PURPOSES : Traffic congestion on freeway generally occurs when the traffic volume exceeds the road capacity. Most traffic manuals *such as the Korean Highway Capacity Manual) present the highway capacity as approximately 2,000 units/hour. However, in the real world, freeway congestion occurs for various reasons, including unusual driver behaviors, physical road limitations, and large traffic volumes. Thus, the flow rate at a traffic breakdown can have a wide range of volumes. Therefore, using 5-min volume and speed data from the field, this study explores the stochastic features of traffic breakdowns on major urban freeways in Seoul. METHODS : First, a breakdown point is defined by applying a wavelet transform to identify the sharp drop in the speed data near freeway bottlenecks. Second, based on the flow rate at and before a breakpoint, a survival analysis is performed to construct the probability distributions of the traffic breakdown. Log-rank tests are also conducted to verify the similarities of the distributions between freeways. RESULTS : The analysis results confirm the stochastic features of the urban freeways in Seoul. Specifically, the freeways have typical S-shaped distributions of breakdown probabilities. However, the distributions rise steeply (exceeding a 50% of breakdown probability) at flow rates of 1,150 vphpl to 1,700 vphpl; this is lower than the general expectation. CONCLUSIONS : The statistical differences in the probability distributions for freeways indicates that applying a general standard to every urban highway could raise problems. This study has a limitation in identifying the specific causes of traffic congestion owing to the by physical relationships between individual vehicles. An investigation if vehicle trajectory data should be conducted to examine these aspects in further detail.

This study was to investigate the effect of flavonoid treatment on in vitro development of bovine somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) embryos, and their pregnancy and delivery rate after embryo transfer into recipient. In experiment 1, to optimize the flavonoid concentration, parthenogenetic day 2 (≥ 2-cell) embryos were cultured in 0 (control), 1, 10 and 20 μM flavonoid for 6 days. In the results, in vitro development rate was the highest in 10 μM flavonoid group (57.1%) among treatment groups (control, 49.5%; 1 μM, 54.2%; 20 μM, 37.5%), and numbers of total and ICM cells were significantly (p<0.05) higher in 10 μM flavonoid group than other groups. We found that 10 μM flavonoid treatment can significantly (p<0.05) decrease the apoptotic index and derive high expression of anti-oxidant, anti-apoptotic, cell growth and development marker genes such as Mn-SOD, Survivin, Bax inhibitor, Glut-5, In-tau, compared to control group. In experiment 2, to produce the cloned Jeju Black Cattle, beef quality index grade 1 bull somatic cells were transferred into enucleated bovine MII oocytes and reconstructed embryos were cultured in 10 μM flavonoid added medium. When the in vitro produced day 7 or 8 SCNT blastocysts were transferred into a number of recipients, 10 μM flavonoid treatment group presented higher pregnancy rate (10.2%, 6/59) than control group (5.9%, 2/34). Total three cloned Jeju Black calves were born. Also, two cloned calves in 10 μM flavonoid group were born and both were all healthy at present, while the one cloned calf born in control group was dead one month after birth. In addition, when the result of short tandem repeat marker analysis of each cloned calf was investigated, microsatellite loci of 11 numbers matched genotype between donor cell and cloned calf tissue. These results demonstrated that the flavonoid addition in culture medium may have beneficial effects on in vitro and in vivo developmental capacity of SCNT embryos and pregnancy rate.

Marionette controlling robot has a problem that generates interference in rotation and intersection, therefore, the research on the independent shifter to move freely on the stage is required. Connecting omni-directional mobile robot with marionette controlling robot can solve this problem. Omni-directional mobile robot makes itself rotate and translate in 2D plane freely. Magnetic device is used to connect the moving part with the control part of the robot to minimize the intereference generated by the movement of robot. When robot moves, it can move to all directions with the suitalbe setting of banlance power. The moment of inertia is minimized by dividing the robot to the upper and lower parts in the marionette performance stage. Rotation and interference problem of independent omni-wheel Robot can be solved by using the permanent magnet. The efficiency and safety of the marionette controlling robot is proved by the experiment.

This paper proposes a new string controller for puppet which is optimized in terms of the number of motors and its size. To optimize the number of motors needed for generating the essential motions of puppet, the motion of bending a leg is implemented by one string and the walking motion by two legs is implemented by one motor. To minimize the space needed for the controller when generating the essential motions of puppet, cylindrical and articulated joints are used in the controller. The proposed controller is actually implemented to perform various puppet shows and it has been proved that the size of the controller is small enough for two puppets to stand close to shake hands and it is fast enough to simulate fast dance motions.