• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.64 no.2
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• pp.247-254
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• 2021

Objective : The subaxial cervical pedicle screwing technique shows powerful biomechanical properties for posterior cervical fusion. When applying a pedicle screw using the freehand technique, it is essential to analyse cervical computed tomography and plan the surgery accordingly. Normal cervical computed tomography is usually performed in the supine position, whereas during surgery, the patient lies in a prone position. This fact leads us to suppose that radiological evaluations may yield misleading results. Our study aimed to investigate whether there is any superiority between preoperative preparation on computed tomography performed in the prone position and that performed in the supine position. Methods : This study included 17 patients (132 pedicle screws) who were recently operated on with cervical vertebral computed tomography in the prone position and 17 patients (136 pedicle screws) who were operated on by conventional cervical vertebral computed tomography as the control group. The patients in both groups were compared in terms of age, gender, pathological diagnosis, screw malposition and complications. A screw malposition evaluation was made according to the Gertzbein-Robbins scale. Results : No statistically significant difference was observed between the two groups regarding age, gender and pathological diagnosis. The screw malposition rate (from 11.1% to 6.9%, p<0.05), mean malposition distance (from 2.18 mm to 1.86 mm, p <0.05), and complications statistically significantly decreased in the prone position computed tomography group. Conclusion : Preoperative surgical planning by performing cervical vertebral computed tomography in the prone position reduces screw malposition and complications. Our surgical success increased with a simple modification that can be applied by all clinicians without creating additional radiation exposure or additional costs.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Planning & Design
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.125-136
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• 2020

This study aims to seek a proper policy direction in response to the demand for apartment remodeling. As the research methods, we diagnosed the current status of the remodeling policy and analyzed the demand for apartment remodeling nationwide. According to the result of analysis, we suggested the fundamental direction and tasks for remodeling policies to be pursued at the government level. The results of the study are summarized as follows. First, the result of analysis showed that the demand for environmental improvement(performance improvement) remodeling project was much higher than other types of remodeling projects. The percentage of unit increased-type remodeling that can secure business feasibility is about 10% and only 30% when it comes to reducing project costs. The remaining 70-90% need to be promoted in environmental improvement remodeling projects which dependent on the residents' payment. Second, in order to prepare a policy action plan in response to the demand for apartment remodeling, it is necessary to set up clear policy goals and strategies for apartment remodeling in advance at the national level. Along with proactive goals and strategies, graded policy support should be accompanied per type of remodeling and business demand. We also suggest to simplify administrative procedures and support the R&D research to develop technologies. It would help to utilize the unit increased-type remodeling. On the other hand, for utilizing the environmental improvement remodeling which takes up a relatively high proportion, the policy should take care of as follows: offering housing performance information, rationalizing long term repair reserve, fostering small companies and experts. Finally, apartment management system should be advanced from the perspectives of managing old apartments and institutional foundations such as new construction and customized regulations for differentiated remodeling should be accompanied.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.565-586
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• 2022

Cloud storage's elastic expansibility not only provides flexible services for data owners to store their data remotely, but also reduces storage operation and management costs of their data sharing. The data outsourced remotely in the storage space of cloud service provider also brings data security concerns about data integrity. Data integrity verification has become an important technology for detecting the integrity of remote shared data. However, users without data access rights to verify the data integrity will cause unnecessary overhead to data owner and cloud service provider. Especially malicious users who constantly launch data integrity verification will greatly waste service resources. Since data owner is a consumer purchasing cloud services, he needs to bear both the cost of data storage and that of data verification. This paper proposes a verification control algorithm in data integrity verification for remotely outsourced data. It designs an attribute-based encryption verification control algorithm for multiple verifiers. Moreover, data owner and cloud service provider construct a common access structure together and generate a verification sentinel to verify the authority of verifiers according to the access structure. Finally, since cloud service provider cannot know the access structure and the sentry generation operation, it can only authenticate verifiers with satisfying access policy to verify the data integrity for the corresponding outsourced data. Theoretical analysis and experimental results show that the proposed algorithm achieves fine-grained access control to multiple verifiers for the data integrity verification.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.545-556
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• 2022

Evaluation and optimization of tunnel wall convergence (TWC) plays a vital role in preventing potential problems during tunnel construction and utilization stage. When convergence occurs at a high rate, it can lead to significant problems such as reducing the advance rate and safety, which in turn increases operating costs. In order to design an effective solution, it is important to accurately predict the degree of TWC; this can reduce the level of concern and have a positive effect on the design. With the development of soft computing methods, the use of deep learning algorithms and neural networks in tunnel construction has expanded in recent years. The current study aims to employ the long-short-term memory (LSTM) deep neural network predictor model to predict the TWC, based on 550 data points of observed parameters developed by collecting required data from different tunnelling projects. Among the data collected during the pre-construction and construction phases of the project, 80% is randomly used to train the model and the rest is used to test the model. Several loss functions including root mean square error (RMSE) and coefficient of determination (R²) were used to assess the performance and precision of the applied method. The results of the proposed models indicate an acceptable and reliable accuracy. In fact, the results show that the predicted values are in good agreement with the observed actual data. The proposed model can be considered for use in similar ground and tunneling conditions. It is important to note that this work has the potential to reduce the tunneling uncertainties significantly and make deep learning a valuable tool for planning tunnels.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.622-627
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• 2009

Business process engineering (BPE) is a top-down management approach for increasing efficiency and productivity through radical and fundamental changes to the business processes of the organization. BPE requires firms to initially develop a model of the existing business processes of the firm to distinguish functional tasks from processes used for coordinating inputs, activities and outputs. The model is used for understanding the business processes in the organization and to simulate the effect of changes to the processes. The model can also be used to justify business processes, which involves assessing whether the business process provides value to the customer in its current configuration. Justification requires a careful examination of the key business processes used by the firm to identify systemic shortcomings in the process and to create a new business process to produce greater efficiency. BPE also considers automating as many business processes as possible to increase operational efficiency and the integration of business process tasks. The construction industry has been slow to adopt BPE because of its project approach in which a major firm contracts with various functional service providers and regards each project as unique. The industry focuses on functional task efficiency rather than business process efficiency. There is no formal methodology or criteria for determining whether a business process is effective for a construction firm in its current configuration. The use of performance measures such as costs, task duration times or other metrics can be useful in evaluating the effectiveness of an existing business process and for modeling the possible outcome of a fundamental and radical change to the process.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.547-567
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• 2022

In this study, I focus on makerspaces, which have rapidly spread since the late 2000s in the world's major cities. Makerspaces, born amid great social change, reflect the core characteristics of industrial space. I analyze the makerspace based on the theoretical perspectives of urbanism in the macroscopic aspect and placeness in the microscopic aspect. The urbanism of makerspaces is manifested through entry into the inner cities and their connections with urban capabilities. This means that convergence with innovation factors is becoming more important than optimization of factor costs and agglomeration economies in the locational determinants of industrial space. The placeness of makerspaces is being re-formed through an emphasis on taste, the expansion of autonomy, and the strengthening of connections. This reveals how the value creation process within the industrial space is changing, from forming-placelessness through standardization, uniformity, and compartmentalization to forming-placeness through restoration of individual humanity and interaction. The results of the urbanism and placenesss analysis carry implications for the present moment, when it is necessary to diversify the spatial planning of industrial spaces.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2013.01a
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• pp.467-474
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• 2013

Construction contactors must continuously seek to improve their cash flows, which reside at the heart of their financial success. They require careful planning, analysis, and optimization to avoid the risk of bankruptcy, remain profitable, and secure long-term growth. Sources of cash include bank loans and retained earnings, which are conceptually similar in that they both incur a cost of capital. Financial management therefore requires accurate yet customizable modeling capabilities that can quantify all expenses, including said cost of capital. However, currently existing cash flow models in construction engineering and management have strongly simplified the manner in which interest is assessed, which may even lead to overstating it at a disadvantage to contractors. The variable nature of cash balances, especially in the early phases of construction projects, contribute to this challenging issue. This research therefore extends a new cash flow model with an accurate interest calculation. It utilizes singularity functions, so called because of their ability to flexibly model changes across any number of different ranges. The interest function is continuous for activity costs of any duration and allows the realistic case that activities may begin between integer time periods, which are often calendar months. Such fractional interest calculation has hitherto been lacking from the literature. It also provides insights into the self-referential behavior of compound interest for variable cash balances. The contribution of this study is twofold; augmenting the corpus of financial analysis theory with a new interest formula, whose strengths include its generic nature and that it can be evaluated at any fractional value of time, and providing construction managers with a tool to help improve and fine-tune the financial performance of their projects.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.511-523
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• 2023

Canal-side roads frequently collapse due to an unexpectedly greater soft-clay thickness with a rapid drawdown situation. This causes annually increased repair and reconstruction costs. This paper aims to explore the effect of soft-clay thickness on the failure in the canal-side road in the case study of Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya rural road no. 1043 (AY. 1043). Before the actual construction, a field vane shear test was performed to determine the undrained shear strength and identify the thickness of the soft clay at the AY. 1043 area. After establishing the usability of AY. 1043, the resistivity survey method was used to evaluate the thickness of the soft clay layer at the failure zone. The screw driving sounding test was used to evaluate the undrained shear strength for the road structure with a medium-stiff clay layer at the failure zone for applying to the numerical model. This model was simulated to confirm the effect of soft-clay thickness on the failure of the canal-side road. The monitoring and testing results showed the tendency of rapid drawdown failure when the canal-side road was located on > 9 m thick of soft clay with a sensitivity > 4.5. The result indicates that the combination of resistivity survey and field vane shear test can be successfully used to inspect the soft-clay thickness and sensitivity before construction. The preliminary design for preventing failure or improving the stability of the canal-side road should be considered before construction under the critical thickness and sensitivity values of the soft clay.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.817-838
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• 2005

In this paper, the resource adequacy as well as the optimum fuel mix is obtained by the following procedures. First, the regulation body, the government agency, determine the reliability index as well as the optimum portfolio of the fuel mix during the planning horizon. Here, the resources with the characteristics of public goods such as demand-side management, renewable resources are assigned in advance. Also, the optimum portfolio is determined by reflecting the economics, environmental characteristics, public acceptance, regional supply and demand, etc. Second, the government announces the required amount of each fuel-type new resources during the planning horizon and the market participants bid to the government based on their own estimated fixed cost. Here, the government announces the winners of the each auction by plant type and the guaranteed fixed cost is determined by the marginal auction price by plant type. Third, the energy market is run and the surplus of each plant except their cost (guaranteed fixed cost and operating cost) is withdrew by the regulatory body. Here, to induce the generators to reduce their operating cost some incentives for each generator is given based on their performance. The performance is determined by the mechanism of the performance-based regulation (PBR). Here the free-riding performance should be subtracted to guarantee the transparent competition. Although the suggested mechanism looks like very regulated one, it provides two mechanism of the competition. That is, one is in the resource construction auction and the other is in the energy spot market. Also the advantages of the proposed method are it guarantee the proper resource adequacy as well as the desired fuel mix. However, this mechanism should be sustained during the transient period of the deregulation only. Therefore, generation resource planning procedure and market mechanisms are suggested to minimize possible stranded costs.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.127-134
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• 2008

Potential economic impact of a hypothetical severe accident at a nuclear power plant(Uljin units 3/4) was estimated by applying the Delphi method, which is based on the expert judgements and opinions, in the process of quantifying uncertain factors. For the purpose of this study, it is assumed that the radioactive plume directs the inland direction. Since the economic risk can be divided into direct costs and indirect effects and more uncertainties are involved in the latter, the direct costs were estimated first and the indirect effects were then estimated by applying a weighting factor to the direct cost. The Delphi method however subjects to risk of distortion or discrimination of variables because of the human behavior pattern. A mathematical approach based on the Bayesian inferences was employed for data processing to improve the Delphi results. For this task, a model for data processing was developed. One-dimensional Monte Carlo Analysis was applied to get a distribution of values of the weighting factor. The mean and median values of the weighting factor for the indirect effects appeared to be 2.59 and 2.08, respectively. These values are higher than the value suggested by OECD/NEA, 1.25. Some factors such as small territory and public attitude sensitive to radiation could affect the judgement of panel. Then the parameters of the model for estimating the direct costs were classified as U- and V-types, and two-dimensional Monte Carlo analysis was applied to quantify the overall economic risk. The resulting median of the overall economic risk was about 3.9% of the gross domestic products(GDP) of Korea in 2006. When the cost of electricity loss, the highest direct cost, was not taken into account, the overall economic risk was reduced to 2.2% of GDP. This assessment can be used as a reference for justifying the radiological emergency planning and preparedness.