• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.179-186
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• 2024

Objective: This study aims to assess the reliability and validity of the new hand-held spirometer as a potential substitute for traditional pulmonary function testing (PFT) devices. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: In this study, thirty healthy adults underwent spirometry using both the new hand-held spirometer and the MIR spirometer, which is a standard PFT device. Parameters including peak expiratory flow (PEF), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV₁), and forced vital capacity (FVC) were measured and analyzed for validity and reliability. Inter-rater reliability and validity were evaluated through 95% limits of agreement (LOA) and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). Statistical analyses, including the Bland-Altman plots and the ICC, were utilized to assess agreement between the two devices. Results: The new hand-held spirometer exhibited a good agreement with intra-class coefficient (ICC [2,1]) ranging 0.762 to 0.956 and 95% LOA of -1.94 to 1.80 when compared with MIR. The test-retest reliability of the hand-held spirometer analyzed using - ICC [2,1] demonstrated a good level of consistency (ICC [2,1] =0.849-0.934). Conclusions: In conclusion, the study aimed to assess the potential of the new hand-held spirometer as a viable alternative to traditional PFT devices, with a specific focus on its reliability and validity in spirometric measurements. The new hand-held spirometer exhibited good test-retest reliability across all measured variables, suggesting its potential as a valid and reliable tool for simultaneous PFT measurements.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.52 no.11
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• pp.1267-1272
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• 2009

Purpose:We examined the ability of preschool aged children to meet the American Thoracic Society (ATS) and European Resiratory Society (ERS) goals for spirometry quality and tried to find out the major factor for improving the rate of success of spiromety test in this age group. Methods:Spirometry was performed in 2-6 aged 155 children with chronic cough or suspicious asthma with the recording of maneuver quality measures of forced expiratory time, end-of-test volume, back-extrapolated volume (Vbe), and forced vital capacity (FVC), as well as flow-volume curve. The subjects were tested several times and the two best results in each subject were selected. All criteria for quality control were suggested by ATS/ERS guidelines. The criteria for starting of the test was Vbe <80 mL and Vbe/FVC <12.5%. The criteria for repeatability of the test was that second highest FVC and FEV1 are within 100 ml or 10% of the highest value, whichever is greater. For the criteria for termination of the test for preschool aged children, we evaluated the flow-volume curve Results:As getting older, the success rate of spirometry increased and rapidly increased after 3 years old. Total success rate of the test was 59.4% (2 years old - 14.3%, 3 years old - 53.7%, 4 years old - 65.1%, 5 years old - 69.7%, 6 years old- 70.8%). The percentage of failure to meet the criteria for starting the test was 6.5%, repeatability of the test was 12.3% and end of the test was 31%. There was a significant difference only in age between success group and failure group. Evaluating the quality control criteria of previous studies, the success rate increased with age. Conclusion:About 60% of preschool aged children met ATS/ERS goals for spirometry test performance and the success rate was highly correlated with age. It is clearly needed that developing more feasible and suitable criteria for quality control of spirometry test in preschool aged children.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.45 no.11
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• pp.1131-1141
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• 2012

In this study, factors that influence water supply capacities of dams are extracted using factor analysis, and multiple regression equations for estimating water supply capacities of dams are developed using the analysis results. Twenty-one multi-purpose dams and twelve Municipal and Industrial (M&I) water supply dams are selected for case studies, and eight variables influencing water supply capacities of dams, namely: watershed area, inflow, effective reservoir storage, grade on amount of M&I water supply, grade on amount of agricultural water supply, grade on amount of in-stream flow supply, grade on river administration, and grade on average rainfall, are determined. Two case studies for multi-purpose dams and M&I water supply dams are performed, employing factor analysis, respectively. For the two cases, preliminary tests, such as reviewing matrix of correlation coefficient, Bartlett's test of sphericity, and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test, are conducted to evaluate the suitability of the variables for factor analysis. In case of multi-purpose dams, variables are grouped into three factors; M&I water supply dams, two factors. The factors are rotated using Varimax method, and then factor loading of each variable is computed. The results show that the variables influencing water supply capacities of dams are reasonably selected and appropriately grouped into factors. In addition, multiple regression equations for predicting the amounts of annual water supply of dams are established using the factor scores as explanatory variables, it is identified that the models' accuracies are high, and their applications to determining effective storage capacity of a dam during dam planning and design steps are presented. Consequently, it is thought that the variables and factors are useful for dam planning and dam design.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.39 no.9
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• pp.713-718
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to realize compressor-performance improvements in the fuel economy of an automotive air-conditioning system. We conduct cooling performance tests in a compressor calorimeter test stand. To improve the cooling performance, we investigate the increase in the suction flow rate and the decrease in the discharge dead volume. Based on the results of the test, we found that the cooling capacity and the coefficient of performance (COP) of the compressors were improved as follows. The cooling performance improved greater at high speeds than low speeds in the case of an increase in the suction flow rate increase, and it improved more at low speeds than at high speed when there was a decrease in the discharge dead volume. When both of the above factors were included, we observed that the improvement effects were generally balanced for both high- and low-speed modes, and there was a significant improvement in the discharge temperature. The improvement was found to be about 3.2% at low speed, 8.3% at high speed during in cooling performance improvement, about 5.8% at low speed and about 6.2% at high speed in COP improvement, and there was a decrease of about $3^{\circ}C$ at low speed and a $5^{\circ}C$ decrease at high speed in discharge temperature.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.71-78
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• 2000

Preferential flow has recently been the subject of increasing interest because these phenomena contribute to solute transport in soils. Commonly, preferential flow paths are associated with macropores or highly structured soils. We presented an analysis of the measured breakthrough curves (BTCs) of $Cl^-$ and $Cu^{2+}$ ions to test the occurrence of preferential flow in soils using miscible displacement technique under steady flow conditions. We also analyzed soil water retention curves and from this curves induced cumulative pore size distribution of undisturbed soils, which sampled from Ap1, B1, and C horizons of Songjeong series soils (the fine loamy, mesic family of Typic Hapludults). In this study, miscible displacement experiment on C horizon was excluded, because it is structureless sandy loam with saturated hydraulic conductivity of $5.2cmhr^{-1}$. The saturated hydraulic conductivity of Ap1 horizon was $2.0cmhr^{-1}$, which was about 7 times higher than that of B1 horizon ($0.27cm hr^{-1}$). Cumulative pore size distribution predicted that Ap1 horizon had more macropores (pore diameter larger than $49{\mu}m$, equivalent to -6 kpa of soil matric potential) than B1 horizon. The hydrodynamic dispersion coefficient from chloride BTCs was estimated as $1.3cm^2hr^{-1}$ for B1 and $34cm^2hr^{-1}$ for Ap1 horizon. However the retardation factors of B1 and Ap1 horizon were significantly different, i.e. 1 and 0.6, respectively, which means that there was distinct partition between mobile water and immobile phase in Ap1 horizon. The copper retardation effect of Ap1 horizon was less than that of B1 horizon, even though cation exchange capacity of Ap1 horizon was higher than that of B1 horizon. Thus, breakthrough curves of $Cl^-$ and $Cu^{2+}$ obviously showed the probability that preferential flow would occur in Ap1 horizon.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.139-149
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• 2004

As the expansion of road capacity has become impractical in many urban areas, congestion pricing has been widely considered as an effective method to reduce urban traffic congestion in recent years. The principal reason is that the congestion pricing may lead the user equilibrium (UE) flow pattern to system optimum (SO) pattern in road network. In the context of network equilibrium, the link tolls according to the marginal cost pricing principle can user an UE flow to a SO pattern. Thus, the pricing method offers an efficient tool for moving toward system optimal traffic conditions on the network. This paper proposes a continuous network design program (CNDP) in network equilibrium condition, in order to find optimal congestion toll for maximizing net economic benefit (NEB). The model could be formulated as a bi-level program with continuous variable(congestion toll) such that the upper level problem is for maximizing the NEB in elastic demand, while the lower level is for describing route choice of road users. The bi-level CNDP is intrinsically nonlinear, non-convex, and hence it might be difficult to solve. So, we suggest a heuristic solution algorithm, which adopt derivative information of link flow with respect to design parameter, or congestion toll. Two example networks are used for test of the model proposed in the paper.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.115-121
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• 2015

In this paper, we proposed an iterative data-flow optimal scheduling algorithm based on genetic algorithm for high-performance multiprocessor. The basic hardware model can be extended to include detailed features of the multiprocessor architecture. This is illustrated by implementing a hardware model that requires routing the data transfers over a communication network with a limited capacity. The scheduling method consists of three layers. In the top layer a genetic algorithm takes care of the optimization. It generates different permutations of operations, that are passed on to the middle layer. The global scheduling makes the main scheduling decisions based on a permutation of operations. Details of the hardware model are not considered in this layer. This is done in the bottom layer by the black-box scheduling. It completes the scheduling of an operation and ensures that the detailed hardware model is obeyed. Both scheduling method can insert cycles in the schedule to ensure that a valid schedule is always found quickly. In order to test the performance of the scheduling method, the results of benchmark of the five filters show that the scheduling method is able to find good quality schedules in reasonable time.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.57 no.6
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• pp.847-852
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• 2019

In this study, the effect of additives on the performance of aqueous organic redox flow battery (AORFB) using quinoxaline and ferrocyanide as active materials in alkaline supporting electrolyte is investigated. Quinoxaline shows the lowest redox potential (-0.97 V) in KOH supporting electrolyte, while when quinoxaline and ferrocyanide are used as the target active materials, the cell voltage of this redox combination is 1.3 V. When the single cell tests of AORFBs using 0.1 M active materials in 1 M KCl supporting electrolyte and Nafion 117 membrane are implemented, it does not work properly because of the side reaction of quinoxaline. To reduce or prevent the side reaction of quinoxaline, the two types of additives are considered. They are the potassium sulfate as electrophile additive and potassium iodide as nucleophilie additive. Of them, when the single cell tests of AORFBs using potassium iodide as additive dissolved in quinoxaline solution are performed, the capacity loss rate is reduced to $0.21Ah{\cdot}L^{-1}per\;cycle$ and it is better than that of the single cell test of AORFB operated without additive ($0.29Ah{\cdot}L^{-1}per\;cycle$).

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.256-264
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between oral health behaviors and the results of the oral dysentery test for dental hygienists and students at Gyeonggi - do and Chungcheongnam - do. Self - filling questionnaires and oral diseases. The following conclusions were obtained. The most common toothbrushing frequency was three times a day (60.2%), and the most dominant frequency of eating between meals was once or less(49.7%). The most common snack that they had was stickiness-free sweetened food(66.5%), and the type of beverage that they had the most was sweetened beverages(49.7%). The average stimulated saliva flow rate was 9.41ml, and they got a mean of 9.52 in the buffering capacity of saliva. The average glucose clearance time was a mean of 12.02. When they took a streptococcus mutans colony count test, 80.1 percent belonged to the low-risk group(<$10^5$), and 82.6 percent belonged to the low-risk group(<$10^5$) when a lactobacillus test was conducted. There was a positive correlation between the irritant saliva fraction and the non-irritating saliva and saliva buffering ability. In the fluoride application experience, the glucose retention time was 10.66 minutes and the fluoride application experience was 13.33 minutes. (P = .008). The importance of oral health, which is directly linked to general health, should be emphasized in order to improve the quality of life as well as the life expectancy. For oral health, which is directly linked to systemic health, it is necessary to provide opportunities for oral health education that can be easily accessed by the public, and to continuously develop and provide oral health care programs for a lifetime.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.259-266
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• 1993

Background: To evaluate the risk factor of pneumothorax (PNX) which is the most common complication of CT-guided needle aspiration of the lung, we have examined the frequency of PNX according to the presence of obstructive ventilatory impairment determined by pulmonary function tests. Methods: A comparative study of analysis of forecd expiratory volume and folw-volume curves, and determinations of diffusing capacity taken before procedure were made between each 16 cases with PNX and controls with no PNX. Each of the control group was matched for sex, age, height, and size and depth of lesion with the former. Results: 1) In comparison of vital capacity and parameters derived from forced expiratory volume curve between two groups, VC and FVC were not significantly different, whereas $FEV_1$, $FEV_1$/FVC%, and FEF25-75% showed a significant decrease in the PNX gorup. Also, in the PNX group, all the observed values of parameters analyzed from flow-volune curve were siginificantly reduced in the PNX group compared with those in the control group. 2) The diffusing capacity tended to decrease along with varying individual differences in the PNX group. 3) Patients who had obstructive ventilatory impairment according to the results of pulmonary function tests experienced a twofold increase in the frequency of PNX and a sixfold increase in the frequency of chest tube drainage for treatment of PNX compared with those whose results were normal. Conclusion: These findings suggest that the exact evaluation of obstructive lung disease determined by pulmonary function test be considered assessing a pastient's risk for PNX in the patients who will take the CT-guided needle aspiration of the lung.