• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.374-379
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• 2018

The piezocomposite transducer is widely used because it is highly efficient in transforming electric energy into mechanical energy, and its frequency range is broader than that of other types of ultrasound transducers. A general piezocomposite transducer is composed of an acoustic lens, impedance matching layers, piezoelectric materials, and backing layers. When an input voltage is applied to a piezoelectric material as an active material, it generates sound waves while vibrating. At that time, an impedance matching layer helps the sound waves to propagate forward while reducing the impedance mismatch that may occur at the interface between the active material and its front material. The impedance mismatch has a negative effect on the signal of an ultrasound transducer; thus, it is important to design a matching layer to overcome the issue. In this study, an optimized feature of a matching layer with gradient properties is studied. An objective function is defined to minimize both the average and the deviation of the reflection coefficients that are functions of the frequencies. As a result, an improvement in the signal characteristics with respect to the sensitivity and bandwidth is reported.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.58-67
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• 2019

This study presents a new portable eight-output light emitting diode (LED) driver. The eight output-channels are divided into two equal groups, and their output powers can be controlled individually by three active switches. In addition, a simple capacitor-based passive current balancing circuit (CBC) is employed in each port to guarantee that the currents of the four LEDs are the same. When compared with the conventionally used separate two-output isolated converters, the proposed one uses one less active switch. Moreover, zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) is achieved, which improves the power efficiency of the driver. Finally, a highly compact prototype is built, which can reach an efficiency of 94.6%.

• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.23-32
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• 2022

This paper provides an overview of optical transport technology for 5G mobile fronthaul. The configuration of fronthaul network is classified with dedicated fiber, passive WDM(Wavelength Division Multiplexing), active WDM, and semi-active WDM, which has its own advantages and drawbacks. Various WDM technology is applied for fronthaul transport, depending on the wavelength bands, required number of wavelength channels, configuration of fronthaul network, etc. In order to meet the increasing transport capacity, a 50/100 Gbps optical transceiver will be used in place of the present 10/25 Gbps technology. Trends will be continued to enhance the flexibility and reliability of the fronthaul optical network supporting highly advanced 5G mobile services.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.68 no.2
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• pp.87-92
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• 2024

The commercialization of rechargeable metal-air batteries is extremely desirable but designing stable oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysts with non-noble metal still has faced challenges to replace platinum-based catalysts. The nonnoble metal catalysts for ORR were prepared to improve the catalytic performance and stability by the thermal decomposition of ZIF-8 with optimum cobalt loading. The porous carbon was obtained by the calcination of ZIF-8 and different loading amounts of Co nanoparticles were anchored onto porous carbon forming a Co/PC catalyst. Co/PC composite shows a significant increase in the ORR value of current and stability (500 h) due to the good electronic conductive PCN support and optimum cobalt metal loading. The significantly improved catalytic performance is ascribed to the chemical structure, synergistic effects, porous carbon networks, and rich active sites. This method develops a new pathway for a highly active and advantageous catalyst for electrochemical devices.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.422-428
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• 2004

Expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were generated from two 3'-directed CDNA libraries constructed from quiescent and activated rat hepatic stellate cell (HSC) to analyze the expression profiles of active genes in both cells. From quiescent and activated HSC, 694 ESTs and 779 ESTs, respectively, were obtained after excluding those having shorter than 30 bp. Amonq ESTs obtained from quiescent and activated HSC, 68 and 73 kinds of ESTs (186 clones and 236 clones), respectively, appeared more than once, implying that their genes are expressed highly in each cell type. 52 among 73 ESTs appeared only in the activated HSC 47 amonq 68 ESTs only in the normal HSC, and 21 in both cells. The genes of these 52 ESTs were assumed to be expressed more highly in the activated HSC. To confirm the high expression of genes of which the ESTs appeared more than twice in the activated HSC, northern hybridization was carried out with RNAs derived from rat normal and fibrotic liver using each of 18 EST DNAs as probe. 13 ESTs showed more intense bands with RNA isolated from the fibrotic liver than normal liver. From these results, we confirm the positive correlation between abundance of transcript in activated HSCs and the expression level in fibrotic liver, The expression profile of the transcripts serves as an important tool in understanding the biological properties of HSC.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.679-698
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• 2008

On marine vessels, delicate instruments such as navigation radars are normally mounted on ship masts. However the vibrations at the top of mast where the radar is mounted often cause serious deterioration in radar-tracking resolution. The most serious problem is caused by the rotational vibrations at the top of mast that may be due to wind loading, inertial loading from ship rolling and base excitations induced by the running propeller. This paper presents a method of semi-active vibration control using magneto-rheological (MR) dampers to reduce the rotational vibration of the mast. In the study, the classical optimal control algorithm, the independent modal space control algorithm and the double input - single output fuzzy control algorithm are employed for the vibration control. As the phenomenological model of an MR damper is highly nonlinear, which is difficult to analyse, a back- propagation neural network is trained to emulate the inverse dynamic characteristics of the MR damper in the analysis. The trained neural network gives the required voltage for each MR damper based on the displacement, velocity and control force of the MR damper quickly. Numerical simulations show that the proposed control methods can effectively suppress the rotational vibrations at the top of mast.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.1633-1642
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• 2002

Uninterrupted power supply has become indispensable during the maintenance task of active electric power lines as a result of today's highly information-oriented society and increasing demand of electric utilities. The maintenance task has the risk of electric shock and the danger of falling from high place. Therefore it is necessary to realize an autonomous robot system using electro-hydraulic manipulator because hydraulic manipulators have the advantage of electric insulation. Meanwhile it is relatively difficult to realize autonomous assembly tasks particularly in the case of manipulating flexible objects such as electric lines. In this report, a discrete event control system is introduced for automatic assembly task of electric lines into sleeves as one of the typical task of active electric power lines. In the implementation of a discrete event control system, LVQNN (linear vector quantization neural network) is applied to the insertion task of electric lines to sleeves. In order to apply these proposed control system to the unknown environment, virtual learning data for LVQNN is generated by fuzzy inference. By the experimental results of two types of electric lines and sleeves, these proposed discrete event control and neural network learning algorithm are confirmed very effective to the insertion tasks of electric lines to sleeves as a typical task of active electric power maintenance tasks.

• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.336-340
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• 2011

The aim of this study was to investigate the possible utilization of Zanthoxylum schinifolium as a source of antimicrobial agents. The antimicrobial effects of Zanthoxylum schinifolium extracts were investigated against Acinetobacter baumannii, which is a multi-drug resistant pathogen, and 5 other pathogenic microorganisms. The hexane extract of Zanthoxylum schinifolium was more effective than the ethyl acetate, n-butanol and methanol extracts which were active against Acinetobacter baumannii 25, with minimum inhibitory concentrations(MIC) ranging from 0.8 mg/ml to 1.6 mg/ml. Tetracycline had no effect on Acinetobacter baumanniii. The hexane extract was highly active against Candida albicans IFO 6258, with an MIC of 1.5 mg/ml. In contrast, the ethyl acetate, n-butanol and methanol extracts showed no activity against the 5 pathogenic microorganisms. Furthermore, a combination of hexane extract and ethyl acetate extract was significantly more active against the 5 Acinetobacter baumannii strains than n-butanol and methanol. These results suggest that Zanthoxylum schinifolium extracts have great potential as antimicrobial compounds against multi-drug resistant pathogens, and further studies are warranted.

• Korean Journal of Weed Science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.135-138
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• 1997

Sulfonylureas are highly active herbicides which can be applied at very low rate(10-50g/ha) to control broadleaf weeds. The nature of this category of compound is, however, very unstable toward hydrolysis. Therefore, the preparation of these compounds as liquid formulation was not possible. Most of the current formulations of sulfonylurea are in dry forms such as water dispersible granule or wettable powder. Even in these dry forms, the active ingredients also encounter significant chemical decomposition. This study involves the preparation of the sulfonylurea salts by reacting the parent compound with base such as sodium hydroxide. The salt becomes stable toward hydrolysis and it turns soluble when diluted with water. This discovery makes the preparation for liquid formulation or soluble granule of sulfonylurea possible. The stoichiometry of base added to the neutral sulfonylurea is controlled quite precisely. The base has to be added enough to quench the acidic impurities in the technical material and to convert the active ingredient into salt. However, the base should not be overused to cause further saponification of the sulfonylurea salts. The chemical nature of these compounds is presented and the chemical reaction is described. New soluble liquid formulation and solid granule formulation of sulfonylurea are suggested.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.99-106
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• 2003

Uninterrupted power supply has become indispensable during the maintenance task of active electric power lines as a result of today's highly information-oriented society and increasing demand of electric utilities. The maintenance task has the risk of electric shock and the danger of falling from high place. Therefore it is necessary to realize an autonomous robot system. In order to realize these tasks autonomously, the there dimensional position of target object such as electric line and the stand of insulator must be recognized accurately and rapidly. The insertion task of an electric line into a sleeve is selected as the typical task of the maintenance of active electric power distribution lines in this paper. A modified hough transform is applied to the recognition of the center of electric line and optimal target position calculation method is newly derived in order to recognize the center 3 dimensional position of the electric line. By the proposed method, it is proved that the center position of the electric line can be recognized without respect to the noise of image and the shape of electric lines and the insertion task of an electric tine is realized.