• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.148-154
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• 2022

Background: Bus driving is a mentally demanding activity that requires prolonged attention to ensure safety. The aim of the study was to assess mental fatigue caused by driving a public bus and to find a profile of workers at higher risk. Methods: We evaluated changes of critical flicker fusion (CFF) (index of central arousal) and heart rate variability (HRV) (index of autonomic balance) in a 6-hour driving shift on a real route, in 31 professional bus drivers, and we tested the influence of personal factors such as sleep quality, BMI, and age. Paired t-test was used to test differences of CFF and HRV between both initial and final phase of driving, while multiple linear regression tested the influence of personal variables on the indexes of mental fatigue. Results: Results showed that CFF significantly decreased after 6 hours of bus driving (41.91 Hz, sd 3.31 vs. 41.15 Hz, sd 3.15; p = 0.041), and heart rate significantly decreased in the final phase of driving, with respect to the initial phase (85 vs. 78 bpm, p = 0.027). Increasing age (beta = -0.729, p = 0.022), risk of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (beta = -0.530, p = 0.04), and diurnal sleepiness (beta = -0.406, p = 0.017) showed a significant effect on influencing mental fatigue. Conclusion: Elderly drivers at higher risk of sleep disorders are more prone to mental fatigue, when exposed to driving activity. Monitoring indexes of central arousal and autonomic balance, coupled with the use of structured questionnaires can represent a useful strategy to detect profile of workers at higher risk of mental fatigue in such duty.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.85-92
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• 2023

Background: Presenteeism is closely related to work performance, work quality and quantity, and productivity at work. According to the job demand-control-support model, job demand, job control, and support play important roles in presenteeism. The present study investigated job characteristics profiles based on the job demand-control-support model and identify the association between job characteristics profiles and presenteeism. Methods: This secondary data analysis used the Sixth Korean Working Condition Survey, a nationwide cross-sectional dataset. The study included 25,361 Korean wage workers employed in the workplace with two or more workers. Participants were classified into four job characteristics profiles based on the job demand-control-support model, using latent profile analysis, and logistic regression was performed to examine the association between study variables. Results: Overall, 11.0 % of study participants reported experience of presenteeism in the past 12 months. Age, sex, location, monthly income, shift work, work hours, health problems, and sleep disturbances were significantly associated with presenteeism. The rate of presenteeism was the highest in the passive isolate group. The passive collective, active collective, and low-stain collective groups had a 23.0%, 21.0%, and 29.0% lower likelihood of experiencing presenteeism, respectively, than the passive isolate group. Conclusions: The job demand-control-support profiles and the risk of presenteeism were significantly associated. The most significant group that lowered the experience of presenteeism was the low-strain collective group, which had a low level of demand and high levels of control and support. Therefore, we need a policy to reduce job demand and increase job control and support at the organizational and national levels.

• Journal of Software Assessment and Valuation
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.71-78
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• 2019

Lasers for optical broadband communication systems should have excellent frequency selectivity and modal stability. DFB lasers have low lasing frequency shift during high speed current modulation. In this paper, we have developed a simulation software and analysed beam profiles of a lasing mode in longitudinal direction of an 1.55um DFB laser with two mirrors and without anti-reflection coatings, that have both an index- and gain-gratings. As the phases of the index and gain gratings on the mirror faces are varied, the beam profiles |R(z)| and |S(z)| of the lasing mode with the emitted power ratio P_l/p_r are analysed and examined. In order to reduce the threshold current of a lasing mode and enhance the frequency stability, κL should be greater than 8, regardless of the grating phases on the mirror faces.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.14-20
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• 2001

The Langmuir adsorption isotherms of the under-potentially deposited hydrogen (UPD H) and the over-potentially deposited hydrogen (OPD H) at the single crystal Pt(100)/0.5 M $H_2SO_4$ and 0.5 M LiOH aqueous electrolyte interfaces have been studied using the phase-shift method. The phase-shift profile $({-\varphi}\;vs.\;E)$ for the optimum intermediate frequency can be used as a useful method to estimate the Langmuir adsorption isotherm $(\theta\;vs.\;E)$ at the interfaces. The equilibrium constant (K) for the OPD H and the standard free energy $({\Delta}G_{ads})$ of the OPD H at the Pt(100)/0.5M $H_2SO_4$ aqueous electrolyte interface are $1.5\times10^{-4}$ and 21.8 kJ/mol, respectively. At the Pt(100)/0.5 LiOH aqueous electrolyte interface, K transits from 1.9(UPD H) to $6.8\times10^{-6}$(OPD H) depending on the cathode potential (E) and vice versa. Similarly, ${\Delta}G_{ads}$ transits -1.6 kJ/mol (UPD H) to 29.5 kJ/mol (OPD H) depending on E and vice versa. The transition of K and ${\Delta}G_{ads}$ is attributed to the two distinct adsorption sites of the UPD H and OPD H on the Pt(100) surface. The UPD H and the OPD H at the Pt(100) interfaces are the independent processes depending on the H adsorption sites rather than the sequential processes for the cathodic $H_2$ evolution reactions.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.144-149
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• 1999

The two distinct adsorption sites and transition between the under and over-potentially deposited hydrogen (UPD H and OPD H) on the polycrystalline iridium (poly-Ir) surface in the 0.2 M LiOH electrolyte have been studied using the phase-shift method. At the forward and backward scans, the UPD H peak occurs on the cyclic voltam-mogram. The transition region on the phase-shift profile or the Langmuir adsorption isotherm occurs at ca. -0.80 to -0.95 V vs. SCE. At the transition region (-0.80 to -0.95 V vs. SCE), the equilibrium constant (K) for H adsorption transits from $7.9\times10^{-2}\;to\;1.5\times10^{-4}$ and vice versa. Similarly, the standard free energy $({\Delta}G_{ads})$ of H adsorption transits from 6.3 to 21.8kJ/mol and vice versa. The UPD H and OPD H on the poly-Ir surface act as two distinguishable electroadsorbed H species. Both the UPD H peak and the transition region are attributed to the two distinct adsorption sites of the UPD H and OPD H on the poly-Ir surface.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.213-217
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• 1999

The electrochemical characteristics of two distinct adsorption sites of H at the polycrystalline Pt/0.2 M LiOH aqueous electrolyte interface have been studied using the phase-shift method. At the forward and backward scans, the under-potentially deposited H (WD H) peak occurs on the cyclic voltammogram. The transition region on the phase-shift profile or the Langmuir adsorption isotherm occurs at ca. -0.66 to -0.96 V vs. SCE. At the transition region (ca. -0.66 to -0.96 V vs. SCE), the equilibrium constant (K) for H adsorption transits from 18.5 to $4.0\times10^{-5}$ and vice versa. Similarly, the standard free energy $({\Delta}G_{ads})$ of H adsorption transits from -7.2 to 25.1kJ/mol and vice versa. The under and over-potentially deposited H (UPD H and OPD H) on the poly-Pt surface act as two distinguishable electroadsorbed H species. An exothermic reaction occurs at the UPD H range. Both the UPD H peak and the transition region are attributed to the two distinct adsorption sites of the UPD H and OPD H on the poly-Pt surface.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.131-142
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• 2002

The Langmuir adsorption isotherms of the under-potentially deposited hydrogen (UPD H) and the over-potentially deposited hydrogen (OPD H) at the poly-Pt/0.5M $H_2SO_4$ and 0.5 M LiOH aqueous electrolyte interfaces have been studied using cyclic voltammetric and ac impedance techniques. The behavior of the phase shift $(0^{\circ}{\leq}{-\phi}{\leq}90^{\circ})$ for the optimum intermediate frequency corresponds well to that of the fractional surface coverage $(1{\geq}{\theta}{\geq}0)$ at the interfaces. The phase-shift method, i.e., the phase-shift profile $({-\phi}\;vs.\;E)$ for the optimum intermediate frequency, can be used as a new electrochemical method to determine the Langmuir adsorption isotherms $({\theta}\;vs.\;E)$ of the UPD H and the OPD H for the cathodic $H_2$ evolution reactions at the interfaces. At the poly-Pt/0.5M $H_2SO_4$ aqueous electrolyte interface, the equilibrium constant (K) and the standard free energy $({\Delta}G_{ads})$ of the OPD H are $2.1\times10^{-4}$ and 21.0kJ/mol, respectively. At the poly-Pt/0.5M LiOH aqueous electrolyte interface, K transits from 2.7(UPD H) to $6.2\times10^{-6}$ (OPD H) depending on the cathode potential (E) and vice versa. Similarly, ${\Delta}G_{ads}$ transits from -2.5kJ/mol (UPD H) to 29.7kJ/mol (OPD H) depending on I and vice versa. The transition of K and ${\Delta}G_{ads}$ is attributed to the two distinct adsorption sites of the UPD H and the OPD H on the poly-Pt surface. The UPD H and the OPD H on the poly-Pt surface are the independent processes depending on the H adsorption sites themselves rather than the sequential processes for the cathodic $H_2$ evolution reactions. The criterion of the UPD H and the OPD H is the H adsorption sites and processes rather than the $H_2$ evolution reactions and potentials. The poly-Pt wire electrode is more efficient and useful than the Pt(100) disc electrode for the cathodic $H_2$ evolution reactions in the aqueous electrolytes. The phase-shift method is well complementary to the thermodynamic method rather than conflicting.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.63-70
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• 2012

In this paper an extension to an original active shape model(ASM) for facial feature extraction is presented. The original ASM suffers from poor shape alignment by aligning the shape model to a new instant of the object in a given image using a simple similarity transformation. It exploits only informations such as scale, rotation and shift in horizontal and vertical directions, which does not cope effectively with the complex pose variation. To solve the problem, new shape alignment with 6 degrees of freedom is derived, which corresponds to an affine transformation. Another extension is to speed up the calculation of the Mahalanobis distance for 2-D profiles by trimming the profile covariance matrices. Extensive experiment is conducted with several images of varying poses to check the performance of the proposed method to segment the human faces.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.25-39
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• 1994

To measure the velocity of heart wall and local flow transctaneously in blood vessels, we have developed a single channel 3.1 MHz pulsed ultrasonic Doppler velocity meter. Ultrasound pluse width and repetition frequency (PRF) used in the velocity meter is 1 ${\mu}$sec 6kHz reapectively, and the Doppler shift of the backscattered echo signal is sensed in a phase detector by coherent demodulation method. From the output of the phase detector, the Doppler signal corresponding to the mean velocity of acoustic wave scatterers over a small region is obtained by using a range gate, sample holder and band-pass filter. Mean frequency of Doppler signal is estimated by zero-crossing counter and the instantaneous velocity of scatters is displayed as a function of time. It is possible to estimate velocity profile, volume flow and flow acceleration of vessels in man if the number of channels and range resolution in increased.

• Korea-Australia Rheology Journal
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.93-100
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• 2000

The interactions between methylated $\beta$-cyclodextrin (CD) and hydrophobically modified alkali-soluble associative polymers (HASE) were examined by a rheological technique. The effect of "capping" of hydrophobes by methylated $\beta$-cyclodextrin on the viscosity and modulus was evaluated. Model HASE polymers with $C_1$to $C_{20}$ alkyl hydrophobic groups ethoxylated with~10 moles of ethylene-oxide (EO 10) and at concentrations up to 3 wt% were examined. With the addition of methylated $\beta$-CD, the steady shear viscosity profiles shift from a Newtonian profile to one that display a shear-thinning characteristic. Significant "capping" of the hydrophobes occurs for HASE polymers with $C_{l2}$, $C_{16}$ and $C_{20}$ hydrophobes as reflected by the large reduction in the viscosity. However, the steady shear viscosity remains constant when the concentration of $\beta$-CD exceeds 1 wt%, suggesting that $\beta$-CD is not able to fully encapsulate the hydrophobes of the HASE polymer. The temperature variation plots indicate that the activation energy of the HASE-EO10-$C_{20}$ system and $\beta$-CD is dependent on the magnitude of the applied shear stress. These results further reinforce the hypothesis that $\beta$-CD is not able to completely remove all the hydrophobic associations.phobic associations.