• Explosives and Blasting
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.41-50
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• 2006

Excavation by explosives blasting necessarily involves noise and vibration, which is highly prone to face claims on the environmental and structural aspects from the neighbors. When the blasting carried out in the vicinity of a structure, the effect of blasting vibration on the stability of the structure should be carefully evaluated. In the conventional method of evaluation, an equation for blast vibration is obtained from test blasting which is later used to determine the amount of charge. This method, however, has limitations in use since it does not consider topography and change in ground conditions. In order to overcome the limitations, dynamic numerical analysis is recently used in continuum or discontinuous models, where the topography and the ground conditions can be exactly implemented. In the numerical analysis for tunnels and rock slopes, it is very uncommon to simulate multi-hole blasting. A single-hole blasting pressure is estimated and the equivalent overall pressure at the excavation face is used. This approach based on an ideal case usually does not consider the ground conditions. And this consequently results in errors in calculation. In this presentation of a case study, a new approach of using blast waves obtained in the test blast is proposed. The approach was carried out in order to improve the accuracy in calculating blasting pressure. The stability of a structure in the vicinity of a slope blasting was examined using the newly proposed method.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.173-179
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• 2021

Scattered x-ray generated by digital radiography systems also have the advantage of increasing signals, but ultimately detectability is reduced by decreasing resolution and increasing noise of x-ray images transmitted objects. An indirect method of measuring scattered x-ray in a modulation-transfer function (MTF) for evaluating resolution in a spatial-frequency domain can be considered as a drop in the MTF value corresponding to zero-frequency. In this study, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) was used as a patient tissue equivalent, and MTFs were obtained for various thicknesses to quantify the effect of scattered x-ray on resolution. X-ray image signals were observed to decrease by 35 ~ 83% with PMMA thickness increasing, which is determined by the absorption or scattering of x-rays in PMMA, resulting in reduced MTF and increased scatter fraction. The method to compensate for MTF degradation by PMMA resulted in the MTF inflation without considering the optical spreading generated by the indirect-conversion type detector. Data fitting or zero-padding are needed to compensate for MTF more reasonably on edge-spread function or line-spread function.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.42-51
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• 2022

An eVTOL aircraft, which is required to operate with low pollution/low noise in urban environments, mostly use battery-powered electric propulsion systems as power sources, not traditional propulsion systems such as reciprocating or turbine engines. Accordingly, certification preparation for the electric propulsion system and securing the safety of the electric propulsion system, are important issues. In the U.S., special technical standards equivalent to FAR Part 33 were issued to certify electric engines, and in Europe, various special conditions were established to certify electric propulsion systems. Thus, in Korea, the technical standards for the electric propulsion system for eVTOL aircraft must also be prepared in line with the U.S. and Europe. In this paper, SC E-19, the technical standard of the electric/hybrid propulsion system (EHPS) in special conditions, was analyzed. Additionally, securing the safety of the electric propulsion system of the aircraft are proposed, through the collaboration of SC E-19 technical standards with the existing aircraft safety evaluation procedure ARP 4761. Finally, through a case study of the Ehang 184 electric propulsion system, it has been confirmed that the proposed safety assurance method is applicable at the aircraft level.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.389-394
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• 2023

In recent years, use of machine automation is rising in the industry. Ships also obtain machine condition information from sensor as digital information. However, on ships, crew members regularly surveil the engine room to check the condition of equipment and their information through analog gauges. This is a time-consuming and tedious process and poses safety risks to the crew while on surveillance. To address this, engine room surveillance using an autonomous mobile robot is being actively explored as a solution because it can reduce time, costs, and the safety risks for crew. Analog gauge reading using an autonomous mobile robot requires digitization for the robot to recognize the gauge value. In this study, image processing techniques were applied to achieve this. Analog gauge images were subjected to image preprocessing to remove noise and highlight their features. The center point, indicator point, minimum value and maximum value of the analog gauge were detected through image processing. Through the straight line connecting these points, the angle from the minimum value to the maximum value and the angle from the minimum value to indicator point were obtained. The obtained angle is digitized as the value currently indicated by the analog gauge through a formula. It was confirmed from the experiments that the digitization of the analog gauge using image processing was successful, indicating the equivalent current value shown by the gauge. When applied to surveillance robots, this algorithm can minimize safety risks and time and opportunity costs of crew members for engine room surveillance.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.39A no.9
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• pp.535-547
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• 2014

We investigate BER (Bit Error Ratio) performance according to the gain of spatial and frequency diversities in uplink SC-FDMA of SIMO (Single Input Multiple Output) systems. The main results of the analysis in this paper are as follows. First, we prove that performance of integrated system for considering spatial and frequency diversity combining in parallel is equivalent with the performance of sequential system for performing diversity combining in sequence. By signal modeling, it is demonstrated that the performances of both systems are the same when the frequency diversity combining technique of the sequential system is equal to diversity combining technique of the integrated system, and spatial diversity combining technique of the sequential system is performed as MRC in advance of frequency diversity combining. Secondly, it is found that effect on the BER performance is different according to the gain of spatial and frequency diversities, respectively. The frequency diversity gain increases by increasing the number of subcarrier. It might affect the performance improvement of high SNR(Signal to Noise Ratio) while it maintains gap between performances of ZF(Zero Forcing) and MMSE(Minimum Mean Square Error) in frequency diversity combining schemes. Also, spatial diversity gain increases as the number of receiving antennas increases. It means that it can reduce performance gap between ZF and MMSE in frequency diversity combining schemes by increasing the number of receiving antennas. In addition, it might affect the performance improvement of the whole SNR. Finally, through the analysis of performance according to the spatial diversity gain, the performance of ZF in frequency diversity combining is equal to the MMSE if the number of receiving antennas is 6 or more.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.84 no.6
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• pp.1309-1323
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• 2023

Purpose To assess the quality of four images obtained using single-breath-hold (SBH), single-shot fast spin-echo (SSFSE) and multiple-breath-hold (MBH) SSFSE with and without deep-learning based reconstruction (DLR) in patients with Crohn's disease. Materials and Methods This study included 61 patients who underwent MR enterography (MRE) for Crohn's disease. The following images were compared: SBH-SSFSE with (SBH-DLR) and without (SBH-conventional reconstruction [CR]) DLR and MBH-SSFSE with (MBH-DLR) and without (MBH-CR) DLR. Two radiologists independently reviewed the overall image quality, artifacts, sharpness, and motion-related signal loss using a 5-point scale. Three inflammatory parameters were evaluated in the ileum, the terminal ileum, and the colon. Moreover, the presence of a spatial misalignment was evaluated. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was calculated at two locations for each sequence. Results DLR significantly improved the image quality, artifacts, and sharpness of the SBH images. No significant differences in scores between MBH-CR and SBH-DLR were detected. SBH-DLR had the highest SNR (p < 0.001). The inter-reader agreement for inflammatory parameters was good to excellent (κ = 0.76-0.95) and the inter-sequence agreement was nearly perfect (κ = 0.92-0.94). Misalignment artifacts were observed more frequently in the MBH images than in the SBH images (p < 0.001). Conclusion SBH-DLR demonstrated equivalent quality and performance compared to MBH-CR. Furthermore, it can be acquired in less than half the time, without multiple BHs and reduce slice misalignments.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.216-223
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• 2011

Recently PTW developed a MicroLion liquid ionization chamber which is water_equivalent and has a small sensitive volume of $0.002cm^3$. The aim of this work is to investigate such dosimetric characteristics as dose linearity, dose rate dependency, spatial resolution, and output factors of the chamber for the external radiotherapy photon beam. The results were compared to those of Semiflex chamber, Pinpoint chamber and Diode chamber with the sensitive volumes of $0.125cm^3$, $0.03cm^3$ and $0.0025cm^3$, respectively and evaluated to be suitable for small fields. This study was performed in the 6MV photon energy from a Varian 2300 C/D linac accelerator and the MP3 water phantom (PTW, Freiburg) was used. Penumbras in the varios field sizes ranged from $0.5{\times}0.5cm^2$ to $10{\times}10cm^2$ were used to evaluate the spatial resolution. Output factors were measured in the field sizes of $0.5{\times}0.5$ to $40{\times}40cm^2$. Readings of the chamber was linearly proportional to dose. Dose rate dependency was measured from 100 MU/min to 600 MU/min, showed a maximum difference of 5.0%, and outputs decreased with dose rates. The spatial resolutions determined with comparing profiles for the field sizes of $0.5{\times}0.5cm^2$ to $10{\times}10cm^2$ agreed between every detector except the Semiflex chamber to within 2%. Outputs of detectors were compared to that of Semiflex chamber and showed good agreements within 2% for every chamber. This study shows that MicroLion chamber characterized by a high signal-to-noise ratio and water equivalence could be suitable for the small field dosimetry.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.17-21
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• 2014

Purpose With the recent rise of social issue regarding radiation exposure, attention to medical radiation use has been placed under a great spotlight. During PET-CT examination, generally about 40% more of $^{18}F$-FDG is used than EANM recommendation. While maintaining the diagnostic test result, we hope to find optimal injection dose to minimize the $^{18}F$-FDG in patients by utilizing the latest PET-CT scanner which is equiped with the newest technology. Materials and Methods During this experiment, the Biograph Truepoint 40 (siemens, USA) installed in 2007 and mCT 64 (siemens, USA) installed in 2011 were used and evaluated NECR (noise-equivalent counting rate) by using a scatter phantom. For the image quality evaluation of each scanner, we injected 3.7, 4.44 and 5.18 MBq/kg of $^{18}F$-FDG in NEMA IEC Body Phantom and also evaluated SNR between two scanners by using the data acquired at 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110 and 120 sec per bed. For the clinical evaluation, actual data of patients who were injected $^{18}F$-FDG 3.7, 4.44, 5.18 MBq/kg were used to compare SNR and draw a final result. Results As a result, mCT 64 peak NECR value was 1.65e+005, which is 10% higher than Turepoint 40. SNR values using the IEC body phantom was 17.9%, 17.4% and 17.1% higher in $^{18}F$-FDG 3.7 MBq/kg, 4.44 MBq/kg and 5.18 MBq/kg. In clinical patients, SNR values of the image mCT 64 was 16.5, which is 25% higher than Turepoint 40 scanner. Conclusion To draw a conclusion from the test result of this experiment, the same quality of SNR could be attained even with 10% reduced injection dose, if when the duration is extended by 10 sec/bed. This optimal result was possible due to enhanced equipment. The NECR (one of the equipment's performance assessment criteria for the scanner) increased by 10% and the SNR (one of the image quality assessment criteria) also increased by 17.5%. Therefore, we can expect to reduce the injection dose without deterioration of image quality. In consequence, it will also help to decrease the patient's anxiety of the radiation exposure.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.11 no.7
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• pp.671-677
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• 2017

In this study, scattering factors affecting the quality of medical images were quantitatively analyzed and investigated. MCNPX simulation was conducted by using ANSI phantom, made of tissue equivalent materials, to calculate the scattering ratio occurred by the increase of the object thickness. Then, the result of the simulation was compared with the result of actual radiation measurement. In addition, we evaluated the image quality by the RMS evaluation, RSD and NPS analysis using X-ray images acquired with increasing object thickness. Furthermore, the scattering ratio was analyzed by increasing the thickness of acrylic phantom on chest phantom. The result showed that the scattering ratio was increased to 57.2%, 62.4%, and 66.8% from 48.9%, respectively, when the acrylic phantom thickness was increased by 1 inch from 6.1 inches. The results of MCNPX simulation and the actual measured scattering dose showed similar results. Also, as a result of RMS measurement from acquired x-ray images, the standard deviation decreased as the object thickness increased. However, in the RSD analysis considering the average incident dose, the results were increased from 0.028 to 0.039, 0.051, 0.062 as the acrylic phantom thickness was increased from 6.1 inches to 7.1 inch, 8.1 inch, and 9.1 inch, respectively. It can be seen that the increase of the scattering effect due to the increase of the object thickness reduces the SNR. Also, the NPS results obtained by measuring scattered radiation incident on the detector resulted in the increase of the noise as the object thickness increased.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.145-152
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• 2010

Inveon PET is a recently developed preclinical PET system for small animal. This study was conducted to measure the performance of Inveon PET as recommended by the NEMA NU 4-2008. We measured the spatial resolution, the sensitivity, the scatter fraction and the NECR using a F-18 source. A 3.432 ns coincidence window was used. A $1\;mm^3$ sized F-18 point source was used for the measurement of spatial resolution within an energy window of 350~625 keV. PET acquisition was performed to obtain the spatial resolution from the center to the 5 cm offset toward the edge of the transverse FOV. Sensitivity, scatter fraction, and NECR were measured within an energy window of 350~750 keV. For measuring the sensitivity, a F-18 line source (length: 12.7 cm) was used with concentric 5 aluminum tubes. For the acquisition of the scatter fraction and the NECR, two NEMA scatter phantoms (rat: 50 mm in diameter, 150 mm in length; mouse: 25 mm in diameter, 70 mm in length) were used and the data for 14 half-lives (25.6 hr) was obtained using the F-18 line source (rat: 316 MBq, mouse: 206 MBq). The spatial resolution of the F-18 point source was 1.53, 1.50 and 2.33 mm in the radial, tangential and axial directions, respectively. The volumetric resolution was $5.43\;mm^3$ in the center. The absolute sensitivity was 6.61%. The peak NECR was 486 kcps @121 MBq (rat phantom), and 1056 kcps @128 MBq (mouse phantom). The values of the scatter fraction were 20.59% and 7.93% in the rat and mouse phantoms, respectively. The performances of the Inveon animal PET scanner were measured in this study. This scanner will be useful for animal imaging.