• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.529-545
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• 2012

Three-dimensional (3D) finite element analyses have been performed to study the behaviour of a single pile to open face tunnelling in stiff clay. Several key factors such as tunnelling-induced ground and pile settlement, and shear transfer mechanism have been studied in detail. Tunnelling resulted in the development of pile settlement larger than the Greenfield soil surface settlement. In addition, due to changes in the shear transfer between the pile and the soil next to the pile with tunnel advancement, axial force distributions along the pile change drastically. The apparent allowable pile capacity was reduced up to about 30% due to the development of tunnelling-induced pile head settlement. The skin friction on the pile was increased with tunnel advancement associated with the changes of soil stresses and ground deformation and hence axial pile force distribution was reduced. Maximum tunnelling-induced tensile force on the pile was about 21% of the designed pile capacity. The zone of influence on the pile behaviour in the longitudinal direction may be identified as ${\pm}1$-2D (D: tunnel diameter) from the pile centre (behind and ahead of the pile axis in the longitudinal direction) based on the analysis conditions assumed in the current study. Negative excess pore pressure was mobilised near the pile tip, while positive excess pore pressure was computed at the upper part of the pile. It has been found that the serviceability of a pile experiencing adjacent tunnelling is more affected by pile settlement than axial pile force changes.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.32 no.2C
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• pp.141-149
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• 2007

Associating the shoulder line with head location of the human body is useful in verifying, localizing and tracking persons in an image. Since the head line and the shoulder line, what we call ${\Omega}$-shape, move together in a consistent way within a limited range of deformation, we can build a statistical shape model using Active Shape Model (ASM). However, when the conventional ASM is applied to ${\Omega}$-shape fitting, it is very sensitive to background edges and clutter because it relies only on the local edge or gradient. Even though appearance is a good alternative feature for matching the target object to image, it is difficult to learn the appearance of the ${\Omega}$-shape because of the significant difference between people's skin, hair and clothes, and because appearance does not remain the same throughout the entire video. Therefore, instead of teaming appearance or updating appearance as it changes, we model the discriminative appearance where each pixel is classified into head, torso and background classes, and update the classifier to obtain the appropriate discriminative appearance in the current frame. Accordingly, we make use of two features in fitting ${\Omega}$-shape, edge gradient which is used for localization, and discriminative appearance which contributes to stability of the tracker. The simulation results show that the proposed method is very robust to pose change, occlusion, and illumination change in tracking the head and shoulder line of people. Another advantage is that the proposed method operates in real time.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.269-278
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• 2012

Aquaplast Thermoplastic (AT) is a tissue-equivalent oral compensator that has been developed to improve dose uniformity at the common boundary and around the treated area during radiotherapy in patients with head and neck cancer. In order to assess the usefulness of AT, the degree of improvement in dose distribution and physical properties were compared to those of oral compensators made using paraffin, alginate, and putty, which are materials conventionally used in dental imprinting. To assess the physical properties, strength evaluations (compression and drop evaluations) and natural deformation evaluations (volume change over time) were performed; a Gafchromic EBT2 film and a glass dosimeter inserted into a developed phantom for dose verification were used to measure the common boundary dose and the beam profile to assess the dose delivery. When the natural deformation of the oral compensators was assessed over a two-month period, alginate exhibited a maximum of 80% change in volume from moisture evaporation, while the remaining tissue-equivalent properties, including those of AT, showed a change in volume that was less than 3%. In a free-fall test at a height of 1.5 m (repeated 5 times as a strength evaluation), paraffin was easily damaged by the impact, but AT exhibited no damage from the fall. In compressive strength testing, AT was not destroyed even at 8 times the force needed for paraffin. In dose verification using a glass dosimeter, the results showed that in a single test, the tissue-equivalent (about 80 Hounsfield Units [HU]) AT delivered about 4.9% lower surface dose in terms of delivery of an output coefficient (monitor unit), which was 4% lower than putty and exhibited a value of about 1,000 HU or higher during a dose delivery of the same formulation. In addition, when the incident direction of the beam was used as a reference, the uniformity of the dose, as assessed from the beam profile at the boundary after passing through the oral compensators, was 11.41, 3.98, and 4.30 for air, AT, and putty, respectively. The AT oral compensator had a higher strength and lower probability of material transformation than the oral compensators conventionally used as a tissue-equivalent material, and a uniform dose distribution was successfully formed at the boundary and surrounding area including the mouth. It was also possible to deliver a uniformly formulated dose and reduce the skin dose delivery.