• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제15권13호
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• pp.5259-5264
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• 2014

Background: CT based brachytherapy allows 3-dimensional (3D) assessment of organs at risk (OAR) doses with dose volume histograms (DVHs). The purpose of this study was to compare computed tomography (CT) based volumetric calculations and International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU) reference-point estimates of radiation doses to the bladder and rectum in patients with carcinoma of the cervix treated with high-dose-rate (HDR) intracavitary brachytherapy (ICBT). Materials and Methods: Between March 2011 and May 2012, 20 patients were treated with 55 fractions of brachytherapy using tandem and ovoids and underwent post-implant CT scans. The external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) dose was 48.6Gy in 27 fractions. HDR brachytherapy was delivered to a dose of 21 Gy in three fractions. The ICRU bladder and rectum point doses along with 4 additional rectal points were recorded. The maximum dose ($D_{Max}$) to rectum was the highest recorded dose at one of these five points. Using the HDRplus 2.6 brachyhtherapy treatment planning system, the bladder and rectum were retrospectively contoured on the 55 CT datasets. The DVHs for rectum and bladder were calculated and the minimum doses to the highest irradiated 2cc area of rectum and bladder were recorded ($D_{2cc}$) for all individual fractions. The mean $D_{2cc}$ of rectum was compared to the means of ICRU rectal point and rectal $D_{Max}$ using the Student's t-test. The mean $D_{2cc}$ of bladder was compared with the mean ICRU bladder point using the same statistical test. The total dose, combining EBRT and HDR brachytherapy, were biologically normalized to the conventional 2 Gy/fraction using the linear-quadratic model. (${\alpha}/{\beta}$ value of 10 Gy for target, 3 Gy for organs at risk). Results: The total prescribed dose was $77.5Gy{\alpha}/{\beta}10$. The mean dose to the rectum was $4.58{\pm}1.22Gy$ for $D_{2cc}$, $3.76{\pm}0.65Gy$ at $D_{ICRU}$ and $4.75{\pm}1.01Gy$ at $D_{Max}$. The mean rectal $D_{2cc}$ dose differed significantly from the mean dose calculated at the ICRU reference point (p<0.005); the mean difference was 0.82 Gy (0.48-1.19Gy). The mean EQD2 was $68.52{\pm}7.24Gy_{{\alpha}/{\beta}3}$ for $D_{2cc}$, $61.71{\pm}2.77Gy_{{\alpha}/{\beta}3}$ at $D_{ICRU}$ and $69.24{\pm}6.02Gy_{{\alpha}/{\beta}3}$ at $D_{Max}$. The mean ratio of $D_{2cc}$ rectum to $D_{ICRU}$ rectum was 1.25 and the mean ratio of $D_{2cc}$ rectum to $D_{Max}$ rectum was 0.98 for all individual fractions. The mean dose to the bladder was $6.00{\pm}1.90Gy$ for $D_{2cc}$ and $5.10{\pm}2.03Gy$ at $D_{ICRU}$. However, the mean $D_{2cc}$ dose did not differ significantly from the mean dose calculated at the ICRU reference point (p=0.307); the mean difference was 0.90 Gy (0.49-1.25Gy). The mean EQD2 was $81.85{\pm}13.03Gy_{{\alpha}/{\beta}3}$ for $D_{2cc}$ and $74.11{\pm}19.39Gy_{{\alpha}/{\beta}3}$ at $D_{ICRU}$. The mean ratio of $D_{2cc}$ bladder to $D_{ICRU}$ bladder was 1.24. In the majority of applications, the maximum dose point was not the ICRU point. On average, the rectum received 77% and bladder received 92% of the prescribed dose. Conclusions: OARs doses assessed by DVH criteria were higher than ICRU point doses. Our data suggest that the estimated dose to the ICRU bladder point may be a reasonable surrogate for the $D_{2cc}$ and rectal $D_{Max}$ for $D_{2cc}$. However, the dose to the ICRU rectal point does not appear to be a reasonable surrogate for the $D_{2cc}$.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.51-65
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• 1996

The purpose of this study was to examine the trends of length of hospital stay (LOS), which is most likely to be a major attribute to hospital performance. From 1984 to 1994, an average LOS of each hospital was analyzed by factors such as medical departments, bed size, occupancy rate, region and ownership. This study was analyzed changing rate of LOS during 11 years. This rate was calculated by simple regression, which was used only with hospital without missing data during 11 years. This study findings are as follows. 1. The results indicated that the average LOS was steadily increased until 1990 but it was slightly decreased after 1990. 2. This trend could be found in all hospital scale and all group of occupancy rate. Specifically this trends of LOS were found in internal medicine, corporate owned hospitals, and hospitals in major city. But LOS of individual owned hospital was continuously increased until 1994. 3. Means of changing rates of LOS were calculated from 1984 to 1994. If we devided it into two parts, before 1990 and after 1990, most changing rates of LOS before 1990 except individual owned hospital were found positive sign. The changing rates after 1990 were negative sign but small hospital(lesser then 200 bed), individual owned hospital, national & public hospital and hospital in small urban have little change of LOS after 1990. Finally from this results we thought that most hospitals in Korea began to be concerned with LOS. Nevertheless LOS of several hospital such as small hospital or individual owned hospital was increased. And this trend may be caused by a few patients, low occupancy rate, or low profit. This trend of LOS is different from that of other countries. Perhaps this phenomenon is resulted from the reimbursement method. Because of fee for service reimbursement system in Korea the hospitals didn't need to shorten LOS in order to save the cost and increase the profit. Therefore reform of hospital cost reimbursement method will be needed to reduce hospital cost in Korea. We thought that the Korean health authority should consider the reimbursement method by unit of bundle of services, for example DRG and prepayment in the United States. This study presents some limitations such as no insight of severity of disease, case-mix measurement of hospital, and other clinical characteristics that can. possibly affect LOS. However, this study reports an important trend in LOS from 1984 to 1994.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• 제15권4호
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• pp.560-569
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• 2019

Purpose: Greenhouse gases are one of the major causes of global warming, a global disaster. This study aims to calculate road sector greenhouse gas emissions more precisely than conventional methods. Method: Currently, the average speed of a vehicle is used to calculate greenhouse gas emissions. In this study, GHG emissions are calculated using the speed of individual vehicles and compared with current methods. Result: It was confirmed that the existing emission estimation method underestimated about 15% in the case of carbon dioxide, about 1% in the case of nitrous oxide, and about 1% in the case of methane. Conclusion: Current methods of estimating greenhouse gas emissions were developed before 2000 and were developed to meet the limits of available data. However, with the advancement of technology, the quality of available data is now high, and new emissions estimation methods are needed. Therefore, in this study, we propose a method for estimating the velocity-based greenhouse gas emissions of individual vehicles as a more accurate method for calculating greenhouse gas emissions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Bioinformatics Conference
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• 한국생물정보시스템생물학회 2003년도 제2차 연례학술대회 발표논문집
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• pp.66-72
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• 2003

Toxicogenomics is now emerging as one of the most important genomics application because the toxicity test based on gene expression profiles is expected more precise and efficient than current histopathological approach in pre-clinical phase. One of the challenging points in Toxicogenomics is the construction of intelligent database management system which can deal with very heterogeneous and complex data from many different experimental and information sources. Here we present a new Toxicogenomics database developed as a part of 'Toxicogenomics for Efficient Safety Test (TEST) project'. The TEST database is especially focused on the connectivity of heterogeneous data and intelligent query system which enables users to get inspiration from the complex data sets. The database deals with four kinds of information; compound information, histopathological information, gene expression information, and annotation information. Currently, TEST database has Toxicogenomics information fer 12 molecules with 4 efficacy classes; anti cancer, antibiotic, hypotension, and gastric ulcer. Users can easily access all kinds of detailed information about there compounds and simultaneously, users can also check the confidence of retrieved information by browsing the quality of experimental data and toxicity grade of gene generated from our toxicology annotation system. Intelligent query system is designed for multiple comparisons of experimental data because the comparison of experimental data according to histopathological toxicity, compounds, efficacy, and individual variation is crucial to find common genetic characteristics .Our presented system can be a good information source for the study of toxicology mechanism in the genome-wide level and also can be utilized fur the design of toxicity test chip.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제17권2호
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• pp.719-722
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• 2016

Background: Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a serious health problem in Thailand, particularly in northeastern and northern regions, but epidemiological studies are scarce and the spatial distribution of CCA remains to be determined. A database for the population at risk is required for monitoring, surveillance and organization of home health care. This study aim was to geo-visually display the distribution of CCA in northeast Thailand, using a geographic information system and Google Earth. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey was carried out in 9 sub-districts and 133 villages in Chum Phuang district, Nakhon Ratchasima province during June and October 2015. Data on demography, and the population at risk for CCA were combined with the points of villages, sub-district boundaries, district boundaries, and points of hospitals in districts, then fed into a geographical information system. After the conversion, all of the data were imported into Google Earth for geo-visualization. Results: A total of 11,960 from 83,096 population were included in this study. Females and male were 52.5%, and 47.8%, the age group 41-50 years old 33.3%. Individual risk for CCA was identifed and classified by using the Korat CCA verbal screening test as low (92.8%), followed by high risk (6.74%), and no (0.49%), respectively. Gender ($X^2$-test=1143.63, p-value= 0.001), age group ($X^2$-test==211.36, p-value=0.0001), and sub-district ($X^2$-test=1471.858, p-value=0.0001) were significantly associated with CCA risk. Spatial distribution of the population at risk for CCA in Chum Phuang district was viewed with Google Earth. Geo-visual display followed Layer 1: District, Layer 2: Sub-district, Layer 3: Number of low risk in village, Layer 4: Number of high risk in village, and Layer 5: Hospital in Chum Phuang District and their related catchment areas. Conclusions: We present the first risk geo-visual display of CCA in this rural community, which is important for spatial targeting of control efforts. Risk appears to be strongly associated with gender, age group, and sub-district. Therefor, spatial distribution is suitable for the use in the further monitoring, surveillance, and home health care for CCA.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• 제64권3호
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• pp.9-24
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• 2022

Currently, a vast amount of hydrologic data is accumulated in real-time through automatic water level measuring instruments in agricultural reservoirs. At the same time, false and missing data points are also increasing. The applicability and reliability of quality control of hydrological data must be secured for efficient agricultural water management through calculation of water supply and disaster management. Considering the characteristics of irregularities in hydrological data caused by irrigation water usage and rainfall pattern, the Korea Rural Community Corporation is currently applying the Hampel filter as a water level data quality management method. This method uses window size as a key parameter, and if window size is large, distortion of data may occur and if window size is small, many outliers are not removed which reduces the reliability of the corrected data. Thus, selection of the optimal window size for individual reservoir is required. To ensure reliability, we compared and analyzed the RMSE (Root Mean Square Error) and NSE (Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient) of the corrected data and the daily water level of the RIMS (Rural Infrastructure Management System) data, and the automatic outlier detection standards used by the Ministry of Environment. To select the optimal window size, we used the classification performance evaluation index of the error matrix and the rainfall data of the irrigation period, showing the optimal values at 3 h. The efficient reservoir automatic calibration technique can reduce manpower and time required for manual calibration, and is expected to improve the reliability of water level data and the value of water resources.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• 제27권1호
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• pp.71-77
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• 2023

This study aims to investigate the structural performance of hollow-core slab (HCS) memebers with 400 mm thickness. To this end, a total of four HCS specimens were fabricated based on the individual mold method to provide shear reinforcement, unlike the extrusion method. The key variables were chosen as the presence of topping concrete, core-filling concrete, and shear reinforcements. The crack patterns and load-displacement responses of the test specimens were analyzed in detail. Test results showed that inclined shear cracking occurred all the specimens, and that the specimen with shear reinforcement on the web of HCS unit had higher strength and ductility than the specimen without shear reinforcement. In particular, shear reinforcements placed on the web of HCS unit effectively resisted not only to vertical shear force but also to horizontal shear force between the interface of HCS unit and topping concrete. In addition, it was discovered that the method in which shear reinforcements are placed on the web of HCS unit is more effective in improving structural performance than core-filling method.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.37-49
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• 2023

Active attention and effort are needed to develop an integrated water management system in response to climate change. In this study, it proposed models for cross-use of agricultural water and river maintenance water using sewage treatment water as an integrated water management system for the Yeongsan River. The impact of the integrated water management models was assessed by applying the concept of Nexus, which is being presented worldwide for sustainable resource management. The target year was set for 2030 and quantitatively analyzed water, energy, land use and carbon emissions and resource availability index by integrated water management models was calculated by applying maximum usable amount by resource. An integrated water management system evaluation model using the Nexus concept developed in this study can play a role that can be viewed in a variety of ways: security and environmental impact assessment of other resources. The results of this research will be used as a foundation for the field of in the establishment of a policy decision support system to evaluate various security policies, as we analyzed changes in other factors according to changes in individual components, taking into account the associations between water, energy, food, and carbon resources. In future studies, additional sub-models need to be built that can be applied flexibly to changes in the future timing of the inter-resource relationship components.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• 제16권12호
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• pp.8700-8706
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• 2015

The first driving device of the power bogies for the Korean high-speed railway vehicle consists of the traction motor (TM) and the motor reduction gears unit (MRU). Although TM and MRU are the mechanically integrated structures, their time between overhauls (TBO) have two separate intervals due to different technical requirements(i.e. TBO of MRU: $1.8{\times}10^6km$, TBO of TM: $2.5{\times}10^6km$). Therefore, to reduce the unnecessary number of preventive maintenances, it is important to evaluate the optimal TBO with a viewpoint of reliability-center maintenance towards cost-effective solution. In this study, derived from the field data in maintenance, fault tree analysis and failure rate of the subsystem considering criticality of the components are evaluated respectively. To minimize the conventional total maintenance cost, the same optimal TBO of the components is derived from genetic algorithm considering target reliability and improvement factor. In this algorithm, a chromosome which comprised of each individual is the minimum preventive maintenance interval. The fitness function of the individual in generation is acquired through the formulation using an inverse number of the total maintenance cost. Whereas the lowest common multiple method produces only a four percent reduction compared to what the existing method did, the optimal TBO of them using genetic algorithm is $2.25{\times}10^6$km, which is reduced to about 14% comparing the conventional method.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• 제47권6호
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• pp.28-39
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• 2010

The study aims at offering a solution to the problems of transmission delay and data throughput decrease as the number of contending On-Board Units (OBU) increases by applying CSMA medium access control protocol based upon IEEE 802.11p. In a competition-based medium, contention probability becomes high as OBU increases. In order to improve the performance of this medium access layer, the author proposes EDCA which a adaptive adjustment of the Contention Windows (CW) considering traffic density and data type. EDCA applies fixed values of Minimum Contention Window (CWmin) and Maximum Contention Window (CWmax) for each of four kinds of Access Categories (AC) for channel-specific service differentiation. EDCA does not guarantee the channel-specific features and network state whereas it guarantees inter-AC differentiation by classifying into traffic features. Thus it is not possible to actively respond to a contention caused by network congestion occurring in a short moment in channel. As a solution, CWminAS(CWmin Adaptation Scheme) and ACATICT(Adaptive Contention window Adjustment Technique based on Individual Class Traffic) are proposed as active CW control techniques. In previous researches, the contention probabilities for each value of AC were not examined or a single channel based AC value was considered. And the channel-specific demands of IEEE 802.11p and the corresponding contention probabilities were not reflected in the studies. The study considers the collision number of a previous service section and the current network congestion proposes a dynamic control technique ACCW(Adaptive Control of Contention windows in considering the WAVE situation) for CW of the next channel.