• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.651-659
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• 2020

The objective of this study is to provide high-quality medical service, by understanding the characteristics and death risk factors of patients at V long-term care hospital, that has established and operated the cooperative treatment system in connection with a public institution, the S veterans hospital. A follow-up survey targeting a total of 850 discharged patients was conducted for the year 2017. Average age of patients was 79.2 years, with 86.4% belonging to the 70 years or over group. The men of national merit were 75.4%, which was more than three times higher than general patients. Hospitalization for 180 days or more was 46.4%, which was higher than general long-term care hospitals (37%). The major death risk factors were age and the number of hospitalized days. Our data indicate that transfer to S veterans hospital results in providing quicker treatment and higher effectiveness of the numerous recovery therapies. We therefore propose that the cooperative treatment system should be expansively operated to increase the quality of happy life, by alleviating the health of patients with chronic diseases in a long-term care hospital.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.110-117
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• 2021

Toxic megacolon is a fatal complication of inflammatory or infectious bowel disease. Prognosis depends on the severity of the disease. In cases of poor prognosis, clinical outcomes range from intestinal resection to death, so early diagnosis and appropriate treatment are very important. However, the prevalence of toxic megacolon in children is very low, and in those without underlying diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, early diagnosis may be delayed. A previously healthy 12-year-old boy presented to our hospital with lower abdomen pain, fever, and hematochezia. Despite antibiotic therapy, the symptoms worsened. On the third day, abdominal computed tomography revealed severe dilatation of the transverse colon, which indicated toxic megacolon. Stool culture was positive for Salmonella enteritidis group D, and rectal endoscopy showed no signs of inflammatory bowel disease. Ceftriaxone and intravenous methylprednisolone were administered, and the patient's condition improved without any complications. We report a case of toxic megacolon as a complication of infectious colitis caused by S. enteritidis group D, which was diagnosed using early imaging and successfully treated without surgical intervention.

• Composites Research
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.186-191
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• 2021

The lumbar spinal fusion is a treatment performed to restore the stability of the degenerated lumbar. In this study, the intervertebral discs between two or more segments are removed and a bone graft is inserted to harden the segments. The pedicle screw system is inserted to vertebral bodies to fix two or more segments so that they can be firmly fused. In this study, a total of 7 patient-specific lumbar finite element models were created and pedicle screw systems were installed. The connecting rods made of titanium and CFR-PEEK was inserted to the generated models. Finite element analysis was conducted for four representative spine behaviors and statistical analysis was performed to investigate the biomechanical effects by the material properties of connecting rods. The intradiscal pressure of adjacent segments and the range of motion of the joints of each segment were investigated. In the subjects who used CFR-PEEK instead of Ti for connecting rods, the intradiscal pressure of adjacent segments tend to decrease and the range of motion of each segment tend to increase. However, no statistically significant difference in tendency was observed under all loading conditions.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.35-45
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• 2022

Even in recent years, treatment of first-aid patients is still often delayed due to a shortage of medical resources in marginalized areas. Research on automating the analysis of medical data to solve the problems of inaccessibility for medical services and shortage of medical personnel is ongoing. Computer vision-based medical inspection automation requires a lot of cost in data collection and labeling for training purposes. These problems stand out in the works of classifying lesion that are rare, or pathological features and pathogenesis that are difficult to clearly define visually. Anomaly detection is attracting as a method that can significantly reduce the cost of data collection by adopting an unsupervised learning strategy. In this paper, we propose methods for detecting abnormal images on chest X-RAY images as follows based on existing anomaly detection techniques. (1) Normalize the brightness range of medical images resampled as optimal resolution. (2) Some feature vectors with high representative power are selected in set of patch features extracted as intermediate-level from lesion-free images. (3) Measure the difference from the feature vectors of lesion-free data selected based on the nearest neighbor search algorithm. The proposed system can simultaneously perform anomaly classification and localization for each image. In this paper, the anomaly detection performance of the proposed system for chest X-RAY images of PA projection is measured and presented by detailed conditions. We demonstrate effect of anomaly detection for medical images by showing 0.705 classification AUROC for random subset extracted from the PadChest dataset. The proposed system can be usefully used to improve the clinical diagnosis workflow of medical institutions, and can effectively support early diagnosis in medically poor area.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.305-314
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to provide basic information on regional senior welfare policy setting for the elderly in the metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas and on the development of senior welfare programs on the basis of the data of the 2019 community health survey conducted by Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. The subjects in this study were 74,547 senior citizens who were at the ages of 65 and over as of 2019 and who were 17,423 from the metropolitan area and 57,124 from the nonmetropolitan areas. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS version 26.0. The findings of the study were as follows: As for the levels of happiness in the metropolitan area, happiness was better in the seniors who were aged 75 and up, who had spouses, whose income was larger and who engaged in economic activity. In the nonmetropolitan areas, happiness was better in the seniors who were aged 75 and up, who were better educated, who had spouses, whose income was larger and who engaged in economic activity. In terms of health behaviors and subjective health levels, more happiness was felt by the seniors who didn't smoke at present, who didn't suffer any subjective stress, who were at higher subjective health levels and higher subjective oral health levels and who had unmet health care needs, no matter whether they dwelled in the metropolitan or nonmetropolitan areas. In the nonmetropolitan areas, however, engaging in intensive physical activity and lower BMI were identified as the factors to affect happiness.

• Food Science and Industry
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.276-283
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• 2022

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin helps to retain calcium and phosphorus but also has shown to affect immune regulation and homeostasis. In humans, vitamin D3 and vitamin D2 and their metabolite has intensively studied in both innate and adaptive immune system that they are important to regulate overwhelmed inflammation. The vitamin D receptor is a nuclear hormone receptor which regulate various downstream target gene expressions as a transcription factor related to metabolism, immune regulation, etc. Vitamin D deficiency is a high-risk factor for inflammatory diseases like autoimmune disease and allergy. In addition, reduced vitamin D seem to correlate with susceptibility to the virus infection such as HIV and COVID-19. In this review, we will summarize up-to-date vitamin D's role in various immune cells, immune regulatory functions during autoimmune, allergic, and infectious diseases. We will also discuss about vitamin D supplement effects in human trial studies for COVID-19.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.70-76
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• 2022

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in patients with underlying diseases, is associated with high infection and mortality rates, which may result in acute respiratory distress syndrome and death. Mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS) type II is a progressive metabolic disorder that stems from cellular accumulation of the glycosaminoglycans, heparan, and dermatan sulfate. Upper and lower airway obstruction and restrictive pulmonary diseases are common complaints of patients with MPS, and respiratory infections of bacterial or viral origin could result in fatal outcomes. We report a case of COVID-19 in a 16-year-old adolescent with MPS type II, who had been treated with idursulfase since 5 years of age. Prior to infection, the patient's clinical history included developmental delays, abdominal distension, snoring, and facial dysmorphism. His primary complaints at the time of admission included rhinorrhea, cough, and sputum without fever or increased oxygen demand. His heart rate, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation were within the normal biological reference intervals, and chest radiography revealed no signs of pneumonia. Consequently, supportive therapy and quarantine were recommended. The patient experienced an uneventful course of COVID-19 despite underlying MPS type II, which may be the result of an unfavorable host cell environment and changes in expression patterns of proteins involved in interactions with viral proteins. Moreover, elevated serum heparan sulfate in patients with MPS may compete with cell surface heparan sulfate, which is essential for successful interaction between the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein and the host cell surface, thereby protecting against intracellular penetration by SARS-CoV-2.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.95-102
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to figure out the effect of 12 weeks pilates program for body shape improvement and lumbar stabilization of senior women with chronic back pain and to provide data for developing excercise program which is appropriate for senior women to make aging delayed and to have more physical activity domain by inquiring into their pain reducing. The subjects of this study were 16 senior women with chronic back pain which were classified into two group with experimental group(n=8) and control group(n=8) by applying simple random sampling after conducting Visual Analogue Scale(VAS). Their motion range of pain was from 3 centimeters to 5 centimeters. Pilates excercise for lumbar stabilization in this study was originated the previous literature of Lee et al(2011) and the excercise was modified in the form of pilates. The program in the study was performed under the guidance of a professional pilates trainer. The results are as follows. Firstly, the experimental group showed positive improvement in making vertebra slope but the control group showed pain increased. Secondly, the lumbar pain decreased in the experimental group but it increased in the control group. As a result, the pilates program for lumbar stabilization can be considered as a program for pain relief and body shape improvement of senior women with chronic back pain.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.33 no.9
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• pp.746-753
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• 2023

Viral infectious diseases have been regarded as one of the greatest threats to global public health. The recent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a stark reminder of the threat posed by emerging viral infections. Developing and producing appropriate and efficient vaccines and therapeutics are the only options to combat this pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for novel vaccine platforms to control and prevent emerging viral diseases. Conventional vaccine platforms, including live-attenuated vaccine and inactivated vaccines, pose limitations in the speed of vaccine development, manufacturing capacity, and broad protection for emergency use. Interestingly, vaccination with the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate based on the mRNA-lipid nanoparticle (LNP) platform protected against COVID-19, confirming that the nucleoside-modified candidate is a safe and effective alternative to conventional vaccines. Moreover, the prophylactic strategies against the COVID-19 pandemic have been mRNA nucleic acid-based vaccines and nanoparticle-based platforms, which are effective against SARS-CoV-2 and its variants. Overall, the novel vaccine platform has presented advantages compared with the traditional vaccine platform in the COVID-19 pandemic. This review explores the recent advancements in vaccine technologies and platforms, focusing on mRNA vaccines, digital vaccines, and nanoparticles while considering their advantages and possible drawbacks.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.401-410
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• 2019

This study was conducted to identify factors affecting nursing performance of delirium among nursing students. A total of 252 fourth year students were recruited from nursing department in Gwangju. Structured questionnaire was self-administrated from April to September, 2017. The used statistical analysis were t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's coefficient and multiple regression analysis. Knowledge of delirium 29.0±7.24, self-confidence in the care for delirium 71.65±28.55 and nursing performance level for patients with delirium was 41.16±8.97. Nursing performance of delirium had significant positive correlations with delirium knowledge, self-confidence of delirium care. In multiple regression analysis, nursing experience for delirium patients, self-confidence of delirium care, practice experience in intensive care unit, use of nursing diagnosis related to delirium, and satisfaction of clinical practice were significant factors of nursing performance of delirium explaining 29.8% of the variables. In conclusion, to enhance nursing performance of delirium, it is necessary to develop educational program for increasing nursing experience for delirium patients during clinical practice and self-confidence of delirium care.