• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.487-494
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of metatarsal pad (MP) compared with barefoot and MP with using different insoles on gait. 15 healthy females who had no history of injury in the lower extremity with an average age of 22.7 year(SD=1.35), height of 160 cm(SD=3.4), weight of 48.8 kg(SD=5.52) and average foot size of 232.5 mm(SD=6.8) participated in this study as the subjects. The subjects walked on a treadmill under four different experimental conditions: 1) walking with barefoot, 2) walking wearing MP 3) walking wearing a soft insole with MP(SIMP), 4) walking wearing a rigid insole with MP(HIMP). During walking, foot pressure data such as force, contacting area, peak pressure, and mean pressure was collected using Pedar-X System(Novel Gmbh, Germany) and EMG activity of lower limb muscles such as tibialis anterior(TA), lateral gastrocnemius(LG), rectus femoris(RF), and musculus biceps femoris(MBF) was gathered using Delsys EMG Work System(Delsys, USA). Collected data was then analyzed using paired t-test in order to investigate the effects of each of experimental conditions. As a result of the analysis, when MP and HIMP were equipped, overall contacting area was increased while the force, peak pressure and the mean pressure were decreased. Especially, when the SIMP was equipped, every data were significantly decreased. In case of EMG, wearing MP, SIMP and HIMP made three muscles(TA, LG, RF)'s activity decrease. A result of the analysis will be able to apply for manufacturing functional shoes, diabetes shoes, senior shoes and lower extremity orthosis. Significance of the study due to a metatarsal pad and the insole is to analyze the changes in muscle strength.

• Korean Journal of Oriental Medicine
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• v.12 no.3 s.18
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• pp.49-58
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• 2006

Although the usage of acupuncture for pain has increased in recent years, the mechanisms of acupuncture analgesia (AA) remain unclear. The lack of suitable experimental animal models for persistent pain, which show clear AA, has been the major stumbling block in the investigation of the physiological mechanisms of AA. In the present study, we test AA in two knee arthritis models induced by injection of CFA or carrageenan as persistent pain models. After induction of arthritis, the rat subsequently showed a reduced stepping force of the affected limb for the next several days. Electroacupuncture (EA) was applied to an acupuncture point each on the contralateral forelimb for 30 minutes under gaseous anesthesia. After the termination of EA, behavioral tests measuring stepping force were periodically conducted during the next several hours. EA produced a significant improvement of stepping force of the foot lasting for at least 2 hours when applied to LR2 in CFA model, and applied to ST36 in carrageenan model, but both points did not produce any significant effects in each other model. Further experiments showed that intraperitoneal pretreatment of naltrexone, a non-selective opioid antagonist, did not reduced the EA-induced improvement of stepping force in both of two models. These data suggest that EA produce analgesic effect in knee arthritic pain and the analgesic effect is specific to the acupuncture point depending on painful conditions.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.145-151
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• 2006

A large interindividual variability and some abnormally kinematic patterns at the lower extremity were the main features of the gait in children with Down syndrome. The purposes of this study were to investigate the gait asymmetry and biomechanical difference between dominant leg and non dominant leg in children with Down syndrome. Seven boys with Down Syndrome(age: $120{\pm}0.9yrs$, weight $34.4{\pm}8.4kg$, leg length: $68.7{\pm}5.0cm$) participated in this study. A 10.0 m ${\times}$ 1.3 m walkway with a firm dark surface was built and used for data collection. Three-dimensional motion analyses were performed to obtain the joint angles and range of motions. The vertical ground reaction forces(%BW) and impulses($%BW{\cdot}s$) were measured by two force plates embedded in the walkway. Asymmetry indices between the legs were computed for all variables. After decision the dominant leg and the non dominant leg with max hip abduction angle, paired samples t-test was employed for selected kinematic and ground reaction force variables to analyze the differences between the dominant leg and the non dominant leg. The max hip abduction angle during the swing phase showed most asymmetry, while the knee flexion angle at initial contact showed most symmetry in walking and running. The dominant leg showed more excessive abduction of hip in the swing phase and more flat-footed contact than the non dominant leg. Vertical peak force in running showed more larger than those of in walking, however, vertical impulse showed more small than walking due to decrease of support time. In conclusion, the foot of dominant leg contact more carefully than those of non dominant leg. And also, there are no significant difference between the dominant leg and the non dominant leg in kinematic variables and ground reaction force due to large interindividual variability.

• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.113-127
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• 2004

Objectives : The usage of acupuncture has gained popularity as an alternative method of treatment for certain chronic pain conditions. However, the efficacy of acupuncture in various diseases has not been fully established and the underlying mechanism is not clearly understood. In the present study, the effect of electroacupuncture (EA) applied to foot samli$(ST_{36})$ on the carrageenan-induced knee arthritic pain was examined. Methods : A common source of persistent pain in humans is the knee arthritis. Knee arthritis was induced by injection of 2 % carrageenan $50\;{\mu}l$ into the knee joint cavity. When rats developed pain behaviors, EA was applied for 30 min. under enflurane anesthesia with repeated train stimuli at the intensity of 10X of muscle twitch threshold. The weight bearing force of the hind limb was measured for an indicator of pain level after each manipulation. Results : The average weight borne by the hind limb during normal gait was 55% of total body weight, which was reduced to less than 10% after knee arthritis. EA improved the weight bearing of the arthritic hind limb significantly for the duration of 4 hr. EA applied to $ST_{36}$ point produced a significant improvement of stepping force of the arthritic foot lasting for at least 4 h. However, $GB_{31}$ point did not produce any significant increase of weight bearing force. The analgesic effect was specific to the acupuncture point since the analgesic effect on the knee arthritis model could not be mimicked by EA applied to a nearby point, $GB_{31}$. The relations between EA-induced analgesia and endogenous nitric oxide(NO) and inducible NO synthase(iNOS)/neuronal NOS was also examined. Results were turned out that both NO production and nNOS/iNOS protein expression which is increased by arthritis were suppressed by EA stimulation applied to $ST_{36}$ point. Conclusions : The data suggest 1) that EA produces a potent analgesic effect on the rat model of chronic knee arthritis pain in a point specific manner and 2) that EA-induced analgesia modulate endogenous NO through the suppression of nNOS/iNOS protein expression.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.310-318
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• 2008

This paper presents a parallel typed walking robot to improve walking space and stability region. The robot is designed by inserting an intermediate mechanism between upper leg mechanism and lower leg mechanism. The leg mechanism is composed of three legs and base, which form a parallel mechanism with ground. Seven different types of walking robot are invented by combining the leg mechanisms and an intermediate mechanism. Topology is applied to design the leg mechanism. A motor vector is adopted to determine Jacobian and a wrench vector is used to analyze dynamics of the robot. We explore the stability region of the robot from the reaction force of legs and compute ZMP including the holding force to contact the foot to a wall. This investigates a walking stability when the robot walks on the ground as well as on the wall. We examine the walking space generated by support legs and by swing legs. The robot has both a large positional walking space and a large orientational walking space so that it can climb from a floor up to a wall.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.33-39
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• 2010

During running, the human body experiences repeated impact force between the foot and the ground. The impact force is highly associated with injury of the lower extremity, comfort and running performance. Therefore, shoemakers have developed shoes with various midsole properties to prevent the injury of lower extremity, improve the comfort and enhance the running performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate influence of midsole hardness on shock absorption along the human body during running. Thirty two expert runners consented to participate in the study and ran at a constant speed with three different pairs of shoes with soft, medium and hard midsole respectively. Using accelerometers we measured the shock absorption from shoe heel to cervical vertebral column. In conclusion, at the shoe heel, shock was the greatest with the hard midsole. However because most shock was absorbed between shoe heel and the knee, notable influence of midsole was not detected upper knee. At shoe heel, regardless of midsole hardness, the shock of younger female was the greatest. The authors expect to apply this result for providing a guideline for utilizing proper midsole hardness for manufacturing age and gender-specific shoe.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.58-66
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• 2005

Usual human gait can be modeled as continual impact phenomenon that happens due to the topological change of the kinematic structure of the two feet. The human being adapts his own control algorithm to minimize the ill effect due to the collision with the environment. In order to operate a Humanoid robot like the human being, it is necessary to understand the physics of the impact and to derive an analytical model of the impact. In this paper, specially, we focus on impact analysis of the kicking motion in playing soccer. At the instant of impact, the external impulse exerted on the ball by the foot is an important property. Initially, we introduce the complete external impulse model of the lower-extremity of the human body and analyze the external impulses for several kicking postures of the lower-extremity. Secondly, a trajectory-planning algorithm of a ball, in which the initial velocity and the launch angle of the ball are calculated for a desired trajectory of the ball, will be introduced. The aerodynamic effect such as drag force and lift force is also considered. We carry out numerical simulation and experimentation to verify the effectiveness of the proposed analytical methodology.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1996.10b
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• pp.928-931
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• 1996

It is necessary to develop the simulator for the test of stability and torque before the walking experiment of biped robot, because a robot may be damaged in an actual experiment. This thesis deals with the development of three-dimensional simulator for improving efficiency and safety during development and experimentation. The simulator is composed of three parts-solving dynamics, rendering pictures and communicating with the robot. In the first part, the D-H parameter and parameter of links can be loaded from the file and edited in the program. The results are obtained by using the Newton-Euler method and are stored in the file. Through the above process, the proper length of link and driving force can be found by using simulator before designing the robot. The second part is organized so that the user can easily see a specific value or a portion he wants by setting viewing parameters interactively. A robot is also shown as a shaded rendering picture in this part. In the last part, the simulator sends each desired angle of joints to the robot controller and each real angle of joints is taken from the controller and passed to the second part. The safety of the experiment is improved by driving the robot after checking whether the robot can be actuatable or not and whether the ZMP is located within the sole of the foot or not for a specific gait. The state of the robot can be easily grasped by showing the shaded rendering picture which displays the position of the ZMP, the driving force and the shape of robot.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.85.2-85.2
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• 2012

In this paper, we introduce the 3D modeling of the coronal magnetic field in the solar active region by extrapolating from the 2D observational data numerically. First, we introduce a nonlinear force-free field (NLFFF) extrapolation code based on the MHD-like relaxation method implementing the cleaning a numerical error for Div B proposed by Dedner et al. 2002 and the multi-grid method. We are able to reconstruct the ideal force-free field, which was introduced by Low & Lou (1990), in high accuracy and achieve the faster speed in the high-resolution calculation (512^3 grids). Next we applied our NLFFF extrapolation to the solar active region NOAA 10930. First of all, we compare the 3D NLFFF with the flare ribbons of Ca II images observed by the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) aboard on the Hinode. As a result, it was found that the location of the two foot-points of the magnetic field lines well correspond to the flare ribbon. The result indicates that the NLFFF well capture the 3D structure of magnetic field in the flaring region. We further report the stability of the magnetic field by estimating the twist value of the field line and finally suggest the flare onset mechanism.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.165-173
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• 2018

Objective: The purpose of this study is to provide biomechanical basis data for the analysis of the maximum vertical ground reaction force, the maximum plantar pressure, the average plantar pressure, and the contact area according to the type of the insole through the insole insertion type foot pressure gauge. Method: In the treadmill, the slope was set at 10%, the first type A was worn at a walking speed of 3.5 km / h, and then walking was carried out using B, C, and D types. Data from 20 boots with consistent walking were extracted and plantar pressure data were collected and analyzed. Results: Functional insole was more effective than conventional insole for maximum vertical ground reaction force, maximum plantar pressure, average plantar pressure, and contact area at 10% of treadmill ramps. Conclusion: In this study, D-type insole supports the cushion in the middle part and supports the heel cup with hardness in the hind part, so that it is the most effective insole by lowering the plantar pressure and dispersing it more widely.