• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.323-330
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• 2010

Although copper and zinc are essential metals for human health, excessive level of these metals is toxic. Besides, aluminum is known to induce various adverse health effects including neurological disorders. Therefore, monitoring the human body burden of these metals is important in preventing adverse health effects. In this study, we assessed the exposure to copper, zinc, and aluminum among an adult population residing in Daegu and Kyungbuk areas. Based on data from 171 participants, we found that the geometric mean copper, zinc, and aluminum concentrations in hair were $15.1\;{\mu}g/g$ [95% confidence interval (CI): 13.1~17.5], 76.9 (95% CI: 70.4~84.1), and $1.11\;{\mu}g/g$ (95% CI: 0.81~1.51), respectively. The copper concentrations in hair were significantly related to age, education, and residence area. In addition, zinc concentrations in hair were significantly related to age, whereas higher hair aluminum concentrations were related to alcohol drinking. Correlations between copper and zinc in hair had a significant positive correlation. Our findings suggest that the body burden of copper, zinc, and aluminum varies according to demographic factors, and hair could be used as a valuable biological medium for metal exposure.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.432-440
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• 2009

This paper presents an accelerometer based system for physical activity decision that are capable of recognizing three different types of physical activities, i.e., standing, walking and running, using by rough sets. To collect physical acceleration data, we developed the body sensor node which consists of two custom boards for physical activity monitoring applications, a wireless sensor node and an accelerometer sensor module. The physical activity decision is based on the acceleration data collected from body sensor node attached on the user's chest. We proposed a method to classify physical activities using rough sets which can be generated rules as attributes of the preprocessed data and by constructing a new decision table, rules reduction. Our experimental results have successfully validated that performance of the rule patterns after removing the redundant attribute values are better and exactly same compare with before.

• Korean Journal of Digital Imaging in Medicine
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.57-60
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• 2015

병원에서 사용되는 임상용 모니터의 관리는 중요하다. 모니터의 기본적 관리는 휘도이며, 휘도에서도 균일도가 가장 먼저 관리되는 대상이다. 특히 LCD 모니터인 경우 균일도에 문제가 모니터의 교체주기와 일치하는 경우가 많다. 휘도에 대한 평가는 여러 가지가 존재하지만, 본 연구에서는 AAPM TG18에 따라 TG18-UNL10, TG18-UNL80을 이용하여 휘도의 균일도를 조사하였다. 이 조사과정에서 측정값 중 가장 높은 수치를 기준으로 나머지 값의 편차를 구하는 방법과 평균값을 이용하여 측정값의 편차를 구하는 방법 두 가지를 사용하였으며, 두 가지 방법의 유의성을 알아보고자 휘도의 편차 변화량 즉, 균일도를 측정하였다. 휘도 균일도의 정량평가는 향후 모니터의 관리에 가장 큰 영향을 미치는 인자로써 측정기간 중 변화량은 매우 적게 나타났다. 따라서 본 연구에서 제시된 최대, 최소값의 편차나 평균값의 상대 편차값 모두 유의한 결과를 얻을 수 있었다.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.1856-1869
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• 2015

This paper addresses the issues of 3D human activity detection, tracking and recognition from RGB-D video sequences using a feature structured framework. During human tracking and activity recognition, initially, dense depth images are captured using depth camera. In order to track human silhouettes, we considered spatial/temporal continuity, constraints of human motion information and compute centroids of each activity based on chain coding mechanism and centroids point extraction. In body skin joints features, we estimate human body skin color to identify human body parts (i.e., head, hands, and feet) likely to extract joint points information. These joints points are further processed as feature extraction process including distance position features and centroid distance features. Lastly, self-organized maps are used to recognize different activities. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is reliable and efficient in recognizing human poses at different realistic scenes. The proposed system should be applicable to different consumer application systems such as healthcare system, video surveillance system and indoor monitoring systems which track and recognize different activities of multiple users.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.213-219
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• 2008

Pulse waves continuously change with respect to the characteristics and status of the cardiovascular system and in relation to the blood pressure (BP) and the pulse wave velocity (PWV). Monitoring the vascular condition by analyzing the variations in pulse waveforms has been used to diagnose vascular disorders and in drug treatment of arteriosclerosis and peripheral circulatory obstruction. In this paper, we investigated the vascular characteristic index with regard to the BP and classified by pulse wave signals. The pressure pulse wave and photoplethysmography (PPG) were measured simultaneously while subjects exercised, producing changes in the BP, to analyze the variation in the vascular characteristic index. We investigated the correlation between the BP and vascular characteristic index with regard to the classification methods of the pulse wave. The reflection index (RI) and vascular stiffness index were correlated with the diastolic BP, but no correlation was found between these parameters and the systolic BP. These results suggest the possibility of estimating BP through simple measurements of pulse waves.

• The Korean journal of helicobacter and upper gastrointestinal research
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.157-161
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• 2018

Liquid biopsy, the analysis of circulating biomarkers from peripheral blood, such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and circulating tumor DNA, and exosomes, offers a less invasive, new source of cancer-derived materials that may reflect the status of the disease better and thereby contribute to personalized treatment. Recent advances in microfluidics and molecular analysis technologies have resulted in greatly improved CTC enumeration and detection. In this article, we review commercially available technologies used to isolate CTCs from peripheral blood, including immunoaffinity and label-free, physical property-based isolation methods. Although enormous technological progress has been made, especially within the last decade, only a few CTC detection methods have been approved for routine clinical use. Here, we provide an overview of the current CTC isolation methods and examples of their potential application for early diagnosis, prognosis, treatment monitoring, and prediction of resistance to cancer therapy. Furthermore, the challenges that remain to be addressed before such tools are implemented for routine use in clinical settings are discussed.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.564-568
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• 2020

Although studies on Hepatitis A virus (HAV) were crucial in the establishment of the HAV infection prevention programs, no systematic investigation into HAV has been conducted since 1999. We retrospectively analyzed the data between January 2010 to December 2018 from all the patients who underwent HAV antibody tests at the Dankook University Hospital Health Care Center. Data were collected from 56,204 individuals. Overall, 34,834 (62.0%) individuals from this cohort were positive for HAV antibodies and the annual rate of anti-HAV antibody positivity was highest in 2010 (68.5%) and lowest in 2013 (54.8%). The average decline in the antibody positivity rate was 0.62% per year, showing a statistically significant difference (p < 0.001). In the over 40s age group, anti-HAV antibody positivity rates decreased from 89% in 2010 to 64% in 2018 (p < 0.001), with an annual decrease of 3.1%. In the over 30s age group, it decreased from 48.2% in 2010 to 34.7% in 2018 (p < 0.001), with an annual decrease of 1.82%. This study shows that the antibody positivity rate is decreasing across age groups but given that HAV infection poses more significant risks in older patients it is important to expand the evaluations of the current and future antibody positivity rates for HAV in various age groups.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.255-263
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• 2021

Human Astrovirus (HuAstV) is an important gastrointestinal pathogen that is frequently reported worldwide. Monitoring of contaminated groundwater has been suggested since HuAstV is transmitted through the fecal-oral route. This study developed a test method based on conventional reverse transcription (RT)-nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) that involves SL^® non-specific reaction inhibitor for unknown non-specific amplification taking place in the groundwater environment. An optimal method for detecting HuAstV in groundwater sample through analysis and comparison against conventionally reported method was also suggested. The developed method enabled the production of nested PCR amplicon of 630 nt, which is a sufficient length for similarity analysis based on sequencing and genotyping. Amplicons suspected to be HuAstV were amplified in two out of the twenty groundwater samples collected in Korea, presenting 99.77% and 99.73% similarity against HuAstV 1 strain lhar/2011/kor (JN887820.1) in sequencing, respectively. These amplicons were identified as HuAstV 1.

• Medical Lasers
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.123-131
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• 2021

Optical imaging modalities with properties of real-time, non-invasive, in vivo, and high resolution for image-guided surgery have been widely studied. In this review, we introduce two optical imaging systems, that could be the core of image-guided surgery and introduce the system configuration, implementation, and operation methods. First, we introduce the optical coherence tomography (OCT) system implemented by our research group. This system is implemented based on a swept-source, and the system has an axial resolution of 11 ㎛ and a lateral resolution of 22 ㎛. Second, we introduce a fluorescence imaging system. The fluorescence imaging system was implemented based on the absorption and fluorescence wavelength of indocyanine green (ICG), with a light-emitting diode (LED) light source. To confirm the performance of the two imaging systems, human malignant melanoma cells were injected into BALB/c nude mice to create a xenograft model and using this, OCT images of cancer and pathological slide images were compared. In addition, in a mouse model, an intravenous injection of indocyanine green was used with a fluorescence imaging system to detect real-time images moving along blood vessels and to detect sentinel lymph nodes, which could be very important for cancer staging. Finally, polarization-sensitive OCT to find the boundaries of cancer in real-time and real-time image-guided surgery using a developed contrast agent and fluorescence imaging system were introduced.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.225-238
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• 2022

The ultimate goal of human assisted reproductive technology is to achieve a healthy pregnancy and birth, ideally from the selection and transfer of a single competent embryo. Recently, techniques for efficiently evaluating the state and quality of preimplantation embryos using time-lapse imaging systems have been applied. Artificial intelligence programs based on deep learning technology and big data analysis of time-lapse monitoring system during in vitro culture of preimplantation embryos have also been rapidly developed. In addition, several molecular markers of the secretome have been successfully analyzed in spent embryo culture media, which could easily be obtained during in vitro embryo culture. It is also possible to analyze small amounts of cell-free nucleic acids, mitochondrial nucleic acids, miRNA, and long non-coding RNA derived from embryos using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or digital PCR, as well as next-generation sequencing. Various efforts are being made to use non-invasive evaluation of embryo quality (NiEEQ) to select the embryo with the best developmental competence. However, each NiEEQ method has some limitations that should be evaluated case by case. Therefore, an integrated analysis strategy fusing several NiEEQ methods should be urgently developed and confirmed by proper clinical trials.