• Journal of Audiology & Otology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.167-173
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• 2020

Background and Objectives: Top-down restoration of distorted speech, tapped as phonemic restoration of speech in noise, maybe a useful tool to understand robustness of perception in adverse listening situations. However, the relationship between phonemic restoration and speech perception in noise is not empirically clear. Subjects and Methods: 20 adults (40-55 years) with normal audiometric findings were part of the study. Sentence perception in noise performance was studied with various signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) to estimate the SNR with 50% score. Performance was also measured for sentences interrupted with silence and for those interrupted by speech noise at -10, -5, 0, and 5 dB SNRs. The performance score in the noise interruption condition was subtracted by quiet interruption condition to determine the phonemic restoration magnitude. Results: Fairly robust improvements in speech intelligibility was found when the sentences were interrupted with speech noise instead of silence. Improvement with increasing noise levels was non-monotonic and reached a maximum at -10 dB SNR. Significant correlation between speech perception in noise performance and phonemic restoration of sentences interrupted with -10 dB SNR speech noise was found. Conclusions: It is possible that perception of speech in noise is associated with top-down processing of speech, tapped as phonemic restoration of interrupted speech. More research with a larger sample size is indicated since the restoration is affected by the type of speech material and noise used, age, working memory, and linguistic proficiency, and has a large individual variability.

• Korean Journal of Audiology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.167-173
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• 2020

Background and Objectives: Top-down restoration of distorted speech, tapped as phonemic restoration of speech in noise, maybe a useful tool to understand robustness of perception in adverse listening situations. However, the relationship between phonemic restoration and speech perception in noise is not empirically clear. Subjects and Methods: 20 adults (40-55 years) with normal audiometric findings were part of the study. Sentence perception in noise performance was studied with various signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) to estimate the SNR with 50% score. Performance was also measured for sentences interrupted with silence and for those interrupted by speech noise at -10, -5, 0, and 5 dB SNRs. The performance score in the noise interruption condition was subtracted by quiet interruption condition to determine the phonemic restoration magnitude. Results: Fairly robust improvements in speech intelligibility was found when the sentences were interrupted with speech noise instead of silence. Improvement with increasing noise levels was non-monotonic and reached a maximum at -10 dB SNR. Significant correlation between speech perception in noise performance and phonemic restoration of sentences interrupted with -10 dB SNR speech noise was found. Conclusions: It is possible that perception of speech in noise is associated with top-down processing of speech, tapped as phonemic restoration of interrupted speech. More research with a larger sample size is indicated since the restoration is affected by the type of speech material and noise used, age, working memory, and linguistic proficiency, and has a large individual variability.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.61 no.6
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• pp.872-878
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• 2012

It is quite important to improve the visual acuity of a medical image by suppressing noisy parts and simultaneously keeping the details of signal components to draw the accurate diagnostics. With this aim, we suggest a novel method to generate Rotational Kernel Transformation (RKT) filter mask with applying Bresenham's algorithm and implement an nonlinear filtering algorithm to eliminate noises. As a result, we can find the fact that RKT filter mask can be automatically created and the visual acuity of a corrupted image can be elevated in terms of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) with applying the RKT filter.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.11 no.7
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• pp.637-645
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• 2017

The objective of this study was to find the optimum test device for the cerebral blood vessels by comparing and analyzing the SNR and CNR methods for images of three devices (i.e., MRA, CTA, and DSA). The study targeted 90 patients who underwent cerebral angiography from November 2016 to May 2017. The measuring parts were measured by using Rt MCA, Lt MCA, and ACA Image J. The results of quantitative analysis showed that the mean SNR of MRA, the CNR of MRA, the signal strength of MRA, the mean SNR of CTA, the CNR of CTA, the signal strength of CTA, the SNR of DSA, the CNR of DSA, and the signal strength of DSA were evaluated as 254.87, 178.13, 326.81, 74.75, 62.2, 356.66, 26.85, 25.89, and 4400.69, respectively (p<0.05). As a result, both SNR and CNR methods measured it in the order of MRA>CTA>DSA. Statistical significance was determined by using ANOVA analysis at p<0.05 and Bonferroni method was used as a post-hoc analysis SPSS. In conclusion, the results of this study revealed that the optimum imaging devices were MRA, CTA, and DSA after evaluating randomly selected patients with cerebrovascular disease.

• Journal of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.135-140
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• 2017

This paper proposes a signal merging algorithm to increase the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of a GPS correlator output to estimate the roll angle of a rotating vehicle in a weak GPS signal environment. Rotation Locked Loop (RLL) algorithm is used to estimate a roll angle using the characteristics that the power of the GPS signal measured at the receiver of a rotating vehicle varies periodically. First, delay times are calculated to synchronize GPS signals using satellites' and receiver's positions and the rotation frequency of a vehicle, and then correlator outputs are delayed in time and merged with each other, resulting in the increase of an SNR in a correlator output. Finally, simulations are conducted and the performance of the proposed algorithm is validated.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.161-170
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• 2009

Purpose : A parallel imaging method provides us to improve temporal resolution to obtain three-dimensional (3D) MR images. The objective of this study was to optimize three 3D MRI techniques by adjusting 2D SESNE factors of the parallel imaging method in phantom and human brain. Materials and Methods : With a 3 Tesla MRI system and an 8-channel phase-array sensitivity-encoding (SENSE) coil, three 3D MRI techniques of 3D T1-weighted imaging (3D T1WI), 3D T2-weighted imaging (3D T2WI) and 3D fluid attenuated inversion recovery (3D FLAIR) imaging were optimized with adjusting SESNE factors in a water phantom and three human brains. The 2D SENSE factor was applied on the phase-encoding and the slice-encoding directions. Signal-to-noise ratio(SNR), percent signal reduction rate(%R), and contrast-to-noise ratio(CNR) were calculated by using signal intensities obtained in specific regions-of-interest (ROI). Results : In the phantom study, SENSE factor = 3 was provided in 0.2% reduction of signals against without using SENSE with imaging within 5 minutes for 3D T1WI. SENSE factor = 2 was provided in 0.98% signal reduction against without using SENSE with imaging within 5 minutes for 3D T2WI. SENSE factor = 4 was provided in 0.2% signal reduction against without using SENSE with imaging around 6 minutes for 3D FLAIR. In the human brain study, SNR and CNR were higher with SENSE factors = 3 than 4 for all three imaging techniques. Conclusion : This study was performed to optimize 2D SENSE factors in the three 3D MRI techniques that can be scanned in clinical time limitations with minimizing SNR reductions. Without compromising SNR and CNR, the optimum 2D SENSE factors were 3 and 4, yielding the scan time of about 5 to 6 minutes. Further studies are necessary to optimize 3D MRI techniques in other areas in human body.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.384-389
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• 2021

An optimal ground station (GS) antenna pattern design method for network-based UAV command and control communication systems considering complexity and performance is presented. The GS antenna consists of multiple side sectors and one upward sector. The antenna gain for each vertical/horizontal angle of the GS antenna according to the change of antenna design parameters such as the number of sectors, horizontal and vertical beam-width, and tilt-angle is modeled, and the effect of the parameter changes on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) distribution in the virtual three-dimensional space is analyzed. It is observed that the tilt-angle of the side sectors has the greatest effect on the performance, and the longer the distance between GSs, the higher the maximum altitude and the smaller the number of side sectors, the tilt-angle should be lower. In addition, it is observed that the wider vertical beam-width of the side sector is advantageous in maximizing the lowest SNR, but narrow vertical beam-width is advantageous in maximizing the average SNR.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.77-78
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• 2006

This paper presents a signal quality estimation technique for QAM modulation systems. By making a LUT(Look-up table) putting the number of N enough, we can derive estimated SNR from LUT even though N is small. That is so called MOTM algorithm. In 16-QAM, the distance $d_a$, between adjacent symbols is always invariable, so absolute value of R(the amplitude of signal) minus $d_a$ has a always same signal distribution value. This value does not form a Gaussian shape but, by making a little bit correction, we can make this symmetrical. So, from the received symbol value, by using LUT we can easily derive the estimated SNR. By considering this, we introduce a signal quality estimation technique for QAM schemes. This proposed method can be applicable to high order modulation schemes and wide range of signal to noise ratio.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.7 no.12
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• pp.254-261
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• 2007

In this paper, we propose a blind equalization method for advanced terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting (AT-DMB) systems which use hierarchical modulation. The AT-DMB system adopts hierarchical 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM) to ensure backward-compatibly with the differential quadrature phase shift keying (DQPSK) signal of the legacy terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting (T-DMB) systems and to support higher transmission rate. Due to the hierarchical modulation, the conventional T-DMB signal and the additional signal have different error rate at same signal to noise ratio (SNR). By weighting the decided symbols differently according to the reliability of the symbols, i.e., high priority symbol with low error rate and low priority symbol with high error rate, we can improve the channel estimation accuracy. In this paper, we analyze SNR loss by hierarchical modulation and confirm it through simulations. Moreover, through simulations, we verify that the proposed weighting method improve BER compared to the no-weighting method.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.177-184
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• 2005

In this paper, we proposed a new hearing aid algorithm to improve SNR(signal to noise ratio) of noisy speech signal and speech perception. The proposed hearing aid algorithm is a multi-band loudness compensation based independent component analysis (ICA). The proposed algorithm was compared with a conventional spectral subtraction algorithm on behind-the-ear type hearing aid. The proposed algorithm successfully separated a target speech signal from background noise and from a mixture of the speech signals. The algorithms were compared each other by means of SNR. The average improvement of SNR by ICA based algorithm was 16.64dB, whereas spectral subtraction algorithm was 8.67dB. From the clinical tests, we concluded that our proposed algorithm would help hearing aid user to hear clearly a target speech in noisy conditions.