• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.18-22
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• 2016

Background: The interscalene brachial plexus block is widely used for pain control and anesthetic purposes during shoulder arthroscopic surgeries and surgeries of the upper extremities. However, it is known that interscalene brachial plexus block is not appropriate for upper limb surgeries because it does not affect the lower trunk (C8-T1, ulnar nerve) of the brachial plexus. Methods: A low approach, ultrasound-guided interscalene brachial plexus block (LISB) was performed on twenty-eight patients undergoing surgery of the upper extremities. The patients were assessed five minutes and fifteen minutes after the block for the degree of block in each nerve and muscle as well as for any complications. Results: At five minutes and fifteen minutes after the performance of the block, the degree of the block in the ulnar nerve was found to be $2.8{\pm}2.6$ and $1.1{\pm}1.8$, respectively, based on a ten-point scale. Motor block occurred in the median nerve after fifteen minutes in 26 of the 28 patients (92.8%), and in all of the other three nerves in all 28 patients. None of the patients received additional analgesics, and none experienced complications. Conclusions: The present study confirmed the achievement of an appropriate sensory and motor block in the upper extremities, including the ulnar nerve, fifteen minutes after LISB, with no complications.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.18-25
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• 2014

Objective : This study explored the relationships among demographic (DVs) and clinical variables (CVs), neurocognitive (NOs) and functional outcome (FO) that could be used as prognostic factors for old aged patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) undergoing or appointed disability evaluation (DE) after treatment. Methods : A total of 162 subjects with TBI above the age of 55 years undergoing DE or appointed to do so after treatments were selected. The patients were divided into two subgroups according to age : a junior elderly group 55 to 64 years old and a senior elderly group over the age of 65. NOs and FO were evaluated using the Seoul Neuropsychological Screening Battery and Clinical Dementia Rating scale. Results : Gender, age, and education level were shown to significantly impact the recovery of NOs after TBI. Other DVs and CVs such as area of residency, occupation, type of injury, or loss of consciousness were not found to significantly affect the recovery of NOs after TBI. Analysis of the relationships among DVs, CVs and NOs demonstrated that gender, age, and education level contributed to the variance of NOs. In FO, loss of consciousness (LOC) was included to prognostic factor. Conclusion : Gender, age and education level significantly influence the NOs of elderly patients with TBI. LOC may also serve as a meaningful prognostic factor in FO. Unlike younger adult patients with TBI, old aged patients with TBI did not show global faking-bad or malingering attitudes to DE for compensation, but assume that they could faking their performance in a test set available visual feedback.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.137-141
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• 2002

Anabaena variabilis ATCC 29413 grew in chromium (Cr) containing Chu-10 (basal) and nitrate-supplemented media, and the growth of the organism in $100{\mu}M$ chromium was found to be 50% of that in control medium. The growth in nitrate $({NO_3}^-)$ supplemented cultures was better as compared to cultures grown in basal medium. Free cells from basal and nitrate-supplemented media removed 5.2 and 7.4 nmol of chromium $mg^{-1}$protein in 8 h, respectively, from the medium containing $30{\mu}M$ chromium. The efficiency of chromium removal increased 7-fold in imidazole buffer (0.2 M, pH 7.0). A cell density equivalent to $100{\mu}g$ protein $ml^{-1}$ was found to be optimum for maximum Cr removal. Entrapment of cells in calcium-alginate beads did not affect the rate of Cr uptake by the cells. The efficiency of the laboratory-scale continuous flow bioreactor $(12.5{\times}2cm)$ loaded with alginate-immobilized cells (10 mg protein) and fed with $30{\mu}M$ chromium solution was compared at different flow rates. The efficiency of the bioreactor varied with flow rates. In terms of percent removal of Cr from influent, a flow rate of 0.1 ml $min^{-1}$ was found to be optimum for 6 h (54% Cr removal efficiency). Maximum amount of Cr (883 nmol) was removed by the cells in 3 h at a flow rate of 0.5 ml $min^{-1}$. The potential use of A. variabilis in removing Cr from industrial effluents is discussed.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.59 no.1
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• pp.23-28
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• 2015

Everyone has own color preference and the color preference can affect human psychology in various good or bad ways. Especially patients with chronic diseases often have depressed mood to take pills for their disease treatment. Therefore we evaluate the possibility of their color preference to pharmacotherapy in good way which increases the compliance of pharmacotherapy. We performed this study by a Questionnaire survey for total 150 agreed patients at K University hospital from Aug 7 to Sep 30, 2014. Questionnaire survey was performed to choose color of providing color kit (11 different color range kit) depend on each 16 questions which asked the patient characteristics, health condition, general color preference, color preference for medicine and expectation for drug compliance. In results, most preferred color was blue (20%), whereas disliked color was black (30%) in general life. However, most preferred color for pill was white (32%), for syrup was also white (31%) or orange (28%), and for vitamin was yellow (47%). When we asked the possibility of increasing compliance, if the current taking pill color will be changed for your preference color like a candy bar, 50.4% of respondents marked 4 or 5 of like-scale expressing positive opinion on it. In conclusion, compliance is very important to succeed the treating disease and may apply the psychologic application such as each patient color preference for drug compliance in the future.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.171-176
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• 2016

Background: A previous percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) may affect the outcomes of patients who undergo coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). The objective of this study was to compare the early in-hospital postoperative outcomes between patients who underwent CABG with or without previous PCI. Methods: The present study included 160 patients who underwent isolated elective on-pump CABG at the department of cardiothoracic surgery, Minia University Hospital from January 2010 to December 2014. Patients who previously underwent PCI (n=38) were compared to patients who did not (n=122). Preoperative, operative, and early in-hospital postoperative data were analyzed. The end points of the study were in-hospital mortality and postoperative major adverse events. Results: Non-significant differences were found between the study groups regarding preoperative demographic data, risk factors, left ventricular ejection fraction, New York Heart Association class, EuroSCORE, the presence of left main disease, reoperation for bleeding, postoperative acute myocardial infarction, a neurological deficit, need for renal dialysis, hospital stay, and in-hospital mortality. The average time from PCI to CABG was $13.9{\pm}5.4$ years. The previous PCI group exhibited a significantly larger proportion of patients who experienced in-hospital major adverse events (15.8% vs. 2.5%, p=0.002). On multivariate analysis, only previous PCI was found to be a significant predictor of major adverse events (odds ratio, 0.16; 95% confidence interval, 0.03 to 0.71; p=0.01). Conclusion: Previous PCI was found to have a significant effect on the incidence of early major adverse events after CABG. Further large-scale and long-term studies are recommended.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.151-170
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• 2007

Backgraounds : Recent studies provide the evidences that the efficacy of acupuncture may be no better than placebo or inconclusive. These results are very different from those of the actual clinical situations in many acupuncture medical institutions. Objectives : The present study was designed to evaluate the influencing factors which affect the efficacy of acupuncture scale(FEAS) as the methodological assessment tool of acupuncture for examining acupuncture interventions and to demonstrate the importance of it in randomized controlled trials of acupuncture. Data sources : Electronic data were retrieved from NDSL, Pubmed, sciencedirect, LWW, OVID, Black-Well Synergy, Wiley Interscience, EBSCO HOST, springer, PML, and Kluwer. No electronic data were collected from MEDLIS and MEDLAS. Study selection : The inclusion criteria were five systematic reviews included in Alberta study and all randomized controlled trials obtained from their references. Study analysis : The acupuncture rationale, methods of stimulation, treatment regimen, and the practitioner's background were rated by FEAS, and the scores were compared with those by other methodological assessment tools. Results : The number of positive conclusions of high-rank RCTs by FEAS was the same as or higher than that of high-rank RCTs by other methodological assessment tools. Conclusions : We have analysed 5 systematic reviews and their objectives 58 RCTs using FEAS. Practitioner's background has been described slightly in some reviews and studies. It may directly influence the effectiveness of acupuncture negatively in the systematic reviews.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.247-253
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• 2020

Background: Parkinson's disease(PD) affects not only motor symptoms, but also nonmotor symptoms. This study is a clinical trial to determine whether Qigong and acupuncture affect nonmotor symptoms of PD. Methods: A 2-arm parallel and randomized trial was performed with 21 participants who had received either Qigong meditation only [control group (CG)] or acupuncture and Qigong meditation [experimental group (EG)]. The participants' levels of the discomfort in nonmotor symptoms from Parkinson's disease were evaluated by using the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scales (UPDRS 1) and Test of Smell Identification (TSI) before and after 12 treatments at baseline and 1 month after 12 treatments. Results: The both CG and EG showed improvements in the UPDRS 1 score after treatment by 5.6 ± 5.15 (p= 0.003; 74%) and 4.8 ± 3.80 (p = 0.004; 79%), respectively. The both CG and the EG did improvements in the TSI after treatment by 10.3 ± 4.37 (p < 0.001; 84%) and 12.6 ± 1.77 (p = 0.022; 100%), respectively. However, statistical differences were not observed between the CG and the EG using the UPDRS 1 and the TSI scores. Conclusion: The combination of Qigong and acupuncture and Qigong alone was shown to improve the nonmotor symptoms and olfactory function of PD. In the future, large-scale clinical studies on alternative treatment for PD and studies on mechanisms affecting nonmotor symptoms of acupuncture and Qigong are needed.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2009

DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) occur commonly in the all living and in cycling cells. They constitute one of the most severe form of DNA damage, because they affect both strand of DNA. DSBs result in cell death or a genetic alterations including deletion, loss of heterozygosity, translocation, and chromosome loss. DSBs arise from endogenous sources like metabolic products and reactive oxygen, and also exogenous factors like ionizing radiation. Defective DNA DSBs can lead to toxicity and large scale sequence rearrangement that can cause cancer and promote premature aging. There are two major pathways for their repair: homologous recombination(HR) and non-homologous end-joining(NHEJ). The HR pathway is a known "error-free" repair mechanism, in which a homologous sister chromatid serves as a template. NHEJ, on the other hand, is a "error-prone" pathway, in which the two termini of the broken DNA molecule are used to form compatible ends that are directly ligated. This review aims to provide a fundamental understanding of how HR and NHEJ pathways operate, cause genome instability, and what kind of genes during the pathways are associated with head and neck cancer.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.2801-2805
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• 2015

Background: This study was conducted with the aim of determining how students' perceived smoking-cancer relationship and cardiovascular health attitudes affect childrens' views of smoking. Materials and Methods: The sample of this descriptive-cross sectional study comprised 574 subjects between the ages of 11-15. The data were collected using the Children's Cardiovascular Health Promotion Attitude Scale and the Children's Decisional Balance Measure for Assessing and Predicting Smoking Status. Correlation and logistic regression were used for analysis. Results: It was determined that a statistically significant relationship exists between the attitudes of children towards smoking and their ideas about the relationship of smoking with cancer, which is negative and low (r=-0.223). There was also a statistically significant relationship between their attitudes towards cardiovascular health and their attitudes towards smoking, again at a low level (r=0.257). It was determined that children with ideas about smoking and cancer were 9.4 times less likely to have positive/negative attitudes towards smoking, while positive attitudes towards cardiovascular health made negative attitudes towards smoking 3.9 times less likely. Conclusions: It was determined that the attitudes of students towards cardiovascular health and their perceptions of smoking and cancer reduced the positive perceptions towards smoking.

• Korean Parent-Child Health Journal
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.161-176
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• 2002

Among the causes of childhood behavioral problems - that is, physiological, psychological, and environmental factors -, the common element of non-organic psychological and environmental factors is influences from the parents. Roles of mother who does the biggest emotional exchange with the child after birth may have substantial association with the childhood behavioral problems. In this connection, the present explanatory study was conducted for the purpose of understanding the causal structural relationship in which mother's child caring behaviors affect child behavioral problems. The data collection period was July 2 - 7, 2001. The subject was 4th, 5th, 6th graders' mothers in 4 elementary schools located in Daejoen city and 299 surveys were used in the analysis. As for the tools used in this study to assess the mother's child caring Behavior Scale by Park, Seong-Yeon and Yi, Sook (1990) was used to measure the mother's behaviors. The child behavioral problems were measured with the Korean-Child Behavior Checklist (K-CBCL), standardized into the Korean version by O, Gyung-Ja, Yi, Hye-Ryon, Hong, Gang-Eui, and Ha, Eun-Hye. For the data processing, the frequency and the percentage were calculated, and the analyses of variance, correlation were carried out. The result of this study is summarized as follows: First, the examination of the effect of mother's general characteristics on the mother's caring behavior shows that significant differences are made by the active participation (p=0.020) in the occupation, affection(p=0.000), authority control(p=0.013), achievement(p=0.030), active participation(p=0.032) in the education level, consistency regulation(p=0.007) in the religion. Second, the examination of the effect of mother's caring behaviors on the child behavioral problems shows that significant differences are made by some child behavioral problems in the affection, achievement, consistency regulation, authority control, over protection caring behaviors. Third, as for the correlation between mother's child caring behavior and child behavioral problems, a significant correlation is revealed between the negative child caring behavior and child behavioral problems.