• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
• /
• v.7 no.5
• /
• pp.323-326
• /
• 2002

To detect whole ammonia-oxidizing bacteria in the activated sludge, group-specific primers targeting the 16S-rRNA gene of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria were used. The electrophoresis pattern of the PCR products seemed to produce a single band of approximately 1.0 k bp for the bacteria in activated sludge and Nitrosomonas europaea. No band was observed for nitrite-oxidizer Nitrobacter winogradskyi and heterotrophs such as Pseudomonas putida. Then direct measurement of the PCR product was made by fluorometry using the reagent Hoechist 33258, so that the fluorescent intensity was in proportional to the cell number of the sample up to 240. Total time required for the test was about 4 h including DNA extraction. The DNA fragments produced were cloned and their sequences showed high similarity to those of Nitrosomonas spp. This study showed the feasibility to detect ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and to esti-mate their population rapidly for the control of the nitrogen elimination process.

• Korean Journal of Oriental Medicine
• /
• v.1 no.1
• /
• pp.159-178
• /
• 1995

After acupuncture needles were inserted on apkok(LI4) and Kokchi(LI11) accupoints, physiological changes induced by the varitions of 'Qi' were measured. The body temperature and pulse frequency were fromed to be decreased observed and we presumed that the needle insertion induced some changes of Qi in meridian and this seemed to be achieved by a certain process of Qi induction. We applied EAV, nervinemeter and pulse-taking machine which is widely used as oriental medicine instruments, to the same vounteers and observed the significant variations for each apparatus in spite of partial lack of reproducibility. In this paper, we described about the physical quantity measured by the medical appartatus and how it was related to the variation of Qi The proper conditions used for good oriental medicine instruments have also been suggested.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
• /
• 2009.10a
• /
• pp.198-201
• /
• 2009

As a way to improve the safety of automotives and to reduce the weight of vehicles, new forming technologies and advanced materials are in high demand in the automotive industry. However, the advanced strength steel has inferior formability and large springback. In order to overcome such drawbacks, the hot press forming process (HPF) has been being applied for forming of automotive sheet parts. In this work, new equipment was suggested to measure unlimited displacement range compared to previous one which was able to measure only up to 10mm displacement range. The external extensometer connected with grips by wire was applied to equipment so that total strain range was measured up to failure also in high temperature. And the finite element analysis was conducted to characterize the mechanical properties of the HPF steel. Finally, the flow curves were represented by utilizing the Johnson-Cook type equation both in uniform and post-uniform deformation regions.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
• /
• v.46 no.1
• /
• pp.16-22
• /
• 2009

Objective : This study was designed to investigate automated pressure-controlled discography (APCD) findings, to calculate the elastance of intervertebral discs, and to assess the relationship between the calculated elastance and disc degeneration. Methods : APCD was performed in 19 patients. There were a total of 49 intervertebral discs treated. Following intradiscal puncture, a dye was constantly injected and the intradiscal pressure was continuously measured. The elastance of the intervertebral disc was defined as unit change in intradiscal pressure per fractional change in injected dye volume. Disc degeneration was graded using a modified Dallas discogram scale. Results : The mean elastance was 43.0${\pm}$9.6 psi/mL in Grade 0, 39.5${\pm}$8.3 psi/mL in Grade 1, 30.5${\pm}$22.3 psi/mL in Grade 2, 30.5${\pm}$22.3 psi/mL in Grade 3, 13.2${\pm}$8.3 psi/mL in Grade 4 and 6.9${\pm}$3.8 psi/mL in Grade 5. The elastance showed significant negative correlation with the degree of degeneration ($R^2$=0.529, P=0.000). Conclusion: APCD liberates the examiner from the data acquisition process during discography. This will likely improve the quality of data and the reliability of discography. Elastance could be used as an indicator of disc degeneration.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.23 no.8
• /
• pp.632-637
• /
• 2010

The measurement of contact wire wear in electric railways is one of the key test parameters to increase speed and maintain safety in electric railways. Wear caused by continuous interaction between pantographs and contact wires has a negative effect on current collection quality and severely damaged contact wires might cause hazardous accidents. This paper introduces a non-contact optical-based contact wire wear measuring system that will replace conventional wear detecting methods conducted by maintenance vehicles or workers. The system is implemented by high-speed cameras that can collect images of contact wires during vehicle operation, a laser used to create images profile of the contact wire surface, and a computer used to process the collected images. The proposed system is designed to assist maintenance of overhead contact lines by creating geometrically plotted images of contact wires to detect contact wire wear during operation on conventional lines or high-speed lines.

• The Transactions of the Korea Information Processing Society
• /
• v.4 no.9
• /
• pp.2173-2184
• /
• 1997

Among spatial queries handled in spatial database systems, nearest neighbor queries to find the nearest spatial object from the given locaion occur frequently. The number of searched nodes in an index must be minimized in order to increase the performance of nearest neighbor queries. An Existing approach considered only the processing of an nearest neighbor query in a two-dimensional search space and could not optimize the number of searched nodes accurately. In this paper, we propose the optimal search distance and prove its properties. The proposed optimal search distance is the measurement of a new search distance for accurately selecting the nodes which will be searched in processing nearest neighbor queries. We present an algorithm for processing the nearest neighbor query by applying the optimal search distance to R-trees and prove that the result of query processing is correcter than the existing approach.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
• /
• v.3 no.3
• /
• pp.186-193
• /
• 2008

We propose a novel real-time obstacle avoidance method for rescue robots. This method, named the ELA(Emergency Level Around), permits the detection of unknown obstacles and avoids collisions while simultaneously steering the mobile robot toward safe position. In the ELA, we consider two sensor modules, PSD(Position Sensitive Detector) infrared sensors taking charge of obstacle detection in short distance and LMS(Laser Measurement System) in long distance respectively. Hence if a robot recognizes an obstacle ahead by PSD infrared sensors first, and judges impossibility to overcome the obstacle based on driving mode decision process, the order of priority is transferred to LMS which collects data of radial distance centered on the robot to avoid the confronted obstacle. After gathering radial information, the ELA algorithm estimates emergency level around a robot and generates a polar histogram based on the emergency level to judge where the optimal free space is. Finally, steering angle is determined to guarantee rotation to randomly direction as well as robot width for safe avoidance. Simulation results from wandering in closed local area which includes various obstacles and different conditions demonstrate the power of the ELA.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
• /
• v.39 no.1
• /
• pp.117-123
• /
• 2012

Pathogenic fungi and bacteria such as Pectobacterium atrosepticum, Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. sepedonicus, Verticillium albo-atrum, and Rhizoctonia solani were the major microorganism which causes diseases in seed potato during postharvest process. Current detection method for disease-infected seed potato relies on human inspection, which is subjective, inaccurate and labor-intensive method. In this study, a reflectance spectroscopy was used to classify sound and disease-infected seed potatoes with the spectral range from 400 to 1100 nm. Partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) with various preprocessing methods was used to investigate the feasibility of classification between sound and disease-infected seed potatoes. The classification accuracy was above 97 % for discriminating disease seed potatoes from sound ones. The results show that Vis/NIR reflectance method has good potential for non-destructive sorting for disease-infected seed potatoes.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.42 no.2
• /
• pp.229-245
• /
• 2012

Bridge vibration displacements have been directly measured by LVDTs (Linear Variable Differential Transformers) or laser equipment and have also been indirectly estimated by an algorithm of integrating measured acceleration. However, LVDT measurement cannot be applied for a bridge crossing over a river or channel and the laser technique cannot be applied when the weather condition is poor. Also, double integration of accelerations may cause serious numerical deviation if the initial condition or a regression process is not carefully controlled. This paper presents an algorithm of estimating bridge vibration displacements using vibration strains measured by FBG (Fiber Bragg Grating) sensors and theoretical mode shapes of a simply supported beam. Since theoretically defined mode shapes are applied, even high modes can be used regardless of the quality of the measured data. In the proposed algorithm, the number of theoretical modes is limited by the number of sensors used for a field test to prevent a mathematical rank deficiency from occurring in computing vibration displacements.89The proposed algorithm has been applied to various types of bridges and its efficacy has been verified. The closeness of the estimated vibration displacements to measured ones has been evaluated by computing the correlation coefficient and by comparing FRFs (Frequency Response Functions) and the maximum displacements.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.273-286
• /
• 2012

As civil structures are exposed to various external loads, it is essential to assess the structural condition, especially the structural displacement, in every moment. Therefore, a visually servoed paired structured light system was proposed in the previous study. The proposed system is composed of two screens facing with each other, each with a camera, a screen, and one or two lasers controlled by a 2-DOF manipulator. The 6-DOF displacement can be calculated from the positions of three projected laser beams and the rotation angles of the manipulators. In the estimation process, one of well-known iterative methods such as Newton-Raphson or extended Kalman filter (EKF) was used for each measurement. Although the proposed system with the aforementioned algorithms estimates the displacement with high accuracy, it takes relatively long computation time. Therefore, an incremental displacement estimation (IDE) algorithm which updates the previously estimated displacement based on the difference between the previous and the current observed data is newly proposed. To validate the performance of the proposed algorithm, simulations and experiments are performed. The results show that the proposed algorithm significantly reduces the computation time with the same level of accuracy compared to the EKF with multiple iterations.