• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.307-314
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• 2006

Elevation differences within a paddy field relate strongly to plant health, crop homogeneity, and pest control. For precision agriculture (PA), the elevation within a field should be precisely controlled. We analyzed variation in elevation within two rice paddies over one crop cycle. The study took place in two rectangular plots (Field A and Field B, each $50m{\times}30m$). Elevations within the two plots were measured by a laser-equipped surveying instrument, that could determine elevations to precisions of 1 mm. The test fields were divided into grids with 30 squares; elevation was measured at the center of each $5{\times}10-m$ grid square. This study measured elevation during nine observation periods from pre-plowing to post-harvest. Descriptive statistics showed the highest elevations after plowing due to soil disturbance. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed significant elevation differences before and after plowing and transplanting, although elevations were similar over the period of crop growth. Comparison of pre-plowing and post-harvest data showed differences in elevations, indicating that elevation changes occurred during plowing, rice transplanting, plant growth, and harvesting. In summary, the above statistical analyses indicated that elevation changes occurred due to plowing but not during the plant growth season or due to harvesting.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.161-169
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• 2008

Purpose: To better understand the corneal regeneration after alkali burn regarding the initial clinical progression and the therapy, we investigated the changes of the multi factors following chemical injury in cornea. Methods: This study was performed to observation on the healing process of alkali burned cornea in aspect of immunohistochemistry by immunofluorescence or H-E staining and TUNEL assay. Results: The results showed that although a healing process occurred after alkali burn, apoptosis of epithelial, stromal and endothelial cells in the cornea was continuously observed. Neovascularization and expression of ${\alpha}$-smooth muscle actin (${\alpha}$-SMA) from limbus and from injured cornea, respectively, were observed after 3 days of alkali burn. Formation of collagen III in corneal stroma and increased expression of chondroitin sulfate are coincident with expression of ${\alpha}$-SMA and transforming growth factor-${\beta}$ (TGF-${\beta}$). Conclusions: These data suggest that medical treatment within 3 days of alkali burn will be effective to inhibit neovascularization and formation of collagen III and chondroitin sulfate. This study extends our immumohistochemical understanding of healing process in alkali burned cornea, and the results get in this study will be cornerstones in the development of therapeutic agent for accelerating renewal of chemical damaged cornea.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.89-94
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• 2008

Purpose: To observe the high temperature creep test and the fracture surface of the samples of 9% Ni alloy steel generally used for all kinds of mahine parts and predict the durability of that by determining a constant of C with a Larson-Miller variable. Methods: The equipment of this test was made into lever-beam style designed by Andrade and F. Garofalo et al.. The condition of creep test was set under 16 kinds of conditions after fixing 4 kinds of temperature condition and 4 kinds of stress condition to check how it effects the samples. Results: The temperature of creep test was increased, the stress index (n) of creep deformation was gradually decreased from 3.97 to 3.55. The activation energy of creep deformation was decreased from 90.39 to 83.64 kcal/mol when the stress was increased. A constant of C value by calculation of larson-Miller variable was about 22 and if temperature for use is suggested, the durability could be calculated. Conclusions: By analyzing the fracture phenomenon and suggesting the observation result of the fracture surface of the samples and creep test of 9% Ni alloy steel, the basic design data for the practical use of accessories in the field of equipment could be constructed and used to predict the durability of the equipment.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.186-193
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• 2015

Purpose: The aim of study was to estimate the hand hygiene (HH) compliance of healthcare workers (HCWs) in a children's hospital. Methods: This study was conducted in a hospital which is a tertiary and educational children's hospital with 313 beds and 533 HCWs. Data were collected by direct observation methods from November 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010. Results: A total of 2,999 opportunities for HH were observed, and the overall HH rate was 95.3%. HH rate of the registered nurse, physicians and transferer was 97.7%, 89.2%, and 72.1%, respectively (P<0.001). Among physicians, HH rate of the fellows, professors, residents and interns was 97.5%, 93.9%, 89.7%, and 80.9%, respectively (P<0.001). HH rate in the emergency room, operation room, outpatient department (OPD), and the intensive care unit (ICU) was 97.2%, 97.2%, 95.4%, and 92.5%, respectively (P<0.001). Hand rubbing was the most frequently used (81.1%), and hand washing was frequently used in the case of 'after body fluids exposure risk' (37.7%) and 'after touching patient surroundings' (28.5%). HH methods were not statistically different from each departments (P =0.083), however, they were significantly different according to the World Health Organization (WHO) 5 Moments (P<0.001). Distributions in WHO 5 Moments by the job titles were significantly different (P<0.001). The odds ratio of physicians, ICU and OPD was 0.353 (95% CI, 0.241-0.519), 0.291 (95% CI, 0.174-0.487), and 0.484 (95% CI, 0.281-0.834), respectively. Conclusions: Compliance of HH was different by the job titles and departments. Effective custom-tailored HH programs for each job title and department need to be developed.

• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.195-209
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• 2009

Objectives : Transient inflammation has been demonstrated to alter visceral sensory function in animal models and acute mucosal inflammation may precede the manifestation of visceral hyperalgesia. Thus in this study we compared effects of herbal acupuncture of Nidus Vespae (NV) applied to the different acupoints in the acute colitis induced by trinitrobenzenesulphonic acid (TNBS) intracolonic injection in rats. Methods : In Male Sprague-Dawley rats, weighing 250 ~ 400 g, TNBS (5 mg/kg) was infused intrarectally through a silicon rubber catheter into the anus under isoflurane anaesthesia. Under general anesthesia, acupoints of LI4 (Hapkok), SI25 (Cheonchu), ST36 (Joksamni), BL25 (Daejangsu) were intramuscularly injected by NV. Expressions of cFos protein in the periaqueductal gray (PAG), locus coeruleus (LC), nucleus of solitary tract (Sol), and the 6th lumbar spinal cord (L6 s.c.) were observed at 24 hrs after TNBS induced colitis by immunohistochemistry. Results : The expression of c-Fos protein in L6 s.c., Sol, LC and PAG increased 24 hrs after TNBS injection into colorectum as compared to normal group. NV herbal acupuncture also inhibited the expression of c-Fos protein in Sol but not L6 s.c., LC, and PAG. NV to ST36 inhibited significantly the c-Fos expression in Sol and PAG. NV to ST25 inhibited the c-Fos protein expression all over the observation area. NV to BL25 showed the inhibitory effects in the areas except LC. Whether or not a role of endogenous opioids, intrathecal injection of naltrexone (30 ug / 30 ul) was applied before the 2nd herbal acupuncture treatment 24 hrs after TNBS-induced colitis in rat. Naltrexone reversed the inhibition of c-Fos protein expression in the spinal cord and brainstem under different conditions such as type of herbal acupuncture compound and choice of acupoint. Conclusions : In summary, these data show that herbal acupuncture of NV inhibits signal pathways such as spinal cord and brain stem ascending hypersensitivity of colorectum after TNBS induced colitis. This effect may be mediated by acupoints through the endogenous opioid system involving the pain modulation.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.112-130
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• 1992

Patient care services are provided to individual patients in response to their health needs produced by illnesses or injuries. The services are often addressed to very serious conditions, and also they constitute the most expensive component of health care services. Therefore, the importance of quality is emphasized, but there are many indications that patient care quality is far from a satisfactory state in most of the countries. Based upon this observation, it is attempted to examine obstacles and approaches to quality improvement in patient care services. In doing so, following Taguchi's(1986) definition of product quality, quality of patient care services is conceived of as better when the less is the sociental loss attributalbe to variability of intended function and harmful side effects they emhibit after being delivered. Some distinguishing features of medical care sector pose difficulties in implementing effective quality improvement programs in patient care services. Nevertheless, newly proposed method of quality management, based on industrial quality management approach, seems to have a great deal of potential to effectively cope with such difficulties. This method, unlike the traditional approach to quality assurance, focuses on total organisational processes, not individuals, as the obproach to quality assurance, focuses on total organizational processes, not individuals, as the objects of quality improvement; variation, not comparison with standards, in quality measurement; and continuous improvement, not removing only bad quality care, as an ideal. Prerequisite to a successful use of any quality mangement method is motivating providers to improve quality. Conceivable approaches for such motivation are self-regulation, external controls and promotion of competition. Since these approaches are not mutually exclusive, they may be employed in an appropriate combination. In Korea, medical care providers are now functioning under the circumstances where they have little reason for making efforts to improve quality of their services. Once these circumstantial conditions are changed to exert pressures on providers to improve quality, the use of adequate quality management method becomes an issue. In this connection, much attention shoould be directed to the newly proposed method described above. In all these efforts for improving quality of patient care services, health insurance would be able to play a pivotal role. Poviders of medical care, buth indiciduals and organizations, are usually very responsive to the measures that affect their financing, and thus health insurance can be a strong instrument for motivationg providers to improve quality. Also, the insurance continuously acquires data on patient care, which could be processed to produce information required to effective quality control.

• Journal of KIISE:Databases
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.179-192
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• 2007

This paper addresses an approach that recommends investment types for stock investors by discovering useful rules from past changing patterns of stock prices in databases. First, we define a new rule model for recommending stock investment types. For a frequent pattern of stock prices, if its subsequent stock prices are matched to a condition of an investor, the model recommends a corresponding investment type for this stock. The frequent pattern is regarded as a rule head, and the subsequent part a rule body. We observed that the conditions on rule bodies are quite different depending on dispositions of investors while rule heads are independent of characteristics of investors in most cases. With this observation, we propose a new method that discovers and stores only the rule heads rather than the whole rules in a rule discovery process. This allows investors to define various conditions on rule bodies flexibly, and also improves the performance of a rule discovery process by reducing the number of rules. For efficient discovery and matching of rules, we propose methods for discovering frequent patterns, constructing a frequent pattern base, and indexing them. We also suggest a method that finds the rules matched to a query issued by an investor from a frequent pattern base, and a method that recommends an investment type using the rules. Finally, we verify the superiority of our approach via various experiments using real-life stock data.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.2971-2980
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• 2014

To find the risk of cardiovascular disease for breast cancer patients received postoperative adjuvant anticancer therapy, this study was investigated the change of serum lipid profile (total cholesterol and trigyiceride) and the 10 year risk score of ischemic heart disease. Medical data of 432 breast cancer patients diagnosed at the breast cancer center in an university hospital from January, 2003 to December, 2006 were collected and analysed. The results showed that the levels of total cholesterol and triglyceride were increased at the points of 2 and 5 years after operation. The margin of increase of total cholesterol was higher in the patients without endocrine therapy compared to them with endocrine therapy, however there were no changes in the level of triglyceride regardless of endocrine therapy. There were also no significant changes in total cholesterol and triglyceride levels between chemotherapy, radiotherapy and endocrine therapy. 10 year-risk score of ischemic heart disease was increased by 0.44%p in the final observation compared to that of a baseline.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.6 no.10
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• pp.493-498
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• 2017

Capsule endoscopy is specialized for the observation of small intestine that is difficult to access by general endoscopy. The diagnostic procedure through capsule endoscopy consists of three stages: examination of indicant, endoscopy, and diagnosis. At this time, key information needed for diagnosis includes indicant, lesions, and suspected disease information. In this paper, these information are defined as semantic features and the extracting process is defined as semantic-based analysis. It is performed in whole capsule endoscopy. First, several symptoms of patient are checked before capsule endoscopy to get some information on suspected disease. Next, capsule endoscopy is performed by checking the suspected diseases. Finally, diagnosis is concluded by using supporting information. At this time, some association are used to conclude diagnosis. For example, there are the disease association between the symptom and the disease to identify the expected disease, and the anatomical association between the location of the lesion and supporting information. However, existing knowledge models such as MST and CEST only lists the simple term related to endoscopy and cannot consider such semantic associations. Therefore, in this paper, we propose association-based knowledge model for supporting diagnosis of capsule endoscopy. The proposed model is divided into two; a disease model and anatomical model of small intestine, interesting area(organs) of capsule endoscopy. It can effectively support diagnosis by providing key information for capsule endoscopy.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.109-114
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• 2012

Honeycombs are dense structures that small cysts, which generally have about 2~10 mm in diameter, are surrounded by the wall of fibrosis. When honeycomb is found in the patients, the incidence of acute exacerbation is generally very high. Thus, the observation and quantitative measurement of honeycomb are considered as a significant marker for clinical diagnosis. In this point of view, we propose an automatic segmentation method using morphological image processing and assessment of the degree of clustering techniques. Firstly, image noises were removed by the Gaussian filtering and then a morphological dilation method was applied to segment lung regions. Secondly, honeycomb cyst candidates were detected through the 8-neighborhood pixel exploration, and then non-cyst regions were removed using the region growing method and wall pattern testing. Lastly, final honeycomb regions were segmented through the extraction of dense regions which are consisted of two or more cysts using cluster analysis. The proposed method applied to 80 High resolution computed tomography (HRCT) images and achieved a sensitivity of 89.4% and PPV (Positive Predictive Value) of 72.2%.