• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.223-235
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• 2002

Since weak Bones or geological lineaments are likely to be eroded, there may develop weak Bones beneath rivers, and a careful evaluation of ground condition is important to construct structures passing through a river. DC resistivity method, however, has seldomly applied to the investigation of water-covered area, possibly because of difficulties in data aquisition and interpretation. The data aquisition having high quality may be the most important factor, and is more difficult than that in land survey, due to the water layer overlying the underground structure to be imaged. Through the numerical modeling and the analysis of a case history, we studied the method of resistivity survey at the water-covered area, starting from the characteristics of measured data, via data acquisition method, to the interpretation method. We unfolded our discussion according to the installed locations of electrodes, ie., floating them on the water surface, and installing them at the water bottom, because the methods of data acquisition and interpretation vary depending on the electrode location. Through this study, we could confirm that the DC resistivity method can provide fairly reasonable subsurface images. It was also shown that installing electrodes at the water bottom can give the subsurface image with much higher resolution than floating them on the water surface. Since the data acquired at the water-covered area have much lower sensitivity to the underground structure than those at the land, and can be contaminated by the higher noise, such as streaming potential, it would be very important to select the acquisition method and electrode array being able to provide the higher signal-to-noise ratio (S/N ratio) data as well as the high resolving power. Some of the modified electrode arrays can provide the data having reasonably high S/N ratio and need not to install remote electrode(s), and thus, they may be suitable to the resistivity survey at the water-covered area.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.185-194
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• 2006

The aim of this study was to identify the bacteria isolated from endodontic lesions by cell culture and to determine the antimicrobial susceptibility of them against 8 antibiotics. The necrotic pulpal tissues were collected from 27 infected root canals, which were diagnosed as endodontic infection. Samples were collected aseptically from the infected pulpal tissue of the infected root canals using a barbed broach and a paper point. The cut barbed broaches and paper points were transferred to an eppendorf tube containing $500{\mu}l\;of\;1{\times}PBS$. The sample solution was briefly mixed and plated onto a BHI-agar plate containing 5% sheep blood. The agar plates were incubated in a $37^{\circ}C$ anaerobic chamber for 2 to 5 days. The bacteria grown on the agar plates were identified by comparison of 16S rRNA gene (rDNA) sequencing method at the species level. To test the sensitivity of the bacteria isolated from the infected root canals against 8 antibiotics, minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) were determined using broth dilution assay. The data showed that 101 bacterial strains were isolated and were identified. Streptococcus spp. (29.7%) and Actinomyces spp. (21.8%) were predominantly isolated. The 9 strains were excluded in antimicrobial susceptibility test because they were lost during the experiment or were not grown in broth culture. The percentage of bacteria susceptible for each antibiotic in this study was clindamycin, 87.0% (80 of 92); tetracycline, 75.0% (69 of 92); cefuroxime axetil, 75.0% (69 of 92); amoxicillin + clavulanic acid (5:1), 71.7% (66 of 92); penicillin G, 66.3% (61 of 92); erythromycin, 66.3% (61 of 92); amoxicillin, 44.6% (41 of 92); and ciprofloxacin, 31.5% (29 of 92). The susceptibility pattern of 8 antibiotics was dependent on the host of the bacteria strains rather than the kinds of bacterial species. These results indicate that antibiotic susceptibility test should be performed when antibiotics are needed for the treatment of infected root canals.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.250-255
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• 2008

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the diagnostic value of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FDG-PET/CT) for detecting the lymph node (LN) metastasis of gastric cancer. Materials and Methods: 119 patients (M : F=89 : 30; mean age: 64) with gastric cancer were referred for preoperative FDG-PET/CT scanning and spiral enhanced abdominal pelvic CT from June 2006 to July 2008, and these were the subjects of our study. All the patients underwent curative radical gastrectomy and lymph node dissection. A final diagnosis was made for all the patients by the histology of the surgical specimens. Results: Both PET/CT and enhanced CT showed similar sensitivity for detecting regional lymph node metastasis (32.6% vs 39.5%, respectively). PET/CT was more accurate than enhanced CT for detecting regional lymph node metastasis (67.2% vs 63.0%, respectively), and PET/CT showed better specificity (86.8% vs 76.3, respectively) and a better positive predictive value (PPV) (58.3% vs 48.6%, respectively). PET/CT showed better specificity (98.0% vs 88.2%, respectively) and accuracy (79.4% vs 73.9%, respectively) than enhanced CT for detecting early gastric cancer. PET/CT showed better specificity (64.0% vs 52.0%, respectively), a better PPV (60.9% vs 57.1%), a better negative predictive value (NPV) (48.5% vs 46.4%, respectively) and better accuracy (53.6% vs 51.8%, respectively) than enhanced CT for detecting advanced gastric cancer. Conclusion: FDG-PET/CT is more usefulness than enhanced CT for making the preoperative diagnosis of regional LN metastases from gastric cancers.

• Archives of design research
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• v.18 no.3 s.61
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• pp.5-14
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• 2005

In the past, consumers sought utilitarian and defensive consumption in an attempt to move to a balanced state. However, today's consumers go beyond this to consume more for hedonic and creative reasons if not for sheer pleasure. There is an obvious shift from the type of consumption that satisfies basic desires through the characteristics, convenience and quality of goods and services to an era of 'experiential consumption,' in which consumers pursue distinctive value systems and way of life along with a total 'experience' provided by such goods and services. Such a sign of the times has given birth to the experience design that aims at maximizing the strategic use of experiences in design. Research on this subject is gradually increasing. The research and application peformed even without the proper understanding about the concepts and purposes of experience design, however, is likely to deviate from the true nature in its process or method. Also, they are likely to cause rather than solve problems. Accordingly, this study examined the meaning of experience from a spatial aspect, focusing on areas that recognize the experience as economically valuable, making the most of it substantively. The main concept of experience practical used on-line is enhancement of the usability of a medium by reflecting the experience of users accustomed to both off-line and on-line environments and materializing the environment doser to and more familiar with the users, thus allowing them to comfortably use the medium. This is to allow the users to feel more comfortable. The experience practical used pertaining to off-line is a tool to fulfill the sensitivity of users, with efforts to create new, future-oriented consumer values. This, based on the understanding of consumer behavior, seeks to maximize the consumption experience of consumers by providing a combination of sensual and sensitive experiences as well as to enhance the existing experiences by permitting users to create new, extended experiences from the fixed characteristics of products. Furthermore, it aims to provide consumers with the hedonic experience of play through the joy, fun and uniqueness of alternate experiences.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.439-450
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• 2015

This study objects to find characteristics in chemical tanker markets and to determine optimal chemical tanker size using a total shipping cost in main trading route of asia chemical tankers .Precedent studies of determination of the optimal ship size and case studies about chemical tankers was carried out and tried to introduce a cost model which is applicable to chemical tanker. This study is dependant on numerical analysis and involves scenario analysis to minimize sensitivity of results. This analysis shows as follows. First, 12,000DWT tanker is an optimal size on the 'Far East-Middle East' services, 9,000DWT tanker is a most competitive on the 'Far East-South East Asia' services and 3,000DWT tanker is a most economic size on the 'Inner Far East' services at average market situation. Second, the bigger size of chemical tanker, the more competitive advantage the tanker will obtain when bunker fuel prices rise. Small size ship gets more competitive during bunker prices down. Third, market fluctuation of time charter rate for chemical tanker is less than 20% against its average time charter hire which means less volatile. And tanker's competitiveness per each size is remained mostly same when time charterer rates rise at same proportion. Fourth, bigger size chemical tankers have cost advantages when tanker's quantity of each part cargo increase. And small-sized tanks are more competitive when part cargo scales decrease. For the last, ship's port stay strongly influences on the determination of the optical tanker size. When vessel has shorter port stay, bigger-sized tanker will be more competitive and even can be competitive if applies in short voyage as well.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.153-161
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• 2002

Sox4, a transcription factor, consists of three functional domains: an HMG-box domain as a DNA binding domain, serine rich region as a transactivation domain and glycine rich region (GRR), an unknown functional domain. Although Sox4 is known to be functionally involved in heart, B-cell and reproductive system development, its physiological function remains to be elucidated. We used pGEX expression system to develop a simple and rapid method for purifying Sox4 protein in suitable forms for biochemical studies of their functions. Unexpectedly, we observed that full-length Sox4 appears to be protease-sensitive during expression and purification in E. coli. To map the protease-sensitive site in Sox4, we generated various constructs with each of functional domains of Sox4 and purified as the GST-Sox4 fusion proteins using glutathione beads. We found that the specific cleavage site for the proteolytic enzyme, which exists in E. coli, is localized within the novel GRR of Sox4. Our study suggest that the GRR of Sox4 may a target for the cellular protease action and this cleavage in the GRR may be involved in regulating physiological function of Sox4. Additionally, our study may provide a useful method for investigating the proteolytic cleavage of the target molecule in E. coli.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.413-421
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• 1999

Purpose: This study was performed to evaluate the usefulness of $^{99m}Tc$-HMPAO-labelled leucocyte scintigraphy for diagnosing prosthetic infection after total knee replacement arthroplasty without the aid of following bone marrow scintigraphy Materials and Methods: The study subjects were 25 prostheses of 17 patients (one man and 16 women, mean age. 65 years) who had total knee replacement arthroplasty. After injection of $^{99m}Tc$-HMPAO-labelled leucocyte, the whole body planar and knee SPECT images were obtained in all patients. The subjects were classified into three groups according to clinical suspicion of prosthetic infection. Group A (n=11) with high suspicion of infection; Group B (n=6) with equivocal suspicion of infection, and Group C (n=8) with asymptomatic contralateral prostheses. Final diagnosis of infection was based on surgical, histological and bacteriological data and clinical follow-up. Results: Infection was confirmed in 13 prostheses (11 in Group A and 2 in Group B). All prostheses in Group A were true positive. There were two true positives, one false positive and three true negatives in Group B, and six true negatives and two false positives in Group C. Overall sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy for diagnosis of the infected knee prosthesis were 100%, 75% and 88%, respectively Conclusion: $^{99m}Tc$-HMPAO-labelled leucocyte scintigraphy is a sensitive method for the diagnosis of infected knee prosthesis. However, false positive uptakes even in asymptomatic prosthesis suggest that bone marrow scintigraphy may be needed to achieve improved specificity.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.285-291
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• 2008

Purpose: Although automatic quantification software of myocardial perfusion SPECT provides highly objective and reproducible quantitative measurements, there is still some limitation in the direct use of quantitative measurements. In this study we derived parameters using normal variation of perfusion measurements, and tried to test the usefulness of these parameters. Materials and Methods: In order to calculate normal variation of perfusion measurements on myocardial perfusion SPECT, 55 patients (M:F = 28:27) of low-likelihood for coronary artery disease were enrolled and $^{201}TI$ rest/$^{99m}Tc$-MIBI stress SPECT studies were performed. Using 20-segment model, mean (m) and standard deviation (SD) of perfusion were calculated in each segment. As a myocardial viability assessment group, another 48 patients with known coronary artery disease, who underwent coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) were enrolled. $^{201}TI$ rest/$^{99m}Tc$-MIBI stress / $^{201}TI$ 24-hr delayed SPECT was performed before CABG and SPECT was followed up 3 months after CABG. From the preoperative 24-hr delayed SPECT, $Q_{delay}$ (perfusion measurement), ${\Delta}_{delay}$ ($Q_{delay}$ - m) and $Z_{delay}$ (($Q_{delay}$ - m)/SD) were defined and diagnostic performances of them for myocardial viability were evaluated using area under curve (AUC) on receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Results: Segmental perfusion measurements showed considerable normal variations among segments. In men, the lowest segmental perfusion measurement was $51.8{\pm}6.5$ and the highest segmental perfusion was $87.0{\pm}5.9$, and they are $58.7{\pm}8.1$ and $87.3{\pm}6.0$, respectively in women. In the viability assessment $Q_{delay}$ showed AUC of 0.633, while those for ${\Delta}_{delay}$ and $Z_{delay}$ were 0.735 and 0.716, respectively. The AUCs of ${\Delta}_{delay}$ and $Z_{delay}$ were significantly higher than that of $Q_{delay}$ (p = 0.001 and 0.018, respectively). The diagnostic performance of ${\Delta}_{delay}$, which showed highest AUC, was 85% of sensitivity and 53% of specificity at the optimal cutoff of -24.7. Conclusion: On automatic quantification of myocardial perfusion SPECT, the normal variation of perfusion measurements were considerable among segments. In the viability assessment, the parameters considering normal variation showed better diagnostic performance than the direct perfusion measurement. This study suggests that consideration of normal variation is important in the analysis of measurements on quantitative myocardial perfusion SPECT.

• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.103-109
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• 2016

Efficacy of cosmetics has been mainly evaluated by qualitative and quantitative methods based on visual sense, tactile sense and skin structure until now. In this study, we suggested a novel evaluation method for skin status based on sound; measuring and analyzing the rubbing noise generated by applying cosmetics. First, the rubbing noise was measured at a close range by a high-sensitivity microphone in anechoic environment, and the noises were analyzed by 1/3 octave band analysis in frequency-domain. Three conditions, 1) before washing, 2) after washing and 3) after application of cosmetics, were compared. As a result, sound pressure level (SPL) of rubbing noise after washing was larger than that of before washing, and the SPL of rubbing noise after cosmetic application was the smallest. Furthermore, the energy of rubbing noise after application was higher than that of the before and after washing conditions in a low frequency band (lower than 2 kHz region). Conversely, the energy of rubbing noise after application was much lower than the others in a high-frequency band (upper than 2 kHz region). This change of energy distribution was described as a balloon-skin model. High SPL in the low frequency region after the cosmetic applications was due to the increase of "flexibility index", while SPL in the high frequency region significantly decreased because of the attenuation which is related to "softness index". Therefore, we developed two indices based on the spectrum-energy difference for evaluating skin conditions. This proposed method and indices were verified via skin flexibility and roughness measurement using cutometer and primos respectively. These results suggest that acoustic measurement of skin friction noise may be a new skin status evaluation method.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.83-93
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• 2016

Objectives : The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale-Revised is a recently revised scale which has been reported as a valid tool for the assessment of depressive symptoms. It encompasses cardinal symptoms of depression described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorders, fourth edition. In this study, we assessed the reliability, validity and psychometric properties of the Korean version of the CESD-R(K-CESD-R). Methods : Forty-eight patients diagnosed as major depressive disorder, dysthymia, depressive disorder NOS according to the DSM-IV criteria using Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview and 48 healthy controls were enrolled in this study. They were assessed with K-CESD-R, K-MADRS, PHQ-9, KQIDS-SR, STAI to check cross-validation. Statistical analyses were performed using calculation of Cronbach's alpha, Pearson correlation coefficient, Principal Component Analysis, ROC curve and optimal cut-off value. Results : The Cronbach's alpha of K-CESD-R was 0.98. The total score of K-CESD-R revealed significantly high correlations with those of K-MADRS, PHQ-9, KQIDS-SR(r=0.910, 0.966 and 0.920, p<0.001, respectively). Factor analysis showed two factors account for 76.29% of total variance. We suggested the optimal cut-off value of K-CESD-R as 13 according to analysis of the ROC curve which value sensitivity and specificity both equally. Conclusions : These Results showed that the K-CESD-R could be a reliable and valid scale to assess depressive symptoms. The K-CESD-R is expected as a useful and effective tool for screening and measuring depressive symptoms not only in outpatient clinic but also epidemiologic studies.