• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.219-233
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• 1999

Purpose : Respiratory syncytial virus(RSV) is the major cause of lower respiratory tract infection in infants and young children. This study was performed to analyze antigenic and genetic variation of G protein of subgroup A RSV. Methods : One hundred seventy-nine strains isolated at the Seoul National University Children's Hospital over 8 years-period from 1990 through 1998 were analysed for antigenic and genetic variability. Analysis was made by reactivity with monoclonal antibodies raised against RSV, and by restriction mapping and, for selected strains, nucleotide sequencing following amplification of full sequence of G gene by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Results : Restriction fragment analysis of the amplified G protein gene revealed 23 restriction patterns, 12 of which included more than 2 isolate, and the most frequent genetic type comprised 30% of the strains. Indirect immunofluorescent staining with monoclonal antibodies revealed 6 antigenic types with one predominant pattern accounting for 91% of the total strains. The most frequent antigenic type had 21 restriction patterns, and some viruses with same restiction pattern had different monoclonal antibody reaction pattern. Nucleotide sequence homology of subgroup A was 91~93% between reference(A2, Long) and Korean isolates, 93~99% among Korean isolates. Maximum-parsimony analysis demonstrated that Korean isolates were distinct from reference strains and subgroup A strains were clustered in 4 groups. Conclusion : The restriction analysis pattern of G protein gene identified greater diversity within subgroup A than was seen with the monoclonal analysis and a variety of antigenic and genetic types of RSV are circulating in Korea which are different from reference strains or strains isolated from other countries.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.179-191
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• 2013

Kleine-Levin syndrome is a rare disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of hypersomnia, hyperphagia, hypersexuality and delusion and hallucination with spontaneous recovery. A 17-year-old female suddenly showed hypersomnia, severe fatigue, and compulsive hyperphagia. She was diagnosed with suspected Kleine-Levin Syndrome. The precipitating factor was an upper respiratory tract infection that the patient had undergone 2 weeks prior. Past psychiatric history included somnambulism and ADHD; her symptoms of ADHD included attention deficit, impulsiveness, hyperactivity, and irritability. This was her third episode. Her hypersomnia was longer in duration but lower in frequency compared with usual KLS. Her low LF/HF ratio in heart rate variability measurement showed high parasympathetic nerve activity. A MMPI report showed some psychological problem. The patient was diagnosed of gastric fever by pattern identification. Her hypersomnia episode improved 6 weeks after onset. This is the first reported case of suspected Kleine-Levin Syndrome in the field of Oriental Medicine in Korea.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Emotion and Sensibility Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.62-66
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• 2000

This study investigated the effects of certain specific wavelengths of lighting on the autonomic nervous system (ANS) using the heart rate variability (HRV) as an index. Six subjects with normal color vision participated n this study between 15:00 and 17:00 hr to neutralize any visual differences arising from circadian rhythm. The environmental conditions of the laboratory were maintained in complete darkness and the temperature was equilibrated at 24$\Box$ with a relative humidity of 60%. Subjects were only subjected to light stimulation when the pupil of dyes attained a minimum size of 2 mm by projecting illumination equalized with the same spectral radiance of 500-700 nm with 50-nm internal radiance. HRV was calculated from electrocardiogram (ECG) with systematic respiratory control at 0.35 Hz. The results suggest that illumination with certain wavelengths may induce ANS activation.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.81 no.4
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• pp.289-298
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• 2018

Background: Obstructive airway disease patients with increased variability of airflow and incompletely reversible airflow obstruction are often categorized as having asthma-chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) overlap syndrome (ACOS). ACOS is heterogeneous with two sub-phenotypes: asthma-ACOS and COPD-ACOS. The objective of this study was to determine the difference in risk of exacerbation between the two sub-phenotypes of ACOS. Methods: A total of 223 patients exhibiting incompletely reversible airflow obstruction with increased variability (spirometrically defined ACOS) were enrolled. These patients were divided into asthma-ACOS and COPD-ACOS according to their physician's diagnosis and smoking history of 10 pack-years. Within-group comparisons were made for asthma-ACOS versus COPD-ACOS and light smokers versus heavy smokers. Results: Compared to patients with COPD-ACOS, patients with asthma-ACOS experienced exacerbation more often despite their younger age, history of light smoking, and better lung function. While the light-smoking group showed better lung function, they made unscheduled outpatient clinic visits more frequently. On multivariate analysis, asthma-ACOS and poor inhaler compliance were significantly associated with more than two unscheduled clinic visits during the previous year. Conclusion: Spirometrically defined ACOS includes heterogeneous subgroups with different clinical features. Phenotyping of ACOS by physician's diagnosis could be significant in predicting future risk of exacerbation.

• Preventive Nutrition and Food Science
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.173-178
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• 2009

This study was conducted to determine if supplementation with a compound composed of caffeine (50 mg), capsaicin (75 mg), sesamine (30 mg), L-carnitine (300 mg), banaba (50 mg) and lotus (10 mg) enhanced human autonomic nervous activities (ANS) associated with thermogenic sympathetic activity and fat utilization. Ten healthy college males (21.2$\pm$1.0 yr) volunteered for this experiment. Autonomic nervous activities associated with energy metabolism were examined at 30 min intervals for a total of 120-min while at rest and every 5-min during exercise at 50% of the ventilation threshold before and after intake of the compound or placebo with 100 ml of water for 10 days. In addition, heart rate variability power spectral analysis was used to assess human autonomic nervous activities. The results indicated that there were no significant differences in heart rate during rest and exercise among trials. Furthermore, the autonomic nervous activity tended to increase after 10-days of consumption of the test compounds during the experimental period, but the differences did not reach statistical significance. However, before and after the compound test trial there was a significantly higher respiratory gas exchange ratio (rest 0: 0.83$\pm$0.01 vs. rest 3: 0.89$\pm$0.02, p<0.05), carbohydrate oxidation (CHO) rate (rest 0: 44.57$\pm$5.83 vs. rest 2: 63.86$\pm$5.91%, p<0.05) and a lower fat oxidation rate (rest 0: 55.43$\pm$5.83 vs. rest 2: 36.14$\pm$5.91%, p<0.05. In conclusion, the results of the present study suggested that the compound composed of caffeine, capsaicin, sesamine, L-carnitine, banaba and lotus components that was evaluated in this study did not induce a significant increase in human autonomic nervous activities or lipolysis, even though the individual components have been reported to induce increased fat oxidation.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.55-61
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• 2014

In sleep monitoring system, polysomnography (PSG) is the gold-standard but previous studies revealed that attaching numerous amount of sensors disturb sleep during the test which is the fundamental disadvantage of PSG. We suggest an unconstrained rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep monitoring method measured with polyvinylidene (PVDF) film-based sensor for the normal and the obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) patients. Nine normal subjects and seventeen OSA patients have participated in the study. During REM sleep, rate and variability of respiration are known to be greater than in other sleep stages. Based on this phenomena, respiratory signals of participants were unconstrainedly measured using the PVDF-based sensor with the PSG and REM sleep were extracted from the average rate and variability of respiration. In epoch-by-epoch REM sleep detection, proposed method classified REM sleep with an average sensitivity of 72.3%, specificity of 92.5%, accuracy of 88.9%, and kappa statistic of 0.60 compared to the results of PSG. Student's t-test showed no significant difference between the results of normal and OSA group. This method is potentially applicable to REM sleep detection in homing environment or ambulatory monitoring.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.132-142
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to present an effective methodology that can measure heart rate, heart rate variability, oxygen saturation, respiration rate, mental stress level, and blood pressure using mobile front camera that can be accessed most in real life. Face recognition was performed in real-time using Blaze Face to acquire facial image data, and the forehead was designated as ROI (Region Of Interest) using feature points of the eyes, nose, and mouth, and ears. Representative values for each channel of the ROI were generated and aligned on the time axis to measure vital signs. The vital signs measurement method was based on Fourier transform, and noise was removed and filtered according to the desired vital signs to increase the accuracy of the measurement. To verify the results, vital signs measured using facial image data were compared with pulse oximeter contact sensor, and TI non-contact sensor. As a result of this work, the possibility of extracting a total of six vital signs (heart rate, heart rate variability, oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, stress, and blood pressure) was confirmed through facial images.

• KIPS Transactions on Computer and Communication Systems
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• v.12 no.7
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• pp.227-234
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• 2023

Measuring heart rate variability by deep breathing and using this to evaluate the autonomic nervous system is a well-known method widely used in various clinical fields. In hospitals, expensive equipment is installed and managed by experts for this purpose. This paper discusses an app we developed that can easily test the autonomic nervous system by deep breathing anytime, anywhere using a smartphone, and then reviews experiments performed to verify the results. The experiments were conducted in the clinical room of the Department of Neurology at Soonchunhyang University Cheonan Hospital on eight volunteers. We tested the autonomic nervous systems of the volunteers first with an electromyography device installed in the hospital and then with the app under identical conditions. We performed a correlation analysis on the results of these two methods using the Pearson method, and this yielded a very high correlation of 0.98.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.365-371
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• 2007

To evaluate the effect of air pollution on respiratory health in children, We conducted a longitudinal study in which children were asked to record their daily levels of Peak Expiratory Flow Rate(PEFR) using potable peak flow meter(mini-Wright) for 4 weeks. The relationship between daily PEFR and ambient air particle levels was analyzed using a mixed linear regression models including gender, age in year, weight, the presence of respiratory symptoms, and relative humidity as an extraneous variable. The daily mean concentrations of $PM_{10}$ and $PM_{2.5}$ over the study period were $64.9{\mu}g/m^3$ and $46.1{\mu}g/m^3$, respectively. The range of daily measured PEFR in this study was $182{\sim}481\;l/min$. Daily mean PEFR was regressed with the 24-hour average $PM_{10}(or\;PM_{2.5})$ levels, weather information such as air temperature and relative humidity, and individual characteristics including sex, weight, and respiratory symptoms. The analysis showed that the increase of air particle concentrations was negatively associated with the variability in PEFR. We estimated that the IQR increment of $PM_{10}$ or $PM_{2.5}$ were associated with 1.5 l/min (95% Confidence intervals -3.1, 0.1) and 0.8 l/min(95% CI -1.8, 0.1) decline in PEFR. Even though this study showed negative findings on the relationship between respiratory function and air particles, it was worth noting that the findings must be interpreted cautiously because exposure measurement based on monitoring of ambient air likely resulted in misclassification of true exposure levels and this was the first Korean study that $PM_{2.5}$ measurement was applied as an index of air quality.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.17-25
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• 2016

Purpose : The purpose of this study is to evaluate the variability of tumor motion and respiration pattern in lung cancer patients undergoing Stereotactic Body RadioTherapy(SBRT) by using On-Board imager (OBI) system and Real-time Position Management (RPM) System. Materials and Methods : This study population consisted of 60 lung cancer patient treated with stereotactic body radiotherapy (48 Gy / 4 fractions). Of these, 30 were treated with gating (group 1) and 30 without gating(group2): typically the patients whose tumors showed three-dimensional respiratory motion > 10 mm were selected for gating. 4-dimensional Computed Tomography (4DCT). Cone Beam CT (CBCT) and Fluoroscopy images were used to measure the tumor motion. RPM system was used to evaluate the variability of respiration pattern on SBRT for group1. Results : The mean difference of tumor motion among 4DCT, CBCT and Fluoroscopy images in the cranio-caudal direction was 2.3 mm in group 1, 2. The maximum difference was 12.5 mm in the group 1 and 8.5 mm in group 2. The number of treatment fractions that patient's respiration pattern was within Upper-Lower threshold on SBRT in group 2 was 31 fractions. A patient who exhibited the most unstable pattern exceeded 108 times in a fraction Conclusion : Although many patients in group 1 and 2 kept the reproducibility of tumor motion within 5 mm during their treatment, some patients exhibited variability of tumor motion in the CBCT and Fluoroscopy images. It was possible to improve the accuracy of dose delivery in SBRT without gating for lung cancer patient by using RPM system.