• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.19
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• pp.8135-8142
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• 2014

Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in Iranian women and usually features delayed presentation and late diagnosis. Interpretation of symptoms, as the most important step, has a significant impact on patient delay in seeking treatment. There is a dearth of studies on symptom appraisal and the process leading to seeking help in breast cancer patients. This study explored the perceptions and experiences of Iranian women with self-detected possible breast cancer symptoms. Materials and Methods: A qualitative method was conducted involving in-depth semi-structured interviews with 27 Iranian women with self-discovered breast cancer symptoms. Participants were purposefully selected from women who attended Cancer Institute of Tehran University of Medical Sciences during June 2012 to August 2013. The audiotaped interviews were transcribed and analyzed using conventional content analysis with MAXQDA soft ware version 10. The trustworthiness of the study was verified by prolonged engagement, member validation of codes, and thick description. Results: The main concepts emerging from data analysis were categorized in four categories: symptom recognition, labeling of symptoms, interactive understanding, and confronting the fear of cancer. Symptom recognition through breast self-examination, symptom monitoring and employing prior knowledge distinguished normal from abnormal symptoms and accompanied with perception of being at risk of breast cancer led to symptom labeling. Social interaction by selective disclosure and receiving reassurance from a consultant led to confirmation or redefinition of the situation. Perceived seriousness of the situation and social meanings of breast cancer as a stigmatized and incurable illness associated with loss of femininity were reasons for patient worries and fear. Conclusions: This study emphasized that entangled cognitive, emotional and socio-cultural responses affecting understanding of symptom seriousness require further investigation. It is suggested that programs aimed at shortening patient delay in breast cancer should be focused on improving women's knowledge and self-awareness of breast cancer, in addition to correcting their social beliefs.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.16
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• pp.6863-6870
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• 2015

Background: Breast cancer accounted for almost 25% of all cancers in women globally in 2012. Although breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer in India, there is no organised national breast cancer screening programme. Local studies on the burden of breast cancer are essential to develop effective context-specific strategies for an early detection breast cancer programme, considering the cultural and ethnic heterogeneity in India. This study examined the knowledge, attitudes, and practices about breast cancer in rural women in Central India. Materials and Methods: This community-based cross sectional study was conducted in Wardha district, located in Maharashtra state in Central India in 2013. The sample included 1000 women (609 rural, 391 urban) aged 13-50 years, selected as representative from each of the eight development blocks in the district, using stratified cluster sampling. Trained social workers interviewed women and collected demographic and socio-economic data. The instrument also assessed respondents' knowledge about breast cancer and its symptoms, risks, methods of screening, diagnosis and treatment, as well as their attitudes towards breast cancer and selfreported practices of breast cancer screening. Chi-square and t-test were applied to assess differences in the levels of knowledge, attitude, and practice (the outcome variables) between urban and rural respondents. Multivariable linear regression was conducted to analyse the relationship between socio-demographic factors and the outcome variables. Results: While about two-thirds of rural and urban women were aware of breast cancer, less than 7% in rural and urban areas had heard about breast self-examination. Knowledge about breast cancer, its symptoms, risk factors, diagnostic modalities, and treatment was similarly poor in both rural and urban women. Urban women demonstrated more positive attitudes towards breast cancer screening practices than their rural counterparts. Better knowledge of breast cancer symptoms, risk factors, diagnosis, and treatment correlated significantly with older age, higher levels of education, and being office workers or in business. Conclusions: Women in rural Central India have poor knowledge about breast cancer, its symptoms and risk factors. Breast self-examination is hardly practiced, though the willingness to learn is high. Positive attitudes towards screening provide an opportunity to promote breast self-examination.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.23
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• pp.10071-10077
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• 2015

Background: Cervical cancer has become a major public health problem worldwide. Iran, like other developing countries, is facing a number of challenges in managing the disease. This qualitative study documents challenges encountered in cervical cancer preventing programs in Iran. Materials and Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with 28 participants including eleven patients with cervical cancer, three gynecologic oncologists, five specialists in Obstetrics and Gynecology, five midwives, three health care managers and one epidemiologist in Mashhad Iran, between May and December of 2012. The sample was selected purposively until data saturation was achieved. Data credibility verified via allocated sufficient time for data collection, using member checking and peer debriefing. Data analysis was carried out using conventional content analysis approach with ATLAS. ti software. Results: Findings from data analysis demonstrated 2 major themes and 6 categories about challenges of providing cervical cancer prevention programs including: individual and social challenges (cognitive/behavioral challenges and socio/cultural challenges) and health system challenges (stewardship, financing, competency of health care providers and access to services). Each category included some subcategories. Conclusions: Managing the cervical cancer prevention programs need to include the consideration of individuals, health care providers and health system challenges. Addressing the low level of knowledge, negative attitudes, socio cultural challenges, Poor intersectional collaboration and coordination and intra-sectional management, financing and competency of health care providers are essential steps toward significantly reducing the burdens of cervical cancer.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.40-50
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• 2016

This study employs model of susceptibility to imported media to examine Korean drama exposure, evaluation and viewing intention among viewers living in foreign cultural background. Analyzing data collected from 176 female viewers in the U.S., it founds knowledge about Korea and general drama exposure give direct effect on the future viewing intention. Korean drama exposure directly affects drama evaluation and viewing intention. Korean network, however, has no significant effect on the dependent variables. Result of the present study shows that cultural capital of foreign viewers has effects on Korean drama consumption. Another result that behavior of general drama consumption has contributed to Korean drama consumption gives meaningful implication for the policy of Korean television export.

• Journal of Wellbeing Management and Applied Psychology
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.21-26
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• 2020

The purpose of this article is to capture this situation within the changes that take place due to it, inside the Greek society where there is a great need for professional social workers who are able to work targeted and effectively with foreigners, both children and adults, who have or develop mental health problems for the very first time. Over the recent decades the increasing number of migration flows has exerted and continues to exert great pressure on the health system and on the welfare structures of Greece. The bases for the development of a rudimentary reception and integration system that still is in progress have been delayed, while there has been no happy medium, between the enormous pressure that foreigner users of this system put on, and the humanitarian obligation of a well-governed state towards all residents of the country. Straight through everyday clinical practice in the field of intercultural work, social work has the knowledge and techniques for a total management of emerging problems and at the same time provides a value system with an ethical background which approaches refugees and migrants in order to provide quality services, mostly to users of mental health services.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.1336-1354
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• 1999

Researchers have rarely explored menopausal experience in the context of the totality of women's lives, subsequently making the picture of menopause incomplete, discrete and fragmented. Respecting the totality of women's lives, this study addressed how a vulnerable group of women-low income Korean immigrant women-experience menopause within a context of multiple transitions. This is a cross-sectional study using methodological triangulation. A sample of 119 first-generation Korean immigrant women aged 40 to 60 years, who were in low-income jobs, was recruited using convenience sampling methods. From the total sample, 21 peri-or post-menopausal women were recruited for in-depth interviews following the collection of the survey data. Questionnaires, short interviews, and in- depth interviews were used to collect data. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Thematic analysis was used to interpret interview data. The findings indicate that menopause was given the lowest priority amidst women's multiple and demanding roles within a gendered multiple transitional (immigration, work and menopause) context. The lack of language clarity to describe women's experience, cultural background, inadequate knowledge, and lack of social supports made menopause hidden, invisible, and inaudible. Conclusions and implications for nursing practice are guided by the goal of understanding women's experiences and meanings of menopause and supporting women through reflecting these experiences into their health care.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.39-49
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• 2004

This article will introduce the changes of the historiography of the Chinese medicine which have been made during the last several decades. These will be described with the changes in the image of the Chinese medicine that has been occupied in our mind. We regard Chinese medicine as a rational knowledge system which is based on the theory of Yin-Yang and Five phases. Therefore we draw a dear line of demarcation between Chinese medicine and irrational cure means such as religious prayer, charms and folk remedies which have no theoretical background. We also think the medical lineages continue virtually uninterrupted over the whole time of the history of Chinese medicine that began from Huangdineijing(皇帝內徑) and Shanghanlun(傷寒論). And we consider Chinese medicine as a sort of science, and suppose there has been one universal and homogeneous medical system in the mainland China. This image, however, has been changing rapidly. These changes come from the join of externalists who were trained as historian not physician, for studying the history of Chinese medicine, and the methodological innovations of historiography which was influenced by the methodologies of anthropology, social history, cultural history and the discourse of postmodemism.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.15 no.6 s.59
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• pp.111-119
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• 2006

The spatial property of contemporary library is now rapidly changing through the spatial expansion of knowledge and information, the reduction of information storing facility, the variation of approaching methods by digital shift and the transition of social recognition as a cultural facility. Also the spatial characteristics with referring characters have developed such as, decentralization, de-construction, de-boundary, individual space, erasing of boundary, flow of space which extends infinitely. The main process of library origination, the systematic classification, and the storage system concluding with the demand and value of the information by changing social demands and the role of the widest ranged facility. And 5 themes, such as, hierarchy, center, storage, boundary, and symbol, as a changed spatial concept and analyzed in the case of library plans and libraries which are actually built. The significant purpose of this research is to propose that rhizomatous intellectuality and hypertext could be a theoretical background of the contemporary architecture and could be a viewpoint of the transition of spatial structure in libraries. A future library should have spatial property embracing various social changes and needs and for this respect, it is necessary to approach and analyze through the architectural explication from diverging points of view.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.37
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• pp.335-360
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• 2014

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether high-level(level 6) essay-writing questions in Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) have been presented appropriately so as to enable foreign test-takers to display their Korean writing ability properly, and to provide some suggestions on how those questions need to be changed. To accomplish this purpose, all the essay-writing questions were collected from the 33 TOPIK tests, from the 2nd in 1998 to the 35thin 2014, and analyzed from the perspectives of their topics and formats. The results are that high-level TOPIK essay-writing questions showed a strong tendency to take as their topics Korean sociocultural structures and phenomena, or current issues in Korea, and that they frequently employed guided writing formats by providing preset ideas or/and contexts for test-takers to write in a guided way; such tendencies were analyzed to shed a negative influence on test-takers displaying their writing ability and creativity, because those topics and preset ideas or contexts provided do not allow them to express their own opinions or positions freely. It is suggested that TOPIK essay-writing questions should be changed to deal with objective and general topics which enable test-takers to write freely and logically in Korean based on their experience, because TOPIK is not a test to check whether they have enough background knowledge about the Korean society and culture, but a test to assess their Korean proficiency.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2021

Visual analytics is an emerging research field that combines the strength of electronic data processing and human intuition-based social background knowledge. This study demonstrates useful visual analytics with Tableau in conjunction with semantic network analysis using examples of sentiment flow and strategic communication strategies via Twitter in a blockchain domain. We comparatively investigated the sentiment flow over time and language usage patterns between companies with a good reputation and firms with a poor reputation. In addition, this study explored the relations between reputation and marketing communication strategies. We found that cryptocurrency firms more actively produced information when there was an increased public demand and increased transactions and when the coins' prices were high. Emotional language strategies on social media did not affect cryptocurrencies' reputations. The pattern in semantic representations of keywords was similar between companies with a good reputation and firms with a poor reputation. However, the reputable firms communicated on a wide range of topics and used more culturally focused strategies, and took more advantages of social media marketing by expanding their outreach to other social media networks. The visual big data analytics provides insights into business intelligence that helps informed policies.