• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.12 no.7
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• pp.303-314
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• 2023

Voice conversion, a technology that allows an individual's speech data to be regenerated with the acoustic properties(tone, cadence, gender) of another, has countless applications in education, communication, and entertainment. This paper proposes an approach based on the StarGAN-VC model that generates realistic-sounding speech without requiring parallel utterances. To overcome the constraints of the existing StarGAN-VC model that utilizes one-hot vectors of original and target speaker information, this paper extracts feature vectors of target speakers using a pre-trained version of Rawnet3. This results in a latent space where voice conversion can be performed without direct speaker-to-speaker mappings, enabling an any-to-any structure. In addition to the loss terms used in the original StarGAN-VC model, Wasserstein distance is used as a loss term to ensure that generated voice segments match the acoustic properties of the target voice. Two Time-Scale Update Rule (TTUR) is also used to facilitate stable training. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms previous methods, including the StarGAN-VC network on which it was based.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 1993.06a
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• pp.975-976
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• 1993

This talk presents the overview of the author's research and development activities on fuzzy inference hardware. We involved it with two distinct approaches. The first approach is to use application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) technology. The fuzzy inference method is directly implemented in silicon. The second approach, which is in its preliminary stage, is to use more conventional microprocessor architecture. Here, we use a quantitative technique used by designer of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) to modify an architecture of a microprocessor. In the ASIC approach, we implemented the most widely used fuzzy inference mechanism directly on silicon. The mechanism is beaded on a max-min compositional rule of inference, and Mandami's method of fuzzy implication. The two VLSI fuzzy inference chips are designed, fabricated, and fully tested. Both used a full-custom CMOS technology. The second and more claborate chip was designed at the University of North Carolina(U C) in cooperation with MCNC. Both VLSI chips had muliple datapaths for rule digital fuzzy inference chips had multiple datapaths for rule evaluation, and they executed multiple fuzzy if-then rules in parallel. The AT & T chip is the first digital fuzzy inference chip in the world. It ran with a 20 MHz clock cycle and achieved an approximately 80.000 Fuzzy Logical inferences Per Second (FLIPS). It stored and executed 16 fuzzy if-then rules. Since it was designed as a proof of concept prototype chip, it had minimal amount of peripheral logic for system integration. UNC/MCNC chip consists of 688,131 transistors of which 476,160 are used for RAM memory. It ran with a 10 MHz clock cycle. The chip has a 3-staged pipeline and initiates a computation of new inference every 64 cycle. This chip achieved an approximately 160,000 FLIPS. The new architecture have the following important improvements from the AT & T chip: Programmable rule set memory (RAM). On-chip fuzzification operation by a table lookup method. On-chip defuzzification operation by a centroid method. Reconfigurable architecture for processing two rule formats. RAM/datapath redundancy for higher yield It can store and execute 51 if-then rule of the following format: IF A and B and C and D Then Do E, and Then Do F. With this format, the chip takes four inputs and produces two outputs. By software reconfiguration, it can store and execute 102 if-then rules of the following simpler format using the same datapath: IF A and B Then Do E. With this format the chip takes two inputs and produces one outputs. We have built two VME-bus board systems based on this chip for Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The board is now installed in a robot at ORNL. Researchers uses this board for experiment in autonomous robot navigation. The Fuzzy Logic system board places the Fuzzy chip into a VMEbus environment. High level C language functions hide the operational details of the board from the applications programme . The programmer treats rule memories and fuzzification function memories as local structures passed as parameters to the C functions. ASIC fuzzy inference hardware is extremely fast, but they are limited in generality. Many aspects of the design are limited or fixed. We have proposed to designing a are limited or fixed. We have proposed to designing a fuzzy information processor as an application specific processor using a quantitative approach. The quantitative approach was developed by RISC designers. In effect, we are interested in evaluating the effectiveness of a specialized RISC processor for fuzzy information processing. As the first step, we measured the possible speed-up of a fuzzy inference program based on if-then rules by an introduction of specialized instructions, i.e., min and max instructions. The minimum and maximum operations are heavily used in fuzzy logic applications as fuzzy intersection and union. We performed measurements using a MIPS R3000 as a base micropro essor. The initial result is encouraging. We can achieve as high as a 2.5 increase in inference speed if the R3000 had min and max instructions. Also, they are useful for speeding up other fuzzy operations such as bounded product and bounded sum. The embedded processor's main task is to control some device or process. It usually runs a single or a embedded processer to create an embedded processor for fuzzy control is very effective. Table I shows the measured speed of the inference by a MIPS R3000 microprocessor, a fictitious MIPS R3000 microprocessor with min and max instructions, and a UNC/MCNC ASIC fuzzy inference chip. The software that used on microprocessors is a simulator of the ASIC chip. The first row is the computation time in seconds of 6000 inferences using 51 rules where each fuzzy set is represented by an array of 64 elements. The second row is the time required to perform a single inference. The last row is the fuzzy logical inferences per second (FLIPS) measured for ach device. There is a large gap in run time between the ASIC and software approaches even if we resort to a specialized fuzzy microprocessor. As for design time and cost, these two approaches represent two extremes. An ASIC approach is extremely expensive. It is, therefore, an important research topic to design a specialized computing architecture for fuzzy applications that falls between these two extremes both in run time and design time/cost. TABLEI INFERENCE TIME BY 51 RULES {{{{Time }}{{MIPS R3000 }}{{ASIC }}{{Regular }}{{With min/mix }}{{6000 inference 1 inference FLIPS }}{{125s 20.8ms 48 }}{{49s 8.2ms 122 }}{{0.0038s 6.4㎲ 156,250 }} }}

• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2008

In this paper, we present a real-time algorithm for recognizing the vehicle color from the indoor and outdoor vehicle images based on GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) acceleration. In the preprocessing step, we construct feature victors from the sample vehicle images with different colors. Then, we combine the feature vectors for each color and store them as a reference texture that would be used in the GPU. Given an input vehicle image, the CPU constructs its feature Hector, and then the GPU compares it with the sample feature vectors in the reference texture. The similarities between the input feature vector and the sample feature vectors for each color are measured, and then the result is transferred to the CPU to recognize the vehicle color. The output colors are categorized into seven colors that include three achromatic colors: black, silver, and white and four chromatic colors: red, yellow, blue, and green. We construct feature vectors by using the histograms which consist of hue-saturation pairs and hue-intensity pairs. The weight factor is given to the saturation values. Our algorithm shows 94.67% of successful color recognition rate, by using a large number of sample images captured in various environments, by generating feature vectors that distinguish different colors, and by utilizing an appropriate likelihood function. We also accelerate the speed of color recognition by utilizing the parallel computation functionality in the GPU. In the experiments, we constructed a reference texture from 7,168 sample images, where 1,024 images were used for each color. The average time for generating a feature vector is 0.509ms for the $150{\times}113$ resolution image. After the feature vector is constructed, the execution time for GPU-based color recognition is 2.316ms in average, and this is 5.47 times faster than the case when the algorithm is executed in the CPU. Our experiments were limited to the vehicle images only, but our algorithm can be extended to the input images of the general objects.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.153-163
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• 2017

The objective of this study is to enhance the model's speed of estimating weather variables (e.g., minimum/maximum temperature, sunshine hour, PRISM (Parameter-elevation Regression on Independent Slopes Model) based precipitation), which are applied to the Agrometeorological Early Warning System (http://www.agmet.kr). The current process of weather estimation is operated on high-performance multi-core CPUs that have 8 physical cores and 16 logical threads. Nonetheless, the server is not even dedicated to the handling of a single county, indicating that very high overhead is involved in calculating the 10 counties of the Seomjin River Basin. In order to reduce such overhead, several cache and parallelization techniques were used to measure the performance and to check the applicability. Results are as follows: (1) for simple calculations such as Growing Degree Days accumulation, the time required for Input and Output (I/O) is significantly greater than that for calculation, suggesting the need of a technique which reduces disk I/O bottlenecks; (2) when there are many I/O, it is advantageous to distribute them on several servers. However, each server must have a cache for input data so that it does not compete for the same resource; and (3) GPU-based parallel processing method is most suitable for models such as PRISM with large computation loads.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.67-75
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• 2012

Purpose : We studied enhanced method to view the vessels in the brain using Magnetic Resonance Angiography (MRA). Noticing that Maximum Intensity Projection (MIP) image is often used to evaluate the arteries of the neck and brain, we propose a new method for view brain vessels to stereo image in 3D space with more superior and more correct compared with conventional method. Materials and Methods: We use 3T Siemens Tim Trio MRI scanner with 4 channel head coil and get a 3D MRA brain data by fixing volunteers head and radiating Phase Contrast pulse sequence. MRA brain data is 3D rotated according to the view angle of each eyes. Optimal view angle (projection angle) is determined by the distance between eye and center of the data. Newly acquired MRA data are projected along with the projection line and display only the highest values. Each left and right view MIP image is integrated through anaglyph imaging method and optimal stereoscopic MIP image is acquired. Results: Result image shows that proposed method let enable to view MIP image at any direction of MRA data that is impossible to the conventional method. Moreover, considering disparity and distance from viewer to center of MRA data at spherical coordinates, we can get more realistic stereo image. In conclusion, we can get optimal stereoscopic images according to the position that viewers want to see and distance between viewer and MRA data. Conclusion: Proposed method overcome problems of conventional method that shows only specific projected image (z-axis projection) and give optimal depth information by converting mono MIP image to stereoscopic image considering viewers position. And can display any view of MRA data at spherical coordinates. If the optimization algorithm and parallel processing is applied, it may give useful medical information for diagnosis and treatment planning in real-time.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.56-68
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• 2009

Ongoing and extensive urbanisation, which is frequently accompanied with careless construction works, may threaten important archaeological structures that are still buried in the urban areas. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) methods are most promising alternatives for resolving buried archaeological structures in urban territories. In this work, three case studies are presented, each of which involves an integrated geophysical survey employing the surface three-dimensional (3D) ERT and GPR techniques, in order to archaeologically characterise the investigated areas. The test field sites are located at the historical centres of two of the most populated cities of the island of Crete, in Greece. The ERT and GPR data were collected along a dense network of parallel profiles. The subsurface resistivity structure was reconstructed by processing the apparent resistivity data with a 3D inversion algorithm. The GPR sections were processed with a systematic way, applying specific filters to the data in order to enhance their information content. Finally, horizontal depth slices representing the 3D variation of the physical properties were created. The GPR and ERT images significantly contributed in reconstructing the complex subsurface properties in these urban areas. Strong GPR reflections and highresistivity anomalies were correlated with possible archaeological structures. Subsequent excavations in specific places at both sites verified the geophysical results. The specific case studies demonstrated the applicability of ERT and GPR techniques during the design and construction stages of urban infrastructure works, indicating areas of archaeological significance and guiding archaeological excavations before construction work.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.483-490
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• 2012

In parallel with advancement of the industrial society and accompanied quality-of-life improvement, jewelry is now rather viewed as one of common accessories used in daily life, than as a luxurious item as treated before change of perception about it in the past, attracting thus gradually multiplying demand for it. Thanks to rapid spread of multi media like the Internet, an increasing number of people have come to develop great liking for exceptional design and unique format of jewelry products. Following drain of their reserves, natural gems are unlikely to meet the demand for them fully in the future. As a consequence, it seems essential to rely on synthetic, artificial, imitation jewelry or organic substances and quasi-mineral in amorphous structure for substitute jewelry. Since synthetic jewelry has such a great potential as substitute jewelry, it is expected to maximize added value to jewelry if and when accompanied with development of creative design and upgrading of processing technology for jewelry, in addition to various types of synthetic jewelry and glass that have been already put in use as substitute substances. Synthetic jewelry is thus believed to be able to greatly contribute to progress of the jewelry industry. In many countries of the world, jewelry and gem industry has been regarded as one of promising sectors vital in enriching the national wealth. In this context, the Korean Ministry of Finance and Economy announced in July 2007 "an activating policy for the jewelry and gem industry, declaring to cultivate and grow it to be new engine for the nation's growth". The present paper thus aims to conduct a study exclusively on cutting design of synthetic jewelry as a part of measures to activate the jewelry industry in Korea. Efforts are made to develop designs for jewelry that are unique and different from the conventional stereotyped form of polishing and are added with color, pattern and fashionable cutting. Priority is given in this regard to designing jewelry that may attract general public and may be shared by public beyond the limit of conventional design for jewelry and producing products that stand in contrast with other products. By upgrading the quality of jewelry design, competitiveness of the jewelry industry may be ensured and the creative area of jewelry design may be expanded by far.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.102-112
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• 2008

We developed a high-resolution micro-CT system based on rotational gantry and flat-panel detector for live mouse imaging. This system is composed primarily of an x-ray source with micro-focal spot size, a CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) flat panel detector coupled with Csl (TI) (thallium-doped cesium iodide) scintillator, a linearly moving couch, a rotational gantry coupled with positioning encoder, and a parallel processing system for image data. This system was designed to be of the gantry-rotation type which has several advantages in obtaining CT images of live mice, namely, the relative ease of minimizing the motion artifact of the mice and the capability of administering respiratory anesthesia during scanning. We evaluated the spatial resolution, image contrast, and uniformity of the CT system using CT phantoms. As the results, the spatial resolution of the system was approximately the 11.3 cycles/mm at 10% of the MTF curve, and the radiation dose to the mice was 81.5 mGy. The minimal resolving contrast was found to be less than 46 CT numbers on low-contrast phantom imaging test. We found that the image non-uniformity was approximately 70 CT numbers at a voxel size of ${\sim}55{\times}55{\times}X100\;{\mu}^3$. We present the image test results of the skull and lung, and body of the live mice.

• Journal of Dental Rehabilitation and Applied Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.145-155
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• 2002

The results of the present feasibility study are summarized as follows, 1. The three unit bridge of knitted material and UD fibre reinforcement has both the rigidity and the strength against a vertical occlusal load of 75N. 2. Stress concentration at the junctional area between the bridge and the abutments, i.e. between the pontic and the knitted caps was observed. In the case of the bridge with reinforcement straps, it was partly shown that the concentration problem could be improved by simply increasing the fillet size at the area. Further refining in the surface of the junctional area will be needed to ensure a further improvement in the stress distribution. This will require some trade off in the level of the stress and the available space. A parametric study will help to decide the appropriate size of the fillet. 3. Design refinement is a must to improve the stress distribution and realize the most favourable shape in terms of fabrication. The current straight bar with a constant cross section area can be redesigned to a tapered shape. The curve from the dental arch should also be placed on the pontic design. In accordance with design refinement, the resistance of the bridge frame to other load cases should be evaluated. 4. Although not included in the present feasibility study, it is estimated that bridges of the anterior teeth can be made strong enough with the knitted material without further reinforcement using unidirectional materials. In this regard, a feasibility study on design concepts and stress analysis for 3, 4, 5 unit bridge is suggested. 5. Two types of bridge were analysed in terms of fatigue. The safe life design concept, i.e. fatigue design concept, looks reasonable for the bridge where if cracks should form and propagate there is virtually nothing a dentist to do. The bridge must be designed so that no crack will be initiated during the life span. In the case of crowns, however, if constructed with composite resin with knitted materials, it might be possible to repair them, which in general is impossible for crowns of PFM or of metal. Therefore for composite resin crowns, a damage tolerance design concept can be applied and reasonably higher operational stresses can be allowed. In this case, of course, a periodic inspection program should be established in parallel. 6. Parts of future works in terms of structural viewpoint which need to be addressed are summarized as the following: 1) To develop processing technology to accommodate design concepts; 2) More realistic modelling of the bridge and analysis-geometry and loading condition. Thickness variation in the knitted material, taper in the pontic, design for anterior tooth bridge, the effect of combined loads, etc, will need to be included; 3) To develop appropriate design concepts and design goals for the fibre composite FPD aiming at taking the best advantage of knitted materials, including the damage tolerance design concept; 4) To develop testing method and perform test such as static ultimate load test, fatigue test, repair test, etc, as necessary.

• The Korean Journal of Pharmacology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.225-235
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• 1993

Pituitary LH release has been known to be regulated by the hypothalamic gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) and the gonadal steroid hormones. In addition, neurotransmitters and neuropeptides are actively involved in the control of LH secretion. The alteration in LH release might reflect changes in biosynthesis and/or posttranslational processing of LH. However, little is known about the mechanism by which biosynthesis of LH subunits is regulated, especially at the level of transcription. In order to investigate if ovarian steroid hormones regulate the LH subunit gene expression, ${\alpha}\;and\;LH{\beta}$ steady state mRNA levels were determined in anterior pituitaries of ovariectomized rats. Serum LH concentrations and pituitary LH concentrations were increased markedly with time after ovariectomy. ${\alpha}\;and\;LH{\beta}$ subunit mRNA levels after ovariectomy were increased in a parallel manner with serum LH concentrations and pituitary LH contents, the rise in $LH{\beta}$ subunit mRNA levels being more prominent than the rise in ${\alpha}\;subunit$ mRNA. ${\alpha}\;and\;LH{\beta}$ subunit mRNA levels in ovariectomized rats were negatively regulated by the continuous treatment of ovarian steriod hormones for $1{\sim}4\;days$ and $LH{\beta}\;subunit$ mRNA seemed to be more sensitive to negative feedback of estradiol than progesterone. Treatment of estrogen antagonist, LY117018 or progesterone antagonist, RU486 significantly restroed LH subunit mRNA levels as well as LH release which were suppressed by estradiol or progesterone treatment. These results suggest that ovarian steroids negatively regulate the LH synthesis at the pretranslational level by modulating the steady state levels of ${\alpha}\;and\;LH{\beta}\;subunit$ mRNA and $LH{\beta}\;subunit$ mRNA seemed to be more sensitive to negative feedback action of estradiol than progesterone.