• International Area Studies Review
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.175-194
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• 2016

In this study, we aimed to identify the impact of socioeconomic characteristics on the health status of Chinese, which suggests that there might be the phenomena of health inequality in China. We used the year 2000, 2004 and 2009 pooled cross-sectional data of China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), and utilized the Ordinary Least Square model (OLS) and Ordered Logit Estimation Method for this purpose. Empirical results showed that socioeconomic status and year dummy variables have a meaningful impact on Chinese health status. Therefore, we conclude that the phenomenon of health inequality has existed in China since 2000.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.7
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• pp.419-426
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• 2021

With the development of the information and communication technology, the smart hospital has become a new trend in a healthcare industry. This study reviewed the concept, key technologies, applications, and future challenges of a smart hospital, and the user-centered strategies for designing a smart hospital. In smart hospitals, digitally enabled clinical staff will be able to produce better patient outcomes by delivering a more integrated patient-centered care with an efficient manner in connected facilities systems. However, to promote a successful patient-centered smart hospital environment in the future, various obstacles regarding cost, technology, security, and standards should be overcome. It is also necessary for patients and medical personnel to be involved as service users.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.672-675
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• 2010

초음파 영상은 다른 의료 진단 방법에 비해 상대적으로 비용이 적게 들고 데이터 획득이 용이하기 때문에 널리 이용되고 있다. 초음파 영상은 획득 방법에 따라 화질이 차이가 난다. 고식적 초음파 영상에 비해 두 배의 주파수를 사용하는 하모닉 영상은 대조도나 해상도가 향상되고, 영상 내 잡음이 감소한다. 그래서 초음파 영상을 이용한 진단 과정에서 병변의 특징을 육안으로 정확하게 관찰할 수 있고, 이를 통해서 진단 결과의 정확성이 향상된다. 본 논문에서는 초음파 영상의 획득 방법의 차이에 따른 진단 성능의 차이를 컴퓨터를 이용한 병변 분류 성능을 통해서 비교했다. 이를 위해서 초음파를 통해서 획득한 영상에서 병변의 형태 및 질감 특징을 추출하고, 이를 바탕으로 병변을 분류하는 시스템 구성하였다. 실험을 통해서 하모닉 초음파 영상을 이용한 컴퓨터 기반 분류 방법이 고식적 초음파를 이용한 방법에 비해서 6% 정확성 향상이 있는 것을 확인하였다.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.275-284
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• 2023

Gene expression data can be utilized in various studies, including the prediction of disease prognosis. However, there are challenges associated with collecting enough data due to cost constraints. In this paper, we propose a gene expression data generation model based on Conditional Variational Autoencoder. Our results demonstrate that the proposed model generates synthetic data with superior quality compared to two other state-of-the-art models for gene expression data generation, namely the Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Network with Gradient Penalty based model and the structured data generation models CTGAN and TVAE.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Computer Information Conference
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• 2022.01a
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• pp.309-310
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• 2022

코로나19 팬데믹을 계기로 원격의료의 수요가 폭발하여 비대면 진료가 가능하도록 법률을 개정하려는 추세에 필요한 서비스로 시간과 비용이 없고, 거리 두기 단계 상향등으로 병원에 방문하지 못하는 환자가 늘어나고 있다. 하지만 시중에 건강상태를 확인할수 있는 장비를 판매하지만 전문적인 지식이 없는 일반인은 정확하게 결과를 알 수 없고 한가지의 검사만 측정이 가능하기 때문에 검사결과를 확인하고 싶으면 병원을 방문해야한다. 본 논문은 전문적인 지식이 없는 일반인도 자신의 건강상태를 확인가능하게 하기 위해 심박, 심전도, 산소포화도, 체온센서의 측정값을 그래프로 표현한 후 검사결과를 토대로 의사와 원격진료가 가능하여 병원을 방문하지 않고 의사와 상담 및 진료가 가능하다. 병원에 입원이 불가능한 환자일 경우 산소포화도 측정값이 95%미만이면 산소공급 즉 응급처치가 가능하다.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.97-124
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• 2001

Co-residence is a type of intergenerational private transfers of resources: money, time and space. Adult daughters and their elderly parents decide to co-reside, depending on their utility levels before and after co-residence that mainly depend on the health status of the elderly. Therefore, co-residence implies positive net benefits to both parties in the sense that, when they co-reside, elderly parents share childcare and adult daughter provide elderly care. In other words, formal (paid) care can be substituted with informal (unpaid) one. Both marriage and giving births are considered as the major obstacles to labor market attachment of women who bear burdens of home production and childcare. Co-residence can be a solution for married women to avoid career interruption by sharing burdens with their elderly parents. However, most previous studies using the U.S. data on intergenerational private transfers focused on elderly care and have concluded that they reduce government expenditures associated with public subsidies to the elderly. This study focuses on adult daughters and it examines effects of co-residence on labor supply of married women in Korea, who face limited formal childcare programs in terms of both quantity and quality. It applies the Tobit model of married women's labor supply to the data from the Second Wave of the Korean Labor and Income Panel Survey( 1999), in order to investigate effects of co-residence and the work and health status of the co-residing elderly as well as their own health status. Four specifications of the empirical model are tested that each includes co-residence with elderly parents, their gender, or their work and health status. Estimation results show that co-residence, co-residence with female elderly, and co-residence with not-working female elderly have significant positive effects on labor supply of married women while poor health status of co-residing female elderly does not bring about any negative effects. However, co-residence with male elderly, regardless of their work and health status, has no significant effect The results indicate that co-residence is closely related to sharing of home production among female elderly and adult daughters who are married and, through intergenerational private transfers of resources in terms of time, it helps women avoid career interruption.

• Journal of Genetic Medicine
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 2011

Owing to the risk of fetal loss associated with prenatal diagnostic procedures (amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling), noninvasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD) is ultimate goal of prenatal diagnosis. The discovery of circulating cell-free fetal DNA (cffDNA) in maternal plasma in 1997 has opened up new probabilities for NIPD by Dr. Lo et al. The last decade has seen great development in NIPD. Fetal sex and fetal RhD status determination by cffDNA analysis is already in clinical use in certain countries. For routine use, this test is limited by the amount of cell-free maternal DNA in blood sample, the lack of universal fetal markers, and appropriate reference materials. To improve the accuracy of detection of fetal specific sequences in maternal plasma, internal positive controls to confirm to presence of fetal DNA should be analyzed. We have developed strategies for noninvasive determination of fetal gender, and fetal RhD genotyping using cffDNA in maternal plasma, using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) including RASSF1A epigenetic fetal DNA marker (gender-independent) as internal positive controls, which is to be first successful study of this kind in Korea. In our study, accurate detection of fetal gender through gestational age, and fetal RhD genotyping in RhD-negative pregnant women was achieved. In this assay, we show that the assay is sensitive, easy, fast, and reliable. These developments improve the reliability of the applications of circulating fetal DNA when used in clinical practice to manage sex-linked disorders (e.g., hemophilia, Duchenne muscular dystrophy), congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), RhD incompatibility, and the other noninvasive pregnant diagnostic tests on the coming soon. The study was the first successful case in Korea using cffDNA in maternal plasma, which has created a new avenue for clinical applications of NIPD.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.33-51
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• 2017

With the advent of 'The Forth Industrial Revolution' and the growing demand for quality of life due to economic growth, needs for the quality of medical services are increasing. Artificial intelligence has been introduced in the medical field, but it is rarely used in chronic skin diseases that directly affect the quality of life. Also, atopic dermatitis, a representative disease among chronic skin diseases, has a disadvantage in that it is difficult to make an objective diagnosis of the severity of lesions. The aim of this study is to establish an intelligent severity recognition model of atopic dermatitis for improving the quality of patient's life. For this, the following steps were performed. First, image data of patients with atopic dermatitis were collected from the Catholic University of Korea Seoul Saint Mary's Hospital. Refinement and labeling were performed on the collected image data to obtain training and verification data that suitable for the objective intelligent atopic dermatitis severity recognition model. Second, learning and verification of various CNN algorithms are performed to select an image recognition algorithm that suitable for the objective intelligent atopic dermatitis severity recognition model. Experimental results showed that 'ResNet V1 101' and 'ResNet V2 50' were measured the highest performance with Erythema and Excoriation over 90% accuracy, and 'VGG-NET' was measured 89% accuracy lower than the two lesions due to lack of training data. The proposed methodology demonstrates that the image recognition algorithm has high performance not only in the field of object recognition but also in the medical field requiring expert knowledge. In addition, this study is expected to be highly applicable in the field of atopic dermatitis due to it uses image data of actual atopic dermatitis patients.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.129-155
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• 2008

The rate of antibiotics prescription for an acute airway infection significantly varies depending upon the diagnosis type, specialty, and the location of the hospital along with many other related factors. The objective of this study is to empirically investigate the possible relationship between the antibiotics prescription rates for an acute airway infection and the degree of competition in the hospital market regions of mainly the providers of primary medical care services such as clinics, internal medicines, pediatrics and otorhinolaryngology department. Using the data from Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) regarding the hospitals' antibiotics prescription rates for the acute airway infection and controlling for selected variables of demand and supply sectors, this study tries to figure out that the degree of competition in the hospital market, regardless of what type of competition indexes we employed, has a statistically significant effect on the variations of antibiotics prescription rate of the clinics in local areas. This result implies that as an economic consideration itself, the change in the degree of competition in the hospital market can play a crucial role influencing the treatment behaviors of the medical doctors. More specifically, this study reveals that as the degree of competition increases the antibiotics prescription rate goes up. This result means that if the market becomes more competitive in a specific region so that it might cause a reduction in doctor's income, doctors with rational decision-making process, recognize that the benefit created from inducing patients' seemingly unnecessary demand for medical care (income effect) would be higher than the costs associated with sustaining their targeted income (substitution effect). It is because that the doctors are more likely to prescribe antibiotics which create relatively higher margins than other medical care services in order to sustain their targeted income when the hospital market competition becomes tighter. Even though this study empirically confirms that antibiotics prescription can be affected by the economic incentives, it still raises following issues as limitations of the study: first issue is about the representativeness of the hospital regions segregated for this study, which might be weak in explaining whether these regions are mutually exclusive in reality. Patients actually consider the quality of services, transportation cost, time costs, and any other related factors choosing the doctors or hospitals, and in that sense, this study rules out 'border-crossing' in using the medical care services. Second issue arises in capturing the data of antibiotics prescription rate. Since we use the average rate for each medical institution, we cannot figure out the average rate for each patient so that we are not able to control for the variation of patients' medical conditions. It is because of the unavailability of data regarding each patient's medical condition from HIRA. Thirdly, since this study mainly analyzes the medical institutions providing primary care such as clinics, internal medicines, pediatrics, and otorhinolaryngology department, it is skeptical of whether those institutions can represent the hospital market in respective regions and truly reflect the degree of competition. It needs to extend the study areas and disease types as well as any micro data for future studies.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.179-198
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• 2021

Purpose: This study examined general characteristics, health status, accessibility to medical services, health-related quality of life, dietary behavior, and energy and nutrient intakes of the elderly at different levels of food security utilizing data from the 7th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2016-2018). Methods: The elderly subjects (1,721 males and 2,271 females) were divided into 3 groups (secure, mildly insecure, moderately/severely insecure) according to their food security levels. Health and nutrient status was determined using energy intake, nutrient density, the prevalence of insufficient nutrient intake, dietary behavior, and health status. Results: The elderly with food insecurities had a lower self-evaluated health status and a higher prevalence of physician-diagnosed chronic diseases such as arthritis, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis for males, and hypertension, stroke, arthritis, and osteoarthritis for females. The associated financial burden was the major reason for not accessing medical services in the food insecure group. Furthermore, the food insecure group had a higher risk of impaired health-related quality of life compared to the secure group. The proportion of subjects with an energy intake below the estimated energy requirement was higher in the food insecure group and a significantly higher prevalence of insufficient intake was observed for all the nutrients (proteins, vitamin A, vitamin B₁, vitamin B₂, niacin, vitamin C, calcium, and iron) assessed in this study compared to the food secure group. Conclusion: This study suggests that food insecurity poses a challenge to the health and nutritional status of the elderly population in Korea and needs proper management. It would be helpful to develop food and nutrition assistance programs to ensure the food stability of the elderly population and assure quality to address gaps in their nutrient intake.