• Title/Summary/Keyword: Computer System

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Determinants of Successful Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty (경피적 관상동맥 성형술의 성공율에 영향을 미치는 인자에 대한 고찰)

  • Choi, Kyo-Won;Kweon, Jun-Young;Kim, Young-Jin;Lee, Tae-Il;Shin, Dong-Gu;Kim, Young-Jo;Shim, Bong-Seup;Lee, Hyun-Woo;Lee, Sam-Beom
    • Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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    • v.11 no.2
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    • pp.230-239
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    • 1994
  • In Order to evaluate determinants of successful percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), PTCA was performed for 172 coronary arterial lesions in 120 patients (89 male, 31 female) at Yeungnam university hospital from Sep. 1992 to Aug. 1993. The corinary artery luminal diameter at the site of the original stenosis was eveluated from end-diastolic frames of identical projections of the preangioplasty and immediate post angioplasty. The coronary luminal and balloon diameters were measured with using of computer measuring system. Overall success rate of 172 attempted lesions was 87.2%. Success rate of female patients was 93.5% and higher than those of male patients. According to the clinical diagnosis, success rate in stable angina was 93.7% and higher than those of post myocardial infarction angina, unstable angina and acute myocardial infarcrion. Success rate of American Heart Association type C lesion was 65.5% and lower those of type A (95.7%), type B (89.5%). There was signfifcantly difference in preangioplasty luminal stenosis, elastic recoil and length of lesion between successful PTCA group and failed PTCA group. Success rate of lesion location at a bend > $45^{\circ}$ and presence of intracoronary thrombus were lower than than those of other angiographic findings. In coclusion, primary angioplasty success was affected by specific angiographic factors. Stenosis severity, thrombus, lesion location at a bend > $45^{\circ}$, elastic recoil, and length of lesion were the principle of determinants of coronary angioplasty success rate.

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Keyword Network Analysis for Technology Forecasting (기술예측을 위한 특허 키워드 네트워크 분석)

  • Choi, Jin-Ho;Kim, Hee-Su;Im, Nam-Gyu
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.17 no.4
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    • pp.227-240
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    • 2011
  • New concepts and ideas often result from extensive recombination of existing concepts or ideas. Both researchers and developers build on existing concepts and ideas in published papers or registered patents to develop new theories and technologies that in turn serve as a basis for further development. As the importance of patent increases, so does that of patent analysis. Patent analysis is largely divided into network-based and keyword-based analyses. The former lacks its ability to analyze information technology in details while the letter is unable to identify the relationship between such technologies. In order to overcome the limitations of network-based and keyword-based analyses, this study, which blends those two methods, suggests the keyword network based analysis methodology. In this study, we collected significant technology information in each patent that is related to Light Emitting Diode (LED) through text mining, built a keyword network, and then executed a community network analysis on the collected data. The results of analysis are as the following. First, the patent keyword network indicated very low density and exceptionally high clustering coefficient. Technically, density is obtained by dividing the number of ties in a network by the number of all possible ties. The value ranges between 0 and 1, with higher values indicating denser networks and lower values indicating sparser networks. In real-world networks, the density varies depending on the size of a network; increasing the size of a network generally leads to a decrease in the density. The clustering coefficient is a network-level measure that illustrates the tendency of nodes to cluster in densely interconnected modules. This measure is to show the small-world property in which a network can be highly clustered even though it has a small average distance between nodes in spite of the large number of nodes. Therefore, high density in patent keyword network means that nodes in the patent keyword network are connected sporadically, and high clustering coefficient shows that nodes in the network are closely connected one another. Second, the cumulative degree distribution of the patent keyword network, as any other knowledge network like citation network or collaboration network, followed a clear power-law distribution. A well-known mechanism of this pattern is the preferential attachment mechanism, whereby a node with more links is likely to attain further new links in the evolution of the corresponding network. Unlike general normal distributions, the power-law distribution does not have a representative scale. This means that one cannot pick a representative or an average because there is always a considerable probability of finding much larger values. Networks with power-law distributions are therefore often referred to as scale-free networks. The presence of heavy-tailed scale-free distribution represents the fundamental signature of an emergent collective behavior of the actors who contribute to forming the network. In our context, the more frequently a patent keyword is used, the more often it is selected by researchers and is associated with other keywords or concepts to constitute and convey new patents or technologies. The evidence of power-law distribution implies that the preferential attachment mechanism suggests the origin of heavy-tailed distributions in a wide range of growing patent keyword network. Third, we found that among keywords that flew into a particular field, the vast majority of keywords with new links join existing keywords in the associated community in forming the concept of a new patent. This finding resulted in the same outcomes for both the short-term period (4-year) and long-term period (10-year) analyses. Furthermore, using the keyword combination information that was derived from the methodology suggested by our study enables one to forecast which concepts combine to form a new patent dimension and refer to those concepts when developing a new patent.

Extracting Beginning Boundaries for Efficient Management of Movie Storytelling Contents (스토리텔링 콘텐츠의 효과적인 관리를 위한 영화 스토리 발단부의 자동 경계 추출)

  • Park, Seung-Bo;You, Eun-Soon;Jung, Jason J.
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.17 no.4
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    • pp.279-292
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    • 2011
  • Movie is a representative media that can transmit stories to audiences. Basically, a story is described by characters in the movie. Different from other simple videos, movies deploy narrative structures for explaining various conflicts or collaborations between characters. These narrative structures consist of 3 main acts, which are beginning, middle, and ending. The beginning act includes 1) introduction to main characters and backgrounds, and 2) conflicts implication and clues for incidents. The middle act describes the events developed by both inside and outside factors and the story dramatic tension heighten. Finally, in the end act, the events are developed are resolved, and the topic of story and message of writer are transmitted. When story information is extracted from movie, it is needed to consider that it has different weights by narrative structure. Namely, when some information is extracted, it has a different influence to story deployment depending on where it locates at the beginning, middle and end acts. The beginning act is the part that exposes to audiences for story set-up various information such as setting of characters and depiction of backgrounds. And thus, it is necessary to extract much kind information from the beginning act in order to abstract a movie or retrieve character information. Thereby, this paper proposes a novel method for extracting the beginning boundaries. It is the method that detects a boundary scene between the beginning act and middle using the accumulation graph of characters. The beginning act consists of the scenes that introduce important characters, imply the conflict relationship between them, and suggest clues to resolve troubles. First, a scene that the new important characters don't appear any more should be detected in order to extract a scene completed the introduction of them. The important characters mean the major and minor characters, which can be dealt as important characters since they lead story progression. Extra should be excluded in order to extract a scene completed the introduction of important characters in the accumulation graph of characters. Extra means the characters that appear only several scenes. Second, the inflection point is detected in the accumulation graph of characters. It is the point that the increasing line changes to horizontal line. Namely, when the slope of line keeps zero during long scenes, starting point of this line with zero slope becomes the inflection point. Inflection point will be detected in the accumulation graph of characters without extra. Third, several scenes are considered as additional story progression such as conflicts implication and clues suggestion. Actually, movie story can arrive at a scene located between beginning act and middle when additional several scenes are elapsed after the introduction of important characters. We will decide the ratio of additional scenes for total scenes by experiment in order to detect this scene. The ratio of additional scenes is gained as 7.67% by experiment. It is the story inflection point to change from beginning to middle act when this ratio is added to the inflection point of graph. Our proposed method consists of these three steps. We selected 10 movies for experiment and evaluation. These movies consisted of various genres. By measuring the accuracy of boundary detection experiment, we have shown that the proposed method is more efficient.

Software Reliability Growth Modeling in the Testing Phase with an Outlier Stage (하나의 이상구간을 가지는 테스팅 단계에서의 소프트웨어 신뢰도 성장 모형화)

  • Park, Man-Gon;Jung, Eun-Yi
    • The Transactions of the Korea Information Processing Society
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    • v.5 no.10
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    • pp.2575-2583
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    • 1998
  • The productionof the highly relible softwae systems and theirs performance evaluation hae become important interests in the software industry. The software evaluation has been mainly carried out in ternns of both reliability and performance of software system. Software reliability is the probability that no software error occurs for a fixed time interval during software testing phase. These theoretical software reliability models are sometimes unsuitable for the practical testing phase in which a software error at a certain testing stage occurs by causes of the imperfect debugging, abnornal software correction, and so on. Such a certatin software testing stage needs to be considered as an outlying stage. And we can assume that the software reliability does not improve by means of muisance factor in this outlying testing stage. In this paper, we discuss Bavesian software reliability growth modeling and estimation procedure in the presence of an imidentitied outlying software testing stage by the modification of Jehnski Moranda. Also we derive the Bayes estimaters of the software reliability panmeters by the assumption of prior information under the squared error los function. In addition, we evaluate the proposed software reliability growth model with an unidentified outlying stage in an exchangeable model according to the values of nuisance paramether using the accuracy, bias, trend, noise metries as the quantilative evaluation criteria through the compater simulation.

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A Study on Curriculum Improvement of the Korea Army Nursing Academy (국군간호사관학교 교육과정 개선을 위한 기초 연구)

  • 고자경
    • Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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    • v.13 no.2
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    • pp.22-43
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    • 1983
  • 1. Need for and Purpose of the Study. There is an increasing demand for curriculum improvement of the Korean Army Nursing Academy (KANA), since it was upgraded into 4-year institution of higher learning from 3-year one. In particular, it is strongly advocated that the KANA needs the outside expertise for its curriculum improvement-namely not only from the internal military view of points but also from the viewpoints of professional educational society, In line with such a necessity for the study, this study was aimed at 1) analyzing the current actual practices of KANA'S curriculum, 2) investigating the desired practices of KANA'S curriculum, and 3) identifying the discrepancy between the actual and desired practices of curriculum. 2. Problems for the Study This study had 4 problems to be answeared as follows: 1) What are the actual curriculum practices of KANA? 2) What are the desired curriculum practices of KANA? 3) How are the extents of perception of actual and desired curriculum different in four groups (student, faculty & administrator, nurse, and medical doctor in militay hospital) ? 4) What are the restraining forces that impede the change from actual to desired curriculum practices? 5) What are the relationships of curriculum component,』 in actual and desired curriculum practices? 3. Methods and Procedures This study was conducted by means of document analysis in addition to literature review and by means of needs assessment questionnaire which was developed by the researcher. The questionnaire included 62 statments with 7 questions for demographic data collection. The needs assessment questionnaire was managed to a total of 243 subjects (100 students, 46 faculty & administrators, 55 nurses, and 42 medical doctors), The collected data were treated using SPSS computer system so as to calculate mean scores, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients. The significance test was made through t-test and one-way ANOVA. The statistical significance level was set at both .05 and .01 level. 4. Major findings The major findings in this study are as follows: 1) The score of desired practices was significantly greater than that of actual practices, representing a strong need for curriculum betterment. 2) There were significant differences in the perceptions of actual practices as well as desired practices among four groups (student, faculty & administrater, nurse, and medical doctor). 3) The most frequently selected restraining forces were army's inherent character, economical limitation, and educational expertise limitations. 4) Such variables as sex, position attachment to the KANA and grade made a statistically significant effect on the perception of desired curriculum practice, while the variables like marrige, position, and military class made it on the perception of actual curriculum practice. 5) The coefficients among the curriculum components were lower in perception of the actual curriculum practices than those in the desired practices. 5. Conclusions The conclusions based on the major findings of this study are as follows: 1) The current curriculum development procedure of the KANA is not consistent with the theoretical frame of systematic development sarategy of curriculum. 2) There are wide conflicts among the groups who are supposed to participate in curriculnm development, concerning the actual and desired practices of KANN'S curriculum. 3) A great deal of need for curriculum improvement for the KANA is clearly felt, and in particular, in the process of teaching and learning. 4) Each component of curriculum is not intergrated into a whole development procedure, being segregated each other. 5) For better curriculum improvement, such restraining forces as financial and professional limitations should be eliminated. 6. Recommendations 1) For Further Research a. There is a need to replicate this study after in-depth statistical analysis of each item of need assessment questionnaire, and with more representative subjects. b. A study should be conducted which. has its focus on the analysis of restraining forces for the change from actual to desired curriculum practices of the KANA. 2) For KANA'S Curriculum Improvement a. There is a need to promote the professional expertise of the participants in curriculum development and the communication among them. b. It is desirable to establish an institution or section of administration, which is soley in charge of curriculum development. c. To better develop KANA's curriculum not only faculty and administrators but also students should be encouraged to participate in development process, while the military medical doctors' participation should be carefully considered.

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An Embedding /Extracting Method of Audio Watermark Information for High Quality Stereo Music (고품질 스테레오 음악을 위한 오디오 워터마크 정보 삽입/추출 기술)

  • Bae, Kyungyul
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.24 no.2
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    • pp.21-35
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    • 2018
  • Since the introduction of MP3 players, CD recordings have gradually been vanishing, and the music consuming environment of music users is shifting to mobile devices. The introduction of smart devices has increased the utilization of music through music playback, mass storage, and search functions that are integrated into smartphones and tablets. At the time of initial MP3 player supply, the bitrate of the compressed music contents generally was 128 Kbps. However, as increasing of the demand for high quality music, sound quality of 384 Kbps appeared. Recently, music content of FLAC (Free License Audio Codec) format using lossless compression method is becoming popular. The download service of many music sites in Korea has classified by unlimited download with technical protection and limited download without technical protection. Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology is used as a technical protection measure for unlimited download, but it can only be used with authenticated devices that have DRM installed. Even if music purchased by the user, it cannot be used by other devices. On the contrary, in the case of music that is limited in quantity but not technically protected, there is no way to enforce anyone who distributes it, and in the case of high quality music such as FLAC, the loss is greater. In this paper, the author proposes an audio watermarking technology for copyright protection of high quality stereo music. Two kinds of information, "Copyright" and "Copy_free", are generated by using the turbo code. The two watermarks are composed of 9 bytes (72 bits). If turbo code is applied for error correction, the amount of information to be inserted as 222 bits increases. The 222-bit watermark was expanded to 1024 bits to be robust against additional errors and finally used as a watermark to insert into stereo music. Turbo code is a way to recover raw data if the damaged amount is less than 15% even if part of the code is damaged due to attack of watermarked content. It can be extended to 1024 bits or it can find 222 bits from some damaged contents by increasing the probability, the watermark itself has made it more resistant to attack. The proposed algorithm uses quantization in DCT so that watermark can be detected efficiently and SNR can be improved when stereo music is converted into mono. As a result, on average SNR exceeded 40dB, resulting in sound quality improvements of over 10dB over traditional quantization methods. This is a very significant result because it means relatively 10 times improvement in sound quality. In addition, the sample length required for extracting the watermark can be extracted sufficiently if the length is shorter than 1 second, and the watermark can be completely extracted from music samples of less than one second in all of the MP3 compression having a bit rate of 128 Kbps. The conventional quantization method can extract the watermark with a length of only 1/10 compared to the case where the sampling of the 10-second length largely fails to extract the watermark. In this study, since the length of the watermark embedded into music is 72 bits, it provides sufficient capacity to embed necessary information for music. It is enough bits to identify the music distributed all over the world. 272 can identify $4*10^{21}$, so it can be used as an identifier and it can be used for copyright protection of high quality music service. The proposed algorithm can be used not only for high quality audio but also for development of watermarking algorithm in multimedia such as UHD (Ultra High Definition) TV and high-resolution image. In addition, with the development of digital devices, users are demanding high quality music in the music industry, and artificial intelligence assistant is coming along with high quality music and streaming service. The results of this study can be used to protect the rights of copyright holders in these industries.

A Way for Creating Human Bioclimatic Maps using Human Thermal Sensation (Comfort) and Applying the Maps to Urban and Landscape Planning and Design (인간 열환경 지수를 이용한 생기후지도 작성 및 도시·조경계획 및 디자인에의 적용방안)

  • Park, Soo-Kuk
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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    • v.41 no.1
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    • pp.21-33
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    • 2013
  • The purpose of this study is to find applicabilities of human bioclimatic maps, using human thermal sensation(comfort) in summer, with microclimatic in situ data and computer simulation results at the study site of downtown Daegu. This includes the central business district(CBD) area and two urban parks, the Debt Redemption Movement Memorial Park and the 2.28 Park, for urban and landscape planning and design. Climatic data and urban setting information for the analysis of human thermal sensation were obtained from in situ measurement and the geographic information system data. As a result, the CBD had higher air temperature than the parks when the wind speed was low. Relative humidities were opposite to the air temperature. Especially, same directional streets with local wind direction had lower air temperature than streets perpendicular to the wind direction. The most important climatic variable of human thermal sensation in summer was direct beam solar radiation. Also, creating shadow areas would be the most relevant method for modifying hot thermal environments in urban areas. The most effective method of creating shadow patterns was making a tree shadow over a pergola, and the second best one was making a tree shadow on the front of north directional building walls. Moreover, how to plant trees for creating shadow patterns was important as well as what kind of trees should be planted. The results of human thermal sensation were warm to very hot at sunny areas and neutral to warm at shaded ones. At the sunny areas, wide, squared shape areas had a little bit higher thermal sensation than those of narrow streets. The albedo change of building walls 0.15 and ground surface 0.1 could change 1/6 of a sensation level at the shaded areas and 1/3 at the sunny ones. These microclimatic approaches will be useful to find appropriate methods for modifying thermal environments in urban areas.

STRAIN AND TEMPERATURE CHANGES DURING THE POLYMERIZATION OF AUTOPOLYMERIZING ACRYLIC RESINS

  • Ahn Hyung-Jun;Kim Chang-Whe;Kim Yung-Soo
    • The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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    • v.39 no.6
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    • pp.709-734
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    • 2001
  • The aims of this experiment were to investigate the strain and temperature changes simultaneously within autopolymerzing acrylic resin specimens. A computerized data acquisition system with an electrical resistance strain gauge and a thermocouple was used over time periods up to 180 minutes. The overall strain kinetics, the effects of stress relaxation and additional heat supply during the polymerization were evaluated. Stone mold replicas with an inner butt-joint rectangular cavity ($40.0{\times}25.0mm$, 5.0mm in depth) were duplicated from a brass master mold. A strain gauge (AE-11-S50N-120-EC, CAS Inc., Korea) and a thermocouple were installed within the cavity, which had been connected to a personal computer and a precision signal conditioning amplifier (DA1600 Dynamic Strain Amplifier, CAS Inc., Korea) so that real-time recordings of both polymerization-induced strain and temperature changes were performed. After each of fresh resin mixture was poured into the mold replica, data recording was done up to 180 minutes with three-second interval. Each of two poly(methyl methacrylate) products (Duralay, Vertex) and a vinyl ethyl methacrylate product (Snap) was examined repeatedly ten times. Additionally, removal procedures were done after 15, 30 and 60 minutes from the start of mixing to evaluate the effect of stress relaxation after deflasking. Six specimens for each of nine conditions were examined. After removal from the mold, the specimen continued bench-curing up to 180 minutes. Using a waterbath (Hanau Junior Curing Unit, Model No.76-0, Teledyne Hanau, New York, U.S.A.) with its temperature control maintained at $50^{\circ}C$, heat-soaking procedures with two different durations (15 and 45 minutes) were done to evaluate the effect of additional heat supply on the strain and temperature changes within the specimen during the polymerization. Five specimens for each of six conditions were examined. Within the parameters of this study the following results were drawn: 1. The mean shrinkage strains reached $-3095{\mu}{\epsilon},\;-1796{\mu}{\epsilon}$ and $-2959{\mu}{\epsilon}$ for Duralay, Snap and Vertex, respectively. The mean maximum temperature rise reached $56.7^{\circ}C,\;41.3^{\circ}C$ and $56.1^{\circ}C$ for Duralay, Snap, and Vertex, respectively. A vinyl ethyl methacrylate product (Snap) showed significantly less polymerization shrinkage strain (p<0.01) and significantly lower maximum temperature rise (p<0.01) than the other two poly(methyl methacrylate) products (Duralay, Vertex). 2. Mean maximum shrinkage rate for each resin was calculated to $-31.8{\mu}{\epsilon}/sec,\;-15.9{\mu}{\epsilon}/sec$ and $-31.8{\mu}{\epsilon}/sec$ for Duralay, Snap and Vertex, respectively. Snap showed significantly lower maximum shrinkage rate than Duralay and Vertex (p<0.01). 3. From the second experiment, some expansion was observed immediately after removal of specimen from the mold, and the amount of expansion increased as the removal time was delayed. For each removal time, Snap showed significantly less strain changes than the other two poly(methyl methacrylate) products (p<0.05). 4. During the external heat supply for the resins, higher maximum temperature rises were found. Meanwhile, the maximum shrinkage rates were not different from those of room temperature polymerizations. 5. From the third experiment, the external heat supply for the resins during polymerization could temporarily decrease or even reverse shrinkage strains of each material. But, shrinkage re-occurred in the linear nature after completion of heat supply. 6. Linear thermal expansion coefficients obtained from the end of heat supply continuing for an additional 5 minutes, showed that Snap exhibited significantly lower values than the other two poly(methyl methacrylate) products (p<0.01). Moreover, little difference was found between the mean linear thermal expansion coefficients obtained from two different heating durations (p>0.05).

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Shade comparative analysis of natural tooth measured by visual and spectrophotometric methods (육안과 분광 측정기를 이용한 자연 치아의 색조비교분석)

  • Kim, Bum-Suk;Shin, Soo-Yeon;Lee, Jong-Hyuk
    • The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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    • v.46 no.5
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    • pp.443-454
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    • 2008
  • Statement of problem: A clinically successful color match is one of the important factor to get an esthetic dental restoration. Dental shade guides are commonly used to evaluate tooth color in restorative procedure. But numerous reports have indicated that common shade guides do not provide sufficient spectral coverage of the natural tooth colors. To address issues associated with the shade guide, distinct avenues have been pursued objective spectrophotometric / colorimetric assessment. Purpose: This study compared the accuracy of tooth color selection of spectrophotometer with that of human visual determination. Three main factors were investigated, namely, the effect of light, the individual variation and the experience of the observer. Material and methods: At the first experiment, on ten patients, one operator independently selected the best matching shade to the unrestored maxillary central incisor, using a Vita Classical Shade Guide in the morning, at noon and in the afternoon. The same teeth were measured by means of a reflectance spectrophotometer. At the second experiment, on ten patients, ten operators (5 experts, 5 novices) selected and measured by the same method above at noon. At the third experiment, the results of the second experiment were divided into two groups, expert and novice, and analyzed. Results: 1. There was significant difference between visual and spectrophotometric assessment (mean ${\Delta}E$ values) in experiment 1, 2, 3 (P < .05). 2. There was no significant difference between experts and novices group, when comparing with each visual and spectrophotometric assessment (mean ${\Delta}E$ values). Conclusion: Spectrophotometer could be used to analyze the shade of natural tooth objectively. Thereby, this method offers the potential tominimize considerably the need for corrections or even remakesafter intraoral try-in of restoration. Furthermore, to achieve its advantage, both the shade-matching environment and communication between dentist and technician should be optimized with use of visual and instrumental shade-matching systems.

Ecological Examinations of the Radial Growth of Pine Trees (Pinus densiflora S. et Z.) on Mt. Namsan and the Potential Effects of Current Level of Air Pollutants to the Growth of the Trees in Central Seoul, Korea.

  • Kim, Eun-Shik
    • Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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    • v.10 no.E
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    • pp.371-386
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    • 1994
  • Ecological examinations of the radial growth Patterns of pine trees(Pinus densiflora Sieb. et Zucc) growing on Mt. Namsan in central Seoul were made to test a Proposition that the pine trees decline due to the influence of air pollution and acid rain, which was proposed by some researchers in Korea, and the potential effects of current level of air pollutants to the growth of the Pine trees in central Seoul have been speculated. Tree-rings of 40 trees sampled at 3 sites of Mt. Namsan were prepared and examined using a Computer-aided Tree-Ring Measuring System at Kookmin University, Korea. Air Pollutant data collected by the Ministry of Environment( MOE ) and the Forestry Research Institute(FRI) were used to infer the general conditions of the environment. Correlation analysis was applied to the data set of tree growth and the other environmental factors. General information derived from the close examination of the tree-rings and the data on air pollution, drought and the other biological conditions suggested that the growth of the pine trees was severely affected by the occurrence of drought(climatic variation), the prevalence of the pine leaf gall midges(insects), and the suppression by the black locust trees(Robinia pseudo-acacia L.) (competition among trees). While the current condition of air pollution in Seoul cannot be categorized as good, the concentrations of air pollutants are not so high as to cause acute damages to the trees. In addition, while the data of rain acidity showed episodic low PHs of under 4.0, the average of them is far less acidic than those which were observed in either northeastern United States or central Europe, where the decline of trees were not solely attributed to any of the air pollutants. Considering the sequential facts that one of the most important environmental factors that affect the growth of trees is weather condition of the forest that the proposition of the decline of the pine trees was made without careful examination of the growth patterns and past growth history of them as well as the complex influences of many other factors including the weather conditions to the growth of trees, and that no objective explanation has been made on the causal relationships between the current condition of air pollution and the growth of the trees, such a proposition should be evaluated as invalid for the explanation of tree growth on Mt. Namsan in central Seoul, Korea. The author evaluates the factors of air pollution (including acid rain) as the predisposing factors, which may have the Potentials to chronically affect the tree growth at the forest ecosystem on Mt. Namsan for a long period of time. Ecosystem ecological studies should be further carried out to carefully explain both the functional and the structural aspects of the ecosystem processes, which include the biogeochemistry and the long-term changes of soil conditions as well as the growth of the other tree species on the mountain.

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