• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.571-576
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• 2018

Background: Korean Red Ginseng (KRG) has been used in Asia for its various biological effects, but no studies have investigated the safety of its long-term intake. Therefore, the present study evaluated the safety of KRG intake for 24 weeks. Methods: We randomized 1,000 participants in a 1:1 ratio into two groups, which were treated daily with 2 g of KRG or a placebo for 24 weeks. The primary endpoint was all adverse events and adverse drug reactions (ADRs) that occurred after KRG or placebo administration, which were reported at week 4, 12, and 24 after the baseline visit. Results: In total, 192 and 211 participants experienced adverse events in the KRG and placebo groups (39.2% and 42.0%, respectively; p = 0.361), and 59 and 57 KRG- and placebo-treated individuals reported ADRs (12.0% and 11.4%, respectively; p = 0.737). The frequently occurring ADRs were pruritus (2.0%), headache (1.6%), diarrhea (1.4%), and dizziness (1.2%) in the KRG group and pruritus (2.0%), headache (1.8%), dizziness (1.6%), rash (1.4%), and diarrhea (1.2%) in the placebo group. Discontinuation of drug administration due to ADRs was reported in 13 participants, six (1.2%) and seven (1.4%) in the KRG and placebo groups, respectively (p = 0.814). No significant abnormal changes were revealed by anthropometric, laboratory, and vital sign measurements in the KRG group compared with those in the placebo group. Conclusion: The present study confirms the safety and tolerability of daily intake of 2 g of KRG for 24 weeks by healthy adults.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2016

Climate changes are shifting the perception of C4 photosynthetic crops due to their superior adaptability to harsh conditions. The tribe Andropogoneae includes some economically important grasses, such as Zea mays, Sorghum bicolor, Miscanthus spp., and Saccharum spp., representing C4 photosynthetic grasses. Although the Andropogoneae grasses diverged fairly recently, their genomic structures are remarkably different from each other. As previously reported, the family Poaceae shares the pan-cereal duplication event occurring ca. 65 MYA. Since this event, Sorghum bicolor has never experienced any additional duplication event. However, some lineage-specific duplication events were reported in Z. mays and Saccharum spp., and, more recently, it was revealed that a shared allotetraploidization event occurred before the divergence between Miscanthus and Saccharum (but after the divergence from S. bicolor), which provided important clues to those two species having large genome sizes with complicated ploidy numbers. The complex genomic structures of sugarcane and Miscanthus (defined as the Saccharum complex along with some other taxa) have had a limiting effect on the use of their molecular information in breeding programs. For the last decade, genomics-associated technologies have become an important tool for molecular crop breeding (genomics-assisted breeding, GAB), but it has not been directly applied to sugarcane and Miscanthus due to their complicated genome structures. As genomics research advances, molecular breeding of those crops can take advantage of technical improvements at a reasonable cost through comparative genomic approaches. Active genomic research of non-model species using closely related model species will facilitate the improvement of those crops in the future.

• Smart Media Journal
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.42-50
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• 2016

In case of a emergency situation or a natural disaster, a warning notification system is an essential tool to notify at-risk people in advance and provide them useful information to survive the event. Although some systems have been proposed such as emergency alert system using android, SMS, or P2P overlay network, these works mainly focus on a reliable message distribution methods. In this paper, we proposed a novel design and implementation of a personalized warning notification system to help inform not only the at-risk people but also their family and friends about the coming disaster as well as escape plan and survival information. The system consists of three main modules: the user selection module, the knowledge based message generator, and message distribution modules. The user selection module collects the list of people involved in the event and sorts them based on their level of involvement (their location, working position and social relationships). The knowledge based message generator provides each person with a personalized message that is concise and contains only the necessary information for the particular person based on their working position and their involvement in the event. The message distribution module will then find a best path for sending the personalized messages based on trustiness of locations since network failures may exist in a disaster event. Additionally, the system also have a comprehensive database and an interactive web interface for both user and system administrator. For evaluation, the system was implemented and demonstrated successfully with a building on fire scenario.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.15-33
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• 2015

The present study conducted ethnography of a welfare facility for single-father families. The participants were 13 single-fathers living in a welfare facility. To explore life within the welfare facility, the qualitative research method of ethnography was used with Spradley's developmental research sequence (DRS). The major results of this study were as follows. The first theme was 'finding a way to overcome the crisis: the facility is a lifeline.' For fathers, choosing to enter a facility meant enduring a social stigma, but the decision was made with the hope of achieving successful parenting and economic independence amidst pressing difficulties. The category of living in the facility was represented by the theme 'build the family: preparing for independence through living in a welfare facility.' The fathers achieved psychological recovery through the decrease in parenting stress, improvements in their economic situation brought by living in a facility, and used this time as the foundation to gain independence and build a stable life. The event of departure from the facility was seen as 'incomplete preparation for departure' by the single fathers. The fathers with infants or younger children admitted to being anxious about leaving the facility, which involved the burden of raising the children on their own. There are practical and policy-related implications based on the results of this study.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.23 no.1 s.73
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• pp.65-84
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• 2005

In this study, I analyzed how wives experience their husbands' sudden loss of jobs. In-depth interviews were conducted with six married women whose husbands lost jobs. Each person was interviewed for 3 to 4 hours, between June and August 2003. The wives tended to see the husband as someone who gave them a hard time, yet whom they still had to rely on. In addition, the husband was another difficult problem that they had to deal with, because they had to watch the husband struggle to adjust following the distressing event. Some wives blamed themselves for the unemployment of their husbands and were pained for their husbands' adversity. The wives also had the challenge of taking up a job to support the family. Their marital life became tougher and more conflicts emerged. The wives often alienated their husbands from the rest of the family unintentionally, or attempted to break away from their husbands by leaving home. Yet, they returned home in the end, and tried to find hope, by taking a different perspective and looking at the bright side of life, by finding the value of her existence, through faith, and by reaffirming love for the husband and children.

• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.77-93
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• 2011

This study investigates the association between chronic health conditions (CHD) and depression with a focus on the mediating effect of financial strain. We tested if age makes any difference in the effect of CHD and financial strain on depression. The data comes from the 2006 Korea Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA) collected by the Institute of Korean Labor Research. The sample consisted of information from 8,961 individuals ages 45-79. Separate analyses were done for middle-age (45-64) and older-adult groups (65-79). There were significant financial portfolio differences among CHD patients and non-CHD, for both age groups, that may constitute the impact of a health event on financial wellbeing; in addition, the associations of CHD on depressive symptoms were different by age groups. The mediating effect of financial wellbeing on the association between CHD and depressive symptoms was verified; in addition, the role of financial wellbeing on the association was especially strong for the older-adult group. The effect of CHD on depression was contingent on the amount of net assets and annual personal income. Implications are discussed based on the findings.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.60 no.3
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• pp.391-406
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• 2022

This study examined the experience of middle-aged women, centering on the home as the residence of never-married children. I conducted interviews with four such women in their 50s and 60s who had experienced the residential independence of never-married children within the past five years, and a variety of field texts were used as research texts. Through reconstructing the participants' experiences, two main themes emerged: experiencing anxiety regarding alienation from their child and expecting to resolve this anxiety through the marriage of their child. The participants were anxious about their never-married children, and this study found that at the root of this was anxiety regarding being alienated from their children. The participants often attempted to visit their children's homes to relieve such anxiety but, as their children often discouraged this, the situation was aggravated. Thus, the participants wished for their children to marry, as they aspired to restore an intimate relationship with them through such an event. These results imply that tensions and conflicts between parents and children may arise due to the independence of never-married children.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.133-150
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• 1999

Significant costs to the public and private sectors due to recent extreme wind events have motivated the need for systematic post-hurricane damage data collection and analysis. Current post disaster data are collected by many different interested groups such as government agencies, voluntary disaster relief agencies, representatives of media companies, academicians and companies in the private sector. Each group has an interest in a particular type of data. However, members of each group collect data using different techniques. This disparity in data is not conducive to quantifying damage data and, therefore, inhibits the statistical and spatial description of damage and comparisons of damage among different extreme wind events. The data collection does not allow comparisons of data or results of analyses within a group and also prohibits comparison of damage data and information among different groups. Typically, analyses of data from a given event lead to different conclusion depending upon the definition of damage used by individual investigators and the type of data collected making it difficult for members of groups to compare the results of their analyses with a common language and basis. A formal method of data collection and analysis-within any single group-would allow comparisons to be made among different individuals, hazardous events and eventually among different groups, thus facilitating the management and reduction of damage due to future disaster. This research introduces a definition of damage to single family dwellings, and a common method of data collection and analysis suited for groups interested in regional characterization of damage. The current state-of-data is presented and a method for data collection is recommended based on these existing data collection methods. A fixed-scale damage index is proposed to consider the damage to a dwelling's feature. Finally, the damage index is applied to three dwellings damaged by Hurricane Iniki (1992). The damage index reflects the reduced functionality of a structure as a single family detached dwelling and provides a means to evaluate regional damage due to a single event or to compare damage due to events of different severity. Evaluation of the damage index and the data available support recommendation for future data collection efforts.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.365-383
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• 2018

In this study, to search for events that cause high levels of PTSD symptoms, traumatic events are classified into 'criterion events' that meet DSM-IV-TR criteria and 'life stresssful events', conditional probability of PTSD was confirmed. From a sample of 1,000 adults residing in South Korea, 998 statistically relevant samples were extracted. Criterion events include cases of 'sexual harassment before age 16', 'sightings of other accidents', 'rape before 16', 'domestic violence before 16', 'disaster', 'traffic accidents', 'other accidents'. Life stressful events appeared to be 'legal arrest or detention(person and family)', 'parental separation or divorce', 'failure or despair causing serious stress', 'extreme conflict with family or frequent quarrels'. Among the demographic characteristics, age, marital status, religion were found to affect PTSD symptoms. The implications and limitations of these results are discussed.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.15-33
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• 2006

There are less studies on the adult suicide even though it's steep increase and negative effect on person itself, family and society. The purpose of the present study was to investigate factors that influence on the adult suicide and to categorize it. Using a case-study approach, a total of 61 cases were analyzed. Specifically, on the basis of the stress-vulnerability model, I scrutinized vulnerability factors(classified personal, family-environment, and social-environment factors) and precipitating events(classified personal, interpersonal events) influencing on the adult suicide. As the results of this study, adult suicide classified into 3 types, that is, 'risk type suicide', 'event-response type suicide', 'complex type'. And then I discussed the characteristics of the suicidal types and the method for reduction of adult suicide.