• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.29-37
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• 2002

Listeria monocytogenes poses an increasing health risk, which in part is due to increasing health risk, consumption of ready-to-eat food products and the introduction of increasing numbers of food products from regions with different dietary habits. L. monocytogenes can be present in meat, shellfish, vegetables, unpasteurised milk and soft cheese and poses a risk if food containing these products is stored at refrigeration temperature and is not properly heated before consumption, as L. monocytogenes is psychrophilic. Amplified-fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis is the method of genotypic techinique in which adaptor oligonucleotides are ligated to restriction enzyme fragments and then used as target sites for primers in a PCR amplification. The amplified fragments are electrophoretically separated to give strain-specific band profiles. Single-enzyme approach that did not require costly equipment or reagents for the fingerprinting of strains of Listeria monocytogenes was developed. Single-enzyme amplified fragment length polymorphism (SE-AFLP) analysis was used to perform species and strain identification of Salmonella, Shigella, Yersinia and E. coli. By careful selection of AFLP primers, it was possible to obtain reproducible and sensitive identification to strain level. The AFLP patterns of L. monocytogenes are divided by the kinds of specimens in which were isolated. SE-AFLP fragments can be analyzed using standard gel electrophoresis, and can be easily scored by visual inspection, due to the low complexity of the fingerprint obtained by this method. These features make SE-AFLP suitable for use in either field or laboratory applications.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.56-63
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• 2011

Fabry disease (FD) is an X-linked inborn error of glycoshpingolipid metabolism resulting from mutation in the enzyme ${\alpha}$-galactosidase A gene. The disease is an X-linked lipid storage disorder and the lack of ${\alpha}$-Gal A causes an intracellular accumulation of glycosphingolipids, mainly globotriaosylceramide (Gb-3). Measurement of Gb-3 in plasma has clinical importance for monitoring after enzyme replacement therapy for confirmed FD patients. Using electrospray ionization MS/MS we had developed, a simple, rapid, and highly sensitive analytical method for Gb-3 in plasma was used for the purpose of screening FD among high risk groups in Korean population. To date, no comprehensive results for FD screening have been performed and reported in Korea. We screened 1,100 outpatients from 13 hospitals (including clinics) to assess the incidence of FD among patients in high risk groups. For patients with borderline level amount of Gb-3, we repeated Gb-3 or performing complementary or confirmative assay with ${\alpha}$-Gal A activity and DNA mutaion analysis for confirmation diagnosis. Of 1,100 we diagnosed 3 FD with 2 classical type and 1 carrier (0.27%).

• Restorative Dentistry and Endodontics
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.187-193
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• 2013

Epinephrine is one of the most widely-used vasoconstrictors in dental treatment including endodontic microsurgery. However, the systemic safety of epinephrine has been in debate for many years because of its potential risk to cause cardiovascular complications. The purpose of this review was to assess the cardiovascular effect of epinephrine use in endodontic microsurgery. Endodontic microsurgery directly applies epinephrine into the bone cavity, and the amount is reported to be much larger than other dental surgeries. Moreover, when considering that systemic potency of intraosseous application is reported to be comparable to intravenous application, the systemic influence of epinephrine could be increased in endodontic microsurgery. Besides, pre-existing cardiovascular complications or drug interactions can enhance its systemic influence, resulting in increased susceptibility to cardiovascular complications. Although clinical studies have not reported significant complications for patients without severe systemic complications, many epinephrine-induced emergency cases are warning the cardiovascular risk related with pre-existing systemic disease or drug interactions. Epinephrine is a dose-sensitive drug, and its hypersensitivity reaction can be fatal to patients when it is related to cardiovascular complications. Therefore, clinicians should recognize the risk, and the usage of pre-operative patient evaluation, dose control and patient monitoring are required to ensure patient's safety during endodontic microsurgery.

• Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.215-219
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• 2005

Oxygen radical absorbance capacity(ORAC) is known to be a sensitive and simple method to determine total antioxidant capacity(TAC) in biological samples. While TAC has received great attention with its relation to pathogenesis in the progression of several diseases, little is known about association of ORAC with metabolic risk factors. The aim of this study is to evaluate the relationship between ORAC and serum lipid profiles, fasting glucose and anthropometric measures. One hundred seventeen volunteers participated in the study. Perchloric acid treated serum was used to determine $ORAC_{pca}$. Mean$ORAC_{pca}$ of subjects whose serum total cholesterol(TC) concentrations were $\geq$ 200 mg/dl was significantly(P < 0.05) higher than that of subjects whose TC concentrations were < 200mg/dl. There were significantly positive correlations between $ORAC_{pca}$ and serum concentrations of TC(P < 0.05) and low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol(P < 0.01). The positive relation between cholesterol concentrations and $ORAC_{pca}$ in serum may suggest an elevated TAC against oxidative stress associated with the cardiovascular risk factors. (J Community Nutrition 7(4): $215\∼219$, 2005)

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.281-293
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• 2021

Uncertainties in geomechanical input parameters which mainly related to inappropriate data acquisition and estimation due to lack of sufficient calibration information, have led wellbore instability not yet to be fully understood or addressed. This paper demonstrates a workflow of employing Quantitative Risk Assessment technique, considering these uncertainties in terms of rock properties, pore pressure and in-situ stresses to makes it possible to survey not just the likelihood of accomplishing a desired level of wellbore stability at a specific mud pressure, but also the influence of the uncertainty in each input parameter on the wellbore stability. This probabilistic methodology in conjunction with Monte Carlo numerical modeling techniques was applied to a case study of a well. The response surfaces analysis provides a measure of the effects of uncertainties in each input parameter on the predicted mud pressure from three widely used failure criteria, thereby provides a key measurement for data acquisition in the future wells to reduce the uncertainty. The results pointed out that the mud pressure is tremendously sensitive to UCS and SHmax which emphasize the significance of reliable determinations of these two parameters for safe drilling. On the other hand, the predicted safe mud window from Mogi-Coulomb is the widest while the Hoek-Brown is the narrowest and comparing the anticipated collapse failures from the failure criteria and breakouts observations from caliper data, indicates that Hoek-Brown overestimate the minimum mud weight to avoid breakouts while Mogi-Coulomb criterion give better forecast according to real observations.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.325-333
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• 2022

This study examined the influence of three elements of individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO), namely innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness on the performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It is worth noting that SMEs have experienced low productivity, low profit, and low performance during the COVID-19 pandemic era. Although several studies have shown that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is a key factor of company performance, few have focused on IEO. This study employed a quantitative research design because all variables were measurable. It used a questionnaire to survey 384 SMEs in the service sector and employed structural equation modeling (SEM) in data analysis. The findings suggested that SMEs' performance was influenced by risk-taking and proactiveness. This could be related to the fact that SMEs have a less formal structure, allowing owner-managers to take risks and make quick decisions. Furthermore, high performance was ensured by being very sensitive to market trends and changes in the business environment. Innovativeness was not a significant factor in influencing the performance of SMEs. Perhaps it was rather difficult for SME owner-managers to be innovative due to the lack of various resources. This study successfully re-confirmed the effect of IEO on business performance and highlighted the importance of risk-taking and proactiveness in improving the performance of SMEs.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.244-252
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• 2001

Objective : Health insurers and policy makers are increasingly examining the hospital mortality rate as an indicator of hospital quality and performance. To be meaningful, a risk-adjustment of the death rates must be implemented. This study reviewed 5 severity measurement methods and applied them to the same data set to determine whether judgments regarding the severity-adjusted hospital mortality rates were sensitive to the specific severity measure. Methods : The medical records of 584 patients who underwent coronary artery bypass graft surgery in 6 general hospitals during 1996 and 1997 were reviewed by trained nurses. The MedisGroups, Disease Staging, Computerized Severity Index, APACHE III and KDRG were used to quantify severity of the patients. The predictive probability of death was calculated for each patient in the sample from a multivariate logistic regression model including the severity score, age and sex to evaluate the hospitals' performance, the ratio of the observed number of deaths to the expected number for each hospital was calculated. Results : The overall in-hospital mortality rate was 7.0%, ranging from 2.7% to 15.7% depending on the particular hospital. After the severity adjustment, the mortality rates for each hospital showed little difference according to the severity measure. The 5 severity measurement methods varied in their statistical performance. All had a higher c statistic and $R^2$ than the model containing only age and sex. There was a little difference in the relative hospital performance evaluation by the severity measure. Conclusion : These results suggest that judgments regarding a hospital's performance based on severity adjusted mortality can be sensitive to the severity measurement method. Although the 5 severity measures regarding hospital performance concurred, more often than would be expected by chance, the assessment of an individual hospital mortality rates varied by the different severity measurement method used.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.4769-4775
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• 2015

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most prevalent cancer and thirdly leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. The estimated risk of hepatocellular carcinoma is 15 to 20 times as high among persons infected with HCV as it is among those who are not infected, with most of the excess risk limited to those with advanced hepatic fibrosis or cirrhosis. Glypican3 (GPC3) plays a key role in relation to signaling with growth factors, regulating the proliferative activity of cancer cells. Glutamine synthetase (GS) catalyzes the synthesis of glutamine from glutamate and ammonia in the mammalian liver. GS was suggested as a specific marker for tracing cell lineage relationships during hepatocarcinogenesis. In normal liver, GS expression is seen in pericentral hepatocytes, but not by midzonal or periportal hepatocytes. In HCC, strong and diffuse GS expression in seen in tumor cells. Results: Glypican3 immunopositvity was highly specific and sensitive indicator for hepatocellular carcinoma as well as glutamine synthetase which was found to be a sensitive and specific indicator for development of hepatocellular carcinoma when compared to cirrhosis, liver cell dyspalsia and metastatic carcinomas. Statistical analysis revealed a significant association between GPC3 and GS with tumor size (P=0.003, p=0.006, respectively). Diffuse staining significantly associated with large tumor size while, focal and mixed staining was detected more with small tumor size. Studying the relation with tumor grade also revealed significant association between diffuse GPC3 and GS staining with high tumor grade. Diffuse staining was detected in 91.7% and 100% respectively of poorly differentiated specimens and only in 33.3% and 22.2% of well differentiated specimens. Conclusions: While using GPC3 and GS to screen for premalignant hepatic lesions remains controversial, our data suggest that GPC3 and GS may be a reliable diagnostic immunomarkers to distinguish HCC from benign hepatocellular lesions. However, negative immunostaining should not exclude the diagnosis of HCC.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.945-956
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• 2020

The publication of data is essential in order to receive high quality services from many applications. However, if the original data is published as it is, there is a risk that sensitive information (political tendency, disease, ets.) may reveal. Therefore, many research have been proposed, not the original data but the synthetic data generating and publishing to privacy preserve. but, there is a risk of privacy leakage still even if simply generate and publish the synthetic data by various attacks (linkage attack, inference attack, etc.). In this paper, we propose a synthetic data generation algorithm in which privacy preserved by applying differential privacy the latest privacy protection technique to GAN, which is drawing attention as a synthetic data generative model in order to prevent the leakage of such sensitive information. The generative model used CGAN for efficient learning of labeled data, and applied Rényi differential privacy, which is relaxation of differential privacy, considering the utility aspects of the data. And validation of the utility of the generated data is conducted and compared through various classifiers.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.124-132
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• 2018

Objectives: All enterprises intending to install and operate hazardous chemical handling facilities should prepare an off-site risk assessment (ORA) report that evaluates the impact of potential chemical accidents on the surrounding environment and population. This study was conducted to introduce the process of development and the functioning of the Korea Off-site Risk Assessment support tool (KORA) developed by the National Institute of Chemical Safety and to suggest manners to increase its utilization. Additionally, this article provided an overview of KORA. Methods: In order to identify problems with and refinements for KORA, the required items for each phase of KORA were derived by analyzing the Chemical Control Act and related administrative regulations. Results: The functions of KORA made receptor-considered assessment of chemical accidents possible, but several limitations were found in particular phases, such as the analysis of impact range, consideration of sensitive receptors, and assessment of environmental receptors. Conclusion: In this study, we suggested manners to increase the utilization of KORA. It is anticipated that the further research suggested in the study could contribute to the stabilization of the KORA system.