• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.8-13
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• 2013

Persons with sensorineural hearing impairment have troubles in hearing at noisy environments because of their deteriorated hearing levels and low-spectral resolution of the auditory system and therefore, they use hearing aids to compensate weakened hearing abilities. Various algorithms for hearing loss compensation and environmental noise reduction have been implemented in the hearing aid; however, the performance of these algorithms vary in accordance with external sound situations and therefore, it is important to tune the operation of the hearing aid appropriately in accordance with a wide variety of sound situations. In this study, a sound classification algorithm that can be applied to the hearing aid was suggested. The proposed algorithm can classify the different types of speech situations into four categories: 1) speech-only, 2) noise-only, 3) speech-in-noise, and 4) music-only. The proposed classification algorithm consists of two sub-parts: a feature extractor and a speech situation classifier. The former extracts seven characteristic features - short time energy and zero crossing rate in the time domain; spectral centroid, spectral flux and spectral roll-off in the frequency domain; mel frequency cepstral coefficients and power values of mel bands - from the recent input signals of two microphones, and the latter classifies the current speech situation. The experimental results showed that the proposed algorithm could classify the kinds of speech situations with an accuracy of over 94.4%. Based on these results, we believe that the proposed algorithm can be applied to the hearing aid to improve speech intelligibility in noisy environments.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.287-311
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• 2013

The arbitration parties may disagree with the arbitrator's award about whether they are eligible for the dispute case. While lots of disputes cases relating to subrogation are arising, it is not easy to find subrogation arbitration system to handle them clearly. The main issue is an availability of subrogation arbitration in case of the dispute which the insurer requests the arbitration against the carrier according to the arbitration clause of Bill of Lading. The direct parties of arbitration clause of the B/L are the carrier and the holder of the B/L. Could the insurer get the position of the arbitration party in stead of the holder of the B/L after compensation if there was an accident of insurance on the way of carriage? Even though there are a few arbitral awards of subrogation, the reason of the eligibility of subrogation arbitration is not enough. This paper scrutinized precedent research papers, arbitration awards, judicial precedents, and the Automobile Subrogation Arbitration System. Vague dispute resolution system which burden corporations with so many costs must be not good for business. In the view of economic efficiency, blank of contract, reciprocality, and Coase Theorem, it is recommended that subrogation arbitration system for the international trade would be better focus on the hypothesis of "Firm Offer Character of Arbitration Clause."

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.99-99
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• 2013

In this talk, I will present two research works in progress, which are: i) mapping of piezoelectric polarization and associated charge density distribution in the heteroepitaxial InGaN/GaN multi-quantum well (MQW) structure of a light emitting diode (LED) by using inline electron holography and ii) in-situ observation of the polarization switching process of an ferroelectric Pb(Zr1-x,Tix)O3 (PZT) thin film capacitor under an applied electric field in transmission electron microscope (TEM). In the first part, I will show that strain as well as total charge density distributions can be mapped quantitatively across all the functional layers constituting a LED, including n-type GaN, InGaN/GaN MQWs, and p-type GaN with sub-nm spatial resolution (~0.8 nm) by using inline electron holography. The experimentally obtained strain maps were verified by comparison with finite element method simulations and confirmed that not only InGaN QWs (2.5 nm in thickness) but also GaN QBs (10 nm in thickness) in the MQW structure are strained complementary to accommodate the lattice misfit strain. Because of this complementary strain of GaN QBs, the strain gradient and also (piezoelectric) polarization gradient across the MQW changes more steeply than expected, resulting in more polarization charge density at the MQW interfaces than the typically expected value from the spontaneous polarization mismatch alone. By quantitative and comparative analysis of the total charge density map with the polarization charge map, we can clarify what extent of the polarization charges are compensated by the electrons supplied from the n-doped GaN QBs. Comparison with the simulated energy band diagrams with various screening parameters show that only 60% of the net polarization charges are compensated by the electrons from the GaN QBs, which results in the internal field of ~2.0 MV cm-1 across each pair of GaN/InGaN of the MQW structure. In the second part of my talk, I will present in-situ observations of the polarization switching process of a planar Ni/PZT/SrRuO3 capacitor using TEM. We observed the preferential, but asymmetric, nucleation and forward growth of switched c-domains at the PZT/electrode interfaces arising from the built-in electric field beneath each interface. The subsequent sideways growth was inhibited by the depolarization field due to the imperfect charge compensation at the counter electrode and preexisting a-domain walls, leading to asymmetric switching. It was found that the preexisting a-domains split into fine a- and c-domains constituting a $90^{\circ}$ stripe domain pattern during the $180^{\circ}$ polarization switching process, revealing that these domains also actively participated in the out-of-plane polarization switching. The real-time observations uncovered the origin of the switching asymmetry and further clarified the importance of charged domain walls and the interfaces with electrodes in the ferroelectric switching processes.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.311-326
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• 2018

This paper has experimented using News sample video with QCIF ($176{\times}144$) resolution in JM v10.2 code of H.264/AVC-MPEG. The region of interest (ROI) to be encrypted occurred the drift by unnecessarily referring to each frame continuously in accordance with the characteristics of the motion prediction and compensation of the H.264 standard. In order to mitigate the drift, the latest related research method of re-inserting encrypted I-picture into a certain period leads to an increase in the amount of additional computation that becomes the factor increasing the bit-rate overhead of the entire video. Therefore, the reference search range of the block and the frame in the ROI to be encrypted is restricted in the motion prediction and compensation for each frame, and the reference search range in the non-ROI not to be encrypted is not restricted to maintain the normal encoding efficiency. In this way, after encoding the video with restricted reference search range, this article proposes a method of RC4 bit-stream encryption for the ROI such as the face to be able to identify in order to protect personal information in the video. Also, it is compared and analyzed the experimental results after implementing the unencrypted original video, the latest related research method, and the proposed method in the condition of the same environment. In contrast to the latest related research method, the bit-rate overhead of the proposed method is 2.35% higher than that of the original video and 14.93% lower than that of the latest related method, while mitigating temporal drift through the proposed method. These improved results have verified by experiments of this study.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.225-266
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• 2018

In 2017, 1,252 cases of damages relief related to air passenger transport service were received by the Korea Consumer Agency, a 0.8% drop from 1,262 cases in 2016, the first decline since 2013. In 2017, 444 cases (35.4%) out of received cases of damages relief in the field of air passenger service received by the Korea Consumer Agency were agreed on, and out of cases that were not agreed on, the most number of 588 cases (47.0%) were concluded due to information provision and counseling, and 186 cases (14.9%) were applied to the mediation of the Consumer Dispute Mediation Committee. Major legislations that contain regulations for the damages relief and disputes resolution of air service consumers include the Aviation Business Act and the Consumer Fundamental Act, etc. The Aviation Business Act provides the establishment and implementation of damage relief procedure and handling plan, and the receiving and handling of request of damage relief by air transport businessman, and the notice of protection standard for air traffic users. The Consumer Fundamental Act provides the establishment and management of the consumer counseling organization, the damage relief by the Korea Consumer Agency, the consumer dispute mediation, and the enactment of the criteria for resolving consumer disputes. The procedures for damages relief of air service consumers include the receiving and handling of damages relief by air transport businessman, the counseling, and receiving and handling of damages relief by the Consumer Counseling Center, the advice of mutual agreement by the Korea Consumer Agency, and the dispute mediation system by the Consumer Dispute Mediation Committee. The current system of damage relief and dispute mediation for air service consumer have the problem in the exemption from obligation of establishment and implementation of damage relief plan by air transport businessman under the Aviation Business Act, the problem in the exemption from liability in case of nonfulfillment and delay of transport by aviation businessman under the criteria for resolving consumer disputes in the aviation sector, and the uppermost limit in procedure progress and completion of consumer dispute mediation under the Consumer Fundamental Act. Therefore, the improvement measurements of the relevant system for proper damage relief and smooth dispute mediation for air service consumer are to be suggested as follows: First is the maintenance of the relevant laws for damage relief of air service consumer. The exemption regulation from obligation of establishment and implementation of damage relief plan by air transport businessman under the Aviation Business Act shall be revised. To enhance the structualization and expertise of the relevant regulation for protection and damage relief of air service consumer, it will be necessary to prepare the separate legislation similar to the US Federal Regulation 14 CFR and EU Regulation EC Regulation 261/2004. Second is the improvement of criteria for resolving air service consumer disputes. For this, it will be necessary to investigate whether the cause of occurrence of exemption reason was force majeure, and distinguish the exemption from liability in case of nonfulfillment and delay of transport by aviation businessman under the criteria for resolving consumer disputes in the aviation sector, and revise the same as exemption reasons regulated under the air transport chapter of the Commercial Act and Montreal Convention 1999, and unify the compensation criteria for the nonfulfillment of transport that the substitute flight was provided and the delay of transport. Third is the reinforcement of information provision for damage relief of air service consumer. Aviation-related government agencies and concerned agencies should cooperate with airlines and airports to provide rapidly and clearly diverse information to the air traffic users, including laws and policies for damages relief of air service consumers. Fourth is the supplement to the effectiveness, etc. of consumer dispute mediation. If there is no sign of acceptance for dispute mediation, it is not fair to regard it as acceptance, therefore it will be necessary to add objection system. And if a dispute resolution is requested to another dispute settlement agency in addition to the Consumer Dispute Mediation Committee, it is excluded from the damage relief package, but it should be allowed for the party to choose a mediation agency. It will be necessary to devise the institutional measures to increase the completion rate of mediation so that the consumer dispute can be resolved efficiently through the mediation. Fifth is the introduction of the air service consumer arbitration system. A measure to supplement the limitations of the consumer dispute mediation system is to introduce the consumer arbitration system, but there are two measurements which are the introduction of the consumer arbitration under the Consumer Fundamental Act and the introduction of the consumer arbitration under the Arbitration Act. The latter measurement is considered to be appropriate. In conclusion, as a policy task, the government should prepare laws and system to enhance the prevention and relief of damages and protection of the rights and interests of air service consumers, and establish and implement the consumer-centric policy for the advancement of air service.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.46 no.12
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• pp.6-13
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• 2009

For X-band phased array systems, a power amplifier, a 6-bit phase shifter, a 6-bit digital attenuator, and a SPDT transmit/receive (T/R) switch are fabricated and measured. All circuits are demonstrated by using CMOS 0.18 um technology. The power amplifier has 2-stage differential and cascade structures. It provides 1-dB gain-compressed output power ($P_{1dB}$) of 20 dBm and power-added-efficiency (PAE) of 19 % at 8-11 GHz frequencies. The 6-bit phase shifter utilizes embedded switched filter structure which consists of nMOS transistors as a switch and meandered microstrip lines for desired inductances. It has $360^{\circ}$ phase-control range and $5.6^{\circ}$ phase resolution. At 8-11 GHz frequencies, it has RMS phase and amplitude errors are below $5^{\circ}$ and 0.8 dB, and insertion loss of $-15.7\;{\pm}\;1,1\;dB$. The 6-bit digital attenuator is comprised of embedded switched Pi-and T-type attenuators resistive networks and nMOS switches and employes compensation circuits for low insertion phase variation. It has max. attenuation of 31.5 dB and 0.5 dB amplitude resolution. Its RMS amplitude and phase errors are below 0.4 dB and $2^{\circ}$ at 8-11 GHz frequencies, and insertion loss is $-10.5\;{\pm}\;0.8\;dB$. The SPDT T/R switch has series and shunt transistor pairs on transmit and receive path, and only one inductance to reduce chip area. It shows insertion loss of -1.5 dB, return loss below -15 dB, and isolation about -30 dB. The fabricated chip areas are $1.28\;mm^2$, $1.9mm^2$, $0.34\;mm^2$, $0.02mm^2$, respectively.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2017

'The worstest environment disaster', 'World's first biocide massacre', 'Home-based Sewol ferry disaster' are all phrases attached to the recent humidifier disinfectant disaster. In the spring of 2011, four of 8 pregnant women including 1 adult man passed away at a university hospital in Seoul due to breathing failure. Epidemiologic investigation conducted by the Korean CDC soon revealed the inhalation of humidifier disinfectant, which had been widely used in Korea during the winter, to be responsible for the disease. As well as lung fibrosis hardening of the lungs, other diseases including asthma, rhinitis, skin disease, liver disease, fetal disease or cancers have been researched for their relation with exposure to the products. By February 9, 2017, 5,342 cases had registered for health problems and 1,131 of them were already dead (20.8% mortality rate). Based on studies by government agencies and a telephone survey of the general population by Seoul National University and civic groups, around 20% of the general public of Korea has used these products. Since the market release of the first product by SK Chemical in 1994, over 7.1 million items from around 20 brands were sold up to 2011. Most of the products were manufactured by well-known large conglomerates such as SK, Lotte, Samsung, Shinsegye, LG, and GS, as well as some European companies including UK-based Reckitt Benckiser and TESCO, the German firm Henkel, the Danish firm KeTox, and an Irish company. Even though this disaster was unveiled in 2011 by the Korean government, the issue of the victims was neglected for over five years. In 2016, an unexpected but intensive investigation by prosecutors found that Reckitt Benckiser manipulated and concealed animal tests for its own brand and brought several university experts and company employees to court. The matter was an intense social issue in Korea from May to June with a surge in media coverage. The prosecutor's investigation and a nationwide boycott campaign organized by victims and environmental groups against Reckitt Benckiser, whose product had been used by more than 70% of victims, led to the producer's official apology and a compensation scheme. A legislative investigation organized after the April 2016 national election revealed the producers' faults and the government's responsibility, but failed to meet expectations. A special law for the victims passed the National Assembly in January 2017 and a punitive system together with a massive environmental epidemiology investigation are expected to be the only solutions for this tragedy. Sciences of medicine, toxicology and environmental health have provided decisive evidence so far, but for the remaining problems the perspectives of social sciences such as sociology and jurisprudence are highly necessary, similar to with the Minamata disease and Wonjin Rayon events. It may not be easy to follow this issue using unfamiliar terminology from medical and chemical science and the long, complicated history of the event. For these reasons the author has attempted to write this article in a question and answer format to render it easier to follow. The 17 questions are: Q1 What is humidifier disinfectant? Q2 What kind of health problems are caused by humidifier disinfectant? Q3 How many victims are there? Q4 What is the analysis of the 1,112 cases of death? Q5 What is the problem with the government's diagnostic criteria and the solution? Q6 Who made what brands? Q7 Has there been a recall? What is still on sale? Q8 Was safety not checked by any producers? Q9 What are the government's responsibilities? Q10 Is it true that these products were sold only in Korea? Q11 Why and how was it unveiled only in 2011 after 17 years of sales? Q12 What delayed the resolution of the victim issue? Q13 What is the background of the prosecutor's investigation in early 2016? Q14 Is it possible to report new victim cases without evidence of product purchase? Q15 What is happening with the victim issue? Q16 How does it compare with the cases of Minamata disease and Wonjin Rayon? Q17 Are there prevention measures and lessons?

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.122-130
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• 2013

This work proposes a 12b 100MS/s 45nm CMOS four-step pipeline ADC for high-speed digital communication systems requiring high resolution, low power, and small size. The input SHA employs a gate-bootstrapping circuit to sample wide-band input signals with an accuracy of 12 bits or more. The input SHA and MDACs adopt two-stage op-amps with a gain-boosting technique to achieve the required DC gain and high signal swing range. In addition, cascode and Miller frequency-compensation techniques are selectively used for wide bandwidth and stable signal settling. The cascode current mirror minimizes current mismatch by channel length modulation and supply variation. The finger width of current mirrors and amplifiers is laid out in the same size to reduce device mismatch. The proposed supply- and temperature-insensitive current and voltage references are implemented on chip with optional off-chip reference voltages for various system applications. The prototype ADC in a 45nm CMOS demonstrates the measured DNL and INL within 0.88LSB and 1.46LSB, respectively. The ADC shows a maximum SNDR of 61.0dB and a maximum SFDR of 74.9dB at 100MS/s, respectively. The ADC with an active die area of $0.43mm^2$ consumes 29.8mW at 100MS/s and a 1.1V supply.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.9-27
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• 2007

The purpose of this paper is to study about the legal system of the Inter-governmental Agreement on the International Space Station('IGA') which was signed on Jan 29,1998. This paper is divided into three main parts ; 1) a review of ISS, 2) the principal rules of IGA, 3) the legal system of IGA. First, the paper draws an outline of ISS by dealing with (1) the definition, characteristics, and functions of ISS, (2) the composition of ISS. Second, the paper explains the principal rules of IGA which include (1) the rule of 'Partnership' and (2) the rule of 'Peaceful Purpose'. Third, the legal system of IGA is studied by looking at five different aspects: (1) the registration system, (2) a general jurisdiction, criminal jurisdiction and a control of jurisdiction, (3) intellectual property rights and other rights beside intellectual property, (4) cross-waiver of liability and several elements in compensation of damages, (5) the dispute resolution. IGA contains new contents and applications of legal system which was not included in the former space law. Therefore IGA will work as a model law for international cooperation of space development. It is important for us to study the matter of ISS, because disputes on the ISS are left solely to contracting parties although IGA will regulate overall situations. The renewed IGA is even more important because all the space development is expected to take place on an international cooperation basis. On the basis of this paper, all the important parts of IGA is expected to be further studied so that the research can contribute to the establishment of the legal system of space development in Korea.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.60-68
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• 2009

This work proposes a 10b 200MS/s 65nm CMOS ADC for high-definition video systems such as HDTV requiring high resolution and fast operating speed simultaneously. The proposed ADC employs a four-step pipeline architecture to minimize power consumption and chip area. The input SHA based on four capacitors reduces the output signal range from $1.4V_{p-p}$ to $1.0V_{p-p}$ considering high input signal levels at a low supply voltage of 1.2V. The proposed three-stage amplifiers in the input SHA and MDAC1 overcome the low output resistance problem as commonly observed in a 65nm CMOS process. The proposed multipath frequency-compensation technique enables the conventional RNMC based three-stage amplifiers to achieve a stable operation at a high sampling rate of 200MS/s. The conventional switched-bias power-reduction technique in the sub-ranging flash ADCs further reduces power consumption while the reference generator integrated on chip with optional off-chip reference voltages allows versatile system a locations. The prototype ADC in a 65nm CMOS technology demonstrates a measured DNL and INL within 0.19LSB and 0.61LSB, respectively. The ADC shows a maximum SNDR of 54.BdB and 52.4dB and a maximum SFDR of 72.9dB and 64.8dB at 150MS/S and 200MS/s, respectively. The proposed ADC occupies an active die area of $0.76mm^2$ and consumes 75.6mW at a 1.2V supply voltage.