• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.80-90
• /
• 2013

Recently, functional insoles of wedge-type it is for the young to raise their height inserted between insole and heel cause foot pain and disease. Additionally, these have a problem with stability and excessively load-bearing during gait like high-heel shoes. In this study, we compared the changes in biomechanical characteristics of foot with different insole thickness then we will utilize for the development of the insole with the purpose of relieving the pain and disease. Subjects(male, n = 6) measured COP(center of pressure) and PCP(peak contact pressure) on the treadmill(140cm/s) using F-scan system and different insole thickness(0~50 mm) between sole and plantar surface during gait. Also, we computed changes of stresses at the foot using finite element model with various insole thickness during toe-off phase. COP moved anterior and medial direction and, PCP was increased at medial forefoot surface, $1^{st}$ and $2^{nd}$ metatarsophalangeal, ($9%{\uparrow}$) with thicker insoles and it was show sensitive increment as the insole thickness was increased from 40 mm to 50 mm. Change of the stress at the soft-tissue of plantar surface, $1^{st}$ metatarsal head represents rapid growth($36%{\uparrow}$). Also, lateral moments were increased over the 100% near the $1^{st}$ metatarsal as the insole thickness was increased from 0 mm to 30 mm. And it is show sensitive increment as the insole thickness changed 10 mm to 20 mm. As a result, it was expected that use of excessively thick insoles might cause unwanted foot pain at the forefoot region. Therefore, insole thickness under 30 mm was selected.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.55-62
• /
• 2013

Wrist joints consist of irregularly shaped carpal bones and other complicated structures. Thus, evaluating the motion of a wrist joint is a challenging task. In this study, we used an infrared camera to perform a kinematic analysis of a dart-throwing motion. We measured the difference between the movement of a normal wrist and constrained wrist (wrist with a wrist glove) in the dart-throwing motion with thirty six healthy participants. We measured the ulna flexion - radial extension motion using the attached passive marker and analyzed it using Polygon software and SPSS. The pitch and yaw motions with a glove was bigger than the ones without a glove by 20 and 15 degrees, respectively. On the other hand, the roll motion without a glove was bigger than the one with a glove by 7 degree. Wilcoxon signed rank test (p<0.05) confirmed that there are significant differences between the motion with and without a glove. It was found that the magnitude of the pitch and yaw motion with a constrained wrist joint toward radial extension in dart-throwing motion is smaller than the one with a normal wrist joint. However, a normal wrist joint showed a bigger movement in the roll direction.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• v.46 no.3
• /
• pp.319-331
• /
• 2013

Recent climate change, which is mostly ascribed to anthropogenic activities, is believed to be a major factor leading to biodiversity decreases and ecosystem service deteriorations. I have reviewed recent studies on climate change effects for many ecological processes involved with plants, in order to improve our understanding of the nature of ecological complexity. Plants in general have better growth and productivity under high levels of $CO_2$, although the long term effects of such $CO_2$ fertilizers are still controversial. Over the last 30 years, the Earth has been greening, particularly at higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, perhaps due to a relaxation of climatic constraints. Human appropriation of net primary productivity (NPP), which corresponds up to 1/3 of global NPP, is ultimately responsible for climate change and biodiversity decreases. Climate change causes phenological variations in plants, especially in regards to spring flowering and fall leaf coloring. Many plants migrate polewards and towards higher altitudes to seek more appropriate climates. On the other hand, tree mortality and population declines have recently been reported in many continents. Landscape disturbance not only hinders the plant migration, but also makes it difficult to predict the plants' potential habitats. Plant and animal population declines, as well as local extinctions, are largely due to the disruption of species interactions through temporal mismatching. Temperature and $CO_2$ increase rates in Korea are higher than global means. The degree of landscape disturbances is also relatively high. Furthermore, long-term data on individual species responses and species interactions are lacking or quite limited in Korea. This review emphasizes the complex nature of species responses to climate change at both global and local scales. In order to keep pace with the direction and speed of climate change, it is urgently necessary to observe and analyze the patterns of phenology, migration, and trophic interactions of plants and animals in Korea's landscape.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
• /
• v.22 no.5
• /
• pp.737-747
• /
• 2006

Ministry of Environment (MOE) of Korea has been implementing the water quality management policy to focus on the control of organic matters (BOD and COD) for 28 years since 1978 when the water quality standards had been established. However, the government and the public have begun to recognize the necessity of creating the best water environment for people and aquatic life, and also formulating the various measures of water pollution, Consequently, MOE of Korea is establishing the basic plan of water environment management, with the vision of "Clean Water, Eco River 2015." The major targets of water environment management plan are to maintain ecosystem health and to protect water quality from various hazardous substances in water bodies. In order to achieve the major targets, it is essential to amend the water quality standards, which bring about the systematic management of various pollutants and healthy ecosystem. Introduction of the new techniques of water environment assessment is also prerequisite to maintain sustainable water environment. These can be accomplished under the consideration of following suggestions in environmental quality standards. First, several criteria should be complemented in water quality standards; they include the improvement of the current water quality classification system, the strengthening and supplement of relevant parameters considering human health in the standards, the introduction of biotic indices, and management standards on eutrophication. Secondly, it should be considered to introduce the biological water quality standards using biotic indices and the management standards for sediments. Lastly, it needs to introduce or develop an ecological status classification which could be used in the assessment of the water environment as a whole.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.63-71
• /
• 2010

This study was carried out to analyze the vegetation and soil characteristic, and ordination between Calanthe discolor and C. sieboldii population, Jeju Island. The C. discolor population was classified into Cryptomeria japonica dominant population, Miscanthus sinensis dominant population, and C. discolor typical population. The C. discolor population was located in elevation of 156m to 430m, and C. sieboldii was located in elevation of 424m to 604m in Jeju Island. In the study sites, soil organic matter, nitrogen, exchangeable potassium, exchangeable calcium, exchangeable magnesium, cation exchange capacity, and soil pH were 30.05~53.58%, 0.74~1.64%, 0.80~1.95cmol$^+$/kg, 4.35~22.53cmol$^+$/kg, 4.00~6.63cmol$^+$/kg, 25.60~51.33cmol$^+$/kg, and 4.83~5.70, respectively. C. discolor population was found in the low elevation and steep sloped area that has less organic matter, total nitrogen, and cation exchange capacity than C. sieboldii population. C. discolor typical population was found in the high elevation area that has more organic matter and total nitrogen in the C. discolor. Miscanthus sinensis dominant population was found in the shade of west direction of japanese black pine. C. sieboldii was found in a high elevation and a gentle sloped area that has high percentage organic matter, total nitrogen, and cation exchange capacity.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
• /
• v.2 no.2
• /
• pp.146-155
• /
• 1995

Jet lag can be defined as the cumulative physiological and psychological effects of rapid air travel across multiple time zone. The consequences of jet lag include fatigue, general malaise, sleep disturbances, and reductions of cognitive and psychomotor performance, all of which have been documented in experimental biological and air crew personnel studies. Thus authors tried to study the jet lag of natural travellers by modified self reporting sleep log. Total 61 healthy travellers was studied for 3 days before and 7 days after jet-flights across seven to ten time zone. The eastbound travelling group was 38 persons, aged 19 -70 and westbound travelling group was 23 persons, aged 13 - 69. Sleep onset time, wake-up time, sleep latency, awakening frequency on night sleep, awakening duration on night sleep, sleepiness at wake-up and nap length were evaluated. Our results suggested that the 7 to 10 time zone shift gave significant influence to traveller's sleep-wake cycles. The date which subjective physical condition was recovered on was $5.16{\pm}1.50$ day after arrivals for eastbound, while for westbound, $4.91{\pm}1.62$ day. In eastbound travelling, sleep onset time became later than baselines and could not recover until 7th day. But in westbound, it became earlier than baseline and could recover until 6th day. The mean score of 24-hour sleepiness was greater in eastboumd than westbound. Therefore the eastbound travelling caused more sleep-wake cycle disturbance and daytime dysfunction than westbound travelling. In other parameters, there was no definite difference between east and westbound. From our results, it was suggested that the symptom severity of jet lag was dependent on the travelling direction. To demonstrate more definite evidence, large sized data collections and comparision by age difference were needed.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.61-70
• /
• 1996

In cementless total hip arthroplasty(THA), an initial stability of the femoral component is mandatory to achieve bony inyowth and secondary long term fixation. Primary stability of the femoral component can be obtained by minimizing the magnitude of relative micromotions at bone stem interface. An accurate evaluation of interf'ace micromotion and stress/strain fields in the bone-implant system may be relevant for better understanding of clinical situations and improving THA design. Recently finite element method(FEM) was introduced in'orthopaedic research field due to its unique capacity to evaluate stress in structure of complex shape, loading and material behavior. The authors developed the 3-dimensional finite element model of proximal femur with $Multilock^{TM}$ stem of 1179 blick elements to analyse the micromotions and mechanical behaviors at the bone-stem inteface in early post-operative period for the load simulating single leg stance. The results indicates that the values of relative motion for this well fit stem were $150{\mu}m$ in maximum $82{\mu}m$ in minimum and the largest relative motion was developed in medial region of Proximal femur and in anterior-posterior direction. The motion in the proximal bone was much greater than in the distal bone and the stress pattern showed high stress concentration on the cortex near the tip of the stem. These findings indicate that the loading on the hip joint in the early postoperative situation before achieving bony ingrowth could produce large micromotion of $150{\mu}m$ and clinicaly non-cemented THA patient should not be allowed weight bearing strictly early in the postoperative period.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.34 no.1
• /
• pp.24-33
• /
• 2013

To enhance the speech perception of hearing aid users in noisy environment, most hearing aid devices adopt various beamforming algorithms such as the first-order differential microphone (DM1) and the two-stage directional microphone (DM2) algorithms that maintain sounds from the direction of the interlocutor and reduce the ambient sounds from the other directions. However, these conventional algorithms represent poor directionality ability in low frequency area. Therefore, to enhance the speech perception of hearing aid uses in low frequency range, our group had suggested a fractional delay subtraction and integration (FDSI) algorithm and estimated its theoretical performance using computer simulation in previous article. In this study, we performed a KEMAR test in non-reverberant room that compares the performance of DM1, DM2, broadband beamforming (BBF), and proposed FDSI algorithms using several objective indices such as a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) improvement, a segmental SNR (seg-SNR) improvement, a perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ), and an Itakura-Saito measure (IS). Experimental results showed that the performance of the FDSI algorithm was -3.26-7.16 dB in SNR improvement, -1.94-5.41 dB in segSNR improvement, 1.49-2.79 in PESQ, and 0.79-3.59 in IS, which demonstrated that the FDSI algorithm showed the highest improvement of SNR and segSNR, and the lowest IS. We believe that the proposed FDSI algorithm has a potential as a beamformer for digital hearing aid devices.

• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.197-201
• /
• 2007

Genistein is an active component of legumes and other related food shown to be associated with prevention of degenerative diseases such as cancer through inducing signaling pathways. Treatment of genistein resulted in the induction of apoptosis in the cultured cancer cells. This induction of apoptosis was demonstrated by the Tunel assay in these cells. Unveiling the potential of genistein in cytotoxicity via apoptosis when it is treated with estrogen can predict the therapeutic capability of genistein in breast cancers in the presence of endogenous estrogen. We have found that apoptosis induced by genistein treatment in the presence of estrogen is agonistic or antagonistic depending on the concentrations and treatment periods applied in MCF-7 breast cancer cells. For the suppression of cell survival, 24 hr of treatment was required to induce a synergistic agonistic response between estrogen and genistein at low concentrations of genistein. After this period, the agonistic pattern of genistein to estrogen disappeared. The decrement of COX-2 expression in MCF-7 cells treated with genistein was accompanied with the activation of AMPK only at a high concentration of genistein. This association between AMPK activation and down-regulation of COX-2 by genistein was dampened in the presence of estrogen. It was also demonstrated that genistein and estrogen regulate cell survival and apoptosis by modulating p53 and caspase-3 in the opposite direction. These results suggest that genistein has the potential to control breast cancer development, and co-treatment with estrogen can cause agonistic or antagonistic action on breast cancer cell control.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
• /
• v.5_6
• /
• pp.59-63
• /
• 1968

This Paper deals With the biology and the life Cycle of Eriophyes kuko KISHIDA. 1. The host of Eriophyes kuko KISHIDA is Lycium chinense MILL (Boxthorn), Solanum nigrum LINNE(Morel) and Capacium annum LINNE(Red pepper) etc. 2. Eriophyes kuko KISHIDA is migrated and propagated by physical carriers. The direction of the wind has a great influence upon migration and dispersal. 3. The number of e99s deposited by a adult female is $28.5\pm0.449$ egg period is $7.0\pm0.447$ and larval period is $4.33\pm0.667$ days respectively. 4. The size of gall diameter on the leaf of Lycium Chinense MILL after boring in each date by Eriophyes kuke KISHIDA is as follows, 1st day after boring is $290.5\pm0.3415\mu$ End 25st day after boring is $3260.5\pm0.5157\mu$ in average. 5. Adult periods are from 25 to 30 days and the egg laying period is 6 days. 6. Eriophyes kuko KISHIDA has 6 to 7 generations in a year, and hibernate they over winter in the gall as an adult. The first adult appears in late May.