• Transactions on Control, Automation and Systems Engineering
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.283-288
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• 2001

In this paper, we proposed a method for extracting facial characteristics of human being in an image. Given a pair of gray level sample images taken with and without human being, the face of human being is segmented from the image. Noise in the input images is removed with the help of Gaussian filters. Edge maps are found of the two input images. The binary edge differential image is obtained from the difference of the two input edge maps. A mask for face detection is made from the process of erosion followed by dilation on the resulting binary edge differential image. This mask is used to extract the human being from the two input image sequences. Features of face are extracted from the segmented image. An effective recognition system using the discrete wave let transform (DWT) is used for recognition. For extracting the facial features, such as eyebrows, eyes, nose and mouth, edge detector is applied on the segmented face image. The area of eye and the center of face are found from horizontal and vertical components of the edge map of the segmented image. other facial features are obtained from edge information of the image. The characteristic vectors are extrated from DWT of the segmented face image. These characteristic vectors are normalized between +1 and -1, and are used as input vectors for the neural network. Simulation results show recognition rate of 100% on the learned system, and about 92% on the test images.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.272-277
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• 2020

Background: Forward head posture (FHP) is common postural malalignment. FHP is described relatively extension to upper cervical and lower cervical is relatively flexion. Although several researchers mentioned the lower cervical flexion posture in FHP, most of the studies related to FHP is focused on the deep cervical flexor function. Objects: The purposes of present study is to compare the cervical strength (upper cervical extension [UCE], lower cervical extension [LCE], upper cervical flexion [UCF], lower cervical flexion [LCF]) between individuals with and without FHP. Methods: Fifty-one participants are recruited. Participants who have the craniovertebral angle (CVA) less than 48 degree were classified to the FHP group (n = 24) and the others were included in without FHP group (n = 27). The cervical strength (UCE, LCE, UCF, LCF) were measured using Smart KEMA strength sensor and the strength data was normalized by body weight. All strength measurement conducted at head and neck neutral position in sitting. Independent t-test was used to compare the cervical strength between individuals with and without FHP. Results: The mean value of CVA was greater in without FHP group than with FHP group (p < 0.000). The strength value of UCF (p < 0.002) and LCE (p < 0.001) was significant less in FHP group than without FHP group. But no significant differences were seen in the LCF and UCE strength between two groups. Conclusion: UCF and LCE weakness in FHP group should be considered to evaluate and manage the individuals with FHP.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.99-111
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• 2010

This paper proposes an efficient hardware architecture to estimate disparities between 2D images for generating 3D depth images in a stereo vision system. Stereo matching methods are classified into global and local methods. The local matching method uses the cost functions based on pixel windows such as SAD(sum of absolute difference), SSD(sum of squared difference) and NCC(normalized cross correlation). The NCC-based cost function is less susceptible to differences in noise and lighting condition between left and right images than the subtraction-based functions such as SAD and SSD, and for this reason, the NCC is preferred to the other functions. However, software-based implementations are not adequate for the NCC-based real-time stereo matching, due to its numerous complex operations. Therefore, we propose a fast pipelined hardware architecture suitable for real-time operations of the NCC function. By adopting a block-based box-filtering scheme to perform NCC operations in parallel, the proposed architecture improves processing speed compared with the previous researches. In this architecture, it takes almost the same number of cycles to process all the pixels, irrespective of the window size. Also, the simulation results show that its disparity estimation has low error rate.

• Ocean Science Journal
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.17-24
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• 2008

Over a period of 5 days between August 12 and 17, 2005, we performed a gas exchange experiment using the dual tracer method in a tidal coastal ocean located off the southern coast of Korea. The gas exchange rate was determined from temporal changes in the ratio of $^3He$ to $SF_6$ measured daily in the surface mixed layer. The measured gas exchange rate($k_{CO_2}$), normalized to a Schmidt number of 600 for $CO_2$ in fresh water at $20^{\circ}C$, was approximately $5.0\;cm\;h^{-1}$ at a mean wind speed of $3.9\;ms^{-1}$ during the study period. This value is significantly less than those obtained from floating chamber-based experiments performed previously in estuarine environments, but is similar in magnitude to values obtained using the dual tracer method in river and tidal coastal waters and values predicted on the basis of the relationship between the gas exchange rate and wind speed (Wanninkhof 1992), which is generally applicable to the open ocean. Our result is also consistent with the relationship of Raymond and Cole (2001), which was derived from experiments carried out in estuarine environments using $^{222}Rn$ and chlorofluorocarbons along with measurements undertaken in the Hudson River, Canada, using $SF_6$ and $^3He$. Our results indicate that tidal action in a microtidal region did not discernibly enhance the measured $k_{CO_2}$ value.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.419-424
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• 2009

Characteristics of humic substances on the changes in dissolved organic matter (DOM) characteristics by biodegradation was investigated using three types of the artificial water samples composed of glucose and Suwannee River fulvic acid (SRFA). Some selected DOM characteristics including the specific UV absorbance (SUVA), the synchronous fluorescence spectra and the molecular weight (MW) were compared for the artificial water samples before and after 28-day microbial incubation. The changes of the DOM characteristics were minimal for SRFA during the incubation whereas they were significant for glucose. SUVA, dissolved organic carbon (DOC)-normalized fluorescence intensity, and MW values of glucose increased, suggesting that such labile organic compounds could be exclusively transformed into more humidified materials by biodegradation. For glucose-SRFA mixture, the selected DOM characteristics were greater than those estimated using the assumption that the individual changes of either glucose or SRFA are conservative for the mixture of the two materials. Our results suggest that the presence of humic substances (HS) may lead to the enhancement of the formation of refractory organic materials during biodegradation of labile compounds. Detailed analyses of size exclusion chromatography (SEC) revealed that the enhancement occurred for the DOM mixture with a MW range between 500 Da to 4000 Da.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.8
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• pp.106-114
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• 2015

Nowadays, cameras embedded in smartphones can take high resolution photographs that can be used to analyze skin conditions without using specialized equipments. In shooting photographs with a smartphone, it is difficult to maintain a uniform shooting distance. Therefore, it is essential to adapt a skin analysis method to the shooting distance. In this paper, we focus on a pore detection algorithm that is adaptive to the camera distance. We develop a relationship model between the shooting distance and the appropriate size of the pore detection mask. In addition, we propose a method to estimate the normalized pore size (i. e. pore size at a standard shooting distance). We conducted experiments on skin images taken from different shooting distances. It was verified that the proposed method can achieve more accurate pore detection result, close to those from skin images taken at a standard shooting distance.

• Journal of Aquaculture
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.248-254
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• 2007

Representative cDNA libraries were constructed from various tissue sources of Hemibarbus mylodon, an endangered freshwater fish species in Korea, for the mining of expressed sequence tags (ESTs). Randomized and non-normalized EST analysis was performed with 7 unidirectional cDNA libraries generated from brain, intestine, kidney, liver, muscle, ovary or testis. Of 3,383 ESTs in total, the number of singleton was 2,029, and 333 contigs containing 1,354 ESTs were assembled (percent of unigene = 70.0%). Abundantly expressed gene transcripts and broad clustering of putative gene function were tissue-specific in general, and the redundancy was also variable among those libraries. Over half of H. mylodon ESTs were matched with orthologues from other teleosts among which zebrafish gene sequences were the most frequent in those matches. This initial setting of EST libraries achieved in the present study would be a fundamental basis for the banking of gene resources from this endangered fish species.

• ALGAE
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.175-187
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• 2016

This study evaluated the effects of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-enriched fermented sea tangle (GFST), as a functional food, on brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)-related muscle growth and lipolysis, in a sarcopenic obesity high-risk group. Twenty-one middle-aged women (53-63 y) participated in this randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled study. Participants ingested either 1,000 mg of GFST (n = 10) or a sucrose placebo (CON) (n = 11) everyday, for 8 weeks. Subjects were asked to abstain from any regular exercise. Fasting venous blood samples, body composition and muscular strength were measured before and after supplementation period. Collectively, we demonstrated that GFST significantly decreased total fat mass and triglyceride in body composition, as well as significantly increasing serum BDNF (p < 0.001), angiotensin converting enzyme (p < 0.001), human growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor-1 levels (p < 0.05 and p < 0.05, respectively) accompanied by increased total lean mass (p < 0.01). Furthermore, the reported improvements in total work, knee extension and flexion at 60° s⁻¹ (p < 0.05), and peak torque normalized to body weight of knee flexion at 60° s⁻¹ (p < 0.05), support an ergogenic effect of GABA associated with increased growth factor levels. The use of GFST, as a functional food ingredient, to elicit anti-obesity effects and stimulate the release of muscle-related growth factors with increasing serum BDNF levels may provide a protective intervention for age-related degeneration such as sarcopenic obesity.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.450-463
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• 2018

Sound based machine fault diagnosis is the process consisting of detecting automatically the damages that affect the machines by analyzing the sounds they produce during their operating time. The collected sounds being inevitably corrupted by random disturbance, the most important part of the diagnosis consists of discovering the hidden elements inside the data that can reveal the faulty patterns. This paper presents a novel feature extraction methodology that combines various digital signal processing and pattern recognition methods for the analysis of the sounds produced by the drills. Using the Fourier analysis, the magnitude spectrum of the sounds are extracted, converted into two-dimensional vectors and uniformly normalized in such a way that they can be represented as 8-bit grayscale images. Histogram equalization is then performed over the obtained images in order to adjust their very poor contrast. The obtained contrast enhanced images will be used as the features of our diagnosis system. Finally, principal component analysis is performed over the image features for reducing their dimensions and a nonlinear classifier is adopted to produce the final response. Unlike the conventional features, the results demonstrate that the proposed feature extraction method manages to capture the hidden health patterns of the sound.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.380-393
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• 2015

This study presents how we can evaluate stereo camera systems for the structural deformation monitoring. A stereo camera system, consisting of a set of stereo cameras and reflective markers attached on the structure, is introduced for the measurement and the stereo pattern recognition (SPR) method is utilized for the full-field structural deformation estimation. Performance of this measurement system depends on many parameters including types and specifications of the cameras, locations and orientations of them, and sizes and positions of markers; it is difficult to experimentally identify the effects of each parameter on the measurement performance. In this study, a simulation framework for evaluating performance of the stereo camera systems with various parameters has been developed. The maximum normalized root-mean-square (RMS) error is defined as a representative index of stereo camera system performance. A plate structure is chosen for an introductory example. Its several modal harmonic vibrations are generated and estimated in the simulation framework. Two cases of simulations are conducted to see the effects of camera locations and the resolutions of the cameras. An experimental validation is carried out for a few selected cases from the simulations. Using the simultaneous laser displacement sensor (LDS) measurements as the reference, the measurement errors are obtained and compared with the simulations.