• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.216-221
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• 2015

Since Patient Zero of MERS was diagnosed in May 20, 2015, cases of MERS continued to grow. The current situation, which people have been confirmed to be infected, suggested that contaminated indoor air could be the potential cause of hospital-acquired infections. It is important to address the indoor air quality in hospitals because pathogens can spread through air. While the heating, ventilating and air conditioning(HVAC) system is useful managing indoor air quality in hospitals, it can transmit the pathogens if operated improperly. Therefore, it is necessary to remove contaminants in hospitals and operate the HVAC system according to the guidelines, in order to maintain clean indoor air.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.123-135
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• 2020

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the development process and the effectiveness of the EISS (epidemiological investigation support system), which prevents the spread of infectious diseases like a novel corona virus disease, COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach This study identified the existing epidemiological support system for MERS through prior research and studied the case of the development of a newly developed epidemiological support system based on cloud computing infrastructure for COVID-19 through inter-ministerial collaboration in 2020. Findings The outbreak of COVID-19 drove the Korean Government began the development of the EISS with private companies. This system played a significant role in flattening the spread of infection during several waves in which the number of confirmed cases increased rapidly in Korea, However, we need to be careful in handling confirmed patients' private data affecting their privacy.

• Anxiety and mood
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.45-52
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• 2019

Objective : The objective of this study is to determine the effects of fear of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) on socio-psychological health during an outbreak of MERS and the post-traumatic stress as a mediator on the relationship between stress and socio-psychological health. Methods : Visual Analog Scale, Impact of Event Scale -Revised, Psychosocial well-being index short form was implemented for 150 medical persons who worked at the hospital in which exposure to MERS cases had been confirmed and 96 ordinary people. A Pearson correlation coefficient and a hierarchical multiple regression was carried out to confirm the effect of fear of MERS and the mediating effect of post-traumatic stress between fear and socio-psychological health. Results : The higher the fear, the lower the socio-psychological health in both healthcare workers and the public (r=0.32, p<0.01) and the higher post-traumatic stress (r=0.32, p<0.01). But, the research results showed that only healthcare workers had a partially mediating effect of post-traumatic stress in the relationship between fear and socio-psychological health (${\beta}=0.45$, t=6.33 p<0.001), (${\beta}$ value : 0.39>0.26). Conclusion : This study demonstrated that the post-traumatic stress can indirectly lead to a negative effect on the socio-psychological health of healthcare workers when under the fear of MERS and shows adverse effects on psycho-social wellbeing. This suggests that clinical intervention and psycho-social approach aiming at reducing post-traumatic stress is important to maintain mental health during crisis development.

• Journal of Urban Science
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.13-20
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• 2020

The Recently, several countries have been affected by respiratory diseases, resulting in renewed research interest in their prevention and control. One such example was the 2015 outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in South Korea and COVID-19. In this study, we performed experiments and simulations based on concentration decay using CO2 as the tracer gas to elucidate the pollutant-removal efficiency for different inlet and exhaust locations and outdoor air-supply ratios. The wall inlet exhibited a higher pollutant-removal efficiency, owing to the upward movement of the air from the lower zone to the upper one. In conclusion, it is recommended that a total air-conditioning plan for isolation rooms be established as well as efficient system operation for pollutant removal and air-flow control to prevent the transmission of infections from the patients to others.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.153-161
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• 2017

Branching processes which is used for epidemic dispersion as stochastic process model have advantages to estimate parameters by real data. We have to estimate both mean and dispersion parameter in order to use the negative binomial distribution as an offspring distribution on branching processes. In existing studies on biology and epidemiology, it is estimated using maximum-likelihood methods. However, for most of epidemic data, it is hard to get the best precision of maximum-likelihood estimator. We suggest a Bayesian inference that have good properties of statistics for small-sample. After estimating dispersion parameter we modelled the posterior distribution for 2015 Korea MERS cases. As the result, we found that the estimated dispersion parameter is relatively stable no matter how we assume prior distribution. We also computed extinction probabilities on branching processes using estimated dispersion parameters.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.11.1-11.10
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• 2021

Coronavirus causes an infectious disease in various species and crosses the species barriers leading to the outbreak of zoonotic diseases. Due to the respiratory diseases are mainly caused in humans and viruses are replicated and excreted through the respiratory tract, the nasal fluid and sputum are mainly used for diagnosis. Early diagnosis of coronavirus plays an important role in preventing its spread and is essential for quarantine policies. For rapid decision and prompt triage of infected host, the immunochromatographic assay (ICA) has been widely used for point of care testing. However, when the ICA is applied to an expectorated sputum in which antigens are present, the viscosity of sputum interferes with the migration of the antigens on the test strip. To overcome this limitation, it is necessary to use a mucolytic agent without affecting the antigens. In this study, we combined known mucolytic agents to lower the viscosity of sputum and applied that to alpha and beta coronavirus, porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), respectively, spiked in sputum to find optimal pretreatment conditions. The pretreatment method using tris(2-carboxyethyl)phosphine (TCEP) and BSA was suitable for ICA diagnosis of sputum samples spiked with PEDV and MERS-CoV. This sensitive assay for the detection of coronavirus in sputum provides an useful information for the diagnosis of pathogen in low respiratory tract.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.135-141
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• 2020

The first case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) was reported in Korea in 2015, after a Korean man from Bahrain tested positive for the infection. After first eruption, there were numbers of secondary infectees and whole country were frightened. At the time, isolated ambulances were available but few, and there was no specific way to prevent contamination during transfer. Therefore, Seoul National University Hospital and the University of Seoul developed isolation units and air filters. Four years after the MERS outbreak, this study measured the differential pressure inside and outside the small isolation units based on the differential pressure and air flow derived from simulation and testing, and proposed minimum values for virus leakage and internal sealing. A performance evaluation and testing method for the transfer equipment is proposed. The critical function of the small isolated transport equipment was defined and selected as an evaluation item; performance evaluation was carried out by simulating a real-world case. The results provide the proper pressure configuration of positive and negative pressure inside the segregation feeder; the clear criteria for the HEPA filter; and the performance criteria for the segregation feeder and air purifier.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.7-14
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• 2018

Purpose: The outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome(MERS) in KOREA has brought up the demands for ventilation guideline and regulations for healthcare facilities since most of the infection was spreaded inside healthcare facility. Currently KOREA has no ventilation guideline or regulations covering entire section of healthcare facility. The purpose of this study is to investigate current ventilation methods in KOREA healthcare facilities to in future, propose ventilation guideline. Methods: Research of foreign counties ventilation guideline and regulation for healthcare facilities were conducted for reference. Field investigation with survey of 21 healthcare were conducted to identify the ventilation system and operating methods. Additionally survey for healthcare workers were conducted to observe the recognition related to ventilation system in healthcare facility. Results: The result showed that most of foreign countries ventilation guideline and regulation suggests similar items to reduce the spread of infection and maintain good indoor air quality. The investigation results indicated that fixed guideline for ventilation in healthcare facility were required due to different ventilation operating methods. Survey result of healthcare workers has told us that ventilation guideline and regulation is needed to prevent further infection. Implications: Absence of ventilation guideline and regulations for healthcare facility in KOREA is an urgent issue.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.509-514
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• 2016

From the point of view to prevent airborne infection-related diseases such as H1N1, SARS, and MERS, an actual application of air cleaning and purification systems including technologies like UVGI has become increasingly important. Recently, an air purification system using REME (Reflective Electro Magnetic Energy) developed in the U.S. is applied for indoor air purification and sterilization technology to counteract the outbreak of new airborne infections. In this study, an air sterilization performance experiment using REME was carried out. The results verified that air sterilization performance in the case of installing a REME system in a medical center was 31%, namely the number of floating bacteria decreased by 31% after only a five-day operation. In addition, the number of culture collections in the REME operating air conditioning systems using nonpathogenic Geobacillus stearothemophilus as a biological indicator decreased maximally to 67%. A field application of REME technology will be useful to prevent airborne infection-related diseases, especially in response to public health crises due to the advent of emerging diseases.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.59-69
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to provide basic materials on establishing convergence oriented respiratory infection management system in nursing students attending clinical training by analyzing anxiety, knowledge, possibility of infection, possibility of prevention, and compliance level of preventive behavior. Data were collected from 222 nursing students experienced clinical practice from June 15th to 30th in 2015 using questionnaire. Characteristics relative to variables were measured, and analyzed using SPSS 18.0 program. The results are as follows. The anxiety was 42.70(max 80 points), but possibility of infection was 22.55(max 100 points). Also, knowledge(11.73 out of 16 points), possibility of prevention(7.37 out of 10 points), and compliance level of preventive behavior(34.55 out of maximum 48 points) were slightly above average. The influencing factors on compliance of preventive behavior were anxiety and possibility of prevention. It is needed to lead convergence oriented approach on enhancing compliance of preventive behavior through providing information and educating possibility of prevention during MERS outbreak.