• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.409-416
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• 2015

Purpose: This study evaluates a new banana bulk packaging method under the real transport conditions of Sri Lanka. Methods: A field evaluation of optimized 8-mm thick Styrofoam sheets used as the cushioning material was applied. A trial transport was conducted from Thambuttegama to Colombo using a medium-sized open truck, with banana leaves as the control material. Data were recorded at the farmer, transporter, retailer, and consumer stages of the supply chain. Mechanical damage, physiological loss in weight, fruit firmness, total soluble solids, ripeness index, visual quality ratings, and the physical damage index of the bananas were measured at each stage. A cost-benefit analysis was also conducted for both packaging methods. Results: The 8-mm styrofoam sheets significantly reduced (p < 0.05) the mechanical damage from 26.3% to 12.9% compared to the conventional method for long-distance transport, and the physiological loss in weight showed a decrease of 2.88%. The loss of firmness of the fruits followed a simmilar pattern for both methods until reaching the retailer, but at the consumer was significantly higher (p < 0.05) for the control. However, the physical damage index at the retail stage for the control showed symptoms of physical injury, whereas the bananas transported using the cushioning materials exhibited only minor symptoms. Further, the visual quality of the fruits after transport from the farmer to the consumer was preserved, which is one of the main factors affecting consumer preference and retail price. The proposed method increases the profit margin by 51.2% for Embul bananas owing to the reduced postharvest losses. Conclusion: The 8-mm thick Styrofoam sheets reduced the physical damage to the bananas, with the quality parameters maintained at the prefered level. Moreover, profits may be increased.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.33-40
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• 2013

Background and Objectives:This study is to objectively compare and analyze the acoustic changes in the patients with total thyroidectomy before and after RI therapy. Subjects and Methods:For this study, a total of 50 patients with total thyroidectomy were participated as subjects. Voice samples were obtained at the time of post-operation (Post-OP), before high-dose radioactive iodine therapy (Pre-RIT), and after high-dose radioactive iodine therapy (Post-RIT). Acoustic analysis, the maximum phonation time and K-VHI (Korea-Voice handicap index) were used for subjective evaluation. Results:According to the comparison analysis of the three periods, mFo (Hz) was significantly reduced in all of the vowels /a/ and /i/ as the hormone was discontinued. This can be related to the reduction in vocal range. As thyroid hormone was discontinued, Shim (%) and APQ (%) values, which are the parameters related to the degree of aggressiveness, showed a significant increase in the middle vowel /a/. As thyroid hormone was discontinued, emotional index was significantly decreased in VHI (voice handicap index). Conclusion:These results can be assumed that thyroid hormone suspension is related to the increased changes in the vocal intensity, the increase in noise and the reduction in vocal range. Emotionally, these data can be assumed that the responsive factors of one's own voice disorders were significantly decreased in the patients with vocal handicap.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.2929-2932
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• 2014

Purpose: To evaluate the diagnostic performances of risk of malignancy index (RMI), CA-125 and ultrasound score in differentiating between benign and borderline or malignant ovarian tumors and find the best diagnostic test for referral of suspected malignant ovarian cases to gynaecologic oncologists. Materials and Methods: This prospective study covered 467 women with pelvic tumors scheduled for surgery at our hospital between July 2011 and July 2013. The RMI was obtained from ultrasound score, CA125 and menopausal status. The diagnostic values of each parameter and the RMI were determined and compared using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences Version 14.0.1. Results: In our study, 61% of ovarian tumors were malignant in the post-menopausal age group. RMI with a cut-off 150 had sensitivity of 84% and specificity of 97% in detecting ovarian cancer. CA-125>30 had a sensitivity of 84% and a specificity of 83%. An ultrasound score more than 2 had a sensitivity of 96% and specificity of 81%. RMI had the least false malignant cases thus avoiding unnecessary laparotomies. Ultrasound when used individually had the best sensitivity but poor specificity. Conclusions: Our study has demonstrated the RMI to be an easy, simple and applicable method in the primary evaluation of patients with pelvic masses. It can be used to refer suspected malignant patients to be operated by a gynaecologic oncologist. Other models of preoperative evaluation should be developed to improve the detection of early stage invasive, borderline and non-epithelial ovarian cancers.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.375-389
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• 2001

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of Self-foot Reflex Massage (SRM) programme on the physical condition and anxiety level of hypertension workers. The research was designed in the pre and post-test. Sample test was done in five workers with essential hypertension. They were divided in two groups:- Group A and Group B. The Self-foot Reflex Massage (SRM) was applied three times a week for Group A and five times a week for Group B. The SRM was given in 40 minutes each time for 4 weeks from the 1st of January to the 30th of April in 2001. In order to evaluate the effect on SRM. blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglyceride, HDL cholesterol and LDL cholesterol were measured as physical parameters and state trait anxiety inventory was used twice each time between before and after the exercise. The collected data was analysed by Mann-Whitney test with SPSS program. The results were as follows: 1. Average age for the subjects were 39.8 (ranged from thirty-two to fifty-three) and average period of hypertension history was 42 months (ranged from twenty to eighty-four). 2. There was no significant difference between two examined groups in blood pressure. But, there was a significant difference in SRM of pre and post-test for two groups. 3. There was no significant difference in blood cholesterol between two groups and between pre and post-test. 4. State trait anxiety showed significant difference between pre and post-test except the results between two groups. This result suggests that SRM is effective on the decrease of systolic and diastolic pressure and the relief of state trait anxiety except for the blood cholesterol. Therefore, blood cholesterol is needed further evaluation in large subjects and longer period. Further research is regarded as necessary to evaluate and to compare the precise effects of SRM on the foot reflex massage (FRM) in anxiety.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.812-841
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• 2006

Previous studies have shown that the ex-ante financial ratios, mainly used by financial institutions for loan evaluation purpose, are related to the ex-post finn's performance of venture firm's. The main objective of this study is to examine whether non-financial variables such as 'technology', 'marketability', and 'other business indexes' have extra explanatory power in forecasting the ex-post firm's performance of small and medium size venture firm's in Korea. The implications and results of this study are expected to be useful in loan evaluation, investment decision and internal management decisions of venture firms. Among small and medium sized manufacturing firms funded in the year of 1999 through 2005, 416 firms are selected for our analysis. The relationship between evaluation indexes and firm's success/failure is investigated using binary logistic regression analysis and factor analysis with an aid of SPSS program. The summarized results are as follows. First, current evaluation model, used for loan evaluation purpose for small and medium size manufacturing firms show the same discriminatory power as previous prediction model. Second, among the tested additional variables, significant indices are 'technological capability of CEO', 'managerial capability of CEO', and 'business feasibility'. Third, while previous studies on evaluation structure had 3 factors, this study showed that valuation's structure has 6 factors.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.67-74
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• 2013

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of horseback riding exercise for BMI(body mass index) and waist circumference in the obese women. Method : 20 subjects in Y-equestrian were randomly divided two group, horseback machine exercise(HME) group and horseback-riding exercise(HRE) group. Each group carried out 30 minutes exercise two times a week for 8 weeks. BMI were measured for body composition, and evaluation of waist circumference. Result : The results were as follows, the BMI(body mass index) between horseback machine exercise and horseback-riding exercise groups in post-test, were significantly different in measures(p<.05). And there were significant in two group after exercise(p<.05). The waist circumference between horseback machine exercise and horseback-riding exercise groups in post-test, were significantly different in measures(p<.05). And there were significant in two group after exercise(p<.05). Conclusion : These finding revealed that horseback-riding exercise was effective on BMI and waist circumrerence of obese women so that these exercise can be new altematives exercise for obesity management in the obese women.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.855-866
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• 2001

An important issue for qualified science teacher education should be a proper system of pre-service education for the science teacher. There are various types of science teacher education systems in accordance with their socio-cultural backgrounds. In this paper, science teacher education systems were analysed into 3 different types: Focusing Undergraduate Certification of Education (FUCE), Open Undergraduate Certification of Education (OUCE), and Post Graduate Certification of Education (PGCE). Science teacher education systems and their outcomes, such as the quality of the science teacher, were discussed with their socio-cultural backgrounds, compared by the 3 types of science teacher education systems. For this the results of meta-analysis from TIMSS-R and OECD data sets were used. Special interests focused on countries; Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States, which would represent stereotypes of science teacher education systems and different backgrounds of oriental and western culture.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.407-419
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• 2016

The low flow is the necessary and important index to establish national water planning, however there are lots of uncertainty in the low flow estimation. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to assess the climate change uncertainty and the effects of hydrological models on low flow estimation. The 5 RCMs (HadGEM3-RA, RegCM4, MM5, WRF, and RSM), 5 statistical post-processing methods and 2 hydrological models were applied for evaluation. The study area were selected as Chungju dam and Soyang river dam basin, and the 30 days minimum flow is used for the low flow evaluation. The results of the uncertainty analysis showed that the hydrological model was the largest source of uncertainty about 41.5% in the low flow projection. The uncertainty of hydrological model is higher than the other steps (RCM, statistical post-processing). Also, VIC model is more sensitive for climate change compared to SWAT model. Therefore, the hydrological model should be thoroughly reviewed for the climate change impact assessment on low flow.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.542-550
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• 2020

A stream serve the functions of different water utilization, flood control, and the environment, and contributes to the development of national life and culture. On the other hand, it is difficult to efficiently evaluate various projects, such as effectiveness verification and comparison between projects, because the evaluation procedures and evaluation techniques of projects are not uniform and different for each institution. Therefore, a standardization technology was developed for a post-assessment of stream projects that can recognize stream problems and comprehensively evaluate stream-related projects. To this end, various projects, such as project evaluation techniques, national R&D projects, and social welfare projects, were compared and analyzed, and the standardization stages of the project were first suggested. In addition, based on the standardization stage, the evaluation indices for each stage were derived to develop an evaluation table that can evaluate stream-related projects comprehensively. Finally, it is possible to prevent the repeated use of failure factors in the planned projects.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Broadcast Engineers Conference
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• 2009.01a
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• pp.466-469
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• 2009

This paper presents a modified QIM-JPEG2000 steganography which improves the previous JPEG2000 steganography using quantization index modulation (QIM). Post-embedding changes in file size and PSNR by the modified QIM-JPEG2000 are smaller than those by the previous QIM-JPEG2000. Steganalysis experiments to determine whether messages are embedded in given JPEG2000 images show that the modified QIM-JPEG2000 is more secure than the previous QIMJPEG2000.