• Title/Summary/Keyword: Work Performance

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A Study on Perception and Attitudes of Health Workers Towards the Organization and Activities of Urban Health Centers (도시보건소 직원의 보건소 업무에 대한 인식 및 견해)

  • Lee, Jae-Mu;Kang, Pock-Soo;Lee, Kyeong-Soo;Kim, Cheon-Tae
    • Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.347-365
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    • 1995
  • A survey was conducted to study perception and attitudes of health workers towards health center's activities and organization of health services, from August 15 to September 30, 1994. The study population was 310 health workers engaged in seven urban health centers in Taegu City area. A questionnaire method was used to collect data and response rate was 81.3 percent or 252 respondents. The following are summaries of findings: Profiles of study population: Health workers were predominantly female(62.3%); had college education(60.3%); and held medical and nursing positions(39.6%), technicians(30.6%) and public health/administrative positions(29.8%). Perceptions on health center's resources: Slightly more than a half(51.1%) of respondents expressed that physical facilities of the centers are inadequate; equipments needed are short(39.0%); human resource is inadequate(44.8%); and health budget allocated is insufficient(38.5%) to support the performance of health center's activities. Decentralization and health services: The majority revealed that the decentralization of government system would affect the future activities of health centers(51.9%) which may have to change. However, only one quarter of respondents(25.4%) seemed to view the decentralization positively as they expect that it would help perform health activities more effectively. The majority of the respondents(78.6%) insisted that the function and organization of the urban health centers should be changed. Target workload and job satisfaction: A large proportion (43.3%) of respondents felt that present target setting systems for various health activities are unrealistic in terms of community needs and health center's situation while only 11.1 percent responded it positively; the majority(57.5%) revealed that they need further training in professional fields to perform their job more effectively; more than one third(35.7%) expressed that they enjoy their professional autonomy in their job performance; and a considerable proportion (39.3%) said they are satisfied with their present work. Regarding the personnel management, more worker(47.3%) perceived it negatively than positive(11.5%) as most of workers seemed to think the personnel management practiced at the health centers is not fair or justly done. Health services rendered: Among health services rendered, health workers perceived the following services are most successfully delivered; they are, in order of importance, Tb control, curative services, and maternal and child health care. Such areas as health education, oral health, environmental sanitation, and integrated health services are needed to be strengthening. Regarding the community attitudes towards health workers, 41.3 percent of respondents think they are trusted by the community they serve. New areas of concern identified which must be included in future activities of health centers are, in order of priority, health care of elderly population, home health care, rehabilitation services, and such chronic diseases control programs as diabetes, hypertension, school health and mental health care. In conclusion, the study revealed that health workers seemed to have more negative perceptions and attitudes than positive ones towards organization and management of health services and activities performed by the urban health centers where they are engaged. More specifically, the majority of health workers studied revealed to have the following areas of health center's organization and management inadequate or insufficient to support effective performance of their health activities: Namely, physical facilities and equipments required are inadequate; human and financial resources are insufficient; personnel management is unsatisfactory; setting of service target system is unrealistic in terms of the community needs. However, respondents displayed a number of positive perceptions, particularly to those areas as further training needs and implementation of decentralization of government system which will bring more autonomy of local government as they perceived these change would bring the necessary changes to future activities of the health center. They also displayed positive perceptions in their job autonomy and have job satisfactions.

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School Experiences and the Next Gate Path : An analysis of Univ. Student activity log (대학생의 학창경험이 사회 진출에 미치는 영향: 대학생활 활동 로그분석을 중심으로)

  • YI, EUNJU;Park, Do-Hyung
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.26 no.4
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    • pp.149-171
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    • 2020
  • The period at university is to make decision about getting an actual job. As our society develops rapidly and highly, jobs are diversified, subdivided, and specialized, and students' job preparation period is also getting longer and longer. This study analyzed the log data of college students to see how the various activities that college students experience inside and outside of school might have influences on employment. For this experiment, students' various activities were systematically classified, recorded as an activity data and were divided into six core competencies (Job reinforcement competency, Leadership & teamwork competency, Globalization competency, Organizational commitment competency, Job exploration competency, and Autonomous implementation competency). The effect of the six competency levels on the employment status (employed group, unemployed group) was analyzed. As a result of the analysis, it was confirmed that the difference in level between the employed group and the unemployed group was significant for all of the six competencies, so it was possible to infer that the activities at the school are significant for employment. Next, in order to analyze the impact of the six competencies on the qualitative performance of employment, we had ANOVA analysis after dividing the each competency level into 2 groups (low and high group), and creating 6 groups by the range of first annual salary. Students with high levels of globalization capability, job search capability, and autonomous implementation capability were also found to belong to a higher annual salary group. The theoretical contributions of this study are as follows. First, it connects the competencies that can be extracted from the school experience with the competencies in the Human Resource Management field and adds job search competencies and autonomous implementation competencies which are required for university students to have their own successful career & life. Second, we have conducted this analysis with the competency data measured form actual activity and result data collected from the interview and research. Third, it analyzed not only quantitative performance (employment rate) but also qualitative performance (annual salary level). The practical use of this study is as follows. First, it can be a guide when establishing career development plans for college students. It is necessary to prepare for a job that can express one's strengths based on an analysis of the world of work and job, rather than having a no-strategy, unbalanced, or accumulating excessive specifications competition. Second, the person in charge of experience design for college students, at an organizations such as schools, businesses, local governments, and governments, can refer to the six competencies suggested in this study to for the user-useful experiences design that may motivate more participation. By doing so, one event may bring mutual benefits for both event designers and students. Third, in the era of digital transformation, the government's policy manager who envisions the balanced development of the country can make a policy in the direction of achieving the curiosity and energy of college students together with the balanced development of the country. A lot of manpower is required to start up novel platform services that have not existed before or to digitize existing analog products, services and corporate culture. The activities of current digital-generation-college-students are not only catalysts in all industries, but also for very benefit and necessary for college students by themselves for their own successful career development.

A Study on Traditional Ideology and the 'Tradition' of the Theatre company Minye in 1970s (1970년대 전통 이념과 극단 민예극장의 '전통')

  • Kim, Ki-Ran
    • Journal of Popular Narrative
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    • v.26 no.3
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    • pp.45-86
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    • 2020
  • In this article, the "modernization of the tradition" constructed on the cultural politics and the way in which it appropriated in the korean theatre in the 1970s were analyzed. It is trying to reveal its implications. It is also a work to critically review the aspects of self-censorship in the korean theatre in the 70s. To that end, we looked at the theatre company Minye Theatre, which preoccupied the traditional discussions in the 1970s by creating national dramas. Until now, the evaluation of the theatre company Minye Theatre in the 1970s has focused on the achievement on the directing of Heo Gyu, who promoted the succession and transformation of tradition. However, the traditional ideology constructed in the state-led cultural politics in the 70s and the way in which it was operated cannot be evaluated only in terms of artistic achievement. The ideology of tradition is selected according to the selective criteria of the subject to appropriate tradition. What's important is that certain objects are excluded, discarded, re-elected, re-interpreted and re-recognized in the selection process of selected traditional ideology. This is the situation in the '70s, when tradition was constantly re-recognized amid differences between the decadent and the disorder that were then designated as non-cultural, and led to a new way of appropriate. The nation-led traditional discussion of the '70s legalized the tradition with stable values, one of the its way was the national literary and artistic support. Under the banner of modernization of tradition, theatre company Minye preoccupied the discussions on the tradition and presented folk drama as a new theatre. As an alternative to the crisis of korean theatre at the time, the Minye chose the method of inheriting and transforming tradition. It is noteworthy that Heo Gyu, the representative director of the theatre company Minye, recognized the succession and transformation of traditional performance as both a calling and an experiment. For Heo Gyu, tradition was accepted as an irresistible stable value and an unquestionable calling, and as a result, his performance, filled with excessive traditional practices, became overambitious, especially when it failed to reflect the present-here reality, the repeated use of traditional expression tools resulted in skilled craftsmanship, not artistic creation. The traditional ideology of the 70s unfolds in a new aspect of appropriation in the 80s. In 1986, Son Jin-Cheok, Kim Seong-nyeo, and Yoon Mun-sik, who were key members of the theatre company Minye Theatre, left the theatre to create the theatre company Michu, and secured popularity through Madangnori(popular folk yard theatre). Son Jin-Cheok's Madangnori is overbearing through satire and humor. It gained popularity by criticizing and mocking state power. On the other hand, not only the form of traditional performance, but also the university-centered Madanggeuk movement, which appropriated on the spirit of resistance from the people to its traditional values, has rapidly grown. In the field of traditional discussions of the 70s, Madanggeuk was self-born through appropriation in which the spirit of resistance of the people is used as a traditional value. Madanggeuk as well as Michu that achieved the popularization of Madangnori cannot be discussed solely by the artistic achievement of the modernization of tradition. Critics of korean theatre in response to state-led traditional discussions in the 70s was focused only on the qualitative achievement of performing arts based on artistry. I am very sorry for that. As a result, the popular resistance of the Madanggeuk and the Madangnori were established in the 'difference' with the traditions of the theatre company Minye Theatre. Theatre company Minye Theatre was an opportunity for the modernization of tradition, but the fact that it did not continuously produce significant differences. This is the meaning and limitation of the "tradition" of the theatre company Minye Theatre in the history of korean theatre in the 1970s.

Methods for Integration of Documents using Hierarchical Structure based on the Formal Concept Analysis (FCA 기반 계층적 구조를 이용한 문서 통합 기법)

  • Kim, Tae-Hwan;Jeon, Ho-Cheol;Choi, Joong-Min
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.17 no.3
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    • pp.63-77
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    • 2011
  • The World Wide Web is a very large distributed digital information space. From its origins in 1991, the web has grown to encompass diverse information resources as personal home pasges, online digital libraries and virtual museums. Some estimates suggest that the web currently includes over 500 billion pages in the deep web. The ability to search and retrieve information from the web efficiently and effectively is an enabling technology for realizing its full potential. With powerful workstations and parallel processing technology, efficiency is not a bottleneck. In fact, some existing search tools sift through gigabyte.syze precompiled web indexes in a fraction of a second. But retrieval effectiveness is a different matter. Current search tools retrieve too many documents, of which only a small fraction are relevant to the user query. Furthermore, the most relevant documents do not nessarily appear at the top of the query output order. Also, current search tools can not retrieve the documents related with retrieved document from gigantic amount of documents. The most important problem for lots of current searching systems is to increase the quality of search. It means to provide related documents or decrease the number of unrelated documents as low as possible in the results of search. For this problem, CiteSeer proposed the ACI (Autonomous Citation Indexing) of the articles on the World Wide Web. A "citation index" indexes the links between articles that researchers make when they cite other articles. Citation indexes are very useful for a number of purposes, including literature search and analysis of the academic literature. For details of this work, references contained in academic articles are used to give credit to previous work in the literature and provide a link between the "citing" and "cited" articles. A citation index indexes the citations that an article makes, linking the articleswith the cited works. Citation indexes were originally designed mainly for information retrieval. The citation links allow navigating the literature in unique ways. Papers can be located independent of language, and words in thetitle, keywords or document. A citation index allows navigation backward in time (the list of cited articles) and forwardin time (which subsequent articles cite the current article?) But CiteSeer can not indexes the links between articles that researchers doesn't make. Because it indexes the links between articles that only researchers make when they cite other articles. Also, CiteSeer is not easy to scalability. Because CiteSeer can not indexes the links between articles that researchers doesn't make. All these problems make us orient for designing more effective search system. This paper shows a method that extracts subject and predicate per each sentence in documents. A document will be changed into the tabular form that extracted predicate checked value of possible subject and object. We make a hierarchical graph of a document using the table and then integrate graphs of documents. The graph of entire documents calculates the area of document as compared with integrated documents. We mark relation among the documents as compared with the area of documents. Also it proposes a method for structural integration of documents that retrieves documents from the graph. It makes that the user can find information easier. We compared the performance of the proposed approaches with lucene search engine using the formulas for ranking. As a result, the F.measure is about 60% and it is better as about 15%.

A study on the strategies to lower technologist occupational exposure according to the performance form in PET scan procedure (PET 검사실 종사자의 업무 행위 별 방사선피폭 조사에 따른 피폭선량 저감화를 위한 연구)

  • Ko, Hyun Soo;Kim, Ho Sung;Nam-Kung, Chang Kyeoung;Yoon, Soon Sang;Song, Jae Hyuk;Ryu, Jae Kwang;Jung, Woo Young;Chang, Jung Chan
    • The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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    • v.19 no.1
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    • pp.17-29
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    • 2015
  • Purpose For nuclear medicine technologists, it is difficult to stay away from or to separate from radiation sources comparing with workers who are using radiation generating devices. Nuclear medicine technologists work is recognized as an optimized way when they are familiar with work practices. The aims of this study are to measure radiation exposure of technologists working in PET and to evaluate the occupational radiation dose after implementation of strategies to lower exposure. Materials and Methods We divided into four working types by QC for PET, injection, scan and etc. in PET scan procedure. In QC of PET, we compared the radiation exposure controlling next to $^{68}Ge$ cylinder phantom directly to controlling the table in console room remotely. In injection, we compared the radiation exposure guiding patient in waiting room before injection to after injection. In scan procedure of PET, we compared the radiation exposure moving the table using the control button located next to the patient to moving the table using the control button located in the far distance. PERSONAL ELECTRONIC DOSEMETER (PED), Tracerco$^{TM}$ was used for measuring exposed radiation doses. Results The average doses of exposed radiation were $0.27{\pm}0.04{\mu}Sv$ when controlling the table directly and $0.13{\pm}0.14{\mu}Sv$ when controlling the table remotely while performing QC. The average doses of exposed radiation were $0.97{\pm}0.36{\mu}Sv$ when guiding patient after injection and $0.62{\pm}0.17{\mu}Sv$ when guiding patient before injection. The average doses of exposed radiation were $1.33{\pm}0.54{\mu}Sv$ when using the control button located next to the patient and $0.94{\pm}0.50{\mu}Sv$ when using the control button located in far distance while acquiring image. As a result, there were statistically significant differences(P<0.05). Conclusion: From this study, we found that how much radiation doses technologists are exposed on average at each step of PET procedure while working in PET center and how we can reduce the occupational radiation dose after implementation of strategies to lower exposure. And if we make effort to seek any other methods to reduce technologist occupational radiation, we can minimize and optimize exposed radiation doses in department of nuclear medicine. Conclusion From this study, we found that how much radiation doses technologists are exposed on average at each step of PET procedure while working in PET center and how we can reduce the occupational radiation dose after implementation of strategies to lower exposure. And if we make effort to seek any other methods to reduce technologist occupational radiation, we can minimize and optimize exposed radiation doses in department of nuclear medicine.

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Application of MicroPACS Using the Open Source (Open Source를 이용한 MicroPACS의 구성과 활용)

  • You, Yeon-Wook;Kim, Yong-Keun;Kim, Yeong-Seok;Won, Woo-Jae;Kim, Tae-Sung;Kim, Seok-Ki
    • The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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    • v.13 no.1
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    • pp.51-56
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    • 2009
  • Purpose: Recently, most hospitals are introducing the PACS system and use of the system continues to expand. But small-scaled PACS called MicroPACS has already been in use through open source programs. The aim of this study is to prove utility of operating a MicroPACS, as a substitute back-up device for conventional storage media like CDs and DVDs, in addition to the full-PACS already in use. This study contains the way of setting up a MicroPACS with open source programs and assessment of its storage capability, stability, compatibility and performance of operations such as "retrieve", "query". Materials and Methods: 1. To start with, we searched open source software to correspond with the following standards to establish MicroPACS, (1) It must be available in Windows Operating System. (2) It must be free ware. (3) It must be compatible with PET/CT scanner. (4) It must be easy to use. (5) It must not be limited of storage capacity. (6) It must have DICOM supporting. 2. (1) To evaluate availability of data storage, we compared the time spent to back up data in the open source software with the optical discs (CDs and DVD-RAMs), and we also compared the time needed to retrieve data with the system and with optical discs respectively. (2) To estimate work efficiency, we measured the time spent to find data in CDs, DVD-RAMs and MicroPACS. 7 technologists participated in this study. 3. In order to evaluate stability of the software, we examined whether there is a data loss during the system is maintained for a year. Comparison object; How many errors occurred in randomly selected data of 500 CDs. Result: 1. We chose the Conquest DICOM Server among 11 open source software used MySQL as a database management system. 2. (1) Comparison of back up and retrieval time (min) showed the result of the following: DVD-RAM (5.13,2.26)/Conquest DICOM Server (1.49,1.19) by GE DSTE (p<0.001), CD (6.12,3.61)/Conquest (0.82,2.23) by GE DLS (p<0.001), CD (5.88,3.25)/Conquest (1.05,2.06) by SIEMENS. (2) The wasted time (sec) to find some data is as follows: CD ($156{\pm}46$), DVD-RAM ($115{\pm}21$) and Conquest DICOM Server ($13{\pm}6$). 3. There was no data loss (0%) for a year and it was stored 12741 PET/CT studies in 1.81 TB memory. In case of CDs, On the other hand, 14 errors among 500 CDs (2.8%) is generated. Conclusions: We found that MicroPACS could be set up with the open source software and its performance was excellent. The system built with open source proved more efficient and more robust than back-up process using CDs or DVD-RAMs. We believe that the operation of the MicroPACS would be effective data storage device as long as its operators develop and systematize it.

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Case Analysis of the Promotion Methodologies in the Smart Exhibition Environment (스마트 전시 환경에서 프로모션 적용 사례 및 분석)

  • Moon, Hyun Sil;Kim, Nam Hee;Kim, Jae Kyeong
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.18 no.3
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    • pp.171-183
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    • 2012
  • In the development of technologies, the exhibition industry has received much attention from governments and companies as an important way of marketing activities. Also, the exhibitors have considered the exhibition as new channels of marketing activities. However, the growing size of exhibitions for net square feet and the number of visitors naturally creates the competitive environment for them. Therefore, to make use of the effective marketing tools in these environments, they have planned and implemented many promotion technics. Especially, through smart environment which makes them provide real-time information for visitors, they can implement various kinds of promotion. However, promotions ignoring visitors' various needs and preferences can lose the original purposes and functions of them. That is, as indiscriminate promotions make visitors feel like spam, they can't achieve their purposes. Therefore, they need an approach using STP strategy which segments visitors through right evidences (Segmentation), selects the target visitors (Targeting), and give proper services to them (Positioning). For using STP Strategy in the smart exhibition environment, we consider these characteristics of it. First, an exhibition is defined as market events of a specific duration, which are held at intervals. According to this, exhibitors who plan some promotions should different events and promotions in each exhibition. Therefore, when they adopt traditional STP strategies, a system can provide services using insufficient information and of existing visitors, and should guarantee the performance of it. Second, to segment automatically, cluster analysis which is generally used as data mining technology can be adopted. In the smart exhibition environment, information of visitors can be acquired in real-time. At the same time, services using this information should be also provided in real-time. However, many clustering algorithms have scalability problem which they hardly work on a large database and require for domain knowledge to determine input parameters. Therefore, through selecting a suitable methodology and fitting, it should provide real-time services. Finally, it is needed to make use of data in the smart exhibition environment. As there are useful data such as booth visit records and participation records for events, the STP strategy for the smart exhibition is based on not only demographical segmentation but also behavioral segmentation. Therefore, in this study, we analyze a case of the promotion methodology which exhibitors can provide a differentiated service to segmented visitors in the smart exhibition environment. First, considering characteristics of the smart exhibition environment, we draw evidences of segmentation and fit the clustering methodology for providing real-time services. There are many studies for classify visitors, but we adopt a segmentation methodology based on visitors' behavioral traits. Through the direct observation, Veron and Levasseur classify visitors into four groups to liken visitors' traits to animals (Butterfly, fish, grasshopper, and ant). Especially, because variables of their classification like the number of visits and the average time of a visit can estimate in the smart exhibition environment, it can provide theoretical and practical background for our system. Next, we construct a pilot system which automatically selects suitable visitors along the objectives of promotions and instantly provide promotion messages to them. That is, based on the segmentation of our methodology, our system automatically selects suitable visitors along the characteristics of promotions. We adopt this system to real exhibition environment, and analyze data from results of adaptation. As a result, as we classify visitors into four types through their behavioral pattern in the exhibition, we provide some insights for researchers who build the smart exhibition environment and can gain promotion strategies fitting each cluster. First, visitors of ANT type show high response rate for promotion messages except experience promotion. So they are fascinated by actual profits in exhibition area, and dislike promotions requiring a long time. Contrastively, visitors of GRASSHOPPER type show high response rate only for experience promotion. Second, visitors of FISH type appear favors to coupon and contents promotions. That is, although they don't look in detail, they prefer to obtain further information such as brochure. Especially, exhibitors that want to give much information for limited time should give attention to visitors of this type. Consequently, these promotion strategies are expected to give exhibitors some insights when they plan and organize their activities, and grow the performance of them.

Twitter Issue Tracking System by Topic Modeling Techniques (토픽 모델링을 이용한 트위터 이슈 트래킹 시스템)

  • Bae, Jung-Hwan;Han, Nam-Gi;Song, Min
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.20 no.2
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    • pp.109-122
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    • 2014
  • People are nowadays creating a tremendous amount of data on Social Network Service (SNS). In particular, the incorporation of SNS into mobile devices has resulted in massive amounts of data generation, thereby greatly influencing society. This is an unmatched phenomenon in history, and now we live in the Age of Big Data. SNS Data is defined as a condition of Big Data where the amount of data (volume), data input and output speeds (velocity), and the variety of data types (variety) are satisfied. If someone intends to discover the trend of an issue in SNS Big Data, this information can be used as a new important source for the creation of new values because this information covers the whole of society. In this study, a Twitter Issue Tracking System (TITS) is designed and established to meet the needs of analyzing SNS Big Data. TITS extracts issues from Twitter texts and visualizes them on the web. The proposed system provides the following four functions: (1) Provide the topic keyword set that corresponds to daily ranking; (2) Visualize the daily time series graph of a topic for the duration of a month; (3) Provide the importance of a topic through a treemap based on the score system and frequency; (4) Visualize the daily time-series graph of keywords by searching the keyword; The present study analyzes the Big Data generated by SNS in real time. SNS Big Data analysis requires various natural language processing techniques, including the removal of stop words, and noun extraction for processing various unrefined forms of unstructured data. In addition, such analysis requires the latest big data technology to process rapidly a large amount of real-time data, such as the Hadoop distributed system or NoSQL, which is an alternative to relational database. We built TITS based on Hadoop to optimize the processing of big data because Hadoop is designed to scale up from single node computing to thousands of machines. Furthermore, we use MongoDB, which is classified as a NoSQL database. In addition, MongoDB is an open source platform, document-oriented database that provides high performance, high availability, and automatic scaling. Unlike existing relational database, there are no schema or tables with MongoDB, and its most important goal is that of data accessibility and data processing performance. In the Age of Big Data, the visualization of Big Data is more attractive to the Big Data community because it helps analysts to examine such data easily and clearly. Therefore, TITS uses the d3.js library as a visualization tool. This library is designed for the purpose of creating Data Driven Documents that bind document object model (DOM) and any data; the interaction between data is easy and useful for managing real-time data stream with smooth animation. In addition, TITS uses a bootstrap made of pre-configured plug-in style sheets and JavaScript libraries to build a web system. The TITS Graphical User Interface (GUI) is designed using these libraries, and it is capable of detecting issues on Twitter in an easy and intuitive manner. The proposed work demonstrates the superiority of our issue detection techniques by matching detected issues with corresponding online news articles. The contributions of the present study are threefold. First, we suggest an alternative approach to real-time big data analysis, which has become an extremely important issue. Second, we apply a topic modeling technique that is used in various research areas, including Library and Information Science (LIS). Based on this, we can confirm the utility of storytelling and time series analysis. Third, we develop a web-based system, and make the system available for the real-time discovery of topics. The present study conducted experiments with nearly 150 million tweets in Korea during March 2013.

Clinical Applications and Efficacy of Korean Ginseng (고려인삼의 주요 효능과 그 임상적 응용)

  • Nam, Ki-Yeul
    • Journal of Ginseng Research
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    • v.26 no.3
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    • pp.111-131
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    • 2002
  • Korean ginseng (Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer) received a great deal of attention from the Orient and West as a tonic agent, health food and/or alternative herbal therapeutic agent. However, controversy with respect to scientific evidence on pharmacological effects especially, evaluation of clinical efficacy and the methodological approach still remains to be solved. Author reviewed those articles published since 1980 when pharmacodynamic studies on ginseng have intensively started. Special concern was paid on metabolic disorders including diabetes mellitus, circulatory disorders, malignant tumor, sexual dysfunction, and physical and mental performance to give clear information to those who are interested in pharmacological study of ginseng and to promote its clinical use. With respect to chronic diseases such as diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis, high blood pressure, malignant disorders, and sexual disorders, it seems that ginseng plays preventive and restorative role rather than therapeutics. Particularly, ginseng plays a significant role in ameliorating subjective symptoms and preventing quality of life from deteriorating by long term exposure of chemical therapeutic agents. Also it seems that the potency of ginseng is mild, therefore it could be more effective when used concomitantly with conventional therapy. Clinical studies on the tonic effect of ginseng on work performance demonstrated that physical and mental dysfunction induced by various stresses are improved by increasing adaptability of physical condition. However, the results obtained from clinical studies cannot be mentioned in the indication, which are variable upon the scientist who performed those studies. In this respect, standardized ginseng product and providing planning of the systematic clinical research in double-blind randomized controlled trials are needed to assess the real efficacy for proposing ginseng indication. Pharmacological mode of action of ginseng has not yet been fully elucidated. Pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic researches reveal that the role of ginseng not seem to be confined to a given single organ. It has been known that ginseng plays a beneficial role in such general organs as central nervous, endocrine, metabolic, immune systems, which means ginseng improves general physical and mental conditons. Such multivalent effect of ginseng can be attributed to the main active component of ginseng,ginsenosides or non-saponin compounds which are also recently suggested to be another active ingredients. As is generally the similar case with other herbal medicines, effects of ginseng cannot be attributed as a given single compound or group of components. Diversified ingredients play synergistic or antagonistic role each other and act in harmonized manner. A few cases of adverse effect in clinical uses are reported, however, it is not observed when standardized ginseng products are used and recommended dose was administered. Unfavorable interaction with other drugs has also been suggested, which the information on the products and administered dosage are not available. However, efficacy, safety, interaction or contraindication with other medicines has to be more intensively investigated in order to promote clinical application of ginseng. For example, daily recommended doses per day are not agreement as 1-2g in the West and 3-6 g in the Orient. Duration of administration also seems variable according to the purpose. Two to three months are generally recommended to feel the benefit but time- and dose-dependent effects of ginseng still need to be solved from now on. Furthermore, the effect of ginsenosides transformed by the intestinal microflora, and differential effect associated with ginsenosides content and its composition also should be clinically evaluated in the future. In conclusion, the more wide-spread use of ginseng as a herbal medicine or nutraceutical supplement warrants the more rigorous investigations to assess its effacy and safety. In addition, a careful quality control of ginseng preparations should be done to ensure an acceptable standardization of commercial products.

Implementation Strategy for the Elderly Care Solution Based on Usage Log Analysis: Focusing on the Case of Hyodol Product (사용자 로그 분석에 기반한 노인 돌봄 솔루션 구축 전략: 효돌 제품의 사례를 중심으로)

  • Lee, Junsik;Yoo, In-Jin;Park, Do-Hyung
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.25 no.3
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    • pp.117-140
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    • 2019
  • As the aging phenomenon accelerates and various social problems related to the elderly of the vulnerable are raised, the need for effective elderly care solutions to protect the health and safety of the elderly generation is growing. Recently, more and more people are using Smart Toys equipped with ICT technology for care for elderly. In particular, log data collected through smart toys is highly valuable to be used as a quantitative and objective indicator in areas such as policy-making and service planning. However, research related to smart toys is limited, such as the development of smart toys and the validation of smart toy effectiveness. In other words, there is a dearth of research to derive insights based on log data collected through smart toys and to use them for decision making. This study will analyze log data collected from smart toy and derive effective insights to improve the quality of life for elderly users. Specifically, the user profiling-based analysis and elicitation of a change in quality of life mechanism based on behavior were performed. First, in the user profiling analysis, two important dimensions of classifying the type of elderly group from five factors of elderly user's living management were derived: 'Routine Activities' and 'Work-out Activities'. Based on the dimensions derived, a hierarchical cluster analysis and K-Means clustering were performed to classify the entire elderly user into three groups. Through a profiling analysis, the demographic characteristics of each group of elderlies and the behavior of using smart toy were identified. Second, stepwise regression was performed in eliciting the mechanism of change in quality of life. The effects of interaction, content usage, and indoor activity have been identified on the improvement of depression and lifestyle for the elderly. In addition, it identified the role of user performance evaluation and satisfaction with smart toy as a parameter that mediated the relationship between usage behavior and quality of life change. Specific mechanisms are as follows. First, the interaction between smart toy and elderly was found to have an effect of improving the depression by mediating attitudes to smart toy. The 'Satisfaction toward Smart Toy,' a variable that affects the improvement of the elderly's depression, changes how users evaluate smart toy performance. At this time, it has been identified that it is the interaction with smart toy that has a positive effect on smart toy These results can be interpreted as an elderly with a desire to meet emotional stability interact actively with smart toy, and a positive assessment of smart toy, greatly appreciating the effectiveness of smart toy. Second, the content usage has been confirmed to have a direct effect on improving lifestyle without going through other variables. Elderly who use a lot of the content provided by smart toy have improved their lifestyle. However, this effect has occurred regardless of the attitude the user has toward smart toy. Third, log data show that a high degree of indoor activity improves both the lifestyle and depression of the elderly. The more indoor activity, the better the lifestyle of the elderly, and these effects occur regardless of the user's attitude toward smart toy. In addition, elderly with a high degree of indoor activity are satisfied with smart toys, which cause improvement in the elderly's depression. However, it can be interpreted that elderly who prefer outdoor activities than indoor activities, or those who are less active due to health problems, are hard to satisfied with smart toys, and are not able to get the effects of improving depression. In summary, based on the activities of the elderly, three groups of elderly were identified and the important characteristics of each type were identified. In addition, this study sought to identify the mechanism by which the behavior of the elderly on smart toy affects the lives of the actual elderly, and to derive user needs and insights.