• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.1053-1063
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• 2014

This study presents a sustainable design method that optimizes the embodied energy of concrete beam based on the concept of sustainable development that effectively utilizes natural resource and energy within the range that our succeeding generation can afford to utilize. In order to get the flexural strength carrying the ultimate load, concrete beam sections are designed by optimization that consists of the embodied energy as a objective function and the requirements of design code as constrained conditions. The sustainable design can be used to minimize the embodied energy consumed in material production, construction, operation, demolition of the infrastructure. As a result of comparison of the cost and the embodied energy optimizations based on practical beam sections, it is shown that 20% embodied energy saving and 35% $CO_2$ emission saving are achieved by sacrificing 10% cost increase. The sustainable design method provides a new effective methodology that manages the strength design concept based on cost minimization together with economic feasibility and sustainability. In addition, the method is expected to be applied to more various structural design practices.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.271-281
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• 2014

The physicochemical properties of clay minerals have been investigated at the atomistic to nano scale. The microscopic studies are often challenging to perform by using experimental approaches alone. In particular, hydroxyl groups of octahedral sheets in 2:1 clay minerals have been hypothesized to impact the sorption process of metal cations; however, X-ray based techniques alone, a common tool for mineral structure examination, cannot properly test the hypothesis. The current study has examined whether computational mineralogy techniques can be applied to examine the hydroxyl structures of clay minerals. Based on quantum-mechanics and molecular-mechanics computational methods, geometry optimizations were carried out for representative dioctahedral and trioctahedral phyllosilicate minerals. Both methods well reproduced the experimental lattice parameters; however, for structural distortion occurring in the tetrahedral or octahedral sheets, molecular mechanics showed significant deviations from experimental data. The orientation angle of the hydroxyl with respect to (001) basal plane is determined by the balance of repulsion between the hydroxyl proton and Si cations of tetrahedral sites; the quantum-mechanics method predicted $25-26^{\circ}$ for the angle, whereas the angle predicted by the molecular-mechanics method was much higher by $10^{\circ}$ (i.e., $35^{\circ}$). These results demonstrate that computational mineralogy techniques are a reliable tool for clay mineral studies and can be used to further elucidate the roles of hydroxyls in metal sorption process.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.35-41
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• 2007

In this work practical considerations of a pulsed arterial spin labeling MRI are presented to reliable multi-slice perfusion measurements In the human brain. Three parameters were considered in this study. First, In order to improve slice profile and Inversion efficiency of a labeling pulse a high power Inversion pulse of adiabatic hyperbolic secant was designed. A $900^{\circ}$ rotation of the flip angle was provided to make a good slice profile and excellent Inversion efficiency. Second, to minimize contributions of a residual magnetization be4ween Interleaved scans of control and labeling we tested three different conditions which were applied 1) only saturation pulses, 2) only spotter gradients, and 3) combinations of saturation pulses and spotter gradients Applications of bo4h saturation pulses and spoiler gradients minimized the residual magnetization. Finally, to find a minimum gap between a tagged plane and an imaging plane we tested signal changes of the subtracted image between control and labeled Images with varying the gap. The optimum gap was about 20mm. In conclusion, In order to obtain high quality of perfusion Images In human brain It Is Important to use optimum parameters. Before routinely using In clinical studios, we recommend to make optimizations of sequence parameters.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.19-26
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• 2009

In this paper, a new adaptive vertex clustering using a KD-tree is presented for 3D mesh partitioning. A vertex clustering is used to divide a huge 3D mesh into several partitions for various mesh processing. An octree-based clustering and K-means clustering are currently leading techniques. However, the octree-based methods practice uniform space divisions and so each partitioned mesh has non-uniformly distributed number of vertices and the difference in its size. The K-means clustering produces uniformly partitioned meshes but takes much time due to many repetitions and optimizations. Therefore, we propose to use a KD-tree to efficiently partition meshes with uniform number of vertices. The bounding box region of the given mesh is adaptively subdivided according to the number of vertices included and dynamically determined axis. As a result, the partitioned meshes have a property of compactness with uniformly distributed vertices.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.207-212
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• 2007

[ $PSCF3737(Pr_{0.3}Sr_{0.7}Co_{0.3}Fe_{0.7}O_3)$ ] is a good candidate cathode material for IT-SOFC(intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cell) because of high MIEC(mixed ionic electronic conductor) conductivity. In this study, the characteristics of PSCF3737 was investigated and optimizations of sintering temperature and thickness for $PSCF3737(Pr_{0.3}Sr_{0.7}Co_{0.3}Fe_{0.7}O_3)$ was carried out. Impedance responses were divided into two parts by frequency region. Middle frequency part (${\sim}10^2\;Hz$) was concerned with oxygen reduction reaction on surface and low frequency part (${\sim}10^{-1}\;Hz$) was related with oxygen diffusion. The reasonable sintering temperature and thickness of cathode were $1200^{\circ}C$ and about $27\;{\mu}m$ with regard to EIS(electrochemical impedance spectroscopy). ASR(areas specific resistance) of optimized cathode is $0.115\;{\Omega}\;cm^2$ at $700^{\circ}C$.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.33 no.12
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• pp.1401-1409
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• 2009

All the forces in the real world act dynamically on structures. Design and analysis should be performed based on the dynamic loads for the safety of structures. Dynamic (transient or vibrational) responses have many peaks in the time domain. Topology optimization, which gives an excellent conceptual design, mainly has been performed with static loads. In topology optimization, the number of design variables is quite large and considering the peaks is fairly costly. Topology optimization in the frequency domain has been performed to consider the dynamic effects; however, it is not sufficient to fully include the dynamic characteristics. In this research, linear dynamic response topology optimization is performed in the time domain. First, the necessity of topology optimization to directly consider the dynamic loads is verified by identifying the relationship between the natural frequency of a structure and the excitation frequency. When the natural frequency of a structure is low, the dynamic characteristics (inertia effect) should be considered. The equivalent static loads (ESLs) method is proposed for linear dynamic response topology optimization. ESLs are made to generate the same response field as that from dynamic loads at each time step of dynamic response analysis. The method was originally developed for size and shape optimizations. The original method is expanded to topology optimization under dynamic loads. At each time step of dynamic analysis, ESLs are calculated and ESLs are used as the external loads in static response topology optimization. The results of topology optimization are used to update the design variables (density of finite elements) and the updated design variables are used in dynamic analysis in a cyclic manner until the convergence criteria are satisfied. The updating rules and convergence criteria in the ESLs method are newly proposed for linear dynamic response topology optimization. The proposed updating rules are the artificial material method and the element elimination method. The artificial material method updates the material property for dynamic analysis at the next cycle using the results of topology optimization. The element elimination method is proposed to remove the element which has low density when static topology optimization is finished. These proposed methods are applied to some examples. The results are discussed in comparison with conventional linear static response topology optimization.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.183-191
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• 2010

In this study, the patient with localized prostate cancer who had previously been treated at Ajou University Hospital was randomly selected since March, 2009. we performed IMRT and 2RA plans and the same dose objectives were used for CTVs, PTVs, rectum, bladder, and femoral head of the respective plans. Arc optimizations and dose calculations were performed using Eclipse versions 8.6. In this paper, we evaluated the performance of IMRT and RA plans to investigate the clinical effect of RA for prostate cancer case. In our comparison of treatment techniques, RA was found to be superior to IMRT being better dose conformity of target volume. As for the rectum and bladder, RA was better than IMRT at decreasing the volume irradiated. RA has the ability to avoid critical organs selectively through applied same dose constraints while maximally treating the target dose. Therefore, this result suggests that there should be less rectal toxicity with RA compared with IMRT, with no compromise in tumor margin. These findings, which show more favorable rectal, bladder, and femoral head DVHs with RA, imply that should not result in excess risk of toxicity when this technique is used. Many experiences with RA have shown not only dosimetric advantage, but also improved clinical toxicity when comparing with IMRT. The main drawbacks of RA are the more complex and time-consuming treatment planning process and the need for more exact physics quality assurance (QA).

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.215-222
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• 2020

Metformin is a recommended first-line therapy drug for type 2 diabetes patients. However, compared to other oral antidiabetic drugs (OAD), metformin has a large unit dosage, with bioavailability of 40-60%. This limiting bioavailability is because metformin is absorbed only in the upper gastrointestinal tract as a BCS class 3 drug. Hence, we propose that applying the Gastroretentive Drug Delivery System (GRDDS) and extending drug release time in the stomach will result in improved bioavailability. We selected the swelling type delivery system, as it is considered the most stable gastroretention technology compared to other GRDDSs. We modified the swelling excipient by using a natural swelling excipient to form a swelling tablet made of carrageenan and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC). Our results indicate that the swelling complex tablet made of carrageenan and HPMC has a good swelling ability and shows required sustained release in a dissolution pattern. In addition, the carrageenan complex has a better swelling ability than the marketed metformin tablet, as determined by the ratio, (swelling ability)/(excipient weight). Taken together, our results indicate that the carrageenan complex can be developed as a good swelling excipient. Further optimizations are required for the commercialization of the carrageenan complex.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.361-371
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• 2012

In order to improve the efficiency of the branch-and-bound method for mixed-discrete nonlinear programming, a nonuniform convergence tolerance scheme is proposed for the continuous subproblem optimizations. The suggested scheme assigns the convergence tolerances for each continuous subproblem optimization according to the maximum constraint violation obtained from the first iteration of each subproblem optimization in order to reduce the total number of function evaluations needed to reach the discrete optimal solution. The proposed tolerance scheme is integrated with five branching order options. The comparative performance test results using the ten combinations of the five branching orders and two convergence tolerance schemes show that the suggested non-uniform convergence tolerance scheme is obviously superior to the uniform one. The results also show that the branching order option using the minimum clearance difference method performed best among the five branching order options. Therefore, we recommend using the "minimum clearance difference method" for branching and the "non-uniform convergence tolerance scheme" for solving discrete optimization problems.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.236-242
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• 2015

We present two data-driven modeling methods, partial least square (PLS) and artificial neural network (ANN), to predict the major operating and performance variables of a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell stack. PLS and ANN models were constructed using the experimental data obtained from the testing of a 30 kW-class PEM fuel cell stack, and then were compared with each other in terms of their prediction and computational performances. To reduce the complexity of the models, we combined a variables importance on PLS projection (VIP) as a variable selection method into the modeling procedure in which the predictor variables are selected from a set of input operation variables. The modeling results showed that the ANN models outperformed the PLS models in predicting the average cell voltage and cathode outlet temperature of the fuel cell stack. However, the PLS models also offered satisfactory prediction performances although they can only capture linear correlations between the predictor and output variables. Depending on the degree of modeling accuracy and speed, both ANN and PLS models can be employed for performance predictions, offline and online optimizations, controls, and fault diagnoses in the field of PEM fuel cell designs and operations.