• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.159-165
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• 2007

In this paper, we propose a new pre-selection of candidate units that is suitable for the unit selection based Japanese TTS system. General pre-selection method performed by calculating a context-dependent cost within IP (Intonation Phrase). Different from other languages, however. Japanese has an accent represented as the height of a relative pitch, and several words form a single accentual phrase. Also. the prosody in Japanese changes in accentual phrase units. By reflecting such prosodic change in pre-selection. the qualify of synthesized speech can be improved. Furthermore, by calculating a context-dependent cost within accentual phrase, synthesis speed can be improved than calculating within intonation phrase. The proposed method defines AP. analyzes AP in context and performs pre-selection using accentual phrase matching which calculates CCL (connected context length) of the Phoneme's candidates that should be synthesized in each accentual phrase. The baseline system used in the proposed method is VoiceText, which is a synthesizer of Voiceware. Evaluations were made on perceptual error (intonation error, concatenation mismatch error) and synthesis time. Experimental result showed that the proposed method improved the qualify of synthesized speech. as well as shortened the synthesis time.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.203-213
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• 2021

A vehicle crash occurs due to various factors such as the geometry of the road section, traffic, and driver characteristics. A safety performance function has been used in many studies to estimate the relationship between vehicle crash and road factors statistically. And depends on the purpose of the analysis, various characteristic variables have been used. And various characteristic variables have been used in the studies depending on the purpose of analysis. The existing domestic studies generally reflect the average characteristics of the sections by quantifying the traffic volume in macro aggregate units such as the ADT, but this has a limitation that it cannot reflect the real-time changing traffic characteristics. Therefore, the need for research on effective aggregation units that can flexibly reflect the characteristics of the traffic environment arises. In this paper, we develop a safety performance function that can reflect the traffic characteristics in detail with an aggregate unit for one hour in addition to the daily model used in the previous studies. As part of the present study, we also perform a comparison and evaluation between models. The safety performance function for daily and hourly units is developed using a negative binomial regression model with the number of accidents as a dependent variable. In addition, the optimal negative binomial regression model for each of the hourly and daily models was selected, and their prediction performances were compared. The model and evaluation results presented in this paper can be used to determine the risk factors for accidents in the highway section considering the dynamic characteristics. In addition, the model and evaluation results can also be used as the basis for evaluating the availability and transferability of the hourly model.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.215-226
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• 2015

In this study, with variables the cross section area ($97m^2$, $58m^2$, $38m^2$) and the wind velocity(0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5 m/s), the time of getting off train dependent on the way of itself and the width of the evacuation route was analyzed, and also fire and evacuation characteristics is reviewed by cross section area of each wind velocity. As the result, if cross section become smaller, the density of harmful gases in the tunnel increased more than the ratio of decreasing cross section area. In the case of small cross sectional area, the surrounding environment from initial fire is indicated to exceed the limit criteria suggested in performance based design. In the analysis of effective evacuation time for evacuation characteristics, the effective evacuation time was the shortest in the case of evaluating effective evacuation time by the visibility. Also, there was significant difference between the effective evacuation time on the basis of performance based evaluation and the effective evacuation time obtained by analyzing FED (Fractional effective dose), one of the analysis method obtaining the point that deaths occur, against harmful gases.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.29-41
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• 2011

This study investigates the factor that influences commuting time to work when individuals allocate their time for different types of activities. The commuting time is an important indicator for an individual to determine the residence and choose the means of transportation. The analysis uses the data collected from people who live in Seoul metropolitan area including Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province, and commute to work and making the simple linkage travel (home-work-home) within the area. For the analysis, the Cox hazard proportional methodology was adopted. The method is known to be well applied without assuming any distribution in case of the dependent variable being continuous. For the covariate, the interaction effect between the space variable of the work place and the variable of transportation has been also included in the model. The commuting time to work has been estimated for both 1) the whole metropolitan area and 2) the separate regions i.e., Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi-Do. The result reveals that characteristic variables related to individual, household and travel properties influence the mode of transportation and the time allocated for commuting to work (p<0.01). This study also demonstrates the usefulness of the Cox hazard proportional model. The data used in this study is the actual household travel data surveyed in 2006 in the metropolitan area, and analyzing the survey data in 2010 is currently in progress. Comparison of the two survey data sets seeking any behavioral change is suggested for the future study.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.8-14
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• 2009

In the research field of speech recognition, pinpointing the endpoints of speech utterance even with the presence of background noise is of great importance. These noise present during recording introduce disturbances which complicates matters since what we just want is to get the stationary parameters corresponding to each speech section. One major cause of error in automatic recognition of isolated words is the inaccurate detection of the beginning and end boundaries of the test and reference templates, thus the necessity to find an effective method in removing the unnecessary regions of a speech signal. The conventional methods for speech endpoint detection are based on two linear time-domain measurements: the short-time energy, and short-time zero-crossing rate. They perform well for clean speech but their precision is not guaranteed if there is noise present, since the high energy and zero-crossing rate of the noise is mistaken as a part of the speech uttered. This paper proposes a novel approach in finding an apparent threshold between noise and speech based on Lyapunov Exponents (LEs). This proposed method adopts the nonlinear features to analyze the chaos characteristics of the speech signal instead of depending on the unreliable factor-energy. The excellent performance of this approach compared with the conventional methods lies in the fact that it detects the endpoints as a nonlinearity of speech signal, which we believe is an important characteristic and has been neglected by the conventional methods. The proposed method extracts the features based only on the time-domain waveform of the speech signal illustrating its low complexity. Simulations done showed the effective performance of the Proposed method in a noisy environment with an average recognition rate of up 92.85% for unspecified person.

• Korean Journal of Medicinal Crop Science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.145-150
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• 2009

This study investigated the protective roles and mechanism of magnolol, from the stem bark of Magnolia officinalis against potential neurotoxin 3-hydroxykynurenine (3-HK)-induced neuronal cell death. For the evaluation of protective role of magnolol, we examined cell viability, apoptotic nuclei, change of mitochondrial membrane potential and caspase activity in human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells. It was found that 3-HK induces neuronal cell death in the human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cell line. The reduced cell viability produced characteristic features such as cell shrinkages, plasma membrane blebbing, chromatin condensation, and nuclear fragmentation. The cells treated with 3-HK showed an increase in the concentration of reactive oxygen species (ROS) as well as in caspase activity. In addition, both are involved in the 3-HK-induced apoptosis. Magnolol attenuated the cell viability reduction by 3-HK in both a dose- and time-dependent manner. Optical microscopy showed that magnolol inhibited the cell morphological features in the 3-HK-treated cells. Furthermore, the increase in the ROS concentration and the caspase activities by 3-HK were also attenuated by magnolol. These results showed that magnolol has a protective effect on the 3-HK induced cell death by inhibiting ROS production and caspase activity.

• Journal of architectural history
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.7-20
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• 2011

In this research, the changes of spaces on Namsan-Park and of the meaning of the park from the late 1900s through the early 1908s are analyzed, and the results are provided as follows. To begin with, inserting a concept of park to Namsan provided people with limitation in understanding definition of park, which indicated finite and constrained space, so that it distracted people from using spaces on Namsan. At that time, since the park was considered as one of key factors to establish Modern city, it was distinguished to the urban structure which had existed. After then, Joseon shrine, settled in Hanyang-Park, absorbed in functions of the park, so that the term of Hanyang-Park meant an area around the shrine or a boundary of the space. In addition, the particularity of Joseon shrine sometimes discouraged people from using the park spaces as well as spaces on the shrine, which led to decline the publicity of the park. However, Joseon shrine was correlated and planned with infrastructures of the city, Kyeongsung, not only physically but also visually in that Joseon shrine played role in one of components in Kyeongsung performed as an entertaining city such as a theme park. Lastly, Seoul is no longer subordinated and dependent city but has dramatically changed as a prominent city after regaining of independence in 1945. This indicates that the entertaining function of the old city was dismantled or reduced or transferred to public spaces, especially Namsan-Park. Consequently Namsan-Park has diverse and complex characteristics like traits of Kyeongsung, playing a pivotal role in providing cultural spaces, and its spatial organization is divided and planned based on various facilities and buildings on the park. This organization has a negative effect on the city and the park by decreasing in connectivity between them.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.301-306
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• 1990

The Physical and chemical properties or dry acorn starch(DS), detannined acorn starch (DTS) and defatted and detannined acorn starch(Drn) were investigated. Ail acorn starch sample, observed by a scanning electron microscope, showed a hemispherical shape ud its size was about $5{\sim}10{\mu}m$ in diameter. It had a little change on the pasting temperature of DS, DTS and DFTS but peak viscosity of DTS was somewhat higher than that of n. Flow behavior of gelatinized starch pastes showed a pseudoplastic behavior and flow behavior index was lower than unit. The consistency coefficient showed concentraion and temperature dependency. The activation energies of DS, DTS and DFTS were $2.09{\sim}3.58Kcal/g\;{\cdot}\;mol and time dependent characteristic of acorn starch samples showed thixotrpic behavior.

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.111-119
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• 2014

Objectives This study aims to analyze a thermal distribution in biological living tissue during warm needling therapy by using a finite element method. The analysis provides an understanding of warm needling's efficacy and safety. Methods A model which consisted of four-layered tissue and stainless steel needle was adopted to analyze the thermal distribution in living tissue with a bioheat transfer analysis. The governing equation for the analysis was a Pennes' bioheat equation. A heat source characteristic of warm needling therapy was obtained by previous experimental measurements. The first analysis of the time-dependent temperature distribution was conducted through points on a boundary between the needle and the tissue. The second analysis was conducted to visualize the horizontal temperature distribution. Results When heat source's peak temperatures was above $500^{\circ}C$ and temperature rising rates were relatively slow, the peak temperature at skin surface exceeded a threshold of pain and tissue damage ($45^{\circ}C$), whereas when the peak temperature was around $400^{\circ}C$, the peak temperature at the skin surface was within a safe limit. In addition, the conduction of combustion energy from the moxa was limited to the skin layer around the needle. Conclusions The results suggest that the skin layer around the needle can be heated effectively by warm needling therapy, but it appears to have little effect at the deeper tissue. These findings enhance our understanding of the efficacy and the safety of the warm needling therapy.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.257-263
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• 2011

BPA, a diphenyl compound containing groups, that make it structurally similar to synthetic estrogen and is considered as one of the major endocrine disruptors. Silymarin has extensively been used to prevent and/or alleviate some human disease, especially for the treatment of adverse liver conditions. It has an antioxidative efficacy and cancer preventive efficacy. Therefore, we examined the hypothesis that silymarin can inhibit BPA-induced toxicity in boar sperm duing in vitro storage. Sperm characteristics (motility, viability, membrane integrity and mitochondrion activity) in semen exposed to BPA (10~200 uM) were sharply lowered, while it increase in a dose and time dependent manner due to silymarin addition (50~200 uM) into semen extender in the presence of BPA (100 uM). All of the evaluated characteristics were gradually improved in the groups that were treated with silymarin (50~200 uM) in the presence of BPA (100 uM) in comparison to BPA 100 uM alone group, irrespective of incubation periods (3 and 6 h). These results demonstrate that silymarin can ameliorate the toxicity of BPA on boar sperm characteristics during in vitro storage, suggesting that silymarin indirectly act as an antioxidant.