• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.2895-2899
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• 2016

Background: Increasing breast cancer (BC) incidence rates have been reported from India; causal factors for this increased incidence are not understood and diagnosis is mostly in advanced stages. Trivandrum exhibits the highest BC incidence rates in India. This study aimed to estimate trends in incidence by age from 2005-2014, to predict rates through 2020 and to assess the stage at diagnosis of BC in Trivandrum. Materials and Methods: BC cases were obtained from the Population Based Cancer Registry, Trivandrum. Distribution of stage at diagnosis and incidence rates of BC [Age-specific (ASpR), crude (CR) and age-standardized (ASR)] are described and employed with a joinpoint regression model to estimate average annual percent changes (AAPC) and a Bayesian model to estimate predictive rates. Results: BC accounts for 31% (2681/8737) of all female cancers in Trivandrum. Thirty-five percent (944/2681) are <50 years of age and only 9% present with stage I disease. Average age increased from 53 to 56.4 years (p=0.0001), CR (per $10^5$ women) increased from 39 (ASR: 35.2) to 55.4 (ASR: 43.4), AAPC for CR was 5.0 (p=0.001) and ASR was 3.1 (p=0.001). Rates increased from 50 years. Predicted ASpR is 174 in 50-59 years, 231 in > 60 years and overall CR is 80 (ASR: 57) for 2019-20. Conclusions: BC, mostly diagnosed in advanced stages, is rising rapidly in South India with large increases likely in the future; particularly among post-menopausal women. This increase might be due to aging and/or changes in lifestyle factors. Reasons for the increased incidence and late stage diagnosis need to be studied.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.47-52
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• 2001

We present the magnetisation reversal dynamics of epitaxial Fe thin films grown on GaAs(001) and InAs(001) studied as a function of field sweep rate in the range 0.01-160 kOe/s using magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE). For 55 and 250 ${\AA}$ Fe/GaAs(001), we find that the hysteresis loop area A follows the scaling relation $A\propto H_{\alpha} \;with\; \alpha=0.03\sim0.05$ at low sweep rates and 0.33~0.40 at high sweep rates. For the 150${\AA}$ Fe/InAs(001) film, $\alpha$is found to be ~0.02 at low sweep rates and ~0.17 at high sweep rates. The differing values of $\alpha$ are attributed to a change of the magnetisation reversal process with increasing sweep rate. Domain wall motion dominates the magnetisation reversal at low sweep rates, but becomes less significant with increasing sweep rate. At high sweep rates, the variation of the dynamic coercivity $H_c{^*}$ is attributed to domain nucleation dominating the reversal process. The results of magnetic relaxation studies for easy-axis reversal are consistent with the sweeping of one or more walls through the entire probed region (~100$\mu m$). Domain images obtained by scanning Kerr microscopy during the easy cubic axis reversal process reveal large area domains separated by zigzag walls.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.174-180
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• 2021

The necessity of this study is as follows. A decrease in the number of newborns, an increase in the youth unemployment rate, and a decrease in the employment rate are having a fatal impact on universities. To help increase the employment rate of universities, we intend to utilize Big Data of university public information. Big data refers to the process of collecting and analyzing data, and includes all business processes of finding data, reprocessing information in an easy-to-understand manner, and selling information to people and institutions. Big data technology can be divided into technologies for storing, refining, analyzing, and predicting big data. The purpose of this study is to find the vision and special department of a university with a high employment rate by using big data technology. As a result of the study, big data was collected from 227 universities on www.academyinfo.go.kr site, We selected 130 meaningful universities and selected 25 universities with high employment rates and 25 universities with low employment rates. In conclusion, the university with a high employment rate can first be said to have a student-centered vision and university specialization. The reason is that, for universities with a high employment rate, the vision was to foster talents and specialize, whereas for universities with a low employment rate, regional bases took precedence. Second, universities with a high employment rate have a high interest in specialized departments. This is because, as a result of checking the presence or absence of a characterization plan, universities with a high employment rate were twice as high (21/7). Third, universities with high employment rates promote social needs and characterization. This is because the characteristic departments of universities with high employment rates are in the order of future technology and nursing and health, while universities with low employment rates promoted school-centered specialization in future technology and culture, tourism and art. In summary, universities with high employment rates showed high interest in student-centered vision and development of special departments for social needs.

• The Journal of Health Technology Assessment
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.100-105
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• 2018

Objectives: The purpose of this research is to investigate regional variations of mastication difficulty rates in the elderly over 65 in 229 primary autonomous districts in Korea and explore relevant characteristics. For the research data, local community health survey conducted in 2015 and data from Ministry of the Interior and Safety, Ministry of Health & Welfare, National Health Insurance Service and Statistics Korea were used. Methods: Frequency analysis was conducted for general characteristics and mastication difficulty rates of each region, and distribution of mastication difficulty rates was displayed for each town, city and province by mapping them. Extremal quotient (EQ), coefficient of variation (CV) values were calculated for regional variations, and logistic regression analysis was performed to reveal the relationship between each independent variable and mastication difficulty rates. Results: The average of standardized mastication difficulty rate was 46.78%, and regional variations were significant with EQ 3.46, CV 0.18. Characteristic factors that have significant effects on mastication difficulty rate included sex ratio, elderly population and the number of dentists per 10000 people. Conclusion: As a result, there were variations among mastication difficulty rates in 229 primary local governments across the country, and the distribution of health care resources by the characteristics of the local environment by region affected mastication difficulty rates. Accordingly, it is required to provide political supports to overcome regional inequality of oral health levels and develop cooperative system between local governments and local dentists.

• Vascular Specialist International
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.88-93
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• 2018

Purpose: This study aimed to compare surgical revisions and balloon angioplasty after surgical thrombectomy on thrombosed dialysis access as a first event. Materials and Methods: Records of patients undergoing creation of arteriovenous grafts (AVGs) at the Gachon University Gil Medical Center between March 2008 and February 2016 were reviewed. Among them, patients who underwent treatment on first-time thrombotic occlusion after AVG creation were identified. Outcomes were primary, primary-assisted, and secondary patency. The patency was generated using the Kaplan-Meier method, and patency rates were compared by log-rank test. Results: A total of 59 de novo interventions (n=26, hybrid interventions; n=33, surgical revisions) for occlusive AVGs were identified. The estimated 1-year primary patency rates were 47% and 30% in the surgery and hybrid groups, respectively. The estimated primary patency rates were not different between the two groups (log-rank test, P=0.73). The Kaplan-Meier estimates of 6 and 12 months for primary-assisted patency rates were 68% and 57% in the surgery group and 56% and 56% in the hybrid group. The Kaplan-Meier estimates of 12 and 24 months secondary patency rates were 90% and 71% in the surgery group and 79% and 62% in the hybrid group. There were no differences in the estimated primary-assisted and secondary patency rates between the two groups. Conclusion: Our results showed no significant difference between the two groups in terms of primary patency (P=0.73), primary-assisted patency (P=0.85), and secondary patency (P=0.78). However, percutaneous transluminal angioplasty can give more therapeutic options for both surgeons and patients.

• Journal of Bone Metabolism
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.227-233
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• 2018

Background: Few studies have investigated the effects of sarcopenia on postoperative outcomes including mortality rates following surgery for osteoporotic hip fractures. The purpose of the present study was to determine the prevalence of sarcopenia and the relationship between sarcopenia and 1- and 5-year mortality rates in a consecutive series of patients with osteoporotic hip fractures. Methods: Among patients who underwent hip surgery for osteoporotic hip fractures, this study included 91 patients subjected to abdominal computed tomography within 1 year of hip surgery. We defined sarcopenia using sex-specific cut-off points for the skeletal muscle index at the level of the third lumbar vertebra. All patients were divided into 2 groups according to the presence or absence of sarcopenia and the 1- and 5-year mortality rates were compared. To confirm factors affecting mortality in addition to sarcopenia, we examined patient age, sex, American Society of Anesthesiologists grade, location of fracture, type of surgery, and bone mineral density. Results: The 1- and 5-year mortality rates were 20.9% and 67.2%, respectively. Among the 45 patients with sarcopenia, the 1- and 5-year mortality rates were 22.2% and 82.7%, respectively. Of the 46 patients without sarcopenia, the 1- and 5-year mortality rates were 19.6% and 52.7%, respectively. Results of the Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that sarcopenia did not affect the 1-year mortality rate (P=0.793), but had a significant effect on the 5-year mortality rate (P=0.028). Both perioperative sarcopenia (P=0.018) and osteoporosis (P=0.000) affected the 5-year mortality rate. Conclusions: Sarcopenia increases the risk of 5-year mortality in patients with osteoporotic hip fractures.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.23 no.9
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• pp.1117-1122
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• 2019

In this paper, a power allocation scheme is proposed to improve the fairness of user data rates in downlink non-orthogonal multiple access systems with one base station and two users. In particular, the power allocation scheme is presented to maximize the fairness of average user data rates assuming independent Rayleigh fading channels, where the fairness maximization is achieved when the average user data rates are equal. For the fairness evaluation, hence approximate expressions for the average user data rates and the average sum date rate of the proposed scheme are provided by using high signal-to-noise ratio approximation. Through simulation investigation, the derived approximate expressions for the average data rates are verified, and it is shown that the proposed scheme is superior to the conventional power allocation schemes in terms of the fairness of the average user data rates.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.61 no.5
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• pp.101-108
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• 2019

The domestic duck industry is the sixth-largest among the livestock industries. However, 34.3% of duck houses were the duck houses arbitrarily converted from plastic greenhouses. This type of duck house was difficult to properly manage internal air temperature and humidity environment. Humidity environment inside duck houses is an important factor that directly affects the productivity and disease occurrence of the duck. Although the humidity environments of litters (bedding materials) affect directly the inside environment of duck houses, there are only few studies related to humidity environment of litters. In this study, evaporation rates from litters were evaluated according to air temperature, relative humidity, water contents of litters, and wind speed. The experimental chamber was made to measure evaporation rates from litters. Temperature and humidity controlled chamber was utilized during the conduct of the laboratory experiments. Using the measured data, a multi linear regression analysis was carried out to derive the calculation formula of evaporation rates from litters. In order to improve the accuracy of the multi linear regression model, the partial vapor pressure directly related to evaporation was also considered. Variance inflation factors of air temperature, relative humidity, partial vapor pressure, water contents of litters, and wind speed were calculated to identify multicollinearity problem. The Multiple $R^2$ and adjusted-$R^2$ of regression model were calculated at 0.76 and 0.71, respectively. Therefore, the regression models were developed in this study can be used to estimate evaporation rates from the litter of duck houses.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.64-73
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• 2020

Suicidality is the most serious complication of mood disorders and psychosis; effective treatment should reduce suicide rates. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development age-standardized suicide rate in Korea was 22.6 in 2018, much higher compared to other countries worldwide. As mental and psychiatric problems are the main reasons for suicide attempts, accounting for 31.6% in 2018, targeting such problems should be the focus of efforts to reduce suicide rates. However, the ability of current pharmacotherapeutic and psychotherapeutic interventions to reduce suicide rates is limited due to their delayed effects. Therefore, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been proposed as an alternative treatment. This approach is effective for treating most mental disorders associated with high suicide rates, including severe depression, bipolar disorder, and intractable psychotic disorders; ECT is also effective for Parkinson's disease, which has the highest suicide rate among all disorders in Korea. The acute, long-term, and prophylactic effects of ECT on suicidality have been reported in the literature, and treatment guidelines outside of Korea recommend that ECT be used at an early stage for rapid reduction of suicide rates, as opposed to being applied as a treatment of last resort. However, only ~0.092 of every 10000 members of the Korean general population received ECT in 2018; this is much lower than the average rate worldwide, of 2.2 per 10000. Elimination of obstacles to the use of ECT, early crisis intervention involving administration of ECT for rapid stabilization, and maintenance ECT to prevent recurrence should reduce suicide rates.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.85-101
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• 2022

Derivative-linked securities (DLS) is a type of derivatives that offer an agreed return when the underlying asset price moves within a specified range by the maturity date. The underlying assets of DLS are diverse such as interest rates, exchange rates, crude oil, or gold. A German 10-year bond rate-linked DLS and a USD-GBP CMS rate-linked DLS have recently become a social issue in Korea due to a huge loss to investors. In this regard, this paper accounts for the payoff structure of these products and evaluates their prices and fair coupon rates as well as risk measures such as Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Tail-Value-at-Risk (TVaR). We would like to examine how risky these products were and whether or not their coupon rates were appropriate. We use Hull-White Model as the stochastic model for the underlying assets and Monte Carlo (MC) methods to obtain numerical results. The no-arbitrage prices of the German 10-year bond rate-linked DLS and the USD-GBP CMS rate-linked DLS at the center of the social issue turned out to be 0.9662% and 0.9355% of the original investment, respectively. Considering that Korea government bond rate for 2018 is about 2%, these values are quite low. The fair coupon rates that make the prices of DLS equal to the original investment are computed as 4.76% for the German 10-year bond rate-linked DLS and 7% for the USD-GBP CMS rate-linked DLS. Their actual coupon rates were 1.4% and 3.5%. The 95% VaR and TVaR of the loss for German 10-year bond rate-linked DLS are 37.30% and 64.45%, and those of the loss for USD-GBP CMS rate-linked DLS are 73.98% and 87.43% of the initial investment. Summing up the numerical results obtained, we could see that the DLS products of our interest were indeed quite unfavorable to individual investors.