• Title/Summary/Keyword: Effectiveness Score

Search Result 1,159, Processing Time 0.031 seconds

Implementing a Cervical Cancer Awareness Program in Low-income Settings in Western China: a Community-based Locally Affordable Intervention for Risk Reduction

  • Simayi, Dilixia;Yang, Lan;Li, Feng;Wang, Ying-Hong;Amanguli, A.;Zhang, Wei;Mohemaiti, Meiliguli;Tao, Lin;Zhao, Jin;Jing, Ming-Xia;Wang, Wei;Saimaiti, Abudukeyoumu;Zou, Xiao-Guang;Maimaiti, Ayinuer;Ma, Zhi-Ping;Hao, Xiao-Ling;Duan, Fen;Jing, Fang;Bai, Hui-Li;Liu, Zhao;Zhang, Lei;Chen, Cheng;Cong, Li;Zhang, Xi;Zhang, Hong-Yan;Zhan, Jin-Qiong;Zhang, Wen Jie
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
    • /
    • v.14 no.12
    • /
    • pp.7459-7466
    • /
    • 2013
  • Background: Some 60 years after introduction of the Papanicolaou smear worldwide, cervical cancer remains a burden in developing countries where >85% of world new cases and deaths occur, suggesting a failure to establish comprehensive cervical-cancer control programs. Effective interventions are available to control cervical cancer but are not all affordable in low-income settings. Disease awareness saves lives by risk-reduction as witnessed in reducing mortality of HIV/AIDS and smoking-related cancers. Subjects and Methods: We initiated a community-based awareness program on cervical cancer in two low-income Muslim Uyghur townships in Kashi (Kashgar) Prefecture, Xinjiang, China in 2008. The education involved more than 5,000 women from two rural townships and awareness was then evaluated in 2010 and 2011, respectively, using a questionnaire with 10 basic knowledge questions on cervical cancer. Demographic information was also collected and included in an EpiData database. A 10-point scoring system was used to score the awareness. Results: The effectiveness and feasibility of the program were evaluated among 4,475 women aged 19-70 years, of whom >92% lived on/below US$1.00/day. Women without prior education showed a poor average awareness rate of 6.4% (164/2,559). A onetime education intervention, however, sharply raised the awareness rate by 4-fold to 25.5% (493/1,916). Importantly, low income and illiteracy were two reliable factors affecting awareness before or after education intervention. Conclusions: Education intervention can significantly raise the awareness of cervical cancer in low-income women. Economic development and compulsory education are two important solutions in raising general disease awareness. We propose that implementing community-based awareness programs against cervical cancer is realistic, locally affordable and sustainable in low-income countries, which may save many lives over time and, importantly, will facilitate the integration of comprehensive programs when feasible. In this context, adopting this strategy may provide one good example of how to achieve "good health at low cost".

Opportunity Tree Framework Design For Optimization of Software Development Project Performance (소프트웨어 개발 프로젝트 성능의 최적화를 위한 Opportunity Tree 모델 설계)

  • Song Ki-Won;Lee Kyung-Whan
    • The KIPS Transactions:PartD
    • /
    • v.12D no.3 s.99
    • /
    • pp.417-428
    • /
    • 2005
  • Today, IT organizations perform projects with vision related to marketing and financial profit. The objective of realizing the vision is to improve the project performing ability in terms of QCD. Organizations have made a lot of efforts to achieve this objective through process improvement. Large companies such as IBM, Ford, and GE have made over $80\%$ of success through business process re-engineering using information technology instead of business improvement effect by computers. It is important to collect, analyze and manage the data on performed projects to achieve the objective, but quantitative measurement is difficult as software is invisible and the effect and efficiency caused by process change are not visibly identified. Therefore, it is not easy to extract the strategy of improvement. This paper measures and analyzes the project performance, focusing on organizations' external effectiveness and internal efficiency (Qualify, Delivery, Cycle time, and Waste). Based on the measured project performance scores, an OT (Opportunity Tree) model was designed for optimizing the project performance. The process of design is as follows. First, meta data are derived from projects and analyzed by quantitative GQM(Goal-Question-Metric) questionnaire. Then, the project performance model is designed with the data obtained from the quantitative GQM questionnaire and organization's performance score for each area is calculated. The value is revised by integrating the measured scores by area vision weights from all stakeholders (CEO, middle-class managers, developer, investor, and custom). Through this, routes for improvement are presented and an optimized improvement method is suggested. Existing methods to improve software process have been highly effective in division of processes' but somewhat unsatisfactory in structural function to develop and systemically manage strategies by applying the processes to Projects. The proposed OT model provides a solution to this problem. The OT model is useful to provide an optimal improvement method in line with organization's goals and can reduce risks which may occur in the course of improving process if it is applied with proposed methods. In addition, satisfaction about the improvement strategy can be improved by obtaining input about vision weight from all stakeholders through the qualitative questionnaire and by reflecting it to the calculation. The OT is also useful to optimize the expansion of market and financial performance by controlling the ability of Quality, Delivery, Cycle time, and Waste.

Evaluating Functional Efficiency of Existing Forest Roads (개설효과(開設效果)에 의(依)한 임도(林道)의 유형구분(類型區分) - 기설임도(旣設林道)의 분석(分析)을 중심(中心)으로 -)

  • Jeon, Kyung Soo;Lee, Jong Lak;Ryu, Taek Kyu
    • Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
    • /
    • v.83 no.2
    • /
    • pp.211-220
    • /
    • 1994
  • The critical need of forest road for enchanting the additional values of various forest products, in addition, giving more recreational opportunity to citizen, has been recognized. In this study the present author aimed to ascertain the most effective construction working plan of forest road being tit to Korean geographic condition. To execute this research program, four locations in national forest of Kangweon-do district and other four locations in private forest in Chollabuk-do district both where forest roads have previously been constructed were selected to analyze the effectiveness basing upon the various factors separately or in combination. The results are summarized as follows ; 1. The investment efficiency in forest road construction showed to increase in the area where terrain factors and district social factors rate is high, and to decrease in the area where forest status factors and forest road structure factors rate is high. So in future the Forest Resource Development Model of forest road should take more importance particularly on those area having terrain factor ratio is low. The extractable value of constructed forest road based on forest status factors rate is expected to increase in case of high considerably. 2. To construct of forest road for increasing multiple use of forests, forest road should be construct with priority on area where obtained total score by evaluation factors is high. And these evaluation factors should take possible determine the position of forest road construction. 3. The following five types of forest road basing upon function performance are suggested with regard to the place where road is constructed. (1) Forest Utilization Model ; where forest status factors and forest road structure factors rate are over 60%. (2) Forest Resource Development Model ; where terrain factors, forest status factors, forest road structure factors and district social factors rate are less than 60%. (3) Community Development Model ; where terrain factors, forest road structure factors and district social factors rate are over 60% but forest status factors rate are less than 60%. (4) Recreation and Health Model ; where terrain factors, forest status factors, forest road structure factors and district social factors rate are over 60%. (5) Multiple Use Model ; where both forest status factors and district social factors rate are over 60%.

  • PDF

Short-term Follow up Study of Calcific Tendinitis Using Ultrasonography Guided Injection (석회화 건염에 대한 외래 초음파 유도 주사 치료요법의 단기추시결과)

  • Sim, Jung-Hyun;Kwon, Jae-Bum;Park, Chang-Min;Choi, Chang-Hyuk
    • The Journal of Korean Orthopaedic Ultrasound Society
    • /
    • v.4 no.2
    • /
    • pp.77-83
    • /
    • 2011
  • Purpose: We compared with USG-guided steroid injection group and blind steroid injection group for the treatment of calcific tendinitis to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment modalities. Materials and Methods: We reviewed two groups of calcific tendinitis treated with steroid injection and follow up upto 6 month after injection. Group I was blind injection for 88 patient with average age of 53years old and female gender in 77%. Group II was USG- guided injection for 102 patients with average age of 54years old and female gender in 85%. We compared follow up results according to age, gender, size of tendon involvement, initial VAS score, and phase of the calcific tendinitis between two groups. Results: At 6 month's follow up period, USG-guided injected group was more prevalent compared to blind injection group with 92%(94/102) and 72%(64/88) (P<0.05). In Group I, 77%(49/64) patients have improved symptom. And in Group II, 92%(86/94) patients have improved symptom in formative or resorptive phase. Despite of symptom improvement, calcium deposit is remained 47%(30/64) in Group I, and 20%(19/94) in Group II. Conclusion: Conservative treatment of Shoulder calcific tendinitis patients through USG-guided injection is more effective than Blind injection in pain relief & calcium decrease. The patients USG-guided injected group was more prevalent in follow up at outpatient clinic, throughout more accurate injection with improved confidence.

  • PDF

The Effectiveness of CT and MRI Contrast Agent for SUV in 18F-FDG PET/CT Scanning (18F-FDG PET/CT 검사에서 정량분석에 관한 CT와 MRI 조영제의 효과)

  • Cha, Sangyoung;Cho, Yonggwi;Lee, Yongki;Song, Jongnam;Choi, Namgil
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
    • /
    • v.10 no.4
    • /
    • pp.255-261
    • /
    • 2016
  • In this study, among various factors having influence on SUV, we intended to compare and analyze the change of SUV using CT(4 type) and MRI(3 type) contrast agents which are commercialized now. We used Discovery 690 PET/CT(GE) and NEMA NU2 - 1994 PET phantom as experimental equipment. We have conducted a study as follows; first, we filled distilled water to phantom about two-thirds and injected radioisotope(18F-FDG 37 MBq), contrast agent. Second, we mixed CT contrast agent with distilled water and MRI contrast agent with that water separately. And then, we stirred the fluid and filled distilled water fully not to make air bubble. In emission scan, we had 15minutes scanning time after 40 minutes mixing contrast agent with distilled water. In transmission scan, we used CT scanning and its measurement conditions were tube voltage 120 kVp, tube current 40 mA, rotation time 0.5 sec, slice thickness 3.27 mm, DFOV 30 cm. Analyzing results, we set up some ROIs in 10th, 15th, 20th, 25th, 30th slice and measured SUVmean, SUVmax. Consequently, all images mixed 3 types of MRI contrast agent with distilled water have high SUVmean as compared with pure FDG image but there was no statistical significance. In SUVmax, they have high score and there was statistical significance. And other 4 images mixed 4 types of CT contrast agent with distilled water have significance in both SUVmean and SUVmax. Attenuation correction in PET/CT has been executed through various methods to make high quality image. But we figured out that using CT and MRI contrast agents before PET/CT scanning could make distortion of image and decrease diagnostic value. In that reason, we have to sort out the priority of examination in hospital not to disturb other examination's results. Through this process, we will be able to give superior medical service to our customers.

Comparative efficacy of 5% EMLA cream and 20% Benzocaine gel during topical anesthesia (5% EMLA cream과 20% Benzocaine gel의 도포마취 효능 비교)

  • Lee, Dae-Woo;Baik, Byeong-Ju;Kim, Jae-Gon;Yang, Yeon-Mi;So, Yu-Ryeo
    • Journal of the korean academy of Pediatric Dentistry
    • /
    • v.38 no.1
    • /
    • pp.1-8
    • /
    • 2011
  • The objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of topical 5% EMLA cream versus 20% Benzocaine gel in reducing pain from intra oral needle insertion alone as well as injection of anesthetic. The 2 topical anesthetics were tested against each other bilaterally using a randomized, controlled, single blinded, split mouth design. Phase I was conducted to find out the rapidity of onset action of the two agents on anterior/posterior vestibules and anterior/posterior palatal mucosa. Phase II was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the two topical anaesthetic agents in reducing the pain of intraoral injections. The agents were left in anterior/posterior vestibules and anterior/posterior palatal mucosa for the amount of time recorded in phase I. Subjects recorded pain on a 100-mm modified visual analog scale(VAS). A pulse oximeter was used to recorded the preoperative and postoperative pulse rates. In phase I of the study, two topical agents showed the longer onset of action at anterior part and vestibules than posterior part and palatal mucosa. EMLA cream showed the rapidest onset of action compared to benzocaine gel except on anterior palatal mucosa. In phase II of the study, the VAS grading of the pain for anesthetic administration showed EMLA cream was significantly(P<.05) better in elimination or reducing the pain on the anterior/posterior palatal mucosa. In conclusion, EMLA cream showed the rapidest onset of action compared to benzocaine gel except on anterior palatal mucosa. EMLA cream was found to be superior to Benzocaine gel with regards to pain reduction for anesthetic administration especially on anterior and posterior palatal mucosa.

Analyzing the Effectiveness of Argumentation Program to Conceptualize the Concept of Natural Selection for Elementary Science-Gifted Students (초등과학영재들의 자연선택 개념 형성을 위한 논변활동 효과 분석)

  • Park, Chuljin;Cha, Heeyoung
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
    • /
    • v.36 no.4
    • /
    • pp.591-606
    • /
    • 2016
  • The purpose of this study is to develop the argumentation program to build scientific concepts on natural selection for science-gifted elementary students and to know how to implement this program. For this study, nine key concepts about natural selection such as the overproduction of offspring, limited resources, population stability, competition, variation, heredity of variation, differential survival, change of the population and speciation were selected through the literature study. The programs were developed by learning cycle instructional model. Argument writings and discourses have been collected, analyzed and compared before and after the program. Two questionnaires to compare pre and post concept change consist of multiple choice questionnaire and open-ended response question were developed and applied to 19 science-gifted elementary students. Sufficiency of the explanation and conceptual quality of the explanation were used to assess the quality of their arguments before and after the program. Discourse and visual models collected from the highest and lowest group about score improvement were compared. The scores of the gifted statistically improved significantly in multiple choice questionnaire. Students' alternative conceptions about natural selection at the beginning of the program decreased and changed scientifically after the program. Visual models drawn by the students supported the results as well. This study asserts that elementary science-gifted students are able to explain evolutionary perspectives about organism change and use the key concepts of natural selection. The study means that evolutionary perspective is possible to be reflected in elementary science curriculum for the gifted.

Assessment of Foodservice and Cooking Program for Children Attending Community Child Centers in Korea (지역아동센터를 이용하는 아동을 위한 급식 및 요리활동 프로그램의 적용효과 평가)

  • Kwon, Sooyoun;Yeoh, Yoonjae
    • Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
    • /
    • v.26 no.3
    • /
    • pp.223-229
    • /
    • 2016
  • This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a foodservice and cooking program for children attending community child centers in Korea. The foodservice and cooking program included a reference menu, nutrition and hygiene class for foodservice managers, as well as cooking classes for children during the winter or summer vacation in 2015. In order to evaluate the program, a survey was conducted before and after the program. A total of 1,120 children who participated in the program completed questionnaires regarding eating behaviors, food intake, and their opinions and levels of satisfaction with the program. The scores of children's eating behaviors increased significantly from 59.71 to 63.62 out of 85 points (p<0.001). A significant increase was detected in children's food intake. Vegetable intake, which received the lowest scores, increased significantly from 3.63 to 3.81 out of 5 points (p<0.001). The score for opinions and satisfaction concerning the program was 28.34 out of 35 points. These results suggest that the foodservice and cooking program could be helpful in promoting healthy food habits in children attending community child centers.

Ontology-based Course Mentoring System (온톨로지 기반의 수강지도 시스템)

  • Oh, Kyeong-Jin;Yoon, Ui-Nyoung;Jo, Geun-Sik
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
    • /
    • v.20 no.2
    • /
    • pp.149-162
    • /
    • 2014
  • Course guidance is a mentoring process which is performed before students register for coming classes. The course guidance plays a very important role to students in checking degree audits of students and mentoring classes which will be taken in coming semester. Also, it is intimately involved with a graduation assessment or a completion of ABEEK certification. Currently, course guidance is manually performed by some advisers at most of universities in Korea because they have no electronic systems for the course guidance. By the lack of the systems, the advisers should analyze each degree audit of students and curriculum information of their own departments. This process often causes the human error during the course guidance process due to the complexity of the process. The electronic system thus is essential to avoid the human error for the course guidance. If the relation data model-based system is applied to the mentoring process, then the problems in manual way can be solved. However, the relational data model-based systems have some limitations. Curriculums of a department and certification systems can be changed depending on a new policy of a university or surrounding environments. If the curriculums and the systems are changed, a scheme of the existing system should be changed in accordance with the variations. It is also not sufficient to provide semantic search due to the difficulty of extracting semantic relationships between subjects. In this paper, we model a course mentoring ontology based on the analysis of a curriculum of computer science department, a structure of degree audit, and ABEEK certification. Ontology-based course guidance system is also proposed to overcome the limitation of the existing methods and to provide the effectiveness of course mentoring process for both of advisors and students. In the proposed system, all data of the system consists of ontology instances. To create ontology instances, ontology population module is developed by using JENA framework which is for building semantic web and linked data applications. In the ontology population module, the mapping rules to connect parts of degree audit to certain parts of course mentoring ontology are designed. All ontology instances are generated based on degree audits of students who participate in course mentoring test. The generated instances are saved to JENA TDB as a triple repository after an inference process using JENA inference engine. A user interface for course guidance is implemented by using Java and JENA framework. Once a advisor or a student input student's information such as student name and student number at an information request form in user interface, the proposed system provides mentoring results based on a degree audit of current student and rules to check scores for each part of a curriculum such as special cultural subject, major subject, and MSC subject containing math and basic science. Recall and precision are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed system. The recall is used to check that the proposed system retrieves all relevant subjects. The precision is used to check whether the retrieved subjects are relevant to the mentoring results. An officer of computer science department attends the verification on the results derived from the proposed system. Experimental results using real data of the participating students show that the proposed course guidance system based on course mentoring ontology provides correct course mentoring results to students at all times. Advisors can also reduce their time cost to analyze a degree audit of corresponding student and to calculate each score for the each part. As a result, the proposed system based on ontology techniques solves the difficulty of mentoring methods in manual way and the proposed system derive correct mentoring results as human conduct.

The Tumor Control According to Radiation Dose of Gamma Knife Radiosurgery for Small and Medium-Sized Brain Metastases from Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

  • Park, Sue Jee;Lim, Sa-Hoe;Kim, Young-Jin;Moon, Kyung-Sub;Kim, In-Young;Jung, Shin;Kim, Seul-Kee;Oh, In-Jae;Hong, Jong-Hwan;Jung, Tae-Young
    • Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
    • /
    • v.64 no.6
    • /
    • pp.983-994
    • /
    • 2021
  • Objective : The effectiveness of gamma knife radiosurgery (GKR) in the treatment of brain metastases is well established. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of maximizing the radiation dose in GKR and the factors influencing tumor control in cases of small and medium-sized brain metastases from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods : We analyzed 230 metastatic brain tumors less than 5 mL in volume in 146 patients with NSCLC who underwent GKR. The patients had no previous radiation therapy for brain metastases. The pathologies of the tumors were adenocarcinoma (n=207), squamous cell carcinoma (n=18), and others (n=5). The radiation doses were classified as 18, 20, 22, and 24 Gy, and based on the tumor volume, the tumors were categorized as follows : small-sized (less than 1 mL) and medium-sized (1-3 and 3-5 mL). The progression-free survival (PFS) of the individual 230 tumors and 146 brain metastases was evaluated after GKR depending on the pathology, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance score (PS), tumor volume, radiation dose, and anti-cancer regimens. The radiotoxicity after GKR was also evaluated. Results : After GKR, the restricted mean PFS of individual 230 tumors at 24 months was 15.6 months (14.0-17.1). In small-sized tumors, as the dose of radiation increased, the tumor control rates tended to increase (p=0.072). In medium-sized tumors, there was no statistically difference in PFS with an increase of radiation dose (p=0.783). On univariate analyses, a statistically significant increase in PFS was associated with adenocarcinomas (p=0.001), tumors with ECOG PS 0 (p=0.005), small-sized tumors (p=0.003), radiation dose of 24 Gy (p=0.014), synchronous lesions (p=0.002), and targeted therapy (p=0.004). On multivariate analyses, an improved PFS was seen with targeted therapy (hazard ratio, 0.356; 95% confidence interval, 0.150-0.842; p=0.019). After GKR, the restricted mean PFS of brain at 24 months was 9.8 months (8.5-11.1) in 146 patients, and the pattern of recurrence was mostly distant within the brain (66.4%). The small and medium-sized tumors treated with GKR showed radiotoxicitiy in five out of 230 tumors (2.2%), which were controlled with medical treatment. Conclusion : The small-sized tumors were effectively controlled without symptomatic radiation necrosis as the radiation dose was increased up to 24 Gy. The medium-sized tumors showed potential for symptomatic radiation necrosis without signifcant tumor control rate, when greater than 18 Gy. GKR combined targeted therapy improved the tumor control of GKR-treated tumors.