• Title/Summary/Keyword: performance objective

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Association of Serum HE4 with Primary Tumor Diameter and Depth of Myometrial Invasion in Endometrial Cancer Patients at Rajavithi Hospital

  • Prueksaritanond, Nisa;Cheanpracha, Patchara;Yanaranop, Marut
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.17 no.3
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    • pp.1489-1492
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    • 2016
  • Background: Although there are no biomarkers that are routinely used in endometrial cancer (EC) management, many studies have found that serum human epididymis protein 4 (HE4) is superior to cancer antigen 125 (CA125) in the detection of EC. The correlation of HE4 with two prognostic factors for EC, primary tumor diameter (PTD) and depth of myometrial invasion (DMI) may be useful in identifying EC patients at high risk of lymphatic dissemination. Objective: To evaluate the correlation of serum HE4 with PTD and DMI in patients with EC. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 70 EC patients who were scheduled for elective surgery at Rajavithi Hospital between 1st September 2013 and 30th May 2014. Preoperative serum levels of HE4 and CA125 were investigated, and then gross measurement of PTD was taken and postoperative pathologic slides were reviewed for DMI including histologic types, grading and staging. Results: Preoperative serum HE4 levels were strongly correlated with PTD (r=0.65, p<0.001) and moderately correlated with DMI (r=0.46, p<0.001). Moreover, serum HE4 levels were significantly elevated in EC patients with PTD >2 cm (p<0.001) and DMI > 50% (p=0.004). The performance of serum HE4 in identifying EC patients at low risk and high risk of lymph node metastasis was significantly better than that of CA125 (AUC 0.88 vs. 0.65, p=0.003). At an optimal cut-off value of 70 pM/L, serum HE4 had a sensitivity of 83.3% and a specificity of 80.0%. Conclusions: In EC patients, preoperative serum HE4 is significantly correlated with PTD and DMI. Serum HE4 levels could be useful in identifying endometrial cancer patients at high risk of lymphatic spread who would benefit from systemic lymphadenectomy at the cut-off value of 70 pM/L.

Metformin Addition to Chemotherapy in Stage IV Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: an Open Label Randomized Controlled Study

  • Sayed, Rana;Saad, Amr S;El Wakeel, Lamia;Elkholy, Engi;Badary, Osama
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.16 no.15
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    • pp.6621-6626
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    • 2015
  • Purpose: To evaluate effects of metformin on clinical outcome of non-diabetic patients with stage IV NSCLC. Materials and Methods: A prospective, randomized, open-label, controlled pilot study was conducted on patients with stage IV NSCLC with an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status (ECOG PS) of 0-2, excluding patients with diabetes and lactic acidosis. Thirty chemo-$na\ddot{i}ve$, non-diabetic patients with stage IV NSCLC were enrolled. Fifteen patients received intravenous gemcitabine/cisplatin regimen alone (arm B) while fifteen patients received the same regimen plus daily oral metformin 500mg (arm A). The effect of metformin on chemotherapy-response rates, survival, and adverse events in these patients was evaluated. Results: Objective response rate (ORR) and median overall survival (OS) in arms A and B were 46.7% versus 13.3% respectively, p=0.109 and 12 months versus 6.5 months, respectively, p=0.119. Median progression free survival (PFS) in arms A and B was 5.5 months versus 5 months, p=0.062. No significant increase in toxicity was observed in arm A versus arm B. Percentage of patients who experienced nausea was significantly lower in arm A versus arm B, at 26.7% versus 66.7% respectively, p=0.028. Conclusions: Metformin administration reduced occurrence of chemotherapy induced-nausea. Non-statistically significant improvements in the ORR or OS were observed. Metformin had no effect on PFS.

Quantitative Analysis of Thyroid Blood Flow and Static Imaging in the Differential Diagnosis of Thyroid Nodules

  • Song, Li-Ping;Zhang, Wen-Hong;Xiang, Yang;Zhao, Na
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.14 no.11
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    • pp.6331-6335
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    • 2013
  • Objective:To evaluate the performance of combined quantitative analysis of thyroid blood flow and static imaging data in the differential diagnosis of thyroid nodules. Method: Thyroid blood flow and static imaging were performed in 165 patients with thyroid nodules. Patients were divided into a benign thyroid nodule group (BTN, n=135) and a malignant thyroid nodule group (MTN, n=30) based on the results of post-surgical pathologic examination. Carotid artery thyroid transit times (CTTT), perfusion ratio of thyroid nodule blood/thyroid blood (TNB/TB), and perfusion ratio of thyroid nodule blood/carotid artery blood (TNB/CAB) were measured using thyroid blood flow imaging. The ratios between thyroid nodule and ipsilateral submandibular gland (TN/SG) and thyroid nodule and normal thyroid tissue (TN/T) were measured from thyroid static imaging. The differences between the BTN and MTN groups were compared. Results: 1) CTTT was markedly lower in the MTN group than the BTN group, the difference being statistically significant. 2) TNB/TB and TNB/CAB were both significantly higher in MTN than BTN groups. 3) TN/T was significantly lower in MTN group than BTN group. 4) TN/SG was lower in MTN group than BTN group, but the difference was not statistically significant. 5) Using the combination of CTTT and TN/T, the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were 93.1%, 95.3% and 94.9% respectively for the diagnosis of MTN. Using the combination of CTTT, TNB/TB and TN/T, the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy changed to 89.7%, 100%, and 98.1% respectively. 6) Correlation analysis demonstrated a significant correlation between TN/T and TNB/TB (r=-0.384, P=0.036) and TNB/CAB (r=-0.466, P=0.009) in the MTN group. Conclusion: The combination of quantitative markers from thyroid blood flow and thyroid static imaging had high specificity and accuracy in differential diagnosis of benign and malignant thyroid nodules, thus providing an important imaging diagnostic approach.

Measuring Quality of Experience of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV 체감 품질의 측정)

  • Byun, Dae-Ho;Jeon, Hong-Dae
    • The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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    • v.15 no.3
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    • pp.63-83
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    • 2010
  • IPTV(Internet Protocol Television) is an innovation technology to lead the new media age. Internet protocol television (IPTV) is a next generation television converged with the Internet which are delivered portal services such as information search, games, movies, home shopping and banking. Generally, service quality affects to adopt or use these technologies. Quality of experience (QoE) is more issue to be considered than service quality because of the technological restriction and limitation that IPTV is accessed by the Internet. The QoE is defined as the cognitive and experienced quality measured with users through an experiment and is conceptually related to service quality. The objective of this paper is to suggest a methodology to measure the QoE of IPTV using a user testing. We find significant factors affecting QoE of IPTV through an exploratory study and measure QoE scores. We found the nine factors of graphics, picture, accuracy, access method, quality of contents, usability, security, and performance important for QoE. The QoE scores of picture, graphics, and quality of contents gained over the average score, but the overall score for IPTV service providers was not high and the QoE needs to be improved.

A study of the influences of Malevich's "Victory Over the Sun" on contemporary fashion design - Focused on Martin Margiela - (말레비치의 "Victory Over the Sun"이 현대 패션디자인에 미친 영향 - Martin Margiela를 중심으로 -)

  • Park, Yoon Jeong
    • The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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    • v.24 no.6
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    • pp.839-853
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    • 2016
  • This study proposes that Malevich's 1913 performance "Victory Over the Sun" was not just Cubo Futurism, but that it produced Suprematism in the early 20th century. "Victory Over the Sun" did away with traditional set and costume design and a call to the Russian avant garde. Therefore, this study analyzes the characteristics of set and the costume design in "Victory Over the Sun", and considers how it impacted twenty-first century fashion designers like Margiela. The results of the study are as follows: first, Margiela reinterpreted the characteristics of the costumes featured on "Victory Over the Sun" from a cubist perspective and represented geometric spatial structures and mechanical human images through changes in methods and materials. second, he designed costumes by applying to the set and costumes expressed black & white images on "Victory Over the Sun". and third, Margiela reinterpreted the warrior image using geometric forms and colors in a creative way. Contemporary fashion designers, including Margiela, express their artistic creativity through various representational and materials choices. They want to convey their subjective personality and emotional sensibility to the public by mixing and deforming existing arts like painting, sculpture, and crafts to create new images. Thus, the creative intentions of the latest fashion designers have expanded art of costume design, exemplifying the process by which art is evolves and is made new.

Effectiveness Assesment of Bus Signal Priority Systems (버스우선신호시스템 적용 효과 평가)

  • Lee, Ho-Joon;Lee, Sang-Soo;Lee, Choul-Ki;Kim, Nam-Sun
    • The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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    • v.11 no.2
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    • pp.57-66
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    • 2012
  • This study intended to evaluate the operational performance change from the introduction of the bus signal priority system using the field data. To complete the objective, travel time and volume data were collected from the before and after study, then the distribution of individual vehicle's travel time and the difference of travel time and traffic volume were compared respectively. Analysis results showed that no significant volume change was observed from both passenger vehicle and bus for the major and cross streets. It was identified that the quality of travel time distributions of passenger vehicle and bus was improved after introducing the bus signal priority system. In terms of average speed, passenger car in a major direction increased by 6.5% and bus increased by 10.5% in general. Statistical tests showed that those speed differences were statistically significant at the 95% of confidence level. The results of this paper will be a good source for further research in the area of bus signal priority control.

CEM-PF: Cost-Effective Mobility Management Scheme Based on Pointer Forwarding in Proxy Mobile IPv6 Networks (프록시 모바일 IPv6 네트워크에서 포인터 포워딩에 기반한 비용효과적인 이동성관리 기법)

  • Park, Seung-Yoon;Jeong, Jong-Pil
    • The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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    • v.12 no.4
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    • pp.81-93
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    • 2012
  • We propose efficient mobility management schemes based on pointer forwarding for Proxy Mobile IPv6 Networks(PMIPv6) with the objective to reduce the overall network traffic incurred by mobility management and packet delivery. The proposed schemes are per-user-based, i.e., the optimal threshold of the forwarding chain length that minimizes the overall network traffic is dynamically determined for each individual mobile user, based on the user's specific mobility and service patterns. We demonstrate that there exists an optimal threshold of the forwarding chain length, given a set of parameters characterizing the specific mobility and service patterns of a mobile user. We also demonstrate that our schemes yield significantly better performance than schemes that apply a static threshold to all mobile users. A comparative analysis shows that our pointer forwarding schemes outperform routing-based mobility management protocols for PMIPv6.

Robust $H_{\infty}$ filtering for discrete-time polytopic uncertain systems (이산시간 폴리토프형 불확실성 시스템의 견실 $H_{\infty}$ 필터링)

  • Kim, Jong-Hae;Oh, Do-Chang;Lee, Kap-Rai
    • Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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    • v.39 no.5
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    • pp.26-33
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    • 2002
  • The design method of robust $H_{\infty}$ filtering for discrete-time uncertain linear systems is investigated in this paper. The uncertain parameters are assumed to be unknown but belonging to known convex compact set of polytope type. The objective is to design a stable robust $H_{\infty}$ filter guaranteeing the asymptotic stability of filtering error dynamics and present an $L_2$ induced norm bound analytically for the modified $H_{\infty}$ performance measure. The sufficient condition for the existence of robust $H_{\infty}$ filter and the filter design method are established by LMI(linear matrix inequality) approach, which can be solved efficiently by convex optimization. The proposed algorithm is checked through an example.

Real Time Balancing Control of 2 Wheel Robot Using a Predictive Controller (예측 제어기를 이용한 2바퀴 로봇의 실시간 균형제어)

  • Kang, Jin-Gu
    • Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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    • v.19 no.3
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    • pp.11-16
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    • 2014
  • In this paper, the two-wheels robot using a predictive controller to maintain the balance of the posture control in real time have been examined. A reaction wheel pendulum control method is adopted to maintain the balance while the bicycle robot is driving. The objective of this research was to design and implement a self-balancing algorithm using the dsPIC30F4013 embedded processor. To calculate the attitude in ARS using 2 axis gyro(roll, pitch) and 3 axis accelerometers (x, y, z). In this study, the disturbance of the posture for the asymmetrical propose to overcome the predictive controller which was a problem in the control of a remote system by introducing the two wheels of the robot controller and the linear prediction of the system controller combines the simulation was performed. Also, the robust characteristic for realizing the goal of designing a loop filter too robust controller is designed so that satisfactory stability of the control system to improve stability of the system to minimize degradation of performance was confirmed.

The Prevalence of Playing-related Musculoskeletal Disorders of Traditional Korean Musical Instrument Player

  • Kim, Jung Yong;Min, Seung Nam;Cho, Young Jin;Choi, Jun Hyeok
    • Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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    • v.31 no.6
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    • pp.749-756
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    • 2012
  • Objective: This study was performed to investigate the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders of traditional Korean instrument player using a variety of traditional classical instruments: Gayageum, Geomungo, Ajaeng, Haegeum, Daegeum, Piri and Samul instruments. Background: A large percentage of instrument players have suffered from the musculoskeletal pain of each body parts. However, there is no research on the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders of traditional Korean musical instrument players. Method: Through the focus group interview, a questionnaire to investigate musculoskeletal disorders was developed. The questionnaire consisted of four parts: demographic factors, performance factors, musculoskeletal disorders symptoms, musculoskeletal disorder experience. For the survey, 118 expert players participated. The data from the survey were analyzed by correlation analysis and chi-square analysis. Results: The symptoms of musculoskeletal disorders and the severe pain from musculoskeletal disorders were observed at neck, shoulder, back and knee. The musculoskeletal experience was statistically related to the factor of body height in Gayageum and Geomungo. In addition, the musculoskeletal experience in Geomungo was related to age and career. However, the musculoskeletal experience in Ajaeng and Haegeum was only related to the factor of hobby. The musculoskeletal experience in Daegeum and Piri was related to stretching. In addition, there was a statistical significance between the musculoskeletal experience and sex in Daegum. In Samul instruments, the statistical significance was observed at age, BMI, career and stretching. Conclusion: The symptoms of playing-related musculoskeletal disorders of traditional Korean musical players were prevalently observed at neck, shoulder, back and knee. In addition, these symptoms were related to the various demographic factors such as age, body height, BMI, career, sex, hobby and stretching. Application: The results of this study can be used as the preliminary data for preventing the musculoskeletal injuries of traditional Korean musical instrument players.