• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.171-180
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to install a system that compensated for the respiration motion using an articulated robotic manipulator couch which enables a wide range of motions that a Stewart platform cannot provide and to evaluate the performance of various prediction algorithms including proposed algorithm. For that purpose, we built a miniature couch tracking system comprising an articulated robotic manipulator, 3D optical tracking system, a phantom that mimicked respiratory motion, and control software. We performed simulations and experiments using respiratory data of 12 patients to investigate the feasibility of the system and various prediction algorithms, namely linear extrapolation (LE) and double exponential smoothing (ES2) with averaging methods. We confirmed that prediction algorithms worked well during simulation and experiment, with the ES2-averaging algorithm showing the best results. The simulation study showed 43% average and 49% maximum improvement ratios with the ES2-averaging algorithm, and the experimental study with the $QUASAR^{TM}$ phantom showed 51% average and 56% maximum improvement ratios with this algorithm. Our results suggest that the articulated robotic manipulator couch system with the ES2-averaging prediction algorithm can be widely used in the field of radiation therapy, providing a highly efficient and utilizable technology that can enhance the therapeutic effect and improve safety through a noninvasive approach.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.56-66
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• 2010

The various total replacement artificial discs have developed because spinal fusion has shown a lesser mobility of an operated segment and an accelerated degeneration at adjacent discs. But almost artificial discs have not yet been reached on the substitute surgery of fusion because many problems such as those clinical success rates were not more than them of fusion have not solved. In this paper, vertically inserted assemble-screw fixture in vertebrae was proposed to improve the fixed capability of artificial disc. And also, to evaluate the design suitability of newly designed screw-type, including fixtures of commercial discs such as wedge and plate type, the 1/4 finite element model with a vertebra and various implanted fixtures were generated, and next, 3 bending motions such as flexion, bending and twisting under the moment of 10Nm and compression under the force of 1000N were considered, respectively and finally, FE analyses were performed. Results of three fixture types were compared, such as Range of Motion and maximal stress, and so on. For ROM, the screw type was average 58% less than the wedge type and was average 42% less than the plate type under all loading conditions. For average stress ratio at closer nodes between vertebra and each fixture, the wedge type was the lowest as minimum 0.02 in twisting, screw types were the highest as maximum 0.28 in compression. As the results of using cement material, it was predicted that the instability problem of the wedge type was better solved. The screw type which could be increased by implanting depth according to the number of assembling mid screws, showed that the decreased tendency of ROMs and maximal cancellous bone stresses. In further study, controlling the number of assembling screws that was suitable for a patient's bone quality, development of surgical tools and keeping on design supplementations, which will be able to develop the competitive artificial disc.

• Journal of Korean Foot and Ankle Society
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.116-120
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• 2016

Purpose: Tarsal coalition results from defects during the developmental stage and produes ankle pain and limitations in the range of motions. Its incidence has been reported to be 1%, but there has not been any reports with respect to Koreans. Therefore, we evaluated the prevalence of tarsal coalition in Koreans. Materials and Methods: Between 2005 and 2014, we analyzed a total of 733 cases of foot and ankle magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in our hospital. There were 391 men and 342 women. All MRI readings were read by a radiologist in our hospital. We classified the coalitions in accordance with the histological and anatomical characteristics, and calculated the prevalence in each group. Moreover, we tried to determine the prevalence of tarsal coalitions in accordance with sex, age, and proportion of the symptomatic tarsal coalitions. Results: There were a total of 11 MRIs of tarsal coalition - 9 talocalcaneal coalitions, 1 calcaneocuboidal coalition, and 1 calcaneonavicular coalition. Nine tarsal coalitions were observed in men and 2 in women. Conclusion: Through this study, we found that the prevalence of tarsal coalition, including the asymptomatic patients, is similar to the previously known prevalence (1%). By getting more MRIs of the foot and ankle, we could better represent the prevalence of tarsal coalitions in Koreans.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.69-75
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• 2023

In Korea, most nuclear power plants were designed based on the design response spectrum of Regulatory Guide 1.60 of the NRC. However, in the case of earthquakes occurring in the country, the characteristics of seismic motions in Korea and the design response spectrum differed. The seismic motion in Korea had a higher spectral acceleration in the high-frequency range compared to the design response spectrum. The seismic capacity may be reduced when evaluating the seismic performance of the equipment with high-frequency earthquakes compared with what is evaluated by the design response spectrum for the equipment with a high natural frequency. Therefore, EPRI proposed the inelastic energy absorption factor for the equipment anchorage. In this study, the seismic performance of welding anchorage was evaluated by considering domestic seismic characteristics and EPRI's inelastic energy absorption factor. In order to reflect the characteristics of domestic earthquakes, the uniform hazard response spectrum (UHRS) of Uljin was used. Moreover, the seismic performance of the equipment was evaluated with a design response spectrum of R.G.1.60 and a uniform hazard response spectrum (UHRS) as seismic inputs. As a result, it was confirmed that the seismic performance of the weld anchorage could be increased when the inelastic energy absorption factor is used. Also, a comparative analysis was performed on the seismic capacity of the anchorage of equipment by the welding and the extended bolt.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.181-189
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• 2017

The conventional delivery quality assurance (DQA) process for RapidArc (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, USA), has the limitation that it measures and analyzes the dose in a phantom material and cannot analyze the dosimetric changes under the motional organ condition. In this study, a DQA method was designed to overcome the limitations of the conventional DQA process for internal target volume (ITV) based RapidArc. The dynamic DQA measurement device was designed with a moving phantom that can simulate variable target motions. The dose distribution in the real volume of the target and organ-at-risk (OAR)s were reconstructed using 3DVH with the ArcCHECK (SunNuclear, Melbourne, USA) measurement data under the dynamic condition. A total of 10 ITV-based RapidArc plans for liver-cancer patients were analyzed with the designed dynamic DQA process. The average pass rate of gamma evaluation was $81.55{\pm}9.48%$ when the DQA dose was measured in the respiratory moving condition of the patient. Appropriate method was applied to correct the effect of moving phantom structures in the dose calculation, and DVH data of the real volume of target and OARs were created with the recalculated dose by the 3DVH program. We confirmed the valid dose coverage of a real target volume in the ITV-based RapidArc. The variable difference of the DVH of the OARs showed that dose variation can occur differently according to the location, shape, size and motion range of the target. The DQA process devised in this study can effectively evaluate the DVH of the real volume of the target and OARs in a respiratory moving condition in addition to the simple verification of the accuracy of the treatment machine. This can be helpful to predict the prognosis of treatment by the accurate dose analysis in the real target and OARs.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.17-42
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• 2021

Articulated loading platforms (ALPs) belongs to a class of offshore structures known as compliant. ALP motions have time periods falling in the wind excitation frequency range due to their compliant behaviour. This paper deals with the dynamic behavior of a double hinged ALP subjected to low-frequency wind forces with random waves. Nonlinear effects due to variable submergence, fluctuating buoyancy, variable added mass, and hydrodynamic forces are considered in the analysis. The random sea state is characterized by the Pierson-Moskowitz (P-M) spectrum. The wave forces on the submerged elements of the platform's shaft are calculated using Morison's Equation with Airy's linear wave theory ignoring diffraction effects. The fluctuating wind load has been estimated using Ochi and Shin wind velocity spectrum for offshore structures. The nonlinear dynamic equation of motion is solved in the time domain by the Wilson-θ method. The wind-structure interactions, along with the effect of various other parameters on the platform response, are investigated. The effect of offset of aerodynamic center (A.C.) with the center of gravity (C.G.) of platform superstructure has also been investigated. The outcome of the analyses indicates that low-frequency wind forces affect the response of ALP to a large extent, which otherwise is not enhanced in the presence of only waves. The mean wind modifies the mean position of the platform surge response to the positive side, causing an offset. Various power spectral densities (PSDs) under high and moderate sea states show that apart from the significant peak occurring at the two natural frequencies, other prominent peaks also appear at very low frequencies showing the influence of wind on the response.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.375-383
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to assess the inter-segmental trunk motion during which multi-segmental movements of the spinal column was designed to interpret the effect of segmentation on the total measured spine motion. Also it analyzed the relative motion at three types of the spine models in drop landing. A secondary goal was to determine the intrinsic algorithmic errors of spine motion and the usefulness of such an approach as a tool to assess spinal motions. College students in the soccer team were selected the ten males with no history of spine symptoms or injuries. Each subject was given a fifteen minute adaptation period of drop landing on the 30cm height box. Inter-segmental spine motion were collected Vicon Motion Capture System (250 Hz) and synchronized with GRF data (1000 Hz). The result shows that Model III has a more increased range of motion (ROM) than Model I and Model II. And the Lagrange energy has significant difference of at E3 and E4 (p<.05). This study can be concluded that there are differences in the three models of algorithm during the phase of load absorption. Especially, Model III shows proper spine motion for the inter-segmental joint motion with the interaction effects using the seven segments. Model III shows more proper observed values about dynamic equilibrium than Model I & Model II. The findings have shown that the dynamic stability strategy of Model III toward multi-directional spinal motion supports for better function of the inter-segmental motor-control than the Model I and Model II.

• Atmosphere
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 2015

The most objective way to overcome the limitation of numerical weather prediction model is to represent the uncertainty of prediction by introducing probabilistic forecast. The uncertainty of the numerical weather prediction system developed due to the parameterization of unresolved scale motions and the energy losses from the sub-scale physical processes. In this study, we focused on the growth of model errors. We performed ensemble forecast to represent model uncertainty. By employing the multi-physics scheme (PHYS) and the stochastic kinetic energy backscatter scheme (SKEBS) in simulating typhoon Rusa (2002), we assessed the performance level of the two schemes. The both schemes produced better results than the control run did in the ensemble mean forecast of the track. The results using PHYS improved by 28% and those based on SKEBS did by 7%. Both of the ensemble mean errors of the both schemes increased rapidly at the forecast time 84 hrs. The both ensemble spreads increased gradually during integration. The results based on SKEBS represented model errors very well during the forecast time of 96 hrs. After the period, it produced an under-dispersive pattern. The simulation based on PHYS overestimated the ensemble mean error during integration and represented the real situation well at the forecast time of 120 hrs. The displacement speed of the typhoon based on PHYS was closest to the best track, especially after landfall. In the sensitivity tests of the model uncertainty of SKEBS, ensemble mean forecast was sensitive to the physics parameterization. By adjusting the forcing parameter of SKEBS, the default experiment improved in the ensemble spread, ensemble mean errors, and moving speed.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.61-69
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• 2009

Transverse velocity vectors can be determined from a pair of images successively taken with a time interval using an optical flow technique. We have tested the performance of the new technique called NAVE (non-linear affine velocity estimator) recently implemented by Chae & Sakurai using real image data taken by the Narrowband Filter Imager (NFI) of the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) aboard the Hinode satellite. We have developed two methods of estimating the errors in the determination of velocity vectors, one resulting from the non-linear fitting ${\sigma}_{\upsilon}$ and the other ${\epsilon}_u$ resulting from the statistics of the determined velocity vectors. The real error is expected to be somewhere between ${\sigma}_{\upsilon}$ and ${\epsilon}_u$. We have investigated the dependence of the determined velocity vectors and their errors on the different parameters such as the critical speed for the subsonic filtering, the width of the localizing window, the time interval between two successive images, and the signal-to-noise ratio of the feature. With the choice of $v_{crit}$ = 2 pixel/step for the subsonic filtering, and the window FWHM of 16 pixels, and the time interval of one step (2 minutes), we find that the errors of velocity vectors determined using the NAVE range from around 0.04 pixel/step in high signal-to-noise ratio features (S/N $\sim$ 10), to 0.1 pixel/step in low signa-to-noise ratio features (S/N $\sim$ 3) with the mean of about 0.06 pixel/step where 1 pixel/step corresponds roughly to 1 km/s in our case.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.1-11
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• 2007

This paper verifies the difference of the seismic behavior and seismic damage of the neighboring two reinforced concrete piers damaged by the 1995 Hyogoken Nanbu earthquake. The two piers were almost the same size, carrying slightly different dead load, and were provided with the same reinforcement arrangement except the amount of longitudinal reinforcement at the bottom portion of the piers. The pier with more reinforcement was completely collapsed due to this near field earthquake by shear failure at the longitudinal reinforcement cut-off while the other was only damaged at the bottom by flexure even though the longitudinal reinforcement cut-off was also existed at the mid height of the pier. According to the results of the pseudo dynamic test, the seismic damage was recognized to be greatly dependent on the ground motion characteristics even though the employed ground motions had the same peak acceleration. The severe damage was observed when the test employed the seismic wave that had strong influence to the longer period range compared to the initial natural period of the pier. On the other hand, based on the similar model experiment, the defect of gas-pressure welded splice of longitudinal reinforcement was revealed to save the piers against collapse due to the so-called fail-safe mechanism contrary to the intuitive opinion of some researchers. It was concluded that the primary cause of the collapse of the pier was the extremely strong intensity and peculiar characteristics of the earthquake motion according to both the site-specific and the structure-specific effects.