Segment inertial parameters of Korean adults estimated from three-dimensional body laser scan data

In this study, body segment parameters of Korean adults were estimated using the three-dimensional (3D) body scan data from the SizeKorea database. Mass-inertial parameters and segment dimensions of 40 male subjects and 40 female subjects (18-59 years old) were estimated using a 16-segment model under the assumption that each segment has a constant density distribution after reconstructing the scan data. Therefore, several sets of linear regression functions based on gender, stature, and weight were established, which provided a convenient method for estimating body segment parameters of Korean adults. The obtained mass ratios of body segments were compared with those for Russians reported by Zatsiorsky and Seluyanov (1983) and for those for Chinese and Germans reported by Shan and Bohn (2003), in which the same 16-segment model was used. In addition, the results were compared with the Korean data results reported by [Jung, 1993] and [Lim, 1994], and Park et al. (1999). These comparisons revealed that Asians have larger head mass ratios and smaller lower limb mass ratios than Caucasians, while the differences in the head mass ratios between males and females from the same ethnic groups were not significant. Females were found to have larger mass ratios for the lower torso and smaller mass ratios for the upper torso, middle torso, upper arm, forearm, foot, and hand, as compared to males from the same ethnic groups. In addition, the data obtained by different researchers were compared, thereby showing high reproducibility of our method.

Relevance to industry

The obtained segment parameters can be used to define digital human models and applied to the fields of ergonomics and biomechanics, such as for workspace design, furniture design, vehicle interior design, and human movement analysis.     

Legal system and its effect for prevention of work-related musculoskeletal disorders in Korea

This study aims to introduce the legislation of occupational safety and health regulations for prevention of WMSDs in Korea and investigate its effect by showing an ergonomic intervention effort in a major motor company. In Korea, WMSDs incidence rates had increased from 1999 to 2003, and it is noted that its increment jumped rapidly in 2002 and 2003. The Korean government established a law prescribing employers’ duty of preventing WMSDs in 2002, which began effective in July, 2003. Following the legislation, all employers should execute the examination of WMSDs risk factors for the eleven designated tasks every three years. In addition to this legal obligation, some large companies voluntarily established an ergonomic intervention program by carrying out in-depth assessments for stressful tasks using OWAS, RULA, NLE, etc. We introduce a major motor company case to illustrate the industry’s activities of fulfilling the legislative requirement and of performing ergonomic assessments. Thanks to Korean government and industry’s effort for prevention of WMSDs, the incidence rates of WMSDs have continually decreased from the year of 2004, right after the year when the WMSDs-related regulation was enforced.

Relevance to industry

In spite of booming of information technology industries and automation of manufacturing processes in Korea, many workers are still exposed to the risk of WMSDs including awkward postures, stressful force exertions, repetitive motions in manufacturing and agriculture industries. WMSDs cases alone constitute 43.1% of occupational diseases in Korea and the industry’s effort of ergonomic intervention of WMSDs becomes a major issue to both the management and the labor union.     

An approximate duplicate elimination in RFID data streams

The RFID technology has been applied to a wide range of areas since it does not require contact in detecting RFID tags. However, due to the multiple readings in many cases in detecting an RFID tag and the deployment of multiple readers, RFID data contains many duplicates. Since RFID data is generated in a streaming fashion, it is difficult to remove duplicates in one pass with limited memory. We propose one pass approximate methods based on Bloom Filters using a small amount of memory. We first devise Time Bloom Filters as a simple extension to Bloom Filters. We then propose Time Interval Bloom Filters to reduce errors. Time Interval Bloom Filters need more space than Time Bloom Filters. We propose a method to reduce space for Time Interval Bloom Filters. Since Time Bloom Filters and Time Interval Bloom Filters are based on Bloom Filters, they do not produce false negative errors. Experimental results show that our approaches can effectively remove duplicates in RFID data streams in one pass with a small amount of memory.     

Distance approximation techniques to reduce the dimensionality for multimedia databases

Recently, databases have been used to store multimedia data such as images, maps, video clips, and music clips. In order to search them, they should be represented by various features, which are composed of high-dimensional vectors. As a result, the dimensionality of data is increased considerably, which causes ‘the curse of dimensionality’. The increase of data dimensionality causes poor performance of index structures. To overcome the problem, the research on the dimensionality reduction has been conducted. However, some reduction methods do not guarantee no false dismissal, while others incur high computational cost. This paper proposes dimensionality reduction techniques that guarantee no false dismissal while providing efficiency considerable by approximating distances with a few values. To provide the no false dismissal property, approximated distances should always be smaller than original distances. The Cauchy–Schwarz inequality and two trigonometrical equations are used as well as the dimension partitioning technique is applied to approximate distances in such a way to reduce the difference between the approximated distance and the original distance. As a result, the proposed techniques reduce the candidate set of a query result for efficient query processing.     

Stereo-motion with stereo and motion in complement

This paper presents a new approach of combining stereo vision and dynamic vision with the objective of retaining their advantages and removing their disadvantages. It is shown that, by assuming affine cameras, the stereo correspondences and motion correspondences, if organized in a particular way in a matrix, can be decomposed into: the 3D structure of the scene, the camera parameters, the motion parameters, and the stereo geometry. With this, the approach can infer stereo correspondences from motion correspondences, requiring only a time linear with respect to the size of the available image data. The approach offers the advantages of simpler correspondence, as in dynamic vision, and accurate reconstruction, as in stereo vision, even with short image sequences     

Quantification of arm kinesthetic sense using an arm motiongenerator

The human response caused by the motion of an object grasped by a human operator is defined as an arm kinesthetic sense. Due to nonlinearity and ambiguity of human senses, there is no absolute standard for quantification of kinesthetic sense. In this research, a so-called two-dimensional (2-D) arm motion generator is developed to emulate various mechanical impedance, i.e., stiffness or damping, characteristics of a human arm. The words representing arm kinesthetic sense are selected and then the subject's satisfaction levels on these words for given impedance values are measured and processed by the semantic differential method and factor analysis. In addition, in order to reflect the individual differences of each subject in the arm kinesthetic sense, compensation for individual differences based on the neural network technique is proposed. Through this proposed algorithm, the human sensations to arm movements described qualitatively can be converted into engineering data ensuring objectivity, reproducibility, and universality. This database can be used to develop user-friendly products related to arm motion     

Robust tracking control design for uncertain robotic systems with persistent bounded disturbances

In this study, a robust nonlinear L_∞‐gain tracking control design for uncertain robotic systems is proposed under persistent bounded disturbances. The design objective is that the peak of the tracking error in time domain must be as small as possible under persistent bounded disturbances. Since the nonlinear L_∞ ‐gain optimal tracking control cannot be solved directly, the nonlinear L_∞ ‐gain optimal tracking problem is transformed into a nonlinear L_∞ ‐gain tracking problem by given a prescribed disturbance attenuation level for the L_∞ ‐gain tracking performance. To guarantee that the L_∞ ‐gain tracking performance can be achieved for the uncertain robotic systems, a sliding‐mode scheme is introduced to eliminate the effect of the parameter uncertainties. By virtue of the skew‐symmetric property of the robotic systems, sufficient conditions are developed for solving the robust L_∞ ‐gain tracking control problems in terms of an algebraic equation instead of a differential equation. The proposed method is simple and the algebraic equation can be solved analytically. Therefore, the proposed robust L_∞ ‐gain tracking control scheme is suitable for practical control design of uncertain robotic systems. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society     

A well-based reverse-phase protein array applicable to extracts from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue

Proteomic analysis of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue offers significant diagnostic utility but is complicated due to the high level of covalently crosslinked proteins arising from formalin fixation. To address these challenges, we developed a reliable protein extraction method for FFPE tissue, based on heat-induced antigen retrieval within a pressure cooker. The protein extraction yield from archival FFPE tissue section is approximately 90% of that recovered from frozen tissue. This method demonstrates preservation of immunoreactivity and recovery of full-length proteins by Western blotting. Additionally, we developed a well-based RP protein array platform utilizing an electrochemiluminescence detection system. Protein samples derived from FFPE tissue by means of laser capture dissection, with as few as 500 shots demonstrate measurable signal differences for different proteins. The lysates coated to the array plate, remain stable over 1?month at room temperature. Theses data suggest that this new protein-profiling platform coupled with the protein extraction method can be used for molecular profiling analysis in FFPE tissue, and contribute to the validation and development of biomarkers in clinical studies.     

Computer-assisted predictive formulas expressing survival probability and life expectancy in US adults, men and women, 2001

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reported the United States life tables, 2001 for US total, male and female populations on the basis of 2001 mortality statistics, the 2000 decennial census and the data from the Medicare program [E. Arias, United State life tables, 2001, Natl. Vital Stat. Rep. 52 (2004) 1-40]. The life tables show life expectancy, survival and death rate at each year between birth and 100 years of age. In this study formulas expressing survival probability and life expectancy in US adults, men and women are constructed from the data of the NCHS. A model of the 'probacent'-probability equation previously published by the author is employed in the study. Analysis of the formula-predicted values and the NCHS-reported data indicates that the formulas are accurate and reliable with a close agreement. The formula representing a generalized lognormal distribution might be useful for biomedical investigation, and epidemiological and demographic studies in US adults, men and women.