• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.135-152
• /
• 1983

Emergency medical service is an important part of the health care delivery system, and the optimal allocation of resources and their efficient utilization are essentially demanded. Since these conditions are the prerequisite to prompt treatment which, in turn, will be crucial for life saving and in reducing the undesirable sequelae of the event. This study, taking the hyperbaric chamber for carbon monoxide poisoning as an example, is to develop a stochastic approach for solving the problems of optimal allocation of such emergency medical facility in Korea. The hyperbaric chamber, in Korea, is used almost exclusively for the treatment of acute carbon monoxide poisoning, most of which occur at home, since the coal briquette is used as domestic fuel by 69.6 per cent of the Korean population. The annual incidence rate of the comatous and fatal carbon monoxide poisoning is estimated at 45.5 per 10,000 of coal briquette-using population. It offers a serious public health problem and occupies a large portion of the emergency outpatients, especially in the winter season. The requirement of hyperbaric chambers can be calculated by setting the level of the annual queueing rate, which is here defined as the proportion of the annual number of the queued patients among the annual number of the total patients. The rate is determined by the size of the coal briquette-using population which generate a certain number of carbon monoxide poisoning patients in terms of the annual incidence rate, and the number of hyperbaric chambers per hospital to which the patients are sent, assuming that there is no referral of the patients among hospitals. The queueing occurs due to the conflicting events of the 'arrival' of the patients and the 'service' of the hyperbaric chambers. Here, we can assume that the length of the service time of hyperbaric chambers is fixed at sixty minutes, and the service discipline is based on 'first come, first served'. The arrival pattern of the carbon monoxide poisoning is relatively unique, because it usually occurs while the people are in bed. Diurnal variation of the carbon monoxide poisoning can hardly be formulated mathematically, so empirical cumulative distribution of the probability of the hourly arrival of the patients was used for Monte Carlo simulation to calculate the probability of queueing by the number of the patients per day, for the cases of one, two or three hyperbaric chambers assumed to be available per hospital. Incidence of the carbon monoxide poisoning also has strong seasonal variation, because of the four distinctive seasons in Korea. So the number of the patients per day could not be assumed to be distributed according to the Poisson distribution. Testing the fitness of various distributions of rare event, it turned out to be that the daily distribution of the carbon monoxide poisoning fits well to the Polya-Eggenberger distribution. With this model, we could forecast the number of the poisonings per day by the size of the coal-briquette using population. By combining the probability of queueing by the number of patients per day, and the probability of the number of patients per day in a year, we can estimate the number of the queued patients and the number of the patients in a year by the number of hyperbaric chamber per hospital and by the size of coal briquette-using population. Setting 5 per cent as the annual queueing rate, the required number of hyperbaric chambers was calculated for each province and for the whole country, in the cases of 25, 50, 75 and 100 per cent of the treatment rate which stand for the rate of the patients treated by hyperbaric chamber among the patients who are to be treated. Findings of the study were as follows. 1. Probability of the number of patients per day follows Polya-Eggenberger distribution. $$P(X=\gamma)=\frac{\Pi\limits_{k=1}^\gamma[m+(K-1)\times10.86]}{\gamma!}\times11.86^{-{(\frac{m}{10.86}+\gamma)}}$$ when$${\gamma}=1,2,...,n$$$$P(X=0)=11.86^{-(m/10.86)}$$ when $${\gamma}=0$$ Hourly arrival pattern of the patients turned out to be bimodal, the large peak was observed in $7 : 00{\sim}8 : 00$ a.m., and the small peak in $11 : 00{\sim}12 : 00$ p.m. 2. In the cases of only one or two hyperbaric chambers installed per hospital, the annual queueing rate will be at the level of more than 5 per cent. Only in case of three chambers, however, the rate will reach 5 per cent when the average number of the patients per day is 0.481. 3. According to the results above, a hospital equipped with three hyperbaric chambers will be able to serve 166,485, 83,242, 55,495 and 41,620 of population, when the treatmet rate are 25, 50, 75 and 100 per cent. 4. The required number of hyperbaric chambers are estimated at 483, 963, 1,441 and 1,923 when the treatment rate are taken as 25, 50, 75 and 100 per cent. Therefore, the shortage are respectively turned out to be 312, 791. 1,270 and 1,752. The author believes that the methodology developed in this study will also be applicable to the problems of resource allocation for the other kinds of the emergency medical facilities.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.294-303
• /
• 2013

BACKGROUND: It is well known that rice-fields can provide excellent foraging places for birds including seasonal migrants, wintering, and breeding and hence the high biodiversity of rice-fields may be expected. However, how environmental change including climate-changes on life-history and population dynamics in birds on rice-fields has not been fully understood. In order to investigate how climate-change affects population migratory patterns and migration timing, I modeled a population dynamics of birds in rice-fields over a whole year. METHODS AND RESULTS: I applied the Lotka-Volterra equation to model the population dynamics of birds that have been foraging/visiting rice-fields in Korea. The simple model involves the number of interspecific individuals and temperature, and the model parameters are periodic in time as the biological activities related to the migration, wintering and reproduction are seasonal. As results, firstly there was a positive relationship between the variation of seasonal population sizes and temperature change. Secondly, the reduced lengths of season were negatively related to the population size. Overall, the effects of the difference of lengths of season on seasonal population dynamics were higher than the effects of seasonal temperature change. CONCLUSION(S): Climate change can alter population dynamics of birds in rice-fields and hence the variation may affect the fitness, such as reproduction, survival and migration. The unstable balances of population dynamics in birds using paddy rice field as affected by climate change can reduce the population growth and species diversity in rice fields. The results suggest that the agricultural production is partly affected by the unstable balance of population in birds using rice-fields.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.31 no.2 s.61
• /
• pp.293-309
• /
• 1998

The purpose of this study is to compare the level of health-related quality of life and relating factor between institutional elderly and community living elderly. The subjects were 390 from Sanatorium or Nursing home and 467 from the community in Kwangju. The results are followed : 1) A comparison of ADL between two groups, institutional elderly and community living elderly, resulted in that community elderly were more significantly independent in the areas of bathing and transfer than institutional elderly. 2) A comparison of IADL between two groups resulted in that : Community elderly were more independent in the areas of using telephone and transportation, food preparation, house keeping, and doing laundry. Institutional elderly were more independent in the area of handling finances. 3) In the case of poor health-related quality of life, institutional elderly showed 2.4 times in the dimension of physical fitness, 1.8 times in daily activity, 2 times in social activity, 2 times in pain, 26.7 times in social support, and 0.4 times in subjective quality of life higher than community elderly There was no significant differences in the rest of dimensions. 4) In institutional elderly, the analysis of variables related to the health-related quality of life resulted in that; The relating factors were sex, education, and chronic illness in the dimension of physical function. Direct contact with family or significant others in the dimension of social activity. Chronic illness in the dimension of pain and perceived health status. Direct or indirect contact with family or significant others over the phone or through letters in the dimension of social support. 5) The analysis of variables related to the health-related quality of life showed that community elderly has more relating variables in each area than institutional elderly. The relating factors were age, sex, and chronic illness in the dimension of physical function. Education and chronic illness in the dimension of emotional status. Age and chronic illness in the dimension of daily activity and social activity Education and chronic illness in the dimension of pain and perceived health status. Sex, education, family size in the dimension of social support. Education and chronic illness in the dimension of subjective quality-of-life. Throughout general daily activity, community elderly showed more satisfactory results than institutional elderly, but in the subjective area of health-related quality of life, such as subjective quality of life, institutional elderly group showed more positive results. And community elderly had more relating factors than institutional elderly. For the health care of the elderly that focused on quality of life, new approaches considering the characteristics of both group, institutional and community living elderly, are needed.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
• /
• v.9 no.6
• /
• pp.136-150
• /
• 2010

Due to the effect of indoor coverage problem, the QoS of the indoor users will be degraded dramatically, with the number of indoor users. The femto cell is a popular solution for such problems. Since the price of the femto base station is usually cheap enough, one can sets up huge number of base stations in a small indoor area to reduce the size of communication cell. In this way, the QoS of the indoor users can be improved significantly. Moreover, the data rate can also be increased. However, how to decide an ideal transmitting power according to the surrounding radio environment is not a trivial problem, that still has not been addressed well. If the transmit power of femto base station is too large, the interference to the macro users will be increased. Conversely, if the transmit power of femto base station is too small; the coverage of femto base station will be reduced. To address this problem, we propose a power configuration method in femto base station using Genetic Algorithm by investigating a new fitness function. Furthermore, we adopt the weighted sum approach to improve the user performance in different modes. The simulation results show that the proposed power configuration method can not only improves the downlink SINR, but also enhance the channel capacity for both the Macro cell systems and Femto cell systems compared with some conventional methods.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
• /
• v.28 no.6
• /
• pp.903-910
• /
• 2015

To maintain a predominantly pasture-based system, the large herd milked by automatic milking rotary would be required to walk significant distances. Walking distances of greater than 1-km are associated with an increased incidence of undesirably long milking intervals and reduced milk yield. Complementary forages can be incorporated into pasture-based systems to lift total home grown feed in a given area, thus potentially 'concentrating' feed closer to the dairy. The aim of this modelling study was to investigate the total land area required and associated walking distance for large automatic milking system (AMS) herds when incorporating complementary forage rotations (CFR) into the system. Thirty-six scenarios consisting of 3 AMS herds (400, 600, 800 cows), 2 levels of pasture utilisation (current AMS utilisation of 15.0 t dry matter [DM]/ha, termed as moderate; optimum pasture utilisation of 19.7 t DM/ha, termed as high) and 6 rates of replacement of each of these pastures by grazeable CFR (0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%) were investigated. Results showed that AMS cows were required to walk greater than 1-km when the farm area was greater than 86 ha. Insufficient pasture could be produced within a 1 km distance (i.e. 86 ha land) with home-grown feed (HGF) providing 43%, 29%, and 22% of the metabolisable energy (ME) required by 400, 600, and 800 cows, respectively from pastures. Introduction of pasture (moderate): CFR in AMS at a ratio of 80:20 can feed a 400 cow AMS herd, and can supply 42% and 31% of the ME requirements for 600 and 800 cows, respectively with pasture (moderate): CFR at 50:50 levels. In contrast to moderate pasture, 400 cows can be managed on high pasture utilisation (provided 57% of the total ME requirements). However, similar to the scenarios conducted with moderate pasture, there was insufficient feed produced within 1-km distance of the dairy for 600 or 800 cows. An 800 cow herd required 140 and 130 ha on moderate and high pasture-based AMS system, respectively with the introduction of pasture: CFR at a ratio of 50:50. Given the impact of increasing land area past 86 ha on walking distance, cow numbers could be increased by purchasing feed from off the milking platform and/or using the land outside 1-km distance for conserved feed. However, this warrants further investigations into risk analyses of different management options including development of an innovative system to manage large herds in an AMS farming system.

• Journal of muscle and joint health
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.18-27
• /
• 2002

Introduction : Exercise has been suggested as an important nursing strategy in which to help elderly maintain functional performance and to enhanced quality of life. Most of exercise study has been reported on fitness exercise such as walking, swimming, dance etc for health of elderly. There have been few reports about exercise on the promotion of small and fine movement of elderly. The purpose of this pilot study was to determine an effect of 6 weeks hand and finger exercise in home to improve hand muscle strength such as grip strength and finger pinch pressure. Materials and Methods Design: This pilot study was used one group pre and post-test design. Sample: Twelve elderly women above 60 years of age or older living in community were selected by convenient sampling. Procedure: Signed informed consent was obtained prior to participate in this study. The authors met elderly and taught hand and finger exercise, daily a week for 6 weeks, within 30 minutes per session. But exercise frequency and strength were not same. Instruments: Left and right grip strength were measured by Bulb Dynamometer(made in USA) and left and right pinch pressure were measured by Baseline Hydraulic Pinch Gauge(made in USA). Data analysis: Discriptive data analyses were performed on all variables. Wilcoxon matched-pairs Signed-Ranks test were used to find difference of grip strength and pinch pressure between pre and post exercise using SPSS 10.0 for Window. Results: Samples age ranged from 60 to 73, Mean age was 65.3. All were women. Ten elderly were diagnosed osteoarthritis and one had DM. After six weeks hand and finger exercise, Left and right grip strength were higher than those of before exercise(Z=-2.667, P<0.01 ; Z=-3.065, p<0.01). And left pinch pressure after hand and linger exercise were higher than that of before pinch pressure (Z=-2.315, p<0.05). But Right pinch pressure was not shown significant change(Z=-1.099, p>0.05). Conclusions: Although this study was limited by the sample size and design, the findings provide some important implications for community based exercise nursing intervention. Short term (six weeks) exercise of hand and linger is shown to be useful as nursing intervention to maintain routine daily activities such as eating, writing, grip something for elderly.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
• /
• v.27 no.3_4
• /
• pp.407-417
• /
• 2003

The purpose of this study is to develop designs and patterns of a functional brassiere. For this purpose, women who have protruding and drooping breasts with 75B for their brassiere size were sampled. The fitting test for the fitness and function of test brassiere and control brassiere were carried out twice and compared the results from the both in terms of front, rear and side looks. The results of this study can be summarized as follows; 1. The results from measuring the level of sag and spread, and volume and protrusion of breasts shows that there are some distinctive differences in the measurements before and after wearing the test brassiere and the test brassiere is proved to be very effective in correcting breasts' shapes. 2. Front look: Since the two front cutting lines of the test brassiere served to have the curved main part pressing against the breasts, it could support breasts to more than satisfactory level. In addition, upperline panel and side panels of the test brassiere were found to have the upperline of the upper cup pressed against the breasts and at the same time it pressed and gathered the flab around upper part of the breasts and armpits that helped to rearrange the shape of the breasts. It is also proved that the two-pieced test brassier was found to be more functional in supporting the lower cup of the breasts. 3. Rear look: The test brassier was made up of two wide U-shaped wings with 2.5cm tape on its lower sides. Each wing has 4 lines and 3 hems (5.5cm). For this reason, the test brassiere was tighter and better fitted on its back. 4. Side look and entire look: The wings of the test brassiere might look wider than that of the control brassier which has conventional straight-shaped wings, but it was analyzed that the test brassiere held the upper and lower sides of the wings more effectively to be more pressed against the breast. Therefore, the test brassiere scored higher in terms of adjusting to body movements, while the control brassiere looked better in overall terms. 5. The functional brassier fur protruding and drooping breasts developed from the experiments of this study is a full side stretch brassiere which covers the entire breasts satisfactorily. The pattern drafting methods are suggested in to .

• The Korean Journal of Pesticide Science
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.279-286
• /
• 2005

The herbicidal activities against pre-emergence barnyard grass (Echinochloa crus-galli) by a series of new 2-(4-(6-chloro-2-benzoxazolyloxy)phenoxy)-N-phenylpopionamide derivatives as substrate molecule were studied using molecular holographic (H) quantitative structure activity relationships (HQSAR) methodology. From the based on the findings, the higher herbicidal active compounds are predicted by the derived HQSAR model. The best HQSAR model (VI-1) was derived from fragment distinction combination of atoms/bonds in fragment size, $7{\sim}10$bin. The herbicidal activities from atomic contribution maps showed that the activity will be able to increased according to the R-substituents variation of the N-phenyl ring and change of 6-chloro-2-benzoxazolyloxy group. Based on the results, the statistical results of the best HQSAR model (VI-1) exhibited the best pedictability and fitness for the herbicidal activities based on the cross-validated value ($q^2=0.646$) and non cross-validated value ($r^2_{ncv.}=0.917$), respectively. From the graphical analyses of atomic contribution maps, it was revealed that the lowest herbicidal activitics depends upon the 4-(6-chloro-2-benzoxazolyloxy)phenoxy group ($pred.pI_{50}=-3.20$). Particularly, the R=4-fluoro, X=isobutoxy substituent (P2) of (X)-phenoxy-N-(R)-phenylpropionamide derivative is predicted as the highest active compound ($pred.pI_{50}=9.12$).

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.107-112
• /
• 2016

The objective of this study was to determine potential contributing factors associated with biosecurity level of farrow-to-finish pig farms and to develop a classification tree model to explore how these factors related to each other based on prediction model. To this end, the author analyzed data (n = 193) extracted from a cross-sectional study of 344 farrow-to-finish farms which was conducted between March and September 2014 aimed to explore swine disease status at farm level. Standardized questionnaires with information about basic demographical data and management practices were collected in each farm by on-site visit of trained veterinarians. For the classification of the data sets regarding biosecurity level as a dependent variable and predictor variables, Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) algorithm was applied for modeling classification tree. The statistics of misclassification risk was used to evaluate the fitness of the model in terms of prediction results. Categorical multivariate input data (40 variables) was used to construct a classification tree, and the target variable was biosecurity level dichotomized into low versus high. In general, the level of biosecurity was lower in the majority of farms studied, mainly due to the limited implementation of on-farm basic biosecurity measures aimed at controlling the potential introduction and transmission of swine diseases. The CHAID model illustrated the relative importance of significant predictors in explaining the level of biosecurity; maintenance of medical records of treatment and vaccination, use of dedicated clothing to enter the farm, installing fence surrounding the farm perimeter, and periodic monitoring of the herd using written biosecurity plan in place. The misclassification risk estimate of the prediction model was 0.145 with the standard error of 0.025, indicating that 85.5% of the cases could be classified correctly by using the decision rule based on the current tree. Although CHAID approach could provide detailed information and insight about interactions among factors associated with biosecurity level, further evaluation of potential bias intervened in the course of data collection should be included in future studies. In addition, there is still need to validate findings through the external dataset with larger sample size to improve the external validity of the current model.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.152-166
• /
• 2022

This study analyzed the causal relationship among operating characteristics of commercial freight vehicles, dangerous driving behaviors, and traffic accident risk. The study applied the existing accident cause and prevention theory to arrive at this relationship. Data related to working characteristics of driver, driving experience, driving ability, driving psychology, vehicle characteristics (size), dangerous driving behavior, and traffic accidents were collected from 303 commercial freight vehicle drivers. Working characteristics and dangerous driving behavior data are based on the driver's digital driving record. The traffic accident data is based on the insurance accident data reflecting actual traffic accidents. First, a structural equation model was built and verified using the model fitness index. Then, the developed model was used to analyze the causal relationship between multiple independent and dependent variables simultaneously. Four dangerous driving behaviors (sudden deceleration, sudden acceleration, sudden passing, and sudden stop) were found to be highly related to traffic accidents. The results further indicate that it is necessary to establish a safety management policy and intensive management for small-sized freight vehicles, drivers with insufficient driving ability, and drivers with dangerous driving behaviors. Such policy and management are expected to reduce traffic accidents effectively.