• Journal of Genetic Medicine
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.59-66
• /
• 2010

Purpose: Quantitative fluorescent polymerase chain reaction (QF-PCR) allows for the rapid prenatal diagnosis of common aneuploidies. The main advantages of this assay are its low cost, speed, and automation, allowing for large-scale application. However, despite these advantages, it is not a routine method for prenatal aneuploidy screening in Korea. Our objective in the present study was to validate the performance of QF-PCR using short tandem repeat (STR) markers in a Korean population as a means for rapid prenatal diagnosis. Material and Methods: A QF-PCR assay using an Elucigene kit (Gen-Probe, Abingdon, UK), containing 20 STR markers located on chromosomes 13, 18, 21, X and Y, was performed on 847 amniotic fluid (AF) samples for prenatal aneuploidy screening referred for prenatal aneuploidy screening from 2007 to 2009. The results were then compared to those obtained using conventional cytogenetic analysis. To evaluate the informativity of STR markers, the heterozygosity index of each marker was determined in all the samples. Results: Three autosomes (13, 18, and 21) and X and Y chromosome aneuploidies were detected in 19 cases (2.2%, 19/847) after QF-PCR analysis of the 847 AF samples. Their results are identical to those of conventional cytogenetic analysis, with 100% positive predictive value. However, after cytogenetic analysis, 7 cases (0.8%, 7/847) were found to have 5 balanced and 2 unbalanced chromosomal abnormalities that were not detected by QF-PCR. The STR markers had a slightly low heterozygosity index (average: 0.76) compared to those reported in Caucasians (average: 0.80). Submicroscopic duplication of D13S634 marker, which might be a unique finding in Koreans, was detected in 1.4% (12/847) of the samples in the present study. Conclusion: A QF-PCR assay for prenatal aneuploidy screening was validated in our institution and proved to be efficient and reliable. However, we suggest that each laboratory must perform an independent validation test for each STR marker in order to develop interpretation guidelines of the results and must integrate QF-PCR into the routine cytogenetic laboratory workflow.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
• /
• v.41 no.10
• /
• pp.1475-1485
• /
• 2012

This study was conducted in order to understand nutrition teachers (dietitians)' perceptions of barriers to implementation of HACCP system in school foodservices in Gyeongnam, Korea. Questionnaires were distributed to 350 nutrition teachers (dietitians) from November to December of 2009, and 214 were collected and analyzed. The results of this study were as follows. First, nutrition teachers (dietitians) recognized the following as barriers in implementing the HACCP system: 'the status of facilities and utilities'> 'monitoring'> 'work satisfaction'> 'foodservice employees'> 'cooperation of HACCP team'> 'cooperation of persons concerned besides foodservice employees'> 'understanding the HACCP system'. Second, total working experience was found to be the factor most affecting 'cooperation of HACCP team (p<0.01)', 'cooperation of persons concerned besides foodservice employees (p<0.01)', 'foodservice employees (p<0.05)', and 'work satisfaction (p<0.05)'. Further, 'the status of facilities and utilities' was significantly affected by 'construction/reconstruction of kitchen (p<0.01)', 'division of kitchen area (p<0.01)', 'existence of preliminary preparation room (p<0.01)', and 'existence of dishwashing room (p<0.01)'. Third, dietitians perceived the following concerning hindrance factors of the HACCP system according to CCP stage: 'CCP 1'> 'CCP 3'> 'CCP 2, 'CCP 6'> 'CCP 4'> 'CCP 8'> 'CCP 7'> 'CCP 5'. In conclusion, this study showed that nutrition teachers (dietitians) in the Gyeongnam area recognized 'the status of facilities and utilities' from HACCP areas and 'CCP 1 (menu planning)' from CCP stages as the greatest barriers to implementing the HACCP system in school foodservices. To implement the HACCP system successfully in school foodservices, facilities and utilities should be properly equipped, and menu planning training for nutrition teachers (dietitian) should be conducted.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
• /
• v.41 no.10
• /
• pp.1467-1474
• /
• 2012

The purpose of study was to introduce menus consisting of traditional local foods consumed in Busan, Korea. Five different types of formal meal menus with three side dishes and five different types of informal meal menus of which the main dish was not cooked rice were developed. Scores for the menu evaluations of formal and informal meals were higher than 7.9 (mean score of 6 category) on a 9.0 scale, suggesting that the menus were well constituted in terms of 'repeated use of ingredients and cooking methods', 'balance between main and side dishes', 'frequency of usage of local products', 'nutritional balance', 'variety of dishes', and 'popularization'. Nutritional values of menus were compared with those of the KDRI for men aged 30~49 years old. All ten menus reflected a low calorie, high protein, and high fiber diet. Mineral contents (Ca, Fe, Zn, K, and Na) of the above 10 menus were higher than those of the KDRI. On the other hand, vitamin contents slightly differed according to meal type due to limited fresh vegetable usage in the winter season. Vitamin A, B ($B_1$, $B_2$, niacin, $B_6$), C, folic acid, and E contents in the five informal menus were found to be proper or greater than those of the KDRI. However, for the formal meal menus, all vitamin contents except that of vitamin A in menu type I was lower than that of the KDRI. Content of vitamin C in menu type V was approximately 50% of that of the KDRI. The most preferred formal menu was consisted of Ogokbap, Boreumjijimi, Dongchimi, Namul (nine varieties), Gaksaeksanjeok (Shark/Daegu/Gunso), and Gimgui. And that for informal menu was consisted of Honghapjuk, Baechu kimchi, Dongchimi, Miyeokseolchi, Kodari jorim, and Neulgeun hobakjeon. Suggestions for providing more fresh vegetables or fruits for certain types of meals (formal meal type V) were offered. Additionally, pre-preparation of sea products were required to reduce Na contents.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
• /
• v.11 no.3
• /
• pp.325-341
• /
• 2011

Objectives : This research has investigated the reality of the education of the claim and the degree of the education for the claimed of the dentistry recuperation organization in the Daejeon and Chuncheong are for the improvement of the problem in the medical expenses. Methods : It use as a basic data for the vitalizations of the education and performed the survey in the dentistry recuperation organization in the Daejeon and ChungCheong Nam BukDo which are registered in the evaluating organization for judging the health insurance in the present May 2010, and concluded just like the below. Results : 1. The education of the claim in the requirer in the dentistry recuperation organization, and the education of the claim was especially lacking when the dentist was studying in the university, and the dental hygienist had the similar educational experience in the school and the clinic (p<0.05) 2. Most of the requirer in the dental recuperation organization was hoping to get the education related to the claim work, but the dentist and the nurse's aid was relatively low (p<0.05) 3. For fixing the error of the claim, the participation and the extension of the judging standard of the insurance was the highest among the university subordinate dental hospital/dental hospital, but the health center was relatively low (p<0.05). 4. The dentist feels the economic burden in employing the special employee because the raising of the special judging people, compared to others, but the staffs such as the dental hygienist preferred it as one of ways to fix the error of the claim of the dental insurance (p<0.05) 5. Both dentists and the dental hygienist said proper time to teach the insurance was all needed in the school, and the clinic, but other workers relatively believed it should be held in the clinic (p<0.05). 6. The important factors to decide the participation of the lecture was in order of the contents of the lecture, the place of the lecture, the amount for the lecture, the superintendent of the lecture, whether it has gone through the educational score, and whether it has passed the conserving educational score was relatively less important in the university subordinate dentist/dentist, but the medical center was very effective as 4.50 (p<0.05) 7. Health Insurance Review and assessment service was very high as the managing department for supplying the lecture and the information, 70.5%, and the next was the Korean Dental Association/ Korean dental hygiene association, but dentists were preferring the association to manage in than the Health Insurance Review and assessment service to manage (p<0.05) 8. In preferring lecture for the inquiring the insurance, periodontal surgery was the highest as 4.51, the diagnosis standard for injection was high in the university subordinate hospital/dentists, and the more the year of the insurance inquiry, the less the doctor who was hoping for the lecture about the basic treatment. Conclusions : Taken together, it is decided that the inquiry education about the medical expense in the dentist, so the consistent and systematic education should be held to the related people, and from this, it is thought to reduce the problem of the inquiry of the medical expenses by fostering the knowledge and supplying the information which are related to the inquiry of the dentists.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
• /
• v.54 no.4
• /
• pp.267-274
• /
• 2012

The method of sexing based on differences in the rate of feather growth provides a convenient and inexpensive approach. The locus of feather development gene (K) is located on the Z chromosome and can be utilized to produce phenotypes that distinguish between the sexes of chicks at hatching. To establish the auto-sexing native chicken strains, this study analyzed the genotype frequency of the feathering in domestic chicken breeds. The method of classification of slow- and rapid-feathering chickens was also investigated. In the slow-feathering chicks, the coverts were either the same length or longer than the primary wing feathers at hatching. However, the rapid-feathering chicks had the primary wing feathers that were longer than the coverts. The growth pattern of tail feather also distinctively differed between the rapid- and slow-feathering chicks after 5-days. The accuracy of wing feather sexing was about 98% compared with tail sexing. In domestic chicken breeds, Korean Black Cornish, Korean Rhode Island Red, and Korean Native Chicken-Red had both dominant (K) and recessive ($k^+$) feathering genes. The other breeds of chickens, Korean Brown Cornish, Ogol, White Leghorn, Korean Native Chicken-Yellow, -Gray, -White and -Black had only the recessive feathering gene ($k^+$). Consequently, feather sexing is available using the domestic chicken breeds. Establishing the maternal stock with dominant gene (K-) and paternal stock with recessive gene ($k^+k^+$), the slow-feathering characteristic is passed from mothers to their sons, and the rapid-feathering characteristic is inherited by daughters from their fathers.

• The Korean Journal of Pesticide Science
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.429-436
• /
• 2005

As Sclerotinia sclerotiorum causing cucumber sclerotinia rot was the fastest in the mycelial growth at $25^{\circ}C$, its pathogenicity was strong at the same temperature among several temperatures. All the isolates of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum showed a strong pathogenicity against cucumber fruits, which was confirmed by a disk assay and a wound assay. A wound assay was superior to a disk assay to develop the assay system for assessing the fungicidal activity of several fungicides against Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. In a disk assay, it was very difficult to assess the fungicidal activity, because the pathogenicity of isolates used in the experiment was very strong. At 500 and $3.0{\mu}g/mL$, the activity of dichloflouanid and the mixture of carbendazim and diethofencarb against cucumber sclerotinia rot was 14.3 and 42.3%, respectively, by using a disk assay. However, at same concentration two fungicides showed the high controlling activity as 100 and 92.5%, through a wound assay in a laboratory. Also, the activity of two fungicides was good against cucumber sclerotinia rot in the greenhouse where cucumber plants were cultivated in the field, showing the control value as 91.1 and 82.9% at 100 and $825{\mu}g/mL$, respectively. All the isolates of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum from cucumber fruits sampled in the polyvinyl house were subjected to monitoring for the resistance to 7 fungicides. The $EC_{50}$ value of 7 fungicides was as follows: fenhexamid; $0.13{\mu}g/mL$, procymidon and iprodione; 0.18 and $0.24{\mu}g/mL$, carbendazim and the mixture of carbendazim and diethofencarb; 0.13과 $0.05{\mu}g/mL$, iminoctadine and dichlofluanid; 1.94 and $8.95{\mu}g/mL$. Ultimately it was not found that resistant isolates of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum were appeared in the field.

• Restorative Dentistry and Endodontics
• /
• v.35 no.5
• /
• pp.368-373
• /
• 2010

Objectives: This study investigated the effect of infection control barrier thickness on power density, wavelength, and light diffusion of light curing units. Materials and Methods: Infection control barrier (Cleanwrap) in one-fold, two-fold, four-fold, and eightfold, and a halogen light curing unit (Optilux 360) and a light emitting diode (LED) light curing unit (Elipar FreeLight 2) were used in this study. Power density of light curing units with infection control barriers covering the fiberoptic bundle was measured with a hand held dental radiometer (Cure Rite). Wavelength of light curing units fixed on a custom made optical breadboard was measured with a portable spectroradiometer (CS-1000). Light diffusion of light curing units was photographed with DSLR (Nikon D70s) as above. Results: Power density decreased significantly as the layer thickness of the infection control barrier increased, except the one-fold and two-fold in halogen light curing unit. Especially, when the barrier was four-fold and more in the halogen light curing unit, the decrease of power density was more prominent. The wavelength of light curing units was not affected by the barriers and almost no change was detected in the peak wavelength. Light diffusion of LED light curing unit was not affected by barriers, however, halogen light curing unit showed decrease in light diffusion angle when the barrier was four-fold and statistically different decrease when the barrier was eight-fold (p < 0.05). Conclusions: It could be assumed that the infection control barriers should be used as two-fold rather than one-fold to prevent tearing of the barriers and subsequent cross contamination between the patients.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
• /
• v.17 no.3
• /
• pp.219-234
• /
• 1974

A series of experiments was conducted to study the behavior of the phosphorus added to the soils having the high phorphorus fixing capacity derived from volcanic ash in Cheju Island. Soil samples were taken from different depths of 0-10, 10-30, and 30-50cm in six citrus orchards where heavy application of phosphate fertilizer has been practised. Various forms of phosphorus were determined and phosphorus adsorption experiments were performed. The results obtained can be summarized as follows: 1. The content of inorganic phosphorus fractions determined by the method of Chang and Jackson was: water soluble P

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.79-99
• /
• 2015

The prediction of bankruptcy has been extensively studied in the accounting and finance field. It can have an important impact on lending decisions and the profitability of financial institutions in terms of risk management. Many researchers have focused on constructing a more robust bankruptcy prediction model. Early studies primarily used statistical techniques such as multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) and logit analysis for bankruptcy prediction. However, many studies have demonstrated that artificial intelligence (AI) approaches, such as artificial neural networks (ANN), decision trees, case-based reasoning (CBR), and support vector machine (SVM), have been outperforming statistical techniques since 1990s for business classification problems because statistical methods have some rigid assumptions in their application. In previous studies on corporate bankruptcy, many researchers have focused on developing a bankruptcy prediction model using financial ratios. However, there are few studies that suggest the specific types of bankruptcy. Previous bankruptcy prediction models have generally been interested in predicting whether or not firms will become bankrupt. Most of the studies on bankruptcy types have focused on reviewing the previous literature or performing a case study. Thus, this study develops a model using data mining techniques for predicting the specific types of bankruptcy as well as the occurrence of bankruptcy in Korean small- and medium-sized construction firms in terms of profitability, stability, and activity index. Thus, firms will be able to prevent it from occurring in advance. We propose a hybrid approach using two artificial neural networks (ANNs) for the prediction of bankruptcy types. The first is a back-propagation neural network (BPN) model using supervised learning for bankruptcy prediction and the second is a self-organizing map (SOM) model using unsupervised learning to classify bankruptcy data into several types. Based on the constructed model, we predict the bankruptcy of companies by applying the BPN model to a validation set that was not utilized in the development of the model. This allows for identifying the specific types of bankruptcy by using bankruptcy data predicted by the BPN model. We calculated the average of selected input variables through statistical test for each cluster to interpret characteristics of the derived clusters in the SOM model. Each cluster represents bankruptcy type classified through data of bankruptcy firms, and input variables indicate financial ratios in interpreting the meaning of each cluster. The experimental result shows that each of five bankruptcy types has different characteristics according to financial ratios. Type 1 (severe bankruptcy) has inferior financial statements except for EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) to sales based on the clustering results. Type 2 (lack of stability) has a low quick ratio, low stockholder's equity to total assets, and high total borrowings to total assets. Type 3 (lack of activity) has a slightly low total asset turnover and fixed asset turnover. Type 4 (lack of profitability) has low retained earnings to total assets and EBITDA to sales which represent the indices of profitability. Type 5 (recoverable bankruptcy) includes firms that have a relatively good financial condition as compared to other bankruptcy types even though they are bankrupt. Based on the findings, researchers and practitioners engaged in the credit evaluation field can obtain more useful information about the types of corporate bankruptcy. In this paper, we utilized the financial ratios of firms to classify bankruptcy types. It is important to select the input variables that correctly predict bankruptcy and meaningfully classify the type of bankruptcy. In a further study, we will include non-financial factors such as size, industry, and age of the firms. Thus, we can obtain realistic clustering results for bankruptcy types by combining qualitative factors and reflecting the domain knowledge of experts.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.16 no.9
• /
• pp.6089-6098
• /
• 2015

This study purposes to identify the effects of performance of public health services (PHS) and personal characteristics on community image to public hospitals. The subjects of this study were 33 public hospitals and 1,789 community residents. The data of '2011 Public hospital evaluation programme' were utilized in this study. The personal characteristics consisted of nine items which were gender, age, education, occupation, monthly incomes, medical security, use experience, health state, and location type. The PHS performance consisted of five items which were number of doctors, number of nurses, total number of staff, budget per 1,000 community residents, and amount of activities per 1,000 community residents. The cronbach's alpha of community image instrument was 0.916. As the results of logistic regression, the significant variables of community image, were age (OR=0.34, 95% CI=0.19-0.60), education (OR=3.03, 95% CI=1.60-5.76), use experience (OR=0.57, 95% CI=0.40-0.81), health state (OR=0.69 95% CI=0.49-0.96), location type (OR=2.10, 95% CI=1.11-3.99), and amount of activities per 1,000 community residents (OR=0.58, 95% CI=0.35-0.96). Community image is very important to public hospitals. The workforce and budget related PHS were significantly demanded to improve community image. The Central and Local government should support to public hospitals to perform PHS effectively.