• Title/Summary/Keyword: bias effect

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Predictive Modeling for the Growth of Listeria monocytogenes as a Function of Temperature, NaCl, and pH

  • PARK SHIN YOUNG;CHOI JIN-WON;YEON JIHYE;LEE MIN JEONG;CHUNG DUCK HWA;KIM MIN-GON;LEE KYU-HO;KIM KEUN-SUNG;LEE DONG-HA;BAHK GYUNG-JIN;BAE DONG-HO;KIM KWANG-YUP;KIM CHEOL-HO
    • Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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    • v.15 no.6
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    • pp.1323-1329
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    • 2005
  • A mathematical model was developed for predicting the growth kinetics of Listeria monocytogenes in tryptic soy broth (TSB) as a function of combined effects of temperature, pH, and NaCl. The TSB containing four different concentrations of NaCl (2, 4, 5, and $10\%$) was initially adjusted to six different pH levels (pH 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10) and incubated at 4, 10, 25, or 37$^{circ}C$. In all experimental variables, the primary growth curves were well fitted ($r^{2}$=0.982 to 0.998) to a Gompertz equation to obtain the lag time (LT) and specific growth rate (SGR). Surface response models were identified as appropriate secondary models for LT and SGR on the basis of coefficient determination ($r^{2}$=0.907 for LT, 0.964 for SGR), mean square error (MSE=3.389 for LT, 0.018 for SGR), bias factor ($B_{1}$B,=0.706 for LT, 0.836 for SGR), and accuracy factor ($A_{f}$=1.567 for LT, 1.213 for SGR). Therefore, the developed secondary model proved reliable predictions of the combined effect of temperature, NaCl, and pH on both LT and SGR for L. monocytogenes in TSB.

Music for Pediatric Patients in Medical Settings: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials (소아환자를 위한 음악: 무작위 임상연구의 체계적인 문헌고찰)

  • Lee, Jin Hyung
    • Journal of Music and Human Behavior
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    • v.10 no.2
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    • pp.1-33
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    • 2013
  • The aim of this study was to systematically review the latest clinical trials in music medicine and medical music therapy for pediatric patients. Thirteen databases were searched to obtain randomized controlled/crossover design studies published between the year 2000 and 2012 in English language. Out of 1012 articles retrieved in the initial search, fifteen studies were identified based on an exclusion criteria. Overall, selected articles involved children 1 month to 18 years, sample size of 11 to 150, and total participants of 987. Studies were classified and compared as music medicine or music therapy studies through a systematic synthesis assessing general characteristics, methodological quality, measured outcomes, types of interventions and the study results. Seven music medicine and eight music therapy studies measured seven dependent variables using thirty-six different measurement tools with a large heterogeneity in the selection, type, and method of music interventions. Evaluation of the methodological quality revealed that many studies did not provide a full report of the research method, and did not meet some or most methodological standards, such as randomization, allocation concealment, double or partial blinding, and intention to treat analysis. Although overall research results were positive if not significant, poor methodological quality and heterogeneity in design and intervention strategies raise the question of research bias and trustworthiness issues. The systematic review concluded that music may have a valuable clinical effect in addressing the physical and psychosocial needs of hospitalized children, although more rigorous, homogeneous and replicable studies are greatly needed.

Functional RsaI/PstI Polymorphism in Cytochrome P450 2E1 Contributes to Bladder Cancer Susceptibility: Evidence from a Meta-analysis

  • Deng, Xiao-Dong;Gao, Qin;Zhang, Bo;Zhang, Li-Xia;Zhang, Wei;Er, Zhe-Er Mu;Xie, Ying;Ma, Ying;Liu, Yun
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.15 no.12
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    • pp.4977-4982
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    • 2014
  • Background: Cytochrome P450 2E1 (CYP2E1) might be involved in the development of bladder cancer. However, previous studies of any association between CYP2E1 RsaI/PstI polymorphism and bladder cancer risk have yielded conflicting results. In this study, we performed a more precise estimation of the relationship by a meta-analysis based on the currently available evidence from the literature. Method: To assess the effect of CYP2E1 RsaI/PstI polymorphism on bladder cancer susceptibility, a meta-analysis of 6 available studies with 1,510 cases and 1,560 controls were performed through Feb 2014. Summary odds ratios (ORs) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to estimate the strength of association for CYP2E1 RsaI/PstI polymorphism under different genetic models. Results: When available studies were pooled into the meta-analysis, we found that the C1C2 and C2C2 genotypes of CYP2E1 RsaI/PstI polymorphism significantly decreased bladder cancer risk under different genetic models (heterozygote: OR=0.766, 95%CI=0.613-0.957, $P_{OR}$=0.019; homozygote: OR=0.51, 95%CI=0.303-0.858, $P_{OR}$=0.011; dominant: OR=0.733, 95%CI=0.593-0.905, $P_{OR}$=0.004; recessive: OR=0.565, 95%CI=0.337-0.947, $P_{OR}$=0.030). Subgroup analysis indicated that C2C2 genotype was significantly associated with decreased bladder cancer risk under the homozygote genetic model in Caucasians. There was no evidence of heterogeneity or publication bias. Conclusions: The current meta-analysis suggested that the CYP2E1 RsaI/PstI polymorphism might be associated with bladder cancer susceptibility, especially in Caucasians. Further studies are needed to validate the above conclusion.

Development of Tuberculosis Education Model for Junior Health Care Professionals (예비보건의료인을 위한 결핵 교육 모형 구축)

  • Baek, Seolhyang;Lee, Ji-Soo;Lee, Hyun-Jung
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.18 no.5
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    • pp.432-445
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    • 2018
  • For health care professionals(HCPs) who have relatively higher possibility of exposing tuberculosis(Tb), it is important for them to equip with proper levels of knowledge and prevention activities. In terms of establishment of Tb education model for junior HCPs, therefore, literature review was done alongside 129 junior HCPs and 14 HCPs were asked to answer questionnaires and telephone survey. The results are follows.; Firstly, six educational themes such as epidermiology of Tb, Tb transmission and patho-physiology, test and diagnosis, latent Tb, Tb treatment, and Tb prevention were identified, based on the literature review. Secondly, the junior HCPs showed lower levels of knowledge regarding epidermiology, transmission and patho-physiology and latent Tb, compared to the other themes. When education courses are planned, longer period of time should be given to the lower level of knowledge areas. Thirdly, the HCPs emphasized that definition and type of Tb should be well integrated into the education in particular epidermiology education. They also responded that hospital infection and infection cycle of Tb need to be addressed during educational session about transmission and patho-physiology. in addition, they said that specific and detailed contents about diagnosis and group examination should be carefully delivered during the education, along with diagnosis, test and application of personal protective devices during education of latent Tb. They also answered that patient education and adverse effect of Tb medication should be taught during Tb treatment session, as well as self activities of health promotion for junior HCPs and systematic TB education as key way of Tb prevention. As the findings were from limited numbers of respondents and contained the sampling bias, the result has to be carefully interpretated prior to generalization. Therefore, further survey with larger study population is required in terms of development of Tb education model.

Research Activity Assessment with the Use of Scientometrics: OLED Case Analysis (과학계량학을 이용한 연구활동 평가 : OLED 사례 분석)

  • Yeo, Woon-Dong;Lee, Woo-Hyoung;Lee, Sang-Pil
    • Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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    • v.10 no.2
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    • pp.230-254
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    • 2007
  • Scientometrics means the metrics of science, and it plays a role in the measurement of scientists' activities by using research results like papers. Objective numerical values or indicators obtained by scientometric analysis may make a significant contribution to correct evaluation by excluding political or relationship bias or revealing significant researchers or their research fields that have been assessed relatively lower for their performance. In the period when the scale of technology was relatively large, such as for the development of heavy chemistry, it was possible to make a not-bad selection by an assessment made only with the intuition of the assessor. However, it is nearly impossible for experts with a narrow knowledge in a field to judge the direction of change correctly as the current science technology changes rapidly and tremendously. Even in an assessment of research performance of researchers or research institutions, only some notable researchers are able to attract attention owing to the Metthew effect, and the majority who have accumulated research results in depth are not able to receive reasonable research funding. Therefore, it might be natural that there is a growing need for assessment using scientometrics. The purpose of this research is to suggest some applicable scientometric techniques for an assessment of research performance to science and technology researchers and policy planners. In order to accomplish this, we used a frequency analysis of papers and its citations to assess the research performance of researchers, institutions, and countries for OLED technology as a case study. Furthermore, we position detailed technologies for OLED technology as arriving, growing, maturing, and declining technology by utilizing several network analysis techniques, make groups with researchers and institutions of same research interest. And we review the current international joint research of Korea, China, and Japan, who are in a competitive relationship. Also, at the end of each analysis result, we describe what kind of assessment should be available to Korean policy planners and research managers for such scientometric analysis results.

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Evaluation on South and North Korean Military Power by Military Officers (남북 군사력 우열에 대한 군간부들의 인식 평가)

  • Lee Sang-Jin
    • Survey Research
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    • v.7 no.1
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    • pp.29-53
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    • 2006
  • This paper analyzes which of the military sub-fields has an effect on a soldier's evaluation of South and North Korean military power. There are three objectives of this paper. First, it is to analyze whether the South is superior to the North in the overall military power and military sub -fields, without the presence of the US armed forces in South Korea. Second, it is to assess which of the military sub-fields influences the overall evaluation of military power through a regression analysis. Finally, it is to look at whether the professional soldiers have a motivational bias, due to an argument that the military personnel tend to exaggerate the inferiority of their own military power to get more budget for defense construction. Research in 2002 and 2003 tell us that South Korean military power is slightly inferior to North Korea's. However, research in 2005 shows that military power of South and North Korea is almost equal. The sub-fields in which South Korea is superior are in the order of War Sustainability, Information Warfare, Air Force, and Navy. North Korea is regarded to be superior in the fields of Atomic Biological Chemical Warfare Capability, Special Force, Reserve Mobilization, and Army. The higher ranked soldiers tend to evaluate that the North is superior to the South.

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Gender Differences Associated with Pain Characteristics and Treatment in Taiwanese Oncology Outpatients

  • Liang, Shu-Yuan;Wang, Tsae-Jyy;Wu, Shu-Fang;Chao, Ta-Chung;Chuang, Yeu-Hui;Tsay, Shiow-Luan;Tung, Heng-Hsin;Lee, Ming-Der
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.14 no.7
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    • pp.4077-4082
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    • 2013
  • The purpose of this descriptive and comparative study was to examine gender differences relevant to pain intensity, opioid prescription patterns and opioid consumption in Taiwanese oncology outpatients. The 92 participants had been prescribed opioid analgesics for cancer-related pain at least once in the past week and were asked to complete the Brief Pain Inventory - Chinese questionnaire and to recall the dosage of each opioid analgesic that they had ingested within the previous 24 hours. For opioid prescriptions and consumption, all analgesics were converted to morphine equivalents. The results revealed a significant difference between males and female minimum pain thresholds (t = 2.38, p = 0.02) and current pain thresholds (t = 2.12, p = 0.04), with males reporting a higher intensity of pain than females. In addition, this study found that males tended to use prescribed opioid analgesics more frequently than females on the bases of both around the clock (ATC) (t = 1.90, p = 0.06) and ATC plus as needed (ATC + PRN) (t = 2.33, p = 0.02). However, there was no difference between males and females in opioid prescriptions on an ATC basis (t = 0.52, p = 0.60) or at an ATC + PRN basis (t = 0.40, p = 0.69). The results suggest that there may be a gender bias in the treatment of cancer pain, supporting the proposal of routine examination of the effect of gender on cancer pain management. These findings suggest that clinicians should be particularly aware of potential gender differences during pain monitoring and the consumption of prescribed opioid analgesics.

The Study on the Relationships between Team Leader's Emotional Intelligence and Subordinate's Organizational Attitude, Behavior Focused on Examining the Mediated Effect of Leader Trust (상사신뢰의 매개효과에 따른 팀장의 감성지능이 부하의 태도 및 행동에 미치는 영향력 분석)

  • Kim, Sung-Eun
    • Management & Information Systems Review
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    • v.31 no.2
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    • pp.199-230
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    • 2012
  • This study introduced trust dimension as a mediating variable and analyzed in order to investigate the empirical mechanism on the process of leader's emotional intelligence which is a emotional factor to produce organizational effectiveness. Based on the empirical analysis, first of all, this study found whether the team leader's emotional intelligence gives an influence on the subordinate's trust in leader. Secondly, this study examined the multidimensionality of trust by selecting subordinate's cognition-based trust and affect-based trust on the team leader as mediating variables between team leaders's emotional intelligence and subordinate's affective commitment, organizational citizenship behavior. I found the theoretical implications based on this study; first, from the view on cognition-based and emotion-based trust, the integrated verification of the process of the trust in leader as a mediating role, second, verification of the relationship between leader's emotional intelligence and trust in leader which was not studied before, third, the methodological try to prevent from the common method bias problem through the evaluation of a team leader on a subordinate's organizational citizenship behavior. This study also suggested the ways to apply those theoretical implications to human resource management.

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Role of HER2 in Brain Metastasis of Breast Cancer: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

  • Hedayatizadeh-Omran, Akbar;Rafiei, Alireza;Alizadeh-Navaei, Reza;Tehrani, Mohsen;Valadan, Reza;Moradzadeh, Kambiz;Panbechi, Mohammad;Taghavi, Seyed Mehdi
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.16 no.4
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    • pp.1431-1434
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    • 2015
  • Background: Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers among women worldwide and the HER2 receptor plays an important role in its development and progression. This systematic review aimed to summarize the role of HER2 in brain metastasis in patients with breast cancer. Materials and Methods: We conducted a literature search by advanced search in title field using the Scopus, Pubmed, and Google scholar databases until the end of June 2014. With metastasis, metastatic, HER2, brain, and breast cancer, as terms of search we selected 31 articles, which were reviewed by two independent and blinded expert reviewers. The studies were first selected according to their titles and abstracts. Quality of the studies were then assessed using the STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology) protocol for observational studies and CONSORT(Consolidation of Standards for Reporting Trials) protocol for clinical trials. For statistical analyses, we used STATA, version 11.0 software. Forest and funnel diagrams were drawn and for heterogeneity, index was also considered. Also we used meta regression analysis. Results: Finally, we reviewed 10 studies. The prevalence of brain metastasis in HER2-positive breast cancer patients was 24.9%. There was publication bias in the reviewed studies. Meta regression analysis showed that follow up time had no significant effect (p=0.396) on the prevalence of brain metastasis. Conclusions: The results showed a high prevalence of brain metastasis in HER2 positive breast cancer patients.

Lack of Effects of HER-2/neu on Prognosis in Colorectal Cancer: a Meta-analysis

  • Han, Jun;Meng, Qing-Yang;Liu, Xiao;Xi, Qiu-Lei;Zhuang, Qiu-Lin;Wu, Guo-Hao
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.15 no.14
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    • pp.5551-5556
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    • 2014
  • Background: The prognostic value of human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2/neu) for survival of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) is still ambiguous. We therefore performed a meta-analysis to evaluate its prognostic significance. Materials and Methods: We searched the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases for published literature investigating associations between HER-2/neu status and overall survival of patients with CRC. A meta-analysis was performed using a DerSimonian-Laird model and publication bias was investigated by Begg's and Egger's tests. Subgroup analysis was also conducted according to the study design type, study quality score, cut-off value for HER-2/neu overexpression, publication region, patient number and publication year. Results: A total of 17 eligible studies involving 2,347 patients were identified for this meta-analysis. The combined hazard ratio (HR) was 1.31 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.96-1.79), suggesting that HER-2/neu overexpression was not significantly associated with overall survival of patients with CRC. However, subgroup analysis revealed that HER-2/neu overexpression had an unfavorable impact on survival when the analysis was restricted to subgroups of study quality score ${\leq}5 $(HR=1.56, 95%CI: 1.17-2.10), Asian patients (HR=1.74, 95%CI: 1.22-2.49), patient number ${\leq}106$ (HR=1.57, 95%CI: 1.01-2.44), publication year before 2003 (HR=1.59, 95%CI: 1.02-2.49), and prospectively designed study (HR=3.62, 95%CI: 1.42-9.24). The effect disappeared in subgroups of study quality scores > 5 (HR=0.69, 95%CI: 0.33-1.44), non Asian patients (HR=1.14, 95%CI: 0.77-1.70), patients' number > 106 (HR=1.07, 95%CI: 0.67-1.72), publication year after 2003 (HR=1.13, 95%CI: 0.76-1.69), and retrospectively designed study (HR=1.22, 95%CI: 0.89-1.67). Conclusions: Our meta-analysis suggests that HER-2/neu overexpression might not be a significantly prognostic indicator for patients with CRC. Further studies are required to confirm these results.