• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.75-85
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• 2005

Purpose : Fungal infection is one of the important causes of morbidity and mortality in patients with hematologic malignancies. Amphotericin B(ABV) and itraconazole(ITZA) have been used as the standard empirical antifungal therapy in neutropenic patients with acute leukemia who have persistent fever that does not respond to antibiotic therapy. ABV is an antifungal drug associated with side effects such as fever and chills, symptoms which may be mediated by pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin-$1{\beta}$(IL-$1{\beta}$) and tumor necrosis factor-${\alpha}$(TNF-${\alpha}$). We assessed modulation of these pro-inflammatory cytokines as well as the anti-inflammatory cytokines(IL-4, IL-1Ra) by ABV and ITZA. Methods : From March 2004 to February 2005, a total of 30 episodes from acute leukemia patients with febrile neutropenia were analyzed for this study. They were randomly allocated to receive intravenous ABV or ITZA for 14 days. Clinical responses were evaluated at the completion of therapy, and cytokine IL-$1{\beta}$, TNF-${\alpha}$, IL-4, and IL-1Ra were measured for determination to know the correlation between two antifungal agents and inflammatory cytokines. Results : Empirical antifungal agents were given to 37 patients(ABV 20, ITZA 17), and 30 patients(ABV 15, ITZA 15) were evaluable for efficacy. White blood cell and absolute neutrophil count in the group treated with ITZA increased early days of treatment, so the duration of neutropenia in ITZA group is shorter. Serum creatinine level is lower in ITZA group than in ABV group but this is not statistically significant. There was no significant difference in response rate between two groups. The IL-$1{\beta}$ was increased in ABV treatment group and the ratio of IL-1Ra/IL-$1{\beta}$ is markedly decreased in ABV treatment group while increased in ITZA group. Conclusion : ITZA and ABV have at least equivalent efficacy as empirical antifungal therapy in neutropenic children with acute leukemia. However ITZA is associated with significantly less toxicity in clinical and molecular aspects.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.67-74
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• 2005

Purpose : The incidence of mortality associated with respiratory difficulties is decreasing nowadays contributed to the development of neonatology. However, complications associated with mechanical ventilator are increasing. This study is to determine clinical manifestations, diagnositc availability of the endotracheal tip culture in patients with Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia(VAP) in neonatal intensive care unit(NICU). Methods : A retrospective analysis of 50 neonates who were admitted to the NICU of Kangnam Sacred Heart Hospital and had given mechanical ventilator from 1 January 2000 to 30 June 2003. VAP group defined as neonates who had pneumonia with mechanical ventilation longer than 48 hours. They were classified into VAP group(n=13) and control group (n=37) and the prevalence, microorganisms cultured from the endotracheal tube tip and risk factors were investigated. Results : The prevalence of VAP was 26.0%(n=13) and the most dominant microorganism cultured in our NICU was methicillin-resistant coagulase negative staphylococcus(MR-CNS) in 4 cases. Other microorganisms were Pseudomonas, Enterobacter, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus(MRSA) and Klebsiella. Gestational age, birth weight, Apgar score, respiratory distress syndrome, retinopathy of prematurity, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, sepsis, renal failure, pulmonary hemorrhage, pneumothorax were not different significantly between two groups except intraventricular hemorrhage(P<0.001) and patent ductus arteriosus(P<0.05). Duration of hospital stay and mortality rate were also not different significantly. Conclusion : VAP occurred at a significant rate among mechanically ventilated NICU patients. Despite of limitation of encotracheal tip culture, the most common microorganism was MR-CNS. We should be aware of occurrence of VAP in NICU neonate who were with mechanical ventilator and should treat with great care.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.220-228
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• 2007

Purpose : We studied the value of clinical signs, laboratory findings and $^{99m}technetium$ dime-rcaptosuccinic acid(DMSA) scan in predicting the presence of vesicoureteral reflux(VUR) in children with first febrile urinary tract infection(UTI). Methods : A retrospective analysis of 84 hospitalized children with first febrile UTI was performed. They underwent DMSA scan and voiding cystourethrography(VCUG) during the acute phase, and were divided into three groups according to the results of the VCUG: absence of VUR, mild(grade I-II) and severe VUR(grade III-V). We studied the relation of VUR to age, gender, fever duration, causative organism, white blood cell count, serum C-reactive protein and result of DMSA scan. Results : Among 84 patients, 6 had mild and 17 had severe VUR. Thirty-eight had abnormal DMSA scan. results Patients with VUR were older than those without VUR(P<0.01). There was a lower probability of infection with Escherichia coli in patients with severe VUR than in those with mild and absent VUR(P<0.01). An abnormal DMSA scan correlated with the presence and severity of VUR(P<0.05). Severe VUR was present in 10.9% of patients with normal DMSA scan. The sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of the DMSA scan in predicting the presence of VUR were 69.6%, 63.9%, 42.1%, and 84.8%, respectively. Conclusion : An abnormal DMSA scan correlated to the presence and severity of VUR, but the sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive value of the DMSA scan were low. There-fore, patient with an abnormal DMSA scan requires a VCUG. In order to prevent missing the 10.9% of patients with severe VUR but normal DMSA scans, a VCUG should be performed in patient with normal DMSA scan.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.255-263
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• 2007

Purpose : A single center cross sectional retrospective study was performed to compare the outcomes of different peritoneal dialysis(PD) modalities in Korean children. Methods : Among children dialyzed with PD between the year 2004 and 2007, 35 children had reliable data on PD adequacy after 3 to 15 months of dialysis. Subjects were grouped by their modalities; 17, 13 and 5 children were on continuous ambulatory PD(CAPD), continuous cyclic PD(CCPD) and nightly intermittent PD(NIPD), respectively. Body weight and height, number of patients taking anti-hypertensives and laboratory data including biochemical and hemoglobin levels were compared. Dialysis adequacy including weekly Kt/Vurea, creatinine clearance (Ccr) and daily water removal were also compared. Patients were sub-grouped by their peritoneal permeability characteristics. Results : The percentage of patients taking anti-hypertensives, monthly change in Z-scores of body weight and height and laboratory data did not differ among the groups. Patients on CAPD and CCPD showed similar dialysis adequacies. Weekly dialytic Ccr was significantly lower in the NIPD group compared to the others. But total Ccr was not different when residual renal function was added. Weekly dialytic Ccr by CAPD was significantly higher than that of CCPD in low and low-average transporters. Conclusion : We propose that modality can be selected flexibly according to the patients' preferences. And peritoneal permeability characteristics provide valuable information for adjusting PD prescriptions in ultrafiltration failure or in inadequate dialysis. Further study of other clinical performance measures should be performed to clarify the comparable outcomes in different PD modalities.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.145-162
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• 2008

One of the big concerns in e-society is privacy issue. In special, in developing robust ubiquitous smart space and corresponding services, user profile and preference are collected by the service providers. Privacy issue would be more critical in context-aware services simply because most of the context data themselves are private information: user's current location, current schedule, friends nearby and even her/his health data. To realize the potential of ubiquitous smart space, the systems embedded in the space should corporate personal privacy preferences. When the users invoke a set of services, they are asked to allow the service providers or smart space to make use of personal information which is related to privacy concerns. For this reason, the users unhappily provide the personal information or even deny to get served. On the other side, service provider needs personal information as rich as possible with minimal personal information to discern royal and trustworthy customers and those who are not. It would be desirable to enlarge the allowable personal information complying with the service provider's request, whereas minimizing service provider's requiring personal information which is not allowed to be submitted and user's submitting information which is of no value to the service provider. In special, if any personal information required by the service provider is not allowed, service will not be provided to the user. P3P (Platform for Privacy Preferences) has been regarded as one of the promising alternatives to preserve the personal information in the course of electronic transactions. However, P3P mainly focuses on preserving the buyers' personal information. From time to time, the service provider's business data should be protected from the unintended usage from the buyers. Moreover, even though the user's privacy preference could depend on the context happened to the user, legacy P3P does not handle the contextual change of privacy preferences. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to propose a mutual P3P-based negotiation mechanism. To do so, service provider's privacy concern is considered as well as the users'. User's privacy policy on the service provider's information also should be informed to the service providers before the service begins. Second, privacy policy is contextually designed according to the user's current context because the nomadic user's privacy concern structure may be altered contextually. Hence, the methodology includes mutual privacy policy and personalization. Overall framework of the mechanism and new code of ethics is described in section 2. Pervasive platform for mutual P3P considers user type and context field, which involves current activity, location, social context, objects nearby and physical environments. Our mutual P3P includes the privacy preference not only for the buyers but also the sellers, that is, service providers. Negotiation methodology for mutual P3P is proposed in section 3. Based on the fact that privacy concern occurs when there are needs for information access and at the same time those for information hiding. Our mechanism was implemented based on an actual shopping mall to increase the feasibility of the idea proposed in this paper. A shopping service is assumed as a context-aware service, and data groups for the service are enumerated. The privacy policy for each data group is represented as APPEL format. To examine the performance of the example service, in section 4, simulation approach is adopted in this paper. For the simulation, five data elements are considered: $\cdot$ UserID $\cdot$ User preference $\cdot$ Phone number $\cdot$ Home address $\cdot$ Product information $\cdot$ Service profile. For the negotiation, reputation is selected as a strategic value. Then the following cases are compared: $\cdot$ Legacy P3P is considered $\cdot$ Mutual P3P is considered without strategic value $\cdot$ Mutual P3P is considered with strategic value. The simulation results show that mutual P3P outperforms legacy P3P. Moreover, we could conclude that when mutual P3P is considered with strategic value, performance was better than that of mutual P3P is considered without strategic value in terms of service safety.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2010

Background: Bioprosthetic materials have been made using glutaraldehyde fixation of porcine or bovine pericardium during cardiovascular surgery. But these bioprostheses have the problems of calcification and mechanical failure. We determined changes in tensile strength and elasticity of pericardium after glutaraldehyde, solvent, decellularization and detoxification. Material and Method: Tissues were allocated to four groups: glutaraldehyde with and without solvent, decellularization, and detoxification. We studied tensile strength and strain on tissues. We measured the tensile strength of fresh pericardium stretched in six directions (with 5 mm width), and % strain, which we calculated from the breaking point when we pulled the pericardium in two directions. Result: Tensile strength was reduced when we used the usual concentrated glutaraldehyde fixation (n=83, $MPa=11.47{\pm}5.40$, p=0.006), but there was no change when we used solvent. Elasticity was increased after glutaraldehyde fixation (n=83, strain $(%)=24.55{\pm}9.81$, p=0.00), but there was no change after solvent. After decellularization of pericardium, the tensile strength was generally reduced. The decrease in tensile strength after concentrated glutaraldehyde fixation for a long time was significantly greater less than after concentrated solvent (p=0.01, p=0.00). After detoxification, the differences in strength and strain were not significant. Conclusion: After glutaraldehyde treatment of pericardium there is no loss in tensile strength (even though we did the glutaraldehyde, solvent and detoxification treatments LOGIC IS UNCLEAR). Also, these treatments had a tendency to increase elasticity. Although post-treatment decellularization led to a significant loss in strength, this effect could be attenuated using a low concentration of solvent or hypertonic solution.

• Korean Journal of Weed Science
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.30-43
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• 1981

On unwedded paddy fields, six cropping patterns of rice cultivation, namely direct broadcast seeding, direct row seeding, machine transplanting, early season hand transplanting, standard season hand transplanting, and late season hand transplanting, were detected with two representative rice cultivars (Milyang 23 and Sadominori) to estimate the comparative fluctuation patterns of weed flora. As a result, number of emerged weed species, most crowding stages, differences of weed growth among cropping patterns, possible tendencies of competition in plant heights among plant groups, variations in Importance Values, and Simpson's Index analysis were discussed, respectively.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.39-44
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• 2011

Purpose: $^{18}F$-FDG PET/CT has been known a useful modality to diagnose high-glucose-using cells such as cancer cells by glucose metabolism of FDG. Mainly, FDG takes on cancer and inflammatory cells; However, There have been FDG uptakes on normal tissues by individual physiological characteristics, occasionally. Especially, in fertile females, unusual FDG uptake of breast changes as the menstrual cycle, and disturb diagnosis. Therefore, the study aimed to evaluate the change of breast FDG uptake in menstrual cycle on $^{18}F$-FDG PET/CT. Materials and Methods: 160 females ($34{\pm}3.5$ years old) who do not undergo a gynecologic anamnesis and have regular menstrual cycle over the previous 6 months were examined, from March 2009 to February 2010. They were divided 4 groups (each 40 patients) as flow phase, proliferative phase, ovulatory phase and secretory phase using Pregnancy Calculator 0.14. and history taking. Discovery Ste (GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, Mi, USA) was used as PET/CT. We analyzed SUVs on accumulated region on breast, and 3 nuclear medicine specialists did the Blind test. Results: SUVs on the Breast were flow phase ($1.64{\pm}0.25$), proliferative phase ($0.93{\pm}0.28$), ovulatory phase ($1.66{\pm}0.26$) and secretory phase ($1.77{\pm}0.28$). It showed high uptake value in secretory, flow phase and ovulatory phase (p<0.05). In gross analysis, the accumulation of breast was divided into 3 grades as comparing with lung and liver. The breast's uptake was equal to lung (Grade I); between lung and liver (Grade II); equal to or greater than liver (Grade III). The results showed high uptake value in secretory, flow phase and ovulatory phase (p<0.05). Conclusion: In fertile females, FDG uptake of breast changed as menstrual cycle, and it available to diagnose breast disease. Therefore, we consider reducing false-negative finding of breast disease, by doing examination on appropriate period through history taking about individual menstrual cycle.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Grassland and Forage Science
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.12-16
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• 2015

This study was carried out to evaluate accurately physical characteristics of total mixed rations (TMR) by investigating the effects of physically effective neutral detergent fiber content on the growth performance and carcass characteristics in fattening steers. Twelve Hanwoo (Bos Taurus coreanae) steers aged 26 months were used in this trial. Steers were offered one of two total mixed ration (TMR) diets - High or Low physically effective neutral detergent fiber (peNDF) content groups-that were differentiated by mixing time. The carcass traits of the experimental animals were evaluated by Korea Institute for Animal Products Quality Evaluation (KAPE) after slaughter. Body weight gain during the experimental period was significantly higher (P<0.05) in the High group ($30.00{\pm}10.27kg$) compared with the Low group ($17.20{\pm}6.34kg$), and daily weight gain was also high in the former. Although there was no significant difference, the carcass weight was higher in the High group ($414.60{\pm}34.28kg$) compared with the Low group ($377.80{\pm}11.97kg$). However, the beef quality grade of the Low group ($1^{++}$) was higher than that of the High group ($1^+$). Increases in body weight gain, daily gain, and carcass weight for the High group were mainly influenced by a high level of dry matter (DM) intake and digestibility; consequently, back-fat thickness increased and the beef quality grade was lowered. Because growth performance and carcass characteristics were affected by the physical traits of the diet, we suggested that proper peNDF content is also needed for fattening steers.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.8 no.4 s.30
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• pp.49-62
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• 2006

The republic of korea has put a great emphasis on the role of the road as widening a social infra-structural facility. Thus, vast amount of money has been invested on the road establishment. As a result, there has been fruitful outcomes in establishing the road system of the nation especially for the flat road with ease. However, in order to have more systematic and sustainable road system, we should turn our attention to more painful and high-cost regions such as mountainous districts and those are to be developed effectively. The configuration of the road is an important factor to be considered in making a decision for the road planning. Nevertheless, current road planning criterion has no such clarified and objective judging standard for figuring the configuration of the road out and, as a result, speed planning can be decided incorrectly. our research has acknowledged the necessity of estimating the configuration of the road and aimed to make it organized and sorted according to the height, slope, and the vehicle's speed. The results are as follows. First, our research made use of GIS data and classified the road into 9 different areas according to the height and the slope. Also, road classification being matched to the data of vehicle's speed, it has been shown that those characteristics of different areas have made an influence on vehicle's speed. Secondly, based on the results of the similarity between geographical classification and, vehicle's speed of sorted groups according to the height and the slope, conclusively we have classified as flat, rolling region and mountain. Since our research has made use of vehicle's speed for National Highway, it is not applicable to different functional highways. However, for the highway to be established hereafter, it can be a standard for reflection geographical characteristics.