• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.113-121
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• 2012

Purpose: Particle separation in solution is one of important process in a unit operation as well as in an extract preparation for biosensors. Contrary to centrifuge-type of mesh-type filter, using an ultrasonic standing wave make the filtering process continuous and free from maintenance. It is needed to investigate the characteristics of particle movement in the ultrasonic standing wave field. Methods: Through the computer simulation the effects of major design and driving parameters on the alignment characteristics of particles were investigated, and a cylindrical chamber with up-stream flow type was devised using two circular-shape PZTs on both sides of the chamber, one for transmitting ultrasonic wave and the other for just reflecting it. Then, the system performance was experimentally investigated as well. Results: The speed of a particle to reach pressure-node plane increased as the acoustic pressure and size of particle increased. The maximum allowable up-stream flow rate could be calculated as well. As expected, exact numbers of pressure-node planes were well formed at specific locations according to the wavelength of ultrasonic wave. As the driving frequency of PZT got close to its resonance frequency, the bands of particles were observed clearer, which meant the particles were trapped into narrower space. Higher excitation voltages to the PZT produced a greater acoustic force with which to trap particles in the pressure-node planes, so that the particles gathered could move upwards without disturbing their alignments even at a higher inlet flow rate. Conclusions: This research showed the feasibility of particle separation in solution in the continuous way by an ultrasonic standing wave. Further study is needed to develop a device to collect or harvest those separated particles.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.3878-3884
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• 1975

This study was carried out to develop the throw-in type thresher with its size as small as possible. Developing the smallest possible size of the throw-in type thresher has been very important to increase mobility and to reduce the machine price. The thresher that developed for this purpose was tested as to threshing and separation performance for the samples collected in eight catch boxes under the concave while threshing. The amount of grain collected in each compartments was measured and the threshing and separating pattern along the total span of the threshing drum was determined. The performance of separating and threshing units of the test thresher and threshing loss was evaluated by use of the developed grain separating apparatus and the method for measuring the grain separating performance of threshers. The results are summarized as follows; 1. The unthreshed grain (drum losses) and semi-threshed grain did not appeared at all throughout the treatments. 2. When threshed by making use of the developed throw-in type thresher, the threshing grain loss at about 25 per cent grain moisture was about one-half when threshed at about 18 per cent grain moisture. 3. And its grain separating loss in higher feed rate was decreased in comparison with that of lower feed rate. These results suggests that the throw-in type thresher may be suitable for wet threshing and for higher feed rate of threshing. 4. Above 60 per cent of total grain passing through concave fell through the screen within a scant 30 cm from the feeding inlet. This threshing pattern may suggest that major threshing action may be finished before about one third of cylinder length. The required separating load extended over the whole drum span is so defferent that separating elements should be redesigned so as to accomodate this variable pattern of separation load. 5. It was apparent from the experiment that the length of the threshing drum of the throw-in type thresher could be reduced from 1285mm to about 1050mm without increasing grain separation loss greatly.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.20-44
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• 2004

The National Health Insurance Expenditure has been increased rapidly since the introduction of the separation of prescription and dispensing in 2000, and this trend of rapid growth in overall spendings rate has been observed predominantly among medical practitioners. This study was conducted to investigate the growth rate and distributional changes in private medical practitioners' expenses from 1999 to 2002 and its determinants using the National Health Insurance claims data. The total increasing rate of all medical practitioners' expenditure paid by the National Health Insurance between 1999 and 2002 was $41.71\%$, which exceeding that of general hospitals by $20\%$p. But the income distribution among each practitioner was improved as the changes in Gini coefficient(from 0.40 to 0.38) and decile distribution ratio(from 0.25 to 0.29) during the same period showed. However, this improvement in distributional patterns is not enough since even in 2002 it turned out that the highest $10\%$ income group earned 33times more than the lowest $10\%$ income group did. Also, higher Gini coefficient was observed in larger cities and some department like plastic surgery, obstetrics and gynecology. The major causes of this differentials in medical practitioners' expenses were factors related to medical demand like proportion of old population, residential economic status in a given area. In addition, providers' economic incentives also played an important role in determining their income distribution. The large income differentials among physicians may imply a skewed distribution of patients and thus long waiting time, inefficient utilization of resources and potential inadequate quality of care. In this sense, unreasonable distributional gaps should be reduced, so effective measures as well as ongoing monitoring would be necessary to correct current distributional problems.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2004.06a
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• pp.319-329
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• 2004

The electrorefining experiments with an anode composed of U, Y, Gd, Nd and Ce (or U, Gd, Dy and Ce) were carried out in the KC1-LiCl eutectic melt at $500^{\circ}C$, Uranium was the major component in the cathode deposits at the high initial uranium concentration, and the separation factors of the uranium with respect to the rare earths (REs) were calculated according to the applied voltage and the uranium concentration in the molten salt. The current efficiency was inversely in proportion to the applied voltage in the range of 1.0 V to 1, 9 V (vs. STS304L). The dependency of the applied voltage on the current efficiency as well as the deposition rate was discussed in terms of the microstructural feature and crystal structure of the deposit.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.27-37
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• 1991

A recognition algorithm for Hangul is developed by structural analysis to Hangul in this theses. Four major procedures are proposed : preprocessing, type classification, separation of consonant and vowel, recognition. In the preprocessing procedure, the thinning algorithm proposed by CHEN & HSU is applied. In the type classification procedure, thinned Hangul image is classified into one of six formal types. In the separation of consonant and vowel procedure, starting from branch-points which are existed in a vowel, character elements are separated by means of tracing branch-point pixel by pixel and comparison with proposed templates. In the same time, the vowels are recognized. In the recognition procedure, consonants are extracted from the separated Hangul character and recognized by modified Crossing method. Recognized characters are converted into KS-5601-1989 codes. The experiments show that correct recognition rate is about 80%-90% and recognition speed is about 2-3 character persecond in three types of different input data on computer with 80386 microprocessor.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.75-86
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• 2002

This study was conducted to investigate the changes in patients and medical services before and after the Separation of Prescription and Dispensing in Health Center. For the purpose of this study, prescription data of 5,890 prescribed patients in March 2000(before the Separation of Prescription and Dispensing) and 3,496 prescribed patients in March 2001(after the Separation) in 4 Health Centers located in Gyeongsangbuk-do and Gyeongsangnam-do were collected. For investigation of the change of character of prescribed patients and the disease, sex, age, chief diagnosis, the hind of medical insurance, days of visit, days of prescription were investigated by using National Health Insurance claim data. And for investigation of change of prescription, prescribed drugs per each claim, the use rate of antibiotics, injection, and high-price antiphlogistic drug were investigated for acute respiratory disease and musculoskeletal disease. The major results were as follows: For the changes of prescribed patients of each disease, patients with acute respiratory disease were decreased by 49.7% after the Separation of Prescription and Dispensing than before the Separation of Prescription and Dispensing and patients with hypertension(18.1%), patients with musculoskeletal disease(70.5%), patients with diabetes(8.5%), patients with digestive organ disease(71.2%), patients with chronic respiratory disease(76.4%) were decreased. But patients with urethritis were increased by 66.7%. The mean Health Center visited days of prescribed patients decreased significantly after the Separation of Prescription and Dispensing than before in both male and female(p<0.01) and in health insurance patients(p<0.01). For the each of the disease, hypertension, diabetes, musculoskeletal disease decreased. The mean prescribed days increased after the Separation of Prescription and Dispensing than before(p<0.01). According to the kine of disease, the mean prescribed days increased after the Separation of Prescription and Dispensing than before in all the diseases except the urethritis(p<0.01). For acute respiratory diseases, number of prescribed drugs per each claim decreased significantly after the Separation of Prescription and Dispensing(4.7 drugs) than before(4.9 drugs) and the prescription rate of injection decreased significantly from 63.8% to 7.70%, and the prescription rate of antibiotics decreased significantly from 337% to 19.1%(p<0.01). For musculoskeletal diseases before and after Separation of Prescription and Dispensing, number of prescribed drugs per each claim decreased significantly from 3.7 to 3.2 and the prescription rate of injection decreased significantly from 64.9% to 1.7%, and the prescription rate of high-price antiphlogistic drugs increased significantly from 29.1% to 397%(p<0.01). In consideration of above findings, the mean visited days decreased and on the contrary, the mean prescribed days per each prescription increased after Separation of Prescription and Dispensing than before in health centers. For the prescription pattern of physicians, number of prescribed drugs and the prescription rates of injection and antibiotics per each claim decreased, but the prescription rate of high-price antiphlogistic drugs increased after Separation of Prescription and Dispensing.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.32 no.11
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• pp.824-831
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• 2008

We present a continuous size-dependent particle separator using a negative dielectrophoretic (DEP) virtual pillar array. Two major problems in the previous size-dependent particle separators include the particle clogging in the mechanical sieving structures and the fixed range of separable particle sizes. The present particle separator uses the virtual pillar array generated by negative DEP force instead of the mechanical pillar array, thus eliminating the clogging problems. It is also possible to adjust the size of separable particles since the size of virtual pillars is a function of a particle diameter and applied voltage. At an applied voltage of 500 kHz $10\;V_{rms}$ (root mean sqaure voltage) sinusidal wave and a flow rate of $0.40\;{\mu}l\;min^{-1}$, we separate $5.7\;{\mu}m$-, $8.0\;{\mu}m$-, $10.5\;{\mu}m$-, and $11.9\;{\mu}m$-diameter polystyrene (PS) beads with separation purity of 95%, 92%, 50%, and 63%, respectively. The $10.5\;{\mu}m$- and $11.9\;{\mu}m$-diameter PS beads have relatively low separation purity of 50% and 63%. However, at an applied voltage of $8\;V_{rms}$, we separate $11.9\;{\mu}m$-diameter PS beads with separation purity over 99%. Therefore, the present particle separator achieves clog-free size-dependent particle separation, which is capable of size tuning of separable particles.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.85-90
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• 2002

The aim of this study was to examine the current turnover status of hospital pharmacists and to analyze the factors which affected the turnover of them after the separation of prescribing and dispensing practice. We surveyed 19 managers of hospital pharmacies and 154 hospital pharmacists. Results are as follows. Pharmacist manpower of hospital pharmacies was only $63.99\%$ in tertiary hospitals and $76.78\%$ in general hospitals respectively of the number of pharmacists before the separation of prescription and dispensing practice. The ratio of those who left hospital pharmacies during the period of January 2000 and October 2001 was $80.23\%$ for tertiary hospitals, and $100.84\%$ for general hospitals. Decrease in the number of pharmacists brought the increase of work load and night duty. Major factors which affected the turnover of hospital pharmacists were found as following: income gap between hospital pharmacists and community pharmacists, increasing workload especially at night and on holidays, infrequent chance for the promotion, and low chance to provide clinical pharmacy services after the separation of prescribing and dispensing practice. Adequate manpower is the basic factor for providing hospital pharmacy services and improving clinical pharmacy services. The study suggested that proper number of hospital pharmacists is to be ensured through strengthening the legal requirement for the hospital pharmacists and improving health insurance reimbursement rate for the pharmaceutical services at hospital.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.178-183
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• 2002

A high molecular ar weight water-soluble chitosan (WSC) with an average molecular weight of 300 kD and a deacethylation level of over 90% was produced using a simple multi-step-membrane separation process. It is known that WSC prevents obesity induced by a high-fat diet. Consequently, this study investigated whether or not WSC improved the ovarian dysfunction caused by obesity in mice. The mice were fed a high density protein and lipid diet for weeks, followed by the administration of WSC at 480 mg/kg body weight per day for 4 days. Thereafter, the changes in body weight, ovulation rate, in vivo and in vitro fertilization and emboryonic development were measured . WSC markedly reduced the body weight of obese mice fed with a high-fat diet, but not in mice fed with a normal diet. WSC had siginificant effects on the ovulation rate, both the in vivo and in vitro fertilization rates and embryonic development. These results indicate an improvement in the ovarian and oviduct dysfunction caused by obesity, and suggest an adjustment in the internal secretions and metabolic functions.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.117-140
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• 2013

Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India, with more than 300 million speakers. As there is no separation between the characters of texts written in Hindi as there is in English, the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) systems developed for the Hindi language carry a very poor recognition rate. In this paper we propose an OCR for printed Hindi text in Devanagari script, using Artificial Neural Network (ANN), which improves its efficiency. One of the major reasons for the poor recognition rate is error in character segmentation. The presence of touching characters in the scanned documents further complicates the segmentation process, creating a major problem when designing an effective character segmentation technique. Preprocessing, character segmentation, feature extraction, and finally, classification and recognition are the major steps which are followed by a general OCR. The preprocessing tasks considered in the paper are conversion of gray scaled images to binary images, image rectification, and segmentation of the document's textual contents into paragraphs, lines, words, and then at the level of basic symbols. The basic symbols, obtained as the fundamental unit from the segmentation process, are recognized by the neural classifier. In this work, three feature extraction techniques-: histogram of projection based on mean distance, histogram of projection based on pixel value, and vertical zero crossing, have been used to improve the rate of recognition. These feature extraction techniques are powerful enough to extract features of even distorted characters/symbols. For development of the neural classifier, a back-propagation neural network with two hidden layers is used. The classifier is trained and tested for printed Hindi texts. A performance of approximately 90% correct recognition rate is achieved.