• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.604-615
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• 2022

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to investigate cancer-specific survival (CSS) and associated risk factors in elderly gastric cancer (EGC) patients. SUBJECTS/METHODS: EGC patients (≥ 70 yrs) who underwent curative gastrectomy between January 2013 and December 2017 at our hospital were included. Clinicopathologic characteristics and survival data were collected. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to extract the best cutoff point for body mass index (BMI). A Cox proportional hazards model was used to determine the risk factors for CSS. RESULTS: In total, 290 EGC patients were included, with a median age of 74.7 yrs. The median follow-up time was 31 (1-77) mon. The postoperative 1-yr, 3-yr and 5-yr CSS rates were 93.7%, 75.9% and 65.1%, respectively. Univariate analysis revealed risk factors for CSS, including age (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.08; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01-1.15), intensive care unit (ICU) admission (HR = 1.73; 95% CI, 1.08-2.79), nutritional risk screening (NRS 2002) score ≥ 5 (HR = 2.33; 95% CI, 1.49-3.75), and preoperative prognostic nutrition index score < 45 (HR = 2.06; 95% CI, 1.27-3.33). The ROC curve showed that the best BMI cutoff value was 20.6 kg/m². Multivariate analysis indicated that a BMI ≤ 20.6 kg/m² (HR = 2.30; 95% CI, 1.36-3.87), ICU admission (HR = 1.97; 95% CI, 1.17-3.30) and TNM stage (stage II: HR = 5.56; 95% CI, 1.59-19.43; stage III: HR = 16.20; 95% CI, 4.99-52.59) were significantly associated with CSS. CONCLUSIONS: Low BMI (≤ 20.6 kg/m²), ICU admission and advanced pathological TNM stages (II and III) are independent risk factors for CSS in EGC patients after curative gastrectomy. Nutrition support, better perioperative management and early diagnosis would be helpful for better survival.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.371-385
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• 2023

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Soy isoflavone (SIF) and soy lecithin (SL) have beneficial effects on many chronic diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases. Regretfully, there is little evidence to show the combined effects of these soy extractives on the impairment of cognition and abnormal cerebral blood flow (CBF). This study examined the optimal combination dose of SIF + SL to provide evidence for improving CBF and protecting cerebrovascular endothelial cells. MATERIALS/METHODS: In vivo study, SIF50 + SL40, SIF50 + SL80 and SIF50 + SL160 groups were obtained. Morris water maze, laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI), and hematoxylin-eosin staining were used to detect learning and memory impairment, CBF, and damage to the cerebrovascular tissue in rat. The 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) and the oxidized glutathione (GSSG) were detected. The anti-oxidative damage index of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione (GSH) in the serum of an animal model was also tested. In vitro study, an immortalized mouse brain endothelial cell line (bEND.3 cells) was used to confirm the cerebrovascular endothelial cell protection of SIF + SL. In this study, 50 µM of Gen were used, while the 25, 50, or 100 µM of SL for different incubation times were selected first. The intracellular levels of 8-OHdG, SOD, GSH, and GSSG were also detected in the cells. RESULTS: In vivo study, SIF + SL could increase the target crossing times significantly and shorten the total swimming distance of rats. The CBF in the rats of the SIF50 + SL40 group and SIF50 + SL160 group was enhanced. Pathological changes, such as attenuation of the endothelium in cerebral vessels were much less in the SIF50 + SL40 group and SIF50 + SL160 group. The 8-OHdG was reduced in the SIF50 + SL40 group. The GSSG showed a significant decrease in all SIF + SL pretreatment groups, but the GSH showed an opposite result. SOD was upregulated by SIF + SL pretreatment. Different combinations of Genistein (Gen)+SL, the secondary proof of health benefits found in vivo study, showed they have effective anti-oxidation and less side reaction on protecting cerebrovascular endothelial cell. SIF50 + SL40 in rats experiment and Gen50 + SL25 in cell test were the optimum joint doses on alleviating cognitive impairment and regulating CBF through protecting cerebrovascular tissue by its antioxidant activity. CONCLUSIONS: SIF+SL could significantly prevent cognitive defect induced by β-Amyloid through regulating CBF. This kind of effect might be attributed to its antioxidant activity on protecting cerebral vessels.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.17-28
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• 2023

This study aimed to verify the validity of the evaluation items and weight determination of the indoor environmental safety area, which has the most frequent accidents, among the safety certification evaluations of educational facilities by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea, which has been conducted since May 2021. As a preceding study, the evaluation items of the school safety evaluation checklist being implemented in the US state of Vermont were compared, and the causes of accidents judged by teachers in the accident experiences written by 200 Korean teachers were compared with the safety certification evaluation items belonged to the Ministry of Education. In addition, research literature using the AHP analysis technique on safety risks of elementary and secondary schools in China and safety evaluation index study cases of 539 elementary school children in Indonesia were analyzed. Through these preceding studies, measures to add and adjust evaluation items were derived and the validity and importance rankings of evaluation items were calculated through AHP questionnaires to teachers and safety experts. In addition, a survey was conducted on 104 ordinary people to verify the results of expert analysis. As a result of expert AHP analysis, 'safety education and disaster response training (.396)' was the highest priority for the relative importance of the first layer, followed by 'safety measures (.387)' and 'building materials'. Safety (.216)' was found to be the highest priority. In the overall importance ranking of the 13 second-tier screening items, safety accident prevention education had the highest priority and disaster preparedness training ranked second, proving that the Ministry of Education's review weight was underestimated. In addition, slip and collision accident countermeasures, which were not in the existing Ministry of Education review items, ranked 4th, laboratory practice room safety measures ranked 6th, and sanitation, cleanliness, hazardous substance management, and cafeteria/cooking room safety measures ranked 9th, indicating a significant level of importance. Referring to the importance ranking, which is the result of this study, it is suggested that it is necessary to review the weight of each review item again.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.67-75
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• 2023

The object of this study was to analyze factors influencing adult dementia knowledge, fear of dementia, and intention of dementia prevention behavior on the demand for dementia prevention education. The subjects of the study were 265 adults aged 19 to 64 living in Chungnam and Chungbuk, who understood the purpose of the study and agreed to participate in the study. The collected research data were analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, t-test, ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis. As a result of the study, adult dementia knowledge (p=.055) and dementia fear (p=.302) were found that they did not significantly affect the demand for dementia prevention education, and the intention of dementia prevention behavior (β=.329, p<.001) was found to have a significant effect on the demand for dementia prevention education. Based on these research results, understanding of dementia and dementia management projects, early screening for dementia and health guidelines for dementia prevention, chronic disease management for dementia prevention, exercise for dementia prevention, healthy eating for dementia prevention, and cognitive enhancement for dementia prevention In addition to the national dementia prevention publicity and national response efforts such as programs, it is necessary to actively participate in the dementia prevention program centered on the community to practice the correct dementia prevention behavior and provide sufficient opportunities to prevent it.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.751-759
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• 2023

Breast ultrasonography is difficult to image in fatty breasts and to find micro-calcification, but the discovery of micro-calcification is very important for breast cancer screening. Among the color Doppler artifact of ultrasound, twinkle artifact mainly occur on strong reflectors such as stones or calcification in images, and evaluation methods using them are clinically being used. In this study, we are conducting experiments on the color Doppler settings of ultrasound equipment, such as repetition frequency, ensemble, persist, wall filtering, smoothing, linear density, and dissociation value, by producing a breast simulation phantom using the largest amount of calcium phosphate among breast implants. The purpose of this study was to improve the contrast of twinkle artifact in breast ultrasound examinations and to maximize their use in clinical practice. As a result, the pulse repetition frequency occurred in the range of 3.6 kHz to 7.2 kHz, and did not occur above 10.5 kHz. For ensembles, twinkle artifact occurred in all sizes of calcification under low conditions, and in threshold settings, the twinkle artifact increased slightly only under 80 to 100 conditions, and did not occur in 1 mm size calcification. Persist, wall filter, smoothing, and line density settings did not have much meaning in the setting variable because conditions did not increase by condition, and pulse repetition frequency, ensemble, and thresholds had the greatest impact on the twinkling artifact image. This study is expected to help examiners select optimal conditions to effectively increase twinkle artifact by adjusting color Doppler settings.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.182-196
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to provide the basic resources for developing a parish nursing program. We did this by investigating what demands were made on the parish nursing service by the parishes or churches under review. The subjects of this study were 96 pastors located throughout the City of Busan. NP (New paragraph) $\gg$ We conducted our research by utilizing a modified version of the study created by Hwang (2000) and by using the help of prior research and professionals gathered from the parish nurse questionnaire by Djupe (1990). The data in this study were collected from July 1 to Oct. 31, 2001, using the questionnaire method. The Data were analyzed by: (a) frequency: (b) percentage: (c) mean: (d) standard deviation, and x^2-test$ with SPSS/PC program. The study has found the follows: 1. For subjects making demands on the parish nursing service, 95.8% were in need of using the services of parish nurses. On the demands of parish nursing service for the subjects, 95.8% the necessity of parish nursing services. And they answered by their intention of asking for parish nursing service practice. 2. Of the subjects under review, 71.9% were part-time workers and 28.1% were full-time employees 71.9% of part time and 28.1% of full times duty. In terms of the method of pay for work, 41.8% were pay free or freelance while 51.2% were on salary. And engagement intention of parish nurse as preacher was 88.5%. 3. The demand for nursing services in various categories were as follows. (a) hospice care: (4.02 1.11), (b) health screening: (3.98 1.09), (c) home visiting: (3.97 1.16), (d) group health education: (3.81 1.12), (e) organization of volunteer groups: (3.75 1.12), (f) individual health education: (3.75 1.14), (g) advice on choosing hospital or hospital consultation: (3.69 1.21) and (h) individual counseling: (3.51 1.31). 4. In terms of the specific services rendered by parish nurses. our study found that services were needed for the following: physical symptom management; preparation before death in spiritual preparation for death, blood pressure check in health examination, home visiting where the patient makes phone call, management of chronic disease in group health education, disease management in individual health education, advice on choosing hospital, or hospital consultation: and physical problems in individual counseling. 5. With respect to whether there was a correlation between what church a pastor came from and the types of demands made, there was NO significant difference found. 6. In relation to the characteristics of the subjects and their church and the hope demands (duty pattern and method of payment and engagement intention of parish nurse as preacher) for parish nurses, these had non significant differences. In conclusion, the perception of parish nursing service is very high. Moreover, we found that there is a great demand for well ordered parish nursing services to promote the health of each congregation. Before doing so, it would be better to make things known and to consider the relevant characteristics shown in the researched results.

• Journal of Genetic Medicine
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.47-54
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• 2008

Purpose : Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) on uncultured amniotic fluid cells offers the opportunity for rapid screening of aneuploidies and has become an integral part of the current practice in many clinical cytogenetics laboratories. Here, we retrospectively analyzed the results of interphase FISH in 943 amniotic fluid samples and assessed the efficiency of FISH for rapid detection of aneuploidies. Methods : Interphase FISH for chromosome 13, 18, and 21 was performed in 943 consecutive amniotic fluid samples for rapid diagnosis of aneuploidies referred from 2004 to 2006. Karyotypes from standard cytogenetic analysis were compared to the FISH results. Results : A total of 45 chromosomal rearrangements (4.8%) were found after conventional cytogenetic analysis of the 943 amniotic fluid. After exclusion of known familiar chromosomal rearrangements and inversions (2.1%, 20/943), 2.7% (25/943) were found to have chromosomal abnormalities. Of this group, 0.7% (6/943) were chromosomal abnormalities not detectable by FISH and 2.0% (19/943) were numerical abnormalities detectable by FISH. All 14 cases of Down syndrome (Classic type, 13 cases; Robertsonian type, 1 case) and 5 cases of trisomy 18 were diagnosed and detected by FISH and there were no false-positive or -negative results (specificity and sensitivity=100%). Conclusion : The present study demonstrates that FISH can provide a rapid and sensitive clinical method for prenatal identification of chromosome aneuploidies. However, careful genetic counseling is essential to explain the limitations of FISH, including the inability to detect all chromosomal abnormalities and the possibilities of uninformative or false-negative results in some cases.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.105-110
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• 2006

A three-layer, feed-forward artificial neural network (ANN) with sixteen input neurons, three hidden neurons, and one output neuron was developed to identify the presence of infectious bronchitis (IB) infection as early as possible in laying hen flocks. Retrospective data from flocks that enrolled IB surveillance program between May 2003 and November 2005 were used to build the ANN. Data set of 86 flocks was divided randomly into two sets: 77 cases for training set and 9 cases for testing set. Input factors were 16 epidemiological findings including characteristics of the layer house, management practice, flock size, and the output was either presence or absence of IB. ANN was trained using training set with a back-propagation algorithm and test set was used to determine the network's capability to predict outcomes that it has never seen. Diagnostic performance of the trained network was evaluated by constructing receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve with the area under the curve (AUC), which were also used to determine the best positivity criterion for the model. Several different ANNs with different structures were created. The best-fitted trained network, IBV_D1, was able to predict IB in 73 cases out of 77 (diagnostic accuracy 94.8%) in the training set. Sensitivity and specificity of the trained neural network was 95.5% (42/44, 95% CI, 84.5-99.4) and 93.9% (31/33, 95% CI, 79.8-99.3), respectively. For testing set, AVC of the ROC curve for the IBV_D1 network was 0.948 (SE=0.086, 95% CI 0.592-0.961) in recognizing IB infection status accurately. At a criterion of 0.7149, the diagnostic accuracy was the highest with a 88.9% with the highest sensitivity of 100%. With this value of sensitivity and specificity together with assumed 44% of IB prevalence, IBV_D1 network showed a PPV of 80% and an NPV of 100%. Based on these findings, the authors conclude that neural network can be successfully applied to the development of a screening model for identifying IB infection in laying hen flocks.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.68-78
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• 1996

Objective : The Mini-Mental State Examination(MMSE) and Brief Cognitive Rating Scale(BCRS) are frequently using screening tests fur evaluating the cognitive function in clinical practice and research. The authors tried to evaluate the clinical usefulness of these tests for the patients with non-traumatic subcortical cerebrovascular disease. Method : We administered the MMSE and BCRS to 85 patients and 195 normal control group. In order to compare the test results according to the lesion site, we divided patients into left sided lesion group(21 patients), right sided lesion group(31 patients) and both sided lesion group(13 patients). Their cognitive function was evaluated by the BNA and daily living functional activity was examined by the IADLs(Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale)and GERRI(Geriatric Evaluation by Relative's Rating Instrument). Results : The results are as follows : 1) In the BNA, the patients scored significantly lower than control group at all items(except Right-Left Orientation and Motor Impersistence), but there were no difference in the MMSE(total score and all 5 items), and only 2 items(recent memory and self-care) were significantly different between two groups in the BCRS. 2) In the comparison by lateralization, there were significant differences among three groups at 3 items(Left Tactile Form Perception, Left Finger Localization and Right Finger Localization) in the BNA. But, there were no difference in the MMSE and BCRS. 3) In the correlation between daily living functioning and the MMSE/BCRS, control group showed no relation(except item of cognitive functioning), but patient group was significantly correlated with 3 items(social functioning, instrumental activities of daily living and cognitive functioning). Conclusions : These findings suggest that MMSE and BCRS are not useful as the test for cognitive function and discrimination of lateralization in patients with non-traumatic subcortical cerebrovascular disease. However, scores of these tests may be related with the functional level(such as daily living function) of patients.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.16-23
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• 2020

Objectives: Sleep disturbance in the elderly is associated with cognitive decline. Sleep quality is known to deteriorate with age, and prospective studies seldom have examined the relationship between sleep quality and cognitive function. This study investigates the relationship between early sleep quality and cognitive function based on six-year follow-up data of community individuals older than 60 years. Methods: The participants included 622 community elderly people older than 60 years from Jinju-Si. The final analysis comprised 322 elderly people. Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) and the Korean version of Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD-K) were used to assess early sleep quality and cognitive function after six years. Multiple linear regression analysis was performed to investigate the association between early sleep quality and cognitive function in the elderly. Results: Early sleep quality (PSQI) was significantly associated with the results of the digit span test, clock drawing test (clox 1), and word recall test after six years. Sleep quality (PSQI) decreased significantly after six years, and lower quality of sleep (PSQI) score was associated with higher digit span test score (β = -0.167, p = 0.026) and higher clock drawing test score (β = -0.157, p = 0.031). Lower quality of sleep (PSQI) score was associated with higher word recall test (β = -0.140, p = 0.039). Conclusion: The digit span test, word recall test, and clock drawing task (CLOX 1) shown to be significantly associated to sleep quality can be performed fast and easily in clinical practice. It is important to assess early cognitive function in the elderly with poor sleep quality, and further studies could suggest that these tests may be useful screening tests for early dementia in elderly with poor sleep quality.