• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.270-282
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• 2013

Combustible waste into energy policy is an effective method to respond to climate change and depletion of fossil fuels. Combustible waste into energy is the process of generating energy in the form of electricity and/or heat from the combustible waste such as vinyl, paper and plastic. This study tries to estimate the external benefit of enhancing the ratio of combustible waste into energy to primary energy from 1.89% to 5% using contingent valuation(CV) method. To this end, we report the results from a CV survey to elicit the willingness to pay (WTP) for combustible waste into energy. A CV survey of 500 households was conducted in the Seoul by using person-to-person interviews. Thus, the procedures of applying and the findings from the one-and-one-half bounded dichotomous choice spike model used to deal with the zero WTP responses are provided in the paper. The results show that the average WTP is estimated to be 2,724 won per household per month and statistically significant at the 5% level. Expanding the value to the Seoul gives us an aggregate value of 13.7 billion won per year.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.461-468
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• 2001

Impact between fruits and other materials is a major cause of product damage in harvesting and handling systems. The oriental pears are more susceptible to bruising than other fruits such as European pears and apples, and are required more careful handling. The interest in the handling of the pears for the processing systems has raised the question of the allowable drop height to which pears can be dropped without causing objectionable damage. Drop tests on pears were conducted using an impact device developed by authors to estimate the allowable drop height without bruising. The impact device was constructed to hold in a selected orientation and to release a fruit by vacuum for dropping on to a force transducer. The drop height was adjustable for zero to 60 cm to achieve the desired distance between the bottom of the fruits and the top of the impact force transducer. The transducer was secured to 150 kg$\sub$f/ concrete block. The transducer signal was sampled every 0.17 ms with a strain gage measurement board in the micro computer where it was digitaly stored for later analysis. The selected sample fruit was Niitaka cultivar of pears which is one of the most promising fruit for export in Korea. The pears were harvested during the 1998 harvest season from an orchard in Daejeon. The sample fruit was selected from two groups which were stored for 3 months and 5 months respectively by the method of current commercial practice. The pears were allowed to stabilize at environmental condition(18$^{\circ}C$, 65% rh) of the experimental room. One hundred fifty six pears were tested from the heights of 5, 7.5. 10 and 12.5 cm while measurement were made of impact peak force, contact time, time to peak force, dwell time, pear diameter and mass. The bioyield strength and modulus of elasticity were measured using UTM immediately after each drop test. The allowable drop height was estimated on the base of bioyield strength of the pears in two ways. One was assumed the peak force during impact test increasing linearly with time, and the other was based on the actual drop test results. The computer program was developed for measuring the impact characteristics of the pears and analyzing the data obtained in the study. The peak force increased while contact times decreased with increasing drop height and contact times of the sample from the hard tissue group. The allowable drop height increased with increasing bioyield strength and contact times, and also varied with Poisson\`s ratio, mass and equilibrium radius of the pears. The allowable drop height calculated by a theoretical method was in the range from 1 to 4 cm, meanwhile, the estimated drop height considering the result of the impact test was in the range from 1 to 6 cm. Since the physical properties of fruits affected significantly the allowable drop height, the physical properties of the fruits should be considered when estimating the allowable drop height.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.7-15
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• 2004

Nitric oxide (NO) system has been implicated in a wide range of physiological functions in the nervous system. However, the role of NO in regulating the neural activity in the gustatory zone of nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS) has not been established. The present study was aimed to investigate the role of NO in the gustatory NTS neurons. Sprague-Dawley rats, weighing about 50 g, were used. Whole cell patch recording and immunohistochemistry were done to determine the electrophysiological characteristics of the rostral gustatory nucleus of the tractus solitaries and distribution of NO synthases (NOS). Neuronal NOS (nNOS) immunoreactivity was strongly detected along the solitary tract extending from rostral to caudal medulla. Resting membrane potentials of NTS neurons were $-49.2{\pm}2\;mV$ and action potential amplitudes were $68.5{\pm}2\;mV$ with a mean duration measured at half amplitude of $1.7{\pm}0.3\;ms$. Input resistance, determined from the response to a 150 ms, -100 pA hyperpolarizing current pulse, was $385{\pm}15\;M{\Omega}$, Superfusion of SNAP or SNP, NO donors, produced either hyperpolarization (68%), depolarization (5%), or no effect (27%). The hyperpolarization was mostly accompanied by a decrease in input resistance. The hyperpolarization caused by SNAP or SNP increased the time to initiate the first action potential, and decreased the number of action potentials elicited by current injection. SNP or SNAP also markedly decreased the number of firing neural discharges of the spontaneous NTS neural activity under zero current. Superfusion of L-NAME, a NOS inhibitor, slightly depolarized the membrane potential and increased the firing rate of NTS neurons induced by current injection. ODQ, a soluble guanylate cyclase inhibitor, ameliorated the SNAP-induced changes in membrane potential, input resistance and firing rates. 8-Br-cGMP, a non-degradable cell-permeable cGMP, hyperpolarized the membrane potential and decreased the number of action potentials. It is suggested that NO in the gustatory NTS has an inhibitory role on the neural activity of NTS through activating soluble guanylate cyclase.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.965-976
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• 2015

Determining relevant variables for a regression model is important in regression analysis. Recently, a variable selection methods using a penalized likelihood with various penalty functions (e.g. LASSO and SCAD) have been widely studied in simple statistical models such as linear models and generalized linear models. The advantage of these methods is that they select important variables and estimate regression coefficients, simultaneously; therefore, they delete insignificant variables by estimating their coefficients as zero. We study how to select proper variables based on penalized hierarchical likelihood (HL) in semi-parametric frailty models that allow three penalty functions, LASSO, SCAD and HL. For the variable selection we develop a new function in the "frailtyHL" R package. Our methods are illustrated with breast cancer survival data from the Medical Center at Chonnam National University in Korea. We compare the results from three variable-selection methods and discuss advantages and disadvantages.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.468-474
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• 2005

PLGA and PCL copolymers initiated by carbitol as drug carriers were synthesized by ring-opening polymerization of L-lactide (LA), glycolide (GA), and $\varepsilon-caprolactone(\varepsilon-CL)$. Implantable wafers were simply fabricated by direct compression method after physical mixing of copolymers and bovine serum albumin-fluorescein isothiocyanate (BSA-FITC) as a model protein drug. The release amounts of BSA-FITC from wafers were determined by fluorescence intensity using the fluorescence spectrophotometer. Also, the release behavior of BSA-FITC on wafers was controlled by adding the additives such as collagen, small intestinal submucosa (SIS), poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP), and poly(thylene glycol) (PEG). The wafer prepared by PLGA and PCL exhibited slow release within $10\%$ for 30 days. But, those prepared by a variety of additives exhibited the controlled BSA release patterns with a dependence on the additive contents. furthermore, the wafers containing natural materials such as collagen and SIS showed more zero-order release profile than that with synthetic materials such as PVP and PEG. It was confirmed that the release of BSA from implantable wafers could be easily controlled by adding natural additives.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.15-22
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• 2003

In general, the linear regression model has been used to estimate trip generation in the travel demand forecasting procedure. However, the model suffers from several methodological limitations. First, trips as a dependent variable with non-negative integer show discrete distribution but the model assumes that the dependent variable is continuously distributed between -$\infty$ and +$\infty$. Second, the model may produce negative estimates. Third, even if estimated trips are within the valid range, the model offers only forecasted trips without discrete probability distribution of them. To overcome these limitations, a poisson model with a assumption of equidispersion has frequently been used to analyze count data such as trip frequencies. However, if the variance of data is greater than the mean. the poisson model tends to underestimate errors, resulting in unreliable estimates. Using overdispersion test, this study proved that the poisson model is not appropriate and by using Vuong test, zero inflated negative binomial model is optimal. Model reliability was checked by likelihood test and the accuracy of model by Theil inequality coefficient as well. Finally, marginal effect of the change of socio-demographic characteristics of households on trips was analyzed.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Industry Society
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.95-104
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• 2002

This paper presents some studies on the Internet TCP/IP(Transmission Control Protocol-Internet Protocol) traffic over ATM(Asynchronous Transfer Mode) UBR(Unspecified Bit Rate) and ABR(Available Bit Rate) classes of service. Fuzzy logic prediction has been used to improve the efficiency and fairness of traffic throughput. For TCP/IP over UBR, a novel fuzzy logic based cell dropping scheme is presented. This is referred to as fuzzy logic selective cell drop (FSCD). A key feature of the scheme is its ability to accept or drop a new incoming packet dynamically based on the predicted future buffer condition in the switch. This is achieved by using fuzzy logic prediction for the production of a drop factor. Packet dropping decision is then based on this drop factor and a predefined threshold value. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme significantly improves TCP/IP efficiency and fairness. To study TCP/IP over ABR, we applied the fuzzy logic ABR service buffer management scheme from our previous work to both approximate and exact fair rate computation ER(Explicit cell Rate) switch algorithms. We then compared the performance of the fuzzy logic control with conventional schemes. Simulation results show that on zero TCP packet loss, the fuzzy logic control scheme achieves maximum efficiency and perfect fairness with a smaller buffer size. When mixed with VBR traffic, the fuzzy logic control scheme achieves higher efficiency with lower cell loss.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.80-87
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• 2015

Memristor is a new kind of memory device whose resistance varies depending upon applied charge and whose previous resistance state is preserved even when its power is off. Ordinary memristor has a nonlinear programming characteristics about time when a constant voltage is applied. For the easiness of programming, it is desirable that resistance is programmed linearly about time. We had proposed previously a memristor bridge configuration with which weight can be programmed nicely in positive, negative or zero. In memristor bridge circuit, two memristors are connected in series with different polarity. Memristors are complementary each other and it follows that the memristance variation is linear with respect to time. In this paper, the linearization effect of weight programming of memristor bridge synapse is investigated and verified about both $TiO_2$ memristor from HP and a nonlinear memristor with a window function. Memristor bridge circuit would be helpful to conduct synaptic weight programming.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.328-335
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• 2008

The system performance of NRZ format in WDM transmission system with lumped dispersion management(DM) and optical phase conjugator(OPC) is compared with that of RZ format. It is confirmed that eye opening penalty(EOP) of both NRZ and RZ format in WDM transmission system having lumped DM combined with OPC are greatly improved than those in WDM system with only OPC. The optimal net residual dispersion(NRD) in the case of RZ format is decided to so small value that path-averaged dispersion coefficient become almost zero, while that in the case of NRZ format is decided to larger value, for the best improvement of overall WDM channels. It is also confirmed that EOP in the case of RZ format is more improved than that in the case of NRZ format in lumped DM with optimal NRD. This is resulted from that lumped DM combined with OPC suppress the signal distortion due to intrachannel four-wave mixing(IFWM) and intrachannel cross phase modulation(IXPM). Consequently, lumped DM combined with OPC proposed in this paper is effective technique to mitigate intrachannel nonlinearities in WDM transmitting RZ format.

• Journal of The Geomorphological Association of Korea
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.109-121
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• 2012

Rock-surface temperatures were observed at a trachytic lava dome, called as Baeknokdam Northwest Face, in the summit area of Mt. Halla, Jeju Island, to examine the frequency and occurrence season of freeze-thaw cycles and the rate of temperature changes during a freezing period. Long-term measurements were recorded over 18 months from November 2006 to April 2008, at a 1-hour logging interval and rock depth of 1.5 cm. Both diurnal freeze-thaw cycles and effective freeze-thaw cycles appear in larger numbers on a south-facing rock face than a north-facing rock face. The diurnal cycles were dominantly observed on February and March for the south face and on November and April for the north face, respectively. The annual freeze-thaw cycles were confirmed in terms of the presence of seasonal freezing periods lasting from mid-November to mid-April for the south face and from early-November to late-April for the north face, respectively. The rate of decreasing temperatures during the seasonal freezing periods is larger on the north face than the south face. Notwithstanding the lower numbers of freeze-thaw events, the north face experiences a higher frost intensity since the number of hours below $-3^{\circ}C$ is larger on the north face than the south face. The number of freeze-thaw events and the duration of days with continuous sub-zero rock temperatures largely depend on the solar radiation controlled by the aspect of the monitored rock surfaces, and thus the high-frequency short-term frost cycle dominantly appears on the south face and the annual frost cycle on the north face, respectively.