Variations in patterns of low fertility in South Korea in 2004: a county level analysis

Since the early 1960s, South Korea has been going through a rapid fertility decline, along with its socioeconomic development and effective family planning programs. After achieving a desired replacement level of fertility in 1984, the total fertility rate (TFR) of Korea has gradually declined to the level of lowest-low fertility. According to 2004 vital statistics, the TFR for Korea was 1.16-below the lowest-low fertility level of 1.3. Also, Korea's fertility rates have fluctuated and varied spatially, even at the level of low fertility. Undoubtedly, Korean family planning programs have been effective in population control through the last 40 years, but since 2000, the shift to pro-natal policies indicates that Korea's fertility transition is no longer a response to family planning policies. Rather, the level of socioeconomic development is still considered to have a significant effect on Korea's fertility decline. Thus, in this thesis, the primary objective is to examine the socioeconomic determinants of fertility differentials and the variation in low fertility among the counties in South Korea in 2004. Using data from the 2000 census and 2004 vital statistics, I tested the hypothesized relationships between the level of socioeconomic development and fertility based on the demographic transition theory (DTT), by estimating several Ordinary Least Square (OLS) multiple regression models. Specifically, socioeconomic predictors, such as agricultural attainment, labor force participation, and educational attainment, were primarily examined to test the validity of the DTT hypotheses. In addition, this thesis also examined the effects of women's status and traditional norms and cultural values on variation in fertility. My results showed that the DTT is applicable to an accounting of the variance in fertility rates among the Korean counties in 2004. Although the levels of fertility are extremely low all across the country, it is apparent that socioeconomic conditions are having an impact on fertility differentials in Korea

What data characteristics are needed for data reuse in the domain of social sciences in Korea?

With the benefits of data sharing and reuse, data reuse have been promoted in various domains. While there are practices and discussions regarding data sharing and reuse, we still have little knowledge on what characteristics of data impact decisions on data reuse. In this sense, we aim to explore data characteristics in the context of data reuse within the domain of social sciences in Korea. For the purpose of this study, we conducted in-depth interviews with twelve re-searchers in the field of social science in terms of six dimensions: data producer, country/language, data type/collection method, procedure, accessibility, size/currency. For the producer dimension, social scientists preferred data that have been produced by an institution rather than an individual researcher. In language used in the data sets, English were more favored because researchers preferred English than any other languages. In terms of data type, quantitative and survey data types are preferred. For the procedure of data, researchers preferred original raw data with plenty of metadata and demographic information for analysis. For accessibility, there was less preference for restricted data. Lastly, for size/currency, researchers showed a preference for big size data and current data. These preliminary findings can provide better understanding about data reuse and guide improved data reuse services

Improving Recall of Browsing Sets in Image Retrieval from a Semiotics Perspective

The purpose of dissertation is to utilize connotative messages for enhancing image retrieval and browsing. By adopting semiotics as a theoretical tool, this study explores problems of image retrieval and proposes an image retrieval model. The semiotics approach conceptually demonstrates that: 1) a fundamental reason for the dissonance between retrieved images and user needs is representation of connotative messages, and 2) the image retrieval model which makes use of denotative index terms is able to facilitate users to browse connotatively related images effectively even when the users' needs are potentially expressed in the form of denotative query. Two experiments are performed for verifying the semiotic-based image retrieval model and evaluating the effectiveness of the model. As data sources, 5,199 records are collected from Artefacts Canada: Humanities by Canadian Heritage Information Network, and the candidate terms of connotation and denotation are extracted from Art & Architecture Thesaurus. The first experiment, by applying term association measures, verifies that the connotative messages of an image can be derived from denotative messages of the image. The second experiment reveals that the association thesaurus which is constructed based on the associations between connotation and denotation facilitates assigning connotative terms to image documents. In addition, the result of relevant judgments presents that the association thesaurus improves the relative recall of retrieved image documents as well as the relative recall of browsing sets. This study concludes that the association thesaurus indicating associations between connotation and denotation is able to improve the accessibility of the connotative messages. The results of the study are hoped to contribute to the conceptual knowledge of image retrieval by providing understandings of connotative messages within an image and to the practical design of image retrieval system by proposing an association thesaurus which can supplement the limitations of the current content-based image retrieval systems (CBIR)

An Electromagnetic Steering System for Magnetic Nanoparticle Drug Delivery

Targeted delivery of pharmaceutical agents to the brain using magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) is an efficient technique to transport molecules to disease locations. MNPs can cross the blood–brain barrier (BBB) and can be concentrated at a specific location in the brain using non-invasive electromagnetic forces. The proposed EMA consists of two coil-core system. The cores are added in the center of each coil to concentrate the flux in the region of interest. The EMA can enhance the gradient field 10 times compared to only coil system and generate the maximum magnetic field of 160 mT and 5.6 T/m. A 12-kW direct-current power supply was used to generate sufficient magnetic forces on the MNPs by regulating the input currents of the coils. Effective guidance of MNPs is demonstrated via simulations and experiments using 800-nm-diameter MNPs in a Y-shaped channel. The developed EMA system has high potentials to increase BBB crossing of MNPs for efficient drug targeting to brain region

Z-Interop

Final report for the Z39.50 interoperability testbed project, phase 2

A Novel Magnetic Actuation Scheme to Disaggregate Nanoparticles and Enhance Passage across the Blood–Brain Barrier

The blood–brain barrier (BBB) hinders drug delivery to the brain. Despite various efforts to develop preprogramed actuation schemes for magnetic drug delivery, the unmodeled aggregation phenomenon limits drug delivery performance. This paper proposes a novel scheme with an aggregation model for a feed-forward magnetic actuation design. A simulation platform for aggregated particle delivery is developed and an actuation scheme is proposed to deliver aggregated magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) using a discontinuous asymmetrical magnetic actuation. The experimental results with a Y-shaped channel indicated the success of the proposed scheme in steering and disaggregation. The delivery performance of the developed scheme was examined using a realistic, three-dimensional (3D) vessel simulation. Furthermore, the proposed scheme enhanced the transport and uptake of MNPs across the BBB in mice. The scheme presented here facilitates the passage of particles across the BBB to the brain using an electromagnetic actuation scheme