• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.59-76
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• 2008

In this paper, we propose an agent architecture called L-CAA that is quite effective in real-time dynamic environments. L-CAA is an extension of CAA, the behavior-based agent architecture which was also developed by our research group. In order to improve adaptability to the changing environment, it is extended by adding reinforcement learning capability. To obtain stable performance, however, behavior selection and execution in the L-CAA architecture do not entirely rely on learning. In L-CAA, learning is utilized merely as a complimentary means for behavior selection and execution. Behavior selection mechanism in this architecture consists of two phases. In the first phase, the behaviors are extracted from the behavior library by checking the user-defined applicable conditions and utility of each behavior. If multiple behaviors are extracted in the first phase, the single behavior is selected to execute in the help of reinforcement learning in the second phase. That is, the behavior with the highest expected reward is selected by comparing Q values of individual behaviors updated through reinforcement learning. L-CAA can monitor the maintainable conditions of the executing behavior and stop immediately the behavior when some of the conditions fail due to dynamic change of the environment. Additionally, L-CAA can suspend and then resume the current behavior whenever it encounters a higher utility behavior. In order to analyze effectiveness of the L-CAA architecture, we implement an L-CAA-enabled agent autonomously playing in an Unreal Tournament game that is a well-known dynamic virtual environment, and then conduct several experiments using it.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.305-313
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• 2016

Movements of the lower limb are important for normal walking and smooth oscillation of the center of gravity. The ankle rotations such as dorsi-flexion, plantar-flexion, inversion and eversion allows the foot to accommodate to ground during level ground walking. Current below knee (B/K) prostheses are used for replacing amputated ankle, and make it possible for amputees to walk again. However, most of amputees with B/K prostheses often experience a loss of terrain adaptability as well as stability because of limited ankle rotation. This study is focused on the development of multi-rotational prosthetic foot for lower limb amputee. Our prosthesis is possible for amputees to easily walk in level ground by rotating ankle joint in sagittal plane and adapt to the abnormal terrain with ankle rotation in coronal plane. The resistance of ankle joint in the direction of dorsi/plantar-flexion can be manually regulated by hydraulic damper with controllable nozzle. Furthermore, double layered rubber induce the prosthesis adapt to irregular ground by tilting itself in direction of eversion and inversion. The experimental results highlights the potential that our prosthesis induce a normal gait for below knee amputee.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.30 no.7
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• pp.640-650
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• 2020

Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) is an atypical member of the FGF protein family which is highly synthesized in the liver, pancreas, and adipose tissue. Depending on the expression tissue, FGF21 uses endo- or paracrine features to regulate several metabolic pathways including glucose metabolism and energy homeostasis. Different physiologically stressful conditions such as starvation, a ketogenic diet, extreme cold, and mitochondrial dysfunction are known to induce FGF21 synthesis in various tissues to exert either adaptive or defensive mechanisms. More specifically, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha control FGF21 expression in adipose tissue and liver, respectively. In addition, the pharmacologic administration of FGF21 has been reported to decrease the body weight and improve the insulin sensitivity and lipoprotein profiles of obese mice and type 2 diabetes patients meaning that FGF21 has attracted huge interest as a therapeutic agent for type 2 diabetes, obesity, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. However, understanding FGF21 remains complicated due to the paradoxical condition of its tissue-dependent expression. For example, nutrient deprivation largely increases hepatic FGF21 levels whereas adipose tissue-derived FGF21 is increased under feeding condition. This review discusses the issues of interest that have arisen from existing publications, including the tissue-specific function of FGF21 and its action mechanism. We also summarize the current stage of a clinical trial using several FGF21 analogs.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.31 no.3 s.62
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• pp.503-515
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• 1998

In order to investigate the factors influencing QOL and life satisfaction of the physically disabled, the author interviewed, by using structuralized questionnaire, 440 individuals among the physically disabled who were participated in Health Examination from April to July, 1997. The questionnaire consisted of the general characteristics(sex, age, marital status, family number, etc), the Reintegration to Normal Living Index(RNLI) to assess QOL, and the single item of five-likert scale to evaluate life satifaction. The means of RNLI were $16.2{\pm}4.8$ in total score, $12.2{\pm}3.4$ in daily functioning and $4.0{\pm}2.1$ in perception of self. The respondents were less reintegrated toward social activities and relationships than impairments or disabilities. While the satisfied group was 47.3%, the dissatisfied group was 52.7%. As the results of multiple regression and logistic regression analysis, the significant predictors of QOL were age, education, job, grade of disability and subjective health status. The life satisfaction were related to economic status, job and subjective health status. To improve QOL and life satisfaction of the physically disabled, it is important that we improve their basic socioeconomic status by getting a job through rehabilitation education and induce them to have positive self-assessment by extending the opportunity of social participation.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.92-129
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• 2018

In general, a technology and innovation strategy has been established first. Then, the technology and innovation activities are conducted accordingly. The literature on the technology management process points out that the technology and innovation activities exist in some sequences, nonlinear or linear pattern. However, it is also argued that a certain technology and innovation activity can be occurred or disappeared at certain timing. In this paper, it has been analyzed and clarified how the technology and innovation activities are performed and working together with the technology and innovation strategies in certain context especially when the handset market moves from feature phone to smartphone during a last decade. Empirical results show that the starting point of the technology and innovation activity changes according to the technology and innovation strategies. And, technology innovation activities exhibit multi-layer architecture types. It is confirmed that technology and innovation activities follow a specific pattern. However, if there are some changes in the technology and innovation strategy due to the external environment change, some technology and innovation activities can be skipped because the priority of the technology and innovation activities would be changed. If the firm which has the strategy type of 'innovators' fails to adapt to the fast changing external environment and has the inadequate technology and innovation activities, it is required to change the technology and innovation strategy. It will have a huge impact on the firm's survival.

• The Journal of Korean society of community based occupational therapy
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.19-27
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• 2011

Objective : The study is to suggest basic data for the expansion and the necessity of the occupational therapy at the day care center for infants with disabilities through investigating actual use and satisfaction of parents who use the day care center for infants with disabilities in Daegu Kyonbuk area. Methods : From May 15 to 29, 2009, 105 parents using the day care center for infants with disabilities were surveyed. Results : Terms of age group, parents using the day care center for infants with disabilities are mostly 30s and 40s. In terms of academic background, there were 58% of secondary school graduates and 38.9% of college graduates. Parents with experiencing 3 years of the occupational theory had 37.1%, which held the largest group. 75% of the objects agreed that infants with disabilities received enough occupational therapy, while they pointed out that the financial burden for therapy would be the major factor in the therapy. Conclusion : In order to provide a qualified occupational therapy in accordance with each individual's purpose at the day care center for infants with disabilities, it would be necessary to expand occupational therapy, to increase the demand for the occupational therapy from parents, and to secure enough number of therapists and financial support from the government and municipalities.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.59-67
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• 2013

Reed-Solomon (RS) codes are powerful error-correcting codes used in diverse applications. Recently, algebraic soft-decision decoding algorithm for RS codes that can correct the errors beyond the error correcting bound has been proposed. The algorithm requires very intensive computations for interpolation, therefore an efficient VLSI architecture, which is realizable in hardware with a moderate hardware complexity, is mandatory for various applications. In this paper, we propose an efficient architecture with low hardware complexity for interpolation in soft-decision list decoding of Reed-Solomon codes. The proposed architecture processes the candidate polynomial in such a way that the terms of X degrees are processed in serial and the terms of Y degrees are processed in parallel. The processing order of candidate polynomials adaptively changes to increase the efficiency of memory access for coefficients; this minimizes the internal registers and the number of memory accesses and simplifies the memory structure by combining and storing data in memory. Also, the proposed architecture shows high hardware efficiency, since each module is balanced in terms of latency and the modules are maximally overlapped in schedule. The proposed interpolation architecture for the (255, 239) RS list decoder is designed and synthesized using the DongbuHitek $0.18{\mu}m$ standard cell library, the number of gate counts is 25.1K and the maximum operating frequency is 200 MHz.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.49-64
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• 2008

Recently, many researches about making more comfortable input device based on gaze detection technology have been done in human computer interface. However, the system cost becomes high due to the complicated hardware and there is difficulty to use the gaze detection system due to the complicated user calibration procedure. In this paper, we propose a new gaze detection method based on the 2D analysis and a simple user calibration. Our method used a small USB (Universal Serial Bus) camera attached on a HMD (Head-Mounted Display), hot-mirror and IR (Infra-Red) light illuminator. Because the HMD is moved according to user's facial movement, we can implement the gaze detection system of which performance is not affected by facial movement. In addition, we apply our gaze detection system to 3D first person shooting game. From that, the gaze direction of game character is controlled by our gaze detection method and it can target the enemy character and shoot, which can increase the immersion and interest of game. Experimental results showed that the game and gaze detection system could be operated at real-time speed in one desktop computer and we could obtain the gaze detection accuracy of 0.88 degrees. In addition, we could know our gaze detection technology could replace the conventional mouse in the 3D first person shooting game.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.421-426
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• 2018

With regard to LED lighting devices which have currently been commercialized, LED operating sequences are being sold in a fixed state. In such a state, the external environmental factors are not taken into consideration as only the illumination environment application is considered. Currently, it is difficult to create an optimal lighting environment which can adapt to changes in external environmental factors in the ship. Therefore, it was concluded that there is a need to input the external environment value so that the optimal illumination value can be reflected in real time in order to adapt more organically and actively to the change of external environmental factors. In this paper, we used a microprocessor as an integrated management system for environmental data that changes in real time according to existing external environmental factors. In addition, a controller capable of lighting control of RGB LED module by combining fuzzy inference system. For this, a fuzzy control algorithm is designed and a fuzzy control system is constructed. The distance and the illuminance value from the external environment element are input to the sensor, and these values are converted to the optimum illumination value through the fuzzy control algorithm, and are expressed through the dimming control of the RGB LED module and the practical effectiveness of the fuzzy control system is confirmed.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.11 no.8
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• pp.331-338
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• 2022

Successor representation (SR) is a model of human reinforcement learning (RL) mimicking the underlying mechanism of hippocampal cells constructing cognitive maps. SR utilizes these learned features to adaptively respond to the frequent reward changes. In this paper, we evaluated the performance of SR under the context where changes in latent variables of environments trigger the reward structure changes. For a benchmark test, we adopted SR-Dyna, an integration of SR into goal-driven Dyna RL algorithm in the 2-stage Markov Decision Task (MDT) in which we can intentionally manipulate the latent variables - state transition uncertainty and goal-condition. To precisely investigate the characteristics of SR, we conducted the experiments while controlling each latent variable that affects the changes in reward structure. Evaluation results showed that SR-Dyna could learn to respond to the reward changes in relation to the changes in latent variables, but could not learn rapidly in that situation. This brings about the necessity to build more robust RL models that can rapidly learn to respond to the frequent changes in the environment in which latent variables and reward structure change at the same time.