• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.313-317
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• 2015

Due to the increase in incidence of infection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC), it is imperative that a rapid diagnosis accompanies the handling of MTC. This is due to the three to eight weeks it takes to culture Mycobacteria, and the lack of sensitivity of microscopic examination of AFB. Recently, nested PCR has been used to detect and diagnose mycobacteria. It is especially useful in complementing diagnosis by histological extra pulmonary. After culturing all the specimens and practicing the nested PCR, we did comparison analysis between nested PCR and culture. There were 76 specimens, 31 of which were positive. Of the 31 positive specimens in culturing, only 22 were positive in nested PCR. Of the 45 negative specimens, 36 were negative in nested PCR. As a result, Sensitivity was 71% and specificity was 80%. Furthermore, the positive predictive value was 71% and negative predictive value was 80%. These results indicate that nested PCR based techniques are sensitive, specific, and rapid methods for the detection of MTC.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.57-62
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• 2009

Kinematic analysis of MTC (Muscle-Tendon Complex) units is a key indicator for diagnosis of patients with musculoskeletal disorders because the contracture or shortening of musculo-tendinous units is known to produce pathological gaits. Therefore, the principal objective of this study was to assess the length change in the triceps surae prior to and after wearing an AFO (Ankle-Foot Orthoses) in patients with musculoskeletal disorders during a gait. In this study, analyses were conducted using a Muscle Tendon Complex model coupled with the trajectory data from markers attached to anatomical landmarks. As a result, the maximum length change in the triceps surae during a gait was 4.87% when a barefoot walking group and a walking group with AFO were compared. In particular, the difference in length changes between both groups in Soleus MTC units was found to be statistically significant in all gait phases. Our results revealed that MTC length in the AFO walking group was clearly increased over that of the barefoot walking group. In the future, further studies will be required in order to more adequately assess musculoskeletal disorders using many cases studies with regard to agricultural working conditions because this study deals with the kinematic analysis of musculo-tendinous units in the case of clinical experiments.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.37B no.12
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• pp.1113-1118
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• 2012

Smart grid and intelligent transportation system draw significant interest since they are considered as one of the green technologies. These systems require a large number of sensors, actuators, and controllers. Also, machine-to-machine (M2M) communications is important because of the automatic control. The LTE-Advanced networks is preparing a set of functions that facilitate the M2M communications, and particularly the development of an efficient call admission control mechanism is critical. A method that groups MTC devices according to QoS constraints and determines the admission depending on the QoS satisfaction is limitedly applied only if the data transmission period and the maximum delay are identical. This paper proposed a call admission control that is free from such limitation and also optimizes the admission process under the certain condition of the transmission period and maximum delay. The theorems regarding the proposed method are presented with the proofs. The simulations confirms its validity and shows it is better in call admission probability than existing works.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.123-132
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• 1987

Nucleophilic substitution reactions of methylthiocyanate(MTC) with anion nucleophiles,$SH^-,\;CN^-$ and $OH^-$, have been investigated using MNDO method. For the three reaction centers of MTC, gas-phase and solution-phase selectivities are discussed for each nucleophile by considering potential energy profiles calculated(intrinsic term) and magnitudes of negative charge on the nucleophile at the transition state(solvation term). It was found that both components of the selectivity for $SH^-$agreed with the experimental results obtained for 4-methylbenzylthiocyanate (4-MBTC), but the selectivity order for TEX>$CN^-$ was found to agree only with that of the intrinsic term and that of $OH^-$disagreed with any theoretical selectivity order. The MNDO optimized geometries for all species at the stationary points are reported.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.165-173
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• 2017

The aeromechanics predictions of HART I rotor obtained using a computational structural dynamics (CSD) code are evaluated against the wind tunnel test data. The flight regimes include low speed descending flight at an advance ratio of ${\mu}=0.151$ and cruise condition at ${\mu}=0.229$. A lifting-line based unsteady airfoil theory with C81 table look-up is used to calculate the aerodynamic loads acting on the blade. Either rolled-up free wake or multiple-trailer wake with consolidation (MTC) model is employed for the free vortex wake representation. The measured blade properties accomplished recently are used to analyze the rotor for the up-to-date computations. The comparison results on airloads and structural loads of the rotor show good agreements for descent flight and fair for cruise flight condition. It is observed that MTC model generally improves the correlation against the measured data. The structural loads predictions for all measurement locations of HART I rotor are investigated. The dominant harmonic response of the structural loads is clearly captured with MTC model.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.245-251
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• 2016

Despite the exponential throughput improvement in mobile communications systems, their ability to satisfy requirements of state-of-the-art and future applications of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is still under investigation. Challenges are mainly due to the inadequacy of third generation partnership project (3GPP) networks to support large amounts of devices simultaneously, while the number of AMI end-devices and the frequency of their data transmission increase with new AMI-based applications. In this introductory survey, innovative and future AMI applications and their communication requirements are first reviewed. Then, we identify challenges of 3GPP long term evolution (LTE) in enabling future AMI applications. More importantly, the latest improvements to LTE-A standard release 12 and 13 are reviewed and analyzed with regards to their potential to improve the quality of LTE-enabled AMI. It is found that 3GPP enhancements on machine type communications (MTC) standards will significantly enhance AMI communications. Beyond MTC specifications, non-MTC-specific enhancements such as carrier aggregation and multi-connectivity for user equipment will also contribute greatly to improving reliability and availability of AMI devices. The paper's focus is towards improved backhaul support for innovative and future AMI applications, beyond traditional automatic meter reading.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.132-138
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• 2019

Fall accident is the most frequent accident type of occupational accidents. As the age of workers increases, trip and fall accident increases more than other types of occupational accident in the middle-aged group. In this study, the gait characteristics of 25 middle-aged participants (mean ages 47.4, S.D. 5.8) were studied to analyze the trip and fall risks. The Minimum toe clearance(MTC) against the floor surface was measured in the variable conditions of gait speed by a motion capture system. In the 50s age group, the MTC decreased and the MTC tended to reduce the variation with increasing walking speed in the level walking. Therefore, the trip and fall risks for the 50s age group is higher than the 40s age group. Especially, the faster walking speed will increase the trip and fall risks even more.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.3357-3362
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• 2016

Purpose: To correlate ultrasonographic (US) features of medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) with preoperative and post-operative calcitonin levels. Materials and Methods: A total of 130 thyroid nodules diagnosed as MTC were evaluated. Two radiologists retrospectively evaluated preoperative US features according to size, shape, margin, echogenicity, type of calcification, and lymph node status. Postoperative clinical and imaging follow-up (mean duration $31.9 {\pm} 22.5$ months) was performed for detection of tumor recurrence. US features, presence of LN metastasis, and tumor recurrence were compared between MTC nodules with and without elevated preoperative calcitonin (>100 pg/mL). Those with normalized and non-normalized postoperative calcitonin levels groups were also compared. Results: Common US features of MTCs were solid internal content (90.8%), irregular shape (44.6%), circumscribed margin (46.2%), and hypoechogenicity (56.2%). Comparing MTC nodules with and without elevated preoperative calcitonin levels, the size and shape of MTC nodule and lymph node metastasis showed statistical significance (p<0.05). Postoperative calcitonin normalization correlated with US features of tumor size (p=0.002), margin (p=0.034), shape ($p{\leq}0.001$), and presence of calcification (p=0.046). Tumor recurrence and LN metastasis were more prevalent in patients without normalization of postoperative calcitonin than in those with normalization (p=0.001). Conclusions: Serum calcitonin measurement is helpful for early diagnosis and predicting prognosis. Postoperative calcitonin measurement is also important for postoperative US follow up, especially in cases with larger nodule size, presence of calcification, irregular shape, and irregular margin.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.321-331
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• 2011

Mycobacterium bovis, a member of the M. tuberculosis complex (MTC), is the causative agent of bovine tuberculosis. Detection of M. bovis and M. tuberculosis using conventional culture- and biochemical-based assays is time-consuming. Therefore, a simple and sensitive molecular assay for rapid detection would be of great help in specific situations such as faster diagnosis of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) infection in the abattoirs. We developed a novel multiplex real-time PCR assay which was applied directly to biological samples with evidence of bTB and it was allowed to differentiate between M. bovis and M. tuberculosis. The primers and TaqMan probes were designed to target the IS1081 gene, the multi-copy insertion element in the MTC and the 12.7-kb fragment which presents in M. tuberculosis, not in the M. bovis genome. The assay was optimized and validated by testing 10 species of mycobacteria including M. bovis and M. tuberculosis, and 10 other bacterial species such as Escherichia coli, and cattle lymph nodes (n=113). The tests identified 96.4% (27/28) as M. bovis from the MTC-positive bTB samples using conventional PCR for specific insertion elements IS1081. And MTC-negative bTB samples (n=85) were tested using conventional PCR and the real-time PCR. When comparative analyses were conducted on all bovine samples, using conventional PCR as the gold standard, the relative accuracy of real-time PCR was 99.1%, the relative specificity was 100%, and the agreement quotient (kappa) was 0.976. The detection limits of the real-time PCR assays for M. bovis and M. tuberculosis genomic DNA were 10 fg and 0.1 pg per PCR reaction, respectively. Consequently, this multiplex real-time PCR assay is a useful diagnotic tool for the identification of MTC and differentiation of M. bovis and M. tuberculosis, as well as the epidemiologic surveillance of animals slaughtered in abattoir.

• JOURNAL OF ELECTRICAL WORLD
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• s.417
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• pp.74-74
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• 2011