• Title/Summary/Keyword: thresholds

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Odor Thresholds and Breathing Changes of Human Volunteers as Consequences of Sulphur Dioxide Exposure Considering Individual Factors

  • Kleinbeck, Stefan;Schaper, Michael;Juran, Stephanie A.;Kiesswetter, Ernst;Blaszkewicz, Meinolf;Golka, Klaus;Zimmermann, Anna;Bruning, Thomas;Van Thriel, Christoph
    • Safety and Health at Work
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    • v.2 no.4
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    • pp.355-364
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    • 2011
  • Objectives: Though sulfur dioxide (SO2) is used widely at workplaces, itseffects on humans are not known. Thresholds are reportedwithout reference to gender or age and occupational exposure limits are basedon effects on lung functioning, although localized effects in the upper airways can be expected. This study's aim is to determine thresholds with respect to age and gender and suggests a new approach to risk assessment using breathing reflexes presumably triggered by trigeminal receptors in the upper airways. Methods: Odor thresholds were determined by the ascending method of limits in groups stratified by age and gender. Subjects rated intensities of different olfactory and trigeminal perceptions at different concentrations of $SO_2$. During the presentation of the concentrations, breathing movements were measured by respiratory inductive plethysmography. Results: Neither age nor gender effects were observed for odor threshold. Only ratings of nasal irritation were influenced bygender. A benchmark dose analysis on relative respiratory depth revealed a 10%-deviation from baseline at about 25.27 mg/$m^3$. Conclusion: The proposed new approach to risk assessment appearsto be sustainable. We discuss whether a 10%-deviation of breathingdepth is relevant.

Case Studies of Mass Concentration Variation in the Central-Southern Korean Peninsula Caused by Synoptic Scale Transport of Dust Storms

  • Kim, Hak-Sung;Cho, Jae-Hee
    • Journal of the Korean earth science society
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    • v.40 no.4
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    • pp.414-427
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    • 2019
  • In East Asia, the long-range transport of dust storms originating from Mongolia and northern China affects airborne dust loadings over downwind areas in the southern Korean Peninsula. Since 1997, dust loading cases caused by dust storms have been observed using the thresholds of total suspended particles (TSP, ${\geq}250{\mu}g\;m^{-3}\;hr^{-1}$) and particulate matter less than $10{\mu}g$ ($PM_{10}$, ${\geq}190{\mu}g\;m^{-3}\;hr^{-1}$) in the central-southern Korean Peninsula. There were two dust loading cases that exceeded these thresholds in 2016 and three in 2017, which reflects the downward trend of the last twenty-one years in the central-southern Korean Peninsula. Furthermore, five other dust loading cases with mass concentrations lower than the thresholds were observed from 2016 to 2017. In the moderate dust loading cases exceeding the thresholds, a descending motion of cut-off lows below $45^{\circ}N$ and a southward trough at 500 hPa gpm isopleths intensified at the western ridge, and largely extended the surface high-pressure system over southeast China. Airborne dust loadings following pronounced north-westerlies in the forward side of the high-pressure system were transported to the surface of the central-southern Korean Peninsula. However, in slight dust loading cases lower than the thresholds, the restricted descending motion of cut-off lows over $45^{\circ}N$ and the southwestward trough at 500 hPa gpm isopleths intensified the zonal flow over the Korean Peninsula. Surface high- and low-pressure systems moved eastward from the source compared to moderate dust loading cases. Due to the zonal movement of dust storms traversing eastern China, slight dust loading cases were observed with relatively higher ratios of $PM_{2.5}/TSP$ and carbon monoxide (CO) in the central-southern Korean Peninsula.

Selecting the optimal threshold based on impurity index in imbalanced classification (불균형 자료에서 불순도 지수를 활용한 분류 임계값 선택)

  • Jang, Shuin;Yeo, In-Kwon
    • The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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    • v.34 no.5
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    • pp.711-721
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    • 2021
  • In this paper, we propose the method of adjusting thresholds using impurity indices in classification analysis on imbalanced data. Suppose the minority category is Positive and the majority category is Negative for the imbalanced binomial data. When categories are determined based on the commonly used 0.5 basis, the specificity tends to be high in unbalanced data while the sensitivity is relatively low. Increasing sensitivity is important when proper classification of objects in minority categories is relatively important. We explore how to increase sensitivity through adjusting thresholds. Existing studies have adjusted thresholds based on measures such as G-Mean and F1-score, but in this paper, we propose a method to select optimal thresholds using the chi-square statistic of CHAID, the Gini index of CART, and the entropy of C4.5. We also introduce how to get a possible unique value when multiple optimal thresholds are obtained. Empirical analysis shows what improvements have been made compared to the results based on 0.5 through classification performance metrics.

Changes in Electrical TAste Threshold with Advancing Age in Korea (한국인에 있어서 연령증가에 따른 미각의 변화)

  • 박성근;김선희;기우천;최재갑
    • Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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    • v.23 no.4
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    • pp.327-341
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    • 1998
  • Aims : The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there are any changes in taste sensitivity with advancing age and to see if smoking or oral hygiene can affect the taste sensitivity. Method : Nine hundred and thirty four subjects(458 male and 476 females) were included for the study and they were categorized into 4 age groups( under 20, 20 to 39, 40 to 59, and over 60 age group ). The electrical taste thresholds were measured using an electrogustometer for the 4 different sites in the oral cavity, I.e., tongue tip, tougue alteral, circumvallate papilla, and soft palate. Results : The elctrical taste thresholds were significantly incresed with advancing age in both gender, but the pattern of change is moere abrupt in female after 40. There were not significant differences in electrical taste threshold between smoking and non-smoking people. Taste thresholds were significantly lower in the groups with higher frequency of daily toothbrushing than the groups with lower frequency Conclusion : The electrical taste threshold is increased with aging. It is not influenced by smoking but by toothbrushing.

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Fast Intra-Prediction Mode Decision Algorithm for H.264/AVC using Non-parametric Thresholds and Simplified Directional Masks

  • Kim, Young-Ju
    • Journal of information and communication convergence engineering
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    • v.7 no.4
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    • pp.501-506
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    • 2009
  • In the H.264/ AVC video coding standard, the intra-prediction coding with various block sizes offers a considerably high improvement in coding efficiency compared to previous standards. In order to achieve this, H.264/AVC uses the Rate-distortion optimization (RDO) technique to select the best intraprediction mode for a macroblock, and it brings about the drastic increase of the computation complexity of H.264 encoder. To reduce the computation complexity and stabilize the coding performance on visual quality, this paper proposed a fast intra-prediction mode decision algorithm using non-parametric thresholds and simplified directional masks. The use of nonparametric thresholds makes the intra-coding performance not be dependent on types of video sequences and simplified directional masks reduces the compuation loads needed by the calculation of local edge information. Experiment results show that the proposed algorithm is able to reduce more than 55% of the whole encoding time with a negligible loss in PSNR and bitrates and provides the stable performance regardless types of video sequences.

Technique According to the Calculation of Thresholds of Histogram Based on Overlap Areas for Reducing

  • An, Young-Eun;Bae, Sang-Hyun;Kim, Tae-Yeun
    • Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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    • v.13 no.2
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    • pp.83-86
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    • 2020
  • In In this study, technique has been suggested according to the calculation of thresholds of histogram based on overlap areas for reducing noise while analyzing the functions of them. Suggested algorithm is to convert histogram extracted from color images to gray level and select overlap areas from extracted histogram. In addition, feature table is configured after extracting histogram in the relevant overlap area while comparing and retrieving for query and database video images by using this feature table. Suggested retrieval system has been confirmed to be more outstanding with retrieval function in video images with more noises than the system that only used color histogram.

Human Sensitivity Responses to Vibrotactile Stimulation on the Hand : Measurement of Absolute Thresholds (진동식 촉각 자극에 대한 손의 절대 민감도 반응)

  • Lee, Seong-Il
    • Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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    • v.17 no.2
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    • pp.1-10
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    • 1998
  • The objective of this study is to investigate hwnan operator's perceptual and psychophysical responses to vibrotactile stimulation on various parts of the hand. Using a small vibrotactile display, five different loci of the hand along with two other mechanical parameters consisting vibrotactile stimulations, which are vibration frequency and number of active contactors, were examined for the effects on absolute thresholds. All test variables were found to have significant effects on thresholds. It was observed that absolute threshold is a function of vibration frequency and number of active contactors. Tactile sensitivity was the greatest at the vibration frequency of 240 Hz, and the fingertip was found to be the most sensitive locus on the hand. The area of stimulation on the hand was also found to be significant in that the sensitivity increased with the number of active contactors. The results of the study generally supported those of other previous studies. It should also be noted, however, that the conclusions from the study should be limited to the absolute sensitivity, not to the suprathreshold intensities of normal everyday contact with the hands.

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Throughput Improvement of an AMQAM Scheme by using New Switching Thresholds over Nakagami-m Fading Channels

  • Lee, Youngkou;Park, Sungsoo;Insoo Koo;Kim, Seung-Geun;Kim, Kiseon
    • Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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    • 2002.07c
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    • pp.1440-1443
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    • 2002
  • In this paper, we investigate the throughput improvement of an adaptive M-ary quadrature modulation (AMQAM) scheme by using new switching thresh-olds over slow frequency nonselective Nakagami-m fading channels. The new switching thresholds are obtained by using the approximated BER expressions with complimentary error functions for each modulation scheme given in AWGN channels. By using the new switching thresholds, we can improve the maximum system throughput. For example, we get the maximum throughput improvement about 0.32 when tile target BER is 10$\^$-3/ and the fading figure m = 3.

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Narrowband Signal Localization Based on Enhanced LAD Method

  • Jia, Ke Xin;He, Zi Shu
    • Journal of Communications and Networks
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    • v.13 no.1
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    • pp.6-11
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    • 2011
  • In this paper, an enhanced localization algorithm based on double thresholds (LAD) is proposed for localizing narrowband signals in the frequency domain. A simplified LAD method is first studied to reduce the computational complexity of the original LAD method without performance loss. The upper and lower thresholds of the simplified LAD method are directly calculated by running the forward consecutive mean excision algorithm only once. By combining the simplified LAD method and binary morphological operators, the enhanced LAD method is then proposed and its performance is simply discussed. The simulation results verify the correctness of discussion and show that the enhanced LAD method is superior to the LAD with adjacent cluster combining method, especially at low signal-to-noise ratio.

The Image Segmentation Method using Adaptive Watershed Algorithm for Region Boundary Preservation

  • Kwon, Dong-Jin
    • International Journal of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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    • v.11 no.1
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    • pp.39-46
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    • 2019
  • This paper proposes an adaptive threshold watershed algorithm, which is the method used for image segmentation and boundary detection, which extends the region on the basis of regional minimum point. First, apply adaptive thresholds to determine regional minimum points. Second, it extends the region by applying adaptive thresholds based on determined regional minimum points. Traditional watershed algorithms create over-segmentation, resulting in the disadvantages of breaking boundaries between regions. These segmentation results mainly from the boundary of the object, creating an inaccurate region. To solve these problems, this paper applies an improved watershed algorithm applied with adaptive threshold in regional minimum point search and region expansion in order to reduce over-segmentation and breaking the boundary of region. This resulted in over-segmentation suppression and the result of having the boundary of precisely divided regions. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can apply adaptive thresholds to reduce the number of segmented regions and see that the segmented boundary parts are correct.