• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.195-207
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• 2023

Background: This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of the pericapsular nerve group (PENG) block and intra-articular injection (IAI) of steroid-bupivacaine in the treatment of hip osteoarthritis (OA). Methods: After randomization, patients received either a PENG block or IAI under ultrasound-guidance. Clinical evaluations were recorded at baseline, day 1, and weeks 1, 4, and 8 post-intervention. The numerical rating scale (NRS), Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index (WOMAC), Harris Hip Scale (HHS) scores, pain medication use determined by a quantitative analgesic questionnaire, and patient satisfaction were evaluated. Results: Sixty patients were included in this study. NRS scores improved significantly for both groups during the follow-up compared to pretreatment (P < 0.001), with better pain scores for the PENG group (P < 0.001) at day 1 with larger effect size (Cohen's d = 4.62), and IAI group at 4 (Cohen's d = 5.15) and 8 (Cohen's d = 4.33) weeks (P < 0.001). There was no significant difference in pain medication consumption (P = 0.499) and patient satisfaction (P = 0.138) between groups. Patients in the IAI group experienced significant improvement in HHS (Cohen's d = 2.16, P = 0.007) and WOMAC (Cohen's d = 1.02, P = 0.036) scores at 8 weeks compared to the PENG group. Conclusions: The ultrasound-guided PENG block provides effective pain relief which improves functionality and quality of life in hip OA patients up to 2 months. The PENG block can be considered an easy, safe, and useful alternative treatment modality for hip OA.

• Hip & pelvis
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.63-72
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• 2023

The aim of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for comparison of the effectiveness of pericapsular nerve group (PENG) block with that of other analgesic techniques for reduction of postoperative pain and consumption of opioids after total hip arthroplasty (THA). A search of records in the PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov databases was conducted in order to identify studies comparing the effect of the PENG block with that of other analgesics on reduction of postoperative pain and consumption of opioids after THA. Determination of eligibility was based on the PICOS (participants, intervention, comparator, outcomes, and study design) criteria as follows: (1) Participants: patients who underwent THA. (2) Intervention: patients who received a PENG block for management of postoperative pain. (3) Comparator: patients who received other analgesics. (4) Outcomes: numerical rating scale (NRS) score and opioid consumption during different periods. (5) Study design: clinical RCTs. Five RCTs were finally included in the current meta-analysis. Significantly lower postoperative opioid consumption at 24 hours after THA was observed in the group of patients who received the PENG block compared with the control group (standard mean difference=-0.36, 95% confidence interval -0.64 to -0.08). However, no significant reduction in NRS score at 12, 24, and 48 hours after surgery and opioid consumption at 48 hours after THA was observed. The PENG block showed better results for opioid consumption at 24 hours after THA compared with other analgesics.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.1800-1808
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• 2013

Dual-responsive amphiphilic block copolymers were synthesized by combining enzymatic ring-opening polymerization (eROP) of ${\varepsilon}$-caprolactone (CL) and ATRP of N,N-dimethylamino-2-ethyl methacrylate (DMAEMA). The obtained block copolymers were characterized by gel permeation chromatography (GPC), $^1H$ NMR and FTIR-IR. The critical micelle concentration (CMC) of copolymer was determined by fluorescence spectra, it can be found that with hydrophilic block (PDMAEMA) increasing, CMC value of the polymer sample increased accordingly, and the CMC value was 0.012 mg/mL, 0.025 mg/mL and 0.037 mg/mL for $PCL_{50}$-b-$PDMAEMA_{68}$, $PCL_{50}$-b-$PDMAEMA_{89}$, $PCL_{50}$-b-$PDMAEMA_{112}$, $PCL_{50}$-b-$PDMAEMA_{89}$ was chosen as drug carrier to study in vitro release profile of anti-cancer drug (taxol). The temperature and pH dependence of the values of hydrodynamic diameter (Dh) of micelles, and self-assembly of the resulting block copolymers in water were evaluated by dynamic light scattering (DLS). The result showed that with the temperature increasing and pH decreasing, the Dh decreased. Drug-loaded nanoparticles were fabricated using paclitaxel as model. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) had been explored to study the morphology of the hollow micelles and the nanoparticles, revealing well-dispersed spheres with the average diameters both around 80 nm. In vitro release kinetics of paclitaxel from the nanoparticles was also investigated in different conditions (pH and temperature, etc.), revealing that the drug release was triggered by temperature changes upon the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) at pH 7.4, and at $37^{\circ}C$ by an increase of pH.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.332-341
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• 2013

H-shaped amphiphilic pentablock copolymers $(PSt)_2-b-PCL-b-PEO-b-PCL-b-(PSt)_2$ was synthesized via chemoenzymatic method by combining enzyme-catalyzed ring-opening polymerization (eROP) of ${\varepsilon}$-caprolactone (${\varepsilon}$-CL) and atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of styrene. By this process, we obtained copolymers with controlled molecular weight and low polydispersity. The structure and composition of the obtained copolymers were characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and infrared spectroscopy analysis (IR). The crystallization behavior of the copolymers was analyzed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The crystallization behavior of the H-shaped block copolymers demonstrated a PCL dominate crystallization. The self-assembly behavior of the copolymers was investigated in aqueous media. The hydrodynamic diameters of the copolymer micelles in aqueous solution were measured by dynamic light scattering (DLS). The morphology of the copolymer micelles was observed by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The hydrodynamic diameters of spherical micelles declined gradually with the increase of the hydrophobic chain lengths of the copolymers. The critical micelle concentration (CMC) values were determined from fluorescence emission, and it was found that the CMCs decreased with an increase of PSt hydrophobic block lengths.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.185-207
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• 2013

In flexural strength design of normal-strength concrete (NSC) beams, it is commonly accepted that the distribution of concrete stress within the compression zone can be reasonably represented by an equivalent rectangular stress block. The stress block it governed by two parameters, which are normally denoted by ${\alpha}$ and ${\beta}$ to stipulate the width and depth of the stress block. Currently in most of the reinforced concrete (RC) design codes, ${\alpha}$ and ${\beta}$ are usually taken as 0.85 and 0.80 respectively for NSC. Nonetheless, in an experimental study conducted earlier by the authors on NSC columns, it was found that ${\alpha}$ increases significantly with strain gradient, which means that larger concrete stress can be developed in flexure. Consequently, less tension steel will be required for a given design flexural strength, which improves the ductility performance. In this study, the authors' previously proposed strain-gradient-dependent concrete stress block will be adopted to produce a series of design charts showing the maximum design limits of flexural strength and ductility of singly-and doubly-NSC beams. Through the design charts, it can be verified that the consideration of strain gradient effect can improve significantly the flexural strength and ductility design limits of NSC beams.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.181-194
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• 2006

The masonry is a complex heterogeneous material and its shear deformation and fracture is associated with very complicated progressive failures in masonry structure, and is investigated in this paper using a mesoscopic mechanical modelling, Considering the heterogeneity of masonry material, based on the damage mechanics and elastic-brittle theory, the newly developed Material Failure Process Analysis (MFPA) system was brought out to simulate the cracking process of masonry, which was considered as a three-phase composite of the block phase, the mortar phase and the block-mortar interfaces. The crack propagation processes simulated with this model shows good agreement with those of experimental observations by other researchers. This finding indicates that the shear fracture of masonry observed at the macroscopic level is predominantly caused by tensile damage at the mesoscopic level. Some brittle materials are so weak in tension relative to shear that tensile rather than shear fractures are generated in pure shear loading.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.69-80
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• 2014

The free distance of (n, k, l) convolutional codes has some connection with the memory length, which depends on not only l but also on k. To efficiently obtain a large memory length, we have constructed a new class of (2k, k, l) convolutional codes by (2k, k) block codes and (2, 1, l) convolutional codes, and its encoder and generation function are also given in this paper. With the help of some matrix modules, we designed a single structure Viterbi decoder with a parallel capability, obtained a unified and efficient decoding model for (2k, k, l) convolutional codes, and then give a description of the decoding process in detail. By observing the survivor path memory in a matrix viewer, and testing the role of the max module, we implemented a simulation with (2k, k, l) convolutional codes. The results show that many of them are better than conventional (2, 1, l) convolutional codes.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.10 no.8
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• pp.33-44
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• 2019

Purpose - As the scope of existing digital transformation expanded to various degrees, the Fourth Industrial Revolution came into being. In 2016, Klaus Schwab, Chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), said that the new technologies that lead the fourth industrial revolution are AI, Block chain, IoT, Big Data, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality. This technology is expected to be a full-fledged fusion of digital, biological and physical boundaries. Everything in the world is connected to the online network, and the trend of 'block chain' technology is getting attention because it is a core technology for realizing a super connective society. If the block chain is commercialized at the World Knowledge Forum (WKF), it will be a platform that can be applied to the entire industry. The block chain is rapidly evolving around the financial sector, and the impact of block chains on logistics, medical services, and public services has increased beyond the financial sector. Research design, data, and methodology - Figure analysis of data and social science analytical software of IBM SPSS AMOS 23.0 and IBM Statistics 23.0 were used for all the data researched. Data were collected from hotel employees in China from 25th March to 10th May. Results - The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the block chain characteristics of the existing hotel reservation system on the intention to use and to examine the influence of the block chain characteristics of the hotel reservation system on the intention to use, We rearranged the variables having the same or similar meaning and analyzed the effect of these factors on the intention to use the block chain characteristic of the hotel reservation system. 339 questionnaires were used for analysis. Conclusions - There are only sample hotel workers in this study, and their ages are in their 20s and 30s. In future studies, samples should be constructed in various layers and studied. In this study, the block chain characteristics are set as five variables as security, reliability, economical efficiency, availability, and diversity. Among them, Security and reliability made positive effects on the perceived usefulness. Also, security and economics did on the perceived ease. Availability and diversity did on both perceived usefulness and perceived ease. Perceived ease did on perceived usefulness. And perceived ease and perceived usefulness did on user intent. But security and economics did not on the perceived usefulness

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.207-227
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• 2011

In flexural strength design of unconfined reinforced concrete (RC) members, the concrete compressive stress-strain curve is scaled down from the uni-axial stress-strain curve such that the maximum concrete stress adopted in design is less than the uni-axial strength to account for the strain gradient effect. It has been found that the use of this smaller maximum concrete stress will underestimate the flexural strength of unconfined RC members although the safety factors for materials are taken as unity. Herein, in order to investigate the effect of strain gradient on the maximum concrete stress that can be developed in unconfined flexural RC members, several pairs of plain concrete (PC) and RC inverted T-shaped specimens were fabricated and tested under concentric and eccentric loads. From the test results, the maximum concrete stress developed in the eccentric specimens under strain gradient is determined by the modified concrete stress-strain curve obtained from the counterpart concentric specimens based on axial load and moment equilibriums. Based on that, a pair of equivalent rectangular concrete stress block parameters for the purpose of flexural strength design of unconfined RC members is determined.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.292-300
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• 2013

Nowadays, energy saving has become a hot topic and information and communication technology has become a major power consumer. In long term evolution advanced (LTE-A) networks, heterogeneous deployments of low-power nodes and conventional macrocells provide some new features, such as coverage extension, throughput enhancement, and load balancing. However, a large-scale deployment of low-power nodes brings substantial energy consumption and interference problems. In this paper, we propose a novel switching strategy (NS), which adaptively switches on or off some low-power nodes based on the instantaneous load of the system. It is compatible with the microcells' load balancing feature and can be easily implemented on the basis of existing LTE-A specifications. Moreover, we develop an analytical model for analyzing the performance of system energy consumption, block rate, throughput, and energy efficiency. The performance of NS is evaluated by comparison with existing strategies. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that NS not only has a low block rate, but also achieves a high energy efficiency.