• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
• /
• v.48 no.6
• /
• pp.490-495
• /
• 2010

Objective : Bone cement augmentation procedures such as percutaneous vertebroplasty and balloon kyphoplasty have been shown to be effective treatment for acute or subacute osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures. The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of bone cement augmentation procedures for long standing osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture with late vertebral collapse and persistent back pain. Methods : Among 278 single level osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures that were treated by vertebral augmentation procedures at our institute, 18 consecutive patients were included in this study. Study inclusion was limited to initially, minimal compression fractures, but showing a poor prognosis due to late vertebral collapse, intravertebral vacuum clefts and continuous back pain despite conservative treatment for more than one year. The subjects included three men and 15 women. The mean age was 70.7 with a range from 64 to 85 years of age. After postural reduction for two days, bone cement augmentation procedures following intraoperative pressure reduction were performed. Imaging and clinical findings, including the level of the vertebra involved, vertebral height restoration, injected cement volume, local kyphosis, clinical outcome and complications were analyzed. Results : The mean follow-up period after bone cement augmentation procedures was 14.3 months (range 12-27 months). The mean injected cement volume was 4.1 mL (range 2.4-5.9 mL). The unipedicular approach was possible in 15 patients. The mean pain score (visual analogue scale) prior to surgery was 7.1, which decreased to 3.1 at 7 days after the procedure. The pain relief was maintained at the final follow up. The kyphotic angle improved significantly from $21.2{\pm}4.9^{\circ}$ before surgery to $10.4{\pm}3.8^{\circ}$ after surgery. The fraction of vertebral height increased from 30% to 60% after bone cement augmentation, and the restored vertebral height was maintained at the final follow up. There were no serious complications related to cement leakage. Conclusion : In the management of even long-standing osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture for over one year, bone cement augmentation procedures following postural reduction were considered safe and effective treatment in cases of non-healing evidence.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.12 no.6
• /
• pp.151-159
• /
• 2012

The purpose of this thesis is to figure out the mechanism that how can be shown the aesthetic distances of novel in the film. At discussion of the view point, novel can be told by two factors which are 'who is teller' and 'who is watcher' but in the film, novel's narration is divided into visual point and auditive point. And I will consider the phenomenon on the part of this difference. Next, I will argue about difference between novel and film from the Park Jongwon's aesthetic distances which interpreted Lee Munyeol's work. This thesis is going to observe that how the film adapted three types of view point and how that related the subject of the original novel. For this thesis, I tried to track 'the distances' between figure and identity, and reader and author. Also I did approach that how can be accepted the problem of 'aesthetic distance according to identity' based on this novel in the film and novel's text by reader. This study make a proposal or analysis to the differences between novels and films in terms of narrative point of view. Although it is shown by dividing into each chapter in novel and on connectivity in film, this paper finds out that both film and novel are shown the subject of reader's difference of the view point about 'author and director's identity'.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
• /
• v.35 no.6
• /
• pp.535-550
• /
• 2016

Objective: To enhance user experience of the product by using "wow" materials and parts, a framework for participatory emotional design and evaluation was proposed and validated through a case study in this paper. Background: Customers in recent days value a product which provides new feeling and images they want to get while interacting with it beyond its function, quality, and usability. Since the product consists of various parts and materials, "wow" materials and parts which can affect the customer's feeling and emotions are the essential components for changing the user experience. Method: A framework for participatory and human sensibility ergonomic design was considered and applied on developing the aesthetically and emotionally affecting glass panels of changing colors. Design experts defined a target market for this multicolor glass panels and modified the existing designing goal. Constraints for this design modification were identified by market trend research and consulting with the company which owns the technology for checking out its feasibility. The company developed and provided prototype samples as well as their competing materials. Quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the emotional quality was conducted to validate whether the design goal was achieved successfully. Results: The target market for the developing materials was defined as finishing for the buildings. The designing goal was set as to feed new visual sensation of clean and colorful images. The emotional quality of two different types of multicolor glass panels and an ordinary unicolor panel were evaluated quantitatively with semantic differential method. Results showed that the emotion of the subjects for the multicolor glass panels can be abstracted into two dimensions; named 'colorfulness' and 'harmony'. It was found that the developed samples got higher scores in emotional quality for both dimensions compared to the ordinary one. Age was found to be a significant factor for evaluating the emotional quality of colorfulness. Conclusion and Applications: The proposed framework is a valid approach for enhancing the user experience of the product by participatory design of emotional materials and parts. This framework can be applied easily on the emotional design and evaluation of different materials and components.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
• /
• v.39 no.5
• /
• pp.11-20
• /
• 2002

Based on regularization principles, we propose a new dequantization scheme on DCT-based transform coding for reducing of blocking artifacts and minimizing the quantization error. The conventional image dequantization is simply to multiply the received quantized DCT coefficients by the quantization matrix. Therefore, for each DCT coefficients, we premise that the quantization noise is as large as half quantizer step size (in DCT domain). Our approach is based on basic constraint that quantization error is bounded to ${\pm}$(quantizer spacing/2) and at least there are not high frequency components corresponding to discontinuities across block boundaries of the images. Through regularization, our proposed dequantization scheme, sharply reduces blocking artifacts in decoded images. Our proposed algorithm guarantees that the dequantization process will map the quantized DCT coefficients will be evaluated against the standard JPEG, MPEG-1 and H.263 (with Annex J deblocking filter) decoding process. The experimental results will show visual improvements as well as numerical improvements in terms of the peak-signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and the blockiness measure (BM) to be defined.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
• /
• v.42 no.5 s.305
• /
• pp.1-10
• /
• 2005

Content-based image retrieval systems are being actively investigated owing to their ability to retrieve images based on the actual visual content rather than by manually associated textual descriptions. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for image retrieval based on edge structural features using edge correlogram and color coherence vector. After color vector angle is applied in the pre-processing stage, an image is divided into two image parts (high frequency image and low frequency image). In low frequency image, the global color distribution of smooth pixels is extracted by color coherence vector, thereby incorporating spatial information into the proposed color descriptor. Meanwhile, in high frequency image, the distribution of the gray pairs at an edge is extracted by edge correlogram. Since the proposed algorithm includes the spatial and edge information between colors, it can robustly reduce the effect of the significant change in appearance and shape in image analysis. The proposed method provides a simple and flexible description for the image with complex scene in terms of structural features of the image contents. Experimental evidence suggests that our algorithm outperforms the recently histogram refinement methods for image indexing and retrieval. To index the multidimensional feature vectors, we use R*-tree structure.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.29-39
• /
• 2017

This paper presents a unified framework to efficiently and realistically simulate surface and wave foams. The framework is designed to first project 3D water particles from an underlying water solver onto 2D screen space in order to reduce the computational complexity of determining where foam particles should be generated. Because foam effects are often created primarily in fast and complicated water flows, we analyze the acceleration and curvature values to identify the areas exhibiting such flow patterns. Foam particles are emitted from the identified areas in 3D space, and each foam particle is advected according to its type, which is classified on the basis of velocity, thereby capturing the essential characteristics of foam wave motions. We improve the realism of the resulting foam by classifying it into two types: surface foam and wave foam. Wave foam is characterized by the sharp wave patterns of torrential flow s, and surface foam is characterized by a cloudy foam shape even in water with reduced motion. Based on these features, we propose a technique to correct the velocity and position of a foam particle. In addition, we propose a kernel technique using the screen space density to efficiently reduce redundant foam particles, resulting in improved overall memory efficiency without loss of visual detail in terms of foam effects. Experiments convincingly demonstrate that the proposed approach is efficient and easy to use while delivering high-quality results.

• Spatial Information Research
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.11-20
• /
• 2015

Abstract Monitoring is the most critical element in implementing "forest carbon offset project" to enhance the visibility of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) in North Korea. This study is intended to explore monitoring potential in terms of forest carbon offset project using satellite image for Baekdu mountain of North Korea. The permanent record of standard satellite remote sensing system demonstrated its capability of presenting area-wide visual evidences of monitoring conditions in Mt. Baekdu mountain of North Korea (site suitability, carbon stock by forest biomass growth, carbon emission by forest biomass loss, deforestation and degradation, environmental, social and economic impact specified in the Carbon Sequestration Law). It doesn't seem very difficult to comply with monitoring requirements for "the forest carbon offset project" due to the probative value of satellite data. Therefore, it could be considerable or realistic approach to utilize CSR based forest carbon offset project as a point of reform and open-door in North Korea. It is anticipated that this research output could be used as a valuable reference for Korea-based enterprises to ensure monitoring potentials using satellite image in exploring forest carbon offset project sites in North Korea.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.83-91
• /
• 2014

The problems of environmental pollutions and resources depletion have been growing issues in global construction recently. Efforts to reduce $CO_2$ emission have been also made in all sectors of construction industry these days. As one of the biggest industries that consume a huge amount of resources and generate complex construction wastes, the construction industry has significant impacts on environment issues. However, systematic approach to manage wastes has been rarely made, and most construction wastes from construction sites are being land-filled or incinerated. In this study, a system is proposed to predict the amount of wastes in visual formats, and to control the process of wastes management. The system's main functions include : (1) to estimate the amount of wastes to be generated in project schedule, (2) to categorize the types of wastes, (3) to determine the timing of taking out wastes from sites, and (4) to share information regarding wastes for recycling. A huge amount of wastes are generated in construction process, but most of the wastes have been discharged in forms of mixed wastes, which make them hardly reused. The system not only provide information on wastes to be generated, but also prevent mixing various wastes by classifying them by types and schedules. This features of the system, along with functions to share wastes information with other agencies outside the site, are expected to enhance the level of wastes recycling to a great extent. By saving construction materials through wastes recycling, the system also contributes in reducing $CO_2$ emission.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
• /
• v.26 no.11A
• /
• pp.1908-1924
• /
• 2001

Interoperability and inter-working in the various network and media environment with different technology background is very important to enlarge the opportunity of service access and to increase the competitive power of service. The ITU-T and advanced counties are planning ahead for provision of GII enabling user to access advanced global communication services supporting multimedia communication applications, embracing all modes of information. In this paper, we especially forced the heterogeneity of end user applications for multimedia networking. The heterogeneity has several technical aspects, like different medium access methods, heterogeneous coding algorithms for audio-visual data and so on. Among these elements, we have been itemized bit rate shaping algorithm on the compressed moving video. Previous manipulations of video has been done on the uncompressed signal domain. That is, compressed video should be converted to linear PCM signal. To do such a procedures, we should decode, manipulate and then encode the video to compressed signal once again. The traditional approach for processing the video signa1 has several critical weak points, requiring complexity to implement, degradation of image quality and large processing delay. The bit rate shaping algorithm proposed in this paper process the manipulation of moving video on the completely compressed domain to cope with above deficit. With this algorithms. we could realized efficient video bit rate shaping and the result of software simulation shows that this method has significant advantage than that of pixel oriented algorithms.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.79-85
• /
• 2015

Objectives: A vertebral compression fracture (VCF) is characterized by back pain and fracture of a vertebral body on spinal radiography. VCFs of the thoraco lumbar spine are common in the elderly. In general, appropriate analgesics should be prescribed to reduce pain and, thus, promote early mobilization. The ideal treatment approach for VCFs has not been determined. In Korea, acupuncture and herbal medication have been used to treat VCFs for many years. There is empirical evidence that acupuncture might benefit patients with a VCF. However, no randomized, controlled, clinical trials evaluating the efficacy and the safety of acupuncture for treating a VCF have been published. Therefore, we designed a randomized, controlled, pilot, clinical trial to obtain information for the design of a further full scale trial. Methods: A five week protocol for a randomized, controlled, pilot, clinical trial is presented. Fourteen patients will be recruited and randomly allocated to two groups: a control group receiving interlaminar epidural steroid injections once a week for three weeks, and an experimental group receiving interlaminar epidural steroid injections plus acupuncture treatment (three acupuncture sessions per week for three weeks, nine sessions in total). The primary outcomes will be the pain intensity (visual analogue scale and PainVision$^{TM}$ system). The secondary outcome measurements will be the answers on the short form McGill pain questionnaire and the oswestry disability index. Assessments will be made at baseline and at one, three, and five weeks. The last assessment (week five) will take place two weeks after treatment cessation. This study will provide both an indication of feasibility and a clinical foundation for a future large scale trial. The outcomes will provide additional resources for incorporating acupuncture into existing treatments, such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications, narcotics and vertebral augmentation. This article describes the protocol.