• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.164-177
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• 2022

Medical device usability evaluation refers to the evaluation of medical devices through actual users before the final prototype production is completed. IEC 62366, one of the international safety standards for electronic medical devices, is a standard that must be applied to obtain medical device licenses in major advanced countries such as Europe and the United States. In Korea, through the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety's notice, from January 2021, sequential application by grade has been implemented. In this study, 15 participant specialists were recruited through the Incheon G University Hospital Medical Device Convergence Center for formative evaluation during user suitability evaluation of the focused ultrasound stimulation system being developed by Icleo Co., Ltd., and the test was conducted through joint scenario development. . In the result of task performance, the performance rate was 90.67%, and after the completion of the performance, 86.67% of 'Easy user interface' and 94% of 'Identification/Readability/Understanding of information' questions in the participant survey results analysis by question. The response rate was above average.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.53-77
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• 2015

Korea has witnessed an increasing number of domestic patent applications, but a majority of them are not utilized to their maximum potential but end up becoming obsolete. According to the 2012 National Congress' Inspection of Administration, about 73% of patents possessed by universities and public-funded research institutions failed to lead to creating social values, but remain latent. One of the main problem of this issue is that patent creators such as individual researcher, university, or research institution lack abilities to commercialize their patents into viable businesses with those enterprises that are in need of them. Also, for enterprises side, it is hard to find the appropriate patents by searching keywords on all such occasions. This system proposes a patent recommendation system that can identify and recommend intellectual rights appropriate to users' interested fields among a rapidly accumulating number of patent assets in a more easy and efficient manner. The proposed system extracts core contents and technology sectors from the existing pool of patents, and combines it with secondary social knowledge, which derives from tags information created by users, in order to find the best patents recommended for users. That is to say, in an early stage where there is no accumulated tag information, the recommendation is done by utilizing content characteristics, which are identified through an analysis of key words contained in such parameters as 'Title of Invention' and 'Claim' among the various patent attributes. In order to do this, the suggested system extracts only nouns from patents and assigns a weight to each noun according to the importance of it in all patents by performing TF-IDF analysis. After that, it finds patents which have similar weights with preferred patents by a user. In this paper, this similarity is called a "Domain Similarity". Next, the suggested system extract technology sector's characteristics from patent document by analyzing the international technology classification code (International Patent Classification, IPC). Every patents have more than one IPC, and each user can attach more than one tag to the patents they like. Thus, each user has a set of IPC codes included in tagged patents. The suggested system manages this IPC set to analyze technology preference of each user and find the well-fitted patents for them. In order to do this, the suggeted system calcuates a 'Technology_Similarity' between a set of IPC codes and IPC codes contained in all other patents. After that, when the tag information of multiple users are accumulated, the system expands the recommendations in consideration of other users' social tag information relating to the patent that is tagged by a concerned user. The similarity between tag information of perferred 'patents by user and other patents are called a 'Social Simialrity' in this paper. Lastly, a 'Total Similarity' are calculated by adding these three differenent similarites and patents having the highest 'Total Similarity' are recommended to each user. The suggested system are applied to a total of 1,638 korean patents obtained from the Korea Industrial Property Rights Information Service (KIPRIS) run by the Korea Intellectual Property Office. However, since this original dataset does not include tag information, we create virtual tag information and utilized this to construct the semi-virtual dataset. The proposed recommendation algorithm was implemented with JAVA, a computer programming language, and a prototype graphic user interface was also designed for this study. As the proposed system did not have dependent variables and uses virtual data, it is impossible to verify the recommendation system with a statistical method. Therefore, the study uses a scenario test method to verify the operational feasibility and recommendation effectiveness of the system. The results of this study are expected to improve the possibility of matching promising patents with the best suitable businesses. It is assumed that users' experiential knowledge can be accumulated, managed, and utilized in the As-Is patent system, which currently only manages standardized patent information.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.131-146
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• 2011

It is becoming more essential than ever for office professionals to become competent in information collection/gathering and problem solving in today's global business society. In particular, office professionals do not only assist simple chores but are also forced to make decisions as quickly and efficiently as possible in problematic situations that can end in either profit or loss to their company. Since office professionals rely heavily on their tacit knowledge to solve problems that arise in everyday business situations, it is truly helpful and efficient to refer to similar business cases from the past and share or reuse such previous business knowledge for better performance results. Case-based reasoning(CBR) is a problem-solving method which utilizes previous similar cases to solve problems. Through CBR, the closest case to the current business situation can be searched and retrieved from the case or knowledge base and can be referred to for a new solution. This reduces the time and resources needed and increase success probability. The main purpose of this study is to design a system called COKRS(Case-based reasoning Office Knowledge Recommender System) and develop a prototype for it. COKRS manages cases and their meta data, accepts key words from the user and searches the casebase for the most similar past case to the input keyword, and communicates with users to collect information about the quality of the case provided and continuously apply the information to update values on the similarity table. Core concepts like system architecture, definition of a case, meta database, similarity table have been introduced, and also an algorithm to retrieve all similar cases from past work history has also been proposed. In this research, a case is best defined as a work experience in office administration. However, defining a case in office administration was not an easy task in reality. We surveyed 10 office professionals in order to get an idea of how to define a case in office administration and found out that in most cases any type of office work is to be recorded digitally and/or non-digitally. Therefore, we have defined a record or document case as for COKRS. Similarity table was composed of items of the result of job analysis for office professionals conducted in a previous research. Values between items of the similarity table were initially set to those from researchers' experiences and literature review. The results of this study could also be utilized in other areas of business for knowledge sharing wherever it is necessary and beneficial to share and learn from past experiences. We expect this research to be a reference for researchers and developers who are in this area or interested in office knowledge recommendation system based on CBR. Focus group interview(FGI) was conducted with ten administrative assistants carefully selected from various areas of business. They were given a chance to try out COKRS in an actual work setting and make some suggestions for future improvement. FGI has identified the user-interface for saving and searching cases for keywords as the most positive aspect of COKRS, and has identified the most urgently needed improvement as transforming tacit knowledge and knowhow into recorded documents more efficiently. Also, the focus group has mentioned that it is essential to secure enough support, encouragement, and reward from the company and promote positive attitude and atmosphere for knowledge sharing for everybody's benefit in the company.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1-22
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• 2009

The World Wide Web is transitioning from being a mere collection of documents that contain useful information toward providing a collection of services that perform useful tasks. The emerging Web service technology has been envisioned as the next technological wave and is expected to play an important role in this recent transformation of the Web. By providing interoperable interface standards for application-to-application communication, Web services can be combined with component based software development to promote application interaction and integration both within and across enterprises. To make Web services for service-oriented computing operational, it is important that Web service repositories not only be well-structured but also provide efficient tools for developers to find reusable Web service components that meet their needs. As the potential of Web services for service-oriented computing is being widely recognized, the demand for effective Web service discovery mechanisms is concomitantly growing. A number of techniques for Web service discovery have been proposed, but the discovery challenge has not been satisfactorily addressed. Unfortunately, most existing solutions are either too rudimentary to be useful or too domain dependent to be generalizable. In this paper, we propose a Web service organizing framework that combines clustering techniques with string matching and leverages the semantics of the XML-based service specification in WSDL documents. We believe that this is one of the first attempts at applying data mining techniques in the Web service discovery domain. Our proposed approach has several appealing features : (1) It minimizes the requirement of prior knowledge from both service consumers and publishers; (2) It avoids exploiting domain dependent ontologies; and (3) It is able to visualize the semantic relationships among Web services. We have developed a prototype system based on the proposed framework using an unsupervised artificial neural network and empirically evaluated the proposed approach and tool using real Web service descriptions drawn from operational Web service registries. We report on some preliminary results demonstrating the efficacy of the proposed approach.

• Journal of The Korean Association of Information Education
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.9-22
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• 2008

The purpose of this research is to develop a prototype of the support system in order for team building associated with web-based project learning having applied Kolb's learning style. To accomplish this purpose, the following research tasks were performed. First, core idea in order to embody the system's value, key activities, tools that will support pertinent activities and the strategy so as to develop guidelines, etc. were devised and prepared. Second, a system was designed on the basis of structural model of teaching design, then after, interface was developed. The core factors in this system are inspection of learning style, organizing a team and team building. Above all, it is required to make learners know about learning environments, of which they are in favor, and also its distinctive features through inspection of learning style, and then focusing on learning style, a team should be organized insomuch as to accommodate a variety of learning styles as much as possible. For the purpose of team building, after learning style of each constituent member of the team has been made known, then the roles will be divided among the constituent members of the team so as to suit their individual characteristics referring to each of their learning styles that have been exposed. To verify the value of this system developed and efficiency thereof, a focus group interview was conducted. The focus group consisted of professionals, all from related fields. After the interview, the points required to make further improvements were elicited and taken care of by follow-up actions as needed. And having reflected such improvements made, the final system was developed. With this newly developed system, learners can get the results of inspection of learning style so quickly by performing inspection any time any where, and based on the results from such inspection, a team comprising dissimilar constituents who exhibit a variety of different propensities will be automatically organized. Thus, this system may be used not only for web-based project learning having unspecified persons elected as constituents, but in the offline space also.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.121-145
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• 2010

University timetabling depending on the educational environments of universities is an NP-hard problem that the amount of computation required to find solutions increases exponentially with the problem size. For many years, there have been lots of studies on university timetabling from the necessity of automatic timetable generation for students' convenience and effective lesson, and for the effective allocation of subjects, lecturers, and classrooms. Timetables are classified into a course timetable and an examination timetable. This study focuses on the former. In general, a course timetable for liberal arts is scheduled by the office of academic affairs and a course timetable for major subjects is scheduled by each department of a university. We found several problems from the analysis of current course timetabling in departments. First, it is time-consuming and inefficient for each department to do the routine and repetitive timetabling work manually. Second, many classes are concentrated into several time slots in a timetable. This tendency decreases the effectiveness of students' classes. Third, several major subjects might overlap some required subjects in liberal arts at the same time slots in the timetable. In this case, it is required that students should choose only one from the overlapped subjects. Fourth, many subjects are lectured by same lecturers every year and most of lecturers prefer the same time slots for the subjects compared with last year. This means that it will be helpful if departments reuse the previous timetables. To solve such problems and support the effective course timetabling in each department, this study proposes a university timetabling support system based on two phases. In the first phase, each department generates a timetable template from the most similar timetable case, which is based on case-based reasoning. In the second phase, the department schedules a timetable with the help of interactive user interface under the timetabling criteria, which is based on rule-based approach. This study provides the illustrations of Hanshin University. We classified timetabling criteria into intrinsic and extrinsic criteria. In intrinsic criteria, there are three criteria related to lecturer, class, and classroom which are all hard constraints. In extrinsic criteria, there are four criteria related to 'the numbers of lesson hours' by the lecturer, 'prohibition of lecture allocation to specific day-hours' for committee members, 'the number of subjects in the same day-hour,' and 'the use of common classrooms.' In 'the numbers of lesson hours' by the lecturer, there are three kinds of criteria : 'minimum number of lesson hours per week,' 'maximum number of lesson hours per week,' 'maximum number of lesson hours per day.' Extrinsic criteria are also all hard constraints except for 'minimum number of lesson hours per week' considered as a soft constraint. In addition, we proposed two indices for measuring similarities between subjects of current semester and subjects of the previous timetables, and for evaluating distribution degrees of a scheduled timetable. Similarity is measured by comparison of two attributes-subject name and its lecturer-between current semester and a previous semester. The index of distribution degree, based on information entropy, indicates a distribution of subjects in the timetable. To show this study's viability, we implemented a prototype system and performed experiments with the real data of Hanshin University. Average similarity from the most similar cases of all departments was estimated as 41.72%. It means that a timetable template generated from the most similar case will be helpful. Through sensitivity analysis, the result shows that distribution degree will increase if we set 'the number of subjects in the same day-hour' to more than 90%.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.1-8
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• 1985

The wall shear stress in the vicinity of end-to end anastomoses under steady flow conditions was measured using a flush-mounted hot-film anemometer(FMHFA) probe. The experimental measurements were in good agreement with numerical results except in flow with low Reynolds numbers. The wall shear stress increased proximal to the anastomosis in flow from the Penrose tubing (simulating an artery) to the PTFE: graft. In flow from the PTFE graft to the Penrose tubing, low wall shear stress was observed distal to the anastomosis. Abnormal distributions of wall shear stress in the vicinity of the anastomosis, resulting from the compliance mismatch between the graft and the host artery, might be an important factor of ANFH formation and the graft failure. The present study suggests a correlation between regions of the low wall shear stress and the development of anastomotic neointimal fibrous hyperplasia(ANPH) in end-to-end anastomoses. 30523 T00401030523 ^x Air pressure decay(APD) rate and ultrafiltration rate(UFR) tests were performed on new and saline rinsed dialyzers as well as those roused in patients several times. C-DAK 4000 (Cordis Dow) and CF IS-11 (Baxter Travenol) reused dialyzers obtained from the dialysis clinic were used in the present study. The new dialyzers exhibited a relatively flat APD, whereas saline rinsed and reused dialyzers showed considerable amount of decay. C-DAH dialyzers had a larger APD(11.70$\pm$1.32mmHg/min)compared to CF dialyzers(4.32$\pm$0.55mmHg/min)(p<0.05). However, there was no observable difference in the UFR between the two dialyzers. Neither APD nor UFR showed any significant increase with an increasing number of reuses for up to more than 20reuses. A substantial number of failures observed in APD(larger than 20mmHe/min)on the reused dialyzers(2 out of 40 CP and S out 26 C-DAK) were attributed to the Possible damage on the fibers. The CF 15-11 HFDs which failed APD test did not show changes in the UFR compared to normal dialyzers indicating that APD is a more sensitive test than UFR test to evaluate the integrity of the fibers. 30527 T00401030527 ^x For quantitative measurement of reflected light from a clinical diagnostic strip, a prototype old reflectance photometer was designed. The strip loader and cassette were made to obtain more accurate reflectance parameters. The strip was illuminated at 45˚c through optical fiber and the intensity of reflected light was determined at rectanguLat angle using a photodiode. The kubelka-munk coefficient and reflection optical density were determined ar four different wavelengths(500, 550, 570 and 610nm) for blood glucose strip. For higher concentration than 300mg/41 about glucose, a saturation state of abforbance was observed at 500, 550 and 570nm. The correlation between glucose concentration and parameters was the best at 610nm. 30535 T00401030535 ^x Radiation-induced fibrosarcoma tumors were grown on the flanks of C3H mice. The mice were divided into two groups. One group was injected with Photofrin II, intravenously (2.5mg/kg body weight). The other group received no Photofrin II. Mice from both groups were irradialed for approximately 15 minutes at 100, 300, or 500 mW/cm2 with the argon (488nm/514.5 nm), dye(628nm) and gold vapor (pulsed 628 nm) laser light. A photosensitizer behaved as an added absorber. Under our experimental conditions, the presence of Photolfrin II increased surface temperature by at least 40% and the temperature rise due to 300 mW/cm2 irradiation exceeded values for hyperthermia. Light and temperature distributions with depth were estimated by a computer model. The model demonstrated the influence of wavelength on the thermal process and proved to be a valuable tool to investigate internal temperature rise. 30536 T00401030536 ^x We investigated the structural geometry of thirty-eight Korean femurs. The purpose of this study is to identify major geometrical differences between Korean femurs 3nd others that we believe belong to Caucasians so that we would be able to get insights into the femoral component design that fits Asians including Koreans. We utilized computerized tomography (CT) images of femurs extracted from cadavers. The CT images were transformed into bitmap data by using a film scanner, and then analyzed by using a commercially available software called Image v.1.0 and a Macintosh IIci computer.The resulting data were compared with already published data. The major results show that the geometry of the Korean femurs is significantly different from that of Caucasians: (1) the anteversion angle and the canal flare index are greater by the amount of approximately 8˚ and 0.5, respectively, (2) the shape of the isthmus cross section is more round, and (3) the distance between the teaser trochanter and the proximal border of the isthmus is shelter by about 15 mm. The results suggested that the femoral component suitable for Asians should be different from the currently-used components designed and manufactured mostly by European or American companies. 30537 T00401030537 ^x It is well known that nonlinear propagation characteristics of the wave in the tissue may give very useful information for the medical diagnoisis. In this paper, a new method to detect nonlinear propagation characteristics of the internal vibration in the tissue for the low frequency mechanical vibration by using bispectral analysis is proposed. In the method, low frequency vibration of f0( = 100Hz) is applied on the surface of the object, and the waveform of the internal vibration x (t) is measured from Doppler frequency modulation of silmultaneously transmitted probing ultrasonic waves. Then, the bispectra of the signal x (t) at the frequencies (f0, f0) and (f0, 2f0) are calculated to estimate the nonlinear propagation characteristics as their magnitude ratio, w here since bispectrum is free from the gaussian additive noise we can get the value with high S/N. Basic experimental system is constructed by using 3.0 MHz probing ultrasonic waves and the several experiments are carried out for some phantoms. Results show the superiority of the proposed method to the conventional method using power spectrum and also its usefulness for the tissue characterization. 30541 T00401030541 ^x This paper describes the implementation of a computerized radial pulse diagnosis by aids of a clinical expert. On this base, we composed of the radial pulse diagnosis system in korean traditional medicine. The system composed of a radial pulse wave detection system and a radial pulse diagnosis system. With a detection system, we detected Inyoung and Cheongu radial pulse wave and processed it. Then, we have got the characteristic parameters of radial pulse wave and also quantified that according to the method of Inyoung-Cheongu Comparison Radial Pulse Diagnosis. We defined the jugement standard of radial pulse diagnosis system and then we confirmed the possibility for realization of automatic radial pulse diagnosis in korean traditional medicine. 30545 T00401030545 ^x Microspheres are expected to be applied to biomedical areas such as solid-phase immunoassays, drug delivery systems, immunomagnetic cell separation. To synthesize microspheres for biomedical application, "two stage shot growth method" was developed. The uniformity ratio of synthesized microspheres was always smaller than 1.05. And the surface charge density (or the number of ionizable functional groups) of the microspheres synthesized by "two stage shot growth method" was 6~13 times higher than that of the microspheres synthesized by conventional seeded batch copolymerization. As a previous step for biomedical application, adsorption experiments of bovine albumin on microspheres were carried out under various conditions. The maximum adsorbed amount was obtained in the neighborhood of pH 4.5. Isoelectric point of bovine albumin is pH 5.0, so experimental result shows that it shifted to acid area. The adsorption isotherm was obtained, the plateau region was always reached at 2.Og/L (bulk concentration of bovine albumin).The effect of the kind and the amount of surface functional group was also examined. 30575 T00401030575 ^x A medical image workstation was developed using multimedia technique. The system based on PC-486DX was designed to acquire medical images produced by medical imaging instruments and related audio information, that is, doctors' reporting results. Input information was processed and analyzed, then the results were presented in the form of graph and animation. All the informations of the system were hierarchically related with the image as the apex. Processing and analysis algorithms were implemented so that the diagnostic accuracy could be improved. The diagnosed information can be transferred for patient diagnosis through LAN(local area network). 30592 T00401030592 ^x In the conventional infrared imaging system, complex infrared lens systems are usually used for directing collimated narrow infrared beams into the high speed 2-dimensional optic scanner. In this paper, a simple reflective infrared optic system with a 2-dimensional optic scanner is proposed for the realization of medical infrared thermography system. It has been experimentally proven that the intfrared thermography system composed of the proposed optic system has the temperature resolution of 0.1˚c under the spatial resolution of lmrad, the image matrix size of 256 X 240, and tile imaging time of 4 seconds. 30593 T00401030593 ^x In this paper, MIIS (Medical Image Information System) has been designed and implemented using INGRES RDBMS, which is based on a client/server architecture. The implemented system allows users to register and retrieve patient information, medical images and diagnostic reports. It also provides the function to display these information on workstation windows simultaneously by using the designed menu-driven graphic user interface. The medical image compression/decompression techniques are implemented and integrated into the medical image database system for the efficient data storage and the fast access through the network. 30594 T00401030594 ^x In this paper, computerized BEAM was implemented for the space domain analysis of EEG. Trans-formation from temporal summation to two-dimensional mappings is formed by 4 nearest point inter-polaton method. Methods of representation of BEAM are two. One is dot density method which classify brain electrical potential 9 levels by dot density of gray levels and the other is colour method which classify brain electrical 12 levels by red-green colours. In this BEAM, instantaneous change and average energy distribution over any arbitrary time interval of brain electrical activity could be observed and analyzed easily. In the frequency domain, the distribution of energy spectrum of a special band can easily be distinguished normality and abnormality. 30608 T00401030608 ^x Laboratory information system (LIS) is a key tool to manage laboratory data in clinical pathology. Our department has developed an information system for routine hematology using down-sized computer system. We have used an IBM 486 compatible PC with 16MB main memory, 210 MB hard disk drive, 9 RS-232C port and 24 pin dot printer. The operating system and database management system were SCO UNIX and SCO foxbase, respectively. For program development, we used Xbase language provided by SCO foxbase. The C language was used for interface purpose. To make the system use friendly, pull-down menu was used. The system connected to our hospital information system via application program interface (API), so the information related to patient and request details is automatically transmitted to our computer. Our system interfaced with fwd complete blood count analyzers(Sysmex NE-8000 and Coulter STKS) for unidirectional data tansmission from analyzer to computer. The authors suggests that this system based on down-sized computer could provide a progressive approach to total LIS based on local area network, and the implemented system could serve as a model for other hospital's LIS for routine hematology. 30609 T00401030609 ^x To develop an artificial bone substitute that is gradually degraded and replaced by the regenerated natural bone, the authors designed a composite that is consisted of calcium phosphate and collagen. To use as the structural matrix of the composite, collagen was purified from human umbilical cord. The obtained collagen was treated by pepsin to remove telopeptides, and finally, the immune-free atelocollagen was produced: The cross linked atelocollagen was highly resistant to the collagenase induced collagenolysis. The cross linked collagen demonstrated an improved tensile strength. 30618 T00401030618 ^x This paper is a study on the design of adptive filter for QRS complex detection. We propose a simple adaptive algorithm to increase capability of noise cancelation in QRS complex detection with two stage adaptive filter. At the first stage, background noise is removed and at the next stage, only spectrum of QRS complex components is passed. Two adaptive filters can afford to keep track of the changes of both noise and QRS complex. Each adaptive filter consists of prediction error filter and FIR filter The impulse response of FIR filter uses coefficients of prediction error filter. The detection rates for 105 and 108 of MIT/BIH data base were 99.3% and 97.4% respectively. 30619 T00401030619 ^x To develop an artificial bone substitute that is gradually degraded and replaced by the regenerated natural bone, the authors designed and produced a composite that is consisted of calcium phosphate and collagen. Human umbilical cord origin pepsin treated type I atelocollagen was used as the structural matrix, by which sintered or non-sintered carbonate apatite was encapsulated to form an inorganic-organic composite. With cross linking atelocollagen by UV ray irradiation, the resistance to both compressive and tensile strength was increased. Collagen degradation by the collagenase induced collagenolysis was also decreased. 30620 T00401030620 ^x We have developed a monoleaflet polymer valve as an inexpensive and viable alternative, especially for short-term use in the ventricular assist device or total artificial heart. The frame and leaflet of the polymer valve were made from polyurethane, To evaluate the hemodynamic performance of the polymer valve a comparative study of flow dynamics past a polymer valve and a St. Jude Medical prosthetic valve under physiological pulsatile flow conditions in vitro was made. Comparisons between the valves were made on the transvalvular pressure drop, regurgitation volume and maximum valve opening area. The polymer valve showed smaller regurgitation volume and transvalvular pressure drop compared to the mechanical valve at higher heart rate. The results showed that the functional characteristics of the polymer valve compared favorably with those of the mechanical valve at higher heart rate. 30621 T00401030621 ^x Explosive evaporative removal process of biological tissue by absorption of a CW laser has been simulated by using gelatin and a multimode Nd:YAG laser. Because the point of maximun temperature of laser-irradiated gelatin exists below the surface due to surface cooling, evaporation at the boiling temperature is made explosively from below the surface. The important parameters of this process are the conduction loss to laser power absorption (defined as the conduction-to-laser power parameter, Nk), the convection heat transfer at the surface to conduction loss (defined as Bi), dimensionless extinction coefficient (defined as Br.), and dimensionless irradiation time (defined as Fo). Dependence of Fo on Nk and Bi has been observed by experiment, and the results have been compared with the numerical results obtained by solving a 2-dimensional conduction equation. Fo and explosion depth (from the surface to the point of maximun temperature) are increased when Nk and Bi are increased.To find out the minimum laser power for explosive evaporative removal process, steady state analysis has been also made. The limit of Nk to induce evaporative removal, which is proportional to the inverse of the laser power, has been obtained. 30622 T00401030622 ^x N1 and N2 gross neural action potentials were measured from the round window of the guinea pig cochlea at the onset of the acoustic stimuli. N1-N2 audiograms were made by means of regulating stimulant intensities in order to produce constant N1-N2 potentials as criteria for different input tone pip frequencies. The lowest threshold was measured with an input tone pip I5 dB SPL in intensity and 12 KHz in frequency when the animal was in normal physiological condition. The procedure of experimental measurements is explained in detail. This experimental approach is very useful for the investigation of the Cochlear function. Both noN1inear and active functions of the Cochlea can be monitored by N1-N2 audiograms. 30623 T00401030623 ^x In electrical impedance tomography(EIT), we use boundary current and voltage measurements toprovide the information about the cross-sectional distribution of electrical impedance or resistivity. One of the major problems in EIT has been the inaccessibility of internal voltage or current data in finding the internal impedance values. We propose a new image reconstruction method using internal current density data measured by NMR. We obtained a two-dimensional current density distribution within a phantom by processing the real and imaginary MR images from a 4.77 NMR machine. We implemented a resistivity mage reconstruction algorithm using the finite element method and sensitivity matrix. We presented computer simulation results of the mage reconstruction algorithm and furture direction of the research. 30624 T00401030624 ^x A new method of digital image analysis technique for discrimination of cancer cell was presented in this paper. The object image was the Thyroid eland cells image that was diagnosed as normal and abnormal (two types of abnormal: follicular neoplastic cell, and papillary neoplastic cell), respectively. By using the proposed region segmentation algorithm, the cells were segmented into nucleus. The 16 feature parameters were used to calculate the features of each nucleus. A9 a consequence of using dominant feature parameters method proposed in this paper, discrimination rate of 91.11% was obtained for Thyroid Gland cells. 30625 T00401030625 ^x An electrical stimulator was designed to induce locomotion for paraplegic patients caused by central nervous system injury. Optimal stimulus parameters, which can minimize muscle fatigue and can achieve effective muscle contraction were determined in slow and fast muscles in Sprague-Dawley rats. Stimulus patterns of our stimulator were designed to simulate electromyographic activity monitored during locomotion of normal subjects. Muscle types of the lower extremity were classified according to their mechanical property of contraction, which are slow muscle (msoleus m.) and fast muscle (medial gastrocneminus m., rectus femoris m., vastus lateralis m.). Optimal parameters of electrical stimulation for slow muscles were 20 Hz, 0.2 ms square pulse. For fast muscle, 40 Hz, 0.3 ms square pulse was optimal to produce repeated contraction. Higher stimulus intensity was required when synergistic muscles were stimulated simultaneously than when they were stimulated individually. Electrical stimulation for each muscle was designed to generate bipedal locomotion, so that individual muscles alternate contraction and relaxation to simulate stance and swing phases. Portable electrical stimulator with 16 channels built in microprocessor was constructed and applied to paraplegic patients due to lumbar cord injury. The electrical stimulator restored partially gait function in paraplegic patients. 30626 T00401030626 ^x Two-Dimensional modelling of the Cochlear biomechanics is presented in this paper. The Laplace partial differential equation which represents the fluid mechanics of the Cochlea has been transformed into two-dimensional electrical transmission line. The procedure of this transformation is explained in detail. The comparison between one and two dimensional models is also presented. This electrical modelling of the basilar membrane (BM) is clearly useful for the next approach to the further. Development of active elements which are essential in the producing of the sharp tuning of the BM. This paper shows that two-dimension model is qualitatively better than one-dimensional model both in amplitude and phase responses of the BM displacement. The present model is only for frequency response. However because the model is electrical, the two-dimensional transmission line model can be extended to time response without any difficult. 30627 T00401030627 ^x A method has been proposed for the fully automatic detection of left ventricular endocardial boundary in 2D short axis echocardiogram using geometric model. The procedure has the following three distinct stages. First, the initial center is estimated by the initial center estimation algorithm which is applied to decimated image. Second, the center estimation algorithm is applied to original image and then best-fit elliptic model estimation is processed. Third, best-fit boundary is detected by the cost function which is based on the best-fit elliptic model. The proposed method shows effective result without manual intervention by a human operator. 30628 T00401030628 ^x The intelligent trajectory control method that controls moving direction and average velocity for a prosthetic arm is proposed by pattern recognition and force estimations using EMG signals. Also, we propose the real time trajectory planning method which generates continuous accelleration paths using 3 stage linear filters to minimize the impact to human body induced by arm motions and to reduce the muscle fatigue. We use combination of MLP and fuzzy filter for pattern recognition to estimate the direction of a muscle and Hogan's method for the force estimation. EMG signals are acquired by using a amputation simulator and 2 dimensional joystick motion. The simulation results of proposed prosthetic arm control system using the EMf signals show that the arm is effectively followed the desired trajectory depended on estimated force and direction of muscle movements. 30638 T00401030638 ^x A new neural network architecture for the recognition of patterns from images is proposed, which is partially based on the results of physiological studies. The proposed network is composed of multi-layers and the nerve cells in each layer are connected by spatial filters which approximate receptive fields in optic nerve fields. In the proposed method, patterns recognition for complicated images is carried out using global features as well as local features such as lines and end-points. A new generating method of matched filers representing global features is proposed in this network. 30659 T00401030659 ^x An implementation scheme of the magnetic nerve stimulator using a switching mode power supply is proposed. By using a switching mode power supply rather than a conventional linear power supply for charging high voltage capacitors, the weight and size of the magnetic nerve stimulator can be considerably reduced. Maximum output voltage of the developed magnetic nerve stimulator using the switching mode power supply is 3, 000 volts and switching time is about 100 msec. Experimental results or human nerve stimulations using the developed stimulator are presented. 30768 T00401030768 ^x In this paper, we describe the design methodology and specifications of the developed module-based bedside monitors for patient monitoring. The bedside monitor consists of a main unit and module cases with various parameter modules. The main unit includes a 12.1" TFT color LCD, a main CPU board, and peripherals such as a module controller, Ethernet LAN card, video card, rotate/push button controller, etc. The main unit can connect at maximum three module cases each of which can accommodate up to 7 parameter modules. They include the modules for electrocardiograph, respiration, invasive blood pressure, noninvasive blood pressure, temperature, and SpO2 with Plethysmograph.SpO2 with Plethysmograph.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
• /
• 1993.10a
• /
• pp.17-17
• /
• 1993

The wall shear stress in the vicinity of end-to end anastomoses under steady flow conditions was measured using a flush-mounted hot-film anemometer(FMHFA) probe. The experimental measurements were in good agreement with numerical results except in flow with low Reynolds numbers. The wall shear stress increased proximal to the anastomosis in flow from the Penrose tubing (simulating an artery) to the PTFE: graft. In flow from the PTFE graft to the Penrose tubing, low wall shear stress was observed distal to the anastomosis. Abnormal distributions of wall shear stress in the vicinity of the anastomosis, resulting from the compliance mismatch between the graft and the host artery, might be an important factor of ANFH formation and the graft failure. The present study suggests a correlation between regions of the low wall shear stress and the development of anastomotic neointimal fibrous hyperplasia(ANPH) in end-to-end anastomoses. 30523 T00401030523 ^x Air pressure decay(APD) rate and ultrafiltration rate(UFR) tests were performed on new and saline rinsed dialyzers as well as those roused in patients several times. C-DAK 4000 (Cordis Dow) and CF IS-11 (Baxter Travenol) reused dialyzers obtained from the dialysis clinic were used in the present study. The new dialyzers exhibited a relatively flat APD, whereas saline rinsed and reused dialyzers showed considerable amount of decay. C-DAH dialyzers had a larger APD(11.70${\pm}$1.32mmHg/min)compared to CF dialyzers(4.32${\pm}$0.55mmHg/min)(p<0.05). However, there was no observable difference in the UFR between the two dialyzers. Neither APD nor UFR showed any significant increase with an increasing number of reuses for up to more than 20reuses. A substantial number of failures observed in APD(larger than 20mmHe/min)on the reused dialyzers(2 out of 40 CP and S out 26 C-DAK) were attributed to the Possible damage on the fibers. The CF 15-11 HFDs which failed APD test did not show changes in the UFR compared to normal dialyzers indicating that APD is a more sensitive test than UFR test to evaluate the integrity of the fibers. 30527 T00401030527 ^x For quantitative measurement of reflected light from a clinical diagnostic strip, a prototype old reflectance photometer was designed. The strip loader and cassette were made to obtain more accurate reflectance parameters. The strip was illuminated at 45˚c through optical fiber and the intensity of reflected light was determined at rectanguLat angle using a photodiode. The kubelka-munk coefficient and reflection optical density were determined ar four different wavelengths(500,550,570 and 610nm) for blood glucose strip. For higher concentration than 300mg/41 about glucose, a saturation state of abforbance was observed at 500,550 and 570nm. The correlation between glucose concentration and parameters was the best at 610nm. 30535 T00401030535 ^x Radiation-induced fibrosarcoma tumors were grown on the flanks of C3H mice. The mice were divided into two groups. One group was injected with Photofrin II, intravenously (2.5mg/kg body weight). The other group received no Photofrin II. Mice from both groups were irradialed for approximately 15 minutes at 100,300, or 500 mW/cm2 with the argon (488nm/514.5 nm), dye(628nm) and gold vapor (pulsed 628 nm) laser light. A photosensitizer behaved as an added absorber. Under our experimental conditions, the presence of Photolfrin II increased surface temperature by at least 40% and the temperature rise due to 300 mW/cm2 irradiation exceeded values for hyperthermia. Light and temperature distributions with depth were estimated by a computer model. The model demonstrated the influence of wavelength on the thermal process and proved to be a valuable tool to investigate internal temperature rise. 30536 T00401030536 ^x We investigated the structural geometry of thirty-eight Korean femurs. The purpose of this study is to identify major geometrical differences between Korean femurs 3nd others that we believe belong to Caucasians so that we would be able to get insights into the femoral component design that fits Asians including Koreans. We utilized computerized tomography (CT) images of femurs extracted from cadavers. The CT images were transformed into bitmap data by using a film scanner, and then analyzed by using a commercially available software called Image v.1.0 and a Macintosh IIci computer.The resulting data were compared with already published data. The major results show that the geometry of the Korean femurs is significantly different from that of Caucasians: (1) the anteversion angle and the canal flare index are greater by the amount of approximately 8˚ and 0.5, respectively, (2) the shape of the isthmus cross section is more round, and (3) the distance between the teaser trochanter and the proximal border of the isthmus is shelter by about 15 mm. The results suggested that the femoral component suitable for Asians should be different from the currently-used components designed and manufactured mostly by European or American companies. 30537 T00401030537 ^x It is well known that nonlinear propagation characteristics of the wave in the tissue may give very useful information for the medical diagnoisis. In this paper, a new method to detect nonlinear propagation characteristics of the internal vibration in the tissue for the low frequency mechanical vibration by using bispectral analysis is proposed. In the method, low frequency vibration of f0( = 100Hz) is applied on the surface of the object, and the waveform of the internal vibration x (t) is measured from Doppler frequency modulation of silmultaneously transmitted probing ultrasonic waves. Then, the bispectra of the signal x (t) at the frequencies (f0, f0) and (f0, 2f0) are calculated to estimate the nonlinear propagation characteristics as their magnitude ratio, w here since bispectrum is free from the gaussian additive noise we can get the value with high S/N. Basic experimental system is constructed by using 3.0 MHz probing ultrasonic waves and the several experiments are carried out for some phantoms. Results show the superiority of the proposed method to the conventional method using power spectrum and also its usefulness for the tissue characterization. 30541 T00401030541 ^x This paper describes the implementation of a computerized radial pulse diagnosis by aids of a clinical expert. On this base, we composed of the radial pulse diagnosis system in korean traditional medicine. The system composed of a radial pulse wave detection system and a radial pulse diagnosis system. With a detection system, we detected Inyoung and Cheongu radial pulse wave and processed it. Then, we have got the characteristic parameters of radial pulse wave and also quantified that according to the method of Inyoung-Cheongu Comparison Radial Pulse Diagnosis. We defined the jugement standard of radial pulse diagnosis system and then we confirmed the possibility for realization of automatic radial pulse diagnosis in korean traditional medicine. 30545 T00401030545 ^x Microspheres are expected to be applied to biomedical areas such as solid-phase immunoassays, drug delivery systems, immunomagnetic cell separation. To synthesize microspheres for biomedical application, "two stage shot growth method" was developed. The uniformity ratio of synthesized microspheres was always smaller than 1.05. And the surface charge density (or the number of ionizable functional groups) of the microspheres synthesized by "two stage shot growth method" was 6~13 times higher than that of the microspheres synthesized by conventional seeded batch copolymerization. As a previous step for biomedical application, adsorption experiments of bovine albumin on microspheres were carried out under various conditions. The maximum adsorbed amount was obtained in the neighborhood of pH 4.5. Isoelectric point of bovine albumin is pH 5.0, so experimental result shows that it shifted to acid area. The adsorption isotherm was obtained, the plateau region was always reached at 2.Og/L (bulk concentration of bovine albumin).The effect of the kind and the amount of surface functional group was also examined. 30575 T00401030575 ^x A medical image workstation was developed using multimedia technique. The system based on PC-486DX was designed to acquire medical images produced by medical imaging instruments and related audio information, that is, doctors' reporting results. Input information was processed and analyzed, then the results were presented in the form of graph and animation. All the informations of the system were hierarchically related with the image as the apex. Processing and analysis algorithms were implemented so that the diagnostic accuracy could be improved. The diagnosed information can be transferred for patient diagnosis through LAN(local area network). 30592 T00401030592 ^x In the conventional infrared imaging system, complex infrared lens systems are usually used for directing collimated narrow infrared beams into the high speed 2-dimensional optic scanner. In this paper, a simple reflective infrared optic system with a 2-dimensional optic scanner is proposed for the realization of medical infrared thermography system. It has been experimentally proven that the intfrared thermography system composed of the proposed optic system has the temperature resolution of 0.1˚c under the spatial resolution of lmrad, the image matrix size of 256 X 240, and tile imaging time of 4 seconds. 30593 T00401030593 ^x In this paper, MIIS (Medical Image Information System) has been designed and implemented using INGRES RDBMS, which is based on a client/server architecture. The implemented system allows users to register and retrieve patient information, medical images and diagnostic reports. It also provides the function to display these information on workstation windows simultaneously by using the designed menu-driven graphic user interface. The medical image compression/decompression techniques are implemented and integrated into the medical image database system for the efficient data storage and the fast access through the network. 30594 T00401030594 ^x In this paper, computerized BEAM was implemented for the space domain analysis of EEG. Trans-formation from temporal summation to two-dimensional mappings is formed by 4 nearest point inter-polaton method. Methods of representation of BEAM are two. One is dot density method which classify brain electrical potential 9 levels by dot density of gray levels and the other is colour method which classify brain electrical 12 levels by red-green colours. In this BEAM, instantaneous change and average energy distribution over any arbitrary time interval of brain electrical activity could be observed and analyzed easily. In the frequency domain, the distribution of energy spectrum of a special band can easily be distinguished normality and abnormality. 30608 T00401030608 ^x Laboratory information system (LIS) is a key tool to manage laboratory data in clinical pathology. Our department has developed an information system for routine hematology using down-sized computer system. We have used an IBM 486 compatible PC with 16MB main memory, 210 MB hard disk drive, 9 RS-232C port and 24 pin dot printer. The operating system and database management system were SCO UNIX and SCO foxbase, respectively. For program development, we used Xbase language provided by SCO foxbase. The C language was used for interface purpose. To make the system use friendly, pull-down menu was used. The system connected to our hospital information system via application program interface (API), so the information related to patient and request details is automatically transmitted to our computer. Our system interfaced with fwd complete blood count analyzers(Sysmex NE-8000 and Coulter STKS) for unidirectional data tansmission from analyzer to computer. The authors suggests that this system based on down-sized computer could provide a progressive approach to total LIS based on local area network, and the implemented system could serve as a model for other hospital's LIS for routine hematology. 30609 T00401030609 ^x To develop an artificial bone substitute that is gradually degraded and replaced by the regenerated natural bone, the authors designed a composite that is consisted of calcium phosphate and collagen. To use as the structural matrix of the composite, collagen was purified from human umbilical cord. The obtained collagen was treated by pepsin to remove telopeptides, and finally, the immune-free atelocollagen was produced: The cross linked atelocollagen was highly resistant to the collagenase induced collagenolysis. The cross linked collagen demonstrated an improved tensile strength. 30618 T00401030618 ^x This paper is a study on the design of adptive filter for QRS complex detection. We propose a simple adaptive algorithm to increase capability of noise cancelation in QRS complex detection with two stage adaptive filter. At the first stage, background noise is removed and at the next stage, only spectrum of QRS complex components is passed. Two adaptive filters can afford to keep track of the changes of both noise and QRS complex. Each adaptive filter consists of prediction error filter and FIR filter The impulse response of FIR filter uses coefficients of prediction error filter. The detection rates for 105 and 108 of MIT/BIH data base were 99.3% and 97.4% respectively. 30619 T00401030619 ^x To develop an artificial bone substitute that is gradually degraded and replaced by the regenerated natural bone, the authors designed and produced a composite that is consisted of calcium phosphate and collagen. Human umbilical cord origin pepsin treated type I atelocollagen was used as the structural matrix, by which sintered or non-sintered carbonate apatite was encapsulated to form an inorganic-organic composite. With cross linking atelocollagen by UV ray irradiation, the resistance to both compressive and tensile strength was increased. Collagen degradation by the collagenase induced collagenolysis was also decreased. 30620 T00401030620 ^x We have developed a monoleaflet polymer valve as an inexpensive and viable alternative, especially for short-term use in the ventricular assist device or total artificial heart. The frame and leaflet of the polymer valve were made from polyurethane, To evaluate the hemodynamic performance of the polymer valve a comparative study of flow dynamics past a polymer valve and a St. Jude Medical prosthetic valve under physiological pulsatile flow conditions in vitro was made. Comparisons between the valves were made on the transvalvular pressure drop, regurgitation volume and maximum valve opening area. The polymer valve showed smaller regurgitation volume and transvalvular pressure drop compared to the mechanical valve at higher heart rate. The results showed that the functional characteristics of the polymer valve compared favorably with those of the mechanical valve at higher heart rate. 30621 T00401030621 ^x Explosive evaporative removal process of biological tissue by absorption of a CW laser has been simulated by using gelatin and a multimode Nd:YAG laser. Because the point of maximun temperature of laser-irradiated gelatin exists below the surface due to surface cooling, evaporation at the boiling temperature is made explosively from below the surface. The important parameters of this process are the conduction loss to laser power absorption (defined as the conduction-to-laser power parameter, Nk), the convection heat transfer at the surface to conduction loss (defined as Bi), dimensionless extinction coefficient (defined as Br.), and dimensionless irradiation time (defined as Fo). Dependence of Fo on Nk and Bi has been observed by experiment, and the results have been compared with the numerical results obtained by solving a 2-dimensional conduction equation. Fo and explosion depth (from the surface to the point of maximun temperature) are increased when Nk and Bi are increased.To find out the minimum laser power for explosive evaporative removal process, steady state analysis has been also made. The limit of Nk to induce evaporative removal, which is proportional to the inverse of the laser power, has been obtained. 30622 T00401030622 ^x N1 and N2 gross neural action potentials were measured from the round window of the guinea pig cochlea at the onset of the acoustic stimuli. N1-N2 audiograms were made by means of regulating stimulant intensities in order to produce constant N1-N2 potentials as criteria for different input tone pip frequencies. The lowest threshold was measured with an input tone pip I5 dB SPL in intensity and 12 KHz in frequency when the animal was in normal physiological condition. The procedure of experimental measurements is explained in detail. This experimental approach is very useful for the investigation of the Cochlear function. Both noN1inear and active functions of the Cochlea can be monitored by N1-N2 audiograms. 30623 T00401030623 ^x In electrical impedance tomography(EIT), we use boundary current and voltage measurements toprovide the information about the cross-sectional distribution of electrical impedance or resistivity. One of the major problems in EIT has been the inaccessibility of internal voltage or current data in finding the internal impedance values. We propose a new image reconstruction method using internal current density data measured by NMR. We obtained a two-dimensional current density distribution within a phantom by processing the real and imaginary MR images from a 4.77 NMR machine. We implemented a resistivity mage reconstruction algorithm using the finite element method and sensitivity matrix. We presented computer simulation results of the mage reconstruction algorithm and furture direction of the research. 30624 T00401030624 ^x A new method of digital image analysis technique for discrimination of cancer cell was presented in this paper. The object image was the Thyroid eland cells image that was diagnosed as normal and abnormal (two types of abnormal: follicular neoplastic cell, and papillary neoplastic cell), respectively. By using the proposed region segmentation algorithm, the cells were segmented into nucleus. The 16 feature parameters were used to calculate the features of each nucleus. A9 a consequence of using dominant feature parameters method proposed in this paper, discrimination rate of 91.11% was obtained for Thyroid Gland cells. 30625 T00401030625 ^x An electrical stimulator was designed to induce locomotion for paraplegic patients caused by central nervous system injury. Optimal stimulus parameters, which can minimize muscle fatigue and can achieve effective muscle contraction were determined in slow and fast muscles in Sprague-Dawley rats. Stimulus patterns of our stimulator were designed to simulate electromyographic activity monitored during locomotion of normal subjects. Muscle types of the lower extremity were classified according to their mechanical property of contraction, which are slow muscle (msoleus m.) and fast muscle (medial gastrocneminus m., rectus femoris m., vastus lateralis m.). Optimal parameters of electrical stimulation for slow muscles were 20 Hz, 0.2 ms square pulse. For fast muscle, 40 Hz, 0.3 ms square pulse was optimal to produce repeated contraction. Higher stimulus intensity was required when synergistic muscles were stimulated simultaneously than when they were stimulated individually. Electrical stimulation for each muscle was designed to generate bipedal locomotion, so that individual muscles alternate contraction and relaxation to simulate stance and swing phases. Portable electrical stimulator with 16 channels built in microprocessor was constructed and applied to paraplegic patients due to lumbar cord injury. The electrical stimulator restored partially gait function in paraplegic patients. 30626 T00401030626 ^x Two-Dimensional modelling of the Cochlear biomechanics is presented in this paper. The Laplace partial differential equation which represents the fluid mechanics of the Cochlea has been transformed into two-dimensional electrical transmission line. The procedure of this transformation is explained in detail. The comparison between one and two dimensional models is also presented. This electrical modelling of the basilar membrane (BM) is clearly useful for the next approach to the further. Development of active elements which are essential in the producing of the sharp tuning of the BM. This paper shows that two-dimension model is qualitatively better than one-dimensional model both in amplitude and phase responses of the BM displacement. The present model is only for frequency response. However because the model is electrical, the two-dimensional transmission line model can be extended to time response without any difficult. 30627 T00401030627 ^x A method has been proposed for the fully automatic detection of left ventricular endocardial boundary in 2D short axis echocardiogram using geometric model. The procedure has the following three distinct stages. First, the initial center is estimated by the initial center estimation algorithm which is applied to decimated image. Second, the center estimation algorithm is applied to original image and then best-fit elliptic model estimation is processed. Third, best-fit boundary is detected by the cost function which is based on the best-fit elliptic model. The proposed method shows effective result without manual intervention by a human operator. 30628 T00401030628 ^x The intelligent trajectory control method that controls moving direction and average velocity for a prosthetic arm is proposed by pattern recognition and force estimations using EMG signals. Also, we propose the real time trajectory planning method which generates continuous accelleration paths using 3 stage linear filters to minimize the impact to human body induced by arm motions and to reduce the muscle fatigue. We use combination of MLP and fuzzy filter for pattern recognition to estimate the direction of a muscle and Hogan's method for the force estimation. EMG signals are acquired by using a amputation simulator and 2 dimensional joystick motion. The simulation results of proposed prosthetic arm control system using the EMf signals show that the arm is effectively followed the desired trajectory depended on estimated force and direction of muscle movements. 30638 T00401030638 ^x A new neural network architecture for the recognition of patterns from images is proposed, which is partially based on the results of physiological studies. The proposed network is composed of multi-layers and the nerve cells in each layer are connected by spatial filters which approximate receptive fields in optic nerve fields. In the proposed method, patterns recognition for complicated images is carried out using global features as well as local features such as lines and end-points. A new generating method of matched filers representing global features is proposed in this network. 30659 T00401030659 ^x An implementation scheme of the magnetic nerve stimulator using a switching mode power supply is proposed. By using a switching mode power supply rather than a conventional linear power supply for charging high voltage capacitors, the weight and size of the magnetic nerve stimulator can be considerably reduced. Maximum output voltage of the developed magnetic nerve stimulator using the switching mode power supply is 3,000 volts and switching time is about 100 msec. Experimental results or human nerve stimulations using the developed stimulator are presented. 30768 T00401030768 ^x In this paper, we describe the design methodology and specifications of the developed module-based bedside monitors for patient monitoring. The bedside monitor consists of a main unit and module cases with various parameter modules. The main unit includes a 12.1" TFT color LCD, a main CPU board, and peripherals such as a module controller, Ethernet LAN card, video card, rotate/push button controller, etc. The main unit can connect at maximum three module cases each of which can accommodate up to 7 parameter modules. They include the modules for electrocardiograph, respiration, invasive blood pressure, noninvasive blood pressure, temperature, and SpO2 with Plethysmograph.