• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.677-699
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• 2012

Climate changes may cause substantial changes in spatial patterns and distribution of vector-borne diseases (VBD's), which will result in a significant threat to humans and emerge as an important public health problem that the international society needs to solve. As global warming becomes widespread and the Korean peninsula characterizes subtropical climate, the potentials of climate-driven disease outbreaks and spread rapidly increase with changes in land use, population distributions, and ecological environments. Vector-borne diseases are typically infected by insects such as mosquitoes and ticks, and infected hosts and vectors increased dramatically as the habitat ranges of the VBD agents have been expanded for the past 20 years. Medical geography integrates and processes a wide range of public health data and indicators at both local and regional levels, and ultimately helps researchers identify spatiotemporal mechanism of the diseases determining interactions and relationships between spatial and non-spatial data. Spatial epidemiology is a new and emerging area of medical geography integrating geospatial sciences, environmental sciences, and epidemiology to further uncover human health-environment relationships. An introduction of GIS-based disease monitoring system to the public health surveillance system is among the important future research agenda that medical geography can significantly contribute to. Particularly, real-time monitoring methods, early-warning systems, and spatial forecasting of VBD factors will be key research fields to understand the dynamics of VBD's.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.167-172
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• 1998

한국 및 일본을 포함한 동아시아 지역에 벡터 매개성 바이러스에 의한 소 질병으로 인하여 경제적 손실이 몇년을 주기로 극심하게 나타나고 있다. 그러나 본 질병의 정확한 역학에 대하여는 아직까지 확실한 연구가 되어 있지 않은 상태이다. 본 연구에서는 벡터 매개성 질병에 대한 역학을 좀더 명확하게 밝히기 위하여, 일본 열도중 가장 멀리 떨어져 있으며, 아열대 지역에 속하는 오끼나와 섬에서 사육되고 있으면서 백신접종을 받지 않은 소(Japanese black cattle)를 대상으로 하여 1988년도부터 1992년도에 걸쳐 벡터 매개성 바이러스군에 대한 중화항체가를 측정하고 분석하였다. 소의 유행성 바이러스(bovine ephemeral virus)에 대한 항체 양성율은 연도 및 계절별로 크게 변화를 보였고, Ibaraki virus에 대한 항체양성율은 그 어느 다른 계절보다도 5월에 높은 항체가를 보였으며, Akabane virus에 대한 항체 양성율은 이바라키 바이러스에 대한 항체 양성율과 유사한 수준으로 나타났다. 한편 Chuzan virus에 대한 항체양성율은 계절적인 변화가 심하지 않은 것으로 나타났다.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.58 no.2
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• pp.197-208
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• 2020

This study was carried out to analyze spatial and temporal incidence characteristics of scrub typhus and predict the future incidence of scrub typhus since the incidences of scrub typhus have been rapidly increased among vector-borne diseases. A maximum entropy (MaxEnt) ecological model was implemented to predict spatial distribution and incidence rate of scrub typhus using spatial data sets on environmental and social variables. Additionally, relationships between the incidence of scrub typhus and critical spatial data were analyzed. Elevation and temperature were analyzed as dominant spatial factors which influenced the growth environment of Leptotrombidium scutellare (L. scutellare) which is the primary vector of scrub typhus. A temporal number of diseases by scrub typhus was predicted by a deep neural network (DNN). The model considered the time-lagged effect of scrub typhus. The DNN-based prediction model showed that temperature, precipitation, and humidity in summer had significant influence factors on the activity of L. scutellare and the number of diseases at fall. Moreover, the DNN-based prediction model had superior performance compared to a conventional statistical prediction model. Finally, the spatial and temporal models were used under climate change scenario. The future characteristics of scrub typhus showed that the maximum incidence rate would increase by 8%, areas of the high potential of incidence rate would increase by 9%, and disease occurrence duration would expand by 2 months. The results would contribute to the disease management and prediction for the health of residents in terms of public health.

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.71-93
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• 2020

Today, in order to more effectively cope with the emergence of various diseases and the rapidly-changing medical environment, several medical departments are conducting treatment collaborations within the university hospital. This collaborative care is very important and is already common in the medical field. Nevertheless, there is no research on this, especially how the departments are collaborating. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how the characteristics of the treatment collaboration networks vary by year and season by exploring the relationship between the medical departments within the university hospital. This study analyzed the collaboration networks of 29 medical departments of 'A' university in Korea by dividing the collaborative care by year and season. Directed networks were constructed in response to departments requesting and departments requested for collaborative care. Betweenness centrality, eigenvector centrality, closeness centrality analysis, ego network analysis, and faction analysis were also conducted. This study performed the first treatment collaboration network analysis among medical departments, and is expected to present new insights into the location and spatial composition of medical departments in consideration of the knowledge transfer paths within medical institutions.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.627-637
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• 2018

Motility and chemotaxis are crucial for disease development in many motile pathogens, including spirochetes. In many bacteria, motility is provided by flagella rotation, which is controlled by a chemotaxis-signal-transduction system. Thus, motility and chemotaxis are inextricably linked. Spirochetes are a unique group of bacteria with distinctive flat-wave morphology and corkscrew-like locomotion. This unusual motility pattern is believed to be important for efficient motility within the dense tissues through which these spirochetes preferentially disseminate in a host. Unlike other externally flagellated bacteria-where flagella are in the ambient environment-the flagella of spirochetes are enclosed by the outer membrane and thus are called periplasmic flagella or endoflagella. Although motilityand chemotaxis-associated genes are well studied in some bacteria, the knowledge of how the spirochete achieves complex swimming and the roles of most of the putative spirochetal chemotaxis proteins are still elusive. Recently, cutting-edge imaging methods and unique genetic manipulations in spirochetes have helped to unravel the mystery of motility and chemotaxis in spirochetes. These contemporary advances in understanding the motility and chemotaxis of spirochetes in a host's persistence and disease process are highlighted in this review.