• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.697-705
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• 2015

This paper proposes a high-speed and high-quality haze removal method based on dual dark channels. In the conventional method, the halo artifacts are suppressed by the additional transmission refinement, but the transmission refinement is computationally intensive and the quality of the haze removal is sometimes unsatisfactory because of the residual halo artifacts. In the proposed method, the transmission is estimated with the mixture of the two dark channels with different window size. By mixing the two dark channels so as to avoid the halo artifacts, the proposed method realizes a high-quality haze removal even without the transmission refinement. Experimental results demonstrate that the quality of the results by the proposed method is superior to those by the conventional method and the speed of the haze removal is about 14.2 times higher than that of the conventional method.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.1705-1710
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• 2003

A small body size of Brown Tsaiya laying duck is desirable to reduce maintenance requirements, so the body weight at 40 weeks of age (BW40) has to be maintained at its current level. Egg weight has to be maintained at around 65 g to meet market requirements. Eggshell strength at 40 weeks of age (ES40) must to be increased in order to maintain a low incidence of broken eggs. Thus, number of eggs laid up to 52 weeks of age (EN52) has to be increased without negative correlated response on ES40. A new linear genetic selection index was used: $I_g=a_0{\times}GEW40\;(g)+a_1{\times}GBW40\;(g)+a_2{\times}GES40\;(kg/cm^2)+a_3{\times}GEN52\;(eggs)$ where GEW40, GBW40, GES40 and GEN52 were the multitrait best linear unbiased prediction (MT-BLUP) animal model predictors of the breeding values respectively of egg weight and body weight at 40 weeks of age (EW40, BW40), ES40 and EN52. The coefficients $a_0$, $a_1$, $a_2$ and $a_3$ were calculated with constraints of 0.0 g, 0.0 g and $0.013kg/cm^2$ for expected genetic gains in EW40, BW40 and ES40 respectively and maximum gain in EN52. Since 1997, the drakes and the ducks were selected according to their own indexes, with this new genetic selection index. From G0 to G4, the average per generation predicted genetic responses in female duck were +0.05 g for EW40, +0.92 g for BW40, $+0.035kg/cm^2$ for ES40 and +2.13 eggs for EN52. Which represented respectively 0.07%, 0.06%, 0.67% and 1.0% of the means of the EW40, BW40, ES40 and EN52. For ES40 and EN52, it represented also respectively 16.1% and 21.6% of the additive genetic standard deviation of these traits. Thevse results indicated that selection of laying Brown Tsaiya by a restricted genetic selection index and with MT-BLUP animal model could be an efficient tool for improving the efficiency of egg production, increasing egg shell strength and egg number while holding egg weight and body weight constants.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.6427-6431
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• 2013

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most prevalent cancers in the world and deeply threatens people's health, especially in China. Techniques of early diagnosis, prevention and prediction are still being discovered, among which the approaches based on single nucleotide polymorphisms in microRNA genes (miRNA SNPs) are newly proposed and show prospective potential. In particular, the association between SNPs in miRNA196a-2 (rs11614913) and miRNA146a (rs2910164) and HCC has been investigated. However, the conclusions made were conflicting, possibly due to insufficient sample size or population stratification. Further confirmations in well-designed large samples are still required. In this study, we verified the association between these two SNPs and the susceptibility to HCC by MassARRAY assay in a 2,000 large Chinese case-control sample. Significant association between rs11614913 and HCC was confirmed. Subjects with the genotype of CT+TT or T allele in rs11614913 were more resistant to HCC (CT+TT: OR (95% CI)=0.73 (0.57-0.92), P=0.01; T allele: OR (95% CI)=0.85 (0.75-0.97), P=0.02) and HBV-related HCC (CT+TT: OR (95% CI)=0.69 (0.53-0.90), P=0.01; T allele: OR (95% CI)=0.82 (0.71-0.95), P=0.01). The affected carriers of CT or TT also tended to have lower levels of serum AFP (P=0.01). This study demonstrated a role of rs11614913 in the etiology of HCC. Further research should focus on the clinical use of this miRNA SNP, so as to facilitate conquering HCC.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.49-57
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• 2012

This paper presents a fast multiple-image-based deblurring method that decreases the computation loads in the image deblurring, enhancing the sharpness of the textures or edges of the restored images. First, two blurred images with some blurring artifacts and one noisy image including severe noises are consecutively captured under a relatively long and short exposures, respectively. To improve the processing speeds, the captured multiple images are downsampled at the ratio of two, and then a way of estimating the point spread function(PSF) based on the image or edge patches extracted from the whole images, is introduced. The method enables to effectively reduce the computation time taken in the PSF prediction. Next, the texture-enhanced image deblurring method of supplementing the ability of the texture representation degraded by the downsampling of the input images, is developed and then applied. Finally, to get the same image size as the original input images, an upsampling method of utilizing the sharp edges of the captured noisy image is applied. By using the proposed method, the processing times taken in the image deblurring, which is the main obstacle of its application to the digital cameras, can be shortened, while recovering the fine details of the textures or edge components.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.151-163
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• 2011

The LCM test is one of the most powerful and reliable methods for designing the disc cutter and for predicting the TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine) performance. It has an advantage to predict the actual load on disc cutter from the laboratory test on the real-size large rock samples, however, it also has a disadvantage to transport and/or prepare the large rock samples and to need an extra cost for experiment. Moreover it is not easy to execute the test for jointed rock mass, and sometimes the design model estimated from the test can not be applied to the real design of disc cutter. In order to break this critical point, lots of numerical studies have been performed. PFC2D can simulate crack propagation and rock fragmentation effectively, because it is useful in particle flow analysis. Consequently, in this study, the PFC2D has been adopted for numerical analysis on cutting power of disc cutter according to the different angle of joint, the different direction of joint, and the different space of joint with jointed rock mass models. From the numerical analyses, it was concluded that the bigger cutting power of disc cutter was needed for reverse cutting direction to joint rather than for forward direction, and the cutting power of disc cutter was increased with decreasing the dip angle of joint and decreasing the space of joints in reverse cutting direction. The more precise numerical model for disc cutter can be developed from comparison between the numerical results and LCM test results, and the resonable guideline is expected for prediction of TBM performance and disc cutter.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.243-250
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• 2015

An extended end-plate connection displays different behavioral properties and energy dissipation capacity based on the thickness and length of the end-plate comprising the connection in the form of a beam-to-column moment connection, the number and diameter of the high strength bolt, the gauge distance of the high strength bolt, and the size and length of the welds. Such extended end-plate is applied to beam-to-column connections in various geometric forms in the US and European regions. Currently in Korea, however, the extended end-plate beam-to-column connection is not actively applied due to the lack of proper design formulas, the evaluation of the energy dissipation capacity, and the provision of construction guidelines. Accordingly, this study was conducted to provide the basic data for the proposal of a prediction model of energy dissipation capacity by evaluating the energy dissipation capacity of unstiffened extended end-plate connections with relatively thin end plate thicknesses. To achieve this, a three-dimensional nonlinear finite element analysis has been conducted on unstiffened extended end-plate connections, with the thickness of the end plate as the set variable.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.247-253
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• 2016

Purpose: The aim of this study was to establish an anthropometric reference of the stomach for gastric cancer surgery and a modeling formula to predict stomach length. Materials and Methods: Data were retrieved for 851 patients who underwent total gastrectomy at the Seoul National University Hospital between 2008 and 2013. Clinicopathological data and measurements from a formalin-fixed specimen were reviewed. The lengths (cm) of the greater curvature (GC) and lesser curvature (LC) were measured. Anthropometric data of the stomach were compared according to age, body weight, height (cm), and body mass index. To predict stomach length, two multiple regression analyses were performed. Results: The mean lengths of the GC and LC were $22.2{\pm}3.1cm$ and $16.3{\pm}2.6cm$, respectively. The men's GC length was significantly greater than the women's ($22.4{\pm}3.1cm$ vs. $21.2{\pm}2.9cm$, P=0.003). Patients aged >70 years showed significantly longer LC than those aged <50 years ($16.9{\pm}2.9cm$ vs. $15.9{\pm}2.4cm$, P=0.002). Patients with body weights >70 kg showed significantly longer GC than those with body weights <55 kg ($23.0{\pm}2.9cm$ vs. $21.4{\pm}3.2cm$, P<0.001). In the predicted models, 4.11% of the GC was accounted for by age and weight; and 4.94% of the LC, by age, sex, height, and weight. Conclusions: Sex, age, height, and body weight were associated with the length of the LC, while sex and body weight were the only factors that were associated with the length of the GC. However, the prediction model was not sufficiently strong.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.1861-1864
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• 2016

Although early diagnosis of thyroid nodule type is very important, the diagnostic accuracy of standard tests is a challenging issue. We here aimed to find an optimal combination of factors to improve diagnostic accuracy for distinguishing malignant from benign thyroid nodules before surgery. In a prospective study from 2008 to 2012, 345 patients referred for thyroidectomy were enrolled. The sample size was split into a training set and testing set as a ratio of 7:3. The former was used for estimation and variable selection and obtaining a linear combination of factors. We utilized smoothly clipped absolute deviation (SCAD) logistic regression to achieve the sparse optimal combination of factors. To evaluate the performance of the estimated model in the testing set, a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was utilized. The mean age of the examined patients (66 male and 279 female) was $40.9{\pm}13.4years$ (range 15- 90 years). Some 54.8% of the patients (24.3% male and 75.7% female) had benign and 45.2% (14% male and 86% female) malignant thyroid nodules. In addition to maximum diameters of nodules and lobes, their volumes were considered as related factors for malignancy prediction (a total of 16 factors). However, the SCAD method estimated the coefficients of 8 factors to be zero and eliminated them from the model. Hence a sparse model which combined the effects of 8 factors to distinguish malignant from benign thyroid nodules was generated. An optimal cut off point of the ROC curve for our estimated model was obtained (p=0.44) and the area under the curve (AUC) was equal to 77% (95% CI: 68%-85%). Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive values for this model were 70%, 72%, 71% and 76%, respectively. An increase of 10 percent and a greater accuracy rate in early diagnosis of thyroid nodule type by statistical methods (SCAD and ANN methods) compared with the results of FNA testing revealed that the statistical modeling methods are helpful in disease diagnosis. In addition, the factor ranking offered by these methods is valuable in the clinical context.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.426-433
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• 2010

The H.264/AVC video coding standard performs inter prediction using variable block sizes to improve coding efficiency. Since we predict not only the motion of homogeneous regions but also the motion of non-homogeneous regions accurately using variable block sizes, we can reduce residual information effectively. However, each motion vector should be transmitted to the decoder. In low bit rate environments, motion vector information takes approximately 40% of the total bitstream. Thus, motion vector competition was proposed to reduce the amount of motion vector information. Since the size of the motion vector difference is reduced by motion vector competition, it requires only a small number of bits for motion vector information. However, we need to send the corresponding index of the best motion vector predictor for decoding. In this paper, we propose a new codeword table based on the phased-in code to encode the index of motion vector predictor efficiently. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm reduces the average bit rate by 7.24% for similar PSNR values, and it improves the average image quality by 0.36dB at similar bit rates.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2008

This paper detected the characteristics of motion vector to support efficient content -based video search of video. Traditionally, the present frame of a video was divided into blocks of equal size and BMA (block matching algorithm) was used, which predicts the motion of each block in the reference frame on the time axis. However, BMA has several restrictions and vectors obtained by BMA are sometimes different from actual motions. To solve this problem, the foil search method was applied but this method is disadvantageous in that it has to make a large volume of calculation. Thus, as an alternative, the present study extracted the Spatio-Temporal characteristics of Motion Vector Spatio-Temporal Correlations (MVSTC). As a result, we could predict motion vectors more accurately using the motion vectors of neighboring blocks. However, because there are multiple reference block vectors, such additional information should be sent to the receiving end. Thus, we need to consider how to predict the motion characteristics of each block and how to define the appropriate scope of search. Based on the proposed algorithm, we examined motion prediction techniques for motion compensation and presented results of applying the techniques.