• Title/Summary/Keyword: parallel program

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Health Status and Use of Health Care Services of the Elderly Utilizing Senior citizen Centers (경로당 노인의 건강상태와 건강관리서비스 이용 관련요인 분석)

  • Shin, Sun-Hye;Kim, Jin-Soon
    • Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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    • v.27 no.1
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    • pp.99-113
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    • 2002
  • For this study a sample of 205 people, 66 males and 139 females, over 65 years of age, residing in C-gu of S-si and utilizing senior centers, were selected, The objective of the study was to provide basic data for health promotion program development provided by health centers. A questionnaire was used to collect date on general characteristics, health status, social health status and utilization rate for health services. The instruments used in this study were the Lawton scale, to measure daily routine function, the MMSE-K developed by Folstein and modified to fit the Korea situation, for mental health status, and the CES-Dtool developed by Radloff, for emotional health status. the SPSS Window program was used to calculate percentages. Tests of significance were done using t-test and ANOVA. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify variables influencing the use of health services. The results are as follows : Of those utilizing senior citizen centers, 40.9% of males and 17.3% of the female thought they were healthy. The average score for IADL was 7.4. The daily routine of female respondents consisted of buying household articles and drugs, and other IADLs such as riding the bus or subway alone. These resulted in a higher score compared to males. For emotional health, 7.6% of the males reported depression compared to 21.6% of the females. For mental health, 48.5% of the males and 28.8% of the females were found to be in the group suspicious for dementia. On social health, 57.6% of the males and 62.6% of the females reported no intimate human relations. Of those older people who had close human relations, 52.5% of the males indicated a friend as the closest person and 53.8% of the females, their children. On use of health services, there was a significantly higher need for mobile medical care services treatment for those with lower education levels and status of window/widower. There was a significantly higher need for health exmination services for those with lower levels of exercise, greater satisfaction with sleep, higher levels of oral health care, and higher social contacts. In conclusion, there is a need to provide varied programs for the promotion of health, along with parallel resolution of social, psychological and economic issues. It is recommended that health services for elderly people provided by the health centers be implemented with full recognition of these characteristics and differences.

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A Study of Temporomandibular Disorders and Food Intake Ability among Dental Clinic Outpatients (일부 치과 외래환자의 측두하악장애 실태와 음식섭취능력에 관한 연구)

  • Han, Se-Young;Yu, Ji-Su
    • Journal of dental hygiene science
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    • v.11 no.3
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    • pp.285-292
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    • 2011
  • The purpose of this study was to analyze and investigate temporomandibular disorders(TMD) and dental clinic outpatients by food intake ability to improve the quality of life. A survey of questionnaires with 208 subjects visiting a dental clinics located in Daejeon city from January to September in 2010 was performed. Analysis were performed with survey results, in which a symptoms of TMD, parafunctional habits and abnormal functions, food intake ability : 1. The main symptoms of TMD showed pain on TMJ(45.7%), pain on joint sound(45.2%), pain during chewing(41.3%), pain during mouth opening(38.0%), pain during non chewing(19.7%) and pain on joint dislocation(13.0%) in turn. 2. The symptoms of TMD by gender showed joint dislocation of 18.0% for male and 8.3% for female(p=0.038); pain on chewing of 49.0% for male and 34.3% for female(p=0.031), which were statistically significant. 3. The parafunctional habits and abnormal functions by gender showed clenching habit of 35.0% for male and 22.0% for female; bruxism of 21.0% for male and 9.3% for female, which were statistically significant. 4. The symptoms of TMD by age showed 52.8% of 27.8% for often and 25.0% for sometimes of 21-30 age in pain on TMJ, which were statistically significant(p=0.001). 5. The parafunctional habits and abnormal functions by age showed over 31 age of 48.3%, which were statistically significant(p=0.003). 6. The food intake ability by symptoms of TMD showed no joint sound(p=0.000), no pain on chewing(p=0.000) and without pain on TMJ(p=0.000), which were statistically significant. 7. The food intake ability by parafunctional habits and abnormal functions showed no clenching habit(p=0.000), no bruxism(p=0.000) and no headache, which were statistically significant. 8. The distribution type of operation by symptoms of TMD showed 30.8% of rest, 24.0% of physical medicine and 16.4% of pharmacotherapy. The pain on chewing showed 36.0% of pharmacotherapy; 52.4% of pain on TMJ for often and 40.5% for sometimes, in which pharmacotherapy and physical medicine were statistically significant(p=0.000). These results showed that management run parallel with survey for multiple factors in TMD we consider aspect of physical, social, physiology to enhance quality of life to increase food intake, construction of program for treatment and prevention because the individual differences need to be multifaceted, further research is suggested to continue.

Comparative Study on Nursing Education System of Korea and China (한.중 간호교육제도 및 교육과정 비교연구)

  • Moon, Heui-Ja;Kim, Kwang-Joo;Park, Shin-Ae;Kim, Il-Won;Park, Hua-Shun
    • Journal of East-West Nursing Research
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    • v.7 no.1
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    • pp.32-47
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    • 2002
  • This study is a descriptive comparative investigated one to analyze nursing education system and curriculum of Korea and China trans-culturally. 1) Education System The basic level of nursing education in Korea consisted of 65 3-year- junior college of nursing (7379 students) and 48 4-year-bachelor of nursing college (2345 students) in 2000 showing more 3-year-junior college of nursing and its students. In China, western nursing as well as Chinese nursing education system were operating. In 2000, 501 western school of middle technical nursing, 29 school of middle technical nursing of middle level education, and 89 3-year western and 24 Chinese junior college of nursing, and 42 4-year western bachelor of nursing college and 10 Chinese of high level education have been established. The presence of Chinese school of middle technical nursing system seemed to be in slower development in nursing than Korea, but that of Chinese nursing education seemed to be advanced with its national identification prior to Korea. Post graduate continuous education for RN-Diploma and RN-BSN program has been opened as in Korea. The Hosa(護士) system in school of middle technical nursing in China reflects lower level of education than Korea. But it can be a merit, other than in Korea, without nurses aids, when they are acting under supervision of nurses and led by them, and there presents a special course for promotion up to high level education. Graduate school in Korea is divided into general type opening a curriculum for MS in 1960 and as of 2000, 21 general types for majoring in nursing. The PhD course in Korea was established in 1978, and after that the PhD courses have been opening in 14 universities at present. China established master degree course in 1991 and as of 7 colleges are ongoing, and the doctoral course is now under planning, resulting slower development than Korea. 2) Education of theory and clinical practice in Korea and Chine (1) Korea's 3-year junior nursing college have 51 subjects, 49 subjects in China, which was not different. China was following education of ideology and medical. 4-year Bachelor of Science College has 92 subjects in Korea with cultural subjects and essential major studies/elective in theory education in Korea, while 63 subjects in China, showed wider selection in Korea's education. (2) Korea's 3-year and 4-year nursing colleges performed clinical practice education parallel with theoretical education for a certain period, block or theory/practice system. While China's 3-year and 4 or 5-year-colleges educated the theory first and then practice for one year in the last grade, integrating each situation of the departments and the theory. (3) Korea's oriental nursing theory in nursing education was performed in 28 colleges of 65 nationwide ones of 3-year junior nursing colleges, but only one school was educating clinical practice. In 4-year bachelor of nursing colleges, the oriental nursing theory was done in 14 among 48 investigated. And 1-4 subjects of them were doing, and 4 schools performed of clinical practice, showing more reinforced than the junior colleges. China's 3-year and 4-5-year western nursing colleges taught two subjects of Chinese medicine nursing. China's 3-year & 4-5-year College of Chinese medicine nursing, theory of Chines medicine nursing education taught eight subjects. (4) 5-year colleges of Chinese medicine western integrated nursing, theory of Chinese medicine nursing education consisted of twelve Chinese medicine nursing subjects and two of Chinese medicine western integrated nursing subjects. China was tempting a new development of a pattern of Chinese medicine nursing subjects reinforced. 3) The verification of Korean and Chinese nurse's license. The verification test of Chinese nurses license is differentiated at the level of education other than in Korea. Expire date is 2 years and a qualified test must be done to a renewal. And the continuing education hours are 72 per year, which is more enforced than Korean nurses (10 hours a year). In accordance with WTO regulations, we should prepare for opening foreign hospital, educating oriental nursing subjects. And on this, it is recommendable to settle a basic frame research to run the oriental nursing practice ongoing. 1. It is desirable to develop the oriental nursing subjects to apply its idea to the western nursing and differentiate Korean nursing. 2. It is desirable to certify oriental nurse's characters, to expand and develop the nursing areas to practice it, and to establish the oriental nursing system. 3. It is expectable to promote Korean nursing specialization to develop the oriental nursing as a professional and to create its demand.

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Conceptual Design of the Three Unit Fixed Partial Denture with Glass Fiber Reinforced Hybrid Composites (Glass fiber 강화 복합레진을 사용한 3본 고정성 국소의치의 개념 설계 연구)

  • Na, Kyoung-Hee;Lee, Kyu-Bok;Jo, Kwang-Hun
    • Journal of Dental Rehabilitation and Applied Science
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    • v.18 no.3
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    • pp.145-155
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    • 2002
  • The results of the present feasibility study are summarized as follows, 1. The three unit bridge of knitted material and UD fibre reinforcement has both the rigidity and the strength against a vertical occlusal load of 75N. 2. Stress concentration at the junctional area between the bridge and the abutments, i.e. between the pontic and the knitted caps was observed. In the case of the bridge with reinforcement straps, it was partly shown that the concentration problem could be improved by simply increasing the fillet size at the area. Further refining in the surface of the junctional area will be needed to ensure a further improvement in the stress distribution. This will require some trade off in the level of the stress and the available space. A parametric study will help to decide the appropriate size of the fillet. 3. Design refinement is a must to improve the stress distribution and realize the most favourable shape in terms of fabrication. The current straight bar with a constant cross section area can be redesigned to a tapered shape. The curve from the dental arch should also be placed on the pontic design. In accordance with design refinement, the resistance of the bridge frame to other load cases should be evaluated. 4. Although not included in the present feasibility study, it is estimated that bridges of the anterior teeth can be made strong enough with the knitted material without further reinforcement using unidirectional materials. In this regard, a feasibility study on design concepts and stress analysis for 3, 4, 5 unit bridge is suggested. 5. Two types of bridge were analysed in terms of fatigue. The safe life design concept, i.e. fatigue design concept, looks reasonable for the bridge where if cracks should form and propagate there is virtually nothing a dentist to do. The bridge must be designed so that no crack will be initiated during the life span. In the case of crowns, however, if constructed with composite resin with knitted materials, it might be possible to repair them, which in general is impossible for crowns of PFM or of metal. Therefore for composite resin crowns, a damage tolerance design concept can be applied and reasonably higher operational stresses can be allowed. In this case, of course, a periodic inspection program should be established in parallel. 6. Parts of future works in terms of structural viewpoint which need to be addressed are summarized as the following: 1) To develop processing technology to accommodate design concepts; 2) More realistic modelling of the bridge and analysis-geometry and loading condition. Thickness variation in the knitted material, taper in the pontic, design for anterior tooth bridge, the effect of combined loads, etc, will need to be included; 3) To develop appropriate design concepts and design goals for the fibre composite FPD aiming at taking the best advantage of knitted materials, including the damage tolerance design concept; 4) To develop testing method and perform test such as static ultimate load test, fatigue test, repair test, etc, as necessary.

Investigation of the Signal Characteristics of a Small Gamma Camera System Using NaI(Tl)-Position Sensitive Photomultiplier Tube (NaI(Tl) 섬광결정과 위치민감형 광전자증배관을 이용한 소형 감마카메라의 신호 특성 고찰)

  • Choi, Yong;Kim, Jong-Ho;Kim, Joon-Young;Im, Ki-Chun;Kim, Sang-Eun;Choe, Yearn-Seong;Lee, Kyung-Han;Joo, Koan-Sik;Kim, Byung-Tae
    • The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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    • v.34 no.1
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    • pp.82-93
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    • 2000
  • Purpose: We characterized the signals obtained from the components of a small gamma camera using Nal(Tl)-position sensitive photomultiplier tube (PSPMT) and optimized the parameters employed in the modules of the system. Materials and Methods: The small gamma camera system consists of a Nal(Tl) crystal ($60{\times}60{\times}6mm^3$) coupled with a Hamamatsu R3941 PSPMT, a resister chain circuit, preamplifiers, nuclear instrument modules (NIMs), an analog to digital converter and a personal computer for control and display. The PSPMT was read out using a resistive charge division circuit which multiplexes the 34 cross wire anode channels into 4 signals (X+, X-, Y+, Y -). Those signals were individually amplified by four preamplifiers and then, shaped and amplified by amplifiers. The signals were discriminated and digitized via triggering signal and used to localize the position of an event by applying the Anger logic. The gamma camera control and image display was performed by a program implemented using a graphic software. Results: The characteristics of signal and the parameters employed in each module of the system were presented. The intrinsic sensitivity of the system was approximately $8{\times}10^3$ counts/sec/${\mu}Ci$. The intrinsic energy resolution of the system was 18% FWHM at 140 keV. The spatial resolution obtained using a line-slit mask and $^{99m}Tc$ point source were, respectively, 2.2 and 2.3 mm FWHM in X and Y directions. Breast phantom containing $2{\sim}7mm$ diameter spheres was successfully imaged with a parallel hole collimator. The image displayed accurate size and activity distribution over the imaging field of view Conclusion: We proposed a simple method for development of a small gamma camera and presented the characteristics of the signals from the system and the optimized parameters used in the modules of the small gamma camera.

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Fractionation and Rare-Element Mineralization of Kenticha Pegmatite, Southern Ethiopia (에티오피아 남부 켄티차 페그마타이트의 분화양상과 희유원소 광화작용)

  • Kim, Eui-Jun;Kim, Soo-Young;Moon, Dong-Hyeok;Koh, Sang-Mo
    • Economic and Environmental Geology
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    • v.46 no.5
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    • pp.375-390
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    • 2013
  • The Kenticha rare-element (Ta-Li-Nb-Be) mineralized zone is located in ophiolitic fold and thrust complex of southern Ethiopia and was firstly discovered by joint exploration program of Ethiopia-Soviet in 1980s. It includes Dermidama, Kilkele, Shuni Hill, Kenticha, and Bupo pegmatites from south to north. The Kenticha pegmatite intruded parallel to NS-striking serpentinite and talc-chlorite schist, and is exposed approximately 2 km length and 400-700 m width. The Kenticha pegmatite is internally zoned and subdivided into lower quartz-muscovite-albite granite, intermediate muscovite-quartz-albite-microcline pegmatite, and upper spodumene-quartz-albite pegmatite, based on their mineral assemblage. The major, trace elements (e.g., Rb, Li, Nb, Ta, and Ga), and element ratios (e.g., K/Rb, Nb/Ta, Mg/Li, and Al/Ga) suggest that the fractionation and solidification of pegmatite have progressed from the lower towards upper pegmatite. In contrast, unlike general magmatic fractionation, Mg/Li ratios of the Kenticha pegmatite tend to be increased towards the upper pegmatite. It may result from post-magmatic hydrothermal alteration and/or interaction with upper ultramafic rock. Rare-element mineralization in Kenticha pegmatite concentrates on the upper pegmatite, which contains up to 3.0 wt % $Li_2O$, 3,780 ppm Rb, 111 ppm Cs, 1,320 ppm Ta, and 332 ppm Nb. Ore minerals in Kenticha pegmatite mostly include tantalite, spodumene, and lepidolite, and tantalite has an association with coarser quartz-spodumene and relatively fine sacchroidal albite. The tantalite is classified into Mn-tantalite as a function of $Mn^*[Mn/(Mn+Fe)]$ and $Ta^*[Ta/(Ta+Nb)]$ values. Its compositions ($Mn^*$, $Ta^*$, and Nb/Ta) between coarse and fine tantalites are different and the former is strongly enriched in Ta and depleted in Nb compared to latter one. In conclusion, rare-element mineralization in the Kenticha pegmatite may has occurred in the latest stage of magmatic fractionation.

Effects Of Cultured Bone Cell On The Regeneration Of Alveolar Bone (배양골세포 이식이 치조골재생에 미치는 영향)

  • Jeong, Soon-Joon;Herr, Yeek;Park, Joon-Bong;Lee, Man-Sup;Kwon, Young-Hyuk
    • Journal of Periodontal and Implant Science
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    • v.26 no.1
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    • pp.1-26
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    • 1996
  • This study was performed to estimate the effects of cultured bone cell inoculated on porous type hydroxyaptite for the regeneration of the artificial alveolar bone defect. In this experiment 3 beagle dogs were used, and each of them were divided into right and left mandible. Every surgical intervention were performed under the general anesthesia by using with intravenous injection of Pentobarbital sodium(30mg/Kg). To reduce the gingival bleeding during surgery, operative site was injected with Lidocaine hydrochloride(l:80,000 Epinephrine) as local anesthesia. After surgery experimental animal were feeded with soft dietl Mighty dog, Frisies Co., U.S.A.) for 1 weeks to avoid irritaion to soft tissue by food. 2 months before surgery both side of mandibular 1st premolar were extracted and bone chips from mandibular body were obtained from all animals. Bone cells were cultured from bone chips obtained from mandible with Dulbecco's Modified Essential Medium contained with 10% Fetal Bovine Serum under the conventional conditions. Porous type hydroxyapatite were immerse into the high concentrated cell suspension solution, and put 4 hours for attachin the cells on the surface of hydroxyapatite. Graft material were inserted on the artificial bone defect after 3 days of culture. Before insertion of cellinoculated graft material, scanning electronic microscopic observation were performed to confirm the attachment and spreading of cell on the hydroxyapatite surface. 3 artificial bone defects were made with bone trephine drill on the both side of mandible of the experimental animal. First defect was designed without insertion of graft material as negative control, second was filled with porous replamineform hydroxyapatite inoculated with cultured bone marrow cells as expermiental site, and third was filled with graft materials only as positive control. The size of every artificial bone defect was 3mm in diameter and 3mm in depth. After the every surgical intervention of animals, oral hygiene program were performed with 1.0% chlorhexidine digluconate. All of the animals were sacrificed at 2, 4, 6 weeks after surgery. For obtaining histological section, tissus were fixed in 10% Buffered formalin and decalcified with Planko - Rycho Solution for 72hr. Tissue embeding was performed in paraffin and cut parallel to the surface of mandibular body. Section in 8um thickness of tissue was done and stained with Hematoxylin - Eosin. All the specimens were observed under the light microscopy. The following results were obtained : 1. In the case of control site which has no graft material, less inflammatory cell infiltration and rapid new bone forming tendency were revealed compared with experimental groups. But bone surface were observed depression pattern on defect area because of soft tissue invasion into the artificial bone defect during the experimental period. 2. In the porous hydroxyapatite only group, inflammatory cell infiltration was prominet and dense connective tissue were encapsulated around grafted materials. osteoblastic activity in the early stage after surgery was low to compared with grafted with bone cells. 3. In the case of porous hydroxyapatite inoculated with bone cell, less inflammatory cell infiltration and rapid new bone formation activity was revealed than hydroxyapatite only group. Active new bone formation were observed in the early stage of control group. 4. The origin of new bone forming was revealed not from the center of defected area but from the surface of preexisting bony wall on every specimen. 5. In this experiment, osteoclastic cell was not found around grafted materials, and fibrovascular invasion into regions with no noticeable foreign body reaction. Conclusively, the cultured bone cell inoculated onto the porous hydroxyapatite may have an important role of regeneration of artificial bone defects of alveolar bone.

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Calculation of Renal Depth by Conjugate-View Method Using Dual-head Gamma Camera (이중 헤드 감마 카메라를 이용한 Conjugate-View 계수법에 의한 신장 깊이 도출)

  • Kim, Hyun-Mi;Suh, Tae-Suk;Choe, Bo-Young;Chung, Yong-An;Kim, Sung-Hoon;Chung, Soo-Kyo;Lee, Hyoung-Koo
    • The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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    • v.35 no.6
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    • pp.378-388
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    • 2001
  • Purpose: In this study, we developed a new method for the determination of renal depth with anterior and posterior renal scintigrams in a dual-head gamma camera, considering the attenuation factor $e^{-{\mu}x}$ of the conjugate-view method. Material and Method: We developed abdomen and kidney phantoms to perform experiments using Technetium-99m dimercaptosuccinic acid ($^{99m}Tc$-DMSA). The phantom images were obtained by dual-head gamma camera equipped with low-energy, high-resolution, parallel-hole collimators (ICONf, Siemens). The equation was derived from the linear integration of omission ${\gamma}$-ray considering attenuation from the posterior abdomen to the anterior abdomen phantom surface. The program for measurement was developed by Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0. Results : Renal depths of the phantoms were derived from the derived equations and compared with the exact geometrical values. Differences between the measured and the calculated values were the range of 0.1 to 0.7 cm ($0.029{\pm}0.15cm,\;mean{\pm}S.D.$). Conclusion: The present study showed that the use of the derived equations for renal depth measurements, combined with quantitative planar imaging using dual-head gamma camera, could provide more accurate results for individual variation than the conventional method.

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Development of Avermectin $B_{1a}$ High-yielding Mutants through Rational Screening Srategy based on Understanding of Biosynthetic Pathway (생합성 경로의 이해를 통한 Avermectin $B_{1a}$ 고생산성 변이주 개발)

  • Song Sung Ki;Jeong Yong Seob;Chun Gie-Taek
    • KSBB Journal
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    • v.20 no.5 s.94
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    • pp.376-382
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    • 2005
  • Avermectin (AVM) $B_{1a}$ produced by Streptomyces avermitilis via polyketide pathway is a secondary metabolite with powerful anthelmintic and insecticidal activities, thus being used as an efficient agent in the field of agriculture and animal health. It has been reported that a precursor for AVM $B_{1a}$ biosynthesis was isoleucine and the biosynthetic pathway of AVM $B_{1a}$ was closely similar to that of fatty acid. Based on understanding of the biosynthetic pathway of AVM $B_{1a}$, we intended to screen various mutants resistant against O-methyl threonine (OMT), an isoleucine-anti metabolite, and/or mutants resistant against p-fluoro phenoxy acetic acid (pFAC), an inhibitor of fatty acid biosynthesis. It was inferred that these mutants could produce AVM $B_{1a}$ more efficiently, due to the acquired capability of not only overproducing isoleucine intracellularly but also channelling metabolized carbon-sources into the polyketide pathway, thus leading to enhanced biosynthesis of AVM $B_{1a}$. The resulting mutant (PFA-1 strain) resistant against 100 ppm of pFAC was able to produce approximately 42 fold higher amount of AVM $B_{1a}$ compared to the parallel mother strain (4,200 vs. 100 units/l). In addition, through the process of continuous strain improvement program carried out by gradually increasing the OMT concentration, it was possible to obtain a more attractive mutant with greater AVM $B_{1a}$ production capacity (9,000 units/l). Notable was that significantly higher producer (12,000 units/l) could be selected through further screening of the resistant mutants, this time, to even higher concentration of PFAC. Meanwhile, through the analysis of AVM Bla production histograms (i.e., number of strains according to their AVM $B_{1a}$ biosynthetic ability) for the earlier strains in comparison with the high producers having the characteristics of resistance to OMT and pFAC, it was found that production stability of the high-yielding producers were remarkably improved, as demonstrated by the fact that larger proportion of the mutated strains had greater capability of AVM $B_{1a}$ biosynthesis ($71\%$ in the range between 5,000 and 7,000 units/L; $47\%$ in the range between 6,000 and 7,000 units/l). Based on these consequences, it was concluded that the rational screening strategy based on the understanding of the biosynthetic pathway of AVM $B_{1a}$ was very effective in obtaining high-yielding mutants with the features of enhanced production stability.

Hardware Approach to Fuzzy Inference―ASIC and RISC―

  • Watanabe, Hiroyuki
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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    • 1993.06a
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    • pp.975-976
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    • 1993
  • This talk presents the overview of the author's research and development activities on fuzzy inference hardware. We involved it with two distinct approaches. The first approach is to use application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) technology. The fuzzy inference method is directly implemented in silicon. The second approach, which is in its preliminary stage, is to use more conventional microprocessor architecture. Here, we use a quantitative technique used by designer of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) to modify an architecture of a microprocessor. In the ASIC approach, we implemented the most widely used fuzzy inference mechanism directly on silicon. The mechanism is beaded on a max-min compositional rule of inference, and Mandami's method of fuzzy implication. The two VLSI fuzzy inference chips are designed, fabricated, and fully tested. Both used a full-custom CMOS technology. The second and more claborate chip was designed at the University of North Carolina(U C) in cooperation with MCNC. Both VLSI chips had muliple datapaths for rule digital fuzzy inference chips had multiple datapaths for rule evaluation, and they executed multiple fuzzy if-then rules in parallel. The AT & T chip is the first digital fuzzy inference chip in the world. It ran with a 20 MHz clock cycle and achieved an approximately 80.000 Fuzzy Logical inferences Per Second (FLIPS). It stored and executed 16 fuzzy if-then rules. Since it was designed as a proof of concept prototype chip, it had minimal amount of peripheral logic for system integration. UNC/MCNC chip consists of 688,131 transistors of which 476,160 are used for RAM memory. It ran with a 10 MHz clock cycle. The chip has a 3-staged pipeline and initiates a computation of new inference every 64 cycle. This chip achieved an approximately 160,000 FLIPS. The new architecture have the following important improvements from the AT & T chip: Programmable rule set memory (RAM). On-chip fuzzification operation by a table lookup method. On-chip defuzzification operation by a centroid method. Reconfigurable architecture for processing two rule formats. RAM/datapath redundancy for higher yield It can store and execute 51 if-then rule of the following format: IF A and B and C and D Then Do E, and Then Do F. With this format, the chip takes four inputs and produces two outputs. By software reconfiguration, it can store and execute 102 if-then rules of the following simpler format using the same datapath: IF A and B Then Do E. With this format the chip takes two inputs and produces one outputs. We have built two VME-bus board systems based on this chip for Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The board is now installed in a robot at ORNL. Researchers uses this board for experiment in autonomous robot navigation. The Fuzzy Logic system board places the Fuzzy chip into a VMEbus environment. High level C language functions hide the operational details of the board from the applications programme . The programmer treats rule memories and fuzzification function memories as local structures passed as parameters to the C functions. ASIC fuzzy inference hardware is extremely fast, but they are limited in generality. Many aspects of the design are limited or fixed. We have proposed to designing a are limited or fixed. We have proposed to designing a fuzzy information processor as an application specific processor using a quantitative approach. The quantitative approach was developed by RISC designers. In effect, we are interested in evaluating the effectiveness of a specialized RISC processor for fuzzy information processing. As the first step, we measured the possible speed-up of a fuzzy inference program based on if-then rules by an introduction of specialized instructions, i.e., min and max instructions. The minimum and maximum operations are heavily used in fuzzy logic applications as fuzzy intersection and union. We performed measurements using a MIPS R3000 as a base micropro essor. The initial result is encouraging. We can achieve as high as a 2.5 increase in inference speed if the R3000 had min and max instructions. Also, they are useful for speeding up other fuzzy operations such as bounded product and bounded sum. The embedded processor's main task is to control some device or process. It usually runs a single or a embedded processer to create an embedded processor for fuzzy control is very effective. Table I shows the measured speed of the inference by a MIPS R3000 microprocessor, a fictitious MIPS R3000 microprocessor with min and max instructions, and a UNC/MCNC ASIC fuzzy inference chip. The software that used on microprocessors is a simulator of the ASIC chip. The first row is the computation time in seconds of 6000 inferences using 51 rules where each fuzzy set is represented by an array of 64 elements. The second row is the time required to perform a single inference. The last row is the fuzzy logical inferences per second (FLIPS) measured for ach device. There is a large gap in run time between the ASIC and software approaches even if we resort to a specialized fuzzy microprocessor. As for design time and cost, these two approaches represent two extremes. An ASIC approach is extremely expensive. It is, therefore, an important research topic to design a specialized computing architecture for fuzzy applications that falls between these two extremes both in run time and design time/cost. TABLEI INFERENCE TIME BY 51 RULES {{{{Time }}{{MIPS R3000 }}{{ASIC }}{{Regular }}{{With min/mix }}{{6000 inference 1 inference FLIPS }}{{125s 20.8ms 48 }}{{49s 8.2ms 122 }}{{0.0038s 6.4㎲ 156,250 }} }}

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