• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.28-35
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• 2020

This study aimed to investigate the differences in the upper and lower limits of the 95% distribution of fasting blood glucose (FBG) by age groups. We also analyzed the changes in the mean values and dispersion of the data using the Korean Blood Glucose Reference Standard raw data published by the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS). Furthermore, the trends among 16 administrative districts were analyzed and any gender differences were determined. We also assessed whether the study results correlated with the relative standard uncertainty, as published by the NHIS. On the dispersion analysis using the differences between the upper and lower limits of the 95% distribution of FBG by age group, there were significant differences across gender and administrative districts (P<0.05). The gender differences in FBG measurements, as published by the NHIS, were significant across different administrative districts and age groups (P<0.001). This confirmed the need to recalculate the blood glucose reference standards for men and women. No significant correlation was observed between the relative standard uncertainty, as published by NHIS, and the dispersion and number of measurements analyzed in this study. However, it showed a high correlation with the measured mean value (R²=0.95). Therefore, further research on the reference standard and uncertainty is needed.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2012

Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) for miniature pig has been developed for xenotransplantation and many other biomedical experiments. However, the efficiency of SCNT is still very low due to many factors. To optimize the surrogate mother condition for improvement of cloned miniature pigs efficiency, we investigated the effect of the status of surrogate mother on pregnancy, farrowed rate in SCNT pigs. After SCNT with mesenchymal stem cells as donor cells, the SCNT embryos were surgically transferred into the oviduct of surrogated pigs. To compare the effects of status of surrogate pigs on pregnancy, surrogate pigs were prepared by artificial abortion at day 20~29 (Group 1), 30~39 (Group 2), and 40~45 (Group 3) of gestation. After SCNT embryos transfer in three different status of surrogate pigs, Group 2 (56.3%) and 3 (55.6%) had significantly ($p$ <0.05) higher the pregnancy rate than group 1 (0%) at day 30 of gestation. The status of ovulation in surrogate pig also was investigated. Post-ovulation status (54.8%) had higher proportion than pre-ovulation status (38.7%) and ovulation status (6.5%). We obtained 19 cloned miniature piglets from seven surrogate gilts and five piglets are living healthy but fourteen piglets died soon after birth or stillbirth. The weights of piglets greatly differ from 254 to 1,296 g. Microsatellite analysis showed that cloned piglets were genetically different from the surrogate mother and cloned piglets were genetically equal to the donor cell. In conclusion, the present result indicates that artificially abortion method can improve the efficiency of pregnancy after SCNT in pigs. This study will provide available method for the further study and application in the field of xenotransplantation.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.507-516
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• 1995

The nonstationary identifier in the DCT domain is suggested in this study for the identification of AR parameters of above-lesion upper-trunk electromyographic (EMG) signals as a means of developing a reliable real time signal to control functional electrical stimulation (FES) in paraplegics to enable primitive walking. As paraplegic shifts his posture from one attitude to another, there is transition period where the signal is clearly nonstationary. Also as muscle fatigues, nonstationarities become more prevalent even during stable postures. So, it requires a develpment of time varying nonstationary EMG signal identifier. In this paper, time varying nonstationary EMG signals are transformed into DCT domain and the transformed EMG signals are modeled and analyzed in the transform domain. In the DCT domain, we verified reduction of condition number and increment of the smallest eigenvalue of input correlation matrix that influences numerical properties and mean square error were compared with SLS algorithm, and the proposed algorithm is implemented using IMS T-805 parallel processing computer for real time application.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.221-230
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• 1999

A new technique for the preparation of porous polyurethane vascular prostheses was investigated. Synthetic vascular grafts with porous wall have been widely proposed, claiming that strength, suture retention, kink resistance, and other handling properties are improved over those with nonporous solid wall. Related to these facts, the control of pores and compliance match have been very important and interesting issues. Two kinds of polymer sheets were compared. One was the porous PU-sheet made at room temerature by the solvent/non-solvent exchange. And the other was the porous PU-sheet fabricated by thermal phase transition and solvent/non-solvent exchange in the thermal controlled bath. According to the result of the above experiments, polyurethane solution was injected into a mold designed for U-type graft. After freezing at low temperature, solvent was dissolved out with alcohol at < $0^{\circ}C$ and water at room temperature to form porous vessels. The average pore size and pore occupation were easily changed by changing polyurethane concentration and freezing rate. This technique can give a proper pore size for tissue ingrowth, and suitable compliances for matching with arteries and veins. In addition, the fabrication of more complicated shaped vessels such as the U-type vascular grafts is easily controlled by using a mold. This method might give a desired compliact graft for artificial implantaion with the commercially available medical polymers.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.231-236
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• 1999

Understanding the exgenous water induced thermomechanical effect on the dental hard tissue by the Q-switched Er:YAG laser (1-$mutextrm{s}$-long pulse width) has an important impact on the further understanding of the free-running Er:YAG laser (250-$mutextrm{s}$-long pulse width) ablation on the dental gard tissue because one macroscopic effect in the free-running laser is an accumulation of microscopic effects we investigated in this study. The Q-switched Er:YAG laser with exogenous water on the tooth enhanced ablation rate compared to the case of no water on the tooth. The frequency of exogenous-water jet on the tooth has affected the ablation rate in such a way that as we dispensed water drops less frequently we could get more enhanced ablation rate. The amplitude of the recoil pressure depends on the tooth surface conditions such that as surfaces wet, and as the volume of the exogenous water drop increased, the amplitude of the recoil pressure increased also. From this study we realized that the 1 $mutextrm{s}$ long pulsed induced thermomechanical effect provides us useful information for the understanding of the free-running Er:YAG laser induced ablation with exogenous water.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.183-192
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• 2003

A transformation methode of the chromaticity coordinates was proposed to calibrate the measured data obtained by a urine analysis system which implemented in our previous study. Generally. the reacted color of a reagent strip by urine analysis system often exhibit the color distortions due to nonlinear characteristics of the various devices that is the optic module mechanism. hardware, and surround circumstance. A color correction method for minimizing the color distortion play a few role in maintaining high accuracy and reproduction of the urine analysis system. In this work, we used the compensation method such as the shading correction, the characteristic curve extraction of RGB color by means of third order spline interpolation, and linear transformation using a reference color. In addition, 1931 CIE XYZ color space was used to compensate the color of the measured data by a standard reference system as colorimeter. A compensation matrix was obtained so that the output values of the urine analysis system is nearly equal to that of a standard reference system for identical color sample. Color correction obtained by a urine analysis system which implemented in our previous study exhibited a good color accuracy when it was compared with the reference data. Observed result from an experiments on ten items or a urinalysis strip that color difference or between two urine analysis system was 1.28.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.203-208
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• 2003

The effect of indium on the microstructure and hardness of a Au-Pt-Cu ternary alloy was investigated using optical microscopy, differential scanning calorimeter, scanning electron microscopy x-ray diffractometry, electron probe microanalizer and vickers hardness tester. A hardness of the solution floated Au-Pt-Cu-0.5In quarternary alloy with 0.5 wt.% was reached a maximum value (162 Hv) in 30 min at 550$^{\circ}C$ in the range of 150 to 950$^{\circ}C$ but that of the alloy was rapidly increased until 30 min with increasing aging time at 550$^{\circ}C$ and after that was remained almost constant value. Also, the microhardness of the matrix Au-Pt-Cu ternary alloy aged at 550$^{\circ}C$ for 30 min was continuously increased with indium contents and the grain size of Au-Pt-Cu ternary alloy decreased as increased indium contents. Analyses of EPMA and XRD revealed that the matrix Au-Pt-Cu-In quarternary alloy is composed of fcc structure and intermetallic InPt$_3$ precipitate with Ll$_2$ structure. Based on this investigation, it can be concluded that an increase in microhardness of Au-Pt-Cu-In quarternary alloy is due to precipitation hardening InPt$_3$ and grain size refinement.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.269-279
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• 2002

When we inject a current into an electrically conducting subject such as a human body, voltage and current density distributions are formed inside the subject. The current density within the subject and injection current in the lead wires generate a magnetic field. This magnetic flux density within the subject distorts phase of spin-echo magnetic resonance images. In Magnetic Resonance Current Density Imaging (MRCDI) technique, we obtain internal magnetic flux density images and produce current density images from $\bigtriangledown{\times}B/\mu_\theta$. This internal information is used in Magnetic Resonance Electrical Impedance Tomography (MREIT) where we try to reconstruct a cross-sectional resistivity image of a subject. This paper describes numerical techniques of computing voltage. current density, and magnetic flux density within a subject due to an injection current. We use the Finite Element Method (FEM) and Biot-Savart law to calculate these variables from three-dimensional models with different internal resistivity distributions. The numerical analysis techniques described in this paper are used in the design of MRCDI experiments and also image reconstruction a1gorithms for MREIT.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.343-349
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• 2004

Electroglottograph(EGG) is a signal recorded from the vocal cord vibration by measuring electrical impedance across the vocal folds through the neck skin. The purpose of this study was to develop EGG system and to evaluate possibility for the application on speech analysis and laryngeal disease diagnosis. EGG system was composed of two pairs of ring electrodes, tuned amplifier, phase sensitive detector, low pass filter, and auto-gain controller. It was designed to extract electric impedance after detecting by amplitude modulation method with 2.7MHz carrier signal. Extracted signals were transmitted through line-in of PC sound card, sampled and quantized. Closed Quotient(CQ), Speed Quotient(SQ), Speed Index(SI), fundamental frequency of vocal cord vibration(F0), pitch variability of vocal fold vibration (Jitter), and peak-to-peak amplitude variability of vocal fold vibration(Shimmer) were analyzed as EGG parameters. Experimental results were as follows: the faster vocal fold vibration, the higher values in CQ parameter and the lower values in SQ and SI parameters. EGG and speech signals had the same fundamental frequency. CQ, SQ, and SI were significantly different between normal subjects and patients with laryngeal cancer. These results suggest that it is possible to implement portable EGG system to monitor the function of vocal cord and to test functional changes of the glottis.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.329-334
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• 2004

The electronic nose (E-nose) recently finds its applications in medical diagnosis, specifically on detection of diabetes, pulmonary or gastrointestinal problem, or infections by examining odors in the breath or tissues with its odor characterizing ability. The odor recognition performance of E-nose can be improved by manipulating the sensor array responses of vapors in time-profile forms. The different chemical interactions between the sensor materials and the volatile organic compounds (VOC's) leave unique marks in the signal profiles giving more information than collection of the conventional piecemal features, i.e., maximum sensitivity, signal slopes, rising time. In this study, to use them in vapor recognition task conveniently, a novel time-profile method was proposed, which is adopted from digital image pattern matching. The degrees of matching between 8 different vapors were evaluated by using the proposed method. The test vapors are measured by the silicon-based gas sensor array with 16 CB-polymer composites installed in membrane structure. The results by the proposed method showed clear discrimination of vapor species than by the conventional method.