• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.462-470
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• 2009

We propose a wearable system to help the visually impaired persons for walking safely to destination. If a user selects a destination, the system guides the user to destination with position data from GPS receiver and shortest path algorithm. At the same time, after acquiring complex spatial structures in front of the user with ultrasonic sensors, we categorize them into several predefined patterns, and determine an avoidance direction by estimating the patterns. As a result, visually impaired persons can arrive at destination safely and correctly without others help.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.19B no.4
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• pp.225-230
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• 2012

In this paper, a blind person using a white cane as an adjunct of the things available sensing technology has been implemented. Sensing technology to implement things ultrasonic sensors and a webcam was used to process the data from the server computer. Ultrasonic sensors detect objects within 4meter people distinguish between those things that if the results based on the results will sound off. In this study, ultrasonic sensors, object recognition and human perception with the introduction of techniques and technologies developed for detecting objects in the lives of the visually impaired is expected to be greater usability.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.1260-1264
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• 2008

An official report printed in June, 2005 represents that there are 180 thousands people with visual impairments in Korea, and 10 thousands of people with visual impairments are newly increased by every year since 2000. They are neglected from getting education, selecting job, and enjoying recreation activity. Above all, they have strong restriction when they are walking on the street; they are facing difficulty and inconvenience. Many smart cane products were introduced but expensive cost blocked popularization of them. In this study we have an object to development of smart cane that is chip and proper for korean street. For this, we suggest basic design of smart cane and experiment on ultrasonic sensors for visually impaired person.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.39-47
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• 2006

This study long jump action to each situation on a chessboard and section of sight disabled person and normal person through third dimension reflex analysis mechanical special quality because do comparative analysis sight disabled person's exercise ability and technology structure of action that run understand. As can do better without danger of injury map and training of exercise item that action that run is included, do offer of pabulum by purpose. Through this study, conclusion is as following. 1. Sight disabled persons' long jump average recording (121.84cm) showing normal persons' average recording (259.27cm) and much differences, show that motion of body is not big to Touch-down from Ready action. 2. Each phase body center composition(r) average speed displayed result that it is more meaning more than Each phase time required. 3. Began in line carriage without body back stretching in 1 situation on Event one are sight disabled persons. Was expose that do not bend enough knee and ankle than normal person in Event two. Was expose that body is not drooped for surface of land in Event three, and knee and ankle were expose that do not unfold easily than normal person. Was expose that do not bend enough on Touch-down knee by relation that can not grasp position of the floor in Event four. 4. When taking off, the average of horizontal speed of body center are 1.80m/sec for blind people and 3.53m/sec for the normal. In this connection, the study shows that the difference of horizontal speed between the blind and the normal is bigger than difference of vertical speed, which are 1.56m/sec for the blind and 1.98m/sec for the normal. Also, composite speed also shows us big difference between 2.41m/sec of the blind and 4.07m/sec of the normal. The speed body center of take-off was expose that average adjuster are big width of deceleration than average - beginning disabled person's average by 2.23m/sec - 1.71m/sec in the vertical speed. 5. If examine change of high and low for z Sign of right hand, change of high and low showed as is small than normal person is sight obstacle, and all hand movements are small and was expose that do not use enough reaction of body as well as in ready action.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.54
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• pp.149-176
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• 2003

The purpose of this study is to examine the degree of community integration of visually impaired people who have the limitation of mobility in comparison with another disabled and to find factors affecting community integration. The data were obtained through telephone interview with visually impaired people. The final sample was consisted of 1,004 respondents. The data were analyzed using statistical techniques such as crosstabulation, t-test, and hierarchical regression. In this study, the factors affecting community integration was divided into four dimensions : the attribution to disability, physical functioning, psychology and social support system. The major findings of this study were as follows: First, the factors affecting community integration of visually impaired people were age, education, economic status, social support, information support and participation of rehabilitation service. Second, the factors affecting community integration of the low vision and the blind are the limitation of daily activities and social support. But the factors affecting community integration of the blind are participation of education for braille and that of the low vision are information support and participation of rehabilitation service. Finally, the person losing eyesight since school age were the more limitation of daily activities than the person losing eyesight in babyhood. The factors affect community integration of the former are social support, information support, participation of education for braille, and rehabilitation service. The current findings suggest that intervention and policy aimed at improving social support system and formal services such as education, rehabilitation services should be considered by rehabilitation professionals and policy makers.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.203-207
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• 2005

Objectives: Recently, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) redefined the criteria of prediabetes, which has lowered the diagnostic level of fasting plasma glucose (FPG) from 110 to 125 mg/dl, down to levels between 100 to 125mg/dl. The purpose of this study was to determine the predictive cutoff level of FPG as a risk for the development of diabetes mellitus in Korean men. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted on 11,423 (64.5%) out of 17,696 males $\leq$30 years of age, and who met the FPG of $\leq$125 mg/dl and hemoglobin A1c of $\leq$ 6.4% criteria, without a history of diabetes, and who were enrolled at the screening center of a certain university hospital between January and December 1999. The subjects were followed from January 1999 to December 2002 (mean follow-up duration; 2.3(${\pm}0.7$) years). They were classified as normal (FPG <100mg/dl), high glucose (FPG $\geq$100mg/dl and <110mg/dl) and impaired fasting glucose (FPG $\geq$110mg/dl and $\leq$125mg/dl) on the basis of their fasting plasma glucose level measured in 1999. We compared the incidence of diabetes between the 3 groups by performing Cox proportional hazards model and used receiver operating characteristic analyses of the FPG level, in order to estimate the optimal cut-off values as predictors of incident diabetes. Results: At the baseline, most of the study subjects were in age in their 30s to 40s (mean age, 41.8(${\pm}7.1$) year). The incidence of diabetes mellitus in this study was 1.19 per 1,000 person-years (95% CI=0.68-1.79), which was much lower than the results of a community-based study that was 5.01 per 1,000 person-years. The relative risks of incident diabetes in the high glucose and impaired fasting glucose groups, compared with the normal glucose group, were 10.3 (95% CI=2.58-41.2) and 95.2 (95% CI= 29.3-309.1), respectively. After adjustment for age, body mass index, and log triglyceride, a FPG greater than 100mg/dl remained significant predictors of incident diabetes. Using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, the optimal cutoff level of FPG as a predictor of incident diabetes was 97.5 mg/dl, with a sensitivity and a specificity of 81.0% and 86.0%, respectively. Conclusion: These results suggest that lowering the criteria of impaired fasting glucose is needed in Korean male adults. Future studies on community-based populations, including women, will be required to determine the optimal cutoff level of FPG as a predictor of incident diabetes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.119-133
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• 2022

Due to the improvement of surveying, mapping and communication techniques, various apps for road direction guides and vehicle navigations have been developed. Although such a development has impacted on walking and driving, there is a limit to improving the daily convenience of the socially impaired people. This is mainly due to the fact that the software have been developed for normal pedestrians and drivers. Therefore, visually impaired people still have problems with the confusion of direction and/or non-provision of risk factors in walking. This study aimed to propose a scheme which constructs data for mobility-impaired or traffic-impaired people based on various geospatial information. The factors and components related to walking for the visually impaired are selected by geospatial data and a walking route guidance network that can be applied to a commercial software. As a result, it was confirmed that road direction guidance would be possible if additional contents, such as braille blocks (dotted/linear), sound signals, bus stops, and bollards are secured. In addition, an initial version of the application software was implemented based on the suggested data model and its usefulness was evaluated to a visually impaired person. To advance the stability of the service in walking for the visually impaired people, various geospatial data obtained by multiple institutes are necessary to be combined, and various sensors and voice technologies are required to be connected and utilized through ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) technology in near future.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.5646-5653
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• 2015

This study focused on the architectural, interior and management guidelines in rehabilitation center for visually impaired persons. For these purposes, we reviewed the movement behaviors and the characteristics of fire drill in rehabilitation center for visually impaired persons. The results are as follows. : First, the liner circulation paths and interior landmarks are recommended, and dwelling units and program rooms should be located in ground floor for barrier free evacuation. Second, It is important to establish continuous handrail, variations of paving patterns and materials, good color definition, tactile informations and directional sound. Third, it is necessary to serve more specified architectural, interior, and management guidelines according to impaired prototypes.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.452-458
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• 2013

In this paper, we propose the method for automatically transfers images into tactile maps information based on cognition characteristics of visually impaired persons to more easily provide various image information for visually impaired persons. The proposed method automatically classify color images into row complexity and high complexity based on intensity information and transfer images into tactile map information using each different transformation process. Experimental evaluation, We performed with visually impaired five persons experiments for evaluating the recognition and satisfaction that tactile maps of the proposed automatic transforming method and the manually generated tactile maps of braille textbooks. Experimental results, the recognition and satisfaction that the tactile maps of the proposed method generated are very similar to those of the tactile maps of braille textbooks. Therefore, it could hugely be reduced the time and money of production education materials, and it could greatly improved educative results because it can add more easily that many image data of education materials.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1001-1010
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• 2021

Normal people are not deeply aware of their dependence on sight when eating. However, since the visually impaired do not know what kind of food is on the table, the assistant next to them holds the blind spoon and explains the position of the food in a clockwise direction, front and rear, left and right, etc. In this paper, we describe the development of a meal assistance system that recognizes each food image and announces the name of the food by voice when a visually impaired person looks at their table using a smartphone camera. This system extracts the food on which the spoon is placed through the YOLO model that has learned the image of food and tableware (spoon), recognizes what the food is, and notifies it by voice. Through this system, it is expected that the visually impaired will be able to eat without the help of a meal assistant, thereby increasing their self-reliance and satisfaction.