely large in the smart control, (b) the blade profile contributes to determine the discharge giving the maximum/minimum rotational speed where the reverse flow may incipiently appears at the front impeller inlet, (c) the tandem impeller profiles scarcely affect the rotational speeds, while the loads of the front and the rear impellers are same, but (d) the impeller with the low load must run faster and the impeller with the high load must run slower at the same discharge to take the same rotational torque, and (e) the reverse flow at the inlet and the swirling velocity component at the outlet of the front impeller with the high load require making the rotational speed of the rear impeller with low load fairly faster at the lower discharge.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.1207-1210
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• 2004

As many humans age, degenerative lumbar spinal stenosis (DLSS) becomes a major cause of lower limb discomfort and disability. By surgical treatment method of DLSS, the existing surgical treatment methods using internal fixation have showed degeneration changes of an adjacent vertebrae and loss of lumbar spine lordosis-kyphosis due to eliminating a motion. For solving the problems of internal fixation, a novel interspinous spacer has been developed to treat DLSS by surgical treatment method. In this study, we evaluated the biomechanical effects of the interspinous spacer on the kinematics of the porcine lumbar spine before and after insertion of the implant. For this purpose, a device that is capable of measuring 3-D motions were built based on direct linear transformation (DLT) algorithm written with MATLAB program. Results showed that in extension, a change of the mean angle between the intact and the implanted specimens at L4-L5 was 1.87 degree difference and the implant reduced the extension range of motion of the L4-L5 (p＆lt;0.05). But the range of motion in flexion, axial rotation and lateral bending at the adjacent segments was not statistically affected by the implant. In conclusion, we thought that interspinous spacer may have remedical value for DLSS by flexing human lumbar spine.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.12 no.3 s.46
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• pp.259-268
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• 2000

In the friction-type joints the external applied load is transmitted by frictional force acting on the contact area of the plates fastened by the high strength bolts. This frictional force is proportional to the product of the bolt clamping force and slip coefficient of the faying surface. But the bolt clamping force is dependent on many factors when the turn-of-nut method is used. The preserved thread length and length-to-diameter ratios are one of the major factors governing the bolt clamping force. This paper presents the correct method of high strength bolt tightening through the experiment on the mechanical properties on sets of high strength bolts in accordance with preserved thread length and length-to-diameter ratios.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.127-133
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• 2006

Recently, we have reported that the environmental pollutant 2-bromopropane (2-BP) induces a significant embryo-fetal developmental toxicity in rats. However, the cause of developmental toxicity and the relationship between maternal and developmental toxicities could not be elucidated because the developmental toxicity of 2-BP was observed only in the presence of maternal toxicity The in vitro teratogenicity study using whole embryo culture was carried out to understand the teratogenic properties and the possible mechanism of teratogenicity induced by 2-BP in rats. Rat embryos aged 9.5 days were cultured in vitro for 48 hrs at medium concentrations of 0, 1, 3, or 10 mg/ml of 2-BP. Embryos were evaluated for growth, differentiation, and morphological alterations at the end of the culture period. At 10 mg/ml, 2-BP caused a delay in the growth and differentiation of embryos and an increase in the incidence of morphological alterations, including altered yolk sac circulation, abnormal axial rotation, craniofacial hypoplasia, open neuropore, absent optic vesicle and kinked somites. At 3 mg/ml, only a delay in the growth and differentiation of embryos was observed. There were no adverse effects on embryonic growth and development at the concentration of 1 mg/ml. The results showed that the exposure of 2-BP to rat embryos results in a developmental delay and morphological alterations at dose levels of 3 mg/ml culture media or higher and that 2-BP can induce a direct developmental toxicity in rat embryos.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.431-441
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• 2018

To set up the future research and development direction for Auger bit, this study analyzed publicized patent trends of Deep Cement Mixing method (DCM) in Korea, USA, Japan, and Europe. DCM method was firstly classified into wing shapes and the number of rods according to the technical scope, and secondly, classified into 8 types according to type of screw and rotation axial. A total of 2,815 patents were searched and 448 validated patents were selected through de-duplication and filtering. As a result of the analysis of the portfolio through the number of patents and growth stages, it was selected as the core technology that auger is deemed to have high growth potential and if there is a patent similar to core technology through a patent barrier analysis, the basic data is suggested to develop the design around and differentiated technologies.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.138-142
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• 2005

A reaction wheel, an actuator for satellite attitude control, produces disturbance torque and force as well as its axial control torque. The disturbances have an influence on the pointing stability of high precision satellites. The measurement of disturbances for such a satellite, therefore, is necessary. The wheel's rotation, however, causes the vibration of the table and its vibration induces measurement errors, especially large near the resonance frequency of the Measurement table. For the purpose of overcoming these defects, a calibration method using frequency compensation is suggested in this paper. Disturbance parameters are identified from data examined by frequency compensation. Measurement frequency range can be expanded far higher than the resonance frequency, since the degradation of data accuracy caused by its vibration is well alleviated even in the resonance area.

• Architectural research
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.79-87
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• 2017

In earthquake engineering, dynamic analyses are usually conducted by using a nonlinear analytical model of the entire building in order to identify the performance against earthquakes. At the same time, a large number of dynamic analyses are required to consider uncertainties on analytical models and ground motions. Therefore, it is necessary for the analytical model to be adequate, that is to say, the runtime should not be too long as the entire building is modeled to be in much detail, or the nonlinear model should not yield outputs very far from the actual ones by excluding important behaviors too much. The analytical model is usually developed based on experimental results, which have been already conducted for reinforced concrete columns with relaxed details. Therefore, this study aimed at making analytical models to be able to simulate the hysteretic behavior of the columns simply and easily. The analytical model utilizes a lumped hinge model to represent nonlinear moment-rotation hysteretic behavior of RC columns, which is feasible for nonlinear dynamic analyses usually conducted in earthquake engineering and for matching the analytical model to test results. For the analytical model, elements and material models provided by OpenSees are utilized. The analytical model can define the envelope curve, pinching, and unloading stiffness deterioration, but shortcoming of this model is not to be able to consider axial force-moment interaction directly and to simulate strength deterioration after post-capping completely. However, the analytical model can still represent test results well by considering that the goal of this study is to propose a general way to represent the hysteretic behavior of RC columns with relaxed details, not to provide parameters for a refined hysteretic model that can be just applied case by case.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.191-201
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• 2016

Coupled structures are widely seen in civil and mechanical engineering. In coupled structures, monitoring the translational motion of its key components is of great importance. For instance, some coupled arms are equipped with a hydraulic piston to provide the stiffness along the piston axial direction. The piston moves back and forth and a distance sensing system is necessary to make sure that the piston is within its stroke limit. The measured motion data also give us insight into how the coupled structure works and provides information for the design optimization. This paper develops two distance sensing systems for coupled structures. The first system measures distance with ultrasonic sensor. It consists of an ultrasonic sensing module, an Arduino interface board and a control computer. The system is then further upgraded to a three-sensor version, which can measure three different sets of distance data at the same time. The three modules are synchronized by the Arduino interface board as well as the self-developed software. Each ultrasonic sensor transmits high frequency ultrasonic waves from its transmitting unit and evaluates the echo received back by the receiving unit. From the measured time interval between sending the signal and receiving the echo, the distance to an object is determined. The second distance sensing system consists of a wire draw encoder, a data collection board and the control computer. Wire draw encoder is an electromechanical device to monitor linear motion by converting a central shaft rotation into electronic pulses of the encoder. Encoder can measure displacement, velocity and acceleration simultaneously and send the measured data to the control computer via the data acquisition board. From experimental results, it is concluded that both the ultrasonic and the wire draw encoder systems can obtain the linear motion of structures in real-time.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.793-808
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• 2018

In this study, the seismic performance of the connections between L-shaped columns composed of concrete-filled steel tubes (L-CFST columns) and H-beams used in high-rise steel frame structures was investigated. Seven full-scale specimens were tested under quasi-static cyclic loading. The variables studied in the tests included the joint type, the axial compression ratio, the presence of concrete, the width-to-thickness ratio and the internal extension length of the side plates. The hysteretic response, strength degradation, stiffness degradation, ductility, plastic rotation capacity, energy dissipation capacity and the strain distribution were evaluated at different load cycles. The test results indicated that both the corner and exterior joint specimens failed due to local buckling and crack within the beam flange adjacent to the end of the side plates. However, the failure modes of the interior joint specimens primarily included local buckling and crack at the end plates and curved corners of the beam flange. A design method was proposed for the flexural capacity of the end plate connection in the interior joint. Good agreement was observed between the theoretical and test results of both the yield and ultimate flexural capacity of the end plate connection.