• CELLMED
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.9.1-9.6
• /
• 2016

Traditional healers in Ghana are so near to the health needs and aspirations of the majority of people who live mostly in the rural areas, yet have been excluded from the formal health care delivery system. Medical systems in Africa and around the globe have broad-ranging ties to the cosmology and the way of life of a people. However, in Ghana, colonialism and external orientation have had a negative influence on Traditional Medicine (TRM). Thus, in Ghana, Traditional healers can be described as a marginalized group and yet their roles in effective delivery of primary and mental health care cannot be overemphasized. This paper elucidates advocacy work toward medical pluralism in Ghana. First, the influence of colonialism on TRM is briefly examined, followed by highlights on advocacy work intended to include TRM in the health care system. Based on "small wins", challenges, successes, and prospects of our advocacy are discussed.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.295-316
• /
• 2011

If the medical staff privileges, which mean the eligibility to practice at open hospitals, are excluded in the United States, antitrust claims based on the violation of the Sherman Act have been raised a lot. The proliferation of these lawsuits in the United States, which are characterized as antitrust lawsuits, can be understandable situation. The reason is because doctors who don't belong to specific hospitals are seriously damaged, if the medical staff privileges are excluded and doctors cannot use facilities of open hospitals. In order to decide to allow the privileges of certain doctors, hospitals have to rely on peer review to maintain high quality of medical services, and it is not easy to find alternative of peer review in the professional areas like healthcare. However, there are possibilities that members of the peer review can abuse power to unfairly exclude privileges of potential competitors. In this sense, it is asserted in the U.S. antitrust lawsuits that the restraint of medical staff privilege can be the illegal restraint of trade in violation of section 1 of Sherman Act and can be monopolization or an attempt to monopoly by hospitals in violation of section 2 of Sherman Act. As Korea adopted open hospital system quite recently, there is still no case related with the exclusion of medical staff privileges. However, medical staff privilege system of Korea is not different from that of the United States in principle. Thus, the U.S. jurisprudence on the exclusion of medical staff privileges can be referred in the interpretation of "practice that interferes with or restricts the activities or contents of the business" based on Article 19.1.9 of Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Law of Korea.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
• /
• v.48 no.2
• /
• pp.9-15
• /
• 2011

In this paper, we propose a method to extract the external oblique muscle of abdomen images that is often excluded by previous method due to image distortion. In the preprocessing phase of the proposed method, we emphasize the brightness contrast with Ends-in search stretching algorithm after removing noise from the initial ultrasonic images. Then we apply average binarization in vertical direction to extract candidate fascia areas. After removing other areas than fascia with morphological characteristics, the lost part in the fascia during the process is restored with such characteristic information and location information. Then the skin area is also removed with information from the arc appearing in convex filming and the candidate muscle areas are extracted by overlapping two results two way up-down search algorithm. Another noise removing process is done to determine the muscle area. In case of obtaining obscure result, after restoring the muscle area by smearing method, the thickness of the muscle is measured by min square method. The experiment verifies that the proposed method is sufficiently effective to analyze the size and shape of muscles in abdomen in ultrasonography than previously used methods.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.183-193
• /
• 2013

In 2011, neighborhood parks occupied a total area of $280,135,257m^2$ in small and medium sized city areas and this excluded the metropolitan regions. In the rural area, the park area per person($22.64m^2$) is larger than the urban area($9.50m^2$). It is a questionable why there is a higher park ratio in the rural area compared to the cities, where the function of the neighborhood parks is not being utilized well. But, there are already a lot of parks that has been constructed in the rural areas and a lot of money is being spent in maintaining them. Hence, rather than reducing the number of "country parks", it can be suggested that these "country parks" ought to be utilized in a different manner than the parks in the city. In that point of view, this study examined the issues of the country park usage along with the utilization of the local festivals within the parks. Firstly in this context, this study compared the amount of neighborhood parks between small and medium sized cities and metropolitan areas, and analyzed those results. Secondly, daily newspaper articles were collected and categorized to find the usage of the rural park which were then analyzed. Then, the extraction of the essential points in composing the festival space was carried out. Also, the general design guides of making the neighborhood parks were drawn. Last but not least, using these two resources, this study suggested design guidelines for using neighborhood parks as a Festival Space in small and medium sized cities.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
• /
• v.40 no.3
• /
• pp.204-214
• /
• 2014

Objectives: Vehicular emissions are one of the main sources of air pollution in urban areas. Correlation analysis was conducted between air pollutants and traffic volume in order to identify causes of air pollution in Gwangju. Methods: Using traffic volumes and air quality monitoring data from 2002 to 2012 from nine stations (seven urban areas, two roadside areas), especially at three sites where traffic volumes were high, the correlation coefficients were obtained between air pollutants as PM-10 (particulate matter), $NO_2$, $SO_2$, CO and $O_3$ at the stations and traffic volumes near the air monitoring stations. Results: Due to traffic volume and distance between the station and the traffic road, concentrations of pollutants at roadside areas were higher than at urban areas, with the exception of $O_3$. The concentration of $O_3$ showed statistically significance with those of other gas materials as $NO_2$, $SO_2$, and CO in winter (p<0.001) and spring (p<0.05). During the period of October 7 to 20, 2012, excluding periods of yellow dust, smog and rainy season, the ratio of $NO/(NO+NO_2)$ showed the highest value 0.57 and 0.40 at Unam and Chipyeong of two roadside stations, followed by 0.35 at Nongseong with vehicular effects. The correlation coefficient between traffic volume and $O_3$, CO, $NO_2$ became higher when the data on mist and haze days were excluded, than when all hourly data were used in that period, at the three sites of Unam, Chipyeong, and Nongseong. Conclusions: Air quality showed a considerable effect from vehicles at roadside areas compared to in urban areas. Air pollutant diminishment strategies need to be aggressively adopted in order to protect atmospheric environment.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
• /
• v.64 no.6
• /
• pp.950-956
• /
• 2021

Objective : Psoas and masseter muscles are known markers of sarcopenia. However, the relative superiority of either muscle as a marker is unclear. Therefore, this study analyzed the two muscles in patients with a prognosis of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Methods : Patients with TBI visiting a regional trauma center between January 2017 and December 2018 were selected, and their medical records were reviewed. TBI patients with an abbreviated injury score (AIS) of 4 or 5 were selected. Patients with an AIS of 4 or 5 at the chest, abdomen, and extremity were excluded. Patients with a hospital stay of 1 to 2 days were excluded. Both muscle areas were measured based on the initial computed tomography. The psoas muscle index (PMI) and the masseter muscle index (MMI) were calculated by dividing both muscle areas by height in meters squared (cm²/m²). These muscle parameters along with other medical information were used to analyze mortality and the Glasgow outcome scale (GOS). Results : A total of 179 patients, including 147 males (82.1%), were analyzed statistically. The mean patient age was 58.0 years. The mortality rate was 16.8% (30 patients). The mean GOS score was 3.7. Analysis was performed to identify the parameters associated with mortality, which was a qualitative study outcome. The psoas muscle area (16.9 vs. 14.4 cm², p=0.028) and PMI (5.9 vs. 5.1 cm²/m², p=0.004) showed statistical differences between the groups. The PMI was also statistically significant as a risk factor for mortality in logistic regression analysis (p=0.023; odds ratio, 0.715; 95% confidence interval, 0.535-0.954). Quantitative analyses were performed with the GOS scores. Bivariate correlation analysis showed a statistically significant correlation between PMI and GOS scores (correlation coefficient, 0.168; p=0.003). PMI (p=0.004, variation inflation factor 1.001) was significant in multiple regression analysis. The masseter muscle area and MMI did not show significance in the study. Conclusion : Larger PMI was associated with statistically significant improved survival and GOS scores, indicating its performance as a superior prognostic marker. Further analyses involving a larger number of patients, additional parameters, and more precise settings would yield a better understanding of sarcopenia and TBI.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Fundamentals of Nursing
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.228-239
• /
• 1999

In 1990 Home Care Education Programs started when legislation established certification for Home Care Nurses. The Ministry of Health and Welfare proposed a home care education curriculum which has 352 class hours and 248 hours of 'family nursing and practice'. Though Home Care Education Programs have been offered in 11 home care educational institutes, there has been no formal revision for the home care education programs. Also a first and second home care demonstration projects have been carried out, but there has been no research on outcomes for home care education as applied in home care practice. The purposes of this study were to identify the important content areas for home care nursing as perceived by home care nurses, and to identify their clinical competence in each of these areas, and from these to identify the education needs. The sample was 107 home care nurses who were working in home care demonstration hospitals and community-based institutions which have been offering home care services. Responses were received from 88 nurses, comprising a 82.2% return rate, and 86 were included in the final analysis. The instrument used was a modification of the instrument developed by Caie-Lawrence et(1995) and Moon's(1991) instrument on home care knowledge. The instrument's Cronbach's coefficient was 0.982. Among the respondents, 64% were working at home care demonstration hospitals and 36% were working at community-based institutions. Their home care experiences were from one month to six years, with a mean of 20.6 months. The importance rating for home care education content was 3.42 0.325, which means importance was rated relatively high. Technical aspects of home care were identified the most important. Five items 'education skill', 'counseling skill', 'interview skill', 'wound care skill', 'bed sore care skill' received 100% importance ratings. The competency rating was 2.87 0.367 and 'technical aspects of home care' was the highest, and 'application to home care skill' was the lowest. Home care nurses' education needs were identified and compared to the importance ratings and competency ratings. Eleven items were identified as the highest in the importance areas and eleven items were in the lowest competency areas. High importance ratings matched with low competency ratings determined training needs, but there was no matching items in this study. In the lowest competency areas four items were excluded, because of not being applicable in current home care practice. Therefore total eighteen items were identified as home care education needs. These items are 'bed sore care skill', 'malpractice', 'wound care skill', 'general infection control', 'change and management of tracheostomy tubes', 'CVA patient care', 'Hospice care', 'pain management', 'urinary catheterization and management', 'L-tube insertion and managements', 'Respirator use and management skill', 'infant care', 'prevention to burnout', 'child assessment', 'CAPD', 'infant assessment', 'computer literacy', and 'psychiatry patient care'.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
• /
• v.47 no.6
• /
• pp.350-357
• /
• 2023

Marine accidents frequently occur due to the unreasonable operation of ships excluded from ship departure control during marine special weather warnings within smooth water areas. Coastal wave buoys installed in smooth water areas are major reference indicators for ship departure control and can be seen as being directly connected to the safety of ships navigating smooth water areas and the coast. In this study, the location appropriateness of currently operating coastal wave buoys and additional installation in the smooth water areas were assessed by analyzing coastal marine accidents over the past 30 years (1991-2020), the main wind direction and wind speed of each major trading port, and the GICOMS ship track data in 2018. The study results showed that an additional coastal wave buoy should be installed at each of the major trading ports(Inchon Port, Pohang Port, Ulsan Port, and Busan Port) and that the location of the coastal wave buoy needs to be moved in the case of Busan Port. Based on various data analysis in this study, the suggestion for an additional installation and movement of the coastal wave buoy presented in this study is expected to contribute to improving the reliability of ship departure control and resolving safety blind spots.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
• /
• v.49 no.3
• /
• pp.18-29
• /
• 2012

Viola-Jones algorithm, a very effective real-time object detection method, uses Haar-like features to constitute weak classifiers. A Haar-like feature is made up of at least two rectangles each of which corresponds to either positive or negative areas and the feature value is computed by subtracting the sum of pixel values in the negative area from that of pixel values in the positive area. Compared to the conventional Haar-like feature which is made up of more than one rectangle, in this paper, we present a couple of new rectangular features whose feature values are computed either by the sum or by the variance of pixel values in a rectangle. By the use of these rectangular features in combination with the conventional Haar-like features, we can select additional features which have been excluded in the conventional Viola-Jones algorithm where every features are the combination of contiguous bright and dark areas of an object. In doing so, we can enhance the performance of object detection without any computational overhead.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.77-87
• /
• 2016

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to review functioning components of studies for measuring functional information using International Classification of Functioning, disability and health (ICF) in Korea. Methods: A literature review was conducted and eligible studies were identified via search of RISS, KISS, DBpia, KoreaMed, PubMed, and ISI databases published from 2001 to 2015. For inclusion in this review, a study should be published in a peer-review journal, must have participation of Korean researchers and/or developed in Korea, and should provide functioning data related ICF. Descriptive studies containing only ICF concepts and review studies were also excluded. Collected functioning data in each study were analyzed using frequency based on ICF domain. Data assessment was performed by two independent reviewers. Results: Eighty publications were included in the analysis. The majority of studies collected data from clinical patients (n=38) and from the disabled (n=28). Fourteen studies assessed functioning data from the elderly and students under special education. The studies reported functioning data using various tools, including ICF itself, ICF checklist, coresets, and conventional measurement tools. Body function domain was most commonly used and the least used domain was the body structure across areas. Interestingly, increasing data related to environmental factors was observed in all studied populations. Conclusion: Functioning data was collected from four domains of ICF across professional areas. The most common collected data was body function and activity and participation for which conventional measurement tools are already available. To understand clients, components of environmental factors that might influence a person's functioning should be considered.