• Journal of East-West Nursing Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.87-95
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• 2011

Purpose: The aim of this study was to share the experience of clinical performance examinations (CPXs) using standardized patients, which was to test comprehensive clinical competence of fourth-year nursing students for four years. Methods: The assessment strategies for CPXs were developed. It included clinical scenarios, the roles of standardized patients, and appraisal criteria in the areas of fundamental and comprehensive nursing care. The CPXs were implemented to about 60-70 fourth-year nursing students of C University in G-city, South Korea, during every second semester from the year of 2006 to 2009. Results: The effects of CPXs were measured by 10 or 25-item rating checklist. Internal reliability of the checklists was distributed from .511 to .956 and interrater agreement between faculties and standardized patients was moderate (r=.250-.949). Students' satisfaction level was 4.27 out of 5 points for four years. Conclusion: The use of CPXs was an innovative educational strategy to evaluate nursing students' comprehensive performance ability including knowledge, skills and attitude. Further studies are needed to evaluate the levels of critical thinking and problem solving skills of clinical nurses who were taken CPXs as well as employers' satisfaction.

• Spatial Information Research
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.15-27
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• 2002

GIS has recognized as the Social Overhead Capital to improve national competition and to heighterl the productivity of adminstration in 1990's in Korea. As the size and the scope of the NGIS policy have drastically expanded, evaluation has become a critical process. Thus NGIS driving committee has adopted the GIS project evaluation scheme in NGIS law since 2000. But the HGIS evaluation scheme is not sufficient for the comprehensive appraisal on the GIS project in the Second National GIS Master Plan (2001-2005). This research aims to explore an the improved evaluation scheme of NGIS policy.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.3035-3041
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• 2016

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common malignancy of women worldwide. In the past it was considered as disease of older middle aged women, but the incidence of BC in young females is growing in recent years concordant with studies in Pakistan. In this paper, we reviewed the mutant functions of tumor suppressor genes (BRCA1, BRCA2, p53, ATM and PTEN), epigenetic transformation and involvement of estrogen receptors in development of breast cancer. We further reviewed the current situation of BC in Pakistan that depicts a higher incidence in young females. According to SKMCH and RC data, age group 45-49 years is more prone to BC with high rate of incidence 45.42%. A few studies explored the high expression of ER, PR and HER-2/neu in Pakistani females. Moreover, presence of BRCA1 (c.1961dupA) mutation in Pakistani shows concordance with data in different areas of world. But we are unable to find an authentic study that can explore epigenetic based transformation of breast tumors in Pakistan. This area of research needs more attention to explore the complete picture of BC in Pakistan.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.59 no.6
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• pp.245-250
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• 2015

Middle East respiratory syndrome - coronavirus infection has posed substantial threat to public health with extremely high mortality rate in 2015. Although there are no approved novel medications for coronavirus, several antiviral agents such as ribavirin and interferon have been tried to MERS patients according to the in-vitro inhibitory effect, therapeutic effect on the animal model and experience from the severe acute respiratory syndrome - coronavirus infection. The aim of this study is to evaluate the clinical evidence of the antiviral treatment for MERS-CoV infection. After systematically searching the medical literature databases, I found five studies described the clinical efficacy of antiviral treatment on MERS patients. All of them were about the combination therapy of ribavirin and interferon (IFN). Two of them were retrospective cohort studies with quality of evidence (QOE) II and the others were observational study and case reports with QOE III. As a result of critical appraisal, it is concluded that none of those studies represented confirmatory clinical evidence of the efficacy of ribavirin and interferon combination therapy on MERS patients. Although Omrani et al. represented that ribavirin and IFN treatment had significantly improved survival at 14 days, it was not enough time to conclude the effect.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.6-19
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• 2016

Redox signalling comprises the biology of molecular signal transduction mediated by reactive oxygen (or nitrogen) species. By specific and reversible oxidation of redoxsensitive cysteines, many biological processes sense and respond to signals from the intracellular redox environment. Redox signals are therefore important regulators of cellular homeostasis. Recently, it has become apparent that the cellular redox state oscillates in vivo and in vitro, with a period of about one day (circadian). Circadian timekeeping allows cells and organisms to adapt their biology to resonate with the 24-hour cycle of day/night. The importance of this innate biological timekeeping is illustrated by the association of clock disruption with the early onset of several diseases (e.g. type II diabetes, stroke and several forms of cancer). Circadian regulation of cellular redox balance suggests potentially two distinct roles for redox signalling in relation to the cellular clock: one where it is regulated by the clock, and one where it regulates the clock. Here, we introduce the concepts of redox signalling and cellular timekeeping, and then critically appraise the evidence for the reciprocal regulation between cellular redox state and the circadian clock. We conclude there is a substantial body of evidence supporting circadian regulation of cellular redox state, but that it would be premature to conclude that the converse is also true. We therefore propose some approaches that might yield more insight into redox control of cellular timekeeping.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.273-283
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• 2021

The aim of this paper is to review the current knowledge management (KM) practices and their importance in the public sector of Saudi Arabia. Using the term "knowledge management in public sector", a search for available works was done in Google Scholar. In the first stage, the search for literature published under anytime choice was done in the first 10 pages of the search engine. Then another nine pages of Goggle Scholar were searched for more recent works published setting the time as 2014 to 2018. The search yielded 37 usable works for this review. The results of this literature search and review indicated that out of the 37 works reviewed, only three works were related to Saudi Arabia. Number of papers on factors of KM were maximum, many of them giving diagrammatic presentation of their results. KM modelling itself is not easy as only very few papers on KM modelling were available. Problems of too much reliance on qualitative data and hypotheses not matching with the literature backgrounds for them were also found. Considering the works related to KM, the number of papers in various categories may indicate the dimensions of KM to be considered when KM is implemented or evaluated in any public sector of any country. This applies to Saudi Arabian public sector organizations also. There is a fertile ground of research waiting to be investigated by researchers in Saudi Arabia.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.243-249
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• 2023

Background: Southeast Asia has many people who work in the agriculture sector. Not many stakeholders pay special attention to the health of farmers, even though they are exposed to various types of hazards. One of the most common health complaints among farmers is related to work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). This study aims to assess the prevalence of WMSDs and factors associated with them among farmers in Southeast Asia. Methods: A literature search on PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scopus, and EBSCO was conducted. Articles were included if they studied ergonomic problems among farmers from 11 countries in the Southeast Asia region and were published during 2015-2022. The Critical Appraisal Skills Program was used to evaluate the quality of the articles. The search process and retrieval process reflected PRISMA's recommendation. Result: There were 14 studies found from 3 countries that had published articles in PubMed and ScienceDirect, including Thailand [8], Indonesia [4], and Malaysia [2]. The prevalence of WMSDs in Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia was 78,31%, 81,27%, and 88,39%, respectively. Common factors associated with WMSDs include age, sex, smoking habits, drinking alcohol habits, working period (years), type of work, awkward position, non-ergonomic equipment, repetitive movements, and lifting heavy loads. Conclusion: The prevalence of WMSDs among farmers in Southeast Asia is considerably high. Effective intervention is essential for reducing the prevalence and protecting workers' health and well-being.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.123-128
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• 2024

Background: Coal miners are highly prone to occupational health risks, such as black lung disease. This study aims to assess the prevalence of black lung disease and the factors associated with black lung disease among coal miners in Asia. Method: This systematic review, conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines, searched through the scientific literature of the following databases: EBSCO, ScienceDirect, PubMed, and Scopus. We selected articles that studied black lung disease among coal miners from 48 countries in Asia and were published between 2014 and 2023. Article quality was evaluated using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program. Result: The seven articles that we review studied a total of 653,635 coal miners from various types of coal mines from three countries in Asia. Of these miners, 59,998 experienced black lung disease. Black lung disease is prevalent among 9.18% of coal miners in Asia, which is approximately four times higher than the worldwide prevalence. Common factors that influence black lung disease in Asia include age, years of dust exposure, smoking, drinking, working types, and sizes of mines, type of mines, respiratory functions, spirometry parameters, tenure, lack of attention to occupational health, inefficient surveillance, and weak occupational health service. Conclusion: Although the prevalence of black lung disease among coal miners in Asia is considerably high, it can be addressed through effective prevention measures, monitoring, control, and case reporting.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.63-77
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to construct an issue-centered discussion instructional model for Home Economics and to determine its effect on middle school students' critical thinking. The research questions were posed as below. 1) The object and content of home economics in the 7th national middle school curricula are analyzed to sort out possible issues. 2) An issue-centered discussion instructional model is constructed to be applicable to middle school home economics class. and a lesson plan is prepared. 3) The effect of the issue-centered discussion instructional model developed in this study on student critical thinking faculty is examined. The findings of this study were as follows : First. seven criteria were selected to determine what types of issues were applicable to home economics lesson. Based on the selected criteria. 41 themes of issues were extracted from the 7th middle school textbooks. and their content validity was verified. Second, an issue-centered discussion instructional model was designed to deal with four themes in eight sessions in the procedure of problem raising, confirming, term defining. tentative alternative selecting, data gathering. discussing/critical approaching. and selecting/concluding. Third, two different third-year classes of K middle school in the city of Busan that consisted of 75 students were respectively selected as an experimental group and a control group, and the experiment was conducted in eight sessions for five weeks to see whether the teaching plan brought any changes to the critical mind of the students. The experimental group exposed to the issue-centered discussion lesson made a significant progress in critical thinking faculty(P＜.05). In particular. that instruction gave a favorable impact on demonstration evaluating(P＜.05). one of the critical thinking subfactors. When the students were asked to assess the issue-centered discussion lesson. most of them viewed it favorably. In the future, more research efforts should be dedicated to enhancing the practical applicability of issue-centered discussion instruction in home economics education. developing good evaluation tools about critical thinking faculty and finding out how discussion instruction could be conducted more efficiently.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.12
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• pp.3815-3823
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• 2009

As a critical element for success of community based tourism, festivals and special events play a significant role in enticing visitors from outside of the host community. More importantly, festivals and events contribute to improve the life quality for both hosts and guests. The purpose of this study is to develop a market segmentation strategy based on the perceived festival impacts among visitors to Poonggi Ginseng Festival so that each segment can be treated and communicated with separatedly for utmost visiting satisfaction. In this study, two market segments based on visitors' socio-cultural and environmental evaluation of the festival were identified, namely high appraisal group and low appraisal group. Two groups contrast sharply in terms of their behavioral patterns and perceived value and overall satisfaction. Practical marketing strategies are suggested accordingly.