• The Korean Journal of Pain
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.217-223
• /
• 2008

Background: Lumbar transforaminal epidural injections (LTEIs) have been utilized in the treatment of radicular pain, and LTEIs have the advantage of target-specificity. However, there have not been enough studies on the contrast patterns in LTEIs with using fluoroscopy. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the spreading epidural contrast patterns that are seen during real-time fluoroscopic guided LTEIs. Methods: A total of 131 patients who underwent fluoroscopic guided LTEIs were studied. The inclusion criteria were those patients with low back pain and/or lower extremity pain that was caused by a herniated nucleus pulposus, lumbar spinal stenosis, failed back surgery syndrome, and herpes zoster-associated pain. We classified the contrast patterns in regard to the contrast flow spreading to the nerve root and/or the unilateral, bilateral or cylinderic type of epidural spreading on the AP view of the fluoroscopy and the ventral or dorsal epidural filling on the lateral view. In addition to the pattern analysis, we evaluated the range of contrast spreading from the cranial to the caudal epidural filling and the incidence of an intravascular flow pattern. Results: Epidural spreading was seen in 126 cases (96.2%) of the total patients through the nerve root. Ventral spreading occurred in 120 cases (95.2%). On the AP view, a nerve root with unilateral, bilateral and cylinderic epidural filling was noted for 108 (85.7%), 9 (7.1%) and 9 (7.1%) cases, respectively. The contrast spreading to vertebral segments was smaller for the patients with lumbar spinal stenosis and failed back surgery syndrome than for the other groups (P < 0.0083). The incidence of intravascular injection was 11.1% (14/126). Conclusions: LTEIs using fluoroscopic visualization provided excellent assessment of the ventral epidural filling as well as nerve root filling. However, unilateral epidural spreading was prominent for the LTEIs.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.1-24
• /
• 2010

The stationary image appears to move after we view a moving stimulus for a long time. The motion aftereffect(MAE) can spread to an adjacent region if there is no contrast discontinuity between two regions. In this study, it is investigated whether a phenomenon of MAE spreading to an adjacent non adapting area is affected by the depth discontinuity defined by binocular disparity. In the first experiment a disparity defined slanted pattern was presented in an unadapted region, and in the second experiment, a disparity defined pattern with a different depth was presented on the fronto-parallel plane. Although MAE duration in the condition with slanted pattern was not different from that in the non-slanted pattern condition, MAE durations in the pattern presented on pronto-parallel plane was vividly reduced, but not completely disappeared. These results suggest that a phenomenon of MAE spreading might be affected by depth discontinuity, and could be occurred after binocular information converges.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
• /
• v.19 no.2
• /
• pp.175-180
• /
• 2006

Background: A transforaminal epidural steroid injection has been used for the treatment of radicular arm or leg pain, which has the advantage of ventral epidural spreading compared to either an interlaminar or caudal approach. However, several factors are known to affect the epidural spread pattern of contrast dye; therefore, the injected medication can not be delivered to the target site. The objective of our study was to observe any differences in the contrast flow patterns according to several factors. Methods: A total of 34 epidurographies in 29 patients, who underwent fluoroscopically guided transforaminal epidural steroid injections, were evaluated. After confirming the location of the needle tip within the anterior superior aspect of the neural foramen in the lateral view, and at the 6 o'clock position to the pedicle in the anteroposterior view, 2 ml of contrast dye was injected. The contrast flow patterns of ventral, ventral and dorsal, and dorsal epidural filling were analyzed, according to age, gender, magnetic resonance imaging finding and history of previous back surgery. Results: Ventral contrast flow occurred in 30 out of the 34 epidurographies (88%). Both ventral and dorsal contrast flow patterns were observed 13 out of 16 (81%) patients in the older age group. Also, both ventral and dorsal contrast flow patterns were observed in 16 out of 18 (88%) patients with spinal stenosis. Conclusions: Transforaminal epidural steroid injections, performed uner fluoroscopy, provide excellent nerve root filling and ventral epidural spreading. Patients with spinal stenosis or an old age have both ventral and dorsal epidural spreading patterns.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.52-57
• /
• 2009

Background: Transforaminal epidural injection (TEI) may be useful to treat unilateral pain that has a dermatomal distribution. In this approach, the needle tip can be placed closer to the dorsal root ganglion and ventral aspect of the nerve root. However many studies have reported that serious complications following TEI occurred more frequently when it was conducted at the cervical level. One of the presumptive mechanisms of the complication is intravascular injection. Therefore this study was conducted to identify the incidence of complications in response to intravascular injections at cervical segments. Methods: This study included all patients, who visited our pain clinic and had radicular symptoms or herpes zoster associated pain. All procedures were conducted under fluoroscopic guidance with contrast enhancement by one of the authors. After the ideal needle position was confirmed by biplanar fluoroscopy, the blood aspiration through the needle hub was evaluated, and a 3 ml mixture of nonionic contrast (2 ml) with normal saline (1 ml) was injected at a rate of 0.3-0.5 ml/sec continuously under real time fluoroscopic visualization. We then classified the contrast spreading pattern as neural, simultaneous neural and vascular, or vascular. Results: A total 71 cervical TEIs were performed. In 26 cases (36.6%), the contrast only spread to the nerve sheath. However, 45 cases (63.4%) showed an intravascular spreading pattern, 37 (52.1%) of which showed a neural and vascular pattern and 8 (11.3%) of which showed only a vascular pattern. Conclusions: Approximately two thirds of the cases of cervical TEI were found to lead to intravascular spreading, which is much higher than the incidence reported in previous studies.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
• /
• v.16 no.4
• /
• pp.183-186
• /
• 2015

This research investigates the impact of charge spreading on the data retention of three-dimensional (3D) silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS) flash memory where the charge trapping layer is shared along the cell string. In order to do so, this study conducts an electrical analysis of the planar SONOS test pattern where the silicon nitride charge storage layer is not isolated but extends beyond the gate electrode. Experimental results from the test pattern show larger retention loss in the devices with extended storage layers compared to isolated devices. This retention degradation is thought to be the result of an additional charge spreading through the extended silicon nitride layer along the width of the memory cell, which should be improved for the successful 3-D application of SONOS flash devices.

• Ocean and Polar Research
• /
• v.40 no.2
• /
• pp.87-98
• /
• 2018

It is widely known that infragravity waves can exert significant influence on wave run-up over beaches. Large run-ups can lead to overwash, flooding and severe coastal erosion. In spite of the importance of infragravity waves in relation to wave run-up and coastal erosion, few studies have been carried out with regard to the impact of infragravity waves on nearshore morphodynamics with respect to eastern beaches in Korea. The purpose of this study is to investigate the importance of infragravity waves in nearshore numerical modelling. For the study, XBeach model was set up to analyze morphodynamics in December 2016, in Ilsan beach which is located in Ilsan-dong, Ulsan Metropolitan City. After validation of the XBeach model, numerical experiments were conducted by using various directional spreading coefficients. As the directional spreading coefficients are increased, the effect of infragravity waves is also enhanced by narrowband frequency. With the increasing effect of infragravity waves, the amount of sediment transport is also increased and an erosion dominant pattern is found in the south part of Ilsan beach and a deposition pattern in the north part of the beach mainly due to the wave incident direction of NNE.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
• /
• v.27 no.6B
• /
• pp.569-578
• /
• 2002

This paper proposes a new multicarrier code division multiple access (CDMA) system. The proposed multicarrier CDMA system provides the advantages that the transmission bandwidth is more efficiently utilized by using divided spreading sequence, time and frequency diversity is achieved in frequency selective nultipath (acting channel, and inter-carrier interference (ICI) can be minimized by using specific data and code pattern. In this system, transmitted data bits are serial-to-parallel converted to some parallel branches. On each branch each bit is direct-sequence spread-spectrum modulated by divided spreading sequences and transmitted using orthogonal carriers. The receiver providers a Rake for each carrier, and the outputs of Rakes are combined to get time and frequency diversity. This multicarrier CDMA system allows additional flexibility in the choice of system parameters. Upon varying system parameters, bit error rate (BER) performance is examined for the proposed multicarrier CDMA system. Simulation results show that the proposed multicarrier CDMA scheme can achieve better performance than the other types of conventional multicarrier CDMA systems.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.17-27
• /
• 2005

After prolonged viewing of a moving pattern, a stationary pattern can appear to move in the opposite direction, a phenomenon known as motion aftereffect (MAE). Unlike the classical explanation MAE was not confined to an adapted region; instead it can spread to an adjacent region, which was not adapted previously. In order to examine the relative locus of the mechanism responsible for MAE spreading, a rotating harmonic spiral pattern was presented as an adapting stimulus within an annulus window, and then the duration of MAE was measured in both the adapted annulus region and the non-adapted inner region. Two different kinds of test patterns were used: the same and mirror images of the original adapting pattern. An interesting characteristic of a harmonic spiral is that the orientation of a contour at a given location is different from thar of its mirror image by 90 degrees, and consequently the adapting effect of local motion detector is not expected to occur in the mirror image. The results showed that MAE duration in an adapted region was longer in the same image condition than in its mirror image condition, while MAE duration in an non-adapted region was not found to be different between those two different image conditions. These results suggest that MAE spreading might be produced by the adaptation of global motion detectors, not by local motion detectors.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
• /
• v.29 no.10A
• /
• pp.1123-1130
• /
• 2004

This paper proposes the fast OVSF code generation method using the multi-stage spreading scheme based on the single code indexing scheme. The conventional OVSF indexing scheme based on the code-tree structure uses two numbers as the codeword indices, the layer number and the code number of the corresponding layer. However, the single code index number implicitly includes the information of the spreading factor as well as the code number. Since the binary representation of the single code indices shows the pattern of the codeword, the orthogonality between two different codewords can be determined by comparing their code indices instead of much longer codewords. The above useful property also makes the codeword can be generated directly kom its single code index. In this paper, the multi-stage spreading scheme is applied to generate the long code by spreading two shorter codewords with the appropriate code indices. The proposed fast code generation algorithm is designed for 3GPP UMTS systems and verified by the simulations.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.95-105
• /
• 2009

A method was proposed which employed control of the drop location of fertilizer particles on a spinner disc to optimize the spread pattern uniformity. The system contained an optical sensor as a feedback mechanism, which measured discharge velocity and location, as well as particle diameters to predict a spread pattern of a single disc. Simulations showed that the feed gate adaptation algorithm produced high quality patterns for any given application rate in the dual disc spreader. The performance of the feed gate control method was assessed using data collected from a Sulky spinner disc spreader. The results showed that it was always possible to find a spread pattern with an acceptable CV lower than 15%, even though the spread pattern was obtained from a rudimentary flat disc with straight radial vanes. A mathematical optimization method was used to find the initial parameter settings for a specially designed experimental spreading arrangement, which included the feed gate control system, for a given flow rate and swath width. Several experiments were carried out to investigate the relationship between the gate opening and flow rate, disc speed and particle velocity, as well as disc speed and predicted landing location of fertilizer particles. All relationships found were highly linear ($r^2$ > 0.96), which showed that the time-of-flight sensor was well suited as a feedback sensor in the rate and uniformity controlled spreading system.