• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.53-58
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• 2013

Purpose: To optimize correction method for SPECT/CT, image quality consisting of resolution and contrast was evaluated using three radioisotopes ($^{99m}Tc$, $^{201}Tl$ and $^{131}I$) and three different correction methods; attenuation correction (AC), scatter correction (SC) and both attenuation and scatter correction (ACSC). Materials and Methods: Images were acquired with a SPECT/CT scanner and a conventional CT protocol with an OESM reconstruction algorithm (2 iterations and 10 subsets). For resolution measurement, fixed radioactivity (2.22 kBq) was infused into a spatial resolution phantom and full width at half maximum (FWHM) was measured using a vendor-provided software. For contrast evaluation, radioactive source with a ratio of 1:8 to background was filled in a Flanged Jaszczak phantom and percent contrast (%) were calculated. All the parameters for image quality were compared with non-correction (NC) method. Results: As compared with NC, image resolution of all three isotopes were significantly improved by AC and ACSC, not by SC. In particular, ACSC showed better resolution than AC alone for $^{99m}Tc$ and $^{201}Tl$. Image contrast of all three radioisotopes in a sphere with the largest diameter were enhanced by all correction methods. ACSC showed the highest contrast in all three radioisotopes, which was the most accurate in $^{99m}Tc$ (85.9%). Conclusion: Image quality of SPECT/CT was improved in all the radioisotopes by CT-based attenuation correction methods, except SC alone. SC failed to improve resolution in any radioisotopes, but it was effective in contrast enhancement. ACSC would be the best correction method as it improved resolution in radioisotopes with low energy levels and contrast in radioisotope with low energy levels. However, in radioisotope with high energy level, AC would be better than ACSC for resolution improvement.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.168-181
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• 2024

Constructed wetlands (CWs) deliver a range of ecosystem services, including the removal of contaminants, sequestration and storage of carbon, and enhancement of biodiversity. These services are facilitated through hydrological and ecological processes such as infiltration, adsorption, water retention, and evapotranspiration by plants and microorganisms. This study investigated the correlations between microbial populations, soil physicochemical properties, and treatment efficiency in a horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetland (HSSF CW) treating runoff from roads and parking lots. The methods employed included storm event monitoring, water quality analysis, soil sampling, soil quality parameter analysis, and microbial analysis. The facility achieved its highest pollutant removal efficiencies during the warm season (>15℃), with rates ranging from 33% to 74% for TSS, COD, TN, TP, and specific heavy metals including Fe, Zn, and Cd. Meanwhile, the highest removal efficiency was 35% for TOC during the cold season (≤15℃). These high removal rates can be attributed to sedimentation, adsorption, precipitation, plant uptake, and microbial transformations within the CW. Soil analysis revealed that the soil from HSSF CW had a soil organic carbon content 3.3 times higher than that of soil collected from a nearby landscape. Stoichiometric ratios of carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) in the inflow and outflow were recorded as C:N:P of 120:1.5:1 and 135.2:0.4:1, respectively, indicating an extremely low proportion of N and P compared to C, which may challenge microbial remediation efficiency. Additionally, microbial analyses indicated that the warm season was more conducive to microorganism growth, with higher abundance, richness, diversity, homogeneity, and evenness of the microbial community, as manifested in the biodiversity indices, compared to the cold season. Pollutants in stormwater runoff entering the HSSF CW fostered microbial growth, particularly for dominant phyla such as Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, and Bacteroidetes, which have shown moderate to strong correlations with specific soil properties and changes in influent-effluent concentrations of water quality parameters.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.79 no.5
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• pp.254-258
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• 2018

Purpose: Establishment of an appropriate protocol for breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the study of image quality standards to enhance the effectiveness of medical image information exchange, which is part of the construction and activation of clinical information exchange for healthcare informatization. Materials and Methods: The recommended protocols of breast and MRI scans were reviewed and the questionnaire was prepared by a responsible researcher. Then, a panel of 9 breast dedicated radiologists was set up in Korea. The expert panel conducted a total of three Delphi agreements to draw up a consensus on the breast MRI protocol. Results: The agreed breast MRI recommendation protocol is a 1.5 Tesla or higher device that acquires images with prone position using a breast dedicated coil and includes T2-weighted and pre-contrast T1-weighted images. Contrast enhancement images are acquired at least two times, and include 60-120 seconds between images and after 4 minutes. The contrast enhancement T1-weighted image should be less than 3 mm in thickness, less than 120 seconds in temporal resolution, and less than $1.5mm^2$ in-plane pixel resolution. Conclusion: The Delphi agreement of the domestic breast imaging specialist group has established the recommendation protocol of the effective breast MRI.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.363-373
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• 2020

During last decades numerous studies generating orthoimage have been carried out. Traditional methods require exterior orientation parameters of aerial images and precise 3D object modeling data and DTM (Digital Terrain Model) to detect and recover occlusion areas. Furthermore, it is challenging task to automate the complicated process. In this paper, we proposed a new concept of true orthoimage generation using DL (Deep Learning). DL is rapidly used in wide range of fields. In particular, GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) is one of the DL models for various tasks in imaging processing and computer vision. The generator tries to produce results similar to the real images, while discriminator judges fake and real images until the results are satisfied. Such mutually adversarial mechanism improves quality of the results. Experiments were performed using GAN-based Pix2Pix model by utilizing IR (Infrared) orthoimages, intensity from LiDAR data provided by the German Society for Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Geoinformation (DGPF) through the ISPRS (International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing). Two approaches were implemented: (1) One-step training with intensity data and high resolution orthoimages, (2) Recursive training with intensity data and color-coded low resolution intensity images for progressive enhancement of the results. Two methods provided similar quality based on FID (Fréchet Inception Distance) measures. However, if quality of the input data is close to the target image, better results could be obtained by increasing epoch. This paper is an early experimental study for feasibility of DL-based true orthoimage generation and further improvement would be necessary.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.201-208
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to investigate the optimal flip angle by measuring the SNR and CNR according to the angle of changes of the MRI technique using the Image J program. A total of 30 normal volunteers were assessed by using a 1.5T magnetic resonance imaging system (Philips, Medical System, Achieva). For the MRI angiography, we set the region of interest in four regions and evaluated the SNR and CNR. The statistical significance of SNR and CNR was calculated by one-way ANOVA using quantitative analysis at five different positions. The Bonferroni method was used for post-hoc analyzes. Statistical significance was determined by using ANOVA analysis at p<0.05 and Bonferroni method was used as a post-hoc analysis. The results of this study, the measurement values of ACA(SNR:$876.59{\pm}14.22$, CNR:$1999.7{\pm}12.5$), PCA(SNR:$863.48{\pm}13.29$, CNR:$1870.18{\pm}12.56$), ICA(SNR:$1116.87{\pm}08.34$, CNR:$2979.37{\pm}14.69$) and MCA(SNR:$848.66{\pm}15.25$, CNR:$2199.25{\pm}13.48$) were obtained with the high signal intensity at $25^{\circ}$(p<0.05). The values of a1, a2, a3, p1, p2, p3, m1, m2 and m3 were also the same (p<0.05). Post-hoc analysis results, There was a statistically significant difference (p=0.000) between $10^{\circ}$, $15^{\circ}$, $20^{\circ}$ on the $25^{\circ}$ reference for the flip angle, but no significant results were obtained with $30^{\circ}$(p<0.05). In concision, because the signal intensity decreased at $30^{\circ}$, this study revealed that the optimal flip angles were $25^{\circ}$ in cerebrovascular MR angiography.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.453-462
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• 2021

A lot of license plate data is required for car number recognition. License plate data needs to be balanced from past license plates to the latest license plates. However, it is difficult to obtain data from the actual past license plate to the latest ones. In order to solve this problem, a license plate recognition study through deep learning is being conducted by creating a synthetic license plates. Since the synthetic data have differences from real data, and various data augmentation techniques are used to solve these problems. Existing data augmentation simply used methods such as brightness, rotation, affine transformation, blur, and noise. In this paper, we apply a style transformation method that transforms synthetic data into real-world data styles with data augmentation methods. In addition, real license plate data are noisy when it is captured from a distance and under the dark environment. If we simply recognize characters with input data, chances of misrecognition are high. To improve character recognition, in this paper, we applied the DeblurGANv2 method as a quality improvement method for character recognition, increasing the accuracy of license plate recognition. The method of deep learning for license plate detection and license plate number recognition used YOLO-V5. To determine the performance of the synthetic license plate data, we construct a test set by collecting our own secured license plates. License plate detection without style conversion recorded 0.614 mAP. As a result of applying the style transformation, we confirm that the license plate detection performance was improved by recording 0.679mAP. In addition, the successul detection rate without image enhancement was 0.872, and the detection rate was 0.915 after image enhancement, confirming that the performance improved.

• The Journal of Korean Society for School & Community Health Education
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• v.6
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• pp.89-107
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• 2005

The purposes of this study were to investigate the recognition and the needs and problems of in-service education for school nurse, and to suggest the desirable guidelines, for supples the basic data of in-service education for school nurse to upgraded the quality as school nurse's professional specialist. The subjects of this study were 376 school nurses who were working in Jollanamdo. The research instruments used in this study was 'Needs of In-service Education questionnaire'. 305 collected Data were analyzed with the frequency analysis, $x^2$-test. The conclusions were as follows; First of all, the most important motives for the school nurses to participate in-service education are the enhancement of their specialties on teaching profession, self-realizations as educators, and improvement of health teaching skill. However, the motives to obtain the skill for school management or to obtain a high rank qualification and promotion are quite low. School nurses are generally satisfied with duration, time, place of in-service education, But they are not satisfied with contents of in-service education, professional specialist and understanding of real educational situation of the instructors. On the urgent problem of school nurses, promotion of health teaching skill was highest in the rank, and establishment of firm educational philosophy and a sense of teaching profession, proceed to university and graduate school ranked next, respectively. Second, the need of a school nurses on in-service education direction ranked the application of teachers' character and need, practicable and concrete educational programs, planning of school health development, reinforcement of health education, expansion of practical knowledge and on reflection thought, respectively. The need of a school nurses on in-service education contents(major part) ranked health education, health promoting program of student, knowledge and practice of practical medicine and oriental medicine, consultation process, health education of advanced country, respectively. The need of in-service education supervisory organization, the need for a cities provinces educational office was highest in the rank. The need of in-service education type, duty training ranked high, and abroad training, qualification training, general training ranked next. the need for specialist for lecturer of in-serve education ranked among the highest, along with school nurses and university professor. The need of school nurses on education method(duplication answer), need for conference and discussion teaching was highest in the rank. The need on evaluation method, evaluation through a examination ranked the highest. On the needs of in-service education times, need for vacation during the winter and summer was the highest. As for the duration, 31 to 60 hours in duration of in-service education was need most, and most school nurses need cities and provinces in-service training institute as the location of in-service education. On the organization size, need for 21 to 30 people was the highest, where as need for 41 people was relatively low. Lastly, on the problem of in-service education for school nurses, lack of opportunity of in-service education for school nurses was highest in the rank, and improperness of in-service education contents and method, lack of incentive ranked next, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.191-199
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• 2014

The current rural conditions are undergoing the change from the past production-intensive structure to an integral and complex one of producing, processing, selling, touring and lodging owing to the changes of life-style, consumption trend and social environments. The rural area is developing into a community of rural tourism villages to grow into one management system along with the assistance of the government's various supporting projects. Through this, the rural designing has got to play a significant role as one of the factors of the enhancement of competitiveness and the increase of income. Therefore, those previous studies on the variety and possibility of rural development are being employed for the researches which are to develop techniques of branding, marketing and packaging. In particular, the researches for VI (Village Identity), BI (Brand Identity) and designs of landscaping, packaging of agricultural specialties and display stores, which definitely shows that the importance of rural designing, is being paid a lot more attention to. Thus, this study has verified the site commercialization and its effect by developing some practical designing with the focus of package design at rural tourism villages. The Okgye Village in Yoncheon was selected for study subject based on the result of status investigation. This study has analyzed such problems as lack of village identity, non-description of items and their indispensible marks which were seen their designs of village and packaging. The colors of major items and the village image being substituted into the image scale of IRI color were estimated so that the appropriate colors might be selected, along with which the shapes of major items were decided to be motif for the village symbol and design to be created. The designs of such major items as grains, greens and sauces were created with the consideration of the easiness of loading, the continuity of using and the aesthetics. For grains, those outer boxes which are possible for set-packaging and small-sized packaging have been developed. For greens were developed the boxes with the structure of the permeability for the persisten't quality as well as the possibility for packaging small amount. In case of sauces, those outer-boxes equipped with fixing tray were made with the transport-convenience taken into consideration. The sticker-label designs for all those three were also developed which stand for the village identity and are conveniently used in each farm family. When this development was applied at the sites, it was found that the satisfaction and reliability of consumers as well as the satisfaction of farmers were raised along with the increase by more than 30% after the improvement.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.582-590
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• 2018

Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) and outgrowth endothelial cells (OECs) play a pivotal role in vascular regeneration in ischemic tissues; however, their therapeutic application in clinical settings is limited due to the low quality and quantity of patient-derived circulating EPCs. To solve this problem, we evaluated whether three priming small molecules (tauroursodeoxycholic acid, fucoidan, and oleuropein) could enhance the angiogenic potential of EPCs. Such enhancement would promote the cellular bioactivities and help to develop functionally improved EPC therapeutics for ischemic diseases by accelerating the priming effect of the defined physiological molecules. We found that preconditioning of each of the three small molecules significantly induced the differentiation potential of $CD34^+$ stem cells into EPC lineage cells. Notably, long-term priming of OECs with the three chemical cocktail (OEC-3C) increased the proliferation potential of EPCs via ERK activation. The migration, invasion, and tube-forming capacities were also significantly enhanced in OEC-3Cs compared with unprimed OECs. Further, the cell survival ratio was dramatically increased in OEC-3Cs against $H_2O_2$-induced oxidative stress via the augmented expression of Bcl-2, a pro-survival protein. In conclusion, we identified three small molecules for enhancing the bioactivities of ex vivo-expanded OECs for vascular repair. Long-term 3C priming might be a promising methodology for EPC-based therapy against ischemic diseases.

• Journal of the korean academy of Pediatric Dentistry
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.158-163
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• 2015

General anesthesia (GA) for dental care in handicapped patients is necessary to facilitate the provision of safe, efficient, and effective quality treatment. The aims of this study were to determine the anesthetic characteristics of handicapped patients in need of dental treatment in these day care units, and to establish for plan to provide better services. 325 patients who had outpatient general anesthesia from January 2005 to March 2014 were assessed for this study. Patients' distribution and treatment patterns were examined. The proportion of male patients (202, 62.2%) was higher than female patients (123, 37.8%) and the largest group of patients were 5 to 10 years old (85, 26.2%). The reasons for general anesthesia included mental and physical disabilities (207, 63.7%), behavior management (84, 25.8%), parent needs (14, 4.3%), and so on. Restorative treatment was the most common procedure with the average of 4.2 teeth treated per one patient and 43 (13.2%) patients underwent general anesthesia for dental treatment more than once. To expand and improve access to the dental care of the disabled, improvement of the health care system, enhancement of their training for dental care by professionals, and enlarging caregivers'understanding of the importance of oral care in the early stages are required.