• Journal of Oriental Neuropsychiatry
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.21-39
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• 2010

Objectives : This study was to investigate the characteristics of the heart rate variability(HRV), types of insomnia and accompanying symptoms of 175 insomnia patients. Methods : For this study we carried out HRV, Inbody of 175 patients with insomnia who have come to Dongeui oriental hospital of Dongeui university from the period of Janaury 2008 to September 2010. We studied the association of the insomnia patients' age and gender with HRV, accompanying symptoms and the types of insomnia. The information of the accompanying symptoms and types of insomnia was based on each patients' progress note. Results : l. There was no significant differences in the characteristics of HRV between male and female. 2. The most frequent symptom shown among the insmonia patents' was headache(41.14%). 3. Comparing the symptoms between the gender, female patients had more dry mouth, alternative periodic chill and fever, and hot flush symptoms than the male patients. 4. Comparing the symptoms between the age groups(divided in two), the lower age group (20~59) had more dizziness and constipation symptoms than the higher age group (over 60). 5. Comparing the types of insomma between the age group, the higher age group (over 60) had more termination insomnia. 6. The types of insomnia of the entire insomnia patients were onset insomnia (73.1%), maintenance insomnia(20.6%), termination insomma(l7.1 %), shallow sleep (52.6%), listed by order of frequency. 7. The patients who takes hypnotics had more anorexia symptoms than the patients who doesn't take hypnotics. 8. There was no visible differences of the average fractal portrait between male and female. The age group of 20~30yrs. had the highest average fractal portrait, and the age group of 30~59yrs. the second highest, and the age group over 60yrs. the lowest. 9. The average of the regulation reserves of the autonomic nervous system(B2) - was lower than the regulation level of the ANS at the present (Bl). 10. When compared the priority of the function of the ANS, it showed that the proportion of HF($38.61{\pm}29.19%$)was the most, and than VLF($30.65{\pm}23.36%$), LF($20.04{\pm}19.13%$) the least. 11. The average of the compensation level of the central nervous system at present(Cl) - was lower than the compensation reserves of the CNS(C2). 12. The average of the control reserves of the cerebrum(D2) - was lower than the control level of the cerebrum at the present (Dl). 13. There was no visible differences between different sexes and ages in pulse rate. 14. The abdomen fat ratio above the line of the insomnia patients was 77.97% in male and 93.1% in female. Both sexes showed that insomnia patients had more abdomen fat that the standard, and female patients had more abd. fat than male patients. Conclusions : This study shows that the HRV of insomnia patients had no significant differences between gender. Fractal portrait, HF, LF and VLF of the insomnia patients are in inverse proportion to the age. The study of the Body Component Analysis showed that female had more abdomen fat than male, and both gender showed more abdomen fat than the standard. When looked into the accompanying symptoms of the insomnia patients, the symptoms show differences according to gender, age and hypnotics taking, as shown as below. In the entire patients, Headache was the most accompanying symptom. Female had more dry mouth, alternative periodic chill and fever, and hot flush symptoms than male. Higher age groups had more dizziness and constipation as accompanying symptoms than lower age groups. Patients who takes hypnotics had more anorexia than those who dont.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.5483-5488
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• 2012

Background: Although nicotine dependence plays a role as a main barrier for smoking cessation, there is still a lack of solid evidence on the validity of biomarkers to determine nicotine dependence in clinical settings. This study aimed to investigate whether urinary cotinine levels could reflect the severity of nicotine dependence in active smokers. Materials and Methods: Data regarding general characteristics and smoking status was collected using a self-administered smoking questionnaire. The Fagerstr$\ddot{o}$m test for nicotine dependence (FTND) was used to determine nicotine dependence of the participants, and a total of 381 participants were classified into 3 groups of nicotine dependence: low (n=205, 53.8%), moderate (n=127, 33.3%), and high dependence groups (n=49, 12.9%). Stepwise multiple linear regression model and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves analyses were used to determine the validity of urinary cotinine for high nicotine dependence. Results: In correlation analysis, urinary cotinine levels increased with FTND score (r=0.567, P<0.001). ROC curves analysis showed that urinary cotinine levels predicted the high-dependence group with reasonable accuracy (optimal cut-off value=1,000 ng/mL; AUC=0.82; P<0.001; sensitivity=71.4%; specificity=74.4%). In stepwise multiple regression analysis, the total smoking period (${\beta}$=0.042, P=0.001) and urinary cotinine levels (${\beta}$=0.234, P<0.001) were positively associated with nicotine dependence, whereas an inverse association was observed between highest education levels (>16 years) and nicotine dependence (${\beta}$=-0.573, P=0.034). Conclusions: The results of this study support the validity of using urinary cotinine levels for assessment of nicotine dependence in active smokers.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.428-437
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• 2009

The Performance research about EEG-BCI algorithm in BCI-naive subjects is very important for evaluating the applicability to the public. We analyzed the result of the performance evaluation experiment about the EEG-BCI algorithm in BCI-naive subjects on three different aspects. The EEG-BCI algorithm used in this paper is composed of the common spatial pattern(CSP) and the least square linear classifier. CSP is used for obtaining the characteristic of event related desynchronization, and the least square linear classifier classifies the motor imagery EEG data of the left hand or right hand. The performance evaluation experiments about EEG-BCI algorithm is conducted for 40 men and women whose age are 23.87${\pm}$2.47. The performance evaluation about EEG-BCI algorithm in BCI-naive subjects is analyzed in terms of the accuracy, the relation between the information transfer rate and the accuracy, and the performance changes when the different types of cue were used in the training session and testing session. On the result of experiment, BCI-naive group has about 20% subjects whose accuracy exceed 0.7. And this results of the accuracy were not effected significantly by the types of cue. The Information transfer rate is in the inverse proportion to the accuracy. And the accuracy shows the severe deterioration when the motor imagery is less then 2 seconds.

• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.25-36
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• 2004

This paper proposes and measures the performance of a distributed EIT (Electrical Impedance Tomography) image reconstruction algorithm which has a master-slave structure. The image construction is a computation based application of which the execute time is proportional to the cube of the unknowns. After receiving a specific frame from the master, each computing node extracts the basic elements by executing the first iteration of Kalman Filter in parallel. Then the master merges the basic element lists into one group and then performs the sequential iterations with the reduced number of unknowns. Every computing node has MATLAB functions as well as extended library implemented for the exchange of MATLAB data structure. The master implements another libraries such as threaded multiplication, partitioned inverse, and fast Jacobian to improve the speed of the serial execution part. The parallel library reduces the reconstruction time of image visualization about by half, while the distributed grouping scheme further reduces by about 12 times for the given target object when there are 4 computing nodes.

• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.294-298
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• 2009

Purpose: The pharyngeal flap is one of the popular surgical method to treat the problem of velopharyngeal dysfunction. This study evaluated speech outcomes of patients who underwent superiorly based pharyngeal flap surgery based on timing of surgery. Methods: A restrospective review of 50 patients who underwent pharyngeal flap surgery for velopharyngeal insufficiency between September 1996 and January 2008 was undertaken. Thirty patients with an available preoprative and postoperative speech assessments with at least 6 months of follow-up were included in this study. We checked out the significance of speech improvement after surgery analysing preoperative and postoperative scoring of speech assessment. We also investigated the direct relationship between the age at surgery and the degree of speech improvement, and the improvement score in different age groups. Results: The mean score of preoperative speech was $52.6{\pm}7.4points$ and postoperative speech was $58.6{\pm}6.5points$, which presented significant postoperative speech improvement with an average of 5.9 points(p<0.01). There was a significant inverse relationship between the age at operation and speech improvement degree(p<0.01, r = -0.54). Comparing the age groups, the age group of 4 to 5 years presented statistically significant speech improvement(p<0.01). Conclusion: we propose that all patients indicated should take pharyngeal flap irrespective of age. In this study, the younger the age at surgery, the higher degree of speech improvement, for which we suggest that surgical approach should be undertaken as early as possible, especially younger than age 5 years.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.463-474
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• 2017

Heterogeneous background fractures of granite and sedimentary rocks in Gyeongju LILW (low-intermediate level radioactive waste) facility area have been characterized quantitatively by analyzing fracture parameters (orientation, intensity, and size). Surface geological survey, electrical resistivity survey, and acoustic televiewer log data were used to characterize the heterogeneity of background fractures. Bootstrap method was applied to represent spatial anisotropy of variably oriented background fractures in the study area. As a result, the fracture intensity was correlated to the inverse distance from the faults weighted by nearest fault size and the mean value of electrical resistivity and the average volumetric fracture intensity ($P_{32}$) was estimated as $3.1m^2/m^3$. Size (or equivalent radius) of the background fractures ranged from 1.5 m to 86 m and followed to power-law distribution based on the fractal property of fracture size, using fractures measured on underground silos and identified surface faults.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.250-257
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• 2017

Vitamin D is a cofactor responsible for autoimmune disorders. There is no agreement in the studies investigating the association between vitamin D and fibromyalgia. This study aims to combine the conflicting results of the primary studies which compared these patients with control groups regarding the serum concentration of vitamin D. This meta-analysis has been designed based on PRISMA guidelines. Relevant keywords were searched in PubMed, Science direct, Scopus, Cochrane, and Google scholar and primary studies were selected. After screening the eligible studies according to inclusion/exclusion criteria, we investigated the risk of bias in the selected studies and also the heterogeneity between the primary results using Cochrane (Q) and I-squared ($I^2$) indices. The primary results were combined using inverse variance method and Cohen statistics as well as a random effects model. Publication bias was assessed using Egger test. Sensitivity analysis was applied to investigate the influence of each primary study on the final result of the meta-analysis. Suspected factors in the heterogeneity were assessed using meta-regression models. We entered 12 eligible studies in the meta-analysis including 851 cases compared with 862 controls. The standardized mean difference of Vitamin D between the two groups was -0.56 (95% confidence interval: -1.05, -0.08). Our meta-analysis showed that vitamin D serum levels of patients with fibromyalgia was significantly lower than that of control group.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.1633-1649
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• 2017

In remote sensing image processing, the traditional fusion algorithm is based on the Intensity-Hue-Saturation (IHS) transformation. This method does not take into account the texture or spectrum information, spatial resolution and statistical information of the photos adequately, which leads to spectrum distortion of the image. Although traditional solutions in such application combine manifold methods, the fusion procedure is rather complicated and not suitable for practical operation. In this paper, an improved IHS transformation fusion algorithm based on the local variance weighting scheme is proposed for remote sensing images. In our proposal, firstly, the local variance of the SPOT (which comes from French "Systeme Probatoire d'Observation dela Tarre" and means "earth observing system") image is calculated by using different sliding windows. The optimal window size is then selected with the images being normalized with the optimal window local variance. Secondly, the power exponent is chosen as the mapping function, and the local variance is used to obtain the weight of the I component and match SPOT images. Then we obtain the I' component with the weight, the I component and the matched SPOT images. Finally, the final fusion image is obtained by the inverse Intensity-Hue-Saturation transformation of the I', H and S components. The proposed algorithm has been tested and compared with some other image fusion methods well known in the literature. Simulation result indicates that the proposed algorithm could obtain a superior fused image based on quantitative fusion evaluation indices.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.72-86
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• 2013

Industrial agglomeration is an old theme in economic geography and many studies have been devoted to this topic. But only few have empirically looked at the time trend of industrial agglomeration. This study measured agglomeration of U.S. industries over last 29 years and measurement results indicated that industrial clustering has occurred during the study period in all study industries without a common time trend shared amongst the study industries. The agglomeration levels then were plugged in to investigate causalities, i.e. causal relations, around industrial agglomeration. Three variables were selected to see causal relations with agglomeration levels based on literatures, and our focus was given to the causality between transport network and agglomeration. Causal relation from transport to agglomeration was found in various industries and this supports the argument that the development of transportation influences industrial agglomeration. At the same time inverse and bi-directional causalities were also revealed implying more complex relationship between these two.

• The korean journal of orthodontics
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.225-234
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• 2013

Objective: The purpose of this study was to classify Korean young adults into 3 groups on the basis of upper incisor exposure rates (UIERs) and to compare the skeletal, dental, and soft tissue variables. Methods: Samples were obtained from 127 students at the College of Dentistry, Wonkwang University in South Korea. Facial photographs of frontal posed smiles and lateral cephalograms of the subjects were taken. The subjects were divided into 3 groups on the basis of UIERs and 20 measurements were compared among the 3 groups. The correlations between the variables were determined. Results: Male and female subjects showed significant differences in the group distribution. Male subjects showed higher frequencies of low smiles, and female subjects showed higher frequencies of high smiles. The vertical height of the anterior alveolar process of the maxilla directly correlated with the UIER. However, the UIER showed no significant correlation with the vertical height of the anterior basal bone or the inclination of the upper incisor axis. In female subjects, the upper central incisor clinical crown length showed an inverse correlation with the UIER. However, this variable showed no significant correlation with the UIER in male subjects. Conclusions: The UIER was directly correlated with the levator muscle activity of the upper lip and inversely correlated with the upper lip thickness, yet there was no correlation between the UIER and upper lip length at rest.