• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.117-124
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• 2001

Purpose : Since Mendoza(1990)'s report that long term methylprednisolone pulse therapy by Mendoza protocol (MP therapy) is a good treatment option in focal segmental glomerulosclerosis(FSGS), there have been reports of the effects of this therapy in steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome. However, no studies have been performed on the effects of MP therapy in steroid- dependent nephrotic syndrome and secondary nephrotic syndrome. In this study, we investigated the effects of long term MP therapy in primary and secondary nephrotic syndrome in which previous treatment options were not effective. Methods : We chose 10 children who were diagnosed with steroid-dependent minimal change nephrotic syndrome(SD-MCNS), who had shown frequent relapse during the immunocompromised or cytotoxic therapy Period, and 6 children with FSGS and 5 children with secondary nephrotic syndrome children, who had shown no response during the previous therapy period. We treated these patients according to Mendoza protocol involving infusions of high doses of methylprednisolone, often in combination with oral cyclophosphamide for 82 weeks. Results : In all the 10 children with SD-MCNS, complete remission was visible on average of $18{\pm}9$ days after MP therapy was started. However, all these children relapsed during or after MP therapy. In these children, the mean relapse rate prior to MP therapy was $2.1{\pm}1.0$ relpases/year, which was reduced to $1.4{\pm}0.9$ relapses/year during MP therapy(P>0.05) and rose to $2.7{\pm}1.0$ relapse/year after MP therapy. Of the 6 children with FSGS, 4 children($67\%$) showed complete remission, of whom 3 children($50\%$) remained in the remission status during the follow up period, $1.2{\pm}0.7$ years, after the end of MP therapy. 2 children($33\%$) showed no response. All of the 5 children with secondary nephrotic syndrome showed remission and remained in the remissiom status during the follow up period, $1.7{\pm}0.6$ years The only side effect of MP therapy was transient hypertension in 10 children of ail subjects during the intravenous infusion of methylprednisolone. Conclusion : We conclude that although long term MP therapy is not effective in the treatment of SD-MCNS, it is an effective therapy against intractable FSGS and secondary nephrotic syndrome. (J Korean Soc Pediatr Nephrol 2001 ; 5 : 117-24)

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.451-460
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• 2013

The feed value of sesame meal, a main agricultural by-product from the northern area of Gyeongsangbuk-do province, was assessed in Hanwoo steers. A total of twelve Hanwoo steers (average BW = 412.08 kg) were allocated into a Control (fed no sesame meal) or Treatment (fed sesame meal from 14.6 months of age) group, considering BW and ages, and the animals were fed for a total of 480 days. The final BW, total gain and ADG for the Control and Treatment groups were 741.17 kg and 762.67 kg, 331.84 kg and 347.84 kg, and 0.69 kg and 0.72 kg, respectively, showing better performances in sesame meal-fed animals. Feed requirements during the whole experimental period improved by feeding sesame meal (15.31 and 14.87 for Control and Treatment group, respectively). Hanwoo steers fed sesame meal also showed a 22.83 kg heavier cold carcass weight (424.17 kg and 447.00 kg in the Control and Treatment group, respectively), and 2.41% improved dressing percentages (58.60% and 57.22% for the Control and Treatment group, respectively). The area of the M. longissimus dorsi was $91.83cm^2$ and $88.33cm^2$ in the Control and Treatment group, respectively. The final yield of A and B grade meat were 50 : 50% and 33.3 : 66.7% from the Control and Treatment group, respectively. The average marbling score was 4.83 and 5.50, and the numeric values for quality grade was 2.17 and 2.67 for the Control and Treatment group, respectively, showing better beef quality in sesame meal-fed Hanwoo steers. In fact, there were two animals with beef quality $1^{{+}{+}}$ in the sesame meal-fed group. The melting point of lipid extracted from the M. longissimus dorsi of Hanwoo steers was significantly (p<0.05) lower in the Treatment group ($28.28^{\circ}C$) compared to the Control group ($30.65^{\circ}C$). The composition of saturated fatty acids, $C_{14:0}$ (myristic acid) and $C_{16:0}$ (palmitic acid), were significantly lower in sesame meal-fed animals, 4.70% and 2.20% for myristic acid, and 30.55% and 27.12% for palmitic acid, in the Control and Treatment group, respectively. In contrast, there were no significant differences in C18:0 (stearic acid) composition between the groups. The composition of a representative unsaturated fatty acid, $C_{18:1}$ (oleic acid), was significantly higher in Treatment animals (49.89%) than Control animals (44.29%) (p<0.05). The ratio of total monounsaturated fatty acids / saturated fatty acids; M/S) was 1.10 and 1.36 for the Control and Treatment groups, respectively, showing remarkably higher ratios in sesame meal-fed group. The content of glutamic acid, related to beef flavor, was significantly higher in the Treatment group (3.35 mg/100 g) compared to the Control group (1.88 mg/100g) (p<0.05). The tenderness score, evaluated by an eight-point scale in the panel test, and overall palatability (based on juiciness, flavor, oiliness, and umami) were significantly higher in the Treatment group (5.67 and 5.23, respectively) than the Control group (3.83 and 4.60, respectively) (p<0.05). In conclusion, the current results imply that sesame meal could serve as a good supplement for Hanwoo steers for producing high quality beef.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.186-193
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• 2005

Purpose: To improve the management of a medical linear accelerator, the records of operational failures of a Varian CL2l00C over a ten year period were retrospectively analyzed. Materials and Methods: The failures were classified according to the involved functional subunits, with each class rated Into one of three levels depending on the operational conditions. The relationships between the failure rate and working ratio and between the failure rate and outside temperature were investigated. In addition, the average life time of the main part and the operating efficiency over the last 4 years were analyzed. Results: Among the recorded failures (total 587 failures), the most frequent failure was observed in the parts related with the collimation system, including the monitor chamber, which accounted for $20\%$ of all failures. With regard to the operational conditions, 2nd level of failures, which temporally interrupted treatments, were the most frequent. Third level of failures, which interrupted treatment for more than several hours, were mostly caused by the accelerating subunit. The number of failures was increased with number of treatments and operating time. The average life-times of the Klystron and Thyratron became shorter as the working ratio increased, and were 42 and $83\%$ of the expected values, respectively. The operating efficiency was maintained at $95\%$ or higher, but this value slightly decreased. There was no significant correlation between the number of failures and the outside temperature. Conclusion: The maintenance of detailed equipment problems and failures records over a long period of time can provide good knowledge of equipment function as well as the capability of predicting future failure. Wore rigorous equipment maintenance Is required for old medical linear accelerators for the advanced avoidance of serious failure and to improve the qualify of patient treatment.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.93-143
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• 2010

This paper estimates the impact of Japan's economic sanction on DPRK trade in the 2000s. It conceptualizes the effects of sanction on DPRK trade, econometrically tests whether such effects exist in case of Japan's sanction using currently available DPRK trade statistics, and measures the size of the effects by correcting and reconfiguring the deficiencies of the currently available DPRK trade statistics. The main findings of the paper are as follows. First, Japan's sanction can have two different effects on DPRK trade: 'Sanction Country Effect' and "Third Country Effect.' The former means that the sanction diminishes DPRK trade with Japan while the latter refers to the effects on DPRK trade with other countries as well. The third country effect can arise not simply because the DPRK changes its trade routes to circumvent the sanction, but because the sanction forces the DPRK to readjust its major trade items and patterns. Second, currently no official DPRK trade statistics are available. Thus, the so-called mirror data referring to DPRK trading partners' statistics should be employed for the analysis of the sanction effects. However, all currently available mirror data suffer from three fundamental problems: 1) they may omit the real trade partners of the DPRK; 2) they may confuse ROK trade with DPRK trade; 3) they cannot distinguish non-commercial trade from commercial trade, whereas only the latter concerns Japan's sanction. Considering those problems, we have to adopt the following method in order to reach a reasonable conclusion about the sanction effect. That is, we should repeat the same analysis using all different mirror data currently available, which include KOTRA, IMF and UN Commodity Trade Statistics, and then discuss only the common results from them. Third, currently available mirror data make the following points. 1) DPRK trade is well explained by the gravity model. 2) Japan's sanction has not only the sanction country effect but also the third country effect on DPRK trade. 3) The third country effect occurs differently on DPRK export and import. In case of export, the mirror statistics reveal positive (+) third country effects on all of the major trade partners of the DPRK, including South Korea, China and Thailand. However, on DPRK import, such third country effects are not statistically significant even for South Korea and China. 4) This suggests that Japan's sanction has greater effects on DPRK import rather than its export. Fourth, as far as DPRK export is concerned, it is possible to resolve the abovementioned fundamental problems of mirror data and thus reconstruct more accurate statistics on DPRK trade. Those reconstructed statistics lead us to following conclusions. 1) Japan's economic sanction diminished DPRK's export to Japan from 2004 to 2006 by 103 million dollars on annual average (Sanction Country Effect). It comprises around 60 percent of DPRK's export to Japan in 2003. 2) However, for the same period, the DPRK diverted its exports to other countries to cope up with Japan's sanction, and as a result its export to other countries increased by 85 million dollars on annual average (Third Country Effect). 3) This means that more than 80 per cent of the sanction country effect was made up for by the third country effect. And the actual size of impact that Japan's sanction made on DPRK export in total was merely 30 million dollars on annual average. 4) The third country effect occurred mostly in inter-Korean trade. In fact, Japan's sanction increased DPRK export to the ROK by 72 million dollars on annual average. In contrast, there was no statistically significant increase in DPRK export to China caused by Japan's sanction. 5) It means that the DPRK confronted Japan's sanction and mitigated its impact primarily by using inter-Korean trade and thus the ROK. Fifth, two things should be noted concerning the fourth results above. 1) The results capture the third country effect caused only by trade transfer. Facing Japan's sanction, the DPRK could transfer its existing trade with Japan to other countries. Also it could change its main export items and increase the export of those new items to other countries as mentioned in the first result. However, the fourth results above reflect only the former, not the latter. 2) Although Japan's sanction did not make a huge impact on DPRK export, it might not be necessarily true for DPRK import. Indeed the currently available mirror statistics suggest that Japan's sanction has greater effects on DPRK import. Hence it would not be wise to argue that Japan's sanction did not have much impact on DPRK trade in general, simply using the fourth result above.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.736-745
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• 1998

Background: Respiratory muscle interaction is further profoundly affected by a number of pathologic conditions. Hyperinflation may be particularly severe in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD) patients, in whom the functional residual capacity(FRC) often exceeds predicted total lung capacity(TLC). Hyperinflation reduces the diaphragmatic effectiveness as a pressure generator and reduces diaphragmatic contribution to chest wall motion. Ultrasonography has recently been shown to be a sensitive and reproducible method of assessing diaphragmatic excursion. This study was performed to evaluate how differences of diaphragmatic excursion measured by ultrasonography associate with normal subjects and COPD patients. Methods: We measured diaphragmatic excursions with ultrasonography on 28 healthy subjects(l6 medical students, 12 age-matched control) and 17 COPD patients. Ultrasonographic measurements were performed during tidal breathing and maximal respiratory efforts approximating vital capacity breathing using Aloka KEC-620 with 3.5 MHz transducer. Measurements were taken in the supine posture. The ultrasonographic probe was positioned transversely in the midclavicular line below the right subcostal margin. After detecting the right hemidiaphragm in the B-mode the ultrasound beam was then positioned so that it was approximately parallel to the movement of middle or posterior third of right diaphragm. Recordings in the M-mode at this position were made throughout the test. Measurements of diaphragmatic excursion on M-mode tracing were calculated by the average gap in 3 times-respiration cycle. Pulmonary function test(SensorMedics 2800), maximal inspiratory(PImax) and expiratory mouth pressure(PEmax, Vitalopower KH-101, Chest) were measured in the seated posture. Results: During the tidal breathing, diaphragmatic excursions were recorded $1.5{\pm}0.5cm$, $1.7{\pm}0.5cm$ and $1.5{\pm}0.6cm$ in medical students, age-matched control group and COPD patients, respectively. Diaphragm excursions during maximal respiratory efforts were significantly decreased in COPD patients ($3.7{\pm}1.3cm$) when compared with medical students, age-matched control group($6.7{\pm}1.3cm$, $5.8{\pm}1.2cm$, p< 0.05}. During maximal respiratory efforts in control subjects, diaphragm excursions were correlated with $FEV_1$, FEVl/FVC, PEF, PIF, and height. In COPD patients, diaphragm excursions during maximal respiratory efforts were correlated with PEmax(maximal expiratory pressure), age, and %FVC. In multiple regression analysis, the combination of PEmax and age was an independent marker of diaphragm excursions during maximal respiratory efforts with COPD patients. Conclusion: COPD subjects had smaller diaphragmatic excursions during maximal respiratory efforts than control subjects. During maximal respiratory efforts in COPD patients, diaphragm excursions were well correlated with PEmax. These results suggest that diaphragm excursions during maximal respiratory efforts with COPD patients may be valuable at predicting the pulmonary function.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.73-83
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• 1983

This experiment was conducted to study effects of different sources of protein, and of the different combination ratios of the two protein supplemented or unsupplemented with methionine on the growth and body metabolism of the growing male rats. Casein and isolated soyprotein (ISP) were combined at different ratios of 100:0, 80:20, 50:50, 20:80 and 0:100 to supply the constant levels of dietary energy and protein of 3,600kcal/kg and 20%, respectively. Each combination was supplemented with either 0 or 0.3% methionine. Results obtained in these experiments were summarized as follows: The body weight and weight gain in the ISP diet were the lowest, but were increased with the increase of ratios of casein to ISP. The body weight gain in the ISP diet supplemented with methionine was similar to that in the combination diets of casein and ISP. The combination diets of casein and ISP supplemented with methionine had the higher weight gain than the casein diet. The food intake in the casein diet was the highest, and was increased with the increase of ratios of casein to ISP, and was lowered with methionine supplementation. The food intake in the ISP diet was the lowest and was not increased with methionine supplementation to the ISP diet. The food efficiency ratio of the combination diets of casein and ISP was improved compared to those of either the casein or the ISP diets. The food efficiency ratio was improved in the diet of either casein of ISP supplemented with methionine, but was not improved in the combination diets of casein and ISP with methionine supplementation. The gross energy intake had direct relation with the food intake of rats and the relation was increased either in the casein diet of with the increase of the ratios of casein to ISP. The energy efficiency and protein efficiency ratios were improved in the diet of either casein of ISP by the supplementation of methionine, and the effect of methionine supplementation of the energy efficiency and protein efficiency atio was increased with the increase of the ratios of ISP to casein. The nitrogen intake and urinary nitrogen excretion of the casein diet were the highest and those of the ISP diet were the lowest. They were increased with the increase of ratios of casein to ISP. The nitrogen balance and retention were not significantly among the treatments. The gross energy intake and fecal and urinary energy were the highest in the casein diet but the digestible and metabolizable energy and the digestibility and metabolizability of energy were not significantly different among the treatments. The body fat content of rats was increased by supplementation of methionine but the body protein content was decreased (r=-0.65, p<0.01). The body fat content of rats was negatively correlated with body moisture content (r=-0.83, p<0.01). The liver weight was highly correlated with the carcass weight (r=0.79, p<0.01), and was increased by the methionine supplementation and by the increase of the ratios of casein to ISP.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.95-131
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• 2012

This study examines whether the executive turnover and the executive resignation during the term of office affect the performance of Korean state-owned enterprises. The executive turnover in the paper means the comprehensive change of the executives which includes the change after the term of office, the change after consecutive terms and the change during the term of office. The 'resignation' was named for the executive change during the term of office to distinguish from the executive turnover. The study scope of the paper is restrained to the comprehensive executive change itself irrespective of the term of office and the resignation during the term of office. Therefore the natural change of the executive after the term of office or the change after consecutive terms is not included in the study. Spontaneous resignation and forced resignation are not distinguished in the paper as the distinction between the two is not easy. The paper uses both the margin of return on asset and the margin of return on asset adjusted by industry as proxies of the performance of state-owned enterprises. The business nature of state-owned enterprise is considered in the study, the public nature not in it. The paper uses the five year (2004 to 2008) samples of 24 firms designated as public enterprises by Korean government. The analysis results are as follows. First, 45.1% of CEOs were changed a year during the sample period on the average. The average tenure period of CEOs was 2 years and 3 months and 49.9% among the changed CEOs resigned during the term of office. 41.6% of internal auditors were changed a year on the average. The average tenure period of internal auditors was 2 years and 2 months and 51.0% among the changed internal auditors resigned during the term of office. In case of outside directors, on average, 38.2% were changed a year. The average tenure period was 2 years and 7 months and 25.4% among the changed internal directors resigned during the term of office. These statistics show that numerous CEOs resigned before the finish of the three year term in office. Also, considering the tenure of an internal auditor and an outside director which diminished from 3 years to 2 years by an Act on the Management of Public Institutions (applied to the executives appointed since April 2007), it seems most internal auditors resigned during the term of office but most outside directors resigned after the end of the term. Secondly, There was no evidence that the executives were changed during the term of office because of the bad performance of prior year. On the other hand, contrary to the normal expectation, the performance of prior year of the state-owned enterprise where an outside director resigned during the term of office was significantly higher than that of other state-owned enterprises. It means that the clauses in related laws on the executive dismissal on grounds of bad performance did not work normally. Instead it can be said that the executive change was made by non-economic reasons such as a political motivation. Thirdly, the results from a fixed effect model show there were evidences that performance turned negatively when CEOs or outside directors resigned during the term of office. CEO's resignation during the term of office gave a significantly negative effect on the margin of return on asset. Outside director's resignation during the term of office lowered significantly the margin of return on asset adjusted by industry. These results suggest that the executive's change in Korean state-owned enterprises was not made by objective or economic standards such as management performance assessment and the negative effect on performance of the enterprises was had by the unfaithful obeyance of the legal executive term.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.486-491
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• 2004

Purpose: factor analysis and independent component analysis (ICA) has been used for handling dynamic image sequences. Theoretical advantages of a newly suggested ICA method, ensemble ICA, leaded us to consider applying this method to the analysis of dynamic myocardial $H_2^{15}O$ PET data. In this study, we quantified patients' blood flow using the ensemble ICA method. Materials and Methods: Twenty subjects underwent $H_2^{15}O$ PET scans using ECAT EXACT 47 scanner and myocardial perfusion SPECT using Vertex scanner. After transmission scanning, dynamic emission scans were initiated simultaneously with the injection of $555{\sim}740$ MBq $H_2^{15}O$. Hidden independent components can be extracted from the observed mixed data (PET image) by means of ICA algorithms. Ensemble learning is a variational Bayesian method that provides an analytical approximation to the parameter posterior using a tractable distribution. Variational approximation forms a lower bound on the ensemble likelihood and the maximization of the lower bound is achieved through minimizing the Kullback-Leibler divergence between the true posterior and the variational posterior. In this study, posterior pdf was approximated by a rectified Gaussian distribution to incorporate non-negativity constraint, which is suitable to dynamic images in nuclear medicine. Blood flow was measured in 9 regions - apex, four areas in mid wall, and four areas in base wall. Myocardial perfusion SPECT score and angiography results were compared with the regional blood flow. Results: Major cardiac components were separated successfully by the ensemble ICA method and blood flow could be estimated in 15 among 20 patients. Mean myocardial blood flow was $1.2{\pm}0.40$ ml/min/g in rest, $1.85{\pm}1.12$ ml/min/g in stress state. Blood flow values obtained by an operator in two different occasion were highly correlated (r=0.99). In myocardium component image, the image contrast between left ventricle and myocardium was 1:2.7 in average. Perfusion reserve was significantly different between the regions with and without stenosis detected by the coronary angiography (P<0.01). In 66 segment with stenosis confirmed by angiography, the segments with reversible perfusion decrease in perfusion SPECT showed lower perfusion reserve values in $H_2^{15}O$ PET. Conclusions: Myocardial blood flow could be estimated using an ICA method with ensemble learning. We suggest that the ensemble ICA incorporating non-negative constraint is a feasible method to handle dynamic image sequence obtained by the nuclear medicine techniques.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.1-23
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• 2013

To discover significant social issues such as unemployment, economy crisis, social welfare etc. that are urgent issues to be solved in a modern society, in the existing approach, researchers usually collect opinions from professional experts and scholars through either online or offline surveys. However, such a method does not seem to be effective from time to time. As usual, due to the problem of expense, a large number of survey replies are seldom gathered. In some cases, it is also hard to find out professional persons dealing with specific social issues. Thus, the sample set is often small and may have some bias. Furthermore, regarding a social issue, several experts may make totally different conclusions because each expert has his subjective point of view and different background. In this case, it is considerably hard to figure out what current social issues are and which social issues are really important. To surmount the shortcomings of the current approach, in this paper, we develop a prototype system that semi-automatically detects social issue keywords representing social issues and problems from about 1.3 million news articles issued by about 10 major domestic presses in Korea from June 2009 until July 2012. Our proposed system consists of (1) collecting and extracting texts from the collected news articles, (2) identifying only news articles related to social issues, (3) analyzing the lexical items of Korean sentences, (4) finding a set of topics regarding social keywords over time based on probabilistic topic modeling, (5) matching relevant paragraphs to a given topic, and (6) visualizing social keywords for easy understanding. In particular, we propose a novel matching algorithm relying on generative models. The goal of our proposed matching algorithm is to best match paragraphs to each topic. Technically, using a topic model such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), we can obtain a set of topics, each of which has relevant terms and their probability values. In our problem, given a set of text documents (e.g., news articles), LDA shows a set of topic clusters, and then each topic cluster is labeled by human annotators, where each topic label stands for a social keyword. For example, suppose there is a topic (e.g., Topic1 = {(unemployment, 0.4), (layoff, 0.3), (business, 0.3)}) and then a human annotator labels "Unemployment Problem" on Topic1. In this example, it is non-trivial to understand what happened to the unemployment problem in our society. In other words, taking a look at only social keywords, we have no idea of the detailed events occurring in our society. To tackle this matter, we develop the matching algorithm that computes the probability value of a paragraph given a topic, relying on (i) topic terms and (ii) their probability values. For instance, given a set of text documents, we segment each text document to paragraphs. In the meantime, using LDA, we can extract a set of topics from the text documents. Based on our matching process, each paragraph is assigned to a topic, indicating that the paragraph best matches the topic. Finally, each topic has several best matched paragraphs. Furthermore, assuming there are a topic (e.g., Unemployment Problem) and the best matched paragraph (e.g., Up to 300 workers lost their jobs in XXX company at Seoul). In this case, we can grasp the detailed information of the social keyword such as "300 workers", "unemployment", "XXX company", and "Seoul". In addition, our system visualizes social keywords over time. Therefore, through our matching process and keyword visualization, most researchers will be able to detect social issues easily and quickly. Through this prototype system, we have detected various social issues appearing in our society and also showed effectiveness of our proposed methods according to our experimental results. Note that you can also use our proof-of-concept system in http://dslab.snu.ac.kr/demo.html.