• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.348-357
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• 2021

Purpose: This study aimed to explore and understand the health promoting behaviors of low-income overweight and obese women in Korea. Methods: Data were collected from 10 low-income overweight and obese women working at a community self-sufficiency center through semi-structured in-depth interviews. Individual interviews were conducted and transcribed. Deductive content analysis was done, using the MAXQDA program. Results: The health promoting behaviors practiced by low-income overweight and obese women were affected by intrapersonal, interpersonal, and organizational/ community factors. Six categories were identified and two category clusters were derived that could best describe their health promoting experiences. As main category clusters, despite "feeling that the body and mind are not healthy" participants noted "difficulty maintaining a healthy lifestyle." Overall, the participants had poor nutritional status, lacked physical activity, experienced much stress in intrapersonal level, and faced intrapersonal-level barriers to health promoting behaviors. Moreover, participants had a lack of personal will, and lack of specific information to practice health promoting behaviors, a lack of time, and too many overall burdens to earn a living for their family while trying to maintain health promotion behaviors. Conclusion: Lifestyle interventions for nutrition management, encouragement of physical activity, and stress management are needed for overweight and obese low-income women. In addition, social support and policies are needed to improve their living environment.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.172-180
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate the consumer characteristics in foodservice according to university students' lifestyles. The data were collected by the questionnaire survey of 520 university students from Daegu Gyeongbuk Province. The SPSS/Win 12.0 program was used to analyse the samples. The results are as follows: 1) Lifestyle was divided into 10 factors and 3 clusters, namely "Convenience Intention" (cluster I), "Health Information Intention" (cluster II), and "Gender Equality Intention" (cluster III). 2) The differences in general characteristics between the three clusters were founded on gender, frequency of visits, companion, information type, and the type of restaurant. 3) The characteristics of cluster I (Convenience Intention) are explained by it consisting of the group with low averages in consumer dissatisfaction, complaints, compensation, and repurchase intention, where as cluster II was the high average group and cluster III the middle average group. Based on these results, consumer characteristics in foodservice are discussed.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.140-152
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• 2024

Purpose: Social support is essential for postpartum well-being, but little is known about the postpnatal social support preferred by primiparous women. This study aimed to comprehensively understand and describe the meaning of postnatal social support experience in primiparous women. Methods: The participants were seven primiparous women who were within 1 year after childbirth, recruited through purposive and snowball sampling from an online parenting community. The data were collected through in-depth interviews from November 14 to 28, 2022. Participants were interviewed face-to-face or via phone or online platform, according to their choice. Colaizzi's phenomenological qualitative research method was applied to analyze the meaning of the participants' experience. Results: Five theme clusters and fourteen themes were identified from the data. The five theme clusters are as follows: (1) Shortcomings of the childbirth and postpartum care system I learned through my experience; (2) Government policies focusing on childbirth and child-rearing rather than postpartum recovery; (3) Driving force of postpartum recovery: Shared childbirth process; (4) Childcare on my own; and (5) Conflicted between being a stay-at-home mom and a working mom under inadequate maternity protection policies. Conclusion: Despite postpartum support from the government that was perceived as inadequate, first-time mothers regained confidence and motivation for parenting with the help of family, peers, and social networks. First-time mothers need support from professionals and reliable online communities for postpartum recovery and parenting.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.221-228
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• 2011

Rodent malaria parasites, such as Plasmodium berghei, are practical and useful model organisms for human malaria research because of their analogies to the human malaria in terms of structure, physiology, and life cycle. Exploiting the available genetic sequence information, we constructed a cDNA library from the erythrocytic stages of P. berghei and analyzed the expressed sequence tag (EST). A total of 10,040 ESTs were generated and assembled into 2,462 clusters. These EST clusters were compared against public protein databases and 48 putative new transcripts, most of which were hypothetical proteins with unknown function, were identified. Genes encoding ribosomal or membrane proteins and purine nucleotide phosphorylases were highly abundant clusters in P. berghei. Protein domain analyses and the Gene Ontology functional categorization revealed translation/protein folding, metabolism, protein degradation, and multiple family of variant antigens to be mainly prevalent. The presently-collected ESTs and its bioinformatic analysis will be useful resources to identify for drug target and vaccine candidates and validate gene predictions of P. berghei.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.520-528
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• 2021

Plesiomonas shigelloides, a member of the family Vibrionaceae, is a gram-negative, rod-shaped, facultative anaerobic bacterium with flagella. P. shigelloides has been isolated from such sources as freshwater, surface water, and many wild and domestic animals. P. shigelloides contains 102 O-antigens and 51 H-antigens. The diversity of O-antigen gene clusters is relatively poorly understood. In addition to O1 and O17 reported by other laboratories, and the 12 O serogroups (O2, O10, O12, O23, O25, O26, O32, O33, O34, O66, O75, and O76) reported previously by us, in the present study, nine new P. shigelloides serogroups (O8, O17, O18, O37, O38, O39, O44, O45, and O61) were sequenced and annotated. The genes for the O-antigens of these nine groups are clustered together in the chromosome between rep and aqpZ. Only O38 possesses the wzm and wzt genes for the synthesis and translocation of O-antigens via the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter pathway; the other eight use the Wzx/Wzy pathway. Phylogenetic analysis using wzx and wzy showed that both genes are diversified. Among the nine new P. shigelloides serogroups, eight use wzx/wzy genes as targets. In addition, we developed an O-antigen-specific PCR assay to detect these nine distinct serogroups with no cross reactions among them.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.11-21
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• 2011

This paper proposes a method for decomposing a Hangul glyph of outline fonts into its initial, medial and final components using statistical-structural information. In a font family, the positions of components are statistically consistent and the stroke relationships of a Hangul character reflect its structure. First, we create the component histograms that accumulate the shapes and positions of the same components. Second, we make pixel clusters from character image based on pixel direction probabilities and extract the candidate strokes using position, direction, size of clusters and adjacencies between clusters. Finally, we find the best structural match between candidate strokes and predefined character model by relaxation labeling. The proposed method in this paper can be used for a study on formative characteristics of Hangul font, and for a font classification/retrieval system.

• Archives of Obesity and Metabolism
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2024

Background: This study investigated the association between obesity and cardiometabolic disease clusters in Korean adults aged 19-39 years. Methods: We included 3,785 participants (1,767 men and 2,018 women) aged 19-39 years who participated in the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2020-2022). The risk factors for cardiometabolic disease were defined as follows: high blood pressure; hypertriglyceridemia; hyperuricemia; and high low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high fasting plasma glucose, elevated alanine aminotransferase levels. Results: The prevalence of participants with ≥ 1, ≥ 2, and ≥ 3 cardiometabolic disease risk factors was 95.2%, 84.2%, and 65.6% in men and 90.0%, 70.5%, and 43.0%, in women with class 2-3 obesity, respectively. Compared to those for young adults with underweight/normal weight, the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors were 17.26 (8.32-35.80) for ≥ 1; 19.43 (12.18-31.00) for ≥ 2; and 22.93 (14.15-37.15) for ≥ 3 factors in men with class 2-3 obesity and 14.67 (8.00-26.91) for ≥ 1; 20.88 (12.15-35.88) for ≥ 2; and 36.26 (20.20-65.09) for ≥ 3 factors in women with class 2-3 obesity. Conclusion: Although the patients were young, the prevalence and ORs for cardiometabolic disease risk factor clusters in young adults with obesity were prominently high. Prevention and management of obesity in young Korean adults are urgently needed at both individual and public levels.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.58 no.2
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• pp.223-249
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• 2006

The purpose of this paper is to classify OECD countries in regard to levels of supporting fathers' care work. Several meaningful conclusions were reached. First, examining the level of supporting fathers' care work and the strength of the traditional bread-winner model, OECD countries can be classified into 5 different clusters. The result is different from the mainstream typology of welfare states and suggests the new typology of welfare states. Second, the level of supporting fathers' care work and the strength of the traditional bread-winner model were found to be related to total fertility rates and women's labor market participation rates. Third, in regard to the level of supporting fathers' care work, Korea was the lowest among OECD countries. This result points to one of the important reasons to the low level of total fertility rat, and low rate of women's labor market participation in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Child Welfare
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• no.36
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• pp.65-99
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• 2011

The main purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between child poverty rate and family policy expenditure of welfare states (focusing on OECD countries). We analyzed not only the total social & family policy expenditures but the components of the family policy expenditure. OECD SOCX and calculated data from the LIS & OECD data were utilized for child and family policy expenditures and the poverty rate. One-way correlation and cluster analysis were employed for the analysis. The analytic results are as follows: Southern European and Anglo-Saxon countries' child poverty rates were higher and Scandinavian countries' child poverty rates were lower than any other clusters. The countries with high child poverty rate had higher child poverty rate than the entire nation's poverty rate, but Scandinavian countries' child poverty rate was lower. There was a strong correlation between family policy expenditure and child poverty rate. Especially the service expenditure and leave benefit expenditure were highly correlated with child poverty rate. On the other hand, cash expenditure was not significantly correlated with child poverty rate. We can suggest the policy implications from these results. Based on the analytic results, policy implications that the government should increase the family policy budget, especially the budget for family services and leave benefit to decrease child poverty rate and should make effort to support the employment of parents through policies such as active labor market strategies can be suggested.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.163-176
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• 2002

Objectives：This study was designed to investigate the temperamental characteristics and the differences of temperamental characteristics in Korean children according to the sociodemographic and family environment factors using Toddler Temperament Scale(TTS). Methods：The samples consisted of 1,175 children who were attending twenty-five Samsung Child Care Centers nationwide. Both Korean version of TTS and child developmental questionnaire(designed by the Department of Psychiatry, Samsung Medical Center) were distributed to the parents of these children. Score of 9 temperamental categories was determined using the result of TTS, and determination of 5 temperamental clusters was conducted by the Fullard's criteria. Statistical analyses were performed according to the sex, birth order, existence of siblings, residential city, residential province, marital state of child's parents, and parental relationship to compare the scores of temperamental categories and the distribution of temperamental clusters. Results：The distribution of temperamental clusters was as follows；Easy 35.8%, Intermediate Low (IL) 33.1%, Intermediate High(IH) 11.1%, Slow-To-Warm-Up 6.3%, and Difficult 13.6%. Some of 9 temperamental categories were statistically different according to the sex, birth order, existence of siblings, residential city, residental province, marital state of child's parents, and parental relationship. From the viewpoint of 5 temperamental clusters, there were statistically more Easy and less Difficult children in good relation between each parent(p=.022). In spite of no statistical significance, the children in conditions of first-born, non-existence of siblings, middle or small residential city, Chung-Cheong province, married state of parent had a tendency to be easier to care. Conclusions：The toddler temperamental characteristics of Korean children showed some differences in several sociodemographic and family environment factors. We could confirm that the 'Goodness of Fit' was very important in child temperament.