• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.309-327
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• 2021

Dynamic treatment regimes (DTRs) are decision-making rules designed to provide personalized treatment to individuals in multi-stage randomized trials. Unlike classical methods, in which all individuals are prescribed the same type of treatment, DTRs prescribe patient-tailored treatments which take into account individual characteristics that may change over time. The Q-learning method, one of regression-based algorithms to figure out optimal treatment rules, becomes more popular as it can be easily implemented. However, the performance of the Q-learning algorithm heavily relies on the correct specification of the Q-function for response, especially in observational studies. In this article, we examine a number of double-robust weighted least-squares estimating methods for Q-learning in high-dimensional settings, where treatment models for propensity score and penalization for sparse estimation are also investigated. We further consider flexible ensemble machine learning methods for the treatment model to achieve double-robustness, so that optimal decision rule can be correctly estimated as long as at least one of the outcome model or treatment model is correct. Extensive simulation studies show that the proposed methods work well with practical sample sizes. The practical utility of the proposed methods is proven with real data example.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.10-20
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• 2024

The conservation and restoration of wetlands are essential tasks for the sustainable development of human society and the environment, providing vital benefits such as biodiversity maintenance, natural disaster mitigation, and climate change alleviation. This study aims to analyze the strategic interactions and interests among various stakeholders using game theory and to provide significant grounds for policy decisions related to wetland restoration and development. In this study, hypothetical scenarios were set up for three types of cities: large, medium, and small. Stakeholders such as governments, development companies, environmental groups, and local residents were identified. Strategic options for each stakeholder were developed, and a payoff matrix was established through discussions among wetland ecology experts. Subsequently, non-cooperative game theory was applied to analyze Nash equilibria and Pareto efficiency. In large cities, strategies of 'Wetland Conservation' and 'Eco-Friendly Development' were found beneficial for all stakeholders. In medium cities, various strategies were identified, while in small cities, 'Eco-Friendly Development' emerged as the optimal solution for all parties involved. The Pareto efficiency analysis revealed how the optimal solutions for wetland management could vary across different city types. The study highlighted the importance of wetland conservation, eco-friendly development, and wetland restoration projects for each city type. Accordingly, policymakers should establish regulations and incentives that harmonize environmental protection and urban development and consider programs that promote community participation. Understanding the roles and strategies of stakeholders and the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy is crucial for making more effective policy decisions.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.275-285
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• 2013

Purpose : The objective of this study was to investigate effects of different smoothing kernel sizes on brain tissue-masked susceptibility-weighted images (SWI) obtained from normal elderly subjects using voxel-based analyses. Materials and Methods: Twenty healthy human volunteers (mean $age{\pm}SD$ = $67.8{\pm}6.09$ years, 14 females and 6 males) were studied after informed consent. A fully first-order flow-compensated three-dimensional (3D) gradient-echo sequence ran to obtain axial magnitude and phase images to generate SWI data. In addition, sagittal 3D T1-weighted images were acquired with the magnetization-prepared rapid acquisition of gradient-echo sequence for brain tissue segmentation and imaging registration. Both paramagnetically (PSWI) and diamagnetically (NSWI) phase-masked SWI data were obtained with masking out non-brain tissues. Finally, both tissue-masked PSWI and NSWI data were smoothed using different smoothing kernel sizes that were isotropic 0, 2, 4, and 8 mm Gaussian kernels. The voxel-based comparisons were performed using a paired t-test between PSWI and NSWI for each smoothing kernel size. Results: The significance of comparisons increased with increasing smoothing kernel sizes. Signals from NSWI were greater than those from PSWI. The smoothing kernel size of four was optimal to use voxel-based comparisons. The bilaterally different areas were found on multiple brain regions. Conclusion: The paramagnetic (positive) phase mask led to reduce signals from high susceptibility areas. To minimize partial volume effects and contributions of large vessels, the voxel-based analysis on SWI with masked non-brain components should be utilized.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.104-111
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• 1976

The experiment was tested with fruit of 5 astringent cultivars (Chungdo-Bansi, Sagoksi, Euisung-Bolbansi and Gyungsan-bansi) and was carried out to investigate effects of harvest time of fruit and fruit sizes on the removal of astringency and the practical utilization with Chungdo-Bansi was conducted. 1. Soluble tannin content was decreased in all cultivars as fruit was ripening and soluble tannin content at last harvest time was reduced about one half, as contrasted it's content at first harvest time and it showed that the times required of the removal of astringency was gradually shortened. 2. In soluble tannin contents was small fruit size was significantly higher than that of large fruit size. The times for the removal of astringency was required longer small fruit size than large fruit size. 3. In the changes of hardness according to fruit sizes, hardness of large fruit size was decreased rapider than that of small fruit size. This tendency became similar during and after the removal of astringency. 4. According to fruit sizes, sugar content of large fruit size was more amount than that of small fruit size During and after the removal of astringency, reduction of sugar content showed more rapidly large fruit size than small fruit size. 5. Results of the practical utilization in Chungdo-Bansi showed the promising market-ability and persimmons treated by carbon dioxide was increased more income than that treated by $CaC_2$.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.31-57
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• 1991

Korean firms of all sizes, from virtually every industry, have used and are using the term "excessive competition" to describe the state of their industry and to call for government interventions. Moreover, the Korean government has frequently responded to such calls in various ways favorable to the firms, such as controlling entry, curbing capacity investments, or allowing collusion. Despite such interventions' impact on the overall efficiency on the Korean economy as well as on the wealth distribution among diverse groups of economic agents, the term "excessive competition", the basis for the interventions, has so far escaped rigorous scrutiny. The objective of this paper is to clarify the notion of "excessive competition" and "over-investment" which usually accompanies "excessive competition", and to examine the circumstances under which they might occur. We first survey the cases where the terms are most widely used and proceed to examine those cases to determine if competition is indeed excessive, and if so, what causes "excessive competition". Our main concern deals with the case in which the firms must make investment decisions that involve large sunk costs while facing uncertain demand. In order to analyze this case, we developed a two period model of capacity precommitment and the ensuing competition. In the first period, oligopolistic firms make capacity investments that are irreversible. Demand is uncertain in period 1 and only the distribution is known. Thus, firms must make investment decisions under uncertainty. In the second period, demand is realized, and the firms compete with quantity under realized demand and capacity constraints. In the above setting, we find that there is "no over-investment," en ante, and there is "no excessive competition," ex post. As measured by the information available in period 1, expected return from investment of a firm is non-negative, overall industry capacity does not exceed the socially optimal level, and competition in the second period yields an outcome that gives each operating firm a non-negative second period profit. Thus, neither "excessive competition" nor "over-investment" is possible. This result will generally hold true if there is no externality and if the industry is not a natural monopoly. We also extend this result by examining a model in which the government is an active participant in the game with a well defined preference. Analysis of this model shows that over-investment arises if the government cannot credibly precommit itself to non-intervention when ex post idle capacity occurs, due to socio-political reasons. Firms invest in capacities that exceed socially optimal levels in this case because they correctly expect that the government will find it optimal for itself to intervene once over-investment and ensuing financial problems for the firms occur. Such planned over-investment and ensuing government intervention are the generic problems under the current system. These problems are expected to be repeated in many industries in years to come, causing a significant loss of welfare in the long run. As a remedy to this problem, we recommend a non-intervention policy by the government which creates and utilizes uncertainty. Based upon an argument which is essentially the same as that of Kreps and Wilson in the context of a chain-store game, we show that maintaining a consistent non-intervention policy will deter a planned over-investment by firms in the long run. We believe that the results obtained in this paper has a direct bearing on the public policies relating to many industries including the petrochemical industry that is currently in the center of heated debates.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.185-196
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• 2019

Abstract. This research was conducted to figure out the optimal size of the plug cell and seedling raising period in 'Nongwoo' and 'Nonghyeop' cultivars. In the first experiment on effect of plug cell size on growth of squash, seedlings were transplanted into hydroponic cultivation beds at different growing stages: Those in 32-cell trays with 3-4 true leaves at 25 days after sowing, those in 50-cell trays with 2 true leaves at 15 days after sowing, those in 105-cell trays just before a true leaf development, and those in 162-cell trays with only cotyledons at 8 days after sowing. In the second experiment on effect of seedling raising period on growth of squash, it was conducted to have different sowing dates. But the same transplanting date, based on the results of Experiment 1, and compared the differences in growth and fruit productivity as affected by plug cell size in the same way with experiment 1 including the cultivars and environmental conditions. After setting the transplanting date in advance, the number of days for sowing were calculated back for each treatment. In the first experiment, plant height was the greatest in 105-cell trays followed by 162, 50 and 32-cell trays in both cultivars. The best fruit quality was found in different treatments depending on the cultivars, although it was the lowest in 32-cell trays in both cultivars. The fruit quality was not significantly different among those from cell sizes. Therefore, when raising seedlings in 105-cell trays, the period of raising seedlings can be shortened as compared with the conventional 32-cell trays, and this change could reduce the workforce required for growing and transplanting seedlings. In the second experiment, after transplanting, shoot height and leaf width in the first measurement in both cultivars were greater in the 32-cell treatment. However, the last measurement after four weeks showed no significant difference in plant height, but significantly greatest leaf width in the smallest cell treatment, even as compared with that in 32-cell treatment. In case of 'Nongwoo', length and weight of the first harvested fruit showed the highest values in the treatment of 105-cell trays. In case of 'Nonghyeop' the 162-cell treatment along with the 105-cell treatment showed greatest length and weight of the first fruits. From these results, zucchini plug seedlings can be raised in plug trays with reduced cell sizes than the conventional 32-cell trays with improved fruit productivity.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.77-90
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• 2002

Network expansion has been an inevitable method for most traffic equilibrium assignments to consider intersection movements such as intersection delays. The drawback of network expansion is that because it dramatically increases network sizes to emulate possible directional movements as corresponding links, not only is complexities for building network amplified, but computational performance is shrunk. This paper Proposes a new variational inequality formulation for a user-optimal traffic equilibrium assignment model to explicitly consider directional delays without building expanded network structures. In the formulation, directional delay functions are directly embedded into the objective function, thus any modification of networks is not required. By applying a vine-based shortest Path algorithm into the diagonalization algorithm to solve the problem, it is additionally demonstrated that various loop-related movements such as U-Turn, P-Turn, etc., which are frequently witnessed near urban intersections, can also be imitated by blocking some turning movements of intersections. The proposed formulation expects to augment computational performance through reduction of network-building complexities.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.363-370
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• 2002

For the development of diagnostic polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to fungal infection by dermatophytes Trichophyton and Microsporum, detection of the fungal DNA by PCR and analysis of the DNA pattern were undertaken in the present study. A total of 15 strains were tested and those consisted of 3 reference strains and 12 isolates such as: reference strains of T mentagrophytes (downy type, ATCC 9533), T rubrum (IFO 6204) and M gypseum (ATCC 9083), and each isolate of T mentogrophytes (powdery type), T mentagrophytes (granular type), T mentogrophytes (purple-red type), T rubrum, T raubitschekii, T tonsurans, T equinum, T ajelloi, T verrucosum, M cookei, M nanum and M gypseum. The DNA were purely isolated from all strains of Trichophyton spp. and Microsporum spp. by a simple method partly consisted of disruption of fungal cells by lyophilization and grinding and extraction of fungal DNA without phenol treatment which is a routine procedure in DNA isolation. For the detection of fungal DNAs, optimal condition of PCR was determined as preheating once at $94^{\circ}C$ for 5 min, 35 cycles of denaturation at $94^{\circ}C$ for 1 min, annealing at $38^{\circ}C$ for 1 min and polymerization at $72^{\circ}C$ for 2 min, and 1 cycle of final extension at $72^{\circ}C$ for 5 min. In PCR using arbitrary primers AP-1 (5' ACCCGACCTG3') and AP-2 (5' ACGGGCCAGT3'), DNAs in various numbers and sizes were detected from different species of Trichophyton and Microsporum, while DNAs in similar size were also detected in all strains of Trichophyton spp. and Microsporum spp. There were unique DNAs observed from certain dermatophytes by AP-1 such as 1,900 bases in T rubrum, 950 and 1,100 bases in T raubitscheldi, 2,100 bases in T equinum, 400 bases in T verrucosum and 1,150 bases in M gypseum. The unique DNAs were also observed by AP-2 such as 1,200 bases in T ajelloi, 250 bases in T verrucosum, 1,150 bases in M cookei and 2,000 bases in M nanum. The results indicated that PCR can detect a specific DNA from certain Trychophyton and Microsporum spp, which can be the information for further development of diagoomc PCR to dennatophytes.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.551-562
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• 1998

Amultiresolution filtering algorithm based on the physical SPECT lesion detachability provides and optimal solution for SPECT reconstruction problem. Related to the previous study, we estimated the SPECT lesion detection capability by m minimum detectable lesion sizes (MDLSs), and generated m reconstruction filters which are designed to maximize the smoothing effect at a fixed MDLS-dependent resolution level $\frac{MDLS}{4\sqrt{2In2}}$. The proposed multiresolution filtering algorithm used a coarse-to-fine approach for the m-level resolution filter images obtained from these m filters for a given projection image. First, the local homogeneity is determined for every pixel of the filter images, by comparing the local variance value computed in a window centered at the pixel and the mode determined from the distribution of the local variances. Based on the local homogeneity, the pixels declared as homogeneous are chosen from the filter image of the lowest resolution, and for the other pixels the same process is repeated for the higher resolution filter images. For the non-homogeneous pixels after this pixels after this repetition process ends, the pixel values of the highest resolution filter image are substituted. From the results of the simulated experiments, the proposed multiresolution filtering algorithm showed a strong smoothing effect in the homogeneous regions and a significant resolution improvement near the edge regions of the projection images, and so produced good adaptability effects in the reconstructed images.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.152-157
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• 2004

Gluten was extracted from domestic wheat flour using UTH buffer (4 M urea in 0.1 M Tris-HCl, pH 8.6) and validated by SDS-PAGE analysis for production of wheat flour products with reduced gluten content.. Anti-gluten polyclonal antibody was made by administering extracted gluten fraction on animal model. Anti-gluten serum titer of extracted gluten fraction was evaluated by ELISA, and that of antibody titer according to administration period. Anti-gluten sera were used for ELISA and immunoblot analysis before and after hydrolysis of gluten fraction at optimal pH and temperature condition for each protease. Gluten fraction separated by SDS-PAGE showed several bands covering 75 to 10 kDa, in which anti-gluten sera were 25, 34, and 45 kDa. Enzyme hydrolysis of gluten fraction revealed protein band sizes to be lower than 15 kDa. Content of pretense from bovine pancreas (b.p. protease) for gluten hydrolysis was estimated as 1 mg in 10 mL gluten fraction extracted for 4 hr.