• Title/Summary/Keyword: Quantitative Study

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β-elemene Induces Caspase-dependent Apoptosis in Human Glioma Cells in vitro through the Upregulation of Bax and Fas/FasL and Downregulation of Bcl-2

  • Li, Chen-Long;Chang, Liang;Guo, Lin;Zhao, Dan;Liu, Hui-Bin;Wang, Qiu-Shi;Zhang, Ping;Du, Wen-Zhong;Liu, Xing;Zhang, Hai-Tao;Liu, Yang;Zhang, Yao;Xie, Jing-Hong;Ming, Jian-Guang;Cui, Yu-Qiong;Sun, Ying;Zhang, Zhi-Ren;Jiang, Chuan-Lu
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.15 no.23
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    • pp.10407-10412
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    • 2015
  • Background: ${\beta}$-elemene, extracted from herb medicine Curcuma wenyujin has potent anti-tumor effects in various cancer cell lines. However, the activity of ${\beta}$-elemene against glioma cells remains unclear. In the present study, we assessed effects of ${\beta}$-elemene on human glioma cells and explored the underlying mechanism. Materials and Methods: Human glioma U87 cells were used. Cell proliferation was determined with MTT assay and colony formation assay to detect the effect of ${\beta}$-elemene at different doses and times. Fluorescence microscopy was used to observe cell apoptosis with Hoechst 33258 staining and change of glioma apoptosis and cell cycling were analyzed by flow cytometry. Real-time quantitative PCR and Western-blotting assay were performed to investigated the influence of ${\beta}$-elemene on expression levels of Fas/FasL, caspase-3, Bcl-2 and Bax. The experiment was divided into two groups: the blank control group and ${\beta}$-elemne treatment group. Results: With increase in the concentration of ${\beta}$-elemene, cytotoxic effects were enhanced in the glioma cell line and the concentration of inhibited cell viability ($IC_{50}$) was $48.5{\mu}g/mL$ for 24h. ${\beta}$-elemene could induce cell cycle arrest in the G0/G1 phase. With Hoechst 33258 staining, apoptotic nuclear morphological changes were observed. Activation of caspase-3,-8 and -9 was increased and the pro-apoptotic factors Fas/FasL and Bax were upregulated, while the anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 was downregulated after treatment with ${\beta}$-elemene at both mRNA and protein levels. Furthermore, proliferation and colony formation by U87 cells were inhibited by ${\beta}$-elemene in a time and does-dependent manner. Conclusions: Our results indicate that ${\beta}$-elemene inhibits growth and induces apoptosis of human glioma cells in vitro. The induction of apoptosis appears to be related with the upregulation of Fas/FasL and Bax, activation of caspase-3,-8 and -9 and downregulation of Bcl-2, which then trigger major apoptotic cascades.

Seasonal and Spatial Distribution of Soft-bottom Polychaetesin Jinju Bay of the Southern Coast of Korea (진주만에서 저서 다모류의 시 · 공간 분포)

  • Kang Chang Keun;Baik Myung Sun;Kim Jeong Bae;Lee Pil Yong
    • Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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    • v.35 no.1
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    • pp.35-45
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    • 2002
  • Seasonal quantitative van Veen grab sampling was conducted to characterize the composition and structure of the benthic polychaete community inhabiting the shellfish farming ground of a coastal bay system of Jiniu Bay (Korea). A total of 132 polychaete species were identified and the polychaetes accounted for about $80\%$ of overall abundance of benthic animals. There was little significant seasonal difference in densities (abundances) of polychaetes, Maximum biomass was obseued in summer (August) and minimum value was recorded in winter (February) and spring (May). Conversely, diversity and richness were lowest in summer, indicating a seasonal variability in the polychaetous community structure, The cluster analysis indicated that such a seasonal variability resulted mainly from the appearance of a few small, r-selected opportunists in spring and the tubiculous species of the family Maldanidae in summer. On the other hand, several indicator species for the organically enriched environments such as Capitelia capitata, Notoniashs Jatericeus and hmbrineris sp. showed high densities during all the study period. Density and biomass of univariate measures of community structure were significantly lower in the arkshell-farming ground of the southern area than in the non-farming sites of the bay, A similar general tendency was also found in the spatial distributions of species diversity and richness. Principal component analysis revealed the existence of different groups of benthic assemblages between the arkshell-farming ground and non-farming sites, The lack of colonization of r-selected opportunists and/or tubiculous species in the former ground seemed to contribute to the spatial differences in the composition and structure of the polychaetous communities. Although finer granulometric composition and high sulfide concentration in sediments of the arkshell-farming ground and low salinity in the northern area were likely to account for parts of the differences, other environmental variables observed were unlikely. The spatial distribution of polychaetes in Jiniu Bay may be rather closely related to the sedimentary disturbance by selection of shells for harvesting in spring.

Evaluation of Environmental and Economic Impacts of Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plants with Life Cycle Assessment (고도 하수처리장의 전과정평가에 따른 환경성 및 경제성 평가)

  • Pyo, SeHee;Kim, MinJeong;Lee, SeungChul;Yoo, ChangKyoo
    • Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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    • v.52 no.4
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    • pp.503-515
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    • 2014
  • A lot of existing wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are rebuilt or retrofitted for advanced wastewater treatment processes to cope with reinforced effluent criteria of nitrogen and phosphorous. Moreover, how to treat the wasted sludge from WWTPs has been also issued since the discharge of the wasted sludge into ocean is impossible from 2011 due to the London Convention 97 protocol. These trend changes of WWTPs get a motivation to assess environmental and economic impacts from the construction stage to the waste stage in WWTPs. Therefore, this study focuses on evaluation of environmental and economic impacts of the advanced wastewater treatment processes and waste sludge treatment process by using life cycle assessment. Four advanced wastewater treatment processes of Anaerobic/Anoxic/Oxic ($A_2O$), 5 stages-Bamard Denitrification Phosphate (Bardenpho), Virginia Initiative Plant (VIP), and Modified University of Cape Town (MUCT) are chosen to compare the conventional activated sludge (CAS) and three waste sludge treatment methods of land fill, incineration, and composting are used. To evaluate environmental and economic impacts of each advanced wastewater treatment processes, life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC) are conducted based on International organization for standardization (ISO) guidelines. The results clearly represent that the $A_2O$ process with composting shows 52% reduction in the environmental impact than the CAS process with landfill. On the other hand, the MUCT process with composting is able to save 62% of the life cycle cost comparing with the CAS process with landfill. This result suggested the qualitative and quantitative criteria for evaluating eco-environmental and economic technologies of advanced treatment processes and also sludge treatment method, where their main influence factors on environmental and economic impacts are analyzed, respectively. The proposed method could be useful for selecting the most efficient and eco-friendly wastewater treatment process and sludge treatment method when retrofitting the existing WWTPs to advanced treatments.

Varietal Analysis and Quantification of Resveratrol in Mulberry Fruits (뽕나무 계통별 오디의 레스베라트롤 함량 분석)

  • Kim Hyun-Bok;Kim Jung-Bong;Kim Sun-Lim
    • Journal of Sericultural and Entomological Science
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    • v.47 no.2
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    • pp.51-55
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    • 2005
  • Resveratrol is naturally occurring phytoalexin compounds produced by grape berries, peanuts, and their products in response to stress such as fungal infection, heavy metal ions or UV irradiation. The objective of this study was to develope a reliable high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method for the quantitative determination of trans-resveratrol in mulberry fruit. Samples were extracted in 80% MeOH and filtered with $0.45{\mu}m$ syringe filter. The transresveratrol was separated Waters $C_{18}$ column, using a mobile phase containing 0.025% trifluroacetic acid in 5% acetonitril and 0.035% trifluroacetic acid in 50% acetonitril, detected by photodiode array detector (PDA) at 254 nm and the flow rate was 1ml/min. Under this analytical condition, the mean content of mulberry fruits (fifty varieties) was $777.3{\pm}585.9ppm$. Among the tested samples, 'Mansaengbaekpinosang (II)' was the highest level in 3450.6 ppm. However four accessions including 'Gukbu', 'Sabangso (I)', 'Simseol' and yield mulberry fruit were not able to detected. Eight suitable varieties selected for the production of fruit were 'Jeolgokchosaeng (Chungbuk)' 777.8 ppm, 'Dangsang 7' 771.1 ppm, 'Jangsosang' 133.9 ppm, 'Susungppong' 31.1 ppm, 'Suwonnosang' 639.7 ppm, 'Palcheongsipyung' 1475.9 ppm, 'Kangsun' 864.0 ppm, and 'Jukcheonchosaeng' 1458.5 ppm. 'Daesungppong' which was the first authorized variety for the production of mulberry fruit was 1236.7 ppm. In conclusion, these results suggest that mulberry including fruit and leaf may a good new resource for resveratrol production.

Three Dimensional Measurements of Pore Morphological and Hydraulic Properties (토양 공극 형태와 수문학적 특성에 대한 3 차원적 측정)

  • Chun, Hyen-Chung;Gimenez, Daniel;Yoon, Sung-Won;Heck, Richard;Elliot, Tom;Ziska, Laise;Geaorge, Kate;Sonn, Yeon-Kyu;Ha, Sang-Keun
    • Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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    • v.43 no.4
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    • pp.415-423
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    • 2010
  • Pore network models are useful tools to investigate soil pore geometry. These models provide quantitative information of pore geometry from 3D images. This study presents a pore network model to quantify pore structure and hydraulic characteristics. The objectives of this work were to apply the pore network model to characterize pore structure from large images to quantify pore structure, calculate water retention and hydraulic conductivity properties from a three dimensional soil image, and to combine measured hydraulic properties from experiments with calculated hydraulic properties from image. Soil samples were taken from a site located at the Baltimore science center, which is located inside of the city. Undisturbed columns were taken from the site and scanned with a computer tomographer at resolutions of 22 ${\mu}m$. Pore networks were extracted by medial-axis transformation and were used to measure pore geometry from one of the scanned samples. Water retention and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity values were calculated from the soil image. Properties of soil bulk density, water retention and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity were measured from three replicates of scanned soil samples. 3D image analysis provided accurate detailed pore properties such as individual pore volumes, pore length, and tortuosity of all pores. These data made possible to calculate accurate estimations of water retention and hydraulic conductivity. Combination of the calculated and measured hydraulic properties gave more accurate information on pore sizes over wider range than measured or calculated data alone. We could conclude that the hydraulic property computed from soil images and laboratory measurements can describe a full structure of intra- and inter-aggregate pores in soil.

The effects of the mulberry and silkworm intake on androgen receptor mRNA and myogenic regulatory factors expression of rats muscle for resistance exercise (오디와 누에 섭취가 rats의 저항성 운동에 따른 androgen receptor mRNA와 myogenic regulatory factors의 발현에 미치는 영향)

  • Yang, Sung Jun;Kim, Chang Yong;Lee, Jo Byoung;Kang, Sung Sun;Lee, Jong Jin
    • Journal of Sericultural and Entomological Science
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    • v.51 no.2
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    • pp.99-106
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    • 2013
  • The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of supplementation of mulberry powder, mulberry extract and silkworm powder during the 8 weeks of resistance exercise on Androgen receptor(AR) mRNA and Myogenic regulatory factors(MRFs) expression of rats muscle. Fifty males, Sprague-Dawley rat, were randomly divided into 5 groups: CON(control group, n = 10), REG(resistance exercise group, n = 10), MP REG(mulberry powder intake and resistance exercise group, n = 10), ME REG(mulberry extract intake and resistance exercise group, n = 10) and SP REG(silkworm powder intake and resistance exercise group, n = 10). After climbing the ladder without weights during the 1 week of adaptation period, the rats in the resistance exercise group were trained to climb a 0.98-m vertical(80 degree incline) ladder with weights in their tail during 7 weeks(10 times each day, 2 days per week). After exercise, the skeletal muscle was extracted from the flexor hallucis longus. After separating the total ribonucleic acid (RNA) of each group, quantitative polymerase chain reaction was used to analyze RNA quantitatively. AR mRNA and MRFs expression revealed that all of the treated groups had significantly difference. AR mRNA expression increased in ME REG $6.24{\pm}1.85$ and SP REG $9.68{\pm}0.28$ fold compared to CON. Myod mRNA expression increased in MP REG $6.04{\pm}0.47$, ME REG $4.31{\pm}1.58$ and SP REG $8.11{\pm}0.57$ fold compared to CON. And myogenin mRNA expression increased in MP REG $4.11{\pm}0.42$, ME REG $4.12{\pm}0.45$ and SP REG $6.50{\pm}0.61$ fold compared to CON. In conclusion, during the resistance exercise, providing mulberry and silkworm gives positive effect on AR mRNA and MRFs expression increase.

Analysis of National Stream Drying Phenomena using DrySAT-WFT Model: Focusing on Inflow of Dam and Weir Watersheds in 5 River Basins (DrySAT-WFT 모형을 활용한 전국 하천건천화 분석: 전국 5대강 댐·보 유역의 유입량을 중심으로)

  • LEE, Yong-Gwan;JUNG, Chung-Gil;KIM, Won-Jin;KIM, Seong-Joon
    • Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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    • v.23 no.2
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    • pp.53-69
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    • 2020
  • The increase of the impermeable area due to industrialization and urban development distorts the hydrological circulation system and cause serious stream drying phenomena. In order to manage this, it is necessary to develop a technology for impact assessment of stream drying phenomena, which enables quantitative evaluation and prediction. In this study, the cause of streamflow reduction was assessed for dam and weir watersheds in the five major river basins of South Korea by using distributed hydrological model DrySAT-WFT (Drying Stream Assessment Tool and Water Flow Tracking) and GIS time series data. For the modeling, the 5 influencing factors of stream drying phenomena (soil erosion, forest growth, road-river disconnection, groundwater use, urban development) were selected and prepared as GIS-based time series spatial data from 1976 to 2015. The DrySAT-WFT was calibrated and validated from 2005 to 2015 at 8 multipurpose dam watershed (Chungju, Soyang, Andong, Imha, Hapcheon, Seomjin river, Juam, and Yongdam) and 4 gauging stations (Osucheon, Mihocheon, Maruek, and Chogang) respectively. The calibration results showed that the coefficient of determination (R2) was 0.76 in average (0.66 to 0.84) and the Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency was 0.62 in average (0.52 to 0.72). Based on the 2010s (2006~2015) weather condition for the whole period, the streamflow impact was estimated by applying GIS data for each decade (1980s: 1976~1985, 1990s: 1986~1995, 2000s: 1996~2005, 2010s: 2006~2015). The results showed that the 2010s averaged-wet streamflow (Q95) showed decrease of 4.1~6.3%, the 2010s averaged-normal streamflow (Q185) showed decreased of 6.7~9.1% and the 2010s averaged-drought streamflow (Q355) showed decrease of 8.4~10.4% compared to 1980s streamflows respectively on the whole. During 1975~2015, the increase of groundwater use covered 40.5% contribution and the next was forest growth with 29.0% contribution among the 5 influencing factors.

Retrospective Evaluation of Discrepancies between Radiological and Pathological Size of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Masses

  • Tian, Fei;Wu, Jian-Xiong;Rong, Wei-Qi;Wang, Li-Ming;Wu, Fan;Yu, Wei-Bo;An, Song-Lin;Liu, Fa-Qiang;Feng, Li;Liu, Yun-He
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.15 no.21
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    • pp.9487-9494
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    • 2014
  • Background: The size of a hepatic neoplasm is critical for staging, prognosis and selection of appropriate treatment. Our study aimed to compare the radiological size of solid hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) masses on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with the pathological size in a Chinese population, and to elucidate discrepancies. Materials and Methods: A total of 178 consecutive patients diagnosed with HCC who underwent curative hepatic resection after enhanced MRI between July 2010 and October 2013 were retrospectively identified and analyzed. Pathological data of the whole removed tumors wereassessed and differences between radiological and pathological tumor size were identified. All patients were restaged using a modified Tumor-Node-Metastasis (TNM) staging system postoperatively according to the maximum diameter alteration. The lesions were classified as hypo-staged, iso-staged or hyper-staged for qualitative assessment. In the quantitative analysis, the relative pre and postoperative tumor size contrast ratio ($%{\Delta}size$) was also computed according to size intervals. In addition, the relationship between radiological and pathological tumor diameter variation and histologic grade was analyzed. Results: Pathological examination showed 85 (47.8%) patients were overestimated, 82 (46.1%) patients underestimated, while accurate measurement by MRI was found in 11 (6.2%) patients. Among the total subjects, 14 (7.9%) patients were hypo-staged and 15 (8.4%) were hyper-staged post-operatively. Accuracy of MRI for calculation and characterized staging was related to the lesion size, ranging from 83.1% to 87.4% (<2cm to ${\geq}5cm$, p=0.328) and from 62.5% to 89.1% (cT1 to cT4, p=0.006), respectively. Overall, MRI misjudged pathological size by 6.0 mm (p=0.588 ), and the greatest difference was observed in tumors <2cm (3.6 mm, $%{\Delta}size=16.9%$, p=0.028). No statistically significant difference was observed for moderately differentiated HCC (5.5mm, p=0.781). However, for well differentiated and poorly differentiated cases, radiographic tumor maximum diameter was significantly larger than the pathological maximum diameter by 3.15 mm and underestimated by 4.51 mm, respectively (p=0.034 and 0.020). Conclusions: A preoperative HCC tumor size measurement using MRI can provide relatively acceptable accuracy but may give rise to discrepancy in tumors in a certain size range or histologic grade. In pathological well differentiated subjects, the pathological tumor size was significantly overestimated, but underestimated in poorly differentiated HCC. The difference between radiological and pathological tumor size was greatest for tumors <2 cm. For some HCC patients, the size difference may have implications for the decision of resection, transplantation, ablation, or arterially directed therapy, and should be considered in staging or selecting the appropriate treatment tactics.

Detection of Megalocytivirus in shellfish using PCR with various DNA extraction methods (다양한 PCR용 DNA 추출법에 의한 패류 내 Megalocytivirus의 검출)

  • Kim, Jin-Woo;Cho, Mi-Young;Jin, Ji-Woong;Kim, Ki-Hong;Jeong, Hyun-Do;Kim, Kwang-Il
    • Journal of fish pathology
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    • v.24 no.2
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    • pp.65-73
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    • 2011
  • In analysis of DNA viruses from the contaminated shellfish using PCR, preparation method of template DNA is an important factor to get enough copy number of viruses. In this study, we evaluated the efficiency of PCR template of Megalocytivirus (sT50mg-D) DNA obtained from 50 mg digestive gland homogenate of oyster using commercial method, and compared with that obtained from 5 g of the same tissues (T5g-D) after PEG precipitation procedures of virus. Both templates DNA suspended in the same volume of distilled water showed positive results by primary PCR with 35 cycles, and the presence of Megalocytivirus was confirmed in oysters collected from cultured farms in Korea. Moreover, PCR with sT50mg-D allowed us to discriminate the contaminated oyster individually, that can not be done in PCR with T5g-D prepared from the mixture of three different individual oyster to get 5 g digestive gland homogenate. In quantitative analysis with real time PCR, Megalocytivirus concentrations in 50 ${\mu}l$ templates prepared using 0.5~50 mg of one positive sample were appeared in the range 6.14E+00~1.2E+02/${\mu}l$. We were not able to get positive result using template DNA contained less than 6.14E+00 copies. Consequently, 2-step PCR performed with DNA extracts from oyster homogenate of small amount (sT50mg-D) i) was enough to detect the contaminated Megalocytivirus in shellfish, ii) allowed us to do the analysis for individual shellfish rather than mixture of several shellfish and iii) showed the presence of Megalocytivirus in oyster from Korea.

Development of the Information Delivery System for the Home Nursing Service (가정간호사업 운용을 위한 정보전달체계 개발 I (가정간호 데이터베이스 구축과 뇌졸중 환자의 가정간호 전산개발))

  • Park, J.H;Kim, M.J;Hong, K.J;Han, K.J;Park, S.A;Yung, S.N;Lee, I.S;Joh, H.;Bang, K.S
    • Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
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    • v.4
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    • pp.5-22
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    • 1997
  • The purpose of the study was to development an information delivery system for the home nursing service, to demonstrate and to evaluate the efficiency of it. The period of research conduct was from September 1996 to August 31, 1997. At the 1st stage to achieve the purpose, Firstly Assessment tool for the patients with cerebral vascular disease who have the first priority of HNS among the patients with various health problems at home was developed through literature review. Secondly, after identification of patient nursing problem by the home care nurse with the assessment tool, the patient's classification system developed by Park (1988) that was 128 nursing activities under 6 categories was used to identify the home care nurse's activities of the patient with CAV at home. The research team had several workshops with 5 clinical nurse experts to refine it. At last 110 nursing activities under 11 categories for the patients with CVA were derived. At the second stage, algorithms were developed to connect 110 nursing activities with the patient nursing problems identified by assessment tool. The computerizing process of the algorithms is as follows: These algorithms are realized with the computer program by use of the software engineering technique. The development is made by the prototyping method, which is the requirement analysis of the software specifications. The basic features of the usability, compatibility, adaptability and maintainability are taken into consideration. Particular emphasis is given to the efficient construction of the database. To enhance the database efficiency and to establish the structural cohesion, the data field is categorized with the weight of relevance to the particular disease. This approach permits the easy adaptability when numerous diseases are applied in the future. In paralleled with this, the expandability and maintainability is stressed through out the program development, which leads to the modular concept. However since the disease to be applied is increased in number as the project progress and since they are interrelated and coupled each other, the expand ability as well as maintainability should be considered with a big priority. Furthermore, since the system is to be synthesized with other medical systems in the future, these properties are very important. The prototype developed in this project is to be evaluated through the stage of system testing. There are various evaluation metrics such as cohesion, coupling and adaptability so on. But unfortunately, direct measurement of these metrics are very difficult, and accordingly, analytical and quantitative evaluations are almost impossible. Therefore, instead of the analytical evaluation, the experimental evaluation is to be applied through the test run by various users. This system testing will provide the viewpoint analysis of the user's level, and the detail and additional requirement specifications arising from user's real situation will be feedback into the system modeling. Also. the degree of freedom of the input and output will be improved, and the hardware limitation will be investigated. Upon the refining, the prototype system will be used as a design template. and will be used to develop the more extensive system. In detail. the relevant modules will be developed for the various diseases, and the module will be integrated by the macroscopic design process focusing on the inter modularity, generality of the database. and compatibility with other systems. The Home care Evaluation System is comprised of three main modules of : (1) General information on a patient, (2) General health status of a patient, and (3) Cerebrovascular disease patient. The general health status module has five sub modules of physical measurement, vitality, nursing, pharmaceutical description and emotional/cognition ability. The CVA patient module is divided into ten sub modules such as subjective sense, consciousness, memory and language pattern so on. The typical sub modules are described in appendix 3.

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