• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.155-164
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• 2012

As the global market becomes more competitive, manufacturing industries face relentless pressure caused by a growing tendency of greater varieties of products, shorter manufacturing cycles and more sophisticated customer requirements. Efficient and effective supplier selection and order allocation decisions are, therefore, important decisions for a manufacturer to ensure stable material flows in a highly competitive supply chain, in particular, when customers are willing to accept products with less desirable product attributes (e.g., color, delivery date) for economic reasons. This paper attempts to solve optimally the challenging problem of supplier selection and order allocation, taking into consideration the customer flexibility for a manufacturer producing multi-products to satisfy the customers' demands in a multi period planning horizon. A new mixed integer programming model is developed to describe the behavior of the supply chain. The objective is to maximize the manufacturer's total profit subject to various operating constraints of the supply chain. Due to the complexity and non-deterministic polynomial-time (NP)-hard nature of the problem, an improved genetic approach is proposed to solve the problem optimally. This approach differs from a canonical genetic algorithm in three aspects: a new selection method to reduce the chance of premature convergence and two problem-specific repair heuristics to guarantee feasibility of the solutions. The results of applying the proposed approach to solve a set of randomly generated test problems clearly demonstrate its excellent performance. When compared with applying the canonical genetic algorithm to locate optimal solutions, the average improvement in the solution quality amounts to as high as ten percent.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.89-97
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to develop the guideline of the physicochemical and mechanical properties evaluation for silicone gel filled breast implants. First of all, the use and development status for silicone gel filled breast implants were investigated, and then, standard and criteria about performance evaluation established by the international organizations such as ASTM, FDA guidance and ISO were examined. To evaluate the mechanical properties, data research and testing for breaking strength, elongation, tensile set, joint intensity, silicone gel cohesion, weight loss from heating, static rupture resistance, impact resistance test, fatigue test, and gel bleed were performed. On the other hand, to evaluate the physicochemical properties, volatile matter, extent of cross linking, heavy metals, and extractable were analyzed. In this study, results for general function, mechanical properties and physicochemical properties were examined and reviewed for the accordance with international standard, and objective and standardized guideline was provided.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.4D
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• pp.367-376
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• 2012

Crack sealing is a maintenance technique commonly used to prevent water and debris penetration and reduce future degradation in pavement. The conventional crack sealing operations are, however, dangerous, costly, and labor-intensive. Automating crack sealing will improve productivity and quality, and offer safety benefits by getting worker off the road. During the last two decades, several teleoperated and machine-vision assisted systems have been developed to automate the overall process of routing and sealing pavement cracks. However, the developed systems have not been commonly used in the construction sites because of the technical problems. Especially, the performance of end-effector, related to the productivity and quality improvement, is very important factor to improve the practical use of the developed systems. The main objective of this research is to develop an end-effector in automated pavement crack sealing machine and to analyze the technical feasibility of the developed end-effector.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.60-68
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• 1997

Background : Medical records are used to assess clinical performance of physicians and quality of care. The contents which are written in medical records are considered as the objective evidences to know what the doctors think about the patient's problems. But the problem to use medical records as the assessment tools is the incompleteness of medical recording. The purpose of this study is to know if the completeness of medical recording is correlated to quality of care for inpattients and it can predict physicians's quality of care. Method : 32 clinical physicians reviewed 200 patients' medical records who were selected randomly from the inpatients who were admitted to the university hospital during July, 1995 and June, 1996. The reviewers used the structured evaluation questionnaires which were composed of two part. One part evaluated the completeness of the medical recording and the other evaluating appropriateness of diagnosis and treatment processes. We summated the scores of each items and calculated percentile scores. Results : The mean percentile score of completeness of the medical recording was 67.9% in 1995 and 79.8% in 1996. The mean percentile score of appropriateness was 52.2% in 1995 and 69.5% in 1996. This change between 1995 and 1996 was statistically significant. In non-surgical patients, the percentile scores of the completeness and those of the appropriateness were correlated positively and this correlation was statistically significant(p<0.05). In surgical patients, the positve correlation between the completeness and the appropriateness was also statistically significant(p<0.05). Discussion : In conclusion, the completeness of medical recording is considered as the good predictor of the quality of care for inpatients.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.640-645
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• 2016

The objective of this study was to evaluate the present conventional selection program of a swine nucleus farm and compare it with a new selection strategy employing genomic enhanced breeding value (GEBV) as the selection criteria. The ZPLAN+ software was employed to calculate and compare the genetic gain, total cost, return and profit of each selection strategy. The first strategy reflected the current conventional breeding program, which was a progeny test system (CS). The second strategy was a selection scheme based strictly on genomic information (GS1). The third scenario was the same as GS1, but the selection by GEBV was further supplemented by the performance test (GS2). The last scenario was a mixture of genomic information and progeny tests (GS3). The results showed that the accuracy of the selection index of young boars of GS1 was 26% higher than that of CS. On the other hand, both GS2 and GS3 gave 31% higher accuracy than CS for young boars. The annual monetary genetic gain of GS1, GS2 and GS3 was 10%, 12%, and 11% higher, respectively, than that of CS. As expected, the discounted costs of genomic selection strategies were higher than those of CS. The costs of GS1, GS2 and GS3 were 35%, 73%, and 89% higher than those of CS, respectively, assuming a genotyping cost of $120. As a result, the discounted profit per animal of GS1 and GS2 was 8% and 2% higher, respectively, than that of CS while GS3 was 6% lower. Comparison among genomic breeding scenarios revealed that GS1 was more profitable than GS2 and GS3. The genomic selection schemes, especially GS1 and GS2, were clearly superior to the conventional scheme in terms of monetary genetic gain and profit.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.489-498
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• 2015

Objective : The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of the windlass mechanism in trail-walking shoe prototypes that can effectively support arches. A study of these effects should help with the development of a first-rate trail-walking shoe development guide for the distribution of quality information to consumers. Methods : The subjects were ten adult males who volunteered to participate in the study. Shoes from three companies, which will be referred to as Company S (Type A), Company M (Type B), and Company P (Type C), were selected for the experiment. The subjects wore these shoes and walked at a speed of 4.2 km/h, and as they tested each shoe, the contact area, maximum pressure average, and surface force were all measured. Results : Shoe Type A showed a contact area of $148.78{\pm}4.31cm^2$, Type B showed an area of $145.74{\pm}4.1cm^2$, and Type C showed an area of $143.37{\pm}4.57cm^2$ (p<.01). Shoe Type A demonstrated a maximum average pressure of $80.80{\pm}9.92kPa$, Type B an average of $85.72{\pm}11.01kPa$, and Type C an average of $89.12{\pm}10.88bkPa$ (p<.05). Shoe Type A showed a ground reaction force of $1.13{\pm}0.06%BW$, Type B a force of $1.16{\pm}0.04%BW$, and Type C a force of $1.16{\pm}0.03%BW$ (p<.05). Conclusion : The Type A trail-walking shoe, which was designed with a wide arch from the center of the forefoot to the front of the rearfoot showed excellent performance, however, more development and analysis of the windlass mechanism for a variety of arch structures is still necessary.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.321-330
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• 1997

Enrofloxacin is one of the second-generation quinolones which have been widely used to treat bacterial infections in various species including chicken, pig, horse and cattle. The objective of the present study was to describe the serum bactericidal activity(SBA) of enrofloxacin, its pharmacokinetic behaviors after intramuscular or intravenous administration to Korean native goats in the dose rate of 5mg/kg b.w. The results obtained through this study were as follows : 1. Sera collected from both sexes of Korean native goats administered 5mg/kg i.v. or i.m. showed potent antibacterial activities up to the 12 hours by way of the serum bactericidal activity. 2. Concentrations of enrofloxacin in the biological samples were measured by high-performance liquid chromatography(HPLC) so as to study pharmacokinetic characteristics. For detection of enrofloxacin, 10% TCA was optimal for protein precipitation and the mobile phase was 0.01M citric acid/methanol/acetonitrile(7/2/1, pH 3.5) with solid phase being the $C_{18}$ reversephase column and detection wavelength being 278nm. The limit of detection of enrofloxacin on HPLC was $0.05{\mu}g/ml$. 3. Pharmacokinetic profile of enrofloxacin administered 5mg/kg i.v. in Korean native goats was best described by two-compartment open model and that administered i.m. the same rate by one-compartment model. There were no sex differences in pharmacokineticl parameters. In conclusion, enrofloxacin showed potent in vivo antibacterial activity and excellent pharmacokinetic properties in Korean native goats, hence it may be used as a potential antibacterial in the veterinary clinical settings.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.55-71
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• 2013

Structural health monitoring (SHM) is vital for detecting the onset of damage and for preventing catastrophic failure of civil infrastructure systems. In particular, piezoelectric transducers have the ability to excite and actively interrogate structures (e.g., using surface waves) while measuring their response for sensing and damage detection. In fact, piezoelectric transducers such as lead zirconate titanate (PZT) and poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) have been used for various laboratory/field tests and possess significant advantages as compared to visual inspection and vibration-based methods, to name a few. However, PZTs are inherently brittle, and PVDF films do not possess high piezoelectricity, thereby limiting each of these devices to certain specific applications. The objective of this study is to design, characterize, and validate piezoelectric nanocomposites consisting of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles assembled in a PVDF copolymer matrix for sensing and SHM applications. These films provide greater mechanical flexibility as compared to PZTs, yet possess enhanced piezoelectricity as compared to pristine PVDF copolymers. This study started with spin coating dispersed ZnO- and PVDF-TrFE-based solutions to fabricate the piezoelectric nanocomposites. The concentration of ZnO nanoparticles was varied from 0 to 20 wt.% (in 5 % increments) to determine their influence on bulk film piezoelectricity. Second, their electric polarization responses were obtained for quantifying thin film remnant polarization, which is directly correlated to piezoelectricity. Based on these results, the films were poled (at 50 $MV-m^{-1}$) to permanently align their electrical domains and to enhance their bulk film piezoelectricity. Then, a series of hammer impact tests were conducted, and the voltage generated by poled ZnO-based thin films was compared to commercially poled PVDF copolymer thin films. The hammer impact tests showed comparable results between the prototype and commercial samples, and increasing ZnO content provided enhanced piezoelectric performance. Lastly, the films were further validated for sensing using different energy levels of hammer impact, different distances between the impact locations and the film electrodes, and cantilever free vibration testing for dynamic strain sensing.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.38C no.10
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• pp.881-886
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• 2013

Even though a multi-view camera system is able to capture multiple images at different viewpoints, the color distributions of captured multi-view images can be inconsistent. This problem decreases the quality of multi-view images and the performance of post-image processes. In this paper, we propose an improved polynomial model for effectively correcting the color inconsistency problem. This algorithm is fully automatic without any pre-process and considers occlusion regions of the multi-view image. We use the 5th order polynomial model to define a relative mapping curve between reference and source views. Sometimes the estimated curve is seriously distorted if the dynamic range of extracted correspondences is quite low. Therefore we additionally estimate the first order polynomial model for the bottom and top regions of the dynamic range. Afterwards, colors of the source view are modified via these models. The proposed algorithm shows the good subjective results and has better objective quality than the conventional color correction algorithms.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.199-206
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• 2005

In many other countries framed structures with inadequate lateral strength and stiffness have been strengthened by providing reinforced concrete infilled wall. There is a general agreement among researchers those infilled walls have 3-5times greater lateral strength compared with bare frame. The main objective of this research is to investigate the behavior and strength of reinforced concrete frames infilled with concrete block and cast-in-place reinforced concrete panels used for strengthening the structure against seismic action. For this purpose three 1/3 scale, one-bay, one-story reinforced concrete infilled frames were tested under reversed cyclic loading simulating the seismic effect. The results indicate that infilled walls increase both strength and stiffness significantly under lateral loads. Especially Strength capacity and initial stiffness of CIP infilled wall increased 3.8 times and 6.6 times higher than lightly reinforced concrete frame.