• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.871-877
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• 1995

Background: The index which could predict the prognosis of critically ill patients is needed to find out high risk patients and to individualize their treatment. The APACHE III scoring system was established in 1991, but there has been only a few studies concerning its prognostic value. We wanted to know whether the APACHE III scores have prognostic value in discriminating survivors from nonsurvivors in sepsis. Methods: In 48 patients meeting the Bones criteria for sepsis, we retrospectively surveyed the day 1(D1), day 2(D2) and day 3(D3) scores of patients who were admitted to intensive care unit. The scores of the sepsis survivors and nonsurvivors were compared in respect to the D1 score, and also in respect to the changes of the updated D2 and D3 scores. Results: 1) Of the 48 sepsis patients, 21(43.5%) survived and 27(56.5%) died. The nonsurvivors were older($62.7{\pm}12.6$ vs $51.1{\pm}18.1$ yrs), presented with lower mean arterial pressure($56.9{\pm}26.2$ vs $67.7{\pm}14.2\;mmHg$) and showed greater number of multisystem organ failure($1.2{\pm}0.8$ vs $0.2{\pm}0.4$) than the survivors(p<0.05, respectively). There were no significant differences in sex and initial body temperature between the two groups. 2) The D1 score was lower in the survivors (n=21) than in the nonsurvivors ($44.1{\pm}14.6$, $78.5{\pm}18.6$, p=0.0001). The D2 and D3 scores significantly decreased in the survivors (D1 vs D2, $44.1{\pm}14.6$ : $37.9{\pm}15.0$, p=0.035; D2 vs D3, $37.9{\pm}15.0$ : $30.1{\pm}9.3$, p=0.0001) but showed a tendency to increase in the nonsurvivors (D1 vs D2 (n=21), $78.5{\pm}18.6$ : $81.3{\pm}23.0$, p=0.1337; D2 vs D3 (n=11), $68.2{\pm}19.3$ : $75.3{\pm}18.8$, p=0.0078). 3) The D1 scores of 12 survivors and 6 nonsurvivors were in the same range of 42~67 (mean D1 score, $53.8{\pm}10.0$ in the survivors, $55.3{\pm}10.3$ in the nonsurvivors). The age, sex, initial body temperature, and mean arterial pressure were not different between the two groups. In this group, however, D2 and D3 was significantly decreased in the survivors(D1 vs D2, $53.3{\pm}10.0$ : $43.6{\pm}16.4$, p=0.0278; D2 vs D3, $43.6{\pm}16.4$ : $31.2{\pm}10.3$, p=0.0005), but showed a tendency to increase in the nonsurvivors(D1 vs D2 (n=6), $55.3{\pm}10.3:66.7{\pm}13.9$, p=0.1562; D2 vs D3 (n=4), $64.0{\pm}16.4:74.3{\pm}18.6$, p=0.1250). Among the individual items of the first day APACHE III score, only the score of respiratory rate was capable of discriminating the nonsurvivors from the survivors ($5.5{\pm}2.9$ vs $1.9{\pm}3.7$, p=0.046) in this group. Conclusion: In sepsis, nonsurvivors had higher first day APACHE III score and their updated scores on the following days failed to decline but showed a tendency to increase. Survivors, on the other hand, had lower first day score and showed decline in the updated APACHE scores. These results suggest that the first day and daily updated APACHE III scores are useful in predicting the outcome and assessing the response to management in patients with sepsis.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.744-751
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• 1995

Background: Asthma is an inflammatory disease because there are many inflammatory changes in the asthmatic airways. Axon reflex mechanisms may be involved in the pathogenesis of asthma. Sensory neuropeptides are involved in this inflammation, which is defined as neurogenic inflammation. Substance p, neurokinin A, and neurokinin B may be main neuropeptides of neurogenic inflammation in airways. These tachykinins act on neurokinin receptors. Three types of neurokinin receptors, such as $NK_1$, $NK_2$, and $NK_3$, are currently recognized, at which substance p, neurokinin A, and neurokinin B may be the most relevant natural agonist of neurogenic inflammation in airways. The receptor subtypes present in several tissues have been characterized on the basis of differential sensitivity to substance p, neurokinin A, and neurokinin B. Plasma extravasation and vasodilation are induced by substance p more potently than by neurokinin A, indicating NK1 receptors on endothelial cells mediate the response. But airway contraction is induced by neurokinin A more potently than by substance P, indicating the $NK_2$ receptors in airway smooth muscles. These receptors are used to evaluate the pathogenesis of brochial asthma. FK224 was identified from the fermentation products of Streptomyces violaceoniger. FK224 is a dual antagonist of both $NK_1$ and $NK_2$ receptors. Purpose: For a study of pathogenesis of bronchial asthma, the effect of FK224 on plasma extravasation induced by vagal NANC electrical stimulation was evaluated in rat airway. Method: Male Sprague-Dawley rats weighing 180~450gm were anesthetized by i.p. injection of urethane. Plasma extravasation was induced by electrical stimulation of cervical vagus NANC nerves with 5Hz, 1mA, and 5V for 2 minutes(NANC2 group) and for sham operation without nerve stimulation(control group). To evaluate the effect of FK224 on plasma extravasation in neurogenic inflammation, FK224(1mg/kg, Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Co., dissolved in dimethylsulphoxide; DMSO, Sigma Co.) was injected 1 min before nerve stimulation(FK224 group). To assess plasma exudation, Evans blue dye(20mg/kg, dissolved in saline) was used as a plasma marker and was injected before nerve stimulation. After removal of intravascular dye, the evans blue dye in the tissue was extracted in formamide($37^{\circ}C$, 24h) and quantified spectrophotometrically by measuring dye absorbance at 629nm wavelength. Tissue dye content was expressed as ng of dye per mg of wet weight tissue. The amount of plasma extravasation was measured on the part of airways in each groups. Results: 1) Vagus nerve(NANC) stimulation significantly increased plasma leakage in trachea, main bronchus, and peripheral bronchus compared with control group, $14.1{\pm}1.6$ to $49.7{\pm}2.5$, $17.5{\pm}2.0$ to $38.7{\pm}2.8$, and $12.7{\pm}2.2$ to $19.1{\pm}1.6ng$ of dye per mg of tissue(mean ${\pm}$ SE), respectively(p<0.05). But there was not significantly changed in lung parenchyma(p>0.05) 2) FK224 had significant inhibitory effect upon vagal nerve stimulation-induced airway plasma leakage in any airway tissues of rat,such as trachea, main bronchus, and peripheral bronchus compared with vagus nerve stimulation group, 49%, 58%, and 70%, respectively(p<0.05). Inhibitory effect of FK224 on airway plasma leakage in neurogenic inflammation was revealed the more significant in peripheral bronchus, but no significant in lung parenchyma. Conclusion: These results suggest that FK224 is a selective NK receptor antagonist which effectively inhibits airway plasma leakage induced by the endogenous neurotransmitters relased by neurogenic inflammation in rat airway. Tachykinin receptor antagonists may be useful in the treatment of brochial asthma.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.646-653
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• 1995

Background: The confirmative diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis(Tb) can be made by the isolation of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis(MTb) in the culture of the sputum, respiratory secretions or tissues of the patients, but positive result could not always be obtained in pulmonary Tb cases. Although there are many indirect ways of the diagnosis of Tb, clinicians still experience the difficulty in the diagnosis of Tb because each method has its own limitation. Therefore development of a new diagnostic tool is clinically urgent. It was reported that silica cause some lysosomal enzymes to be released from macrophages in vitro and one of these enzymes is elevated in workers exposed to silica dust and in silicotic subjects. In pulmonary Tb, alveolar macrophages are known to be activated after ingestion of MTb. Activated macrophages can kill MTb through oxygen free radical species and digestive enzymes of lysosome. But if macrophages allow the bacilli to grow intracellularly, the macrophages will die finally and local lesion will enlarge. Then it is assumed that the lysosomal enzymes would be released from the dead macrophages. The goal of this investigation was to determine if there are differences in the plasma activities of lysosomal enzymes, ($\beta$-glucuronidase(GLU) and $\beta$-N-acetyl glucosaminidase(NAG), among the groups of active and inactive pulmonary Tb and healthy control, and to see if there is any possibility that the plasma activity of GLU and NAG can be used as diagnostic indicies of active pulmonary Tb. Methods: The plasma were obtained from 20 patients with bacteriologically proven active pulmonary Tb, 15 persons with inactive Tb and 20 normal controls. In 10 patients with active pulmonary Tb, serial samples after 2 months of anti-Tb medications were obtained. Plasma GLU and NAG activities were measured by the fluorometric methods using 4-methylumbelliferyl substrates. All data are expressed as the mean $\pm$ the standard error of the mean. Results: The activites of GLU and NAG in plasma of the patients with active Tb were $21.52{\pm}3.01$ and $325.4{\pm}23.37$(nmol product/h/ml of plasma), respectively. Those of inactive pulmonary Tb were $24.87{\pm}3.78$, $362.36{\pm}33.92$ and those of healthy control were $25.45{\pm}4.05$, $324.44{\pm}28.66$(nmol product/h/ml of plasma), respectively. There were no significant differences in the plasma activities of both enzymes among 3 groups. The plasma activities of GLU at 2 months after anti-Tb medications were increased($42.18{\pm}5.94$ nmol product/h/ml of plasma) in the patients with active pulmonary Tb compared with that at the diagnosis of Tb(P-value <0.05). Conclusion: The results of the present investigation suggest that the measurement of the plasma activities of GLU and NAG in the patients with active pulmonary Tb could not be a useful method for the diagnosis of active Tb. Further investigation is necessary to define the reasons why the plasma activities of the GLU was increased in the patients with active pulmonary Tb after Tb therapy.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.660-668
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• 1995

Background: It is said that tuberculous pleuritis responds well to anti-tuberculous drug in general, so no further aggressive therapeutic management is unnecesarry except in case of diagnostic thoracentesis. But in clinical practice, we often see some patients who need later decortication due to dyspnea caused by pleural loculation or thickening despite several months of anti-tuberculous drug therapy. Therefore, we want to know the clinical difference between a group who received decortication due to complication of tuberculous pleuritis despite of anti-tuberculous drug and a group who improved after 9 months of anti-tuberculous drug only. Methods: We reviewed 20 tuberculous pleuritis patients(group 1) who underwent decortication due to dyspnea caused by pleural loculation or severe pleural thickening despite of anti-tuberculous drug therapy for 9 or more months, and 20 other tuberculous pleuritis patients(group 2) who improved by anti-tuberculous drug only and had similar degrees of initial pleural effusion and similar age, sex distribution. Then we compared between the two groups the duration of symptoms before anti-tuberculous drug treatment and pleural fluid biochemistry like glucose, LDH, protein and pleural fluid cell count and WBC differential count, and we also wanted to know whether there was any difference in preoperative PFT value and postoperative PFT value in the patients who underwent decortication, and obtained following results. Results: 1) Group 1 patients had lower glucose level{$63.3{\pm}30.8$(mg/dl)} than that of the group 2{$98.5{\pm}34.2$(mg/dl), p<0.05}, and higher LDH level{$776.3{\pm}266.0$(IU/L)} than the group 2 patients{$376.3{\pm}123.1$(IU/L), p<0.05}, and also longer duration of symptom before treatment{$2.0{\pm}1.7$(month)} than the group 2{$1.1{\pm}1.2$(month), p<0.05}, respectively. 2) In group 1, FVC changed from preoperative $2.55{\pm}0.80$(L) to postoperative $2.99{\pm}0.78$(L)(p<0.05), and FEV1 changed from preoperative $2.19{\pm}0.70$(L/sec) to postoperative $2.50{\pm}0.69$(L/sec)(p<0.05). 3) There was no difference in pleural fluid protein level($5.05{\pm}1.01$(gm/dL) and $5.15{\pm}0.77$(gm/dl), p>0.05) and WBC differential count between group 1 and group 2. Conclusion: It is probable that in tuberculous pleuritis there is a risk of complication in the case of showing relatively low pleural fluid glucose or high LDH level, or in the case of having long duraton of symptom before treatment. We thought prospective study should be performed to confirm this.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.559-573
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• 1997

Background : Asthma causes recurrent episodes of wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness, and cough. These symptoms are usually associated with widespread but variable airflow limitation that is partly reversible either spontaneously or with treatment. The inflammation also causes an associated increase in airway responsiveness to a variety of stimuli. Method : Of the 403 adult bronchial asthma patients enrolled from March 1992 to March 1994 in Allergy Clinics of Severance Hospital in Yonsei University, this study reviewed the 97 cases to evaluate the treatment effects and to analyse prognostic factors. The patients were classified to five groups according to treatment responses ; group 1 (non control group) : patients who were not controlled during following up, group 2 (high step treatment group) : patients who were controlled longer than 3 months by step 3 or 4 treatment of "Global initiative for asthma, Global strategy for asthma management and prevention" (NHLBI/WHO) with PFR(%) larger than 80%, group 3 (short term control group) : patients who were controlled less than 1 year by step 1 or 2 treatment of NHLBI/WHO, group 4 (intermediate term control group) : patients who were controlled for more than 1 year but less than 2 years by step 1 or 2 treatment of NHLBI/WHO, group 5 (long term control group) : patients who were controlled for more than 2 years by step 1 or 2 treatment of NHLBI/WHO. Especially the patients who were controlled more than 1 year with negatively converted methacholine test and no eosinophil in sputum were classified to methacholine negative conversion group. We reviewed patients' history, atopy score, total IgE, specific IgE, methacholine PC20 and peripheral blood eosinophil count, pulmonary function test, steroid doses and aggrevation numbers after treatment. Results : On analysis of 98 patients, 20 cases(20.6%) were classified to group 1, 26 cases(26.8%) to group 2, 23 cases(23.7%) to group 3, 15 cases(15.5%) to group 4, and 13 cases(13.4%) to groups 5. There were no differences of sex, asthma type, family history, smoking history, allergic rhinitis and aspirin allergy among the groups. In long term control group, asthma onset age was younger, symptom duration was shorter, and initial pulmonary function was better. The long term control group required lower amounts of oral steroid. had less aggrevation during first 3months after starting treatment and shorter duration from enrollment to control Atopy, allergic skin test, sputum and blood eosinophil, total IgE, nonspecific bronchial responsiveness was not significantly different among the groups. Seven out of 28 patients who were controlled more than 1 years showed negatively converted methachloine test and no eosinophils in the sputum. The mean control duration was $20.3{\pm}9.7$ months and relapse did not occur. Conclusion : Patients who had asthma of onset age younger, shorter symptom duration, better PFT, lower treatment initial steps, lower amounts of steroid needs and less aggravation numbers after starting treatment were classified in the long term control groups compared to the others.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.77-105
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• 1996

The rural problems which we are facing start from the extremely small sized population and the skewed population structure by age and sex. Thus we analyzed the change of the rural population. And we analyzed the recent return migration to the rural areas by comparing the recent in-migrants with out-migrants to rural areas. And by analyzing the rural village survey data which was to show the current characteristics of rural population, we found out the effects of the in-migrants to the rural areas and predicted the futures of rural villages by characteristics. The changes of rural population composition by age was very clear. As the out-migrants towards cities carried on, the population composition of young children aged 0~4 years was low and the aged became thick. The proportion of the population aged 0~4 years was 45.1% of the total population in 1970 and dropped down to 20.4% in 1995, which is predicted to become under 20% from now on. In the same period(1970~1995), the population aged 65 years and over rose from 4.2% to 11.9%. In 1960, before industrialization, the proportion of the population aged 0~4 years in rural areas was higher than that of cities. As the rural young population continuously moves to cities it became lower than that in urban areas from 1975 and the gap grew till 1990. But the proportion of rural population aged 0~4 years in 1995 became 6.2% and the gap reduced. We can say this is the change of the characteristics of in-migrants and out-migrants in the rural areas. Also considering the composition of the population by age group moving from urban to rural area in the late 1980s, 51.8% of the total migrants concentrates upon age group of 20~34 years and these people's educational level was higher than that of out-migrants to urban areas. This fact predicted the changes of the rural population, and the results will turn out as a change in the rural society. However, after comparing the population structure between the pure rural village of Boeun-gun and suburban village of Paju-gun which was agriculture centered village but recently changed rapidly, the recent change of the rural population structure which the in-migrants to rural areas becomes younger is just a phenomenon in the suburban rural areas, not the change of the total rural areas in general. From the characteristics of the population structure of rural village from the field survey on these villages, we can see that in the pure rural villages without any effects from cities the regidents are highly aged, while industrialization and urbanization are making a progress in suburban villages. Therefore, the recent partial change of the rural population structure and the change of characteristics of the in-migrants toward rural areas is effecting and being effected by the population change of areas like suburban rural villages. Although there are return migrants to rural areas to change their jobs into agriculture, this is too minor to appear as a statistic effect.

• Proceedings of the KOR-BRONCHOESO Conference
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• 1981.05a
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• pp.6-7
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• 1981

With the improvement of living standard and educational level of the people, there is an increasing awareness about the dangers of toxic substances and lethal drugs. In addition to the above, the governmental control of these substances has led to a progressive decrease in the accidents with corrosive substances. However there are still sporadic incidences of suicidal attempts with the substances due to the unbalance between the cultural development in society and individual emotion. The problem is explained by the fact that there is a variety of corrosive agents easily available to the people due to the considerable industrial development and industrialization. Salzen(1920), Bokey(1924) were pioneers on the subject of the corrosive esophagitis and esophageal stenosis by dilatation method. Since then there had been a continuing improvement on the subject with researches on various acid(Pitkin, 1935, Carmody, 1936) and alkali (Tree, 1942, Tucker, 1951) corrosive agents, and the use of steroid (Spain, 1950) and antibiotics. Recently, early esophagoscopic examination is emphasized on the purpose of determining the way of the treatment in corrosive esophagitis patients. In order to find the effective treatment of such patients in future, the authors selected 96 corrosive esophagitis patients who were admitted and treated at the ENT department of Severance hospital from 1971 to March, 1981 to attempt a clinical study. 1. Sex incidence……male: female=1 : 1.7, Age incidence……21-30 years age group; 38 cases (39.6%). 2. Suicidal attempt……80 cases(83.3%), Accidental ingestion……16 cases (16.7%). Among those who ingested the substance accidentally, children below ten years were most numerous with nine patients. 3. Incidence acetic acid……41 cases(41.8%), lye…20 cases (20.4%), HCI……17 cases (17.3%). There was a trend of rapid rise in the incidence of acidic corrosive agents especially acetic acid. 4. Lavage……57 cases (81.1%). 5. Nasogastric tube insertion……80 cases (83.3%), No insertion……16 cases(16.7%), late admittance……10 cases, failure…4 cases, other……2 cases. 6. Tracheostomy……17 cases(17.7%), respiratory problems(75.0%), mental problems (25.0%). 7. Early endoscopy……11 cases(11.5%), within 48 hours……6 cases (54.4%). Endoscopic results; moderate mucosal ulceration…8 cases (72.7%), mild mucosal erythema……2 cases (18.2%), severe mucosal ulceration……1 cases (9.1%) and among those who took early endoscopic examination; 6 patients were confirmed mild lesion and so they were discharged after endoscopy. Average period of admittance in the cases of nasogastric tube insertion was 4 weeks. 8. Nasogastric tube indwelling period……average 11.6 days, recently our treatment trend in the corrosive esophagitis patients with nasogastric tube indwelling is determined according to the finding of early endoscopy. 9. The No. of patients who didn't given and delayed administration of steroid……7 cases(48.9%): causes; kind of drug(acid, unknown)……12 cases, late admittance……11 cases, mild case…9 cases, contraindication……7 cases, other …8 cases. 10. Management of stricture; bougienage……7 cases, feeding gastrostomy……6 cases, other surgical management……4 cases. 11. Complication……27 cases(28.1%); cardio-pulmonary……10 cases, visceral rupture……8 cases, massive bleeding……6 cases, renal failure……4 cases, other…2 cases, expire and moribund discharge…8 cases. 12. No. of follow-up case……23 cases; esophageal stricture……13 cases and site of stricture; hypopharynx……1 case, mid third of esophagus…5 cases, upper third of esophagus…3 cases, lower third of esophagus……3 cases pylorus……1 case, diffuse esophageal stenosis……1 case.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.95-106
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• 1976

In order to investigate chemical components and mineral of ginseng cultivated in Korea and to establish an appropriate extraction method, the present work was carried out with Raw ginseng(SC), White ginseng(SB) and Ginseng tail(SA). The results determined could be summarized as follows : 1. Among the proximate components, moisture content of SC, SB and SA were 66.37%, 12.61% and 12.20% respectively. The content of crude ash in SA was the highest value of three kinds of ginseng root: SA 6.04%, SB 3.52% and SC 1.56%. The crude protein of Dried ginseng root(SA and SB) was about 12-14%, which was more than two times compared with that of SC(6.30%) The content of pure protein seemed to be in similar tendency with that of crude protein in three kinds of ginseng root: 2.26% in SC, 5.94% in SB and 5.76% in SA. There was no significant difference in the content of fat among the kinds of ginseng root. $(1.1{\sim}2.5%)$ 2. The highest Ginseng extract was obtained by use of Continuous extractor which is a modified Soxhlet apparatus for 60 hours extraction with 60-80% ethanol. 3. Ginseng and the above-mentioned ginseng extract (Ginseng tail extract: SAE, White Ginseng extract : SBE, Raw Ginseng extract: SCE) were analyzed by volumetric method for the determination of Chlorine and Calcium, by colorimetric method for that of Iron and Phosphorus, by Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer for that of Zinc, Copper and Manganese. The results were as follows : 1. The content of phosphorus in SA, SB and SC were 1.818%, 1.362%, 0.713% respectively and phosphorus content in three kinds of extract were in low level (SAE: 0.03%, SBE: 0.063%, SCE: 0.036%) 2. In the Calcium content, SA, SB and SC were 0.147%, 0.238%, 0.126% and the Calcium contents of Ginseng extracts were 0.023%, 0.011% and 0.016%. The extraction ratio of Calcium from SA was the highest value (15.6%), while that in the case of SB was 4.6%. 3. The Chlorine content of SA was 0.11%, this was slightly higher than others(SB: 0.07%, SC: 0.09%) and extraction ratio of SA and SB were 36.4%, 67.1% while that of SC was 84.4%. 4. The Iron content of SA, SB and SC were 125ppm, 32.5ppm and 20ppm but extraction ratio was extremely low (SAE: 1.33%, SBE: 0.83%, SCE: 1.08%), 5. The Manganese content of SA, SB and SC were 62.5ppm, 25.0ppm and 5.0ppm respectively but the Manganese content of extract could not determined, Copper content of SA, SB and SC were 15.0ppm, 20.0ppm and those of extract were 7.5ppm, 6.5ppm, 4.5ppm while those of extraction ratio were 50%, 32.5% and 90% respectively, Zinc was abundant in Ginseng compared with other herbs, (SA: 45.5ppm, SB: 27.5ppm and SC: 5.5ppm) and the extracted amount were 4.5ppm, 1.25ppm 1.50ppm respectively.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.25 no.3 s.39
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• pp.247-268
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• 1992

This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of VDT work on eyes and vision among workers in a TV manufacturing plant. The study subjects consisted of 264 screen workers and 74 non-screen workers who were less than 40 years old male and had no history of opthalmic diseases such as corneal opacities, trauma, keratitis, etc and whose visual acuity on pre-employment health examination by Han's test chart was 1.0 or above. The screen workers were divided into two groups by actual time for screen work in a day : Group I, 60 workers, lesser than 4 hours a day and group II, 204 workers, more than 4 hours a day. From July to October 1992 a questionnaire was administered to all the study subjects for the general charateristics and subjective eye symptoms after which the opthalmologic tests such as visual acuity, spherical equivalent, lacrimal function, ocular pressure, slit lamp test, fundoscopy were conducted by one opthalmologist. The proportion of workers whose present visual acuity was decreased more than 0.15 in comparison with that on the pre-employment health examination by Han's test chart was 20.6% in Group II. 15.0% in Group I and 14.9% in non-screen workers. However, the differences in proportion were not statistically significant. The proportion of workers with decreased visual acuity was not associated with the age, working duration, use of magnifying glass and type of shift work (independent variables) in all of the three groups. However, screen workers working under poor illumination had a higher proportion of persons with decreased visual acuity than those working under adequate illumination (P<0.05) . The proportion of workers whose near vision was decreased was 27.5% in Group II, 18.3% in Group I, and 28.4% in non-screen workers and these differences in proportion were not statistically significant. Changes of near vision were not associated with 4 independent variables in all of the three groups. Six out of seven subjective eye symptoms except tearing were more common in Group I than in non-screen workers and more common in Group II than in Group I (P<0.01). Mean of the total scores for seven subjective symptoms of each worker(2 points for always, 1 point for sometimes, 0 point for never) was not significantly different between workers with decreased visual acuity and workers with no vision change. However, mean of the total scores for Group II was higher than those for the Group I and non-screen workers (P<0.01). Total eye symptom scores were significantly correlated with the grade of screen work, use of magnifying glass, and type of shift work. There was no independent variable which was correlated with the difference in visual acuity between the pre-employment health examination and the present state, the difference between far and near visions, lacrimal function, ocular pressure, and spherical equivalent. Multiple linear regression analysis for the subjective eye symptom scores revealed a positive linear relationship with actual time for screen work and shift work(P<0.01). In this study it was not observed that the VDT work decreased visual acuity but it induces subjective eye symptoms such as eye fatigue, blurred vision, ocular discomfort, etc. Maintenance of adequate illumination in the work place and control of excessive VDT work are recommended to prevent such eye symptoms.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.93-108
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• 2014

To support business decision making, interests and efforts to analyze and use transaction data in different perspectives are increasing. Such efforts are not only limited to customer management or marketing, but also used for monitoring and detecting fraud transactions. Fraud transactions are evolving into various patterns by taking advantage of information technology. To reflect the evolution of fraud transactions, there are many efforts on fraud detection methods and advanced application systems in order to improve the accuracy and ease of fraud detection. As a case of fraud detection, this study aims to provide effective fraud detection methods for auction exception agricultural products in the largest Korean agricultural wholesale market. Auction exception products policy exists to complement auction-based trades in agricultural wholesale market. That is, most trades on agricultural products are performed by auction; however, specific products are assigned as auction exception products when total volumes of products are relatively small, the number of wholesalers is small, or there are difficulties for wholesalers to purchase the products. However, auction exception products policy makes several problems on fairness and transparency of transaction, which requires help of fraud detection. In this study, to generate fraud detection rules, real huge agricultural products trade transaction data from 2008 to 2010 in the market are analyzed, which increase more than 1 million transactions and 1 billion US dollar in transaction volume. Agricultural transaction data has unique characteristics such as frequent changes in supply volumes and turbulent time-dependent changes in price. Since this was the first trial to identify fraud transactions in this domain, there was no training data set for supervised learning. So, fraud detection rules are generated using outlier detection approach. We assume that outlier transactions have more possibility of fraud transactions than normal transactions. The outlier transactions are identified to compare daily average unit price, weekly average unit price, and quarterly average unit price of product items. Also quarterly averages unit price of product items of the specific wholesalers are used to identify outlier transactions. The reliability of generated fraud detection rules are confirmed by domain experts. To determine whether a transaction is fraudulent or not, normal distribution and normalized Z-value concept are applied. That is, a unit price of a transaction is transformed to Z-value to calculate the occurrence probability when we approximate the distribution of unit prices to normal distribution. The modified Z-value of the unit price in the transaction is used rather than using the original Z-value of it. The reason is that in the case of auction exception agricultural products, Z-values are influenced by outlier fraud transactions themselves because the number of wholesalers is small. The modified Z-values are called Self-Eliminated Z-scores because they are calculated excluding the unit price of the specific transaction which is subject to check whether it is fraud transaction or not. To show the usefulness of the proposed approach, a prototype of fraud transaction detection system is developed using Delphi. The system consists of five main menus and related submenus. First functionalities of the system is to import transaction databases. Next important functions are to set up fraud detection parameters. By changing fraud detection parameters, system users can control the number of potential fraud transactions. Execution functions provide fraud detection results which are found based on fraud detection parameters. The potential fraud transactions can be viewed on screen or exported as files. The study is an initial trial to identify fraud transactions in Auction Exception Agricultural Products. There are still many remained research topics of the issue. First, the scope of analysis data was limited due to the availability of data. It is necessary to include more data on transactions, wholesalers, and producers to detect fraud transactions more accurately. Next, we need to extend the scope of fraud transaction detection to fishery products. Also there are many possibilities to apply different data mining techniques for fraud detection. For example, time series approach is a potential technique to apply the problem. Even though outlier transactions are detected based on unit prices of transactions, however it is possible to derive fraud detection rules based on transaction volumes.