• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.28-36
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• 2007

The aim of this study was to identify the effect of suspension unloading (SU) and electrical stimulation upon the development of neonatal muscular system. For this study, the neonatal rats were randomly divided into three groups: a control group, an experimental group I, and an experimental group II. The SU for experimental group I and II was applied from postnatal day (PD) 5 to PD 30. The electrical stimulation for soleus muscle of experimental group IIwas applied from PD 16 to PD 30 using neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES), which gave isometric contraction with 10 pps for 30 minutes twice a day. In order to observe the effect of SU and ES, this study observed myocyte enhancer factor 2C (MEF2C) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) immunoreactivity in the soleus muscles at PD 15 and PD 30. In addition, the motor behavior test was performed through footprint analysis at PD 30. The following is the result. At PD 15, the soleus muscles of experimental group Iand II had significantly lower MEF2C, VEGF immunoreactivity than the control group. It proved that microgravity conditions restricted the development of the skeletal muscle cells at PD 15. At PD 30, soleus muscles of the control group and experimental group II had significantly higher MEF2C, VEGF, immunoreactivity than experimental group I. It proved that the NMES facilitated the development of the skeletal muscle cells. At PD 30, it showed that SU caused the decrease in stride length of parameter of gait analysis and an increase in toe-out angle, and that the NMES decreased these variations. These results suggest that weight bearing during neonatal developmental period is essential for muscular development. They also reveal that NMES can encourage the development of muscular systems by fully supplementing the effect of weight bearing, which is an essential factor in the neonatal developmental process.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.10c
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• pp.232-234
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• 2006

Diabetic neuropathy is one of the most common diabetic complications. In clinical practices, nerve conduction velocity (NCV) has been used as a standard method for diagnosing diabetic neuropathy. However, it applies maximum of 100mA electric stimulus to nerves causing stress and pain to patients. In this study. as a non-invasive method, $TcpO_2$ was utilized to investigate the difference and relationship between $TcpO_2$ and $SpO_2$ of normal and diabetic neuropathy subjects. In addition, a new method of diagnosing diabetic neuropathy using $TcpO_2$ is suggested. 50 normal subjects and 50 diabetic patients with neuropathy diagnosed by NCV participated in this study. Parameters used in this study were $TcpO_2,\;TcpCo_2$, and $SpO_2$. As a result of the $TcpO_2$ measurements, statistical significances were found from $TcpO_2$ of hands and feet from normal and patients group (p<0.01). $SpO_2$ measured from index finger of normal and patient groups showed no statistical significance (p>0.05). On the other hand, $SpO_2$ measured from great toes of normal and patient group showed statistical significance (p<0.01). Correlation coefficient between $SpO_2$ of finger and $TcpO_2$ of hand was 0.400 (p<0.01) and $SpO_2$ of toe and $TcpO_2$ of foot was 0.471 (p<0.01). Both correlation values were statistically significant. Sensitivities and specificities of the $TcpO_2$ method were found to be 66 % and 92 %, respectively. If suggested $TcpO_2$ method is used periodically. prevention and early diagnosis of diabetic neuropathy is possible.

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.67-75
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• 2024

Crosswalks play an important role for the safe movement of pedestrians in a complex urban environment. However, for the visually impaired, crosswalks can be a big risk factor. Although assistive tools such as braille blocks and acoustic traffic lights exist for safe walking, poor management can sometimes act as a hindrance to safety. This paper proposes a method to improve accuracy in a deep learning-based real-time crosswalk detection model that can be used in applications for pedestrian assistance for the disabled at the beginning. The image was binarized by utilizing the characteristic that the white line of the crosswalk image contrasts with the road surface, and through this, the crosswalk could be better recognized and the location of the crosswalk could be more accurately identified by using two models that learned the whole and the middle part of the crosswalk, respectively. In addition, it was intended to increase accuracy by creating a boundary box that recognizes crosswalks in two stages: whole and part. Through this method, additional frames that the detection model did not detect in RGB image learning from the crosswalk image could be detected.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.459-464
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• 2024

The purpose of this study is to design a toilet lifting seat to prevent falls accidents in the elderly while using the toilet. Prior to design, laws and national standards related to restroom use were investigated and the available space for the assistive devices to be installed was determined. In additions, considering the body size and operating range of the elderly, the optimal final position of the toilet seat is set so that users can use it more safely and conveniently without external help. Moreover, in order to provide an effective standing assistance function, a complex 4-bar link structure was applied to enable simultaneous seat elevation and angle adjustment when operating the device, and the appropriate link shape and dimensions were determined using a linkage program and UG NX. FEA analysis using ANSYS Workbench is performed to ensure the robustness of the stretched linkage and the feasibility of the lifting seat is verified through fabrication.

• KIISE Transactions on Computing Practices
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.17-23
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• 2018

The assessment and rehabilitation of patients with cognitive dysfunction is a field that currently requires assistive technology. While the paper-and-pencil test, such as the line tracing test (LTT), is one of the most commonly used assessment methods for cognitive dysfunction, it has become time-consuming due to its manual characteristic. The aim of this study was therefore to establish a computer-based real-time assessment system for patients without compromising the usefulness of the conventional paper-and-pencil based user tools. A digital pen-based assessment and rehabilitation system, the ePen System, could eliminate the time required for manual assessment while maintaining the measurement accuracy. The proposed system may assist rehabilitation specialists to assess and diagnose patients with unilateral visual neglect. This system can be applied to a range of assessment and rehabilitation modalities based on pen and paper. It can also be used for various patients such as those with Parkinson's disease, stroke, or different forms of brain lesions.

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.147-168
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to present suggestions for Korean libraries for disabled person after collecting and analyzing qualitative data upon library policies of national libraries, public libraries and libraries for disabled person in European countries including Sweden, UK and France. Korean national library support center for the disabled should be independent in order to have consistent policy and ability for its execution. It should also support private libraries for the disabled in inheriting professionalism and accumulated history. Developing alternative material, integrated catalogue and professional service is required by cooperative and systematic arrangements among national and public libraries for disabled person including schools and university libraries. Also, it should be able to grow not only on the basis of internal cooperation among libraries but also with the help of external organizations like social and legal systems, organizations related with the disabled and regional self governing bodies.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.45-52
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• 2010

It takes a lot of time or is even impossible to communicate for people with physical disability and/or speech impairment. Augmentative and Alternative Communication System is an important computerized tool that makes it possible for those people to communicate. Since not only speech impaired people, but also people with other physical disability cannot use conventional computer input devices easily such as keyboard and mouse, so more simple input devices are need for them to communicate. Thus, in this paper, I designed and implemented a communication aid system, with which they can communicate with simple inputs. I collected frequently used sentences by people with disability and categorized them into 9 everyday language groups. With these categories, they can select any sentence with few simple selections. If none of these categories includes the sentences they want, ChunJiIn keyboard is provided so that they can input the sentences, which can be added to the existing language groups for later use. The priority levels of the sentences in each group is constantly readjusted based on usage frequency so that the number of inputs can be reduced.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.2006-2013
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• 2015

Deaf are it is difficult to communicate to represent the voice heard, so theay use mostly using the speech, sign language, writing, etc. to communicate. It is the best way to use sign language, in order to communicate deaf and normal people each other. But they must understand to use sign language. In this paper, we designed and implementated finger language translation system to support communicate between deaf and normal people. We used leap motion as input device that can track finger and hand gesture. We used raspberry pi that is low power sing board computer to process input data and translate finger language. We implemented application used Node.js and MongoDB. The client application complied with HTML5 so that can be support any smart device with web browser.

• Journal of Computing Science and Engineering
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.40-50
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• 2012

Increase in the number of older people due to demographic changes poses great challenges to the social healthcare systems both in the Western and as well as in the Eastern countries. Support for older people by formal care givers leads to enormous temporal and personal efforts. Therefore, one of the most important goals is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of today's care. This can be achieved by the use of assistive technologies. These technologies are able to increase the safety of patients or to reduce the time needed for tasks that do not relate to direct interaction between the care giver and the patient. Motivated by this goal, this contribution focuses on applications of acoustic technologies to support users and care givers in ambient assisted living (AAL) scenarios. Acoustic sensors are small, unobtrusive and can be added to already existing care or living environments easily. The information gathered by the acoustic sensors can be analyzed to calculate the position of the user by localization and the context by detection and classification of acoustic events in the captured acoustic signal. By doing this, possibly dangerous situations like falls, screams or an increased amount of coughs can be detected and appropriate actions can be initialized by an intelligent autonomous system for the acoustic monitoring of older persons. The proposed system is able to reduce the false alarm rate compared to other existing and commercially available approaches that basically rely only on the acoustic level. This is due to the fact that it explicitly distinguishes between the various acoustic events and provides information on the type of emergency that has taken place. Furthermore, the position of the acoustic event can be determined as contextual information by the system that uses only the acoustic signal. By this, the position of the user is known even if she or he does not wear a localization device such as a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1-8
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• 2013

In the modern society, instructional methods using diverse media have appeared thanks to the development of Information & Communication Technology, and applicability of such instructional methods has been fully corroborated. However, customized contents allowing for disabled children's environment are still insufficient. Hence, this study produced educational contents of play activities for children with developmental disability, through applying N-screen technology, IT technology that can provide the same contents via a variety of digital media. The produced contents allow programs to be set up according to a child's individual characteristics and be carried out anywhere and anytime via an Internet-enabled digital device. Further, the developed contents were produced so that they could be accessed from a child's various environment (home, school, etc.) via a PC, a smart phone, a portable from a child's various environment (home, school, etc.) via a PC, a smart phone, a portable device, etc. and that the same educational program could be conducted in linkage at home, school, etc. Three children with Intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder were applied to the manufactured content. As a result, Content interaction between interaction between teachers and students in play training could use as a medium.In addition, the children's ability to select the appropriate components and reinforcements, special education professionals have used the content of the interviews are helpful in mediation than the existing content.