THE ROLE OF VIRTUAL ARCHITECTURE: PHENOMENOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

[EN] Virtual reality (VR) will soon allow users to access experiences that have never before been possible. Many cultural institutions such as museums, tourism sites, or libraries will undoubtedly utilize VR more for historical, scientific, artistic, and educational learning and enjoyment. Human cognition includes both physical and virtual experiences and thoughts, and we need to understand how and why different cognitive media such as real, visual including VR, or text object are differently recognized by people. Based on phenomenological consideration and analysis with the case of Korean built heritage, this theoretical study suggests the philosophical and theoretical frame for the usage and role of VR in cultural discourse of the community. Further research may seek to identify differences between the experiences of participants exploring those forms through experiencing both physical and virtual cultural heritage objects.Lee, H. (2016). THE ROLE OF VIRTUAL ARCHITECTURE: PHENOMENOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE. En 8th International congress on archaeology, computer graphics, cultural heritage and innovation. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 298-301. https://doi.org/10.4995/arqueologica8.2015.3456OCS29830

Phenomenological classification of cultural heritage: role of virtual reality

[EN] Human consciousness is always the consciousness toward some thing and our perception of cultural heritage is no exception. Thus, understanding human cognition is closely related to understanding how the perceptible objects are classified in human mind. The perceptible objects include both physical and virtual experiences and thoughts, and it is important and necessary to analyze the types and the effective levels of those objects. With the emergence of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies in cultural heritage field, it is necessary to understand how and why different cognitive media such as realor visual reality including VR, are differently recognized by people. This study suggests the philosophical and theoretical frame for the usage of phenomenological classfication and analysis. By using this new classification with the case of Korean built heritage, the role of VR is explained in cultural discourse of the community.Lee, H. (2017). Phenomenological classification of cultural heritage: role of virtual reality. Virtual Archaeology Review. 8(16):69-74. doi:10.4995/var.2017.5962.697481

The Singer's Formant and Speaker's Ring Resonance: A Long-Term Average Spectrum Analysis

ObjectivesWe previously showed that a trained tenor's voice has the conventional singer's formant at the region of 3 kHz and another energy peak at 8-9 kHz. Singers in other operatic voice ranges are assumed to have the same peak in their singing and speaking voice. However, to date, no specific measurement of this has been made.MethodsTenors, baritones, sopranos and mezzo sopranos were chosen to participate in this study of the singer's formant and the speaker's ring resonance. Untrained males (n=15) and females (n=15) were included in the control group. Each subject was asked to produce successive /a/ vowel sounds in their singing and speaking voice. For singing, the low pitch was produced in the chest register and the high notes in the head register. We collected the data on the long-term average spectra of the speaking and singing voices of the trained singers and the control groups.ResultsFor the sounds produced from the head register, a significant energy concentration was seen in both 2.2-3.4 kHz and 7.5-8.4 kHz regions (except for the voices of the mezzo sopranos) in the trained singer group when compared to the control groups. Also, the chest register had a significant energy concentration in the 4 trained singer groups at the 2.2-3.1 kHz and 7.8-8.4 kHz. For speaking sound, all trained singers had a significant energy concentration at 2.2-5.3 kHz and sopranos had another energy concentration at 9-10 kHz.ConclusionThe results of this study suggest that opera singers have more energy concentration in the singer's formant/speaker's ring region, in both singing and speaking voices. Furthermore, another region of energy concentration was identified in opera singer's singing sound and in sopranos' speaking sound at 8-9 kHz. The authors believe that these energy concentrations may contribute to the rich voice of trained singers

UNCERTAINTY PROPAGATION ANALYSIS FOR YONGGWANG NUCLEAR UNIT 4 BY MCCARD/MASTER CORE ANALYSIS SYSTEM

This paper concerns estimating uncertainties of the core neutronics design parameters of power reactors by direct sampling method (DSM) calculations based on the two-step McCARD/MASTER design system in which McCARD is used to generate the fuel assembly (FA) homogenized few group constants (FGCs) while MASTER is used to conduct the core neutronics design computation. It presents an extended application of the uncertainty propagation analysis method originally designed for uncertainty quantification of the FA FGCs as a way to produce the covariances between the FGCs of any pair of FAs comprising the core, or the covariance matrix of the FA FGCs required for random sampling of the FA FGCs input sets into direct sampling core calculations by MASTER. For illustrative purposes, the uncertainties of core design parameters such as the effective multiplication factor (keff), normalized FA power densities, power peaking factors, etc. for the beginning of life (BOL) core of Yonggwang nuclear unit 4 (YGN4) at the hot zero power and all rods out are estimated by the McCARD/MASTER-based DSM computations. The results are compared with those from the uncertainty propagation analysis method based on the McCARD-predicted sensitivity coefficients of nuclear design parameters and the cross section covariance data

Automated Sulcal Depth Measurement on Cortical Surface Reflecting Geometrical Properties of Sulci

Sulcal depth that is one of the quantitative measures of cerebral cortex has been widely used as an important marker for brain morphological studies. Several studies have employed Euclidean (EUD) or geodesic (GED) algorithms to measure sulcal depth, which have limitations that ignore sulcal geometry in highly convoluted regions and result in under or overestimated depth. In this study, we proposed an automated measurement for sulcal depth on cortical surface reflecting geometrical properties of sulci, which named the adaptive distance transform (ADT). We first defined the volume region of cerebrospinal fluid between the 3D convex hull and the cortical surface, and constructed local coordinates for that restricted region. Dijkstra’s algorithm was then used to compute the shortest paths from the convex hull to the vertices of the cortical surface based on the local coordinates, which may be the most proper approach for defining sulcal depth. We applied our algorithm to both a clinical dataset including patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and 25 normal controls and a simulated dataset whose shape was similar to a single sulcus. The mean sulcal depth in the mild AD group was significantly lower than controls (p = 0.007, normal [mean±SD]: 7.29±0.23 mm, AD: 7.11±0.29) and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was relatively high, showing the value of 0.818. Results from clinical dataset that were consistent with former studies using EUD or GED demonstrated that ADT was sensitive to cortical atrophy. The robustness against inter-individual variability of ADT was highlighted through simulation dataset. ADT showed a low and constant normalized difference between the depth of the simulated data and the calculated depth, whereas EUD and GED had high and variable differences. We suggest that ADT is more robust than EUD or GED and might be a useful alternative algorithm for measuring sulcal depth