• The Journal of Korean Medicine
• /
• v.45 no.1
• /
• pp.100-113
• /
• 2024

Objectives: Following the global COVID-19 pandemic, with the escalation of remote medical care formalization in Korea, there is a pressing need for objective data in the Korean medicine field to respond to remote treatment medical care policies. This study aims to investigate the perceptions and acceptance of remote treatments among Korean Medicine Doctors (KMDs). Methods: After expert reviews and pilot testing, the 31-question survey covered participant characteristics, experiences, forms, intentions, and perceptions related to Remote Treatments. The survey was electronically distributed to members of the Association of Korean Medicine, and 662 clinical KMDs provided valid responses. Results: Among respondents, 76.1% engaged in remote treatments, utilizing various platforms. Those with experience in Remote Treatments showed a significantly higher willingness to continue participating during the institutionalization process (p<0.001). 49.7% of respondents stated that traditional Korean medicine is competitive in remote treatments, with the main reasons being the ability for regular management after herbal medication(26.1%) and increased patient satisfaction due to sufficient counseling compared to Western medicine(25.2%). Respondents preferred Remote Treatment conditions with a treatment time of less than 10 minutes(47.6%) and equivalent fees to in-person visits(45.6%). Regarding suitable intervention tools during Remote Treatment, respondents favored non-covered herbal prescriptions(39.0%), covered herbal granules(24.6%), and non-covered herbal granules(23.0%). Conclusion: This study investigated the perceptions and acceptance of KMDs regarding remote treatments. These findings provide valuable insights for policymakers aiming to establish effective policies for Remote Treatments suitable for the Korean medicine healthcare environment.

• Journal of Radiopharmaceuticals and Molecular Probes
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.73-81
• /
• 2024

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which had been identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. COVID-19 is a serious threat to human health and spread worldwide. World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important that vaccines and therapeutics are developed to control COVID-19. Among these, vaccines using COVID-19 mRNA platforms have various advantages, including a short development cycle, an easy industrialization, a simple production process, flexibility for new variants, and the capacity to induce better immune responses. This review summarizes the structure and characteristics of coronaviruses and introduces the use of non-clinical pharmacokinetic evaluation with C-14 in mRNA vaccine development. The in vitro stability of C-14 labeled mRNA carrier ([¹⁴C]mRNA carrier) was evaluated and found to be stable for up to 144 hours in rat serum. The [¹⁴C]mRNA carrier was distributed mostly to the administration site in rats, but slowly distributed to other organs after 48 hours. Most of the [¹⁴C]mRNA carrier remained in the administered muscle and was slowly excreted from the body through urine after 72 hours. There was no statistical difference in the distribution and excretion after intramuscular administration of the [¹⁴C]mRNA carrier to male and female rats. Through this paper, it is expected to contribute to the development of drug carriers through various studies using C-14.

• Dementia and Neurocognitive Disorders
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.236-244
• /
• 2024

Background and Purpose: Since the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, the Telephone-Montreal Cognitive Assessment (T-MoCA) has gained popularity as a remote cognitive screening tool. T-MoCA includes items from the original MoCA (MoCA-30), excluding those requiring visual stimuli, resulting in a maximum score of 22 points. This study aimed to assess whether the T-MoCA items (MoCA-22) demonstrate comparable discriminatory power to MoCA-30 and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) in screening for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia. Methods: Participants included 233 cognitively normal (CN) individuals, 175 with MCI, and 166 with dementia. All completed the Korean-MoCA-30 (K-MoCA-30) and Korean-MMSE (K-MMSE), with the Korean-MoCA-22 (K-MoCA-22) scores derived from the K-MoCA-30 responses. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was conducted. Results: K-MoCA-22 showed a strong correlation with K-MoCA-30 and a moderate correlation with K-MMSE. Scores decreased progressively from CN to MCI and dementia, with significant differences between groups, consistent with K-MoCA-30 and K-MMSE. The study also explored modified K-MoCA-22 index scores across 5 cognitive domains. ROC curve analysis revealed that the area under the curve (AUC) for K-MoCA-22 was significantly smaller than that for K-MoCA-30 in distinguishing both MCI and dementia from CN. However, no significant difference in AUC was found between K-MoCA-22 and K-MMSE, indicating similar discriminatory power. Additionally, the discriminability of K-MoCA-22 varied by education level. Conclusions: These results indicate that K-MoCA-22, although slightly less effective than K-MoCA-30, still shows good to excellent discriminatory power and is comparable to K-MMSE in screening for MCI and dementia.

• Journal of Practical Engineering Education
• /
• v.16 no.5_spc
• /
• pp.635-641
• /
• 2024

OECD countries' Current Health Expenditure has reached the 9% of GDP, driven by high growth in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Korea marked 9.4% in 2022, surpassing the OECD average (9.2%) for the first time since joining the OECD. While the share of COVID-19-related health expenditures in total health spending is 7.8 percent, well above the OECD average (5.1 percent), the structure and fluctuation patterns of health expenditures are different from other OECD countries, which has two implications from a health system perspective. First, even in the unique context of a health crisis, it is important to examine the impact that steep health spending growth can have on sustainability of the healthcare system. Second, among the various healthcare interventions to combat the health crisis, we should explore responses that are appropriate to the Korean context to increase the resilience of the healthcare system.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
• /
• v.51 no.2
• /
• pp.97-108
• /
• 2024

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the online agricultural and food products market has experienced substantial expansion. This study aims to examine the factors influencing consumers' online purchasing behavior, their satisfaction levels regarding price and quality, the frequency of online transactions, and their future purchasing intentions concerning key short-term non-timber forest products. The analysis is based on survey responses obtained from 1,000 consumers across the nation. Results reveal that while online purchasing of non-timber forest products may not be as active compared to other sectors, various consumer behavior characteristics such as online purchase experience, socio-economic variables, online purchase dependency, and information utilization significantly influence purchasing decisions. These findings shed light on the understanding of consumer behavior through online platforms, particularly in non-timber forest products where analytical attempts have been relatively scarce compared to other agricultural products. The insights derived from this analysis could serve as fundamental data for understanding online consumption patterns, especially in sectors where research on consumer behavior remains limited. To expand the consumption of short-shelf-life perishable goods, which relatively have lower online consumption compared to other fresh agricultural products, it is necessary to conduct analyses that identify the socioeconomic characteristics and corresponding needs of consumers. Additionally, analyses should be conducted to explore the potential for developing and utilizing processed foods for online consumption. These analyses should be carried out in conjunction with an understanding the socio-economic characteristics identified in this study.

• Informatization Policy
• /
• v.31 no.3
• /
• pp.72-87
• /
• 2024

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has witnessed the rapid growth of the fitness app market, with weight management apps occupying a substantial market segment. In connection, a growing body of research has been conducted to examine design elements aimed at fostering user motivation and long-term engagement, without considering user characteristics, which are critical to understanding user responses to weight-loss apps. Therefore, to fill this research gap, this research focuses on the weight stigma of users and strives to examine what affects such user characteristics have on the weight-loss apps. The main findings of this study is that higher help-seeking intention and willingness to use weight management apps among those who show high weight stigma consciousness than those with low consciousness. This study further shows the interaction effects between weight stigma consciousness AI types of service. This research provides new insights on how to design elements of weight-loss apps targeting both non-stigmatized and stigmatized users. It shows that in designing public applications, feeling-based AI that considers the psychological needs of users may be more effective for individuals with weight stigma.

• Journal of Christian Education in Korea
• /
• v.63
• /
• pp.91-120
• /
• 2020

This study suggests a spiritual education for the Christian family as a strategy to cope with the risky situation of the Korean Church during the Covid-19 pandemic. Today, we live in a chaotic epoch since the rapid development of the science caused the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Covid-19 pandemic gave rise to a wide array of changes throughout the society. Korean Church in these circumstances is required to have relevant responses to the kaleidoscopic changes. Especially, not to mention the face-to-face public worship service, in the situation where the congregation members even find it difficult to meet one another in a small group, it becomes a crucial issue how Christians maintain their faith and community in the healthy spirituality. As such, viewing that Christian education within the family will become much more important, this study conducts research for familial-spiritual education. For the research, this paper, first of all, attempts to understand the era of Covid-19. It is to see what the Novel Corona Virus is and what the feature of the epoch of Covid-19 might be. Based upon the understanding, this research discusses what Christian spirituality is asked for and the orientation towards which Christian education should go on. It is particularly to say that a spiritual education for the family becomes integral. The education for the family might be possible through Bibliodrama so that this study establishes a specific model of Christian education employing Bibliodrama. The discussion above shows three academic significances. First, this paper, within the domain of Christian education, suggests an alternative research which is to solve Korean Church's diverse problems caused by Covid-19. Second, this research attempts an analytical understanding of the Covid-19 period within the Christian education area. Finally, when specific and practical research for the field of Christian education during the Covid-19 pandemic is required, this study considers that Christian education within the family is overarching, thus proposing a specific model for familial-spiritual education hiring Bibliodrama.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.22.1-22.25
• /
• 2022

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndromecoronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), has spread over the world causing a pandemic which is still ongoing since its emergence in late 2019. A great amount of effort has been devoted to understanding the pathogenesis of COVID-19 with the hope of developing better therapeutic strategies. Transcriptome analysis using technologies such as RNA sequencing became a commonly used approach in study of host immune responses to SARS-CoV-2. Although substantial amount of information can be gathered from transcriptome analysis, different analysis tools used in these studies may lead to conclusions that differ dramatically from each other. Here, we re-analyzed four RNA-sequencing datasets of COVID-19 samples including human bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, nasopharyngeal swabs, lung biopsy and hACE2 transgenic mice using the same standardized method. The results showed that common features of COVID-19 include upregulation of chemokines including CCL2, CXCL1, and CXCL10, inflammatory cytokine IL-1β and alarmin S100A8/S100A9, which are associated with dysregulated innate immunity marked by abundant neutrophil and mast cell accumulation. Downregulation of chemokine receptor genes that are associated with impaired adaptive immunity such as lymphopenia is another common feather of COVID-19 observed. In addition, a few interferon-stimulated genes but no type I IFN genes were identified to be enriched in COVID-19 samples compared to their respective control in these datasets. These features are in line with results from single-cell RNA sequencing studies in the field. Therefore, our re-analysis of the RNA-seq datasets revealed common features of dysregulated immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 and shed light to the pathogenesis of COVID-19.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
• /
• v.21 no.7
• /
• pp.17-34
• /
• 2021

This study aimed to examine the Factor Structure of the teacher satisfaction scale (TSS) with distance education during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as affirming the (Factorial Invariance) according to gender variable. It also aimed at identifying the degree of satisfaction according to some demographic variables of the sample. The study population consisted of all teachers in public education and faculty members in higher education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The (TSS) was applied to a random sample representing the study population consisting of (2399) respondents. The results of the study showed that the scale consists of five main factors, with a reliability value of (0.94). The scale also showed a high degree of construct validity through fit indices of the confirmatory factor analysis. The results have shown a gradual consistency of the measure's invariance that reaches the third level (Scalar-invariance) of the Measurement Invariance across the gender variable. The results also showed that the average response of the study sample on the scale reached (3.74) with a degree of satisfaction, as there are no statistically significant differences between the averages of the study sample responses with respect to the gender variable. While there were statistically significant differences in the averages with respect to the variable of the educational level in favor of the middle school and statistically significant differences in the averages attributed to the years of experience variable in favor of those whose experience is less than (5) years.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
• /
• v.110 no.2
• /
• pp.266-279
• /
• 2021

This study applied the e-PBL (e-Project-based learning) method for "Urban Forest Management" courses in the Department of Forest Science at S University to progress in university forest education. e-PBL effectively motivates self-directed learning, problem-solving, communication skills, and learners' responsibility by enabling them to choose, design, and perform their projects. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, learners were encouraged to use online media to carry out projects and submit presentations for the campus forest. Learners' educational effects were subsequently investigated through a five-point Likert scale. This study discovered a positive effect on learners' motivation and interest (4.17) through e-PBL. Learners responded that e-PBL also helped their understanding regarding the subject (4.17). In addition, this study provided evidence that the e-PBL method was helpful in problem-solving (4.25), communication (4.33), and decision-making skills (4.21). According to learners' responses, there are positive indications that learners were satisfied with e-PBL. Learners responded that interactions and communications with team members could improve their understanding of the subject. Hence, there is scope for improving an efficient and successful e-PBL model suitable for university forest education by providing more efficient instructional time management, e-PBL method guidelines, and institutional support.