• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.150-156
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• 2018

This study aims to develop an improved Feldkamp-Davis-Kress (FDK) reconstruction algorithm using anisotropic total variation (ATV) minimization to enhance the image quality of low-dose cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT). The algorithm first applies a filter that integrates the Shepp-Logan filter into a cosine window function on all projections for impulse noise removal. A total variation objective function with anisotropic penalty is then minimized to enhance the difference between the real structure and noise using the steepest gradient descent optimization with adaptive step sizes. The preserving parameter to adjust the separation between the noise-free and noisy areas is determined by calculating the cumulative distribution function of the gradient magnitude of the filtered image obtained by the application of the filtering operation on each projection. With these minimized ATV projections, voxel-driven backprojection is finally performed to generate the reconstructed images. The performance of the proposed algorithm was evaluated with the catphan503 phantom dataset acquired with the use of a low-dose protocol. Qualitative and quantitative analyses showed that the proposed ATV minimization provides enhanced CBCT reconstruction images compared with those generated by the conventional FDK algorithm, with a higher contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), lower root-mean-square-error, and higher correlation. The proposed algorithm not only leads to a potential imaging dose reduction in repeated CBCT scans via lower mA levels, but also elicits high CNR values by removing noisy corrupted areas and by avoiding the heavy penalization of striking features.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.28 no.11A
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• pp.867-875
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• 2003

Current end-to-end congestion control depends only on the information of end points (using three duplicate ACK packets) and generally responds slowly to the network congestion. This mechanism can't avoid TCP global synchronization in which TCP congestion window size is fluctuated during congestion period. Furthermore, if RTT(Round Trip Time) is increased, three duplicate ACK packets are not correct congestion signals because congestion might already disappear and the host may send more packets until it receives three duplicate ACK packets. Recently there are increasing interests in solving end-to-end congestion control using AQM(Active Queue Management) to improve the performance of TCP protocols. AQM is a variation of RED-based congestion control. In this paper, we first evaluate the effectiveness of the current AQM schemes such as RED, CHOKe, ARED, FRED and SRED, over traffic with different rates and over traffic with mixed responsive and non-responsive flows, respectively. In particular, CHOKe mechanism shows greater unfairness, especially when more unresponsive flows exist in a shared link. We then propose a new AQM scheme using CHOKe mechanism, called DQC(Double Queue CHOKe), which uses two FIFO queues before applying CHOKe mechanism to adaptive congestion control. Simulation shows that it works well in protecting congestion-sensitive flows from congestion-causing flows and exhibits better performances than other AQM schemes. Also we use partial state information, proposed in LRURED, to improve our mechanism.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.49 no.9
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• pp.251-258
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• 2012

Recently, NAND Flash memory structure is evolving from SDR (Single Data Rate) to high speed DDR(Double Data Rate) to fulfill the high performance requirement of SSD and SSS. Accordingly, the proper ways of transferring data that latches valid data stably and minimizing data skew between pins by using PHY(Physical layer) circuit techniques have became new issues. Also, rapid growth of speed in NAND flash increases the operating frequency and power consumption of NAND flash controller. Internal voltage variation margin of NAND flash controller will be narrowed through the smaller geometry and lower internal operating voltage below 1.5V. Therefore, the increase of power budge deviation limits the normal operation range of internal circuit. Affection of OCV(On Chip Variation) deteriorates the voltage variation problem and thus causes internal logic errors. In this case, it is too hard to debug, because it is not functional faults. In this paper, we propose new architecture that maintains the valid timing window in cost effective way under sudden power fluctuation cases. Simulation results show that the proposed technique minimizes the data skew by 379% with reduced area by 20% compared to using PHY circuits.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.49 no.9
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• pp.328-334
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• 2012

Continuous fetal heart beat monitoring has assisted clinicians in assuring fetal well-being during antepartum and intrapartum. Fetal heart rate (FHR) is an important parameter of fetal health during pregnancy. The Doppler ultrasound is one of very useful methods that can non-invasively measure FHR. Although it has been commonly used in clinic, inaccurate heart rate reading has not been completely resolved.. The objective of this study is to improve detection algorithm of FHR from Doppler ultrasound signal with simple method. We modified autocorrelation function to enhance signal periodicity and adopted adaptive window size and shifted for data segment to be analysed. The proposed method was applied to real measured data, and it was verified that beat-to-beat FHR estimation result was comparable with the reference fetal ECG data. This simple and effective method is expected to be implemented in the embedded system.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.116-124
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• 2009

Recently the CPU performance of modem chipsets or multimedia processors of mobile phone is as high as notebook PC. That is why mobile phone has been emerged as a leading ICON on the convergence of consumer electronics. The various applications of mobile phone such as DMB, digital camera, video telephony and internet full browsing are servicing to consumers. To meet all the demands the image quality has been increasingly important. Mobile phone is a portable device which is widely using in both the indoor and outside environments, so it is needed to be overcome to deteriorate image quality depending on environmental light source. Furthermore touch window is popular on the mobile display panel and it makes contrast loss because of low transmittance of ITO film. This paper presents the image enhancement algorithm to be embedded on image enhancement SoC. In contrast enhancement, we propose Clipped histogram stretching method to make it adaptive with the input images, while S-shape curve and gain/offset method for the static application And CIELCh color space is used to sunlight readability enhancement by controlling the lightness and chroma components which is depended on the sensing value of light sensor. Finally the performance of proposed algorithm is evaluated by using histogram, RGB pixel distribution, entropy and dynamic range of resultant images. We expect that the proposed algorithm is suitable for image enhancement of embedded SoC system which is applicable for the small-sized mobile display.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.43 no.10 s.352
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• pp.79-89
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• 2006

TCP is the most widely used transport protocol in Internet applications that guarantees a reliable data transfer. But, in the wireless multi-hop networks, TCP performance is degraded because it is designed for wired networks. The main reasons of TCP performance degradation are contention for wireless medium at the MAC layer, hidden terminal problem, exposed terminal problem, packet losses in the link layer, unfairness problem, reordering problem caused by path disconnection, bandwidth waste caused by exponential backoff of retransmission timer due to node's mobility and so on. Specially, in the mobile ad-hoc networks, discrepancy between a station's transmission range and interference range produces hidden terminal problem that decreases TCP performance greatly by limiting simultaneous transmission at a time. In this paper, we propose a new MAC algorithm for mobile ad-hoc networks to solve the problem that a node can not transmit and just increase CW by hidden terminal. In the IEEE 802.11 MAC DCF, a node increases CW exponentially when it fails to transmit, but the proposed algorithm, changes CW adaptively according to the reason of failure so we get a TCP performance enhancement. We show by ns-2 simulation that the proposed algorithm enhances the TCP performance by fairly distributing the transmission opportunity to the failed nodes by hidden terminal problems.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.211-221
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• 2003

The objective of this paper is performance analysis of the digital document image decimation algorithm which generates a value of decimated element by an average of a target pixel value and a value of neighbor intelligible element to adaptively reflect the merits of ZOD method and FOD method on the decimated image. First, a target pixel located at the center of sliding window is selected, then the gradient amplitudes of its right neighbor pixel and its lower neighbor pixel are calculated using first order derivative operator respectively. Secondly, each gradient amplitude is divided by the summation result of two gradient amplitudes to generate each local intelligible weight. Next, a value of neighbor intelligible element is obtained by adding a value of the right neighbor pixel times its local intelligible weight to a value of the lower neighbor pixel times its intelligible weight. The decimated image can be acquired by applying the process repetitively to all pixels in input image which generates the value of decimated element by calculating the average of the target pixel value and the value of neighbor intelligible element. In this paper, the performance comparison of proposed method and conventional methods in terms of subjective performance and hardware complexity is analyzed and the preferable approach for developing the decimation algorithm of the digital document image on the basis of this analysis result has been reviewed.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.95-108
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• 2011

TThis is a study of the personalization method that intelligently adapts the level of clustering considering purchasing index of a customer. In the e-biz era, many companies gather customers' demographic and transactional information such as age, gender, purchasing date and product category. They use this information to predict customer's preferences or purchasing patterns so that they can provide more customized services to their customers. The previous Customer-Segmentation method provides customized services for each customer group. This method clusters a whole customer set into different groups based on their similarity and builds predictive models for the resulting groups. Thus, it can manage the number of predictive models and also provide more data for the customers who do not have enough data to build a good predictive model by using the data of other similar customers. However, this method often fails to provide highly personalized services to each customer, which is especially important to VIP customers. Furthermore, it clusters the customers who already have a considerable amount of data as well as the customers who only have small amount of data, which causes to increase computational cost unnecessarily without significant performance improvement. The other conventional method called 1-to-1 method provides more customized services than the Customer-Segmentation method for each individual customer since the predictive model are built using only the data for the individual customer. This method not only provides highly personalized services but also builds a relatively simple and less costly model that satisfies with each customer. However, the 1-to-1 method has a limitation that it does not produce a good predictive model when a customer has only a few numbers of data. In other words, if a customer has insufficient number of transactional data then the performance rate of this method deteriorate. In order to overcome the limitations of these two conventional methods, we suggested the new method called Intelligent Customer Segmentation method that provides adaptive personalized services according to the customer's purchasing index. The suggested method clusters customers according to their purchasing index, so that the prediction for the less purchasing customers are based on the data in more intensively clustered groups, and for the VIP customers, who already have a considerable amount of data, clustered to a much lesser extent or not clustered at all. The main idea of this method is that applying clustering technique when the number of transactional data of the target customer is less than the predefined criterion data size. In order to find this criterion number, we suggest the algorithm called sliding window correlation analysis in this study. The algorithm purposes to find the transactional data size that the performance of the 1-to-1 method is radically decreased due to the data sparity. After finding this criterion data size, we apply the conventional 1-to-1 method for the customers who have more data than the criterion and apply clustering technique who have less than this amount until they can use at least the predefined criterion amount of data for model building processes. We apply the two conventional methods and the newly suggested method to Neilsen's beverage purchasing data to predict the purchasing amounts of the customers and the purchasing categories. We use two data mining techniques (Support Vector Machine and Linear Regression) and two types of performance measures (MAE and RMSE) in order to predict two dependent variables as aforementioned. The results show that the suggested Intelligent Customer Segmentation method can outperform the conventional 1-to-1 method in many cases and produces the same level of performances compare with the Customer-Segmentation method spending much less computational cost.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.163-177
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• 2019

As smartphones are getting widely used, human activity recognition (HAR) tasks for recognizing personal activities of smartphone users with multimodal data have been actively studied recently. The research area is expanding from the recognition of the simple body movement of an individual user to the recognition of low-level behavior and high-level behavior. However, HAR tasks for recognizing interaction behavior with other people, such as whether the user is accompanying or communicating with someone else, have gotten less attention so far. And previous research for recognizing interaction behavior has usually depended on audio, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi sensors, which are vulnerable to privacy issues and require much time to collect enough data. Whereas physical sensors including accelerometer, magnetic field and gyroscope sensors are less vulnerable to privacy issues and can collect a large amount of data within a short time. In this paper, a method for detecting accompanying status based on deep learning model by only using multimodal physical sensor data, such as an accelerometer, magnetic field and gyroscope, was proposed. The accompanying status was defined as a redefinition of a part of the user interaction behavior, including whether the user is accompanying with an acquaintance at a close distance and the user is actively communicating with the acquaintance. A framework based on convolutional neural networks (CNN) and long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent networks for classifying accompanying and conversation was proposed. First, a data preprocessing method which consists of time synchronization of multimodal data from different physical sensors, data normalization and sequence data generation was introduced. We applied the nearest interpolation to synchronize the time of collected data from different sensors. Normalization was performed for each x, y, z axis value of the sensor data, and the sequence data was generated according to the sliding window method. Then, the sequence data became the input for CNN, where feature maps representing local dependencies of the original sequence are extracted. The CNN consisted of 3 convolutional layers and did not have a pooling layer to maintain the temporal information of the sequence data. Next, LSTM recurrent networks received the feature maps, learned long-term dependencies from them and extracted features. The LSTM recurrent networks consisted of two layers, each with 128 cells. Finally, the extracted features were used for classification by softmax classifier. The loss function of the model was cross entropy function and the weights of the model were randomly initialized on a normal distribution with an average of 0 and a standard deviation of 0.1. The model was trained using adaptive moment estimation (ADAM) optimization algorithm and the mini batch size was set to 128. We applied dropout to input values of the LSTM recurrent networks to prevent overfitting. The initial learning rate was set to 0.001, and it decreased exponentially by 0.99 at the end of each epoch training. An Android smartphone application was developed and released to collect data. We collected smartphone data for a total of 18 subjects. Using the data, the model classified accompanying and conversation by 98.74% and 98.83% accuracy each. Both the F1 score and accuracy of the model were higher than the F1 score and accuracy of the majority vote classifier, support vector machine, and deep recurrent neural network. In the future research, we will focus on more rigorous multimodal sensor data synchronization methods that minimize the time stamp differences. In addition, we will further study transfer learning method that enables transfer of trained models tailored to the training data to the evaluation data that follows a different distribution. It is expected that a model capable of exhibiting robust recognition performance against changes in data that is not considered in the model learning stage will be obtained.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.1-8
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• 1985

The wall shear stress in the vicinity of end-to end anastomoses under steady flow conditions was measured using a flush-mounted hot-film anemometer(FMHFA) probe. The experimental measurements were in good agreement with numerical results except in flow with low Reynolds numbers. The wall shear stress increased proximal to the anastomosis in flow from the Penrose tubing (simulating an artery) to the PTFE: graft. In flow from the PTFE graft to the Penrose tubing, low wall shear stress was observed distal to the anastomosis. Abnormal distributions of wall shear stress in the vicinity of the anastomosis, resulting from the compliance mismatch between the graft and the host artery, might be an important factor of ANFH formation and the graft failure. The present study suggests a correlation between regions of the low wall shear stress and the development of anastomotic neointimal fibrous hyperplasia(ANPH) in end-to-end anastomoses. 30523 T00401030523 ^x Air pressure decay(APD) rate and ultrafiltration rate(UFR) tests were performed on new and saline rinsed dialyzers as well as those roused in patients several times. C-DAK 4000 (Cordis Dow) and CF IS-11 (Baxter Travenol) reused dialyzers obtained from the dialysis clinic were used in the present study. The new dialyzers exhibited a relatively flat APD, whereas saline rinsed and reused dialyzers showed considerable amount of decay. C-DAH dialyzers had a larger APD(11.70$\pm$1.32mmHg/min)compared to CF dialyzers(4.32$\pm$0.55mmHg/min)(p<0.05). However, there was no observable difference in the UFR between the two dialyzers. Neither APD nor UFR showed any significant increase with an increasing number of reuses for up to more than 20reuses. A substantial number of failures observed in APD(larger than 20mmHe/min)on the reused dialyzers(2 out of 40 CP and S out 26 C-DAK) were attributed to the Possible damage on the fibers. The CF 15-11 HFDs which failed APD test did not show changes in the UFR compared to normal dialyzers indicating that APD is a more sensitive test than UFR test to evaluate the integrity of the fibers. 30527 T00401030527 ^x For quantitative measurement of reflected light from a clinical diagnostic strip, a prototype old reflectance photometer was designed. The strip loader and cassette were made to obtain more accurate reflectance parameters. The strip was illuminated at 45˚c through optical fiber and the intensity of reflected light was determined at rectanguLat angle using a photodiode. The kubelka-munk coefficient and reflection optical density were determined ar four different wavelengths(500, 550, 570 and 610nm) for blood glucose strip. For higher concentration than 300mg/41 about glucose, a saturation state of abforbance was observed at 500, 550 and 570nm. The correlation between glucose concentration and parameters was the best at 610nm. 30535 T00401030535 ^x Radiation-induced fibrosarcoma tumors were grown on the flanks of C3H mice. The mice were divided into two groups. One group was injected with Photofrin II, intravenously (2.5mg/kg body weight). The other group received no Photofrin II. Mice from both groups were irradialed for approximately 15 minutes at 100, 300, or 500 mW/cm2 with the argon (488nm/514.5 nm), dye(628nm) and gold vapor (pulsed 628 nm) laser light. A photosensitizer behaved as an added absorber. Under our experimental conditions, the presence of Photolfrin II increased surface temperature by at least 40% and the temperature rise due to 300 mW/cm2 irradiation exceeded values for hyperthermia. Light and temperature distributions with depth were estimated by a computer model. The model demonstrated the influence of wavelength on the thermal process and proved to be a valuable tool to investigate internal temperature rise. 30536 T00401030536 ^x We investigated the structural geometry of thirty-eight Korean femurs. The purpose of this study is to identify major geometrical differences between Korean femurs 3nd others that we believe belong to Caucasians so that we would be able to get insights into the femoral component design that fits Asians including Koreans. We utilized computerized tomography (CT) images of femurs extracted from cadavers. The CT images were transformed into bitmap data by using a film scanner, and then analyzed by using a commercially available software called Image v.1.0 and a Macintosh IIci computer.The resulting data were compared with already published data. The major results show that the geometry of the Korean femurs is significantly different from that of Caucasians: (1) the anteversion angle and the canal flare index are greater by the amount of approximately 8˚ and 0.5, respectively, (2) the shape of the isthmus cross section is more round, and (3) the distance between the teaser trochanter and the proximal border of the isthmus is shelter by about 15 mm. The results suggested that the femoral component suitable for Asians should be different from the currently-used components designed and manufactured mostly by European or American companies. 30537 T00401030537 ^x It is well known that nonlinear propagation characteristics of the wave in the tissue may give very useful information for the medical diagnoisis. In this paper, a new method to detect nonlinear propagation characteristics of the internal vibration in the tissue for the low frequency mechanical vibration by using bispectral analysis is proposed. In the method, low frequency vibration of f0( = 100Hz) is applied on the surface of the object, and the waveform of the internal vibration x (t) is measured from Doppler frequency modulation of silmultaneously transmitted probing ultrasonic waves. Then, the bispectra of the signal x (t) at the frequencies (f0, f0) and (f0, 2f0) are calculated to estimate the nonlinear propagation characteristics as their magnitude ratio, w here since bispectrum is free from the gaussian additive noise we can get the value with high S/N. Basic experimental system is constructed by using 3.0 MHz probing ultrasonic waves and the several experiments are carried out for some phantoms. Results show the superiority of the proposed method to the conventional method using power spectrum and also its usefulness for the tissue characterization. 30541 T00401030541 ^x This paper describes the implementation of a computerized radial pulse diagnosis by aids of a clinical expert. On this base, we composed of the radial pulse diagnosis system in korean traditional medicine. The system composed of a radial pulse wave detection system and a radial pulse diagnosis system. With a detection system, we detected Inyoung and Cheongu radial pulse wave and processed it. Then, we have got the characteristic parameters of radial pulse wave and also quantified that according to the method of Inyoung-Cheongu Comparison Radial Pulse Diagnosis. We defined the jugement standard of radial pulse diagnosis system and then we confirmed the possibility for realization of automatic radial pulse diagnosis in korean traditional medicine. 30545 T00401030545 ^x Microspheres are expected to be applied to biomedical areas such as solid-phase immunoassays, drug delivery systems, immunomagnetic cell separation. To synthesize microspheres for biomedical application, "two stage shot growth method" was developed. The uniformity ratio of synthesized microspheres was always smaller than 1.05. And the surface charge density (or the number of ionizable functional groups) of the microspheres synthesized by "two stage shot growth method" was 6~13 times higher than that of the microspheres synthesized by conventional seeded batch copolymerization. As a previous step for biomedical application, adsorption experiments of bovine albumin on microspheres were carried out under various conditions. The maximum adsorbed amount was obtained in the neighborhood of pH 4.5. Isoelectric point of bovine albumin is pH 5.0, so experimental result shows that it shifted to acid area. The adsorption isotherm was obtained, the plateau region was always reached at 2.Og/L (bulk concentration of bovine albumin).The effect of the kind and the amount of surface functional group was also examined. 30575 T00401030575 ^x A medical image workstation was developed using multimedia technique. The system based on PC-486DX was designed to acquire medical images produced by medical imaging instruments and related audio information, that is, doctors' reporting results. Input information was processed and analyzed, then the results were presented in the form of graph and animation. All the informations of the system were hierarchically related with the image as the apex. Processing and analysis algorithms were implemented so that the diagnostic accuracy could be improved. The diagnosed information can be transferred for patient diagnosis through LAN(local area network). 30592 T00401030592 ^x In the conventional infrared imaging system, complex infrared lens systems are usually used for directing collimated narrow infrared beams into the high speed 2-dimensional optic scanner. In this paper, a simple reflective infrared optic system with a 2-dimensional optic scanner is proposed for the realization of medical infrared thermography system. It has been experimentally proven that the intfrared thermography system composed of the proposed optic system has the temperature resolution of 0.1˚c under the spatial resolution of lmrad, the image matrix size of 256 X 240, and tile imaging time of 4 seconds. 30593 T00401030593 ^x In this paper, MIIS (Medical Image Information System) has been designed and implemented using INGRES RDBMS, which is based on a client/server architecture. The implemented system allows users to register and retrieve patient information, medical images and diagnostic reports. It also provides the function to display these information on workstation windows simultaneously by using the designed menu-driven graphic user interface. The medical image compression/decompression techniques are implemented and integrated into the medical image database system for the efficient data storage and the fast access through the network. 30594 T00401030594 ^x In this paper, computerized BEAM was implemented for the space domain analysis of EEG. Trans-formation from temporal summation to two-dimensional mappings is formed by 4 nearest point inter-polaton method. Methods of representation of BEAM are two. One is dot density method which classify brain electrical potential 9 levels by dot density of gray levels and the other is colour method which classify brain electrical 12 levels by red-green colours. In this BEAM, instantaneous change and average energy distribution over any arbitrary time interval of brain electrical activity could be observed and analyzed easily. In the frequency domain, the distribution of energy spectrum of a special band can easily be distinguished normality and abnormality. 30608 T00401030608 ^x Laboratory information system (LIS) is a key tool to manage laboratory data in clinical pathology. Our department has developed an information system for routine hematology using down-sized computer system. We have used an IBM 486 compatible PC with 16MB main memory, 210 MB hard disk drive, 9 RS-232C port and 24 pin dot printer. The operating system and database management system were SCO UNIX and SCO foxbase, respectively. For program development, we used Xbase language provided by SCO foxbase. The C language was used for interface purpose. To make the system use friendly, pull-down menu was used. The system connected to our hospital information system via application program interface (API), so the information related to patient and request details is automatically transmitted to our computer. Our system interfaced with fwd complete blood count analyzers(Sysmex NE-8000 and Coulter STKS) for unidirectional data tansmission from analyzer to computer. The authors suggests that this system based on down-sized computer could provide a progressive approach to total LIS based on local area network, and the implemented system could serve as a model for other hospital's LIS for routine hematology. 30609 T00401030609 ^x To develop an artificial bone substitute that is gradually degraded and replaced by the regenerated natural bone, the authors designed a composite that is consisted of calcium phosphate and collagen. To use as the structural matrix of the composite, collagen was purified from human umbilical cord. The obtained collagen was treated by pepsin to remove telopeptides, and finally, the immune-free atelocollagen was produced: The cross linked atelocollagen was highly resistant to the collagenase induced collagenolysis. The cross linked collagen demonstrated an improved tensile strength. 30618 T00401030618 ^x This paper is a study on the design of adptive filter for QRS complex detection. We propose a simple adaptive algorithm to increase capability of noise cancelation in QRS complex detection with two stage adaptive filter. At the first stage, background noise is removed and at the next stage, only spectrum of QRS complex components is passed. Two adaptive filters can afford to keep track of the changes of both noise and QRS complex. Each adaptive filter consists of prediction error filter and FIR filter The impulse response of FIR filter uses coefficients of prediction error filter. The detection rates for 105 and 108 of MIT/BIH data base were 99.3% and 97.4% respectively. 30619 T00401030619 ^x To develop an artificial bone substitute that is gradually degraded and replaced by the regenerated natural bone, the authors designed and produced a composite that is consisted of calcium phosphate and collagen. Human umbilical cord origin pepsin treated type I atelocollagen was used as the structural matrix, by which sintered or non-sintered carbonate apatite was encapsulated to form an inorganic-organic composite. With cross linking atelocollagen by UV ray irradiation, the resistance to both compressive and tensile strength was increased. Collagen degradation by the collagenase induced collagenolysis was also decreased. 30620 T00401030620 ^x We have developed a monoleaflet polymer valve as an inexpensive and viable alternative, especially for short-term use in the ventricular assist device or total artificial heart. The frame and leaflet of the polymer valve were made from polyurethane, To evaluate the hemodynamic performance of the polymer valve a comparative study of flow dynamics past a polymer valve and a St. Jude Medical prosthetic valve under physiological pulsatile flow conditions in vitro was made. Comparisons between the valves were made on the transvalvular pressure drop, regurgitation volume and maximum valve opening area. The polymer valve showed smaller regurgitation volume and transvalvular pressure drop compared to the mechanical valve at higher heart rate. The results showed that the functional characteristics of the polymer valve compared favorably with those of the mechanical valve at higher heart rate. 30621 T00401030621 ^x Explosive evaporative removal process of biological tissue by absorption of a CW laser has been simulated by using gelatin and a multimode Nd:YAG laser. Because the point of maximun temperature of laser-irradiated gelatin exists below the surface due to surface cooling, evaporation at the boiling temperature is made explosively from below the surface. The important parameters of this process are the conduction loss to laser power absorption (defined as the conduction-to-laser power parameter, Nk), the convection heat transfer at the surface to conduction loss (defined as Bi), dimensionless extinction coefficient (defined as Br.), and dimensionless irradiation time (defined as Fo). Dependence of Fo on Nk and Bi has been observed by experiment, and the results have been compared with the numerical results obtained by solving a 2-dimensional conduction equation. Fo and explosion depth (from the surface to the point of maximun temperature) are increased when Nk and Bi are increased.To find out the minimum laser power for explosive evaporative removal process, steady state analysis has been also made. The limit of Nk to induce evaporative removal, which is proportional to the inverse of the laser power, has been obtained. 30622 T00401030622 ^x N1 and N2 gross neural action potentials were measured from the round window of the guinea pig cochlea at the onset of the acoustic stimuli. N1-N2 audiograms were made by means of regulating stimulant intensities in order to produce constant N1-N2 potentials as criteria for different input tone pip frequencies. The lowest threshold was measured with an input tone pip I5 dB SPL in intensity and 12 KHz in frequency when the animal was in normal physiological condition. The procedure of experimental measurements is explained in detail. This experimental approach is very useful for the investigation of the Cochlear function. Both noN1inear and active functions of the Cochlea can be monitored by N1-N2 audiograms. 30623 T00401030623 ^x In electrical impedance tomography(EIT), we use boundary current and voltage measurements toprovide the information about the cross-sectional distribution of electrical impedance or resistivity. One of the major problems in EIT has been the inaccessibility of internal voltage or current data in finding the internal impedance values. We propose a new image reconstruction method using internal current density data measured by NMR. We obtained a two-dimensional current density distribution within a phantom by processing the real and imaginary MR images from a 4.77 NMR machine. We implemented a resistivity mage reconstruction algorithm using the finite element method and sensitivity matrix. We presented computer simulation results of the mage reconstruction algorithm and furture direction of the research. 30624 T00401030624 ^x A new method of digital image analysis technique for discrimination of cancer cell was presented in this paper. The object image was the Thyroid eland cells image that was diagnosed as normal and abnormal (two types of abnormal: follicular neoplastic cell, and papillary neoplastic cell), respectively. By using the proposed region segmentation algorithm, the cells were segmented into nucleus. The 16 feature parameters were used to calculate the features of each nucleus. A9 a consequence of using dominant feature parameters method proposed in this paper, discrimination rate of 91.11% was obtained for Thyroid Gland cells. 30625 T00401030625 ^x An electrical stimulator was designed to induce locomotion for paraplegic patients caused by central nervous system injury. Optimal stimulus parameters, which can minimize muscle fatigue and can achieve effective muscle contraction were determined in slow and fast muscles in Sprague-Dawley rats. Stimulus patterns of our stimulator were designed to simulate electromyographic activity monitored during locomotion of normal subjects. Muscle types of the lower extremity were classified according to their mechanical property of contraction, which are slow muscle (msoleus m.) and fast muscle (medial gastrocneminus m., rectus femoris m., vastus lateralis m.). Optimal parameters of electrical stimulation for slow muscles were 20 Hz, 0.2 ms square pulse. For fast muscle, 40 Hz, 0.3 ms square pulse was optimal to produce repeated contraction. Higher stimulus intensity was required when synergistic muscles were stimulated simultaneously than when they were stimulated individually. Electrical stimulation for each muscle was designed to generate bipedal locomotion, so that individual muscles alternate contraction and relaxation to simulate stance and swing phases. Portable electrical stimulator with 16 channels built in microprocessor was constructed and applied to paraplegic patients due to lumbar cord injury. The electrical stimulator restored partially gait function in paraplegic patients. 30626 T00401030626 ^x Two-Dimensional modelling of the Cochlear biomechanics is presented in this paper. The Laplace partial differential equation which represents the fluid mechanics of the Cochlea has been transformed into two-dimensional electrical transmission line. The procedure of this transformation is explained in detail. The comparison between one and two dimensional models is also presented. This electrical modelling of the basilar membrane (BM) is clearly useful for the next approach to the further. Development of active elements which are essential in the producing of the sharp tuning of the BM. This paper shows that two-dimension model is qualitatively better than one-dimensional model both in amplitude and phase responses of the BM displacement. The present model is only for frequency response. However because the model is electrical, the two-dimensional transmission line model can be extended to time response without any difficult. 30627 T00401030627 ^x A method has been proposed for the fully automatic detection of left ventricular endocardial boundary in 2D short axis echocardiogram using geometric model. The procedure has the following three distinct stages. First, the initial center is estimated by the initial center estimation algorithm which is applied to decimated image. Second, the center estimation algorithm is applied to original image and then best-fit elliptic model estimation is processed. Third, best-fit boundary is detected by the cost function which is based on the best-fit elliptic model. The proposed method shows effective result without manual intervention by a human operator. 30628 T00401030628 ^x The intelligent trajectory control method that controls moving direction and average velocity for a prosthetic arm is proposed by pattern recognition and force estimations using EMG signals. Also, we propose the real time trajectory planning method which generates continuous accelleration paths using 3 stage linear filters to minimize the impact to human body induced by arm motions and to reduce the muscle fatigue. We use combination of MLP and fuzzy filter for pattern recognition to estimate the direction of a muscle and Hogan's method for the force estimation. EMG signals are acquired by using a amputation simulator and 2 dimensional joystick motion. The simulation results of proposed prosthetic arm control system using the EMf signals show that the arm is effectively followed the desired trajectory depended on estimated force and direction of muscle movements. 30638 T00401030638 ^x A new neural network architecture for the recognition of patterns from images is proposed, which is partially based on the results of physiological studies. The proposed network is composed of multi-layers and the nerve cells in each layer are connected by spatial filters which approximate receptive fields in optic nerve fields. In the proposed method, patterns recognition for complicated images is carried out using global features as well as local features such as lines and end-points. A new generating method of matched filers representing global features is proposed in this network. 30659 T00401030659 ^x An implementation scheme of the magnetic nerve stimulator using a switching mode power supply is proposed. By using a switching mode power supply rather than a conventional linear power supply for charging high voltage capacitors, the weight and size of the magnetic nerve stimulator can be considerably reduced. Maximum output voltage of the developed magnetic nerve stimulator using the switching mode power supply is 3, 000 volts and switching time is about 100 msec. Experimental results or human nerve stimulations using the developed stimulator are presented. 30768 T00401030768 ^x In this paper, we describe the design methodology and specifications of the developed module-based bedside monitors for patient monitoring. The bedside monitor consists of a main unit and module cases with various parameter modules. The main unit includes a 12.1" TFT color LCD, a main CPU board, and peripherals such as a module controller, Ethernet LAN card, video card, rotate/push button controller, etc. The main unit can connect at maximum three module cases each of which can accommodate up to 7 parameter modules. They include the modules for electrocardiograph, respiration, invasive blood pressure, noninvasive blood pressure, temperature, and SpO2 with Plethysmograph.SpO2 with Plethysmograph.