• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.135-143
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• 2011

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate onset timing of vastus medialis oblique(VMO) relative to vastus lateralis(VL) the VMO/VL electromyographic(EMG) ratio according to heel height Methods: A repeated measures design was used. Fifteen healthy female college students with no known knee musculoskeletal dysfunction were recruited this study. They carried out a standardised stair acent activity under 4 conditions; barefoot, and with heel height of 1, 3, 7 cm. Muscle activity was measured by surface EMG (Myosystem 1400A, Noraxon Inc., U.S.A). Data were analysed using $1{\times}4$ repeated measures ANOVA. Results: Onset timing differed with heel height(p<.05). However, the VMO/VL EMG ratio was not significantly difference between conditions. Conclusion: We found that 7 cm heel height delayed in VMO onset compared with 3 cm heel height during stair ascent, but no change in the relative EMG intensity of VMO and VL as measured by th VMO/VL ratio. The findings indicate that high-heeled shoes may have disadvantages in knee stability because of delayed onset of VMO. Due to a lack of knee joint stability, wearing of high heeled shoes should be avoided.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.117-121
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• 2010

The This study aimed to evaluate the effects of the voice therapy we operated to the patients with age-related dysphonia. Thirty four participants who were diagnosed as age-related dysphonia in laryngoscopic finding from January, 2009 to December, 2009 completed the study. The participants were aged from 60 to 82 years old with a mean age of 70.6. All participants had received the abdominal breath technique, SKHPIP with laughter, and basic vocal training with description of their problem, the length of which ranged from four sessions to twelve sessions. We executed the videostroboscopy to compare the aspect of voicing change and the perceptual assessment, voice range profile, acoustic and aerodynamic measures to identify change of voice. Participants had glottal gap due to incomplete glottic closure during voicing on the pretest. After they took the voice therapy, the glottic gap became narrow and rough and breathy voice was reduced. There were significant difference in acoustic and aerodynamic measures. Jitter, Shimmer, MFR were reduced and MPT, Psub were increased(p<.05). Participants' pitch range and intensity range were increased on the posttest performance after taking voice therapy. Especially, most of them were showed that pitch range was increased significantly in high frequency area. The results of this investigation indicate that the voice therapy using abdominal breath, SKHPIP, and exercise together is effective for the patients who have age-related dysphonia to improve their voice quality. We recommend to apply this technique to functional voice disorders who are showed glottal gap.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.95-117
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• 2009

In this paper, the time series based damage detection algorithms developed by Nair, et al. (2006) and Nair and Kiremidjian (2007) are applied to the benchmark experimental data from the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE) in Taipei, Taiwan. Both acceleration and strain data are analyzed. The data are modeled as autoregressive (AR) processes, and damage sensitive features (DSF) and feature vectors are defined in terms of the first three AR coefficients. In the first algorithm developed by Nair, et al. (2006), hypothesis tests using the t-statistic are applied to evaluate the damaged state. A damage measure (DM) is defined to measure the damage extent. The results show that the DSF's from the acceleration data can detect damage while the DSF from the strain data can be used to localize the damage. The DM can be used for damage quantification. In the second algorithm developed by Nair and Kiremidjian (2007) a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) is used to model the feature vector, and the Mahalanobis distance is defined to measure damage extent. Additional distance measures are defined and applied in this paper to quantify damage. The results show that damage measures can be used to detect, quantify, and localize the damage for the high intensity and the bidirectional loading cases.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.88-97
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• 2024

This study performed the analysis on an economic feasibility of each marine fuel, potential fuel pathways and the relevance of compliance measures to ensure compliance with the FuelEU Maritime regulation. Additionally, it identified certain regulatory gaps to encourage the use of alternative marine fuels. Regarding GHG emissions calculations, the existing GHG regulations for ships applies the Tank-to-Wake (TtW) method, whereas FuelEU Maritime applies the Well-to-Wake (WtW) method. The main results present that important information to establish response strategy for FuelEU Maritime including the costs and benefits of each marine fuel, the minimum blending ratio of alternative fules, and compliance impacts of measures. For the regulatory costs and benefits of marine fuels following the implementation of the FuelEU Maritime from 2025, our findings indicate that while most fossil fuels incur regulatory costs from 2025, most of biofuels and RFNBO fuels do not incur costs until 2050. This will play a role to narrow the price gap between fossil fuels and alternative fuels.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.65-76
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• 2015

Purpose - This article aims to present and test a model regarding franchisors' supporting activities that may positively influence franchisees' attitude toward the franchising headquarter and their own business performance. Moreover, the authors examine the moderating effect of competitive intensity between franchisee attitude and business performance. Most previous research focused on behavioral performance measurements such as satisfaction, trust, and commitment. There are few empirical studies that focus on financial performance data because it is difficult to determine a relational mechanism between behavioral and financial performance. Moreover, financial data is confidential and difficult to collect in many cases. However, this study measures financial performance (e.g., sales revenue per square meter) differently than most previous research, which is mostly focused on the behavioral performance measurements. Research design, data, and methodology - To test our hypotheses, we selected 137 franchisee managers who are running chains of one of the foremost bakery franchise brands in South Korea. This study carefully investigated the reliability, content validity, convergent validity, and discriminant validity of the proposed instrument by analyzing the data obtained from the samples. The data was analyzed using the AMOS structural equation modeling program. Results - The results indicated that: non-financial support activities (e.g., information exchange and communication) had a positive impact on the franchisee attitude toward the franchising headquarter. The franchisee attitude in turn had a positive effect on the headquarters' business performance. Furthermore, competitive intensity could enhance the relationship between franchisee attitude toward franchising headquarter and business performance in a local franchise market. However, financial support activities (e.g., rewards and promotional support) and training had no relationship with either franchisee attitude or business performance. Conclusions - This study provides some practical implications to franchisors in terms of franchise operation and store opening strategies. With respect to the franchise operation strategy, franchisors need to focus on non-financial rather than financial support. Most franchisees consider the necessity of financial support activities and not their sufficiency because these activities are specified in their franchise contract. In addition, it is important for franchisees to maintain a positive attitude for the franchise headquarters. The franchisees with a positive attitude for the franchisor can show a high degree of solidarity for various support activities, and it consequently determines franchisees' sales performance. In terms of franchise store opening strategy, this study suggests an additional criterion that can be considered in determining the location of direct and non-direct management stores (e.g., franchisees' stores). In this research, franchise stores located within high level of competitive intensity are shown to have a high relationship between franchisee attitudes of franchisor support activities and business performance compared to the franchisees located within low competitive intensity level. This result shows that opening non-direct franchise stores is more effective than direct stores in higher competitive market situations. Research contribution, implications, and further research directions are discussed at the end of the paper.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.135-166
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• 2005

This paper measures integrated pollution intensities and changes in pollution intensity, and figure out environmental performance. We introduce a new definition of pollution intensity and its method measuring integrated pollution intensities. We distinguish 24 manufacturing industries into light industry and heavy industry, and divide heavy industry into pollution industry and the other residual heavy industry to measure the integrated pollution intensities and their changes. While the pollution industry within heavy industry, based on the integrated pollution intensity, was the most pollution-intensive, the other residual heavy industry within the heavy industry was the most successive in reducing pollutants. The annualized average index of the integrated pollution intensities grew as much as 9.1 percent, of which the annualized change in the index of pollution emission increased 13.3 percent, but the improvement of 3.9 percent in the change of output quantity offset the increase in the index of pollution emission. The changes in the integrated pollution intensity for the light and heavy industries were 1.125 and 1.042, respectively. The reason the heavy industry showed the lower change in the index of pollution intensity, while the change in the pollution industry was very high, was because the average change in the other heavy industry decreased around 9 percent.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.643-654
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• 2018

In order to understand and manage traffic flows in urban areas in the past, a variety of traffic engineering theoretical indicators such as intersection lag and highway speed have been applied. However, these theories and indicators have been developed under the constraints of traffic engineering research before the construction of intelligent transportation system. Since the ATIS system currently exists, it is necessary to introduce a separate traffic engineering technology that utilizes the data. In this paper, it is aimed to confirm whether it is applicable to intermittent flow (approach road, intersection, control group, main road axis) by using 'congestion intensity' which is already used in traffic engineering field. The results of this study are as follows: (1) The traffic signal improvement effect of urban road access road, intersection road, control group, Two verification studies were performed to verify the derived congestion intensity index. (1) verification of congestion intensity threshold value analysis and (2) crossing improvement using the congestion intensity. Through verification, it was confirmed that it is possible to apply the congestion intensity in the inter - city intermittent flow using the 5 - minute unit speed data so as to be able to escape from the existing traffic signal operation management which is past passive and manpower limit.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Clinical Electrophysiology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.43-55
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of microcurrent stimulation intensity($50{\mu}A,\;100{\mu}A,\;300{\mu}A$ - 5 pps pulse frequency was same) on wound healing in rat. Sixty male Korean rats were randomly divided into 4 groups of 15 for 4 different treatment protocols(none-control group, $50{\mu}A,\;100{\mu}A,\;300{\mu}A$ experimental groups). Experimental 20 mm linear wound were made and all animals in the experimental groups were received microcurrent stimulation once a day for 20 minutes until sacrifice days(1st day, 3rd day, 6th day). A vernier caliper was used to measure a wound healing length and an optical microscope was used to determine any histological changes. The repeated measures two-way ANOVA was used for statistical differences in wound healing length. Experimental results were as follows: 1. In the examination with the naked eye, all groups showed similar changes until 1st day. But from 3rd day, a little intercellular fluid soaked through wound region in control group. In experimental groups, little intercellular fluid soaked through wound region, and swelling and redness did not appear. 2. Wound length of experimental $50{\mu}A$ group was significantly decreased than control group(p<0.001). And in the aspect of application period, wound length was significantly decreased in 3th, 6th day than 1st day and 6th day than 3th day (p<0.001). In conclusion, it has been found that the microcurrent stimulation had a positive effect on wound healing. And $50{\mu}A$ stimulation intensity was more effective than other intensities($100{\mu}A,\;300{\mu}A$) in wound healing. Also, low-intensity microcurrent stimulation was more effective on the purpose of wound healing.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.338-343
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• 2007

BOLD T2*-weighted MR images reflects cortical blood flow and oxygenation alterations. fMRI study relies on the detection of localized changes in BOLD signal intensity. Since fMRI measures the very small modulations in BOLD signal intensity that occur during changes in brain activity, it is also very sensitive to small signal intensity variations caused by physiologic noise during the scan. Due to the complexity of movement of various organs associated with heart beat, it is important to reduce cardiac related noise rather than other physiological noise which could be required with relatively simple method. Therefore, a number of methods have been developed for the estimation and reduction of cardiac noise in fMRI study. But, each method has limitation. In this study, we proposed a new estimation method for brain activities influenced by blood pulsation effect using regression analysis with blood pulsation signal and the correspond slice of fMRI. We could find out that the right anterior cingulate cortex and right olfactory cortex and left olfactory cortex were largely influenced by blood pulsation effect for new method. These observed areas are mostly on the structure of anterior cerebral artery in the brain. That is convinced with that our method would be valid and our new method is easier to apply in practice and reduce computational burden than the retrospective method.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.234-241
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• 2014

This study was designed to investigate the effects of stimulation intensity and inter-electrode distance on the parameters of the measured sensory nerve signal. 30 healthy subjects participated in this study. Sensory nerve signals were elicited by four different pulse amplitudes, i.e., 3, 6, 9, 12 mA, with the pulse width fixed at $500{\mu}s$. The sensory nerve signals elicited by the four different pulse amplitudes were measured by four different inter-electrode distances (20, 30, 40, and 50 mm). We extracted four parameters (pulse amplitude, pulse width, pulse area, and latency time from stimulation) from the sensory nerve signals. The measured pulse amplitude and pulse width were increased when the measuring inter-electrode distance was increased while the stimulating pulse amplitude was fixed. The measured pulse amplitude was saturated with the stimulating pulse amplitudes of over 6 mA while measuring inter-electrode distance. Under the same condition, measured pulse width was increased, and sensory nerve signal was initiated early. Sensory nerve signals, specially those of pulse amplitude, were distorted by a differential amplification method that commonly measures the human body signal. The experimental results indicate that the differential amplification method is required to be replaced when measuring nerve signals. Our observations suggested that the hyperpolarization of the action potential of the sensory nerve signal for preventing distortion could be used to clarify the correlation between the parameters of the sensory nerve signals and quantification of sensations.