• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.96-101
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• 2007

Laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) is the retrograde movement of gastric contents into the larynx, pharynx, and upper aero-digestive tract. LPR differs from gastroesophageal reflux in that it is often not associated with heartburn and regurgitation symptoms. Otolaryngological manifestations of acid reflux include a wide range of pharyngeal and laryngeal symptoms. Belafsky et al. developed a useful self-administered tool, the reflux symptom index (RSI), for assessing the degree of LPR symptoms. Patients are asked to use a 0 to 5 point scale to grade the following symptoms: 1) hoarseness or voice problems; 2) throat clearing; 3) excess throat mucus or postnasal drip ; 4) difficulty swallowing; 5) coughing after eating or lying down; 6) breathing difficulties ; 7) troublesome or annoying cough; 8) sensation of something sticking or a lump in the throat; 9) heartburn, chest pain, indigestion or stomach acid coming up. A RSI score greater than 13 is considered abnormal. As there is no validated instrument to document the physical findings and severity of LPR, Belafsky et al. developed an eight-item clinical severity scale for judging laryngoscopic finding, the reflux finding score (RFS). They rated eight LPR-associated findings on a scale from 0 to 4 : subglottic edema, ventricular obliteration, erythema/hyperemia, vocal-fold edema, diffuse laryngeal edema, posterior commissure hypertrophy, granuloma/granulation tissue, and thick endolaryngeal mucus. A RFS score of greater than 7 was found to suggest LPR-associated laryngitis. Although both indices (RSI and RFS) are widely used, there is some controversy about their validity (sensitivity and specificity) and reliability (intra-rater and inter-rater) in LPR diagnosis and treatment. We discuss the validity and reliability of RSI and RFS with literature review.

• Archives of Plastic Surgery
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.71-75
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• 2012

Recurrent laryngeal nerve paralysis is the most common and serious complication after thyroid cancer surgery. The objective of this study was to report the advantages of the vein wrapping technique for nerve reconstruction in patients with thyroid cancer invading the recurrent laryngeal nerve and its effects on postoperative phonatory function. The subjects were three patients who underwent resection of the recurrent laryngeal nerve during surgical extirpation of papillary thyroid cancer. Free ansa cervicalis nerve graft or direct neurorrhaphy with a vein wrapping technique was used to facilitate nerve regeneration, protect the anastomosed nerve site mechanically, and prevent neuroma formation. One-year postoperative laryngoscopic examination revealed good vocal cord mobility. Maximum phonation time ($19.5{\pm}0.3$ sec) was longer than a previously-reported value in conventional reconstruction patients ($18.8{\pm}6.6$ sec). The present phonation efficiency index ($7.88{\pm}0.78$) was higher than that previously calculated in conventional reconstruction ($7.59{\pm}2.82$). The mean value of the Voice Handicap Index-10 was 6, which was within the normal range. This study demonstrates improvement in phonation indices measured 1 year after recurrent laryngeal nerve reconstruction. Our results confirm that the vein wrapping technique has theoretical advantages and could be favored over conventional reconstruction techniques for invenerate nerve injuries.

• Informatization Policy
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.43-66
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• 2022

With the development of artificial intelligence technology, competition for artificial intelligence technology patents around the world is intensifying. During the period 2000 ~ 2021, artificial intelligence technology patent applications at the US Patent and Trademark Office have been steadily increasing, and the growth rate has been steeper since the 2010s. As a result of analyzing Korea's artificial intelligence technology competitiveness through patent indices, it is evaluated that patent activity, impact, and marketability are superior in areas such as auditory intelligence and visual intelligence. However, compared to other countries, overall Korea's artificial intelligence technology patents are good in terms of activity and marketability, but somewhat inferior in technological impact. While noise canceling and voice recognition have recently decreased as topics for artificial intelligence, growth is expected in areas such as model learning optimization, smart sensors, and autonomous driving. In the case of Korea, efforts are required as there is a slight lack of patent applications in areas such as fraud detection/security and medical vision learning.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.2250-2255
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• 2011

There has been a growing interest toward railroad conjunction with opening of high-speed rail in 2004 and concurrent implementation of nation's green growth policies. Meanwhile, users' expectation on service of public transportation, especially railroad has been growing than since ever due to heightened quality of life, entering aging society, voice of equity for minorities, and greater interest in environments of communities. In order to come up with the expectations, actual improvements for user's convenience/comfort and its assessment strategies in terms of service quality level are necessary. This study defines the index of this aspect of service level as 'Sensitivity Quality'. This is conceived as one of the important factors to define travel cost as do the travel time and fare, but hardly taken into consideration when assessing a transportation system or policy-making for a transportation project. The elements included for the assessment of the sensitivity quality in this study are feeling of a ride, conformability and convenience what users feel and recognize using a train. This paper suggests that establishing sensitivity quality elements would contribute in foundation of assessing service quality and provide improved public transportation services through their scientific and objective development and management.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.8
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• pp.1269-1277
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• 2008

Ships at sea cannot exchange data among them easily so far. Basically voice-oriented communication systems are the main methods, some of them utilize the HF radio systems at lower bit rates, and for higher bit rates, the Inmarsat or VSAT are adopted. None of them are used widely because of lower qualities and higher costs. There exist many technical and economical limits to have the Internet service just like on land such as the WWW service. In order to achieve the improved transmission rates of the maritime communication networks at farther sea, MANET(Mobile Ad Hoc Network) is one of the most practical models. In this paper, a new routing protocol named EZR (Expansive Search Zone Routing Protocol) is proposed, which is based on SANET (Ship Ad Hoc Network) model that has some different features from MANET and VANET (Vehicular Ad Hoc Network). The search zone for the shortest path is firstly found by EZR. If no path is searched in the zone, the zone is expanded according to the rule of EZR. The zone-expanding and path-searching procedures are repeated until the path is found out. The performance of EZR is evaluated and compared with LAR protocol which is one of the most typical routing protocols based on geographical information. The simulated results show that EZR is much better than LAR at sea environments in terms of routing success rate, route optimality, and a single index of performance combined the previous two metrics.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.634-637
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• 2005

A subjective index of sound quality when it hit him is required since human listening is very sensitive and complex. Sound quality evaluation it leads consequently rightly in each situation and it composes a sound quality factor. But one of the levels in interest frequency range is substitute we cannot see the tendency of frequency substitute at whole that is executes a clear voice evaluation. Design of experiment is used and dividing 12 equally in frequency domain, the sound quality using sharpness and annoyance is performed by modifying each of frequency domains. Design of experiment method reduces much number experiment very effectively and each main effect of domain solution analysis, such as a case of sharpness and annoyance, the change of domain (increase and decrease of sound pressure level, or change nil) can grasp a type of effect should have influenced to a sound quality, and it will be able to select the objective frequency domain which hits to the sound quality. Through these obtained results the physical changes of level at arbitrary frequency domain sensitivity can be adapted.

• Korean Journal of Oriental Medicine
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• v.13 no.2 s.20
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• pp.91-100
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• 2007

In this paper, We tried to analyze the patent trend on constitution diagnosis and treatment related technologies. For this, constitution diagnosis and treatment related technologies divided into 16 sub-technology by the advisory committee. And we analyzed patents applied in Korea, Japan, U.S.A., China, and Europe. The 16 sub-technology consist of pulse analyzer, skin diagnosis, tongue analyzer, face and body detector, face analyzer, voice analyzer, intelligence ontology, meridian diagnosis, infrared thermography, electric stimulation, laser, high and low frequency, physical, magnetic, and ultrasound therapy. As a result we found that patents of constitution diagnosis and treatment in Korea has been growing steadily in both quality and quantity since 1980s. The number of patent the pulse analyzer and low frequency therapy are larger than others. But applied relevant international patents, marketability of the patent and Cites per Patent (CPP) index are shown to be very low. In conclusion, to occupy key original technologies of the Oriental medical device, we need to apply more patent of the whole related technology and international patents.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.109-126
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to examine overall customer satisfaction associated with medical service quality in Taiwan by integrated Kano's model and customer satisfaction index model. Another purpose was to confirmed nonlinear and asymmetric relationship of Customer Satisfaction and Quality Performance by the research outcome. By analyzing 1,100 patients or their family members, this study used the structural equation model (SEM) with AMOS software for data analysis. The results show that must-be attributes, one-dimensional attributes and attractive attributes had a direct effect on overall customer satisfaction, Surprisingly, overall customer satisfaction had positively influenced customer loyalty customer satisfaction had negatively influenced customer complaints. The study also found that customer complaints have direct effect on customer loyalty. Importantly, the study found out the must-be attributes, the attractive attributes and one-dimensional attributes increased, the level of overall customer satisfaction also increased. The customer satisfaction positively influences customer loyalty in medical service quality in Taiwan. The findings might reveal new insights for researchers dealing with quality of medical service and for hospital managers who devote resources exclusively to achieving highest possible levels of patient satisfaction.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.265-272
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• 2016

Recently Chinese education market and social interest has been extended. Accordingly, smart learning based on smartphone applications became part of new educational paradigm. Also, there are more active research and development of applications for the Chinese language education. In this paper, we designed and implemented the smartphone functional application prototype for learning basic Chinese characters. Expression of Chinese characters, the comparison, listening in pronunciation, voice recording and listening, related content learning, and implement testing presented using casual user interface. In the future study, we will develop the prototype with user interface for learning Chinese conversation and individual index of evaluation can be effective learning Instrument without additional tools.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.32-38
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• 2007

In order to establish the environmental condition of sounds in the classroom, we measured the impulse response in cases of using and not-using PA(Public-Address). By calculating the physical index of acoustics, I examined the differences between the two cases. The degree of improvement in listening with the help of PA has also been studied by testing the voice articulation with the use of the measured impulse response. As a result, I found that the clearness is enhanced by increasing the sound pressure level in the case of short reverberation. However, it was not the case when the reverberation time was long.