• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.65-66
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• 2019

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.162-166
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• 2006

Purpose : There are few reports in Korean literature on the diagnostic efficacy of fine needle aspiration cytology(FNAC) for pediatric cervical lymphadenopathy. This study examined the diagnostic value of FNAC on cervical lymphadenopathy in children. Methods : Data from 57 pediatric patients(aged 0.3 to 14 years) who underwent FNAC due to cervical lymphadenopathy between January 2001 and March 2005 was reviewed retrospectively. Results : Reactive cervical lymphadenitis was the most common result of the FNAC(52.5 percent). Malignant disease were revealed in 14 percent of all cases. The sensitivity, specificity was 86 percent and 96 percent, respectively. The positive and negative predictive values for malignant disease was 75 percent and 98 percent, respectively. There were two false-positive cases on FNAC; one case of Langerhans cell histiocytosis, and another with infectious mononucleosis. A false-negative case on FNAC was found to be acute lymphocytic leukemia. In seven cases(12 percent), the final diagnosis was confirmed by an open biopsy after the FNAC. There were four FNAC cases where the specimen was not satisfactory for making a diagnosis(7 percent). There were no serious complications of the FNAC procedure. Conclusion : FNAC had a high diagnostic efficacy for evaluating children with cervical lymphadenopathy.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.184-193
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• 2007

Objectives:There is increasing evidence that the cerebellum plays an important role in cognition and psychiatric symptoms as well as motor coordination. The concept of cognitive dysmetria has been making cerebellar function in schizophrenia the focus of current studies. In other words, disruption in the corticocerebellum-thalamic -cortical circuit could lead to disordered cognition and clinical symptoms of schizophrenia. The purposes of this study were to determine cerebellar dysfunction in male schizophrenic patients semiquantitatively with ICARS and to investigate the clinical and cognitive correlates of ICARS in patients. Methods:We compared the scores of cerebellar neurologic sign using ICARS in 47 male patients with a DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of schizophrenia with 30 gender and age-matched healthy control subjects. The semiquantitative 100-point ICARS consists of 19 items divided into 4 unequally weighted subscores:posture and gait disturbances, kinetic functions, speech disorders and oculomotor disorders. All subjects were also assessed with cognitive function test. Cognitive functions were evaluated by Korean-Mini Mental Status Examination (K-MMSE), Verbal fluency test, and Clock drawing test. The patients were administered Korea version of Positive and Negative Symptom Scale(K-PANSS) to assess the symptom severity. Results:Schizophrenic patients had significantly higher scores on the ICARS than control subjects with posture and gait disturbances, kinetic functions, and oculomotor disorders. They also showed more significant impairments in cognitive function tests than control subjects. There was a significant correlation between ICARS and negative symptoms of patients. In cognitive function test, Clock drawing test was significantly associated with negative symptoms. In addition, Clock drawing test was negatively correlated with the total score of ICARS. Conclusion:In this study, we confirmed that schizophrenic patients have significant impairments in cognitive and cerebellar function, and that those were related with negative symptoms of schizophrenic patients. These results support a role of the cerebellum in schizophrenia. It is meaningful that we used a structured, and reliable procedure for rating neurological soft signs, ICARS. We hope that future prospective studies using a similar design help that rate of neurological sign should have been visible with the progression of illness.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.173-184
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• 2018

In human walking, muscle co-contraction which produces simultaneous activities of multiple muscles is important in motor control mechanism of the central nervous system. This study aims to understand positive and negative covariation mechanism of inter-muscle activities during walking. In this study, we measured electromyography (EMG) in leg muscles. To identify motor modules, we recored EMG from 4 leg muscles bilaterally (the tibialis anterior, medial gastrocnemius, rectus femoris and medial hamstring muscles) and performed non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) and principa component analysis (PCA). Then, we computed covariation values from various combinations between muscles or motor modules and used two-way repeated measures analysis of variance to identify significantly different covariation patterns between muscle combinations. As the results, we found significant differences between covariation values of muscle combinations (p < 0.05). muscle groups within the same motor modules produced the positive covariations. However, there were strong negative covariation between motor modules. There was negative covariation in all muscle combination. Stable inter-module negative covariation suggests that motor modules may be the control unit in the complex motor coordination.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.313-317
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• 2015

Due to the increase in incidence of infection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC), it is imperative that a rapid diagnosis accompanies the handling of MTC. This is due to the three to eight weeks it takes to culture Mycobacteria, and the lack of sensitivity of microscopic examination of AFB. Recently, nested PCR has been used to detect and diagnose mycobacteria. It is especially useful in complementing diagnosis by histological extra pulmonary. After culturing all the specimens and practicing the nested PCR, we did comparison analysis between nested PCR and culture. There were 76 specimens, 31 of which were positive. Of the 31 positive specimens in culturing, only 22 were positive in nested PCR. Of the 45 negative specimens, 36 were negative in nested PCR. As a result, Sensitivity was 71% and specificity was 80%. Furthermore, the positive predictive value was 71% and negative predictive value was 80%. These results indicate that nested PCR based techniques are sensitive, specific, and rapid methods for the detection of MTC.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.41-49
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• 2022

The average acoustic distribution of American English speakers was statistically compared with the English-speaking patterns of gifted students in a Science Academy in Korea. By analyzing speech recordings, the duration time of which is much longer than in previous studies, this research identified the degree of acoustic proximity between the two parties and the predictability of English academic achievement of gifted high school students. Long-term spectral acoustic power distribution vectors were obtained for 2,048 center frequencies in the range of 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz by applying an long-term average speech spectrum (LTASS) MATLAB code. Three more variables were statistically compared to discover additional indices that can predict future English academic achievement: the receptive vocabulary size test, the cumulative vocabulary scores of English formative assessment, and the English Speaking Proficiency Test scores. Linear regression and correlational analyses between the four variables showed that the receptive vocabulary size test and the low-frequency vocabulary formative assessments which require both lexical and domain-specific science background knowledge are relatively more significant variables than a basic suprasegmental level English fluency in the predictability of gifted students' academic achievement.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.132-143
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• 2023

Objectives: We aimed to describe the reporting patterns of 6 notifiable surveillance diseases in the Republic of Korea, including water- and foodborne infections, from 2012 to 2021. Methods: For the 12,296 cases that met the reporting criteria, we calculated the number of reported cases, including the number of cases confirmed by lab tests or suspected by a physician, the number of cases with delayed reporting and their average days of delay, and the median days required to report the confirmatory test results. Results: The overall number of reported cases consistently increased over the ten years, with a significant rise in the reported cases of typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, and EHEC. Ninety-five percent of all reported cases were timely reported within one day of diagnosis. Vibrio vulnificus had the highest rate of delayed reporting (6.8% delayed over 1 day, 3.0% delayed over 3 days), while cholera had the lowest rate (1.9% delayed over 1 day, 0.1% delayed over 3 days). The average days of delayed reporting was 6.1 days: the highest for paratyphoid fever (10.8 days) and the lowest for cholera (2.7 days). For typhoid fever and paratyphoid fever, there has been an increase in the proportion of cases with negative test results. For vibrio vulnificus, there has been an increase in the proportion of cases with confirmed positive test results. As for EHEC, there has been a recent increase in cases with no confirmatory tests. Conclusions: Reported cases of water- and foodborne infectious diseases increased, indicating improved surveillance system completeness. However, for paratyphoid fever, improvements are needed in terms of timely notification by healthcare facilities and timely reporting of confirmatory test results.

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.117-123
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• 2022

Currently the number of COVID-19 cases is increasing rapidly around the world. One way to restrict the spread of COVID-19 infection is to find confirmed cases using rapid diagnosis. The previously proposed group testing problem assumed without measurement noise, but recently, false positive and false negative cases have occurred during COVID-19 testing. In this paper, we define the noisy group testing problem and analyze how much measurement noise affects the performance. In this paper, we show that the group testing system should be designed to be less susceptible to measurement noise when conducting group testing with a low positive rate of COVID-19 infection. And compared with other developed reconstruction algorithms, our proposed algorithm shows superior performance in noisy group testing.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.49-56
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• 2001

Purpose : To evaluate value of superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) as a negative oral contrast agent in MR cholangiopancreatography (MRCP). Materials and methods : Forty-eight patients with suspected biliary tract or pancreatic diseases and six healthy volunteers were enrolled in this study. All MR images were obtained using a 1.5 T MR unit. MR-CP using fat-suppressed half-Fourier acquisition single-shot turbo spin echo (HASTE) and turbo spin echo (TSE) techniques were performed and reconstructed with maximal intensity projection (MIP). To determine the most optimal concentration of SPIO to obliterate the high signal intensity of water, a phantom experiment was conducted with various concentrations of SPIO-water mixture. Two radiologists evaluated pre- and postcontrast MRCPS. The contrast enhancement was assessed on the basis of loss of signal intensity in the stomach and duodenum. Results : In the phantom experiment, a significant increase of percentage of signal intensity loss (PSIL) occurred in concentration of 22.4 ugFe/ml (Feridex1 ml diluted with water 500 ml). Postcontrast MRCP showed an improved image quality compared with precontrast images. The rate of improvement in the diagnosis of diseases of the common bile duct and pancreatic duct was 25% (12/48). Conclusion : In patients with suspected biliary tract and pancreatic diseases, the SPIO is useful as a negative oral contrast agent for MRCP and provides an improvement of image quality.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.252-260
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• 2004

The purpose of study is to evaluate the clinical implication of malignant Pleural Lavage Cytology (PLC) in primary lung cancer. 315 patients were examined with pleural lavage cytology in Asan Medical Center between November 1998 and August 2002. The patients were chosen from primary lung cancer patients with no pleural effusion according to preoperative radiologic examination; no tumor invasion into the chest wall and no diffuse pleural adhesion in intraoperative findings, The pleural cavity and lung were washed with 100 $m\ell$ of warm normal saline. The 315 patients consisted of 237 men and 78 women. The incidence of malignant PLC was found in 28 patients (8.9%). For patients in early stages (I & II), survival rate was 93.9% in positive malignant PLC and 85.7% in negative malignant PLC. 31 patients (13.6%) had local or distant recurrences; 2-year recurrence-free rate was 90.1% in negative PLC and 87.5% in positive PLC. The survival and recurrence-free rate in each stage were not statistically associated with the result of PLC. Median follow-up was 16.4 months from the surgery. To access implication of malignant PLC in primary lung cancer, a long-term follow-up and further study are required.