• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.80 no.3
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• pp.270-276
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• 2017

Background: A disputed rpoB mutation is a specific type of rpoB mutation that can cause low-level resistances to rifampin (RIF). Here, we aimed to assess the frequency and types of disputed rpoB mutations in Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from South Korea. Methods: Between August 2009 and December 2015, 130 patients exhibited RIF resistance on the MTBDRplus assay at Asan Medical Center. Among these cases, we identified the strains with disputed rpoB mutation by rpoB sequencing analysis, as well as among the M. tuberculosis strains from the International Tuberculosis Research Center (ITRC). Results: Among our cases, disputed rpoB mutations led to RIF resistance in at least 6.9% (9/130) of the strains that also exhibited RIF resistance on the MTBDRplus assay. Moreover, at the ITRC, sequencing of the rpoB gene of 170 strains with the rpoB mutation indicated that 23 strains (13.5%) had the disputed mutations. By combining the findings from the 32 strains from our center and the ITRC, we identified the type of disputed rpoB mutation as follows: CTG511CCG (L511P, n=8), GAC516TAC (D516Y, n=8), CTG533CCG (L533P, n=8), CAC526CTC (H526L, n=4), CAC526AAC (H526N, n=3), and ATG515GTG (M515V, n=1). Conclusion: Disputed rpoB mutations do not seem to be rare among the strains exhibiting RIF resistance in South Korea.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.44.1-44.10
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• 2023

Tumor hypoxia, oxygen deprivation state, occurs in most cancers and promotes angiogenesis, enhancing the potential for metastasis. The vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) family genes play crucial roles in tumorigenesis by promoting angiogenesis. To investigate the malignant processes triggered by hypoxia-induced angiogenesis across pan-cancers, we comprehensively analyzed the relationships between the expression of VEGF family genes and hypoxic microenvironment based on integrated bioinformatics methods. Our results suggest that the expression of VEGF family genes differs significantly among various cancers, highlighting their heterogeneity effect on human cancers. Across the 33 cancers, VEGFB and VEGFD showed the highest and lowest expression levels, respectively. The survival analysis showed that VEGFA and placental growth factor (PGF) were correlated with poor prognosis in many cancers, including kidney renal cell and liver hepatocellular carcinoma. VEGFC expression was positively correlated with glioma and stomach cancer. VEGFA and PGF showed distinct positive correlations with hypoxia scores in most cancers, indicating a potential correlation with tumor aggressiveness. The expression of miRNAs targeting VEGF family genes, including hsa-miR-130b-5p and hsa-miR-940, was positively correlated with hypoxia. In immune subtypes analysis, VEGFC was highly expressed in C3 (inflammatory) and C6 (transforming growth factor β dominant) across various cancers, indicating its potential role as a tumor promotor. VEGFC expression exhibited positive correlations with immune infiltration scores, suggesting low tumor purity. High expression of VEGFA and VEGFC showed favorable responses to various drugs, including BLU-667, which abrogates RET signaling, an oncogenic driver in liver and thyroid cancers. Our findings suggest potential roles of VEGF family genes in malignant processes related with hypoxia-induced angiogenesis.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.43-50
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• 2018

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between self efficacy and health behavior of elderly woman with chronic low back pain. Methods: A descriptive correlational design was used and the participants were 130 eldery women patients with chronic low back pain from one general hospital in 2012. The structured questionnaire included Perceived Self Efficacy Scale, Health Behavior Assessment tool of the Korean Elders. Data analysis included t-test, ANOVA and Pearson's correlation. Results: The mean scores were $67.34{\pm}18.32$ for self efficacy, $99.70{\pm}14.46$ for health behavior. There were significant correlations between self efficacy and health behavior(r=.80). Conclusion: The findings suggest that elderly woman with chronic low back pain need nursing interventions to improve health behaviors by promoting self efficacy.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.130-139
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• 2013

Purpose: This study was to identify the relationship among clinical nurse's job overload, self-efficacy, emotional exhaust and turnover intention. Methods: The study was conducted through a survey on 537 clinical nurses in five general hospitals. The data were collected by self-reporting questionnaires and analysed by the SPSS/WIN 17.0 program using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise multiple regression. Results: The mean score of turnover intention was 3.04. Turnover intention according to age, total career, job objective, and work off showed significant differences. The significant positive correlations between emotional exhaust and turnover intention (r=.531, p<.001), job overload and turnover intention (r=.514, p<.001) were found. The significant factors influencing turnover intention were emotional exhaust (${\beta}$=.488, p<.001), career (${\beta}$=.175, p<.001), job overload (${\beta}$=.119, p= .003), and number of night (${\beta}$=.117, p=.002), which accounted for 40.3% of the variance. Conclusion: Thought this result, nursing managers should analyze the reasons for high turnover intention, focusing on the main factors affecting turnover intention and consider the solutions to decrease the turnover intention.

• Journal of Korean Biological Nursing Science
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.123-130
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• 2017

Purpose: This study aimed to identify factors influencing intra-operative core body temperature (CBT), and to develop a predictive model for intra-operative CBT in laparoscopic abdominal surgery. Methods: The prospective observational study involved 161 subjects, whose age, weight, and height were collected. The basal pre-operative CBT, pre-operative blood pressure, and heartbeat were measured. CBT was measured 1 hour and 2 hours after pneumoperitoneum. Results: Explanatory factors of intra-operative hypothermia (< $36^{\circ}C$) were weight (${\beta}=.361$, p< .001) and pre-operative CBT (${\beta}=.280$, p= .001) 1 hour after pneumoperitoneum (Adjusted $R^2=.198$, F= 7.56, p< .001). Weight was (${\beta}=.423$, p< .001) and pre-operative CBT was (${\beta}=.206$, p= .011) 2 hours after pneumoperitoneum (Adjusted $R^2=.177$, F= 5.93, p< .001). The researchers developed a predictive model for intra-operative CBT ($^{\circ}C$) by observing intra-operative CBT, body weight, and pre-operative CBT. The predictive model revealed that intra-operative CBT was positively correlated with body weight and pre-operative CBT. Conclusion: Influence of weight on intra-operative hypothermia increased over time from 1 hour to 2 hours after pneumoperitoneum, whereas influence of pre-operative CBT on intraoperative hypothermia decreased over time from 1 hour to 2 hours after pneumoperitoneum. The research recommends pre-warming for laparoscopic surgical patients to guard against intra-operative hypothermia.

• Health Communication
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.149-158
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• 2018

Background: This study was to survey the effect of the degree of spiritual nursing care performance on the spiritual nursing care ability of the nursing students Methods: The researcher sampled 130 nursing students for a questionnaire survey conducted from September 17 until September 27, 2018. The data of analysis used SPSS 23.0 program. Results: The spiritual nursing care ability was $4.4{\pm}0.8$(total score 6) and the degree of spiritual nursing care performance was $2.9{\pm}1.8$(total score 4). The spiritual nursing care ability differed significantly depending on religion(F=7.570, p<.001), the level of spiritual nursing knowledge(F=19.873, p<.001), education type(F=14.626, p<.001), necessity of hospice(t=2.280, p=.024). The degree of spiritual nursing care performance differed significantly depending on spiritual nursing education time(F=2.932, p=.036). The correlation of two variable was statistically significant difference(r=.206, p=.019). The influencing factors on the spiritual nursing care ability was religion, the level of spiritual nursing knowledge, education type, dying experience($R^2=0.378$, Adj $R^2=0.353$), the degree of spiritual nursing care performance was spiritual nursing education time($R^2=0.065$, Adj $R^2=0.043$). Conclusion: These results show that nursing students are not able to perform spiritual nursing care properly to subjects who need spiritual nursing care. Therefore, it is necessary to develope programs to meet the spiritual nursing care needs of nursing students and to provide practical education in accordance with the program by cooperating with the nursing education staff, clergy and clinical nurse etc. And spiritual nursing care should be taught as a required subjects in the curriculum.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.121-130
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• 2020

This study identified the differences and relationships between clinical practice stress, sleep quality, and daytime sleep disorder before and after clinical practice of college nursing students. The subjects were 130 students in the third year of nursing science. The results showed that the average clinical stress of the study subjects was 3.15 out of 5 points. Out of the external factors for clinical practice stress, the score for the task was 3.64. There was a significant difference in gender (t=-3.88, p<).001), subjective health status (F=5.78, p=.004), residence (F=3.20, p=.026). Nursing students showed lower sleep quality (80.0% before practice, 70.0% after practice), and those with daytime sleepiness (26.9% before practice, 42.3% after practice) were more than those of general college students. There was a difference between sleep quality (χ²=4.06, p=.004) and daytime sleepiness (χ²=6.08, p=.009) before and after clinical practice. There was also a negative correlation between daytime sleepiness and sleep quality (r=-.259, p<0.01). Therefore, strategies to reduce clinical practice stress and improve the quality of sleep are needed for the physical and mental health of nursing college students. The quality of nursing can be improved in the future by helping nursing students adapt to the clinical practice of changing nursing education field.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.211-216
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• 2001

The growth of Selenastrum capricornutum in culture was investigated as a function of ionic copper concentrations to verify the toxicity and physiological variation. In a $Cu^{++}$ excess culture (E: $Cu^{++}$ of $130{\mu}g/l$), the growth rate (K)(0.32) was lower than that of the control culture (C: $Cu^{++}$ of $0.065{\mu}g/l$) (0.61) after 8 days and the exponential growth rate ($R_E$) was also found to be lower in culture E (1.1) than culture C (2.9). On the contrary, the K of S. capricornutum in trace $Cu^{++}$ culture ($T_1$ and $T_2$, 0.72) after 6 days tended to be more increased than culture C (0.68). From 8 to 14 days of culture, the amounts of chlorophyllls a and b were increased in culture C (chlorophyll a, $106->126{\mu}g/g$ dry wt; chlorophyll b, $158->208{\mu}g/g$ dry wt; chlorophyll b were decreased in culture E (chlorophyll a, $309->235{\mu}g/g$ dry wt; chlorophyll b, $405->352{\mu}g/g$ dry wt). The amounts of chlorophylls in ionic copper trace culture ($T_1$ and $T_2$) [(chl a/b) of $T_1$: $384/620\;{\mu}g/g$ dry wt; (chl a/b) of $T^2$:$320/467{\mu}g/g$ dry wt] were increased more than the culture C($260/387{\mu}g/g$ dry wt). Howeveer, when photosynthetic rates were normalized to the dry weight of algae, the control culture continued to showed higher values than the treated culture ($T_1$). An appropriate amount of ionic copper ($T_1:\;26\;{\mu}g/l$) stimulated the grwoth of S. capricornutum than the ionic copper content of $13\;{\mu}g/l$ ($T_2$), while the excess amount of ionic copper ($130\;{\mu}g/l$) resulted in the highest toxicity to the growth of S. capricornutum.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.47-51
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• 2014

The stems of Juncus effusus were extracted with 70% aqueous ethanol and the concentrated extract was partitioned with ethyl acetate, n-butanol and $H_2O$, successively. Two compounds were isolated from the ethyl acetate fraction through the repeated silica gel and Sephadex LH-20 column chromatographies. According to the results of physico-chemical and spectroscopic data including NMR and IR, the chemical structures of the compounds were determined as dehydroeffusol (1) and effusol (2). Dehydroeffusol and effusol exhibited potent scavenging activity for DPPH and ABTS radicals with the $IC_{50}$ values as $130{\pm}3.21$ and $79{\pm}1.53{\mu}M$ in DPPH assay, and as $39{\pm}3.51$ and $24{\pm}2.73{\mu}M$ in ABTS assay, respectively. The compounds also significantly inhibited the proliferation of human cancer cell lines, AGS and A549.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.571-578
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• 2013

This study generated regression models through a direct harvesting method to estimate carbon storage and uptake by Pinus densiflora and Pinus koraiensis, the major evergreen tree species in urban landscape, and established essential information to quantify carbon reduction by urban trees. Open-grown landscape tree individuals for each species were sampled reflecting various diameter sizes at a given interval. The study measured biomass for each part including the roots of sample trees to compute the total carbon storage per tree. Annual carbon uptake per tree was quantified by analyzing radial growth rates of stem samples at breast height. The study then derived a regression model easily applicable in estimating carbon storage and uptake per tree for the two species by using diameter at breast height (DBH) as an independent variable. All the regression models showed high fitness with $r^2$ values of higher than 0.98. While carbon storage and uptake by young trees tended to be greater for P. densiflora than for P. koraiensis in the same diameter sizes, those by mature trees with DBH sizes of larger than 20 cm showed results to the contrary due to a difference in growth rates. A tree of P. densiflora and P. koraiensis with DBH of 25 cm stored 115.6 kg and 130.0 kg of carbon, respectively, and annually sequestered 9.4 kg and 14.6 kg. The study has broken new grounds to overcome limitations of the past studies which quantified carbon reduction of the study species by substituting, due to a difficulty in direct cutting and root digging of landscape trees, coefficients from forest trees such as biomass expansion factors, ratios of below ground/above ground biomass, and diameter growth rates.