• Progress in Medical Physics
• /
• 제17권3호
• /
• pp.179-186
• /
• 2006

Purpose: Photon beam data of linear accelerators in Korea are collected, analyzed, and a simple method for checking and verifying the dose calculations in a TPS are suggested. Materials and Methods: Photon beam data such as output calibration condition, output factor, wedge factor, percent depth dose, beam profile, and beam quality were collected from 26 institutions in Korea. In order to verify the accuracy of dose calculation, ten sample planning tests were peformed. These Include square, elongated, and blocked fields, wedge fields, off-axis dose calculation, SSD variation. The planned data were compared to that of manual calculations. Results: The average and standard deviation of photon beam quality for 6, 10, and 15 MV were $0.576{\pm}0.005,\;0.632{\pm}0.004,\;and\;0.647{\pm}0.006$, respectively. The output factors of 6 MV photon beam measured at depth of dose maximum for $5{\times}5cm,\;15{\times}15cm,\;20{\times}20cm\;were\;0.944{\pm}0.006,\;1.031{\pm}0.006,\;and\;1.055{\pm}0.007$. For 10 MV photon beam, the values were $0.935{\pm}0.006,\;1.031{\pm}0.007,\;1.054{\pm}0.0005$. The collected data were not enough to calculate average, the output factors for 15MV photon beam with field size of $5{\times}5cm,\;15{\times}15cm,\;20{\times}20cm\;were\;0.941{\pm}0.008,\;1.032{\pm}0.004,\;1.049{\pm}0.014$. There was seven institutions $e{\times}ceeding$ tolerance when monitor unit values calculated from treatment planning system and manually were compared. The measured average MU values for the machines calibrated at SAD setup were 3 MU and 5 MU higher than the machines calibrated at SSD for 6 MV and 10 MV, respectively except the wedge case. When the wedges were inserted, the MU values to deliver 100 cGy to 5 cm depends on manufactures. When the same wedge angle was used, Siemens machine requires more MUs then Varian machine. Conclusion: In this study, photon beam data are collected and analyzed to provide a baseline value for chocking beam data and the accuracy of dose calculation for a treatment planning system.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
• /
• 제106권3호
• /
• pp.320-329
• /
• 2017

This study aims to evaluate whether the accuracy of LiDAR DEM is affected by the changes of the five input levels ('1','3','5','7' and '9') of median parameter ($F_{md}$), mean parameter ($F_{mn}$) of the Filtering Algorithm (FA) in the GroundFilter module and median parameter ($I_{md}$), mean parameter ($I_{mn}$) of the Interpolation Algorithm (IA) in the GridSurfaceCreate module of the FUSION in order to present the combination of parameter levels producing the most accurate LiDAR DEM. The accuracy is measured by the residuals calculated by difference between the field elevation values and their corresponding DEM elevation values. A multi-way ANOVA is used to statistically examine whether there are effects of parameter level changes on the means of the residuals. The Tukey HSD is conducted as a post-hoc test. The results of the multi- way ANOVA test show that the changes in the levels of $F_{md}$, $F_{mn}$, $I_{mn}$ have significant effects on the DEM accuracy with the significant interaction effect between $F_{md}$ and $F_{mn}$. Therefore, the level of $F_{md}$, $F_{mn}$, and the interaction between two variables are considered to be factors affecting the accuracy of LiDAR DEM as well as the level of $I_{mn}$. As the results of the Tukey HSD test on the combination levels of $F_{md}{\ast}F_{mn}$, the mean of residuals of the '$9{\ast}3$' combination provides the highest accuracy while the '$1{\ast}1$' combination provides the lowest one. Regarding $I_{mn}$ levels, the mean of residuals of the both '3' and '1' provides the highest accuracy. This study can contribute to improve the accuracy of the forest attributes as well as the topographic information extracted from the LiDAR data.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
• /
• 제31권1호
• /
• pp.71-81
• /
• 2008

Our objective was to evaluate the image of spatial domain filtering as an alternative to additional image reconstruction using different kernels in MDCT. Derived from thin collimated source images were generated using water phantom and abdomen B10(very smooth), B20(smooth), B30(medium smooth), B40 (medium), B50(medium sharp), B60(sharp), B70(very sharp) and B80(ultra sharp) kernels. MTF and spatial resolution measured with various convolution kernels. Quantitative CT attenuation coefficient and noise measurements provided comparable HU(Hounsfield) units in this respect. CT attenuation coefficient(mean HU) values in the water were values in the water were $1.1{\sim}1.8\;HU$, air($-998{\sim}-1000\;HU$) and noise in the water($5.4{\sim}44.8\;HU$), air($3.6{\sim}31.4\;HU$). In the abdominal fat a CT attenuation coefficient($-2.2{\sim}0.8\;HU$) and noise($10.1{\sim}82.4\;HU$) was measured. In the abdominal was CT attenuation coefficient($53.3{\sim}54.3\;HU$) and noise($10.4{\sim}70.7\;HU$) in the muscle and in the liver parenchyma of CT attenuation coefficient($60.4{\sim}62.2\;HU$) and noise ($7.6{\sim}63.8\;HU$) in the liver parenchyma. Image reconstructed with a convolution kernel led to an increase in noise, whereas the results for CT attenuation coefficient were comparable. Image scanned with a high convolution kernel(B80) led to an increase in noise, whereas the results for CT attenuation coefficient were comparable. Image medications of image sharpness and noise eliminate the need for reconstruction using different kernels in the future. Adjusting CT various kernels, which should be adjusted to take into account the kernels of the CT undergoing the examination, may control CT images increase the diagnostic accuracy.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• 제20권4호
• /
• pp.107-120
• /
• 2014

This study proposes a novel recommender system using the structural hole analysis to reflect qualitative and emotional information in recommendation process. Although collaborative filtering (CF) is known as the most popular recommendation algorithm, it has some limitations including scalability and sparsity problems. The scalability problem arises when the volume of users and items become quite large. It means that CF cannot scale up due to large computation time for finding neighbors from the user-item matrix as the number of users and items increases in real-world e-commerce sites. Sparsity is a common problem of most recommender systems due to the fact that users generally evaluate only a small portion of the whole items. In addition, the cold-start problem is the special case of the sparsity problem when users or items newly added to the system with no ratings at all. When the user's preference evaluation data is sparse, two users or items are unlikely to have common ratings, and finally, CF will predict ratings using a very limited number of similar users. Moreover, it may produces biased recommendations because similarity weights may be estimated using only a small portion of rating data. In this study, we suggest a novel limitation of the conventional CF. The limitation is that CF does not consider qualitative and emotional information about users in the recommendation process because it only utilizes user's preference scores of the user-item matrix. To address this novel limitation, this study proposes cluster-indexing CF model with the structural hole analysis for recommendations. In general, the structural hole means a location which connects two separate actors without any redundant connections in the network. The actor who occupies the structural hole can easily access to non-redundant, various and fresh information. Therefore, the actor who occupies the structural hole may be a important person in the focal network and he or she may be the representative person in the focal subgroup in the network. Thus, his or her characteristics may represent the general characteristics of the users in the focal subgroup. In this sense, we can distinguish friends and strangers of the focal user utilizing the structural hole analysis. This study uses the structural hole analysis to select structural holes in subgroups as an initial seeds for a cluster analysis. First, we gather data about users' preference ratings for items and their social network information. For gathering research data, we develop a data collection system. Then, we perform structural hole analysis and find structural holes of social network. Next, we use these structural holes as cluster centroids for the clustering algorithm. Finally, this study makes recommendations using CF within user's cluster, and compare the recommendation performances of comparative models. For implementing experiments of the proposed model, we composite the experimental results from two experiments. The first experiment is the structural hole analysis. For the first one, this study employs a software package for the analysis of social network data - UCINET version 6. The second one is for performing modified clustering, and CF using the result of the cluster analysis. We develop an experimental system using VBA (Visual Basic for Application) of Microsoft Excel 2007 for the second one. This study designs to analyzing clustering based on a novel similarity measure - Pearson correlation between user preference rating vectors for the modified clustering experiment. In addition, this study uses 'all-but-one' approach for the CF experiment. In order to validate the effectiveness of our proposed model, we apply three comparative types of CF models to the same dataset. The experimental results show that the proposed model outperforms the other comparative models. In especial, the proposed model significantly performs better than two comparative modes with the cluster analysis from the statistical significance test. However, the difference between the proposed model and the naive model does not have statistical significance.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
• /
• 제25권1호
• /
• pp.103-110
• /
• 2017

In Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations(CAFOs), emission of ammonia from stored manure contributes negatively on the wellness of livestock. In CAFOs facilities, indoor aerial ammonia concentration oftentime surpasses the critical level potentially harmful to livestock's immune system. Understandably, numerous researches to control aerial ammonia have been conducted in countries where CAFOs were practiced for many decades. Some innovative technologies, such as scrubber, bio-filter, and additives emerged, as a result. Among them, microbial additives became popular in Korea, due to an easiness of use and affordability. However, microbial additives still have some weaknesses. Their price is still high enough to discourage farmers who run a small scale farm and their effectiveness are still questioned by many users and researchers. In the present study, we found soluble carbohydrates, such as sugar, glucose, and molasses, when supplemented to pig slurry manure, can mitigate ammonia emission. To be more specific, pig manure slurry(120kg), stored in container(200L), was supplemented with sugar at 0.1%(w/w) and was, subsequently, monitored for pH and aerial ammonia for next 10 days. From this experiment, it was found that the sugar supplementation was effective in mitigating the aerial ammonia concentration (33% in average) when monitored daily. Also, the pH of manure slurry was maintained at relatively low level(8.2) in sugar-supplemented manure slurry while it was elevated to 8.5 in untreated slurry. Conclusively, the obtained data suggest that soluble carbohydrate can mitigate ammonia emission by acidifying manure slurry. Additionally, it can be suggested that soluble carbohydrates, such as sugar, glucose, and molasses, can be reasonable choices for animal farmers who have been looking for an alternative choice to replace expensive microbial additives.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
• /
• 제3권2호
• /
• pp.77-84
• /
• 2005

A voloxidizer for a hot cell demonstration, that handles spent fuels of a high radiation level in a limited space should be small and spent fuel powders should not be dispersed out of the equipment involved. In this study a density rate equation as well as the Stokes'equation has been proposed in order to obtain the theoretical terminal velocity of powders. The terminal velocity of U$_{3}$O$_{8}$ has been predicted by using the terminal velocity of SiO$_{2}$, and then determination has been the optimum air flow rate which is able to prevent powders from scattering. An equation which has shown a relationship between theoretical terminal velocities of U$_{3}$O$_{8}$ and SiO$_{2}$ has been derived with the help of the Stokes'equation, and then an experimental verification made for the theoretical Stokes' equation of SiO$_{2}$ by means of an experimental device made of acryl. The theoretical terminal velocity based on the proposed density rate equation has been verified by detecting U$_{3}$O$_{8}$ powders in a filter installed in the mock-up voloxidizer. As the results, the optimum air flow rates seem to be 20 LPM by the Stokes'equation while they are 14.5 L/min by the density rate equation. At the experiments with the mock-up voloxidizer, a trace amount of U$_{3}$O$_{8}$ seems to be detectable at the air flow rate of 14.5 L/min by the density rate equation, but U$_{3}$O$_{8}$ powders of 7$\mu$m diameter seem detectable at the air flow rate of 20 L/min by the Stokes'equation. It is revealed that 14.5 L/min is the optimum air flowe rate which is capable of preventing U$_{3}$O$_{8}$ powders from scattering in the UO$_{2}$ voloxidizer and the proposed density rate equation is proper to calculate the terminal velocity of U$_{3}$O$_{8}$ powders.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
• /
• 제55권5호
• /
• pp.483-488
• /
• 2013

To develop a sustainable composting method for livestock mortality, a natural aeration-composting process was designed and the influences of bulking materials on the mortality composting process were studied. Bulking materials (e.g., compost, swine manure, sawdust, and rice husks), easily supplied at the scene of an animal mortality outbreak, were tested in this research. A lab-scale composting system (W34 ${\times}$ L60 ${\times}$ H26 cm) was made using 100 mm styrofoam, and natural aeration was achieved through pipes installed on the bottom of the system. Four treatments were designed (compost, compost + swine feces, sawdust, and rice husks treatment groups) and all experiments were done in triplicates. During composting for 40 days, no leachate was observed in compost and sawdust treatment groups, whereas 18 and 8.2 ml leachate/kg-mortality was emitted from the compost + feces and rice husks treatment groups, respectively. Dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) emission during the composting was very low in all treatment groups, possibly due to the bio-filtering function of the compost cover layer on the pile. The mortality degradability in compost, compost + feces, sawdust, and rice husks groups was 25.3, 25.8, 13.5, and 14.5%, respectively, showing significantly higher levels in compost and compost + feces groups (p<0.05). Also, only the compost + feces group produced enough heat (over $55^{\circ}C$) and lasted for 7 days, indicating that bio-security cannot be guaranteed without feces supplementation.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• 제43권3호
• /
• pp.266-272
• /
• 2010

Background: Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a serious disease that causes life-threatening pulmonary embolism and chronic venous insufficiency. Anticoagulation is the standard therapy for DVT. However, the results of standard anticoagulation for treating DVT have been disappointing, so endovascular treatment is commonly performed nowadays. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of an endovascular procedure for treating patients with DVT. Material and Method: We retrospectively evaluated the clinical data of 29 DVT patients who underwent an endovascular procedure between December 2006 and July 2008. We compared the results of the 29 patients with the results of another 45 patients who were treated with only aspirin and heparin. Result: The patient’s mean age was 55.4 years in the intervention group and 53.7 years in the control group. DVT occurred more frequently in the females. Catheter-directed thrombolysis was performed in 22 patients (75.8%). Aspiration thrombectomy was performed in 18 patients (62%) and a endovascular stent was placed in 25 patients (86.2%). Fifteen patients (51.7%) underwent percutaneous insertion of a retrievable IVC filter for the prevention of pulmonary embolism. In the control group, thirty nine patients (86.7%) were treated with low-molecular heparin, and seven patients (15.6%) who were contraindicated for warfarin were treated with aspirin. No bleeding complications occurred during thrombolysis or anticoagulation. We analyzed the statistical data according to recurrence of DVT and the incidence of post-thrombotic syndrome (PTS) during the follow-up period. The intervention group had a significantly lower incidence of PTS (p-value=0.008), but they had the same result as the control group for the recurrence of DVT. In addition, death from the DVT did not occur in the intervention group. Thus, we obtained better clinical outcomes in the intervention group as compared to those in the anticoagulation only group. Conclusion: Endovascular procedures are effective alternative modalities, as compared to systemic anticoagulation, for the treatment of DVT. But more studies are needed to determine the specific indications and to validate the long-term efficacy of endovascular procedures for the treatment of DVT.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• /
• 제17권4호
• /
• pp.275-285
• /
• 2013

Purpose : The objective of this study was to investigate effects of different smoothing kernel sizes on brain tissue-masked susceptibility-weighted images (SWI) obtained from normal elderly subjects using voxel-based analyses. Materials and Methods: Twenty healthy human volunteers (mean $age{\pm}SD$ = $67.8{\pm}6.09$ years, 14 females and 6 males) were studied after informed consent. A fully first-order flow-compensated three-dimensional (3D) gradient-echo sequence ran to obtain axial magnitude and phase images to generate SWI data. In addition, sagittal 3D T1-weighted images were acquired with the magnetization-prepared rapid acquisition of gradient-echo sequence for brain tissue segmentation and imaging registration. Both paramagnetically (PSWI) and diamagnetically (NSWI) phase-masked SWI data were obtained with masking out non-brain tissues. Finally, both tissue-masked PSWI and NSWI data were smoothed using different smoothing kernel sizes that were isotropic 0, 2, 4, and 8 mm Gaussian kernels. The voxel-based comparisons were performed using a paired t-test between PSWI and NSWI for each smoothing kernel size. Results: The significance of comparisons increased with increasing smoothing kernel sizes. Signals from NSWI were greater than those from PSWI. The smoothing kernel size of four was optimal to use voxel-based comparisons. The bilaterally different areas were found on multiple brain regions. Conclusion: The paramagnetic (positive) phase mask led to reduce signals from high susceptibility areas. To minimize partial volume effects and contributions of large vessels, the voxel-based analysis on SWI with masked non-brain components should be utilized.

• The Korean Journal of Pesticide Science
• /
• 제16권4호
• /
• pp.343-349
• /
• 2012

Exposure and risk assessments were conducted to evaluate the relative safety of mixing/loading work of indoxacarb between wettable powder (WP) and water dispersible granule (WG). Hand exposure was monitored using cotton gloves while inhalation exposure was measured using personal air monitor. Method validation for the exposure monitoring was established successfully through several experiments. Limit of determination and limit of quantitation were 0.25 and 1 ng, respectively. $R^2$ of calibration curve linearity was more than 0.9999 and reproducibility was 0.7-6. Recovery of indoxacarb from gloves, solid sorbent and glass fiber filter at three different levels was 81.5-108.8%. Trapping efficiency and breakthrough tests gave 981.5-108.8% of recovery. During mixing/loading procedure, hand exposure amount (75 percentile of 30 repetitions) for indoxacarb WP was 6 folds (459.8 mg/kg a.i) than that of WG (81.4 mg/kg a.i). This result indicates that WG has less drift than WP thanks to its granular type of formulation. Inhalation amount was $10^{-8}-10^{-7}%$ of spray mixture prepared and $10^{-4}-10^{-3}%$ of hand exposure. In inhalation case, no significant differences were observed between two formulations. Margin of safety was calculated for risk assessment using male Korean average body weight and acceptable operator exposure level as the important exposure factors. Mixing/loading procedures for both of the formulations were considered to be of least risk because calculated MOS values were more than 1.