• CELLMED
• /
• v.6 no.3
• /
• pp.21.1-21.15
• /
• 2016

In Kenya, traditional knowledge on herbal medicine has remained a mainstream source of maintaining wellbeing for generations in many communities. However, the knowledge has been eroded in the course of time due to sociocultural dynamics virtually advanced by Christianity and formal education especially in the Kikuyu community. The study documented current ethnobotanical knowledge and threat to the traditional knowledge on medicinal plants among the Kikuyu community. A survey was carried out in Mathira, Tetu, Kieni, Othaya, Mukurweini, and Nyeri Town constituencies. Thirty practicing herbalists were purposively sampled; 5 per constituency. Data was obtained through semi - structured questionnaires and analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. A total of 80 ailments treated using 111 medicinal plant species distributed within 98 genera and 56 families were documented. Prevalent communicable diseases treated using herbal medicine included; gonorrhea (17.5%), malaria (15%), respiratory infections (12%), colds (10%) and amoebiasis (10%). Non-communicable diseases were; joint pains (11.1%), ulcers/hyperacidity (8.7%), high blood pressure (8.7%), intestinal worms (11.1%) and arthritis/gout (10%). Frequently harvested plant materials were; roots, barks and leaves. The study concluded that, traditional medicine practitioners in Nyeri County possessed wide knowledge of herbal medicine but this knowledge was on the verge of disappearing as it was largely a preserve of the aged generation. The study recommended massive campaign about the benefits of using herbal medicine in the study area. Further pharmacological studies are recommended on the mentioned plant species aimed at establishing their efficacy and safety as well as standardization as potential drugs.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
• /
• v.24 no.5 s.83
• /
• pp.251-270
• /
• 2006

This study examined how the households used and combined financing sources to pay for college education. It compared the probability of using each source (current incomes, saving, education loans and grants) by households' socio-economic characteristics and analyzed which factors influence the decision to use each source and the amounts from each source for financing college education. Data for this study were from a questionnaire completed by 4-year college students (n=623) and were analyzed by t-tests, ANOVA and Heckman's two-step estimation models. The findings of this study were as follows: First, the most frequent source for college education was parents' savings and the second one was parents' incomes. Also, the most frequent combination of sources was saving and current incomes and the second was combination of three sources, saving, incomes and education loans. Second, the probability of using incomes was higher for younger students than for older students. The number of siblings showed significant differences among income, savings and education loans. Those who had higher incomes were more likely to use current incomes, saving, but less likely to borrow for financing college education. Middle-class income groups were more likely to borrow for education. Third, household incomes and asset holdings had generally positive impacts on the probability of using incomes and savings for college education, while total debt burden decreased both the probability and amounts of income and saving sources. The college costs had significantly positive effects on both the probability and the amounts of all of financing sources. Total grants received significantly decreased the amounts from incomes, savings and borrowing sources.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.49-55
• /
• 2010

There are only 10,000 Saunders' Gull's (Larus saundersi Swinhoe) surviving in the world today. But they are being threatened by coastal habitat, degradation, development pressure and disturbance by humans. Their first breeding record in Korea was in 1998 and the breeding status has been studied, however, the breeding status is not sufficient for this species. This study was performed from May 1999 to June 2009 to clarify breeding populations and trend of the Saunders' Gull population in Korea. The results indicate that the breeding population has been increasing gradually from 300 to 1,300 individuals, though disturbance increased. As threats to the breeding birds, physical environmental factors such as development and human disturbance were identified as a major threatening factors. Also, as a secondary factor, eggs and chicks are falling pray to predators. Incheon bay breeding places have been created by a landfill projects for the purpose of urban and industrial development, thus, these places will no longer be available for this species. In addition, the breeding habitat has been reduced and changed by expansions of development on the ground. Therefore, well planed management schemes should be provided for the species' breeding population to be continually breed and survive.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
• /
• v.7 no.7
• /
• pp.827-832
• /
• 2006

Occupant classification and position detection have been significant research areas in intelligent safety systems in the automotive field. The detection and classification of seat occupancy open up new ways to control the safety system. This paper deals with a novel algorithm development, hardware implementation and testing of a prototype intelligent safety system for occupant classification and position detection for in-vehicle environment. Borland C++ program is used to develop the novel algorithm interface between the sensor and data acquisition system. MEMS strain gauge hermatic pressure sensor containing micromachined integrated circuits is installed inside the passenger seat. The analog output of the sensor is connected with a connector to a PCI-9111 DG data acquisition card for occupancy detection, classification and position detection. The algorithm greatly improves the detection of whether an occupant is present or absent, and the classification of either adult, child or non-human object is determined from weights using the sensor. A simple computation algorithm provides the determination of the occupant's appropriate position using centroidal calculation. A real time operation is achieved with the system. The experimental results demonstrate that the performance of the implemented prototype is robust for occupant classification and position detection. This research may be applied in intelligent airbag design for efficient deployment.

• Biomedical Science Letters
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.83-89
• /
• 2007

Effects of alkaline reduced water (ARW) on the scavenging of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and diabetes were recently reported. However, no studies have yet been investigated on general drinking effects. In this study, we examined 100 patients hospitalized for senile disease treatment and recuperation. All examines received the ARW for 2 months. WBC level was decreased from $6.34\pm1.9(\times10^9/L)$ to $5.66\pm1.7(\times10^9/L)$. SGPT level was decreased from 27.47$\pm$14 Ut to 23.95$\pm$8.8 U/L. Cholesterol level was increased from 167.9$\pm$32 mg/dl to 176.21$\pm$42 mg/dl within normal range. However, the levels of potassium, adiponectin, SGOT and blood pressure showed no significant difference. The levels of growth hormone and homocysteine and mini-mental state examination also showed no significant difference. We suppose that the slight blood parameter trends indicate an improved physical condition induced by the ARW. Furthermore, we could found no harmful effect of the ARW in this study.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
• /
• 2002.05a
• /
• pp.369-372
• /
• 2002

In this research, a vision system for detecting tool breakage which is hardly detected by such indirect in-process measurement method as acoustic emission, cutting torque and motor current was developed and embedded into a PC-NC system. The vision system consists of CMOS image sensors, a slit beam laser generator and an image grabber board. Slit beam laser was emitted on the tool surface to separate the tool geometry well from the various obstacles surrounding the tool. An image of tool is captured through two steps of signal processing, that is, median filtering and thresholding and then the tool is estimated normal or broken by use of change of the centroid of the captured image. An air curtain made by the jetting high-pressure air in front of the lens was devised to prevent the vision system from being contaminated by scattered coolant, cutting chips in cutting process. To embed the vision system to a Siemens PC-NC controller 840D NC, an HMI(Human Machine Interface) program was developed under the Windows 95 operating system of MMC103. The developed HMI is placed in a sub window of the main window of 840D and this program can be activated or deactivated either by a soft key on the operating panel or M codes in the NC part program. As the tool breakage is detected, the HMI program emit a command for automatic tool change or send alarm to the NC kernel. Evaluation test in a high speed tapping center showed the developed system was successful in detection of the small-radius tool breakage.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.140-148
• /
• 2004

A novel rapid prototyping (RP) process, a full-automated transfer type variable lamination manufacturing process (Full-automated VLM-ST) has been developed. In the full-automated VLM-ST process, a vacuum chuck and a rectilinear motion system transfer the EPS foam material in the form of the plate with two pilot holes to the rotary supporting stage. The supplied material is then cut into an automated unit shape layer (AUSL) with a desired width, a desired length, a desired slope on the side surface, and a pair of reference shapes, which is called the guide shape (GS)’, including two pilot holes in accordance with CAD data through cutting in two steps using a four-axis synchronized hotwire cutter. Then, each AUSL is stacked by setting each AUSL with two pilot holes in the building plate with two pilot pins, and subsequently, adhesive is applied onto the top surface of the stacked AUSL by a bonding roller and pressure is simultaneously given to the bottom surface of the stacked AUSL. Finally, three-dimensional shapes are rapidly and automatically fabricated. This paper describes the method to generate guide shapes in AUSL data for the full-automated VLM-ST process. In order to examine the applicability of the method to generate guide shapes, three-dimensional shapes, such as a piston shape and a human head shape, are fabricated from the full-automated VLM-ST apparatus.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.33-42
• /
• 1979

The present study reports 41 cases of congenital and acquired heart diseases, who received open heart surgery under extracorporeal circulation [ECC] by Sarns Heart-Lung-Machine [HLM] at the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Hanyang University Hospital during the` period between July 1975 and February 1979. The priming of pump oxygenator was carried out by the hemodilution method using Hartman`s solution, whole blood, and fresh human plasma. The rate of hemodilution was in the average of 50.8 ml/kg. ECC was performed at the average perfusion flow rate of 85.0 ml/kg/min [2.43 L./ kg/2] and at moderate hypothermia. In the total cardiopulmonary bypass, arterial pressure ranged between 55 mmHg and 90 mmHg, but generally maintaining over 70 mmHg. Patient age ranged between 2 and 54 year old, in congenital heart diseases, between 2 and 28, in acquired heart diseases, between 17 and 54 Sex ratio of male to female was 20:21. The cases include a case of pulmonary valvular stenosis, 4 cases of atrial septal defect, 9 cases of ventricular septal defect, 9 cases of tetralogy of Fallot, 5 cases of pentalogy of Fallot, 3 cases of atypical multiple anomalies 7 cases of mitral stenosis or insufficiency, a case of myxoma in left atrium, and a case of ruptured aneurysm of Valsalva`s sinus. The surgical managements were 16 valvulotomy for pulmonary valvular stenosis, 2 Teflon patch graft closure and 5 simple suture closure of atrial septal defect, 16 Teflon patch graft closure and 5 simple suture closure of ventricular septal defect, 12 pericardial patch graft for infundibular stenosis of right ventricle, one anastomosis between left superior vena cava and right atrium, 2 open mitral commissurotomy, 5 mitral valve replacement using Starr-Edward`s ball valve, porcine xenograft by Hancock, by Carpentier-Edward, or Angell-Shiley, one removal of left atrial myxoma, and a repair of ruptured aneurysm of Valsalva`s sinus. Four [9.7%] out 41 cases expired postoperatively and the rest of 37 cases survived with satisfactory results. The causes of death were one coronary embolism in tetralogy of Fallot, 2 postoperative lower cardiac output in atypical multiple anomalies, and one right heart failure in large: ventricular septal defect with pulmonary hypertension.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.458-472
• /
• 1987

A heart supplies bloods of about 15, 000 liters to each human organ in a day. A normal function of heart valves is necessary to this act of heart. The disease of heart valve develops to a narrowness of a closure, resulting in an abnormal circulation of bloods. In an attempt to eliminate the affliction of heart valves, the operation method to repair with artificial heart valves has been developed and saved numerous patients over past 30 years. This replacement operation has been performed since early 1960`s in Korea, but all the artificial heart valves used are imported from abroad with very high costs until recent years. The artificial heart valve using pyrolytic carbon has been developed at KAIST, which was proved to be stable in the mechanical performance and durability. Therefore, the in viva performance of this valve was examined through animal tests. The artificial heart valves used in this study are tilting disc type valves, in which the disc were made of graphite coated with pyrolytic carbon and the cages were made of titanium. In viva testings of these valves were performed in 12 dogs, in which right ventriculo-pulmonary arterial [Croup I] or inter-aortic [Croup IV] valved conduit was implanted using polytetrafluoroethylene conduits containing KAIST valve and aortic valve [Group II] or pulmonary valve [Croup III] was replaced by a KAIST valve with a 21mm or 19mm tissue annulus diameter. In group I and II, pre-and post-operative transvalvular pressure gradient was measured and compared with other prosthetic valves. During post operative period laboratory examination was performed including hemoglobin, hematocrit, red cell count, white cell, lactic acid dehydrogenase and platelet. The eight surviving dogs were sacrificed and autopsy was performed at 2, 6, and 8 weeks. KAIST valve has low transvalvular gradient and relatively high orifice area. Average ventriculo-aortic peak systolic transvalvular gradient was 14 mmHg in 21 mm valve and 19 mmHg in 19 mm valve. The valve has slight intravascular hemolysis effect. Thrombogenic effect of low polishing quality and eddy currents around small orifice is high. The valve has vulnerability of disc movement. These animal tests suggest that the improvement of the heart valve design, surface polishing state and prescription methods.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
• /
• 2003.05a
• /
• pp.514-517
• /
• 2003

Oxygen supply is one of the most basic things in human body. Breathing is controlled by the lungs' stationary function and the respiratory center which is in the mesulla oblongata. Nothing but, the external breathing that air movement between the lungs and atmosphere and the internal breathing that cellular air movement between the hemoglobin and a single cell. The adult's number of times of the respirations is about 15∼20 per 1 minute, but it depends ages, exercise, temperature, disease, etc. The important thing in detecting the respiration is that doing it in object person's resting time. Detecting the respiration have to be done without attracting any attention of object person. In present using method is detecting the pulse with catching an object person's wrist and observing the object person's movement. In this paper, we propose the mobile respiration detection diagnostic system using ultrasound sensing method that does not be influenced by the inertia error and the pressure error.