• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.42-56
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• 2019

Background: Individuals with mechanical neck pain show biomechanical and neurophysiological changes, including cervical spine muscle weakness. As a result of deep muscle weakness, it causes stability disability and reduced upper thoracic spine mobility, which finally leads to functional movement restriction such as limited range of motion and dysfunction. Recent studies have shown that thoracic spine manipulation and mobilization could reduce symptoms of mechanical neck pain in patients. Objects: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of thoracic mobility exercise on cervicothoracic function, posture feature, and pain intensity in individuals with mechanical neck pain. Methods: The study subjects were 26 persons who were randomly assigned to the experimental (with thoracic mobility exercise) and control groups (without thoracic mobility exercise), with 13 subjects in each group. The cervicothoracic function (neck functional disability level and cervicothoracic range of motion), posture feature, and pain rating (using a quadrupled visual analogue scale [QVAS]) were measured before, after 3 weeks, and after 6 weeks. Results: Statistically significant group-by-time interactions were found with repeated analyses of variance for the Korean neck disability index (KNDI), all cervical range of motion (CROM), all thoracic range of motion (TROM), cranial rotation angle, sagittal shoulder posture (SSP), and QVAS (p<.05). All groups showed significant improvements from all times in all the evaluated methods. The KNDI, CROM, TROM of left rotation, and SSP in the experimental group showed significant improvements after 3 weeks, and the TROM of the right rotation and QVAS in the experimental group showed significant improvements after 6 weeks when compared with the control group. Conclusion: Thoracic mobility exercise during 6 weeks might be effective intervention to improve the functional level, posture feature, and QVAS pain rating for managing individuals with mechanical neck pain.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.49-61
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• 2022

PURPOSE: This study compared the effects of proprioceptive sensation, subacromial space, and dynamic function according to proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF), static stretching (SS), and complex rotational stretching (CRS). METHODS: Thirty students without any musculoskeletal disease who volunteered to participate were included in this study. The following metrics were measured to evaluate the function and stability under the normal conditions, with the PNF, SS, and CRS: special test and flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, internal rotation, external rotation (shoulder range of motion) and reaching distance on the medial (ME), superolateral (SL), inferolateral (IL), and subacromial space and proprioceptive sensation were evaluated. All measures were analyzed using one-way ANOVA and repeated measures of ANOVA. RESULTS: A clear difference in adduction in the range of motion was observed in all groups (p < .05). Significant differences could not be identified in all values in the error test, except for Ab (p < .05). Significant differences in reach were noted in all directions of the SS and PNF in the Me, SL, and IL (p < .05). After the intervention, significant differences in the average values could be identified in all groups except for the SS group after rest (p < .05). After the intervention, there was a significant difference between the CRS and SS and PNF groups (p < .05). CONCLUSION: The application of CRS is as helpful as the existing SS and PNF for improving the joint range of motion improvement, shoulder balance, and subacromial space.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.125-138
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• 2024

Purpose: The aim of this study was to apply suboccipital muscle inhibition combined with neck muscle stabilization exercise to 20~30s IT industry employees who suffer from chronic non-specific neck pain. Methods: This study was designed as single-blind and randomized controlled trial. The study participants were 20~30s IT industry employees with chonic non-specific neck pain (VAS 3/10) who were divided into an experimental group (n= 20) subjected to suboccipital muscle inhibition with neck muscle stabilization exercise, and control group (n= 20); suboccipital muscle inhibition only. The intervention was applied three times per week for eight weeks. The neck pain·pressure pain threshold·range of motion, and disability index were measured at the 1st, 8th, and 10th week at follow up, then analyzed with an analysis of variance(ANOVA) using the SPSS program. Results: The total number of study participants was 37 (experimental group 19, mean age 34.6±5.3, control group 18, mean age 35.7±4.9). The comparison and analysis of change in VAS, the pressure pain threshold, and the range of motion except the extension (p>.05) revealed a statistically significant decrease between groups over eight weeks and follow up measurement (p<.01). Regarding the within the group differences, the right side of the neck pressure pain threshold showed a statistically significant decrease over eight weeks in the control group (p<.01). The right and left lateral flexion, and the right and left rotation were statistically significant for the experimental group over eight weeks and follow up measurement, but only the left lateral flexion (p<.05) for the control group over eight weeks. The neck disability index showed a slight decrease but this was not satistically significant for the between-grop or the within-group differences (p>.05). Conclusion: The intervention of suboccipital muscle inhibition and a neck muscle stabilization exercise are more beneficial for neck pain and the range of motion than the application of suboccipital muscle inhibition alone.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 1999.11a
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• pp.1097-1100
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• 1999

Due to the significant computation of full search in motion estimation, extensive research in fast motion estimation algorithms has been carried out. However, most of the algorithms have the degradation in predicted images compared with the full search algorithm. To reduce an amount of significant computation while keeping the same prediction quality of the full search, we propose a fast block-matching algorithm based on gradient magnitude of reference block without any degradation of predicted image. By using Taylor series expansion, we show that the block matching errors between reference block and candidate block are proportional to the gradient magnitude of matching block. With the derived result, we propose fast full search algorithm with adaptively determined scan direction in the block matching. Experimentally, our proposed algorithm is very efficient in terms of computational speedup and has the smallest computation among all the conventional full search algorithms. Therefore, our algorithm is useful in VLSI implementation of video encoder requiring real-time application.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.629-637
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• 2018

In recent years, selection of strong ground motion records by means of intensity measures representing the spectral shape of the earthquake excitation has been studied by many researchers. These studies indicate the adequacy of this record selection approach in reduction of the scattering of seismic responses. In present study, this method has been studied more in depth to reveal the sufficiency of the spectral shape in predicting structural seismic responses such as the plastic deformation and the dissipated hysteresis energy which are associated with cumulative properties of the selected records. For this purpose, after selecting the records based on the spectral shape, the correlation of some seismic responses and strong ground motion duration of earthquake records are explored. Findings indicate strong correlation of some structural responses with the significant duration of the records. This fact implies that the spectral shape could not reflect all characteristics of the strong ground motion and emphasizes the importance of additional criteria along with the spectral shape in the record selection.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.25 no.9B
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• pp.1604-1608
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• 2000

The three-step search (TSS) algorithm for block motion estimation has been widely used in real-time video coding due to the simplicity of the algorithm significant reduction of computationl cost and good performance. In this paper an improved three-step search (ITS) algorithm is proposed to improve the performance of the TSS algorithm. Simulation results show that in terms of motion compensation errors the proposed ITSS outperforms some popular fast search algorithms while it has the lower computational complexity.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.6 no.7
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• pp.1121-1130
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• 2003

This paper proposes a new motion estimation algorithm using the temporal continuity of motion. We set up a wide global search region (GSR), which basically corresponds to the search region of FSA, and local search regions (LSRs), the positions for which are predicted by the motion vectors of the temporal neighbor blocks, are constructed in the GSR. The previous frame blocks that possibly have effects on the current block are to be the temporal neighbor blocks. Then Motion estimation is only performed in the areas made by LSRs. Experimental results show that the proposed method can maintain visual qualifies with significant reductions of complexity by reducing search regions, when compared to the conventional FSA.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.587-601
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• 2000

The purpose of this study : 1. The total 56 range measurements of active dynamic motion of 40 subjects (20's and 30's) were measured using 3-D dynamic motion analysis system. 2. Various comparisons were performed for the right and left side, male, age groups (20's, 30's, and 40's ∼ 60's) using previous studies. The results were compared with the other studies in the aspects of age. In this study, the 3-D motion analysis system based on photogrammetry was established and used to analyze the human's motion and posture. The system consists of VICON 140, data acquisition system, and data analysis program (KRISSMAS). The result of this study were as follows : 1. Comparing 20's with 30's the result shows that 30's have larger ROM at some joints, which is inconsistent with the previous result. The reason is that female subjects in 20's were improperly sampled according to the representatives of anthropometry characteristics. 2. There are significant differences in some joints related with age. 20's male subjects have more flexible joints in the neck while 30's male subjects have more flexibility in their shoulder joint and elbow joint. But most of the significances were not high (p〈0.05). The prediction that the right side of Korean bodies would be more flexible was not a good hypothesis. And the joints flexibilities are not correlated with Rohrer's Index.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.741-753
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• 2000

The purpose of this study : 1. The total 24 range measurements of active dynamic motion of 40 subjects(20's and 30's, and 40's∼60's) using previous studies. The results were compared with the other studies in the aspects of age. In this study, The 3-D motion analysis system consists of VICON 140, data acquisition system, and data analysis program called by KRISSMAS. VICON 140 is dynamic motion analyzer, and KRISSMAS is a program developed for analysis of the data captured from the VICON. The results of this study were as follows : 1. Comparing 20's∼30's and 40's∼60's the result shows that 40's∼60's have smaller ROM at the most joints(Thoratic and Lumber, Hip Joint, Knee Joint, Ankle Joint), which is inconsistent with the previous result. The reason is that most investigations were carried out using traditional measurement equipments, which have encountered difficulty in quantifying the exact motion of the body. 2. There are no significant mean difference between the right and the left side. Most of the significances were not high(〉0.05).

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.56-61
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• 2019

Purpose: The spasticity of stroke patients decreases the ankle range of motion and increases the gastrocnemius muscle tone. This study examined the effects of stretching exercise and far infrared irradiation on the ankle function in stroke patients with spasticity. Methods: This study was conducted on 20 stroke patients admitted to Jesaeng General Hospital, who were divided into a study group (stretching exercise with far infrared) and control group (stretching exercise only). The dorsiflexion range of motion was measured using a smartphone and the medial gastrocnemius muscle tone and stiffness were measured using a Myoton pro. Results: With the exception of the non-paretic gastrocnemius muscle tone in the control group, the medial gastrocnemius muscle tone and stiffness decreased significantly in both groups. In both groups, the dorsiflexion range of motion increased significantly. In addition, the experimental group had a significantly higher dorsiflexion range of motion than the control group. On the other hand, there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of the medial gastrocnemius muscle tone and stiffness. Conclusion: For stroke patients with spasticity, stretching exercises increased the ankle's range of motion and decreased the gastrocnemius muscle tone. The addition of heat therapy further increased the ankle's range of motion. On the other hand, as the sample size was small, future studies should include more subjects.