• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.31-36
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• 1995

Solid dispersions and inclusion complex were prepared for the enhancement of solubility and dissolution rate of poorly water-soluble ibuprofen(IPF) as a model drug. Polyethylene glycol 4000(PEG4000) and polyvinylpyrrolidone(PVP) were used for the preparation of solid dispersion. $2-Hydroxypropyl-{\beta}-cyclodextrin(2-HP{\beta}CD)$ was also used for the preparation of inclusion complex. The solubility of IPF increased as the concentration of PEG4000, PVP and $2-HP{\beta}CD$ increased. Solubilization capacity of $2-HP{\beta}CD$ was increased about 10 times when compared to PEG 4000 and PVP. The dissolution rate of drug from solid dispersions and inclusion complex in the simulated gastric fluid was enhanced when compared to pure IPF and commercial $BR4^{\circledR}$ tablet as a result of improvement of solubility. In case of solid dispersions, dissolution rate of drug was proportional to polymer concentration in the formulation. The marked enhancement of dissolution rate of drug by inclusion complexation with $2-HP{\beta}CD$ was noted. However, dissolution rate of drug from solid dispersions and inclusion complex in the simulated intestinal fluid was not significant because IPF was readily soluble in that condition. From these findings, water-soluble polymers and cyclodextrin were useful to improve solubility and dissolution rate of poorly water-soluble drugs. However, easiness and reliability of preparation method, scale-up and cost of raw materials must be considered for the practical application of solid dispersion and inclusion complex in pharmaceutical industry.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.175-184
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• 2008

Uncertainties are unavoidable in engineering applications. In this paper we propose an alpha reliable multi-variable network design problem under demand uncertainty. In order to decide the optimal capacity enhancement, three performance measures based on 3E(Efficiency, Equity, and Environmental) are considered. The objective is to minimize the total budget required to satisfy alpha reliability constraint of total travel time, equity ratio, and total emission, while considering the route choice behavior of network users. The problem is formulated as the chance-constrained model for application of alpha confidence level and solved as a lexicographic optimization problem to consider the multi-variable. A simulation-based genetic algorithm procedure is developed to solve this complex network design problem(NDP). A simple numerical example ispresented to illustrate the features of the proposed NDP model.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.3 no.6
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• pp.231-236
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• 2014

The transit time of contrast agents and the parameters of time-intensity curves in ultrasonography are important factors to diagnose various diseases of a digestive organ. We have implemented an automatic parametric imaging method to overcome the difficulty of the diagnosis by naked eyes. However, the micro-bubble noise and the respiratory motions may degrade the reliability of the parameter images. In this paper, we introduce an optimization technique based on MRF(Markov Random Field) model to enhance the quality of the parameter images, and present an image tracking algorithm to compensate the image distortion by respiratory motions. A method to extract the respiration periods from the ultrasound image sequence has been developed. We have implemented the ROI(Region of Interest) tracking algorithm using the dynamic weights and a momentum factor based on these periods. An energy function is defined for the Gibbs sampler of the image enhancement method. Through the experiments using the data to diagnose liver lesions, we have shown that the proposed method improves the quality of the parametric images.

• Journal of KIISE
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• v.42 no.7
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• pp.910-918
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• 2015

This paper presents a parameter visualization technique to overcome the limitation of the naked eye in contrast-enhanced ultrasonography. A method is also proposed to compensate for the distortion and noise in ultrasound image sequences. Meaningful parameters for diagnosing liver disease can be extracted from the dynamic patterns of the contrast enhancement in ultrasound images. The visualization technique can provide more accurate information by generating a parametric image from the dynamic data. Respiratory motions and noise from micro-bubble in ultrasound data may cause a degradation of the reliability of the diagnostic parameters. A multi-stage algorithm for respiratory motion tracking and an image enhancement technique based on the Markov Random Field are proposed. The usefulness of the proposed methods is empirically discussed through experiments by using a set of clinical data.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1066-1076
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• 2018

Objective: The reliability of size measurements of liver metastases from neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) on contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) phases made by different readers may be hampered due to transient, variable rim enhancement in arterial phase (AP) or portal venous phase (PVP) images. We aimed to assess the reliability of tumor size measurements in pre- and post-contrast scans. Materials and Methods: The study coordinator selected target lesions according to Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors 1.1 guidelines in 44 consecutive patients with pathologically confirmed NET liver metastases. Two blinded readers measured the longest diameters of target lesions on pre-contrast, AP, and PVP images twice with a 4-week interval. Inter- and intra-observer agreements were evaluated using Bland-Altman plots and 95% limit of agreement (LOA) calculations. Results: Of the 79 target lesions (approximate mean size of 3 cm), 45 showed rim enhancement. Inter-observer agreement assessed based on LOA was highest in pre-contrast CT images (-6.1-5.7 mm), followed by PVP (-7.9-7.1 mm) and AP (-8.5-7.4 mm) images. Intra-observer agreement showed the same trend: -2.8-2.9 mm and -2.9-2.9 mm for readers 1 and 2, respectively, on pre-contrast CT, -2.8-2.9 mm and -3.0-3.2 mm, respectively, on PVP, and -3.2-4.2 mm and -3.4-3.2 mm, respectively, on AP images. Mean tumor diameters differed significantly among the phases in the following increasing order: pre-contrast CT, PVP, and AP images. Conclusion: There was better inter- and intra-observer agreement in size measurements of NET liver metastases on pre-contrast scans than on AP and PVP scans. Pre-contrast CT may be the optimal for measuring NET liver metastases if its accuracy is proven.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.13-24
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• 2002

Reduction and prevention of human error is one of the major interests for the enhancement of system safety and availability in Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). As human beings have become the weak point in the system safety, a systematic evaluation on human performance during emergency situation should be performed in advance to identify the potential vulnerability of human tasks. Though the data gathering and analysis from real field is an important precondition, there were no available data in nuclear field of korea. This paper presents the result of human performance analysis on emergency tasks in NNPs. Firstly, a task analysis was performed to identify the characteristics of operator tasks during emergency condition and to classify them into a set of generic emergency tasks. Secondly, simulation data were collected and analyzed for the emergency tasks using the full scope simulator of Younggwang NPPs. The analyzed human performance information cover the event diagnosis time, the execution time of each procedural step, observation parameters, typer of irrelevant response, pattern of communication among staffs, and so on. These performance data would be used for human reliability analysis and the research of human error as technical bases.

• Journal of Institute of Convergence Technology
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.15-18
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• 2013

The next generation alternative fuel of diesel, DME (Dimethyl Ether) discharges particulate matter hardly due to chemical structural as oxygen-fuel so it has the eco-friendly property. Despite these advantages, the DME has the technical difficulties to apply to the diesel engine because of a low calorific value, viscosity and compressibility effects. From this point of view, we performed experimental studies on improved reliability of DME common-rail vehicle and lubricity enhancement of DME fuel for empirical distribution of eco-friendly DME fuel. Also we analyzed solubility of lubrication enhancer according to a drop in temperature, try to secure reliability about core parts of DME vehicle by applying lubrication enhancer in the DME common-rail vehicle.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.303-316
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• 2004

Recently, with the improvement of national income, the increase of int e rest in the consumers, health, and the enhancement of recognition of environment the demands of environmental-friendly agricultural products(EFAPs) are on the rise rapidly. The demand in the market for EFAPs increases rapidly, and the sales amount increases by 30~40% every year. But, it is in situation that the EFAPs arc not distributed well between the producers and consumers now. That is, the producers of EFAPs can not End th e ir markets. And, the consumers do not trust the EFAPs. Also, it is in situation that it is difficult to promote the demand because of relatively higher prices than the general agricultural products. To solve these problems, it may be summed up as follows. First, it needs to reduce the distribution cost by the construction of stable supply basis. Second, it needs to improve the distribution system of EFAPs. Third, it needs to enhance the differentiation and improve the consumers, reliability. Fourth, it needs to make in brand and extend the various publicities. Fifth, it needs to construct the supporting system and enhance the cooperation with the related institutions. Sixth, it needs to End new demand and introduce the procurement system by the government.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.13 no.6 s.59
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• pp.934-945
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to investigate the content and presentation style of consumer information of Korean young casual apparel brand. To collect the data for this study, the representative 25 casual brand web sites were selected, based on major search engines. In addition, to investigate exact product information, four product categories, knit shirts and casual pants for men and women, were selected and the number of products was limited as maximum 15 products per each category. A coding instrument was developed to capture the consumer information, based on the instrument by Park and Stoel(2002). The Pretest was conducted to gauge inter-coder reliability and the results showed that inter-coder reliability was highly acceptable. The results of this study were as follows. Most casual brand web sites for this study were presented well in brand and customer service information. Especially, many web sites provided various engaging information such as various events(best dresser contest, date with a star, special gift) and useful multimedia file(MP3 music file, screen saver, movie, calender). However, product information was very lack in most web sites. Especially, sizing and fitting information and textile and fabric hand information were rarely provided. Therefore, this result showed that the web sites should provide more specific product information and develop devices to get tactile sensory and experiential information for enhancement of future e-commerce of apparel products.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.8
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• pp.1004-1009
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• 2014

The redundancy allocation problem has usually considered only the component redundancy at the lowest-level for the enhancement of system reliability. A system can be functionally decomposed into system, module, and component levels. Modular redundancy can be more effective than component redundancy at the lowest-level because in modular systems, duplicating a module composed of several components can be easier, and requires less time and skill. We consider a multi-level redundancy allocation problem in which all cases of redundancy for system, module, and component levels are considered. A tabu search of memory-based mechanisms that balances intensification with diversification via the short-term and long-term memory is proposed for its solution. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to use a tabu search for this problem. Our tabu search algorithm is compared with the previous genetic algorithm for the problem on the new composed test problems as well as the benchmark problems from the literature. Computational results show that the proposed method outstandingly outperforms the genetic algorithm for almost all test problems.