• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.151-160
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• 2003

The application of more complex radiotherapy techniques using multileaf collimation (MLC), such as 3D conformal radiation therapy and intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), has increased the significance of verifying leaf position and motion. Due to thier reliability and empirical robustness, quality assurance (QA) of MLC. However easy use and the ability to provide digital data of electronic portal imaging devices (EPIDs) have attracted attention to portal films as an alternatives to films for routine qualify assurance, despite concerns about their clinical feasibility, efficacy, and the cost to benefit ratio. In this study, we developed method for daily QA of MLC using electronic portal images (EPIs). EPID availability for routine QA was verified by comparing of the portal films, which were simultaneously obtained when radiation was delivered and known prescription input to MLC controller. Specially designed two-test patterns of dynamic MLC were applied for image acquisition. Quantitative off-line analysis using an edge detection algorithm enhanced the verification procedure as well as on-line qualitative visual assessment. In conclusion, the availability of EPI was enough for daily QA of MLC leaf position with the accuracy of portal films.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.95-101
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• 2003

In this study, water content in the mixture of methanol and ethanol was nondestructively measured by near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy. Two types of NIR instruments, portable NIR system with a photo-diode array and scanning type NIR spectrometer were used and the calibration results were compared. Partial least squares regression (PLSR) was applied for the calibration and validation for the quantitative analysis. The calibration results from both instruments showed good correlation with actual values. The calibration with the use of PLS model predicted water concentration with a standard error of prediction (SEP) of 0.10% and 0.12% for photo diode array and scanning type, respectively. During 6 days, routine analyses for 3%, 5% and 7% water in ethanol solution with 2% methanol were performed to validate the robustness of the developed calibration model. The routine analyses showed good results with coefficient of variation (CV) of within 3% for both types of NIR spectrometers. This study showed that the rapid determination of water in the mixture of methanol and ethanol was successfully performed by NIR spectroscopy and the performance of the portable NIR system with a photo diode array detector was comparable to that of the scanning type NIR spectrometer.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.137-142
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• 2005

A rapid, selective and sensitive reversed-phase HPLC method for the determination of glipizide in human serum was validated and applied to the pharmacokinetic study of glipizide. Glipizide and internal standard, tolbutamide, were extracted from human serum by liquid-liquid extraction with benzene and analyzed on a Nova Pak $C_{18}\;60{\AA}$ column with the mobile phase of acetonitrile-potassium dihydrogen phosphate (10 mM, pH 3.5) (4:6, v/v). Detection wavelength of 275 nm and flow rate of 0.7 ml/min were fixed for the study. The assay robustness for the changes of mobile phase pH, organic solvent content, and flow rate was confirmed by $3^3$ factorial design using a fixed glipizide concentration (500 ng/ ml) with respect to its peak area and retention time. And also, the ruggedness of this method was investigated at three different laboratories using same quality control (QC) samples. This method showed linear response over the concentration range of 10-1000 ng/ml with correlation coefficient greater than 0.999. The lower limit of quantitation using 0.5 ml of serum was 10.0 ng/ml, which was sensitive enough for pharmacokinetic studies. The overall accuracy of the quality control samples ranged from 82.6 to 105.0% for glipizide with overall precision (% C.V.) being 1.13-13.20%. The percent recovery for human serum was in the range of 85.2 93.5%. Stability studies showed that glipizide was stable during storage, or during the assay procedure in human serum. The peak area and retention time of glipizide were not significantly affected by the changes of mobile phase pH, organic solvent content, and flow rate under the conditions studied. This method showed good ruggedness (within 15% C.V.) and was successfully used for the analysis of glipizide in human serum samples for the pharmacokinetic studies at three different laboratories, demonstrating the suitability of the method.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.437-443
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• 2005

A rapid, selective and sensitive reversed-phase HPLC method for the determination of a major metabolite of terfenadine, fexofenadine, in human serum was developed, validated, and applied to the pharmacokinetic study of terfenadine. Fexofenadine and internal standard, haloperidol were extracted from human serum by liquid-liquid extraction with acetonitrile and analyzed on a $Symmetry^{TM}$ C8 column with the mobile phase of 1% triethylamine phosphate (pH 3.7)-acetonitrile (67:33, v/v, adjusted to pH 5.6 with triethylamine). Detection wavelength of 230 nm for excitation, 280 nm for emission and flow rate of 1.0 mL/min were fixed for the study. The assay robustness for the changes of mobile phase pH, organic solvent content, and flow rate was confirmed by $3^{3}$ factorial design using a fixed fexofenadine concentration (50 ng/mL) with respect to its peak area and retention time. In addition, the ruggedness of this method was investigated at three different laboratories using same quality control (QC) samples. This method showed linear response over the concentration range of 10-500 ng/mL with correlation coefficients greater than 0.999. The lower limit of quantification using 0.5 mL of serum was 10 ng/mL, which was sensitive enough for the pharmacokinetic studies of terfenadine. The overall accuracy of the quality control samples ranged from 95.70 to 114.58% for fexofenadine with overall precision (% C.V.) being 3.53-14.39%. The relative mean recovery of fexofenadine for human serum was 90.17%. Stability studies (freeze-thaw, short-term, extracted serum sample and stock solution) showed that fexofenadine was stable during storage, or during the assay procedure in human serum. However, the storage at $-70^{\circ}C$ for 4 weeks showed that fexofenadine was not stable. The peak area and retention time of fexofenadine were not significantly affected by the changes of mobile phase pH, organic solvent content, and flow rate under the conditions studied. This method showed good ruggedness (within 15% C.V.) and was successfully used for the analysis of fexofenadine in human serum samples for the pharmacokinetic studies of orally administered Tafedine tablet (60 mg as terfenadine) at three different laboratories, demonstrating the suitability of the method.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.265-271
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• 2005

A rapid, selective and sensitive reversed-phase HPLC method for the determination of etodolac in human serum was developed, validated, and applied to the pharmacokinetic study of etodolac. Etodolac and internal standard, ibuprofen were extracted from human serum by liquid-liquid extraction with hexane/isopropanol (95:5, v/v) and analyzed on a Luna C18(2) column with the mobile phase of 1% aqueous acetic acid-acetonitrile (4:6, v/v). Detection wavelength of 227 nm and flow rate of 1.0 mL/min were fixed for the study. The assay robustness for the changes of mobile phase pH, organic solvent content, and flow rate was confirmed by $3^3$ factorial design using a fixed etodolac concentration $(1\;{\mu}g/mL)$ with respect to its peak area and retention time. And also, the ruggedness of this method was investigated at three different laboratories using same quality control (QC) samples. This method showed linear response over the concentration range of $0.05-40\;{\mu}g/mL$ with correlation coefficients greater than 0.999. The lower limit of quantification using 0.5 mL of serum was 0.05 ${\mu}g/mL$, which was sensitive enough for pharmacokinetic studies. The overall accuracy of the quality control samples ranged from 92.00 to 110.00% for etodolac with overall precision (% C.V.) being 1.08-10.11%. The percent recovery for human serum was in the range of 76.73-115.30%. Stability studies showed that etodolac was stable during storage, or during the assay procedure in human serum. The peak area and retention time of etodolac were not significantly affected by the changes of mobile phase pH, organic solvent content, and flow rate under the conditions studied. This method showed good ruggedness (within 15% C.V.) and was successfully used for the analysis of etodolac in human serum samples for the pharmacokinetic studies of orally administered Lodin XL tablet (400 mg as etodolac) at three different laboratories, demonstrating the suitability of the method.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.423-429
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• 2005

A selective and sensitive reversed-phase HPLC method for the determination of fenoprofen in human serum was developed, validated, and applied to the pharmacokinetic study of fenoprofen calcium. Fenoprofen and internal standard, ketoprofen, were extracted from human serum by liquid-liquid extraction with diethyl ether and analyzed on a Luna C18(2) column with the mobile phase of acetonitrile-3 mM potassium dihydrogen phosphate (32:68, v/v, adjusted to pH 6.6 with phosphoric acid). Detection wavelength of 272 nm and flow rate of 0.25 mL/min were fixed for the study. The assay robustness for the changes of mobile phase pH, organic solvent content, and flow rate was confirmed by $3^{3}$ factorial design using a fixed fenoprofen concentration $(2\;{\mu}g/mL)$ with respect to its peak area and retention time. And also, the ruggedness of this method was investigated at three different laboratories using same quality control (QC) samples. This method showed linear response over the concentration range of $0.05-100\;{\mu}g/mL$ with correlation coefficients greater than 0.999. The lower limit of quantification using 1 mL of serum was $0.05\;{\mu}g/mL$, which was sensitive enough for pharmacokinetic studies. The overall accuracy of the quality control samples ranged from 92.27 to 109.20% for fenoprofen with overall precision (% C.V.) being 5.51-11.71 %. The relative mean recovery of fenoprofen for human serum was 81.7%. Stability (freeze-thaw, short and long-term) studies showed that fenoprofen was not stable during storage. But, extracted serum sample and stock solution were allowed to stand at ambient temperature for 12 hr prior to injection without affecting the quantification. The peak area and retention time of fenoprofen were not significantly affected by the changes of mobile phase pH, organic solvent content, and flow rate under the conditions studied. This method showed good ruggedness (within 15% C.V.) and was successfully used for the analysis of fenoprofen in human serum samples for the pharmacokinetic studies of orally administered Fenopron tablet (600 mg as fenoprofen) at three different laboratories, demonstrating the suitability of the method.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Advanced Composite Structures
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.1-10
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• 2011

This study investigates the performance of composite (steel-concrete) frame structures through numerical experiments on individual connections. The innovative aspects of this research are in the use of connections between steel beams and concrete-filled tube (CFT)columns that utilize a combination of low-carbon steel and shape memory alloy (SMA) components. In these new connections, the intent is to utilize the recentering provided by super-elastic shape memory alloy tension bars to reduce building damage and residual drift after a major earthquake. The low-carbon steel components provide excellent energy dissipation. The analysis and design of these structures is complicated because the connections cannot be modeled as being simply pins or full fixity ones they are partial restraint (PR). A refined finite element (FE) model with sophisticated three dimensional (3D) solid elements was developed to conduct numerical experiments on PR-CFT joints to obtain the global behavior of the connection. Based on behavioral information obtained from these FE tests, simplified connection models were formulated by using joint elements with spring components. The behavior of entire frames under cyclic loads was conducted and compared with the monotonic behavior obtained from the 3D FE simulations. Good agreement was found between the simple and sophisticated models, verifying the robustness of the approach.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.63-74
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• 1999

A sliding mode fuzzy control (SMFC) algorithm is presented for vibration of large structures. Rule-base of the fuzzy inference engine is constructed based on the sliding mode control, which is one of the nonlinear control algorithms. Fuzziness of the controller makes the control system robust against the uncertainties in the system parameters and the input excitation. Non-linearity of the control rule makes the controller more effective than linear controllers. Design procedure based on the present fuzzy control is more convenient than those of the conventional algorithms based on complex mathematical analysis, such as linear quadratic regulator and sliding mode control(SMC). Robustness of presented controller is illustrated by examining the loop transfer function. For verification of the present algorithm, a numerical study is carried out on the benchmark problem initiated by the ASCE Committee on Structural Control. To achieve a high level of realism, various aspects are considered such as actuator-structure interaction, modeling error, sensor noise, actuator time delay, precision of the A/D and D/A converters, magnitude of control force, and order of control model. Performance of the SMFC is examined in comparison with those of other control algorithms such as $H_{mixed 2/{\infty}}$ optimal polynomial control, neural networks control, and SMC, which were reported by other researchers. The results indicate that the present SMFC is an efficient and attractive control method, since the vibration responses of the structure can be reduced very effectively and the design procedure is simple and convenient.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.34-42
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• 2013

In this paper, we compare the performance of wavelet OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) and FD-OFDM(Frequency diversity OFDM) system with conventional OFDM system. Wavelet OFDM system uses wavelet transform rather than Fourier transform and contains intermediate characteristics of CDM (Code Division Multiplexing) and OFDM. In wavelet OFDM system, inter-symbol interference (ISI) can be suppressed effectively and adjacent channel interference can be also minimized well. In FD-OFDM system, each parallel branch symbol is multiplied by the orthogonal sequence and distributed into all sub-carriers. Then, each sub-carrier transmits information composed of the symbol components of all parallel branches in the given frame. FD-OFDM contains the frequency diversity characteristic and, therefore, FD-OFDM can be robust to the narrowband interference. For the comparison among different systems, BER (Bit-Error Rate) performances are evaluated in the presence of narrow-band interference and a harmonic noise channel. From the evaluation results, compared to the conventional OFDM, wavelet OFDM and FD-OFDM shows better robustness against the interference and, especially, wavelet OFDM is the most robust in harmonic noise channel.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.69-76
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• 2014

In this study, we developed an ultra-thin flexible printed circuit board(FPCB) using the sputtered flexible copper clad laminate. In order to enhance the adhesion between copper and polyimide substrate, a NiMoNb addition layer was applied. The mechanical durability and flexibility of the ultra-thin FPCB were characterized by stretching, twisting, bending fatigue test, and peel test. The stretching test reveals that the ultra-thin FPCB can be stretched up to 7% without failure. The twisting test shows that the ultra-thin FPCB can withstand an angle of up to $120^{\circ}$. In addition, the bending fatigue test shows that the FPCB can withstand 10,000 bending cycles. Numerical analysis of the stress and strain during stretching indicates the strain and the maximum von Mises stress of the ultra-thin FPCB are comparable to those of the conventional FPCB. Even though the ultra-thin FPCB shows slightly lower durability than the conventional FPCB, the ultra-thin FPCB has enough durability and robustness to apply in industry.