• Title/Summary/Keyword: Consistency in Assessment

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Evaluation for Food and Nutrition Information Sites on the Internet (식품영양정보 제공 인터넷 사이트 평가)

  • Bae, Hyeon-Ju;Park, Hae-Jeong;Chae, Mi-Jin;Yun, Eun-Yeong;Kim, Gyeong-Won;Seo, Jeong-Suk
    • Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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    • v.12 no.4
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    • pp.404-410
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    • 2006
  • This study was done to analyze the contents of food and nutrition information sites on the internet. In analysis, 276 web sites were used. Web sites from 3 internet search engines(Yahoo, Empas, Naver) were selected on the date of July 15th, 2004. The trained panels evaluated web sites' contents by the assessment tools using 3-point scale(2:strongly agree, 1:agree, 0:disagree). The contents classified by topics were functional foods(46.4%), cuisine and cooking(38.4%), food sanitation and safety(30.4%) and so on. Operators of web sites were individual(35.9%), company(30.4%) and public institution(33.7%). About 89.5% of web sites were operated for unspecified people. Contents of the web sites were well established especially in consistency in title and contents(1.6), scientific basis of explanations(1.2) and benefit of information(1.2) and so on while not well established in providing relevant sites(0.7), providing contact address and feed back mechanism(0.7) and so on. Web sites operated by public institutions are rated significantly higher than web sites operated by individual or company. In conclusion, in order to qualitatively improve food and nutrition information on the internet, continuing monitoring and evaluation are highly required and web sites operated by public institutions shall be developed further.

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Effects of Electrical Stimulation on Patients with Non-Specific Low Back Pain : A Meta-Analysis of Domestic Database (비특이적 만성 허리통증 환자에 대한 전기자극의 효과 : 국내 데이터베이스의 메타분석)

  • Lee, Jeong-Woo;Cho, Sung-Hyoun
    • Journal of The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
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    • v.10 no.3
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    • pp.37-52
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    • 2022
  • Purpose : The purpose of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the effects of electrical stimulation on patients with non-specific low back pain. Methods : Domestic databases were gathered from studies that conducted clinical trials associated with electrical stimulation and its impact on pain of non-specific low back patients. A total of 681 studies were identified, with 12 studies satisfying the inclusion data. The studies consisted of patient, intervention, comparison, outcome, and study design (PICO-SD). The search outcomes were items associated with low back pain. Cochrane risk of bias 2 (RoB 2) was used to evaluate the quality of 12 randomized controlled trials. Effect sizes (Hedges's g) in this study were computed as the corrected standard mean difference (SMD). A random-effect model was used to analyze the effect size because of the high heterogeneity among the studies. Egger's regression and 'trim-and-fill' tests were carried out to analyze the publication bias. Cumulative meta-analysis and sensitivity analysis were conducted to analyze the effect according to the sample size and the consistency of the effect size. Results : The following factors had a large overall effect size (Hedges's g=1.28, 95 % CI=.20~2.36) involving electrical stimulation on non-specific low back pain. The subgroup analysis all showed a statistical difference in the types of study design, electrical stimulation, and assessment tool. No statistically significant difference was found in the meta-regression analysis. Publican bias was found in the data. Conclusion : The findings in this study indicate that electrical stimulation interventions have a positive effect on patients with non-specific low back pain. However, due to the low quality of studies and publication bias, the results of our study should be interpreted cautiously.

A Study to Evaluate and Remedy Universal Soil Loss Equation Application for Watersheds and Development Projects (범용토양유실공식의 유역단위 및 개발사업에 대한 적용방안 검토 및 보완에 관한 연구)

  • Woo, Won Hee;Chae, Min Suh;Park, Jong-Yoon;Lee, Hanyong;Park, Youn Shik
    • Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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    • v.65 no.3
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    • pp.29-42
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    • 2023
  • Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) is suggested and employed in the policy to conserve soil resources and to manage the impact of development, since soil loss is very essential to nonpoint source pollution management. The equation requires only five factors to estimate average annual potential soil loss, USLE is simplicity provides benefits in use of the equation. However, it is also limitation of the model, since the estimated results are very sensitive to the five factors. There is a need to examine the application procedures. Three approaches to estimate potential soil loss were examined, In the first approach, all factors were prepared with raster data, soil loss were computed for each cell, and sum of all cell values was determined as soil loss for the watersheds. In the second approach, the mean values for each factor were defined as representing USLE factors, and then the five factors were multiplied to determine soil loss for the watersheds. The third approach was same as the second approach, except that the Vegetative and Mechanical measure was used instead of the Cover and management factor and Support practice factor. The approaches were applied in 38 watersheds, they displayed significant difference, moreover no trends were detected for the soil loss at watersheds with the approaches. Therefore, it was concluded that there is a need to be developed and provided a typical guideline or public systems so that soil loss estimations have consistency with the users.

Development of a Breast Cancer Awareness Scale for Thai Women: Moving towards a Validated Measure

  • Rakkapao, Nitchamon;Promthet, Supannee;Moore, Malcolm A;Hurst, Cameron P
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.17 no.2
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    • pp.851-856
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    • 2016
  • Background: Breast cancer is a major health problem among women around the world. Recent developments in screening and treatment have greatly improved the prognosis of patients with breast cancer in developed countries. However, in developing countries breast cancer mortality remains high.Breast cancer awareness is a first and important step in reducing breast cancer mortality. The development of a validated instrument to measure breast cancer awareness is crucial for the understanding and implementation of suitable health education programs to facilitate early deletion and minimize mortality. Objective: The objective of this study was to develop an instrument for the assessment of breast cancer awareness in Thai women. Materials and Methods: This methodological study was conducted in two stages: (1) literature searches and semi-structured interviews were conducted to generate items of the breast cancer awareness scale (B-CAS) which were subsequently examined for content and face validity, and (2) an exploration of the factor structure of the resulting instrument and an examination of its reliability. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire in Thai women aged 20-64 in August, 2015. Results: A total of 219 women (response rate 97.4 %) participated in this validation study. The B-CAS contains five domains with 53 items on breast cancer awareness: 1) knowledge of risk factors, 2) knowledge of signs and symptoms, 3) attitude to breast cancer prevention, 4) barriers of breast screening, and 5) health behavior related to breast cancer awareness. Items with a content validity index < 0.80 were excluded, and factor structure for the remaining items reflected the hypothesized five factor model. The scales based on all retained items was shown to have strongly internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's ${\alpha}=0.86$). Conclusions: The B-CAS provides good psychometric properties to assess breast cancer awareness in women. It can be used to examine breast cancer awareness in Thai women and it could lead to the development and evaluation of suitable educational interventions for raising breast cancer awareness. Future research should focus on further validating the B-CAS including an assessment of construct and criterion-based validity.

An Empirical Study on Evaluation of Performance Shaping Factors on AHP (AHP 기법을 이용한 수행영향인자 평가에 관한 연구)

  • Jung, Kyung-Hee;Byun, Seong-Nam;Kim, Jung-Ho;Heo, Eun-Mee;Park, Hong-Joon
    • Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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    • v.30 no.1
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    • pp.99-108
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    • 2011
  • Almost all companies have paid much attention to the safety management ranging from maintenance to operation even at the stage of designing in order to prevent accidents, but fatal accidents continue to increase throughout the world. In particular, it is essential to systematically prevent such fatal accidents as fire, explosion or leakage of toxic gas at factories in order to not only protect the workers and neighbors but also prevent economic losses and environmental pollution. Though it is well known that accident probability is very low in NPP(Nuclear Power Plants), the reason why many researches are still being performed about the accidents is the results may be so severe. HRA is the main process to make preparation for possibility of human error in designing of the NPP. But those techniques have some problems and limitation as follows; the evaluation sensitivity of those techniques are out of date. And the evaluation of human error is not coupled with the design process. Additionally, the scope of the human error which has to be included in reliability assessment should be expanded. This work focuses on the coincidence of human error and mechanical failure for some important performance shaping factors to propose a method for improving safety effectively of the process industries. In order to apply in these purposes into the thesis, I found 63 critical Performance Shaping Factors of the eight dimensions throughout studies that I executed earlier. In this study, various analysis of opinion of specialists(Personal Factors, Training, Knowledge or Experience, Procedures and Documentation, Information, Communications, HMI, Workplace Design, Quality of Environment, Team Factors) and the guideline for construction of PSF were accomplished. The selected method was AHP which simplifies objective conclusions by maintaining consistency. This research focused on the implementation process of PSF to evaluate the process of PSF at each phase. As a result, we propose an evaluation model of PSF as a tool to find critical problem at each phase and improve on how to resolve the problems found at each phase. This evaluation model makes it possible to extraction of PSF succesfully by presenting the basis of assessment which will be used by enterprises to minimize the trial and error of construction process of PSF.

Activity and Safety Recognition using Smart Work Shoes for Construction Worksite

  • Wang, Changwon;Kim, Young;Lee, Seung Hyun;Sung, Nak-Jun;Min, Se Dong;Choi, Min-Hyung
    • KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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    • v.14 no.2
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    • pp.654-670
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    • 2020
  • Workers at construction sites are easily exposed to many dangers and accidents involving falls, tripping, and missteps on stairs. However, researches on construction site monitoring system to prevent work-related injuries are still insufficient. The purpose of this study was to develop a wearable textile pressure insole sensor and examine its effectiveness in managing the real-time safety of construction workers. The sensor was designed based on the principles of parallel capacitance measurement using conductive textile and the monitoring system was developed by C# language. Three separate experiments were carried out for performance evaluation of the proposed sensor: (1) varying the distance between two capacitance plates to examine changes in capacitance charges, (2) repeatedly applying 1 N of pressure for 5,000 times to evaluate consistency, and (3) gradually increasing force by 1 N (from 1 N to 46 N) to test the linearity of the sensor value. Five subjects participated in our pilot test, which examined whether ascending and descending the stairs can be distinguished by our sensor and by weka assessment tool using k-NN algorithm. The 10-fold cross-validation method was used for analysis and the results of accuracy in identifying stair ascending and descending were 87.2% and 90.9%, respectively. By applying our sensor, the type of activity, weight-shifting patterns for balance control, and plantar pressure distribution for postural changes of the construction workers can be detected. The results of this study can be the basis for future sensor-based monitoring device development studies and fall prediction researches for construction workers.

Reliability and Validity of an Iranian Version of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire for Patients with Multiple Myeloma: the EORTC QLQ-MY20

  • Ahmadzadeh, Ahmad;Yekaninejad, Mir Saeed;Saffari, Mohsen;Pakpour, Amir H;Aaronson, Neil K
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.17 no.1
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    • pp.255-259
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    • 2016
  • Background: Reliable and validated instruments are needed in order to study the quality of life in myeloma patients. This study aimed to translate and explore the psychometric properties of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) myeloma module (QLQ-MY20) in Iranian patients. Materials and Methods: Two hundred and fifteen patients with multiple myeloma (MM) were recruited from Imam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran. A standard forward-backward translation procedure was implemented. Participating patients were asked to complete the EORTC QLQ-C30 and the QLQ-MY20 three times, at study entry, after two weeks, and again after three months. Data were tested for the range of measurement, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, known group comparison, responsiveness and factor structure. Results: Mean age of the patients was 60.7 years. No floor and ceiling effects were seen for the QLQ-MY20. Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ was greater than 0.80 for all three multi-item scales (ranging from 0.82 to 0.93). All four scales had test-retest reliability of 0.85 or greater. Results of the confirmatory factor analysis that the hypothesized 3-scale measurement model of the QLQ-MY20. Moreover, the Persian version for the QLQ-MY20 differentiated between subgroups of the patients in terms of beta-2 microglobulin, fracture and performance status. The responsiveness of the QLQ-MY20 to change over time was confirmed within 3 months. Conclusions: the results of our study indicate that our Iranian version of the QLQ-MY20 is a feasible, reliable and valid questionnaire for assessing the condition-specific quality of life of patients with MM.

Development of a Scale for Alcohol Drinking Prevention Behavior in Early Elementary School Based on Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior (초등학교 저학년 학생의 음주예방행위 예측변수 측정도구 개발 - Ajzen의 계획적 행위이론 기반 -)

  • Kim, Younkyoung;Lee, Chong Mi;Kang, Seo Young
    • Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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    • v.50 no.2
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    • pp.210-227
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    • 2020
  • Purpose: This study aimed to develop a scale to measure variables related to alcohol drinking prevention behavior in early elementary school, based on the theory of planned behavior. Methods: A scale was developed to measure variables related to alcohol drinking prevention behavior. Initial items for direct evaluation were constructed through a literature review, and those for belief-based indirect measure were generated through interviews with 30 second- and third-grade elementary school students. The collected data from 286 third-grade elementary school students were then subjected to item analysis, exploratory and confirmative factor analysis, criterion-related validity testing, and internal consistency assessment. Results: The final scale consisted of 35 items. Intention, attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control explained 82.7% of the variance; behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs, and control beliefs explained 65.6% of the variance; and evaluation of outcome, motivation to comply, and power of control beliefs explained 72.8% of the variance. The confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the theoretical models had a satisfactory goodness of fit. Criterion-related validity was confirmed between the direct evaluation variables and the indirect measure variables (attitudes r=.64, p<.001; subjective norms r=.39, p<.001; perceived behavioral control r=.62, p<.001). Cronbach's α was .89 for the direct evaluation variables and .93 for the indirect measure variables. Conclusion: The scale developed in this study is valid and reliable. It could be used to measure and explain variables related to alcohol drinking prevention behavior in early elementary school.

A Comparison between Korean and American College Students' Evolution Concepts based on the History of Evolutionary Ideas (진화개념의 역사에 근거한 한국과 미국 대학생의 진화개념 수준 비교)

  • Ha, Minsu
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.37 no.4
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    • pp.659-668
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    • 2017
  • This study was conducted to identify whether there is a significant difference in the developmental stages of the evolution concept depending on the major and the country. For this study, college students (both biology major and non-biology major) in Korea and the United States answered evolution concept assessment developed by Ha (2007). The data were analyzed based on the method of developed by Ha (2016). As a result of this study, Cronbach alpha for internal consistency reliability and MNSQ indices for item response fitness of the ordered multiple choice method providing 0 to 4 point scores to creationism, teleology, intentionality, use/disuse, and natural selection respectively, satisfied the benchmark. The level of Korean college students' evolution concepts was located in use/disuse and the level of USA college students' evolution concepts was located in teleology. No interaction effect was found between the difference of conceptual progressions of evolution concept by major and country and evolution contexts (human, animal, and plant). There was a significant relationship between developmental stages of evolution concept and their religiosity. Based on the results of this study, we discuss developmental characteristics of evolutionary concepts.

A rock mass assessment procedure based on quantitative geophysical log analysis of coal measure sequences (탄층에 대한 정량적 물리검층에 기초한 암반 평가 과정)

  • Hatherly Peter;Medhurst Terry;Sliwa Renate;Turner Roland
    • Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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    • v.8 no.1
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    • pp.112-117
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    • 2005
  • Geophysical logging is routinely undertaken as part of most coal mine exploration programs. Currently, the main application for the logs is to determine coal seam depth and to qualitatively estimate coal quality, lithology, and rock strength. However, further information can be obtained, if quantitative log interpretation is made. To assist in the uptake of quantitative interpretation, we discuss log responses in terms of the mineralogy of the clastic sedimentary rocks frequently found in the Australian black coal mining areas of the Sydney and Bowen Basins. We find that the log responses can be tied to the mineralogy with reasonable confidence. Ambiguities in the interpretation will be better resolved if a full suite of logs is run. A method for checking for internal consistency, by comparing calculated and observed velocities, is also described. A key driver for quantitative interpretation is geotechnical characterisation. We propose a classification system for clastic rocks that takes into consideration physical rock properties that can be inferred from geophysical logs.