• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.176-184
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• 2019

Objective: This study aims to characterize airborne radon and thoron levels ($Bq/m^3$) generated from working environments in three subway stations in Seoul. Method: A radon and thoron detector (EQF3220) was used to monitor real-time airborne radon and thoron levels ($Bq/m^3$) and their daughters ($Bq/m^3$) every two hours. They were monitored not only in the driver's cabin of seven circulation lines, but also three offices, platforms, and water pump reservoirs in the three stations. Results: The average levels of radon and thoron were $67.9Bq/m^3$ (range; $7.2-619.4Bq/m^3$) and $44.4Bq/m^3$ (range; $4.3-819.2Bq/m^3$), respectively. Notably, higher than legal airborne radon levels ($600Bq/m^3$) were frequently monitored in the driver's cabin of seven circulation lines. Airborne radon levels monitored in the platforms and administrative offices were found to be over $100Bq/m^3$. The average equilibrium factors (F) were 0.12 and 0.06, respectively. The percentages detected were found to be 84.9 for radon and 72.4 for thoron, respectively. Conclusions: Significant airborne radon and thoron levels were frequently found to be generated in subway facilities including water reservoirs, platforms and driver's cabins. Further study is necessary to thoroughly investigate airborne radon and thoron in all subway stations and to devise proper measures.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.361-368
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• 2022

The purpose of this study was to develop a hand rehabilitation training system for hemiplegic patients. We also tried to find out five hand postures (WF: Wrist Flexion, WE: Wrist Extension, BG: Ball Grip, HG: Hook Grip, RE: Rest) in real-time using multi-channel EMG-based deep learning. We performed a pre-processing method that converts to Spider Chart image data for the classification of hand movement from five test subjects (total 1,500 data sets) using Convolution Neural Networks (CNN) deep learning with an 8-channel armband. As a result of this study, the recognition accuracy was 92% for WF, 94% for WE, 76% for BG, 82% for HG, and 88% for RE. Also, ten physical therapists participated for the usability evaluation. The questionnaire consisted of 7 items of acceptance, interest, and satisfaction, and the mean and standard deviation were calculated by dividing each into a 5-point scale. As a result, high scores were obtained in immersion and interest in game (4.6±0.43), convenience of the device (4.9±0.30), and satisfaction after treatment (4.1±0.48). On the other hand, Conformity of intention for treatment (3.90±0.49) was relatively low. This is thought to be because the game play may be difficult depending on the degree of spasticity of the hemiplegic patient, and compensation may occur in patient with weakened target muscles. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a rehabilitation program suitable for the degree of disability of the patient.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.519-526
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• 2022

Electronic personal dosimeter (EPD) provide real time monitoring and a direct indication of the accumulated dose or dose rate in terms of personal dose. Most EPD do not perform well in low energy photon radiation fields present in medical radiation environments. It has poor responsibility and large error rate for low energy photon radiation of medical radiation environments. This study evaluated to optimal additional filtration for EPD using silicon PIN photodiode detector form 40 to 120 kVp range in medical radiation environments. From 40 to 80 kVp energy range, Al 0.2 mm and Sn 1.0 mm overlapped filtration showed good responsibility to dose rate and from 80 kVp to 120 kVp energy range, Al 0.2 mm and Sn 1.6 mm overlapped filtration showed good responsibility to dose rate.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.56-61
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• 2024

The quality of the display can be managed by effectively managing the temperature generated by the panel during use. Conventional display panels rely on an external reference resistor for temperature monitoring. However, this approach is easily affected by external factors such as temperature variations from the driving circuit and chips. These variations reduce reliability, causing complicated mounting owing to the external chip, and cannot monitor the individual pixel temperatures. However, this issue can be simply and efficiently addressed by integrating temperature sensors during the display panel manufacturing process. In this study, we fabricated and analyzed a temperature sensor integrated into an a-IGZO (amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide) TFT array that was to precisely monitor temperature and prevent the deterioration of OLED display pixels. The temperature sensor was positioned on top of the oxide TFT. Simultaneously, it worked as a light shield layer, contributing to the reliability of the oxide. The characteristics of the array with integrated temperature sensors were measured and analyzed while adjusting the temperature in real-time. By integrating a temperature sensor into the TFT array, monitoring the temperature of the display became easier and more accurate. This study could contribute to managing the lifetime of the display.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.117-126
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• 2008

In this paper, it is presented a digital image processing method and the program (Visual C++) to determine the shape of the suspension bridge. To investigate the precision of this method, a suspension bridge is divided into 5, 13 and 19 images, respectively, by using the 6.3M pixels digital camera with 300mm zoom lens. Obtained results of the Kwang-Ahn Grand Bridge by using this method are fairly close to the real precision surveyed data. The accuracy is more improved by increasing the number of divided images of the structure. The total cost, man power and time of field survey by this method presented in this study could be much more reduced and the developed program could be applied with little modification for other structures like cable-stayed bridges, if lens compensation algorithms and program access capabilities are improved.

• Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.58-72
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• 2000

This study was an attempt to encourage the development of a rehabilitation delivery system and programs as a substitute service for hospitalization on the case of car accident patients, such as hospital based home health care nursing services. Various substitute services for hospitalization are required to curtail the length of stay for inpatients who were hospitalized with car accident compensation insurance. It focused on developing an estimation an early discharge day for car accident inpatients based on detailed statements of treatment for 111 inpatients who were hospitalized at the General Hospital in 1997. This study had four specific purposes as follows. First. to find out the utilization of medical services. Second, to estimate the time of early discharge and income increasing effect based on early discharge for those patients. Third, to identify the factors affecting total medical expenditure and the length of stay for those inpatients. Forth, to figure out the need of utilizing home health care nursing service for accident patients. In order to analyze the length of stay and medical expenditure for inpatients who were hospitalized due to car accidents, the authors conducted micro- and macro-analysis of medical and medical expenditure records. Micro-analysis was done by nominal group discussion of 4 expertise with the critical criteria, such as a decrease in the amount of treatment after surgery, treatments, tests, drugs and changes in the test consistency, drug methods, vital signs, start of ROM exercise, doctor's order, patient's outside visiting ability, and stable conditions. In addition to identifying variables affecting medical expenditure, and the length of stay and income effect due to early discharge day, the data was analyzed with a multiple regression analysis and linear regression analysis model by SPSS-PC for windows and Excell program. Results of this study were as follows. First. the mean length of stay was 50.3 days. whereas the mean length of stay due to early discharge was 34.3 days at the hospital. The estimation of time of early discharge depended on the length of stay. The longer the length of stay, the longer the length of time of early discharge : for instance a length of stay under 10 days was estimated as correlating to a mean length of stay of 6.6 days and early discharge of 6.5. The mean length of stay was 217.4 days and the time of early discharge was 110.1 respectively. The mean medical expenditure per day was found to be 169.085 Won and the mean medical expenditure per day showed negative linear trends according to the length of stay at the hospital. The estimation results of the income effect due to being discharged 16 days early was around 2,244,000 won per bed. However. this sum does not represent the real benefits resulting from early discharge, but rather the income increasing amount without considering medical prime cost in the general hospital. Therefore, further analysis is required on the cost containments and benefits as turn over rate per bed as the medical prime costs. The length of stay was most significant and was positive to the total medical expenditure, as expected. Surgery and patient's residential area was also an important variable in explaining medical expenditure. The level of complications was the most significant variable in explaining the length of stay. There was a high level for need a home health care nursing service which further supports early discharge for accident patients. In addition, when the patient was discharged. they needed follow up care for complications suffered during the car accident. $86.8\%$ of discharged patients responded that they needed home health services after early discharge. From these research findings, the following suggestions have been drawn. Strategies on a health care delivery system must be developed in order to focus on the consumer's needs and being planned for 21 century health policy in Korea. Community based intermediate facilities or home health care should be developed for rehabilitation services as a substitute for hospitalization in order to shorten the length of stay would be. A hospital based home health care nursing service. it would be available immediately to utilize by patients who want rehabilitation services as a substitute for hospitalization with the cooperation of car insurance companies.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.44 no.2 s.314
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• pp.1-11
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• 2007

H.264/AVC uses variable block sizes to achieve significant coding gain. It has 7 different coding modes having different motion compensation block sizes in Inter slice, and 2 different intra prediction modes in Intra slice. This fine-tuned new coding feature has achieved far more significant coding gain compared with previous video coding standards. However, extremely high computational complexity is required when rate-distortion optimization (RDO) algorithm is used. This computational complexity is a major problem in implementing real-time H.264/AVC encoder on computationally constrained devices. Therefore, there is a clear need for complexity reduction algorithm of H.264/AVC such as fast mode decision. In this paper, we propose a fast mode decision with early $P8\times8$ mode rejection based on block size activity using large block history map (LBHM). Simulation results show that without any meaningful degradation, the proposed method reduces whole encoding time on average by 53%. Also the hybrid usage of the proposed method and the early SKIP mode decision in H.264/AVC reference model reduces whole encoding time by 63% on average.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.43-51
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• 2010

Attenuation coefficients of medical ultrasound not only reflect the pathological information of tissues scanned but also provide the quantitative information to compensate the decay of backscattered signals for other medical ultrasound parameters. Based on the frequency-selective attenuation property of human tissues, attenuation estimation methods in spectral domain have difficulties for real-time implementation due to the complexicity while estimation methods in time domain do not achieve the compensation for the diffraction effect effectively. In this paper, we propose the modified VSA method, which compensates the diffraction with reference phantom in time domain, using adaptive bandpass filters with decreasing center frequencies along depths. The adaptive bandpass filtering technique minimizes the distortion of relative echogenicity of wideband transmit pulses and maximizes the signal-to-noise ratio due to the random scattering, especially at deeper depths. Since the filtering center frequencies change according to the accumulated attenuation, the proposed algorithm improves estimation accuracy and precision comparing to the fixed filtering method. Computer simulation and experimental results using tissue-mimicking phantoms demonstrate that the distortion of relative echogenicity is decreased at deeper depths, and the accuracy of attenuation estimation is improved by 5.1% and the standard deviation is decreased by 46.9% for the entire scan depth.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.8-13
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• 2013

Persons with sensorineural hearing impairment have troubles in hearing at noisy environments because of their deteriorated hearing levels and low-spectral resolution of the auditory system and therefore, they use hearing aids to compensate weakened hearing abilities. Various algorithms for hearing loss compensation and environmental noise reduction have been implemented in the hearing aid; however, the performance of these algorithms vary in accordance with external sound situations and therefore, it is important to tune the operation of the hearing aid appropriately in accordance with a wide variety of sound situations. In this study, a sound classification algorithm that can be applied to the hearing aid was suggested. The proposed algorithm can classify the different types of speech situations into four categories: 1) speech-only, 2) noise-only, 3) speech-in-noise, and 4) music-only. The proposed classification algorithm consists of two sub-parts: a feature extractor and a speech situation classifier. The former extracts seven characteristic features - short time energy and zero crossing rate in the time domain; spectral centroid, spectral flux and spectral roll-off in the frequency domain; mel frequency cepstral coefficients and power values of mel bands - from the recent input signals of two microphones, and the latter classifies the current speech situation. The experimental results showed that the proposed algorithm could classify the kinds of speech situations with an accuracy of over 94.4%. Based on these results, we believe that the proposed algorithm can be applied to the hearing aid to improve speech intelligibility in noisy environments.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.211-221
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• 2009

With recent trends of super-tallness, atypical plan shapes and zoning constructions in high-rise buildings, a structural stability of the building under construction is arising as a key issue for design and construction plan. To ensure the structural stability under construction, the differential column shortening of vertical members, the lateral displacement of tower frames, and differential settlement of raft foundation by unbalanced distributions of a tower self-weight before the completion of a lateral load resisting system should be checked by construction sequence analysis, which should be performed by systematic combinations with structural health monitoring, construction compensation program, and construction panning. This paper presents the scheme of zone-based construction sequence analysis by using the existing commercial analysis program, to check the stability of high-rise building under construction. This scheme is applied to 3-dimensional structural analysis for a real high-rise building under construction. The analysis includes real construction zoning plans and schedules as well as creep and shrinkage effects and time-dependent properties of concrete. The simplified construction sequence and assumed material properties were continuously updated with the change on construction schedule and correlations with in-situ measurement data.