• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.28-35
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• 2015

In this study, we investigated the effects of an iterative reconstruction algorithm and an automatic exposure control (AEC) technique on image quality and radiation dose through phantom experiments with coronary computed tomography (CT) angiography protocols. We scanned the AAPM CT performance phantom using 320 multi-detector-row CT. At the tube voltages of 80, 100, and 120 kVp, the scanning was repeated with two settings of the AEC technique, i.e., with the target standard deviations (SD) values of 33 (the higher tube current) and 44 (the lower tube current). The scanned projection data were reconstructed also in two ways, with the filtered back projection (FBP) and with the iterative reconstruction technique (AIDR-3D). The image quality was evaluated quantitatively with the noise standard deviation, modulation transfer function, and the contrast to noise ratio (CNR). More specifically, we analyzed the influences of selection of a tube voltage and a reconstruction algorithm on tube current modulation and consequently on radiation dose. Reduction of image noise by the iterative reconstruction algorithm compared with the FBP was revealed eminently, especially with the lower tube current protocols, i.e., it was decreased by 46% and 38%, when the AEC was established with the lower dose (the target SD=44) and the higher dose (the target SD=33), respectively. As a side effect of iterative reconstruction, the spatial resolution was decreased by a degree that could not mar the remarkable gains in terms of noise reduction. Consequently, if coronary CT angiogprahy is scanned and reconstructed using both the automatic exposure control and iterative reconstruction techniques, it is anticipated that, in comparison with a conventional acquisition method, image noise can be reduced significantly with slight decrease in spatial resolution, implying clinical advantages of radiation dose reduction, still being faithful to the ALARA principle.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.107-113
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• 2005

[ $BARODON^{(R)}$ ] is a multi-purpose, high functional alkali solution made by mixing and liquid-ionizing silicon, calcium, sodium, borax, organic carbon chemicals and silver. In this study, we have investigated the apoptotic potential and mechanistic insights of $BARODON^{(R)}$ in human gastric cancer cell line (AGS cells). In MTT assay, $BARODON^{(R)}$ reduced cell viability in AGS cells. Morphological features of apoptosis with marked cytoplasmic vacuolation and appearance of apoptotic peaks in flow cytometry were observed in AGS cells with$BARODON^{(R)}$ treatment. In addition, $BARODON^{(R)}$ induced apoptosis of stomach cancer cell is related to bax up-regulation, caspase 7 protease activation and subsequent cleavage of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP). These results suggest that BARODON can induce the apoptosis of AGS cells through modulation of bcl-2 family and the activation of intrinsic caspase cascades, indicating that it is potentially useful as a anti-cancer agent.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.17 no.2 s.105
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• pp.139-147
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• 2006

This paper suggests an efficient method of protection ratio calculation and shows some results applicable to frequency coordination in microwave(M/W) relay system networks, and the net filter discrimination(NFD) associated with Tx spectrum mask and overall Rx filter characteristics has been examined to obtain the adjacent channel protection ratio. The protection ratio comprises several factors such as C/N of modulation scheme, noise-to-interference ratio, multiple interference allowance, fade margins of multi-path and rain attenuation, and NFD. According to computed results for 6.7 GHz, 64-QAM, and 60 km at BER $10^{-6}$, fade margin and co-channel protection ratio are 41.1 and 75.2 dB, respectively. NFD for channel bandwidth of 40 MHz reveals 28.9 dB at the first adjacent channel, which results in adjacent channel protection ratio of 46.3 dB. In addition, NFD and protection ratio for different systems with channel bandwidth 20 and 40 MHz have been investigated to be used for actual M/W networks. The proposed method provides some merits of an easy calculation, systematic extension, and applying the same concept to frequency coordination in millimeter wave relay system networks.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.42 no.2 s.332
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• pp.61-74
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• 2005

Digital Multimedia Broadcasting(DMB) is a reliable multi-service system for reception by mobile and portable receivers. DMB system allows interference-free reception under the conditions of multipath propagation and transmission errors using COFDM modulation scheme, simultaneously, needs powerful channel error's correction ability. Viterbi Decoder for DMB receiver uses punctured convolutional code and needs lots of computations for real-time operation. So, it is desired to design a high speed and low-power hardware scheme for Viterbi decoder. This paper proposes a combined add-compare-select(ACS) and path metric normalization(PMN) unit for computation power. The proposed PMN architecture reduces the problem of the critical path by applying fixed value for selection algorithm due to the comparison tree which has a weak point from structure with the high-speed operation. The proposed ACS uses the decomposition and the pre-computation technique for reducing the complicated degree of the adder, the comparator and multiplexer. According to a simulation result, reduction of area $3.78\%$, power consumption $12.22\%$, maximum gate delay $23.80\%$ occurred from punctured viterbi decoder for DMB system.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.33.1-33.1
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• 2016

We report detection of short-term flux variability in multi-epoch observations and intraday variability in polarized emission at millimeter-wavelength from S5 0716+714 using Korean VLBI Network (KVN) radio telescopes. Over the whole observation epochs, the source shows significant inter-month variations at K- and Q-band with modulation indices of 19% at K-band and 36% at Q-band. In each epoch, the source shows monotonic flux increase in Epoch 1 and 3, and monotonic flux decrease in Epoch 2 and 4. We found an inverted spectrum with mean spectral indices of -0.57 in Epoch 1 and -0.15 in Epoch. On the contrary, we found relatively steep indices of 0.24 and 0.17 in Epoch 2 and Epoch 4, respectively. In the study of intraday variability of polarization, we found significant variations in the degree of linear polarization at 86 GHz, and in polarization angle at 43 and 86 GHz during ~10 h. The spectrum of the source is quite flat with spectral indices of -0.07 to 0.07 at 22-43 GHz and -0.23 to 0.04 at 43-86 GHz. The measured degree of the linear polarization ranges from 2.3% to 3.3 % at 22 GHz, from 0.9% to 2.2 % at 43 GHz and from 0.4 % to 4.0 % at 86 GHz, yielding prominent variations at 86 GHz over 4-5 h. The linear polarization angle is in the range of 4 to $12^{\circ}$ at 22 GHz, -39 to $81^{\circ}$ at 43 GHz, and 66 to 119 at 86 GHz with a maximum rotation of $110^{\circ}$ at 43 GHz over ~4 h. We estimated the Faraday rotation measures (RM) ranging from -9200 to 6300 rad m-2 between 22 and 43 GHz, and from -71000 to 7300 rad m-2 between 43 and 86 GHz, respectively. The frequency dependency of RM was investigated, yielding a mean power-law index, a, of 2.0. This implies that the polarized emission from S5 0716+714 at 22-86 GHz moves through a Faraday screen in or near the jet of the source.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.126-142
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• 2016

This paper presents a wide-frequency-range, low-power transceiver with an automatic impedance-matching calibration for TV-white-space (TVWS) application. The wide-range automatic impedance matching calibration (AIMC) is proposed for the Drive Amplifier (DA) and LNA. The optimal $S_{22}$ and $S_{11}$ matching capacitances are selected in the DA and LNA, respectively. Also, the Single Pole Double Throw (SPDT) switch is integrated to share the antenna and matching network between the transmitter and receiver, thereby minimizing the systemic cost. An N-path filter is proposed to reject the large interferers in the TVWS frequency band. The current-driven mixer with a 25% duty LO generator is designed to achieve the high-gain and low-noise figures; also, the frequency synthesizer is designed to generate the wide-range LO signals, and it is used to implement the FSK modulation with a programmable loop bandwidth for multi-rate communication. The TVWS transceiver is implemented in $0.13{\mu}m$, 1-poly, 6-metal CMOS technology. The die area of the transceiver is $4mm{\times}3mm$. The power consumption levels of the transmitter and receiver are 64.35 mW and 39.8 mW, respectively, when the output-power level of the transmitter is +10 dBm at a supply voltage of 3.3 V. The phase noise of the PLL output at Band 2 is -128.3 dBc/Hz with a 1 MHz offset.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.1064-1072
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• 2013

Circadian rhythm is controlled by hormonal oscillations governing the physiology of all living organisms. In mammals, the main function of the pineal gland is to transform the circadian rhythm generated in the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus into rhythmic signals of circulating melatonin characterized by a largely nocturnal increase that closely reflects the duration of night time. The pineal gland has lost direct photosensitivity, but responds to light via multi-synaptic pathways that include a subset of retinal ganglion cells. Rhythmic control is achieved through a tight coupling between environmental lighting and arylalkylamine-N-acetyltransferase (AANAT) expression, which is the rhythm-controlling enzyme in melatonin synthesis. Previous studies on the nocturnal expression of AANAT protein have described transcriptional, post-transcriptional, and post-translational regulatory mechanisms. Molecular mechanisms for dependent AANAT expression provide novel aspects for melatonin's circadian rhythmicity. Extensive animal research has linked pineal melatonin for the expression of seasonal rhythmicity in many mammalian species to the modulation of circadian rhythms and to sleep regulation. It has value in treating various circadian rhythm disorders, such as jet lag or shift-work sleep disorders. Melatonin, also, in a broad range of effects with a significant regulation influences many of the body's physiological functions. In addition, this hormone is known to influence reproductive, cardiovascular, and immunological regulation as well as psychiatric disorders.

• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.161-170
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• 2013

Objectives : Our study aimed to investigate the sustained effects of sham (SHAM) and verum acupuncture (ACUP) into the post-stimulus resting state. Methods : In contrast to previous studies, in order to define the changes in resting state induced by acupuncture, changes were evaluated with a multi-method approach by using regional homogeneity (ReHo) and amplitude of low frequency fluctuation (ALFF). Twelve healthy participants received SHAM and ACUP stimulation right GB34 (Yanglingquan) and the neural changes between post- and pre-stimulation were detected. Results : The following results were found; in both ReHo and ALFF, the significant foci of; left and right middle frontal gyrus, left medial frontal gyrus, left superior frontal gyrus, and right posterior cingulate cortex, areas that are known as a default mode network, showed increased connectivity. In addition, in ReHo, but not in ALFF, brain activation changes in the insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and the thalamus, which are associated with acupuncture pain modulation, were found. Conclusions : In this study, results obtained by using ReHo and ALFF, showed that acupuncture can modulate the post-stimulus resting state and that ReHo, but not ALFF, can also detect the neural changes that were induced by the acupuncture stimulations. Although more future studies with ReHo and ALFF will be needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn, our study shows that particularly ReHo could be an interesting method for future clinical neuroimaging studies on acupuncture.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.38A no.9
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• pp.817-825
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• 2013

The UHDTV system, which provides realistic service with ultra-high definite video and multi-channel audio, has been studied as a next generation broadcasting service. Since the conventional digital terrestrial transmission system is not capable to cover the increased transmission data rate of the UHDTV service, there are great necessity of researches about increase of data rate. Accordingly, the researches has been studied to increase the transmission data rate of the DVB-T2 system using dual-polarized MIMO technique and high order modulation. In order to optimize the MIMO DVB-T2 system where irregular LDPC codes are used, it is necessary to study the design of the bit mapper that matches the LDPC code and QAM symbols in MIMO channel. However, the research related to the design of the bit mapper has been limited to the SISO system. Therefore, this paper defines a new parameter that indicates the VND distribution of MIMO DVB-T2 system and performs the performance analysis according to the parameter which will be helpful for designing a MIMO bit mapper.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.430-439
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• 2004

This paper describes a design of 8192/2048-point FFT/IFFT processor (CFFT8k2k), which performs multi-carrier modulation/demodulation in OFDM-based DVB-T receiver. Since a large size FFT requires a large buffer memory, two design techniques are considered to achieve memory-efficient implementation of 8192-point FFT/IFFT. A hybrid structure, which is composed of radix-4 single-path delay feedback (R4SDF) and radix-4 single-path delay commutator (R4SDC), reduces its memory by 20% compared to R4SDC structure. In addition, a memory reduction of about 24% is achieved by a novel two-step convergent block floating-point scaling. As a result, it requires only 57% of memory used in conventional design, reducing chip area and power consumption. The CFFT8k2k core is designed in Verilog-HDL, and has about 102,000 Bates, RAM of 292k bits, and ROM of 39k bits. Using gate-level netlist with SDF which is synthesized using a $0.25-{\um}m$ CMOS library, timing simulation show that it can safely operate with 50-MHz clock at 2.5-V supply, resulting that a 8192-point FFT/IFFT can be computed every 164-${\mu}\textrm{s}$. The functionality of the core is fully verified by FPGA implementation, and the average SQNR of 60-㏈ is achieved.