• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.23-30
• /
• 2005

3D virtual endoscopy has been used as an alternative non-invasive procedure for visualization of hollow organs. However, due to computational complexity, this is a time-consuming procedure. In this paper, we propose a fast volume rendering algorithm based on perspective ray casting for virtual endoscopy. As a pre-processing step, the algorithm divides a volume into hierarchical blocks and classifies them into opaque or transparent blocks. Then, in the first step, we perform ray casting only for sub-sampled pixels on the image plane, and determine their pixel values and depth information. In the next step, by reducing the sub-sampling factor by half, we repeat ray casting for newly added pixels, and their pixel values and depth information are determined. Here, the previously obtained depth information is utilized to reduce the processing time. This step is recursively performed until a full-size rendering image is acquired. Experiments conducted on a PC show that the proposed algorithm can reduce the rendering time by 70- 80% for bronchus and colon endoscopy, compared with the brute-force ray casting scheme. Using the proposed algorithm, interactive volume rendering becomes more realizable in a PC environment without any specific hardware.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.1-8
• /
• 2018

PURPOSE: This study was conducted to analyze the effects of carrying weight on the gait of elderly women using a walking-assistant vehicle (WAV) as the weight increased. METHODS: A total of 30 elderly women living in the local community were included as subjects and instructed to walk 50 m using a WAV loaded with sandbags corresponding to 0%, 5%, 10%, or 15% of their mean weight. The subjects' gait was analyzed using a gait analyzer to measure stride length, step length, step width, and gait time. RESULTS: Stride and step lengths were longest when carrying 5% of their weight and shortest when carrying 15% of their mean body weight. Step width and gait time were lowest when carrying weights corresponding to 5% and highest for 15% of their mean body weight. When observing gait with a WAV, the gait time was greatly affected by weights, with carrying weight equivalent to 5% of the body weight positively affected the gait with a WAV, whereas carrying weights of >15% resulted in slower gait speed. CONCLUSION: When walking with a WAV, an appropriate carrying weight of approximately 5% of the body weight stabilizes gait, while a weight of 15% leads decreased gait efficiency. Therefore, when using a WAV during outdoor activities, elderly women should add some weight to the WAV; however, the carrying weight should be <15% of the body weight.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.222-229
• /
• 2020

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of treadmill exercise on the posture and walking speed of chronic stroke survivors with an ankle-foot orthosis. Design: Randomized controlled trial. Methods: Twenty-four chronic persons with chronic stroke admitted to Bobath Memorial Hospital in Seongnam city were divided into two groups by random blind method. Treadmill exercise with an elastic ankle-foot orthosis was performed in the experimental group and treadmill exercise was performed in the control group. The experiment was carried out for 6 weeks, and the experiment was carried out three times a week for 20 minutes per session. To measure the effect, static balance was measured using the MTD system before and after training, and the Berg Balance Scale (BBS) was used to measure functional balance. Results: There was a statistically significant difference between the 2 groups in the BBS measurement results for confirming the functional balance (p<0.05). Also, there was a significant difference between the 2 groups in single limb support time, step time and step length (p<0.05). Conclusions: In this study, it was found that treadmill exercise with an elastic ankle-foot orthosis in persons with chronic stroke was effective in maintaining functional balance, walking ability, step length, and step time. Therefore, it is necessary to use a flexible ankle-foot orthosis with proper treadmill exercise as a method of improving balance and walking speed of chronic stroke survivors.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.69-74
• /
• 2014

PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to compare the spatio-temporal gait parameters between paretic and non-paretic limb while stepping over the different obstacle's heights in subjects with stroke. METHODS: Nine subjects with stroke were participated in this study. Subjects were asked to step over obstacles with a different height. 8 camera motion analysis system(Motion Analysis Corporation, Santa Rosa, USA) was used to measure spatio-temporal parameters. The two way repeated measurement ANOVA was used to compare spati-temporal gait parameters between paretic and non-paretic limbs while stepping over a different obstacle's height(0cm, 10cm, 20cm). RESULTS: Step width, velocity, single supoort time, and double support time were not different among obstacle's height(p>0.05) but stride length, step length, and cadence were significantly different(p>0.05). In stride length, cadence, and double support time, the interactions between obstacle's heights and limbs were not different(p>0.05) but it was significantly different in velocity, step length, and single support time(p<0.05). Velocity, stride length, cadence, and double support times were not different between paretic limb and non-paretic limb(p>0.05) but step length and single support times were significantly different between paretic limb and non-paretic limb(p<0.05). CONCLUSION: These results show that there are differences with spatio-temporal gait parameters among obstacle's heights and between paretic and non-paretic limb during obstacle crossing in subjects with stroke.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.109-132
• /
• 2005

With the flood of multimedia contents over the digital TV channels, the internet, and etc., users sometimes have a difficulty in finding their preferred contents, spend heavy surfing time to find them, and are even very likely to miss them while searching. In this paper we suggests two-step clustering technique using time schema on how the system can recommend the user's preferred contents based on the collaborative filtering that has been proved to be successful when new users appeared. This method maps and recommends users' profile according to the gender and age at the first step, and then recommends a probabilistic item clustering customers who choose the same item at the same time based on time schema at the second stage. In addition, this has improved the accuracy of predictions in recommendation and the efficiency in time calculation by reflecting feedbacks of the result of the recommender engine and dynamically update customers' preference.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.208-220
• /
• 2006

Energy of wheeled mobile robot is usually supplied by batteries. In order to extend operation time of mobile robots, it is necessary to minimize the energy consumption. The energy is dissipated mostly in the motors, which strongly depends on the velocity profile. This paper investigates various 3-step (acceleration - cruise - deceleration) speed control methods to minimize a new energy object function which considers the practical energy consumption dissipated in motors related to motor control input, velocity profile, and motor dynamics. We performed an analysis on the energy consumption various velocity profile patterns generated by standard control input such as step input, ramp input, parabolic input, and exponential input. Based on these standard control inputs, we analyzed the six 3-step velocity profile patterns: E-C-E, P-C-P, R-C-R, S-C-S, R-C-S, and S-C-R (S means a step control input, R means a ramp control input, P means a parabolic control input, and E means an exponential control input, C means a constant cruise velocity), and suggested an efficient iterative search algorithm with binary search which can find the numerical solution quickly. We performed various computer simulations to show the performance of the energy-optimal 3-step speed control in comparison with a conventional 3-step speed control with a reasonable constant acceleration as a benchmark. Simulation results show that the E-C-E is the most energy efficient 3-step velocity profile pattern, which enables wheeled mobile robot to extend working time up to 50%.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.78-84
• /
• 2003

The changes of microstructure and hardness of TLP bonds of directionally solidified Ni base superalloy, GTD-111, with variation of homogenizing and aging treatment were investigated. The specimens were bonded at 1403K for 7.2ks using different insert metals such as MBF-50, MBF-80 and MBF-90 and they were homogenized at 1393K with various holding time. At center of bonded interlayer homogenized for hold time 30h, the contents of aluminum and titanium were approximately 90% and 95% of base metal, respectively. In this study, aging was performed at three different kinds : one step aging ; 1113K $\times$ 16h, two step aging ; 1113K $\times$ 10h ⇒ 1103K $\times$ 10h, three step aging ; 1113K $\times$ 10h ⇒ 1103K $\times$ 8h ⇒ 922K $\times$ 24h. ${\gamma}$' volume fraction and hardness of joints were high in the sequence of one step, two step and three step aging, whereas ${\gamma}$' volume fraction and hardness of joints obtained by three step aging treatment were higher than those of raw material. Tensile properties of joints bonded with MBF-80 and MBF-90, homogenized at 1393K for 30h and then three step aged became excellent than those of raw material, however, joint bonded with MBF-50 was poor.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Fisheries and Ocean Technology
• /
• v.53 no.3
• /
• pp.256-265
• /
• 2017

Seafood is attracting attention as a future food industry. In recent years, the demand for fishery equipment of mechanization, automation, and unmanned was increased due to the environment affected by seafood processing, stricter regulations on safety, decline and aging of fishery worker. Ark shell (Scapharca subcrenata) was being produced in many steps in the production process. The process has been made such as collection-landing-washing-first sort (goods/non-goods)-transports-second sort (size). It was undergone first and second steps by delivering to the consumer. Here, the first step is to sort goods to collection and the second step is to sort by size. The fishery workers need ten people in first step and six people in second step. The workload of one hour per kg is 4,247 kg/h in first step and 2,213 kg/h in second step. In addition, the goods ratio by work process was 79% in first step and 98% in the second step. In this process, a lot of fishery worker and working time is needed. Therefore, this study developed elemental techniques for an automated size sorting system considering the working process problem, time and situation for washing and sorting of ark shell.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
• /
• v.16 no.5
• /
• pp.49-56
• /
• 2022

S-STEP is a small SAR satellite mission that monitors time-limited emergency targets and military anomalies in areas of interest, achieving the average revisit in less than 30 minutes by deploying a constellation of 32 satellites in low orbit at an altitude of 510 km. The mission operation mode of S-STEP is divided into normal mode, observation mode, communication mode, and orbit maintenance mode. Further,, the attitude control mode is subdivides into initial detumbling, sun pointing, target pointing, ground station pointing, and thrust direction maintenance. Based on the preliminary mission operational scenario and the satellite's characteristics, this study analyzed the attitude control performance during initial detumbling and observation modes. It verifies that each mode's attitude control accuracy requirements within the time allotted by the scenario of the S-STEP achieved.

• Bulletin of the Korean Mathematical Society
• /
• v.48 no.2
• /
• pp.413-426
• /
• 2011

Two types of new methods with variable time steps are proposed in order to valuate binary options efficiently. Type I changes adaptively the size of the time step at each time based on the magnitude of the local error, while Type II combines two uniform meshes. The new methods are hybrid finite difference methods, namely starting the computation with a fully implicit finite difference method for a few time steps for accuracy then performing a ${\theta}$-method during the rest of computation for efficiency. Numerical experiments for standard European vanilla, binary and American options show that both Type I and II variable time step methods are much more efficient than the fully implicit method or hybrid methods with uniform time steps.