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Freezing of gait (FOG) is a commonly observed motor symptom for patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). The symptoms of FOG include reduced step lengths or motor blocks, even with an evident intention of walking. FOG should be monitored carefully because it not only lowers the patient's quality of life, but also significantly increases the risk of injury.In previous studies, patients had to wear several sensors on the body and another computing device was needed to run the FOG detection algorithm. Moreover, the features used in the algorithm were based on low-level and hand-crafted features. In this study, we propose a FOG detection system based on a smartphone, which can be placed in the patient's daily wear, with a novel convolutional neural network (CNN).The walking data of 32 PD patients were collected from the accelerometer and gyroscope embedded in the smartphone, located in the trouser pocket. The motion signals measured by the sensors were converted into the frequency domain and stacked into a 2D image for the CNN input. A specialized CNN model for FOG detection was determined through a validation process.We compared our performances with the results acquired by the previously reported settings. The proposed architecture discriminated the freezing events from the normal activities with an average sensitivity of 93.8% and a specificity of 90.1%.Using our methodology, the precise and continuous monitoring of freezing events with unconstrained sensing can assist patients in managing their chronic disease in daily life effectively.

In the present study, an innovative method for estimating fatigue performance of risers under vortex-induced vibration (VIV) is proposed. Generally, fatigue performance is affected by the surrounding environment such as wind, wave, and current. It is well known that current is the most influential load among all for offshore risers. In structural safety aspect, strength and fatigue are the most important factors for riser design. In addition, fatigue design is affinitive to the VIV phenomenon. For the analysis of fatigue performance of riser, SHEAR7 numerical simulation code which is commonly used in offshore industry is applied. In order to identify the relation between current load and fatigue performance of riser, Fatigue damage versus Current index (F-C) diagram has been proposed. F-C diagram may cover change of current profiles and help predict the fatigue damage under VIV. In case of current profile, a total of sixty cases of current scenarios are considered based on six representative sea-states. The obtained results from this study will be a useful guideline to predict the effect of current on the fatigue performance of riser.

There are several methods such as experimental, numerical, and analytical methods which are the mostly adopted in the verification of proposed design code or guidelines to calculate the ultimate strength performance of stiffened panel structures. This study proposes an advanced empirical formula shape, which is a function of plate slenderness ratio and column slenderness ratio with two (2) correction coefficients ( C 1 and C 2 ), used to predict the ultimate strength performance of stiffened panel structures in ships. In addition, the two aforementioned correction coefficients were decided and verified by obtaining the result of an ANSYS nonlinear finite element analysis. An average level of initial imperfection and 2 bay – 2 span (1/2 – 1 – 1/2) model were adopted in the proposed empirical formula. The effects of residual strength were not considered in this study. A total of 124 stiffened panels with four different plate slenderness ratios ( β ) and changing column slenderness ratio (λ) were selected for the simulation scenarios. To confirm the accuracy of the obtained formula, a statistical analysis was also conducted on the ANSYS results and other existing formulas. The proposed method and its details were documented.

Background Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibition using crizotinib has become the standard of care in advancedALK-rearranged non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but the treatment outcomes and duration of response vary widely. Echinoderm microtubule-associated protein-like 4 (EML4)-ALK is the most common translocation, and the fusion variants show different sensitivity to crizotinibin vitro. However, there are only limited data on the specificEML4-ALK variants and clinical responses of patients to various ALK inhibitors. Patients and methods By multiplex reverse-transcriptase PCR, which detects 12 variants of knownEML4-ALK rearrangements, we retrospectively determinedALK fusion variants in 54 advancedALK rearrangement-positive NSCLCs. We subdivided the patients into two groups (variants 1/2/others and variants 3a/b) by protein stability and evaluated correlations of the variant status with clinical responses to crizotinib, alectinib, or ceritinib. Moreover, we established the EML4-ALK variant-expressing system and analyzed patterns of sensitivity of the variants to ALK inhibitors. Results Of the 54 tumors analyzed,EML4-ALK variants 3a/b (44.4%) was the most common type, followed by variants 1 (33.3%) and 2 (11.1%). The 2-year progression-free survival (PFS) rate was 76.0% [95% confidence interval (CI) 56.8–100] in groupEML4-ALK variants 1/2/others versus 26.4% (95% CI 10.5–66.6) in group variants 3a/b (P = 0.034) among crizotinib-treated patients. Meanwhile, the 2-year PFS rate was 69.0% (95% CI 49.9–95.4) in group variants 1/2/others versus 32.7% (95% CI 15.6–68.4) in group variants 3a/b (P = 0.108) among all crizotinib-, alectinib-, and ceritinib-treated patients. Variant 3a- or 5a-harboring cells were resistant to ALK inhibitors with >10-fold higher half maximal inhibitory concentrationin vitro. Conclusion Our findings show that groupEML4-ALK variants 3a/b may be a major source of ALK inhibitor resistance in the clinic. The variant-specific genotype of theEML4-ALK fusion allows for more precise stratification of patients with advanced NSCLC.

Background While the need for hospice care is increasing in Korea, there is limited research describing the way hospice care is understood by hospital ward nurses who may have relatively limited opportunities for hospice education in their workplace. Aim This study aimed to describe Korean nurses’ attitudes towards hospice care and to examine the relationships between nurses’ attitudes towards hospice care and their demographic and work-related characteristics. Methods This was a cross-sectional descriptive study. A total of 348 registered nurses recruited from six general hospitals were surveyed using a structured questionnaire. Measurements included general and work-related characteristics and the Frommelt Attitude Toward Care of the Dying Scale. Results The mean score for nurses’ attitudes towards hospice care was 2.52 out of a maximum of 3.0. More positive attitudes towards hospice care were associated with older age, married status, a higher level of education, working at a hospice unit, a higher job position, more years of work experience, having previous experience caring for dying patients and having received education in hospice care. Factors predicting nurses’ attitudes towards hospice care included the number of years of work experience and working at a hospice unit in a hospital, with an explanatory power of 22%. Limitations The study was conducted in tertiary care hospitals in Seoul metropolitan area; results may therefore differ in other geographical regions. Conclusion Education on hospice care should be targeted to less experienced, younger staff nurses who have no previous education on hospice care or have not worked in a hospice unit. Implication for Nursing and Health Policy Tertiary hospitals need to provide more opportunities for their nurses to obtain continuing education on hospice care or increase the number of courses available at the institutional level in order to enhance their nurses’ attitudes towards hospice care.

For the vibration control of residential buildings, a multiple type slim damper system is developed and dynamic performance test is performed in this study. In conventional damping systems, larger installation space is required in order to achieve acceptable seismic performance, and as a result, it is difficult to determine efficient damping capacity of the device. The proposed damping device is composed of several small slim type dampers and linkage units. It can control damping capacity easily by changing the number of the small damper. To evaluate the proposed damping device, three slim type dampers (single-type, triple-type and penta-type) are designed and manufactured in real scale. Dynamic loading tests are performed by using the three manufactured dampers. From the tests, it is shown that damping coefficient is proportional to the number of the damper combined. Thus, test results validates the practicality of the proposed slim type dampers. applying nonlinear curve fitting technique, numerical model of the dampers are developed and presented.

Objective:Firefighters are known to have increased risk of cardiovascular disease when on duty. However, there are no studies that investigated how blood pressure levels affect the cardiovascular risk of firefighters when compared to age-gender matched control.Design and method:This retrospective co

Objectives: This study was conducted to develop a Korean version of the Participatory Action Oriented Training (PAOT) program and training materials for improvement of agricultural working environments. Methods: The PAOT manual and checklist were developed on the basis of the original English version of the training materials, a questionnaire survey of agricultural health and safety professionals, and a brainstorming conference. Good example pictures were collected through visits to agricultural workers' houses, and an easily understandable picture was drawn by an animation specialist. A PAOT action manual and five types of action checklists were developed for use in different agricultural environments. Each action checklist contained six categories and 38 items of agricultural health and safety principles; the six categories were material storage and handling, work stations and tools, machine safety, physical environment, working schedule and organization, and basic health and safety management. Incorporating these training materials, a one-day Korean PAOT program was developed. Results: Among 307 candidate agricultural workers from four rural Korean villages, 94 workers (59 males, 35 females) participated in a PAOT from July 2007 to Oct 2008. The PAOT program was successful and the mean self-estimated satisfaction score of the participants was greater than 90%. Conclusions: A Korean PAOT program and training materials were successfully developed and applied to Korean agricultural workers. Although more studies are needed, it is expected that PAOT will greatly contribute to the improvement of agricultural working conditions and health and safety through the use of agricultural workers' self initiatives.

In the conventional carbon nanotube backlight units (CNT-BLUs), light passes through the phosphor-coated anode glass plate, which thus faces closely the thin film transistor (TFT) backplate of a liquid crystal display panel. This configuration makes heat dissipation structurally difficult because light emission and heat generation occur simultaneously at the anode. We propose a novel configuration of a CNT-BLU where the cathode rather than the anode faces the TFT backplate by turning it upside down. In this design, light passes through the transparent cathode glass plate while heating occurs at the anode. We demonstrated a novel design of CNT-BLU by fabricating transparent single-walled CNT field emitters on the cathode and by coating a reflecting metal layer on the anode. This study hopefully provides a clue to solve the anode-heating problem which would be inevitably confronted for high-luminance and large-area CNT-BLUs.

Freezing of gait (FOG) is a common motor impairment to suffer an inability to walk, experienced by Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. FOG interferes with daily activities and increases fall risk, which can cause severe health problems. We propose a novel smartphone-based system to detect FOG symptoms in an unconstrained way. The feasibility of single device to sense gait characteristic was tested on the various body positions such as ankle, trouser pocket, waist and chest pocket. Using measured data from accelerometer and gyroscope in the smartphone, machine learning algorithm was applied to classify freezing episodes from normal walking. The performance of AdaBoost.M1 classifier showed the best sensitivity of 86% at the waist, 84% and 81% in the trouser pocket and at the ankle respectively, which is comparable to the results of previous studies.

A recommender system is a personalized decision support tool to suggest suitable products in proper manners for the benefits of both suppliers and consumers with the assumption of full understanding of consumers' needs and preferences. However, a substantial number of studies have focused on making recommender systems more accurate and efficient from the perspective of suppliers. Whereas, there have been a few studies on consumers' needs and preferences under their own contexts to accept recommender systems. To this end, this study attempted to find out the effects of personal sentiments and contexts on the willingness to accept music recommender systems based on the "Technology Acceptance Model". For the study, we developed a conceptual model to test the effects.

Background: The results of recent studies suggest that factors in rural environments may protect against the development of allergic diseases, but the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of allergic diseases, to establish if this prevalence is influenced by migration from rural to urban areas and to identify environmental risk factors associated with these diseases. Methods: A cross-sectional study of children aged 9–12 years from a rural village, a rural town and an urban city in Korea was conducted. Demographic and disease-related information was obtained via a detailed questionnaire, and skin prick tests were performed. Results: There were significant differences in lifestyle and environmental factors between children from the rural village, the rural town and the urban children. The prevalence of allergic diseases and atopy was higher in urban children. A lower prevalence of allergic diseases and atopy was associated with farming parents, contact with farm animals during pregnancy, owning pets or a stable, breast-feeding and having older siblings. A comparison of rural village and rural town children revealed no evidence of an association of allergic diseases and atopy with farming parents, contact with farm animals during pregnancy or owning a stable. On the other hand, having older siblings and antibiotic use during infancy were significantly associated with allergic diseases and atopy in these children. Conclusions: Protective factors associated with a farming environment and/or rural lifestyle may influence the prevalence of allergic diseases and atopy in Korean children.

To overcome the resolution limitation in the visual prosthesis, various image processing methods have been proposed. These methods are limited for close-up images of faces or objects. However, images in real environment contain not only the predefined objects such as faces and letters but also unexpected visually-salient objects which give important information on the images. In this paper, we propose the region-of-interest detection method which is appropriate for real situations using a context-based model, and demonstrate that the detected region can guide attention. The gazes are estimated while subjects are watching two kinds of pixelized images obtained by a conventional method and the proposed method, and are compared with experimentally detected conspicuous region. The results show that the context-based model detecting visually-attractive region is useful to solve the resolution limitation.

MOBIUS (Multimodal Brain Imaging Utility for Source Analysis) is a system developed for interactively processing brain related data. The system aims at facilitating visual inspection of both anatomical (e.g. MRI) and functional (e.g. PET, EEG, ERP) brain data by registration, analyzing electrical sources by numerically solving inverse problems, and quantitatively comparing brain activities by geometric mapping. For quantitative analyses of inter-subject and intra-subject modalities, robust algorithms are employed for registration in MOBIUS including automatic intrasubject MRI-PET registration and landmark-based intersubject MRI-registration methods. Modifications and improvements to existing registration methods are presented, along with implications of the methods for multimodal study.

This work represents a new method for measuring ocular torsion using optical flow. Feature points are obtained from reference and current image, and the relative optical flows of each point are calculated. The feature points are selected according to the strength of corner on the signature of iris. This method is robust and effective in calculation.

The recent trend of growing breaches of personal privacy suggests the urgent need for privacy protection. Legislated by Japan's General Services Administration in May 2003, the Privacy Act applies to activities dealing with personal information in private industry sectors including the information telecommunications industry. The Privacy Act stipulates the basic policies for the general execution of personal information protection and roles and duties related to privacy management for information telecommunications companies. The Act take effect on April 1, 2005 for information telecommunications industries. This document reviews the contents of the Japanese Privacy Act and seeks to understand the Japanese policy direction regarding privacy protection to address strategic current issues for Korean privacy policies

Summary form only given. This paper presents a new approach for an eye tracking method considering the spherical geometry of the eye. We use a deformable model and normalized correlation to find the center of a distorted pupil image. Deformation parameters are translation, scaling, and two rotations about the horizontal and the vertical axis. The optimizing method is the Levenberg-Marquardt method. For calculation efficiency, we use a hierarchical search in normalized correlation.

It is hard to extract the input function from the left ventricle on H/sub 2//sup 15/O PET image to estimate the regional myocardial blood flow (rMBF). In this study the authors applied blind source separation technique by Independent Component Analysis (ICA) to extract input function from the H/sub 2//sup 15/O dynamic myocardial PET. Dynamic PET scans were performed on 5 dogs at rest and dipyridamole-induced stress. A transverse slice containing the biggest heart was selected and masked so that only the cardiac components were included in the analysis. The authors assumed that the elementary activities corresponding to the left and right ventricular pool and myocardial tissue as independent sources since their anatomical structures are not overlapped in the space. After principal component analysis, ICA unmixing process was performed using the extended infomax learning algorithm and left ventricular input function was obtained. In all the cases, the authors could extract the input functions, which had identical shape with those obtained using the manually drawn region of interest, and the rMBFs obtained using them were correlated well (r=0.87, p=0.001). Since all the process was, moreover, automatically achieved with very short computation time, it will be useful for the quantification of the rMBF using H/sub 2//sup 15/O PET.

Snoring often obstructs harmonic social relationships and may be related to obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). In order to analyze this symptom, the authors have developed a real-time system which is linked to the polysomnographic recording system. They have concentrated upon the development of an interactive analysis-tool which contains various analyzing methods.

We performed systematical thermal design and fabricated X-band 0.5 W class power HBTs. Based on the thermal design, we adopted an HBT with emitter-to-emitter spacing of 30 /spl mu/m as a standard device. The collector-emitter breakdown voltage is 16 V indicating that 8 V operation is possible. f/sub t/, f/sub max/ and output power of the HBT at 10 GHz are 67, 58 GHz and 0.58 W, respectively. Various kinds of HBTs with different structures have been studied for reducing the thermal effects and we will present the dominant effect on thermal problems and the measurement data for thermal design guide.

Background and Aims: After the introduction of Milan criteria (MC), liver transplantation (LT) has been recognized as the best treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, MC are too restrictive criteria. Recently, several groups have introduced expanded criteria for selection of LT candidates. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed a cohort of 210 patients transplanted for HCC from 1988 to 2008, categorizing them according to MC (considered as the criterium of comparison) and thirteen expanded criteria (Padua, Valencia, UCSF, TTV/AFP, CUN, Up-to-seven, Seoul, Tokyo, Kyoto, Asan, Dallas, Sapienza and Hangzhou criteria). Results: The mean follow-up time was 4.5±4.2 years. HCC recurrence was observed in 27 patients (13%). In 29.5% of patients MC were exceeded. By applying the parameters of the thirteen modified expanded criteria, we observed a 9–31% range of increase in the number of LT patients. The most conservative were Padua criteria, while the less conservative were Hanghzou criteria. Upto-7 criteria showed intermediate results (19%). No differences were observed analyzing patient and disease-free survivals of the recipients who meet the fourteen criteria (67.2–70.4% and 91.7– 88.3%, respectively). Whereas, significant differences were observed in survival rates of patients who did not fulfill criteria, with progressive decreased survivals in less conservative criteria. MC presented the higher sensitivity and the lower specificity for the risk of recurrence (63% and 75%, respectively), while Hanghzou criteria showed the opposite results (33% and 96%, respectively). Analyzing the recurrence rates, we noted that no substantial differences were observed between the patients who met all the criteria, also the less conservative ones (MC: 7% versus Hanghzou criteria: 9%), while a major number of recurrence were detected in recipients who exceeded less conservative criteria (MC: 27% versus Hanghzou criteria: 56%). Conclusions: Expanded criteria does not seem to decrease survivals and to not significantly improve HCC recurrence, consenting more potentially curable HCC patients to became LT candidates. Only patients who do not fulfil less conservative criteria have a very increased risk of HCC recurrence. However, an universally recognized expanded criteria does not already exists: every center could select the best criteria respect to its effective LT volume.

Background and Aims: Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common primary liver cancer. It is the fifth most common cancer in men and eighth in women. The causes of hepatocellular carcinoma are either viral hepatitis (hepatitis B or C) or alcohol. Tumor necrosis factor(TNF)-a is an intrinsic tumor promoter that plays an important role in pathogenesis of cancer. Although many studies of TNF-a have been done with hepatitis, ulcers, endometriosis, no study was done with HCC. We studied the association of single nucleotide polymorphism at the region of 863 (CtoA, 863A) and 857(CtoT, 857T) of TNF-~ gene with hepatocellular carcinoma. Methods: We surveyed 377 of normal control and 230 patients of hepatocellular carcinoma on the TNF-a gene polymorphism. We extracted genomic DNA from whole blood of both groups, and then polymerase chain reaction and pyrosequencing was done. We analyzed the frequencies of typal differences of TNF-a 864A and 857T and analyzed the genetic frequencies of clinical conditions such as tumor types, portal vein thrombosis, stages, causes, tumor sizes, metastases. Results: The distribution of control and hepatocellular carcinoma patients reached Hardy Weinberg equilibrium. At the region of TNF-a 857T, the frequency was higher in the hepatocellular carcinoma patients than in normal control (p 0.003), but no differences was noted at the region of TNF-a 863A(p 0.729), and the relative risk of hepatocellular carcinoma in the T/T type of TNF-a 857T gene was 3.6 times higher than GIG type (odds ratio 3.614; 95%CI 1.496 3.734). In the analysis of TNF-a haplotypes, the risk of the haplotype 863C-857T was higher significantly (odds ratio 1.60; 95% CI 1.19 2.14), but there were no differences between hepatocellular carcinoma with clinical conditions. Conclusion: According to the mentioned above, we concluded that single nucleotide polymorphism of 857 region(Cto T, 857T) and haplotype of 863C-857T of TNF-a gene is associated with the pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma.

A system developed on a PC and a VAX host automatically acquires clinical images and patient data from a standard ultrasound unit and transfers them to a digital picture archiving and communications system (PACS) network for storage and display. Normal clinical exam procedures are observed and the digital system is user transparent. The PACS uses an Ethernet network, optical-disk storage and multiple-image viewing stations. A frame-grabber is used to capture the ultrasound analog video output signal and an additional digital circuit is used to monitor signals from the attached film camera. One advanced feature is the use of character-recognition algorithms to extract patient data from the image. >

A thin grounded uniaxial anisotropic slab capable of guiding electromagnetic surface waves was built and its surface reactance was measured at 4.8 GHz for the lowest order TM mode. The structure consists of a lattice of closely spaced thin conducting cylinders embedded in a dielectric with their axes normal to a conducting plane. The theories of propagation in anisotropic media and of artificial dielectrics are used to design the structure and explain its properties.