• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.69-80
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• 1998

This research was designed to investigate how the exercise program affects paraplegic standing and walking employing functional electrical stimulation(FES). Emphasis was also given to fatigue of major lower extremity muscles induced by different types of electrical stimulation. We applied continuous and intermittent rectangular pulse trains to quadriceps of 10 normal subjects and 4 complete paraplegic patients. The frequencies were 20Hz and 80Hz, and the knee angle was fixed at 90$^{\circ}$and 150$^{\circ}$to investigate how muscle fatigue is related to muscle length. The knee extensor torque was measured and monitored. We have been training quadriceps and gastrocnemius of a male paraplegic patient by means of electrical stimulation for the past two year. FES standing was initiated when the knee extensors became strong enough to support the body weight, and then the patient started FES walking utilizing parallel bars and a walker. We used an 8-channel constant-voltage stimulator and surface electrodes. The experimental results indicated that paralyzed muscles fatigued rapidly around the optimal length contrary to normal muscles and confirmed that low frequency and intermittent stimulation delayed fatigue. Our exercise program increased muscle force by approximately 10 folds and decreased the fatigue index to half of the initial value. In addition, the exercise enabled the patient to voluntarily lift each leg up to 10cm, which was of great help to the swing phase of FES walking. Both muscle force and resistance to fatigue were significantly enhanced right after the exercise was applied every day instead of 6 days a week. Up to date, the patient can walk for more than two and half minutes at 10m/min while controlling the on/off time of the stimulator by pushing the toggle switch attached to the walker handle.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.17-31
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• 2006

In this paper, passport recognition and face verification methods which can automatically recognize passport codes and discriminate forgery passports to improve efficiency and systematic control of immigration management are proposed. Adjusting the slant is very important for recognition of characters and face verification since slanted passport images can bring various unwanted effects to the recognition of individual codes and faces. Therefore, after smearing the passport image, the longest extracted string of characters is selected. The angle adjustment can be conducted by using the slant of the straight and horizontal line that connects the center of thickness between left and right parts of the string. Extracting passport codes is done by Sobel operator, horizontal smearing, and 8-neighborhood contour tracking algorithm. The string of codes can be transformed into binary format by applying repeating binary method to the area of the extracted passport code strings. The string codes are restored by applying CDM mask to the binary string area and individual codes are extracted by 8-neighborhood contour tracking algerian. The proposed RBF network is applied to the middle layer of RBF network by using the fuzzy logic connection operator and proposing the enhanced fuzzy ART algorithm that dynamically controls the vigilance parameter. The face is authenticated by measuring the similarity between the feature vector of the facial image from the passport and feature vector of the facial image from the database that is constructed with PCA algorithm. After several tests using a forged passport and the passport with slanted images, the proposed method was proven to be effective in recognizing passport codes and verifying facial images.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.52-77
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• 2016

A spirit tablet of king Guan Yu is enshrined in Donggwanwangmyo shrine[East Shrine of King Guan Yu], which houses 51 hanging boards. The hanging boards were written by the kings of Joseon Dynasty and envoys and generals of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Most studies on hanging boards have been focused on the collections of the palaces but not on those in Donggwanwangmyo shrine. In this regard, this study researches the hanging boards of the kings' writings in the late Joseon period and analyzes their forms and contents. In terms of contents, it examines who made the boards, when they made them, and what brought them to make them, etc. This study analyzes the forms of hanging boards by types, used materials, and periodic transition of forms. The findings are as follows. First, Donggwanwangmyo shrine houses 7 pieces of hanging boards inscribed with kings' handwriting: one piece of King Sukjong, 4 pieces of King Yeongjo, and 2 pieces of Emperor Gojong. They are divided into two types: one is the name of the buildings and the other is the poems that the kings wrote regarding what they felt when they visited the shrine. Especially, the latter were written by the kings who visited the shrine in spring and autumn. The kings intended to promote peace of royal family through a sense of royalty and fidelity of King Guan Yu. Second, the hanging boards of the kings are differentiated from those of the envoys and generals of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in materials and forms. The background of the board is colored by blue, deep red lacquer color, and black lacquer color, which are more expensive than black color or white color. The hanging boards are embossed with the kings' handwritings and then colored with gold. The frame-style four-side hanging board is held at a 45-degree angle and painted with floral patterns and seven-treasure patterns in Dancheong technique. The left and right sides and the top and bottom sides of the board are decorated with Dang-cho pattern(Korean arabesque pattern). This style is called "quadrilateral"and considered the most classy and top-class among the other three ones. In conclusion, this study confirms the status of Donggwanwangmyo shrine with hanging boards inscribed with kings' handwritings as a political space where kings had interest and demanded their soldiers' royalty and fidelity. Research into the boards inscribed with the handwritings of envoys of the Ming Dynasty and generals of the Qing Dynasty, and the comparison of the styles and periodic transition of forms will be reserved for another study.