• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.81-88
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• 2009

Chloride induced corrosion of steel reinforcement inside concrete is a major concern for concrete structures exposed to a marine environment. It is well known that transport of chloride ions in concrete occurs mainly through ionic/molecular diffusion, as a gradient of chloride concentration in the concrete pore solution is set. In the process of chloride transport, a portion of chlorides are bound in cement matrix then to be removed in the pore solution, and thus only the rest of chlorides which are not bound (i.e. free chlorides) leads the ingress of chlorides. However, since the measurement of free/bound chloride content is much susceptible to environmental conditions, chloride profiles expressed in total chlorides are evaluated to use in many studies In this study, the capacity of chloride binding in cement matrix was monitored for 150 days and then quantified using the Langmuir isotherm to determine the portions of free chlorides and bound chlorides at given total chlorides and the redistribution of free chlorides. Then, the diffusion of chloride ion in concrete was modeled by considering the binding capacity for the prediction of chloride profiles with the redistribution. The predicted chloride profiles were compared to those obtained from conventional model. It was found that the prediction of chloride profiles obtained by the model has shown slower diffusion than those by the conventional ones. This reflects that the prediction by total chloride may overestimate the ingress of chlorides by neglecting the redistribution of free chlorides caused by the binding capacity of cement matrix. From the evaluation, it is also shown that the service life prediction using the free chloride redistribution model needs different expression for the chloride threshold level which is expressed by the total chlorides in the conventional diffusion model.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.511-518
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• 2018

This paper deals with improving speech intelligibility by applying binary mask to time-frequency units of speech in noise. The binary mask is set to "0" or "1" according to whether speech is dominant or noise is dominant by comparing signal-to-noise ratio with pre-defined threshold. Bayesian classifier trained with Gaussian mixture model is used to estimate the binary mask of each time-frequency signal. The binary mask based noise suppressor improves speech intelligibility only in noise condition which is included in the training data. In this paper, speaker adaptation techniques for speech recognition are applied to adapt the Gaussian mixture model to a new noise environment. Experiments with noise-corrupted speech are conducted to demonstrate the improvement of speech intelligibility by employing adaption techniques in a new noise environment.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.298-306
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• 2005

Objectives : To develop measurement scales of Internet addiction, and propose a Korean Internet Addiction Index (K-IAI) and classification criteria for Internet addiction from the threshold scores developed. Methods : The identification of the concept of 'Internet addiction' was based on the literature review. To select the scales, an exploratory factor analysis was applied. A construct validation was tested by a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with a structured equation model (SEM). In testing the validity of the classification criteria, ANOVA and non-recursive models with SEM were applied. Results : Out of 1,080 questionnaires distributed, 1,037 were returned,; a response rate of 96%. The Cronbach-$\alpha$ of all items was over 0.75. Using an exploratory factor analysis in the condition of a 6 factor constrain as the study model proposed, 23 of the initial 28 items were identified. In testing the discriminant and convergent validity of the selected 23 scales using CFA with SEM, the Internet addiction model explained about 93% of all variances of the data collected, and all the latent variables significantly explained the designated scales. A K-IAI was proposed using the T-scores of the sum of all factor averages. In the classification of users, the basic concept was a twostandard deviation approach of the K-IAI as the criteria of MMPI. The addiction group had a score ${\geq}70$ in the K-IAI, the pre-addiction group between ${\geq}50$ and <70, and the average user group <50. The Internet use times of the classified groups were statistically different in the ANOVA and multiple comparisons. Conclusions : The K-IAI is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring Internet addiction. Moreover, the taxonomy of the groups was also verified using various methods.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.901-910
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• 2003

The hydrologic behavior of paddy field depends largely on the irrigation and levee height management by farmers. The storage and drainage amount of paddy for storm events certainly influences the stream discharge. To understand the paddy storage effect during storm periods, a daily paddy water balance model embedding farmer's water management was developed by using 4 years (1996, 1997, 2001, 2002) field experimental data at 2 locations (Suwon and Yeoju) From the modeling, it was possible to simulate the daily ponding depth of paddy by treating paddy levee height and threshold pending depth indicating irrigation time as 10 days average parameters of the model. The storage amount(306.9 mm to 343.6 mm) showed little deviation to rainfall amount(425.1 mm to 850.8 mm).

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.166-171
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• 2010

Background: Neuropathic pain resulting from diverse causes is a chronic condition for which effective treatment is lacking. The goal of this study was to test whether dexamethasone exerts a preemptive analgesic effect with bupivacaine when injected perineurally in the spared nerve injury model. Methods: Fifty rats were randomly divided into five groups. Group 1 (control) was ligated but received no drugs. Group 2 was perineurally infiltrated (tibial and common peroneal nerves) with 0.4% bupivacaine (0.2 ml) and dexamethasone (0.8 mg) 10 minutes before surgery. Group 3 was infiltrated with 0.4% bupivacaine (0.2 ml) and dexamethasone (0.8 mg) after surgery. Group 4 was infiltrated with normal saline (0.2 ml) and dexamethasone (0.8 mg) 10 minutes before surgery. Group 5 was infiltrated with only 0.4% bupivacaine (0.2 ml) before surgery. Rat paw withdrawal thresholds were measured using the von Frey hair test before surgery as a baseline measurement and on postoperative days 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 and 21. Results: In the group injected preoperatively with dexamethasone and bupivacaine, mechanical allodynia did not develop and mechanical threshold forces were significantly different compared with other groups, especially between postoperative days 3 and 9 (P < 0.05). Conclusions: In conclusion, preoperative infiltration of both dexamethasone and bupivacaine showed a significantly better analgesic effect than did infiltration of bupivacaine or dexamethasone alone in the spared nerve injury model, especially early on after surgery.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.123-128
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• 2017

Background and aims: The KCNQ1 S140G mutation involved in $I_{ks}$ channel is a typical gene mutation affecting atrial fibrillation. However, despite the possibility that the S140G gene mutation may affect not only atrial but also ventricular action potential shape and ventricular responses, there is a lack of research on the relationship between this mutation and ventricular fibrillation. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed the correlation and the influence of the KCNQ1 S140G mutant gene on ventricular fibrillation through computer simulation studies. Method: This study simulated a 3-dimensional ventricular model of the wild type(WT) and the S140G mutant conditions. It was performed by dividing into normal sinus rhythm simulation and reentrant wave propagation simulation. For the sinus rhythm, a ventricular model with Purkinje fiber was used. For the reentrant propagation simulation, a ventricular model was used to confirm the occurrence of spiral wave using S1-S2 protocol. Results: The result showed that 41% shortening of action potential duration(APD) was observed due to augmented $I_{ks}$ current in S140G mutation group. The shortened APD contributed to reduce wavelength 39% in sinus rhythm simulation. The shortened wavelength in cardiac tissue allowed re-entrant circuits to form and increased the probability of sustaining ventricular fibrillation, while ventricular electrical propagation with normal wavelength(20.8 cm in wild type) are unlikely to initiate re-entry. Conclusion: In conclusion, KCNQ1 S140G mutation can reduce the threshold of the re-entrant wave substrate in ventricular cells, increasing the spatial vulnerability of tissue and the sensitivity of the fibrillation. That is, S140G mutation can induce ventricular fibrillation easily. It means that S140G mutant can increase the risk of arrhythmias such as cardiac arrest due to heart failure.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.28-36
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• 2009

Sequence-Pair(SP) model represents the topological relation between modules. In general, SP model based floorplanners search solutions using Simulated-Annealing(SA) algorithm. Several SA based floorplanning techniques using SP model have been published. To improve the performance of those techniques they tried to improve the speed for evaluation function for SP model, to find better scheduling methods and perturb functions for SA. In this paper we propose a two phase SA based algorithm. In the first phase, white space between modules is reduced by applying compaction technique to the floorplan obtained by an SP. From the compacted floorplan, the corresponding SP is determined. Solution space has been searched by changing the SP in the SA framework. When solutions converge to some threshold value, the first phase of the SA based search stops. Then using the typical SA based algorithm, ie, without using the compaction technique, the second phase of our algorithm continues to find optimal solutions. Experimental results with MCNC benchmark circuits show that how the proposed technique affects to the procedure for SA based floorplainning algorithm and that the results obtained by our technique is better than those obtained by existing SA-based algorithms.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2010

Some methods employing the Active Contour Model have been widely used to extract face contour. Their performance, however, depends on the initial position of the model and the coefficients of the energy function which should be reconsidered whenever illumination and environmental condition of an input image is changed. Additionally, the number of points in the contour model should increase drastically in order to extract a fine contour. In this paper, we thus propose a novel approach which extracts face contour by segmenting the face region with threshold values obtained by a histogram analysis technique in the separated region of input image. The proposed method shows good performance under various illumination and environmental condition since it extracts face contour by considering the characteristics of the input image.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.947-958
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• 2014

Understanding extreme precipitation events is very important for flood planning purposes. Especially, the r-year return level is a common measure of extreme events. In this paper, we present a spatial analysis of precipitation return level using hierarchical Bayesian modeling. For intensity, we model annual maximum daily precipitations and daily precipitation above a high threshold at 62 stations in Korea with generalized extreme value(GEV) and generalized Pareto distribution(GPD), respectively. The spatial dependence among return levels is incorporated to the model through a latent Gaussian process of the GEV and GPD model parameters. We apply the proposed model to precipitation data collected at 62 stations in Korea from 1973 to 2011.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.1087-1092
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• 2003

As an experimental reference population, crosses between Korean native pig and Landraces were established and information on growth traits was recorded. Animals were genotyped for 24 microsatellite markers covering chromosomes 2, 6, and 7 for partial-genome scan to identify chromosomal regions that have effects on growth traits. quantitative trait loci (QTL) effects were estimated using interval mapping by the regression method under the line cross models with a test for imprinting effects. For test of presence of QTL, chromosome-wide and single position significance thresholds were estimated by permutation test and normal significance threshold for the imprinting test were derived. For tests against the Mendelian model, additive and dominance coefficients were permuted within individuals. Thresholds (5% chromosome-wide) against the no-QTL model for the analyzed traits ranged from 4.57 to 4.99 for the Mendelian model and from 4.14 to 4.67 for the imprinting model, respectively. Partial-genome scan revealed significant evidence for 4 QTL affecting growth traits, and 2 out of the 4 QTLs were imprinted. This study demonstrated that testing for imprinting should become a standard procedure to unravel the genetic control of multi-factorial traits. The models and tests developed in this study allowed the detection and evaluation of imprinted QTL.