• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.205-214
• /
• 2023

Soil salinity is becoming one of the most devastating environmental hazards over the years. Soil investigation involves fast, low cost and non disturbing methods to measure soil characteristics for both construction projects as well as for agricultural use. The electrical resistivity of saline soils is greatly governed by salt concentration and the presence of moisture in soil matrix. Experimental results of this investigation highlight that there is a significant relationship between the electrical resistivity of soil samples mixed with chloride solutions (NaCl, KCl, and MgCl₂) at various concentrations, and soil physical properties. Correlations represented by quadratic functions were obtained between electrical resistivity and soil characteristics, namely, water content, degree of saturation and salt concentration. This research reveals that the obtained correlations between electrical resistivity, salt concentration, water content and degree of saturation are effective for predicting the characteristics of salt affected soils in practice, which constitute a governing element in the assessment of saline lands sustaining infrastructure.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
• /
• v.23 no.3
• /
• pp.143-149
• /
• 2022

This excerpt delineates a quantitative measure of relationship between a research title and its respective abstract extracted from different journal articles documented through a Korean Citation Index (KCI) database published through various journals. In this paper, we propose a machine learning-based similarity metric that does not assume normality on dataset, realizes the imbalanced dataset problem, and zero-variance problem that affects most of the rule-based algorithms. The advantage of using this algorithm is that, it eliminates the limitations experienced by Pearson correlation coefficient (r) and additionally, it solves imbalanced dataset problem. A total of 107 journal articles collected from the database were used to develop a corpus with authors, year of publication, title, and an abstract per each. Based on the experimental results, the proposed algorithm achieved high correlation coefficient values compared to others which are cosine similarity, euclidean, and pearson correlation coefficients by scoring a maximum correlation of 1, whereas others had obtained non-a-number value to some experiments. With these results, we found that an effective title must have high correlation coefficient with the respective abstract.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
• /
• 2021.05a
• /
• pp.136-137
• /
• 2021

The soda lime waste glass powder was dissolved in NaOH-4M solution to synthesize an alkaline activator, which was used to activate Class-C fly ash (FA). Compressive and flexural strength tests were conducted to determine the mechanical properties. Archimedes' principle was applied to measure the porosity of samples, (SEM-EDX) and XRD was used to study the microstructure and phase changes of samples. Through Inductive Coupled Plazma technique, the solution was found to increase the concentration of Si as the amount of dissolved glass powder was increased. Owing to the increased concentration of Si in an alkaline solution, the reactivity of FA was accelerated resulting in an increased strength and reduced porosity. Additionally, the dissolution of FA was improved as well as the formation of amorphous phases in the matrix was also enhances with the concentration of increased Si in an alkaline solution.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.87 no.1
• /
• pp.1-18
• /
• 2023

The paper presents a Bayesian Finite element (FE) model updating methodology by utilizing modal data. The dynamic condensation technique is adopted in this work to reduce the full system model to a smaller model version such that the degrees of freedom (DOFs) in the reduced model correspond to the observed DOFs, which facilitates the model updating procedure without any mode-matching. The present work considers both the MPV and the covariance matrix of the modal parameters as the modal data. Besides, the modal data identified from multiple setups is considered for the model updating procedure, keeping in view of the realistic scenario of inability of limited number of sensors to measure the response of all the interested DOFs of a large structure. A relationship is established between the modal data and structural parameters based on the eigensystem equation through the introduction of additional uncertain parameters in the form of modal frequencies and partial mode shapes. A novel sampling strategy known as the Metropolis-within-Gibbs (MWG) sampler is proposed to sample from the posterior Probability Density Function (PDF). The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by considering both simulated and experimental examples.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.1-18
• /
• 2015

Collaborative filtering(CF) algorithm has been popularly used for recommender systems in both academic and practical applications. A general CF system compares users based on how similar they are, and creates recommendation results with the items favored by other people with similar tastes. Thus, it is very important for CF to measure the similarities between users because the recommendation quality depends on it. In most cases, users' explicit numeric ratings of items(i.e. quantitative information) have only been used to calculate the similarities between users in CF. However, several studies indicated that qualitative information such as user's reviews on the items may contribute to measure these similarities more accurately. Considering that a lot of people are likely to share their honest opinion on the items they purchased recently due to the advent of the Web 2.0, user's reviews can be regarded as the informative source for identifying user's preference with accuracy. Under this background, this study proposes a new hybrid recommender system that combines with users' review mining. Our proposed system is based on conventional memory-based CF, but it is designed to use both user's numeric ratings and his/her text reviews on the items when calculating similarities between users. In specific, our system creates not only user-item rating matrix, but also user-item review term matrix. Then, it calculates rating similarity and review similarity from each matrix, and calculates the final user-to-user similarity based on these two similarities(i.e. rating and review similarities). As the methods for calculating review similarity between users, we proposed two alternatives - one is to use the frequency of the commonly used terms, and the other one is to use the sum of the importance weights of the commonly used terms in users' review. In the case of the importance weights of terms, we proposed the use of average TF-IDF(Term Frequency - Inverse Document Frequency) weights. To validate the applicability of the proposed system, we applied it to the implementation of a recommender system for smartphone applications (hereafter, app). At present, over a million apps are offered in each app stores operated by Google and Apple. Due to this information overload, users have difficulty in selecting proper apps that they really want. Furthermore, app store operators like Google and Apple have cumulated huge amount of users' reviews on apps until now. Thus, we chose smartphone app stores as the application domain of our system. In order to collect the experimental data set, we built and operated a Web-based data collection system for about two weeks. As a result, we could obtain 1,246 valid responses(ratings and reviews) from 78 users. The experimental system was implemented using Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications(VBA) and SAS Text Miner. And, to avoid distortion due to human intervention, we did not adopt any refining works by human during the user's review mining process. To examine the effectiveness of the proposed system, we compared its performance to the performance of conventional CF system. The performances of recommender systems were evaluated by using average MAE(mean absolute error). The experimental results showed that our proposed system(MAE = 0.7867 ~ 0.7881) slightly outperformed a conventional CF system(MAE = 0.7939). Also, they showed that the calculation of review similarity between users based on the TF-IDF weights(MAE = 0.7867) leaded to better recommendation accuracy than the calculation based on the frequency of the commonly used terms in reviews(MAE = 0.7881). The results from paired samples t-test presented that our proposed system with review similarity calculation using the frequency of the commonly used terms outperformed conventional CF system with 10% statistical significance level. Our study sheds a light on the application of users' review information for facilitating electronic commerce by recommending proper items to users.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
• /
• v.52 no.2
• /
• pp.107-116
• /
• 2002

Background: Matrix metalloproteinases(MMP) are essential enzymes for tumor invasion and metastasis. Among the MMP family, elevated MMP-9 and stromelysin-3(STR-3) expression have been reported to be poor prognostic factors in lung cancer patients. To evaluate the possibility of a molecular diagnosis of lung cancer using peripheral blood, the mRNA expression level of MMP-9 and STR-3 was measured using a reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in patients with lung cancer. Methods : Ninety six patients(44 patients with lung cancer, 19 pulmonary infection, and 33 control) were included. To detect MMP-9 and STR-3 mRNA expression, RT-PCR was performed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. ELISA was also used to measure the serum level of MMP-9. Results : MMP-9 was expressed more frequently in patients with a pulmonary infection(18/19, 94.7%) compared to lung cancer patients(26/44, 59.1%) or the controls (23/33, 69.7%) (p=0.018). On the other hand, STR-3 expression was observed more frequently in patients with lung cancer(37/44, 84.1%) compared to the lung infection patients(8/19, 42.1%) or control(20/33, 60.6%) (p=0.003). Among the lung cancer patients, MMP-9 was expressed more frequently when a tumor invaded the lymph nodes(17/24, 70.8%) compared to when a tumor did not(3/13, 23.1%) (p=0.005). The MMP-9 and STR-3 expression levels had no relationship with age, sex, tumor size, distant metastasis, or tumor histology. The serum MMP-9 concentration was not higher in lung cancer patients compared to patients with a pulmonary infection or the control subjects. Conclusion : STR-3 may be used as a diagnostic marker in the peripheral blood of lung cancer patients using RT-PCR. Further studies to evaluate the clinical significance of elevated STR-3 expression in lung cancer patients is recommended.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
• /
• v.18 no.1 s.91
• /
• pp.21-28
• /
• 2006

This paper presents both experimental and analytical studies for the development of an ECC(Engineered Cementitious Composites) using ground granulated blast furnace slag(slag). This material has been focused on achieving moderately high composite strength while maintaining high ductility, represented by strain-hardening behavior in uniaxial tension. In the material development, micromechanics was adopted to properly select optimized range of the composition based on steady-state cracking theory and experimental studies on matrix, and interfacial properties. A single fiber pullout test and a wedge splitting test were employed to measure the bond properties of the fiber in a matrix and the fracture toughness of mortar matrix. The addition of the slag resulted in slight increases in the frictional bond strength and the fracture toughness. Subsequent direct tensile tests demonstrate that the fiber reinforced mortar exhibited high ductile uniaxial tension behavior with a maximum strain capacity of 3.6%. Both ductility and tensile strength(~5.3 MPa) of the composite produced with slag were measured to be significantly higher than those of the composite without slag. The slag particles contribute to improving matrix strength and fiber dispersion, which is incorporated with enhanced workability attributed to the oxidized grain surface. This result suggests that, within the limited slag dosage employed in the present study, the contribution of slag particles to the workability overwhelms the side-effect of decreased potential of saturated multiple cracking.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
• /
• v.59 no.2
• /
• pp.173-180
• /
• 2021

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the retentive characteristics of the additional attachments used with implant bar attachment under repeated insertion/removal cycles. Materials and methods: The newly developed attachment and the commercially available attachment were investigated: ADD-Lock (AL), Locator blue (LB). Two fixtures were placed parallel to each other on the custom lower mounting, and patrix of each attachment was fixed to the fixture. Also, the matrix of each attachment was placed on the opposing upper mounting. A universal testing machine was used to measure the retentive force during initial, 100, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, and 2500 repeated insertion/removal cycles. Wear and deformation of the attachment s were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Mann-Whitney U test (α=.05) and wilcoxon signed-rank test (α=.05) were performed to compare retentive force between each group and before and after 2500 repeated insertion/removal cycles. Results: In terms of initial retentive force and retentive force after 2500 repeated insertion/removal cycles, the AL group (15.24 ± 1.46 N and 9.74 ± 1.16 N) showed significantly smaller values than the LB group (43.53 ± 12.39 N and 22.99 ± 4.77 N) (P<.05). Also, in the loss of retentive force, the AL group (5.50 ± 1.08 N, 36.08%) showed a smaller value than the LB group (20.54 ± 11.89 N, 47.19%) (P<.05). Based on SEM analysis, The AL group showed noticeable wear and deformation in the patrix and the LB group in the matrix. Conclusion: Locator showed a higher initial retentive force than newly developed attachment, while the loss of retentive force was also higher. Both additional attachments are considered to have sufficient retentive force after repeated insertion/removal cycles.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.733-762
• /
• 2014

The government mandates that national research facilities & equipments through R&D business budget should be registered on the National Science and Technology Information Service (NTIS) for the purpose of the efficient use of the research facilities & equipments. This study is to contribute to the national policies on the efficient management of the research facilities & equipments by recognition methodology with the university's members and analysis of the impact factors of the universities' registration process improvement through the Define level and Measure level of the Six Sigma DAMIC. The survey and interview were conducted on research directors, professors joining university administration, graduate students, researchers, and staffs of A University. The findings are the lack of understanding specific steps and life-cycle management of research facilities & equipments. It is necessary to collect suggestions from universities and pursue policies considered the unique characteristics of the university for advanced operating and maximizing use of university's national research facilities & equipments. Research facilities & equipments enrollment compliance rate and registration accuracy were selected as CTQ-Y through the Six Sigma. 72 potential cause variables were derived through Process Map and C & E Diagram. 13 variables were determined as core potential factors through the X-Y Matrix and Pareto Chart. Research institutions should maximize utilization of research facilities & equipments through deriving a potential variables of the process improvements and designing a detail improvements based on the characteristics of each institutions.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.23 no.5
• /
• pp.418-428
• /
• 2003

Fiber fracture is one of the dominant failure phenomena affecting the total mechanical Performance of the composites. Fiber fracture locations were measured through the conventional optical microscope and the nondestructive acoustic emission (AE) technique and then were compared together as a function of the epoxy matrix modulus and the fiber surface treatment by the electrodeposition method (ED). Interfacial shear strength (IFSS) was measured using tensile fragmentation test in combination of AE method. ED treatment of the fiber surface enlarged the number of fiber fracture locations in comparison to the untreated case. The number of fiber fracture events measured by the AE method was less than optically obtained one. However, fiber fracture locations determined by AE detection corresponded with those by optical observation with small errors. The source location of fiber breaks by AE analysis could be a nondestructive, valuable method to measure interfacial shear strength (IFSS) of matrix in non-, semi- and/or transparent polymer composites.