• 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.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.62 no.2
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• pp.147-152
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• 2024

Most medical sensors are disposable products. In order to reduce inspection and diagnosis costs, it is more important to develop the inexpensive electrode materials. We fabricated the CuO NPs/PANI/E-PGE as an electrode material for disposable electrochemical sensors and applied it to a non-enzymatic glucose sensor. For surface activation of PGE, pretreatment was performed using chemical and electrochemical methods, respectively. Electrochemical properties according to the pretreatment method were analyzed through chronoamperometry (CA), cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance (EIS). From these analytical results, the electrochemically pretreated PGE (E-PGE) was finally adopted. The non-enzymatic glucose sensor based on CuO NPs/PANI/E-PGE shows sensitivity of 239.18 mA/mM×cm² (in a linear range of 0.282~2.112 mM) and 36.99 mA/mM×cm² (3.75423~50 mM), detection limit of 17.6 μM and good selectivity. Based on the results of this study, it was confirmed that the modified PGE is a high-performance electrode material. Therefore, these electrodes can be applied to a variety of disposable sensors.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.253-260
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• 2023

The germanium-68/gallium-68 (⁶⁸Ge/⁶⁸Ga) generator has high spatial utilization and requires little maintenance, making it economical and easy to produce. Thus, the frequency of use of ⁶⁸Ga radiopharmaceuticals is rapidly increasing worldwide. Therefore, this study attempted to develop an automated synthesizer for the routine clinical application of ⁶⁸Ga radiopharmaceuticals. The automated synthesizer was based on a fixed tubing system and the structure was designed after adjusting the position of the parts to reflect the synthesis method. Using various components that can be supplied in Korea, the automated synthesizer was manufactured at a much lower price cost than that of a commercialized automated synthesizer sold by companies. ⁶⁸Ga-DOTA-[Tyr3]-octreotide (⁶⁸Ga-DOTATOC) was synthesized to evaluate the performance of the automated synthesizer. ⁶⁸Ga-DOTATOC could be synthesized with about 65% of non-decay corrected yield, and the synthesized ⁶⁸Ga-DOTATOC met all quality control standards. We have synthesized ⁶⁸Ga-DOTATOC more than 100 times, and only faced a few problems caused by mechanical errors. In this study, we successfully developed a simple automated synthesizer for ⁶⁸Ga radiopharmaceuticals with high reproducibility. As various ⁶⁸Ga radiopharmaceuticals have recently been developed, it is expected that the automated synthesizer developed in this study will be useful for routine clinical use.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 1997

This study was carried out to reveal the status of health examination among farmers and to attract more attention to the health care system for farmers. Ten pre-trained medical students interviewed the rural residents 18 years of age and older in eight villages which were randomly selected from a county near Taegu city in Korea, in August 1996. Finally 751 persons were interviewed of whom the percentages of male and female were 41.8%, 58.2% respectively. Among the subjects, 361(48.3%) were fully engaged in farming, 184(24.4%) were partly engaged, and the remaining 206(27.3%) were not engaged in farming at all. The overall prevalence of farmer's disease was 23.0% and there was no significant difference between the group of fully engaged in farming(23.3%) and the group of not-fully engaged(22.9%). But the prevalence of farmer's disease in female subjects(27.8%) was significantly higher than that in male(16.2%)(p<0.01). Among the 288 farmer engaged in spraying pesticide, 113(39.2%) had experienced one or more pesticide related symptoms during last one year, but only 18(15.9%) of them had visited medical facilities due to their symptoms. The experience of receiving education about pesticide was significantly correlated with the degree of wearing protectors during pesticide spraying(p<0.001). Among the 736 persons excluding non-respondents, 281(38.2%) received health examination during last one year ; 176(62.6%) of them received free health examination, and 105(37.4%) received charged one. Among the 533 persons 40 years age and older, only 124(23.3%) had received the 'health examination for the elderly' during last one year, which is provided for the 40 years age and older by Korea medical insurance corporation and medical insurance societies. Most of all beneficiaries of self-employed medical insurance thought the imposed contributions as very expensive(77.4%) or moderately expensive(13.2%). The great majority of farmers are exposed to various health risk factors including pesticide, high temperature, overwork etc. comparable to industrial workers. But farmers are excluded from the regular yearly worker's health examination because of not belonging to a company despite they pay relatively more medical insurance contributions compared with the industrial workers and the urban self-employed medical insureds. It is necessary to develop special health management program for farmers such as the special health examination for the industrial workers exposed harmful agents.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Information Technology Applications Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.300-320
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• 2007

정보기술의 발달과 함께 소프트웨어 제품은 모든 산업에 필수요소가 되었고, 품질과 평가에 대한 관심도 점차 증가되고 있다. 하지만 일부 산업에서는 소프트웨어 품질 평가에 대한 사용자들의 만병 통치적 기대, 품질 표준의 부족, 측정을 위한 양질의 데이터 부족, 소프트웨어 분석과 디자인에 대한 공학적 한계로 소프트웨어 품질 평가에 대해 많은 문제점이 지적되고 있다. 국내에서도 의료산업 관련 정보시스템의 오류 및 사용자들의 운영 미숙은 매년 많은 금액의 사회적 비용을 증가시켰고, 병원정보시스템의 품질에 대한 관심을 초래하였다. 특히, 산업적 특성이 강한 병원정보시스템은 성공적 구축을 위해 사용자 중심의 소프트웨어 디자인과 다양한 전문가들의 지식 통합이 필요하며, 정보시스템 품질 측정으로 연구자들과 개발자들의 시스템 설계 혼란을 감소시키는 방법론이 필요하다는 연구들이 등장하고 있다. 대부분의 병원정보시스템이 단편적인 업무처리 위주로 개발 운영되고 있고, 장기적 경영전략이나 임상연구를 위한 분석적 정보처리 기능들은 결여되어 있다. 또한 소프트웨어 재설계나 추가적 개발 에 활용될 수 있는 객관적 품질 기준이 부족하고, 사용자들의 요구사항에 대해 소프트웨어 설계에 있어서 효율적으로 반영되지 못하고 있다. 이에 본 연구는 최근 발표된 병원정보시스템 품질 평가에 대한 연구 경향을 종합하고, 품질 평가에 대 해 효율적으로 활용되고 있는 사용성(Usability)을 기준으로 병원산업의 특수성을 포함한 품질 평가 방법과 품질척도를 제안하고자 한다. 국제표준기구(ISO:International Standards Organization)에서는 품질 특성을 기능성, 신뢰성, 사용성, 효율성, 유지 보수성과 이식성의 특성을 제시하고 있다. 특히 Folmer & Bosch(2004)가 정리한 ISO9126에서는 품질의 특성을 배움의 용이성, 운영의 용이성, 이해성과 매력성으로 분류하였고, ISO9241-11는 효과성, 효율성과 만족성으로 분류하였다. 또한 Shackel(1991)은 배움의 용이성(배움과 시간, 기억력), 효과성(오류, 직무시간), 유연성과 마음가짐으로 분류하고 있다(Shackel, 1991). Nielsen(1997)은 배움의 용이성, 기억의 용이성, 오류, 효율성, 만족성으로 분류하고 있고(Nielsen, 1997), Shneiderman(1998)는 효과성(직무시간, 배움의 시간), 효율성(기억의 지속시간, 오류), 만족도를 품질의 특성으로 분류하였다. 이와 같은 소프트웨어의 품질은 소프트웨어 계획, 개발, 성장과 쇠퇴의 모든 과정에 적용되며, 환경적 변화에 따라 사용자들의 정보욕구를 적절하게 반영하여 만족도를 높이 는 것이라고 요약할 수 있다. 그러나 현재까지 소프트웨어 품질 평가에 대한 연구들 은 보편적인 평가 항목들을 대상으로 측정하여 일반적인 품질기준을 제시하고 있고, 유사한 측정 내용들이 중복되어 있다. 이러한 경향은 산업별 특수성이 강한 소프트웨어에 대해서는 정확한 품질측정이 어려웠고, 품질측정에 대한 신뢰성을 떨어뜨리는 계기가 되었다. 이러한 한계를 극복하고자 나타난 방법론이 최종사용자들의 요구사항을 얼마나 적절하게 시스템에 반영했는지에 대한 사용성(Usability) 측정이다. 사용성에 대한 정의는 사용자들이 실질적으로 일하는 장소에서 직접 사용자들의 시스템 운용실태를 파악하여 문제점을 개선하는 것으로 요약할 수 있다. ISO9124-11에서는 사용성을 "어떤 제품이 구체적인 사용자들에 의해 구체적인 목적을 달성하기 위한 구체적인 사용의 맥락에서 효율성, 효과성을 만족함으로 사용될 수 있는 정도"로 정의하고 있다. 지난 10년간 병원정보시스템 평가에 대한 문헌들을 고찰한 결과 품질 측정의 효과는 정보화에 대한 동기유발과 의료품질을 높이는 게기가 되었으며, 질병에 대한 예방효과도 높은 것으로 조사되었다. 그러나 평가에 대한 인식의 문제, 평가 방법의 신뢰성 부족, 평가 지침과 부분적 평가에 따른 인증의 어려움 평가 결과에 대한 확산과 단편적 연구의 한계 등으로 연구결과에 대한 신뢰도와 활용도는 낮은 것으로 조사되었고, HIS에 대한 연구 빈도와 범위 가 매우 미약하였다. 특히, 품질속성은 같은 용어이지만 연구자에 따라 전혀 다른 측정 내용을 제시하고 있어 효율적인 품질 지표를 제시하는데 많은 혼란을 초래하고 있다. 이러한 품질 평가의 경향은 시스템 설계 및 개발자들에게 필요한 사용자들의 구체적이고 독특한 욕구나 병원정보시스템 환경의 특수성 파악에 한계를 보였으며, 평가 범위도 부분적으로 이루어져 전사적 시스템 설계 및 개발에 중요한 자료를 제공하지 못하고 있다. 이러한 문제점과 한계를 극복하고자 ISO와 같은 품질 표준 속성과 컨텍스트(Context)를 중심으로 사용자에 의한 평가 척도의 설정은 구체적이고 실용적이며 신뢰성 있는 평가 방법이 될 것이다.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.167-175
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• 2007

There are some positive effects by the introduction of PACS(Picture Archiving Communication System). This study is to analyze the mutual relation between before and after of the introduction of PACS in terms of the environment effect. It is supposed to cause the reduction of developing and fixing wastewater according to the increase in the rate of a non-film. This study will also show the amount of wastewater. Target places were the department of image medicine(diagnostic radiation) of the general hospitals in Seoul and Gyeonggi-Do, which are equiped with full PACS. The authors examined questionnaires on the number of projection, the number of indirect projection, the amount of the film used, the number of radiation image CD loan, the amount of the developing and fixing solution used, the change of the amount of fixing wastewater. According to the analysis, we analyzed the change of the amount of developing and fixing solution per a film and the change of the amount of developing and fixing wastewater which is supposed to be reduced proportionally by the introduction of PACS. We got conclusion as below after analyzing 8 hospitals except the largest and the least amount of examination, film used, developing and fixing solution and the amount of developing and fixing wastewater in order to decrease the deviation from 10 general hospitals located in Seoul and Gyeonggi-Do. We compared data one year before adopting PACS Versus 3 years after adopting PACS. 1. The frequences of examination increased to 7,357.7 cases per month but the amount of film used decreased to 90%, from 42,774.4 to 4,181.88 after adopting the PACS. 2. 3 years after adopting PACS, monthly average amount of developing solution used decreased to 92% and the monthly average amount of fixing solution decreased to 86%. 3. Monthly average amount of developing solution used per film increased to 1.49 times and fixing solution increased as much as three times. 4. Monthly average wastewater for developing decreased to 88% and wastewater for fixing decreased up to 87%. 5. Monthly average wastewater for developing per film increased to 3.77 times and wastewater for fixing increased to 3.85 times. Although the amount of film used and the amount of developing and fixing wastewater affected by the reduction of the developing and fixing solution became less on the whole by introduction of PACS, they did not decrease proportionally. Moreover the amount of the developing and fixing solution used and the amount of developing and fixing wastewater per a film increased. That means the expectation for an environmental improvement differs from the actual condition.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.14-21
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• 2009

Background: Postoperative atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common complication after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. Although postoperative AF is regarded as benign, transient and self-limited, it has been associated with increased morbidity, thromboembolic events and an increased duration and cost of hospitalization. Material and Method: From January 1994 to December 2007, 190 patients that had isolated CABG surgery were divided into two groups. Group 1 (n=139) involved those who had postoperative atrial fibrillation, and group 2 (n=51) did not have any such events. We reviewed the medical records retrospectively including the incidence of postoperative AF, patient characteristics, surgery related factors and the outcome of the patients with postoperative AF. Result: The frequency of postoperative AF was 26.8%, the conversion rate to regular sinus rhythm before discharge was 82.4%; 82.4% of the AF developed within the first three postoperative days. Although the postoperative AF group was significantly older and had a prolonged postoperative Intensive care unit (ICU) stay, there was no difference in the aortic crossclamp time or duration of hospitalization. No spontaneous defibrillation at declamping, and longer duration of cardiopulmonary bypass were significantly related to the development of postoperative AF. However, postoperative treatment with a beta blocker was associated with a decreased incidence of postoperative AF. The multivariate analysis showed that age and ICU stay were significantly associated with the development of POAF. Spontaneous defibrillation and postoperative beta blocker treatment were significantly associated with a decreased frequency of POAF. Conclusion: AF after CABG surgery is a common complication associated with increased morbidity and a longer ICU stay. Therefore, various strategies aimed at reducing AF, and its complications, such as postoperative treatment with a beta blocker should be considered.