• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.76-93
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• 2020

Purpose: In this study, the general characteristics of subjects who spent more than a certain amount of cost for general medical examination at the general hospital health promotion center, and the characteristics of disease, family history, and lifestyle (smoking, alcohol, physical activity, oral care) significantly differed in cost expenditure. We intend to provide basic data for establishing an appropriate marketing strategy for comprehensive examination. Method: It was conducted for users who received comprehensive checkups at a health promotion center at a general hospital in Seoul. The research data collection period is for 979 people who performed comprehensive examinations from January 2019 to December 2020. In order to carry out a comprehensive examination, a questionnaire before the examination was distributed to the subjects who visited the hospital to prepare, and the investigation was conducted in a way that the subjects of the investigation directly filled in. Results: There was a significant influence on the difference in expenditure for comprehensive examination according to the gender, age, and type of health insurance of the subject. In addition, there were significant differences in expenditure according to the presence or absence of disease and the type of family history. Weight loss, smoking history, smoking period, smoking frequency, drinking history, and drinking frequency all had significant effects on cost expenditure. Also, strength training and oral treatment management showed a significant effect on the cost of comprehensive examination. The number of flossing and interdental brushing was also found to have a significant effect. According to the results of multiple regression analysis, disease history (t=2.683, p<.01) and mean smoking frequency (t=4.315, p<.001) appeared to have the most significant effect on expenditure statistically. In other words, when the subject has a history of disease and when the average number of smoking is large, it means that the comprehensive examination cost is remarkably large. Conclusion: By using these contents, hospitals can further refine the marketing of the examination center. In addition, a more convenient and specialized process should be used by patients by linking the general medical department and the examination center well. In terms of management of operating medical institutions, this can be expected to create patients and increase profits.

• Smart Media Journal
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2021

The eye tracking system designed in this paper is an eye-based computer input device designed to give an easy access for those who are uncomfortable with Lou Gehrig's or various muscle-related diseases. It is an eye-based-computer-using device for users whose potential demand alone amounts to 30,000. Combining the number of Lou Gehrig's patients in Korea estimated at around 1,700, and those who are unable to move their bodies due to various accidents or diseases. Because these eye input devices are intended for a small group of users, many types of commercial devices are available on the market. It is making them more expensive and difficult to use for these potential users, less accessible. For this reason, each individual's economic situation and individual experience with smart devices are slightly different. Therefore, making it difficult to access them in terms of cost or usability to use a commercial eye tracking system. Accordingly, attempts to improve accessibility to IT devices through low-cost but easy-to-use technologies are essential. Thus, this paper proposes a complementary superior performance eye tracking system that can be conveniently used by far more people and patients by improving the deficiencies of the existing system. Through voluntary VoCs(Voice of Customers) of users who have used different kinds of eye tracking systems that satisfies it through various usability tests, and we propose a reduced system that the amount of calculation to 1/15th, and eye-gaze tracking error rate to 0.5~1 degree under.

• Korean small business review
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.123-146
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• 2020

This study, targeting KOSDAQ-listed companies, examined the relationship between variability of accruals and corporate characteristics. First, the analysis results show that executives of companies with high debt ratios are more likely to violate debt contracts, so there is a strong temptation to use discretionary accrual items. Second, for companies with large volatility in operating cash flows, Executives of these companies are strongly inclined to utilize accruals for the purpose of abuse of discretion. Third, the larger the company, the more sensitive it is to political costs, so it is less tempted to use the accruals item than a smaller company. Fourth, the corporate age is thought to be the maturity of the company, Executives of such companies have little room to use accruals to abuse their discretion. Fifth, in the case of profit dummy variables, the companies reporting losses have more temporary accrual items than those reporting profits, so this increases the uncertainty in their accounting information than the latter. Sixth, for those companies that are indicated as inappropriate as a result of audit, the more likely their executives are to use the accrual items, and the lower the quality of their accounting profits is. Lastly, Companies audited by 4 Big domestic accounting firms have less discretionary accrual fluctuations than companies audited by non-big 4 accounting firms. Thus, it was found that the accrual amount allows the discretion of corporate executives differently according to the characteristics of the company.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.21-31
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• 2021

As the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly changes healthcare around the globe, the need for smart healthcare that allows for remote diagnosis is increasing. The current classification of respiratory diseases cost high and requires a face-to-face visit with a skilled medical professional, thus the pandemic significantly hinders monitoring and early diagnosis. Therefore, the ability to accurately classify and diagnose respiratory sound using deep learning-based AI models is essential to modern medicine as a remote alternative to the current stethoscope. In this study, we propose a deep learning-based respiratory sound classification model using data collected from medical experts. The sound data were preprocessed with BandPassFilter, and the relevant respiratory audio features were extracted with Log-Mel Spectrogram and Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC). Subsequently, a Parallel CNN network model was trained on these two inputs using stacking ensemble techniques combined with various machine learning classifiers to efficiently classify and detect abnormal respiratory sounds with high accuracy. The model proposed in this paper classified abnormal respiratory sounds with an accuracy of 96.9%, which is approximately 6.1% higher than the classification accuracy of baseline model.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.55-65
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• 2022

Recently, deep learning-based automated systems for identifying and detecting landmarks have been proposed. In order to train such a deep learning-based model without overfitting, a large amount of image and labeling data is required. Conventionally, an experienced reader manually identifies and labels landmarks in a patient's image. However, such measurement is not only expensive, but also has poor reproducibility, so the need for an automated labeling method has been raised. In addition, in the X-ray image, since various human tissues on the path through which the photons pass are displayed, it is difficult to identify the landmark compared to a general natural image or a 3D image modality image. In this study, we propose a geometric data augmentation technique that enables the generation of a large amount of labeling data in X-ray images. In addition, the optimal attention mechanism for landmark detection was presented through the implementation and application of various attention techniques to improve the detection performance of 16 major landmarks in the skull. Finally, among the major cranial landmarks, markers that ensure stable detection are derived, and these markers are expected to have high clinical application potential.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.275-284
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• 2023

Virtual reality simulations are used for education and training in various fields, and are especially widely used in the medical field recently. The education/training simulator consists of tactile/force feedback generation and image/sound output hardware that provides a sense similar to a doctor's treatment of a real patient using real surgical tools, and software that produces realistic images and tactile feedback. Existing simulators are complicated and expensive because they have to use various types of hardware to simulate various surgical instruments used during surgery. In this paper, we propose a dental surgical simulation system using a force feedback device and a morphable haptic controller. Haptic hardware determines whether the surgical tool collides with the surgical site and provides a sense of resistance and vibration. In particular, haptic controllers that can be deformed, such as length changes and bending, can express various senses felt depending on the shape of various surgical tools. When the user manipulates the haptic feedback device, events such as movement of the haptic feedback device or button clicks are delivered to the simulation system, resulting in interaction between dental surgical tools and oral internal models, and thus haptic feedback is delivered to the haptic feedback device. Using these basic techniques, we provide a realistic training experience of impacted wisdom tooth extraction surgery, a representative dental surgery technique, in a virtual environment represented by sophisticated three-dimensional models.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.574-585
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• 2023

Sarcopenia is a leading cause of increased medical and nursing care costs among the elderly. In Korea, preventive measures for sarcopenia are mostly targeted toward the general elderly population without specific diseases. However, it is also necessary to implement measures for elderly individuals living in nursing homes and hospitals, where the prevalence of sarcopenia is high. Currently, computed tomography and/or magnetic resonance imaging are considered standard diagnostic tools. However, their complexity and time-consuming nature make them unsuitable for clinical use. The exact pathophysiological mechanisms of sarcopenia are unclear, as they involve various molecular biological pathways, including decreased exercise, protein and nutrient intake, changes in testosterone and growth hormone, and inflammation. Sarcopenia symptoms can lead to several diseases, such as osteoporosis, fractures, dementia, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Vitamin B deficiency is a significant factor in sarcopenia induction, with B vitamins being directly involved in energy and protein metabolism and nerve function. Vitamin B deficiency can lead to neuromuscular and neurogenic disorders, which often overlap with sarcopenia. Suboptimal intake of B vitamins, malabsorption, and anorexia are common among the elderly. This study aims to provide information on the role of water-soluble B vitamins in preventing and controlling muscle mass loss and deterioration among the elderly with sarcopenia. In addition, we discuss the potential of myokines from the B vitamin family in modulating sarcopenia.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.3-8
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• 2023

This study discussed production, demand, and future prospects of rubidium, which is an alkali group metal that is highly reactive to various media and requires carefulness in handling, but no significant environmental hazard of rubidium has been reported yet. Rubidium is used in various fields such as optoelectronic equipment, biomedical, and chemical industries. Because of difficulty in production as well as limited demand, the transaction price of rubidium is relatively high, but its detail information such as market status and potential growth is uncertain. However, if the mass production of versatile ultra-high-performance equipment such as quantum computers and the necessity of rubidium use in the equipment are confirmed, there is a possibility that the rubidium market will expand in the future. Rubidium is often found together with lithium, beryllium, and cesium, and may be present in granite containing minerals such as lepidolite and pollucite, as well as in seawater and industrial waste. Several technologies such as acid leaching, roasting, solvent extraction, and adsorption are used to recover rubidium. The maximum recovery efficiency of the rubidium from the sources and the processing above is generally high, but, in many practices, rubidium is not the main recovery target, and therefore the actual recovery effects should depend on presence of other valuable components or impurities, together with recovery costs, energy consumption, environmental issues, etc. In conclusion, although the current production and consumption of rubidium are limited, with consideration of the possible market fluctuations according to the emergence of large-scale demand sources, etc., further investigations by related institutions should be necessary.

• 한국노년학
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.177-194
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• 2009

Korea government has launched long-term care insurance from 2008. However, one of the most important issues, whether or not providing cash benefit, is still unresolved. In this paper, in order to provide policy guidelines for the long-term care insurance, I attempt to estimate the Willingness-To-Accept (WTA) of the cash subsidy for informal care by using Double Bounded Dichotomous Choice method, a branch of Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). In doing so, I also estimated the determinants of the preference for cash benefit. Data were obtained from face-to-face survey interviews with 300 informal care-givers at three major general hospitals in Seoul, Korea. The questionnaire was constructed with two scenarios (mild/severe symptom). The results from logistic regression analyses and the estimation of WTA indicate that informal care-givers are willing to accept the cash benefit as low as 628 thousands won for mild fragile elderly and 1,072 thousands won for severe fragile elderly. The strength of this paper is that I estimated the WTA of the cash benefit by reflecting the changes in preferences of informal care-givers. The analytic results from the this paper suggest that the cash benefit in long-term care insurance is indispensible in achieving the goal of the long-term care system.

• 한국노년학
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.855-869
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to identify how to efficiently integrate long-term care facilities into geriatric hospitals. We conducted a survey on the current operations of facilities and medical services of 2009 of 192 long-term facilities and 168 geriatric hospitals in Korea between October and November. Technical statistics and chi-square test were conducted on the collected data using the SPSS 13.0/Win program. There was a difference between the two facility types in terms of the co-payment levels of the food services. Both types selected the budget deficit as their major management problem. Ease of access and the surrounding environment were critical factors used to select the location of both types of facilities. Facility users benefited from the discounted co-payments of both facility types. However, facility users wanted more frequent visits and support from their family members during their stay at the facilities. It was discovered that users in the long-term care facilities stayed longer, that is until they died, compared to their counterparts in geriatric hospitals. The two types of facilities provided their services totally separately to users. Users of the two types of facilities are poorly supported and cared for by their families. This study suggests that setting reasonable service fees, paying caretakers, introducing an integrated facility, strengthening facility assessment standards, introducing the family doctor system, and introducing the handling of long-term care insurance by geriatric hospitals would allow the integration between long- term care facilities and geriatric hospitals to be beneficial.