• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.85-97
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• 2010

목적 : 이 연구는 서로 다른 두 경혈이 심박변이도에 미치는 영향을 비교하고, 자율신경계에 미치는 영향을 평가하기 위해 수행하였다. 재료 및 방법 : 13명의 지원자가 3개의 세션에 균등하게 무작위 배정되었다. 각 세션에서 지원자들은 신맥(BL62), 조해(KI6), 또는 비경혈에 각각 침처치를 받았다. 10분간 휴식을 한 후에 자침 전, 유침기간, 발침 후 기간에 5분 동안 심박변이도 측정을 하였다. 유침기간에는 2분 간격을 두고 2회 심박변이도를 측정하였다. 결과 : 신맥에 자침한 군에서는 자침후 기간에 total power(TP)와 standard deviation N-N interval(SDNN)이 유의하게 증가하였다. 유침기간 중 첫 5분 동안의 TP와 SDNN은 자침전 값과 유의한 차이가 없었으며 유침기간 중 마지막 5분 동안에는 다소 증가하는 경향은 있었지만 통계적인 유의성은 없었다. 반면에 조해와 비경혈에 자침한 군에서는 TP와 SDNN에 유의한 변화가 관찰되지 않았다. 발침 후에 신맥자침군에서는 조해와 비경혈 자극군과 비교해서 TP가 유의하게 변화하였다. 그러나 SDNN은 발침 후에 세 군 사이에 유의한 차이가 없었다. 결론 : 이 실험 결과는 조해와 비교했을 때 신맥에 자침한 경우 심장 기능 및 자율신경계와 관련이 있는 대체적인 활성이 증가한다는 것을 보여주었다. 이 결과는 신맥 자침이 자율신경계와 관계되어 있는 심장의 기능에 미치는 영향을 통해서 경혈의 특이성을 관찰할 수 있음을 의미한다.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.373-380
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• 2009

In general, Independent component analysis (ICA) is a statistical blind source separation technique, used either in spatial or temporal domain. The spatial or temporal ICAs are designed to extract maximally independent sources in respective domains. The underlying sources for spatiotemporal data (sequence of images) can not always be guaranteed to be independent, therefore spatial ICA extracts the maximally independent spatial sources, deteriorating the temporal sources and vice versa. For such data types, spatiotemporal ICA tries to create a balance by simultaneous optimization in both the domains. However, the spatiotemporal ICA suffers the problem of source ambiguity. Recently, constrained ICA (c-ICA) has been proposed which incorporates a priori information to extract the desired source. In this study, we have extended the c-ICA for better analysis of spatiotemporal data. The proposed algorithm, i.e., constrained spatiotemporal ICA (constrained st-ICA), tries to find the desired independent sources in spatial and temporal domains with no source ambiguity. The performance of the proposed algorithm is tested against the conventional spatial and temporal ICAs using simulated data. Furthermore, its performance for the real spatiotemporal data, functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI), is compared with the SPM (conventional fMRI data analysis tool). The functional maps obtained with the proposed algorithm reveal more activity as compared to SPM.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.31-37
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• 2000

Background: Recent studies suggested that a preoperative block of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors with NMDA antagonists may reduce postoperative pain. In this double-blind study, magnesium sulfate, a natural NMDA receptor antagonist, was administered preoperatively to investigate the effects of magnesium sulfate on postoperative pain and pulmonary function. Methods: Seventy patients who were to undergo gastrectomy under general anesthesia were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Groups 2 and 3 received intravenous magnesium, preoperatively (Group 2: 50 mg/kg bolus, 7.5 mg/kg/hr for 20 hr, Group 3: 50 mg/kg bolus, 15 mg/kg/hr for 20 hr). Group 1 received normal saline as the control group. Visual analog scale (VAS) for postoperative pain and mood, cumulative analgesic consumption, recovery of pulmonary function and side effects were evaluated at 6, 24, 48 and 72 hours after the operation. Results: In Groups 2 and 3, plasma concentration of magnesium were significantly higher than in Group 1 at 6 and 20 hours after infusion (P<0.05). There were no significant differences in the analgesic consumption, and recovery of pulmonary function and the incidence of side effects at 6, 24, 48 and 72 hours after the operation among the three groups. In Group 3, pain scores at rest measured 24 and 48 hours after operation were lower than the control group, and pain scores when deep breathing were significantly lower than the control group at postoperative 6, 24, 48, and 72 hours. Conclusions: We conclude that intravenous infusion of greater amount of magnesium has little effectiveness in reducing postoperative pain. However, further studies are needed to characterize the clinical significance of these effects on postoperative pain.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.93-96
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• 2000

Background: Psoas compartment block with local anesthetics and corticosteroids is one of the treatments which provides long term analgesia of the lower back and anterior thigh unilaterally, and its technical easiness and safety allows blind application without C-arm guidance in the out-patient clinic. This study aimed to evaluate the mean of the depth from the skin to the psoas compartment, and its correlation to the following attributes: age, weight, height and PI (Ponderal Index). Methods: We investigated 28 patients who underwent psoas compartment block. All blocks were performed using Chayen's method (punctured at the point of 3 cm caudally and 5 cm laterally from the 4th lumbar vertebral spinous process) with a 22 G, 8 cm Tuohy needle under C-arm guidance. We recorded the depth from skin to the psoas compartment, height, weight and PI (weight (kg)/height (cm)$\times100$ (%)). Data were analyzed using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients. The correlations between the depth and other attributes identified by p-value of less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: The mean depths from skin to the psoas compartment were $6.02{\pm}0.28$ cm in men, $5.44{\pm}0.22$ cm in women. There is no significant correlation between the depth and other patient's attributes. Conclusions: The mean depths from skin to the psoas compartment may be one of the guide for psoas compartment block in outpatient clinics without C-arm guidance.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.40-45
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• 2000

In speech corpus generation and speech recognition, it is sometimes needed to segment the input speech data without any prior knowledge. A method to accomplish this kind of segmentation, often called as blind segmentation, or acoustic segmentation, is to find boundaries which minimize the Euclidean distances among the feature vectors of each segments. However, the use of this metric alone is prone to errors because of the fluctuations or variations of the feature vectors within a segment. In this paper, we introduce the principal component analysis method to take the trend of feature vectors into consideration, so that the proposed distance measure be the distance between feature vectors and their projected points on the principal components. The proposed distance measure is applied in the LBDP(level building dynamic programming) algorithm for an experimentation of continuous speech segmentation. The result was rather promising, resulting in 3-6% reduction in deletion rate compared to the pure Euclidean measure.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.421-432
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• 2009

Purpose: This study investigated trends in family nursing intervention studies and evaluated the quality of studies using the RCT design. Methods: This study included a total of 898 abstracts published from 1977 to 2007 in order to describe trends in family nursing intervention studies. Out of 898 studies, 153 RCT studies were selected for quality evaluation. The criteria of Jadad et al. (1996) were employed for the quality evaluation. Results: The number of RCT studies on family nursing interventions increased since 2001. Only 6.8% of the studies were published in the area of nursing. Most of the family interventions (27.1%) focused on individual family members and only 8.2% of the studies provided interventions to family as a whole unit. Nine different modes of family nursing intervention could be categorized, but none of the studies used the double blind design. Few studies utilized protocols for interventions. Only 17.5% of the studies reported the rationale for sample size. The mean score was 1.6 out of 5 according to the criteria of Jadad et al. (1996). Conclusion: Refined definitions and attributes of family nursing intervention modes are needed. Most of the studies did not meet the expectations of RCT. Thus, it is needed to improve the quality of design. More RCT studies should be conducted to provide evidence-based practice of family nursing interventions.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.195-202
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• 2014

The Global Positioning System (GPS), which has various military and commercial applications, is designed to estimate the location of the specific user or object. In order to accurately estimate the location, GPS requires at least four satellite signals. The GPS receiver operates on extremely low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) environment and it may suffer from various interference signals with the extremely high power. In this paper, we introduce a blind adaptive receiver based on the modified despreader, which suppress interference signals and detect GPS signals of interest without requiring explicit angle-of-arrival (AOA) information. We, also, provide the mathematical analysis for the signal-to-interference and noise ratio (SINR) of the modified despeader beamformer output. A representative computer simulation example is presented to illustrate the interference suppression performance of the considered GPS receiver and mathematical analysis of the SINR.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.472-484
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• 2012

Raised or plain block is widely used for the pedestrian's safe passage. The insincere construction, insufficient maintenance and obstacle overlaid on the pavement cause pedestrian's accidents. This paper proposes a method to detect brick path by analyzing the shape pattern and texture feature of brick located in visible distance for a safe passage. A brick appears to a regular type because of its specific shape which repeats with its sized gap and its type varies according to the surrounding environment or use. This paper shows a method which extracts the shape pattern by analyzing single surface polygon and its frequency appearing in road area. The shape pattern is used to detect similar shape regions. Some regions are not detected because extraneous substances or chopped bricks distort the original shape. This problem can be solved by analyzing the texture feature vector. The analyzed vector of the previously detected regions yields the Gaussian distribution. This value in each undetected region is computed and checked whether it's satisfied with Gaussian distribution or not. The satisfied region is detected as the brick path. The experiment was performed with the various type's bricks to recognize so that the results showed as accurate as 95.9% in average.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.323-327
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• 2009

This study was to investigate the role of complementary and alternative medicine in the prevention and treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia. For this purpose, a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was performed over 12 months on 47 benign prostatic hyperplasia patients with average age of 53.3 years and international prostate symptom score over 8. Subjects received either sweet potato starch (group A, placebo, 320 mg/day), pumpkin seed oil (group B, 320 mg/day), saw palmetto oil (group C, 320 mg/day) or pumpkin seed oil plus saw palmetto oil (group D, each 320 mg/day). International prostate symptom score, quality of life, serum prostate specific antigen, prostate volume and maximal urinary flow rate were measured. In groups B, C and D, the international prostate symptom score were reduced by 3 months. Quality of life score was improved after 6 months in group D, while those of groups B and C were improved after 3 months, compared to the baseline value. Serum prostate specific antigen was reduced only in group D after 3 months, but no difference was observed in prostate volume in all treatment groups. Maximal urinary flow rate were gradually improved in groups B and C, with statistical significance after 6 months in group B and after 12 months in group C. None of the parameters were significantly improved by combined treatment with pumpkin seed oil and saw palmetto oil. From these results, it is suggested that administrations of pumpkin seed oil and saw palmetto oil are clinically safe and may be effective as complementary and alternative medicine treatments for benign prostatic hyperplasia.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.223-231
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• 2017

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Soy isoflavones are expected to improve menopausal symptoms and osteoporosis in women. However, their efficacy is still inconclusive, and there was limited data for postmenopausal women in South Korea. We examined the effects of soy isoflavones on climacteric symptoms, bone biomarkers, and quality of life in Korean postmenopausal women. SUBJECTS/METHODS: A randomized, double-blind study design was used. Eighty-seven participants who had undergone natural menopause were randomly administered either 70 mg/day isoflavones (n = 43) or placebo (n = 41) for 12 weeks. We assessed the Kupperman index for climacteric symptoms and the menopause-specific quality of life (MENQOL) questionnaire for quality of the life. Biomarkers of bone metabolism were also measured in serum bone-specific alkaline phosphatase (BALP), osteocalcin (OC), N- and C-terminal cross-linking telopeptides of type Ι collagen (NTx, CTx), and urine-deoxypyridinolin (u-DPD). RESULTS: Scores of the Kupperman index were decreased in both the isoflavones group ($-7.0{\pm}15.8$, P = 0.0074) and placebo group ($-6.3{\pm}14.6$, P = 0.0064) during the intervention, but no significant difference was noted between the groups. Regarding the bone formation markers, the level of serum BALP increased by $6.3{\pm}4.1%$ (P = 0.004) and OC increased by $9.3{\pm}6.2%$ (P < 0.001), meanwhile those of the placebo were not changed. For the bone resorption markers, NTx, CTx, and u-DPD were not significantly different in either group. MENQOL was significant decreased in the isoflavone group ($-0.6{\pm}0.5$) and placebo group ($-0.6{\pm}0.4$), with a significant difference between groups (P = 0.0228). CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that 70 mg isoflavones supplement has beneficial effects on bone formation markers; however, it showed no benefit compared to the placebo on climacteric symptoms or quality of life.