• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.28-34
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• 2014

Recently, ultrasound therapy has become a new and effective treatment for many brain diseases. Therefore, skull-mimicking phantoms have been developed to simulate the skull and brain tissue of a human and allow further research into ultrasound therapy. In this study, the suitability of various skull-mimicking materials(HDPE, POM C, Acrylic) for studies of brain-tumor treatments was evaluated using focused ultrasound. The acoustic properties of three synthetic resins were measured. The skull-mimicking materials were then combined with an egg white phantom to observe the differences in the ultrasound beam distortion according to the type of material. High-intensity polyethylene was found to be suitable as a skull-mimicking phantom because it had acoustic properties and a denatured-area shape that was close to those of the skull,. In this study, a skull-mimicking phantom with a multi-layer structure was produced after evaluating several skull-mimicking materials. This made it possible to predict the denaturation in a skull in relation to focused ultrasound. The development of a therapeutic protocol for a range of brain diseases will be useful in the future.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.59 no.1
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• pp.109-113
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• 2005

Miliary tuberculosis is the most serious form of tuberculous disease, but is rarely complicated with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). When a patient with miliary tuberculosis initially presents with ARDS, the mortality is much higher. Therefore, the early detection of miliary tuberculosis as the underlying cause of ARDS is very important for the prognosis and survival of the patient. The diagnosis of miliary tuberculosis may be easy if the patient presents typical clinical manifestations associated with the characteristic pattern of miliary nodules on chest radiology. However, the diagnosis of miliary tuberculosis when complicated with ARDS can be difficult due to the nonspecific radiologic patterns, such as diffuse bilateral consolidation and ground glass opacity, without miliary nodular infiltration. However, these nonspecific patterns are known as less likely findings of miliary tuberculosis. We experienced a pregnant woman with miliary tuberculosis, mimicking ARDS due to bilateral severe pneumonia. She was admitted, via the emergency room, with sudden onset of fever, chill, cough and dyspnea. The initial chest PA and HRCT showed diffuse bilateral consolidation and ground glass opacity, without miliary nodular infiltration. All bacteriological studies, including blood and sputum cultures, tuberculosis-PCR and serologic study for infectious disease were negative. However, the definite diagnosis of unusual miliary tuberculosis as the underlying cause of ARDS was confirmed from the radiological finding and transbronchial fiberoptic lung biopsy. We report this case, with a review of the literature.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.91-97
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• 2015

PURPOSE: In this study investigated the thermal effect in tissue mimicking phantom by the material of the ultrasonic transducer in low intensity sonication. METHODS: The material of the ultrasonic transducer was made of ceramic, stainless steel, aluminum. Korea Testing Laboratory was measured of the three kinds of materials the total output of the ultrasonic transducer. Each material was measured core temperature and the actual output depending on the type of transducer. Agarose tissue mimicking phantom and silicone tissue mimicking phantom was made. Transducers made of three kinds of materials were emitted in the phantom. It is shown as a graph about time and temperature and the surface temperature rising speed and deep temperature rise rate was investigated. RESULTS: Ceramic transducers were highest output. Higher than the stainless steel transducer, aluminum had the lowest total output. Deep temperature was the highest in the ceramic transducer, and the surface temperature was the highest in the stainless steel transducer. Thermal images of ceramic transducer showed that a valid output is formed deeper wider than the metal. CONCLUSION: Ceramic transducer is confirmed the excellence than the metal transducer in deep thermal effect and the actual output of the ultrasound.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.76-80
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• 2012

This paper demonstrates how to implement inherent pitching stability in an insect-mimicking flapping-wing system for vertical takeoff. Design and fabrication of the insect-mimicking flapping-wing system is briefly described focusing on the recent modification. Force produced by the flapping-wing systems is estimated using the UBET (Unsteady Blade Element Theory) developed in the previous work. The estimation shows that the wing twist placed in the modified system can improve thrust production for about 10 %. The estimated thrust is compared with the measured thrust, which proves that the UBET provides fairly good estimations for the thrust produced by the flapping-wing systems. The vertical takeoff test shows that inherent pitching stability can be implemented in an insect-mimicking flapping-wing system by aligning the aerodynamic force center and center of gravity.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 2017.04a
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• pp.110-110
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• 2017

Biological systems offer unique principles for the design and fabrication of engineering platforms (i.e., popularly known as "Biomimetics") for various applications in many fields. For example, the lotus leaves exhibit unique surfaces consisting of evenly distributed micro and nanostructures. These unique surfaces of lotus leaves have the ability of superhydrophobic property to avoid getting wet by the surrounding water (i.e., Lotus effect). Inspired by the surface topographies of lotus leaves, the artificial superhydrophobic surfaces were developed using various micro- and nanoengineering. Here, we propose new platforms that can control hydrophilic and hydrophobic property of surfaces by mimicking micro- and nanosurfaces of various natural leaves such as common camellia, hosta plantaginea, and lotus. Using capillary force lithography technology and polymers in combination with biomimetic design principle, the unique micro- and nanostructures mimicking natural surfaces of common camellia, hosta plantaginea, and lotus were designed and fabricated. We also demonstrated that the replicated polymeric surfaces had different hydrophilic and hydrophobic properties according to the mimicking the natural leaf surfaces, which could be used as a simple, but powerful methodology for design and fabrication of controlled hydrophilic and hydrophobic platforms for various applications in the field of agriculture and biological engineering.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.50-53
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• 2015

Usually fungal infections caused by opportunistic and pathogenic fungi had been an important cause of morbidity and mortality among immunocompromised patients. However clinical data and investigations for immunocompetent pathogenic fungal infections had been rare and neglected into clinical studies. Especially Cryptococcal brainstem abscess cases mimicking brain tumors were also much more rare. So we report this unusual case. This 47-year-old man presented with a history of progressively worsening headache and nausea for 1 month and several days of vomituritions before admission. Neurological and laboratory examinations performed demonstrated no abnormal findings. Previously he was healthy and did not have any significant medical illnesses. A CT and MRI scan revealed enhancing $1.8{\times}1.7{\times}2.0$ cm mass lesion in the left pons having central necrosis and peripheral edema compressing the fourth ventricle. And also positron emission tomogram scan demonstrated a hot uptake of fluoro-deoxy-glucose on the brainstem lesion without any evidences of systemic metastasis. Gross total mass resection was achieved with lateral suboccipital approach with neuronavigation system. Postoperatively he recovered without any neurological deficits. Pathologic report confirmed Cryptococcus neoformans and he was successively treated with antifungal medications. This is a previously unreported rare case of brainstem Cryptococcal abscess mimicking brain tumors in immunocompetent host without having any apparent typical meningeal symptoms and signs with resultant good neurosurgical recovery.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.1279-1287
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• 2012

We established an efficient transformation method for thermophile Geobacillus kaustophilus HTA426 using conjugative transfer from Escherichia coli of host-mimicking plasmids that imitate DNA methylation of strain HTA426 to circumvent its DNA restriction barriers. Two conjugative plasmids, pSTE33T and pUCG18T, capable of shuttling between E. coli and Geobacillus spp., were constructed. The plasmids were first introduced into E. coli BR408, which expressed one inherent DNA methylase gene (dam) and two heterologous methylase genes from strain HTA426 (GK1380-GK1381 and GK0343-GK0344). The plasmids were then directly transferred from E. coli cells to strain HTA426 by conjugative transfer using pUB307 or pRK2013 as a helper plasmid. pUCG18T was introduced very efficiently (transfer efficiency, $10^{-5}-10^{-3}\;recipient^{-1}$). pSTE33T showed lower efficiency ($10^{-7}-10^{-6}\;recipient^{-1}$) but had a high copy number and high segregational stability. Methylase genes in the donor substantially affected the transfer efficiency, demonstrating that the host-mimicking strategy contributes to efficient transformation. The transformation method, along with the two distinguishing plasmids, increases the potential of G. kaustophilus HTA426 as a thermophilic host to be used in various applications and as a model for biological studies of this genus. Our results also demonstrate that conjugative transfer is a promising approach for introducing exogenous DNA into thermophiles.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.157-161
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is that in measures the acoustic propagate characteristics and temperature sensitivity of ultrasound tissue mimicking phantom(TM phantom). TM phantom manufacture according to the International Electronical Committee(IEC) guidelines for acoustic propagate characteristics of soft tissue. TM phantom was observed to have the image brightness and the image depth penetration decreases changes convergence which was the subject of ultrasound image characteristics in accordance with an external temperature that the change is reduced in temperature below $22^{\circ}C$. This study provide a basis t o create another TM Phantom and TM Phantom has been determined that it is appropriate for use in more than $22^{\circ}C$.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.9
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• pp.5409-5413
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• 2013

Background: To assess the accuracy of ultrasound in differentiating endometrioma from ovarian cancer and to describe pattern recognition for atypical endometriomas mimicking ovarian cancers. Materials and Methods: Patients scheduled for elective surgery for adnexal masses were sonographically evaluated for endometrioma within 24 hours of surgery. All examinations were performed by the same experienced sonographer, who had no any information of the patients, to differentiate between endometriomas and non-endometriomas using a simple rule (classic ground-glass appearance) and subjective impression (pattern recognition). The final diagnosis as a gold standard relied on either pathological or post-operative findings. Results: Of 638 patients available for analysis, 146 were proven to be endometriomas. Of them, the simple rule and subjective impression could sonographically detect endometriomas with sensitivities of 64.4% (94/146) and 89.7% (131/146), respectively. Of 52 endometriomas with false negative tests by the simple rule, 13 were predicted as benign masses and 39 were mistaken for malignancy. Solid masses and papillary projections were the most common forms mimicking ovarian cancer, consisting of 38.5% of the missed diagnoses. However, with pattern recognition (subjective impression), 32 from 39 cases mimicking ovarian cancer were correctly predicted for endometriomas. All endometriomas subjectively predicted for ovarian malignancy were associated with high vascularization in the solid masses. Conclusions: Pattern recognition of endometriomas by subjective assessment had a higher sensitivity than the simple rule in characterization of endometriomas. Most endometriomas mimicking ovarian malignancy could be correctly predicted by subjective impression based on familiarity of pattern recognition.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.83-105
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• 2013

There are many literatures about the herding behavior of institutional investors but there is lack of literatures about the relation among several investor groups consisting of institutional investors. So we investigate the relation among sub-institutional investor groups like bank, insurance companies, pension funds using KRX intraday trading data of 2009. As the result, we find that foreign, individual, and securities firm investors trade in the opposite direction of other investor groups including pension funds. And pension, insurance, asset management, private equity funds, other companies, government, and banks are cross-mimicking each other, so we conclude that these investors make herding behavior. In 2009 institutional investors except securities firms make herding in a short period, and insurance, asset management, pension funds and other companies make herding and self-mimicking in all period, but there is no herding and mimicking after foreign investors.