• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.69-98
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• 2009

We investigated what factors motivate gamers to participate in a guild and why they continue to be engaged as members of the guild. We find that, based on the result of focus group interviews with MMORPG gamers, social support and self-esteem factors play important roles. Considering both prior research and the focus group interviews we have conducted, we define social support and character control as independent variables. Character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem are proposed as mediating variables while guild flow and game loyalty as dependent variables. Accordingly, we develop the research model and hypotheses, and verify them empirically. Based on our experiences of playing the WoW game, we proposed a research model and conducted focus-group interviews (FGIs). FGIs involve formulating a hypothesis and then collecting some relevant data. FGIs were conducted face-to-face with students of C University in Korea. We formulated structured interview schedules, and the questions were based on our research variables and personal experiences. The questions for the interviews encompassed the following areas: (a) the demographic characteristics of the focus group; (b) the number of years for which respondents had played online games; (c) the motive for starting a game; (d) the number of game-characters assumed by each gamer; (e) the type of game played; and (f) other issues such as the reasons for involvement in the play, the willingness to reuse the game in case new versions were released, etc. On average, it took two hours to interview each of three groups. A primary set of FGIs was conducted with three groups on the premise that there would be some differences caused by character race (Horde vs. Alliance) or by playable server (Normal vs. Combat). With respect to the manner of playing, we found that guild members shared information, felt a sense of belonging, and played computer games for quite a long time through the guild; however, they did not undergo these experiences when playing alone. Gamers who belonged to a specific guild helped other players without expecting compensation for that, freely shared information about the game, gave away items for free, and more generous with other members who made mistakes. The guild members were aware of the existence other members and experienced a sense of belonging through interactions with, and evaluations from, other players. It was clear that social support was shown within the guild and that it played an important role as a major research variable. Based on the results of the first FGIs, a second set of in-depth FGIs was carried out with a focus on the psychology of the individual within the guild and the social community of the guild. The second set of FGIs also focused on the guild's offline meetings. Gamers, over all, recognize the necessity of joining a community, not only off-line but also online world of the guild. They admit that the guild is important for them to easily and conveniently enjoy playing online computer games. The active behavior and positive attitudes of existing guild members can motivate new members of the guild to adapt themselves to the guild environment. They then adopt the same behaviors and attitudes of established guild members. In this manner, the new members of the guild strengthen the bonds with other gamers while feeling a sense of belonging, and developing social identity, thereby. It was discovered that the interaction among guild members and the social support encouraged new gamers to quickly develop a sense of social identity and increase their self-esteem. The guild seemed to play the role of socializing gamers. Sometimes, even in the real world, the guild members helped one another; therefore, the features of the guild also spilled over to the offline environment. We intend to use self-esteem, which was found through the second set of FGIs, as an important research variable. To collect data, an online survey was designed with a questionnaire to be completed by WoW gamers, who belong to a guild. The survey was registered on the best three domestic game-sites: 'WoW playforum,' 'WoW gamemeca,' and 'Wow invent.' The selected items to be measured in the questionnaire were decided based on prior research and data from FGIs. To verify the content of the questionnaire, we carried out a pilot test with the same participants to point out ambiguous questions as a way to ensure maximum accuracy of the survey result. A total of 244 responses were analyzed from the 250 completed questionnaires. The SEM analysis was used to test goodness-of-fit of the model. As a result, we found important results as follows: First, according to the statistics, social support had statistically significant impacts on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Second, character control had significant effects on character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity shows its clear impact on self-esteem and game loyalty. Fourth, guild identity affected self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Fifth, self-esteem had a positive influence on the guild flow. These days, the number of virtual community is rising along with its significance largely because of the nature of the online games. Accordingly, this study is designed to clarify the psychological relationship between gamers within the guild that has been generally established by gamers to play online games together. This study focuses on the relationships in which social support influences guild flow or game loyalty through character control, character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem, which are present within a guild in the MMORPG game environment. The study results are as follows. First, the effects of social support on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem are proven to be statistically significant. It was found that character control improves character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Among the seven variables, social support, which is derived from FGIs, plays an important role in this study. With the active support of other guild members, gamers can improve their ability to develop good characters and to control them. Second, character identity has a positive effect on self-esteem and game loyalty, while guild identity has a significant effect on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Self-esteem affects guild flow. It was found that the higher the character and guild identities become, the greater the self-esteem is established. Contrary to the findings of prior research, our study results indicate that the relationship between character identity and guild flow is not significant. Rather, it was found that character identity directly affects game players' loyalty. Even though the character identity had no direct effect on increasing guild flow, it has indirectly affected guild flow through self-esteem. The significant relationship between self-esteem and guild flow indicates that gamers achieve flow, i.e., a feeling of pleasure and excitement through social support. Several important implications of this study should be noted. First, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to conduct this study. Through FGIs, it was observed that both social support and self-esteem are important variables. Second, because guilds had been rarely studied, this research is expected to play an important role in the online community. Third, according to the result, six hypotheses (H1, H5, H6, H7, H8, and H11) setup based on FGIs, were statistically significant; thus, we can suggest the corresponding relationships among the variables as a guideline for follow-up research. Our research is significant as it has following implications: first, the social support of the guild members is important when establishing character control, character identity, guildidentity and self-esteem. It is also a major variable that affects guild flow and game loyalty. Second, character control when improved by social support shows notable influence on the development of character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity and guild identity are major factors to help establish gamers' own self-esteem. Fourth, character identity affects guild flow through self-esteem and game loyalty. The gamers usually express themselves through characters; the higher character identity is, the more loyalty a gamer has. Fifth, guild identity, established within the guild, has clear effects on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Sixth, qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to conduct this study. Based on the results of focus group interviews and SEM analysis, we find that the social support by guild members and psychological factors are significant in strengthening the flow of guild and loyalty to the game. As such, game developers should provide some extra functions for guild community, through which gamers can play online games in collaboration with one another. Also, we suggest that positive self-esteem which is built up through social support can help gamers achieve higher level of flow and satisfaction, which will consequently contribute to minimizing the possibility for the players to develop negative attitude toward the guild they belong to.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.47-67
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• 2017

Steel plate faults is one of important factors to affect the quality and price of the steel plates. So far many steelmakers generally have used visual inspection method that could be based on an inspector's intuition or experience. Specifically, the inspector checks the steel plate faults by looking the surface of the steel plates. However, the accuracy of this method is critically low that it can cause errors above 30% in judgment. Therefore, accurate steel plate faults diagnosis system has been continuously required in the industry. In order to meet the needs, this study proposed a new steel plate faults diagnosis system using Simultaneous MTS (S-MTS), which is an advanced Mahalanobis Taguchi System (MTS) algorithm, to classify various surface defects of the steel plates. MTS has generally been used to solve binary classification problems in various fields, but MTS was not used for multiclass classification due to its low accuracy. The reason is that only one mahalanobis space is established in the MTS. In contrast, S-MTS is suitable for multi-class classification. That is, S-MTS establishes individual mahalanobis space for each class. 'Simultaneous' implies comparing mahalanobis distances at the same time. The proposed steel plate faults diagnosis system was developed in four main stages. In the first stage, after various reference groups and related variables are defined, data of the steel plate faults is collected and used to establish the individual mahalanobis space per the reference groups and construct the full measurement scale. In the second stage, the mahalanobis distances of test groups is calculated based on the established mahalanobis spaces of the reference groups. Then, appropriateness of the spaces is verified by examining the separability of the mahalanobis diatances. In the third stage, orthogonal arrays and Signal-to-Noise (SN) ratio of dynamic type are applied for variable optimization. Also, Overall SN ratio gain is derived from the SN ratio and SN ratio gain. If the derived overall SN ratio gain is negative, it means that the variable should be removed. However, the variable with the positive gain may be considered as worth keeping. Finally, in the fourth stage, the measurement scale that is composed of selected useful variables is reconstructed. Next, an experimental test should be implemented to verify the ability of multi-class classification and thus the accuracy of the classification is acquired. If the accuracy is acceptable, this diagnosis system can be used for future applications. Also, this study compared the accuracy of the proposed steel plate faults diagnosis system with that of other popular classification algorithms including Decision Tree, Multi Perception Neural Network (MLPNN), Logistic Regression (LR), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Tree Bagger Random Forest, Grid Search (GS), Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The steel plates faults dataset used in the study is taken from the University of California at Irvine (UCI) machine learning repository. As a result, the proposed steel plate faults diagnosis system based on S-MTS shows 90.79% of classification accuracy. The accuracy of the proposed diagnosis system is 6-27% higher than MLPNN, LR, GS, GA and PSO. Based on the fact that the accuracy of commercial systems is only about 75-80%, it means that the proposed system has enough classification performance to be applied in the industry. In addition, the proposed system can reduce the number of measurement sensors that are installed in the fields because of variable optimization process. These results show that the proposed system not only can have a good ability on the steel plate faults diagnosis but also reduce operation and maintenance cost. For our future work, it will be applied in the fields to validate actual effectiveness of the proposed system and plan to improve the accuracy based on the results.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.141-156
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• 2013

Researchers in welfare services of local government in Korea have rather been on isolated issues as disables, childcare, aging phenomenon, etc. (Kang, 2004; Jung et al., 2009). Lately, local officials, yet, realize that they need more comprehensive welfare services for all residents, not just for above-mentioned focused groups. Still cases dealt with focused group approach have been a main research stream due to various reason(Jung et al., 2009; Lee, 2009; Jang, 2011). Social Security Information System is an information system that comprehensively manages 292 welfare benefits provided by 17 ministries and 40 thousand welfare services provided by 230 local authorities in Korea. The purpose of the system is to improve efficiency of social welfare delivery process. The study of local government expenditure has been on the rise over the last few decades after the restarting the local autonomy, but these studies have limitations on data collection. Measurement of a local government's welfare efforts(spending) has been primarily on expenditures or budget for an individual, set aside for welfare. This practice of using monetary value for an individual as a "proxy value" for welfare effort(spending) is based on the assumption that expenditure is directly linked to welfare efforts(Lee et al., 2007). This expenditure/budget approach commonly uses total welfare amount or percentage figure as dependent variables (Wildavsky, 1985; Lee et al., 2007; Kang, 2000). However, current practice of using actual amount being used or percentage figure as a dependent variable may have some limitation; since budget or expenditure is greatly influenced by the total budget of a local government, relying on such monetary value may create inflate or deflate the true "welfare effort" (Jang, 2012). In addition, government budget usually contain a large amount of administrative cost, i.e., salary, for local officials, which is highly unrelated to the actual welfare expenditure (Jang, 2011). This paper used local government welfare service data from the detailed data sets linked to the Social Security Information System. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors that affect social welfare spending of 230 local authorities in 2012. The paper applied multiple regression based model to analyze the pooled financial data from the system. Based on the regression analysis, the following factors affecting self-funded welfare spending were identified. In our research model, we use the welfare budget/total budget(%) of a local government as a true measurement for a local government's welfare effort(spending). Doing so, we exclude central government subsidies or support being used for local welfare service. It is because central government welfare support does not truly reflect the welfare efforts(spending) of a local. The dependent variable of this paper is the volume of the welfare spending and the independent variables of the model are comprised of three categories, in terms of socio-demographic perspectives, the local economy and the financial capacity of local government. This paper categorized local authorities into 3 groups, districts, and cities and suburb areas. The model used a dummy variable as the control variable (local political factor). This paper demonstrated that the volume of the welfare spending for the welfare services is commonly influenced by the ratio of welfare budget to total local budget, the population of infants, self-reliance ratio and the level of unemployment factor. Interestingly, the influential factors are different by the size of local government. Analysis of determinants of local government self-welfare spending, we found a significant effect of local Gov. Finance characteristic in degree of the local government's financial independence, financial independence rate, rate of social welfare budget, and regional economic in opening-to-application ratio, and sociology of population in rate of infants. The result means that local authorities should have differentiated welfare strategies according to their conditions and circumstances. There is a meaning that this paper has successfully proven the significant factors influencing welfare spending of local government in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.75 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 1986

This study was initiated to estimate productivity of Quercus variabilis stand. However the practical objective of this study was to provide some information to establish the basis of selecting the suitable site for Quercus variabilis. The productivity measured in terms of DBH, height, basal area and stem volume was hypothesized, respectively, to be a function of a group of factors. This study considered 32 factors, 20 of which were related to the forest environmental factors such as tree age, latitude, percent slope, etc. and the rest of which were related to soil factors such as soil moisture, total nitrogen, available $P_2O_5$, etc. The data on 4 productivity measurements of Quercus variabilis growth and related factors cited were collected from 99 sample plots in Kyeongbook and chungbook provinces. Some factors considered were, in nature, discrete variables and the others continuous variables. Each kind of factor was classified into 3 or 4 categories and total numbers of such categories were eventually amounted to 110. Then each category was treated as an independent variable. This is amounted to saying that individual variable was treated a dummy variable and assigned a value 1 or 0. However the first category of each factor was deleted from the normal equation for statistical consideration. First of all, each of 4 productivity measurements of Quercus variabilis growth was regressed and, at the same time, those 110 categories. Secondly, the partial correlation coefficients were measured between each pair of 4 productivity measurements and 32 individual foctors. Finally, the relative scores were estimated in order to derive the category ranges. The result of these statistical analyses could be summarized as follows: 1) Growth measurement in terms of height seems to be a more significant criterion for estimation of productivity of Quercus variabilis. 2) Productivity of forest on stocked land may better be estimated in terms of forest environmental factors, on the other hand, that of unstocked land may be estimated in terms of physio-chemical factors of soil. 3) The factors that a strongly positive relation to all growth factors of tree are age group, effective soil, soil moisture, etc. This implies that these factors might effectively be used for criteria for selecting the suitable site for Quercus variabilis. 4) Parent rock, latitude, total nitrogen, age group, effective soil depth, soil moisture, organic matter, etc., had more significant category range for tree growth. Therefore, the suitable site for Quercus variabilis may be selected, based on this information. In conclusion, the above results obtained by the multivariable analysis can be not only the important criteria for estimating the growth of Quercus variabilis but also the useful guidance for selecting the suitable sites and performing the rational of Quercus variabilis forest.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.678-693
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• 1993

The purposes of this study were to describe the level of vision and hearing impairments, depression and functional capacity, among Korean institutionalized elderly and to examine the relation-ship between sensory impairments, depression, and functional capacity in these people. The final pupose was to test the cognitive function path model using sensory competencies as predictors. A convenience sample of thirty nine male and 90 female subjects with a mean age of 80.5 were the subjects of this study. The subjects were tested for cognitive function, and vision and hearing impairments. Physical function and social function were measured by observation of designated task performance by the subjects. Their level of de-pression was measured using a Geriatric Depression Scale administered through an interview. Individual subjective ratings of hearing and vision were marked by the subjects, on a ladder scale. The results of the study showed that 48.8% of the subjects had a hearing impairment, 63.5% had a vision impairement, and 36.4% had both a vision and hearing impairement. The four sensory groups (no sensory impairement, hearing impairement, vision impairement, hearing and vision impairement) were tested for differences in depression, physical function, social behavior and cognitive function. The only significant difference that was found was in cognitive function, between the no sensory impairement group and the hearing and vision impairement group(F=3.25, P<.05), Subjective ratings of hearing showed a significant correlation with cognitive function(r=.34, p<.001) and with social behavior(r=.31, p<.001). There was no correlation between subjective vision ratings and cognitive function or social behavior. However there was a significant correlation between vision and hearing(r=.49, p<.001). There was also a significant negative correlation between age and vision(r=-.21, p<.01) and between age and hear-ing(r=-.34, p<.001). There was a significant correlation between depression and physical function (r=-.32, p<.001) but there was no correlation between depression and cognitive function or social behavior. Based on the literature review and the result, this study, a path model of sensory competence-> cognitive function- >social behavior was developed and tested : Perceived vision and perceived hearing were the exogenous variahles and cognitive function and social behavior were the endogeneous variables in the model. The path analysis result demonstrated an accept-able fit (GFI=.997, AGFI=.972, X$^2$=.72 (p=.396), RMSR=.019) between the data and the model. There was a significant direct effect($\beta$=.38) of perceived hearing on cognitive function. There was a significant direct effect ($\beta$=.32) of cognitive function on social behavior. The total effect of hearing on social behavior was $\beta$=.32 including the indirect effect ($\beta$=.12) . However perceived vsion had little effect ($\beta$=-.08) on cognitive function. The result of path analysis confirms that hearing levels influence cognitive function, and both hearing and cognitive function levels influence social behavior. However, vision has little effect on cognitive function or on social behavior. For the next study, a combined model of the pre viously developed environment - >depression- > physical and social function model, and the present cognitive function model, should be tested to further refine the functional capacity model. There also a need for longitudinal study of functional capacity and sencory competence in order to better understand how declining sensory competence influences functional capacity and how it effects in-creasing dependency and nursing needs in the elderly.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.80-93
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• 2012

Recent studies have reported that the glycemic index (GI) has an effect on developing the risk for metabolic abnormalities such as diabetes, dyslipidemia, and obesity. As there are no reliable GI values for common Korean foods, only a few studies have been carried out using the dietary GI for Korean adults. The aim of this study was to establish a table of GI values for common Korean foods and evaluate dietary glycemic index (DGI) and dietary glycemic load (DGL) among the Korean adult population. International tables of GI values and other published values were used to tabulate GI values for common Korean foods. Among 653 food items, 149 (22.8%) were adapted from published data, 60 (9.2%) were imputed from similar foods, and 444 (68.0%) were assigned a zero. Data from 7,940 subjects aged 20 years and older in the 2007-2008 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were obtained, and DGI and DGL were calculated. The average DGI was 60.0 and the average DGL was 182.5 when the reference food GI value was glucose. After adjusting for potential confounding variables, DGI and DGL increased significantly according to age group (p for trend < 0.001). The food group that contributed most to DGL was grain and its products supplying 85.3% of total DGL, whereas the mean GI value in grain and its products was 72.6. Fruits and potatoes also contributed to DGL (5.8 and 2.9%, respectively), and their GIs were high (67.7 for potatoes and 45.8 for fruits). For individual food items, white rice supplied 66.7% of total GI followed by glutinous rice (2.3%) and steamed white rice cakes (2.0%). In conclusion, a table of GI values for 653 common food items was established in which white rice was the most contributing item to DGL. Our results will be useful to examine the relationships between DGI, DGL, and metabolic abnormalities in the Korean population.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.136-151
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• 2003

The summarized analysis result of this research is as follows. First, regarding the difference of preceding variable and dependent variable, statistically considerable difference did not appear between self determination and personal relations in educational background and between groups of self determination in hotel type, and statistically considerable difference appeared among other groups. Second, regression analysis result between empowerment and job satisfaction turned out that statistically considerable influence is exerted in the order of personal relations ability, influence power, role performance ability and self-decision nature. Third, regression analysis result between empowerment and job devotion turned out that statistically considerable influence is exerted in the order of personal relations ability, role performance ability and influence power. Fourth, regression analysis result between empowerment and organization devotion turned out that statistically considerable result is exerted in the order of influence power and personal relations ability. Fifth, it turned out that statistically relative high correlation existed among correlation of empowerment and result variable such as job satisfaction, job devotion and organization devotion. The above-mentioned matters considered, this research proposes following points. This research examines the effect of empowerment on job satisfaction and organizational commitment of culinary staff in the hotel. the effect of the variable of empowerment on result variable shows that role performance ability, influence power and personal relations ability are important variables. Therefore, to improve the role performance ability of members of kitchen, it is essential for each individual to improve their ability and to have confidence at the time of business performance. So, this research implies that consistent and systematic training is necessary for increasing the ability and confidence. In order to improve influence power, it is necessary for members of an organization to have strong faith that their jobs determine the success of the company, and to increase the sense of self-control by letting them have the right of self determination, so that all members may have strong desire to transact business. This research implies that in order to improve personal relations ability, it is necessary for members of an organization to discover the best method of decision-making and solve problems through members' developing mutual action, and for managers to take personal characteristics into account so that members may have belief and confidence in their job and realize the value of their job. In conclusion, the person in charge of personnel affairs and the manager in charge of kitchen need to realize the importance of empowerment and especially have an much interest in all parts including self determination, influence power and role performance ability and personal relations ability etc.

• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.85-98
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• 2015

Modern fashion shows the trend of various styles and the period focusing on only product functions is changed to the period focusing on consumer's sensibility. Consumers show different sensitivities and preference by individual at the stage cognizing and recognizing the stimulation of given image and the method of objective measurement based on the fashion sensible vocabularies is necessary to measure fashion sensibility. Therefore, this research is significant to examine differences of preference to classic fashion by generation and awareness for sensible vocabularies and suggest methodology of design sensible evaluation research through the quantitative evaluation objectifying subjective sensibility. For the method of research, precedent theses related to classic, concept and characteristics of classic in books and definition and characteristics by generation were examined, the best 3 domestic portal sites were selected and adjective vocabularies and images related to classic were collected from 2010 to 2014. Among the 206 adjectives collected, vocabularies whose average is more than 3.5 were drawn by 5-point Likert scale for fashion expert group. And, among the total 306 images collected, 21 representative images were selected by preliminary investigation of fashion expert group. For the classic images and vocabularies selected, frequency analysis, factor analysis and variance analysis were conducted by SPSS 19.0. The results of analysis are as follows. Preference to classic fashion image by generation was analyzed. As a result, both of two generations selected classic fashion as the most classic one. The images of the next orders were analyzed. As a result, Y generation selected basic classic fashion image which is casual with high activity as a classic one. Baby boom generation selected ancient classic fashion image, so there were differences in preference for classic by generation. As a factor analysis on classic adjective vocabularies, they could be divided into 5 factors such as basic form, attractive form, traditional form, vintage form and active form and they verified that credibility of all measuring variables for classic sensible vocabularies was achieved. Differences of classic sensible vocabularies by classic fashion image and generation were examined. As a result, generation and classic fashion image made a significant effect on five factors. Therefore, there were differences of the awareness on classic fashion images and sensible vocabularies among the generations and this thesis can be a fundamental material which objectifies subjective sensibility and suggests the methodology of new research.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.647-652
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• 2015

Background: Lung cancer was one of the most common cancers in both men and women all over the world. In this study, we aimed to clarify who could survive after long term chemotherapy in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: We enrolled 186 patients with stage IV NSCLC after long term chemotherapy from Jun 2006 to Nov 2014 diagnosed in Jiangsu Cancer Hospital. Multiple variables like age, gender, smoking, histology of adenocarcinoma and squamous-cell cancer, number of metastatic sites, metastatic sites (e.g. lung, brain, bone, liver and pleura), hemoglobin, lymphocyte rate (LYR), Change of LYR during multiple therapies, hypertension, diabetes, chronic bronchitis, treatments (e.g.radiotherapy and targeted therapy) were selected. For consideration of factors influencing survival and response for patients with advanced NSCLC, logistic regression analysis and Cox regression analysis were used in an attempt to develop a screening module for patients with elevated survival after long term chemotherapy become possible. Results: Of the total of 186 patients enrolled, 69 survived less than 1 year (short-term group), 45 one to two years, and 72 longer than 3 years (long-term group). For logistic regression analysis, the short-term group was taken as control group and the long-term group as the case group. We found that age, histology of adenocarcinoma, metastatic site (e.g. lung and liver), treatments (e.g. targeted therapy and radiotherapy), LYR, a decreasing tendency of LYR and chronic bronchitis were individually associated with overall survival by Cox regression analysis. A multivariable Cox regression model showed that metastatic site (e.g. lung and liver), histology of adenocarcinoma, treatments (e.g. targeted therapy and radiotherapy) and chronic bronchitis were associated with overall survival. Thus metastatic site (e.g. lung and liver) and chronic bronchitis may be important risk factors for patients with advanced NSCLC. Gender, metastatic site (e.g. lung and liver), LYR and the decreasing tendency of LYR were significantly associated with long-term survival in the individual-variable logistic regression model (P<0.05). On multivariate logistic regression analysis, gender, metastatic site (e.g. lung and liver) and the decreasing tendency of LYR associated with long-term survival. Conclusions: In conclusion, female patients with stage IV adenocarcinoma of NSCLC who had decreasing tendency of LYR during the course therapy and had accepted multiple therapies e.g. more than third-line chemotherapy, radiotherapy and/or targeted therapy might be expected to live longer.

• Nutritional Sciences
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.124-130
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• 2006

To examine the effects of alcohol consumption on body fluid restoration and fat mobilization following exercise induced dehydration, nine healthy collegiate men ($24{\pm}2yrs,\;177{\pm}5cm,\;72{\pm}8kg,\;10.5{\pm}2.3%$ body fat) underwent three experiments. In each experiment, subjects ran on a treadmill to reduce individual body mass to $2.2{\pm}0.1%$ and consumed one of three beverages containing 0, 4, or 8% alcohol over 60 min followed by 4 hr of resting recovery. They consumed approximately 150% of weight loss $(2053{\pm}204,\;2091{\pm}149,\;and\;1943{\pm}295mL)$ and content of alcohol was $9.9{\pm}1.0(0%),\;71.9{\pm}5.1(4%)$, and $132.2{\pm}20.1g$ (8% trial). Body weight, urine volume and samples, blood samples, and thirst sensation were measured five times; at baseline, immediately after exercise, and 0, 1st, and 4th hr of recovery. Blood alcohol concentration after ingestion was $0.0{\pm}0.0(0%),\;0.1{\pm}0.02(4%)$, and $0.2{\pm}0.03%$ (8% trial). No differences in blood sodium and potassium concentrations, and urine specific gravity were noticed over time periods and trials. Thirst sensation tended to be elevated in all trials immediately after exercises and urine output was elevated during the recovery. The magnitude of changes in these variables was proportional to the alcohol concentrations, but not statistically significant. While serum osmolality was not different among trials and time periods in 0 and 4% trials, it was higher during recovery than the baseline in the 8% trial (P<0.01). Triglycerides did not change throughout the time period and among trials. Free fatty acids were elevated after exercise in all trials and 4th hr of recovery in 0% (P<0.05). Subjects' net body fluid balance at 4th hr of recovery was negatively maintained and proportional to alcohol concentrations. Only 8% trials showed a significant reduction at 1st and 4th hr of recovery compared to 0 hr. The results suggested that diuretic effect of alcohol after moderate level of dehydration appeared dose dependent, but beverage containing alcohol up to 4% did not induce impaired rehydration than alcohol free drinks. Alcohol effects on fat mobilization during recovery appeared to be minimal and the mechanism is unclear.