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Comparison of the Survey of Teaching Demand for Distance Education Support for the 2021 and 2022 Academic Years : For D Community Colleges in Daegu (2021학년도와 2022학년도 원격교육지원에 대한 교수 수요도 조사 비교: 대구지역 D전문대학을 대상으로)

  • Park, Jeong-Kyu
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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    • v.16 no.4
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    • pp.491-497
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    • 2022
  • In this study, we tried to secure basic data to create an environment necessary for distance learning through a survey on professor demand. Among the 184 full-time faculty members of the university, 73 (39.89%) respondents in 2021 and 87 (47.28%) in 2022 were included. As a result of the research on professor demand, in the 2021 school year, 27 people (37%) were classified as LMS improvement items when checking attendance, 38 people (23.3%) were pin-mics as content development support items, and 26 people (35.6%), 33 people (45.2%) of GOM Mix and 25 people (34.2%) of the distance education support center wanted to learn video editing program as the item of video editing program they are currently using. In the 2022 school year, 27 people (31.03%) said mobile upgrade as an LMS improvement item, 52 people (59.8%) of pin-microphone as a content development support item, 33 people (37.9%), but currently using the content creation intention using a studio. As for the video editing program they are working on, 47 people (54%) of GOM Mix Pro and 23 people (26.4%) of the distance education support center want to learn content creation method. In addition, the intention to produce content using the studio for the 2021 and 2022 academic year and the desired educational topic of the distance education support center in the future appeared insignificant (p > 0.05). In this distance education support center, we are working to solve the class of LMS attendance, upgrade mobile, and plan to distribute pin microphones. We are planning to increase the usability of the studio and provide training on how to use video editing programs and how to create video content. In order for a smooth class to take place in a university distance class, the university authorities should seek ways to support the instructor so that he/she does not have difficulties in performing his/her role as a teaching designer, such as setting learning goals, organizing and organizing content, motivating learning, and establishing effective class participation plans. there is a need

Improving the Shelf Life of Pork by using a Coating Agent with Mandarin Peel Powder (귤 과피 분말을 첨가한 피막제 처리에 의한 돈육의 저장성 향상)

  • Hyeonjeong Choi;Yong-Suk Kim
    • Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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    • v.38 no.2
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    • pp.55-62
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    • 2023
  • This study aimed to investigate the effect of a coating agent on pork storage. Pork was coated with a coating agent containing sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and mandarin peel powder (M). The treatments were divided into control, a 0.1% CMC treatment, and a 0.1% CMC +5% M treatment, and pH, color, 2-thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), volatile basic nitrogen (VBN), and the number of viable cell counts were measured. In the case of redness (a), it was found that the reduction over the storage period was less in the 0.1% CMC + 5% M treatment than in the control and the 1% CMC treatment. When stored at 4℃ and 25℃, TBARS of pork tended to increase during the storage period, followed by control, 0.1% CMC treatment, and 0.1% CMC + 5% M treatment, indicating that lipid oxidation was most suppressed in pork coated with mandarin peel powder. As a result of measuring the VBN of pork stored at 4℃ and 25℃, the 0.1% CMC + 5% M treatment showed lower values than the control and 0.1% CMC treatment. When the film-coated pork was stored at 4℃, the number of viable cell counts in the 0.1% CMC +5% M treatment area was 7.13±0.96 log CFU/g on the 12th day of storage, delaying the growth of viable cell counts for approximately 3 d more than other treatments. Therefore, coating pork with a film containing CMC and mandarin peel powder has been confirmed to delay the increase in the number of viable cell counts while reducing the quality change during pork storage, which is an effective alternative to improving the storage of fresh food as an edible film.

Estimation of Rice Canopy Height Using Terrestrial Laser Scanner (레이저 스캐너를 이용한 벼 군락 초장 추정)

  • Dongwon Kwon;Wan-Gyu Sang;Sungyul Chang;Woo-jin Im;Hyeok-jin Bak;Ji-hyeon Lee;Jung-Il Cho
    • Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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    • v.25 no.4
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    • pp.387-397
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    • 2023
  • Plant height is a growth parameter that provides visible insights into the plant's growth status and has a high correlation with yield, so it is widely used in crop breeding and cultivation research. Investigation of the growth characteristics of crops such as plant height has generally been conducted directly by humans using a ruler, but with the recent development of sensing and image analysis technology, research is being attempted to digitally convert growth measurement technology to efficiently investigate crop growth. In this study, the canopy height of rice grown at various nitrogen fertilization levels was measured using a laser scanner capable of precise measurement over a wide range, and a comparative analysis was performed with the actual plant height. As a result of comparing the point cloud data collected with a laser scanner and the actual plant height, it was confirmed that the estimated plant height measured based on the average height of the top 1% points showed the highest correlation with the actual plant height (R2 = 0.93, RMSE = 2.73). Based on this, a linear regression equation was derived and used to convert the canopy height measured with a laser scanner to the actual plant height. The rice growth curve drawn by combining the actual and estimated plant height collected by various nitrogen fertilization conditions and growth period shows that the laser scanner-based canopy height measurement technology can be effectively utilized for assessing the plant height and growth of rice. In the future, 3D images derived from laser scanners are expected to be applicable to crop biomass estimation, plant shape analysis, etc., and can be used as a technology for digital conversion of conventional crop growth assessment methods.

Determining Spatial and Temporal Variations of Surface Particulate Organic Carbon (POC) using in situ Measurements and Remote Sensing Data in the Northeastern Gulf of Mexico during El $Ni\tilde{n}o$ and La $Ni\tilde{n}a$ (현장관측 및 원격탐사 자료를 이용한 북동 멕시코 만에서 El $Ni\tilde{n}o$와 La $Ni\tilde{n}a$ 기간 동안 표층 입자성 유기탄소의 시/공간적 변화 연구)

  • Son, Young-Baek;Gardner, Wilford D.
    • The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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    • v.15 no.2
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    • pp.51-61
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    • 2010
  • Surface particulate organic carbon (POC) concentration was measured in the Northeastern Gulf of Mexico on 9 cruises from November 1997 to August 2000 to investigate the seasonal and spatial variability related to synchronous remote sensing data (Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS), sea surface temperature (SST), sea surface height anomaly (SSHA), and sea surface wind (SSW)) and recorded river discharge data. Surface POC concentrations have higher values (>100 $mg/m^3$) on the inner shelf and near the Mississippi Delta, and decrease across the shelf and slope. The inter-annual variations of surface POC concentrations are relatively higher during 1997 and 1998 (El Nino) than during 1999 and 2000 (La Nina) in the study area. This phenomenon is directly related to the output of Mississippi River and other major rivers, which associated with global climate change such as ENSO events. Although highest river runoff into the northern Gulf of Mexico Coast occurs in early spring and lowest flow in late summer and fall, wide-range POC plumes are observed during the summer cruises and lower concentrations and narrow dispersion of POC during the spring and fall cruises. During the summer seasons, the river discharge remarkably decreases compared to the spring, but increasing temperature causes strong stratification of the water column and increasing buoyancy in near-surface waters. Low-density plumes containing higher POC concentrations extend out over the shelf and slope with spatial patterns and controlled by the Loop Current and eddies, which dominate offshore circulation. Although river discharge is normal or abnormal during the spring and fall seasons, increasing wind stress and decreasing temperature cause vertical mixing, with higher surface POC concentrations confined to the inner shelf.

A Study on Web-based Technology Valuation System (웹기반 지능형 기술가치평가 시스템에 관한 연구)

  • Sung, Tae-Eung;Jun, Seung-Pyo;Kim, Sang-Gook;Park, Hyun-Woo
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.23 no.1
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    • pp.23-46
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    • 2017
  • Although there have been cases of evaluating the value of specific companies or projects which have centralized on developed countries in North America and Europe from the early 2000s, the system and methodology for estimating the economic value of individual technologies or patents has been activated on and on. Of course, there exist several online systems that qualitatively evaluate the technology's grade or the patent rating of the technology to be evaluated, as in 'KTRS' of the KIBO and 'SMART 3.1' of the Korea Invention Promotion Association. However, a web-based technology valuation system, referred to as 'STAR-Value system' that calculates the quantitative values of the subject technology for various purposes such as business feasibility analysis, investment attraction, tax/litigation, etc., has been officially opened and recently spreading. In this study, we introduce the type of methodology and evaluation model, reference information supporting these theories, and how database associated are utilized, focusing various modules and frameworks embedded in STAR-Value system. In particular, there are six valuation methods, including the discounted cash flow method (DCF), which is a representative one based on the income approach that anticipates future economic income to be valued at present, and the relief-from-royalty method, which calculates the present value of royalties' where we consider the contribution of the subject technology towards the business value created as the royalty rate. We look at how models and related support information (technology life, corporate (business) financial information, discount rate, industrial technology factors, etc.) can be used and linked in a intelligent manner. Based on the classification of information such as International Patent Classification (IPC) or Korea Standard Industry Classification (KSIC) for technology to be evaluated, the STAR-Value system automatically returns meta data such as technology cycle time (TCT), sales growth rate and profitability data of similar company or industry sector, weighted average cost of capital (WACC), indices of industrial technology factors, etc., and apply adjustment factors to them, so that the result of technology value calculation has high reliability and objectivity. Furthermore, if the information on the potential market size of the target technology and the market share of the commercialization subject refers to data-driven information, or if the estimated value range of similar technologies by industry sector is provided from the evaluation cases which are already completed and accumulated in database, the STAR-Value is anticipated that it will enable to present highly accurate value range in real time by intelligently linking various support modules. Including the explanation of the various valuation models and relevant primary variables as presented in this paper, the STAR-Value system intends to utilize more systematically and in a data-driven way by supporting the optimal model selection guideline module, intelligent technology value range reasoning module, and similar company selection based market share prediction module, etc. In addition, the research on the development and intelligence of the web-based STAR-Value system is significant in that it widely spread the web-based system that can be used in the validation and application to practices of the theoretical feasibility of the technology valuation field, and it is expected that it could be utilized in various fields of technology commercialization.

Accelerometer-based Gesture Recognition for Robot Interface (로봇 인터페이스 활용을 위한 가속도 센서 기반 제스처 인식)

  • Jang, Min-Su;Cho, Yong-Suk;Kim, Jae-Hong;Sohn, Joo-Chan
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.17 no.1
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    • pp.53-69
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    • 2011
  • Vision and voice-based technologies are commonly utilized for human-robot interaction. But it is widely recognized that the performance of vision and voice-based interaction systems is deteriorated by a large margin in the real-world situations due to environmental and user variances. Human users need to be very cooperative to get reasonable performance, which significantly limits the usability of the vision and voice-based human-robot interaction technologies. As a result, touch screens are still the major medium of human-robot interaction for the real-world applications. To empower the usability of robots for various services, alternative interaction technologies should be developed to complement the problems of vision and voice-based technologies. In this paper, we propose the use of accelerometer-based gesture interface as one of the alternative technologies, because accelerometers are effective in detecting the movements of human body, while their performance is not limited by environmental contexts such as lighting conditions or camera's field-of-view. Moreover, accelerometers are widely available nowadays in many mobile devices. We tackle the problem of classifying acceleration signal patterns of 26 English alphabets, which is one of the essential repertoires for the realization of education services based on robots. Recognizing 26 English handwriting patterns based on accelerometers is a very difficult task to take over because of its large scale of pattern classes and the complexity of each pattern. The most difficult problem that has been undertaken which is similar to our problem was recognizing acceleration signal patterns of 10 handwritten digits. Most previous studies dealt with pattern sets of 8~10 simple and easily distinguishable gestures that are useful for controlling home appliances, computer applications, robots etc. Good features are essential for the success of pattern recognition. To promote the discriminative power upon complex English alphabet patterns, we extracted 'motion trajectories' out of input acceleration signal and used them as the main feature. Investigative experiments showed that classifiers based on trajectory performed 3%~5% better than those with raw features e.g. acceleration signal itself or statistical figures. To minimize the distortion of trajectories, we applied a simple but effective set of smoothing filters and band-pass filters. It is well known that acceleration patterns for the same gesture is very different among different performers. To tackle the problem, online incremental learning is applied for our system to make it adaptive to the users' distinctive motion properties. Our system is based on instance-based learning (IBL) where each training sample is memorized as a reference pattern. Brute-force incremental learning in IBL continuously accumulates reference patterns, which is a problem because it not only slows down the classification but also downgrades the recall performance. Regarding the latter phenomenon, we observed a tendency that as the number of reference patterns grows, some reference patterns contribute more to the false positive classification. Thus, we devised an algorithm for optimizing the reference pattern set based on the positive and negative contribution of each reference pattern. The algorithm is performed periodically to remove reference patterns that have a very low positive contribution or a high negative contribution. Experiments were performed on 6500 gesture patterns collected from 50 adults of 30~50 years old. Each alphabet was performed 5 times per participant using $Nintendo{(R)}$ $Wii^{TM}$ remote. Acceleration signal was sampled in 100hz on 3 axes. Mean recall rate for all the alphabets was 95.48%. Some alphabets recorded very low recall rate and exhibited very high pairwise confusion rate. Major confusion pairs are D(88%) and P(74%), I(81%) and U(75%), N(88%) and W(100%). Though W was recalled perfectly, it contributed much to the false positive classification of N. By comparison with major previous results from VTT (96% for 8 control gestures), CMU (97% for 10 control gestures) and Samsung Electronics(97% for 10 digits and a control gesture), we could find that the performance of our system is superior regarding the number of pattern classes and the complexity of patterns. Using our gesture interaction system, we conducted 2 case studies of robot-based edutainment services. The services were implemented on various robot platforms and mobile devices including $iPhone^{TM}$. The participating children exhibited improved concentration and active reaction on the service with our gesture interface. To prove the effectiveness of our gesture interface, a test was taken by the children after experiencing an English teaching service. The test result showed that those who played with the gesture interface-based robot content marked 10% better score than those with conventional teaching. We conclude that the accelerometer-based gesture interface is a promising technology for flourishing real-world robot-based services and content by complementing the limits of today's conventional interfaces e.g. touch screen, vision and voice.

Various Life Conditions of Actors of Joseon Periods in Unofficial Historical Stories (야담 문학에 나타난 조선 배우의 삶)

  • Choi, Nakyong
    • (The) Research of the performance art and culture
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    • no.23
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    • pp.281-312
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    • 2011
  • The aim of this study is to examine various life conditions of actors of Joseon periods in unofficial historical stories. Yadam Literature(Korean unofficial historical stories) had been collected Sadaebu(the past Korean nobility and Confucian intelligentsia) among the people that stories had been handed down orally. and they had been wrote them. So Yadam Literature was heterozygous between the folk culture and the ruling class. And it was mixed and adapted legends and folktales, adding literary imagination. had a decisive role to cultivating novel that owed much to prosaic inspiration during A. D. 18~19. Besides, set a high value on excellent novel itself. Yadam Literature had a verisimilitude because it described a contemporary reality as it was founded on freely prosaic inspiration. In those days, so called Suchok and Seunggwangdae had performed Uhee(a comic theatrical performance) in Joseon periods. Suchok was the lowest class of people and Seunggwangdae was performing Buddhist monk in that time. Uhee had performed three kinds of comedies. One satirized and insinuated kings. Other satirized corrupt officials, too. Another had mimic everything. It is famous at that time as a king knew repertoire. Confucian scholars very were fond of Uhee in those ages. Because they favored a criticism of Uhee's satire. They thought that it gave people good lesson or instruction. Heri Bergson said that comic and Humor included lesson. At that time, those thought were universal in the world whether east or west. At any rate, I classify six kinds of types Uhee in Yadam Literature. First, satirizing and accusing corrupt officials. Second, an actor who use a satire in order to appeal secure a government position of his lord to a king. Third, shamans and actors who use a satire in order to appeal sufferings themselves to a king. Forth, actors and performing Buddhist monks that skillfully mimic anything. Fifth, describing actor's extremely miserable life. Sixth, wit and humor of actors. The contents of Uhee were various. Korean traditional actors adeptly dealt with aspects comic of wit, satire, humor, etc. Sometimes they used changeable transition them. By doing that, a great number of people enjoyed fully the sense of freedom. Korean traditional actors were the lowest class of people. They had lived extremely miserable life. But they had been exist as actions, interactions, and relationship in society those days. they were not only open to people, but also might foster community to peoples.

Transforming the Wongaksa Bell[Buddhist Bell] to the Bosingak Bell[Court Bell]: An Example of the Debuddhismization during the Joseon Dynasty (원각사종(圓覺寺鐘)에서 보신각종(普信閣鍾)으로 -조선시대 탈불교화의 일례-)

  • Nam Dongsin
    • MISULJARYO - National Museum of Korea Art Journal
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    • v.104
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    • pp.102-142
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    • 2023
  • The Bronze Bell of Wongaksa Temple, also known as the Bosingak Bell, was produced in 1468 during the reign of King Sejo for dedication at Wongaksa Temple in the middle of the capital Hanyang in celebration of the tenth anniversary of his accession to the throne. It is currently heavily damaged and cannot be struck. This paper focuses on the man-made damage inflicted on the Bosingak Bell and explores when, why, and by whom the bell was damaged along with the historical significance of this damage. In the first section, the relevant literature is reviewed and the problems concerned, research perspective, and methodology are presented. The history of related theories is investigated focusing on the relationship between Bosingak Bell and Wongaksa Bell. The perspective that Bosingak Bell and Wongaksa Bell are the same is introduced. My discussion will be developed from this perspective. In the second section, the background to King Sejo's construction of Wongaksa Bell is examined. Specifically, the bells commissioned by the kings of the early Joseon era are divided into court bells (jojong) and Buddhist bells (beomjong). They total four court bells and three Buddhist bells. The former are the Jongnu Tower Bell commissioned by King Taejo, Donhwamun Gate Bell by King Taejong, Gwanghwamun Gate Bell by King Sejong, and Sajeongjeon Hall Bell by King Sejo. The latter are the bells of Yongmunsa, Heungcheonsa (or Jeongneungsa) and Wongaksa Temples, all of which were made during the reign of King Sejo. Sejo also made Wongaksa Bell and gave it the meaning that the monarch and the Buddha both wish to enlighten the people through the sound of the bells. In the third section, traces of the man-made damage done to Bosingak Bell are closely examined. By observing the current condition of Bosingak Bell and comparing it with the contemporaneous Heungcheongsa Bell (1462) and Bongseonsa Bell (1469), the components of Bosingak Bell that were damaged can be identified. The damaged parts are again divided into Buddhist elements and non-Buddhist elements. The former includes the reversed lotus petals on the shoulder band, four standing bodhisattvas, and the inscription of the bell composed by Choe Hang. The latter includes lists of chief supervisors (dojejo). I describe the phenomenon of deliberately damaging Buddhist elements on bells as "effacement of Buddhism," meaning Buddhist images and inscriptions are eliminated, and I note the prevailing rejection of Buddhism theory among Neo-Confucianists as its ideological root. The erasure of non-Buddhist images was probably caused by political conflicts such as Yeonsangun's purge in 1504. Since both ideological and political factors played a role in the changes made to Bosingak Bell, the damage was possibly done between the Purge of 1504 and the abdication of Yeonsangun in 1506. Chapter four traces the transformation of the Buddhist bell of Wongaksa Temple into the Bosingak court bell. Finally completed in 1468, the Wongaksa Bell only served its role as a Buddhist bell at related services for a relatively brief period of 36 years (until 1504). Wongaksa Temple was closed down and the bell lost its Buddhist function. In 1536, it was moved from Wongaksa Temple to Namdaemun Gate, where it remained silent for the next 90 years until it was struck again in November 1594. However, after the destruction of the Jongnu Bell in a fire during the Japanese Invasions of Korea (1592-1598), the Buddhist bell from Wongaksa Temple became a court bell. The Wongaksa Temple bell was relocated to Jongnu Tower in 1619, traveling through Myeongdong Pass. From then on, as the official Jongnu Bell (later renamed Bosingak Bell), it was regularly rung at dawn and dusk every day for nearly 300 years until 1908, when Japanese authorities halted the ritual. The transformation of the Wongaksa Bell (a Buddhist bell) to Bosingak Bell (a court bell) means that the voice of the Buddha was changed to the voice of the king. The concept of "effacement of Buddhism," evident in the transformation of Wongaksa Bell to Bosingak Bell, was practiced widely on almost every manifestation of Buddhism throughout the Joseon period. In short, the damage evident in Bosingak Bell underscores the debuddhismization in Korean society during the Joseon Dynasty.

Characteristics and Yield of Recommended Cultivars by Imported Forage Crop Regional Yield Trials in 2002 III. Mid-late Maturing, Good Quality, and High Yield of Forage Corn Hybrid "DK 7545", “Garst 8285” and “GW 737” (2002년 사료작물 수입적응성 인증품종의 생육특성 및 수양성 III. 중만숙 양질 다수성 사료작물 옥수수 교잡종 “DK 7545”, “Garst 8285” 및 “GW 737”)

  • Sung, B.R.;Choi, G.J.;Kim, K.Y.;Lim, K.B.;Park, K.J.
    • Journal of The Korean Society of Grassland and Forage Science
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    • v.22 no.4
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    • pp.259-264
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    • 2002
  • DK 754S, a forage corn hybrid is bred by Dekalb plant Genetics Co.. Garst 8255 by Garst Seeds Co., and GW 737 by Crosbyton Co. in US, respectively. These have been tested in Suwon and Chonan for 3 years to test their regional yield trial. In result, we were able to confirm the excellence of above cultivars and these were selected as new recommended cultivars April of 2002 by NACF. The characteristics of these cultivars are as follows ; 1. DK 7545 a. This cultivar is mid-late maturing, high quality, high yielding forage corn hybrid. Its mean tasseling date is the 11th of July. It takes 78 days from emergence to tasseling date, which is almost same with Kwanganok. The culm length and the ear height are 231 cm and 127 cm. It is relatively strong to lodging. b. The color of ear is yellow, the number of ear row is nineteen. DK 7545 shows strength to H maydis and MBSDV has occurred between 0% and 4.1% in Chonan test area but it still does not affect yielding at all. It is relatively resistant to corn borer and its stay green is almost same level comparing to a check hybrid, Kwanganok. c. Dry matter yield of this cultivar is 19.6 tons, TDN is 13.4 tons per a ha, therefore these hybrids are increased by from 6 to 9% comparing to Kwanganok. The percent ear among total dry matters yield is 43.7%. 2. Garst 8255 a. This hybrid is mid-late maturing, high quality, high yielding forage corn like as Kwanganok. Its the mean tasseling date and the period from emergence to tasseling date are almost same with a check hybrid, Kwanganok. The Culm length and the ear height are 259 cm, and 146 cm which are tall. It resists to lodging and shows excellence of stay green. b. Garst 8285 resists to H maydis, and MBSDV, and corn borer as much as Kwanganok has. c. Dry matter yield of this cultivar is 21,735 kg. TDN is 14,627 kg per a ha, therefore this is increased by 21%, 16%, respectively, comparing to a check hybrid, Kwanganok. The percent ear among total dry matters yield is 44.2%. 3. GW 737 a. This hybrid is mid-late maturing, high quality, high yielding forage com hybrid like as Kwanganok. Its mean tasseling date is 13th of July which is 2 days late comparing with a check hybrid, Kwanganok and the period from emergence to tasseling date is 80 days. b. The culm length and the ear height are 274 cm and 150 cm, which are tall. It resists to lodging moderately and shows excellence of stay green. c. GW 737 resists to H maydis and MBSDV very well, corn borer moderately resistance. d. Dry matter yield of this cultivar is 18,025kg, TDN 15,164kg per a ha, therefore this hybrid remarkably increased by 26%, 20%, respectively, comparing to a check hybrid, Kwanganok.

Memory Organization for a Fuzzy Controller.

  • Jee, K.D.S.;Poluzzi, R.;Russo, B.
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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    • 1993.06a
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    • pp.1041-1043
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    • 1993
  • Fuzzy logic based Control Theory has gained much interest in the industrial world, thanks to its ability to formalize and solve in a very natural way many problems that are very difficult to quantify at an analytical level. This paper shows a solution for treating membership function inside hardware circuits. The proposed hardware structure optimizes the memoried size by using particular form of the vectorial representation. The process of memorizing fuzzy sets, i.e. their membership function, has always been one of the more problematic issues for the hardware implementation, due to the quite large memory space that is needed. To simplify such an implementation, it is commonly [1,2,8,9,10,11] used to limit the membership functions either to those having triangular or trapezoidal shape, or pre-definite shape. These kinds of functions are able to cover a large spectrum of applications with a limited usage of memory, since they can be memorized by specifying very few parameters ( ight, base, critical points, etc.). This however results in a loss of computational power due to computation on the medium points. A solution to this problem is obtained by discretizing the universe of discourse U, i.e. by fixing a finite number of points and memorizing the value of the membership functions on such points [3,10,14,15]. Such a solution provides a satisfying computational speed, a very high precision of definitions and gives the users the opportunity to choose membership functions of any shape. However, a significant memory waste can as well be registered. It is indeed possible that for each of the given fuzzy sets many elements of the universe of discourse have a membership value equal to zero. It has also been noticed that almost in all cases common points among fuzzy sets, i.e. points with non null membership values are very few. More specifically, in many applications, for each element u of U, there exists at most three fuzzy sets for which the membership value is ot null [3,5,6,7,12,13]. Our proposal is based on such hypotheses. Moreover, we use a technique that even though it does not restrict the shapes of membership functions, it reduces strongly the computational time for the membership values and optimizes the function memorization. In figure 1 it is represented a term set whose characteristics are common for fuzzy controllers and to which we will refer in the following. The above term set has a universe of discourse with 128 elements (so to have a good resolution), 8 fuzzy sets that describe the term set, 32 levels of discretization for the membership values. Clearly, the number of bits necessary for the given specifications are 5 for 32 truth levels, 3 for 8 membership functions and 7 for 128 levels of resolution. The memory depth is given by the dimension of the universe of the discourse (128 in our case) and it will be represented by the memory rows. The length of a world of memory is defined by: Length = nem (dm(m)+dm(fm) Where: fm is the maximum number of non null values in every element of the universe of the discourse, dm(m) is the dimension of the values of the membership function m, dm(fm) is the dimension of the word to represent the index of the highest membership function. In our case then Length=24. The memory dimension is therefore 128*24 bits. If we had chosen to memorize all values of the membership functions we would have needed to memorize on each memory row the membership value of each element. Fuzzy sets word dimension is 8*5 bits. Therefore, the dimension of the memory would have been 128*40 bits. Coherently with our hypothesis, in fig. 1 each element of universe of the discourse has a non null membership value on at most three fuzzy sets. Focusing on the elements 32,64,96 of the universe of discourse, they will be memorized as follows: The computation of the rule weights is done by comparing those bits that represent the index of the membership function, with the word of the program memor . The output bus of the Program Memory (μCOD), is given as input a comparator (Combinatory Net). If the index is equal to the bus value then one of the non null weight derives from the rule and it is produced as output, otherwise the output is zero (fig. 2). It is clear, that the memory dimension of the antecedent is in this way reduced since only non null values are memorized. Moreover, the time performance of the system is equivalent to the performance of a system using vectorial memorization of all weights. The dimensioning of the word is influenced by some parameters of the input variable. The most important parameter is the maximum number membership functions (nfm) having a non null value in each element of the universe of discourse. From our study in the field of fuzzy system, we see that typically nfm 3 and there are at most 16 membership function. At any rate, such a value can be increased up to the physical dimensional limit of the antecedent memory. A less important role n the optimization process of the word dimension is played by the number of membership functions defined for each linguistic term. The table below shows the request word dimension as a function of such parameters and compares our proposed method with the method of vectorial memorization[10]. Summing up, the characteristics of our method are: Users are not restricted to membership functions with specific shapes. The number of the fuzzy sets and the resolution of the vertical axis have a very small influence in increasing memory space. Weight computations are done by combinatorial network and therefore the time performance of the system is equivalent to the one of the vectorial method. The number of non null membership values on any element of the universe of discourse is limited. Such a constraint is usually non very restrictive since many controllers obtain a good precision with only three non null weights. The method here briefly described has been adopted by our group in the design of an optimized version of the coprocessor described in [10].

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