• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.213-222
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• 2007

The goal of the study is to provide basic information that can be used to come up with environmental interpretation methods that are appropriate to the conditions of urban parks. For this matter, research was conducted to find out whether the environmental interpretation that was provided to the visitors of the World Cup Park Visitor Center encouraged them to become interested in the environment and to understand how such environmental interest was related to the level of satisfaction that the visitors were experiencing from their visits to the park. At the same time, the research was designed to find out whether the park's visitors were affected differently in terms of their environmental interests and their experience depending on the two different types of environmental interpretations; Interpreter's Interpretation and Self-guiding Interpretation. Experimental result showed no statistically meaningful correlation between environmental interpretation and environmental knowledge, though the experimental group subjected to environmental interpretation was found to have higher environmental knowledge than that of the control group, which was not subjected to environmental interpretation. As for the correlation between environmental knowledge, which was acquired through environmental interpretation, and environmental interest, the group, which showed big changes in terms of the volume of environmental knowledge, was found to have higher environmental interest than that of the group, which recorded a low level of changes in the volume of environmental knowledge. Also, the difference in their level of environmental interest was big enough to be acknowledged statistically. Also environmental interest, which was created thanks to environmental interpretation, was found to affect the level of satisfaction visitors feel when visiting the park. Even though the study was intended to find out how environmental interpretation affects park visitors by means of analysis that can be proved based on facts, it was difficult to control some of the variables due to the circumstances under which the experiments were conducted. Despite this, the study can be considered meaningful in the fact that the researches and experiments were conducted at a park that is actually visited by people. It is also believed that as one of the first studies done on the World Cup Park, it could serve as a basis upon which future studies could be carried out.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.24-31
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• 2006

Automated analysis software was developed to measure the magnitude of the intrafractional and interfractional errors during breast radiation treatments. Error analysis results are important for determining suitable planning target volumes (PTV) prior to Implementing breast-conserving 3-D conformal radiation treatment (CRT). The electrical portal imaging device (EPID) used for this study was a Portal Vision LC250 liquid-filled ionization detector (fast frame-averaging mode, 1.4 frames per second, 256X256 pixels). Twelve patients were imaged for a minimum of 7 treatment days. During each treatment day, an average of 8 to 9 images per field were acquired (dose rate of 400 MU/minute). We developed automated image analysis software to quantitatively analyze 2,931 images (encompassing 720 measurements). Standard deviations ($\sigma$) of intrafractional (breathing motion) and intefractional (setup uncertainty) errors were calculated. The PTV margin to include the clinical target volume (CTV) with 95% confidence level was calculated as $2\;(1.96\;{\sigma})$. To compensate for intra-fractional error (mainly due to breathing motion) the required PTV margin ranged from 2 mm to 4 mm. However, PTV margins compensating for intefractional error ranged from 7 mm to 31 mm. The total average error observed for 12 patients was 17 mm. The intefractional setup error ranged from 2 to 15 times larger than intrafractional errors associated with breathing motion. Prior to 3-D conformal radiation treatment or IMRT breast treatment, the magnitude of setup errors must be measured and properly incorporated into the PTV. To reduce large PTVs for breast IMRT or 3-D CRT, an image-guided system would be extremely valuable, if not required. EPID systems should incorporate automated analysis software as described in this report to process and take advantage of the large numbers of EPID images available for error analysis which will help Individual clinics arrive at an appropriate PTV for their practice. Such systems can also provide valuable patient monitoring information with minimal effort.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.120-128
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• 2002

To investigate differences between the metabolic ratios of normal controls and brain tumors such as astrocytomas and glioblastoma multiforme (GM) by proton MR spectroscopy (MRS) at 37 high field system. Using 3T MRI/MRS system, localized water-suppressed single-voxel technique in patients with brain tumors was employed to evaluate spectra with peaks of N-acetyl aspartate (NAA), choline-containing compounds (Cho), creatine/phosphocreatine (Cr) and lactate. On the basis of Cr, these peak areas were quantificated as a relative ratio. The variation of metabolites measurements of the designated region in 10 normal volunteers was less than 10%. Normal ranges of NAA/Cr and Cho/Cr ratios were 1.67$\pm$018 and 1.16$\pm$0.15, respectively. NAA/Cr ratio of all tumor tissues was significantly lower than that of the normal tissues (P=0.005). Cho/Cr ratio of glioblastoma multiforme was significantly higher than that of astrocytomas (P=0.001). Lactate was observed in all tumor cases. The present study demonstrated that the neuronal degradation or loss was observed in all tumor tissues. Higher grade of brain tumors was correlated with higher Cho/Cr ratio, indicating a significant dependence of Cho levels on malignancy of gliomas. This results suggest that clinical proton MR spectroscopy could be useful to predict tumor malignancy.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.202-209
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• 2004

Flat panel based digital radiography (DR) systems have recently become useful and important in the field of diagnostic radiology. For DRs with amorphous silicon photosensors, CsI(TI) is normally used as the scintillator, which produces visible light corresponding to the absorbed radiation energy. The visible light photons are converted into electric signal in the amorphous silicon photodiodes which constitute a two dimensional array. In order to produce good quality images, detailed behaviors of DR detectors to radiation must be studied. The relationship between air exposure and the DR outputs has been investigated in many studies. But this relationship was investigated under the condition of the fixed tube voltage. In this study, we investigated the relationship between the DR outputs and X-ray in terms of the absorbed energy in the detector rather than the air exposure using SPEC-l8, an X-ray energy spectrum model. Measured exposure was compared with calculated exposure for obtaining the inherent filtration that is a important input variable of SPEC-l8. The absorbed energy in the detector was calculated using algorithm of calculating the absorbed energy in the material and pixel values of real images under various conditions was obtained. The characteristic curve was obtained using the relationship of two parameter and the results were verified using phantoms made of water and aluminum. The pixel values of the phantom image were estimated and compared with the characteristic curve under various conditions. It was found that the relationship between the DR outputs and the absorbed energy in the detector was almost linear. In a experiment using the phantoms, the estimated pixel values agreed with the characteristic curve, although the effect of scattered photons introduced some errors. However, effect of a scattered X-ray must be studied because it was not included in the calculation algorithm. The result of this study can provide useful information about a pre-processing of digital radiography.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.279-284
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• 2012

The X ray has been widely used in both diagnosis and treatment. Recently, a miniature X ray tube has been developed for radiotherapy. The miniature X ray tube is directly inserted into the body irradiated, so that X rays can be guided to a target at various incident angles according to collimator geometry and, thus, minimize patient dose. If such features of the miniature X ray tube can be applied to development of X ray imaging as well as radiation treatment, it is expected to open a new chapter in the field of diagnostic X ray. However, the miniature X ray tube requires an added filter and a collimator for diagnostic purpose because it was designed for radiotherapy. Therefore, a collimator and an added filter were manufactured for the miniature X ray tube, and mounted on. In this study, we evaluated beam characteristics of the miniature X ray tube for diagnostic X ray system and accuracy of measuring the HVL. We used the Si PIN Photodiode type Piranha detector (Piranha, RTI, Sweden) and estimated the HVL of the miniature X ray tube with added filter and without added filter. Through an another measurement using Al filter, we evaluated the accuracy of the HVL obtained from a direct measurement using the automatic HVL calculation function provided by the Piranha detector. As a result, the HVL of the miniature X ray tube was increased around 1.9 times with the added filter mounted on. So we demonstrated that the HVL was suitable for diagnostic X ray system. In the case that the added filter was not mounted on, the HVL obtained from use of the automatic HVL calculation function provided by Piranha detector was 50% higher than the HVL estimated using Al filter. Therefore, the HVL automatic measurement from the Piranha detector cannot be used for the HVL calculation. However, when the added filter was mounted on, the HVL automatic measurement value using the Piranha detector was approximately 15% lower than the estimated value using Al filter. It implies that the HVL automatic measurement can be used to estimate the HVL of the miniature X ray tube with the added filter mounted on without a more complicated measurement method using Al filter. It is expected that the automatic HVL measurement provided by the Piranha detector enables to make kV-X ray characterization easier.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.315-322
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• 2013

The aim of this work is to verify the self-quality assurances in medical institutions in Korea through the external audits by the group of experts and have a mutual discussion of the systematic problems. In order to validate the external audits 30 of 80 medical institutions across the nation were picked out considering the regional distribution and the final 25 institutions applied voluntarily to take part in this work. The basic rules were setup that any information of the participants be kept secrete and the measurements be performed with the dosimetry system already verified through intercomparision. The outputs for 2 or more photon beams, the accuracy of gantry rotation and collimator rotation and the poistional accuracy of MLC movement were measured. The findings for the output measurement showed the differences of -0.8%~4.5%, -0.79%~3.01%, and -0.7%~0.07% with respect to that of the verified dosimetry system for the 6MV, 10MV, and 15MV, respectively. For the reference absorbed dose 8 (16%) of 50 photon beams in 25 medical institutions differed 2.0% or greater from the reference value. The coincidences of Field size with x-ray beam and radiation isocenters of Gantry roration and collimator rotation gave the results of within ${\pm}2$ mm for every institute except 2 institutions. The positional accuracy of MLC movement agreed to within ${\pm}1$ mm for every institute. For the beam qualities of 6 MV photon beams kQ values showed the distribution within 0.4% between maximum and minimum. For the protocols 21 institutions (84%) used absorbed dose to water based protocol while 4 insitutions (16%) used air kerma based one. 22 institutions employed the SSD technique while 3 institutions did the SAD one. External audit plays an important role in discovering the systematic problems of self-performing Quality Assurances and having in depth discussion for mutual complementation. Training experts of international level as well as national support system are required so that both the group of experts of medical physicists and government laboratory could perform together periodical and constant external audits.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.1-6
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• 2011

A transparent oxide thin film transistors (Transparent Oxide-TFT) have been fabricated by RF magnetron sputtering at room temperature using amorphous indium zinc oxide (a-IZO) as both of active channel and source/drain, gate electrodes and co-sputtered $HfO_2-Al_2O_3$ (HfAIO) as gate dielectric. In spite of its high dielectric constant > 20), $HfO_2$ has some drawbacks including high leakage current and rough surface morphologies originated from small energy band gap (5.31eV) and microcrystalline structure. In this work, the incorporation of $Al_2O_3$ into $HfO_2$ was obtained by co-sputtering of $HfO_2$ and $Al_2O_3$ without any intentional substrate heating and its structural and electrical properties were investigated by x-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and spectroscopic ellipsometer (SE) analyses. The XRD studies confirmed that the microcrystalline structures of $HfO_2$ were transformed to amorphous structures of HfAIO. By AFM analysis, HfAIO films (0.490nm) were considerably smoother than $HfO_2$ films (2.979nm) due to their amorphous structure. The energy band gap ($E_g$) deduced by spectroscopic ellipsometer was increased from 5.17eV ($HfO_2$) to 5.42eV (HfAIO). The electrical performances of TFTs which are made of well-controlled active/electrode IZO materials and co-sputtered HfAIO dielectric material, exhibited a field effect mobility of more than $10cm^2/V{\cdot}s$, a threshold voltage of ~2 V, an $I_{on/off}$ ratio of > $10^5$, and a max on-current of > 2 mA.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.50-60
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• 2010

For the last half a century, the personal computer and software industries have been prosperous due to the incessant evolution of computer systems. In the 21st century, the embedded system market has greatly increased as the market shifted to the mobile gadget field. While a lot of multimedia gadgets such as mobile phone, navigation system, PMP, etc. are pouring into the market, most industrial control systems still rely on 8-bit micro-controllers and simple application software techniques. Unfortunately, the technological barrier which requires additional investment and higher quality manpower to overcome, and the business risks which come from the uncertainty of the market growth and the competitiveness of the resulting products have prevented the companies in the industry from taking advantage of such fancy technologies. However, high performance, low-power and low-cost hardware and software platforms will enable their high-technology products to be developed and recognized by potential clients in the future. This paper presents such a platform for industrial embedded systems. The platform was designed based on Telechips TCC8300 multimedia processor which embedded a variety of parallel hardware for the implementation of multimedia functions. And open-source Embedded Linux, TinyX and GTK+ are used for implementation of GUI to minimize technology costs. In order to estimate the expected performance and power consumption, the performance improvement and the power consumption due to each of enabled hardware sub-systems including YUV2RGB frame converter are measured. An analytic model was devised to check the feasibility of a new application and trade off its performance and power consumption. The validity of the model has been confirmed by implementing a real target system. The cost can be further mitigated by using the hardware parts which are being used for mass production products mostly in the cell-phone market.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.69-89
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• 2014

The business performance of port industry is steadily getting worse due to international environmental regulation. The port industry should be prepared according to ambient condition change. IMO(International Maritime Organization) is tightening up environmental regulation of vessel and maritime industry field. ECA(Emission Control Area), starting with the Baltic, has initialized and has been expanded. Korea must strengthen the control of vessel in accordance with IMO's restriction, if Korea is designated as emission control area. These situations cause the expansion of LNG-fuelled ships. Add to the larger trend of ships, Korean government should be done a preemptive action against LNG bunkering industry. This study proposes the concept of floating offshore LNG bunkering system and is conducted its economic feasibility evaluation based on empirical analysis. We examine the theoretical foundation and basic information via "A Planning Study on the Engineering Development of Floating Offshore LNG Bunkering Terminal" in 2013 and we evaluate the business potential by using the report above mentioned. The results of this study are as follows. The values of B/C analysis are between 0.679 and 2.516 depending on market share and R&D contributiveness. In case of 10.9%(market share), if market share are 50% and 60%, the value of B/C analysis are 0.697 and 0.837 respectively. Except in two cases, all remaining values are over 1.0. Moreover, the research is conducted sensitivity analysis to remove the project uncertainty. In order to maintain economical validity, a project manager have to establish business strategies which are not to cause increase of expense and sustain market share and R&D contributiveness in the scenario with normal levels.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.81-91
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• 2010

IMO(International Maritime Organization) and the Shipping World rave complied with various kinds of international regulations for maritime safety and marine environmental protection, but the main reason of maritime accidents is that developing countries cannot implement maritime safety related regulations. Although Korea has been a member of the "A group" council of IMO, maritime technology transfer records of Korea are not good. To promote the project of official development assistance in Korea, it is required to select the technology which has a high degree of importance in the fields of maritime safety and has a high degree of demand on the transfer to developing countries, and to concentrate on the selected technology. So, it is necessary to draw valuation factors for maritime safety technology and to decide the priority in order among maritime safety technologies on the basis of valuation factors. Because the weights which show the degree of importance among valuation factors are different from factor to factor, interdependent relationship between factors should be considered on evaluation. In this study, the valuation factors were divided into three groups as the maturity of maritime safety technology, the promotion probability of projects and the degree of importance of technology, and the detailed factors of each group were drawn. A model which used Fuzzy AHP and limiting probability to consider the weights of importance and correlation among valuation factors was developed. To adopt this model, nine types of maritime safety technology in the field of maritime safety information were selected and points were scored for each technology through evaluation. In conclusion, first, ENC related technology was scored to be the highest as 0.0139. Second, the point of ship monitoring technology was scored as 0.0133. Last, oil spill response technology was scored as 0.0132.