• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.217-223
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• 2013

Population aging is a shift in the distribution of a country's population towards older ages. This is usually reflected in an increase in the population's mean and median ages, a decline in the proportion of the population composed of children, and a rise in the proportion of the population that is elderly. Population ageing is widespread across the world. Barrier-free or Design for All concept consists of modifying buildings or facilities so that they can be used by people who are disabled or have physical impairments. Design for All criteria are aimed at ensuring that everyone can participate in the Information society. Safety-related products being easy to adapt according to different needs, or using standardized interfaces that can be accessed simply by using assistive technology. To this end, policy makers and service providers, especially in the ubiquitous technologies, produce new technologies, products, services and applications for pedestrians.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.59-69
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• 2011

Purpose : The purposes of this study were to find correlations among Fugl-Meyer Assessment Scale, walking velocity, walking asymmetry and balance ability. Methods : The study sample consisted of 50 stroke patients referred to the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine in the Sanggye Paik, Ilsan Paik, Seoul Paik, and Dobong Hospital. All subjects were ambulatory with or without an assistive device. All participants were assessed on Fugl-Meyer Assessment scale and walking velocity, walking asymmetry. The data were analyzed using independent t-test, ANOVA, and multiple regression. Results : The results revealed that upper extremity coordination, balance and pain items of Fugl-Meyer Assessment scale were significantly correlated with walking velocity and upper extremity and upper extremity motor and balance items of Fugl-Meyer Assessment scale were significantly correlated with walking asymmetry. Fugl-Meyer Assessment scale was not significantly correlated with Static Balance Index, Dynamic Balance Index and Weight Distribution Asymmetry Index. Their power of explanation regarding comfortable walking velocity and comfortable walking asymmetry were 60.3%, 42.5% respectively. Conclusion : These results showed that Fugl-Meyer Assessment scale is significantly correlated with walking velocity, asymmetry and not significantly correlated with balance ability. Therefore Fugl-Meyer Assessment scale is an appropriate assessment tool to predict walking ability of patients with stroke. Futher study about walking velocity and asymmetry by change of Fugl-Meyer Assessment scale is needed using a longitudinal study design.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.256-267
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• 2000

In this paper, we studied the ultrasonic urine volume sensor of urinary alarm system for home use to detect the time of urination as a assistive methodology for the incontinence patients and the correlation between urine volume and bladder interwall distance by using developed sensor. The developed sensor was designed to minimize the measurement error by using ultrasound with 2.25 MHz center frequency which provides higher resolution as well as longer penetration depth. To verify usefulness of the developed sensor, we performed a preliminary experiment of estimating bladder volume from the measured distance between interior and posterior wall of bladder. In the preliminary experiment, bladder volume estimated from the result using a commercial ultrasonography system. The experimental results show there exists god correlation between the actual urine volume and the measured interwall distance of the bladder. In conclusion, the developed ultrasound bladder volume sensor can be applied to an urine alarm system which provides patient the exact time of urination, it will be contribute in health care and welfare society.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.28-36
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• 2007

The aim of this study was to identify the effect of suspension unloading (SU) and electrical stimulation upon the development of neonatal muscular system. For this study, the neonatal rats were randomly divided into three groups: a control group, an experimental group I, and an experimental group II. The SU for experimental group I and II was applied from postnatal day (PD) 5 to PD 30. The electrical stimulation for soleus muscle of experimental group IIwas applied from PD 16 to PD 30 using neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES), which gave isometric contraction with 10 pps for 30 minutes twice a day. In order to observe the effect of SU and ES, this study observed myocyte enhancer factor 2C (MEF2C) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) immunoreactivity in the soleus muscles at PD 15 and PD 30. In addition, the motor behavior test was performed through footprint analysis at PD 30. The following is the result. At PD 15, the soleus muscles of experimental group Iand II had significantly lower MEF2C, VEGF immunoreactivity than the control group. It proved that microgravity conditions restricted the development of the skeletal muscle cells at PD 15. At PD 30, soleus muscles of the control group and experimental group II had significantly higher MEF2C, VEGF, immunoreactivity than experimental group I. It proved that the NMES facilitated the development of the skeletal muscle cells. At PD 30, it showed that SU caused the decrease in stride length of parameter of gait analysis and an increase in toe-out angle, and that the NMES decreased these variations. These results suggest that weight bearing during neonatal developmental period is essential for muscular development. They also reveal that NMES can encourage the development of muscular systems by fully supplementing the effect of weight bearing, which is an essential factor in the neonatal developmental process.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.121-144
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• 2004

This study shows that people with disabilities are very disadvantageous in employment and wage, which is originated from social discriminations. In this study, numerical value of employment-discrimination was calculated as 33.4%, and that of wage-discrimination calculated as 67.3%. But these discriminations are only come from one's disability not from productivity. So, Government must legislate 'The Discrimination Prohibit Act for People with Disabilities' rapidly to promote of people with disabilities' life qualities. Nobody knows when he get disabilities. Together with 'The Discrimination Prohibit Act for People with Disabilities', Government also have to improve people with disabilities' way of working, mobility, and provide assistive technology for the promotion of people with disabilities' employment rate and wage.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.37-45
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• 2013

Almost of stroke patients who experience aftereffects such as motor, sensory and cognitive disorders have to take some rehabilitation therapies. It is known that the consistent training for rehabilitation therapy in their home is more effective than rehabilitation therapy in hospital. A few home training programs were developed but these programs don't give any appropriate feedback messages to the client. Therefore, we developed a home training program which can provide appropriate feedback message to the clients using the Kinect sensor which can analyze user's 3-D dimensional motion. With this development, the client can obtain some feedback messages such as the knowledges of performance, results and self-controlled feedback. The program will be more effective than any existing programs.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.2006-2013
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• 2015

Deaf are it is difficult to communicate to represent the voice heard, so theay use mostly using the speech, sign language, writing, etc. to communicate. It is the best way to use sign language, in order to communicate deaf and normal people each other. But they must understand to use sign language. In this paper, we designed and implementated finger language translation system to support communicate between deaf and normal people. We used leap motion as input device that can track finger and hand gesture. We used raspberry pi that is low power sing board computer to process input data and translate finger language. We implemented application used Node.js and MongoDB. The client application complied with HTML5 so that can be support any smart device with web browser.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.324-327
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• 2006

The person who gets a ALS(Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) has language disability and physical disability together. A common first symptom is a painless weakness in a hand, foot, arm or leg, which occurs in more than half of all cases. Other early symptoms include muscle weakness of speech. In the early stage of this disease they can communicate with other persons, but it will become increasingly difficult. In our research we have designed and implemented communication tools for them. We have implemented Chunjiin(the Korean computer keyboard) at PDA(personal digital assistant). And we have also implemented software which is consisted of frequently used words.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.223-231
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• 2010

Purpose : The Purpose of this study was to compare muscle activation and foot pressure on baby carrier and sling for baby care. Methods : Thirty one women subjects (mean age 23.2 years) participated in four static conditions : unloaded quite standing, carrying an anterior baby carrier, carrying a posterior baby carrier, and sling. The baby carrier and sling were loaded with baby model that filled 7.6kg loads. Surface electromyography was used to measure activity in the internal oblique, T4, L3, L5 paraspinal muscle, vastus medialis, biceps femoris, tibialis anterior, and gastrocnemius for four conditions. And foot pressure was measured by using MatScan system(Tekscan, USA). Results : The activation of Biceps femoris, T4, L3, and L5 paraspinal muscle were significant differences(p<.05), but other muscles were no significant differences in four conditions(p>.05). Right foot contact area and peak pressure of right mid foot area were significant differences in four conditions(p<.05). Conclusion : The results of this study indicate that the use of baby carrier of sling for baby care were influenced postural responses of young women. Further work is recommended to find out the influences of various assistive devices for baby care.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.45-48
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• 2019

Detection of crosswalk is an important issue for the blind to walk without the help of others. There is a braille block on the sidewalk, which helps the blind to walk. On the other hand, crosswalk is more dangerous due to the moving vehicles. However, there is no appropriate means to induce the blind. In this paper, we propose a method to detect crosswalk in front of a blind and estimate its direction using an image sensor. We adopt multi-ROIs and make their binary versions. In order to determine whether it is a crosswalk, two features are extracted; one is the number of crossing in the binary image and the other is the ratio of white area. We can also estimate the direction of the crosswalk through the slope of the projection data. We evaluated the performance using experimental dataset and the proposed algorithm showed 80% accuracy of detection.