• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.70 no.6
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• pp.498-503
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• 2011

Background: The causes of exertional desaturation in patients with COPD can be multifactorial. We aimed to investigate factors predict exertional desaturation in patients with moderate to severe COPD. Methods: We tested 51 consecutive patients with stable COPD (FEV1/FVC, $40{\pm}13%$ predicted). Patients performed a six minute walk test (6MWT). Pulse oxymetric saturation (SpO2) and pulse rate were recorded. Results: Oxygen desaturation was found in 15 subjects after 6MWT, while 36 subjects were not desaturated. Lung diffusing capacity was significantly lower in desaturation (DS) group ($62{\pm}18%$ predicted) compared with not desaturated (ND) group ($84{\pm}20$, p<0.01). However there was no statistical difference of FEV1/FVC ratio or residual volume between two groups. The pulse rate change was significantly higher in the desaturated compared with the not desaturated group. Six minute walking distance, subjective dyspnea scale, airflow obstruction, and residual volume did not predict exertional oxygen desaturation. Independent factors assessed by multiple logistic regression revealed that a pulse rate increment (odd ratio [OR], 1.19; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01~1.40; p=0.02), a decrease in baseline PaO2 (OR, 1.105; 95% CI, 1.003~1.218; p=0.04) and a decrease in lung diffusing capacity (OR, 1.10; 95% CI, 1.01~1.19; p=0.01) were significantly associated with oxygen desaturation. Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that an absolute increment in pulse rate of 16/min gave optimal discrimination between desaturated and not desaturated patients after 6MWT. Conclusion: Pulse rate increment and diffusion capacity can predict exertional oxygen desaturation in stable COPD patients with moderate to severe airflow obstruction.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.73-86
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• 2014

Persimmon juice dye-printed fabrics with printing were used for a Galot one-piece dress. The Galot dress was assessed in comparison to a white undyed one-piece dress of the same design through a wearing test conducted in a climatic chamber with an air temperature of $30{\pm}1^{\circ}C$, $50{\pm}5%$ R.H, and 0.2m/sec air movement on 4 healthy female subjects in their 20s. The subjects went through a 30-min stable period, a 30-min exercise of walking on a $5^{\circ}$ slope treadmill at 70m/min period, and a 20-min recovery period. In addition, a physiological reaction and subjective sensation were estimated. The results showed that significant differences were mostly observed from a sweating period that occurred during the latter half of the exercise. More specific results are as follows. First, skin temperature on the chest and mean skin temperature were significantly higher (p<.01) in rayon dyed sample dresses. Second, micro-humidity on the back showed a significant difference (p<.01). Both cotton and rayon persimmon juice dyed sample dresses produced lower microhumidity than their counterparts and as for cotton the difference occurred over the entire experimental period; however, it occurred after the middle of the exercise period for rayon. Third, the sweating rate on the back decreased in both cotton and rayon with persimmon juice dye but no significant difference was observed. Fourth, subjective three sensations revealed significant differences between cotton and rayon (p<.01), indicating that the subjects felt more cool, dryer and more comfortable in a cotton Galot. As described above, the analysis of physiological responses and the subjective sensation of undyed and dyed clothing shows the effect of persimmon juice dyeing. Persimmon juice dyeing also seemly increased air permeability, moisture regain and permeability facilitating body heat ventilation, as micro-humidity and sweat rate were lowered. However, this was not shown consistently in subjective responses on comfort especially when wearing rayon dresses.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.305-311
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• 2020

Rising sea levels along the coast from global warming causes the increase of wave energy along the coast. This rise in sea levels results in relatively deep water levels, which would incur the loss of sand that had not occurred in the past from erosion in coastal areas. Generally, it has been challenging to protect against coastal erosion, and the slope, cross-sectional shape, and materials are selected for the site conditions depending on the change in external forces. However, the application of counter measures based on insufficient understanding of the phenomenon is causing various damage, indicating the need for technological development and converging technologies to improve credibility. In this study, we developed eco-friendly permeable biopolymer concrete blocks to control the coastal erosion by using the Bio-Coast, an effective porous structure that mitigates the destructive erosion caused by the rising sea levels. The hexagonal design of Bio-Coast was derived from the honeycomb, columnar joints, and clover, which are durable and stable structures in nature, and the design was changed to apply bumps on the Bio-Coast filling in the form of a clover to reduce wave overtopping and run-up. Applying the field condition of beaches on the east coast of Korea, the block weight and size were decided and the prototype blocks were manufactured and are ready for field placement. In particular, it is intended to protect coastal areas from destructive erosion by natural and artificial external forces, and to extend the design to river,s lakes, and natural walking trails, to improve the efficiency of quality control and process control through the use of blocks.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.507-516
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• 1995

The nonstationary identifier in the DCT domain is suggested in this study for the identification of AR parameters of above-lesion upper-trunk electromyographic (EMG) signals as a means of developing a reliable real time signal to control functional electrical stimulation (FES) in paraplegics to enable primitive walking. As paraplegic shifts his posture from one attitude to another, there is transition period where the signal is clearly nonstationary. Also as muscle fatigues, nonstationarities become more prevalent even during stable postures. So, it requires a develpment of time varying nonstationary EMG signal identifier. In this paper, time varying nonstationary EMG signals are transformed into DCT domain and the transformed EMG signals are modeled and analyzed in the transform domain. In the DCT domain, we verified reduction of condition number and increment of the smallest eigenvalue of input correlation matrix that influences numerical properties and mean square error were compared with SLS algorithm, and the proposed algorithm is implemented using IMS T-805 parallel processing computer for real time application.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.487-497
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• 2014

Objective: This study aims to develop and evaluate a multi-purpose rollator, which may be used as a seat, as a traditional walker, or as a storage basket for elderly farmers. Background: The rollators on the market are not user-friendly designed and seen inconvenient for elderly farmers to use, although they are sold at considerably high price. Since they lack enough space to load stuffs and are not durable or stable enough, they do not seem to be suitable for elderly farmers to use in rural areas. Method: Two types of methods were used in this study. First, the survey consisted of 19 questions was conducted among elderly farmers in rural areas, after using the developed rollator, to evaluate the usability of the rollator developed in this study. Second, EMG experiment was conducted to compare the existing rollator and developed rollator quantitatively. Through this experiment, we tried to verify the differences of muscle responses, when using the traditional and the developed ones, which have their own brake system, in the ramp. Results: The developed rollator was highly evaluated in most of the questions in the usability survey, except for the 'Weight' category in which the opinions were divided into three different types (Worse: 31%, Similar: 30%, Better: 36%). The result of EMG experiment showed that the existing rollator (7.4%MVC) demands more muscle strength than the developed rollator (5.5%MVC) does. By statistically analyzing the results of upper limb and lower limb respectively, we found out that all the muscles except deltoid in upper limb showed statistically significant differences in muscle activity when using the existing and the developed rollator. However, there was no statistical difference in lower limb muscles. Conclusion: The developed rollator in this study has maximized the functionality of the brake system, the storage and the chair, which were pointed out as the weaknesses of existing rollators. Furthermore, the developed rollator is designed to be more user-friendly, safe, durable, and effective for elderly farmers to use in rural areas, where roads are rough and bumpy. Application: We expect that the emergency brake system developed in this study would be utilized for other convenience equipment, such as strollers and carts, and that it would be able to develop and produce more secure and reliable equipment in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.215-221
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• 2006

This paper is concerned with the control of multiple nonlinearities included in a humanoid robot system. A humanoid robot has some problems such as the structural instability, which leads to consider the control of multiple nonlinearities caused by driver parts as well as gear reducer. Saturation and backlash are typical examples of nonlinearities in the system. The conventional algorithms of backlash control were fuzzy algorithm, disturbance observer and neural network, etc. However, it is not easy to control the system by employing only single algorithm since the system usually includes multiple nonlinearities. In this paper, a switching Pill is considered for a control of saturation and a dual feedback algorithm is proposed for a backlash control. To implement the above algorithms, the system identification is firstly performed for the minimization of the difference between the results of simulation and experiment, and then the switching Pill gains are determined using genetic algorithm with some heuristic approach. The performance of the switching Pill controller for saturation and the dual feedback for backlash control is investigated through the simulation. Finally, it is shown that the implemented control system has good results and can be applied to the real humanoid robot system ISHURO.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.61 no.6
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• pp.533-546
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• 2006

Background: The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of self-efficacy promoting pulmonary rehabilitation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Methods: thirty six patients, with clinically stable COPD were randomly assigned: 18 to a rehabilitation group and another 18 as a control group, The subjects participated in a the self-efficacy promoting pulmonary rehabilitation program for 8 weeks. This program consisted of education, breathing retraining, exercise training, relaxation and counseling. The control group received education only. The outcome variables were self-efficacy, dyspnea, exercise endurance, pulmonary function, and quality of life. Dyspnea was measured using the modified Borg scale. Exercise endurance was measured by the six minute walking distance. The quality of life was measured by the quality of life index for pulmonary disease patients. Results: In the rehabilitation group after performing the self-efficacy promoting pulmonary rehabilitation program, the self-efficacy score, exercise endurance, and quality of life score were higher than the control group (p=0.007, p=0.038, and p=0.039, respectively). and the exertional dyspnea score was significantly lower than controls(p=0.045). However, the dyspnea score and FEV1 were similar after performing the self-efficacy promoting pulmonary rehabilitation program. Conclusion: The self-efficacy promoting pulmonary rehabilitation program is effective to in improve self-efficacy, exertional dyspnea, exercise endurance and quality of life in patients with COPD.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.1636-1643
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• 2012

Enzymatic pre-bleaching by modification of pulp fibers with xylanases is an attractive approach to reduce the consumption of toxic bleaching chemicals in the paper industry. In this study, an alkaliphilic endoxylanase gene was isolated from metagenomic DNA of a structurally stable thermophilic lignocellulose-degrading microbial consortium using amplification with conserved glycosyl hydrolase family 10 primers and subsequent genome walking. The full-length xylanase showed 78% sequence identity to an endo-${\beta}$-1,4-xylanase of Clostridium phytofermentans and was expressed in a mature form with an N-terminal His6 tag fusion in Escherichia coli. The recombinant xylanase Xyn3F was thermotolerant and alkaliphilic, working optimally at $65-70^{\circ}C$ with an optimal pH at 9-10 and retaining >80% activity at pH 9, $60^{\circ}C$ for 1 h. Xyn3F showed a $V_{max}$ of 2,327 IU/mg and $K_m$ of 3.5 mg/ml on birchwood xylan. Pre-bleaching of industrial eucalyptus pulp with no prior pH adjustment (pH 9) using Xyn3F at 50 IU/g dried pulp led to 4.5-5.1% increase in final pulp brightness and 90.4-102.4% increase in whiteness after a single-step hypochlorite bleaching over the untreated pulp, which allowed at least 20% decrease in hypochlorite consumption to achieve the same final bleaching indices. The alkaliphilic xylanase is promising for application in an environmentally friendly bleaching step of kraft and soda pulps with no requirement for pH adjustment, leading to improved economic feasibility of the process.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.116-122
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• 2017

The environmental lighting of a city advances its landscape standards and the city's touristic value because the lighting can help improve the city's safety and security as well as its esthetic value. The types of parks in cities vary in size and function and should be reflected carefully in lighting planning to gain the best effect. The importance of city lighting has been increased in recent years due to the expanded span of urban night life. Lighting systems around rivers and coastal waterfronts in cities play an important role not only in their functional aspects, such as safety and security, but also in boosting the city's identities. This paper performed comparison analysis among Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade in Hong Kong, Fukuoka Nakagawa Park in Japan, and the walking path in Hamdeok Beach in Jeju City, Korea. According to the evaluation, Hong Kong is excellent in 8 evaluation criteria for park lighting so that the city shows its superior installation and management. Fukuoka is also good by being analyzed as 'fair' in 5 criteria. Finally, Jeju is judged as inferior overall by showing 'poor' in several criteria. The paper shows how they differ in their environment lighting characteristics and aims to suggest stable lighting planning strategies for seaside parks in Jeju so the citizens and visitors of Jeju can enjoy the beautiful sceneries and nighttime activities.

• Journal of Naturopathy
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.39-50
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• 2022

Background: It is essential to investigate the functionality of the newly developed knobble shoe. Purpose: The purpose was to explore how the body shape and balance change when wearing knobble shoes. Methods: Nine subjects wearing knobble shoes after walking for a month were analyzed. Results: For knobble shoes, we created various small air pockets in the insole to stimulate the soles of the feet to induce body changes. In particular, it was to promote the arch part of the foot by making a large lump inside and outside the center of the foot's arch. After wearing knobble shoes and using them for 30 days, the average blood sugar decreased by 31.1 mg. The lowering range was 5 to 120 mg. In one patient, the result of the hemoglobin test decreased by 7.5% to 6.5%. In the shoulder tapping test for a body balance test, seven subjects leaned to the right in a barefoot state, and two people to the left. However, after wearing shoes, all of them maintained equilibrium. knobble shoes fit, and balance was all stable. There were two subjects with a short left and four subjects with a short right. Conclusions: Blood sugar decreased after wearing the knobble shoes. The deformed shape of the body was restored to its original state by the knobble supporting the foot arch area. The balance of the sole directly affects the overall posture.