• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.1-7
• /
• 2022

It has been found through physiological experiments that the visual neurons constituting the human visual cortex do not respond to all visual stimuli, but to a visual stimuli with specific conditions. In order to interpret such physiological experiments, a model that can simulate the firing characteristics of neurons including a linear filter with random gain was proposed. It has been proven through experiments that subspaces are formed. To verify the validity of the implemented model, the distribution of values for two pixels randomly extracted from four different visual stimulus data was observed. The difference between the two distributions was confirmed by extracting the central coordinate value, that is, the coordinate value with the most values, from the distribution of the total stimulus data and the spike ignition stimulus data. In the case of the entire set, it was verified through experiments that the stimulus data generating spikes is a subset or subspace of the entire stimulus data. This study can be used as a basic study related to the mechanism of spikes in response to visual stimuli.

• Journal of IKEEE
• /
• v.26 no.3
• /
• pp.416-421
• /
• 2022

In this study, we present a fully automated system that combines camera technology with liquid crystal technology to create a polarization camera capable of detecting the partial linear polarization of light reflected from an object. The use of twisted nematic (TN) liquid crystals that electro-optically modulate the polarization plane of light eliminates the need to mechanically rotate the polarizing filter in front of the camera lens. Images obtained using these techniques are imaged by computer software. In addition, liquid crystal panels have been produced in a square shape, but many camera lenses are usually round, and lighting or other driving units are installed around the lens, so space is optimized through the application of a circular liquid crystal display. Through the development of this technology, an electrically switchable and space-optimized liquid crystal polarizer is developed.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• v.55 no.3
• /
• pp.214-224
• /
• 2022

Background: Studies of the prognostic role of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are still limited. This study investigated the prognostic power of CTCs from the pulmonary vein (PV), peripheral blood (PB), and bone marrow (BM) for postoperative recurrence in patients who underwent curative resection for NSCLC. Methods: Forty patients who underwent curative resection for NSCLC were enrolled. Before resection, 10-mL samples were obtained of PB from the radial artery, blood from the PV of the lobe containing the tumor, and BM aspirates from the rib. A microfabricated filter was used for CTC enrichment, and immunofluorescence staining was used to identify CTCs. Results: The pathologic stage was stage I in 8 patients (20%), II in 15 (38%), III in 14 (35%), and IV in 3 (8%). The median number of PB-, PV-, and BM-CTCs was 4, 4, and 5, respectively. A time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that PB-CTCs had excellent predictive value for recurrence-free survival (RFS), with the highest area under the curve at each time point (first, second, and third quartiles of RFS). In a multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression model, PB-CTCs were an independent risk factor for recurrence (hazard ratio, 10.580; 95% confidence interval, 1.637-68.388; p<0.013). Conclusion: The presence of ≥4 PB-CTCs was an independent poor prognostic factor for RFS, and PV-CTCs and PB-CTCs had a positive linear correlation in patients with recurrence.

• Atmosphere
• /
• v.31 no.5
• /
• pp.525-537
• /
• 2021

Black ices on road surfaces in winter tend to cause severe and terrible accidents. It is very difficult to detect black ice events in advance due to their localities as well as sensitivities to surface and upper meteorological variables. This study develops a methodology to detect the road sections vulnerable to black ice with the use of road surface temperature data obtained from a mobile road weather observation vehicle. The 7 experiments were conducted on the route from Nam-Wonju IC to Nam-Andong IC (132.5 km) on the Jungang Expressway during the period from December 2020 to February 2021. Firstly, temporal road surface temperature data were converted to the spatial data with a 50 m resolution. Then, the spatial road surface temperature was normalized with zero mean and one standard deviation using a simple normalization, a linear de-trend and normalization, and a low-pass filter and normalization. The resulting road thermal map was calculated in terms of road surface temperature differences. A road ice index was suggested using the normalized road temperatures and their horizontal differences. Road sections vulnerable to black ice were derived from road ice indices and verified with respect to road geometry and sky view, etc. It was found that black ice could occur not only over bridges, but also roads with a low sky view factor. These results are expected to be applicable to the alarm service for black ice to drivers.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
• /
• v.42 no.3
• /
• pp.203-213
• /
• 2023

In medical ultrasound imaging systems, Side lobes may appear if signals outside the imaging point are not completely removed during receive focusing. If the time signal of the side lobe overlaps with the time signal (main lobe) from the image point, it is difficult to completely remove it using filter processing in the time domain. However, In the receive focusing process, when time-channel signals are Fourier-transformed, the main lobe and side lobe signals are spatially separated in the spectral domain. Therefore, the side lobes can be suppressed by multiplying the image with magnitude weights, which are determined by the magnitudes of the main and side lobes calculated in the spectral domain. In addition, when the main lobe and the side lobe spectrum are adjacent, the distance weight was applied based on the distance between them. In a 5 MHz ultrasound imaging system using a 64-channel linear transducer, point reflector and speckle images with cysts of various brightness were synthesized and weights were applied to the ultrasound image. Using computer simulations, we confirmed that the side lobes were greatly reduced without affecting the spatial resolution in the point reflector image, and the contrast was significantly improved in the cyst image with computer simulations.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
• /
• v.48 no.2
• /
• pp.100-106
• /
• 2023

Background: As breast tissue expanders consist of metallic materials in the needle guard and ferromagnetic injection port, irradiation can produce radioactivation. Materials and Methods: A CPX4 (Mentor Worldwide LLD) breast tissue expander was exposed using the Versa HD (Elekta) linear accelerator. Two photon energies of 6 and 10 MV-flattening filter free (FFF) beams with 5,000 monitor units (MU) were irradiated to identify the types of radiation. Furthermore, 300 MU with 10 MV-FFF beam was exposed to the CPX4 breast tissue expander by varying the machine dose rates (MDRs) 600, 1,200, and 2,200 MU/min. To assess the instantaneous dose rates (IDRs) solely from the CPX4, a tissue expander was placed outside the treatment room after beam irradiation, and a portable radioisotope identification device was used to identify the types of radiation and measure IDR. Results and Discussion: After 5,000 MU delivery to the CPX4 breast tissue expander, the energy spectrum whose peak energy of 511 keV was found with 10 MV-FFF, while there was no resultant one with 6 MV-FFF. The time of each measurement was 1 minute, and the mean IDRs from the 10 MV-FFF were 0.407, 0.231, and 0.180 μSv/hr for the three successive measurements. Following 10 MV-FFF beam irradiation with 300 MU indicated around the background level from the first measurement regardless of MDRs. Conclusion: As each institute room entry time protocol varies according to the working hours and occupational doses, we suggest an addition of 1 minute from the institutes' own room entry time protocol in patients with CPX4 tissue expander and the case of radiotherapy vaults equipped with a maximum energy of 10 MV photon beams.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.73-83
• /
• 2024

In this study, environmental evaluation of high barrier coated paper (coating layer/paper) packaging is conducted in comparison with conventional aluminum laminated (PET/VMPET/LLDPE) plastic packaging. The target product for this packaging is a KF94 mask, which requires a high barrier of water and oxygen to maintain the filtration ability of the mask filter. The functional unit of this study is 10,000 mask packaging materials based on a material capable of blocking oxygen (<1 g/m²day) and moisture (<3 g/m²day) for the preservation of KF94 masks. In order to understand the results easily, paper-based mask packaging system divided into 6 stages (pulp, pulping & paper making, calendaring & coating, printing, packing and waste management), while plastic-based mask packaging consists of 5 stages (material production, processing, printing, packing, waste management) In case of paper-based mask packaging, most contributing stage is calendaring & coating, resulting from heat and electricity production. On the other hand, plastic-based mask packaging is contributed more than 30% by material production, specifically due to linear low density polyethylene and purified terephthalic acid production. The comparison results show that global warming potential of paper-based mask packaging has 32% lower than that of plastic-based mask packaging. Most of other impact indicators revealed in similar trend.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.91-104
• /
• 2000

Recently linear accelerator in radiation therapy in asymmetric field has been easily used since the improvement and capability of asymmetrical field adjustment attached to the machine. It has been thought there have been some significant errors in dose calculation when asymmetrical radiation fields have been utilized in practice of radiation treatments if the fundamental data for dose calculation have been measured in symmetrical standard fields. This study investigated how much the measured data of dose distributions and their isodose curves are different between in asymmetrical and symmetrical standard fields, and how much there difference affect the error in dose calculation in conventional method measured in symmetrical standard field. The distributions of radiation dose were measured by photon diode detector in the water phantom (RFA-300P, Scanditronix, Sweden) as tissue equivalent material on utilization of 6 MV linear accelerator with source surface distance (SSD) 1000 mm. The photon diode detector has the velocity of 1 mm per second from water surface to 250 mm depth in the field size of $40mm{\times}40mm\;to\;250mm{\times}250mm\;symmetric\;field\;and\;40mm{\times}20mm\;to\;250mm{\times}125mm$ asymmetrical fields. The measurements of percent depth dose (PDD) and subsequent plotting of their isodose curves were performed from water surface to 250mm dmm from Y-center axis in $100mm{\times}50mm$ field in order to absence the variability of depth dose according to increasing field sizes and their affects to plotted isodose curves. The difference of PDD between symmetric and asymmetric field was maximum $4.1\%\;decrease\;in\;40mm{\times}20mm\;field,\;maximum\;6.6\%\;decrease\;in\;100mm{\times}50mm\;and\;maximum\;10.2\%\;decrease\;200mm{\times}100mm$, the larger decrease difference of PDD as the greater field size and as greater the depth, The difference of PDD between asymmetrical field and equivalent square field showed maximum $2.4\%\;decrease\;in\;60mm{\times}30mm\;field,\;maximum\;4.8\%\;decrease\;in\;150mm{\times}75mm\;and\;maximum\;6.1\%\;decrease\;in\;250mm{\times}125mm$, and the larger decreased differenced PDD as the greater field size and as greater the depth, these differences of PDD were out of $5\%$ of dose calculation as defined by international Commission on radiation unit and Measurements(ICRU). In the dose distribution of asymmetrical field (half beam) the plotted isodose curves were observed to have deviations by decreased PDD as greater as the blocking of the beam moved closer to the central axis, and as the asymmetrical field increased by moving the block 10 mm keeping away from the central axis, the PDD increased and plotted isodose curves were gradually more flattened, due to reduced amount of the primary beam and the fraction of low energy soft radiations by passing thougepth in asymmetrical field by moving independent jaw each 10 h beam flattening filter. As asymmetrical radiation field as half beam radiation technique is used, the radiation dosimetry calculated in utilizing the fundamental data which measured in standard symmetrical field should be converted on bases of nearly measured data in asymmetrical field, measured beam data flies of various asymmetrical field in various energy and be necessary in each institution.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
• /
• v.47 no.3
• /
• pp.87-95
• /
• 2010

Portable multi-media products which can service the highest audio-quality by using lossless audio codec has been released and the international lossless codecs, MPEG-4 audio lossless coding(ALS) and MPEG-4 scalable lossless coding(SLS), were standardized by MPEG in 2006. The simple profile of MPEG-4 ALS, it supports up to stereo, was defined by MPEG in 2009. The lossless audio codec should have low-complexity in stereo to be widely used in portable multi-media products. But the previous researches of MPEG-4 ALS have focused on an improvement of compression ratio, a complexity reduction in multi-channels coding, and a selection of linear prediction coefficients(LPCs) order. In this paper, the complexity and compression ratio of MPEG-4 ALS encoder is analyzed in simple profile of MPEG-4 ALS, the method to reduce a complexity of MPEG-4 ALS encoder is proposed. Based on an analysis of complexity of MPEG-4 ALS encoder, the complexity of short-term prediction filter of MPEG-4 ALS encoder is reduced by using the low-complexity filter that is proposed in previous research to reduce the complexity of MPEG-4 ALS decoder. Also, we propose a joint coding decision method, it reduces the complexity and keeps the compression ratio of MPEG-4 ALS encoder. In proposed method, the operation of joint coding is decided based on the relation between cross-correlation of residual and compression ratio of joint coding. The performance of MPEG-4 ALS encoder that has the method and low-complexity filter is evaluated by using the MPEG-4 ALS conformance test file and normal music files. The complexity of MPEG-4 ALS encoder is reduced by about 24% by comparing with MPEG-4 ALS reference encoder, while the compression ratio by the proposed method is comparable to MPEG-4 ALS reference encoder.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.56-63
• /
• 2018

The management of Combined Sewer Overflows(CSOs) and Separated Sewer Overflows(SSOs) discharge directly to the effluent system in an untreated state, which occurs when the facility capacity is exceeded due to heavy rain, has become an important issue in recent years as the heavy rain becomes a regular phenomenon. Despite the continuous development of filtration technology, targeting densely populated urban areas, CSOs are rarely applied. Therefore, this study was carried out to optimize the process to apply CSOs in a pilot-scale horizontal flow filtration system with a rope-type synthetic fiber. The research was carried out in two steps: a preliminary study using artificial samples and a field study using sewage. In the preliminary study using an artificial sample, head loss of the filter media itself was analyzed to be approximately 1.1cm, and the head loss was increased by approximately 0.1cm as the linear velocity was increased by 10m/hr. In addition, the SS removal efficiency was stable at 81.4%, the filtration duration was maintained for more than 6 hours, and the average recovery rate of 98% was obtained by air backwashing only. In the on-site evaluation using sewage, the filtration duration was approximately 2 hours and the average removal efficiency of 83.9% was obtained when belt screen (over 450 mesh) was applied as a pre-treatment process to prevent the premature clogging of filter media. To apply the filtration process to CSOs and SSOs, it was concluded that the combination with the pre-treatment process was important to reinforce the hydraulic dimension for the stable maintain of operation period, rather than efficiency. Compared to the dry season, the quality of incoming sewage was lower in the rainy season, which was attributed to the characteristics of the drainage area with higher sanitary sewerage. In addition, the difference in removal efficiency according to the influent quality of the wet season and dry season was small.