• Journal of KIISE:Computer Systems and Theory
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• v.29 no.11
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• pp.589-600
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• 2002

Deformable models offer an attractive approach for extracting three-dimensional boundary structures from volumetric images. However, conventional deformable models have three major limitations - sensitive to initial condition, difficult to represent complex boundaries with severe object concavities and protrusions, and self-intersective between model elements. This paper proposes a deformable model that is effective to extract geometrically complex boundary surfaces by improving away the limitations of conventional deformable models. First, the proposed deformable model resamples its elements hierarchically based on volume image pyramid. The hierarchical resampling overcomes sensitivity to initialization by extracting the boundaries of objects in a multiscale scheme and enhances geometric flexibility to be well adapted to complex image features by refining and regularizing the size of model elements based on voxel size. Second, the physics-based formulation of our model integrates conventional internal and external forces, as well as a non-self-intersecting force. The non-self-intersecting force effectively prevents collision or crossing over between non-neighboring model elements by pushing each other apart if they are closer than a limited distance. We show that the proposed model successively extracts the complex boundaries including severe concavities and protrusions, neither depending on initial position nor causing self-intersection, through the experiments on several computer-generated volume images and brain MR volume images.

• KIISE Transactions on Computing Practices
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.154-159
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• 2015

Over the past few years, user needs in the smartphone application market have been shifted from diversity toward intelligence. Here, we propose a novel cognitive agent that plans the daily routines of users using the lifelog data collected by the smart phones of individuals. The proposed method first employs DPGMM (Dirichlet Process Gaussian Mixture Model) to automatically extract the users' POI (Point of Interest) from the lifelog data. After extraction, the POI and other meaningful features such as GPS, the user's activity label extracted from the log data is then used to learn the patterns of the user's daily routine by POMDP (Partially Observable Markov Decision Process). To determine the significant patterns within the user's time dependent patterns, collaboration was made with the SNS application Foursquare to record the locations visited by the user and the activities that the user had performed. The method was evaluated by predicting the daily routine of seven users with 3300 feedback data. Experimental results showed that daily routine scheduling can be established after seven days of lifelogged data and feedback data have been collected, demonstrating the potential of the new method of place-time-activity coupled daily routine planning systems in the intelligence application market.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.15-26
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• 2003

Ultrasonic inspection methods are widely used for detecting flaws in materials. The signal analysis step plays a crucial part in the data interpretation process. A number of signal processing methods have been proposed to classify ultrasonic flaw signals. One of the more popular methods involves the extraction of an appropriate set of features followed by the use of a neural network for the classification of the signals in the feature space. This paper describes an alternative approach which uses the least mean square (LMS) method and expectation maximization (EM) algorithm with the model based deconvolution which is employed for classifying nondestructive evaluation (NDE) signals from steam generator tubes in a nuclear power plant. The signals due to cracks and deposits are not significantly different. These signals must be discriminated to prevent from happening a huge disaster such as contamination of water or explosion. A model based deconvolution has been described to facilitate comparison of classification results. The method uses the space alternating generalized expectation maximization (SAGE) algorithm In conjunction with the Newton-Raphson method which uses the Hessian parameter resulting in fast convergence to estimate the time of flight and the distance between the tube wall and the ultrasonic sensor Results using these schemes for the classification of ultrasonic signals from cracks and deposits within steam generator tubes are presented and showed a reasonable performances.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.26 no.3 s.43
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• pp.400-411
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• 1993

The aim of this study is to analyze the variations among hospitals and hospital groups in resource use and procedures of diagnostic and therapeutic process, such as laboratory tests, radiologic examinations, tissue diagnosis, timing of surgery after admission, the time required for operation. The study was performed for five procedures including cesarean section (C/S), appendectomy, cholecystectomy, cataract extraction, and pediatric pneumonia. The 2,316 subjects were selected from medical insurance claims list, and from this list 413 cases were sampled for medical record review. The patterns of resource utilization and process of treatment were described according to hospitals and characteristics of hospital groups. The major results were as follows : 1. The numbers of laboratory and radiologic tests showed significant difference among hospitals and hospital groups. In case of hospital groups, we could find tendencies of more tests with increasing hospital bed size. 2. In general, the proportion of operative cases evaluated by tissue diagnosis postoperatively among all operations ranged from 28.3% to 100%. The proportion varied among hospital groups, of which general hospital A group(more than 15 specialty) showed the highest proportion. 3. Post-admission delay until operation and the time required for operative procedure were not invariable among hospitals and hospital groups. The duration of operation in tertiary hospitals was slightly shorter than general hospitals, with varying statistical significance. We could find that probably there were differences of quality among hospitals in some components of procedures, which suggested that the implementation of quality assurance activities would be mandatory. In this study, we simply described the patterns of resource utilization and some features of clinical process, with institution of the need for advanced studies with in-depth analyses for each component of diagnosis and treatment procedures.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.27-35
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• 2005

Ultrasonic inspection methods are widely used for detecting flaws in materials. The signal analysis step plays a crucial part in the data interpretation process. A number of signal processing methods have been proposed to classify ultrasonic flaw signals. One of the more popular methods involves the extraction of an appropriate set of features followed by the use of a neural network for the classification of the signals in the feature spare. This paper describes an alternative approach which uses the least mean square (LMS) method and exportation maximization (EM) algorithm with the model based deconvolution which is employed for classifying nondestructive evaluation (NDE) signals from steam generator tubes in a nuclear power plant. The signals due to cracks and deposits are not significantly different. These signals must be discriminated to prevent from happening a huge disaster such as contamination of water or explosion. A model based deconvolution has been described to facilitate comparison of classification results. The method uses the space alternating generalized expectation maximiBation (SAGE) algorithm ill conjunction with the Newton-Raphson method which uses the Hessian parameter resulting in fast convergence to estimate the time of flight and the distance between the tube wall and the ultrasonic sensor. Results using these schemes for the classification of ultrasonic signals from cracks and deposits within steam generator tubes are presented and showed a reasonable performances.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.90-95
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• 2014

The researchs using brain-computer interface, the new interface system which connect human to macine, have been maded to implement the user-assistance devices for control of wheelchairs or input the characters. In recent researches, there are several trials to implement the speech recognitions system based on the brain wave and attempt to silent communication. In this paper, we studied how to extract features of vowel based on international phonetic alphabet (IPA), as a foundation step for implementing of speech recognition system based on electroencephalogram (EEG). We conducted the 2 step experiments with three healthy male subjects, and first step was speaking imagery with single vowel and second step was imagery with successive two vowels. We selected 32 channels, which include frontal lobe related to thinking and temporal lobe related to speech function, among acquired 64 channels. Eigen value of the signal was used for feature vector and support vector machine (SVM) was used for classification. As a result of first step, we should use over than 10th order of feature vector to analyze the EEG signal of speech and if we used 11th order feature vector, the highest average classification rate was 95.63 % in classification between /a/ and /o/, the lowest average classification rate was 86.85 % with /a/ and /u/. In the second step of the experiments, we studied the difference of speech imaginary signals between single and successive two vowels.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.532-541
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• 2012

An underwater transient signal is distinguished from an ambient noise. Database for the underwater transient signal is required since the underwater transient signal shows various characteristics depending on acoustic features. In the paper, hence, sound mask-filter was applied to extract the transient signals which exist temporally and locally in the ocean. The standard signal was chosen and cross-correlated with the raw signal. A mask-filter for a transient signal was obtained using the threshold which was decided by the maximum likelihood method in the envelope of the cross-correlated signal. Using the sound mask-filter, the transient signal of a sea catfish {Galeichthys felis (Linnaeus)} was extracted from the underwater ambient noise. Similarly, the man-made signal was added into the noise and it was extracted by the same method. We also have demonstrated the significance of the transient signal through comparing the extracted signals depending on the standard signal. In the results, the proposed method, sound mask-filtering, could be utilized as a database construction of the transient signals in underwater noise. Particularly, this study would be useful to extract the wanted signal from arbitrary signals.

• Maxillofacial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.333-344
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• 2008

The objectives of this study was to explore the growth pattern of the oral squamous cell carcinoma when overexpressed COX was inhibited, explore the pathway that COX inhibitors suppressed the proliferation of cancer cells, and then hereafter investigate the potential of COX as chemopreventive target for oral squamous cell carcinoma. For confirming the COX-dependent effect and mechanisms on growth of the oral cancer cells, we treated the nonselective NSAID, Mefenamic acid and COX-2 selective inhibitor, Celecoxib in HN4 cell line. And then the cell line was evaluated with MTT assay and growth curve, the production of PGE2, total RNA extraction and RT-PCR analysis, and TEM The results were obtained as follows: 1. After administration of medication, in the result of MTT assay, Celecoxib inoculated group inhibit the cell growth rather than Mefenamic acid inoculated group. 2. The growth curve of cell line showed as time passes by there was a dramatic cell growth in the control group, and gradual growth inhibition was found in medication inoculated group and, in Celecoxib inoculated group there was more inhibition of cell growth. 3. After the administration of medication, Celecoxib tend to inhibit the synthesis of PGE2 more than Mefenamic acid. Mefenamic acid inhibit the synthesis of PGE2 more as the concentration gets high, but Celecoxib inhibited the synthesis of PGE2 even in low concentration. 4. After the administration of medication, the revelation of COX mRNA in cell line, there was a 50% decrease in COX-1, 60% decrease in COX-2 as in $50{\mu}M$ Mefenamic acid, and in Celecoxib $50{\mu}M$ there was not much difference in COX-1 and 90% decrease in COX-2 was found. 5. HN4 cell line showed broken nucleus and tangled cytoskeleton bundles in cytoplasm which meant apoptotic features after the treatment of Celecoxib in TEM view. Depending on the above results, we estimate that the inhibition of the expression of COX-2 cause the growth suppression of the oral squamous cell carcinoma, and it get achieved through pathway of reduced PGE2 production and increased apoptosis. In addition to, because COX-2 selective inhibitor specifically act to COX-2, it is considered that COX-2 selective inhibitor has the adequate potential as chemopreventive agent for oral squamous cell carcinoma.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.73-83
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• 2015

When it comes to these buildings for business use, cooling load during summertime was reported to have great importance which, as a result, impressively increased interest in Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC). Such SHGC is considered to be lowered with the help of colors and functions of glass itself, internal shading devices, insulation films and others but basically, these external shading devices for initial blocking that would not allow solar heat to come in from outside the buildings are determined to be most effective. Of many different external shading devices, this thesis conducted an analysis on Exterior Venetian Blind. As for vertical shading devices, previous researches already calculated SHGC conveniently using concepts of sky-opening ratios. However in terms of the Venetian Blind, such correlation is not possibly applied. In light of that, in order to extract a valid correlation, this study first introduced a concept called shape factor, which would use the breadth and a space of a shade, before carrying out the analysis. As a consequence, the concept helped this study to find a very similar correlation. Results of the analysis are summarized as follows. (1) Regarding SHGC depending on the surface reflectance of a shade, an average of 2% error is observed and yet, the figure can always be ignored when it comes to a simple calculation. (2) As for SHGC of each bearing, this study noticed deviations of 4% or less and in the end, it is confirmed that extraction can be achieved with no more than one correlation formula. (3) When only the shape factor and nothing else is used for finding a correlation formula, the formula with a deviation of approximately 5% or less is what one would expect. (4) Since the study observed slight differences in bearings depending on ranges of the shape factors, it needed to extract a weighted value of each bearing, and learned that the smaller the shape factor, the wider the range of a weighted value. The study now suggests that a follow-up research to extract a simple calculation formula by dealing with all these various inclined angles of shade, solar radiation conditions of each region (the ratio of diffuse radiation to direct radiation and others) as well as seasonal features should be carried out.

• Journal of KIISE:Databases
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.507-520
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• 2003

In this paper, an automatic construction method of theme melody index for large music database and an associative content-based music retrieval mechanism in which the constructed theme melody index is mainly used to improve the users' response time are proposed. First, the system automatically extracted the theme melody from a music file by the graphical clustering algorithm based on the similarities between motifs of the music. To place an extracted theme melody into the metric space of M-tree, we chose the average length variation and the average pitch variation of the theme melody as the major features. Moreover, we added the pitch signature and length signature which summarize the pitch variation pattern and the length variation pattern of a theme melody, respectively, to increase the precision of retrieval results. We also proposed the associative content-based music retrieval mechanism in which the k-nearest neighborhood searching and the range searching algorithms of M-tree are used to select the similar melodies to user's query melody from the theme melody index. To improve the users' satisfaction, the proposed retrieval mechanism includes ranking and user's relevance feedback functions. Also, we implemented the proposed mechanisms as the essential components of content-based music retrieval systems to verify the usefulness.