• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.41-46
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• 2011

We investigated experimentally the properties of dust explosion through lycopodium particle clouds in a duct to provide the fundamental knowledge. Propagating dust flames in the vertical duct of 120 cm height and 12 cm square cross-section were observed by digital video camera and flame front is visualized using by PIV(Particle Image Velocimetry) system. As the result, when the same average dust concentration existed in the vertical duct, downward flame propagation was faster than the upward flame propagation, its rate increased with dust concentration in 300g/$m^3$. Post flames were caused by the ignition of unburned particles which flowed into the rear region of flame from passage between flame and duct wall, and they generated regardless of duct condition. Also, it was found that appearance frequency of post flames during dust flame propagations increased with the increase of dust concentration.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.15-23
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• 2007

In the events of a fire in the residential building, highly flammable polyurethane foam sofa produce toxic smokes. In this type of fire, the residents of the building can be gotten into the difficulties of evacuating from the fire places or may be to death due to a lot of hot toxic gases. In this study, CFD simulations were carried out to study the effects of the openings of stairwell on the fire characteristics of fire room and stairwell. Also, analysis of fire hazard based on the tenability limits of fire and FED(fractional effective dose) was performed to evaluate the life safety of the residents of the building. In the fire room, maximum temperature was about $290^{\circ}C$, maximum CO concentration was about 4,740 ppm, and the time to incapacitation of residents in fire room was about t=144 s. In the stairwell, temperature and CO concentration in the condition of openings to be open were even lower than those in it to be closed. Time to the tenability limit with respect to smoke visibility in the stairwell with openings, which was open, was shorter than that of it without openings to be open. It has been shown from this study that opening the stairwell openings is able to decrease the fire hazards to the life safety in the multi-story residential building fire.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.79-83
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• 2015

The fire accident is a representative type of disaster that can largely impact on business. Therefore, precautionary measures and rapid initial response is very important when a disaster occurs. The storage of porous combustibles is inevitable in coal yard, plywood processing industry, and others that are currently operating. Initial fire fighting of fire and identifying the ignition point in such a porous combustible storage space are so difficult that if the initial response is failed, being led to deep-seated fire, surface fire is likely to result in secondary damage. In addition, deep-seated fire can cause personal injuries and property damage due to a large amount of toxic gases and reignition. Therefore damage reduction measures is required around the storage space to handle a porous flammable. Improving the penetration performance of the concentration of the surfactant is carried out as underlying study, which is about an deep-seated fire extinguishing efficiency augmentation when using wetting agents. The porous materials used in the experiments is radiata pine wood flour, which occupies more than 75% of the domestic wood market. Fire fighting water is selected as Butyl Di Glycol (BDG), which is being used for infiltration extinguishing agent, and the experiment was carried out by producing a standard solution. The experiment was carried out on the basis of the Deep-Seated Fire Test of NFPA 18. The amount of watering, porous material to the internal amount of penetration, and runoff measurement out of the porous material was conducted. According to experimental results, as the surface tension is reduced, the surfactant concentration macroscopic penetration rate decreases, but infiltration to a porous material is shown to have growth characteristics.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.604-610
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• 2007

Characteristics of steam gasification and combustion of naphtha tar pitch, which is the bottom product of naphtha cracking process, were investigated by using the thermo gravimetric analyzer to develop the technology for obtaining syngas by using the naphtha tar pitch as a carbon source. Friedman's and Ozawa-Flynn-Wall method were used to calculate activation energy, reaction order and frequency factor of reaction rate constant for both of steam gasification and combustion. The activation energy of combustion of naphtha tar pitch based on the fractional conversion by Friedman's method was in the range of 41.58 ~ 68.14 kJ/g-mol when the fractional conversion level was in the range of 0.2~0.6, but 183.07~191.17 kJ/g-mol when the conversion level was 0.9~1.0, respectively. In case of steam gasification of naphtha tar pitch, the activation energy was in the range of 31.87~44.87 kJ/g-mol in the relatively lower conversion level (0.2~0.6), but 70.63~87.79 kJ/g-mol in the relatively higher conversion level (0.8~0.95), respectively. Those results exhibited that the steam gasification as well as combustion would occur by means of two steps such as devolitilization followed by combustion or gasification.

• Therapeutic Science for Rehabilitation
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.69-81
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• 2019

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of prosody of ambiguous sentences in patients with right hemisphere damage(RHD). Methods: Sentences with each word prosodically focused were used to investigate. Several acoustic parameters such as intensity, F0, and duration were measured to identify characteristics of prosody in patients with lesions in the right hemisphere and normal controls. All speech samples were recorded using the Praat 4.3.14 software. Data were analyzed with the independent sample t-test using SPSS 18.0. Results: The results of this study are as follows: First, intensity of the first syllable of the focus word was different between the two groups in several sentences. Second, F0 was different between the two groups in all sentences. Third, duration was different between the groups in several sentences. Accordingly, prosody were varied and values of acoustic parameters differed due to the focus of utterance. The group with right hemisphere damage showed restricted prosody. Conclusions: Intensity, duration, and F0 are all used as elements of prosody in emphasizing structural and pragmatic meaning, but according to the focus, strength and duration were related to F0. In contrast, F0 has a significant linguistic difference, but there was a significant difference between the RHD and normal people, so F0 can be a discriminatory factor of rhyme evaluation of the right hemisphere damaged and it is necessary to accumulate more strong evidence through future research.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.219-223
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• 2011

The characteristics of SOx emission were investigated using SM (India) coal and Berau, C&A (Austria) coal. Experiments were performed in two different ways. In the first type of experiment, the temperature in the furnace was increased and the, samples were combusted at the ignition temperature after filling the furnace with coal. The second experimental method was to add the coal to after maintaining a constant temperature. The results demonstrated that SOx emission from coal combustion depended upon the sulfur content. In the case of Berau coal and C&A coal, an enhancement of combustibility which was accomplished by increasing the combustion temperature, an increase in airflow and decrease in particle size of coals tended to increase $SO_2$ generation. Conversely, in the case of SM coal, the concentration of $SO_2$ tended to decrease, because the high contents of $Fe_2O_3$ in the ashes increased the oxidation power of coal itself, which oxidized $SO_2$ into $SO_3$. In the case of C&A coal, the $SO_2$ peak was only observed twice. This was thought to be caused by the thermal transfer rate from the surface to the interior of the coal.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.91-101
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• 2021

The purpose of this study was to investigate laryngeal characteristics in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A total of 50 children participated, including eight children aged 2 to 4 years old diagnosed with ASD and 42 normal controls at the same age. All children recorded X-ray images of the midsagittal plane of the cervical spine and larynx, and compared the laryngeal positions of ASD and control. In addition, samples of children with vowel prolongation were collected and analyzed for acoustic parameters. X-rays showed that the height of the hyoid bone in the normal group was the lowest at 3 years of age, and ascended at 4 years of age. Nevertheless, the distance from the external acoustic meatus to the hyoid bone was longest at age 4. 4-year-olds with explosive language development showed laryngeal height elevation and anteriorization. In contrast, the hyoid height of the ASD group of all ages was lower than that of the control group, and there was no difference in the hyoid position between the ages. As a result of acoustic evaluation, PFR, vFo, and vAm were significantly higher ASD than control. Low laryngeal height of ASD children may be associated with delayed language development. PFR, vFo, and vAm seem to be voice markers showing the difference between normal and ASD children.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.45-55
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• 2021

This study aims to analyze the acoustic characteristics of Korean affricates produced by dysarthric speakers with cerebral palsy. Korean fricatives and affricates are the consonants that are prone to errors in dysarthric speech, but previous studies have focused only on fricatives. For this study, three affricates /tɕ, tɕ^h, ͈tɕ/ appearing at word initial and intervocalic positions produced by six mild-moderate male speakers of spastic dysarthria are selected from a QOLT database constructed in 2014. The parameters representing the acoustic characteristics of Korean affricates were extracted by using Praat: frication duration, closure duration, center of gravity, variance, skewness, kurtosis, and central moment. The results are as follows: 1) frication duration of the intervocalic affricates produced by dysarthric speakers was significantly longer than that of the non-disordered speakers; 2) the closure duration of dysarthric speakers was significantly longer; 3) in the case of the center of gravity, there was no significant difference between the two groups; 4) the skewness of the dysarthric speakers was significantly larger; and 5) the central moment of dysarthric speakers was significantly larger. This study investigated the characteristics of the affricates produced by dysarthric speakers and differences with non-disordered speakers.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.45-51
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• 2023

Voice issues such as voice weakness that arise with age can have social and emotional impacts, potentially leading to feelings of isolation and depression. This study aimed to investigate the changes in acoustic characteristics resulting from aging, focusing on voice quality and spoken fluency. To this end, tasks involving sustained vowel phonation and paragraph reading were recorded for 20 elderly and 20 young participants. Voice-quality-related variables, including F0, jitter, shimmer, and Cepstral Peak Prominence (CPP) values, were analyzed along with speech-fluency-related variables, such as average syllable duration (ASD), articulation rate (AR), and speech rate (SR). The results showed that in voice quality-related measurements, F0 was higher for the elderly and voice quality was diminished, as indicated by increased jitter, shimmer, and lower CPP levels. Speech fluency analysis also demonstrated that the elderly spoke more slowly, as indicated by all ASD, AR, and SR measurements. Correlation analysis between voice quality and speech fluency showed a significant relationship between shimmer and CPP values and between ASD and SR values. This suggests that changes in spoken fluency can be identified early by measuring the variations in voice quality. This study further highlights the reciprocal relationship between voice quality and spoken fluency, emphasizing that deterioration in one can affect the other.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.67-76
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• 2024

Recent advances in text-to-speech (TTS) technology have significantly improved the quality of synthesized speech, reaching a level where it can closely imitate natural human speech. Especially, TTS models offering various voice characteristics and personalized speech, are widely utilized in fields such as artificial intelligence (AI) tutors, advertising, and video dubbing. Accordingly, in this paper, we propose a one-shot multi-speaker TTS system that can ensure acoustic diversity and synthesize personalized voice by generating speech using unseen target speakers' utterances. The proposed model integrates a speaker encoder into a TTS model consisting of the FastSpeech2 acoustic model and the HiFi-GAN vocoder. The speaker encoder, based on the pre-trained RawNet3, extracts speaker-specific voice features. Furthermore, the proposed approach not only includes an English one-shot multi-speaker TTS but also introduces a Korean one-shot multi-speaker TTS. We evaluate naturalness and speaker similarity of the generated speech using objective and subjective metrics. In the subjective evaluation, the proposed Korean one-shot multi-speaker TTS obtained naturalness mean opinion score (NMOS) of 3.36 and similarity MOS (SMOS) of 3.16. The objective evaluation of the proposed English and Korean one-shot multi-speaker TTS showed a prediction MOS (P-MOS) of 2.54 and 3.74, respectively. These results indicate that the performance of our proposed model is improved over the baseline models in terms of both naturalness and speaker similarity.