• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
• /
• v.77 no.4
• /
• pp.172-177
• /
• 2014

Background: Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection is particularly associated with progressive and ultimately chronic recurrent respiratory infections in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bronchiectasis, chronic destroyed lung disease, and cystic fibrosis. Its treatment is also very complex because of drug resistance and recurrence. Methods: Forty eight cultures from 18 patients with recurrent P. aeruginosa pneumonia from 1998 to 2002 were included in this study. Two or more pairs of sputum cultures were performed during 2 or more different periods of recurrences. The comparison of strains was made according to the phenotypic patterns of antibiotic resistance and chromosomal fingerprinting by pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) using the genomic DNA of P. aeruginosa from the sputum culture. Results: Phenotypic patterns of antibiotic resistance of P. aeruginosa were not correlated with their prior antibiotic exposition. Fifteen of 18 patients (83.3%) had recurrent P. aeruginosa pneumonia caused by the strains with same PFGE pattern. Conclusion: These data suggest that the most of the recurrent P. aeruginosa infections in chronic lung disease occurred due to the relapse of prior infections. Further investigations should be performed for assessing the molecular mechanisms of the persistent colonization and for determining how to eradicate clonal persistence of P. aeruginosa.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
• /
• v.28 no.1
• /
• pp.25-31
• /
• 2017

Background and Objectives : Though voice therapy is proven to be effective in academia, treatment results and satisfaction level are inconsistent in clinics. The inconsistency may rise from diverse vocal cords misuse patterns in patient population as they suffer from different diseases or have bad phonation habits. In order to overcome the limitation, we uniformized patients' vocal cords with injection laryngoplasty prior to voice therapy. The efficacy of voice therapy and consistency in treatment results after injection laryngoplasty were assessed. Materials and Methods : Patients diagnosed with vocal nodules were either treated with injection laryngoplasty followed by voice therapy (combined treatment group) or voice therapy only (voice therapy group). Each group consisted of 15 patients. Acoustic measures (jitter, shimmer, NHR), aerodynamic measures (MPT, Psub, MAFR), and subjective auditory conscious measures (K-VHI, K-VRQOL) between two groups were analyzed. Results : After treatments, both groups improved in terms of acoustic, aerodynamic, and subjective auditory conscious measures compared to pre-treatment. Combined treatment group had statistically significantly greater improvement in shimmer, P in K-VHI, and PF in K-VRQOL compared to voice therapy group. Conclusion : Injection laryngoplasty treatment prior to voice therapy synergizes in treating patients compared to voice therapy only.

• Safety and Health at Work
• /
• v.4 no.3
• /
• pp.149-155
• /
• 2013

Background: Stochastic resonance whole-body vibration training (SR-WBV) was tested to reduce work-related musculoskeletal complaints. Methods: Participants were 54 white-collar employees of a Swiss organization. The controlled crossover design comprised two groups each given 4 weeks of exercise and no training during a second 4-week period. Outcome was daily musculoskeletal well-being, musculoskeletal pain, and surefootedness. In addition, participants performed a behavioral test on body balance prior to when SR-WBV started and after 4 weeks of SR-WBV. Results: Across the 4-week training period, musculoskeletal well-being and surefootedness were significantly increased (p < 0.05), whereas musculoskeletal pain was significantly reduced only in those who reported low back pain during the last 4 weeks prior to the study (p < 0.05). Body balance was significantly increased by SR-WBV (p < 0.05). Conclusion: SR-WBV seems to be an efficient option in primary prevention of musculoskeletal complaints and falls at work.

• Journal of Dental Anesthesia and Pain Medicine
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.25-29
• /
• 2016

Background: The most important reason for pre-operative administration of medication is to reduce anxiety. Alleviation of fear and anxiety about surgery enables patients to remain comfortable during treatment. Dexmedetomidine (DEX) is a fast-acting drug that is used as a premedication in different circumstances because it has sedative and anti-anxiolytic effects, and stable hemodynamics. It also has the advantage of intranasal administration. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects and hemodynamic stability of DEX by retrospectively analyzing cases in which DEX was administered nasally as a premedication. Methods: Ten patients treated at Dankook University Dental Hospital, recruited between February and April 2015, received intranasal delivery of $2{\mu}g/kg$ DEX, 30 minutes prior to general anesthesia. Anesthesia records of anxiety, blood pressure, respiration, pulse, estimated arterial oxygen saturation ($SpO_2$), and partial pressure, or maximum concentration, of carbon dioxide ($ETCO_2$) were analyzed. Results: Administration of DEX prior to a general anesthetic effectively relieved anxiety. Respiratory depression, the most severe adverse effect of other sedatives, was not observed. Hemodynamic stability under general anesthesia was maintained during treatment and a reduction in emergence delirium was observed upon completion of treatment. Conclusions: Premedication administration of DEX is safe for pediatric patients undergoing dental treatment under general anesthesia.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.70-75
• /
• 2009

According to the aviation statistics, tail strike incidents and accidents are cyclic. Although many tail strikes occurred during takeoff, these are less than during landing cases. Many cases are related on human factors. In my opinion it is possible to analyze the causes of takeoff tail strikes to some extent. There are major casual factors of tail strike during takeoff such as; (1) Mis-trimmed horizontal stabilizer (2) premature rotation prior to $V_R$ (3) Excessive pitch up rate during rotation (4) Improper use of the flight director. Among these causes improper use of flight director is excluded in this paper because it is recommended that pilot should use flight director after airborne. So I analyzed the other three causes as following. Firstly, because mis-trimmed stabilizer is related to center of gravity(CG), the relationship between stabilizer and CG is reviewed. Secondly, concerned premature rotation prior to $V_R$ I reviewed the background of rotation speed($V_R$) establishment and analyzed theoretically what speed leads to tail strikes. Thirdly, concerning excessive pitch up rate during rotation I analyzed what excessive pitch up rate can decrease ground clearance while using FDR data.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• v.47 no.2
• /
• pp.35-41
• /
• 2023

Background: Several species of amphibians in agricultural areas are often infected with ranaviruses; however, the biological or ecological factors that cause this infection are not well understood. In this study, we investigated whether local tadpole density, Gosner developmental stage, and weather conditions affected ranavirus infection in Dryophytes japonicus tadpoles in rice paddies over three months. Results: During the study, eight samplings were undertaken between June 6 and August 21, 2022. No die-off of tadpoles occurred, but 20 of 110 tadpoles (18.8%) were found to be infected with ranavirus. The tadpole density at the sampling site and Gosner stage of the sampled tadpoles were not related to the daily ranavirus infection rate. The mean daily highest temperature during the two weeks prior to the sampling date and the mean daily lowest and highest temperatures during the week prior to the sampling date were negatively related to the daily infection rate. Conclusions: Our results suggest that low and extreme temperatures caused by flooding and draining of paddy fields or climate change in summer could be a significant risk factor for ranavirus infection in summer-breeding frogs in agricultural areas.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.15 no.7
• /
• pp.2939-2943
• /
• 2014

Background: While many studies have shown that hormones can influence background parenchymal enhancement (BPE) in breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), only few have directly address the effect of radiotherapy. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of radiotherapy on BPE in breast MRI. Materials and Methods: A retrospective search identified 62 women with unilateral breast cancer who had a breast MRI both before and after radiotherapy following breast-conserving surgery. In our study, we assumed that systemic therapy affected both breasts equivalently. We rated the level of BPE of both breasts using a four-point categorical scale. A change in the level of BPE prior to and after treatment was compared in the diseased and contralateral breasts. Results: All patients received a 4256 to 6480 cGy dose of whole breast radiotherapy over 3-7 weeks. The mean timing of the follow-up study was 6.6 months after completion of radiotherapy. Although the BPE showed a decrease in both breasts after treatment, there was a significant reduction of BPE in the irradiated breast compared with the contralateral breast (1.18 versus 0.98 average reduction in BPE level, p=0.042). Conclusions: Radiotherapy is associated with decrease in BPE with MRI.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.32 no.2
• /
• pp.109-116
• /
• 2019

Survivability of soldiers has been greatly threatened by the development of thermal observation device(TOD). Therefore, infrared, especially thermal, stealth technology is applied to combat suit to avoid detection from TOD. In this study, prior to the thermal camouflage performance evaluation of combat suit, thermal signature characteristic from clothed the human body was analyzed considering the realistic condition for human surface temperature compared to that from unclothed human body. To get the realistic surface temperature distribution of human, thermoregulation and multi-layer skin structure model is applied to the human model. Based on temperature distribution, surface diffuse radiance in thermal range is calculated and by assuming the background conditions, contrast radiance intensity(CRI) characteristic of human body is analyzed. By wearing clothing, the CRI between background and human body became reduced in low emissive background but in high emissive background, the contrast is much more prominent. Therefore, this issue should be considered in design process of thermal camouflage combat suit.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.49-59
• /
• 2020

Purpose: Online and social media and mobile shopping are increasing and companies are required to provide personal information in order to supplement the non-invasive characteristics of the channels. With the increased provision of personal information, consumers' personal and social concerns about the prevention of personal information infringement are also increasing, and in response, personal or opt-in marketing has emerged to compensate for reckless information abuse. Despite the background of this emergence, the existing prior studies are limited to ignoring the negative feelings of consumers in the real world, including only the net function and positive effect of the opt-in mail. Research design, data and methodology: The research framework was intended to utilize the impact of human marketing activities on consumer attitudes combined with positive and negative factors. Factors that positively affect attitudes toward permation marketing were presented, such as informality, and perceived risks were presented as negative impact factors. Also, based on previous prior research, the prior factors of opt-in marketing were to present the effect on purchase intent through the medium of attitude toward opt-in marketing. Results: In this study, we used the framework of a two factor theory to address positive and negative factors as a leading factor in the customer attitude toward opt-in mail advertising, and as a result, functionality and personalization have a positive effect on customer attitude and perceived risk have a negative impact on customer attitude. In addition, it was confirmed that the customer attitude formed this way affects the intention to purchase again. Conclusions: This study suggests that we have demonstrated that marketing, an opt-in marketing that has been recognized as part of marketing that is deployed after obtaining customer consent, has been applied without any other marketing methodology. E-mail advertising at this point also provides practical implications that the system safeguards are in place under an opt-in protocol or system, and that even if an e-mail advertisement is carried out, customers will need to look at the level of awareness about the risks, and suggests that they need to consider the customer's journey that could lead to purchase at the content level.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.27 no.2
• /
• pp.149-156
• /
• 2017

Background: This study was conducted to evaluate the performance of the Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) model, identify potentially high-cost patients, and examine the effects of adding prior utilization to the risk model using Korean claims data. Methods: We incorporated 2 years of data from the National Health Insurance Services-National Sample Cohort. Five risk models were used to predict health expenditures: model 1 (age/sex groups), model 2 (the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services-HCC with age/sex groups), model 3 (selected 54 HCCs with age/sex groups), model 4 (bed-days of care plus model 3), and model 5 (medication-days plus model 3). We evaluated model performance using $R^2$ at individual level, predictive positive value (PPV) of the top 5% of high-cost patients, and predictive ratio (PR) within subgroups. Results: The suitability of the model, including prior use, bed-days, and medication-days, was better than other models. $R^2$ values were 8%, 39%, 37%, 43%, and 57% with model 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively. After being removed the extreme values, the corresponding $R^2$ values were slightly improved in all models. PPVs were 16.4%, 25.2%, 25.1%, 33.8%, and 53.8%. Total expenditure was underpredicted for the highest expenditure group and overpredicted for the four other groups. PR had a tendency to decrease from younger group to older group in both female and male. Conclusion: The risk adjustment models are important in plan payment, reimbursement, profiling, and research. Combined prior use and diagnostic data are more powerful to predict health costs and to identify high-cost patients.