• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
• /
• v.36 no.1
• /
• pp.15-22
• /
• 2019

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is among the top infectious disease priorities in Korea and the leading cause of economic loss in relevant poultry industry. An understanding of the spatial epidemiology of HPAI outbreak is essential in assessing and managing the risk of the infection. Though previous studies have reported the majority of outbreaks occurred clustered in what are preferred to as densely populated poultry regions, especially in southwest coast of Korea, little is known about the spatial distribution of risk areas vulnerable to HPAI occurrence based on geographic information system (GIS). The main aim of the present study was to develop a GIS-based risk index model for defining potential high-risk areas of HPAI outbreaks and to explore spatial distribution in relative risk index for each 252 Si-Gun-Gu (administrative unit) in Korea. The risk index was derived incorporating seven GIS database associated with risk factors of HPAI in a standardized five-score scale. Scale 1 and 5 for each database represent the lowest and the highest risk of HPAI respectively. Our model showed that Jeollabuk-do, Chungcheongnam-do, Jeollanam-do and Chungcheongbuk-do regions will have the highest relative risk from HPAI. Areas with risk index value over 4.0 were Naju, Jeongeup, Anseong, Cheonan, Kochang, Iksan, Kyeongju and Kimje, indicating that Korea is at risk of HPAI introduction. Management and control of HPAI becomes difficult once the virus are established in domestic poultry populations; therefore, early detection and development of nationwide monitoring system through targeted surveillance of high-risk spots are priorities for preventing the future outbreaks.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
• /
• v.36 no.1
• /
• pp.23-29
• /
• 2019

While research findings suggest that the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is the leading cause of economic loss in Korean poultry industry with an estimated cumulative impact of $909 million since 2003, identifying the environmental and anthropogenic risk factors involved remains a challenge. The objective of this study was to identify areas at high risk for potential HPAI outbreaks according to the likelihood of HPAI virus detection in wild birds. This study integrates spatial information regarding HPAI surveillance with relevant demographic and environmental factors collected between 2003 and 2018. The Maximum Entropy (Maxent) species distribution modeling with presence-only data was used to model the spatial risk of HPAI virus. We used historical data on HPAI occurrence in wild birds during the period 2003-2018, collected by the National Quarantine Inspection Agency of Korea. The database contains a total of 1,065 HPAI cases (farms) tied to 168 unique locations for wild birds. Among the environmental variables, the most effective predictors of the potential distribution of HPAI in wild birds were (in order of importance) altitude, number of HPAI outbreaks at farm-level, daily amount of manure processed and number of wild birds migrated into Korea. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the 10 Maxent replicate runs of the model with twelve variables was 0.855 with a standard deviation of 0.012 which indicates that the model performance was excellent. Results revealed that geographic area at risk of HPAI is heterogeneously distributed throughout the country with higher likelihood in the west and coastal areas. The results may help biosecurity authority to design risk-based surveillance and implementation of control interventions optimized for the areas at highest risk of HPAI outbreak potentials.

• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.181-186
• /
• 2018

With progress in industrialization, facilities for generating, delivering, and receiving high levels of electric power are in great demand. The scale of electric power equipment is increasing in both size and complexity. This has contributed to the development of our modern, high-tech and information-based society. However, if the generation of electric power is suspended due to unexpected accidents at power facilities or power stations, a range of equipment the operations of which are dependent on electric power can be damaged, causing substantial socioeconomic losses in an industrial society. A great deal of time and money would be expended to repair damaged facilities at a power station, causing enormous economic loss. In order to detect the deterioration processes of power cables, and to prevent the destruction of power cables, the operation status of power cables should be monitored on a regular basis. We studied the method in order to improve accuracy and reliability for diagnosising the junction where accident occurs frequently. We present the method of data acquisition and statistical processing.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
• /
• v.21 no.6
• /
• pp.557-564
• /
• 2018

Along with the aging society, the prevalence of dementia is also increasing. Dementia causes short-term memory loss as well as difficulties of performing daily activities and gradually causes suffering of the patients and their family. In spite of various programs for prevention of dementia of older people are being implemented, there is a lack of developing natural-based program for physical and mental health promotion. Therefore, it is necessary to develop programs for the elderly living alone who are more vulnerable to dementia because of their social and economic isolation. The purpose of this study was to develop a natural-based program and investigate the effects of 10 weeks forest therapy program for dementia prevention to improve the psychological and physical health of the elderly living alone. The experimental subjects were 30 elderly (aged 65 or older) and 31 elderly participated in control group. The Stress response, depressive symptoms, weight, body mass index (BMI), fat mass and muscle mass were measured for pre and post test. The results showed that the experimental group showed subjective stress relief (t=5.249, p=.000), improvement in symptoms of depression (t=4.152, p=.000), and decreases in weight (t=2.686, p=.012), BMI (t=2.629, p=.014) and fat mass (t=2.918, p=.007) after the forest therapy program. The experimental group showed lower stress reactions(t=-7.185, p=.000) and less depressive symptoms (t=-5.303, p=.000) than control group after participating the program. These results suggest that periodic forest exposure can help having less stressful and depressive status than non-forest exposure and the forest therapy program can reduce participants' psychological and physical risk factors of dementia.

• Particle and aerosol research
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.1-13
• /
• 2019

Current desulfurization and denitrification technologies have reached a considerable level in terms of reduction efficiency. However, when compared with the simultaneous reduction technology, the individual reduction technologies have issues such as economic disadvantages due to the difficulty to scale-up apparatus, secondary pollution from wastewater/waste during the treatment process, requirement of large facilities for post-treatment, and increased installation costs. Therefore, it is necessary to enable practical application of simultaneous SOx and NOx treatment technologies to remove two or more contaminants in one process. The present study analyzes a technology capable of maintaining simultaneous treatment of SOx and NOx even at low temperatures due to the electrochemically generated strong oxidation of the wet-pulse complex system. This system also reduces unreacted residual gas and secondary products through the wet scrubbing process. It addresses common problems of the existing fuel gas treatment methods such as SDR, SCR, and activated carbon adsorption (i.e., low treatment efficiency, expensive maintenance cost, large installation area, and energy loss). Experiments were performed with varying variables such as pulse voltage, reaction temperature, chemicals and additives ratios, liquid/gas ratio, structure of the aeration cleaning nozzle, and gas inlet concentration. The performance of individual and complex processes using the wet-pulse discharge reaction were analyzed and compared.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
• /
• v.23 no.1
• /
• pp.154-162
• /
• 2019

Large scale damage has been globally increased due to natural disasters such as earthquake. Although a variety of studies secured seismic performance of buildings, casualties and economic loss have occurred because of poor security of seismic performance in non-structural components. Structure's location on which non-structural components are installed and characteristics of vibration occurring on each position of structures are varied, so a response spectrum is required for each position of structures. In addition, a response spectrum occurring in a structure is different, depending on the form of it and positions on which it is installed. Therefore, selection of a response spectrum is important, so a definite method for calculating the response spectrum which acts on non-structural components is necessary. A method for choosing a response spectrum is suggested in this paper, and a structural analysis was conducted with the suggested method, by selecting a ground response spectrum and a structural system, which may occur in Korea. Moreover, it helps create a response spectrum necessary for a seismic test of non-structural components, by suggesting the method for deduction it, with a simple formula.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.17-32
• /
• 2018

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of family life stress and family values on marital stability among middle-aged couples. The subjects included a total of 302 men and women aged 45-64 who had been married for more than 20 years and were living in Seoul. The collected data were statistically analyzed with the SPSS 21.0 Package. First, Cronbach's alpha was calculated to measure the reliability of the scale that assessed the variables of the research model. Then, mean and standard deviation were calculated to determine the degrees of family life stress, family values, and marital stability among the subjects. Finally, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed to identify factors that affected the subjects' marital stability. The results revealed that the level of family life stress in middle-aged married men and women was slightly higher than the mean value. Of all the sub-scales of family life stress, the subjects were found to experience the most stress from factors related to financial pressure, followed by family relationships, a sense of loss within a family, and work-family compatibility. Therefore, financial problems were one of the critical stressors for middle-aged married couples. Also, for this demographic, the levels of family values and marital stability were higher than the medians. The factors affecting marital stability in middle-aged couples were identified to be family relationship stress, financial stress, subjective economic status, family values, stress related to work-familycompatibility,religion,andage.Thedegreeofmaritalstabilitywashigherinmiddle-agedcouplesa stheirstresslevelsfromfamilyrelationshipsandfinancialproblemswerelower.Moreover,thehigherthes ubjectiveeconomicstatusandthemoretraditionalthefamilyvalues,thehigherthedegreeofmaritalstabili ty.Finally,marriedcoupleswhowerereligioushadalowerlevelofstressfromwork-family compatibility, and the younger the couples, the higher the degree of marital stability.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.49 no.3
• /
• pp.349-360
• /
• 2019

Purpose: This study was conducted to derive a substantive theory on lived experiences of elderly cancer patients. Methods: The data were collected from February to March 2018 through in-depth personal interviews with 14 elderly cancer patients. The collected data were analyzed based on Corbin and Strauss's grounded theory. Results: The core category was "the journey to find balance in daily lives as a cancer patient by recovering disturbed ego integrity." The core phenomenon was "shattered by suffering from cancer," and the causal conditions were "physical change" and "limitations in daily life." The contextual conditions were "decreased self-esteem," "feelings of guilt toward the family," and the sense of "economic burden." The participants' action and interaction strategies were "maintaining or avoiding social relations," "seeking meaning of the illness," "falling into despair," and "strengthening the willingness to battle the cancer." The intervening conditions were "support from health care providers and family," "dissatisfaction with health care providers," "spiritual help from religion," and "the improvement or worsening of health conditions." The consequences were "having a new insight for life," "living positively along with cancer illness," and "the loss of willingness to live." A summary of the series of processes includes the "crisis stage," "reorganizing stage," and the "ego integration stage." Conclusion: This study explored the holistic process of ego integrity impairment and the recovery experience of elderly cancer patients. This study is expected to be used as a basis for the development of nursing interventions that can support patients when coping with all stages of their cancer illness trajectory.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.16 no.5
• /
• pp.625-639
• /
• 2019

The concept of the combined seismic and energy retrofitting of existing reinforced concrete (RC) buildings was examined in this paper through a number of case studies conducted on model buildings (simulating buildings of the '60s-'80s in southern Europe) constructed according to outdated design standards. Specifically, seismic and thermal analyses have been conducted prior to and after the application of selected retrofitting schemes, in order to quantify the positive effect that retrofitting could provide to RC buildings both in terms of their structural and energy performance. Advanced materials, namely the textile reinforced mortars (TRM), were used for providing seismic retrofitting by means of jacketing of masonry infills in RC frames. Moreover, following the application of the TRM jackets, thermal insulation materials were simultaneously provided to the RC building envelope, exploiting the fresh mortar used to bind the TRM jackets. In addition to the externally applied insulation material, all the fenestration elements (windows and doors) were replaced with new high energy efficiency ones. Afterwards, an economic measure, namely the expected annual loss (EAL) was used to evaluate the efficiency of each retrofitting method, but also to assess whether the combined seismic and energy retrofitting is economically feasible. From the results of this preliminary study, it was concluded that the selected seismic retrofitting technique can indeed enhance significantly the structural behaviour of an existing RC building and lower its EAL related to earthquake risks. Finally, it was found that the combined seismic and energy upgrading is economically more efficient than a sole energy or seismic retrofitting scenario for seismic areas of south Europe.

• Clinical and Experimental Otorhinolaryngology
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.267-274
• /
• 2018

Objectives. Two main digital signal processing technologies inside the modern hearing aid to provide the best conditions for hearing aid users are directionality (DIR) and digital noise reduction (DNR) algorithms. There are various possible settings for these algorithms. The present study evaluates the effects of various DIR and DNR conditions (both separately and in combination) on listening comfort among hearing aid users. Methods. In 18 participants who received hearing aid fitting services from the Rehabilitation School of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences regularly, we applied acceptable noise level (ANL) as our subjective measure of listening comfort. We evaluated both of these under six different hearing aid conditions: omnidirectional-baseline, omnidirectional-broadband DNR, omnidirectional-multichannel DNR, directional, directional-broadband DNR, and directional-multichannel DNR. Results. The ANL results ranged from -3 dB to 14 dB in all conditions. The results show, among all conditions, both the omnidirectional-baseline condition and the omnidirectional-broadband DNR condition are the worst conditions for listening in noise. The DIR always reduces the amount of noise that patients received during testing. The DNR algorithm does not improve listening in noise significantly when compared with the DIR algorithms. Although both DNR and DIR algorithms yielded a lower ANL, the DIR algorithm was more effective than the DNR. Conclusion. The DIR and DNR technologies provide listening comfort in the presence of noise. Thus, user benefit depends on how the digital signal processing settings inside the hearing aid are adjusted.