Comparison of national e‐health implementation in the United States and South Korea

With the development of the health care industry, there has been growing recognition that e‐health implementation is needed to improve the efficiency, quality, and safety of care. In addition, a review of previous studies suggests that much can be learned by investigating the difference in national e‐health implementation in the United States and in South Korea. To this end, the main objective of this article is to compare the national e‐health implementation in the case of the United States and South Korea. The results show that in the United States a decentralized e‐health implementation is being followed by individual‐level e‐health. South Korea is pursuing ubiquitous health (u‐health) after a hospital information system and electronic health were implemented. The United States still lags behind many other countries in the implementation of e‐health, possibly due to its low uncertainty avoidance culture. South Korea has been among the frontrunner groups in e‐health implementation as a consequence of its highly developed telecommunication infrastructures and high uncertainty avoidance culture. On the basis of these results, we recommend that establishing health care policies be done on a national scale that takes into account the countries’ cultures.     

Graceful Degradation FEC Layer for Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service in LTE Mobile Systems

This paper proposes an additional forward error correction (FEC) layer to compensate for the defectiveness inherent in the conventional FEC layer in the Long Term Evolution specifications. The proposed additional layer is called a graceful degradation (GD)‐FEC layer and maintains desirable service quality even under burst data loss conditions of a few seconds. This paper also proposes a non‐delayed decoding (NDD)‐GD‐FEC layer that is inherent in the decoding process. Computer simulations and device‐based tests show a better loss recovery performance with a negligible increase in CPU utilization and occupied memory size.     

A study on performance optimization of a toilet by measuring accumulated flow rate of a trapway

When water shortages occur, toilet water-saving becomes an effective way to solve the problem. We developed a new method that utilizes the accumulated flow rate to predict the flushing performance and to obtain design data for the development of high-efficiency toilets. The results showed that the length and shape of the trapway are the most important factors for flushing performance, and additional water saving can be achieved by delaying the opening of the trapway outlet valve. In addition, the tank water level in the water tank needs to be optimized considering siphon intensity as well as siphon duration. In conclusion, the toilet was optimized up to 6.5 kg of water using 60 mm diameter flexible tube by the method of accumulated flow rate measurement. In the future, the development of an ultra high efficiency toilet below 4.5 kg will be tried utilizing the method.     

A Generalized Crystallographic Description of All Tellurium Nanostructures

Despite tellurium being less abundant in the Earth's crust than gold, platinum, or rare‐earth elements, the number of industrial applications of tellurium has rapidly increased in recent years. However, to date, many properties of tellurium and its associated compounds remain unknown. For example, formation mechanisms of many tellurium nanostructures synthesized so far have not yet been verified, and it is unclear why tellurium can readily transform to other compounds like silver telluride by simply mixing with solutions containing silver ions. This uncertainty appears to be due to previous misunderstandings about the tellurium structure. Here, a new approach to the tellurium structure via synthesized structures is proposed. It is found that the proposed approach applies not only to these structures but to all other tellurium nanostructures. Moreover, some unique tellurium nanostructures whose formation mechanism are, until now, unconfirmed can be explained.     

Development of cell morphologies in manufacturing flexible polyurethane urea foams as sound absorption materials

The effect of water content and a type of gelling catalysts [Triethylenediamine (DABCO) and dibutyltin dilaurate (DBTDL)] on chemical and physical structures of the flexible polyurethane foams (the flexible PUFs) is explored by a fourier transform infrared spectroscopy with attenuated total reflectance and a scanning electron microscope techniques. The amount of water usage plays a crucial role in controlling the sizes of cavities and pores of the PUFs. From the two gelling catalysts, the DBTDL reduces the rate of urea formation and NCO (isocyanate functional group) conversion due to the reduced molecular activity from the sterically hindered catalyst structure, comparing with the DABCO catalyst case. Strong gelling effect of the DBTDL can prevent the coalescence of the cavities and thus produce high number of well dispersed pores, but poor cavity and pore morphologies are observed in case of the fast reactions between isocyanate and water with the DABCO catalyst. The size uncertainties of cavity and pores with DBTDL catalyst are relatively smaller than with DABCO catalyst. In the sound absorption characteristics, uniformly distributed cavities and pores show better efficiency than the non-uniform cases.     

Finite element modeling of the human cervical spinal column: Role of the uncovertebral joint

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - The cervical intervertebral disc has a unique feature in that a fissure or cleft runs along the uncinate process toward the nucleus pulposus called...     

A comparative study on the antioxidative and anti‐allergic activities of fresh and aged black garlic extracts

The antioxidative and anti‐allergic activities of fresh and aged black garlic extracts were investigated. The garlic samples were extracted with 70% ethanol (v/v) and the total phenolic content was measured. The antioxidant capacity of extracts was assessed by determining the scavenging activities on 1,1‐diphenyl‐2‐picrylhydrazyl and hydroxyl radicals, ferricyanide reducing power, ferrous ion‐chelating ability and inhibitory effect on linoleic acid peroxidation. The anti‐allergic activity of extracts was analysed by measuring their inhibitory effects against β‐hexosaminidase release. The aged black garlic exhibited significantly higher phenolic content and greater antioxidative activity than fresh garlic. Both garlic extracts showed strong antioxidant capacity in a dose‐dependent manner. On the other hand, a considerably higher suppression of β‐hexosaminidase release was found in fresh garlic extract at lower concentration compared with that of the black garlic. Results of this study illustrate that ageing of garlic could enhance its antioxidant capacity, but could decrease its anti‐allergic activity.