• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.47-53
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• 2018

Various types of robotic arms are being used for industrial purposes, particularly with the small production of multi-products, and the importance of the gripper, which can be used in industrial fields, is increasing. This study evaluated a variable stiffness mechanism gripper that can change the stiffness using the nonlinearity of a flexible material. A prototype of the gripper was fabricated and examined to confirm the change in stiffness. The previous gripper was unable to grip objects in some situations with three variable stiffness mechanism. In addition, these mechanisms were not balanced and rarely rotated when the object was gripped. Therefore, a new type of gripper was needed to solve this problem. Inspired by the movements of the human palm and Venus Flytrap, a new type of a variable stiffness soft robot hand was designed. The possibility of grasping could be increased by interlocking the palm folding mechanism by pulling the tendon attached to the variable stiffness mechanism. The soft robotic hand was used to grasp objects of various shapes and weights more stably than the previous variable stiffness mechanism gripper. This new variable stiffness soft robot hand can be used selectively depending on the application and environment to be used.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.316-326
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• 1999

Purpose: We evaluated the feasibility of extracting pure left ventricular blood pool and myocardial time-activity curves (TACs) and of generating factor images from human dynamic N-13 ammonia PET using factor analysis. The myocardial blood flow (MBF) estimates obtained with factor analysis were compared with those obtained with the user drawn region-of-interest (ROI) method. Materials and Methods: Stress and rest N-13 ammonia cardiac PET imaging was acquired for 23 min in 5 patients with coronary artery disease using GE Advance tomograph. Factor analysis generated physiological TACs and factor images using the normalized TACs from each dixel. Four steps were involved in this algorithm: (a) data preprocessing; (b) principal component analysis; (c) oblique rotation with positivity constraints; (d) factor image computation. Area under curves and MBF estimated using the two compartment N-13 ammonia model were used to validate the accuracy of the factor analysis generated physiological TACs. The MBF estimated by factor analysis was compared to the values estimated by using the ROI method. Results: MBF values obtained by factor analysis were linearly correlated with MBF obtained by the ROI method (slope = 0.84, r = 0.91), Left ventricular blood pool TACs obtained by the two methods agreed well (Area under curve ratio: 1.02 ($0{\sim}1min$), 0.98 ($0{\sim}2min$), 0.86 ($1{\sim}2min$)). Conclusion: The results of this study demonstrates that MBF can be measured accurately and noninvasively with dynamic N-13 ammonia PET imaging and factor analysis. This method is simple and accurate, and can measure MBF without blood sampling, ROI definition or spillover correction.

• The Journal of the Petrological Society of Korea
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.13-28
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• 2000

Chojeong area is mainly composed of the Ogcheon Group which consists of regionally metamorphosed, age-unknown sedimentary rocks. In the northwestern parts, the Group is intruded by the Jurassic Daebo granite and Cretaceous felsic and mafic dykes. The lowermost, Midongsan Formation which consists of milky white impure quartzite, crops out along the anticline axes with N40E trend. Ungyori quartzite Formation is intercalated with quartzite and slate. Miwon Formation is most widely exposed in the area and consists mainly of phyllitic sandy rocks with a thin crystalline limestone bed. Hwajeonri Formation is divided into two parts, pelitic lower and calcareous upper parts, composed with phyllite and slate. Changri and Hwanggangri Formations are typical members of Ogcheon Group, the former bearing coally graphite seams consists mainly of black slate and phyllite with intercalated greenish grey phyllite, the latter is pebble bearing phyllite formation of which matrix and pebbles are variable in compositions and size. Biotite granite, porphyritic granite and two mica granite belong to Jurassic so-called Dabo granite. They intruded the Ogcheon Group forming vast contact metarnophic zone. Quartz porphyry, mafic dyke and felsite intruded along the marginal zone of porphyritic granite batholith and fracture of NS trend. Main structural lineaments in Ogcheon Group shows N25-45E, NS and N30-45W trends. The N25-45E trends are mainly from general ductile deformation during regional metamorphism, showing isoclinal folding, Fl foliations and lithological erosional characters. Some of these trends are due to normal faults. The NS and N30-45W trends represent brittle deformation including faults and joints. In the area of granitic batholith, NS to N30- 45 trends are from the direction of dykes. In the soils of the area, average contents of heavy metal elements such as Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, and Zn are 0.2, 50.6, 35.5, 27.9, and 93.4 ppm respectively, which are not higher than the average values of natural soils, under the tolerable level. Enrichment Index does not show any heavy metal pollution in the area. Average depths of weathering(5m vs. 2m), porosities(43.94 vs. 51.80), densities(l.29 vs. 1.15), and permeabilities(2.52 vs. 8.07) are comparable in granite areas and in the phyllite areas of Ogcheon Group.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.73-82
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• 1997

Regional myocardial blood flow (rMBF) can be noninvasively quantified using N-13 ammonia and dynamic positron emission tomography (PET). The quantitative accuracy of the rMBF values, however, is affected by the distortion of myocardial PET images caused by finite PET image resolution and cardiac motion. Although different methods have been developed to correct the distortion typically classified as partial volume effect and spillover, the methods are too complex to employ in a routine clinical environment. We have developed a refined method incorporating a geometric model of the volume representation of a region-of-interest (ROI) into the two-compartment N-13 ammonia model. In the refined model, partial volume effect and spillover are conveniently corrected by an additional parameter in the mathematical model. To examine the accuracy of this approach, studies were performed in 9 coronary artery disease patients. Dynamic transaxial images (16 frames) were acquired with a GE $Advance^{TM}$ PET scanner simultaneous with intravenous injection of 20 mCi N-13 ammonia. rMBF was examined at rest and during pharmacologically (dipyridamole) induced coronary hyperemia. Three sectorial myocardium (septum, anterior wall and lateral wall) and blood pool time-activity curves were generated using dynamic images from manually drawn ROIs. The accuracy of rMBF values estimated by the refined method was examined by comparing to the values estimated using the conventional two-compartment model without partial volume effect correction rMBF values obtained by the refined method linearly correlated with rMBF values obtained by the conventional method (108 myocardial segments, correlation coefficient (r)=0.88). Additionally, underestimated rMBF values by the conventional method due to partial volume effect were corrected by theoretically predicted amount in the refined method (slope(m)=1.57). Spillover fraction estimated by the two methods agreed well (r=1.00, m=0.98). In conclusion, accurate rMBF values can be efficiently quantified by the refined method incorporating myocardium geometric information into the two-compartment model using N-13 ammonia and PET.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.365-373
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• 1998

Purpose: The conventional gamma camera is not ideal for scintimammography because of its large detector size (${\sim}500mm$ in width) causing high cost and low image quality. We are developing a small gamma camera dedicated for breast imaging. Materials and Methods: The small gamma camera system consists of a NaI (T1) crystal ($60 mm{\times}60 mm{\times}6 mm$) coupled with a Hamamatsu R3941 Position Sensitive Photomultiplier Tube (PSPMT), a resister chain circuit, preamplifiers, nuclear instrument modules, an analog to digital converter and a personal computer for control and display. The PSPMT was read out using a standard resistive charge division which multiplexes the 34 cross wire anode channels into 4 signals ($X^+,\;X^-,\;Y^+,\;Y^-$). Those signals were individually amplified by four preamplifiers and then, shaped and amplified by amplifiers. The signals were discriminated ana digitized via triggering signal and used to localize the position of an event by applying the Anger logic. Results: The intrinsic sensitivity of the system was approximately 8,000 counts/sec/${\mu}Ci$. High quality flood and hole mask images were obtained. Breast phantom containing $2{\sim}7 mm$ diameter spheres was successfully imaged with a parallel hole collimator The image displayed accurate size and activity distribution over the imaging field of view Conclusion: We have succesfully developed a small gamma camera using NaI(T1)-PSPMT and nuclear Instrument modules. The small gamma camera developed in this study might improve the diagnostic accuracy of scintimammography by optimally imaging the breast.