• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.289-299
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• 2013

Objectives: For the field application of the dielectric barrier discharge plasma reactor, scale-up of the plasma reactor is needed. This study investigated the possibility of inactivation of microorganisms in sewage using pilot multi-plasma reactor. We also considered the possibility of degradation of total organic carbon (TOC) and nonbiodegradable matter ($UV_{254}$) in sewage. Methods: The pilot plasma reactor consists of plasma reactor with three plasma modules (discharge electrode and quartz dielectric tube), liquid-gas mixer, high voltage transformers, gas supply equipment and a liquid circulation system. In order to determine the operating conditions of the pilot plasma reactor, we performed experiments on the operation parameters such as gas and liquid flow rate and electric discharge voltage. Results: The experimental results showed that optimum operation conditions for the pilot plasma reactor in batch experiments were 1 L/min air flow rate), 4 L/min liquid circulation rate, and 13 kV electric discharge voltage, respectively. The main operation factor of the pilot plasma process was the high voltage. In continuous operation of the air plasma process, residual microorganisms, $UV_{254}$ absorbance and TOC removal rate at optimal condition of 13 kV were $10^{2.24}$ CFU/mL, 56.5% and 8.6%, respectively, while in oxygen plasma process at 10 kV, residual microorganisms, $UV_{254}$ absorbance and TOC removal rate at optimal conditions were $10^{1.0}$ CFU/mL, 73.3% and 24.4%, respectively. Electric power was increased exponentially with the increase in high voltage ($R^2$ = 0.9964). Electric power = $0.0492{\times}\exp^{(0.6027{\times}lectric\;discharge\;voltage)}$ Conclusions: Inactivation of microorganisms in sewage effluent using the pilot plasma process was done. The performance of oxygen plasma process was superior to air plasma process. The power consumption of oxygen plasma process was less than that of air plasma process. However, it was considered that the final evaluation of air and oxygen plasma must be evaluated by considering low power consumption, high process performance, operating costs and facility expenses of an oxygen generator.

• 대한예방의학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1994.02a
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• pp.440-449
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• 1994

Current risk assessment practices largely reflect the need for a consistent set of relatively rapid, first-cut procedures to assess 'plausible upper limits' of various risks. These practices have important roles to play in 1) screening candidate hazards for initial attention and 2) directing attention to cases where moderate-cost measures to control exposures are likely to be warranted, in the absence of further extensive (and expensive) data gathering and analysis. A problem with the current practices, however, is that they have led assessors to do a generally poor job of analyzing and expressing uncertainties, fostering 'One-Number Disease' (in which everything from one's social policy position on risk acceptance to one's technical judgment on the likelihood of different cancer dose-response relationships is rolled into a single quantity). At least for analyses that involve relatively important decisions for society (both relatively large potential health risks and relatively large potential economic costs or other disruptions), we can and should at least go one further step - and that is to assess and convey both a central tendency estimate of exposure and risk as well as our more conventional 'conservative' upper-confidence-limit values. To accomplish this, more sophisticated efforts are needed to appropriately represent the likely effects of various sources of uncertainty along the casual chain from the release of toxicants to the production of adverse effects. When the effects of individual sources of uncertainty are assessed (and any important interactions included), Monte Carlo simulation procedures can be used to produce an overall analysis of uncertainties and to highlight areas where uncertainties might be appreciably reduced by further study. Beyond the information yielded by such analyses for decision-making in a few important cases, the value of doing several exemplary risk assessments in. this way is that a set of benchmarks can be defined that will help calibrate the assumptions used in the larger number of risk assessments that must be done by 'default' procedures.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.145-156
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is one of high price medical equipment wished to grasp propriety factor about the MRI introduction, analyzing payability through cost accounting into compensation. It was investigated from January 1 to December 31, 2007 about the MRI of a General Hospital. Expectation availability was 23.2 cases, but actual availability did achievement more than 196.1% with 45.5 items. It is estimated that there are a lot of occurrence cases because great reasons that actual availability increases more than expectation availability is excellent resolving power than a CT, and is device that prefer to reason back that radiation damage is less in person body. The followings show the main results of this study. 1. The MRI was construed in order of cost accounting, wave and personnel expenses 45.4%, administrative expenses 53.0%, and material costs 1.6%. 2. According to CVP (Cost-volume-profit) analysis, BEP (Break Even Point) profit is 173,931,428 won for 11 months, and break even usage number of items are 37.5 cases, and separation usage number of items were confirmed by 1.4 cases. Therefore, was construed that can achieve BEP within 11 months though usage number of items keeps 1.4 items day to create the MRI's hospital operation profit. 3. Estimated limit profitability appears high by 96.7%, exceed fixed charges even if when is non-benefit and when it is benefit consider variable, is judged that the MRI's addition induction helps in hospital management enhancing earning rates.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.133-146
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• 2008

Purpose: This research aims to investigate into company workers' awareness of scaling and related factors and provide basic materials for setting up appropriate policies to improve the hygiene of the mouth of industrial workers and developing training programs for the worker's hygiene of their mouth, as part of researches to establish schemes for improving the workers's hygiene of their mouth. Method: Questionnaire was conducted by convenience sampling for 220 office workers belonging to H Group located in Seoul Metropolitan city over about 5 weeks between December 17, 2007 and January 20, 2008. The questionnaire for this study was constructed in consideration of general characteristics of the subjects, behaviors of the dental management. and scaling. The collected questionnaires were electronically processed using SPSS 12.0. Result: The followings are the findings of this research. First, in general, scaling is experienced by male unmarried worker in their 40s. whose monthly average income is 1.00-1.99 million won and have little interest in the hygiene of their mouth and, consequently. whose hygiene of the mouth is not good. Second, scaling is experienced once every six months by the worker in their 50s or older, who are college graduates and have much interest in the hygiene of their mouth and, consequently. whose hygiene of the mouth is good. Third. scaling is not periodically conducted because of high costs of it in terms of almost every parameter of general characteristics. Fourth, they have correct knowledge of scaling since they regard it as 'removing of plaque and tartar' in terms of every parameter of general characteristics. Fifth, the workers' sex (pE0.05), hygienic condition of the mouth (pE0.05) and knowledge of scaling (pE0.001) have a significant effect on their scaling experience. Conclusion: It is considered that dental health management should be continued by training of the importance of prevention through scaling as measure for dental health promotion of workers.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.2317-2322
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• 2015

Background: Despite the increasing number of screening examinations performed for cervical cancer utilizing the Papanicolaou smear test (Pap test), few studies have examined whether this strategy is cost-effective in Korea. Objective: This study was conducted to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of cervical cancer screening strategies incorporating the Pap test based on age at the start and end of screening as well as screening interval. Materials and Methods: We designed four alternative screening strategies based on patient age when screening was started (20 or 30 years) and discontinued (lifetime, 79 years). Each strategy was assessed at screening intervals of 1, 2, 3, or 5 years. A Markov model was developed to determine the cost-effectiveness of the 16 possible cervical cancer screening strategies, and this was evaluated from a societal perspective. The main outcome measures were average lifetime cost, incremental quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). Results: Compared with various strategies comprising younger starting age, discontinuation age, and longer screening intervals, strategies employing annual screening for cervical cancer starting at a target age of 30 years and above were the most cost-effective, with an ICER of 21,012.98 dollars per QALY gained (with a Korean threshold of 30,000,000 KRW or US$27,272). Conclusions: We found that annual screening for cervical cancer beginning at a target age of 30 years and above is most cost-effective screening strategy. Considering the potential economic advantages, more intense screening policies for cervical cancer might be favorable among countries with high rates of cervical cancer and relatively low screening costs.

• The Journal of Korea Assosiation for Disability and Oral Health
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-4
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• 2015

Diastema is thought to be a problem related to aesthetics, pronunciation, or malocclusion. Due to its extent and patient conditions, orthodontic treatment, prosthodontic treatment, and conservative direct resin restoration are the treatment options for diastema closure. Additional factors need to be considered when deciding on the most appropriate treatment of diastema, particularly for patients with cerebral palsy. A 13-year-old girl visited the Department of Pediatric Dentistry at Yonsei University Dental Hospital with a chief complaint of the large gap between her upper front teeth. After clinical and radiographic examinations, midline diastema of 4.5 mm, protrusive maxilla incisors, congenital missing teeth, retained primary teeth, etc. were identified. Prosthodontic treatment with intentional root canal treatment was not appropriate because of the patient's age. Dental spaces can be closed effectively via orthodontic appliances. However, additional prosthodontic and restorative intervention is unavoidable, which incurs significant costs and requires more time. Instead of orthodontic and prosthodontic treatment, direct resin restoration can address the chief complaint; these restorations are reversible, less harmful to other oral structure and teeth, relatively easy to apply, less expensive than other treatments, and require shorter office visits. Midline diastema can be treated in several ways. For diastema closure in patients with cerebral palsy, conservative resin restorations are a short, simple, and appropriate treatment compared with orthodontic or prosthodontic treatments.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.341-347
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• 2014

Among methods of the big data process, big data process under the cloud environment is becoming a main topic. As part of solving faced problem and strengthening industrial competitiveness in the medical and health industry, discussion on ways to activate big data is actively being conducted. Because the reason is a paradigm shift, saving pressure for increasing health care costs, and increased consumer interest for the level of service. In this paper, we find out the relationship between the cloud and big data. And we are to research and analysis a cloud-based big data case in the medical field. Finally we propose the efficient utilization and future outlook. For the smooth functioning of cloud-based medical big data, we have to solve the problems like infrastructure extension, analysis/application software development, and professional manpower training. In addition, we have to correct insufficient laws maintenance to the Cloud utilization, and improve the security and the recognition to personal information, and solve authority for data centralization.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.21-39
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• 1999

An increasing number of hospitals are seeking for new or mixed compensation strategies to improve the productivity of their medical staff in the struggle to provide high quality medical services at low costs amid the economic hardship. To motivate physicians toward the right direction, it is necessary to effectively evaluate their performance that provides a basis for compensation. However, productivity has been historically difficult to measure, particularly for physicians in academic medical centers who are expected to engage in research, education, and patient care simultaneously. The objectives of this study were to define performance measures of physicians and clinical departments in academic medical centers. to examine correlations between the measures. and to investigate factors affecting the measures. The performance data of 212 faculty physicians in 17 clinical departments in two university teaching hospitals affiliated to one medical school during the fiscal year 1994 was used for analyses. Patient care revenue, net profit. and adjusted number of patients were defined to measure the performance in patient care. and number of articles published in academic journals and research grant were defined for research activities. Both individual physicians' performance measures and per physician measures of clinical departments were analyzed. All measures defined to evaluate individual physicians' performance were positively related to each other. Clinical department and rank of faculty position were statistically significant predictors of revenue. and hospital. clinical department. and rank were significant predictors of net profit. journal publication. and research grant. Patient care measures defined to evaluate clinical departments were related to each other. so were research measures. and no significant correlations were found between patient care measures and research measures. Also found were large differences in department. ranks when clinical departments were evaluated by absolute per physician performance measures and evaluated by annual rate of changes in performance measures. These findings suggest that departmental performance measures opposed to individual performance measures are relatively free from problems of factors affecting the performance measures that are not in control of clinical departments or individual physicians. Results from the correlation analysis of departmental performance measures indicates that measures of research performance should be included in the evaluation to promote research activities in academic medical centers.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.587-614
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• 2014

In recent years the interest in online monitoring of lightweight structures with ultrasonic guided waves is steadily growing. Especially the aircraft industry is a driving force in the development of structural health monitoring (SHM) systems. In order to optimally design SHM systems powerful and efficient numerical simulation tools to predict the behaviour of ultrasonic elastic waves in thin-walled structures are required. It has been shown that in real industrial applications, such as airplane wings or fuselages, conventional linear and quadratic pure displacement finite elements commonly used to model ultrasonic elastic waves quickly reach their limits. The required mesh density, to obtain good quality solutions, results in enormous computational costs when solving the wave propagation problem in the time domain. To resolve this problem different possibilities are available. Analytical methods and higher order finite element method approaches (HO-FEM), like p-FEM, spectral elements, spectral analysis and isogeometric analysis, are among them. Although analytical approaches offer fast and accurate results, they are limited to rather simple geometries. On the other hand, the application of higher order finite element schemes is a computationally demanding task. The drawbacks of both methods can be circumvented if regions of complex geometry are modelled using a HO-FEM approach while the response of the remaining structure is computed utilizing an analytical approach. The objective of the paper is to present an efficient method to couple different HO-FEM schemes with an analytical description of an undisturbed region. Using this hybrid formulation the numerical effort can be drastically reduced. The functionality of the proposed scheme is demonstrated by studying the propagation of ultrasonic guided waves in plates, excited by a piezoelectric patch actuator. The actuator is modelled utilizing higher order coupled field finite elements, whereas the homogenous, isotropic plate is described analytically. The results of this "semi-analytical" approach highlight the opportunities to reduce the numerical effort if closed-form solutions are partially available.

• CELLMED
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.4.1-4.7
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• 2016

Dysmenorrhoea is the most important under diagnosed and undertreated gynaecologic disorder of all menstrual complaints. It affects 50% women of childbearing age and has a major impact on health and societal costs worldwideespecially in developing countries. Therefore, a literary exploration of traditional sources for aetiopathogenesis and clinical features of usr-i-tamth (dysmenorrhoea) were reviewed to correlate with contemporary knowledge.The traditional Unani sources viz., Al Hawi fi'l Tibb (Continens Liber),Tarjuma Kamil al-Sana'a al-Tibbiyya, Al-Qanun fi'l Tibb (Canon of Medicine), Dhakhira Khawarizam Shahi, Tibb-i-Akbar, Iksir-i-A'zam, Kitab al-Kulliyyat, and Kulliyyat-i-Qanun were reviewed. Further, recent studies in the contemporary era were also browsed on the website. The causes of usre-i-tamth as per classical sources are distemperament, uterine diseases (atresia, inflammation, amenorrhoea, cancer, prolapse, ulcer, tenuous morbid matter, and cervical obstruction), psychological disturbances, environmental factors, menstrual irregularities, obesity and young age. Recent studies also prove that obesity, psychological disturbance, menstrual irregularities, environmental factors, uterine diseases and young age lead to dysmenorrhea.Unani classical sources are very much enriched with the informative knowledge related to menstruation and uterine pain/dysmenorrhoea and recent studies in contemporary proves the same. Hence, implementation of the traditional system of medicines in present-day era may play a vital role to restore health in a holistic way.