• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.113-129
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• 2015

Location branding is a very important income making activity, by giving special meanings to a specific location while producing identity and communal value which are based around the understanding of a place's location branding concept methodology. Many other areas, such as marketing, architecture, and city construction, exert an influence creating an impressive brand image. A place brand which shows great recognition to both native people of S. Korea and foreigners creates significant economic effects. There has been research on creating a strategically and detailed place brand image, and the representative research has been carried out by Anholt who surveyed two million people from 50 different countries. However, the investigation, including survey research, required a great deal of effort from the workforce and required significant expense. As a result, there is a need to make more affordable, objective and effective research methods. The purpose of this paper is to find a way to measure the intensity of the image of the brand objective and at a low cost through text mining purposes. The proposed method extracts the keyword and the factors constructing the location brand image from the related web documents. In this way, we can measure the brand image intensity of the specific location. The performance of the proposed methodology was verified through comparison with Anholt's 50 city image consistency index ranking around the world. Four methods are applied to the test. First, RNADOM method artificially ranks the cities included in the experiment. HUMAN method firstly makes a questionnaire and selects 9 volunteers who are well acquainted with brand management and at the same time cities to evaluate. Then they are requested to rank the cities and compared with the Anholt's evaluation results. TM method applies the proposed method to evaluate the cities with all evaluation criteria. TM-LEARN, which is the extended method of TM, selects significant evaluation items from the items in every criterion. Then the method evaluates the cities with all selected evaluation criteria. RMSE is used to as a metric to compare the evaluation results. Experimental results suggested by this paper's methodology are as follows: Firstly, compared to the evaluation method that targets ordinary people, this method appeared to be more accurate. Secondly, compared to the traditional survey method, the time and the cost are much less because in this research we used automated means. Thirdly, this proposed methodology is very timely because it can be evaluated from time to time. Fourthly, compared to Anholt's method which evaluated only for an already specified city, this proposed methodology is applicable to any location. Finally, this proposed methodology has a relatively high objectivity because our research was conducted based on open source data. As a result, our city image evaluation text mining approach has found validity in terms of accuracy, cost-effectiveness, timeliness, scalability, and reliability. The proposed method provides managers with clear guidelines regarding brand management in public and private sectors. As public sectors such as local officers, the proposed method could be used to formulate strategies and enhance the image of their places in an efficient manner. Rather than conducting heavy questionnaires, the local officers could monitor the current place image very shortly a priori, than may make decisions to go over the formal place image test only if the evaluation results from the proposed method are not ordinary no matter what the results indicate opportunity or threat to the place. Moreover, with co-using the morphological analysis, extracting meaningful facets of place brand from text, sentiment analysis and more with the proposed method, marketing strategy planners or civil engineering professionals may obtain deeper and more abundant insights for better place rand images. In the future, a prototype system will be implemented to show the feasibility of the idea proposed in this paper.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.95-102
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• 1985

This report offers descriptive data about the drugs utilized in out patient department (OPD) of Yeungnam University Hospital (YUH) in the period of march to august in 1985. The data in this report were produced by the computerized totalization of the number of mentions of individual drugs included in the prescriptions. The 100 drug entries that were most frequently recorded are listed in rank order. The listing is arbiturarily restricted to the drugs that were prescribed as single preparations, the drugs of basis of compound preparations and the drugs of adjuvent or corrective of compound preparations that have significant therapeutic effects either by generic names. And in addition, the listing also involves the compound preparations used in relatively large frequency, and the individual components of which have the unique pharmacological actions each other by proprietary names. And all routes of administrations were allowed. The 10 drugs most frequently named are diazepam, aluminum compounds, acetaminophen, isoniazid, metoclopramide, $polaramine^{(R)}$, carboxymethylcystem, ephedrine, codeine and caroverine in order. The 521,855 drug mentions listed as above are described by the chief therapeutic usage that each is intended to apply generally. The drugs which account the largest proportion of total mentions were those acting on the central nervous system (20.57%), including tranquilhzers and sedative hypnotics (11.71%), analgesic antipyretics (5.55%), antidepressants (2.15%) etc. Gastrointestinal drugs and smooth muscle preparations (18.64%) included antacids and anti-ulcer drugs (9.24%), antiemetics (3.57%), spasmolytics (3.14%) and others. Respiratory drugs (16.11%) included expectorants and cough preparations (10.99%) and bronchodilators (5.12%). Chemotherapeutic agents (15.12%) included the antiTbc drugs (7.09%) most frequently, and the penicillins (3.33%) accounted the largest proportion among the antibiotics. Cardiovascular drugs (5.64%) included cardiac drugs and coronary vasodilator (4.12%) and antihypertensives and vasodilators (1.06%). And anti-inflammatory drugs (4.33%), vitamins of single preparations (3.76%), hormones and their antagonists (3.29%), common cold preparations (3.12%), diuretics (2.81%), drugs supporting liver function (2.02%), drugs affecting autonomic nervous system(1.89%) including anti-glaucomas, atropine and cerebral vasodilators, antihistamine drugs (1.02%) and disinfectants (0.74%) were following in order. The data in this report were compared to those reported by H. Koch, et al. in United States (US), 1981 as "Drugs Most Frequently Used in Office Practice:National Ambulatory Medical Case Survey, 1981." Cardiovascular drugs prescribed in YUH were much less in proportion than in US (10.56%), but gastrointestinal drugs accounted the larger proportion than in US (3.72%). Expectorants and cough preparations in YUH also accounted the larger proportion than in US (2.74%). In conclusion, in the period of march to august, 1985, OPD of YUH prescribed the CNS drugs including diazepam most frequently, and gastrointestinal, repiratory and chemotherapeutic drugs in next orders. It is supposed that the eating habits of Koreans and a unique atmospheric condition in Taegu as a basin were some important factors that affected the proportions of drugs acting on gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.188-193
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• 2018

Objectives : Clozapine is a widely prescribed antipsychotic drug for schizophrenia and is known to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease due to its metabolic side effects. However, little is known about the effect of clozapine on the platelet activation, another important factor in the development of cardiovascular disease. In this study, we tried to investigate the effect of clozapine on platelet activity in patients with schizophrenia by comparing the mean platelet component (MPC) values before and after the clozapine administration. Methods : A retrospective review of medical records of patients with schizophrenia, who newly started clozapine treatment from September 1st, 2003 to April 30th, 2007 at the Department of Psychiatry, Konyang University Hospital in Republic of Korea was performed. The final statistical analysis included 14 participants. Bayer ADVIA $120^{(R)}$ system was used to measure MPC. Results : Among the 14 participants, five subjects were males (28.60%), and ten subjects were females (71.40%). The mean age of participants was $37.50{\pm}11.64years$. Average of duration of illness was $91.00{\pm}93.96months$, with the mean dosage of clozapine taken by participants at the time of the last blood test was $337.50{\pm}109.52mg$. The mean MPC measurement before and after receiving clozapine was $26.12{\pm}2.22g/dL$ and $25.14{\pm}2.08g/dL$ respectively. Wilcoxon signed rank test showed that there was a statistically significant decrease in MPC levels after clozapine administration (V=16, p=0.024). Conclusions : Decreased MPC levels after clozapine administration implies that clozapine may increase platelet activation which could have an adverse effect on the occurrence of thromboembolic disease. Our findings also suggest that careful monitoring of the risk factors of cardiovascular diseases, such as platelets activity, is necessary when administering clozapine.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.1-11
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• 2013

This study investigated Chinese Laws on the kind of urban green spaces and the legal requirements for the green spaces of urban habitat and analyzed the specificities of them intending to provide basic data to suggest bringing in or not the relevant Chinese Laws to Korea. This study can be summarized as follows: First, the concept of Chinese urban green spaces(g.s.) classified by 5 kinds(park g.s., production g.s., protection g.s., attachment g.s., the others g.s.) placed the park and green spaces in the same category unlike the Korean urban green spaces that only distinguishes between park and green spaces. The Chinese Urban Park is classified by 4 kinds(composite park, community park, special park, linear park) at the 'Standard for urban green spaces classification' which is below in rank of the legal system. Second, in case of calculation for green spaces ratio of urban green spaces in China, the green rooftop landscaping area should not be included as a green spaces area except the rooftop of a basement or semi basement building to which residents have easy access. The green spaces requirements and compulsory secure ratio by 3 habitat kinds(habitat, small habit, minimum habitat) of when to act as a residential plan is regulated. Third, the green spaces system is obligated to establish at habitat green spaces plan and is specified to conserve and improve existing trees and green spaces. The green spaces ratio on reconstruction for old habitat is relaxed to be lower than for new habitat and a gradient of green spaces is peculiarly clarified. The details and requirements for establishment and the minimum area intending for each classes of the central green spaces(habitat park, children park, minimum habitat's green spaces) are regulated. Especially at a garden style of minimum habitat's green spaces, intervals between the south and north houses and a compulsory security for green spaces area classifying into two groups(closing type green spaces and open type green spaces) by a middle-rise or high-rise building are clarified. System of calculation for green spaces area is presented at a special regulation. Fourth, a general index(area/person) of public green spaces within habitat to achieve by 3 habitat kinds is determined, in this case, the index on reconstruction for a deterioration zone can be relaxed to be lower to the extent of a specified quantity. A location and scale, minimum width and minimum area per place of public green spaces are regulated. A space plot principle including adjacent to a road, greening area ratio against total area, security of open space and the shadow line boundary of sunshine are also regulated to intend for public green spaces. Fifth, the minimum horizontal distance between the underground cables and the surrounding greening trees are regulated as the considerable items for green spaces when setting up the underground cables. The principle to establish green spaces within public service facilities is regulated according to the kind of service contents. It shall be examined in order to import or not the special regulations that only exist in Chinese Laws but not in Korean Laws. The result of this study will contribute to gain the domestic landscape architect's' sympathy of the research related to Chinese urban green spaces laws requiring immediate attention and will be a good chance to advance into the internationalization of Korean Landscape Architectural Laws.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.98 no.1
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• pp.66-81
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• 2009

From a new perspective of "humans and the culture of forming and conserving the environment", the sustainable forest management can be reformulated under the concept of "cultural sustainability". Cultural sustainability is based on the emphasis of the high contribution to sustainability of the culture of forming and conserving the environment. This study extracts the implications to cultural sustainability for the modern world by investigating a historical case of the culturo-social pine forestry in the Joseon period of Korea. In the legendary and recorded acts by the first king Taejo, Seonggye Yi, Korean red pine (Pinus densiflora) was the "Royal tree" of Joseon and also the "Sajik tree" related intimately with the Great Sajik Ritual valued as the top rank within the national ritual regime that sustained the Royal Virtue Politics in Confucian political ideology. Into the Neo-Confucian faith and royal rituals of Joseon, elements of geomancy (Feng shui), folk religion, and Buddhism had been amalgamated. The deities worshipped or revered at the Sajik shrine were Earth-god (Sa) and crop-god (Jik). And it is the Earth god and the concrete entity, Sajik tree, that contains the legacy of sylvan religion descended from the ancient times and had been incorporated into the Confucian faith and ritual regime. Korean red pine as the Royal-Sajik tree played a critical role of sustaining the religio-political justification for the rule of the Joseon's Royalty. The religio-political symbolism of Korean red pine was represented in diverse ways. The same pine was used as the timber material of shrine buildings established for the national rituals under Neo-Confucian faith by the royal court of Joseon kingdom before the modern Korea. The symbolic role of pine had also been expressed in the forms of royal tomb forests, the Imposition Forest (Bongsan) for royal coffin timber (Whangjangmok), and the creation, protection, conservation and bureaucratic management of the pine forests in the Inner-four and Outer-four mountains for the capital fortress at Seoul, where the king and his family inhabit. The religio-political management system of pine forests parallels well with the kingdom's economic forest management system, called "Pine Policy", with an array of pine cultivation forests and Prohibition Forests (Geumsan) in the earlier period, and that of Imposition Forests in the later period. The royal pine culture with the economic forest management system had influenced on the public consciousness and the common people seem to have coined Malrimgat, a pure Korean word that is interchangeable with the Chinesecharacter words of prohibition-cultivation land or forest (禁養地, 禁養林) practiced in the royal tomb forests, and Prohibition and Imposition Forests, which contained prohibition landmarks (Geumpyo) made of stone and rock on the boundaries. A culturo-social forestry, in which Sajik altar, royal tomb forests, Whangjang pine Prohibition and Imposition forests and the capital Inner-four and Outer-four mountain forests consist, was being put into practice in Joseon. In Joseon dynastry, the Neo-Confucian faith and royal rituals with geomancy, folk religion, and Buddhism incorporated has also played a critical humanistic role for the culturo-social pine forestry, the one higher in values than that of the economic pine forestry. The implications have been extracted from the historical case study on the Royal-Sajik tree and culturo-social forestry of Joseon : Cultural sustainability, in which the interaction between humans and environment maintains a long-term culturo-natural equilibrium or balance for many generations, emphasizes the importance that the modern humans who form and conserve environment need to rediscover and transform their culturo-natural legacy into conservation for many generations and produce knowledge of sustainability science, the transdisciplinary knowledge for the interaction between environment and humans, which fulfills the cultural, social and spiritual needs.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.166-182
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• 1994

Kyonggi Province in the late Chosun dynasty was a center of superior government offices including 'Han' River water-road transportation and was located in the middle of an 'X'-shaped arterial road network. Because of these reasons, Kyonggi Province had a faster inflow of commodities, informations and technics compared with the other province. At this period of time, every local 'Eup' (name of administrative district) had not been affected by their above administrative districts and had their own autonomy. For this reason, every 'Eup' could be developed as a town, even if its size was small when it had sufficient internal growing conditions. Moreover, the markets ('Si-Jon') in big towns and periodical markets which were spread over the Kyonggi Province played role of commercial functions of town. And because military bases for the defence of the royal capital in Kyonggi Province also took parts of a non-agricultural city role, Xyonggi Provinc had much more possibilities of growing as a town rather than the other provinces. The towns of the late Chosun Dynasty were, except the capital and superior administrative districts which were governed by the 'You-Su', small towns which had only about 3, 000-5, 000 people. Most of the town dewellers were local officials, nobles, merchants, craftmen and slaves. And the farmers who lived near town became a pseudo-towner through suburb agriculture. Among these people, the merchants were leaders of townization. The downtowns were affected by the landform and traffic roads. The most fundamental function of towns were administrative. The opcial's grade, which was dispatched to the local administrative district ('Kun' or 'Hyun'), was decided by the size of population and agricultural land of each county. Large county which was governed by a high ranking opcial had more possibilities to develop as a large town. Because they supervised other opcials of lower rank and obtained more land and population for the town. The phonomena of farm abandonment after the Japanese Invasion of Korea in 1592-1598 stimulated the development of towns for commercial function. The commercial functions of towns were evident in the Si-Jon or Nan-Jon (names of markets) in the big cities such as Hansung and Kaesung, meanffwhile in the local areas it was emerged in the shape of periodical market networks as allied with near markets (which were called as Jang-Si) or permanent markets which were grown up from periodical markets. These facts of commercial development induced the birth of commercial town. Kyonggi Province showed the weak points of its defense system during both wars (Japanese Invasion in 1592 and Manchu's Invasion in 1636). The government reinforced its defense system by adding 4 'You-Su-Bus' and several military bases. Each local districts ('Eup'), where Geo-Jins were established, were stimulated to be a town while Jin-Kwan system were, adjusted and enforced. Among Dok-Jins(name of solitary military bases), Youngjongjin was grown up as a large garrison town which only played a role of defense. The number of towns that took roles of non-agricultural functions in Kyonggi Province was 52. Among these towns, 29 were developed as big towns which had above 3, 000 people and most of these towns were located on the northwest-southeast axes of 'X'-shaped arterial trafic network in the Chosn Dynasty, This fact points out that the traffic road is one of the important causes of the development of towns. When we make hierarchy of the towns of Kyonggi Province according to its population and how many functions it had, we can make it as 6 grades. The virst grade town 'Hansung' was the biggest central town of administration, commerce and defdnse. The 2nd grade town includes 'Kaesung' which had historical inertia that it had been the capital of the Koryo Dynesty. The 3rd grade towns include some 'You- Su-Bus' such as Soowon, Kanghwa, Kwangju and also include Mapo, Yongsan and from this we can imagine that the commercial development in the late Chosun Dynasty extremely affected the townization. The 4th-6th grade towns had smiliar population but it can be discriminated by how many town functions it had. So the 4th grade towns were the core of administration, commerce and defense function. 5th grade towns had administrative functions and one of commercial and defense functions. 6th grade towns had only one of these functions. When we research and town conditions of each grades as the ratio of non-agricultural population, we can find out that the towns from the 1st grade to 4th grade show difference by degree of townization but from the 4th grade to 6th grade towns do not show big difference in general.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.483-501
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to apply a multi-metric model of Lentic Ecosystem Health Assessments(LEHA) for environmental impact assessments of Cheongpyung Reservoir during 2005 - 2006 and assessed the ecological model values. The ecosystem model of LEHA was composed of eleven metrics such as biological parameters($B_p$), physical parameters($P_p$), and chemical parameters($C_p$), and determined the rank of ecological health by the criteria. The variables of $B_p$ were metrics of % sensitive species($M_2$, NMS) and insectivore species($M_5$, % $I_n$), which decrease as the water quality degradates, and these metric values were low as 1.5% and 32.4%, respectively. In contrast, the proportions of tolerant species and omnivore species as the other $B_p$ parameters were 43% and 62%, respectively, which indicate a degradation and disturbance of the ecosystem. Riparian vegetation coverage($M_9$, % $V_c$) as a variable of $P_p$, were higher in the 2nd than 1st survey, and decreased toward the dam site from the headwaters. This was due to a habitat simplification(modifications) by frequent bottom dredging of sand and rocks. The variables of $C_p$ were two metrics of specific conductivity($M_{10}$, $C_I$) as an indicator of ionic contents(cations and anions) and the Trophic State Index(TSI) based on chlorophyll-a($M_{11}$, $TSI_{CHL}$) as an indicator of trophic state. These metric values of $C_p$ had high temporal variations, but low spatial variations on the main axis of the reservoir along with the ecological health of a good condition. The environmental impact assessments using the LEHA multi-metric model indicated that the model values of LEHA averaged 30.7 in 1st survey(fair - poor condition) vs. 28 in 2nd survey(poor condition), indicating a temporal variation of the ecological health. The model values of LEHA showed a minimum(28) in the lacustrine zone(S5) and ranged from 29 to 30 in the other locations sampled, indicating a low longitudinal variation. Overall, environmental impact assessments, based on LEHA model, suggest that chemical water quality conditions were in good, but biological conditions were disturbed due to habitat modifications by frequent dredgings in the system.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.191-210
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• 2014

As mobile devices that can be connected to the Internet have spread and networking has become possible whenever/wherever, the Internet has become central in the dissemination and consumption of news. Accordingly, the ways news is gathered, disseminated, and consumed have changed greatly. In the traditional news media such as magazines and newspapers, expert editors determined what events were worthy of deploying their staffs or freelancers to cover and what stories from newswires or other sources would be printed. Furthermore, they determined how these stories would be displayed in their publications in terms of page placement, space allocation, type sizes, photographs, and other graphic elements. In turn, readers-news consumers-judged the importance of news not only by its subject and content, but also through subsidiary information such as its location and how it was displayed. Their judgments reflected their acceptance of an assumption that these expert editors had the knowledge and ability not only to serve as gatekeepers in determining what news was valuable and important but also how to rank its value and importance. As such, news assembled, dispensed, and consumed in this manner can be said to be expert-based recommended news. However, in the era of Internet news, the role of expert editors as gatekeepers has been greatly diminished. Many Internet news sites offer a huge volume of news on diverse topics from many media companies, thereby eliminating in many cases the gatekeeper role of expert editors. One result has been to turn news users from passive receptacles into activists who search for news that reflects their interests or tastes. To solve the problem of an overload of information and enhance the efficiency of news users' searches, Internet news sites have introduced numerous recommendation techniques. Recommendations based on popularity constitute one of the most frequently used of these techniques. This popularity-based approach shows a list of those news items that have been read and shared by many people, based on users' behavior such as clicks, evaluations, and sharing. "most-viewed list," "most-replied list," and "real-time issue" found on news sites belong to this system. Given that collective intelligence serves as the premise of these popularity-based recommendations, popularity-based news recommendations would be considered highly important because stories that have been read and shared by many people are presumably more likely to be better than those preferred by only a few people. However, these recommendations may reflect a popularity bias because stories judged likely to be more popular have been placed where they will be most noticeable. As a result, such stories are more likely to be continuously exposed and included in popularity-based recommended news lists. Popular news stories cannot be said to be necessarily those that are most important to readers. Given that many people use popularity-based recommended news and that the popularity-based recommendation approach greatly affects patterns of news use, a review of whether popularity-based news recommendations actually reflect important news can be said to be an indispensable procedure. Therefore, in this study, popularity-based news recommendations of an Internet news portal was compared with top placements of news in printed newspapers, and news users' judgments of which stories were personally and socially important were analyzed. The study was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, content analyses were used to compare the content of the popularity-based news recommendations of an Internet news site with those of the expert-based news recommendations of printed newspapers. Five days of news stories were collected. "most-viewed list" of the Naver portal site were used as the popularity-based recommendations; the expert-based recommendations were represented by the top pieces of news from five major daily newspapers-the Chosun Ilbo, the JoongAng Ilbo, the Dong-A Daily News, the Hankyoreh Shinmun, and the Kyunghyang Shinmun. In the second stage, along with the news stories collected in the first stage, some Internet news stories and some news stories from printed newspapers that the Internet and the newspapers did not have in common were randomly extracted and used in online questionnaire surveys that asked the importance of these selected news stories. According to our analysis, only 10.81% of the popularity-based news recommendations were similar in content with the expert-based news judgments. Therefore, the content of popularity-based news recommendations appears to be quite different from the content of expert-based recommendations. The differences in importance between these two groups of news stories were analyzed, and the results indicated that whereas the two groups did not differ significantly in their recommendations of stories of personal importance, the expert-based recommendations ranked higher in social importance. This study has importance for theory in its examination of popularity-based news recommendations from the two theoretical viewpoints of collective intelligence and popularity bias and by its use of both qualitative (content analysis) and quantitative methods (questionnaires). It also sheds light on the differences in the role of media channels that fulfill an agenda-setting function and Internet news sites that treat news from the viewpoint of markets.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.68-74
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• 2002

Purpose: Suprapubic bladder aspiration(SBA) of urine is the most reliable method to obtain urine avoiding contamination in non-toilet trained infants. Ultrasonography is a useful tool for guiding the anatomic location as well as for direct visualization during procedure. We evaluated the success rate and complication of ultrasound(US) assisted SBA Methods. Sixty infants who visited Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital, with suspected urinary tract infection were randomly divided into the US assisted (n=32) and blind SBA(control, n=28) group. In US assisted SBA group, the anteroposterior(AP), transverse, and sagittal diameters and the volume of the bladder were measured. In the blind SBA group, urine was blindly aspirated when the urinary bladder was palpated at the suprapubic area. The rate of successful urine aspiration, the number of attempts until successful aspiration, aspirated urine volume were compared between the two groups. Results: The success rate was $100\%$(32/32) in the US assisted group, which was significantly higher than $85.7\%$(24/28) of the control group (P<0.05). The aspirated urine volume in the US assisted group was $7.4{\pm}3.7\;mL$, which was significantly higher than $4.5{\pm}3.4\;mL$ of the control group (P<0.05), The diameters and volume of bladder in successful aspiration were $2.1{\pm}0.7\;cm$ in AP diameter, $3.1{\pm}0.6\;cm$ in transverse diameter, $4.2{\pm}1.0\;cm$ in sagittal diameter and $15.2{\pm}10.4\;mL$ in volume, which were significantly higher than those ($1.7{\pm}0.3\;cm,\;1.7{\pm}0.3\;cm,\;1.8{\pm}0.7\;cm,\;2.4{\pm]0.6\;cm,\;3.9{\pm}2.5$) of the control group (P<0.05) The correlations between the AP(r=0.78), transverse (r=0.72), sagittal(r=0.91) diameter and bladder volume were significant (P<0.05). SBA was $100\%$ successful in the AP diameter >3 cm, transverse diameter >4 cm, depth >4 cm and bladder volume >5 mL. Conclusion: US assistance can significantly improve the success rate of SBA in infant with suspected urinary tract infection. (J Korean Soc Pediatr Nephrol 2002 ; 6 : 68-74)

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.240-246
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• 2002

Purpose : It is not clear that the development of glomerular injury and aggravation by tumor necrosis factor alpha($TNF-{\alpha}$) is related to intrarenal or serum concentration of $TNF-{\alpha}$. So, we studied the relationship between the concentration of $TNF-{\alpha}$ and aggravation of glomerular damage in the Henoch-$Sch{\ddot{o}}nlein$ nephritis(HSN) and idiopathic nephrotic syndrome(INS). Methods : We collected the sera and urines of 21 patients with Henoch-$Sch{\ddot{o}}nlein$ purpura(HSP) and 22 patients with INS visited Chungbuk National University hospital from March 1998 to March 2001. The concentration of $TNF-{\alpha}$ in the sera and urines were measured by sandwich ELISA. Results : Serum $TNF-{\alpha}$ levels in the HSP patients with renal involvement were significantly higher than those without renal involvement(P=0.009). But urine $TNF-{\alpha}$ levels have no correlation with renal involvement(P=0.088). In the HSN patients, proteinuria have a significant correlation with serum $TNF-{\alpha}$ levels(P=0.004) but less correlation with urine $TNF-{\alpha}$ levels(P=0.053). Otherwise, proteinuria have no correlation with serum $TNF-{\alpha}$ levels(P=0.763) but have a significant correlation with urine $TNF-{\alpha}$ levels(P=0.007) in INS. Conclusion : These result suggest that the serum concentration of $TNF-{\alpha}$ would be important to glomerular involvement in HSP. And, it is interesting that proteinuria shows a significant relation with serum $TNF-{\alpha}$ levels in the HSN, but with urine $TNF-{\alpha}$ levels in the INS. This means the major production of $TNF-{\alpha}$ may be originated by extrarenal inflammation in the HSN and by intrarenal tubulo-interstitial damage due to proteinuria in the INS.