• The Journal of the Korean Institute of Forest Recreation
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.59-69
• /
• 2018

This is a cross-sectional study that suggests ways to activate forest welfare services (FWS) by investigating the infrastructure, service status, and perception on FWS in Korea. In August 2016, a structured email survey was conducted in nation widely. The respondents were mostly directors and general secretary (75.0%). The considerable number (16.3%) of nursing homes (NH) use some floors of the complex buildings that would be difficult to have FWS infrastructure and about 30% of those without forests near the facilities. The directors of NH recognize that FWS has positive effects on the elderly. However, FWS is not an requisite of the longterm care insurance benefit, and so costly and effort-intensive that FWS has not been activated so far. In order to activate FWS in NHs, it is necessary to develop and disseminate the guidelines on FWS that anyone can easily followed. In addition, when the National Health Insurance Corporation evaluates NHs, they should evaluate not only whether there is a wandering or walking space, but also whether it has forest healing factors such as forests. It is also necessary to create a barrier-free environment both inside and outside of NHs, increasing accessibility to the toilet in gardens, paving a passage for wheelchairs and lifts in forests near NHs. Through these efforts, it is expected that FWS will be activated to provide physical, mental rest and comfort, appropriate cognitive stimulation to the NH residents at the end of life.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.116-125
• /
• 2020

Objectives : Self-poisoning is the leading cause of visits to the emergency departments after a suicide attempts. This study is aimed to compare the patient characteristics according to the category of drugs ingested by the patients who attempted suicide. Methods : All medical charts were retrospectively reviewed from patients who visited the emergency center, at Seoul Medical Center, due to intentional self-poisoning from April of 2011 to July of 2019. We investigated the information regarding the subtype and quantity of the intoxication drug, how it was obtained, suicidal history, and psychiatric history, as well as, sociodemographic information. Variables were compared between prescription drug (PD) and non-prescription drug (NPD) poisoning groups. Results : The mean age of the NPD poisoning group was significantly lower than that of the PD poisoning group. The patient ratio of those enrolled in national health insurance and living with spouses were significantly higher in the NPD poisoning group. Compared to the NPD poisoning group, the PD poisoning group had a higher incidence of mental illnesses, underlying diseases and ratio of involuntary visit to the emergency department. Among the prescription drugs, the benzodiazepine poisoning group had a higher rate of self-prescription than the non-poisoning group, while the zolpidem poisoning group had a higher rate of the using someone else's prescription than other drugs. Each single drug poisoning group (benzodiazepine, zolpidem, and antidepressant single-agent) had a higher rate of no mental illness than each of the mixed-poisoning group. Conclusions : Guidelines for regulating non-prescription drugs are needed as a matter of suicide prevention. Also, this study suggests that clinicians need to be careful when issuing prescriptions and should suicidal risk according to patients' characteristics, duration of follow-up and type of drug packaging.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.117-157
• /
• 2021

This research reviewed the HIPAA/HITECH, 21st Century Cures Act, Common Law, and private Guidances from the perspectives in protecting and utilitizing the medical data, while implications were followed. First, the standards for protection and utilization are relatively clearly regulated through single law on personal medical information in the United States. The HIPAA has been introduced in 1996 as fundamental act on protection of medical data. Medical data was divided into personally identifiable information, non-identifying information, and limited dataset under HIPAA. Regulations on de-identification measures for medical information, objects for deletion of limited data sets, and agreement on prohibition of data re-identification were stipulated. Moreover, in the 21st Century Cures Act regulated mutual compatibility for data sharing, prohibition of data blocking, and strengthening of accessibility of data subjects. Common Law introduced comprehensive consent system and clearly stipulates procedures. Second, the regulatory system is relatively simplified and clearly stipulated in the United States. To be specific, the expert consensus and the safe harbor system were introduced as an anonymity measure for identifiable medical information, which clearly defines the process while increasing trust. Third, the protection of the rights of the data subject is specified, the duty of explanation is specified in detail, while the information right of the consumer (opt-out procedure) for identification information is specified. For instance, the HHS rule and FDA regulations recognize the comprehensive consent system for human research, but the consent procedure, method, and requirements are stipulated through the common rule. Fourth, in the case of the United States, a trust-based system is being used throughout the health and medical data legislation. To be specific, Limited Data Sets are allowed to use in condition to the researcher's agreement to prohibit re-identification, and de-identification or consent process is simplified under the system.

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
• /
• v.39 no.2
• /
• pp.111-129
• /
• 2022

Insomnia is a chronic disease in modern society, with the number of new patients increasing by more than 20% in the last 5 years. Insomnia is a serious disease that requires diagnosis and treatment because the individual and social problems that occur when there is a lack of sleep are serious and the triggers of insomnia are complex. This study collected 5,699 data from 'insomnia', a community on 'Reddit', a social media that freely expresses opinions. Based on the International Classification of Sleep Disorders ICSD-3 standard and the guidelines with the help of experts, the insomnia corpus was constructed by tagging them as insomnia tendency documents and non-insomnia tendency documents. Five deep learning language models (BERT, RoBERTa, ALBERT, ELECTRA, XLNet) were trained using the constructed insomnia corpus as training data. As a result of performance evaluation, RoBERTa showed the highest performance with an accuracy of 81.33%. In order to in-depth analysis of insomnia social data, topic modeling was performed using the newly emerged BERTopic method by supplementing the weaknesses of LDA, which is widely used in the past. As a result of the analysis, 8 subject groups ('Negative emotions', 'Advice and help and gratitude', 'Insomnia-related diseases', 'Sleeping pills', 'Exercise and eating habits', 'Physical characteristics', 'Activity characteristics', 'Environmental characteristics') could be confirmed. Users expressed negative emotions and sought help and advice from the Reddit insomnia community. In addition, they mentioned diseases related to insomnia, shared discourse on the use of sleeping pills, and expressed interest in exercise and eating habits. As insomnia-related characteristics, we found physical characteristics such as breathing, pregnancy, and heart, active characteristics such as zombies, hypnic jerk, and groggy, and environmental characteristics such as sunlight, blankets, temperature, and naps.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
• /
• v.33
• /
• pp.9-14
• /
• 2021

This study examined dose change depending on the reposition error of the junction at the time of treatment with multi-isocenter volumetric modulated arc therapy. This study selected a random treatment region in the Arccheck Phantom and established the treatment plan for multi-isocenter volumetric modulated arc therapy. Then, after setting the error of the junction at 0 ~ 4 mm in the X (left), Y (upper), and Z (inner and outer) directions, the area was irradiated using a linear accelerator; the point doses and gamma indexes obtained through the Phantom were subsequently analyzed. It was found that when errors of 2 and 4 mm took place in the X and Y directions, the gamma pass rates (point doses) were 99.3% (2.085) and 98% (2.079 Gy) in the former direction and 98.5% (2.088) and 95.5% (2.093 Gy) in the latter direction, respectively. In addition, when errors of 1, 2, and 4 mm occurred in the inner and outer parts of the Z direction, the gamma pass rates (point doses) were found to be 94.8% (2.131), 82.6% (2.164), and 72.8% (2.22 Gy) in the former part and 93.4% (2.069), 90.6% (2.047), and 79.7% (1.962 Gy) in the latter part, respectively. In the X and Y directions, errors up to 4 mm were tolerable; however, in the Z direction, error values exceeding 1 mm were beyond the tolerance level. This suggests that for high and low dose areas, errors in the direction same as the progress direction in the treatment region have a more sensitive dose distribution. If the guidelines for set-up errors are established at the institutional level through continuous research in the future, it will be possible to provide good quality treatment using junctions.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.209-244
• /
• 2020

TMS and tDCS are non-invasive devices that treat the diseases of patients or individual users, and manage or improve their health by applying stimulation to a brain through magnetism and electricity. The effect and safety of these devices have proved to be valid in several diseases, but research in this area is still much going on. Despite increasing cases of their application, legislations directly regulating TMS and tDCS are hard to find. Legal regulation regarding TMS and tDCS in the United States, Germany and Japan reveals that while TMS has been approved as a medical device with a moderate risk, tDCS has not yet earned approval as a medical device. However, the recent FDA guidance, European MDR changes, recalls in the US, and relevant legal provisions of Germany and Japan, as well as recommendations from expert groups all show signs of tDCS growing closer to getting approved as a medical device. Of course, safety and efficacy of tDCS can still be regulated as a general product instead of as a medical device. Considering multiple potential impacts on a human brain, however, the need for independent regulation is urgent. South Korea also lacks legal provisions explicitly regulating TMS and tDCS, but they fall into the category of the grade 3 medical devices according to the notifications of the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. And safety and efficacy of TMS are to be evaluated in compliance with the US FDA guidance. But no specific guidelines exist for tDCS yet. Given that tDCS devices are used in some hospitals in reality, and also at home by individual buyers, such a regulatory gap must quickly be addressed. In a longer term, legal system needs to be in place capable of independently regulating non-invasive brain stimulating devices.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.94-106
• /
• 2022

In order to increase timber self-sufficiency, Korea's 6th Basic Forest Plan aims to increase the density of forest roads to 12.8 m ha^-1 by 2037. However, due to rapid re-forestation, current management infrastructure is insufficient, with just 4.8 m ha^-1 of forest roads in 2017. This is partly due to time and cost limitations on the process of forest road feasibility evaluation, which considers factors such as topography and forest conditions. To solve this problem, we propose an eco-friendly and efficient forest road network planning method using a geographic information system (GIS), which can evaluate a potential road site remotely based on spatial information. To facilitate such planning, this study identifies forest road construction priorities that can be evaluated using spatial information, such as topography, forest type and forest disasters. A method of predicting the optimal route to connect a forest road with existing roads is also derived. Overlapping analysis was performed using GIS-MCE (which combines GIS with multi-criteria evaluation), targeting the areas of Cheongsong-gun and Buk-gu, Pohang-si, which have a low forest-road density. Each factor affecting the suitability of a proposed new forest road site was assigned a cost, creating a cost surface that facilitates prioritization for each forest type. The forest path's optimal route was then derived using least-cost path analysis. The results of this process were 30 forestry site recommendations in Cheongsong-gun and one in Buk-gu, Pohang-si; this would increase forest road density for the managed forest sites in Cheongsong-gun from 1.58 m ha^-1 to 2.55 m ha^-1. This evaluation method can contribute to the policy of increasing timber self-sufficiency by providing clear guidelines for selecting forest road construction sites and predicting optimal connections to the existing road network.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
• /
• v.23 no.6
• /
• pp.577-587
• /
• 2021

Room and Pillar method is an underground facility construction method that maximizes the strength of the in-situ ground. In order to secure the safety of the underground space, it is necessary to secure the safety of the room actually used in addition to the safety of pillar of the room and Pillar method. In this study, the evaluation method for the safety of the room and rock pillar in the room and pillar method was studied through numerical analysis. Numerical analysis was performed for a total of 125 cases using ground conditions, pillar width, and room width as parameters, and the results were derived. As for the safety factor of the pillar, it was confirmed that the safety factor increased when the strength of the ground increased, and it was confirmed that the increment in the safety factor decreased when the width of the pillar was widened. The room strain was evaluated by applying the Critical strain. As the width of the pillar became narrower, the Critical strain was higher, and as the width of the room became smaller, the Critical strain was smaller. As a result of the correlation analysis between the safety factor of the pillar and the room strain, it was possible to derive the upper limit of the room strain that can secure the standard safety factor of the pillar according to the width of the pillar. It is judged that the results derived from this study can be used as a guideline to secure the safety of the room when the actual design is performed in consideration of the ground conditions and room width.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.59-69
• /
• 2023

FIDIC White Book is a Model Services Agreement between the Client and the Consultant. This study aimed to derive the Key Risk Sub-Clauses out of 63 Sub-Clauses of General Conditions of the FIDIC White Book by using the Delphi technique. A panel of 40 experts with more than 10 years of experience and expertise in overseas construction services agreements and FIDIC White Book was formed, and the reliability was improved in the direction of increasing the consensus of experts through a total of three Delphi survey processes. In the first Delphi survey, a closed-type survey was conducted on the impact of risk among 63 Sub-Clauses of General Conditions on a Likert 5-point scale, and 26 main risk Sub-Clauses were derived. The Content Validity of the results of the first Delphi survey was verified with the CVR value. In the 2nd and 3rd Delphi surveys, a closed-type survey was conducted on a Likert 10-point scale for 26 main risk Sub-Clauses and the risk possibility and impact of each main risk Sub-Clause were evaluated. The reliability of the 3rd Delphi survey result was verified with the COV value. Total 14 Key Risk Sub-Clauses were derived by applying the average risk possibility and impact of each of the 26 main risk Sub-Clauses to the PI Risk Matrix. The results of deriving Key Risk Sub-Clauses showed that agreement on specific scope of service, delay management, and change management were the most important. As a result of this study, from a practical point of view, consultants of consulting companies provide guidelines that should be reviewed to minimize contractual risks when signing service contracts with clients. From an academic point of view, the direction of research on deriving key risks related to service contracts for consultants participating in overseas construction is presented.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
• /
• v.38 no.2
• /
• pp.37-45
• /
• 2023

The surge in food delivery systems during the coronavirus 2019 pandemic necessitated this study of heavy metal migration from food contact materials (FCMs). A total of 104 samples of FCMs, comprising 51 polypropylene (PP), 21 polyethylene (PE), and 32 polystyrene (PS) samples of six different types of FCMs (containers, covers, table utensils, cups, pouches, and wrappers) used for food delivery distributed in Korea, were collected and investigated for migration of three heavy metals (Pb, Cd, and As) using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to determine whether they complied with Korea's Standards and Specifications for Utensils, Containers, and Packages. Acetic acid (4%, v/v) was used as the food simulant, and tests were performed at 100℃ (in harsh conditions) for 30 min. Linearity of Pb, Cd, and As showed acceptable results with a coefficient of determination (R²) value of 0.9999. Limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) of Pb, Cd, and As were 0.001, 0.001, and 0.001 ㎍/L and 0.002, 0.003, and 0.003 ㎍/L, respectively. Accuracy and precision results complied with the criteria presented in the European Commission Joint Research Centre guidelines. The average concentration of Pb, Cd, and As migration detected in a total of 104 samples was 0.009-0.260 ㎍/L, which was very low compared with the migration specification set in the Standards and Specifications for Utensils, Containers, and Packages. The maximum level of Pb corresponded to 0.23% of the migration limit. There were no samples exceeding the limit. Thus, this study confirmed that the heavy metal contents of FCMs used for delivery food distributed in Korea were safely managed. The data from this study represent an invaluable source for science-based safety management of hazardous heavy metals migrating from FCMs used in the food delivery industry.