• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.2 no.2 s.4
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• pp.145-189
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• 2002

This paper explores into the potential contribution of welfare science and technology(WST) to meeting the challenges of ageing. Drawing on the literature about gerontechnology, this paper considers the application of scientific knowledge for welfare of an aging population. WST for the improvement of the daily functioning of the elderly people can not only prevent, delay or compensate for the declines or impairments of coginitive and physical functions (by assistive technology) but also enhance personal ability to overcome problems either by supporting the person's abilities (by supportive technology) or by changing the environment (by public welfare technology). This paper draws attention to a paradigm change in the conceptualization of disability and its ramifications for the role of technology and aging. A range of approaches such as Barrier-Free design, Universal Design points to new directions of WST in which products and services are devised to improve the quality of life for all people, and hence enhancing the socio-economic vitality. It is suggested that the future of welfare science and technology will be based in large measure on its goal to reduce or prevent individual and structural lag in the relationships between people and their environments. Addressing issues of the broader physical and social environment will emphasize the goal of prevention and the view that environmental needs for aging population are changing over time.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.402-410
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• 2000

The current study examines principles to develop universal design guidelines for manufacturing information and communication devices. The study surveyed inconveniences disabled people experience in the information and communication environment with current technology and design, and suggested abbreviated universal design guidelines. Design guidelines should reduce those inconveniences detected through the task analysis and GOMS modelling of the usage by disabled people. Design and functional features of mobile phones were examined since they quickly became essential communication tools for both disabled and non-disabled people alike. Design issues were examined in controls, input methods, and output methods in terms of human factors and ergonomics. It is expected that both governments and manufacturers can save costs to produce and manufacture special assistive devices for disabled people by implementing universal design in their communication products. Since it is becoming the international trend, application of the universal design should be enforced to all communication and information devices by government for the higher quality of life for all groups of user.

• Journal of Multimedia Information System
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.227-232
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• 2022

Disasters are now becoming commonplace and especially the vulnerable group such as the disabled, the elderly, children and foreigners are in a state of overlapping disasters. In this situation, ATSC 3.0-based UHDTV disaster information service for the visually and hearing impaired has been developing. This study focuses on the demand data collected through in-depth interview with the impaired. The demand analysis data is very important to development process of technology. The results of the interview show that it is essential to link the UHDTV disaster signals with home-network, IoT, wearable devices, and various assistive devices for the impaired (hearing aid, smart light bulbs, warning light, etc.). In outdoor space, UHDTV disaster information must be connected to public display media, digital signage, kiosk, screens in bus or taxi. If communication aids for the visually and hearing impaired are equipped with a function that can transmit and receive disaster information, it will help to minimize disaster damage.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.17-21
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• 2015

There have been sustained developments of advanced technologies using traffic safety facilities recently and techniques for identifying failure modes and devices which could result in fatal outcomes. The purpose of this research is aimed at improving the driving conditions in advance through analyzing the IT convergence, driving education, researches for vehicles, field of construction and robotics. The researchers evaluate on usability tests of the driving with 26 candidates through focusing on safety, convenience, efficiency, effectiveness. Using specialized LED panel to enhance driving performances of disabled people are for cautious road conditions like foggy weather or heavy rain. As a result, there were improvements in the driving conditions, and candidates reported this system was helpful. It allows them for maintaining proper driving all times and was especially informative for people with low vision or visually impaired. This system plays a pivotal role as a prevention mechanism not only for regular drivers but also for further delict of traffic violations or accident offenders who already have former record on tort.

• Journal of Korean Physical Therapy Science
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.15-29
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• 2022

Background: The purpose of this study was to suggest agenda priorities for research and development with physical therapy technology. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: A survey was consecutively done to 62 experts working in physical therapy research areas to investigate the priority of the categories. Paired T-tests and Importance-Performance Analysis using SPSS 21.0 package were conducted to find the differences between importance and satisfaction of the categories and the order of priority. Results: In results, it was developed that the research and development with physical therapy technology were divided with 18 categories. And the importance were significantly higher than satisfaction in 18 categories. Specifically, categories about assistive technology and robot rehabilitation were found to be on the high importance and lower performance quadrant. Conclusion: In sum, this study was meaningful in finding usage categories of research and development with physical therapy technology and investigating Importance-Performance differences for deriving research and development with physical therapy technology.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.384-391
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• 2008

For use in the guide system for the people who are visually impaired, an obstacle searching device using synchronous ultrasonic wave emission was proposed and developed. Generally, the conventional obstacle detection methods use the ultrasonic distance measuring device with successive scan method. However, the scan method causes a theoretical error and it couldn't estimate accurate obstacle distances. The proposed synchronous firing method use the plural number of ultrasonic sensors which emit ultrasonic wave simultaneously and estimate the distance to the closest obstacle relatively accurately. We analytically analyzed the errors of the conventional and proposed methods and compared the quantitative differences of the errors. The differences verified by obstacle search experiments. Using the proposed ultrasonic wave synchronous firing method, 3 dimensional obstacle location estimating device was designed and implemented. The results of the 3 dimensional obstacle detecting experiments showed the proposed method had good performances and it would be sufficiently use in the guide system for the people who are visually impaired.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.23 no.12
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• pp.1454-1463
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• 2020

An important factor in eye-tracking PC interface for general paralyzed patients is the implementation of the mouse interface, for manipulating the GUI. With a successfully implemented mouse interface, users can generate mouse events exactly at the point of their choosing. However, it is difficult to define this interaction in the eye-tracking interface. This problem has been defined as the Midas touch problem and has been a major focus of eye-tracking research. There have been many attempts to solve this problem using blink, voice input, etc. However, it was not suitable for general paralyzed patients because some of them cannot wink or speak. In this paper, we propose a mouth-pop-up, eye-tracking mouse interface that solves the Midas touch problem as well as becoming a suitable interface for general paralyzed patients using a common RGB camera. The interface presented in this paper implements a mouse interface that detects the opening and closing of the mouth to activate a pop-up menu that the user can select the mouse event. After implementation, a performance experiment was conducted. As a result, we found that the number of malfunctions and the time to perform tasks were reduced compared to the existing method.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.81-89
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• 2017

In this paper, we propose a gait pattern recognition method for intelligent prosthesis that enables walking in various environments of femoral amputees. The proposed gait mode changing method is a single sensor based algorithm which can discriminate gait surface and gait phase using only strain gauges sensor, and it is designed to simplify the algorithm based on multiple sensors of existing intelligent prosthesis and to reduce cost of prosthesis system. For the recognition algorithm, we analyzed characteristics of the ground reaction force generated during gait of normal person and defined gait step segmentation and gait detection condition, A gait analyzer was constructed for the gait experiment in the environment similar to the femoral amputee. The validity of the paper was verified through the defined detection conditions and fabricated instruments. The accuracy of the algorithm based on the single sensor was 95%. Based on the proposed single sensor-based algorithm, it is considered that the intelligent prosthesis system can be made inexpensive, and the user can directly grasp the state of the walking surface and shift the walking mode. It is confirmed that it is possible to change the automatic walking mode to switch the walking mode that is suitable for the walking mode.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.261-270
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• 2017

Bad sitting postures are known to cause for a variety of diseases or physical deformation. However, it is not easy to fit right sitting posture for long periods of time. Therefore, methods of distinguishing and inducing good sitting posture have been constantly proposed. Proposed methods were image processing, using pressure sensor attached to the chair, and using the IMU (Internal Measurement Unit). The method of using IMU has advantages of simple hardware configuration and free of various constraints in measurement. In this paper, we researched on distinguishing sitting postures with a small amount of data using just one IMU. Feature extraction method was used to find data which contribution is the least for classification. Machine learning algorithms were used to find the best position to classify and we found best machine learning algorithm. Used feature extraction method was PCA(Principal Component Analysis). Used Machine learning models were five : SVM(Support Vector Machine), KNN(K Nearest Neighbor), K-means (K-means Algorithm) GMM (Gaussian Mixture Model), and HMM (Hidden Marcov Model). As a result of research, back neck is suitable position for classification because classification rate of it was highest in every model. It was confirmed that Yaw data which is one of the IMU data has the smallest contribution to classification rate using PCA and there was no changes in classification rate after removal it. SVM, KNN are suitable for classification because their classification rate are higher than the others.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.61-69
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• 2015

In this paper, we propose and examine the feasibility of the robot-assisted behavioral intervention system so as to strengthen positive response of the children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) for learning social skills. Based on well-known behavioral treatment protocols, the robot offers therapeutic training elements of eye contact and emotion reading respectively in child-robot interaction, and it subsequently accomplishes pre-allocated meaningful acts by estimating the level of children's reactivity from reliable recognition modules, as a coping strategy. Furthermore, for the purpose of labor saving and attracting children's interest, we implemented the robotic stimulation configuration with semi-autonomous actions capable of inducing intimacy and tension to children in instructional trials. From these configurations, by evaluating the ability of recognizing human activity as well as by showing improved reactivity for social training, we verified that the proposed system has some positive effects on social development, targeted for preschoolers who have a high functioning level.