• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.849-858
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• 2008

In this paper, a no-reference perceptual metric is proposed for image quality assessment. It measures the amount of overall blockiness and blurring of the image and evaluates the amount of ringing, staircase, and mosaic noises around the strong edges. Finally, the individual scores are combined by a fuzzy integral to generate the final quality score of the image. The quality scores obtained by the proposed algorithm show strong relationship with the MOS(Mean Opinion Score) values by experts.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.2529-2543
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• 2019

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image can link with the microscopic world through reflecting interaction between electrons and materials. The SEM images are easily subject to blurring distortions during the imaging process. Inspired by the fact that dark channel prior captures the changes to blurred SEM images caused by the blur process, we propose a method to evaluate the SEM images sharpness based on the dark channel prior. A SEM image database is first established with mean opinion score collected as ground truth. For the quality assessment of the SEM image, the dark channel map is generated. Since blurring is typically characterized by the spread of edge, edge of dark channel map is extracted. Then noise is removed by an edge-preserving filter. Finally, the maximum gradient and the average gradient of image are combined to generate the final sharpness score. The experimental results on the SEM blurred image database show that the proposed algorithm outperforms both the existing state-of-the-art image sharpness metrics and the general-purpose no-reference quality metrics.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.912-917
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• 2007

Many electrochemical power devices such as solid state batteries and solid oxide fuel cell have been studied and developed for solving energy and environmental problems. An amperometric gas sensor usually generates sensing signal of electric current along the proportion of the concentration of target gas under the condition of limiting current. For narrow variations of gas concentration, the amperometric gas sensor can show higher precision than a potentiometric gas sensor does. In additional, cross sensitivities to interfering gases can possibly be mitigated by choosing applied voltage and electrode materials properly. In order to improve the sensitivity to $NO_2$, the device was attached with Au reference electrode to form the amperometric gas sensor device with three electrodes. With the fixed bias voltage being applied between the sensing and counter electrodes, the current between the sensing and reference electrodes was measured as a sensing signal. The response to $NO_2$ gas was obviously enhanced and suppressed with a positive bias, respectively, while the reverse current occurred with a negative bias. The way to enhance the sensitivity of $NO_2$ gas sensor was thus realized. It was shown that the response to $NO_2$ gas could be enhanced sensitivity by changing the bias voltage.

• The Journal of Korean Society for School & Community Health Education
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.101-112
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• 2016

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the association between participation in physical activities (PA) and subjective well-being. Methods: We analyzed the data from Korean Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey, 2013 containing 36,655 and 35,780 for male and female students respectively. Study variables included PA, participation in physical education class, participation in team sports and subjective well-being. Control variables were school type, socio-economic status, level of parent education, living with parent, academic performance, delinquent behaviors, depression and perceived health. For this study, descriptive analysis, Chi-square test, and multivariate logistic regression analysis were performed. Results: Among boys, after adjusting for control variables, PA (past 7 days 0 time reference group vs. over 4 times: OR 1.306), physical education class (past 7 days 0 time reference group vs. over 3 times: OR 1.140), and team sports (no team reference group vs. 2 team: OR 1.206) were associated with subjective well-being. Among girls, control variables were adjusted. PA (past 7 days 0 time reference group vs over 4 times: OR 1.244), physical education class (past 7 days 0 time reference group vs. over 3 times: OR 1.161), and team sports (no team reference group vs. 2 team: OR 1.181) were associated with subjective well-being. Conclusions: Participation in physical activities may help adolescent promote their life satisfaction. Thus, education experts should develop various exercise curriculums to encourage participation in physical activities.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.1027-1041
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• 2016

Different incident angles of ground motions have been considered to evaluate the relationship between floor rotation and torsional irregularity coefficient. The issues specifically addressed are (1) variability in torsional irregularity coefficient and floor rotations with varying incident angles of ground motion (2) contradictory relationship between floor rotation and torsional irregularity coefficient. To explore the stated issues, an evaluation based on relative variation in seismic response quantities of linear asymmetric structure under the influence of horizontal bi-directional excitation with varying seismic orientations has been carried out using response history analysis. Several typical earthquake records are applied to the structure to demonstrate the relative variations of floor rotation and torsional irregularity coefficient for different seismic orientations. It is demonstrated that (1) Torsional irregularity coefficient (TIC) increases as the story number decreases when the ground motion is considered along reference axes of the structure. For incident angles other than structure's reference axes, TIC either decreases as the story number decreases or there is no specific trend for TIC. Floor rotation increases in proportion to the story number when the ground motion is considered along reference axes of structure. For incident angles other than structure's reference axes, floor rotation either decreases as the story number increases or there is no specific trend for floor rotation and (2) TIC and floor rotation seems to be approximately inversely proportional to each other when the ground motion is considered along reference axes of the structure. For incident angles other than structure's reference axes, the relationship can even become directly proportional instead of inversely proportional.

• Annals of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
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• v.34
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• pp.14.1-14.14
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• 2022

Background: Although spirometry results can be interpreted differently depending on the reference equation used, there are no established criteria for selecting reference equations as part of the special health examinations for Korean workers. Thus, it is essential to examine the current use of reference equations in Korea, quantify their impact on result interpretation, and propose reference equations suitable for Korean workers, while also considering the environmental conditions of special health examination facilities. Methods: The 213,640 results from the special health examination database were analyzed to identify changes in the ratio of measured values to reference values of lung capacity in Korean workers with changes in age or height, and changes in the agreement of interpretations with the reference equation used. Data from 238 organizations that participated in the 2018-2019 quality control assessment by the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency were used to identify the spirometer model and reference equations used in each special health examination facility. Results: Korean special health examination facilities used six reference equations, and the rate of normal or abnormal ventilatory diagnoses varied with the reference equation used. The prediction curve of the Global Lung Function Initiative 2012-Northeast Asian (GLI2012) equation most resembled that of the normal group, but the spirometry model most commonly used by examination facilities was not compliant with the GLI2012 equation. With a scaling factor of 0.95 applied to the Dr. Choi equation, the agreement with the GLI2012 equation was > 0.81 for men and women. Conclusions: We propose the GLI2012 equation as reference equation for spirometry in Korean workers. The GLI2012 equation exhibited the most suitable prediction curve against the normal lung function group. For devices that cannot use the GLI2012 equation, we recommend applying a scaling factor of 0.95 to the Dr. Choi equation.

• Journal of Korea Association of Health Promotion
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.19-20
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• 2003

In Korea association of health promotion(KHAP) there are fourteen laboratories in branch offices and one laboratory in headquarter office. To standardize the reference ranges of all laboratories of KAHP, they have been newly calculated from the laboratory data perfomed during the previous yearsby statistical metod annually for the period of 2000 through2003 so far. The referance ranges of total 56 test items were assigned. Among these there were eight test items that needed referance ranges by age groups and nine test items that needed reference rages by gender. The age grouping was into six groups : baby (0-3y), children(4-12y), adolescent(13-18y), adult(19-64y), younger elderly(19-64y), older elderly(over 80y) with references of statics in Medical Informatics and WHO classification. All the data collected were statistically analyzed with SAS 6.04 for Gaussian distribution that had been repeated two or three times after trimming out the the tests showed Gaussian distribution. Subsequently, Thereference ranges were defined in the rage from the point of lower 2.5% to the point of higher 97.5%. And in case the lower range could be "0", the reference ranges were defined in the range of 0 to 95%. Fifteen laboratoried troughout Korea of KAHP currently have standarzed reference rages of the tests that they perform. This means the patient data and reference values an be exchangeable among laboratories of KHAP.Annual revise of such reference rages can eventually lead to the level of those representing a standard of the national reference ranges.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.96-104
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• 2009

In this paper, we propose a no-reference objective Quality assessment metrics of image. The blockiness and blurring of edge areas which are sensitive to the human visual system are modeled as step functions. Blocking and blur metrics are obtained by estimating local visibility of blockiness and edge width, For the blocking metric, horizontal and vertical blocking lines are first determined by accumulating weighted differences of adjacent pixels and then the local visibility of blockiness at the intersection of blocking lines is obtained from the total difference of amplitudes of the 2-D step function which is modelled as a blocking region. The blurred input image is first re-blurred by a Gaussian blur kernel and an edge mask image is generated. In edge blocks, the local edge width is calculated from four directional projections (horizontal, vertical and two diagonal directions) using local extrema positions. In addition, the kurtosis and SSIM are used to compute the blur metric. The final no-reference objective metric is computed after those values are combined using an appropriate function. Experimental results show that the proposed objective metrics are highly correlated to the subjective data.

• International Journal of Knowledge Content Development & Technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.49-65
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• 2018

Are the benefits derived from ICT based reference and information service worth the financial and other commitments devoted to it? In an attempt to answer this, this study delved into finding out the perceived benefits; the rational for ICT based reference services in Nigerian university libraries. The main objectives were to find out the purposes for using ICT facilities in reference services delivery and the perceived benefits derived from using ICT resources in reference and information services. Being a survey, questionnaire was used to collect data from the librarians of twelve (12) universities; two (2) each sampled from the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. Data was analyzed using frequencies, mean scores and standard deviations. ANOVA statistical analysis was used to test the hypothesis of no significance difference in the benefits derived from ICT based reference services using p-value of 0.05 to calculate the level of significance. Findings showed that librarians and library users made use of ICT facilities for different reference purposes especially to obtain information they need using the internet. Other reference needs for which patrons used the ICT facilities included: - access to current e-books and e - journals, user education and access to global information in other libraries. Provision of current awareness services (CAS) and selective dissemination of information services (SDI), on-line searching using workstations in the library, provision of on-line public access catalogue (OPAC) services, keeping statistics of users of the reference section and compilation of bibliographies. Further findings showed that the librarians and library users derive a lot of benefits from their use of ICT facilities in reference services. The results showed that easy retrieval and dissemination of information to patrons were ranked highest by the librarians amongst others.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.380-390
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• 2016

The field of Image Quality Measure (IQM) is growing rapidly in recent years. In particular, there was a significant progress in No-Reference (NR) IQM methods. In this paper, a general-purpose NR IQM algorithm is proposed based on the statistical characteristics of natural images in shearlet domain. The method utilizes a set of distortion-sensitive features extracted from statistical properties of shearlet coefficients. A complex version of the shearlet transform is employed to take advantage of phase and amplitude features in quality estimation. Furthermore, since shearlet transform can analyze the images at multiple scales, the effect of distortion on across-scale dependencies of shearlet coefficients is explored for feature extraction. For quality prediction, the features are used to train image classification and quality prediction models using a Support Vector Machine (SVM). The experimental results show that the proposed NR IQM is highly correlated with human subjective assessment and outperforms several Full-Reference (FR) and state-of-art NR IQMs.