• Journal of Genetic Medicine
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.63-68
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• 2014

Purpose: The mutation of the SLC26A4 gene is the second most common cause of congenital hearing loss after GJB2 mutations. It has been identified as a major cause of autosomal recessive nonsyndromic hearing loss associated with enlarged vestibular aqueduct and Pendred syndrome. Although most studies of SLC26A4 mutations have dealt with hearing-impaired patients, there are a few reports on the frequency of these mutations in the general population. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of SLC26A4 mutations that cause inherited deafness in the general Korean population. Materials and Methods: We obtained blood samples from 144 Korean individuals with normal hearing. The samples were subjected to polymerase chain reaction to amplify the entire coding region of the SLC26A4 gene, followed by direct DNA sequencing. Results: Sequencing analysis of this gene identified 5 different variants (c.147C>G, c.225G>C, c.1723A>G, c.2168A>G, and c.2283A>G). The pathogenic mutation c.2168A>G (p.H723R) was identified in 1.39% (2/144) of the subjects with normal hearing. Conclusion: These data provide information about carrier frequency for SLC26A4 mutation-associated hearing loss and have important implications for genetic diagnostic testing for inherited deafness in the Korean population.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.562-571
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• 2016

Purpose: In this study the costs and benefits of a home health care program were examined to evaluate the economic feasibility of the program. Methods: The study participants included 349 patients in the community who had been registered at a home health care center for 5 years. The costs and benefits of the program were analyzed using performance data and health data. The benefits were classified as the effects of pressure ulcer care, skin wound care and catheters management. The program effect was evaluated on the change of progress using transition probability. Benefits were divided into direct benefit such as the savings in medical costs and transportation costs, and indirect benefits which included saving in productivity loss and lost future income. Results: Participants had an average of 1.82 health problems. The input cost was KRW 36.8~153.3 million, the benefit was KRW 95.4~279.7 million. Direct benefits accounted for 53.4%~81.2%, and was higher than indirect benefits. The net benefit was greater than 0 from 2006 to 2009, and then dropped below 0 in 2010. Conclusion: The average net benefit during 5 years was over 0 and the benefit cost ratoi was over 1.00, indicating that the home health care program si economical.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.71-78
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• 1997

The productivity of a hospital foodservice system has a significant implication in hospital management as costs for labor and material increase, competitions among hospitals increase, and patients' expectations as to the quality of hospital services increase. The foodservice is characterized by its labor intensiveness. The objective of this study was to examine associations between operational and managerial factors and the productivity of dishwashing work in hospital foodservice systems. The labor productivity in 20 conventional food service systems was assessed and related to a number of influencing variables within the system. The productivity measurement was based upon the total dish equivalents as a ratio of the total direct and non-direct labor hours required to wash these dishes. 20 hospitals with more than 500 beds located in Seoul were surveyed to obtain data for study variables. Questionnaire and a survey form were mailed. Statistical methods used in this study were descriptive analysis and Pearson product moment correlation analysis. Hospital system characteristic which was found to correlate significantly with productivity was the ratio of dish loss. As this increased, the productivity level increased.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.369-382
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• 2014

A growing dynamic electrical demand has created an increasing interest in utilizing nonconventional energy sources like Photovoltaic (PV), wind power, etc. In this context, this paper focuses on the design and development of a composite power controller (CPC) in the decoupled double synchronous reference frame (DDSRF) combining the advantages of direct power control (DPC) and voltage oriented control (VOC) for a PV sourced grid connected inverter. In addition, a controller with the inherent active filter configuration is tested with nonlinear and unbalanced loads at the point of common coupling in both grid connected and autonomous modes of operation. Furthermore, the loss and reactive power compensation due to a non-fundamental component is also incorporated in the design, and the developed DDSRF model subsequently allows independent active and reactive power control. The proposed developed model of the controller is also implemented using MATLAB-Simulink-ISE and a Xilinx system generator which evaluate both the simulated and experimental setups. The simulation and experimental results confirm the validity of the developed model. Further, simulation results for the DPC are also presented and compared with the proposed CPC to further bring out the salient features of the proposed work.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.40-48
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• 2015

As advantages of LPG-DI engine, LPG is directly injected into combustion chamber during compression stroke to reduce compression temperature, prevent knock and spontaneous combustion, and adjust engine output using the amount of directly injected fuel, thereby reducing pumping loss caused by throttle valve. Stratified charge can be supplied nearby spark plugs to allow for overall lean combustion, which improves thermal efficiency and can cope with problems regarding emission regulations. In addition, it is characterized by free designing of intake manifold. Despite the fact that LPG-DI has many advantages as described above, there is lack of detailed investigation and study on spray characteristics, combustion flame characteristics, and ignition probability. In this study, a visualization experiment system that consists of visualization combustion chamber, air supply control system, emission control system, LPG fuel supply system, electronic control system and image data acquisition system was designed and manufactured. For supply of stratified charge in the combustion chamber, alignment of injector and spark plugs was made linear.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.149-152
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• 2009

Spray characteristic parameters such as droplet mean velocity, diameter, and volume flux are measured at various locations of spray in order to investigate the evolutionary feature of droplets exiting from a direct-injection type thruster nozzle-orifice. The experimental results indicate that the large droplets with high velocity at the center of upstream are broken-up into smaller droplets with low velocity due to their continuous momentum loss to surrounding air along with spray evolution toward downstream. Also it is found that the high volume flux expands its distribution in radial direction as a results of spray spreading and dispersion.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.243-247
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• 2005

We propose an efficient block least-mean-square (BLMS) adaptive algorithm, in conjunction with error control coding, for direct-sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) systems. The proposed adaptive receiver incorporates decision feedback detection and channel encoding in order to improve the performance of the standard LMS algorithm in convolutionally coded systems. The BLMS algorithm involves two modes of operation: (i) The training mode where an uncoded training sequence is used for initial filter tap-weights adaptation, and (ii) the decision-directed where the filter weights are adapted, using the BLMS algorithm, after decoding/encoding operation. It is shown that the proposed adaptive receiver structure is able to compensate for the signal-to­noise ratio (SNR) loss incurred due to the switching from uncoded training mode to coded decision-directed mode. Our results show that by using the proposed adaptive receiver (with decision feed­back block adaptation) one can achieve a much better performance than both the coded LMS with no decision feedback employed. The convergence behavior of the proposed BLMS receiver is simulated and compared to the standard LMS with and without channel coding. We also examine the steady-state bit-error rate (BER) performance of the proposed adaptive BLMS and standard LMS, both with convolutional coding, where we show that the former is more superior than the latter especially at large SNRs ($SNR\;\geq\;9\;dB$).

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.27 no.7
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• pp.889-898
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• 2003

The soot yield is studied by a premixed propane-oxygen-inert gas combustion in a specially designed disk-type constant-volume combustion chamber to investigate the effect of turbulence on soot formation. Premixtures are simultaneously ignited by eight spark plugs located on the circumference of chamber at 45 degree intervals in order to observe the soot formation under high pressures and high temperatures. The eight flames converged compress the end gases to a high pressure. The laser schlieren and direct flame photographs for observation field with 10 mm in diameter are taken to examine into the behaviors of flame front and gas flow in laminar and turbulent combustion. The soot volume fraction in the chamber center during the final stage of combustion at the highest pressure is measured by the in situ laser extinction technique and simultaneously the corresponding burnt gas temperature by the two-color pyrometry method. It is found that the soot yield of turbulent combustion decreases in comparison with that of laminar combustion because the burnt gas temperature increases with the drop of heat loss.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.334-342
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• 2005

In this Paper. a time-domain geoacoustic inversion was performed using the bulb signals measured during MがU. 04 experiment conducted in the East Sea of Korea in 2004. An obiective function was defined as a direct cross-correlation between the measured and the simulated signals in time domain. The ray theory was used to model the wave propagation in time domain and optimizations were Performed using VFSA (very fast simulated annealing) algorithm. Comparison of inversion results with those from transmission loss matching (an accompanying paper in this issue of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea) shows that Parameters are consistently inverted. Direct time series comparisons between the measured signals and the simulated signals are Presented based on inversion results.

• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.143-153
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• 2017

Herein we studied the characterization of the PBO films formed via solution casting and thermal cyclization of poly(o-hyroxyamide)s(PHAs) that were synthesized by direct polycondensation of 3,3'-dihydroxybenzidine with 4,4'-(2,3-quinoxalinedioxy) dibenzoic acid and/or 4,4'-(2,3-pyridinedioxy) dibenzoic acid. All the PHAs exhibited inherent viscosities in the range of 0.55~0.84 dL/g in DMAc solution. The copolymers, CPH-2-5, were partially soluble in less polar solvents like pyridine and THF. However, all the PBOs were not soluble in polar solvents, but only partially soluble in sulfuric acid. The temperatures corresponding to 10% weight loss of the PBOs with increasing content of quinoxalinedioxy unit were higher than those of the PHAs, and the char yields at $900^{\circ}C$ in $N_2$, tensile strength, and initial modulus of the PBOs were 1.1~1.3 times, 1.2~1.8, and 1.6~3.3 times higher, respectively, than those of the PHAs. The LOI value of CPB-2 was 38.5%, while that of CPB-1 was the highest at 40.0%. The LOI test confirmed that excellent flame retardants were synthesized.