• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.55 no.9
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• pp.330-336
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• 2012

Purpose: Fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) and forced expiratory flow between 25% and 75% of vital capacity ($FEF_{25-75}$) are not included in routine monitoring of asthma control. We observed changes in FeNO level and $FEF_{25-75}$ after FeNO-based treatment with inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) in children with controlled asthma (CA). Methods: We recruited 148 children with asthma (age, 8 to 16 years) who had maintained asthma control and normal forced expiratory volume in the first second ($FEV_1$) without control medication for ${\geq}3$ months. Patients with FeNO levels >25 ppb were allocated to the ICS-treated (FeNO-based management) or untreated group (guideline-based management). Changes in spirometric values and FeNO levels from baseline were evaluated after 6 weeks. Results: Ninety-three patients had FeNO levels >25 ppb. These patients had lower $FEF_{25-75}$ % predicted values than those with FeNO levels ${\leq}25$ ppb (P<0.01). After 6 weeks, the geometric mean (GM) FeNO level in the ICS-treated group was 45% lower than the baseline value, and the mean percent increase in $FEF_{25-75}$ was 18.7% which was greater than that in other spirometric values. There was a negative correlation between percent changes in $FEF_{25-75}$ and FeNO (r=-0.368, P=0.001). In contrast, the GM FeNO and spirometric values were not significantly different from the baseline values in the untreated group. Conclusion: The anti-inflammatory treatment simultaneously improved the FeNO levels and $FEF_{25-75}$ in CA patients when their FeNO levels were >25 ppb.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.15-23
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• 2008

Objectives : The aim of our study was to demonstrate the clinical application of a diagnosis relating the 7-zone-diagnostic system and heart rate variability. Materials and Methods : Subjects were divided into two groups according to the factor AA form of the 7-zone-diagnostic system(VEGA-DFM722, VEGA, Germany). Subjects in group A showed a factor-AA red bar graph in which zone 2 was higher than the normal range, and zone 6 was lower than the normal range. Subjects in group B showed a factor-AA red bar graph in which zone 2 was lower than the normal range, and zone 6 was higher than the normal range. We investigated how to differentiate the index of heart-rate variability(HRV, LX-3202, LAXTHA, Korea) for each group. We did independent sample t-tests and evaluated the results of the HRV at the 5% significance level using SPSS 10.0 for Windows. Results : The differences of the MeanRR, MeanHRV, SDNN, complexity, HRV-index, RMSSD, SDSD, and pNN50 values between the groups was not significant. The differences of the Ln(TP), Ln(VLF), Ln(HF), LF/(LF+HF), LF/HF, norm LF, and norm HF values between the groups was also not significant. The differences were not significant, but generally the values of SDNN, complexity, RMSSD, SDSD, Ln(VLF), Ln(HF) and norm LF for group B were higher than those for group A, and the values of pNN50 and norm HF for group B were lower than those for group A. Conclusions : This study suggests that differences in the HRV values between the groups was not significant, but group B has a tendency to be healthier than group A because of stress. Accordingly, further study will be required.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.789-792
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• 2004

In various fields as web mining, bioinformatics, statistical data analysis, and so forth, very diversely missing values are found. These values make training data to be sparse. Largely, the missing values are replaced by predicted values using mean and mode. We can used the advanced missing value imputation methods as conditional mean, tree method, and Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm. But general imputation models have the property that their predictive accuracy is decreased according to increase the ratio of missing in training data. Moreover the number of available imputations is limited by increasing missing ratio. To settle this problem, we proposed statistical learning theory to preprocess for missing values. Our statistical learning theory is the support vector regression by Vapnik. The proposed method can be applied to sparsely training data. We verified the performance of our model using the data sets from UCI machine learning repository.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.189-192
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• 2001

This study was initiated in an effort to determine the normal mean and variations of the somatic cell count (SCC) in milk of buffaloes as influenced by the milking time, stage of lactation, parity and season. The buffaloes were hand milked at 13 and 11 h. interval during evening and morning respectively. On the day of milk sampling the udders were tested for mastitis by California Mastitis Test (CMT). Only those buffaloes, which were found negative in the CMT, were included in the sampling plan. The mean values for morning and evening were 1.09 (range 0.39-1.76) and $0.97(range\;0.57-2.46){\times}10^5cells/ml$, respectively which did not differ significantly. When data of the morning and evening values was compared on the basis of total cell secretion in milk, even then there was no statistical difference between the morning and the evening values, thereby suggesting that no diurnal variation existed in SCC of milk. Paritywise differences were not significant between the 1st to 5th lactation and above. Similarly stage of lactation effect, when tested at 30 day intervals, did not differ significantly. Significant (p<0.05) correlation coefficients (r) between SCC and milk yield during different stages of lactation and parity suggested that SCC per ml of milk was higher during the later stages of lactation. SCC was higher in primiparous than in multiparous buffaloes. On an average the SCC recorded was $1.0{\times}10^5cells/ml$ of milk irrespective of time of milking, parity and stages of lactation. The SCC was low during cold and hot-dry season but were high during the hot-humid season (p<0.05), the respective values being 0.76, 1.08 and $1.35{\times}10^5cells/ml$. These values were lower than the SCC already reported in cows suggesting less stressful condition of the udder of buffaloes in this study.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.187-191
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• 2007

This study was conducted to compare the bioavailability of two brands of atenolol (50 mg) tablets, which are a generic product of $Ditent^{\circledR}$ (Daewon Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Korea) and an innovator product $Tenormin^{\circledR}$ (Hyundai Pharm. Ind. Co., Ltd., Korea), in 20 healthy Korean male volunteers. The volunteers received a single 50 mg dose of each atenolol formulation according to a randomized, two-way cross-over design. The washout period between treatments was 1 week. Plasma samples were obtained over a 24-hour interval, and atenolol concentrations were determined by HPLC with a fluorescence detector. From the plasma atenolol concentration vs. time curves, the following parameters were compared: area under the plasma concentration-time curve ($AUC_{0-24}$), peak plasma concentration ($C_{max}$), time to reach peak plasma concentration ($T_{max}$), and terminal first order elimination half-life ($t_{1/2}$). No statistically significant difference was obtained between the $T_{max}$ values, and the logarithmic transformed $AUC_{0-24}$ and $C_{max}$ values of the two products. The 90% confidence interval for the ratio of the logarithmically transformed AUC and $C_{max}$ values of $Ditent^{\circledR}$ over those of $Tenormin^{\circledR}$ were calculated to be between 0.85 and 1.04, and 0.89 and 1.07, respectively; both were within the bioequivalence limit of 0.80-1.25. The mean of $T_{max}$ in $Tenormin^{\circledR}$ group was 3.1 hour, and that in Ditent$^{\circledR}$ group was 3.2 hour. The values of $t_{1/2}$ between the two products were found comparable, and the mean values were 5.2 hour in the both products. Based on these results, it was concluded that $Ditent^{\circledR}$ was comparable to $Tenormin^{\circledR}$ in both the rate and extent of absorption, indicating that $Ditent^{\circledR}$ was bioequivalent to the reference product, $Tenormin^{\circledR}$.

• The Journal of Advanced Prosthodontics
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.83-88
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• 2020

PURPOSE. The purpose of this in vitro study was to examine the reliability of the Anycheck device and the effect of the healing abutment diameter on the Anycheck values (implant stability test, IST). MATERIALS AND METHODS. Thirty implants were placed into three artificial bone blocks with 10 Ncm, 15 Ncm, and 35 Ncm insertion torque value (ITV), respectively (n = 10). (1) The implant stability was measured with three different kinds of devices (Periotest M, Osstell ISQ Mentor, and Anycheck). (2) Five different diameters (4.0, 4.5, 4.8, 5.5, and 6.0 mm) of healing abutments of the same height were connected to the implants and the implant stability was measured four times in different directions with Anycheck. The measured mean values were statistically analyzed. RESULTS. The correlation coefficient between the mean implant stability quotient (ISQ) and IST value was 0.981 (P<.01) and the correlation coefficient between the meant periotest value (PTV) and IST value was -0.931 (P<.01). There were no statistically significant differences among the IST values with different healing abutment diameters. CONCLUSION. There was a strong correlation between the Periotest M and Anycheck values and between the ISQ and IST. The diameter of the healing abutment had no effect on the Anycheck values.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.34 no.5 s.118
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• pp.84-99
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• 2006

The traditional temples located in national parks have various functions, such as religious practice, tourist destination, and conservation for cultural and natural resources. One functions have implicit monetary values in terms of public benefits. The purpose of this study was to estimate both use and non-use conservation values for two traditional temples, Sinheungsa and Haeinsa, using the contingent valuation method. In the study, both single-bounded and double-bounded dichotomous choice methods were used in an application of Turnbull distribution-free model. A total of 659 visitors were interviewed, 350 in Sinheungsa and 309 in Haeinsa. The mean WTP (willingness to pay) for Sinheungsa using single-bounded method was 4,040 Won for the use value, 6,157 Won for the cultural conservation value, and 5,624 Won for the natural conservation value. The mean WTP for Haeinsa using single-bounded method was 6,463 Won for the use value, 8,769 Won for the cultural conservation value, and 8,013 Won for the natural conservation value. The total economic value of each temple accounted for 50% (Sinheungsa) and 80% (Haeinsa) of the total economic value of the associated national park. It was also found that the single-bounded method was more conservative than the double-bounded method in terms of value estimation. The WTP was highest for the cultural conservation value and lowest for the use values in both temples, with natural conservation values falling in the middle, which showed that people perceived traditional temples as the cultural heritage. Based on these results, it was suggested that traditional temples should be designated as an 'multiple heritage area' so that conservation can be used as the main criteria for various use programs.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.134-143
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• 2011

The selection of meaningful clinical tests and its reference values from a high-dimensional clinical data with imbalanced class distribution, one class is represented by a large number of examples while the other is represented by only a few, is an important issue for differential diagnosis between similar diseases, but difficult. For this purpose, this study introduces methods based on the concepts of both discernibility matrix and function in rough set theory (RST) with two discretization approaches, equal width and frequency discretization. Here these discretization approaches are used to define the reference values for clinical tests, and the discernibility matrix and function are used to extract a subset of significant clinical tests from the translated nominal attribute values. To show its applicability in the differential diagnosis problem, we have applied it to extract the significant clinical tests and its reference values between normal (N = 351) and abnormal group (N = 101) with either cholecystitis or cholelithiasis disease. In addition, we investigated not only the selected significant clinical tests and the variations of its reference values, but also the average predictive accuracies on four evaluation criteria, i.e., accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and geometric mean, during l0-fold cross validation. From the experimental results, we confirmed that two discretization approaches based rough set approximation methods with relative frequency give better results than those with absolute frequency, in the evaluation criteria (i.e., average geometric mean). Thus it shows that the prediction model using relative frequency can be used effectively in classification and prediction problems of the clinical data with imbalanced class distribution.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.595-603
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• 2018

Shake table testing has been regarded as one of the most effective experimental approaches to evaluate seismic response of structural systems subjected to earthquakes. However, reproducing a prescribed acceleration time history precisely over the frequency of interest is challenging because shake table test systems are eventually nonlinear by nature. In addition, interaction between the table and specimen could affect the control accuracy of shake table testing significantly. Various novel control algorithms have been proposed to improve the control accuracy of shake table testing; however, reference values for control performance assessment remain rare. In this study, reference values for control performance assessment of shake table testing are specified based on the statistical analyses of 1,209 experimental data provided by the Seismic Simulator Laboratory of National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering in Taiwan. Three individual reference values are considered for the assessment including the root-mean-square error of the achieved acceleration time history; the percentage of the spectral acceleration that exceeds the determined tolerance range over the frequency of interest; and the error-ratio of the achieved peak ground acceleration. Quartiles of the real experimental data in terms of the three objective variables are obtained, providing users with solid and simple references to evaluate the control performance of shake table testing. Finally, a set of experimental data of a newly developed control framework implementation for uni-axial shake tables are used as an application example to demonstrate the significant improvement of control accuracy according to the reference values provided in this study.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.178-183
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• 2021

Background: This study was carried out to provide environmental transfer parameter values to estimate activity concentrations of these radionuclides in agricultural crops when direct contamination occurred. Materials and Methods: Mass interception fractions (F_Bs) and weathering half-lives (T_ws) of ¹³¹I and radiocesium were calculated using openly available monitoring data obtained after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. F_B is the ratio between the initial radioactivity concentration of a radionuclide retained by the edible part of the plant (Bq·kg^-1 fresh weight [FW]) and the amount of deposited radionuclide in that area (Bq·m^-2). T_w values can be calculated using activity concentrations of crops decreased with time after the initial contamination. Results and Discussion: Calculated F_B and T_w values for ¹³¹I and radiocesium were mostly obtained for leafy vegetables. The analytical results showed that there was no difference of F_Bs between ¹³¹I and radiocesium by t-test; geometric mean values for leafy vegetables cultivated under outdoor conditions were 0.058 and 0.12 m²·kg^-1 FW, respectively. Geometric mean T_w value of ¹³¹I in leafy vegetables grown under outdoor conditions was 8.6 days, and that of radiocesium was 6.6 days; there was no significant difference between T_w values of these radionuclides by Wilcoxon rank sum test. Conclusion: There was no difference between ¹³¹I and radiocesium for F_Bs and T_ws. By using these factors, we would be able to carry out a rough estimation of the activity concentrations of ¹³¹I and radiocesium in the edible part of leafy crops when a nuclear accident occurred.