• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.99-104
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• 2017

PURPOSE: Gait disturbances in patients with hemiplegic stroke involve asymmetry of stance time. Step box training is used to supplement the limitations of stair walking training and increasing the torque value of the paralyzed lower leg's strength. This study aimed to investigate whether step-up training on unstable support could change walking ability in patients with chronic stroke. METHODS: Thirty stroke patients were randomly assigned to the step-up training group (experimental group), that performed training on an unstable surface, and the control group, that performed training on a stable surface. Walking speed, step length, and cadence were measured before and after training. Paired t-tests were used to compare pre- and post-intervention data, while the independent samples t-test was used to determine intergroup differences. Values of p < .05 were considered statistically significant. RESULTS: There was a significant difference in walking ability before versus after the intervention in both groups, although the experimental group showed greater differences than the control group (walking velocity by 8.1%; step length of the non-paralyzed side by 6.9%, respectively; p<.05). CONCLUSION: Step-up training might be more effective on an unstable surface than on a stable surface for increasing walking speed and step length of the non-paralyzed side.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.85-89
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• 2018

Observations and video documentation of interactions between animals living in dens, cavities, and other enclosed spaces are difficult, but they play an important role in field biology, ecology, and conservation. For example, bird parents visiting nests and feeding their nestlings may provide crucial information for testing of ecological hypotheses and may easily attract attention of participants of citizen-science ecological and conservation projects. Because of the nest concealment of cavity-nesting birds, their behaviors in the nest can only be studied by using video surveillance. Professional wildlife surveillance systems are extremely expensive. Here, we describe an inexpensive video setup that can be constructed with relatively little effort and is more affordable than any previously described system. We anticipate that the relatively low cost of about 250 USD for a battery-operated system is an important feature for citizen-science type of projects and for applications in heavily populated areas where the potential for theft and vandalism may be high. Based on our experiences, we provide methodological advice on practical aspects of using this system in the field for ecological research on birds. We highlight the low cost, easiness of construction, and potential availability to a large number of observers taking part in wildlife monitoring projects, and we offer technical help to participants of such research projects.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.46-52
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• 2018

The problem of traffic light detection and recognition has recently become one of the most important topics in various researches on autonomous driving. Most algorithms are based on colors to detect and recognize traffic light signals. These methods have disadvantage in that the recognition rate is lowered due to the change of the color of the traffic light, the influence of the angle, distance, and surrounding illumination environment of the image. In this paper, we propose machine learning based detection and recognition algorithm using shape information to solve these problems. Unlike the existing algorithms, the proposed algorithm detects and recognizes the traffic signals based on the morphological characteristics of the traffic lights, which is advantageous in that it is robust against the influence from the surrounding environments. Experimental results show that the recognition rate of the signal is higher than those of other color-based algorithms.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.103-121
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• 2018

This paper reports the effects of coarse and fine recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) on fresh and hardened properties of self-compacting concrete (SCC) containing ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBFS) as cement replacement. For this purpose, three SCC mixes groups, were produced at a constant water to binder ratio of 0.38. Both fine and coarse recycled aggregates were used as natural aggregates (NA) replacement at different substitution levels of 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% by volume for each mix group. Each group, included 0, 15% or 30% GGBFS as Portland cement replacement by weight. The SCC properties investigated were self-compactability parameters (i.e., slump flow, T500 time, V-funnel flow time, L-box passing ability and sieve stability), compressive strength, capillary water absorption and water penetration depth. The results show that the combined use of RCA with GGBFS had a significant effect on fresh and hardened SCC mixes. The addition of both fine and coarse recycled aggregates as a substitution up to 50% of natural aggregates enhance the workability of SCC mixes, whereas the addition from 50 to 100% decreases the workability, whatever the slag content used as cement replacement. An enhancement of workability of SCC mixes with recycled aggregates was noticed as increasing GGBFS from 0 to 30%. RCA content of 25% to 50% as NA replacement and cement replacement of 15% GGBFS seems to be the optimum level to produce satisfactory SCC without any bleeding or segregation. Furthermore, the addition of slag to recycled concrete aggregates of SCC mixes reduces strength losses at the long term (56 and 90 days). However, a decrease in the capillary water absorption and water permeability depth was noticed, when using RCA mixes with slag.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.67 no.3
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• pp.406-412
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• 2018

This paper describes the fabrication process of laser induced graphene (LIG) and its transfer method on to a flexible and stretchable PDMS substrate. By irradiating CO2 laser on a polyimide(PI) film surface, a localized high temperature is created, resulting in a three-dimensional porous graphene network structure with good conductivity. This LIG electrode is relatively easy to fabricate and since it is very weak the LIG electrode was transferred to a flexible PDMS substrate to increase the sturdiness as well as possible use in flexible applications. Sheet resistance, thickness, and electrochemical activity of the fabricated in-situ LIG electrodes have been examined and compared with the LIG electrodes after transferring to PDMS elastomer. The properties of the LIG electrodes were also examined depending on the $CO_2$ laser power. As the irradiated laser power increased, the LIG electrode resistance decreases and the LIG electrode thickness increased. At 4.8 W of laser power, the average sheet resistance and thickness of the fabricated LIG electrodes were approximately $31.7{\Omega}/{\Box}$ and $62.67{\mu}m$, respectively. Moreover, the electrochemical activity of the fabricated LIG electrode at 4.8 W of laser power showed a high oxidation current of $28.2{\mu}A$ after transferring to PDMS.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.99-110
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• 2017

As a part of several Eurasian initiatives, the Korean government is trying to reconnect railways through North Korea to the Asian continent. If South Korea could build a network using railway, it would be a chance to develop a robust economic environment and to motivate economic growth. In the railway reconnection project between North and South Korea, the most important part of the railway roadbed sector is repair or improvement, and then construction of a new line through North Korea. There are not many big differences in the geological conditions; however, climate condition varies greatly during winter. The most significant condition in the safety of railway operation is frost-heaving. However, since South Korea has a relatively mild climate condition compared with North Korea, design and construction specifications under severe weather conditions in winter have not been prepared. This study proposes a plan for revising the railway design standard for underpass structures through an analysis of international standards, leading to site construction to prevent frost-heave.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.548-559
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• 2017

Recently, various high-quality AV services such as UHDTV have begun to increase as broadcasting technology evolves, and various broadcasting standards have been defined. Among the various broadcasting standards, there are representative delivery technologies which are DASH/ROUTE and MMTP. DASH/ROUTE and MMTP are adopted as delivery standards for UHD broadcasting in south Korea, currently. DASH segment and MPU are segmented units including media data, which are delivered via DASH/ROUTE and MMTP, respectively. In this paper, we analyzed structure of DASH segment and MPU and propose a verification system which enables converting DASH segments to MPUs and delivering them via MMTP.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.227-237
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• 2017

This paper presents optimization of a long-span portal steel frame under dynamic wind loads using a surrogate-assisted evolutionary algorithm. Long-span portal steel frames are often used in low-rise industrial and commercial buildings. The structure needs be able to resist the wind loads, and at the same time it should be as light as possible in order to be cost-effective. In this work, numerical model of a portal steel frame is constructed using structural analysis program (SAP2000), with the web-heights at five locations of I-sections of the columns and rafters as the decision variables. In order to evaluate the performance of a given design under dynamic wind loading, the equivalent static wind load (ESWL) is obtained from a database of wind pressures measured in wind tunnel tests. A modified formulation of the problem compared to the one available in the literature is also presented, considering additional design constraints for practicality. Evolutionary algorithms (EA) are often used to solve such non-linear, black-box problems, but when each design evaluation is computationally expensive (e.g., in this case a SAP2000 simulation), the time taken for optimization using EAs becomes untenable. To overcome this challenge, we employ a surrogate-assisted evolutionary algorithm (SAEA) to expedite the convergence towards the optimum design. The presented SAEA uses multiple spatially distributed surrogate models to approximate the simulations more accurately in lieu of commonly used single global surrogate models. Through rigorous numerical experiments, improvements in results and time savings obtained using SAEA over EA are demonstrated.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.3188-3207
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• 2017

In this paper, we propose an image enhancement algorithm to improve license plate extraction rate in various environments (Day Street, Night Street, Underground parking lot, etc.). The proposed algorithm is composed of image enhancement algorithm and license plate extraction algorithm. The image enhancement method can improve an image quality of the degraded image, which utilizes a histogram information and overall gray level distribution of an image. The proposed algorithm employs an interpolated probability distribution value (PDV) in order to control a sudden change in image brightness. Probability distribution value can be calculated using cumulative distribution function (CDF) and probability density function (PDF) of the captured image, whose values are achieved by brightness distribution of the captured image. Also, by adjusting the image enhancement factor of each part region based on image pixel information, it provides a function that can adjust the gradation of the image in more details. This processed gray image is converted into a binary image, which fuses narrow breaks and long thin gulfs, eliminates small holes, and fills gaps in the contour by using morphology operations. Then license plate region is detected based on aspect ratio and license plate size of the bound box drawn on connected license plate areas. The images have been captured by using a video camera or a personal image recorder installed in front of the cars. The captured images have included several license plates on multilane roads. Simulation has been executed using OpenCV and MATLAB. The results show that the extraction success rate is more improved than the conventional algorithms.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.410.2-410.2
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• 2016

Tandem structure is promising in organic solar cells because of its double open-circuit voltage (VOC) and efficient photon energy conversion. In a typical tandem device, the two single sub-cells are stacked and connected by an interconnecting layer. The fabrication of two sub-cells are usually carried out in a glovebox filled with nitrogen or argon gas, which makes it expensive and laborious. We report a glovebox-free fabricated inverted tandem organic solar cells wherein the tandem structure comprises sandwiched interconnecting layer based on p-doped hole-transporting, metal, and electron-transporting materials. Complete fabrication process of the tandem device was performed outside the glove box. The tandem solar cells based on poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and (6,6)-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) can realize a high VOC, which sums up of the two sub-cells. The tandem device structure was ITO/ZnO/P3HT:PCBM/PEDOT:PSS/MoO3/Au/Al/ZnO-d/P3HT:PCBM/PEDOT:PSS/Ag. The separate sub-cells were morphologically and thermally stable up to 160 oC. The high stability of the active layer benefits in the fabrication processes of tandem device. The performance of tandem organic solar cells comes from the sub-cells with an 50 nm thick active layer of P3HT:PCBM, achieving an average power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 2.9% (n=12) with short-circuit current density (JSC) = 4.26 mA/cm2, VOC = 1.10 V, and fill factor (FF) = 0.62. Based on these findings, we propose a new method to improve the performance and stability of tandem organic solar cells.