• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.181-188
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• 2008

Purpose: In order to enhance the efficiency of respiratory gated 4-dimensional radiation therapy for more regular and stable respiratory period and amplitude, a respiration training system was designed, and its efficacy was evaluated. Materials and Methods: The experiment was designed to measure the difference in respiration regularity following the use of a training system. A total of 11 subjects (9 volunteers and 2 patients) were included in the experiments. Three different breathing signals, including free breathing (free-breathing), guided breathing that followed training software (guided-breathing), and free breathing after the guided-breathing (post guided-breathing), were consecutively recorded in each subject. The peak-to-peak (PTP) period of the breathing signal, standard deviation (SD), peak-amplitude and its SD, area of the one cycle of the breathing wave form, and its root mean square (RMS) were measured and computed. Results: The temporal regularity was significantly improved in guided-breathing since the SD of breathing period reduced (free-breathing 0.568 vs guided-breathing 0.344, p=0.0013). The SD of the breathing period representing the post guided-breathing was also reduced, but the difference was not statistically significant (free-breathing 0.568 vs. guided-breathing 0.512, p=ns). Also the SD of measured amplitude was reduced in guided-breathing (free-breathing 1.317 vs. guided-breathing 1.068, p=0.187), although not significant. This indicated that the tidal volume for each breath was kept more even in guided-breathing compared to free-breathing. There was no change in breathing pattern between free-breathing and guided-breathing. The average area of breathing wave form and its RMS in postguided-breathing, however, was reduced by 7% and 5.9%, respectively. Conclusion: The guided-breathing was more stable and regular than the other forms of breathing data. Therefore, the developed respiratory training system was effective in improving the temporal regularity and maintaining a more even tidal volume.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.4603-4608
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• 2015

Background: To determine the potential value of serum tumor markers in predicting pCR (pathological complete response) during neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively monitored the pro-, mid-, and post-neoadjuvant treatment serum tumor marker concentrations in patients with locally advanced breast cancer (stage II-III) who accepted pre-surgical chemotherapy or chemotherapy in combination with targeted therapy at Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center between September 2011 and January 2014 and investigated the association of serum tumor marker levels with therapeutic effect. Core needle biopsy samples were assessed using immunohistochemistry (IHC) prior to neoadjuvant treatment to determine hormone receptor, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2(HER2), and proliferation index Ki67 values. In our study, therapeutic response was evaluated by pCR, defined as the disappearance of all invasive cancer cells from excised tissue (including primary lesion and axillary lymph nodes) after completion of chemotherapy. Analysis of variance of repeated measures and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were employed for statistical analysis of the data. Results: A total of 348 patients were recruited in our study after excluding patients with incomplete clinical information. Of these, 106 patients were observed to have acquired pCR status after treatment completion, accounting for approximately 30.5% of study individuals. In addition, 147patients were determined to be Her-2 positive, among whom the pCR rate was 45.6% (69 patients). General linear model analysis (repeated measures analysis of variance) showed that the concentration of cancer antigen (CA) 15-3 increased after neoadjuvant chemotherapy in both pCR and non-pCR groups, and that there were significant differences between the two groups (P=0.008). The areas under the ROC curves (AUCs) of pre-, mid-, and post-treatment CA15-3 concentrations demonstrated low-level predictive value (AUC=0.594, 0.644, 0.621, respectively). No significant differences in carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) or CA12-5 serum levels were observed between the pCR and non-pCR groups (P=0.196 and 0.693, respectively). No efficient AUC of CEA or CA12-5 concentrations were observed to predict patient response toward neoadjuvant treatment (both less than 0.7), nor were differences between the two groups observed at different time points. We then analyzed the Her-2 positive subset of our cohort. Significant differences in CEA concentrations were identified between the pCR and non-pCR groups (P=0.039), but not in CA15-3 or CA12-5 levels (p=0.092 and 0.89, respectively). None of the ROC curves showed underlying prognostic value, as the AUCs of these three markers were less than 0.7. The ROC-AUCs for the CA12-5 concentrations of inter-and post-neoadjuvant chemotherapy in the estrogen receptor negative HER2 positive subgroup were 0.735 and 0.767, respectively. However, the specificity and sensitivity values were at odds with each other which meant that improving either the sensitivity or specificity would impair the efficiency of the other. Conclusions: Serum tumor markers CA15-3, CA12-5, and CEA might have little clinical significance in predicting neoadjuvant treatment response in locally advanced breast cancer.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.111-132
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• 2018

As China continues to evolve as a major economic power and the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the Republic of Korea and China was ratified on June 1, 2015, market volume between the two countries is expected to grow more rapidly. This study aims on improving the efficiency of car-ferry lines. We conducted two surveys- for shippers and forwarders of car-ferry companies, and container liners. The study analyzes the decision factors for delivery companies and their importance for shippers and forwarders of car-ferry companies and container liners. Based on analysis of prior studies on the competition for car-ferry companies and liners, three primary variables are selected-promptness, economics, and safety. The promptness variable consists of shipping time, loading/unloading time, and customs clearing time. The economic variable consists of marine transportation cost from a domestic harbor to China, loading/unloading cost in the harbor, and overland transport cost from the harbor to shippers inland. Finally, the safety variable consists of cargo damage rates, safety facilities, such as lashing and shoring, and punctuality of transportation time. The survey and AHP results show that the promptness, safety, and economics factors are 0.549, 0.309, and 0.142 in the shipper groups of car-ferry companies' category, respectively. It indicates that there is considerable difference in the importance of each factor. In contrast, the factors are 0.350, 0.348, and 0.302 in the forwarders category, which suggests that there is little difference in each factor's importance. As for shippers and forwarders of liners, the importance of each factor is found to be in the following order: economics, safety, and promptness.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.37-45
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• 2010

The effects of an Acanthopanacis cortex water extract on lipid levels, lipid peroxide, total antioxidant status and antioxidant enzyme activities were evaluated in rats fed one of the following diets for six weeks: normal diet and deionized water (ND), normal diet and Acanthopanacis cortex water extract (NDC), high fat diet and deionized water (HFD), high fat diet and Acanthopanacis cortex water extract (HFDC). The food intakes were significantly lower, but the food efficiency ratios were significantly higher in the high fat diet groups. The level of HDL-cholesterol in the plasma was significantly increased and the levels of LDL-cholesterol and triglyceride in the plasma were significantly decreased by the Acanthopanacis cortex water extract in the high fat diet groups. As a a result, the AI (atherogenic index) and CRF (cardiac risk factor) were significantly lower in the high fat diet groups that were treated with Acanthopanacis cortex water extract. The triglyceride and the total cholesterol of the liver were also significantly upregulated in the high fat diet groups, while the total cholesterol of the liver decreased in response to treatment with Acanthopanacis cortex water extract (HFDC). The plasma and liver concentrations of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were significantly reduced by the addition of Acanthopanacis cortex water extract to the normal diet groups. The total antioxidant status (TAS) in the plasma was significantly upregulated by adding Acanthopanacis cortex water extract to the high fat diet groups. The activities of SOD, catalase and GST were also significantly higher in the Acanthopanacis cortex water extract groups when compared to the ionized water groups. The activity of GSH-Px and the concentration of GSH in the liver were significantly higher following the addition of Acanthopanacis cortex water extract to the high fat diet groups. Taken together, these results suggest that a supplementation of the diet of rats fed a high fat diet with Acanthopanacis cortex water extract improves lipid metabolism, reduces lipid peroxide and improves the activities of antioxidant enzymes, which may have favorable effects on antioxidant systems by improving the total antioxidant status (TAS).

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.79 no.1
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• pp.56-70
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• 1990

Eighteen Korean white pine (P. koraiensis S. et Z.) families were tested in 3 different regions from age 5 to 9. Family and site were significant sources of variation for seedling survival and field growth, whereas the effects of family x site interaction ware relatively small as compared with the former sources of variation. Variance components estimated from the separate and combined sites indicated that the most variabilities were associated with individual trees within plot. Family ${\times}$ site interaction components as a percentage of family variance decreased sharply with age. Heritability estimates varied with testing site and tree age. Combined analyses, however, showed a moderate change in heritability with increasing tree ages, and demonstrated high and stable trends of estimates, particularly in family heritabilities of tree height ($h_F{^2}=0.789-0.798$). The gains estimated from combined analysis have expected maximum or near-maximum efficiencies at age 6 or 7. Given equal intensity of selection, mass selection showed the most efficient gains within and across the sites. However, for the differences between mass and combined selections are small, selection made on the combination of family and within-family would be more effective in improving genetic gains. Indirect selection method indicated that 5-and 6-years height were all good predictors of 9-year-old height with little loss of relative efficiency (less than 10%) as compared with direct family selection at age 9. Phenotypic and genetic correlations computed on the basis of family mean values of height and diameter have shown predominantly high, positive, and statistically significant (1% level) relationships between all tested pairs of traits, which indicates that family growth maintained statistically consistent trends with age. The best families are those that maintained a stable superiority overall sites and ages in growth performance, therefore, it can be suggested that early identification of superior families at age 9 is feasible at age 5 or 6 in Pinus koraiensis S. et Z.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.31 no.12C
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• pp.1173-1183
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• 2006

In this paper, we propose an efficient method for improving visual quality of AR-FGS (Adaptive Reference FGS) which is adopted as a key scheme for SVC (Scalable Video Coding) or H.264 scalable extension. The standard FGS (Fine Granularity Scalability) adopts AR-FGS that introduces temporal prediction into FGS layer by using a high quality reference signal which is constructed by the weighted average between the base layer reconstructed imageand enhancement reference to improve the coding efficiency in the FGS layer. However, when the enhancement stream is truncated at certain bitstream position in transmission, the rest of the data of the FGS layer will not be available at the FGS decoder. Thus the most noticeable problem of using the enhancement layer in prediction is the degraded visual quality caused by drifting because of the mismatch between the reference frame used by the FGS encoder and that by the decoder. To solve this problem, we exploit the principle of cyclical block coding that is used to encode quantized transform coefficients in a cyclical manner in the FGS layer. Encoding block coefficients in a cyclical manner places 'higher-value' bits earlier in the bitstream. The quantized transform coefficients included in the ealry coding cycle of cyclical block coding have higher probability to be correctly received and decoded than the others included in the later cycle of the cyclical block coding. Therefore, we can minimize visual quality degradation caused by bitstream truncation by adjusting weighting factor to control the contribution of the bitstream produced in each coding cycle of cyclical block coding when constructing the enhancement layer reference frame. It is shown by simulations that the improved AR-FGS scheme outperforms the standard AR-FGS by about 1 dB in maximum in the reconstructed visual quality.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.31-50
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• 2014

The ubiquitous accessibility of information through mobile devices has led to an increased mobility of workers from their fixed workplaces. Market researchers estimate that by 2016, 350 million workers will be using their smartphones for business purposes, and the use of smartphones will offer new business benefits. Enterprises are now adopting mobile technologies for numerous applications to increase their operational efficiency, improve their responsiveness and competitiveness, and cultivate their innovativeness. For these reasons, various organizational aspects concerning "mobile work" have received a great deal of recent attention. Moreover, many CIOs plan to allocate a considerable amount of their budgets mobile work environments. In particular, with the consumerization of information technology, enterprise mobile applications (EMA) have played a significant role in the explosive growth of mobile computing in the workplace, and even in improving sales for firms in this field. EMA can be defined as mobile technologies and role-based applications, as companies design them for specific roles and functions in organizations. Technically, EMA can be defined as business enterprise systems, including critical business functions that enable users to access enterprise systems via wireless mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets. Specifically, EMA enables employees to have greater access to real-time information, and provides them with simple features and functionalities that are easy for them to complete specific tasks. While the impact of EMA on organizational workers' productivity has been given considerable attention in various literatures, relatively little research effort has been made to examine how EMA actually lead to users' job performance. In particular, we have a limited understanding of what the key antecedents are of such an EMA usage outcome. In this paper, we focus on employees' perceived job performance as the outcome of EMA use, which indicates the successful role of EMA with regard to employees' tasks. Thus, to develop a deeper understanding of the relationship among EMA, its environment, and employees' perceived job performance, we develop a comprehensive model that considers the perceived-fit between EMA and employees' tasks, satisfaction on EMA, and the organizational environment. With this model, we try to examine EMA to explain how job performance through EMA is revealed from both the task-technology fit for EMA and satisfaction on EMA, while also considering the antecedent factors for these constructs. The objectives of this study are to address the following research questions: (1) How can employees successfully manage EMA in order to enhance their perceived job performance? (2) What internal and/or external factors are important antecedents in increasing EMA users' satisfaction on MES and task-technology fit for EMA? (3) What are the impacts of organizational (e.g. organizational agility), and task-related antecedents (e.g., task mobility) on task-technology fit for EMA? (4) What are the impacts of internal (e.g., self-efficacy) and external antecedents (e.g., system reputation) for the habitual use of EMA? Based on a survey from 254 actual employees who use EMA in their workplace across industries, our results indicate that task-technology fit for EMA and satisfaction on EMA are positively associated with job performance. We also identify task mobility, organizational agility, and system accessibility that are found to be positively associated with task-technology fit for EMA. Further, we find that external factor, such as the reputation of EMA, and internal factor, such as self-efficacy for EMA that are found to be positively associated with the satisfaction of EMA. The present findings enable researchers and practitioners to understand the role of EMA, which facilitates organizational workers' efficient work processes, as well as the importance of task-technology fit for EMA. Our model provides a new set of antecedents and consequence variables for a TAM involving mobile applications. The research model also provides empirical evidence that EMA are important mobile services that positively influence individuals' performance. Our findings suggest that perceived organizational agility and task mobility do have a significant influence on task-technology fit for EMA usage through positive beliefs about EMA, that self-efficacy and system reputation can also influence individuals' satisfaction on EMA, and that these factors are important contingent factors for the impact of system satisfaction and perceived job performance. Our findings can help managers gauge the impact of EMA in terms of its contribution to job performance. Our results provide an explanation as to why many firms have recently adopted EMA for efficient business processes and productivity support. Our findings additionally suggest that the cognitive fit between task and technology can be an important requirement for the productivity support of EMA. Further, our study findings can help managers in formulating their strategies and building organizational culture that can affect employees perceived job performance. Managers, thus, can tailor their dependence on EMA as high or low, depending on their task's characteristics, to maximize the job performance in the workplace. Overall, this study strengthens our knowledge regarding the impact of mobile applications in organizational contexts, technology acceptance and the role of task characteristics. To conclude, we hope that our research inspires future studies exploring digital productivity in the workplace and/or taking the role of EMA into account for employee job performance.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.141-149
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• 2006

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary acidifier($Lactacid^(R)$) and essential oil($Immunocin^(R)$) on the performance, nutrient metabolizability, small intestinal microflora, IgG level and leukocytes and erythrocytes in broiler chickens. Five hundred males and 500 females broiler chickens($Ross^(R)$) were divided into 20 pens of 50 chickens(25 birds in each sex). Five pens were assigned to each of four dietary treatments: control, diets containing antibiotics(Bacitracin methylene disalicilate), acidifier($Lactacid^(R)$) and essential oil($Immunocin^(R)$) dietary treatments. Birds were fed experimental diets ad libitum 5 wks. Weight gain, feed intake, and feed conversion rate were significantly affected by dietary treatment(P<0.05). Overall weight gain($0{\sim}5$ wks) of $Lactacid^(R)$ treatment was significantly lower than the others. Feed intake was highest(P<0.05) in the control followed by antibiotics, $Lactacid^(R)\;and\;Immunocin^(R)$ treatment. Feed conversion rate of $Immunocin^(R)$ treatment was lowest(P<0.05) followed by antibiotics, $Lactacid^(R)$ treatment and the control. Production indices of $Immunocin^(R)$ and antibiotics treatments were significantly higher than those of the control and $Lactacid^(R)$ treatment(P<0.05). $Immunocin^(R)$ treatment was the highest and antibiotics was lowest in serum IgG level. The number of leukocytes and stress index(neutrophil/lymphocytes) tended to be lower in $Immunocin^(R)$ treatment than others. There were no significant differences in erythrocytes among the treatments. The cfu of E. coli was significantly lower in $Immunocin^(R)$ and antibiotics treatments than $Lactacid^(R)$ treatment and the control. Metabolizability of crude protein was significantly lower in the control than $Lactacid^(R)\;and\;Immunocin^(R)$ treatment while that of NFE was significantly lower in $Immunocin^(R)\;than\;Lactacid^(R)$ and antibiotics treatments. It was concluded that essential oil product $Immunocin^(R)$ is as effective as antibiotics in improving feed conversion efficiency and production index while $Lactacid^(R)$ is not.

• Journal of Animal Environmental Science
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• v.17 no.sup
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• pp.51-60
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• 2011

The objective of this study was to suggest strategies for improving "Livestock Manure Treatment Systems and Related Technologies Assessment Program". Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to evaluate reasonableness of applied weight value for assessment and improve program management strategies. Results of mail survey collected from animal manure treatment technology specialists of 30 companies nationwide were used for AHP. Company's ability, technological prowess, facility's convenience, economic feasibility are four important aspects of assessment program evaluation using AHP. More than 70% of the respondents said they were overall satisfied with the objectivity of assessment program regarding above four evaluation aspects. However, only 36% of them answered that they were very satisfied with the objectivity of assessment program in terms of economic feasibility. The evaluation results revealed that the assessment program needs to be made up for the weak points regarding economic feasibility. The AHP weight calculation results showed that the current assessment program overestimates the technological prowess, especially livestock manure treatment efficiency. It suggests that the weight value of current assessment program in terms of technological prowess needs to be determined carefully. The current assessment program combined with AHP weight value determination approach will be very useful to improve objectivity and reliability of assessment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.261-277
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• 2017

This study defines influencing sections as the part of the road section where passing vehicles are traveling with the lower speed compared to speed limit due to speed humps. The influencing section was divided into 3 parts; influencing section before the speed hump, interval section, and influencing section after the speed hump. This analysis focused on the changes of each part depending on installation types, vehicle types, and daytime or nighttime. For the interval section, especially, the ratio of distance traveled with lower speed than speed limit to interval section is defined as effective influencing section ratio to be analyzed. Vehicle speed profiles were collected with a speed gun to extract influencing section lengths. The survival analysis was applied and estimated survival functions are compared with each other by several statistical tests. As a consequence, the average length of influencing section on the 50m sequential speed humps was 75.3% longer during the deceleration than that of isolated speed hump, and 18.9% during the acceleration. The effective influencing section ratio for the 30m and 50m sequential speed humps had a small difference of 81.0% and 76.0% while the absolute values of the section that passing speed were less than the speed limit were longer on 50m sequential speed humps, each being 24.3m and 38.0m. Using the log rank test, it was evident that sequential speed humps were more effective to increase the length of influencing sections compared to the isolated speed hump. Vehicle type was the strong factor for influencing section length on the isolated speed hump, but daytime or nighttime was not the effective one. This research result can be used for improving the efficiency selecting the installation point of speed humps for road safety and estimating the standard of the distance between sequential speed humps.