• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.36
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• pp.147-165
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• 2014

Around the turn of 21st century, there has been a major technological shift in the animation industry. With development of reality-based computer graphics, major American animation studios replaced hand-drawn method with the new 3D computer graphics. Traditional animation was known for its simplified shapes such as circles and triangle that makes characters' movements distinctive from non-animated feature films. Computer-generated animation has largely replaced it, but is under continuous criticism that automated movements and reality-like graphics devaluate the aesthetics of animation. Although hand-drawn animation is still produced, 3D computer graphics have taken commercial lead and there has been many changes to acting of animated characters, which calls for detailed investigation. Firstly, the changes in acting of 3D characters can be traced from looking at human-like rigging method that mimics humanistic moving mechanism. Also, if hair and clothing was part of hand-drawn characters' acting, it has now been hidden inside mathematical simulation of 3D graphics, leaving only the body to be used in acting. Secondly, looking at "Stretch and Squash" method, which represents the distinctive movements of animation, through the lens of media, a paradox arises. Hand-drawn animation are produced frame-by-frame, and a subtle change would make animated frames shiver. This slight shivering acts as an aesthetic distinction of animated feature films, but can also require exaggerated movements to hide the shivering. On the contrary, acting of 3D animation make use of calculated movements that may seem exaggerated compared to human acting, but seem much more moderate and static compared to hand-drawn acting. Moreover, 3D computer graphics add the third dimension that allows more intuitive movements - maybe animators no longer need fine drawing skills; what they now need is directing skills to animate characters in 3D space intuitively. On the assumption that technological advancement and change of artistic expressionism are inseparable, this paper compares acting of 3D animation studio Pixar and classical drawing studio Disney to investigate character acting style and movements.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.200-213
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• 2008

H.264| MPEG-4 AVC is a new video codingstandard defined by JVT (Joint Video Team) which consists of ITU-T and ISO/IEC. Many techniques are adopted fur the compression efficiency: Especially, an intra prediction in an inter frame is one example but it leads to excessive amount of encoding time due to the decision of a candidate mode and a RDcost calculation. For this reason, a fast determination of the best intra prediction mode is the main issue for saving the encoding time. In this paper, by using the result of statistical relation between intra $16{\times}16$ and $4{\times}4$ intra predictions, the number of candidate modes for $4{\times}4$ intra prediction is reduced. Firstly, utilizing motion vector obtained after inter prediction, prediction of a block mode for each macroblock is made. If an intra prediction is needed, the correlation table between $16{\times}16$ and $4{\times}4$ intra predicted modes is created using the probability during each I frame-coding process. Secondly, using this result, the candidate modes for a $4{\times}4$ intra prediction that reaches a predefined specific probability value are only considered in the same GOP For the experiments, JM11.0, the reference software of H.264|MPEG-4 AVC is used and the experimental results show that the encoding time could be reduced by 51.24% in maximum with negligible amounts of PSNR drop and bitrate increase.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.119-142
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• 2015

With the explosive growth in the volume of information, Internet users are experiencing considerable difficulties in obtaining necessary information online. Against this backdrop, ever-greater importance is being placed on a recommender system that provides information catered to user preferences and tastes in an attempt to address issues associated with information overload. To this end, a number of techniques have been proposed, including content-based filtering (CBF), demographic filtering (DF) and collaborative filtering (CF). Among them, CBF and DF require external information and thus cannot be applied to a variety of domains. CF, on the other hand, is widely used since it is relatively free from the domain constraint. The CF technique is broadly classified into memory-based CF, model-based CF and hybrid CF. Model-based CF addresses the drawbacks of CF by considering the Bayesian model, clustering model or dependency network model. This filtering technique not only improves the sparsity and scalability issues but also boosts predictive performance. However, it involves expensive model-building and results in a tradeoff between performance and scalability. Such tradeoff is attributed to reduced coverage, which is a type of sparsity issues. In addition, expensive model-building may lead to performance instability since changes in the domain environment cannot be immediately incorporated into the model due to high costs involved. Cumulative changes in the domain environment that have failed to be reflected eventually undermine system performance. This study incorporates the Markov model of transition probabilities and the concept of fuzzy clustering with CBCF to propose predictive clustering-based CF (PCCF) that solves the issues of reduced coverage and of unstable performance. The method improves performance instability by tracking the changes in user preferences and bridging the gap between the static model and dynamic users. Furthermore, the issue of reduced coverage also improves by expanding the coverage based on transition probabilities and clustering probabilities. The proposed method consists of four processes. First, user preferences are normalized in preference clustering. Second, changes in user preferences are detected from review score entries during preference transition detection. Third, user propensities are normalized using patterns of changes (propensities) in user preferences in propensity clustering. Lastly, the preference prediction model is developed to predict user preferences for items during preference prediction. The proposed method has been validated by testing the robustness of performance instability and scalability-performance tradeoff. The initial test compared and analyzed the performance of individual recommender systems each enabled by IBCF, CBCF, ICFEC and PCCF under an environment where data sparsity had been minimized. The following test adjusted the optimal number of clusters in CBCF, ICFEC and PCCF for a comparative analysis of subsequent changes in the system performance. The test results revealed that the suggested method produced insignificant improvement in performance in comparison with the existing techniques. In addition, it failed to achieve significant improvement in the standard deviation that indicates the degree of data fluctuation. Notwithstanding, it resulted in marked improvement over the existing techniques in terms of range that indicates the level of performance fluctuation. The level of performance fluctuation before and after the model generation improved by 51.31% in the initial test. Then in the following test, there has been 36.05% improvement in the level of performance fluctuation driven by the changes in the number of clusters. This signifies that the proposed method, despite the slight performance improvement, clearly offers better performance stability compared to the existing techniques. Further research on this study will be directed toward enhancing the recommendation performance that failed to demonstrate significant improvement over the existing techniques. The future research will consider the introduction of a high-dimensional parameter-free clustering algorithm or deep learning-based model in order to improve performance in recommendations.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.23-38
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• 2012

There is a large difference between purchasing patterns in an online shopping mall and in an offline market. This difference may be caused mainly by the difference in accessibility of online and offline markets. It means that an interval between the initial purchasing decision and its realization appears to be relatively short in an online shopping mall, because a customer can make an order immediately. Because of the short interval between a purchasing decision and its realization, an online shopping mall transaction usually contains fewer items than that of an offline market. In an offline market, customers usually keep some items in mind and buy them all at once a few days after deciding to buy them, instead of buying each item individually and immediately. On the contrary, more than 70% of online shopping mall transactions contain only one item. This statistic implies that traditional data mining techniques cannot be directly applied to online market analysis, because hardly any association rules can survive with an acceptable level of Support because of too many Null Transactions. Most market basket analyses on online shopping mall transactions, therefore, have been performed by expanding the co-occurrence criteria of traditional association rule mining. While the traditional co-occurrence criteria defines items purchased in one transaction as concurrently purchased items, the expanded co-occurrence criteria regards items purchased by a customer during some predefined period (e.g., a day) as concurrently purchased items. In studies using expanded co-occurrence criteria, however, the criteria has been defined arbitrarily by researchers without any theoretical grounds or agreement. The lack of clear grounds of adopting a certain co-occurrence criteria degrades the reliability of the analytical results. Moreover, it is hard to derive new meaningful findings by combining the outcomes of previous individual studies. In this paper, we attempt to compare expanded co-occurrence criteria and propose a guideline for selecting an appropriate one. First of all, we compare the accuracy of association rules discovered according to various co-occurrence criteria. By doing this experiment we expect that we can provide a guideline for selecting appropriate co-occurrence criteria that corresponds to the purpose of the analysis. Additionally, we will perform similar experiments with several groups of customers that are segmented by each customer's average duration between orders. By this experiment, we attempt to discover the relationship between the optimal co-occurrence criteria and the customer's average duration between orders. Finally, by a series of experiments, we expect that we can provide basic guidelines for developing customized recommendation systems. Our experiments use a real dataset acquired from one of the largest internet shopping malls in Korea. We use 66,278 transactions of 3,847 customers conducted during the last two years. Overall results show that the accuracy of association rules of frequent shoppers (whose average duration between orders is relatively short) is higher than that of causal shoppers. In addition we discover that with frequent shoppers, the accuracy of association rules appears very high when the co-occurrence criteria of the training set corresponds to the validation set (i.e., target set). It implies that the co-occurrence criteria of frequent shoppers should be set according to the application purpose period. For example, an analyzer should use a day as a co-occurrence criterion if he/she wants to offer a coupon valid only for a day to potential customers who will use the coupon. On the contrary, an analyzer should use a month as a co-occurrence criterion if he/she wants to publish a coupon book that can be used for a month. In the case of causal shoppers, the accuracy of association rules appears to not be affected by the period of the application purposes. The accuracy of the causal shoppers' association rules becomes higher when the longer co-occurrence criterion has been adopted. It implies that an analyzer has to set the co-occurrence criterion for as long as possible, regardless of the application purpose period.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.109-123
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• 2012

Many kinds of the education systems are provided to students. Many kinds of the contents like School subjects, license, job training education and so on are provided through many kinds of the media like text, image, video and so on. Students will apply the knowledge they learnt and will use it when they learn other things. In the existing education system, there have been many situations that the education system isn't really helpful to the students because too hard contents are transferred to them or because too easy contents are transferred to them and they learn the contents they already know again. To solve this phenomenon, a method that transfers the most proper lecture contents to the students is suggested in the thesis. Because the difficulty is relative, the contents A can be easier than the contents B to a group of the students and the contents B can be easier than the contents A to another group of the students. Therefore, it is not easy to measure the difficulty of the lecture contents. A method considering this phenomenon to transfer the proper lecture contents is suggested in the thesis. The whole lecture contents are divided into many lecture modules. The students solve the pattern recognition questions, a kind of the prior test questions, before studying the lecture contents and the system selects and provides the most proper lecture module among many lecture modules to the students according to the score about the questions. When the system selects the lecture module and transfer it to the student, the students' answer and the difficulty of the lecture modules are considered. In the existing education system, 1 kind of the content is transferred to various students. If the same lecture contents is transferred to various students, the contents will not be transferred efficiently. The system selects the proper contents using the students' pattern recognition answers. The pattern recognition question is a kind of the prior test question that is developed on the basis of the lecture module and used to recognize whether the student knows the contents of the lecture module. Because the difficulty of the lecture module reflects the all scores of the students' answers, whenever a student submits the answer, the difficulty is changed. The suggested system measures the relative knowledge of the students using the answers and designates the difficulty. The improvement of the suggested method is only applied when the order of the lecture contents has nothing to do with the progress of the lecture. If the contents of the unit 1 should be studied before studying the contents of the unit 2, the suggested method is not applied. The suggested method is introduced on the basis of the subject "English grammar", subjects that the order is not important, in the thesis. If the suggested method is applied properly to the education environment, the students who don't know enough basic knowledge will learn the basic contents well and prepare the basis to learn the harder lecture contents. The students who already know the lecture contents will not study those again and save more time to learn more various lecture contents. Many improvement effects like these and so on will be provided to the education environment. If the suggested method that is introduced on the basis of the subject "English grammar" is applied to the various education systems like primary education, secondary education, job education and so on, more improvement effects will be provided. The direction to realize these things is suggested in the thesis. The suggested method is realized with the MySQL database and Java, JSP program. It will be very good if the suggested method is researched developmentally and become helpful to the development of the Korea education.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.89-94
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to develop the strain-specific PCR primers for the identification of prevotella inter-media ATCC 49046 which is frequently used in the pathogenesis studies of periodontitis. The Hind III-digested genomic DNA of P. intermedia ATCC 49046 were cloned by random cloning method. The specificity of cloned DNA fragments were determined by Southern blot analysis. The nucleotide sequence of cloned DNA probes was determined by chain termination method. The PCR primers were designed based on the nucleotide sequence of cloned DNA fragment. The data showed that Pig6 DNA probe were hybridized with the genomic DNA from P. intermedia strains (ATCC $25611^T$ and 49046) isolated from the Westerns, not the strains isolated from Koreans. The Pig6 DNA probe were consisted of 813 bp. Pig6-F3 and Pig6-R3 primers, designed base on the nucleotide Sequences Of Pig6 DNA Probe, were 3150 specific to the only both P. intermedia ATCC $25611^T$ and P. intermedia ATCC 49046. In the other hand, Pig6-60F and Pig6-770R primers were specific to the only P. intermedia ATCC 49046. The two PCR primer sets could detect as little as 4 pg of chromosomal DNA of P. intermedia. These results indicate that Pig6-60F and Pig6-770R primers have proven useful for the identification of P. intermedia ATCC 49046, especially with regard to the maintenance of the strain.

• The Korean Journal of Mycology
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• v.23 no.1 s.72
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• pp.92-104
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• 1995

Ten species of Cordyceps species were collected throughout Kangwon province including Chuncheon Dongsanmyun KNU forest experiment from June to September, 1993. Collected Cordyceps species were identified as Cordyceps militaris, C. roseostromata, C. kyushuensis, C. scarabaeicola, Phytocordyceps ninchukiospora, C. nutans, Paecilomyces tenuipes, C. sphecocephala, Hymenostilbe odonatae, Torrubiella sp.. C. militaris, type species of Cordyceps species, was mainly formed on pupae of Lepidoptera and found after the rainy season around July. Fruiting body of C. roseostromata was morphologically similar to those of C. militaris, but relatively small in size and they were also found on lawn or pupa of Lepidoptera. Fruiting body of C. scarabaeicola was found on adult Scarabaeidae specifically and collect fruiting bodies of C. kyushuensis were on larva of moth. C. nutans and C. sphecocephala had host specificity on Hemiptera and Hymenoptera, respectively. Each species formed elliptical fertile part attach to the slim and carneous stalk and they were collected the most in specimen number through whole season of the summer. Ascospore of Phytocordyceps ninchukiospora on seed was characterized by two viable, multiseptate, fusiform units linked end-to-end by a long, filiform connective. Paecilomyces tenuipes, imperfect stage of the genus Cordyceps is multi-infective fungi that attack all stages of all groups of insects. Hymenostilbe odonatae attacks only adult Odonata and Torrubiella sp. formed on spider was difficult to collect because it was found the back side of leaf. As results of cultural test PDA medium showed the best mycelial growth. In the experiment of effect of the acidity inside of the media, C. militaris was good on pH 5, C. nutans and Phytocordyceps ninchukiospora were good on pH 6 and Paecilomyces tenuipes was on pH 7 and C. scarabaeicola was on pH 9. All isolates tested showed the best mycelial growth at $20^{\circ}C$. Morphologically similar isolates were used to analyze protein banding pattern among and within species. As a result, C. militaris, C. roseostromata and C. kyushuensis were clustered into close species and C. scarabaeicola and Phytocordyceps ninchukiospora were relatively distant from those species.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.281-288
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• 2015

Vibrio is a genus of Gram-negative, curved, halophilic, and non-spore-forming bacteria. Some of the Vibrio species, such as V. cholerae and V. parahaemolyticus, often contaminate seafood products and occasionally cause human diseases when the seafood products are ingested. A total of 24 Vibrio strains were isolated from shrimp samples on Thiosulphate citrate bile salt sucrose (TCBS) media in this study. All of the 24 isolates were confirmed to belong to the genus Vibrio by using 16S rRNA gene sequence analyses. Vitek 2 system and species-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods were used to further identify a total of 29 Vibrio strains at the species level, including the 24 shrimp Vibrio isolates and five Vibrio reference strains. The specificities of the two methods to identify Vibrio strains at the species level were compared in this study. The species-specific PCR method was designed to detect five different Vibrio species, such as Vibrio cholerae, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Vibrio vulnificus, Vibrio alginolyticus, and Vibrio mimicus. From the 24 Vibrio shrimp isolates, the Vitek 2 system method could identify 15 (62.5%) strains as Vibrio species and 7 (29.2%) strains as non-Vibrio species, but could not identify the rest 2 (8.3%) strains. But species-specific PCR method could identify 16 (66.7%) strains as Vibrio species and could not identify the rest 8 (33.3%) strains. Among the 24 Vibrio shrimp strains, these two methods could unanimously identify 7 (7/24, 29.2%) strains (2 V. parahaemolyticus, 4 V. alginolyticus, and 1 V. mimicus). Considering that such different identification results were obtained using the two different methods in this study, identification method for Vibrio species must be carefully chosen.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.228-234
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• 2016

The aim of this study was to develop pharmaceutical dosage forms with a bi-phasic drug using a double extrusion approach. Hot melt extrusion was performed using a co-rotating twin-screw extruder. The. 1st melt extrusion was performed using polymer with a relatively higher Tg, such as HPMC and the 2nd melt extrudate was obtained using the 1st extrudate and polymers with a lower Tg, such as HPMC-AS and PEO. In addition, the formulation with all the content in the same proportion as the double extudate was produced using single extrusion for comparison. Physical characterization was performed on the formulations employing differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). In vitro release tests were studied using a USP Type-I apparatus at $37{\pm}0.5^{\circ}C$ and 100 rpm. The similarity factor (f2) was also used to check the difference statistically. The DSC results indicated that the crystallinity of ibuprofen was changed to an amorphous state after extrusion in both double and single melt extrusion. Double melt extrudate with ibuprofen showed the desired release in acidic media (pH 1.2) in the first two hours and basic (pH 6.8) during six hours. Double melt extrudate with glimepiride showed faster release in 60 min of over 80%, whereas the single extrudate with glimepiride showed retarded release due to the interaction with HPMC. The similarity factor(f2) value was 28.5, which demonstrates that there were different drug release behavior between the double and single extrusion. Consequently, the double melt extrudated formulation was robust and gave the desired drug release pattern.

• The Korean Journal of Blood Transfusion
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.115-126
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• 2012

Background: Umbilical cord (UC) is a promising source of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs). We compared the characteristics of MSCs from cryopreserved UC with those from fresh tissues, and demonstrated the possibility of UC cryopreservation for acquisition of MSCs from cryopreserved UC. Methods: Each UC was sliced into two types ($1{\sim}2mm^3$ vs. 0.5 cm), and cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen using different media (autologous cord blood plasma, aCBP vs. RPMI 1640). A fresh aliquot of $1{\sim}2mm^3$-sized UC was used as control tissue. After one week, the cryopreserved tissues were thawed and cultured. For the 0.5 cm UC, a slicing step into $1{\sim}2mm^3$ was needed. Cell count, viability, proliferative activity, and surface antigens were determined from harvested MSCs. Several growth factors (EGF, IGF-1, PDGF, TGF-${\beta}$, bFGF, and VEGF), were measured from the culture supernatant. Results: Eleven UC were enrolled in the study. Efficiencies of obtaining MSCs were higher in cryopreserved UC using RPMI 1640, compared with use of aCBP; the same result was observed for 0.5 cm sized UC, compared with $1{\sim}2mm^3$ sized UC. No difference in proliferative activity was observed between MSCs from fresh and cryopreserved UC. The amount of growth factors in culture supernatant using RPMI 1640 was larger than that of fresh tissues. Conclusion: We obtained growth factors from the supernatant as well as MSCs from cryopreserved UC. As with a cord blood bank, in the future, cryopreservation of UC for acquisition of both MSCs and growth factors would be possible in a time of need.