• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.889-904
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• 2006

Our purpose is to ascertain, if possible, whether atomic bomb survivors with cataracts and epilation were more radiosensitive than those survivors with cataracts but without epilation. A major ophthalmologic survey was conducted in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1963-64. At that time, 2125 individuals were examined. Among these individuals, estimated eye organ doses, based on the DS86 dosimetry system, and information on the occurrence of epilation within the first 60 days following the bombings are available on 1742. In the analysis of these data we have assumed that each individual represents a sample of one from a binomial distribution, and that the occurrence of cataracts and epilation are independent biological phenomena. We got following results. The threshold for cataract induction and its 95% confidence limits have been estimated from data on the occurrence of cataract and epilation. Among the 1742 study subjects, 40 had both cataracts and severe epilation. The estimated threshold based on these cases is 0.98 sievert(Sv), with 95% lower and upper confidence bounds of 0.72, and 1.32 Sv, respectively, and is highly statistically significant. Among the 27 cases of cataracts where severe epilation was not reported, the estimated threshold is 1.74 Sv with 95% lower and upper confidence bounds of 1.21 Sv, and "not estimable". The difference between these two estimates is not statistically significant although the effect of dose is highly significant in both instances. The potential importance of biases in the DS86 dose estimates is discussed. The difference between the threshold estimated from cataract cases with epilation and that from cases without epilation is not statistically significant at the 5% or 10% level, and thus affords no support for the notion of increased radiosensitivity.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.607-613
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• 2011

In this paper, we propose a hand image segmentation method using the dynamic threshold values on input images with various lighting and background attributes. First, a moving hand silhouette is extracted using the camera input difference images, Next, based on the R,G,B histogram analysis of the extracted hand silhouette area, the threshold interval for each R, G, and B is calculated on run-time. Finally, the hand area is segmented using the thresholding and then a morphology operation, a connected component analysis and a flood-fill operation are performed for the noise removal. Experimental results on various input images showed that our hand segmentation method provides high level of accuracy and relatively fast stable results without the need of the fixed threshold values. Proposed methods can be used in the user interface of mixed reality applications.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.189-197
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• 2022

Purpose: Pain perception is affected by a wide range of contributing factors, including biological, psychological, and social factors. Although the provision of visual information could have a modulatory effect on pain perception, it is unclear whether such a visual effect might vary depending on the anatomical site and stimulation type. This study aimed to analyze the modulatory effect of visual information on the perception of sharp and dull pain in the face and hand and to assess the influence of individual fear levels on modulatory visual information. Methods: A total of 68 healthy male and female volunteers were recruited for this study. Pressure and pricking pain with and without visual information were induced on the masseter and thenar muscles, and alterations in pain threshold were evaluated. The survey was conducted using the Geop-Pain Questionnaire (GPQ). Results: The pricking pain threshold of the hand was significantly elevated when viewing the stimulated hand. This result indicated that the provision of visual information could decrease sensitivity to sharp pain in the hand. However, when correlating the GPQ score with the alteration in thresholds induced by visual information, no significant correlation was observed between the GPQ score and the threshold difference induced by visual information. This finding showed that the visual effect was not significantly affected by the fear level. Conclusions: This study showed that the effect of visual information on the pain threshold could vary according to the anatomical site and stimulation type. A better understanding of such a modulatory effect on pain perception might be useful for clinicians during painful therapeutic procedures.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.296-304
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• 2008

The transient and rapid expression system of a foreign protein in planta is a very useful technique in biotechnology application. We have investigated optimum condition of Agrobacterium-infiltration technique in which expression level of foreign proteins were maximized without detrimental effects on plants using GFP and Cucumber mosaic virus 2b protein, which is known as an enhancer of gene expression and a suppressor of post-transcriptional gene silencing(PTGS). The optimum expression level of both RNA and protein of GFP with minimum leaf impairment was obtained at $OD_{600}$=0.2 of Agrobactrium inocula. The steady-state levels of GFP RNA and protein generally peaked at 3 and 7 days post-infiltration(dpi), respectively. In the presence of 2b, both the magnitude and duration of GFP expression was highly increased and we could detect GFP level until 17 dpi. On the other hands, the 2b-mediated higher accumulation of foreign proteins resulted in the repression of normal leaf growth, possibly due to the limitation of supply of energy or materials required for growth maintenance. Using this Agrobacterium-infiltration system with 2b and GFP, we tested a hypothesis for the threshold model of PTGS initiation. Four GFP transgenic lines of N. benthamiana, which shows different expression level of GFP were tested to determine the threshold level for PTGS initiation. Agrobacterium-infiltration of GFP into those GFP-transgenic plants resulted in the co-silencing of the transgenic GFP. It was found that very low concentration of Agrobacterium with GFP and GFP+2b($OD_{600}$=0.002-0.02) which could not phenotypically induce an additive GFP expression, was enough to trigger PTGS pathway in all GFP transgenic plants. This strongly indicates that each GFP-transgenic plant should be expressing the transgenic GFP at its own pre-determined level and there was no buffer zone of additive GFP-expression to the threshold. In other words, the PTGS seems to be immediately activated as a self-defensive mechanism if an internal balance of gene expression is broken.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.43 no.2 s.308
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• pp.40-47
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• 2006

This paper proposes a multitoning method using threshold modulation of MJBNM(Modified Jointly Blue Noise Mask) for banding artifacts reduction. As banding artifacts in multitoning appear as uniform dot distributions around the intermediate output levels, such multitone output results in discontinuity and visually unpleasing patterns in smooth transition regions. Therefore, to reduce these banding artifacts, the proposed method rearranges the dot distribution by introducing pixels in the neighborhood of output levels that occurs banding artifacts. First of all principal cause of banding artifacts are analyzed using mathematical description. Based on this analytical result, a threshold modulation technique of MJBNM which takes account of chrominance error and correlation between channels is applied. The original threshold range of MJBNM is first scaled linearly sot that the minimum and maximum of the scaled range include two pixel more than adjacent two output levels that cover an input value. In an input value is inside the vicinity of any intermediate output levels produce banding artifacts, the output is set to one of neighboring output levels based on the pointwise comparison result according to threshold modulation parameter that determines the dot density and distribution. In this case, adjacent pixels are introduced at the position where the scaled threshold values are located between two output levels and the minimum and maximum threshold values. Otherwise, a conventional multitoning method is applied. As a result, the proposed method effectively decreased the appearance of banding artifacts around the intermediate output levels. To evaluate the quality of the multitone result, HVS-WRMSE according to gray level for gray ramp image and S-CIELAB color difference for color ramp image are compared with other methods.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.219-225
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• 2007

This investigation was carried out to evaluate the effect of pain control temporomandibular disorders with clinical application of capsaicin cream. 20 healthy subjects without systemic diseases were measured in current perception threshold and pain tolerance threshold with $Neurometer^{(R)}$ CPT/C (Neurotron, Inc. Baltimore, Maryland, USA) after cold pack, 0.025% capsaicin and 0.075% capsaicin cream application. The obtained results were as follows : 1. The current perception threshold of C-fiber was significantly higher to the baseline on. There were significantly increased in C- fiber current perception threshold of 0.025% capsaicin cream and 0.075% capsaicin cream application comparison to cold pack. 2. There was significantly increased in pain tolerance threshold of cold pack and 0.075% capsaicin application comparison to one of baseline as $A{\beta}$-fiber, There was significantly higher after cold pack and 0.025% capsaicin cream application than baseline as $A{\delta}$-fiber. In C-fiber case, 0.025% capsaicin application's was significantly increased than baseline one. 3.There were significantly higher C-fiber of 0.075% capsaicin application than baseline in visual analogue scale marking pain level of pain tolerance threshold.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.1-23
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• 2010

Some researches insist that, to participate in an e-partnership, a distributor needs a given level of trust to reduce the perceived risk of an e-partnership to his/her own threshold. However, other researches insist that if a distributor has only a given level of trust in his/her suppliers, irrelevant of the perceived risk level, he/she participates in the e-partnership. Thus, from the perspective of a distributor, this study built a trust model in which these two viewpoints were reflected. And then this study examined whether or not perceived risk mediates an influence of trust to e-partnership. The proposed trust model was tested with 265 questionnaires about a distributor-supplier e-partnership in food wholesale markets. The analysis results Indicated that perceived risk partially had a mediating effect between trust and e-partnership Intention. That is, of the two risk types, only perceived performance risk mediated an influence from competence trust to e-partnership intention. Relational risk did not play a mediating role between goodwill trust and e-partnership intention. This result Implies two managerial meanings. First, a distributor Intends to engage In e-partnership with his/her supplier, irrelevant of relational risk's level if goodwill trust level surpasses his/her own threshold. Thus, suppliers should concentrate more effort in developing goodwill trust than in reducing relational risk. To develop goodwill trust, they should endeavor to establish mutual interests and individual trust with their distributor, and to utilize institutional trust bases. Second, a distributor requires a certain competence In his/her suppliers to sufficiently reduce performance risk caused bye-partnership. Thus, to develop competence trust in e-partnership, suppliers should improve on any lack of competence and build a good reputation.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.51-70
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• 2013

This paper develops a model to predict the adoption and level of usage of network technology in a two-level supply chain with buyer-supplier relationships. A firm's adoption of a new technology depends not only on its own beliefs of the new technology's costs and benefits, but also on the adoption decisions of other firms in the supply chain. A model first analyzes an individual supplier's decision about a new technology adoption considering with multiple suppliers and buyers. Individual suppliers' decisions are aggregated with a population model to project how new technology diffuses across the supply chain and examine the pattern of diffusion process. This study found that as more firms adopt in initial periods, the total amount of information to the potential adopters in the population increases, and then the number of firms persuaded by the information increases as the process moves up the distribution of adoption process. We consider three factors influencing the diffusion speed of the new technology in a supply chain network : mean benefits, cost sharing, and information provision. This study examines how such factors affect the reduction of threshold levels, which implies that reductions in threshold levels have an aggregate effect by accelerating the rate of adoption. In particular, we explore relationship factors available in practice in a buyer-supplier relationship and numerically examines how these relationship factors contribute to increase the diffusion speed of the technology in a two-level supply chain.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.207-214
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• 2016

Objective: This study aimed to determine the threshold of $anti-M{\ddot{u}}llerian$ hormone (AMH) as predictor of follicular growth failure in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) patients treated with clomiphene citrate (CC). Methods: Fifty female subjects with PCOS were recruited and divided into two groups based on successful and unsuccessful follicular growth. Related variables such as age, infertility duration, cigarette smoking, use of Moslem hijab, sunlight exposure, fiber intake, body mass index, waist circumference, AMH level, 25-hydroxy vitamin D level, and growth of dominant follicles were obtained, assessed, and statistically analyzed. Results: The AMH levels of patients with successful follicular growth were significantly lower (p= 0.001) than those with unsuccessful follicular growth ($6.10{\pm}3.52$ vs. $10.43{\pm}4.78ng/mL$). A higher volume of fiber intake was also observed in the successful follicular growth group compared to unsuccessful follicular growth group (p= 0.001). Our study found the probability of successful follicle growth was a function of AMH level and the amount of fiber intake, expressed as Y =-2.35+($-0.312{\times}AMH\;level$)+($0.464{\times}fiber\;intake$) (area under the curve, 0.88; 95% confidence interval, 0.79-0.98; p< 0.001). Conclusion: The optimal threshold of AMH level in predicting the failure of follicle growth in patients with PCOS treated with CC was 8.58 ng/mL.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.9-17
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• 2005

81.1% of traffic accidents is attributed to the drivers. In this regard, D/E model is a practical and effective method in terms of the cost and time in evaluating the road hazardousness. To examine the validity of the threshold values by the levels of demand We selected 10 subjects and collected their physiological signals while they were driving on Honam Highway (Jeonju ${\leftrighttarro}$ Hoideog section). Based on the collected data, the hazardous road condition was evaluated using the new threshold values of the effort level determined by cluster analysis. In applying the D/E model, a decision method based on the demand level was suggested, using a traffic accident prediction model. Additionally, the limit value of the effort level was determined using the drivers' physiological signal data collected at the highway. A comparison analysis of the two D/E models revealed no significant difference: The existing method and the clustering method determined 9 and 7 hazardous road zones, respectively, while actual traffic accidents were reported in 6 and 4 zones, respectively among the predicted road hazardous zones. However, the latter method suggested a more scientific and rational basis in determining the limit value of the Effort level. In conclusion, although D/E model has a great merit as a pioneering method to reflect human factors in evaluating the road hazardousness, it is believed that this method could be improved by a more dynamic method that considers the traffic conditions and the individual physiological signal of the drivers simultaneously in determining a better limit.