• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.31 no.1 s.60
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• pp.112-126
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• 1998

To investigate the effectiveness of the interventions in working environment and personal hygiene for the occupational exposure to the lead, the blood zinc protoporphyrin (ZPP) concentrations of 131 workers (100 exposed subjects and 31 controls) of a newly established battery factory were analyzed. They were measured in every 3 months up to 18 months. Ai. lead concentration (Pb-A) of the workplaces was also checked for 3 times in 6 months interval from August 1987. Environmental intervention included the local exhaust ventilation and vacuum cleaning of the floor. Intervention of the personal hygiene included the daily change of clothes, compulsory shower after work and hand washing before meal, prohibition of cigarette smoking and food consumption at the work site and wearing mask. Mean blood ZPP concentration of the controls was $16.45{\pm}4.83{\mu}g/d\ell$ at the preemployment examination and slightly increased to $17.77{\pm}5.59{\mu}g/d\ell$ after 6 months. Mean blood ZPP concentration of the exposed subjects who were employed before the factory was in operation (Group A) was $17.36{\pm}5.20{\mu}g/d\ell$ on employment and it was increased to $23.00{\pm}13.06{\mu}g/d\ell$ after 3 months. The blood ZPP concentration was increased to $27.25{\pm}6.40{\mu}g/d\ell$ on 6 months (p<0.01) after the employment which was 1 month after the initiation of intervention program. It did not increase thereafter and ranged between $25.48{\mu}g/d\ell$ and $26.61{\mu}g/d\ell$ in the subsequent 4 results. Mean blood ZPP concentration of the exposed subjects who were employed after the factory had been in operation but before the intervention program was initiated (Group B) was $14.34{\pm}6.10{\mu}g/d\ell$ on employment and it was increased to $28.97{\pm}7.14{\mu}g/d\ell$ (p<0.01) in 3 months later(1 month after the intervention). The values of subsequent 4 tests were maintained between $26.96{\mu}g/d\ell$and $27.96{\mu}g/d\ell$. Mean blood ZPP concentration of the exposed subjects who were employed after intervention program had been started (Group C) was$21.34{\pm}5.25{\mu}g/d\ell$ on employment and it was gradually increased to $23.37{\pm}3.86{\mu}g/d\ell$ (p<0.01) after 3 months, $23.93{\pm}3.64{\mu}g/d\ell$ after 6 months, $25.50{\pm}3.01{\mu}g/d\ell$ after 9 months, and $25.50{\pm}3.10{\mu}g/d\ell$ after 12 months. Workplaces were classified into 4 parts according to Pb-A. The Pb-A of part I, the highest areas, were $0.365mg/m^3$, and after the intervention the levels were decreased to $0.216mg/m^3$ and$0.208mg/m^3$ in follow-up test. The Pb-A of part II which was resulted in lowe. value than part I was decreased from $0.232mg/m^3$ to $0.148mg/m^3$, and $0.120mg/m^3$ after the intervention. The Pb-A of part III was tested after the intervention and resulted in $0.124mg/m^3$ in January 1988 and $0.181mg/m^3$ in August 1988. The Pb-A of part IV was also tested after the intervention and resulted in $0.110mg/m^3$ in August 1988. There was no consistent relationship between Pb-A and blood ZPP concentration. The blood ZPP concentration of the group A and B workers in the part of the highest Pb-A were lower than those of the workers in the parts of lower Pb-A. The blood ZPP concentration of the workers in the part of the lowest Pb-A increased more rapidly. The blood ZPP concentration of the group C workers was the highest in part III. These findings suggest that the intervention in personal hygiene is more effective than environmental intervention, and it should be carried out from the first day of employment and to both the exposed subjects, blue color workers and the controls, white color workers.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.65-76
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• 2008

This study was performed to identify association between nutritional status and health risks of the elderly. This was a cross-sectional study involving low income elderly women in Gwangju, Korea (${\geq}$65y, n = 92). Socio-demographics, life style characteristics, health conditions, dietary intakes based on 24h-recall method, anthropometric measures, and clinical biochemistry parameters were examined. Anthropometric and clinical parameters included wt, ht, waist, hip, body protein, body fat, abdominal fat, total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, triglyceride, total protein, albumin, hemoglobin, hematocrit, fasting blood glucose, ferritin, IL-2, IL-6, TNF-${\alpha}$, CRP, TAS, TBARS, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure. The subjects were divided into three groups based on age (65-74y, 75-84y, 85y${\leq}$) and were divided into two groups according to the sum of the Nutrition Screening Initiative (NSI) checklist score (adequate nutritional status, NSI score ${\leq}$3; at risk of malnutrition, NSI score >3). Mean and frequency of variables were estimated. Analysis of Variance, Tukey test, Chi-square test, and Multiple linear regression analyses were performed. Mean BMI and body fat were 25.1 $kg/m^2$ and 40.0%, respectively. However, for over 80% of subjects, the intakes of energy, fiber, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folate, Ca, K, and Zn were less than the Korean DRI (EAR or AI). The subjects who had lower NSI score tended to have better health status, eat meals frequently, have less depression, and exercise regularly. The subjects who had higher NSI score tended to have tooth problems, to eat alone most of time, and to be physically unable to cook or feed. Serum IL-6 and TNF-${\alpha}$ were significantly related with nutritional status which suggested higher tendency of inflammatory response. Serum IL-2, TAS, and glucose were significantly correlated with body fat (%) or abdominal fat (%). These results suggest that improving the nutritional status, increasing regular exercise, maintaining normal weight are beneficial to health care of low income elderly women.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.171-193
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• 2018

LOD(Linked Open Data) cloud is a practical implementation of semantic web. We suggested a new method that provides identity links conveniently in LOD cloud. It also allows changes in LOD to be reflected to searching results without any omissions. LOD provides detail descriptions of entities to public in RDF triple form. RDF triple is composed of subject, predicates, and objects and presents detail description for an entity. Links in LOD cloud, named identity links, are realized by asserting entities of different RDF triples to be identical. Currently, the identity link is provided with creating a link triple explicitly in which associates its subject and object with source and target entities. Link triples are appended to LOD. With identity links, a knowledge achieves from an LOD can be expanded with different knowledge from different LODs. The goal of LOD cloud is providing opportunity of knowledge expansion to users. Appending link triples to LOD, however, has serious difficulties in discovering identity links between entities one by one notwithstanding the enormous scale of LOD. Newly added entities cannot be reflected to searching results until identity links heading for them are serialized and published to LOD cloud. Instead of creating enormous identity links, we propose LOD to prepare its own link policy. The link policy specifies a set of target LODs to link and constraints necessary to discover identity links to entities on target LODs. On searching, it becomes possible to access newly added entities and reflect them to searching results without any omissions by referencing the link policies. Link policy specifies a set of predicate pairs for discovering identity between associated entities in source and target LODs. For the link policy specification, we have suggested a set of vocabularies that conform to RDFS and OWL. Identity between entities is evaluated in accordance with a similarity of the source and the target entities' objects which have been associated with the predicates' pair in the link policy. We implemented a system "Change Acceptable In-Depth Searching System(CAIDS)". With CAIDS, user's searching request starts from depth_0 LOD, i.e. surface searching. Referencing the link policies of LODs, CAIDS proceeds in-depth searching, next LODs of next depths. To supplement identity links derived from the link policies, CAIDS uses explicit link triples as well. Following the identity links, CAIDS's in-depth searching progresses. Content of an entity obtained from depth_0 LOD expands with the contents of entities of other LODs which have been discovered to be identical to depth_0 LOD entity. Expanding content of depth_0 LOD entity without user's cognition of such other LODs is the implementation of knowledge expansion. It is the goal of LOD cloud. The more identity links in LOD cloud, the wider content expansions in LOD cloud. We have suggested a new way to create identity links abundantly and supply them to LOD cloud. Experiments on CAIDS performed against DBpedia LODs of Korea, France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. They present that CAIDS provides appropriate expansion ratio and inclusion ratio as long as degree of similarity between source and target objects is 0.8 ~ 0.9. Expansion ratio, for each depth, depicts the ratio of the entities discovered at the depth to the entities of depth_0 LOD. For each depth, inclusion ratio illustrates the ratio of the entities discovered only with explicit links to the entities discovered only with link policies. In cases of similarity degrees with under 0.8, expansion becomes excessive and thus contents become distorted. Similarity degree of 0.8 ~ 0.9 provides appropriate amount of RDF triples searched as well. Experiments have evaluated confidence degree of contents which have been expanded in accordance with in-depth searching. Confidence degree of content is directly coupled with identity ratio of an entity, which means the degree of identity to the entity of depth_0 LOD. Identity ratio of an entity is obtained by multiplying source LOD's confidence and source entity's identity ratio. By tracing the identity links in advance, LOD's confidence is evaluated in accordance with the amount of identity links incoming to the entities in the LOD. While evaluating the identity ratio, concept of identity agreement, which means that multiple identity links head to a common entity, has been considered. With the identity agreement concept, experimental results present that identity ratio decreases as depth deepens, but rebounds as the depth deepens more. For each entity, as the number of identity links increases, identity ratio rebounds early and reaches at 1 finally. We found out that more than 8 identity links for each entity would lead users to give their confidence to the contents expanded. Link policy based in-depth searching method, we proposed, is expected to contribute to abundant identity links provisions to LOD cloud.