• Journal of Korean Clinical Nursing Research
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.23-33
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• 2022

Purpose: This study aimed to identify the relationships among disease severity, anxiety, depression, social support, unpleasant symptoms and self-care among patients with atrial fibrillation based on the unpleasant symptom theory, and to examine the mediating effects of unpleasant symptoms. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted. The participants were 216 patients with atrial fibrillation who were being followed up on an outpatient basis at a university hospital in Seoul. Data were collected from November 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021, using self-report questionnaires. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS/WIN 27.0 and PROCESS macro with 95% bias-corrected bootstrap confidence interval(CI). Results: The average age of participants in this study was 66.0years. Disease severity (β=10.19, p<.001) and depression (β=1.53, p<.001) had significant positive relationships with unpleasant symptoms. Also, unpleasant symptoms (β=-0.03, p=.006) had a negative relationship with physical activity, which is a subscale of self- care. Social support (β=0.06, p<.001) was positively related with physical activity. Unpleasant symptoms showed a mediation effect in the relationship between disease severity and physical activity (Bias corrected bootstrap CI -0.65, -0.04). Depression had an indirect effect on physical activity that was mediated by unpleasant symptoms (Bias corrected bootstrap CI -0.11, -0.00). Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that integrated strategies including physical, psychological, and social factors should be considered to promote self-care in patients with atrial fibrillation.

• The Journal of Korean Obstetrics and Gynecology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.37-56
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• 2022

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to assess the effect of electroacupuncture for treating postpartum hypogalactia. Methods: We searched 9 databases on May, 2022, which contained four English, two Chinese, one Japanese, and two Korean databases. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were eligible. Measurement of outcome included total effective rate, lactation amount, serum prolactin level, and degree of breast fullness. The risk of bias was assessed by two independent authors using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Results: 101 trials were screened, 5 RCTs were finally selected. Number of participants per study ranged from 56 to 273. The treatment group was effective of improving total effective rate, lactation amount, serum prolactin level compared with control group, and the result was stastically significant. The quality of the evidence for specific comparisons ranged from low to high. Conclusions: Included studies showed that electroacupuncture on acupoints related to lactation would be effective way to increase milk supply among mothers who are suffering from postpartum hypogalactia. In the future, further high-quality RCTs are needed to prove effectiveness of electroacupuncture for relieving hypogalactia with low risk of bias.

• Journal of Convergence Korean Medicine
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.5-23
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• 2023

Objectives: This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of combination treatment of herbal medicine for external use and western medicine for atopic dermatitis (AD). Methods: We searched randomized controlled trials (RCTs) which assess the effect of combination treatment of herbal and western medicine for AD through 8 electronic databases from the start to December 2022. The data synthesis was conducted by using Review Manager (RevMan, ver.5.4.1) and Cochrane risk-of-bias tool was used to evaluate the risk of bias. Results: 13 RCTs were included. The combination treatment group had significantly higher total efficacy rate(p<0.0001) and lower SCORAD score (p<0.00001) than the western medicine treatment group. The adverse event rate was also significantly lower in the combination treatment than the western medicine treatment group (p<0.0001). But there was no significant difference in recurrence rate (p=0.09). Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the combination treatment of herbal and western medicine could be safe and effective for AD. However, due to limits of included studies such as high heterogeneity between the literature and unclear risk of bias, further studies are warranted.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.131-142
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• 2024

PURPOSE: This study was a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature comparing the differences between task-oriented treadmill training and general treadmill training for stroke patients. METHODS: Literature published in the Cumulated Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Embase, Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro), and PubMed was reviewed. A total of 1,163 studies were initially retrieved, of which eight articles were included in the final review. A quality assessment of the included studies was conducted using the Risk of Bias (RoB) 2.0 tool, and Duval and Tweedie's trim and fill method was used to evaluate publication bias. Data analysis was performed using R studio 4.2.1. RESULTS: According to the quality assessment using RoB 2.0, three articles were evaluated as low risk, two as of some concern, and three as high risk. The overall effect size of task-oriented tradmill training was .35. Regarding gait function, the values were .76, .25, and .40, respectively, for gait endurance, gait speed, and gait pattern. According to Duval and Tweedie's trim and fill method, no publication bias was observed. CONCLUSION: Study findings indicate that task-oriented treadmill training is the most effective intervention for improving gait endurance in patients with stroke. Therefore, applying this intervention to patients with stroke in the community is recommended.

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.27-41
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• 2024

Objectives This study aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of electroacupuncture for rotator cuff disorder. Methods We searched nine online databases (PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Chinese Academic Journals, Korean studies Information Service System, Rsearch Information Sharing Service, ScienceON, KMbase, Oriental Medicine Advanced Searching Integrated System) and two related journals up to April 2024 to identify randomized controlled trials that applied electroacupuncture to rotator cuff disorder. Selected studies were analyzed for risk of bias using the Cochrane risk of bias tool, and a meta-analysis was performed with RevMan version 5.4.1. Results Out of 175 studies, eleven randomized controlled trials were selected for final analysis. Most studies showed that electroacupuncture had effect on rotator cuff disorder. In the meta-analysis, electroacupuncture combined with rehabilitation treatment was significantly more effective than rehabilitation treatment alone in improving visual analog scale (p<0.00001). Almost studies did not report any side effects or adverse reactions to electroacupuncture treatment. Conclusions This systematic review suggests that electroacupuncture is an effective treatment for pain management in rotator cuff disorder. However, the lack of adverse effect reporting and a high risk of bias indicate the need for high-quality randomized controlled trials from various countries.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.159-165
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• 2020

With respect to the cause of asymmetric cost behavior, there are two streams of the literature. One stream focused on effect of managerial expectation and the other explained using agency system. In this study, we aim to investigate the determinants of asymmetric cost behavior in these streams. We first examine the impact of managerial overconfidence and optimistic bias on asymmetric cost. We also examine ownership ratio as a proxy of the quality of corporate governance effects on asymmetric cost. The results are as follows. First, firms have the anti-sticky asymmetric cost behavior. Second, we find that the firms with managerial optimistic bias mitigate the degree of asymmetric cost. This finding implies that managerial optimism is a factor that alters asymmetric cost behavior. Third, the degree of asymmetric cost is weaker in case of firms with higher manager's ownership. This result provides an important empirical evidence for understanding the role of corporate governance in cost behavior.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.406-414
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• 1996

We studied the phase formation and the effect of electrical properties of PZT thin films with changing the oxygen partial pressure in cooling after deposition of PZT thin film by reactive sputtering method. The roughness of thin film increased with decreasing the oxygen partial pressure in cooling due to the evaporation on the surface ofthin films and the grain size was not changed very much. The hysteresis property of PZT thin film was improved toward having a good squareness with increasing the cooling oxygen partial pressure. We observed the decrease of remanent polarization, retained polarization and coercive field with decreasing the oxygen partial pressure. Dielectric constant decreased gradually and internal bias field increased in the measurement of dielectric constant-voltage property with decreasing cooling oxygen partial pressure. We observed the increase of nonswitched polarization in the measurement of field accelerated retention and the decrease of nonswitched polarization with increasing the bias time.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.39-47
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• 2003

Cr thin films were deposited on photosensitive polyimide substrates by RF bias sputtering and DC sputtering and the interfaces between Cr thin film and polyimide were observed using TEM. When the polyimide surface was in-situ RF plasma cleaned at the RF power density of 0.13-2.12 $W/cm^2$, increasing of RF power density changed the morphology of polyimide surfaces from round dig to sharp shape, and surface roughness increased by anisotropic etching. The intermixed layer-like interfaces between Cr and polyimide were observed in the RF bias sputtered specimens. This interface seems to be formed due to the RF cleaning effect; the polyimide surface was RF plasma cleaned while RF power was increased to the setting point before Cr deposition.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2008.07a
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• pp.1260-1261
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• 2008

Aluminium doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Al) thin film has emerged as one of the most promising transparent conducting electrode in flat panel displays(FPD) and in photovoltaic devices since it is inexpensive, mechanically stable, and highly resistant to deoxidation. In this paper ZnO:Al thin film was deposited on the polyethylene terephthalate(PET) substrate by the capacitively coupled r.f. magnetron sputtering method. Wide ranges of bias voltage, -30V${\sim}$45V, was applied to the growing films as an additional energy instead of substrate heating, and the effect of positive and negative bias on the film structure and electrical properties of ZnO:Al films was studied and discussed. The results showed that a bias applied to the substrate during sputtering contributed to the improvement of electrical properties of the film by attracting ions and electrons in the plasma to bombard the growing films. These bombardments provided additional energy to the growing ZnO film on the substrate, resulting in significant variations in film structure and electrical properties. The film deposited on the PET substrate at r. f. discharge power of 200 W showed the minimum resistivity of about $2.4{\times}10^{-3}{\Omega}-cm$ and a transmittance of about 87%.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.849-858
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• 2016

It is important to control confounding bias when estimating the causal effect of treatment in an observational study. We illustrated that the covariate selection in the causal inference is different from the variable selection in the ANCOVA model. We then investigated the three criteria of covariate selection for controlling confounding bias, which can be used when we have inadequate information to draw a complete causal graph. VanderWeele and Shpitser (2011) proposed one of them and claimed it was better than the other two. We show by example that their criterion also has limitations and some disadvantages. There is no clear winner; however, their criterion is better (if some correction is made on its condition) than the other two because it can remove the confounding bias.