• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.69-86
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• 2017

Objective: The present study is intended to develop an improved bus seat armrest design by evaluating various bus armrest designs from ergonomic aspects. Background: An ergonomic armrest design which considers the sitting postures and body shapes of passengers can improve the convenience and comfort of a bus seat. Method: Subjective satisfaction of each of five design dimensions (length, width, height from seatpan, shape, and angle) was evaluated for seven bus seat armrest designs in various sizes and shapes by 58 participants (28 males and 33 females) using a 7-point scale (1: very dissatisfied, 4: neutral, and 7: very satisfied). Improved bus seat armrest designs adjustable in length and rotatable to the left or right (sliding and rotating armrest, SRA) with a concave, flat, or convex shape of the upper part were developed by considering the preferred design features and the body size and shape in sitting posture and needs of passengers and then compared with a conventional armrest. Results: A bus seat armrest with a wide width (40~50mm), a long length (360mm), a lower height (213mm), and a curved shape was found significantly preferred in terms of comfort. The proposed armrest designs (SRA-convex, SRA-flat, and SRA-concave) improved satisfaction by 46~62% for length suitability, 184~216% for width suitability, 205~214% for angle suitability, 138~181% for contact area suitability, and 49~64% for height suitability, 138~174% for comfort, and 93~111% for overall satisfaction. Conclusion: The preferred design features and passengers' needs of bus seat armrest were identified and the SRA designs were recommended for better usability. Application: The ergonomic design process of bus seat armrest employed in the present study can be applied to designing armrests in various vehicles for better convenience and comfort.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.393-400
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• 2013

Hand shape recognition is a fundamental technique for implementing natural human-computer interaction. In this paper, we discuss a method for effectively detecting a hand region in Kinect-based hand shape recognition. Since Kinect is a camera that can capture color images and infrared images (or depth images) together, both images can be exploited for the process of detecting a hand region. That is, a hand region can be detected by finding pixels having skin colors or by finding pixels having a specific depth. Therefore, after analyzing the performance of each, we need a method of properly combining both to clearly extract the silhouette of hand region. This is because the hand shape recognition rate depends on the fineness of detected silhouette. Finally, through comparison of hand shape recognition rates resulted from different hand region detection methods in general environments, we propose a high-performance hand region detection method.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.125-130
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• 2006

The number of the living endothelial cells and the shape of those are very import clinical parameters for the evaluation of the quality of cornea. In this paper, we developed the automated endothelial cell counting and shape analysis algorithm for a confocal microscope. Since, the endothelial images from the confocal microscope has a non-uniform illumination and low contrast between cell boundaries and cell bodies, it is very difficult to segment the cells from the endothelial images. To cope with these difficulties, we proposed the new two stage image processing algorithm. At first stage algorithm, we used a high-pass filter and histogram equalization to compensate the non-uniform brightness pattern and a morphological filter and a watershed method are applied to detect the boundary of cells. From this stage, we could count the number of cells in an endothelial image. At second stage algorithm, we used a Voronoi diagram method to classify the shape of cells. This cell shape analysis and the percent of hexagonal cells are very sensitive in detecting the early endothelium damage. To evaluate the performance of the proposed system, we p개cessed seven endothelial images obtained using a confocal microscope. The proposed system correctly counted 95.5% cells and classified 92.0% of hexagonal cell shapes. This result is better than any others in this research area.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.122-131
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• 2011

A widely used single image-based 3D face reconstruction method, 3D morphable shape model, reconstructs an accurate 3D facial shape when 2D facial feature points are correctly extracted from an input face image. However, in the case that a user's cooperation is not available such as a real-time 3D face reconstruction system, this method can be vulnerable to the errors of automatic facial feature point extraction. In order to solve this problem, we automatically classify extracted facial feature points into two groups, erroneous and correct ones, and then reconstruct a 3D facial shape by using only the correctly extracted facial feature points. The experimental results showed that the 3D reconstruction performance of the proposed method was remarkably improved compared to that of the previous method which does not consider the errors of automatic facial feature point extraction.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.211-215
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• 2006

This paper presents a new structure for the universal motor using soft magnetic composite (SMC). The stator for this new type of motor is made by combination of the SMC pole and the silicon steel yoke. The shape of the 3D SMC pole is designed to minimize ohmic loss and amount of stator coil. To design the pole shape, the 3D analysis in the design procedure is replaced with an equivalent 2D analysis. Finally, the optimal shape is analyzed by 3D FEM and the performance is discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.24 no.3 s.192
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• pp.76-83
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• 2007

The Taguchi method is applied to obtain the optimal design of an automotive pedal arm in consideration of the stiffness test specification. Design parameters are defined to describe shape of the pedal arm. Volume, maximum Von-Mises stress and maximum displacement of the pedal arm are established as the smaller-the-better characteristics. Optimal parameters are determined on the basis of the analyzed level averages of the characteristics.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.293-296
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• 2002

This work presents the reconstruction of impact force produced by the collision between two elastic structures. The 2-DOF impactor was designed. The shape control of impact farce using correlations of the dynamic characteristics and impact force history between two elastic structures is accomplished. The effects of the relative motion between impactor and elastic structure on the impact force shape are studied. Reconstruction characteristics of impact force in cantilever beam are reviewed.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.275-284
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• 1992

Development of Integrated Speech Training Aids for Hearing Impaired In this study, a spepch lralnlng aids that can do real-time display of vocal tract shape and other speech parameters together in a single system is implemenLed and self-training program for this system is developed. To estimate vocal tract shape, speech production process is assumed to be AR model. Through LPC analysis, vocal tract shape, intensity, and log spcclrum are calculated. And, fundamental frequency and nasality are measured using vibration sensors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.1003-1008
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• 2001

In beamforming method, source positions are predicted by MUSIC (Multiple Signal Classification) power method and composite sound fields can then be decomposed into each partial field by beamforming, detenninistically without restriction of the distance between reference microphones and sources. However, reference microphone array shape is important in both MUSIC and beamforming method. Thus the present paper describes the effect of the reference microphone array shape.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2001.05a
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• pp.571-576
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• 2001

Hydroforming, the new production technology, has been used to manufacture many parts of vehicle in the recent auto industry. When Hydroforming is applied, it is possible to make parts simplification and flexible alteration of section shape in many advantages such as weight reduction, number of parts reduction or performance improvement. This research into shape optimization which reduces number of parts and weight maintaining performance was achieved. In this paper, the COWL CROSS BAA and MT'g BAKT parts of A car STEERING support SYSTEM was introduced by using Hydroforming.