• Korean Journal of Oriental Medicine
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.381-401
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• 1996

The diagnostic requirements were suggested and explained regarding the systems of differentiation of syptoms and signs in the second year study of standardization and unification of the terms and conditions used for diagnosis in oriental medicine. The systems were as follows : -differential diagnosis according to condition of body fluid, differentiation of syndromes according to the state of qi and blood, differential diagnosis according to reletive excessiveness or deficiency of yin and yang(氣血陰陽津液辨證) -differentiation of diseases according to pathological changes of the viscera and their interrelation(臟腑辨證) -analysing and differentiating of febrile diseases in accordance with the theory of the six channels(傷寒辨證) The individual diagnosis pattern was arranged by the diagnostic requirements in the following odor : another name(異名), notion of diagnosis parrern(證候槪念), index of differentiation of syptoms and sings(辨證指標), the main point of diagnosis(診斷要點), analysis of diagnosis pattern(證候分析), discrimination of diagnosis pattern(證候鑑別), a wayof curing a diseases(治法), prescription(處方) , herbs in common use(常用藥物), dieases appearing the diagnosis pattern(常見疾病), documents(文獻調査). This study was carried out on the basis of the Chinese documents and references.

• Herbal Formula Science
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.141-151
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• 2005

From the tuberous root of Aconitum carmichaeli Debx.(Ranunculaceae), the main root is called as common monkhood mother root and the later root is called as the prepared aconite root. From the prepared aconite root. Looking at the processing method of the prepared aconite root, it is divided into Yeombuja (prepared aconite root processed in salt) and heuksoonpyeon (baekbupyeon) following the processing method after removing the soil and this is a way of processing the prepared aconite root without damage it. The recently produced raw prepared aconite root is easily damaged, thus it shall be preserved in salt to have the crystal shape on the surface of the prepared aconite root and store and transport in firmly solidified yeombuja condition. Therefore, yeombuja shall remove the salt before use and requires processing for use but heuksoonpyeon or baekbupyeon may use immediately. For the succession of the unique processing techniques of our ancestors, there has to be studies on the techniques. Prepared aconite root is generally used as holy medicines to cure the yang depletion syndrome, kidney-yang deficiency syndrome, and obstruction of qi in the chest syndrome. However, they are the substances with toxicity. It is contemplated that the contents of processing are broadly understood through the document on the processing method, and based on such foundation, the systematic set and proof on the documents are made along with the addition of the contemporary scientific theory and technology to develop the traditional processing technology to maximize the treatment effect and safety of prepared aconite root. In this study, the historic data and records on the processing method of latteral root of aconitum carmichaeli Debx will be rearranged to contribute to the standardization of medicinal herbs, maximization of efficacy and minimization of the side effects.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.28-41
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• 2003

Background : Because unplanned readmissions to intensive care unit(ICU)might be related with undesirable patient outcomes, we investigated the pattern of and reason for unplanned ICU readmission to provide baseline data for reducing unplanned returns to ICU. Methods : The subjects included all patients who readmitted to ICU during the same hospitalization at a tertiary referral hospital between January 1st and June 30th 2002. Quality improvement(QI) nurse collected the data through medical records and a medical director reviewed the data collected. Results : 1) The average unplanned ICU readmission rate was 5.6%(gastroenterology 14.6%, pediatrics 12.7%, pulmonology 11.9%, neurosurgery 6.3%, general surgery 5.3%, chest surgery 3.9%, and cardiology 3.3%). 2) Among the unplanned readmissions, more than 50% of cases were from patients older than 60 years, and the main categories of diagnose at hospital admission were neurologic disease(29.9%) and cardiovascular disease(27.6%). 3) Of unplanned ICU readmissions, 41.8% had recurrence of the initial problems, 44.8% had occurrence of new problems. And 9.7% required post-operative care after unplanned operations. 4) The most common cause responsible for unplanned ICU readmission were respiratory problem(38.3%) and cardiovascular problem(14.3%). 5) About 40% of unplanned ICU readmission occurred within 3 days after ICU discharge. 6) Average length of stay of the readmitted patients to ICUs were much longer than that of non-readmitted patients. 7) Hospital mortality rate was much higher for unplanned ICU readmitted patients(23.6%) than for non-readmitted patients(1.5%) (P<0.001). Conclusions : This study showed that the unplanned ICU readmitted patients had poor outcomes(high morality and increased length of stay). In addition study results suggest that more attention should be paid to patients in ICU with poor respiratory function or elderly patients, and careful clinical decisions are required at discharged from ICU to general ward.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.1112-1118
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• 2008

Qi is in the capacity of pivotal element to describe the life, based on the principles of remedy such as Qigong, meridian pathways, acupuncture, moxibustion and herbal medicine. The purpose of this study was to identify the status of course offered Qigong and Qigong-related clubs in 11 college of oriental medicine. For survey courses offered Status of Qigong in 11 college of oriental medicine, I checked its homepage in august 2008. And about the facts that I could not verify information from the homepage, I obtained through the phone manner. For survey Qigong-related clubs in 11 college of oriental medicine, I phoned the president of union clubs and found out Qigong-related clubs. And then I phoned the presidents of Qigong-related clubs that consented before the fact, investigated the overall situation of clubs. Nine out of 11 college of oriental medicine offered course of Qigong. All of them are opened as major in a premedical course. Six universities have practical training. Six out of 11 college of oriental medicine had Qigong-related clubs. And the number of club is 12. The number of club in Daeguhaany university, 4, is the most. The number of membership of club in Daeguhaany university, 61, is the most too. Most of them are co-majoring both Jung-gong and Dong-gong. It is considered that in lecture of Qigong, It is in a need of lecturing in a regular course with clinical contents, rather than lecturing in a premedical course with basic contents. Of spontaneous club activities, after graduation so that they can get practical help for future. I think from now on we need to investigate deeply practical rate of satisfaction and the present condition of clubs.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.222-232
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• 2004

The sample collection room(SCR) will have much more influence than all the other departments for the improvement of hospital image, if anyone coming to the SCR in the hospital goes back with the perfect complacency and because most clients who have much stresses and fatigues pay a final visit to the SCR via receipt-diagnosis- acceptance process. SCR has improved its image for the purpose of gratifying clients, in order for clients to visit the hospital again, the quality improvement(QI) team in the Diagnosis Inspection Medical Department has come to a conclusion as follows. The degree of client gratification before improvement marks 65.9 point, but the degree after improvement was 74.2 point. Therefore, satisfaction has increased by 8.3 points. The degree of client gratification in groups before improvement marks (1) service parts-89.2 points (2) facilities and environments-49.1 point (3) toilet facilities-46.3 point. But its gratification after improvement marks (1) 92.5 point (2) 60.1 point (3) 61.0 point. Therefore the degree of satisfaction has increased by (1) 3.3 point, (2) 11.0 point, (3) 14.7 point. The progress of facility improvement plans and the exclusion of improvement on the facility contents in the hospital have made facilities and environments of SCR and toilet facilities to be poorly improved. Although service parts have a good mark, and the facilities and environments are not scoring well, the whole degree clients' gratification of SCR couldn't be helped by the low grade. Therefore the bottom line for the clients' gratification of SCR in the future is to ameliorate the facilities and environments. SCR will take the clients' gratification survey every year and if any items get low marks, that is, below 90 point throughout the survey, SCR will immediately starts the improvement work for the clients' gratification with operating the programs of controlling quality continually, and SCR should induce the operation of services, participating in the kind campaign drive for clients. So SCR will adopt the incentive system for the best staff members who perform these kinds of services.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.58 no.1
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• pp.73-79
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• 2020

Echinostoma revolutum is a zoonotic food-borne intestinal trematode that can cause intestinal bleeding, enteritis, and diarrhea in human and birds. To identify a suspected E. revolutum trematode from a red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis) and to reveal the genetic characteristics of its mitochondrial (mt) genome, the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and complete mt genome sequence of this trematode were amplified. The results identified the trematode as E. revolutum. Its entire mt genome sequence was 15,714 bp in length, including 12 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes and one non-coding region (NCR), with 61.73% A+T base content and a significant AT preference. The length of the 22 tRNA genes ranged from 59 bp to 70 bp, and their secondary structure showed the typical cloverleaf and D-loop structure. The length of the large subunit of rRNA (rrnL) and the small subunit of rRNA (rrnS) gene was 1,011 bp and 742 bp, respectively. Phylogenetic trees showed that E. revolutum and E. miyagawai clustered together, belonging to Echinostomatidae with Hypoderaeum conoideum. This study may enrich the mitochondrial gene database of Echinostoma trematodes and provide valuable data for studying the molecular identification and phylogeny of some digenean trematodes.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.104-124
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• 1996

Background : In these days, the health care organizations have concerned about customer-centered care in order to empower the competitiveness on the health care markets. The departments working for quality management of the hospitals have used health care quality indicators in terms of medical areas as well as service areas of the hospitals. However, there were insufficient efforts to develop the credible measurement to seek the customers' needs, their expectations and their satisfaction levels related to health care services because various kinds of challenges were in the process of scale development to measure customers' satisfaction in health care. The purpose of this study was to develop the satisfaction scale to health care services in a Korea health care organization and to test its tool with validity and reliability. Method : The concept of this tool was acceptability that one of the components of health care quality defined by Donabedian. Acceptability has the five dimensions of concept: Accessibility; Patient-Practitioner Relations; Amenities; Patient Preferences as to the effects of care; and Patient Preferences as to the costs of care. The Satisfaction Tool to Health Care Services was reviewed by expert panel with five researchers, including hospital managers and a professor related to quality management of the hospitals. As a result, the content validity index was .84 in the outpatient satisfaction tool. The inpatient satisfaction tool had .87 of the content validity index. The Satisfaction Tools to Health Care Services finally consisted of 44 items for outpatients/their families and of 60 items for inpatients/their families. Study subjects of the construct validity test were 479 outpatients/their families and 561 inpatients/their families who visited or admitted at a University hospital from July 1, 1996 through August 10, 1996. The data were examined by Factor Analysis with SPSS. Result : The items of Satisfaction tools for outpatients/their families were categorized by eleven factors with eigenvalue greater than 1.0 accounting for 64.2 percent of the variation in item scores. Also, the items of inpatient tool had eleven factors with eigenvalue greater than 1.0 accounting for 60.3 percent of the variation in item scores. The reliability of overall scale were .95 and .96 for the outpatients/their families satisfaction scores and inpatient/their families satisfaction scores. The internal consistency reliability with eleven factors was ranged from .30 to .94 for inpatients/their families. The Satisfaction Tool with eleven factors for inpatients/their families had internal consistency reliability ranged from .53 to .89. Conclusion : The Satisfaction Tools to Health Care Services focused on outpatients/their families and inpatients/their families developed in this study had a high reliability and the strong evidence of content validity and construct validity based on quality concept. Therefore, this tool would be utilized as a credible quality indicator of health care services to assess the quality problems and to monitor the quality improvement activities in Korean Health Care Organizations.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.523-531
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• 2018

Tumour metastasis is one of the most serious challenges of cancer as it is the major cause of mortality in patients with solid tumours, including osteosarcoma (OS). In this regard, anti-metastatic genes have potential for metastasis inhibition strategies. Recent evidence showed the importance of breast cancer metastasis suppressor 1 (BRMS1) in control of OS invasiveness, but the regulation of BRMS1 in OS remains largely unknown. Here, we used bioinformatics analyses to predict BRMS1-targeting microRNAs (miRNAs), and the functional binding of miRNAs to BRMS1 mRNA was evaluated using a dual luciferase reporter assay. Among all BRMS1-targeting miRNAs, only miR-151b, miR-7-5p and miR-3200-5p showed significant expression in OS specimens. Specifically, we found that only miR-3200-5p significantly inhibited protein translation of BRMS1 via pairing to the 3'-UTR of the BRMS1 mRNA. Moreover, we detected significantly lower BRMS1 and significantly higher miR-3200-5p in the OS specimens compared to the paired adjacent non-tumour bone tissues. Furthermore, BRMS1 and miR-3200-5p levels were inversely correlated to each other. Low BRMS1 was correlated with metastasis and poor patient survival. In vitro, overexpression of miR-3200-5p significantly decreased BRMS1 levels and promoted OS cell invasion and migration, while depletion of miR-3200-5p significantly increased BRMS1 levels and inhibited OS cell invasion and migration. Thus, our study revealed that miR-3200-5p may be a critical regulator of OS cell invasiveness.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.393-402
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• 2020

Toxoplasma gondii is an intracellular parasite that causes severe disease when the infection occurs during pregnancy. Adenosine is a purine nucleoside involved in numerous physiological processes; however, the role of adenosine receptors in T. gondii-induced trophoblast cell function has not been investigated until now. The goal of the present study was to evaluate the intracellular signaling pathways regulated by adenosine receptors using a HTR-8/SVneo trophoblast cell model of T. gondii infection. HTR8/SVneo human extravillous trophoblast cells were infected with or without T. gondii and then evaluated for cell morphology, intracellular proliferation of the parasite, adenosine receptor expression, TNF-α production and mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase signaling pathways triggered by adenosine A₃ receptor (A₃AR). HTR8/SVneo cells infected with T. gondii exhibited an altered cytoskeletal changes, an increased infection rate and reduced viability in an infection time-dependent manner. T. gondii significantly promoted increased TNF-α production, A₃AR protein levels and p38, ERK1/2 and JNK phosphorylation compared to those observed in uninfected control cells. Moreover, the inhibition of A₃AR by A₃AR siRNA transfection apparently suppressed the T. gondii infection-mediated upregulation of TNF-α, A₃AR production and MAPK activation. In addition, T. gondii-promoted TNF-α secretion was dramatically attenuated by pretreatment with PD098059 or SP600125. These results indicate that A₃AR-mediated activation of ERK1/2 and JNK positively regulates TNF-α secretion in T. gondii-infected HTR8/SVneo cells.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.66-73
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• 2014

Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) play an important role in impairing the function of T cells. We characterized MDSCs in two chronic hepatitis C (CHC) cohorts: a cross-sectional group that included 61 treatment-naive patients with CHC, 14 rapid virologic response (RVR) cases and 22 early virologic response (EVR) cases; and a longitudinal group of 13 cases of RVR and 10 cases of EVR after pegylated-interferon-${\alpha}$/ribavirin treatment for genotype 1b HCV infection. Liver samples from 32 CHC patients and six healthy controls were subjected to immunohistochemical analysis. MDSCs frequency in treatment-naive CHC was significantly higher than in RVR, EVR, or healthy subjects and was positively correlated with HCV RNA. Patients infected with HCV genotype 2a had a significantly higher frequency of MDSCs than those infected with genotype 1b. Decreased T cell receptor (TCR) ${\zeta}$ expression on $CD8^+$ T cells was significantly associated with an increased frequency of MDSCs in treatment-naive CHC patients and was restored by L-arginine treatment in vitro. Increased numbers of liver arginase-$1^+$ cells were closely associated with the histological activity index in CHC. The TCR ${\zeta}$ chain was significantly downregulated on hepatic $CD8^+$ T cells in CHC. During antiviral follow up, MDSCs frequency in peripheral blood mononuclear cells was directly correlated with the HCV RNA load in the plasma and inversely correlated with TCR ${\zeta}$ chain expression in $CD8^+$ T cells in both RVR and EVR cases. Notably, the RVR group had a higher frequency of MDSCs at baseline than the EVR group. Collectively, this study provides evidence that MDSCs might be associated with HCV persistence and downregulation of CD8 ${\zeta}$ chain expression.