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Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine test-retest reliability and validity of the adaptive Korean matrix sentence-in-noise test for elderly group with normal hearing (ENH) and elderly group with hearing impairment (EHI).Methods: Twenty ENH listeners and 20 EHI listeners based on the World Health Organization (WHO)-proposed hearing-impairment grade participated. For the test-retest reliability of the Korean matrix sentence-in-noise test, each subject was assessed twice in a 2-week interval using three types of noise: speech-shaped noise, International Collegium of Rehabilitative Audiology noise, and International Speech Test Signal. The test-retest agreement was judged by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and Bland-Altman plots. To differentiate between real change and random measurement error, the standard error of measurement (SEM) and the minimal detectable change (MDC) were also obtained as another reliability index. For the concurrent validity, the results of the Matrix test were compared to the results of the Korean-version Hearing In Noise Test (K-HINT).Results: The test-retest reliability was good to excellent for ENH and EHI groups (ICC, 0.84~0.98). Both groups showed stable reliability, but the ENH group showed smaller SEM and MDC values than the EHI group. No systematic errors were found from the Bland-Altman plots. The correlation between the results of the Matrix test and the K-HINT test was high, revealing good concurrent validity.Conclusion: The Korean matrix sentence-in-noise test appeared to be valid and reliable for the elderly. The Korean matrix sentence-in-noise test can be utilized for clinical measurement of the speech-in-noise ability of elderly individuals.

Diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of blindness which is associated with excessive angiogenesis. Using the structure of wondonin marine natural products, we previously created a scaffold to develop a novel type of antiangiogenesis agent that possesses minimized cytotoxicity. To overcome its poor pharmaceutical properties, we further modified the structure. A new scaffold was derived in which the stereogenic carbon was changed to nitrogen and the 1,2,3-triazole ring was replaced by an alkyl chain. By comparing the bioactivity versus cytotoxicity, compound 31 was selected, which has improved aqueous solubility and an enhanced selectivity index. Mechanistically, 31 suppressed angiopoietin-2 (ANGPT2) expression induced by high glucose in retinal cells and exhibited in vivo antiangiogenic activity in choroidal neovascularization and oxygen-induced retinopathy mouse models. These results suggest the potential of 31 as a lead to develop antiangiogenic small-molecule drugs to treat diabetic retinopathy and as a chemical tool to elucidate new mechanisms of angiogenesis.

Introduction Flow cytometric crossmatch assay (FCXM) is a sensitive cell-based method for evaluating the presence of donor-specific antibodies (DSA) before transplantation. Recently, 96-well tray FCXM protocol (Halifax FCXM) with improved test efficiency has been introduced. The objective of the present study was to assess the performance of Halifax FCXM by correlating with DSA results based on single antigen bead (SAB) assays (virtual crossmatch, VXM). Methods A total of 341 FCXMs were evaluated for the detection of HLA-DSA. A positive VXM was defined as having at least one HLA - DSA (HLA-A, B, Cw, DR, DQB1) with ≥ 1000 MFI (mean fluorescence intensity) identified by SAB assay. Results Of a total 341 cases, 113 showed class I VXM (+) with class I DSA MFI ≥ 1000 exclusively against one or more donor HLA class I antigens (HLA-A, B, Cw), 72 had class I-/II + DSA, and 156 had VXM(-). Halifax T-FCXM showed a sensitivity of 87.6% (99/113) and a specificity of 98.2% (224/228) for detecting class I VXM (+). The concordance between T-FCXM and class I VXM was 94.7% (323/341). Halifax B-FCXM showed a sensitivity of 58.3% (42/72) and a specificity of 98.7% (154/156) for detecting class I-/II + DSAs. The concordance between B-FCXM and class I-/II + VXM was 86.0% (196/228). When we separately analyzed data, B-FCXM detected HLA-DR (+) (68.8%) and HLA-DQ (+) DSAs (71.0%) similarly (P > 0.05). T-FCXM detected 87.6%, 97.2%, and 98.2% of class I DSA-positive cases with MFI values (sumDSA) ≥ 1000, ≥ 3000, and ≥ 5000, respectively. B-FCXM detected 58.3% of class I-II + DSA -positive (≥1000) cases, but detected 76.7% (33/43) and 89.2% (33/37) of class I-II + DSAs if MFI values of sumDSA and immunodominant DSA (iDSA) were above 5000, respectively. Halifax FCXM had sensitivities of 91.5% and 96.2% for detecting VXM (+) having MFI values above 5000 for class I or class II sumDSA and iDSA, respectively. Conclusion Halifax FCXM showed a good correlation, especially with SAB assay-based high MFI DSA or sumDSA. Concurrent application of FCXM with VXM can improve pre-transplant risk assessment and progress organ allocation efficiency.

Cold snare polypectomy (CSP) has been reported as safe and effective method for the removal of small colorectal polyps. However, some studies showed low R0 resection rate. Underwater endoscopic mucosal resection is an effective technique to increase the proportions of complete resection. Therefore, the aim was to compare the rate of R0 resection of colorectal polyps 4-9 mm in diameter between conventional CSP (C-CSP) and underwater CSP (U-CSP).This study was a prospective randomized controlled trial. A total of 198 polyps (4-9 mm) in 110 patients were enrolled between December 2019 and June 2020. The polyps were randomized to be treated with either C-CSP (100 polyps) or U-CSP (98 polyps).The R0 resection rate was significantly higher in U-CSP group than in C-CSP groups (84.7% vs. 59.0%; p 0.001). The polyp retrieval rate of C-CSP and U-CSP was 94.5% and 100% (p = 0.030). The rate of polyp fragmentation of C-CSP and U-CSP group was 5.3% and 0% (p = 0.027). The resection time and retrieval time were longer in C-CSP than U-CSP (45.0 ± 37.7 s vs. 34.1 ± 21.2 s, p = 0.032 and 51.9 ± 67.7 s vs. 12.7 ± 12.4 s, p 0.001). No clinically significant bleeding or perforation occurred in either group.The results of this study were excellent with U-CSP of 4-9 mm colorectal polyps in terms of R0 resection, polyp retrieval and fragmentation rate, and procedure/retrieval time. Therefore, U-CSP is a safe and effective technique for removing colorectal polyps 4-9 mm in diameter. KCT (0004530).

Simulation methods that can overcome the limitations of theory and experiment are widely used to predict disaster situations and analyze evacuation safety. To obtain more accurate and realistic simulation results, various situations that arise when people evacuate must be reflected. In this research, regression analysis is applied to existing research on walking speed changes according to crowd density, and we suggest a new equation for walking speed changes of people during evacuation. The suggested equation is applied to crowd evacuation simulations based on the actual viewing angle of a person. In addition, we developed a fallen person algorithm and applied it to examples from the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) to analyze the effect a fallen person has on evacuation. Through this research, evacuation safety analysis can be performed for cases involving falling people, and it will be possible to design buildings that can minimize risk and evacuation time in case of an actual emergency situation by analyzing the optimum measures more strictly.

This study examines the impact of the 'diversity' of product recommendations on the 'preference' of a customer, using online/offline data from a leading fashion company. First, through interviews with fashion professionals, we categorized the characteristics of customers into four types - gift, coordinator, carry-over, and trendsetter. Then, using a hybrid filtering method, we increased the accuracy and diversity of recommended products. We derived 13 salient features that reflect customer behavior based on the Purchase Funnel model and built a classification model that predicts a customer's preference rates. Second, we conducted two large-scale user tests with 20,000 real customers to verify the effectiveness of our recommendation system. Study results empirically demonstrated the importance of diversity of recommended products. The more diverse the product recommendations were, the higher the purchase rate, the average purchase amount, and the cross purchase rate were observed. In addition, we tracked the customers? purchase for two months after the user tests and found that diverse product exposure positively influenced customer retention (e.g., repurchase rate, amount).

The depletion of natural resources and global warming have increased in severity globally. In the industrial field, assembly products, such as electronic products, should be disassembled for recycling and reuse to deal with these problems. Reuse and recycling can contribute to reducing GreenHouse Gas (GHG) emissions and less depletion of natural resources since GHG emissions for virgin material production can be saved using reused components and recycled materials. However, each component of selling revenue and material-based GHG emissions depends on the country because of the different energy mixes of electrical power. Moreover, each collected component embedded in End-of-Life (EOL) products needs to be selected as a life cycle option based on its remaining life. The purpose of this study is to decide life cycle options such as reuse, recycling, and disposal of each component environmentally-friendly and economically in Korea and Japanese cases for computers. Firstly, selecting the life cycle option for each component was formulated by 0–1 integer programming with ε constraints. Next, GHG emissions, profits, and costs in Korea and Japan were estimated and analyzed for each component. Finally, Korean and Japanese cases were analyzed to obtain an economic value in the same material-based GHG saving rate with each component’s life cycle option selection by comparing each EOL product data. In the experiments, GHG recovery efficiency was higher in Japan 43 [g/Yen] than one in Korea 28 [g/Yen]. Therefore, it was better to retrieve and reutilize the components in Korea. However, if the maximum GHG recovery efficiency is desired, Japan is a better option.

International audience; This paper aims to construct a linguistic resource of Korean Multiword Expressions for Feature-Based Sentiment Analysis (FBSA): DECO-MWE. Dealing with multiword expressions (MWEs) has been a critical issue in FBSA since many constructs reveal lexical idiosyncrasy. To construct linguistic resources of sentiment MWEs efficiently, we utilize the Local Grammar Graph (LGG) methodology: DECO-MWE is formalized as a Finite-State Transducer that represents lexical-syntactic restrictions on MWEs. In this study, we built a corpus of cosmetics review texts, which show particularly frequent occurrences of MWEs. Based on an empirical examination of the corpus, four types of MWEs have been distinguished. The DECO-MWE thus covers the following four categories: Standard Polarity MWEs (SMWEs), Domain-Dependent Polarity MWEs (DMWEs), Compound Named Entity MWEs (EMWEs) and Compound Feature MWEs (FMWEs). The retrieval performance of the DECO-MWE shows 0.806 f-measure in the test corpus. This study brings a twofold outcome: first, a sizeable general-purpose polarity MWE lexicon, which may be broadly used in FBSA; second, a finite-state methodology adopted in this study to treat domain-dependent MWEs such as idiosyncratic polarity expressions, named entity expressions or feature expressions, and which may be reused in describing linguistic properties of other corpus domains.

Lanthanum silicate apatite (LSA, La 9.33+ x Si 6 O 26+1.5 x , x = 0–0.67) has been widely investigated as a promising electrolyte material for intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). In this work, a facile and low-cost co-precipitation method is used to synthesize LSA precursor powders. The well dispersed nanopowders ( ca . 70 nm) with pure hexagonal LSA phase are obtained by calcining the precursor at 900 °C. Impurity of La 2 SiO 5 , caused by the different precipitation productivities of La(NO 3 ) 3 and TEOS, can be eliminated through lowering the La/Si ratio in the starting mixtures. The dispersant (PEG200) plays a crucial role in co-precipitation processes, which can effectively mitigate the agglomeration and therefore significantly improve the sinterability of the nanoparticles. Dense LSA ceramic with relative density of 98% is obtained after sintering at 1550 °C, which exhibits a conductivity of 0.13 mS cm −1 at 500 °C.

Nanolaminate Ti 3 SiC 2 was synthesized from a mixture of TiC x ( x = 0.67)/Si powder by hot pressing to increase machinability. Ti 3 SiC 2 was synthesized at temperatures of 1360 °C and 1420 °C for 90 min under a pressure of 25 MPa. The X-ray diffraction results showed that while mainly Ti 3 SiC 2 with some unreacted TiC x were detected in the synthesized samples at 1360 °C, no phases except Ti 3 SiC 2 phases remained in the synthesized samples at 1420 °C. The cutting resistance of Ti 3 SiC 2 was measured in terms of the principle, feed, and thrust forces and was compared with that of middle-carbon steel, SM45C. The values of the principal force of the synthesized Ti 3 SiC 2 were lower than those of SM45C. After machining, the roughness of the Ti 3 SiC 2 was lower than those of SM45C; however, the damage to the tool bit used for the machining of SM45C was less than the damage to those used for the machining of the Ti 3 SiC 2 .

High-purity Ti 3 SiC 2 compounds have been fabricated by infiltration of molten Si into a precursor, a partially sintered TiC x ( x = 0.67) preform. The Si source and the TiC x preform were placed side by side on carbon cloth, and the system was heated to 1550 °C. Molten Si infiltrated the preform through the carbon cloth, and a direct reaction between TiC x and molten Si immediately occurred at the reaction temperature to yield pure Ti 3 SiC 2 . We could observe phase formation and the microstructure of the bulk products with time, which were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Pure Ti 3 SiC 2 compounds were formed on the exterior of the TiC x preform at 1550 °C when the sintered TiC x :Si ingot molar ratio was 3:1.4. At 1550 °C, no other minor phases were detected for any of the sintering time ranges.

A study has been performed to synthesize polycrystalline bulk Ti 3 AlC 2 by hot pressing from TiC x ( x = 0.6) and Al powder mixture at the temperature range of 800–1600 °C under 25 MPa for various times. Relatively pure Ti 3 AlC 2 was successfully synthesized above 900 °C. Small amount of Ti 2 AlC as a secondary phase was observed along with Ti 3 AlC 2 below 1400 °C. With increasing hot pressing time to 1250 °C, the amount of un-reacted TiC x was gradually decreased while Ti 3 AlC 2 was appeared to be a dominant phase. The densification of Ti 3 AlC 2 was examined as a function of hot pressing temperature up to 1600 °C as well as it was investigated with hot pressing time at 1250 °C. Near fully dense Ti 3 AlC 2 was synthesized as the hot pressing time was increased at 1250 °C. Fully dense and pure Ti 3 AlC 2 could be synthesized by hot pressing above 1400 °C. The resulting Ti 3 AlC 2 above 1400 °C showed the typical laminated and platelet grain structure of ternary carbides. With increasing processing temperature to 1600 °C, the typical platelet grain structure of Ti 3 AlC 2 was started to be destroyed and significant grain coarsening was occurred, which might be caused by partial melting of Ti 3 AlC 2 . The Vickers hardness of bulk Ti 3 AlC 2 was about 3.5–6 GPa under the loading of 10 N. The maximum flexural strength of synthesized bulk Ti 3 AlC 2 was over 900 MPa. The new process using TiC x /Al powder mixture as a starting material made it possible to shorten the synthesis time, to reduce processing temperature, as well as to improve the flexural strength of Ti 3 AlC 2 .

This paper introduces a high-gain observer based state of charge(SOC) estimator for lithium-Ion batteries. The proposed SOC estimator has a high-gain observer(HGO) structure. The HGO scheme enhances the transient response speed and diminishes the effect of uncertainties. Furthermore, it guarantees that the output feedback controller recovers the performance of the state feedback controller when the observer gain is sufficiently high. In order to show the effectiveness of the proposed method, the linear RC battery model in ADVISOR is used. The performance of the proposed method is compared with that of the conventional linear observer(CLO) and some simulation result is given., {"references":["S. Piller, M. Perrin and A. Jossen, \"Methods for state-of-charge determination\nand their applications,\" J. Power Sources, pp. 113-120, 2001.","J.H. Aylor and B.W. Johnson, \"A battery state-of-charge indicator for\nelectric wheelchairs,\" IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron, pp. 398-409, 1992.","T.H. Liu, D.F. Chen and C.C. Fang, \"Design and implementation of a\nbattery charger with a state-of-charge estimator,\" Int. J. Electron, pp. 211-\n226, 2000.","Y. adrc and Y. zkazan, \"Microcontroller-based on-line state-of-charge\nestimator for sealed lead-acid batteries\" J. Power Sources, pp. 330-342,\n2004.","B.S. Bhangu, P. Bentley, D.A. Stone and C.M. Bingham, \"Nonlinear\nobservers for predicting state-of-charge and state-of-health of lead-acid\nbatteries for hybrid-electric vehicles,\" IEEE Trans. Veh. Tech, pp. 783-\n794, 2005.","F. Zhang, G. Liu and L. Fang, \"A battery state of charge estimation\nmethod using sliding mode observer,\" Proceedings of the 7th World\nCongress on Intelligent Control and Automation, Chongqing, China, Jun.\n2008.","F. Zhang and G. Liu, \"Estimation of battery state of charge with H∞ observer: applied to a robot for inspecting power transmission lines,\"\nIEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 59, no 2, pp. 1086-1095, shenyang, China,\nFeb. 2012.","H. He, R. Xiong and J. Fan, \"Evaluation of lithium-ion battery equivalent\ncircuit models for state of charge estimation by an experimental\napproach,\" Energies, pp. 582-598, Apr. 2011.","X. Hu, F. Sun and Y. Zou, \"Estimation of state of charge of a lithium-ion\nbattery pack for electric vehicles using an adaptive luenberger observer,\"\nenergies, pp. 1586-1603, Mar. 2010.\n[10] H. Chaoui and P. Sicard, \"Accurate state of charge estimation for\nbatteries using a reduced-order observer,\" IEEE Int.l Con., pp. 39-43,\nQC, Canada, Mar. 2011.\n[11] S. Pang, J. Jarrell, J. Du and M. Barth, \"Battery state-of-charge estimation,\"\nProceedings fo the American Control Conference., Jun. 2001.\n[12] J. Ciasson and B. Vairamohan, \"Estimating the state of charge of a\nbattery,\" IEEE Trans. Con. Sys. Technology., vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 465-470,\nMay. 2005\n[13] K. Wipke, ADVISOR 3.2 Documentation, NREL: Golden, CO, USA,\n2001."]}

Due to subtle misalignment of optical components in the fabrication process, images projected by an optical light modulator have severe line artifact along the direction of the optical scan. In this paper, we propose a novel methodology to calibrate the modulator and generate the compensate image for the misaligned optical modulator in order to eliminate the line artifact. A camera system is employed to construct Luminance Transfer Function (LTF) that characterizes the optical modulator array. Spatial uniformity is obtained by redefining the dynamic range and compensating the characteristic curvature of the LTF for each optical modulator array element. Simulation results show significant reduction in the visibility of line artifact.