• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.611-635
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• 2014

Information systems (IS) have become ubiquitous and changed every aspect of how people live their lives. While some IS have been successfully adopted and widely used, others have failed to be adopted and crowded out in spite of remarkable progress in technologies. Both the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the IS Success Model (ISSM), among many others, have contributed to explain the reasons of success as well as failure in IS adoption and usage. While the TAM suggests that intention to use and perceived usefulness lead to actual IS usage, the ISSM indicates that information quality, system quality, and service quality affect IS usage and user satisfaction. Upon literature review, however, we found a significant void in theoretical development and its applications that employ either of the two models, and we raise research questions. First of all, in spite of the causal relationship between intention to use and actual usage, in most previous studies, only intention to use was employed as a dependent variable without overt explaining its relationship with actual usage. Moreover, even in a few studies that employed actual IS usage as a dependent variable, the degree of actual usage was measured based on users' perceptual responses to survey questionnaires. However, the measurement of actual usage based on survey responses might not be 'actual' usage in a strict sense that responders' perception may be distorted due to their selective perceptions or stereotypes. By the same token, the degree of system quality that IS users perceive might not be 'real' quality as well. This study seeks to fill this void by measuring the variables of actual usage and system quality using 'fact' data such as system logs and specifications of users' information and communications technology (ICT) devices. More specifically, we propose an integrated research model that bring together the TAM and the ISSM. The integrated model is composed of both the variables that are to be measured using fact as well as survey data. By employing the integrated model, we expect to reveal the difference between real and perceived degree of system quality, and to investigate the relationship between the perception-based measure of intention to use and the fact-based measure of actual usage. Furthermore, we also aim to add empirical findings on the general research question: what factors influence actual IS usage and how? In order to address the research question and to examine the research model, we selected a mobile campus application (MCA). We collected both fact data and survey data. For fact data, we retrieved them from the system logs such information as menu usage counts, user's device performance, display size, and operating system revision version number. At the same time, we conducted a survey among university students who use an MCA, and collected 180 valid responses. A partial least square (PLS) method was employed to validate our research model. Among nine hypotheses developed, we found five were supported while four were not. In detail, the relationships between (1) perceived system quality and perceived usefulness, (2) perceived system quality and perceived intention to use, (3) perceived usefulness and perceived intention to use, (4) quality of device platform and actual IS usage, and (5) perceived intention to use and actual IS usage were found to be significant. In comparison, the relationships between (1) quality of device platform and perceived system quality, (2) quality of device platform and perceived usefulness, (3) quality of device platform and perceived intention to use, and (4) perceived system quality and actual IS usage were not significant. The results of the study reveal notable differences from those of previous studies. First, although perceived intention to use shows a positive effect on actual IS usage, its explanatory power is very weak ($R^2$=0.064). Second, fact-based system quality (quality of user's device platform) shows a direct impact on actual IS usage without the mediating role of intention to use. Lastly, the relationships between perceived system quality (perception-based system quality) and other constructs show completely different results from those between quality of device platform (fact-based system quality) and other constructs. In the post-hoc analysis, IS users' past behavior was additionally included in the research model to further investigate the cause of such a low explanatory power of actual IS usage. The results show that past IS usage has a strong positive effect on current IS usage while intention to use does not have, implying that IS usage has already become a habitual behavior. This study provides the following several implications. First, we verify that fact-based data (i.e., system logs of real usage records) are more likely to reflect IS users' actual usage than perception-based data. In addition, by identifying the direct impact of quality of device platform on actual IS usage (without any mediating roles of attitude or intention), this study triggers further research on other potential factors that may directly influence actual IS usage. Furthermore, the results of the study provide practical strategic implications that organizations equipped with high-quality systems may directly expect high level of system usage.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.231-240
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• 2015

Medical imagery require to protect the privacy with preserving the quality of the original contents. Therefore, reversible watermarking is a solution for this purpose. Previous researches have focused on general imagery and achieved high capacity and high quality. However, they raise a distortion over entire image and hence are not applicable to medical imagery which require to preserve the quality of the objects. In this paper, we propose a novel reversible watermarking for medical imagery, which preserve the quality of the objects and achieves high capacity. First, object and background region is segmented and then predicted error histogram-based reversible watermarking is applied for each region. For the efficient watermark embedding with small distortion in the object region, the embedding level at object region is set as low while the embedding level at background region is set as high. In experiments, the proposed algorithm is compared with the previous predicted error histogram-based algorithm in aspects of embedding capacity and perceptual quality. Results support that the proposed algorithm performs well over the previous algorithm.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.110-122
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• 2014

As multimedia technologies develop, three-dimensional (3D) technologies are attracting increasing attention from researchers. In particular, video quality assessment (VQA) has become a critical issue in stereoscopic image/video processing applications. Furthermore, a human visual system (HVS) could play an important role in the measurement of stereoscopic video quality, yet existing VQA methods have done little to develop a HVS for stereoscopic video. We seek to amend this by proposing a 3D visual attention (3DVA) model which simulates the HVS for stereoscopic video by combining multiple perceptual stimuli such as depth, motion, color, intensity, and orientation contrast. We utilize this 3DVA model for pooling on significant regions of very poor video quality, and we propose no-reference (NR) stereoscopic VQA (SVQA) method. We validated the proposed SVQA method using subjective test scores from our results and those reported by others. Our approach yields high correlation with the measured mean opinion score (MOS) as well as consistent performance in asymmetric coding conditions. Additionally, the 3DVA model is used to extract information for the region-of-interest (ROI). Subjective evaluations of the extracted ROI indicate that the 3DVA-based ROI extraction outperforms the other compared extraction methods using spatial or/and temporal terms.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.11
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• pp.57-69
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• 2014

This Study analyzed empirically how do brand value components of consumer perception side effect on receptive degree of product in extension types of vertical brand extension, and how does the difference of receptive degree among products of extension types be showed under the positive effect of brand value. First, brand awareness has positive effect on upward and downward extension, and receptive degree of product is higher in downward extension than upward extension. Second, brand association doesn't have positive effect on upward extension but has positive effect on downward extension. Third, perceived quality showed similar results to brand awareness. Only, receptive degree of upward extension product in high perceived quality is higher than in high brand awareness or in high brand association. Fourth, examining about interaction effect among brand value components, interaction effect between brand awareness and brand association exists in downward extension, interaction effect between brand awareness and perceived quality exists in upward and downward extension, and interaction effect between brand association and perceived quality exists in upward and downward extension. By this interaction effect, the difference of receptive degree among products of extension types grows larger.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.51 no.7
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• pp.180-189
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• 2014

Display quality assessment has been a long standing issue due to the diversity of display devices and the rapid growth of display technology. The conventional display quality assessment methods are mostly those methods which evaluate qualities of a display by measuring physical quantities, but the results from the methods are not equal to the perceived results which are acquired with subjective experiments. Thus, we need to solve the above contrariety as well as establish the quantitative correlation between physical and perceived results. This paper proposes the systematic method of evaluating relative perceived qualities among various display devices and quantifies these relative perceived qualities. The proposed method is based on Analytic Network Process(ANP), which is one of the most popular decision making methods in the business administration field. We also adopted three evaluation criteria, which consist of color, shape and depth, in order to reflect the human visual system and chose eight sub-criteria related to display characteristics via question investigation. We carried out a subjective experiment and the proposed method which evaluated perceived qualities of two display devices(TFT-LCD, OLED) in order to prove the similarity between their results. As a result, it is proved that the order relationship between perceived qualities was the same as the order of results got through the subjective experiment.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.9-18
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• 2024

The importance of active sonar systems is emerging due to the quietness of underwater targets and the increase in ambient noise due to the increase in maritime traffic. However, the low signal-to-noise ratio of the echo signal due to multipath propagation of the signal, various clutter, ambient noise and reverberation makes it difficult to identify underwater targets using active sonar. Attempts have been made to apply data-based methods such as machine learning or deep learning to improve the performance of underwater target recognition systems, but it is difficult to collect enough data for training due to the nature of sonar datasets. Methods based on mathematical modeling have been mainly used to compensate for insufficient active sonar data. However, methodologies based on mathematical modeling have limitations in accurately simulating complex underwater phenomena. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a sonar signal synthesis method based on a deep neural network. In order to apply the neural network model to the field of sonar signal synthesis, the proposed method appropriately corrects the attention-based encoder and decoder to the sonar signal, which is the main module of the Tacotron model mainly used in the field of speech synthesis. It is possible to synthesize a signal more similar to the actual signal by training the proposed model using the dataset collected by arranging a simulated target in an actual marine environment. In order to verify the performance of the proposed method, Perceptual evaluation of audio quality test was conducted and within score difference -2.3 was shown compared to actual signal in a total of four different environments. These results prove that the active sonar signal generated by the proposed method approximates the actual signal.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.230-235
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• 2005

In this paper, we propose an algorithm that improves a tone quality of a noisy audio signal in order to enhance a performance of perceptual filter using intelligent estimation of noise pattern from a band degraded by additive noise. The proposed method doesn't use the estimated noise which is obtained from silent range. Instead new estimated noise according to the power of signal and effect of noise variation is considered for each frame. So the noisy audio signal is enhanced by the method which controls a estimation of noise Pattern effectively in a noise corruption band. To show the performance of the proposed algorithm, various input signals which had a different signal-to-noise ratio(SNR) such as $5\cal{dB},\;10\cal{dB},\;15\cal{dB}\;and\;20\cal{dB}$ were used to test the proposed algorithm. we carry out SSNR and NMR of objective measurement and MOS test of subjective measurement. An approximate improvement of $7.4\cal{dB},\;6.8\cal{dB},\;5.7\cal{dB},\;5.1\cal{dB}$ in SSNR and $15.7\cal{dB},\;15.5\cal{dB},\;15.2\cal{dB},\;14.8\cal{dB}$ in NMR is achieved with the input signals, respectively. And we confirm the enhancement of tone quality in terms of mean opinion score(MOS) test which is result of subjective measurement.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.30-36
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• 2018

Background and Objectives : The effect of palliative injection laryngoplasty in cancer-related unilateral vocal cord paralysis patients on voice and swallowing function is uncertain and there are few previous studies of its suitability, benefits as a palliative treatment option. The purpose of this study is to confirm the objective results of voice and swallowing function after palliative office-based hyaluronic acid injection laryngoplasty in cancer-related unilateral vocal cord paralysis patients. Materials and Method : 36 patients who had unilateral vocal cord paralysis from non-thyroidal, extralaryngeal neoplasms were included in this study. To evaluate the clinical outcome, we analyzed perceptual GRBAS grading, acoustic analysis, aerodynamic study, Electroglottography (EGG), Voice Handicap Index (VHI-30) about voice function and disability rating scale (DRS), gastric tube dependency, aspiration pneumonia about swallowing function and 36-Item Short Form Survey version 2 (SF-36v2) about quality of life. Results : In GRBAS scale, G (p<0.001), R (p=0.004), B (p=0.001), A (p=0.011), and S (p=0.007) showed significant improvement. Jitter, shimmer, speaking fundamental frequency, maximal phonation time, VHI-30, DRS score, gastric tube dependency, aspiration pneumonia, and SF-36v2 were significantly improved after injection (p=0.016, p=0.011, p=0.045, p=0.005, p<0.001, p<0.001 p=0.003, p<0.001, and p<0.001 respectively). Conclusion : From this study we concluded office-based hyaluronic acid injection can be used as a useful palliative treatment option in cancer-related ill patients with unilateral vocal cord paralysis. Palliative hyaluronic acid injection laryngoplasty avoids the need for tube feeding, thus reducing the risk of aspiration pneumonia. These outcomes are accompanied by significant improvement in voice quality.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.857-866
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• 2009

In this paper, a noise cancellation-method using microphone array for digital hearing aids is proposed. The microphone array is located around the ear of a dummy. Speech sound is generated from the forward speaker positioned in the front of the dummy and noise sound is generated from the backward speaker. The speech and noise are mixed in the air space and entered into the microphones. VAD(voice activity detector) and ANC(adaptive noise cancellation) methods were used to eliminate noise in the sound of the microphones. 10 two-syllable words and 4 sentences were used for speech signals. Babble and car interior noise were used for noise signals. The performance of the proposed algorithm was evaluated by SNR(signal-to-noise ratio) and PESQ-MOS(perceptual evaluation of speech quality-mean opinion score). In babble noise condition, SNR was improved as much as $7.963{\pm}1.3620dB\;and\;3.968{\pm}0.6659dB$ for words and sentences respectively. In the case of car interior noise, SNR was improved as $10.512{\pm}2.0665dB\;and\;6.000{\pm}1.7642dB$ for words and sentences respectively. PESQ-MOS of the babble noise was improved as much as $0.1722{\pm}0.0861$ score for words and $0.083{\pm}0.0417$ score for sentences. And PESQ-MOS of the car interior noise was improved as $0.2661{\pm}0.0335$ score and $0.040{\pm}0.0201$ score for words and sentences respectively. It is verified that the proposed algorithm has a good performance in noise cancellation of microphone array for digital hearing aids.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.10B no.4
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• pp.419-428
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• 2003

Recently, digital watermarking has been proposed as a viable solution to the need of copyright protection and authentication of multimedia data. A robust wavelet-based watermark casting scheme and a watermark retrieval technique are suggested in this paper. We present a method which can add the watermark to the significant coefficients in the DWT domain, and does not require the original image in the detection process. In adaptive watermark casting method is developed to select perceptually significant coefficients for each subband using multiple threshold. In the proposed method, an adaptive multiple threshold scheme is used to reflect characteristics of each subband and complexity of image. The watermark is adaptively weighted in different subbands to achieve robustness as well as high perceptual quality. The watermark, Gaussian random sequence is added to the large coefficients but not in the lowest subband in the DWT domain. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm produced visually very good watermarked image which has good invisibility to human eyes and very robust against various image processing and compression attacks.