• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.84 no.3
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• pp.596-605
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• 2023

Purpose This study aimed to evaluate the US features of the parathyroid glands (PTGs) using surgical specimens of normal PTGs obtained during thyroid surgery. Materials and Methods This study included 34 normal PTGs from 17 consecutive patients who underwent thyroid surgery between December 2020 and March 2021. All normal PTGs were histologically confirmed by intraoperative frozen-section biopsy for autotransplantation. Surgically resected parathyroid specimens were scanned in sterile normal saline using high-resolution US prior to autotransplantation. The US features of echogenicity (hyperechogenicity or hypoechogenicity), echotexture (homogeneous or heterogeneous), size, and shape (ovoid or round) were retrospectively evaluated. The echogenicity of the three PTGs was compared with that of the thyroid parenchyma of the resected thyroid specimens in two patients. Results All PTGs showed hyperechogenicity similar to that of gauze soaked in normal saline. Homogeneous hyperechogenicity was observed in 32/34 (94.1%) patients, and the echogenicity of the three PTGs was hyperechoic compared with that of the thyroid parenchyma. The long diameter of the PTGs ranged from 5.1 mm to 9.8 mm (mean, 7.1 mm) and the shape of the PTGs was ovoid in 33/34 (97.1%) patients. Conclusion The echogenicity of normal PTG specimens was consistently hyperechoic, and the small ovoid homogeneously hyperechoic structure was a characteristic US feature of the PTGs.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.3-11
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• 2008

An experimental investigation was conducted with half-scale representations of the reinforced concrete shear walls with the opening subjected to cyclic loads. Specimens were half scale representations of a one-story wall in the apartment built in 1980. The area ratio of the opening section, as well as the size and critical section of coupling slabs, were decided based on results from a previous researches. The test result of WS-0.23 specimen, which has artificial damages to install the opening, the strength of the wall decreased due to the opening. It is apparent that influence of cutting reinforcing bars and decrease of effective section area lead to early first yield of the reinforcing bars before the allowable limit of drift ratio of the shear walls was reached. Therefore, proper reinforcing method is needed to prevent this. The decrease of strength of the shear walls by installation of openings shows a great deal of difference compared to previous researches. This is because flexural capacity of the slabs is working as coupling elements for the shear walls. The critical section of coupling slabs that works as coupling elements for shear walls was a little different from the results of previous researches.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.7657-7661
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• 2013

Background: This study concerns uptake and results of colorectal cancer (CRC) screening of government servant as part of the Health Screening Program that was conducted in Brunei Darussalam in 2009. Materials and Methods: Government servants above the age of 40 or with family history of CRC were screened with a single fecal occult blood test (FIT, immunohistochemistry). Among 11,576 eligible subjects, 7,360 (66.9%) returned their specimen. Subjects with positive family history of CRC (n=329) or polyps (n=135) were advised to attend clinics to arrange screening. All the subjects with positive FIT (n=142, 1.9%) were referred to the endoscopy unit for counselling for screening colonoscopy. Results: Overall only 17.7% of eligible subjects attended for screening; 54.9% (n=79/142) of positive FIT, 8.8% (n=29/329) of positive family history of CRC and none with history of polyps (n=0/135). Of these, only 54 patients (50.5%) agreed for colonoscopy, 52 (48.6%) declined as they were asymptomatic, and one was not offered (0.9%) due to his very young age. On screening colonoscopy, 12.9% (n=7) had advanced lesions including a sigmoid carcinoma in situ and six advanced polyps. The other findings included non advanced polyps (n=21), diverticular (n=11) and hemorrhoids (n=26). One patient who missed his screening colonoscopy appointment re-presented two years later and was diagnosed with advanced right sided CRC. All the advanced lesions were detected in patients with positive FIT, giving a yield of 20.5% for advanced lesions including cancers in the 5.1% FIT positive subjects. Conclusions: Our study showed screening for CRC even with a single FIT was effective. However, the uptake rate was poor with just over half of the patients agreeing to screening colonoscopy. Measures to increase public awareness are important. Since one limitation of our study was the relatively small sample size, larger studies should be conduced in future.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.7-13
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• 2013

A scaled version of a roller rig is developed to demonstrate the dynamic characteristics of a railway vehicle for academic purposes. This rig is designed based on Jaschinski's similarity law. It is scaled to 1/10 of actual size and allows 9-DOF motion to examine the up and down vibration of a train set. The test rig consists of three sub-hardware components: (i) a driving roller mechanism with a three-phase AC motor and an inverter, (ii) a bogie structure with first and second suspensions, and (iii) the vehicle body. The motor of the rig is capable of 3,600rpm, allowing the test to simulate a vehicle up to a maximum speed of 400Km/hr. Because bearings and joints are properly connected to the sub-structures, various motion analyses, such as a lateral, pitching, and yawing motion, are allowed. The slip motion between the rail and the wheel set is also monitored by several sensors mounted in the rig. After the construction of the hardware, an experiment is conducted to obtain the natural frequencies of the dynamic behavior of the specimen. First, the test rig is run and data are collected from six sets of accelerometers. Then, a numerical analysis of the model based on the ADAMS program is derived. Finally, the measurement data of the first three fundamental frequencies are compared to the analytical result and the validation of the test rig is conducted. The results show that the developed roller rig provides good accuracy in simulating the dynamic behavior of the vehicle motion. Although the roller rig designed in this paper is intended for academia, it can easily be implemented as part of a dynamic experiment of a bogie and a vehicle body for a high-speed train as part of the research efforts in this area.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.26-32
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• 2020

Concrete recycling is becoming mandatory rather selective due to depletion of constructional materials and increase of concrete waste. Studies on recycling concrete are conducted in various point of view for long time. However, standard or guideline of many countries for the application of recycled aggregate concrete(RAC) has restrictions such as low replacement rate of coarse aggregate and no fine aggregate allowed due to inferior material properties of recycled aggregate. This study intends to figure out the feasibility of casting natural aggregate concrete(NAC) and RAC separately in a structural member. In making RAC, replacement rate of coarse aggregate was 50, 100% in RAC and treatment of interface of two concretes is introduced. RAC treatment of recycled aggregate or inclusion of additives was not done as it can increase embodied energy of concrete work. Double-shear test with uniformly distributed loading was adopted to evaluate shear strength at the interface of two concretes. After curing it was hard to distinguish interface of two concretes. Experimental result revealed that specimen with higher replacement rate showed higher shear-to-compressive strength ratio, which is possibly attributed to coarse aggregate size and roughness of sheared section. Further study on the effect of various parameters is required and subsequent research activity is on-going.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.16 no.5 s.83
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• pp.635-643
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• 2004

In this study, the tensile strength of 321 full-sized grout-filled splice steeve specimens were compared and analyzed in order to afford the data for a reasonable and economical design of this system. The experimental variables analyzed in this study were embedment length of reinforcing bars, compressive strength of grout, sleeve geometry, loading pattern and final failure mode of specimen. Following main conclusions are obtained : 1) The strength of grout-filled splice sleeve tends to be improved with increasing compressive strength of grout and embedment length of reinforcing bars. Specially this tendency appears apparent in specimens of bond failure rather than rebar failure. 2) The results of this study show that the sleeve geometry have influence on the bond strength of grout-filled splice sleeve. 3) The grout-filled splice sleeve of bond failure don't show the difference of tensile strength according to size of rebar. 4) It is verified that the tensile strength required in ACI and domestic code is retained either when the compressive strength of grout over 70 MPa is used with embedment length of reinforcing bars over 4.5d or when the compressive strength of grout over 80 MPa is used with embedment length of rebars over 3.9d. 5) It is verified that the tensile strength required in AIJ code is retained in case when the embedment length of reinforcing bars is 0.8 times the rebar diameter longer than in ACI code.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.203-209
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• 2006

The aim of this study is to investigate the feasibility of ex vivo MR diffusion tensor imaging technique in order to observe the diffusion-contrast characteristics of human gastric tissues. On normal and pathologic gastric tissues, which have been fixed in a polycarbonate plastic tube filled with 10% formalin solution, laboratory made 3D diffusion tensor Turbo FLASH pulse sequence was used to obtain high resolution MR images with voxel size of $0.5{\times}0.5{\times}0.5mm^3\;using\;64{\times}32{\times}32mm^3$ field of view in conjunction with an acquisition matrix of $128{\times}64{\times}64$. Diffusion weighted- gradient pulses were employed with b values of 0 and $600s/mm^2$ in 6 orientations. The sequence was implemented on a clinical 3.0-T MRI scanner(Siemens, Erlangen, Germany) with a home-made quadrature-typed birdcage Tx/Rx rf coil for small specimen. Diffusion tensor values in each pixel were calculated using linear algebra and singular value decomposition(SVD) algorithm. Apparent diffusion coefficient(ADC) and fractional anisotropy(FA) map were also obtained from diffusion tensor data to compare pixel intensities between normal and abnormal gastric tissues. The processing software was developed by authors using Visual C++(Microsoft, WA, U.S.A.) and mathematical/statistical library of GNUwin32(Free Software Foundation). This study shows that 3D diffusion tensor Turbo FLASH sequence is useful to resolve fine micro-structures of gastric tissue and both ADC and FA values in normal gastric tissue are higher than those in abnormal tissue. Authors expect that this study also represents another possibility of gastric carcinoma detection by visualizing diffusion characteristics of proton spins in the gastric tissues.

• Restorative Dentistry and Endodontics
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.470-476
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• 2006

The objective of this in situ study was to evaluate the effects of whitening strip (Claren, LG Household & Health Care Ltd, 2.6% hydrogen peroxide) and gel (Opalescence, Ultradent, 10% carbamide peroxide) on microhardness of enamel in comparison with untreated control. Extracted twenty human upper incisors were disinfected, cleaned, and labial side of each incisor sectioned into 3 fragments by 2 ${\times}$ 2 mm size. After sectioning, labial sides of fragments were flattened and fixed to orthodontic bracket using flowable composite resin. Specimens prepared from each tooth were attached to the labial side of upper incisors of twenty volunteers one by one and treated by three different methods: (1) untreated control (2) treated with whitening strip for 14 days (3) treated with whitening gel for 14 days. Microhardness (Microhardness tester, Zwick) of each specimen was measured at the baseline of pre-treatment, immediate after bleaching treatment, 14 days after bleaching treatment and Knoop Hardness Number was determined. Microhardness changes of experimental groups were compared. The results show that tooth whitening strip and gel used in this study does not effect the microhardness of enamel during bleaching procedure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.70 no.1
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• pp.67-80
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• 2019

Strengthening with near surface mounted carbon fibre reinforced polymers (NSM-CFRP) is a strengthening technique that have been used for several decades to increase the load carrying capacity of reinforced concrete members. In Iraq, many concrete buildings and bridges were subjected to a wide range of damage as a result of the last war and many other events. Accordingly, there is a progressive increase in the strengthening of concrete structures, bridges in particular, by using CFRP strengthening techniques. Near-surface mounted carbon fibre polymer has been recently proved as a powerful strengthening technique in which the CFRP strips are sufficiently protected against external environmental conditions especially the high-temperature rates in Iraq. However, this technique has not been examined yet under repeated loading conditions such as traffic loads on bridge girders. The main objective of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of NSM-CFRP strips in reinforced concrete beams under repeated loads. Different parameters such as the number of strips, groove size, and two types of bonding materials (epoxy resin and cement-based adhesive) were considered. Fifteen NSM-CFRP strengthened beams were tested under concentrated monotonic and repeated loadings. Three beams were non-strengthened as reference specimens while the remaining were strengthened with NSM-CFRP strips and divided into three groups. Each group comprises two beams tested under monotonic loads and used as control for those tested under repeated loads in the same group. The experimental results are discussed in terms of load-deflection behavior up to failure, ductility factor, cumulative energy absorption, number of cycles to failure, and the mode of failure. The test results proved that strengthening with NSM-CFRP strips increased both the flexural strength and stiffness of the tested beams. An increase in load carrying capacity was obtained in a range of (1.47 to 4.49) times that for the non-strengthened specimens. Also, the increase in total area of CFRPs showed a slight increase in flexural capacity of (1.02) times the value of the control strengthened one tested under repeated loading. Increasing the total area of CFRP strips resulted in a reduction in ductility factor reached to (0.71) while the cumulative energy absorption increased by (1.22) times the values of the strengthened reference specimens tested under repeated loading. Moreover, the replacement of epoxy resin with cement-based adhesive as a bonding material exhibited higher ductility than specimen with epoxy resin tested under monotonic and repeated loading.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.275-279
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• 2023

La_0.7Sr_0.3-xMg_xMnO₃ (LSMMO) (x=0.05~0.20) specimens are fabricated by a solid phase sintering method, and the sintering temperature and time are 1,300℃ and 2 hours, respectively. The dependence of the crystalline structure according to the amount of Mg²⁺ contents is not observed, and all specimens show a polycrystalline rhombohedral crystal structure, the X-ray diffraction (110) peaks move to the high angle side with increasing the amount of Mg²⁺ contents. LSMMO specimens exhibit a granule-shaped microstructure with an average grain size of 1 ㎛ or less. Resistivity gradually decrease as the amount of Mg²⁺ contents increased. And in the La_0.7Sr_0.1Mg_0.2MnO₃ specimen, resistivity and B_25/65-value are 36.7 Ω-cm and 394 K at room temperature, respectively. LSMMO specimens show a variable-range hopping (VRH) electrical conduction mechanism, and the negative temperature of coefficient of resistance (NTCR) is approximately 0.37~0.38%/℃.