• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.2 s.66
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• pp.36-43
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• 2006

Objectives : Acupuncture has been widely applied to rehabilitation after stroke by Oriental medical doctors in Korea. It has been reported that acupuncture increased cerebral blood supply and stimulated the functional activity of brain nerve cells. In addition, a correlation between activation of specific areas of brain cortices and corresponding acupuncture stimulation at the therapeutic points had been well illustrated. rill now, however, there were few studies which evaluated a correlation between activation of specific areas of brain and frequently-used acupuncture therapy for stroke, such as LI4-LI11 electro-acupuncture (EA) for paresis after stroke. This study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of LI4-LI11 EA on regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in normal volunteers using Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT). Methods : In the resting state, $^{99m}Tc-ECD$ brain SPECT scans were performed on 10 normal volunteers (8 males, 2 females, mean age $25.6{\pm}2.3$years; age range from 24 to 31 years). 7 days after the resting examination, 15 minutes of electro-acupuncture were applied at LI 4 and LI 11 on the right side of the subjects. Immediately after LI4-LI11 EA, the second SPECT images were obtained in the same manner as the resting state. Significant increases and decreases of regional cerebral blood flow after LI4-LI11 EA were estimated by comparing their SPECT images with those of the resting state using paired t statistics at every voxel, which were analyzed by Statistical parametric mapping with a threshold of p=0.001, uncorrected (extent threshold: k=100 voxels). Results : EA applied at right LI4-LI11 increased rCBF in right frontopolar area (Brodmann area 10) and left middle frontal area (Brodmann area 46). Interestingly, all the areas showing increased rCBF corresponded to the territories of both anterior cerebral arteries. However, LI4-11 EA decreased rCBF in the left occipital lobe (peristriate area, Brodmann area 19). Conclusions : The results demonstrated a correlation between LI4-11 EA and rCBF increase in the frontal lobes. It is also suggested that there may be a correlation between LI meridian and the territory of the anterior cerebral arterties.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.48 no.9
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• pp.969-975
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• 2005

Purpose : We performed a study of clinical findings of Mycoplasma Pneumonia in children, to know differences between recent clinical manifestations of Mycoplasma pneumonia and previous studies. Methods : The subjects of this study were 393 children who were diagnosed as Mycoplasma pneumonia with high titers of Mycoplasma antibody(${\geq}1$ : 160) or fourfold rises of Mycoplasma antibody at Chung Ang University Hospital from January 1998 to December 2003. We practiced a retrospective study on the clinical manifestations of Mycoplasma pneumonia based on their medical records. Results : Male to female ratio was 1.06 to 1 and mean age was $4.32{\pm}2.94years$. The highest incidence was in the age of 2 to 3 years(18.6 percent). Most frequent months were October, and November in 2000, April in 2002, and October and, December in 2003. Twenty six point seven percent showed allergic diseases. Second degree relatives of 10.7 percent patients had allergic diseases. Forty three point three percent were admitted before this admission for pneumonia. Allergic tests were positive in 65.7 percent. Cough, and sputum were the most common symptoms and abdominal pain, and vomiting were the most frequent extrapulmonary symptoms. Atelectasis and pleural effusion were seen in 2.5 percent and 1.8 percent. Infiltrations were more common on the right side. Titers of each simultaneous test for cold agglutinin and mycoplasma antibody were not in proportion to each other (P=0.163). Conclusion : The onset age of mycoplasma pneumonia was found to be lower than it used to be. More patients had a past medical history or a family history of allergic disease, and more wheezing was heard and associated with recurrent pneumonia.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.59-77
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• 1996

A survey was conducted to study perception and attitudes of examinees of health screening center towards items, cost and procedures of health examination and degree of satisfaction with health examination, from March 2 to May 31, 1995. The study population was 468 examinees received health examination at Health Screening & Diagnosis Center of Yeungnam University Hospital. A questionnaire method was used to collect data. The followings are summaries of findings : Examinees were predominantly male(77.4%); had college education(68.6%), and held white-collar workers(57.8%). Statistical significance of association between frequency of periodic health examination and other variables were tested by chi-square test. Examinees who have higher degree of concern regarding health and those who practice more exercise for health maintenance received health examination more frequently. The majority expressed that health examination is very beneficial and effective in terms of prevention and early detection of diseases. Also the majority revealed that they are satisfied with health examination. The majority expressed that procedures and time spent for health examination are adequate; interval of health examination is one year; and additional examination items are cerebral examination, neurological examination and gastrofibercope. The majority revealed that they want more information about chronic degenerative diseases and health maintenance and promotion. In conclusion, the study revealed that examinees seemed to have more positive perceptions and attitudes towards health examination.

• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.179-185
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• 2005

Acebrophylline is a compound produced by salifying ambroxol with theophylline-7 -acetic acid. After acebrophylline administration, the salt splits into these two components which feature a peculiar pharmacokinetic behavior, an adequate ambroxol and a low theophylline-7-acetic acid serum levels. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the bioequivalence of two acebrophylline capsules, Surfolase (Hyundai Pharm. lnd. Co., Ltd.) and Burophil (Kuhnil Pharm. Co., Ltd.), according to the guidelines of the Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA). The release of ambroxol from the two acebrophylline formulations in vitro was tested using KP VIII Apparatus II method with various dissolution media (pH 1.2, 4.0, 6.8 buffer solution and water). Twenty eight healthy male subjects, $23.25{\pm}1.43$ years in age and $64.82{\pm}6.77$ kg in body weight, were divided into two groups and a randomized $2{\times}2$ cross-over study was employed. After two capsules containing 100 mg as acebrophylline were orally administered, blood was taken at predetermined time intervals and the concentrations of ambroxol in serum were determined using HPLC with electrochemical detector (ECD). The dissolution profiles of two formulations were similar at all dissolution media. In addition, the pharmacokinetic parameters such as $AUC_t$, $C_{max}$ and $T_{max}$ were calculated and ANOVA test was utilized for the statistical analysis of the parameters using logarithmically transformed $AUC_t$, $C_{max}$ and untransformed $T_{max}$. The results showed that the differences between two formulations based on the reference drug Surfolase, were -1.64, -3.33 and -0.92% for $AUC_t$, $C_{max}$ and $T_{max}$, respectively. There were no sequence effects between two formulations in these parameters. The 90% confidence intervals using logarithmically transformed data were within the acceptance range of log 0.8 to log 1.25 $(e.g., \;log\;0.93{\sim}log\;1.05\;and\;log\;0.88{\sim}log\;1.05$ for $AUC_t$, and $C_{max}$, respectively). Thus, the criteria of the KFDA bioequivalence guideline were satisfied, indicating Burophil capsule was bioequivalent to Surfolase capsule.

• Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
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• v.3
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• pp.129-150
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• 1985

The present investigation was conducted to provide a systematic approach necessary to establish an integrated insect pest management program of barley in Korea. Some ecological surveys on insect pests of barley have been undertaken at the field of Experimental Station, Ky$\check{o}$ngbuk Provincial Office of Rural Development as a fixed point survey area, and at 23 localities for round survey throughout southern and central Korea from 1983 to 1984. Previously known insects injurious to barley in Korea were revised and the population dynamics of 10 dominant harmful species were analyzed according to either 24 localities or 25 cultivars respectively by using several sampling methods of net sweeping, black light traps, yellow water pan traps and visual counting. As the results, a total of 94 species belonging to 77 genera under 32 families are known to be injurious to barley, among them 20 species are newly added here. In the population density level, the dominant species were disclosed as Laodelphax striatellus (43.1 %), Macrosiphum avenae(27.0 %), Rhopalosiphum padi(6.5 %), R. maidis(5.4 %), Psammolettix strialus(2.7 %), Chlorops oryzae(2.2 %), Agromyza albipennis(2.1 %) Phyllotreta nemorum(1.4 %), Chaetoenema cylindrica(1.0 %), Dolycoris baccarum(1.0 %) in order. For the general abundance of major insect pests, it was highest in the cultivar P'aldal whereas lowest in Milyang #22. There were tendencies that Psammotettix striatus, Dolycoris baccarum, Phyllotreta nemorum and Chaetocnema cylindrica represented a maximum increase in the beginning of June, while Chlorops oryzae and Agromyza albipennis showed in the middle of May but aphids were in the end of May. In the dominance of natural enemies, Nabis stenoferus occupied 21.4 % and Propylaea japonica 9.6 %.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.277-283
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• 2003

Purpose : Craniopharyngiomas are often accompanied by severe endocrine disorders. Although there is universal growth hormone deficiency(GHD), the resulting growth pattern is very heterogeneous. We report the growth and endocrine outcome of 44 children with craniopharyngioma, with emphasis on initial symptoms, growth before and during growth hormone(GH) treatment and spontaneous growth in spite of GHD. Methods : We performed a retrospective study of 44 children treated at our centre between 1984 and 2002. Results : About 30% of patients had symptoms suggesting endocrine disorder at diagnosis. After surgery, multiple endocrinopathies were almost universal. Before GH therapy, height velocity was $8.00{\pm}2.71cm/yr$ in the normal growth group(n=11) and $1.79{\pm}1.10cm/yr$ in the subnormal growth group(n=7) during the first year and during the second year, $6.76{\pm}2.49cm/yr$ and $2.29{\pm}1.33cm/yr$, respectively. There was no difference of body mass index(BMI) change between before and after surgery in the two groups. Height standard deviation score(SDS) was $-1.46{\pm}0.74$ in the normal growth group and $-0.43{\pm}0.97$ in the subnormal growth group. Before GH treatment height SDS was $-1.31{\pm}1.25$ and BMI was $20.46{\pm}3.60$. During GH treatment, height SDS increased to $-0.60{\pm}1.37$ in the first, and to $-0.41{\pm}1.54$ in the second year(P<0.05), but BMI did not change significantly. Conclusion : The endocrine morbidity could develop in most children with craniopharyngioma before and after the operation and should be managed properly. Although all treated patients benefit from GH therapy, further studies are necessary to find out the possible mechanism of growth regulation in normally growing children, despite GH deficient.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.43-57
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• 2012

To enhance the competitive advantage in a constantly changing business environment, an enterprise management must make the right decision in many business activities based on both internal and external information. Thus, providing accurate information plays a prominent role in management's decision making. Intuitively, historical data can provide a feasible estimate through the forecasting models. Therefore, if the service department can estimate the service quantity for the next period, the service department can then effectively control the inventory of service related resources such as human, parts, and other facilities. In addition, the production department can make load map for improving its product quality. Therefore, obtaining an accurate service forecast most likely appears to be critical to manufacturing companies. Numerous investigations addressing this problem have generally employed statistical methods, such as regression or autoregressive and moving average simulation. However, these methods are only efficient for data with are seasonal or cyclical. If the data are influenced by the special characteristics of product, they are not feasible. In our research, we propose a forecasting framework that predicts service demand of manufacturing organization by combining Case-based reasoning (CBR) and leveraging an unsupervised artificial neural network based clustering analysis (i.e., Self-Organizing Maps; SOM). We believe that this is one of the first attempts at applying unsupervised artificial neural network-based machine-learning techniques in the service forecasting domain. Our proposed approach has several appealing features : (1) We applied CBR and SOM in a new forecasting domain such as service demand forecasting. (2) We proposed our combined approach between CBR and SOM in order to overcome limitations of traditional statistical forecasting methods and We have developed a service forecasting tool based on the proposed approach using an unsupervised artificial neural network and Case-based reasoning. In this research, we conducted an empirical study on a real digital TV manufacturer (i.e., Company A). In addition, we have empirically evaluated the proposed approach and tool using real sales and service related data from digital TV manufacturer. In our empirical experiments, we intend to explore the performance of our proposed service forecasting framework when compared to the performances predicted by other two service forecasting methods; one is traditional CBR based forecasting model and the other is the existing service forecasting model used by Company A. We ran each service forecasting 144 times; each time, input data were randomly sampled for each service forecasting framework. To evaluate accuracy of forecasting results, we used Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) as primary performance measure in our experiments. We conducted one-way ANOVA test with the 144 measurements of MAPE for three different service forecasting approaches. For example, the F-ratio of MAPE for three different service forecasting approaches is 67.25 and the p-value is 0.000. This means that the difference between the MAPE of the three different service forecasting approaches is significant at the level of 0.000. Since there is a significant difference among the different service forecasting approaches, we conducted Tukey's HSD post hoc test to determine exactly which means of MAPE are significantly different from which other ones. In terms of MAPE, Tukey's HSD post hoc test grouped the three different service forecasting approaches into three different subsets in the following order: our proposed approach > traditional CBR-based service forecasting approach > the existing forecasting approach used by Company A. Consequently, our empirical experiments show that our proposed approach outperformed the traditional CBR based forecasting model and the existing service forecasting model used by Company A. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides some research background information such as summary of CBR and SOM. Section 3 presents a hybrid service forecasting framework based on Case-based Reasoning and Self-Organizing Maps, while the empirical evaluation results are summarized in Section 4. Conclusion and future research directions are finally discussed in Section 5.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.101-106
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• 2009

Purpose of this study is to compare the signal intensity (SI) and CNR with T1 weighted image using FLASH at 3T abdominal MRI by varying flip angle (FA). Totally 20 patients (male : 12, female : 8, Age : $28{\sim}63$ years with mean : 51) were examined by 3 Tesla MR scanner (Magnetom Tim Trio, SIEMENS, Germany) with 8 channel body array coil between september and October 2008. Imaging parameters were as follows : FLASH sequence, TR : 120 ms, TE : minimum, FOV (field of view) : $360{\times}300\;mm$, Matrix : $256{\times}224$, slice : 6 mm, scan time : 15 sec and Breath-hold technique. Abdominal image, with a 50 ml syringe filled with water placed in the FOV measuring the water signal, were acquired with varying FA through $10^{\circ}$ to $90^{\circ}$ with $10^{\circ}$ interval. SI's were measured three times at liver parenchyme, water, spleen and background and averaged. The CNR's were measured between the ROIs (region of interest). Statistic analysis was performed with ANOVA test using SPSS software (version 17.0). Less than FA $30^{\circ}$, abdominal images were severely inhomogeneity. Especially, T1 effect of water signal was weak. As the flip angle increased, the signal intensity decreased at all the regions. Especially, flip angle of the highest signal intensity was observed with $40^{\circ}$ at the liver parenchyme, $20^{\circ}$ at water, $30^{\circ}$ at the spleen, respectively. The CNR between liver and water was -60.92 at FA $10^{\circ}$ and 15.16 at FA $80^{\circ}$. The CNR between liver and spleen was -3.18 at FA $10^{\circ}$ and 9.65 at $80^{\circ}$. In conclusion, FA $80^{\circ}$ is optimal for T1 weighted effect using FLASH pulse sequence at 3.0 T abdominal MRI.

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.47-53
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• 2007

Soybean curd was mixed with onion powder to develop new foods, and changes in quality characteristics were investigated. The moisture content of onion soybean curd rose as the proportion of onion powder increased Whiteness (as measured by the L value) was high in soybean cud admixed with 0.1% (w/v) onion powder, Redness (the a value) was not significantly altered (the readings were 1.03-1.54) on addition of various onion powder concentrations. Yellowness (the b value) was similarly unaffected (readings 13.00-13.93) when various levels of onion powderwere added. Free sugar analysis showed that glucose was high in soybean curd (67.22 g/100 g) admixed with 0.1% (w/v) onion powder, The main organic acid was tartaric acid, and control organic acids included citric and oxalic acids at high levels. The major free amino acids were L-arginine, ${\gamma}-Amino-n-butyric$ acid, L-histidine, L-glutamic acid, L-serine, L-tyrosine and L-threonine, and amino acid content were high in soybean curd admixed with 0.2% (w/v) onion powder. Major phenolic compounds of onion soybean curd were quercitrin, protocatechuic acid and caffeic acid. The hardness of onion soybean curd was similar to that of the control when onion powder was added to 0.1% or 0.2% (w/v), and decreasedmore onion powder was added. Organoleptic qualities dropped as onion powder levels increased. In summary, onion powder addition to soybean curd is optimal at the 0.2% (w/v) level..

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.279-286
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• 2001

Objective: To elucidate 1) whether there are any differences in the urine concentrations of steroid hormone metabolites between patients with leiomyoma and normal controls 2) the correlation between urinary profiles of steroid hormones and leiomyomas of the uterus according to their type, location, volume, and weight. Materials of Methods : The study population consisted of 37 premenopausal patients with uterine leiomyoma and the control group consisted of 25 premenopausal normal volunteer women without uterine leiomyoma. Confirmation of the existence of uterine leiomyoma was done by ultrasonography and histopathological examination after surgery. The volume of the leiomyoma was estimated by trans-abdominal and/or trans-vaginal ultrasonography. The Leiomyomas were divided into 3 types (subserosal, intramural and submucosal). Seventeen patients had subserosal type of leiomyoma, 10 with the intramural type and 10 with the submucosal type. The locations of the leiomyoma were also divided into 3 groups (fundus, body and isthmus). Seventeen patients showed a fundus location, 10 in body, and 10 in isthmus. We compared urinary profiles of the endogenous steroids between patients with leiomyomas and normal controls, and also investigated the relationship between urinary profiles of the endogenous steroids and leiomyomas according to their type, location, volume and weight by using highly sensitive Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) system. Results: The mean ages of the patients with leiomyomas and the control group were $43.1{\pm}5.6$ and $40.6{\pm}7.2$ years, the weights were $63.4{\pm}7.3$ and $59.4{\pm}8.1\;kg$, and their heights were $155.4{\pm}4.8$ and $159.3{\pm}4.8\;cm$ respectively. Seventeen patients had subserosal, 10 had intramural, and 10 had submucosal leiomyomas. There were 17 patients with leiomyoma located in fundus, 10 in body and 10 in isthmus. $17{\beta}$-estradiol, 5-AT, 11-keto ET, $11{\beta}$-hydroxy An, $11{\beta}$-hydroxy Et, THS, THA, THE, a-cortolone, a-cortol, $\beta$-cortol, $11{\beta}$-OH Et/$11{\beta}$-OH An and E2/E1 were significantly increased in patients with leiomyoma than in the control group. $17{\beta}$-estradiol was significantly increased in the intramural and the submucosal types than in the subserosal type. There was no significant difference in the concentrations of urinary steroids according to the locations of leiomyomas. There was no significant relationship between the concentration of urinary steroids and the volume of the leiomyomas. $17{\beta}$-estradiol significantly decreased as the weight of uterus increased (r=-0.322, p=0.04). Conclusion: The concentrations of steroid hormone metabolites were generally increased in patients with leiomyoma but were not significantly related to the volume and weight of the leiomyomas. Our study suggests that steroid hormones may be involved in the initiation of leiomyomas but may not be involved in their progression. In addition, the concentrations of steroid hormone metabolites are not related to the leiomyoma type and location.