• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.23-34
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• 2019

The U-Healthcare era has evolved with the development of the Internet of things (IoT) in the early stages of being connected as a society. Already, many changes such as increased well-being and the extension of human life are becoming evident across cultures. Korea entered the growing group of aging societies in 2017, and its silver industry is expected to grow rapidly by adopting the IoT of a super-connected society. In particular, the senior shift phenomenon has resulted in increased interest in the promotion of the health and well-being of the emergent silver generation which, unlike the existing silver generation, is highly active and wields great economic power. This study conducted in-depth interviews to investigate the characteristics of the new silver generation, and to develop the design for a wearable serious game that intends to boost the interest of the elderly in exercise and fitness activities according to their personalized physical training regimes as prescribed by the U-Hospital service. The usage scenario of this wearable serious game for the 'U-silver generation' is derived from social necessity. Medical professionals can utilize this technology to conduct health examinations and to monitor the rehabilitation of senior patients. The elderly can also use this tool to request checkups or to interface with their healthcare providers. The wearable serious game is further aimed at mitigating concerns about the deterioration of the physical functions of the silver generation by applying personalized exercise prescriptions. The present investigation revealed that it is necessary to merge the on / off line community activities to meet the silver generation's daily needs for connection and friendship. Further, the sustainability of the serious game must be enhanced through the inculcation of a sense of accomplishment as a player rises through the levels of the game. The proposed wearable serious game is designed specifically for the silver generation that is inexperienced in using digital devices: simple game rules are applied to a familiar interface grounded on the gourmet travels preferred by the target players to increase usability.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.298-306
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• 2016

With the advent of Internet of Things (IoT) technology that allows the communications between things and devices over the Internet, a lot of researches on the IoT services, such as smart home or healthcare, have been progressed. In the existing machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, however, since the underlying link-layer technologies, such as Bluetooth or ZigBee, do not use the Internet Protocol (IP) communication, those technologies are not suitable to provide the IoT services. Accordingly, this paper discusses how to provide the Internet services in the M2M communication, and propose an implementation of the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) over 6LoWPAN for providing IoT services in the BLE networks. Based on the implementation, we compared the performance between HTTP and CoAP for IoT communications. From the experimental results, we can see that the CoAP protocol gives better performance than the HTTP protocol with two times higher throughput, 21% faster transmission time, and 22% smaller amount of generated packets.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.435-444
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• 2011

The development of ubiquitous healthcare technology and portable electronic devices requires new energy sources for providing continuous power supply. This study particularly focuses on an energy harvesting system capable of charging energy using clothing. One of the sources for energy harvesting is heat energy, which is the difference in temperature of the body and the surrounding environment. In this study, the skin temperature distribution of the human body was empirically measured to determine the basic materials needed to develop heat energy harvesting clothing. The distribution of skin temperature in different sections of the human body was analyzed. The analysis found that the skin temperature of the upper body was higher than that of the lower body. The area close to the heart with a lot of blood flow was especially high. The skin temperature of the back side of the body, such as the back of the neck, upper back, and waist, was higher than that of the front side of the body. As for the arms, the skin temperature of the upper arms was higher than that of the lower arms, and the skin temperature of the back side of the arms was lower than that of the front and the flank side of the arms. The difference in the average skin temperature and the environment temperature was highest at the back of the neck, and thereby is considered to be the most appropriate section to integrate the heat energy harvesting function and structure. The following sections had the next highest difference in values, listed in descending order: the back of the waist, the sides of shoulders, the front chest area, the front side of the upper arms, and the front abdomen. Based on the skin temperatures of the different sections of the human body, this study outlines the basic guidelines for developing heat energy harvesting clothing.

• KIISE Transactions on Computing Practices
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.371-378
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• 2017

In modern society, awareness of diabetes is growing with an increase in the elderly population and an increase in the incidence of diabetes. In particular, diabetic patients can suddenly develop hypoglycemic shock; therefore, it is important to measure blood glucose periodically. However, self-monitoring blood glucose meters are difficult to carry and it is difficult to manage the value. To solve these problems, the blood glucose measurement system has been developed as a sensor attached to the body or as one of the functions of smart devices, but it has not been commercialized. In this paper, we propose a smart band with a blood glucose measurement function. If a user enters a schedule to measure blood glucose level, such as before/after meals, in the app, he/she can receive a measurement alarm from the band. The user can measure the blood glucose level at any time using the band, and the measured value is transmitted and managed by the app including behavior history such as before/after meals and the time. This will help the user to manage, diagnose and prevent health problems. The system has been tested using two medical device-certified products, and each blood glucose measurement value has been confirmed to be more accurate.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.7
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• pp.135-142
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• 2015

Human-powered self-generating devices have been attractive with its operation characteristic independent from outer environment such as weather condition and wind speed. However, conventional self-generators have low electric power output due to their weakly-coupled electromagnetic structure. More importantly, rotary crank motion which is usually adopted by conventional self-generator to generate electricity requires specific skeletal muscles to maintain large torque circular motion and consequently, causes fatigue on those muscles before it can generate enough amount of electricity for any practical application. Without improvement in electric power output and usability, the human-powered self-generator could not be used in everyday life. This study aims to develop a human-powered self-generator which realized a strong electromagnetic coupling in a closed-loop tubular structure (hula-hoop shape) for easy and steady long-term driving as well as larger electric output. The performance and usability of the developed human-powered generator is verified through experimental comparison with a commercial one. Additionally, human workload which is a key element of a human-powered generator but not often considered elsewhere, is estimated based on metabolic energy expenditure measured respiratory gas analyzer. Further study will focus on output and portability enhancement, which can contribute to the continuous power supply of mobile equipments.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.511-516
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• 2017

The study conducted a systematic analysis through systematic literature to explore trends in physical activities and trends in the elderly and smart health care sector. Based on the research data collected from 2006 to 2017, the research paper was selected as an analysis data base and collected data from the patented patent data registered to the Patent Office. Based on the combination of the aged, physical activities, IT, IoT, and healthcare, the research identified the research trends and subjects through the analysis and analysis of subjects based on a total of 102 academic journals and 79 patents. First of all, the academic research published a surge in 2010 research in 2006, and it has emerged as an area of continuous interest in academia until 2017. Meanwhile, patents for patents soared in 2012, according to the company's patent. Second, research shows that studies are being conducted in five areas of research. Service design, monitoring systems, systems, policies, and other studies. In the case of patents, three types of patents were classified as patents, devices and information related to information. Subsequent studies will be deemed necessary to verify the effectiveness of the smart health care technology to enhance the health of the elderly.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.331-339
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• 2008

Nowadays with advancement in technology and aging society, the number of disabled citizens is increasing. The disabled citizens always need a caretaker for daily life routines especially for mobility. In future, the need is considered to increase more. To reduce the burden from the disabled, various devices for healthcare are introduced using computer technology. The power wheelchair is an important and convenient mobility device. The demand of power wheelchair is increasing for assistance in mobility. In this paper we proposed a robotic wheelchair for mobility aid to reduce the burden from the disabled. The main issue in an autonomous wheelchair is the automatic detection and avoidance of obstacles and going to the pre-designated place. The proposed algorithm detects the obstacles and avoids them to drive the wheelchair to the desired place safely. By this way, the disabled will not always have to worry about paying deep attention to the surroundings and his path. User has a handheld bio-sensor monitoring system for get user's bio-signal. If user detects unusual signal, alarm send to protector.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.47-56
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• 2012

Bicycle has a large amount of kinetic energy available for energy harvesting technology in its speedy and balanced riding movement. Systematic and realistic analysis of its dynamic property is essential to improve the efficiency of energy harvester. However, there has not been enough researches about precise measurement or analysis of bicycle dynamics on real roads. This study aims to investigate the characteristics of vibrational movement of bicycle using MEMS-based accelerometer and to develop a prototype of electromagnetic energy harvester with nonlinear behavior which is proper to the random vibrations accompanied in bicycle riding. The vibrational components have average magnitude of 1 g and turn out to be independent of riding speed. The developed prototype of energy harvester was installed on a front port of a bicycle to use this ambient vibration and generated an average electrical power of 1.5 mW which is enough to support power for most of portable sensors and short range radio-frequency communication. Further study about isolation of vibration from a rider and conversion efficiency is ongoing. The developed energy harvester is expected to be a platform technology for sustainable portable power supply for various smart IT devices and applications.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.757-763
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• 2019

Recently, Following the recent development of flat panel detector with wide dynamic ranges, increasing numbers of healthcare providers have begun to use digital radiography. As a result, filter thickness standards should be reestablished, as current clinical practice requires the use of thicknesses recommended by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, which are based on information, acquired using conventional analog systems. Here we investigated the possibility of minimizing dose creep and optimizing patient dose using Al filters in digital radiography. The use of thicker Al filters resulted in a maximum 19.3% reduction in the entrance skin exposure dose when medical images with similar sharpness values were compared. However, resolution, which is a critical factor in imaging, had a significant change of 1.01 lp/mm. This change in resolution is thought to be due to the increased amount of scattered rays generated from the object due to the X-ray beam hardening effect. The increase in the number of scattered rays was verified using the scattering degradation factor. However, the FPD, which has recently been developed and is widely used in various areas, has greater response to radiation than analog devices and has a wide dynamic range. Therefore, the FPD is expected to maintain an appropriate level of resolution corresponding to the increase in the scattered-ray content ratio, which depends on filter thickness. Use of the FPD is also expected to minimize dose creep by reducing the exposure dose.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.60 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2022

As the demand for wearable devices increases, many studies have been studied on the development of flexible electrode materials recently. In particular, the development of high-performance flexible electrode materials is very important for wearable sensors for healthcare because it is necessary to continuously monitor and accurately detect body information such as body temperature, heart rate, blood glucose, and oxygen concentration in real time. In this study, we fabricated the nonenzymatic glucose sensor based on polyaniline/carbon nanotube fiber (PANI/CNT fiber) electrode. PANI layer was synthesized on the flexible CNT fiber electrode through electrochemical polymerization process in order to improve the performance of a flexible CNT fiber based electrode material. Surface morphology of the PANI/CNT fiber electrode was observed by scanning electron microscopy. And its electrochemical characteristics were investigated by chronoamperometry, cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Compared to bare CNT fiber electrode, this PANI/CNT fiber electrode exhibited small electron transfer resistance, low peak separation potential and large surface area, resulting in enhanced sensing properties for glucose such as wide linear range (0.024~0.39 and 1.56~50 mM), high sensitivity (52.91 and 2.24 ㎂/mM·cm²), low detection limit (2 μM) and good selectivity. Therefore, it is expected that it will be possible to develop high performance CNT fiber based flexible electrode materials using various nanomaterials.