• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.173-181
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• 2014

In this paper, the algorithm that can automatically segment the lung, the airway and the pulmonary vessels in a chest CT was proposed. The proposed method is progressed in three steps. In the first step, the lung and the airway are segmented by the region growing law through the optimal threshold and three-dimensional labeling. In the second, from the start point to the first carina of the airway is segmented by the deduction operation, and the next airway of the bifurcations are segmented by applying a variable threshold technique. In the third step, the left/right lungs are divided by the restoration process for the lung, and the outside of lungs for abnormal is checked by applying the advanced rolling ball algorithm, and if abnormal is found, that part is removed, and it is restored to the normal lungs by connecting the outside of the lung in the form of second-order polynomial. Finally, pulmonary vessels are segmented by applying the three-dimensional connected component labeling method and three-dimensional region growing method. As the results of simulation, it could be confirmed that the pulmonary vascular is accurately divided without loss of tissue around lung.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.44-53
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• 2008

The purpose of this preliminary study was to develop a measurement for assessing risk factors for falling in community-dwelling elderly persons. Rasch analysis and principal component analysis were performed to examine whether items on the Activities-Specific Balance Confidence (ABC), assessing self-efficacy, and items on the Berg Balance Scale (BBS), assessing balance function, contribute jointly to a unidimensional construct in the elderly. A total of 35 elderly persons (4 men, 31 women) participated. In this study, each item of ABC (16 items) and BBS (14 items) was scored on a 5-point ordinal rating scale from 0 to 4. The initial Rasch and principal component analysis indicated that 3 of the ABC items and 2 of the BBS items were misfit for this study. These 5 items were excluded from further study. After combining ABC and BBS, Rasch and principal component analyses were examined and finally 23 items selected; 12 items from ABC, 11 items from BBS. The 23 combined ABC-BBC items were arranged in order of difficulty. The hardest item was 'walk outside on icy sidewalks' and the easiest item was 'pivot transfer'. Although structural calibration of each 5 rating scale categories was not ordered, the other three essential criteria of Linacre's optimal rating scale were satisfied. Overall, the ABC-BBS showed sound item psychometric properties. Each of the 5 rating scale categories appeared to distinctly identify subjects at different ability levels. The findings of this study support that the new ABC-BBS scale measure balance function and self-efficacy. It will be a clinically useful assessment of risk factors for falling in the elderly. However, the number of subjects was too small to generalize our results. Further study is needed to develop a new assessment considering more risk factors of falling in elderly.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.3635-3638
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• 2015

Several improvements in ovarian cancer treatment have been achieved in recent years, both in surgery and in combination chemotherapy with targeting. However, ovarian tumors remain the women's cancers with highest mortality rates. In this scenario, a pivotal role has been endorsed to the immunological environment and to the immunological mechanisms involved in ovarian cancer behavior. Recent evidence suggests a loss of the critical balance between immune-activating and immune-suppressing mechanisms when oncogenesis and cancer progression occur. Ovarian cancer generates a mechanism to escape the immune system by producing a highly suppressive environment. Immune-activated tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in ovarian tumor tissue testify that the immune system is the trigger in this neoplasm. The TIL mileau has been demonstrated to be associated with better prognosis, more chemosensitivity, and more cases of optimal residual tumor achieved during primary cytoreduction. Nowadays, scientists are focusing attention on new immunologically effective tumor biomarkers in order to optimize selection of patients for recruitment in clinical trials and to identify relationships of these biomarkers with responses to immunotherapeutics. Assessing this point of view, TILs might be considered as a potent predictive immunotherapy biomarker.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.1204-1227
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• 2020

The tradeoff between energy conservation and traffic balancing is a dilemma problem in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). By analyzing the intrinsic relationship between cluster properties and long distance transmission energy consumption, we characterize three node sets of the cluster as a theoretical foundation to enhance high performance of WSNs, and propose optimal solutions by introducing rendezvous and Mobile Elements (MEs) to optimize energy consumption for prolonging the lifetime of WSNs. First, we exploit an approximate method based on the transmission distance from the different node to an ME to select suboptimal Rendezvous Point (RP) on the trajectory for ME to collect data. Then, we define data transmission routing sequence and model rendezvous planning for the cluster. In order to achieve optimization of energy consumption, we specifically apply the economic theory called Diminishing Marginal Utility Rule (DMUR) and create the utility function with regard to energy to develop an adaptive energy consumption optimization framework to achieve energy efficiency for data collection. At last, Rendezvous Transmission Algorithm (RTA) is proposed to better tradeoff between energy conservation and traffic balancing. Furthermore, via collaborations among multiple MEs, we design Two-Orbit Back-Propagation Algorithm (TOBPA) which concurrently handles load imbalance phenomenon to improve the efficiency of data collection. The simulation results show that our solutions can improve energy efficiency of the whole network and reduce the energy consumption of sensor nodes, which in turn prolong the lifetime of WSNs.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.57 no.9
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• pp.1599-1605
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• 2008

The research was conducted in order to improve the hydrogen generation efficiency of the electrical plasma technology from tap water by using $TiO_2$ photocatalyst, mixed Cu - $TiO_2$ powder, and mixed Ni - $TiO_2$ powder as the catalysts. Experiments were performed with the pulsed power and nitrogen carrier gas. The result has shown that the hydrogen concentration with the presence of $TiO_2$ powder was created higher than that of without using photocatalyst. The hydrogen concentration with using $TiO_2$ was 3012ppm corresponding to the applied voltage of 16kV, while it without using the $TiO_2$ was 1464ppm at the same condition . The effect of $TiO_2$ powder was strongly detected at the applied voltages of 15kV and 16kV. This phenomena might be resulted from the co-effect of the pulsed power discharge and the activated state of $TiO_2$ photocatalyst. The co-effect of the mixed catalysts such as Cu-$TiO_2$ and Ni-$TiO_2$ (the mixed photocatalyst $TiO_2$ and transition metals) were also investigated. The experimental results showed that, Cu and Ni powder dopants were greatly enhancing the activity of the $TiO_2$ photocatalyst. Under these experimental conditions the extremely high hydrogen concentrations at the optimal point were produced as 4089ppm and 6630ppm, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.88-95
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• 2016

This study evaluated the quality characteristics of dried noodles prepared with strawberry powder in order to determine the most preferred noodle recipe for children's school meals. The proximate composition of strawberry powder used was as follows: moisture, 3.39%; crude protein, 1.53%; crude lipid, 0.97%; crude ash, 0.82%; and carbohydrates, 93.29%. When viscosity of the composite strawberry powder-wheat flours was measured by amylograph. Gelatinization point, maximum viscosity, viscosity at $95^{\circ}C$ and viscosity at $95^{\circ}C$ after 15 min decreased as the level of strawberry powder increased. As the level of strawberry powder increased, both L and b color values decreased, whereas a value increased. Weight, water absorption and volume of cooked noodles decreased, whereas turbidity of soup increased. For textural properties, addition of strawberry powder to cooked noodles reduced hardness, chewiness and brittleness. Overall preference according to the results of the sensory evaluation, noodles added with 6% strawberry powder were the most preferred. According to the results, the addition of strawberry powder can positively affect the overall sensory evaluation of dried noodles, and 6% is the optimal level for addition.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.178-183
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• 2020

Objective: This study conducted in order to investigate the correlations between fall experience, balance, mobility, and confidence. We examined the difference between fall experience, and Berg Balance Scale (BBS), Timed-Up-and-Go test (TUG), Tinetti balance assessment (Tinetti balance [TiB], Tinetti gait [TiG]), and Activities-specific Balance Confidence (ABC) scale scores to see how fall experience, balance, mobility, and confidence of the persons with stroke affects their balance. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Forty-one subjects participated in this study. The BBS includes 14 items, consisting of a 5-point scale from 0 to 4, totaling up to 56 points. The Timed Up and Go-Alone (TUGA) was used to measure the average time to take a 3 m round-trip by getting up and down from a 46-cm high chair with an armrest on a flat floor. The Timed-Up-and-Go-Cognitive (TUGC) was performed by counting backwards and the Timed Up and Go-Manual (TUGM) is performed by holding a cup full of water. The total score for the TiB is 16 points, and the TiG is 12 points, making a total of 28 points. There are 16 items total for the ABC scale. Results: According to the fall experience, BBS, the TUGA and TUGC values were significantly higher in the inexperienced group compared to the experienced group (p<0.05). The number of falls was significantly correlated with BBS, TUGA, TUGC, TUGM, TiB, TiG, TiB+TiG (p<0.05). Conclusions: This study supports that falls experience is strongly related to balance, mobility, and confidence. Optimal balance training programs for fall prevention is still insufficient and must be developed.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.390-396
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• 2012

Ag pastes added to Bi-oxide frits have been applied to the electrode material of Si solar cells. It has been reported that frits induce contacts between the Ag electrodes and the Si wafer after firing. During firing, the control of interfaces among Ag, the glass layer, and Si is one of the key factors for improving cell performance. Specifically, the thermo-physical properties of frits considerably influence Ag-Si contact. Therefore, the thermal properties of frits should be carefully controlled to enhance the efficiency of cells. In this study, the interface structures among Ag electrodes, glass layers, and recrystallites on an $n^+$ emitter were carefully analyzed with the thermal properties of lead-free frits. First, a cross-section of the area between the Ag electrodes and the Si wafer was studied in order to understand the interface structures in light of the thermal properties of the frits. The depth and area of the pits formed in the Si wafer were quantitatively calculated with the thermal properties of frits. The area of the glass layers between the Ag electrodes and Si, and the distribution of recrystallites on the $n^+$ emitter, were measured from a macroscopic point of view with the characteristics of the frits. Our studies suggest that the thermophysical properties should be controlled for the optimal performance of Si solar cells; our studies also show why cell performance deteriorated due to the high viscosity of frits in Ag pastes.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.572-583
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• 2007

This paper investigates Centering-based metrics to evaluate ordering of utterances for text structuring. We point out a problem of MIN.NOCB metric which has been regarded as the simplest and best measure to evaluate coherence of ordering within Centering framework, and propose a new Centering-based metric, MAX.CPS as an alternative or supplementary one. This paper introduces a framework which pre-estimates the effectiveness of a metric on a given input ordering, and selects an applicable metric according to the pre-estimation result. Using this framework, we propose a new policy which can generate more optimal ordering within Centering framework. Moreover, we evaluate several kinds of Cf-ranking methods in terms of Centering-based metrics, and find that simply ranking entities by their linear order is generally the most suitable because of characteristics in Korean.

• Journal of Korean Society for Geospatial Information Science
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.97-103
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• 2011

LiDAR system has become a popular tool for generating 3D surface data such as Digital Surface Model. Extraction of valuable information, such as digital building models, from LiDAR data has been an attractive research subject. This research addresses to extract planar patches from LiDAR data. Planar patches are important primitives consisting of man-made objects such as buildings. In order to determine the best fitted planes, this research proposed a method to reduce/eliminate the impact of the outliers and the intersection areas of two planes. After finishing plane fitting, planar patches are segmented by pseudo color values which are calculated by determined three plane parameters for each LiDAR point. In addition, a segmentation procedure is conducted using the pseudo color values to find planar patches. This paper evaluates the feasibility of the proposed method using both airborne and terrestrial LiDAR data.