• Title/Summary/Keyword: performance objective

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Evaluation of the performance of encapsulated lifting system composting technology with a GORE(R) cover membrane: Physico-chemical properties and spectroscopic analysis

  • Al-Alawi, Mutaz;El Fels, Loubna;Benjreid, Ramadan;Szegi, Tamas;Hafidi, Mohamed;Simon, Barbara;Gulyas, Miklos
    • Environmental Engineering Research
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    • v.25 no.3
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    • pp.299-308
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    • 2020
  • Composting is among the most effective integrated waste management strategies used to recycle sewage sludge (SS) waste and generate a useful product. An encapsulated lifting system is a relatively new industrial-scale composting technology. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of composting dewatered stabilized SS mixed with green waste using this new technology. The composting process was monitored by changes in the physico-chemical properties, UV-visible spectra, and fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra. The composting temperature was steady in the thermophilic range for 24 and 12 d in the intensive and maturation phases, respectively, which fulfilled the disinfection requirement. Moreover, the temperature increased rapidly to 76.8℃ within three days, and the thermophilic temperatures peaked twice and lasted longer than in traditional composting, which accelerated SS degradation and decreased the composting period necessary to obtain mature compost. FTIR spectroscopic analysis showed a diminished in methyl group derived from methylene C-H aliphatic groups because of organic matter degradation by microorganisms and an increased number of aromatic chains. The new technology may be a viable and sustainable alternative for SS management that converts waste into compost that is useful as a soil amendment.

Machine-Learning Based Biomedical Term Recognition (기계학습에 기반한 생의학분야 전문용어의 자동인식)

  • Oh Jong-Hoon;Choi Key-Sun
    • Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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    • v.33 no.8
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    • pp.718-729
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    • 2006
  • There has been increasing interest in automatic term recognition (ATR), which recognizes technical terms for given domain specific texts. ATR is composed of 'term extraction', which extracts candidates of technical terms and 'term selection' which decides whether terms in a term list derived from 'term extraction' are technical terms or not. 'term selection' is a process to rank a term list depending on features of technical term and to find the boundary between technical term and general term. The previous works just use statistical features of terms for 'term selection'. However, there are limitations on effectively selecting technical terms among a term list using the statistical feature. The objective of this paper is to find effective features for 'term selection' by considering various aspects of technical terms. In order to solve the ranking problem, we derive various features of technical terms and combine the features using machine-learning algorithms. For solving the boundary finding problem, we define it as a binary classification problem which classifies a term in a term list into technical term and general term. Experiments show that our method records 78-86% precision and 87%-90% recall in boundary finding, and 89%-92% 11-point precision in ranking. Moreover, our method shows higher performance than the previous work's about 26% in maximum.

The Acute Effect of Trimetazidine on the High Frequency Fatigue in the Isolated Rat Diaphragm Muscle

  • Emre, Mustafa;Karayaylali, Lbrahim;San, Mustafa;Demirkazik, Ayse;Kavak, Servet
    • Archives of Pharmacal Research
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    • v.27 no.6
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    • pp.646-652
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    • 2004
  • The objective of this study was to determine the acute effect of trimetazidine (TMZ) on the pre-fatigue, fatigue and post-fatigue contractile characteristics and tension-frequency relationships of isolated rat diaphragm muscle. Muscle strips were taken from the ventral-costal aspects of the diaphragm muscle of rats killed by decapitation. The muscle strips were suspended in organ baths containing Krebs solution, with a gas mixture of 95% $O_2$ and 5% $CO_2$ at $37^{\circ}C$ and pH 7.35-7.45. After determining the thermoregulation and optimum muscle length the muscles were subjected to direct supramaximal stimulation with 0.05 Hz frequency square pulses for periods of 0.5 msec to obtain control values. After adding $5{\times}10^{-6}{\;}and{\;}5{\times}10^{-5}$ M trimetazidine solution to the respective bath media, the contractile parameters of the muscles were recorded. The contractile parameters were also recorded for both the trimetazidine and tri-metazidine-free media after application of the high frequency fatigue protocols. Later, the tension-frequency relationship was determined by applying stimulating pulses of 10, 20, 50 and 100 Hz to the muscle strips. Whilst the twitch tension obtained from the $5{\times}10^{-6}{\;}and{\;}5{\times}10^{-5}$ M trimetazidine media showed numerical increases compared to that of the controls, these were not statistically significant (p>0.05). The contraction time exhibited a dose dependent increase (p<0.001), whilst the contraction and relaxation rates did not differ significantly. The isometric contraction forces obtained with the different stimulating frequencies showed a significant increase in the tetanic contraction only at 100 Hz (p<0.05). A comparison of the pre- and post-fatigue twitch tensions in the trimetazidine media showed the post- fatigue twitch tensions to be significantly higher than those of the pre-fatigue contraction forces (p<0.05). In the $5{\times}10^{-6}{\;}and{\;}5{\times}10^{-5}$ M trimetazidine media the increases in the post-fatigue contraction force were 22 and 30%, respectively. These results demonstrated that in isolated rat diaphragm muscle, TMZ significantly limited the mechanical performance decrease during fatigue. It is our opinion that trimetazidine contributed to the observed fatigue tolerance by eliminating the factors of fatigue, due to preservation of intracellular calcium homeostasis, provision of the ATP energy levels needed by ATPase dependent pumps and especially by keeping the intracellular pH within cer-tain limits.

Ergonomic Design of Medic Work Table (MWT) for Medical Technologist

  • Choi, Kyeong-Hee;Lee, Sung-Yong;Lee, Jun-Hyub;Kong, Yong-Ku
    • Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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    • v.35 no.6
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    • pp.595-609
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    • 2016
  • Objective: The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the guidelines for Medic Work Table (MWT) based on the anthropometric data of medical technologists. Background: Users' anthropometric data such as sitting height, sitting elbow height, knee height, and so on are significant factors for designing comfortable and useful furniture. Thus, many guidelines for different types of desks and chairs based on the users' anthropometric data have been suggested to many researchers. However, few researches have been conducted to provide design guidelines for MWT for blood collecting task. Medical technologists often use their upper extremities to perform blood collecting task with high repetitions. These repeated motions could be a critical factor in the prevalence rate of Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WMSDs). Therefore, a study on ergonomic design of MWT would be essential in preventing the WMSDs and improving the quality of the working environment of medical technologists. Method: This study suggested design guidelines for ergonomic MWT by focusing on the heights of the upper side and underside, depths of the inside and outside, and width of MWT through anthropometric studies and literature reviews. Afterwards, a new MWT was made using the suggested design guidelines for this study. Five healthy medical technologists participated to evaluate the original MWT and new MWT. All participants took part in the range of motion (ROM) test, electromyography (EMG) muscle activity test, and usability test to validate the suggested guidelines in this study. EMG signals of related muscles (Flexor Carpi Ulnaris, Extensor Carpi Ulnaris, Deltoid Anterior, and Biceps Branchii) were recorded through the surface electromyography system from both the original MWT and the new MWT. The ROM test of the shoulder and elbow flexion was also assessed using motion sensors. Results: The newly designed MWT showed decreased ROMs of the shoulder and elbow up to 22% and 18% compared to the original MWT. The muscle activities in the new MWT also showed a decrease of 13% in Anterior Deltoid, 6% in Biceps Brachii, 5% in Flexor Carpi Ulnaris, and 8% in Extensor Carpi Ulnaris muscle groups, compared to the original MWT. In the usability test, the satisfaction score of the new MWT was also 56.1% higher than that of the original MWT. Conclusion: This study suggested guidelines for designing MWT and validating the guidelines through qualitative and quantitative analyses. The results of motion analysis, muscle activity, and usability tests demonstrated that the newly designed MWT may lead to less physical stress, less awkward posture, and better physical user interface. Application: The recommended guidelines of the MWT would be helpful information for designing an ergonomic MWT that reduces physical loads and improves the performance of many medical technologists.

Experimental Curvature Analysis of Reinforced Concrete Piers with Lap-Spliced Longitudinal Steels subjected to Seismic Loading (지진하중을 받는 주철근 겹침이음된 철근콘크리트 교각의 곡률분석)

  • Chung, Young-Soo;Park, Chang-Kyu;Song, Hee-Won
    • Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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    • v.10 no.1 s.47
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    • pp.41-49
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    • 2006
  • Through the 1982 Urahawa-ohi and the 1995 Kobe earthquakes, a number of bridge columns were observed to develop a flexural-shear failure due to the bond slip as a consequence of premature termination of the column longitudinal reinforcement. Because the seismic behavior of RC bridge piers is largely dependent on the performance of the plastic hinge legion of RC bridge piers, it is desirable that the seismic capacity of RC bridge pier is to evaluate as a curvature ductility. The provision for the lap splice of longitudinal steel was not specified in KHBDS(Korea Highway Bridge Design Specification) before the implementation of 1992 seismic design code, but the lap splice of not more than 50%, longitudinal reinforcement was newly allowed in the 2005 version of the KHBDS. The objective of this research is to investigate the distribution and ductility of the curvature of RC bridge column with the lap splice of longitudinal reinforcement in the plastic hinge legion. Six (6) specimens were made in 600 mm diameter with an aspect ratio of 2.5 or 3.5. These piers were cyclically subjected to the quasi-static loads with the uniform axial load of $P=0.1f_{ck}A_g$. According to the slip failure of longitudinal steels of the lap spliced specimen by cyclic loads, the curvatures of the lower and upper parts of the lap spliced region were bigger and smaller than the corresponding paris of the specimen without a lap splice, respectively. Therefore, the damage of the lap spliced test column was concentrated almost on the lower part of the lap spliced region, that appeared io be failed in flexure.

Seismic Performance Analysis of RC Piers with Lap-spliced Reinforced Steel and Differentiated Aspect Ratios (주철근 겹침이음 및 형상비에 따른 철근콘크리트 교각의 내진거동 분석)

  • Cho, Chang-Beck;Shin, Ho-Jin;Kwahk, Im-Jong;Chung, Young-Soo
    • Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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    • v.16 no.5
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    • pp.41-53
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    • 2012
  • The objective of this study is to evaluate the seismic capacity of RC piers with small aspect ratios. Test specimens were selected from the prototype piers among existing national roadway bridges which are expected to fail in shear and/or complex shear-flexural mode. Two groups of full scale RC pier models were constructed with aspect ratios of 2.25 and 2.67. Quasi-static tests have been implemented to investigate the failure behavior of the RC piers in terms of the lap-spliced longitudinal reinforcing steel and the aspect ratio. It is confirmed that regarding its shear-flexural behavior, the pier is very sensitive to the aspect ratio or details. In the case of a test pier with highly lap-spliced longitudinal bars, the bond failure of lap-splice steels was the dominant cause of failure before the occurrence of flexure or shear-flexural failure, despite a slight change in the aspect ratio. Finally, based on the test results and analysis, this paper proposes formulas for the yielding and ultimate displacements of circular reinforced concrete bridge piers without seismic details. These formulas will be useful for the investigation and upgrade of the seismic capacity of bridge piers without seismic details.

Color Image Rendering using A Modified Image Formation Model (변형된 영상 생성 모델을 이용한 칼라 영상 보정)

  • Choi, Ho-Hyoung;Yun, Byoung-Ju
    • Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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    • v.48 no.1
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    • pp.71-79
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    • 2011
  • The objective of the imaging pipeline is to transform the original scene into a display image that appear similar, Generally, gamma adjustment or histogram-based method is modified to improve the contrast and detail. However, this is insufficient as the intensity and the chromaticity of illumination vary with geometric position. Thus, MSR (Multi-Scale Retinex) has been proposed. the MSR is based on a channel-independent logarithm, and it is dependent on the scale of the Gaussian filter, which varies according to input image. Therefore, after correcting the color, image quality degradations, such as halo, graying-out, and dominated color, may occur. Accordingly, this paper presents a novel color correction method using a modified image formation model in which the image is divided into three components such as global illumination, local illumination, and reflectance. The global illumination is obtained through Gaussian filtering of the original image, and the local illumination is estimated by using JND-based adaptive filter. Thereafter, the reflectance is estimated by dividing the original image by the estimated global and the local illumination to remove the influence of the illumination effects. The output image is obtained based on sRGB color representation. The experiment results show that the proposed method yields better performance of color correction over the conventional methods.

A Real Time Processing Technique for Content-Aware Video Scaling (내용기반 동영상 기하학적 변환을 위한 실시간 처리 기법)

  • Lee, Kang-Hee;Yoo, Jae-Wook;Park, Dae-Hyun;Kim, Yoon
    • Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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    • v.48 no.1
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    • pp.80-89
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    • 2011
  • In this paper, a new real time video scaling technique which preserved the contents of a movie was proposed. Because in a movie a correlation exists between consecutive frames, in this paper by determining the seam of the current frame considering the seam of the previous frame, it was proposed the real time video scaling technique without the shaking phenomenon of the contents even though the entire video is not analyzed. For this purpose, frames which have similar features in a movie are classified into a scene, and the first frame of a scene is resized by the seam carving at the static images so that it can preserve the contents of the image to the utmost. At this time, the information about the seam extracted to convert the image size is saved, and the sizes of the next frames are controlled with reference to the seam information stored in the previous frame by each frame. The proposed algorithm has the fast processing speed of the extent of being similar to a bilinear method and preserves the main content of an image to the utmost at the same time. Also because the memory usage is remarkably small compared with the existing seam carving method, the proposed algorithm is usable in the mobile terminal in which there are many memory restrictions. Computer simulation results indicate that the proposed technique provides better objective performance and subjective image quality about the real time processing and shaking phenomenon removal and contents conservation than conventional algorithms.

A Correlation between Stress and Activities of Daily Living related to the Ego-defense Mechanism in Stroke patients (뇌졸중 환자의 자아방어기제에 따른 스트레스와 일상생활활동 수행능력과의 상관관계)

  • Ryu, Sung-Hyun;Choi, Hyeon;Jeon, Ji-Hye;Choi, Su-Ji
    • The Journal of Korean society of community based occupational therapy
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    • v.5 no.2
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    • pp.1-9
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    • 2015
  • Objective : This study is to investigate the correlation of Ego-degense mechanism, stress and activities of daily living of stroke patients. Methods : The study was carried out from March 14, 2014 to May 15, 2015. A survey was conducted at a university hospital and three rehabilitation hospitals located in Daegu and Busan. For statistical analysis, frequency analysis, independent sample t-test, and Pearson correlation coefficient were used in this study. Results : As a result of the mature Ego-defense mechanism grop was more stressful than immature Ego-defense mechanism group(p<.05), mechanism group also showed better performance in activities of daily living activity(p<.05). Conclusion : The higher stress in stroke patients related to the disability to perform activities of daily living. Psychosocial rehabilitation for factors such as stress as well as physical function in stroke patients in the rehabilitation of stroke patients by using the Ego-defense will have a significant impact on an individual's personality or lifestyle.

The Effect of Action Observation Training on Dexterity of Affected Upper Extremity Motor Function and ADL in Stroke Patients (과제지향적 동작관찰훈련이 뇌졸중 환자의 환측 상지기민성과 일상생활활동에 미치는 영향)

  • Eom, Sook;Kim, Su-Kyoung
    • The Journal of Korean society of community based occupational therapy
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    • v.3 no.1
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    • pp.55-66
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    • 2013
  • Objective : The purpose of present study was to determine effects of task oriented action observation training on dexterity of upper limb function after stroke. Training was progressed to imitation and intensive training after observation to required action in ADL. Method : 15 stroke patients were selected and one group pretest-posttest design was applied. Targets observed performance actions of task orientated task through a video and limitated action repeatedly, Training was performed 3 times a week and 20~30 minutes for each round for 3 weeks. Manual function test and 10-second test and Box and block test were performed for a dexterity of upper extremity motor function, Modified Barthel index and Motor activity log were performed for ADL. Result : After the training, a dexterity of affected upper extremity motor function of the target showed significant difference between before and after intervention, ADL showed significant improvement between before and after intervention. Conclusion : Task orientated Action observation lead a positive effect of recovering a dexterity of upper extremity motor function and ADL. Therefore, this study suggest a action observation training as one strategy of an intervention type of th e occupational therapy.

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