• Asian Spine Journal
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.1085-1091
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• 2018

Study Design: Case-control. Purpose: To determine optimal cut-off value for body mass index (BMI) in predicting surgical success in patients with lumbar spinal canal stenosis (LSCS). Overview of Literature: BMI is an essential variable in the assessment of patients with LSCS. Methods: We conducted a prospective study with obese and non-obese LSCS surgical patients and analyzed data on age, sex, duration of symptoms, walking distance, morphologic grade of stenosis, BMI, postoperative complications, and functional disability. Obesity was defined as BMI of ${\geq}30kg/m^2$. Patients completed the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) questionnaire before surgery and 2 years after surgery. Surgical success was defined as ${\geq}30%$ improvement from the baseline ODI score. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to estimate the optimal cut-off values of BMI to predict surgical success. In addition, correlation was assessed between BMI and stenosis grade based on morphology as defined by Schizas and colleague in total, 189 patients were eligible to enter the study. Results: Mean age of patients was $61.5{\pm}9.6years$. Mean follow-up was $36{\pm}12months$. Most patients (88.4%) were classified with grades C (severe stenosis) and D (extreme stenosis). Post-surgical success was 85.7% at the 2-year follow-up. A weak correlation was observed between morphologic grade of stenosis and BMI. Rates of postoperative complications were similar between patients who were obese and those who were non-obese. Both cohorts had similar degree of improvement in the ODI at the 2-year followup. However, patients who were non-obese presented significantly higher surgical success than those who were obese. In ROC curve analysis, a cut-off value of ${\leq}29.1kg/m^2$ for BMI in patients with LSCS was suggestive of surgical success, with 81.1% sensitivity and 82.2% specificity (area under the curve, 0.857; 95% confidence interval, 0.788-0.927). Conclusion: This study showed that the BMI can be considered a parameter for predicting surgical success in patients with LSCS and can be useful in clinical practice.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.149-157
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• 2014

As the prediction of geomagnetic storms is becoming an important and practical problem, conditions in the Earth's magnetosphere have been studied rigorously in terms of those in the interplanetary space. Another approach to space weather forecast is to deal with it as a probabilistic geomagnetic storm forecasting problem. In this study, we carry out detailed statistical analysis of solar wind parameters and geomagnetic indices examining the dependence of the distribution on the solar cycle and annual variations. Our main findings are as follows: (1) The distribution of parameters obtained via the superimposed epoch method follows the Gaussian distribution. (2) When solar activity is at its maximum the mean value of the distribution is shifted to the direction indicating the intense environment. Furthermore, the width of the distribution becomes wider at its maximum than at its minimum so that more extreme case can be expected. (3) The distribution of some certain heliospheric parameters is less sensitive to the phase of the solar cycle and annual variations. (4) The distribution of the eastward component of the interplanetary electric field BV and the solar wind driving function BV2, however, appears to be all dependent on the solar maximum/minimum, the descending/ascending phases of the solar cycle and the equinoxes/solstices. (5) The distribution of the AE index and the Dst index shares statistical features closely with BV and $BV^2$ compared with other heliospheric parameters. In this sense, BV and $BV^2$ are more robust proxies of the geomagnetic storm. We conclude by pointing out that our results allow us to step forward in providing the occurrence probability of geomagnetic storms for space weather and physical modeling.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.15-26
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to determine the artificial intelligence-based degradation index from the image of the cross-section of the microstructure taken with a scanning electron microscope of the specimen obtained by the creep test of DA-5161 SX, a nickel-based superalloy used as a material for high-temperature parts. It proposes a new method of quantification and proposes a model that predicts degradation based on Bayesian inference without destroying components of high-temperature parts of operating equipment and a creep life prediction model that predicts Larson-Miller Parameter (LMP). It is proposed that the new degradation indexing method that infers a consistent representative value from a small amount of images based on the geometrical characteristics of the gamma prime phase, a nickel-base superalloy microstructure, and the prediction method of degradation index and LMP with information on the environmental conditions of the material without destroying high-temperature parts.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.79-100
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• 2023

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to analyze the market power of the Korea Container Shipping Market (Intra Asia, Korea-Europe, and Korea-U.S.) to verify the existence of collusion empirically, and to answer whether the joint actions of liner market participants in Korea have formed market dominance for each route. Precisely, it will be verified through the Lerner index as to whether the regional market of Asia is a monopoly, oligopoly, or perfect competition. Design/methodology - This study used a Lerner index adjusted with elasticity presented in the New Imperial Organization (NEIO) studies. NEIO refers to a series of empirical studies that estimate parameters to judge market power from industrial data. This study uses B-L empirical models by Bresnahan (1982) and Lau (1982). In addition, NEIO research data statistically contain self-regression and stability problems as price and time series data. A dynamic model following Steen and Salvanes' Error Correction Model was used to solve this problem. Findings - The empirical results are as follows. First, λ, representing market power, is nearly zero in all three markets. Second, the Korean shipping market shows low demand elasticity on average. Nevertheless, the markup is low, a characteristic that is difficult to see in other industries. Third, the Korean shipping market generally remains close to perfect competition from 2014 to 2022, but extreme market power appears in a specific period, such as COVID-19. Fourth, there was no market power in the Intra Asia market from 2008 to 2014. Originality/value - Doubts about perfect competition in the liner market continued, but there were few empirical cases. This paper confirmed that the Korea liner market is a perfect competition market. This paper is the first to implement dynamics using ECM and recursive regression to demonstrate market power in the Korean liner market by dividing the shipping market into Deep Sea and Intra Asia separately. It is also the first to prove the most controversial problems in the current shipping industry numerically and academically.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.16-16
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• 2011

Statistics of extreme rainfall play a vital role in engineering practice from the perspective of mitigation and protection of infrastructure and human life from flooding. While flood frequency assessments, based on river flood flow data are preferred, the analysis of rainfall data is often more convenient due to the finer spatial nature of rainfall recording networks, often with longer records, and potentially more easily transferable from site to site. The rainfall frequency analysis as a design tool has developed over the years in New Zealand from Seelye's daily rainfall frequency maps in 1947 to Thompson's web based tool in 2010. This paper will present a history of the development of New Zealand rainfall frequency analysis methods, and the details of the latest method, so that comparisons may in future be made with the development of Korean methods. One of the main findings in the development of methods was new knowledge on the distribution of New Zealand rainfall extremes. The High Intensity Rainfall Design System (HIRDS.V3) method (Thompson, 2011) is based upon a regional rainfall frequency analysis with the following assumptions: $\bullet$ An "index flood" rainfall regional frequency method, using the median annual maximum rainfall as the indexing variable. $\bullet$ A regional dimensionless growth curve based on the Generalised Extreme Value (GEV), and using goodness of fit test for the GEV, Gumbel (EV1), and Generalised Logistic (GLO) distributions. $\bullet$ Mapping of median annual maximum rainfall and parameters of the regional growth curves, using thin-plate smoothing splines, a $2km\times2km$ grid, L moments statistics, 10 durations from 10 minutes to 72 hours, and a maximum Average Recurrence Interval of 100 years.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.195-204
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• 2013

As drought is phenomenon of nature with unavoidability and repeated characteristic, it is necessary to plan to respond to it in advance and construct drought management system to minimize its damage. This study suggested standard for classification of drought, which is appropriate for our nation to respond to drought by assessing drought severity in the regions for this study. For data collection, 61 locations were selected - the locations keep precipitation data over 30 years of observation. And data for monthly precipitation for 37 years from 1973 were used. Based on this, this study classified unified drought interval into four levels using drought situation phases which are used in government. For standard for classification of drought severity fit to our nation, status of main drought was referred and these are classified based on accumulated probability of drought - 98~100% Exceptional Drought, 94~98% Extreme Drought, 90~94% Severe Drought, 86~90% Moderate Drought. Drought index (SPI, PDSI) was made in descending order and quantitative value of drought index fit to standard of classification for drought severity was calculated. To compare classification results of drought severity of SPI and PDSI with actual drought, comparison by year and month unit were analyzed. As a result, in comparison by year and comparison by month unit of SPI, drought index of each location was mostly identical each other between actual records and analyzed value. But in comparison by month unit of PDSI for same period, actual records did not correspond to analyzed values. This means that further study about mutual supplement for these indexes is necessary.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.1-10
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• 2022

Vegetables such as cabbage are greatly affected by natural disasters, so price fluctuations increase due to disasters such as heavy rain and disease, which affects the farm economy. Various efforts have been made to predict the price of agricultural products to solve this problem, but it is difficult to predict extreme price prediction fluctuations. In this study, cabbage prices were analyzed using the ensemble Voting technique, a method of determining the final prediction results through various classifiers by combining a single classifier. In addition, the results were compared with LSTM, a time series analysis method, and XGBoost and RandomForest, a boosting technique. Daily data was used for price data, and weather information and price index that affect cabbage prices were used. As a result of the study, the RMSE value showing the difference between the actual value and the predicted value is about 236. It is expected that this study can be used to select other time series analysis research models such as predicting agricultural product prices

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.305-312
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• 2015

The present study showed WHtR to be significantly better than BMI and WC for prediction of metabolic-related diseases in the middle-aged and older people in Korea, based on Bayesian ordered probit model analysis. The variations of WC, BMI and WHtR were compared according to the number of metabolic-related diseases such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, stroke, myocardial infarction, angina pectoris and diabetes. It was found that the three measures showed the similar variation except a very few extreme cases for age less than 40. For subjects over the age of 40, WC was not significant and WHtR gave more influence in greater variability than BMI on the number of metabolic diseases. Also, the rate of change for WHtR was higher than for BMI as the number of metabolic-related diseases increased. Specifically, the difference of the marginal effect of WHtR between no disease and only one disease was 1.81 times higher than that of BMI. Moreover, it was pointed out that the threshold value of WHtR for obesity should be considered differently by age.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.73-82
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• 2013

The main objective of this study was to evaluate Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios-based flood risk at a Si-Gun level. A bias correction using a quantile mapping method with the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution was performed to correct future precipitation data provided by the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). A series of proxy variables including CN80 (Number of days over 80 mm) and CX3h (Maximum precipitation during 3-hr) etc. were used to carry out flood risk assessment. Indicators were normalized by a Z-score method and weighted by factors estimated by principal component analysis (PCA). Flood risk evaluation was conducted for the four different time periods, i.e. 1990s, 2025s, 2055s, and 2085s, which correspond to 1976~2005, 2011~2040, 2041~2070, and 2071~2100. The average flood risk indices based on RCP4.5 scenario were 0.08, 0.16, 0.22, and 0.13 for the corresponding periods in the order of time, which increased steadily up to 2055s period and decreased. The average indices based on RCP8.5 scenario were 0.08, 0.23, 0.11, and 0.21, which decreased in the 2055s period and then increased again. Considering the average index during entire period of the future, RCP8.5 scenario resulted in greater risk than RCP4.5 scenario.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.247-252
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• 2014

Despite the facts that navigation technology and educational programs were developed, and that maritime law has been enforced strictly, the number of maritime accidents has not dropped significantly. Accident prevention is emphasized because of the extreme life, property, and environmental losses that accompany maritime accidents. Even though there are a variety of preventive activities, their performance is not satisfactory. In order to promote preventive activities and to organize safety management, a Preventive Index of Ship Accident(PISA) and a Preventive Level of Ship Accident(PLSA) which are abstracted from the statistical data of ship accidents (2009~2013) are proposed. The survey module by which these variables can be calculated is composed of preventive domains such as education, engineering, enforcement and information, and is applied for the preventive indexes measurement of cargo, passenger, tanker, tugboat and fishery ships. We compared and analyzed measured result with statistical accident rates and cases to confirm the index utilities. It was found that there is some correlation between the index value and the ship accident rate. It is expected that this index will become useful to evaluate a preventive status for the prevention of ship accidents and for the maritime safety culture.