• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.35-50
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• 2023

As urbanization progresses, there is a growing and continuous demand for green spaces that provide ecosystem services. However, increasing the quantity of green spaces within major cities is challenging. Therefore, it is essential to pursue qualitative improvements that consider ecological characteristics of existing green spaces. In this study, we focus on local neighborhood parks in Seoul and present the following two questions through an evaluation utilizing ecological design indicators and land use data: 1. Which factor, design or location, has a greater influence on the ecological quality of neighborhood parks in Seoul? 2. Additionally, when evaluating ecological characteristics, is there similarity between assessments based on land-use data and those utilizing ecological design indicators? For this study, we conducted research on 30 neighborhood parks in Seoul and classified them into mountainous types (adjacent to mountains, natural terrain parks) and urban types (independently designed within 300m without existing forests) based on previous studies. Firstly, we conducted evaluations according to park location types. When comparing the evaluation scores of urban types (14 parks) and mountainous types (16 parks), significant differences were observed with scores of 16.86 and 35.94, respectively. Statistical analysis showed a significant difference between park types. In terms of habitat quality, the average values for urban and mountainous parks were 0.33 and 0.53, respectively, and statistically significant differences were observed between park types indicating differences in ecological potential according to park location. Secondly, when comparing the results of ecological potential evaluations based on park design and external connectivity, a correlation was found between habitat quality and total scores according to evaluation indicators. The correlation analysis showed significant linear relationships between habitat quality and total scores, biodiversity scores, and ecosystem function scores, with high positive correlation coefficients of 0.829, 0.861, and 0.802, respectively. This study holds significance in analyzing the ecological aspects of urban parks through the lens of both park location characteristics and design indicators. The analysis results underscore the importance of planning and managing ecologically sound urban parks contingent upon their location. Moreover, the utilization of appropriate ecological design indicators can help alleviate environmental limitations surrounding parks. Integrating these considerations could enhance the ecological quality and ecosystem services of urban green spaces.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.57 no.9
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• pp.615-626
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• 2024

To accurately and efficiently monitor soil moisture (SM) across South Korea, this study developed a SM estimation model that integrates the cloud computing platform Google Earth Engine (GEE) and Automated Machine Learning (AutoML). Various spatial information was utilized based on Terra MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) and the global precipitation observation satellite GPM (Global Precipitation Measurement) to test optimal input data combinations. The results indicated that GPM-based accumulated dry-days, 5-day antecedent average precipitation, NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), the sum of LST (Land Surface Temperature) acquired during nighttime and daytime, soil properties (sand and clay content, bulk density), terrain data (elevation and slope), and seasonal classification had high feature importance. After setting the objective function (Determination of coefficient, R² ; Root Mean Square Error, RMSE; Mean Absolute Percent Error, MAPE) using AutoML for the combination of the aforementioned data, a comparative evaluation of machine learning techniques was conducted. The results revealed that tree-based models exhibited high performance, with Random Forest demonstrating the best performance (R² : 0.72, RMSE: 2.70 vol%, MAPE: 0.14).

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.172-177
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• 2024

Many studies have reported that mealworms can ingest plastic during their larval stage. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of expanded polystyrene consumption on the growth and development of mealworms during their larval stage. We found that the growth rate is significantly different between mealworms consumed wheat bran and mealworms consumed expanded polystyrene (p < 0.001). The transformation into pupa occurred faster among the mealworms consumed expanded polystyrene than those consumed wheat bran (p < 0.001). However, the survival rate was not significantly different between the two groups of mealworms (p = 0.786). Based on the data, we conclude that mealworms consuming expanded polystyrene have a slower weight gain and a shorter development period than mealworms consuming wheat bran, but the expanded polystyrene does not affect the survival rate before the transformation into pupa. Practically, we anticipate that mealworms can be a resource for the sustainable and eco-friendly removal of expanded polystyrene waste.

• Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.193-200
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• 2024

In this work, lipid nanovesicles (LNV) containing niacinamide were prepared by changing the concentration of lecithin, fatty acids (palmitic acid), and surfactant (polysorbate 60), and physicochemical characteristics analysis and skin permeability evaluation were performed. The present LNVs were measured with an average diameter of 77 ~ 160 nm, zeta potential -63 ~ -31 mV depending on the concentration of lecithin and polysorbate 60. As a result of observing the stability over time for 12 weeks, LNV1 showed much better colloidal stability than others. In addition, in vitro skin penetration using Franz cell was evaluated for LNV. In this work, niacinamide was selected as the model drug. As a result of skin penetration, it was confirmed that the skin penetration of fatty acid containing LNV1 was much superior than control. These results confirm that LNVs containing lecithin, fatty acids, and surfactants can support the skin absorption of active ingredients in cosmetics.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.248-256
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• 2024

The purpose of this study was to identify the household air pollutants most significantly impacting hearing loss, using data from the 8th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Of the 1,980 participants, those with missing data were excluded from the study population, resulting in the final inclusion of 298 participants. Mild hearing loss is defined as a unilateral or bilateral pure-tone threshold average (PTA) of 26~40 dB, and moderate hearing loss is defined as a unilateral or bilateral PTA of 41 dB or higher. The mean of the PTAs for both ears is defined as the sum of the PTAs of the left and the right ears divided by 2. Complex samples multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that formaldehyde exposure independently significantly increased the risk of moderate hearing loss (odds ratio=1.050, P<0.001). Additionally, in the complex samples general linear model, toluene exposure (B=0.026, P<0.001) was found to be independently significantly associated with an increase in the mean of PTAs for both ears, where a higher mean of the PTAs for both ears indicates a decrease in hearing ability. These results suggest a strong association between hearing loss and the presence of toluene or formaldehyde in indoor air.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1-19
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• 2010

As having the movement of developing private brand (PB) goods, domestic big retailers are facing up with new problems. Thus, it is required studies of PB products, and how consumers recognize PB products as a consideration commodity set. Also, it is worthy in order that it gives us the important meaning on the marketing strategy with focusing on evaluating the differences between customers buying PB grocery goods with respect to demographic characteristics and purchasing behaviors. PB has some advantages for customers and retailers. However, according to AC Nielson's report (2005), Asian and emerging market has 1/5 sales relatively to Western countries. But we can assume that the emerging market has the most potential growth through this result. As a result from several other studies, it becomes necessary to not only increase the rate of selling composition of PB product temporarily, but also analyze the characteristics of customers using big retailers and segmenting customer groups to make PB product as a consideration commodity set for them. In addition, it is needed to have a variety of acts of marketing. From studies related to PB, there is a prejudice - cheap products have low quality - but, evaluation by customers who have used those products shows neutral stand, and there is a study representing that it is the most important to accumulate the belief between the retailers selling PB products and consumers using those for the accurate evaluation and intention on purchasing. Also, by the result from analyzing the characteristics of customers buying PB products, we could assume that higher income and higher education level, more preference on PB products. Especially, according to TNS's research, the primary targets of PB product are 30's who seeks value for money and planned spending habits, and 40's who have teenager children, and are interested in encouraging themselves. This paper used Probit model to analyze the characteristics of consumers. This model helps us to analyze with the variables representing the demographic characteristics of consumers (gender, age, educational level, occupation, income level, living area), and variables related to purchasing behavior (visiting frequency on big retailers, the average amount that they pay for goods in there, and check-up which brand made those goods). The method we used in this study is by man to man interview and survey on-line with the rate of 89% and 11% in Seoul and Gyunggi Province, respectively, for about one month from the beginning of February, 2008. As a result of this, under the assumption that people buy PB products more as long as they go shopping more, it was not meaningful for target groups which we pointed out as frequently visiting customers to be. Although, we have expected women buy more PB products than men do, gender doesn't mean anything for the result. And, it has inferred that married people buy more PB goods than singles do. It was also meaningless with variables related to occupation. Because housewives are often exposed to any kind of supermarket than workers are, we could not get any relatives. Moreover, we couldn't proof that younger generation prefer big retailers more than older people who 50~60's. Education levels doesn't affect on the purchase of PB product as well. Related to living area, the result is statistically not similar as we expected whether living in Seoul or not. It shows there is no relationship with the preference on retail brands and PB products, and it is similar with the study researched by TNS(2008) that customers tend to buy PB product impulsively no matter which brand it is and where they are even though their shopping place is the big market where customers are often using. Variables on which we had meaningful results are income level and living place. That is, customers who have 3,000,000~6,000,000 WON every month on average are more willing to buy PB products than other customers whose income is over 6,000,000 WON, and residents not living in Seoul prefer PB goods than those who are living in Seoul. To explain more about what we got, if there is only one condition about customer's visiting frequency on big retails, we could come up with this result that more exposed to PB products, more purchasing frequency. Consequently, it brings the important insight that large retailers have to prepare something to make customers visit them often to increase selling rate of PB products. To demonstrate the result of analyzing more, what is more efficient variables are demographically including marital status, income level, and residential area to buy items that affect the PB products and could include the frequency of visiting large markets by the purchase habits. Specifically, then, married couples rather than singles, middle-income customers than high-income customers, and local residents not living in Seoul than customers in Seoul are more likely to purchase PB goods. In addition, as long as a customer visits two times more, then the purchasing rate of PB products is to increase over 5.3%. Therefore, it seems that retailers are better to make a shopping place as fun and comfortable places. With overwhelming the idea that PB products are just cheap, one-time purchase goods, it is needed to increase the loyalty on those goods like NB products, try to make PB products as a consideration products set, and occur to sustainable sales. Especially, as suggested by this paper, it seems like it strongly needs to identify the characteristics of customers who prefer PB, to segment those customers, and to select the main target, and to do positioning with well-planned marketing strategies. Then, it is able to give us a meaningful point on marketing strategy by developing the field of PB study, identifying the difference of life style and shopping habits of customers.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.95-107
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• 2015

Objective : To use and its affecting factors of patients' outpatient treatment that have single and multiple chronic illnesses Method : We used the 2011 study by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, "Report on Usage and Consumption of Korean Medicine." This report was conducted on outpatients and inpatients that visited Korean traditional medicine, from August 25th, 2011, to September 30th, 2011. Our research was based on 1729 patients with chronic diseases aged 30 and over who received outpatient treatment during the last three months. Results : There were 1365 patients with non-complex chronic diseases, while there were 364 patients with complex chronis diseases. Patients had 1 - 8 chronic diseases, and the average number (standard deviation) was 1.26 (0.59). There were statistically significant differences by sex(P<0.0001), age(p=0.0045), marriage (p=0.0060), education level(p<0.0001), income level(P=0.0063), and types of health insurance(p=0.0023). The diseases most common among patients with non-complex chronic diseases were: low back pain, arthritis, gastrointestinal disorder, frozen shoulder, side effects from motor accidents, high blood pressure, fracture, stroke, diabetes, cancer, atopic dermatitis, and asthma. The diseases most common among patients with non-complex chronic diseases were: arthritis+low back pain, low back pain+gastrointestinal disorder, low back pain+side effects from motor accidents, low back pain+frozen shoulder, arthritis+gastrointestinal disease, gastrointestinal disease+frozen shoulder, arthritis+low back pain+gastrointestinal disease, high blood pressure+arthritis, arthritis+low back pain+frozen shoulder, arthritis+fracture, and arthritis+side effects from motor accidents. There were statistically significant differences among the usage of medical clinics by: frequently used clinic (p<0.0001), number of treatment (p<0.0001), the cost of outpatient treatment (p=0.0073), the satisfaction rate (p=0.0171), whether the clinic is the preferred clinic (p=0.0040). In model 1, men than women, people who had local benefits instead of type 1 medical aid, and patients with complex chronic diseases were more likely to use Korean medical clinics. In model 2, men than women, people who had local benefits than people with types 1 and 2 medical aids, people who went to pharmacies and Korean medicine pharmacies than people who went to hospitals, people who went to get treatment 1-10 times than people who visited 11-20 times and more than 41 times, and people who spent less than ten thousand Korean won than people who spent 1 to 2 million Korean won, and people without complex chronic diseases were more likely to use Korean medical treatment. Conclusion : There were differences in sociodemographic characteristics and the usage of medical clinics between patients with non-complex chronic diseases and patients with complex chronic diseases. Among patients with complex chronic diseases, women, patients with types 1 and 2 medical aid, patients who used Korean medical clinics, patients who were treated 11-20 times and more than 41 times, and patients who spent 1 million to 2 million Korean won on outpatient treatment used less treatment than patients with non-complex chronic diseases. However, patients with complex chronic diseases used pharmacies and Korean medicine pharmacies more.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.81-94
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• 2006

The water quality impacts of forest fragmentation at the Doam-dam watershed were evaluated in this study. For this ends, the watershed scale model, Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was utilized. To exclude the effects of different magnitude and patterns in weather, the same weather data of 1985 was used because of significant differences in precipitation in year 1985 and 2000. The water quality impacts of forest fragmentation were analyzed temporarily and spatially because of its nature. The flow rates for Winter and Spring has increased with forest fragmentations by $8,366m^3/month$ and $72,763m^3/month$ in the S1 subwatershed, experiencing the most forest fragmentation within the Doam-dam watershed. For Summer and Fall, the flow rate has increased by $149,901m^3/month$ and $107,109m^3/month$, respectively. It is believed that increased flow rates contributed significant amounts of soil erosion and diffused nonpoint source pollutants into the receiving water bodies. With the forest fragmentation in the S1 watershed, the average sediment concentration values for Winter and Spring increased by 5.448mg/L and 13.354mg/L, respectively. It is believed that the agricultural area, which were forest before the forest fragmentation, are responsible for increased soil erosion and sediment yield during the spring thaw and snow melts. For Spring and Fall, the sediment concentration values increased by 20.680mg/L and 24.680mg/L, respectively. Compared with Winter and Spring, the increased precipitation during Summer and Fall contributed more soil erosion and increased sediment concentration value in the stream. Based on the results obtained from the analysis performed in this study, the stream flow and sediment concentration values has increased with forest fragmentation within the S1 subwatershed. These increased flow and soil erosion could contribute the eutrophication in the receiving water bodies. This results show that natural functionalities of the forest, such as flood control, soil erosion protection, and water quality improvement, can be easily lost with on-going forest fragmentation within the watershed. Thus, the minimize the negative impacts of forest fragmentation, comprehensive land use planning at watershed scale needs to be developed and implemented based on the results obtained in this research.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.1488-1502
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• 2000

This study, based on current home nursing services, aims at promoting measures for establishing a community-based home nursing system derived from the pilot home nursing demonstration project conducted by the Seoul Nurses Association. The study was based on an analysis of home nursing records from march 1993 to December 1999. The following is a summary analysis, based on individual characteristics of the patients, the organization, which recommended the service for their patients and personnel services. 1. The service has been used by many elderly people 60years of age or older(66.4%). and married people(60.9%). The average number of visits by service personnel for patients of city government was 23.5. This is 2.5 times as many visits by general patients. General patients(20.2%) had only one visit from service personnel, while 65.5% of patients of city government had 10 or more visits. Particularly, for government recommended patients, 72.7% of the patients were recommended by nurses, while only 21.9% where referred to the services by doctors. The main focus of a home nursing service was to maintain present health status (53.4%), and hospice(11.6%). Also to increase hospital-based home nursing services focused on recovery(55.9%) and maintain present health conditions (19.0%). 2. For general patients, 42.0% of patients were suffering from problems related to CVA, 11.3% from high blood pressure, and for patients referred from city, 21.2% from skeletal muscular disease. Results of home nursing services 29.4% of patients were able to recover or maintain their health status, but 48.9% of the patients died. Another main point of community-based home nursing services is medication(6.7%), other basic nursing services(6.1%), special treatment, instructions on how to use medical devices(5.9%), change of physical posture(4.6%), and training on changing physical positions(4.7%). As mentioned above there were some differences between the characteristics of patients who used the pilot home nursing service conducted by the Seoul Nurses Association and those hospital-based service users. The results are believed to be useful to support a community-based home nursing service model. Particularly, patients under medical supervision and patients recommended by government-run health clinics show a higher frequency and longer use of home nursing services compared to general patients or hospital-based home nursing service users. According to the study, nurses accounted for a large number of recommendations for home nursing services. Many patients with CVA, high blood pressure, skeletal muscular disease and bedsores used community-based home nursing services, while others used the service for minor treatments or maintaining their current health status. Based on the study, the researchers make several suggestions to establish a community- based home nursing service system. First, different ways of setting up a community-based home nursing system have to be mapped out based on the evaluation of the pilot home nursing service conducted by the Seoul Nurses Association. Secondly, a new, community-based, home health care nursing service model, and reimbursement payment system have to be developed. This is based on the outcome of the analysis, and implemented policy. Accordingly, efforts are needed to develop a community- based home nursing system with an intermediary role to promote the visiting nursing services of government-run health centers.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.19-38
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• 2017

Collaborative filtering (CF) algorithm has been popularly used for implementing recommender systems. Until now, there have been many prior studies to improve the accuracy of CF. Among them, some recent studies adopt 'hybrid recommendation approach', which enhances the performance of conventional CF by using additional information. In this research, we propose a new hybrid recommender system which fuses CF and the results from the social network analysis on trust and distrust relationship networks among users to enhance prediction accuracy. The proposed algorithm of our study is based on memory-based CF. But, when calculating the similarity between users in CF, our proposed algorithm considers not only the correlation of the users' numeric rating patterns, but also the users' in-degree centrality values derived from trust and distrust relationship networks. In specific, it is designed to amplify the similarity between a target user and his or her neighbor when the neighbor has higher in-degree centrality in the trust relationship network. Also, it attenuates the similarity between a target user and his or her neighbor when the neighbor has higher in-degree centrality in the distrust relationship network. Our proposed algorithm considers four (4) types of user relationships - direct trust, indirect trust, direct distrust, and indirect distrust - in total. And, it uses four adjusting coefficients, which adjusts the level of amplification / attenuation for in-degree centrality values derived from direct / indirect trust and distrust relationship networks. To determine optimal adjusting coefficients, genetic algorithms (GA) has been adopted. Under this background, we named our proposed algorithm as SNACF-GA (Social Network Analysis - based CF using GA). To validate the performance of the SNACF-GA, we used a real-world data set which is called 'Extended Epinions dataset' provided by 'trustlet.org'. It is the data set contains user responses (rating scores and reviews) after purchasing specific items (e.g. car, movie, music, book) as well as trust / distrust relationship information indicating whom to trust or distrust between users. The experimental system was basically developed using Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), but we also used UCINET 6 for calculating the in-degree centrality of trust / distrust relationship networks. In addition, we used Palisade Software's Evolver, which is a commercial software implements genetic algorithm. To examine the effectiveness of our proposed system more precisely, we adopted two comparison models. The first comparison model is conventional CF. It only uses users' explicit numeric ratings when calculating the similarities between users. That is, it does not consider trust / distrust relationship between users at all. The second comparison model is SNACF (Social Network Analysis - based CF). SNACF differs from the proposed algorithm SNACF-GA in that it considers only direct trust / distrust relationships. It also does not use GA optimization. The performances of the proposed algorithm and comparison models were evaluated by using average MAE (mean absolute error). Experimental result showed that the optimal adjusting coefficients for direct trust, indirect trust, direct distrust, indirect distrust were 0, 1.4287, 1.5, 0.4615 each. This implies that distrust relationships between users are more important than trust ones in recommender systems. From the perspective of recommendation accuracy, SNACF-GA (Avg. MAE = 0.111943), the proposed algorithm which reflects both direct and indirect trust / distrust relationships information, was found to greatly outperform a conventional CF (Avg. MAE = 0.112638). Also, the algorithm showed better recommendation accuracy than the SNACF (Avg. MAE = 0.112209). To confirm whether these differences are statistically significant or not, we applied paired samples t-test. The results from the paired samples t-test presented that the difference between SNACF-GA and conventional CF was statistical significant at the 1% significance level, and the difference between SNACF-GA and SNACF was statistical significant at the 5%. Our study found that the trust/distrust relationship can be important information for improving performance of recommendation algorithms. Especially, distrust relationship information was found to have a greater impact on the performance improvement of CF. This implies that we need to have more attention on distrust (negative) relationships rather than trust (positive) ones when tracking and managing social relationships between users.