• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.86 no.3
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• pp.216-225
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• 2023

Background: Tuberculosis (TB)-related stigma has been well-documented. Since the emergence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), different organizations have been alerted to the fact that stigma could arise again. Due to stigma's negative effects, this qualitative study aimed to explore the stigma felt by patients by evaluating the following: COVID-19 stigma and its temporal progression through the pandemic; stigma perceived by different patients with TB before and during COVID-19 pandemic; and difference perceived by individuals who contracted both diseases. Methods: A semi-structured interview was developed according to the available literature on the theme. It was performed individually in 2022 upon receiving signed informed consent. Participants were recruited with a purposive sampling approach by searching medical records. Those who currently or previously had pulmonary TB and/or COVID-19 were included. Data were subjected to thematic analysis. Results: Nine patients were interviewed, including six (66.7%) females. The median age of patients was 51±14.7 years. Four participants (44.4%) had completed high school and four (44.4%) were never smokers. Three had both TB and COVID-19. Four only had TB and two only had COVID-19. Interviews identified eight main themes: knowledge and beliefs, with several misconceptions identified; attitudes towards the disease, varying from social support to exclusion; knowledge and education, assumed as of extreme importance; internalized stigma, with self-rejection; experienced stigma, with discrimination episodes; anticipated stigma, modifying actions for avoiding stigma; perceived stigma, with judgment by others prevailed; and temporal evolution of stigma. Conclusion: Individuals expressed strong stigma for both diseases. De-stigmatization of respiratory infectious diseases is crucial for limiting stigma's negative impact.

• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.46.1-46.11
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• 2024

Importance: Rabies is a neglected tropical viral disease most often transmitted through the bite of an infected animal. Objective: This study assessed the level of knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the Shone Ttown community toward rabies. Methods: A survey-based cross-sectional study was conducted in Shone town, Ethiopia, from November 2022 to April 2023. Woreda was selected purposefully, while Kebeles and the study populations were selected by simple random sampling. Four hundred and sixteen respondents were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Results: All respondents had heard about rabies from different sources, with the majority hearing from informal sources (62%). Approximately 51.9%, 0.7%, and 47.4% of individuals were aware of saliva contact, rabid animal bites, and both as means of transmission, respectively. The survey showed that 64.4% of participants knew the 100% fatal nature of rabies once the clinical signs developed, and 35.6% did not. Approximately 51.4% of respondents agreed that killing stray dogs was an effective method for rabies prevention. In this study, 72.6% of the respondents had contact with pets, and 36.8% of the interviewees had vaccinated their dogs. Only the educational level (p = 0.03) was associated with knowledge of the transmission route. Age (p = 0.04) and educational level (p = 0.01) had a statistically significant association with knowledge of the risk of not vaccinating dogs. Conclusions and Relevance: A lack of formal education in the communities, low levels of education, and the majority of respondents acquiring their knowledge from unofficial sources are important contributors to the low levels of awareness.

• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.41.1-41.12
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• 2024

Importance: Equines are indispensable in reducing the huge burden on children and women and income generation. On the other hand, minimal attention is given to improving their health and welfare. Objective: This study examined the prevalence and associated risk factors of helminth parasites of equine in the Gamo Gofa Zone. Methods: A cross-sectional study was employed from June 2019 to March 2020. The study districts and Kebeles were selected purposively based on agroecology whereas selection of study households and animals were performed based on simple random sampling techniques. Identification of nematode, trematode parasite ova and larvae of D. arnfieldi were done by floatation, sedimentation, and Baermann techniques respectively. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression was applied to estimate the prevalence and association of risk factors with helminth parasites. Results: The overall helminth parasite prevalence in the study area was 90.4%, 425/470 (95% [CI], 87.16-92.9). The prevalence of Strongyle, Fasciola, O. equi, P. equorum, D. arnfieldi, and mixed parasite infections were 65.1%, 21.7%, 17.4%, 34%, 34%, and 58.1%, respectively. Infections from Fasciola species and D. arnfieldi infection were four ([AOR], 4.4; 95% CI, 2-9.4) and two times (AOR, 2; 95% CI, 1.1-3.6) respectively more likely occur in donkeys than in mules. The occurrence of Strongyle species in midland agroecology was two times (AOR, 2.6; 95% CI, 1.4-4.7) more likely than lowland agroecology. Conclusions and Relevance: The present study identified diverse species of equine helminth parasites that necessitate urgent disease control and prevention measures.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.360-367
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• 2024

Background: In the food manufacturing industry, exposure to inhalable aerosols contributes to respiratory illnesses such as occupational asthma and rhinitis. However, there is a lack of comprehensive exposure assessment studies. This study evaluated occupational exposure to inhalable aerosols in an instant powdered food manufacturing plant during work operations involving dried food and powders. Methods: In total, 50 workers from an instant powdered food manufacturing plant were recruited. Personal inhalable aerosol exposure measurements were taken for both full-shift and task-based activities. The concentrations of inhalable aerosols were analyzed to identify any variation within and across departments, as well as between seasons, handedness, and sex. Results: In total, 134 personal air samples were collected, and the particulate mass was determined gravimetrically. The concentrations of inhalable aerosols ranged from 0.1 to 27 mg/m³ for full-shift exposure measurements and 3.1 to 73 mg/m³ for task-based measurements. Statistically significant differences in mean aerosol concentrations were found across departments (A:B p < 0.001, A:C p < 0.05, B:C p < 0.001) and between seasons (p < 0.001). Conclusion: This study revealed high exposure to inhalable aerosols among workers, particularly those involved in manual weighing, mixing, and adding powders. The significant differences between departments highlight the specific activities contributing to increased inhalable aerosol concentrations. Seasonal variations were also evident, with autumn showing higher concentrations of inhalable aerosols in all departments compared with summer. These findings emphasize the importance of understanding the distribution of aerosol concentrations across different work tasks and departments, particularly during different seasons.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.17-23
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• 2010

The Banking industry is expanding rapidly. To keep the competitive advantages, participating companies concentrate their resource to provide the distinguishable services by increasing the service quality. This study is to find that how three kinds of service quality(process, output, and service environment) affect on the customer satisfaction. In this paper, WPCSI (Weighted Potential Customer Satisfaction Index) was developed using Kano model and PCSI. Kano's model of service quality classification was used to improve customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction index was calculated. Customer satisfaction index was calculated using the existing potential for improving customer satisfaction index (PCSI Index) to complement the limitations of the weighted potential improve customer satisfaction index (WPCSI) were used. Analysis using PCSI improve the quality of service levels may be useful in assessing. However, this figure is a marginal degree of importance on customers and quality characteristics have been overlooked but has its problems. A service provided to customers with some important differences depending on the interpretation of the scope for improvement is to be classified. In other words, the level of customer satisfaction and the satisfaction of the current difference between the comparison factor for the company to provide information about the priority of the improvement was not significant. Companies are also considered important that the customer does not consider the uniform quality of service provided can be fallible. In this study, the weighted potential to improve it improve customer satisfaction index (WPCSI) proposed a new customer satisfaction index. This is for customers to recognize the importance of quality characteristics by weighting factors, to identify practical and improved priority to provide more useful information than has been. Weighted potentially improve customer satisfaction index (WPCSI) presented in this study by the customers aware of the importance of considering the quality factor is an exponent. The results, 'Employees' working ability', 'provided the desired service level', 'staff to handle this task quickly enough' to the customer of the factors had significant effects on satisfaction are met. On the other hand 'aggressiveness on the product description of employees', 'service environment as a whole, beautiful enough to' meet and shows no significant difference between satisfaction. But 'aggressiveness on the product description of employees' and reverse (逆) were attributable to the quality. Small dogs and overly aggressive products that encourage the customer dissatisfaction that can result in widening should be careful because the quality factor can be said. As a result, WPCSI is more effect to find critical factors which can affect customer satisfaction than PCSI. After that, we discuss effects and advantages of customer satisfaction using WPCSI. This study, along with these positive aspects, the limitations are implied. First, this study directly to the bank so that I could visit any other way for customers, utilizing the Internet or mobile to take advantage of the respondents were excluded from the analysis. Second, in survey questionnaires can help improve understanding of the measures will be taken. In addition to the survey targeted mainly focused on Seoul, according to a sample, so sampling can cause problems is the viscosity revealed intends.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.5-19
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• 1998

This descriptive-correlational study was conducted to identify the major factors affecting health promoting behaviors. 344 workers who employed in four different manutacturing plants in Taegu and Kyungbuk area were selected by convenience sampling method. Data were collected from April let to April 18th, 1998 by ready structured questionaires. The purpose of this study was to offer the basic data for health promotion theory development and health promotion strategy planning. This study was based on Pender's Health Promotion Model and examined three variables health promoting behavior, self-concept and perceived importance of health. The Life Style and Health Habit Assessment scale(LHHA) developed by Pender(1982).The Self-concept scale developed by Choi(1972) and the Health Value scale developed by Wallston, Maides and Wallston(1980) were used for this study. Data was analyzed by percentage, mean. t-test. ANOVA, Pearson Correlation Coefficient, and Stepwise Multiple Regression. The major findings of this study are as follows ; 1. The average level of health promoting behavior practice was 63.2% and possible range was from 62 to 248 point. The mean score of respondent's positive self-concept was 75.8. 81.4% of respondents put a high priority on the importance of health. 2. There was a significant difference between the practice level in the category of general self care and less amount of working hours per day(P=0.000), less amount of working hours per week(P=0.000). There was a significant difference between the practice level in the category of nutrition and age(0.002), marital status(0.000), working hour per day(0.008), working hours per week(0.001), There was a significant difference between the practice level in the category of nutriton and sex(0.000), age(0.000), marital status(0.025), education level(0.000), working hours per day(0.002), working hours per week(0.006). There was a significant difference between the practice level in the category of sleep and rest and age(0.003), marital status(0.002), working hours per day(0.001), working hours per week(0.001). There was a significant difference between the practice level in the category of stress management and working hours per day(0.001), working hours per week(0.002). There was a significant difference between the practice level in the category of self-actualization and working hours per day(0.050). 3. General characteristics influencing the respodent's self-concept were level(P=0.009) and worksite(P=0.001). 4. The results of the hypothesis tests are as follows The first hypothesis, that "The respondent who have more positive self-concept will have higher scores in the practice of health promoting behavior." was supported(r=0.2973, P=0.0001). The second hypothesis that "The respondent who have higher perception level on importance of health will have higher scores in the practice health promoting behavior." was rejected(r=- 0665, P=0.2225). 5. The most important factor that affects health promoting behavior practice was working hours per week(6.0%). The combination of working hours per week, age, education level accounted for 10.0% of the variance in health promoting behavior. In conclusion, the results of this study on industrial workers supported Pender's health promotion model in partial and showed the relatedness between self concept and the practice of health promoting behavior. Further research is required to find factors influencing health promoting behaviors of industrial workers.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.82 no.3
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• pp.235-245
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• 1993

This study was carried out to understand the stand structure based on the compositional characteristics of natural deciduous forest dominated by Quercus species, which will provide with fundamental ecological and silvicultural information for effective forest management. Of two tracts selected from the Seoul National University Research Forests, one is located in Kwangju-Gun Kyunggi-Do, and the other in Kwangyang-Gun Chollanam-Do. Point-quarter sampling method w-as employed to survey woody vegetation confined to larger than 6cm in DBH. The numbers of sample points were 152 and 187, in Kwangju-Gun and Kwangyang-Gun, respectively. Comparative analysis for two forest tracts was made as follows ; 1) species composition by calculation of importance values ; 2) number of stems per hectare for major tree species ; 3) species diversity for the forests in two locations ; 4) inter-species association based on $X^2$ test. The relative dominate of Quercus speices showed 88% at Kwangju-Gun, Kyunggi-Do and 50% at Kwangy-ang-Gun. Chollanam-Do. Such high dominance occurred due to high importance values of Quercus variahilis and Q. mortgolica in both locations. Quercus serrata showed low value at Kwangju-Gun. Kyunggi-Do whereas Q. acutissirna, Q. dentata and Q. aliena did none at Kwangyang-Gun. Chollanam-Do. The species diversity and evenness in oak communities exhibited 0.82 and 0.61, respectively at Kwangju-Gun. Kyunggi-Do, while those did 1.09 and 0.73 at Kwangyang-Gun, Chollanam-Do. Therefore, it was considered that Ku-angju-Gun region was disturbed severely by human activities but Kwangyang-Gun region eras less disturbed. Frequent appearance of Carpinus and Acer species indicates increase in diversities and better development of succession at Kwangyang-Gun region.

• The Journal of Bigdata
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.157-165
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• 2023

Seafood is a major source of protein in many countries and its consumption is increasing. In Korea, consumption of seafood is increasing, but self-sufficiency rate is decreasing, and the importance of safety management is increasing as the amount of imported seafood increases. There are hundreds of species of aquatic products imported into Korea from over 110 countries, and there is a limit to relying only on the experience of inspectors for safety management of imported aquatic products. Based on the data, a model that can predict the customs inspection results of imported aquatic products is developed, and a machine learning classification model that determines the non-conformity of aquatic products when an import declaration is submitted is created. As a result of customs inspection of imported marine products, the nonconformity rate is less than 1%, which is very low imbalanced data. Therefore, a sampling method that can complement these characteristics was comparatively studied, and a preprocessing method that can interpret the classification result was applied. Among various machine learning-based classification models, Random Forest and XGBoost showed good performance. The model that predicts both compliance and non-conformance well as a result of the clearance inspection is the basic random forest model to which ADASYN and one-hot encoding are applied, and has an accuracy of 99.88%, precision of 99.87%, recall of 99.89%, and AUC of 99.88%. XGBoost is the most stable model with all indicators exceeding 90% regardless of oversampling and encoding type.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.167-192
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• 2012

Aviation industry is known as the knowledge-based one and as an advanced nations' exclusive property having a large capacity for creating job and added value. Considering the current status of the aviation industry as aforesaid, it is natural for all countries to turn their attention to such promising aviation industry. At the time of rapid growth in aviation market, the importance of securing managerial experts and technicians is being under the spotlight as the aviation profession is increasingly in demand. To meet such dire needs that have already become an ever-greater part of the industry, collaboration among governmental, educational and industrial parties has formed in preparation for putting us into so-called an era of globalization. Having recognized the significance of the program, carried forward by The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, fostering human resources in civil aviation, the objective of this study lies on deloping indicators for the programofficially designed to produce men of expertise in international air transport, the market of which forms nowadays a large part of national economy, and the technology of which develops so quickly. In this paper, an effort is made to develop the appraisal indicators and to set up standards thereof in order for the program to be systematically and expertly assessed on the basis of Quinn and Rohrbaugh's the competing values model. Firstly, this paper designs appraisal indicators, taking into account the peculiarity and environment of air transport industry, for developing human resources in civil aviation by utilizing advanced research on educational assessment in general due to the absence of applicable preceding studies regarding the development of human resources in civil aviation. Secondly, investigations into the necessity and validity of the appraisal are committed by analyzing answers from 100 respondents to questionaires and oral surveys in order to verify appraisal indicators designed in accordance with the competing values model. Lastly, the paper analyzes in a demographical way discrepancy in the recognitions among institutions for which the respondents work, on the basis of the outcome of the survey. As a result, the discrepancy is found not significant, which indicate that the aviation experts favour the indicators as appraisal standards. Prospective studies on the same issue may need an in-depth analysis, empowered by sufficient sampling in balance, of correlation between independent variables, then hopefully serve as a momentum for advancement of study in civil aviation.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.539-553
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• 2017

We propose a multi-state model to analyze semi-competing risks data with interval-censored or missing intermediate events. This model is an extension of the three states of the illness-death model: healthy, disease, and dead. The 'diseased' state can be considered as the intermediate event. Two more states are added into the illness-death model to incorporate the missing events, which are caused by a loss of follow-up before the end of a study. One of them is a state of the lost-to-follow-up (LTF), and the other is an unobservable state that represents an intermediate event experienced after the occurrence of LTF. Given covariates, we employ the Lin and Ying additive hazards model with log-normal frailty and construct a conditional likelihood to estimate transition intensities between states in the multi-state model. A marginalization of the full likelihood is completed using adaptive importance sampling, and the optimal solution of the regression parameters is achieved through an iterative quasi-Newton algorithm. Simulation studies are performed to investigate the finite-sample performance of the proposed estimation method in terms of empirical coverage probability of true regression parameters. Our proposed method is also illustrated with a dataset adapted from Helmer et al. (2001).