• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2017

Recently, flexible cages have been introduced in an attempt to absorb and reduce the abnormal load transfer along the anterior parts of the spine. They are designed to be used with the pedicle screw systems to allow some mobility at the index level while containing ROM at the adjacent level. In this study, a finite element (FE) study was performed to assess biomechanical efficacies of the flexible cage when combined with pedicle screws with flexible rods. The post-operated models were constructed by modifying the L4-5 of a previously-validated 3-D FE model of the intact lumbar spine (L2-S1): (1) Type 1, flexible cage only; (2) Type 2, pedicle screws with flexible rods; (3) Type 3, interbody fusion cage plus pedicle screws with rigid rods; (4) Type 4, interbody fusion cage plus Type 2; (5) Type 5, Type 1 plus Type 2. Flexion/extension of 10 Nm with a compressive follower load of 400N was applied. As compared to the Type 3 (62~65%) and Type 4 (59~62%), Type 5 (53~55%) was able to limit the motion at the operated level effectively, despite moderate reduction at the adjacent level. It was also able to shift the load back to the anterior portions of the spine thus relieving excessively high posterior load transfer and to reduce stress on the endplate by absorbing the load with its flexible shape design features. The likelihood of component failure of flexble cage remained less than 30% regardless of loading conditions when combined with pedicle screws with flexible rods. Our study demonstrated that flexible cages when combined with posterior dynamic system may help reduce subsidence of cage and degeneration process at the adjacent levels while effectively providing stability at the operated level.

• Strategy21
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• s.30
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• pp.236-262
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• 2012

Morgenthau claims that in international relations, there are the economic, political, and military powers that enable a nation to achieve its political and diplomatic goals. This paper explores the possibility of resolving international conflicts with naval power. First, the theoretical and historical perspective, naval power was used as a final resort to force a nation's political or diplomatic objective on an enemy nation when negotiations failed, and this was done through the physical and psychological destruction of the enemy by naval power. But as the use of military power has decreased because of the invention of the nuclear weapon, the existence of a large and capable navy deterrent has become one of the most useful military options among a nation's diplomatic measures. In other words, he focused on the political usefulness of naval power as a deterrent and coercive diplomatic tool for persuading other nations to acquiesce, rather than using naval power and actual military action as a final resort. The reason for this is that compared to army and air force, navy's flexibility, continuity, and the ability to deter are greater. The navy provides excellent accessibility through its wide mobility on the sea, and it has been shown through research that the navy possesses a political usefulness that facilitates the solution of conflicts through presence, naval intervention, and naval blockade. On the other hand, among the factors that could improve the influence of the navy are alliance relations, a reliable and powerful navy, carrots and sticks that it would have to deal with in the case of successful or unsuccessful negotiations, and support from international opinion. On this paper I introduce E.N.Luttwak's naval suasion theory. By the his theory, there are two mode of naval suasion. One is latent naval suasion the other is active suasion. Latent suasion there are deterrent mode and supportive mode. Active naval suasion there are coercive mode and supportive mode. Coercive mode has positive and negative. The limitations of naval suasion have been identified as follows. First, because the objective of the use of naval power is persuading enemy nations, the results are unpredictable. Second, the leaders of all countries possess limited understanding on the complexities of naval power and therefore lack understanding of the usefulness of naval power when choosing options. Third, in case of failure through naval suasion, prestige and reputation of a nation can be damaged. Finally, the following are additional possible research topic. First, a research on the decision making process of choosing naval power as a measure to resolve conflicts is needed. Lastly, research on the size of the navy and types of ships required for efficient naval suasion is needed. Today's world requires cooperative security regime so that middle class navy also requires political use of naval power in solving international conflicts. Therefore, additional research on this topic is needed.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.36 no.6A
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• pp.609-616
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• 2011

The Delay/Disruption Tolerant Network (DTN) is a network designed to operate effectively using the mobility and storage of intermediate nodes under no end-to-end guaranteed network. This new network paradigm is well-suited for networks which have unstable path and long latencies (e.g. interplanetary network, vehicular network). In this paper, we first found that each taxi has its own regularly visiting area and define this property as spatial regularity. We analyze 4000 taxi trace data in Shanghai and show the existence of spatial regularity experimentally. Based on a spatial regularity in urban environment, we present a new DTN routing method. We introduce a Weighted Center (WC) which represents spatial regularity of each node. Through the association with evenly distributed access points (APs) in urban environment, most of vehicles get their grid locations and calculate their WCs. Since our routing method only uses neighbors' WCs for building routing paths, it can be regarded as distributed and practical protocols. Our experiments involving realistic network scenarios created by the traces of about 1500 Shanghai taxies show that our routing method achieves the higher performance compared to ECT, LET by 10%~110%.

• Proceedings of the SCSK Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.780-803
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• 2003

Exposure of skin cells, particularly keratinocytes to various nuclear factor-kappaB ($\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$) activators [e.g. tumor necrosis factor-$\alpha$, interleukin-1, lipopolysaccharides, and ultraviolet light] leads to phosphorylation and degradation of the inhibitory protein, $\textrm{I}_{{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$. Liberated $\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$ is translocated into the nucleus where it can change or alter expression of target genes, resulting in the secretion of extracellular signaling molecules including melanotrophic factors affecting melanocyte. In order to demonstrate the possible role of $\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$ activation on the synthesis of melanotrophic factors from the keratinocytes, the activities of $\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$ induced by melanogenic inhibitors (MIs) were determined in human HaCaT keratinocytes transfected with $\textrm{pNF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$-SEAP-NPT plasmid. Transfectant cells released the secretory alkaline phosphatase (SEAP) as a transcription reporter in response to the $\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$ activity and contain the neomycin phosphotransferase (NPT) gene for the dominant selection marker for geneticin resistance. MIs such as niacinamide, kojic acid, hydroquinone, resorcinol, arbutin, and glycolic acid were preincubated with transfectant HaCaT cells for 3 h and then ultraviolet B (UVB) was irradiated. $\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$ activation was measured with the SEAP reporter gene assay using a fluorescence detection method. Of the Mis tested, kojic acid ($IC_{50}$/ = 60 $\mu$M) was found to be the most potent inhibitor of UVB-upregulating $\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$ activation in transfectant HaCaT cells, which is followed by niacinamide ($IC_{50}$/= 540 $\mu$M). Pretreatment of the transfectant HaCaT cells with the Mis, especially kojic acid and niacinamide, effectively lowered $\textrm{NF}_{-{\kappa}}\textrm{B}$ binding measured by electrophoretic mobility shift assay. Furthermore, these two inhibitors remarkably reduced the secretion level of IL-6, one of melanotrophic factors, triggered by UV-radiation of the HaCaT cells. These observations suggest that Mis working at the in vivo level might act partially through the modulation of the synthesis of melanotrophic factors in keratinocyte.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.11-27
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• 2016

Objective: The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate high technology adaptive driving controls, such as mini steering wheel-lever system and joystick system, for the people with physical disabilities in the driving simulator. Background: The drivers with severe physical disabilities have problems in operation of the motor vehicle because of reduced muscle strength and limited range of motion. Therefore, if the remote control system with driver-by-wire technology is used for adaptive driving controls for people with physical limitations, the disabled people can improve their quality of life by driving a motor vehicle. Method: We developed the remotely controlled driving simulator with drive-by-wire technology, e.g., mini steering wheel-lever system and joystick system, in order to evaluate driving performance in a safe environment for people with severe physical disabilities. STISim Drive 3 software was used for driving test and the customized Labview program was used in order to control the servomotors and the adaptive driving devices. Thirty subjects participated in the study to evaluate driving performance associated with three different driving controls: conventional driving control, mini steering wheel-lever controls and joystick controls. We analyzed the driving performance in three different courses: straight lane course for acceleration and braking performance, a curved course for steering performance, and intersections for coupled performance. Results: The mini steering wheel-lever system and joystick system developed in this study showed no significant statistical difference (p>0.05) compared to the conventional driving system in the acceleration performance (specified speed travel time, average speed when passing on the right), steering performance (lane departure at the slow curved road, high-speed curved road and the intersection), and braking performance (brake reaction time). However, conventional driving system showed significant statistical difference (p<0.05) compared to the mini steering wheel-lever system or joystick system in the heading angle of the vehicle at the completion point of intersection and the passing speed of the vehicle at left turning. Characteristics of the subjects were found to give a significant effect (p<0.05) on the driving performance, except for the braking reaction time (p>0.05). The subjects with physical disabilities showed a tendency of relatively slow acceleration (p<0.05) at the straight lane course and intersection. The steering performance and braking performance were confirmed that there was no statistically significant difference (p>0.05) according to the characteristics of the subjects. Conclusion: The driving performance with mini steering wheel-lever system and joystick control system showed no significant statistical difference compared to conventional system in the driving simulator. Application: This study can be used to design primary controls with driver-by-wire technology for adaptive vehicle and to improve their community mobility for people with severe physical disabilities.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.247-284
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• 2017

Purpose The first purpose of this study is to investigate factors that are likely to influence user's intention to adopt third-party mobile payment platform. A comprehensive study about mobile payment services have used various variables to explain user's use intention based on the theory of reasoned action (TRA) or the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Variables such as simplicity, security, costs, relative advantage, individual mobility, subjective norm, trust, satisfaction, attitude towards use, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and so on. Among these factors, we expect to find out the most influential factors effecting user's use intention of the third-party mobile payment services. Second, we also examine whether the most influential factors have the same influence to different third-party mobile payment services by conducting comparative study of Alipay and WeChat Pay. Design/methodology/approach Empirical data for this study were collected from Chinese who has the experience using or have used Alipay or WeChat Pay. Participants needed to be familiar with Alipay or WeChat Pay because such users may be more aware of both the advantages and disadvantages of Alipay and WeChat Pay. We conduct a pilot test using Smart PLS 2.0, which includes 50 Alipay users and 82 WeChat Pay users. The result indicates that all the measurement fit for the context. And then 980 questionnaires were mainly sent out to the college students and the e-mails users randomly. To encourage participation, we give the participants a small gift as a present. Finally, we received a total of 683 replied. Data from respondents who gave incomplete or invalid answers were excluded to assure the validity of the constructs. 79 questionnaires were rejected, finally the valid data are 604 (with 372 Alipay users and 232 WeChat Pay users). Findings The results suggest that users' intention is determined by their trust on third-party mobile payment service and perceived usefulness of use. Comparative study results also indicated that the factors have different influence on Alipay group and WeChat Pay group, which offers a new aspect for academic field, and provides useful information to mobile payment service providers in China.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.31 no.8A
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• pp.745-751
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• 2006

The transmitter requires knowledge of the channel status information in order to adopt the adaptive modulation and coding scheme(AMC) for OFDM system. But in the outdoor environment which the users have high mobility, the channel status information from the users is outdated, so that it induces the degradation of system throughput and packet error rate(PER) performance. To solve this problem, researches about applying channel prediction technique to the AMC scheme have been proceeded. Most channel prediction techniques assume that there is no channel variation in the predefined time duration, e.g., a slot. As a result, those techniques cannot compensate the degradation of PER performance resulting from the rapid variation of channel during the slot duration. This paper introduces a novel channel prediction technique for OFDM/FDD system to support adaptive modulation and coding scheme over rapidly time-varying multipath fading channel. The proposed channel prediction technique considers the time-varying nature of channel during the slot duration. Simulation results show that the AMC scheme of OFDM/FDD system utilizing the proposed channel prediction technique can guarantee the target PER of 1% without any loss of system throughput compared with the case supported by the conventional channel prediction under ITU-R Veh A 30km/h.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.11-11
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• 2010

Thin-film-transistors (TFTs) that can be deposited at low temperature have recently attracted lots of applications such as sensors, solar cell and displays, because of the great flexible electronics and transparent. Transparent and flexible transistors are being required that high mobility and large-area uniformity at low temperature [1]. But, unfortunately most of TFT structures are used to be $SiO_2$ as gate dielectric layer. The $SiO_2$ has disadvantaged that it is required to high driving voltage to achieve the same operating efficiency compared with other high-k materials and its thickness is thicker than high-k materials [2]. To solve this problem, we find lots of high-k materials as $HfO_2$, $ZrO_2$, $SiN_x$, $TiO_2$, $Al_2O_3$. Among the High-k materials, $Al_2O_3$ is one of the outstanding materials due to its properties are high dielectric constant ( ~9 ), relatively low leakage current, wide bandgap ( 8.7 eV ) and good device stability. For the realization of flexible displays, all processes should be performed at very low temperatures, but low temperature $Al_2O_3$ grown by sputtering showed deteriorated electrical performance. Further decrease in growth temperature induces a high density of charge traps in the gate oxide/channel. This study investigated the effect of growth temperatures of ALD grown $Al_2O_3$ layers on the TFT device performance. The ALD deposition showed high conformal and defect-free dielectric layers at low temperature compared with other deposition equipments [2]. After ITO was wet-chemically etched with HCl : $HNO_3$ = 3:1, $Al_2O_3$ layer was deposited by ALD at various growth temperatures or lift-off process. Amorphous InGaZnO channel layers were deposited by rf magnetron sputtering at a working pressure of 3 mTorr and $O_2$/Ar (1/29 sccm). The electrodes were formed with electron-beam evaporated Ti (30 nm) and Au (70 nm) bilayer. The TFT devices were heat-treated in a furnace at $300^{\circ}C$ and nitrogen atmosphere for 1 hour by rapid thermal treatment. The electrical properties of the oxide TFTs were measured using semiconductor parameter analyzer (4145B), and LCR meter.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.50-50
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• 2008

ZnO has been extensively studied for optoelectronic applications such as blue and ultraviolet (UV) light emitters and detectors, because it has a wide band gap (3.37 eV) anda large exciton binding energy of ~60 meV over GaN (~26 meV). However, the fabrication of the light emitting devices using ZnO homojunctions is suffered from the lack of reproducibility of the p-type ZnO with high hall concentration and mobility. Thus, the ZnO-based p-n heterojunction light emitting diode (LED) using p-Si and p-GaN would be expected to exhibit stable device performance compared to the homojunction LED. The n-ZnO/p-GaN heterostructure is a good candidate for ZnO-based heterojunction LEDs because of their similar physical properties and the reproducibleavailability of p-type GaN. Especially, the reduced lattice mismatch (~1.8 %) and similar crystal structure result in the advantage of acquiring high performance LED devices with low defect density. However, the electroluminescence (EL) of the device using n-ZnO/p-GaN heterojunctions shows the blue and greenish emissions, which are attributed to the emission from the p-GaN and deep-level defects. In this work, the n-ZnO:Ga/p-GaN:Mg heterojunction light emitting diodes (LEDs) were fabricated at different growth temperatures and carrier concentrations in the n-type region. The effects of the growth temperature and carrier concentration on the electrical and emission properties were investigated. The I-V and the EL results showed that the device performance of the heterostructure LEDs, such as turn-on voltage and true ultraviolet emission, developed through the insertion of a thin intrinsic layer between n-ZnO:Ga and p-GaN:Mg. This observation was attributed to a lowering of the energy barriers for the supply of electrons and holes into intrinsic ZnO, and recombination in the intrinsic ZnO with the absence of deep level emission.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.1 s.65
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• pp.184-195
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• 2006

Objectives : Betula Platyphylla(BP) is a traditional analgesic, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory herb used in Chinese 1medicine. However, no information is available to explain its action. In this study. we investigated the anti-inflammatory 1effects of BP to elutidate the molecular pharmacological activity in the ethanol extract of BP(BPE). Methods : We performed WTS assay in lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulated RAW264.7 macrophages with BPE. Nitrite was measured by Griess assay, prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in LPS induced RAW264.7 macrophages with BPE. Inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase (COX-2) were determined by Western blot. Activation of nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kB) was measured by electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA). Results : BPE significantly suppressed production of nitric oxide (NO) and PGE2 in LPS-induced RAW264.7 macrophages in a dose-dependent manner. The maximal inhibition rate of NO and PGE2 production by BPE was ca. 88.8% and 93% at the concentration of $100{\mu}g/ml$ (non-cytotoxic concentration), respectively. BPE also decreased iNOS protein and COX-2 protein in LPS-induced RAW264.7 macrophages. EMSA demonstrated that BPE inhibited the DNA binding activity of the NF-kB. Conclusions : These results suggest that BPE inhibits NF-${\kappa}B$-mediated gene expression and downregulates inflammatory mediator production in RAW264.7 macrophages.