• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.209-217
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• 2010

Retinal prostheses are being developed to restore vision for the blind with retinal diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP) or age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Since retinal prostheses depend upon electrical stimulation to control neural activity, optimal stimulation parameters for successful encoding of visual information are one of the most important requirements to enable visual perception. Therefore, in this paper, we focused on retinal ganglion cell (RGC) responses to different voltage stimulation parameters and compared threshold charge densities in normal and rd1 mice. For this purpose, we used in vitro preparation for the retina of normal and rd1 mice on micro-electrode arrays. When the neural network of rd1 mouse retinas is stimulated with voltage-controlled pulses, RGCs in degenerated retina also respond to voltage amplitude or voltage duration modulation as well in wild-type RGCs. But the temporal pattern of RGCs response is very different; in wild-type RGCs, single peak within 100 ms appears while in RGCs in degenerated retina multiple peaks (~4 peaks) with ~10 Hz rhythm within 400 ms appear. The thresholds for electrical activation of RGCs are overall more elevated in rd1 mouse retinas compared to wild-type mouse retinas: The thresholds for activation of RGCs in rd1 mouse retinas were on average two times higher ($70.50{\sim}99.87\;{\mu}C/cm^2$ vs. $37.23{\sim}61.65\;{\mu}C/cm^2$) in the experiment of voltage amplitude modulation and five times higher ($120.5{\sim}170.6\;{\mu}C/cm^2$ vs. $22.69{\sim}37.57\;{\mu}C/cm^2$) in the experiment of voltage duration modulation than those in wild-type mouse retinas. This is compatible with the findings from human studies that the currents required for evoking visual percepts in RP patients is much higher than those needed in healthy individuals. These results will be used as a guideline for optimal stimulation parameters for upcoming Korean-type retinal prosthesis.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.240-245
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• 2012

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic Gram-negative bacterium that causes serious infection, particularly in immunocompromised patients. Also, P. aeruginosa possessing carbapenem-resistant metallo-${\beta}$-lactamases (MBL) has been reported with increasing frequency in Korea. We therefore analyzed the level of multidrug-resistant clinical P. aeruginosa isolated from a secondary hospital in Korea in 2010. A total of 92 isolates of P. aeruginosa were collected from Sahmyook Medical Center in 2010. Susceptibility to antimicrobial agents was determined by analysis of the minimum inhibitory concentration test; the inhibitor-potentiated disk diffusion (IPD) test was performed for MBL detection. RAPD-PCR was used for genotyping to rapidly characterize P. aeruginosa strains isolated from clinical patients. The percentages of non-susceptible isolates were as follows: 40.2% to ceftazidime, 58.7% to meropenem, 56.5% to gentamicin, 46.7% to tobramycin, 62.0% to ciprofloxacin and 97.8% to chloramphenicol. The 29 multidrug-resistant strains were screened by the IPD test: of the 21 PCR-positive isolates, 19 were IPM-1 producers and 2 were VIM-2 producers. Among the 19 IMP-1-producing P. aeruginosa isolates, 16 isolates showed similar patterns, and three different banding patterns were observed. The proportion of IMP-1-producing multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa from clinical isolates steadily increased in this secondary hospital in Korea in 2010. This study provides information about the antimicrobial-resistant patterns and genotype of multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa isolated from clinical isolates in Korea, 2010.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.36 no.5_3
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• pp.1053-1066
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• 2020

Sulfur dioxide (SO₂) is primarily released through industrial, residential, and transportation activities, and creates secondary air pollutants through chemical reactions in the atmosphere. Long-term exposure to SO₂ can result in a negative effect on the human body causing respiratory or cardiovascular disease, which makes the effective and continuous monitoring of SO₂ crucial. In South Korea, SO₂ monitoring at ground stations has been performed, but this does not provide spatially continuous information of SO₂ concentrations. Thus, this research estimated spatially continuous ground-level SO₂ concentrations at 1 km resolution over South Korea through the synergistic use of satellite data and numerical models. A stacking ensemble approach, fusing multiple machine learning algorithms at two levels (i.e., base and meta), was adopted for ground-level SO₂ estimation using data from January 2015 to April 2019. Random forest and extreme gradient boosting were used as based models and multiple linear regression was adopted for the meta-model. The cross-validation results showed that the meta-model produced the improved performance by 25% compared to the base models, resulting in the correlation coefficient of 0.48 and root-mean-square-error of 0.0032 ppm. In addition, the temporal transferability of the approach was evaluated for one-year data which were not used in the model development. The spatial distribution of ground-level SO₂ concentrations based on the proposed model agreed with the general seasonality of SO₂ and the temporal patterns of emission sources.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.1733-1738
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• 2008

SLC6A18, one of the neurotransmitters, was reported the possible relationship to hypertension, and it contained eight blocks of minisatellites. In this study, SLC6A18-MS5 sequence which showed the highest heterozygosity among seven minisatellites was analyzed using the Transfac software, the putative binding sites for the transcription factor Pax4 and HNF4 were discovered as a result. The HNF4 is involved in the diabetes pathway and suggested the relationship to hypertension. Thus, we investigated the putative functional significance of allelic variation in this minisatellites with respect to susceptibility for hypertension. To address this possibility, we analyzed genomic DNA from the blood of 301 hypertension-free controls and 184 cases with hypertension. A statistically significant association was not identified between the allelic distribution of SLC6A18-MS5 and occurrence of hypertension. We then examined the meiotic segregation of SLC6A18-MS5 and it was transmitted following Mendelian inheritance. Therefore, this locus could be useful markers for paternity mapping and DNA fingerprinting. Moreover, we undertook a comprehensive analysis of the genomic sequence to address the evolutionary events of these variable repeats. SLC6A18 minisatellites regions are only conserved in human and primates. This result suggestedthat intronic minisatellites analysis is powerful evolution marker for the non-coding regions in primates and can provide a great insight to the molecular evolution of repeated region in primates.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.711-724
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• 2003

Some growth curve models were used to fit individual growth of 1,083 Hanwoo cows born from 1970 to 2001 in Daekwanryeong branch, National Livestock Research Institute(NLRI). The effects of year-season of birth and age of dam were analyzed. In analysis of variance for growth curve parameters, the effects of birth year-season were significant for mature weight(A), growth ratio(b) and maturing rate(k)(P〈.01). The effects of age of dam were significant for growth ratio(b) but not significant for mature weight(A) and maturing rate(k). The linear term of the covariate of age at the final weights was significant for the A(P〈.01) and k(P〈.01) of Gompertz model, von Bertalanffy model and Logistic model. For the growth curve parameters fitted on individual data using Gompertz model, von Bertalanffy model and Logistic model, resulting the linear contrasts(fall-spring), Least square means of A in three nonlinear models were higher cows born at fall and A of Logistic model was significant(P〈.05) between the seasons. According to the results of the least square means of growth curve parameters by age of dam, least square means of mature weight(A) in Gompertz model was largest in 6 year and smallest estimating for 3 and 8 years of age of dam. The growth ratio(b) was largest in 2 year of age of dam and smallest estimating in 8 year. The A and k were not different by age of dam(p〉.05), On the other hand, the b was different by age of dam(p〈.01). The estimate of A in von Bertalanffy model was largest in 6 year and smallest in 8 and 9 years of age of dam. The b was largest in 2 year and tend to decline as age of dam increased. The A and k were not different by age of dam(p〉.05), On the other hand, the b was highly significant by age of dam(p〈.01).

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.44-54
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• 2010

In this study, a comprehensive exploration and evaluation of washland candidate locations by means of field monitoring as well as spatial analysis in six major river system (Han, Nakdong, Nam, Geum, Youngsan, and Seomjin Rivers). Washland(in other words, river detention basin) is an artificial wetland system which is connected to streams or rivers likely to riverine wetlands. Major purpose of washland creation is to control floodings, water supply and purification, providence of eco-cultural space to human and natural populations. Characteristics and functions of riverine wetlands can be expected as well, thus it is believed to be an efficient multi-purpose water body that is artificially created, in terms of hydrology and ecology. Geographical information and field monitoring results for the washland candidate locations were evaluated in 2009, with respect to optimal location exploration, ecosystem connectivity and educational-cultural circumstances. A total of $269\;km^2$ washland candidate locations were found from spatial analysis (main channel of Rivers South Han, 71.5; Nakdong 54.1; Nam, 2.3; Geum, 79.0; Youngsan 46.4; Seomjin 15.7), and they tended to be distributed in mid- to lower part of the rivers to which tributaries are confluent. Field monitoring at 106 sites revealed that some sites located in the Rivers Nam and Geum is appropriate for restoration or artificial creation as riverine wetlands. Several sites in the Nakdong and Seomjin Rivers were close to riverine wetlands (e.g., Upo), habitats of endangered species (e.g., otters), or adjacent to educational facility (e.g., museums) or cultural heritages (e.g., temples). Those sites can be utilized in hydrological, ecological, educational, and cultural ways when evidence of detailed hydrological evaluation is provided. In conclusion, determination of washland locations in the major river basins has to consider habitat expansion as well as hydrological function (i.e. flood control) basically, and further utility (e.g. educational function) will increase the values of washland establishment.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.137-142
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• 2013

Oral Medicine includes temporomandibular disorder, orofacial pains such as neuropathic pain, soft tissue diseases, halitosis, laser treatment, snoring, sleep apnea and identification through forensic dentistry etc. Such diseases are relatively common and cause great inconvenience and pain to the patients, as well as incur fatal health scare at times. In terms of oral medicine, the number of orofacial patients is growing due to a change in the life style and an increased stress as time goes in contemporary society and the demand of areas requiring oral medical professionalism, such as soft tissue lesions, snoring and sleep apnea, forensic dentistry evaluation and others are rapidly ascending. Consequently, among the areas in dental science, the calls for the expertism in oral medicine and its role are mounting. Analyzing the distribution according to disease entity, symptoms, duration of disease, and the prehistory courses of new patients visiting the department of oral medicine in a year provides information of the role and the relative importance of oral medicine in prospect and enables effective diagnosis and treatments for the patients. Therefore, in the present study, by analyzing new patients visiting the oral medicine clinic in our dental hospital for a year and by evaluating the role and the professionalism in future oral medicine, the authors concluded the followings: 1. It was founded that new patients to oral medicine mainly had temporomandibular disorders, soft tissue diseases, and neuropathic pains. 2. The number of patients with temporomandibular disorder appeared to be the highest percentage and the order within this was the patients with combined disorders, muscle disorder, and internal derangement of joint disc. 3. The number of patients with xerostomia appeared to be the highest percentage within soft tissue disease, followed by lichen planus and recurrent apthous ulcers. 4. The number of patients with burning mouth syndrome appeared to be the highest percentage within neuropathic pain.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.60 no.3
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• pp.203-214
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to investigate brain activation pattern and functional connectivity during convergence thinking based creative problem solving and chemistry problem solving to identify characteristic convergence thinking that is backbone of creative problem solving using functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI). A fMRI paradaigm inducing convergence thinking and chemistry problem solving was developed and adjusted on 17 highschool students, and brain activation image during task was analyzed. According to the results, superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, precuneus and caudate nucleus body in left hemisphere and cuneus and caudate nucleus body in right hemisphere were significantly activated during convergence thinking. The other hand, middle frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus and caudate nucleus in left hemisphere and middle frontal gyrus, lingual gyrus, caudate nucleus, thalamus and culmen of cerebellum in right hemisphere were significantly activated during chemistry problem solving. As results of analysis functional connectivity, all of areas activated during convergence thinking were functionaly connected, whereas scanty connectivity of chemistry problem solving between right middle frontal gyrus, bilateral nucleus caudate tail and culmen. The results show that logical thinking, working memory, planning, imaging, languge based thinking and learning motivation were induced during convergence thinking and these functions and regions were synchronized intimately. Whereas, logical thinking and inducing learning motivation functioning during chemistry problem solving were not synchronized. These results provide concrete information about convergence thinking.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.42 no.5 s.305
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• pp.29-40
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• 2005

According as base of digital hologram has been magnified, discussion of compression technology is expected as a international standard which defines the compression technique of 3D image and video has been progressed in form of 3DAV which is a part of MPEG. As we can identify in case of 3DAV, the coding technique has high possibility to be formed into the hybrid type which is a merged, refined, or mixid with the various previous technique. Therefore, we wish to present the relationship between various image/video coding techniques and digital hologram In this paper, we propose an efficient coding method of digital hologram using standard compression tools for video and image. At first, we convert fringe patterns into video data using a principle of CGH(Computer Generated Hologram), and then encode it. In this research, we propose a compression algorithm is made up of various method such as pre-processing for transform, local segmentation with global information of object image, frequency transform for coding, scanning to make fringe to video stream, classification of coefficients, and hybrid video coding. Finally the proposed hybrid compression algorithm is all of these methods. The tool for still image coding is JPEG2000, and the toots for video coding include various international compression algorithm such as MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and H.264 and various lossless compression algorithm. The proposed algorithm illustrated that it have better properties for reconstruction than the previous researches on far greater compression rate above from four times to eight times as much. Therefore we expect that the proposed technique for digital hologram coding is to be a good preceding research.

• 한국지구과학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.04a
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• pp.88-89
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• 2010

최근 인간의 활동범위와 영역이 확대되고 산업이 발전하면서 인간의 삶과 지속가능한 발전 등 도시 기후에 관한 관심도 높아지고 있다. 산업혁명 이후 도시화와 산업화로 인해 인구가 증가하고 도시지역으로 집중됨으로써 도시 열섬화 현상에 대한 도시환경문제가 부각되고 있다. 이는 최근까지도 도시개발에 있어서 기능과 효율성이 우선시 되어 도시기후에 대한 배려가 이루어지지 못하고 있으며, 오히려 과도한 냉난방을 가동하는 등 쾌적한 실내 환경 조성을 위한 노력만을 행해왔다. 도시화에 따른 도시의 열환경 구조의 변화는 토지이용의 변화에 따른 피복상태와 밀접한 관련이 있다는 연구들이 수행된 바 있다. 이렇듯 도시화가 진행됨에 따라서 도심 지표면을 덮고 있는 포장재도 변하고 있다. 대표적인 토지피복재로는 콘크리트와 아스팔트 등의 인공포장재, 수계, 삼림 등으로 크게 나누어 볼 수 있다. 최근 도심의 발달로 인해 도심의 표면은 점차 인공포장재인 아스팔트와 콘크리트로 덮여지고 있다. 인공포장재는 맑은 여름철 낮에 받아들인 열을 야간에도 머금고 있어 도시열섬현상의 주요원인이 된다. 도시화가 진행됨에 따라 토지이용형태가 변화하고 있으며 이러한 토지피복의 변화는 그 지역의 기온과 풍향, 풍속뿐만 아니라 지표온도도 변화시키므로 도시 열환경 구조에 적지 않은 영향을 미치고 있다. 과거에는 자연 환경과 도시공간에 대한 인식이 다른 분야로 나누어져서 다루었지만 현재 위성영상 기술의 발달로 많은 공간 정보를 파악할 수 있게 된 바 도시기후변화에 더욱 직접적이고 근본적인 접근이 쉬워졌다. 원격탐사기법의 활용은 위성자료를 이용하여 동시간대 평면적인 열구조를 정량적으로 파악하는데에 중요한 자료를 제공하여 도시지역을 덮고 있는 인공자재의 존재가 도시열섬의 형성과 밀접하게 연관이 있다는 사실을 짐작할 수 있다. 따라서 도시기후변화의 문제점을 더욱 적극적으로 해결하기 위해서는 토지이용에 따른 지표면 온도 상승의 현황을 파악하고 이를 저감 시킬 수 있는 대책들이 수립되어야 한다. 본 연구는 보다 세분화된 도시 열환경을 정량적으로 분석 평가하기 위해서 토지피복별 분류를 3가지로 대구시 중구 경북대학교 부속 고등학교(이하 사대부고 지점)를 도심지역으로, 경상남도 창녕군 창녕읍 우포늪(이하 우포지점)을 수계지점으로, 경상북도 안동시 길안면 만음리(이하 안동지점) 지점과 대구시 칠곡군 동명면 득명리 팔공산 한티재 도립공원(이하 팔공지점)을 산림으로 분류하여 연구하였다. 대구 계명대학교 기후환경연구실에서 보유하고 있는 AWS(Automatic Weather Station) 자료로 기상요소를 분석하였으며, MODIS Terra 위성영상을 이용하여 지표온도를 추출하고 분석하였다. 또 기상요소와 지표온도를 이용해 회귀식을 도출하여 추정기온을 산출하였다. 그 결과 첫째, 계절에 따른 기온의 시간변화는 여름의 평균기온이 $25.13^{\circ}C$와 $24.12^{\circ}C$로 사대지점과 우포지점의 평균기온이 가장 높게 나타났으며, 이는 도심에서 발생되는 인공열의 영향으로, 우포지점은 수계의 특징이 반영된 결과라 할 수 있다. 둘째, 계절에 따른 풍속의 시간변화는 여름의 경우 우포지점의 풍속이 1.63m/s로 가장 높은 반면 안동지점의 풍속이 0.27m/s로 가장 낮은 것으로 나타났다. 겨울의 경우 팔공지점의 풍속이 1.82m/s로 가장 높게 나타났다. 토지피복에 따른 지표면의 변화가 도시기후에 미치는 영향을 정량적으로 평가하고, 또 지표면 온도와 기온과의 차이를 알아보기 위하여 MODIS 위성 영상을 이용하여 세 지점을 대상으로 토지피복에 따른 열환경을 평가 분석하여 다음과 같은 결론을 얻을 수 있었다. 첫째, MODIS 위성영상을 이용하여 산출한 지표면 온도는 여름철 주간에 안동지점의 경우 주변지역에 비해 지표면 온도가 약 $26^{\circ}C$로 낮게 나타났으며 우포지점의 경우 수계가 가지는 열 완충능력으로 약 $27^{\circ}C$의 낮은 지표면 온도를 나타내었다. 사대지점의 경우 약 $34^{\circ}C$이상의 높은 지표면 온도를 나타내었다. 둘째, MODIS 위성영상을 이용하여 산출한 지표면 온도와 관측된 기온과의 회귀식을 도출하여 상관분석 한 결과, 모든 지점의 값에서 상관성 및 신뢰도가 높은 것으로 나타났다. 셋째, 상관분석의 결과를 통하여 추정한 기온은 지표면 온도와의 차이가 있지만 유사한 패턴의 결과로 추출되었다. 이러한 결과로 볼 때 도시의 인공자재를 이용한 건축과 개발이 도시열섬현상을 유발하는데 중요한 역할을 하는 것을 정량적으로 평가할 수 있었다. 따라서 본 논문의 연구결과를 바탕으로 도시계획에 있어서 인공구조물에 의한 기온과 풍속이 받는 영향을 고려하여 도심의 인공구조물의 배치나 자재에 대한 개발이 이루어져야 할 것이며 열교환의 방해 및 바람순환이 확보되는 구조로 개선되어야 할 것이다.