• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.95-98
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• 2014

The baroreflex is one kind of homeostatic mechanisms to regulate acute blood pressure (BP) changes by controlling heartbeat interval (HBI). To quantify the effect of baroreflex, we suggested a new approach of analyzing Granger causality between systolic BP (SBP) and HBI. The index defined as baroreflex effectiveness (BRE) was generated by the hypothesis that more effectual baroreflex would be related to more effective Granger causal influence of SBP on HBI. Six obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) patients (apnea-hypopnea index, AHI ${\geq}5$ events/hr) and six normal subjects participated in the study. Their SBP and HBI during nocturnal sleep were obtained from a non-invasive continuous BP measurement device. While the BRE ($mean{\pm}SD$) of normal subjects was $47.0{\pm}4.0%$, OSA patients exhibited the BRE of $34.0{\pm}3.8%$. The impaired baroreflex function of OSA patients can be explained by the physiological mechanism associated with recurrent hypoxic episodes during sleep. Thus, the significantly lower BRE in OSA patients verified the availability of Granger causality analysis to evaluate baroreflex during sleep. Furthermore, the range of BRE obtained from normal subjects was not overlapped with that obtained from OSA patients. It suggests the potential of BRE as a new helpful tool for diagnosing OSA.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.335-344
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• 2003

The image compression based on discrete wavelet transform has been widely accepted in industry since it shows no block artifacts and provides a better image quality when compressed to low bits per pixel, compared to the traditional JPEG. The coefficients generated by discrete wavelet transform are quantized to reduce the number of code bits to represent them. After quantization, lossless coding processes are usually applied to make further reduction. This paper presents a new and efficient lossless coding algorithm for quantified wavelet coefficients based on the statistical properties of the coefficients. Combined with discrete wavelet transform and quantization processes, our algorithm has been implemented as an image compression chip, using 0.5${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ standard cells. The experimental results show the efficiency and performance of the resulting chip.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2003

Device characteristics of the Metal-Ferroclecric-Semiconductor FET(MFSFET) are simulated in this study. The field-dependent polarization model and the square-law FET model are employed in our simulation. C-V$_{G}$ curves generated from our MFSFET simulation exhibit the accumulation, the depletion and the inversion regions clearly. The capacitance, the subthreshold and the drain current characteristics as a function of gate bias exhibit the memory windows are 1 and 2 V, when the coercive voltages of ferroelectric are 0.5 and 1 V respectively. I$_{D}$-V$_{D}$ curves are composed of the triode and the saturation regions. The difference of saturation drain currents of the MFSFET device at the dual threshold voltages in I$_{D}$-V$_{D}$ curve is 1.5, 2.7, 4.0, and 5.7 ㎃, when the gate biases are 0, 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3V respectively. As the drain current is demonstrated after time delay, PLZT(10/30/70) thin film shows excellent reliability as well as the decrease of saturation current is about 18 % after 10 years. Our simulation model is expected to be very useful in the estimation of the behaviour of MFSFET devices.T devices.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.37-43
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• 2001

In this paper, we propose a new optical security technique using two phase masks based on interferometer. A binary random phase image is used as a reference image and the encrypted image is generated according to the phase difference between the reference image and the original image. If there is no phase difference of a same pixel position in two phase masks, interference intensity of the pixel has minimum value and if phase difference of a same pixel position in two phase masks is $\pi$, its interference intensity has maximum value. We can decrypt the original image by putting two phase masks on each of the two optical paths of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Computer simulation and the optical experiments show a good performance of the proposed optical security system.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.55-68
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• 2001

This paper presents a new ALU architecture to minimize glitching power consumption which is appeared in the conventional one with P(carry propagation)/G(carry generation) blocks. In general, A lot of glitches generated once are propagating into the next stage of circuits to make unnecessary power dissipation. Therefore, a new ALU architecture which removes the glitches at the output of P/G blocks is presented in this paper. If a lot of glitches at the output of P/G blocks are removed, then the signal transitions caused by glitches are reduced in the sum generation block and hence power consumption is also reduced. A latch is inserted into the conventional P/G blocks to remove the glitches at the output of P/G blocks. Latch enable signal can make a role in eliminating a lot of glitches at the P/G's outputs by controlling output enable time. Experimental results from HSPICE simulations with implementing 16-b ALU show 28% reduction in glitching power consumption with negligible delay penalty.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.15-30
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• 2004

In this paper, an analytical modeling for the dark and photo-current characteristics of a buried-gate short- channel GaAs MESFET is presented. The presented model shows that the increase of drain current under illumination is largely due to not the increase of photo-conductivity in the neutral region but the narrowing effect of the depletion layer width. The carrier density profile within the neutral region is derived from solving the carrier continuity equation one-dimensionally. In deriving the photo-generated current, we assume that the photo-current is compensated with the thermionic emission current at the gate-channel interface. Moreover, the two-dimensional Poisson's equation is solved by taking into account the drain-induced longitudinal field effect. In conclusion, the proposed model seems to provide a reasonable explanation for the dark and photo current characteristics in a unified manner.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.185-197
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• 2001

Recently, the design method by VHDL coding and synthesis has been used widely. As the integration ratio increases, the amount design by VHDL at a time also increases so many coding errors occur in a design. Thus, lots of time and effort is dissipated to detect those coding errors. This paper proposed a method to verify the coding errors in VHDL behavioral-level designs. As the methodology, we chose the method to detect the coding error by applying the generated set of verifying patterns and comparing the responses from the error-free case(gold unit) and the real design. Thus, we proposed an algorithm to generate the verifying pattern set for the coding errors. Verifying pattern generation is peformed for each code and the coding errors are classified as two kind: condition errors and assignment errors. To generate the patterns, VHDL design is first converted into the corresponding CDFG(Control & Data Flow Graph) and the necessary information is extracted by searching the paths in CDFG. Path searching method consists of forward searching and backward searching from the site where it is assumed that coding error occurred. The proposed algorithm was implemented with C-language. We have applied the proposed algorithm to several example VHDL behavioral-level designs. From the results, all the patterns for all the considered coding errors in each design could be generated and all the coding errors were detectable. For the time to generate the verifying patterns, all the considered designed took less than 1 ［sec］ of CPU time in Pentium-II 400MHz environments. Consequently, the verification method proposed in this paper is expected to reduce the time and effort to verify the VHDL behavioral-level designs very much.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.983-993
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• 2021

Objective: To investigate the image quality of ultralow-dose CT (ULDCT) of the chest reconstructed using a cycle-consistent generative adversarial network (CycleGAN)-based deep learning method in the evaluation of pulmonary tuberculosis. Materials and Methods: Between June 2019 and November 2019, 103 patients (mean age, 40.8 ± 13.6 years; 61 men and 42 women) with pulmonary tuberculosis were prospectively enrolled to undergo standard-dose CT (120 kVp with automated exposure control), followed immediately by ULDCT (80 kVp and 10 mAs). The images of the two successive scans were used to train the CycleGAN framework for image-to-image translation. The denoising efficacy of the CycleGAN algorithm was compared with that of hybrid and model-based iterative reconstruction. Repeated-measures analysis of variance and Wilcoxon signed-rank test were performed to compare the objective measurements and the subjective image quality scores, respectively. Results: With the optimized CycleGAN denoising model, using the ULDCT images as input, the peak signal-to-noise ratio and structural similarity index improved by 2.0 dB and 0.21, respectively. The CycleGAN-generated denoised ULDCT images typically provided satisfactory image quality for optimal visibility of anatomic structures and pathological findings, with a lower level of image noise (mean ± standard deviation [SD], 19.5 ± 3.0 Hounsfield unit [HU]) than that of the hybrid (66.3 ± 10.5 HU, p < 0.001) and a similar noise level to model-based iterative reconstruction (19.6 ± 2.6 HU, p > 0.908). The CycleGAN-generated images showed the highest contrast-to-noise ratios for the pulmonary lesions, followed by the model-based and hybrid iterative reconstruction. The mean effective radiation dose of ULDCT was 0.12 mSv with a mean 93.9% reduction compared to standard-dose CT. Conclusion: The optimized CycleGAN technique may allow the synthesis of diagnostically acceptable images from ULDCT of the chest for the evaluation of pulmonary tuberculosis.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.34 no.11
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• pp.735-742
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• 2012

This study tried to find a suitable method for enhancing the foam stability of cationic surfactants that normally generate less foam or no foam. Several trials were made to enhance the foam stability: addition of anionic surfactant, colloids and polymer. Cationic starch (CA-ST) did not form foam at all, while the foam stability of two other cationic surfactant also showed low levels; methyl triethanol ammonium methyl sulfate distearyl ester (CEQ90) for 46 sec. and Cetyl trimethyl ammonium chloride (CM29) for 31 seconds. Foam stability of cationic surfactants were significantly affected by addition of anionic surfactant, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). Foam stability of CA-ST was significantly enhanced by addition of SDS, while those of CEQ90 and CM29 were decreased. Addition of colloids ($SiO_2$, kaolin) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) enhanced foam stabilities of CEQ90 and CM29. However, CA-ST did not form foam even in the presence of colloids or PVA. Effect of simultaneous addition of colloids and anionic surfactant on foam stability of cationic surfactant showed that foam stability of cationic surfactant was more influenced by addition of anionic surfactant than colloids. Effect of simultaneous addition of PVA and anionic surfactant on the foam stability of cationic surfactant also showed that presence of anionic surfactant significantly affect the foam stability of cationic surfactant. Foam stability of CA-ST was greatly increased to 8,780 seconds by addition of SDS 0.14% and PVA 2.5%. The foam stability of CA-ST was 8 times higher than CEQ 90. This study suggested that cationic surfactants not forming foam can generate foam by addition of anionic surfactant and its stability can be additionally increased by addition of colloids and PVA. The study results showed that enhancement in foam stability of cationic surfactant was prominently affected by the concentration of anionic surfactant added.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.441-456
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• 1998

The purpose of this study was to develop a reliable and valid instrument to measure hope for cancer patients in Korea. This Hope Scale(Kim & Lee Hope Scale ; KLHS ) was developed based on not only critical universal attributes explaining both basic hope (generalized hope) and specific hope but also particular characteristics varing from culture and situation, which were revealed in a comprehensive review of the literature. Initially 60 items were generated from three sources : 36 items from the Q-sample used in the Kim's study, 1992, 21 representative items(statements) from the rest Q-population of the above study, 3 items related to the newly discovered category in the new qualitative study using 10 open ended question(death and dying) from the new qualitative study on the 20 cancer patients. At first 3 items were eliminated by the critique of the content validity experts, who were high experienced nurse, nursing professors. And then 4 items were eliminated in consideration of corrected item total correlation coefficiency, theoretical framework of this study. After that, 14 items were eliminated in comparing two or three items identified with the same meaning in each factor by this research team with factor loading and communality. This Hope Scale was finally constructed with 39 items. Psychometric evaluation was done on 492 adults(104 cancer patients, 388 adults who imagined who were cancer patients ranging from 18 to 76 years old. The results revealed high internal consistency Alpha coefficiency of .9351. Princial Component Factor Analysis with Varimax Rotation resulted in 8 factors with more than 1.0 of Eigenvalue. Referring to Eigenvalues, percent of variances(>60%), reproduced correlation matrix, and our theoretical framework, we decided the eight factors were the best1 solution to represent hope dimensions sufficiently. The eight factors were "confidence in possibility of cure", "sense of internal satisfaction", "being in communion", "meaning of life", "Korean hope perspectives", "belief in god", "self confidence", "self-worth". Among these factors, "confidence in possibility of cure", "sense of internal satisfaction", "Korean hope perspectives" were identified as different hope dimensions from those of Nowotny Hope Scale and Herth Hope Scale. There was significant negative correlation of r=-.4736 between this hope scale and Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS), and significant positive correlation of r=.3685 between this hope scale and Life Orientation Test (LOT) which indicate convergent and discriminant validity. The range of hope scores was from 71 to 244, with a mean of 171.97(SD=28.16).