• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.24 no.8
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• pp.1044-1050
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• 2014

Since there is no consensus about the most reliable assays to detect invasive aspergillosis from samples obtained by minimally invasive or noninvasive methods, we compared the efficacy of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for galactomannan (GM) detection and quantitative real-time PCR assay (qRT-PCR) for the diagnosis of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis. Neutropenic, male Sprague-Dawley rats (specific pathogen free; 8 weeks old; weight, $200{\pm}20g$) were immunosuppressed with cyclophosphamide and infected with Aspergillus fumigatus intratracheally. Tissue and whole blood samples were harvested on days 1, 3, 5, and 7 post-infection and examined with GM ELISA and qRT-PCR. The A. fumigatus DNA detection sequence was detected in the following number of samples from 12 immunosuppressed, infected rats examined on the scheduled days: day 1 (0/12), day 3 (0/12), day 5 (6/12), and day 7 (8/12) post-infection. The sensitivity and specificity of the qRT-PCR assay was 29.2% and 100%, respectively. Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis indicated a Ct (cycle threshold) cut-off value of 15.35, and the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.627. The GM assay detected antigen in sera obtained on day 1 (5/12), day 3 (9/12), day 5 (12/12), and day 7 (12/12) post-infection, and thus had a sensitivity of 79.2% and a specificity of 100%. The ROC of the GM assay indicated that the optimal Ct cut-off value was 1.40 (AUC, 0.919). The GM assay was more sensitive than the qRT-PCR assay in diagnosing invasive pulmonary aspergillosis in rats.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.30 no.8
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• pp.798-807
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• 2008

Due to economic impairment derived from metal corrosion of pumping station installed around coastal area, it was needed for related cause-effect to be investigated for understanding practical corrosion behavior and providing proper control. This research was thus carried out to determine whether the microbe can influence on metal corrosion along with its control in the laboratory. For this study, groundwater was sampled from the underground pump station(i.e. I Gas Station) where corrosion was observed. Microbial diversity on the samples were then obtained by 16S rDNA methods. From this, microbial populations showing corrosion behaviors against metals were reported as Leptothrix sp.(Iron oxidizing) and Desulfovibrio sp.(Sulfur reducing) Iron oxidizing bacteria were dominantly participating in the corrosion of iron, while sulfate reducing bacteria were more preferably producing precipitate of iron. In case of galvanized steel and stainless steel, iron oxidizing bacteria not only enhanced the corrosion, but also generated its scale of precipitate. Sulfate reducing bacteria had zinc steel corroded greater extent than that of iron oxidizing bacteria. In the inactivation test, chlorine or UV exposure could efficiently control bacterial growth. However as the inactivation intensity being increased beyond a threshold level, corrosion rate was unlikely escalated due to augmented chemical effect. It is decided that microbial corrosion could be differently taken place depending upon type of microbes or materials, although they were highly correlated. It could be efficiently retarded by given disinfection practices.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.601-611
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• 2011

Land cover changes are occurring for a variety of reasons such as urbanization, infrastructure construction, desertification, drought, flood, and so on. Many researchers have studied the cause and effect of land cover changes, and also the methods for change detection. However, most of the detection methods are based on the dichotomy of "change" and "not change" according a threshold value. In this paper, we present a change detection method with the integration of probability, spatial autocorrelation, and hotspot detection. We used the AMOEBA (A Multidirectional Ecotope-Based Algorithm) and developed the AMOEBA-CH (core hotspot) because the original algorithm tends to produce too many clusters. Our method considers the probability of land cover changes and the spatial interactions between each pixel and its neighboring pixels using a local spatial autocorrelation measure. The core hotspots of land cover changes can be delineated by a contiguity-dominance model of our AMOEBA-CH method. We tested our algorithm in a simulation for land cover changes using NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) data in South Korea between 2000 and 2008.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.95-103
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• 2009

An efficient symbol time synchronization scheme for IEEE 802.11n MIMO-OFDM based WLAN systems using cyclic shift diversity (CSD) preamble is proposed. CSD is used to prevent unintentional beamforming when the same preamble signal is transmitted through transmit antennas. However, it is difficult to find a proper starting-point of the OFDM symbol with the conventional algorithms because of time offset by multi-peaks which are result from cross-correlation of received CSD preamble with a known short training symbol. In addition, the performance of symbol time sync. is affected by AGC and packet detection position. In this paper, an optimal symbol time synch. algorithm which is composed of the boundary detection scheme between LTS and OFDM symbols, the verification scheme for enhancement of boundary detection accuracy, and the SNR-varying threshold estimation scheme is proposed. Simulation result show that the proposed algorithm has performance gains of 4.3dB in SNR compared to the conventional algorithms at the rate of 1% sync. failure probability for $2{\times}2$ MIMO-OFDM system and 18dB at 0.1% when maximum frequency offset exists. It also can be applied to $4{\times}4$ MIMO-OFDM system without any modification. Hence, it is very suitable for MIMO-OFDM WLAN systems using CSD preamble.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.143-151
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• 2016

The aim of this study is to investigate the optimal algorithm to extract medical radiation induced pixel signal from complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensors of smartphones camera. The pixel intensity and pixel number of smartphone camera were measured as the X-ray dose was increased. The front camera of the smartphone camera has low noise property and excellent dose response as compared to the back camera of the smartphone. The indirect method which uses scintillation crystal in front of the smartphone camera, couldn't improve the X-ray detection efficiency as compared to the direct method which does not use any scintillator in front of the smartphone camera. When we used the algorithm which employing threshold level on the pixel intensity and pixel number, the dose linearity was more higher for the pixel intensity rather for the pixel number. The use of pixel intensity of Y color component which represents the grey scale, would be efficient in terms of the radiation detection efficiency and reducing the complexity of the image processing. We expect that the radiation dose monitoring can be managed effectively and systematically by using the proposed radiation detection algorithm, thus eventually will contribute to the public healthcare.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.19-25
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• 2008

In this study, we fabricated Organic Thin Film Transistors(OTFTs) with $C_{60}$ hole injection layer between organic semiconductor(pentacene) and metal electrode, and we compared the electrical characteristics of OTFTs with/without $C_{60}$. When the $C_{60}$ hole injection layer was introduced, the mobility and the threshold voltage were improved from 0.298 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$ and -13.3V to 0.452 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$ and -10.8V, and the contact resistance was also reduced. When the $C_{60}$ is inserted, the hole injection was enhanced because the $C_{60}$ prevent the unwanted chemical reaction between pentacene and Au. Furthermore, we fabricated the OTFTs using Al as their electrodes. When the OTFTs were made by only aluminum electrode, the channel were not mostly made because of the high hole injection barrier between pentacene and aluminum, but when the $C_{60}$ layer with an optimal thickness was applied between aluminum and pentacene, the device performances were obviously enhanced because of the vacuum energy level shift of Al and the consequent decrease of the hole injection barrier which was induced by the interface dipole formation between $C_{60}$ and Al. The mobility and $I_{ON}/I_{OFF}$ current ratio of OTFT with $C_{60}/Al$ electrode were 0.165 $cm^2/V{\cdot}s$ and $1.4{\times}10^4$ which were comparable with the normal Au electrode OTFT.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.1-23
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• 2020

This paper introduces SNUDM, an analysis program for Ratcliff's diffusion model, which has been one of the most important models in cognitive psychology over the past 35 years and which has come to occupy an important place in cognitive neuroscience in recent years. The analysis tool is designed with the basic principles of easy comprehension and simplicity in use. A diffusion process was programmed as the limit of a simple random walk in a manner resembling Ratcliff & Tuerlinckx(2002). The response time distribution of the model was constructed by simulating the time taken by a random walk until it reaches a threshold with small steps. The optimal parameter values in the model are found to be the smallest value of the chi-square values obtained by comparing the resulting distribution and the experimental data using Simplex method. For simplicity and ease of use, the input file used here is created as a file containing the quantile of the reaction time, the trials and other information. The number of participants and the number of conditions required for such work programs are given in a way that answers the question. Using this analysis tool, the experimental data of Ratcliff, Gomez, & McKoon(2004) were analyzed. We found the very similar pattern of parameter values to Ratcliff et al.(2004) found. When comparing DMAT, fast-dm and SNUDM with the generated data, we found that when the number of trials is small, SNUDM estimates the boundary parameter to a value similar to fast-dm and less than the DMAT. In addition, when the number of trials was large, it was confirmed that all three tools estimate parameters similarly.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.171-178
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• 2010

Pipeline structure is one of core underground infrastructure which transports primary sources. Since the almost pipeline structures are placed underground and connected each other complexly, it is difficult to monitor their structural health condition continuously. In order to overcome this limitation of recent monitoring technique, recently, a Ubiquitous Sensor Network (USN) system based on on-line and real-time monitoring system is being developed by the authors' research group. In this study, real-time pipeline health monitoring (PHM) methodology is presented based on electromechanical impedance methods using USN. Two types of damages including loosened bolts and notches are artificially inflicted on the pipeline structures, PZT and MFC sensors that have piezoelectric characteristics are employed to detect these damages. For objective evaluation of pipeline conditions, Damage metric such as Root Mean Square Deviation (RMSD) value was computed from the impedance signals to quantify the level of the damage. Optimal threshold levels for decision making are estimated by generalized extreme value(GEV) based statistical method. Throughout a series of experimental studies, it was reviewed the effectiveness and robustness of proposed PHM system.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.163-172
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• 2007

A seafloor curvature measurement method was developed to extract redundant topographic features from the multi-beam bathymetry data, and then applied to the data of abyssal plain area in the Pacific. Any seafloor might be modeled to a quadratic surface determined in a linear least squares sense, and its curvature could be derived from the eigen values related with quadratic model parameters. The curvature's magnitude as well as polarity showed distinct relationship with geometric characteristics of the seafloor like as ridge and valley. From the investigation of curvature's variation with the number of data in the quadratic surface, the optimal size of data aperture could be applied to real bathymetry data. The application to real data also required the determination of the accompanying threshold values to cope with corresponding topographic features. The calculation method of previous studies were reported to be sensitive to the background noise. The improved curvature measurement method, incorporating the sum of eigen values has reduced unwanted artifacts and enhanced ability to extract lineament features along strike direction. The result of application shows that the curvature measurement method is effective tool for the estimation of a possible mining area in the seamount free abyssal hill area.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.1765-1777
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• 2014

This study evaluated PMM (Probability Matching Method) for parameter estimation of the Z - R relation. As a first step, the sensitivity analysis was done to decide the threshold number of data pairs and the data interval for the development of a histogram. As a result, it was found that at least 1,000 number of data pairs are required to apply the PMM for the parameter estimation. This amount of data is similar to that collected for two hours. Also, the number of intervals for the histogram was found to be at least 100. Additionally, it was found that the matching the first-order moment is better than the cumulative probability, and that the data pairs comprising 30 to 100% are better for the PMM application. Finally, above findings were applied to a real rainfall event observed by the Bislsan radar and optimal parameters were estimated. The radar rain rate derived by applying these parameters was found to be well matched to the rain gauge rain rate.