• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.101-111
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• 2008

Strain imaging in a medical ultrasound imaging system can differentiate the cancer or tumor in a lesion that is stiffer than the surrounding tissue. In this paper, a strain imaging technique using quasistatic compression is implemented that estimates the displacement between pre- and postcompression ultrasound echoes and obtains strain by differentiating it in the spatial direction. Displacements are computed from the phase difference of complex baseband signals obtained using their autocorrelation, and errors associated with converting the phase difference into time or distance are compensated for by taking into the center frequency variation. Also, to reduce the effect of operator's hand motion, the displacements of all scanlines are normalized with the result that satisfactory strain image quality has been obtained. These techniques have been incorporated into implementing a medical ultrasound strain imaging system that operates in real time.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.229-251
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• 2012

Guided waves have shown a great potential for structural health monitoring (SHM) applications. In contrast to traditional non-destructive testing (NDT) methodologies, a key element of SHM approaches is the high process of automation. The monitoring system should decide autonomously whether the host structure is intact or not. A basic requirement for the realization of such a system is that the sensors are permanently installed on the host structure. Thus, baseline measurements become available that can be used for diagnostic purposes, i.e., damage detection, localization, etc. This paper contributes to guided wave-based inspection in anisotropic materials for SHM purposes. Therefore, computational strategies are described for both, the solution of the complex equations for wave propagation analysis in composite materials based on exact elasticity theory and the popular global matrix method, as well as the underlying equations of two active damage localization algorithms for anisotropic structures. The result of the global matrix method is an angular and frequency dependent wave velocity characteristic that is used subsequently in the localization procedures. Numerical simulations and experimental investigations through time-delay measurements are carried out in order to validate the proposed theoretical model. An exemplary case study including the calculation of dispersion curves and damage localization is conducted on an exemplary unidirectional composite structure where the ultrasonic signals processed in the localization step are simulated with the spectral element method. The proposed study demonstrates the capabilities of the proposed algorithms for accurate damage localization in anisotropic structures.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.153-159
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• 2011

The MUSIC (MUltiple SIgnal Classification) method estimates the directions of arrival (DOAs) of the signals impinging on a sensor array based on the fact that the noise subspace is orthogonal to the signal subspace. In the conventional MUSIC, an estimate of the basis for the noise subspace is obtained by eigendecomposing the sample matrix, which is computationally expensive. In this paper, we present a simple DOA estimation method which finds an estimate of the signal subspace basis directly from the columns of the sample matrix from which the noise power components are removed. DOA estimates are obtained by searching for minimum points of a cost function which is defined using the estimated signal subspace basis. The minimum points are efficiently found through the Brent method which employs parabolic interpolation. Simulation shows that the simple estimation method virtually has the same performance as the complex conventional method based on the eigendecomposition.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2012.04a
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• pp.447-452
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• 2012

Among the various elements affecting a customer's evaluation of automobile quality, buzz, squeak and rattle (BSR) are considered to be major factors. In most vehicle manufacturers, the BSR problems are solved by find-fix method with the vehicle road test, mainly due to various excitation sources, complex generation mechanism and subjective response. The aim of this paper is to develop the integrated experimental method to systematically tackle the BSR problems in early stage of the vehicle development cycle by resolving these difficulties. To achieve this aim, the developed experimental method ought to include the following requirements: to find and fix the BSR problem for modules instead of a full vehicle in order to tackle the problem in the early stage of the vehicle development cycle; to develop the exciter system including the zig and road-input-signal reproducing algorithm; to automatically localize the source region of BSR; to develop sound quality index that can be used to assess the subjective responses to BSR. Also, the BSR sound quality indexes based on the Zwicker's sound quality parameters using a multiple regression analysis. The four sound metrics from Zwicker's sound quality parameter are computed for the signals recorded for eight BSR noise source regions localized by using the acoustic-field visualized results. Then, the jury test of BSR noise are performed for participants. On a basis of the computed sound metrics and jury test result, sound quality index is developed to represent the harsh of BSR noise. It is expected that the developed BSR detection system and sound quality indexes can be used to reduce the automotive interior BSR noise in terms of subjective levels as well as objective levels.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.227-239
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• 2020

Despite proven effectiveness and accuracy in laboratories, the existing damage assessment based on guided ultrasonic waves (GUWs) or acoustic emission (AE) confronts challenges when extended to real-world structural health monitoring (SHM) for railway tracks. Central to the concerns are the extremely complex signal appearance due to highly dispersive and multimodal wave features, restriction on transducer installations, and severe contaminations of ambient noise. It remains a critical yet unsolved problem along with recent attempts to implement SHM in bourgeoning high-speed railway (HSR). By leveraging authors' continued endeavours, an SHM framework, based on actively generated diffuse ultrasonic waves (DUWs) and a benchmark-free condition contrast algorithm, has been developed and deployed via an all-in-one SHM system. Miniaturized lead zirconate titanate (PZT) wafers are utilized to generate and acquire DUWs in long-range railway tracks. Fatigue cracks in the tracks show unique contact behaviours under different conditions of external loads and further disturb DUW propagation. By contrast DUW propagation traits, fatigue cracks in railway tracks can be characterised quantitatively and the holistic health status of the tracks can be evaluated in a real-time manner. Compared with GUW- or AE-based methods, the DUW-driven inspection philosophy exhibits immunity to ambient noise and measurement uncertainty, less dependence on baseline signals, use of significantly reduced number of transducers, and high robustness in atrocious engineering conditions. Conformance tests are performed on HSR tracks, in which the evolution of fatigue damage is monitored continuously and quantitatively, demonstrating effectiveness, adaptability, reliability and robustness of DUW-driven SHM towards HSR applications.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.37-42
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• 2017

Infrared signals are frequently used to detect objects exposed to wide variety of environmental conditions. Detection by infrared signature is accomplished by distinguishing objects by using the IR radiant contrast between objects and the background. There are several methods of estimating the IR radiant contrast. The inverse distance weighting method, which is one of the IR radiant contrast estimation method using the effect of distance from objects, is known to be an effective way to analyze radiant contrast for complex backgrounds. However this method has a disadvantage of requiring a long calculation time. In this study we propose a statistical method of estimating the IR radiant contrast by using randomly selected pixels of arbitrary number among background pixels to reduce calculation time. Some measured IR images in MWIR and LWIR regions are used to test the applicability of the method proposed and we found that the proposed method is very effective in determining the IR radiant contrast showing very rapid estimation with minar accuracy loss.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.31 no.2C
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• pp.191-199
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• 2006

In this paper, we propose a method to implement a predistorter of the $rho$-th order inverse filter structure to prevent signal distortion and spectral re-growth due to the high PAPR (peak-to-average ratio) of the OFDM signals and the non-linearity of high-power amplifiers. We model the memory-less non-linearity of the high-power amplifier with a polynomial model and utilize the inverse of the model, the $rho$-th order inverse filter, for the predistorter. Once the non-linearity is modeled with a polynomial, since we can determine the $rho$-th order inverse filter only with the coefficients of the polynomial, large memory is not required. To update the coefficients of the non-linear high-power amplifier model, we can use LMS or RLS algorithms. The convergence speed is high since the number of coefficients is small, and the computation is simple since manipulation of complex numbers is not necessary.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.11-16
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• 2015

Our body's immune system has defense mechanisms against pathogens such as viruses and bacteria. Immune responses are primarily initiated by the activation of toll-like receptors (TLRs). In particular, TLR4 is well-characterized and is known to be activated by gram-negative bacteria and tissue damage signals. TLR4 requires myeloid differentiation factor 2 (MD2) as a co-receptor to recognize its ligand, lipopolysaccharides (LPS), which is an extracellular membrane component of gram-negative bacteria. Gambogic acid is a xanthonoid isolated from brownish or orange resin extracted from Garcinia hanburyi. Its primary effect is tumor suppression. Since inflammatory responses are related to the development of cancer, we hypothesized that gambogic acid may regulate TLR4 activation. Our results demonstrated that gambogic acid decreased the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines ($TNF-{\alpha}$, IL-6, IL-12, and $IL-1{\beta}$) in both mRNA and protein levels in bone marrow-derived primary macrophages after stimulation with LPS. Gambogic acid did not inhibit the activation of Interferon regulatory factor 3 (IRF3) induced by TBK1 overexpression in a luciferase reporter gene assay using IFN-${\beta}$-PRD III-I-luc. An in vitro kinase assay using recombinant TBK1 revealed that gambogic acid did not directly inhibit TBK1 kinase activity, and instead suppressed the binding of LPS to MD2, as determined by an in vitro binding assay and confocal microscopy analysis. Together, our results demonstrate that gambogic acid disrupts LPS interaction with the TLR4/MD2 complex, the novel mechanism by which it suppresses TLR4 activation.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.452-456
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• 2015

Obesity is the fifth leading risk for death globally, and a significant challenge to global health. It is a common, complex, non-malignant disease and develops due to interactions between the genes and the environment. DNA methylation can act as a downstream effector of environmental signals; analysis of this process therefore holds substantial promise for identifying mechanisms through which genetic and environmental factors jointly contribute to disease risk. To assess the effects of excessive weight and obesity on gene-specific methylation levels of promoter regions, we determined the methylation status of four genes involved in inflammation and oxidative stress [interleukin 6 (IL6), tumor necrosis factor ${\alpha}$ ($TNF{\alpha}$), mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM), and glucose transport 4 (GLUT4)] in blood cell-derived DNA from healthy women volunteers with a range of body mass indices (BMIs) by methylation-specific PCR. Interestingly, the samples from obese individuals ($BMI{\geq}30kg/m^2$) showed significantly increased hypermethylation for IL6 gene compared to normal weight ($BMI<23kg/m^2$) and overweight sample ($23kg/m^2{\leq}BMI<30kg/m^2$) (P = 0.034 and P = 0.026). However there was no statistically significant difference in promoter methylation of the other 3 genes between each group. These findings suggest that aberrant DNA methylation of IL6 gene promoter may play an important role in the etiology and pathogenesis of obesity and IL6 methylation could be used as molecular biomarker for obesity risk assessment. Further studies are required to elucidate the potential mechanisms underlying this relationship.

• The Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.171-179
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• 1986

The HLA class II region encodes a series of polymorphic glycoproteins that form cell surface heterodimers each consisting of one $\alpha$ and one $\beta$ chain. Thess class II molecules are encoded by genes clustered within three loci. DP, DQ, and DR are functfonally implicated as regulatory signals in intercellular communication during the immune resposes. The phenotypic hallmark of the HLA complex is a high degree of structural and functional polymorphism. Detailed analysis. of such polymorphisms should aid in understanding the molecular basis for associations between HLA and diseases. We have used techniques of restriction enzyme fragment analysis by Southern blotting to investigate polymorphisms associated with DQ $\beta$ class II genes on haplotypes expressing the HLA-DR4 and -DQw3 specificities. The endonucleases Hind III and Bam HI were used to identify a specific DQ $\beta$ genomic polymorphism that precisely corrresponds with the reactivity of a monoclonal antibody A-10-83, previously shown to define a serologic split of DQw3. This study identifies two allelic DQ va. riants. DQw3.1 and DQw3.2. We used these specific genotypic markers to investigate the genomic basis of the association of DR4 with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus(IDDM) and seropositive juvenile rheumatoid arthritis(JRA). The DR4 positive IDDM demonstrate the predominant expression of DQw3.2 and the very rare expression of DQw3.l. However, in haplotype matched siblings from two IDDM families, all of the DR4 positive siblings display a IDDM-associated DQw3.2 allele. Thus, both affected and healthy individuals can carry the same haplotypes and genomic markers, demonstrating that thess specific allelic variants are genetic elements that indicate a increased risk of IDDM but are not in fact disease specific. We contrasted this result with a similar analysis of patients with another DR4-associated disease, JRA. In contrast to the preponderance of the DQw3.2 allele in IDDM, the JRA patients expressed either the DQw3.1 or the DQw3.2 allele and sometimes both, without apparent association with disease expession. The different genomic markers reported here within HLA-DQ region potentially an analysis of HLA-associated function and disease susceptibility.