• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2017

Purpose: We investigated the effectiveness of the delta neutrophil index (DNI) for the prediction of neonatal bacteremia and compared it to other indices. Methods: A total of 146 pediatric patients, aged less than 31 days, admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit of Wonju Severance Christian Hospital with fever before or during hospitalization were enrolled in this study. We divided the patients into two groups based on the existence of neonatal bacteremia and performed blood culture tests on both groups. We examined white blood cell count, absolute neutrophil count, DNI, platelet count, and C-reactive protein (CRP) test. We used a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve to evaluate their diagnostic significance. Results: Seventy-seven patients were diagnosed with neonatal bacteremia. The mean gestational age was 38.74 weeks and the mean birth weight was 3.20 kg. The mean gestational age of the control group was 33.34 weeks and the mean birth weight was 2.20 kg. Causative organisms of bacteremia included Staphylococcus aureus (n=22), Staphylococcus epidermidis (n=18), and Streptococcus agalactiae (n=8). Both DNI and CRP were significantly associated with neonatal bacteremia after adjusting for gestational age and birth weight. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) for DNI (0.70) was higher than that for CRP (0.68). Conclusions: The DNI can be used to effectively predict neonatal bacteremia. The prediction will be more accurate if DNI is used in conjunction with other indices. In future, it will be useful to compare DNI with other indices and investigate its relationship with prognosis.

• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.371-382
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• 2020

There have been continuous attempts to quantify sensory attributes of cosmetic products by measuring relevant physical properties. The most representative method to evaluate stickiness is to measure axial force using texture analyzer. Stickiness is known to correlate with AUC which abbreviates area under curve in the obtained axial force curve as a function of time. Recently, Normandie University research group developed in vivo stickiness evaluation method considering the characteristics of skin along with established evaluation method[8]. Based on the study, we tried to optimize in vivo stickiness evaluation method especially for cosmetic creams. The experiment was carried out on 5 different facial creams products by changing the amount and the times of rolling of creams, and the shape and material of probes. Based on the results of the sensory evaluation, the most consistent conditions were established as the optimal evaluation method. As a result, applying 70 μL of cream and rubbing 10 times for 7 s inside the 3.4 cm circle were judged to be suitable. As for the probes, spherical metallic probe was more proper due to its reproducibility. We conducted the settled method on 10 subjects to check its validity. Although the absolute values of AUC differed depending on the individuals, the AUC values were all ranked the same. Finally, for the standardization of stickiness of AUC, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) was set as a reference material and we measured AUC of its aqueous solution by changing concentration. Then, the degree of stickiness recognition for 5 different creams was surveyed to check the correlation between AUC and stickiness.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.399-408
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• 2022

The purpose of this study was to compare the usefulness of the lipid ratio indicators for the diagnosis of metabolic syndrome in the elderly aged 65 years or older. From January 2018 to December 2020, 1,464 people aged 65 years or older who underwent a health checkup at a general hospital in Seoul were included. Lipid ratio indicators were measured through blood tests. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome according to the quartiles of the lipid ratio index was confirmed by logistic regression analysis. In addition, the metabolic syndrome predictive ability and cutoff value of the lipid ratio indices were estimated with the receiver operating characteristic(ROC) curve. The correlation between atherogenic index of plasma(AIP) and waist circumference was the highest in both men and women(r=0.278, p<0.001 vs r=0.252, p<0.001). As for the lipid ratio indices, the incidence of metabolic syndrome was higher in the fourth quartile than in the first quartile. The area under the ROC curve(AUC) value of AIP was higher at 0.826(95% CI=0.799-0.850) and 0.852(95% CI=0.820-0.881) for men and women, respectively, compared to other lipid ratio indicators, and the optimal cutoff values for both men and women was 0.44(p<0.001). Therefore, the AIP among the lipid ratio indicators was found to be the most useful index for diagnosing metabolic syndrome in the elderly aged 65 years or older.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.82 no.1
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• pp.116-127
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• 2021

Purpose To evaluate the feasibility of texture analysis of gray-scale ultrasound (US) images for staging of hepatic fibrosis. Materials and Methods Altogether, 167 patients who had undergone routine US and laboratory tests for a fibrosis-4 (FIB-4) index were included. Texture parameters were measured using a dedicated in-house software. Regions of interest were placed in five different segments (3, 5, 6, 7, 8) for each patient. The FIB-4 index was used as the reference standard for hepatic fibrosis grade. Comparisons of the texture parameters between different fibrosis groups were performed with the Student's t-test or Mann-Whitney U-test. Diagnostic performance was evaluated by receiver operating curve analysis. Results The study population comprised of patients with no fibrosis (FIB-4 < 1.45, n = 50), mild fibrosis (1.45 ≤ FIB-4 ≤ 2.35, n = 37), moderate fibrosis (2.35 < FIB-4 ≤ 3.25, n = 27), and severe fibrosis (FIB-4 > 3.25, n = 53). Skewness in hepatic segment 5 showed a difference between patients with no fibrosis and mild fibrosis (0.2392 ± 0.3361, 0.4134 ± 0.3004, respectively, p = 0.0109). The area under the curve of skewness for discriminating patients with no fibrosis from those with mild fibrosis was 0.660 (95% confidence interval, 0.551-0.758), with an estimated accuracy, sensitivity, specificity of 64%, 87%, 48%, respectively. Conclusion A significant difference was observed regarding skewness in segment 5 between patients with no fibrosis and patients with mild fibrosis.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.24 no.12
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• pp.1190-1199
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• 2023

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the feasibility of ultrafast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and radiomic features derived from breast MRI for predicting the upstaging of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) diagnosed using percutaneous needle biopsy. Materials and Methods: Between August 2018 and June 2020, 95 patients with 98 DCIS lesions who underwent preoperative breast MRI, including an ultrafast sequence, and subsequent surgery were included. Four ultrafast MRI parameters were analyzed: time-to-enhancement, maximum slope (MS), area under the curve for 60 s after enhancement, and time-to-peak enhancement. One hundred and seven radiomic features were extracted for the whole tumor on the first post-contrast T1WI and T2WI using PyRadiomics. Clinicopathological characteristics, ultrafast MRI findings, and radiomic features were compared between the pure DCIS and DCIS with invasion groups. Prediction models, incorporating clinicopathological, ultrafast MRI, and radiomic features, were developed. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis and area under the curve (AUC) were used to evaluate model performance in distinguishing between the two groups using leave-one-out cross-validation. Results: Thirty-six of the 98 lesions (36.7%) were confirmed to have invasive components after surgery. Compared to the pure DCIS group, the DCIS with invasion group had a higher nuclear grade (P < 0.001), larger mean lesion size (P = 0.038), larger mean MS (P = 0.002), and different radiomic-related characteristics, including a more extensive tumor volume; higher maximum gray-level intensity; coarser, more complex, and heterogeneous texture; and a greater concentration of high gray-level intensity. No significant differences in AUCs were found between the model incorporating nuclear grade and lesion size (0.687) and the models integrating additional ultrafast MRI and radiomic features (0.680-0.732). Conclusion: High nuclear grade, larger lesion size, larger MS, and multiple radiomic features were associated with DCIS upstaging. However, the addition of MS and radiomic features to the prediction model did not significantly improve the prediction performance.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.85 no.1
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• pp.184-196
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• 2024

Purpose We investigated potentially promising imaging findings and their combinations in the evaluation of cognitive decline. Materials and Methods This retrospective study included 138 patients with subjective cognitive impairments, who underwent brain MRI. We classified the same group of patients into Alzheimer's disease (AD) and non-AD groups, based on the neuropsychiatric evaluation. We analyzed imaging findings, including white matter hyperintensity (WMH) and cerebral microbleeds (CMBs), using the Kruskal-Wallis test for group comparison, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis for assessing the diagnostic performance of imaging findings. Results CMBs in the lobar or deep locations demonstrated higher prevalence in the patients with AD compared to those in the non-AD group. The presence of lobar CMBs combined with periventricular WMH (area under the ROC curve [AUC] = 0.702 [95% confidence interval: 0.599-0.806], p < 0.001) showed the highest performance in differentiation of AD from non-AD group. Conclusion Combinations of imaging findings can serve as useful additive diagnostic tools in the assessment of cognitive decline.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.14-20
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• 2015

We created species richness maps of mammals, birds and plants using "Nnational Ecosystem Survey" data and identified correlations between species richness maps of each taxa. We examine the distribution of species richness of each taxa and calculated conservation priority rank through plotting species-area curves using an additive benefit function in Zonation. The conclusions of this study are as follows. First, plant showed high species richness in Gangwon province and Baekdudaegan, and mammals showed high species richness at eastern slope of Baekdudaegan in Gangwon province unusually and the species richness of mammals distributed equally except Gyeonggi and Chungnam province. However, birds showed high species richness in the west costal because the area is the major route of winter migratory birds. Second, correlation of each taxa's distribution is not significant. Correlation between mammals and birds is positive but correlations between birds and others are negative. Because mammals inhabit in forest but birds mostly live in coastal wetlands and rivers. Therefore, bird's habitats are not shared with other habitats. Third, the probability of mammals occurrence is very low under 25% in species-area curve, others increase proportionally to area. Birds increase dramatically richness at 10% because bird's habitat is concentrated in coastal wetlands and rivers. Plants increased gently species richness due to large forest in Gangwon province. We can calculate the predicted number of species in curves and plan various conservation strategies using the marginal number of species. Finally, high priority ranks for conservation distributed mainly in Gangwon province and Baekdudaegan. When we compared with priority map and terrestrial national parks, the parks were evaluated as high priority ranks. However, the rank of parks away from Baekdudaegan was low. This study has the meaning of selecting conservation priority area using National Ecosystem Survey. In spite of the omission of survey data in national parks and Baekdudaegan, the results were good. Therefore, the priority rank method using species distribution models is useful to selecting protected areas and improving conservation plans. However, it is needed to select protected areas considering various evaluation factors, such as rarity, connectivity, representativeness, focal species and so on because there is a limit to select protected area only using species richness.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.853-860
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• 2012

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to develop a Minimal Insomnia Screening Scale for Korean adults (KMISS) and to evaluate psychometric properties and discriminant ability of the developed scale. Methods: Data from a cross-sectional survey of 959 Korean adults were analyzed to develop the summated insomnia scale, which was evaluated in terms of reliability, validity, and discriminant ability by receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis. Results: Item-total correlations ranged between .71-.79 and Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ was .87. Adequate validity was also evident. ROC-curve analysis showed area under ROC was .87 (95% CI: .84-.90) and identified the optimal cut-off score as ${\leq}20$ (sensitivity, .83; specificity, .75; positive/negative predictive values, .40/.95). Using this cut-off score, the prevalence of insomnia in the study sample was 26.3% and most frequent among women and the oldest group. Conclusion: Data supports the psychometric properties of KMISS as a possible insomnia screening instrument. KMISS also shows promise as a convenient ultra-short screening measure of insomnia for adults and epidemiological studies in community health care settings.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.357-364
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• 2017

The purpose of the study is to develop and validate landslide susceptibility map of Bhotang village development committee, Nepal using FR (Frequency Ration) and SI (Statistical Index) methods. For the purpose, firstly, a landslide inventory map was constructed based on mainly high resolution satellite images available in Google Earth Pro, and rest fieldwork as verification. Secondly, ten conditioning factors of landslide occurrence, namely: altitude, slope, aspect, mean topographic wetness index, landcover, normalized difference vegetation index, dominant soil, distance to river, distance to lineaments and rainfall, were derived and used for the development of landslide susceptibility map in GIS (Geographic Information System) environment. The landslide inventory of total 116 landslides was divided randomly such that 70% were used for training and remaining 30% for validating result by receiver operating characteristics curve analysis. The area under the curve were found to be greater than 0.7 indicating an acceptable susceptibility maps obtained using FR and SI methods in GIS for hilly region of Nepal.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.341-346
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• 2018

The aims of this study were to evaluate the reliability and validity of the cold and heat pattern identification questionnaire (CHPIQ). From July 2015 to December 2015, 120 participants, university faculties, filled out CHPIQ by the way of self-reporting. Then two Korean medical doctors independently diagnosed them whether they belonged to cold pattern (CP) or not, and heat pattern (HP) or not. We evaluated the internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha coefficient, and the validity using the sensitivity and specificity through receiver operating characteristic-curve. The internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha coefficient) showed 0.754 (CP) and 0.753 (HP). The area under the curve was recorded with 0.884 (CP) and 0.786 (HP). The agreements between CHPIQ and experts were 82.8% (CP) and 72.9% (HP). The sensitivities showed 0.707 (CP) and 0.719 (HP), and the specificities were 0.935 (CP) and 0.736 (HP). This study suggests that CHPIQ is a reliable and valid instrument for estimating cold-heat pattern identification.